Eternity Lost

The senator rose slowly to his feet, his face a mask to hide the excitement that was stirring in him. The excitement and the naked surge of exultation. He kept his voice level.

“I’ll deliver that million before the week is over.”

Norton said: “I’ll start looking into things.”

On the street outside, the senator’s step took on a jauntiness it had not known in years. He walked along briskly, flipping his cane.

Those others, Carson and Galloway and Henderson, had disappeared, exactly as he would have to disappear once he got his extra hundred years. They had arranged to have their own deaths a

Somewhere, somehow, they had got a new continuation, an unauthorized continuation, since a renewal was not listed in the records. Someone had arranged it for them. More than likely Norton.

But they had bungled. They had tried to cover up their tracks and had done no more than call attention to their absence.

In a thing like this, a man could not afford to blunder. A wise man, a man who took the time to think things out, would not make a blunder.

The senator pursed his flabby lips and whistled a snatch of music.

Norton was a gouger, of course. Pretending that he couldn’t make arrangements, pretending he was afraid of excommunication, jacking up the price.

The senator gri

He’d have to be careful, getting together that much money. Some from one bank, some from another, collecting it piecemeal by withdrawals and by cashing bonds, floating a few judicious loans so there’d not be too many questions asked.

He bought a paper at the corner and hailed a cab. Settling back in the seat, he creased the paper down its length and started in on column one. Another health contest. This time in Australia.

Health, thought the senator, they’re crazy on this health business. Health centers. Health cults. Health clinics.

He skipped the story, moved on to column two.

The head said:

SIX SENATORS POOR BETS FOR RE-ELECTION

The senator snorted in disgust. One of the senators, of course, would be himself.

He wadded up the paper and jammed it in his pocket.

Why should he care? Why knock himself out to retain a senate seat he could never fill? He was going to grow young again, get another chance at life. He would move to some far part of the earth and be another man.

Another man. He thought about it and it was refreshing. Dropping all the old dead wood of past association, all the ancient accumulation of responsibilities.

Norton had taken on the job. Norton would deliver.

Mr. Miller: What I want to know is this: Where do we stop? You give this life continuation to a man and he’ll want his wife and kids to have it. And his wife will want her Aunt Mi

Chairman Leonard: You’re facetious, Mr. Miller.

Mr. Miller: I don’t know what that big word means, mister. You guys here in Geneva talk fancy with them six-bit words and you get the people all balled up. It’s time the common people got in a word of common sense.

“Frankly,” Norton told him, “it’s the first time I ever ran across a thing I couldn’t fix. Ask me anything else you want to, senator, and I’ll rig it up for you.”

The senator sat stricken. “You mean you couldn’t—But, Norton, there was Dr. Carson and Galloway and Henderson. Someone took care of them.”

Norton shook his head. “Not I. I never heard of them.”

“But someone did,” said the senator. “They disappeared—”

His voice trailed off and he slumped deeper in the chair and the truth suddenly was plain—the truth he had failed to see.

A blind spot, he told himself. A blind spot!

They had disappeared and that was all he knew. They had published their own deaths and had not died, but had disappeared.

He had assumed they had disappeared because they had got an illegal continuation. But that was sheer wishful thinking. There was no foundation for it, no fact that would support it.

There could be other reasons, he told himself, many other reasons why a man would disappear and seek to cover up his tracks with a death report.

But it had tied in so neatly!

They were continuators whose applications had not been renewed. Exactly as he was a continuator whose application would not be renewed.

They had dropped out of sight. Exactly as he would have to drop from sight once he gained another lease on life.

It had tied in so neatly—and it had been all wrong.

“I tried every way I knew,” said Norton. “I canvassed every source that might advance your name for continuation and they laughed at me. It’s been tried before, you see, and there’s not a chance of getting it put through. Once your original sponsor drops you, you’re automatically cancelled out.

“I tried to sound out technicians who might take a chance, but they’re incorruptible. They get paid off in added years for loyalty and they’re not taking any chance of trading years for dollars.”

“I guess that settles it,” the senator said wearily. “I should have known.”

He heaved himself to his feet and faced Norton squarely. “You are telling me the truth,” he pleaded. “You aren’t just trying to jack up the price a bit.”

Norton stared at him, almost unbelieving. “Jack up the price! Senator, if I had put this through, I’d have taken your last pe

He waved a hand at a row of filing cases ranged along the wall.

“It’s all there, senator. You and all the other big shots. Complete files on every one of you. When a man comes to me with a deal like yours, I look in the files and strip him to the bone.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any use of asking for some of my money back?”

Norton shook his head. “Not a ghost. You took your gamble, senator. You can’t even prove you paid me. And, beside, you still have plenty left to last you the few years you have to live.”

The senator took a step toward the door, then turned back.

“Look, Norton, I can’t die! Not now. Just one more continua-tion and I’d be—”

The look on Norton’s face stopped him in his tracks. The look he’d glimpsed on other faces at other times, but only glimpsed. Now he stared at it—at the naked hatred of a man whose life is short for the man whose life is long.

“Sure, you can die,” said Norton. “You’re going to. You can’t live forever. Who do you think you are!”

The senator reached out a hand and clutched the desk.

“But you don’t understand.”

“You’ve already lived ten times as long as I have lived,” said Norton, coldly, measuring each word, “and I hate your guts for it. Get out of here, you sniveling old fool, before I throw you out.”

Dr. Barton: You may think that you would confer a boon on humanity with life continuation, but I tell you, sir, that it would be a curse. Life would lose its value and its meaning if it went on forever, and if you have life continuation now, you eventually must stumble on immortality. And when that happens, sir, you will be compelled to set up boards of review to grant the boon of death. The people, tired of life, will storm your hearing rooms to plead for death.

Chairman Leonard: It would banish uncertainty and fear.

Dr. Barton: You are talking of the fear of death. The fear of death, sir, is infantile.

Chairman Leonard: But there are benefits—

Dr. Barton: Benefits, yes. The benefit of allowing a scientist the extra years he needs to complete a piece of research; a composer an additional lifetime to complete a symphony. Once the novelty wore off, men in general would accept added life only under protest, only as a duty.

Chairman Leonard: You’re not very practical-minded, doctor.

Dr. Barton: But I am. Extremely practical and down to earth. Man must have newness. Man ca