From the Ocean from teh Stars (79 page)

extended a vertical rod carrying a pear-shaped bulge at its upper end.
Hilvar raised this until the pear was just clear of their heads, and gave
some mental signal which Alvin could not intercept. At once their little
encampment was flooded with light, and the darkness retreated. The pear
gave not only light but also heat, for Alvin could feel a gentle, caressing
glow that seemed to sink into his very bones.

Carrying the tripod in one hand and his pack in the other, Hilvar walked down the slope while Alvin hurried behind, doing his best to
keep in the circle of light. He finally pitched camp in a small depression
a few hundred yards below the crest of the hill, and started to put the rest
of his equipment into operation.

First came a large hemisphere of some rigid and almost invisible
material which englobed them completely and protected them from the
cool breeze which had now begun to blow up the face of the hill. The
dome appeared to be generated by a small rectangular box which Hilvar placed on the ground and then ignored completely, even to the ex
tent of burying it beneath the rest of his paraphernalia. Perhaps this also projected the comfortable, semitransparent couches on which Alvin was
so glad to relax. It was the first time he had seen furniture materialized
in Lys, where it seemed to him that the houses were terribly cluttered up with permanent artifacts which would be much better kept safely out of the way in Memory Banks.

The meal which Hilvar produced from yet another of his receptacles was also the first purely synthetic one that Alvin had eaten since reaching Lys. There was a steady blast of air, sucked through some orifice in the
dome overhead, as the matter-converter seized its raw material and per
formed its everyday miracle. On the whole, Alvin was much happier
with purely synthetic food. The way in which the other kind was prepared
struck him as being appallingly unhygienic, and at least with the matter-
converters you knew exactly what you were eating.

They settled down for their evening meal as the night deepened
around them and the stars came out. When they had finished, it was
completely dark beyond their circle of light, and at the edge of that
circle Alvin could see dim shapes moving as the creatures of the forest
crept out of their hiding places. From time to time he caught the glint of reflected light as pale eyes stared back at him, but whatever beasts were
waching out there would come no closer, so he could see nothing more
of them.

It was very peaceful, and Alvin felt utterly content. For a while they lay on their couches and talked about the things that they had seen, the
mystery that enmeshed them both, and the many ways in which their

two cultures differed. Hilvar was fascinated by the miracle of the Eter
nity Circuits which had put Diaspar beyond the reach of time, and Alvin
found some of his questions very hard to answer.

"What I don't understand," said Hilvar, "is how the designers of
Diaspar made certain that nothing would ever go wrong with the memory
circuits. You tell me that the information defining the city, and all the
people who live in it, is stored as patterns of electric charge inside crys
tals. Well, crystals will last forever—but what about all the circuits as
sociated with them? Aren't there ever any failures of
any
kind?"

"I asked Khedron that same question, and he told me that the Mem
ory Banks are virtually triplicated. Any one of the three banks can main
tain the city, and if anything goes wrong with one of them, the other two
automatically correct it. Only if the same failure occurred simultane
ously in two of the banks would any permanent damage be done—and
the chances of that are infinitesimal."

"And how is the relation maintained between the pattern stored in
the memory units and the actual structure of the city? Between the plan,
as it were, and the thing it describes?"

Alvin was now completely out of his depth. He knew that the answer
involved technologies that relied on the manipulation of space itself—
but how one could lock an atom rigidly in the position defined by data
stored elsewhere was something he could not begin to explain.

On a sudden inspiration, he pointed to the invisible dome protecting
them from the night.

"Tell me how this roof above our heads is created by that box you're sitting on," he answered, "and then I'll explain how the Eternity Circuits
work."

Hilvar laughed.

"I suppose it's a fair comparison. You'd have to ask one of our field theory experts if you wanted to know that. I certainly couldn't tell you."

This reply made Alvin very thoughtful. So there were still men in
Lys who understood how their machines worked; that was more than
could be said of Diaspar.

Thus they talked and argued, until presently Hilvar said: "I'm tired. What about you—are you going to sleep?"

Alvin rubbed his still-weary limbs.

"I'd like to," he confessed, "but I'm not sure I can. It still seems a
strange custom to me."

"It is a good deal more than a custom," smiled Hilvar. "I have been told that it was once a necessity to every human being. We still like to
sleep at least once a day, even if only for a few hours. During that time

the body refreshes itself, and the mind as well. Does no one in Diaspar
ever
sleep?"

"Only on very rare occasions," said Alvin. "Jeserac, my tutor, has
done it once or twice, after he had made some exceptional mental effort.
A well-designed body should have no need for such rest periods; we did
away with them millions of years ago."

Even as he spoke these rather boastful words, his actions belied them.
He felt a weariness such as he had never before known; it seemed to
spread from his calves and thighs until it flowed through all his body. There was nothing unpleasant about the sensation—rather the reverse.
Hilvar was watching him with an amused smile, and Alvin had enough
faculties left to wonder if his companion was exercising any of his mental
powers upon him. If so, he did not object in the least.

The light flooding down from the metal pear overhead sank to a
faint glow, but the warmth it was radiating continued unabated. By the last flicker of light, Alvin's drowsy mind registered a curious fact which
he would have to inquire about in the morning.

Hilvar had stripped off his clothes, and for the first time Alvin saw how much the two branches of the human race had diverged. Some of
the changes were merely ones of emphasis or proportion, but others,
such as the external genitals and the presence of teeth, nails, and definite body hair, were more fundamental. What puzzled him most of all, how
ever, was the curious small hollow in the pit of Hilvar's stomach.

When, some days later, he suddenly remembered the subject, it took
a good deal of explaining. By the time that Hilvar had made the functions
of the navel quite clear, he had uttered many thousands of words and
drawn half a dozen diagrams.

And both he and Alvin had made a great step forward in under
standing the basis of each other's cultures.

☆
CHAPTER TWELVE

T
he night was at its deepest when Alvin woke. Some
thing had disturbed him, some whisper of sound that had crept into
his mind despite the endless thunder of the falls. He sat up in the dark
ness, straining his eyes across the hidden land, while with indrawn breath
he listened to the drumming roar of the water and the softer, more fugitive
sounds of the creatures of the night.

Nothing was visible. The starlight was too dim to reveal the miles of

country that lay hundreds of feet below; only a jagged line of darker
night eclipsing the stars told of the mountains on the southern horizon. In the darkness beside him Alvin heard his companion roll over and sit
up.

"What is it?" came a whispered voice.

"I thought I heard a noise."

"What sort of noise?"

"I don't know: perhaps it was just imagination."

There was a silence while two pairs of eyes peered out into the mys
tery of the night. Then, suddenly, Hilvar caught Alvin's arm.

"Look!" he whispered.

Far to the south glowed a solitary point of light, too low in the heavens to be a star. It was a brilliant white, tinged with violet, and
even as they watched it began to climb the spectrum of intensity, until
the eye could no longer bear to look upon it. Then it exploded—and it
seemed as if lightning had struck below the rim of the world. For a brief
instant the mountains, and the land they encircled, were etched with fire
against the darkness of the night. Ages later came the ghost of a far-off
explosion, and in the woods below a sudden wind stirred among the
trees. It died away swiftly, and one by one the routed stars crept back
into the sky.

For the second time in his life, Alvin knew fear. It was not as personal
and imminent as it had been in the chamber of the moving ways, when
he had made the decision that took him to Lys. Perhaps it was awe
rather than fear; he was looking into the face of the unknown, and it was
as if he had already sensed that out there beyond the mountains was
something he must go to meet.

"What was that?" he whispered at length.

There was a pause so long that he repeated the question.

"I am trying to find out," said Hilvar, and was silent again. Alvin
guessed what he was doing and did not interrupt his friend's silent quest.

Presently Hilvar gave a little sigh of disappointment. "Everyone is
asleep," he said. "There was no one who could tell me. We must wait
until morning, unless I wake one of my friends. And I would not like to
do that unless it is really important."

Alvin wondered what Hilvar would consider a matter of real im
portance. He was just going to suggest, a little sarcastically, that this
might well merit interrupting someone's sleep. Before he could make the proposal, Hilvar spoke again.

"I've just remembered," he said, rather apologetically, "it's a long

time since I came here, and I'm not quite certain about my bearings. But
that must be Shalmirane."

"Shalmirane! Does it still exist?"

"Yes; I'd almost forgotten. Seranis once told me that the fortress lies in those mountains. Of course, it's been in ruins for ages, but perhaps
someone still lives there."

Shalmirane! To these children of two races, so widely differing in
culture and history, this was indeed a name of magic. In all the long
story of Earth, there had been no greater epic than the defense of Shalmirane against an invader who had conquered all the Universe. Though
the true facts were utterly lost in the mists which had gathered so thickly around the Dawn Ages, the legends had never been forgotten and would
last as long as man endured.

Presently Hilvar's voice came again out of the darkness.

"The people of the south could tell us more. I have some friends there; I will call them in the morning."

Alvin scarcely heard him; he was deep in his own thoughts, trying
to remember all that he had ever heard of Shalmirane. It was little enough; after this immense lapse of time, no one could tell the truth
from the legend. All that was certain was that the Battle of Shalmirane
marked the end of Man's conquests and the beginning of his long decline.

Among those mountains, thought Alvin, might lie the answers to all
the problems that had tormented him for so many years.

"How long," he said to Hilvar, "would it take us to reach the for
tress?"

"I've never been there, but it's much farther than I intended to go. I doubt if we can do it in a day."

"Can't we use the ground-car?"

"No; the way lies through the mountains and no cars can go there."

Alvin thought it over. He was tired, his feet were sore, and the muscles of his thighs were still aching from the unaccustomed effort. It was
very tempting to leave it for another time. Yet there might be no other
time.

Beneath the dim light of the failing stars, not a few of which had died
since Shalmirane was built, Alvin wrestled with his thoughts and presently made his decision. Nothing had changed; the mountains resumed
their watch over the sleeping land. But a turning point in history had
come and gone, and the human race was moving toward a strange new
future.

Alvin and Hilvar slept no more that night, but broke camp with the
first glow of dawn. The hill was drenched with dew, and Alvin marveled