The Immortality Factor

by Ben Bova

  Jess made a sour face. “Berkeley’s work is with rats, for god’s sake. Rat embryos, at that: stem cells, before the cells start to differentiate.”

  “But they can induce growth of new neurons with stem cells.”

  Jesse’s eyes widened. “Stem cells! Wow.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re against stem cell work,” I grumbled.

  “I’m not, but the government is.”

  “We won’t use government money, then. I can fund this without government backing.”

  “But they’re writing laws, Arby. Against cloning, too.”

  “Reproductive cloning,” I corrected him. “We’re not going to be making babies. The old-fashioned way is good enough for me.”

  Jesse grinned, but said, “They want to outlaw therapeutic cloning, too.”

  “Not even Congress is that stupid.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  “Then we’d better get busy and do what we have to do before they outlaw it.”

  “I don’t know . . .”

  “Come on, Jess. All I’m talking about is regenerating nerve cells. Not cloning, unless we have to clone some stem cells here and there.”

  “Here and there?” He raised his eyebrows dubiously.

  “While it’s still legal.”

  Jesse shook his head. “Arby, you can’t regrow mature neurons that have been completely severed. The damage is too severe. They won’t regenerate.”

  He was still doubtful, but at least he was back to talking science instead of politics. I said, “Under natural conditions, you mean.”

  “Well, yeah. But it’s worse than that, really.”

  “How?”

  “The problem with spinal neurons isn’t just making them regenerate, it’s getting them to grow to the right target area. The trauma to the spinal cord produces scarring and debris; it’s a mess, and the nerves can’t just reconnect themselves even if you can make them grow again.”

  I hadn’t thought about that.

  “The neurons need a path to follow,” Jesse went on. “They need to know where they have to grow to reconnect with the severed neurons on the other side of the cut. How’re they going to reach their targets?”

  I didn’t reply. I was thinking.

  “I mean, even if you could force some regeneration among the neurons the damned cells would just start proliferating like a bunch of weeds. What the hell good would that do?”

  “Suppose you could provide a plan? A blueprint for them to follow?”

  “How the hell could you do that?”

  I could see that Jess was getting emotional. That was a good sign. That meant he was interested. Even though he was negative about the idea, it had hit him hard enough to shake him up.

  I got up from my chair. “Come on out back with me. I want to show you some of the latest imaging systems we’ve been using.”

  Jesse looked perplexed. “Imaging systems? What’s that got to do with it?”

  “You want a blueprint, a map for the growing nerves to follow? Let’s take a look at what the mapmakers can do for us.”

  Vincent Andriotti looked more like a Turkish wrestler than an optical-electronics engineer. He was short, thickly built, sparse of hair, swarthy of complexion, and his nose had obviously been broken many years ago. Perhaps more than once. He just happened to be a genius at developing sensor systems.

  In his darkened laboratory, lit only by the faint greenish glow from one of his computer display screens, Vinnie grinned maliciously at us.

  “It’s simple,” he said. “You use the echo-planar MRI to map out the area, tell you which nerve bundles are which, and then you go in with the fiber optics and the laser pulses to get the fine detail.”

  Jesse straightened up and stretched his back. He had been bent over staring at the detailed map of a small section of a human brain for so long that his spine popped noisily as he stretched.

  The darkened little lab was hot and stuffy, as if too many people or too many machines had been crammed into it. The room smelled faintly of something I couldn’t identify, something that reminded me of spicy food. Pizza, maybe.

  “I know that MRI is magnetic resonance imaging,” Jesse said to Vince. “But what is echo . . . whatever it is?”

  “Echo-planar,” Vinnie replied. “You use much stronger magnetic field gradients than normal MRI and a whole shitful of fast computers to grab the data before the pulse craps out. Call it EPI instead of MRI. It’s easier.”

  “EPI,” Jesse repeated.

  “Once you have the EPI map,” I explained, “you use laser pulses to delineate the individual neurons.”

  “Right,” said Vinnie, making the word sound almost like a gunshot.

  “That’ll take a long time, won’t it?” Jesse asked.

  Vinnie said, “Depends on how much computer power you throw in. Anyway, if the guy’s a paraplegic he ain’t going anywhere, is he?”

  Jesse shrugged. “No, I suppose not.”

  The greenish glow from the display screen made Andriotti’s swarthy face look ghastly. He was grinning like a nasty pirate.

  I asked him, “You’re confident you could map the entire spinal cord on both sides of the cut?”

  “Confident as hell,” Vinnie snapped. “I could be wrong, but I’m damned confident.”

  I turned to Jess. “Well? What do you think?”

  Jesse rubbed a hand across his chin. Then he looked up. “I think it’s worth a try.”

  “Good!”

  I slid an arm around my brother’s shoulders and headed for the door.

  Vinnie called after us, “Hey, if I’m supposed to work on this, what job number do I charge it to?”

  “I’ll let you know,” I said as I opened the door with my free hand.

  Vinnie grunted very much like a wrestler. He had worked for me long enough to understand that “I’ll let you know” means that the work should be hidden for the time being. Moonlighted. Charged to some existing project until I could come up with a legitimate account.

  I heard Vinnie start humming to himself, “Dah-dee-dah, dah-dee-dah, dah-dee-dah . . .” His version of the “Moonlight Sonata.” He’d been down this path before.

  I walked Jesse all the way to his car, surprised at how chilly the afternoon had become. Rain clouds were thickening and blotting out the sun.

  When I got back to my office, Cassie Ianetta was in the outer room, perched on the edge of the white leather sofa like a nervous little schoolkid waiting for the principal’s discipline. Phyllis was at her desk, busily typing away at her keyboard.

  Cassie jumped to her feet when I came through the open doorway. I ushered her into my office and gestured to a chair at the little round conference table in a corner of the office, then sat down beside her. That would be better than putting the desk between us, I thought. She looked wound tight, about to snap. Time for the fatherly approach.

  “Darrell tells me you’ve got a problem about the clinical trials.”

  “Can’t someone else handle it?” Cassie blurted. “I can’t leave the country. I can’t be away for months at a time.”

  “Problem with Max?”

  “He needs me.” She was clenching her fingers on the edge of the little table so hard I could see her knuckles going white.

  “You mean you don’t want to leave him.”

  “Nobody else understands him!” And she burst into tears.

  I let her sink her blubbering face against my shoulder. I put my arms around her, patting her back gently. I really did feel fatherly toward Cassie. I had known her since she’d been a summer intern, working her way through Brown.

  I tried to be soothing. “There, there. It’s not as bad as all that, is it?”

  She sobbed and sniffled for a while, then pulled away and began to apologize. “I’m sorry, it’s not your problem, I know.”

  “But it is my problem, Cass,” I said gently. “I care about you, and I care about your work.”

  Cassie pulled a tissue from the box on the tab
le and dabbed at her eyes.

  “You have a brilliant career ahead of you,” I told her. “And I don’t have to tell you how important your work is.”

  “But I can’t—”

  The fatherly approach can take you only so far. What I needed was something more powerful than her damned Max, something that would make her understand where her obligations lay.

  “Wait. Maybe I should explain something to you. I ought to be completely up-front with you about this.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I hunched closer to her, until my face was almost touching hers. “I’ve got a personal stake in your work, Cass. My mother is dying of cancer.”

  “Oh! I didn’t know.”

  “It’s not something that I broadcast around. But she’s been in a nursing home for more than a year now. Cancer of the colon. They’ve operated on her twice, but they didn’t get all of it.”

  “Oh, my god.”

  “So I want your work to succeed, I want that very much. Maybe more than I should.”

  “I can understand why.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t pressure you. Maybe somebody else can get the job done as well as you could. It’s just . . .”

  I could see Cassie absorbing this new information, her eyes staring off to infinity as she sorted out the data.

  “I shouldn’t let my personal concerns interfere with your personal concerns. You have to decide what’s best for you, for your career, for your future.”

  “I didn’t know about your mother,” she whispered.

  “I’m sorry I brought it up. Let’s face it, nothing you or anybody else can do is going to save her. Even if your clinical trials go without a hitch, she’ll be dead long before your tumor suppressant can help her.”

  I was getting through to her, I could see it. A part of me despised what I was doing, manipulating the kid’s emotions. But what the hell, I thought, she’s not going to listen to logic. She’s all tied up in knots over her stupid Max. She’s got her career to think of; she can’t hang around his neck and let her own work go to hell.

  “I’ll do it,” Cassie said at last. “I’ll go to Mexico or wherever the field tests are set up.”

  “Don’t make the decision right now,” I said softly. “It’s a big decision. It means a lot to everyone concerned. Think about it. Sleep on it.”

  “I’ll do it,” Cassie repeated. She could be very rigid in her decisions. “You’re right. It’s the right thing to do.”

  I walked her out of my office, still urging her to think further about her decision, but I was certain that she wouldn’t change her mind now that she had made it up. Cassie had that stubborn Sicilian streak in her, I knew from past experience.

  Once she left my office I felt almost ashamed of using Momma’s illness that way. There was no way Cassie’s work would ever be finished in time to help her. God, I thought, it’ll take at least another two years. Momma can’t hang on that long. Two more years of pain. It made me shudder.

  CASSIE IANETTA

  Today is Thursday, April twenty-first. I haven’t been keeping my diary as faithfully as I promised to, so I’m going to try talking it into this voice recorder every night instead of writing it. Dr. Mandelbaum wants me to keep a diary, she says it’ll help me to sort out my thoughts and emotions. Maybe. We’ll see.

  Arthur Marshak, my boss, wants me to go to Mexico to do the field trials on my tumor suppressant. That means I’d have to leave Max for months. I don’t want to do that, but Arthur dumped a whole load of guilt on me and I guess I’ll have to go.

  When our meeting ended I practically ran from Arthur’s office, past my own lab, and out to the pens at the back of the building. The custodial staff is always scrubbing down the tiles, covering up the natural smells of the animals and their excrement with detergents and disinfectants. I don’t mind the smell; it’s strong and real.

  The cage labeled MAXIMILIAN was empty, so I rushed past the two young guys sweeping the floor and pushed through the heavy double doors out to the open-air playground. It was chilly out there, turning gray. I thought it would start raining soon.

  I didn’t see Max at first. He wasn’t in either one of the pruned trees that grow out at the far end of the compound; he wasn’t in the jungle gym we had set up for him closer to the doors. I felt a pang of fear in my chest.

  And then I spotted him, all the way up the top of the heavy wire fencing that domes in the enclosure. He was hanging up there by one hand and scratching himself on the backside with the other. As soon as he saw me he came scrambling down to the ground and knuckle-walked to me, hooting a great big hello.

  He grabbed for me and I let his strong arms enfold me; I knew he would never hurt me. I had worked with Max since he had been a scared, lost little baby, four years ago. Mothered him. Taught him sign language. And I used him as a living biochemical laboratory to generate the antibodies and enzymes that I used in my research. I taught him not to be afraid of my lab, with its strange sterile smells and cold metal tables.

  Max trusted me. He performed for me. His body reacted to the injections I gave him and produced the proteins and peptide chains that I needed. It had taken me more than a month of really agonized indecision before I finally injected Max with the carcinoma strain, and I went without sleep for four straight days as my tumor suppressant enzyme destroyed the cancerous cells before they could begin to form tumors. I had watched over Max like a terrified mother, deathly afraid that I had murdered my own child.

  But Max lived and thrived. And I swore I’d never use him for experiments again. “You’ve earned your retirement,” I had said aloud to him. And do you know what Max answered? He signed, Banana for me? That’s why I loved him. No complications, no conflicts, nothing but trust. And love.

  So I sat sprawled on the grass in the animal enclosure with Max huffing and pawing at me like a clumsy child. He made me laugh with his antics.

  Play? Max signed.

  I nodded.

  Max hooted and scampered toward the jungle gym. I scrambled to my feet and ran after him. I didn’t have the strength to climb the bars with him, though. The chemo had left me weak and shaky.

  But Max climbed right up to the top of the jungle gym and then looked back at me. Play? he signed again.

  How could I leave him? He’d be lost without me. Even if Arthur promises not to use him in any more tests, how can I trust any of them once my back is turned?

  THE TRIAL:

  DAY ONE, MORNING

  Before the examiner could frame another question, Arthur said to the judges, “I would like to make it clear that neither I nor any of the other scientists and physicians engaged in this research are attempting to play God.”

  Rosen started to interrupt but Arthur went on, “Many of the researchers have deep religious feelings. They belong to many different faiths but they all have the conviction that what we are doing is no more playing God than giving medicine to a sick child would be.”

  A smattering of applause came from the audience behind him.

  “Silence,” Graves warned the spectators.

  “I know that the ability to replace failing organs or regrow lost limbs seems almost magical,” Arthur said, warming up to the subject, “but it is simply an extension of knowledge that generations of dedicated men and women have gained through selfless, lifelong effort.”

  Rosen said, “Dr. Marshak—”

  “May I finish?” Arthur looked past the examiner to Graves and the two elderly men flanking him.

  “If you can conclude your remarks in under five minutes,” Graves said, a little smile playing at the corners of his lips.

  Arthur bobbed his head in acknowledgment. “Far from playing God, I think we are doing God’s work. If you believe in a supreme deity, why would he—or she—give us the ability to understand these things if we’re not intended to use them to make life better? Does God intend for us to wither away and die at three score years and ten? If so, why has he given us the knowledge to extend our li
fe spans? Why allow us to discover medicines? Why have we been able to understand what causes disease and genetic defects? If we failed to use this knowledge we would be spitting in God’s face, telling God that we reject the wisdom he has granted us.”

  The hearing chamber was absolutely silent. Even Rosen, the examiner, stood immobile, his coal-black eyes staring at Arthur.

  Graves pushed his bifocals up to the bridge of his nose. “Are you finished, Dr. Marshak?”

  “That’s all I’ve got to say,” Arthur said. He turned to the examiner. “What’s your next question?”

  The audience stirred as if coming out of a trance. Rosen made a polite little cough behind the back of his hand, then took a few steps toward the table where Arthur sat.

  “You worked with your brother on this idea of regenerating organs?” the examiner asked.

  “As I told you, Dr. Rosen,” Arthur said with a great show of patience, “at first we were interested only in regenerating spinal cord nerve tissue. We were thinking in terms of helping paraplegics.”

  “And you worked with your brother.”

  “I talked out the basic idea with my brother. Until he had to go to South America or Africa or one of those locations.”

  Rosen walked back to his place at the end of the judges’ table and consulted the notebook computer he had set up there. Arthur glanced sideways at Jesse. He was leaning back in his chair, at his ease, apparently enjoying the show so far.

  “Dr. Marshak,” Rosen called, “when your brother left the country for Eritrea”—he put a slight emphasis on the country’s name, as if he were not so subtly reminding Arthur of something he should have remembered for himself—“had you thought of extending your work on nerve regeneration to the more general purpose of organ regrowth?”

  Arthur searched his memory briefly. “We had talked about it, I think. But no, as far as I can recall, we were still thinking strictly in terms of spinal neuron regeneration back then.”

  “Had you discussed the need for using stem cells in your research?”

  “Yes,” said Arthur without hesitation. “Adult stem cells. We never even considered using fetal cells.”