Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end.
—William Shakespeare
I’d been sitting there wondering how Dunninger’s gift had changed them. Perspective. Empathy. A sense of proportion. What’s it like not to have to worry about getting old? To see other people as creatures of a day?
It had begun to snow. Big wet flakes. No wind was blowing, and they were coming straight down. I wished for a blizzard big enough to bury the problem.
All eyes were on me, and Klassner, his voice calm and reasonable, apologized that I had been overlooked. “Surely, Chase, you can see the wisdom of letting this go no farther.”
It was hard to believe I was speaking to Martin Klassner, the cosmological giant of the previous century, reinvigorated, somehow returned to life and sitting in our living room. Not only because the event seemed biologically unlikely, but also because it was hard to believe such a man could have known about Maddy and not found a way to heal her. Or at least render her harmless.
“I’m not sure I do,” I said. “You of all people, Martin, know what it is to be old. To watch the years pile up, and feel the first pains in joints and ligaments. To watch the outside world grow dim. You have it in your power to step in, to prevent people from being betrayed by their own bodies. And you’ve done nothing. For sixty years, you’ve not lifted a finger.”
He started to speak, but I cut him off. “I know the arguments. I know what overpopulation means. If I didn’t realize it earlier, I certainly came to understand it these last few weeks. So we have an ethical dilemma.
“You’ve withheld Tom Dunninger’s gift. No, don’t say anything for a moment. You and your friends would be in a far stronger position to bring up ethics had you not grabbed the opportunity for yourselves.”
“That’s no reason,” rumbled Urquhart, “to compromise everything we’ve accomplished. Simply because we couldn’t resist the temptation. Our failure makes the point.”
“You’re right. The issues are too serious for that. Alex has said he’ll keep your secret. But I won’t. I see no compelling reason to protect you.”
“Then,” said Klassner, “you doom everybody.”
“You have a tendency to overstate things, Martin. You’re in a position to stop the ageing process. Or not. Either way, as you would have it, people will die. In large numbers.
“But if we make the treatment available, maybe we’ll learn to live with it. We survived the ice ages. And the Black Plague. And God knows how many wars. And thousands of years of political stupidity. We even picked a fight with the only other intelligent species we found. If we survived all that, we can survive this.”
“You don’t know that’s so,” said White. “This is different.”
“It’s always different. You know what’s wrong with you? The four of you? You give up too easily. You decide there’s a problem, and you think we have to arrange things so we don’t have to deal with it.” I looked over at Alex, whose face revealed nothing. “I say we put the Dunninger formula on the table where everybody can see it. And then we talk about it. Like adults.”
“No,” said White. Her eyes radiated a hunted look. “You really don’t understand.”
“No, I don’t. I can’t understand your giving in without a fight. I don’t want to live the rest of my life watching people die, knowing I had the means to save them.”
Lines showed up around Boland’s eyes and mouth. He literally looked in pain.
“I’ll go this far for you: We’ll be in touch with you within the next few days. We’ll arrange to have one of you donate a blood sample. We’ll get it analyzed and let the chips fall. I’ll say nothing about where I got it. And I’ll say nothing about you or the Polaris. You can keep your reputations intact, and you can go on living happily for the next thousand years or so.
“Although I should tell you that if you’re as virtuous as you like to think, as I’d like to believe, you’ll reveal yourselves, admit to what you’ve done, and argue your case in the public forum.”
It wasn’t what they were expecting. Alex frowned and shrugged. I hope you know what you’re doing.
Well, it was, as they say, the old conversation stopper. One by one they got to their feet. Klassner hoped that after I had a chance to think things over, I’d reconsider. White took my hand, pressed it, and bit her lip. She was close to tears.
Urquhart asked me not to do anything irrevocable until I’d had a chance to sleep on it. “When it starts,” Boland said, “when governments become oppressive about containing the birth rate, when we run out of places to live, when the first famines hit, it’s going to be your fault.”
They filed out, each of them sending silent signals to Alex, pleading with him, or directing him, to use his influence to get me to make sense. I watched them walk through the intensifying snow down to the pad and climb on board their skimmer. They didn’t look back. The doors swung shut, and the aircraft lifted into the sky and disappeared quickly into the storm.
Alex asked me if I was okay.
Actually, I wasn’t. I’d just made what might have been the biggest decision in human history, and I most definitely was not okay.
“Nevertheless,” he said, “it was the right thing to do. We’ve no need of secret cabals.”
“You voted with them,” I said.
We were standing out on the deck, watching the snow splat against the windows. He put his palm against the glass, feeling the cold. “I know,” he said. “It was the easiest way out. The least painful. But you’re right. This needs to be in the open.” He kissed me. “I suspect, though, that we’re going to find it’s a mixed gift.”
“Because we get too many people.”
“That, too.” He lowered himself into one of the chairs and put his feet up. “We might discover that when life goes on indefinitely, it’s not quite—” He struggled for the word. “—Quite as fulfilling. As valuable.”
Well, I thought that was nonsense, and I said so.
He laughed. “You’re a sweetheart, Chase.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“How about we go out and get something to eat?”
The storm was intensifying. We could no longer see the line of trees at the edge of the property. “Are you serious?” I said. “You want to go out in this?”
“Why not?”
“No,” I said. “Let’s eat here. It’s safer.”
We had just finished when Jacob interrupted. “There is a news report that may be of interest,” he said. “Something exploded out over the ocean a few minutes ago. They don’t know what it is yet.”
God help me, I knew right away. So did Alex. “How far out, Jacob?” he asked.
“Fifty kilometers. Over the trench.” A deep part of the ocean. “The way they’re describing it, it must have been a pretty big blast.”
Damn.
“They’re saying no survivors.”