TWO MEETINGS
How unthinkable, Rorden thought, this meeting would have seemed only a few days ago. Although he was still technically under a cloud, his presence was so obviously essential that no one had suggested excluding him. The six visitors sat facing the Council, flanked on either side by the co-opted members such as himself. This meant that he could not see their faces, but the expressions opposite were sufficiently instructive.
There was no doubt that Alvin had been right, and the Council was slowly realizing the unpalatable truth. The delegates from Lys could think almost twice as quickly as the finest minds in Diaspar. Nor was that their only advantage, for they also showed an extraordinary degree of coordination which Rorden guessed must be due to their telepathic powers. He wondered if they were reading the councillors’ thoughts, but decided that they would not have broken the solemn assurance without which this meeting would have been impossible.
Rorden did not think that much progress had been made: for that matter, he did not see how it could be. Alvin had gone into space, and nothing could alter that. The Council, which had not yet fully accepted Lys, still seemed incapable of realizing what had happened. But it was clearly frightened, and so were most of the visitors. Rorden himself was not as terrified as he had expected: his fears were still there, but he had faced them at last. Something of Alvin’s own recklessness-or was it courage? — had changed his outlook and given him new horizons.
The President’s question caught him unawares but he recovered himself quickly.
“I think,” he said, “it’s sheer chance that this situation never arose before. There was nothing we could have done to stop it, for events were always ahead of us.” Everyone knew that by “events” he meant Alvin, but there were no comments. “It’s futile to bicker about the past: Diaspar and Lys have both made mistakes. When Alvin returns, you may prevent him leaving Earth again- if you can. I don’t think you will succeed, for he may have learnt a great deal by then. But if what you fear has happened, there’s nothing any of us can do about it. Earth is helpless-as she has been for millions of centuries.”
Rorden paused and glanced along the table. His words had pleased no one, nor had he expected them to do so.
“Yet I don’t see why we should be so alarmed. Earth is in no greater danger now than she has always been. Why should two boys in a single small ship bring the wrath of the Invaders down upon us again? If we’ll be honest with ourselves, we must admit that the Invaders could have destroyed our world ages ago.”
There was a shocked silence. This was heresy-but Rorden was interested to notice that two of the visitors seemed to approve.
The President interrupted, frowning heavily.
“Is there not a legend that the Invaders spared Earth itself only on condition that Man never went into space again? And have we not now broken those conditions?”
“Once I too believed that,” said Rorden. “We accept many things without question, and this is one of them. But my machines know nothing of legend, only of truth- and there is no historical record of such an agreement. I am convinced that anything so important would have been permanently recorded, as many lesser matters have been.”
Alvin, he thought, would have been proud of him now. It was strange that he should be defending the boy’s ideas, when if Alvin himself had been present he might well have been attacking them. One at least of his dreams had come true: the relationship between Lys and Diaspar was still unstable, but it was a beginning. Where, he wondered, was Alvin now?
* * *
Alvin had seen or heard nothing, but he did not stop to argue. Only when the airlock had closed behind them did he turn to his friend.
“What was it?” he asked a little breathlessly.
“I don’t know: it was something terrific. I think it’s still watching us.”
“Shall we leave?”
“No: I was frightened at first, but I don’t think it will harm us. It seems simply-interested.”
Alvin was about to reply when he was suddenly overwhelmed by a sensation unlike any he had ever known before. A warm, tingling glow seemed to spread through his body: it lasted only a few seconds, but when it was gone he was no longer Alvin of Loronei. Something was sharing his brain, overlapping it as one circle may partly cover another. He was conscious, also, of Theon’s mind close at hand, equally entangled in whatever creature had descended upon them. The sensation was strange rather than unpleasant, and it gave Alvin his first glimpse of true telepathy-the power which in his race had so degenerated that it could now be used only to control machines.
Alvin had rebelled at once when Seranis had tried to dominate his mind, but he did not struggle against this intrusion. It would have been useless, and he knew that this intelligence, whatever it might be, was not unfriendly. He relaxed completely, accepting without resistance the fact that an infinitely greater intelligence than his own was exploring his mind. But in that belief, he was not wholly right.
One of these minds, Vanamonde saw at once, was more sympathetic and accessible than the other. He could tell that both were filled with wonder at his presence, and that surprised him greatly. It was hard to believe that they could have forgotten: forgetfulness, like mortality, was beyond the comprehension of Vanamonde.
Communication was very difficult: many of the thought-images in their minds were so strange that he could hardly recognize them. He was puzzled and a little frightened by the recurrent fear-pattern of the Invaders; it reminded him of his own emotions when the Black Sun first came into his field of knowledge.
But they knew nothing of the Black Sun, and now their own questions were beginning to form in his mind.
“What are you?”
He gave the only reply he could.
“I am Vanamonde.”
There came a pause (how long the pattern of their thoughts took to form!) and then the question was repeated. They had not understood: that was strange, for surely their kind had given him his name for it to be among the memories of his birth. Those memories were very few, and they began strangely at a single point in time, but they were crystal-clear.
Again their tiny thoughts struggled up into his consciousness.
“Who were the Great Ones-are you one of them yourself?”
He did not know: they could scarcely believe him, and their disappointment came sharp and clear across the abyss separating their minds from his. But they were patient and he was glad to help them, for their quest was the same as his and they gave him the first companionship he had ever known.
As long as he lived, Alvin did not believe he would ever again undergo so strange an experience as this soundless conversation. It was hard to believe that he could be little more than a spectator, for he did not care to admit, even to himself, that Theon’s mind was so much more powerful than his own. He could only wait and wonder, half dazed by the torrent of thought just beyond the limits of his understanding.
Presently Theon, rather pale and strained, broke off the contact and turned to his friend.
“Alvin,” he said, his voice very tired, “there’s something strange here. I don’t understand it at all.”
The news did a little to restore Alvin’s self-esteem, and his face must have shown his feelings, for Theon gave a sudden, not unsympathetic laugh.
“I can’t discover what this-Vanamonde-is,” he continued. “It’s a creature of tremendous knowledge, but it seems to have very little intelligence. Of course,” he added, “Its mind may be of such a different order that we can’t understand it-yet somehow I don’t believe that is the right explanation.”
“Well, what have you learned?” asked Alvin with some impatience. “Does it know anything about this place?”
Theon’s mind still seemed very far away.
“This city was built by many races, including our own,” he said absently. “It can give me facts like that, but it doesn’t seem to understand their meaning. I believe it’s conscious of the past, without being able to interpret it. Everything that’s ever happened seems jumbled together in its mind.”
He paused thoughtfully for a moment: then his face lightened.
“There’s only one thing to do: somehow or other, we must get Vanamonde to Earth so that our philosophers can study him.”
“Would that be safe?” asked Alvin.
“Yes,” answered Theon, thinking how uncharacteristic his friend’s remark was. “Vanamonde is friendly. More than that, in fact-he seems almost affectionate.”
And quite suddenly the thought that all the while had been hovering at the edge of Alvin’s consciousness came clearly into view. He remembered Krif and the small animals that were constantly escaping (“It won’t happen again, Mother”) to annoy Seranis. And he recalled-how long ago that seemed! — the zoological purpose behind their expedition to Shalmirane.
Theon had found a new pet.