Methuselah's Children Read online

  "All right," it said docilely.

  "That's a good boy." She reached out and tousled its hair; Lazarus looked away again. "Now will Billy Boy do something for Aunt Mary? A big, big favor?"

  "Sure."

  "Can you hear your friends?"

  "Oh, sure."

  "All of them?"

  "Uh huh. Mostly they don't say anything," it added.

  "Call to them."

  There was a very short silence. "They heard me."

  "Fine! Now listen carefully, Billy Boy: All the Families-urgent warning! Elder Mary Sperling speaking. Under an Action-in-Council the Administrator is about to arrest every revealed member. The Council directed him to use 'full expedience'-and it is my sober judgment that they are determined to use any means at all, regardless of the Covenant, to try to squeeze out of us the so-called secret of our long lives. They even intend to use the tortures developed by the inquisitors of the Prophets!" Her voice broke. She stopped and pulled herself together. "Now get busy! Find them, warn them, hide them! You may have only minutes left to save them!"

  Lazarus touched her arm and whispered; she nodded and went on:

  "If any cousin is arrested, rescue him by any means at all! Don't try to appeal to the Covenant, don't waste time arguing about justice . . . rescue him! Now move.!"

  She stopped and then spoke in a tired, gentle voice, "Did they hear us, Billy Boy?"

  "Sure."

  "Are they telling their folks?"

  "Uh huh. All but Jimmie-the-Horse. He's mad at me," it added confidentially.

  " 'Jimmie-the-Horse'? Where is he?"

  "Oh, where he lives."

  "In Montreal," put in the matron. "There are two other sensitives there-your message got through. Are you finished?"

  "Yes . . ." Mary said doubtfully. "But perhaps we bad better have some other Seat relay it back."

  "No!"

  "But, Janice-"

  "I won't permit it. I suppose you had to send it but I want to give Billy the antidote now. So get out."

  Lazarus took her arm. "Come on, kid. It either got through or it didn't; you've done your best. A good job, girl."

  Mary went on to make a full report to the Resident Secretary; Lazarus left her on business of his own. He retraced his steps, looking for a man who was not too busy to help him; the guards at the pool entrance were the first he found. "Service-" he began.

  "Service to you," one of them answered. "Looking for someone?" He glanced curiously at Long's almost complete nakedness, glanced away again-how anybody dressed, or did not dress, was a private matter.

  "Sort of," admitted Lazarus. "Say, Bud, do you know of anyone around here who would lend me a kilt?"

  "You're looking at one," the guard answered pleasantly. "Take over, Dick-back in a minute." He led Lazarus to bachelors' quarters, outfitted him, helped him to dry his pouch and contents, and made no comment about the arsenal strapped to his hairy thighs. How elders behaved was no business of his and many of them were even touchier about their privacy than most people. He had seen Aunt Mary Sperling arrive stripped for swimming but had not been surprised as he had heard Ira Barstow briefing Pete for the underwater pickup; that the elder with her chose to take a dip in the lake weighed down by hardware did surprise him but not enough to make him forget his manners.

  "Anything else you need?" he asked. "Do those shoes fit?"

  "Well enough. Thanks a lot, Bud." Lazarus smoothed the borrowed kilt. It was a little too long for him but it comforted him. A loin strap was okay, he supposed-if you were on Venus. But he had never cared much for Venus customs. Damn it, a man liked to be dressed. "I feel better," he admitted. "Thanks again. By the way, what's your name?"

  "Edmund Hardy, of the Foote Family."

  "That so? What's your line?"

  "Charles Hardy and Evelyn Foote. Edward Hardy-Alice Johnson and Terence Briggs-Eleanor Weatheral. Oliver-"

  "That's enough. I sorta thought so. You're one of my great-great-grandsons."

  "Why, that's interesting," commented Hardy agreeably. "Gives us a sixteenth of kinship, doesn't it-not counting convergence. May I ask your name?"

  "Lazarus Long."

  Hardy shook his head. "Some mistake. Not in my line."

  "Try Woodrow Wilson Smith instead. It was the one I started with."

  "Oh, that one! Yes, surely. But I thought you were . . . uh-"

  "Dead? Well, I ain't."

  "Oh, I didn't mean that at all," Hardy protested, blushing at the blunt Anglo-Saxon monosyllable. He hastily added, "I'm glad to have run across you, Gran'ther. I've always wanted to hear the straight of the story about the Families' Meeting in 2012."

  "That was before you were born, Ed," Lazarus said gruffly, "and don't call me 'Gran'ther.' "

  "Sorry, sir-I mean 'Sorry, Lazarus.' Is there any other service I can do for you?"

  "I shouldn't have gotten shirty. No-yes, there is, too. Where can I swipe a bite of breakfast? I was sort of rushed this morning."

  "Certainly." Hardy took him to the bachelors' pantry, operated the autochef for him, drew coffee for his watch mate and himself, and left. Lazarus consumed his "bite of breakfast"-about three thousand calories of sizzling sausages, eggs, jam, hot breads, coffee with cream, and ancillary items, for he worked on the assumption of always topping off his reserve tanks because you never knew how far you might have to lift before you had another chance to refuel. In due time he sat back, belched, gathered up his dishes and shoved them in the incinerator, then went looking for a newsbox.

  He found one in the bachelors' library, off their lounge. The room was empty save for one man who seemed to be about the same age as that suggested by Lazarus appearance. There the resemblance stopped; the stranger was slender, mild in feature, and was topped off by finespun carroty hair quite unlike the grizzled wiry bush topping Lazarus. The stranger was bending over the news receiver with his eyes pressed to the microviewer.

  Lazarus cleared his throat loudly and said, "Howdy."

  The man jerked his head up and exclaimed, "Oh! Sorry-I was startled. Do y' a service?"

  "I was looking for the newsbox. Mind if we throw it on the screen?"

  "Not at all." The smaller man stood up, pressed the rewind button, and set the controls for projection. "Any particular subject?"

  "I wanted to see," said Lazarus, "if there was any news about us-the Families."

  "I've been watching for that myself. Perhaps we had better use the sound track and let it hunt."

  "Okay," agreed Lazarus, stepping up and changing the setting to audio. "What's the code word?"

  " 'Methuselah.' "

  Lazarus punched in the setting; the machine chattered and whined as it scanned and rejected the track speeding through it then it slowed with a triumphant click. "The DAILY DATA," it announced. "The only midwest news service subscribing to every major grid. Leased videochannel to Luna City. Tri-S correspondents throughout the System. First Fast and Most! Lincoln, Nebraska-Savant Denounces Oldsters! Dr. Witwell Oscarsen, President Emeritus of Bryan Lyceum, calls for official reconsideration of the status of the kin group styling themselves the 'Howard Families.' 'It is proved,' he says, that these people have solved the age-old problem of extending, perhaps indefinitely, the span of human life. For that they are to be commended; it is a worthy and potentially fruitful research. But their claim that their solution is no more than hereditary predisposition defies both science and common sense. Our modern knowledge of the established laws of genetics enables us to deduce with certainty that they are withholding from the public some secret technique or techniques whereby they accomplish their results.

  " 'It is contrary to our customs to permit scientific knowledge to be held as a monopoly for the few. When concealing such knowledge strikes at life itself, the action becomes treason to the race. As a citizen, I call on the Administration to act forcefully in this matter and I remind them that the situation is not one which could possibly have been foreseen by the wise men who drew up the Covenant and
codified our basic customs. Any custom is man-made and is therefore a finite attempt to describe an infinity of relationships. It follows as the night from day that any custom necessarily has its exceptions. To be bound by them in the face of new-' "

  Lazarus pressed the hold button. "Had enough of that guy?"

  "Yes, I had already heard it." The stranger sighed. "I have rarely heard such complete lack of semantic rigor. It surprises me-Dr. Oscarsen has done sound work in the past."

  "Reached his dotage," Lazarus stated, as he told the machine to try again. "Wants what he wants when he wants it-and thinks that constitutes a natural law."

  The machine hummed and clicked and again spoke up. "The DAILY DATA, the only midwest news-"

  "Can't we scramble that commercial?" suggested Lazarus.

  His companion peered at the control panel. "Doesn't seem to be equipped for it."

  "Ensenada, Baja California. Jeffers and Lucy Weatheral today asked for special proctor protection, alleging that a group of citizens had broken into their home, submitted them to personal indignity and committed other asocial acts. The Weatherals are, by their own admission, members of the notorious Howard Families and claim that the alleged incident could be traced to that supposed fact. The district provost points out that they have offered no proof and has taken the matter under advisement. A town mass meeting has been announced for tonight which will air-"

  The other man turned toward Lazarus. "Cousin, did we hear what I thought we heard? That is the first case of asocial group violence in more than twenty years . . . yet they reported it like a breakdown in a weather integrator."

  "Not quite," Lazarus answered grimly. "The connotations of the words used in describing us were loaded."

  "Yes, true, but loaded cleverly. I doubt if there was a word in that dispatch with an emotional index, taken alone, higher than one point five. The newscasters are allowed two zero, you know."

  "You a psychometrician?"

  "Uh, no. I should have introduced myself. I'm Andrew Jackson Libby."

  "Lazarus Long."

  "I know. I was at the meeting last night."

  " 'Libby . . . Libby,' " Lazarus mused. "Don't seem to place it in the Families. Seems familiar, though."

  "My case is a little like yours-"

  "Changed it during the Interregnum, eh?"

  "Yes and no. I was born after the Second Revolution. But my people had been converted to the New Crusade and had broken with the Families and changed their name. I was a grown man before I knew I was a Member."

  "The deuce you say! That's interesting-how did you come to be located . . . if you don't mind my asking?"

  "Well, you see I was in the Navy and one of my superior officers-"

  "Got it! Got it! I thought you were a spaceman. You're Slipstick Libby, the Calculator."

  Libby grinned sheepishly. "I have been called that."

  "Sure, sure. The last can I piloted was equipped with your paragravitic rectifier. And the control bank used your fractional differential on the steering jets. But I installed that myself-kinda borrowed your patent."

  Libby seemed undisturbed by the theft. His face lit up. "You are interested in symbolic logic?"

  "Only pragmatically. But look, I put a modification on your gadget that derives from the rejected alternatives in your thirteenth equation. It helps like this: suppose you are cruising in a field of density 'x' with an n-order gradient normal to your course and you want to set your optimum course for a projected point of rendezvous capital 'A' at matching-in vector 'rho' using automatic selection the entire jump, then if-"

  They drifted entirely away from Basic English as used by earthbound laymen. The newsbox beside them continued to hunt; three times it spoke up, each time Libby touched the rejection button without consciously hearing it.

  "I see your point," he said at last. "I had considered a somewhat similar modification but concluded that it was not commercially feasible, too expensive for anyone but enthusiasts such as yourself. But your solution is cheaper than mine."

  "How do you figure that?"

  "Why, it's obvious from the data. Your device contains sixty-two moving parts, which should require, if we assume standardized fabrication processes, a probable-" Libby hesitated momentarily as if he were programming the problem. "-a probable optimax of five thousand two hundred and eleven operations in manufacture assuming null-therblig automation, whereas mine-"

  Lazarus butted in. "Andy," he inquired solicitously, "does your head ever ache?"

  Libby looked sheepish again. "There's nothing abnormal about my talent," he protested. "It is theoretically possible to develop it in any normal person."

  "Sure," agreed Lazarus, "and you can teach a snake to tap dance once you get shoes on him. Never mind, I'm glad to have fallen in with you. I heard stories about you way back when you were a kid. You were in the Cosmic Construction Corps, weren't you?"

  Libby nodded. "Earth-Mars Spot Three."

  "Yeah, that was it-chap on Mars gimme the yarn. Trader at Drywater. I knew your maternal grandfather, too. Stiff-necked old coot."

  "I suppose he was."

  "He was, all right I had quite a set-to with him at the Meeting in 2012. He had a powerful vocabulary." Lazarus frowned slightly. "Funny thing, Andy . . . I recall that vividly, I've always had a good memory-yet it seems to be getting harder for me to keep things straight. Especially this last century."

  "Inescapable mathematical necessity," said Libby.

  "Huh? Why?"

  "Life experience is linearly additive, but the correlation of memory impressions is an unlimited expansion. If mankind lived as long as a thousand years, it would be necessary to invent some totally different method of memory association in order to be eclectively time-binding. A man would otherwise flounder helplessly in the wealth of his own knowledge, unable to evaluate. Insanity, or feeble-mindedness."

  "That so?" Lazarus suddenly looked worried. "Then we'd better get busy on it."

  "Oh, it's quite possible of solution."

  "Let's work on it. Let's not get caught short."

  The newsbox again demanded attention, this time with the buzzer and flashing light of a spot bulletin: "Hearken to the data. Flash! High Council Suspends Covenant! Under the Emergency Situation clause of the Covenant an unprecedented Action-in-Council was announced today directing the Administrator to detain and question all members of the so-called Howard Families-by any means expedient! The Administrator authorized that the following statement be released by all licensed news outlets: (I quote) 'The suspension of the Covenant's civil guarantees applies only to the group known as the Howard Families except that government agents are empowered to act as circumstances require to apprehend speedily the persons affected by the Action-in-Council. Citizens are urged to tolerate cheerfully any minor inconvenience this may cause them; your right of privacy will be respected in every way possible; your right of free movement may be interrupted temporarily, but full economic restitution will be made.'

  "Now, Friends and Citizens, what does this mean?-to you and you and also you! The DAILY DATA brings you now your popular commentator, Albert Reifsnider:

  "Reifsnider reporting: Service, Citizens! There is no cause for alarm. To the average free citizen this emergency will be somewhat less troublesome than a low-pressure minimum too big for the weather machines. Take it easy! Relax! Help the proctors when requested and tend to your private affairs. If inconvenienced, don't stand on custom-cooperate with Service!

  "That's what it means today. What does it mean tomorrow and the day after that? Next year? It means that your public servants have taken a forthright step to obtain for you the boon of a longer and happier life! Don't get your hopes too high . . . but it looks like the dawn of a new day. AH, indeed it does! The jealously guarded secret of a selfish few will soon-"

  Long raised an eyebrow at Libby, then switched it off.

  "I suppose that," Libby said bitterly, "is an example of 'factual detachment in news reporting.' "


  Lazarus opened his pouch and struck a cigarette before replying. "Take it easy, Andy. There are bad times and good times. We're overdue for bad times. The people are on the march again . . . this time at us."

  3

  The burrow known as the Families' Seat became jammed as the day wore on. Members kept trickling in, arriving by tunnels from downstate and from Indiana. As soon as it was dark a traffic jam developed at the underground pool entrance-sporting subs, fake ground cars such as Mary's, ostensible surface cruisers modified to dive, each craft loaded with refugees some half suffocated from lying in hiding on deep bottom most of the day while waiting for a chance to sneak in.

  The usual meeting room was much too small to handle the crowd; the resident staff cleared the largest room, the refectory, and removed partitions separating it from the main lounge. There at midnight Lazarus climbed onto a temporary rostrum. "Okay," he announced, "let's pipe it down. You down in front sit on the floor so the rest can see. I was born in 1912. Anybody older?"

  He paused, then added, "Nominations for chairman . . . speak up."

  Three were proposed; before a fourth could be offered the last man nominated got to his feet. "Axel Johnson, of the Johnson Family. I want my name withdrawn and I suggest that the others do likewise. Lazarus cut through the fog last night; let him handle it. This is no time for Family politics."

  The other names were withdrawn; no more were offered. Lazarus said, "Okay if that's the way you want it. Before we get down to arguing, I want a report from the Chief Trustee. How about it, Zack? Any of our kinfolk get nabbed?"

  Zaccur Barstow did not need to identify himself; he simply said, "Speaking for the Trustees: our report is not complete, but we do not as yet know that any Member has been arrested. Of the nine thousand two hundred and eighty-five revealed Members, nine thousand one hundred and six had been reported, when I left the communication office ten minutes ago, as having reached hiding, in other Family strongholds, or in the homes of unrevealed Members, or elsewhere. Mary Sperling's warning was amazingly successful in view of how short the time was from the alarm to the public execution of the Action-in-Council-but we still have one hundred and seventy-nine revealed cousins unreported. Probably most of these will trickle in during the next few days. Others are probably safe but unable to get in touch with us."