Dr. Barton: You may think that you would confer a boon on humanity with life continuation, but I tell you, sir, that it would be a curse. Life would lose its value and its meaning if it went on forever, and if you have life continuation now, you eventually must stumble on immortality. And when that happens, sir, you will be compelled to set up boards of review to grant the boon of death. The people, tired of life, will storm your hearing rooms to plead for death. Chairman Leonard: It would banish uncertainty and fear. Dr. Barton: You are talking of the fear of death. The fear of death, sir, is infantile. Chairman Leonard: But there are benefits— Dr. Barton: Benefits, yes. The benefit of allowing a scientist the extra years he needs to complete a piece of research; a composer an additional lifetime to complete a symphony. Once the novelty wore off, men in general would accept added life only under protest, only as a duty. Chairman Leonard: You’re not very practical-minded, doctor. Dr. Barton: But I am. Extremely practical and down to earth. Man must have newness. Man cannot be bored and live. How much do you think there would be left to look for-ward to after the millionth woman, the billionth piece of pumpkin pie? From the Records of the hearing before the science subcommittee of the public policy committee of the World House of Representatives.
* * *
So Norton hated him.
As all people of normal lives must hate, deep within their souls, the lucky ones whose lives went on and on.
A hatred deep and buried, most of the time buried. But sometimes breaking out, as it had broken out of Norton.
Resentment, tolerated because of the gently, skillfully fos-tered hope that those whose lives went on might some day make it possible that the lives of all, barring violence or accident or incurable disease, might go on as long as one would wish.
I can understand it now, thought the senator, for I am one of them. I am one of those whose lives will not continue to go on, and I have even fewer years than the most of them.
He stood before the window in the deepening dusk and saw the lights come out and the day die above the unbelievably blue waters of the far-famed lake.
Beauty came to him as he stood there watching, beauty that had gone unnoticed through all the later years. A beauty and a softness and a feeling of being one with the city lights and the last faint gleam of day above the darkening waters.
Fear? The senator admitted it.