Part 2

Emrys crumpled up the letter and hurled it across the room. He knew Dyall for an old--associate of Jan Shortmire's, but he had not thought him to be alive. What had Dyall done to warrant the longevity treatment? He was nothing but a glorified machinist, a technician. And now he might wreck all of Emrys' plans. But if the young man made no reply, perhaps the old one would take the hint. And so it turned out; there was no further word from Nicholas Dyall.

Finally, two weeks after Emrys had first come to Earth, he got a telecall from Peter Hubbard. His documents were all in order and he could receive his inheritance as soon as he passed the physical examination.

Emrys went to the doctor's offices feeling a cold touch of apprehension again. But all Dr. Jameson said when the examination was finished was, "You have the physique of a man fifteen years your junior, Mr. Shortmire."

Emrys fastened his tunic with fingers that shook from relief. "Guess I'm lucky," he muttered.

The doctor cleared his throat. "Peter Hubbard was telling me about your mother, that she was...."

Hubbard, that old fool! And Emrys had been so sure of his discretion. "My mother was Morethan, yes." Then he realized it was possible that Hubbard, too, had felt there might be something not-quite-human manifest in his body and had tried to prepare the doctor. Emrys made his tone more conciliatory. "On both Morethis and Earth, the child takes citizenship from the father, so--"

"I wasn't worrying about any legal problems; I was merely thinking that medical science would be interested."

"I do not wish the fact of my--of my birth publicized in any way--until after my death," Emrys added placatorily. "Surely you can understand what hell life would become if people knew I was half Morethan?"

The doctor sighed. "Yes, I know. I can't blame you."

"Tell me, Doctor," Emrys asked tensely, "is there anything about me that doesn't seem ... quite human?"

The doctor shook his head. "Only that you're so young for your age. Mr. Shortmire, was your mother one of the caste they call the 'immortals'?" Then he flushed. "Forgive me. I didn't mean to violate--"

Emrys laughed sourly. "Don't worry; I don't hold to the Morethan beliefs. She was one of the so-called gods, yes. They do live somewhat longer than either the common people or terrestrials; I guess that's why the legend arose, probably why I look so young, too. I should be glad I didn't inherit a--less pleasant trait."

"You should, indeed," the doctor said somberly.

III

"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.

IV

"You should have sent for me to come to you, Mr. Hubbard," Nicholas Dyall said, with a gentle pity that infuriated the old lawyer, who knew that he himself was young enough to be Dyall's grandson. Hubbard was jealous--he would not conceal it from himself--bitterly jealous. It had not been hard for him to rationalize Jan Shortmire's gift of years as a worthless one; that old man's bitterness and disillusionment had not inspired envy. But this hale and rosy old man seemed to be enjoying his years.

_I may not have made any signal contribution to human welfare_, Hubbard thought resentfully, _but I have done my best. Why must I die at an age fifty years short of the age which this man is allowed to reach?_

"I am perfectly able to get about, Mr. Dyall," he said in icy tones, "since I am in excellent health."

Which he was, the doctor had told him, adding, however, "for your age."

"What is more," Hubbard continued, "since I was on Ndrikull, it might have seemed rather presumptuous for me to send for you; whereas I had always been planning to return to Earth one day. I left at the time of the plague."

"You were wise. I merely retired to the country. I escaped the virus, but the rest of my family was less fortunate. I have but one remaining--my great-great-granddaughter."

"Yes," Hubbard said, "I know. It's because of her I've come to see you."

He had not really planned ever to return to Earth. Ndrikull had been comfortable and a man of his age did not risk a trip through space unless the need was urgent. The memory of Emrys Shortmire had disturbed him from time to time, but, he thought, probably the young man had died of the plague. Even if he had not, what good would it do for Peter Hubbard to be present on Earth? He could not counteract the presence of an evil force without knowing the quality of that evil.

Then, picking up the kind of journal he did not usually read, he had seen mentioned the fact that Jan Shortmire's son was "courting" Nicholas Dyall's great-great-granddaughter. And he had known the need was now urgent. He must go back to Earth and warn someone; it was his duty. A letter could not convey the hatred and fear with which the young man had inspired him. Obviously, old Dyall had been the person to warn. Yet he did not seem right.

_I do not like this man_, Hubbard thought. And then: _This is the second man I have taken such an instant dislike to. Can it be senility rather than perceptiveness, and have I been foolish to come all this way?_

"You've come because of Megan?" Dyall raised eyebrows that were still thick and black. "Have you met her? Do you know her?" His voice sharpened. "She has never spoken of you."

"I have never met her," Hubbard said, and saw Dyall relax. Hubbard waited, but the other man said nothing, so he went on, "I wanted to talk to you about the man she's been seeing, this Emrys Shortmire." Leaning forward, Hubbard spoke slowly, as if, by giving weight to each word, he could make them sound less fantastic. "He's a monster. Literally, I mean. His mother was a Morethan. Or _is_. For all I know, she may still be alive."

* * * * *

Hubbard had not thought of this before, and it shook him. Yet, if Iloa Tasqi was alive, then Emrys Shortmire must be considered to be, to all intents and purposes, Morethan entirely, working only for the interests of that planet. After all, his mother had been the only parent the boy had known. Even on Clergal, he must have been brought up under a strong Morethan influence. Now, if the female was still alive, then the influence would be alive, too. Since Morethans were not permitted on Earth, there would be an obvious advantage for them in having someone here.

Dyall was holding back a smile, not too well. "I didn't know a human and a Morethan could--ah--breed together."

And, obviously, he didn't believe it. There was no way Hubbard could prove it, unless he asked Emrys to produce his birth certificate again. "It isn't generally known that the two species can reproduce together," he finally said, "nor should it be."

Then he looked directly in Dyall's black eyes--impossible that eyes so keen should be so deliberately blind, that any aware human being should not have sensed _something_ of that dark aura. "Haven't you felt something strange about young Shortmire?" he asked.

"Can't say I have," Dyall chuckled. "He seems an agreeable enough young fellow."

"He's sixty-five years old."

"Really? I should have taken him to be younger. But youth lasts longer these days. And there's--" Dyall gave a little laugh--"no crime in being old, or you and I would be in prison, wouldn't we?"

Hubbard would not let himself be distracted. "He looked less than forty when he came to Earth, and he hasn't, I understand, changed in the past ten years."

"Ten years is not so long." Dyall's swarthy hands began playing with the ornaments on his desk. Clearly, he was impatient to be rid of his tedious caller, and Hubbard struggled with the instinctive good breeding that told him to get up and leave. This was not a social call, so it did not matter that he was boring his host, however.

On the other hand, he was not getting anywhere. Perhaps he could _blast_ the other out of his smugness. "Look, Dyall, I know this is an outrageous thing for a man of my profession to say. I haven't a shred of proof, not a suspicion--but I'm morally sure he killed his father."

Instead of showing shock or anger or even thought, Dyall merely gave him a tolerant smile. "You're an old man, Mr. Hubbard. We're both old men," he amended graciously, "so we're apt to--jump at shadows."

_I'm an old man_, Hubbard thought angrily, _and you're an old fool!_