Childhood's End

  George tousled his son’s untidy hair with one hand, while tightening his dressing-gown around him with the other. He felt suddenly very cold and very small. But there was no hint of this in his voice when he spoke to Jeff.

  “It’s just a silly dream; you’ve eaten too much for supper. Forget all about it and go back to sleep, there’s a good boy.”

  “I will, Daddy,” Jeff replied. He paused for a moment, then added thoughtfully, “I think I’ll try and go there again.”

  * * *

  “A blue sun?” said Karellen, not many hours later. “That must have made identification fairly easy.”

  “Yes,” Rashaverak answered. “It is undoubtedly Aiphanidon Two. The Sulphur Mountains confirm the fact. And it’s interesting to notice the distortion of the time scale. The planet rotates fairly slowly, so he must have observed many hours in a few minutes.”

  “That’s all you can discover?”

  “Yes, without questioning the child directly.”

  “We dare not do that. Events must take their natural course without our interference. When his parents approach us — then, perhaps, we can question him.”

  “They may never come to us. And when they do, it may be too late.”

  “That, I am afraid, cannot be helped. We should never forget this fact — that in these matters our curiosity is of no importance. It is no more important, even, than the happiness of mankind.”

  His hand reached out to break the connection.

  “Continue the surveillance, of course, and report all results to me. But do not interfere in any way.”

  * * *

  Yet when he was awake, Jeff still seemed just the same.

  That at least, thought George, was something for which they could be thankful. But the dread was growing in his heart.

  To Jeff it was only a game; it had not yet begun to frighten him. A dream was merely a dream, no matter how strange it might be. He was no longer lonely in the worlds that sleep opened up to him. Only on that first night had his mind called out to Jean across whatever unknown gulfs had sundered them. Now he went alone and fearless into the universe that was opening up before him.

  In the mornings they would question him, and he would tell what he could remember. Sometimes his words stumbled and failed as he tried to describe scenes which were clearly not only beyond all his experience, but beyond the imagination of man. They would prompt him with new words, show him pictures and colours to refresh his memory, then build up what pattern they could from his replies. Often they could make nothing of the result, though it seemed that in Jeff’s own mind his dream worlds were perfectly plain and sharp. He was simply unable to communicate them to his parents. Yet some were clear enough —

  * * *

  Space — no planet, no surrounding landscape, no world underfoot. Only the stars in the velvet night, and hanging against them a great red sun that was beating like a heart. Huge and tenuous at one moment, it would slowly shrink, brightening at the same time as if new fuel was being fed to its internal fires. It would climb the spectrum and hover at the edge of yellow, and then the cycle would reverse itself, the star would expand and cool, becoming once more a ragged, flame-red cloud…

  (“Typical pulsating variable,” said Rashaverak eagerly. “Seen, too, under tremendous time-acceleration. I can’t identify it precisely, but the nearest star that fits the description is Rhamsandron 9. Or it may be Pharanidon 12.”

  “Whichever it is,” replied Karellen, “he’s getting further away from home.”

  “Much further,” said Rashaverak…)

  It might have been Earth. A white sun hung in a blue sky flecked with clouds, which were racing before a storm. A hill sloped gently down to an ocean torn into spray by the ravening wind. Yet nothing moved; the scene was frozen as if glimpsed in a flash of lightning. And far, far away on the horizon was something that was not of Earth — a line of misty columns, tapering slightly as they soared out of the sea and lost themselves among the clouds. They were spaced with perfect precision along the rim of the planet — too huge to be artificial, yet too regular to be natural.

  (“Sideneus 4 and the Pillars of the Dawn,” said Rashaverak, and there was awe in his voice. “He has reached the centre of the Universe.”

  “And he has barely begun his journey,” answered Karellen.)

  The planet was absolutely flat. Its enormous gravity had long ago crushed into one uniform level the mountains of its fiery youth — mountains whose mightiest peaks had never exceeded a few metres in height. Yet there was life here, for the surface was covered with a myriad geometrical patterns that crawled and moved and changed their colour. It was a world of two dimensions, inhabited by beings who could be no more than a fraction of a centimetre in thickness.

  And in its sky was such a sun as no opium eater could have imagined in his wildest dreams. Too hot to be white, it was a searing ghost at the frontiers of the ultra-violet, burning its planets with radiations which would be instantly lethal to all earthly forms of life. For millions of kilometres around extended great veils of gas and dust, fluorescing in countless colours as the blasts of ultra-violet tore through them. It was a star against which Earth’s pale sun would have been as feeble as a glow-worm at noon.

  (“Hexanerax 2, and nowhere else in the known universe,” said Rashaverak. “Only a handful of our ships have ever reached it — and they have never risked any landings, for who would have thought that life could exist on such planets?”

  “It seems,” said Karellen, “that you scientists have not been as thorough as you had believed. If those — patterns — are intelligent, the problem of communication will be interesting. I wonder if they have any knowledge of the third dimension?”)

  It was a world that could never know the meaning of night and day, of years or seasons. Six coloured suns shared its sky, so that there came only a change of light, never darkness.

  Through the clash and tug of conflicting gravitational fields the planet travelled along the loops and curves of its inconceivably complex orbit, never retracing the same path. Every moment was unique; the configuration which the six suns now held in the heavens would not repeat itself this side of eternity.

  And even here there was life. Though the planet might be scorched by the central fires in one age, and frozen in the outer reaches in another, it was yet the home of intelligence. The great, many-faceted crystals stood grouped in intricate geometrical patterns, motionless in the eras of cold, growing slowly along the veins of mineral when the world was warm again. No matter if it took a thousand years for them to complete a thought. The universe was still young, and Time stretched endlessly before them —

  (“I have searched all our records,” said Rashaverak. “We have no knowledge of such a world, or such a combination of suns. If it existed inside our universe, the astronomers would have detected it, even if it lay behind the range of our ships.”

  “Then he has left the Galaxy.”

  “Yes. Surely it cannot be much longer now.”

  “Who knows? He is only dreaming. When he awakes, he is still the same. It is merely the first phase. We will know soon enough when the change begins.”)

  * * *

  “We have met before, Mr Greggson,” said the Overlord gravely. “My name is Rashaverak. No doubt you remember.”

  “Yes,” said George. “That party of Rupert Boyce’s. I am not likely to forget. And I thought we should meet again.”

  “Tell me — why have you asked for this interview?”

  “I think you already know.”

  “Perhaps; but it will help us both if you tell me in your own words. It may surprise you a good deal, but I also am trying to understand, and in some ways my ignorance is as great as yours.”

  George stared at the Overlord in astonishment. This was a thought that had never occurred to him. He had subconsciously assumed that the Overlords possessed all knowledge and all power — that they understood, and were probably responsible for, the things that had been
happening to Jeff.

  “I gather,” George continued, “that you have seen the reports I gave to the Island psychologist, so you know about the dreams.”

  “Yes; we know about them.”

  “I never believed that they were simply the imaginings of a child. They were so incredible that — I know this sounds ridiculous — they had to be based on some reality.”

  He looked anxiously at Rashaverak, not knowing whether to hope for confirmation or denial. The Overlord said nothing, but merely regarded him with his great calm eyes. They were sitting almost face to face, for the room — which had obviously been designed for such interviews — was on two levels, the Overlord’s massive chair being a good metre lower than George’s. It was a friendly gesture, reassuring to the men who asked for these meetings and who were seldom in an easy frame of mind.

  “We were worried, but not really alarmed at first. Jeff seemed perfectly normal when he woke up, and his dreams didn’t appear to bother him. And then one night” — he hesitated and glanced defensively at the Overlord. “I’ve never believed in the supernatural; I’m no scientist, but I think there’s a rational explanation for everything.”

  “There is,” said Rashaverak. “I know what you saw; I was watching.”

  “I always suspected it. But Karellen had promised that you’d never spy on us with your instruments. Why have you broken that promise?”

  “I have not broken it. The Supervisor said that the human race would no longer be under surveillance. That is a promise we have kept. I was watching your children, not you.”

  It was several seconds before George understood the implications of Rashaverak’s words. Then the colour drained slowly from his face.

  “You mean?…” he gasped. His voice trailed away and he had to begin again. “Then what in God’s name are my children?”

  “That,” said Rashaverak solemnly, “is what we are trying to discover.”

  * * *

  Jennifer Anne Greggson, lately known as the Poppet, lay on her back with her eyes tightly closed. She had not opened them for a long time; she would never open them again, for sight was now as superfluous to her as to the many-sensed creatures of the lightless ocean deeps. She was aware of the world that surrounded her; indeed, she was aware of much more than that.

  One reflex remained from her brief babyhood, by some unaccountable trick of development. The rattle which had once delighted her sounded incessantly now, beating a complex, ever-changing rhythm in her cot. It was that strange syncopation which had roused Jean from her sleep and sent her flying into the nursery. But it was not the sound alone that had started her screaming for George.

  It was the sight of that commonplace, brightly coloured rattle beating steadily in airy isolation half a metre away from any support, while Jennifer Anne, her chubby fingers clasped tightly together, lay with a smile of calm contentment on her face.

  She had started later, but she was progressing swiftly. Soon she would pass her brother, for she had so much less to unlearn.

  * * *

  “You were wise,” said Rashaverak, “not to touch her toy. I do not believe you could have moved it. But if you had succeeded, she might have been annoyed. And then, I do not know what would have happened.”

  “Do you mean,” said George dully, “that you can do nothing?”

  “I will not deceive you. We can study and observe, as we are doing already. But we cannot interfere, because we cannot understand.”

  “Then what are we to do? And why has this thing happened to us?”

  “It had to happen to someone. There is nothing exceptional about you, any more than there is about the first neutron that starts the chain reaction in an atomic bomb. It simply happens to be the first. Any other neutron would have served — just as Jeffrey might have been any boy in the world. We call it Total Breakthrough. There is no need for any secrecy now, and I am very glad. We have been waiting for this to happen, ever since we came to Earth. There was no way of telling when and where it would start — until, by pure chance, we met at Rupert Boyce’s party. Then I knew that, almost certainly, your wife’s children would be the first.”

  “But — we weren’t married then. We hadn’t even —”

  “Yes, I know. But Miss Morrel’s mind was the channel that, if only for a moment, let through knowledge which no one alive at that time could possess. It could only come from another mind, intimately linked to hers. The fact that it was a mind not yet born was of no consequence, for Time is very much stranger than you think.”

  “I begin to understand. Jeff knows these things — he can see other worlds, and can tell where you come from. And somehow Jean caught his thoughts, even before he was born.”

  “There is far more to it than that — but I do not imagine you will ever get much closer to the truth. All through history there have been people with inexplicable powers which seemed to transcend space and time. They never understood them; almost without exception, their attempted explanations were rubbish. I should know — I have read enough of them!

  “But there is one analogy which is — well, suggestive and helpful. It occurs over and over again in your literature. Imagine that every man’s mind is an island, surrounded by ocean. Each seems isolated, yet in reality all are linked by the bedrock from which they spring. If the oceans were to vanish, that would be the end of the islands. They would all be part of one continent, but their individuality would have gone.

  “Telepathy, as you have called it, is something like this. In suitable circumstances minds can merge and share each other’s contents, and carry back memories of the experience when they are isolated once more. In its highest form, this power is not subject to the usual limitations of time and space. That is why Jean could tap the knowledge of her unborn son.”

  There was a long silence while George wrestled with these astounding thoughts. The pattern was beginning to take shape. It was an unbelievable pattern, but it had its own inherent logic. And it explained — if the word could be used for anything so incomprehensible — all that had happened since that evening at Rupert Boyce’s home. It also accounted, he realised now, for Jean’s own curiosity about the supernormal.

  “What has started this thing?” asked George. “And where is it going to lead?”

  “That is something we cannot answer. But there are many races in the universe, and some of them discovered these powers long before your species — or mine — appeared on the scene. They have been waiting for you to join them, and now the time has come.”

  “Then where do you come into the picture?”

  “Probably, like most men, you have always regarded us as your masters. That is not true. We have never been more than guardians, doing a duty imposed upon us from — above. That duty is hard to define; perhaps you can best think of us as midwives attending a difficult birth. We are helping to bring something new and wonderful into being.”

  Rashaverak hesitated; for a moment it almost seemed as if he was at a loss for words.

  “Yes, we are the midwives. But we ourselves are barren.”

  In that instant, George knew he was in the presence of a tragedy transcending his own. It was incredible — and yet somehow just. Despite all their powers and their brilliance, the Overlords were trapped in some evolutionary cul-de-sac. Here was a great and noble race, in almost every way superior to mankind; yet it had no future, and it was aware of it. In the face of this, George’s own problems seemed suddenly trivial.

  “Now I know,” he said, “why you have been watching Jeffrey. He was the guinea pig in this experiment.”

  “Exactly — though the experiment was beyond our control. We did not start it — we were merely trying to observe. We did not interfere except when we had to.”

  Yes, thought George — the tidal wave. It would never do to let a valuable specimen be destroyed. Then he felt ashamed of himself; such bitterness was unworthy.

  “I’ve only one more question,” he said. “What shall we do about our children?”<
br />
  “Enjoy them while you may,” answered Rashaverak gently. “They will not be yours for long.”

  It was advice that might have been given to any parent in any age; but now it contained a threat and a terror it had never held before.

  Chapter 19

  There came the time when the world of Jeffrey’s dreams was no longer sharply divided from his everyday existence. He no longer went to school, and for Jean and George also the routine of life was completely broken, as it was soon to break down throughout the world.

  They avoided all their friends, as if already conscious that soon no one would have sympathy to spare for them. Sometimes, in the quietness of the night when there were few people about, they would go for long walks together. They were closer now than they had been since the first days of their marriage, united again in the face of the still unknown tragedy that soon would overwhelm them.

  At first it had given them a feeling of guilt to leave the sleeping children alone in the house, but now they realised that Jeff and Jenny could look after themselves in ways beyond the knowledge of their parents. And, of course, the Overlords would be watching too. That thought was reassuring; they felt that they were not alone with their problem, but that wise and sympathetic eyes shared their vigil.

  Jennifer slept; there was no other word to describe the state she had entered. To all outward appearances, she was still a baby, but round her now was a sense of latent power so terrifying that Jean could no longer bear to enter the nursery.

  There was no need to do so. The entity that had been Jennifer Anne Greggson was not yet fully developed, but even in its sleeping chrysalis state it already had enough control of its environment to take care of all its needs. Jean had only once attempted to feed it, without success. It chose to take nourishment in its own time, and in its own manner.