Methuselah’s Children
Methuselah’s Children
PART I
“MARY SPERLING, you’re a fool not to marry him!”
Mary Sperling added up her losses and wrote a check before answering, “There’s too much difference in age.” She passed over her credit voucher. “I shouldn’t gamble with you-sometimes I think you’re a sensitive.”
“Nonsense! You’re just trying to change the subject. You must be nearly thirty and you won’t be pretty forever.”
Mary smiled wryly. “Don’t I know it!”
“Bork Vanning can’t be much over forty and he’s a plus citizen. You should jump at the chance.”
“You jump at it. I must run now. Service, Ven.”
“Service,” Ven answered, then frowned at the door as it contracted after Mary Sperling. She itched to know why Mary would not marry a prime catch like the Honorable Bork Vanning and was almost as curious as to why and where Mary was going, but the custom of privacy stopped her.
Mary had no intention of letting anyone know where she was going. Outside her friend’s apartment she dropped down a bounce tube to the basement, claimed her car from the robopark, guided it up the ramp and set the controls for North Shore. The car waited for a break in the traffic, then dived into the high-speed stream and hurried north. Mary settled back for a nap.
When its setting was about to run out, the car beeped for instructions; Mary woke up and glanced out. Lake Michigan was a darker band of darkness on her right. She signaled traffic control to let her enter the local traffic lane; it sorted out her car and placed her there, then let her resume manual control. She fumbled in the glove compartment.
The license number which traffic control automatically photographed as she left the controlways was not the number the car had been wearing.
She followed a side road uncontrolled for several miles, turned into a narrow dirt road which led down to the shore, and stopped. There she waited, lights out, and listened. South of her the lights of Chicago glowed; a few hundred yards inland the controlways whined, but here there was nothing but the little timid noises of night creatures. She reached into the glove compartment, snapped a switch; the instrument panel glowed, uncovering other dials behind it. She studied these while making adjustments. Satisfied that no radar watched her and that nothing was moving near her, she snapped off the instruments, sealed the window by her and started up again.
What appeared to be a standard Camden speedster rose quietly up, moved out over the lake, skimming it-dropped into the water and sank. Mary waited until she was a quarter mile off shore in fifty feet of water, then called a station. “Answer,” said a voice.
“‘Life is short–‘”
“‘-but the years are long.'”
“‘Not,'” Mary responded, “‘while the evil days come not.'”
“I sometimes wonder,” the voice answered conversationally. “Okay, Mary. I’ve checked you.”
“Tommy?”
“No-Cecil Hedrick. Are your controls cast loose?”
“Yes. Take over.”
Seventeen minutes later the car surfaced in a pool which occupied much of an artificial cave. When the car was beached, Mary got out, said hello to the guards and went on through a tunnel into a large underground room where fifty or sixty men and women were seated. She chatted until a clock announced midnight, then she mounted a rostrum and faced them.
“I am,” she stated, “one hundred and eighty-three years old. Is there anyone here who is older?”
No one spoke. After a decent wait she went on, “Then in accordance with our customs I declare this meeting opened. Will you choose a moderator?”
Someone said, “Go ahead, Mary.” When no one else spoke up, she said, “Very well.” She seemed indifferent to the honor and the group seemed to share her casual attitude-an air of never any hurry, of freedom from the tension of modern life.
“We are met as usual,” she announced, “to discuss our welfare and that of our sisters and brothers. Does any Family representative have a message from his family? Or does anyone care to speak for himself?”
A man caught her eye and spoke up. “Ira Weatheral, speaking for the Johnson Family. We’ve met nearly two months early. The trustees must have a reason. Let’s hear it.”