Havelock interview

This article contains excerpts from an interview with alleged immortal Judge Havelock.

Part One

In a recent interview Havelock said:

INTERVIEWER: They call you the Fortune-Maker, don't they?

HAVELOCK: [Smiles] They call me a lot of things. I think they are wrong, most of the time.

INT: But you make or break a man's fortune, isn't that right? Fortune, fate, karma -- call it what you will?

HAV: I don't do a damned thing. I pass out, I wake up, things are different. Fate does the work, man.

INT: Fate.

HAV: [Shrugs] I haven't heard a better word for it.

Part Two

Later in the interview, Havelock explained in more detail.

These fools come to me, two by two, and they want action right now. They've got their beefs all heated up, and they want me to pick one right now.

I try to explain why it's a bad idea, and every so often I can talk 'em out of it.

But most of the time I have go ahead and do it, because it's better than getting shot or stabbed in the leg, which is usually what they do if I refuse.

So I do my thing. I accept the situation. I let it happen. That's the only decision: I decide to let it happen.

Then I usually get a little bit hazy, nod off for a second or two. But not long, it's quick. And then it's done.

The problem is, most of the time, everything is the same. There is no sign whatever that anything happened, that anything has changed.

Sometimes it happens immediately. One guy kills the other guy on the spot, or the loser drops dead of a heart attack. I remember these two guys, they both immediately got phone calls from their attorneys about a helicopter crash with no survivors.

But usually it takes days, weeks for the effects to kick in. Months. There are no in-your-face miracles here, okay? The heavens do not open up and shower down gold, that doesn't happen. If the winner wants gold, well, Fate will get the gold to him, in its own bittersweet time.

And they don't like waiting, these guys. They dislike it a lot.

They've been business rivals, enemy warlords, dogs fighting over a bone for so long, they live for nothing but denying the other guy his dreams. Nothing. They are obsessed, and they won't be be put off. They want to know whose dream will come true, and they want to know now.

And I can't tell them a damned thing. I have no idea. I threw their dice, that's all. Fate called the winner.

I ain't Fate, man. [Laughs]. I'm a pawn like everyone else.

In the News

• 

  Havelock and Nikola Tesla share Nobel Prize in Physics for research into electrical field modulation and data transmission.

• 

  Electrical engineer Nikola Tesla invites Havelock to collaborate on electric transmission project.

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  Mountain vendetta. The prone figure in the foreground is Havelock, the only person is this picture who survived the event.

Fiction cross-reference

• Gnomon algorithm
• Havelock

Nonfiction cross-reference

• Gnomon Algorithm (nonfiction)