The Seed of Evil

It would be hard to define what was the origin and centre of Brian’s own thoughts. It was as if the mind was first an unqualified intelligence, which society, like a magnetic field, forced into its own configuration as soon as a human being entered its presence. But of his mind was, it was not something that had developed, but was an original condition, harking from before the time when the mind fell into the state of living with other average human beings. Brian had not entirely fallen.

This was not to say that his mind was undeveloped, or that other people’s minds had ever been in the original state. Some of them seemed to have formed within society itself. What it did mean was that relative to other minds, his made its way under its own steam. Faltering though they might be, his thoughts were aligned to a vaster application than were ordinary thoughts. In the lounge of the great starship, he was like a visitor to a distant land.

He was not sure why he had entered the lounge. He had some dim idea of seeing if there was a model of the ship’s lay-out there. Chiefly, it was because he had nothing to do.

He plodded across the floor, his feet silent on the plush carpet, and paused half-way across. His mild blue-eyed gaze took in the huge room. A number of passengers were seated on couches and at tables, talking, reading, and doing the desultory things people occupy themselves with when they are forced to spend their days waiting. Brian had not mixed with them much, and it would have been difficult for him to do so. He had found that they did not like someone who took so little notice of them.

He noticed that three tall, cloaked scientocrat officers were just leaving. Brian’s gaze lingered on them. As he turned away, one of the passengers caught his attention.

The man was large-boned and fair-haired. He was reading a technical magazine at a low table.

It took Brian several seconds to be sure. Then he hurried over.

He said: “Mercer.”

The man looked up, blankly at first. Gradually, a look of recognition and astonishment came over his features.

“Brian!” he said.

He stood up. The two inspected one another surreptitiously, surprised at the familiarity of each other’s face after an absence of ten years.

Brian’s grin became sheepish. He shrugged his shoulders self-consciously, aware of how the other was regarding him and making a reckoning of the teenager he had once known—as indeed Brian himself was doing. It was an odd sensation, like being confronted with an outside view of his own life he had lost grip of.

Each wished to question the other, but it was awkward at first to make a start. “I’m looking for the lay-out model of the ship,” Brian said. “Are you coming?”

The other gestured enthusiastically. “I’ve already seen it. It’s over here.”

They spent about ten minutes studying the stereoscopic schema. Brian peered through the bioscopes, following corridors, hallways, engine rooms and power leads, while Mercer chattered expertly about the design. As always, he was excited by technicalities and already, after a previous brief intense examination, he knew the functioning of the starship inside out. More than the actual schema, he was aware of the principles on which it was founded. In those ten minutes his brilliant exposition gave Brian a competent knowledge of the ship which by himself would have taken a fumbling hour.

Brian regarded Mercer as a phenomenon. He took all the advantages of society, but wasn’t fooled by it. At the same time, he was willing to take a place in it. It was this, his willingness to compromise, that made him different from Brian.

Brian was glad to see that though he was approaching the end of his third decade, he was still essentially the same person. He had not undergone the frightening metamorphosis which betrays the shallowness of most people.

They left the lay-out and found a table in the further part of the lounge. Here, they talked of various matters. Chemistry (Mercer’s subject), physics, astrophysics, and micro-physics. All the time their conversation veered nearer to philosophical considerations and the intriguing question of why things exist.

It was their schoolboy discussions, all over again.

“What do you think about it all now?” Mercer asked presently. “Have you come to any further conclusions?”

Brian didn’t answer. The question was too sudden for him. He shrugged his shoulders, slightly embarrassed.

Mercer had not really expected an answer, but he had felt compelled to ask. After all, that was what probably held them together, and if the interest was neglected now, it might never be repaired again.

“Where are you bound for?” he asked, conversationally, when Brian’s eyes did not lift from the table-top.

“I’ve got a job on Drone VII. Computer clerk.” He smiled wryly.

“I’ve got a job there, too.” Mercer decided not to press the point that his was permanent, well-paid and professional. “I never thought you were much given to travelling to get work.”