Fountain of Age

by Nancy Kress

  Jennifer Kenyon, that blonde buttress of bureaucracy, finishes examining her handheld and says, “It's true—the form is on file. I guess you can fly, Mr. Feder."

  Alcozer, still frowning, says, “I don't think—"

  Josh says, “Are you arresting my client, Agent Alcozer? If not, then this interview is over."

  Alcozer leaves, unhappy. Josh shoots me a puzzled look before his holo vanishes. Jennifer Kenyon says stiffly, “I need to ask you some questions, Mr. Feder, preparatory to your retinal and security scans. Please be advised that you are being recorded. What is your full name and citizen ID?"

  "Max Michael Feder, 03065932861."

  "What is your flight number and destination this afternoon?"

  "British Spaceways Flight 165, to Sequene Orbital."

  "How long will you be staying?"

  "Three days."

  "And what is the purpose of your visit?"

  Our eyes meet. I know what she sees: a very old man with the hectic and temporary glow of renewal artificially animating his sagging face, too-thin arms, weak legs. A man with how long to live—a year? Two? Maybe five, if he's lucky and his mind doesn't go first. A dinosaur with the meteor already a foot above the ground, and a criminal dinosaur at that. One who should be getting ready to check out already, preferably without causing too much fuss to everybody staying longer at the party.

  I say, “I'm going to Sequene to take D-treatment so I can stay eighty-six years old."

  * * * *

  Fifteen years after I established the Feder Group, a girl stopped me as I left the office. A strange-looking girl, dressed in a shapeless long robe of some kind with her hair hidden under an orange cap with wings. I didn't remember her name. I had hired her reluctantly—the orange was some kind of reactionary cult and who needs the trouble—but Moshe Silverstein had insisted. Moshe was my—what? If we'd been Italian, he'd have been my “consigliere.” We weren't Italian. He was my number-two until, I hoped, Geoffrey became old enough. It was not a robust hope. Geoffrey, now sixteen, was a prig.

  The girl said, “Mr. Feder, could I talk to you a minute?"

  "Certainly. Talk."

  She grimaced. Under the silly hat, the skinned-back hair, she had a pretty face. She was the accountant for show, absolutely honest, in charge only of the books for the Feder Group, which was also honest. You have to present something to the IRS. “She's brilliant,” Moshe had argued. I'd argued back that for this small part of our operations we didn't need brilliant, but here the girl was. I hardly ever saw her, since I was hardly ever in the Feder Group office. My real business all took place elsewhere.

  "I've found an irregularity,” the girl said, and all at once I remembered her name: Gwendolyn Jameson, and the cult with the modest dress and orange hats was the Daughters of Eve. Opposed to any kind of genetic engineering at all.

  "What kind of irregularity, Gwendolyn?"

  "An inexplicable and big one. Please come look at this screen of—"

  "Screens I don't need. What's the problem?” I was already late to meet a man about a deal.

  She said, “A quarter million credits have been moved from the Feder Group to an entity called Cypress, Ltd., that's registered in Hong Kong. I can't trace them from there, and even though the authorization has your codes on it, and although I found your hand-written back-up order in the files, something just doesn't seem right."

  I froze. I hadn't authorized any transfer, and nobody should have been able to connect Cypress, Ltd. with the Feder Group. Nobody.

  "Let me see the hand-written order."

  She brought it to me. It looked like my handwriting, but I had not written it. It was inside our paper files. And somebody had my personal codes.

  "Freeze all accounts now. Nothing moves in, nothing moves out. You got that?"

  "Yes, sir."

  I called Moshe, who called his nephew Timothy, who was my real accountant. We went over everything. I paced around the secret office while Tim ran heavily encrypted software for which I'd paid half my fortune. I chewed my nails, I cursed, I pounded on the wall. Like such foolishness could help? It didn't help. Finally Tim looked up.

  "Well?” My throat could barely get the syllable out.

  "Two and a half million is missing. They've penetrated three accounts—Cypress, Mu-Nova, and the Aurora Group."

  "Zurich?” I said. “Did they get into Zurich?"

  "No."

  Thank you, Master of the Universe. Also thank the Swiss. Zurich held the bulk of my credits.

  "This guy's good,” Tim said, and the professional admiration in his voice only made me madder.

  "Find him,” I said.

  "I don't do that kind of—"

  "I'll find him,” Moshe said. “But it will cost. A lot."

  "I don't care. Find him."

  Two weeks later he said, “I have him. You won't believe this—it's a goddamn gypsy. The name he's using is Stevan Adams."

  * * * *

  It's not that hard to kidnap a Rom. They rely on hiding, moving, stealth, gypsy-nation loyalty, not so much on pure muscle. What with one thing and another, drought and flooding and war and famine and bio-plagues, the population of the United States is half what it was a hundred years ago. The Romani population has doubled. They take care of their own, but in their own way. Four Rom in a beat-up truck, even an armed and armored truck, were no match for what I sent against them.

  Moshe flew me to an abandoned house somewhere in the Pennsylvania mountains. It was old, this house, and peculiar. How did people manage to live here, sixty years ago? Miles from everything, perched on a mountainside, no wind or solar or geothermal energy, facing north with huge expanses of real glass, now shattered. A vacation home, Moshe said. Some vacation—all the place had was a view, which I didn't see because we were using only the basement.

  "Where is he?"

  "In there."

  "Alone, Moshe?"

  "Just as you said. The others are in that room over there, the laundry room, drugged. He's just tied up."

  "Are you sure you got the right one? Gypsies switch identities, you know. More names for the same person than a Russian novel.” I'd done research on the flight in.

  Moshe looked insulted. “I have the right one."

  I opened the door to what might have once been a wine cellar. Dank, moldy, spiders. Moshe's men had set up a floodlight. Stevan Adams sat bound to a chair, a big man dressed in rough work clothes, with short dark hair and a luxurious mustache. His eyes glittered with intelligence, with contempt. But controlled contempt, this was no cheap cyberthug. This was a man you'd have to kill to break. I didn't kill, not even when it lost me money. There was plenty to take from the world without blood on your hands.

  I said, “I'm Max Feder."

  He said, “Where are my son and nephews?"

  "They're safe. I hurt no one."

  "Where are they?"

  "In the next room. Drugged but unharmed."

  "Show me."

  I said to Moshe, “Take the other side of that chair and help me pull it."

  Moshe looked startled—this was not how we did things. But it was how I wanted them done now. What so many people never understand is that it's not enough to make money. It's not even enough to be handed money, like Daria (whom I was still, in those years, cursing) handed to me. You have to also be able to keep money, and for that you must be a good judge of people. No—a superb judge of people. This is more than watching them closely, reading body language, seeing when they blink, blah blah blah. It's a kind of smell, a tingling high in the nose that I never ignore. Never. The mind sees what it wants to see, but the body—the body knows.

  This smell is a talent, my only one really. I'm not an accountant, not a software expert (as Geoffrey never tires of telling me), not even a particularly good thief when I'm alone. Always I needed Moshe and the Robin Hoods I used, those shadowy young men so adept at stealing from the rich and so bad, without me, at not dying violently. Me, I don't need violence.
I can smell.

  Moshe and I grabbed the chair and dragged it out of the fruit cellar and into a crumbling laundry room. We gasped and lurched; Stevan was heavy and we were not exactly athletes. Three young men, one scarcely older than Geoffrey, lay bound on the rotted floor, angelic smiles on their sleeping faces. Whatever Moshe had given them, it looked happy.

  "See, Mr. Adams? They breathe, they'll be fine."

  "Bring them awake so I can see."

  Moshe said, “Who do you think you—"

  Again I cut him off. “Bring them awake, Moshe."

  He grimaced and called, “Dena!” His daughter, our doctor, came in from outside, carrying her weapon. Her face was masked; I don't risk anybody but Moshe and me. She slapped patches on the boys and they woke up, easily and profanely. Stevan and they conversed in Romanes and even though I didn't speak the language, I could see the moment he told them it was no good trying any kind of physical assault. The youngest spat at me, a theatrical bit of foolishness I forgave at once. They were good boys. And would Geoffrey have done as much for me? I doubted this.

  We dragged Stevan back into the other room and locked in the bound boys, Dena on guard. Even if they got themselves loose—which, it eventually turned out, they did—she had knock-out gases and everything else she needed.

  I said, “You took two and a half million credits from accounts belonging to me."

  Stevan said, “So?"

  How do I convey the attitude in that one word? Not just contempt but pleasure, pride, deliberate goad. Even if I killed him, he was not going to back down. A mensch.

  "So you also took my authorization codes. And you slipped into my paper files a forged back-up authorization. How did you do that, Mr. Adams?"

  Again just that look.

  "I'm not going to harm you, or your relatives. Never. In fact, I want to hire you. My operation can use a man like you."

  "I do not work for gaje."

  "Right. I know. Usually you don't work for gaje. You people go freelance, this is gutsy, more power to you. But together, you and me together, I can make you rich beyond anything you can imagine."

  "I don't need more riches."

  Astoundingly, I later found out this was true, and not just because Stevan now had my two and a half million credits. The Rom are not interested in owning very much. Not property: they prefer to rent, so as to move easily and quickly. Vehicles, yes, even planes and helicopters, but always old and beat-up, not conspicuous. Gold for their women but not jewels, and how much gold can one woman wear? Mostly they want to live together in their densely carpeted rooms, getting all they need from gossiping and fighting and loving each other while stealing from everybody else.

  Stevan said, “You have nothing I want, gajo."

  "I think I do. My holdings are big, vaster than anything you've penetrated.” So far, anyway. “And I know people. I can offer you something you can't get anyplace else. Safety."

  Moshe echoed blankly, “Safety?” I had not told him about this part.

  "Yes,” I said, addressing Stevan. “I have access to military hardware. Some, anyway. I can get smaller, movable versions of the force-fences that buttress domes. You could keep away anyone you didn't want from your communities, your children, without guns. More: I can do a lot toward keeping any of you that get caught out of jail, unless you commit murder or something."

  For the first time, Stevan's expression shifted. Jail is the worst thing that can happen to a Rom. It means separation from the kumpania, it means associating with gaje, it means it's impossible to avoid marimé. Romani will spend any amount of money, go to any lengths to keep one of their own out of prison. Also to keep their children safe; nobody loves their kids like the Rom. And I already knew that gypsies did not commit murder. On this point, eight centuries of bad press was just plain wrong.

  "And of course,” I said craftily, “money—a very lot of money—can help with lawyers and such if one of your little operations does happen to go awry."

  "I don't work for gaje."

  "Give it up, Max,” Moshe said, with disgust.

  But I trusted my nose. I waited.

  Stevan gazed at me.

  Finally he said, “Have you ever heard of wortácha?"

  * * * *

  Jennifer Kenyon and the FSA let me fly up to Sequene. They have no choice, really. My lawyer is prepared to make a big civil-rights stink if he has to. The current president, who has not had D-treatment, does not want a big civil-rights stink in her administration. She has enough Constitutional problems already. I used to know some of the people causing them.

  Shuttle security takes everything but your soul, and that it maybe nibbles at. Every inch of me is stripped and examined by machines and ‘bots and people. If I carried any passengers before—lice, tapeworm, non-human molecules—I don't have them after Security is finished with me. I can't bring my own commlink, I can't wear my own clothes, almost I can't use my own bones. Shuttles and orbitals are fragile environments, I'm told. Nobody seems to notice that I'm a pretty fragile environment, too. Finally, dressed in a coverall and flimsy disposable shoes, I'm allowed to stagger onto the shuttle and collapse into a recliner.

  Then starts the real punishment.

  Space is a game for the young. The flight is hard on my body despite my renewal, despite their gadgets, despite all the patches stuck on my skin like so much red, blue, green, and yellow confetti. I'm eighty-six years old, what do you want from me. Few people wait that long for D-treatment. The attendant doesn't knock me out because then he wouldn't know if anything vital ruptured. It feels like everything ruptures, but in fact I arrive in one unbroken piece. Still, it's a long time before I can walk off the shuttle.

  "Mr. Feder, this way, please.” A young man, strong. I refuse to lean on his arm. But I look at everything. I've never been on an orbital before, and please the Master of the Universe, I never will again. Fifty years they've been up here, some of these orbitals, but why should I go upstairs? Money and influence travel by quantum packets, not shuttles. And there's never been anything upstairs that I wanted. Until now.

  The shuttle bay is disappointing, just another parking garage. My guide leads me through a door into a long corridor lined with doors. Other people walk here and there, but they're led by cute little gold-colored robots, not by a person. Well, this is no more than I expected.

  My guard shows me into a small, bare, white room a lot like the one at the Manhattan Spaceport. These people all need a new interior designer.

  A woman enters. “Mr. Feder, I'm Leila Cleary. How was your trip up?"

  "Fine.” This is Peter Cleary's daughter by one of his wives before Daria. She looks about thirty but of course would be much older. Red hair, blue eyes, at least at the moment, who knows. Eyes as hard as I've ever seen on a woman. She makes Alcozer's sidekick and Jennifer Kenyon both look like cuddly stuffed toys.

  "We're so glad you chose to honor Sequene with a trip. And so surprised, especially when we discovered that Sequene had filed a full-responsibility liability acceptance form for you."

  "Discovered? When, Ms. Cleary?"

  "After you had taken off from Earth and before you landed here. How did that happen, Mr. Feder?"

  "I have no idea, Ms. Cleary. I'm an old man, can't keep track of all these modern forms. Unfortunately my memory isn't what it was once.” I make my voice quaver. She isn't fooled.

  "I see. Well, now that you're here, what can we do for you?"

  "I want a D-treatment. I know I don't have an appointment, but I'll stay at the hotel until you can fit me in. And, of course, I'll pay whatever premiums you ask for a rush job. Whatever."

  "We don't do ‘rush jobs,’ Mr. Feder. Our medical procedures are meticulous and individually tailored."

  "Of course, of course. Everybody knows that."

  "You are not just ‘everybody,’ Mr. Feder. And Sequene is a private facility. We reserve the right to grant or deny treatment."

  "Understood. But why would you want to deny it
to me? My record? You've treated others with ... shall we say, complicated backgrounds.” I don't name names, although I could. Carmine Lucente. Raul Lopez-Reyes. Worse of all, Mikhail Balakov. But D-treatment is supposed to be a private thing.

  "Mr. Feder, you are eighty-six. Are you sure you know what D-treatment can and cannot do? If you think—"

  "I don't,” I say harshly. Master of the Universe, nobody knows better than I what D-treatment can and cannot do. Nobody. “How about this, Ms. Cleary. I'll stay in the hotel, your best suite, and your people can confer, can run whatever tests you like. I'll wait as long as you like. Meanwhile, take all the blood you want, pretend Sequene is Transylvania, ha ha."

  The joke falls flat. Her look could wither a cactus. How much does she know? I have never, in fifty-six years, found out what Daria told Peter Cleary about me. Nor if Peter ever knew that Daria had given me that first half-million credits, so long ago. My guess is no, Leila doesn't know this, but I can't be sure.

  "All right, Mr. Feder. We'll do that. You stay in the hotel, and I'll confer with my staff. Meanwhile, the screen in your suite will inform you about the procedure and all necessary consent forms. You can also send them downstairs to lawyers and relatives. Have a pleasant stay in Sequene."

  There is no reason to not have a pleasant stay in Sequene. Once I move—or am moved, my young unsolicited bodyguard at my side—out of the shuttle bay area, the place looks like a five-star hotel in the most tasteful British fashion. Not too new, not too glossy, none of that neo-Asian glitter. Comfort and quality over flash, although Reggie (the b-guard's name) tells me there is a casino “for your gambling pleasure.” Probably the rest of it, too: the call girls, pretty boys, and recreational drugs, all discreet and clean. I don't ask, despite some professional curiosity. I am eighty-six and here just for the D-treatment, a harmless old man trying a last end run around Death. I stay in character.

  My suite is beautiful, if small. On an orbital, space costs. Off-white and pale green—green is supposed to be soothing—walls, antique armoire for my clothes, which have arrived on a separate shuttle. State of the art VR, full scent-and tingly-sprays. The bed does everything but take out the trash. One wall chats me up, very courteously giving instructions for “illuminating” the window. I follow them, and gasp.