blubber. The four-inch arrow-shaped projectile had been manufactured in New Bedford, Massachusetts
around 1890, making the whale a minimum of one hundred seventeen years old.’
‘A bit like Hiram Conley,’ Lopez said. ‘He had a Minie musket ball lodged in his right femur. According to analysis the wound was around one hundred forty years old.’
Tyler Willis grasped the edge of his desk.
‘You’re sure? You actually have evidence of this?’
‘It’s locked up,’ Lopez replied quickly, cursing inwardly at having revealed too much. ‘But our source is reliable. The main reason we’re here is to find out what
the hell’s been going on with this Conley and how he could have ended up not just with that wound but with a fresh Minie ball in his shoulder.’
Willis seemed momentarily distracted, whispering to himself.
‘I’ll be damned, it’s true then.’ He looked at them. ‘Conley had been shot before I met him in the pass, before the ranger arrived. Somebody else shot him with a
musket, maybe one of the others.’
‘When you were found,’ Ethan said, ‘you told Patrol Officer Zamora that Hiram Conley was too old to die, that you didn’t want him killed. You knew that he was very old
then, didn’t you?’
Willis seemed to come back to the present. He looked at both Lopez and Ethan as though weighing them up, and then finally nodded.
‘I didn’t at first,’ he said simply.
‘What was wrong with him, exactly?’ Lopez asked.
Willis sighed heavily.
‘It’s very difficult to explain,’ he said. ‘You need to think differently about life and what it is before you can understand what happened to Hiram Conley. What you need
to know is that nobody ever dies of old age, ever. What happens to us, and to all other species, is that the ability of our cells to divide without generating errors decreases the more times those
cells are forced to divide. The gradual building up of cellular errors eventually results in programmed cell death, apoptosis, which leads to a specific cause of death such as organ failure, cancer
and so on. We die as a result of illness brought on by age, but not by age itself.’
‘So technically people could live forever?’ Lopez asked, ‘if their cells could divide without errors.’
‘It’s possible,’ Willis nodded, ‘even as crazy as it sounds. But unfortunately it’s not quite as simple as that. Like everything else, aging is something that has
evolved through natural selection. Most of the earliest forms of life on our planet were bacterial colonies and such like, forms which don’t necessarily suffer senescence because, as a
colony, they survive for millions of years and continue the genetic heritage of the colony as a whole. However, with most forms of life aging has evolved because the longer something lives, the
more likely it is to encounter a fatal incident, be it predation or an accident.’
‘We die just in case we have an accident?’ Lopez muttered. ‘Sounds like a bum deal.’
‘Not really,’ Willis said. ‘Evolution has resulted in a situation where it has become an advantage to have higher reproductive strategies at the youngest possible age, thus
reducing the chances of some fatal event preventing reproduction and making a species extinct. Natural selection favors those species which can mate most effectively when they’re young and
fit, and so the evolution of species has resulted in forms of life who mature early and mate young, before then growing old and passing away. There’s a resources issue too – if nothing
ever died, then pretty soon all the planet’s resources would be consumed and nothing more could live. Each generation of species must thus make way for the next.’
‘So what was your angle on all of this?’ Lopez asked. ‘You were trying to eradicate age-related disease, but how?’
‘Disease generally comes about when people age,’ Tyler Willis said, ‘that much we know. What people don’t realize is
around 1890, making the whale a minimum of one hundred seventeen years old.’
‘A bit like Hiram Conley,’ Lopez said. ‘He had a Minie musket ball lodged in his right femur. According to analysis the wound was around one hundred forty years old.’
Tyler Willis grasped the edge of his desk.
‘You’re sure? You actually have evidence of this?’
‘It’s locked up,’ Lopez replied quickly, cursing inwardly at having revealed too much. ‘But our source is reliable. The main reason we’re here is to find out what
the hell’s been going on with this Conley and how he could have ended up not just with that wound but with a fresh Minie ball in his shoulder.’
Willis seemed momentarily distracted, whispering to himself.
‘I’ll be damned, it’s true then.’ He looked at them. ‘Conley had been shot before I met him in the pass, before the ranger arrived. Somebody else shot him with a
musket, maybe one of the others.’
‘When you were found,’ Ethan said, ‘you told Patrol Officer Zamora that Hiram Conley was too old to die, that you didn’t want him killed. You knew that he was very old
then, didn’t you?’
Willis seemed to come back to the present. He looked at both Lopez and Ethan as though weighing them up, and then finally nodded.
‘I didn’t at first,’ he said simply.
‘What was wrong with him, exactly?’ Lopez asked.
Willis sighed heavily.
‘It’s very difficult to explain,’ he said. ‘You need to think differently about life and what it is before you can understand what happened to Hiram Conley. What you need
to know is that nobody ever dies of old age, ever. What happens to us, and to all other species, is that the ability of our cells to divide without generating errors decreases the more times those
cells are forced to divide. The gradual building up of cellular errors eventually results in programmed cell death, apoptosis, which leads to a specific cause of death such as organ failure, cancer
and so on. We die as a result of illness brought on by age, but not by age itself.’
‘So technically people could live forever?’ Lopez asked, ‘if their cells could divide without errors.’
‘It’s possible,’ Willis nodded, ‘even as crazy as it sounds. But unfortunately it’s not quite as simple as that. Like everything else, aging is something that has
evolved through natural selection. Most of the earliest forms of life on our planet were bacterial colonies and such like, forms which don’t necessarily suffer senescence because, as a
colony, they survive for millions of years and continue the genetic heritage of the colony as a whole. However, with most forms of life aging has evolved because the longer something lives, the
more likely it is to encounter a fatal incident, be it predation or an accident.’
‘We die just in case we have an accident?’ Lopez muttered. ‘Sounds like a bum deal.’
‘Not really,’ Willis said. ‘Evolution has resulted in a situation where it has become an advantage to have higher reproductive strategies at the youngest possible age, thus
reducing the chances of some fatal event preventing reproduction and making a species extinct. Natural selection favors those species which can mate most effectively when they’re young and
fit, and so the evolution of species has resulted in forms of life who mature early and mate young, before then growing old and passing away. There’s a resources issue too – if nothing
ever died, then pretty soon all the planet’s resources would be consumed and nothing more could live. Each generation of species must thus make way for the next.’
‘So what was your angle on all of this?’ Lopez asked. ‘You were trying to eradicate age-related disease, but how?’
‘Disease generally comes about when people age,’ Tyler Willis said, ‘that much we know. What people don’t realize is
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