The Past Through Tomorrow (103 page)

“As I was saying,” Barstow continued, “there is an appropriateness in the long-lived exploring the stars. A mystic might call it our true vocation.” He pondered. “As for the ship Lazarus suggested, perhaps they will not let us have that…but the Families are rich. If we need a starship—or ships—we can build them, we can pay for them. I think we had better hope that they will let us do this…for it may be that there is no way, not another way of any sort, out of our dilemma which does not include our own extermination.”

Barstow spoke these last words softly and slowly, with great sadness. They bit into the company like damp chill. To most of them the problem was so new as not yet to be real; no one had voiced the possible consequence of failing to find a solution satisfactory to the short-lived majority. For their senior trustee to speak soberly of his fear that the Families might be exterminated—hunted down and killed—stirred up in each one the ghost they never mentioned.

“Well,” Lazarus said briskly when the silence had grown painful, “before we work this idea over, let’s hear what other plan anyone has to offer. Speak up.”

A messenger hurried in and spoke to Zaccur Barstow. He looked startled and seemed to ask to have the message repeated. He then hurried across the rostrum to Lazarus, whispered to him. Lazarus looked startled. Barstow hurried out.

Lazarus looked back at the crowd. “We’ll take a recess,” he announced. “Give you time to think about other plans…and time for a stretch and a smoke.” He reached for his pouch.

“What’s up?” someone called out.

Lazarus struck a cigarette, took a long drag, let it drift out. “We’ll have to wait and see,” he said. “I don’t know. But at least half a dozen of the plans put forward tonight we won’t have to bother to vote on. The situation has changed again—how much, I couldn’t say.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” Lazarus drawled, “it seems the Federation Administrator wanted to talk to Zack Barstow right away. He asked for him by name…
and he called over our secret Families’ circuit
.”

“Huh? That’s impossible!”

“Yep. So is a baby, son.”

ZACCUR BARSTOW TRIED
to quiet himself down as he hurried into the phone booth.

At the other end of the same videophone circuit the Honorable Slayton Ford was doing the same thing—trying to calm his nerves. He did not underrate himself. A long and brilliant public career crowned by years as Administrator for the Council and under the Covenant of the Western Administration had made Ford aware of his own superior ability and unmatched experience; no ordinary man could possibly make him feel at a disadvantage in negotiation.

But this was different.

What would a man be like who had lived more than two ordinary lifetimes? Worse than that—a man who had had four or five times the adult experience that Ford himself had had? Slayton Ford knew that his own opinions had changed and changed again since his own boyhood; he knew that the boy he had been, or even the able young man he had been, would be no match for the mature man he had become. So what would this Barstow be like? Presumably he was the most able, the most astute, of a group all of whom had had much more experience than Ford could possibly have—how could he guess such a man’s evaluations, intentions, ways of thinking, his possible resources?

Ford was certain of only one thing: he did not intend to trade Manhattan Island for twenty-four dollars and a case of whisky, nor sell humanity’s birthright for a mess of pottage.

He studied Barstow’s face as the image appeared in his phone. A good face and strong…it would be useless to try to bully this man. And the man looked young—why, he looked younger than Ford himself! The subconscious image of the Administrator’s own stern and implacable grandfather faded out of his mind and his tension eased off. He said quietly, “You are Citizen Zaccur Barstow?”

“Yes, Mister Administrator.”

“You are chief executive of the Howard Families?”

“I am the current speaker trustee of our Families’ Foundation. But I am responsible to my cousins rather than in authority over them.”

Ford brushed it aside. “I assume that your position carries with it leadership. I can’t negotiate with a hundred thousand people.”

Barstow did not blink. He saw the power play in the sudden admission that the administration knew the true numbers of the Families and discounted it. He had already adjusted himself to the shock of learning that the Families’ secret headquarters was no longer secret and the still more upsetting fact that the Administrator knew how to tap into their private communication system; it simply proved that one or more Members had been caught and forced to talk.

So it was now almost certain that the authorities already knew every important fact about the Families.

Therefore it was useless to try to bluff—just the same, don’t volunteer any information; they might not have all the facts this soon.

Barstow answered without noticeable pause. “What is it you wish to discuss with me, sir?”

“The policy of the Administration toward your kin group. The welfare of yourself and your relatives.”

Barstow shrugged. “What can we discuss? The Covenant has been tossed aside and you have been given power to do as you like with us—to squeeze a secret out of us that we don’t have. What can we do but pray for mercy?”

“Please!” The Administrator gestured his annoyance. “Why fence with me? We have a problem, you and I. Let’s discuss it openly and try to reach a solution. Yes?”

Barstow answered slowly, “I would like to…and I believe that you would like to, also. But the problem is based on a false assumption, that we, the Howard Families, know how to lengthen human life. We don’t.”

“Suppose I tell you that I know there is no such secret?”

“Mmm… I would like to believe you. But how can you reconcile that with the persecution of my people? You’ve been harrying us like rats.”

Ford made a wry face. “There is an old, old story about a theologian who was asked to reconcile the doctrine of Divine mercy with the doctrine of infant damnation. ‘The Almighty,’ he explained, ‘finds it necessary to do things in His official and public capacity which in His private and personal capacity He deplores.’”

Barstow smiled in spite of himself. “I see the analogy. Is it actually pertinent?”

“I think it is.”

“So. You didn’t call me simply to make a headsman’s apology?”

“No. I hope not. You keep in touch with politics? I’m sure you must; your position would require it.” Barstow nodded; Ford explained at length:

Ford’s administration had been the longest since the signing of the Covenant; he had lasted through four Councils. Nevertheless his control was now so shaky that he could not risk forcing a vote of confidence—certainly not over the Howard Families. On that issue his nominal majority was already a minority. If he refused the present decision of the Council, forced it to a vote of confidence, Ford would be out of office and the present minority leader would take over as administrator. “You follow me? I can either stay in office and try to cope with this problem while restricted by a Council directive with which I do not agree…or I can drop out and let my successor handle it.”

“Surely you’re not asking my advice?”

“No, no! Not on that. I’ve made my decision. The Action-in-Council would have been carried out in any case, either by me or by Mr. Vanning—so I decided to do it. The question is: will I have your help, or will I not?”

Barstow hesitated, while rapidly reviewing Ford’s political career in his mind. The earlier part of Ford’s long administration had been almost a golden age of statesmanship. A wise and practical man, Ford had shaped into workable rules the principles of human freedom set forth by Novak in the language of the Covenant. It had been a period of good will, of prosperous expansion, of civilizing processes which seemed to be permanent, irreversible.

Nevertheless a setback had come and Barstow understood the reasons at least as well as Ford did. Whenever the citizens fix their attention on one issue to the exclusion of others, the situation is ripe for scalawags, demagogues, ambitious men on horseback. The Howard Families, in all innocence, had created the crisis in public morals from which they now suffered, through their own action, taken years earlier, in letting the short-lived learn of their existence. It mattered not at all that the “secret” did not exist; the corrupting effect did exist.

Ford at least understood the true situation—

“We’ll help,” Barstow answered suddenly.

“Good. What do you suggest?”

Barstow chewed his lip. “Isn’t there some way you can stall off this drastic action, this violation of the Covenant itself?”

Ford shook his head. “It’s too late.”

“Even if you went before the public and told the citizens, face to face, that you knew that—”

Ford cut him short. “I wouldn’t last in office long enough to make the speech. Nor would I be believed. Besides that—understand me clearly, Zaccur Barstow—no matter what sympathy I may have personally for you and your people, I would not do so if I could. This whole matter is a cancer eating into vitals of our society; it must be settled. I have had my hand forced, true…but there is no turning back. It must be pressed on to a solution.”

In at least one respect Barstow was a wise man; he knew that another man could oppose him and not be a villain. Nevertheless he protested, “My people are being persecuted.”

“Your people,” Ford said forcefully, “are a fraction of a tenth of one per cent of all the people…and I must find a solution for all! I’ve called on you to find out if you have any suggestions toward a solution for everyone. Do you?”

“I’m not sure,” Barstow answered slowly. “Suppose I concede that you must go ahead with this ugly business of arresting my people, of questioning them by unlawful means—I suppose I have no choice about that—”

“You have no choice. Neither have I.” Ford frowned. “It will be carried out as humanely as I can manage it—I am not a free agent.”

“Thank you. But, even though you tell me it would be useless for you yourself to go to the people, nevertheless you have enormous propaganda means at your disposal. Would it be possible, while we stall along, to build up a campaign to convince the people of the true facts? Prove to them that there
is
no secret?”

Ford answered, “Ask yourself: will it work?”

Barstow sighed. “Probably not.”

“Nor would I consider it a solution even if it would! The people—even my trusted assistants—are clinging to their belief in a fountain of youth because the only alternative is too bitter to think about. Do you know what it would mean to them? For them to believe the bald truth?”

“Go on.”

“Death has been tolerable to me only because Death has been the Great Democrat, treating all alike. But now Death plays favorites. Zaccur Barstow, can you understand the bitter, bitter jealousy of the ordinary man of—oh, say ‘fifty’—who looks on one of your sort? Fifty years…twenty of them he is a child, he is well past thirty before he is skilled in his profession. He is forty before he is established and respected. For not more than the last ten years of his fifty he has really amounted to something.”

Ford leaned forward in the screen and spoke with sober emphasis: “And now, when he has reached his goal, what is his prize? His eyes are failing him, his bright young strength is gone, his heart and wind are ‘not what they used to be.’ He is not senile yet…but he feels the chill of the first frost. He knows what is in store for him. He knows—he knows!

“But it was inevitable and each man learned to be resigned to it.

“Now
you
come along,” Ford went on bitterly. “You shame him in his weakness, you humble him before his children. He dares not plan for the future; you blithely undertake plans that will not mature for fifty years—for a hundred. No matter what success he has achieved, what excellence he has attained, you will catch up with him, pass him—outlive him. In his weakness you are
kind
to him.

“Is it any wonder that he hates you?”

Barstow raised his head wearily. “Do
you
hate me, Slayton Ford?”

“No. No, I cannot afford to hate anyone. But I can tell you this,” Ford added suddenly, “had there been a secret, I would have it out of you if I had to tear you to pieces!”

“Yes. I understand that.” Barstow paused to think. “There is little that we of the Howard Families can do. We did not plan it this way; it was planned for us. But there is one thing we can offer.”

“Yes?”

Barstow explained.

Ford shook his head. “Medically what you suggest is feasible and I have no doubt that a half interest in your heritage would lengthen the span of human life. But even if women were willing to accept the germ plasm of your men—I do not say that they would
—
it would be psychic death for all other men. There would be an outbreak of frustration and hatred that would split the human race to ruin. No, no matter what we wish, our customs are what they are. We can’t breed men like animals; they won’t stand for it.”

“I know it,” agreed Barstow, “but it is all we have to offer…a share in our fortune through artificial impregnation.”

“Yes. I suppose I should thank you but I feel no thanks and I shan’t. Now let’s be practical. Individually you old ones are doubtless honorable, lovable men. But as a group you are as dangerous as carriers of plague. So you must be quarantined.”

Barstow nodded. “My cousins and I had already reached that conclusion.”

Ford looked relieved. “I’m glad you’re being sensible about it.”

“We can’t help ourselves. Well? A segregated colony? Some remote place that would be a Coventry of our own? Madagascar, perhaps? Or we might take the British Isles, build them up again and spread from there into Europe as the radioactivity died down.”

Ford shook his head. “Impossible. That would simply leave the problem for my grandchildren to solve. By that time you and yours would have grown in strength; you might defeat us. No, Zaccur Barstow, you and your kin must leave this planet entirely!”

Barstow looked bleak. “I knew it would come to that. Well, where shall we go?”