Sam began to approach threateningly. He couldn't afford to have
halftrippers hang out in his place. For one thing, the shipping lines
would soon declare him out of bounds for their crews. You just can't
let good men come in contact with obvious victims of space cafard.
The old-timer Sam had called Joseph was distressed. "You know not what
you say," he told me gently.
I managed a sneer. "Am I supposed to buy a drink for every spacebum
that comes along?"
The halftripper's eyes lit up and he came closer to the old man. "How
about it, pop? Could you loan me the price of a nip of woji?"
Joseph's face was compassionate. "I am sorry, brother, I myself have
nothing, but I commend you to the generosity of the tavern keeper."
I snorted at that. I could imagine how much generosity the space leper
would get from the bartender.
That's where the surprise came. Sam sighed. "Okay, halftripper, what'll
it be?"
The spacebum ordered a double woji, got it down quickly, as though he
was afraid Sam might change his mind, and then beat it to find a place
to have his dreams when the full force of the also-narcotic drink hit
him.
I finished my brandy, ordered another, and grinned wryly at the
old-timer. "You give me kert for telling him to beat it, but you give
Sam the high sign to let him have woji with which to rot out his
brains. I'd think I was being the kinder of the two of us."
"Each man's salvation is within himself," Joseph said softly. "You
won't redeem him by attempting to keep him from his weaknesses."
"You talk like a saint but I notice you're sitting here at a bar."
He looked at me penetratingly, and there was vast emptiness behind
his eyes. "There is little to enjoy in life," he said softly, "but
I have had ample time to investigate all of the supposed pleasures.
At one time I drank greatly and kept myself in a state of continual
intoxication for a period longer than you could believe. Then I went
through a state when I let nothing pass my lips but water. Now I see
the mistake of both extremes and can enjoy an occasional glass without
feeling the need of swilling it down until intoxication dulls me."
He had me interested now. I said, "You sound as though you've found the
way in which to get the greatest satisfaction from everything in life
but I notice that you don't appear particularly happy."
He was silent for a long time. Finally he sighed and answered,
"Happiness is not to be found in wine, nor in food, nor in beautiful
women, nor even in wealth and power. It is from within, what you have
done, what you are in the eyes of your fellow man."
He looked as though he was about to say more, but he fell silent, his
eyes on something far away, although he seemed to be looking directly
into my face. Then a light returned to them and he came back to our
conversation. "I am sorry," he said. "For a moment you reminded me of
someone I knew long and long ago. But now I must be on my way." He left
his drink half-finished on the bar and walked wearily to the door.
Sam took his glass away and wiped the bar reflectively. "Whenever
he's here, I can't turn down any halftrippers or other spacebums," he
complained. "I tried it once, and the old boy looked so pathetic that I
damn near cried myself."
"He seems to be quite a character," I said, only half-interested.
"Sure," Sam said. "Haven't you heard about Joseph? He's immortal."
"What?" I said, startled.
* * * * *
"Immortal. You know, he lives forever." He poured me another brandy and
leaned on the bar. His other customers had left and he was obviously in
the mood for talking.
"I thought everybody knew about Joseph," he went on. "He was one of the
first spacebarons, a real bigshot, controlled the whole of Calypso; him
and his brother. They not only personally owned all of the satellite,
but even all of the space lines that served it. When it came to law
there, he was judge, jury, and owner of the courthouse and jail.
Brother, that was one monopoly."
"You mean that old man that was just here?" I said in amazement.
"That's right. Joseph, we call him now. He probably had a longer name
then. It was a long time ago.
"Anyway, to get back to the story, one day a space liner radios in
that it wants to make an emergency landing on Calypso for medical
assistance. They had some virulent disease on board and the passengers
and crew were dying like flies.
"Well, this brother of Joseph, Micheal, or something like that his name
was, advises Joseph not to give them permission to land. The captain of
the liner pleads with him, but Joseph tells him to move on, he doesn't
want to take any chances. The ship tried to make the next port, I
forget just what it was, but, anyway, to cut it short, they all died.
That's what started things churning in Joseph's bailiwick; a full-scale
revolution, no less."
"You missed something there," I said. "The people wouldn't have been
expected to be so upset. After all, no matter how mistaken, he must
have thought he was acting in the interests of everyone on Calypso."
"Yeah," Sam pointed out, "but the thing is that among the passengers
was Joseph's own boy, the most popular person on the satellite and
the apple of his old man's eye. Nobody had known it, but the kid was
playing hookey from his school on Terra and was making a cruise of the
Jupiter moons.
"Joseph himself had never been very popular with his people, neither
had this younger brother of his, Micheal. Too strict, see. But
everybody liked the boy and were looking forward to the day when he'd
take over the reins of government. When it came out what happened,
they went berserk. They cornered Joseph and Micheal and a dozen or so
of their close associates in the palace, which was actually more of a
fortress than anything else."
Sam wiped the bar again without need, and said reflectively, "It
must've been quite a fight. Not that Joseph himself participated. The
boy had been his whole life, and he just moved around like he was in a
trance.
"They threw everything at that palace. Every weapon, every device, that
had been thought up for centuries; but it didn't crack. Finally, the
fight was ended by a fleet of battle cruisers from Terra. Joseph and
Micheal and the rest were removed and brought here to Mars. None of
them dared to remain on Calypso."
I poured myself another brandy from the bottle that Sam had left on the
bar. "You make quite a story of it," I told him, "but you didn't tell
me what you'd started to--about the immortality."
"Yeah," he said, "that's right. Well, it seems that in the atomic
bombardment of the palace something happened that wound up with Joseph
and his friends all immortal. Don't ask me what; I don't know and
neither did these scientist guys when they tried to figure it out. Of
course, it didn't become known for years; not until it became obvious
they weren't dying, or even aging. They continued to appear as they had
at the time of the fight. I don't mean they couldn't die at all; one by
one they dropped away. Two were lost in space; one was blown up in an
explosion on Terra; another was burned to death; but the only way they
could die was through accident--or suicide. After a few hundred years
they were all gone but Joseph, and, of course, he'd gone batty."