Weatheral said nothing. Lazarus glared at him. “Didn’t your mother teach you to say ‘Thank you’?”
“For what, Lazarus? For giving me something after you’re dead and no longer need it? If you do this, it will be to tickle your vanity—not to please me.”
Lazarus grinned. “Hell, yes. I ought to stick in a condition that you name the planet ‘Lazarus.’ But I would have no way to enforce it. Okay, we understand each other. And I think—Do you respect good machinery?”
“Eh? Yes. As much as I despise machinery that doesn’t do what it is putatively designed to do.”
“We still understand each other. I think I’ll leave the ‘Dora’ —that’s my yacht—to you personally rather than to the Families’ chairman . . if you lead a migration.”
“Uh . . you tempt me to thank you.”
“Don’t. Just be good to her. She’s a sweet craft, she’s never known anything but kindness. She’ll make a fine flagship for you. With simple reoutfitting—specs for it in her computer—she’ll house a staff of twenty or thirty. And you can ground and reconnoiter in her, then lift off again—which your transports won’t be able to do, most likely.”
“Lazarus . . I don’t want to inherit either money or a yacht from you. Let them finish your rejuvenation—and come with us, man! I’ll step aside and you can boss. Or you can have no duties at all. But come!”
Lazarus smiled bleakly and shook his head. “I’ve been on six such colonizing ventures to virgin planets, not counting Secundus. All to planets I discovered. Gave it up centuries back. Anything gets boring in time. Do you think Solomon serviced all his thousand wives? If so, what sort of job did he do on the last one?—poor girl! Find me something new to do and I might never touch that suicide switch and still give you all I’ve got for your colony. It ’ud be a fair swap . . as this halfway rejuvenation is most unsatisfactory; I don’t feel well, yet I can’t die. So I’m stuck between the suicide switch and giving in for the full treatment . . the donkey that starved to death between two piles of hay. But it would have to be new, Ira, not something I’ve done over and over again. Like that old whore, I’ve climbed the same stairs too many times; my feet hurt.”
“I’ll think about the problem, Lazarus. I’ll give it hard and systematic research.”
“Seven to two you can’t find anything I haven’t done.”
“I’ll make a real try. You’ll lay off the suicide switch while I research it?”
“No promises. Not once I get this will redrafted. Can you trust your chief legal eagle? May need some help . . because this will”—he tapped the envelope—“leaving everything to the Families would stand up on Secundus no matter how many flaws are in it. But if I leave it to a private party—you, I mean—some of my descendants—quite a passel—will scream ‘undue influence’ and try to break it. Ira, they’ll keep it tied up in court until it’s dribbled away in legal fees. Let’s avoid that, eh?”
“We can. I’ve made changes in the rules. On this planet a man can put his will through probate before his death, and if there are flaws, the court is required to help him rephrase it to accomplish his purposes. If he does it that way, no contest can be entertained by any court; it goes automatically into effect on his death. Of course if he changes his will, the new will must go through the same process—which makes changing his mind expensive. But by using preprobate, it does not take a lawyer for even the most complex will. And the lawyers can’t touch it afterwards.”
Lazarus’ eyes widened with pleasure. “Didn’t you annoy a few lawyers?”
“I’ve annoyed so many,” Ira said dryly, “that every transport to Felicity has voluntary migrants in it—and so many lawyers have annoyed me that some are involuntary ones.” The Chairman Pro Tem looked sourly amused. “Once I said to my Chief Justice, ‘Warren, I’ve had to reverse too many of your decisions. You’ve been splitting hairs, misinterpreting the rules, and ignoring equity ever since you came into office. Go home; you’re under house arrest until the ’Last Chance‘ lifts. You can have an escort during daylight hours to let you wind up your private affairs.’ ”
Lazarus chuckled. “Shoulda hanged him. You know what he did, don’t you? Set up shop again on Felicity and went into politics. If they didn’t lynch him.”
“His problem and theirs, not mine. Lazarus, I never let a man be executed for being a fool—but if he’s too obnoxious, I ship him out. There’s no need to sweat over your new will if you want one. Just dictate it with any elaborations and explanations you see fit. Then we’ll run it through a semantic analyzer to rephrase it into airtight legal language. Once it satisfies you, you can submit it to the High Court—which will come to you if you prefer—and the Court will validate it. Done that way it could then be overturned only by arbitrary act of a new Chairman Pro Tem. Which I consider most unlikely; the Trustees do not place such men in office.”
Weatheral added, “But I hope you will take plenty of time, Lazarus. I want a fair chance to search for something new, something that will restore your interest in life.”
“All right. But don’t dally; I won’t be put off with a Scheherazade gag. Have them send me a recorder—tomorrow morning, say.”
Weatheral seemed about to speak, did not. Lazarus looked at him sharply. "This conversation is being recorded?”
“Yes, Lazarus. Sound and holography, everything that happens in this suite. But—your pardon, sir!—it goes only to my desk and does not become a permanent record until I have checked and okayed it. Nothing so far, that is.”
Lazarus shrugged. “Forget it. Ira, I learned centuries back that there is no privacy in any society crowded enough to need ID’s. A law guaranteeing privacy simply insures that bugs—microphones and lenses and so forth—are that much harder to spot. I hadn’t thought about it up till now because I take it for granted that my privacy will be invaded any time I visit such places—then I ignore it unless I’m up to something the local law won’t like. In which case I use evasive tactics.”
“Lazarus, that record can be wiped. Its only purpose is to make me certain that the Senior is being properly taken care of—a responsibility I will not delegate.”
“I said, ‘Forget it.’ But I’m surprised at your naivete, a man in your position, in thinking that the record is piped only to your desk. I’ll lay long odds, any amount you like, that it goes one, two, even three or more other places.”
“If so, Lazarus, and I can find it out, Felicity will have some new colonists—after they’ve spent some unpleasant hours in the Colosseum.”
“Ira, it doesn’t matter. If any fool wants to watch an old, old man grunting on the pot or taking a bath, he’s welcome. You yourself insured that it would happen by making a point of the record being secret, your eyes only. Security people always spy on their bosses; they can’t help it, it’s a syndrome that goes with the job. Have you had dinner? I’d be pleased to have you stay if you have time.”
“I would be honored indeed to have dinner with the Senior.”
“Oh, knock it off, Bud; there’s no virtue in being old, it just takes a long time. I’d like you to stay because I’m enjoying human companionship. Those two over there are no company; I’m not even sure they’re human. Robots, maybe. Why do they wear those diving suits and shiny helmets? I like to see a man’s face.”
“Lazarus, those are total isolation garments. For your protection, not theirs. Against infection.”
"What? Ira, when a bug bites me, the bug dies. Even so, since they have to wear that, how is it that you come in wearing street clothes?”
“Not quite, Lazarus. For my purpose I needed a social talk, face to face. So the last two hours before I came in I spent undergoing a most careful physical examination, followed by scalp-to-toe sterilization of skin, hair, ears, nails, teeth, nose, throat—even a gas inhalation which I can’t name but did not like—while my clothes were sterilized even more thoroughly. Even that envelope I fetched to you. This suite is sterile and kept so.”
“Ir
a, such precautions are silly. Unless my immunity has been intentionally lowered?”
“No. Or let me say, ‘I think not.’ No reason for it as any transplant will of course be done from your own clone.”
“So it’s unnecessary. If I didn’t catch anything in that flophouse, why would I catch anything now? But I don’t catch things. I worked as a physician during a plague—don’t look surprised; medicine is just one of fifty-odd trades I’ve followed. Unknown plague on Ormuzd; everybody caught it, twenty-eight percent died. Save yours truly, who didn’t even have a sniffle. So tell those—No, you’ll want to do it through the Director of the Clinic; bypassing your chain-of-command ruins morale—though why I should care about this organization’s morale I don’t know, seeing that I am an involuntary guest. Tell the Director that, if I must have nurses, I want them to dress like nurses. Or, better yet, like people. Ira, if you want cooperation out of me of any sort, you’ll start by cooperating with me. Otherwise I’m going to take the joint apart with my bare hands.”
“I’ll speak to the Director, Lazarus.”
“Good. Now let’s have dinner. But a drink first—and if the Director doesn’t think I should have one, tell him bluntly that he will have to go back to force-feeding and there is some question as to whose throat the tube will go down; I’m in no mood to be pushed around. Is there any real whisky on this planet? Wasn’t the last time I was here.”
“Not that I would drink. But the local brandy I think well of.”
“Good. Brandy and bubbles for me if that is the best we can do, a brandy Manhattan if anyone knows what I mean by that.”
“I do, and like them—I learned something about ancient drinks when I studied your life.”
“Fine. Then please order for us, drinks and dinner—and I’ll listen and see how many words I can pick up. I think my memory is coming back a bit.”
Weatheral spoke to one of the technicians; Lazarus interrupted. “That should be one-third sweet vermouth, not one-half.”
“So? You understood it?”
“Mostly. Indo-European roots, with a simplified syntax and grammar; I’m beginning to recall it. Damn it, when a man has had to learn as many languages as I have, it’s easy for one to slip away. But it’s coming back.”
Service was so fast as to cause one to suspect that a crew was standing by ready to produce anything that the Senior or the Chairman Pro Tem asked for.
Weatheral raised his glass. “Long life.”
“In a pig’s eye,” Lazarus growled and took a sip. He made a face. “Whew! Panther sweat. But it does have alcohol in it.” He took another. “Improves as your tongue gets numb. Okay, Ira, you’ve stalled long enough. What was your real reason for snatching me back from my well-earned rest?”
“Lazarus, we need your wisdom.”
II
Lazarus stared in horror. “What did you say?”
“I said,” Ira Weatheral repeated, “that we need your wisdom, sir. We do.”
“I thought that I was off again in one of those before-dying dreams. Son, you’ve come to the wrong window. Try across the hall.”
Weatheral shook his head. “No, sir. Oh, it isn’t necessary to use the word ‘wisdom’ if it offends you. But we do need to learn what you know. You are more than twice as old as the next oldest member of the Families. You mentioned that you have practiced more than fifty professions. You’ve been everywhere, you’ve seen far more than anyone else. You’ve certainly learned more than any of the rest of us. We aren’t doing things much better now than we were two thousand years ago, when you were young. You must know why we are still making mistakes our ancestors made. It would be a great loss if you hurried your death without taking time to tell us what you have learned.”
Lazarus scowled and bit his lip. “Son, one of the few things I’ve learned is that humans hardly ever learn from the experience of others. They learn—when they do, which isn’t often —on their own, the hard way.”
“That one statement is worth recording for all time.”
“Hmm! No one would learn anything from it; that’s what it says. Ira, age does not bring wisdom. Often it merely changes simple stupidity into arrogant conceit. Its only advantage, so far as I have been able to see, is that it spans change. A young person sees the world as a still picture, immutable. An old person has had his nose rubbed in changes and more changes and still more changes so many times that he knows it is a moving picture, forever changing. He may not like it—probably doesn’t; I don’t—but he knows it’s so, and knowing it is the first step in coping with it.”
“May I place in open record what you have just said?”
“Huh? That’s not wisdom, that’s a cliché. An obvious truth. Any fool will admit that, even if he doesn’t live by it.”
“It would carry greater weight with your name on it, Senior.”
“Do as you like; it’s just horse sense. But if you think I have gazed upon the naked Face of God, think again. I haven’t even begun to find out how the Universe works, much less what it is for. To figure out the basic questions about this World it would be necessary to stand outside and look at it. Not inside. No, not in two thousand years, not in twenty thousand. When a man dies, he may shake loose his local perspective and see the thing as a whole.”
“Then you believe in an afterlife?”
“Slow up! I don’t ‘believe’ in anything. I know certain things —little things, not the Nine Billion Names of God—from experience. But I have no beliefs. Belief gets in the way of learning.”
“That’s what we want, Lazarus: what you have learned. Even though you say it’s nothing but ‘little things.’ May I suggest that anyone who has managed to stay alive as long as you have must necessarily have learned many things, or you could not have lived so long? Most humans die violent deaths. The very fact that we live so much longer than our ancestors did makes this inevitable. Traffic accident, murder, wild animals, sports, pilot error, a slippery bit of mud—eventually something catches up with us. You haven’t lived a safe, placid life—quite the contrary!—yet you have managed to outwit all hazards for twenty-three centuries. How? It can’t be luck.”
“Why can’t it be? The most unlikely things do happen, Ira —there is nothing so unlikely as a baby. But it’s true that I’ve always watched where I put my feet . . and never fought when I could duck out . . and when I did have to fight, I always fought dirty. If I had to fight, I wanted him to be dead instead of me. So I tried to arrange it that way. Not luck. Or not much, anyway.” Lazarus blinked thoughtfully. “I’ve never argued with the weather. Once a mob wanted to lynch me. I didn’t try to reason with them; I just put a lot of miles between me and them as fast as I could and never went back there.”
“That’s not in any of your memoirs.”
“Lots of things not in my memoirs. Here comes chow.”
The door dilated, a dining table for two glided in, positioned itself as the chairs separated for it, and started unfolding to serve. The technicians approached quietly and offered unnecessary personal service. Weatheral said, “Smells good. Do you have any eating rituals?”
“Eh? Praying or such? No.”
“Not that sort. Such as—Say one of my executives eats with me: I won’t let him discuss business at the table. But if you will permit, I would like to continue this conversation.”
“Certainly, why not? As long as we stick to subjects that don’t rile the stomach. Did you ever hear what the priest told the old maid?”
Lazarus glanced at the technician at his elbow. “Perhaps not now. I think this shorter one is female and she just might know some English. You were saying?”
“I was saying that your memoirs are incomplete. Even if you are determined to go through with dying, won’t you consider granting me and your other descendants the rest of your memoirs? Simply talk, tell us what you’ve seen and done. Careful analysis might teach us quite a lot. For example, what did happen at that Families Meeting of 2012? The minutes don’t tell much.”
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“Who cares now, Ira? They’re all dead. It would be my version without giving them a chance to answer back. Let sleeping dogs bury their own dead. Besides, I told you my memory was playing tricks. I’ve used Andy Libby’s hypno- encyclopedic techniques—and they’re good—and also learned tier storage for memory I didn’t need every day, with keying words to let a tier cascade when I did need it, like a computer, and I have had my brain washed of useless memories several times in order to clear those file drawers for new data —and still it’s no good. Half the time I can’t remember where I put the book I was reading the night before, then waste a morning looking for it—before I remember that that book was one I was reading a century ago. Why won’t you leave an old man in peace?”
“All you have to do is to tell me to shut up, sir. But I hope you will not. Granted that memory is imperfect, nevertheless you were eyewitness to thousands of things the rest of us are too young to have seen. Oh, I’m not asking you to reel off a formal autobiography covering all your centuries. But you might reminisce about anything you care to talk about. For example, there is no record anywhere of your earliest years. I—and millions of others—would be extremely interested in whatever you remember of your boyhood.”
“What is there to remember? I spent my boyhood the way every boy does—trying to keep my elders from finding out what I was up to.”
Lazarus wiped his mouth and looked thoughtful. “On the whole I was successful. The few times I was caught and clobbered taught me to be more careful next time—keep my mouth shut more and not make my lies too complicated. Lying is one of the fine arts, Ira, and it seems to be dying out.”