Despite the centuries between them, the boy’s will had always been more powerful than his own. It was too late to do anything about it now: Rorden felt that events were sweeping him along towards a climax utterly beyond his control.
“Is all this really necessary,” said Alvin, “if we are only going to be away for two or three days? After all, we have a synthesizer with us.”
“Probably not,” answered Theon, throwing the last food containers into the little ground-car. “It may seem an odd custom, but we’ve never synthesized some of our finest foods-we like to watch them grow. Also, we may meet other parties and it’s polite to exchange food with them. Nearly every district has some special product, and Airlee is famous for its peaches. That’s why I’ve put so many aboard-not because I think that even you can eat them all.”
Alvin threw his half-eaten peach at Theon, who dodged quickly aside. There came a flicker of iridescence and a faint whirring of invisible wings as Krif descended upon the fruit and began to sip its juices.
Alvin was still not quite used to Krif. It was hard for him to realize that the great insect, though it would come when called and would-sometimes-obey simple orders, was almost wholly mindless. Life, to Alvin, had always been synonymous with intelligence-sometimes intelligence far higher than Man’s.
When Krif was resting, his six gauzy wings lay folded along his body, which glittered through them like a jewelled scepter. He was at once the highest and the most beautiful form of insect life the world had ever known- the latest and perhaps the last of all the creatures Man had chosen for his companionship.
Lys was full of such surprises, as Alvin was continually learning. Its inconspicuous but efficient transport system had been equally unexpected. The ground-car apparently worked on the same principle as the machine that had brought him from Diaspar, for it floated in the air a few inches above the turf. Although there was no sign of any guide-rail, Theon told him that the cars could only run on predetermined tracks. All the centers of population were thus linked together, but the remoter parts of the country could only be reached on foot. This state of affairs seemed altogether extraordinary to Alvin, but Theon appeared to think it was an excellent idea.
Apparently Theon had been planning this expedition for a considerable time. Natural history was his chief passion-Krif was only the most spectacular of his many pets-and he hoped to find new types of insect life in the uninhabited southern parts of Lys.
The project had filled Alvin with enthusiasm when he heard of it. He looked forward to seeing more of this wonderful country, and although Theon’s interests lay in a different field of knowledge from his own, he felt a kinship for his new companion which not even Rorden had ever awakened.
Theon intended to travel south as far as the machine could go-little more than an hour’s journey from Airlee- and the rest of the way they would have to go on foot. Not realizing the full implications of this, Alvin had no objections.
To Alvin, the journey across Lys had a dreamlike unreality. Silent as a ghost, the machine slid across rolling plains and wound its way through forests, never deviating from its invisible track. It travelled perhaps a dozen times as fast as a man could comfortably walk. No one in Lys was ever in a greater hurry than that.
Many times they passed through villages, some larger than Airlee but most built along very similar lines. Alvin was interested to notice subtle but significant differences in clothing and even physical appearance as they moved from one community to the next. The civilization of Lys was composed of hundreds of distinct cultures, each contributing some special talent towards the whole.
Once or twice Theon stopped to speak to friends, but the pauses were brief and it was still morning when the little machine came to rest among the foothills of a heavily wooded mountain. It was not a very large mountain, but Alvin thought it the most tremendous thing he had ever seen.
“This is where we start to walk,” said Theon cheerfully, throwing equipment out of the car. “We can’t ride any farther.”
As he fumbled with the straps that were to convert him into a beast of burden, Alvin looked doubtfully at the great mass of rock before them.
“It’s a long way round, isn’t it?” he queried.
“We aren’t going round,” replied Theon. “I want to get to the top before nightfall.” Alvin said nothing. He had been rather afraid of this.
“From here,” said Theon, raising his voice to make it heard above the thunder of the waterfall, “you can see the whole of Lys.”
Alvin could well believe him. To the north lay mile upon mile of forest, broken here and there by clearings and fields and the wandering threads of a hundred rivers. Hidden somewhere in that vast panorama was the village of Airlee. Alvin fancied that he could catch a glimpse of the great lake, but decided that his eyes had tricked him. Still farther north, trees and clearings alike were lost in a mottled carpet of green, rucked here and there by lines of hills. And beyond that, at the very edge of vision, the mountains that hemmed Lys from the desert lay like a bank of distant clouds.
East and west the view was little different, but to the south the mountains seemed only a few miles away. Alvin could see them very clearly, and he realized that they were far higher than the little peak on which he was standing.
But more wonderful even than these was the waterfall. From the sheer face of the mountain a mighty ribbon of water leaped far out over the valley, curving down through space towards the rocks a thousand feet below. There it was lost in a shimmering mist of spray, while up from the depths rose a ceaseless, drumming thunder that reverberated in hollow echoes from the mountain walls. And quivering in the air above the base of the fall was the last rainbow left on Earth.
For long minutes the two boys lay on the edge of the cliff, gazing at this last Niagara and the unknown land beyond. It was very different from the country they had left, for in some indefinable way it seemed deserted and empty. Man had not lived here for many, many years.
Theon answered his friend’s unspoken question.
“Once the whole of Lys was inhabited,” he said, “but that was a very long time ago. Only the animals live here now.”
Indeed, there was nowhere any sign of human life- none of the clearings or well-disciplined rivers that spoke of Man’s presence. Only in one spot was there any indication that he had ever lived here, for many miles away a solitary white ruin jutted above the forest roof like a broken fang. Elsewhere, the jungle had returned to its own.
7
THE CRATER DWELLER
It was night when Alvin awoke, the utter night of mountain country, terrifying in its intensity. Something had disturbed him, some whisper of sound that had crept into his mind above the dull thunder of the falls. He sat up in the darkness, straining his eyes across the hidden land, while with indrawn breath he listened to the drumming roar of the falls and the faint but unending rustle of life in the trees around him.
Nothing was visible. The starlight was too dim to reveal the miles of country that lay hundreds of feet below: only a jagged line of darker night eclipsing the stars told of the mountains on the southern horizon. In the darkness beside him Alvin heard his friend roll over and sit up.
“What is it?” came a whispered voice.
“I thought I heard a noise.”
“What sort of noise?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps I was only dreaming.”
There was silence while two pairs of eyes peered out into the mystery of night. Then, suddenly, Theon caught his friend’s arm.