James Gunn - The Immortals

“What about your husband?”

“Him?” She laughed. “He wasn’t what you would call a husband, but then I’ve never had good judgment where men were concerned. My mistake was allowing him to get me pregnant. He disappeared as soon as he found out.”

“You never told him about your—special ability?”

“To keep him young forever?” She smiled ruefully; even in rue her smile transformed her face into something approaching what Pearce would call beauty. “You think any man is worth keeping under those terms? Or maybe the habit of concealment ran too deep.” She shook her head. “No, I would never tell anybody.”

“And you’ve existed like this?” He waved his hand at the room, implying in that gesture the house, the neighborhood and the neighbors, and all the dirt, disease, degradation, and deprivation that involved.

“It’s not what you think,” she said. “There are good people here, maybe more than among the medically privileged. But I haven’t always been here, even though it is the best place to hide, here where anonymity is a way of life. Sometimes I’ve allowed myself to rise into the middle class, but I can’t remain anywhere very long or the chances of suspicion, or even detection, become too great.

“The difficult part is knowing that I can help people who are sick or injured, and realizing that I can’t. The moment I let my sympathies take over, the stories will start, the scent will be picked up, and the chase will begin. Do you realize—?” She broke off, unable to continue.

Pearce nodded slowly. “I’ve seen patients that I might be able to save if I used all the medical resources at my command, but I couldn’t because the antibiotics were scarce or prohibitively expensive, or because they would not stretch to all who needed them. Deciding who is to live and who is to die—that’s called triage.”

“It’s even worse when you realize that you, yourself, are the fountain of youth.”

“And how did you get my name?”

“That’s part of the legend, too, part of my inheritance, like a fairy godmother I could call upon in extremity. ‘There’s Doctor Pearce,’ my mother said. ‘He’s the only one you can trust, but don’t call upon him unless you’re really in trouble.’ ” She laughed again, putting her hands on her swollen belly. “I guess that’s what I am—a woman in trouble.”

He nodded. “It’s happened once before, and I tried to help then. I’ll help you, of course. But”—he hesitated—“could I take a sample of your blood? I’ve been trying to synthesize the Cartwright difference ever since I ran across your father, but the original samples ran out long ago and I’ve had to proceed on guesswork. A sample from you might give me the clue I need.”

“Do you think that’s wise?”

“To synthesize the elixir?”

She nodded.

“I’ve thought about it. Knowledge can be used for good or ill, but on the whole more knowledge is better than less. I’ll work it out, and then I’ll decide what to do with it.”

“If the world lets you,” she said. “But I can’t very well ask your help and then deny your fee.” And as he got out his syringe and his bottle of alcohol and sponge, she added, “And what’s even more important, you can have the placenta and blood-filled umbilical cord when the baby is born.”

He stopped in the midst of inserting the syringe. Of course. Aside from the genes themselves, the placenta and the cord were nourishing, maybe defining the baby. Who knew what magic they might contain?

“But you must promise me not to trust anybody,” she said.

“I have assistants,” he said.

“Nobody.”

He nodded and went about his task. When he was done and the sample was stored in the refrigerated section of his black bag, she said, “I’m going to leave by the back way.” She picked up her flashlight and her revolver. “Your pursuers will be here any moment.”

She was more paranoid than he. “When do you want me to return?”

She hesitated at a door set into another plywood wall in an archway at the back of the room. “I won’t be here. I’ll get word to you where and when. Be careful, Doctor Pearce. The world is more treacherous than even you suspect.” And she was gone.

The world had turned dark by the time Pearce emerged from the house. Night belonged to the citizens, hiding their blemishes, concealing their movements, masking their intentions. Pearce played his light around the porch, throughout the paved yard, and around his car. Everything seemed as empty and untouched as when he had arrived, but a feeling of danger jangled at his nerves. He shrugged his shoulders and essayed a chuckle. Van Cleve had infected him with her paranoia.

And then, as he picked his way down the stairs and moved toward his car, something monstrous loomed up behind him, and he turned to splash his light upon a ragged, hulking, unshaven creature with a club in its hand raised to strike. It was so nightmarish, so traditional in its attitude, that he almost laughed.

He didn’t get the chance. A voice from the street shouted, “Stay where you are! Don’t move!” But as Pearce turned toward the voice, the figure behind him twisted away. A laser beam hissed through the night, and a voice cried out, but when he turned back the creature was gone.

“Who’s there?” he called out, although he thought he had recognized the voice.

“Doctor Pearce,” a voice said as it moved toward him. “Are you all right?”

When a figure came into the light, Pearce saw who it was. “Tom,” he said. “What are you doing here?” He thought briefly of Van Cleve’s confidence that he was being followed before he dismissed it. “Not that I’m not glad you showed up.”

“I happened to be passing the monitoring station as I was leaving,” Tom Barnett said, “and your telltale showed your car in this dangerous part of town. I thought maybe you’d been hijacked or kidnapped, so I reported to the police and thought I’d better start immediately. But what are you doing here?”

That was it, of course. The computerized map system automatically reported its location. No one needed to follow him. Even if he had thought of that and had believed the note’s warning of danger, how could he have made his way here on foot, and how could he have known it was wise to do so?

“I’m one of the few remaining physicians who still make house calls,” Pearce said lightly. “A habit from the old days I find hard to break.” He thought quickly: Trust nobody, Van Cleve had insisted. “I got a message—someone just pushed it into my hand.” Might as well stick as closely to the truth as possible, he thought, and electronic messages left trails that could be checked. “I thought it was somebody I ought to know, but by the time I got here I knew there was something wrong.”

“You’ve got to stop this, Russ,” Barnett said. His voice was husky with concern. “You’re getting up in years, and you’re too valuable, and there may be people out to get you.”

“Who could be out to get me?” Pearce scoffed. “But you’re right: These are dangerous times. You said the police have been called? We’d better cancel that alarm before we have to answer a lot of questions, and get back to the hospital compound before my attacker returns with his friends.”

“You lead the way, and I’ll follow behind,” Barnett said.

Pearce nodded and swung his bag with its priceless contents into the front seat beside him, where it wouldn’t be far from him, and pulled his car into the street where his headlights splashed across Barnett’s car. It was newer and more heavily armored than his, and Pearce wondered how Barnett could afford it on a resident’s salary. Perhaps he had inherited money or had his funds supplemented by his family, or a patron protecting his avenue of supply.