James Gunn - The Immortals

Near this nation’s capital, in a seven-story bombproof building, is the headquarters of an organization which spends $100,000,000 a year and has not produced a single product of value. It has been spending for fifty years. It will continue for fifty more if it does not achieve its purpose before then.

It is hunting for something.

It is hunting for immortality.

If you have read this far, you are the third man besides the founders of this corporation to know the secret. Let it be a secret no more.

The organization is the National Research Institute. It is hunting for the children of Marshall Cartwright.

Why should Cartwright’s children be worth a search that has already cost $5,000,000,000?

Marshall Cartwright is immortal. It is believed that his children have inherited his immunity.

This fact alone would be unimportant were it not for the additional fact that the immunity factor is carried in the bloodstream. It is one of the gamma globulins which resist disease. Cartwright’s body manufactures antibodies against death itself. His circulatory system is kept constantly rejuvenated; with abundant food, his remaining cells never die.

In the bloodstream. And blood can be transfused; gamma globulin can be injected. The result: new youth for the aged. Unfortunately, like all gamma globulins, these provide only a passive immunity which lasts only as long as the proteins remain in the bloodstream—thirty to forty days.

For a man to remain young forever, like Cartwright, he would need a transfusion from Cartwright every month. This might well be fatal to Cartwright. Certainly it would be unhealthful. And it would be necessary to imprison him to make certain that he was always available.

Fifty years ago, through an accidental transfusion, Cartwright learned of his immortality. He ran for his life. He changed his name. He hid. And it is believed that he obeyed the Biblical injunction to be fruitful and replenish the earth.

This was his goal: to spread his seed so widely that it could not be destroyed. This was his hope: that the human race might eventually become immortal.

In no other way could he hope to survive for more than a few centuries. Because he could be killed by accident or by man’s greed. If he were ever discovered, his fate was certain.

Cartwright has disappeared completely, although his path has been traced up to twenty years ago. In the Institute office there is a map on which glows the haphazard wanderings of a fugitive from mankind’s terrible fear of death. Agents have worked and reworked that path for children that Cartwright may have fathered.

If one is found, he will be bled—judiciously—but his primary function will be to father more children so that there will eventually be enough gamma globulin to rejuvenate almost fifty men.

Once there were one hundred. They were the wealthiest men in the world. Now over half of them have died, their estates going—by mutual arrangement—to the Institute for the search.

Already these men are exercising a vast influence over the governments of the world. They are afraid of nothing—except death. If they succeed, it will not matter if Man becomes immortal.

He will have nothing to live for.

Sibert read it over, making a few corrections, and grinned. He pushed a key and a printed version rolled out of the computer. He folded the sheets in half and then twice in the opposite direction. On a small envelope he wrote in ink: I entrust this to you, your conscience, and your honor, as a journalist. Do not open this envelope for thirty days. If I send for it before that time—verifying my request by repeating this message—I will expect you to return it unopened. I trust you.

He sealed the typewritten sheets inside the envelope. On a larger one he wrote: MANAGING EDITOR, KANSAS CITY STAR.

There was no use trusting public servants anymore. It was not just that they could be bought, but that they were on the open market. Perhaps newspapers and their staffs could be bought, too, but purchasers had to know which of them had information worth the buying.

He checked the tiny automatic to make sure that the chamber was full and the safety was off, then slipped it back into his jacket pocket. Cautiously he opened the door, inspected the dark hallway, and frowned. The single light over the stairwell had gone out.

He slipped into the hall, the stamped envelope in his hand held under his jacket to shield the whiteness. At the top of the stairs he hesitated and then turned to the mail chute. He fished a coin out of his pocket and dropped it into the slot. For a few seconds it clanked against the side of the chute as it fell.

The chute was clear. With a gesture of finality, Sibert shoved the letter through the slot.

“Insurance, Eddy?”

Sibert whirled, his hand thrust deep into his jacket pocket. Slowly he relaxed against the wall as a shadow detached itself from the shadows beside the stairs and moved toward him, resolving into a lean, dark-faced man with thin lips curling in a gently deprecatory smile.

“That’s what it is, Les,” Sibert said easily. “What are you doing up here?”

“Now, Eddy,” Les protested mildly, “let’s not play games. You know what I want. The kid, Eddy.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Les.”

“Don’t be cute, Eddy. Locke sent me. It’s all over.”

“How did you find me?”

“I never lost you. I’m your shadow, Eddy. Did you ever learn that poem when you were a kid:

“I’ve got a little shadow

That goes in and out with me,

And what can be the use of him

Is more than I can see.”

“Locke may be old, Eddy, but he ain’t dumb. He’s pretty cute, in fact. He knows all the tricks. You shouldn’t oughta cross him, Eddy. Everybody’s got a shadow. I got a shadow, too, I guess. I wonder who he is. I didn’t have to follow you, Eddy. Locke let me know you were coming home. Now, Eddy, the kid. Where is he?”

So that was why Les had that front apartment on the first floor, Sibert thought ruefully. And that was why he sat there hour after hour in the dark with his door ajar.

“You know better than that, Les. I can’t tell you. I know too much.”

“That’s what Locke said,” Les told him softly. “The kid’s in the building, Eddy, we know that. Maybe right on this floor. You wouldn’t let him get far away. And you’d hurry back to him, first thing. I’d like to make it easy on you, boy. But if you want us to do it the hard way—”

His lifting hand held a vest-pocket gun.

Sibert squeezed the automatic in his pocket. It exploded twice, thunderous in the uncarpeted hallway. Surprise blanked Les’s bony face; pain twisted as he leaned toward Sibert, his shoulders hunching, his gun hand coming down over his abdomen to hold in the pain. In grotesque slow motion he folded forward onto the floor.

Sibert was bringing his gun out, patting the tattered hole in his pocket to smother the flames, as a third shot shook the hall. Flame spurted down the stairs. The bullet flung Sibert back against the mail chute. His left hand clutched his chest as he triggered three quick shots toward the flash.

In the silence that followed, someone sighed. Like a sack of old bones, a body tumbled down the stairs from the landing above. It stopped at the bottom and leaned its head tiredly against the wall.

The wrinkled old face framed in gray hair was very dead. Through the pain Sibert smiled at it. “What a delightful hostelry you keep, Missus Gentry,” he said softly.

He started to chuckle, but it turned into a fit of coughing. A pink froth stained his lips. Someone was slapping him in the face. Someone kept saying, “Eddy! Eddy!” Over and over. His head weaved as he tried to get away, tried to force his eyes open.