Against the Fall of Night Page 9

  It was quite a good performance, though Alvin was the only person who could fully appreciate it. The Council as a whole seemed favourably impressed, but Jeserac wore an expression in which relief struggled with incredulity. At Rorden, Alvin dared not look.

  When he had quite finished, there was a brief silence while the Council considered his statement. Then the President spoke again:

  “We fully appreciate,” he said, choosing his words with obvious care, “that you had the best of motives in what you did. However, you have created a somewhat difficult situation for us. Are you quite sure that your discovery was accidental, and that no one, shall we say, influenced you in any way?” His eyes wandered thoughtfully towards Rorden.

  For the last time, Alvin yielded to the mischievous promptings of his mind.

  “I wouldn’t say that,” he replied, after an appearance of considerable thought. There was a sudden quickening of interest among the Council Members, and Rorden stirred uneasily by his side. Alvin gave his audience a smile that lacked nothing of candor, and added quickly in a guileless voice:

  “I’m sure I owe a great deal to my tutor.”

  At this unexpected and singularly misleading compliment, all eyes were turned upon Jeserac, who became a deep red, started to speak, and then thought better of it. There was an awkward silence until the President stepped into the breach.

  “Thank you,” he said hastily. “You will remain here while we consider your statement.”

  There was an audible sigh of relief from Rorden—and that was the last sound Alvin heard for some time. A blanket of silence had descended upon him, and although he could see the Council arguing heatedly, not a word of its deliberations reached him. It was amusing at first, but the spectacle soon became tedious and he was glad when the silence lifted again.

  “We have come to the conclusion,” said the President, “that there has been an unfortunate mishap for which no one can be held responsible—although we consider that the Keeper of the Records should have informed us sooner of what was happening. However, it is perhaps as well that this dangerous discovery has been made, for we can now take suitable steps to prevent its recurrence. We will deal ourselves with the transport system you have located, and you”—turning to Rorden for the first time—“will ensure that all references to Lys are removed from the Records.”

  There was a murmur of applause and expressions of satisfaction spread across the faces of the Councillors. A difficult situation had been speedily dealt with, they had avoided the unpleasant necessity of reprimanding Rorden, and now they could go their ways again feeling that they, the chief citizens of Diaspar, had done their duty. With reasonably good fortune it might be centuries before the need arose again.

  Even Rorden, disappointed though he was for Alvin’s sake as well as his own, felt relieved at the outcome. Things might have been very much worse—

  A voice he had never heard before cut into his reverie and froze the Councillors in their seats, the complacent smiles slowly ebbing from their faces.

  “And precisely why are you going to close the way to Lys?”

  It was some time before Rorden’s mind, unwilling to recognize disaster, would admit that it was Alvin who spoke.

  The success of his subterfuge had given Alvin only a moment’s satisfaction. Throughout the President’s address his anger had been steadily rising as he realized that, despite all his cleverness, his plans were to be thwarted. The feelings he had known in Lys when Seranis had presented her ultimatum came back with redoubled strength. He had won that contest, and the taste of power was still sweet.

  This time he had no robot to help him, and he did not know what the outcome would be. But he no longer had any fear of these foolish old men who thought themselves the rulers of Diaspar. He had seen the real rulers of the city, and had spoken to them in the grave silence of their brilliant, buried world. So in his anger and arrogance, Alvin threw away his disguise and the Councillors looked in vain for the artless boy who had addressed them a little while ago.

  “Why are you going to close the way to Lys?”

  There was a long silence in the Council Room, but the lips of Jeserac twisted into a slow, secret smile. This Alvin was new to him, but it was less alien than the one who had spoken before.

  The President chose at first to ignore the challenge. Perhaps he could not bring himself to believe that it was more than an innocent question, however violently it had been expressed.

  “That is a matter of high policy which we cannot discuss here,” he said pompously, “but Diaspar cannot risk contamination with other cultures.” He gave Alvin a benevolent but slightly worried smile.

  “It’s rather strange,” said Alvin coldly, “that in Lys I was told exactly the same thing about Diaspar.” He was glad to see the start of annoyance, but gave his audience no time to reply.

  “Lys,” he continued, “is much larger than Diaspar and its culture is certainly not inferior. It’s always known about us but has chosen not to reveal itself—as you put it, to avoid contamination. Isn’t it obvious that we are both wrong?”

  He looked expectantly along the lines of faces, but nowhere was there any understanding of his words. Suddenly his anger against these leaden-eyed old men rose to a crescendo. The blood was throbbing in his cheeks, and though his voice was steadier now it held a note of icy contempt which even the most pacific of the Councillors could no longer overlook.

  “Our ancestors,” began Alvin, “built an empire which reached to the stars. Men came and went at will among all those worlds—and now their descendants are afraid to stir beyond the walls of their city. Shall I tell you why?” He paused: there was no movement at all in the great, bare room.

  “It is because we are afraid—afraid of something that happened at the beginning of history. I was told the truth in Lys, though I had guessed it long ago. Must we always hide like cowards in Diaspar, pretending that nothing else exists—because half a billion years ago the Invaders drove us back to Earth?”

  He had put his finger on their secret fear, the fear that he had never shared and whose power he could therefore never understand. Let them do what they pleased: he had spoken the truth.

  His anger drained away and he was himself again, as yet only a little alarmed at what he had done. He turned to the President in a last gesture of independence.

  “Have I your permission to leave?”

  Still no words were spoken, but the slight inclination of the head gave him his release. The great doors expanded before him and not until long after they had closed again did the storm break upon the Council Chamber.

  The President waited until the inevitable lull. Then he turned to Jeserac.

  “It seems to me,” he said, “that we should hear your views first.”

  Jeserac examined the remark for possible traps. Then he replied:

  “I think that Diaspar is now losing its most outstanding brain.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? By now young Alvin will be half-way to the Tomb of Yarlan Zey. No, we shouldn’t interfere. I shall be very sorry to lose him, though he never cared very much for me.” He sighed a little. “For that matter, he never cared a great deal for anyone save Alvin of Loronei.”

  Twelve

  The Ship

  Not until an hour later was Rorden able to escape from the Council Chamber. The delay was maddening, and when he reached his rooms he knew it was too late. He paused at the entrance, wondering if Alvin had left any message, and realizing for the first time how empty the years ahead would be.

  The message was there, but its contents were totally unexpected. Even when Rorden had read it several times, he was still completely baffled:

  “Meet me at once in the Tower of Loranne.”

  Only once before had he been to the Tower of Loranne, when Alvin had dragged him there to watch the sunset. That was years ago: the experience had been unforgettable but the shadow of night sweeping across the desert had terrified h
im so much that he had fled, pursued by Alvin’s entreaties. He had sworn that he would never go there again….

  Yet here he was, in that bleak chamber pierced with the horizontal ventilating shafts. There was no sign of Alvin, but when he called, the boy’s voice answered at once.

  “I’m on the parapet—come through the centre shaft.”

  Rorden hesitated: there were many things he would much rather do. But a moment later he was standing beside Alvin with his back to the city and the desert stretching endlessly before him.

  They looked at each other in silence for a little while. Then Alvin said, rather contritely:

  “I hope I didn’t get you into trouble.”

  Rorden was touched, and many truths he was about to utter died abruptly on his lips. Instead he replied:

  “The Council was too busy arguing with itself to bother about me.” He chuckled. “Jeserac was putting up quite a spirited defense when I left. I’m afraid I misjudged him.”

  “I’m sorry about Jeserac.”

  “Perhaps it was an unkind trick to play on the old man, but I think he’s rather enjoying himself. After all, there was some truth in your remark. He was the first man to show you the ancient world, and he has rather a guilty conscience.”

  For the first time, Alvin smiled.

  “It’s strange,” he said, “but until I lost my temper I never really understood what I wanted to do. Whether they like it or not, I’m going to break down the wall between Diaspar and Lys. But that can wait: it’s no longer so important now.”

  Rorden felt a little alarmed.

  “What do you mean?” he asked anxiously. For the first time he noticed that only one of the robots was with them on the parapet. “Where’s the second machine?”

  Slowly, Alvin raised his arm and pointed out across the desert, towards the broken hills and the long line of sanddunes, criss-crossed like frozen waves. Far away, Rorden could see the unmistakable gleam of sunlight upon metal.

  “We’ve been waiting for you,” said Alvin quietly. “As soon as I left the Council, I went straight to the robots. Whatever happened, I was going to make sure that no one took them away before I’d learnt all they could teach me. It didn’t take long, for they’re not very intelligent and knew less than I’d hoped. But I have found the secret of the Master.” He paused for a moment, then pointed again at the almost invisible robot. “Watch!”

  The glistening speck soared away from the desert and came to rest perhaps a thousand feet above the ground. At first, not knowing what to expect, Rorden could see no other change. Then, scarcely believing his eyes, he saw that a cloud of dust was slowly rising from the desert.

  Nothing is more terrible than movement where no movement should ever be again, but Rorden was beyond surprise or fear when the great sand dunes began to slide apart. Beneath the desert something was stirring like a giant awaking from its sleep, and presently there came to Rorden’s ears the rumble of falling earth and the shriek of rock split asunder by irresistible force. Then, suddenly, a great geyser of sand erupted hundreds of feet into the air and the ground was hidden from sight.

  Slowly the dust began to settle back into the jagged wound torn across the face of the desert. But Rorden and Alvin still kept their eyes fixed steadfastly upon the open sky, which a little while ago had held only the waiting robot. What Alvin was thinking, Rorden could scarcely imagine. At last he knew what the boy had meant when he had said that nothing else was very important now. The great city behind them and the greater desert before, the timidity of the Council and the pride of Lys—all these seemed trivial matters now.

  The covering of earth and rock could blur but could not conceal the proud lines of the ship still ascending from the riven desert. As Rorden watched, it slowly turned towards them until it had foreshortened to a circle. Then, very leisurely, the circle started to expand.

  Alvin began to speak, rather quickly, as if the time were short.

  “I still do not know who the Master was, or why he came to Earth. The robot gives me the impression that he landed secretly and hid his ship where it could be easily found if he ever needed it again. In all the world there could have been no better hiding place than the Port of Diaspar, which now lies beneath those sands and which even in his age must have been utterly deserted. He may have lived for a while in Diaspar before he went to Shalmirane: the road must still have been open in those days. But he never needed the ship again, and all these ages it has been waiting out there beneath the sands.”

  The ship was now very close, as the controlling robot guided it towards the parapet. Rorden could see that it was about a hundred feet long and sharply pointed at both ends. There appeared to be no windows or other openings, though the thick layer of earth made it impossible to be certain.

  Suddenly they were spattered with dirt as a section of the hull opened outwards, and Rorden caught a glimpse of a small, bare room with a second door at its far end. The ship was now hanging only a foot away from the parapet, which it had approached very cautiously like a sensitive, living thing. Rorden had backed away from it as if he were afraid, which indeed was very near the truth. To him the ship symbolized all the terror and mystery of the Universe, and evoked as could no other object the racial fears which for so long had paralyzed the will of the human race. Looking at his friend, Alvin knew very well the thoughts that were passing through his brain. For almost the first time he realized that there were forces in men’s minds over which they had no control, and that the Council was deserving of pity rather than contempt.

  IN UTTER SILENCE, THE SHIP DREW AWAY FROM THE TOWER. It was strange, Rorden thought, that for the second time in his life he had said good-bye to Alvin. The little, closed world of Diaspar knew only one farewell, and that was for eternity.

  The ship was now only a dark stain against the sky, and of a sudden Rorden lost it altogether. He never saw its going, but presently there echoed down from the heavens the most awe-inspiring of all the sounds that Man had ever made—the long-drawn thunder of air falling, mile after mile, into a tunnel drilled suddenly across the sky.

  Even when the last echoes had died away into the desert, Rorden never moved. He was thinking of the boy who had gone—wondering, as he had so often done, if he would ever understand that aloof and baffling mind. Alvin would never grow up: to him the whole universe was a plaything, a puzzle to be unravelled for his own amusement. In his play he had now found the ultimate, deadly toy which might wreck what was left of human civilization—but whatever the outcome, to him it would still be a game.

  The sun was now low on the horizon, and a chill wind was blowing from the desert. But still Rorden waited, conquering his fears, and presently for the first time in his life he saw the stars.

  EVEN IN DIASPAR, ALVIN HAD NEVER SEEN SUCH LUXURY AS that which lay before him when the inner door of the airlock slid aside. At first he did not understand its implications: then he began to wonder, rather uneasily, how long this tiny world might be upon its journeying between the stars. There were no controls of any kind, but the large, oval screen which completely covered the far wall would have shown that this was no ordinary room. Ranged in a half circle before it were three low couches: the rest of the cabin was occupied by two tables, a number of most inviting chairs, and many curious devices which for the moment Alvin could not identify.

  When he had made himself comfortable in front of the screen, he looked around for the robots. To his surprise, they had disappeared: then he located them, neatly stowed away in recesses high up beneath the curved ceiling. Their action had been so completely natural that Alvin knew at once the purpose for which they had been intended. He remembered the Master Robots: these were the Interpreters, without which no untrained human mind could control a machine as complex as a spaceship. They had brought the Master to Earth and then, as his servants, followed him into Lys. Now they were ready, as if the intervening aeons had never been, to carry out their old duties once again.

  Alvin threw them an experiment
al command, and the great screen shivered into life. Before him was the Tower of Loranne, curiously foreshortened and apparently lying on its side. Further trials gave him views of the sky, of the city, and of great expanses of desert. The definition was brilliantly, almost unnaturally, clear, although there seemed to be no actual magnification. Alvin wondered if the ship itself moved as the picture changed, but could think of no way of discovering this. He experimented for a little while until he could obtain any view he wished: then he was ready to start.

  “Take me to Lys”—the command was a simple one, but how could the ship obey it when he himself had no idea of the direction? Alvin had never thought of this, and when it did occur to him the machine was already moving across the desert at a tremendous speed. He shrugged his shoulders, thankfully accepting what he could not understand.

  It was difficult to judge the scale of the picture racing up the screen, but many miles must be passing every minute. Not far from the city the color of the ground had changed abruptly to a dull grey, and Alvin knew that he was now passing over the bed of one of the lost oceans. Once Diaspar must have been very near the sea, though there had never been any hint of this even in the most ancient records. Old though the city was, the oceans must have passed away long before its building.

  Hundreds of miles later, the ground rose sharply and the desert returned. Once Alvin halted his ship above a curious pattern of intersecting lines, showing faintly through the blanket of sand. For a moment it puzzled him: then he realized that he was looking down on the ruins of some forgotten city. He did not stay for long: it was heartbreaking to think that billions of men had left no other trace of their existence save these furrows in the sand.