Bryce Walton

“ Verrill's eyes were narrow, inscrutable.
"If the ape had suddenly developed immortality, you wouldn't have evolved. Thinking man could never have evolved from an immortal and therefore stagnant race of apes. Just as mortal man came from apes, so homo-superior evolves from mortal man. Paradoxically, there can be no immortality, if the true racial chain is to survive."
Klauson sat stiffly. Well, Dunnel had gotten close to the correct solution though he could never dream of the truth. There had been a deeply buried subconscious fear of the results of immortality. ”

“ The high, arched ceiling in the lab with its glowing columns and its streamlined equipment had been provided him by the entire earth—provided him by man's cooperative faith in himself. Men who would find so much greater an impetus to fight ahead if they only knew that whatever other success they might have, their ultimate end was inevitably life, instead of death. ”

“ Not that Klauson had expected things to be different. The microphoto film cabinets stood tier upon tier, a long stretch of recorded effort, a complete step-by-step, intricate process of creating life from that awesome moment when he had known the successful preparation of the first simple colloid and had started on his first organic synthesis.
Through the actual combination of the first molecules and the organic colloid and then the first tiny speck of synthesized protoplasm. The frenzied day and night battle against time. Time, that was the predominant factor in nature that did the trick. ”

“ Cause and effect, fourth-dimensionally, works also in what they would consider, reversal. What they see as an effect, is also cause. They tie in past, future, present, with cause and effect. Really there is no association. An effect can be in what they consider their past; and a cause can exist in their future. But you will understand after you assume possession of Verrill's consciousness. ”

“ What made it so bad was that Lin had never cried before; she was so strong, emotionally. Without any real cause, this made him more nervous and irritable. But he was one of the world's greatest scientists. Everything must have a cause, somewhere. Sometime.
His gyrocar dropped down on the spacious roof-landing of the Biochemistry Building at the World Science Presidium. It was beginning to rain—solid, heavy, sharp-driving drops that spattered on the dull, plastic mesh as he walked hurriedly across it to the ingress.
"Hello, Professor Klauson. This is a surprise. ”

“ Klauson trembled a little with triumph. Yes, that could be the basis for the fear. A scientist must weigh the consequences of his discoveries. Would the secret of eternal life be a boon, or a catastrophe for man?
Klauson entered a public teleaudio booth and got Verrill's apartment in east Washington. Verrill's eyes seemed to have changed—they looked like those of someone else. ”

“ All his other activities are only bypaths. With eternal life possible, mankind will have a real reason for struggling onward. Lin—"
"No, Howard," she was saying, brokenly. "There isn't an argument. To me, your mind is more important. Why did your mind black out just before you could finish your last experiment? Why, the whole magnificent psycho-medical staff at the Presidium couldn't find a reason. All the charts show you to be amazingly normal. There is something bigger than our science, Howard. It doesn't intend for you to ever finish your research." ”

“ No other man, or combination of men, in the world could synthesize all the knowledge in those cabinets and emerge with the final answer that he alone could evolve. No one but himself. Larry Verrill might possibly develop some capacity to work on the chain. But unlikely. High specialization had made it Klauson's responsibility alone. ”

“ From simple, organic compound through the simple colloid, the protein, the primitive protoplasm, the simplest unicellular organism, the flagellate and—then the great jump into the structure of the gene, the ferreting-out of that intricate, vital combination that gave man life and maintained it. ”

“ But not for us; that is your three-dimensional absolutism creeping in already though you have not even begun merging with Verrill yet. You are beginning to make premature psychological adjustments. There are countless tangents of probability. And in the particular one that has evolved us, Professor Klauson must be prevented from completing his research. If he does, we will not evolve. But of course we have evolved, so it is inevitable that you will carry out your assignment successfully. ”

“ Retreat from reality; rot in meaningless isolation.
"I'll not do it, Lin," he announced harshly. "I refuse to drop a conclusion that might mean the final step in human evolution."
He was dazed, ill, as she led him silently into the gyrocar and piloted it to their apartment. No use arguing with Lin about it. She had that ageless woman's selfish love to protect her own kind. She and the Council had combined to work against him, instead of helping him solve the cursed enigma.
As soon as they reached home, Klauson contacted the Council President, Gaudet, on the teleaudio. ”

“ A sick hate flooded his stomach, burst in his brain. He was stunned, impotent. He quivered silently. It was their own staff that had said there was nothing wrong with him! Yet, they were demanding that he resign! ”

“ It isn't a matter of probability. It was never intended that you should finish this experiment, so that the present stage of humanity might live forever, forever, itself, as a word, being meaningless abstraction. ”

“ They realize that everything that has happened is determined by a complex array of circumstantial causes, but they see this only in immediate, comprehensible perspective. The same is true in the Universal also, and in the time-anlim, which their three-dimensional consciousness cannot comprehend. ”