Fountain of Age

by Nancy Kress

  "I'm not asking your blessing or anything like that,” Geoff said. “But if you want to come to the ceremony, you're welcome."

  "When ... where..."

  "Tuesday evening at seven o'clock at Gwendolyn's mother's house on—"

  "I mean, where did you meet her? When?"

  He actually blushed. “At your office, of course. I went up with the papers for my college tuition. She was there, and I took one look at her and I knew."

  He knew. One look. All at once I was back in a taverna on Cyprus, twenty again myself, and I take one look at Daria standing by the bar and that's it for me. But Gwendolyn? And this had been going on a whole year, over a year. A wedding next week.

  Somehow I said, “I wouldn't miss it, Geoff.” It was the only decent thing I'd ever done for my son.

  "That's great,” he said, suddenly looking much younger. “We thought that on the—"

  A huge noise from the front of the house. Security alarms, the robo-butler, doors yanked open, shouting. The feds burst in with weapons drawn and warrants on handhelds. Even as I put my hands on top of my head, even as the house system automatically linked to my lawyer, I knew I wasn't going to make Geoff's wedding.

  And I didn't. Held without bail: a flight risk. A plea bargain got me six-to-ten, which ended up as five after time off for good behavior. It wasn't too bad. My lawyers did what lawyers do and I got the new prison, Themis International Cooperative Justice Center, a floating island in the middle of Lake Ontario. American and Canadian prisoners and absolutely no chance of unassisted escape unless you could swim forty-two kilometers.

  But islands aren't necessarily impregnable. While I was in prison, Sequene was attacked again. Its Greek island was force-fielded top, bottom, and sides, but you have to have air. The terrorists—the Sons of Godly Righteousness, this time—sent in bio-engineered pathogens on the west wind. Twenty-six people died. Daria wasn't one of them.

  Sequene moved upstairs to one of the new orbitals. No wind. Two years later, they were back in business.

  My third year in prison, Gwendolyn died. She was one of the victims, the many victims, of the Mesopotamian bio-virus. I couldn't comfort Geoff, and who says I would have even tried, or that he would have accepted comfort? An alien, my son. But there must have been something of me in him, because he didn't marry again for twenty-five years. Gwendolyn, that skinny bizarre prig, had imprinted herself on his Feder heart.

  When the government got me, they got Moshe, too. Moshe fought and screamed and hollered, but what good did it do him? He also got six-to-ten. Me, I don't bear a grudge. I do my work and the feds do theirs, the schmucks.

  They couldn't get close to Stevan. Never even got his name—any of his names. If they had, Stevan would have been gone anyway: different identity, different face. For all I know, different DNA. More likely, Stevan's DNA was never on file in the first place. The Rom give birth at home, don't register birth or death certificates, don't claim their children on whatever fraudulent taxes they might file, don't send them to school. Romani don't go on the dole, don't turn up on any records they can possibly avoid, move often and by night. As much as humanly possible in this century, they don't actually exist. And Rom women are even more invisible than the men.

  Which was probably part of the reason that, forty years later, Rosie Adams could be sitting in the dining room of Sequene orbital, pretending she didn't know me, while I totter to a table and wonder what the hell she's doing here.

  * * * *

  Alcozer ambles over, no sweat or haste, where can I go? Uninvited, he sits at my table. “Good morning, Max."

  "Shalom, Agent Alcozer.” For the feds I always lay it on especially thick.

  "We were surprised to see you here."

  The royal “we.” Everybody in the fucking federal government thinks they're tsars. I say, “Why is that? An old man, I shouldn't want to live longer?"

  "It was our impression that you thought you were barely living at all."

  How closely did they observe me in the Silver Star Home? I was there ten years, watching holos, playing cards, practically next door to drooling in a wheelchair. The government can spare money for all that surveillance?

  "Have some orange juice,” I say, pushing my untouched glass at him. Too bad it isn't cut with cyanide. Alcozer is the last thing I need. Over his shoulder I glance at Rosie, who frowns at the tablecloth, scratching at it with the nails of both hands.

  She doesn't look good. At the kumpania less than a week ago, she looked old but still vital, despite the gray hair and wrinkles. Then her cheeks were rosy, her lips red with paint, her eyes bright under the colorful headscarf. Now she sits slumped, scratching away—and what is that all about?—as pale and pasty as a very large maggot. No headscarf, no jewelry. Her gray hair has been cut and waved into some horrible old-lady shape, and she wears loose pants and tunic in dull brown. From women's fashions I don't know, but these clothes look expensive and boring.

  Alcozer leans in very close to me and says, “Max, I'm going to be honest with you."

  That'll be the day.

  "We know you've been off the streets for ten years, and we know your son has taken the Feder Group legitimate. We have no reason to touch him, so your mind can be easy about that. But somebody's still running at least a few of your old operations, and we don't know who."

  Not Moshe. He died a week after his release from prison. Heart attack.

  "Also, there are still old investigations on you that we could re-open. I don't want to do that, of course, but I could. I know and you know that the leads are pretty cold, and on most the statute of limitations is close to running out. But there could be ... repercussions. Up here, I mean.” He leans back away from me and looks solemn.

  I say politely, “I'm sorry, but I'm not following."

  He says, “Durbin-Nacarro,” and then I don't need him to chart me a flight path.

  The Durbin-Nacarro Act severely limits the elective surgery available to convicted felons. This is supposed to deter criminals and terrorists from changing their looks, fingerprints, retinal patterns, voice scans, and anything else that “hinders identification.” Did they think that someone who, say, blows up a spaceport in San Francisco or Dubai would then go to a registered hospital in any signatory country to request a new face? Ah, lawmakers.

  Sequene is, of course, registered in a Durbin-Nacarro country, but nobody has ever applied D-treatment to Durbin-Nacarro. The treatment doesn't change anything that could be criminally misleading. In fact, the feds like it because it updates all their biological records on everybody who passes through Sequene. Plenty of criminals have had D-treatment: Carmine Lucente, Raul Lopez-Reyes, Surya Hasimo. But if Alcozer really wants to, he can find some federal judge somewhere to issue a dogshit injunction and stop my D-treatment.

  Of course, I have no intention of actually getting a D-treatment, but he doesn't know that. I put on panic.

  "Agent ... I'm an old man ... and without this..."

  "Just think about it, Max. We'll talk again.” He puts his hand on mine—such a fucking putz—and squeezes it briefly. I look pathetic. Alcozer walks jauntily out.

  Rosie is still scratching at the tablecloth. Now she starts to tear her bread into little pieces and fling them around. A young woman in the light blue Sequene uniform rushes over to Rosie's table and says in a strong British accent, “Is everything all right then, Mrs. Kowalski?"

  Rosie looks up dimly and says nothing.

  "I'll just help you to your room, dear.” Gently the attendant guides her out. I catch her eye and look meaningfully upset, and in five minutes the girl is back at my table. “Are you all right then, Mr. Feder?"

  Now I'm querulous and demanding, a very rich temperamental geezer. “No, I'm not all right, I'm upset. For what I pay here, that's not the sight I expect with my breakfast."

  "Of course not. It won't happen again."

  "What's her problem?"

  The girl hesitates, then decides that my tip will justify
a minor invasion of Rosie's privacy.

  "Mrs. Kowalski has a bit of mental decay. Naturally she wants to get it sorted out before it can progress any more, so she came to us. Now, would you like anything more to eat?"

  "No, I'm done. I'll just maybe take a little walk before my first doctor's appointment."

  She beams as if I've just declared that I'll just maybe bring peace to northern China. I nod and start a deliberately slow progress around Sequene. This yields me nothing, which I should have known. I can't get into restricted areas because I couldn't carry even the simplest jammer through shuttle security, and even if I could, it would only call attention to myself, and that I don't need. There are jammers and weapons here somewhere, and from my study of the blueprints I can make a good guess where. I can even guess where Daria might be. But I can't get at them, or her, and it comes to me that the only way I am going to see Daria is to ask for her.

  Which I'm afraid to do. When your entire life has narrowed to one insane desire, you live with fear: you breathe it, eat it, lie down with it, feel it slide along your skin like a woman's lost caress.

  I was terrified that Daria would say no. And then I would have nothing left to desire. When that happens, you're already dead.

  * * * *

  In the afternoon the doctors take blood, they take tissue, they put me in machines, they take me out again. Everyone is exquisitely polite. I talk to someone I suspect is a psychiatrist, although I'm told he's not. I sign a lot of papers. Everything is recorded.

  Agent Alcozer waits for me outside my suite. “Max. Can I come in?"

  "Why not?"

  In my sitting room he ostentatiously takes a small green box from his pocket, presses a series of buttons, and sets the thing on the floor. A jammer. We are now encased in a Faraday cage: no electromagnetic wavelengths in and none out. An invisible privacy cloak.

  Of course—Alcozer has jammers, has weapons, has anything I might need to get to Daria. Agent Alcozer.

  Angel Alcozer.

  He says, “Have you thought about my offer?"

  "I don't remember an offer. An offer has numbers attached, like flies on fly paper. Flies I don't remember, Joe.” I have never used his first name before. He's too good to look startled.

  "Here are some flies, Max. You name three important things about the San Cristobel fraud of ‘89. The hacker's name, the Swiss account number, and the organization you worked with. Then we let you stay up here on Sequene without interference. Sound good?"

  "San Cristobel, San Cristobel,” I mutter. “Do I remember from San Cristobel?"

  "I think you do."

  "Maybe I do."

  His eyes sharpen. They are no color at all, nondescript. Government-issue eyes. But eager.

  "But I need something else, too,” I say.

  "Something else?"

  "I want—"

  All at once I stop. High in my nose, something tingles. This time there is even a distinct smell, like old fish. Something is wrong here, something connected to Alcozer, or to the San Cristobel deal—Moshe's deal, not Stevan's—or to this conversation.

  "You want what?” Alcozer says.

  "I want to think a little more.” I never ignore that smell. The nose knows.

  He shifts his weight, disappointed. “Not too much more, Max. Your treatment's scheduled for tomorrow."

  How does he know that? I don't know that. Alcozer has access to information I do not. Probably he knows where Daria is. All I have to do is give him the San Cristobel flies, and who gets hurt? Moshe is dead, that particular Robin Hood is dead, the island where it all happened no longer even exists, lost to the rising sea. The money was long since moved from the Swiss to the Indonesians and on from there. Nobody gets hurt.

  No. There was something else about San Cristobel. Old fish.

  I say, “Let me think a few hours. It's a big step, this.” I let my voice quaver. “A big change for me, this place. You know I never lived big on Earth. And for a kid from Brooklyn..."

  Alcozer smiles. It's supposed to be a comradely smile. He looks like a vampire with a tooth job. “For a kid from Des Moines, too. All right, Max, you think. I'll come back right after dinner.” He turns off the jammer, pockets it, stands. “Have another nice walk. By the way, there's no restricted areas on Sequene that you could possibly get into."

  "You think maybe I don't know that?"

  "I'm trying to find out what you know.” Alcozer looks pleased with himself, like he's said something witty. I let him think this. Always good to encourage federal delusion.

  Old fish. But whose?

  * * * *

  I go to dinner. The second I sit at a table, Rosie totters into the dining room, lights up like a rocket launch, and shouts, “Christopher!"

  I look around. Two other diners in the room so far, and they're both women. Rosie lurches over, tears streaming down her cheeks, and throws her arms around me. “You came!"

  "I—"

  A harried-looking woman in the light blue uniform hurries through the doorway. “Oh, Mr. Feder, I'm so sorry, she—"

  "It's Christopher!” Rosie cries. “Look, Anna, my brother Christopher! He came all the way from California to visit me!"

  Rosie is clutching me like I'm a cliff she's about to go over. I don't have to play blank—I am blank. The attendant tries to detach her, but she only clutches harder.

  "So sorry, Mr. Feder, she gets a little confused, she—Mrs. Kowalski!"

  "Christopher! Christopher! I'm going to have dinner with my brother!"

  "Mrs. Kowalski, really, you—"

  "Would it help if I have dinner with her?” I say.

  The attendant looks confused. But more people are coming into the dining room, very rich people, and it's clear she doesn't want a fuss. Her earcomm says something and she tries to smile at me. “Oh, that would be ... if you don't mind..."

  "Not at all. My aunt, in her last days ... I understand."

  The young attendant is grateful, along with angry and embarrassed and a half dozen other things I don't care about. I reach out with my one free hand and pull out a chair for Rosie, who sits down, mumbling. A robo-waiter appears and order is restored to the universe.

  Rosie mumbles to herself all through dinner, absolutely unintelligible mumbling. The attendant lurks unhappily in a corner. The set of her body says she's has been dealing with Rosie all day and is disgusted with this duty. Stevan must have created a hell of a credit history for Mrs. Kowalski. Rosie says nothing whatsoever to me, but occasionally she beams at me like a demented lighthouse. I say nothing to her, but I get worried. I don't know what's happening. Either she really has lost it—in less than a week? is this possible?—or she's a better actress than half of the holo stars on the Link.

  She eats everything, but very slowly. Halfway through dessert, some kind of chocolate pastry, the dining room is full. The first shift, the old people who go to bed at ten o'clock (I know this, I'm one of them) have left and the second shift, the younger and more fashionably dressed, are eating and laughing and ordering expensive wine. I recognize a famous Japanese singer, an American ex-Senator who was once (although he didn't know it) on my payroll, and an Arab playboy. From Sequene's point of view, it is not a good place for a tawdry scene.

  Rosie stands and cries, “Daria Cleary!"

  My heart stops.

  But of course Daria is not there. There's only Rosie, flailing her arms and crying, “I must thank Daria Cleary! For this gift of life! I must thank her!"

  People stare. A few look amused, but most do not. They have the affronted look of sleek darlings forced to look at old age, senility, a badly dressed and stooped body that may smell bad—all the things they have come to Sequene to avoid experiencing. The attendant dashes over.

  "Mrs. Kowalski!"

  "Daria! I must thank her!"

  The girl tugs on Rosie, who grabs at the tablecloth. Plates and wineglasses and expensive hydroponic flowers crash to the floor. Diners mutter, scowling. The girl says desperately
, “Yes, of course, we'll go see Daria! Right now! Come with me, Mrs. Kowalski."

  "Christopher, too!"

  I say softly, conspiratorially, to the girl, “We need to get her out of here."

  She says, “Yes, yes, of course, Christopher, too,” and gives me a tight, grateful, furious smile.

  Rosie trails happily after the attendant, holding my hand.

  I think, This cannot work. Once we're out of the dining room, out of earshot, out of hypocrisy...

  In the corridor outside the dining room Rosie halts, shouting again, “Daria!” People here, too, stop and stare. Rosie, suddenly not tottering, leads the way past them, down a side corridor, then another. Faster now, the attendant has to run to catch up. Me, too. So Rosie hits the force fence first, is knocked to the ground, and starts to cry.

  "All right, you,” the girl says, all pretense of sweetness gone. “That's enough!” She grabs Rosie's arm and tries to yank her upward. Rosie outweighs her by maybe twenty-five kilos. A service ‘bot trundles toward us.

  Rosie is calling, “Daria! Daria! Please, you don't know what this means to me! I'm an old woman but I was young once, I too lost the only man I ever loved—remember Cyprus? Do you—you do! Cyprus! Daria!"

  The ‘bot exudes a scoop and effortlessly shovels up Rosie like so much gravel. The girl says viciously, “I've had just about enough of—"

  And stops. Her face changes. Something is coming over her earcomm.

  Then there is an almost inaudible pop! as the force-fence shuts down. At the far end of the corridor, a door opens, a door that wasn't even there a moment ago. Stealth coating, I think, dazed. Reuven's robo-dog. My hand, unbidden, goes to my naked ring finger.

  Standing in the doorway, backed by bodyguards both human and ‘bot just as she was in the ViaHealth hospital fifty-five years ago, is Daria.

  * * * *

  She still looks eighteen. As I stumble forward, too numb to feel my legs move, I see her in a Greek taverna, leaning against the bar; on a rocky beach, crying in early morning light; in a hospital bed, head half shaved. She doesn't see me at all, isn't looking, doesn't recognize me. She looks at Rosie.