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.”Petrone felt her brows knit.The report was part of her normal year-end routine, a summary of the work that the Cancer Institute had been funding.In Luke’s case, it was a final report, since the agency had canceled his funding.Feeling confused and more than a little discomfited, Petrone drove the next day to the NIH campus in Bethesda and made her way to the administration building.The traffic was unusually light, the campus quiet in the mid-morning sunshine.She was even more confused, and surprised, when her supervisor introduced her to the others in the conference room.Only one of the men was from the budget committee.Three others were statisticians with the Department of Health and Human Services, another was from the Department of the Treasury, and the seventh person at the table was a youthful, hard-eyed man who identified himself as a special assistant to the President of the United States.Lots of firepower, Petrone thought, for an ordinary program review.Her supervisor sat at the head of the conference table, looking dour.Petrone—the only woman present—was seated on his left.The White House man was at his right, across the table from her.The statisticians, seated down the table, wore comfortably casual open-necked shirts or sweaters.The White House man was in a dark pinstriped suit.Her supervisor wore a suit, too, dreary gray, and a carefully knotted green and red tie that could only have been a Christmas present, Petrone theorized: No one would buy a tie like that for himself.She was wearing a presentable skirt and sweater.But she got the impression that she should have dressed better.Her supervisor—gray hair, thick gray mustache almost the same shade as his suit—was actually perspiring, she realized.The various statisticians looked just as curious and perplexed as Petrone herself felt.The White House aide was very serious, all business, and looked to be the youngest man at the table.He was lean, with thinning sandy hair and a stern intensity in his light brown eyes.Once the introductions had gone around the table, the supervisor said, “Dr.Petrone, you submitted a report summarizing the work of Professor Luke Abramson, of Brighton University, in Massachusetts.”Petrone nodded.“Your summary included an analysis of the results of his research.”“That was mostly speculation on my part,” she said, immediately regretting that she had dabbled in that direction.“I thought that since our program with Professor Abramson had concluded, it was appropriate to examine where his work might lead.In the future.”“Very appropriate,” said the Treasury Department representative, seated next to Petrone.One of the statisticians said, with a youthful grin, “You opened up a can of worms, you did.”“Really?” she asked.The Treasury Department representative was wearing a sporty checkered vest beneath his dark blue jacket, Petrone noticed.He was the oldest person at the table, from the looks of him: chunky, but faded, tired, resigned to the endless tedium of bureaucracy.“Do you really believe,” he asked Petrone, “that this man’s research could extend human life spans?”She nodded warily.“If he’s successful with his work on telomeres, it could lead to greatly extended life spans, yes.”Her supervisor said, “We’re not talking life expectancies here, but actual life spans, is that right?”“Yes,” said Petrone.Turning to the Treasury Department man, the supervisor explained.“Average life expectancy has been rising for more than a hundred years.Better sanitation, better nutrition, better health care—they’ve all contributed to lowering infant and childhood mortality.More people live into adulthood, you see.”“But we’re not talking about average life expectancy here,” said the White House man, his high tenor voice sharp and crisp.He’s from New England, Petrone realized once she heard him pronounce “here” as “hee-yeh.”“Exactly right,” said the supervisor.“We’re talking about people living well past one hundred.Lots of people.”The White House man shook his head.“We can’t have that.”The man from the budget committee blurted, “Why not? Don’t you want to live longer?”The White House man gave him a cold stare.“Do you know what it would mean if most people could live to be a hundred or more? Do you have any idea of what would happen to our economy if we had millions of centenarians living, demanding their Social Security benefits, Medicare, retirement pensions?”“It would wreck the economy,” said the Treasury Department man.“It would bankrupt us
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