The wind whooped. Suddenly Hanno laughed aloud with it. He ignored the stares he got. Maybe living through history had made him a touch paranoid. Yet he had also learned from it that every hour of freedom was a precious gift, to be savored in fullness and stored away where thieves could not break in and steal. Here half a beautiful afternoon and a whole evening had fallen into his hands. What to do with them?
A drink in the revolving bar on the Space Needle? The view of mountains and water was incomparable, and Lord knew ‘when the next clear day would happen along. No. This past interview had driven him too much into himself. He desired companionship. Natalia was still at work, pridefully and wisely declining to let nun support her. Tu Shan and Asagao were afar in Idaho, John Wanderer in the Olympics on one of his backpacking trips. He could drop into, say, Ernmett Watson’s for a beer and some oysters and general friendliness—no, the danger of meeting a self-appointed poet was too great. Jokes aside, he didn’t feel like chitchat with somebody he’d never see again.
That left a single possibility; and he hadn’t visited Gian-notti’s lab for quite a spell. Nothing spectacular could have happened there or he’d have been notified, but it was always interesting to get a personal progress report.
By the time of that decision, Hanno had reached the lot where he left the Buick registered to Joe Levine. He considered driving straight to his destination. Surely no one had put a tail on him. But accidents could happen, and sometimes did. Immortality made caution a habit. Moreover, he intended to end up with Natalia. Therefore he bucked through traffic to Levine’s place near the International District. It had parking of its own. In the apartment he opened a concealed safe and exchanged Levine’s assorted identification cards for Robert Cauldwell’s. A taxi brought him to a public garage where Cauldwell rented a space. Entering the Mitsubishi that waited, he returned to the streets.
He liked this tightly purring machine much better. Damn, it seemed only yesterday that Detroit was making the best cars for their price on earth.
His goal was a plain brick building, a converted warehouse, in a tight-industry section between Green Lake and the University campus. A brass plate on its door read RUFUS MEMORIAL INSTITUTE. Those who asked were told that Mr. Rufus had been a friend of Mr. Cauldwell, the shipowner who endowed this laboratory for fundamental biological science. That satisfied their curiosity. The work being done interested them much more, emphasizing as it did molecular cytology and the effort to discover what made living beings grow old.
It had been a plausible way for Cauldwell to dispose of his properties and retire into obscurity. Two magnate identities were more than Hanno could maintain after the government got thoroughly meddlesome. Tomek was pulling in the most money by then, and leaving less of a trail. Besides, this might offer a hope—
Director Samuel Giannotti was at his workbench. The staff was small though choice, administration was kept to an unfussy minimum, and he continued to be a practicing scientist. When Hanno arrived, he took time to shut down his experiment properly before escorting the founder to his office. It was a book-lined room as comfortably rumpled-look-ing as his large, bald-headed self. A swivel chair stood available for each man. Giannotti fetched Scotch from a cabinet, ice and soda from a fridge, and mixed mild drinks while Hanno charged his pipe.
“I wish you’d .give that foul thing up,” Giannotti said, settling down. His voice was amicable. The seat creaked to his weight. “Where’d you get it, anyway? From King Tutankhamen?”
“Before my time,” Hanno drawled. “Do you mind? I know you’ve quit, but I didn’t expect you’d take the Chris-ter attitude of so many ex-smokers.”
“No, in my line of work we get used to stenches.”
“Good. How’s that line go from Chesterton?”
“’If there is one thing worse than the modern weakening of major morals it is the modern strengthening of minor morals,’” quoted Giannotti, who was a devotee. “Or else, later in the same essay, ‘It is the great peril of our society that all its mechanism may grow more fixed while its spirit grows more fickle.’ Not that I’ve often heard you worry about morals or the spirit.”