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By Root 1365 0

acts, but the sad fact is that almost all of them do. In many cases, the desire to commit such acts is actually increased by the awareness that such acts are so readily detectable. In operating as a deterrent, the high probability of detection also acts as a challenge. Everyone knows that spy eyes can be evaded and sometimes deceived—and everyone is ready to do it whenever an opportunity arises. No matter how intensive and efficient Building Security becomes, petty thefts will still occur—not because people need to steal, or because they’re avid to acquire whatever it is that they happen to be stealing, but simply because stealing proves that they’re still free and that the spy eyes haven’t got the better of them. That’s natural, as an immediate reaction, but it’s no agenda for a lifelong career.”

“Tell that to the Eliminators,” Damon said. “They’re the ones who take it to extremes—extremes you’re not too proud to exploit if it suits you. The Mirror Man likes the Eliminators.”

“It’s not a view I share,” Saul told him with a slight sigh. “I do understand them, because I’m of the same generation as most of them, but I think they’re foolish as well as wicked. They know that they’ve been condemned by evil fate to die, while some of those who come after them will be spared that necessity, so it’s not entirely surprising that some say to themselves: murderers were once condemned to die for their crime; why should I, who am condemned to die, refrain from murder? Why should I not enjoy the privilege of my fate? Why should I not accept the opportunity to make the only contribution I can to the coming world of immortals—the exclusion of someone who is unworthy of immortality? It’s not surprising—but it is wrong, and ultimately self-destructive.

“Operator one-oh-one, I gather, is rather looking forward to her day in court, in anticipation of being able to plead the Eliminator cause with all due eloquence before a large video audience. Perhaps you ought to watch her—and find a little of your own futility mirrored in hers. It’s time to set bitterness and its corollary hostility aside along with other childish things, Damon. Even present technology will give you a hundred and fifty years of adulthood, if you’ll only condescend to look after yourself. The technology of a hundred years hence might give you three hundred years more. Think what you might do, if you began now; think what you might help to build, if you decide to become one of the builders instead of one of the vandals.”

Damon knew that it all made sense, but he’d had a few thoughts of his own on the matter in spite of the hectic pace of the last few days, and he wasn’t ready to roll over just yet. “A little while ago,” he said, “I talked to a boy named Lenny Garon. You probably taped the conversation. I told him exactly what you’ve just told me: to look after himself, to keep his place on the escalator that might one day give him the chance to live forever. Afterwards, though, I got to wondering whether I might be taking too much for granted.

“We’ve all grown used to the familiar pattern, haven’t we? Every couple of years PicoCon or OmicronA pumps out a new fleet of nanotech miracles, which slow down the aging process just a little bit more or take rejuve engineering just a little bit deeper, chipping away at the Hayflick limit and the Miller effect and all the other little glitches that stand in the way of true emortality. Each new generation of products works its way down through the marketplace from the rich to the not-so-rich, and so on, every expansion of the consumer base adding cash to the megacorp coffers. But what if someone already has the secret of true emortality? What if the upper echelons of PicoCon already possess a nanotech suite which, so far as they can judge, will let them live forever? What if they decided, when they first obtained the secret, that it was a gift best reserved for the favored few rather than put on general release? After all, even under the New Reproductive System the stability of the population relies on people dying in significant