the far future and a distant star, Captain Lazarus Long, chairman of the Howard
Families in his time… and my remote descendant!
I had looked forward to years of happy adultery after the War was over, under the
tolerant, shut-eye chaperonage of my husband.
But Sergeant Theodore went to France in the AEF and was missing in action in some of
the heaviest fighting in the Great War. MIA equals killed; it never meant anything
else.
When I woke up and Tamara took me into her arms, I had great trouble believing any
of it… especially the ides that Theodore was alive and well. When I did believe
her (one cannot disbelieve Tamara), I was crushed with the grief of too late, too
late!
Tamara tried to soothe me but we had language trouble; she is not a linguist, speaks
broken English only – and I had not a word of Galacta. (Her first speech to me she
had rehearsed most carefully.)
She sent for her daughter Ishtar. Ishtar listened to me, talked to me, finally got
it through my head that being a hundred, years old did not matter; I was about to be
rejuvenated.
I had heard about rejuvenation from Theodore, long ago. But I had never thought of
it as applying to me.
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They both told me, over and over again. Ishtar said, `Mama Maureen, I am more than
twice as old as you are. My last rejuvenation was eighty years ago. Am I wrinkled?
Don’t worry about your age; you will be no trouble at all. We’ll start your tests at
once; you will be eighteen again in a very short time. Months, I estimate, instead
of the two or three years a really difficult case can take.’
Tamara nodded emphatically. Is true. Ishtar true word esspeak. Four century am I.
Dying was I’ She patted her belly. `Baby here now.’
`Yes,’ agreed Ishtar, `by Lazarus. A baby I gene-plotted and required Lazarus to
plant before he left to rescue you. We could not be sure that he would be back –
these trips of his are always chancey – and, while I have his sperm on deposit,
frozen sperm can deteriorate; I want as many warm-spenn babies sired by Lazarus as
possible.’ She added, `And you, too, Mama Maureen. I hope you will gift us with many
more babies. Our calculations show that what Lazarus has, his unique gene patterns,
he got mainly from you. You need not bear babies yourself; there’ll be host mothers
standing in line for the privilege of bearing a Mama Maureen baby. Unless you prefer
to bear them yourself.’
‘You mean I can?’
`Certainly. Once we have you made young again.’
`Then I will!’ I took a deep breath. It has been… forty-four years – I think that
is right forty-four years since I last became pregnant. Although Ne always been
willing and Nave not tried to avoid it.’ I thought about it. `Is it possible for me
to postpone seeing Theodore – Lazarus, you call him for a while? Could I be made
younger before I see him? I dread the thought of his seeing me this way. Old. Not
the way he knew me.’
`Certainly. There are always emotional factors in a rejuvenation. Whatever a client
needs to be happy is the way we do it’
‘I would rather not have him see me until I look more as I looked then.’
‘It shall be done.’
I asked to see a picture of Theodore-Lazarus. It turned out to be a moving holo,
almost frighteningly lifelike. I was aware that Theodore and I looked enough alike
to be brother and sister; that was what Father had first noticed about him. But this
startled me. `Why, that’s my son!’ The holo looked just like my son Woodrow – my bad
boy and always my favourite.
‘Yes, he’s your son.’
‘No, no! I mean that Captain Lazarus Long whom I knew as Theodore is a dead-ringer –
sorry, a twin-brother image of my son Woodrow Wilson Smith. I hadn’t realised it of
course, in the brief time I knew Captain Long, my son Woodrow Wilson was only five