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08 - Five Stories by Alan Nourse by Alan E. Nourse · Five Stories by Alan Nourse

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Speaker 1: Martyr, Part one of five stories by Alan Norse. This
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Speaker 1: is a libravox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
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Speaker 1: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
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Speaker 1: librovox dot org. Recording by Kirk Ziggler. Rejuvenation for the
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Speaker 1: Millions or Rejuvenation for the five hundred Lucky Ones, the
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Speaker 1: select ones that can be treated each year. Tough Independent
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Speaker 1: Senator Dan Fowler fights a one man battle against the
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Speaker 1: clique that seeks perpetual power and perpetual youth in this
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Speaker 1: hard hitting novel by Alan E. Norse. Why did it
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Speaker 1: have to be his personal fight? The others would fumble it,
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Speaker 1: they'd foul it up, Fowler protested, But why was he
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Speaker 1: in the fight? And what was to happen to Senator
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Speaker 1: Fowler's fight against this fantastic conspiracy? Who would win? I
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Speaker 1: can break him, split his criterion committee wide open now
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Speaker 1: while there's still a chance, and open rejuvenation up to everybody.
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Speaker 1: Four and one half hours after the Martian sunset, the
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Speaker 1: last light in the headquarters building finally blinked out. Carl
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Speaker 1: Golden stamped his feet nervously against the cold, cupping his
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Speaker 1: cigarette in his hand to suck up the tiny spark
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Speaker 1: of warmth. The night air bit his nostrils and made
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Speaker 1: the smoke tasteless in the darkness. Atmosphere screens kept the
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Speaker 1: oxygen in all right, but they never kept the biting
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Speaker 1: cold out. As the light disappeared, he dropped the cigarette,
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Speaker 1: stamping it sharply into the darkness. Boredom vanished, and warm
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Speaker 1: blood prickled through his shivering legs. He slid back tight
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Speaker 1: against the coarse black building front, peering across the road
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Speaker 1: in the gloom. It was the girl. He had thought so,
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Speaker 1: but hadn't been sure. She swung the heavy stone door
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Speaker 1: shut after her, glanced both left and right, and started
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Speaker 1: down the frosty road toward the lights of the colony.
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Speaker 1: Carl Golden waited until she was gone. He glanced at
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Speaker 1: his wristchrono and waited ten minutes more. He didn't realize
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Speaker 1: that he was trembling until he duck swiftly across the road.
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Speaker 1: Through the window of the low one story building, he
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Speaker 1: could see the lobby call board with the light colored
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Speaker 1: studs all dark. He smiled in unpleasant satisfaction. No one
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Speaker 1: was left in the building. It was routine, just like
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Speaker 1: everything else. In this god forsaken whole, utter abysmal, trance
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Speaker 1: like routine. The girl was a little later than usual,
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Speaker 1: probably because of the ship coming in tomorrow. Reports get ready,
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Speaker 1: supply requisitions, personnel recommendations, and the final reports on Armstrong's death.
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Speaker 1: Mustn't forget that the real story, the absolute factual truth,
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Speaker 1: without any nonsense, the reports that would go ultimately to
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Speaker 1: Rhinehart and only Rhinehardt, as all the other important reports
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Speaker 1: from the Mars Colony had been doing for so many years.
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Speaker 1: Karl skirted the long low building, falling back into the
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Speaker 1: black shadows of the side wall. Half way around he
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Speaker 1: came to the supply chute, covered with a heavy molded
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Speaker 1: stone cover. Now it had taken four months here to
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Speaker 1: know that he would have to do it this way,
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Speaker 1: four months of ridiculous masquerade, made idiotic by the incredible
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Speaker 1: fact that everyone took him for exactly what he pretended
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Speaker 1: to be and never challenged him, Not even Terry Fisher,
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Speaker 1: who drunk or sober, always challenged everything and everybody. But
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Speaker 1: the four months had told on his nerves. In his
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Speaker 1: reactions in the hollows. Under his quick brown eyes, there
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Speaker 1: was always the specter of a slip up an aroused suspicion,
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Speaker 1: and until he had the report before his eyes, he
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Speaker 1: couldn't fall back on Dan Fowler's name to save him.
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Speaker 1: He had shook Dan's hand the night he had left,
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Speaker 1: and Dan had said, remember, son, I don't know you.
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Speaker 1: I hate to do it this way, but we can't
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Speaker 1: risk it now. And they couldn't, of course, not until
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Speaker 1: they knew for certain who had murdered Kenneth Armstrong. Already
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Speaker 1: they knew why. The utter stillness of the place reassured him.
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Speaker 1: He hoisted up the shute cover, threw it high, and
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Speaker 1: shinned his long body into the chute. It was a
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Speaker 1: steep slide, and he held on for an instant, then
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Speaker 1: let go. Blackness gulped him down as the cover snapped
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Speaker 1: close behind him. He struck hard and rolled. The chute
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Speaker 1: opened into the commissary in the third deep level of
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Speaker 1: the building, and the place was black as the inside
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Speaker 1: of a pocket. He tested unbroken legs with a sigh
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Speaker 1: of relief, and limped across to where the door should be.
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Speaker 1: In the corridor. There was some light dim phosphorescence from
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Speaker 1: the Martian night rock lining the walls and tiling the floor.
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Speaker 1: He walked swiftly, cursing the clack clack his heels made
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Speaker 1: on the ringing stone. When he reached the end of
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Speaker 1: the corridor, he tried the heavy door. It gave, complaining good, good.
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Speaker 1: It had been quick, imperfect job of jimmying the lock,
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Speaker 1: so obviously poor that it had worried him a lot.
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Speaker 1: But why should they test it? There was still another door.
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Speaker 1: He stepped into the blackness again and started across the room.
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Speaker 1: As the door swung shut behind him, a shoe scraped
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Speaker 1: the faintest rustle of sound. Carl froz his own trouser
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Speaker 1: leg a trick of acoustics. He didn't move a muscle, then,
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Speaker 1: Carl His pocket light flickered around the room, a small
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Speaker 1: secretary's ante room. It stopped on a pair of legs.
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Speaker 1: A body slouched down in the soft plastifoam chair, A
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Speaker 1: face ruddy and bland, with a shock of sandy hair,
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Speaker 1: with keyhotic eyebrows. Terry, for Christ's sake? What The man
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Speaker 1: leaned forward, grinning at him. You're late, Carl. His voice
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Speaker 1: was a muddy drawl. Should have made it sooner than this,
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Speaker 1: seems to me. Carl's light moved past the man in
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Speaker 1: the chair to the floor. The bottle was standing there,
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Speaker 1: still half full. My god, you're drunk, Carse, I'm drunk.
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Speaker 1: What you think i'd sober up after you left me tonight?
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Speaker 1: No thanks, I'd rather be drunk. Terry Fisher hicc up badly.
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Speaker 1: I'd always rather be drunk round this place. All right.
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Speaker 1: You've got to get out of here. Carl's royce rose
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Speaker 1: with bitter anger of all times. He wanted to scream,
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Speaker 1: how did you get in here? You've got to get out,
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Speaker 1: so do you. They're on to you, Carl. I don't
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Speaker 1: think you know that, but they are. He leaned forward precariously.
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Speaker 1: I had a talk with Barness this morning, one of
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Speaker 1: his nice spontaneous chats, and he pumped the hell out
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Speaker 1: of me, and thought I was too drunk to know it.
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Speaker 1: They're expecting you to come here tonight. Carl heaved at
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Speaker 1: the drunken man's arm frantically in the darkness. Get out
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Speaker 1: of here, Terry, or so help me. Terry clutched at him.
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Speaker 1: Didn't you hear me? They know about you, personnel supervisor.
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Speaker 1: They think you're spying for the Eastern Boys. They're starting
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Speaker 1: a Mars colony. Too. You know, Barness is sure you're
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Speaker 1: selling them info. The man heck uped again. Barness is
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Speaker 1: an ass, just like all the others retreads running this place.
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Speaker 1: But I'm not an ass, and you didn't fool me
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Speaker 1: for two days. Carl gritted his teeth. How could Terry
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Speaker 1: Fisher know? For the last time. Fisher lurched to his feet.
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Speaker 1: They'll get you, Carl. They can try you and shoot
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Speaker 1: you right on the spot, and Barness will do it.
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Speaker 1: I had to tell you you've walked right into it,
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Speaker 1: but you might still get away if it was cruel.
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Speaker 1: The drunken man's head jerked up at the blow. He
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Speaker 1: gave a little grunt, then slid back down on the chair.
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Speaker 1: Carl stepped over his legs worked swiftly at the door beyond.
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Speaker 1: If they caught him now, Terry Fisher was right, But
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Speaker 1: in five more minutes the lock squeaked and the door
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Speaker 1: fell open. Inside. He tore through the file cases, wrenched
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Speaker 1: at the locked drawers in frantic haste, ripping the weak
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Speaker 1: aluminum sheeting like thick tinfoil. Then he found the folder
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Speaker 1: marked Kenneth Armstrong on the tab. Somewhere above him. An
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Speaker 1: alarm went off screaming a mournful note through the building.
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Speaker 1: He threw on the light switch, flooding the room with whiteness,
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Speaker 1: and started through the papers one by one in the folder.
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Speaker 1: No time to read flash retinal photos were hard to
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Speaker 1: superimpose and keep straight, but that was one reason why
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Speaker 1: Carl Golden was on Mars instead of sitting in an
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Speaker 1: office back on Earth. He flipped the last page and
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Speaker 1: threw the folder onto the floor. As he went through
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Speaker 1: the door, he flipped out the light raced with clattering
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Speaker 1: footsteps down the corridor. Lights caught him from both sides,
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Speaker 1: slicing the blackness like hot knives. All right, Golden, stop
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Speaker 1: right there. Dark figures came out of the lights, ripped
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Speaker 1: his clothing off without a word. Somebody wrenched open his mouth,
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Speaker 1: shined a light in rammed coarse, cold fingers down into
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Speaker 1: his throat. Then, all right, you bastard upstairs, Barness wants
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Speaker 1: to see you. They packed him naked into the street,
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Speaker 1: hurried him into a three wheeled ground car. Five minutes later,
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Speaker 1: he was wading through frosty dust into another building, and
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Speaker 1: Barness was glaring at him across the room. Odd things
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Speaker 1: flashed through Karl's mind, you seldom saw Repeater get really angry.
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Speaker 1: But Barness was angry. The man's young, old face, the strange,
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Speaker 1: utterly ageless amalgamation of sixty years of wisdom superimposed by
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Speaker 1: the youth of a twenty year old, had unaccustomed lines
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Speaker 1: of wrath about the eyes and mouth. Barness didn't waste words.
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Speaker 1: What did you want down there, Armstrong? Carl cut the
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Speaker 1: word out, almost gleefully. And I got it. And there's
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Speaker 1: nothing you, or Reinharder or anybody else in between can
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Speaker 1: do about it. I don't know what I saw yet,
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Speaker 1: but I've got it in my eyes and in my cortex,
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Speaker 1: and you can't touch it, you stupid fool. We can
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Speaker 1: peel your cortex. Barnes snarled, Well, you won't. You won't, Dare.
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Speaker 1: Barnes glanced across at the officer who brought him in,
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Speaker 1: Tommy Dan Fowler won't like it, said Carl. Barnes stopped short, blinking.
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Speaker 1: He took a slow breath, then sank down into his chair. Fowler,
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Speaker 1: he said, as though dawn were just breaking. That's right,
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Speaker 1: he sent me up here. I've found what he wants.
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Speaker 1: Shoot me now, and when they probe you, Dan will
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Speaker 1: know I've found it, and you won't be around for
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Speaker 1: another rejuvenation. Barness looked suddenly old. What did he want?
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Speaker 1: The truth about Armstrong, not the accident story you fed
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Speaker 1: to the TVs Tragican for world hero died with his
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Speaker 1: boots on. Dan wanted to the truth. Who killed him?
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Speaker 1: Why this colony is grinding down from compound low to
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Speaker 1: stop and turning men like Terry Fisher into alcoholic bums.
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Speaker 1: Why this colony is turning into a glorified super refined
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Speaker 1: Birdie's rest for old men? But mostly who killed Armstrong?
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Speaker 1: How was he murdered? Who gave the orders? And if
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Speaker 1: you don't mind, I'm beginning to get a cold. And
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Speaker 1: you got all that, said Barness, that's right. You haven't
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Speaker 1: read it through, not yet, plenty of time for that.
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Speaker 1: On the way back, Barness nodded wearily in motion to
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Speaker 1: the guard to give Carl his clothes. I think you'd
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Speaker 1: better read it tonight. Maybe it'll surprise you. Golden's eyes widened.
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Speaker 1: Something in the man's voice, some curious note of defeat
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Speaker 1: and hopelessness, told him that Barnes was not lying. Oh,
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Speaker 1: Armstrong didn't have an accident, That's true, nobody murdered him either.
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Speaker 1: Nobody gave any orders to anybody from anybody. Armstrong put
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Speaker 1: a bullet through his head quite of his own volition.
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Speaker 1: All right, Senator, the young redhead doctor said, you say
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Speaker 1: you want it straight, that's how you're going to get it.
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Speaker 1: Moments before, doctor Moss had been laughing. Now he wasn't
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Speaker 1: laughing six months at the outside nine if you went
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Speaker 1: to bed tomorrow, retired from the Senate and lived on
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Speaker 1: tea and crackers. But where I'm sitting I wouldn't bet
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Speaker 1: a plug nickel that you'll be alive a month from now.
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Speaker 1: If you think I'm joking, you just try and squeeze
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Speaker 1: the bed out of me. Senator Dan Fowler took the
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Speaker 1: black cigar from his mouth, stared at the chewed up
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Speaker 1: in for a moment, and put it back again. He
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Speaker 1: had had something exceedingly witty already to say at this
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Speaker 1: point of the examination. Now it didn't seem too funny
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Speaker 1: if Moss had been a mealy mouthed quack like the
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Speaker 1: last doc he had seen, okay, but Moss wasn't. Moss
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Speaker 1: was obviously not impressed by the old man sitting across
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Speaker 1: the desk from him, a fact which made Dan Fowler
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Speaker 1: just a trifle uneasy, and Moss knew his turnips. Dan
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Speaker 1: Fowler looked at the door and said, garbage. The red
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Speaker 1: headed doctor shrugged. Look, Senator, some times of bananas, A banana.
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Speaker 1: I know heart disease, and I know how it acts.
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Speaker 1: I know that it kills people if they wait too long.
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Speaker 1: And when you're dead, no rejuvenation lab is going to
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Speaker 1: bring you back to life again. Oh hell, who's dying?
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Speaker 1: Fowler's gray eyebrows knit in the old familiar scowl. Any
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Speaker 1: bit down hard on the cigar heart disease. So I
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Speaker 1: get a little pain now and then, sure it won't
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Speaker 1: last forever. And when it gets bad, I'll come in
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Speaker 1: and take the full treatment. But I can't do it now.
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Speaker 1: He's spread his hands in a violent gesture. I only
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Speaker 1: came in here because my daughter dragged me. My heart's
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Speaker 1: doing fine. I've been working eighteen hour days for forty
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Speaker 1: years now, and I can do it for another year
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Speaker 1: or two. But you have pain, said doctor Moss. So
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Speaker 1: a little twinge now and then whenever you lose your temper,
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Speaker 1: whenever anything upsets you, all right, a twinge which makes
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Speaker 1: you sit down for ten or fifteen minutes, which doesn't
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Speaker 1: go away with one nitro tablet anymore, so you have
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Speaker 1: to take two and sometimes three, right, right, Dan Fowler blink?
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Speaker 1: All right? Sometimes it gets a little bad. And it
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Speaker 1: used to only be once or twice a month, but
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Speaker 1: now it's almost every day, and once or twice you've
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Speaker 1: blacked out clean for a while and made your staff
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Speaker 1: work like demons to cover for you and keep it
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Speaker 1: off the TVs. Right, say, who's been talking to you?
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Speaker 1: Jeane has been talking to me. Can't even trust your
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Speaker 1: own daughter to keep her trap shut? The senator tossed
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Speaker 1: the cigar butt down in disgust. It happened once. Yes,
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Speaker 1: that god damned Ryan hard is enough to make anybody
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Speaker 1: black out. He thrust out his jaw and glowered at
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Speaker 1: doctor Moss as though we're all his fault. Then he grinned, Oh,
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Speaker 1: I know you're right, Doc, It's just that this is
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Speaker 1: the wrong time. I can't take two months out now.
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Speaker 1: There's too much to be done between now and the
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Speaker 1: middle of next month. Oh yes, the herrings. Why not
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Speaker 1: turn it over to your staff. They know what's going on.
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Speaker 1: Nonsense they know, but not like I know. After the
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Speaker 1: Herring's fine, I'll come along like a lamb. But now,
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Speaker 1: Doctor Moss reddened, slammed his fist down on the desk.
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Speaker 1: Damn it, man, are you blind and deaf or just
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Speaker 1: plain stupid? Didn't you hear me a moment ago? You
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Speaker 1: may not live through the hearings. You could go just
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Speaker 1: like that any minute. But this is twenty one thirty
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Speaker 1: four a d not the Middle Ages. It would be
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Speaker 1: so utterly hopeless and pointless to let it happen. Fowler
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Speaker 1: champed his cigar and scowled after it was done. I'd
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Speaker 1: have to free agent for a year, wouldn't I. It
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Speaker 1: was an accusation you should, but that's a formality if
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Speaker 1: you want to go back to what you were doing
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Speaker 1: the day you came from the center, yes, if, but
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Speaker 1: supposing I didn't, supposing I was all changed. The young
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Speaker 1: doctor looked at the old man shrewdly. Dan Fowler was
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Speaker 1: fifty six years old, and he looked forty. It seemed incredible,
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Speaker 1: even to Moss that the man could have done what
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Speaker 1: he had done and look almost as young and fighting
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Speaker 1: mad now as he had when he started. Clever old
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Speaker 1: goat too. But Dan Fowler's last remark opened the door wide.
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Speaker 1: Moss smiled to himself. You're afraid it, aren't you, Senator
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Speaker 1: of rejuvenation nonsense, But you are. You aren't the only one.
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Speaker 1: It's a pretty frightening thing. Cash in the old model,
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Speaker 1: take out a new one, just like a jet racer
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Speaker 1: or a worn out talk writer. Only it isn't machinery.
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Speaker 1: It's your body and your life, doctor Moss grimmed. It
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Speaker 1: scares a man. Rejuvenation isn't the right word, of course,
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Speaker 1: aside from the neurons. They take away every cell in
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Speaker 1: your body, one way or another and give you new ones.
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Speaker 1: One hundred and fifty years ago, Cancel mo Incline did
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Speaker 1: it on a dog and called it subtotal prothesius, a
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Speaker 1: crude job. I've seen their papers and films vat grown
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Speaker 1: hearts and kidneys, revitalized vacular material, building up new organs
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Speaker 1: like a patchwork quilt, coaxing tissues to grow to replace
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Speaker 1: old ones. But they got a living dog out of it,
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Speaker 1: and that dog lived to the ripe old age of
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Speaker 1: thirty seven years before he died. Moss pushed back from
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Speaker 1: his desk, watching Dan Fowler's face. Then, in nineteen ninety two,
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Speaker 1: Nimrock tried it on a man and almost got himself
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Speaker 1: hanged because the man died. That was one hundred and
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Speaker 1: forty two years ago. And then while he was still
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Speaker 1: on trial, his workers completed the second job and the
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Speaker 1: man lived. And oh, how the jig changed for Nimrock.
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Speaker 1: The doctor shrugged as he talked. As he talked, Dan
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Speaker 1: Fowler sat silent, chewing his cigar furiously, but listening. He
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Speaker 1: was listening. All right, Well, it was crude. Then Moss said,
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Speaker 1: it's not so crude anymore. He pointed to a large
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Speaker 1: bronze plaque hanging on the office wall. You've seen that before,
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Speaker 1: read it. Dan Fowler's eyes went up to the plaque
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Speaker 1: a list of names. At the top, words said, these
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Speaker 1: ten gave life to mankind. Below it were the names
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Speaker 1: Martin Aronson, PhD. Education, Thomas Bevila Aqua Literature and art,
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Speaker 1: Chauncey Delvin Music, Frederick Taylor, Ms. Engineering, Reverend Hugh H. F.
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Speaker 1: Norton philosophy and theology, Jacob Prowsnitz, PhD. History, Arthur L. Rogers,
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Speaker 1: m d. Medicine, Carlotta Sokel, PhD. Social Psychology, Harvey Tatum Business.
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Speaker 1: I know, said Fowler, June first, two thousand and five.
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Speaker 1: They were volunteers. Ten out of several dozen volunteers. Moss
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Speaker 1: amended those ten were chosen by lot. Already people were
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Speaker 1: dreaming of what a subtotal prothesiust could do. It could
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Speaker 1: preserve the great minds, It could compound the accumulated wisdom
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Speaker 1: of one lifetime into another lifetime, and maybe more. Those
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Speaker 1: ten people representing ten great fields of study, risked their lives,
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Speaker 1: not to live forever, just to see if the rejuvenation
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Speaker 1: could really preserve their minds in newly built bodies. All
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Speaker 1: of them were old, older than you are, Senator, some
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Speaker 1: were sicker than you, and all of them were afraid.
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Speaker 1: But seven of the ten are still alive today. One
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Speaker 1: hundred and thirty years later. Rogers died in a jet crash.
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Speaker 1: Tatum died of neuro toxic virus. Because we couldn't do
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Speaker 1: anything to rebuild neurons in those days, Bevila Aqua suicided.
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Speaker 1: The rest are still alive after two more rejuvenations, Fine,
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Speaker 1: said Fowler. I still can't do it now. That was
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Speaker 1: just ten people Moss cut in. It took five years
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Speaker 1: to get ready for them, But now we can do
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Speaker 1: five hundred a year, only five hundred select individuals to
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Speaker 1: live on instead of dying. And you've got the gall
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Speaker 1: to sit there and tell me you don't have the
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Speaker 1: time for it. The old man rolls, slowly, lighting another cigar.
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Speaker 1: It could be five thousand a year. That's why I
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Speaker 1: don't have the time. Fifteen thousand, fifty thousand. We could
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Speaker 1: do it, but we're not doing it. Wald Rhinehart's been
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Speaker 1: rejuvenated twice already. I'm on the list because I shouted
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Speaker 1: so loud they didn't dare leave me off. But you're
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Speaker 1: not on it? Why not? You could be? Everybody could be.
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Speaker 1: Doctor Moss bred his hands the Criterion Committee, the choosing
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Speaker 1: Rhinehart's criteria only five hundred a year. Use it for
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Speaker 1: a weapon, build power with it, get a stranglehold on it,
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Speaker 1: and never never let it go. The Senator leaned across
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Speaker 1: the desk, his eyes bright with anger. I haven't got
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Speaker 1: time to stop what I'm doing now, because I can
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Speaker 1: stop Rheinhardt. If I only live that long, I can
19:22
Speaker 1: break him. Split his Criterion committee wide open now while
19:26
Speaker 1: there's still a chance, and open rejuvenation up to everybody
19:29
Speaker 1: instead of five hundred lucky ones a year. I can
19:32
Speaker 1: stop him because I've dug at him and dug at
19:34
Speaker 1: him for twenty nine years and shouted and screamed and
19:38
Speaker 1: fought and made people listen. And if I fumble now,
19:41
Speaker 1: it'll all be down, the drain, finished, washed up. If
19:45
Speaker 1: that happens, nobody will ever stop him. There was silence
19:49
Speaker 1: in the room for a moment. Then Moss bread his hands.
19:52
Speaker 1: The hearings are critical, eh, I'm afraid, So why has
19:56
Speaker 1: it got to be your personal fight? Other people could
19:58
Speaker 1: do it, they'd fumble it, they'd foul it up. Senator
20:02
Speaker 1: Libby fouled it up once already, a long time ago.
20:05
Speaker 1: Ryinhart's lived for one hundred and nineteen years, and he's
20:08
Speaker 1: learning new tricks every year. We've only lived fifty six
20:12
Speaker 1: of them. But I know his tricks and I can
20:14
Speaker 1: beat him. But why you somebody's got to do it.
20:17
Speaker 1: My card is on top A phone buzzer chirped, Yes,
20:21
Speaker 1: he's here, Doctor Moss handed down the receiver. A moment later,
20:25
Speaker 1: the Senator was grinning like a cat, struggling into his
20:28
Speaker 1: overcoat and scarf. Sorry, Doc, I know what you're telling
20:31
Speaker 1: me is true, and I'm no fool. If I have
20:34
Speaker 1: to stop, I'll stop tomorrow. Then not tomorrow. One of
20:38
Speaker 1: my lads is back from the Mars colony. Tomorrow we
20:41
Speaker 1: pow wow, but hard after the hearings, Doc, And meanwhile,
20:45
Speaker 1: keep your eye on the TVs. I'll be seeing you.
20:47
Speaker 1: The door click shut with a note of finality, and
20:50
Speaker 1: Doctor David Moss stared at it gloomily. I hope, so,
20:54
Speaker 1: he said, but nobody in particular hurt him. A vultitude
21:00
Speaker 1: wheeler was waiting outside for him. Jean drove off down
21:03
Speaker 1: the drive with a characteristic contempt for laws of gravity.
21:06
Speaker 1: When Dan had piled in and Carl Golden was there,
21:09
Speaker 1: looking thinner, more gaunt, and hot like than ever before,
21:12
Speaker 1: his brown eyes sharp under the shock of black hair,
21:15
Speaker 1: his long, thin, aquiline nose. If you weren't a Jew,
21:19
Speaker 1: you'd be a discredit to the gentiles. Dan Fowler had
21:22
Speaker 1: twitted him once years before, and Karl had looked down
21:25
Speaker 1: his long, thin aquiline nose and sniffed and let the
21:29
Speaker 1: matter drop, because until then he had never been sure
21:31
Speaker 1: whether his being a Jew had mattered to Dan Fowler
21:34
Speaker 1: or not, And now he knew, and was quite satisfied
21:37
Speaker 1: with the knowledge and the ever present cigarette between the
21:40
Speaker 1: thin sensitive fingers. Dan clapped him on the shoulder and
21:44
Speaker 1: shot a black look at his daughter, relegating her to
21:47
Speaker 1: the indescribable Fowler limbo, which was where she belonged and
21:51
Speaker 1: would reside until Dan got excited and forgot how she
21:54
Speaker 1: had betrayed him to doctor Moss, which would take about
21:58
Speaker 1: ten or fifteen minutes all told. Jeane Fowler knew her
22:01
Speaker 1: father far too well to worry about it, and squinted
22:04
Speaker 1: out the window at the afternoon traffic as the car
22:07
Speaker 1: skidded the corner onto the Boulevard Thoroughway across the river
22:10
Speaker 1: toward home. Goddamn it, boy, you could have wired me.
22:14
Speaker 1: At least one of Jean's crew spotted this passage list,
22:18
Speaker 1: so I knew you'd left and got the hearing moved
22:20
Speaker 1: up to next month. Carl scowled, I thought it was
22:23
Speaker 1: all set for February fifteenth. Dan chuckled, It was, but
22:28
Speaker 1: I was only waiting for you and got the ball
22:30
Speaker 1: rolling as soon as I knew you were on your way.
22:32
Speaker 1: Dwight Mackenzie is still riding the committee's business calendar, of course,
22:36
Speaker 1: and he didn't like it one bit. But he couldn't
22:39
Speaker 1: find any solid reason why it shouldn't be set ahead.
22:42
Speaker 1: And I think our good friend, Senator Reinhardt is probably
22:44
Speaker 1: wriggling on the stick about now. Just on the shock
22:47
Speaker 1: value of the switch. Always figure in the shock value
22:50
Speaker 1: of everything you do, my boy, it pays off more
22:53
Speaker 1: than you'll ever dream. Carl Golden shook his head. I
22:57
Speaker 1: don't like it, Dan, what the switch dates? The switch?
23:01
Speaker 1: I wish you hadn't done that, But why look, son,
23:05
Speaker 1: I know that with Ken Armstrong dead, our whole approach
23:08
Speaker 1: has to be changed. It's got to be trickier, but
23:10
Speaker 1: it might even work out better. The Senate knows what's
23:14
Speaker 1: been going on between Rhinehart and me, and so does
23:16
Speaker 1: the President. They know elections are next June. They know
23:20
Speaker 1: I want a seat on his Criterion committee before elections,
23:23
Speaker 1: and they know that to get on it, I'll do
23:25
Speaker 1: my damnedest to unseat him. They know I've shaken him up,
23:28
Speaker 1: that he's scared of me. Okay, fine. With Armstrong there
23:32
Speaker 1: to tell how he was chosen for retread back in
23:34
Speaker 1: eighty seven, we'd have had reine Hart running for his life.
23:38
Speaker 1: But you don't, Carl cut in flatly and that's that.
23:43
Speaker 1: What are you crazy? Son? I needed Armstrong bad. Rhine
23:47
Speaker 1: Hart knew it and had him taken care of. It
23:49
Speaker 1: was fishy. It's stunk from here to Mars. But Rhinehart
23:53
Speaker 1: covered it up fast and clean. But with the stuff
23:55
Speaker 1: you've got up on the colony, we can charge Reinehart
23:58
Speaker 1: with murder, and the whole sense knows his motive already.
24:01
Speaker 1: He didn't dare to let Armstrong testify. Karl was shaking
24:05
Speaker 1: his head sadly. Well, what's wrong? You aren't going to
24:09
Speaker 1: like this, Dan Reinehart's clean Armstrong committed suicide. Fowler's mouth
24:14
Speaker 1: fell open and he sat back hard. Oh no, sorry,
24:19
Speaker 1: Ken Armstrong suicided. He shook his head helplessly, groping for words.
24:24
Speaker 1: I I owe Jesus, I don't believe it. If Ken
24:27
Speaker 1: Armstrong suicided, I'm the scarlet horror of Babylon. We'll try
24:31
Speaker 1: to keep that off the TV's. There's no chance that
24:35
Speaker 1: you're wrong, said the old man. Carl shook his head.
24:39
Speaker 1: There's plenty that's funny about that Mars colony. But Armstrong's
24:42
Speaker 1: death was suicide period. Even Barness didn't understand it. Sharp
24:47
Speaker 1: Eyes went to Karl's face. What's funny about the colony?
24:51
Speaker 1: Carl shrugged and lit a cigarette. Hard to say, this
24:55
Speaker 1: was my first look. I had nothing to compare it with.
24:58
Speaker 1: But there's something wrong. I always thought that the Mars
25:01
Speaker 1: Colony was a frontier, a real challenge, you know, man
25:05
Speaker 1: against the wilderness and all of that. Saloons jammed on
25:08
Speaker 1: Saturday nights with rough boys out to get some babes.
25:11
Speaker 1: That had to give a place that could take earthbound
25:14
Speaker 1: softies and toughen them up. In a week, working to
25:17
Speaker 1: tame down the desert. His voice trailed off. They've got
25:20
Speaker 1: a saloon, all right, but everybody just comes in quietly
25:23
Speaker 1: and gets slobbery drunk. Met a guy named Fisher thought
25:27
Speaker 1: the same thing I did when he came up five
25:29
Speaker 1: years ago. A real go getter leader type, lots of
25:32
Speaker 1: ideas and the guts to put them across. Now he's
25:35
Speaker 1: got a hobnail liver, and he came back here on
25:37
Speaker 1: the ship with me, hating Mars and everything up there,
25:40
Speaker 1: most of all himself. Something's wrong up there, Dan, Maybe
25:44
Speaker 1: that's why Armstrong bowed out. The Senator took a deep breath.
25:48
Speaker 1: Not a man like Ken Armstrong why I used to
25:51
Speaker 1: worship him when I was a kid. I was ten
25:54
Speaker 1: when he came back to Earth for a second retread.
25:57
Speaker 1: The old man shook his head. I wanted to go
25:59
Speaker 1: back tomorrow with him. I actually packed up to run away,
26:03
Speaker 1: until dear brother Paul caught me and squealed to Dad, imagine,
26:07
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Dan. The car whizzed off the thoroughway and
26:11
Speaker 1: began weaving through residential areas of Arlington. Jean swung under
26:15
Speaker 1: an arched gate stopped in front of a large greystone house,
26:18
Speaker 1: the sort of which they hadn't built for a hundred years.
26:21
Speaker 1: Dan Fowler stared out at the gray November afternoon. Well
26:26
Speaker 1: then we're freely on ice at the hearings. We can
26:28
Speaker 1: still do it. It'll take some steam rollering, but we
26:31
Speaker 1: can manage it. He turned to the girl. Give Shermer
26:35
Speaker 1: on the wire. As soon as we get inside, I'll
26:37
Speaker 1: go over Carl's report for whatever I can find. Tell Shermer,
26:40
Speaker 1: if he wants to keep his job as coordinator of
26:43
Speaker 1: the medical Center next year, he'd better have all the
26:45
Speaker 1: statistics available on all rejuvenated persons past and present in
26:49
Speaker 1: my office tomorrow morning. Jean gave her father a queer
26:53
Speaker 1: look Shermeer's waiting for you inside right now? Oh oh,
26:59
Speaker 1: why he wouldn't say nothing to do with politics. He
27:02
Speaker 1: said something about Paul. Nathan Shermer was waiting in the library,
27:07
Speaker 1: sipping a brand in, pretending to scan a congressional record
27:10
Speaker 1: in the viewer box. He looked up bird like as
27:13
Speaker 1: Dan Fowler strode in, Well, Nate, sit down, sit down.
27:17
Speaker 1: I see you're into my private stock already, so I
27:20
Speaker 1: won't offer you any what's this about my brother? Schrmer
27:24
Speaker 1: coughed into his hand. Dan, I don't know quite how
27:27
Speaker 1: to tell you this. He was in Washington this afternoon,
27:30
Speaker 1: of course he was. He's supposed to go to the center.
27:33
Speaker 1: Dan broke off short, whirling on Shermer. Wait a minute,
27:37
Speaker 1: there wasn't a slip up on his permit, permit for rejuvenation,
27:42
Speaker 1: you ask. He's on the Starship project coordinating engineer of
27:45
Speaker 1: the whole works out there. He's got a fair place
27:48
Speaker 1: on the list coming to him three ways from Sunday.
27:51
Speaker 1: Fulmer put the permit through months ago, and Paul has
27:54
Speaker 1: just been diddling around getting himself clear so he could come.
27:57
Speaker 1: In the little coordinator's eyes, widened. Oh, there wasn't anything
28:01
Speaker 1: wrong on our side, if that's what you mean. The
28:03
Speaker 1: permit was perfectly clear. The doctors were waiting for him.
28:07
Speaker 1: It was nothing like that, then, what was it like?
28:10
Speaker 1: Nathan Shermer wriggled and tried to avoid Dan's eyes. Your
28:14
Speaker 1: brother refused it. He laughed in our faces. He told
28:17
Speaker 1: us to go to hell, and took the next jet
28:19
Speaker 1: back to Nevada. All in one afternoon. The vibration of
28:23
Speaker 1: the jet engines hung just at perception level, nagging and
28:27
Speaker 1: nagging at Dan Fowler, until he threw his papers aside
28:30
Speaker 1: with a snarl of disgust and peered angrily out the window.
28:34
Speaker 1: They were high and moving fast. Far below was a
28:37
Speaker 1: tiny spot of light in the blackness. Pittsburgh, maybe Cleveland.
28:42
Speaker 1: It didn't matter which jets traveled at such and such
28:45
Speaker 1: a rate of speed. They left at such and such
28:47
Speaker 1: a time and arrived somewhere else at such and such
28:50
Speaker 1: a time later. He could worry, or he could not worry.
28:53
Speaker 1: The jet would bring him down in Las Vegas in
28:55
Speaker 1: exactly the same time to the second. Either way, another
28:58
Speaker 1: half an hour taxi r over dusty desert roads would
29:01
Speaker 1: bring him to the glorified quants at his brother called home.
29:05
Speaker 1: Nothing Dan Fowler could do would hurry the process of
29:08
Speaker 1: getting there. Dan had called and received no answer. He
29:11
Speaker 1: had talked to the Las Vegas authorities and even gotten
29:14
Speaker 1: Ljinski at the Starship, and neither of them knew anything.
29:18
Speaker 1: The police said, yes, they would check at doctor Fowler's
29:20
Speaker 1: residence if he wasn't out at the ship, and checked back,
29:24
Speaker 1: but they hadn't checked back, and that was two hours ago. Meanwhile,
29:28
Speaker 1: Karl had chartered him a plane. God damn Paul to
29:32
Speaker 1: three kinds of hell, of all miserable times to start
29:35
Speaker 1: playing games, acting like an imbecile child. And the work
29:39
Speaker 1: and sweat Don had gone through to get that permit
29:42
Speaker 1: to buy it, beg it, steal it, gold plate it.
29:46
Speaker 1: Of course, the odds were good that Paul would have
29:48
Speaker 1: gotten it without a whisper from Dan. He was high
29:51
Speaker 1: on the list. He was critical to Starship, and certainly
29:55
Speaker 1: Starship was critical enough to rate. But Dan had gone
29:58
Speaker 1: out on a limb. Way out, the Senator's fist clinched
30:02
Speaker 1: and he drummed it helplessly on the empty seat and
30:05
Speaker 1: felt a twinge of pain spread up his chest, down
30:08
Speaker 1: his arm, he cursed, fumbled for the bottle in his
30:11
Speaker 1: vest pocket. Goddamn heart and goddamn brother and goddamn rhine
30:15
Speaker 1: art did everything have to split the wrong way? Now
30:18
Speaker 1: of all times, of all days, of all his fifty
30:21
Speaker 1: six years of life? Now? All right, Dan, cool boy, relax?
30:27
Speaker 1: Shame on, you can't you quit being selfish for just
30:29
Speaker 1: a little while. Dan didn't like the idea as it
30:32
Speaker 1: flicked through his mind, But then he didn't like anything
30:35
Speaker 1: too much right then, so he forced the thought back
30:38
Speaker 1: for a rerun. Big Dan Fowler, Senator Dan Fowler, Selfish
30:43
Speaker 1: Dan Fowler, loves Dan Fowler. Mostly Poor Paul. The words
30:48
Speaker 1: had been going through his mind like a silly chant
30:51
Speaker 1: since the first moment he had seen Nate Shermer in
30:53
Speaker 1: the library. Poor Paul. Dan did all right for himself,
30:57
Speaker 1: he did. He made quite a name down in Washington.
31:00
Speaker 1: You know, a fighter, a real fighter, the boy with
31:03
Speaker 1: the golden touch. Everything he ever did worked out with
31:06
Speaker 1: him on top. Somehow. Paul was different, smart enough, plenty
31:11
Speaker 1: of the old gazoo, but he had never had Dan's drive,
31:14
Speaker 1: bad brakes right down the line. Kinda tough on a
31:17
Speaker 1: guy with a comet like Dan in the family, poor Paul.
31:21
Speaker 1: He let his mind drift back, slowly, remembering little things,
31:24
Speaker 1: trying to spot the time, the single instant in time
31:27
Speaker 1: when he stopped fighting Paul and started feeling sorry for him.
31:31
Speaker 1: It had been different years ago. Paul had been the
31:33
Speaker 1: smart one, all right, never had Dan's build, but he
31:36
Speaker 1: could think rings around him. Dan was always a little slow,
31:40
Speaker 1: never forgot anything he learned, but he learned slow. Still,
31:44
Speaker 1: there were ways to get around that. Dad and Mom
31:47
Speaker 1: always liked Paul the best, their first boy, you know,
31:50
Speaker 1: Anne babied him more, and that was decidedly tougher to
31:53
Speaker 1: get around. Still, there were ways, like the night the
31:57
Speaker 1: prize money came from the lottery when he and Paul
31:59
Speaker 1: had split a ticket down the middle. How old was
32:02
Speaker 1: he then, ten eleven and Paul was fifteen. He grubbed
32:07
Speaker 1: up the dollar polishing cars and met Paul's dollar halfway,
32:11
Speaker 1: never dreaming the thing would pay off. And when it did,
32:14
Speaker 1: oh how he'd never forget that night He wanted the
32:17
Speaker 1: jet racer. The ticket paid two thousand, a hell of
32:20
Speaker 1: a lot of cash for a pair of boys, and
32:22
Speaker 1: the two thousand would buy the racer. He had been
32:25
Speaker 1: so excited tears had poured down his face, but Paul
32:28
Speaker 1: had said, no split it even just like the ticket.
32:31
Speaker 1: Paul had said. There were hot words and pleading in threats,
32:35
Speaker 1: and Paul just laughed at him until he got so
32:37
Speaker 1: mad he wanted to kill him with only his fists.
32:40
Speaker 1: Bad mistake that Paul was skinny, not much muscle, read
32:44
Speaker 1: books all the time. It looked like a cinch, but
32:48
Speaker 1: Paul had five years on him that he hadn't counted on.
32:51
Speaker 1: Important five years. Paul connected with just one enough to
32:55
Speaker 1: lay Dan flat on his back with a concussion and
32:57
Speaker 1: a broken jaw, and that, my boy, was the almost
33:01
Speaker 1: Dan had won the fight. Of course, it was the
33:03
Speaker 1: broken jaw that did it. That night later the fight
33:07
Speaker 1: Mom and Dad had worse than usual, a cruel one,
33:10
Speaker 1: low blows mean, But Dan got his racer on the
33:13
Speaker 1: strength of the broken jaw. The jaw had done him
33:16
Speaker 1: a lot of good. Never quite grew right after that
33:19
Speaker 1: got one of the centers of vossification, the doctor said,
33:23
Speaker 1: And Dan had been God's gift to the peanued brush
33:25
Speaker 1: men with that heavy angular jaw, a fighter's jaw, they
33:28
Speaker 1: called it. That started it. Of course he knew then
33:33
Speaker 1: that he could beat Paul, good to know, but never
33:36
Speaker 1: sure of it, always having to prove it. The successes came,
33:39
Speaker 1: and always he let Paul know about them. Watched Paul's
33:42
Speaker 1: face like a cat, and Paul would squirm and sneer
33:46
Speaker 1: and tell Dan that in the end it was brains
33:48
Speaker 1: that would pay off sour grapes. Of course, if Paul
33:51
Speaker 1: had ever squared off to him again, manned Man, they
33:54
Speaker 1: might have had it over with. But Paul just seemed
33:57
Speaker 1: content to sit quietly and hate him, Like the night
34:00
Speaker 1: he broke the Universalists in New Chicago at a hundred
34:03
Speaker 1: dollar plate dinner. He had told him that night, that
34:06
Speaker 1: was the night they'd cold shouldered him and put Libby
34:09
Speaker 1: up to run for mayor. Oh, he'd raised a glorious
34:12
Speaker 1: stink that night. He never enjoyed himself so much in
34:15
Speaker 1: his life, turning their whole twisted machine right over to
34:18
Speaker 1: the public on a silver platter, cutting loose from the
34:21
Speaker 1: old crowd, appointing himself a committee of one to nominate
34:24
Speaker 1: himself on an independent reform ticket, campaign himself and elect
34:29
Speaker 1: himself a whipper snapper of thirty two. Paul had been
34:32
Speaker 1: amused by it, almost indulgent. You do get melodramatic, don't you. Dan? Well,
34:38
Speaker 1: if you want to cut your own throat, that's your affair.
34:41
Speaker 1: And Dan had burned and told Paul to watch the TVs.
34:44
Speaker 1: He had seen a thing or two and he did
34:46
Speaker 1: all right. He remembered Paul's face a few months later
34:50
Speaker 1: when Libby conceded at eleven forty five p m. On
34:53
Speaker 1: election night, and Dan rode into office with a new
34:56
Speaker 1: crowd of live wires who were ready to help him
34:58
Speaker 1: plow into Nushako and clean up that burg like it
35:02
Speaker 1: had never been cleaned up. And the sweetest part of
35:05
Speaker 1: the victory pie had been the look on Paul's face
35:07
Speaker 1: that night. And so they'd fought, and he'd won and
35:11
Speaker 1: rubbed it in, and Paul had lost and hated him
35:14
Speaker 1: for it until that mysterious day. When had it really happened?
35:18
Speaker 1: When that big brained brother of mine changed subtly into
35:22
Speaker 1: christ Man, quit floundering, who wants engineers? They're all over
35:27
Speaker 1: the place. You'll starve to death, and then finally to
35:31
Speaker 1: poor Paul. When had it happened? Why? Dan wondered suddenly,
35:36
Speaker 1: if he had ever really forgiven Paul that blow to
35:39
Speaker 1: the jaw, Perhaps he shook himself, scowling into the plexiglass
35:44
Speaker 1: window blackness. Okay, they'd fought it out, always jolly, always
35:48
Speaker 1: making it out to be a big, friendly game. Only
35:51
Speaker 1: it never was a game. He knew how much he
35:53
Speaker 1: owed to Paul. He'd known it with growing concern for
35:56
Speaker 1: a lot of years. And now if he had to
35:58
Speaker 1: drag him back to washing by the hair, he dragged
36:01
Speaker 1: the silly fool And of Martyr Part one recording by
36:06
Speaker 1: Kirk Sigler Ogden Utah voice overs by Kirk dot Com