"I love you, Emrys," the woman said, and died agonizedly in his arms.
He looked down at the contorted, leaden face, ravaged by sickness, and
thought: _Even when she was beautiful, I could not love her._ He could
not even feel sorry for her, except in a remote, intellectual way. He
could not even feel sorry for himself and his own inability to feel.
Since none of the servants was left in the house--those who were
still alive had fled to the country, where there was less chance
of contagion--he took her body to the crematorium himself. Other
people were there, consigning their grisly burdens to the automatic
fires--thin, sickly creatures they were, who would soon be carrion
for the firebirds themselves. Whereas he--if he had an emotion left,
it would be shame--shame for the radiant youth and health that he saw
mirrored in their dully wondering eyes.
Outside, the street was clamorous with the taped importunities of the
empty vehicles--so many machines, because there were so few people
left. But he chose to walk.
The air was sweet and clean, because the Dyall machines came and took
away the bodies of those who fell in the street, and then cleaned those
streets as carefully and tenderly as they had done when the walks and
gutters had abounded with the vibrant slovenliness of the living. Emrys
could, of course, have thrown the woman's body out into the gutter,
and the machines would have carried her in their steel maws to the
crematorium. But some remembered emotion had kept him from doing such a
thing, and had made him give her to the flames with what small ceremony
he could muster.
She had been the last mistress remaining to him, and probably, he
thought, to any man in the city. Perhaps, out in the country, there
might be women with life and lust in them still, but such women as were
left here could no longer be considered women. This last one had not
been even human for the past week; yet he had tended her--why, he could
not say, except that he had nothing better to do. For one thing, she
had been quieter when he was near her, and he could not bear her cries.
He was glad when she did die, because playing the good Samaritan had
grown tedious as, in their turn, all other roles had palled. Even
though he knew there would be no more women for him, he was glad.
During the first few weeks of the plague, when everyone who had been
alive had known that soon they would be dead, all the people on Earth
had rushed to squander the life which suddenly seemed to fill them to
bursting. Then a man could have had all the women he wanted, all of
anything he wanted, for the asking, except the one thing he really
wanted--the assurance of life.
* * * * *
Not everyone had plunged into an orgy of joyless pleasure. There were
some who took refuge in prayer--addressed either to the traditional
Deity or to the recent importations from the other planets. But, in
the end, it was the same for all, prayerful and profligate alike. The
only exceptions were the lucky few who seemed to be immune, like Emrys
Shortmire, and those who escaped from the cities--to the country or, if
they were rich, the other planets. So, even if Emrys had craved women
before, he would have had enough of them by now.
As he passed through the streets, he heard a man who walked alone and
talked to himself curse the name of Jan Shortmire. _They would tear
me to pieces if they knew I was his flesh and blood_, Emrys thought,
and smiled to think how once he had feared to be engulfed by Jan
Shortmire's reputation, and now he feared to be destroyed by it.
For it had been a starship equipped, like all starships, with the
Shortmire engines that had brought back the plague--a starship probing
the distant corners of the Galaxy which were all that Man's insatiable
curiosity had left undiscovered.
Far out, even beyond Morethis--outermost of the discovered planets--in
the middle of the dead and dying stars that were all there was in this
chill, cold sector of space, the ship had come upon three dead planets,
dark and lifeless. But when it returned to Earth to report the end of
Man's ambitions for further conquest, it turned out that one planet
had not been quite as lifeless as they had fancied. And the ship had
brought back its life--a virus against which terrestrial medicine was
powerless.
Emrys could have fled the city; he could have fled the planet. But
somehow, after three years on Earth, he had not wanted to. He had spent
those years fulfilling the dreams that all young men dream in the murky
part of their souls but seldom have the chance to gratify.
As soon as the inheritance was his, he had bought the most lavish
mansion that was available at the instant of his desire, furnished
it extravagantly, and prepared to enjoy himself. His pleasures were
many and, some of them, strange. At first his mistresses were human,
then non-human. Females of all the intelligent species, save the
Morethan, were to be found on Earth, and although consorting with
extraterrestrials was illegal, still a wealthy man had never been too
much troubled by laws.
But women--females--represented only a fraction of his pleasures, as
did the terrestrial vices. He indulged heavily in rrilla, zbokth,
mburrje, and all the other outworld pursuits that had been imported
from the planets where the native life had been intelligent enough for
decadence.
* * * * *
However, though he pushed his body a thousand times beyond what should
have been the limits of his endurance, the distress he had suffered
during the first hours of his landing on Earth did not recur. He
remained as clear of eye and trim of form as ever; each physical excess
seemed only to improve his splendid health.
Oddly, he did not seem to enjoy these pleasures as much as he had
anticipated. Something seemed lacking. It was always like this when
you dreamed too long about something, he told himself; no result ever
equaled its expectation. And he took another one of the sparkling pills
from Morethis. They provided the only satisfaction he seemed able to
get.
Emrys had been wrong about Uvrei's indifference. He apparently did
consider Emrys his responsibility, over and above the material details
of the bargain. The Morethans regarded all those of alien species as
enemies, and all those outside the clan as unfriends. Therefore, Emrys
began to realize the ceremonies of adoption he had gone through were
more than merely honorific or ritual--they had been genuine. It was an
uncomfortable conclusion.
"Well, son of my spirit," Uvrei would keep asking, "is this what you
wanted?"
"This is what I wanted, father of my soul," Emrys would agree. And it
was what he had asked, what he had _thought_ he wanted.
The ancient one would smile and say, "Then I am content," and recombine
into fog. And Emrys would wonder whether the Morethans had not _known_
before they granted him his heart's desire that it would turn to dust
and ashes when he had it. Then he would dismiss the thought, telling
himself maybe he'd been too impatient for pleasure. After all, how
could he, sprung full-blown into a quasi-alien society, hope to become
an integral part of it all at once?
So he had waited ... one year, two years, three years. At the end of
the fourth, the plague had struck. And he had stayed on Earth, because
going to another planet somehow did not seem worthwhile. He was able
to take care of his house alone, since the servants had been primarily
for show, and the great Dyall machine--which was all the house,
essentially, was--could run itself. Whenever a part of it broke down,
he repaired it himself, glad of the opportunity to have something to do
with his hands.
Finally he realized that he must be immune; hence a lifetime waited
ahead of him. So he turned to learning, for the vast libraries of tapes
and books remained changeless amid the disaster. He read and he learned
a great deal, and if he could not derive pleasure from this, at least
there was a deep intellectual appreciation that almost took its place.
The doctors on Ndrikull, the most advanced of the other planets, at
last managed to find a serum that would kill the plague--that is,
they maintained it was their serum that had killed it. Some suggested
that the virus had died because Earth's environment had eventually
proved hostile to it. But Earth did not die, even though most of its
people had, because the great machines that took care of it--the Dyall
machines--had kept functioning.
Gradually, most of the people who had fled to the other planets came
back, and those who had survived in the country returned to the
cities. Earth was restored to its former splendor as the social and
political capital of the Galaxy, though Ndrikull now was the financial
center and rivaled Earth for artistic honors. But still Emrys stuck to
his books. Once in a while, he would sink himself for a week or a month
in what would be, for other men, physical pleasure, just to see if his
reactions had changed, but they had grown even more impersonal.
* * * * *
When Emrys Shortmire had been ten years on Earth, he eventually ran
into Nicholas Dyall, at the opening of a scientific exposition. As soon
as he saw Dyall in the crowd, he turned to go, but Dyall had seen him
at the same time, and hurriedly limped across the room.
"You must be Emrys Shortmire," he declared, in a voice of surprising
resonance for so old a man. "You look so much like Jan, I couldn't be
mistaken." Grasping his stick with one hand for support, he extended
the other to Emrys, who could not refuse it. "But you are so young...."
"I'm older than I look," Emrys said uncomfortably; then remembered to
add, "You were a friend of my father's, sir?"
"A hundred years ago, yes. My name is Nicholas Dyall."
"I've heard of you; you're the man who--who invented all those
machines," Emrys said, trying not to sound too ingenuous. "I've heard
people say you revolutionized our technology as much as--"
"As much as your father revolutionized our civilization? Yes, both of
us are responsible for a great deal. Luckily, your father is dead."
"Luckily?" Emrys echoed.
"Luckily for him, I mean." The old man sighed. "But you are too young
to understand." Then his dark face relaxed into a smile. "I won't ask
if you received the letter I sent when you first arrived on Earth. I
can understand that a young man would wish the society of other--young
people."
Emrys avoided Dyall's eye, and, so doing, met the gaze of the girl
standing next to the old man, and stopped, transfixed. She was very
young, less than forty, he judged, perhaps even less than thirty.
It was long since he had seen a woman like her. Her hair was a soft
yellow, the only natural color among all the women in the room. Her
face was painted pink and white, not the blues fashionable that year.
Instead of being twisted and bedizened with cloth into fantastic shapes
and protuberances, her pretty body was clad in a simple translucent
slip. Yet, in spite of her almost deliberate dowdiness, she was
beautiful--not the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, but the
most ... no, striking was not it, either. What _was_ the word he
wanted? He could not dredge it out of the pool in which so many of his
memories had been submerged for want of room.
"This is my great-great-granddaughter Megan," Dyall introduced her. The
girl nodded and smiled. After a moment, Emrys forced himself to do the
same.
"I won't press you to come visit us, Mr. Shortmire," Dyall said to
Emrys as he and his descendant finally turned to leave, "but I hope
that you will."
"We should be so glad to see you," the girl said, with a shy smile.
"Perhaps--perhaps I will come," he found himself saying. "One
day." The two men shook hands, and Nicholas Dyall and his
great-great-granddaughter moved away. Emrys stared after them for a
minute; then, without paying any attention to the exhibits, he went
back to his house and spent the rest of the evening staring at the
falling flakes in his snowplace.
For years, he had thought he'd lost any capacity to feel. Now he knew
that was not true ... because he had been moved by Megan Dyall. How,
he could not say--not even whether it was love or hate he felt toward
her--but he _felt_. That was the important thing, and, because of that,
he had to take the risk and call on them.
* * * * *
He waited a week, then went to the Dyall house--a mansion, less
ostentatious than his, but probably more expensive. Dyall greeted him
warmly. "I'm glad you decided to come. Your father and I were not close
friends, but he was the only one left of my generation whom I knew. It
was a shock to hear of his passing, even though I hadn't seen him for a
century or so."
"You've lived for such a long time, Grandpa," Megan said in her high,
sweet voice, "it's hard to imagine. But why doesn't everybody get the
longevity treatment, so we can all live a long time?"
"Because it's difficult and expensive," her ancestor said, smiling over
her golden head at Emrys. "Because the old must make way for the young.
It is only given to those whose lives, the government feels, should be
prolonged, either because of the contributions they can still make, or
whose contributions have already been so great that this is the only
fitting reward."
The girl stared at him with large blue eyes. "Does that mean you will
live forever, Grandpa?"
"No," the old man told her. "All our science can give is an extra
half century. I don't know how long my life span would have been, but
I'm past the average and the extra half century, and so I'm living on
borrowed time."
The blue eyes filled with tears. "I don't want you to die, Grandpa. I
don't want to grow old and die, either."
Dyall looked down at her, and there was, Emrys thought, an odd
perplexity in his gaze. Didn't he find it natural for a young girl not
to like the idea of old age, of death?
"But I shall want to die when my time comes, Megan," Dyall said. "We
all will." Gently, he touched her cheek. "Perhaps, by the time you make
your contribution to society, scientists will know how to give youth as
well as extra years. More years are not really much of a gift to the
old."
"But I can't do anything, Grandpa," she sobbed. "I have nothing to
contribute."
It was an outrage, Emrys thought, that this woman, by being the essence
of femininity, should be denied the ultimate reward society had to
offer. Motherhood alone should entitle her.... He was, of course,
already envisioning himself as the father of her children. _But could
he be a father?_
Old Dyall was saying, "Perhaps, Megan, by the time you are old enough,
our government will be wise enough to realize that beauty, of itself,
deserves the greatest reward Man can give." He turned to Emrys.
"Forgive me for getting so sentimental, but Megan looks as uncannily
like her great-great-grandmother--my wife--as ... you look like your
father. I can't bear to think she must die, too. It's a pity there is
no way she can stay young and beautiful for all time."
Emrys found his fists clenching. The fingers were cold.
"Alissa's portrait was painted just before I married her," the old man
said. "She was just about Megan's age then. Come, I'd like you to see
it."
_No!_ something inside Emrys cried out, but he could not
courteously--or any other way--refuse to follow the old man.
They went into another room. Hanging over the mantelpiece was the
painting of a girl in old-fashioned clothes. Anyone, not knowing, would
have taken her to be Megan. But Emrys knew she was not, and suddenly he
let himself remember what it was that Megan meant to him ... and why he
hated Nicholas Dyall with such coruscating fury.