“No, you did well,” Corinne told her.
“What’s the matter? You look all tensed up.”
“I am. Come.” The black woman led the white into the adjoining chamber, where nobody dared enter unbidden. She ignored the arcane objects that crowded it and went directly to the coffee table. Rosa turned as usual to face the altar and touched brow, lips, breast. She had spent too many centuries appealing to saints and appeasing demons to be certain that no real power dwelt in things called holy.
Corinne picked up a magazine that lay open on the table. She handed it to the other and pointed. “Read that,” she ordered.
Also here, the light was dim. The journal was one of respectable popular scholarship, like Smithsonian or National Geographic, Corinne indicated an advertisement near the back. Under the heading LONGEVITY STUDIES stood four column inches of text. The format was staid, the words discreet; most persons who noticed would find them dry, of interest to none except specialists. They leaped at Rosa: “—very long-lived individuals in excellent health … young but prospectively long-lived are of similar interest…. scientific studies … recollections of history as actually experienced …”
Her hands began to shake. “Not again,” broke from her.
Corinne started, recovered, gave her a searching look, but asked merely, “What do you make of it?”
Rosa dropped the magazine and stared down at its cover. “Probably nothing,” she mumbled. “I mean, just what it says, somebody wants to, uh, examine and talk with folks who’ve gotten really old, or who might.”
“How old?”
Rosa lifted her glance. “I tell you, it can’t have anything to do with us!” she shrilled. “There are scientists trying to get a handle on what aging is, you know?”
Corinne shook her head. “The way this is phrased, somehow it doesn’t quite fit that,” she said slowly. “And how better might immortals try to get in touch with others like them?”
“It could be a scam. Or a trap.” Desperation chattered. “Don’t write to that box number, Laurace. Don’t. We’ve got too much to lose.”
“Or to gain? What are you afraid of?”
“What could happen to us. And our work, everything we’re doing.” Rosa aimed a jerky gesture at the curtained windows. “The Unity’11 fall apart without us. What’ll become of everybody that trusts us?”
Corinne’s gaze went in the same direction, as if it pierced through to the swamp of horrible decay in which this house stood like an island. “I’m not sure we’re doing much of anything any longer.”
“We are, we are. We’re saving some, at least. If we—tell anybody what we are—that’s the end. Nothing will ever be the same again.”
Corinne swung her vision back to Rosa, tautened, and pounced. “You’ve seen something like this already, haven’t you?”
“No.” The Syrian made fending motions. “I mean, well—”
“It escaped you. It’s written on you. Neither of us has stayed alive without getting pretty good at body language. Speak, or by God, I—I will contact this Willock fellow.”
Rosa shuddered. Resistance collapsed. She swiped at tears. “I’m sorry. Yeah, yes, I did. Had almost forgotten, it was so long ago. Nothing more came of it, so I thought there was nothing to it. Till now.”
“When? Where?”
“In the papers, then. I don’t remember the date, but it was shortly before the war, World War Two, that is.”
“About fifty years ago. Maybe exactly fifty years? Go on.”
“Well, it was an ad sort of like this. Not just the same, but, well, I wondered.”
“And you kept silent? You never called it to my attention.”
“I was scared!” Rosa screamed. “Like I am now!” She stumbled to a chair, sank onto its zebra hide, and wept.
After a little while Corinne went to her, bent down, laid arms about the bowed shoulders and cheek close to cheek.
“I understand, Aliyat, dear,” she murmured. “You hadn’t been with me but a few short years. You had finally, barely won to something good, something hopeful. After those dreadful centuries—yes, of course you were terrified of any change, and the change here would have been unforeseeable. Oh, I forgive you. You may even have been right.”