From the Ocean from teh Stars (82 page)

sea which was their natural home. Whether the movement was well received on Earth was not certain; but at least it met no violent opposition,
and after further wanderings it set up its final retreat among the forests
and mountains of Lys.

At the close of his long life, the Master's thoughts had turned once
more toward the home from which he had been exiled, and he had asked
his friends to carry him out into the open so that he could watch the
stars. He had waited, his strength waning, until the culmination of the
Seven Suns, and toward the end he babbled many things which were to
inspire yet more libraries of interpretation in future ages. Again and
again he spoke of the "Great Ones" who had now left this universe of
space and matter but who would surely one day return, and he charged
his followers to remain to greet them when they came. Those were his last rational words. He was never again conscious of his surroundings,
but just before the end he uttered one phrase that had come down the
ages to haunt the minds of all who heard it:
"It is lovely to watch the
colored shadows on the planets of eternal light."
Then he died.

At the Master's death, many of his followers broke away, but others
remained faithful to his teachings, which they slowly elaborated through
the ages. At first they believed that the Great Ones, whoever they were,
would soon return, but that hope faded with the passing centuries. The
story here grew very confused, and it seemed that truth and legend were
inextricably intertwined. Alvin had only a vague picture of generations
of fanatics, waiting for some great event which they did not understand
to take place at some unknown future date.

The Great Ones never returned. Slowly the power of the movement
failed as death and disillusion robbed it of its disciples. The short-lived
human followers were the first to go, and there was something supremely
ironic in the fact that the very last adherent of a human prophet was a
creature utterly unlike Man.

The great polyp had become the Master's last disciple for a very
simple reason. It was immortal. The billions of individual cells from
which its body was built would die, but before that happened they would
have reproduced themselves. At long intervals the monster would disin
tegrate into its myriad separate cells, which would go their own way and
multiply by fission if their environment was suitable. During this phase
the polyp did not exist as a self-conscious, intelligent entity—and here
Alvin was irresistibly reminded of the manner in which the inhabitants
of Diaspar spent their quiescent millenniums in the city's Memory Banks.

In due time some mysterious biological force brought the scattered

components together again, and the polyp began a new cycle of exist
ence. It returned to awareness and recollected its earlier lives, though
often imperfectly since accident sometimes damaged the cells that car
ried the delicate patterns of memory.

Perhaps no other form of life could have kept faith so long to a creed otherwise forgotten for a billion years. In a sense, the great polyp was a
helpless victim of its biological nature. Because of its immortality, it
could not change, but was forced to repeat eternally the same invariant
pattern.

The religion of the Great Ones, in its later stages, had become identi
fied with a veneration of the Seven Suns. When the Great Ones stub
bornly refused to appear, attempts were made to signal their distant
home. Long ago the signaling had become no more than a meaningless
ritual, now maintained by an animal that had forgotten how to learn and
a robot that had never known how to forget.

As the immeasurably ancient voice died away into the still air, Alvin found himself overwhelmed by a surge of pity. The misplaced devotion, the loyalty that had held to its futile course while suns and planets passed
away—he could never have believed such a tale had he not seen the
evidence before his eyes. More than ever before the extent of his igno
rance saddened him. A tiny fragment of the past had been illuminated
for a little while, but now the darkness had closed over it again.

The history of the Universe must be a mass of such disconnected
threads, and no one could say which were important and which were
trivial. This fantastic tale of the Master and the Great Ones seemed like
another of the countless legends that had somehow survived from the
civilizations of the Dawn. Yet the very existence of the huge polyp, and
of the silently watching robot, made it impossible for Alvin to dismiss
the whole story as a fable built of self-delusion upon a foundation of
madness.

What was the relationship, he wondered, between these two entities,
which though so different in every possible way had maintained their
extraordinary partnership over such aeons of time? He was somehow
certain that the robot was much the more important of the two. It had
been the confidant of the Master and must still know all his secrets.

Alvin looked at the enigmatic machine that still regarded him so
steadily. Why would it not speak? What thoughts were passing through
its complicated and perhaps alien mind? Yet, surely, if it had been de
signed to serve the Master, its mind would not be altogether alien, and it
should respond to human orders.

As he thought of all the secrets which that stubbornly mute machine
must possess, Alvin felt a curiosity so great that it verged upon greed.
It seemed unfair that such knowledge should be wasted and hidden from
the world; here must lie wonders beyond even the ken of the Central
Computer in Diaspar.

"Why won't your robot speak to us?" he asked the polyp, when Hilvar
had momentarily run out of questions. The answer was one he had half
expected.

"It was against the Master's wishes for it to speak with any voice but
his, and his voice is silent now."

"But it will obey you?"

"Yes; the Master placed it in our charge. We can see through its
eyes, wherever it goes. It watches over the machines that preserve this
lake and keep its water pure. Yet it would be truer to call it our partner
than our servant."

Alvin thought this over. An idea, still vague and half-formed, was beginning to take shape in his mind. Perhaps it was inspired by pure lust
for knowledge and power; when he looked back on this moment he
could never be certain just what his motives were. They might be largely
selfish, but they also contained some element of compassion. If he could
do so, he would like to break this futile sequence and release these
creatures from their fantastic fate. He was not sure what could be done
about the polyp, but it might be possible to cure the robot of its insanity
and at the same time to release its priceless, pent-up memories.

"Are you certain," he said slowly, talking to the polyp but aiming his
words at the robot, "that you are really carrying out the Master's wishes by remaining here? He desired the world to know of his teachings, but
they have been lost while you hide here in Shalmirane. It was only by
chance that we discovered you, and there may be many others who would like to hear the doctrine of the Great Ones."

Hilvar glanced at him sharply, obviously uncertain of his intentions.
The polyp seemed agitated, and the steady beating of its respiratory
equipment faltered for a few seconds. Then it replied, in a voice not alto
gether under control: "We have discussed this problem for many years. But we cannot leave Shalmirane, so the world must come to us, no mat
ter how long it takes."

"I have a better idea," said Alvin eagerly. "It is true that
you
may
have to stay here in the lake, but there is no reason why your companion
should not come with us. He can return whenever he wishes or whenever
you need him. Many things have changed since the Master died—things

which you should know about, but which you can never understand if
you stay here."

The robot never moved, but in its agony of indecision the polyp
sank completely below the surface of the lake and remained there for
several minutes. Perhaps it was having a soundless argument with its
colleague; several times it began to re-emerge, thought better of it, and
sank into the water again. Hilvar took this opportunity to exchange a few words with Alvin.

"I'd like to know what you are trying to do," he said softly, his voice
half-bantering and half-serious. "Or don't you know yourself?"

"Surely," replied Alvin, "you feel sorry for these poor creatures?
Don't you think it would be a kindness to rescue them?"

"I do, but I've learned enough about you to be fairly certain that
altruism isn't one of your dominant emotions. You must have some other
motive."

Alvin smiled ruefully. Even if Hilvar did not read his mind—and he
had no reason to suppose that he did—he could undoubtedly read his character.

"Your people have remarkable mental powers," he replied, trying
to divert the conversation from dangerous ground. "I think they might
be able to do something for the robot, if not for this animal." He spoke
very softly, lest he be overheard. The precaution might have been a
useless one, but if the robot did intercept his remarks it gave no sign of it.

Fortunately, before Hilvar could press the inquiry any further, the
polyp emerged once more from the lake. In the last few minutes it had
become a good deal smaller and its movements were more disorganized.
Even as Alvin watched, a segment of its complex, translucent body broke
away from the main bulk and then disintegrated into multitudes of
smaller sections, which swiftly dispersed. The creature was beginning
to break up before their eyes.

Its voice, when it spoke again, was very erratic and hard to under
stand.

"Next cycle starting," it jerked out in a kind of fluctuating whisper.
"Did not expect it so soon—only few minutes left—stimulation too great
—cannot hold together much longer."

Alvin and Hilvar stared at the creature in horrified fascination. Even
though the process they were watching was a natural one, it was not pleasant to watch an intelligent creature apparently in its death throes.
They also felt an obscure sense of guilt; it was irrational to have the
feeling, since it was of no great importance
when
the polyp began another

cycle, but they realized that the unusual effort and excitement caused by
their presence was responsible for this premature metamorphosis.

Alvin realized that he would have to act quickly or his opportunity
would be gone—perhaps only for a few years, perhaps for centuries.

"What have you decided?" he said eagerly. "Is the robot coming with us?"

There was an agonizing pause while the polyp tried to force its dis
solving body to obey its will. The speech diaphragm fluttered, but no audible sound came from it. Then, as if in a despairing gesture of fare
well, it waved its delicate palps feebly and let them fall back into the
water, where they promptly broke adrift and went floating out into the
lake. In a matter of minutes, the transformation was over. Nothing of
the creature larger than an inch across remained. The water was full of
tiny, greenish specks, which seemed to have a life and mobility of their
own and which rapidly disappeared into the vastness of the lake.

The ripples on the surface had now altogether died away, and Alvin
knew that the steady pulse beat that had sounded in the depths would
now be stilled. The lake was dead again—or so it seemed. But that was
an illusion; one day the unknown forces that had never failed to do their duty in the past would exert themselves again, and the polyp would be reborn. It was a strange and wonderful phenomenon, yet was it so much
stranger than the organization of the human body, itself a vast colony of
separate, living cells?

Alvin wasted little effort on such speculations. He was oppressed by his sense of failure, even though he had never clearly conceived the goal he was aiming for. A dazzling opportunity had been missed and might
never again return. He stared sadly out across the lake, and it was some
time before his mind registered the message which Hilvar was speaking
quietly in his ear.

"Alvin," his friend said softly. "I think you have won your point."

He spun swiftly on his heels. The robot, which until now had been
floating aloofly in the distance, never approaching within twenty feet of
them, had moved up in silence and was now poised a yard above his
head. Its unmoving eyes, with their wide angles of vision, gave no indica
tion of its direction of interest. Probably it saw the entire hemisphere in
front of it with equal clarity, but Alvin had little doubt that its attention
was now focused upon him.

It was waiting for his next move. To some extent, at least, it was now under his control. It might follow him to Lys, perhaps even to
Diaspar—unless it changed its mind. Until then, he was its probationary
master.