himacross the room.
* * * * *
Odd things flashed through Carl's mind. You seldom saw a Repeater getreally angry--but Barness was angry. The man's young-old face (thestrange, utterly ageless amalgamation of sixty years of wisdom,superimposed by the youth of a twenty-year-old) had unaccustomed linesof wrath about the eyes and mouth. Barness didn't waste words. "Whatdid you want down there?"
"Armstrong." Carl cut the word out almost gleefully. "And I got it,and there's nothing you or Rinehart or anybody else in between can doabout it. I don't know _what_ I saw yet, but I've got it in my eyesand in my cortex, and you can't touch it."
"You stupid fool, we can _peel_ your cortex," Barness snarled.
"Well, you won't. You won't dare."
Barness glanced across at the officer who had brought him in."Tommy--"
"Dan Fowler won't like it," said Carl.
Barness stopped short, blinking. He took a slow breath. Then he sankdown into his chair. "Fowler" he said, as though dawn were justbreaking.
"That's right. He sent me up here. I've found what he wants. Shoot menow, and when they probe you Dan will know I found it, and you won'tbe around for another rejuvenation."
Barness looked suddenly old. "What did he want?"
"The truth about Armstrong. Not the 'accident' story you fed to theteevies.... "_Tragic End for World Hero, Died With His Boots On_". Danwanted the truth. Who killed him. Why this colony is grinding downfrom compound low to stop, and turning men like Terry Fisher intoalcoholic bums. Why this colony is turning into a glorified,super-refined Birdie's Rest for old men. But mostly who killedArmstrong, how he was murdered, who gave the orders. And if you don'tmind, I'm beginning to get cold."
"And you got all that," said Barness.
"That's right."
"You haven't read it, though."
"Not yet. Plenty of time for that on the way back."
Barness nodded wearily, and motioned the guard to give Carl hisclothes. "I think you'd better read it tonight. Maybe it'll surpriseyou."
Golden's eyes widened. Something in the man's voice, some curious noteof defeat and hopelessness, told him that Barness was not lying. "Oh?"
"Armstrong didn't have an accident, that's true. But nobody murderedhim, either. Nobody gave any orders, to anybody, from anybody.Armstrong put a bullet through his head--quite of his own volition."
II
"All right, Senator," the young red-headed doctor said. "You say youwant it straight--that's how you're going to get it." Moments before,Dr. Moss had been laughing. Now he wasn't laughing. "Six months, atthe outside. Nine, if you went to bed tomorrow, retired from theSenate, and lived on tea and crackers. But where I'm sitting Iwouldn't bet a plugged nickel that you'll be alive a month from now.If you think I'm joking, you just try to squeeze a bet out of me."
Senator Dan Fowler took the black cigar from his mouth, stared at thechewed-up end for a moment, and put it back in again. He had hadsomething exceedingly witty all ready to say at this point in theexamination; now it didn't seem to be too funny. If Moss had been amealy-mouthed quack like the last Doc he had seen, okay. But Mosswasn't. Moss was obviously not impressed by the old man sitting acrossthe desk from him, a fact which made Dan Fowler just a trifle uneasy.And Moss knew his turnips.
Dan Fowler looked at the doctor and said, "Garbage."
The red-headed doctor shrugged. "Look, Senator--sometimes a banana isa banana. I know heart disease, and I know how it acts. I know that itkills people if they wait too long. And when you're dead, norejuvenation lab is going to bring you back to life again."
"Oh, hell! Who's dying?" Fowler's grey eyebrows knit in the oldfamiliar scowl, and he bit down hard on the cigar. "Heart disease! SoI get a little pain now and then--sure it won't last forever, and whenit gets bad I'll come in and take the full treatment. But I can't doit now!" He spread his hands in a violent gesture. "I only came inhere because my daughter dragged me. My heart's doing fine--I've beenworking an eighteen hour day for forty years now, and I can do it foranother year or two--"
"But you have pain," said Dr. Moss.
"So? A little twinge, now and then."
"Whenever you lose your temper. Whenever anything upsets you."
"All right--a twinge."
"Which makes you sit down for ten or fifteen minutes. Which doesn't goaway with one nitro-tablet any more, so you have to take two, andsometimes three--right?"
* * * * *
Dan Fowler blinked. "All right, sometimes it gets a little bad--"
"And it used to be only once or twice a month, but now it's almostevery day. And once or twice you've blacked clean out for a while, andmade your staff work like demons to cover for you and keep it off theteevies, right?"
"Say, who's been talking to you?"
"Jean has been talking to me."
"Can't even trust your own daughter to keep her trap shut." TheSenator tossed the cigar butt down in disgust. "It happened once, yes.That god damned Rinehart is enough to make anybody black out." Hethrust out his jaw and glowered at Dr. Moss as though it were all_his_ fault. Then he grinned. "Oh, I know you're right, Doc. It's justthat this is the wrong _time_. I can't take two months outnow--there's too much to be done between now and the middle of nextmonth."
"Oh, yes. The Hearings. Why not turn it over to your staff? They knowwhat's going on."
"Nonsense. They know, but not like I know. After the Hearings,fine--I'll come along like a lamb. But now--"
Dr. Moss reddened, slammed his fist down on the desk. "Dammit, man,are you blind and deaf? Or just plain stupid? Didn't you hear me amoment ago? _You may not live through the Hearings._ You could _go_,just like that, any minute. But this is 2134 A.D., not the middleages. It would be so utterly, hopelessly pointless to let thathappen--"
Fowler champed his cigar and scowled. "After it was done I'd have toFree-Agent for a year, wouldn't I?" It was an accusation.
"You _should_. But that's a formality. If you want to go back to whatyou were doing the day you came from the Center--"
"Yes, _if_! But supposing I didn't? Supposing I was all changed?"
The young doctor looked at the old man shrewdly. Dan Fowler was 56years old--and he looked forty. It seemed incredible even to Moss thatthe man could have done what he had done, and look almost as young andfighting-mad now as he had when he started. Clever old goat, too--butDan Fowler's last remark opened the hidden door wide. Moss smiled tohimself. "You're afraid of it, aren't you, Senator?"
"Of rejuvenation? Nonsense."
"But you are. You aren't the only one--it's a pretty frighteningthing. Cash in the old model, take out a new one, just like a jetracer or a worn out talk-writer. Only it isn't machinery, it's yourbody, and your life." Dr. Moss grinned. "It scares a man._Rejuvenation_ isn't the right word, of course. Aside from theneurones, they take away every cell in your body, one way or another,and give you new ones. A hundred and fifty years ago Cancelmo andKlein did it on a dog, and called it _sub-total prosthesis_. A crudejob--I've seen their papers and films. Vat-grown hearts and kidneys,revitalized vascular material, building up new organ systems like apatchwork quilt, coaxing new tissues to grow to replace old ones--butthey got a living dog out of it, and that dog lived to the ripe oldage of 37 years before he died."
* * * * *
Moss pushed back from his desk, watching Dan Fowler's face. "Then in1992 Nimrock tried it on a man, and almost got himself hanged becausethe man died. That was a hundred and forty-two years ago. And thenwhile he was still on trial, his workers completed the second job, andthe man _lived_, and oh, how the jig changed for Nimrock!"
The doctor shrugged. As he talked, Dan Fowler sat silent, chewing hiscigar furiously. But listening--he was listening, all right. "Well, itwas crude, then," Moss said. "It's not so crude any more." He pointedto a large bronze plaque hanging on the office wall. "You've seen thatbefore. Read it."
Dan Fowler's eyes went up to
the plaque. A list of names. At the topwords said, "_These ten gave life to Mankind._"
Below it were the names:
Martin Aronson, Ph. D.Education
Thomas BevalaquaLiterature and Art
Chauncy DevlinMusic
Frederick A. Kehler, M. S.Engineering
William B. Morse, L. L. D.Law
Rev. Hugh H. F.