The Cassandra Complex - Brian Stableford [49]
“The extension of the human life span?” Smith was quick to clarify.
“The fostering of human emortality,” Goldfarb corrected him. Glancing sideways at Lisa, he added: “That’s emortality with an ‘e.’ Our founder disliked the word immortality’ because he thought it implied an inability to die no matter what, whereas—”
“I know what emortality means,” Lisa said through slightly gritted teeth. “I’m a scientist, not a community policeman—and I’ve known Morgan Miller well for nearly forty years. Are you suggesting that Morgan was engaged throughout that time on some clandestine line of research that he never even mentioned to me?”
Goldfarb shrugged. “I know nothing about the circumstances …” he began, but trailed off in evident confusion, unable to decide where the sentence ought to go.
“But you’re definitely telling us that whatever this line of research was, it was unsuccessful?” Smith put in. “According to what he told you, he only wanted to save others from wandering up the same blind alleys, not knowing that they’d already been checked.”
“That’s what he told me,” Goldfarb agreed hesitantly. It didn’t need a psychologist to spot the implied “but.”
“And what did you tell New York?” Smith demanded.
Goldfarb didn’t reply. He and his superiors had obviously agreed that he had a duty to override the issues of confidentiality that were relevant to his conversation with Morgan Miller, but Smith’s question presumably went beyond that decision. “It was just an impression I got,” the little man said defensively.
“We’ve already taken note of the fact that you’re the kind of man who forms a lot of impressions,” Smith said rather intemperately. “What did you tell New York?”
“Nothing,” Goldfarb insisted. “It’s just… I’m trying to help you here … it’s just that scientists nowadays have got into the habit of playing their cards very close to their chests. Miller came here fishing for information, and I wasn’t entirely sure that he’d have bothered doing that if his results had been as uniformly negative as he said they were. I told New York that I thought he was probably keeping something up his sleeve.”
Goldfarb was blushing again, having obviously considered the possibility that it might have been his “impression” that had prompted Morgan Miller’s kidnapping. It didn’t seem very likely to Lisa, but in a crazy world, it sometimes didn’t need much to trigger precipitate responses.
“That was rather irresponsible, don’t you think?” she put in.
“There’s also the possibility that he’d missed something,” Goldfarb retorted, shifting his ground uncomfortably. “Scientists don’t always have a clear view of the implications of their own results, especially if they haven’t exposed them to any kind of peer review. I told New York that I thought Miller might be uncertain about the causes for his failure, and that he might want someone else to take a look at his results in case they could pick up something he’d overlooked. He did seem … well, frustrated. As if he were annoyed with himself for not having solved what must have seemed at first to be a minor obstacle, even after all this time. There was something about the manner of his approach that suggested desperation.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Lisa said, unable to contain her annoyance. “You may think you’re a good judge of character, Dr. Goldfarb, but the person you’re describing isn’t Morgan Miller, and the Morgan Miller I know never gave me the slightest hint that he was working on any kind of longevity technology. None of this rings true. I don’t have a clue as to why he came to you, but if he really said what you say he said, in the way you say he said it, then he must have been playing a part. He was spinning you a line, maybe because he wanted to find out something about Ahasuerus—or you—that he couldn’t find out without trickery.”
Lisa saw that Smith was frowning, and realized that Mike Grundy would probably have been blazing mad if she’d gone off like