learn.”
“Human experimentation,” Ben said, scarcely concealing his revulsion.
There was no difference between Jorgen Lenz and Gerhard Lenz. To them,
human beings–sick children, refugees, camp inmates–were nothing more
than lab rats. “Like those refugee children in their tents, fenced in
out there,” Ben said. “Maybe you brought them in under the guise of
‘humanitarianism.” But they’re expendable too, aren’t they?” He
recalled words that Georges Chardin had spoken to him, and he said them
aloud: “The slaughter of the innocents.”
Lenz bristled. “That’s what some of the angeli re belli called it, but
it’s a rather inflammatory description,” he said. “As such, it only
impedes rational deliberation. Yes, some must die that others may live.
A disquieting idea, no doubt. But put away the veil of sentimentality
for one moment and face the brutal truth. These unfortunate children
would otherwise be killed in war, or die from the diseases of poverty
and for what? Instead, they are saviors. They’ll change the world. Is
it more ethical to bomb their homes, let them be machine-gunned down,
let them die senselessly, as the ‘civilized world’ permits? Or to give
them the chance, instead, to alter the course of history? You see, the
form of telomerase enzyme that our treatment requires is most readily
isolated from the tissues of the central nervous system the cells of the
cerebrum and cerebellum. The quantities are far richer in the young.
Unfortunately, it cannot be synthesized: it’s a complex protein, and the
shape, the conformation, of the protein is crucial. As with many such
complex proteins, they cannot be produced by artificial means. And so
… we must harvest it from human beings,”
“The slaughter of the innocents,” Ben repeated.
Lenz shrugged. “The sacrifice troubles you, but it has not unduly
troubled the world at large.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve no doubt heard the statistics the fact that twenty thousand
children disappear every year. People know, and they shrug. They’ve
come to accept it. Perhaps it would provide a measure of consolation to
know that these children haven’t perished for no reason. It has taken
us years to perfect our assays, techniques, dose levels. There was no
other way. Nor will there be in the foreseeable future. We need the
tissue. It must be human tissue, and it must be from juveniles. A
seven-year-old’s brain a quart and a half of quivering jelly is hardly
smaller than a grown-up’s, but its yield of telomerase enzymes is ten
times as great. It is the greatest, most valuable natural resource on
earth, yes? As your countrymen say, a terrible thing to waste.”
“And so you ‘disappear’ them. Every year. Thousands and thousands of
children.”
“Typically from war-torn regions where their life expectancy would be
paltry, anyway. This way, at least, they do not die in vain.”
“No, they don’t die in vain. They die for vanity. They die so that you
and your friends can live forever, isn’t that it?” This is not a man
you argue with, Ben thought, but he was finding it increasingly
difficult to contain his outrage.
Lenz scoffed, “Forever? Please, none of us will live forever. All
we’re doing is arresting the aging process in some cases, reversing it
in others. The enzyme enables us to repair much of the damage to the
skin, the integument. Reverse the damage caused by heart disease. As
yet, this therapy can only occasionally restore us to the prime of our
youth. And even to give someone my age his forty-year-old body back is
time consuming
“These people,” Ben said, “they all come here to… to become younger.”
“Only a few of them. Most of them are public figures who can’t change
their appearance drastically without attracting attention. So they come
here, at my invitation, to halt their aging, maybe undo some of the
damage that age has inflicted.”
“Public figures?” Ben shot back mockingly. “They’re all rich and
powerful!” He was beginning to understand what Lenz was doing.
“No, Benjamin. They’re the great ones. The leaders of our society, our
culture. The few who advance our civilization. The founders of Sigma
came to understand this. They saw that civilization was fragile, and
that there was only one way to ensure the continuity that it required.
The future of the industrial state had to be protected, sheltered from
the storms. Our societies would only advance if we could push back the
horizon of human mortality. Year by year, Sigma used whatever tools it
had at its disposal, but now the original goals can be advanced by
other, more effective means good God, we’re talking about something far
more effective than throwing billions of dollars at coups and political
action groups. We’re talking about the formation of a stable, lasting
elite.”
“So these are the leaders of our civilizations …”
“Precisely.”
“And you’re the man who leads the leaders.”
Lenz responded with a thin smile. “Please, Benjamin. I have no
interest in boss-man theatrics. But in any organization, there must be
a… coordinator.”
“And there can only be one.”
A pause. “Ultimately, yes.”
“And what of those who oppose your ‘enlightened’ regime? I suppose
they’re purged from the body politic.”
“A body must purge toxins if it is to survive, Benjamin.” Lenz spoke
with surprising gentleness.
“What you’re describing isn’t some Utopia, Lenz. It’s a
slaughterhouse.”
“Your reproach is as glib as it is vacuous,” Lenz returned. “Life is a
matter of trade-offs, Benjamin. You live in a world where vastly
greater sums are spent on medications for erectile dysfunction than are
spent on tropical diseases that claim the lives of millions every year.
And what of your own personal decisions? When you buy a bottle of Dom
Perignon, you have spent a sum of money that could have vaccinated a
village in Bangladesh, spared lives from the ravages of disease, yes?
People will die, Benjamin, as a result of the decisions, the priorities,
entailed by your purchase. I’m quite serious: Can you deny that the
ninety dollars a bottle of Dom Perignon costs could have easily saved
half a dozen lives, perhaps more? Think about it. The bottle will
yield seven or eight glasses of wine. Each glass, we can say,
represents a life lost.” His eyes were bright, a scientist having
solved an equation and moved on to another one. “That is why I say that
such trade-offs are inevitable. And once you understand that, you start
to ask higher order questions: qualitative questions, not quantitative
ones. Here we have the opportunity to vastly extend the useful life
span of a great humanitarian or thinker someone whose contribution to
the commonweal is inarguable. Compared to this good, what is the life
of a Serbian goatherd? Of an illiterate child who would have otherwise
been destined to a life of poverty and petty criminality. Of a Gypsy
girl who would otherwise spend her days picking the pockets of tourists
visiting Florence, her nights picking lice out of her hair. You have
been taught that lives are sacrosanct, and yet every day you make
decisions signifying an awareness that some lives are more valuable than
others. I mourn for those who have given their lives for the greater
good. I truly do. I genuinely wish that the sacrifice they made was
unnecessary. But I also know that every great achievement in the
history of our species has come at the cost of human lives. “There is
no document of civilization that is not simultaneously a document of
barbarism”: a great thinker said that, a thinker who died too young.”
Ben stood blinking, speechless.
“Come,” Lenz said, “there’s someone who wants to say hello to you. An
old friend of yours.”
Ben gaped. “Professor Godwin?”
“Ben.”
It was his old college mentor, long since retired. But his posture
seemed straighter, his once wrinkled skin was now smooth and pink. He
looked younger by several decades than his eighty-two years. John
Barnes Godwin, emeritus historian of Europe in the twentieth century,
was vigorous. His handshake was firm.
“Good Lord,” Ben said. If he hadn’t known Godwin, he’d have put his age
in the early fifties.
Godwin was one of the elect. Of course: he was a behind-the-scenes
kingmaker, he was powerful and extremely well connected.
Godwin stood before him as mind-boggling proof of Lenz’s achievement.
They stood in a small antechamber off the great hall, which was
comfortably furnished with couches and easy chairs, throw pillows and
reading lamps, and racks of newspapers and magazines in a variety of
languages.
Godwin seemed pleased at Ben’s astonishment. Jurgen Lenz beamed.
“You must not know what to make of all this,” Godwin said.
It took Ben a few seconds before he could think of a response. “That’s
one way of putting it.”
“It’s extraordinary, what Dr. Lenz has achieved. We’re all deeply
grateful to him. But I think we’re also aware of the significance, the
gravity, of his gift. In essence, we’ve been given our lives back. Not
our youth so much as as another chance. A reprieve from death.” He