The Immortality Factor

by Ben Bova

  “I just don’t like rats,” Johnston mumbled as I caught up with him in the corridor. “Not even those tame ones.” The man was almost shuddering.

  “If everything goes right with the rats, we’ll be able to move into minihogs and then monkeys,” I told him.

  “How soon?”

  I waggled a hand. “That depends on a lot of factors.”

  The CEO stayed silent until we returned to my office. I could hear the gears whirring in his head. Once the door to my inner office was firmly shut, I opened the miniature bar behind my desk.

  “You look as if you could use a medicinal drink,” I said.

  Johnston sat slumped in the leather chair in front of my desk. “Yeah. Bourbon, if you got it. Neat.”

  I poured two fingers of bourbon into a heavy shot glass, then a bit of sherry into a similar glass for myself. I never drink during the working day, but this was a special occasion.

  The CEO took his down in one gulp.

  “This could be big, Arthur,” said Johnston, putting the empty glass on the edge of the desk. “It’s almost scary.”

  “Will it help you fight the takeover?”

  “Hell, yes! If you can really regrow organs in people, we’ll be untouchable.”

  “I think we’ll really be able to do it. The coming year should tell us whether it’ll work or not.”

  Johnston seemed to relax slightly. “A year, huh?”

  “I think so.” I hesitated, then said, “I don’t think we ought to be making any announcements until we’re sure we’re on the right track.”

  “Yeah, yeah. It’s too soon to make any public announcements.” Then he grinned a little. “But maybe we can juice up the rumor mill some.”

  I raised my brows.

  “Wouldn’t hurt to have a few rumors circulate around. Raise the stock a few points. Make people wonder.”

  “You know,” I said, “even when we succeed with the various animal trials, we’ll have to deal with the FDA and god knows how many other government agencies.”

  But Johnston’s grin only widened. “You’ll probably get flack from the right-to-lifers and the animal rights people, too, once they find out what you’re doing.”

  “That’s not really funny,” I said. “They can be dangerous. They’ve dynamited laboratories, you know.”

  “Pushes up the stock, publicity like that. Maybe we ought to try a little dynamite here and there.”

  “The SEC would love to hear talk like that.”

  Johnston laughed. “Wait’ll the SEC hears the rumors about this work of yours. I know just the guy they’ll send to visit me; little mousy mother who thinks he’s Dick Tracy.”

  “Why would the SEC get into the act?”

  “Because once we start the rumors running and the stock goes up, they’ll want to see if we’re manipulating the stock price illegally.”

  “Is it illegal to spread rumors?”

  Johnston raised his hands, pink palms out. “Hey, we’re not gonna spread any rumors. We’re just gonna plant the seeds in the right places and watch ’em grow.”

  “But will that cause trouble with the SEC?”

  “Long as we can show that the rumors are based on fact, there’s not a damned thing they can do about it.”

  I thought about that for a moment. “Then we’d better make very certain that we’ve got the goods before we start any rumors circulating.”

  Johnston nodded soberly. “Right on. That’s what I’m depending on you for, Arthur. You’ve got to be absolutely straight with me on this. No hype. Just the straight poop, nothing else.”

  Before I realized I was saying it, I replied, “Okay, but I want you to be absolutely straight with me, too.”

  “About what?”

  “About rumors I’ve heard that you’re talking to the Japanese about selling the lab.”

  His eyes went wide. “Where the hell you hear that?”

  “Rumors,” I said. “Some friends of mine on Wall Street.”

  “It’s bullshit,” Johnston snapped.

  “Is it?”

  Johnston snorted angrily. “Look, even if somebody in the corporation did talk to the Japs, it was only very preliminary talk. Very preliminary. And nothing but talk. Just to keep all the bases covered, protect ourselves against this takeover bid as much as we can.”

  “That’s all it is?”

  “That’s all it is now. I guarantee you.”

  I studied Johnston’s face. He’d always kept his word with me. Our relationship had started with a handshake, a long time ago, that snowy night at Columbia. We’d had our ups and downs, but he’d always kept his word.

  I felt tremendously relieved. I reached across the desk and extended my hand to Johnston. The CEO took it in his big paw, gripped it firmly.

  “You can trust me, Arthur,” he said.

  “Then tell me the truth. Were you negotiating to sell the lab?”

  “No. I had mentioned the possibility to the Japs, but it was only one possibility among several. They said they’d consider it, but they haven’t made a solid offer and I haven’t pressed them on it.”

  “All right,” I said.

  “If your organ regeneration program goes as well as you say, the lab’ll be much too valuable to sell off.”

  “And the corporation will be much too strong for the Europeans to take over,” I added.

  Johnston nodded. But then he said, “Unless . . .”

  “Unless?”

  His face went somber again. “You’ve got me thinking, Arthur. The goddamned government’s gonna want to get their sticky fingers into this, one way or another.”

  “You mean the FDA? I don’t see—”

  “If this gets as big as we both think it will, there’ll be more than the FDA coming at you. You’ll have congressional committees crawling all over you. They’ll demand studies and evaluations and all kinds of crap, won’t they?”

  I realized he was right. “The National Academy of Sciences ought to be brought into the picture, I guess. Once we’re ready for human trials.”

  “Every politician in the country will get involved.”

  “Maybe you’re right.” I felt a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach.

  “If we get strung up on red tape by the goddamned government,” Johnston said, “it could open the door for all kinds of takeover maneuvers from overseas.”

  “I see.”

  Strangely, Johnston did not seem at all depressed. “If that happens, maybe the best road to take is a merger with one of the big European pharmaceutical companies.”

  “Merger?”

  “Might make sense, in the right circumstances.”

  “But I thought—”

  Johnston got to his feet. He loomed over me like a smiling thundercloud. “Let me worry about the business end of it, Arthur. You stick to the science.”

  Part of sticking to the science was attending scientific conferences. I encouraged my researchers to go to the more important conferences and present papers reporting on the scientific work they were doing. It was always a delicate matter, balancing the lab’s need to maintain corporate secrecy against the individual researcher’s need to maintain his or her scientific credentials. I always pushed for more openness; I wanted my researchers to be recognized by the scientific community for the top-flight scientists that they were. Too often men and women working at industrial laboratories are slighted or forgotten altogether because their corporate employers won’t allow them to publish in the scientific literature or present papers at conferences.

  And I had another reason to push for openness, too. By getting my people to tell the world what they were doing, I pushed them to keep moving forward with their work. No resting on your laurels once everybody else in the field knows what you’ve accomplished and can duplicate it. You’ve got to move on, go farther, break new ground. That was my contribution to the management of research. I believed in it when I was in academia and I thought it was absolutely essential at an industria
l lab, where corporate secrecy can be a cloak for laziness or timidity.

  The annual genetic engineering conference was taking place in Las Vegas. Cassie Ianetta was due to fly up from Mexico, Vince Andriotti was going to deliver a paper on his latest work in high-resolution imaging, and several of my younger researchers were giving papers also. Zack O’Neill and his development of regentides were definitely not going to show up at the conference.

  I was set to go, though. I had been invited to make one of the luncheon speeches; not a scientific report but a “senior statesman” type of speech on the state of the field of genetic engineering. It would be hard to keep from talking about our organ regeneration work, but we weren’t ready to reveal it to the world yet. Not yet.

  The day before I was to fly to Las Vegas, Jesse called.

  “We’re back home,” he announced, “and Julia wants you to come over for dinner.”

  “You should have let me know sooner. I’ll be in Las Vegas for the next three days,” I said.

  “You’ve taken up gambling?”

  Frowning as I held the phone against my ear, I replied, “It’s the annual genetic engineering meeting.”

  “In Las Vegas? Where’re they going to hold next year’s, Atlantic City? Or maybe some Indian reservation where they’ve put up a casino?”

  I didn’t laugh. “I’ll be back Sunday night.”

  “Can’t wait that long, Arby. Come over tonight.”

  “But you just got back. Julia won’t want to cook dinner before you’ve unpacked.”

  “So we’ll send out for pizza or Chinese,” Jesse answered carelessly. “Don’t worry about it.”

  I thought swiftly: If I pack this afternoon I can drive into town, have dinner with Jess and Julia, and then stay at the corporation’s condo overnight. That’ll be easier than driving to Kennedy from Connecticut in the morning rush traffic, even in a limo.

  “What time?” I asked.

  “Doesn’t matter. We’ll be here when you show up.”

  “I’ll be there at seven-thirty.”

  “Great,” said Jesse.

  But Jesse was not there at seven-thirty, of course.

  I left my car and travel bags in the corporation’s midtown condo and took a cab to Jesse’s apartment. It was dark by seven-thirty, the end of an unseasonably warm late winter day. After weeks of gray overcast and icy wind blowing in from the river, this day had been bright with sunshine and the promise of springtime. The streets in Jesse’s neighborhood seemed reasonably clean, and I didn’t see any homeless people shuffling about or huddled in doorways. The only pedestrians appeared to be well-dressed local residents. Down the street cars hummed by on Riverside Drive; lights were twinkling in the condos on the Jersey side of the Hudson, outlining the high-rises that overlooked the river.

  Tucking the bottle of wine I had brought from home beneath my arm, I found the Marshak nameplate in the doorway and pressed the button under it.

  “Yes?” It sounded like Julia’s voice, barely recognizable in the ancient speaker.

  “It’s me, Arthur.”

  “Lovely.” The door buzzed. I pushed it open; heavy glass with ornamental iron scrollwork. The lobby felt overheated and stuffy. One elevator; it, too, was very old, the door squeaked, and the cables groaned as I rode up to the fifth floor, hoping it would make it all the way there.

  Julia was standing in their open doorway when I got off the elevator. She looked pale and thin, but she smiled broadly as I stepped toward her.

  “Arthur, dear,” she said.

  It felt strange not to take her in my arms, and Julia showed no inclination toward even a sisterly kiss on the cheek, so I awkwardly thrust the bottle of wine at her.

  “Put it in the freezer,” I said, “so it chills down for dinner.”

  “Yes, of course,” she said as she ushered me into the apartment. She was wearing a fuzzy sweater and dark slacks. It was too early for her pregnancy to show.

  “How are you?” I asked, as I looked around the apartment. High ceilings with real moldings, the kind nobody bothers with anymore. Eclectic furniture, no two pieces seemed to match, yet it all came together in a pleasing, comfortable whole. Everything painted off-white, walls, ceilings, woodwork, everything. “How do you feel?”

  “I’m fine, really,” Julia said. “A few problems, but that’s to be expected, I suppose, in my delicate condition.”

  “Where’s Jess? Isn’t he here?”

  “Oh, he popped in at the hospital to see how they’ve managed without him. He’ll be back soon.”

  It was after ten o’clock when Jesse finally showed up, cool as a breeze, relaxed and happy. I was steaming. Julia and I had drunk about a quart of fruit juice each, waiting.

  Julia kissed her husband warmly. Jesse grinned when he turned to me and stuck his hand out.

  “So how’s things with you, Arby? Made another million while we were gone?”

  “Would you have stayed away this late if Julia had been here alone?” I asked him.

  “Aw, don’t start growling at me, Arby.”

  Julia stepped between us. “Arthur, dear, he came home early to see you. If you hadn’t been here, Jess would still be at the hospital.” Turning to her husband, “Wouldn’t you, darling?”

  Jesse made the same sheepish grin that had gotten him out of a thousand scrapes. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  Julia phoned the neighborhood Chinese restaurant and half an hour later we were hunched over the coffee table in their living room, picking from cardboard cartons with wooden chopsticks.

  “In Eritrea they eat with their fingers,” Jesse was saying. “Three major eating styles in the world: the fork, chopsticks, and fingers.”

  “We’ve tried all three,” said Julia, “and I must say I prefer the fork.”

  “Cultural bias,” Jesse said.

  “Perhaps.”

  “How was it in Africa?” I asked. I had already heard Julia’s version of their time in Eritrea: the hunger, the disease, her own bout with fever, the skirmishes with starving bandits. Now I wanted to hear Jesse’s.

  “Looks pretty hopeless,” Jess replied. “If it weren’t for the UN they’d all starve to death or kill one another.”

  “Then why—”

  “Interesting medical problems, though. All kinds of parasitic diseases. I’ll bet they’ve got parasites there that haven’t even been catalogued by Western scientists.”

  “Sounds charming.”

  “It’s a terrible tragedy,” Julia said. “Especially for the children.”

  “So we feed them and help them medically,” I heard myself say, “but we don’t improve their basic situation.”

  “No, not at all,” Julia agreed. “All we’re doing is putting a Band-Aid on their problems.”

  “And feeding them enough so they can go out and make another generation of starving, sick people who can’t take care of themselves.”

  Jesse looked up from his rummaging through the cartons. “What do you want us to do, Arby, leave them to die?”

  “I don’t think we’re helping them,” I said. “I think we’re just making their situation worse.”

  “You want to send in the Marines?” Jesse asked. “Take over the country and straighten it out?”

  I shook my head. “I wouldn’t risk killing one American soldier over a problem that’s none of our business.”

  “But Arthur, the children!” Julia said. “We can’t leave them to die.”

  I looked into her dark eyes; they were steady, unwavering, no tears or unreasoning sentiment. She had made an unemotional ethical decision.

  “Julia,” I said, “you can’t keep bringing children into the world if you can’t take care of them properly, can’t even feed them. It’s not right, and they shouldn’t expect us to take care of them.”

  “They don’t expect anything,” Julia said calmly. “I don’t think they have any hope left in them at all.”

  “Then why are we prolonging their agony?”

 
; Jesse made a wry grin. “Arby, suppose they could pay us for the food we give them. Suppose Omnitech could get a contract to feed them and make a profit at it. Would it be okay with you then?”

  “That would mean they have enough money to feed themselves, wouldn’t it?”

  “Okay, so the U.S. taxpayer is footing the bill. Is that what bothers you, that you have to fork over a fraction of a penny to feed starving black people?”

  “What bothers me,” I said, holding on to my temper, “is that what we’re doing is not solving the problem. In fact, it’s making things worse.”

  “So you’d let them starve?”

  I looked at my brother. Jesse was smiling that lazy, careless smile of his, but underneath it he was just as adamant as I was.

  “Jess, do you support a woman’s right to have an abortion?”

  “Certainly.”

  “This is the same thing. Why bring children into the world when you can’t take care of them?”

  “There’s one rather large difference,” Julia pointed out. “The choice of abortion is up to the mother, at least in most cases. The women in Eritrea—”

  “And elsewhere,” Jesse butted in.

  “And elsewhere,” Julia added with a nod toward him, “those women want to have their babies. They don’t want abortions, and they certainly don’t want to watch their babies starve to death.”

  We argued around and around, getting nowhere, of course. Finally I decided it was useless and changed the subject.

  “Have you thought about the consulting agreement?” I asked.

  Jesse seemed surprise by the abrupt shift of gears. He blinked a few times, then said, “Yeah, I have.”

  “It’s very generous of you to offer it, Arthur,” said Julia.

  I contradicted, “The basic ideas here are as much Jesse’s as they are mine. And we’re going to need the best medical advice we can get on this.”

  “I’ve been thinking,” Jesse said, with a long glance at Julia, “that maybe you ought to work out an agreement with the medical center to work with your people.”

  That surprised me a little. “La Guardia?”

  Jesse nodded. “We’ve got a top-notch medical team there, Arby. Just what you need.”

  I had to admit that he was right. “But what about you, Jess? I want you to be part of this.”