The Immortals by James E. Gunn
"The Immortals" is a concept rooted in a narrative that explores themes of immortality and the ethical dilemmas surrounding medical advancements. The story begins with Marshall Cartwright, who sells a pint of blood containing rejuvenating properties, which is later used to extend the life of a dying millionaire, Leroy Weaver. However, the effects of this blood are short-lived, leading Weaver to seek true immortality, which sets off a chain of events involving a secret organization, the National Research Institute (NRI), that is dedicated to finding the descendants of Cartwright.
As the plot unfolds, it reveals a dystopian society where medical technology is exploited, creating a stark divide between the privileged few who can afford life-saving treatments and the underprivileged. The narrative follows characters like Eddy Sibert and Barbara McFarland, who navigate personal betrayals and societal corruption while seeking to escape the grasp of the NRI. Central to the story is the moral decay of the medical profession, illustrated through the experiences of various characters, including a medic named Flowers, who gradually becomes disillusioned with the system.
Ultimately, "The Immortals" examines the interplay between life, death, and the human condition, questioning the price of immortality and the ethical implications of medical practices in a world driven by fear and desperation. This narrative provides a thought-provoking lens on the consequences of humanity's relentless pursuit of life at any cost.
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The Immortals
First published: 1962 (serial form, Astounding Science-Fiction, October, 1955; Venture Science Fiction, July, 1957; Star Science Fiction #4, 1958; and Fantastic, November, 1960)
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Science fiction—dystopia
Time of work: The late twentieth century to the mid-twenty-second century
Locale: Kansas City; Lawrence, Kansas; and New York City
The Plot
The Immortals served as the basis for the television series The Immortal. The color series included a seventy-five-minute pilot (1969) and fifteen fifty-minute episodes that aired in 1970 and 1971. James Gunn novelized the series in The Immortal (1970).
Marshall Cartwright sells a pint of blood to a hospital. Later, Dr. Russell Pearce transfuses the blood into the veins of his dying patient, Leroy Weaver, a seventy-year-old millionaire. With its rejuvenating gamma globulin, the blood gives Weaver the health of a vital thirty-year-old man, but Pearce discovers that the gamma globulin is effective for only forty days. Weaver wants immortality and pressures Pearce to reveal the name of the blood donor. Pearce hires a private detective, Jason Locke, to find Cartwright in order to warn him that men like Weaver will bleed him for his gift of immortality. Before he dies, Weaver fathers a son.
Fifty years later, the National Research Institute (NRI), a secret organization funded by millionaires and directed by Locke, searches for the immortals, the children of Cartwright. An employee of the NRI, Eddy Sibert, locates Barbara McFarland, one of Cartwright’s children. Goons from the NRI seriously wound Eddy, and Barbara, who loves him, saves his life with a blood donation. The couple flees Kansas City, and the rejuvenated Eddy, plotting to turn Barbara over to the NRI, convinces her to go to New York.
NRI thugs nab Eddy and Barbara. Eddy bargains for immortality when he tries to sell Barbara to Locke. Barbara confronts Eddy with his unfaithfulness and tells him that he lost immortality with his deceit. A secretary frees Eddy from jail. He learns that Barbara has escaped, aided by her father, who had worked in disguise in the institute. Unrepentant, Eddy joins Locke in the search for the Cartwright’s.
A dystopian medical society arises. Kansas City is dying, but the medical center feeds like a cancer off the resources of the city. Fueled by the pathological fear of death, medical technologies evolve to maintain human life at any cost. The medical profession becomes uncaring. A political action committee revokes health contracts of those who cannot pay their premiums and sells the defaulters organs. Doctors and medics journey into the city by armored ambulance.
Flowers, a medic, believes in this system. When he makes a house call, he discovers a blind girl and 125-year-old Russell Pearce, who abandoned his profession years ago, disgusted at its ethics. His daughter, Leah, suffers from cataracts. Leah and Pearce confront Flowers with the failure of medicine.
As Flowers leaves them, police officers knock him out and take him to care for John Bone, a local politician. Bones men also kidnap Leah to use as a bargaining chip against Flowers, and they transport Pearce to the hospital. Flowers begins to understand the evil of the medical profession. Later, the medic overpowers Bone and his men, escapes with Leah, and flees to the hospital. After a political committee removes him from medicine, he transplants Pearce’s corneas onto Leah’s eyes and steals ampules of elixir vitae, a synthetic immortality drug developed by Pearce that the medical profession hoards to obtain money and power. With the hospital under attack, Flowers joins the citys citizens to become a healer.
The citys hospital complex, now a fortified colossus, continues to divide society. From the blood of a few captured Cartwright’s, immortality is bestowed on a few hundred powerful persons. Harry Elliott, a young doctor who hopes for the reward of immortality, is sent to tell Governor Weaver that his delivery of elixir vitae has been hijacked. He takes with him a healer named Russell Pearce and Marna, an immortal and the daughter of Weaver. Traveling through a lawless countryside, the group escapes death at the hands of headhunters and ghouls. Eventually, Harry reaches the mansion of Weaver, who lives underground in a fortified castle, controlling his henchmen through the gift of elixir vitae. Harry foils Weaver’s plot to breed with Marna when he strangles the 153-year-old dictator, the son of the first Weaver. With Leah and Pearce, Harry faces a world in which immortality is a fact.