I had remembered that, in this story, organisms, including human beings, were kept immortal by sheltering them from all radiation deep underground, behind the strongest possible magnetic field. What I had not remembered, and probably had even overlooked in the first place, was that all of these organisms, including the oldest, 119-year old, man, had had to be grown exogenetically, each from a single cell. No one who had been born and grown outside the shelter would become immortal by entering it because each of us is born already contaminated by radiation. Lives could be prolonged, although not indefinitely, inside that confined space but someone else would have to remain outside to operate the apparatus, send in food etc.
Jonathan Swift imagined people aging endlessly and losing all their faculties without ever dying. Poul Anderson imagines another horrible immortality. The 119-year old is a moron because, knowing the conditions of the experiment, the scientists "'...chose low-grade stock on purpose." (p. 89)
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
It's only fair to that kind of callousness did not include the current director of the Institute for Human Biology. He INHERITED a situation not of his making or wish, a problem he had to somehow manage as humanely as possible.
Ad astra! Sean
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