(At that time and in that country, nursing homes for the elderly kept their guests chaperoned and/or physically segregated by sexes so that nothing ‘disgusting' could take place.)
So this dirty old woman on evil bent got caught in heavy traffic, panicked, fell down, fainted - and woke up in Boondock on the planet Tellus Tertius.
I had heard of Tellus Tertius. Sixty-four years earlier, when I was a modest young matron with a snow-white reputation, I had seduced a young sergeant, Theodore Bronson, who in pillow talk with me had revealed himself as a time traveller from the far future and a distant star, Captain Lazarus Long, chairman of the Howard Families in his time... and my remote descendant!
I had looked forward to years of happy adultery after the War was over, under the tolerant, shut-eye chaperonage of my husband.
But Sergeant Theodore went to France in the AEF and was missing in action in some of the heaviest fighting in the Great War. MIA equals killed; it never meant anything else.
When I woke up and Tamara took me into her arms, I had great trouble believing any of it... especially the ides that Theodore was alive and well. When I did believe her (one cannot disbelieve Tamara), I was crushed with the grief of too late, too late!
Tamara tried to soothe me but we had language trouble; she is not a linguist, speaks broken English only - and I had not a word of Galacta. (Her first speech to me she had rehearsed most carefully.)
She sent for her daughter Ishtar. Ishtar listened to me, talked to me, finally got it through my head that being a hundred, years old did not matter; I was about to be rejuvenated.
I had heard about rejuvenation from Theodore, long ago. But I had never thought of it as applying to me.
They both told me, over and over again. Ishtar said, ‘Mama Maureen, I am more than twice as old as you are. My last rejuvenation was eighty years ago. Am I wrinkled? Don't worry about your age; you will be no trouble at all. We'll start your tests at once; you will be eighteen again in a very short time. Months, I estimate, instead of the two or three years a really difficult case can take.'
Tamara nodded emphatically. Is true. Ishtar true word esspeak. Four century am I. Dying was I' She patted her belly. ‘Baby here now.'
‘Yes,' agreed Ishtar, ‘by Lazarus. A baby I gene-plotted and required Lazarus to plant before he left to rescue you. We could not be sure that he would be back - these trips of his are always chancey - and, while I have his sperm on deposit, frozen sperm can deteriorate; I want as many warm-spenn babies sired by Lazarus as possible.' She added, ‘And you, too, Mama Maureen. I hope you will gift us with many more babies. Our calculations show that what Lazarus has, his unique gene patterns, he got mainly from you. You need not bear babies yourself; there'll be host mothers standing in line for the privilege of bearing a Mama Maureen baby. Unless you prefer to bear them yourself.'
‘You mean I can?'
‘Certainly. Once we have you made young again.'
‘Then I will!' I took a deep breath. It has been... forty-four years - I think that is right forty-four years since I last became pregnant. Although Ne always been willing and Nave not tried to avoid it.' I thought about it. ‘Is it possible for me to postpone seeing Theodore - Lazarus, you call him for a while? Could I be made younger before I see him? I dread the thought of his seeing me this way. Old. Not the way he knew me.'
‘Certainly. There are always emotional factors in a rejuvenation. Whatever a client needs to be happy is the way we do it'
‘I would rather not have him see me until I look more as I looked then.'
‘It shall be done.'
I asked to see a picture of Theodore-Lazarus. It turned out to be a moving holo, almost frighteningly lifelike. I was aware that Theodore and I looked enough alike to be brother and sister; that was what Father had first noticed about him. But this startled me. ‘Why, that's my son!' The holo looked just like my son Woodrow - my bad boy and always my favourite.
‘Yes, he's your son.'
‘No, no! I mean that Captain Lazarus Long whom I knew as Theodore is a dead-ringer - sorry, a twin-brother image of my son Woodrow Wilson Smith. I hadn't realised it of course, in the brief time I knew Captain Long, my son Woodrow Wilson was only five years old; they did not look alike then, or nothing anyone would notice. So my son Woodrow grew up to look like his remote descendant. Strange. I find I'm touched by it'
Ishtar looked ar Tamara. They exchanged words in a language I did not know (Galada, it was). But I could hear worry in their voices.
Ishtar said soberly, ‘Mama Maureen, Lazarus Long is your son Woodrow Wilson.'
‘No, no,' I said ‘I saw Woodrow just a few months ago. He was, uh, sixty-nine at the time but looked much younger. He looked just as Captain Long looks in this picture - an amazing resemblance. But Woodrow is back in the twentieth century. I know.'
‘Yes, he is, Mama Maureen. Was, I mean, although Elizabeth tells me the two tenses are equivalent. Woodrow Wilson Smith grew up in the twentieth century, spent most of the twenty-first century on Mars and on Venus, returned to Earth in the twenty-second century and -‘ Ishtar stopped and looked up. ‘Teena?'
‘Who rubbed my lamp? What'll you have, Ish?'
‘Ask Justin for a print-out in English of the memoirs he prepared on the Senior, will you, please?'
‘No need to ask Justin; I've got ‘em in my gizzard. You want them bound or scrolled?'
‘Bound, I think. But, Teena, let Justin fetch them here; he will be delighted and honoured.'
‘Who wouldn't? Mama Maureen, are they treating you right? If they don't, just tell me, ‘cause I do all the work around here.'
After a while a man came in who reminded me disturbingly of Arthur Simmons. But it was just a general resemblance combined with a similar personality; in 1982 Justin Foote would have been a CPA, as Arthur Simmons had been. Justin Foote was carrying a briefcase. ("Plus ça change, plus c'est ta même chose.") There was a degree of awkwardness as Ishtar introduced him; he seemed about to fall over his own feet from excitement at meeting me.
I took his hand ‘My first great-great-granddaughter, Nancy Jane Hardy, married a boy named Charlie Foote. That was about 1972, I think; I went to her wedding. Is Charlie Foote any relation to you?'
‘He is my ancestor, Mother Maureen. Nancy Jane Hardy Foote gave birth to Justin Foote the First on New Millenium Eve, 31 December, year 2000 Gregorian.'
‘Really? Then Nancy Jane had a nice long run. She was named for her great-grandmother, my first born.'
‘So the Archives show. Nancy Irene Smith Weatheral, your first born, Ancestress. And I carry the first name of Nancy's father-in-law, Justin Weatheraclass="underline" Justin spoke excellent English with an odd accent. Bostonian?
‘Then I'm your grandma, in some degree. So kiss me, grandson, and quit being so nervously formal; we're family.'
He relaxed and kissed me then, a firm buss on the mouth, one I liked If we had not had company,1 might have let it develop - he did remind me of Arthur.
He added then: I'm descended from you and from Justin Weatheral another way, Grandma. Through Patrick Henry Smith, to whom you gave birth on 7 July 1932.'
I was startled. ‘Good heavens! So my sins follow me, even here. Oh, of course - you're working from the Foundation's records. I did report that case of bastardy to the Foundation. Had to keep it straight there.'
Both Ishtar and Tamara were looking puzzled. Justin said, ‘Excuse me, Grandma Maureen' - and spoke to them in that other language. Then he added to me, ‘The concept of bastardy is not known here; issue from a coupling is either genetically satisfactory or not satisfactory. The ides that a child could be proscribed by civil statute is difficult to explain.'
Tamara had looked startled, then giggled when Justin explained bastardy. Ishtar had simply looked sober: She spoke to Justin, again in Galacta.