Arthur Clarke: Childhood’s End

“There have been three slight ’quakes in the last hour,” he continued. “Their control of Earth’s spin must be marvellous, but not quite perfect…. You know, Karellen, I’m going to find it very hard to say anything your instruments haven’t already told you. It might have helped if you’d given me some idea of what to expect, and warned me how long I may have to wait. If nothing happens, I’ll report again in six hours, as we arranged.

“Hello! They must have been waiting for you to leave. Something’s starting to happen. The stars are becoming dimmer. It’s as if a great cloud is coming up, very swiftly, over all the sky. But it isn’t really a cloud. It seems to have some sort of structure — I can glimpse a hazy network of lines and bands that keep changing their positions. It’s almost as if the stars are tangled in a ghostly spider’s web.

“The whole network is beginning to glow — to pulse with light, exactly as if it were alive. And I suppose it is: or is it something as much beyond life as that is above the inorganic world?

“The glow seems to be shifting to one part of the sky — wait a minute while I move round to the other window.

“Yes — I might have guessed. There’s a great burning column, like a tree of fire, reaching above the western horizon. It’s a long way off, right round the world. I know where it springs from: they’re on their way at last, to become part of the Overmind. Their probation is ended: they’re leaving the last remnants of matter behind.

“As that fire spreads upwards from the Earth, I can see the network becoming firmer and less misty. In places, it seems almost solid — yet the stars are still shining faintly through it.

“I’ve just realized. It’s not exactly the same, but the thing I saw shooting up above your world, Karellen, was very much like this. Was that part of the Overmind? I suppose you hid the truth from me so that I would have no preconceived ideas — so that I’d be an unbiased observer. I wish I knew what your cameras were showing you now, to compare it with what my mind imagines I’m seeing!

“Is this how it talks to you, Karellen, in colours and shapes like these? I’ve remembered the control screens on your ship and the patterns that went across them, speaking to you in some visual language which your eyes could read.

“Now it looks exactly like the curtains of the aurora, dancing and flickering across the stars. Why, that’s what it really is, I’m sure — a great auroral storm. The whole landscape is lit up — it’s brighter than day — reds and golds and greens are chasing each other across the sky — oh, it’s beyond words, it doesn’t seem fair that I’m the only one to see it — I never thought such colours—

“The storm’s dying down, but the great misty network is still there. I think that aurora was only a by-product of whatever energies are being released up there on the frontier of space.

“Just a minute: I’ve noticed something else. My weight’s decreasing. What does that mean? I’ve dropped a pencil — it’s falling slowly. Something’s happened to gravity — there’s a great wind coming up — I can see the trees tossing their branches down there in the valley.

“Of course — the atmosphere’s escaping. Sticks and stones are rising into the sky, almost as if the Earth itself is trying to follow them out into space. There’s a great cloud of dust, whipped up by the gale. It’s becoming hard to see. perhaps It will clear in a moment.

“Yes — that’s better. Everything movable has been stripped away — the dust clouds have vanished. I wonder how long this building will stand? And it’s getting hard to breathe — I must try and talk more slowly.

“I can see clearly again. That great burning column is still there, but it’s constricting, narrowing — it looks like the funnel of a tornado, about to retract into the clouds. And — oh, this is hard to describe, but just then I felt a great wave of emotion sweep over me. It wasn’t joy or sorrow; it was a sense of fulfillment, achievement. Did I imagine it? Or did it come from outside? I don’t know.

“And now — this can’t be all imagination — the world feels empty. Utterly empty. It’s like listening to a radio set that’s suddenly gone dead. And the sky is clear again — the misty web has gone. What world will it go to next, Karellen? And will you be there to serve it still?

“Strange: everything around me is unaltered. I don’t know why, but somehow I’d thought that—” Jan stopped. For a moment he struggled for words, then closed his eyes in an effort to regain control. There was no room for fear or panic now: he had a duty to perform — a duty to Man, and a duty to Karellen. Slowly at first, like a man awaking from a dream, he began to speak.

“The buildings round me — the ground — the mountains — everything’s like glass — I can see through it. Earth’s dissolving — my weight has almost gone. You were right — they’ve finished playing with their toys.

“It’s only a few seconds away. There go the mountains, like wisps of smoke. Goodbye, Karellen, Rashaverak — I am sorry for you. Though I cannot understand it, I’ve seen what my race became. Everything we ever achieved has gone up there into the stars. Perhaps that’s what the old religions were trying to say. But they got it all wrong: they thought mankind was so important, yet we’re only one race in — do you know how many? Yet now we’ve become something that you could never be.

“There goes the river. No change in the sky, though. I can hardly breathe. Strange to see the Moon still shining up there. I’m glad they left it, but it will be lonely now—

“The light! From beneath me — inside the Earth — shining upward, through the rocks, the ground, everything — growing brighter, brighter, blinding—” In a soundless concussion of light, Earth’s core gave up its hoarded energies. For a little while the gravitational waves crossed and recrossed the Solar System, disturbing ever so slightly the orbits of the planets. Then the Suit’s remaining children pursued their ancient paths once more, as corks floating on a placid lake ride out the tiny ripples set in motion by a falling stone. There was nothing left of Earth. They had teethed away the last atoms of its substance. It had nourished them, through the fierce moments of their inconceivable metamorphosis, as the food stored in a grain of wheat feeds the infant plant while it climbs towards the Sun.

Six thousand million kilometres beyond the orbit of Pluto, Karellen sat before a suddenly darkened screen. The record was complete, the mission ended; he was homeward bound for the world he had left so long ago. The weight of centuries was upon him, and a sadness that no logic could dispel. He lid not mourn for Man: his sorrow was for his own race, forever barred from greatness by forces it could not overcome.

For all their achievements, thought Karellen, for all their mastery of the physical universe, his people were no better than a tribe that had passed its whole existence upon some flat and dusty plain. Far off were the mountains, where power and beauty dwelt, where the thunder sported above the glaciers and the air was clear and keen. There the sun still walked, transfiguring the peaks with glory, when all the land below was wrapped in darkness. And they could only watch and wonder: they could never scale those heights.

Yet, Karellen knew, they would hold fast until the end: they would await without despair whatever destiny was theirs. They would serve the Overmind because they had no choice, but even in that service they would not lose their souls. The great control screen flared for a moment with sombre, ruby light: without conscious effort, Karellen read the message of its changing patterns. The ship was leaving the frontiers of the Solar System: the energies that powered the stardrive were ebbing fast, but they had done their work.