Clarke, Arthur C - Fall of Night 02 (20 page)

 
          
 
It was difficult to say who was the most
surprised, but Alvin was the first to recover. As they walked—very nearly
running—toward the spaceship, he wondered if it normally traveled in this
abrupt fashion. The thought was disconcerting, although there had been no
sensation of movement on his first voyage. Considerably more puzzling, however,
was the fact that the day before this resplendent creature had been hidden
beneath a thick layer of iron-hard rock. Not until Alvin had reached the ship,
and burned his fingers by incautiously resting them on the hull, did he
understand what had happened. Near the stern there were still traces of earth,
but it had been fused into lava. All the rest had been swept away, leaving
uncovered the stubborn metal which neither time nor any natural force could
ever touch.

 
          
 
With Theon by his side,
Alvin
stood in the open door and looked back at
the three silent councillors. He wondered what they were thinking, but their
expressions gave no hint of their thoughts.

 
          
 
"I have a debt to pay in Shalmirane,"
he said. "Please tell Seranis we'll be back by noon."

 
          
 
The councillors watched until the ship, now
moving quite slowly—for it had only a little way to go—had disappeared into the
south. Then the young man who led the group shrugged his shoulders
philosophically.

 
          
 
"You've always opposed us for wanting
change," he said, "and so far you've won. But I don't think the
future lies with either of our parties now. Lys and Diaspar have both come to
the end of an era, and we must make the best of it."

 
          
 
There was silence for a little while. Then one
of his companions spoke in a very thoughtful voice.

 
          
 
"I know nothing of archeology, but surely
that machine was too large to be an ordinary flyer. Do you think it could
possibly have been—
"

 
          
 
"A spaceship?
If so, this is a crisis!"

 
          
 
The third man had also been thinking deeply.

 
          
 
"The disappearance of both flyers and
spaceships is one of the greatest mysteries of the Interregnum. That machine
may be either: for the moment we had better assume the worst. If it is in fact
a spaceship, we must at all costs prevent that boy from leaving Earth. There is
the danger that he may attract the Invaders again. That would be the end."

 
          
 
A gloomy silence settled over the company
until the leader spoke again.

 
          
 
"That machine came from Diaspar," he
said slowly. "Someone there must know the truth. I think we had better get
in touch with our cousins—if they'll condescend to speak to us."

 
          
 
Sooner than he had any right to expect, the
seed that Alvin had planted was beginning to flower.

 
          
 
The mountains were still swimming in shadow
when they reached Shalmirane. From their height the great bowl of the fortress
looked very small: it seemed impossible that the fate of Earth had once
depended on that tiny ebon disk.

 
          
 
When Alvin brought the ship to rest among the
ruins, the desolation crowded upon him, chilling his soul. There was no sign of
the old man or his machines, and they had some difficulty in finding the
entrance to the tunnel. At the top of the stairway Alvin shouted to give
warning of their arrival: there was no reply and they moved quietly forward, in
case he was asleep.

 
          
 
Sleeping he was, his hands folded peacefully
upon his breast. His eyes were open, staring sightlessly up at the massive
roof, as if they could see through to the stars beyond. There was a slight
smile upon his lips: Death had not come to him as an enemy.

 
          
 
The two robots were beside him, floating
motionless in the air. When Alvin tried to approach the body, their tentacles
reached out to restrain him, so he came no nearer. There was nothing he could
do: as he stood in that silent room he felt an icy wind sweep through his
heart. It was the first time he had looked upon the marble face of Death, and
he knew that something of his childhood had passed forever.

 
          
 
So this was the end of that strange
brotherhood, perhaps the last of its kind the world would know. Deluded though
they might have been, these men's lives had not been wholly wasted. As if by a
miracle they had saved from the past knowledge that else would have been lost
forever. Now their order could go the way of a million other faiths that had
once thought themselves eternal.

 
          
 
They left him sleeping in his tomb among the
mountains, where no man would disturb him until the end of Time. Guarding his
body were the machines which had served him in life and which, Alvin knew,
would never leave him now. Locked to his mind, they would wait here for the
commands that could never come, until the mountains themselves had crumbled
away.

 
          
 
The little four-legged animal which had once
served man with the same devotion had been extinct too long for the boys ever
to have heard of it.

 
          
 
They walked in silence back to the waiting
ship, and presently the fortress was once more a dark lake among the hills. But
Alvin did nothing to check the machine: still they rose until the whole of Lys
lay
spread beneath them, a great green island in an orange
sea. Never before had Alvin been so high: when finally they came to rest the
whole crescent of the Earth was visible below. Lys was very small now, only a
dark shadow against the gray and orange of the desert—but far around the curve
of the globe something was glittering like a many-colored jewel. And thus for
the first time Theon saw the city of Diaspar.

 
          
 
They sat for a long time watching the Earth
turn beneath them. Of all Man's ancient powers this surely was the one he could
least afford to lose. Alvin wished he could show the world as he saw it now to
the rulers of Lys and Diaspar.

 
          
 
"Theon," he said at last, "do
you think that what I'm doing is right?"

 
          
 
The question surprised Theon, who as yet knew
nothing of the sudden doubts that sometimes overwhelmed his friend. Nor was it
easy to answer dispassionately: like Rorden, though with less cause, Theon felt
that his own character was becoming submerged. He was being sucked helplessly
into the vortex which Alvin left behind him on his way through life.

 
          
 
"I believe you are right," Theon
answered slowly. "Our two peoples have been separated for long
enough." That, he thought, was true, though he knew that his own feelings
must bias his reply. But Alvin was still worried.

 
          
 
"There's one problem I haven't thought
about until now," he continued in a troubled voice, "and that's the
difference in our life-spans." He said no more, but each knew what the
other was thinking.

 
          
 
"I've been worrying about that a good
deal," Theon admitted, "but I think the problem will solve itself
when our people get to know each other again. We can't both be right—our lives
may be too short and yours are certainly too long. In time there will be a
compromise."

 
          
 
Alvin wondered. That way, it was true, lay the
only hope, but the ages of transition would be hard indeed. He remembered again
those bitter words of Seranis: 'We shall both be dead when you are still a boy.
"Very well: he would accept the conditions. Even in Diaspar all
friendships lay under the same shadow: whether it was a hundred or a million
years away made little difference at the end. The welfare of the race demanded
the mingling of the two cultures: in such a cause individual happiness was
unimportant. For a moment Alvin saw humanity as something more than the living
background of his own life, and he accepted without
flinching
the unhappiness his choice must one day bring. They never spoke of it again.

 
          
 
Beneath them the world continued on its
endless turning. Sensing his friend's mood, Theon said nothing, and presently
Alvin broke the silence again.

 
          
 
"When I first left Diaspar," he
said, "I did not know what I hoped to find. Lys would have satisfied me
once—but now everything on Earth seems so small and unimportant. Each discovery
I've made has raised bigger questions and now I'll never be content until I
know who the Master was and why he came to Earth. If I ever learn that, then I
suppose I'll start to worry about the Great Ones and the Invaders—and so it
will go on."

 
          
 
Theon had never seen Alvin in so thoughtful a
mood and did not wish to interrupt his soliloquy. He had learned a great deal
about his friend in the last few minutes.

 
          
 
"The robot told me," Alvin
continued, "that this machine can reach the Seven Suns in less than half a
day. Do you think I should go?"

 
          
 
"Do you think I could stop you?"
Theon replied quietly.

 
          
 
Alvin smiled.

 
          
 
"That's no answer," he said,
"even if it's true. We don't know what's out there in space. The Invaders
may have left the Universe, but there may be other intelligences unfriendly to
Man
."

 
          
 
"Why should there be?" Theon asked.
"That's one of the questions our philosophers have been debating for ages.
A truly intelligent race is not likely to be unfriendly."

 
          
 
"But the
Invaders—?"

 
          
 
Theon pointed to the unending deserts below.

 
          
 
"Once we had an Empire. What have we now
that they would covet?"

 
          
 
Alvin was a little surprised at this novel
point of view.

 
          
 
"Do all your people think like
this?"

 
          
 
"Only a minority.
The average person doesn't worry about it, but would probably say that if the
Invaders really wanted to destroy Earth they'd have done it ages ago. Only a
few people, like Mother, are still afraid of them."

 
          
 
"Things are very different in
Diaspar," Alvin said. "My people are great cowards. But it's
unfortunate about your Mother—do you think she would stop you coming with
me?"

 
          
 
"She most certainly would," Theon
replied with emphasis. That Alvin had taken his own assent for granted he
scarcely noticed.

 
          
 
Alvin thought for a moment.

 
          
 
"By now she'll have heard about this ship
and will know what I intend to do. We mustn't return to Airlee."

 
          
 
"No: that wouldn't be
safe.
But I have a better plan."

 
          
 
The little village in which they landed was
only a dozen miles from Airlee, but Alvin was surprised to see how greatly it
differed in architecture and setting. The houses were several stories in height
and had been built along the curve of a lake, looking out across the water. A
large number of brightly colored vessels were floating at anchor along the
shore: they fascinated Alvin, who had never heard of such things and wondered
what they were for.