A. van Vogt - The Empire of Isher

Silence. Hedrock stared at her slantwise, then said in a persistent tone, “You practically gave up the interstellar drive for me, and yet now that you have me, I can’t feel that it means anything.”

During the long silence that followed, he had his first thought of what all this rigidity might be. Was it possible that she knew the truth about him? Before he could speak, her low voice came, “Perhaps all I really need to say, Robert, is that there will be an Isher heir, an Isher heir.”

The child part of the revelation hardly touched him. She knew. That was what counted. Hedrock sighed finally. “I forgot. You caught Gonish, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I caught him; and he didn’t need very much more information than he had. A few words; and the intuition was complete.”

He said at last, “What are you going to do?”

Her answer came, remote-toned, “A woman cannot love an immortal man. The relation would destroy her soul and her mind.” She went on, almost as if speaking to herself, “I realize now I never did love you. You fascinated me, and perhaps repelled me a little, too. I’m proud, though, that I selected you without knowing. It shows the enormous instinctive vitality of our line. Robert!”

“Yes?”

“Those other empresses—what was your life like with them?”

Hedrock shook his head. “I won’t tell you. I want you to make up your mind without even thinking of them.”

She laughed in a brittle tone. “You think I’m jealous. I’m not…not that at all.” She added in a disjointed manner, “Henceforth, I’m a family woman who intends to have the respect as well as the affection of her child. An Isher Empress can do no other. But I won’t press you.” Her eyes darkened. She said with sudden heaviness, “I’ll have to think it over. Leave me now, will you?”

She held out her hand. It felt limp under the pressure of his lips, and Hedrock went frowning to his apartment. Sitting there alone, he remembered Gonish. He put a call through the Weapon Makers exchange, and asked the No-man to come to the palace. An hour later, the two men sat facing each other. “I realize,” Gonish said, “that I am going to receive no explanations.”

“Later,” said Hedrock; then, “What are you going to do? Or rather, what have you done?”

“Nothing.”

“You mean—”

“Nothing. You see, I understand just what the knowledge would do to the average and even the higher-type human being. I shall never say a word, not to the Council, not to anyone.”

Hedrock was relieved. He knew this man, his enormous integrity. No fear was behind that promise, simply a stark honesty of outlook that would never be more than equaled. He saw that Gonish’s eyes were studying him. The No-man said, “With my training, I would have quite naturally known better than to make a test of the effect of immortality on others. But you made it, didn’t you? Where was it? When?”

Hedrock swallowed hard. The memory was like fire. “It was on Venus,” he said in a flat voice, “during the early days of interplanetary travel. I set up an isolated colony of scientists, told them the truth, and set them to work to help me discover the secret of my immortality. It was horrible, oh—” His voice thickened in distress. “They couldn’t stand watching my perpetual youth as they grew old. Never again.”

He shuddered; and the No-man said quickly, “What about your wife?”

Hedrock was silent for a long minute. He said then, slowly, “The Isher empresses in the past have always been proud of their relation to the immortal man. For the sake of the children, they put up with me. I can say no more.”

His frown deepened. “I’ve sometimes thought I should marry oftener. The immortal strain might, just might, repeat that way. This is only my thirteenth marriage. Somehow, I didn’t have the heart even though—” he looked up—“I’ve developed a perfect method of aging my appearance, enough to have a psychological effect on those who actually know the truth.”

There was a look on Gonish’s face that narrowed Hedrock’s eyes. He said quickly, “What’s the matter?”

The No-man said, “She loves you, I think; and that makes it very bad. You see, she can’t have any children.”

Hedrock rose up out of his chair, took a step forward as if he intended the No-man bodily harm. “Are you in earnest? Why she told me—”

Gonish was bleak. “We of the Weapon Shops have studied the Empress from childhood. Her file, of course, is accessible only to the three No-men and to the members of the Council. There is no doubt of it”

The No-man’s gaze fixed Hedrock sharply. “I know this wrecks your plans, but don’t take it so hard. Prince del Curtin is next in line and will carry on, rather strongly, I think. There’ll be another Empress along in a few generations, and you can marry her.”

Hedrock ceased his pacing. “Don’t be so damned callous,” he said. “I’m not thinking of myself. It’s these Isher women. The trait hasn’t shown clearly in Innelda, but it’s there. She won’t give up that child; and that’s what I’m worrying about.” He swung directly toward the No-man again. “Are you absolutely sure? Don’t play with me, Gonish.”

The No-man said steadily, “Hedrock, I’m not playing. The Empress Isher is going to die in childbirth and—” He stopped; his eyes fixed on a point beyond Hedrock.

Hedrock turned slowly, and faced the woman who stood there. The woman said in a cold voice, “Captain Hedrock, you will take your friend, Mr. Gonish, and depart from the palace within the hour, not to return until—”

She stopped and stood for a moment like a figure of stone. She finished with a rush, “Never,” she said thickly. “Never come back. I couldn’t stand it. Goodbye.”

“Wait!” Hedrock cried piercingly. “Innelda, you mustn’t have that child.”

He was talking to a closed door.

It was del Curtin who got Hedrock into the palace on the final day. “We’ve got to,” the prince had whispered, “get somebody near her. She must listen to reason. My friends are going to advise that new doctor of hers, Telinger, that you’re in. Just stick to your rooms until you’re called.”

Waiting was dreary. Hedrock paced the thickly carpeted floor, thinking of the months since he had been banished from the palace. Actually, it was the last few days that had been worst. The whisper had spread abroad. Hedrock heard it far and wide. It didn’t come over the telestats. No official word was given out; just how it became known definitely was impossible to say. He had heard it sitting in the restaurants he sometimes frequented. He heard it walking along quiet streets. It drifted on thin breezes, and rose in briefly heard voices above the clamor of conversations on carplanes. It had not been evil in intent or in actuality. It was simply, there was going to be an Isher heir any day, and the excited world of Isher was waiting for the announcement. They didn’t know it, but the day was now. The crisis came at ten o’clock at night. A message from Dr. Telinger brought Hedrock out of the study and up into the Imperial apartments.

Telinger, Hedrock found, was a middle-aged man with a thin face, which was wrinkled in dismay as he greeted his visitor. Doctor Telinger, Hedrock knew, was guilty of nothing but weakness. He had been dragooned into the Imperial service as a replacement for Doctor Snow, who had been summarily dismissed after being court physician for thirty years. Hedrock could still remember one day at the dinner table when Innelda had inveighed against Dr. Snow, calling him “an out-dated practitioner who’s still palming himself off as a doctor on the strength of having delivered me into the world.”