Hackett had just lit a cigarette without offering one to anybody.
– I feel Descartes’ head was a little bit loose, he remarked ponderously, not so much for his profusion of erroneous ideas but for the folly of a man of eighty-two thus getting up at such an unearthly hour and him near the North Pole.
– He was fifty-four, De Selby said evenly.
– Well by damn, Mick blurted, he was a remarkable man however crazy his scientific beliefs.
– There’s a French term I heard which might describe him, Hackett said. Idiot-savant.
De Selby produced a solitary cigarette of his own and lit it. How had he inferred that Mick did not smoke?
– At worst, he said in a tone one might call oracular, Descartes was a solipsist. Another weakness of his was a liking for the Jesuits. He was very properly derided for regarding space as a plenum. It is a coincidence, of course, but I have made the parallel but undoubted discovery that time is a plenum.
– What does that mean? Hackett asked.
– One might describe a plenum as a phenomenon or existence full of itself but inert. Obviously space does not satisfy such a condition. But time is a plenum, immobile, immutable, ineluctable, irrevocable, a condition of absolute stasis. Time does not pass. Change and movement may occur within time.
Mick pondered this. Comment seemed pointless. There seemed no little straw to clutch at; nothing to question.
– Mr De Selby, he ventured at last, it would seem impertinent of the like of me to offer criticism or even opinions on what I apprehend as purely abstract propositions. I’m afraid I harbour the traditional idea and experience of time. For instance, if you permit me to drink enough of this whiskey, by which I mean too much, I’m certain to undergo unmistakable temporal punishment. My stomach, liver and nervous system will be wrecked in the morning.
– To say nothing of the dry gawks, Hackett added. De Selby laughed civilly.
– That would be a change to which time, of its nature, is quite irrelevant.
– Possibly, Hackett replied, but that academic observation will in no way mitigate the reality of the pain.
– A tincture, De Selby said, again rising with the bottle and once more adding generously to the three glasses. You must excuse me for a moment or two.
Needless to say, Hackett and Mick looked at each other in some wonder when he had left the room.
– This malt seems to be superb, Hackett observed, but would he have dope or something in it?
– Why should there be? He’s drinking plenty of it himself.
– Maybe he’s gone away to give himself a dose of some antidote. Or an emetic.
Mick shook his head genuinely.
– He’s a strange bird, he said, but I don’t think he’s off his head, or a public danger.
– You’re certain he’s not derogatory?
– Yes. Call him eccentric.
Hackett rose and gave himself a hasty extra shot from the bottle, which in turn Mick repelled with a gesture. He lit another cigarette.
– Well, he said, I suppose we should not overstay our welcome. Perhaps we should go. What do you say?
Mick nodded. The experience had been curious and not to be regretted; and it could perhaps lead to other interesting things or even people. How commonplace, he reflected, were all the people he did know.
When De Selby returned he carried a tray with plates, knives, a dish of butter and an ornate basket full of what seemed golden bread.
– Sit in to the table, lads – pull over your chairs, he said. This is merely what the Church calls a collation. These delightful wheaten farls were made by me, like the whiskey, but you must not think I’m like an ancient Roman emperor living in daily fear of being poisoned. I’m alone here, and it’s a long painful pilgrimage to the shops.
With a murmur of thanks the visitors started this modest and pleasant meal. De Selby himself took little and seemed preoccupied.
– Call me a theologian or a physicist as you will, he said at last rather earnestly, but I am serious and truthful. My discoveries concerning the nature of time were in fact quite accidental. The objective of my research was altogether different. My aim was utterly unconnected with the essence of time.
– Indeed? Hackett said rather coarsely as he coarsely munched. And what was the main aim?
– To destroy the whole world.
They stared at him. Hackett made a slight noise but De Selby’s face was set, impassive, grim.
– Well, well, Mick stammered.
– It merits destruction. Its history and prehistory, even its present, is a foul record of pestilence, famine, war, devastation and misery so terrible and multifarious that its depth and horror are unknown to any one man. Rottenness is universally endemic, disease is paramount. The human race is finally debauched and aborted.
– Mr De Selby, Hackett said with a want of gravity, would it be rude to ask just how you will destroy the world? You did not make it.
– Even you, Mr Hackett, have destroyed things you did not make. I do not care a farthing about who made the world or what the grand intention was, laudable or horrible. The creation is loathsome and abominable, and total extinction could not be worse.
Mick could see that Hackett’s attitude was provoking brusqueness whereas what was needed was elucidation. Even marginal exposition by De Selby would throw light on the important question – was he a true scientist or just demented?
– I can’t see, sir, Mick ventured modestly, how this world could be destroyed short of arranging a celestial collision between it and some other great heavenly body. How a man could interfere with the movements of the stars – I find that an insoluble puzzle, sir.
De Selby’s taut expression relaxed somewhat.
– Since our repast is finished, have another drink, he said, pushing forward the bottle. When I mentioned destroying the whole world, I was not referring to the physical planet but to every manner and manifestation of life on it. When my task is accomplished – and I feel that will be soon – nothing living, not even a blade of grass, a flea – will exist on this globe. Nor shall I exist myself, of course.
– And what about us? Hackett asked.
– You must participate in the destiny of all mankind, which is extermination.
– Guesswork is futile, Mr De Selby, Mick murmured, but could this plan of yours involve liquefying all the ice at the Poles and elsewhere and thus drowning everything, in the manner of the Flood in the Bible?
– No. The story of that Flood is just silly. We are told it was caused by a deluge of forty days and forty nights. All this water must have existed on earth before the rain started, for more can not come down than was taken up. Commonsense tells me that this is childish nonsense.
– That is merely a feeble rational quibble, Hackett cut in. He liked to show that he was alert.
– What then, sir, Mick asked in painful humility, is the secret, the supreme crucial secret?
De Selby gave a sort of grimace.
– It would be impossible for me, he explained, to give you gentlemen, who have no scientific training, even a glimpse into my studies and achievements in pneumatic chemistry. My work has taken up the best part of