Collected Stories Of Arthur C. Clarke (46 page)

Karellen had time for any amount of literary composition when he slowed his thoughts down to the pace of human speech.

‘Do not worry,’ he said, ‘about the Freedom League. It has been very quiet for the past month, and though it will revive again, it is no longer a real danger. Indeed since it’s always valuable to know what your opponents are doing, the League is a very useful institution. Should it ever get into financial difficulties I might even subsidize it.’

Stormgren had often found it difficult to tell when Karellen was joking. He kept his face impassive.

‘Very soon the League will lose another of its strongest arguments. There’s been a good deal of criticism, mostly rather childish, of the special position you have held for the past few years. I found it very valuable in the early days of my administration, but now that the world is moving along the lines that I planned, it can cease. In the future, all my dealings with Earth will be indirect and the office of Secretary-General can once again become what it was originally intended to be.

‘During the next fifty years there will be many crises, but they will pass. Almost a generation from now, I shall reach the nadir of my popularity, for plans must be put into operation which cannot be fully explained at the time. Attempts may even be made to destroy me. But the pattern of the future is clear enough, and one day all these difficulties will be forgotten – even to a race with memories as long as yours.’

The last words were spoken with such a peculiar emphasis that Stormgren immediately froze in his seat. Karellen never made accidental slips and even his indiscretions were calculated to many decimal places. But there was no time to ask questions – which certainly would not be answered – before the Supervisor had changed the subject again.

‘You’ve often asked me about our long-term plans,’ he continued. ‘The foundation of the World State is of course only the first step. You will live to see its completion – but the change will be so imperceptible that few will notice it when it comes. After that there will be a pause for thirty years while the next generation reaches maturity. And then will come the day which we have promised. I am sorry that you will not be there.’

Stormgren’s eyes were open, but his gaze was fixed far beyond the dark barrier of the screen. He was looking into the future, imagining the day he would never see.

‘On that day,’ continued Karellen, ‘the human mind will experience one of its very rare psychological discontinuities. But no permanent harm will be done – the men of that age will be more stable than their grandfathers. We will always have been part of their lives, and when they meet us, we will not seem so – strange – as we would do to you.’

Stormgren had never known Karellen in so contemplative a mood, but this gave him no surprise. He did not believe that he had ever seen more than a few facets of the Supervisor’s personality – the real Karellen was unknown and perhaps unknowable to human beings. And once again Stormgren had the feeling that the Supervisor’s real interests were elsewhere.

‘Then there will be another pause, only a short one this time, for the world will be growing impatient. Men will wish to go out to the stars, to see the other worlds of the Universe and to join us in our work. For it is only beginning – not a thousandth of the suns in the Galaxy have ever been visited by the races of which we know. One day, Rikki, your descendants in their own ships will be bringing civilisation to the worlds that are ripe to receive it – just as we are doing now.’

Karellen had fallen silent and Stormgren had the impression that the Supervisor was watching him intently.

‘It is a great vision,’ he said softly. ‘Do you bring it to all your worlds?’

‘Yes,’ said Karellen, ‘all that can understand it.’

Out of nowhere, a strangely disturbing thought came into Stormgren’s mind.

‘Suppose, after all, your experiment fails with Man? We have known such things in our own dealings with other races. Surely you have had your failures too?’

‘Yes,’ said Karellen, so softly that Stormgren could scarcely hear him. ‘We have had our failures.’

‘And what do you do then?’

‘We wait – and try again.’

There was a pause lasting perhaps ten seconds. When Karellen spoke again, his words were muffled and so unexpected that for a moment Stormgren did not react.

‘Goodbye, Rikki!’

Karellen had tricked him – probably it was too late. Stormgren’s paralysis lasted only for a moment. Then he whipped out the flash-gun and jammed it against the screen.

Was it a lie? What
had
he really seen? No more, he was certain, than Karellen had intended. He was as sure as he could be of anything that the Supervisor had known his plan from the beginning, and had foreseen every moment of it.

Why else had that enormous chair been already empty when the circle of light blazed upon it? In the same moment he had started to swing the beam, but he was too late. The metal door, twice as high as a man, was closing swiftly when he first caught sight of it – closing swiftly, yet not quite swiftly enough.

Karellen had trusted him, had not wished him to go down into the long evening of his life still haunted by a mystery he could never solve. Karellen dared not defy the unknown power above him (was he of that same race, too?) but he had done all that he could. If he had disobeyed Him, He could never prove it.

‘
We have had our failures
.’

Yes, Karellen, that was true – and were you the one who failed, before the dawn of human history? Even in fifty years, could you overcome the power of all the myths and legends of the world?

Yet Stormgren knew there would be no second failure. When the two races met again, the Overlords would have won the trust and friendship of Mankind, and not even the shock of recognition could undo that work.

And Stormgren knew also that the last thing he would ever see as he closed his eyes on life, would be that swiftly turning door, and the long black tail disappearing behind it.

A very famous and unexpectedly beautiful tail.

A barbed tail
.

Time’s Arrow

First published in
Science-Fantasy
, Summer 1950

Collected in
Reach for Tomorrow

‘Time’s Arrow’ is an example of how hard it is for the science-fiction writer to keep ahead of fact. The quite – at the time – imaginary discovery described in the tale now actually exists, and may be seen in the New York Natural History Museum. I think it most unlikely, however, that the rest will come true …

The river was dead and the lake already dying when the monster had come down the dried-up watercourse and turned onto the desolate mud-flats. There were not many places where it was safe to walk, and even where the ground was hardest the great pistons of its feet sank a foot or more beneath the weight they carried. Sometimes it had paused, surveying the landscape with quick, birdlike movements of its head. Then it had sunk even deeper into the yielding soil, so that fifty million years later men could judge with some accuracy the duration of its halts.

For the waters had never returned, and the blazing sun had baked the mud to rock. Later still the desert had poured over all this land, sealing it beneath protecting layers of sand. And later – very much later – had come Man.

‘Do you think,’ shouted Barton above the din, ‘that Professor Fowler became a palaeontologist because he likes playing with pneumatic drills? Or did he acquire the taste afterward?’

‘Can’t hear you!’ yelled Davis, leaning on his shovel in a most professional manner. He glanced hopefully at his watch.

‘Shall I tell him it’s dinnertime? He can’t wear a watch while he’s drilling, so he won’t know any better.’

‘I doubt if it will work,’ Barton shrieked. ‘He’s got wise to us now and always adds an extra ten minutes. But it will make a change from this infernal digging.’

With noticeable enthusiasm the two geologists downed tools and started to walk toward their chief. As they approached, he shut off the drill and relative silence descended, broken only by the throbbing of the compressor in the background.

‘About time we went back to camp, Professor,’ said Davis, wristwatch held casually behind his back. ‘You know what cook says if we’re late.’

Professor Fowler, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S., mopped some, but by no means all, of the ochre dust from his forehead. He would have passed anywhere as a typical navvy, and the occasional visitors to the site seldom recognised the Vice-President of the Geological Society in the brawny, half-naked workman crouching over his beloved pneumatic drill.

It had taken nearly a month to clear the sandstone down to the surface of the petrified mud-flats. In that time several hundred square feet had been exposed, revealing a frozen snapshot of the past that was probably the finest yet discovered by palaeontology. Some scores of birds and reptiles had come here in search of the receding water, and left their footsteps as a perpetual monument eons after their bodies had perished. Most of the prints had been identified, but one – the largest of them all – was new to science. It belonged to a beast which must have weighed twenty or thirty tons: and Professor Fowler was following the fifty-million-year-old spoor with all the emotions of a big-game hunter tracking his prey. There was even a hope that he might yet overtake it; for the ground must have been treacherous when the unknown monster went this way and its bones might still be near at hand, marking the place where it had been trapped like so many creatures of its time.

Despite the mechanical aids available, the work was very tedious. Only the upper layers could be removed by the power tools, and the final uncovering had to be done by hand with the utmost care. Professor Fowler had good reason for his insistence that he alone should do the preliminary drilling, for a single slip might cause irreparable harm.

The three men were halfway back to the main camp, jolting over the rough road in the expedition’s battered jeep, when Davis raised the question that had been intriguing the younger men ever since the work had begun.

‘I’m getting a distinct impression,’ he said, ‘that our neighbours down the valley don’t like us, though I can’t imagine why. We’re not interfering with them, and they might at least have the decency to invite us over.’

‘Unless, of course, it is a war research plant,’ added Barton, voicing a generally accepted theory.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Professor Fowler mildly. ‘Because it so happens that I’ve just had an invitation myself. I’m going there tomorrow.’

If his bombshell failed to have the expected result, it was thanks to his staff’s efficient espionage system. For a moment Davis pondered over this confirmation of his suspicions; then he continued with a slight cough:

‘No one else has been invited, then?’

The Professor smiled at his pointed hint, ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s a strictly personal invitation. I know you boys are dying of curiosity but, frankly, I don’t know any more about the place than you do. If I learn anything tomorrow, I’ll tell you all about it. But at least we’ve found out who’s running the establishment.’

His assistants pricked up their ears. ‘Who is it?’ asked Barton, ‘My guess was the Atomic Development Authority.’

‘You may be right,’ said the Professor. ‘At any rate, Henderson and Barnes are in charge.’

This time the bomb exploded effectively; so much so that Davis nearly drove the jeep off the road – not that that made much difference, the road being what it was.

‘Henderson and Barnes? In
this
god-forsaken hole?’

‘That’s right,’ said the Professor gaily. ‘The invitation was actually from Barnes. He apologised for not contacting us before, made the usual excuses, and wondered if I could drop in for a chat.’

‘Did he say what they are doing?’

‘No; not a hint.’

‘Barnes and Henderson?’ said Barton thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know much about them except that they’re physicists. What’s their particular racket?’

‘They’re
the
experts on low-temperature physics,’ answered Davis. ‘Henderson was Director of the Cavendish for years. He wrote a lot of letters to
Nature
not so long ago. If I remember rightly, they were all about Helium II.’

Barton, who didn’t like physicists and said so whenever possible, was not impressed. ‘I don’t even know what Helium II is,’ he said smugly. ‘What’s more, I’m not at all sure that I want to.’

This was intended for Davis, who had once taken a physics degree in, as he explained, a moment of weakness. The ‘moment’ had lasted for several years before he had drifted into geology by rather devious routes, and he was always harking back to his first love.

‘It’s a form of liquid helium that only exists at a few degrees above absolute zero. It’s got the most extraordinary properties but, as far as I can see, none of them can explain the presence of two leading physicists in this corner of the globe.’

They had now arrived at the camp, and Davis brought the jeep to its normal crash-halt in the parking space. He shook his head in annoyance as he bumped into the truck ahead with slightly more violence than usual.