From the Ocean from teh Stars (62 page)

In a couple of bounds he was up the ramp and had gripped her roughly
by the arm. "Tell him to come out like a man!"

Lora shook her head listlessly.

"He's not here," she answered. "I've said good-by to him. I'll never
see him again."

Clyde stared at her disbelievingly, then saw that she spoke the truth.
In the same moment she crumbled into his arms, sobbing as if her heart would break. As she collapsed, his anger, too, collapsed within him, and
all that he had intended to say to her vanished from his mind. She be
longed to him again; there was nothing else that mattered now.

For almost fifty hours the geyser roared off the coast of Thalassa, until
its work was done. All the island watched, through the lenses of the
television cameras, the shaping of the iceberg that would ride ahead of the
Magellan
on her way to the stars. May the new shield serve her better,
prayed all who watched, than the one she had brought from Earth. The
great cone of ice was itself protected, during these few hours while it was
close to Thalassa's sun, by a paper-thin screen of polished metal that
kept it always in shadow. The sunshade would be left behind as soon as
the journey began; it would not be needed in the interstellar wastes.

The last day came and went; Lora's heart was not the only one to feel
sadness now as the sun went down and the men from Earth made their
final farewells to the world they would never forget—and which their sleeping friends would never remember. In the same swift silence with
which it had first landed, the gleaming egg lifted from the clearing,
dipped for a moment in salutation above the village, and climbed back
into its natural element. Then Thalassa waited.

The night was shattered by a soundless detonation of light. A point
of pulsing brilliance no larger than a single star had banished all the hosts
of heaven and now dominated the sky, far outshining the pale disk of
Selene and casting sharp-edged shadows on the ground—shadows that
moved even as one watched. Up there on the borders of space the fires
that powered the suns themselves were burning now, preparing to drive the starship out into immensity on the last leg of her interrupted journey.

Dry-eyed, Lora watched the silent glory on which half her heart was riding out toward the stars. She was drained of emotion now; if she had
tears, they would come later.

Was Leon already sleeping or was he looking back upon Thalassa,
thinking of what might have been? Asleep or waking, what did it matter
now . . . ?

She felt Clyde's arms close around her, and welcomed their comfort

against the loneliness of space. This was where she belonged; her heart
would not stray again.
Good-by, Leon
—
may you be happy on that jar world which you and your children will conquer for mankind. But think
of me sometimes, two hundred years behind you on the road to Earth.

She turned her back upon the blazing sky and buried her face in the
shelter of Clyde's arms. He stroked her hair with clumsy gentleness, wish
ing that he had words to comfort her yet knowing that silence was best.
He felt no sense of victory; though Lora was his once more, their old
and innocent companionship was gone beyond recall. Leon's memory
would fade, but it would never wholly die. All the days of his life, Clyde
knew, the ghost of Leon would come between him and Lora—the ghost of a man who would be not one day older when they lay in their graves.

The light was fading from the sky as the fury of the star drive dwindled
along its lonely and unreturning road. Only once did Lora turn away from
Clyde to look again at the departing ship. Its journey had scarcely begun,
yet already it was moving across the heavens more swiftly than any
meteor; in a few moments it would have fallen below the edge of the
horizon as it plunged past the orbit of Thalassa, beyond the barren outer
planets, and on into the abyss.

She clung fiercely to the strong arms that enfolded her, and felt
against her cheek the beating of Clyde's heart—the heart that belonged
to her and which she would never spurn again. Out of the silence of the
night there came a sudden, long-drawn sigh from the watching thousands,
and she knew that the
Magellan
had sunk out of sight below the edge of
the world. It was all over.

She looked up at the empty sky to which the stars were now return
ing—the stars which she could never see again without remembering Leon. But he had been right; that way was not for her. She knew now,
with a wisdom beyond her years, that the starship
Magellan
was outward
bound into history; and that was something of which Thalassa had no
further part. Her world's story had begun and ended with the pioneers three hundred years ago, but the colonists of the
Magellan
would go on
to victories and achievements as great as any yet written in the sagas
of mankind. Leon and his companions would be moving seas, leveling mountains, and conquering unknown perils when her descendants eight
generations hence would still be dreaming beneath the sun-soaked palms.

And which was better, who could say?

^{THE CITY AND THE STARS}

l
ike a glowing jewel, the city lay upon the breast of
the desert. Once it had known change and alteration, but now Time passed it by. Night and day fled across the desert's face, but in the
streets of Diaspar it was always afternoon, and darkness never came.
The long winter nights might dust the desert with frost, as the last mois
ture left in the thin air of Earth congealed—but the city knew neither
heat nor cold. It had no contact with the outer world; it was a universe
itself.

Men had built cities before, but never a city such as this. Some had
lasted for centuries, some for millenniums, before Time had swept away
even their names. Diaspar alone had challenged Eternity, defending itself and all it sheltered against the slow attrition of the ages, the ravages
of decay, and the corruption of rust.

Since the city was built, the oceans of Earth had passed away and
the desert had encompassed all the globe. The last mountains had been
ground to dust by the winds and the rain, and the world was too weary
to bring forth more. The city did not care; Earth itself could crumble
and Diaspar would still protect the children of its makers, bearing them
and their treasures safely down the stream of Time.

They had forgotten much, but they did not know it. They were as
perfectly fitted to their environment as it was to them—for both had
been designed together. What was beyond the walls of the city was no concern of theirs; it was something that had been shut out of their minds.
Diaspar was all that existed, all that they needed, all that they could
imagine. It mattered nothing to them that Man had once possessed the
stars.

Yet sometimes the ancient myths rose up to haunt them, and they
stirred uneasily as they remembered the legends of the Empire, when
Diaspar was young and drew its lifeblood from the commerce of many

suns. They did not wish to bring back the old days, for they were content in their eternal autumn. The glories of the Empire belonged to the
past, and could remain there—for they remembered how the Empire
had met its end, and at the thought of the Invaders the chill of space it
self came seeping into their bones.

Then they would turn once more to the life and warmth of the city,
to the long golden age whose beginning was already lost and whose end
was yet more distant. Other men had dreamed of such an age, but they
alone had achieved it.

They had lived in the same city, had walked the same miraculously
unchanging streets, while more than a billion years had worn away.

☆
CHAPTER ONE

It had taken them many hours to fight their way out of
the Cave of the White Worms. Even now, they could not be sure that
some of the pallid monsters were not pursuing them—and the power of
their weapons was almost exhausted. Ahead, the floating arrow of light
that had been their mysterious guide through the labyrinths of the Crystal
Mountain still beckoned them on. They had no choice but to follow it, though as it had done so many times before it might lead them into yet
more frightful dangers.

Alvin glanced back to see if all his companions were still with him.
Alystra was close behind, carrying the sphere of cold but ever-burning
light that had revealed such horrors and such beauty since their adventure
had begun. The pale white radiance flooded the narrow corridor and
splashed from the glittering walls; while its power lasted, they could see
where they were going and could detect the presence of any visible dan
gers. But the greatest dangers in these caves, Alvin knew too well, were
not the visible ones at all.

Behind Alystra, struggling with the weight of their projectors, came
Narrillian and Floranus. Alvin wondered briefly why those projectors
were so heavy, since it would have been such a simple matter to provide
them with gravity neutralizers. He was always thinking of points like
this, even in the midst of the most desperate adventures. When such
thoughts crossed his mind, it seemed as if the structure of reality trembled for an instant, and that behind the world of the senses he caught a glimpse
of another and totally different universe. . . .

The corridor ended in a blank wall. Had the arrow betrayed them

again? No—even as they approached, the rock began to crumble into dust.
Through the wall pierced a spinning metal spear, which broadened rap
idly into a giant screw. Alvin and his friends moved back, waiting for
the machine to force its way into the cave. With a deafening screech of
metal upon rock—which surely must echo through all the recesses of the
Mountain, and waken all its nightmare brood!—the subterrene smashed through the wall and came to rest beside them. A massive door opened,
and Callistron appeared, shouting to them to hurry. ("Why Callistron?"
wondered Alvin. "What's
he
doing here?") A moment later they were
in safety, and the machine lurched forward as it began its journey through
the depths of the earth.

The adventure was over. Soon, as always happened, they would be
home, and all the wonder, the terror, and the excitement would be be
hind them. They were tired and content.

Alvin could tell from the tilt of the floor that the subterrene was
heading down into the earth. Presumably Callistron knew what he was
doing, and this was the way that led to home. Yet it seemed a pity. . . .

"Callistron," he said suddenly, "why don't we go upward? No one knows what the Crystal Mountain really looks like. How wonderful it
would be to come out somewhere on its slopes, to see the sky and all the
land around it. We've been underground long enough."

Even as he said these words, he somehow knew that they were wrong.
Alystra gave a strangled scream, the interior of the subterrene wavered
like an image seen through water, and behind and beyond the metal
walls that surrounded him Alvin once more glimpsed that other universe.
The two worlds seemed in conflict, first one and then the other pre
dominating. Then, quite suddenly, it was all over. There was a snapping,
rending sensation—and the dream had ended. Alvin was back in Diaspar,
in his own familiar room, floating a foot or two above the floor as the
gravity field protected him from the bruising contact of brute matter.

He was himself again.
This
was reality—and he knew exactly what
would happen next.

Alystra was the first to appear. She was more upset than annoyed,
for she was very much in love with Alvin.

"Oh, Alvin!" she lamented, as she looked down at him from the wall in which she had apparently materialized, "It was such an exciting ad
venture! Why did you have to spoil it?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't intend to—I just thought it would be a good idea . . ."

He was interrupted by the simultaneous arrival of Callistron and
Floranus.