Collected Stories Of Arthur C. Clarke (27 page)

Peyton’s eyes gleamed.

‘That’s what I’ve been saying! Can I join you?’

‘Later. There’s work to be done first. You see, we are revolutionaries of a sort. We are going to start one or two social reactions, and when we’ve finished the danger of racial decadence will be postponed for thousands of years. You, Dick, are one of our catalysts. Not the only one, I might say.’

He paused for a moment.

‘Even if Comarre comes to nothing, we have another card up our sleeve. In fifty years, we hope to have perfected the interstellar drive.’

‘At last!’ said Peyton. ‘What will you do then?’

‘We’ll present it to the Council and say, “Here you are – now you can go to the stars. Aren’t we good boys?” And the Council will just have to give a sickly smile and start uprooting civilisation. Once we’ve achieved interstellar travel, we shall have an expanding society again and stagnation will be indefinitely postponed.’

‘I hope I live to see it,’ said Peyton. ‘But what do you want me to do now?’

‘Just this: we want you to go into Comarre to find what’s there. Where others have failed, we believe you can succeed. All the plans have been made.’

‘And where is Comarre?’

Henson smiled.

‘It’s simple, really. There was only one place it could be – the only place over which no aircraft can fly, where no one lives, where all travel is on foot. It’s in the Great Reservation.’

The old man switched off the writing machine. Overhead – or below; it was all the same – the great crescent of Earth was blotting out the stars. In its eternal circling the little moon had overtaken the terminator and was plunging into night. Here and there the darkling land below was dotted with the lights of cities.

The sight filled the old man with sadness. It reminded him that his own life was coming to a close – and it seemed to foretell the end of the culture he had sought to protect. Perhaps, after all, the young scientists were right. The long rest was ending and the world was moving to new goals that he would never see.

CHAPTER THREE

The Wild Lion

It was night when Peyton’s ship came westward over the Indian Ocean. The eye could see nothing far below but the white line of breakers against the African coast, but the navigation screen showed every detail of the land beneath. Night, of course, was no protection or safeguard now, but it meant that no human eye would see him. As for the machines that should be watching – well, others had taken care of them. There were many, it seemed, who thought as Henson did.

The plan had been skilfully conceived. The details had been worked out with loving care by people who had obviously enjoyed themselves. He was to land the ship at the edge of the forest, as near to the power barrier as he could.

Not even his unknown friends could switch off the barrier without arousing suspicion. Luckily it was only about twenty miles to Comarre from the edge of the screen, over fairly open country. He would have to finish the journey afoot.

There was a great crackling of branches as the little ship settled down into the unseen forest. It came to rest on an even keel, and Peyton switched off the dim cabin lights and peered out of the window. He could see nothing. Remembering what he had been told, he did not open the door. He made himself as comfortable as he could and settled down to await the dawn.

He awoke with brilliant sunlight shining full in his eyes. Quickly climbing into the equipment his friends had provided, he opened the cabin door and stepped into the forest.

The landing place had been carefully chosen, and it was not difficult to scramble through to the open country a few yards away. Ahead lay small grass-covered hills dotted with occasional clusters of slender trees. The day was mild, though it was summer and the equator was not far away. Eight hundred years of climatic control and the great artificial lakes that had drowned the deserts had seen to that.

For almost the first time in his life Peyton was experiencing Nature as it had been in the days before Man existed. Yet it was not the wildness of the scene that he found so strange. Peyton had never known silence. Always there had been the murmur of machines or the far-away whisper of speeding liners, heard faintly from the towering heights of the stratosphere.

Here there were none of these sounds, for no machines could cross the power barrier that surrounded the Reservation. There was only the wind in the grass and the half-audible medley of insect voices. Peyton found the silence unnerving and did what almost any man of his time would have done. He pressed the button of his personal radio that selected the background-music band.

So, mile after mile, Peyton walked steadily through the undulating country of the Great Reservation, the largest area of natural territory remaining on the surface of the globe. Walking was easy, for the neutralisers built into his equipment almost nullified its weight. He carried with him that mist of unobtrusive music that had been the background of men’s lives almost since the discovery of radio. Although he had only to flick a dial to get in touch with anyone on the planet, he quite sincerely imagined himself to be alone in the heart of Nature, and for a moment he felt all the emotions that Stanley or Livingstone must have experienced when they first entered this same land more than a thousand years ago.

Luckily Peyton was a good walker, and by noon had covered half the distance to his goal. He rested for his midday meal under a cluster of imported Martian conifers, which would have brought baffled consternation to an oldtime explorer. In his ignorance Peyton took them completely for granted.

He had accumulated a small pile of empty cans when he noticed an object moving swiftly over the plain in the direction from which he had come. It was too far away to be recognised. Not until it was obviously approaching him did he bother to get up to get a clearer view of it. So far he had seen no animals – though plenty of animals had seen him – and he watched the newcomer with interest.

Peyton had never seen a lion before, but he had no difficulty in recognising the magnificent beast that was bounding toward him. It was to his credit that he glanced only once at the tree overhead. Then he stood his ground firmly.

There were, he knew, no really dangerous animals in the world any more. The Reservation was something between a vast biological laboratory and a national park visited by thousands of people every year. It was generally understood that if one left the inhabitants alone, they would reciprocate. On the whole, the arrangement worked smoothly.

The animal was certainly anxious to be friendly. It trotted straight toward him and began to rub itself affectionately against his side. When Peyton got up again, it was taking a great deal of interest in his empty food cans. Presently it turned toward him with an expression that was irresistible.

Peyton laughed, opened a fresh can, and laid the contents carefully on a flat stone. The lion accepted the tribute with relish, and while it was eating Peyton ruffled through the index of the official guide which his unknown supporters had thoughtfully provided.

There were several pages about lions, with photographs for the benefit of extraterrestrial visitors. The information was reassuring. A thousand years of scientific breeding had greatly improved the King of Beasts. He had eaten only a dozen people in the last century: in ten of the cases the subsequent enquiry had exonerated him from blame and the other two were ‘not proved’.

But the book said nothing about unwanted lions and the best ways of disposing of them. Nor did it hint that they were normally as friendly as this specimen.

Peyton was not particularly observant. It was some time before he noticed the thin metal band around the lion’s right forepaw. It bore a series of numbers and letters, followed by the official stamp of the Reservation.

This was no wild animal; perhaps all its youth had been spent among men. It was probably one of the famous super-lions the biologists had been breeding and then releasing to improve the race. Some of them were almost as intelligent as dogs, according to the reports that Peyton had seen.

He quickly discovered that it could understand many simple words, particularly those relating to food. Even for this era it was a splendid beast, a good foot taller than its scrawny ancestor of ten centuries before.

When Peyton started on his journey again, the lion trotted by his side. He doubted if its friendship was worth more than a pound of synthetic beef, but it was pleasant to have someone to talk to – someone, moreover, who made no attempt to contradict him. After profound and concentrated thought, he decided that ‘Leo’ would be a suitable name for his new acquaintance.

Peyton had walked a few hundred yards when suddenly there was a blinding flash in the air before him. Though he realised immediately what it was, he was startled, and stopped, blinking. Leo had fled precipitately and was already out of sight. He would not, Peyton thought, be of much use in an emergency. Later he was to revise this judgment.

When his eyes had recovered, Peyton found himself looking at a multicoloured notice, burning in letters of fire. It hung steadily in the air and read:

WARNING!

YOU ARE NOW APPROACHING

RESTRICTED TERRITORY!

TURN BACK!

By Order,
World Council in Session

Peyton regarded the notice thoughtfully for a few moments. Then he looked around for the projector. It was in a metal box, not very effectively hidden at the side of the road. He quickly unlocked it with the universal keys a trusting Electronics Commission had given him on his first graduation.

After a few minutes’ inspection he breathed a sigh of relief. The projector was a simple capacity-operated device. Anything coming along the road would activate it. There was a photographic recorder, but it had been disconnected. Peyton was not surprised, for every passing animal would have operated the device. This was fortunate. It meant that no one need ever know that Richard Peyton III had once walked along this road.

He shouted to Leo, who came slowly back, looking rather ashamed of himself. The sign had disappeared, and Peyton held the relays open to prevent its reappearance as Leo passed by. Then he relocked the door and continued on his way, wondering what would happen next.

A hundred yards farther on, a disembodied voice began to speak to him severely. It told him nothing new, but the voice threatened a number of minor penalties, some of which were not unfamiliar to him.

It was amusing to watch Leo’s face as he tried to locate the source of the sound. Once again Peyton searched for the projector and checked it before proceeding. It would be safer, he thought, to leave the road altogether. There might be recording devices farther along it.

With some difficulty he induced Leo to remain on the metal surface while he himself walked along the barren ground bordering the road. In the next quarter of a mile the lion set off two more electronic booby traps. The last one seemed to have given up persuasion. It said simply:

BEWARE OF WILD LIONS

Peyton looked at Leo and began to laugh. Leo couldn’t see the joke but he joined in politely. Behind them the automatic sign faded out with a last despairing flicker.

Peyton wondered why the signs were there at all. Perhaps they were intended to scare away accidental visitors. Those who knew the goal would hardly be deflected by them.

The road made a sudden right-angle turn – and there before him was Comarre. It was strange that something he had been expecting could give him such a shock. Ahead lay an immense clearing in the jungle, half filled by a black metallic structure.

The city was shaped like a terraced cone, perhaps eight hundred yards high and a thousand across at the base. How much was underground, Peyton could not guess. He halted, overwhelmed by the size and strangeness of the enormous building. Then, slowly, he began to walk toward it.

Like a beast of prey crouching in its lair, the city lay waiting. Though its guests were now very few, it was ready to receive them, whoever they might be. Sometimes they turned back at the first warning, sometimes at the second. A few had reached the very entrance before their resolution failed them. But most, having come so far, had entered willingly enough
.

So Peyton reached the marble steps that led up to the towering metal wall and the curious black hole that seemed to be the only entrance. Leo trotted quietly beside him, taking little notice of his strange surroundings.

Peyton stopped at the foot of the stairs and dialled a number in his communicator. He waited until the acknowledgment tone came and then spoke slowly into the microphone.

‘The fly is entering the parlour.’

He repeated it twice, feeling rather a fool. Someone, he thought, had a perverted sense of humour.

There was no reply. That had been part of the arrangement. But he had no doubt that the message had been received, probably in some laboratory in Scientia, since the number he had dialled had a Western Hemisphere coding.

Peyton opened his biggest can of meat and spread it out on the marble. He entwined his fingers in the lion’s mane and twisted it playfully.

‘I guess you’d better stay here,’ he said. ‘I may be gone quite some time. Don’t try to follow me.’

At the top of the steps, he looked back. Rather to his relief the lion had made no attempt to follow. It was sitting on its haunches, looking at him pathetically. Peyton waved and turned away.