Arthur Clarke - Childhood’s End

“I have told you these things so that you will know what faces you. In a few hours, the crisis will be upon us. My task and my duty is to protect those I have been sent here to guard. Despite their wakening powers, they could be destroyed by the multitudes around them — yes, even by their parents, when they realize the truth. I must take them away and isolate them, for their protection, and for yours. Tomorrow my ships will begin the evacuation. I shall not blame you if you try to interfere, but it will be useless. Greater powers than mine are wakening now; I am only one of their instruments.

“And then — what am I to do with you, the survivors, when your purpose has been fulfilled? It would be simplest, perhaps, and most merciful, to destroy you — as you yourselves would destroy a mortally wounded pet you loved. But this I cannot do. Your future will be your own to choose in the years that are left to you. It is my hope that humanity will go to its rest in peace, knowing that it has not lived in vain.

“For what you have brought into the world may be utterly alien, it may share none of your desires or hopes, it may look upon your greatest achievements as childish toys — yet it is something wonderful, and you will have created it.

“When our race is forgotten, part of yours will still exist. Do not, therefore, condemn us for what we were compelled to do. And remember this — we shall always envy you.”

Jean had wept before, but she was not weeping now. The island lay golden in the heartless, unfeeling sunlight as the ship came slowly into sight above the twin peaks of Sparta. On that rocky island, not long ago, her son had escaped death by a miracle she now understood all too well. Sometimes she wondered if it might not have been better had the Overlords stood aside and left him to his fate. Death was something she could face as she had faced it before: it was in the natural order of things. But this was stranger than death — and more final. Until this day, men had died, yet the race had continued.

There was no sound or movement from the children. They stood in scattered groups along the sand, showing no more interest in one another than in the homes they were leaving forever. Many carried babies who were too small to walk — or who did not wish to assert the powers that made walking unnecessary. For surely, thought George, if they could move inanimate matter, they could move their own bodies. Why, indeed, were the Overlord ships collecting them at all?

It was of no importance. They were leaving, and this was the way they chose to go. Then George realized what it was that had been teasing his memory. Somewhere, long ago, he had seen a century — old newsreel of such an exodus. It must have been at the beginning of the First World War — or the Second. There had been long lines of trains, crowded with children, pulling slowly out of the threatened cities, leaving behind the parents that so many of them would never see again. Few were crying: some were puzzled, clutching nervously at their small belongings, but most seemed to be looking forward with eagerness to some great adventure.

And yet — the analogy was false. History never repeated itself. These who were leaving now were no longer children, whatever they might be. And this time there would be no reunion.

The ship had grounded along the water’s edge, sinking deeply into the soft sand. In perfect unison, the line of great curving panels slid upwards and the gangways extended themselves towards the beach like metal tongues. The scattered, unutterably lonely figures began to converge, to gather into a crowd that moved precisely as a human crowd might do.

Lonely? Why had he thought that, wondered George. For that was the one thing they could never be again. Only individuals can be lonely — only human beings. When the barriers were down at last, loneliness would vanish as personality faded. The countless raindrops would have merged into the ocean.

He felt Jean’s hand increase its pressure on his in a sudden spasm of emotion.

“Look,” she whispered. “I can see Jeff. By that second door.”

It was a long way away, and very hard to be certain. There was a mist before his eyes which made it hard to see. But it was Jeff — he was sure of that: George could recognize his son now, as he stood with one foot already on the metal gangway.

And Jeff turned and looked back. His face was only a white blur: at this distance, there was no way of telling if it bore any hint of recognition, any remembrance for all that he was leaving behind. Nor would George ever know if Jeff had turned towards them by pure chance — or if he knew, in those last moments while he was still their son, that they stood watching him as he passed into the land that they could never enter.

The great doors began to close. And in that moment Fey lifted up her muzzle and gave a low, desolate moan. She turned her beautiful limpid eyes towards George, and he knew that she had lost her master. He had no rival now.

For those who were left there were many roads but only one destination. There were some who said: “The world is still beautiful: one day we must leave it, but why should we hasten our departure?”

But others, who had set more store by the future than the past, and had lost all that made life worth living, did not wish to stay. They took their leave alone, or with their friends, according to their nature.

It was thus with Athens. The island had been born in fire; in fire it chose to die. Those who wished to leave did so, but most remained, to meet the end amid the broken fragments of their dreams.

No one was supposed to know when the time would be. Yet Jean awoke in the stillness of the night, and lay for a moment staring at the ghostly glimmer from the ceiling. Then she reached out to grasp George’s hand. He was a sound sleeper, but this time he woke at once. They did not speak, for the words that were wanted did not exist.

Jean was no longer frightened, or even sad. She had come through to the calm waters and was beyond emotion now. But there was one thing still to be done, and she knew that there was barely time to do it.

Still without a word, George followed her through the silent house. They went across the patch of moonlight that had entered through the studio roof, moving as quietly as the shadows it cast, until they came to the deserted nursery. Nothing had been changed. The fluoro-patterns that George had painted so carefully still glowed on the walls. And the rattle that had once belonged to Jennifer Anne still lay where she had dropped it, when her mind turned into the unknowable remoteness it inhabited now.

She had left her toys behind, thought George, but ours go hence with us. He thought of the royal children of the Pharaohs, whose dolls and beads had been buried with them five thousand years ago. So it would be again. No one else, he told himself will ever love our treasures: we will take them with us, and will not part with them.

Slowly Jean turned towards him, and rested her head upon his shoulder. He clasped his arms about her waist, and the love he had once known came back to him, faint yet clear, like an echo from a distant range of hills. It was too late now to say all that was due to her, and the regrets he felt were less for his deceits than for his past indifference.

Then Jean said quietly: “Goodbye, my darling” and tightened her arms about him. There was no time for George to answer, but even at that final moment he felt a brief astonishment as he wondered how she knew that the moment had arrived.

Far down in the rock, the segments of uranium began to rush together, seeking the union they could never achieve.

And the island rose to meet the dawn.

The ship of the Overlords came sliding in along its glowing meteor-trail through the heart of Carina. It had begun its mad deceleration among the outer planets, but even while passing Mars it had still possessed an appreciable fraction of the velocity of light. Slowly the immense fields surrounding the Sun were absorbing its momentum, while for a million kilometres behind, the stray energies of the stardrive were painting the heavens with fire.