Methuselah's Children (3 page)

"Thus, a combination of luck and foresight saved our secret from public disclosure. This was well-we may be sure that things would have gone harshly at that time for any group possessing a prize beyond the power of the Prophet to confiscate.

"The Families took no part as such in the events leading up to the Second American Revolution, but many members participated and served with credit in the Cabal and in the fighting which preceded the fall of New Jerusalem. We took advantage of the period of disorganization which followed to readjust the ages of our kin who had grown conspicuously old. In this we were aided by certain members of the Families who, as members of the Cabal, held key posts in the Reconstruction.

"It was argued by many at the Families' meeting of 2075, the year of the Covenant, that we should reveal ourselves, since civil liberty was firmly re-established. The majority did not agree at that time . . . perhaps through long habits of secrecy and caution. But the renascence of culture in the ensuing fifty years, the steady growth of tolerance and good manners, the semantically sound orientation of education, the increased respect for the custom of privacy and for the dignity of the individual-all of these things led us to believe that the time had at last come when it was becoming safe to reveal ourselves and to take our rightful place as an odd but nonetheless respected minority in society.

"There were compelling reasons to do so. Increasing numbers of us were finding the 'Masquerade' socially intolerable in a new and better society. Not only was it upsetting to pull up roots and seek a new background every few years but also it grated to have to live a lie in a society where frank honesty and fair dealing were habitual with most people. Besides that, the Families as a group had learned many things through our researches in the bio-sciences, things which could be of great benefit to our poor short-lived brethren. We needed freedom to help them.

"These and similar reasons were subject to argument. But the resumption of the custom of positive physical identification made the 'Masquerade' almost untenable. Under the new orientation a sane and peaceful citizen welcomes positive identification under appropriate circumstances even though jealous of his right of privacy at all other times-so we dared not object; it would have aroused curiosity, marked us as an eccentric group, set apart, and thereby have defeated the whole purpose of the 'Masquerade.'

"We necessarily submitted to personal identification. By the time of the meeting of 2125, eleven years ago, it had become extremely difficult to counterfeit new identities for the ever-increasing number of us holding public ages incompatible with personal appearance; we decided on the experiment of letting volunteers from this group up to ten per cent of the total membership of the Families reveal themselves for what they were and observe the consequences, while maintaining all other secrets of the Families' organization.

"The results were regrettably different from our expectations."

Justin Foote stopped talking. The silence had gone on for several moments when a solidly built man of medium height spoke up. His hair was slightly grizzled-unusual in that group-and his face looked space tanned. Mary Sperling had noticed him and had wondered who he was-his live face and gusty laugh had interested her. But any member Was free to attend the conclaves of the Families' council; she had thought no more of it.

He said, "Speak up, Bud. What's your report?"

Foote made his answer to the chair. "Our senior psychometrician should give the balance of the report. My remarks were prefatory."

"For the love o'-" the grizzled stranger exclaimed. "Bud, do you mean to stand there and admit that all you had to say were things we already knew?"

"My remarks were a foundation . . . and my name is Justin Foote, not 'Bud.' "

Mary Sperling broke in firmly. "Brother," she said to the stranger, "since you are addressing the Families, will you please name yourself? I am sorry to say that I do not recognize you."

"Sorry, Sister. Lazarus Long, speaking for myself."

Mary shook her head. "I still don't place you."

"Sorry again-that's a 'Masquerade' name I took at the time of the First Prophet . . . it tickled me. My Family name is Smith . . . Woodrow Wilson Smith."

" 'Woodrow Wilson Sm-'
How old are you?"

"Eh? Why, I haven't figured it lately. One hun . . . no, two hundred and-thirteen years. Yeah, that's right, two hundred and thirteen."

There was a sudden, complete silence. Then Mary said quietly, "Did you hear me inquire for anyone older than myself?"

"Yes. But shucks, Sister, you were doing all right. I ain't attended a meeting of the Families in over a century. Been some changes."

"I'll ask you to carry on from here." She started to leave the platform.

"Oh no!" he protested. But she paid no attention and found a seat. He looked around, shrugged and gave in. Sprawling one hip over a corner of the speaker's table he announced, "All right, let's get on with it. Who's next?"

Ralph Schultz of the Schultz Family looked more like a banker than a psychometrician. He was neither shy nor absent-minded and he had a flat, underemphasized way of talking that carried authority. "I was part of the group that proposed ending the 'Masquerade.' I was wrong. I believed that the great majority of our fellow citizens, reared under modern educational methods, could evaluate any data without excessive emotional disturbance. I anticipated that a few abnormal people would dislike us, even hate us; I even predicted that most people would envy us-everybody who enjoys life would like to live a long time. But I did not anticipate any serious trouble. Modern attitudes have done away with inter-racial friction; any who still harbor race prejudice are ashamed to voice it. I believed that our society was so tolerant that we could live peacefully and openly with the short-lived.

"I was wrong.

"The Negro hated and envied the white man as long as the white man enjoyed privileges forbidden the Negro by reason of color. This was a sane, normal reaction. When discrimination was removed, the problem solved itself and cultural assimilation took place. There is a similar tendency on the part of the short-lived to envy the long-lived. We assumed that this expected reaction would be of no social importance in most people once it was made clear that we owe our peculiarity to our genes-no fault nor virtue of our own, just good luck in our ancestry.

"This was mere wishful thinking. By hindsight it is easy to see that correct application of mathematical analysis to the data would have given a different answer, would have spotlighted the false analogy. I do not defend the misjudgment, no defense is possible. We were led astray by our hopes.

"What actually happened was this: we showed our shortlived cousins the greatest boon it is possible for a man to imagine . . . then we told them it could never be theirs. This faced them with an unsolvable dilemma. They have rejected the unbearable facts, they refuse to believe us. Their envy now turns to hate, with an emotional conviction that we are depriving them of their rights . . . deliberately, maliciously.

"That rising hate has now swelled into a flood which threatens the welfare and even the lives of all our revealed brethren . . . and which is potentially as dangerous to the rest of us. The danger is very great and very pressing." He sat down abruptly.

They took it calmly, with the unhurried habit of years. Presently a female delegate stood up. "Eve Barstow, for the Cooper Family. Ralph Schultz, I am a hundred and nineteen years old, older, I believe, than you are. I do not have your talent for mathematics and human behavior but I have known a lot of people. Human beings are inherently good and gentle and kind. Oh, they have their weaknesses but most of them are decent enough if you give them half a chance. I cannot believe that they would hate me and destroy me simply because I have lived a long time. What have you to go on? You admit one mistake-why not two?"

Schultz looked at her soberly and smoothed his kilt "You're right, Eve. I could easily be wrong again. That's the trouble with psychology; it is a subject so terribly complex, so many unknowns, such involved relationships, that our best efforts sometimes look silly in the bleak light of later facts." He stood up again, faced the others, and again spoke with flat authority. "But I am not making a long-range prediction this time; I am talking about facts, no guesses, not wishful thinking-and with those facts a prediction so short-range that it is like predicting that an egg will break when you see it already on its way to the floor. But Eve is right . . . as far as she went. Individuals
are
kind and decent . . . as individuals and to other individuals. Eve is in no danger from her neighbors and friends, and I am in no danger from mine. But she is in danger from
my
neighbors and friends-and I from hers. Mass psychology is not simply a summation of individual psychologies; that is a prime theorem of social psychodynamics-not just my opinion; no exception has ever been found to this theorem. It is the social mass-action rule, the mob-hysteria law, known and used by military, political, and religious leaders, by advertising men and prophets and propagandists, by rabble rousers and actors and gang leaders, for generations before it was formulated in mathematical symbols. It works. It is working now.

"My colleagues and I began to suspect that a mob-hysteria trend was building up against us several years ago. We did not bring our suspicions to the council for action because we could not prove anything. What we observed then could have been simply the mutterings of the crackpot minority present in even the healthiest society. The trend was at first so minor that we could not be sure it existed, for all social trends are intermixed with other social trends, snarled together like a plate of spaghetti-worse than that, for it takes an abstract topological space of many dimensions (ten or twelve are not uncommon and hardly adequate) to describe mathematically the interplay of social forces. I cannot overemphasize the complexity of the problem.

"So we waited and worried and tried statistical sampling, setting up our statistical universes with great care.

"By the time we were sure, it was almost too late. Sociopsychological trends grow or die by a 'yeast growth' law, a complex power law. We continued to hope that other favorable factors would reverse the trend-Nelson's work in symbiotics, our own contributions to geriatrics, the great public interest in the opening of the Jovian satellites to immigration. Any major break-through offering longer life and greater hope to the short-lived could end the smoldering resentment against us.

"Instead the smoldering has burst into flame, into an uncontrolled forest fire. As nearly as we can measure it, the rate has doubled in the past thirty-seven days and the rate itself is accelerated. I can't guess how far or how fast it will go-and that's why we asked for this emergency session. Because we can expect trouble at any moment." He sat down hard, looking tired.

Eve did not argue with him again and no one else argued with him at all; not only was Ralph Schultz considered expert in his own field but also every one of them, each from his own viewpoint, had seen the grosser aspects of the trend building up against their revealed kin. But, while the acceptance of the problem was unanimous, there were as many opinions about what to do about it as there were people present. Lazarus let the discussion muddle along for two hours before he held up a hand. "We aren't getting anywhere," he stated, "and it looks like we won't get anywhere tonight. Let's take an over-all look at it, hitting just the high spots:

"We can-" He started ticking plans off on his fingers-"do nothing, sit tight, and see what happens.

"We can junk the 'Masquerade' entirely, reveal our full numbers, and demand our rights politically.

"We can sit tight on the surface and use our organization and money to protect our revealed brethren, maybe haul 'em back into the 'Masquerade.'

"We can reveal ourselves and ask for a place to colonize where we can live by ourselves.

"Or we can do something else. I suggest that you sort yourselves out according to those four major points of view-say in the corners of the room, starting clockwise in that far right hand corner-each group hammer out a plan and get it ready to submit to the Families. And those of you who don't favor any of those four things gather in the middle of the room and start scrappin' over just what it is you do think. Now, if I hear no objection, I am going to declare this lodge recessed until midnight tomorrow night. How about it?"

No one spoke up. Lazarus Long's streamlined version of parliamentary procedure had them somewhat startled; they were used to long, leisurely discussions until it became evident that one point of view had become unanimous. Doing things in a hurry was slightly shocking.

But the man's personality was powerful, his years gave him prestige, and his slightly archaic way of speaking added to his patriarchal authority; nobody argued.

"Okay," Lazarus announced, clapping his hands once. "Church is out until tomorrow night." He stepped down from the platform.

Mary Sperling came up to him, "I would like to know you better," she said, looking him in the eyes.

"Sure, Sis. Why not?"

"Are you staying for discussion?"

"No."

"Could you come home with me?"

"Like to. I've no pressing business elsewhere."

"Come then." She led him through the tunnel to the underground pool connecting with Lake Michigan. He widened his eyes at the pseudo-Camden but said nothing until they were submerged.

"Nice little car you've got."

"Yes."

"Has some unusual features."

She smiled. "Yes. Among other things, it blows up-quite thoroughly-if anyone tries to investigate it."

"Good." He added, "You a designing engineer, Mary?"

"Me? Heavens, no! Not this past century, at least, and I no longer try to keep up with such things. But you can order a car modified the way this one is through the Families, if you want one. Talk to-"

"Never mind, I've no need for one. I just like gadgets that do what they were designed to do and do it quietly and efficiently. Some good skull sweat in this one."