Clarke, Arthur C - Fall of Night 02 (8 page)

 
          
 
Then Alvin lifted his eyes to the horizon, and
there above the trees, sweeping from right to left in a great arc that
encircled the world, was a line of stone which would have dwarfed the mightiest
giants of Diaspar. It was so far away that its details were blurred by sheer
distance, but there was something about its outlines that Alvin found puzzling.
Then his eyes became at last accustomed to the scale of that colossal
landscape, and he knew that those far-off walls had not been built by Man.

 
          
 
Time had not conquered everything: Earth still
possessed mountains of which she could be proud.

 
          
 
For a long time Alvin stood at the mouth of
the tunnel, growing slowly accustomed to the strange world in which he had found
himself.
Search as he might, nowhere could he see any trace
of human life.
Yet the road that led down the hillside seemed well kept:
he could do no more than accept its guidance.

 
          
 
At the foot of the hill, the road disappeared
between great trees that almost hid the sun. As Alvin walked into their shadow,
a strange medley of scents and sounds greeted him. The rustle of the wind among
the leaves he had known before, but underlying that were a thousand vague
noises that conveyed nothing to his mind. Unknown odors assailed him, smells
that had been lost even to the memory of his race. The warmth, the profusion of
scent and color, and the unseen presences of a million living things, smote him
with almost physical violence.

 
          
 
He came upon the lake without any warning. The
trees to the right suddenly ended, and before him was a great expanse of water,
dotted with tiny islands. Never in his life had Alvin seen such quantities of
the precious liquid: he walked to the edge of the lake and let the warm water
trickle through his fingers.

 
          
 
The great silver fish that suddenly forced its
way through the underwater reeds was the first nonhuman creature he had ever
seen.

 
          
 
As it hung in nothingness, its fins a faint
blur of motion, Alvin wondered why its shape was so startHngly familiar. Then
he remembered the records that Jeserac had shown him as a child, and knew where
he had seen those graceful lines before. Logic told him that the resemblance
could only be accidental—but logic was wrong.

 
          
 
All through the ages, artists had been
inspired by the urgent beauty of the great ships driving from world to world.
Once there had been craftsmen who had worked, not with crumbling
metal or decaying stone, but with the most imperishable of all materials— flesh
and blood and bone.
Though they and
all their
race had been utterly forgotten, one of their dreams had survived the ruins of
cities and the wreck of continents.

 
          
 
At last Alvin broke the lake's enchantment and
continued along the winding road. The forest closed around him once more, but
only for a little while. Presently the road ended, in a great clearing perhaps
half a mile wide and twice as long. Now Alvin understood why he had seen no
trace of man before.

 
          
 
The clearing was full of low, two-storied
buildings, colored in soft shades that rested the eye even in the full glare of
the sun. They were of clean, straightforward design, but several were built in
a complex architectural style involving the use of fluted columns and
gracefully fretted stone. In these buildings, which seemed of great age, the
immeasurably ancient device of the pointed arch was used.

 
          
 
As he walked slowly toward the village, Alvin
was still struggling to grasp his new surroundings. Nothing was familiar: even
the air had changed. And the tall, golden-haired people coming and going among
the buildings were very different from the languid citizens of Diaspar.

 
          
 
Alvin had almost reached the village when he
saw a group of men coming purposefully toward him. He felt a sudden, heady
excitement and the blood pounded in his veins. For an instant there flashed
through his mind the memory of all Man's fateful meetings with other races.
Then he came to a halt, a few feet away from the others.

 
          
 
They seemed surprised to see him, yet not as
surprised as he had expected. Very quickly he understood why. The leader of the
party extended his hand in the ancient gesture of friendship.

 
          
 
"We thought it best to meet you
here," he said. "Our home is very different from Diaspar, and the
walk from the terminus gives visitors a chance to become—acclimatized."

 
          
 
Alvin accepted the outstretched hand, but for
a moment was too astonished to reply.

 
          
 
"You knew I was coming?" he gasped
at length.

 
          
 
"We always know when the carriers start
to move. But we did not expect anyone so young. How did you discover the
way?"

 
          
 
"I think we'd better restrain our
curiosity, Gerane. Seranis is waiting."

 
          
 
The name "Seranis" was preceded by a
word unfamiliar to Alvin. It somehow conveyed an impression of affection,
tempered with respect.

 
          
 
Gerane agreed with the speaker and the party
began to move into the village. As they walked, Alvin studied the faces around
him. They appeared kindly and intelligent: there were none of the signs of
boredom, mental strife, and faded brilliance he might have found in a similar
group in his own city. To his broadening mind, it seemed that they possessed
all that his own people had lost. When they smiled, which was often, they
revealed lines of ivory teeth—the pearls that Man had lost and won and lost
again in the long story of evolution.

 
          
 
The people of the village watched with frank
curiosity as Alvin followed his guides. He was amazed to see not a few
children, who stared at him in grave surprise. No other single fact brought
home to him so vividly his remoteness from the world he knew. Diaspar had paid,
and paid in full, the price of immortality.

 
          
 
The party halted before the largest building
Alvin had yet seen. It stood in the center of the village and from a flagpole
on its small circular tower a green pennant floated along the breeze.

 
          
 
All but Gerane dropped behind as he entered
the building. Inside it was quiet and cool: sunlight filtering through the
translucent walls lit up everything with a soft, restful glow. The floor was
smooth and resilient, inlaid with fine mosaics. On the walls, an artist of
great ability and power had depicted a set of forest scenes. Mingled with these
paintings were other murals which conveyed nothing to Alvin's mind, yet were
attractive and pleasant to look upon. Let into the wall was something he had
hardly expected to see—a visiphone receiver, beautifully made, its idle screen
filled with a maze of shifting colors.

 
          
 
They walked together up a short circular
stairway that led them out on the flat roof of the building. From this point,
the entire village was visible, and Alvin could see that it consisted of about
a hundred buildings. In the distance the trees opened out into wide meadows: he
could see animals in some of the fields but his knowledge of biology was too slight
for him to guess at their nature.

 
          
 
In the shadow of the tower, two people were
sitting together at a desk, watching him intently. As they rose to greet him,
Alvin saw that one was a stately, very handsome woman whose golden hair was
shot through with wisps of gray. This, he knew, must be Seranis. Looking into
her eyes, he could sense that wisdom and depth of experience he felt when he
was with Rorden and, more rarely, with Jeserac.

 
          
 
The other was a boy a little older than
himself
in appearance, and Alvin needed no second glance to
tell that Seranis must be his mother. The clear-cut features were the same,
though the eyes held only friendliness and not that almost frightening wisdom.
The hair too was different—black instead of gold—but no one could have mistaken
the relationship between them.

 
          
 
Feeling a little overawed, Alvin turned to his
guide for support— but Gerane had already vanished. Then Seranis smiled, and
his nervousness left him.

 
          
 
"Welcome to Lys," she said. "I
am Seranis, and this is my son Theon, who will one day take my place. You are
the youngest who has ever come to us from Diaspar: tell me how you found the
way."

 
          
 
Haltingly at first, and then with increasing
confidence, Alvin began his story. Theon followed his words eagerly, for Diaspar
must have been as strange to him as Lys had been to Alvin. But Seranis, Alvin
could see, knew all that he was telling her, and once or twice she asked
questions which showed that in some things at least her knowledge went beyond
his own. When he had finished there was silence for a while. Then Seranis
looked at him and said quietly:

 
          
 
"Why did you come to Lys?"

 
          
 
"I wanted to explore the world," he
replied. "Everyone told me that there was only desert beyond the city, but
I wanted to make sure for myself."

 
          
 
The eyes of Seranis were full of sympathy and
even sadness when she spoke again:

 
          
 
"And was that the only reason?"

 
          
 
Alvin hesitated. When he answered, it was not
the explorer who spoke, but the boy not long removed from childhood.

 
          
 
"No," he said slowly, "it
wasn't the only reason, though I did not know until now. I was lonely."

 
          
 
"Lonely?
In
Diaspar?"

 
          
 
"Yes," said Alvin. "I am the
only child to be born there for seven thousand years."

 
          
 
Those wonderful eyes were still upon him, and,
looking into their depths, Alvin had the sudden conviction that Seranis could
read his mind. Even as the thought came, he saw an expression of amused
surprise pass across her face—and knew that his guess had been correct. Once
both men and machines had possessed this power, and the unchanging machines
could still read their masters' orders. But in Diaspar, Man himself had lost
the gift he had given to his slaves.

 
          
 
Rather quickly, Seranis broke into his
thoughts.

 
          
 
"If you are looking for life," she
said, "your search has ended. Apart from Diaspar, there is only desert
beyond our mountains."

 
          
 
It was strange that Alvin, who had questioned
accepted beliefs so often before, did not doubt the words of Seranis. His onlv
reaction was one of sadness that all his teaching had been so nearly true.

 
          
 
"Tell me something about Lys," he
asked. "Why have you been cut off from Diaspar for so long, when you know
all about us?"

 
          
 
Seranis smiled at his question.

 
          
 
"It's not easy to answer that in a few
words, but I'll do my best.

 
          
 
"Because you have lived in Diaspar all
your life, you have come to think of Man as a city dweller. That isn't true,
Alvin. Since the machines gave us freedom, there has always been a rivalry
between two different types of civilization. In the Dawn Ages there were
thousands of cities, but a large part of mankind lived in communities like this
village of ours.