Longevity -- Fiction; Older people -- Fiction; Science fiction; Space flight -- Fiction
"To be quite frank, then, the subjects in Block Nineteen are getting
restless. I don't think we could keep them here more than ten
years longer, no matter how many diversions we tried. They want
to do something, be something. And yet I don't believe they could
be any more miserable than back in a world which has been growing
away from them for a hundred years, a world which doesn't want or
understand them any more than you want Avery in your company. So I'd
naturally rather see them go all at once, wanting to go, than one at
a time, confused and hopeless. None of them want to go back to their
great-great-grandchildren to die. I'd like to see them stay together.
As for my research, I'm only up to the Hundred-and-Ten group. Those in
Block Nineteen are all over a hundred and fifty. Do you want to
help ... or would you rather go to Washington to lobby for a bill to
control Avery and others with even more ancient ideas before they get
loose?"
"But old people are set in their ways, as you know, Doctor." Jeremy
Brill had memorized the salesman's book. "The Company would naturally
have to have some assurance that the old ones are willing to go before
we put a lot of time and money into pushing their acceptance as
colonists."
"I can let you know by midnight tonight," Dr. Farrar stated positively.
"They're holding their monthly meeting and I can see that the matter is
given full consideration."
Somewhere inside Dr. Farrar, the conspiratorial feeling was joined by
a great jubilation. He wanted to shout aloud, but instead he added,
"The officers of The Company will naturally want time to consider this
fully, with care and deliberation. It is fortunate that you will have
a good many hours in which to prepare a sound and compelling statement
about the benefit to all humanity which will accrue to a project which
will settle at once the great problem of a goal for old age as well as
end the bitter wrangling among national and political groups for first
passage on the _Colonia_.
"You are right. I must get back to the home office at once." Brill
scribbled on a card. "Here is my private phone. Let me know at once
what is decided at the meeting."
He rose, extending his hand. "You are a great man, Doctor, a truly
great and kind man." He wheeled and walked abruptly from the office,
the weight of a noble enterprise sitting comfortably on his shoulders.
Miss Herrington caught a few of his departing words and the admiring
tone. "One stone ... so many birds."
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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