Brave New Worlds

'Well, Dr. Halking, I'm calling the police at once. This woman is obviously ready to be turned over. Obviously. I can't understand a man of your stature playing these games with a woman's safety, and just plain ignoring the law—'

Todd apologized again, praised the fine work they were doing, told her he would make a favorable report on their behavior, and finally the matron calmed down. Todd managed to extricate himself. The matron did not call the police. Sandy took Todd's hand and followed him docilely out of the building.

When he got her home he let got of her hand. She stayed standing where he had let go of her. When he came back into the room a few minutes later, she was still standing there in exactly the same position.

He spoke to her, but she didn't answer. He took her hand and led her. She followed him to the bedroom. She stood by the bed when he let go. Gently he pushed her onto the bed. She lay on it, not moving. He raised her arm. She left it raised until he reached out and lowered it again.

He closed her eyes, because she wouldn't blink. Then he sat on the bed beside her and wept dry tears into his hands, his body shuddering with rapid, uncontrollable sobs, though not a sound came. Then he slept, feeling as sick as he had claimed to be that morning.

Sandy remained catatonic for the rest of the week. He hired a student from the university to come in and feed Sandy and clean up after her.

On Friday Todd and Ryan gathered their hastily prepared reports and flew to San Francisco for the meeting. Val Lassiter was on the same plane, but they all pretended not to know each other. The secrecy continued when they reached the city. The scientists were all put in separate hotels. They were brought to the meeting at different times, through different entrances. Some of the were instructed to wear casual clothes. Others wore business suits. One man wore a white uniform. Another wore a hard hat.

'Why all the secrecy?' Ryan asked Todd, laughing at a neurologist in a rather overdone fisherman's outfit.

'To prevent the public from getting too much hope if the papers report that this meeting is taking place,' Todd answered.

'Why not? Why not a little hope?' Ryan asked.

'Why not a lot of heroin?'

Ryan looked coldly at Todd. 'Dr. Halking, I find your despair disgusting. '

Todd looked back and smiled. 'And I find your insistence on hope touchingly naive. '

The meeting went on. The reports varied between cautious negative statements and utter despair. Todd read Ryan's and his report toward the end of the first day. 'Except for the viral microscopy reports, all were slowly and deliberately doublechecked. My assistant wants me to assure you that the viral microscopy reports were hurried through the second check. That is true, because the meeting couldn't wait and the computer could be made to work overtime. '

There was some laughter.

'However, we never found any discrepancy between first and second runs on any other tests, and we did carefully check and found no discrepancies on the first run of the viral microscopy tests either. Therefore, I can safely conclude that there is no significant difference between contemporary blood samples and the blood samples prior to the Premature Aging Phenomenon, except such differences as reflect our conquest of certain well-known diseases, and these antibodies were not stimulated until long after the PAP was first noted. Ergo — not significant. '

There were some careful questions, easily answered, and they moved on. However jovial a presenter might be, the answer was always the same. No answers.

After the papers were presented, the data examined, the statistical results questioned and upheld, the heads of the projects gathered in one small room at the top of the old Hyatt Regency. Todd Halking and Val Lassiter arrived together. Only a couple of men were already there. On impulse, Todd walked to the chalkboard at one end of the room and wrote on it,'Abandon hope all ye who enter here. '

'Not funny,' Val said when Todd sat down next to him.

'Come on. they'll die laughing. '

Val looked at Todd quizzically. 'Get a grip, Todd,' he said.

Todd smiled. 'I have a grip. If not on myself, then on reality. '

Everyone who came into the room saw the sign on the chalkboard. Some chuckled a little. Finally someone got up and erased the message.

The room was only half full. Todd got up and left the room, his aging bladder more demanding than it had been a few years — a few weeks! — before. He washed his hands afterward, and looked at himself in the mirror. He was haggard. His face cried out Death. He smiled at himself. The smile was ghastly. He went back to the room.

He was not yet seated when a military-looking man entered and said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. ' Everybody stood and applauded. The president walked in. No one could have recognized him from the publicity pictures. They all dated from his second campaign, and then he had not been bald.

'Well, you've done it,' the president said. 'And within my term of office. Thank you. The effort was magnificent. The results are remarkably thorough, I'm told by those who should know. '

The president coughed into a handkerchief. He sounded like he had pleurisy.

'And if you're right,' he said. 'If you're right, the picture is pretty grim. '

The president laughed. Todd wondered why. But a few of the scientists laughed, too. Including Anne Hallam, the geneticist. She spoke. 'To the dinosaurs things once looked grim, too. A million mammals chewing on their eggs. '

'The dinosaurs died out,' the president said.

'No,' Hallam answered. 'Only the ones that hadn't become birds or mammals or some more viable type of reptile. ' She smiled at them all. Hope springs eternal, Todd thought. 'It's small comfort,' she went on, 'but one thing this early aging has done: the species has shorter generations. We're better able to adapt genetically. Whatever happens, when mankind gets out of this we will not be the same as we were when we went in. '

'Yes,' Todd said cheerfully. 'We'll all be dead. '

Anne looked at him in irritation, and several people coughed. But the mood of joviality the president had set at first was gone now. Val wrote on his notebook and shoved it toward Todd as the president started talking again.

'You're speaking of aeons and species,' the president said. 'I must think of nations and societies. Ours is dying. If what you say is true, in a few years it will be dead. The nation. The way we live. Civilization, if I may use the romantic word. '

Todd read Val's note. It said, 'Shut your mouth, you bastard, it's bad enough already. '

Todd smiled at Val. Val glared back.

People were telling the president: It's hardly that bleak, we weathered the worst already.

'Oh yes,' the president agreed. 'We lasted through the depression. We adapted to the collapse of world trade. We made the transition from the cities back to the farms, we have endured the death of huge industry and global interactions. We have adapted to having our population cut in half, in less than half. '

'What clever little adapters we are, Mr. President,' Todd said, aware that he was breaking protocol to interrupt the president, and not particularly giving a damn. 'But tell me, has anyone figured out an adaptation to death? Odd, isn't it, that in millions of years of evolution, nature has never managed to select for immortality. '

Val stood, obviously angry. 'Mr. President, I suggest that Dr. Halking be asked to contribute constructively or leave this meeting. There's no way we can accomplish anything with these constant interjections of pessimism. '

There was a murmur, half of protest, half of agreement.

'Val,' Todd said, 'I'm only trying to be realistic. '

'And what do you think we are, dreamers? Don't we know we're all old men and doomed to die?'

The president coughed, and Val sat down. 'I believe,' said the president, 'that Dr. Halking will take this as a reminder that we are talking here as men of science, dispassionately. Impersonally, if you will. Now let's review. '