Time's Last Gift

Gribardsun had not wished to be alone with Rachel, but she had asked if she could accompany him. He disliked saying no, because she had behaved toward him for months as if he were just another scientist. Apparently she and Drummond were now living with no more than the friction most married couples experienced.

'The thing to do is to enjoy Time as much as you can,' he said. 'Live as the beasts do. From day to day. If you think of the end of Time, that is, of your own death, accept it as part of Time. You can do nothing about it, so why worry about it??

'But you, you're the exception -' Rachel said, and then she stopped. Her eyes were wide and her mouth open. Her hand was at her throat, as if she would choke off her words.

'I am?'he said.'Why?'

'I mean,' Rachel said, 'that you, or anybody, might be the exception. That's what I meant. What if somebody found a means to extend his life span for a very long time, and then...?'

'And then what?' Gribardsun said. He had stopped and was looking down at her with large and bright gray eyes.

Rachel shivered, and yet she could not have been cold. The sun was warm and she was covered and hooded with the thin but very warm thermicron material.

'I was just speculating,' she said. 'Surely, sometime in man's history, somebody must have stumbled across an elixir of a sort, something which kept a man young for a very long time. Don't you think that's possible?'

'It's possible,' he said, smiling. She shivered again. 'When I was a young man, I heard stories among the natives of Africa about witch doctors who had invented an elixir of youth. It was also supposed to confer immunity to all diseases. But mankind wishes for such an elixir and so he makes up stories to the effect that such a thing does exist.'

'Well,' Rachel said, 'just suppose such a person as I postulated did exist? Wouldn't you think he'd become very lonely? He'd see those he loved get old and ugly and die. And his own sons, and his grandsons, would age and die. And he'd be bound to fall in love many times, and raise children, and each time his wife would inevitably die.'

She stopped, licked her lips, and moved closer to him. Her chin was lifted high so she could look up into his eyes.

'Unless,' she said, 'this man knew how to make the elixir. Then he could keep his wife and his children young also. Of course, he'd have to swear them to secrecy, and that might be such a dangerous thing that he would hesitate. It would be difficult for most people to keep such a secret to themselves. Most people, I say.'

'But not for you?' he said, smiling.

'Yes, but not for me!' she said.

'I hope you find someone who has the elixir,' he said. 'If he should exist. Which he won't in this era, of course. Although you never know. Perhaps some plant exists which could provide the basis of an elixir. And then that plant will become extinct. But the elixir only has to be used once. The effect of the elixir might be permanent, relatively speaking.'

'Maybe I shouldn't be saying anything,' she said. 'But when you were gone, visiting the Wotagrub, Drummond and Robert and I had a long talk about you. We concluded that there was something very strange about your being chosen as a member of this expedition. And we agreed that there was something strange about your background. Every once in a while you let slip some peculiar remarks that can only be accounted for by your having lived a long long time, far longer...'

Gribardsun had not lost his smile. He said, 'I wonder if your displacement in time hasn't resulted in some sort of shock. Shall we call it temporal shock? Or the temporal syndrome? A human being can't be catapulted backward in time, to an age so alien in nature, so savage, and so very far away from his own world, without suffering a neurosis or perhaps even psychosis.'

'If that were true, then you'd be just as much in shock as we,' she said. 'But you're getting me off the track. I was...'

She stopped. He had looked up over her shoulder at something far up the hill. He had stiffened.

'What's wrong?' she said. She turned around and looked up the steep slope. But she could see only the sun-bright snow and the green and white firs and pines, the eagle; and several gray shadowy shapes - wolves - far to the right near the top of a ridge. But he was looking to the left.

'I thought I saw something moving up there,' he said. 'Among the trees.'

She moved against him and put her arms around him without thinking about it. It was the expression of her long-repressed desire, and he knew it at once. She realized it several seconds later, but by then it was too late. She did not withdraw; she stood on her toes and kissed him.

The bullet tore the fabric of their solitude within an inch of their ears - or so it seemed - and then the report of the rifle reached them.

Gribardsun shoved her sprawling into the snow and dived after her.

Rachel had uttered a muffled scream. Now she raised her head, looking like a snow maiden. The powdery stuff was over her face and ringing her large blue eyes.

'It's Drummond!' she said. 'But why would he do it? How could he? It's not like him! He's not violent! He's not a murderer!'

Gribardsun may have considered that her husband was the most probable suspect. But he said, 'Let's not accuse anybody until we know for certain who...'

Another bullet cut off his speech; it came so close that it almost seemed to have severed the words issuing from his mouth. It threw up a spray of snow only an inch before him.

Gribardsun rolled to one side and then said, 'Very good shooting, or the man's very lucky. He couldn't have seen me behind the snow, I don't think. Get over behind that boulder!' Rachel crawled swiftly to the designated rock, and another bullet threw up snow a few inches from her foot. Gribardsun said, a moment later, 'I think he's about four hundred yards away, judging from the difference in time between the bullet striking and the time it takes the report to reach us.'

Rachel moaned. 'What reason could Drummond have? We've never done anything!'

'Reason?' Gribardsun said. He did not add anything, but she understood him. Human beings were far more motivated by irrationalities than by reason.

Gribardsun waited until another bullet had gone by and then rolled over to the boulder behind which Rachel crouched. He broke open his 365 rifle to make sure that the barrel was unclogged by snow, and then he told Rachel to stay where she was.

He jumped up and dived into the snow, rolled, and was behind a tree.

Rachel heard two more shots and then could not resist looking around the side of the boulder. She could see neither man. The top of the hill looked empty of life. Gribardsun must be fairly near, but he was behind a tree somewhere up the hill. She waited for an hour by her watch. Only one more shot was fired during that rime. She cried and wiped the tears away and then cried some more. She could not believe that her husband was really trying to kill her. Perhaps he had been shooting just at Gribardsun, but no, those first bullets had come too near her as well. He must not have cared whether he struck her or Gribardsun.

Presently she heard John's voice far away. Cautiously, she looked over the boulder. He was a tiny figure near the top of the mountain. He was waving at her to come up. A moment later he used his amplifier. His voice bellowed down at her, like God's telling His worshipper to ascend the Mount of Judgment.

It took her half an hour to get to him. The snow was deep most of the way, and the slope was steep. By the time she reached him, she was breathing as if she had asthma.

She did not want to see what he was pointing at, but she knew that she must sooner or later. And she was also aware that she did not want to show weakness before John. She dreaded his contempt, even though she had never experienced it.