ecologist.
"The death end of the research began back in 1952, with an anatomist named Lansing. He was the first man to show that complex animals-it was rotifers he used-produce a definite aging toxin as a normal part of their growth, and that it gets passed on to the offspring. He bred something like fifty generations of rotifers from adolescent mothers, and got an increase in the life-span in every new generation. He ran 'em up from a natural average span of 24 days to one of 104 days. Then be reversed the process, by breeding consistently from old mothers, and cut the life-span of the final generation way below the natural average."
"And now," Anne said, "you know more about the babies in our labs than I told you before-or you should. The foundling home that supplies them specializes in the illegitimates of juvenile delinquents-the younger, for our purposes, the better."
"Sorry, but you can't needle me with that any longer, Anne. I know now that it's a blind alley. Breeding for longevity in humans isn't practicable all that those infants can supply to the project is a set of comparative readings on their death-toxin blood-levels. What we want now is something much more direct: an antitoxin against the aging toxin of humans. We know that the aging toxin exists in all complex animals. We know that it's a single, specific substance, quite distinct from the poisons that cause the degenerative diseases. And we know that it can be neutralized. When your 'lab animals were given ascomycin, they didn't develop a single degenerative disease but they died anyhow, at about the usual time, as if they'd been set, like a clock at birth. Which, in effect, they had, by the amount of aging toxin passed on to them by their mothers.
"So what we're looking for now is not an antibiotic-an anti-life drug-but an anti-agathic, an anti-death drug. We're running on borrowed time, because ascomycin already satisfies the condition of our development contract with the government. As soon as we get ascomycin into production, our government money will be cut down to a trickle. But if we can hold back on ascomycin long enough to keep the money coming in, we'll have our anti-agathic too."
"Bravo," Anne said. "You sound just like father. I wanted you to raise that last point in particular, Paige, because it's the most important single thing you, should remember. If there's the slightest suspicion that we're systematically dragging our feet on releasing ascomycin-that we're taking money from the government to do something the government has no idea can be done-there'll be hell to pay. We're so close to running down our anti-agathic now that it would be heartbreaking to have to stop, not only heartbreaking for us, but for humanity at large."
"The end justifies the means," Paige murmured.
"It does in this case. I know secrecy's a fetish in our society these days-but here secrecy will serve everyone in the long run, and it's got to be maintained."
"I'll maintain it," Paige said. He had been referring, not to secrecy, but to cheating on government money; but he saw no point in bringing that up. As for secrecy, he had no practical faith in it-especially now that he had seen how well it worked.
For in the two days that he had been working inside Pfitzner, he had already found an inarguable spy at the very heart of the project.
CHAPTER SIX: Jupiter V
Yet the barbarians, who are not divided by rival traditions, fight all the more incessantly for food and space. Peoples cannot love one another unless they love the same ideas.
-GEORGE. SANTAYANA
THERE WERE three yellow "Critical" signals lit on the long gangboard when Helmuth passed through the gang deck on the, way back to duty. All of them, as usual, were concentrated on Panel 9, where Eva Chavez worked.
Eva, despite her Latin name-such once-valid tickets no longer meant anything among the West's uniformly mixed-race population-was a big girl, vaguely blonde, who cherished a passion for
"The death end of the research began back in 1952, with an anatomist named Lansing. He was the first man to show that complex animals-it was rotifers he used-produce a definite aging toxin as a normal part of their growth, and that it gets passed on to the offspring. He bred something like fifty generations of rotifers from adolescent mothers, and got an increase in the life-span in every new generation. He ran 'em up from a natural average span of 24 days to one of 104 days. Then be reversed the process, by breeding consistently from old mothers, and cut the life-span of the final generation way below the natural average."
"And now," Anne said, "you know more about the babies in our labs than I told you before-or you should. The foundling home that supplies them specializes in the illegitimates of juvenile delinquents-the younger, for our purposes, the better."
"Sorry, but you can't needle me with that any longer, Anne. I know now that it's a blind alley. Breeding for longevity in humans isn't practicable all that those infants can supply to the project is a set of comparative readings on their death-toxin blood-levels. What we want now is something much more direct: an antitoxin against the aging toxin of humans. We know that the aging toxin exists in all complex animals. We know that it's a single, specific substance, quite distinct from the poisons that cause the degenerative diseases. And we know that it can be neutralized. When your 'lab animals were given ascomycin, they didn't develop a single degenerative disease but they died anyhow, at about the usual time, as if they'd been set, like a clock at birth. Which, in effect, they had, by the amount of aging toxin passed on to them by their mothers.
"So what we're looking for now is not an antibiotic-an anti-life drug-but an anti-agathic, an anti-death drug. We're running on borrowed time, because ascomycin already satisfies the condition of our development contract with the government. As soon as we get ascomycin into production, our government money will be cut down to a trickle. But if we can hold back on ascomycin long enough to keep the money coming in, we'll have our anti-agathic too."
"Bravo," Anne said. "You sound just like father. I wanted you to raise that last point in particular, Paige, because it's the most important single thing you, should remember. If there's the slightest suspicion that we're systematically dragging our feet on releasing ascomycin-that we're taking money from the government to do something the government has no idea can be done-there'll be hell to pay. We're so close to running down our anti-agathic now that it would be heartbreaking to have to stop, not only heartbreaking for us, but for humanity at large."
"The end justifies the means," Paige murmured.
"It does in this case. I know secrecy's a fetish in our society these days-but here secrecy will serve everyone in the long run, and it's got to be maintained."
"I'll maintain it," Paige said. He had been referring, not to secrecy, but to cheating on government money; but he saw no point in bringing that up. As for secrecy, he had no practical faith in it-especially now that he had seen how well it worked.
For in the two days that he had been working inside Pfitzner, he had already found an inarguable spy at the very heart of the project.
CHAPTER SIX: Jupiter V
Yet the barbarians, who are not divided by rival traditions, fight all the more incessantly for food and space. Peoples cannot love one another unless they love the same ideas.
-GEORGE. SANTAYANA
THERE WERE three yellow "Critical" signals lit on the long gangboard when Helmuth passed through the gang deck on the, way back to duty. All of them, as usual, were concentrated on Panel 9, where Eva Chavez worked.
Eva, despite her Latin name-such once-valid tickets no longer meant anything among the West's uniformly mixed-race population-was a big girl, vaguely blonde, who cherished a passion for
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