She told him she didn’t know the meaning of either term.
“The Japanese were, and maybe still are, an island race,” he told her. “They loved eating squid. Squids are a kind of fish. A primitive kind with very soft bodies and lots of tentacles. Look like something out of a bad dream but to the Japanese they were a delicacy. Well, not to just the Japanese; other people ate squid as well but the Japanese were obsessive about it. Their favourite kind of squid was a species called surumeika. They bred these in huge squid farms in the seas around their islands. Then they started playing around with their genes to produce larger, faster-growing surumeika … and the inevitable happened.”
“Which was?”
“Some of them got out of the farms and into the open sea. They bred with natural surumeika and the resulting hybrid was a new species of super-squid. Fast-breeding, tough—and smart. This new squid has thrived at the expense of most other types of fish. But the surumeika are not the only hazards out in the oceans and finally we had to admit defeat and move to what we mistakenly thought would be safer waters close to shore. …” He shook his head sadly.
“Lord Pangloth?” she asked.
“Yes. Out in the ocean we rarely saw Sky Lords. If one was spotted we did the same as when a bad storm threatened the habitat—we submerged it a few hundred feet below the surface. At that depth we were safe from bombs as well as storms. Thankfully the art of making depth charges has been lost by the armourers of the Sky Lords. But when we were forced into shallow waters we could no longer protect ourselves in that way. We couldn’t descend deep enough, so when Lord Pangloth appeared, told us we were now within his territory and demanded tribute, we had no choice but to try and fight back.”
“Why didn’t you pay his tribute?”
“We were in the same situation as your people were. We subsisted mainly on fish and plankton farming and were barely able to feed our own population, so we couldn’t spare any food. Once we had machines that could extract certain ores and chemicals from the sea water but most of those no longer functioned. They had been cannibalized for parts to keep our most precious machine working—a solar-powered unit that converted sea water into fresh water. So we resisted. We had some primitive cannon and harpoon guns that we’d been using against the surumeika and the giant sea worms but it was useless. The lasers destroyed the shells and harpoons like they destroyed your rockets.
“And, of course, we were a sitting target for the Sky Lord’s bombs. The habitat’s flotation chambers were ripped open and down it went. I was one of the few survivors. I got picked up and I’ve been here ever since.”
“Three years, you said.”
“Yes, three years. And it seems like thirty. But I know one thing for certain—I’m not going to spend another three years in this aerial zoo.”
That’s true, she said to herself as she thought of the bomb concealed in her overalls. Hastily she said, “How long did you live on that floating town?”
“Since I was born. Nearly two centuries ago.”
Her eyes widened with surprise. “That means. …”
“Yes,” he said, “I’m nearly at the end of my allotted span. By my reckoning I’m one hundred and eighty years old. Which means, as you were about to observe, that I have a minimum of fourteen years of life left, and a maximum of nineteen. It was thoughtful of our re-designers to provide us with the five year ‘uncertainty’ period at the end of our lives. It would be in extremely poor taste if we knew the exact day that we were due to genetically self-destruct, relatively painless though the process may be.” He smiled bleakly.
“I’ve never met anyone as old as you before,” Jan said as she gazed at him with new interest.
“No? But surely you have,” he said, puzzled. “There must have been people in your town who lived out their full span of life.”
“No. Not now, anyway. Avedon is … was … one of the oldest. She was over a hundred. But my mother said that when she was a young girl she remembered many Minervans who reached their day of Passing Over.”
He made a face. “Trust you Minervans to call it that. I suppose it’s another sign of the times, though, that your people weren’t making it to the target year. The increasing harshness in living conditions down there on the ground is boosting the rate of natural wastage. Then again, I have yet to meet anyone as old as me up here. The Aristos may be a different kettle of fish. They sure don’t put themselves at risk if they can help it so I expect their average survival rate is high.”
She was regarding him thoughtfully. “That’s why you know so much about the old days—because you’re so old.”
He laughed. “I’m not that old. No, history was my hobby. We had a well-stocked library of electronic records on the habitat. And there was plenty of time to study. Life on the habitat used to be fairly safe and uneventful—up until about thirty years ago when all that accumulating genetic shit passed its critical mass and suddenly we were up to our eyeballs in squid, mutated seaweed and those damn sea worms. …” He stopped, picked up the canteen and took a long drink from it, as if trying to wash away the sour taste of his memories. When he put the canteen down he was smiling again. “I’m surprised you think I know ‘so much’ about the old days—I was under the impression you thought I spoke nothing but rubbish and nonsense.”
She didn’t rise to the bait. Instead she said, “Doesn’t it worry you? Being so close to your day of … of Passing Over?”
“Sometimes,” he admitted. “But not much. Not yet at least. I’m sure it will in ten years time, if I live that long. Then I’ll start cursing those damn twenty-first century politicians and their two hundred year ruling. When you think we had the secret of immortality in our grasp and did nothing with it … Madness. And now we’ve lost it.”
Her expression was a sceptical one. “Could we really have been made immortal?”
“Indeed. In the same way that the human life-span was extended from an average of seventy years to two hundred. It’s the same mechanism—the genetic prevention of cell maturation. The secret was discovered through cancer research. Unlike normal cells, which usually die after fifty divisions, cancer cells are immortal. They can keep on dividing forever because they never reach maturation and therefore the molecular clocks within their nuclei are not activated. When the genes responsible were identified it was possible to apply the changes to normal cells—except that instead of our cells being immortal their maturation has simply been delayed.”
“Was anyone ever made immortal?”
“Oh yes. Many people underwent the necessary genetic modification. The rich and very powerful. It cost a lot because it was absolutely forbidden by international law. And the penalties for all concerned were very severe. But, of course, a lot of people were prepared to take the risk.”
“So there might be immortals still alive?”
“No. The ones that survived the Gene Wars were killed in the purges that followed. As the perpetrators of the Gene Wars and the immortals tended to be one and the same the mobs killed two birds with one stake.”
“Stake?”
“It was a fad at the time—driving wooden stakes through the hearts of suspected immortals. Originated, I think, from vampire folklore. Of course, a lot of people who probably weren’t immortals died the same way. They were confused times.”
There was a loud clanging sound. Milo frowned, then started to put the remains of the food away. “That’s the signal. Time for us to go to work. But first we may have some trouble with Benny and the other overseers.” He reached down and helped her to her feet. “Just stay close by me and let me do all the talking.”