Brave New Worlds (anthology)

Geriatric Ward by ORSON SCOTT CARD

Sandy started babbling on Tuesday morning and Todd knew it was the end.

"They took Poogy and Gog away from me," Sandy said sadly, her hand trembling, spilling coffee on the toast.

"What?" Todd mumbled.

"And never brought them back. Just took them. I looked all over. "

"Looked for what?"

"Poogy," Sandy said, thrusting out her lower lip. The skin of her cheeks was sagging down to form jowls. Her hair was thin and fine, now, though she kept it dyed dark brown. "And Gog. "

"What the hell are Poogy and Gog?" Todd asked.

"You took them," Sandy said. She started to cry. She kicked the table leg. Todd got up from the table and went to work.

The university was empty. Sunday. Damn Sunday, never anyone there to help with the work on Sunday. Waste too much damn time looking up things that students should be sent to find out.

He went to the lab. Ryan was there. They looked over the computer readouts. "Blood," said Ryan, "just plain ain't worth the paper it's printed on. "

"Not one thing," Todd said.

"Plenty of tests left to run. "

"No tests left to run except the viral microscopy, and that's next week. "

Ryan smiled. "Well, then, the problem must be viral. "

"You know damn well the problem isn't viral. "

Ryan looked at him sharply, his long grey hair tossing in the opposite direction. "What is it then? Sunspots? Aliens from outer space? God's punishment? the Jews? Yellow Peril?"

Todd didn't answer. Just settled down to double checking the figures. Outside he heard the Sunday parade. Pentecostal. Jesus Will Save You, Brother, When You Go Without Your Sins. How could he concentrate?

"What's wrong?" Ryan asked.

"Nothing's wrong," Todd answered. Nothing. Sweet Jesus, you old man, if I could live to thirty-three I'd let them hang my corpse from any cross they wanted. If I could live to thirty.

Twenty-four. Birthday June 28. They used to celebrate birthdays. Now everyone tried to keep it secret. Not Todd, though. Not well-adjusted Todd. Even had a few friends over, they drank to his health. His hands shook at night now, like palsy, like fear, and his teeth were rotting in his mouth. He looked down at the paper where his hands were following the lines. The numbers blurred. Have to have new glasses again, second time this year. The veins on his hands stuck out blue and evil-looking.

And Sandy was over the edge today.

She was only twenty-two; it hit the women first. He had met her just before college, they had married, had nine children in nine years — duty to the race. It must be child-bearing that made the women get it sooner. But the race had to go on.

Somehow. And now their older children were grown up, having children of their own. Miracles of modern medicine. We don't know why you get old so young, and we can't cure it, but in the meantime we can give you a little more adulthood — accelerated development, six-month gestation, puberty at nine, not a disease left you could catch except the one. But the one was enough. Not as large as a church door, but 'tis enough, 'twill serve.

His chin quivered and tears dropped down wrinkled cheeks onto the page.

"What is it?" Ryan asked, concerned. Todd shook his head. He didn't need comfort, not from a novice of eighteen, only two years out of college.

"What is it?" Ryan persisted.

"It's tears," Todd answered. "A salty fluid produced by a gland near the eye, used for lubrication. Also serves double-duty as a signal to other people that stress cannot be privately coped with. "

"So don't cope privately. What is it?"

Todd got up and left the room. He went to his office and called the medical center.

"Psychiatric," he said to the moronic voice that answered.

Psychiatric was busy. He called again and got through. Dr. Lassiter was in.

"Todd," Lassiter said.

"Val," Todd answered. "Got a problem. "

"Can it wait? Busy day. "

"Can't wait. It's Sandy. She started babbling today. "

"Ah," said Val. "I'm sorry. Is it bad?"

"She remembers her separation therapy. Like it was yesterday. "

"That's it then, Todd," Val said. "I'm really sorry. Sandy's a wonderful woman, good researcher, but there's nothing we can do. "

"Aren't we supposed to be able to see signs before she reaches this stage?"

"Usually," Val answered, "but not always. Think back, though. I'm sure you'll remember signs. "

Todd swallowed. "Have you got a space, Val? You knew Sandy back in the old days, back when we were kids in the—"

"Is this pressure, Todd?" Val asked abruptly. "Appeal to friendship? Don't you know the law?"

"I know the law, dammit, I'm asking you, one medical researcher to another, is there room?"

"There's room, Todd," Val answered, "for the treatables. But if she's reverted to separation therapy, then what can I do? It's a matter of weeks. For your own safety you have to turn her over, never know what's going to happen during the final senility, you know. Hallucinations. Sometimes violence. There's still strength in the old bones. "

"She's committed no crime. "

"It's also the law," Val reminded him. "Good-bye. "

Todd hung up the phone. Turn her over? He'd never thought it would come to Sandy so suddenly. He couldn't just turn her over, she'd hate him, she had enough of herself left in herself to know what was going on. They'd been married thirteen years.

He went back to Ryan in the lab and told him to put the computers on the viral microscopy tomorrow.

"That's unscientific, to rush it," said Ryan.

"Damned unscientific," Todd agreed. "Do it. "

"OK," Ryan answered. "It's Sandy, isn't it?"

"It's handwriting," Todd said. "It's all over the walls. "

Todd went home and found Sandy in the living room, cuddling a pillow and watching the tube. Someone was yelling at someone else. Sandy didn't care. She was stroking the pillow, making love noises. Todd sat on the chair and watched for her almost an hour. She never noticed him. She did, however, change pillows.

"Gog," she said.

She listened for an answer, nodded, smiled, held the pillow to her breasts. Todd chewed his fingernails. His heart was fluttering.

He went into the kitchen and fixed dinner. She ate, though she spilled a great deal and threw her spoon on the floor.

He put her to bed. Then he showered, came back out, and crawled into bed beside her.

"What the hell do you think you're doing," she challenged, her voice husky and mature.

"Going to bed," Todd answered.

"Not in my bed, you bastard," she said, shoving at him.

"My bed, you mean," he said, even though he knew better.

She growled. Like a tiger, Todd thought. Then she clawed as his face. Her nails were long. He lurched back, his face on fire with pain. The motion carried him off the bed. He landed heavily on the floor. His brittle old bones ached at the impact. He felt for his eyes, to see if they were still there. they were.

"If you ever come back," she said, "I'll have my husband eat you alive. "

Todd didn't bother arguing. He went into the living room and curled up on the couch. For the first time he wished that children still lived at home nowadays. That even the two-year-old were there to talk to. He touched the pillow, pulled it toward him, then stopped himself. Pillows. One of the signs.

Not me, he thought.

He fell asleep surrounded by nightmares of childhood, attacked on all sides by sagging flesh and fragile bones and eyes and ears that had forgotten all they ever knew how to do.

He woke with the blood clotted stiffly on his face. His back was sore where he had struck the floor last night. He walked stiffly to the bathroom. When he washed the blood off his face the cuts opened again, and he spent a half hour stanching the bleeding.

When he left home, Sandy was sitting at the kitchen table, holding a tea party for herself and the pillows.

"Good-bye, Sandy," Todd said.

"More tea, Gog?" she answered.

He did not go to the lab. Instead he went to the library and used his top security clearance to gain access to the gerontology section. It was illegal to use security clearance for personal purposes, but who would know? Who would care, for that matter. He found a volume entitled Psychology of Accelerated Aging by V.

N. Lassiter. He finished it at 1:00. Ryan looked irritated when Todd finally came in. "We've been running the series without you," he said, "but holy hell, Todd, everybody's been on my back for doing it early. If you're going to give me a screwed-up order, at least be here to take the lumps. "

"Sorry. " Todd started looking over the early readouts.

"You won't find anything yet," Ryan said.

"I know," Todd answered. "But the meeting is on Friday. "

Ryan slammed down a sheaf of papers on his desk.

"We'll make the report then," Todd went on.

"If we make a report then it will be worth exactly nothing," Ryan said angrily.

"If we make a report then — and we will make a report then — it will be as accurate as human understanding can make it. Do you think we'll miss anything now? there's nothing. Our blood is no different from the blood of our great great grandfathers who lived to be ninety-five. There are no microbes. And viruses are just corkscrews. "

"If you do this," Ryan said, "I'll recommend that you be removed from your post and the viral microscopy series be run again. "

Todd laughed. "Calm down," he said. "I'm twenty-four. "

Ryan looked at the floor. "I'm sorry. "

"Hey," Todd said, "don't worry about it. In a few months, you can run the whole thing over again if you want. And the guy after you, and the one after him, run it over and over and over again through eternity. I won't care. You'll have your time in the sun, Ryan. You'll have six years as head of the department and you'll write papers, conduct research, and then you'll roll over like the rest of us and wiggle your feet in the air for a while and then you'll die. "

Ryan turned away. "I've got the point, Todd. "

"Dr. Halking, boy," Todd said. "Dr. Halking to you until I'm dead. " Todd walked to the window and opened it. Outside on the lawn was an afternoon rally of the Fatalists. "Hasten the day," they sang at the top of their decrepit lungs, white hair flashing in the breeze and the sunlight. "Take me away, death is the answer, don't make me stay. "

"Shut the window," Ryan said. Todd opened it wider. Two students, graduate students about sixteen years old, took a few quick steps toward him.

"Relax," Todd said. "I'm not jumping. "

Todd was still standing at the window when Val Lassiter came. "Ryan called me," Val said.

"I know," Todd answered. "I heard him call. "

"Let's talk," Val answered. The students left the room. Val looked at Ryan, and he also left. "they're gone," Val said. "Let's talk. " Todd sat in a chair. "I know what you're thinking," Todd said. "I'm showing the signs. "

"What signs?"

Todd sighed. "Don't give me any of that psychiatrist crap. I read your book. I've got it all: Tears, worries, inability to bear delay, impatience with friends, unwillingness to admit any possibility of hope, suicidal behavior — I'm so far gone that if Jesus whispered in my ear, ‘You're saved, 'I'd believe and be baptized and not be surprised at all. "

"You shouldn't have read that book, Todd. "

"I read the book but I'm not over the edge, Val. I will be, I know, but not yet. It's just Sandy — I was a fool, I let myself get too attached, you know? I can't handle it. Can't let go. Keep feeling there's got to be a way. "

Val smiled and touched Todd's shoulder. "You've devoted your life to finding a way. So have I. So have all of us from the project. Geniuses all, even Sandy, what a damned shame she's the first to go. But the cure won't come overnight. Won't come by trying to reverse what's irreversible. "

"Who says it's irreversible?" Todd demanded.

"Experience," Val said. "What, do you think you can go out of your discipline and outdo the experts in a sudden flash of inspiration? All you'll think of are ideas we've thought of and discarded long ago. "

"How do you know it can't be reversed? We don't even know what causes the aging, Val. We don't even know if it has a cause — why is the cutoff point separation therapy? Why can't you help people once they revert to that?"

Val shrugged. "It's arbitrary. We can't do that much for others, either. "

Todd shook his head, saying," Val, you don't understand. Maybe what's going on in separation therapy is part of what causes the senility—"

Val stood impatiently. "I told you, Todd. You'll only think of things we already thought of. It can't be the cause because separation therapy began after The aging epidemic. It was tried as a cure. It was used so we would mature faster, so we would have more adult, productive years. Todd, you know that, you know it can't be the cause, what is this?"

Todd picked up a stack of readouts. "Forget it, Val. Tell everyone I'm over my breakdown. It's Sandy being over the edge. I just couldn't handle the grief a while, OK?"

Val smiled. "OK. Have you turned her over yet?"

Todd stiffened. "No. "

Val stopped smiling. "It's the law, Todd. Do it soon. Do it before I have to report it. "

Todd looked up at Val with a sickening smile on his face. "And when will you have to report it, Val?"

Val looked at Todd for a moment, then turned and left. The others came back to the lab. They worked all afternoon and far into the night, pretending nothing had happened. At least Todd hadn't suicided. So many did these days, especially the brilliant ones; no one would have been surprised. But Todd they needed, at least for a while more, at least until the young ones had a chance to learn. Otherwise they'd be a few years deeper into the hole, there'd be a few more years' worth of learning lost, a little bit less that one man could hope to do in his short lifetime.

Todd called in sick the next morning. He was not sick. He took Sandy by the hand, led her to the car, and drove her to the childhouse. He flashed his security pass and rushed Sandy through the halls as quickly as possible, so no one would notice she was over the edge.

The rushing about left Todd's heart fluttering, his old hopeless heart, he thought, only a few more months, only a few more weeks of pumping away. They were met at the observation window by several young researchers; couldn't be out of college yet, maybe fifteen. Hair still young, eyes still bright, skin still smooth. Todd felt angry, looking at them.

They were impressed to be meeting The Todd Halking. "Gee, Dr. Halking," the heavyset young women enthused," we never thought our work would have any application on the biological end of things. "

"It probably doesn't," Todd said. "But we need to check every angle. This is my wife. She has a cold, so I'd advise you to keep your distance. "

Sandy showed no sign of paying attention to the conversation around her. She only watched the large window in front of her. On the other side a child was playing with two stuffed animals. One was a bear, the other a lion.

"Poogy," Sandy whispered. "Gog. "

A research supervisor walked into the observation room and began the testing. For a moment Todd tuned in to the heavyset woman's droning explanation: ". check to make sure the child's reliance is not pathological, in which case special treatment is necessary. In most cases separation therapy is judged to be safe, and so we proceed immediately. "

The tests were simple — the supervisor knelt by the child and showed affection to each love object in turn, first by patting, then by kissing, then by taking the love object briefly and hugging it. Though the little girl showed some signs of anxiety when the researcher took the love object away for a moment to hug it, she was considered ready for therapy. "After all," the student explained to Todd, "for a five-year-old to show no anxiety would be as startling as extreme anxiety. "

And so the separation therapy began. The attendant took both stuffed animals and left the room.

The little girl's anxiety was immediately more acute. She watched the door for a few moments, then stood up, went to the door, and tried to make it open. Of course the buttons didn't respond to her touch. She paced for a little while, then sat back down and waited, watching the door.

"You see," said the student, "you see how patient she is? that can be a sign of exceptional maturity. "

Then the little girl ran out of patience. She began to call out. Her words were inaudible, but Todd could hear Sandy beside him, mumbling, "Poogy, Gog, Poogy, Gog," in time with the little girl's silent cries. She was reacting. Todd felt a shiver of fear run through him, upward, from his feet. She would react, but would it do any good?

The little girl was screaming now, her face red, her eyes bugging out. "She may, because she is an exceptionally affectionate and reliant child, continue this until she is unconscious," said the student. "We are monitoring her, however, in case she needs a sedative. If we can avoid the sedative, we do, because it does them good, like a purgative, to work it out of their system. "

The little girl lay on the floor and kicked. She beat her head brutally against the floor. "Padded, of course," said the student. "Persistent little devil, isn't she?"

Todd noticed that tears were rolling down Sandy's cheeks. Profusively, making a latticework of tear tracks.

The little girl jumped up and ran as fast as she could against the wall, striking it with her head. The force of the impact was so great that she rebounded a full five feet and landed on her back. She jumped up again and screamed and screamed. then she began running around the room in circles.

"Oh, well," said the student. "this could go on for hours, Dr. Halking. Would you like to see something else?"

"I'd like to continue watching a while longer," Todd said softly.

The little girl abruptly stopped moving and slowly removed all her clothing. Then she started tearing at her naked skin with her teeth and fingernails. Streaks of bloody wounds followed after her fingers.

"Uh-oh," said the student. "Self-destructive. Have to stop her, she might go for the eyes and cause permanent damage. "

The last word was lost as the door slammed behind her. In a moment the observers saw the student researcher enter the therapy room. The little girl flew at her, screaming and clawing. The student, despite her weight, was welltrained — she subdued the child quickly without sustaining or causing any wounds. Todd watched as the woman deftly forced a straitjacket on the child.

"Dr. Halking," one of the other students said, interrupting his observation. "I beg your pardon, but what is your wife doing?"

Sandy was removing her last stitch of clothing. Todd managed to catch her hands before she could rake her nails across her sagging bosom. The ancient hands were like claws where he held them — and madness poured strength into her arms. She broke free.

"Give me a hand here," Todd said, meaning to shout but only able to whisper because of the way his heart was beating.

When they finally forced her to the ground, shaking and exhausted, her own skin was streaked with blood, and some of the students had marks on them. Todd's face was bleeding, mostly where two-day-old wounds had reopened.

The matron of the childhouse came in almost immediately after they subdued Sandy. "What in heaven's name are you doing in here!" she demanded.

They told her. She narrowed her eyes and looked at Todd. "Dr. Halking, what do you mean bringing a woman who was over the edge into a childhouse? What did you mean letting her watch separation therapy? What in heaven's name were you Thinking of? Are you trying to create catatonia? Are you trying to get some of my staff killed? You've certainly got some of them fired for letting this happen!"

Todd mumbled his apologies, urging her not to fire anyone. "It was all my fault, I lied to them, I—"

"Well, Dr. Halking, I'm calling the police at once. This woman is obviously ready to be turned over. Obviously. I can't understand a man of your stature playing these games with a woman's safety, and just plain ignoring the law—"

Todd apologized again, praised the fine work they were doing, told her he would make a favorable report on their behavior, and finally the matron calmed down. Todd managed to extricate himself. The matron did not call the police. Sandy took Todd's hand and followed him docilely out of the building.

When he got her home he let got of her hand. She stayed standing where he had let go of her. When he came back into the room a few minutes later, she was still standing there in exactly the same position.

He spoke to her, but she didn't answer. He took her hand and led her. She followed him to the bedroom. She stood by the bed when he let go. Gently he pushed her onto the bed. She lay on it, not moving. He raised her arm. She left it raised until he reached out and lowered it again.

He closed her eyes, because she wouldn't blink. Then he sat on the bed beside her and wept dry tears into his hands, his body shuddering with rapid, uncontrollable sobs, though not a sound came. Then he slept, feeling as sick as he had claimed to be that morning.

Sandy remained catatonic for the rest of the week. He hired a student from the university to come in and feed Sandy and clean up after her.

On Friday Todd and Ryan gathered their hastily prepared reports and flew to San Francisco for the meeting. Val Lassiter was on the same plane, but they all pretended not to know each other. The secrecy continued when they reached the city. The scientists were all put in separate hotels. They were brought to the meeting at different times, through different entrances. Some of the were instructed to wear casual clothes. Others wore business suits. One man wore a white uniform. Another wore a hard hat.

"Why all the secrecy?" Ryan asked Todd, laughing at a neurologist in a rather overdone fisherman's outfit.

"To prevent the public from getting too much hope if the papers report that this meeting is taking place," Todd answered.

"Why not? Why not a little hope?" Ryan asked.

"Why not a lot of heroin?"

Ryan looked coldly at Todd. "Dr. Halking, I find your despair disgusting. "

Todd looked back and smiled. "And I find your insistence on hope touchingly naive. "

The meeting went on. The reports varied between cautious negative statements and utter despair. Todd read Ryan's and his report toward the end of the first day. "Except for the viral microscopy reports, all were slowly and deliberately doublechecked. My assistant wants me to assure you that the viral microscopy reports were hurried through the second check. That is true, because the meeting couldn't wait and the computer could be made to work overtime. "

There was some laughter.

"However, we never found any discrepancy between first and second runs on any other tests, and we did carefully check and found no discrepancies on the first run of the viral microscopy tests either. Therefore, I can safely conclude that there is no significant difference between contemporary blood samples and the blood samples prior to the Premature Aging Phenomenon, except such differences as reflect our conquest of certain well-known diseases, and these antibodies were not stimulated until long after the PAP was first noted. Ergo — not significant. "

There were some careful questions, easily answered, and they moved on. However jovial a presenter might be, the answer was always the same. No answers.

After the papers were presented, the data examined, the statistical results questioned and upheld, the heads of the projects gathered in one small room at the top of the old Hyatt Regency. Todd Halking and Val Lassiter arrived together. Only a couple of men were already there. On impulse, Todd walked to the chalkboard at one end of the room and wrote on it,"Abandon hope all ye who enter here. "

"Not funny," Val said when Todd sat down next to him.

"Come on. they'll die laughing. "

Val looked at Todd quizzically. "Get a grip, Todd," he said.

Todd smiled. "I have a grip. If not on myself, then on reality. "

Everyone who came into the room saw the sign on the chalkboard. Some chuckled a little. Finally someone got up and erased the message.

The room was only half full. Todd got up and left the room, his aging bladder more demanding than it had been a few years — a few weeks! — before. He washed his hands afterward, and looked at himself in the mirror. He was haggard. His face cried out Death. He smiled at himself. The smile was ghastly. He went back to the room.

He was not yet seated when a military-looking man entered and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. " Everybody stood and applauded. The president walked in. No one could have recognized him from the publicity pictures. They all dated from his second campaign, and then he had not been bald.

"Well, you've done it," the president said. "And within my term of office. Thank you. The effort was magnificent. The results are remarkably thorough, I'm told by those who should know. "

The president coughed into a handkerchief. He sounded like he had pleurisy.

"And if you're right," he said. "If you're right, the picture is pretty grim. "

The president laughed. Todd wondered why. But a few of the scientists laughed, too. Including Anne Hallam, the geneticist. She spoke. "To the dinosaurs things once looked grim, too. A million mammals chewing on their eggs. "

"The dinosaurs died out," the president said.

"No," Hallam answered. "Only the ones that hadn't become birds or mammals or some more viable type of reptile. " She smiled at them all. Hope springs eternal, Todd thought. "It's small comfort," she went on, "but one thing this early aging has done: the species has shorter generations. We're better able to adapt genetically. Whatever happens, when mankind gets out of this we will not be the same as we were when we went in. "

"Yes," Todd said cheerfully. "We'll all be dead. "

Anne looked at him in irritation, and several people coughed. But the mood of joviality the president had set at first was gone now. Val wrote on his notebook and shoved it toward Todd as the president started talking again.

"You're speaking of aeons and species," the president said. "I must think of nations and societies. Ours is dying. If what you say is true, in a few years it will be dead. The nation. The way we live. Civilization, if I may use the romantic word. "

Todd read Val's note. It said, "Shut your mouth, you bastard, it's bad enough already. "

Todd smiled at Val. Val glared back.

People were telling the president: It's hardly that bleak, we weathered the worst already.

"Oh yes," the president agreed. "We lasted through the depression. We adapted to the collapse of world trade. We made the transition from the cities back to the farms, we have endured the death of huge industry and global interactions. We have adapted to having our population cut in half, in less than half. "

"What clever little adapters we are, Mr. President," Todd said, aware that he was breaking protocol to interrupt the president, and not particularly giving a damn. "But tell me, has anyone figured out an adaptation to death? Odd, isn't it, that in millions of years of evolution, nature has never managed to select for immortality. "

Val stood, obviously angry. "Mr. President, I suggest that Dr. Halking be asked to contribute constructively or leave this meeting. There's no way we can accomplish anything with these constant interjections of pessimism. "

There was a murmur, half of protest, half of agreement.

"Val," Todd said, "I'm only trying to be realistic. "

"And what do you think we are, dreamers? Don't we know we're all old men and doomed to die?"

The president coughed, and Val sat down. "I believe," said the president, "that Dr. Halking will take this as a reminder that we are talking here as men of science, dispassionately. Impersonally, if you will. Now let's review. "

They went over the findings again. "Is there any chance," the president asked again and again, "that you might be wrong?"

A chance, they all answered. Of course there's a chance. But we have done the best our instruments will let us do.

"What if you had more sophisticated instruments?" he asked.

Of course, they said. But we do not have them. You'll have to wait another generation, or two, or three, and by then the damage will be done. We'll never live to see it.

"Then," the president said, "we must get busy. Make sure your assistants and their assistants and their assistants as well know everything you know. Prepare them to continue your work. We can't give up. "

Todd looked around the table as everyone nodded sagely, lips pursed in the identical expression of grim courage. The spirit of man: We shall overcome. Todd couldn't bear it anymore. Like his bladder, his emotions could be contained for progressively shorter periods of time.

"For Christ's sake, do you call this optimism?" he said, and was instantly embarrassed that tears came unbidden to his eyes. They would dismiss him as an emotional wreck, not listen to his ideas at all. Sound clinical, he warned himself. Try to sound clinical and careful and scientific and impartial and uninvolved and all those other impossible, virtuous things.

"I have the cure to the Premature Aging Phenomenon," Todd said. "Or at least I have the cure to the misery. "

Eyes. All watching him intently. At last I have their attention, he thought.

"The cure to the misery is to go home and go to bed and stop trying. We've done all we can do. And if we can't cure the disease, we can live with it. We can adapt to it. We can try to be happy. "

But the eyes were gone again, and two of the scientists came over to him and dabbed at his eyes with their handkerchiefs and helped him get up from the table. They took him to another room, where he sat (guarded by four men, just in case) and sobbed.

At last he was dry. He sat and looked at the window and wondered why he had said the things he had said. What good would it do? Men didn't have it in them to stop trying. We are not bred for despair.

And yet we learn it, for even in our efforts to repair the damage done by premature aging, we are as blind as lemmings, struggling to go down the same old road to a continent that a million years before had sunk under the sea — yet the road could not be changed. The age of forty had its tasks; therefore we must strive to live to forty, however far away it might be now.

The meeting ended. He heard voices in the hall. The words could not be deciphered, but through them all was the tone of boisterous good cheer, good luck my friend and I'll see you soon, here's to the future.

The door to Todd's private (except for the guards) room opened. Anne Hal-lam and Ryan came in, stepping quietly.

"I'm not asleep," Todd said. "Nor am I emotionally discommoded at the moment. So you needn't tiptoe. "

Anne smiled then. "Todd, I'm sorry. About the embarrassment to you. It happens to all of us now and then. "

Todd smiled back (thank God for a little warmth — how had she kept it?) And then shook his head. "Not then. Just now. Well, what did the meeting find out?

Have the Chinese found a magic cure and only now are radioing the formula To Honolulu?"

Ryan laughed. "As if there were any Chinese anymore. "

Anne said, "We decided two things. First, we haven't found the cure yet. "

"Astute," Todd aid, raising an imaginary glass to clink with hers.

"And second, we decided that there is a cure, and we will find it. "

"And while you were at it," Todd asked, "did you decide that faster-than-light travel was possible, and declare that it would be discovered next week by two youngsters in France who by chance were walking in the field one day and plunged into hyperspace?"

"Not only that," Anne said, "but one of the children immediately will follow a rabbit down a hole and find herself in Wonderland. "

"Blunderland," Todd added, and Anne and Todd laughed together with understanding and mutual compassion. Ryan looked at them, puzzlement in his eyes. Todd noticed it. The younger generation still knows only life: Ah, youthful Caesar, we who are about to die salute you, though we have no hope of actually communicating with you.

"But there is a cause," Anne insisted, "and therefore it can be found. "

"Your faith is touching," Todd said.

"There's a cause for everything, we don't change overnight with no reason, or else nothing that any human being has ever called ‘true' can be counted on at all. Will gravity fail?"

"Tomorrow afternoon at three," Todd said.

"Only if there's a cause. But sometimes — right now, with PAP — the cause eludes us, that's all. Why did the dinosaurs die out? Why did the apes drop from the trees and start talking and lighting fires? We can guess, perhaps, but we don't know; and yet there was a cause or there's no reason in the world. "

"I rest my case," Todd said. "My basket case, to be precise. "

Ryan's face twisted, and Todd laughed at him. "Ryan, the nearly dead are free to joke about death. It's only the living to whom death is tabu. "

"Maybe," Anne Hallam said, leaning back in a chair (and the guards' eyes followed her, because they watched everybody, guarded everybody), "maybe there's some system, some balance, some ecosystem we haven't discovered until now, a system that demands that, when one species or group gets out of hand, that species changes, not for survival of the fittest, but for survival of the whole. Perhaps the dinosaurs were destroying the earth, and so they — stopped. Perhaps man was — no, we know man was destroying the earth. And we know we were stopped. Any talk of nuclear war now? Any chance of too much industry raping the earth utterly beyond of hope of survival?"

"And in a moment," Ryan said, his mouth curled with distaste, "you'll be mentioning the thought that God is punishing us for our sins. I, personally, find the idea ridiculous, and seeing two of our finest minds seriously discussing it is pathetic. "

Ryan got up and left. Anne smiled again (warmly!) at Todd, patted his hand, and left. After a few minutes, Todd followed.

A plane ride east.

Midnight at the airport. Nevertheless, a crowd bustling through. At one end of the terminal, a ragged old man was shouting to an oblivious crowd.

Todd and the others tried to pass him without paying attention, but he called to them. "You! You with the briefcases, you in the suits!" Ryan stopped and turned, and so they all had to. Todd was irritated. He was tired. He wanted to get home to Sandy.

"You're scientists, aren't you!" the man shouted. They didn't answer. He took that for agreement. "It's your fault! the earth couldn't bear so many men, so many machines!"

"Let's get out of here," Todd said, and the others agreed.

The old man kept calling after them. "Rape, that's all it was! Rape of a planet, rape of each other, rape of life, you bastards!" People stared at them all the way out of the terminal.

"There was a day," Ryan said, "when people expected science to work miracles, and cursed us when we failed. Now they curse us for the miracles we did give them. "

Todd hunched his shoulders. Scientists hell. Who were scientists? People with blue security cards.

The old man's voice echoed even out in the parking lot. "the earth gets even! the violated virgins will have their revenge!"

Todd got in his car and drove home alone. Shaking.

When he got home he found all as he had left it. The student from the university had come in and fed Sandy — there were dishes in the sink that the boy apparently hadn't thought of cleaning up.

Sandy was where Todd had left her. Lying on the bed. Breathing. Her eyes were closed.

Todd lay on the bed beside her. He had carried despair with him to the meeting, and carried it as a burden multiplied many times over when he came back. With a gentle finger he traced the wrinkles that radiated from Sandy's eyes, followed the folds of skin down her neck, twisted the brown hair now showing gray roots, pressed his lips against her closed eyes. He could remember when the skin was smooth, not cracked and hard as parchment, not thin and vein-lined.

"I'm sorry," he said again and again, unsure who he was apologizing to or what for. "I'm so sorry. "

And then he told his wife's unhearing ears about the conference. They had found nothing. And finding nothing, they could find no cure. You're going to die, he said softly into her ear. "You're going to die, I'd stop it if I could, but I can't, you're going to die. "

He got up and sat at his desk. He wrote by hand on the blank envelope sitting there, because he felt too tired to type, too tired to reach up to the shelf above the desk and pick up the sheets of paper. the ink scrawled:

"Our senility is not just age. In the books it is possible to age gracefully. Let us age with grace and strength, please, not madly and with terror and in the darkness and clinging to our pillows and our blankets calling names of parents we never knew, names of soft friends who never answered us. "

He stopped writing for as little reason as he had begun. He wondered who he had been writing to. He leaned back and touched the mattress. It was soft. He buried his hand in the blanket. It was soft.

On his knees by the bed, he clung to the blanket saying quietly, "Dappa," and then, "Coopie. Dappa, you're back. "

Lying naked on the bed, curled up with a pillow tucked under his arm, he knew somewhere back in his mind that he was not quite what he should be, not quite thinking and acting as he ought. But it was too good to have Dappa and Coopie back.

He fell asleep with tears of comfort and relief spotting the sheets.

He woke with blood pumping upward out of his heart. His wife Sandy knelt on the bed, straddling him, the letter opener still in her hand, her face splotched red with his blood.

"Poogy," she said angrily, her face contorted. "You've got Poogy and I want him. "

She stabbed him again, and Todd felt the letter opener in his chest. It fit as snugly and comfortably as a new organ that had long been missing from his body. It was, however, cold.

Sandy pulled out the letter opener and a new spout erupted and spattered. She stuck out her lower lip. "I'm taking Poogy now," she said. Then she reached down and pulled the bloody pillow from under his arm.

"Dappa," Todd said in feeble protest. But as the pillow moved away, cradled in his wife's arms, he saw clearly again, he recognized what was happening, and as his arms and legs got colder and the bloodspout weakened, he longed to cry out for help. But his voice did not work. there was no rescue.

Death and madness, he thought in the last moment left to him. They are the only rescuers. And where madness fails, death will do.

And it did.