Jack McDevitt - POLARIS

“They wouldn’t do that.”

He smiled in a way that suggested he had heard all this before. “You think not?”

“I’m sure of it.”

“Then I would put it to you that if you offer a young couple the choice between having children, or living forever in young bodies, never having to lose one another, that their response would not be the one you predict.”

“You really believe that?”

“I have no doubt.”

“So we stop having kids.”

“We’d have a few. Have to have a few, to replace those lost in accidents. It would be necessary to work that out, but it would be only a detail.”

“What about evolution?”

“What about it?”

“The race would stop evolving.”

“That probably happened shortly after we climbed down out of the trees.” He sighed. “Okay, that was over the top. But do you really believe that some far-off descendent of yours will be smarter than you are?”

Well, no. But I thought other people could stand a lot of improvement.

When I didn’t respond, he plunged on: “We have no obligation to give nature what it wants. Our obligation is to ourselves, to make ourselves comfortable, to provide the means to live fruitful lives, to eliminate the pain and degradation allotted to us by the natural order, to preserve individual personalities. As far as the evolutionists are concerned, if they like dying so much, let them volunteer to be carried out. If we truly want to see stronger bodies, genetic engineering can already take care of that. If we want smarter people, we have enhancement techniques.”

“I don’t know, Professor. It doesn’t seem right.”

“That’s because people have been getting old and dying for several million years. We’ve gotten used to it. And like any other necessity imposed by nature, because we couldn’t do anything about it, we pretend to approve. Wouldn’t have it any other way. I’ve actually heard people-women, primarily-say they wouldn’t want to live their lives again under any circumstances.

“But we don’t like dying. That’s why we have religion. We’ve always tried to circumvent it, to tell ourselves that we’re immortal. So we embrace physical death and at the same time pretend it doesn’t happen.”

“Professor, somebody said the human race progresses one funeral at a time.

People become less flexible mentally as they age. Wouldn’t we end with a lot of elderly cranks in young bodies?”

“Oh, well, you have something there. There’d be some problems. Bosses would never retire. Never die. You get very little fresh talent. Funeral directors would have to branch out. Find another line of work. Politicians would try to hang on literally forever. But we’ve always shown ourselves to be an adaptive species. I think, for one thing, that if people did not have to face the ageing process, they’d be less likely to defend lifelong opinions. They tend to be crutches, principles people hold on to ever more desperately as the end approaches. But if no end is approaching-” He held out his hands, palms up. What could be more obvious? “There would be a period of adjustment. But I think the end result would be more than satisfactory.”

“What happened to you?” I asked.

“How do you mean, Chase?”

“Most of us accept death and loss as the price we pay for our lives. What happened to you? Did you lose someone especially close?”

“Listen to yourself, Child. Who has not lost someone especially close? A father, a sister, a daughter. A friend. A lover. We sit at memorial services and pretend they’ve gone into some sunny upland. We talk about the happy hereafter and how they’re better off. We tell each other we are immortal, and that there is a part of us that lives on. But the truth, Chase, as everyone who’s thought about it knows in his heart, is that dead is dead. Gone. Forever.

“You can see I’m not young. But if you want to know why I’ve worked on the problem, it’s because I’ve watched too many people die. It’s that simple. I want it stopped. And I saw a way to do it.” The room was illuminated by a single lamp. He gazed at it a long moment. “We love the light,” he said.

“What’s the stumbling block? I mean, I know we’re able to get cells to reproduce indefinitely. That should mean virtual immortality, right? But it doesn’t happen.”

“What’s your background, Chase?”

“I sell antiquities.”

“Really?”

“Well, I also pilot superluminals.”

“Ah. Would you be interested in life extension for yourself? If I could offer it?”

“No. I’m satisfied with what I have.”

“A sensible position, my dear. But self-deluding. And ultimately dishonest.”

“I accept the terms on which I received my life.”

“Oh, Chase, you’re beginning to sound shrill. You’re still young. Give it time.

Wait for the first effects of winter to settle in your joints. Feel the first flutter of your heart, the numbness in your fingertips, the growing chill deep in your stomach as the horseman gallops closer. And he is coming. At a gallop, as you’ll learn. Youth is an illusion, Chase. We are none of us young. We are born old. If a century seems like a long time to someone like you, let me assure you that the annual round of seasons and holidays becomes a blur as the years pass.”

He was right, of course. None of us ever admits directly to wanting something we know we can’t have. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a house, a lover, or avoiding getting old. We just go on pretending. “Professor, am I correct in assuming that it’s true you did not succeed?”

His eyes grew intense. “Look at me,” he said. “Do I strike you as a man with the secret of immortality?”

I said nothing and he broke into a broad smile. “The problem is fundamental. It is not sufficient simply to cause cells to reproduce indefinitely. They must also communicate with one another.”

“Synapses.”

“Very good. Yes. Synapses. That capability is the very core of life. Brain cells collaborating to make a decision that it would be prudent to get out of the way of a flood. Digestive cells working cooperatively to extract nutrition from one’s most recent meal. Cells in muscles taking directives from cells in nerves.

“When a human being reaches 125 or thereabout, cells simply cease talking with one another. For a long time we did not know why.”

“And we do now?”

“Ioline,” he said.

“That makes communication possible?”

“That makes it happen. When the body’s supply of ioline runs out, processes begin to break down. We tried to stimulate internal production, tried adding synthetic concoctions. Nothing works. Except for a very short time. There seems to be a clock, a timer, something that determines when the lights go out. It’s called the Crabtree Limit.” He launched into a detailed explanation, and I was lost from the start. But I listened closely, nodding occasionally as if I understood. When he’d finished, I asked whether he had any hope the problem could be resolved.

“It has been the scientific grail for millennia,” he said. “Barcroft thought he’d solved it at the City on the Crag two centuries ago, about the time it was getting attacked by the Mutes. He was killed, and the lab destroyed. Nobody knows how close he might have been.” His eyes clouded. “Stupidity is always expensive.” He stared past me, focusing on something I could not see. Then he shrugged. “In the last millennium, Torchesky might have found a way to persuade the body to continue to manufacture ioline, and there was even talk that a few immortals were actually created. That they’re still alive out there somewhere, hiding themselves from the rest of us. Legend, of course. The work was taking place in a politically unstable climate.