He groaned a bit, internally, as he thought about it. Although, he realized, a man could not take any sort of chances—not with all the drivers on the road.

No chances—no chances of any kind that would threaten human life. No more daredeviltry, no more mountain climbing, no more air travel, except for the almost foolproof helicopter used in rescue work, no more

auto racing, no more of the savage contact sports. Transportation made as safe as it could be made, elevators equipped with fantastic safety features, stairways safeguarded with non-skid treads and the steps themselves of resilient material… everything that could be done being done to rule out accident and protect human life. Even the very air, he thought, protected from pollution—fumes from factories filtered and recycled to extract all irritants, cars no longer burning fossil fuels but operating on almost everlasting batteries that drove electric motors.

A man had to live, this first life, as long as he was able. It was the only opportunity that he had to lay away a competence for his second life. And when every effort of the society in which he lived was bent toward the end of the prolongation of his life, it would never do to let a piece of carelessness or an exaggerated sense of economy (such as flinching at the cost of a piece of padding or the re-energizing of a buffer) rob him of the years he needed to tuck away the capital he would need in the life to come.

He remembered, as he inched along, that this was conference morning and that he'd have to waste an hour or more listening to B.J. sound off about a lot of things that everyone must know. And when B.J. was through, the heads of the various departments and project groups would bring up problems which they could solve without any help, but bringing them up as an excuse to demonstrate how busy and devoted and how smart they were.