What credentials could he present with his application to the Air Force? Who would remember them the next day if he had any? What would become of the records of his inoculations, his physical check-ups, his training courses? Who would remember to reserve a bunk for him, or stow supplies for him, or add his consumption to the total when the time came to allow for oxygen?
Stow away? Nothing easier. But, again; who would die so he could live within the tight lattice of shipboard economy? Which sheep would he slaughter, and to what useful purpose, in the last analysis?
“Well, so long,” the clerk said.
“Good-by,” Gus said.
The clerk walked down the flagstones and out to his flivver.
I think, Gus said to himself, it would have been much better for us if Evolution had been a little less protective and a little more thoughtful. An occasional pogrom wouldn’t have done us any harm. A ghetto at least keeps the courtship problem solved.
Our seed has been spilt on the ground.
Suddenly, Gus ran forward, pushed by something he didn’t care to name. He looked up through the flivver’s open door, and the clerk looked down apprehensively.
“Danvers, you’re a sports fan,” Gus said hastily, realizing his voice was too urgent; that he was startling the clerk with his intensity.
“That’s right,” the clerk answered, pushing himself nervously back along the seat.
“Who’s heavyweight champion of the world?”
“Mike Frazier. Why?”
“Who’d he beat for the title? Who used to be champion?”
The clerk” pursed his lips: “Huhl It’s been years— Gee, I don’t know. I don’t remember. I could look it up, I guess.”
Gus exhaled slowly. He half-turned and looked back toward the cottage, the lawn, the flower beds, the walk, the arbor, and the fish pond under the willow tree. “Never mind,” he said, and walked back into the house while the clerk wobbled his flivver into the air.
The TV set was blaring with sound. He checked the status of the game.
It had gone quickly. Halsey had pitched a one-hitter so far, and the Giants’ pitcher had done almost as well. The score was tied at 1-1, the Giants were at bat, and it was the last out in the ninth inning. The camera boomed in on Halsey’s face.
Halsey looked at the batter with complete disinterest in his eyes, wound up, and threw the home-run ball.
THE LAST DAY OF SUMMER
by E. C. Tubb
The last four stories have all dealt, in one way or another, with the idea that the solution to our problems may lie in changing ourselves. Perhaps the human race will develop, or evolve, or educate itself to new abilities and new levels of understanding, where we can better cope with the challenges we are now so busily constructing for ourselves.
E. C. Tubb, who is almost unknown in this country, but probably Britain’s most popular writer of s-f, presents us with a world in which the changes have already happened. The painful period of growth has taken place; adjustment is achieved. Mankind lives well and happily—but too long.
He awoke to the sound of roaring trumpets and lay for a while, hovering in that strange region between sleep and waking, clutching vainly at the broken fabric of shattered dreams as the once-bright images dissipated into tenuous clouds of dream-mist. Then he sighed, stirred, the trumpets dwindled to the musical attention call from the bedside videophone and, opening his eyes, he reached for the switch.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Melhuey?” The face pictured on the screen was smooth and pink, with liquid dark eyes and a gentle, understanding mouth. “Mr. John Melhuey?”
“That’s right.”
“This is the Bureau, Mr. Melhuey. We received a letter from you this morning with certain enclosures.” The image shifted its eyes a little as it stared at something beyond the range of the scanners. “You realize, of course, what it is you ask?”
“I understand perfectly.” John didn’t trouble to hide his impatience. “Why are you calling?”
“Isn’t that obvious, sir? There is always the possibility of mistake. Or perhaps...”
“There is no mistake and there is no perhaps about it. You have your instructions.”
“Yes, sir. At your service, sir.”
The image died as John opened the circuit, lingering for a brief second in fading brilliance before merging with the blank, pearly lustre of the screen. John stared at it for a moment, idly wondering what the man had thought and vaguely regretting the lost opportunity to ask questions, then he sighed and got out of bed.
It wasn’t as easy as it had been yesterday, and yesterday had been harder than the day before. Stiff limbs and throbbing joints, odd twinges and dull aches, all foreign to his experience, all unwelcome symptoms of what was to come. Tiredly he entered the bathroom, stripped, and stood beneath the shower.
The water was hot, so hot that it steamed and stung his flesh into a pink glow. He revelled in it, letting it drum against his skull and run over his face, opening his mouth to the warm liquid then stooping so that it traced a tingling path down his back. He adjusted the flow to cold and shivered in the icy blast, his skin goose-pimpling and changing from pink to blue, dead white and unhealthy grey. Misery came with the cold, a chattering numbness then, as he spun the control back to hot, the relief was so great that he almost shouted with sheer animal-pleasure.
He had always enjoyed his morning shower.
Finished, he stood in the air-blast, staring at himself in the full-length mirror as he dried.
He had always been a big man in every sense of the word and now, physically at least, he was still big. Carefully he examined himself, from the wide-spread feet, splayed a little now and with sagging arches, up the blue-mottled legs, the abdomen, bulging and lax, the thick waist, the chest heavy with fat where muscle should have stood in taut splendour, the neck with its loose skin and flabby tissue.
Old!
He stared at himself, his lips twisting a little with self-distaste, his deep-set eyes bitter as he touched the engraved lines from nose to mouth, the crow’s feet marring once smooth skin, the receding hair and the wrinkled forehead. His skin bore the tiny marks of passing years, crinkled and crepe-like, too-soft and too-sagging, the muscles unable to restrain the tissue, the skin itself a too-big bag for what lay beneath.
Old!
Yesterday he hadn’t seemed so bad and the day before yesterday he had been almost young. A week ago he had been fit and a month ago as virile as he had ever been. Now he was succumbing to age, losing the battle of the passing years with the passage of each hour, paying heavy penalty for his extended youth.
“You’re worn out,” he said to the image in the mirror. “Finished. Not even the drugs can help you now. You’ve lived a long time, longer than any man once had a right to expect, but you cannot live forever. Now, with medical science helpless to stave off old age, you’re getting senile-fast!”
And it was true. Three times now he had passed his youth and virility only to have it restored by the longevity treatment. Three times—and there could be no fourth. Now he had to wait until he aged and died. Now he had to pay for extended youth by the accelerated advance of breakdown, the accumulated enemies of senility and old age. He had had a long, long summer. He had tasted life to the full, spreading his experiences across the years until now. Now was the last day of summer. Tomorrow was only winter, painful, degrading, bitter winter and bitter death.
He sighed as if bidding goodbye to what he had once been and could never be again then, with exaggerated care, he dressed himself, taking a new suit from the dispenser, smiling as he snapped the seals and slipped the shimmering garments over his body.