Part 2

Lang sighed. "I won't deny we're working on longevity," he answered. "Obviously we are. The problem interests biologists throughout the Solar System. But we aren't publicizing our findings as yet for a very good reason. You know how people jump to conclusions. Can you imagine the hysteria that would arise in this already unstable culture if there seemed to be even a prospect of immortality? You yourself are a prime case ... on the most tenuous basis of rumor and hypothesis, you've decided that we have found a vaccine against old age and are hoarding it. You come bursting in here in the middle of the night, demanding to be made immortal immediately if not sooner. And you're comparatively civilized ... there are enough lunatics who'd come here with guns and start shooting up the place."

Radek smiled bleakly. "Of course. I know that. And you ought to know the outfit I work for is reputable. If you have a good lead on the problem, but haven't solved it yet, you can trust us not to make that fact public."

"All right." Lang mustered an answering smile, oddly warm and charming. "I don't mind telling you, then, that we do have some promising preliminary results--but, and this is the catch, we estimate it will take at least a century to get anywhere. Biochemistry is an inconceivably complex subject."

"What sort of results are they?"

"It's highly technical. Has to do with enzymes. You may know that enzymes are the major device through which the genes govern the organism all through life. At a certain point, for instance, the genes order the body to go through the changes involved in puberty. At another point, they order that gradual breakdown we know as aging."

"In other words," said Radek slowly, "the body has a built-in suicide mechanism?"

"Well ... if you want to put it that way--"

"I don't believe a word of it. It makes a lot more sense to imagine that there's something which causes the breakdown--a virus, maybe--and the body fights it off as long as possible but at last it gets the upper hand. The whole key to evolution is the need to survive. I can't see life evolving its own anti-survival factor."

"But nature doesn't care about the individual, friend Radek. Only about the species. And the species with a rapid turnover of individuals can evolve faster, become more effective--"

"Then why does man, the fastest-evolving metazoan of all, have one of the longest lifespans? He does, you know ... among mammals, at any rate. Seems to me our bodies must be all-around better than average, better able to fight off the death virus. Fish live a longer time, sure--and maybe in the water they aren't so exposed to the disease. May flies are short-lived; have they simply adapted their life cycle to the existence of the virus?"

Lang frowned. "You appear to have studied this subject enough to have some mistaken ideas about it. I can't argue with a man who insists on protecting his cherished irrationalities with fancy verbalisms."

"And you appear to think fast on your feet, Dr. Lang." Radek laughed. "Maybe not fast enough. But I'm not being paranoid about this. You can convince me."

"How?"

"Show me. Take me into those underground rooms and show me what you actually have."

"I'm afraid that's impos--"

"All right." Radek stood up. "I hate to do this, but a man must either earn a living or go on the public freeloading roll ... which I don't want to do. The facts and conjectures I already have will make an interesting story."

Lang rose too, his eyes widening. "You can't prove anything!"

"Of course I can't. You're sitting on all the proof."

"But the public reaction! God in Heaven, man, those people can't _think_!"

"No ... they can't, can they?" He moved toward the door. "Goodnight."

Radek's muscles were taut. In spite of everything that had been said, a person hounded to desperation could still do murder.

There was a great quietness as he neared the door. Then Lang spoke. The voice was defeated, and when Radek looked back it was an old man who stood behind the desk.

"You win. Come along with me."

* * * * *

They went down an empty hall, after dismissing the guards, and took an elevator below ground. Neither of them said anything. Somehow, the sag of Lang's shoulders was a gnawing in Radek's conscience.

When they emerged, it was to transfer past a sentry, where Lang gave a password and okayed his companion, to another elevator which purred them still deeper.

"I--" The newsman cleared his throat, awkwardly. "I repeat what I implied earlier. I'm here mostly as a citizen interested in the public welfare ... which includes my own, of course, and my family's if I ever have one. If you can show me valid reasons for not breaking this story, I won't. I'll even let you hypnocondition me against doing it, voluntarily or otherwise."

"Thanks," said the director. His mouth curved upward, but it was a shaken smile. "That's decent of you, and we'll accept ... I think you'll agree with our policy. What worries me is the rest of the world. If you could find out as much as you did--"

Radek's heart jumped between his ribs. "Then you do have immortality!"

"Yes. But I'm not immortal. None of our personnel are, except--Here we are."

There was a hidden susurrus of machinery as they stepped out into a small bare entryroom. Another guard sat there, beside a desk. Past him was a small door of immense solidity, the door of a vault.

"You'll have to leave everything metallic here," said Lang. "A steel object could jump so fiercely as to injure you. Your watch would be ruined. Even coins could get uncomfortably hot ... eddy currents, you know. We're about to go through the strongest magnetic field ever generated."

Silently, dry-mouthed, Radek piled his things on the desk. Lang operated a combination lock on the door. "There are nervous effects too," he said. "The field is actually strong enough to influence the electric discharges of your synapses. Be prepared for a few nasty seconds. Follow me and walk fast."

The door opened on a low, narrow corridor several meters long. Radek felt his heart bump crazily, his vision blurred, there was panic screaming in his brain and a sweating tingle in his skin. Stumbling through nightmare, he made it to the end.

The horror faded. They were in another room, with storage facilities and what resembled a spaceship's airlock in the opposite wall. Lang grinned shakily. "No fun, is it?"

"What's it for?" gasped Radek.

"To keep charged particles out of here. And the whole set of chambers is 500 meters underground, sheathed in ten meters of lead brick and surrounded by tanks of heavy water. This is the only place in the Solar System, I imagine, where cosmic rays never come."

"You mean--"

Lang knocked out his pipe and left it in a gobboon. He opened the lockers to reveal a set of airsuits, complete with helmets and oxygen tanks. "We put these on before going any further," he said.

"Infection on the other side?"

"We're the infected ones. Come on, I'll help you."

As they scrambled into the equipment, Lang added conversationally: "This place has to have all its own stuff, of course ... its own electric generators and so on. The ultimate power source is isotopically pure carbon burned in oxygen. We use a nuclear reactor to create the magnetic field itself, but no atomic energy is allowed inside it." He led the way into the airlock, closed it, and started the pumps. "We have to flush out all the normal air and substitute that from the inner chambers."

"How about food? Barwell said food was prepared in the kitchens and brought here."

"Synthesized out of elements recovered from waste products. We do cook it topside, taking precautions. A few radioactive atoms get in, but not enough to matter as long as we're careful. We're so cramped for space down here we have to make some compromises."

"I think--" Radek fell silent. As the lock was evacuated, his unjointed airsuit spreadeagled and held him prisoner, but he hardly noticed. There was too much else to think about, too much to grasp at once.

Not till the cycle was over and they had gone through the lock did he speak again. Then it came harsh and jerky: "I begin to understand. How long has this gone on?"

"It started about 200 years ago ... an early Institute project." Lang's voice was somehow tinny over the helmet phone. "At that time, it wasn't possible to make really pure isotopes in quantity, so there were only limited results, but it was enough to justify further research. This particular set of chambers and chemical elements is 150 years old. A spectacular success, a brilliant confirmation, from the very beginning ... and the Institute has never dared reveal it. Maybe they should have, back then--maybe people could have taken the news--but not now. These days the knowledge would whip men into a murderous rage of frustration; they wouldn't believe the truth, they wouldn't dare believe, and God alone knows what they'd do."

Looking around, Radek saw a large, plastic-lined room, filled with cages. As the lights went on, white rats and guinea pigs stirred sleepily. One of the rats came up to nibble at the wires and regard the humans from beady pink eyes.

Lang bent over and studied the label. "This fellow is, um, 66 years old. Still fat and sassy, in perfect condition, as you can see. Our oldest mammalian inmate is a guinea pig: a hundred and forty-five years. This one here."

Lang stared at the immortal beast for a while. It didn't look unusual ... only healthy. "How about monkeys?" he asked.

"We tried them. Finally gave it up. A monkey is an active animal--it was too cruel to keep them penned up forever. They even went insane, some of them."

Footfalls were hollow as Lang led the way toward the inner door. "Do you get the idea?"

"Yes ... I think I do. If heavy radiation speeds up aging--then natural radioactivity is responsible for normal aging."

"Quite. A matter of cells being slowly deranged, through decades in the case of man--the genes which govern them being mutilated, chromosomes ripped up, nucleoplasm and cytoplasm irreversibly damaged. And, of course, a mutated cell often puts out the wrong combination of enzymes, and if it regenerates at all it replaces itself by one of the same kind. The effect is cumulative, more and more defective cells every hour. A steady bombardment, all your life ... here on Earth, seven cosmic rays per second ripping through you, and you yourself are radioactive, you include radiocarbon and radiopotassium and radiophosphorus ... Earth and the planets, the atmosphere, everything radiates. Is it any wonder that at last our organic mechanism starts breaking down? The marvel is that we live as long as we do."

The dry voice was somehow steadying. Radek asked: "And this place is insulated?"

"Yes. The original plant and animal life in here was grown exogenetically from single-cell zygotes, supplied with air and nourishment built from pure stable isotopes. The Institute had to start with low forms, naturally; at that time, it wasn't possible to synthesize proteins to order. But soon our workers had enough of an ecology to introduce higher species, eventually mammals. Even the first generation was only negligibly radioactive. Succeeding generations have been kept almost absolutely clean. The lamps supply ultraviolet, the air is recycled ... well, in principle it's no different from an ecological-unit spaceship."

Radek shook his head. He could scarcely get the words out: "People? Humans?"

"For the past 120 years. Wasn't hard to get germ plasm and grow it. The first generation reproduced normally, the second could if lack of space didn't force us to load their food with chemical contraceptive." Behind his faceplate, Lang grimaced. "I'd never have allowed it if I'd been director at the time, but now I'm stuck with the situation. The legality is very doubtful. How badly do you violate a man's civil rights when you keep him a prisoner but give him immortality?"

He opened the door, an archaic manual type. "We can't do better for them than this," he said. "The volume of space we can enclose in a magnetic field of the necessary strength is already at an absolute maximum."

Light sprang automatically from the ceiling. Radek looked in at a dormitory. It was well-kept, the furniture ornamental. Beyond it he could see other rooms ... recreation, he supposed vaguely.

The score of hulks in the beds hardly moved. Only one woke up. He blinked, yawned, and shuffled toward the visitors, quite nude, his long hair tangled across the low forehead, a loose grin on the mouth.

"Hello, Bill," said Lang.

"Uh ... got sumpin? Got sumpin for Bill?" A hand reached out, begging. Radek thought of a trained ape he had once seen.

"This is Bill." Lang spoke softly, as if afraid his voice would snap. "Our oldest inhabitant. One hundred and nineteen years old, and he has the physique of a man of 20. They mature, you know, reach their peak and never fall below it again."

"Got sumpin, doc, huh?"

"I'm sorry, Bill," said Lang. "I'll bring you some candy next time."

The moron gave an animal sigh and shambled back. On the way, he passed a sleeping woman, and edged toward her with a grunt. Lang closed the door.

There was another stillness.

"Well," said Lang, "now you've seen it."

"You mean ... you don't mean immortality makes you like that?"

"Oh, no. Not at all. But my predecessors chose low-grade stock on purpose. Remember those monkeys. How long do you think a normal human could remain sane, cooped up in a little cave like this and never daring to leave it? That's the only way to be immortal, you know. And how much of the race could be given such elaborate care, even if they could stand it? Only a small percentage. Nor would they live forever--they're already contaminated, they were born radioactive. And whatever happens, who's going to remain outside and keep the apparatus in order?"

Radek nodded. His neck felt stiff, and within the airsuit he stank with sweat. "I've got the idea."

"And yet--if the facts were known--if my questions had to be answered--how long do you think a society like ours would survive?"

Radek tried to speak, but his tongue was too dry.

Lang smiled grimly. "Apparently I've convinced you. Good. Fine." Suddenly his gloved hand shot out and gripped Radek's shoulder. Even through the heavy fabric, the newsman could feel the bruising fury of that clasp.

"But you're only one man," whispered Lang. "An unusually reasonable man for these days. There'll be others.

"What are we going to _do_?"