Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke [78]
"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 anybody 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