Read Vitals for Free Online Page A

It may also help repair genetic damage. Without hades, old viruses in our DNA start popping up and antagonizing our immune system. We become more prone to cancer or autoimmune disease."
    "Like a time bomb," Montoya said. "Awful. I assume you've found a way to defuse it?"
    "I'm close. The solution isn't simple, but it involves training bacteria to pump in just the right amount of hades, at the right times-not too much, and not too little. And we have to jam the tattletale signals from our mitochondria. I'm pretty sure I can fool our bacterial partners into turning back our clocks. We live longer--maybe a lot longer."
    Montoya flexed his fingers and compressed his lips with something like satisfaction. "Why go against the wisdom of nature?" he asked softly, fixing me with a limpid stare. "Why live longer than the 'judges' want us to?"
    "We're big kids now. We made fire. We made antibiotics. Did the bacteria give us permission to go to the moon? We're ready to take charge and be responsible for our own destiny. Screw the old ways."
    Montoya grinned. "I've never tried to think like a germ."
    "I do it all the time," I said. "It's enlightening."
    Montoya made a face. "A whole new view of human existence," he said. "Makes me dizzy."
    "Not entirely new." I reached into my satchel and pulled out a list of the researchers whose work had helped me. "There are going to be a lot of Nobel prizes for these people in the next decade." I was taking another chance, but I would not work for a man who was always sniffing for someone more famous. Montoya had to believe that I really had the goods.
    "How about your Nobel?" he asked.
    I shrugged. "Not important," I said. "I'm in it for the long haul." Sometimes I whispered that phrase to myself to get to sleep at night, like counting sheep. The Long Haul. The Really Long Haul.
    A butler--Swedish blond and about sixty years old--carried a tray of glasses and a bottle of 1863 Malmsey Madeira. He poured, and Montoya handed me a crystal glass.
    "Nobel prizes won't be half of it," Montoya murmured. He narrowed his eyes as if about to fall asleep and leaned his head back. Here it was. My angel was about to pull out his flaming sword. "You have a compelling vision. How can I help you to get on with your work?"
    I took out the pictures shot by the Alvin crew the month before. Montoya thumbed through and reversed them to look at my notes.
    "There are some deep places I'd like to visit," I said, "and some problems I'd like to solve. I'd like to do it in secret... Until I find out whether I'm a major-league idiot, or whether I'm really on the edge of a revolution."
    "What will I get out of it?"
    "Nothing all to yourself," I said. "My work is for everybody. No patents, no marketing exclusives. I'm pretty hardheaded that way. But maybe--just maybe--you'll get a crack at living a few hundred years longer. Or a thousand. Or ten thousand."
    Montoya lifted his finger and seemed to wag it in time to unheard music. His eyes got dreamy. "Eternity means forever without time. Like standing still forever. Did you know that?"
    I shook my head. Philosophy has always been my weak point. Why argue about printed words when there are thousands of proteins and enzymes, the verbs and nouns of living biology, to memorize and understand?
    "You know what I want to do, Hal?" Montoya asked. He stared out over the Plexiglas shield at the end of the porch and lifted his golden
    3 5
    Madeira to the breaking waves. "I want to build a huge starship. I want to travel to other star systems, stand on new worlds, and party with all my friends on my millionth birthday. I want to dip my feet in the waters of unknown shores and help lovely, enthusiastic women become mothers."
    Montoya finished his glass in one big gulp. "I have all the money I need, Hal. I just don't have enough time."
    By ten the next morning, I had a pledge from Owen Montoya for three million dollars.
    The Mary's Triumph had managed to cruise between three massive chimneys.