He pushed across a piece of photographic paper on which was a single wavy line. In one spot was a kink like the autograph of a mild earthquake.
“See that little kink?”
“Yes: what is it?”
“Only Karellen.”
“Good Lord! Are you sure?”
“It’s a pretty safe guess. He’s sitting, or standing, or whatever it is he does, about two metres on the other side of the screen. If the resolution had been a bit better, we might even have calculated his size.”
Stormgren’s feelings were very mixed as he stared at that scarcely visible inflexion of the trace. Until now, there had been no proof that Karellen even had a material body. The evidence was still indirect, but he accepted it without question.
“The other thing we had to do,” said Duval, “was to calculate the transmission of the screen to ordinary light. We think we’ve got a reasonable idea of that-anyway it doesn’t matter If we’re out even by a factor often. You’ll realize, of course,
49
that there’s no such thing as a truly one-way glass. It’s simply
a matter of arranging the lights. Karellen sits in a darkened room: you are illuminated-that’s all.” Duval chuckled.
“Well, we’re going to change that!”
With the air of a conjurer producing a whole litter of white
rabbits, he reached into his desk and pulled out an overgrown
nash-lamp. The’end flared out into a wide nozzle, so that the whole device looked rather like a blunderbuss.
Duval grinned.
“It’s not as dangerous as it looks. All you have to do is to tam the nozzle against the screen and press the trigger. It gives out a very powerful beam lasting ten seconds, and in that
dine you’ll be able to swing it round the room and get a good view. All the light will go through the screen and it will floodlight your friend beautifully.”
“It won’t hurt Karellen?”
“Not if you aim low and sweep upwards. That will give his eyes time to adapt-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 bad 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.
it; of course, Karellen bad a face.
The nervousness that Stormgren had first felt had long since passed away. Karellen was doing almost all the talking, weaving the intricate sentences which he was occasionally prone to use. 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 marvellous, 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
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when he slowed his thoughts down to the pace of human speech.
“There is no need for you or your successor to worry unduly about the Freedom League, even when it has recovered from its present despondency. It has been very quiet for the past month, and though it will revive again it will not be a danger for some years. Indeed, since it is 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 have to 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 arguments. There has been a good deal of criticism, all somewhat 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 lines that I planned, it can cease. In future, all my dealings with Earth will be indirect and the office of Secretary-General can revert to something resembling its original form.
“During the next fifty years there will be many crises, but they will pass. The pattern of the future is clear enough, and one day all these difflqilties will be forgotten-even to a race with memories as long as yours.”
The last words were spoken with such peculiar emphasis that Stormgren immediately froze in his seat. Karellen, he was sure, never made accidental slips: 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 have often asked me about our long-term plans,” he continued. “The foundation of the World State is, of course, only the first step. You will live to see its completion-but the change will be so imperceptible that few will notice it when it comes. After that there will be a period of slow consolidation while your race becomes prepared for us. And thenwill comethe day which we have promised. lain sorry you will not be there.”
Stormgren’s eyes were open, but his gaze was fixed far beyond the dark barrier of the screen. He was looking into the future, imagining the day that he would never see, when the great ships of the Overlords came down at last to Earth and were thrown open to the waiting world.
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“On that day,” continued Karellen, “the human race will experience what can only be called a psychological discontinuity. But no permanent harm will be done: the men of that age will be more stable than their grandfathers. We will always have been part of their lives, and when they meet us we will not seem so-strange-as we would do to you.”
Stormgren had never known Karellen in so contemplative a mood, but this gave him no surprise. He did not believe that he had ever seen more than a few facets of the Supervisor’s personality: the real Karellen was unknown and perhaps unknowable to human beings. And once again Stormgren had the feeling that the Supervisor’s real interests were elsewhere, and that he ruled Earth with only a fraction of his mind, as effortlessly as a master of three-dimensional chess might play a game of draughts.
“And after that?” asked Stormgren softly.
“Then we can begin our real work.”
“I have often wondered what that might be. Tidying up our world and civilizing the human race is only a means-you must have an end as well. Will we ever be able to come out into space and see your universe-perhaps even help you in your tasks?”
“You can put it that way,” said Karellen-and now his voice held a clear yet inexplicable note of sadness that left Stormgren strangely perturbed.
“But suppose, after all, your experiment fails with Man? We have known such things in our own dealings with primitive human races. Surely you have your failures too?”
“Yes,” said Karellen, so softly that Stormgren could scarcely hear him. “We have had our failures.”
“And what do you do then?”
‘We wait-and try again.”
There was a pause lasting perhaps five seconds. When Karellen spoke again, his words were so unexpected that for a moment Stormgren did not react.
“Goodbye, Rikki!”
Karellen had tricked him-probably it was already too late. Storrngren’s paralysis lasted only a moment. Then, with a single swift, well-practised movement, he whipped out the flash gun and jammed it against the glass.
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The pine trees came almost to the edge of the lake, leaving along its border only a narrow strip of grass a few metres wide.
Every evening when it was warm enough Stormgren, despite
his ninety years, would walk along this strip to the landing—
stage, watch the sunlight die upon the water, and then return to the house before the chill night wind came up from the forest. The simple ritual gave him much contentment, and he would continue it as long as he had the strength.
Far away over the lake something was coming in from the
west, flying low and fast. Aircraft were uncommon in these
parts, unless one counted the trans-polar liners which must be
passing overhead every hour of the day and night. But there
was never any sign of their presence, save an occasional vapour trail high against the blue of the stratosphere. This machine was a small helicopter, and it was coming towards him with obvious determination. Stormgren glanced along the beach
and saw that there was no chance of escape. Then he shrugged his shoulders and sat down on the wooden bench at the head of the jetty.