Captain Kent, in full uniform, said, “Do you, Reubin Flood, take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife, in this life, through a Change or two, unless necessary?”
“Yes, I do,” said Reubin.
Captain Kent turned to Alex. “You don’t have to do this, my dear.”
“I want to.”
“Do you, Alexandra Felicity Partmandahl Sovereign, of your own free will, take this man to be your lawful husband, in this life, and through a Change or two if you don’t get divorced?”
“I do.”
“By the power vested in me by the Federation and its laws, I now pronounce you matrimonially linked. Steward? Champagne, if you will.”
Habu observed the ceremony unhappily. Reubin was able to force him back into hibernation.
Alex was to return to Snister, wind up her affairs, bid her daughter good-bye, and join Reubin on Webster’s, where they would go to the LLI together.
Reubin had some business of his own to tend to on Webster’s. While he’d been essentially a nomad for the last twenty years or so, there were still things he had to do: consolidate bank accounts, prepare false identities in case of emergencies, and illegally access the LLI computers. The latter was for him to use programs he’d installed secretly when helping to build the system. He was able to add his new fake identities and their histories to the LLI database, and play games with the DNA tags, thus effectively covering his trail. For a few centuries, his Habu instinct had warned him when the Fed authorities occasionally were closing in on him. He didn’t know if the infamous Habu would be reason enough for the Fed to prevail upon the LLI to help them find him legally or illegally; if so, his preemptive raid into the LLI database would preclude that and his trail would dead-end. Another reason for sneaking into the LLI system was that he could preselect his destination afterward—if he wanted to.
While the LLI process could be accomplished anywhere, it was done on sector capitals so that mandatory one-way transport to the various frontiers could be arranged. Occasionally, for those who could afford the LLI treatment and could not afford the expense of the trip to the sector capitals throughout the Federation, the LLI maintained roving ships that made planetfall all over the galaxy at random intervals. Or a local or planetary government could request one of the ships by paying costs. Sometimes this was accomplished to reduce population.
Two vastly different things contributed to people living many centuries.
The first, and the easiest for Reubin to understand, was that because of star travel, people zapping back and forth throughout the explored portion of the galaxy, people aged differently. Added to that, medicine and preventative aging (PA) contributed to long life.
But the major contributor to long life was Silas Comfort Swallow. Silas Swallow invented FTL—or his Project I did. Swallow controlled it. Being the first to come up with FTL, he was the first to explore the galaxy near Olde Earthe. He also sold FTL to most of the rest of the Earthe. For cash and a percentage. He became the wealthiest man ever known at any time in the history of man. Every off-Earthe enterprise paid into Swallow’s accounts. He also owned all the nearby planets which could be settled by humans. More money.
He could afford the research. He spawned Project II, allegedly based on the mythical man who never aged, or aged in reverse, Pembroke Wyndham,
Reubin knew a few more of the particulars of Project II than most citizens because of his minor consultant role in setting up the resultant Long Life Institute after Project II had developed the formulae for insuring that long life.
Hormones give chemical orders to the body. At that time, there were only forty-five known hormones. Endocrinologists were able to locate either four new hormones or four synthetic hormones within the system of Pembroke Wyndham. Additionally, they found that Wyndham possessed no free-rads. Free radicals, Reubin understood, were an atom or a group of atoms as parts of molecules, which contained one or more unpaired electrons. Free-rads disrupted molecular activity which the body needed to function properly. The example Reubin remembered was that free-rads damaged DNA, which raised probability of out-of-control mutations or cellular divisions—cancer. They caused wrinkles in skin. Cataracts. Impeded the body’s immune system.
Something about Wyndham’s system. The researchers allegedly synthesized hormones from his pituitary, thymus, gonads.
Reubin wondered if Wyndham was still alive after all that testing.
At any rate, Reubin knew that the bigger and most important secret in the known human history was the recipe of the synthetic hormones. The secret of long life was locked within the Long Life Institute.
With as many people as possible receiving the Long Life treatment, the Change, life itself had altered. Ages were no longer important. You were “Young,” born, growing up, starting a new life. The next stage was called “Intermediate,” something a scientist would think up, nothing creative to match the new realities. Just about everybody was Intermediate. Reubin, Alex, even Tique. In this stage bodies were reparable and women were still able to bear children.
The third and last stage of life was known as “Indeterminate,” when someone had been around and through so many Changes that signs of aging showed, and weren’t reversible. This happened to people at different times in their lives. The body began failing here and there, no longer receptive even to transplants of cloned parts. Women no long could bear children. At the end, people suicided, an easy-go proposition these days.
People aged differently. Some lived twice as long as others. It was a matter of personal genetics and how well the treatments took. Reubin thought he was probably an extreme example of this. He didn’t want to consider what Habu’s contribution to his long life was.
However, at anywhere from eighty to one hundred and twenty plus Fed-standard years, most people’s brains could not function sanely with the accumulation of knowledge, experience, and memories. The LLI treated these symptoms and people were able to renew their lives. It was part of the deal with LLI. Nobody knew whether the treatment was separate or a part of the original hormonal treatment. Another LLI secret. So, to live longer than your brain could stand and before it went insane, you had to have LLI treatments.
The treatments allowed the mind to store all the excess information, experience, knowledge, memories. Some theorized the treatments merely opened more access to the unused but available space in the mind. Unfortunately, the process rejuvenated him physiologically. It never altered his fragmented persona. Personality remained unchanged. Reubin often wondered if the process didn’t open enough extra room in his mind to fit Habu. He also thought that if Habu was a mental defect in his mind, then it well could be that the process reinforced that defect.
Silas Swallow was a visionary. He built the LLI charter around this fact. You had to donate all your worldly goods to LLI (thus enhancing the LLI position), and LLI would send you off to the frontier, expanding man’s universe. You’d stay for a predetermined length of time, dictated by the situation and conditions. After a while, you got your money back from LLI as shares in the Institute. So if the LLI failed, the entire structure of the Federation would crumble. Everything was designed to further the LLI.
In actuality, most people taking the LLI treatment were ready to begin new lives. If not, they went mad, or suicided, or died.
But Silas Swallow had insured the survival of humanity by forcing its expansion to new worlds.
Expansion, almost by definition, brought on technological progress, keeping humanity technologically equipped to further its reach to the stars. Sounds poetic, Reubin thought, then remembered Karg and wondered if humanity hadn’t had a few too many failures along the way.
Reubin would take the Change and thus be good for another hundred years or so. And be able to remember his past lives. Alex would take the Change with him and they would begin a new life together, just as Silas Swallow had foreseen would become the custom.
Reubin