ISLE OF THE DEAD.

by Roger Zelazny.

To Banks Mebane.

I.

Life is a thing--if you'll excuse a quick dab of philosophy before you know what kind of picture I'm painting--that reminds me quite a bit of the beaches around Tokyo Bay.

Now, it's been centuries since I've seen that Bay and those beaches, so I could be off a bit. But I'm told that it hasn't changed much, except for the condoms, from the way that I remember it.

I remember a terrible expanse of dirty water, brighter and perhaps cleaner way off in the distance, but smelling and slopping and chill close at hand, like Time when it wears away objects, delivers them, removes them. Tokyo Bay, on any given day, is likely to wash anything ash.o.r.e. You name it, and it spits it up some time or other: a dead man, a sh.e.l.l that might be alabaster, rose and pumpkin bright, with a sinistral whorling, rising inevitably to the tip of a horn as innocent as the unicorn's, a bottle with or without a note which you may or may not be able to read, a human foetus, a piece of very smooth wood with a nail hole in it--maybe a piece of the True Cross, I don't know--and white pebbles and dark pebbles, fishes, empty dories, yards of cable, coral, seaweed, and those are pearls that were his eyes. Like that. You leave the thing alone, and after awhile it takes it away again. That's how it operates. Oh yeah--it also used to be lousy with condoms, limp, almost transparent testimonies to the instinct to continue the species but not tonight, and sometimes they were painted with snappy designs or sayings and sometimes had a feather on the end. These are almost gone now, I hear, the way of the Edsel, the klepsydra and the b.u.t.ton hook, shot down and punctured by the safety pill, which makes for larger mammaries, too, so who complains? Sometimes, as I'd walk along the beach in the sun-spanked morning, the chill breezes helping me to recover from the effects of rest and recuperation leave from a small and neatly contained war in Asia that had cost me a kid brother, sometimes then I would hear the shrieking of birds when there were no birds in sight. This added the element of mystery that made the comparison inevitable: life is a thing that reminds me quite a bit of the beaches around Tokyo Bay. Anything goes. Strange and unique things are being washed up all the time. I'm one of them and so are you. We spend some time on the beach, maybe side by side, and then that slopping, smelling, chilly thing rakes it with the liquid fingers of a crumbling hand and some of the things are gone again. The mysterious bird-cries are the open end of the human condition. The voices of the G.o.ds? Maybe. Finally, to nail all corners of the comparison to the wall before we leave the room, there are two things that caused me to put it there in the first place: sometimes, I suppose, things that are taken away might, by some capricious current, be returned to the beach. I'd never seen it happen before, but maybe I hadn't waited around long enough. Also, you know, somebody could come along and pick up something he'd found there and take it away from the Bay. When I learned that the first of these two things might actually have happened, the first thing I did was puke. I'd been drinking and sniffing the fumes of an exotic plant for about three days. The next thing I did was expel all my house guests. Shock is a wonderful soberer, and I already knew that the second of the two things was possible--the taking away of a thing from the Bay--because it had happened to me, but I'd never figured on the first coming true. So I took a pill guaranteed to make me a whole man in three hours, followed it with a sauna bath and then stretched out on the big bed while the servants, mechanical and otherwise, took care of the cleaning up. Then I began to shake all over. I was scared.

I am a coward.

Now, there are a lot of things that scare me, and they are all of them things over which I have little or no control, like the Big Tree.

I propped myself up on my elbow, fetched the package from the bedside table and regarded its contents once more.

There could be no mistake, especially when a thing like that was addressed to me.

I had accepted the special delivery, stuffed it into my jacket pocket, opened it at my leisure.

Then I saw that it was the sixth, and I'd gotten sick and called things to a halt.

It was a tri-dee picture of Kathy, all in white, and it was dated as developed a month ago.

Kathy had been my first wife, maybe the only woman I'd ever loved, and she'd been dead for over five hundred years. I'll explain that last part by and by.

I studied the thing closely. The sixth such thing I'd received in as many months. Of different people, all of them dead. For ages.

Rocks and blue sky behind her, that's all.

It could have been taken anywhere where there were rocks and a blue sky. It could easily have been a fake, for there are people around who can fake almost anything these days.

But who was there around, now, who'd know enough to send it to me, and why? There was no note, just that picture, the same as with all the others--my friends, my enemies.

And the whole thing made me think of the beaches around Tokyo Bay, and maybe the Book of Revelations, too.

I drew a blanket over myself and lay there in the artificial twilight I had turned on at midday. I had been comfortable, so comfortable, all these years. Now something I had thought scabbed over, flaked away, scarred smoothly and forgotten had broken, and I bled.

If there was only the barest chance that I held a truth in my shaking hand . . .

I put it aside. After a time, I dozed, and I forget what thing out of sleep's mad rooms came to make me sweat so. Better forgotten, I'm sure.

I showered when I awoke, put on fresh clothing, ate quickly and took a carafe of coffee with me into my study. I used to call it an office when I worked, but around thirty-five years ago the habit wore off. I went through the past month's pruned and pre-sorted correspondence and found the items I was looking for amid the requests for money from some oddball charities and some oddball individuals who hinted at bombs if I didn't come across, four invitations to lecture, one to undertake what once might have been an interesting job, a load of periodicals, a letter from a long-lost descendant of an obnoxious in-law from my third marriage suggesting a visit, by him, with me, here, three solicitations from artists wanting a patron, thirty-one notices that lawsuits had been commenced against me and letters from various of my attorneys stating that thirty-one actions against me had been quashed.

The first of the important ones was a letter from Marling of Megapei. It said, roughly: "Earth-son, I greet you by the twenty-seven Names that still remain, praying the while that you have cast more jewels into the darkness and given them to glow with the colors of life.

"I fear that the time of the life for the most ancient and dark green body I am privileged to wear moves now toward an ending early next year. It has been long since these yellow and failing eyes have seen my stranger son. Let it be before the ending of the fifth season that he comes to me, for all my cares will be with me then and his hand upon my shoulder would lighten their burden. Respects."

The next missive was from the Deep Shaft Mining and Processing Company, which everyone knows to be a front organization for Earth's Central Intelligence Department, asking me if I might be interested in purchasing some used-but-in-good-condition off-world mining equipment located at sites from which the cost of transport would be prohibitive to the present owners.

What it really said, in a code I'd been taught years before when I'd done a contract job for the federal government of Earth, was, _sans_ officialese and roughly: "What's the matter? Aren't you loyal to the home planet? We've been asking you for nearly twenty years to come to Earth and consult with us on a matter vital to planetary security. You have consistently ignored these requests. This is an urgent request and it requires your immediate cooperation on a matter of the gravest importance. We trust, and etc."

The third one said, in English: "I do not want it to seem as if I am trying to presume on something long gone by, but I am in serious trouble and you are the only person I can think of who might be able to help me. If you can possibly make it in the near future, please come see me on Aldebaran V. I'm still at the old address, although the place has changed quite a bit. Sincerely, Ruth."

Three appeals to the humanity of Francis Sandow. Which, if any of them, had anything to do with the pictures in my pocket?

The orgy I had called short had been a sort of going-away party. By now, all of my guests were on their ways off my world. When I had started it as an efficient means of getting them loaded and s.h.i.+pped away, I had known where _I_ was going. The arrival of Kathy's picture, though, was making me think.

All three parties involved in the correspondence knew who Kathy had been. Ruth might once have had access to a picture of her, from which some talented person might work. Marling could have created the thing. Central Intelligence could have dug up old doc.u.ments and had it forged in their labs. Or none of these. It was strange that there was no accompanying message, if somebody wanted something.

I had to honor Marling's request, or I'd never be able to live with myself. That had been first on my agenda, but now-- I had through the fifth season, northern hemisphere, Megapei--which was still over a year away. So I could afford some other stops in between.

Which ones would they be?

Central Intelligence had no real claim on my services and Earth no dominion over me. While I was willing to help Earth if I could, the issue couldn't be so terribly vital if it had been around for the full twenty years they'd been pestering me. After all, the planet was still in existence, and according to the best information I had on the matter, was functioning as normally and poorly as usual. And for that matter, if I was as important to them as they made out in all their letters, _they_ could have come and seen me.

But Ruth-- Ruth was another matter. We had lived together for almost a year before we'd realized we were cutting each other to ribbons and it just wasn't going to work out. We parted as friends, remained friends. She meant something to me. I was surprised she was still alive after all this time. But if she needed my help, it was hers.

So that was it. I'd go see Ruth, quickly, and try to bail her out of whatever jam she was in. Then I'd go to Megapei. And somewhere along the line, I might pick up a lead as to who, what, when, where, why and how I had received the pictures. If not, then I'd go to Earth and try Intelligence. Maybe a favor for a favor would be in order.

I drank my coffee and smoked. Then, for the first time in almost five years, I called my port and ordered the readying of _Model T_, my jump-buggy, for the distance-hopping. It would take the rest of the day, much of the night, and be ready around sunrise, I figured.

Then I checked my automatic Secretary and Files to see who owned the _T_ currently. S & F told me it was Lawrence J. Conner of Lochear--the "J" for "John." So I ordered the necessary identification papers, and they fell from the tube and into my padded in-basket about fifteen seconds later. I studied Conner's description, then called for my barber on wheels to turn my hair from dark brown to blond, lighten my suntan, toss on a few freckles, haze my eyes three shades darker and lay on some new fingerprints.

I have a whole roster of fict.i.tious people, backgrounds complete and verifiable when you're away from their homes, people who have purchased the _T_ from one another over the years, and others who will do so in the future. They are all of them around five feet, ten inches in height and weigh in at about one-sixty. They are all individuals I am capable of becoming with a bit of cosmetic and the memorization of a few facts. When I travel, I don't like the idea of doing it in a vessel registered in the name of Francis Sandow of Homefree or, as some refer to it, Sandow's World. While I'm quite willing to make the sacrifice and live with it, this is one of the drawbacks involved in being one of the hundred wealthiest men in the galaxy (I think I'm 87th, as of the last balance-sheet, but I could be 88th or 86th): somebody always wants something from you, and it's always blood or money, neither of which I am willing to spend too freely. I'm lazy and I scare easily and I just want to hang onto what I've got of both. If I had any sense of compet.i.tion at all, I suppose I'd be busy trying to be 87th, 86th, or 85th, whichever. I don't care, though. I never did much, really, except maybe a little at first, and then the novelty quickly wore off. Anything over your first billion becomes metaphysical. I used to think of all the vicious things I was probably financing without realizing it. Then I came up with my Big Tree philosophy and decided the h.e.l.l with the whole bit.

There is a Big Tree as old as human society, because that's what it is, and the sum total of its leaves, attached to all its branches and twigs, represents the amount of money that exists. There are names written on these leaves, and some fall off and new ones grow on, so that in a few seasons all the names have been changed. But the Tree stays pretty much the same: bigger, yes; and carrying on the same life functions as always, in pretty much the same way, too. I once went through a time when I tried to cut out all the rot I could find in the Tree. I found that as soon as I cut out a section in one place, it would occur somewhere else, and I had to sleep sometime. h.e.l.l, you can't even give money away properly these days; and the Tree is too big to bend like a _bonsai_ in a bucket and so alter its growth. So I just let it grow on its merry way now, my name on all those leaves, some of them withered and sere and some bright with the first-green, and I try to enjoy myself, swinging around those branches and wearing a name that I don't see written all around me. So much for me and the Big Tree. The story of how I came to own so much greenery might provoke an even funnier, more elaborate and less botanical metaphor. If so, let's make it later. Too many, and look what happened to poor Johnny Donne: he started thinking he wasn't an Islande, and he's out there at the bottom of Tokyo Bay now and it doesn't diminish me one bit.

I began briefing S & F on everything my staff should do and not do in my absence. After many playbacks and much mindracking, I think I covered everything. I reviewed my last will and testament, saw nothing I wanted changed. I s.h.i.+fted certain papers to destructboxes and left orders that they be activated if this or that happened. I sent an alert to one of my representatives on Aldebaran V, to let him know that if a man named Lawrence J-for-John Conner happened to pa.s.s that way and needed anything, it was his, and an emergency i.d. code, in case I had to be identified as me. Then I noticed that close to four hours had pa.s.sed and I was hungry.

"How long to sunset, rounded to the nearest minute?" I asked S & F.

"Forty-three minutes," came its neuter-voiced reply through the hidden speaker.

"I will dine on the East Terrace in precisely thirty-three minutes," I said, checking my chronometer. "I will have a lobster with french fried potatoes and cole slaw, a basket of mixed rolls, a half-bottle of our own champagne, a pot of coffee, a lemon sherbert, the oldest Cognac in the cellar and two cigars. Ask Martin Bremen if he would do me the honor of serving it."

"Yes," said S & F. "No. salad?"

"No salad."

Then I strolled back to my suite, threw a few things into a suitcase, and began changing clothes. I activated my bedroom hookup to S & F, and amidst a certain stomach-wringing, neck-chilling feeling, gave the order I had been putting off and could properly put off no longer: "In exactly two hours and 11 minutes," I said, checking my chronometer, "ring Lisa and ask her if she would care to have a drink with me on the West Terrace--in half an hour's time. Prepare for her now two checks, each in the amount of fifty thousand dollars. Also, prepare for her a copy of Reference A. Deliver these items to this station, in separate, unsealed envelopes."

"Yes," came the reply, and while I was adjusting my cuff-links these items slid down the chute and came to rest in the basket on my dresser.

I checked the contents of the three envelopes, sealed them, placed them in an inside pocket of my jacket and made my way to the hallway that led to the East Terrace.

Outside, the sun, an amber giant now, was ambushed by a wispy strand which gave up in less than a minute and swam away. Hordes of overhead clouds wore gold, yellow and touches of deepening pink as the sun descended the merciless blue road that lay between Urim and Thumim, the twin peaks I had set just there to draw him and quarter him at each day's ending. His rainbow blood would splash their misty slopes during the final minutes.

I seated myself at my table beneath the elm tree. The overhead force-projector came on at the weight of my body upon the chair, keeping leaves, insects, bird droppings and dust from descending upon me from above. After a few moments, Martin Bremen approached, pus.h.i.+ng a covered cart before him.

"Good efening, sir."

"Good evening, Martin. How go things with you?"

"Chust fine, Mister Sandow. And yourself?"

"I'm going away," I said.

"Ah?"

He laid the setting before me, uncovered the cart and began to serve the meal.

"Yes," I said, "maybe for quite some time."

I sampled my champagne and nodded approval.

". . . So I wanted to say something you're probably already aware of before I go. That is, you prepare the best meals I've ever eaten--"

"Thank you, Mister Sandow." His naturally ruddy face deepened a shade or two, and he fought the corners of his mouth into a straight line as he dropped his dark eyes. "I'fe enchoyed our a.s.sociation."

". . . So, if you'd care to take a year's vacation--full salary and all expenses, of course, plus a slush fund for buying any recipes you might be interested in trying-- I'll call the Bursar's Office before I go, and set things up."

"Venn vill you be leafing, sir?"

"Early tomorrow morning."

"I see, sir. Yes. Thank you. That sounds wery pleasant."

". . . And find some more recipes for yourself while you're at it."

"I'll keep vun eye open, sir."

"It must be a funny feeling, preparing meals the taste of which you can't even guess at."

"Oh no, sir," he protested. "The tasters are completely reliable, and vile I'll admit I'fe often speculated as to the taste of some of your meals, the closest situation iss, I suppose, that of being a chemist who does not really vish to taste all of his experiments, if you know vatt I mean, sir."

He held the basket of rolls in one hand, the pot of coffee in his other hand, the dish of cole slaw in his other hand, and his other hand rested on the cart's handle. He was a Rigelian, whose name was something like Mmmrt'n Brrm'n. He'd learned his English from a German cook, who'd helped him pick an English equivalent for Mmmrt'n Brrm'n. A Rigelian chef, with a good taster or two from the subject race, prepares the greatest meals in the galaxy. They're quite dispa.s.sionate about it, too. We'd been through the just-finished discussion before, many times, and he knew I was always kidding him when I talked that way, trying to get him to admit that human food reminded him of garbage, manure or industrial wastes. Apparently, there is a professional ethic against acknowledging any such thing. His normal counter is to be painfully formal. On occasion, however, when he's had a bit too much of lemon juice, orange juice or grapefruit juice, he's as much as admitted that cooking for _h.o.m.o sapiens_ is considered the lowest level to which a Rigelian chef can stoop. I try to make up to him for it as much as I can, because I like him as well as his meals, and it's very hard to get Rigelian chefs, no matter how much you can afford to spend.

"Martin," I said, "if anything should happen to me this time out, I'd like you to know that I've made provision for you in my will."

"I--I don't know vatt to say, sir."

"So don't," I told him. "To be completely selfish about it, I hope you don't collect. I plan on coming back."

He was one of the few persons to whom, with impunity yet, I could mention such a thing. He had been with me for thirty-two years and was well past the point which would ent.i.tle him to a good lifetime pension anyway. Preparing meals was his dispa.s.sionate pa.s.sion, though, and for some unknown reason he seemed to like me. He'd make out quite a bit better if I dropped dead that minute, but not enough to really make it worth his while to lace my cole slaw with Murtanian b.u.t.terflyvenom.

"Look at that sunset, will you!" I decided.

He watched for a minute or two, then said, "You certainly do them up brown, sir."

"Thank you. You may leave the Cognac and cigars now and retire. I'll be here awhile."

He placed them on the table, drew himself up to his full eight feet of height, bowed, and said, "Best of luck on your churney, sir, and good efening."

"Sleep well," I said.

"Thank you," and he slithered away into the twilight.

When the cool night breezes slipped about me and the toadingales in their distant wallows began a Bach cantata, my orange moon Florida came up where the sun had gone down. The night-blooming danderoses spilled their perfumes upon the indigo air, the stars came on like aluminum confetti, the ruby-shrouded candle sputtered on my table, the lobster was warm and b.u.t.tery in my mouth and the champagne cold as the heart of an iceberg. I felt a certain sadness and the desire to say "I will be back" to this moment of time.

So I finished the lobster, the champagne, the sherbert, and I lit a cigar before I poured a snifter of Cognac, which, I have been told, is a barbaric practice. I toasted everything in sight to make up for it, and then poured a cup of coffee.

When I had finished, I rose and took a walk around that big, complex building, my home. I moved up to the bar on the West Terrace and sat there with a Cognac in front of me. After a time, I lit my second cigar. Then she appeared in the archway, automatically falling into a perfume-ad pose.

Lisa wore a soft, silky blue thing that foamed about her in the light of the terrace, all sparkles and haze. She had on white gloves and a diamond choker; she was ash-blonde, the angles and curves of her pale-pink lips drawn up so that there was a circle between them, and she tilted her head far to one side, one eye closed, the other squinting.

"Well-met by moonlight," she said, and the circle broke into a smile, sudden and dewy, and I had timed it so that the second moon, pure white, was rising then in the west. Her voice reminded me of a recording stuck on a pa.s.sage at middle C. They don't record things on discs that stick that way any more, but even if no one else remembers, I do.

"h.e.l.lo," I said. "What are you drinking?"

"Scotch and soda," she said, as always. "Lovely night!"

I looked into her two too blue eyes and smiled. "Yes," as I punched out her order and the drink was made and delivered, "it is."

"You've changed. You're lighter."

"Yes."

"You're up to no good, I hope."

"Probably." I pa.s.sed it to her. "It's been what? --Five months now?"

"A bit more."

"Your contract was for a year."

"That's right."

I pa.s.sed her an envelope, and, "This cancels it," I said.