The Old Man in the Sky

What profits a man to gain a whole world and lose his life?

Far, far above the world there sat an old man. His head was bald and spotted, his thin, papery skin drawn tight over his wasted muscles, and his purple veins stood out sharp against the faded tan of his flesh. Yet the eyes that gazed down upon the planet below still gleamed as sharp and as cunning as they had when he was a young man.

But that had been long, long ago, and even the mighty Jacob Dunn couldn’t hold off death forever.

He sat upon his chair, but his chair didn’t sit upon the floor. Nothing in Jacob’s private chamber was permitted to rest upon the floor. His chair hovered a foot above the surface, while his bed, desk, and other furniture hung on suspenders from the ceiling. Those who entered to attend upon him were required to wear specialized slippers.

The entire floor of the office was a window of ultra-clear plastic. It was so treated and so developed that it was functionally invisible, making it appear as if there were no floor at all, and the old man dwelt suspended in space over the world he had made.

The intravenous tubes in his arms and chest pinched as he shifted his position slightly. The city of Hesperia was almost directly beneath his feet, on the shore of the Red Sea – red due to the excessive mineral content, which not only gave it its distinctive scarlet tone, but also made it famously healthy and rich in life. Forests of purple and blue leaves spread out over the hills like a carpet. To the east, the sun was sinking toward the curve of the horizon.

And all that he surveyed was his; his inventions had purified the atmosphere, his wealth had brought the settlers and seeded the waters, and his direction had built the cities.

It had been a long, hard struggle. First working his way through school while he took two degrees at once. Then courting and marrying Leah Fairweather, the banker’s daughter. That solved his money issues for the time being; he’d been able to get his company off the ground and start work on his atmospheric process. Then the new laws, being cast out by the board, the divorce…but it didn’t matter; by then he had enough money of his own to stake everything on the mission to Hesperus. He and five hundred volunteers had come to this world when it was a mere rock orbiting a distant sun. Now it was a lush garden with a population of close to twenty thousand and infinite room to grow.

Hesperus was his life’s work and his one passion. His office held no books and no paintings. No music played over the speakers. He’d had no time for any such interests in his ninety-odd years of life. He’d married twice, and he had one son, but they were hardly more than business associates. All his energies and almost all of his time had been directed to creating Hesperus. Now, sitting in his chair, cancer eating away at his bones, he had nothing left to do but to gaze upon what he had created.

“Evening, Dad.”

Jacob did not look around. It would only cause the tubes to pinch once more, and he didn’t particularly want to see his son in any case.

Gordon Dunn, his feet in the demanded slippers, strode around in front of his father. He was a pale, handsome man of forty-one, well dressed, clever, and popular with women. And Jacob knew that inside he was as hollow as any scarecrow. Something about his sandy yellow hair, broad grin, and spare frame always reminded him of a scarecrow too.

“How’re we feeling today?”

Jacob took a few breaths to prime his weary lungs, like a bagpipe player filling his instruments.

“You’ll be disappointed to know that I am no worse than when you asked me that yesterday.”

“Aw, Dad, come on,” said Gordon, with his scarecrow smile. “You shouldn’t be like that. I’m just worried about you, you know.”

“Worried I’ll linger longer than you care to wait,” he answered. “Don’t try to play the dutiful son with me. Unlike those women you seduce and sponge off of, I know who you are.”

Gordon’s eyes flickered.

“Do you?” he said. “When did you learn that? Certainly not while I was growing up.”

Jacob said nothing. He needed to gather his strength. Besides, he had nothing to say.

Gordon scratched his chin and idly examined the medical machine depending from the ceiling. Jacob’s sunken, but sharp eyes followed him.

“You know,” said Gordon. “I won’t need to sponge, as you put it, when I’m the one sitting in that chair with a whole planet to my name.”

“You’re not getting the planet,” Jacob croaked.

“A share of it then. You promised mother, after all.”

Yes, he had. A mistake, that, but he couldn’t take it back now. Gordon would have a share of the company when he was gone: not enough to influence policy, but enough to make him richer than most men back on Earth ever dreamed of being.

“Don’t suppose you have any idea what it’s like waiting for something like that? Watching the best years of your life pass while you bide your time until…”

“You are right,” Jacob wheezed. “I don’t know what that is like. I spent my youth in useful work. Not waiting for something I didn’t earn.”

Gordon’s eyes flickered again, and he drummed his fingers on the side of the machine that was feeding Jacob’s body with chemicals to dull the pain and slow the cancer’s progress.

“And to think,” he said. “Just with a touch of this button, I might get all that a few months early.”

His finger strayed in the direction of the power switch.

Sucking in a bit of extra oxygen, Jacob wheezed out a chuckle.

“You had best be sure of that before you try.”

Gordon’s finger stopped. He glanced at his father, hesitating, while the old man returned his gaze unflinchingly. But then came the sound of the hatch opening, and of Jacob’s nurse descending the lift for his evening check up. Gordon hastily stepped away from the machine.

“Wise choice,” said Jacob

His son’s normally pale face was rather flush and his breathing was coming faster than normal, but he reaffixed his scarecrow grin on his face as he turned to greet the nurse.

“Is it that time already?” he said. “And we were just getting on so well.”

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” she said. “I can give you a moment longer if you’d like?”

“No, no; that’s all right. Although…” Jacob saw his eyes make an appreciative sweep of her. “I’d be prepared to accept a moment or two with you if you’re free later.”

The nurse gave a flustered chuckle.

“Thank you, Mr. Dunn, but I don’t think that would be appropriate.”

“It’s not supposed to be. That’s what makes it fun.”

“Maybe, but I’m really not interested.”

“As you like,” he said with a carefree shrug. “Just make sure my dear old man stays with us; I don’t know what we’d do without him.”

He made to pat his father on the shoulder, but at the look from Jacob’s eyes thought better of it and turned it into a kind of wave.

“I enjoy our chats,” he said. “Feel better, father. Or don’t as you please.”

With that he departed and the nurse came to take his place. Jacob noticed that seemed to be carefully keeping her distance from Gordon, which spoke well of her prudence.

However, he soon found himself frowning at her. She was not one of his usual nurses. All his nursing staff were middle-aged, experienced men and women. This one was young, very young. So young, in fact, he wondered that she could be fully qualified. She had rich auburn hair tied into a long tail that hung over her left shoulder, contrasting appealingly with the clean white of her uniform. Her frame was small, slender, and well-proportioned.

In a word, she was beautiful.

“Who are you?” he demanded, watching her as she bent over the hover cart that held her tools. He noticed with additional annoyance that, rather than the required slippers, she went barefoot.

“My name is Zora, sir,” she said. “I’m covering for one of the nurses who was sick. I hope you don’t mind?”

He wanted to say he did mind. He picked his people very carefully and he didn’t like surprises. Besides, he preferred that those who worked for him knew their business, and this girl was clearly much too young for that. He drew in a wheezing breath to spit all this at her.

But he didn’t. All at once it seemed useless. What was the point of blustering at his age, with death crawling its way through his limbs? What did it matter if she did make a mess of things; it would only be dying a short while sooner.

“No, I don’t,” he sighed.

She looked as though she had guessed what he had meant to say, and why he hadn’t said it. Her kind, lovely face seemed to sag with concern and not a little embarrassment, but she set to work taking his vitals with a practiced hand.

“May I ask you something, sir?” she said after a moment.

He grunted in reply.

“What is it like to have everything?”

Jacob gave a wheezy chuckle. He’d been asked that question before, many times, and he had his answer down pat. It was exhilarating, not because he owned a planet, but because he had pushed the progress of mankind further than any other man before him, left a legacy that would last a million….

Yet the old words died on his lips. He couldn’t get them out. Instead, he found that new words, words that had been creeping in his brain for years without ever being acknowledge were wheezing past his diseased lips.

“I wouldn’t know,” he said. “All I have is my name on a planet I can’t walk on, endless money I can’t spend, power I can’t use, a son without a soul, and a body falling to pieces. I’ve spent my life wanting the world and it turns out the world doesn’t amount to much.”

She looked at him with surprise.

“Really?”

Jacob breathed for a moment, catching his breath.

“Never thought I’d say it. But it was a waste. It was all a waste!”

“But you founded Hesperus, didn’t you?”

“So what? If I hadn’t, someone else would’ve; probably someone with the sense not to make it a monument to his own folly.”

He coughed violently.

“You ever hear of the Great Pyramids? Back on Earth?”

“Yes, sir. I was born on Earth.”

“Some old kings had them made, thousands of years ago,” he said. “Made to be their tombs. Hundreds of feet of brick, just standing out in the desert, all to hold one man’s corpse. I did them one better: I made a whole planet to serve as my pyramid.”

“But surely it isn’t as bad as all that?”

“No? I haven’t read a book or listened to a concert or even gone for a walk in fifty years. Married twice and didn’t care a straw for either woman. Made love maybe a dozen times between them. Most of my life I’ve been too busy working to do anything else. After that, I’ve been too busy dying.”

Zora looked at him in surprise and compassion. Jacob frowned at her. He couldn’t believe he was sharing all this with this woman. Maybe it had been the scene with his son just now, or maybe it was just that it’d been so long since he’d bothered to talk with a pretty girl. But either way, he felt oddly lightened by it.

“Then,” she said. “If you could go back and do it over again…would you?”

He grunted.

“Never thought of that,” he said. “Don’t suppose it matters though; I can’t go back.”

“But…but if you could? Knowing what you know now?”

Jacob gave a wheezing chuckle.

“I’d let all the progress of mankind go to hell and…well, I don’t know what I’d do instead. Something worth doing I suppose. There’s an idea, isn’t it?”

He laughed, which quickly dissolved into a hacking cough that ripped at his throat with iron claws. Zora hastily got him a drink of water. Her hand was trembling, and once he’d recovered, she set the cup aside and drew a deep breath.

“If you’d like,” she said. “I can give you that chance.”

It took him a moment to work out what she was saying.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I can send you back. You can be a young man again, knowing what you now know. You won’t have all your memories, understand, just a…an impression sort of. And of course, there would be no guarantee that you would like the outcome any more than you like your life now, not to mention that you would almost certainly not turn out nearly as rich or successful. You’d have to give that up. But it could be done.”

He stared at her.

“Is this some kind of joke?”

“No, sir.”

“How do you intend to send me back in time?”

“It’s difficult to explain,” she said. “But there are certain ways to create cross-paths through time. Like drawing a straight line across a spiral. Then, if you know how, you can use that path as a kind of life-line to draw your consciousness back.”

Jacob blinked. His active, powerful mind was, for the moment, too interested in the concept to give any thought to her question.

“How do you set up a path through time?”

“It…it’s rather like a memory,” she said. “You know how there are particular moments that stay with you forever? That always remain branded into your mind, as if they had happened just yesterday? Well, if you know how, you can set an anchor in that moment and then that sets a path through time, all the way to the last link with that anchor; the last moment it can be remembered.”

“What do you mean an anchor?”

“I mean you capture the moment; lock it in place. It becomes a single…thing that passes crosswise through the years, unaffected by time…” Unthinkingly she touched her face. “Then, from there, everything can be drawn back to that point.”

“How?”

She looked around. The sun was going down outside the window.

“I don’t have time to explain it all,” she said. “The point is that you do have such an anchor in your past, and if you wish, I could send you back there.”

“How do you know I have one?” he demanded.

The girl swallowed. She was breathing hard.

“Because I put it there. Long ago.”

He stared at her. Something strange was happening. His insides were writhing with excitement…and also a growing pain.

“What are you?” he asked. “Some kind of witch?”

She hesitated.

“Something like that, I suppose. But there’s no time; our window is closing fast.”

Again, she glanced out the window at the sinking sun.

“There are only a few minutes left in which it would be possible,” she went on. “So, you have to tell me, Jacob; do you want the life you have made for yourself to be your life, or do you want to try for a different one? Once the choice is made tonight, it cannot be changed. This is the end of the line.”

Jacob looked at her. She was flushed and there was excitement, no, desperation in her voice. Pleading almost. There was, he found, something strangely familiar about her face, like something he had seen in a dream long, long ago.

He considered her offer of a different life. It seemed unthinkable; never to have made Hesperus, never to have achieved all he had accomplished, never to have built his palace in the sky…

The palace he had never enjoyed, and that would go to a board that cared nothing for him and a son who meant nothing to him. He was weary, and the pain of his cancer, even dulled by drugs, throbbed all through his body. Soon…tonight, tomorrow, next year, he would die, and what would he take away with him?

“Take me back,” he wheezed. “Let me try again, if you can.”

At once, as though frightened it might already be too late, she laid her soft, warm hand upon his wrinkled, fleshless scalp just as the sun dropped below the horizon….

Jacob suddenly jerked out of his reverie when his body ran up against another body. She had just been sipping a glass of punch, the contents of which spilled all over her blue dress, or at least those contents she hadn’t accidentally inhaled.

“I’m so sorry!” he said hastily. He hastily grabbed some napkins and began dabbing at her soaked face as she coughed.

“Completely my fault,” he went on. “I wasn’t paying attention…” He looked around the room. What had he been thinking about? The New Years Eve party was in full swing. He’d spent most of his Christmas bonus on his tuxedo; it was lucky none of the punch had spilled on him. There was something important he meant to do, wasn’t there?

Jacob shook his head. He must have been drinking more than he thought. Of course: Leah Fairweather, daughter of old Alaistar Fairweather, the banker. She had invited Jacob to meet her father to discuss his planned business venture. He didn’t like either of them very much, but of course if you wanted to get ahead…

“That’s all right,” coughed the girl he’d bumped into. “I shouldn’t try to drink and think at the same time!” She smiled up at him. Her smile was bright and warm, as was the rich auburn hair hanging down over her left shoulder. In a word, she was beautiful. He had the odd feeling that he had seen her before somewhere…

For a moment, they just smiled at each other. Then Jacob remembered that he had to meet with Leah Fairweather. She was waiting just on the other side of the room, and if she saw him talking to another girl, especially one much, much better looking than herself, then that would be the end of his future.

But all of a sudden, that future he’d been working towards and scheming towards seemed much less interesting than the smile on this girl’s face.

“Well, at least not where people might be sleepwalking,” he said, offering her his arm. “But personally, I enjoy both drinking and thinking. Shall we go somewhere to do them both?”

She smiled, a little shyly, took his arm, and he led her to an empty table.

“My name is Jacob, by the way,” he said.

“Zora.”

“I…can’t help feeling like we’ve met before. Have we?”

She seemed to take a moment to think about it.

“No, we haven’t met before,” she said. “But we have now.”