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Never Say Die (4/8)
Kay Kelly (wilusa@EARTHLINK.NET)Sat, 9 Jun 2001 18:56:51 -0400
*** Andrew felt as if he'd been kicked in the gut. Worse, he knew his face was scarlet. "Oh." Trying to cover his embarrassment, he asked quickly, "What was the Prize?" Adam grimaced. "There had been rumors, guesses. I was afraid it might be something I wouldn't want. So I tried for centuries to avoid other Immortals, to keep from being the last. But when there were only two of us left, the other guy hunted me down, and it was kill or be killed." He gave a faint shudder. "It's possible there should have been more to the Prize. Maybe it didn't turn out as intended because some Immortals had been beheaded by mortals, and their Quickenings were lost. "Whether or not there should have been more, all I got was...what I'd been most afraid of. *I became mortal.*" Andrew almost choked. "Wh-what? You mean...that's ridiculous! *That* was supposed to be a *Prize?*" Adam said in a bemused voice, "There were Immortals who would have welcomed it. But I've never understood anyone's wanting to die. To me, it was the Booby Prize." Andrew was still trying to process what he'd heard. "Your injuries stopped healing quickly? And that was how you knew you'd begun aging, too?" "That's right." "Th-this must have been recent." Peering intently at the older man, Andrew saw no change in the face he remembered from his childhood. "Yes, it was." *** After a few moments Andrew said softly, "So I'm just a kid you adopted when you were Immortal, because you couldn't have children of your own. I'm grateful for that. "Now we'll be growing old together. But maybe you'll find you *can* father children now, and I'll have some too, and we can raise them as cousins--" "Whoa," Adam said with an affectionate smile. "You're getting ahead of yourself. "I may never have had children, but I've had wonderful *friends*. I want you to know something about them. My best friends. I picnicked with them once, long ago, on what I think was this very spot." He pulled a miniature holo-projector from his pocket, fiddled with the dial, then pointed it at a nearby clearing and switched it on. *** Andrew had seen thousands of holovids, but this one elicited a gasp. Adam had set it to display still, if three-dimensional, images. "I could replay the whole picnic, of course," he said quietly. "But it would give me the creeps, when they're long dead. There was something to be said for the old two-dimensional movies--they weren't *too* lifelike." Andrew stared at the three men in the clearing. He tried to tell himself the vid only shocked him because it showed Adam, looking exactly as he did now, dressed in the style of five hundred years ago. //Of course that's all it is. I can't be seeing...what I think I'm seeing.// But he knew he was.