The ancient Keeper of the Records must have been a remarkable man, perhaps an atavism himself. How many times down the ages had other Keepers read that message of his and acted upon it for better or worse? Surely, if there had been any earlier cases, some record would have been made.
Rorden thought intently for a moment: then, slowly at first, but soon with mounting confidence, he began to put question after question to the machines, until every Associator in the room was running at full capacity. By means now beyond the understanding of man, billions upon billions of facts were racing through the scrutinizers. There was nothing to do but to wait….
IN AFTER YEARS, ALVIN WAS OFTEN TO MARVEL AT HIS GOOD
fortune. Had the Keeper of the Records been unfriendly, his quest could never have begun. But Rorden, in spite of the years between them, shared something of his own curiosity. In Rorden’s case, there was only the desire to uncover lost knowledge: he would never have used it, for he shared with the rest of Diaspar that dread of the outer world which Alvin found so strange. Close though their friendship became, that barrier was always to lie between them.
Alvin’s life was now divided into two quite distinct portions. He continued his studies with Jeserac, acquiring the immense and intricate knowledge of people, places and customs without which no one could play any part in the life of the city. Jeserac was a conscientious but a leisurely tutor, and with so many centuries before him he felt no urgency in completing his task. He was, in fact, rather pleased that Alvin should have made friends with Rorden. The Keeper of the Records was regarded with some awe by the rest of Diaspar, for he alone had direct access to all the knowledge of the past.
How enormous and yet how incomplete that knowledge was, Alvin was slowly learning. In spite of the self-cancelling circuits which obliterated all information as soon as it was obsolete, the main registers contained a hundred trillion facts at the smallest estimate. Whether there was any limit to the capacity of the machines Rorden did not know: that knowledge was lost with the secret of their operation.
The Associators were a source of endless wonder to Alvin, who would spend hours setting up questions of their keyboards. It was amusing to discover that people whose names began with “S” had a tendency to live in the eastern part of the city—though the machines hastened to add that the fact had no statistical significance. Alvin quickly accumulated a vast array of similar useless facts which he employed to impress his friends. At the same time, under Rorden’s guidance, he was learning all that was known of the Dawn Ages, for Rorden had insisted that it would need years of preparation before he could begin his quest. Alvin had recognized the truth of this, though he sometimes rebelled against it. But after a single attempt, he abandoned any hope of acquiring knowledge prematurely.
He had been alone one day when Rorden was paying one of his rare visits to the administrative centre of the city. The temptation had been too strong, and he had ordered the Associators to hunt for Alaine’s message.
When Rorden returned, he found a very scared boy trying to discover why all the machines were paralyzed. To Alvin’s immense relief, Rorden had only laughed and punched a series of combinations that had cleared the jam. Then he turned to the culprit and tried to address him severely.
“Let that be a lesson to you, Alvin! I expected something like this, so I’ve blocked all the circuits I don’t want you to explore. That block will remain until I think it’s safe to lift it.”
Alvin grinned sheepishly and said nothing. Thereafter he made no more excursions into forbidden realms.
Not for three years did Rorden make more than casual references to the purpose of their world. The time had passed quickly enough, for there was so much to learn and the knowledge that his goal was not unattainable gave Alvin patience. Then, one day when they were struggling to reconcile two conflicting maps of the ancient world, the main Associator suddenly began to call for attention.
Rorden hurried to the machine and returned with a long sheet of paper covered with writing. He ran through it quickly and looked at Alvin with a smile.
“We will soon know if the first way is still open,” he said quietly.
Alvin jumped from his chair, scattering maps in all directions.
“Where is it?” he cried eagerly.
Rorden laughed and pushed him back into his seat.
“I haven’t kept you waiting all this time because I wanted to,” he said. “It’s true that you were too young to leave Diaspar before, even if we knew how it could be done. But that’s not the only reason why you had to wait. The day you came to see me, I set the machines searching through the records to discover if anyone after Alaine’s time had tried to leave the city. I thought you might not be the first, and I was right. There have been many others: the last was about fifteen million years ago. They’ve all been very careful to leave us no clues, and I can see Alaine’s influence there. In his message he stressed that only those who searched for themselves should be allowed to find the way, so I’ve had to explore many blind avenues. I knew that the secret had been hidden carefully—yet not so carefully that it couldn’t be found.
“About a year ago I began to concentrate on the idea of Transport. It was obvious that Diaspar must have had many links with the rest of the world, and although the Port itself has been buried by the desert for ages, I thought that there might be other means of travel. Right at the beginning I found that the Associators would not answer direct questions: Alaine must have put a block on them just as I once did for your benefit. Unfortunately I can’t remove Alaine’s block, so I’ve had to use indirect methods.
“If there was an external transport system, there’s certainly no trace of it now. Therefore, if it existed at all, it has been deliberately concealed. I set the Associators to investigate all the major engineering operations carried out in the city since the records began. This is a report on the construction of the central park—and Alaine has added a note to it himself. As soon as it encountered his name, of course, the machine knew it had finished the search and called for me.”
Rorden glanced at the paper as if rereading part of it again. Then he continued:—
“We’ve always taken it for granted that all the moving ways should converge on the Park: it seems natural for them to do so. But this report states that the Park was built after the founding of the city—many millions of years later, in fact. Therefore the moving ways once led to something else.”
“An airport, perhaps?”
“No: flying was never allowed over any city, except in very ancient times, before the moving ways were built. Even Diaspar is not as old as that! But listen to Alaine’s note:—
“‘When the desert buried the Port of Diaspar, the emergency system which had been built against that day was able to carry the remaining transport. It was finally closed down by Yarlan Zey, builder of the Park, having remained almost unused since the Migration.’”
Alvin looked rather puzzled.
“It doesn’t tell me a great deal,” he complained.
Rorden smiled. “You’ve been letting the Associators do too much thinking for you,” he admonished gently. “Like all of Alaine’s statements, it’s deliberately obscure lest the wrong people should learn from it. But I think it tells us quite enough. Doesn’t the name ‘Yarlan Zey’ mean anything to you?”
“I think I understand,” said Alvin slowly. “You’re talking about the Monument?”
“Yes: it’s in the exact centre of the Park. If you extended the moving ways, they would all meet there. Perhaps, once upon a time, they did.”
Alvin was already on his feet.
“Let’s go and have a look,” he exclaimed.
Rorden shook his head.
“You’ve seen the Tomb of Yarlen Zey a score of times and noticed nothing unusual about it. Before we rush off, don’t you think it would be a good idea to question the machines again?”
Alvin was forced to agree, and while they were waiting began to read the report that the Associator had already produced.
“Rorden,” he said at last, “what did Alaine mean when he spoke about the Migration?”
“It’s a term often used in the very earliest records,” answered Rorden. “It refers to the time when the other cities were decaying and all the human race was moving towards Diaspar.”
“Then this ‘emergency system,’ whatever it is, leads to them?”
“Almost certainly.”
Alvin meditated for a while.
“So you think that even if we do find the system, it will only lead to a lot of ruined cities?”
“I doubt if it will even do that,” replied Rorden. “When they were abandoned, the machines were closed down and the desert will have covered them by now.”
Alvin refused to be discouraged.
“But Alaine must have known that!” he protested. Rorden shrugged his shoulders.
“We’re only guessing,” he said, “and the Associator hasn’t any information at the moment. It may take several hours, but with such a restricted subject we should have all the recorded facts before the end of the day. We’ll follow your advice after all.”
The screens of the city were down and the sun was shining fiercely, though its rays would have felt strangely weak to a man of the Dawn Ages. Alvin had made this journey a hundred times before, yet now it seemed almost a new adventure. When they came to the end of the moving way, he bent down and examined the surface that had carried them through the city. For the first time in his life, he began to realize something of its wonder. Here it was motionless, yet a hundred yards away it was rushing directly towards him faster than a man could run.
Rorden was watching him, but he misunderstood the boy’s curiosity.
“When the park was built,” he said, “I suppose they had to remove the last section of the way. I doubt if you’ll learn anything from it.”
“I wasn’t thinking of that,” said Alvin. “I was wondering how the moving ways work.”
Rorden looked astonished, for the thought had never occurred to him. Ever since men had lived in cities, they had accepted without thinking the multitudinous services that lay beneath their feet. And when the cities had become completely automatic, they had ceased even to notice that they were there.
“Don’t worry about that,” he said. “I can show you a thousand greater puzzles. Tell me how my Recorders get their information, for example.”
So, without a second thought, Rorden dismissed the moving ways—one of the greatest triumphs of human engineering. The long ages of research that had gone to the making of anisotropic matter meant nothing to him. Had he been told that a substance could have the properties of a solid in one dimension and of a liquid in the other two, he would not even have registered surprise.
The Park was almost three miles across, and since every pathway was a curve of some kind all distances were considerably exaggerated. When he had been younger Alvin had spent a great deal of time among the trees and plants of this largest of the city’s open spaces. He had explored the whole of it at one time or another, but in later years much of its charm had vanished. Now he understood why: he had seen the ancient records and knew that the Park was only a pale shadow of a beauty that had vanished from the world.
They met many people as they walked through the avenues of ageless trees and over the dwarf, perennial grass that never needed trimming. After a while they grew tired of acknowledging greetings, for everyone knew Alvin and almost everyone knew the Keeper of the Records. So they left the paths and wandered through quiet byways almost overshadowed by trees. Sometimes the trunks crowded so closely round them that the great towers of the city were hidden from sight, and for a little while Alvin could imagine he was in the ancient world of which he had so often dreamed.
The Tomb of Yarlan Zey was the only building in the Park. An avenue of the eternal trees led up the low hill on which it stood, its rose-pink columns gleaming in the sunlight. The roof was open to the sky, and the single chamber was paved with great slabs of apparently natural stone. But for geological ages human feet had crossed and recrossed that floor and left no trace upon its inconceivably stubborn material. Alvin and Rorden walked slowly into the chamber, until they came face to face with the statue of Yarlan Zey.
The creator of the great park sat with slightly downcast eyes, as if examining the plans spread across his knees. His face wore that curiously elusive expression that had baffled the world for so many generations. Some had dismissed it as no more than a whim of the artist’s, but to others it seemed that Yarlan Zey was smiling at some secret jest. Now Alvin knew that they had been correct.
Rorden was standing motionless before the statue, as if seeing it for the first time in his life. Presently he walked back a few yards and began to examine the great flagstones.
“What are you doing?” asked Alvin.
“Employing a little logic and a great deal of intuition,” replied Rorden. He refused to say any more, and Alvin resumed his examination of the statue. He was still doing this when a faint sound behind him attracted his attention. Rorden, his face wreathed in smiles, was slowly sinking into the floor. He began to laugh at the boy’s expression.
“I think I know how to reverse this,” he said as he disappeared. “If I don’t come up immediately, you’ll have to pull me out with a gravity polarizer. But I don’t think it will be necessary.”
The last words were muffled, and, rushing to the edge of the rectangular pit, Alvin saw that his friend was already many feet below the surface. Even as he watched, the shaft deepened swiftly until Rorden had dwindled to a speck no longer recognizable as a human being. Then, to Alvin’s relief, the far-off rectangle of light began to expand and the pit shortened until Rorden was standing beside him once more.
For a moment there was a profound silence. Then Rorden smiled and began to speak.
“Logic,” he said, “can do wonders if it has something to work upon. This building is so simple that it couldn’t conceal anything, and the only possible secret exit must be through the floor. I argued that it would be marked in some way, so I searched until I found a slab that differed from all the rest.”