Poul Anderson - The Boat of a Million Years

Some of the weariness of the centuries fell over him. “Details, details.” He stopped and looked into one of the blind windows. “Am I going senile? I don’t usually gabble this way. Well, you’re the first like me I’ve found, Rufus, the very first. Let’s hope you won’t be the last.”

“Did you, uh, know about others?” groped the voice at his back.

Lugo shook his head. “I told you I never did. How could I? A few times I thought I saw a trace, but it gave out or it proved false. Once I may have. I’m not sure.”

“What was that ... master? You want to tell me?”

“I may as well. It was in Syracuse, where I based myself for a good many years because of its ties with Carthage. Lovely, lively city. A woman, Althea was her name, fine to look on and bright in the way women sometimes got to be in the later days of the Greek colonies—I knew her and her husband. He was a shipping magnate and I skippered a tramp freighter. They’d been married for over three decades, he’d gone bald and pot-bellied, she’d borne him a dozen children and the oldest of them was gray, but she might have been a maiden in springtime.”

Lugo fell silent a while before finishing, flat-voiced: “The Romans captured the city. Sacked it: I was absent. Always make an excuse to clear out when you see that kind of thing coming. When I returned, I inquired. She could have been taken for a slave. I could have tried to find her and buy her free. But no, when I’d tracked down somebody who knew, insignificant enough to’ve been left unhurt, I learned she was dead. Raped and stabbed, I heard. Don’t know if that’s true or not. Stories grow in the telling. No matter. It was long ago.”

“Too bad. You should’a got in there first.” Lugo tautened. “Uh, sorry, master,” Rufus said. “You don’t, uh, don’t seem to hate Rome.”

“Why should I? It’s eternally the same tale, war, tyranny, massacre, slavery. I’ve been party to it myself. Now Rome is on the receiving end.”

“What?” Rufus sounded aghast. “Can’t be! Rome is forever!”

“As you like.” Lugo turned back to him. “Apparently I have, at last, found a fellow immortal. At least, here is someone I can safeguard, watch, make certain of. Two or three decades should suffice. Though already I have no real doubt.”

He drew breath. “Do you see what this means? No, you scarcely can. You’ve had no time to think about it.” He surveyed heavy visage, low forehead, dismay yielding to a loose-lipped glee. I don’t expect you ever will, he thought. You are a moderately competent woodworker, nothing else. And I’m lucky to have found this much. Unless Althea—but she slipped through my fingers, away into death.

“It means I am not unique,” Lugo said. “If there are two of us, there must be more. Very few, very seldom born. It isn’t in the bloodlines, like height or coloring or those deformities I’ve seen run in families. Whatever the cause is, it happens by accident. Or by God’s will, if you prefer, though I’d think that makes God out to be sheerly capricious. And surely senseless mischance takes off many immortals young, as it takes off ordinary men and women and children. Sickness we may escape, but not the sword or the runaway horse or the flood or the fire or the famine or whatever. Possibly more die at the hands of neighbors who think this must be a demon, magician, monster.”

Rufus cowered. “My head’s all a-spin,” he whimpered.

“Well, you’ve had a bad time. Immortals need rest too. Sleep if you wish.”

Rufus’ expression was glazing over. “Why couldn’t we say we was, uh, saints? Angels?”

“How far would you have gotten?” Lugo gibed. “Conceivably a man born into royalty— But I don’t suppose that’s ever happened, as rare as our kind must be. No, if we survive, we learn early on to keep our heads low.”

“Then how shall we find each other?”

Rufus hiccoughed and farted.

“Come our with me into the peristyle,” said Lugo.

“Oh, gladly,” Cordelia sang. Almost, she danced at his side.

It was an evening mild and clear. The moon stood over the eastern roof, close to full, in a sky still violet-blue. Westward, heaven darkened and stars trembled forth. City sounds had mostly died out; crickets chirred. Moonlight dappled the flowerbeds, shivered on the water of a pool, brought Cordelia’s young face and breast out of shadow into argency.

She and he stood hand in hand a few minutes. “You were so busy today,” she said at length. “When you came back early, I hoped— Of course, you had your work to do.”

“I did that, unfortunately,” he replied. “But these next hours belong to us.”

She leaned against him. Her hair carried a remnant fragrance of sunlight. “Christians should give thanks for what they get.” She giggled. “How easy to be a Christian, tonight.”

“How have the children done today?” he asked—his son Julius, no longer stumping about but leaping adventurously everywhere, starting to talk; little, little Dora asleep in her crib, starfish hands curled tight.

“Why, very well,” said Cordelia, a bit surprised.

“I see them too seldom.”

“And you care. Not many fathers do. Not that much.” She squeezed his hand. “I want to give you lots of children.” Impishly: “We can begin at once.”

“I have ... tried to be kind.”

She heard how the words dragged, let go of him, widened her eyes in alarm. “What’s wrong, beloved?”

He made himself take hold of her shoulders, look into her face—the moonlight made her searingly beautiful—and answer: “Between us, nothing at all.” Only the fact that you will grow old and die. And that has happened so often, so often. I cannot count the deaths. There is no measure for tile pain, but I think it has not grown any less; I think I have merely learned to live with it, as a mortal can learn to live an unbeatable wound. I thought we could have, oh, thirty, perhaps forty years together before I must leave. That would have been wonderful.

“But I have an unexpected journey to make,” he said.

“Something that man—Marcus—something he’s told you?”

Lugo nodded.

Cordelia grimaced. “I don’t like him. Forgive me, but I don’t. He’s coarse and stupid.”

“He is that,” Lugo agreed. It had seemed wise to him they let Rufus share their supper. Confinement in the room with nothing but his dreads and animal hopes company had been breaking what self-control was left him, and he needed it for the time ahead. “Nevertheless, I got important information from him.”

“Can you tell me what it is?” He heard how hard she tried not to make it a plea.

“I’m sorry, no. Nor can I say where I’m bound or how long I’ll be gone.”

She caught both his hands. Her fingers had turned cold. “The barbarians. Pirates. Bacaudae.”

“Travel has its dangers,” he admitted. “I’ve spent a lot of this day making arrangements for you. Just in case, darling, just in case.” He kissed her. The lips that shivered beneath his bore a thin taste of salt. “You should know this is a matter that may or may not concern Aurelian, but if it does, it must be investigated at once, and he’s in Italy. I’ve told his amanuensis Corbilo as much, and you can collect my pay for your needs from him. I’ve also left a substantial sum in trust for you at the church. The priest Antoninus took it and gave me a receipt that I’ll give you. And you are heir to this property. You’ll be all right, you and the children.” If Rome hangs together.

She threw herself against him and dung. He stroked her hair, her back, ruffling the gown, making the caress an embrace. “There, there,” he crooned, “this is just in case. Don’t be afraid. I’m not running any great risk.” He believed that was true. “I’ll be back.” That was not true, and hurt like fire to utter. Well, no doubt she’d marry again, after he was given up for dead. Last heard of on the Ordovician coast, about when a Scotic raid occurred ...