Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke [93]
The last act, Jan knew, had still to come. It might occur tomorrow, or it might be centuries hence. Even the Overlords could not be certain.
He understood their purpose now, what they had done with man and why they still lingered upon Earth. Towards them he felt a great humility, as well as admiration for the inflexible patience that had kept them waiting here so long.
He never learned the full story of the strange symbiosis between the Overmind and its servants. According to Rashaverak, there had never been a time in his races history when the Overmind was not there, though it had made no use of them until they had achieved a scientific civilization and could range through space to do its bidding.
"But why does it need you?" queried Jan. "With all its tremendous powers, surely it could do anything it pleased."
"No," said Rashaverak, "it has limits. In the past, we know, it has attempted to act directly upon the minds of other races, and to influence their cultural development. It's always failed, perhaps because the pull is too great. We are the interpreters-the guardians. Or, to use one of your own metaphors, we till the field until the crop is ripe. The Overmind collects the harvest-and we move on to another task. This is the fifth race whose apotheosis we have watched. Each time we learn a little more."
"And do you not resent being used as a tool by the Overmind?"
"The arrangement has some advantages; besides, no one of intelligence resents the inevitable."
That proposition, Jan reflected wryly, had never been fully accepted by mankind. There were things beyond logic that the Overlords had never understood.
"It seems strange," said Jan, "that the Overmind chose you to do its work, if you have no trace of the paraphysical powers latent in mankind. How does it communicate with you and make its wishes known?"
"That is one question I cannot answer-and I cannot tell you the reason why I must keep the facts from you. One day, perhaps, you will know some of the truth."
Jan puzzled over this for a moment, but knew it was useless to follow this line of inquiry. He would have to change the subject and hope to pick up clues later.
"Tell me this, then," he said, "this is something else you've never explained. When your race first came to Earth, back in the distant past, what went wrong? Why had you become the symbol of fear and evil to us?"
Rashaverak smiled. He did not do this as well as Karellen could, but it was a fair imitation.
"No one ever guessed, and you see now why we could never tell you. There was only one event that could have made such an impact upon humanity. And that event was not at the dawn of history, but at its very end."
"What do you mean?" asked Jan.
"When our ships entered your skies a century and a half ago, that was the first meeting of our two races, though of course we had studied you from a distance. And yet you feared and recognized us, as we knew that you would. It was not precisely a memory. You have already had proof that time is more complex than your science ever imagined. For that memory was not of the past, but of the future-of those closing years when your race knew that everything was finished. We did what we could, but it was not an easy end. And because we were there, we became identified with your race's death.
Yes, even while it was still ten thousand years in the future!
It was as if a distorted echo had reverberated round the closed cirde of time, from the future to the past. Call it not a memory, but a premonition."
The idea was hard to grasp, and for a moment Jan wrestled with it in silence. Yet he should have been prepared; he had already received proof enough that cause and event could reverse their normal sequence.
There must be such a thing as racial memory,