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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59498 ***
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+                         What Shall It Profit?
+
+                           BY POUL ANDERSON
+
+                   _"If you would build a tower, sit
+                 down first and count the cost, to see
+                 if you have enough to finish it." ...
+                   The price may be much too high._
+
+           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+               Worlds of If Science Fiction, June 1956.
+         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+"The chickens got out of the coop and flew away three hundred years
+ago," said Barwell. "Now they're coming home to roost."
+
+He hiccoughed. His finger wobbled to the dial and clicked off another
+whisky. The machine pondered the matter and flashed an apologetic sign:
+_Please deposit your money_.
+
+"Oh, damn," said Barwell. "I'm broke."
+
+Radek shrugged and gave the slot a two-credit piece. It slid the whisky
+out on a tray with his change. He stuck the coins in his pouch and took
+another careful sip of beer.
+
+Barwell grabbed the whisky glass like a drowning man. He _would_ drown,
+thought Radek, if he sloshed much more into his stomach.
+
+There was an Asian whine to the music drifting past the curtains into
+the booth. Radek could hear the talk and laughter well enough to catch
+their raucous overtones. Somebody swore as dice rattled wrong for him.
+Somebody else shouted coarse good wishes as his friend took a hostess
+upstairs.
+
+He wondered why vice was always so cheerless when you went into a place
+and paid for it.
+
+"I am going to get drunk tonight," announced Barwell. "I am going to
+get so high in the stony sky you'll need radar to find me. Then I
+shall raise the red flag of revolution."
+
+"And tomorrow?" asked Radek quietly.
+
+Barwell grimaced. "Don't ask me about tomorrow. Tomorrow I will be
+among the great leisure class--to hell with euphemisms--the unemployed.
+Nothing I can do that some goddam machine can't do quicker and better.
+So a benevolent state will feed me and clothe me and house me and give
+me a little spending money to have fun on. This is known as citizen's
+credit. They used to call it a dole. Tomorrow I shall have to be more
+systematic about the revolution--join the League or something."
+
+"The trouble with you," Radek needled him, "is that you can't adapt.
+Technology has made the labor of most people, except the first-rank
+creative genius, unnecessary. This leaves the majority with a
+void of years to fill somehow--a sense of uprootedness and lost
+self-respect--which is rather horrible. And in any case, they don't
+like to think in scientific terms ... it doesn't come natural to the
+average man."
+
+Barwell gave him a bleary stare out of a flushed, sagging face. "I
+s'pose you're one of the geniuses," he said. "You got work."
+
+"I'm adaptable," said Radek. He was a slim youngish man with dark hair
+and sharp features. "I'm not greatly gifted, but I found a niche for
+myself. Newsman. I do legwork for a major commentator. Between times,
+I'm writing a book--my own analysis of contemporary historical trends.
+It won't be anything startling, but it may help a few people think more
+clearly and adjust themselves."
+
+"And so you _like_ this rotten Solar Union?" Barwell's tone became
+aggressive.
+
+"Not everything about it no. So there is a wave of antiscientific
+reaction, all over Earth. Science is being made the scapegoat for all
+our troubles. But like it or not, you fellows will have to accept the
+fact that there are too many people and too few resources for us to
+survive without technology."
+
+"Some technology, sure," admitted Barwell. He took a ferocious swig
+from his glass. "Not this hell-born stuff we've been monkeying around
+with. I tell you, the chickens have finally come home to roost."
+
+Radek was intrigued by the archaic expression. Barwell was no moron:
+he'd been a correlative clerk at the Institute for several years, not a
+position for fools. He had read, actually read books, and thought about
+them.
+
+And today he had been fired. Radek chanced across him drinking out a
+vast resentment and attached himself like a reverse lamprey--buying
+most of the liquor. There might be a story in it, somewhere. There
+might be a lead to what the Institute was doing.
+
+Radek was not antiscientific, but neither did he make gods out of
+people with technical degrees. The Institute _must_ be up to something
+unpleasant ... otherwise, why all the mystery? If the facts weren't
+uncovered in time, if whatever they were brewing came to a head, it
+could touch off the final convulsion of lynch law.
+
+Barwell leaned forward, his finger wagged. "Three hundred years now. I
+think it's three hundred years since X-rays came in. Damn scientists,
+fooling around with X-rays, atomic energy, radioactives ... sure, safe
+levels, established tolerances, but what about the long-range effects?
+What about cumulative genetic effects? Those chickens are coming home
+at last."
+
+"No use blaming our ancestors," said Radek. "Be rather pointless to go
+dance on their graves, wouldn't it?"
+
+Barwell moved closer to Radek. His breath was powerful with whisky.
+"But are they in those graves?" he whispered.
+
+"Huh?"
+
+"Look. Been known for a long time, ever since first atomic energy
+work ... heavy but nonlethal doses of radiation shorten lifespan. You
+grow old faster if you get a strong dose. Why d'you think with all our
+medicines we're not two, three hundred years old? Background count's
+gone up, that's why! Radioactives in the air, in the sea, buried under
+the ground. Gamma rays, not _entirely_ absorbed by shielding. Sure,
+sure, they tell us the level is still harmless. But it's more than the
+level in nature by a good big factor--two or three."
+
+Radek sipped his beer. He'd been drinking slowly, and the beer had
+gotten warmer than he liked, but he needed a clear head. "That's common
+knowledge," he stated. "The lifespan hasn't been shortened any,
+either."
+
+"Because of more medicines ... more ways to help cells patch up
+radiation damage. All but worst radiation sickness been curable for
+a long time." Barwell waved his hand expansively. "They knew, even
+back then," he mumbled. "If radiation shortens life, radiation sickness
+cures ought to prolong it. Huh? Reas'nable? Only the goddam
+scientists ... population problem ... social stasis if ever'body lived
+for centuries ... kept it secret. Easy t' do. Change y'r name and face
+ever' ten, twen'y years--keep to y'rself, don't make friends among the
+short-lived, you might see 'em grow old and die, might start feelin'
+sorry for 'em an' that would never do, would it--?"
+
+Coldness tingled along Radek's spine. He lifted his mug and pretended
+to drink. Over the rim, his eyes stayed on Barwell.
+
+"Tha's why they fired me. I know. I know. I got ears. I overheard
+things. I read ... notes not inten'ed for me. They fired me. 'S a
+wonder they didn' murder me." Barwell shuddered and peered at the
+curtains, as if trying to look through them. "Or d'y' think--maybe--"
+
+"No," said Radek. "I don't. Let's stick to the facts. I take it you
+found mention of work on--shall we say--increasing the lifespan.
+Perhaps a mention of successes with rats and guinea pigs. Right? So
+what's wrong with that? They wouldn't want to announce anything till
+they were sure, or the hysteria--"
+
+Barwell smiled with an irritating air of omniscience. "More'n that,
+friend. More'n that. Lots more."
+
+"Well, what?"
+
+Barwell peered about him with exaggerated caution. "One thing I found
+in files ... plans of whole buildin's an' groun's--great, great big
+room, lotsa rooms, way way underground. Secret. Only th' kitchen was
+makin' food an' sendin' it down there--human food. Food for people I
+never saw, people who never came up--" Barwell buried his face in his
+hands. "Don' feel so good. Whirlin'--"
+
+Radek eased his head to the table. Out like a spent credit. The newsman
+left the booth and addressed a bouncer. "Chap in there has had it."
+
+"Uh-huh. Want me to help you get him to your boat?"
+
+"No. I hardly know him." A bill exchanged hands. "Put him in your
+dossroom to sleep it off, and give him breakfast with my compliments.
+I'm going out for some fresh air."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The rec house stood on a Minnesota bluff, overlooking the Mississippi
+River. Beyond its racket and multi-colored glare, there was darkness
+and wooded silence. Here and there the lights of a few isolated houses
+gleamed. The river slid by, talking, ruffled with moonlight. Luna was
+nearly full; squinting into her cold ashen face, Radek could just see
+the tiny spark of a city. Stars were strewn carelessly over heaven, he
+recognized the ember that was Mars.
+
+Perhaps he ought to emigrate. Mars, Venus, even Luna ... there was
+more hope on them than Earth had. No mechanical packaged cheer: people
+had work to do, and in their spare time made their own pleasures. No
+civilization cracking at the seams because it could not assimilate the
+technology it must have; out in space, men knew very well that science
+had carried them to their homes and made those homes fit to dwell on.
+
+Radek strolled across the parking lot and found his airboat. He paused
+by its iridescent teardrop to start a cigaret.
+
+Suppose the Institute of Human Biology was more than it claimed to be,
+more than a set of homes and laboratories where congenial minds could
+live and do research. It published discoveries of value--but how much
+did it not publish? Its personnel kept pretty aloof from the rest of
+the world, not unnatural in this day of growing estrangement between
+science and public ... but did they have a deeper reason than that?
+
+Suppose they did keep immortals in those underground rooms.
+
+A scientist was not ordinarily a good political technician. But he
+might think he could be. He might react emotionally against a public
+beginning to throw stones at his house and consider taking the
+reins ... for the people's own good, of course. A lot of misery had
+been caused the human race for its own alleged good.
+
+Or if the scientist knew how to live forever, he might not think Joe
+Smith or Carlos Ibáñez or Wang Yuan or Johannes Umfanduma good enough
+to share immortality with him.
+
+Radek took a long breath. The night air felt fresh and alive in his
+lungs after the tavern staleness.
+
+He was not currently married, but there was a girl with whom he was
+thinking seriously of making a permanent contract. He had friends, not
+lucent razor minds but decent, unassuming, kindly people, brave with
+man's old quiet bravery in the face of death and ruin and the petty
+tragedies of everyday. He liked beer and steaks, fishing and tennis,
+good music and a good book and the exhilarating strain of his work. He
+liked to live.
+
+Maybe a system for becoming immortal, or at least living many
+centuries, was not desirable for the race. But only the whole race had
+authority to make that decision.
+
+Radek smiled at himself, twistedly, and threw the cigaret away and got
+into the boat. Its engine murmured, sucking 'cast power; the riding
+lights snapped on automatically and he lifted into the sky. It was not
+much of a lead he had, but it was as good as he was ever likely to get.
+
+He set the autopilot for southwest Colorado and opened the jets wide.
+The night whistled darkly around his cabin. Against wan stars, he made
+out the lamps of other boats, flitting across the world and somehow
+intensifying the loneliness.
+
+Work to do. He called the main office in Dallas Unit and taped a
+statement of what he knew and what he planned. Then he dialed the
+nearest library and asked the robot for information on the Institute
+of Human Biology.
+
+There wasn't a great deal of value to him. It had been in existence
+for about 250 years, more or less concurrently with the Psychotechnic
+Institute and for quite a while affiliated with that organization.
+During the Humanist troubles, when the Psychotechs were booted out
+of government on Earth and their files ransacked, it had dissociated
+itself from them and carried on unobtrusively. (How much of their
+secret records had it taken along?) Since the Restoration, it had
+grown, drawing in many prominent researchers and making discoveries
+of high value to medicine and bio-engineering. The current director
+was Dr. Marcus Lang, formerly of New Harvard, the University of Luna,
+and--No matter. He'd been running the show for eight years, after his
+predecessor's death.
+
+Or had Tokogama really died?
+
+He couldn't be identical with Lang--he had been a short Japanese and
+Lang was a tall Negro, too big a jump for any surgeon. Not to mention
+their simultaneous careers. But how far back could you trace Lang
+before he became fakeable records of birth and schooling? What young
+fellow named Yamatsu or Hideki was now polishing glass in the labs and
+slated to become the next director?
+
+How fantastic could you get on how little evidence?
+
+Radek let the text fade from the screen and sat puffing another
+cigaret. It was a while before he demanded references on the biology of
+the aging process.
+
+That was tough sledding. He couldn't follow the mathematics or the
+chemistry very far. No good popularizations were available. But a
+newsman got an ability to winnow what he learned. Radek didn't have to
+take notes, he'd been through a mind-training course; after an hour or
+so, he sat back and reviewed what he had gotten.
+
+The living organism was a small island of low entropy in a universe
+tending constantly toward gigantic disorder. It maintained itself
+through an intricate set of hemostatic mechanisms. The serious
+disruption of any of these brought the life-processes to a halt. Shock,
+disease, the bullet in the lungs or the ax in the brain--death.
+
+But hundreds of thousands of autopsies had never given an honest
+verdict of "death from old age." It was always something else, cancer,
+heart failure, sickness, stroke ... age was at most a contributing
+cause, decreasing resistance to injury and power to recover from it.
+
+One by one, the individual causes had been licked. Bacteria and
+protozoa and viruses were slaughtered in the body. Cancers were
+selectively poisoned. Cholesterol was dissolved out of the arteries.
+Surgery patched up damaged organs, and the new regeneration techniques
+replaced what had been lost ... even nervous tissue. Offhand, there was
+no more reason to die, unless you met murder or an accident.
+
+But people still grew old. The process wasn't as hideous as it had
+been. You needn't shuffle in arthritic feebleness. Your mind was clear,
+your skin wrinkled slowly. Centenarians were not uncommon these days.
+But very few reached 150. Nobody reached 200. Imperceptibly, the fires
+burned low ... vitality was diminished, strength faded, hair whitened,
+eyes dimmed. The body responded less and less well to regenerative
+treatment. Finally it did not respond at all. You got so weak that some
+small thing you and your doctor could have laughed at in your youth,
+took you away.
+
+You still grew old. And because you grew old, you still died.
+
+The unicellular organism did not age. But "age" was a meaningless
+word in that particular case. A man could be immortal via his germ
+cells. The micro-organism could too, but it gave the only cell it had.
+Personal immortality was denied to both man and microbe.
+
+Could sheer mechanical wear and tear be the reason for the decline
+known as old age? Probably not. The natural regenerative powers of life
+were better than that. And observations made in free fall, where strain
+was minimized, indicated that while null-gravity had an alleviating
+effect, it was no key to living forever.
+
+Something in the chemistry and physics of the cells themselves, then.
+They did tend to accumulate heavy water--that had been known for a long
+time. Hard to see how that could kill you ... the percentage increase
+in a lifetime was so small. It might be a partial answer. You might
+grow old more slowly if you drank only water made of pure isotopes. But
+you wouldn't be immortal.
+
+Radek shrugged. He was getting near the end of his trip. Let the
+Institute people answer his questions.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Four Corners country is so named because four of the old American
+states met there, back when they were still significant political
+units. For a while, in the 20th century, it was overrun with uranium
+hunters, who made small impression on its tilted emptiness. It was
+still a favorite vacation area, and the resorts were lost in that great
+huddle of mountains and desert. You could have a lot of privacy here.
+
+Gliding down over the moon-ghostly Pueblo ruins of Mesa Verde, Radek
+peered through the windscreen. There, ahead. Lights glowed around the
+walls, spread across half a mesa. Inside them was a parkscape of trees,
+lawns, gardens, arbors, cottage units ... the Institute housed its
+people well. There were four large buildings at the center, and Radek
+noted gratefully that several windows were still shining in them. Not
+that he had any compunctions about getting the great Dr. Lang out of
+bed, but--
+
+He ignored the public landing field outside the walls and set his boat
+down in the paved courtyard.
+
+As he climbed out, half a dozen guards came running. They were husky
+men in blue uniforms, armed with stunners, and the dim light showed
+faces hinting they wouldn't be sorry to feed him a beam. Radek dropped
+to the ground, folded his arms, and waited. The breath from his nose
+was frosty under the moon.
+
+"What the hell do you want?"
+
+The nearest guard pulled up in front of him and laid a hand on his
+shock gun. "Who the devil are you? Don't you know this is private
+property? What's the big idea, anyway?"
+
+"Take it easy," advised Radek. "I have to see Dr. Lang at once.
+Emergency."
+
+"You didn't call for an appointment, did you?"
+
+"No, I didn't."
+
+"All right, then--"
+
+"I didn't think he'd care to have me give my reasons over a radio. This
+is confidential and urgent."
+
+The men hesitated, uncertain before such an outrageous violation of all
+civilized canons. "I dunno, friend ... he's busy ... if you want to see
+Dr. McCormick--"
+
+"Dr. Lang. Ask him if I may. Tell him I have news about his longevity
+process."
+
+"His what?"
+
+Radek spelled it out and watched the man go. Another one made some
+ungracious remark and frisked him with needless ostentation. A third
+was more urbane: "Sorry to do this, but you understand we've got
+important work going on. Can't have just anybody busting in."
+
+"Sure, that's all right." Radek shivered in the thin chill air and
+pulled his cloak tighter about him.
+
+"Viruses and stuff around. If any of that got loose--You understand."
+
+Well, it wasn't a bad cover-up. None of these fellows looked very
+bright. IQ treatments could do only so much, thereafter you got down
+to the limitations of basic and unalterable brain microstructure. And
+even among the more intellectual workers ... how many Barwells were
+there, handling semi-routine tasks but not permitted to know what
+really went on under their feet? Radek had a brief irrational wish that
+he'd worn boots instead of sandals.
+
+The first guard returned. "He'll see you," he grunted. "And you better
+make it good, because he's one mad doctor."
+
+Radek nodded and followed two of the men. The nearest of the large
+square buildings seemed given over to offices. He was led inside, down
+a short length of glow-lit corridor, and halted while the scanner on a
+door marked, LANG, DIRECTOR observed him.
+
+"He's clean, boss," said one of the escort.
+
+"All right," said the annunciator. "Let him in. But you two stay just
+outside."
+
+It was a spacious office, but austerely furnished. A telewindow
+reflected green larches and a sun-spattered waterfall, somewhere on
+the other side of the planet. Lang sat alone behind the desk, his
+hands engaged with some papers that looked like technical reports. He
+was a big, heavy-shouldered man, his hair gray, his chocolate face
+middle-aged and tired.
+
+He did not rise. "Well?" he snapped.
+
+"My name is Arnold Radek. I'm a news service operator ... here's my
+card, if you wish to see it."
+
+"Pharaoh had it easy," said Lang in a chill voice. "Moses only called
+the seven plagues down on him. I have to deal with your sort."
+
+Radek placed his fingertips on the desk and leaned forward. He found it
+unexpectedly hard not to be stared down by the other. "I know very well
+I've laid myself open to a lawsuit by coming in as I did," he stated.
+"Possibly, when I'm through, I'll be open to murder."
+
+"Are you feeling well?" There was more contempt than concern in the
+deep tone.
+
+"Let me say first off, I believe I have information about a certain
+project of yours. One you badly want to keep a secret. I've taped a
+record at my office of what I know and where I'm going. If I don't get
+back before 1000 hours, Central Time, and wipe that tape, it'll be
+heard by the secretary."
+
+Lang took an exasperated breath. His fingernails whitened on the sheets
+he still held. "Do you honestly think we would be so ... I won't say
+unscrupulous ... so _stupid_ as to use violence?"
+
+"No," said Radek. "Of course not. All I want is a few straight answers.
+I know you're quite able to lead me up the garden path, feed me some
+line of pap and hustle me out again--but I won't stand for that. I
+mentioned my tape only to convince you that I'm in earnest."
+
+"You're not drunk," murmured Lang. "But there are a lot of people
+running loose who ought to be in a mental hospital."
+
+"I know." Radek sat down without waiting for an invitation.
+"Anti-scientific fanatics. I'm not one of them. You know Darrell
+Burkhardt's news commentaries? I supply a lot of his data and
+interpretations. He's one of the leading friends of genuine science,
+one of the few you have left." Radek gestured at the card on the desk.
+"Read it, right there."
+
+Lang picked the card up and glanced at the lettering and tossed it
+back. "Very well. That's still no excuse for breaking in like this.
+You--"
+
+"It can't wait," interrupted Radek. "There are a lot of lives at stake.
+Every minute we sit here, there are perhaps a million people dying,
+perhaps more; I haven't the figures. And everyone else is dying all the
+time, millimeter by millimeter, we're all born dying. Every minute you
+hold back the cure for old age, you murder a million human beings."
+
+"This is the most fantastic--"
+
+"Let me finish! I get around. And I'm trained to look a little bit more
+closely at the facts everybody knows, the ordinary commonplace facts we
+take for granted and never think to inquire about because they are so
+ordinary. I've wondered about the Institute for a long time. Tonight I
+talked at great length with a fellow named Barwell ... remember him? A
+clerk here. You fired him this morning for being too nosy. He had a lot
+to say."
+
+"Hm." Lang sat quiet for a while. He didn't rattle easily--he couldn't
+be snowed under by fast, aggressive talk. While Radek spat out what
+clues he had, Lang calmly reached into a drawer and got out an
+old-fashioned briar pipe, stuffed it and lit it.
+
+"So what do you want?" he asked when Radek paused for breath.
+
+"The truth, damn it!"
+
+"There are privacy laws. It was established long ago that a citizen is
+entitled to privacy if he does nothing against the common weal--"
+
+"And you are! You're like a man who stands on a river bank and has a
+lifebelt and won't throw it to a man drowning in the river."
+
+Lang sighed. "I won't deny we're working on longevity," he answered.
+"Obviously we are. The problem interests biologists throughout the
+Solar System. But we aren't publicizing our findings as yet for a very
+good reason. You know how people jump to conclusions. Can you imagine
+the hysteria that would arise in this already unstable culture if there
+seemed to be even a prospect of immortality? You yourself are a prime
+case ... on the most tenuous basis of rumor and hypothesis, you've
+decided that we have found a vaccine against old age and are hoarding
+it. You come bursting in here in the middle of the night, demanding to
+be made immortal immediately if not sooner. And you're comparatively
+civilized ... there are enough lunatics who'd come here with guns and
+start shooting up the place."
+
+Radek smiled bleakly. "Of course. I know that. And you ought to know
+the outfit I work for is reputable. If you have a good lead on the
+problem, but haven't solved it yet, you can trust us not to make that
+fact public."
+
+"All right." Lang mustered an answering smile, oddly warm and
+charming. "I don't mind telling you, then, that we do have some
+promising preliminary results--but, and this is the catch, we estimate
+it will take at least a century to get anywhere. Biochemistry is an
+inconceivably complex subject."
+
+"What sort of results are they?"
+
+"It's highly technical. Has to do with enzymes. You may know that
+enzymes are the major device through which the genes govern the
+organism all through life. At a certain point, for instance, the genes
+order the body to go through the changes involved in puberty. At
+another point, they order that gradual breakdown we know as aging."
+
+"In other words," said Radek slowly, "the body has a built-in suicide
+mechanism?"
+
+"Well ... if you want to put it that way--"
+
+"I don't believe a word of it. It makes a lot more sense to imagine
+that there's something which causes the breakdown--a virus, maybe--and
+the body fights it off as long as possible but at last it gets the
+upper hand. The whole key to evolution is the need to survive. I can't
+see life evolving its own anti-survival factor."
+
+"But nature doesn't care about the individual, friend Radek. Only about
+the species. And the species with a rapid turnover of individuals can
+evolve faster, become more effective--"
+
+"Then why does man, the fastest-evolving metazoan of all, have one of
+the longest lifespans? He does, you know ... among mammals, at any
+rate. Seems to me our bodies must be all-around better than average,
+better able to fight off the death virus. Fish live a longer time,
+sure--and maybe in the water they aren't so exposed to the disease. May
+flies are short-lived; have they simply adapted their life cycle to the
+existence of the virus?"
+
+Lang frowned. "You appear to have studied this subject enough to have
+some mistaken ideas about it. I can't argue with a man who insists on
+protecting his cherished irrationalities with fancy verbalisms."
+
+"And you appear to think fast on your feet, Dr. Lang." Radek laughed.
+"Maybe not fast enough. But I'm not being paranoid about this. You can
+convince me."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Show me. Take me into those underground rooms and show me what you
+actually have."
+
+"I'm afraid that's impos--"
+
+"All right." Radek stood up. "I hate to do this, but a man must either
+earn a living or go on the public freeloading roll ... which I don't
+want to do. The facts and conjectures I already have will make an
+interesting story."
+
+Lang rose too, his eyes widening. "You can't prove anything!"
+
+"Of course I can't. You're sitting on all the proof."
+
+"But the public reaction! God in Heaven, man, those people can't
+_think_!"
+
+"No ... they can't, can they?" He moved toward the door. "Goodnight."
+
+Radek's muscles were taut. In spite of everything that had been said, a
+person hounded to desperation could still do murder.
+
+There was a great quietness as he neared the door. Then Lang spoke. The
+voice was defeated, and when Radek looked back it was an old man who
+stood behind the desk.
+
+"You win. Come along with me."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They went down an empty hall, after dismissing the guards, and took an
+elevator below ground. Neither of them said anything. Somehow, the sag
+of Lang's shoulders was a gnawing in Radek's conscience.
+
+When they emerged, it was to transfer past a sentry, where Lang gave
+a password and okayed his companion, to another elevator which purred
+them still deeper.
+
+"I--" The newsman cleared his throat, awkwardly. "I repeat what I
+implied earlier. I'm here mostly as a citizen interested in the public
+welfare ... which includes my own, of course, and my family's if I
+ever have one. If you can show me valid reasons for not breaking this
+story, I won't. I'll even let you hypnocondition me against doing it,
+voluntarily or otherwise."
+
+"Thanks," said the director. His mouth curved upward, but it was a
+shaken smile. "That's decent of you, and we'll accept ... I think
+you'll agree with our policy. What worries me is the rest of the world.
+If you could find out as much as you did--"
+
+Radek's heart jumped between his ribs. "Then you do have immortality!"
+
+"Yes. But I'm not immortal. None of our personnel are, except--Here we
+are."
+
+There was a hidden susurrus of machinery as they stepped out into a
+small bare entryroom. Another guard sat there, beside a desk. Past him
+was a small door of immense solidity, the door of a vault.
+
+"You'll have to leave everything metallic here," said Lang. "A steel
+object could jump so fiercely as to injure you. Your watch would be
+ruined. Even coins could get uncomfortably hot ... eddy currents, you
+know. We're about to go through the strongest magnetic field ever
+generated."
+
+Silently, dry-mouthed, Radek piled his things on the desk. Lang
+operated a combination lock on the door. "There are nervous effects
+too," he said. "The field is actually strong enough to influence the
+electric discharges of your synapses. Be prepared for a few nasty
+seconds. Follow me and walk fast."
+
+The door opened on a low, narrow corridor several meters long. Radek
+felt his heart bump crazily, his vision blurred, there was panic
+screaming in his brain and a sweating tingle in his skin. Stumbling
+through nightmare, he made it to the end.
+
+The horror faded. They were in another room, with storage facilities
+and what resembled a spaceship's airlock in the opposite wall. Lang
+grinned shakily. "No fun, is it?"
+
+"What's it for?" gasped Radek.
+
+"To keep charged particles out of here. And the whole set of chambers
+is 500 meters underground, sheathed in ten meters of lead brick and
+surrounded by tanks of heavy water. This is the only place in the Solar
+System, I imagine, where cosmic rays never come."
+
+"You mean--"
+
+Lang knocked out his pipe and left it in a gobboon. He opened the
+lockers to reveal a set of airsuits, complete with helmets and oxygen
+tanks. "We put these on before going any further," he said.
+
+"Infection on the other side?"
+
+"We're the infected ones. Come on, I'll help you."
+
+As they scrambled into the equipment, Lang added conversationally:
+"This place has to have all its own stuff, of course ... its
+own electric generators and so on. The ultimate power source is
+isotopically pure carbon burned in oxygen. We use a nuclear reactor
+to create the magnetic field itself, but no atomic energy is allowed
+inside it." He led the way into the airlock, closed it, and started the
+pumps. "We have to flush out all the normal air and substitute that
+from the inner chambers."
+
+"How about food? Barwell said food was prepared in the kitchens and
+brought here."
+
+"Synthesized out of elements recovered from waste products. We do cook
+it topside, taking precautions. A few radioactive atoms get in, but not
+enough to matter as long as we're careful. We're so cramped for space
+down here we have to make some compromises."
+
+"I think--" Radek fell silent. As the lock was evacuated, his unjointed
+airsuit spreadeagled and held him prisoner, but he hardly noticed.
+There was too much else to think about, too much to grasp at once.
+
+Not till the cycle was over and they had gone through the lock did he
+speak again. Then it came harsh and jerky: "I begin to understand. How
+long has this gone on?"
+
+"It started about 200 years ago ... an early Institute project." Lang's
+voice was somehow tinny over the helmet phone. "At that time, it wasn't
+possible to make really pure isotopes in quantity, so there were
+only limited results, but it was enough to justify further research.
+This particular set of chambers and chemical elements is 150 years
+old. A spectacular success, a brilliant confirmation, from the very
+beginning ... and the Institute has never dared reveal it. Maybe they
+should have, back then--maybe people could have taken the news--but
+not now. These days the knowledge would whip men into a murderous rage
+of frustration; they wouldn't believe the truth, they wouldn't dare
+believe, and God alone knows what they'd do."
+
+Looking around, Radek saw a large, plastic-lined room, filled with
+cages. As the lights went on, white rats and guinea pigs stirred
+sleepily. One of the rats came up to nibble at the wires and regard the
+humans from beady pink eyes.
+
+Lang bent over and studied the label. "This fellow is, um, 66 years
+old. Still fat and sassy, in perfect condition, as you can see. Our
+oldest mammalian inmate is a guinea pig: a hundred and forty-five
+years. This one here."
+
+Lang stared at the immortal beast for a while. It didn't look
+unusual ... only healthy. "How about monkeys?" he asked.
+
+"We tried them. Finally gave it up. A monkey is an active animal--it
+was too cruel to keep them penned up forever. They even went insane,
+some of them."
+
+Footfalls were hollow as Lang led the way toward the inner door. "Do
+you get the idea?"
+
+"Yes ... I think I do. If heavy radiation speeds up aging--then natural
+radioactivity is responsible for normal aging."
+
+"Quite. A matter of cells being slowly deranged, through decades
+in the case of man--the genes which govern them being mutilated,
+chromosomes ripped up, nucleoplasm and cytoplasm irreversibly damaged.
+And, of course, a mutated cell often puts out the wrong combination
+of enzymes, and if it regenerates at all it replaces itself by one of
+the same kind. The effect is cumulative, more and more defective cells
+every hour. A steady bombardment, all your life ... here on Earth,
+seven cosmic rays per second ripping through you, and you yourself
+are radioactive, you include radiocarbon and radiopotassium and
+radiophosphorus ... Earth and the planets, the atmosphere, everything
+radiates. Is it any wonder that at last our organic mechanism starts
+breaking down? The marvel is that we live as long as we do."
+
+The dry voice was somehow steadying. Radek asked: "And this place is
+insulated?"
+
+"Yes. The original plant and animal life in here was grown
+exogenetically from single-cell zygotes, supplied with air and
+nourishment built from pure stable isotopes. The Institute had to
+start with low forms, naturally; at that time, it wasn't possible to
+synthesize proteins to order. But soon our workers had enough of an
+ecology to introduce higher species, eventually mammals. Even the first
+generation was only negligibly radioactive. Succeeding generations
+have been kept almost absolutely clean. The lamps supply ultraviolet,
+the air is recycled ... well, in principle it's no different from an
+ecological-unit spaceship."
+
+Radek shook his head. He could scarcely get the words out: "People?
+Humans?"
+
+"For the past 120 years. Wasn't hard to get germ plasm and grow it.
+The first generation reproduced normally, the second could if lack of
+space didn't force us to load their food with chemical contraceptive."
+Behind his faceplate, Lang grimaced. "I'd never have allowed it if
+I'd been director at the time, but now I'm stuck with the situation.
+The legality is very doubtful. How badly do you violate a man's civil
+rights when you keep him a prisoner but give him immortality?"
+
+He opened the door, an archaic manual type. "We can't do better for
+them than this," he said. "The volume of space we can enclose in a
+magnetic field of the necessary strength is already at an absolute
+maximum."
+
+Light sprang automatically from the ceiling. Radek looked in at a
+dormitory. It was well-kept, the furniture ornamental. Beyond it he
+could see other rooms ... recreation, he supposed vaguely.
+
+The score of hulks in the beds hardly moved. Only one woke up. He
+blinked, yawned, and shuffled toward the visitors, quite nude, his long
+hair tangled across the low forehead, a loose grin on the mouth.
+
+"Hello, Bill," said Lang.
+
+"Uh ... got sumpin? Got sumpin for Bill?" A hand reached out, begging.
+Radek thought of a trained ape he had once seen.
+
+"This is Bill." Lang spoke softly, as if afraid his voice would snap.
+"Our oldest inhabitant. One hundred and nineteen years old, and he has
+the physique of a man of 20. They mature, you know, reach their peak
+and never fall below it again."
+
+"Got sumpin, doc, huh?"
+
+"I'm sorry, Bill," said Lang. "I'll bring you some candy next time."
+
+The moron gave an animal sigh and shambled back. On the way, he passed
+a sleeping woman, and edged toward her with a grunt. Lang closed the
+door.
+
+There was another stillness.
+
+"Well," said Lang, "now you've seen it."
+
+"You mean ... you don't mean immortality makes you like that?"
+
+"Oh, no. Not at all. But my predecessors chose low-grade stock on
+purpose. Remember those monkeys. How long do you think a normal human
+could remain sane, cooped up in a little cave like this and never
+daring to leave it? That's the only way to be immortal, you know.
+And how much of the race could be given such elaborate care, even if
+they could stand it? Only a small percentage. Nor would they live
+forever--they're already contaminated, they were born radioactive. And
+whatever happens, who's going to remain outside and keep the apparatus
+in order?"
+
+Radek nodded. His neck felt stiff, and within the airsuit he stank with
+sweat. "I've got the idea."
+
+"And yet--if the facts were known--if my questions had to be
+answered--how long do you think a society like ours would survive?"
+
+Radek tried to speak, but his tongue was too dry.
+
+Lang smiled grimly. "Apparently I've convinced you. Good. Fine."
+Suddenly his gloved hand shot out and gripped Radek's shoulder. Even
+through the heavy fabric, the newsman could feel the bruising fury of
+that clasp.
+
+"But you're only one man," whispered Lang. "An unusually reasonable man
+for these days. There'll be others.
+
+"What are we going to _do_?"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of What Shall It Profit?, by Poul Anderson
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59498 ***