“I must return to Diaspar,” he said. “Rorden is expecting me.”
Six
The Last Niagara
Seranis looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. Then she rose to her feet and walked towards the stairway.
“Please wait a little while,” she said. “I have some business to settle and Theon, I know, has many questions to ask you.”
Then she was gone, and for the next few minutes Theon’s barrage of questions drove any other thoughts from his mind. Theon had heard of Diaspar, and had seen records of the cities as they were at the height of their glory, but he could not imagine how their inhabitants had passed their lives. Alvin was amused at many of his questions—until he realized that his own ignorance of Lys was even greater.
Seranis was gone for many minutes, but her expression revealed nothing when she returned.
“We have been talking about you,” she said—not explaining who “we” might be: “If you return to Diaspar, the whole city will know about us. Whatever promises you make, the secret could not be kept.”
A feeling of slight panic began to creep over Alvin. Seranis must have known his thoughts for her next words were more reassuring.
“We don’t wish to keep you here against your wishes, but if you return to Diaspar we will have to erase all memories of Lys from your mind.” She hesitated for a moment. “This has never arisen before: all your predecessors came here to stay.”
Alvin was thinking deeply.
“Why should it matter,” he said, “if Diaspar does learn about you again? Surely it would be a good thing for both our peoples?”
Seranis looked displeased.
“We don’t think so,” she said. “If the gates were opened, our land would be flooded with sensation seekers and the idly curious. As things are now, only the best of your people have ever reached us.”
Alvin felt himself becoming steadily more annoyed, but he realized that Seranis’s attitude was quite unconscious.
“That isn’t true,” he said flatly. “Very few of us would ever leave Diaspar. If you let me return, it would make no difference to Lys.”
“The decision is not in my hands,” replied Seranis, “but I will put it to the Council when it meets in three days from now. Until then, you can remain as my guest and Theon will show you our country.”
“I would like to do that,” said Alvin, “but Rorden will be waiting for me. He knows where I am, and if I don’t come back at once anything may happen.”
Seranis smiled slightly.
“We have given that a good deal of thought,” she admitted. “There are men working on the problem now—we will see if they have been successful.”
Alvin was annoyed at having overlooked something so obvious. He knew that the engineers of the past had built for eternity—his journey to Lys had been proof of that. Yet it gave him a shock when the chromatic mist on the visiphone screen drifted aside to show the familiar outlines of Rorden’s room.
The Keeper of the Records looked up from his desk. His eyes lit when he saw Alvin.
“I never expected you to be early,” he said—though there was relief behind the jesting words. “Shall I come to meet you?”
While Alvin hesitated, Seranis stepped forward and Rorden saw her for the first time. His eyes widened and he leaned forward as if to obtain a better view. The movement was as useless as it was automatic: Man had not lost it even though he had used the visiphone for a thousand million years.
Seranis laid her hands on Alvin’s shoulders and began to speak. When she had finished Rorden was silent for a while.
“I’ll do my best,” he said at length. “As I understand it, the choice lies between sending Alvin back to us under some form of hypnosis—or returning him with no restrictions at all. But I think I can promise that even if it learns of your existence, Diaspar will continue to ignore you.”
“We don’t overlook that possibility,” Seranis replied with just a trace of pique. Rorden detected it instantly.
“And what of myself?” he asked with a smile. “I know as much as Alvin now.”
“Alvin is a boy,” replied Seranis quickly, “but you hold an office as ancient as Diaspar. This is not the first time Lys has spoken to the Keeper of the Records, and he has never betrayed our secret yet.”
Rorden made no comment: he merely said: “How long do you wish to keep Alvin?”
“At the most, five days. The Council meets three days from now.”
“Very well: for the next five days, then, Alvin is extremely busy on some historical research with me. This won’t be the first time it’s happened—but we’ll have to be out if Jeserac calls.”
Alvin laughed.
“Poor Jeserac! I seem to spend half my life hiding things from him.”
“You’ve been much less successful than you think,” replied Rorden, somewhat disconcertingly. “However, I don’t expect any trouble. But don’t be longer than the five days!”
When the picture had faded, Rorden sat for a while staring at the darkened screen. He had always suspected that the world communication network might still be in existence, but the keys to its operation had been lost and the billions of circuits could never be traced by man. It was strange to reflect that even now visiphones might be called vainly in the lost cities. Perhaps the time would come when his own receiver would do the same, and there would be no Keeper of the Records to answer the unknown caller….
He began to feel afraid. The immensity of what had happened was slowly dawning upon him. Until now, Rorden had given little thought to the consequences of his actions. His own historical interests, and his affection for Alvin, had been sufficient motive for what he had done. Though he had humored and encouraged Alvin, he had never believed that anything like this could possibly happen.
Despite the centuries between them, the boy’s will had always been more powerful than his own. It was too late to do anything about it now: Rorden felt that events were sweeping him along towards a climax utterly beyond his control.
“IS ALL THIS REALLY NECESSARY,” SAID ALVIN, “IF WE ARE only going to be away for two or three days? After all, we have a synthesizer with us.”
“Probably not,” answered Theon, throwing the last food-containers into the little ground-car. “It may seem an odd custom, but we’ve never synthesized some of our finest foods—we like to watch them grow. Also, we may meet other parties and it’s polite to exchange food with them. Nearly every district has some special product, and Airlee is famous for its peaches. That’s why I’ve put so many aboard—not because I think that even you can eat them all.”
Alvin threw his half-eaten peach at Theon, who dodged quickly aside. There came a flicker of iridescence and a faint whirring of invisible wings as Krif descended upon the fruit and began to sip its juices.
Alvin was still not quite used to Krif. It was hard for him to realize that the great insect, though it would come when called and would—sometimes—obey simple orders, was almost wholly mindless. Life, to Alvin, had always been synonymous with intelligence—sometimes intelligence far higher than man’s.
When Krif was resting, his six gauzy wings lay folded along his body, which glittered through them like a jewelled scepter. He was at once the highest and the most beautiful form of insect life the world had ever known—the latest and perhaps the last of all the creatures Man had chosen for his companionship.
Lys was full of such surprises, as Alvin was continually learning. Its inconspicuous but efficient transport system had been equally unexpected. The ground-car apparently worked on the same principle as the machine that had brought him from Diaspar, for it floated in the air a few inches above the turf. Although there was no sign of any guide-rail, Theon told him that the cars could only run on predetermined tracks. All the centres of population were thus linked together, but the remoter parts of the country could only be reached on foot. This state of affairs seemed altogether extraordinary to Alvin, but Theon appeared to think it was an excellent idea.
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Apparently Theon had been planning this expedition for a considerable time. Natural history was his chief passion—Krif was only the most spectacular of his many pets—and he hoped to find new types of insect life in the uninhabited southern parts of Lys.
The project had filled Alvin with enthusiasm when he heard of it. He looked forward to seeing more of this wonderful country, and although Theon’s interests lay in a different field of knowledge from his own, he felt a kinship for his new companion which not even Rorden had ever awakened.
Theon intended to travel south as far as the machine could go—little more than an hour’s journey from Airlee—and the rest of the way they would have to go on foot. Not realizing the full implications of this, Alvin had no objections.
To Alvin, the journey across Lys had a dream-like unreality. Silent as a ghost, the machine slid across rolling plains and wound its way through forests, never deviating from its invisible tracks. It travelled perhaps a dozen times as fast as a man could comfortably walk. No one in Lys was ever in a greater hurry than that.
Many times they passed through villages, some larger than Airlee but most built along very similar lines. Alvin was interested to notice subtle but significant differences in clothing and even physical appearance as they moved from one community to the next. The civilization of Lys was composed of hundreds of distinct cultures, each contributing some special talent towards the whole.
Once or twice Theon stopped to speak to friends, but the pauses were brief and it was still morning when the little machine came to rest among the foothills of a heavily wooded mountain. It was not a very large mountain, but Alvin thought it the most tremendous thing he had ever seen.
“This is where we start to walk,” said Theon cheerfully, throwing equipment out of the car. “We can’t ride any further.”
As he fumbled with the straps that were to convert him into a beast of burden, Alvin looked doubtfully at the great mass of rock before them.
“It’s a long way round, isn’t it?” he queried.
“We aren’t going round,” replied Theon. “I want to get to the top before nightfall.”
Alvin said nothing. He had been rather afraid of this.
“FROM HERE,” SAID THEON, RAISING HIS VOICE TO MAKE IT heard above the thunder of the waterfall, “you can see the whole of Lys.”
Alvin could well believe him. To the north lay mile upon mile of forest, broken here and there by clearings and fields and the wandering threads of a hundred rivers. Hidden somewhere in that vast panorama was the village of Airlee. Alvin fancied that he could catch a glimpse of the great lake, but decided that his eyes had tricked him. Still further north, trees and clearings alike were lost in a mottled carpet of green, rucked here and there by lines of hills. And beyond that, at the very edge of vision, the mountains that hemmed Lys from the desert lay like a bank of distant clouds.
East and west the view was little different, but to the south the mountains seemed only a few miles away. Alvin could see them very clearly, and he realized that they were far higher than the little peak on which he was standing.
But more wonderful even than these was the waterfall. From the sheer face of the mountain a mighty ribbon of water leaped far out over the valley, curving down through space towards the rocks a thousand feet below. There it was lost in a shimmering mist of spray, while up from the depths rose a ceaseless, drumming thunder that reverberated in hollow echoes from the mountain walls. And quivering in the air above the base of the fall was the last rainbow left on Earth.
For long minutes the two boys lay on the edge of the cliff, gazing at this last Niagara and the unknown land beyond. It was very different from the country they had left, for in some indefinable way it seemed deserted and empty. Man had not lived here for many, many years.
Theon answered his friend’s unspoken question.
“Once the whole of Lys was inhabited,” he said, “but that was a very long time ago. Only the animals live here now.”
Indeed, there was nowhere any sign of human life—none of the clearings or well-disciplined rivers that spoke of Man’s presence. Only in one spot was there any indication that he had ever lived here, for many miles away a solitary white ruin jutted above the forest roof like a broken fang. Elsewhere, the jungle had returned to its own.
Seven
The Crater Dweller
It was night when Alvin awoke, the utter night of mountain country, terrifying in its intensity. Something had disturbed him, some whisper of sound that had crept into his mind above the dull thunder of the falls. He sat up in the darkness, straining his eyes across the hidden land, while with indrawn breath he listened to the drumming roar of the falls and the faint but unending rustle of life in the trees around him.
Nothing was visible. The starlight was too dim to reveal the miles of country that lay hundreds of feet below: only a jagged line of darker night eclipsing the stars told of the mountains on the southern horizon. In the darkness beside him Alvin heard his friend roll over and sit up.
“What is it?” came a whispered voice.
“I thought I heard a noise.”
“What sort of noise?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps I was only dreaming.”
There was silence while two pairs of eyes peered out into the mystery of night. Then, suddenly, Theon caught his friend’s arm.
“Look!” he whispered.
Far to the south glowed a solitary point of light, too low in the heavens to be a star. It was a brilliant white, tinged with violet, and as the boys watched it began to climb the spectrum of intensity, until the eye could no longer bear to look upon it. Then it exploded—and it seemed as if lightning had struck below the rim of the world. For an instant the mountains, and the great land they guarded, were etched with fire against the darkness of the night. Ages later came the echo of a mighty explosion, and in the forest below a sudden wind stirred among the trees. It died away swiftly, and one by one the routed stars crept back into the sky.
For the first time in his life, Alvin knew that fear of the unknown that had been the curse of ancient man. It was a feeling so strange that for a while he could not even give it a name. In the moment of recognition it vanished and he became himself again.
“What is it?” he whispered.
There was a pause so long that he repeated the question.
“I’m trying to remember,” said Theon, and was silent for a while. A little later he spoke again.
“That must be Shalmirane,” he said simply.
“Shalmirane! Does it still exist?”
“I’d almost forgotten,” replied Theon, “but it’s coming back now. Mother once told me that the fortress lies in those mountains. Of course, it’s been in ruins for ages, but someone is still supposed to live there.”
Shalmirane! To these children of two races, so widely differing in culture and history, this was indeed a name of magic. In all the long story of Earth there had been no greater epic than the defense of Shalmirane against an invader who had conquered all the Universe.
Presently Theon’s voice came again out of the darkness.
“The people of the south could tell us more. We will ask them on our way back.”
Alvin scarcely heard him: he was deep in his own thoughts, remembering stories that Rorden had told him long ago. The Battle of Shalmirane lay at the dawn of recorded history: it marked the end of the legendary ages of Man’s conquests, and the beginning of his long decline. In Shalmirane, if anywhere on Earth, lay the answers to the problems that had tormented him for so many years. But the southern mountains were very far away.
Theon must have shared something of his mother’s powers, for he said quietly:
“If we started at dawn, we could reach the fortress by nightfall. I’ve never been there, but I think I could find the way.”
Alvin thought it over. He was tired, his feet were sore, and the muscles of his thighs were aching with the unaccustomed effort. It was very tempting to leave it unti
l another time. Yet there might be no other time, and there was even the possibility that the actinic explosion had been a signal for help.
Beneath the dim light of the failing stars, Alvin wrestled with his thoughts and presently made his decision. Nothing had changed: the mountains resumed their watch over the sleeping land. But a turning-point in history had come and gone, and the human race was moving towards a strange new future.
The sun had just lifted above the eastern wall of Lys when they reached the outskirts of the forest. Here, nature had returned to her own. Even Theon seemed lost among the gigantic trees that blocked the sunlight and cast pools of shadow on the jungle floor. Fortunately the river from the fall flowed south in a line too straight to be altogether natural, and by keeping to its edge they could avoid the denser undergrowth. A good deal of Theon’s time was spent in controlling Krif, who disappeared occasionally into the jungle or went skimming wildly across the water. Even Alvin, to whom everything was still so new, could feel that the forest had a fascination not possessed by the smaller, more cultivated woods of northern Lys. Few trees were alike: most of them were in various stages of devolution and some had reverted through the ages almost to their original, natural forms. Many were obviously not of Earth at all—perhaps not even of the Solar System. Watching like sentinels over the lesser trees were giant sequoias, three or four hundred feet high. They had once been called the oldest things on Earth: they were still a little older than Man.
The river was widening now: ever and again it opened into small lakes, upon which tiny islands lay at anchor. There were insects here, brilliantly colored creatures swinging aimlessly to and fro over the surface of the water. Once, despite Theon’s shouts, Krif darted away to join his distant cousins. He disappeared instantly in a cloud of glittering wings, and the sound of angry buzzing floated towards them. A moment later the cloud erupted and Krif came back across the water, almost too quickly for the eye to follow. Thereafter he kept very close to Theon and did not stray again.