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something even more subtle and accidental—and immortality is created. Some immunity to death—some means of keeping the circulatory system young, resistant, rejuvenated. ‘Man is as old as his arteries,’ Cazali said. Take care of your arteries, and they will keep your cells immortal.”
    â€œTell me, man! Tell me where Cartwright is before all that is lost forever.” Weaver leaned farther forward, as if he could transmit his urgency.
    â€œA man who knows he’s got a thousand years to live is going to be pretty darned careful,” Pearce said.
    â€œThat’s just it,” Weaver said, his eyes narrowing. “He doesn’t know. If he’d known, he’d never have sold his blood.” His face changed subtly. “Or does he know—now?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œDidn’t you tell him?”
    â€œI don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    â€œDon’t you? Don’t you remember going to the Abbot Hotel on the evening of the ninth, of asking for Cartwright, of talking to him? You should. The clerk identified your picture. And that night Cartwright left.”
    Pearce remembered the Abbot Hotel all right, the narrow, dark lobby, grimy, infested with flies and roaches. He had thought of cholera and bubonic plague as he crossed it. He remembered Cartwright, too—that fabulous creature, looking seedy and quite ordinary, who had listened, though, and believed and taken the money and gone . . .
    â€œI don’t believe it,” Pearce said.
    â€œI should have known right away,” Weaver said, as if to himself. “You’re smart. You would have picked up on it right off, maybe as soon as I woke up, and you would have realized what it meant.”
    â€œPresuming I did. If I did all that you say, do you think it would have been easy for me? To you he’s money. What do you think he would have been to me? That fantastic laboratory, walking around! What wouldn’t I have given to study him! To find out how his body worked, to try to synthesize the substance. You have your drives, Weaver, but I have mine.”
    â€œWhy not combine them, Pearce?”
    â€œThey wouldn’t mix.”
    â€œDon’t get so holy, Pearce. Life isn’t holy.”
    â€œLife is what we make it,” Pearce said softly. “I won’t have a hand in what you’re planning.”
    Weaver got up quickly from his chair and took a step toward Pearce. “Some of you professional men get delusions of ethics,” he said in a kind of muted snarl. “Not many. A few. There’s nothing sacred about what you do. You’re just craftsmen, mechanics—you do a job—you get paid for it. There’s no reason to get religious about it.”
    â€œDon’t be absurd, Weaver. If you don’t feel religious about what you do, you shouldn’t be doing it. You feel religious about making money. That’s what’s sacred to you. Well, life is sacred to me. That’s what I deal in, all day long, every day. Death is an old enemy. I’ll fight him until the end.”
    Pearce propelled himself out of his chair. He stood close to Weaver, staring fiercely into the man’s eyes. “Understand this, Weaver. What you’re planning is impossible. What if we all could be rejuvenated? Do you have the slightest idea what would happen? Have you considered what it might do to civilization?
    â€œNo, I can see you haven’t. Well, it would bring your society tumbling down around your pillars of gold. Civilization would shake itself to pieces like an unbalanced flywheel. Our culture is constructed on the assumption that we spend two decades growing and learning, a few more producing wealth and progeny, and a final decade or two decaying before we die.
    â€œLook back! See what research and medicine have done in the past century. They’ve added a few years—just a few—to the average