Carbide Tipped Pens Part 10

"It's just a factor of your age," says the therapist Olga sent me to.

"I'm only thirty-six," I said.

"Maybe so," says the doc, "but your body's taken a beating over the years. It's catching up with you. You're going to be old before your time, physically."

I felt pretty low. But when I tell Olga about what the doc said, she says, "Telomerase."

"Telo-what?" I ask her.

She tells me this telomerase stuff can reverse aging. In mice, at least. They inject the stuff in old, creaky, diabetic lab mice and the little b.u.g.g.e.rs get young and frisky again and their diabetes goes away.

I don't have diabetes, but I figure if the stuff makes me feel younger then why not try it? Olga tells me that some movie stars and politicians have used it, in secret, and it helped them stay young. A couple of TV news people, too.

So I start taking telomerase injections and by the time I hit the big four-oh I'm still hitting over three hundred and catching more than a hundred games a year. And other guys are starting to use stem cells and telomerase and everything else they can get their hands on. Even Danny Daniels is using, from what I heard.

"That's what I've been telling you!" Bragg yells, jumping up from his seat on the front row of benches. "They're making a travesty of the game!"

The commissioner frowns at him and Bragg sits back down. Vic Caruso stares at him, looking puzzled.

"Look," Vic says, "I didn't do anything that's prohibited by the rules."

Bragg seems staggered that Vic can p.r.o.nounce "prohibited" correctly.

The commissioner says, "The point of this hearing is to decide if the rules should be amended."

"You make stem cells and telomerase and such illegal," Vic says, "and half the players in the league'll have to quit baseball."

"But is it fair to the players who don't use such treatments for you to be so ... so ... extraordinary?" asks the commissioner.

Vic shakes his head. "I'm not extraordinary. I'm not a superman. I'm just young. I'm not better than I was when I was twenty, but I'm just about as good. What's wrong with that?"

The commissioner doesn't answer. He just shakes his head and glances at the two league presidents, sitting beside him. Neither of them has an answer, either.

But Bragg does. "Do you realize what this means?" he yells at the commissioner. Pointing at Vic again, he says, "This man will be playing until he's fifty! Maybe longer! How are we going to bring young players into the league if the veterans are using these treatments to keep themselves young? We'll have whole teams made up of seventy-year-olds, for G.o.d's sake!"

"Seventy-year-olds who play like twenty-year-olds," the commissioner mutters.

"Seventy-year-olds who'll demand salary increases every year," Bragg snaps back at him.

And suddenly it all becomes clear. Bragg's not worrying about the purity of the game. The revelations in the news haven't hurt box office receipts: attendance has been booming. But veteran players demand a lot more money than rookies-and get it. Bragg's b.i.t.c.hing about his pocketbook!

The commissioner looks at the two league presidents again, but they still have nothing to say. They avoid looking at Bragg, though.

To Vic, the commissioner says, in a kindly, almost grandfatherly way, "Mr. Caruso, thank you for your frank and honest testimony. You've given us a lot to think about. You may step down now."

Vic gets up from the chair like a mountain rising. As he heads for the front bench, though, the commissioner says, "By the way, just to satisfy my personal curiosity, did you and Dr. Trurow get married?"

"We're gonna do that on Christmas day," says Vic. "In Stockholm, that's her hometown and her family and all her friends'll be there."

The commissioner smiles. "Congratulations."

"We'll send you an invitation," Vic says, smiling back.

Glancing at Bragg, the commissioner says, "I'm afraid it wouldn't be appropriate for me to attend your wedding, Mr. Caruso. But I wish you and your bride much happiness."

So that's how it happened. The commissioner and the league presidents and all the owners-including Bragg-put their heads together and came up with the Big Change.

Major League Baseball imposed an age limit on players. Fifty. n.o.body over fifty would be allowed to play on a major league team. This made room for the youngsters like Danny Daniels to get into the game-although Daniels was thirty-eight when he finally became the Yankees' starting catcher.

The guys over fifty were put into a new league, a special league for old timers. This allowed baseball to expand again, for the first time in the twenty-first century. Sixteen new teams in sixteen new cities, mostly in the Sun Belt, like Tucson, Mobile, New Orleans, and Orlando.

And the best part is that the old timers get a shot at the World Series winner. At the end of October, right around Halloween, the pennant winner from the Old Timer's League plays the winner of the World Series.

Some wags wrote columns about Halloween being the time when dead ballplayers rise from their graves, but n.o.body pays much attention to that kind of drivel. The Halloween series draws big crowds-and big TV receipts. Even Bragg admits he likes it, a little.

Last Halloween Vic's Tucson Tarantulas whipped the New York Yankees in seven games. In the deciding game, Danny Daniels. .h.i.t a home run for the Yanks, but Vic socked two dingers for Tucson to ice it. He said it was to celebrate the birth of his first son.

Yankee haters all over the country rejoiced.

Asked when he planned to retire, Vic said, "I don't know. Maybe when my kid gets old enough to play in the Bigs."

Or maybe not.

THE SNOWS OF YESTERYEAR.

Jean-Louis Trudel

Like it or not, we-the human race-are in the midst of a global climate change. You can argue about the cause of the change, or how severe it will be, but one thing is certain: this planet's climate is heading for a tipping point. Arguments abound over how soon and how dangerous the climate warming will be, but the fact is that the warming is already well underway.

In "Snows of Yesteryear" Jean-Louis Trudel shows a gamut of human reactions to this ongoing climate shift, from scholarly curiosity to corporate greed, from the desire to save humankind from the approaching catastrophe to the yearning to use the changes on Earth to help make the planet Mars habitable for humans.

That is what science fiction does best: examining the present by casting its shadow against the possibilities of the future.

Northern Kujalleq Mountains What would they do without the guy from Northern Ontario? Paul's thoughts were stuck in a loop. The same question was popping up every few seconds, probably because his leg muscles were gobbling up most of his body's oxygen. His brain just couldn't phrase a proper answer when the cold September wind was freezing his cheekbones, his breath burned in his throat, and his legs drove him up the snowy slope. The bag with the medikit seemed to grow heavier with every step. Soon, it would drag him all the way back down the mountain.

What would they do without the guy from Northern Ontario? The others had nominated him on the spot. Sure, send Paul, he's Canadian, he knows how to ski! Yeah, and he likes to play in the snow too. In the end, Francine had looked at him with those big, dark eyes of hers, and he'd been unable to say no.

He couldn't complain, not really. The Martian Underground had had its pick of young bacteriologists, but they wanted the one with actual winter experience. The guy from Northern Ontario. He'd said yes, to the job in Greenland and to the rescue mission.

Even with lightweight snowshoes, he sank a bit in the fresh snow as he leaned into the climb. Tomorrow, his muscles would ache. They didn't use to, not when he snowshoed through the woods of Killarney Park or skied cross-country in the hills outside Sudbury. But he was almost thirty and he'd spent more time in the lab lately than in the field.

He did wonder how the Old Man had fared coming out this way. He must have taken the long way around, down to Narsarsuaq, and then down the coast, skirting the fjord, until he could walk up the valley formerly occupied by the Ikersuaq glacier. Four days at least. A long hike, but not a hard one even for Professor Emeritus Donald B. Hall, who was so old he remembered the twentieth century. Very little of it, actually, but enough to spin unlikely stories that entranced his graduate students.

Early on, Paul had looked up some history sites and decided Old Man Hall was repeating tales he'd heard from his own teachers. Pa.s.sing joints at a Beatles concert? Flying to Berlin to help tear down the Wall? His date of birth was confidential, but he couldn't be that old, even with stem cell therapies.

Not that he was going to get the chance to beat any records if Paul didn't reach him in time. Every time Paul looked back, the Sun seemed closer to the horizon. He only stopped once, to catch his breath. If he saved the Old Man's life, he swore he would get the truth out of him about the one story he'd never managed to disprove or disbelieve.

His heart pumping, Paul started to climb again. He still found patches of snow to plant his snowshoes in, but he was nearing the windswept summit. Sometimes, the synthetic treads clanked and slipped on the bare rock, and he lost his balance for a second, his arms windmilling.

He was pondering whether or not to take off the snowshoes and rely on his boots the rest of the way when he saw the sign.

PRIVATE PROPERTY.

Paul frowned, worry fighting it out with disgust. The valley floor had been buried under the ice for millennia, and it had remained so well into the twenty-first century. And now, as stunted trees grew among the glacier rubble, it had already been claimed by outside interests. The sign was labeled in English, not in Kalaallisut or Danish. A number in a corner identified one of the companies owned by the Consortium that ran the seaports catering to the trans-Arctic trade.

Despite the sign, the new owners probably hadn't bothered with a full surveillance grid. Otherwise, the Old Man would already have been picked up, flown to a hospital, and fined.

Paul should be safe as well from prying eyes. Beyond the sign, the peak was in sight. After putting away his snowshoes, the bacteriologist clambered up the last few meters and mounted a small repeater on top of a telescopic pole. He wedged the pole into place with a few rocks. The small device hunted around for a few seconds and then locked on the signal of its companion a couple of kilometers away, within sight of the Martian Underground base camp.

"I'm at the boundary," Paul rasped into his mike. "A bit past it, in fact. I'll be starting the downhill leg now."

"We're here if you need us," answered the sweet voice of Francine. "You're running behind schedule, but just be careful."

"I intend to."

"And, Paul," cut in the voice of the director, "try and find out why Professor Hall ended up where he did."

"I definitely intend to."

"I know he left before you announced your latest results, but if this was all a ruse to allow him to rendezvous with outsiders..."

"I don't see how he could have known before me, or swiped a DNA sample. But I'll ask."

He strapped on his skis and launched a small drone to act as an extra pair of eyes for him. As he set off, the drone's-eye view was relayed to his ski goggles and helped him avoid several, literal dead ends. Slopes leading to unseen cliffs, rocks hiding around a curve, and other places where he would have ended up dead. Though his exposed skin stung from the wind chill, he enjoyed the descent along the slope of new powder, its blank whiteness marred only by animal tracks. A slope never skied before.

Mid-September wasn't supposed to be this cold in southern Greenland. Yet, temperatures had dipped as they once did in the twentieth century and preserved a couple of recent snowfalls. In Sudbury, Paul had played in snowdrifts that were much thicker when his mother sent him outside because she didn't want to see him at home. He looked too much like his father and she didn't care for the constant reminder. So, yeah, he really liked the snow. It had done such a great job of replacing the home he couldn't have.

The local forecast wasn't calling for more, but Paul tracked warily the oncoming cloud banks, ma.s.sed so thickly over Niviarsiat Mountain that they threatened to blot out the late-afternoon sun.

The Old Man's camp was putting out an intermittent signal, just strong enough to reach his drone still circling above the valley. By the time Paul was halfway down the mountain, he knew in which direction he would have to head. Toward the ice dam and the lake.

It was almost dark when he found the tent. It was white, propped up by a glacial erratic, and set in the middle of an expanse of fresh snow. Perfectly camouflaged.

"Professor Hall?" Paul called, his voice reduced to a hoa.r.s.e croak.

"Don't bother knocking."

Hall was lying on an air mattress, bundled up in a sleeping bag. Prompted by the voice in his earbud, Paul hastened to check the Old Man's vital signs.

"His temperature is slightly elevated."

"Perfectly normal for a fracture. Carry on. Anything else?"

The professor endured Paul's amateurish inspection without a complaint. He unzipped the sleeping bag himself, revealing his bare legs. A large, purplish swelling ran around the middle of his left shin. The skin was mottled and bruised, but unbroken. Paul swept his phone, set for close focus, over most of the injury.

The base camp's doctor did not hide her relief.

"Not an open break, then. This will make things easier. Give him painkiller number four and take a breather. Do not try moving him or putting on the exolegs for another fifteen minutes at least."

Paul took out the hypo from the medikit and loaded the designated ampoule. As soon as the painkiller hit the Old Man's bloodstream, a couple of deeply etched lines on his face relaxed and vanished.

The bacteriologist settled down on the tent's only stool. He was breathing more easily, but his shoulders felt like tenderized meat. When he undressed to put on a dry shirt, he found that the skin chafed by the pack's shoulder straps had turned an angry red.

"So, what was so urgent?" he asked. "I thought you were dying."

"I may have exaggerated slightly the gravity of my condition."

"Why?"

"Because it wasn't a secure link. However, I a.s.sume you've set up a secure line of relays, as I asked."

"As secure as we could make it, using the same repeaters we use in our glacier tunnels. Narrow beams once the lock is made."

"Good boy."

"Well, tell me now, why couldn't Francine just fly in with the chopper to get you?"

"Any craft big enough to take both of us out of here would have been detected."

"I could have died out there on the mountain, professor. Were you that afraid of being busted for trespa.s.sing?"

Hall responded by pointing his phone at the tent wall. A low-resolution video played on the billowing canvas. The first pictures were blurry, but they seemed to show a small, ground-hugging plane, its wings flapping occasionally to detour around a rocky outcrop. It flew above the shadowed southern valley flank, heading straight for the ice dam, and stopped so suddenly that it dropped out of the screen.

"I thought it had crashed. So, I sent up my emergency drone to see if the flyer needed any help. But you know what they say about good deeds..."