Immortality, Inc

by Robert Sheckley

  But it was already too late, for a man slid into the booth opposite him like a shadow across the world. And Blaine was looking into the white and impassive face of the zombie.

  “Good evening,” the zombie said.

  “Good evening,” Blaine said steadily. “Would you care for a drink?”

  “No, thank you. My system doesn't respond to stimulation.”

  “Sorry to hear it,” Blaine said.

  The zombie shrugged his shoulders. “I have a name now,” he said. “I decided to call myself Smith, until I remember my real name. Smith. Do you like it?”

  “It's a fine name,” Blaine said.

  “Thank you. I went to a doctor,” Smith said. “He told me my body's no good. No stamina, no recuperative powers.”

  “Can't you be helped?”

  Smith shook his head. “The body's definitely zombie. I occupied it much too late. The doctor gives me another few months at most.”

  “Too bad,” Blaine said, feeling nausea rise in his throat at the sight of that sullen, thick-featured, leaden-skinned face with its unharmonious features and patient Buddha's eyes. Smith sat, slack and unnatural in rough workman's clothes, his black-dotted white face close-shaven and smelling of strong lotion. But he had changed. Already Blaine could see a certain leathery dryness in the once-pliant skin, certain striations in the flesh around the eyes, nose and mouth, minute creases in the forehead like tool-marks in old leather. And, mingled with the heavy after-shaving lotion, Blaine thought he could sense the first faint odor of dissolution.

  “What do you want with me?” Blaine asked.

  “I don't know.”

  “Then leave me alone.”

  “I can't do that,” Smith said apologetically.

  “Do you want to kill me?” Blaine asked, his throat dry.

  “I don't know! I can't remember! Kill you, protect you, maim you, love you — I don't know yet! But I'll remember soon, Blaine, I promise!”

  “Leave me alone,” Blaine said, his muscles tensing.

  “I can't,” Smith said. “Don't you understand? I know nothing except you. Literally nothing! I don't know this world or any other, no person, face, mind or memory. You’re my only landmark, the center of my existence, my only reason for living.”

  “Stop it!”

  “But it's true! Do you think I enjoy dragging this structure of flesh through the streets? What good is life with no hope before me and no memory behind me? Death is better! Life means filthy decaying flesh, and death is pure spirit! I've thought about it, dreamed about it, beautiful fleshless death! But one thing stops me. I have you, Blaine, to keep me going!”

  “Get out of here,” Blaine said, nausea bitter in his mouth.

  “You, my sun and moon, my stars, my Earth, my total universe, my life, my reason, my friend, enemy, lover, murderer, wife, father, child, husband —”

  Blaine's fist shot out, striking Smith high on the cheekbone. The zombie was flung back in the booth. His expression did not change, but a great purple bruise appeared on his lead-colored cheekbone.

  “Your mark!” Smith murmured.

  Blame's fist, poised for another blow, dropped.

  Smith stood up. “I'm going. Take care of yourself, Blaine. Don't die yet! I need you. Soon I'll remember, and I'll come to you.”

  Smith, his sullen, slack, bruised face impassive, left the bar.

  Blaine ordered a double whiskey and sat for a long time over it, trying to still the shaking in his hands.

  17

  Blaine arrived at the Hull estate by rural jet-bus, an hour before dawn. He was dressed in a traditional hunter's uniform — khaki shirt and slacks, rubber-soled shoes and wide-brimmed hat. Slung over one shoulder was his field pack; over the other he carried his rifle and bayonet in a plastic bag.

  A servant met him at the outer gate and led him to the low, rambling mansion. Blaine learned that the Hull estate consisted of ninety wooded acres in the Adirondack Mountains between Keene and Elizabethtown. Here, the servant told him, Hull's father had suicided at the age of fifty-one, taking the lives of six hunters with him before a saber man slashed his head off. Glorious death! Hull's uncle, on the other hand, had chosen to berserk in San Francisco, a city he had always loved. The police had to beam him twelve times before he dropped., and he took seven bystanders with him.

  The newspapers made much of the exploit, and accounts of it were preserved in the family scrapbook.

  It just went to show, the garrulous old retainer pointed out, the difference in temperaments. Some, like the uncle, were friendly, fun-loving men who wanted to die in a crowd, attracting a certain amount of attention. Others, like the present Mr. Hull, were more given to the love of solitude and nature.

  Blaine nodded politely to all this and was taken to a large, rustic room where the hunters were assembled, drinking coffee and honing a last razor edge to their weapons. Light flashed from the blued-steel broadsword and silvery battle-axe, wavered along the polished spearhead and glinted frostily from the diamond-points of the mace and morning star. At first glance, Blaine thought it looked like a scene from medieval times. But on second thought he decided it was more like a movie set.

  “Pull up a chair, pal,” the axeman called. “Welcome to the Benevolent Protective Society of Butchers, Slaughterhouse Men, and Killers-at-Large. I'm Sammy Jones, finest axeman in the Americas and probably Europe, too.”

  Blaine sat down and was introduced to the other hunters. They represented half a dozen nationalities, although English was their common tongue.

  Sammy Jones was a squat, black-haired, bull-shouldered man, dressed in patched and faded khakis, with several old hunting scars across his craggy, thick-browed face.

  “First hunt?” he asked, glancing at Blaine's neatly pressed khakis.

  Blaine nodded, removed his rifle from its plastic bag and fitted the bayonet to its end. He tested the locking mechanism, tightened the rifle's strap, and removed the bayonet again.

  “Can you really use that thing?” Jones asked.

  “Sure,” Blaine said, more confidently than he felt.

  “Hope so. Guys like Hull have a nose for the weak sisters. They try to cut ‘em out of the pack early.”

  “How long does a hunt usually last?” Blaine asked.

  “Well,” Jones said, “longest I was ever on took eight days. That was Asturias, where my partner Sligo got his. Generally a good pack can pin down a Quarry in a day or two. Depends on how he wants to die. Some try to hang on as long as they can. They run to cover. They hide in caves and ravines, the dirty treacherous dogs, and you have to go in for them and chance a thrust in the face. That's how Sligo got it. But I don't think Hull's that way. He wants to die like a great big fire-eating he-man hero. So he'll stalk around and take chances, looking to see how many of us he can knock off with his pigsticker.”

  “You sound as if you don't approve,” Blaine said.

  Sammy Jones raised his busy eyebrows. “I don't hold with making a big fuss about dying. Here comes the hero himself.”

  Hull entered the room, lean and elegant in khaki-colored silk, with a white silk bandanna knotted loosely around his neck. He carried a light pack, and strapped to one shoulder was a thin, wicked-looking rapier.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said. “Weapons all honed, packs straight, shoelaces firmly tied? Excellent!”

  Hull walked to a window and drew the curtains aside.

  “Behold the first crack of dawn, a glorious streak in our eastern skies, harbinger of our fierce Lord Sun who rules the chase. I shall leave now. A servant will inform you when my half hour grace is done. Then you may pursue, and kill me upon sight. If you are able! The estate is fenced. I will remain within its confines, and so shall you.”

  Hull bowed, then walked quickly and gracefully out of the room.

  “God, I hate these fancy birds!” Sammy Jones shouted, after the door was closed. “They’re all alike, every one of them. Acting so cool and casual, so goddamned heroic. If they
only knew how bloody silly I think they are — me that's been on twenty-eight of these things.”

  “Why do you hunt?” Blaine asked.

  Sammy Jones shrugged. “My father was an axeman, and he taught me the business. It's the only thing I know.”

  “You could learn a different trade,” Blaine said.

  “I suppose I could. The fact is, I like killing these aristocratic gentlemen. I hate every rich bastard among them with their lousy hereafter a poor man can't afford. I take pleasure in killing them, and if I had money I'd pay for the privilege.”

  “And Hull enjoys killing poor men like you,” Blaine said. “It's a sad world.”

  “No, just an honest one,” Sammy Jones told him. “Stand up, I'll fasten your pack on right.”

  When that was done, Sammy Jones said, “Look Tom, why don't you and me stick together on this hunt? Mutual protection, like?”

  “My protection, you mean,” Blaine said.

  “Nothing to be ashamed of,” Jones told him. “Every skilled trade must be learned before it can be practiced. And what better man to learn from than myself, the finest of the fine?”

  “Thanks,” Blaine said. “I'll try to hold up my end, Sammy.”

  “You'll do fine. Now, Hull's a fencer, be sure of it, and fencers have their little tricks which I'll explain as we go along. When he —”

  At that moment a servant entered, carrying an old, ornate chronometer. When the second hand passed twelve, he looked sharply at the hunters.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, “the time of grace is passed. The chase may begin.”

  The hunters trooped outside into the grey, misty dawn. Theseus the tracker, balancing his trident across his shoulders, picked up the trail at once. It led upwards, toward a mist-wreathed mountain.

  Spread out in a long single file, the hunters started up the mountain's side.

  Soon the early morning sun had burned away the mists. Theseus lost the trail when it crossed bare granite. The hunters spread out in a broken line across the face of the mountain, and continued advancing slowly upward.

  At noon, the broadsword man picked a fragment of khaki-colored silk from a thornbush. A few minutes later, Theseus found footprints on moss. They led down, into a narrow thickly wooded valley. Eagerly the hunters pressed forward.

  “Here he is!” a man shouted.

  Blaine whirled and saw, fifty yards to his right, the man with the morning star running forward. He was the youngest of the hunters, a brawny, self-confident Sicilian. His weapon consisted of a stout handle of ash, fixed to which was a foot of chain. At the end of the chain was a heavy spiked ball, the morning star. He was whirling this weapon over his head and singing at the top of his lungs.

  Sammy Jones and Blaine sprinted toward him.

  They saw Hull break from the bushes, rapier in hand. The Sicilian leaped forward and swung a blow that could have felled a tree. Hull dodged lightly out of the way, and lunged.

  The morning star man gurgled and went down, pierced through the throat. Hull planted a foot on his chest, yanked the rapier free, and vanished again into the underbrush.

  “I never could understand why a man'd use a morning star,” Sammy Jones said. “Too clumsy. If you don't hit your man the first lick, you never recover in time.”

  The Sicilian was dead. Hull's passage through the underbrush was clearly visible. They plunged in after him, followed by most of the hunters, with flankers ranged on either side. Soon they encountered rock again, and the trail was lost.

  All afternoon they searched, with no luck. At sundown they pitched camp on the mountainside, posted guards, and discussed the day's hunting over a small campfire.

  “Where do you suppose he is?” Blaine asked.

  “He could be anywhere on the damned estate,” Jones said. “Remember, he knows every foot of ground here. We’re seeing it for the first time.”

  “Then he could hide from us indefinitely.”

  “If he wanted to. But he wants to be killed, remember? In a big, flashy, heroic way. So he'll keep on trying to cut us down until we get him.”

  Blaine looked over his shoulder at the dark woods. “He could be standing there now, listening.”

  “No doubt he is,” Jones said. “I hope the guards stay awake.”

  Conversation droned on in the little camp, and the fire burned low. Blaine wished morning would come. Darkness reversed the roles. The hunters were the hunted now, stalked by a cruel and amoral suicide intent upon taking as many lives with him as possible. With that thought, he dozed off.

  Sometime before dawn he was awakened by a scream. Grabbing his rifle, he sprang to his feet and peered into the darkness. There was another scream, closer this time, and the sound of hurried movement through the woods. Then someone threw a handful of leaves on the dying fire.

  In the sudden yellow glow, Blaine saw a man staggering back to the camp. It was one of the guards, trailing his spear behind him. He was bleeding in two places, but his wounds didn't appear fatal.

  “That bastard,” the spearman sobbed, “that lousy bastard.”

  “Take it easy, Chico,” one of the men said, ripping open the spearman's shirt to clean and bandage the wound. “Did you get him?”

  “He was too quick,” the spearman moaned. “I missed.”

  That was the end of the sleeping for the night.

  The hunters were moving again at the first light of dawn, widely scattered, looking for a trace of the Quarry. Theseus found a broken button and then a half-erased footprint. The hunt veered again; winding up a narrow-faced mountain.

  At the head of the pack, Otto gave a sudden shout. “Hey! Here! I got him!”

  Theseus rushed toward him, followed by Blaine and Jones. They saw Hull backing away, watching intently as Otto advanced swinging the bola around his cropped head. The Argentinian lasso hissed in the air, its three iron balls blurring. Then Otto released it. Instantly Hull flung himself to the ground. The bola snaked through the air inches above his head, wrapped itself around a tree limb and snapped it off. Hull, grinning broadly, ran toward the weaponless man.

  Before he could reach him Theseus had arrived, flourishing his trident. They exchanged thrusts. Then Hull whirled and ran.

  Theseus lunged. The Quarry howled with pain but continued running.

  “Did you wound him?” Jones asked.

  “A flesh wound in the rump,” Theseus said. “Probably most painful to his pride.”

  The hunters ran on, panting heavily, tip the mountain's side. But they had lost the Quarry again.

  They spread out, surrounding the narrowing mountain, and slowly began working their way toward the peak. Occasional noises and footprints told them the Quarry was still before them, retreating upward. As the peak narrowed they were able to close their ranks more, lessening any chance of Hull slipping through.

  By late afternoon the pine and spruce trees had become sparse. Above them was a confused labyrinth of granite boulders, and past that the final peak itself.

  “Careful now!” Jones called to the hunters.

  As he said it, Hull launched an attack. Springing from behind a rock pinnacle, he came at old Bjorn the mace man, his rapier hissing, trying to cut the man down quickly and escape the throttling noose of hunters.

  But Bjorn gave ground only slowly, cautiously parrying the rapier thrusts, both hands on his mace as though it were a quarterstaff. Hull swore angrily at the phlegmatic man, attacked furiously, and threw himself aside just in time to avoid a blow of the mace.

  Old Bjorn closed — too rapidly. The rapier darted in and out of his chest like a snake's flickering tongue. Bjorn's mace dropped, and his body began rolling down the mountainside.

  But the hunters had closed the circle again. Hull retreated upward, into a maze of boulders.

  The hunters pressed forward. Blaine noticed that the sun was almost down; already there was a twilight hue to the air, and long shadows stretched across the gray rocks.

  “Getting toward evening,” he said
to Jones.

  “Maybe half an hour more light,” Jones said, squinting at the sky. “We better get him soon. After dark he could pick every man of us off this rock.”

  They moved more quickly now, searching among the high boulders.

  “He could roll rocks on us,” Blaine said.

  “Not him,” Jones said. “He's too damn proud.”

  And then Hull stepped from behind a high rock near Blaine.

  “All right, rifleman,” he said.

  Blaine, his rifle at high port, just managed to parry the thrust. The blade of the rapier rasped along the gun barrel, past his neck. Automatically he deflected it. Something drove him to roar as he lunged, to follow the lunge with an eager disembowelling slash and then a hopeful butt stroke intended to scatter his enemy's brains across the rocks. For that moment, Blaine was no longer a civilized man operating under a painful necessity; he was a more basic creature joyously pursuing his true vocation of murder.

  The Quarry avoided his blows with quick silken grace. Blaine stumbled after him, anger sapping his skill. Suddenly he was shoved aside by Sammy Jones.

  “Mine,” Jones said. “All mine. I'm your boy, Hull. Try me with the pigsticker.”

  Hull, his face expressionless, advanced, his rapier flashing. Jones stood firm on slightly bowed legs, the battleaxe turning lightly in his hands. Hull feinted and lunged. Jones parried so hard that sparks flew, and the rapier bent like a green stick.

  The other hunters had come up now. They chose seats on nearby rocks and caught their wind, commenting on the duel and shouting advice.

  “Pin him against the cliff, Sammy!”

  “No, over the edge with him!”

  “Want some help?”

  “Hell no!” Jones shouted back.

  “Watch out he don't nip a finger, Sammy.”