"Immortality," Walton said.
[XIX]
He returned to New York alone, later that night, too tired to sleep and too wide awake to relax. He felt like a poker player who had triumphantly topped four kings with four aces, and now was fumbling in his hand trying to locate some of those aces for his skeptical opponents.
The alien had accepted his offer. That was the one solid fact he was able to cling to, on the lonely night ride back from Nairobi. The rest was a quicksand of ifs and maybes.
If Lamarre could be found....
If the serum actually had any value....
If it was equally effective on Earthmen and Dirnans....
Walton tried to dismiss the alternatives. He had made a desperately wild offer, and it had been accepted. New Earth was open for colonization, if....
The world outside the jet was a dark blur. He had left Nairobi at 0518 Nairobi time; jetting back across the eight intervening time zones, he would arrive in New York around midnight. Ultrarapid jet transit made such things possible; he would live twice through the early hours of June nineteenth.