Immortality, Inc

That mad old man! Blaine shivered slightly and looked at Marie. She sat with downcast eyes, waiting. So he waited, too.

After a while there was a soft knock at the door.

“Come in,” Blaine said to whoever was outside.

34

Blaine recognized Smith immediately, even with false beard, sideburns and tan stage makeup. The zombie came in, limping, bringing with him a faint odor of decay imperfectly masked by a powerful shaving lotion.

“Excuse the disguise,” Smith said. “It isn't intended to deceive you, or anyone. I wear it because my face is no longer presentable.”

“You've come a long way,” Blaine said.

“Yes, quite far,” Smith agreed, “and through difficulties I won't bore you by relating. But I got here, that's the important thing.”

“Why did you come?”

“Because I know who I am,” Smith said.

“And you think it concerns me?”

“Yes.”

“I can't imagine how,” Blaine said grimly. “But let's hear it.”

Marie said, “Wait a minute. Smith, you've been after him since he came into this world. He's never had a moment's peace. Can't you just accept things as they are? Can't you just go and die quietly somewhere?”

“Not without telling him first,” Smith said.

“Come on, let's hear it,” Blaine said.

Smith said, “My name is James Olin Robinson.”

“Never heard of you,” Blaine said after a moment's thought.

“Of course not.”

“Have we ever met before that time in the Rex building?”

“Not formally.”

“But we met?”

“Briefly.”

“All right, James Olin Robinson, tell me about it. When did we meet?”

“It was quite brief,” Robinson said. “We glimpsed each other for a fraction of a second, then saw no more. It happened late one night in 1958, on a lonely highway, you in your car and me in mine.”

“You were driving the car I had the accident with?”

“Yes. If you can call it an accident.”

“But is was! It was completely accidental!”

“If that's true, I have no further business here,” Robinson said. “But Blaine, I know it was not an accident. It was murder. Ask your wife.”

Blaine looked at his wife sitting in a corner of the couch. Her face was waxen. She seemed drained of vitality. Her gaze seemed to turn inward and not enjoy what it saw there. Blaine wondered if she was staring at the ghost of some ancient guilt, long buried, long quickening, now come to term with the appearance of the bearded Robinson.

Watching her, he slowly began piecing things together.

“Marie,” he said, “what about that night in 1958? How did you know I was going to smash up my car?”

She said, “There are statistical prediction methods we use, valence factors…” Her voice trailed away.

“Or did you make me smash up my car?” Blaine asked. “Did you produce the accident when you wanted it, in order to snatch me into the future for your advertising campaign?”

Marie didn't answer. And Blaine thought hard about the ma

He had been driving over a straight, empty highway, his headlights probing ahead, the darkness receding endlessly before him … His car swerved freakishly, violently, toward the oncoming headlights…He twisted hard on the steering wheel. It wouldn't turn … The steering wheel came free and spun in his hands, and the engine wailed …

“By God, you made me have that accident!” Blaine shouted at his wife. “You and Rex Power Systems, you forced my car into a swerve! Look at me and answer! Isn't it true?”

“All right!” she said. “But we didn't mean to kill him. Robinson just happened to be in the way. I'm sorry about that.”

Blaine said, “You've known all along who he was.”

“I've suspected.”

“And never told me.” Blaine paced up and down the room. “Marie! Damn you, you killed me!”

“I didn't, Tom! Not really. I took you from 1958 into our time. I gave you a different body. But I didn't really kill you.”

“You simply killed me,” Robinson said.

With an effort Marie turned from her i

“A very poor exchange for my former body,” Robinson said.

“I'm sure it was. But what do you want? What can I do? The hereafter —”

“I don't want it,” Robinson said. “I haven't had a chance on the Earth yet.”

“How old were you at the time of the accident?” Blaine asked.

“Nineteen.”

Blaine nodded sadly.

“I'm not ready for the hereafter,” Robinson said. “I want to travel, do things, see things. I want to find out what kind of a man I am. I want to live! Do you know, I've never really known a woman! I'd exchange immortality for ten good years on Earth.”

Robinson hesitated a moment, then said, “I want a body. I want a man's good body that I can live in. Not this dead thing which I wear. Blaine, your wife killed my former body.”

Blaine said, “You want mine?”

“If you think it's fair,” Robinson said.

“Now wait just a minute!” Marie cried. Color had returned to her face. With her confession, she seemed to have freed herself from the grip of the ancient evil in her mind, to have come back to wrestle again with life.

“Robinson,” she said, “You can't ask that from him. He didn't have anything to do with your death. It was my fault, and I'm sorry. You don't want a woman's body, do you? I wouldn't give you mine, anyhow. What's done is done! Get out of here!”

Robinson ignored her and looked at Blaine. “I always knew it was you, Blaine. When I knew nothing else, I knew it was you. I watched over you, Blaine, I saved your life.”

“Yes, you did,” Blaine said quietly.

“So what!” Marie screamed. “So he saved your life. That doesn't mean he owns it! One doesn't save a life and expect it to be forfeited upon request. Tom, don't listen to him!”

Robinson said, “I have no means or intention of forcing you, Blaine. You will decide what you think is right, and I will abide by it. You will remember everything.”

Blaine looked at the zombie almost with affection. “So there's more to it. Much more. Isn't there, Robinson?”

Robinson nodded, his eyes fixed on Blame's face.

“But how did you know?” Blaine asked. “How could you possibly know?”

“Because I understand you. I've made you my lifetime work. My life has revolved around you. I've thought about nothing but you. And the better I knew you, Blaine, the more certain I was about this.”

“Perhaps,” Blaine said.

Marie said, “What on earth are you talking about? What more? What more could there be?”

“I have to think about this,” Blaine said. “I have to remember. Robinson, please wait outside for a little while.”

“Certainly,” the zombie said, and left immediately.

Blaine waved Marie into silence. He sat down and buried his head in his hands. Now he had to remember something he would rather not think about. Now, once and for all, he had to trace it back and understand it.

Etched sharp in his mind still were the words Reilly had screamed at him in the Palace of Death: “You’re responsible! You killed me with your evil murdering mind! Yes you, you hideous thing from the past, you damned monster! Everything shuns you except your friend the dead man! Why aren't you dead, murderer!”

Had Reilly known?

He remembered Sammy Jones saying to him after the hunt: “Tom, you’re a natural-born killer. There's nothing else for you.”

Had Sammy guessed?

And now the most important thing of all. That most significant moment of his life — the time of his death on a night in 1958. Vividly he remembered:

The steering wheel was working again, but Blaine ignored it, filled with a sudden fierce exultancy, a lightning switch of mood that welcomed the smash, lusted for it, and for pain and cruelty and death …