The Immortals (7 page)

Perhaps some day it would take more than a man could earn. That was why men wanted Cartwright's children. That—and the unquenchable thirst for life, the unbearable fear of death—was why men hunted those fabulous creatures.

Men are like children,
Sibert thought,
afraid of the long dark. All of us.

He shivered and pushed quickly through the doorway.

The elevator was out of order as usual. Sibert climbed the stairs quickly. He stopped at the fifth floor
for breath, thankful that he had to go no higher. Stair-climbing was dangerous, heart-straining work, even for a young man.

But what made his heart turn in his chest was the sight of the woman standing in front of a nearby door and the long, white envelope she held in her hands.

A moment later Sibert leaned past her and gently detached the envelope from her fingers. “This wasn't to be delivered until six, Missus Gentry,” he chided softly, “and it's only five.”

“I got a whole building to take care of,” she complained in an offended whine. “I got more to do than run up and down stairs all day delivering messages. I was up here, so I was delivering it, like you said.”

“If it hadn't been important, I wouldn't have asked.”

“Well”—the thin, old face grudgingly yielded a smile—”I'm sorry. No harm done.”

“None. Good night, Missus Gentry.”

As the landlady's footsteps faded down the uncarpeted, odorous hallway, lighted only by a single bulb over the stairwell, he turned to study the name printed on the door: Barbara McFarland.

He added a mental classification: Immortal.

*  *  *

The quick, sharp footsteps came toward the door and stopped. Fingers fumbled with locks. Sibert considered retreat and discarded the notion. The door opened.

“Eddy!” The young woman's voice was soft, surprised, and pleased. “I didn't know you were back.”

She was not beautiful, Sibert thought analytically.
Her features were ordinary, her coloring neutral. With her mouse-brown hair and her light brown eyes, the kindest description was “attractive.” And yet she looked healthy, glowing. Even radiant. That was the word. Or was that only a subjective reflection of his new knowledge?

“Bobs,” he said fondly, and took her in his arms. “Just got in. Couldn't wait to see if you were all right.”

“Silly,” she said tremulously, seeming to enjoy the attention but showing a self-conscious necessity to minimize it. “What could happen to me?” She drew back a little, smiling up into his eyes.

His gaze dropped momentarily, then locked with hers. “I don't know, and I don't want to find out. Pack as much as you can get in one bag. We're leaving.”

“I can't just pick up and walk out,” she said quickly, her eyes puzzled. “What's the—”

“If you love me, Bobs,” he said in a low, tight voice, “you'll do as I ask, and no questions. I'll be back in half an hour at the latest. I want you to be packed and ready. I'll explain everything then.”

“All right, Eddy.”

He rewarded her submission with a tender smile. “Get busy, then. Lock your door. Don't open it for anybody but me.” He pushed her gently through the doorway and pulled the door shut between them and waited until he heard a bolt shot home.

His room was at the end of the hall. Inside, a tidal wave of weariness crashed over him. He let himself slump into a chair, relaxing completely. Five minutes
later he pulled himself upright and ripped open the letter he had retrieved from Mrs. Gentry. It began:

Dear Bobs:

If I am right—and you will not receive this letter unless I am—you are the object of the greatest manhunt ever undertaken in the history of the world. . . .

He glanced through it hastily, ripped it to shreds, and burned them in the ashtray. He crushed the ashes into irretrievable flecks, and sat down in front of the desk and a portable computer. His fingers danced over the keys and a series of words formed on the screen:

Near this nation's capital, in a seven-story bombproof building, is the headquarters of an organization which spends $100,000,000 a year and has not produced a single product of value. It has been spending for fifty years. It will continue for fifty more if it does not achieve its purpose before then.

It is hunting for something.

It is hunting for immortality.

If you have read this far, you are the third man besides the founders of this corporation to know the secret. Let it be a secret no more.

The organization is the National Research Institute. It is hunting for the children of Marshall Cartwright.

Why should Cartwright's children be worth a search that has already cost $5,000,000,000?

Marshall Cartwright is immortal. It is believed that his children have inherited his immunity.

This fact alone would be unimportant were it not for the additional fact that the immunity factor is carried in the bloodstream. It is one of the gamma globulins which resist disease. Cartwright's body manufactures antibodies against death itself. His circulatory system is kept constantly rejuvenated; with abundant food, his remaining cells never die.

In the bloodstream. And blood can be transfused; gamma globulin can be injected. The result: new youth for the aged. Unfortunately, like all gamma globulins, these provide only a passive immunity which lasts only as long as the proteins remain in the bloodstream—thirty to forty days.

For a man to remain young forever, like Cartwright, he would need a transfusion from Cartwright every month. This might well be fatal to Cartwright. Certainly it would be unhealthful. And it would be necessary to imprison him to make certain that he was always available.

Fifty years ago, through an accidental transfusion, Cartwright learned of his immortality. He ran for his life. He changed his name. He hid. And it is believed that he obeyed the Biblical injunction to be fruitful and replenish the earth.

This was his goal: to spread his seed so widely that it could not be destroyed. This was his hope: that the human race might eventually become immortal.

In no other way could he hope to survive for more than a few centuries. Because he could be killed by accident or by man's greed. If he were ever discovered, his fate was certain.

Cartwright has disappeared completely, although his path has been traced up to twenty years ago. In the Institute office there is a map on which glows the haphazard wanderings of a fugitive from mankind's terrible fear of death. Agents have worked and reworked that path for children that Cartwright may have fathered.

If one is found, he will be bled—judiciously—but his primary function will be to father more children so that there will eventually be enough gamma globulin to rejuvenate almost fifty men.

Once there were one hundred. They were the wealthiest men in the world. Now over half of them have died, their estates going—by mutual arrangement—to the Institute for the search.

Already these men are exercising a vast influence over the governments of the world. They are afraid of nothing—except death. If they succeed, it will not matter if Man becomes immortal.

He will have nothing to live for.

*  *  *

Sibert read it over, making a few corrections, and grinned. He pushed a key and a printed version rolled out of the computer. He folded the sheets in half and then twice in the opposite direction. On a small envelope he wrote in ink: I entrust this to you, your conscience,
and your honor, as a journalist. Do not open this envelope for thirty days. If I send for it before that time—verifying my request by repeating this message—I will expect you to return it unopened. I trust you.

He sealed the typewritten sheets inside the envelope. On a larger one he wrote:
MANAGING EDITOR, KANSAS CITY STAR.

There was no use trusting public servants anymore. It was not just that they could be bought, but that they were on the open market. Perhaps newspapers and their staffs could be bought, too, but purchasers had to know which of them had information worth the buying.

*  *  *

He checked the tiny automatic to make sure that the chamber was full and the safety was off, then slipped it back into his jacket pocket. Cautiously he opened the door, inspected the dark hallway, and frowned. The single light over the stairwell had gone out.

He slipped into the hall, the stamped envelope in his hand held under his jacket to shield the whiteness. At the top of the stairs he hesitated and then turned to the mail chute. He fished a coin out of his pocket and dropped it into the slot. For a few seconds it clanked against the side of the chute as it fell.

The chute was clear. With a gesture of finality, Sibert shoved the letter through the slot.

“Insurance, Eddy?”

Sibert whirled, his hand thrust deep into his jacket pocket. Slowly he relaxed against the wall as a shadow detached itself from the shadows beside the stairs and
moved toward him, resolving into a lean, dark-faced man with thin lips curling in a gently deprecatory smile.

“That's what it is, Les,” Sibert said easily. “What are you doing up here?”

“Now, Eddy,” Les protested mildly, “let's not play games. You know what I want. The kid, Eddy.”

“I don't know what you're talking about, Les.”

“Don't be cute, Eddy. Locke sent me. It's all over.”

“How did you find me?”

“I never lost you. I'm your shadow, Eddy. Did you ever learn that poem when you were a kid:

“I've got a little shadow

That goes in and out with me,

And what can be the use of him

Is more than I can see.”

“Locke may be old, Eddy, but he ain't dumb. He's pretty cute, in fact. He knows all the tricks. You shouldn't oughta cross him, Eddy. Everybody's got a shadow. I got a shadow, too, I guess. I wonder who he is. I didn't have to follow you, Eddy. Locke let me know you were coming home. Now, Eddy, the kid. Where is he?”

So that was why Les had that front apartment on the first floor,
Sibert thought ruefully.
And that was why he sat there hour after hour in the dark with his door ajar.

“You know better than that, Les. I can't tell you. I know too much.”

“That's what Locke said,” Les told him softly. “The kid's in the building, Eddy, we know that. Maybe right on
this floor. You wouldn't let him get far away. And you'd hurry back to him, first thing. I'd like to make it easy on you, boy. But if you want us to do it the hard way—”

His lifting hand held a vest-pocket gun.

*  *  *

Sibert squeezed the automatic in his pocket. It exploded twice, thunderous in the uncarpeted hallway. Surprise blanked Les's bony face; pain twisted as he leaned toward Sibert, his shoulders hunching, his gun hand coming down over his abdomen to hold in the pain. In grotesque slow motion he folded forward onto the floor.

Sibert was bringing his gun out, patting the tattered hole in his pocket to smother the flames, as a third shot shook the hall. Flame spurted down the stairs. The bullet flung Sibert back against the mail chute. His left hand clutched his chest as he triggered three quick shots toward the flash.

In the silence that followed, someone sighed. Like a sack of old bones, a body tumbled down the stairs from the landing above. It stopped at the bottom and leaned its head tiredly against the wall.

The wrinkled old face framed in gray hair was very dead. Through the pain Sibert smiled at it. “What a delightful hostelry you keep, Missus Gentry,” he said softly.

He started to chuckle, but it turned into a fit of coughing. A pink froth stained his lips. Someone was slapping him in the face. Someone kept saying, “Eddy! Eddy!” Over and over. His head weaved as he tried to get away, tried to force his eyes open.

Behind him was the mail chute. He was still leaning
against it, but he felt disembodied, as if he were somewhere else receiving these odd sensations distantly, attenuated and distorted. He had blacked out for a moment, he thought feverishly. Give him a few minutes; he'd be all right.

“Eddy!” The voice was getting hysterical. “What's happened? You're bleeding!”

“Hello, Bobs,” Sibert said weakly. “Funny thing—” He began to laugh, but it brought back the coughing. When the spell was over, his hand was freckled with blood. It sobered him. “You're—dangerous companion, Bobs,” he panted. “Come on—got to get out of here.”

He caught her arm and tried to start for the stairs. She held him back. “You're hurt. You need a doctor. We can't go anywhere until you've had medical attention. And these bodies—one of them is Missus Gentry—”

“Lovely woman, Missus Gentry,” Sibert said. “Especially dead. Shot me, she did. Come on, Bobs—no time. Explanations later. They're—after you.”

She let him pull her to the head of the stairs. There he sagged. She took his right hand and pulled it across her shoulders; she put her left arm around his waist. She was surprisingly strong. Together, his left hand clinging desperately to the handrail, they descended the never-ending stairs, down and around and down, until, at last, they came to the bottom and his knees buckled.

The broad first-floor hall was blurred like an old photograph. Sibert frowned, trying to bring it into focus, thinking:
This is what it is like to grow old, to have the senses fail, the muscles weaken, the living organs and functions of the body die inside. And finally death.

Someone was talking. Barbara again, trying to make him say something. “Where do we go now?” she kept saying.

He tried to think, but thought was torture. “Hide. Anyplace. Trust nobody. Everyone—against us.”

And then there was no memory at all, only the irony that stayed with him, that edged his dreams about a young man who went hunting for life but found the dark companion instead. He woke to a pearl-gray mustiness and thought it was a dream. He was alone. His chest burned. He pressed it with his hand. When he brought it away, the hand was dark. He tried to make out the color in the dimness, but it was too difficult. It dripped unconsciousness into his eyes.