The Forever Man Read online

  So, he left the resort one morning and went back to the Base, to his duty station, in the mountains outside Denver. When he checked into the Bachelor Officers’ Quarters, he found a phone message waiting for him from General Mollen.

  “As soon as you get in, call me,” the message read.

  He did so, and, after a certain length of time got put through to the general.

  “Well,” said Mollen, “and how was the fishing?”

  “Good, sir,” said Jim. “I meant to stay longer, but I found I got filled up sooner than I thought, on time off. I want to get back to work.”

  “Glad to hear it,” said Mollen. “And I want to talk to you about that. So why don’t we have dinner at the Officers’ Club tonight?”

  What does a major say when a general invites him to dinner?

  “Thank you, sir. I’d appreciate that. When, sir?”

  “Nineteen hundred hours. Meet you in the bar.”

  “Yes sir. Thank you.”

  Jim had bet himself that the general would be at least fifteen minutes, and perhaps as much as an hour, late. But he, himself, was at the Officers’ Club fifteen minutes ahead of the time set, just to be on the safe side. It was a busy part of the day for the bar, and the lounge which held it was full. Jim was lucky enough to get a stool on the curve of the horseshoe-shaped bar that was farthest from the lounge entrance, from which he faced not only that entrance, but beyond it the front door of the Club.

  “Good to see you again, Major,” said the sergeant on duty behind the bar.

  “You, too, Lee,” answered Jim. They knew each other; but that particular verbal exchange was routine between the barman and anyone who flew the Frontier, since none of the pilots who did that ever knew for sure that they would see the Club again.

  “Ginger ale,” said Jim. “On the rocks.”

  “Coming right up, sir.”

  Jim sat, sipping the ginger ale, and watching the entrances to the Club and the lounge, for Mollen. Jeremy Tickler, who also captained a Wing on the Frontier and had gone through final training with Jim, came by. They fell into shoptalk.

  But it was at exactly 1900 hours that the entrance door opened and Mollen came through.

  “—Excuse me, Tick,” said Jim, interrupting the other. “Here he is now. I’ll see you again, soon.”

  “We shall wish,” said Tickler, who was a little drunk, but who had been told by Jim about the latter’s dinner with the general. Tickler lifted his glass to Jim as Jim departed to intercept Mollen.

  He caught the general just outside the door of the lounge.

  “Oh, you’re already here. Good,” said Mollen, changing direction. “In that case, let’s go right into the dining room.”

  He led the way to the dining room entrance, where the mess attendant on duty took them to the quiet table in a corner that was of course waiting for the general and his guest.

  “I’ll have a bourbon. A single-mash bourbon, no ice, no water, no soda, no anything,” said the general.

  “Yes sir,” said the mess attendant and went off, to return with the drink himself in a few minutes. A waiter was at his heels.

  “We don’t want dinner just yet,” Mollen said. He looked over the attendant’s shoulder at the waiter. “Come back in about twenty minutes.”

  Attendant and waiter departed.

  “Well, here’s to the hope the fishing was good,” said Mollen, lifting his glass. Jim drank with him, politely.

  They talked fishing until they were halfway through the general’s second bourbon; and by the time the first one had been finished, Jim was beginning to be pretty sure that for some reason Mollen was stalling. However, there was nothing much he could do about that but wait for his superior to get to the point.

  “—There’s Mary Gallegher,” the general interrupted himself midway through the second drink. He nodded across the dance floor, which the dining area surrounded.

  Jim looked and saw her, just as Mollen had said. She was with some major Jim did not know who was wearing the aiguillette, or dress shoulder cord looped through one epaulet, that marked him as an aide to some high-ranking officer; and the two of them were just sitting down at a table at the dance floor’s edge, in plain view.

  “She’s got a working area of her own on Base here, with La Chasse Gallerie and a staff of her own,” said Mollen.

  “Yes sir,” said Jim. They looked away from Mary and her companion and back across the table at each other.

  “There’s a lot of politics involved in it,” said Mollen. He drank from his glass. “Ever have much to do with politicians, Jim?”

  “Happily, sir, they’re above my range,” said Jim.

  “Don’t be so sure,” said Mollen. Below the still-dark hair on his round head, his bulldog face was somber. “Dealing with them’s supposed to be above my range, too. But the fact is every one of us is affected by what they do to the Service, generally. In this case, the fact we’ve got Mary and her lab, as it’s called, here on Base is all a matter of politics.”

  “Is that so, sir?” He had not known anything about Mary and a lab. He was being more polite than anything. It seemed to him the general was still just making conversation.

  “Yes, that’s so. And it’s something that concerns you and me, particularly,” said Mollen. “They raised hell with me when they discovered I’d let you go off on leave. Luckily, they were ready to listen when I said that it might attract more attention to call you back, suddenly, than it would be to let you come back in your own time. I didn’t think you’d stay much longer than you did, anyway, knowing you.”

  “Yes sir,” said Jim, not understanding this at all.

  “Well, I was right. You’re back safely and now you’re here, I’m afraid you’re going to stay here. If you go off Base from now on, it’ll be with a couple of Secret Service types riding shotgun on you.”

  Jim stared.

  “Can I ask the general why?”

  “I told you. Politics. It just happened that the Chasse Gallerie came home through the North American Sector of the Frontier. That makes Raoul Penard and all the potentially valuable scientific possibilities of his existence in the metal of his ship a piece of property belonging to this continent. It also makes him, it, Mary Gallegher—and you—items of considerable potential value to our partners who guard the other Sections of the Frontier. That is, if they know about him yet—but the general feeling is that if any of them don’t by now, they will shortly. Also, the general feeling among those few who know about this is that there’s too much at stake to take any chances at all. There’s the possibility of immortality which Mary may have mentioned to you—or at least a lifetime that isn’t dependent on a body that can wear out. But beyond that, there’s unlimited possibilities of having ships and other things that don’t have to take into account the necessity of being designed to protect the life of a breakable human inside them, white they maneuver at high accelerations.”

  He took a swallow from his glass. “The war with the Laagi,” he said, “may have brought all the nations of Earth into alliance, but the national rivalries are still there, and the business of looking forward to a day in which they’ll find themselves competing, once again. So you’re all under special guard from now on.”

  “But all I did was listen to Penard when we escorted him back.”

  “And saw his ship. And heard him again after he got here. And had Mary Gallegher riding with you, in which case some of her educated understanding of the nature and possibilities of Penard may have rubbed off on you. No, Jim, the people up top, the politicians up where decisions like this are made, have decided you’re under wraps from now on; and under wraps you’re going to be.”

  “But I can go off Base, if I want to, as long as some Secret Service people go with me?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Mollen answered. “In fact, I’m not so sure you’ll be allowed off under any circumstances, unless it’s for something like going to Washington and reporting to the higher-ups; or some
thing of that nature.”

  “I see, sir,” said Jim glumly.

  “Brace yourself,” said Mollen. “So far I’ve only shown you the tip of the iceberg. Not only are you going to be restricted in the matter of leaving the Base, your movements and contacts are going to be restricted here on the Base, too. From now on you live in special quarters in that lab of Mary’s I was talking about, just as she and her staff does; and during your waking hours I’ll be keeping you under my eye, since I’m personally responsible for you.

  “But you can’t ride with me when I take the Wing out to the Frontier, sir,” protested Jim. “It’d be ridiculous, having a general riding as gunner. These people up top you talk about can’t expect anything like that.”

  “They don’t,” grunted Mollen. “I’m not going to join you; you’re going to join me.”

  It took a long moment for the implications of this remark to sink into Jim’s mind. When it did, he stared at the older man.

  “Sir? You mean—you can’t mean I’m grounded!”

  “That’s the size of it,” said Mollen. “Beginning tomorrow morning you move into an office at my headquarters and behind a desk as Chief of Section.”

  “But sir,” said Jim, “there has to be some other way of working this. I’m a ship man. I don’t know anything about a deskjob. Can’t I—”

  But Mollen was not listening. His gaze was roving the room as if in search of a waiter. There was no waiter to be seen, but in a minute the mess attendant had abandoned his customary post by the entrance to the room and come hurrying over.

  “Oh, Sven,” said Mollen. “I’m sorry to bother you with this, but would you just step across to Mary Gallegher—you know who she is? Good. Ask her if she’ll join us for a few minutes. We won’t keep her long. Tell her that.”

  “Yes, General.”

  The mess attendant went off. They could see him talking to Mary Gallegher, and a second after, both she and her escort pushed their chairs back and got to their feet.

  “Damn it, I don’t want her hound dog, too!” said Mollen.

  But the major with the aiguillette was simply being polite. As Mary started across the empty dance floor toward them, the major sat down again. Jim and Mollen got to their feet in turn. Mary came up and they all sat down.

  “Jim, here, just got back from leave,” said Mollen to Mary. “I’ve been telling him he’s going to be housed with you people from now on and ride a desk as Chief of Section. Of course, Jim, we’ll be making you a colonel while we’re about it.”

  “If you don’t mind, sir, I’d rather stay a major,” said Jim.

  “Still dreaming of getting back with your Wing?” said Mollen. “Don’t worry, if the chance comes, we’ll send you back as you are, even if you’re the only lieutenant colonel-led, five-ship Wing on the Frontier.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Jim. But his mind was really not on what the general had just said. He was looking at Mary, who was wearing a light blue cocktail frock with irregularly shaped chunks of aquamarine-like earrings under her reddish blond hair.

  The combination became her. She had a good body and Jim found himself once again up against the fact that she was simply not his type of woman. It was just that rectangular face of hers, with its straight bones and her blue-green eyes seemed always to be challenging the world, including him—even when there was no apparent reason.

  She was looking tired, though.

  “I take it you’ve been busy,” he said to her, for something to say. Mollen had caught a waiter at last and was sending him off for a duplicate of the glass of white wine Mary had been drinking with her major.

  “We have,” said Mary. “But we’re set up now and things are moving. I won’t be bothering you too often, but from time to time there’ll be parts of the work we’ll want to bring you in on, if that’s all right?”

  “It’ll be all right,” said Mollen. “More than that, he’ll be glad to get away from that desk.”

  “How’s Raoul?” asked Jim.

  “Still happy to be back, I think,” said Mary. “He doesn’t talk as often, anymore, but that’s because I think what’s left of him in that ship spends most of its time dreaming. You see, we don’t have the whole man—I should say we don’t have the mind of the whole man, but just the part that wanted so badly to get home. That’s one of the things our work’s turned up. It isn’t necessarily a matter of the whole mind being transferred to something inanimate—”

  She broke off. The waiter had just come up with her glass of white wine.

  “Thank you.”

  “A pleasure, ma’am.”

  “…You see,” she went on, “what we seem to be coming to is the beginning of a theory that could explain a lot that’s been part of folklore for centuries, but generally put down to superstition. The poltergeist phenomenon, for example, and haunted houses… that sort of thing.”

  “Tell him why,” said Mollen.

  She glanced around.

  “It’s a little public…”

  “Don’t worry. This corner’s clean and it’s in a scrambler zone. Anyone even three feet from us would hear our voices, but not be able to make out what we’re talking about. Also notice the empty tables around us, and the ones beyond that with just one or two officers at each of them, sitting with drinks instead of food. Believe me, we’re covered; and I want him to learn this before he steps into that Aladdin’s cave of yours.

  “If that’s what you want—sir.” The “sir” was a slight afterthought. Clearly, Mary had not yet acquired an automatic use of military manners. “You see, Jim, we established one thing just by Penard’s existence in that ship—the fact that the mind can have an existence away from anything material; though its instinct is to find something material as a vehicle if it can.”

  Jim nodded.

  “But our discovery since then’s a blockbuster. It’s that the mind, existing separately, doesn’t have to be the complete mind. The mind’ll go to almost any extremes normally rather than leave the body it first grew in, from the first spark of consciousness in the womb to a full-fledged, unique human or animal individual. In fact, it’ll go right up to the point of dying with the body, ordinarily, rather than leaving it. But under certain overwhelming, particular stresses, it or a part of it will leave an intolerable situation. Is what I’m saying making sense to you?”

  “You mean do I follow you?” said Jim. “I do.”

  She made a little grimace of discomfort.

  “Please…?” she said.

  “Goddamn right!” said Mollen. “Cut out the prickly business, Jim. We’ve no time or place for that anymore.”

  “Yes sir... I’m sorry,” said Jim to Mary. “I really am. I don’t know what gets into me sometimes. Go ahead. I’m interested, as well as ready to listen.”

  “It’s most important you understand,” Mary said. “I was using the poltergeist phenomenon as an example. Most poltergism has been tied to young females. It’s been checked in a number of cases and pretty well taken for granted in the others that the girl causing such phenomena was unhappy. No one I know of ever found a way of measuring how unhappy.”

  “I’d heard or read something like that,” said Jim.

  “Well,” she said, “Raoul’s case gives us a new slant on what might be happening in the case of poltergeist activity if it actually is caused by unhappy, pre-adolescent girls. According to what we’ve found with Raoul, one possibility is to assume that it’s not the whole mind, but just a portion of it, that breaks loose from the rest under the strain of what, to the person involved, is an intolerable situation. This part that breaks loose, not being a full mind, is—effectively—crippled. It reacts like a mindless animal, or like an insane person, simply reacting to whatever triggers it. That’s only a guess and it may be completely wrong.

  “But it’d make sense,” said Jim.

  “The same theory could even be pushed to help explain certain types of insanity in general,” said Mary. “But that’s way out on a limb, and
not what we’re concerned with first and foremost, which is duplicating the Penard phenomenon. The problem with Raoul is that there’s absolutely nothing in the way of previous work or speculation to build on. The most we can find to stand on is the fact that, as his case proves, the human mind’s not only able to exist apart from the body; but it can bond to and control material objects. Whether it controls them directly or by means of their own machinery, is a pure guess.”

  “You mean, whether Raoul’s dead mind drove his engines, or he just pushed it through interstellar space by mind-power alone?”

  “Maybe he was able to do both,” said Mary. “Actually, in Raoul’s case, there seems to be some evidence he used his mind alone to move the ship where he wanted. Particularly on the last stages of the trip home, that ship had no ability left to drive itself mechanically. By the way, I wish you wouldn’t talk about Raoul as if he was dead. To me, he certainly isn’t; or to anyone working with me.

  “All right,” said Jim.

  “You mean, it’s not all right at all,” said Mary, on what sounded very close to a note of exasperation “When you set your jaw like that and look nobly at the ceiling, I know exactly what you’re thinking. I tell you it’s important that those of us working with him—and you’re going to be one of those from time to time, though we’ll try to disturb you as little as possible—don’t think of him as dead, at all; any more than we go around thinking of ourselves as particularly alive. We’re just in one state. He’s in another.”

  “He’s not a whole mind, I thought, according to what you said,” murmured Jim. Nonetheless he was embarrassed. “Sorry again, though. I’ll make a point of thinking of him as a living person, all the time, from now on.”

  “Good,” she said. “We’ll all appreciate that.”

  “What exactly,” asked Jim, “are you likely to want me to do? I was saying to General Mollen that I didn’t know what use I could be.”