Clarke, Arthur C - Fall of Night 02 (7 page)

 
          
 
Now that the way lay open at last before him,
Alvin
felt a strange reluctance to leave the
familiar world of Diaspar. He began to discover that he himself was not immune
from the fears he had so often derided in others.

 
          
 
Once or twice Rorden had tried to dissuade
him, but the attempt had been halfhearted. It would have seemed strange to a
man of the Dawn Ages that neither Alvin nor Rorden saw any danger in what they
were doing. For millions of years the world had held nothing that could
threaten man, and even
Alvin
could not imagine types of human beings greatly different from those he
knew in Diaspar. That he might be detained against his will was a thought
wholly inconceivable to him. At the worst, he could only fail to discover
anything.

 
          
 
Three days later, they stood once more in the
deserted chamber of the moving ways. Beneath their feet the arrow of light
still pointed to
Lys
—and now they were ready to follow it.

 
          
 
As they stepped into the tunnel, they felt the
familiar tug of the peristaltic field and in a moment were being swept
effortlessly into the depths. The journey lasted scarcely half a minute: when
it ended they were standing at one end of a long, narrow chamber in the form of
a half-cylinder. At the far end, two dimly lit tunnels stretched away toward
infinity.

 
          
 
Men of almost every civilization that had
existed since the Dawn would have found their surroundings completely familiar:
yet to Alvin and Rorden they were a glimpse of another world. The purpose of
the long, streamlined machine that lay aimed like a projectile at the far
tunnel was obvious, but that made it nonetheless novel. Its upper portion was
transparent, and looking through the walls Alvin could see rows of luxuriously
appointed seats. There was no sign of any entrance, and the whole machine was
floating about a foot above a single metal rod that stretched away into the
distance, disappearing in one of the tunnels. A few yards away another rod led
to the second tunnel, but no machine floated above it. Alvin knew, as surely as
if he had been told, that somewhere beneath unknown, far-off Lys, that second
machine was waiting in another such chamber as this.

 
          
 
"Well," said Rorden, rather lamely,
"are you ready?"

 
          
 
Alvin nodded.

 
          
 
"I wish you'd come," he said—and at
once regretted it when he saw the disquiet on the other's face. Rorden was the
closest friend he had ever possessed, but he could never break through the
barriers that surrounded
all his
race.

 
          
 
"I'll be back within six hours,"
Alvin promised, speaking with difficulty, for there was a mysterious tightness
in his throat. "Don't bother to wait for me. If I get back early I'll call
you—there must be some communicators around here."

 
          
 
It was all very casual and matter-of-fact,
Alvin told himself. Yet he could not help jumping when the walls of the machine
faded and the beautifully designed interior lay open before his eyes.

 
          
 
Rorden was speaking, rather quickly and
jerkily.

 
          
 
"You'll have no difficulty in controlling
the machine," he said. "Did you see how it obeyed that thought of
mine? I should get inside quickly in case the time delay is fixed."

 
          
 
Alvin stepped aboard, placing his belongings
on the nearest seat. He turned to face Rorden, who was standing in the barely
visible frame of the doorway. For a moment there was a strained silence while
each waited for the other to speak.

 
          
 
The decision was made for them. There was a
faint flicker of translucence, and the walls of the machine had closed again.
Even as Rorden began to wave farewell, the long cylinder started to ease itself
forward. Before it had entered the tunnel, it was already moving faster than a
man could run.

 
          
 
Slowly Rorden made his way back to the chamber
of the moving ways with its great central pillar. Sunlight was streaming down
the open shaft as he rose to the surface. When he emerged again into the Tomb
of Yarlan Zey, he was disconcerted, though not surprised, to find a group of
curious onlookers gathered around him.

 
          
 
"There's no need to be alarmed," he
said gravely. "Someone has to do this every few thousand years, though it
hardly seems necessary. The foundations of the city are perfectly stable—they
haven't shifted a micron since the Park was built."

 
          
 
He walked briskly away, and as he left the
tomb a quick backward glance showed him that the spectators were already
dispersing. Rorden knew his fellow citizens well enough to be sure that they
would think no more about the incident.

 
          
 
Alvin settled back on the upholstery and let
his eyes wander round the interior of the machine. For the first time he
noticed the indicator board that formed part of the forward wall. It carried
the simple message:

 
          
 
LYS 35 MINUTES

 
          
 
Even as he watched, the number changed to
"34." That at least was useful information, though because he had no
idea of the machine's speed it told him nothing about the length of the journey.
The walls of the tunnel were one continual blur of gray, and the only sensation
of movement was a very slight vibration he would never have noticed had he not
been expecting it.

 
          
 
Diaspar must be many miles away by
now,
and above him would be the desert with its shifting
sand dunes. Perhaps at this very moment he was racing beneath the broken hills
he had watched as a child from the Tower of Loranne.

 
          
 
His thoughts came back to
Lys
, as they had done continually for the past
few days. He wondered if it still existed, and once again assured himself that
not otherwise would the machine be carrying him there. What sort of city would
it be? Somehow the strongest effort of his imagination could only picture
another and smaller version of Diaspar.

 
          
 
Suddenly there was a distinct change in the
vibration of the machine. It was slowing down—there was no question of that.
The time must have passed more quickly than he had thought: somewhat surprised,
Alvin glanced at the indicator.

 
          
 
LYS 23 MINUTES

 
          
 
Feeling very puzzled, and a little worried, he
pressed his face against the side of the machine. His speed was still blurring
the walls of the tunnel into a featureless gray, yet now from time to time he
could catch a glimpse of markings that disappeared almost as quickly as they
came. And at each appearance, they seemed to remain in his field of vision for
a little longer.

 
          
 
Then, without any warning, the walls of the
tunnel were snatched away on either side. The machine was passing, still at a
very great speed, through an enormous empty space, far larger even than the
chamber of the moving ways.

 
          
 
Peering in wonder through the transparent
walls, Alvin could glimpse beneath him an intricate network of guiding rods,
rods that crossed and crisscrossed to disappear into a maze of tunnels on
either side. Overhead, a long row of artificial suns flooded the chamber with
light, and silhouetted against the glare he could just make out the frameworks
of great carrying machines. The light was so brilliant that it pained the eyes,
and Alvin knew that this place had not been intended for Man. What it was
intended for became clear a moment later, when his vehicle flashed past row
after row of cylinders, lying motionless above their guide-rails. They were
larger than the machine in which he was traveling, and Alvin realized that they
must be freight transporters. Around them were grouped incomprehensible
machines, all silent and stilled.

 
          
 
Almost as quickly as it had appeared, the vast
and lonely chamber vanished behind him. Its passing left a feeling of awe in
Alvin's mind: for the first time he really understood the meaning of that
great, darkened map below Diaspar. The world was
more full
of wonder than he had ever dreamed.

 
          
 
Alvin glanced again at the indicator. It had
not changed: he had taken less than a minute to flash through the great cavern.
The machine was accelerating again, although there was still no sense of
motion. But on either side the tunnel walls were flowing past at a speed he
could not even guess.

 
          
 
It seemed an age before that indefinable
change of vibration occurred again. Now the indicator was reading:

 
          
 
LYS 1 MINUTE

 
          
 
and
that minute was
the longest Alvin had ever known. More and more slowly moved the machine: this
was no mere slackening of its speed. It was coming to rest at last.

 
          
 
Smoothly and silently the long cylinder slid
out of the tunnel into a cavern that might have been the twin of the one
beneath Diaspar. For a moment Alvin was too excited to see anything clearly.
His thoughts were jumbled and he could not even control the door, which opened
and closed several times before he pulled himself together. As he jumped out of
the machine, he caught a last glimpse of the indicator. Its wording had changed
and there was something about its message that was very reassuring:

 
          
 
DIASPAR 35 MINUTES

 
          
 
It had been as simple as that. No one could
have guessed that he had made a journey as fateful as any in the history of
Man.

 
          
 
As he began to search for a way out of the
chamber, Alvin found the first sign that he was in a civilization very
different from the one he had left. The way to the surface clearly lay through
a low, wide tunnel at one end of the cavern—and leading up through the tunnel
was a flight of steps. Such a thing was almost unknown in Diaspar. The machines
disliked stairways, and the architects of the city had built ramps or sloping
corridors wherever there was a change of level. Was it possible that there were
no machines in Lys? The idea was so fantastic that Alvin dismissed it at once.

 
          
 
The stairway was very short, and ended against
doors that opened at his approach. As they closed silently behind him, Alvin
found himself in a large cubical room which appeared to have no other exit. He
stood for a moment, a little puzzled, and then began to examine the opposite
wall. As he did so, the doors through which he had entered opened once more.
Feeling somewhat annoyed, Alvin left the room again—to find himself looking
along a vaulted corridor rising slowly to an archway that framed a semicircle
of sky. He realized that he must have risen many hundreds of feet, but there
had been no sensation of movement. Then he hurried forward up the slope to the
sunlit opening.

 
          
 
He was standing at the brow of a low hill, and
for an instant it seemed as if he
were
once again in
the central park of Diaspar. Yet if this was indeed a park, it was too enormous
for his mind to grasp. The city he had expected to see was nowhere visible. As
far as the eye could reach there was nothing but forest and grass-covered
plains.