From the Ocean from teh Stars (84 page)

The robot was carrying him a dozen feet above the ground, much
faster than a man could run. It took Seranis only a moment to understand his ruse, and his struggles died away as she relaxed her control.
But she was not defeated yet, and presently there happened that which
Alvin had feared and done his best to counteract.

There were now two separate entities fighting inside his mind, and
one of them was pleading with the robot, begging it to set him down. The
real Alvin waited, breathlessly, resisting only a little against forces he
knew he could not hope to fight. He had gambled; there was no way of telling beforehand if his uncertain ally would obey orders as complex as those that he had given it. Under no circumstances, he had told the robot,
must it obey any further commands of his until he was safely inside Diaspar. Those were the orders. If they were obeyed, Alvin had placed
his fate beyond the reach of human interference.

Never hesitating, the machine raced on along the path he had so
carefully mapped out for it. A part of him was still pleading angrily to be
released, but he knew now that he was safe. And presently Seranis un
derstood that too, for the forces inside his brain ceased to war with one
another. Once more he was at peace, as ages ago an earlier wanderer
had been when, lashed to the mast of his ship, he had heard the song of
the Sirens die away across the wine-dark sea.

☆
CHAPTER FIFTEEN

A
lvin did not relax until the chamber of the moving
ways was around him once more. There had still been the danger that the people of Lys might be able to stop, or even to reverse, the vehicle
in which he was traveling, and bring him back helplessly to his starting
point. But his return was an uneventful repetition of the outward trip;
forty minutes after he had left Lys he was in the Tomb of Yarlan Zey.

The servants of the Council were waiting for him, dressed in the
formal black robes which they had not worn for centuries. Alvin felt no
surprise, and little alarm, at the presence of this reception committee. He
had now overcome so many obstacles that one more made little difference. He had learned a great deal since leaving Diaspar, and with that
knowledge had come a confidence verging upon arrogance. Moreover,
he now had a powerful, if erratic, ally. The best minds of Lys had been
unable to interfere with his plans; somehow, he beheved that Diaspar
could do no better.

There were rational grounds for this belief, but it was based partly
upon something beyond reason—a faith in his destiny which had slowly been growing in Alvin's mind. The mystery of his origin, his success in
doing what no earlier man had ever done, the way in which new vistas
had opened up before him, and the manner in which obstacles had
failed to halt him—all these things added to his self-confidence. Faith in
one's own destiny was among the most valuable of the gifts which the
gods could bestow upon a man, but Alvin did not know how many it had
led to utter disaster.

"Alvin," said the leader of the city's proctors, "we have orders to ac
company you wherever you go, until the Council has heard your case
and rendered its verdict."

"With what offense am I charged?" asked Alvin. He was still ex
hilarated by the excitement and elation of his escape from Lys and
could not yet take this new development very seriously. Presumably
Khedron had talked; he felt a brief annoyance at the Jester for betraying
his secret.

"No charge has been made," came the reply. "If necessary, one will
be framed after you have been heard."

"And when will that be?"

"Very soon, I imagine." The proctor was obviously ill at ease and
was not sure how to handle his unwelcome assignment. At one moment
he would treat Alvin as a fellow citizen, and then he would remember
his duties as a custodian and would adopt an attitude of exaggerated
aloofness.

"This robot," he said abruptly, pointing to Alvin's companion, "where did it come from? Is it one of ours?"

"No," replied Alvin. "I found it in Lys, the country I have been to.
I have brought it here to meet the Central Computer."

This calm statement produced a considerable commotion. The fact
that there was something outside Diaspar was hard enough to accept, but
that Alvin should have brought back one of its inhabitants and proposed
to introduce it to the brain of the city was even worse. The proctors
looked at each other with such helpless alarm that Alvin could hardly
refrain from laughing at them.

As they walked back through the park, his escort keeping discreetly
at the rear and talking among itself in agitated whispers, Alvin considered
his next move. The first thing he must do was to discover exactly what
had happened during his absence. Khedron, Seranis had told him, had
vanished. There were countless places where a man could hide in Di
aspar, and since the Jester's knowledge of the city was unsurpassed it

was not likely that he would be found until he chose to reappear. Per
haps, thought Alvin, he could leave a message where Khedron would
be bound to see it, and arrange a rendezvous. However, the presence of
his guard might make that impossible.

He had to admit that the surveillance was very discreet. By the time he had reached his apartment, he had almost forgotten the existence of
the proctors. He imagined that they would not interfere with his move
ments unless he attempted to leave Diaspar, and for the time being he
had no intention of doing that. Indeed, he was fairly certain that it would be impossible to return to Lys by his original route. By this time, surely,
the underground carrier system would have been put out of action by
Seranis and her colleagues.

The proctors did not follow him into his room; they knew that there
was only the one exit, and stationed themselves outside that. Having had
no instructions regarding the robot, they let it accompany Alvin. It was
not a machine which they had any desire to interfere with, since its alien
construction was obvious. From its behavior they could not tell whether it was a passive servant of Alvin's or whether it was operating under its
own volition. In view of this uncertainty, they were quite content to leave it severely alone.

Once the wall had sealed itself behind him, Alvin materialized his favorite divan and threw himself down upon it. Luxuriating in his famil
iar surroundings, he called out of the memory units his last efforts in
painting and sculpture, and examined them with a critical eye. If they
had failed to satisfy him before, they were doubly displeasing now, and
he could take no further pride in them. The person who had created
them no longer existed; into the few days he had been away from Di
aspar, it seemed to Alvin that he had crowded the experience of a life
time.

He canceled all these products of his adolescence, erasing them for
ever and not merely returning them to the Memory Banks. The room
was empty again, apart from the couch on which he was reclining, and
the robot that still watched with wide, unfathomable eyes. What did the
robot think of Diaspar? wondered Alvin. Then he remembered that it
was no stranger here, for it had known the city in the last days of its con
tact with the stars.

Not until he felt thoroughly at home once more did Alvin begin to call
his friends. He began with Eriston and Etania, though out of a sense of duty rather than any real desire to see and speak to them again. He was
not sorry when their communicators informed him that they were un
available, but he left them both a brief message announcing his return.

This was quite unnecessary, since by now the whole city would know
that he was back. However, he hoped that they would appreciate his thoughtfulness; he was beginning to learn consideration, though he had
not yet realized that, like most virtues, it had little merit unless it was
spontaneous and unself-conscious.

Then, acting on a sudden impulse, he called the number that Khed-
ron had given him so long ago in the Tower of Loranne. He did not, of
course, expect an answer, but there was always the possibility that
Khedron had left a message.

His guess was correct; but the message itself was shatteringly unex
pected.

The wall dissolved, and Khedron was standing before him. The Jester
looked tired and nervous, no longer the confident, slightly cynical person
who had set Alvin on the path that led to Lys. There was a haunted look
in his eyes, and he spoke as though he had very little time.

"Alvin," he began, "this is a recording. Only you can receive it, but
you can make what use of it you wish. It will not matter to me.

"When I got back to the Tomb of Yarlan Zey, I found that Alystra
had been following us. She must have told the Council that you had left Diaspar, and that I had helped you. Very soon the proctors were looking for me, and I decided to go into hiding. I am used to that—I have done it before when some of my jests failed to be appreciated." (There, thought
Alvin, was a flash of the old Khedron.) "They could not have found me
in a thousand years—but someone else nearly did. There are strangers
in Diaspar, Alvin; they could only have come from Lys, and they are looking for me. I do not know what this means, and I do not like it. The fact that they nearly caught me, though they are in a city that must be
strange to them, suggests that they possess telepathic powers. I could fight the Council, but this is an unknown peril which I do not care to face.

"I am therefore anticipating a step which I think the Council might
well force upon me, since it has been threatened before. I am going
where no one can follow, and where I shall escape whatever changes are
now about to happen to Diaspar. Perhaps I am foolish to do this; that is
something which only time can prove. I shall know the answer one day.

"By now you will have guessed that I have gone back into the Hall of
Creation, into the safety of the Memory Banks. Whatever happens, I put
my trust in the Central Computer, and the forces it controls for the benefit
of Diaspar. If anything tampers with the Central Computer, we are all
lost. If not, I have nothing to fear.

"To me, only a moment will seem to pass before I walk forth into
Diaspar again, fifty or a hundred thousand years from now. I wonder

what sort of city I shall find? It will be strange if you are there; some day,
I suppose, we will meet again. I cannot say whether I look forward to
that meeting, or fear it.

"I have never understood you, Alvin, though there was a time when
I was vain enough to think I did. Only the Central Computer knows the
truth, as it knows the truth about those other Uniques who have ap
peared from time to time down the ages and then were seen no more,
Have you discovered what happened to them?

"One reason, I suppose, why I am escaping into the future is because
I am impatient. I want to see the results of what you have started, but
I am anxious to miss the intermediate stages—which I suspect may be
unpleasant. It will be interesting to see, in that world which will be around
me in only a few minutes of apparent time from now, whether you are
remembered as a creator or as a destroyer—or whether you are remem
bered at all.

"Good-by, Alvin. I had thought of giving you some advice, but I do
not suppose you would take it. You will go your own way, as you always have, and your friends will be tools to use or discard as occasion suits.

"That is all. I can think of nothing more to say."

For a moment Khedron—the Khedron who no longer existed save as a pattern of electric charges in the memory cells of the city—looked at
Alvin with resignation and, it seemed, with sadness. Then the screen was blank again.

Alvin remained motionless for a long time after the image of Khedron had faded. He was searching his soul as he had seldom done before in all
his life, for he could not deny the truth of much that Khedron had said.
When had he paused, in all his schemes and adventures, to consider the
effect of what he was doing upon any of his friends? He had brought
anxiety to them and might soon bring worse—all because of his insatiable curiosity and the urge to discover what should not be known.

He had never been fond of Khedron; the Jester's astringent person
ality prevented any close relationship, even if Alvin had desired it. Yet
now, as he thought of Khedron's parting words, he was shaken with
remorse. Because of his actions, the Jester had fled from this age into the
unknown future.

But surely, thought Alvin, he had no need to blame himself for that.
It proved only what he had already known—that Khedron was a coward. Perhaps he was no more of a coward than anyone else in Diaspar; he had
the additional misfortune of possessing a powerful imagination. Alvin
could accept some responsibility for his fate, but by no means all.

Who else in Diaspar had he harmed or distressed? He thought of