Childhood's End, Page 2

  There was silence for a moment. Then Stormgren replied:

  “In three days I will be meeting the Supervisor again. I will explain your objections to him, since it is my duty to represent the views of the world. But it will alter nothing — I can assure you of that.”

  “There is one other point,” said Wainwright slowly. “We have many objections to the Overlords — but above all we detest their secretiveness. You are the only human being who has ever spoken with Karellen, and even you have never seen him! Is it surprising that we doubt his motives?”

  “Despite all that he has done for humanity?”

  “Yes — despite that. I do not know which we resent more — Karellen’s omnipotence, or his secrecy. If he has nothing to hide, why will he never reveal himself? Next time you speak with the Supervisor, Mr Stormgren, ask him that!”

  Stormgren was silent. There was nothing he could say to this — nothing, at any rate, that would convince the other. He sometimes wondered if he had really convinced himself.

  * * *

  It was, of course, only a very small operation from their point of view, but to Earth it was the biggest thing that had ever happened. There had been no warning when the great ships came pouring out of the unknown depths of space.

  Countless times this day had been described in fiction, but no one had really believed that it would ever come. Now it had dawned at last; the gleaming, silent shapes hanging over every land were the symbol of a science Man could not hope to match for centuries. For six days they floated motionless above his cities, giving no hint that they knew of his existence. But none was needed; not by chance alone could those mighty ships have come to rest so precisely over New York, London, Paris, Moscow, Rome, Cape Town, Tokyo, Canberra…

  Even before the ending of those heart-freezing days, some men had guessed the truth. This was not a first tentative contact by a race which knew nothing of man. Within those silent, unmoving ships, master psychologists were studying humanity’s reactions. When the curve of tension had reached its peak, they would act.

  And on the sixth day, Karellen, Supervisor for Earth, made himself known to the world in a broadcast that blanketed every radio frequency. He spoke in English so perfect that the controversy it began was to rage across the Atlantic for a generation. But the context of the speech was more staggering even than its delivery. By any standards, it was a work of superlative genius, showing a complete and absolute mastery of human affairs. There could be no doubt that its scholarship and virtuosity, its tantalizing glimpses of knowledge still untapped were deliberately designed to convince mankind that it was in the presence of overwhelming intellectual power. When Karellen had finished, the nations of Earth knew that their days of precarious sovereignty had ended. Local, internal governments would still retain their powers, but in the wider field of international affairs the supreme decisions had passed from human hands. Arguments — protests — all were futile.

  It was hardly to be expected that all the nations of the world would submit tamely to such a limitation of their powers. Yet active resistance presented baffling difficulties, for the destruction of the Overlords’ ships, even if it could be achieved, would annihilate the cities beneath them. Nevertheless, one major power had made the attempt. Perhaps those responsible hoped to kill two birds with one atomic missile, for their target was floating above the capital of an adjoining and unfriendly nation.

  As the great ship’s image had expanded on the television screen in the secret control room, the little group of officers and technicians must have been torn by many emotions. If they succeeded — what action would the remaining ships take?

  Could they also be destroyed, leaving humanity to go its own way once more? Or would Karellen wreak some frightful vengeance upon those who had attacked him?

  The screen became suddenly blank as the missile destroyed itself on impact, and the picture switched immediately to an airborne camera many miles away. In the fraction of a second that had elapsed, the fireball should already have formed and should be filling the sky with its solar flame.

  Yet nothing whatsoever had happened. The great ship floated unharmed, bathed in the raw sunlight at the edge of space. Not only had the bomb failed to touch it, but no one could ever decide what had happened to the missile. Moreover, Karellen took no action against those responsible, or even indicated that he had known of the attack. He ignored them contemptuously, leaving them to worry over a vengeance that never came. It was a more effective, and more demoralizing, treatment than any punitive action could have been. The government responsible collapsed completely in mutual recrimination a few weeks later.

  There had also been some passive resistance to the policy of the Overlords. Usually, Karellen had been able to deal with it by letting those concerned have their own way, until they had discovered that they were only hurting themselves by their refusal to co-operate. Only once had he taken any direct action against a recalcitrant government.

  For more than a hundred years, the Republic of South Africa had been the centre of racial strife. Men of good will on both sides had tried to build a bridge, but in vain — fears and prejudices were too deeply ingrained to permit any cooperation. Successive governments had differed only in the degree of their intolerance; the land was poisoned with hate and the aftermath of civil war.

  When it became clear that no attempt would be made to end discrimination, Karellen gave his warning. It merely named a date and time — no more. There was apprehension, but little fear or panic, for no one believed that the Overlords would take any violent or destructive action which would involve innocent and guilty alike.

  Nor did they. All that happened was that as the sun passed the meridian at Cape Town — it went out. There remained visible merely a pale, purple ghost, giving no heat or light. Somehow, out in space, the light of the sun had been polarised by two crossed fields so that no radiation could pass. The area affected was five hundred kilometres across, and perfectly circular.

  The demonstration lasted thirty minutes. It was sufficient; the next day the Government of South Africa announced that full civil rights would be restored to the white minority.

  Apart from such isolated incidents, the human race had accepted the Overlords as part of the natural order of things. In a surprisingly short time, the initial shock had worn off, and the world went about its business again. The greatest change a suddenly awakened Rip Van Winkle would have noticed was a hushed expectancy, a mental glancing-over-the-shoulder, as mankind waited for the Overlords to show themselves and to step down from their gleaming ships.

  Five years later, it was still waiting. That, thought Stormgren, was the cause of all the trouble.

  * * *

  There was the usual circle of sightseers, cameras at the ready, as Stormgren’s car drove on to the landing-field. The Secretary-General exchanged a few final words with his assistant, collected his brief case, and walked through the ring of spectators.

  Karellen never kept him waiting for long. There was a sudden “Oh!” from the crowd, and a silver bubble expanded with breathtaking speed in the sky above. A gust of air tore at Stormgren’s clothes as the tiny ship came to rest fifty metres away, floating delicately a few centimetres above the ground, as if it feared contamination with Earth. As he walked slowly forward, Stormgren saw that familiar puckering of the seamless metallic hull, and in a moment the opening that had so baffled the world’s best scientists appeared before him. He stepped through it into the ship’s single, softly-lit room. The entrance sealed itself as if it had never been, shutting out all sound and sight.

  It opened again five minutes later. There had been no sensation of movement, but Stormgren knew that he was now fifty kilometres above the Earth, deep in the heart of Karellen’s ship. He was in the world of the Overlords; all around him, they were going about their mysterious business. He had come nearer to them than had any other man; yet he knew no more of their physical nature than did any of the millions on the world below.

&
nbsp; The little conference room at the end of the short connecting corridor was unfurnished apart from the single chair and the table beneath the vision screen. As was intended, it told absolutely nothing of the creatures who had built it. The vision screen was empty now, as it had always been. Sometimes in his dreams Stormgren had imagined that it had suddenly flashed into life, revealing the secret that tormented all the world. But the dream had never come true; behind that rectangle of darkness lay utter mystery. Yet there also lay power and wisdom — and, perhaps most of all, an immense and humorous affection for the little creatures crawling on the planet beneath.

  From the hidden grille came that calm, never-hurried voice that Stormgren knew so well though the world had heard it only once in history. Its depth and resonance gave the single clue that existed to Karellen’s physical nature, for it left an overwhelming impression of sheer size. Karellen was large — perhaps much larger than a man. It was true that some scientists, after analysing the record of his only speech, had suggested that the voice was that of a machine. This was something that Stormgren could never believe.

  “Yes, Rikki, I was listening to your little interview. What did you make of Mr Wainwright?”

  “He’s an honest man, even if many of his supporters aren’t. What are we going to do about him? The League itself isn’t dangerous — but some of its extremists are openly advocating violence. I’ve been wondering if I should put a guard on my house. But I hope it isn’t necessary.”

  Karellen evaded the point in the annoying way he sometimes had.

  “The details of the World Federation have been out for a month now. Has there been a substantial increase in the seven per cent who don’t approve of me, or the twelve per cent who Don’t Know?”

  “Not yet. But that’s of no importance; what does worry me is a general feeling, even among your supporters, that it’s time this secrecy came to an end.”

  Karellen’s sigh was technically perfect, yet somehow lacked conviction.

  “That’s your feeling too, isn’t it?”

  The question was so rhetorical that Stormgren did not bother to answer it.

  “I wonder if you really appreciate,” he continued earnestly, “how difficult this state of affairs makes my job.”

  “It doesn’t exactly help mine,” replied Karellen with some spirit. “I wish people would stop thinking of me as a dictator, and remember I’m only a civil servant trying to administer a colonial policy in whose shaping I had no hand.”

  That, thought Stormgren, was quite an engaging description. He wondered just how much truth it held.

  “Can’t you at least give us some reason for your concealment? Because we don’t understand it, it annoys us and gives rise to endless rumours.”

  Karellen gave that rich, deep laugh of his, just too resonant, to be altogether human.

  “What am I supposed to be now? Does the robot theory still hold the field? I’d rather be a mass of electron tubes than a thing like a centipede — oh yes, I’ve seen that cartoon in yesterday’s Chicago Tribune! I’m thinking of requesting the original.”

  Stormgren pursed his lips primly. There were times, he thought, when Karellen took his duties too lightly.

  “This is serious,” he said reprovingly.

  “My dear Rikki,” Karellen retorted, “it’s only by not taking the human race seriously that I retain what fragments of my once considerable mental powers I still possess!”

  Despite himself Stormgren smiled.

  “That doesn’t help me a great deal, does it? I have to go down there and convince my fellow men that although you won’t show yourself, you’ve got nothing to hide. It’s not an easy job. Curiosity is one of the most dominant of human characteristics. You can’t defy it forever.”

  “Of all the problems that faced us when we came to Earth, this was the most difficult,” admitted Karellen. “You have trusted our wisdom in other matters — surely you can trust us in this!”

  “I trust you,” said Stormgren, “but Wainwright doesn’t, nor do his supporters. Can you really blame them if they put a bad interpretation on your unwillingness to show yourselves?”

  There was silence for a moment. Then Stormgren heard that faint sound (was it a crackling?) that might have been caused by the Supervisor moving his body slightly.

  “You know why Wainwright and his kind fear me, don’t you?” asked Karellen. His voice was sombre now, like a great organ rolling its notes from a high cathedral nave. “You will find men like him in all the world’s religions. They know that we represent reason and science, and however confident they may be in their beliefs, they fear that we will overthrow their gods. Not necessarily through any deliberate act, but in a subtler fashion. Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the non-existence of Zeus or Thor, but they have few followers now. The Wainwrights fear, too, that we know the truth about the origins of their faiths. How long, they wonder, have we been observing humanity? Have we watched Mohammed begin the Hegira, or Moses giving the Jews their laws? Do we know all that is false in the stories they believe?”

  “And do you?” whispered Stormgren, half to himself.

  “That, Rikki, is the fear that torments them, even though they will never admit it openly. Believe me, it gives us no pleasure to destroy men’s faiths, but all the world’s religions cannot be right, and they know it. Sooner or later Man has to learn the truth; but that time is not yet. As for our secrecy, which you are correct in saying aggravates our problems — that is a matter beyond my control. I regret the need for this concealment as much as you do, but the reasons are sufficient. However, I will try to get a statement from my — superiors — which may satisfy you and perhaps placate the Freedom League. Now, please, can we return to the agenda and start recording again?”

  * * *

  “Well?” asked Van Ryberg anxiously. “Did you have any luck?”

  “I don’t know,” Stormgren replied wearily as he threw the files down on his desk and collapsed into the seat. “Karellen’s consulting his superiors now, whoever or whatever they may be. He won’t make any promises.”

  “Listen,” said Pieter abruptly, “I’ve just thought of something. What reason have we for believing that there is anyone beyond Karellen? Suppose all the Overlords, as we’ve christened them, are right here on Earth in these ships of theirs? “They may have nowhere else to go, and they’re hiding the fact from us.”

  “It’s an ingenious theory,” grinned Stormgren. “But it clashes with what little I know — or think I know — about Karellen’s background.”

  “And how much is that?”

  “Well, he often refers to his position here as something temporary, hindering him from getting on with his real work, which I think is some form of mathematics. Once I quoted Acton’s quotation about power corrupting, and absolute power corrupting absolutely. I wanted to see how he’d react to that. He gave that cavernous laugh of his, and said; ‘There’s no danger of that happening to me. In the first case, the sooner I finish my work here, the sooner I can get back to where I belong, a good many light-years from here. And secondly, I don’t have absolute power, by any means. I’m just — Supervisor.’ Of course, he may have been misleading me. I can never be sure of that.”

  “He’s immortal isn’t he?”

  “Yes, by our standards, though there’s something in the future he seems to fear; I can’t imagine what it is. And that’s really all I know about him.”

  “It isn’t very conclusive. My theory is that his little fleet’s lost in space and is looking for a new home. He doesn’t want us to know how few he and his comrades are. Perhaps all those other ships are automatic, and there’s no one in any of them. They’re just an imposing façade.”

  “You,” said Stormgren, “have been reading too much science-fiction.”

  Van Ryberg grinned, a little sheepishly.

  “The ‘Invasion From Space’ didn’t turn out quite as
expected, did it? My theory would certainly explain why Karellen never shows himself. He doesn’t want us to learn that there aren’t any more Overlords.”

  Stormgren shook his head in amused disagreement.

  “Your explanation, as usual, is much too ingenious to be true. Though we can only infer its existence, there must be a great civilisation behind the Supervisor — and one that’s known about Man for a very long time. Karellen himself must have been studying us for centuries. Look at his command of English, for example. He taught me how to speak it idiomatically!”

  “Have you ever discovered anything he doesn’t know?”

  “Oh yes, quite often — but only on trivial points. I think he has an absolutely perfect memory, but there are some things he hasn’t bothered to learn. For instance, English is the only language he understands completely, though in the last two years he’s picked up a good deal of Finnish just to tease me. And one doesn’t learn Finnish in a hurry! He can quote great slabs of the ‘Kalevala’, whereas I’m ashamed to say I know only a few lines. He also knows the biographies of all living statesmen, and sometimes I can identify the references he’s used. His knowledge of history and science seems complete — you know how much we’ve already learned from him. Yet, taken one at a time, I don’t think his mental gifts are quite outside the range of human achievement. But no one man could possibly do all the things he does.”

  “That’s more or less what I’ve decided already,” agreed Van Ryberg. “We can argue round Karellen forever, but in the end we always come back to the same question: why the devil won’t he show himself? Until he does, I’ll go on theorising and the Freedom League will go on fulminating.”

  He cocked a rebellious eye at the ceiling.

  “One dark night, Mr Supervisor, I hope some reporter takes a rocket up to your ship and climbs in through the back door with a camera. What a scoop that would be!”