Time Enough For Love

Journey through time and space with the longest-living man in the universe in this mind-bending novel from New York Times bestselling Grand Master of Science Fiction Robert A. Heinlein.

Time Enough for Love follows Lazarus Long through a vast and magnificent timescape of centuries and worlds. Heinlein's longest and most ambitious work, it is the story of a man so in love with Life that he refused to stop living it, and so in love with Time that he became his own ancestor.

Leseprobe:

PRELUDE



I



As the door of the suite dilated, the man seated staring glumly out the window looked around. "Who the hell are you?"



"I am Ira Weatheral of the Johnson Family, Ancestor, Chairman Pro Tem of the Families."



"Took you long enough. Don't call me 'Ancestor.' And why just the Chairman Pro Tem?" the man in the chair growled. "Is the Chairman too damn busy to see me? Don't I rate even that?" He made no move to stand, nor did he invite his visitor to sit down.



"Your pardon, Sire. I am chief executive for the Families. But it has been customary for some time now-several centuries-for the chief executive to hold the title 'Chairman Pro Tem' . . against the possibility that you might show up and take the gavel."



"Eh? Ridiculous. I haven't presided at a meeting of the Trustees for a thousand years. And 'Sire' is as bad as 'Ancestor'-call me by name. It's been two days since I sent for you. Did you come by the scenic route? Or has the rule that entitles me to the ear of the Chairman been revoked?"



"I am not aware of that rule, Senior; it was probably long before my time-but it is my honor and duty-and pleasure-to wait on you at any time. I will be pleased and honored to call you by name if you will tell me what your name is now. As for the delay-thirty-seven hours since I received your summons-I have spent it studying Ancient English, as I was told that you were not answering to any other language."



The Senior looked slightly sheepish. "It's true I'm not handy with the jabber they speak here-my memory has been playing tricks on me lately. I guess I've been sulky about answering even when I understood. Names-I forget what name I checked in by when I grounded here. Mmm, 'Woodrow Wilson Smith' was my boyhood name. Never used it much. I suppose 'Lazarus Long' is the name I've used oftenest-call me 'Lazarus.'"



"Thank y ou, Lazarus."



"For what? Don't be so damned formal. You're not a kid, or you wouldn't be Chairman-how old are you? Did you really take the trouble to learn my milk language just to call on me? And in less than two days? Was that from scratch? It takes me at least a week to tack on a new language, another week to smooth out accent."



"I am three hundred and seventy-two standard years old, Lazarus-just under four hundred Earth years. I learned Classic English when I took this job-but as a dead language, to enable me to read old records of the Families in the original. What I did since your summons was to learn to speak and understand it . . in North American twentieth-century idiom-your 'milk language' as you said-as that is what the linguistic analyzer computed that you were speaking."



"Pretty smart machine. Maybe I am speaking it the way I did as a youngster; they claim that's the one language a brain never forgets. Then I must be tal king in a Corn Belt rasp like a rusty saw . . whereas you're speaking a sort of Texas drawl with an Oxford British overlay. Odd. I suppose the machine picks the version out of its permanents closest to the sample fed into it."



"I believe so, Lazarus, although the techniques involved are not my field. Do you have trouble understanding my accent?"



"Oh, none at all. Your accent is okay; it's closer to educated General American of that time than is the accent I learned as a kid. But I can follow anything from Bluegum to Yorkshire; accent is no problem. It was mighty kind of you to bother. Warming."



"My pleasure. I have a talent for languages; it was not much trouble. I try to be able to speak to each of the Trustees in his native language; I'm used to swotting up a new one quickly."



"So? Nonetheless a courteous thing to do-I've felt like an animal in a zoo with no one to talk to. Those dummies"-