The City And The Stars - Arthur C. Clarke [79]
The wedge of night had ceased to grow. The powers that had made it were peering down into the toy universe they had discovered, perhaps conferring among themselves as to whether it was worth their attention. Underneath that cosmic scrutiny, Alvin felt no alarm, no terror. He knew that he was face to face with power and wisdom, before which a man might feel awe but never fear.
And now they had decided—they would waste some fragments of eternity upon Earth and its peoples. They were coming through the window they had broken in the sky.
Like sparks from some celestial forge, they drifted down to Earth. Thicker and thicker they came, until a waterfall of fire was streaming down from heaven and splashing in pools of liquid light as it reached the ground. Alvin did not need the words that sounded in his ears like a benediction:
‘The Great Ones have come.’
The fire reached him, and it did not burn. It was everywhere, filling the great bowl of Shalmirane with its golden glow. As he watched in wonder, Alvin saw that it was not a featureless flood of light, but that it had form and structure. It began to resolve itself into distinct shapes, to gather into separate fiery whirlpools. The whirlpools spun more and more swiftly on their axes, their centres rising to form columns within which Alvin could glimpse mysterious evanescent shapes. From these glowing totem poles came a faint musical note, infinitely distant and hauntingly sweet.
‘The Great Ones have come.’
This time there was a reply. As Alvin heard the words: ‘The servants of the Master greet you. We have been waiting for your coming,’ he knew that the barriers were down. And in that moment, Shalmirane and its strange visitors were gone, and he was standing once more before the Central Computer in the depths of Diaspar.
It had all been illusion, no more real than the fantasy world of the Sagas in which he had spent so many of the hours of his youth. But how had it been created; whence had come the strange images he had seen?
‘It was an unusual problem,’ said the quiet voice of the Central Computer. ‘I knew that the robot must have some visual conception of the Great Ones in its mind. If I could convince it that the sense impressions it received coincided with that image, the rest would be simple.’
‘And how did you do that?’
‘Basically, by asking the robot what the Great Ones were like, and then seizing the pattern formed in its thoughts. The pattern was very incomplete, and I had to improvise a good deal. Once or twice the picture I created began to depart badly from the robot’s conception, but when that happened I could sense the machine’s growing perplexity and modify the image before it became suspicious. You will appreciate that I could employ hundreds of circuits where it could employ only one, and switch from one image to the other so quickly that the change could not be perceived. It was a kind of conjuring trick; I was able to saturate the robot’s sensory circuits and also to overwhelm its critical faculties. What you saw was only the final, corrected image—the one which best fitted the Master’s revelation. It was crude, but it sufficed. The robot was convinced of its genuineness long enough for the block to be lifted, and in that moment I was able to make complete contact with its mind. It is no longer insane; it will answer any questions you wish.’
Alvin was still in a daze; the afterglow of that spurious apocalypse still burned in his mind, and he did not pretend fully to understand the Central Computer’s explanation. No matter; a miracle of therapy had been accomplished, and the doors of knowledge had been flung open for him to enter.
Then he remembered the warning that the Central Computer had given him, and asked anxiously: ‘What about the moral objections you had to overriding the Master’s orders?’
‘I have discovered