The City And The Stars - Arthur C. Clarke [90]
‘I believe you are right,’ Hilvar answered slowly. ‘Our two peoples have been separated for long enough.’ That, he thought, was true, though he knew that his own feeling must bias his reply. But Alvin was still worried.
‘There’s one problem that bothers me,’ he continued in a troubled voice, ‘and that’s the difference in our life-spans.’ He said no more, but each knew what the other was thinking.
‘I’ve been worried about that as well,’ Hilvar admitted, ‘but I think the problem will solve itself in time when our people get to know each other again. We can’t both be right—our lives may be too short, and yours are certainly far too long. Eventually there will be a compromise.’
Alvin wondered. That way, it was true, lay the only hope, but the ages of transition would be hard indeed. He remembered again those bitter words of Seranis: ‘Both he and I will have been dead for centuries while you are still a young man.’ Very well; he would accept the conditions. Even in Diaspar all friendships lay under the same shadow; whether it was a hundred or a million years away made little difference at the end.
Alvin knew, with a certainty that passed all logic, that the welfare of the race demanded the mingling of these two cultures; in such a case individual happiness was unimportant. For a moment Alvin saw humanity as something more than the living background of his own life, and he accepted without flinching the unhappiness his choice must one day bring.
Beneath them the world continued on its endless turning. Sensing his friend’s mood, Hilvar said nothing, until presently Alvin broke the silence.
‘When I first left Diaspar,’ he said, ‘I did not know what I hoped to find. Lys would have satisfied me once—more than satisfied me—yet now everything on Earth seems so small and unimportant. Each discovery I’ve made has raised bigger questions, and opened up wider horizons. I wonder where it will end.…’
Hilvar had never seen Alvin in so thoughtful a mood, and did not wish to interrupt his soliloquy. He had learned a great deal about his friend in the last few minutes.
‘The robot told me,’ Alvin continued, ‘that this ship can reach the Seven Suns in less than a day. Do you think I should go?’
‘Do you think I could stop you?’ Hilvar replied quietly.
Alvin smiled.
‘That’s no answer,’ he said. ‘Who knows what lies out there in space? The Invaders may have left the Universe, but there may be other intelligences unfriendly to Man.’
‘Why should there be?’ Hilvar asked. ‘That’s one of the questions our philosophers have been debating for ages. A truly intelligent race is not likely to be unfriendly.’
‘But the Invaders——?’
‘They are an enigma, I admit. If they were really vicious, they must have destroyed themselves by now. And even if they have not——’ Hilvar pointed to the unending deserts below. ‘Once we had an Empire. What have we now that they would covet?’
Alvin was a little surprised that anyone else shared this point of view, so closely allied to his own.
‘Do all your people think this way?’ he asked.
‘Only a minority. The average person doesn’t worry about it, but would probably say that if the Invaders really wanted to destroy Earth, they’d have done it ages ago. I don’t suppose anyone is actually afraid of them.’
‘Things are very different in Diaspar,’ said Alvin. ‘My people are great cowards. They are terrified of leaving their city, and I don’t know what will happen when they hear that I’ve located a spaceship. Jeserac will have told the Council by now, and I would like to know what it is doing.’
‘I can tell you that. It is preparing to receive its first delegation from Lys. Seranis has just told me.’
Alvin looked again at the screen. He could span the distance between Lys and Diaspar in a single glance; though one of his aims had been achieved, that seemed a small matter now. Yet he was very glad; now, surely, the long ages of sterile isolation would be ending.
The knowledge that he had succeeded in what had once been his main mission