Clarke, Arthur C - Fall of Night 02 (12 page)

 
          
 
"Why can't you leave me in peace? You
know how often I've asked to be left alone!"

 
          
 
Theon, usually good-natured, bristled visibly.

 
          
 
"We're from Airlee, and we don't know
anything about Shalmirane."

 
          
 
"Besides,"
Alvin
added reproachfully, "we saw your
light and thought you might be signaling for help."

 
          
 
It was strange to hear so human a sigh from
the coldly impersonal machine.

 
          
 
"A million times I must have signaled
now, and all I have ever done is to draw the inquisitive from
Lys
. But I see you meant no harm. Follow
me."

 
          
 
The machine floated slowly away over the
broken stones, coming to rest before a dark opening in the ruined wall of the
amphitheater. In the shadow of the cave something moved, and a human figure
stepped into the sunlight. He was the first physically old man
Alvin
had ever seen. His head was completely
bald, but a thick growth of pure white hair covered all the lower part of his
face. A cloak of woven glass was thrown carelessly over his shoulders, and on
either side of him floated two more of the strange, many-eyed machines.

 
          
 
There was a brief silence while each side
regarded the other. Then the old man spoke—and the three machines echoed his
voice for a moment until something switched them off.

 
          
 
"So you are from the North, and your
people have already forgotten Shalmirane."

 
          
 
"Oh, no!" said Theon quickly.
"We've not forgotten. But we weren't sure that anyone still lived here,
and we certainly didn't know that you wished to be left alone."

 
          
 
The old man did not reply. Moving with a
slowness that was painful to watch, he hobbled through the doorway and
disappeared, the three machines floating silently after him. Alvin and Theon
looked at each other in surprise: they did not like to follow, but their
dismissal—if dismissal it was—had certainly been brusque. They were starting to
argue the matter when one of the machines suddenly reappeared.

 
          
 
"What are you waiting for? Come along!"
it ordered. Then it vanished again.

 
          
 
Alvin
shrugged his shoulders.

 
          
 
"We appear to be invited. I think our
host's a little eccentric, but he seems friendly."

 
          
 
From the opening in the wall a wide spiral
stairway led downward for a score of feet. It ended in a small circular room
from which several corridors radiated. However, there was no possibility of
confusion, for all the passages save one were blocked with debris.

 
          
 
Alvin and Theon had walked only a few yards
when they found themselves in a large and incredibly untidy room cluttered up
with a bewildering variety of objects. One end of the chamber was occupied by
domestic machines—synthesizers, destructors, cleaning equipment and the
like—which one normally expected to be concealed from sight in the walls and
floors. Around these were piled cases of thought records and transcribers,
forming pyramids that reached almost to the ceiling. The whole room was
uncomfortably hot owing to the presence of a dozen perpetual fires scattered
about the floor. Attracted by the radiation, Krif flew toward the nearest of
the metal spheres, stretched his wings luxuriously before it, and fell
instantly asleep.

 
          
 
It was a little while before the boys noticed
the old man and his three machines waiting for them in a small open space which
reminded
Alvin
of a clearing in the jungle. There was a
certain amount of furniture here—a table and three comfortable couches. One of
these was old and shabby, but the others were so conspicuously new that
Alvin
was certain they had been created in the
last few minutes. Even as he watched, the familiar warning glow of the
synthesizer field flickered over the table and their host waved silently toward
it. They thanked him formally and began to sample the food and drink that had
suddenly appeared.
Alvin
realized that he had grown a little tired of the unvarying output from
Theon's portable synthesizer and the change was very welcome.

 
          
 
They ate in silence for a while, stealing a
glance now and then at the old man. He seemed sunk in his own thoughts and
appeared to have forgotten them completely—but as soon as they had finished he
looked up and began to question them. When
Alvin
explained that he was a native not of
Lys
but of Diaspar, the old fellow showed no
particular surprise. Theon did his best to deal with the queries: for one who
disliked visitors, their host seemed very anxious to have news of the outer
world.
Alvin
quickly decided that his earlier attitude
must have been a pose.

 
          
 
Presently he fell silent again. The two boys
waited with what patience they could: he had told them nothing of himself or
what he was doing in Shalmirane. The light-signal that had drawn them there was
still
as great a mystery as ever, yet they did not
care to ask outright for an explanation. So they sat in an uncomfortable
silence, their eyes wandering round that amazing room, finding something new
and unexpected at every moment. At last
Alvin
broke into the old man's reverie.

 
          
 
"We must leave soon," he remarked.

 
          
 
It was not a statement so much as a hint. The
wrinkled face turned toward him but the eyes were still very far away. Then the
tired, infinitely ancient voice began to speak. It was so quiet and low that at
first they could scarcely hear: after a while the old man must have noticed their
difficulty, for of a sudden the three machines began once more to echo his
words.

 
          
 
Much that he told them they could never
understand. Sometimes he used words which were unknown to them: at other times
he spoke as if repeating sentences or whole speeches that others must have
written long ago. But the main outlines of the story were clear, and they took
Alvin
's thoughts back to the ages of which he had
dreamed since his childhood.

 
          
 
The tale began, like so many others, amid the
chaos of the Transition Centuries, when the Invaders had gone but the world was
still recovering from its wounds. At that time there appeared in
Lys
the man who later became known as the
Master. He was accompanied by three strange machines—the very ones that were
watching them now—which acted as his servants and also possessed definite
intelligences of their own. His origin was a secret he never disclosed, and
eventually it was assumed that he had come from space, somehow penetrating the
blockade of the Invaders. Far away among the stars there might still be islands
of humanity which the tide of war had not yet engulfed.

 
          
 
The Master and his machines possessed powers
which the world had lost, and around him he gathered a group of men to whom he
taught much wisdom. His personality must have been a very striking one, and
Alvin
could understand dimly the magnetism that
had drawn so many to him. From the dying cities, men had come to
Lys
in their thousands, seeking rest and peace
of mind after the years of confusion. Here among the forests and mountains,
Hstening to the Master's words, they found that peace at last.

 
          
 
At the close of his long life the Master had
asked his friends to carry him out into the open so that he could watch the
stars. He had waited, his strength waning, until the culmination of the Seven
Suns. As he died the resolution with which he had kept his secret so long
seemed to weaken, and he babbled many things of which countless books were to
be written in future ages. Again and again he spoke of the "Great
Ones" who had now left the world but who would surely one day return, and
he charged his followers to remain to greet them when they came. Those were his
last rational words. He was never again conscious of his surroundings, but just
before the end he uttered one phrase that revealed part at least of his secret
and had come down the ages to haunt the minds of all who heard it: "/f is
lovely to watch the colored shadows on the planets of eternal light
. "
Then he died.

 
          
 
So
arose
the religion
of the Great Ones, for a religion it now became. At the Master's death many of
his followers broke away, but others remained faithful to his teachings, which
they slowly elaborated through the ages. At first they believed that the Great
Ones, whoever they were, would soon return to Earth, but that hope faded with
the passing centuries. Yet the brotherhood continued, gathering new members
from the lands around, and slowly its strength and power increased until it
dominated the whole of
Southern Lys
.

 
          
 
It was very hard for
Alvin
to follow the old man's narrative. The
words were used so strangely that he could not tell what was truth and what
legend—if, indeed, the story held any truth at all. He had only a confused
picture of generations of fanatical men, waiting for some great event which
they did not understand to take place at some unknown future date.

 
          
 
The Great Ones never returned. Slowly the
power of the movement failed, and the people of
Lys
drove it into the mountains until it took
refuge in Shalmirane. Even then the watchers did not lose their faith, but
swore that however long the wait they would be ready when the Great Ones came.
Long ago men had learned one way of defying Time, and the knowledge had
survived when so much else had been lost. Leaving only a few of their number to
watch over Shalmirane, the rest went into the dreamless sleep of suspended
animation.

 
          
 
Their numbers slowly falling as sleepers were
awakened to replace those who died, the watchers kept faith with the Master.
From his dying words it seemed certain that the Great Ones lived on the planets
of the Seven Suns, and in later years attempts were made to send signals into
space. Long ago the signaling had become no more than a meaningless ritual, and
now the story was nearing its end. In a very little while only the three
machines would be left in Shalmirane, watching over the bones of the men who
had come here so long ago in a cause that they alone could understand.

 
          
 
The thin voice died away, and
Alvin
's thoughts returned to the world he knew. More
than ever before the extent of his ignorance overwhelmed him. A tiny fragment
of the past had been illuminated for a little while, but now the darkness had
closed over it again.

 
          
 
The world's history was a mass of such
disconnected threads, and none could say which were important and which were
trivial. This fantastic tale of the Master and the Great Ones might be no more
than another of the countless legends that had somehow survived from the
civilizations of the Dawn. Yet the three machines were unlike any that
Alvin
had ever seen. He could not dismiss the
whole story, as he had been tempted to do, as a fable built of self-delusion
upon a foundation of madness.