The Sentinel - Arthur C. Clarke [29]
“I’m a little surprised, Mr. Secretary, that you’ve never made an effort to learn more about the Overlords.”
“What do you suggest?” asked Stormgren coldly. “I’ve told you that there’s only one way out of the room in which I’ve had my talks with Karellen—and that leads straight to the airlock.”
“It might be possible,” mused the other, “to devise instruments which could teach us something. I’m no scientist, but we can look into the matter. If we give you your freedom, would you be willing to assist with such a plan?”
“Once and for all,” said Stormgren angrily, “let me make my position perfectly clear. Karellen is working for a united world, and I’ll do nothing to help his enemies. What his ultimate plans may be, I don’t know, but I believe that they are good. You may annoy him, you may even delay the achievement of his aims, but it will make no difference in the end. You may be sincere in believing as you do: I can understand your fear that the traditions and cultures of little countries will be overwhelmed when the World State arrives. But you are wrong: it is useless to cling to the past. Even before the Overlords came to Earth, the sovereign state was dying. No one can save it now, and no one should try.”
There was no reply: the man opposite neither moved nor spoke. He sat with lips half open, his eyes now lifeless as well as blind. Around him the others were equally motionless, frozen in strained, unnatural attitudes. With a little gasp of pure horror, Stormgren rose to his feet and backed away towards the door. As he did so the silence was suddenly broken.
“That was a nice speech, Rikki. Now I think we can go.”
“Karellen! Thank God—but what have you done?”
“Don’t worry. They’re all right. You can call it a paralysis, but it’s much subtler than that. They’re simply living a few thousand times more slowly than normal. When we’ve gone they’ll never know what happened.”
“You’ll leave them here until the police come?”
“No: I’ve a much better plan. I’m letting them go.”
Stormgren felt an illogical sense of relief which he did not care to analyze. He gave a last valedictory glance at the little room and its frozen occupants. Joe was standing on one foot, staring very stupidly at nothing. Suddenly Stormgren laughed and fumbled in his pockets.
“Thanks for the hospitality, Joe,” he said. “I think I’ll leave a souvenir.”
He ruffled through the scraps of paper until he found the figures he wanted. Then, on a reasonably clean sheet, he wrote carefully:
LOMBARD BANK, LONDON
Pay “Joe” the sum of One Pound Seventeen Shillings and Six Pence (£1-17-6).
R. Stormgren.
As he laid the strip of paper beside the Pole, Karellen’s voice inquired: “Exactly what are you up to?”
“Paying a debt of honor,” explained Stormgren. “The other two cheated, but I think Joe played fair. At least, I never caught him out.”
He felt very gay and lightheaded as he walked to the door. Hanging just outside it was a large, featureless metal sphere that moved aside to let him pass. He guessed that it was some kind of robot, and it explained how Karellen had been able to reach him through the unknown layers of rock overhead.
“Carry on for a hundred yards,” said the sphere, speaking in Karellen’s voice. “Then turn to the left until I give you further instructions.”
He ran forward eagerly, though he realized that there was no need for hurry. The sphere remained hanging in the corridor, and Stormgren guessed that it was the generator of the paralysis field.
A minute later he came across a second sphere, waiting for him at a fork in the corridor.
“You’ve half a mile to go,” it said. “Keep to the left until we meet again.”
Six times he encountered the spheres on his way to the open. At first he wondered if somehow the first robot had slipped ahead of him; then he guessed that there must be a chain of them maintaining a complete circuit down into the depths of the mine. At the entrance a group of guards formed a piece of improbable still life, watched over by yet another of the ubiquitous spheres. On the hillside a few yards away lay the little