The City and the Stars

Nineteen

Hilvar and Alvin walked in reflective silence back to the waiting ship, and presently the fortress was once more a dark shadow among the hills. It dwindled swiftly until it became a black and lidless eye, staring up forever into space, and soon they lost it in the great panorama of Lys.

Alvin did nothing to check the machine; still they rose until the whole of Lys lay spread beneath them, a green island in an ocher sea. Never before had Alvin been so high; when finally they came to rest the whole crescent of the Earth was visible below. Lys was very small now, only an emerald stain against the rusty desert-but far around the curve of the globe something was glittering like a man-colored jewel. And so for the first time, Hilvar saw the city of Diaspar.

They sat for a long while watching the Earth turn beneath them. Of all Man’s ancient powers, this surely was the one he could least afford to lose. Alvin wished he could show the world as he saw it now to the rulers of Lys and Diaspar.

«Hilvar,» he said at last, «do you think that what I’m doing is right?»

The question surprised Hilvar, who did not suspect the sudden doubts that sometimes overwhelmed his friend, and still knew nothing of Alvin’s meeting with the Central Computer and the impact which that had had upon his mind. It was not an easy question to answer dispassionately; like Khedron, though with less cause, Hilvar felt that his own character was becoming submerged. He was being sucked helplessly into the vortex which Alvin left behind him on his way through life.

«I believe you are right,» Hilvar answered slowly. «Our two peoples have been separated for long enough.» That, he thought, was true, though he knew that his own feelings must bias his reply. But Alvin was still worried.

«There’s one problem that bothers me,» he said in a troubled voice, «and that’s the difference in our life spans.» He said no more, but each knew what the other was thinking.

I’ve been worried about that as well,» Hilvar admitted, «but I think the problem will solve itself in time when our people get to know each other again. We can’t both be right -our lives may be too short, and yours are certainly far too long. Eventually there will be a compromise.»

Alvin wondered. That way, it was true, lay the only hope, but the ages of transition would be hard indeed. He remembered again those bitter words of Seranis: «Both he and 1 will have been dead for centuries while you are still a young man.» Very well he would accept the conditions. Even in Diaspar all friendships lay under the same shadow; whether it was a hundred or a million years away made little difference at the end.

Alvin knew, with a certainty that passed all logic, that the welfare of the race demanded the mingling of these two cultures; in such a cause individual happiness was unimportant. For a moment Alvin saw humanity as something more than the living background of his own life, and he accepted without flinching the unhappiness his choice must one day bring.

Beneath them the world continued on its endless turning.

Sensing his friend’s mood. Hilvar said nothing, until present in Alvin broke the silence.

«When I first left Diaspar,» he said, «I did not know what I hoped to find. Lys would have satisfied me once-more than satisfied me-yet now everything on Earth seems so small and unimportant. Each discovery I’ve made has raised bigger questions, and opened up wider horizons. I wonder where it will end…»

Hilvar had never seen Alvin in so thoughtful a mood, and did not wish to interrupt his soliloquy. He had learned a great deal about his friend in the last few minutes.

«The robot told me,» Alvin continued, «that this ship can reach the Seven Suns in less than a day. Do you think I should go?»

«Do you think I could stop you?» Hilvar replied quietly.

Alvin smiled.

«That’s no answer,» he said. «Who knows what lies out there in space? The Invaders may have left the Universe, but there may be other intelligences unfriendly to man.»

«Why should there be?» Hilvar asked. «That’s one of the questions our philosophers have been debating for ages. A truly intelligent race is not likely to be unfriendly.»

«But the Invaders-?»

«They are an enigma, I admit. 1f they were really vicious, they must have destroyed themselves by now. And even if they have not-» Hilvar pointed to the unending deserts below. «Once we had an Empire. What have we now that they would covet?»

Alvin was a little surprised that anyone else shared this point of view, so closely allied to his own.

«Do all your people think this way?» he asked.

«Only a minority. The average person doesn’t worry about it, but would probably say that if the Invaders really wanted to destroy Earth, they’d have done it ages ago. I don’t suppose anyone is actually afraid of them.»

«Things are very different in Diaspar,» said Alvin. «My people are great cowards. They are terrified of leaving their city, and I don’t know what will happen when they hear that I’ve located a spaceship. Jeserac will have told the Council by now, and I would like to know what it is doing.»

«I can tell you that. It is preparing to receive its first delegation from Lys. Seranis has just told me.»

Alvin looked again at the screen. He could span the distance between Lys and Diaspar in a single glance; though one of his aims had been achieved, that seemed a small matter now. Yet he was very glad; now, surely, the long ages of sterile isolation would be ending.

The knowledge that he had succeeeded in what had once been his main mission cleared away the last doubts from Alvin’s mind. He had fulfilled his purpose here on Earth, more swiftly and more thoroughly than he had dared to hope. The way lay clear ahead for what might be his last, and would certainly be his greatest, adventure.

«Will you come with me, Hilvar?» he said, all too conscious of what he was asking.

Hilvar looked at him steadfastly.

«There was no need to ask that, Alvin,» he said. «I told Seranis and all my friends that I was leaving with you a good hour ago.»

They were very high when Alvin gave the robot its final instructions. The ship had come almost to rest and the Earth was perhaps a thousand miles below, nearly filling the sky. It looked very uninviting; Alvin wondered how many ships in the past had hovered here for a little while and then continued on their way.

There was an appreciable pause, as if the robot was checking controls and circuits that had not been used for geological ages. Then came a very faint sound, the first that Alvin had ever heard from a machine. It was a tiny humming, which soared swiftly octave by octave until it was lost at the edge of hearing. There was no sense of change of motion, but suddenly he noticed that the stars were drifting across the screen. The Earth reappeared, and rolled past-then appeared again, in a slightly different position. The ship was «hunting,» swinging in space like a compass needle seeking the north. For minutes the skies turned and twisted around them, until at last the ship came to rest, a giant projectile aimed at the stars.

Centered in the screen the great ring of the Seven Suns lay in its rainbow-hued beauty. A little of Earth was still visible as a dark crescent edged with the gold and crimson of the sunset. Something was happening now, Alvin knew, beyond all his experience. He waited, gripping his seat, while the seconds drifted by and the Seven Suns glittered on the screen.

There was no sound, only a sudden wrench that seemed to blur the vision-but Earth had vanished as if a giant hand had whipped it away. They were alone in space, alone with the stars and a strangely shrunken sun. Earth was gone as though it had never been.

Again came that wrench, and with it now the faintest murmur of sound, as if for the first time the generators were exerting some appreciable fraction of their power. Yet for a moment it seemed that nothing had happened; then Alvin realized that the sun itself was gone and that the stars were creeping slowly past the ship. He looked back for an instant and saw-nothing. All the heavens behind had vanished utterly, obliterated by a hemisphere of night. Even as he watched, he could see the stars plunge into it, to disappear like sparks falling upon water. The ship was traveling far faster than light, and Alvin knew that the familiar space of Earth and sun held him no more.

When that sudden, vertiginous wrench came for the third time, his heart almost stopped beating. The strange blurring of vision was unmistakable now: for a moment his surroundings seemed distorted out of recognition. The meaning of that distortion came to him in a flash of insight he could not explain. It was real and no delusion of his eyes. Somehow he was catching, as he passed through the thin film of the Present, a glimpse of the changes that were occurring in the space around him. At the same instant the murmur of the generators rose to a roar that shook the ship-a sound doubly impressive for it was the first cry of protest that Alvin had ever heard from a machine. Then it was all over, and the sudden silence seemed to ring in his ears. The great generators had done their work; they would not be needed again until the end of the voyage. The stars ahead flared blue-white and vanished into the ultraviolet. Yet by some magic of Science or Nature the Seven Suns were still visible, though now their positions and colors were subtly changed. The ship was hurtling toward them along a tunnel of darkness, beyond the boundaries of space and time, at a velocity too enormous for the mind to contemplate.

It was hard to believe that they had now been flung out of the Solar System at a speed which unless it were checked would soon take them through the heart of the Galaxy and into the greater emptiness beyond. Neither Alvin nor Hilvar could conceive the real immensity of their journey; the great sagas of exploration had completely changed Man’s outlook toward the Universe and even now, millions of centuries later, the ancient traditions had not wholly died. There had once been a ship, legend whispered, that had circumnavigated the Cosmos between the rising and the setting of the sun. The billions of miles between the stars meant nothing before such speeds. To Alvin this voyage was very little greater, and perhaps less dangerous, than his first journey to Lys.

It was Hilvar who voiced both their thoughts as the Seven Suns slowly brightened ahead.

«Alvin,» he remarked, «that formation can’t possibly be natural.»

The other nodded.

«I’ve thought that for years, but it still seems fantastic.»

«The system may not have been built by Man,» agreed Hilvar, «but intelligence must have created it. Nature could never have formed that perfect circle of stars, all equally brilliant. And there’s nothing else in the visible Universe like the Central Sun.»

«Why should such a thing have been made, then?»

«Oh, I can think of many reasons. Perhaps it’s a signal, so that any strange ship entering our Universe will know where to look for life. Perhaps it marks the center of galactic administration. Or perhaps-and somehow I feel that this is the real explanation-it’s simply the greatest of all works of art. But it’s foolish to speculate now. In a few hours we shall know the truth.»

«We shall know the truth.» Perhaps, thought Alvin-but how much of it shall we ever know? It seemed strange that now, while he was leaving Diaspar, and indeed Earth itself, at a speed beyond all comprehension, his mind should turn once more to the mystery of his origin. Yet perhaps it was not so surprising; he had learned many things since he had first arrived in Lys, but until now he had not had a single moment for quiet reflection.

There was nothing he could do now but sit and wait; his immediate future was controlled by the wonderful machine -surely one of the supreme engineering achievements of all time-that was now carrying him into the heart of the Universe. Now was the moment for thought and reflection, whether he wished it or not. But first he would tell Hilvar all that had happened to him since their hasty parting only two days before.

Hilvar absorbed the tale without comment and without asking for any explanations; he seemed to understand at once everything that Alvin described, and showed no signs of surprise even when he heard of the meeting with the Central Computer and the operation it had performed upon the robot’s mind. It was not that he was incapable of wonder, but that the history of the past was full of marvels that could match anything in Alvin’s story.

«It’s obvious,» he said, when Alvin had finished talking, «that the Central Computer must have received special instructions regarding you when it was built. By now, you must have guessed why.»

«I think so. Khedron gave me part of the answer when he explained how the men who designed Diaspar had taken steps to prevent it becoming decadent.»

«Do you think you-and the other Uniques before you are part of the social mechanism which prevents complete stagnation? So that whereas the Jesters are short-term correcting factors, you and your kind are long-term ones?»

Hilvar had expressed the idea better than Alvin could, yet this was not exactly what he had in mind.

«I believe the truth is more complicated than that. It almost looks as if there was a conflict of opinion when the city was built, between those who wanted to shut it off completely from the outside world, and those who wanted to maintain some contacts. The first faction won, but the others did not admit defeat. I think Yarlan Zey must have been one of their leaders, but he was not powerful enough to act openly. He did his best, by leaving the subway in existence and by insuring that at long intervals someone would come out of the Hall of Creation who did not share the fears of all his fellow men, In fact, I wonder-» Alvin paused, and his eyes veiled with thought so that for a moment he seemed oblivious of his surroundings.

«What are you thinking now?» asked Hilvar.,

«It’s just occurred to me-perhaps 1 am Yarlan Zey. It’s perfectly possible. He may have fed his personality into Memory Banks, relying on it to break the mold of Diaspar before it was too firmly established. One day I must discover what happened to those earlier Uniques; that may help fill in the gaps in the picture.»

«And Yarlan Zey-or whoever it was-also instructed the Central Computer to give special assistance to the Uniques, whenever they were created,» mused Hilvar, following this line of logic.

«That’s right. The ironic thing is that I could have got all the information I needed direct from the Central Computer, without any assistance from poor Khedron. It would have told me more than it ever told him. But there’s no doubt that he saved me a good deal of time, and taught me much that I could never have learned by myself.»

«I think your theory covers all the known facts,» said Hilvar cautiously. «Unfortunately, it still leaves wide open the biggest problem of all-the original purpose of Diaspar. Why did your people try to pretend that the outer world didn’t exist? That’s a question I’d like to see answered.»

«It’s a question I intend to answer,» replied Alvin. «But I don’t know when-or how.»

So they argued and dreamed, while hour by hour the Seven Suns drifted apart until they had filled that strange tunnel of night in which the ship was riding. Then, one by one, the six outer stars vanished at the brink of darkness and at last only the Central Sun was left. Though it could no longer be fully in their space, it still shone with the pearly light that marked it out from all other stars. Minute by minute its brilliance increased, until presently it was no longer a point but a tiny disc. And now the disc was beginning to expand before them.

There was the briefest of warnings: for a moment a deep, bell-like note vibrated through the room. Alvin clenched the arms of his chair, though it was a futile enough gesture.

Once again the great generators exploded into life, and with an abruptness that was almost blinding, the stars reappeared. The ship had dropped back into space, back into; the Universe of suns and planets, the natural world where; nothing could move more swiftly than light.

They were already within the system of the Seven Suns, for the great ring of colored globes now dominated the sky. And what a sky it was! All the stars they had known, all the: familiar constellations, had gone. The Milky Way was no longer a faint band of mist far to one side of the heavens; they were now at the center of creation, and its great circle divided the Universe in twain.

The ship was still moving very swiftly toward the Central Sun, and the six remaining stars of the system were colored beacons ranged around the sky. Not far from the nearest of them were the tiny sparks of circling planets, worlds that must have been of enormous size to be visible over such a distance.

The cause of the Central Sun’s nacreous light was now clearly visible. The great star was shrouded in an envelope of gas which softened its radiation and gave it its characteristic color. The surrounding nebula could only be seen indirectly, and it was twisted into strange shapes that eluded the eye. But it was there, and the longer one stared the more extensive it seemed to be.

«Well, Alvin,» said Hilvar, «we have a good many worlds to take our choice from. Or do you hope to explore them all?»

«It’s lucky that won’t be necessary,» admitted Alvin. «If we can make contact anywhere, we’ll get the information we need. The logical thing would be to head for the largest planet of the Central Sun.»

«Unless it’s too large. Some planets, I’ve heard, were so big that human life could not exist on them-men would be crushed under their own weight.»

«I doubt if that will be true here, since I’m sure this system is entirely artificial. In any case, we’ll be able to see from space whether there are any cities and buildings.»

Hilvar pointed to the robot.

«Our problem has been solved for us. Don’t forget-our guide has been here before. He is taking us home and I wonder what he thinks about it?»

That was something that Alvin had also wondered. But was it accurate-did it make any sense at all-to imagine that the robot felt anything resembling human emotions now that it was returning to the ancient home of the Master, after so many aeons?

In all his dealings with it, since the Central Computer had released the blocks that made it mute, the robot had -never shown any sign of feelings or emotion. It had answered his questions and obeyed his commands, but its real personality had proved utterly inaccessible to him. That it had a personality Alvin was sure; otherwise he would not have felt that obscure sense of guilt which afflicted him when he recalled the trick he had played upon it-and upon its now dormant companion.

It still believed in everything that the Master had taught it; though it had seen him fake his miracles and tell lies to his followers, these inconvenient facts did not affect its loyalty. It was able, as had many humans before it, to reconcile two conflicting sets of data. Now it was following its immemorial memories back to heir origin. Almost lost in the glare of the Central Sun was a vale spark of light, with around it the fainter gleams of yet smaller worlds. Their enormous journey was coming to it end; in a little while they would know if it had been in vain.