"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.