"No. Deimos was to be moved by fusion bombs successively exploded in one crater. Moving an inhabited planet could not be done that way."
"Or who did it?"
"I never learned. I landed my ship and was arrested at once, on my record, by children."
"Children?"
"Yes. I was in a bad position," she told Corbell, smiling wanly. "Even at the last, when I landed on Earth itself, it may be that I hoped my beauty would sway a judge. But how could I sway children?"
"But what happened?"
Earth was ruled by children, twenty billion children aged from eleven years to enormous. "It was young-forever that did it. The State had discovered an ideal form of young-forever," the old woman said. "Parents can see to it that their children stop growing older at an age just below-what is your word? When girls begin their cycle of blood-"
"Puberty."
"Just before puberty, they are stopped. They live nearly forever. There is no resultant rise in numbers, because these Children do not have children. The method was far better than the older method of staying young forever."
"Older method? Of immortality? Tell me about that one!"
Suddenly she was enraged. "I could not find out! I learned only that it was for the few, for the dictator class alone. When I arrived it was no longer used. My lawyer knew about it. He would not discuss it."
"What happened to the solar system?" he asked.
"I was not told."
He laughed, and desisted when she raised the cane. So the State hadn't let her play tourist either.
She let the cane's tip fall. "They told me nothing. I was treated as one not entitled to ask questions. All that I learned I learned from my lawyer, who seemed a twelve-year-old Boy and would not tell his true age. They learned my crime from my ship's log. They sentenced me to-" Untranslated.
"What was that?"
"They stopped time for me. There was a building where some criminals went to be stored against need." The bitter smile again: "I was to be flattered. Only unusual breakers of the law were thought to be of future need to the State. People of high intelligence or with good genes or interesting tales to tell to future historians. The building would hold perhaps ten thousand, no more. I was lucky they let me keep my medicines. At that I could only choose as much as I could carry."
She leaned close above the water bed. "Never mind this. Corbell, I want you to know that there was an earlier form of immortality. If we find it, we can both be young again."
"I'm ready," said Corbell. He pulled at the soft bindings on his wrists. "I'm on your side. I'd love to be young again. So why not untie me?" It can't be this easy.
"We may search a long time. I have already searched for a long time. I must have your youth drugs, Corbell. They may not be as good as the dictators' immortality, but they must be better than mine."
Oh.
He had to answer. "They're aboard ship, in orbit. They can't help you anyway. You're probably older than I am, not counting the time I gained in cold sleep." He felt discomfort from the sweat pooled under him; he felt more sweat starting; he felt his helplessness. He saw her raise the cane.
She waited until he had stopped thrashing before she said, "I understand you. You come from a time earlier than mine. Your medicines are more primitive than mine. I cannot use them. So you say."
"It's true! Listen, I was born before men landed on the Earth's Moon! When the cancer in my belly started eating me alive I had myself frozen. There was-"
"Frozen?" She didn't believe him.
"Frozen, yes! There was the chance that medical science would find a way to heal the cancer and the damage done by broken cell walls and-" His defense ended in a howl. She held the cane on him for a long time.
He heard: "Open your eyes."
He didn't want to.
"I'll use the cane."
His eyes were clenched like fists, his face a snarl of agony.
"A frozen man is a preserved corpse. You won't lie again, will you?"
He shook his head. His eyes were still closed. Now he remembered what Peerssa had told him about phospholipids in the glia around brain nerves. They froze at 70° F, and that was the end of the nerves. He'd been committing suicide. And why not? But he'd never, never convince the Norn.
"Let me speak this right," said Mirelly-Lyra Zeelashisthar. "I won't tell you about the first time I was taken from the zero-time jail. The second time happened because the zero-time generator had used up its power source. More than a thousand of us came suddenly into a world that was baked and without life. The weather was hot enough to kill. It killed most of us. The rain came down like floods of bath water, but without rain we would all have died. Many of us reached this place where days are six years long and nights are six years long, but life is still possible. I was old. I didn't want to die."
Resigned, he opened his eyes. "What happened to the others?"
"The Boys captured them. I don't know what happened after. I escaped."
"Boys?"
"Don't be distracted. For many years I used my time only to stay alive. I searched for the dictator immortality, but I never found it, and I grew old. I was half lucky. I found a small zero-time, a storage place for records in the forms of tape and of chemical memory, and for gene-tailored seeds. At first I kept my medicines in it. Later I emptied it out to make a zero-time jail just for myself. Then I altered the subway system to take any passenger from the hot places directly to me. I made warning systems to free me from zero-time when the subway system was in use.
"Do you understand why I did all of this? My only hope was the advanced medicines that must be carried by any long-range explorer. One day an explorer would come back from another galaxy or from one of our satellite galaxies. He would know no better than to land in places of Earth that are too hot. He would need to come to the polar places immediately." She stood above him like a great bird of prey. "The subway system would send him to me, carrying the medicines developed in my future, that will let me grow young when my own medicines have only let me stay old. Corbell, you are that man."
"Look at me!"
She shrugged. "You may be a thousand years old, or ten thousand. What you must know is this: If you are what you say, you are useless to me. I will kill you."
"Why?" But he believed her.
She said, "We are the last of the State. We are the last of people. Those who remain are not people anymore. If we could grow young, we could breed and raise more people. But if you do not have the medicines, of what use are you?" He heard her try to soften her voice. His own voice said to him, "Consider. You are too old for even your advanced medicines to affect you. I am different. Give me back my health and I will search out the real immortality that the dictator class used. You are old and frail. You will rest while I search."
"All right," he said. The old woman was a Norn, right enough. She was both life and death to him now. "My medicines are in orbit. I'll take you to my landing craft. I'll have to contact my ship's computer."
She nodded. She raised the cane, and he flinched. "If you break your word, you will take your own life, when I let you."
III
When she was safely on the other side of the headboard, Corbell let himself relax. An almost silent sigh of released tension... followed by a woffish grin and an urge to whoop, savagely repressed. At last Corbell had set himself a goal.
He had come down to die on Earth. But this was better.
His hands came free. He sat up, but she gestured him back with the cane. She made him put his wrists together and bound them before she freed his ankles.