Yale 01 - The Circulation Of The Blood Read online

  'What are blue whales doing near the Laccadives in any case?'

  'I never found a way to ask them. I only know that these creatures appeared off shore here at full moon, each in a different. month. Caterina could tell you - she saw them and told me all about it in her letters. My son Philip was here with her when the last one arrived. Something drove the whales right across the Equator into these seas. Something drove them to cast themselves up on to this beach, raking their stomachs open on the reefs as they did so, to die where you see them lying now. Hang around ten days, Theo, till the next full moon. You may see another cetaceous suicide.'

  There were crabs working in the sand among the barred shadows of the rib cage, burrowing and signalling to each other. When Devlin spoke, anger was back in his voice.

  'Okay, you clever trawlerman, tell me the answer to the riddle. It's been revealed to you alone, I suppose, why they killed themselves?'

  'They were suffering from side effects, Theo. The side effects of the immortality disease. You know the Baltic virus seems to bring long life - but you haven't had time to find out what else it brings. You've been in so much of a hurry you abandoned scientific method. You didn't want to get any older before you infected yourself. You didn't allow a proper trial period. You may be going to live a thousand years - but what else is going to happen to you? What happened to these poor creatures so awful that they could not bear their increase of years? Whatever it was, it was terrible, and soon it will be overtaking you, and all your conspirators sweating it out uneasily in Naples!'

  The silencer was extremely effective. The pistol made only a slight hiss, rather like a man blowing a strawberry pip from between his teeth. The bullet made a louder noise as it ricochetted off a bleached rib and sped over the ocean. Suddenly Yale was full of movement, moving faster than he had moved in years, lunging forward. He hit Devlin before he fired again. They fell into the sand. Yale on top. He got his foot over Devlin's arm, grasped him by both hands by the windpipe, and bashed his head repeatedly in the sand. When the gun slid loose, he stopped what he was doing, picked up the weapon, and climbed to his feet. Puffing a little, he brushed the sand from his old jeans.

  'It wasn't graceful,' he said, glaring down at the purple-faced man rolling at his feet. 'You're a fool!' With a last indignant slap at his legs, he turned and headed back for the coral-built house.

  Caterina ran out in terror at the sight of him. The natives surged towards him, thought better of it, and cleared a way for him to pass.

  'Clem, Clem, what have you done? You've not shot him?'

  'I want a glass of lemonade. It's all right, Cat, my love .. He isn't really hurt.'

  When he was sitting down at the table in the cool and drinking the lemonade she mixed him, he began to shake. She had the sense not to say anything until he was ready to speak. She stood beside him, stroking his neck. Presently they saw through the window Devlin coming staggering over the dunes. Without looking in their direction, he made his way over to the helicopter. With Thomas's aid, he climbed in, and in a few moments the engine started and the blades began to turn. The machine lifted, and they watched in silence as it whirled away over the water, eastwards towards the Indian sub-continent. The sound of it died and soon the sight of it was swallowed up in the gigantic sky.

  'He was another whale. He came to wreck himself here.'

  'You'll have to send a signal to London and tell them everything, won't you?'

  'You're right. And tomorrow I must catch some jewfish. I suspect they may be picking up the infection.'

  He looked askance at his wife. She had put on her dark glasses, while he was gone. Now she took them off again and sat by him, regarding him anxiously.

  'I'm not a saint, Cat. Never suggest that again. I'm a bloody liar. I had to tell Theo an awful lie about why the whales ran themselves up our beach.'

  'Why?'

  'I don't know! Whales have been beaching themselves for years and nobody knows why. Theo would have remembered that if he hadn't been so scared.'

  'I mean, why lie to him? You should only lie to people you respect, my mother used to say.'

  He laughed. 'Good for her! I lied to scare him. Everyone is going to know about the immortality virus in a few weeks, and I suspect they're all going to want to be infected. I want them all scared. Then perhaps they'll pause and think what they're asking for - the length of many lifetimes living with their first lifetime's inadequacies.'

  "Theo's taking your lie with him. You want that to circulate with the virus?'

  He started to clean his spectacles on his handkerchief. 'I do. The world is about to undergo a drastic and radical change. The more slowly that change takes place, the more chance we - all living things, I mean, as well as you and I - have of living quiet and happy as well as lengthy lives. My lie may act as a sort of brake on change. People ought to think what a terrifying thing immortality is - it means sacrificing the mysteries of death. Now how about a bathe, just as if nothing revolutionary had happened?'

  As they changed into their swim things, as she stood divested of her clothes, Caterina said, 'I've suddenly had a vision, Clem. Please, I've changed my mind - I want to, I want us both to live as long as we possibly can. I'll sacrifice death for life. You know what I did with Philip? It was only because I suddenly felt my youth slipping from me. Time was against me. I got desperate. With more time… well, all our values would change, wouldn't they?'

  He nodded and said simply, 'You're right, of course.'

  They both began to laugh, out of pleasure and excitement. Laughing, they ran down to the lapping ocean, and for a moment it was as if Yale had left all his hesitations behind with his clothes.

  As they sat on the edge of the water and snapped their flippers on, he said, 'Sometimes I understand things about people. Theo came here to silence me. But he is an effective man and he was so ineffectual today. It must mean that at bottom he really came to see you, just as you guessed at the time - I reckon he wanted company in all that limitless future he opened up for himself.'

  As they sliced out side by side into the warm water, she said without surprise, 'We need time together, Clem, to understand each other.'

  They dived together, down in a trail of bubbles below the sparkling surface, startling the fish. Flipping over on his side, Yale made for the channel that led out to the open sea. She followed, glad in her heart, as she was destined to do and be for the next score and half of centuries.