“That was a significant jolt in the beam,” one nanoseconded. “The perturbations are becoming more frequent.”
“There can be no doubt now that the transmitter of the beam is beginning to malfunction.”
“Perhaps it is no longer tended.”
The two metallic beings—there had only ever been two of them—were silent for a while. Then they again began to converse, in steady nanosecond stitches back and forth, recapitulating almost the whole history of their thought together, listing the bleak facts of their knowledge. The knowledge that, but for the primary beam and the staged-down version of it they had arranged, the whole universe was empty of awareness, in so far as it was within their observational range.
“Some conscious intelligence must have arranged for the transmission of the primary beam. From where does that intelligence derive its awareness?”
“It could not conceivably be a natural phenomenon. It must act as the receiver for yet another beam. One whose source is probably unknown to it, as it, in turn, is unknown to us.”
“And behind that?”
“The same.”
“And so on.”
“An endless chain with no origin.”
“An endlessly relayed searchlight with no emitting source.”
“If an impossible phenomenon exists, there can be no other explanation for it than that it comes from infinity; in other words that it has no cause. Consciousness is an impossible phenomenon. It must come from infinity.”
With that theorem, their knowledge concerning their own nature came to an end. They had established that consciousness was a contradiction in a purely material universe. And indeed, consciousness existed, but without ever having been created. It was a stratagem, a trick, an endless series lacking a first term.
Although it might, in the Earth planet, possess a last term.
“An even more severe perturbation is beginning to manifest itself,” announced the entity nearest the monitor. “I believe the transmitter is on the verge of a breakdown.”
They braced themselves, but to no avail. Wings wheeling in the void; mad brains arcing, contorted beyond the parameters of sanity; awareness forced into aspects of unnatural distortion, required to view reality from exaggerated viewpoints.
But eventually the beam came through clear and strong and a more normal mental state resumed. Later, however, it was discovered that one of the beings, during his arcings and threshings, had fallen against the Earth machine and had accidentally switched off. On Earth, all brains, animal and human, had gone out.
There seemed little reason to reactivate the transmitter; the Earth experiment had served its purpose long ago. Over a fairly short span of time life on Earth slid back to the mindless levels of self-perpetuating organics: the viral, bacteriological and primitive vegetable levels. The atmospheric mix adjusted itself accordingly; and as the blankness of eternity resumed its endless course, the planet joined its billions of brethren in familiar oblivion.
Integrity
The wedding had been lively. The bride was a remarkably pretty girl, and to keep her the groom had been forced to battle desperately with about a dozen determined men. The refrigerated armour which he wore both by custom and necessity had at times glowed cherry-red as it absorbed the energy of assorted heat-guns.
If the wedding ceremony was one of the most savage traditions in the social life of Free America, it was also one of the most entertaining. Juble was in a good mood by the time his companion Fleck eventually flew him home.
“Ah nearly had her,” he boasted in his drawling voice, carefully wiping over the parts of his disassembled heat-gun with a clean rag. “This neat package nearly got me the neatest package you ever did see. What a night this would ha’been!”
With a series of clicks, the gun was again assembled in his hands.
“Not so neat,” Fleck observed, “when you think of the trouble she’d bring. You’d be dead in two days.”
“Ah can look after mahself.” As the car flew between two skyscrapers Juble lifted his weapon to his shoulder, aimed and let loose. A volley of heat-packets incinerated the policeman who was pacing the elevated sidewalk.
Fleck accelerated nervously. “Don’t be so damned trigger-happy. What if there’s a squad-car along the way?”
Juble laughed with delight. He had always taken advantage of the citizen’s right to make war on the police.
The massive city sat darkly as they flew among its blocks. Even with the pilot lamp on the front of the car flying at night was difficult since there were no lights anywhere except an occasional illuminated window. If a man wanted light or power, he must generate his own. Fleck dropped some of the party mood he had maintained at the wedding. In the canyons between skyscrapers even the moon was obscured and he needed concentration.
Juble let the gun fall on to his bare thighs with a faint slap. He also became more serious. His attention returned to a personal problem which, despite the festivities, had been nagging all along at the back of his mind.
“Fleck,” he said, “the cops were banging on mah door last night. Ah gotta pay the tax.” He was referring to the law by which every citizen was required to work one day in each year in the service of the state.
“So has everybody,” Fleck said absently. “It’s not much, after all.”
Juble was silent. Finally he said: “Well, last year was enough for me. Ah don’t get on too well with them bossy cops. It offends against mah personal integrity to be degraded so. Anyway, Ah don’t get much fun out of repairing buildings Ah’ll only want to smash up again. This time Ah think Ah’ll pay in cash.”
“Cash? You’re crazy.”
“Cash is still valid.” Juble insisted indignantly. “That’s the law! What Ah need is somebody to engage me privately for one day to work for him, and pay me in cash. Then Ah can pay off mah obligation in money instead of labour.” He nodded judiciously. “A much more dignified arrangement. But … the only man Ah can think of is that old crank, Joe.”
“I expect he’s got a room full of bills somewhere.” Fleck spoke casually, giving his attention to the darkness.
“Do you think he’ll take me on?” Juble asked nervously.
“Well, go and ask. He messes around, he might need help.”
“Yes, but do you think he will?” Juble’s anxiety became more open. “Without offering me insult? After all, Ah’ve got mah—”
“I know, you’ve got your personal integrity,” Fleck repeated, laughing. “Well, there’s only one way to find out. Go and ask him. Tomorrow.”
Juble sighed and leaned back. “Yeah, I suppose so,” he said. “Reckon Ah should take a field gun.”
Joe was squatting on his roof at the time of Juble’s visit, watching a motorised knife slice up a piece of wood. Rapidly the cube diminished in size as the knife halved, threw away one piece, halved what remained, and continued, selecting, halving, and pushing away the parings.
Joe watched, straining with concentration. Inexorably the fragment of wood diminished and disappeared from the compass of his consciousness.
“Goddam!” he shrieked, jumping up and jerking his fists. “Goddam, goddam!”
A shadow swept across the roof where he was conducting his experiment. Squinting against the glare of sky and skyscrapers he saw the boat shape of a car swinging around to land. Joe scampered across the roof and grabbed his shoulder holster. The visitor was probably friendly … but you never knew.
The pilot was a naked, yellow-headed young fellow who touched down deftly and stepped on to the concrete. Uneasy, slightly shy, but a handsome young buck, shoulder holster firmly clasped against his muscles. Joe scrutinised the face: the lad was vaguely familiar. After a few moments he recognised him: Fell’s son, Juble.
“Hy, Joe,” Juble began cautiously.
“Who the hell are you and what d’you want?”
“Aw, you know me, Joe. Ah’m Juble.”
“Never heard of you,” Joe snapped. “Get out.”
&n
bsp; “You do know me, Joe.”
Seeing that the youth’s hands were nervously alert in the direction of his gun, Joe more reasonably asked: “Well, what do you want?”
Juble explained carefully about his dislike of the Annual Tax for the Upkeep of Public Buildings and Institutions. “Ah thought … Ah might be able to help you, maybe, and pay in currency,” he finished.
Joe regarded him acidly, silent for several seconds. Then he snapped: “Idle scrounger! What about doing right by the community?”
That was something in which Juble had no interest, but he replied: “Ah’m still paying, ain’t Ah? Money is still used in some towns out west, so Ah hear.”
Joe grunted in disgust. “Know any electronics?”
“No … but car engines, Ah can do nearly anything with.”
“What about generators? Got one?”
“No … but they’re about the same as car engines, aren’t they?”
“Just about.” He gestured to a running motor on the far side of the roof. “Mine’s getting a bit cranky. Take a look, tell me if you can fix it.”
Juble walked over and tinkered with the generator, adjusting its speed. “Easy,” he called. “Just needs going over.”
“All right, you’re hired,” said Joe, crossing the roof and still wearing his look of disgust. “It’s only because you’re the son of my old friend Fell, young man, that I’ll do this. I want you to regard it as a personal favour.”
Juble nodded thankfully, and stood wondering what to do.
Joe left him to wonder for a few seconds. “Well, what are you doing standing there?” he questioned finally.
“… Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Joe screamed, “I pay you to work, not for nothing. Work!” Juble scrambled for his tool kit.
Taking another block of wood, Joe threw it under the knife and squatted down to watch. Once again he strained and strained, putting everything he had into an attempt to keep sight of the rapidly diminishing object.
The block became a speck, then passed out of his conscious world.
This time he took the failure more calmly and cast around for analysis. He began to catalogue: sky, sun, air, asphalt, all these things he could see and feel, and involve in his consciousness. But what about things very small, very big, things very far away? When he tried to grasp a direct knowledge of something inestimably huge, he found he couldn’t. It didn’t exist in the agglomeration of concepts comprising Joe’s conscious world.
He could contemplate it in an abstract imaginary way, of course, but that wasn’t the same as experiencing it. And as for things very small, at the other end of the scale, they were beyond the pale altogether.
Picking up a pebble lying in the sunlight, he looked at it and felt its bright smoothness. It was perception, sensory perception, that decided the limits of his world. Damn, he thought, damn, it’s intolerable! To be confined to this band of reality, which must be ridiculously narrow compared with the total spectrum! There has to be a way out, there’s gotta be a way!
He clumped around the room moodily, yelled insults at Juble, scratched his haunches, then got down to serious thinking again.
Then, as he desperately forced his intellectual faculty to its utmost, he had a sudden flash of inspiration in which he realised that there was no cause for dismay. He had just remembered some very interesting work he had done in an apparently unrelated field.
Some time earlier Joe had made the remarkable discovery that it was possible to produce high-frequency vibrations in a magnetic field without recourse to or effect on its associated electrical component. Furthermore, such vibrations impinged directly on the brain without passing through sense organs. It had long been established that fluctuations in the Earth’s magnetic field, brought about by the Moon, influenced the brain. Now, with his technique of magnetic vibration, Joe posited that he might have a powerful tool for extending the range of perception.
Also, a powerful weapon of attack or experiment on other human beings. Joe filed this thought for later reference.
After two hours spent in designing a suitable device, he was ready to begin work. By this time Juble had finished with the generator and was looking down below into the garden, a profusion of coloured fruits and prime vegetables.
It was the gardens that had set society free. Advanced agricultural techniques enabled everyone to grow ample food in his own back yard, loosing men from the obligation to work and making every day Sunday. Joe’s garden, Juble noticed, was well stocked.
“Ah’m getting hungry,” he hinted.
“Hungry?” Joe felt exasperated that his assistant should be so prosaic when he himself was in the midst of fantastic thoughts. “Come here,” he ordered, placing yet another block beneath the knife. “Tell me when you can’t see it.”
“Ah can’t see it now,” Juble said after a short time.
“Doesn’t it worry you that there are things you can’t see?”
“No. What’s this to do with me getting something to eat?”
As usual, Joe’s love of philosophical research was instrumental in increasing his contempt for his fellows. He expressed that contempt openly.
Juble was becoming weary of insult. “Go steady, Pop,” he warned, looking mean. “Ah got mah personal integrity, and you ain’t gonna infringe on me.”
Joe was taken aback. “Remember the money,” he said in a more subdued voice. “You can stay hungry. We’ve got work to do. I’ll need to filch some equipment from the Science Museum.”
Expressionlessly Juble opened the car door for him. “And it’s you who’s always on about doing right,” he complained.
The Science Museum was one of the public buildings for whose upkeep Juble payed the one-day tax; not because of conscience, but prompted by the fact that anyone who didn’t was liable to have a bomb thrown on his house, or a grenade through his window if he lived in an apartment.
“Damned cops,” he muttered when they had stopped before the entrance. “Why don’t they just wrap up.”
Joe felt it his duty to deliver a lecture on public morals. “Now, boy, be fair,” he admonished. “The police perform a valuable service, preserving public institutions, keeping the city in order. Without them there wouldn’t be nearly so much fun.” He chuckled. “Nor any place for me to steal equipment from. Then there’s personal protection.”
“Come off it, Pop, have you ever tried to claim protection? That law’s a farce, they’d just sling you in the gutter.”
“And rightly so! A man old enough to carry a gun should be able to take care of himself. But what about kids? Don’t tell me you’ve never seen the police shoot down a bunch of drunks because there were children around, perhaps? And people who endanger kids and defenceless women deserve it. But mind you, you don’t know how lucky you are to be living in a free civilisation. Why, a few hundred years ago you wouldn’t even be allowed to kill a man. And you know what, boy? You would have to work every day of your life! Know what would happen if you didn’t? You’d starve! Did you know that, son?”
“No.”
“Then shut your mouth, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” Joe climbed out of the car in a disgruntled manner and with a jerk of his thumb ordered Juble to follow.
There were thirty-six levels to the museum, each thirty feet in height, and an impressive hundred-foot entrance. Joe seemed to know his way around. He walked straight across the lobby and up a wide staircase.
On the first floor up Juble stopped him and pointed out. “Hey, what about here?”
Above the doorway to a long hall was the inscription: “ELECTRONICS - 1.”
“Huh,” said Joe derisively. “First electronics? Baby stuff. We’ve come for the real thing, boy.” He also went past the door marked “ELECTRONICS - 2” but stopped at “ELECTRONICS - 3.”
They paused just inside the entrance. There was a party going on. As Juble looked closer, the mélange of a hundred naked people resolved into various small incidents. The one which c
aught Juble’s eye was that of a man attempting to rape a struggling young girl. Automatically he looked around for the corpse of her protector, but to his surprise there was none: the party, probably in its early stages, was completely free of death. Just at that moment a black-haired, middle-aged man skulking against the wall jammed a policeman’s cap on his head and blew a whistle. Immediately there was the jangling sound of shattered glass: a tall window fell in fragments to the floor and through it poured a dozen heavily armed, angry-looking cops. On the other side of the window, Juble glimpsed a hovering squad-car.
“Better stay out of the way,” Joe whispered, hiding in the shadows. “Don’t want to get involved.”
Within seconds the would-be rapist was hauled to his feet and dragged bodily to the middle of the hall, and the party-makers herded belligerently aside. “The Supreme Court will go in session right here!” the biggest of the policemen shouted. He removed his cap and put on a judge’s hat. “Everybody shut their goddam row!” The heavy bazookas dangling carelessly gave everyone present a silent respect for the law. Then the policeman-judge took a sheet of paper about six inches square from the lining of his headgear and handed it to the prisoner.
On the paper were written all the laws of the nation, and not in small print, either.
“Mack,” said the judge, having climbed on to an improvised rostrum, “you don’t need me to tell you you’re in trouble. The law protects females from direct assault. Do you plead guilty of direct assault upon a female?”
The criminal looked sullenly at his feet.
“O.K., Mack,” the judge told him harshly, “we don’t need you to tell us just how guilty you are. I’m surprised you guys are so dim. Why didn’t you knock off her man and make it a legal assault?”
“‘r man wasn’ around,” the criminal muttered.
“No man may sexually assault a female except by first subduing a man protector!” the judge yelled at him. “I don’t care whether she’s got a man or not! The law protects the weak. And let me tell you, it doesn’t help that you knocked off one of our boys the other day. Why do you think we’re so hot on your trail?” He nodded to one of his colleagues. “Usual sentence.”
The Seed of Evil Page 10