by Terry Carr
“Griesé,” said Dave, dropping his voice so low that it could barely be heard, “you’re fired. And there’s something else. You will never be an Evergreen. Oh, I know—your name is on the List and you’re up for processing in January. But I’m removing your name. I can do that, and you, sir, may consider it done.”
The blood drained from Griesé’s face: his face and white hair stood out in startling contrast to his black tuxedo. It cost him an effort to speak, but he managed it.
“Mr. Grandcourt, I want that extra century or so of life. But, by God, there are some things I won’t do for it, and nodding my head and smiling while you torture and maybe murder that boy is one of them. I won’t go along with that, and if there’s anything I can do to prevent it, I will.”
“There’s nothing you can do to prevent it. And may I make a suggestion? You have only a few years of life left now. If you want to keep those few years, I suggest you disappear very quickly. I won’t come looking for you; but if you’re still here after midnight, things will go badly for you.”
He regarded the silver-haired (and younger) man with an expression in which respect and contempt were for the moment uneasily mingled. And then, as the stricken Griesé turned to retrieve his overcoat from the back of a chair, there was only contempt. “Mayfly!” he said with infinite scorn, and walked out of the room.
He was suddenly very hungry. But he had eyes for things other than his table, where his friends were already dining. He glanced aside twice. Once at the hard-featured man in the red jacket who stood unobtrusively to one side of the room. The idiot!—he had saluted him! If Jimmy Ogg had seen that, he might have guessed that Dave Grandcourt’s titles included one not generally known. And he looked too, once, in the direction of the kitchen, as if with some thought to future appetites.
He resumed his seat beside his friend Sleek and found that 25 February was at the same table. She must have asked someone to trade places with her, so that she could be at this table—and why should she do that, he asked himself, except to be near him? Actually, he decided, discreetly surveying her as she ate, she wasn’t at all bad… except when brought into unhappy contrast with April-May.
He was served by a quietly efficient Jimmy Ogg, all unconscious of what was waiting for him at the end of the evening. Dave smiled to himself. He ordered the beef and when it came ate it with real enjoyment, although what passed for beef these days usually bored him. The others had mostly finished eating and Sleek was holding forth in his usual whimsical way on the difficulties of living life incognito among the Mayflies. He had become very adept, he said, at acquiring forged PIN cards and at establishing covers; but no matter how ingenious he was, he still had to move on every dozen or so years when it became apparent that he wasn’t aging at the usual rate. Dave listened with only one ear. He didn’t have that problem himself, because he lived apart from people in a high-security building. It was because of Sleek, and others like him, who insisted on living what they called “normal lives,” that no television cameras or outside photographers were allowed within a thousand feet, in any direction, of the Ballroom: they didn’t want to run the risk of being recognized by their “friends.”
A helicopter chose that moment to come shuddering by, startlingly close, and the lofty windows quaked and chattered in sympathy. The assembled diners all looked in that one direction, instantly apprehensive, and in the lull that followed everyone thought they heard (although it was clearly impossible) a faint shout from the angry streets below. But the apprehension dropped away almost as soon as it became conscious and the Evergreens denied that it had ever existed with a brave burst of laughter and talk. It had probably been a news-wasp, thought Dave, trying to sneak a peek. But he knew it hadn’t succeeded: for he had chosen the drapes.
Two Mayfly waiters approached. One was Jimmy Ogg, who presented a rather startling appearance. He bore in each hand a flaming brand, like some apocalyptic Angel of Destruction; but his amiable purpose was simply to light the Blackbeard Rum Pudding that the other waiter—a remarkably hard-looking man, with an uncompromising mouth—was placing before each diner.
“Ogg, Son of Fire,” murmured Sleek, with a sly look around.
“What a lovely boy that is!” said 25 February, after Jimmy had gone and she and the others were putting April-May’s pudding to the proof. “He has a kind of glow to him, the glow of youth, innocence, and boundless hope. Who was it who said, ‘No young man believes he will ever die’?”
“Hazlitt,” said Dave. “You know, Miss February, to a boy of seventeen you’re probably an old hag—and that would be true even if you really were only twenty-eight and not a hundred twenty-eight.” He instantly regretted having tossed this little barb, which was certainly below his dignity; to soften the sting a little, he added, “Of course, I have a different perspective…”
“Yes,” said 25 February, with so much bitterness in her voice that he was taken by surprise; “we have seen some evidence of your ‘perspective.’ ”
And he again smiled to himself. It will take about two weeks with this one. Two weeks during which, with a series of shoves and sharp little taps, he would walk her backwards until she tripped and sprawled across his bed. But did he really want that? Well, maybe… She wasn’t at all bad. But still, he would much prefer to see the lovely, the tender, the delicious April-May sprawling on his bed, perhaps tearfully pleading as he stripped the clothes from her body…
His flashing fantasy was blotted out by the voice of a bugle. The crowd came to attention. The dancers drifted back to their tables and all eyes were turned to the dais, where there stood a green-tuxedoed and wasp-like figure on fragile legs. But the figure had a mighty voice that boomed out over the audience:
“I am Stentor.”
And, as if this were some sort of signal, all the waiters began filing out of the room into the kitchen—as if Mayfly ears were not to be allowed to hear what Stentor had to say… although his next words were innocuous enough.
“I am happy to announce that of the one hundred and one Founding Members of the Evergreen Society, sixty-two are with us tonight.”
Wild applause from the several hundred present members of the society. 25 February, with a painful contraction still about her eyes, applauded almost desperately.
“Of the thirty-nine who are missing,” went on the clarion voice, “it is believed that five are still alive in various parts of this planet. Three of those, and the sixty-two here tonight, have promised to be with us on our next Centennial celebration, on the eve of the year 2200.”
Again, wild applause: although everyone there knew that at least half of those would be lost to what was called “attrition.”
“In a moment we shall have the Contest of the Elders, to see who shall be our Man or Woman of the Century. But first…”
Stentor waved a hand. The trumpet sound again, bravely at first and then with a dying fall into something like a catcall. A ripple of laughter moved through the room, a stir of excitement. And at that moment all the waiters who had so mysteriously vanished when Stentor had begun to speak made a sudden reappearance. They burst out of the swinging doors of the kitchen, two abreast, each balancing on the fingers of one hand a heaping platter. They moved quickly and with a kind of comic emphasis, and a platter was placed on each and every table. The platters were piled with buns, and the diners instantly fell upon the buns like starved savages and disemboweled them with knives and buttered their insides and slavered them with jams and jellies. It was all done in a minute or two, though with a great bustle of chatter and laughter; and as it was being done the waiters filed to one side of the room and lined up just under the windows.
The faces of the celebrants all turned toward the dais… and a large screen some fifteen feet square slowly unrolled from the ceiling in front of the dais until its bottom reached within a foot or so of the floor. The screen displayed the familiar countenance of Isaac Asimov, a popular science writer of the last half of the twentieth century. It was a haug
hty expression that had been caught in this photo: head tilted backward a little, lips forming a slight moue, nose in the air. Even as it was descending there had burst from the audience whistles, raucous cheers and jeers, loud catcalls, and foot stompings. And now the purpose of those heaping platters, of those hundreds of buttered and jellied buns, became evident—for a barrage, a hailstorm, a blizzard of buns rained through the air, pelted and spattered the screen, which dimpled and winced under their impact. There was much laughing and shouting, some persons standing in the aisles and pitching the buns like baseballs, some standing up at the tables and lobbing them like hand grenades. And, through the miracle of modem animation, Isaac Asimov’s expression changed from one of disdain to dismay and fright, eyes and mouth wide.
The picture began slowly rewinding, withdrawing from sight into the scroll near the ceiling, like a snail retreating into its shell; and as it did so the whistles and foot stompings gradually ceased. It was gone, and the audience burst into unanimous applause, enthusiastically congratulating itself on its own triumphant sense of community. Such a warmth of feeling moved through the room that even the Mayfly waiters felt the tug of it. All smiled or grinned; all, that is, except the waiter who stood beside Jimmy Ogg. 25 February’s brow lost that contraction of pain; she threw back her head and laughed. And it may be that even the high forehead of Dave Grandcourt was touched by a mellower gleam.
The uproar subsided and the diners sank into their seats. A signal was given by a captain; and the waiters, moving in a single file (like a train of ants, in their red jackets), each claimed a wicker basket from a stack of baskets behind the orchestra and moved to collect the piles of scattered buns from the dance floor. The waiter who had stood beside Jimmy at the wall had kept up a string of sarcastic remarks during the Ritual Bunning of Asimov; and he apparently had more to say along the same lines, for he stuck close to Jimmy. He wasn’t a very personable man, but there was something ingratiating in his assumption that Jimmy would naturally share his resentment of the Evergreens. His face, as he stooped to pick up the buns, was reflected by the mirrored floor, showing his uncompromising mouth twisted a little by bitterness.
“Do they think Asimov invented the Flaw?” he asked, disgustedly chucking buttered and jellied buns into his basket. Jimmy, bending near him, voiced no opinion; and he went on, “Of course, you know all about Asimov’s Flaw?”
Jimmy was doubtful. “I don’t believe I’ve ever met the man. But, you know,” he added tolerantly, “most of us have some sort of flaw.”
The other gave the reflection of Jimmy’s face in the floor a hard, searching look—and then snorted. “Does your mother let you cross the street alone, kid?” And he fell silent, as if momentarily defeated.
They finished the harvesting of the buns and were soon standing again, like the others, with their backs against the wall. Jimmy was not inclined to talk, but his newfound friend’s need to confide in him was still unsatisfied.
“Okay, kid,” he said out of the corner of his mouth nearest Jimmy, “I’ll take pity on your ignorance and tell you what this burning business is all about. I’ll tell you why these people hate Isaac Asimov so.
“You see”—looking straight ahead and hardly moving his lips, like a conspirator divulging guilty secrets—“what we call a ‘natural death’ is really a form of suicide. From Nature’s viewpoint there’s no reason for us to hang around once our kids are old enough to take care of themselves, so a self-destruct mechanism is triggered which prevents the cells of our bodies from repairing themselves and so we get old and sick and die. What the younger Dr. Ives did was, he discovered a way to defuse the self-destruct mechanism and this made it possible for people to remain in the prime of life and no longer die of ‘old age,’ as it was called. It was even thought for a while they might live forever. But Isaac Asimov had already discovered that there’s a limit to which human life can be extended. He called it his clinker theory, but it’s now called Asimov’s Fatal Flaw.
“You see, even if the self-destruct mechanism is defused and the cells keep on repairing and renewing themselves, a small number of mistakes will still occur. The genetic mechanism of a cell is extremely complicated and delicate, so it sometimes happens that a defect will occur when a cell reproduces itself; the result is that this new cell becomes a kind of dead end. This happens about twice in a hundred thousand duplications. That doesn’t sound like much, I know, and in a normal lifetime of sixty or seventy years it wouldn’t matter—but it matters very much over a period of two hundred years, because there’s one of those rising-curve effects. You see what this means? It means that even our friends, the Evergreens, are not immortal. They’re around longer than we are, but already some who looked perfectly okay have dropped dead because groups of dead cells have accumulated in vital parts of their brains or in the places that manufacture the enzymes we can’t get along without. And there’s no cure for that.” He chuckled, as if this afforded him some gratification. “No, and there never will be. It’s been estimated that the average life of an Evergreen can be only—only!—two hundred years. And the greedy rascals, they’re not satisfied. They want more! But they’re not going to get more and they know it, because of Asimov’s Fatal Flaw. That’s why they hate the very name of Asimov.”
He was silent a moment. He stood looking out across the large room crowded with the laughing and playful Evergreens; and then, speaking very softly, as if to himself: “I think that if everyone can’t have long life, then no one should have it.”
“I don’t agree,” said Jimmy. “I’d like to see everyone live longer and healthier and happier lives. But if they can’t, that’s no reason why some shouldn’t, even if it’s only a few.”
The hard-faced waiter turned toward him a little and regarded him a long while. He shook his head sadly. “Your mother should have kept you at home tonight, kid.”
11 p.m. The orchestra, and not just the bragging trumpet, sounded again. Stentor came forward.
“It is now the moment for the Contest of the Elders. We trust that those seated about each table have already identified the eldest at that table. As I call upon each table, that person must stand and proclaim himself or herself. If challenged, he or she must be able to prove his or her date of birth.”
As luck had it, the oldest at the first table was very young, having been born in 1997. He was almost as young as that horribly decayed woman, but he was nevertheless the oldest at his table. The man at the second table somewhat restored the balance. He had been born August 19, 1948—he followed the old system of stating the month first, then the day. He had not taken his reprogramming until 2008; but, despite his then sixty years, the process had “taken” and… “Well, here I am.” Applause. The man at Table Three had been born 27 April 1985. By an odd coincidence, another man at the same table had been born the same day, but, it had been discovered, two hours later… “and so I take precedence.” Laughter.
Tables Four and Five. And then: “Dave?” said Stentor.
But Dave Grandcourt astonished everyone present by not rising. He replied from where he sat.
“Not this time, Bob. It’s true that I’m one of the Founding Members of this Society. It’s also true that I’m one of the very first persons to receive the reprogramming, which I had from the hands of the younger Dr. Ives himself. But I am by no means the oldest member here, nor, as it happens, the oldest at this table, although I had meant to be. I am junior by three years to the lady who sits across from me. As you know, an Evergreen woman, unlike Mayfly women, is never”—he turned a sly glance across the table—“ashamed of her age. And so I think she might be persuaded to rise and introduce herself.”
She did. “I was born 25 February 1972.” And she confessed to having been christened with a name, like any other human being: Margaret Press-burger.
And so it went, as rapidly as possible, for the midnight hour was approaching, through forty tables. Most of those present had been born in the 1980s and ’90s, but they, with some e
xceptions, kept their seats. Those who rose to their feet had been born, mostly, in the 1960s and 70s. There were a few from the 1950s and one man who had been born in 1949 on Christmas Day. 1949? Could it be, then, that the man at Table Two whose long life had begun on 19 August 1948 was the oldest person present?
Stentor thought so. “It would seem,” he mused, “that the Convention has found its Elder.”
There was scattered applause and a tooting of paper horns.
“Not so fast!” cried a voice. It had come from Table Three. “There’s someone here”—and the speaker rose and lurched forward clumsily, scraping a chair. There was laughter from the nearby tables, for they saw that he was tipsy. “There’s someone here,” he tried again, pointing to a man seated at his table and wearing a tam-o’-shanter, “who has declined to tell us his birthday. I think we should know his age before we… we… what?… commit ourselves.”
Stentor decided to fall in line behind this. His brassy voice carried a note of facetiousness. “Will you please rise, sir?”
The man who had been pointed out rose to his feet, but with a somewhat rueful expression. Most of those in the room now saw for the first time that he was wearing below his green tuxedo jacket not tuxedo trousers but a kilt. Again there was laughter, again a few remarks (someone observing that the tartan was that of the MacDonald clan). Others stared not so much at his kilt as at his face. The man himself was in no way abashed by the laughter, the remarks, or the stares. He stood there with one arm akimbo, his handsome and dignified face gravely amused: posing a bit, perhaps, but carrying it off.
Stentor asked, “Sir, why the kilt?”