Death Sentence by Roger MacBride Allen Page B

no lies of any sort."
    "The things you speak of cannot be! They must not be!"
    The things I speak of might lead to the extinction of the Unseen Race on this planet, Taranarak thought. Already your Enclave grows a trifle smaller every year. How would your people cope with a doubling of the Metrannan population? Of course, that question was at the core of other problems as well. How well would we Metrannans cope? What would we have to give up? How would families change? What traditions would alter? What patterns of life would no longer make sense, or even be possible? How would long life affect our culture, our art, our relations with others of the Elder Races? Metrannans had always had something close to a racial inferiority complex that had doubtless shaped--and even warped--their relations with other sentient species. What would change there?
    "The things I speak of can be," said Taranarak. "At least, they could be. If the lost work is recovered."
    "'Lost work'?" Yalananav echoed. "Do you mean to say that mob out there is rioting for a cure for old age that we no longer have?"
    Taranarak forced herself to speak calmly. "That is the case," she said.
    "I thought you said you had proof."
    "We do," she said. "Full and convincing results that demonstrate, on the cellular and biochemical level, the suppression of premature senescence, along with other data from our standard geriatric modeling systems that confirm the effect is real, and transferable to real living tissues, organs, and individuals. The treatment will--would--work."
    "Then what is missing?"
    "Nothing!" Bulwark of Constancy said. "Taranarak's predecessor wisely and deliberately sent away the data concerning the formulae and manufacturing process and other details of the treatment."
    "Whether it was wise, I do not know, but yes, he sent it away--at your urging," Taranarak replied accusingly. "And even that was a compromise. You wished to see the work destroyed altogether."
    "I do not deny it," said Bulwark of Constancy. It gestured toward the window and the disturbances in the city. "Change is wrong. Even the idea of change, the threat of change, is enough to set off upheavals. What will happen if the treatment does not work perfectly? Or if it works on some individuals, some gene groups, better than others? Even if it is flawless--consider! The duration of childhood and adolescence are unaffected by this life-extension treatment. This means that if you double the life span, you more than double the adult life span, the productive working life of every person. Will there be enough work for all? And at the same moment, when it will be necessary to curtail reproduction or face a ruinous population explosion, the period of fertility for adults will likewise more than double! What of the costs of new dwellings, new infrastructure--in effect, a whole new city to support the increased population?"
    "Every other sentient race manages with a longer life span," Tigmin said. "Some live far longer than we will--we would--even with this new treatment."
    Tigmin had said more than he intended, but in a sense it didn't matter. It was impossible not to guess the thoughts of the others in the room--the fantasies of long life racing through the minds of the Metrannans.
    And the Unseen Being had revealed far more than Tigmin. Moments before it had been denying the existence and effectiveness of the longlife treatment. But it was plain from what she had said about the details of the process that Bulwark of Constancy was intimately familiar with the science behind the treatment.
    "At present," Taranarak said, "no one can expect to live any longer at all. Yes, we have the proof that the treatment will work--but we no longer have the treatment itself, or the data needed to re-create it."
    "Where in the dark skies is it? Has it been destroyed?" Tigmin asked.
    "In the dark skies indeed. We do not know it has been destroyed. According to what I have been able to learn, Bulwark of Constancy of