The Boat of a Million Years

by Poul Anderson

  She came in and halted. His vision flashed across her. Becker’s description was sketchy, and the German had been under orders not to ask for photographs, lest a prospect take alarm. She was about as tall as Hanno, which put her on the short side among modem Nordics though average among her own kind, A full figure, lithely and erectly borne, gave the impression of more height. Her features were broad, blunt, comely. Blond hair in a Dutch bob framed fair skin. Quietly dressed, she wore low shoes and carried a shoulder bag.

  Her brows lifted. Tongue touched lips. If she was nervous, which would be more than understandable, she mastered it gamely. “Mr... , Cauldwell?”

  How could that husky voice sound familiar? Just deja vu, no doubt. Hanno bowed. “At your service, ah, Dr. Rasmussen,” he said. “Thank you for coming.”

  She constructed a smile for him. “Miss Rasmussen will do, if you please. You will remember I am a veterinarian, not a physician.” Her English came readily, though the heavy accent was more Slavic than Danish. “I am sorry to be late. It is because of an emergency in my office.”

  “That’s okay. You couldn’t leave an animal to suffer.” He recalled how much they made of shaking hands here and extended his. “I am glad you could, and would, come at all.”

  Her grip was firm. The blue gaze intensified upon him, no longer shy. Not forward, either; watchful; he thought of a hunter. Yes, but it was also—puzzled, more than this curious meeting warranted? “Your agent made it sound ... interesting,” she said. “I can promise nothing until I have heard more.”

  “Of course. We need to talk quite a lot; and then, if I am not presuming, I would like the pleasure of your company at dinner.” Win or lose, he would. Why did she excite him so? “The talk should be private. This hotel doesn’t have a bar, but we can find one close by, or a coffee shop or anything you wish, as long as we won’t be distracted or overheard.”

  She went straighter to business than he had dared hope. “I think you are a gentleman, Mr. Cauldwell. Let us use your room.”

  “Wonderful!” Old manners returned and he offered her his arm. She took it with a natural grace making up for the fact that she had obviously not had much practice.

  They were silent in the elevator, never quite looking at each other. Damn, he thought, something about her haunts me. Could I have seen her before? Hardly possible. Oh, I have visited Denmark now and then, but while she’s sightly, she wouldn’t stand out in a crowd of such women as they’ve got here.

  He had taken a top-floor suite. The hotel was fairly old, far from Copenhagen’s loftiest, but these windows gave a view over bustling downtown and lovely, soaring spires. Furnishings were comfortable, a little faded, reminiscent of a gentility well-nigh vanished from the world. She smiled more easily than at first. “You have good taste in places to stay,” she murmured.

  “This is a favorite of mine,” he said. “Has been for a long time.”

  “Do you travel much?”

  “Going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it. Please be seated. What would you like to drink? I have a small refrigerator, beer, akvavit, Scotch, soda, or I’ll be glad to send down for anything else.”

  “Coffee, thank you.”

  A cautious choice. He rang. Turning around, he saw that she hadn’t taken cigarettes from her bag. Probably then, unlike most Danes, she didn’t smoke. He wished for his pipe to soothe him but decided against it and settled facing her.

  “I am not sure how much Becker made clear to you,” he began.

  “Very little. I am frank about that. He told of the ... Rufus Institute? ; . . in America and how it wanted to study persons who ... can expect to live for many years. The interest in history—there are more measures of intelligence than that. I went away feeling very unsure. When you telephoned from across the ocean, I wondered whether to make this appointment. But I will hear you, Mr. Cauldwell.”

  “I am the man who founded the Institute.”

  She studied him. “You must be rich.”

  He nodded. “Yes.” Himself alert for any clue whatsoever: “I am a great deal older than I look.”

  Did the breath hiss inward between her teeth? “To me you seem young.”

  “As you do to me. May I ask your age?”

  “I told Mr. Becker.” Starkness stood forth. “No doubt he, or you, or a detective of yours checked the public records.”

  He lifted a palm. “Hold on. Please. We both need to be honest, but let’s not push ahead too hard. AlJow me a few questions. You are Russian by birth?”

  “Ukrainian. I reached Denmark in 1950. By now I am naturalized.”

  He made his lips shape a soundless whistle. “Almost forty years ago, and you must have been adult then.”

  Her grin was taut. “You are searching for people who age slowly, no? How old are you, Mr. Cauldwell?”

  “I wonder if we shouldn’t postpone that subject a while,” he said carefully.

  “Perhaps ... we ... should.” Both of them shivered.

  “I don’t want to pry,” he said, “but I had better know. Are you married? I am not, currently.”

  The flaxen head shook. “Nor I. I have not married in this country. I got permission to change my last name. ‘Olga’ is common enough in Denmark, but the rest of it, nobody could spell or pronounce.”

  “And ‘Rasmussen’ here is like ‘Smith’ in the USA. You didn’t want to be more conspicuous than you could help, did you?”

  “Not at first. Things have changed since.” She sighed. “I have wondered lately if I might even go back, now when they say the terror has been ended. Never a day but I have longed for my motherland.”

  “You could have too much explaining to do.”

  “Probably. I did go away as a refugee, an outlaw.”

  That was not precisely what I meant, he thought; and I suspect she realizes it.

  “The Danish government knows, down in its archives,” she proceeded. “I said little to Mr. Becker, but you may as well hear. During the war I was a soldier in the Red Army. Many Ukrainians wanted to be free—of Stalin or of the Soviet Union itself, because we are the old, true Russians. Kiev was the seed and the roofof the whole Russian nation. The Moskaly came later. Many of us welcomed the Germans for liberators. That was a terrible mistake, but how could anybody know, when for more than twenty years all we heard was lies or silence? Some men enlisted with Hitler. I never did, I tell you. One resists the invader, whoever he is. But when the Germans retreated, they left parts of the Ukraine in revolt. Stalin needed years to crush it. Have you heard this?”

  “I know something about it,” he said bleakly. “If I remember aright, the resistance movement had a headquarters in Copenhagen. Just the same, hardly a word about what was happening got into the liberal—“ no, in Europe “liberal” retained its original meaning—“the Western establishment press.”

  “I had been discharged, but I had friends, kinsmen, people of mine in the rebellion. Some openly fought, some were sympathizers who gave what help they could whenever they dared. I knew I was under suspicion. If I did not soon betray somebody to Stalin’s secret police, they would come for me. Then it would be the labor camp or the bullet in the head or worse.” Anguish reawakened. “But how could I join the rebels? How could I shoot at Russian soldiers, my comrades of the war? I fled. I made my way to the West.”

  “That was an awesome doing,” he said, altogether sincerely. It had meant hunger, thirst, hiding, running, walk-big, slipping past guard posts, surviving on what scraps of food she chanced to find, for a thousand miles and more.

  “I am strong,” she replied. “I had my sharpshooter skills. And I had prepared myself.” Fingers gripped the arms of her chair. “It was not my first time like that.”

  Thunder racketed hi his skull. “I have ... had adventures ... of my own ... in the past.”

  A knock sounded. Hanno got up and admitted a bellboy, who brought a tray with urn, cups, sugar, cream, and kringler. While he oversaw its placement and tipped the man, he
said, because lightness was necessary but stillness impossible, “You’ve had a peaceful time since, I gather.”

  He felt the same need was driving her. “I got asylum in Denmark.” From what officials, and how? he wondered. Not that it mattered. If you knocked around in the world long enough, you learned the ways of it, and the byways. “I wanted that because of the Ukrainian connection, but I came to love this country. They are dear people, and the land is so mild. I worked on a farm, decided I would like to be a veterinarian, went to school, studied English and German also, to talk with foreigners who might bring me their pets. Now I have a practice out in Kongens Lyngby, a nice suburb.”

  The bellman had left. Hanno walked back to stand above her. “But you are of retirement age, or nearly,” he said. “Your friends marvel at how you still appear young. They tease you about a fountain of youth. They begin to wonder, though, why you don’t retire. The government does too. Where will you go, Olga?”

  She gazed steadily up at him. “Yes, they keep excellent records in Denmark. Where would you suggest that I go? And what is your real name?”

  His pulse hammered. “All right,” he said, “no more pussyfooting. I didn’t want to scare you off. However, I believe I can come right out with the truth after all.” He resumed his chair, not to seem threatening or attempting of dominance. One like her would react fiercely to that, he judged. “What I am about to tell you will sound like insanity, or some wild confidence game, unless you are what I’m pretty sure you are. Do not take fright. Listen to me. Go open the door and stand by it if you wish.”

  She shook her head. Her breasts rose and fell.

  “As close as makes no difference,” Hanno said, “I am three thousand years old. Do you care to tell me— What?”

  She had gone wholly white. For a moment she sagged back in her chair. He half rose to help and reassure. She straightened. “Cadoc,” she whispered.

  “Huh?”

  “Cadoc. You. It comes back to me. The trader in Kiev. Kiyiv, we called it then. When was that? Nearly one thousand years past, I think.”

  Memory smote like a sudden look into the sun. “You ... your name—”

  “I was Svoboda then. In my heart I always am. But who are you really?”

  Of course, he thought in his daze, neither would remember a briefly met mortal for very long, out of an uncountable myriad gone down into dust. But neither had ever quite forgotten, either. He carted to mind now the phantom that had stirred in him at moments strewn through the centuries.

  “S-Svoboda, yes,” he stammered. “We rescued you.”

  “And the night was golden. We could have had more!”

  They left their chairs and stumbled into each other’s arms.

  7

  Outside, the District of Columbia stewed in its summer. Air conditioning breathed coolness through Moriarty’s office. The heat that he felt was dry, a fire. He slapped the magazine down onto his desk. The noise cracked. “You bastard,” he mumbled. “You evil, malignant—”

  The intercom chimed. “Mr. Stoddard to see you, Senator,” announced his receptionist’s voice.

  Moriarty caught a breath and gusted it back as a laugh. “Perfect timing!” he exclaimed. “Send him right in.”

  The man who entered was short, undistinguished-looking, and coldly competent. Sweat from outdoors glistened on his cheeks. He carried a briefcase. “How do you do, sir,” he greeted. His glance went from face to desk and back again. “You’ve been reading the latest, I see.”

  “Of course,” Moriarty snapped. “Sit down. Have you seen it?”

  “Not yet.” Stoddard took a chair. “I’ve been busy investigating the person responsible, you know.”

  The fleshy man behind the desk picked up the magazine again and placed it under his dashingly styled reading glasses. “Listen to this. The editorial. Deals with my speech in aid of the CCCP. I’m taking a paragraph at random, more or less.” Trained, his voice shed the throb of indignation and recited methodically:

  “ ‘The senator was introduced by peace and disarmament activist Dr. Fulvia Bourne. He dealt with the embarrassment in masterly fashion. Rather than refer to her speech at the previous day’s banquet, whether to endorse or disavow such colorful phrases as “the Pentagon, a pentacle crowded with the demons of nuclear madness,” or “the CIA—the Children Immolation Agency,” he made an unspeech of it and simply called her a modern Joan of Arc. That St. Joan took arms in the cause of liberation became an unfact. Thence it was an easy transition to the necessity for statesmanship, for “patience abroad but impatience at home.” Evidently the patience is to be with the likes of Srs. Castro and Ortega. After all, the senator’s esteemed party colleague, the Reverend Nahaliel Young, addresses both these gentlemen as “Dear Comrade.” We are to have no patience whatsoever with, say, South Africa. As for domestic policy, an impatience to complete the destruction of the productive classes in America—’ ”

  “Arrh!” erupted. “Why go on? Read it for yourself, if you can stand to.”

  “May I ask a question, Senator?” Stoddard murmured.

  “”Certainly. I’ve always stood for free and open dialectic.”

  Stoddard’s gaze weighed Moriarty. “Why do you let this Tannahill get your goat? He isn’t writing anything that other opponents of yours don’t.”

  The broad countenance reddened. “He puts no bounds on his nastiness. Opposition is different from persecution. You know how he tries not just to make trouble nationally, but to drive a wedge between me and my constituency.”

  “Oh, he does operate out of New England and make a lot of regional references, but he’s not in your state, Senator. And really, The Chart Room has a small circulation.”

  “It only takes a small dose of virus, slipped to the right people, to infect a whole population. Tannahill’s getting attention not just from old-line conservatives and neo-fascists, but on campuses, among the young.” Moriarty sighed. “Oh, yes, the snake has his First Amendment rights, and I admit his gibes at me hurt more than they ought. I should be used to cruelty.”

  “If I may say so, you often leave yourself open to the likes of him. I’d have advised you against addressing that rally.”

  “In politics you take what allies you can find, and make the best of them.”

  “Like South Africa? Sorry.” Stoddard didn’t sound repentant.

  Moriarty frowned but continued: “The Committee does include some extremists, but damn it, they’re extremists in a good cause. We need their energy and dedication.” He cleared his throat. “Never mind. Let’s get to business. The business of discovering who this Tannahill is and who’s behind him. What can you tell me?”

  “Nothing much, I’m afraid. As far as my investigators have dug, and they’re good at their work, he’s clean. True, they didn’t manage to dig to the very bottom.”

  “Oh?” Moriarty leaned forward. “He remains the mystery man on that estate of his?” The remark was irresistible: “He would have settled in New Hampshire, wouldn’t he? ‘Live free or die.’ He may even believe it.”

  “He’s not a Howard Hughes-like recluse, if that’s what you mean, Senator,” Stoddard replied. “In fact, what makes him hard to learn about is that he’s seldom at his place. He gets around—everywhere, maybe, though for the most part my men couldn’t find out where he does go. Neither his household servants nor his magazine staff were any help to speak of. They’re two handfuls of hand-picked individuals, long with him, loyal to him, close-mouthed. Not that they keep any shameful secrets.” He chuckled. “No such luck. They simply don’t know what the boss does away from them, and they have an antiquated Yankee notion that it’s nobody’s business.”

  Moriarty gave his assistant a sharp glance. Sometimes he wondered whether Stoddard was not aiding him strictly for the pay. However, the fellow performed well enough that one must put up with his occasional impudence. “What have you found?” Moriarty asked. “No matter if you repeat things I already know.”

  “I’m af
raid that’s what I’ll mainly be doing.” The other man drew a sheet of paper from his briefcase and consulted the notes on it. “Kenneth Alexander Tannahill was born August 25, 1933 in Troy, Vermont, a little town near the Canadian border. His parents moved away shortly afterward. A former neighbor, to whom they wrote a couple of letters, said they’d gone to Minnesota, but he couldn’t remember precisely where. A North Woods hamlet. Everything’s shadowy, nothing on record but the bare minimum of official stuff and a few old stories in an upstate newspaper.”

  Excitement tingled in Moriarty. “Do you mean this could be an assumed identity? Suppose the real Tannahills all died, say in an accident. A man with money, who wanted to cover his tracks, could set a detective agency to locating such a deceased family, one that suited his needs.”

  “Maybe.” Stoddard sounded skeptical. “Damn hard to prove.”

  “Draft records from before the end of conscription?”

  “I’d rather not try springing anything like that loose for you, Senator.”

  “No, I suppose not. Unless we can turn up clues that justify it to the proper authorities.”

  “Tannahill has never claimed he was ever in the service. We got that much. But a lot of men his age never were, in spite of Korea and Vietnam, for a variety of reasons. He’s given no hints as to why he wasn’t. Uh, it isn’t that he acts evasive or secretive. Associates describe him as a genial sort with a ready fund of jokes and quips; though he does require competence from his employees, and gets it. He simply has a knack for turning conversation away from himself.”

  “He would. Go on. Never married, I believe?”

  “No. Not homosexual or impotent. There have been a few women over the years whom we’ve identified. Nothing especially serious, and none of them bear him any grudge.”

  “Too bad. What kind of trail has he left on the West Coast?”

  “Essentially zilch. He first surfaced in New Hampshire, bought his house and grounds, started his magazine, all as a—not exactly an employee of Tomek Enterprises. ‘Associate’ or ‘agent’ might be a better word. At any rate, Tomek finances him, and I’d guess that a tot of his trips are for purposes of reporting back to the old man.”