11

THE COUNCIL

Alvin was still stunned, but slowly he began to realize what must have happened. His robot could not be forced to disobey the orders given it so long ago, but a duplicate could be made with all its knowledge yet with the unbreakable memory-block removed. Beautiful though the solution was, the mind would be unwise to dwell too long upon the powers that made it possible.

The robots moved as one when Alvin called them towards him. Speaking his commands, as he often did for Rorden’s benefit, he asked again the question he had put so many times in different forms.

“Can you tell me how your first master reached Shalmi-rane?”

Rorden wished his mind could intercept the soundless replies, of which he had never been able to catch even a fragment. But this time there was little need, for the glad smile that spread across Alvin’s face was sufficient answer.

The boy looked at him triumphantly.

“Number One is just the same,” he said, “but Two is willing to talk.”

“I think we should wait until we’re home again before we begin to ask questions,” said Rorden, practical as ever. “We’ll need the Associators and Recorders when we start.”

Impatient though he was, Alvin had to admit the wisdom of the advice. As he turned to go, Rorden smiled at his eagerness and said quietly:

“Haven’t you forgotten something?”

The red light on the Interpreter was still flashing, and its message still glowed on the screen.

PLEASE CHECK AND SIGN

Alvin walked to the machine and examined the panel above which the light was blinking. Set in it was a window of some almost invisible substance, supporting a stylus which passed vertically through it. The point of the stylus rested on a sheet of white material which already bore several signatures and dates. The last of them was almost fifty thousand years ago, and Alvin recognized the name as that of a recent President of the Council. Above it only two other names were visible, neither of which meant anything to him or to Rorden. Nor was this very surprising, for they had been written twenty-three and fifty-seven million years before.

Alvin could see no purpose for this ritual, but he knew that he could never fathom the workings of the minds that had built this place. With a slight feeling of unreality he grasped the stylus and began to write his name. The instrument seemed completely free to move in the horizontal plane, for in that direction the window offered no more resistance than the wall of a soap-bubble. Yet his full strength was incapable of moving it vertically: he knew, because he tried.

Carefully he wrote the date and released the stylus. It moved slowly back across the sheet to its original position — and the panel with its winking light was gone.

As Alvin walked away, he wondered why his predecessors had come here and what they had sought from the machine. No doubt, thousands or millions of years in the future, other men would look into that panel and ask themselves: “Who was Alvin of Loronei?” Or would they? Perhaps they would exclaim instead: “Look! Here’s Alvin’s signature!”

The thought was not untypical of him in his present mood, but he knew better than to share it with his friend.

At the entrance to the corridor they looked back across the cave, and the illusion was stronger than ever. Lying beneath them was a dead city of strange white buildings, a city bleached by the fierce light not meant for human eyes. Dead it might be, for it had never lived, but Alvin knew that when Diaspar had passed away these machines would still be here, never turning their minds from the thoughts greater men than he had given them long ago.

They spoke little on the way back through the streets of Diaspar, streets bathed with sunlight which seemed pale and wan after the glare of the machine city. Each in his own way was thinking of the knowledge that would soon be his, and neither had any regard for the beauty of the great towers drifting past, or the curious glances of their fellow citizens.

It was strange, thought Alvin, how everything that had happened to him led up to this moment. He knew well enough that men were makers of their own destinies, yet since he had met Rorden events seemed to have moved automatically towards a predetermined goal. Alaine’s message-Lys-Shalmirane-at every stage he might have turned aside with unseeing eyes, but something had led him on. It was pleasant to pretend that Fate had favoured him, but his rational mind knew better. Any man might have found the path his footsteps had traced, and countless times in the past ages others must have gone almost as far. He was simply the first to be lucky.

The first to be lucky. The words echoed mockingly in his ears as they stepped through the door of Rorden’s chamber. Quietly waiting for them, with hands folded patiently across his lap, was a man wearing a curious garb unlike any that Alvin had ever seen before. He glanced enquiringly at Rorden, and was instantly shocked by the pallor of his friend’s face. Then he knew who the visitor was.

He rose as they entered and made a stiff, formal bow. Without a word he handed a small cylinder to Rorden, who took it woodenly and broke the seal. The almost unheard-of rarity of a written message made the silent exchange doubly impressive. When he had finished Rorden returned the cylinder with another slight bow, at which, in spite of his anxiety, Alvin could not resist a smile.

Rorden appeared to have recovered himself quickly, for when he spoke his voice was perfectly normal.

“It seems that the Council would like a word with us, Alvin. I’m afraid we’ve kept it waiting.”

Alvin had guessed as much. The crisis had come sooner-much sooner-than he had expected. He was not, he told himself, afraid of the Council, but the interruption was maddening. His eyes strayed involuntarily to the robots.

“You’ll have to leave them behind,” said Rorden firmly.

Their eyes met and clashed. Then Alvin glanced at the Messenger.

“Very well,” he said quietly.

The party was very silent on its way to the Council Chamber. Alvin was marshalling the arguments he had never properly thought out, believing they would not be needed for many years. He was far more annoyed than alarmed, and he felt angry at himself for being so unprepared.

They waited only a few minutes in the anteroom, but it was long enough for Alvin to wonder why, if he was unafraid, his legs felt so curiously weak. Then the great doors contracted, and they walked towards the twenty men gathered round their famous table.

This, Alvin knew, was the first Council Meeting in his lifetime, and he felt a little flattered as he noticed that there were no empty seats. He had never known that Jeserac was a Council member. At his startled gaze the old man shifted uneasily in his chair and gave him a furtive smile as if to say: “This is nothing to do with me.” Most of the other faces Alvin had expected, and only two were quite unknown to him.

The President began to address them in a friendly voice, and looking at the familiar faces before him, Alvin could see no great cause for Rorden’s alarm. His confidence began to return: Rorden, he decided, was something of a coward. In that he did his friend less than justice, for although courage had never been one of Rorden’s most conspicuous qualities, his worry concerned his ancient office almost as much as himself. Never in history had a Keeper of the Records been relieved of his position: Rorden was very anxious not to create a precedent.

In the few minutes since he had entered the Council Chamber, Alvin’s plans had undergone a remarkable change. The speech he had so carefully rehearsed was forgotten: the fine phrases he had been practising were reluctantly discarded. To his support now had come his most treacherous ally-that sense of the ridiculous which had always made it impossible for him to take very seriously even the most solemn occasions. The Council might meet once in a thousand years: it might control the destinies of Diaspar-but those who sat upon it were only tired old men. Alvin knew Jeserac, and he did not believe that the others would be very different. He felt a disconcerting pity for them and suddenly remembered the words Seranis had spoken to him in Lys: “Ages ago we sacrificed our immortality, but Diaspar still follows the false dream.” That in truth these men had done, and he did not believe it had brought them happiness.

So when at the President’s invitation Alvin began to describe his journey to Lys, he was to all appearances no more than a boy who had by chance stumbled on a discovery he thought of little importance. There was no hint of any plan or deeper purpose: only natural curiosity had led him out of Diaspar. It might have happened to anyone, yet he contrived to give the impression that he expected a little praise for his cleverness. Of Shalmirane and the robots, he said nothing at all.

It was quite a good performance, though Alvin was the only person who could fully appreciate it. The Council as a whole seemed favourably impressed, but Jeserac wore an expression in which relief struggled with incredulity. At Rorden, Alvin dared not look.

When he had quite finished, there was a brief silence while the Council considered his statement. Then the President spoke again:

“We fully appreciate,” he said, choosing his words with obvious care, “that you had the best of motives in what you did. However, you have created a somewhat difficult situation for us. Are you quite sure that your discovery was accidental, and that no one, shall we say, influenced you in any way?” His eyes wandered thoughtfully towards Rorden.

For the last time, Alvin yielded to the mischievous promptings of his mind.

“I wouldn’t say that,” he replied, after an appearance of considerable thought. There was a sudden quickening of interest among the Council members, and Rorden stirred uneasily by his side. Alvin gave his audience a smile that lacked nothing of candor, and added quickly in a guileless voice:

“I’m sure I owe a great deal to my tutor.”

At this unexpected and singularly misleading compliment, all eyes were turned upon Jeserac, who became a deep red, started to speak, and then thought better of it. There was an awkward silence until the President stepped into the breach.

“Thank you,” he said hastily. “You will remain here while we consider your statement.”

There was an audible sigh of relief from Rorden-and that was the last sound Alvin heard for some time. A blanket of silence had descended upon him, and although he could see the Council arguing heatedly, not a word of its deliberations reached him. It was amusing at first, but the spectacle soon became tedious and he was glad when the silence lifted again.

“We have come to the conclusion,” said the President, “that there has been an unfortunate mishap for which no one can be held responsible-although we consider that the Keeper of the Records should have informed us sooner of what was happening. However, it is perhaps as well that this dangerous discovery has been made, for we can now take suitable steps to prevent its recurrence. We will deal ourselves with the transport system you have located, and you” —turning to Rorden for the first time— “will ensure that all references to Lys are removed from the Records.”

There was a murmur of applause and expressions of satisfaction spread across the faces of the councillors. A difficult situation had been speedily dealt with, they had avoided the unpleasant necessity of reprimanding Rorden, and now they could go their ways again feeling that they, the chief citizens of Diaspar, had done their duty. With reasonably good fortune it might be centuries before the need arose again.

Even Rorden, disappointed though he was for Alvin’s sake as well as his own, felt relieved at the outcome. Things might have been very much worse…

A voice he had never heard before cut into his reverie and froze the councillors in their seats, the complacent smiles slowly ebbing from their faces.

“And precisely why are you going to close the way to Lys?”

It was some time before Rorden’s mind, unwilling to recognize disater, would admit that it was Alvin who spoke.

The success of his subterfuge had given Alvin only a moment’s satisfaction. Throughout the President’s address his anger had been steadily rising as he realized that, despite all his cleverness, his plans were to be thwarted. The feelings he had known in Lys when Seranis had presented her ultimatum came back with redoubled strength. He had won that contest, and the taste of power was still sweet.

This time he had no robot to help him, and he did not know what the outcome would be. But he no longer had any fear of these foolish old men who thought themselves the rulers of Diaspar. He had seen the real rulers of the city, and had spoken to them in the grave silence of their brilliant, buried world. So in his anger and arrogance, Alvin threw away his disguise and the councillors looked in vain for the artless boy who had addressed them a little while ago.

“Why are you going to close the way to Lys?”

There was silence in the Council Room, but the lips of Jeserac twisted into a slow, secret smile. This Alvin was new to him, but it was less alien than the one who had spoken before.

The President chose at first to ignore the challenge. Perhaps he could not bring himself to believe that it was more than an innocent question, however violently it had been expressed.

“That is a matter of high policy which we cannot discuss here,” he said pompously, “but Diaspar cannot risk contamination with other cultures.” He gave Alvin a benevolent but slightly worried smile.

“It’s rather strange,” said Alvin coldly, “that in Lys I was told exactly the same thing about Diaspar.” He was glad to see the start of annoyance, but gave his audience no time to reply.

“Lys,” he continued, “is much larger than Diaspar and its culture is certainly not inferior. It’s always known about us but has chosen not to reveal itself-as you put it, to avoid contamination. Isn’t it obvious that we are both wrong?”

He looked expectantly along the lines of faces, but nowhere was there any understanding of his words. Suddenly his anger against these leaden-eyed old men rose to a crescendo. The blood was throbbing in his cheeks, and though his voice was steadier now it held a note of icy contempt which even the most pacific of the councillors could no longer overlook.

“Our ancestors,” began Alvin, “built an empire which reached to the stars. Men came and went at will among all those worlds-and now their descendants are afraid to stir beyond the walls of their city. Shall I tell you why?” He paused: there was no movement at all in the great bare room.

“It is because we are afraid-afraid of something that happened at the beginning of history. I was told the truth in Lys, though I had guessed it long ago. Must we always hide like cowards in Diaspar, pretending that nothing else exists-because half a billion years ago the Invaders drove us back to Earth?”

He had put his finger on their secret fear, the fear that he had never shared and whose power he could therefore never understand. Let them do what they pleased: he had spoken the truth.

His anger drained away and he was himself again, as yet only a little alarmed at what he had done. He turned to the President in a last gesture of independence.

“Have I your permission to leave?”

Still no words were spoken, but the slight inclination of the head gave him his release. The great doors expanded before him and not until long after they had closed again did the storm break upon the Council Chamber.

The President waited until the inevitable lull. Then he turned to Jeserac.

“It seems to me,” he said, “that we should hear your views first.”

Jeserac examined the remark for possible traps. Then he replied:

“I think that Diaspar is now losing its most outstanding brain.”

“What do you mean?”

“Isn’t it obvious? By now young Alvin will be halfway to the Tomb of Yarlan Zey. No, we shouldn’t interfere. I shall be very sorry to lose him, though he never cared very much for me.” He sighed a little. “For that matter, he never cared a great deal for anyone save Alvin of Loronei.”