Read Online Here Comes Civilization: The Complete Science Fiction of William Tenn Volume II by William Tenn - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: William Tenn
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up cytoplasm in all animal cells and refresh them.
I see, cracks Bancroft; the pause every decade that refreshes. And then, after being refreshed, you have what as a result? "Oh," muses Dandy, "you might say we have no fear of cancer or any degenerative disease. Besides that, by exposing ourselves to revitalizers at regular intervals throughout our lifetime and refreshing our body cells, we quintuple our life expectancy. We live five times longer than we should. That's about what the revitalizer does, you might say," says Dandy. Andy, after thinking a bit, agrees. "That's about it."
Pandemonium, and not mild. Newspaper extras in all languages, including the Scandinavian. Lights burning late at night in the U.N. Headquarters with guards twenty deep around the site.
When President of the Assembly Ranvi asked them why they'd never mentioned revitalizers before, they did the snail equivalent of shrugging and said the Betelgeuse IX equivalent of nobody ever asked them.
President Ranvi cleared his throat, waved all complications aside with his long brown fingers and announced, "That is not important. Not now. We must have revitalizers."
It seemed to take the aliens a while to understand that. When they finally became convinced that we, as a species, were utterly entranced with the prospect of two to four centuries of life instead of threescore and ten years, they went into a huddle.
But their race didn't make these machines for export, they explained regretfully. Just enough to service their population. And, while they could see as how we might like and must obviously deserve to have these gadgets, there were none to ferry back from Betelgeuse.
Ranvi didn't even look around for advice. "What would your people want?" he asked. "What would they like in exchange for manufacturing these machines for us? We will pay almost any price within the power of this entire planet." A rumbling, eager "yes" in several languages rolled across the floor of the Assembly.
Andy and Dandy couldn't think of a thing. Sadhu begged them to try. He personally escorted them to their spaceship, which was now parked in a restricted area in Central Park. "Good night, gentlemen," said President of the Assembly Ranvi. "Try—please try hard to think of an exchange."
They stayed inside their ship for almost six days while the world almost went insane with impatience. When I think of all the fingernails bitten that week by two billion people...
"Imagine!" Trowson whispered to me. He was pacing the floor as if he fully intended to walk all the way to Betelgeuse. "We'd just be children on a quintupled life-scale, Dick. All my achievement and education, all yours, would be just the beginning! A man could learn five professions in such a life—and think what he could accomplish in that life!"
I nodded, a little numb. I was thinking of the books I could read, the books I might write, if the bulk of my life stretched ahead of me and the advertising profession was just a passing phase in the beginning of it. Then, again, somehow I'd never married, never had had a family. Not enough free time, I had felt. And now, at forty, I was so set in my ways. But a man can undo a lot in a century...
In six days the aliens came out. With a statement of price.
They believed they could persuade their people to manufacture a supply of revitalizers for us if... An if writ very large indeed.
Their planet was woefully short of radioactive minerals, they explained apologetically. Barren worlds containing radium, uranium, and thorium had been discovered and claimed by other races, but the folk of Betelgeuse IX were forbidden by their ethics to wage aggressive war for territorial purposes. We had plenty of radioactive ore, which we used chiefly for war and biological research. The former was patently undesirable and the latter would be rendered largely unnecessary by the revitalizers.
So, in exchange, they wanted our radioactive elements. All of them, they stated humbly.
All
I see, cracks Bancroft; the pause every decade that refreshes. And then, after being refreshed, you have what as a result? "Oh," muses Dandy, "you might say we have no fear of cancer or any degenerative disease. Besides that, by exposing ourselves to revitalizers at regular intervals throughout our lifetime and refreshing our body cells, we quintuple our life expectancy. We live five times longer than we should. That's about what the revitalizer does, you might say," says Dandy. Andy, after thinking a bit, agrees. "That's about it."
Pandemonium, and not mild. Newspaper extras in all languages, including the Scandinavian. Lights burning late at night in the U.N. Headquarters with guards twenty deep around the site.
When President of the Assembly Ranvi asked them why they'd never mentioned revitalizers before, they did the snail equivalent of shrugging and said the Betelgeuse IX equivalent of nobody ever asked them.
President Ranvi cleared his throat, waved all complications aside with his long brown fingers and announced, "That is not important. Not now. We must have revitalizers."
It seemed to take the aliens a while to understand that. When they finally became convinced that we, as a species, were utterly entranced with the prospect of two to four centuries of life instead of threescore and ten years, they went into a huddle.
But their race didn't make these machines for export, they explained regretfully. Just enough to service their population. And, while they could see as how we might like and must obviously deserve to have these gadgets, there were none to ferry back from Betelgeuse.
Ranvi didn't even look around for advice. "What would your people want?" he asked. "What would they like in exchange for manufacturing these machines for us? We will pay almost any price within the power of this entire planet." A rumbling, eager "yes" in several languages rolled across the floor of the Assembly.
Andy and Dandy couldn't think of a thing. Sadhu begged them to try. He personally escorted them to their spaceship, which was now parked in a restricted area in Central Park. "Good night, gentlemen," said President of the Assembly Ranvi. "Try—please try hard to think of an exchange."
They stayed inside their ship for almost six days while the world almost went insane with impatience. When I think of all the fingernails bitten that week by two billion people...
"Imagine!" Trowson whispered to me. He was pacing the floor as if he fully intended to walk all the way to Betelgeuse. "We'd just be children on a quintupled life-scale, Dick. All my achievement and education, all yours, would be just the beginning! A man could learn five professions in such a life—and think what he could accomplish in that life!"
I nodded, a little numb. I was thinking of the books I could read, the books I might write, if the bulk of my life stretched ahead of me and the advertising profession was just a passing phase in the beginning of it. Then, again, somehow I'd never married, never had had a family. Not enough free time, I had felt. And now, at forty, I was so set in my ways. But a man can undo a lot in a century...
In six days the aliens came out. With a statement of price.
They believed they could persuade their people to manufacture a supply of revitalizers for us if... An if writ very large indeed.
Their planet was woefully short of radioactive minerals, they explained apologetically. Barren worlds containing radium, uranium, and thorium had been discovered and claimed by other races, but the folk of Betelgeuse IX were forbidden by their ethics to wage aggressive war for territorial purposes. We had plenty of radioactive ore, which we used chiefly for war and biological research. The former was patently undesirable and the latter would be rendered largely unnecessary by the revitalizers.
So, in exchange, they wanted our radioactive elements. All of them, they stated humbly.
All
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