Read Online The Immortals by James Gunn - Free Book Online

you can get in one bag. We’re leaving.”
    â€œI can’t just pick up and walk out,” she said quickly, her eyes puzzled. “What’s the—”
    â€œIf you love me, Bobs,” he said in a low, tight voice, “you’ll do as I ask, and no questions. I’ll be back in half an hour at the latest. I want you to be packed and ready. I’ll explain everything then.”
    â€œAll right, Eddy.”
    He rewarded her submission with a tender smile. “Get busy, then. Lock your door. Don’t open it for anybody but me.” He pushed her gently through the doorway and pulled the door shut between them and waited until he heard a bolt shot home.
    His room was at the end of the hall. Inside, a tidal wave of weariness crashed over him. He let himself slump into a chair, relaxing completely. Five minuteslater he pulled himself upright and ripped open the letter he had retrieved from Mrs. Gentry. It began:
    Dear Bobs:
    If I am right—and you will not receive this letter unless I am—you are the object of the greatest manhunt ever undertaken in the history of the world. . . .
    He glanced through it hastily, ripped it to shreds, and burned them in the ashtray. He crushed the ashes into irretrievable flecks, and sat down in front of the desk and a portable computer. His fingers danced over the keys and a series of words formed on the screen:
    Near this nation’s capital, in a seven-story bombproof building, is the headquarters of an organization which spends $100,000,000 a year and has not produced a single product of value. It has been spending for fifty years. It will continue for fifty more if it does not achieve its purpose before then.
    It is hunting for something.
    It is hunting for immortality.
    If you have read this far, you are the third man besides the founders of this corporation to know the secret. Let it be a secret no more.
    The organization is the National Research Institute. It is hunting for the children of Marshall Cartwright.
    Why should Cartwright’s children be worth a search that has already cost $5,000,000,000?
    Marshall Cartwright is immortal. It is believed that his children have inherited his immunity.
    This fact alone would be unimportant were it not for the additional fact that the immunity factor is carried in the bloodstream. It is one of the gamma globulins which resist disease. Cartwright’s body manufactures antibodies against death itself. His circulatory system is kept constantly rejuvenated; with abundant food, his remaining cells never die.
    In the bloodstream. And blood can be transfused; gamma globulin can be injected. The result: new youth for the aged. Unfortunately, like all gamma globulins, these provide only a passive immunity which lasts only as long as the proteins remain in the bloodstream—thirty to forty days.
    For a man to remain young forever, like Cartwright, he would need a transfusion from Cartwright every month. This might well be fatal to Cartwright. Certainly it would be unhealthful. And it would be necessary to imprison him to make certain that he was always available.
    Fifty years ago, through an accidental transfusion, Cartwright learned of his immortality. He ran for his life. He changed his name. He hid. And it is believed that he obeyed the Biblical injunction to be fruitful and replenish the earth.
    This was his goal: to spread his seed so widely that it could not be destroyed. This was his hope: that the human race might eventually become immortal.
    In no other way could he hope to survive for more than a few centuries. Because he could be killed by accident or by man’s greed. If he were ever discovered, his fate was certain.
    Cartwright has disappeared completely, although his path has been traced up to twenty years ago. In the Institute office there is a map on which glows the haphazard wanderings of a fugitive from mankind’s terrible fear of death. Agents have worked and reworked