The Seed of Evil

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.

The one team member who did not subscribe to the cult of studied scientific detachment that was so much a part of twenty-second-century life was Julian Ferrg, Surgeon. Julian felt that he had a more intimate connection with the alien than the others, because his scalpels had already explored his body on the operating table. On a day shortly after that event sunlight was filtering pleasantly into a large lounge from a ring of windows set at floor level. Julian’s gaze flicked insolently from one team member to another. There was Ralph Reed, the philologist who had already achieved the phenomenal task of teaching the alien English; Han Soku, the physicist; Courdon, in Julian’s eyes an overly-correct, formal administrator; and Hans Meyer, a cosmologist who hoped to question the visitor on what he called Basic Questions.

Each of them, with the exception of Courdon, was supported by an entire sub-team. Julian himself was assisted by half a dozen specialists in biochemistry, biology and medicine, although the operations he had performed had been minor: the grafting of an artificial organ to enable the alien to breathe Earth’s atmosphere, and the additional grafting of a vibrating membrane to simulate the human voice. Nevertheless the creature had lain at his mercy, its chemical secrets within his grasp. He still thrilled when he thought of that.

For there was one fact about the visitor that they had already learned: he was one million years old.

One million years. The phrase echoed in Julian’s mind as he regarded the lounge’s sixth occupant: the alien himself.

The closest resemblance to an Earthly creature was probably to a giant turtle, modified somewhat to give an appearance vaguely insect- or crustacean-like. The tall carapace shone dully in the afternoon light. Beneath it could be seen a fringe of hairy legs, mandibles and an occasional glint of metal or some artifact. The newly-acquired gas-sac by which the creature processed air to suit his metabolism bulked somewhat awkwardly to the rear, pulsing gently.

The alien, who claimed to hail originally from the direction of Aldebaran, had explained that his name could be translated as “Never Die”. It was as Neverdie that they had come to speak of him. Julian simply could not understand why his colleagues accepted this concept with such a lack of excitement.

Neverdie finished a long speech he had been making in cultured, confidential tones that sounded so incongruous coming from his hulking form. There was a long, introspective silence.

At length Courdon said: “So do we take it that you are asking to be allowed to live permanently on Earth?”

“That is correct, sirs.”

“And what do you offer us in exchange for this privilege?” Julian interrupted harshly. The others glanced at him uneasily. They were all slightly nervous of the lean, angular surgeon and his propensity for breaking out at any time into passionate, arrogant outbursts.

“I offer nothing,” Neverdie replied in the same slow, calm voice. “As I have just related, I have escaped from a war which is taking place some light years from here. Such is the ferocity of this war that I may be the last specimen of my species left alive. I am here to seek asylum. There will be no repercussions since my presence here is unknown to my enemies. I merely wish to live my life in quiet, at peace on a civilised planet.”

“You flatter us,” Meyer said wryly.

Julian, however, was not satisfied with the alien’s answer. “There is a great deal you could give us in exchange for our hospitality,” he objected. “For one thing, your spacecraft is capable of fast interstellar travel, a capability we at present do not possess, and it is reasonable of us to expect to be allowed to examine its drive and duplicate it. You may have special knowledge which will help us to advance our technology in other directions, too. And then—most significant of all—there is the fact of your virtual immortality. By now you are probably aware that our species has a very brief life-span. It would interest us greatly to know the secrets of your metabolism.”

A mandible clicked before Neverdie replied. “These matters are a different concern,” the well-modulated voice said regretfully. “To be frank, I had not intended to be put in the position of striking bargains. My wish is to be adopted as a citizen of this planet, with all the rights of a citizen, including the right to dispose of my assets as I choose. You can appreciate that it is not in my interests to equip your people with the interstellar drive. I chose your planet because it is quiet and little-known.”

Ralph Reed cleared his throat. “Neverdie’s assertions strike me as being entirely reasonable,” he said mildly. “It would be barbaric of us to accept his presence here only in exchange for tangible rewards like an engine or some other technology. If we are to look at it in terms of gain, it seems to me that merely to have him here is gain enough. Neverdie is a representative of an alien race, an entirely foreign culture, and his presence in our midst will enrich our own culture. Is that not so?”

The others murmured their agreement. Julian flushed angrily. “This is ridiculous! Have we become so decadent that we no longer see where our advantage lies? It would certainly be—”

Courdon cut him off. “Now, now, Ferrg, there are procedures for this kind of thing. Let us not forget our manners.” He glanced at Neverdie, embarrassed at the outburst, as were the others. Ferrg had been making something of a pest of himself in the past few days and Courdon was wishing he could have been forewarned about the man. He stood, to signify that the interview was at an end.

“Well, Mr, er, Neverdie, the decision does not of course rest with us. It will have to be placed before the appropriate department. However, let me assure you that your application will receive my commendation.”

“I thank you.”

Courdon waited by the door as they filed out. Julian was the last to go. Before he left he glanced back at Neverdie, enraged at his own impotence. That carapaced form contained the most precious jewel in the whole universe, and it looked as though they wouldn’t let him get at it.

There’ll be a time, he promised himself. Next time I have him on the table he won’t get away so easily.

Neverdie was glad to be left alone at last. He sank down on his specially constructed divan, relaxed and gave his mind up to sad thoughts.

He thought nostalgically of the other pleasant periods he had spent in the long spell of his existence. Of the fair civilisation beneath the blood-red Arcturus sun where he had recently lived for ten thousand years.

He had told the Earth people something like the truth, but not the whole truth. There had indeed been a ferocious battle from which he had barely escaped. A million years had made him adept at evading the pursuers that sooner or later came at him from all quarters.

But he sensed that at long last he was growing tired. He no longer felt the readiness for endless flight that had once possessed him. He had an intuition, half horrified, half resigned, that this would be his last refuge. Yet while it lasted he believed he would be happy here.

While it lasted… perhaps that would not be long. Already he scented the beginning of the hunt in the attitude of Julian Ferrg, the jerky one. Unless he acted carefully the surgeon would be drawn relentlessly into the continuing tragedy that was Neverdie’s life.

He continued to muse on these thoughts. The sun sank to the horizon, briefly visible through the low windows as a red ball reminiscent of beloved Arcturus. Sleeplessly Neverdie waited in the darkness for it to rise again.

THREE

Twenty-second-century London was bowl-shaped.

At the dead centre there still stood, as an archaic reminder, the old Houses of Parliament. Around them the numerous government departments had extended their premises until they swallowed up the previous commercial areas for a considerable distance around, stretching along Tottenham Court Road to the north, along both arms of the river to east and west, and into Waterloo to the south. The buildings were modest in dimensions, however, and mostly of a conservative twentieth-century style. Beyond the centre the suburbs had elevated themselves progressively in a step-like version of the habitat mode, rising at the perimeter to just under a mile in height. At close quarters the habitat suburbs, with their lack of any clear linear organisation, were like a three-dimensional jungle—especially since Londoners had rediscovered the pleasure of gardens. From a distance they merged into a sparkling, curved surface and gave the city the impression of being a vast arena. When the sun rose over the edge of the perimeter, the great bowl acted as a sun-trap; when it fell below it, illumination continued to filter through the myriad interstices and filled the interior with a panorama of light and shade.

Julian’s airplat floated down into the bowl, mingling with the traffic that hovered over the city like a haze of gnats, and came to rest on a rooftop platform. Courdon’s office was in Centre Point, a twentieth-century structure huddled among other, more modern buildings. Julian passed through the rooftop reception hall to the administrator’s office.

Courdon was waiting for him. He greeted Julian coolly.

“I think I know what you’re going to ask me, and I fear you will be disappointed,” the civil servant began.

Julian strode energetically to the proffered chair and flung himself into it. He looked quizzically at Courdon.

“Well?”

“Neverdie has been granted the world’s first extra-solar immigration permit. In five years’ time, if all goes well, he will be given West-European citizenship. To state things from your point of view, the permit was given with no strings attached. And Neverdie has declined to discuss the matter of technological advancement.”

“You’ve approached him about the question of longevity?”

“I conveyed your request to him, yes, but he’s not willing to co-operate. He hinted that knowledge of biological permanence, to use his term, would not be to our benefit.”

Julian’s lips compressed in annoyance. “Really, I can’t understand the attitude of you government people. Whose planet is this, ours or his? And what about his ship? It should be impounded.”

“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.

On the evening of 18 July 2109, Julian and his comrades struck. An airplat glinted in and out of light and shade in the approaches to the northern suburbs and entered the habitat jungle.

Julian was flying, with four others in the seats behind him. The airplat drifted through the three-dimensional maze, surrounded on all sides by lavishly decorated walls, windows, doors and ceilings and the gardens that hung profusely from almost every roof. After a short while they arrived at Neverdie’s dwelling.

Although lights shone already from most of the surrounding windows, Neverdie’s house was in darkness. Julian parked the airplat on the flat, bare roof, close to the roof door. He got out, stepped to the door and tested it. The door was unlocked.

He had previously had the house cased for alarms in the guise of a magazine interview. Apparently, there was none, which to Julian’s mind was an extraordinary oversight. He beckoned to the others. They padded after him and the group descended into the dim interior.

Julian paused briefly to enjoy the elegance of the rooms. Neverdie certainly had good taste. But for the strangeness of the furniture, which was built to serve his form and not the human, this could have been the home of a cultured, educated Englishman.

They found the alien in the downstairs drawing room, apparently asleep. Julian knew that he would sometimes sleep for a week without waking. He drew a small cylinder from his pocket, releasing from it an invisible gas. To the humans in the room it did nothing; in the Aldebaranian, however, it induced a deep unconsciousness. Neverdie would not wake now.

Julian had learned that trick in the course of his previous medical attendance on Neverdie. They lifted the body on to a stretcher; it was surprisingly light.

Back at the roof door Julian glanced quickly around. He did not think they were observed. Impatiently he waved the team on. In seconds their cargo was safely aboard the airplat.

Nosing out of the habitat region, they flashed into the open air again, and went planing southwards.

At almost the same time Courdon received a call.

Five years ago, sensitive to Julian’s purposefulness, he had taken precautions. Neverdie’s dwelling was bugged.

After all this time the surveillance service was slow to respond to the announcement that uninvited persons were present in the apartments. Following a procedure already laid down, their first move was to contact the administrator.

In his own home, Courdon took the news with astonishment and, at first, disbelief.

“Can you give me a picture of them?”

The surveillance operator spoke calmly. “They have already left the house. We are tracking them in an airplat, flying towards Greenwich. We can pick them up at any time you like.”

“No, not yet. If they have the nerve to kidnap Neverdie then this is a planned conspiracy. Let’s wait to see where they lead us.”

The kidnap party disappeared into the ascending tiers on the south side of the city. Police plats, nosing like fish in an undersea coral bed, cruised after them at a calculated distance.

In the interlocking complexity they soon lost their quarry, but were not worried. In the next few minutes they would find it again, probably at its destination.

And so they did. But in those few minutes they were already too late. They found the airplat, as well as the house where it was parked, deserted. Their reaction was to search the neighbouring buildings and to think in terms of a switch to another airplat. It did not occur to them until some time later to think of an ocean-boat mingling with the river traffic beneath their feet and heading rapidly into the open sea.

Watching from his home, Courdon cursed.

In the Mediterranean, aboard the piano yacht Rudi Dutschke, Julian faced a vacillating situation.

In short his colleagues had got cold feet.

“C’est dangereux, mon ami,” André said glumly. “By now they will be looking for him. What if they should guess he is at sea?”

“How would they guess, you fool?” Julian retorted. “They might think of it as a remote possibility, that’s all. And as for a sea search—well, have you any idea just how many ships are on the oceans at any one time? Damn near a million, I should think.”

“Just the same,” David Aul put in carefully, “we won’t be safe until that creature below decks is washed over the side, or what will be left of him. How long is all this going to take?”

“It will take months at the very least, so stop panicking. And you’re never going to be safe, get that through your head. And for God’s sake try to work up a little backbone!”

I’ll ditch this lot as soon as it’s convenient, he told himself. When it comes to it they’re nothing but a bunch of nuts who get jittery the moment their fantasies start to turn into reality. Except Ursula, no sense in wasting her. She’s got more guts than the rest of them put together. Funny thing about some of these women.

Actually the research to be done on Neverdie was only the first stage. Then would come the problem of learning how to apply the knowledge gained. That would almost certainly take years.

His plan was to pass through the Suez Canal and into the Indian Ocean, where West-European influence was slight and the chances of their being apprehended correspondingly reduced. Once they were finished with Neverdie he would switch to the land for the longer stages of the work. India was a delightfully corrupt place and he knew where he could be kept indefinitely from view of the law, with full research facilities, until his programme was complete.

When he felt he was sufficiently rested, Julian began.

Taking with him David Aul, who was a trained biochemist, he descended to the space amidships that had been equipped to fulfil all the functions he thought would be necessary.

There was enough here to take the alien apart muscle by muscle, nerve by nerve and molecule by molecule.

They both stared at Neverdie as he lay strapped to the operating table. Surrounding him were the electronic pantos that would do all the cutting and manipulating—Julian didn’t trust this job to manual dexterity, and besides he would be working at the cellular and molecular levels. One half of the working area was devoted to biochemical analysis and the mapping of the nervous system. If they found that they needed any extra equipment, Julian was confident that they could get it in India.

“What if it’s something that we can’t find out?” Aul commented.

“I don’t think it will be. I’m more than half certain that Neverdie’s immortality isn’t natural to his species. That just wouldn’t make sense, would it? Any biological organism has to die, otherwise the ecology it lives in couldn’t work. I think he acquired everlasting life by artificial means and if that’s the case then we should be able to find out how.”

Julian flicked a switch and brought the hum of power to the workroom. “To begin with, let’s see if our friend has had a change of heart that would make all our work unnecessary.”

Using a dropper, he administered a few cc’s of a pungent-smelling liquid to an organ just beneath Neverdie’s carapace. The alien, who was strapped upside down to reveal a mass of appendages, opened milky translucent eyes and stirred feebly.

The eyes swivelled and focused on Julian. “You are making a mistake…” the voice diaphragm said weakly.

“It’s you who has made the mistake,” Julian said. “You know what we want: give it and we’ll spare you.”

“No… I cannot.”

Julian paused. “I would like to put a few questions to you,” he said finally. “Are you willing to answer?”

“Yes.”

“First, is the secret of immortality something I could find? I mean, is it an analysable property of your body?”

“Yes.”

“Could it be applied to myself?”

“Yes, more easily than you think.”

Julian’s excitement mounted. “Well, what is it? If you’ll tell me this much, why won’t you tell me the whole thing?”

Neverdie squirmed. “I beg you, do not seek immortality. Forget your lust, leave me in peace….”

“I’ve got to!” Julian exclaimed in sudden inspiration. “It concerns some specific substance, or something, that your body contains, doesn’t it? To have it myself I’d have to take it away from you, wouldn’t I?”

Suddenly Neverdie became still, as if in despair. “Your guess is close. But you must abandon your intentions. You do not understand. This is your last chance to leave well alone.”

“I understand that you’re trying to save your own skin. Unfortunately in this universe any item in short supply goes to the strongest party.” He glanced at Aul. “Don’t say anything of this to the others. We have to get in all the facts before revealing anything that might cause trouble.”

Aul nodded, his face clouded.

“Then let’s get to work. Good night, Neverdie. The curtain is falling.”

From a nearby nozzle he released more of the gas that to the alien was an instant anaesthetic. Neverdie’s appendages twitched once. Then he was still again.

They were sailing past the Gulf of Akaba when Courdon finally caught up with them.

Since losing track of the quarry in London, he had frantically been trying to identify and search all vessels that had travelled down the Thames in the following two days. The number ran into thousands. There was nothing to connect the Rudi Dutschke to Julian Ferrg, and it was with great difficulty that he managed to persuade an Israeli coastal patrol to make what was strictly speaking an illegal search.

At the time Julian’s investigations had only reached a rudimentary stage concerned with biochemical analysis using tissue samples sliced from the alien’s inert body. Neverdie was very lucky: no real damage had been done.

So engrossed were Julian and David in their work that they failed to hear the whistle of the patrol craft as it flew overhead. Julian merely looked up with a frown of annoyance as he heard shouting from the deck above, especially the shrill voice of Ursula.

“Get up there and tell them to stop their damned row, David,” he ordered angrily. “I’ll have no arguments on this junket.”

Aul moved to obey. But at that moment the door flew open and the bereted coastguards stood framed there. For long moments they stood, staring at the scene, their tanned faces turning pale.

“What do you want?” Julian shouted in an enraged voice. “Get out of here, damn you! Can’t you see we’re busy?”

The guards unshouldered their arms. The game was up.

At his trial Julian fell back on the perennial refuge of the scoundrel: patriotism.

He had done it all, not for himself, but for humanity. “Even when governments are soft,” he said, “there are some who believe that mankind must advance by whatever means possible. My work, had it been allowed to continue, would have brought incalculable benefits to this planet.”

The audacity of his statements probably did serve to soften his sentence, as had been his intention. His companions were given ten years apiece in a corrective institution. Julian, as the ringleader, was sentenced to fifteen years.

FIVE

On his release, fifteen years later, Julian was forced to make a drastic reappraisal of his position. He was no longer a young man in his early thirties: he was forty-eight. Although he had kept himself fit during his imprisonment and was still lean and active, the sands were running out.

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.

He sank most of his assets, which were large, into the time-travelling chamber. He was prepared, if necessary, to pursue Neverdie down the millennia.

There was one risk, of course. The government, with what struck Julian as insane complacency, instead of impounding the alien’s tiny interstellar ship and extracting from it the technology to take mankind to the galaxy, had merely allowed him to store it in a garage beneath his house. It was conceivable that Neverdie would leave Earth before Julian awoke. But he did not think so: the Aldebaranian seemed quite settled, and if what he wrote in his books was true there were not too many places he could go.

With this point in mind, however, Julian pursued his plans in utmost secrecy. His time-vault had two compartments: the suspension chamber which could also serve as living accommodation, and a larger chamber which was virtually a duplicate, except that it was even more elaborate, of what had been aboard the Rudi Dutschke. The vault was of the most durable construction. It could not rust, corrode or weather. It was built of the new type of carbon-bonded material that had properties close to that of diamond but which was too expensive as well as too long-lasting for use in normal construction.

The basic timing mechanisms were of the same material. Julian had an arrangement which was as close to immortality as Earthly technology could make it. The vault and most of its contents—including many of his surgeon’s instruments—would persist and be functional even when London itself had crumbled and vanished. Not that he anticipated such a long tour of duty. He set the timing mechanism in the first instance at five hundred years hence, knowing that in that period even the noblest societies could turn into the most debased.

The centuries passed. The society of West-Europe underwent a number of vagaries, most of which Neverdie predicted and accommodated himself to fairly well. He became an obscure but permanent, little-noticed resident of London. It was an extraordinary fact about the human species (Neverdie had observed it was a fact about most species), that in spite of its avowed interest in the universe at large in the long run it was interested only in its internal affairs. Neverdie was expert at staying out of the way of those affairs.

But in one important respect Julian had underestimated him, just as he had underestimated Courdon. Neverdie was watchful. He took care to get news of Julian. When that news suddenly stopped he engaged agents to get news of him from wherever in the world he might have moved to. But no news came; Julian Ferrg had disappeared.

Neverdie was a careful being who moved slowly. His great advantage over all his enemies was that he had more time than they did. And in his chequered career he had met the suspended animation ploy before. This, in his opinion, was what Julian had done.

Locating the surgeon’s time-vault was not a matter of urgency. Neverdie did it without making any overt enquiries. He merely collected a large number of insignificant facts over a long period of time and watched the rebuilding pattern of London over the decades. His intuition that the vault was in London was fairly quickly confirmed; and some detective work concerning the legal arrangements of several possible sites told him, roughly one hundred years after Julian’s internment, exactly where the surgeon was.

One night a twenty-third-century-style airplat drifted into the ancient, semi-underground part of the city. The lighting system was poor in this quarter and it glinted palely over the outlines of the vehicle. At length the airplat ventured up a dusty alley and came to rest before a decaying building beneath a warehouse.

Neverdie crept from the airplat. In his manipulatory limbs he carried a number of tools of a type which Earth did not have. Plastic and masonry gave way to make a small hole, like an enlarged rat-hole, through which he could crawl.

The interior was pitch-black and oddly cold. With a click Neverdie brought to the scene a dim light by which a human being would scarcely have been able to see at all. In the depths of the run-down building he eventually discovered the smooth, cold exterior of the vault.

Neverdie switched on the other cutting tool he carried. Its slim beam did not even carry enough energy to light a match, yet it neatly disassociated the bondings of the material and carved out a neat section. Inside, Neverdie found Julian pale and dead inside a cylinder of the inert gas argon.

The Aldebaranian was not a murderer. His actions were preventive, not assaultive. He found the timing mechanism and after a minute’s study disconnected it, leaving the reviving device inactive. Julian’s suspension would never end now without outside aid. Satisfied with his work, Neverdie repaired the incision in the wall of the vault, cleared up the other evidence of his intrusion and left.

SIX

London crumbled and rose again. Millennia passed and even geography changed, but always a city stood where London had been, except for one period when it was replaced by a lake. And in all this time Neverdie continued to dwell on the fringe of human society, building for himself the image of the perpetual hermit, the Wise Being on the Hill, the Oracle, anything that would protect him from superstitious vindictiveness.

There were many occasions when Julian’s time-vault came under scrutiny during the periodic rebuildings of the city. Each time when it seemed likely that the vault would be opened (and the waxing and waning technology did not always make this possible) Neverdie would intercede and persuade the authorities to leave it untouched. Under his auspices it was eventually removed to a site on a hill overlooking the city to the north.

But at last the age of Homo sapiens itself passed.

For a long time Neverdie had seen the end coming, but he had offered no hint of it to his long-standing hosts. Human scientists had never quite understood the laws of evolution. They had not realised that just as an individual animal had a natural life-span, so an entire species had a natural life-span which was predetermined by its hereditary genes. Nature, having made one dominant species, liked to wash it down the drain and try something different with another. For this reason evolutionary changes sometimes proceeded with suddenness. Homo sapiens had emerged from primate stock over a span of tens of thousands, rather than of millions, of years, and the death of the species was coming just as suddenly as had the birth. With the running down of the genetic clock births became fewer, society collapsed and the vitality of the human race entirely vanished.

Even while the last remaining men died nature was already preparing their successor: Lupus sapiens, the intelligent wolf.

In a crude hut some miles from the ruins Neverdie finished his long period of meditation. He had reached a conclusion: his host species was gone, and the arising of the new dominant species would be a turbulent period in which it would be hard to survive; therefore, the time had come to be moving on.

As he roused himself his artificial voice-diaphragm whispered rustily. It was nearly four thousand years since its last replacement and the thing was rotting. He would discard it soon, when he could find the time.

He lifted the door-latch. The wooden door creaked open, letting in a cold draught of air. He crept out on to the wilderness of the moor and set out for the ruins, keeping a wary watch for any predatory wolves. He lived in a state of armed truce with them, but he knew that they were liable at any time to renew their attacks on him.

He reached the ruins without mishap. They were little changed from when he had last visited them, except that the wolves had begun to tear down the brickwork to fortify their camps. They had not yet learned to work metal, however, and the vault containing his starship was intact, though it did bear the marks of their rude tools. It looked incongruously neat amid this fallen tangle of stone, a perfect dome washed clean by the rain. The lock grated reluctantly as he made his entrance, and in the dim light within Neverdie set to work to prepare the vessel for flight.

The starship had benefited from his servicing it every few centuries and was still in fairly good condition despite the difficulty of replacing some of its components (there were some materials that could not be obtained in the solar system at all). Within three days he deemed the vessel fit for interstellar flight, or as fit as it was ever likely to be. Now all that remained was to prepare a route from his maps: the work of hours. But first, another small matter was nudging at Neverdie’s mind. Long ago he had trapped an old enemy, Julian Ferrg, in his self-created prison. His conscience would not permit him to condemn that enemy to eternal living death. The world he would awaken to now would not be a pleasant one and it might kill him quickly, but Ferrg would have to take his chance on that.

Neverdie readied a small aircraft he also had stored in the vault and charged up its accumulator from the starship’s power source. Then he opened the dome’s launching hatch. Night had fallen, and starlight filtered through. With a sparkle from its rear the aircraft soared aloft and headed north, passing over the wolves’ campfires. Neverdie imagined the scenes that would be taking place below, and reaffirmed his opinion that Earth was no longer an abode for him.

On reaching Julian’s tomb Neverdie spent some time clearing away earth and vegetation, then he cut an opening as he had done long ago. Inside Julian still lay as he had on that other occasion, untouched by the passage of time. As he looked down on the parchment-white face Neverdie’s mandibles spread in the equivalent of a sad smile. He felt no resentment against the man. Julian was a courageous mite who had managed to preserve his tiny life in an attempt to challenge the long-living Aldebaranian, but the balance of his disadvantage lay too heavily against him. As for his viciousness and his greed, Neverdie hardly thought about that.

Finding the reviving mechanism serviceable, Neverdie set the timer for a few hours hence and then flew back to his starship. The charting of a course took slightly longer than he had expected, and it was early morning by the time he aroused the star-drive from its long sleep. He took one last, nostalgic look at the planet that had harboured him for what was, to him, a brief spell, and then took off. As its propulsion unit took hold on the fabric of space the deteriorated structure groaned slightly in the ether eddies. Neverdie scanned his instruments, watching anxiously for any sign of malfunction.

Disaster struck when he was only a few hundred feet in the air. The ship was too old, despite all the work he had put into her. An ominous snap came from aft. Noxious vapours filled the cabin. The ship began to fall and Neverdie struggled desperately with the controls.

As luck would have it, Julian was already awake by the time Neverdie attempted to leave the planet.

The suspended animation system was so effective that in a remarkably short time he had made a full recovery. With the coming of consciousness he found that the lid of the cylinder where he had slept had opened automatically, and he was already breathing air.

His limbs were stiff at first, but he eased himself from the cylinder, his mind already racing ahead to the tasks to come. Then a quick inspection acquainted him with the unexpected state of the chamber: the hole cut neatly in the wall, the decay of some of his equipment that was not carbon-bonded into diamond-hardness, the automatic calendar, calibrated up to a thousand years, that had stopped. Lastly, what he saw through the hole in the wall: a view of trees and fresh grass sweeping downhill. The trees, and the nearby flowers, were of a type unfamiliar to him.

A howl of torment burst from Julian’s lips. It was as easy to read as an open book: the alien had outwitted him—disconnected the reviver and left him to sleep for countless ages. By now he would already have left Earth, perhaps centuries ago.

The desolation and disappointment that overtook Julian Ferrg with that realisation were almost enough to destroy him. Only one thing saved him from permanent emotional damage. He stepped to the opening, finding that the vault was actually buried in the hillside, and looked out, sniffing the air and smelling unfamiliar scents. He glanced upwards and saw something descending through the air leaving a trail of smoke. As it headed for a crash-landing he recognised Neverdie’s starship and everything changed for him in an instant. He paused only to mark the landing place of the ship, then snatched up weapons and instruments from their sealed caskets and set off in wild pursuit.

The crashed starship was about three miles from the vault. Julian arrived there to find that Neverdie had crawled out and lost consciousness. He lay on a bank of green-and-purple flowers.

Julian was adapting quickly to his situation. To his senses the ages he had lain in the time-vault took on the subjective value of a few minutes only, and he required no lengthy reorientation. He took out the anaesthetic spray in case Neverdie should awaken and prove troublesome; but its contents had either denatured or leaked away and no spray issued. Tossing it to one side, he considered the problem of transporting Neverdie to his time-vault and hit on the idea of making a sledge.

Taking out his knife he cut down some nearby saplings and after one or two false starts fashioned a rough vehicle that, he thought, would serve. Then he ventured inside the creaking starship to see what he could find.

Tumbled about the small cabin were a number of objects that were strange to him. He would come back for them later, he promised himself. Luck was once again with him, for there was also a kind of rope-like harness that would be ideal for lashing his prisoner to the improvised sledge, and Julian set to work again with gusto, heaving the alien on to the shafts he had bound together with long grass and securing him in place. Once or twice Neverdie nearly came round and his diaphragm buzzed weakly. Julian ignored him.

Strapped to the underneath of his carapace Neverdie had an instrument with a narrow foot-long barrel that looked as though it might be a weapon. Julian took it from him and examined it. Though it was not designed for the human hand, his thumb found a stud. He pointed the barrel at a tree and pressed the stud. A dull red beam the colour of glowing iron traversed the space between and the tree suddenly changed colour and collapsed into fragments.

He smiled and thrust the weapon into the belt of his utility garment along with the other guns he already carried.

Hauling the load along the rough turf to his time-vault soon had him sweating, but he kept at it. He calculated that he had less than a mile to go when he was interrupted, first by a loud rustling in a nearby clump of vegetation, and then by the appearance of two of the inheritors of the Earth.

In a way they were grotesquely manlike. They could walk almost as easily upright as they could on all fours. Their forepaws were adapted for grasping, the toes having developed into tough, stubby fingers. In one of those paws the leading wolf carried a stone axe.

Julian looked at them, stunned. In like manner they stared back at him. Then the leader crouched, snarled and came at him in a bounding run with the axe upraised. Frantically Julian dropped the staves of the sledge and clawed at the pistol he carried in his belt. Gleaming yellow eyes stabbed into his brain. Then Julian drew and fired.

The shot rang out loudly. The wolf hurtled to the ground and lay there panting, blood beginning to ooze from the wound. The second creature paused for a moment, then turned and fled with a loping gait.

Taking careful aim, Julian squeezed the trigger again. The round failed to fire. Cursing, he pulled out Neverdie’s weapon and destroyed the fleeing animal with its red beam.

Experiment revealed that every other round in his gun was dead. He had unknowingly played a game of Russian Roulette in reverse, and had come up with the only bullet that could have saved him. Luck was indeed with him today. And with Neverdie’s weapon he would have no trouble in defending himself—if its charge lasted long enough.

Keeping a wary look-out, he continued on his way. Already he had identified his attackers as being descended from some wolf-like ancestor, but he wasted no time in thinking out the implications of that. The task in hand required all his concentration.

He encountered no more wolves before reaching the time-vault. Once inside, he first attended to making himself secure, finding the piece of vault wall that Neverdie had excised and using it, together with a workbench, to close the opening up again. It wouldn’t hold against a determined assault, but he still had the alien gun.

Then he carried Neverdie into the vault’s second chamber and strapped him to the main worktable. That done, he took time to rest, during which Neverdie awoke.

He could see that the alien had recovered, though no word came from him. Instead, Neverdie seemed to be looking around him, as if assessing his position. Finally Julian got up and began to inspect his equipment. At last Neverdie addressed a question, his voice slightly ragged through the diaphragm.

“I suppose it is no good trying to dissuade you?”

“Absolutely no good.”

Privately Julian was worried. Much of his equipment was still in good order—that part of it made of non-decaying material, like the surgical instruments. But much of it was useless. He no longer had any reagents, for instance, and would be hard put to make any chemical investigations. Almost all the research he could do was surgical anatomy.

The depressing fear of failure began to overcome him once again, but he made an effort to pull himself together. Perhaps torture would be the most effective method, he told himself, of finding out what he wanted to know.

He walked over to Neverdie and began laying out instruments. “I haven’t any anaesthetic,” he said in an apologetic tone. “Unfortunately your species has a rather high nervous sensitivity, hasn’t it? Make it easy on yourself, Neverdie. Co-operate and it will be quicker and less painful.”

As he spoke he wondered how much pain would induce him to give up an immortality he had already gained. Not any amount, in his opinion. Doubtless Neverdie was similarly motivated.

Nevertheless he got to work on the alien, who was strapped upside down like a huge overturned beetle. Some of his manipulations were torture, pure and simple, but some of them were a survey of Neverdie’s anatomical and nervous systems. Neverdie gave vent to recurrent strangled shrieks and squirmed a good deal as far as his bonds would allow; but that was all. Julian remained aware of the need not to kill his subject and proceeded with care, but he did not feel over-anxious on that score. An immortal being must be physically capable of surviving quite drastic bodily disorder, he reasoned. After a while he absentmindedly left off torture for its own sake and gave himself up to the enjoyment of study.

Nestling just below the brain was a spherical object, like a pearl two inches in diameter.

A massive nerve ganglion surrounded the shining ball, but no nerves, either axons or dendrites, appeared to be actually attached to it. The arrangement was like a nest containing a beautiful, perfect egg. To Julian’s mind the sphere was an artificial object, not native to Neverdie’s body, and he spent some time examining it.

“What will happen if I remove that pearly sphere just below your brain?” he asked, making sure that the alien was conscious.

There was no answer, so Julian, slowly and cautiously, did as he had threatened. He held the pearl up to the light in a pair of calipers and stared at it in fascination. He felt entranced, attracted, drawn on. The sphere seemed to radiate something into his mind, like a candle in otherwise absolute darkness.

A shuddering sigh whispered from Neverdie’s voice diaphragm. “It’s done, then,” he said slowly, as though through a mist of pain.

“Is this what I was seeking?” murmured Julian.

“The Seed…. The Seed of Evil.”

Julian placed the pearl on the palm of his hand. It felt smooth and cool.

“You have nothing to defend any longer,” he said. “Why not explain it all? I would appreciate it.”

With great effort Neverdie replied. “It was not myself I sought to protect, but you. Let me make one last effort to dissuade you. The Seed you hold in your hand is the means to immortality, as you call it. Properly speaking it is biological permanence. All that is necessary is for the Seed to enter your body. To swallow it will be enough, for it will migrate to the most appropriate place, whereupon it will undertake to readjust all the body’s functions with such perfection that it achieves… biological perpetual motion. All the processes which normally cause decay are rendered null and void. The Seed’s properties are even more remarkable than that. It will repair the most appalling injuries to its host; even if the body is completely destroyed it will lie quiescent until coming in contact with biological material, even if only humus, when it will endeavour to reconstruct that body, and usually it will succeed. Thus it is almost impossible to die, impossible even to commit suicide. The only way the arrangement can end is for the Seed to be taken away and given to someone else, whereupon it will forsake the old body and serve the new, for it is able to adapt itself to any conceivable living form in the universe.”

“So far you are making a poor job of dissuasion,” Julian commented.

“What would make such a life unbearable?”

Julian thought for a moment. “Fear of losing it?”

“No. Guilt. The guilt of having stolen it.”

Julian laughed humourlessly. “Do I look like a person who feels guilt?”

“No, but you will change. All change who receive the Seed. Everything looks different after a few million years—even after a few thousand. Yes, perhaps even after a few hundred years you will be tortured by the guilt which you must endure forever—or until——”

Neverdie’s speech was interrupted by hoarse sounds of agony.

“It would be interesting to know how this remarkable device was manufactured,” Julian mused, unmoved by Neverdie’s pain.

The alien seemed to recover enough to resume his explanations. “I will tell you what I know. The origin of the Seed is lost in history, but the legend is plausible. It was created by a race of beings whose name I do not even know, and its purpose was the punishment of a criminal.”

Julian’s attention was diverted by a sound of scratching on the wall of the vault. He hurried to the breach that Neverdie had made, put his ear to it and heard scufflings. Wolves? Or just an animal?

Picking up the death-beamer, he returned to Neverdie. His last remark had puzzled him. “Continue!” he said sharply.

“My strength is failing,” said Neverdie. “Nevertheless—these beings of whom I speak were faced with the problem of dealing with the greatest criminal of their experience, an individual who wilfully committed unspeakably foul acts, and who was without conscience. They decided that the most fitting punishment was first to reform him, and then to cause him to feel ceaseless remorse for his crimes. Immortality achieved both of these aims. And worse. For the other aspect of the life upon which you are so eager to embark is that you are doomed to be hunted by others who desire the immortality which only you possess. Thus those who made the Seed set in motion the chain of events of which you and I are a part. Wherever it goes the Seed attracts to itself the most evil of beings—no one knows how many have fallen into the same trap! The ceaseless hunt to steal immortality!”

“Anything worth having is worth fighting for,” Julian said. “As for this remorse you find so terrible, I feel fairly immune from it.”

“Now you are—— You will change. I have not told you the worst. The worst is that eventually your very existence drags some other unfortunate into committing the same crime, suffering the same punishment—as I did to you. I was not always the harmless creature you know now, Ferrg. Oh, if you only knew—I was a hundred times worse than you! I stole the Seed, as you are stealing it. And I suffer, as you will suffer. I beg you, do not accept the Seed. Die, Ferrg, it is better to die!”

Julian interpreted Neverdie’s argument as a last-minute attempt to con him. Even his claims concerning the miraculous powers of the Seed could be lies. Perhaps the little sphere was a capsule of poison. Julian decided he would have to take a chance on that.

“After coming all this way?” he said. “I’m not backing out now.”

The sphere looked too big to swallow, but experimentally he put it in his mouth. As soon as it touched his lips it seemed to come alive, to be electric. Almost of its own accord it slid easily down his throat and he felt it in his stomach like a big, heavy globe which was slowly absorbed.

A heavy pounding rang all through him, as though he were full of vast cavities.

He seemed to lose touch with his surroundings, to be drawn into something vast and incomprehensible. He seemed to be hanging in an endless void, and suddenly all the people he had ever known flashed before his consciousness in quick succession. There was a lingering image of Ursula Gail as he had last seen her over a glass of wine, her bright hazel eyes regarding him sadly. He saw that all these people had vanished long ago into the void of non-existence, and inexplicably he envied them. Then the scene widened still further and he realised that he was being vouchsafed a vision. He saw that the sequence of events of which he was a part had begun long before the creation of the Seed. Long, long, long back in the vistas of time there had lived a race who had also succeeded in creating an immortal—a true immortal, much more so than any who came into possession of the Seed, which in the course of billions of years would itself perish. They had done it by printing an artificial consciousness into the fabric of space, and it could never be eradicated.

That consciousness was calling him. Its call had caused the Seed to be made in the first place. Somehow, some time, one of the beings enchained by the Seed would, in due course, be lifted out of the material realm to share Aeternus’s state, life without any of the means of life, and without end.

Aeternus’s voice came to Julian: You are my only-begotten son, in whom I am well-pleased. And at that blasphemy he experienced a great fear that he was to be that eternal companion.

Suddenly it was over like a brief nightmare and he was standing beside Neverdie. The alien was speaking, his voice growing weaker.

“Hear them, Ferrg? Hear the Wolves? Do not fear—you will get on well with them. You will be a leader. I remember when I first saw you that I recognised the wolf in you. Welcome to your own people—and thank you for releasing me. If you are lucky one of them might get you soon. However, the Seed will force you to put up a fight. That also is one of its functions——”

Julian said hastily: “What can I do to give the Seed away?” But Neverdie did not answer, and he realised that the Aldebaranian was, at last, dead.

Outside, the wolves began to howl.