Childhood's End (18 page)

It was strange how these rumours got around. No prior announcement was made, yet there was always a full house whenever Karellen had an important statement to make- which happened, on the average, two or three times a year.

Silence descended on the murmuring crowd as the great doorway split open and Karellen caine forward on to the dais. The light here was dim-approximating, no doubt, to that of the Overlords' far distant sun-so that, the Supervisor for Earth had discarded the dark glasses he normally wore when in the open.

He replied to the ragged chorus of greetings with a formal

"Good morning, everybody," then turned to the tall, distinguished figure at the front of the crowd. Mr. Golde, doyen of the Press Club, might have been the original inspirer of the butler's announcement: "Three reporters, m'lud, and a gentleman from The Times." He dressed and behaved like a diplomat

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of the old school: no-one would ever hesitate to confide in him, and no-one had ever regretted it subsequently.

"Quite a crowd today, Mr. Golde. There must be a shortage of news."

The gentleman from The Times smiled and cleared his throat.

"I hope you can rectify that, Mr. Supervisor."

He watched intently as Karellen considered his reply. It seemed so unfair that the Overlords' faces, rigid as masks, betrayed no trace of emotion. The great, wide eyes, their pupils sharply contracted even in this indifferent light, stared fathonilessly back into the frankly curious human ones. The twin breathing orifices on either cheek-if those fluted, basalt curves could be called cheeks-emitted the faintest of whistles as Karellen's hypothetical lungs laboured in the thin air of Earth. Golde could just see the curtain of tiny white hairs fluttering to and fro, keeping accurately out of phase, as they responded to Karellen's rapid, double-action breathing cycle. Dust filters, they were generally believed to be, and elaborate theories concerning the atmosphere of the Overlords' home bad been constructed on this slender foundation.

"Yes, I have some news for you. As you are doubtless aware, one of my supply ships recently left Earth to return to its base. We have just discovered that there was a stowaway on board."

A hundred pencils braked to a halt: a hundred pairs of eyes fixed themselves upon Karellen.

"A stowaway, did you say, Mr. Supervisor?" asked Golde. "May we ask who he was-and how he got aboard?"

"His name is Jan Rodricks: he is an engineering student from the University of Cape Town. Further details you can no doubt discover for yourselves through your own very efficient channels."

Karellen smiled. The Supervisor's smile was a curious affair. Most of the effect really resided in the eyes: the inflexible, lipless mouth scarcely moved at all. Was this, Golde wondered, another of the many human customs that Karellen bad copied with such skill? For the total effect was, undoubtedly, that of a smile, and the mind readily accepted it as such.

"As for how he left," continued the Supervisor, "that is of secondary importance. I can assure you, or any other potential astronauts, that there is no possibility of repeating the exploit."

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"What will happen to this young man?" persisted Golde.

"Will he be sent back to Earth?"

"That is outside my jurisdiction, but I expect he will come

back Ofl the next ship. He would find conditions too-alien- fur comfort where he has gone. And this leads me to the main purpOSe of our meeting today."

J(arellen paused, and the silence grew even deeper.

"There has been some complaint, among the younger and

more romantic elements of your population, because outer space has been closed to you. We had a purpose in doing this: we do not impose bans for the pleasure of it. But have yoU ever stopped to consider-if you will excuse a slightly ~attering analogy-what a man from your Stone Age

would have felt, if he suddenly found himself in a modern city?"

"Surely," protested the Herald Tribune, "there is a fundamental difference. We are accustomed to Science. On your

world there are doubtless many things which we might not understand-but they wouldn't seem magic to us."

"Are you quite sure of that?" said Karellen, so softly that it

was hard to hear his words. "Only a hundred years lies be~ween the age of electricity and the age of steam, but what would a Victorian engineer have made of a television set or an electronic computer. And how long would he have lived if he started to investigate their workings? The gulf between two ~~~bnologies can easily become so great that it is-lethal."

("Hello," whispered Reuters to the B.B.C. "We're in luck.

He's going to make a major policy statement. I know the symptoIflS. )

"And there are other reasons why we have restricted the

human race to Earth. Watch."

The lights dimmed and vanished. As they faded, a milky opalescence formed in the centre of the room. It congealed intO a whirlpool of stars-a spiral nebula seen from a point far beyond its outermost sun.

"No human eyes have ever seen this sight before," said Karellen's voice from the darkness. "You arc looking at your own Universe, the island galaxy of which your Sun is a member, from a distance of half a million light-years."

There was a long silence. Then Karellen continued, and

now his voice held something that was not quite pity and not

~1.ecisely scorn.

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"Your race has shown a notable incapacity for dealing with the problems of its own rather small planet. When we arrived, you were on the point of destroying yourselves with the powers that Science had rashly given you. Without our intervention, the Earth today would be a radioactive wilderness.

"Now you have a world at peace, and a united race. Soon you will be sufliciently civilized to run your planet without our assistance. Perhaps you could eventually handle the problems of an entire Solar System-say fifty moons and planets. But do you really imagine that you could ever cope with this?"

The nebula expanded. Now the individual stars were rushing past, appearing and vanishing as swiftly as sparks from a forge. And each of those transient sparks was a sun, with who knew how many circling worlds....

"In this single galaxy of ours," murmured Karellen, "there are eighty-seven thousand million suns. Even that figure gives only a faint idea of the immensity of space. In challenging it, you would be like ants attempting to label and classify all the grains of sand in all the deserts of the world.

"Your race, in its present stage of evolution, cannot face that stupendous challenge. One of my duties has been to protect you from the powers and forces that lie among the stars- fbroes beyond anything that you can ever imagine."

The image of the galaxy's swirling fire-mists faded: light returned to the sudden silence of the great chamber.

Karellen turned to go: the audience was over. At the door he paused and looked back upon the hushed crowd.

"It is a bitter thought, but you must face it. The planets you may one day possess. But the stars are not for Man."

"The stars are not for Man." Yes, it would annoy them to have the celestial portals slammed in their faces. But they must learn to face the truth-or as much of the truth as could mercifully be given to them.

From the lonely heights of the stratosphere, Karellen looked lown upon the world and the people that had been given into ~is reluctant keeping. He thought of all that lay ahead, and what this world would be only a dozen years from now.

They would never know how lucky they had been. For a

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lifetime Mankind had achieved as much happiness as any race can ever know. It had been the Golden Age. But gold was also the colour of sunset, of autumn: and only Karellen's ears could catch the first wailings of the winter storms.

And~only Karellen knew with what inexorable swiftness the Golden Age was rushing to its close.

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m

THE LAST GENERATION

15

"LOOK at this!" exploded George Greggson, hurling the paper across at Jean. It came to rest, despite her efforts to intercept it, spread listlessly across the breakfast table. Jean patiently scraped away the jam and read the offending passage, doing her best to register disapproval. She was not very good at this, because all too often she agreed with the critics. Usually she kept these heretical opinions to herself; and not merely for the sake of peace and quiet. George was perfectly prepared to accept praise from her (or anyone else), but if she ventured any criticism of his work she would receive a crushing lecture on her artistic ignorance.

She read the review twice, then gave up. It appeared quite favourable, and she said so.

"He seemed to like the performance. What are you grumbling about?"

"This," snarled George, stubbing his finger at the middle of the column. "Just read it again."

"'Particularly restful on the eyes were the delicate pastel greens of the background to the ballet sequence.' Well?"

"They weren't greens! I spent a lot of time getting that exact shade of blue! And what happens? Either some blasted engineer in the control room upsets the colour balance, or that idiot of a reviewer's got a cock-eyed set. Hey, what colour did it look on our receiver?"

"Er-I can't remember," confessed Jean. "The Poppet started squealing about then and I had to go and find what was wrong with her."

"Oh," said George, relapsing into a gently simmering quiescence. Jean knew that another eruption could be expected at any moment. When it came, however, it was fairly mild.

"I've invented a new definition for TV," he muttered

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gloomily. "I've decided it's a device for hindering communication between artist and audience."

"What do you want to do about it?" retorted Jean. "Go back to the live theatre?"

"And why not?" asked George. "That's exactly what I hat'. been thinking about. You know that letter I received from the New Athens people? They've written to me again. This time I'm going to answer."

"Indeed?" said Jean, faintly alarmed. "I think they're a lot of cranks."

"Well, there's only one way to find out. I intend to go and see them in the next fortnight. I must say that the literature they put out looks perfectly sane. And they've got some very good men there."

"If you expect me to start cooking over a wood fire, or learning to dress in skins, you'll have-"

"Oh, don't be silly! Those stories are just nonsense. The Colony's got everything that's really needed for civilized life. They don't believe in unnecessary frills, that's all. Anyway, it's a couple of years since I visited the Pacific, It will make a trip for us both."

"I agree with you there," said Jean. "But I don't intend Junior and the Poppet to grow up into a couple of Polynesian savages."

"They won't," said George. "I can promise you that."

He was right, though not in the way he had intended.

"As you noticed when you flew in," said the little man on the other side of the veranda, "the Colony consists of two islands, linked by a causeway. This is Athens, the other we've christened Sparta. It's rather wild and rocky, and is a wonderful place for sport or exercise." His eye flickered momentarily over his visitor's waistline, and George squirmed slightly in the cane chair. "Sparta is an extinct volcano, by the way. At least the geologists say it's extinct, ha-ha!

"But back to Athens. The idea of the Colony, as you've gathered, is to build up an independent, stable cultural group with its own artistic traditions. I should point out that a vast amount of research took place before we started this enterprise. It's really a piece of applied social engineering, based on some exceedingly complex mathematics which I wouldn't pretend

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to understand. All I know is that the mathematical sociologists have computed how large the Colony should be, how many types of people it should contain-and, above all, what constitution it should have fur long-term stability.

"We're ruled by a Council of eight directors, representing Production, Power, Social Engineering, Art, Economics, Science, Sport, and Philosophy. There's no permanent chairman or president. The chair's held by each of the directors in rotation for a year at a time.

"Our present population is just over fifty thousand, which is a little short of the desired optimum. That's why we keep our eyes open for recruits. And, of course, there is a certain wastage: we're not yet quite self-supporting in some of the more specialized talents.

"Here on this island we're trying to save something of humanity's independence, its artistic traditions. We've no hostility towards the Overlords: we simply want to be left alone to go our own way. When they destroyed the old nations and the way of life man had known since the beginning of history, they swept away many good things with the bad. The world's now placid, featureless and culturally dead: nothing really new has been created since the Overlords came. The reason's obvious. There's nothing left to struggle for, and there are too many distractions and entertainments. Do you realize that every day something like five hundred hours of radio and TV pour out over the various channels? If you went without sleep and did nothing else, you could follow less than a twentieth of the entertainment that's available at the turn of a switch! No wonder that people are becoming passive sponges-absorbing but never creating. Did you know that the average viewing time per person is now three hours a day?

Soon people won't be living their own lives any more. It will be a full-time job keeping up with the various family serials on

TV!

"Here, in Athens, entertainment takes its proper place. Moreover, it's live, not canned. In a community this size it is possible to have almost complete audience participation, with all that that means to the performers and artists. Incidentally we've got a very fine symphony orchestra-probably among the world's half-dozen best.

"But I don't want you to take my word for a]1 this. What usually happens is that prospective citizens stay here a few