Today is Forever by Roger D. Aycock (summer reading list .TXT) 📗

and the prospect of direct action excited rather than dismayed him. Until now he had skirted the edges of illegality with painstaking care, never stepping quite over the line beyond which he would be liable to the disastrous truth-check, but at this moment he felt himself invincible, above retaliation.

"This present culture is a pragmatic compromise with necessity," Boyle said. "It survives because it answers natural problems that couldn't be solved under the old systems. Nationalism died out, for example, when we set up a universal government, because everyone belonged to the same Social Body and had the same Weal to consider. Once we realized that the good of the Body is more important than personal privacy, the truth-check made ordinary crime and political machination obsolete. Racial antagonisms vanished under deliberate amalgamation. Monogamy gave way to the marital-seven, settling the problems of ego clash, incompatability, promiscuity and vice that existed before. It also settled the disproportion between the male and female population.

"But stability is vulnerable. Since it never changes, it cannot stand against an attack either too new or too old for its immediate experience. So if we're going after this Alcorian longevity process, I'd suggest that we choose a method so long out of date that there's no longer a defense against it. We'll take it by force!"

It amused him to see Moira and Locke accept his specious logic without reservation. Their directness was all but childlike. The thought of engaging personally in the sort of cloak-and-sword adventure carried over by the old twentieth-century melodrama tapes was, as he had surmised, irresistible to them.

"I can see how you came to be head of Transplanet, Boyle," Locke said enviously. "What's your plan, exactly?"

"I've a cottage in the mountains that will serve as a base of operations," Boyle explained. "Moira can wait there for us in the morning while you and I take a 'copter to AL&O. According to your information, Cornelison and Bissell and Dorand will meet the Alcorians in the deliberations chamber at nine o'clock. We'll sleep-gas the lot of them, take the longevity process and go. There's no formal guard at Administration, or anywhere else, nowadays. There'll be no possible way of tracing us."

"Unless we're truth-checked," Locke said doubtfully. "If any one of us should be pulled in for serum-and-psycho, the whole affair will come out. The Board of Order—"

"Order won't know whom to suspect," Boyle said patiently. "And they can't possibly check the whole city. They'd have no way of knowing even that it was someone from this locale. It could be anyone, from anywhere."

When Locke had gone and Moira had exhausted her fund of excited small talk, Boyle went over the entire plan again from inception to conclusion. Lying awake in the darkness with only the sound of Moira's even breathing breaking the stillness, he let his practical fancy run ahead.

Years, decades, generations—what were they? To be by relative standards undying in a world of ephemerae, with literally nothing that he might not have or do....

He dreamed a dream as old as man, of stretching today into forever.

Immortality.

The coup next morning was no more difficult, though bloodier, than Boyle had anticipated.

At nine sharp, he left David Locke at the controls of his helicar on the sun-bright roof landing of AL&O, took a self-service elevator down four floors and walked calmly to the deliberation chamber where Administrative Council met with the visitors from Alcor. He was armed for any eventuality with an electronic freeze-gun, a sleep-capsule of anesthetic gas, and a nut-sized incendiary bomb capable of setting afire an ordinary building.

His first hope of surprising the Council in conference was dashed in the antechamber, rendering his sleep-bomb useless. Dorand was a moment late; he came in almost on Boyle's heels, his face blank with astonishment at finding an intruder ahead of him.

The freeze-gun gave him no time for questions.

"Quiet," Boyle ordered, and drove the startled Councilor ahead of him into the deliberations chamber.

He was just in time. Cornelison had one bony arm already bared for the longevity injection; Bissell sat in tense anticipation of his elder's reaction; the Alcorian, Fermiirig, stood at Cornelison's side with a glittering hypodermic needle in one of his four three-fingered hands.

For the moment, a sudden chill of apprehension touched Boyle. There should have been two Alcorians.

"Quiet," Boyle said again, this time to the group. "You, Fermiirig, where is your mate?"

The Alcorian replaced the hypodermic needle carefully in its case, his triangular face totally free of any identifiable emotion and clasped both primary and secondary sets of hands together as an Earthman might have raised them overhead. His eyes, doe-soft and gentle, considered Boyle thoughtfully.

"Santikh is busy with other matters," Fermiirig said. His voice was thin and reedy, precise of enunciation, but hissing faintly on the aspirants. "I am to join her later—" his gentle eyes went to the Councilors, gauging the gravity of the situation from their tensity, and returned to Boyle—"if I am permitted."

"Good," Boyle said.

He snapped the serum case shut and tucked it under his arm, turning toward the open balcony windows. "You're coming with me, Fermiirig. You others stay as you are."

The soft drone of a helicar descending outside told him that Locke had timed his descent accurately. Cornelison chose that moment to protest, his wrinkled face tight with consternation at what he read of Boyle's intention.

"We know you, Boyle! You can't possibly escape. The Ordermen—"

Boyle laughed at him.

"There'll be no culprit for the Ordermen," he said, "nor any witnesses. You've wiped out ordinary crime with your truth-checks and practicalities, Cornelison, but you've made the way easier for a man who knows what he wants."

He pressed the firing stud of his weapon. Cornelison fell and lay stiffly on the pastel tile. Bissell and Dorand went down as quickly, frozen to temporary rigidity.

Boyle tossed his incendiary into the huddle of still bodies and shoved the Alcorian forcibly through the windows into the hovering aircar.

Locke greeted the alien's appearance with stark amazement. "My God, Boyle, are you mad? You can't kidnap—"

The dull shock of explosion inside the deliberations chamber jarred the helicar, throwing the slighter Alcorian to the floor and staggering Boyle briefly.

"Get us out of here," Boyle said sharply. He turned the freeze-gun on the astounded Locke, half expecting resistance and fully prepared to meet it. "You fool, do you think I'm still playing the childish game I made up to keep you and Moira quiet?"

A pall of greasy black smoke poured after them when Locke, still stunned by the suddenness of catastrophe, put the aircar into motion and streaked away across the city.

Boyle, watching the first red tongue of flame lick out from the building behind, patted the serum case and set himself for the next step.

Immortality.

Locke took the helicar down through the mountains, skirting a clear swift river that broke into tumultuous falls a hundred yards below Boyle's cottage, and set it down in a flagstone court.

"Out," Boyle ordered.

Moira met them in the spacious living room, her pretty face comical with surprise and dismay.

"Philip, what's happened? You look so—"

She saw the alien then and put a hand to her mouth.

"Keep her quiet while I deal with Fermiirig," Boyle said to Locke. "I have no time for argument. If either of you gives me any trouble...."

He left the threat to Locke's stunned fancy and turned on the Alcorian.

"Let me have the injection you had ready for Cornelison. Now."

The Alcorian moved his narrow shoulders in what might have been a shrug. "You are making a mistake. You are not fitted for life beyond the normal span."

"I didn't bring you here to moralize," Boyle said. "If you mean to see your mate again, Fermiirig, give me the injection!"

"There was a time in your history when force was justifiable," Fermiirig said. "But that time is gone. You are determined?" He shook his head soberly when Boyle did not answer. "I was afraid so."