Slowly at first, like a man awakening from a dream, he began to speak.
“The buildings around me, the ground, the mountains — everything’s like glass — I can see through it. Earth’s dissolving. My weight has almost gone. You were right — they’ve finished playing with their toys.
“It’s only a few seconds away. There go the mountains, like wisps of smoke. Goodbye, Karellen, Rashaverak — I am sorry for you. Though I cannot understand it, I’ve seen what my race became. Everything we ever achieved has gone up there into the stars. Perhaps that’s what the old religions were trying to say. But they got it all wrong; they thought mankind was so important, yet we’re only one race in — do you know how many? Yet now we’ve become something that you could never be.
“There goes the river. No change in the sky, though. I can hardly breathe. Strange to see the Moon still shining up there. I’m glad they left it, but it will be lonely now —
“The light! From beneath me — inside the Earth — shining upward, through the rocks, the ground, everything — growing brighter, brighter, blinding —”
* * *
In a soundless concussion of light, Earth’s core gave up its hoarded energies. For a little while the gravitational waves crossed and re-crossed the solar system, disturbing ever so slightly the orbits of the planets. Then the Sun’s remaining children pursued their ancient paths once more, as corks floating on a placid lake ride out the tiny ripples set in motion by a falling stone.
There was nothing left of Earth. They had leached away the last atoms of its substance. It had nourished them, through the fierce moments of their inconceivable metamorphosis, as the food stored in a grain of wheat feeds the infant plant while it climbs towards the sun.
* * *
Six thousand million kilometres beyond the orbit of Pluto, Karellen sat before a suddenly darkened screen. The record was complete, the mission ended; he was homeward bound for the world he had left so long ago. The weight of centuries was upon him, and a sadness that no logic could dispel. He did not mourn for Man; his sorrow was for his own race, forever barred from greatness by forces it could not overcome.
For all their achievements, thought Karellen, for all their mastery of the physical universe, his people were no better than a tribe that had passed its whole existence upon some flat and dusty plain. Far off were the mountains, where power and beauty dwelt, where the thunder sported above the glaciers and the air was clear and keen. There the sun still walked, transfiguring the peaks with glory, when all the land below was wrapped in darkness. And they could only watch and wonder; they could never scale those heights.
Yet, Karellen knew, they would hold fast until the end; they would await without despair whatever destiny was theirs. They would serve the Overmind because they had no choice, but even in that service they would not lose their souls.
The great control screen flared for a moment with sombre, ruby light; without conscious effort, Karellen read the message of its changing patterns. The ship was leaving the frontiers of the solar system; the energies that powered the Stardrive were ebbing fast, but they had done their work.
Karellen raised his hand, and the picture changed once more. A single brilliant star glowed in the centre of the screen; no one could have told, from this distance, that the Sun had ever possessed planets or that one of them had now been lost. For a long time Karellen stared back across that swiftly widening gulf, while many memories raced through his vast and labyrinthine mind. In silent farewell, he saluted the men he had known, whether they had hindered or helped him in his purpose.
No one dared disturb him or interrupt his thoughts; and presently he turned his back upon the dwindling sun.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke was born in Minehead, England, in 1917, and now lives in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He is a graduate, and Fellow, of King’s College, London, and Chancellor of the International Space University and the University of Moratuwa, near the Arthur C. Clarke Centre for Modern Technologies.
Sir Arthur has twice been Chairman of the British Interplanetary Society. While serving as an RAF radar officer in 1945, he published the theory of communications satellites, most of which operate in what is now called the Clarke Orbit. The impact of this invention upon global politics resulted in his nomination for the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize.
He has written over seventy books, and shared an Oscar nomination with Stanley Kubrick for the movie based on his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey. The recipient of three Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards as well as an International Fantasy Award and a John W. Campbell Award, he was named a Grand Master from the Science Fiction Writers of America. His Mysterious World, Strange Powers, and Mysterious Universe TV series have been shown worldwide. His many honors include several doctorates in science and literature, and a host of prizes and awards including the Vidya Jyothi (“Light of Science”) Award by the President of Sri Lanka in 1986, and the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) from H. M. Queen Elizabeth in 1989. In a global satellite ceremony in 1995 he received NASA’s highest civilian honour, its Distinguished Public Service Medal. And in 1998 he was awarded a Knighthood “for services to literature” in the New Year’s Honours List.
His recreations are SCUBA diving on Indian Ocean wrecks with his company, Underwater Safaris, table tennis (despite Post Polio Syndrome), observing the moon through his fourteen-inch telescope, and playing with his Chihuahua, Pepsi, and his six computers.
Also by Arthur C. Clarke
2001: A Space Odyssey
2010: Odyssey Two
2061: Odyssey Three
3001: The Final Odyssey
Prelude to Space
The Sands of Mars
Childhood’s End
The City and the Stars
A Fall of Moondust
Rendezvous with Rama
A Meeting with Medusa
Imperial Earth
The Fountains of Paradise
The Hammer of God
The Songs of Distant Earth
The Ghost of the Grand Banks
with Gentry Lee:
Cradle
Rama II
The Garden of Rama
Rama Revealed
with Stephen Baxter:
The Light of Other Days
Time’s Eye
Sunstorm
Firstborn
with Frederik Pohl:
The Last Theorem
Short Story Collections:
Expedition to Earth
Reach for Tomorrow
Tales from the White Hart
The Other Side of the Sky
Tales of Ten Worlds
The Nine Billion Names of God
The Wind from the Sun
The Best of Arthur C. Clarke
The Sentinel
The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke
Childhood's End Page 23
