Arthur Clarke - Against the Fall of Night

Alvin wondered how Seranis could be so sure of her facts, and he did not approve of her attitude towards Diaspar. He had hardly “escaped”-yet, after all, the word was not altogether inaccurate.

Somewhere a great bell vibrated with a throbbing boom that ebbed and died in the still air. Six times it struck, and as the last note faded into silence Alvin realized that the sun was low on the horizon and the eastern sky already held a hint of night.

“I must return to Diaspar,” he said. “Rorden is expecting me.”

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’ 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 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 won’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.