Barrington Bayley - The Seed of Evil

“But why? It’s his property. We must live according to the law.”

“The law! The law is whatever it’s made to be. Who can Neverdie call on to back his case? Nobody; he only has our gratuitous compliance. Anyway, the ship isn’t important. Immortality is, and that’s what we have to think about.”

“I’m not sure I agree with you. I think Neverdie’s right. Immortality would be a disaster for us. Everything we have is built around our present life-span and, speaking personally, I’m quite satisfied with it.”

“You would be,” Julian grunted. “But never mind about that, not everybody in this world is so complacent. Surely there’s some way we can get it out of him? How does he propose to live? Or is the government taking care of that, too?”

“As a matter of fact, no. Help was offered, but Neverdie refused it. He proposes to earn money by writing books and giving interviews. I believe he is buying a house in St John’s Wood.”

The surgeon meditated sombrely. “I’ll tell you what I think,” he said. “This citizenship business is all nonsense. Dammit, you’re treating him just like a human being! He isn’t. He’s a creature from space. If he won’t tell us what we want to know, we should take it from him by force, by physical examination. Just give me a few weeks with that body of his and I’ll find out everything.”

He did not see fit to mention one likely possibility—that Neverdie probably did not know himself what kept him alive, just as the average person could not describe the processes of his own metabolism. Neither did he mention that the examination he suggested would almost certainly prove deeply injurious to the subject. Courdon, however, was outraged that Julian should suggest it at all.

“Really, Ferrg, you forget yourself! We couldn’t possibly consider such an action! What would the rest of the world say? For that matter, what would Bonn say?”

Julian waved his hand, impatient that the perpetual tussles between London and Bonn, twin capitals of West-Europe, should be brought into it. “There was a time when progress was thought to be important,” he said. “Now we have an unprecedented opportunity to increase our knowledge and nobody is remotely interested.”

“Times change.” To Julian, Courdon looked infuriatingly smug. “The world has settled down now. There is planet-wide agreement on all basic issues. The problem of material wealth has reached an equitable solution. Why should we strive after distant dreams any more? Life is pleasant, why not enjoy it?”

Julian knew all about the philosophy of the Long Golden Afternoon of civilisation that was so much put about. As far as he was concerned the Long Golden Afternoon was one long bore. He felt stuffed to his ears with it. He would sooner have lived in a previous age when action counted for something and the law was an obstacle men would contemplate breaking if the returns were big enough.

In this case they were big enough.

He rose to his feet. “Nothing lasts forever. The times will change again. And that creature will have to watch out for himself.”

Courdon merely stared at his desk as Julian strode from the room.

In the evening Julian’s airplat took him to the south tiers of the London Conurbation. He parked in a garage five hundred feet above ground level and entered the adjoining apartments.

The people gathered there were all either close friends or sufficiently in sympathy with Julian’s private philosophy to be trusted. They formed a tightly knit in-group jarringly at odds with the normal standards of the time. And they all, to one degree or another, wanted to live for ever.

They listened to his account of the meeting with Courdon with an air of cynical acceptance. They knew it already.

“Decadent and cowardly,” said David Aul. “Still, that’s life.”

Julian gulped wine from a huge goblet. “We’ll take it into our own hands.”

“ Mon Dieu , that’s going a bit far, isn’t it?” said another voice.

“We’ve already discussed it.”

“Yes, but were we serious?”

“Of course we were serious, you damn fool!” Julian’s eyes flashed angrily at the speaker. It was André, a vague, unpredictable Frenchman. “Do you think I waste my time on daydreams?”

André shrugged.

“Anybody who has no stomach for it, walk out of here right now,” Julian demanded. “If you want to squeal on us, go ahead and do it. We’ll simply deny everything and that will be that.” And then we’ll do it anyway a few years later, Julian thought to himself.

He didn’t wait for answers but snatched up a bottle of wine and retreated to the corner of the room where he flung himself on a couch and continued to drink swiftly and heavily.

Ursula Gail detached herself from the group and smiled down at him with clear hazel eyes.

“So you’re really going to do it?” she said, speaking with a slight German accent.

“Naturally.” Seizing her wrist, he pulled her down on the couch with him.

“But what about the risk? Somebody might betray us. What about me? Suppose I do?”

“If you do I’ll kill you.”

She chuckled softly, leaning close and nuzzling his cheek. “That’s what I like about you, Julian. You’re so wicked. I don’t think there’s one good impulse in you.”

“What is good perishes; evil endures.” He shook his head, momentarily confused. What had made him say that? He was already slightly drunk.

She noticed his unsteady movements as he scanned the room for another bottle. “Aren’t you drinking too much? I thought you were operating early tomorrow morning.”

“What difference does it make? These days all the instruments are electronically controlled. I often operate dead drunk. Never lost a patient yet.”

The drink and the music that came from a small player were making him feel warm and mellow. He had a pleasant feeling of anticipation, of a decision made and of having burned his boats behind him. The others were almost certain to back him. What was there to lose? Liberty? Life? They would be lost anyway, in a few decades. Against that was balanced the possibility of life eternal.

The final plans were already vaguely foreshadowed in his mind. It could not be done for a few years yet. The present time was too soon, and besides there was much preparation to be completed. A ship would be best, he told himself. A yacht fitted with everything they needed and in which they could sail the oceans while completing the work, safe from detection.

Afterwards came the question of whether the alien’s method of immortality could be adapted to a human being. They all knew that the probability of that was rather low. But then, who but a desperado ever commits himself to a philosophy of action, not to say of crime? Julian’s mouth twisted sardonically as he contemplated the thought.

A short while later he took Ursula into an adjoining bedroom, where they satisfied themselves with passion and vigour. Afterwards, breathing lightly in the darkness, she suddenly spoke.

“What would you give up for immortality, Julian? Would you give up this?”

“I would give up everything,” he said. She asked no further questions. They both lay staring up at the darkened ceiling, imagining a future without end.

FOUR

Five years passed before Julian deemed the time was ripe.

Neverdie had settled quite well into human society. He was only occasionally mentioned in the mass media now and lived the life of a near-recluse in a large house whose interior had been restyled in the Georgian mode—a fashion the alien seemed to prefer to all others. His needs were financed out of the returns from his books. Julian had studied them all assiduously, especially the lengthy Aldebaranian Social Organisation, but had learned nothing useful. He was not interested in how an extinct species formed “hedonistic rank-order”, as was apparently the case. Neverdie had also written a number of competent but off-beat science fiction novels with some interesting details, but nothing touching on biochemistry.