From the Ocean from teh Stars (69 page)

"I guessed it," he said at last.

Jeserac settled down more comfortably in the depths of the chair he
had just materialized. This was an interesting situation, and he wanted to analyze it as fully as possible. There was not much he could learn, how
ever, unless Khedron was willing to co-operate.

He should have anticipated that Alvin would one day meet the Jester,
with unpredictable consequences. Khedron was the only other person in
the city who could be called eccentric—and even his eccentricity had
been planned by the designers of Diaspar. Long ago it had been discov
ered that without some crime or disorder, Utopia soon became unbear
ably dull. Crime, however, from the nature of things, could not be
guaranteed to remain at the optimum level which the social equations
demanded. If it was licensed and regulated, it ceased to be crime.

The office of Jester was the solution—at first sight naive, yet actu
ally profoundly subtle—which the city's designers had evolved. In all
the history of Diaspar there were less than two hundred persons whose mental inheritance fitted them for this peculiar role. They had certain privileges that protected them from the consequences of their actions,
though there had been Jesters who had overstepped the mark and paid
the only penalty that Diaspar could impose—that of being banished into
the future before their current incarnation had ended.

On rare and unforeseeable occasions, the Jester would turn the city
upside-down by some prank which might be no more than an elaborate practical joke, or which might be a calculated assault on some currently
cherished belief or way of life. All things considered, the name "Jester" was a highly appropriate one. There had once been men with very similar duties, operating with the same license, in the days when there were
courts and kings.

"It will help," said Jeserac, "if we are frank with one another. We
both know that Alvin is a Unique—that he has never experienced any
earlier life in Diaspar. Perhaps you can guess, better than I can, the
implications of that. I doubt if anything that happens in the city is totally
unplanned, so there must be a purpose in his creation. Whether he will achieve that purpose—whatever it is—I do not know. Nor do I know
whether it is good or bad. I cannot guess what it is."

"Suppose it concerns something external to the city?"

Jeserac smiled patiently; the Jester was having his little joke, as was
only to be expected.

"I have told him what lies there; he knows that there is nothing out
side Diaspar except the desert. Take him there if you can; perhaps
you

know a way. When he sees the reality, it may cure the strangeness in his
mind."

"I think he has already seen it," said Khedron softly. But he said it
to himself, and not to Jeserac.

"I do not believe that Alvin is happy," Jeserac continued. "He has
formed no real attachments, and it is hard to see how he can while he
still suffers from this obsession. But after all, he is very young. He may
grow out of this phase, and become part of the pattern of the city."

Jeserac was talking to reassure himself; Khedron wondered if he
really believed what he was saying.

"Tell me, Jeserac," asked Khedron abruptly, "does Alvin know that
he is not the first Unique?"

Jeserac looked startled, then a little defiant.

"I might have guessed," he said ruefully, "that
you
would know that. How many Uniques have there been in the whole history of Diaspar? As many as ten?"

"Fourteen," answered Khedron without hesitation. "Not counting
Alvin."

"You have better information than I can command," said Jeserac
wryly. "Perhaps you can tell me what happened to those Uniques?"

"They disappeared."

"Thank you: I knew that already. That is why I have told Alvin as
little as possible about his predecessors: it would hardly help him in his
present mood. Can I rely on your co-operation?"

"For the moment—yes. I want to study him myself; mysteries have
always intrigued me, and there are too few in Diaspar. Besides, I think that Fate may be arranging a jest beside which all my efforts will look
very modest indeed. In that case, I want to make sure that I am present
at its climax."

"You are rather too fond of talking in riddles," complained Jeserac.
"Exactly what are you anticipating?"

"I doubt if my guesses will be any better than yours. But I believe
this—neither you nor I nor anyone in Diaspar will be able to stop Alvin
when he has decided what he wants to do. We have a very interesting
few centuries ahead of us."

Jeserac sat motionless for a long time, his mathematics forgotten,
after the image of Khedron had faded from sight. A sense of foreboding,
the like of which he had never known before, hung heavily upon him.
For a fleeting moment he wondered if he should request an audience
with the Council—but would that not be making a ridiculous fuss about
nothing? Perhaps the whole affair was some compHcated and obscure

jest of Khedron's, though he could not imagine why he had been chosen
to be its butt.

He thought the matter over carefully, examining the problem from
every angle. After little more than an hour, he made a characteristic
decision.

He would wait and see.

Alvin wasted no time learning all that he could about Khedron.
Jeserac, as usual, was his main source of information. The old tutor gave
a carefully factual account of his meeting with the Jester, and added what
little he knew about the other's mode of life. Insofar as such a thing was
possible in Diaspar, Khedron was a recluse: no one knew where he
lived or anything about his way of life. The last jest he had contrived
had been a rather childish prank involving a general paralysis of the
moving ways. That had been fifty years ago; a century earlier he had
let loose a particularly revolting dragon which had wandered around the city eating every existing specimen of the works of the currently most popular sculptor. The artist himself, justifiably alarmed when the beast's
single-minded diet became obvious, had gone into hiding and not
emerged until the monster had vanished as mysteriously as it had ap
peared.

One thing was obvious from these accounts. Khedron must have a profound understanding of the machines and powers that ruled the city,
and could make them obey his will in ways which no one else could do. Presumably there must be some overriding control which prevented any
too-ambitious Jester from causing permanent and irreparable damage to
the complex structure of Diaspar.

Alvin filed all this information away, but made no move to contact Khedron. Though he had many questions to ask the Jester, his stubborn streak of independence—perhaps the most truly unique of all his quali
ties—made him determined to discover all he could by his own unaided
efforts. He had embarked on a project that might keep him busy for
years, but as long as he felt that he was moving toward his goal he was
happy.

Like some traveler of old mapping out an unknown land, he had begun the systematic exploration of Diaspar. He spent his weeks and
days prowling through the lonely towers at the margin of the city, in the
hope that somewhere he might discover a way out into the world beyond.
During the course of his search he found a dozen of the great air vents opening high above the desert, but they were all barred—and even if the

bars had not been there, the sheer drop of almost a mile was sufficient
obstacle.

He found no other exits, though he explored a thousand corridors
and ten thousand empty chambers. All these buildings were in that
perfect and spotless condition which the people of Diaspar took for
granted as part of the normal order of things. Sometimes Alvin would
meet a wandering robot, obviously on a tour of inspection, and he never
failed to question the machine. He learned nothing, because the ma
chines he encountered were not keyed to respond to human speech or
thoughts. Though they were aware of his presence, for they floated
politely aside to let him pass, they refused to engage in conversation.

There were times when Alvin did not see another human being for
days. When he felt hungry, he would go into one of the living apartments
and order a meal. Miraculous machines of whose existence he seldom
gave a thought would wake to life after aeons of slumber. The patterns
they had stored in their memories would flicker on the edge of reality,
organizing and directing the matter they controlled. And so a meal prepared by a master chef a hundred million years before would be called
again into existence to delight the palate or merely to satisfy the appetite.

The loneliness of this deserted world—the empty shell surrounding
the living heart of the city—did not depress Alvin. He was used to
loneliness, even when he was among those he called his friends. This ar
dent exploration, absorbing all his energy and interest, made him forget
for the moment the mystery of his heritage and the anomaly that cut him off from all his fellows.

He had explored less than one-hundredth of the city's rim when he
decided that he was wasting his time. His decision was not the result of impatience, but of sheer common sense. If needs be, he was prepared to
come back and finish the task, even if it took him the remainder of his
life. He had seen enough, however, to convince him that if a way out of Diaspar did exist, it would not be found as easily as this. He might waste
centuries in fruitless search unless he called upon the assistance of wiser men.

Jeserac had told him flatly that he knew no road out of Diaspar, and
doubted if one existed. The information machines, when Alvin had questioned them, had searched their almost infinite memories in vain
They could tell him every detail of the city's history back to the beginning
of recorded times—back to the barrier beyond which the Dawn Ages
lay forever hidden. But they could not answer Alvin's simple question,
or else some higher power had forbidden them to do so.

He would have to see Khedron again.

☆
CHAPTER SEVEN

Y
ou took your time," said Khedron, "but I knew you would call sooner or later."

This confidence annoyed Alvin; he did not like to think that his be
havior could be predicted so accurately. He wondered if the Jester had
watched all his fruitless searching and knew exactly what he had been
doing.

"I am trying to find a way out of the city," he said bluntly. "There
must
be one, and I think you could help me find it."

Khedron was silent for a moment. There was still time, if he wished,
to turn back from the road that stretched before him, and which led into
a future beyond all his powers of prophecy. No one else would have
hesitated; no other man in the city, even if he had the power, would have
dared to disturb the ghosts of an age that had been dead for millions of
centuries. Perhaps there was no danger, perhaps nothing could alter
the perpetual changelessness of Diaspar. But if there was any risk of
something strange and new coming into the world, this might be the last chance to ward it off.

Khedron was content with the order of things as it was. True, he
might upset that order from time to time—but only by a little. He was a
critic, not a revolutionary. On the placidly flowing river of time, he
wished only to make a few ripples: he shrank from diverting its course.
The desire for adventure, other than that of the mind, had been elimi
nated from him as carefully and thoroughly as from all the other citizens
of Diaspar.

Yet he still possessed, though it was almost extinguished, that spark of curiosity that was once Man's greatest gift. He was still prepared to
take a risk.

He looked at Alvin and tried to remember his own youth, his own
dreams of half a thousand years before. Any moment of his past that he
cared to choose was still clear and sharp when he turned his memory upon it. Like beads upon a string, this life and all the ones before it
stretched back through the ages; he would seize and re-examine any one he wished. Most of those older Khedrons were strangers to him
now; the basic patterns might be the same, but the weight of experience separated him from them forever. If he wished, he could wash his mind
clear of all his earlier incarnations, when next he walked back into the