Chapter II

Dr. Hamlin got up. "No, there was more to it than that. In spite of the fact that it happened almost forty years ago, I happen to know that the situation didn't occur exactly as the history books would have you believe. The army, it is true covered up for them and made them heroes, but Edgerton, Mitchell, and Rhind, in reality, took off on their own. They took off without orders or permission, just a few hours before take-off-time, with nothing except a six week supply of oxygen, a portable air-blister, and a few supplies."

Carl studied the man's face. The story was true. In his cadet days, old spacemen had spilled the story too many times for him to doubt its authenticity. "Suppose you tell me what all this is getting at?" he hedged.

Hamlin crossed the room. From a desk drawer he removed a palm-sized photo-cartridge and inserted it in the video adaptor. The room lights dimmed as the three dimensional screen brightened, dancing in a kaleidoscope of color. The colors merged.

He was staring into a vivid reproduction of a Venusian landscape. The picture had been taken from a small hill. Below was the violet-brown monotony of a saroo forest, visible only in small islands, where the roof of the trees stabbed out from the swirling green fog. And beyond that, almost lost in the haze, was the outline of a pair of reddish-brown spires, that reared out of the jungle, rising, till they were lost in the ever present layer of upper clouds that shrouded the planet. It was an ugly scene--ugly, yet strangely beautiful.

The camera swiveled in a 180° arc. They were looking up the hill now--looking up to where the hill tore itself loose from the green-fog level, rising for perhaps half a mile, then disappearing in the white ocean overhead. Halfway up the hill was a cluster of flare trees, their purple-brown leaves drooping in the ammonia-soaked air, and underneath the trees, a house--not the blister-type oxygen tents used by the military, or the thatched hovels of the chowls, but a real earth-style house with a peaked roof and pillar supported porch. Abruptly, the picture widened into a sharp closeup, revealing an open doorway. A man--an earthman--stood framed in the threshold. He was a clean-shaven man, probably in his early twenties. Two other men slightly older, lolled in a pair of rustic chairs set on the open veranda. Apparently none of the men were aware of the camera that recorded their every move.

Carl was aware of his hands gripping the chair arms. Except for the weird backdrop of flare trees and raton vines that flanked the house, he might have been looking at a peaceful summer resort in the Canadian Rockies. But it wasn't an earth picture. These men were on Venus lolling about in their shirt sleeves and breathing in the atmosphere of chlorine and ammonia that was sure to kill a man in thirty seconds!

It was trick photography. It had to be. Quickly, he flicked a look at Dr. Hamlin, then looked back at the screen. One of the men was elbowing himself out of the chair now. He walked to the edge of the porch railing and stared directly into the camera. There was something vaguely familiar about the man--about all the men.

Suddenly, Carl tensed forward on the edge of the chair, conscious of a cold icicle of movement that snaked the length of his spine. The picture on the screen flicked out, abruptly. The room lights were on again, and Stewart Ferguson was studying him with detached insolence.

"Well?" Ferguson asked.

Carl ignored him, and turned to Norman Hamlin. "Did I see what I think I saw?" he asked.

Hamlin nodded.

"But those men!"

"You recognized them?"

Carl swallowed, hard. The highball he'd had three hours before churned up in his throat. "Of course I recognize them," he said thickly. "They've been commemorated on postage stamps and cut in stone at every spaceport in the country. But they're dead! Been dead for forty years!"

Hamlin turned up his palms. "You saw the pictures," he said evenly.

"Possibly the military has been deceiving us for forty years," Ferguson drawled. "Maybe they only made up that story about the poisonous atmosphere."

Keating felt a hot flush rise to the back of his neck. "That's not true," he said with obvious restraint. "I was there--for two long years I was on Venus, and it's bad, every bit as bad as the army says it is. You'd have to smell the stuff yourself to know what I really mean. It's so bad that even after you drop your jumper in the airlock and shower, the stuff follows you inside and stinks the ship up from here to Pluto and back again. The army's not lying. Not about that they're not!"

"How do you account for the photos then?"

"I don't know," Carl said wearily. "All I know is that for forty years, no man...." He stopped suddenly, as all at once the full enormity of the situation dawned on him. Those men on the screen. He'd recognized them of course from their pictures. But how about those pictures? The pictures he'd seen of Edgerton, Mitchell, and Rhind, were old pictures.... Pictures taken almost forty years ago!

* * * * *

As if from far away, Hamlin's voice was droning in his ears. "Perhaps it's not quite as ridiculous as you may think, Mr. Keating. There's a widely recognized theory that the very air which gives us life, also gives us death. In fact, one of the chief reasons for the high migration to Mars is the fact that man's life expectancy on that planet is almost thirty percent greater than on our own. Now let's suppose that the three men who deserted the first Venus expedition had in some way found a way to breathe the air of that planet. Is it so inconceivable that the atmospheric content might be conducive to extremely high longevity--perhaps even immortality?"

Carl wanted to say something--anything. "When--when were these pictures taken?" he finally managed.

"Just a little over four months ago."

The voice had an oddly nostalgic ring to it. Carl turned. The man had apparently entered the room unnoticed. He was a big block-shouldered man, with brown eyes and a mat of inky-black hair that all but covered a low sloping forehead. He could have passed for a cargo hand at the Montauk Spaceport, except that Carl knew different.

"No need to introduce myself, is there?" the man said.

Carl shook his head. To Hamlin he said: "Paul Spero just got back from Venus too. We were discharged together--as if you didn't know."

"You should have stuck around Keating," Spero said. "Right after you left, I tied in with a three-day party. You missed out on a good time."

"I'll bet," Carl said. "I take it that you were the one who brought back the pictures?"

Spero forced a grin that didn't quite make the width of his mouth. "That's right. While you and the rest of the crew were entertaining yourselves collecting fossils I did some research on my own."

"Did it ever occur to you that the military might want these pictures?" Carl asked.

The other man made a noise with his nose. "Just what did the military ever do for me, Keating?" he asked "Fifteen years I spent as a crewman on every flame-buggy from here to Titan and back, and after all that, I get pensioned off a miserable second lieutenant."

"You'll have to admit," Carl said, "there were times when your conduct fell something short of exemplary."

Spero tossed him a sloppy salute. "Yes, Major," he said with mock formality. Abruptly he strode over to where Carl was standing. "I don't think you quite get it yet, Keating," he said thickly. "Try using your imagination. Forget about the griping we did when we were stationed there. It's different now. Edgerton, Mitchell and Rhind have found a way to breathe, and the secret of breathing is also the secret of immortality. Suppose I'd been sucker enough to turn this information over to the high brass? Inside of half-an-hour, those men would have been interrogated. Inside of a week, the information would have been radioed back to Terra. And by now, every one on this earth and his great maiden aunt would be selling their soul to get passage to Venus. And where do you think all this would leave us Keating? I'll tell you where ... we'd be right here sweating out a priority list long enough to stretch from here to Pluto and back!"

Carl studied the man's face. "I take it then you didn't talk to these men when you took the pictures?"

Spero shook his head. "No," he said carefully. "At first I had all I could do to keep from running up to them, but then I figured that if they saw me, they'd know there was a spaceship on the planet. All kinds of things went through my head; one of them was that maybe they were sick of Venus and would try to make contact with the ship and spill their story. In the end, I just hid behind a clump of saroo trees and took the pictures."

Carl let his gaze wander about the room. He had to think. Then, almost as if it had been prearranged, he found himself looking into a full-length mirror on the far wall. The reflection he saw wasn't old--the hair, while slightly lighter at the temples, was still for the most part dark-brown. He had a good build too, and except for a few creases radiating from the corners of his eyes, his skin had the smooth sort of thickness that many men in their middle-thirties would have envied. He'd kept himself well. It would probably be fifteen or twenty years yet before the almost invisible lines in his cheeks and forehead would begin to widen into deep grooves. But it would happen. It would....

And it didn't have to.

He knew what the proposition was now. He turned to Dr. Hamlin. "Let's see if I have it figured," he said. "You want to go to Venus and look for this fountain of youth. Ferguson's financing the trip, and Spero is the Ponce de Leon who knows where to look. All you need is a pilot. Right?"

"Think it over carefully, Mr. Keating," Hamlin said. "Don't be hasty in your answer."

Spero too had noticed the note of rejection in his voice. "You'd better grab the chance, Keating," he said. "Right now I'll admit I don't like Venus anymore than you. But we're going to change all that. Right after the migration starts there'll be cities, and parks and railroads. And we'll be the ones responsible for all of it. We'll be heroes--not just for ten or twenty years, but forever!"

"Did I hear someone say forever?"

The voice had a resonant, almost musical pitch to it. It was deep and throaty, more like an adolescent boy's voice than a woman's. She was standing at the arched entrance to the library, one hand balanced on the jade statue flanking the threshold. She had finespun taffy-blonde hair and a complexion to match. She wore a gray-green krylon dress, the same color as her eyes. It looked good on her. A space jumper would have looked equally well.

"I don't believe you've met my daughter," Dr. Hamlin said. "Diane, this is Mr. Keating."

Diane crossed the room. The pressure of her fingers was quick, and warm and suggestive. "Hello, Mr. Keating," she said.

Carl was aware of mumbling something polite. Across the room, Stewart Ferguson had derricked himself out of the chair. Spero remained seated, caressing the girl with his sultry brown eyes.

Diane flicked an imaginary wisp of hair back from behind her ear. "Have you decided to join us, Mr. Keating?" she said.

"Us?"

She searched his face. "Why, yes. Didn't Dad tell you there'd be five of us. After all, who'd want a slice of immortality more than a woman."

"Immortality for a goddess," Ferguson said blandly.

The soft, red mouth twitched almost imperceptibly. Then the brief look of annoyance was gone. "You will come, won't you?" she said.

Keating avoided her eyes. Again he found his gaze wandering to the wall mirror; looking at his own face, coarse and ruddy looking against Diane's soft white shoulder.

"Count me in," he said quietly.