Clarke, Arthur C - Fall of Night 02 (22 page)

 
          
 
"This planet is as dry as Earth," he
said dully. "Its water has all gone—those markings are the salt-beds where
the seas have evaporated."

 
          
 
"They would never have let that
happen," replied Theon. "I think that, after all, we are too
late."

 
          
 
His disappointment was so bitter that
Alvin
did not trust himself to speak again but
stared silently at the great world ahead. With impressive slowness the planet
turned beneath the ship, and its surface rose majestically to meet them. Now
they could see buildings—minute white incrustations everywhere save on the
ocean beds themselves.

 
          
 
Once this world had been the
center of the Universe.
Now it was still, the air was empty and on the
ground were none of the scurrying dots that spoke of life. Yet the ship was
still sliding purposefully over the frozen sea of stone—a sea which here and
there had gathered
itself
into great waves that
challenged the sky.

 
          
 
Presently the ship came to rest, as if the
robot had at last traced its memories to their source. Below them was a column
of snow-white stone springing from the center of an immense marble
amphitheater.
Alvin
waited for a little while: then, as the machine remained motionless, he
directed it to land at the foot of the pillar.

 
          
 
Even until now,
Alvin
had half hoped to find life on this planet.
That hope vanished instantly as he left the airlock. Never before in his life,
even in the desolation of Shalmirane, had he been in utter silence. On Earth
there was always the murmur of voices, the stir of living creatures, or the
sighing of the wind. Here were none of these, nor ever would be again.

 
          
 
Why the machine had brought them to this place
there was no way of telhng, but
Alvin
knew that the choice made Httle difference.
The great column of white stone was perhaps twenty times the height of a man,
and was set in a circle of metal slightly raised above the level of the plain.
It was featureless and of its purpose there was no hint. They might guess, but
they would never know, that it had once marked the zero point of all
astronomical measurements.

 
          
 
So this, thought
Alvin
sadly, was the end of all his searching. He
knew that it would be useless to visit the other worlds of the Seven Suns. Even
if there was still intelligence in the Universe, where could he seek it now? He
had seen the stars scattered like dust across the heavens, and he knew that
what was left of Time was not enough to explore them all.

 
          
 
Suddenly a feeling of loneliness and
oppression such as he had never before experienced seemed to overwhelm him. He
could understand now the fear of Diaspar for the great spaces of the Universe,
the terror that had made his people gather in the little microcosm of their
city. It was hard to admit that, after all, they had been right.

 
          
 
He turned to Theon for support, but Theon was
standing, hands tightly clenched, with his brow furrowed and a glazed look in
his eyes.

 
          
 
"What's the matter?"
Alvin
asked in alarm.

 
          
 
Theon was still staring into nothingness as he
replied.

 
          
 
"There's something coming. I think we'd
better go back to the ship."

 
          
 
The galaxy had turned many times upon its axis
since consciousness first came to Vanamonde. He could recall little of those
first eons and the creatures who had tended him then — but he could remember
still his desolation when they had gone at last and left him alone among the
stars. Down the ages since, he had wandered from sun to sun, slowly evolving
and increasing his powers. Once he had dreamed of finding again those who had
attended his birth, and though the dream had faded now, it had never wholly
died.

 
          
 
On countless worlds he had found the wreckage
that life had left behind, but intelligence he had discovered only once — and
from the Black Sun he had fled in terror. Yet the Universe was very large, and
the search had scarcely begun.

 
          
 
Far away though it was in space and time, the
great burst of power from the heart of the Galaxy beckoned to Vanamonde across
the light-years. It was utterly unlike the radiation of the stars, and it had
appeared in his field of consciousness as suddenly as a meteor trail across a
cloudless sky. He moved toward it, to the latest moment of its existence,
sloughing from him in the way he knew the dead, unchanging pattern of the past.

 
          
 
He knew this place, for he had been here
before. It had been lifeless then, but now it held intelligence. The long metal
shape lying upon the plain he could not understand, for it was as strange to
him as almost all the things of the physical world. Around it still
clung
the aura of power that had drawn him across the
Universe, but that was of no interest to him now. Carefully, with the delicate
nervousness of a wild beast half poised for flight, he reached out toward the
two minds he had discovered.

 
          
 
And then he knew that his long search was
ended.

 
          
 
How unthinkable, Rorden thought, this meeting
would have seemed only a few days ago. Although he was still technically under
a cloud, his presence was so obviously essential that no one had suggested
excluding him. The six visitors sat facing the Council, flanked on either side
by the co-opted members such as
himself
. This meant
that he could not see their faces, but the expressions opposite were
sufficiently instructive.

 
          
 
There was no doubt that
Alvin
had been right, and the Council was slowly
realizing the unpalatable truth. The delegates from
Lys
could think almost twice as quickly as the
finest minds in Diaspar. Nor was that their only advantage, for they also
showed an extraordinary degree of coordination which Rorden guessed must be due
to their telepathic powers. He wondered if they were reading the councillors'
thoughts, but decided that they would not have broken the solemn assurance
without which this meeting would have been impossible.

 
          
 
Rorden did not think that much progress had
been made: for that matter, he did not see how it could be.
Alvin
had gone into space, and nothing could
alter that. The Council, which had not yet fully accepted
Lys
, still seemed incapable of realizing what
had happened. But it was clearly frightened, and so were most of the visitors.

 
          
 
Rorden
himself
was
not as terrified as he had expected: his fears were still there, but he had
faced them at last. Something of
Alvin
's own recklessness—or was it courage?—had
changed his outlook and given him new horizons.

 
          
 
The President's question caught him unawares
but he recovered himself quickly.

 
          
 
"I think," he said, "
it's
sheer chance that this situation never arose before.
There was nothing we could have done to stop it, for events were always ahead
of us." Everyone knew that by "events" he meant
Alvin
, but there were no comments. "It's
futile to bicker about the past: Diaspar and
Lys
have both made mistakes. When
Alvin
returns, you may prevent him leaving Earth
again—if you can. I don't think you will succeed, for he may have learnt a
great deal by then. But if what you fear has happened, there's nothing any of
us can do about it. Earth is helpless—as she has been for millions of
centuries."

 
          
 
Rorden paused and glanced along the table. His
words had pleased no one, nor had he expected them to do so.

 
          
 
"Yet I don't see why we should be so
alarmed. Earth is in no greater danger now than she has always been. Why should
two boys in a single small ship bring the wrath of the Invaders down upon us
again? If we'll be honest with ourselves, we must admit that the Invaders could
have destroyed our world ages ago."

 
          
 
There was a shocked silence. This was
heresy—but Rorden was interested to notice that two of the visitors seemed to
approve.

 
          
 
The President interrupted, frowning heavily.

 
          
 
"Is there not a legend that the Invaders
spared Earth itself only on condition that Man never went into space again? And
have we not now broken those conditions?"

 
          
 
"Once I too believed that," said
Rorden. "We accept many things without question, and this is one of them.
But my machines know nothing of legend, only of truth—and there is no
historical record of such an agreement. I am convinced that anything so
important would have been permanently recorded, as many lesser matters have
been."

 
          
 
Alvin
, he thought, would have been proud of him
now. It was strange that he should be defending the boy's ideas, when if Alvin
himself had been present he might well have been attacking them. One at least
of his dreams had come true: the relationship between
Lys
and Diaspar was still unstable, but it was
a beginning. Where, he wondered, was
Alvin
now?

 
          
 
Alvin
had seen or heard nothing, but he did not
stop to argue. Only when the airlock had closed behind them did he turn to his
friend.

 
          
 
"What was it?" he asked a little
breathlessly.

 
          
 
"I don't know: it was something terrific.
I think it's still watching us."

 
          
 
"Shall we leave?"

 
          
 
"No: I was frightened at first, but I
don't think it will harm us. It seems simply—interested."

 
          
 
Alvin
was about to reply when he was suddenly
overwhelmed by a sensation unlike any he had ever known before. A warm,
tingling glow seemed to spread through his body: it lasted only a few seconds,
but when it was gone he was no longer Alvin of Loronei. Something was sharing
his brain, overlapping it as one circle may partly cover another. He was
conscious, also, of Theon's mind close at hand, equally entangled in whatever
creature had descended upon them. The sensation was strange rather than
unpleasant, and it gave
Alvin
his first glimpse of true telepathy—the power which in his race had so
degenerated
that it could now be used only to control
machines.

 
          
 
Alvin
had rebelled at once when Seranis had tried
to dominate his mind, but he did not struggle against this intrusion. It would
have been useless, and he knew that this intelligence, whatever it might be,
was not unfriendly. He relaxed completely, accepting without resistance the
fact that an infinitely greater intelligence than his own was exploring his
mind. But in that belief, he was not wholly right.