The World at the End of Time by Frederik Pohl Read Free Book Online Page B

their destination—but over a hundred years she had decorated it and painted it and added bits of furnishings and knickknacks that were her own . . . and it had one bit of furnishing that Viktor had not at all expected and saw with astonished delight.
    Wanda Mei had a cat!
    The cat’s name was Robert, a whole tom who was, Wanda said, nearly twenty years old. “He won’t last any longer than I will,” she said, sighing as she sat down. The cat stalked toward her, then soared into her lap, but she gave him a quick stroke and handed him generously to Viktor. “You hold him while I find the books,” she ordered. Viktor was glad to oblige. The old cat turned around twice in his lap and then allowed his back to be stroked, nuzzling his whiskery cheek contentedly into Viktor’s belly.
    Viktor was almost sorry when Wanda produced the books. But they were grand. She had Tom Sawyer and Two Little Savages and Mistress Masham’s Repose and a dozen others—worn, dog-eared, the bindings sometimes cracked, but still entirely readable.
    Only the catbox smell of the room began to get to him. He stood.
    “I have to go now,” he announced. She looked surprised but didn’t object. “Thank you for the books,” he remembered to say, politely. She nodded.
    And then, as he reached the door, he asked the question that had been on his mind all along. “Wanda? Why did you do it?”
    “Why did I do what?” she demanded crossly.
    “Why did you let yourself get old?”
    She glared at him. “What impudence, Viktor! And what a question! Everyone gets old, that is what human beings do. You will get old, too!”
    “But I’m not old now,” he pointed out reasonably.
    “You are not even grown-up enough to be courteous!” Then she said, softening, “Well, I told you. I was afraid. I didn’t want to die . . . only,” she sighed, “it appears that I am going to die before very long anyway. I did want to see the new planet, Viktor. All the planets. Nebo and the one we’re going to live on, Enki. What they call Newmanhome. And Ishtar and Nergal—”
    “And Marduk and Ninih,” he finished for her. Everyone knew the names of the planets in the system they would live in. “Yes. But why don’t you—”
    “Why don’t I get frozen now, after all?” she demanded bitterly. “Because now it’s too late, Viktor. What would they do with an old useless woman when we land? What would my husband do?”
    Viktor stared at her. He hadn’t known she had ever had a husband.
    “Oh,” she said, nodding. “Yes, I was married once. For seven years, while Thurhan was thawed out for his turn at engineering duty. Why do you think my name is Mei now? But we didn’t have any children, and he went back into the freezer, when his tour was over, and when he wakes up again what would he want with a wife older than his grandmother? And besides—”
    She hesitated, looking at him sadly. “And besides,” she finished, “I’m still afraid.”
     
    He spent the rest of the day alone, reading. When he got to the refectory for the evening meal almost everyone was there, looking excited. The rumor was now fact. The emergency crews weren’t needed anymore, and they were being sent back to cryonic storage.
    Most people looked pleased at the word that the emergency was over, but Viktor’s mother wasn’t looking pleased, and his father looked abashed. All the feelings of the last days came back to Viktor. Something had been kept from him. “What’s the matter?” he demanded, alarmed.
    “I had to make a decision,” Pal Sorricaine said reluctantly. “See, I’m going to stay awake for a while, Viktor. Not long—well, maybe not long; it’s too soon to tell. But they need an astronomer-navigator to keep an eye on the flare star, and I guess I’m it.”
    Viktor pondered, blinking. “You mean my mother and I are going to be frozen, but you’re not?”
    “It’ll be all right, Vik,” his mother put in. “For us, anyway. For your father, well—well,