This Immortal

Uncomfortable despite their lightness, the Dress Blacks mag-bind down the sides, leaving a smooth front whereon is displayed a green-blue-gray-white Earth insignia, about three inches in diameter, high up on the left breast; below, the symbol for one's department is worn, followed by the rank-sigil; on the right side goes every blessed bit of chicken manure that can be dreamt up to fake dignity-this, by the highly imaginative Office of Awards, Furbishments, Insigniae, Symbols and Heraldry (OAFISH, for short-its first Director appreciated his position). The collar has a tendency to become a garrot after the first ten minutes; at least mine does.

The ladies wore, or didn't, whatever they pleased, usually bright or accompanied by pastel simicoloring (unless they were Staff, in which case they were neatly packed into short-skirted Dress Blacks, but with bearable collars), which makes it somewhat easier to tell some of the keepers from the kept.

"I hear Dos Santos is here," I said.

"So he is."

"Why?"

"I don't really know, or care."

"Tsk and tsk. What happened to your wonderful political consciousness? The Department of Literary Criticism used to praise you for it."

"At my age, the smell of death becomes more and more unsettling each time it's encountered."

"And Dos Santos smells?"

"He tends to reek."

"I've heard that he's employed a former associate of ours-from the days of the Madagascar Affair."

Phil cocked his head to one side and shot me a quizzical look.

"You hear things quite quickly. But then, you're a friend of Ellen's. Yes, Hasan is here. He's upstairs with Don."

"Whose karmic burden is he likely to help lighten?"

"As I said before, I don't really know or care about any of this."

"Want to venture a guess?"

"Not especially."

We entered a thinly-wooded section of the forest, and I paused to grab a rum-and-other from the dip-tray which had followed overhead until I could bear its anguish no longer, and had finally pressed the acorn which hung at the end of its tail. At this, it had dipped obligingly, smiled open, and revealed the treasures of its frosty interior.

"Ah, joy! Buy you a drink, Phil?"

"I thought you were in a hurry."

"I am, but I want to survey the situation some."

"Very well. I'll have a simicoke."

I squinted at him, passed him the thing. Then, as he turned away, I followed the direction of his gaze towards the easy chairs set in the alcove formed by the northeast corner of the room on two sides and the bulk of the thelinstra on the third. The thelinstra-player was an old lady with dreamy eyes. Earthdirector Lorel Sands was smoking his pipe…

Now, the pipe is one of the more interesting facets of Lorel's personality. It's a real Meerschaum, and there aren't too many of them left in the world. As for the rest of him, his function is rather like that of an anti-computer: you feed him all kinds of carefully garnered facts, figures, and statistics and he translates them into garbage. Keen dark eyes, and a slow, rumbly way of speaking while he holds you with them; rarely given to gestures, but then very deliberate as he saws the air with a wide right hand or pokes imaginary ladies with his pipe; white at the temples and dark above; he is high of cheekbone, has a complexion that matches his tweeds (he assiduously avoids Dress Blacks), and he constantly strives to push his jaw an inch higher and further forward than seems comfortable. He is a political appointee, by the Earthgov on Taler, and he takes his work quite seriously, even to the extent of demonstrating his dedication with periodic attacks of ulcers. He is not the most intelligent man on Earth. He is my boss. He is also one of the best friends I have.

Beside him sat Cort Myshtigo. I could almost feel Phil hating him-from the pale blue soles of his six-toed feet to the pink upper-caste dye of his temple-to-temple hairstrip. Not hating him so much because he was him, but hating him, I was sure, because he was the closest available relative-grandson-of Tatram Yshtigo, who forty years before had commenced to demonstrate that the greatest living writer in the English language was a Vegan. The old gent is still at it, and I don't believe Phil has ever forgiven him.

Out of the corner of my eye (the blue one) I saw Ellen ascending the big, ornate stairway on the other side of the hall. Out of the other corner of my other eye I saw Lorel looking in my direction.

"I," said I, "have been spotted, and I must go now to pay my respects to the William Seabrook of Taler. Come along?"

"Well… Very well," said Phil; "suffering is good for the soul."

We moved on to the alcove and stood before the two chairs, between the music and the noise, there in the place of power. Lorel stood slowly and shook hands. Myshtigo stood more slowly, and did not shake hands; he stared, amber-eyed, his face expressionless as we were introduced. His loose-hanging orange shirt fluttered constantly as his chambered lungs forced their perpetual exhalation out the anterior nostrils at the base of his wide ribcage. He nodded briefly, repeated my name. Then he turned to Phil with something like a smile.

"Would you care to have me translate your masque into English?" he asked, his voice sounding like a dying-down tuning fork.

Phil turned on his heel and walked away.

Then I thought the Vegan was ill for a second, until I recollected that a Vegan's laugh sounds something like a billy goat choking. I try to stay away from Vegans by avoiding the resorts.

"Sit down," said Lorel, looking uncomfortable behind his pipe.

I drew up a chair and set it across from them.

"Okay."

"Cort is going to write a book," said Lorel.

"So you've said."

"About the Earth."

I nodded.

"He expressed a desire that you be his guide on a tour of certain of the Old Places…"

"I am honored," I said rather stiffly. "Also, I am curious what determined his selection of me as guide."

"And even more curious as to what he may know about you, eh?" said the Vegan.

"Yes, I am," I agreed, "by a couple hundred percent."

"I asked a machine."

"Fine. Now I know."

I leaned back and finished my drink.

"I started by checking the Vite-Stats Register for Earth when I first conceived of this project-just for general human data-then, after I'd turned up an interesting item, I tried the Earthoffice Perso

"Mm-hm," I said.

"-and I was more impressed by what they did not say of you than by what they said."

I shrugged.

"There are many gaps in your career. Even now, no one really knows what you do most of the time.

"-And by the way, when were you born?"

"I don't know. It was in a tiny Greek village and they were all out of calendars that year. Christmas Day, though, I'm told."

"According to your perso

"I fibbed about my age to get the job. There was a Depression going on."

"-So I made up a Nomikos-profile, which is a kind of distinctive thing, and I set Vite-Stats to hunting down.001 physical analogues in all of its banks, including the closed ones."

"Some people collect old coins, other people build model rockets."

"I found that you could have been three or four or five other persons, all of them Greeks, and one of them truly amazing. But, of course, Konstantin Korones, one of the older ones, was born two hundred thirty-four years ago. On Christmas. Blue eye, brown eye. Lame right leg. Same hairline, at age twenty-three. Same height, and same Bertillion scales."

"Same fingerprints? Same retinal patterns?"

"These were not included in many of the older Registry files. Maybe they were sloppier in those days? I don't know. More careless, perhaps, as to who had access to public records…"