Tales of Old Earth Read online

  She dipped her head. “Sorry.”

  “Apology accepted. Let’s get back to task, shall we? Our hypothetical immortal would be a lot like flesh women, in many ways. Self-regenerating. Able to grow her own replacement parts. She could take in pretty much anything as fuel. A little carbon, a little water …”

  “Alcohol would be an excellent fuel,” his granddaughter said.

  “She’d have the ability to mimic the superficial effects of aging,” the mech said. “Also, biological life evolves incrementally across generations. I’d want her to be able to evolve across upgrades.”

  “Fair enough. Only I’d do away with upgrades entirely, and give her total conscious control over her body. So she could change and evolve at will. She’ll need that ability, if she’s going to survive the collapse of civilization.”

  “The collapse of civilization? Do you think it likely?”

  “In the long run? Of course. When you take the long view it seems inevitable. Everything seems inevitable. Forever is a long time, remember. Time enough for absolutely everything to happen.”

  For a moment nobody spoke.

  Then the old man slapped his hands together. “Well, we’ve created our New Eve. Now let’s wind her up and let her go. She can expect to live—how long?”

  “Forever,” said the mech.

  “Forever’s a long time. Let’s break it down into smaller units. In the year 2500, she’ll be doing what?”

  “Holding down a job,” the granddaughter said. “Designing art molecules, maybe, or scripting recreational hallucinations. She’ll be deeply involved in the culture. She’ll have lots of friends she cares about passionately, and maybe a husband or wife or two.”

  “Who will grow old,” the mech said, “or wear out. Who will die.”

  “She’ll mourn them, and move on.”

  “The year 3500. The collapse of civilization,” the old man said with gusto. “What will she do then?”

  “She’ll have made preparations, of course. If there are radiation or toxins in the environment, she’ll have made her systems immune from their effects. And she’ll make herself useful to the survivors. In the seeming of an old woman she’ll teach the healing arts. Now and then she might drop a hint about this and that. She’ll have a data base squirreled away somewhere containing everything they’ll have lost. Slowly, she’ll guide them back to civilization. But a gentler one, this time. One less likely to tear itself apart.”

  “The year one million. Humanity evolves beyond anything we can currently imagine. How does she respond?”

  “She mimics their evolution. No—she’s been shaping their evolution. She wants a risk-free method of going to the stars, so she’s been encouraging a type of being that would strongly desire such a thing. She isn’t among the first to use it, though. She waits a few hundred generations for it to prove itself.”

  The mech, who had been listening in fascinated silence, now said, “Suppose that never happens? What if starflight will always remain difficult and perilous? What then?”

  “It was once thought that people would never fly. So much that looks impossible becomes simple if you only wait.”

  “Four billion years. The sun uses up its hydrogen, its core collapses, helium fusion begins, and it balloons into a red giant. Earth is vaporized.”

  “Oh, she’ll be somewhere else by then. That’s easy.”

  “Five billion years. The Milky Way collides with the Andromeda Galaxy and the whole neighborhood is full of high-energy radiation and exploding stars.”

  “That’s trickier. She’s going to have to either prevent that or move a few million light years away to a friendlier galaxy. But she’ll have time enough to prepare and to assemble the tools. I have faith that she’ll prove equal to the task.”

  “One trillion years. The last stars gutter out. Only black holes remain.”

  “Black holes are a terrific source of energy. No problem.”

  “1.06 googol years.”

  “Googol?”

  “That’s ten raised to the hundredth power—one followed by a hundred zeros. The heat-death of the universe. How does she survive it?”

  “She’ll have seen it coming for a long time,” the mech said. “When the last black holes dissolve, she’ll have to do without a source of free energy. Maybe she could take and rewrite her personality into the physical constants of the dying universe. Would that be possible?”

  “Oh, perhaps. But I really think that the lifetime of the universe is long enough for anyone,” the granddaughter said. “Mustn’t get greedy.”

  “Maybe so,” the old man said thoughtfully. “Maybe so.” Then, to the mech, “Well, there you have it: a glimpse into the future, and a brief biography of the first immortal, ending, alas, with her death. Now tell me. Knowing that you contributed something, however small, to that accomplishment—wouldn’t that be enough?”

  “No,” Jack said. “No, it wouldn’t.”

  Brandt made a face. “Well, you’re young. Let me ask you this: Has it been a good life so far? All in all?”

  “Not that good. Not good enough.”

  For a long moment the old man was silent. Then, “Thank you,” he said. “I valued our conversation.” The interest went out of his eyes and he looked away.

  Uncertainly Jack looked at the granddaughter, who smiled and shrugged. “He’s like that,” she said apologetically. “He’s old. His enthusiasms wax and wane with his chemical balances. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “I see.” The young man stood. Hesitantly, he made his way to the door.

  At the door, he glanced back and saw the granddaughter tearing her linen napkin into little bits and eating the shreds, delicately washing them down with little sips of wine.

  5

  North of Diddy-Wah-Diddy

  The train to Hell don’t stop in New Jersey. It pulls out of Grand Central Station at midnight, moving slow at first but steadily picking up speed as it passes under the Bay, and by the time we hit the refineries, it’s cannonballing. We don’t stop for nothing. We don’t stop for nobody. And if you step in our way expecting Old Goatfoot to apply the brakes, well, pardon me for saying it, but you’re going to get exactly what’s coming to you.

  We don’t stop and we don’t slow down once that gleaming black-and-silver locomotive leaves the station. Not ‘til we get to where we’re going. Once we’re rolling, there’s no second chances. And no exceptions neither.

  So that night the train did stop, I knew straight off that we were in for some serious trouble.

  We were barreling through the Pine Barrens, shedding smoke and sulfur and sparks, when I heard the air brakes squeal. The train commenced to losing velocity. I was just about to open the snack bar, but right off I heard that sound, I flipped around the CLOSED sign, grabbed my cap, and skittered off to see what the matter was.

  The damned were slumped in their seats. Some of them stared straight ahead of themselves at nothing in particular. Others peered listlessly out the windows or else at their own grey reflections in the glass. Our passengers are always a little subdued in the early stages of the trip.

  “Oh, porter!” one of the damned called to me. She was a skinny little white woman with a worried-looking kind of pinched-in face. “Would it be all right of me to open the window just a crack, so I could get some air?”

  I smiled gently into those big pleading eyes of hers and said, “Why, bless you, honey, you can do whatever you want. What difference could it possibly make now?”

  She flinched back like I’d hit her.

  But I reached over and took the window clips and slid it down two inches. “Don’t go no further, I’m afraid. Some of the lost souls might take it into their heads to try and … you know?” I lowered my voice in a confidential manner.

  Timidly, she nodded.

  I got a pillow out of the overhead and fluffed it up for her. “Now you just let me slide this behind your head. There! Isn’t that better? You relax now, and in a couple minutes the
kitchen will be open. When I come back, I’ll give you a menu. Got a nice selection of sandwiches and beverages. You rest up and have a comfy ride.”

  All the while I was talking, I was just about dying inside of curiosity. Through the window behind the old lady I could see that we’d stopped in a small clearing in the pines. We were miles from the nearest town. The only light here was what came from the moon and the greenish spill from the windows of the train itself. There were maybe half a dozen dim figures out there. I could see them hoist up a long crate of some kind. Somebody—and who else could it be but Billy Bones?—leaned out from the caboose with a lantern and waved them forward.

  The damned stared out the windows with disinterest. Most likely they thought we were picking up more passengers. Only the crew knew different.

  Still, I take pride in my work. I fussed over that little lady and by the time I left her she was actually smiling. It was only a tense little smile, but it was a smile still.

  People can fool themselves into believing anything.

  Soon as I got myself clear, I made straight for the baggage car. I had got me a real bad feeling about what was going on, and I intended to pry a few answers out of Billy Bones. But I didn’t get beyond the door. When I tried to slide it back, it wouldn’t budge. I seized it with both hands and applied some muscle. Nothing.

  It was locked from inside.

  I banged on the door. “Mister Bones!”

  A silence, and then the peephole slide moved aside. A cadaverous slice of Billy Bones’s face appeared. Flesh so tight it didn’t hide the skull. Eyes as bright and glittery as a rat’s. “What is it?”

  “Don’t you give me that what-is-it bullshit—why did we stop?” The pines made a dark, jagged line against the sky. I could smell them. If I wanted, I could step down off the train and walk into them. “Just what kind of unholy cargo have you taken on?”

  Billy Bones looked me straight in the eye. “We ain’t taken on no cargo.”

  “Now don’t get me started,” I said. “You open up and-”

  He slammed that little slide-door right in my face.

  I blinked. “Well!” I said. “You may think you’ve had the last word, Mister Billy Bones, but you have not, I assure you that!”

  But I didn’t feel nowhere near so brash as I made out. Billy Bones was a natural-born hustler down to his fingertips, the kind of man that could break you a quarter and short-change you a dollar in the process. Ain’t nobody never outbluffed him. Ain’t nobody never got nothing out of him that he didn’t want to give. In my experience, what he didn’t wish to say, I wasn’t about to hear.

  So back I strode, up the train, looking for Sugar. My old stomach ulcer was starting to act up.

  “Diddy-Wah-Diddy!” Sugar bawled. He strolled briskly through the car, clacking his ticket punch. “Diddy-Wah-Diddy, Ginny Gall, WEST Hell, Hell, and BeluthaHATCHie! Have your tickets ready.”

  I gave him the high sign. But a portly gent in a pinstripe suit laid hold of his sleeve and launched into a long complaint about his ticket, so I had to hold back and wait. Sugar listened patiently to the man for a time, then leaned over him like a purple storm cloud. The man cringed away. He’s big, is Sugar, and every ounce of him is pure intimidation.

  “I tell you what, sir,” he said in a low and menacing way. “Why don’t you take a spoon and jab it in your eye? Stir it around good. See how clean you can scrape out the socket.” He punched the ticket. “I guarantee you that a week from now you gone look back upon the experience with nostalgia.”

  The man turned grey and for an instant I thought he was going to rise up out of his seat. But Sugar smiled in a way that bulged up every muscle in his face and neck and the man subsided. Sugar stuck the ticket stub in the seat clip. Then, shaking his head, he came and joined me between cars.

  His bulk filled what space there was pretty good. “Make it brief, Malcolm. I got things to do.”

  “You know anything ’bout why we stopped?” Those dim people were trudging away into the pines. None of them looked back, not even once. They just dissolved into the shadows. “I saw Billy Bones take on a crate and when I asked him about it, he clammed right up.”

  Sugar stared at me with those boogieman eyes of his. In all the three-four years he’d been on the train, I don’t recall ever seeing him blink. “You ain’t seen nothing,” he said.

  I put my hands on my hips. “Now, don’t you start in on me! I was a porter on this train back when your mama was sucking tittie.”

  Sugar seemed to swell up then, a great black mountain with two pinpricks of hellfire dancing in his eyes. “You watch what you say about my mother.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. But I didn’t back down. “Just what you intending to do?” I shook my finger in his face. “You know the regs. If you so much as touch me, you’re off the train. And they don’t let you out in Manhattan, neither!”

  “Can’t say I much care.” He put those enormous hands on my shoulders. His voice was small and dreamy. “After this run, I don’t much care whether I keep this job or not.”

  All the while he spoke, those hands kept kneading my shoulders. He laid one huge thumb alongside my face and shoved my head to the side. I didn’t much doubt he could crush my bones and snap my spine, if he wanted to. He was that strong. And I could see that he’d enjoy it.

  “I ain’t said nothing!” I was terrified. “I ain’t said nothing about your mama.”

  Sugar considered this for a long time, that sleepy little smile floating on his face. At last he said, “See that you don’t.”

  And he turned away.

  I exhaled. I can’t say I knew Sugar at all well. He was a recent addition to the crew; the conductor before him took to visiting the juke joints and gambling dens of Ginny Gall during stopovers and lost his precariously-held spiritual balance. But if ever anyone was meant to be a badman, it was Sugar. He was born just naturally brimming-over with anger. They say when the midwife slapped his bottom, the rage in his voice and the look on his face were so awful that straightaway she threw him down on the floor. He was born with a strangler’s hands and a murderer’s eyes. The rest of him, the size and bulk of him, just grew, so’s to have a package big enough and mean enough to contain all the temper there inside.

  And they also say that when the midwife lifted up her foot to crush Sugar to death, his mama rose up off of the bed and thrashed her within an inch of her life. She was one of those tiny little women too, but her love for her baby was that strong. She threw that midwife right out of the room and down the stairs, broken bones and all. Then she picked up Sugar and put him to her breast and cooed at him and sang to him until he fell asleep. That’s the kind of blood flowed in Sugar’s veins, the kind of stuff he was made from.

  There was a sudden lurch and the train started to move again. Whatever was going down, it was too late to stop it now.

  With Billy Bones and Sugar refusing to talk to me, there wasn’t any chance none of the girls would either. They were all three union, and Billy was their shop steward. Me, I was union too, but in a different shop.

  The only remaining possible source of information was Old Goat-foot. I headed back for the concession stand to fetch a bottle of rye. I had it in a paper bag under one arm and was passing through the sleeper cars when a door slid open and a long slim hand crooked a red-nailed finger.

  I stepped into the compartment. A ginger-colored woman closed the door and slid between me and it. For an instant we just stood there looking at each other. At last she said, “Porter.”

  “Yes’m?”

  She smiled in a sly kind of way. “I want to show you something.” She unbuttoned her blouse, thrusting her chest forward. She was wearing one of those black lacy kinds of bras that squeeze the breasts together and up. It was something to behold.

  “If you’ll excuse me, ma’am,” I said uncomfortably. “I have to get back to work.”

  “I got work for you right here,” she said, grabbing at me. I reached
for the doorknob, but she was tugging at my jacket, trying to get it open. I grabbed her by the wrists, afraid of losing a button.

  “Please, ma’am.” I was just about dying of embarrassment.

  “Don’t you please ma’am me, boy! You know I got what you want and we both know I ain’t got long to use it.” She was rubbing herself against me and at the same time trying to shove my head down into her bosom. Somehow her brassiere had come undone and her breasts were slapping me in the face. It was awful. I was thrashing around, struggling to get free, and she was all over me.

  Then I managed to slip out of her grip and straight-arm her so that she fell on her back onto the bunk. For a second she lay there looking rumpled and expectant.

  I used that second to open the door and step out into the hall. Keeping a wary eye on the woman, I began to tug my uniform back into place.

  When she realized I wasn’t going to stay, her face twisted, and she spat out a nasty word.

  “Cocksucker!”

  It hurt. I’m not saying it didn’t. But she was under a lot of pressure, and it wouldn’t have been professional for me to let my feelings show. So I simply said, “Yes’m. That’s so. But I’m sure there are plenty of men on board this train who would be extremely interested in what you got to offer. The dining room opens soon. You might take a stroll up that way and see what sort of gents are available.”

  I slipped away.

  Back when I died, men like me called ourselves “queers.” That’s how long ago it was. And back then, if you were queer and had the misfortune to die, you were automatically damned. It was a mortal sin just being one of us, never mind that you didn’t have any say in the matter. The Stonewall Riots changed all that. After them, if you’d lived a good life you qualified for the other place. There’s still a lot of bitterness in certain circles of Hell over this, but what are you going to do? The Man in charge don’t take complaints.