From the Ocean from teh Stars (99 page)

mirane was built for that purpose, and around its use were woven the
legends you all know."

Callitrax smiled a little ruefully at his immense audience.

"There are many such legends, partly true and partly false, and other paradoxes in our past which have not yet been resolved. That problem,
though, is one for the psychologist rather than the historian. Even the
records of the Central Computer cannot be wholly trusted, and bear clear
evidence of tampering in the very remote past.

"On Earth, only Diaspar and Lys survived the period of decadence
—Diaspar thanks to the perfection of its machines, Lys owing to its partial
isolation and the unusual intellectual powers of its people. But both cul
tures, even when they had struggled back to their former level, were
distorted by the fears and myths they had inherited.

"These fears need haunt us no longer. It is not my duty as a historian
to predict the future, only to observe and interpret the past. But its
lesson is clear enough; we have lived too long out of contact with reality,
and now the time has come to rebuild our lives."

☆
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Jeserac walked in silent wonder through the streets
of a Diaspar he had never seen. So different was it, indeed, from the city in which he had passed all his lives that he would never have recognized
it. Yet he knew that it was Diaspar, though
how
he knew, he did not
pause to ask.

The streets were narrow, the buildings lower—and the park was gone.
Or, rather, it did not yet exist. This was the Diaspar before the change,
the Diaspar that had been open to the world and to the Universe. The
sky above the city was pale blue and flecked with raveled wisps of cloud,
slowly twisting and turning in the winds that blew across the face of this
younger Earth.

Passing through and beyond the clouds were more substantial voy
agers of the sky. Miles above the city, lacing the heavens with their
silent tracery, the ships that linked Diaspar with the outer world came
and went upon their business. Jeserac stared for a long time at the mystery
and wonder of the open sky, and for a moment fear brushed against his
soul. He felt naked and unprotected, conscious that this peaceful, blue
dome above his head was no more than the thinnest of shells—that beyond it lay space, with all its mystery and menace.

The fear was not strong enough to paralyze his will. In part of his
mind Jeserac knew that this whole experience was a dream, and a dream
could not harm him. He would drift through it, savoring all that it brought
to him, until he woke once more in the city that he knew.

He was walking into the heart of Diaspar, toward the point where in his own age stood the Tomb of Yarlan Zey. There was no tomb here, in
this ancient city—only a low, circular building with many arched door
ways leading into it. By one of those doorways a man was waiting for him.

Jeserac should have been overcome with astonishment, but nothing
could surprise him now. Somehow it seemed right and natural that he
should now be face to face with the man who had built Diaspar.

"You recognize me, I imagine," said Yarlan Zey.

"Of course; I have seen your statue a thousand times. You are Yarlan Zey, and this is Diaspar as it was a billion years ago. I know I am dream
ing, and that neither of us is really here."

"Then you need not be alarmed at anything that happens. So follow
me, and remember that nothing can harm you, since whenever you wish
you can wake up in Diaspar—in your own age."

Obediently, Jeserac followed Yarlan Zey into the building, his mind
a receptive, uncritical sponge. Some memory, or echo of a memory, warned him of what was going to happen next, and he knew that once
he would have shrunk from it in horror. Now, however, he felt no fear.
Not only did he feel protected by the knowledge that this experience was
not real, but the presence of Yarlan Zey seemed a talisman against any
dangers that might confront him.

There were few people drifting down the glideways that led into the
depths of the building, and they had no other company when presently
they stood in silence beside the long, streamlined cylinder which, Jeserac
knew, could carry him out of the city on a journey that would once have
shattered his mind. When his guide pointed to the open door, he paused
for no more than a moment on the threshold, and then was through.

"You see?" said Yarlan Zey with a smile. "Now relax, and re
member that you are safe—that nothing can touch you."

Jeserac believed him. He felt only the faintest tremor of apprehension as the tunnel entrance slid silently toward him, and the machine in which
he was traveling began to gain speed as it hurtled through the depths of
the earth. Whatever fears he might have had were forgotten in his eager
ness to talk with this almost mythical figure from the past.

"Does it not seem strange to you," began Yarlan Zey, "that though
the skies are open to us, we have tried to bury ourselves in the Earth?
It is the beginning of the sickness whose ending you have seen in your

age. Humanity is trying to hide; it is frightened of what lies out there in
space, and soon it will have closed all the doors that lead into the Uni
verse."

"But I saw spaceships in the sky above Diaspar," said Jeserac.

"You will not see them much longer. We have lost contact with the
stars, and soon even the planets will be deserted. It took us millions of
years to make the outward journey—but only centuries to come home again. And in a little while we will have abandoned almost all of Earth
itself."

"Why did you do it?" asked Jeserac. He knew the answer, yet some
how felt impelled to ask the question.

"We needed a shelter to protect us from two fears—fear of death,
and fear of space. We were a sick people, and wanted no further part in
the Universe—so we pretended that it did not exist. We had seen chaos
raging through the stars, and yearned for peace and stability. Therefore
Diaspar had to be closed, so that nothing new could ever enter it.

"We designed the city that you know, and invented a false past to
conceal our cowardice. Oh, we were not the first to do that—but we were the first to do it so thoroughly. And we redesigned the human spirit, robbing it of ambition and the fiercer passions, so that it would be contented
with the world it now possessed.

"It took a thousand years to build the city and all its machines. As
each of us completed his task, his mind was washed clean of its memories,
the carefully planned pattern of false ones was implanted, and his identity
was stored in the city's circuits until the time came to call it forth again.

"So at last there came a day when there was not a single man alive
in Diaspar; there was only the Central Computer, obeying the orders
which we had fed into it, and controlling the Memory Banks in which we
were sleeping. There was no one who had any contact with the past—and
so at this point, history began.

"Then, one by one, in a predetermined sequence, we were called out
of the memory circuits and given flesh again. Like a machine that had
just been built and was now set operating for the first time, Diaspar began
to carry out the duties for which it had been designed.

"Yet some of us had had doubts even from the beginning. Eternity
was a long time; we recognized the risks involved in leaving no outlet,
and trying to seal ourselves completely from the Universe. We could not defy the wishes of our culture, so we worked in secret, making the modi
fications we thought necessary.

"The Uniques were our invention. They would appear at long intervals
and would, if circumstances allowed them, discover if there was anything

beyond Diaspar that was worth the effort of contacting. We never im
agined that it would take so long for one of them to succeed—nor did
we imagine that his success would be so great."

Despite that suspension of the critical faculties which is the very
essence of a dream, Jeserac wondered fleetingly how Yarlan Zey could
speak with such knowledge of things that had happened a billion years
after his time. It was very confusing
...
he did not know where in time
or space he was.

The journey was coming to an end; the walls of the tunnel no longer
flashed past him at such breakneck speed. Yarlan Zey began to speak
with an urgency, and an authority, which he had not shown before.

"The past is over; we did our work, for better or for ill, and that is
finished with. When you were created, Jeserac, you were given that fear
of the outer world, and that compulsion to stay within the city, that you
share with everyone else in Diaspar. You know now that that fear was
groundless, that it was artificially imposed on you. I, Yarlan Zey, who gave it to you, now release you from its bondage. Do you understand?"

With those last words, the voice of Yarlan Zey became louder and
louder, until it seemed to reverberate through all of space. The sub
terranean carrier in which he was speeding blurred and trembled around
Jeserac as if his dream was coming to an end. Yet as the vision faded,
he could still hear that imperious voice thundering into his brain: "You
are no longer afraid, Jeserac.
You are no longer afraid."

He struggled up toward wakefulness, as a diver climbs from the ocean
depths back to the surface of the sea. Yarlan Zey had vanished, but there was a strange interregnum when voices which he knew but could not recognize talked to him encouragingly, and he felt himself supported by
friendly hands. Then like a swift dawn reality came flooding back.

He opened his eyes, and saw Alvin and Hilvar and Gerane standing
anxiously beside him. But he paid no heed to them; his mind was too
filled with the wonder that now lay spread before him—the panorama
of forests and rivers, and the blue vault of the open sky.

He was in Lys; and he was not afraid.

No one disturbed him as the timeless moment imprinted itself forever
on his mind. At last, when he had satisfied himself that this indeed was
real, he turned to his companions.

"Thank you, Gerane," he said. "I never believed you would succeed."

The psychologist, looking very pleased with himself, was making
delicate adjustments to a small machine that hung in the air beside him.

"You gave us some anxious moments," he admitted. "Once or twice

you started to ask questions that couldn't be answered logically, and I
was afraid I would have to break the sequence."

"Suppose Yarlan Zey had not convinced me—what would you have
done then?"

"We would have kept you unconscious, and taken you back to Diaspar
where you could have waked up naturally, without ever knowing that
you'd been to Lys."

"And that image of Yarlan Zey you fed into my mind—how much of
what he said was the truth?"

"Most of it, I believe. I was much more anxious that my little saga
should be convincing rather than historically accurate, but Callitrax has examined it and can find no errors. It is certainly consistent with all that
we know about Yarlan Zey and the origins of Diaspar."

"So now we can really open the city," said Alvin. "It may take a
long time, but eventually we'll be able to neutralize this fear so that every
one who wishes can leave Diaspar."

"It
will
take a long time," replied Gerane dryly. "And don't forget
that Lys is hardly large enough to hold several hundred million extra
people, if all your people decide to come here. I don't think that's likely,
but it's possible."

"That problem will solve itself," answered Alvin. "Lys may be tiny,
but the world is wide. Why should we let the desert keep it all?"

"So you are still dreaming, Alvin," said Jeserac with a smile. "I was
wondering what there was left for you to do."

Alvin did not answer; that was a question which had become more
and more insistent in his own mind during the past few weeks. He re
mained lost in thought, falling behind the others, as they walked down
the hill toward Airlee. Would the centuries that lay ahead of him be one
long anticlimax?

The answer lay in his own hands. He had discharged his destiny; now, perhaps, he could begin to live.

☆
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

There
is a special sadness in achievement, in the
knowledge that a long-desired goal has been attained at last, and that life must now be shaped toward new ends. Alvin knew that sadness as he
wandered alone through the forests and fields of Lys. Not even Hilvar