until life do us part

BY WINSTON MARKS

It's a long life, when you're immortal. To retain sanity you've got to be unemotional. To be unemotional, you can't fall in love....

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, June 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

It was a deathless world, but a woman was dying.

Anne Tabor lay limp and pale, her long, slender limbs making only shallow depressions on the mercury bath which supported her. Webb Fellow stood over her awaiting the effects of the sedative to relieve her pain.

His title was Doctor, but almost everyone in this age had an M. D. certificate with several specialties to his credit. Webb Fellow was simply one who continued to find interest and diversion in the field of physiological maintenance.

He stood tall and strong above her, lean-bellied, smooth-faced and calm appearing, yet he didn't feel especially calm. As the agony eased from Anne's face he spoke softly.

"I'm glad you came to me, Anne."

She moistened her lips and spoke without opening her eyes. "It was you or Clifford—and Cliff hasn't practiced for a century or more. It's—it's quite important to me, Webb. I really want to live. Not because I'm afraid of dying, but...."

"I know, Anne. I know."

Everyone in Chicago knew. Anne Tabor was the first female of that city to be chosen for motherhood in almost a decade. And in the three days since the news had flashed from Washington, Anne Tabor had generated within the blood-stream of her lovely, near-perfect body, a mutated cancerous cell that threatened to destroy her. Mutant leukemia!

"Just relax, dear. We have the whole city of Chicago to draw on for blood while we work this thing out."

He touched a cool hand to her fevered forehead, and the slight motion stirred the golden halo that her hair made on the silvery surface of the mercury.

The word, "dear", echoed strangely in his ears once he had said it. Her eyes had opened at the expression of sentiment, and now they were wide and blue as 

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