The Seed of Evil

Neither could he hope to repeat the escapade of fifteen years previously. Struggling in his mind was the small thought that his whole venture was madness and that he should return to a normal life, or what was left of it. But the thought, which at an earlier stage in his life would have seemed sensible, quickly died. The coming of Neverdie, he realised, had wrought a transformation in him and the pursuits which once appeared worthwhile now seemed pale and futile. Only one thing was of obsessive importance: to attain the lasting life beside which the present life was but a shadow.

Swimming in impudence, Julian even managed to obtain a final interview with Neverdie. In truth it was a desultory move, a last attempt to gain the alien’s co-operation.

The interview was held in a somewhat strained atmosphere, not because of any feelings held either by Neverdie or by Julian, but because also present were Courdon, the philologist Ralph Reed and two policemen. They bristled with hostility, a mood which Julian could endure without the slightest discomfort.

“You know why I’m here,” Julian said. “I’ve come to ask you once again to give the secret of your long life to humanity.”

“Humanity does not want it. Only you want it,” Neverdie observed.

“Not only me. There are others. How long do you think you can keep it to yourself? At the moment society protects you. But societies change. Don’t you know what risks you run, what danger you will have to fear from men in the future? Why not at least give us the information, even if you can’t give us the means. We might find a way of duplicating the special substance, or biological arrangement, of whatever it is that keeps you alive. That way you’ll save yourself from persecution in future centuries.”

“I shall take my chance,” Neverdie told him in a studiedly neutral tone. “Luckily, beings as ruthless and determined as yourself are rare.”

“Rare, but they exist!” Julian rasped in an outburst of temper. He jumped to his feet, suddenly aware of how Neverdie saw him: as a mayfly, an insignificant, brief creature whom the alien was patiently waiting to see die. It made him feel foolish and despicable.

“You overgrown beetle, one of us will get you!”

Abruptly, he left. Ralph Reed let out a sigh of relief. “What an extraordinary fellow! It’s almost incredible that a surgeon should be so … well, evil. And yet he’s brilliant. They say he’s saved thousands of lives.”

Throughout the interview Courdon had calmly smoked a pipe. He puffed on it, thinking. “Ferrg admits that he doesn’t think of Neverdie as a person—with respect to yourself, Neverdie—and he tries to justify himself that way. But I don’t think he thought of all those whose lives he saved as human, either. Human beings don’t exist for him. They’re just objects to be experimented on.”

“A lot of people think that way, especially in experimental science. But they’re not like Ferrg.”

“No, he’s different. It’s not scientific objectivity with him. It’s something else. Something completely, utterly selfish.”

Outside, as Julian walked towards his airplat, he encountered Ursula Gail.

“I followed you here,” she told him with a knowing smile. “I was curious. What are you planning now?”

“Nothing. To interest you, anyway.”

She pointed to an inn that lay at the bottom of a long, wide, curving sweep of steps. “Come on, let me buy you a drink.”

He allowed her to lead him into the inn. Uneasily he settled with her in a corner, a bottle of white wine before them.

He looked at her. Fifteen years didn’t do much to improve any woman. But she still looked fairly young and she was still beautiful in her particularly exciting kind of way.

“So you’re really not planning another snatch?”

“No.”

“Or a deal with Neverdie?”

“There’s no deal. That’s what I was there about.”

She gave a low, regretful laugh. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t want to be in on any more mad schemes. The others feel the same way too. But unlike them I don’t feel bitter about what you got me into. What’s the use?” She tilted her glass. “As a matter of fact I was looking forward to seeing you. I thought we might—”

She glanced at him familiarly with the same bright, hazel eyes he had known before. Hastily Julian looked away. He pushed himself from the table and stood up.

“Sorry, Ursula, time’s too short. Finish the wine yourself.”

Without looking back he strode out.

One phrase that Julian had used to Neverdie was the kingpin of his strategy.

Societies change. He had already messed up one opportunity. To gain another he had only to forward himself some centuries into the future.

The technique of putting the human body into suspended animation, permanently if need be, was already perfected. It was practised on thousands of people with incurable diseases who hoped they could be cured when they awoke. Once initiated, the process required no expenditure of power and assured Julian of personal, self-dependent survival.