The Dwindling Years, Lester Del Rey [interesting novels to read .txt] 📗

class='c005'>An immortal man had suddenly found death hovering on his trail. The years had dwindled and gone, and only a few were left.

He stood up, holding out his hand. “Thank you, Doctor,” he said, and was surprised to find he meant it. The man had done all he could and had at least saved him the suspense of growing doubt and horrible eventual discovery.

OUTSIDE ON the street, he looked up at the Sun and then at the buildings built to last for thousands of years. Their eternity was no longer a part of him.

Even his car would outlast him.

He climbed into it, still partly numbed, and began driving mechanically, no longer wondering about the dangers that might possibly arise. Those wouldn’t matter much now. For a man who had thought of living almost forever, thirty years was too short a time to count.

He was passing near the club and started to slow. Then he went on without stopping. He wanted no chance to have them asking questions he couldn’t answer. It was none of their business. Dubbins had been kind—but now Giles wanted no kindness.

The street led to the office and he drove on. What else was there for him? There, at least, he could still fill his time with work—work that might even be useful. In the future, men would need the super-light drive if they were to span much more of the Universe than now. And he could speed up the work in some ways still, even if he could never see its finish.

It would be cold comfort but it was something. And he might keep busy enough to forget sometimes that the years were gone for him.

Automatic habit carried him through the office again, to Amanda’s desk, where her worry was still riding her. He managed a grin and somehow the right words came to his lips. “I saw the doctor, Amanda, so you can stop figuring ways to get me there.”

She smiled back suddenly, without feigning it. “Then you’re all right?”

“As all right as I’ll ever be,” he told her. “They tell me I’m just growing old.”

This time her laugh was heartier. He caught himself before he could echo her mirth in a different voice and went inside where she had the coffee waiting for him.

Oddly, it still tasted good to him.

The projection was off, he saw, wondering whether he’d left it on or not. He snapped the switch and saw the screen light up, with the people still in the odd, wheelless vehicle on the alien planet.

FOR A long moment, he stared at the picture without thinking, and then bent closer. Harry’s face hadn’t changed much. Giles had almost forgotten it, but there was still the same grin there. And his grandchildren had a touch of it, too. And of their grandfather’s nose, he thought. Funny, he’d never seen even pictures of his other grandchildren. Family ties melted away too fast for interstellar travel.

Yet there seemed to be no slackening of them in Harry’s case, and somehow it looked like a family, rather than a mere group. A very pleasant family in a very pleasant world.

He read Harry’s note again, with its praise for the planet and its invitation. He wondered if Dr. Vincenti had received an invitation like that, before he left. Or had he even been one of those to whom the same report had been delivered by some doctor? It didn’t matter, but it would explain things, at least.

Twenty years to Centaurus, while the years dwindled down—

Then abruptly the line finished itself. “The years dwindle down to a precious few....” he remembered. “A precious few.”

Those dwindling years had been precious once. He unexpectedly recalled his own grandfather holding him on an old knee and slipping him candy that was forbidden. The years seemed precious to the old man then.

Amanda’s voice came abruptly over the intercom. “Jordan wants to talk to you,” she said, and the irritation was sharp in her voice. “He won’t take no!”

Giles shrugged and reached for the projector, to cut it off. Then, on impulse, he set it back to the picture, studying the group again as he switched on Jordan’s wire.

But he didn’t wait for the hot words about whatever was the trouble.

“Bill,” he said, “start getting the big ship into production. I’ve found a volunteer.”

He’d been driven to it, he knew, as he watched the man’s amazed face snap from the screen. From the first suspicion of his trouble, something inside him had been forcing him to make this decision. And maybe it would do no good. Maybe the ship would fail. But thirty years was a number a man could risk.

If he made it, though....

Well, he’d see those grandchildren of his this year—and Harry. Maybe he’d even tell Harry the truth, once they got done celebrating the reunion. And there’d be other grandchildren. With the ship, he’d have time enough to look them up. Plenty of time!

Thirty years was a long time, when he stopped to think of it.