Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke [98]
"And now- this can't be all imagination-the world feels empty. Utterly empty. It's like listening to a radio set that's suddenly gone dead. And the sky is clear again-the misty web has gone. What world will it go to next, Karellen? And will you be there to serve it still?
"Strange; everything around me is unaltered. I don't know why, but somehow I'd thought that…"
Jan stopped. For a moment he struggled for words, then closed his eyes in an effort to regain control. There was no room for fear or panic now; he had a duty to perform-a duty to man, and a duty to Karellen.
Slowly at first, like a man awaking from a dream, he began to speak.
"The buildings round me, the ground, the mountains-everything's like glass- I can see through it. Earth's dissolving. My weight has almost gone. You were right-they've finished playing with their toys.
"It's only a few seconds away. There go the mountains, like wisps of smoke. Goodbye, Karellen, Rashaverak-I am sorry for you. Though I cannot understand it, I've seen what my race became. Everything we ever achieved has gone up there into the stars. Perhaps that's what the old religions were trying to say. But they got it all wrong; they thought mankind was so important, yet we're only one race in-do you know how many? Yet now we've become something that you could never be.
"There goes the river. No change in the sky, though. I can hardly breathe. Strange to see the Moon still shining up there. I'm glad they left it, but it will be lonely now-
"The light! From beneath me-inside the Earth-shining upward, through the rocks, the ground, everything-growing brighter, brighter, blinding-"
***
In a soundless concussion of light, Earth's core gave up its hoarded energies. For a little while the gravitational waves crossed and re-crossed the solar system, distubing ever so slightly the orbits of the planets. Then the Sun's remaining children pursued their ancient paths once more, as corks floating on a placid lake ride out the tiny ripples set in motion by a falling stone.
There was nothing left of Earth. They had teethed away the last atoms of its substance. It had nourished them, through the fierce moments of their inconceivable metamorphosis, as the food stored in a grain of wheat feeds the infant plant while it climbs towards the sun.
***
Six thousand million kilometres beyond the orbit of Pluto, Karellen sat before a suddenly darkened screen. The record was complete, the mission ended; he was homeward bound for the world he had left so long ago. The weight of centuries was upon him, and a sadness that no logic could dispel. He did not mourn for Man; his sorrow was for his own race, forever barred from greatness by forces it could not overcome.
For all their achievements, thought Karellen, for all their mastery of the physical universe, his people were no better than a tribe that had passed its whole existence upon some flat and dusty plain. Far off were the mountains, where power and beauty dwelt, where the thunder sported above the glaciers and the air was clear and keen. There the sun still walked, transfiguring the peaks with glory, when all the land below was wrapped in darkness. And they could only watch and wonder; they could never scale those heights.
Yet, Karellen knew, they would hold fast until the end; they would await without despair whatever destiny was theirs. They would serve the Overmind because they had no choice, but even in that service they would not lose their souls.
The great control screen flared for a moment with sombre, ruby light; without conscious effort, Karellen read the message of its changing patterns. The ship was leaving the frontiers of the solar system; the energies that powered