Robert Sheckley - Immortality, Inc

“Simply accompany me to the Hereafter Building,” Farrell said. “We can have the necessary work done in a few hours.”

Survival! Life after death! “All right,” Blaine said. “I accept the grant. Let's go!”

They left Blaine's apartment at once.

A Helicab brought them directly to the Hereafter Building. Farrell led the way to the Admissions Office, and gave a photostatic copy of Blaine's grant to the woman in charge. Blaine made a set of fingerprints, and produced his Hunter's License for further identity. The woman checked all the data carefully against her master list of acceptances. Finally she was satisfied with its validity, and signed the admission papers.

Farrell then took Blaine to the Testing Room, wished him luck, and left him.

In the Testing Room, a squad of young technicians took over and ran Blaine through a gamut of examinations. Banks of calculators clicked and rattled, and spewed forth yards of paper and showers of punched cards. Ominous machines bubbled and squeaked at him, glared with giant red eyes, winked and turned amber. Automatic pens squiggled across pieces of graph paper. And through it all, the technicians kept up a lively shop talk.

“Interesting beta reaction. Think we can fair that curve?”

“Sure, sure, just lower his drive coefficient.”

“Hate to do that. It weakens the web.”

“You don't have to weaken it that much. He'll still take the trauma.”

“Maybe… What about this Henliger factor? It's off.”

“That's because he's in a host body. It'll come around.”

“That one didn't last week. The guy went up like a rocket.”

“He was a little unstable to begin with.”

Blaine said, “Hey! Is there any chance of this not working?”

The technicians turned as though seeing him for the first time.

“Every case is different, pal,” a technician told him. “Each one has to be worked out on an individual basis.”

“It's just problems, problems all the time.”

Blaine said, “I thought the treatment was all worked out. I heard it was infallible.”

“Sure, that's what they tell the customers,” one of the technicians said scornfully. “That's advertising crap.”

“Things go wrong here every day. We still got a long way to go.”

Blaine said, “But can you tell if the treatment takes?”

“Of course. If it takes, you’re still alive.”

“If it doesn't you never walk out of here.”

“It usually takes,” a technician said consolingly. “On everybody but a K3.”

“It's that damned K3 factor that throws us. Come on, Jamiesen, is he a K3 or not?”

“I'm not sure,” Jamiesen said, hunched over a flashing instrument. “The testing machine is all screwed up again.”

Blaine said, “What is a K3?”

“I wish we knew,” Jamiesen said moodily. “All we know for certain, guys with a K3 factor can't survive after death.”

“Not under any circumstances.”

“Old Fitzroy thinks it's a built-in limiting factor that nature included so the species wouldn't run wild.”

“But K3s don't transmit the factor to their children.”

“There's still a chance it lies dormant and skips a few generations.”

“Am I a K3?” Blaine asked, trying to keep his voice steady.

“Probably not,” Jamiesen said easily. “It's sort of rare. Let me check.”

Blaine waited while the technicians went over their data, and Jamiesen tried to determine from his faulty machine whether or not Blaine had a K3 factor.

After a while, Jamiesen looked up. “Well, I guess he's not K3. Though who knows, really? Anyhow, let's get on with it.”

“What comes next?” Blaine asked.

A hypodermic bit deeply into his arm.

“Don't worry,” a technician told him, “everything's going to be just fine.”

“Are you sure I'm not K3?” Blaine asked. The technician nodded in a perfunctory manner. Blaine wanted to ask more questions, but a wave of dizziness overcame him. The technicians were lifting him, putting him on a white operating table.

When he recovered consciousness he was lying on a comfortable couch listening to soothing music. A nurse handed him a glass of sherry, and Mr. Farrell was standing by, beaming.

“Feel OK?” Farrell asked. “You should. Everything went off perfectly.”

“It did?”

“No possibility of error. Mr. Blaine, the hereafter is yours.”

Blaine finished his sherry and stood up, a little shakily. “Life after death is mine? Whenever I die? Whatever I die of?”

“That's right. No matter how or when you die, your mind will survive after death. How do you feel?”

“I don't know,” Blaine said. It was only half an hour later, as he was returning to his apartment, that he began to react. The hereafter was his!

He was filled with a sudden wild elation. Nothing mattered now, nothing whatsoever! He was immortal! He could be killed on the spot and yet live on!

He felt superbly drunk. Gaily he contemplated throwing himself under the wheels of a passing truck. What did it matter? Nothing could really hurt him! He could berserk now, slash merrily through the crowds. Why not? The only thing the flathats could really kill was his body!

The feeling was indescribable. Now, for the first time, Blaine realized what men had lived with before the discovery of the scientific hereafter. He remembered the heavy, sodden, constant, unconscious fear of death that subtly weighed every action and permeated every movement. The ancient enemy death, the shadow that crept down the corridors of a man's mind like some grisly tapeworm, the ghost that haunted nights and days, the croucher behind corners, the shape behind doors, the unseen guest at every banquet, the unidentified figure in every landscape, always present, always waiting —

No more.

For now a tremendous weight had been lifted from his mind. The fear of death was gone, intoxicatingly gone, and he felt light as air. Death, that ancient enemy, was defeated!

He returned to his apartment in a state of high euphoria. The telephone was ringing as he unlocked the door.

“Blaine speaking!”

“Tom!” It was Marie Thorne. “Where have you been? I've been trying to reach you all afternoon.”

“I've been out, darling,” Blaine said. “Where in the hell have you been?”

“At Rex,” she said. “I've been trying to find out what they’re up to. Now listen carefully, I have some important news for you.”

“I've got some news for you, sweetheart,” Blaine said.

“Listen to me! A man will call at your apartment today. He'll be a salesman from Hereafter, Inc., and he will offer you free hereafter insurance. Don't take it.”

“Why not? Is he a fake?”

“No, he's perfectly genuine, and so is the offer. But you mustn't take it.”

“I already did,” Blaine said.

“You what?”

“He was here a few hours ago. I accepted it.”

“Have they treated you yet?”

“Yes, Was that a fake?”

“No,” Marie said, “of course it wasn't. Oh Tom, when will you learn not to accept gifts from strangers? There was time for hereafter insurance later… Oh, Tom!”

“What's wrong?” Blaine asked. “It was a grant from the Main-Farbenger Textile Corporation.”

“They are owned completely by the Rex Corporation,” Marie told him.

“Oh… But so what?”

“Tom, the directors of Rex gave you that grant. They used Main-Farbenger as a front, but Rex gave you that grant! Can't you see what it means?”

“No. Will you please stop screaming and explain?”

“Tom, it's the Permitted Murder section of the Suicide Act. They’re going to invoke it.”

“What are you taking about?”