by Jack Vance
"No," said Mario slowly, "I thought all I lived for was to get back my body. Now I don't know. I don't think I want it. I'm Ebery the industrialist. He's Mario, the playboy."
"Ah," said Thane raising her luminous eyebrows, "you like the money, the power."
Mario laughed, a faint hurt laugh. "You've been with those ideas too long. They've gone to your head. There's other things. The stars to explore. The galaxy-a meadow of magnificent jewels. ... As Ebery, I can leave for the stars next week. As Mario, I go back to the Oxonian Terrace, play handball."
She took a step forward. "Are you-"
He said, "Just this last week a physicist burst through whatever the bindings are that are holding things in. He made it to Pluto in fifteen minutes. Ebery wouldn't listen to him. He's so close to dead right now, you couldn't tell the difference. Ebery would say he's crazy, jerk the whole project. Because there's no evidence other than the word of two men."
"So?" asked Thane. "What will you do?"
"I want my body," said Mario slowly. "I hate this pig's carcass worse than I hate death. But more than that, I want to go to the stars."
She came forward a little. Her eyes shone like Vega and Spica on a warm summer night. How could he have ever thought her cold? She was quick, hot, full-bursting with verve, passion, imagination. "I want to go too."
"Where is this everybody wants to go?" said a light baritone voice, easy on the surface, yet full of a furious undercurrent. Mervyn Alien was swiftly crossing the room. He swung his great athlete's arms loose from the shoulder, clenching and unclenching his hands. "Where do you want to go?" He addressed Mario. "Hell, is it? Hell it shall be." He rammed his fist forward.
Mario lumbered back, then forward again. Ebery's body was not a fighting machine. It was pulpy, pear-shaped, and in spite of Mario's ascetic life, the paunch still gurgled, swung to and fro like a wet sponge. But he fought. He fought with a red ferocity that matched Alien's strength and speed for a half-minute. And then his legs were like columns of pith, his arms could not seem to move. He saw Alien stepping forward, swinging a tremendous massive blow that would crush his jaw like a cardboard box, jar out, shiver his teeth.
Crack! Alien screamed, a wavering falsetto screech, sagged, fell with a gradual slumping motion.
Thane stood looking at the body, holding a pistol.
"That's your brother," gasped Mario, more terrified by Thane's expression than by the fight for life with Alien.
"It's my brother's body. My brother died this morning. Early, at sunrise. Alien had promised he wouldn't let him die, that he would give him a body... . And my brother died this morning."
She looked down at the hulk. "When he was young, he was so fine. Now his brain is dead and his body is dead."
She laid the gun on a table "But I've known it would come. I'm sick of it. No more. Now we shall go to the stars. You and I, if you'll take me. What do I care if your body is gross? Your brain is you."
"Alien is dead," said Mario as if in a dream. "There is no one to interfere. The Chateau d'lf is ours."
She looked at him doubtfully, lip half-curled. "So?"
"Where is the telescreen?"
The room suddenly seemed full of people. Mario became aware of the fact with surprise. He had noticed nothing; he had been busy. Now he was finished.
Sitting anesthetized side by side were four old men, staring into space with eyes that later would know the sick anguish of youth and life within reach and lost
Standing across the room, pale, nervous, quiet, stood Zaer, Breaugh, Janniver. And Ralston Ebery's body. But the body spoke with the fast rush of thought that was Letya Arnold's.
And in Letya Arnold's wasted body, not now conscious, dwelt the mind of Ralston Ebery.
Mario walked in his own body, testing the floor with his own feet, swinging his arms, feeling his face. Thane Paren stood watching him with intent eyes, as if she were seeing light, form, color for the first time, as if Roland Mario were the only thing that life could possibly hold for her.
No one else was in the room. Murris Slade, who had lured, bribed, threatened, frightened those now in the room to the Chateau d'lf, had not come farther than the foyer.
Mario addressed Janniver, Zaer, Breaugh. "You three, then, you will take the responsibility?"
They turned on him their wide, amazed eyes, still not fully recovered from the relief, the joy of their own lives.
..."Yes." ..."Yes."
"Some of the transpositions are beyond help. Some are dead or crazy. There is no help for them. But those whom you can return to their own bodies-to them is your responsibility."
"We break the cursed machine into the smallest pieces possible," said Breaugh. "And the Chateau d'lf is only something for whispering, something for old men to dream about."
Mario smiled. "Remember the advertisement? 'Jaded? Bored? Try the Chateau d'lf.'"
"I am no longer jaded, no longer bored," sighed Zaer.
"We got our money's worth," said Janniver wryly.
Mario frowned. "Where's Ditmar?"
Thane said, "He has an appointment for ten o'clock tomorrow morning. He comes for the new body he has earned."
Breaugh said with quiet satisfaction, "We shall be here to meet him."
"He will be surprised," said Janniver.
"Why not?" asked Zaer. "After all, this is the Chateau d'lf."
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Document ID: 192dd368-6c28-1014-ba36-cf980e1b7cd1
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 12.06.2008
Created using: Text2FB2 software
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