One Million Tomorrows M

by Bob Shaw

  “In other circumstances, yes. But I daresay most of your friends know about the little hangup you and your wife have over the shots. Mmmph?”

  “I guess they do.”

  “So they’re going to think it’s strange if Athene suddenly goes immortal while you apparently remain as you are—and you know how hard it is to disguise the fact that a woman has taken her shot.”

  Carewe nodded, remembering that women were nature’s true immortals. A side-effect of the biostatic drug on the female system was perfect regulation of production of the oestradiol steroid, creating a glow of almost aggressive good health similar to that which occurs in the early weeks of an ideal pregnancy. He pictured Athene in that condition of Olympian well-being, permanently, and cursed himself for having hesitated.

  “I see you’re way ahead of me, Hy. I suppose you want to talk to my wife about this?”

  “Definitely not. I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting your wife previously and even though her psychofile shows she’s the type who can keep a secret, it would be better if I didn’t meet her just yet. There mustn’t be even the slightest change in the routine of your domestic life. Follow?”

  “You want me to explain everything to her myself?”

  “That’s it. I leave it to you to make her see how important secrecy is.” Barenboim glanced at Pleeth. “I think we can put that much trust in young Willy, here. What do you say, Manny?”

  “I would say so.” Pleeth nodded and bounced, the pink-stained whites of his eyes gleaming in the morning light. The gold cigar glittered on his chest.

  Barenboim clicked his tongue approvingly. “There you are. One thing we would want you to do is spend

  a few days being checked over at Randal’s Creek right

  after you take the shot, but we can easily contrive something in the biopoiesis laboratory which will require a visit from the costing monitor. There’ll be no security risk.”

  Carewe tried a casual smile. “This is a tremendous technical breakthrough, Hy. How much can you tell… ?”

  “Nothing. Taboo. The less you know about the research side the better. We designate the new drug E.80, but even that is more information than you require.”

  “Well,” Carewe said carefully, “can you tell me if there’s any real danger in this test?”

  “Only the very slight risk of disappointment—we haven’t had a full-scale test before—but I think you’d be able to survive the unlikely event of a disappontment, Willy. We don’t expect you to do this for nothing.”

  “I didn’t mean to

  “It’s all right.” Barenboim waved a puffy hand. “You’re quite right to wonder what’s in it for you. If I see that one of my men is careless about his own money I ask myself what he’ll be like with mine. Know what I mean?”

  The up-curve of Pleeth’s mouth became more pronounced and, taking the cue, Carewe smiled in appreciation. “I like that.”

  “Here’s something you’ll like even more. As you know, we’ve introduced quite a few new cost control techniques lately. My chief accountant is due for his twenty-year rotation to a lower grade in three years, but in view of all the recent procedural innovations he is prepared to step down a little earlier. His job could be yours in less than a year.”

  Carewe swallowed. “But Walton’s a suberb accountant. I wouldn’t like to push him …”

  “Nonsense! Walton’s been with me for over eighty years, and I can tell you he’s looking forward to rotating down and then battling his way back up again. He’s done it three times already—loves it!”

  “Does he?” Carewe put aside the thought that under the rotation system he too would eventually have to relinquish the executive status. He could feel the golden centuries rolling out before him like a lush, endless carpet.

  His visit to the president’s suite would have been widely noted among the staff, so Carewe resisted the impulse to quit work early and break his news to Athene. Business as usual, he told himself, and sat imprisoned at his desk while his mind drifted in heady breezes of speculation. It was late afternoon before he remembered he had promised Athene to get in sharp at five to help with the preparations for a modest party she was giving. He glanced at his wrist and the dial tattooed on the skin, rearranging its pigmentation molecules in accordance with the standard time signals broadcast, told him he had less than thirty minutes in which to reach home.

  Marianne Toner looked up from her desk on the admin computer as he came out of his office. “Leaving early, Willy?”

  “A little—we’re having a party this evening and I’ve got to weigh in.”

  “Come over to my place and we’ll have a real party,” Marianne said smiling, yet seriously. “Just the two of us.” She was a tall, slightly heavy brunette with a voluptuous broad-hipped figure and disappointed eyes. Her apparent age was about twenty-five.

  “Just the two of us?” Carewe parried. “I didn’t realize you were so conventional at heart.”

  “Not conventional—greedy. How about it, Willy?”

  “Where’s your maidenly modesty, woman?” He moved towards the door. “It’s getting so a man isn’t safe in his own office.”

  Marianne shrugged. “You needn’t worry—I’m leaving next week.”

  “Sorry to hear that. Where for?”

  “Swifts.”

  “Oh!” Carewe knew that Swifts was a computer bureau with non-mixed staff, all female.

  “Yes—oh! It’s probably all for the best, anyway.”

  “Have to run, Marianne. See you in the morning.” Carewe hurried out to the elevator burdened with an obscure guilt. Swifts was well-known for the activity of its Priapic Club, and the fact that Marianne was going there indicated she was giving up the endless struggle to attract funkies. He guessed she would be happier; but there was pain in the thought of Marianne’s canethighed, child-hungry figure submitting to the straps of a plastic priapus.

  The air outside the Farma block was cold for late spring, although the abortive snowstorm of the morning had been successfully dumped in the Rockies. Carewe adjusted the thermostat in his belt and hurried past the security man, still feeling depressed about Marianne Toner. E.80 has to be a success, he thought. For all our sakes.

  He had turned towards his bullet when a tiny movement on the ground at the edge of the parking lot registered on his peripheral vision. At first he was unable to find what had attracted his attention, then he picked out the shape of a large frog completely covered with dust and cinders. Its throat was pumping steadily. He stepped over it, went to his bullet and got in quickly. The rush-hour queue would already be forming at the entrance to the Three Springs tube and he had no time to spare if he wanted to reach home early. He spun up the engine, accelerated out onto the highway and headed south. A mile from the Farma block he braked abruptly and, muttering with self-disgust, turned back. Others were leaving the building when he got back to it and headlights were blazing in the vehicle park, but he found the frog in the same place, still pulsing defiantly.

  “Come on, boy,” he said, scooping up the cold gritty body. “Anybody could lose his sense of direction after six months’ sleep.” He waited for a break in the traffic, then crossed the highway and threw the frog into the dark waters of the reservoir which lapped the road. A steady stream of bullets and roadcars was moving past him now and he had trouble getting back to his own vehicle. Wondering if anybody in the security kiosk had been watching his performance, he forced his bullet out into the traffic flow, but the few lost minutes had been critical. It took him another ten to reach the Three Springs tube and he groaned as he saw the line of bullets at its entrance.

  Dusk was gathering by the time he reached the breech. The roboloader photographed his registration plate and slid the bullet into the tube, leaving the chassis behind on a moving belt which carried it towards the north-bound et for use by an arriving vehicle. Carewe tried to relax as his machine passed through the sphincter valve. With tons of air pressure behind him he would cover the hundred mi
les to Three Springs in twenty minutes, but there would be another queue for chassis at the northern end and he was going to be an hour late reaching home.

  He debated calling Athene on the carphone to explain what was happening, then decided against it. There was far too much to talk about.

  Athene Carewe was tall and black-haired, with a snaky, hipless body which she could coil like a whip in relaxation or straighten like a steel blade in anger. Her features were regular except for a slight droop of the left eyelid—the result of a childhood accident—which sometimes made her look supercilious, sometimes conspiratorial. When Carewe entered the middle-bracket geodesic bubble he was buying on a one-century mortgage gage, she had already retracted the interior walls in preparation for the party. She was dressed in a light-necklace which clothed her in the fire of jewels and lake-reflected sun.

  “You ’re late, ” she said, without preamble. “Hello. ” “Sorry—I got held up. Hello. ”

  “I had to put the walls away myself. Why didn ’t you call me from the office? ”

  “I said I was sorry. Besides, the hold-up happened after I left the office. ”

  “Oh? ”

  Carewe hesitated, wondering if he should risk annoying her further by mentioning the frog. One-to-one marriages were rare in a society in which nubile females outnumbered functional males by a factor of eight. By signing an agreement not to tie off for several years he should have made a multiple marriage, the combined dowry from which would have been a fortune. One of the unwritten laws of his relationship with Athene was that she was not required to be subdued or appear grateful, and when she felt like having a row it was always the genuine article. Carewe particularly wanted to avoid a quarrel so he produced a lie about an accident near the tube entrance.

  “Anybody killed? ” she asked moodily, setting out ashtrays.

  “No. It wasn’t a serious accident. Just blocked the road for a while. ” He crossed to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of fortified milk. “How many are coming tonight? ”

  “A dozen or so. ”

  “Anybody I know? ”

  “Don ’t be funny, Will—you know them all. ”

  “Does that mean May will be here with her latest pet ram? ”

  Athene set the last ashtray down with a loud double click. “You’re the one who always criticizes people for beingld-fashioned and conventional.”

  “Do I?” Carewe swallowed some milk. “Then I shouldn’t, because I just can’t get used to seeing a succession of thirteen-year-old-boys practically having it off with May in the middle of my living space.”

  “You want her yourself? She’d be more than willing.”

  “That’s enough of that.” He caught Athene as she was passing and pulled her close to him, discovering she was wearing no solid clothing beneath the light-necklace’s shimmering brilliance. “Hey, what would you do if you had a power failure?”

  “I dare say I’d manage to keep warm.” She melted into him, suddenly.

  “I’ll bet you would.” Carewe steadied his breathing. “I’m not going to let you get any older, Athene. It wouldn’t be right.”

  “You’re going to kill me!” Her voice was flippant, but he felt the lean body harden under his fingers.

  “No—I’ve ordered our shots from Farina. I’ll get a good mark-off, too, seeing as how I work for the …”

  Athene broke away from him. “Nothing has changed, Will. I’m not going to fix and watch you get older and older …”

  “It’s all right, darling; we both fix at the same time. Me first if you like.”

  “Oh!” Her brown eyes were clouded with doubt and he knew she was looking into the future, asking herself the questions whose answers they knew only too well. What happens to love’s sweet dream when the groom becomes impotent? How long can a union of souls survive atrophy of the testes? “You’ve made up your mind?”

  “Yes.” He saw the color had left her face, and felt a pang of guilt over the clumsy way in which he had approached the subject. “But there’s nothing to worry about—Farma has developed a new kind of biostat, and I’m going to be the first to use it.”

  “A new drug?”

  “Yes—one which leaves the male function unimpaired.”

  He was totally unprepared for the open-banded blow she swung, and it caught him full on the mouth. “What the …?”

  “I told you what would happen the next time you tried anything like that.” Athene stared at him in disgust, her left eye almost closed; the lid throbbing steadily. “Get away from me, Will.”

  Carewe tasted blood and knew his lips were swelling. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “What did you think you were doing? You’ve done a few things, Will—there was the time you tried to trick me into fixing when I was on Illusogen, and the time you got my mother to come up here and work on me —but this is the clumsiest effort yet. Get it into your head that I don’t fix until you do.”

  “But this isn’t a trick! They really have…

  She interrupted him with one ugly word which hurt like another blow, and walked away. The beginnings of a bleak fury stirred in his stomach, clenching his muscles. “Athene. Is that what a one-to-one marriage is all about?”

  “Yes!” Her voice was savage. “Believe it or not, Will, this is what it’s all about. There’s more to it than you walking about in bristles and codpiece saying, ‘I’m sorry girls, I’d like to do you a good turn but noblesse oblige forces me to preserve all my purity for my wife!’ You really enjoy playing a part, but …”

  “Go on,” he prompted. “You’re in the tube now—let it bullet.”

  “Our kind of marriage is supposed to be based on absolute trust, but you don’t know the meaning of the word. You’ve put off fixing till you’re right into the thrombosis-risk age because you’re convinced I couldn’t live without being screwed three or four times a week. In fact, you’re staking your life on it.”

  Carewe gaped. “That’s the most slanted, emotional …” “Am I right or wrong?”

  He closed his mouth abruptly. Athene’s outburst had been a melange of bad temper, fear and the antiquated notions about human relationships which were peculiarly her own, but all the things she had said—including the remarks about himself—were absolutely true. And in that instant, because he loved her, he hated her. He swallowed the rest of his milk in one gulp, hoping vaguely that the calcium it contained would help relax his nerves. It was no surprise to him that his anger continued to build up. Only Athene could have turned what ought to have been a supremely happy moment of their lives into yet another shattered evening, another of the bitter episodes which occurred so regularly. It was as though the interplay of their emotions set up an unstable field which had to reverse its polarity from time to time, or destroy them both.

  “Listen,” he said hopelessly, “we’ve got to talk about this.”

  “You can talk if you like, but I don’t have to listen,” Athene smiled sweetly. “Make yourself useful, darling. Set out some of the new self-chilling glasses I bought last week.”

  “The breakthrough was bound to come sometime. Think of the research effort that’s been poured into it for two hundred years.”

  Athene nodded. “It was worth it, though. Just imagine—never having to mess around with ice cu again.”

  “I’m talking about Farma’s new drug,” he said doggedly, depressingly aware that when Athene decided to be light-hearted and elusive she was at her most intractable. “It really exists, Athene.”

  “And bring out the hors d’oeuvres.”

  “You,” he announced, “are one smug, stupid bitch.” “You’re another.” Athene pushed him towards the kitchen area. “The glasses please, Will.”

  “You want glasses?” Carewe found himself trembling as he gave in to a childish impulse. He strode to the kitchen, lifted one of the ice-cold self-chillers out of its insulating box and hurried back. Athene was thoughtfully surveying the arrangements. He pushed the glass through the sh
immering colors which clothed her, hard against her midriff, and felt her muscles writhe in shock. She sprang back from him, the glass whirred along the floor and at that precise moment the first guest of the evening arrived.

  “That looks like fun,” Hermione Snedden said from the doorway. “May I play too? Please, please, please?”

  “It’s strictly for married couples,” Athene breathed, her eyes stabbing into Carewe’s. “But come in and have a drink.”

  “I never need to be coaxed.” There were no really fat immortals—the invariance of cell replication patterns saw to that—but Hermione was naturally majestic. She flowed across the room in crimson trailing silks, arms carried almost at shoulder height, and arrived at the bar. While inspecting the array of bottles, she took something from her purse and set it on the counter.

  “Yes, have a drink, Hermione,” Carewe said. He went behind the bar and almost groaned aloud when he saw the object she had put down was a solid-image sign projector. That meant they were going to play Excerpts. “Or are you just browsing?”

  “I’m wearing red,” she said archly, “so give me a red drink. Anything at all.”

  “Right.” Carewe impassively selected an anonymous but dangerous-looking bottle, souvenir of a forgotten vacation, and poured a generous measure.

  “What’s been going on with you two, Will?” Hermione leaned across the counter.

  “Who said anything was going on?”

  “I can tell. That handsome face of yours is slightly granite-hewn tonight. A touch of the old Ozymandias.”

  He sighed. It had started already. Athene’s friends tended to be interested in books, and that was why they liked playing Excerpts. He suspected they went out of their way to sprinkle their conversation with literary allusions when speaking to him, Carewe, who had never succeeded in fihing a book, had no idea what Ozymandias meant.