Robert Sheckley - Immortality, Inc

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2024-12-19 0 0 377.96KB 160 页 5.9玖币
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IMMORTALITY, INC.
ROBERT SHECKLEY
A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK NEW YORK
PART ONE
1
Afterwards, Thomas Blaine thought about the manner of his dying and
wished it had been more interesting. Why couldn’t his death have come
while he was battling a typhoon, meeting a tiger’s charge, or climbing a
windswept mountain? Why had his death been so tame, so commonplace,
so ordinary?
But an enterprising death, he realized, would have been out of character
for him. Undoubtedly he was meant to die in just the quick, common,
messy, painless way he did. And all his life must have gone into the
forming and shaping of that death—a vague indication in childhood, a fair
promise in his college years, an implacable certainty at the age of
thirty-two.
Still, no matter how commonplace, one’s death is the most
interesting.event of one’s life. Blaine thought about his with intense
curiosity. He had to know about those minutes, those last precious
seconds when his own particular death lay waiting for him on a dark New
Jersey highway. Had there been some warning sign, some portent? What
had he done, or not done? What had he been thinking? Those final
seconds were crucial to him. How, exactly, had he died?
He had been driving over a straight, empty white highway, his
headlights probing ahead, the darkness receding endlessly before him. His
speedometer read seventy-five. It felt like forty. Far down the road he saw
headlights coming toward him, the first in hours.
Blaine was returning to New York after a week’s vacation at his cabin
on Chesapeake Bay. He had fished and swum and dozed in the sun on the
rough planks of his dock. One. day he sailed his sloop to Oxford and
attended a dance at the yacht club that night. He met a silly, pert-nosed
girl in a blue dress who told him he looked like a South Seas adventurer,
so tanned and tall in his khakis. He sailed back to his cabin the next day,
to doze in the sun and dream of giving up everything, loading his sailboat
with canned goods and heading for Tahiti. Ah Raiatea, the mountains of
Morrea, the fresh trade wind …
But a continent and an ocean lay between him and Tahiti, and other
obstacles besides. The thought was only for an hour’s dreaming, and
definitely not to be acted upon. Now he was returning to New York, to his
job as a junior yacht designer for the famous old firm of Mattison &
Peters.
The other car’s headlights were drawing near. Blaine slowed to sixty.
In spite of his title, there were few yachts for Blaine to design. Old Tom
Mattison took care of the conventional cruising boats. His brother Rolf,
known as the Wizard of Mystic, had an international reputation for his
ocean-racing sailboats and fast one-designs. So what was there for a
junior yacht designer to do?
Blaine drew layouts and deck plans, and handled promotion,
advertising and publicity. It was responsible work, and not without its
satisfactions. But it was not yacht designing.
He knew he should strike out on his own. But there were so many yacht
designers, so few customers. As he had told Laura, it was rather like
designing arbalests, scorpions and catapults. Interesting creative work,
but who would buy your products? “You could find a market for your
sailboats,” she had told him, distressingly direct. “Why not make the
plunge?”
He had grinned boyishly, charmingly. “Action isn’t my forte. I’m an
expert on contemplation and mild regret.”
“You mean you’re lazy.”
“Not at all. That’s like saying that a hawk doesn’t gallop well, or a horse
has poor soaring ability. You can’t compare different species. I’m just not
the go-getter type of human. For me, dreams, reveries, visions, and plans
are meant only for contemplation, never for execution.”
“I hate to hear you talk like that,” she said with a sigh.
He had been laying it on a bit thick, of course. But there was a lot of
truth in it. He had a pleasant job, an adequate salary, a secure position.
He had an apartment in Greenwich Village, a hi-fi, a car, a small cabin on
Chesapeake Bay, a fine sloop, and the affection of Laura and several other
girls. Perhaps, as Laura somewhat tritely expressed it, he was caught in an
eddy on the current of life… But so what? You could observe the scenery
better from a gently revolving eddy.
The other car’s headlights were very near
Blaine noticed, with a sense of shock, that he had increased speed to
eighty miles an hour.
He let up on the accelerator. His car swerved freakishly, violently,
toward the oncoming headlights.
Blowout? Steering failure? He twisted hard on the steering wheel. It
wouldn’t turn. His car struck the low concrete separation between north
and south lanes, and bounded high into the air. The steering wheel came
free and spun in his hands, and the engine wailed like a lost soul.
The other car was trying to swerve, too late. They were going to meet
nearly head-on.
And Blaine thought, yes, I’m one of them. I’m one of those silly bastards
you read about whose cars go out of control and kill innocent people.
Christ! Modern cars and modern roads and higher speeds and the same
old sloppy reflexes…
Suddenly, unaccountably, the steering wheel was working again, a
razor’s edge reprieve. Blaine ignored it. As the other car’s headlights
glared across his windshield, his mood suddenly changed from regret to
exultance. For a moment he welcomed the smash, lusted for it, and for
pain, destruction, cruelty and death.
Then the cars came together. The feeling of exultance faded as quickly
as it had come. Blaine felt a profound regret for all he had left undone, the
waters unsailed, movies unseen, books unread, girls untouched- He was
thrown forward. The steering wheel broke off in his hands. The steering
column speared him through the chest and broke his spine as his head
drove through the thick safety glass.
At that instant he knew he was dying.
An instant later he was quickly, commonly, messily, painlessly dead.
2
He awoke in a white bed in a white room.
“He’s alive now,” someone said.
Blaine opened his eyes. Two men in white were standing over him. They
seemed to be doctors. One was a small, bearded old man. The other was
an ugly red-faced man in his fifties.
“What’s your name?” the oid man snapped
“Thomas Blaine.”
“Age?”
“Thirty-two. But—”
“Marital status?”
“Single. What—”
“Do you see?” the old man said, turning to his red-faced colleague.
“Sane, perfectly sane.”
“I would never have believed it,” said the red-faced man.
“But of course. The death trauma has been overrated. Grossly overrated,
as my forthcoming book will prove.”
“Hmm. But rebirth depression—”
“Nonsense,” the old man said decisively. “Blaine, do you feel all right?”
“Yes. But I’d like to know—”
“Do you see?” the old doctor said triumphantly. “Alive again and sane.
Now will you co-sign the report?”
“I suppose I have no choice,” the red-faced man said. Both doctors left.
Blaine watched them go, wondering what they-had been talking about.
A fat and motherly nurse came to his bedside. “How do you feel?” she
asked.
“Fine,” Blaine said. “But I’d like to know—”
“Sorry,” the nurse said, “No questions yet, doctor’s orders. Drink this,
it’ll pep you up. That’s a good boy. Don’t worry, everything’s going to be all
right.”
She left. Her reassuring words frightened him. What did she mean,
everything’s going to be all right? That meant something was wrong!
What was it, what was wrong? What was he doing here, what had
happened?
The bearded doctor returned, accompanied by a young woman.
“Is he all right, doctor?” the young woman asked.
“Perfectly sane,” the old doctor said. “I’d call it a good splice.”
“Then I can begin the interview?”
“Certainly. Though I cannot guarantee his behavior. The death trauma,
though grossly overrated, is still capable of—”
“Yes, fine.” The girl walked over to Blaine and bent over him. She was a
very pretty girl, Blaine noticed. Her features were clean-cut, her skin fresh
and glowing. She had long, gleaming brown hair pulled too tightly back
over her small ears, and there was a faint hint of perfume about her. She
should have been beautiful; but she was marred by the immobility of her
features, the controlled tenseness of her slender body. It was hard to
imagine her laughing or crying. It was impossible to imagine her in bed.
There was something of the fanatic about her, of the dedicated
revolutionary; but he suspected that her cause was herself.
“Hello, Mr. Blaine,” she said. “I’m Marie Thorne.”
“Hello,” Blaine said cheerfully.
“Mr. Blaine,” she said, “where do you suppose you are?”
“Looks like a hospital. I suppose—” He stopped. He had just noticed a
small microphone in her hand.
“Yes, what do you suppose?”
She made a small gesture. Men came forward and wheeled heavy
equipment around his bed.
“Go right ahead,” Marie Thorne said. “Tell us what you suppose.”
“To hell with that,” Blaine said moodily, watching the men set up their
machines around him. “What is this? What is going on?”
“We’re trying to help you,” Marie Thorne said. “Won’t you cooperate?”
Blaine nodded, wishing she would smile. He suddenly felt very unsure of
himself. Had something happened to him?
“Do you remember the accident?” she asked.
“What accident?”
“Do you remember being hurt?”
Blaine shuddered as his memory returned in a rush of spinning lights,
wailing engine, impact and breakage.
“Yes. The steering wheel broke. I got it through the chest. Then my head
hit.”
“Look at your chest,” she said softly.
Blaine looked. His chest, beneath white pajamas, was unmarked.
“Impossible!” he cried. His own voice sounded hollow, distant, unreal.
He was aware of the men around his bed talking as they bent over their
machines, but they seemed like shadows, flat and without substance.
Their thin, unimportant voices were like flies buzzing against a window.
“Nice first reaction.”
“Very nice indeed.”
Marie Thorne said to him, “You are unhurt.”
Blaine looked at his undamaged body and remembered the accident. “I
can’t believe itf” he cried.
“He’s coming on perfectly.”
“Fine mixture of belief and incredulity.”
Marie Thorne said, “Quiet, please. Go ahead, Mr. Blaine.
“I remember the accident,” Blaine said. “I remember the smashing, I
remember—dying.”
“Get that?”
“Hell, yes. It really plays!”
“Perfectly spontaneous scene.”
“Marvellous! They’ll go wild over it!”
She said, “A little less noise, please. Mr. Blaine, do you remember
dying?”
“Yes, yes, I died!”
“His face!”
“That ludicrous expression heightens the reality.”
“I just hope Reilly thinks so.”
She said, “Look carefully at your body, Mr. Blaine. Here’s a mirror. Look
at your face.”
Blaine looked, and shivered like a man in fever. He touched the mirror,
then ran shaking fingers over his face.
“It isn’t my face! Where’s my face? Where did you put my body and
face?”
He was in a nightmare from which he could never awaken. The flat
shadow men surrounded him, their voices buzzing like flies against a
window, tending their cardboard machines, filled with vague menace, yet
strangely indifferent, almost unaware of him. Marie Thorne bent low over
him with her pretty, blank face, and from her small red mouth came
gentle nightmare words.
“Your body is dead, Mr. Blaine, killed in an automobile accident. You
can remember its dying. But we managed to save that part of you that
really counts. We saved your mind, Mr. Blaine, and have given you a new
body for it.”
Blaine opened his mouth to scream, and closed it again. “It’s
unbelievable,” he said quietly.
And the flies buzzed.
“Understatement.”
“Well, of course. One can’t be frenetic forever.”
“I expected a little more scenery-chewing.”
“Wrongly. Understatement rather accentuates his dilemma.”
“Perhaps, in pure stage terms. But consider the thing realistically.
This poor bastard has just discovered that he died in an automobile
accident and is now reborn in a new body. So what does he say about it?
He says, ‘It’s unbelievable.’ Damn it, he’s not really reacting to the
shock!”
“He is! You’re projecting!”
“Please!” Marie Thorne said. “Go on, Mr. Blaine.”
Blaine, deep in his nightmare, was hardly aware of the soft, buzzing
voices. He asked, “Did I really die?”
She nodded.
“And I am really born again in a different body?”
She nodded again, waiting. Blaine looked at her, and at the shadow men
tending their cardboard machines. Why were they bothering him? Why
couldn’t they go pick on some other dead man? Corpses shouldn’t be
forced to answer questions. Death was man’s ancient privilege, his
immemorial pact with life, granted to the slave as well as the noble. Death
was man’s solace, and his right. But perhaps they had revoked that right;
and now you couldn’t evade your responsibilities simply by being dead.
They were waiting for him to speak. And Blaine wondered if insanity
still retained its hereditary privileges. With ease he could slip over and
find out.
But insanity is not granted to everyone. Blaine’s self-control returned.
He looked up at Marie Thorne.
“My feelings,” he said slowly, “are difficult to describe. I’ve died, and
now I’m contemplating the fact. I don’t suppose any man fully believes in
his own death. Deep down he feels immortal. Death seems to await others,
but never oneself. It’s almost as though— ”
“Let’s cut it right here. He’s getting analytical,”
“I think you’re right,” Marie Thorne said. “Thank you very much, Mr.
Blaine.”
The men, solid and mundane now, their vague menace disappeared,
began rolling their equipment.
“Wait—” Blaine said.
“Don’t worry,” she told him. “We’ll get the rest of your reactions later.
We just wanted to record the spontaneous part now.”
“Damn good while it lasted.”
“A collector’s item.”
“Wait!” Blaine cried. “I don’t understand. Where am I? What
happened? How—”
“ Marie Thorne said. ”I’m terribly sorry, I must hurry now and edit this for
Mr. Reilly.“
The men and equipment were gone. Marie Thorne smiled reassuringly,
and hurried away.
Blaine felt ridiculously close to tears. He blinked rapidly when the fat
and motherly nurse came back.
“Drink this,” said the nurse. “It’ll make you sleep. That’s it, take it all
down like a good boy. Just relax, you had a big day, what with dying and
being reborn and all.”
Two big tears rolled down Blaine’s cheeks.
“Dear me,” said the nurse, “the cameras should be here now. Those are
genuine spontaneous tears if I ever saw any. Many a tragic and
spontaneous scene I’ve witnessed in this infirmary, believe me, and I could
tell those snooty recording boys something about genuine emotion if I
wanted to, and they thinking they know all the secrets of the human
heart.”
“Where am I?” Blaine asked drowsily. “Where is this?”
“You’d call it being in the future,” the nurse said.
“Oh,” said Blaine.
Then he was asleep.
3
After many hours he awoke, calm and rested. He looked at the white
bed and white room, and remembered.
He had been killed in an accident and reborn in the future. There had
been a doctor who considered the death trauma overrated, and men who
recorded his spontaneous reactions and declared them a collector’s item,
and a pretty girl whose features showed a lamentable lack of emotion.
Blaine yawned and stretched. Dead. Dead at thirty-two. A pity, he
thought, that this young life was snuffed in its prime. Blaine was a good
sort, really, and quite promising…
He was annoyed at his flippant attitude. It was no way to react. He tried
to recapture the shock he felt he should feel.
Yesterday, he told himself firmly, I was a yacht designer driving back
from Maryland. Today I am a man reborn into the future. The future!
Reborn!
No use, the words lacked impact. He had already grown used to the
idea. One grows used to anything, he thought, even to one’s death.
Especially to one’s death. You could probably chop off a man’s head three
times a day for twenty years and he’d grow used to it, and cry like a baby if
you stopped…
He didn’t care to pursue that train of thought any further.
He thought about Laura. Would she weep for him? Would she get
drunk? Or would she just feel depressed at the news, and take a
tranquillizer for it? What about Jane and Miriam? Would they even hear
about his death? Probably not. Months later they might wonder why he
never called any more.
Enough of that. All that was past. Now he was in the future.
But all he had seen of the future was a white bed and a white room,
doctors and a nurse, recording men and a pretty girl. So far, it didn’t offer
much contrast with his own age. But doubtless there were differences.
He remembered magazine articles and stories he had read. Today there
might be free atomic power, undersea farming, world peace, international
birth control, interplanetary travel, free love, complete desegregation, a
cure for all diseases, and a planned society in which men breathed deep
the air of freedom.
That’s what there should be, Blaine thought. But there were less
pleasant possibilities. Perhaps a grim-faced Oligarch had Earth in his iron
grasp, while a small, dedicated underground struggled toward freedom.
Or small, gelatinous alien creatures with outlandish names might have
enslaved the human race. Perhaps a new and horrible disease marched
unchecked across the land, or possibly the Earth, swept of all culture by
hydrogen warfare, struggled painfully back to technological civilization
while human wolfpacks roamed the badlands; or a million other equally
dismal things could have happened.
And yet. Blaine thought, mankind showed an historic ability to avoid
the extremes of doom as well as the extremes of bliss. Chaos was forever
prophesized and Utopia was continually predicted, and neither came to
pass.
Accordingly, Blaine expected that this future would show certain
definite improvements over the past, but he expected some deteriorations
as well; some old problems would be gone, but certain others would have
taken their places.
“In short,” Blaine said to himself, “I expect that this future will be like
all other futures in comparison with their pasts. That’s not very specific;
but then, I’m not in the predicting or the prophesying business.”
His thoughts were interrupted by Marie Thorne walking briskly into his
room.
“Good morning,” she said. “How do you feel?”
“Like a new man,” Blaine said, with a perfectly straight face.
“Good. Would you sign this, please?” She held out a pen and a typed
paper.
“You’re very damned efficient,” Blaine said. “What am I signing?”
“Read it,” she said. “It’s a release absolving us from any legal
responsibility in saving your life.”
摘要：

IMMORTALITY,INC.ROBERTSHECKLEYATOMDOHERTYASSOCIATESBOOKNEWYORKPARTONE1Afterwards,ThomasBlainethoughtaboutthemannerofhisdyingandwishedithadbeenmoreinteresting.Whycouldn’thisdeathhavecomewhilehewasbattlingatyphoon,meetingatiger’scharge,orclimbingawindsweptmountain?Whyhadhisdeathbeensotame,socommonplac...

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