"Yes. A permanent, benevolent rule by small, carefully chosen elite corps, based upon the sole and exclusive possession of immortality. It's historically inevitable. The only question is, who is going to get control first?" "And you think you are?" Dennison demanded. "Of course. Our organization is still small, but absolutely solid. It is bolstered by every new invention that comes into our hands and by every scientist who joins our ranks. Our time will come, Dennison! We'd like to have you with us, among the elite." "You want _me_ to join you?" Dennison asked, bewildered. "We do. Our organization needs creative scientific minds to help us in our work, to help us save mankind from itself." "Count me out," Dennison said, his heart beating fast. "You won't join us?" "I'd like to see you all hanged." Mr. Bennet nodded thoughtfully and pursed his small lips. "You have taken your own serum, have you not?" Dennison nodded. "I suppose that means you kill me now?" "We don't kill," Mr. Bennet said. "We merely wait. I think you are a reasonable man, and I think you'll come to see things our way. We'll be around a long time. So will you. Take him away." Dennison was led to an elevator that dropped deep into the Earth. He was marched down a long passageway lined with armed men. They went through four massive doors. At the fifth, Dennison was pushed inside alone, and the door was locked behind him. He was in a large, well-furnished apartment. There were perhaps twenty people in the room, and they came forward to meet him. One of them, a stocky, bearded man, was an old college acquaintance of Dennison's. "Jim Ferris?" "That's right," Ferris said. "Welcome to the Immortality Club, Dennison." "I read you were killed in an air crash last year." "I merely--disappeared," Ferris said, with a rueful smile, "after inventing the immortality serum. Just like the others." "All of them?" "Fifteen of the men here invented the serum independently. The rest are successful inventors in other fields. Our oldest member is Doctor Li, a serum discoverer, who disappeared from San Francisco in 1911. You are our latest acquisition. Our clubhouse is probably the most carefully guarded place on Earth." * * * * * Dennison said, "Nineteen-eleven!" Despair flooded him and he sat down heavily in a chair. "Then there's no possibility of rescue?" "None. There are only four choices available to us," Ferris said. "Some have left us and joined the Undertakers. Others have suicided. A few have gone insane. The rest of us have formed the Immortality Club." "What for?" Dennison bewilderedly asked. "To get out of this place!" said Ferris. "To escape and give our discoveries to the world. To stop those hopeful little dictators upstairs." "They must know what you're planning."