Life Everlasting and Other Tales of Science, Fantasy, and Horror

by David Henry Keller

  "Your boy? Oh! I forgot. You see, we did not know where you were, so there was nothing to do; no way to let you know."

  "Didn't the serum help him?"

  "He never received it. We had arranged to give it on the thirtieth day according to your orders. The night before, he went into a coma and, in a few minutes, he was gone. I saw him as soon as I could, but it was too late."

  "Do you mean he is dead?" asked the puzzled scientist.

  "Yes. I am terribly sorry."

  "And you did not give him the scrum?"

  "No. You see, he was dead before I could get to him."

  "I wish you had given it to him anyway."

  "But I didn't know—you surely do not mean that the drug brings the dead back to life — not that, Mr. Biddle? Surely, not that?"

  "I don't know. Perhaps it would have done no good."

  "I am sorry."

  "That is all right. But I wish you would have given it to him anyway, even if he was dead, even though it would not have helped him. Perhaps in some way he would have known about it; known that I had not forgotten him, known that I wanted him to have his chance, like the rest of the children. Perhaps his mother can explain it to him."

  "Will you stay awhile with us? See the children?"

  "No," replied Biddle. "I'll be going, back to my place in Canada. You see, I have a lot of things to think about, now."

  LIFE IS DIFFERENT

  THE BIDDLE SERUM BILL, passed by Congress in record time, provided that every man, woman, and child in the United States should receive, free of charge, one dose of the serum. Where possible to do so, preference should be given to the sick and aged, and the little children. After that, everyone should be cared for.

  It was anticipated that there would be resistance from the antivivisectionists and certain religious organizations. This opposition was provided for in the bill. No one had to take the serum, but they could not refuse and continue their residence in the United States. It was believed that the greatest benefit could not be derived from the drug, if a residue of the population remained capable of contracting disease, becoming insane, or remaining social menaces.

  There was, therefore, an exodus of conscientious objectors from the States. Most of these were good citizens, but poor logicians. In addition, a large number of the underworld made every effort to escape the effect of the purifying drug. They fared rather well once across the Mexican border, but those who tried the Canadian route fared badly. Once caught and identified, they were injected with the Biddle Serum and sent back to the States, better men, in spite of themselves. For Canada, in close spiritual sympathy with the United States, had not neglected to avail herself of this new medical gift.

  The actual giving of the serum was done by the members of the medical profession. As rapidly as they were supplied with the serum, the one hundred and eighty thousand physicians and surgeons in the country started their campaign. Once it was made universally available, the demand for the drug increased daily. Long lines of rich and poor stood in front of the office of every physician. Not only the sick, but also the well; not only the miserable, but also those fairly happy who wished to stay happy. Children brought their aged parents; parents brought their little children. No longer the question, "would it work?" was asked, but the questions, "how soon?" and "for how long?"

  To the tens and hundreds of thousands of hopeless cases in hospitals, asylums, and prisons, the future that opened was such a startling change that there was, of necessity, a rather difficult period of readjustment. Those who had been insane for years recovered perfect health and sanity only to find their families dead, scattered, or lost. Men discharged from prison after years of servitude found their wives remarried and their children almost strangers to them. But these were minor incidents; fortunately, these rejuvenates re-entered a friendly, kindly world, where the question was, "how can I help you?" rather than "how much can you pay for my services?"

  For the people of the United States were growing richer and happier every day. They were free from the need of supporting the sick, the indigent, the crippled, abnormal, epileptic, insane, criminal, and psychopathic. There was neither drunkenness nor drug addiction. The courts closed for lack of work, the police force of every city was decimated. Clear-eyed, steady-handed, free from sickness, the laborer was able to perform more work and was willing to do it.

  There had always been enough wealth in the United States. Now with the political leaders taking every opportunity to secure an equal distribution of the necessities of life to every one, poverty ceased to exist. It cost less to live. There was a gradual decrease in food consumption. Hunger became unknown. Work became joyous, amusements pleasurable, and sleep a pleasant pastime.

  While large masses of industries ceased to exist, those who were thrown out of work had no difficulty in finding other fields of activity.

  The working day shortened. The dollar was more easily earned, and constantly increased in buying value. Everyone had something to do, received a living wage for doing it, and had lots of time for recreation.

  Before the end of eighteen months, the President was able to announce that over ninety-nine percent of the populace had been injected. Then began a concerted drive to force the remaining one percent to fall into line and receive their serum. The work now was considerably slower, but at the end of the second year it was thought that everyone in the United States had been protected against disease.

  The Biddle Serum Act provided for a Committee of Scientists who were to make constant observations on the efficacy of the new drug, and from time to time report to the President of the United States and his Cabinet concerning the changes resulting in the social, economic, and hygienic life of the people. It was provided in the act that the first report be made one year after the serum had been given to everyone. Thus the first report was made three years following the giving of the first serum following the passage of the Act.

  Biddle was supposed to be a member of this committee, but Biddle had disappeared. No one had the remotest idea where he was. Certain questions would have been asked him had it been possible to do so. The thinkers of the nation were beginning to wonder. Other factors were forcing their way into the mental life of the nation, results of the serum that no one had foreseen clearly during the months when the nation had become free from disease. These problems had to be faced.

  In the first place, the death rate had dropped to a vanishing point. Except in cases of destructive accident, people had ceased to die. The senile had rejuvenated to a healthy middle-age, the young appeared to grow no older, and the infants and adolescents simply continued to make the normal growth for their age. But no one died.

  This in itself was not a cause for instant alarm. It was considered that finally the effect of the serum would wear out, and that death again would appear as a friendly enemy of the human race. Perhaps old age could be deferred by repeated doses of the serum, but eventually the human organism would wear out and man would die; perhaps of no special disease, but simply from a weariness of life.

  But the thing that was startling and a little difficult to explain was the fact that the birth rate was as rapidly diminishing as the death rate. For a while after the giving of the serum, babies had been born, but as the months passed there were fewer of them and from the thirty-third to the thirty-sixth month of the experiment there was not a single birth reported in the entire United States. It was noticed that, physiologically, women were no longer slaves to the Moon. There were still lots of little children, growing up; beautiful little bronzed darlings, learning to walk and talk and do things; but there were no more babies.

  What did it mean? Was the cessation of death to be compensated for by the cessation of new life? Had Biddle known this?

  The third factor that was causing interest was the increasing efforts of the human race to entertain itself. The long hours of leisure had to be filled in some way. Healthy, vigorous, active, men refused to become idlers simply because they were not driven to
effort by the spur of necessity. The dominance of production by machine power was beginning to pall. Mankind began to use their hands.

  Social life become fuller and physically richer. With the increase of health and wealth and leisure, there came greater opportunities for marriage. It was no longer necessary to wait till a man was thirty or more for him to marry. Fewer women worked, and more devoted themselves to the cultivation of happiness. A life free of illness and the tedium of pregnancy and child care made marriage an entirely different factor in the life of the human race from what it had been in the pre-serum years. One philosopher said that all of its joys had been simplified and elaborated, and all of its sorrows and burdens minimized to the point of disappearance. It appeared that the human race was experiencing the co-relation and contacts of angels rather than the mere union of animals.

  All this should have gone far to prolong the individual marriage, and cause divorce to disappear as a social process. To the astonishment of the students of human behavior, this was not the case. The percentage of divorce increased in direct proportion to the decrease in the death rate and the cessation of childbirth. Everybody was happy, everybody was married and were happy in their marriages, and nearly everyone divorced their mates and tried again to make a more favorable and happier union. It really did not make much difference to a woman who her husband was so long as she had one. All men were rather alike—all healthy, industrious, vigorous, and happily kind. All women were beautiful, intelligent, and true to their husbands of the month. Everybody acted in a gentlemanly and ladylike manner, but they just did not seem to be able to live together for any length of time.

  And the reason was not hard to find. The physical relation constituted marriage, but the family had disappeared. Husband and wife remained as ever, but children had vanished. In married life, there was no cementing force.

  HIRAM SMITH TAKES A TRIP

  THE PURPLE FLASH, more than any other newspaper, had profited by the changing social conditions. From the first, under the insistent urging of its secret owner, Hiram Smith, the one-time Wolf of Wall Street, it had been the leading proponent of the necessity of the world rapidly adjusting to the new order of life.

  As a tabloid, it had ceased to exist. The pabulum on which the tabloid publications fed, which made possible the interest, fleeting and infantile, of the adenoid moron, was now a thing of the past. Gone were the days of murder, scandal, and disclosures of gross immorality. These ceased to exist with all other diseases. Of all publishers. Smith was the first to see the handwriting on the wall, and the need for a radical change. His daily was now called the Rosy Dawn, a name strikingly symbolic and suggestive of the new era. It now was a paper for the intelligentsia, the editorials of which appealed only to the best interests of the race.

  Smith saw, with ever-increasing interest and a growing concern, the changes in the emotional life of the country. Most people simply felt the increasing comfort and happiness, and cared little for the profound biological changes back of them. Smith was interested. He was not sure that all was well with the new cultural pattern of life.

  He wanted to talk things over with Biddle. But Biddle was gone. Smith thought about it for one day, talked it over with his wife for another day, and then issued his order. It was a short command of three syllables:

  FIND BIDDLE!! As that order had back of it over a hundred million dollars, there could be no doubt that Hiram Smith was in earnest.

  Six months and five millions were spent in the search, and there was nothing to show for it except failure. It was Sally Fanning who, with her womanly intuition, supplied the necessary clue. She reminded Smith that at one time Biddle had used the name of Harry Ackerman. Was it possible that he had reverted to the use of that name? So Smith issued another order:

  FIND HARRY ACKERMAN!!

  And that order brought results.

  Hiram took the night plane to Quebec, and the first boat out of there for Chicoutimi. He had to go down the St. Lawrence river and up the Saguenay river. On the little steamer chugged, between high, precipitous cliffs of Laurentine granite, till at last, a thousand feet above them, to the left, they saw a Madonna holding in her arms the Christ Child. Made out of wood, painted white, and eighty feet high, it seemed little larger than a child from the river below.

  "Go on to the next landing to the left," Smith told the Captain, "and let me off there."

  "I do not think there is anyone living there now," protested the Captain. "Better go on to Chicoutimi."

  "No. I know what I am doing."

  So he got off at the next landing. For the next hour, the rich man toiled up the mountain path, arriving finally at the top. There he found a little stone house, with a little stone fence around it, and smoke pouring out of the chimney.

  Smith knew that he had come to the end of the trail.

  He knocked at the door; and, hearing no reply, opened it.

  At a table, looking through a microscope, was Biddle.

  "Hello, Biddle!" called Smith.

  "Well! Well!" replied the astonished scientist. "How did you find me?"

  "Cost me a lot of time and a lot of money, but it was time and money well spent. What are you doing here? Your place is back in the world, receiving the well-earned applause of the nation."

  "I am not so sure about that. But won't you stay? Have you your baggage? I have not heard from the world for so long that I am interested; and then, besides that, I want the news from my friends. How are they—Mrs. Smith and the boy and Harry Wild and Sally and everybody?"

  "You would be surprised. And you would not be asking that question, if you were back in the world. No one ever says, 'How are you feeling?' because the answer is too obvious. The nation is gloriously healthy and wealthy, and perhaps wise, though I am not so sure about that. The Missus is fine, we are still together, and the boy is almost a man, the finest lad you ever saw. Harry Wild and Sally are married, and they are still living together. I guess we hold the record for lengthy marriages. But I wanted to see you. I just had to see you."

  "I am glad you are here. How is the Purple Flash?"

  "Has the largest circulation of any paper in the world, a real money maker. I changed the name to the Rosy Dawn, and believe me, it is a real mental hygiene, cultural sheet. You would not know it, if you saw it."

  "And you are still the Wolf of Wall Street?"

  "In memory only. Wall Street has disappeared. When Congress passed the Stabilization Act, trading in stocks and bonds became a thing of the past. It was just like trading pennies, nothing to it; it was not even good sport."

  "So the financial world has changed?"

  "Everything has changed. You would not know it for the same place. Come on back with me on the next steamer. You surely must be interested?"

  "Yes, and no. I realize that I should be, but I am working on a new problem. You see, I have a lot of little animal friends in the next room. I guess I was always happier with unsolved problems than with solved ones. If the world is purged from disease, I feel that I should be satisfied to leave it be that way. So, I just came away and left it. I would have had too many interruptions, if I had remained."

  "Of course, you had your own reasons for isolating yourself?"

  "Certainly! Most hermits do. But tell me about things. What are they doing in little old New York?"

  "You mean the men or the women?"

  "Everybody."

  "Well, they are all healthy and happy. Work about three hours a day four days a week, and the rest of the time amuse themselves in all kinds of new ways. That question of amusement would interest you. All the old-fashioned cottage industries are being revived, like weaving and metal working. Most women are doing their own sewing and housekeeping. Not much cooking; you see, people do not eat the way they did, just drink lots of water.

  "Everybody is married and just as happy as they can be till they decide to get a divorce and try somebody else. It is all a perfectly lovely arrangement, and so far, there seems to be no jealousy
. I have talked to lots of the divorcees, and they simply say they just want to live with somebody else, and so they do it for two or three months and then try it all over again."

  "Seeking happiness?"

  "No. Everybody is happy all the time. Just want a change."

  "How is the death rate?"

  "There isn't any. Nobody dies unless they have some kind of a terrible accident. You see, there is no disease. Tell me one thing, Biddle. How long are we going to live?"

  "I do not know."

  "Do you think it is going to be life everlasting?"

  "I really do not know."

  "I hope not. You see, there is not much excitement in life nowadays. For some reason, the thrill has gone out of it. It has too much precision and not enough poker. Everybody has enough to eat, enough to wear, enough to amuse themselves with, enough money to pay their simple expenses. There is nothing to worry about. In fact, some of my friends say that the young people who were just growing up when they received the serum cannot understand what we older ones mean when we say that we used to worry over the problems of life. They cannot understand what a life filled with sickness, debt, struggle, birth, and death means. Even with the adults, the memory is fast fading."

  "I guess that is natural," said the inventor.

  "Perhaps."

  "What are the men doing with their spare time?"

  "Oh! Various fads had their day. Jigsaw puzzles, and cross-word puzzles, and cross-country walking, and all that sort of thing. Lately, a good many of the men are whittling."

  "What?"

  "Just making things out of a piece of wood with a penknife. Did you ever see a man do that? Take a nice, soft, piece of white pine without any knots in it, and just make a lot of nice long shavings? If you want to, you can do it mechanically, without thinking. The men were making all kinds of little things: model rowboats, and napkin rings, and little wooden birds, and that sort of thing. Keeps the women busy at that."