So he had inveigled me outside. He knew that as long as he can slow things down, it will go easier for him. Angry as I was, I knew it, too. There comes a point when you just haven’t got the heart any more.
But whatever I might have known intellectually, I was still incensed. “This time,” I said, “I’m going to kill you.”
Jack turned and ran, lumbering away in his spacesuit. Standard technique. I put all my strength into lumbering along after him. I knew I wasn’t going to kill him, but I was determined I was going to drag him back inside that ship and turn brother Jack into a blood pudding.
There was no pretence about that. He must have felt it too, because his flight became desperate. At first he lumbered erratically, making little random turns to try to take advantage of the broken ground, but I gained on him. Suddenly he made straight for the perimeter of the light circle.
I saw his stratagem. He would skulk out in the dark for a while, where I couldn’t find him. When he deemed he had been away long enough for me to cool down, he would return.
Nearing the edge of the circle, Jack’s movements became more purposeful. He reached the shallow crevice I had noticed earlier, and started to clamber down it. Once he had climbed up the other side, he would be safe.
With that move, Jack made his mistake.
The ground beneath us was alive with a million volts. Since electricity takes the shortest route it showed no inclination to flow through us provided we walked over the top of it. You may have observed on Earth that birds alight on naked power cables with no ill effects.
Climbing part-way down one wall of the crevice, Jack reached across to touch the opposite wall, intending to haul himself up the other side. That made him a bridge.
A million volts flashed instantly through him.
Though I saw the flash, nothing came over the intercom. I kept running, but when I looked down into the crevice there was not much to see.
Automatically I glanced at the meter on my way back to the ship. The voltage had depreciated noticeably.
Taking into account the way Jack had behaved all his life, I suppose an end like that was destined to overtake him eventually. Still, I was his brother, and I felt unhappy about it.
There was more to come yet.
When I broke the news to Juker I decided not to tell him the part about Janet. It’s not nice to disclose a thing like that about a man’s daughter.
I felt sadly, strangely miserable because of the death of my brother. Loneliness assailed me. I felt that I was right back where I started, but without even his company.
Juker noticed. He was very sympathetic.
“You mustn’t let it overpower you,” he advised kindly. “What’s gone is gone. There’s still plenty ahead in the future.”
Bleakly, I nodded. Juker didn’t know about the other edge of the sword.
Celenthenis oppressed me more and more.
Both Juker and I continued our work. By now we had amassed a formidable number of graphs, charts and measurements about no-temperature materials. Results were everything we had hoped.
For some time Juker had been thinking about the problem of transferring Celenthenis material to Earth, and he decided it could be done. Assembling the refrigerating apparatus in the storeroom, he put on a suit and went outside.
A few minutes later he was back with a chunk of dull, greenish rock wrapped in a jacket of hydrogen ice. “I chipped it off one of those big slabs,” he explained. “We can give it a really detailed study in here.”
Carrying it into the storeroom, he slipped the hydrogen jacket into the quadruple-hulled container he had prepared. Carefully he poked electrode probes through the ice, an awkward job, because of the clutter of refrigerators. A number of oscilloscopes started wiggling the moment he made contact.
“This rock has an electric charge on it, like the rest of the planet,” Juker told me. “This is to see if it’s been modified in any way since I pumped it into the ground.”
Taking a step back, he glanced at the oscilloscopes.
His glance protracted itself into a prolonged stare.
“Great Scot,” he muttered.
“What’s up?” I asked. The ‘scope sweeps had surprised me, too, but after all it was an unusual world.
“Robert, those signals are brain waves.”
With a jolt, I realised why they seemed vaguely familiar. I had seen films of electro-encephalography, of course.
“The alpha rhythm is quite clear,” Juker commented, peering closer. “Some of the others are a bit scrambled—but that’s probably because we’re getting two or more on one ‘scope.” He started speaking quickly. “Don’t you see what’s happened? It’s Jack! When the current swept through him, it was modulated by the electrical rhythms of his nervous system.” He slapped his hands together excitedly. “It’s just what could happen in a zero-temperature environment!”
“You don’t mean he’s still alive?”
Doubtfully, he shook his head. “That’s going a bit too far—”
Then he cut himself short. The ‘scope waves had suddenly altered, just like they do in electro-encephalography when mental activity changes.
After that there was no help for it. Professor Juker constructed a frequency analyser to differentiate between the various waves, then rigged up a speaker and microphone. It did not take many minutes of ranging through the waveband before we hit on Jack’s speech frequency.
Quavering, I held the microphone in my right hand. “Jack?”
A second or two later, I heard a familiar voice. “Is that you, Bob?” it said uncertainly.
Juker and I looked at one another, shocked beyond expectation. I had no need to ask further questions.
The modulations of the million-volt pulse had been quite complete. Jack’s entire pattern of personality, memory and thought had been transferred to it, and was now humming unimpeded in a continuous circuit of the planet. There was no fragment of Celenthenis that you might break off that was not Jack.
So that was how I continued to be my brother’s keeper. After all, we had planned to take material back to Earth. What else could we do, but take him home with us?
Faintly, I heard the front door open and close as one of the guests left downstairs. I gazed at the chunk of green rock, visible more to the imagination than the eye, amidst Juker’s hydrogen-ice apparatus, and thought of how helpless and quiescent Jack was now.
In all the years we had been together, it was not until those few remaining days on Celenthenis and the journey back to Earth, that I gave consideration to my relationship with Jack.
Did I ever love my brother?
A hard question. I don’t think there is love between brothers. We took each other for granted. There were things I didn’t like about him, but all the hard feelings tended to be of short duration.
On the other hand, whenever I hated my brother I had the sinking feeling that I was exactly like him.
The difference being, that when I cheat I cover my tracks.
As it was, I had come out of it all right. I had Janet, hadn’t I? She wouldn’t even speak to this lump of rock, not once. She married me.
A bitch? You might say so. It might appear odd that I’d still take up with her. But isn’t human nature frail in any case? Take the best and leave the worst.
It’s no use to fret.
We lived fairly comfortably on the proceeds from Celenthenis. As I said, I’ve settled down. It suits me.
Moving closer, I said: “Are you sure everything’s all right, Jack?”
“Well,” he answered. “My mind’s been getting a bit fuzzy lately. I think a trace of heat must be getting through.”
I nodded. That was inevitable. If the temperature rose even a fraction of an appreciable amount, though, the rock would cease to become conductive and that would be the end of Jack.
“For another thing,” he said, “you know the main version of me is still on Celenthenis. I’m a sort of detached fragment.”
“Yo
u’re still a complete replica, Jack.”
“I know. But, well—frankly, I sometimes feel an urge to be reunited with myself. Merge with the main current.”
“You want to go back?”
“I wouldn’t mind.”
“Well, Jack,” I said after a moment. “I don’t know. Janet might not think we can afford the cartridges for another trip to Montgomery Cloudbank.”
“You mean you won’t take me?” he said in a piteous voice.
“You know I would, whatever it cost. But there’s still Janet.”
“Bring her up here,” he said eagerly. “I’ll persuade her, Bob, I know I can. We were close once, remember?”
I didn’t need the reminder.
“You know what she’s like. Wild horses wouldn’t drag her up here. She never comes.”
Silence, but I could feel the hurt in it. Eventually Jack spoke again in a strained voice.
“Look, Bob, I … well, I do want to go back to Celenthenis and I’m sure once she speaks with me she’ll agree. But it isn’t just that. I really want to speak to her, you know. It isn’t pleasant the way she ignores me. I know she’s married to you now, but—I just want to say goodbye, that’s all. You can’t begrudge me that.”
I was genuinely touched.
“Please, Bob, please bring her up here. Just once.”
“I’ll try,” I promised.
A faint sigh of relief came from the speaker. “Bring her up here, and that’s the last thing I’ll ever ask of you.”
Turning, I went through the unpainted door, down the rickety stairs, within range of the sounds, light and perfumes of the living-rooms and what remained of our smart society guests. Idly, I calculated the cost of another trip to Celenthenis.
I waited for all the guests to leave before I put the idea to Janet. She twisted her handkerchief in a distraught manner.
“It’s too much,” she said shortly. “We can’t spare the money.”
“But he’s my brother.”
Crossly she patted her hair back into place. “That lump of rock—can’t you find some other way of getting rid of it? Throw it in the sea or something? As a matter of fact I’ve been meaning to get the thing out of the house.”
She stood up, smoothed her skirt and bent to study her make-up in the mirror. I stared at her aghast.
“Janet,” I began as she touched her eyebrow with a wetted finger, “he wants to talk to you.”
“You won’t catch me going up there!”
“It isn’t much to ask,” I pleaded. “He’s a person, Janet, someone you once … had relations with. Doesn’t that mean anything to you? He only wants to say good-bye, so there’s no bitterness.”
She turned on her stiletto heel and stalked from the room. Before I knew it I was on my feet too, following after her and arguing.
Don’t ask me to explain the state I was in. Nothing seemed more important to me than that I carried out what I was convinced was my brother Jack’s last request. For an hour I talked earnestly in our bedroom. Janet seemed to grow more weary by the minute.
At last I said: “He’s still alive. Don’t you understand?”
And that, of course, was exactly what she never had understood. Perhaps, I thought, people never are alive to her.
“What is it to do with me?” she complained, ready to burst into tears.
Then, resigned and tired, Janet dragged herself to her feet and came with me to the back part of the house.
I sensed how scared she was as we ascended the stairs, and kept my hand touching her arm. Poor kid, I thought. Then I opened the door and led her into the musty, humming attic.
She gazed around her, frightened by the alienness of everything she saw. She was completely out of her depth.
“Jack,” I said, “here’s Janet.”
There was a barely perceptible pause.
Then a voice came hoarsely through the speaker which shook even me by the intensity of its hatred and bitterness. “You finally arrived, you filthy slut, did you?” it said. “How bloody nice!”
It seemed to gather its breath, then vomited a paralysing stream of obscenity and execration. Through it all I seemed to hear the resentment, the disappointment, which Jack had harboured all this time. I realised that everything Janet meant to me, she must have meant to him. She had filled the void of his life, just as she had filled mine. And that was why Jack wanted to speak to Janet.
He never gives up. If he can’t have it one way, he’ll have it the other.
Janet let out a small, terrified cry, turned and fled. I heard her sharp heels clattering, on the stairs.
“Why did you do that?” I exploded.
“Just to give her a few nightmares,” he answered sardonically. “By the way, I’ve a confession to make. You know everything I said about taking Janet away from you? It wasn’t even true!”
That was all I got out of him. I stood there, absolutely stunned. I had never taxed Janet about her defection; I was afraid of appearing jealous.
Now that Jack had made his confession, I suddenly realised how utterly ridiculous was the notion that Janet would ever have had an affair with him, or even, at that stage, been unfaithful to me at all. She just wasn’t that sort.
And yet I had believed it. Jack had gauged exactly what would take place in my mind, even to the years-long silence. In his crooked way he had a real genius for it.
In those few seconds the full tragedy of Jack became clear to me. His envy, resulting in a cruel taunt. Then, after the unforeseen outcome, endless brooding. Poor brother, he was deranged with it!
I dashed downstairs, but Janet was already leaving. She went without even taking her beautiful clothes, her expensive jewelry. She packed a small case, slammed the front door without a word and was gone.
Next day I called on Professor Juker. Without talking much about Janet I told him about Jack.
He nodded thoughtfully, knocked the ash out of his pipe and put it away.
“You’re right,” he said. “That fact is, we can’t hope to keep him alive indefinitely. The temperature’s bound to rise, even if only marginally, and it will be no consolation to him to know that the main current is still flowing on Celenthenis. It’s only common humanity to save his life.”
Juker put up the money for the costly cartridges, and I flew the ship. As for Jack, I didn’t even ask him if he still wanted to go. I wasn’t giving him the option, because I knew that once he was gone I could have Janet back.
Landing on Celenthenis, I stood outside the airlock, took the green rock in my gloved hand and flung it as far as I could.
I didn’t even see it land.
Farewell, brother Jack, may you have a long life! The Montgomery Cloudbank is a huge affair and doesn’t move much, so it ought to be a long one. You’ll live until Celenthenis warms up, so you’ll probably still be there when Earth is gone.
Be grateful for the enclosing dark. When the stars start to shine through, your cold vigil will be over.
As for me, I’m happier with my flesh and blood. I’ll enjoy Janet for a few years, then let this body of mine gutter quietly out.
Sometimes I hear her whimpering in the night, but I reach out to her, wake her and comfort her, and it’s all right.
The Seed of Evil
ONE
Time without end.
Aeternus, being devoid of affective emotions, could not even hate those who had created him; but He knew loneliness. A uniquely solitary being, he longed for the presence of another besides Himself.
His existence was without end and without beginning. All around him the ceaseless universal vibration of creation and dissolution continued without pause as galaxies were born and died like a whirling mirage of snowflakes. As He gazed down at the never-ending activity, Aeternus could see races, empires, worlds, rise up and fall down again into the swallowing void, and He envied the myriad creatures whose lives were given meaning by the fact that those lives must end. His own existence would never end, because He knew both
eternity and infinity in which all meaning and pattern disappear.
Aeternus was not material, but was printed into the fabric of space and time, and therefore He could not directly affect anything material. But He could focus His awareness anywhere, even into an atom. And He could call, appealing to souls without their knowledge and summoning them to turn unto Him.
He sought some combination of events that would lead a finite being out of the material realm and into the bodiless eternity which now only Aeternus inhabited. Only thus could He ever experience the feeling of other presence which was all He craved. Surveying the realm of existence, He saw that what was good perished, but that evil outlived all. Therefore Aeternus bent his attention to a certain persistent chain of greed and passion, and sent his summons wafting through the waves of creation and dissolution, calling, calling. …
TWO
The early twenty-second century greeted the appearance in the Solar System of an extra-solar visitor with little of the amazement or shock that might have been occasioned in the twentieth. The news media gave the event front-page coverage at first, but after a few days relegated it to the back rank of items and concentrated instead on revelations of the following year’s fashions. The curiosity of the scientific establishment was, indeed, aroused; but not over-much excitement. The reason for this coolness was partly that it was fashionable, and partly that astronomy, assisted by the advances in space travel that had proceeded unevenly over the last century and a half, had long since revealed that interstellar space contained vast amounts of biochemical material. It seemed inevitable that life must arise wherever conditions were suitable for its reception, and that biology was no more unique to the planet Earth than it was to a Pacific island. With this in mind, the certainty that there would be contact with alien life at some unspecified date in the future had been an accepted fact for a hundred years or more.
Consequently, within two weeks of the alien’s having been escorted by a plasma-cruiser to the translunar space station, and from there, after appropriate bacterial investigation, to the sprawling Ignatova Hospital and Research Establishment that lay athwart London’s River Thames, the team assigned to study him were already regarding him, most of them at any rate, with equanimity. He was probably an unremarkable specimen, they reasoned, as extra-solar life-forms go.
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