Rebuttal

Immortality? Like anything else, it may be a matter of definition, or just of the point of view....

"THE STAR" by Arthur C. Clarke was by all odds the most popular story in the first issue of INFINITY, and probably one of the most popular science-fiction stories to be published anywhere in 1955. It was also highly controversial, and in "Rebuttal" Betsy Curtis presents the other side of the question--plus an idea that seems to be totally new. The result, we think you'll agree, is one of the outstanding science-fictional events of 1956.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Infinity Science Fiction, June 1956. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

They brought Father Phillip Burt to St. Luke's as our "share" of the research project on the mysterious disease which afflicted most of the crew of the recently returned Phoenix Nebula expedition. News of the disease, of course, was not spread beyond the research teams, as the public seems to fear a plague worse than damnation itself. And it didn't seem to be a very serious disease: Father Phillip was easily the worst case of all; and although several members of the expedition had died, their deaths could be evaluated as due to secondary infections of common enough earth origin. Very few of the crew members were in actual pain; but Father Phillip was in constant agony which no amount of sedation seemed to calm.

I ran the customary tissue cultures and biopsies, including those on internal organs not customarily available. We were given an excuse for getting internal samples of tissue when Father Phillip's appendix flamed into infection. And although I did not find a general infecting organism, what I did find was enough to send me trotting up to his room on the double.

I suppose I should explain here that I, Father Niccolo Molina, am head research pathologist for St. Luke's and that I don't, therefore, meet the patients personally very often. But Father Phillip I had to meet.

His day nurse, Sister Mary Felicia, met me at the door in her crisp white teflon overall.

"Father is very uncomfortable today," she told me. "The incision is not healing at all and he keeps trying to talk and then breaking off in the middle of a sentence with the pain."

"Talking about anything in particular?" I asked suspiciously.

"The merest chit-chat. The weather ... pleasantries about the hospital ... jokes about doctors in particular. He doesn't have a very high regard for doctors, it seems. Thinks they are notable atheists, I gather." She smiled.

"Many thanks for the diagnosis, Sister," I told her gravely. Then I added, "I suppose you are having to maintain a considerable quarantine and decontamination routine as Father's nurse?"

"Oh yes. In this wing, you know, we are all in solitary, approaching no persons other than our patient and the doctors ... sometimes for as much as three months after the end of a case. It provides excellent time for a retreat, which is why most of us apply for such duty." She pointed to the small prie-dieu in her tiny cubicle, which stood as a buffer between the contagion room and the hallway of the ward.

"If I am right about the nature of Father Burt's disease," I told her, "you will soon see the end of this case, and without any three months' decontamination, either."

She smiled again. "You couldn't say a happier thing," she said, "even though I shall probably apply for a leprosy case if I am relieved of this one. I've become very concerned about Father Phillip."

"Good. He needs your prayers as no man probably ever needed them before. I'll see him now." I crossed her small room and opened the inner door and went in.