Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke [91]
Somewhere there was the muffled roar of air as the ship equalized pressure, then the sound of great doors opening. He did not wait; the silent giants watched him with tolerance or indifference as he ran from the control room.
He was home, seeing once more by the sparkling light of his own familiar sun, breathing the air that had first washed through his lungs. The gangway was already down, but he had to wait for a moment until the glare outside no longer blinded him.
Karellen was standing, a little apart from his companions, beside a great transport vehicle loaded with crates. Jan did not stop to wonder how he recognized the Supervisor, nor was he surprised to see him completely unchanged. That was almost the only thing that had turned out as he had expected.
"I have been waiting for you," said Karellen..
Chapter 23
"In the early days," said Karellen, "it was safe for us to go among them. But they no longer needed us; our work was done when we had gathered them together and given them a continent of their own. Watch."
The wall in front of Jan disappeared. Instead he was looking down from a height of a few hundred metres on to a pleasantly wooded country. The illusion was so perfect that he fought a momentary giddiness.
"This is five years later, when the second phase had begun." There were figures moving below, and the camera swooped down upon them like a bird of prey.
"This will distress you," said Karellen. "But remember that your standards no longer apply. You are not watching human children."
Yet that was the immediate impression that came to Jan's mind, and no amount of logic could dispel it. They might have been savages, engaged in some complex ritual dance. They were naked and filthy, with matted hair obscuring their eyes. As far as Jan could tell, they were of all ages from five to fifteen, yet they all moved with the same speed, precision, and complete indifference to their surroundings.
Then Jan saw their faces. He swallowed hard, and forced himself not to turn away. They were emptier than the faces of the dead, for even a corpse has some record carved by Time's chisel upon its features, to speak when the lips themselves are dumb. There was no more emotion or feeling here than in the face of a snake or an insect. The Overlords themselves were more human than this.
"You are searching for something that is no longer there." said Karellen. "Remember-they have no more identity than the cells in your own body. But linked together, they are something much greater than you."
"Why do they keep moving like this?"
"We called it the Long Dance," replied Karellen. "They never sleep, you know, and this lasted almost a year. Three hundred million of them, moving in a controlled pattern over a whole continent. We've analysed that pattern endlessly, but it means nothing, perhaps because we can see only the physical part of it-the small portion that's here on Earth. Possibly what we have called the Overmind is still training them, moulding them into one unit before it can wholly absorb them into its being."
"But how did they manage about food? And what happened if they hit obstructions, like trees, or cliffs, or water?"
"Water made no difference; they could not drown. When they encountered obstacles, they sometimes damaged themselves, but they never noticed it. As for food-well, there was all the fruit and game they required. But now they have left that need behind, like so many others. For food is largely a source of energy, and they have learned to tap greater sources."
The scene flickered as if a heat haze had passed over it. When it cleared, the movement below had ceased.
"Watch again," said Karellen. "It is three years later."
The little figures, so helpless and pathetic if one did not know the truth, stood motionless in forest and glade and