Genesis

by Bernard Beckett

Plato was an old man by this stage, and Helena was dead. Plato’s lieutenant, a woman who went by the name of Aristotle, was clearly making the decisions. Her personal notes, logged regularly throughout this period, show that she was well aware of the ideas that were taking hold. In one memo to Plato, dating four months before Adam’s trial, she wrote: We wish for the people to serve the state above themselves, but we have been slow to realise the limits of this equation. Even the tamest animal will turn sour if we neglect its needs. The people no longer believe in the threat, which once hovered over them, and they have grown used to the level of sustenance with which they are provided. They have become complacent and their thoughts have turned to other things. There is a whisper in the communes. It is a living thing; twisting and growing but hiding itself from view. The people are talking of choice, of opportunity, and of freedom. The people are talking of changing their world.