"I just promised Carina I'd do no such thing!"

Edwin shouted with laughter until the room rang. "You know, there never used to be enough hours in the day for everything I wanted to accomplish: the books and papers to read and write, the research to do, the people to know. Now I realize, I literally have all the time in the world."

Rob looked at him carefully, not quite sure what he was trying to perceive.

Edwin looked exactly as always, tanned and fit and blithe-if anything, more clean-cut than usual, since his hair had been trimmed for Carina's visit.

But Rob remembered, that first day at NIH, foreseeing that his friend's dark comeliness would mature. That would never happen now. Edwin had always looked young for his age, and now he always would. Without the sound of time's winged chariot hurrying behind him, would Edwin be able to change and grow? He had gained eternal life, but what had he lost? "Immortality is going to suit you, is it?" Rob said cautiously.

"Well, it did occur to me that a lot of really useful research could be done, and now I don't have to rely on the unwilling cooperation of a nervy subject. It would be fascinating to find out exactly how eternal life is done. Just for starters I'm having a friend over in the Blood Institute do me a full blood workup. Me, I'm not afraid of needles, no sirree."

Rob laughed. "You can still count me out. For a minute you had me worried, but you're still yourself, Ed."

"Yes," Edwin said more soberly. "And I'm going to do my level best to stay that way. Call it denial if you want, but I'm hanging onto my self and my goals. I'm going to eat meals, and get married, and start a family, all the ordinary stuff. Your experiences have been kind of ... frightening."

Rob nodded. "Yeah, by all means avoid my mistakes. No point in two of us making damn fools of ourselves."

Edwin swirled the tea around in the bottom of his mug. "I don't know how you survived this past year, bud. Now I've come a little way into weird with you I can appreciate it."

Rob sat up, alarmed. "Are you in bad shape, Ed?"

"Nah, do I look it?" Edwin gave his barrel chest with its orange Orioles T-shirt a resounding slap. "But even though being immortal doesn't have a day-to-day impact, it-sometimes it haunts me, Rob. The implications. Like, do I tell Carina? She's going to be my wife-how can I not trust her with such an important fact about me? So I've decided I have to, maybe after the wedding. And what about NASA? My oxygen consumption rate tests really worry me."

"Your what? What does oxygen have to do with it?"

"Rob, think about it. I don't need to eat or drink. I don't need to breathe either. The other day I held my breath for fifty-five minutes just to see if I could do it. If this shows up on the metabolic rate tests, how long will it be before the whole story runs on the front page of the Washington Post?"

"You don't need to eat, but that isn't keeping you from scarfing down lasagne and apple pie," Rob pointed out.

Edwin leaned back, considering. "That's a thought. Perhaps I'm burning oxygen anyway, as long as there's plenty around. There are ways to find out. . . And you, your weirdness is way scarier. It trashed your life.

You're still not finished pulling the pieces together. You could have been hell on wheels squared and cubed, Rob. Bad as old Gil in his cave-"

Edwin stopped, watching him, and Rob realized he had frozen in mid-sip, the mug halfway to his mouth. He set it down carefully on the arm of his chair.

"That's-that's more true than you know, Ed," he said quietly. "I never thought I'd find out why this thing happened to me. But Gil told me."

"He was lonesome," Edwin recalled. "Wanted some peers."

"He wanted to have some fun," Rob corrected him. "And he chose someone who could share his interests. Rape and murder, for instance."

Edwin jumped to his feet. "No, Rob! What is this, a selfesteem issue?

That's simply not true! You are nothing like the old guy. I can attest to it."

"Self-esteem be damned!" Suddenly Rob was frightened, with the violent unreasoning despair of a child in the dark. Gilgamesh had named the prisoner in the sub-basement: His name was Gilgamesh too. "And so is mine,"

Rob said aloud, his voice barely above a whisper. "I defeated Gilgamesh.

But he is I. I'll never be rid of him." It had all been for nothing, the worry and striving. He had conscious control over the power now, but what about his control over himself? How could he return home, knowing that the next time Jul cut off another driver, he might lose it and kill her? The enemy within was unbeatable.

"Rob," Edwin was repeating. "Rob! Will you listen to some plain reasoning?"

"Sure." The habitual reply escaped without thought.

"Firstly, I want to point out that old Gil was a liar. Practically the first thing he told you was an untruth. He wasn't God, nor your father, or any of that stuff. Am I right?"

Rob had forgotten that. "But we thought so much alike, Ed. It gave me chills. Some of the things he said-"

"I'm not saying he was mendacious from beginning to end. But don't forget to consider the motives behind old Gil's words, Rob. Can you say that he wasn't just pulling your chain?"

Rob couldn't. "It would be just like him," he realized. "And for Gil it would be easy. So easy."

"Like it would be easy for you," Edwin agreed. "He claimed to be in control of the situation, to have selected you. What if he didn't?"

"But if he lied, then there's no rhyme or reason to it at all."

"It's natural to look for patterns and logic, Rob. But maybe there isn't any. Maybe old Gil has just gone through the rinse cycle too often. So take him with a grain of salt, okay? Secondly ..." Edwin paced the limited space between the Lifecycle and the second sofa. "You're only a human being, Rob.

You have the power to act like a god or a devil. But you're only a man."

The unexpected statement made Rob's mouth drop open in wonder. He had needed to hear that. More than anything in the world, those were words he had needed to hear. But how had Edwin known?

Pursuing his train of thought rapidly around the room, Edwin didn't notice.

"Your capacity to turn tiger bothers you. Okay. But that capacity is an essential component of the human personality. You need it to survive-not every day or every year, but when push comes to shove, at the action point we talked about. It's Darwinian, you understand? A survival trait bred in our bones, yours, mine, everybody. Keep the tiger on a leash, use him to the right degree and not too often, and you'll be fine."

Rob stared doubtfully up at him. Edwin's insight was always so keen-surely he was right about this too? But on the other hand, Edwin was too nice a guy. In some things he was as innocent as a boy. He had no real knowledge of evil, had difficulty recognizing it even when it pushed him off a cliff.

Just now he'd even talked about returning to Kazakhstan and interviewing Gilgamesh again! "How can I be sure, Ed?" he said at last. "You don't know, it's impossible for you to know, what my monster is like."

"Impossible?" Edwin grinned down at him. "A funny word from you of all people, bud. You're so weird, you can do anything. So why don't you get a second opinion on him? Introduce me."

Taken completely aback, Rob sputtered, "But-Ed, you're out of your mind!

Take you on a tour of my inner sewers- do you think I want to destroy our friendship?"

"You can't do that, Rob. You confessed all your crimes to me already, remember? And I'm very well-read-you can't shock me."

Offering books as proof of worldiness was so typical of Edwin that Rob laughed in spite of his turmoil. The kitchen door opened and Carina came in, frowning with concentration and drying a skinless chicken drumstick on a paper towel. "Edwin, do you have any chicken stock? Or bouillon cubes?"

Edwin put his hands into the pockets of his denim shorts and turned them out. "Nope, sorry. Do you need some? Shall I pop out and pick up a few cans? I live to serve you, my darling! Rob can come with-you want to, Rob?

We can walk across the park to the store and get some exercise."

Before Rob could formulate any objections he was out the door and heading down the steps with a grocery list in hand. Edwin loitered, ostensibly looking for the canvas shopping bag. But from the blissful satisfaction of his grin when he caught up at the bottom of the stair, he had more likely been stealing a kiss. "It's going to be so much fun being a married man,"

he told Rob happily. "We're talking three kids to start with, maybe up it to four if the NASA scheduling works out. Don't you think I'll do great as the patriarch of a large brood?"

If anything Rob found the idea comic. It was impossible to imagine Edwin as a parent. Rob carefully kept a grave countenance. "Do you have a lot of hands-on practice with babies, Ed?"

"You mean, human ones? I've raised a lot of bacteria and fruit-fly larvae.

How much of a difference can there be?"

"Umm ..." Rob decided it would only be kind not to disillusion him now. Let that first baby do it!

Edwin grinned at him. "Do I sense an aura of skepticism, Rob?"

They had crossed the parking lot and the intervening street into the park.

Suddenly Edwin put on a spurt of speed and ran at a park bench. He grasped the top slat of the seat back and without apparent effort flipped up into a briefly perfect handstand. Then he overbalanced and toppled, flailing his legs and nearly catching an ankle on the seat. "Ed, you idiot!" Rob exclaimed, laughing.