Collected Stories Of Arthur C. Clarke (41 page)

There was a tinkle from the tiny communicator band upon his wrist. So, the time had come. He turned his back upon the ocean and walked resolutely to meet his fate. Before he had gone a dozen steps the time-field had seized him and his thoughts froze in an instant that would remain unchanged while the oceans shrank and vanished, the Galactic Empire passed away, and the great star-clusters crumbled into nothingness.

But, to Trevindor, no time elapsed at all. He only knew that at one step there had been moist sand beneath his feet, and at the next hard-baked rock, cracked by heat and drought. The palms had vanished, the murmur of the sea was stilled. It needed only a glance to show that even the memory of the sea had long since faded from this parched and dying world. To the far horizon, a great desert of red sandstone stretched unbroken and unrelieved by any growing thing. Overhead, the orange disc of a strangely altered sun glowered from a sky so black that many stars were clearly visible.

Yet, it seemed, there was still life on this ancient world. To the north – if that were still the north – the sombre light glinted upon some metallic structure. It was a few hundred yards away, and as Trevindor started to walk towards it he was conscious of a curious lightness, as if gravity itself had weakened.

He had not gone far before he saw that he was approaching a low metal building which seemed to have been set down on the plain rather than constructed there, for it was at a slight angle to the horizontal. Trevindor wondered at his incredible good fortune at finding civilisation so easily. Another dozen steps, and he realised that not chance but design had so conveniently placed this building here, and that it was as much a stranger to this world as he himself. There was no hope at all that anyone would come to meet him as he walked towards it.

The metal plaque above the door added little to what he had already surmised. Still new and untarnished as if it had just been engraved – as indeed, in a sense, it had – the lettering brought a message at once of hope and of bitterness.

To Trevindor, the greetings of the Council.

This building, which we have sent after you through the time-field, will supply all your needs for an indefinite period.

We do not know if civilisation will still exist in the age in which you find yourself. Man may now be extinct, since the chromosome K Star K will have become dominant and the race may have mutated into something no longer human. That is for you to discover.

You are now in the twilight of the Earth and it is our hope that you are not alone. But if it is your destiny to be the last living creature on this once lovely world, remember that the choice was yours. Farewell.

Twice Trevindor read the message, recognising with an ache the closing words which could only have been written by his friend, the poet Cintillarne. An overwhelming sense of loneliness and isolation came flooding into his soul. He sat down upon a shelf of rock and buried his face in his hands.

A long time later, he arose to enter the building. He felt more than grateful to the long-dead Council which had treated him so chivalrously. The technical achievement of sending an entire building through time was one he had believed beyond the resources of his age. A sudden thought struck him and he glanced again at the engraved lettering, noticing for the first time the date it bore. It was five thousand years later than the time when he had faced his peers in the Hall of Justice. Fifty centuries had passed before his judges could redeem their promise to a man as good as dead. Whatever the faults of the Council, its integrity was of an order beyond the comprehension of an earlier age.

Many days passed before Trevindor left the building again. Nothing had been overlooked: even his beloved thought records were there. He could continue to study the nature of reality and to construct philosophies until the end of the Universe, barren though that occupation would be if his were the only mind left on Earth. There was little danger, he thought wryly, that his speculations concerning the purpose of human existence would once again bring him into conflict with society.

Not until he had investigated the building thoroughly did Trevindor turn his attention once more to the outer world. The supreme problem was that of contacting civilisation, should such still exist. He had been provided with a powerful receiver, and for hours he wandered up and down the spectrum in the hope of discovering a station. The far-off crackle of static came from the instrument and once there was a burst of what might have been speech in a tongue that was certainly not human. But nothing else rewarded his search. The ether, which had been man’s faithful servant for so many ages, was silent at last.

The little automatic flyer was Trevindor’s sole remaining hope. He had what was left of eternity before him, and Earth was a small planet. In a few years, at the most, he could have explored it all.

So the months passed while the exile began his methodical exploration of the world, returning ever and again to his home in the desert of red sandstone. Everywhere he found the same picture of desolation and ruin. How long ago the seas had vanished he could not even guess, but in their dying they had left endless wastes of salt, encrusting both plains and mountains with a blanket of dirty grey. Trevindor felt glad that he had not been born on Earth and so had never known it in the glory of its youth. Stranger though he was, the loneliness and desolation of the world chilled his heart; had he lived here before, its sadness would have been unbearable.

Thousands of square miles of desert passed beneath Trevindor’s fleeting ship as he searched the world from pole to pole. Only once did he find any sign that Earth had ever known civilisation. In a deep valley near the equator he discovered the ruins of a small city of strange white stone and stranger architecture. The buildings were perfectly preserved though half-buried by the drifting sand, and for a moment Trevindor felt a surge of sombre joy at the knowledge that man had, after all, left some traces of his handiwork on the world that had been his first home.

The emotion was short-lived. The buildings were stranger than Trevindor had realised, for no man could ever have entered them. Their only openings were wide, horizontal slots close to the ground; there were no windows of any kind. Trevindor’s mind reeled as he tried to imagine the creatures that must have occupied them. In spite of his growing loneliness, he felt glad that the dwellers in this inhuman city had passed away so long before his time. He did not linger here, for the bitter night was almost upon him and the valley filled him with an oppression that was not entirely rational.

And once, he actually discovered life. He was cruising over the bed of one of the lost oceans when a flash of colour caught his eye. Upon a knoll which the drifting sand had not yet buried was a thin, wiry covering of grass. That was all, but the sight brought tears to his eyes. He grounded the machine and stepped out, treading warily lest he destroy even one of the struggling blades. Tenderly he ran his hands over the threadbare carpet which was all the life that Earth now knew. Before he left, he sprinkled the spot with as much water as he could spare. It was a futile gesture, but one which he felt happier at having made.

The search was now nearly completed. Trevindor had long ago given up all hope, but his indomitable spirit still drove him on across the face of the world. He could not rest until he had proved what as yet he only feared. And so it was that he came at last to the Master’s tomb as it lay gleaming dully in the sunlight from which it had been banished for so long.

The Master’s mind awoke before his body. As he lay powerless, unable to lift his eyelids, memory came flooding back. The hundred years were safely behind him. His gamble, the most desperate that any man had ever made, had succeeded! An immense weariness came over him and for a while consciousness faded once more.

Presently the mists cleared again and he felt stronger, though still too weak to move. He lay in the darkness gathering his strength together. What sort of a world, he wondered, would he find when he stepped forth from the mountainside into the light of day? Would he be able to put his plans into—?
What was that?
A spasm of sheer terror shook the very foundations of his mind. Something was moving beside him, here in the tomb where nothing should be stirring but himself.

Then, calm and clear, a thought rang serenely through his mind and quelled in an instant the fears that had threatened to overturn it.

‘Do not be alarmed. I have come to help you. You are safe, and everything will be well.’

The Master was too stunned to make any reply, but his subconscious must have formulated some sort of answer, for the thought came again.

‘That is good. I am Trevindor, like yourself an exile in this world. Do not move, but tell me how you came here and what is your race, for I have seen none like it.’

And now fear and caution were creeping back into the Master’s mind. What manner of creature was this that could read his thoughts, and what was it doing in his secret sphere? Again that clear, cold thought echoed through his brain like the tolling of a bell.

‘Once more I tell you that you have nothing to fear. Why are you alarmed because I can see into your mind? Surely there is nothing strange about that.’

‘Nothing strange!’ cried the Master. ‘What are you, for God’s sake?’

‘A man like yourself. But your race must be primitive indeed if the reading of thoughts is strange to you.’

A terrible suspicion began to dawn in the Master’s brain. The answer came even before he consciously framed the question.

‘You have slept infinitely longer than a hundred years. The world you knew has ceased to be for longer than you can imagine.’

The Master heard no more. Once again the darkness swept over him and he sank down into blissful unconsciousness.

In silence Trevindor stood beside the couch on which the Master lay. He was filled with an elation which for the moment outweighed any disappointment he might feel. At least, he would no longer have to face the future alone. All the terror of the Earth’s loneliness, that was weighing so heavily upon his soul, had vanished in a moment.
No longer alone
… no longer alone! Dominating all else, the thought hammered through his brain.

The Master was beginning to stir once more, and into Trevindor’s mind crept broken fragments of thought. Pictures of the world the Master had known began to form in the watcher’s brain. At first Trevindor could make nothing of them then, suddenly, the jumbled shards fell into place and all was clear. A wave of horror swept over him at the appalling vista of nation battling against nation, of cities flaming to destruction and men dying in agony. What kind of world was this? Could man have sunk so low from the peaceful age Trevindor had known? There had been legends, from times incredibly remote, of such things in the early dawn of Earth’s history, but man had left them with his childhood. Surely they could never have returned!

The broken thoughts were more vivid now, and even more horrible. It was truly a nightmare age from which this other exile had come – no wonder that he had fled from it!

Suddenly the truth began to dawn in the mind of Trevindor as, sick at heart, he watched the ghastly patterns passing through the Master’s brain. This was no exile seeking refuge from an age of horror. This was the very creator of that age, who had embarked on the river of time with one purpose alone – to spread contagion down to later years.

Passions that Trevindor had never imagined began to parade themselves before his eyes: ambition, the lust for power, cruelty, intolerance, hatred. He tried to close his mind, but found he had lost the power to do so. Unchecked, the evil stream flowed on, polluting every level of consciousness. With a cry of anguish, Trevindor rushed out into the desert and broke the chains binding him to that evil mind.

It was night, and very still, for the Earth was now too weary even for winds to blow. The darkness hid everything, but Trevindor knew that it could not hide the thoughts of that other mind with which he must now share the world. Once he had been alone, and he had imagined nothing more dreadful. But now he knew that there were things more fearful even than solitude.

The stillness of the night, and the glory of the stars that had once been his friends, brought calm to the soul of Trevindor. Slowly he turned and retraced his footsteps, walking heavily, for he was about to perform a deed that no man of his kind had ever done before.

The Master was standing when Trevindor re-entered the sphere. Perhaps some hint of the other’s purpose must have dawned upon his mind, for he was very pale and trembled with a weakness that was more than physical. Steadfastly, Trevindor forced himself to look once more into the Master’s brain. His mind recoiled at the chaos of conflicting emotions, now shot through with the sickening flashes of fear. Out of the maelstrom one coherent thought came quavering.

‘What are you going to do? Why do you look at me like that?’

Trevindor made no reply, holding his mind aloof from contamination while he marshalled his resolution and his strength.

The tumult in the Master’s mind was rising to a crescendo. For a moment his mounting terror brought something akin to pity to the gentle spirit of Trevindor, and his will faltered. But then there came again the picture of those ruined and burning cities, and his indecision vanished. With all the power of his superhuman intellect backed by thousands of centuries of mental evolution he struck at the man before him. Into the Master’s mind, obliterating all else, flooded the single thought of – death.