*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78908 ***




                           Forever Is So Long

                             by John Jakes




  _They walked the streets of the same city, but they were separated
  by the ages. She feared the man she loved even as her arms clasped
  him to her. For when science presented Frank Ridley with the gift of
  neverending life it made him desperately unhappy, and placed him in a
  world peopled by brief and flitting shadows...._


[Illustration: Illustrator: Everett Raymond Kinstler]




After a year in the hospital, they gave Frank Ridley a new suit of
clothes and a topcoat and told him he could go. Dr. Lord said they
would call him when they wanted him, so Ridley put on the topcoat and
walked through the doors and down the wide steps into the windy, sunlit
morning.

He felt in the pocket of the topcoat, found cigarettes. His fingers
caressed the material of the coat, as if it were entirely new to him.
He broke open the pack and lit a cigarette. The smoke inside him was
an almost new sensation, and he was pleasantly bewildered, like a
small child. A year in the hospital, and he was a new man, but he had
forgotten what life and the things of life were like.

But he had not forgotten her. All through the long months, while the
doctors bent over him, while he lay half-dreaming in the life fluid,
while the needles filled his veins with a new and mighty blood, he had
remembered her face and her mouth and her hair.

Quickly, Frank Ridley began to walk. He looked at the buildings, at the
towers, at the lake lying taut and blue in the sun. He saw the rockets
burning up into the morning sky, bound for the Moon, Mars, Venus,
carrying passengers and cargoes to the colonists. Gradually, he again
became familiar with his native city of New Chicago.

Two blocks from the hospital, he found a street phone booth. It was
empty. Eagerly, he crowded his bulky body inside and closed the door.
Dialing information, he felt his breath come heavily.

The screen lit up and the face of the operator appeared.

“Number, please,” she said, smiling.

“I’d like to call Miss Virginia Halloran. I ... don’t remember the
number. She used to live at ninety-fourteen Lake Drive.”

“I will try that address,” the operator said.

Ridley glanced at the new gleaming wrist chron they had given him.
A quarter after nine. Normally, women did not go to work in the
Department of Fuel Statistics at the Rocket Center until ten. She
should be....

The screen blurred.

And he was looking at her.

She was not a beautiful girl, with her slender face and slightly thin
lips. But there was an intangible something in her eyes that Ridley
had seen in few women. A promise, perhaps, of fire and affection. He
swallowed stiffly.

“Hello,” he said.

She peered at him, not believing. “Frank ... Frank Ridley ... that’s
right, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Ginny. It’s me.”

“It’s been a long time, Frank.”

“Yes. A year.”

“What happened, Frank? I thought you were dead, or had gone out on the
rockets. That night ... my birthday ... you never came ...”

“I know, I know. I’ll tell you about it. Could we eat breakfast?
Couldn’t you skip work? I want to talk to you. I....”

She nodded quickly. “Of course. Where?”

He tried to remember, and could not. “I can’t think of any place we
used to eat.” He was ashamed, because he had only remembered her face
through the dark, painful year.

“The Lake Front Cafe. Near Washington. Remember?”

“I’ll find it. Half an hour?”

“All right.” She hesitated. “Frank....”

“Yes?”

“What happened?” Her voice was soft, and her eyes in the screen were
gentle and, somehow, full of loneliness.

“I’ll explain when we eat. Ginny, tell me. Is there anyone else now?”

“No, Frank.”

He tried to grin. “Half an hour.”

She nodded again and the screen went blank.

He went out into the street, feeling the sunlight on his face and the
wind pulling at his topcoat. Perhaps she still loved him. A year was a
long time, but he could hope.

As he lit another cigarette, he felt with a terrible certainty that she
would cease to love him when she learned the secret that lodged in his
body. The secret that would, eventually, roar like thunder around Earth
and out to the stars where Earthmen rode their rockets.

He turned and walked quickly down the street, and there was a sudden
coldness in the morning sun.

       *       *       *       *       *

She was waiting at a table on the terrace of the Lake Front Cafe.
He walked up to her, almost shyly, and sat down. She smiled. A few
feet beyond the table, the waters of the lake shimmered and made soft
noises. A great rocket lifted across the skyline, trailing fire and
smoke into the blueness.

They ordered coffee and Ridley gave her a cigarette. He was trying to
make many small motions, trying to take up time, because he was afraid
of what was coming.

She took a sip of the coffee and looked at him. “I still love you,
Frank.”

He glanced away. That was like her--the strange sense of honesty and
naturalness that had impressed him at their first meeting. The feeling
that their love was inherently right.

“I’ve been gone a long time,” he said.

“Where?”

“In the Rocket Hospital.”

She set down the cup, surprised. “Here in New Chicago?”

“Yes, all the time. I couldn’t call you.”

“Were you sick? Frank, I don’t understand this. A whole year out of a
man’s life, and not a word....”

He reached out and took hold of her hand, squeezing it, because he was
afraid that he would inevitably lose her, and he did not want that. He
wanted to keep her, and the sunlight and the bright morning.

“I’m going to tell you what happened to me,” he said softly. “I have
Dr. Lord’s permission. It’ll be out soon enough. You mustn’t tell
anyone.”

She frowned. “I won’t.”

“Do you know who Dr. Lord is?”

“The longevity man. Educated at the University of Marsport.”

“That’s right. My father was one of his best friends. They saw the
asteroids together in their student days, working on an ore jumper.
I’ve known Dr. Lord for a long time. Last year, when I came in from the
Venus run and took my two months’ leave ... when I met you ... Dr. Lord
called me.

“He needed help, with an experiment. An experiment, he felt, that
couldn’t fail. He knew I was a jetman, and strong, and he knew me
personally. He asked me if I would help him. I thought it would mean
so much to people that I ... I said I would help him. He said it would
have to be done secretly. That’s why I never called you, or wrote.”

“You’ve been a subject for an experiment for a whole year?”

“That’s right. The experiment was completed a week ago.”

“Success?”

He nodded slowly and fumbled for a cigarette. He knew what her next
question would be. He lit the cigarette and waited, watching the smoke
whip away toward the lake.

“What kind of an experiment was it?”

“I don’t know the details. They replaced my normal blood with some kind
of fluid Dr. Lord had developed.”

She waited, her lips slightly parted, her face bearing a faint trace of
fear. The feather on top of her hat bobbed as she leaned forward.

He swallowed hard.

“Ginny ... with this fluid inside of me ... I’ll ... I’m going to live
to be three hundred years old.”

She released his hand quickly, striking the coffee cup. It spilled and
the brown liquid dripped across the table and fell on the stone terrace
in a dark shining pool.

“Are ... are they sure?”

“Yes, as sure as they can be. That’s why I had to talk to you.”

She got up and walked over to the railing, stood staring at the water.
Ridley followed and put his arm around her.

“That’s it,” he murmured. “That’s why I had to talk to you. I’m going
to be a kind of immortal, and I want that. I want that because I think,
eventually, people can all be almost immortal, and can use the extra
years for good things.”

“But I can’t love you, Frank. I can’t love you if I’m old and dying at
eighty or so and you’re still young. We can’t go on.”

He put his hands on her shoulders, turned her around so that she faced
him.

“Can’t we?” he said.

She buried her head in his shoulder, crying. He saw people on the
terrace watching them and didn’t care.

“We can talk,” he whispered. “I’ll have some time to myself now ... a
month or two. We can do a lot of talking and decide. I can’t lose you,
Ginny.”

She lifted her face and he bent down and kissed her, feeling her mouth
warm and soft with the sun.

“We’ll try, Frank,” she said a moment later. “Perhaps we can do
something ... I don’t know what. You’re cut off from me. You’re cut off
from the rest of the human race now.”

He choked at her words. Cut off from the human race. Yes, he was.

To help them, he had isolated himself from them. And from her.

“I’d better go to work now,” she told him. “Call me tonight. You can
come over. We’ll talk, as you say. Perhaps in a month or two....”

He said, “I hope so.”

He paid the check and they walked out of the cafe, holding hands. He
took her to a copter station and stood watching the machine rise into
the sky, blades making a silver whirl.

He had a cigarette in his hands, but his fingers tightened on it and
crushed it. He felt the tobacco slip through his fingers as he watched
the copter in the sky.

In the window, he had seen her crying.

       *       *       *       *       *

He went back to the hospital because he had no other place to go. There
was a message for him at the main desk. Dr. Lord wanted to see him.

Ridley found the tall, gray-haired scientist in his office, gazing
out of the window and smoking a brown cigar. When Ridley came in, the
doctor turned, anxiety on his darkly tanned old face.

“I got your message at the desk,” Ridley said awkwardly.

“Yes, uh, Frank, sit down.”

Lord seated himself in a large red leather swivel chair behind the
desk. He rolled the cigar in his fingers nervously.

“Something important?” Ridley asked.

“I’m afraid so. I hate to tell you this, Frank.”

Ridley frowned. “What is it?”

“You’ve been under a strain for a whole year,” Lord went on, “and I
promised you time to rest, but now....”

“Doctor,” Ridley said quietly, “tell me.”

“Well, Frank, you know that I told you about experiments similar to
mine that are being conducted on Mars.”

Ridley remembered that. “University of Marsopolis, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. Dr. Thag. A brilliant man, brilliant. But he’s run into trouble.
I received a beam message from him just about an hour ago. His plasma
replacement technique was faulty, somehow. His subject went insane and
had to be shot.”

Ridley tightened a hand on the chair arm.

“That sort of thing can’t be allowed to go on,” Lord told him
earnestly. “We scientists have the right to experiment, but not at the
risk of damaging human life. That’s why we’ve always had such a hell of
a hard time. I was almost ninety-nine per cent sure the technique was
correct when I started the experiment on you.”

“Get to the point,” Ridley said irritably.

“Frank, I’m taking the rocket to Marsopolis tonight. I want to help Dr.
Thag. I want to set up a demonstration replacement, perhaps lasting
only a few moments, just enough for him to check and find his mistake.
I need you for a subject.”

“For God’s sake,” Ridley said suddenly, “haven’t I had enough? Twelve
months in this goddamned hospital and now....”

“I know, I know,” Lord interrupted. “And I’m sorry. But it’s got to be
done, if we want to see man’s dream of long life come true. I thought
you were interested in that dream when I chose you. You said you were.”

Ridley remembered his father, an educator at a great university, who
had told him of the cruelty in man, the greed, the grasping hunger. His
father had made him learn the great lesson: that man was in too much of
a hurry. That he needed more time, to develop his skill in living with
other men. That a normal span of years only gave occasional glimmerings
of the peace between men that could be achieved. With time could come
education ... education of the spirit. That was the dream.

Ridley shook his head wearily. “I still want what you want.”

“Then you’ll come? The rocket jets off at ten tonight, Waukegan Port.”

Desperately, Ridley thought of Ginny and the months they were to have
spent. They, too, needed time, to work out the problem that lay between
them. For a long minute, Ridley thought about her.

And then his brain became suddenly alert.

Perhaps ... perhaps....

“Dr. Lord, I want something in return, if I go with you. It’s selfish,
I know it’s selfish, but it’s something I need.”

Lord put the cigar between his lips, drew in and blew out a cloud of
smoke. He rolled the cigar around in his fingers once more.

“Go ahead.”

With hope churning crazily in him, Ridley leaned forward and began to
speak....

       *       *       *       *       *

Ridley was waiting for Ginny that afternoon when she came home from her
job at the Department of Fuel Statistics. He stood in the lobby of the
apartment building, smoking. When he saw her coming toward the door, he
crushed out his cigarette under his foot.

She let the door close slowly when she saw him. In his face she could
see trouble and anxiety. Without a word, she went to the lift and
pressed the button.

They rode up to the twelfth floor in silence. Not until they were in
her small apartment did she speak.

“Something’s wrong, isn’t it, Frank?”

The words stuck in his throat. He couldn’t tell her. All he could say
was, “Yes.”

She walked to the window and pressed a button. The inlaid panels folded
away, exposing a great expanse of glassite. Twilight lay on the lake
beyond. Down Lake Drive, in either direction, lights began to come on
in the towers. They were warm yellow lights, but to Ridley they were
lonely and beyond reach. They were the lights of normal human homes.
Ginny smoked quietly, watching the lake, waiting for him to speak. When
he did say something, it was clumsy and halting, and he knew it the
moment it was out of his mouth.

“Ginny ... I’m ... going.”

She turned. “Where?”

“To Mars.”

“At least you’re telling me this time.”

“Ginny, I’ve got to go....” He moved close to her, speaking rapidly,
feeling the drive inside of him. He explained the situation, and went
on, spilling out the dream that he had held for years ... of no more
war ... no more hatred ... and long golden days chat could be filled
with learning and real enjoyment of the beauty of the world they lived
in.

“It’s all very nice,” she said harshly, “but it doesn’t help us. We
have no time to talk this thing out.”

“Ginny, that’s bitter talk. You’ve waited a long time, and I’m sorry,
but now you’re bitter because there’s something else I have to do.”

“One or the other, Frank. That’s the way it’s got to be. Somewhere,
everybody has to make a choice.”

“We don’t have to.”

She slipped her cigarette into a wall dispenser and it vanished with a
ghostly whisper of air.

“What do you mean?”

“I talked to Dr. Lord for a long time this afternoon, I argued with him
... told him about you ... us ... and I finally persuaded him.”

She did not ask another question, but waited.

After a moment, Ridley took a deep breath and said, “Dr. Lord will give
you the new blood, if you want it. You can live to be as old as I am.”

“Oh, Frank....”

She held on to him tightly, and he grew cold when he heard her whisper,
“I can’t. I can’t, I can’t.”

He said softly, “Why?”

She broke away, pointing out the window at the tower and the lights
along the lake.

“Look at the lights, Frank. Those belong to people who are in love
like we are. They have homes, and children, and normal lives. I want
that, Frank. I want to belong to the human race.” Her voice was full of
sorrow.

“And my loving you ... that isn’t enough?”

“I don’t know, Frank. I honestly don’t know.”

“It’s late, Ginny.” His arms went around her again. “We’re late. Out
of all the people in this crazy mixed-up world, we have to be the ones
with only hours to decide. I guess I’ve got the dream to work for. I
guess you can’t have everything.”

He pushed her away gently. “I’ve got to go. I’ve got to be at Waukegan
Port by ten.”

Picking up his coat from the couch, he walked quietly to the door.
There, he turned and took one final look at her, wanting to remember
the way she was standing, looking at the yellow lights in the towers
that meant so much to her.

All the way down in the lift, he felt a terrible sense of loneliness,
of emptiness, as if a chunk of his being had been somehow cut out of
him. Now all that remained was his long, long life. It would have to be
filled with work. He would have to lose himself in that work, trying
to help people. He would have to make time for more people to live.
Perhaps he could forget her.

Out in the street, he headed for a mobile station. A rocket burned
across the sky, like a star falling away and becoming lost in the dark.

Ridley hurried on. Rain began to spatter lightly on his face. It was
cold rain.

A man and a woman hurried by him, laughing, holding hands. He hunted
for a cigarette, but could not get it lit. The man and woman were gone
down the street.

And Frank Ridley knew that no matter how he worked, no matter how far
he traveled to the worlds lying far out in the rocket lanes, that the
years without her would be as cold and as dark as the rain through
which he walked....

       *       *       *       *       *

Lord was not at the hospital. One of the nurses gave Ridley a suitcase
full of new clothes. He ate dinner in the dining-room with the doctors
and nurses. One young student-nurse stared at him as he was eating,
tremendous curiosity on her young face. Someone in the hospital must
have told her about him.

He bent down over his food. That would be the way of it. Wherever he
went, stares. People looking at him, envying him.

He sat up straight. His fork rattled against his plate. They might
begrudge him the extra years. For a long, long time, they might ...
hate him.

After dinner he took a mobile out to the Waukegan Port. He chainsmoked,
and his throat was not used to it. He was coughing hoarsely by the time
he reached the field.

The rocket lay in its launching rack. Passengers were already boarding.
The great expanse of concrete was lit by search-beams that shone
brightly behind the rain.

For Ridley, it was goodbye to Earth for a while. Goodbye to the Earth
he had known only for one day. He would come to know it again, but it
would be remote and alien then.

He walked through the gate in the wire fence after showing his
credentials. He walked straight across the field, the bag leaden in his
hand. The rain fell and ran down all over his face and soaked his hair
and his coat. He kept walking. He kept thinking about her.

All at once he stopped, shook his head and straightened up. He
quickened his step and went briskly up the ramp into the great hull.

He found his cabin, hung up the wet coat and deposited his bag. Then,
he proceeded to the lounge where he ordered a drink. Whisky tasted
good, warm and mellow, after being cut off from life for so long.

Lord stood by the observation window, watching the bustle of activity
on the field. Huge crates of machinery were being loaded into a lower
hold. Ridley touched Lord’s arm lightly to let him know that he had
arrived.

The doctor’s face was worried.

“What did she say?” he asked.

“No,” Frank replied evenly. He took a sip of the whisky. “She said no.”

“Um. I beamed Dr. Thag. He’ll meet us at the port in Marsopolis.
I expect we’ll be there for a month or so. He wants to study the
technique thoroughly, talk to you and all that. There’ll be other
doctors there, from all over Mars....”

“If you don’t mind,” Ridley said, “I wish you wouldn’t talk to me about
that tonight.”

“Oh,” said Lord, “sorry.”

The warning siren screamed through the ship. Ridley glanced at his
wrist chron. “Five minutes till jet off,” he said.

He turned back, watching the field.

A figure was running across the wet concrete toward the ship. Ridley
smiled at that. It would be ironical. Missing a trip to Mars by a
matter of minutes.

Suddenly, he put the palm of one hand against the window, pressing,
straining to see.

The figure came on, through the rain, hurrying ... hurrying....

Ridley breathed, “Ginny....”

He was waiting for her on the ramp. She was calling to him. The lights
and the rain made a crazy blur. Ridley felt his suit cling to his body.
She came up the ramp and slipped. He caught her and pulled her to him.

“I’m going,” she said, “I’m going with you....”

Frank Ridley, with the blood of near-immortality in him, was crying,
because the years ahead had looked so dark and lonely, and because no
one could tell he was crying as they stood together in the rain.

Finally, the purser signaled for the ramp to be rolled up. They hurried
inside.

“I had to come,” she told him. “I love you, Frank. It’s enough for us,
love. I thought about you being alone, and I knew I wanted to be with
you....”

He kissed her.

       *       *       *       *       *

After changing his suit, he joined her in the lounge. The lights had
been turned out, so that the passengers could observe the spectacle of
take-off. Ginny stood beside Dr. Lord, talking and smoking. The jets
made thunder.

They were well beyond the atmosphere of Earth when Ridley put his arm
around her. She leaned close and kissed his cheek.

“Dr. Lord and I have been talking,” she said. “He’s told me about the
experiments. If you can stay with me in the hospital....”

Ridley nodded.

They watched Earth falling away. The rain had been left far behind.
Every minute or so, Frank would turn and look at her. The cigarette
illuminated her face with a warm orange glow, and in her eyes he saw
love for many lifetimes.

He held her tightly, and together they watched Earth grow smaller, no
longer cold, but now full of greenness and warmth and the dream they
would some day come to share.

Dr. Lord smiled as he sat and watched the first two immortals....




  Transcriber’s note:


  This etext was produced from Avon Science Fiction and Fantasy Reader,
  April 1953 (Vol. 1, no. 2).

  Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but
  minor inconsistencies have been retained as printed.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78908 ***