Immortality, Inc by Robert Sheckley

Author:Robert Sheckley
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: sf
ISBN: 0812519310
Publisher: Legend
Published: 1959-02-14T18:30:00+00:00

18

The hunters returned to the city in a group and threw a wild celebration. During the evening, Sammy Jones asked Blaine if he would join him on the next job.

“I've got a nice deal lined up in Omsk,” Jones said. “A Russian nobleman wants to hold a couple of gladiatorial games. You'd have to use a spear, but it's the same as a rifle. I'd train you on the way. After Omsk, there's a really big hunt being organized in Manila. Five brothers want to suicide together. They want fifty hunters to cut them down. What do you say, Tom?”

Blaine thought carefully before answering. The hunter's life was the most compatible he had found so far in this world. He liked the rough companionship of men like Sammy Jones, the straight, simple thinking, the life outdoors, the action that erased all doubts.

On the other hand there was something terribly pointless about wandering around the world as a paid killer, a modern and approved version of the bully, the bravo, the thug. There was something futile about action just for action's sake, with no genuine intent or purpose behind it, no resolution or discovery. These considerations might not arise if he were truly what his body seemed; but he was not. The hiatus existed, and had to be faced.

And finally there were other problems that this world presented, other challenges more apropos to his personality. And those had to be met. “Sorry, Sammy,” he said.

Jones shook his head. “You’re making a mistake, Tom. You’re a natural-born killer. There's nothing else for you.”

“Perhaps not,” Blaine said. “I have to find out.”

“Well, good luck,” Sammy Jones said. “And take care of that body of yours. You picked a good one.”

Blaine blinked involuntarily. “Is it so obvious?”

Jones grinned. “I been around, Tom. I can tell when a man is wearing a host. If your mind had been born in that body, you'd be away and hunting with me. And if your mind had been born in a different body —”

“Yes?”

“You wouldn't have gone hunting in the first place. It's a bad splice, Tom. You'd better figure out which way you’re going.”

“Thanks,” Blaine said. They shook hands and Blaine left for his hotel.

He reached his room and flung himself, fully dressed, upon the bed. When he awoke he would call Marie. But first, he had to sleep. All plans, thoughts, problems, decisions, even dreams, would have to wait. He was tired down to the very bone.

He snapped off the lights. Within seconds he was asleep.

Several hours later he awoke with a sensation of something wrong. The room was dark. Everything was still, more silent and expectant than New York had any right to be.

He sat upright in bed and heard a faint movement on the other side of the room, near the washbasin.

Blaine reached out and snapped on the light. There was no one in the room. But as he watched, his enamelled washbasin rose in the air. Slowly it lifted, hovering impossibly without support. And at the same time he heard a thin shattering laugh.

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