Glory Road

  “Star, what are you prattling about? Women are the source of all folly.”

  “Yes, dearest. Because they always have good intentions—and can prove it. Men sometimes act from rational self-interest, which is safer. But not often.”

  “That’s because half their ancestors are female. Why have I been keeping doctor’s appointments if I don t need them?”

  “I didn’t say you don’t need them. But you may not think so. Oscar, you are far advanced with Long-Life treatments.” She eyed me as if ready to parry or retreat.

  “Well, I’ll be damned!”

  “You object? At this stage it can be reversed.”

  “I hadn’t thought about it.” I knew that Long-Life was available on Center but knew also that it was rigidly restricted. Anybody could have it—just before emigrating to a sparsely settled planet. Permanent residents must grow old and die. This was one matter in which one of Star’s predecessors had interfered in local government. Center, with disease practically conquered, great prosperity, and lodestone of a myriad peoples, had grown too crowded, especially when Long-Life sent skyward the average age of death.

  This stern rule had thinned the crowds. Some people took Long-Life early, went through a Gate and took their chances in wilderness. More waited until that first twinge that brings awareness of death, then decided that they weren’t too old for a change. And some sat tight and died when their time came.

  I knew that twinge; it had been handed to me by a bolo in a jungle. “I guess I have no objection.”

  She sighed with relief. “I didn’t know and should not have slipped it into your coffee. Do I rate a spanking?”

  “We’ll add it to the list you already rate and give them to you all at once. Probably cripple you. Star, how long is ‘Long-Life’?”

  “That’s hard to answer. Very few who have had it have died in bed. If you live as active a life as I know you will—from your temperament—you are most unlikely to die of old age. Nor of disease.”

  “And I never grow old?” It takes getting used to.

  “Oh, yes, you can grow old. Worse yet, senility stretches in proportion. If you let it. If those around you allow it. However—Darling, how old do I look? Don’t tell me with your heart, tell me with your eyes. By Earth standards. Be truthful, I know the answer.”

  It was ever a joy to look at Star but I tried to look at her freshly, for hints of autumn—outer corners of eyes, her hands, for tiny changes in skin—hell, not even a stretch mark, yet I knew she had a grandchild.

  “Star, when I first saw you, I guessed eighteen. You turned around and I upped the ante a little. Now, looking closely and not giving you any breaks—not over twenty-five. And that is because your features seem mature. When you laugh, you’re a teen-ager; when you wheedle, or look awestruck, or suddenly delighted with a puppy or kitten or something, you’re about twelve. From the chin up, I mean; from the chin down you can’t pass for less than eighteen.”

  “A buxom eighteen,” she added. “Twenty-five Earth years—by rates of growth on Earth—is right on the mark I was shooting at. The age when a woman stops growing and starts aging. Oscar, your apparent age under Long-Life is a matter of choice. Take my Uncle Joseph—the one who sometimes calls himself ‘Count Cagliostro.’ He set himself at thirty-five, because he says that anything younger is a boy. Rufo prefers to look older. He says it gets him respectful treatment, keeps him out of brawls with lounger men—and still lets him give a younger man a shock if one does pick a fight because, as you know, Rufo’s older age is mostly from chin up.”

  “Or the shock he can give younger women,” I suggested.

  “With Rufo one never knows. Dearest, I didn’t finish telling you. Part of it is teaching the body to repair itself. Your language lessons here—there hasn’t been a one but what a hypnotherapist was waiting to give your body a lesson through your sleeping mind, after your language lesson. Part of apparent age is cosmetic therapy—Rufo need not be bald—but more is controlled by the mind. When you decide what age you like, they can start imprinting it.”

  “I’ll think about it. I don’t want to look too much older than you.”

  Star looked delighted. “Thank you, dear! You see how selfish I’ve been.”

  “How? I missed that point.”

  She put a hand over mine. “I didn’t want you to grow old—and die!—while I stayed young.”

  I blinked at her. “Gosh, lady, that was selfish of you, wasn’t it? But you could varnish me and keep me in the bedroom. Like your aunt.”

  She made a face. “You’re a nasty man. She didn’t varnish them.”

  “Star, I haven’t seen any of those keepsake corpses around here.”

  She looked surprised. “But that’s on the planet where I was born. This universe, another star. Very pretty place. Didn’t I ever say?”

  “Star, my darling, mostly you’ve never said.”

  “I’m sorry. Oscar, I don’t want to hand you surprises. Ask me. Tonight. Anything.”

  I considered it. One thing I had wondered about, a certain lack. Or perhaps the women of her part of the race had another rhythm. But I had been stopped by the fact that I had married a grandmother—how old? “Star, are you pregnant?”

  “Why, no, dear. Oh! Do you want me to be? You want us to have children?”

  I stumbled, trying to explain that I hadn’t been sure it was possible—or maybe she was. Star looked troubled. “I’m going to upset you again. I had best tell it all. Oscar, I was no more brought up to luxury than you were. A pleasant childhood, my people were ranchers. I married young and was a simple mathematics teacher, with a hobby research in conjectural and optional geometries. Magic, I mean. Three children. My husband and I got along well…until I was nominated. Not selected, just named for examination and possible training. He knew I was a genetic candidate when he married me—but so many millions are. It didn’t seem important.

  “He wanted me to refuse. I almost did. But when I accepted, he—well, he ‘tossed my shoes.’ We do it formally there; he published a notice that I was no longer his wife.”

  “He did, eh? Mind if I look him up and break his arms?”

  “Dear, dear! That was many years ago and far away; he is long dead. It doesn’t matter.”

  “In any case he’s dead. Your three kids—one of them is Rufo’s father? Or mother?”

  “Oh, no! That was later.”

  “Well?”

  Star took a deep breath. “Oscar, I have about fifty children.”

  That did it. Too many shocks and I guess I showed it, for Star’s face reflected deep concern. She rushed through the explanation.

  When she was named heir, changes were made in her, surgical, biochemical, and endocrinal. Nothing as drastic as spaying and to different ends and by techniques more subtle than ours. But the result was that about two hundred tiny bits of Star—ova alive and latent—were stored near absolute zero.

  Some fifty had been quickened, mostly by emperors long dead but “alive” in their stored seed—genetic gambles on getting one or more future emperors. Star had not borne them; an heir’s time is too precious. She had never seen most of them; Rufo’s father was an exception. She didn’t say, but I think Star liked to have a child around to play with and love—until the strenuous first years of her reign and the Quest for the Egg left her no time.

  This change had a double purpose: to get some hundreds of star-line children from a single mother, and to leave the mother free. By endocrine control of some sort, Star was left free of Eve’s rhythm but in all ways young—not pills nor hormone injections; this was permanent. She was simply a healthy woman who never had “bad days.” This was not for her convenience but to insure that her judgment as the Great Judge would never be whipsawed by her glands. “This is sensible,” she said seriously. “I can remember there used to be days when I would bite the head off my dearest friend for no reason, then burst into tears. One can’t be judicial in that sort of storm.”

  “Uh, did it
affect your interest? I mean your desire for—”

  She gave me a hearty grin. “What do you think?” She added seriously, “The only thing that affects my libido—changes it for the worse, I mean—are…is?—English has the oddest structure—is-are those pesky imprintings. Sometimes up, sometimes down—and you’ll remember one woman whose name we won’t mention who affected me so carnivorously that I didn’t dare come near you until I had exorcised her black soul! A fresh imprint affects my judgment as well, so I never hear a case until I have digested the latest one. I’ll be glad when they’re over!”

  “So will I.”

  “Not as glad as I will be. But, aside from that, darling, I don’t vary much as a female and you know it. Just my usual bawdy self who eats young boys for breakfast and seduces them into jumping over swords.”

  “How many swords?”

  She looked at me sharply. “Since my first husband kicked me out I have not been married until I married you, Mr. Gordon. If that is not what you meant, I don’t think you should hold against me things that happened before you were born. If you want details since then, I’ll satisfy your curiosity. Your morbid curiosity, if I may say so.”

  “You want to boast. Wench, I won’t pamper it.”

  “I do not want to boast! I’ve little to boast about. The Crisis of the Egg left me almost no time in which to be a woman, damn it! Until Oscar the Rooster came along. Thank you, sir.”

  “And keep a civil tongue in your head.”

  “Yes, sir. Nice Rooster! But you’ve led us far from our muttons, dear. If you want children—yes, darling! There are about two hundred and thirty eggs left and they belong to me. Not to posterity. Not to the dear people, bless their greedy little hearts. Not to those Godplaying genetic manipulators. Me! It’s all I own. All else is ex officio. But these are mine…and if you want them, they are yours, my only dear.”

  I should have said, “Yes!” and kissed her. What I did say was, “Uh, let’s not rush it.”

  Her face fell. “As milord Hero husband pleases.”

  “Look, don’t get Nevian and formal. I mean, well, it takes getting used to. Syringes and things, I suppose, and monkeying by technicians. And, while I realize you don’t have time to have a baby yourself—”

  I was trying to say that, ever since I got straightened out about the Stork, I had taken for granted the usual setup, and artificial insemination was a dirty trick to play even on a cow—and that this job, subcontracted on both sides, made me think of slots in a Horn & Hardart, or a mail-order suit. But give me time and I would adjust. Just as she had adjusted to those damned imprints—

  She gripped my hands. “Darling, you needn’t!”

  “Needn’t what?”

  “Be monkeyed with by technicians. And I will take time to have your baby. If you don’t mind seeing my body get gross and huge—it does, it does, I remember—then happily I will do it. All will be as with other people so far as you are concerned. No syringes. No technicians. Nothing to offend your pride. Oh, I’ll have to be worked on. But I’m used to being handled like a prize cow; it means no more than having my hair shampooed.”

  “Star, you would go through nine months of inconvenience—and maybe die in childbirth—to save me a few moments’ annoyance?”

  “I shall not die, Three children, remember? Normal deliveries, no trouble.”

  “But, as you pointed out, that was ‘many years ago.’”

  “No matter.”

  “Uh, how many years?” (“How old are you, woman?” The question I never dared ask.)

  She looked upset. “Does it matter, Oscar?”

  “Uh, I suppose not. You know more about medicine than I do—”

  She said slowly, “You were asking how old I am, were you not?”

  I didn’t say anything. She waited, then went on, “An old saw from your world says that a woman is as young as she feels. And I feel young and I am young and I have zest for life and I can bear a baby—or many babies—m my own belly. But I know—oh, I know!—that your worry is not just that I am too rich and occupy a position not easy for a husband. Yes, I know that part too well; my first husband rejected me for that. But be was my age. The most cruel and unjust thing I have done is that I knew that my age could matter to you—and I kept still. That was why Rufo was so outraged. After you were asleep that night in the cave of the Forest of Dragons he told me so, in biting words. He said he knew I was not above enticing young boys but he never thought that I would sink so low as to trap one into marriage without first telling him. He’s never had a high opinion of his old granny, he said, but this time—”

  “Shut up, Star!”

  “Yes, milord.”

  “It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference!”—and I said it so flatly that I believed it—and do now. “Rufo doesn’t know what I think. You are younger than tomorrow’s dawn—you always will be. That’s the last I want to hear about it!”

  “Yes, milord.”

  “And knock that off, too. Just say, ‘Okay, Oscar.’”

  “Yes, Oscar! Okay!”

  “Better. Unless you’re honing for another spanking. And I’m too tired.” I changed the subject. “About this other matter—There’s no reason to stretch your pretty tummy if other ways are at hand. I’m a country jake, that’s all; I’m not used to big city ways. When you suggested that you do it yourself, did you mean that they could put you back together the way you were?”

  “No. I would simply be host-mother as well as genetic mother.” She smiled and I knew I was making progress. “But saving a tidy sum of that money you don’t want to spend. Those healthy, sturdy women who have other people’s babies charge high. Four babies, they can retire—ten makes them wealthy.”

  “I should think they would charge high! Star, I don’t object to spending money. I’ll concede, if you say so, that I’ve earned more than I spend, by my work as a professional hero. That’s a tough racket, too.”

  “You’ve earned it.”

  “This citified way of having babies—Can you pick it? Boy, or girl?”

  “Of course. Male-giving wigglers swim faster, they can be sorted out. That’s why Wisdoms are usually men—I was an unplanned candidate. You shall have a son, Oscar.”

  “Might prefer a girl. I’ve a weakness for little girls.”

  “A boy, a girl—or both. Or as many as you want.”

  “Star, let me study it. Lots of angles—and I don’t think as well as you do.”

  “Pooh!”

  “If you don’t think better than I do, the cash customers are getting rooked. Mmm, male seed can be stored as easily as eggs?”

  “Much easier.”

  “That’s all the answer we need now. I’m not too jumpy about syringes; I’ve stood in enough army queues. I’ll go to the clinic or whatever it is, then we can settle it slowly. When we decide”—I shrugged—“mail the postcard and when it goes clunk!—we’re parents. Or some such. From there on the technicians and those husky gals can handle it.”

  “Yes, milo—Okay, darling!”

  All better. Almost her little girl face. Certainly her sixteen-year-old face, with new party dress and boys a shivery, delightful danger. “Star, you said earlier that it was often not the second issue out even the twenty-second that matters.”

  “Yes.”

  “I know what’s wrong with me. I can tell you—and maybe Her Wisdom knows the answer.”

  She blinked. “If you can tell me, sweetheart—Her Wisdom will solve it, even if I have to tear the place down and put it back up differently—from here to the next galaxy—or I’ll go out of the Wisdom business!”

  “That sounds more like my Lucky Star. All right, it’s not that I’m a gigolo. I’ve earned my coffee and cakes, at least; the Soul-Eater did damn near eat my soul, he knew its exact shape—he…it—it knew things I had long forgotten. It was rough and the pay ought to be high. It’s not your age, dearest. Who cares how old Helen of Troy is? You’re the right age forever—can a man be luckier? I?
??m not jealous of your position; I wouldn’t want it with chocolate icing. I’m not jealous of the men in your life—the lucky stiffs! Not even now, as long as I don’t stumble over them getting to the bathroom.”

  “There are no other men in my life now, milord husband.”

  “I had no reason to think so. But there is always next week, and even you can’t have a Sight about that, my beloved. You’ve taught me that marriage is not a form of death—and you obviously aren’t dead, you lively wench.”

  “Perhaps not a Sight,” she admitted. “But a feeling.”

  “I won’t bet on it. I’ve read the Kinsey Report.”

  “What report?”

  “He disproved the Mermaid theory. About married women. Forget it. Hypothetical question: If Jocko visited Center, would you still have the same feeling? We should have to invite him to sleep here.”

  “The Doral will never leave Nevia.”

  “Don’t blame him, Nevia is wonderful. I said ‘If’—If he does, will you offer him ‘roof, table, and bed’?”

  “That,” she said firmly, “is your decision, milord.”

  “Rephrase it: Will you expect me to humiliate Jocko by not returning his hospitality? Gallant old Jocko, who let us live when he was entitled to kill us? Whose bounty—arrows and many things, including a new medic’s kit—kept us alive and let us win back the Egg?”

  “By Nevian customs of roof and table and bed,” she insisted, “the husband decides, milord husband.”

  “We aren’t in Nevia and here a wife has a mind of her own. You’re dodging, wench.”

  She grinned naughtily. “Does that ‘if’ of yours include Muri? And Letva? They’re his favorites, he wouldn’t travel without them. And how about little what’s-her-name?—the nymphet?”

  “I give up. I was just trying to prove that jumping over a sword does not turn a lively wench into a nun.”