Inherit the Earth - Brian Stableford [65]
“If he thinks that,” Diana pointed out, suffering a sudden attack of logic, “we’re probably riding straight into a trap.”
“Do you want to get out?” Madoc asked. “If you do, better do it now. The badlands start at the end of the street.”
“I’m sticking to you like gantzing glue,” she told him stiffly. She didn’t believe what he’d said about the Operator getting spooked because he and the Old Lady had got too close. Neither did he—but he’d had to say something, to cover up the fact that he hadn’t the slightest idea why anyone would draw Damon into the game and then make a show of setting him up for target practice.
As they passed from the well-tended streets into an unreclaimed district Madoc slowed down slightly and checked for signs of pursuit—but when he found none he speeded up again. If Damon hadn’t sent an e-mail canceling the instruction that Madoc should meet him at the airport Madoc would have been in a quandary about whether to delay the adventure, but since Damon had decided to stay away for a while longer Madoc felt that the whole burden of action was on his shoulders, and that he had to press on as quickly as possible.
“I’m here because I care, you know,” Diana said defensively. “I walked out on Damon because he hurt me, but it was as much for his good as for mine—to make him see what’s happening to him. I still love him.”
“I’d never have guessed,” Madoc muttered, with savage irony.
“You don’t understand,” she said flatly.
“That’s a matter of opinion. I should have left you tied and gagged at my place. If I had any sense . . .”
“If you had any sense, Maddie,” she told him, “you’d have a nice safe job with PicoCon—an honest job, with prospects. There’s no real profit in living on the edge, you know. It might be more fun, but it won’t take you anywhere in the long run. The day of the buccaneers is long gone.”
This new argumentative tack was even more irritating than the one she’d set aside. “Did Damon tell you that?” Madoc said acidly. “Did you consider the possibility that he might have been trying to convince himself? There’s always scope for buccaneers. Rumor has it that the best and boldest of the old ones are still alive, if not exactly kicking. Adam Zimmerman never died, so they say—and if Conrad Helier didn’t, my bet is that he’s sleeping right next door.” He realized, belatedly, that he had been so concerned to score the debating point—off Damon rather than Diana—that he had let discretion slip a little.
Diana didn’t seem to realize that she’d just got a partial answer to her question about what else he’d found out while digging on Damon’s behalf. “Who’s Adam Zimmerman?” she asked, attacking the more basic question.
“The guy who set up the Ahasuerus Foundation. Known in his own day—or shortly thereafter—as the Man Who Cornered the Future or the Man Who Stole the World. Born some time before the turn of the millennium, vanished some time after.”
“But he’d be more than two hundred years old,” Diana objected. “The oldest man alive only passed a hundred and sixty a year or two back—the news tapes are always harping on about the record being broken.”
“The record only applies to those alive and kicking,” Madoc told her. “Back in the twentieth century, people who wanted to live forever knew they weren’t going to make it to the foot of the escalator. Some elected to be put in the freezer as soon as they were dead, looking forward to the day when it would be possible to resurrect them and give them back their youth. Multimillionaires who couldn’t take it with them sometimes spent their dotage pouring money into longevity research, stone-age rejuve technologies and susan—that’s short for suspended animation. Long-term freezing did a lot of damage, you see—very difficult to thaw out tissues without mangling all or most of the cells.