Eternity Lost Read online

  Eternity Lost

  Clifford D. Simak

  Eternity Lost

  by Clifford D. Simak

  Chairman Leonard: You mean you are afraid it might become a political football?

  Mr. Reeves: The situation, as I see it, calls for well defined safeguards which would prevent continuation of life from falling under the patronage of political parties or other groups in power.

  Mr. Reeves: Not only that, sir, I am afraid that political parties might use it to continue beyond normal usefulness the lives of certain so-called elder statesmen who are needed by the party to maintain prestige and dignity in the public eye.

  From the Records of a hearing before the science subcommittee of the public policy committee of the World House of Representatives.

  * * *

  Senator Homer Leonard’s visitors had something on their minds. They fidgeted mentally as they sat in the senator’s office and drank the senator’s good whiskey. They talked, quite importantly, as was their wont, but they talked around the thing they had come to say. They circled it like a hound dog circling a coon, waiting for an opening, circling the subject to catch an opportunity that might make the message sound just a bit offhanded—as if they had just thought of it in passing and had not called purposely on the senator to say it.

  It was queer, the senator told himself. For he had known these two for a good while now. And they had known him equally as long. There should be nothing they should hesitate to tell him. They had, in the past, been brutally frank about many things in his political career.

  It might be, he thought, more bad news from North America, but he was as well acquainted with that bad news as they. After all, he told himself philosophically, a man cannot reasonably expect to stay in office forever. The voters, from sheer boredom if nothing else, would finally reach the day when they would vote against a man who had served them faithfully and well. And the senator was candid enough to admit, at least to himself, that there had been times when he had served the voters of North America neither faithfully nor well.

  Even at that, he thought, he had not been beaten yet. It was still several months until election time and there was a trick or two that he had never tried, political dodges that even at this late date might save the senatorial hide. Given the proper time and the proper place and he would win out yet. Timing, he told himself—proper timing is the thing that counts.

  He sat quietly in his chair, a great hulk of a man, and for a single instant he closed his eyes to shut out the room and the sunlight in the window. Timing, he thought. Yes, timing and a feeling for the public, a finger on the public pulse, the ability to know ahead of time what the voter eventually will come to think—those were the ingredients of good strategy. To know ahead of time, to be ahead in thinking, so that in a week or a month or year, the voters would say to one another: “You know, Bill, old Senator Leonard had it right. Remember what he said last week—or month or year—over there in Geneva. Yes, sir, he laid it on the line. There ain’t much that gets past that old fox of a Leonard.”

  He opened his eyes a slit, keeping them still half closed so his visitors might think he’d only had them half closed all the time. For it was impolite and a political mistake to close one’s eyes when one had visitors. They might get the idea one wasn’t interested. Or they might seize the opportunity to cut one’s throat.

  It’s because I’m getting old again, the senator told himself. Getting old and drowsy. But just as smart as ever. Yes, sir, said the senator, talking to himself, just as smart and slippery as I ever was.

  He saw by the tight expressions on the faces of the two that they finally were set to tell him the thing they had come to tell. All their circling and sniffing had been of no avail. Now they had to come out with it, on the line, cold turkey.

  “There has been a certain matter,” said Alexander Gibbs, “which has been quite a problem for the party for a long time now. We had hoped that matters would so arrange themselves that we wouldn’t need to call it to your attention, senator. But the executive committee held a meeting in New York the other night and it seemed to be the consensus that we communicate it to you.”

  It’s bad, thought the senator, even worse than I thought it might be—for Gibbs is talking in his best double-crossing manner.

  The senator gave them no help. He sat quietly in his chair and held the whiskey glass in a steady hand and did not ask what it was all about, acting as if he didn’t really care.

  Gibbs floundered slightly. “It’s a rather personal matter, senator,” he said.

  “It’s this life continuation business,” blurted Andrew Scott.

  They sat in shocked silence, all three of them, for Scott should not have said it in that way. In politics, one is not blunt and forthright, but devious and slick.

  “I see,” the senator said finally. “The party thinks the voters would like it better if I were a normal man who would die a normal death.”

  Gibbs smoothed his face of shocked surprise.

  “The common people resent men living beyond their normal time,” he said. “Especially—”

  “Especially,” said the senator, “those who have done nothing to deserve it.”

  “I wouldn’t put it exactly that way,” Gibbs protested.

  “Perhaps not,” said the senator. “But no matter how you say it, that is what you mean.”

  They sat uncomfortably in the office chairs, with the bright Geneva sunlight pouring through the windows.

  “I presume,” said the senator, “that the party, having found I am no longer an outstanding asset, will not renew my application for life continuation. I suppose that is what you were sent to tell me.”

  Might as well get it over with, he told himself grimly. Now that it’s out in the open, there’s no sense in beating around the bush.

  “That’s just about it, senator,” said Scott.

  “That’s exactly it,” said Gibbs.

  The senator heaved his great body from the chair, picked up the whiskey bottle, filled their glasses and his own.

  “You delivered the death sentence very deftly,” he told them. “It deserves a drink.”

  He wondered what they had thought that he would do. Plead with them, perhaps. Or storm around the office. Or denounce the party.

  Puppets, he thought. Errand boys. Poor, scared errand boys.

  They drank, their eyes on him, and silent laughter shook inside him from knowing that the liquor tasted very bitter in their mouths.

  * * *

  Chairman Leonard: You are agreed then, Mr. Chapman, with the other witnesses, that no person should be allowed to seek continuation of life for himself, that it should be granted only upon application by someone else, that—

  Mr. Chapman: It should be a gift of society to those persons who are in the unique position of being able to materially benefit the human race.

  Chairman Leonard: That is very aptly stated, sir.

  From the Records of a hearing before the science subcommittee of the public policy committee of the World House of Representatives.

  * * *

  The senator settled himself carefully and comfortably into a chair in the reception room of the Life Continuation Institute and unfolded his copy of the North American Tribune.

  Column one said that system trade was normal, according to a report by the World Secretary of Commerce. The story went on at length to quote the secretary’s report. Column two was headed by an impish box that said a new life form may have been found on Mars, but since the discoverer was a spaceman who had been more than ordinarily drunk, the report was being viewed with some skepticism. Under the box was a story reporting a list of boy and girl health champions selected by the state of Finland to be entered later in the year in the worl
d health contest. The story in column three gave the latest information on the unstable love life of the world’s richest woman.

  Column four asked a question:

  WHAT HAPPENED TO DR. CARSON:

  NO RECORD OF REPORTED DEATH

  The story, the senator saw, was by-lined Anson Lee and the senator chuckled dryly. Lee was up to something. He was al-ways up to something, always ferreting out some fact that eventu-ally was sure to prove embarrassing to someone. Smart as a steel trap, that Lee, but a bad man to get into one’s hair.

  There had been, for example, that matter of the spaceship contract.

  Anson Lee, said the senator underneath his breath, is a pest. Nothing but a pest.

  But Dr. Carson? Who was Dr. Carson?

  The senator played a little mental game with himself, trying to remember, trying to identify the name before he read the story.

  Dr. Carson?

  Why, said the senator, I remember now. Long time ago. A biochemist or something of the sort. A very brilliant man. Did something with colonies of soil bacteria, breeding the things for therapeutic work.

  Yes, said the senator, a very brilliant man. I remember that I met him once. Didn’t understand half the things he said. But that was long ago. A hundred years or more.

  A hundred years ago—maybe more than that.

  Why, bless me, said the senator, he must be one of us.

  The senator nodded and the paper slipped from his hands and fell upon the floor. He jerked himself erect. There I go again, he told himself. Dozing. It’s old age creeping up again.

  He sat in his chair, very erect and quiet, like a small scared child that won’t admit it’s scared, and the old, old fear came tugging at his brain. Too long, he thought. I’ve already waited longer than I should. Waiting for the party to renew my applica-tion and now the party won’t. They’ve thrown me overboard. They’ve deserted me just when I needed them the most.

  Death sentence, he had said back in the office, and that was what it was—for he couldn’t last much longer. He didn’t have much time. It would take a while to engineer whatever must be done. One would have to move most carefully and never tip one’s hand. For there was a penalty—a terrible penalty.

  * * *

  The girl said to him: “Dr. Smith will see you now.”

  “Eh?” said the senator.

  “You asked to see Dr. Dana Smith,” the girl reminded him. “He will see you now.”

  “Thank you, miss,” said the senator. “I was sitting here half dozing.”

  He lumbered to his feet.

  “That door,” said the girt.

  “I know,” the senator mumbled testily. “I know. I’ve been here many times before.”

  Dr. Smith was waiting.

  “Have a chair, senator,” he said. “Have a drink? Well, then, a cigar, maybe. What is on your mind?”

  The senator took his time, getting himself adjusted to the chair. Grunting comfortably, he clipped the end off the cigar, rolled it in his mouth.

  “Nothing particular on my mind,” he said. “Just dropped around to pass the time of day. Have a great and abiding interest in your work here. Always have had. Associated with it from the very start.”

  The director nodded. “I know. You conducted the original hearings on life continuation.”

  The senator chuckled. “Seemed fairly simple then. There were problems, of course, and we recognized them and we tried the best we could to meet them.”

  “You did amazingly well,” the director told him. “The code you drew up five hundred years ago has never been questioned for its fairness and the few modifications which have been necessary have dealt with minor points which no one could have anticipated.”

  “But it’s taken too long,” said the senator.

  The director stiffened. “I don’t understand,” he said.

  The senator lighted the cigar, applying his whole attention to it, flaming the end carefully so it caught even fire.

  He settled himself more solidly in the chair. “It was like this,” he said. “We recognized life continuation as a first step only, a rather blundering first step toward immortality. We devised the code as an interim instrument to take care of the period before immortality was available—not to a selected few, but to everyone. We viewed the few who could be given life continuation as stewards, persons who would help to advance the day when the race could be granted immortality.”

  “That still is the concept,” Dr. Smith said, coldly.

  “But the people grow impatient.”

  “That is just too bad,” Smith told him. “The people will simply have to wait.”

  “As a race, they may be willing to,” explained the senator. “As individuals, they’re not.”

  “I fail to see your point, senator.”

  “There may not be a point,” said the senator. “In late years I’ve often debated with myself the wisdom of the whole procedure. Life continuation is a keg of dynamite if it fails of immortality. It will breed, system-wide revolt if the people wait too long.”

  “Have you a solution, senator?”

  “No,” confessed the senator. “No, I’m afraid I haven’t. I’ve often thought that it might have been better if we had taken the people into our confidence, let them know all that was going on. Kept them up with all developments. An informed people are a rational people.”

  The director did not answer and the senator felt the cold weight of certainty seep into his brain.

  He knows, he told himself. He knows the party has decided not to ask that I be continued. He knows that I’m a dead man. He knows I’m almost through and can’t help him any more—and he’s crossed me out. He won’t tell me a thing. Not the thing I want to know.

  But he did not allow his face to change. He knew his face would not betray him. His face was too well trained.

  “I know there is an answer,” said the senator. “There’s always been an answer to any question about immortality. You can’t have it until there’s living space. Living space to throw away, more than we ever think we’ll need, and a fair chance to find more of it if it’s ever needed.”

  Dr. Smith nodded. “That’s the answer, senator. The only answer I can give.”

  He sat silent for a moment, then he said: “Let me assure you on one point, senator. When Extrasolar Research finds the living space, we’ll have the immortality.”

  The senator heaved himself out of the chair, stood planted solidly on his feet.

  “It’s good to hear you say that, doctor,” he said. “It is very heartening. I thank you for the time you gave me.”

  Out on the street, the senator thought bitterly:

  They have it now. They have immortality. All they’re waiting for is the living space and another hundred years will find that. Another hundred years will simply have to find it.

  Another hundred years, he told himself, just one more continuation, and I would be in for good and all.

  * * *

  Mr. Andrews: We must be sure there is a divorcement of life continuation from economics. A man who has money must not be allowed to purchase additional life, either through the payment of money or the pressure of influence, while another man is doomed to die a natural death simply because he happens to be poor.

  Chairman Leonard: I don’t believe that situation has ever been in question.

  Mr. Andrews: Nevertheless, it is a matter which must be emphasized again and again. Life continuation must not be a commodity to be sold across the counter at so many dollars for each added year of life.

  From the Records of a hearing before the science subcommittee of the public policy committee of the World House of Representatives.

  * * *

  The senator sat before the chessboard and idly worked at the problem. Idly, since his mind was on other things than chess.

  So they had immortality, had it and were waiting, holding it a secret until there was assurance of sufficient living space. Hold-ing it a secret from the people and from
the government and from the men and women who had spent many lifetimes working for the thing which already had been found.

  For Smith had spoken, not as a man who was merely confident, but as a man who knew. When Extrasolar Research finds the living space, he’d said, we’ll have immortality. Which meant they had it now. Immortality was not predictable. You would not know you’d have it; you would only know if and when you had it.

  The senator moved a bishop and saw that he was wrong. He slowly pulled it back.

  Living space was the key, and not living space alone, but economic living space, self-supporting in terms of food and other raw materials, but particularly in food. For if living space had been all that mattered, Man had it in Mars and Venus and the moons of Jupiter. But not one of those worlds was self-supporting. They did not solve the problem.

  Living space was all they needed and in a hundred years they’d have that. Another hundred years was all that anyone would need to come into possession of the common human heritage of immortality.

  Another continuation would give me that hundred years, said the senator, talking to himself. A hundred years and some to spare, for this time I’ll be careful of myself. I’ll lead a cleaner life. Eat sensibly and cut out liquor and tobacco and the woman-chasing.

  There were ways and means, of course. There always were. And he would find them, for he knew all the dodges. After five hundred years in world government, you got to know them all. If you didn’t know them, you simply didn’t last.

  Mentally he listed the possibilities as they occurred to him.

  ONE: A person could engineer a continuation for someone else and then have that person assign the continuation to him. It would be costly, of course, but it might be done.

  You’d have to find someone you could trust and maybe you couldn’t find anyone you could trust that far—for life continua-tion was something hard to come by. Most people, once they got it, wouldn’t give it back.