The Seed of Evil

Inside the circle the ground was fairly level, but broken and uneven, forming slabs and runs which seemed to be leading away into their own mysteries. I saw that at one point near the perimeter it broke into a shallow crevice. Add to this its colour: a dull, dark green.

And the sky? We just couldn’t see anything above. Remember that in the ordinary sense of the word Celenthenis has no sky, in that nothing reaches it from outside, so that for practical purposes nothing exists for it above its own surface.

Summing up my impressions of it, I can only say that it looked sullen and suicidal.

Needless to say, none of us took time to gawp, or to be poetical about it, or even excited, because now we had to get down to a serious job of work, which we did without delay or question.

Juker was happy to take charge of most of the experiments, and I must say he made a more thorough job of it than we would have done. That’s how it should be, of course, he being a professor, but I couldn’t help reflecting how many go-getters had received only a fragment of what a planet’s actually worth through having an inadequate knowledge of some field or other. Watching the professor at work, I got an insight into a real scientific mind, instead of just hit-and-miss merchants like us.

His enthusiasm was enormous. Piece by piece we manhandled equipment outside, bringing it back inside when it looked like being damaged by the lack of temperature. Eventually we rigged up minimal heaters for all of it, but until then Jack and I had some pretty heavy work to do.

Then we just helped Juker in the dozens of experiments he had planned. He had brought specimens of every conceivable material with him, and was investigating their properties in null-heat conditions. We had to leave the samples outside for a while before absolutely all their heat leaked away, but when we began testing Juker became more and more pleased.

“Boys,” he said, “this is where the study of matter should begin. Up to now its nature has been obscured by always being in a state of heat. For the first time I have an opportunity to study it in a state of rest.”

It was soon after this that he discharged the million volts into the planet. For some hours he built up an accumulation from the ship’s generator, then let it all rip in a millisecond. Hours later, it hadn’t dropped one volt. The planet was full of electricity, zipping round in a world where all materials were super-conductive and there was zero resistance.

Jack’s imagination was caught by it. “What do you think of that!” he said. “It’ll still be here in a million years!”

Personally, I began to look forward to the hour when we would take off. You do begin to feel the deadness of the place, as the guest at my party said. If you think the Moon is lifeless, you should go to Celenthenis.

By the third day I was making definite plans for the future. “What are you going to do when Janet and I are married?” I asked Jack once when the professor was in the storeroom. “You can stay with us if you like. We’ll probably buy a big house, what with the money we’ll make on this trip and all.”

He made evasive gestures with his hands. “Maybe. You never can tell how things will work out, though.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked, watching him closely.

“Nothing.”

“Anyway,” I said, “you’re welcome.” Perhaps it was overgenerous of me, but I was feeling expansive and forgetful of past difficulties. I sat down to read while he paced aimlessly about.

Suddenly he said: “Come on, the prof wants us to take some more readings off the voltmeter. Let’s go outside.”

“Just one of us can do that.”

“Yeah, but—come on, it’ll do you good to go outside for a while.”

I stood up and we went to the lock, got into our space-suits and cycled ourselves outside.

Briefly I gazed around me at the circle of light. When you’re aware of how empty, airless and cold everything is outside your suit you can hear every tiny sound of its working, the air system especially. Then we walked over to read the voltmeter which Juker had left in contact with the ground to keep a check on the superconducting discharge.

It still read exactly what it had read hours before. Something like one million volts.

“Well, that’s that,” I said in satisfaction.

“Bob,” Jack said nervously. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

“What?”

“Well, it’s about me and Janet.”

An icy feeling passed through my stomach. “What do you mean, you and Janet?”

“She’s not going to marry you. She and I—we sort of got together.”

I didn’t take it in for a minute. Then it trickled through and thoughts whirled round in my head.

I didn’t answer, but I looked at him.

“Honest, I didn’t mean to,” he said quickly. “It just happened, that’s all. It was on the trip to San Francisco. There was nothing we could do about it.”

He was avoiding my gaze. “You don’t mean,” I said in a whisper, “you two are married—and didn’t tell me?”

“Well, no, not exactly, but as good as.”

He edged away as fury began to mount in me. “It just happened—”