Pohl, Frederik - The Age of the Pussyfoot

But it was not always that. The tiny dark girl, for instance, had originally been a ballet dancer from Czechoslovakia, shot as a Chinese Bolshevik counter-revolutionary in 1991, frozen at great peril by the Khrushchevite underground, revived, killed seven times since in one way or another, and revived each time. Her reasons for hiding out with the Forgotten Men had nothing to do with money—she was loaded, Whitlow whispered; had made a collection of gold and gems from admirers in a dozen countries, over the centuries, and owned them with their pyramiding value now. But one of her assassinations had produced some cell changes in the brain, and now she awoke each time convinced that Stalinist agents lurked abroad, waiting for her. She did not exactly fear them. She objected to the idea of being killed somewhat as Forrester, in the old days, had objected to going to the dentist: you didn’t really worry about it, but you were pretty sure it would be unpleasant. As someone who had seen each of seven centuries, Forrester found her fascinating—and she was beautiful as well. But she quickly became so drunk that her reminiscences stopped making sense.

He got up for another drink and found himself lurching slightly. Only slightly, he was sure, but somehow, when he got the drink, it spilled all over a lean, old, nearly bald man, who grinned and nodded and said, “Tenga dura, signore! E precioso!”

“You’re right,” said Forrester, and sat down beside him. Whitlow had pointed him out as they entered, as a sort of curiosity; he had actually been born before Forrester himself. He had been a hundred and seven years old when, in 1988, he had died of an embolism. The embolism could have been repaired at once, but the ravages of age could not. Not then. After six centuries in the dreamless, liquid-helium sleep, his original stake had multiplied to the point where the trustees of the freezer had decided to revive him; but there had been only money enough to give him operational youth. Not much had been done cosmetically; and it had taken everything he had. “I bet you’ve had an interesting life,” Forrester told him solemnly, finishing what remained in his glass.

The man gave him a grave nod. “Signore,” he said, “durante la vita mia prima del morte, era un uomo grande! Nel tempo del Duce—ah! Un maggiore del esercito, io, e dappertutto non mi dispiacciono le donne!”

Whitlow patted the old man on the shoulder and led Forrester away. “Forebrain damage,” he whispered.

“But he was talking in Italian.”

“Sure, Chuck. He can’t learn raht, that’s what he’s doing here. You know, they ain’t many jobs for a fella that can’t talk lahk the rest of us.”

The Martian lurched past them, his head twisted sidewise toward them. Whether he had been listening or not Forrester could not say, but he was declaiming, “Talk like de rest. Live like de rest. Live for de state, for de state knows what’s best.”

The whole party was coming to life, thought Forrester, flushed and happy. A small man in a green ruff—it seemed to be an imitation of the Sirian coloration—cried, “And what’s best? Adolf Berle asked it half a millennium ago: ‘What does a corporation want?’ And the state has become a corporation!”

The ballet dancer hiccoughed and opened glazed and angry eyes. “Stalinist!” she hissed, then returned to sleep; and Forrester dug deep for hundred-dollar bills and fed them to the joymaker slots for more drinks all around.

Forrester was perfectly aware that he was rapidly depleting his last thousand dollars. In a way, it pleased him. He was drunk enough, euphoric enough, to let tomorrow face tomorrow’s fears. However badly the next day began, it could not be worse than this one had been. He saw advantages even in being a Forgotten Man: you could spend yourself into pennilessness, but not into bankruptcy; you could never go into debt, since you had no credit to begin with. Wise Tars Tarkas! Excellent kids, to have found him such fine advice. “Eat!” he cried, shaking off Whitlow’s cautionary whisper. “Drink! Be merry! For tomorrow we die, again!”

“Domani morire!” shrilled the old Italian, uptilting his glass of heaven-knows-how-costly grappa that Forrester had provided for him, and Forrester returned the toast.

“Listen, Chuck,” said Whitlow uneasily. “You better take it slow. We don’t get a mark lahk that space fella every day.”

“Whit, shut up. Don’t be a grandma, will you?”

“Well, it’s your money. But don’t blame me if you’re broke again tomorrow.”

Forrester smiled and said clearly, “You make me sick.”

“Now, cut it out raht there!” blazed Whitlow. “Whur’d you be if it wasn’t for me? God damn, Ah don’t have to take this kind of—”

But the Martian with the Irish name interrupted them. “Hey, you fellows! Dat’s enough, dere. You got to buy drinks yet.” As Whitlow cooled off, Forrester turned to inspect him; something had been on his mind.

“You,” he said. “How come you talk like that?”

“Like what, ‘like dat’? You tink dere’s someting funny about de way I talk?”

“Yeah, matter of fact. Why?”

But something had occurred to the Martian. He snapped his fingers. “Wait a minute! Forrester, is dat what you said your name was?”

“That’s right. But we’re talking about you—”

“You should learn not to interrupt dat way,” reproved Kevin O’Rourke na Solis Lacis. “What I want to tell you is dis. Dere’s a Sirian been around looking for you.”

“Sirian? One of the green fellows?” Fuzzily Forrester tried to concentrate, but it was not much fun. “You mean S Four?”

“How de hell would I know his number? He came around in one of dem pressure-cloaks, but I could tell he was a Sirian. I saw plenty of dem.”

“Probably wants to sue me for breach of contract,” Forrester said bitterly. “He’s welcome; there’s plenty of others.”

“No, I don’t tink so, because—”

“Cut it out,” interrupted Forrester. “You know, I hate the way you Martians keep changing the subject. What I want to know is why you all talk like that. This other one that wants to kill me, he had the same kraut accent, but in his case it figured, because he had a kraut name. But you talk the same way and you’re Irish, right?”

Kevin O’Rourke stared at him disapprovingly. “Forrester, you’re drunk. What de hell’s ‘Irish’?”

How long the party lasted Forrester did not know. He remembered a long harangue in which the drunken ballet dancer was trying to explain to him that the accent was Martian, not German; something to do with six-hundred-millibar oxyhelium air, which got them out of the habit of hearing certain frequencies. He had a clear memory of reaching into his pocket one time and coming up empty; and a fuzzy, frightening recollection of something bad that had happened.

But it was all hazy and distant and it came back to him only in random patches.

What he knew for sure was that when he woke up the next morning he was back in the rough-hewn tunnel next to the joymaker shop. How he had gotten there he had no idea. And he was alone.

Except, that is, for the granddaddy of all hangovers.

He dimly remembered that Whitlow had warned him about that, too. There were no autonomic monitoring circuits on the public joymakers, Whitlow had said. He would have to decide for himself when he had had enough, because the joymaker would not stop service at the point of no return—not as long as the money held out.

Apparently it had held out too long.

He shook his head miserably. The movement sent cascades of pain down the back of his skull.

Something bad had happened. He tried halfheartedly to recall it, but all that would come to his memory was a mosaic of mass terror. Something had broken up the party with drunken men and women racing around in terror, even the Italian and the ballerina rousing themselves enough to flee. But what?