«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 modifications 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 imagined 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 subterranean 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 bad 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 everyone 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 remained 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.
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 accompanied him, for there are times when a man must be apart even from his closest friends.
He did not wander aimlessly, though he never knew which village would be his next port of call. He was seeking no particular place, but a mood, an influence-indeed a way of life. Diaspar had no need of him now; the ferments he had introduced into the city were working swiftly, and nothing he could do would accelerate or retard the changes that were happening there.
This peaceful land would also change. Often he wondered if he had done wrong, in the ruthless drive to satisfy his own curiosity, by opening up the ancient way between the two cultures. Yet surely it was better that Lys should know the truth-that it also, like Diaspar, had been partly founded upon fears and falsehoods.
Sometimes he wondered what shape the new society would take. Ire believed that Diaspar must escape from the prison of the Memory Banks, and restore again the cycle of life and death. Hilvar, he knew, was sure that this could be done, though his proposals were too technical for Alvin to follow. Perhaps the time would come again when love in Diaspar was no longer completely barren.
Was this, Alvin wondered, what he had always lacked in Diaspar-what he had really been seeking? He knew now that when power and ambition and curiosity were satisfied, there still were left the longings of the heart. No one had really lived until they had achieved that synthesis of love and desire which he had never dreamed existed until he came to LYS.
He had walked upon the planet of the Seven Suns-the first man to do so in a billion years. Yet that meant little to him now; sometimes he thought he would give all his achievements if he could hear the cry of a newborn child, and know that it was his own.