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eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: Earth no longer wants them, so they have been stranded on a remote planet. Will they build a new society, or be torn apart by internal conflict?

eBook Publisher: Rosetta Solutions, Inc., Published: 1970
Fictionwise Release Date: February 2002

17 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [233 KB] , ePub (EPUB) [192 KB] , Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [201 KB] , Portable Document Format (PDF) [709 KB] , Palm Doc (PDB) [226 KB] , Microsoft Reader (LIT) [201 KB] , Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [240 KB] , hiebook (KML) [522 KB] , Sony Reader (LRF) [269 KB] , iSilo (PDB) [186 KB] , Mobipocket (PRC) [231 KB] , Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [265 KB] , OEBFF Format (IMP) [304 KB]
Words: 68000
Reading time: 194-272 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Portable Document Format (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

The old man hesitantly stepped out of the air car, turned, and looked at the large neon sign on top of the roof entrance to the thirty-story building with a feeling of uncertainty.

"INTERNATIONAL FREEZE, INC."

He paused long enough to turn full circle so that he could take one last look at the large city of Los Angeles Major, a sprawling jungle of steel buildings clawing its way into the smog-filled sky like some perverse gray monster. This was his last look at the world that had given him birth, and even though he was a little late for his appointment, it was impossible not to stretch the moment out a little longer than necessary.

His senses were blurred with age. Through the thick, artificial eye lens, it was difficult to take in every detail, impress it on his mind.

This image would have to last a long time if things worked out right.

He was an incredibly old man, even for the 21st century, a few months past a hundred and twenty. The lines in his face showed deep scars from a youth spent in the battlefields. When he walked, it was with a limp from a wound suffered as a result of his first battle as a young foot soldier. A hollow, pock-marked face revealed a dim purple scar at his right temple where shrapnel had hit him in another battle, one of the many forgotten little wars that had been a part of those youthful years.

Slowly he faced the entrance to International Freeze. When he moved toward it, he had an air of weariness that comes only with age. Yet there was something in his eyes, the set of his squared jaw, that seemed determined, even excited. His relatives had not wanted him to go into Deep Freeze, for it cut down the years in which they would have their "Uncle Grant" the war hero with them.

But this was the Big Adventure that General Hal Grant could not resist, the last he would experience in the world he knew.

Deep Freeze offered a new life sometime in the far distant future. Deep Freeze would hold his aging body until science finally discovered a new kidney, a new heart, and a cure for the kind of advanced old age that was enfeebling his brain. Deep Freeze and a new life faced him. His old body would remain, but it would gain an immortality that he had never dreamed possible as a young boy. And he was following many old friends who had gone on before.

A shiver shot down his spine as he stepped into the large lobby and started toward the neatly shaped young girl who stood behind a long, plain counter.

As he stepped up to her, he could not help but wonder if this new life would offer a restored vigor and physical ability to desire young women like her. That thought annoyed him, for it had been along time since he had thought about women as a young man thinks of them a blessing only old age rationalized. Now he wondered if this last adventure was not, in some minor part, the old search for manhood, the ego desire which made middle-aged men chase young women, in order to prove they were still virile. He rejected the idea immediately.

"Yes?" the young woman offered brightly in a smooth, friendly voice.

Grant realized that her manner was part of the training of all the personnel of Deep Freeze. Every action was calculated to offer a sense of well-being and solid security to those who were about to enter into an unknown but promising future in frozen death.

"I'm Hal Grant." His voice crackled high-pitched and strained.

"Just one moment, sir," she said, flashing that well-practiced smile once more. She turned to the panel in front of her.

Grant looked at the milling people, both young and old, who moved through the large, undecorated lobby and in and out of the two corridors on either side of the reception desk.

He returned his attention to the girl as she said, "Yes, you were supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago, sir."

"I'm sorry. The right of old age to be a little late." His eyes twinkled as they met hers.

"Never for Immortality." She picked a card out of files at her right and extended it to him. "Down the corridor to your right, you'll find a room marked 17B. They're expecting you. And good living in the future."

Hal Grant's face wrinkled into a smile at this last remark as he started off in the direction indicated by the woman's delicate hand. It was interesting that they never said "good luck" bad for the image! Luck was for the young and living, not for those about to die. There were a lot of probable accidents that could take place in Deep Freeze, or more importantly afterwards. Maybe they would never find a cure for his old age illness. And even if they did, would the world be one to which he could adapt? He would need luck. But these questions did not bother him. No adventure offered a sure guarantee of success and that was what made it an adventure to Hal Grant the element of disaster, danger and death.

Upon finding the door marked l7B, he gave one quick glance at the long, wide corridor with its off-white, plain walls, lined with countless doors on either side. A sense of the world slowly closing in, squeezing away inch by inch, assailed Grant. A shiver of doubt held his hand from the doorknob. It wasn't too late to turn back. Not yet. He could go down the corridor and out the front door and have the 21st century he knew, the small apartment with all his metals on the walls, all his little trinkets that had been collected over the years. And a few more years to live. Then Deep Freeze.

His shoulders squared. The hollow chest attempted to expand as he took a deep breath. Over the years his frame had pulled in on itself, slashing his height, shrinking the bone-structure until he was far smaller than in his youth. A hundred and twenty years could do that to a man.

No, he would not turn back!

This was an adventure he wanted to seek out, grab while he was still mentally alert enough to enjoy it. A few years of life now did not make any difference. Feeble-mindedness was not for General Hal Grant, hero of half a dozen wars. So his thoughts ran as determination once more set in.

He opened the door and closed it behind him. His heart pounded painfully as he faced the all-too-small room.

It wasn't what he had expected. This was to be his grand exit from the world of his birth. Bands should be playing. This was the old soldier's famous fade away.

He faced a tiny nook with a long bed-like bench in the middle, a cabinet with surgical equipment at the right, and pale off-white walls.

A man in a green surgeon's smock stood in front of the bench, his face contorted into a friendly greeting.

"Oh, hello, sir. This is a pleasure I never expected," he announced smoothly. "I've read so many things about the General Grant since I was a child."

"Civil War General Grant, I"

"No. Hal Grant, and"

"History forgets its heroes fast!" Grant observed with a slight ironic smile on his face.

"Nobody will forget you, sir!"

"Yes, they will, my boy. History slips back further and further into the past, and events, men and wars, kings and nations become footnotes. As I became the fad of this day, to overshadow even a greater Grant a distant relative so events of the future will overshadow my moment of ... so-called glory!

"I doubt it, sir"

With a General's wave of a hand, Grant cut the man short. "Please, let's get down to business before I change my mind."

For only a moment a smile flickered on the other's face; then he nodded. "As you wish, sir. But would you" He pulled a small pad from the smock, extended it with a pen. "For my son. Just something like: Dear Jimmy, with best wishes, General"

Irritated, yet vaguely pleased, for this would be the last of countless autographs, Grant shakily struggled over the pad. It took longer than he had expected, and by the time he was finished, there were two other men in the small room.

"Now, sir," one of the newcomers said, "if you will undress."

After that, "Just lie back on this bed and relax. In mere moments you will be on your journey to the future and immortality."

This is a recording, Grant mused at the bright voice and overly smooth words.

The three men worked so smoothly and with such speed that Grant had no time to think about anything other than following their instructions.

"There, sir," the head doctor announced, after pressing an injector against his right arm. "The rockets are now blaring, the first stage is shooting you up into orbit, and in only a few moments you will be...."

The voice faded. The world of light closed quickly around his weakened vision, then pinpointed. The vague sense of panic returned. He didn't want to die. What little life had been left to him was suddenly more valuable than any vague possibility of immortality. His mind spun in an effort to speak, to call it off. Quick mental pictures of the last couple of weeks the interviews with the staff of International Freeze; signing away all rights to his estate, other than personal belongings that might be taken and stored with his body; the naming of those who would receive his insurance payoffs all the details that set right the past and arranged for the possible future, all attacking his mind like jarring physical shocks, calling him back to the present

Then all light flickered out, and he was in total ink darkness where nothing moved, where all was silent.

There was a momentary sense of coldness.

After that, nothing.