The Third Officer (in training, which meant that he was merely the aid to the regular Third Officer) walked through the corridor of the great interstellar ship toward the meditation room. Although he had spent four years studying the eleven classes of interstellar ships, the reality was new, awesome, and infinitely more complex—the more so since this was a Class Two ship, entirely self-sustaining and with an indefinite cruising range. Unlike other interstellar ships, it was named not for the planet of its origin but for the planet of its destination, Cephes 5, and like all medical ships, it carried clearance for any port in the galaxy.
He knew how fortunate he was to have been appointed to this ship to complete his training, and at the age of twenty-two he was young and romantic enough to doubt and bless his good fortune constantly.
The ship was only three days out of its last port of call—the port where he had come on board as an officer cadet—and since then he had been occupied constantly with medical examinations, inoculations, briefings, and orientation tours. This was his first free hour, and he very properly sought the meditation room.
It was a long, plain room with ivory-colored walls and ceiling, and lit by a pleasant golden light. Here and there were stacks of cushions, and perhaps a dozen of the ship’s one hundred and twenty crew members were in the room, meditating. Each sat upon one of the thin cushions, legs crossed, body erect, hands folded, eyes cast down in a position that was more or less universal in every planet of the galaxy. The Third Officer selected a pillow and seated himself, crossing his bare legs. He was quite comfortable since he wore only a pair of cotton shorts.
He sought to lose himself in his awareness of himself, as he had learned a long time ago, to still his own wonders and doubts and fears and to immerse himself in the wholeness of the universe, his own self becoming part of an infinitely larger self; yet the process would not work. He was blocked, confused and troubled, his mind shaken and swept from thought to thought, while underneath these rushing thoughts, strange and unpleasant fantasies began to form.
He glanced at the other men and women in the meditation room, but they sat in silence, apparently untroubled by the strange and frightening thoughts that hammered at his mind.
For half an hour or so the Third Officer fought to control his own mind and kept it clear and quiet, then he gave up and left the meditation room; and he realized that he had been in this curious state of mental excitement ever since boarding Cephes 5, but had only become fully aware of it when he attempted to meditate.
Deciding that it was simply his own eagerness, his own excitement at being assigned to this great, mysterious interstellar cruiser, he went to one of the viewing rooms, sank into a chair, and pressed the button that raised the screen on outer space. The impression was of sitting in the midst of the galaxy, facing a blazing and uncountable array of stars. The Third Officer remembered that on his early training trips the viewing room had been a cure for almost any problem of fear or disquiet. Now it failed him, and his thoughts in the viewing room were as disquieting as they had been in the meditation room.
Puzzled and not untroubled, the Third Officer left the viewing room and sought out the ship’s Counsellor. He still had four hours of free time left to him before he began his tour of duty in the engine room, and while he had hoped to devote this time to making the acquaintance of other crew members in the off-duty lounge, he decided now that the first order of importance was to learn why the ship filled him with such a sense of chaos and foreboding.
He knocked at the door of the Counsellor’s office, and a voice asked him to enter, which he did gingerly, uncertainly, for he had never before gone to a Counsellor on one of the great galactic ships. The Counsellors were legendary throughout the galaxy, for in a manner of speaking they were the highest rank in all of mankind’s table of organization—very old, very wise, and gifted in ways that could only fill a cadet of twenty-two years with awe and respect. On interstellar ships they ranked even above the Captain, although it was rare indeed that one of them countermanded a Captain’s order or interfered in any manner with the operation of the ship. Legend had it that some of the Counsellors were more than two hundred years old, and certainly an age of a century and a half was not uncommon.
Now, as the Third Officer entered the small, simply furnished office, an old man in a blue silk robe turned from the desk where he had been writing and nodded at the Third Officer. He was very old indeed, a black man whose skin was as wrinkled and dry as old brown leather and whose pale yellow eyes looked at the Third Officer with pleasant inquiry. Was it true that the Counsellors were telepaths who could read minds as easily as ordinary men heard sound? the Third Officer wondered.
“Quite true,” the old man said softly. “Be patient, Third Officer. There are more things for you to learn than you imagine.” He pointed to a chair. “Sit down and be comfortable. There are a hundred and twelve years of difference in your age and mine, and while you may think that a matter of little account when you reach my age, it’s very impressive at the moment, isn’t it?”
The Third Officer nodded.
“And you were in the meditation room and you found that you could not meditate?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you know why?”
“No, sir.”
“And neither do you suspect why?”
“I have been on spaceships before,” the Third Officer said.
“And you have been on this one for three days, and you have been examined, lectured to, shot full of a variety of serums and antibodies, and oriented—but never told what cargo this ship carries?”
“No, sir.”
“Or its purpose?”
“No, sir.”
“And quite properly, you did not ask.”
“No, sir, I did not ask.”
The Counsellor regarded the Third Officer in silence for perhaps two or three minutes. The Third Officer by now found his own problems submerged in his excitement and curiosity at actually sitting face to face with one of the fabled Counsellors, and finally he could contain himself no longer.
“Would you forgive me if I ask a personal question, sir?”
“I can’t imagine any question that requires forgiveness,” the Counsellor replied, smiling.
“Are you reading my mind now, sir? That’s the question.”
“Reading your mind now? Oh, no—no indeed. Why should I? I know all about you. We need unusual young men in our crew, and you are quite an unusual young man. Reading your mind would take great concentration and effort; quite to the contrary, I was looking into my own mind and remembering when I was your age. But that’s a problem of the aged. We tend to be too reflective and to wander a good deal. Now concerning the meditation—it will take a little time, but once you fully understand the purpose of Cephes 5, you will overcome these disturbances and indeed you will find that you meditate on a higher level than before—commensurate with a new effort of will. Let that be for a moment. Do you know what the word murder means?”
“No, sir.”
“Have you ever heard it before?”
“No, sir. Not that I remember.”
The old man appeared to be smiling inwardly, and again there was a minute or two of inner reflection. The Third Officer waited.
“There is a whole spectrum of being that we must examine,” the Counsellor said finally, “and thus we will introduce you to an area of being you have possibly never dreamed of. It won’t damage you or even shake you over-much, for it was taken into consideration when you were chosen to be part of the crew of Cephes 5. We begin with murder as an idea and an act. Murder is the act of taking a human life, and as an idea it has its origin in abnormal feelings of hatred and aggression.”
“Hatred and aggression,” the Third Officer repeated slowly.
“Do you follow me? Do you understand?”
“I think so.”
“The words are possibly unfamiliar. Allow me to go into your mind for just a moment—and you will feel this better than I could explain it.”
The old man’s face became blank, and suddenly the Third Officer winced and cried out in disgust. The old black man’s face became alive again, and the Third Officer put his face in his hands and sat that way for a moment, shivering.
“I’m sorry, but it was necessary,” the Counsellor said. “Fear is very much a part of it, and that is why I had to touch the fear and horror centers of your mind. Otherwise, how do you explain color to a blind man?”
The Third Officer looked up and nodded.
“You will be all right in a moment. Murder is the act—the finality of what you just felt. There are other degrees, pain, torture, an incredible variety of hurts—tell me if any of these words elude you.”
“Torture, I don’t think I ever heard the word.”
“It’s a deliberate inflicting of pain, psychological pain, physical pain.”
“For what reason?” the Third Officer asked.
“There you have the crux of it. For what reason? Reason implies health. This is sickness, the most dreadful sickness that man has ever experienced.”
“And murder? Is it simply a syndrome? Is it something out of the past? Out of the childhood of the races of mankind? Or is it a postulate?”
“No indeed. It’s a reality.”
“You mean people kill other people?”
“Exactly.”
“Without reason?”
“Without reason as you understand reason. But within the spectrum of this sickness, there is subjective reason and cause.”
“Enough to take a human life?” the Third Officer whispered.
“Enough to take a human life.”
The young man shook his head. “Incredible—just incredible. But consider, sir, with all due respect, I’ve had an education, a very good education. I read books. I watch television. I have kept myself informed. How can it be that I’ve never heard of this—indeed that I’ve never even heard the words?”
“How many inhabited planets are there in the galaxy?” the old man asked, smiling slightly.
“Thirty-three thousand, four hundred and sixty-nine.”
“Seventy-two, since Philbus 7, 8 and 9 were settled last month. Thirty-three thousand, four hundred and seventy-two. Does that answer your question? There are thousands of planets where murder has never occurred, even as there are thousands of planets that have never known tuberculosis, or pneumonia or scarlet fever.”
“But we heal these things—and almost every other disease known to man,” the Third Officer protested.
“Yes, almost every other disease. Almost. We have no knowledge that is absolute. We learn a great deal, but the more we know, the wider the boundaries to the unknown become, and the one disease that defeats our wisest physicians and researchers is this thing we are discussing.”
“Has it a name?”
“It has. It is called insanity.”
“And you say it’s a very old disease?”
“Very old.”
It was the Third Officer’s turn to be thoughtful, and the old man waited patiently for him to think it through. Finally the cadet asked, “If we have no cure, what happens to these people who murder?”
“We isolate them.”
Realization came to the Third Officer like a cold chill. “On the planet Cephes 5?”
“Yes. We isolate them on the planet Cephes 5. We do it as mercifully, as kindly as we can. Long, long ago other alternatives were tried, but they all failed, and finally they came to the conclusion that only isolation would work.”
“And this ship—” The Third Officer’s voice trailed away.
“Yes—yes, indeed. This is the transport ship. We pick up these people in every part of the galaxy and we take them to Cephes 5. That is why we choose our crew with such care and concern, people of great inner strength. Do you understand now why your meditation went so poorly?”
“Yes, I think I do.”
“No sensitive person can escape the vibrations that fill this ship, but you can learn to live with them and deal with them, and find new strength in the process. Of course, you always have the option of leaving the ship.”
The old black man looked at the Third Officer thoughtfully, thinking rather wistfully of the precious, fleeting beauty of youth, the unfaded golden hair, the clear blue eyes, the earnest facing and assumption of the problem of life, and he remembered the time when he had been young and strong-limbed and beautiful, not with regret, but with the apparently eternal fascination in the life process that was a part of his being.
“I don’t think I will leave the ship, sir,” the Third Officer said after a moment.
“I didn’t think you would.” The Counsellor rose then, standing tall and straight and lean, his blue robe hanging from his bony shoulders, his great height and wide shoulders a quality of the black people on the Rebus and Alma constellation of planets. “Come now,” he said to the boy, “we will go into this somewhat more fully. And remember, Third Officer, that we have no alternatives. This is a genetic factor in these poor souls, and had we not isolated them in this fashion, the whole galaxy would be infected.”
The Third Officer opened the door for him and then followed the Counsellor down the corridor to one of the elevators. They passed other crew members on the way, men and women, black and white and yellow and brown people, and each of them made a gesture of respect to the Counsellor. They paused at the elevators, and when a door opened, they stepped in. The Captain of the ship was just leaving the elevator, and she held the door for a moment to tell the Counsellor that he looked well and rested.
“Thank you, Captain. This is Third Officer Cadet. He is with us only three days.”
The Third Officer had not see the Captain before, and he was struck by the grace and beauty of the woman. She. appeared to be in her middle fifties, yellow-skinned with black slanting eyes and black hair hardly touched with gray. She wore a white silk robe of command, and she greeted the Third Officer graciously and warmly, giving him the feeling of being vitally needed and important.
“We were discussing Cephes 5,” the Counsellor explained. “I take him now to the sleep chamber.”
“He is in good hands,” the Captain said.
The elevator dropped into the bowels of the great spaceship, stopped, and the door opened. The Third Officer followed the Counsellor out into a long, wide chamber that at first glance left him breathless and shaken—a place like a great morgue where on triple tiers of beds at least five hundred human beings lay asleep, men and women and children too, some as young as ten or twelve years, none much older than their twenties, people of every race in the galaxy. In their sleep, there was nothing to distinguish them from normal people.
The Third Officer found himself whispering. “That’s not necessary,” the Counsellor said. “They cannot awake until we awaken them.”
The old man led the young man down the long line of beds to the end of the chamber, where, behind a glass wall, men and women in white smocks were working around a table on which a man lay. A network of wires was attached to a band around his skull, and in the background there were banks of machines.
“We block their memories,” the Counsellor explained. “That we are able to do, and then we build up a new set of memories. It’s a very complex procedure. They will have no recollection of any existence before Cephes 5, and they will be fully oriented toward Cephes 5 and the mores there.”
“Do you just leave them there?”
“Oh, no—no indeed. We have our agencies on Cephes 5; we have maintained them there for many, many years. Feeding these people into the life of Cephes 5 is a most delicate and important process. If the inhabitants of Cephes 5 were to discover this, the consequences for them would be tragic indeed. But there is very small chance of that. Indeed, it is almost impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because the entire pattern of life on Cephes 5 depends on ego structure. Every person on the planet spends his life creating an ego structure which subjectively places him at the center of the universe. This ego structure is central to the disease, for given the sickness that creates the ego, each individual goes on to form in his mind an anthropomorphic superman whom he calls God and who supports his right to kill.”
“I am not sure I understand,” the Third Officer said.
“In time you will. It is enough to accept the fact that the people on Cephes 5 place their planet and their own selves at the center of the universe, and then they structure their lives so that no uncertainty concerning this should ever arise. This is why we have been able to continue this process for so many years. You see, they refuse even to consider the fact that mankind might exist elsewhere in the universe.”
“Then they don’t know?”
“No, they don’t know.”
For a while they stood there, the Third Officer watching the work on the other side of the glass panel and growing more and more uneasy. Then the Counsellor tapped his shoulder and said, “Enough. Even in their sleep, they think and dream, and you are still too new to this to suffer their vibrations for long. Come, we will go to one of the viewing rooms, sit and look at the universe, and talk a little more and compose ourselves.”
In the viewing room, with the enormous, blazing glory of the stars in front of him and with the comforting presence of the Counsellor beside him, the Third Officer was able to relax and begin to deal with the flood of ideas and impressions. He found that he was full of a great pity, an overwhelming sense of sadness, and he spoke of this to the old man.
“It’s quite normal,” the Counsellor said.
“What do they do on Cephes 5?” he wondered.
“They kill.”
“Then is the planet empty?”
“Hardly. You see, these poor demented creatures are aware of their function, which is to kill, and like all creatures with a sense of function, they place the function above all else. Thus they breed like no other men in the universe, increasing their population constantly, so that while their killing mounts, their breeding remains ahead of it.”
“Are they normally intelligent?”
“Very intelligent—yet their intelligence is to no effect. Their egos prevent them from even turning it inward.”
“But how can they be intelligent and continue this thing you call murder?”
“Because the intelligence is directed toward only one end—the killing of their own kind. As I told you, they are insane.”
“But if they are intelligent, won’t they devise ways to move through space?”
“Oh, yes. They have done so, with very crude rockets. But we chose Cephes 5 originally because it is the farthest inhabitable planet from the center of the galaxy, almost forty light-years from another inhabitable planet. They will move through space, but the problem of warping space, of moving faster than light—this will always elude them, for this is a problem that man can solve only within himself.
For some time the Third Officer sat in silence, and then he asked softly, “Do they suffer a great deal?”
“I am afraid so.”
“Is there any hope for them?”
“There is always hope,” the old man replied.
“We call it Cephes 5 in our table of planets,” the Third Officer said. “But every planet has a subjective name for itself. What do these people call their planet?”
“They call it the Earth,” the old man said.