James Gunn - The Immortals

“Your mother was right,” Sibert said sleepily. “You are a princess, a swan. The magic is real. Next time…”

Next time there was the white meat of chicken for Sibert to eat, with broth that had egg drops cooked in it. He sat up for a little. There was only a twinge of pain in his chest and a muscular ache in his shoulder.

He tired quickly and sank back to his pillow after a few minutes. “Your mother was right,” he repeated. “Not in any fairy-tale sense. In a real, practical way, you have new blood, whose immunity factors—the gamma globulins—can repel cellular degeneration, as if death itself were a disease.”

He told her the story of Marshall Cartwright, the fabulous creature who had gone secretly about the country to father an immortal race, like some latterday Johnny Appleseed. He told her about the Institute and the men who had founded it, and its purpose. He told her that he had been an unwitting part of it until he had found, by accident, what all the rest had been looking for.

“How did you find me?” she asked, her face pale.

“I was going through some old medical records—doctor’s notes, case histories, that sort of thing. One of them was for a maternity case: Janice McFarland, unmarried. She had given birth to a daughter, Barbara. She needed blood; she was dying. The attending physician was a Dr. Russell Pearce. He must have known your father.”

“Why?”

“I found this note stuck to the back of one of the lab reports: ‘Baby fine but mother dying. Contact Cartwright. Only chance.’ ”

“That seems like such a small thing.”

“When I forced the information out of Locke, I knew I was right. It all fitted together.”

“You had traced me before, then,” she said, her voice distant.

“Yes,” he said quietly, “but a funny thing happened: I fell in love with the girl I was searching for.”

Her face changed. “Oh, thank God!” she said prayerfully. “For a little while I was afraid—”

“That I was a vampire, interested only in your blood?” Sibert shook his head chidingly. “Bobs! Bobs!”

“I’m sorry.” She squeezed his hand in heartfelt repentance. “Then you came back for me,” she prompted.

“Les—that’s the only name I knew him by—was waiting for me, watching from his first-floor apartment. And Missus Gentry was watching him, probably without knowing what his job was.”

“Then he was going to shoot you because you wouldn’t tell him my name,” Barbara said quickly.

“No, not that. He knew I wouldn’t tell. The shooting was to silence me quickly. As soon as I came directly back to the apartment building, they were sure they could find you. But I shot first. Missus Gentry shot me and was killed when I fired back. You know the rest.”

“The rest?” Slowly she smiled; her radiance seemed to brighten the room. “The rest will make up for all we have suffered. It will be so beautiful, Eddy—so lovely it seems impossible and unreal. If what you say is true, I’ll never die, and I will keep you young, and we will be together forever.”

“If it were only that simple!” He sighed.

“Why shouldn’t it be?”

“The power of wealth and the fear of death are a terrible combination. After fifty years of disappointment, the Institute smells blood. It will never leave the scent until it finds you—and eliminates me.”

“Then what can we do?”

“I keep thinking: What kind of man was your father? And I think: He must have made some provision for protecting you, some hiding place, some help. As soon as I can travel, we’ll begin a search of our own.”

The electric Ford chugged along the highway at less than eighty miles per hour. It was a dusty, rain-spattered ten-year-old, a farmer’s car. When it came up beside the old man plodding along the highway, it hesitated and stopped.

Unhurried, the old man with grizzled hair and beard marched forward until he reached the car. Behind the wheel was a middle-aged farmer. The old man nodded curtly as he got in. When the door slid shut behind him, he leaned against it, his head bent sullenly over his hands.

“Don’t recognize the face,” the farmer said cheerfully. “New around here, or just passing through?”

“Passing through,” the old man said in a cracked voice.

“Lots of people on the road these days,” the farmer said, shaking his head soberly. “Old fellows like you, some of them. Hydroponics done ’em in, and now this new fisheries stuff, farming the sea, they say—why, a few more years and a man won’t hardly be able to pay his medical bills with what he can grub out of the dirt. Where’d you say you was from?”

“Didn’t say.”

The farmer shrugged and turned his full attention to the road.

Ten minutes later the Ford passed the same spot. It was going in the opposite direction. On a crossover, it turned left and pulled to a stop. The farmer had disappeared. The old man was driving.

A young woman, her hair so blond it was almost colorless, stepped from behind a clump of trees and ran quickly to the car. Before she had settled herself, the car began to move. As she turned toward the old man, the speedometer stood at 120.

“Why did you change plans?” Barbara asked. “You told me to wait an hour, hitch a ride, and we would meet in Joplin.”

“That was the smart way,” Sibert said, “but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let you get that far away from me.”

He glanced at his face in the visor mirror and nodded. The beard and the shoe-blacking had changed his appearance drastically. The illness had left his face drawn and hollow. He looked old. With his training, he walked old and talked old. He almost felt old.

Barbara’s frown faded in spite of herself. “What did you do with the farmer?”

Sibert glanced at her quickly. With even less effort, she had been changed more. It was amazing what the old peroxide had done for her. The blondness changed her whole face. The contrast with her dark eyes was striking. Sibert felt his pulse stir.

“I knocked him out and left him behind some bushes. He’ll be all right. He’ll come to and get help, like the doctor.”

“If we were going together, we might as well have taken the Cadillac.”

“They’ve connected it with us by now, and that car could be spotted by a helicopter ten miles away. At this stage of the search, the area is blocked off in sectors. As long as we stayed still, we were safe until they started nets through. But as soon as we move we start attracting attention, setting off alarms, coming under surveillance.”

Barbara looked down at her hands, clasped in her lap. “I don’t like this business—shooting and stealing and slugging…”

“Bobs!” Sibert said sharply. “Look at me!” Her eyes swung over; he fixed them with his gaze. “You think I like it? But it’s something we can’t escape. It’s the times we live in. It’s you. You attract violence. You’re the princess, remember, and you’re heir to the greatest fortune on earth—life eternal. Wherever you go, men will fight for you, lie for you, kill for you.”

“I never asked for that.”

“You got it as a gift at conception—life. Just as the rest of us inherited death as our portion. There’s nothing you can do, nothing anyone can do.”

Then there was silence.

As they approached Joplin, Sibert slowed the car. “Much as I dislike it, now our only chance is to split up. They’ll be looking for two people together, and they may know by now to look for a man and a woman. Get out here. Catch a taxi to the airport and get a ticket on the first plane to Washington—”

“Why Washington?” she asked quickly.

“No time to explain now. Trust me. I’ll try to be on the same plane. Don’t recognize me or speak to me. Whether I’m on the plane or not, take a room in Washington at the airport motel under the same name you use for the ticket—Maria Cassata, say. With your dark eyes, you can pass for one of those blond Italians from the north. If I don’t show up within twenty-four hours, forget me. You’ll be on your own.”