The City And The Stars - Arthur C. Clarke [117]
‘It took a thousand years to build the city and all its machines. As each of us completed his task, his mind was washed clean of its memories, the carefully planned pattern of false ones was implanted, and his identity was stored in the city’s circuits until the time came to call it forth again.
‘So at last there came a day when there was not a single man alive in Diaspar; there was only the Central Computer, obeying the orders which we had fed into it, and controlling the memory banks in which we were sleeping. There was no one who had any contact with the past—and so at this point, history began.
‘Then, one by one, in a predetermined sequence, we were called out of the memory circuits and given flesh again. Like a machine that had just been built and was now set operating for the first time, Diaspar began to carry out the duties for which it had been designed.
‘Yet some of us had had doubts even from the beginning. Eternity was a long time; we recognised the risks involved in leaving no outlet, and trying to seal ourselves completely from the Universe. We could not defy the wishes of our culture, so we worked in secret, making the modifications we thought necessary.
‘The Uniques were our invention. They would appear at long intervals and would, if circumstances allowed them, discover if there was anything beyond Diaspar that was worth the effort of contacting. We never imagined that it would take so long for one of them to succeed—nor did we imagine that his success would be so great.’
Despite that suspension of the critical faculties which is the very essence of a dream, Jeserac wondered fleetingly how Yarland Zey could speak with such knowledge of things that had happened a billion years after his time. It was very confusing … he did not know where in time or space he was.
The journey was coming to an end; the walls of the tunnel no longer flashed past him at such breakneck speed. Yarlan Zey began to speak with an urgency, and an authority, which he had not shown before.
‘The past is over; we did our work, for better or for ill, and that is finished with. When you were created, Jeserac, you were given that fear of the outer world, and that compulsion to stay within the city, that you share with everyone else in Diaspar. You know now that fear was groundless, that it was artificially imposed on you. I, Yarlan Zey, who gave it to you, now release you from its bondage. Do you understand?’
With those last words, the voice of Yarlan Zey became louder and louder, until it seemed to reverberate through all of space. The subterranean carrier in which he was speeding blurred and trembled around Jeserac as if his dream was coming to an end. Yet as the vision faded, he could still hear that imperious voice thundering into his brain:
‘You are no longer afraid, Jeserac You are no longer afraid.’
He struggled up towards wakefulness, as a diver climbs from the ocean depths back to the surface of the sea. Yarlan Zey had vanished, but there was a strange interregnum when voices which he knew but could not recognise talked to him encouragingly, and he felt himself supported by friendly hands. Then like a swift dawn reality came flooding back.
He opened his eyes, and saw Alvin and Hilvar and Gerane standing anxiously beside him. But he paid no heed to them; his mind was too filled with the wonder that now lay spread before him—the panorama of forests and rivers, and the blue vault of the open sky.
He was in Lys; and he was not afraid.
No one disturbed him as the timeless moment imprinted itself for ever on his mind. At last, when he had satisfied himself that this indeed was real, he turned to his companions.
‘Thank you, Gerane,’ he said. ‘I never believed you would succeed.’
The psychologist, looking very pleased with himself, was making delicate adjustments to a small