Analog SFF, October 2005 Read online

  Sarah smiled. “As we used to say about the Very Large Array, I'm all ears."

  McGavin nodded. “The first message we got from Sig Drac was a real poser, until you figured out its purpose. And this one is even more of a puzzle, it seems. Encrypted! Who'd have guessed?"

  "It's baffling,” she agreed.

  "That it is,” said McGavin. “That it is. But I'm sure you can help us crack it."

  "I'm no expert in decryption or codes, or things like that,” she said. “My expertise, if I have any, is in exactly the opposite: understanding things that were designed to be read by anyone."

  "Granted, granted. But you had such insight into what the Dracons were getting at last time. And we know how to decrypt the current message. I'm told the aliens made the technique very clear. All we have to do is figure out what the decryption key is, and I suspect your skill is going to be valuable there."

  "You're very kind,” she said, “but—"

  "No, really,” said McGavin. “You were a crucial part of it then, I'm sure you're going to be a crucial part of it now, and you'll continue to be so well into the future."

  She blinked. “The future?"

  "Yes, yes, the future. We've got a dialogue going here, and we need continuity. I'm sure we'll unlock the current message, and, even if we don't, we'll still send a response. And I want you to be around when the reply to that response arrives."

  Don felt his eyes narrowing, but Sarah just laughed. “Don't be silly. I'll be dead long before then."

  "Not necessarily,” said McGavin.

  "It'll be thirty-eight years, minimum, before we get a reply to anything we send today,” she said.

  "That's right,” replied McGavin, his tone even.

  "And I'd be—well, um..."

  "A hundred and twenty-five,” McGavin supplied.

  Don had had enough. “Mr. McGavin, don't be cruel. My wife and I have only a few years left, at best. We both know that."

  Sarah had drained her water glass. The robot silently appeared with a replacement and swapped it for the empty one.

  McGavin looked at Don. “The press has had it all wrong, you know, from day one. Most of the SETI community hasn't understood, either. This isn't a case of Earth talking to the second planet of the star Sigma Draconis. Planets don't talk to each other. People do. Some specific person on Sigma Draconis II sent the message, and one specific person on this planet—you, Dr. Sarah Halifax—figured out what he'd asked for, and organized our reply. The rest of us—all the humans here, and anyone else on Sigma Draconis who is curious about what's being said—have been reading over your shoulders. You've got a pen pal, Dr. Halifax. It happens that I, not you, pay the postage, but he's your pen pal."

  Sarah looked at Don, then back at McGavin. She took another sip of her water, perhaps to buy herself a few seconds to think. “That's an ... unusual interpretation,” she said. “Because of the long times between sending messages and receiving replies, SETI is something whole civilizations do, not individuals."

  "No, no, that's not right at all,” said McGavin. “Look, what are the fundamental tenets of SETI? Certainly one of them is this: almost any race we contact will be more advanced than us. Why? Because, as of this year, we've only had radio for a hundred and fifty-three years, which is nothing compared to the eleven billion years the universe is old. It's a virtual certainty that anyone we make contact with has been around as a radio-using civilization longer than we have."

  "Yes,” said Sarah, and “So?” added Don.

  "So,” said McGavin, “short life spans are something only technologically unsophisticated races will be subject to. How long after a race develops radio do you think it is before they decode DNA, or whatever their genetic material is? How long before they develop blood transfusions and organ transplantation and tissue cloning? How long before they cure cancer and heart disease, or whatever comparable ailments sloppy evolution has left them prey to? A hundred years? Two hundred? Doubtless no more than three or four, right? Right?"

  He looked at Sarah, presumably expecting her to nod. She didn't, and, after a moment, he went on anyway. “Just as every race we contact almost certainly must have had radio longer than we have, every race we contact will almost certainly have extended their life spans way beyond whatever paltry handful of years nature originally dealt them.” He spread his arms. “No, it stands to reason: communication between two planets isn't something one generation starts, another continues, and still another picks up after that. Even with the long timeframes imposed by the speed of light, interstellar communication is still almost certainly communication between individuals. And you, Dr. Halifax, are our individual. You already proved, all those years ago, that you know how they think. Nobody else managed that."

  Her voice was soft. “I—I'm happy to be the, um, the public face for our reply to the current message, if you think that's necessary, but after that...” She lifted her narrow shoulders slightly as if to say the rest was obvious.

  "No,” said McGavin. “We need to keep you around for a good long time."

  Sarah was nervous; Don could tell, even if McGavin couldn't. She lifted her glass and swirled the contents so that the ice cubes clinked together. “What are you going to do? Have me stuffed and put on display?"

  "Goodness, no."

  "Then what?” Don demanded.

  "Rejuvenation,” said McGavin.

  "Pardon me?” said Sarah.

  "Rejuvenation; a rollback. We'll make you young again. Surely you've heard about the process."

  Don had indeed heard about it, and doubtless Sarah had, too. But only a couple of hundred people had undergone the procedure so far, and they'd all been stinking rich.

  Sarah reached forward and set her glass down on the granite desktop, next to where McGavin was leaning. Her hand was shaking. “That ... that costs a fortune,” she said.

  "I have a fortune,” said McGavin simply.

  "But ... but ... I don't know,” said Sarah. “I'm—I mean, does it work?"

  "Look at me,” said McGavin, spreading his arms again. “I'm sixty-two years old, according to my birth certificate. But my cells, my telomeres, my free-radical levels, and every other indicator, say I'm twenty-five. And, if anything, I feel younger even than that."

  Don's jaw must have been hanging open in surprise. “You thought I'd had a facelift, or something like that?” McGavin said, looking at him. “Plastic surgery is like a software patch. It's a quick, kludgy fix, and it often creates more problems than it solves. But rejuvenation, well, that's like a code rewrite—it's a real fix. You don't just look young again; you are young.” His thin eyebrows climbed his wide forehead. “And that's what I'm offering you. The full-blown rejuvenation treatment."

  Sarah looked shocked, and it was a moment before she spoke. “But ... but this is ridiculous,” she said at last. “Nobody even knows if it really works. I mean, sure, you look younger, maybe you even feel younger, but the treatment has only been available for a short time. No one who's had it yet has lived appreciably longer than a natural lifespan. There's no proof that this process really extends your life."

  McGavin made a dismissive gesture. “There have been lots of rollback tests with lab animals. They all became young again, and then aged forward perfectly normally. We've seen mice and even prosimians live out their entire lengthened lifespans without difficulty. As for humans, well, except for a few odd-ball indicators like growth rings in my teeth, my physicians tell me that I'm now physiologically twenty-five, and am aging forward naturally from that point.” He spread his arms. “Believe me, it works. And I'm offering it to you."

  "Mr. McGavin,” Don said, “I really don't think that—"

  "Not without Don,” Sarah said.

  "What?” said McGavin and Don simultaneously.

  "Not without Don,” Sarah repeated. Her voice had a firmness Don hadn't heard for years. “I won't even consider this unless you also offer the same thing to my husband."

  McGavin pushed himse
lf forward until he was standing. He walked behind his desk, turning his back on them, and looked out at his sprawling empire. “This is a very expensive procedure, Sarah."

  "And you're a very rich man,” she replied.

  Don looked at McGavin's back, more or less silhouetted against the bright sky. At last, McGavin spoke. “I envy you, Don."

  "Why?"

  "To have a wife who loves you so much. I understand the two of you have been married for over fifty years."

  "Sixty,” said Don, “as of two days ago."

  "I never...” McGavin began, but then he fell silent.

  Don had vague recollections of McGavin's high-profile divorce, years ago, and a nasty court case to try to invalidate the pre-nup.

  "Sixty years,” McGavin continued, at last. “Such a long time..."

  "It hasn't seemed that way,” said Sarah.

  Don could hear McGavin make a noisy intake of breath and then let it out. “All right,” he said, turning around, his head nodding. “All right, I'll pay for the procedure for both of you.” He walked toward them, but remained standing. “So, do we have a deal?"

  Sarah opened her mouth to say something, but Don spoke before she could. “We have to talk about this,” he said.

  "So let's talk,” said McGavin.

  "Sarah and I. We have to talk about this alone."

  McGavin seemed momentarily peeved, as though he felt they were looking a gift horse in the mouth. But then he nodded. “All right, take your time.” He paused, and Don thought he was going to say something stupid like, “But not too much time.” But instead he said, “I'll have my driver take you over to Pauli's—finest restaurant in Boston. On me, of course. Talk it over. Let me know what you decide."

  * * * *

  Chapter 6

  The robot chauffeur drove Sarah and Don to the restaurant. Don got out of the car first and carefully made his way over to Sarah's door, helping her up and out, and holding her arm as they crossed the sidewalk and entered.

  "Hello,” said the young white woman standing at a small podium inside the door. “You must be Dr. and Mr. Halifax, no? Welcome to Pauli's."

  She gave them a hand getting out of their parkas. Fur was back in vogue—the pelts lab-grown, without producing the whole animal—but Sarah and Don were of a generation that had come to frown on fur, and neither could bring themselves to wear any. Their nylon-shelled coats from Mark's Work Wearhouse, his in navy blue, hers beige, looked decidedly out-of-place on the racks in the coat check.

  The woman took Don's elbow, and Don took Sarah's, a sideways conga line shuffling slowly to a large booth near a crackling fireplace.

  Pauli's turned out to be a seafood restaurant, and even though Don loved John Masefield's poetry, he hated seafood. Ah, well; doubtless the menu would have some chicken or steak.

  There were the usual accoutrements of such places: an aquarium of lobsters, fishing nets hanging on the walls, a brass diver's helmet sitting on an old wooden barrel. But the effect was much more upscale than Red Lobster; here everything looked like valuable antiques rather than garage-sale kitsch.

  Once they'd managed to get seated, and the young woman had taken their drink order—two decaf coffees—Don settled back against the soft leather upholstery. “So,” he said, looking across at his wife, the crags in her face highlighted by the dancing firelight, “what do you think?"

  "It's an incredible offer."

  "That it is,” he said, frowning. “But..."

  He trailed off as the waiter appeared, a tall black man of about fifty, dressed in a tuxedo. He handed a menu printed on parchment-like paper bound in leather covers to Sarah, then gave one to Don. He squinted at it. Although this restaurant doubtless had lots of older patrons—they'd passed several on the way to the table—anyone who dined here regularly probably could afford new eyes, and—

  "Hey,” he said, looking up. “There are no prices."

  "Of course not, sir,” said the waiter. He had a Haitian accent. “You are Mr. McGavin's guests. Please order whatever you wish."

  "Give us a moment,” said Don.

  "Absolutely, sir,” said the waiter, and he disappeared.

  "What McGavin's offering is...” started Don, then he trailed off. “It's—I don't know—it's crazy."

  "Crazy,” repeated Sarah, lobbing the word back at him.

  "I mean,” he said, “when I was young, I thought I'd live forever, but..."

  "But you'd made your peace with the idea that..."

  "That I was going to die soon?” he said, lifting his eyebrows. “I'm not afraid of the D-word. And, yes, I guess I had made my peace with that, as much as anyone does. Remember when Ivan Krehmer was in town last fall? My old buddy from back in the day? We had coffee, and, well, we both knew it was the last time we'd ever see or even speak to each other. We talked about our lives, our careers, our kids and grandkids. It was a...” He sought a phrase; found it: “A final accounting."

  She nodded. “So often, these last few years, I've thought, ‘Well, that's the last time I'll visit this place.'” She looked out at the other diners. “It's not even all been sad. There are plenty of times I've thought, ‘Thank God I'll never have to do that again.’ Getting my passport renewed, some of those medical tests they make you have every five years. Stuff like that."

  He was about to reply when the waiter reappeared. “Have we decided yet?"

  Not by a long shot, Don thought.

  "We need more time,” Sarah said. The waiter dipped his head respectfully and vanished again.

  More time, thought Don. That's what it was all about, suddenly having more time. “So, so he's talking about, what, rejuvenating you thirty-eight years, so you'll still be around when the next reply is received?"

  "Rejuvenating us,” said Sarah, firmly—or, at least, in what he knew was supposed to be a firm tone; the quaver never quite left her voice these days. “And, really, there's no need to stop at that. That would only take us back to being fifty or so, after all.” She paused, took a moment to gather her thoughts. “I remember reading about this. They say they can regress you to any point after your body stopped growing. You can't go back before puberty, and you probably shouldn't go back much earlier than twenty-five, before wisdom teeth have erupted and the bones of the skull have totally fused."

  "Twenty-five,” said Don, tasting the number, imagining it. “And then you'd age forward again, at the normal rate?"

  She nodded. “Which would give us enough time to receive two more replies from...” She lowered her voice, perhaps surprised to find herself adopting McGavin's term, “from my pen pal."

  He was about to object that Sarah would be over a hundred and sixty by the time two more replies could be received—but, then again, that would only be her chronological age; she'd be just a hundred physically. He shook his head, feeling woozy, disoriented. Just a hundred!

  "You seem to know a lot about this,” he said.

  She tipped her head to one side. “I read a few of the articles when the procedure was announced. Idle curiosity."

  He narrowed his eyes. “Was that all?"

  "Sure. Of course."

  "I've never even thought about living to be over a hundred,” he said.

  "Of course not. Why would you? The idea of being ancient, withered, worn out, infirm, for years on end—who would fantasize about that? But this is different."

  He looked at her, studying her face in a way he hadn't for some time. It was an old woman's face, just as his face, he knew, was that of an old man, with wrinkles, creases, and folds.

  It came to him, with a start, that their very first date all those years ago had ended in a restaurant with a fireplace, after he'd dragged her to see the premiere of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. He recalled how beautiful her smooth features had looked, how her lustrous brown hair had shone in the dancing light, how he'd wanted to stare at her forever. Age had come up then, too, with Sarah asking how old he was. He'd told her he was twenty-six.

  "Hey, me, to
o!” she'd said, sounding pleased. “When's your birthday?"

  "October fifteenth."

  "Mine was in May."

  "Ah,” he'd replied, a mischievous tone in his voice, “an older woman."

  That had been so very long ago. And to go back to that age! It was madness. “But ... but what would you—would we—do with all that time?” he asked.

  "Travel,” said Sarah at once. “Garden. Read great books. Take courses."

  "Hmmmph,” said Don.

  Sarah nodded, apparently conceding that she hadn't enticed him. But then she rummaged in her purse and pulled out her datacom, tapped a couple of keys, and handed him the slim device. The screen was showing a picture of little Cassie, wearing a blue dress, her blond hair in pigtails. “Watch our grandchildren grow up,” she said. “Get to play with our great-grandchildren, when they come along."

  He blew out air. To get to attend his grandchildren's college graduations, to be at their weddings. That was tempting. And to do all that in robust good health, but...

  "But do you really want to attend the funerals of your own children?” he said. “Because that's what this would mean, you know. Oh, I'm sure the procedure will come down in price eventually, but not in time for Carl or Emily to afford it.” He thought about adding, “We might even end up burying our grandchildren,” but found he couldn't even give voice to that notion.

  "Who knows how fast the costs will come down?” Sarah said. “But the idea of having decades more with my kids and grandkids is very appealing ... no matter what happens in the end."

  "Maybe,” he said. “Maybe. I—I'm just..."

  She reached across the dark polished wood of the table and touched his hand. “Scared?"

  It wasn't an accusation from Sarah; it was loving concern. “Yeah, I suppose. A bit."

  "Me, too,” she said. “But we'll be going through it together."

  He lifted his eyebrows. “Are you sure you could stand to have me around for another few decades?"

  "I wouldn't have it any other way."

  To be young again. It was a heady thought, and, yes, it was scary, too. But it was also, he had to admit, intriguing. He'd never liked taking charity, though. If the procedure had been something they could have even remotely afforded, he might have been more enthusiastic. But even if they sold their house, sold every stock and bond they owned, liquidated all their assets, they couldn't begin to pay for the treatment for even one of them, let alone for them both. Hell, even Cody McGavin had had to think twice about spending so much money.