This Immortal Read online

  “I am primarily interested in writing a descriptive travel-book,” he said, “but I will appreciate your comments as we go along. I thought that was your job, anyway. As it is, I do have a general awareness of Earth traditions and current affairs, and I’m not very much concerned with them.”

  Dos Santos, who was pacing and smoking as our meal was being prepared, stopped in mid-stride and said, “Srin Shtigo, what are your feelings toward the Returnist movement? Are you sympathetic with our aims? Or do you consider it a dead issue?”

  “Yes,” he replied, “to the latter. I believe that when one is dead one’s only obligation then is to satisfy the consumer. I respect your aims, but I do not see how you can possibly hope to realize them. Why should your people give up the security they now possess to return to this place? Most of the members of the present generation have never even seen the Earth, except on tapes—and you must admit that they are hardly the most encouraging documents.”

  “I disagree with you,” said Dos Santos, “and I find your attitude dreadfully patrician.”

  “That is as it should be,” replied Myshtigo.

  George and the food arrived at about the same time. The waiters began serving the food.

  “I should prefer to eat at a small table by myself,” Dos Santos instructed a waiter.

  “You are here because you asked to be here,” I mentioned.

  He stopped in mid-flight and cast a furtive look at Red Wig, who happened to be sitting at my right hand. I thought I detected an almost imperceptible movement of her head, first to the left, then to the right.

  Dos Santos composed his features around a small smile and bowed slightly.

  “Forgive my Latin temperament,” he observed. “I should hardly expect to convert anyone to Returnism in five minutes—and it has always been difficult for me to conceal my feelings.”

  “That is somewhat obvious.”

  “I’m hungry,” I said.

  He seated himself across from us, next to George.

  “Behold the Sphinx,” said Red Wig, gesturing toward an etching on the far wall, “whose speech alternates between long periods of silence and an occasional riddle. Old as time. Highly respected. Doubtless senile. She keeps her mouth shut and waits. For what? Who knows? —Does your taste in art run to the monolithic, Srin Shtigo?”

  “Occasionally,” he observed, from my left.

  Dos Santos glanced once, quickly, over his shoulder, then back at Diane. He said nothing.

  I asked Red Wig to pass me the salt and she did. I really wanted to dump it on her, to make her stay put so that I could study her at my leisure, but I used it on the potatoes instead.

  Behold the Sphinx, indeed!

  High sun, short shadows, hot—that’s how it was. I didn’t want any sand-cars or Skimmers spoiling the scene, so I made everybody hike it. It wasn’t that far, and I took a slightly roundabout way in order to achieve the calculated effect

  We walked a crooked mile, climbing some, dipping some. I confiscated George’s butterfly net so as to prevent any annoying pauses as we passed by the several clover fields which lay along our route.

  Walking backward through time, that’s how it was—with bright birds flashing by (clare! clare!), and a couple camels appearing against the far horizon whenever we topped a small rise. (Camel outlines, really, done up in charcoal; but that’s enough. Who cares about a camel’s expressions? Not even other camels—not really. Sickening beasts. . . .) A short, swarthy woman trudged past us with a tall jar on her head. Myshtigo remarked on this fact to his pocket secretary. I nodded to the woman and spoke a greeting. The woman returned the greeting but did not nod back, naturally. Ellen, moist already, kept fanning herself with a big green feather triangle; Red Wig walked tall, tiny beads of perspiration seasoning her upper lip, eyes hidden behind sunshades which had darkened themselves as much as they could. Finally, we were there. We climbed the last, low hill.

  “Behold,” said Rameses.

  “¡Madre de Dios!” said Dos Santos.

  Hasan grunted.

  Red Wig turned toward me quickly, then turned away. I couldn’t read her expression because of the shades. Ellen kept fanning herself.

  “What are they doing?” asked Myshtigo. It was the first time I had seen him genuinely surprised.

  “Why, they’re dismantling the great pyramid of Cheops,” I said.

  After a time Red Wig asked it.

  “Why?”

  “Well now,” I told her, “they’re kind of short on building materials hereabouts, the stuff from Old Cairo being radioactive—so they’re obtaining it by knocking apart that old piece of solid geometry out there.”

  “They are desecrating a monument to the past glories of the human race!” she exclaimed.

  “Nothing is cheaper than past glories,” I observed. “It’s the present that we’re concerned with, and they need building materials now.”

  “For how long has this been going on?” asked Myshtigo, his words rushing together.

  “It was three days ago,” said Rameses, “that we began the dismantling.”

  “What gives you the right to do a thing like that?”

  “It was authorized by the Earthoffice Department of Arts, Monuments and Archives, Srin.”

  Myshtigo turned to me, his amber eyes glowing strangely.

  “You!” he said.

  “I,” I acknowledged, “am Commissioner thereof—that is correct.”

  “Why has no one else heard of this action of yours?”

  “Because very few people come here anymore,” I explained. “—Which is another good reason for dismantling the thing. It doesn’t even get looked at much these days. I do have the authority to authorize such actions.”

  “I came here from another world to see it!”

  “Well, take a quick look, then,” I told him. “It’s going away fast.”

  He turned and stared.

  “You obviously have no conception of its intrinsic value. Or, if you do . . .”

  “On the contrary, I know exactly what it’s worth.”

  “. . . And those unfortunate creatures you have working down there”—his voice rose as he studied the scene—“under the hot rays of your ugly sun—they’re laboring under the most primitive conditions! Haven’t you ever heard of moving machinery?”

  “Of course. It’s expensive.”

  “And your foremen are carrying whips! How can you treat your own people that way? It’s perverse!”

  “All those men volunteered for the job, at token salaries —and Actors’ Equity won’t let us use the whips, even though the men argued in favor of it. All we’re allowed to do is crack them in the air near them.”

  “Actors’ Equity?”

  “Their union. —Want to see some machinery?” I gestured. “Look up on that hill.”

  He did.

  “What’s going on there?”

  “We’re recording it on viewtape.”

  “To what end?”

  “When we’re finished we’re going to edit it down to viewable length and run it backwards. ‘The Building of the Great Pyramid,’ we’re going to call it. Should be good for some laughs—also money. Your historians have been conjecturing as to exactly how we put it together ever since the day they heard about it. This may make them somewhat happier. I decided a B.F.M.I. operation would go over best.”

  “B.F.M.I.?”

  “Brute Force and Massive Ignorance. Look at them hamming it up, will you?—following the camera, lying down and standing up quickly when it swings in their direction. They’ll be collapsing all over the place in the finished product. But then, this is the first Earthfilm in years. They’re real excited.”

  Dos Santos regarded Red Wig’s bared teeth and the bunched muscles beneath her eyes. He glared at the pyramid.

  “You are a madman!” he announced.

  “No,” I replied. “The absence of a monument can, in its own way, be something of a monument also.”

  “A monument t
o Conrad Nomikos,” he stated.

  “No,” said Red Wig then. “There is destructive art as surely as there is creative art. I think he may be attempting such a thing. He is playing Caligula. Perhaps I can even see why.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You are not welcome. I said ‘perhaps.’ —An artist does it with love.”

  “Love is a negative form of hatred.”

  “‘I am dying, Egypt, dying,’” said Ellen.

  Myshtigo laughed.

  “You are tougher than I thought, Nomikos,” he observed. “But you are not indispensable.”

  “Try having a civil servant fired—especially me.”

  “It might be easier than you think.”

  “We’ll see”

  “We may.”

  We turned again toward the great 90 percent pyramid of Cheops/Khufu. Myshtigo began taking notes once more.

  “I’d rather you viewed it from here, for now,” I said, “Our presence would waste valuable footage. Were anachronisms. We can go down during coffee break.”

  “I agree,” said Myshtigo, “and I am certain I know an anachronism when I see one. But I have seen all that I care to here. Let us go back to the inn. I wish to talk with the locals.”

  After a moment, “1’11 see Sakkara ahead of schedule, then,” he mused. “You haven’t begun dismantling all the monuments of Luxor, Karnak, and the Valley of Kings yet, have you?”

  “Not yet, no.”

  “Good. Then we’ll visit them ahead of time.”

  “Then let’s not stand here,” said Ellen. “This heat is beastly.”

  So we returned.

  “Do you really mean everything you say?” asked Diane as we walked back.

  “In my fashion.”

  “How do you think of such things?”

  “In Greek, of course. Then I translate them into English. I’m real good at it.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Ozymandias. Look on my works ye mighty and despair.”

  “I’m not mighty.”

  “I wonder. . . .” I said, and I left the part of her face that I could see wearing a rather funny expression as we walked along.

  “Let me tell you of the boadile,” said I.

  Our felucca moved slowly along that dazzling waterpath that bums its way before the great gray colonnades of Luxor. Myshtigo’s back was to me. He was staring at those columns, dictating an occasional impression.

  “Where will we put ashore?” he asked me.

  “About a mile further up ahead. Perhaps I had better tell you about the boadile.”

  “I know what a boadile is. I told you that I had studied your world.”

  “Uh-huh. Reading about them is one thing . . .”

  “I have also seen boadiles. There are four in the Earth-garden on Taler.”

  “. . . and seeing them in a tank is another thing.”

  “Between yourself and Hasan we are a veritable floating arsenal. I count three grenades on your belt, four on his.”

  “You can’t use a grenade if one is on top of you—not without defeating the purpose of self-defense, that is. If it’s any further away you can’t hit it with one. They move too fast.”

  He finally turned.

  “What do you use?”

  I reached inside my galabieh (having gone native) and withdrew the weapon I always try to have on hand when I come this way.

  He examined it.

  “Name it.”

  “It’s a machine-pistol. Fires meta-cyanide slugs—one ton impact when a round strikes. Not real accurate, but that’s not necessary. It’s patterned after a twentieth century handgun called a Schmeisser.”

  “It’s rather unwieldy. Will it stop a boadile?”

  “If you’re lucky. I have a couple more in one of the cases. Want one?”

  “No, thank you.” He paused. “But you can tell me more about the boadile. I really only glanced at them that day, and they were pretty well submerged.”

  “Well . . . Head something like a croc’s, only bigger. Around forty feet long. Able to roll itself into a big beach-ball with teeth. Fast on land or in water—and a hell of a lot of little legs on each side—”

  “How many legs?” he interrupted.

  “Hm.” I stopped. “To tell you the absolute truth, I’ve never counted. Just a second.

  “Hey, George,” I called out, to where Earth’s eminent chief biologist lay dozing in the shade of the sail. “How many legs on a boadile?”

  “Huh?” His head turned.

  “I said, ‘How many legs on a boadile?’”

  He rose to his feet, stretched slightly and came up beside us.

  “Boadiles,” he mused, poking a finger into his ear and leafing through the files inside. “They’re definitely of the class reptilia—of that much we’re certain. Whether they’re of the order crocodilia, suborder of their own, or whether they’re of the order squamata, suborder lacertilia, family neopoda—as a colleague of mine on Taler half-seriously insists—we are not certain. To me they are somewhat reminiscent of pre-Three Day photo-reproductions of artists’ conceptions of the Mesozoic phytosaurus with, of course, the supernumerary legs and the constrictive ability. So I favor the order crocodilia myself.”

  He leaned on the rail and stared out across the shimmering water.

  I saw then that he wasn’t about to say anything else, so, “So how many legs on one?” I asked again.

  “Eh? Legs? I never counted them. If we’re lucky we might get a chance to, though. There are lots around here. —The young one I had didn’t last too long.”

  “What happened to it?” asked Myshtigo.

  “My megadonaplaty ate it.”

  “Megadonaplaty?”

  “Sort of like a duck-billed platypus with teeth,” I explained, “and about ten feet high. Picture that. So far as we know, they’ve only been seen about three or four times. Australian. We got ours through a fortunate accident. Probably won’t last, as a species—the way boadiles will, I mean they’re oviparous mammals, and their eggs are too large for a hungry world to permit the continuance of the species —if it is a true species. Maybe they’re just isolated spoils.”

  “Perhaps,” said George, nodding wisely; “and then again perhaps not.”

  Myshtigo turned away, shaking his head.

  Hasan had partly unpacked his robot golem—Rolem—and was fooling with its controls. Ellen had finally given up on simicoloring and was lying in the sun getting burnt all over. Red Wig and Dos Santos were plotting something at the other end of the vessel. Those two never just meet; they always have assignations. Our felucca moved slowly along the dazzling waterpath that burns its way before the great gray colonnades of Luxor, and I decided it was time to head it in toward the shore and see what was new among the tombs and ruined temples.

  The next six days were rather eventful and somewhat unforgettable, extremely active, and sort of ugly-beautiful—in the way that a flower can be, with its petals all intact and a dark and runny rot-spot in the center. Here’s how. . . .

  Myshtigo must have interviewed every stone ram along the four miles of the Way to Karnak. Both in the blaze of day and by torchlight we navigated the ruins, disturbing bats, rats, snakes and insects, listening to the Vegan’s monotonous note-taking in his monotonous language. At night we camped on the sands, setting up a two hundred meter electrical warning perimeter and posting two guards. The boadile is cold-blooded; the nights were chill. So there was relatively little danger from without.

  Huge campfires lighted the nights, all about the areas we chose, because the Vegan wanted things primitive—for purposes of atmosphere, I guessed. Our Skimmers were further south. We had flown them to a place I knew of and left them there under Office guard, renting the felucca for our trip—which paralleled the King-God’s journey from Kaipnak to Luxor. Myshtigo had wanted it that way. Nights, Hasan would either practice with the assagai he had bartered from a big Nubian, or he would strip to the waist and wrestle for hours with his
tireless golem.

  A worthy opponent was the golem. Hasan had it programmed at twice the statistically-averaged strength of a man and had upped its reflex-time by fifty percent. Its “memory” contained hundreds of wrestling holds, and its governor theoretically prevented it from killing or maiming its opponent—all through a series of chemelectrical afferent nerve-analogues which permitted it to gauge to an ounce the amount of pressure necessary to snap a bone or tear a tendon. Rolem was about five feet, six inches in height and weighed around two hundred fifty pounds; manufactured on Bakab, he was quite expensive, was dough-colored and caricature-featured, and his brains were located somewhere below where his navel would be—if golems had navels—to protect his thinkstuff from Greco-Roman shocks. Even as it is, accidents can happen. People have been killed by the things, when something goes amok in the brains or some af-ferents, or just because the people themselves slipped or tried to jerk away, supplying the necessary extra ounces. I’d had one once, for almost a year, programmed for boxing. I used to spend fifteen minutes or so with it every afternoon. Got to thinking of it as a person, almost. Then one day it fouled me and I pounded it for over an hour and finally knocked its head off. The thing kept right on boxing, and I stopped thinking of it as a friendly sparring partner right then. Its a weird feeling, boxing with a headless golem, you know? Sort of like waking from a pleasant dream and finding a nightmare crouched at the foot of your bed. It doesn’t really “see” its opponent with those eye-things it has; it’s all sheathed about with piezoelectric radar mesentery, and it “watches” from all its surfaces. Still, the death of an illusion tends to disconcert. I turned mine off and never tinned it back on again. Sold it to a camel trader for a pretty good price. Don’t know if he ever got the head back on. But he was a Turk, so who cares?