All three of them continued to watch the cage even though there was nothing more to see. Sarah found her mind racing from question to question. It was a high moment, the kind of discovery few scientists ever encounter. She was acutely aware that they had made history. Schoolchildren, if such would still be birthed after immortality, would read about this moment. Models of this very lab would stand in museums.

She stopped herself with a shudder. It was not healthy to think about such things. Her mind turned back to the more immediate questions but the chill remained, a feeling of disquiet that must mask, deep in her heart, the sick dread she suspected was there.

“The sleep deprivation was the triggering mechanism for the aging acceleration. But what caused him to stop sleeping in the first place?”

“His whole system collapsed.”

“That’s not an answer.”

They lapsed into silence. Sarah suspected the others felt much as she did. She brushed aside her fear, told herself the situation wasn’t threatening.

The cage on the TV screen had a dark and evil cast to it, almost as if some inhuman spirit now possessed it. Sarah did not believe in old-fashioned notions of good and evil; she told herself that she did not. But she wouldn’t go near that cage unless absolutely necessary.

There was a noise and a stab of light as the door to the hall was opened. Tom’s angular form appeared, backlighted by the cold fluorescent glow of the hallway. He came in quietly, a doctor among the sick, and put his hand on her shoulder. His stoop told her all that he planned to say. He did not yet know of the tape, and the triumph represented by Methuselah’s destruction.

Miriam’s worst fear surfaced when she realized that John had entered the house. In all time and in all the world, this was the most terrible thing. He would be fiercely angry in his aging, dangerous as he died. She breathed a charm against him, calling on the ancient gods of her species, seeking in her heart their embrace.

She hunted him through her cheerful rooms, happy places each. Warm memories of their long time here flooded her. She ran her hand lightly along the back of the rosewood love seat, touched the mahogany elegance of the side table. On it were gold candlesticks. They still enjoyed that courtly old light and often lit the house with it.

She heard, distinctly, the soft hiss of a door opening across a carpet.