The Sentinel - Arthur C. Clarke [35]
With the air of a conjuror producing a whole litter of rabbits, Duval reached into his desk and pulled out a pistol-like object with a flexible bell mouth. It reminded Stormgren of a rubber blunderbuss, and he couldn’t imagine what it was supposed to be.
Duval grinned at his perplexity.
“It isn’t as dangerous as it looks. All you have to do is to ram the muzzle against the screen and press the trigger. It gives out a very powerful flash lasting five seconds, and in that time you’ll be able to swing it round the room. Enough light will come back to give you a good view.”
“It won’t hurt Karellen?”
“Not if you aim low and sweep it upwards. That will give him time to accommodate—I suppose he has reflexes like ours, and we don’t want to blind him.”
Stormgren looked at the weapon doubtfully and hefted it in his hand. For the last few weeks his conscience had been pricking him. Karellen had always treated him with unmistakable affection, despite his occasional devastating frankness, and now that their time together was drawing to its close he did not wish to do anything that might spoil that relationship. But the Supervisor had received due warning, and Stormgren had the conviction that if the choice had been his Karellen would long ago have shown himself. Now the decision would be made for him: when their last meeting came to its end, Stormgren would gaze upon Karellen’s face.
If, of course, Karellen had a face.
The nervousness that Stormgren had first felt had long since passed away. Karellen was doing almost all the talking, weaving the long, intricate sentences of which he was so fond. Once this had seemed to Stormgren the most wonderful and certainly the most unexpected of all Karellen’s gifts. Now it no longer appeared quite so marvelous, for he knew that like most of the Supervisor’s abilities it was the result of sheer intellectual power and not of any special talent.
Karellen had time for any amount of literary composition when he slowed his thoughts down to the pace of human speech.
“Do not worry,” he said, “about the Freedom League. It has been very quiet for the past month, and though it will revive again it is no longer a real danger. Indeed, since it’s always valuable to know what your opponents are doing, the League is a very useful institution. Should it ever get into financial difficulties I might even subsidize it.”
Stormgren had often found it difficult to tell when Karellen was joking. He kept his face impassive and continued to listen.
“Very soon the League will lose another of its strongest arguments. There’s been a good deal of criticism, mostly rather childish, of the special position you have held for the past few years. I found it very valuable in the early days of my administration, but now that the world is moving along the line that I planned, it can cease. In the future, all my dealings with Earth will be indirect and the office of Secretary-General can once again become what it was originally intended to be.
“During the next fifty years there will be many crises, but they will pass. Almost a generation from now, I shall reach the nadir of my popularity, for plans must be put into operation which cannot be fully explained at the time. Attempts may even be made to destroy me. But the pattern of the future is clear enough, and one day all these difficulties will be forgotten—even to a race with memories as long as yours.”
The last words were spoken with such a peculiar emphasis that Stormgren immediately froze in his seat. Karellen never made accidental slips and even his indiscretions were calculated to many decimal places. But there was no time to ask questions—which certainly would not be answered—before the Supervisor had changed the subject again.
“You’ve often asked me about our long-term plans,” he continued. “The foundation of the World State is, of course, only the