Methuselah's Children Part 3

While she had been talking to the Seat, Mary had turned off from the local-traffic strip into the unpaved road she had followed the night before, without slowing and apparently without looking. Lazarus gritted his teeth and hung on. They pa.s.sed a weathered sign reading CONTAMINATED AREA-PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK and graced with the conventional purple trefoil. Lazarus blinked at it and shrugged-he could not see how, at the moment, his hazard could be increased by a neutron or so.

Mary slammed the car to a stop in a clump of stunted trees near the abandoned road. The lake lay at their feet, just beyond a low bluff. She unfastened her safety belt, struck a cigarette, and relaxed. "Now we wait. It'll take at least half an hour for them to reach us no matter how hard Ira herds it. Lazarus, do you think we were seen turning off into here?"

"To tell the truth, Mary, I was too busy to look."

"Well n.o.body ever comes here, except a few reckless boys."

("-and girls," Lazarus added to himself.) Then he went on aloud, "I noted a 'hot' sign back there. How high is the count?"

"That? -Oh, pooh. Nothing to worry about unless you decided to build a house here. We're the ones who are hot. If we didn't have to stay close to the communicator, we-"

The communicator spoke. "Okay, Mary. Right in front of you."

She looked startled. "Ira?"

"This is Ira speaking but I'm still at the Seat. Pete Hardy was available in the Evanston pen, so we homed him in on you. Quicker."

"Okay-thanks!" She was turning to speak to Lazarus when he touched her arm.

"Look behind us."

A helicopter was touching down less than a hundred yards from them. Three men burst out of it. They were dressed as proctors.

Mary jerked open the door of the car and threw off her gown in one unbroken motion. She turned and called, "Come on!" as she thrust a hand back inside and tore a stud loose from the instrument panel. She ran.

Lazarus unzipped the belt of his kilt and ran out of it as he followed her to the bluff. She went dancing down it; he came after with slightly more caution, swearing at sharp stones. The blast shook them as the car exploded, but the bluff saved them.

They hit the water together.

The lock in the little submarine was barely big enough for one at a time; Lazarus shoved Mary into it first and tried to slap her when she resisted, and discovered that slapping will not work under water. Then he spent an endless time, or so it seemed, wondering whether or not he could breathe water. "What's a fish got that I ain't got?" he was telling himself, when the outer latch moved under his hand and he was able to wiggle in.

Eleven dragging seconds to blow the lock clear of water and he had a chance to see what damage, if any, the water had done to his blaster.

Mary was speaking urgently to the skipper. "Listen, Pete- there are three proctors back up there with a whiny. My car blew up in their faces just as we hit the water. But if they aren't all dead or injured, there will be a smart boy who will figure out that there was only one place for us to go-under water. We've got to be away from here before they take to the air to look for us."

"It's a losing race," Pete Hardy complained, slapping his controls as he spoke. "Even if it's only a visual search, I'll have to get outside and stay outside the circle of total reflection faster than he can gain alt.i.tude-and I can't." But the little sub lunged forward rea.s.suringly.

Mary worried about whether or not to call the Seat from the sub. She decided not to; it would just increase the hazard both to the sub and to the Seat itself. So she calmed herself and waited, huddled small in a pa.s.senger seat too cramped for two. Peter Hardy swung wide into deep water, hugging the bottom, picking up the Muskegon-Gary bottom beacons and conned himself in blind.

By the time they surfaced in the pool inside the Seat she had decided against any physical means of communication, even the carefully s.h.i.+elded equipment at the Seat. Instead she hoped to find a telepathic sensitive ready and available among the Families' dependents cared for there. Sensitives were scarce among healthy members of the Howard Families as they were in the rest of the population, but the very inbreeding which had conserved and reinforced their abnormal longevity had also conserved and reinforced bad genes as well as good; they had an unusually high percentage of physical and mental defectives. Their board of genetic control plugged away at the problem of getting rid of bad strains while conserving the longevity strain, but for many generations they would continue to pay for their long lives with an excess of defectives.

But almost five per cent of these defectives were telepathically sensitive.

Mary went straight to the sanctuary in the Seat where some of these dependents were cared for, with Lazarus Long at her heels. She braced the matron. "Where's Little Stephen? I need him."

"Keep your voice down," the matron scolded. "Rest hour-you can't."

"Janice, I've got to see him," Mary insisted. "This won't wait. I've got to get a message out to all the Families-at once."

The matron planted her hands on her hips. "Take it to the communication office. You can't come here disturbing my children at all hours. I won't have it."

"Janice, please! I don't dare use anything but telepathy. You know I wouldn't do this unnecessarily. Now take me to Stephen."

"It wouldn't do you any good if I did. Little Stephen has had one of his bad spells today."

"Then take me to the strongest sensitive who can possibly work. Quickly, Janice! The safety of every member may depend on it."

"Did the trustees send you?"

"No, no! There wasn't time!"

The matron still looked doubtful. While Lazarus was trying to recall how long it had been since he had socked a lady, she gave in. "All right-you can see Billy, though I shouldn't let you. Mind you, don't tire him out." Still bristling, she led them along a corridor past a series of cheerful rooms and into one of them. Lazarus looked at the thing on the bed and looked away.

The matron went to a cupboard and returned with a hypodermic injector. "Does he work under a hypnotic?" Lazarus asked.

"No," the matron answered coldly, "he has to have a stimulant to be aware of us at all." She swabbed skin on the arm of the gross figure and made the injection. "Go ahead," she said to Mary and lapsed into grim-mouthed silence.

The figure on the bed stirred, its eyes rolled loosely, then seemed to track. It grinned. "Aunt Mary!" it said. "Oooh! Did you bring Billy Boy something?'

"No," she said gently. "Not this time, hon. Aunt Mary was in too much of a hurry. Next time? A surprise? Will that do?'

"All right," it said docilely.

"That's a good boy." She reached out and tousled its hair; Lazarus looked away again. "Now will Billy Boy do something for Aunt Mary? A big, big favor?"

"Sure."

"Can you hear your friends?"

"Oh, sure."

"All of them?"

"Uh huh. Mostly they don't say anything," it added.

"Call to them."

There was a very short silence. "They heard me."

"Fine! Now listen carefully, Billy Boy: All the Families- urgent warning! Elder Mary Sperling speaking. Under an Action-in-Council the Administrator is about to arrest every revealed member. The Council directed him to use 'full expedience'-and it is my sober judgment that they are determined to use any means at all, regardless of the Covenant, to try to squeeze out of us the so-called secret of our long lives. They even intend to use the tortures developed by the inquisitors of the Prophets!" Her voice broke. She stopped and pulled herself together. "Now get busy! Find them, warn them, hide them! You may have only minutes left to save them!"

Lazarus touched her arm and whispered; she nodded and went on: "If any cousin is arrested, rescue him by any means at all! Don't try to appeal to the Covenant, don't waste time arguing about justice rescue him! Now move!"

She stopped and then spoke in a tired, gentle voice, "Did they hear us, Billy Boy?"

"Sure."

"Are they telling their folks?"

"Uh huh. All but Jimmie-the-Horse. He's mad at me," it added confidentially.

"'Jimmie-the-Horse'? Where is he?"

"Oh, where he lives."

"In Montreal," put in the matron. "There are two other sensitives there-your message got through. Are you finished?"

"Yes . . ." Mary said doubtfully. "But perhaps we had better have some other Seat relay it back."

"No!" "But, Janice-"

"I won't permit it. I suppose you had to send it but I want to give Billy the antidote now. So get out."

Lazarus took her arm. "Come on, kid. It either got through or it didn't; you've done your best. A good job, girl."

Mary went on to make a full report to the Resident Secretary; Lazarus left her on business of his own. He retraced his steps, looking for a man who was not too busy to help him; the guards at the pool entrance were the first he found. "Service-" be began.

"Service to you," one of them answered. "Looking for someone?" He glanced curiously at Long's almost complete nakedness, glanced away again-how anybody dressed, or did not dress, was a private matter.

"Sort of," admitted Lazarus. "Say, Bud, do you know of anyone around here who would lend me a kilt?"

"You're looking at one," the guard answered pleasantly. "Take over, d.i.c.k-back in a minute." He led Lazarus to bachelors' quarters, outfitted him, helped him to dry his pouch and contents, and made no comment about the a.r.s.enal strapped to his hairy thighs. How elders behaved was no business of his and many of them were even touchier about their privacy than most people. He had seen Aunt Mary Sperling arrive stripped for swimming but had not been surprised as he had heard Ira Barstow briefing Pete for the underwater pickup; that the elder with her chose to take a dip in the lake weighed down by the hardware did surprise him but not enough to make him forget his manners.

"Anything else you need?' he asked. "Do those shoes fit?

"Well enough. Thanks a lot, Bud." Lazarus smoothed the borrowed kilt. It was a little too long for him but it comforted him. A loin strap was okay, he supposed-if you were on Venus. But he had never cared much for Venus customs. d.a.m.n it, a man liked to be dressed. "I feel better," he admitted. "Thanks again. By the way, what's your name?"

"Edmund Hardy, of the Foote Family."

"That so? What's your line?"

"Charles Hardy and Evelyn Foote. Edward Hardy-Alice Johnson and Terence Briggs-Eleanor Weatheral. Oliver-"

"That's enough. I sorta thought so. You're one of my great-great-grandsons."

"Why, that's interesting," commented Hardy agreeably. "Gives us a sixteenth of kins.h.i.+p, doesn't it-not counting convergence. May I ask your name?

"Lazarus Long."

Hardy shook his head. "Some mistake. Not in my line."

"Try Woodrow Wilson Smith instead. It was the one I started with."

"Oh, that one! Yes, surely. But I thought you were . . . uh--"

"Dead? Well, I ain't."

"Oh, I didn't mean that at all," Hardy protested, blus.h.i.+ng at the blunt Anglo-Saxon monosyllable. He hastily added, "I'm glad to have run across you, Gran'ther. I've always wanted to hear the straight of the story about the Families' Meeting in 2012."

"That was before you were born, Ed," Lazarus said gruffly, "and don't call me 'Gran'ther.'"

"Sorry, sir-I mean 'Sorry, Lazarus.' Is there any other service I can do for you?"

"I shouldn't have gotten s.h.i.+rty. No-yes, there is, too. Where can I swipe a bite of breakfast? I was sort of rushed this morning."

"Certainly." Hardy took him to the bachelors' pantry, operated the autochef for him, drew coffee for his watch mate and himself, and left. Lazarus consumed his "bite of breakfast"-about three thousand calories of sizzling sausages, eggs, jam, hot breads, coffee with cream, and ancillary items, for he worked on the a.s.sumption of always topping off his reserve tanks because you never knew how far you might have to lift before you had another chance to refuel. In due time he sat back, belched, gathered up his dishes and shoved them in the incinerator, then went looking for a newsbox.

He found one in the bachelors' library, off their lounge. The room was empty save for one man who seemed to be about the same age as that suggested by Lazarus' appearance. There the resemblance stopped; the stranger was slender, mild in feature, and was topped off by finespun carroty hair quite unlike the grizzled wiry bush topping Lazarus. The stranger was bending over the news receiver with his eyes pressed to the microviewer.

Lazarus cleared his throat loudly and said, "Howdy."

The man jerked his head up and exclaimed, "Oh! Sorry-I was startled. Do y' a service?"

"I was looking for the newsbox. Mind if we throw it on the screen?"

"Not at all." The smaller man stood up, pressed the rewind b.u.t.ton, and set the controls for projection. "Any particular subject?"

"I wanted to see," said Lazarus, "if there was any news about us-the Families."

"I've been watching for that myself. Perhaps we had better use the sound track and let it hunt."

"Okay," agreed Lazarus, stepping up and changing the setting to audio. "What's the code word?'

"'Methuselah.'"

Lazarus punched in the setting; the machine chattered and whined as it scanned and rejected the track speeding through it, then it slowed with a triumphant click. "The DAILY DATA," it announced. "The only midwest news service subscribing to every major grid. Leased videochannel to Luna City. Tri-S correspondents throughout the System. First, Fast, and Most! Lincoln, Nebraska-Savant Denounces Oldsters! Dr. Witweli Osca.r.s.en, President Emeritus of Bryan Lyceum, calls for official reconsideration of the status of the kin group styling themselves the 'Howard Families.' 'It is proved,' he says. 'that these people have solved the age-old problem of extending, perhaps indefinitely, the span of human life. For that they are to be commended; it is a worthy and potentially fruitful research. But their claim that their solution is no more than hereditary predisposition defies both science and common sense. Our modern knowledge of the established laws of generics enables us to deduce with certainty that they are withholding from the public some secret technique or techniques whereby they accomplish their results.

"'It is contrary to our customs to permit scientific knowledge to be held as a monopoly for the few. When concealing such knowledge strikes at life itself, the action becomes treason to the race. As a citizen, I call on the Administration to act forcefully in this matter and I remind them that the situation is not one which could possibly have been foreseen by the wise men who drew up the Covenant and codified our basic customs. Any custom is man-made and is therefore a finite attempt to describe an infinity of relations.h.i.+ps. It follows as the night from day that any custom necessarily has its exceptions. To be bound by them in the face of new--'"

Lazarus pressed the hold b.u.t.ton. "Had enough of that guy?

"Yes, I had already heard it." The stranger sighed. "I have rarely heard such complete lack of semantic rigor. It surprises me-Dr. Osca.r.s.en has done sound work in the past."

"Reached his dotage," Lazarus stated, as he told the machine to try again. "Wants what he wants when he wants it- and thinks that const.i.tutes a natural law."

The machine hummed and clicked and again spoke up. "The DAILY DATA, the only midwest news-"

"Can't we scramble that commercial?" suggested Lazarus. His companion peered at the control panel. "Doesn't seem to be equipped for it."

"Ensenada, Baja California. Jeffers and Lucy Weatheral today asked for special proctor protection, alleging that a group of citizens had broken into their home, submitted them to personal indignity and committed other asocial acts. The Weatherals are, by their own admission, members of the notorious Howard Families and claim that the alleged incident could be traced to that supposed fact. The district provost points out that they have offered no proof and has taken the matter under advis.e.m.e.nt. A town ma.s.s meeting has been announced for tonight which will air-"

The other man turned toward Lazarus. "Cousin, did we hear what I thought we heard? That is the first case of asocial group violence in more than twenty years . . . yet they reported it like a breakdown in a weather integrator."

"Not quite," Lazarus answered grimly. "The connotations of the words used in describing us were loaded."

"Yes, true, but loaded cleverly. I doubt if there was a word in that dispatch with an emotional index, taken alone, higher than one point five. The newscasters are allowed two zero, you know."

"You a psychometrician?"