Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke [96]
"We were hoping," began Rashaverak slowly, "that you would wish to stay. There is something that you can do for us…"
***
The glare of the Stardrive dwindled and died, somewhere out there beyond the orbit of Mars. Along that road, thought Jan, he alone had travelled, out of all the billions of human beings who had lived and died on Earth. And no one would ever travel it again.
The world was his. Everything he needed-all the material possessions anyone could ever desire-were his for the taking. But he was no longer interested. He feared neither the loneliness of the deserted planet, nor the presence that still rested here in the last moments before it went to seek its unknown heritage. In the inconceivable backwash of that departure, Jan did not expect that he and his problems would long survive.
That was well. He had done all that he had wished to do, and to drag out a pointless life on this empty world would have been unbearable anticlimax. He could have left with the Overlords, but for what purpose? For he knew, as no one else had ever known, that Karellen spoke the truth when he had said; "The stars are not for Man."
He turned his back upon the night and walked through the vast entrance of the Overlord base. Its size affected him not in the least; sheer immensity no longer had any power over his mind. The lights were burning redly, driven by energies that could feed them for ages yet. On either side lay machines whose secrets he would never know, abandoned by the Overlords in their retreat. He went past them, and clambered awkwardly up the great steps until he had reached the control room.
The spirit of the Overlords still lingered here; their machines were still alive, doing the bidding of their now fir-distant masters. What could he add, wondered Jan, to the information they were already hurling into space?
He climbed into the great chair and made himself as comfortable as he could. The microphone, already alive, was waiting for him; something that was the equivalent of a TV camera must be watching, but he could not locate it.
Beyond the desk and its meaningless instrument panels, the wide windows looked out into the starry night, across a valley sleeping beneath a gibbous moon, and to the distant range of mountains. A river wound along the valley, glittering here and there as the moonlight struck upon some patch of troubled water. It was all so peaceful. It might have been thus at Man's birth as it was now at his ending.
Out there across unknown millions of kilometres of space, Karellen would be waiting. It was strange to think that the ship of the Overlords was racing away from Earth almost as swiftly as his signal could speed after it. Almost-but not quite. It would be a long chase, but his words would catch the Supervisor and he would have repaid the debt he owed.
How much of this, Jan wondered, had Karellen planned, and how much was masterful improvisation? Had the Supervisor deliberately let him escape into space, almost a century ago, so that he could return to play the role he was fulfilling now?
No, that seemed too fantastic. But Jan was certain now, that Karellen was involved in some vast and complicated plot. Even while he served it, he was studying the Overmind with all the instruments at his command. Jan suspected that it was not only scientific curiosity that inspired the Supervisor; perhaps the Overlords had dreams of one day escaping from their peculiar bondage, when they had learned enough about the powers they served.
That Jan could add to that knowledge by what he was now doing seemed hard to believe. "Tell us what you see," Rashaverak had said. "The picture that reaches your eyes will be duplicated by our cameras. But the message that enters your brain may be very different, and it could tell us a great deal. Well, he would do his best.
"Still nothing to report," he began. "A few minutes ago I saw the trail of your ship disappear in the sky. The Moon is just past full, and almost half its familiar side has