Benedict Howards smiled a sulphur smile. “Why not? I can afford to be generous, in fact I can afford just about anything. Secret of my success, Barron: I can afford to destroy an enemy, and I can afford to give any man I want to buy anything he wants, including—if he comes that high and he’s worth it—eternal life. Come on, Barron, we both know you’re gonna do it. Sign on the dotted line.”
Barron fingered the contracts; his eyes fell on the pen sitting on his desk. He’s right, he thought. Immortality with Sara, forever, I’d be an idiot not to sign. He picked up the pen, and his eyes met the eyes of Benedict Howards. And saw Howards staring greedily at him like some monstrous mad toad. But behind the egomaniacal madness, he saw fear—fear as naked as Howards’ megalomania, an unguessable feral fear feeding his madness, giving it strength; he realized that Howards’ whole crazy power-drive was fueled on fear. And Benedict Howards was afraid of him.
Something’s rotten in Colorado, Barron knew for certain. With this in his pocket and fifty billion dollars, Bennie can buy anyone and everyone he needs. So why’s he need me so bad to pass some lousy bill when he can buy Congress, the President, and the fucking Supreme Court? And he does think he needs me, look at that hunger in those eyes? He’s after my bod because somehow he really needs it to fight whatever he’s afraid of. And if he’s afraid of it, and I’m supposed to be some kind of sacrificial front man, where’s that leave me?
“Before I sign,” Barron said (conceding to himself that he would), “would you mind telling me why, with this kind of action going, you think you need me?”
“I need public support,” Howards said, frantically earnest. “It’s the one thing I can’t buy directly. That’s why I need you, to sell immortality to that goddamned public of yours.”
“To sell immortality? You crazy? You need a salesman for immortality like you need a salesman for money.”
“That’s the point,” Howards said. “You see, we do have an immortality treatment, but it’s… it’s… very expensive. Maybe we can treat a thousand people a year at about a quarter million a throw, but that’s it, and it’ll be it for years, decades, maybe always. That’s what you’ve gotta sell, Barron—not immortality for everyone but immortality for a few, a select few—a few I select.”
Barron’s instant reaction was disgust, at Howards, at himself, even as he felt his second reaction—all questions now answered and the game was worth the candle. But his third reaction was caution—this was the biggest thing there ever was, and more dangerous than the H-bomb, get involved in that?
“This treatment,” he asked, “what is it?”
“That’s none of your business, and that’s final. It’s a Foundation secret, and it stays a Foundation secret no matter what,” Howards told him, and Barron was sure he had hit bottom, pushed Howards as far as he would ever go. “If… if that got out…” Howards mumbled, then caught Barron catching him and clamped his mouth tight shut.
But you don’t put one over on Jack Barron, Bennie! Shit, he’s willing to let out that immortality’s gonna be only for a few fat cats, and he thinks I can shove that down people’s throats, but he’s afraid to let anyone know what the treatment is. Must be some treatment! That’s what he’s scared of, and if it scares him… . What the hell could it be… his immortals all end up as Transylvanian vampires? Hell… maybe that’s not so funny. Immortality, sure, but what the hell’s he getting me into? But… but is there anything so rank it isn’t worth doing if you have to do it to live forever?
“I need time, Howards,” he said. “You can see that…”
“Jack Barron turning chicken?” Howards sneered. “I’ll give you time, I’ll give you twenty-four hours, not a minute more. I’m tired of talking; the only words I’ll listen to from you from here on in are ‘yes’ or ‘no’.”
And Jack Barron knew that the game was played out, the time for negotiation was over. And he had no idea of what his answer could possibly be.
10
The vidphone chime began to sound again. Sara Westerfeld walked barefooted over to the wall complex, reached for the phone, hesitated, then once again let it lapse into silence without answering it.
Still feels like this is strictly Jack’s pad, with me just hanging around, she thought, not our place, with me having as much right to move things around or answer the phone as he does. Phone keeps ringing, but would Jack want me to answer it? Who knows, might be more of this President thing… or even Howards. (No, Jack’s supposed to be seeing Howards himself now.)
Truth is, she thought, I still can’t start thinking again like Sara Barron. Sara Barron’d answer the phone if Jack wasn’t here, ’cause she’d know who she was, where she stood, where Jack stood, be able to react to anything. But Sara Westerfeld was still someone from the past, someone who didn’t know where she stood in Jack’s present world, didn’t even know the shape or limits of that world, and when she did, might or might not accept them, might or might not be able to make the quantum-jump back to being Sara Barron.
And might or might not be able to cut it with Jack, she knew. It was easy to let the lizardman bulldoze me into going back to a Jack I thought I hated—Howards’ high-paid whore was all I started out to be—had nothing to lose, either be able to bring back the Jack I once loved or walk away with no regrets from cop-out Bug Jack Barron Jack.
But how could I know I’d start seeing for real the Jack I thought I’d have to fake seeing? Is it real? Is the old Jack back already, my Jack Berkeley boy now a man playing real man-game to make the old boy-dreams real, destroy Howards, Social Justice President of the United States, attic dream becoming a reality in ways we never imagined? Wouldn’t that Jack hate me, knowing I thought so little of him that I could use him to get us Frozen, gamble like a cold-blooded windowless white lizard that I could shock him into becoming what he really was all along? And if Jack’s really involved in some dirty deal with Howards, wouldn’t it just help the lizardman get Jack for whatever filth he wants him for if he knew that Howards was able to buy and use even me? Could… could that be what Howards was planning all along? Seeing through me seeing through him, letting me think I was putting one over, and that setting me up as his secret weapon against Jack…? Wanting me to tell Jack everything?
But if it’s half one thing, half the other, plans in conflict, neither Jack nor Howards’s in control, and Jack on the knife-edge between being the old Berkeley Jack or taking the biggest cop-out of all, then I’ve got to tell him. It’s all up to me…
The unbearable choice weighed heavy on her; existential choice holding past and future timelines in mortal balance, a woman-choice, she knew, and it was still hard not to think of herself as a girl, helpless in a larger-than-life man’s world.
The vidphone began chiming again.
Maybe it’s Jack? Maybe that’s why it keeps ringing, anyone else’d figure no one’s here, but Jack knows I’m here, knows I might not answer till I knew it was him ringing again and again…
Pissed at herself for being unable to make even such a piddling decision, she forced herself to the vidphone and made the connection.