The Old Man of the Stars. John Burke
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towards him. Philipson leaned back against the bench, tugged at the drawer, and drew out a small electronic revolver. It sat in his hand like a little, gleaming cigarette lighter.
Matthew stopped.
“How much would you want?” he asked.
“The secret is not for sale.”
“I’m not asking for any secrets. Just give me an injection, or whatever it is. Immortality—”
“Not immortality,” snapped Philipson with childish irritation. “An extension of life, yes, but not immortality: not under the conditions that exist on Earth, anyway.”
“You mean that somewhere else—perhaps in a different atmosphere, on a different planet...?”
Philipson, once more regarding Matthew as the audience in whom he had so often confided, could not resist going on. He said:
“At the beginning of the twentieth century it was already surmised that there was a connection between the duration of life and the speed of intestinal putrefaction. The simpler theorists just advocated special diets, and every faddist in the world added his own pet idea. But basically the idea is obviously sound. Provided the conditions proper to it are maintained, there’s no reason why a living organism should not continue to live. Short of violent death or the onset of disease, every being is potentially immortal. But life is a matter of constant friction. The tissues wear away...but given optimum conditions, they renew themselves. The mid-century experiments in longevity revolved around the possibility of grafting tissue from such creatures as lizards, but they were only temporary expedients. I have always worked on the assumption that the problem would have to be tackled from inside—literally inside the human body.
“Metchnikoff made great play with the theory that the bacteria of putrefaction should be suppressed by another set of microbes. Complete sterilisation is not possible—in fact, it would mean eventual death. The body needs certain bacilli. I have been working all these years on the preparation of cultures that will fight against all the influences of putrefaction and at the same time carry on a steady renewal of the frailer human tissues.”
Matthew said: “And you’ve succeeded, haven’t you?”
“I believe so. But the atmosphere of our planet is a strongly destructive force. You know how coastlines are eroded: you’ve seen how wood can be rubbed away with sandpaper. The human frame is like that: quite apart from the sharper action of bacteria and disease, there is the constant erosion and weakening caused by the mere act of living and breathing. My discovery will prolong life: but I believe we may one day find planets on which the optimum conditions prevail. There will be none of this physical friction. On such a planet, a man who had been injected with this culture might be almost immortal. Only if he came back to Earth would he once more start—though slowly—to wear away.”
And as his hand relaxed, letting the electronic revolver sag, Matthew struck at him suddenly, knocking him sideways. When he recovered his balance, Matthew was holding the gun.
Matthew said: “Now. Come on. I’m not asking much. I just want to take part in your experiment. You can regard me as guinea-pig. I’m willing to take a chance.”
Philipson had turned pale. He tried to stammer an appeal, but Matthew was prepared to waste no more time. He barked a peremptory command, and in another minute Philipson was filling a long hypodermic from a small grey culture bottle.
“And no funny business,” said Matthew.
Philipson shook his head sadly. He looked at the syringe that he had just laid gently on the bench, and then at Matthew.
“No,” he said with sudden violence. “You are not worth it. You’re not.”
And he jumped.
They crashed against the bench. There was a tinkle of glass and a pungent smell.
Matthew struck Philipson on the side of the head and sent him reeling. Philipson came back with a furious attack that took Matthew’s breath away. He hadn’t realised the man had it in him.
But Philipson was wasting his breath; shouting, “You’re not fit to go on, even as a guinea-pig. I won’t let you.”
It was not with any deliberately murderous intent that Matthew fired the gun. His hand had closed about it instinctively and suddenly his thumb found the small plunger. Trying to force Philipson away from him, he was conscious of nothing but a blur of anger and the urgency of his need to get hold of that hypodermic, in which lay the seeds of all that the future could hold for him.
He pressed the plunger, and the searing cartridge exploded into white light in Philipson’s head. There was a great glow about him, and as he fell backwards a flame licked up ravenously from the end of the bench.
Matthew grabbed the syringe. He plunged the needle into the vein on his left forearm, feeling a strange heat racing up his arm, more agonising than the heat of the flames that raced along the bench and engulfed a whole shelf in a matter of seconds.
He dropped the gun into his pocket and ran for the door.
The laboratory had been transformed into a furnace. Philipson and all the things that Philipson had been working on were utterly consumed. The telecasts that evening paid tribute to a great but little appreciated scientist, and one of the learned societies a month later staged a memorial discussion of various aspects of his work.
Nothing was said about longevity and immortality that wasn’t rather mocking. Philipson’s main interest had not been taken very seriously by his colleagues. They thought his line of approach had been doomed to frustration.
And Matthew at a later date destroyed the gun, after being congratulated by the police on his narrow escape and thanked for the assistance he had given them in their routine inquiries.
A year or so later, wishing to make still further advances in his social position and also within the Corporation itself, he married the wealthy and beautiful daughter of one of the directors.
* * * *
At first it was a successful marriage from the worldly point of view. He and his wife were both selfish, and both acknowledged the fact, so that they struck a working compromise and lived fairly happily together for a time.
For a time: for some years....
Then he noticed that she was looking at him as he had once, speculatively and incredulously, looked at Philipson.
Her face was becoming lined while his remained smooth. She grew middle-aged and shrewish while he stayed young. She began to hate him, her envy turning her speech sour, and she accused him of having affairs with other women. When she became really viciously abusive, he admitted that she was right: he turned on her and scoffed at her fading charms, and boasted of his other conquests. He was still young and vigorous, and by now he was wealthy.
In her anger she did what he ought to have guessed she would do. Her father was dead, but two of her brothers served on the board of directors of the I.D.C., and she went to them with her bitter complaints. They had so far regarded Matthew as being merely a remarkably healthy man who was lucky or intelligent enough to keep in splendid physical condition. “Just what a pack of unobservant men would think!” jeered their sister. Now they studied him, and were staggered by what they saw. They had not realised how many years had gone by since Matthew had married: they had not realised how old he was, and now they faced up to the fact that no man of his age had any natural right to have such a fresh, almost boyish appearance. It was so unnatural as to be frightening.
There were questions. The telecast newsmen got on to the story. Portable cameras whirred in Matthew’s face as he came to the I.D.C. translucent perslite tower for a board meeting,
Who was this man who did not grow old? A scared, jealous muttering spread through the city and reached out into the rest of the country. Wild rumours circulated. An immortal man? Even in these enlightened times there were those who could talk fearfully of pacts with the devil.
In the face of the inquiries of his directors and