Mack Reynolds: Equality: In the Year 2000

The doctor chuckled. “Every few months, after you went into stasis, some great breakthrough would come. Do you know how we conquered venereal disease?”

“No.”

“Some genius came up with a new wonder antibiotic. We manufactured a sufficient quantity and then one day, within twenty-four hours, we gave everyone in the country a shot. Everyone—babes in arms, children, adults, the elderly. Nobody escaped: politicians and prostitutes, homosexuals and bishops, the President of the United States and the ambassador from England! The venereal bugs never knew what hit them; they never got the chance to breed up an immune strain. From then on, anybody who entered North America from abroad was given a shot at the border, unless he could prove he’d already had one. Of course, the medicine’s formula was immediately divulged to the whole world and similar steps were taken everywhere.”

Julian hadn’t followed that very well. His brain was in turmoil.

“But… immortality…”

Leete became slightly impatient. “It’s not immortality. As I told you, everything that lives dies sooner or later. The difference is that for a indefinite time you won’t die from the old causes. Of course, an accident or suicide will kill you; but otherwise your body cells will continue to replace themselves. You’re probably not up on the subject, but scientists have known for a long time that there were some forms of life, mostly very small ones, that never died except by accident. The human animal usually began to slow down in the replacement of its cells in the middle twenties. By the time it reached the sixties, seventies, or eighties, usually some organ would have degenerated to the point where death resulted. To put it simply, science found out what it was that caused the failure to replace body cells.”

“But the population! It must be growing like mad!”

Leete nodded. “One of our greatest problems. Obviously our birth rate must be kept practically nil. We can afford to bring new children into the world only at the rate the older generations die.”

“But you said they don’t die any more.”

“Save through accident or suicide. Suicide, by the way, no longer carries the stigma it once did. Some of our people who attempt to project into the future suspect that the rate will go up considerably as the knowledge explosion continues. The generation gaps will be such that the older generations will find it so difficult to adapt they will no longer wish to continue to live.”

“I know how they feel,” Julian said. “But I’ve seen old people, age seventy or so. If you don’t age…”

“When the breakthrough came, we were able to so-to-speak freeze each person into the age he had reached. Today, of course, a child ages to adulthood and is given the privilege of deciding the age at which he wishes to remain. Edith chose twenty-five, which I thought very sensible of her.”

Dr. Leete’s face was suddenly grim. “You see, Julian, what we’ve been telling you about this being no Utopia is quite true. We have our problems. Indeed, heaven only knows how we’ll solve some of these that near-immortality has created. We can thank the powers that be, if any, that the desire to have children fell off so drastically just when we needed them so little.”

Edith didn’t return until late afternoon and by that time Julian was plugging away at his Interlingua. In actuality, by now he had it pretty down pat save for a sufficient vocabulary. The door opened automatically and she entered, a package under one arm.

He looked up from the auto-teacher screen and got to his feet.

“I had to go all the way to the Manhattan Museum.” She hesitated before adding, “I still think you are being ridiculous. People don’t need guns in this era.”

“As you say. However, at least one of the men I am meeting this evening carries one.”

He unwrapped the package. “You even managed to get a holster for me!” He took out the gun and checked it. He knew the weapon, an M-35 Browning millimeter. It had a staggered box magazine which could take fourteen cartridges. Some of the Australians in Vietnam had been equipped with them; Julian liked the feel of the gun and had acquired one. He ejected the clip, which he noted to be empty, and threw the breech to be sure there wasn’t a round in the barrel.

Edith was eying him apprehensively. “What men are you meeting tonight?”

In the package was a box of cartridges and, sheathed in metal, a combat knife of the type the American marines had carried. Very efficient.

As he fed bullets into the magazine of the Browning, he said to Edith, “The men who think a social change is pending and believe that your father is one of those who are standing in the way. These reform measures he is proposing are concealed measures of reaction—from their viewpoint.”

With the heel of his hand he slapped the clip back into the gun, jacked a cartridge into the barrel, and set the safety. Happily, the clothes he was wearing today sported a belt. He attached the holster to it at his left side, under the jacket. He didn’t particularly like that kind of a draw, but he was stuck with it unless he wanted to stick the weapon in his belt directly. His clothes didn’t provide a pocket big enough for the gun without it being obvious. He strapped on the combat knife in the place his right hip pocket would have occupied if these pants had a hip pocket.

She said, “That’s ridiculous. A social change is not pending; it has already taken place. There are still some changes that need to be made and Father is helping further them. But these opponents of his want to go backward, not forward. All change is not progress.”

“Meanwhile,” he said dryly, “they don’t see it that way, and they seem to be on the dedicated side.”

“See here, Jule. Admittedly society continues to change, but there are two types: evolution and revolution. Take for example an egg. Inside, it is slowly evolving into a chick, slowly, slowly becoming a more complicated organism. That’s evolution. But it is still an egg. It finally grows a beak, little wings, feet, feathers. Evolution. But it is still an egg. Finally, if it is to live, the chick must break the shell and get out. When it does, it is no longer an egg but has become a chick. That’s the revolution. The new chick has various problems that haven’t all been solved by the revolution of getting out of the eggshell. It has to learn to eat and drink, it has to grow larger, it has to grow more feathers to keep it warm. That’s the stage we’re at now: learning to grow up. These opponents of Father’s are the reactionaries. If they could, they’d probably crawl back into the eggshell.”

Julian had to laugh at that. “You’d be surprised how persuasive some of their arguments are,” he told her. He went back to his desk and dialed Sean O’Callahan, while Edith stared at him in frustration.

When Sean’s face had appeared, Julian asked, “Is there any chance of your little group getting together again this evening?”

“Yes, I would think so. Except for your old friend, Bert Melville, who lives in the Bahamas. Harrison and Ley are living together in a hotel not far from here, and Dave Woolman is currently in residence at the university upgrading his background in radio interferometers.” O’Callahan paused. “I would think we could get together within the hour if you had something special in mind.”