Yugo started explaining his results. One curious feature of Empire history was the human lifespan. It was still about l00 years, but some early writings suggested that these were nearly twice as long as the “primordial year” (as one text had it), which was “natural” to humans. If so, people lived nearly twice as long as in pre-Imperial eras. Indefinite extension of the lifespan was impossible; biology always won, in the end. New maladies moved into the niche provided by the human body.
“I got the basics on this from Dors-sharp lady,” Yugo said. “Watch this data-flash.” Curves, 30 projections, sliding sheets of correlations.
The collision between biological science and human culture was always intense, often damaging. It usually led to a free-market policy, in which parents could select desirable traits for their children.
Some opted for longevity, increasing to 125, then even 150 years. When a majority were long-lived, such planetary societies faltered. Why?
“So I traced the equations, watching for outside influences,” Yugo went on. Gone was the fevered Dahlite; here was the brilliance that had made Hari pluck Yugo out of a sweltering deep-layer job, decades ago.
Through the equations’ graceful, deceptive sinuosity, he had found a curious resonance. There were underlying cycles in economics and politics, well understood, of about 120 to 150 years.
When the human life span reached those ranges, a destructive feedback began. Markets became jagged landscapes, peaking and plunging. Cultures lurched from extravagant excess to puritanical constriction. Within a few centuries, chaos destroyed most of the bioscience capability, or else religious restrictions smothered it. The mean lifespan slid down again.
“How strange,” Hari said, observing the severe curves of the cycles, their arcs crashing into splintered spokes. “I’ve always wondered why we don’t live longer.”
“There’s great social pressure against it. Now we know where it comes from.”
“Still…I’d like to have a centuries-long, productive life.”
Yugo grinned. “Look at the media-plays, legends, holos. The very old are always ugly, greedy misers, trying to keep everything for themselves.”
“Ummm. True, usually.”
“And myths. Those who rise from the dead. Vampires. Mummies. They’re always evil.”
“No exceptions?”
Yugo nodded. “Dors pulled some really old ones out for me. There was that ancient martyr-Jesu, wasn’t it?”
“Some sort of resurrection myth?”
“Dors says Jesu probably wasn’t a real person. That’s what the scattered, ancient texts say. The whole myth is prob’ly a collective psychodream. You’ll notice, once he was back from the dead, he didn’t stay around very long.”
“Rose into heaven, wasn’t it?”
“Left town in a hurry, anyway. People don’t want you around, even if you’ve beaten the Reaper.”
Yugo pointed at the curves, converging on disaster. “At least we can understand why most societies learn not to let people live too long.”
Hari studied the event-surfaces. “Ah, but who learns?”
“Huh? People, one way or the other.”
“But no single person ever knew-” his finger jabbed “-this.”
“The knowledge gets embedded in taboos, legends, laws.”
“Ummm.” There was an idea here, something larger looming just beyond his intuitions…and it slipped away. He would have to wait for it to revisit him-if he ever, these days, got the time to listen to the small, quiet voice that slipped by, whispering, like a shadowy figure on a foggy street…
Hari shook himself. “Good work, this. I’m considerably impressed. Publish it.”
“Thought we were keepin’ psychohistory quiet.”
“This is a small element. People will think the rumors are tarted-up versions of this.”
“Psychohistory can’t work if people know.”
“It’s safe. The longevity element will get plenty of coverage and stop speculation.”
“It’ll be a cover, then, against the Imperial snoops?”
“Exactly. “
Yugo grinned. “Funny, how they spy even on an ‘ornament to the Imperium’-that’s what Cleon called you before the Regal Reception last week.”
“He did? I didn’t catch that.”
“Workin’ too much on those Boon Deeds. You got to hand off that stuff.”
“We need more resources for psychohistory.”
“Why not just get some money funneled through from the Emperor?”
“Lamurk would find out, use it against me. Favoritism in the High Council proceedings and so on. You could write the story yourself.”
“Um, maybe so. Sure would be a whole lot easier, though.”
“The idea is to keep our heads down. A void scandal, let Cleon do his diplomatic dance.”
“Cleon also said you were a ‘flower of intellect.’ I recorded it for you.”
“Forget it. Flowers that grow too high get picked.”
10.
Dors got as far as the palace high vestibule. There the Imperial Guard turned her back.
“Damn it, she’s my wife,” Hari said angrily.
“Sorry, it’s a Peremptory Order,” the bland court official said. Hari could hear the capital letters. The phalanx of Specials around Hari did not intimidate this fellow; he wondered if anyone could.
“Look,” he said to Dors, “there’s a bit of time before the meeting. Let’s eat a bit at the High Reception.”
She bristled. “You’re not going in?”
“I thought you understood. I have to. Cleon’s called this meeting-”
“At Lamurk’s instigation.”
“Sure, it’s about this Dahlite business.”
“And that man I knocked down at the reception, he might have been instigated to do it by-”
“Right, Lamurk.” Hari smiled. “All wormholes lead to Lamurk.”
“Don’t forget the Academic Potentate.”
“She’s on my side!”
“ She wants the ministership, Hari. All the rumor mills say so.”
“She can damn well have it,” he grumbled.
“I can’t let you go in there.”
“This is the palace.” He swept his arm at the ranks of blue-and-gold in the vast portal. “Imperials all around.”
“I do not like it.”
“Look, we agreed I’d try to bluster past-and it failed, just as I said. Fair enough. You would never pass the weapons checks, anyway.”
Her teeth bit delicately into her lower lip, but she said nothing. No humaniforrn could ever get through the intense weapons screen here.
He said calmly, “So I go in, argue, meet you out here”
“You have the maps and data I organized?”
“Sure, chip embedded. I can read it with a triple blink.”
He had a carrychip embedded in his neck for data hauling, an invaluable aid at mathist conferences. Standard gear, readily accessed. A microlaser wrote an image on the back of the retina-colors, 3D, a nifty graphics package. She had installed a lot of maps and background on the Imperium, the palace, recent legislation, notable events, anything that might come up in discussions and protocols.
Her severe expression dissolved and he saw the woman beneath. “I just…please…watch yourself.”
He kissed her on the nose. “Always do.”
They patrolled among the legions of hangers-on who thronged the vestibule, snagging the appetizers which floated by on platters. “Empire’s going bankrupt and they can afford this,” Hari sniffed.
“It is time-honored,” Dors said. “Beaumunn the Bountiful disliked delay in consuming meals, which was indeed his principal activity. He ordered that each of his estates prepare all four daily meals for him, on the chance that he might be there. The excess is given out this way.”
Hari would not have believed such an unlikely story had it not come from an historian. There were knots of people who plainly lived here, using some minor functionary position for an infinite banquet. He and Dors drifted among them, wearing refractory vapors which muddled the appearance. Recognition would bring parasites.