minute!”
“C’mon, Gus. Let’s go to the wake and cheer the corpse on!”
“My God, Darrow, how do you do it?”
The Death Party was assembling, reluctantly, in the vault-roofed lounge of the Beechwoods mansion. George had invited a select few to be “in at the death.”
Indeed, as he said himself, he had outlasted most of his contemporaries find those three represented today were more enemies than friends. George quipped that business enemies had a reputation of being in at the death. He was dressed in his Vietnam campaign battle dress, remarking that he’d cheated Him then as a twenty-year old, so it behooved him to keep the appointment now suitably attired. Most of those present were Talents or connected with the Center. Young Daffyd op Owen was present. So were LEO Commissioner Mailer, trying hard not to look uncomfortable, Governor Lawson, several Senators, representatives from four charitable organizations (probablybenefiting under the will, Henry decided when he saw the guest list), and the four physicians who’d been chosen at random from the AMA directory by George and flown into Jerhattan for the event. That was George’s way of solving any medical question. With a touch of ghoulish humor, George had decreed—not that he didn’t trust the Talents implicitly, but one had to protect oneself—that the autopsy would be performed on his corpse immediately after death had been assumed.
The party consequently generated little joviality despite the abundance of liquor and exotic foods on the sideboard. George ate sparingly, drank slowly. Anything he consumed these days, he complained, tasted sour or flat or insipid and caused heartburn.
Conversations were conducted in sepulchral tones and languished easily. The occasional laugh was quickly suppressed. Only Henry Darrow contrived to look at ease though Molly knew, by the way he rubbed his thumb and index finger together constantly, that he was in a highly nervous condition. She didn’t dare touch him since she was not a whit less distraught herself, and would only double Henry’s tension. The person who was suffering most was young Daffyd op Owen. She had become very fond of the sensitive young man and wished that he didn’t have to be present. He’d not had time to learn to shield himself, certainly not in such an emotionally loaded situation as this. Daffyd was visibly sweating, yet gamely trying to simulate proper party behavior as he chatted with another young Talent, a precog named Mara Canning.
As the appointed time drew nearer, any semblance of normality dwindled: efforts to keep party talk going faltered. Everyone had one eye on the clock and the other on George Henner.
“You’re supposed to be happy,” George Henner complained when the current silence remained unbroken for sixty-four seconds. “My death means you’re all safely ensconced here.” His scowl was ambiguous. Then hepointed a finger at Henry. “So tell me, Hank, if you lose the wager, where will you go? I …” and he laughed hollowly, “or my executors expect you to vacate the premises … immediately.”
“And we will I’ve assembled every telekinetic we’ve got … and a flock of physical muscle men. We can clear the premises in an hour, I’m told. You will grant us that much time?”
Henner grunted, then brightly asked where the new Center would be located.
“I’ve a site upstate seventy miles: woods, a small lake, very pastoral. The disadvantage being the distance to commute. You know what copter traffic is like over the City and the Talents are contracted to be at work on time … no matter what.”
Henner’s chair had been wired to monitor his life-systems, and the results were broadcast on a screen visible anywhere in the room. George glanced up at it incuriously.
“All systems still go?” he asked, swinging around to the nearest medical man who, startled, nodded “Three minutes and counting, Henry?”
“George, may I remind you that this
“C’mon, Gus. Let’s go to the wake and cheer the corpse on!”
“My God, Darrow, how do you do it?”
The Death Party was assembling, reluctantly, in the vault-roofed lounge of the Beechwoods mansion. George had invited a select few to be “in at the death.”
Indeed, as he said himself, he had outlasted most of his contemporaries find those three represented today were more enemies than friends. George quipped that business enemies had a reputation of being in at the death. He was dressed in his Vietnam campaign battle dress, remarking that he’d cheated Him then as a twenty-year old, so it behooved him to keep the appointment now suitably attired. Most of those present were Talents or connected with the Center. Young Daffyd op Owen was present. So were LEO Commissioner Mailer, trying hard not to look uncomfortable, Governor Lawson, several Senators, representatives from four charitable organizations (probablybenefiting under the will, Henry decided when he saw the guest list), and the four physicians who’d been chosen at random from the AMA directory by George and flown into Jerhattan for the event. That was George’s way of solving any medical question. With a touch of ghoulish humor, George had decreed—not that he didn’t trust the Talents implicitly, but one had to protect oneself—that the autopsy would be performed on his corpse immediately after death had been assumed.
The party consequently generated little joviality despite the abundance of liquor and exotic foods on the sideboard. George ate sparingly, drank slowly. Anything he consumed these days, he complained, tasted sour or flat or insipid and caused heartburn.
Conversations were conducted in sepulchral tones and languished easily. The occasional laugh was quickly suppressed. Only Henry Darrow contrived to look at ease though Molly knew, by the way he rubbed his thumb and index finger together constantly, that he was in a highly nervous condition. She didn’t dare touch him since she was not a whit less distraught herself, and would only double Henry’s tension. The person who was suffering most was young Daffyd op Owen. She had become very fond of the sensitive young man and wished that he didn’t have to be present. He’d not had time to learn to shield himself, certainly not in such an emotionally loaded situation as this. Daffyd was visibly sweating, yet gamely trying to simulate proper party behavior as he chatted with another young Talent, a precog named Mara Canning.
As the appointed time drew nearer, any semblance of normality dwindled: efforts to keep party talk going faltered. Everyone had one eye on the clock and the other on George Henner.
“You’re supposed to be happy,” George Henner complained when the current silence remained unbroken for sixty-four seconds. “My death means you’re all safely ensconced here.” His scowl was ambiguous. Then hepointed a finger at Henry. “So tell me, Hank, if you lose the wager, where will you go? I …” and he laughed hollowly, “or my executors expect you to vacate the premises … immediately.”
“And we will I’ve assembled every telekinetic we’ve got … and a flock of physical muscle men. We can clear the premises in an hour, I’m told. You will grant us that much time?”
Henner grunted, then brightly asked where the new Center would be located.
“I’ve a site upstate seventy miles: woods, a small lake, very pastoral. The disadvantage being the distance to commute. You know what copter traffic is like over the City and the Talents are contracted to be at work on time … no matter what.”
Henner’s chair had been wired to monitor his life-systems, and the results were broadcast on a screen visible anywhere in the room. George glanced up at it incuriously.
“All systems still go?” he asked, swinging around to the nearest medical man who, startled, nodded “Three minutes and counting, Henry?”
“George, may I remind you that this
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