Larson's estate was strangely quiet. Dirby city contained almost a million people, and though none of the buildings were monstrously tall, there was urbanization to within a thousand meters of the high-class Huskestrade section. Yet sitting here, the loudest sounds were Gunnar Larson's inane chitchat—and the splashing of the little waterfall just down the hillside. Pham's eyes were well adjusted now. He could see the reflection of Trygve's arching light in the pond. He could see ripples when some large, shelled creature breached the surface.I'm actually coming to like the cycle of lighton Ytre. Three weeks ago Pham would have never thought that time could come. The nights and days were long beyond any rhythm Pham could sustain, but the midday eclipses gave some respite. And after a while you began to forget that almost every color was a shade of red. There was a comfortable safeness about this world; these people had kept a prosperous peace for almost a thousand years. So maybe there was wisdom here... .
Abruptly, without breaking the cadence of triviality, Larson said, "So you think to learn the secret of Larson localizers?"
Pham knew his startled expression didn't go beyond his eyes.
"First I would like to learn if such things exist. The rumors are very spectacular...and very vague."
The old man's teeth glinted in a smile. "Oh, they exist." He gestured around them. "They give me eyes everywhere. They make this darkness into day."
"I see." The old man wasn't wearing a head-up. Could he guess at the sardonic expression on Pham's face?
Larson laughed softly. "Oh yes." He touched his temple just behind the orbit of his eye. "There's one resting right here. The others align on it and precisely stimulate my optic nerve. It takes a lot of practice on both sides. But if you have enough Larson localizers, they can handle the load. They can synthesize views from whatever direction I choose." He made an obscure motion with his hands. "Your facial expressions are as clear as day to me, Pham Nuwen. And from the localizers that have dusted your hands and neck, I can even look inside. I can hear your heart beat, your lungs breathe. With a little concentration"—he cocked his head—"I can estimate blood flow within regions of your brain....You are sincerely surprised, young man."
Pham's lips tightened in anger at himself. The other had spent more than a Ksec calibrating him. If this had been in an office, away from this garden and this quiet darkness, he would have been much more on his guard. Pham shrugged. "Your localizers are far and away the most interesting thing about the current stage of Ytreisch civilization. I'm very interested in acquiring some samples—even more interested in the program base, and the factory specification."
"To what end?"
"That should be obvious and irrelevant. The important thing is what I can give you in trade. Your medical science is poorer than at Namqem or Kielle."
Larson seemed to nod. "It's worse than we had here before the Fall. We've never recovered all the old secrets."
"You called me ‘young man," ' said Pham, "but what is your own age, sir? Ninety? One hundred?" Pham and his staff had looked carefully at the Ytreisch net, gauging the locals' medical science.
"Ninety-one of your thirty-Msec years," said Larson.
"Well, sir, I have lived a hundred and twenty-seven years. That doesn't count coldsleep, of course."And I look like a young man.
Larson was silent for a long moment, and Pham was sure that he had scored a point. Maybe these "philosopher-magnates" weren't so inscrutable.
"Yes, I would like to be young again. And millions would spend millions for the same. What can your medicine give?"
"A century or two, looking about as you see me. Two or three centuries after that, visibly aging."
"Ah. That's even a bit better than we achieved before the Fall. But the very old will look as bad and suffer as much as the old always have. There are intrinsic limits to how far the human body can be pushed."
Pham was politely silent, but he smiled inside. Medicine was the hook, all right. Pham would get their localizers in return for decent medical science. Both sides would benefit enormously. Magnate Larson would live a few extra centuries. If he was lucky, the current cycle of his civilization would outlive him. But a thousand years from now, when Larson was dust, when his civilization had fallen as the planetbound inevitably did—a thousand years from now, Pham and the Qeng Ho would still be flying between the stars. And they would still have the Larson localizers.
Larson was making a strange, soft sound. After a moment, Pham realized it was coughing laughter. "Ah, forgive me. You may be a hundred and twenty-seven years old, but you are still a young man in your mind. You hide behind the dark and an expressionless face—don't be offended. You haven't trained at the right disguises. With my localizers I see your pulse and the blood flow in your brain....You think that someday you'll dance on my grave, no?"
