Until Life Do Us Part

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...

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.