Childhood's End (8 page)

it; of course, Karellen bad a face.

The nervousness that Stormgren had first felt had long since passed away. Karellen was doing almost all the talking, weaving the intricate sentences which he was occasionally prone to use. Once this had seemed to Stormgren the most wonderful and certainly the most unexpected of all Karellen's gifts. Now it no longer appeared quite so marvellous, for he knew that like most of the Supervisor's abilities it was the result of sheer intellectual power and not of any special talent.

Karellen had time for any amount of literary composition

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when he slowed his thoughts down to the pace of human speech.

"There is no need for you or your successor to worry unduly about the Freedom League, even when it has recovered from its present despondency. It has been very quiet for the past month, and though it will revive again it will not be a danger for some years. Indeed, since it is always valuable to know what your opponents are doing, the League is a very useful institution. Should it ever get into financial difficulties I might even have to subsidize it."

Stormgren had often found it difficult to tell when Karellen was joking. He kept his face impassive and continued to listen.

"Very soon the League will lose another of its arguments. There has been a good deal of criticism, all somewhat childish, of the special position you have held for the past few years. I found it very valuable in the early days of my administration, but now that the world is moving along the lines that I planned, it can cease. In future, all my dealings with Earth will be in-direct and the office of Secretary-General can revert to something resembling its original form.

"During the next fifty years there will be many crises, but they will pass. The pattern of the future is clear enough, and one day all these difflqilties will be forgotten-even to a race with memories as long as yours."

The last words were spoken with such peculiar emphasis that Stormgren immediately froze in his seat. Karellen, he was sure, never made accidental slips: even his indiscretions were calculated to many decimal places. But there was no time to ask questions-which certainly would not be answered-before the Supervisor had changed the subject again.

"You have often asked me about our long-term plans," he continued. "The foundation of the World State is, of course, only the first step. You will live to see its completion-but the change will be so imperceptible that few will notice it when it comes. After that there will be a period of slow consolidation while your race becomes prepared for us. And thenwill comethe day which we have promised. lain sorry you will not be there."

Stormgren's eyes were open, but his gaze was fixed far beyond the dark barrier of the screen. He was looking into the future, imagining the day that he would never see, when the great ships of the Overlords came down at last to Earth and were thrown open to the waiting world.

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"On that day," continued Karellen, "the human race will experience what can only be called a psychological discontinuity. But no permanent harm will be done: the men of that age will be more stable than their grandfathers. We will always have been part of their lives, and when they meet us we will not seem so-strange-as we would do to you."

Stormgren had never known Karellen in so contemplative a mood, but this gave him no surprise. He did not believe that he had ever seen more than a few facets of the Supervisor's personality: the real Karellen was unknown and perhaps unknowable to human beings. And once again Stormgren had the feeling that the Supervisor's real interests were elsewhere, and that he ruled Earth with only a fraction of his mind, as effortlessly as a master of three-dimensional chess might play a game of draughts.

"And after that?" asked Stormgren softly.

"Then we can begin our real work."

"I have often wondered what that might be. Tidying up our world and civilizing the human race is only a means-you must have an end as well. Will we ever be able to come out into space and see your universe-perhaps even help you in your tasks?"

"You can put it that way," said Karellen-and now his voice held a clear yet inexplicable note of sadness that left Stormgren strangely perturbed.

"But suppose, after all, your experiment fails with Man? We have known such things in our own dealings with primitive human races. Surely you have your failures too?"

"Yes," said Karellen, so softly that Stormgren could scarcely hear him. "We have had our failures."

"And what do you do then?"

'We wait-and try again."

There was a pause lasting perhaps five seconds. When Karellen spoke again, his words were so unexpected that for a moment Stormgren did not react.

"Good-bye, Rikki!"

Karellen had tricked him-probably it was already too late. Storrngren's paralysis lasted only a moment. Then, with a single swift, well-practised movement, he whipped out the flash gun and jammed it against the glass.

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The pine trees came almost to the edge of the lake, leaving along its border only a narrow strip of grass a few metres wide.

Every evening when it was warm enough Stormgren, despite

his ninety years, would walk along this strip to the landing-

stage, watch the sunlight die upon the water, and then return to the house before the chill night wind came up from the forest. The simple ritual gave him much contentment, and he would continue it as long as he had the strength.

Far away over the lake something was coming in from the

west, flying low and fast. Aircraft were uncommon in these

parts, unless one counted the trans-polar liners which must be

passing overhead every hour of the day and night. But there

was never any sign of their presence, save an occasional vapour trail high against the blue of the stratosphere. This machine was a small helicopter, and it was coming towards him with obvious determination. Stormgren glanced along the beach

and saw that there was no chance of escape. Then he shrugged his shoulders and sat down on the wooden bench at the head of the jetty.

The reporter was so deferential that Stormgren found it surprising. He had almost forgotten that he was not only an elder statesman but, outside his own country, almost a mythical figure.

"Mr. Stormgren," the intruder began, "I'm very sorry to bother you, but I wonder if you'd care to comment on something we've just heard about the Overlords."

Stormgren frowned slightly. After all these years, he still shared Karellen's dislike for that word.

"I do not think," he said, "that I can add a great deal to what has been written elsewhere."

The reporter was watching him with a curious intentness.

"I thought that you might. A rather strange story has just come to our notice. It seems that, nearly thirty years ago, one of the Science Bureau's technicians made some remarkable equipment for you. We wondered if you could tell us anything about it."

For a moment Stormgren was silent, his mind going back into the past. He was not surprised that the secret had been discovered. Indeed, it was surprising that it had been kept so tong.

He rose to his feet and began to walk back along the jetty, the reporter following a few paces behind.

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"The story," he said, "contains a certain amount of truth. On my last visit to Karellen's ship I took some apparatus with

me, in the hope that I might be able to see the Supervisor. It

was rather a foolish thing to do, but-well, I was only sixty at the time."

He chuckled to himself and then continued.

"It's not much of a story to have brought you all this way. You see, it didn't work."

"You saw nothing ?"

"No, nothing at all. I'm afraid you'll have to wait-but

after all, there are only twenty years to go!"

Twenty years to go. Yes, Karellen bad been right. By then the world would be ready, as it had not been when he had spoken that same lie to Duval thirty years ago.

Karellen had trusted him, and Stormgren had not betrayed his faith. He was as sure as he could be of anything that the Supervisor had known his plan from the beginning, and had fbreseen every moment of its final act.

Why else had that enormous chair been already empty when the circle of light blazed upon it! In the same moment he had started to swing the beam, fearing that he was too late. The metal door, twice as high as a man, was closing swiftly when he first caught sight of it-closing swiftly, yet not quite swiftly enough.

Yes, Karellen had trusted him, had not wished him to go down into the long evening of his life haunted by a mystery he could never solve. Karellen dared not defy the unknown powers above him (were they of that same race also?) but he had done all that he could. If he had disobeyed them, they could never prove it. It was the final proof, Stormgren. knew, of Karellen's affection for him. Though it might be the affection of a man for a devoted and intelligent dog, it was none the less sincere for that, and Stormgren's life had given him few greater satisfactions.

"We have had our failures."

Yes, Karellen, that was true: and were you the one who failed, before the dawn of human history? It must have been a failure indeed, thought Stormgren, for its echoes to roll down all the ages, to haunt the childhood of every race of man. Even In fifty years, could you overcome the power of all the myths and legends of the world?

Yet Stormgren knew there would be no second failure.

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When the two races met again, the Overlords would have won the trust and friendship of mankind, and not even the shock of recognition could undo that work. They would go together Into the future, and the unknown tragedy that must have darkened the past would be lost forever down the dim corridors of prehistoric time.

And Stormgren hoped that when Karellen was free to walk once more on Earth, he would one day come to these northern forests, and stand beside the grave of the first man to be his friend.

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n

THE GOLDEN AGE

5

"Tins is the day!" whispered the radios in a hundred tongues. "This is the day!" said the headlines of a thousand newspapers. "This is the day!" thought the cameramen as they checked and rechecked the equipment gathered round the vast empty space upon which Karellen's ship would be descending.

There was only the single ship now, hanging above New York. Indeed, as the world had just discovered, the ships above Man's other cities had never existed. The day before, the great fleet of the Overlords had dissolved into nothingness, fading like mists beneath the morning dew.

The supply ships, coming and going far out in space, had been real enough; but the silver clouds that had hung for a lifetime above almost all the capitals of Earth had been an illusion. How it had been done, no-one could tell, but it seemed that every one of those ships had been nothing more than an image of Karellen's own vessel. Yet it had been far more than a matter of playing with light, for radar had also been deceived, and there were still men alive who swore that they had heard the shriek of torn air as the fleet came in through the skies of Earth.

It was not important: all that mattered was that Karellen no longer felt the need for this displayof force. He had thrown away his psychological weapons.

"The ship is moving !" came the word, flashed instantly to every corner of the planet. "It is heading westward!"

At less than a thousand kilometres an hour, falling slowly down from the empty heights of the stratosphere, the ship moved out to the great plains and to its second rendezvous with history. It settled down obediently before the waiting cameras and the packed thousands of spectators, so few of whom coul'~ see as much as the millions gathered round their TV sets.

The ground should have cracked and trembled beneath

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that tremendous weight, but the vessel was still in the grip of whatever forces drove it among the stars. It kissed the earth as gently as a falling snowflake.

The curving wall twenty metres above the ground seemed to flow and shimmer: where there had been a smooth and shining surface, a great opening had appeared. Nothing was visible within it, even to the questing eyes of the camera. It was as dark and shadowed as the entrance to a cave.

Out of the orifice, a wide, glittering gangway extruded itself and drove purposefully towards the ground. It seemed a solid sheet of metal with hand-rails along either side. There were no steps; it was steep and smooth as a toboggan slide and, one would have thought, equally impossible to ascend or descend in any ordinary manner.

The world was watching that dark portal, within which nothing had yet stirred. Then the seldom-heard yet unfor-. gettable voice of Karellen floated softly down from some hidden source. His message could scarcely have been more unexpected

"There are some children by the foot of the gangway. I would like two of them to come up and meet me."

There was silence for a moment. Then a boy and a girl broke from the crowd and walked, with complete lack of self-consciousness, towards the gangway and into history. Others followed, but stopped when Karellen's chuckle came from the ship.

"Two will be enough."

Eagerly anticipating the adventure, the children-they could not have been more than six years old-jumped on to the metal slide. Then the first miracle happened.

Waving cheerfi.illy to the crowds beneath, and to their anxious parents-who, too late, had probably remembered the legend of the Pied Piper-the children began swiftly ascending the steep slope. Yet their legs were motionless, and soon it was clear also that their bodies were tilted at right angles to that peculiar gangway. It possessed a private gravity of its own, one which could ignore that of Earth. The children were still enjoying this novel experience, and wondering what was drawing them upwards, when they disappeared into the ship.

A vast silence lay over the whole world for the space of twenty seconds-though, afterwards, no-one could believe that the time had been so short. Then the darkness of the