He was sick when they reached Washington. The pain in his chest
became acute as he walked down the gangway, and by the time he found a
seat in the terminal and popped a nitro-tablet under his tongue he was
breathing in deep, ragged gasps. He sat very still, trying to lean
back against the seat, and quite suddenly he realized that he was
very, very ill. The good red-headed Dr. Moss would smile in
satisfaction, he thought bitterly. There was sweat on his forehead; it
had never seemed very probable to him that he might one day die--he
didn't _have_ to die in this great, wonderful world of new bodies for
old, he could live on, and on, and on. He could live to see the Golden
Centuries of Man. A solar system teeming with life. Ships to challenge
the stars, the barriers breaking, crumbling before their very eyes.
Other changes, as short-lived Man became long-lived Man. Changes in
teaching, in thinking, in feeling. Disease, the Enemy, was crushed.
Famine, the Enemy, slinking back into the dim memory of history. War,
the Enemy, pointless to extinction.
All based on one principle: Man must live. He need not die. If a man
could live forty years instead of twenty, had it been wrong to fight
the plagues that struck him down in his youth? If he could live sixty
years instead of forty, had the great researchers of the 1940's and
'50's and '60's been wrong? Was it any more wrong to want to live a
thousand years? Who could say that it was?
He took a shuddering breath, and then nodded to Terry Fisher, and
walked unsteadily to the cab stand. He would not believe what he had
seen at Starship Project. It was not enough. Collect the evidence,
_then_ conclude. He gave Fisher an ashen smile. "It's nothing. The
ticker kicks up once in a while, that's all. Let's go see what Carl
and Jean and the boys have dug up." Fisher smiled grimly, an eager
gleam in his eye.
Carl and Jean and the boys had dug up plenty. The floor of offices Dan
rented for the work of his organization was going like Washington
Terminal at rush hour. A dozen people were here and there, working
with tapes, papers, program cards. Jean met them at the door, hustled
them into the private offices in the back. "Carl just got here, too.
He's down eating. The boys outside are trying to make sense out of his
insurance and advertising figures."
"He got next to them okay?"
"Sure--but you were right, they didn't like it."
"What sort of reports?"
* * * * *
The girl sighed. "Only prelims. Almost all of the stuff is up in the
air, which makes it hard to evaluate. The ad-men have to be figuring
what they're going to do next half-century, so that they'll be there
with the right thing when the time comes. But it seems they don't like
what they see. People have to buy what the ad-men are selling, or the
ad-men shrivel up, and already the trend seems to be showing up.
People aren't in such a rush to buy. Don't have the same sense of
urgency that they used to--" Her hands fluttered. "Well, as I say,
it's all up in the air. Let the boys analyze for a while. The suicide
business is a little more tangible. The rates are up, all over. But
break it into first-generation and Repeaters, and it's pretty clear
who's pushing it up."
"Like Armstrong," said Dan slowly.