Arthur C. Clarke - Reach for Tomorrow

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Arthur C Clarke - Reach for Tomorrow 1956 Contents Preface Rescue Party A

Walk In The Dark The Forgotten Enemy Technical Error The Parasite The Fires

Within The Awakening Trouble With The Natives The Curse Time's Arrow Jupiter

Five The Possessed Preface Writing is an occupational disease of authors,

but it must be granted that they have a legitimate excuse. It is the only

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opportunity they ever get of pinning their readers into a corner and telling

them exactly what they are trying to do. In my case, this can be stated very

briefly. I wrote these stories to entertain one person-myself. It still seems

a remarkabe piece of good luck to me that other people have been entertained

as well. "Rescue Party," which was written in 1945, was my first published

story, and a depressing number of people still consider it my best. If this is

indeed the case, I have been steadily going downhill for the past ten years,

and those who continue to praise this story will understand why my gratitude

is so well controlled. Readers of my earlier collection, EXPEDITION TO EARTH,

may just conceivably be interested in knowing that "History Lesson" and

"Rescue Party" both stemmed from the same forgotten original, though now it

would be difficult to find two more contrasting endings. It seems only right

to warn the reader that "Jupiter Five," "Technical Error" and "The Fires

Within" are all pure science fiction. In each case some unfamiliar (but I hope

both plausible and comprehensible) scientific fact is the basis of the story

action, and human interest is secondary. Some critics maintain that this is

always a Bad Thing; I believe this is too sweeping a generalization. In his

perceptive preface to A. D. 2500, for example, Mr. Angus Wilson remarks:

"Science fiction which ends as technical information dressed with a little

fantasy or plot can never be any good." But any good for what? If it is done

properly, without the information being too obtrusive or redolent of the

textbook, it can still have at least the entertainment value of a good puzzle.

It may not be art, but it can be enjoyable and intriguing. I am by no means

sure that I could write "Jupiter Five" today; it involved twenty or thirty

pages of orbital calculations and should by rights be dedicated to Professor

G. C. McVittie, my erstwhile tutor in applied mathematics. (I had better

hasten to add that he bears no slightest resemblance to the professor in the

story.) This fact is mentioned, not to boast of now forgotten skills, nor to

scare nervous readers whose maths stopped at the multiplication table, but to

make it clear that the surprising state of affairs described in the story

really exists, and is not a figment of my imagination. What is more, it exists

not only in the remote orbit of Jupiter V but will soon do so, much closer to

home, among the artificial satellites of the next decade. "Time's Arrow" is an

example of how hard it is for the science-fiction writer to keep ahead of

fact. The quite -at the time the story was written-imaginary discovery

described in the tale now actually exists, and may be seen in the New York

Natural History Museum. I think it most unlikely, however, that the rest of

the story will ever come true. ... "The Forgotten Enemy" also involved a

geological-or perhaps one should say meteorological-theme. I apologize in

advance to any experts who may be offended by the slight liberties I have

taken with time-scales. But what is a factor of 103 among friends? "The Curse"

now appears, perhaps, somewhat less imaginative than when it was first

published in the distant dawn of the Atomic Age, before tritium had succeeded

uranium and the wheel had gone full circle to uranium again. It was written

within a few miles of the small and famous slab of stone whose ultimate fate

it describes. To the best of my recollection (and like most authors I am

singularly bad at remembering this sort of thing) I have written only two

stories based on ideas suggested by other people. One of them is "The

Possessed," and I hereby acknowledge my thanks to Mike Wilson, who can take

his share of any blame. Arthur C. Clarke Rescue Party Arthur C. Clarke

1946 Who was to blame? For three days alveron's thoughts had come back to

that question, and still he had found no answer. A creature of a less

civilized or a less sensitive race would never have let it torture his mind,

and would have satisfied himself with the assurance that no one could be

responsible for the working of fate. But Alveron and his kind had been lords

of the Universe since the dawn of history, since that far distant age when the

Time Barrier had been folded round the cosmos by the unknown powers that lay

beyond the Beginning. To them had been given all knowledge-and with infinite

knowledge went infinite responsibility. If there were mistakes and errors in

the administration of the galaxy, the fault lay on the heads of Alveron and

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his people. And this was no mere mistake: it was one of the greatest tragedies

in history. The crew still knew nothing. Even Rugon, his closest friend and

the ship's deputy captain, had been told only part of the truth. But now the

doomed worlds lay less than a billion miles ahead. In a few hours, they would

be landing on the third planet. Once again Alveron read the message from Base;

then, with a flick of a tentacle that no human eye could have followed, he

pressed the "General Attention" button. Throughout the mile-long cylinder that

was the Galactic Survey Ship S9000, creatures of many races laid down their

work to listen to the words of their captain. "I know you have all been

wondering," began Alveron, "why we were ordered to abandon our survey and to

proceed at such an acceleration to this region of space. Some of you may

realize what this acceleration means. Our ship is on its last voyage: the

generators have already been running for sixty hours at Ultimate Overload. We

will be very lucky if we return to Base under our own power. "We are

approaching a sun which is about to become a Nova. Detonation will occur in

seven hours, with an uncertainty of one hour, leaving us a maximum of only

four hours for exploration. There are ten planets in the system about to be

destroyed-and there is a civilization on the third. That fact was discovered

only a few days ago. It is our tragic mission to contact that doomed race and

if possible to save some of its members. I know that there is little we can do

in so short a time with this single ship. No other machine can possibly reach

the system before detonation occurs." There was a long pause during which

there could have been no sound or movement in the whole of the mighty ship as

it sped silently toward the worlds ahead. Alveron knew what his companions

were thinking and he tried to answer their unspoken question. "You will wonder

how such a disaster, the greatest of which we have any record, has been

allowed to occur. On one point I can reassure you. The fault does not lie with

the Survey. "As you know, with our present fleet of under twelve thousand

ships, it is possible to re-examine each of the eight thousand million solar

systems in the Galaxy at intervals of about a million years. Most worlds

change very little in so short a time as that. "Less than four hundred

thousand years ago, the survey ship S5060 examined the planets of the system

we are approaching. It found intelligence on none of them, though the third

planet was teeming with animal life and two other worlds had once been

inhabited. The usual report was submitted and the system is due for its next

examination in six hundred thousand years. "It now appears that in the

incredibly short period since the last survey, intelligent life has appeared

in the system. The first intimation of this occurred when unknown radio

signals were detected on the planet Kulath in the system X29.35, Y34.76,

Z27.93. Bearings were taken on them; they were coming from the system ahead.

"Kulath is two hundred light-years from here, so those radio waves had been on

their way for two centuries. Thus for at least that period of time a

civilization has existed on one of these worlds-a civilization that can

generate electromagnetic waves and all that that implies. "An immediate

telescopic examination of the system was made and it was then found that the

sun was in the unstable pre-nova stage. Detonation might occur at any moment,

and indeed might have done so while the light waves were on their way to

Kulath. "There was a slight delay while the supervelocity scanners on Kulath

II were focused on to the system. They showed that the explosion had not yet

occurred but was only a few hours away. If Kulath had been a fraction of a

light-year further from this sun, we should never have known of its

civilization until it had ceased to exist. "The Administrator of Kulath

contacted Sector Base immediately, and I was ordered to proceed to the system

at once. Our object is to save what members we can of the doomed race, if

indeed there are any left. But we have assumed that a civilization possessing

radio could have protected itself against any rise of temperature that may

have already occurred. "This ship and the two tenders will each explore a

section of the planet. Commander Torkalee will take Number One, Commander

Orostron Number Two. They will have just under four hours in which to explore

this world. At the end of that time, they must be back in the ship. It will be

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leaving then, with or without them. I will give the two commanders detailed

instructions in the control room immediately. "That is all. We enter

atmosphere in two hours." On the world once known as Earth the fires were

dying out: there was nothing left to burn. The great forests that had swept

across the planet like a tidal wave with the passing of the cities were now no

more than glowing charcoal and the smoke of their funeral pyres still stained

the sky. But the last hours were still to come, for the surface rocks had not

yet begun to flow. The continents were dimly visible through the haze, but

their outlines meant nothing to the watchers in the approaching ship. The

charts they possessed were out of date by a dozen Ice Ages and more deluges

than one. The S9000 had driven past Jupiter and seen at once that no life

could exist in those half-gaseous oceans of compressed hydrocarbons, now

erupting furiously under the sun's abnormal heat. Mars and the outer planets

they had missed, and Alveron realized that the worlds nearer the sun than

Earth would be already melting. It was more than likely, he thought sadly,

that the tragedy of this unknown race was already finished. Deep in his heart,

he thought it might be better so. The ship could only have carried a few

hundred survivors, and the problem of selection had been haunting his mind.

Rugon, Chief of Communications and Deputy Captain, came into the control room.

For the last hour he had been striving to detect radiation from Earth, but in

vain. "We're too late," he announced gloomily. "I've monitored the whole

spectrum and the ether's dead except for our own stations and some

two-hundred-year-old programs from Kulath. Nothing in this system is radiating

any more." He moved toward the giant vision screen with a graceful flowing

motion that no mere biped could ever hope to imitate. Alveron said nothing; he

had been expecting this news. One entire wall of the control room was taken up

by the screen, a great black rectangle that gave an impression of almost

infinite depth. Three of Rugon's slender control tentacles, useless for heavy

work but incredibly swift at all manipulation, flickered over the selector

dials and the screen lit up with a thousand points of light. The star field

flowed swiftly past as Rugon adjusted the controls, bringing the projector to

bear upon the sun itself. No man of Earth would have recognized the monstrous

shape that filled the screen. The sun's light was white no longer: great

violet-blue clouds covered half its surface and from them long streamers of

flame were erupting into space. At one point an enormous prominence had reared

itself out of the photosphere, far out even into the flickering veils of the

corona. It was as though a tree of fire had taken root in the surface of the

sun-a tree that stood half a million miles high and whose branches were rivers

of flame sweeping through space at hundreds of miles a second. "I suppose,"

said Rugon presently, "that you are quite satisfied about the astronomers'

calculations. After all--" "Oh, we're perfectly safe," said Alveron

confidently. "I've spoken to Kulath Observatory and they have been making some

additional checks through our own instruments. That uncertainty of an hour

includes a private safety margin which they won't tell me in case I feel

tempted to stay any longer." He glanced at the instrument board. "The pilot

should have brought us to the atmosphere now. Switch the screen back to the

planet, please. Ah, there they go!" There was a sudden tremor underfoot and a

raucous clanging of alarms, instantly stilled. Across the vision screen two

slim projectiles dived toward the looming mass of Earth. For a few miles they

traveled together, then they separated, one vanishing abruptly as it entered

the shadow of the planet. Slowly the huge mother ship, with its thousand times

greater mass, descended after them into the raging storms that already were

tearing down the deserted cities of Man. It was night in the hemisphere over

which Orostron drove his tiny command. Like Torkalee, his mission was to

photograph and record, and to report progress to the mother ship. The little

scout had no room for specimens or passengers. If contact was made with the

inhabitants of this world, the S9000 would come at once. There would be no

time for parleying. If there was any trouble the rescue would be by force and

the explanations could come later. The rained land beneath was bathed with an

eerie, flickering light, for a great auroral display was raging over half the

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world. But the image on the vision screen was independent of external light,

and it showed clearly a waste of barren rock that seemed never to have known

any form of life. Presumably this desert land must come to an end somewhere.

Orostron increased his speed to the highest value he dared risk in so dense an

atmosphere. The machine fled on through the storm, and pre ently the desert of

rock began to climb toward the sky. A great mountain range lay ahead, its

peaks lost in the smoke-laden clouds. Orostron directed the scanners toward

the horizon, and on the vision screen the line of mountains seemed suddenly

very close and menacing. He started to climb rapidly. It was difficult to

imagine a more unpromising land in which to find civilization and he wondered

if it would be wise to change course. He decided against it. Five minutes

later, he had his reward. Miles below lay a decapitated mountain, the whole of

its summit sheared away by some tremendous feat of engineering. Rising out of

the rock and straddling the artificial plateau was an intricate structure of

metal girders, supporting masses of machinery. Orostron brought his ship to a

halt and spiraled down toward the mountain. The slight Doppler blur had now

vanished, and the picture on the screen was clear-cut. The latticework was

supporting some scores of great metal mirrors, pointing skyward at an angle of

forty-five degrees to the horizontal. They were slightly concave, and each had

some complicated mechanism at its focus. There seemed something impressive and

purposeful about the great array; every mirror was aimed at precisely the same

spot in the sky- or beyond. Orostron turned to his colleagues. "It looks like

some kind of observatory to me," he said. "Have you ever seen anything like it

before?" Klarten, a multitentacled, tripedal creature from a globular cluster

at the edge of the Milky Way, had a different theory. "That's communication

equipment. Those reflectors are for focusing electromagnetic beams. I've seen

the same kind of installation on a hundred worlds before. It may even be the

station that Kulath picked up-though that's rather unlikely, for the beams

would be very narrow from mirrors that size." "That would explain why Rugon

could detect no radiation before we landed," added Hansur II, one of the twin

beings from the planet Thargon. Orostron did not agree at all. "If that is a

radio station, it must be built for interplanetary communication. Look at the

way the mirrors are pointed. I don't believe that a race which has only had

radio for two centuries can have crossed space. It took my people six thousand

years to do it." "We managed it in three," said Hansur II mildly, speaking a

few seconds ahead of his twin. Before the inevitable argument could develop,

Klarten began to wave his tentacles with excitement. While the others had been

talking, he had started the automatic monitor. "Here it is! Listen!" He threw

a switch, and the little room was filled with a raucous whining sound,

continually changing in pitch but nevertheless retaining certain

characteristics that were difficult to define. The four explorers listened

intently for a minute; then Orostron said, "Surely that can't be any form of

speech! No creature could produce sounds as quickly as that!" Hansur I had

come to the same conclusion. "That's a television program. Don't you think so,

Klarten?" The other agreed. "Yes, and each of those mirrors seems to be

radiating a different program. I wonder where they're going? If I'm correct,

one of the other planets in the system must lie along those beams. We can soon

check that." Orostron called the S9000 and reported the discovery. Both Rugon

and Alveron were greatly excited, and made a quick check of the astronomical

records. The result was surprising-and disappointing. None of the other nine

planets lay anywhere near the line of transmission. The great mirrors appeared

to be pointing blindly into space. There seemed only one conclusion to be

drawn, and Klarten was the first to voice it. "They had interplanetary

communication," he said. "But the station must be deserted now, and the

transmitters no longer controlled. They haven't been switched off, and are

just pointing where they were left." "Well, we'll soon find out," said

Orostron. "I'm going to land." He brought the machine slowly down to the level

of the great metal mirrors, and past them until it came to rest on the

mountain rock. A hundred yards away, a white stone building crouched beneath

the maze of steel girders. It was windowless, but there were several doors in

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the wall facing them. Orostron watched his companions climb into their

protective suits and wished he could follow. But someone had to stay in the

machine to keep in touch with the mother ship. Those were Alveron's

instructions, and they were very wise. One never knew what would happen on a

world that was being explored for the first time, especially under conditions

such as these. Very cautiously, the three explorers stepped out of the airlock

and adjusted the antigravity field of their suits. Then, each with the mode of

locomotion peculiar to his race, the little party went toward the building,

the Hansur twins leading and Klarten following close behind. His gravity

control was apparently giving trouble, for he suddenly fell to the ground,

rather to the amusement of his colleagues. Orostron saw them pause for a

moment at the nearest door-then it opened slowly and they disappeared from

sight. So Orostron waited, with what patience he could, while the storm rose

around him and the light of the aurora grew even brighter in the sky. At the

agreed times he called the mother ship and received brief acknowledgments from

Rugon. He wondered how Torkalee was faring, halfway round the planet, but he

could not contact him through the crash and thunder of solar interference. It

did not take Klarten and the Hansurs long to discover that their theories were

largely correct. The building was a radio station, and it was utterly

deserted. It consisted of one tremendous room with a few small offices leading

from it. In the main chamber, row after row of electrical equipment stretched

into the distance; lights flickered and winked on hundreds of control panels,

and a dull glow came from the elements in a great avenue of vacuum tubes. But

Klarten was not impressed. The first radio set his race had built were now

fossilized in strata a thousand million years old. Man, who had possessed

electrical machines for only a few centuries, could not compete with those who

had known them for half the lifetime of the Earth. Nevertheless, the party

kept their recorders running as they explored the building. There was still

one problem to be solved. The deserted station was broadcasting programs, but

where were they coming from? The central switchboard had been quickly located.

It was designed to handle scores of programs simultaneously, but the source of

those programs was lost in a maze of cables that vanished underground. Back in

the S9000, Rugon was trying to analyze the broadcasts and perhaps his

researches would reveal their origin. It was impossible to trace cables that

might lead across continents. The party wasted little time at the deserted

station. There was nothing they could learn from it, and they were seeking

life rather than scientific information. A few minutes later the little ship

rose swiftly from the plateau and headed toward the plains that must lie

beyond the mountains. Less than three hours were still left to them. As the

array of enigmatic mirrors dropped out of sight, Orostron was struck by a

sudden thought. Was it imagination, or had they all moved through a small

angle while he had been waiting, as if they were still compensating for the

rotation of the Earth? He could not be sure, and he dismissed the matter as

unimportant. It would only mean that the directing mechanism was still

working, after a fashion. They discovered the city fifteen minutes later. It

was a great, sprawling metropolis, built around a river that had disappeared

leaving an ugly scar winding its way among the great buildings and beneath

bridges that looked very incongruous now. Even from the air, the city looked

deserted. But only two and a half hours were left-there was no time for

further exploration. Orostron made his decision, and landed near the largest

structure he could see. It seemed reasonable to suppose that some creatures

would have sought shelter in the strongest buildings, where they would be safe

until the very end. The deepest caves-the heart of the planet itself-would

give no protection when the final cataclysm came. Even if this race had

reached the outer planets, its doom would only be delayed by the few hours it

would take for the ravening wavefronts to cross the Solar System. Orostron

could not know that the city had been deserted not for a few days or weeks,

but for over a century. For the culture of cities, which had outlasted so many

civilizations had been doomed at last when the helicopter brought universal

transportation. Within a few generations the great masses of mankind, knowing

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that they could reach any part of the globe in a matter of hours, had gone

back to the fields and forests for which they had always longed. The new

civilization had machines and resources of which earlier ages had never

dreamed, but it was essentially rural and no longer bound to the steel and

concrete warrens that had dominated the centuries before. Such cities as still

remained were specialized centers of research, administration or

entertainment; the others had been allowed to decay, where it was too much

trouble to destroy them. The dozen or so greatest of all cities, and the

ancient university towns, had scarcely changed and would have lasted for many

generations to come. But the cities that had been founded on steam and iron

and surface transportation had passed with the industries that had nourished

them And so while Orostron waited in the tender, his colleagues raced through

endless empty corridors and deserted halls, taking innumerable photographs but

learning nothing of the creatures who had used these buildings. There were

libraries, meeting places, council rooms, thousands of offices-all were empty

and deep with dust. If they had not seen the radio station on its mountain

eyrie, the explorers could well have believed that this world had known no

life for centuries. Through the long minutes of waiting, Orostron tried to

imagine where this race could have vanished. Perhaps they had killed

themselves knowing that escape was impossible; perhaps they had built great

shelters in the bowels of the planet, and even now were cowering in their

millions beneath his feet, waiting for the end. He began to fear that he would

never know. It was almost a relief when at last he had to give the order for

the return. Soon he would know if Torkalee's party had been more fortunate.

And he was anxious to get back to the mother ship, for as the minutes passed

the suspense had become more and more acute. There had always been the thought

in his mind: What if the astronomers of Kulath have made a mistake? He would

begin to feel happy when the walls of the S9000 were around him. He would be

happier still when they were out in space and this ominous sun was shrinking

far astern. As soon as his colleagues had entered the airlock, Orostron hurled

his tiny machine into the sky and set the controls to home on the S9000. Then

he turned to his friends. "Well, what have you found?" he asked. Klarten

produced a large roll of canvas and spread it out n the floor. "This is what

they were like," he said quietly. "Bipeds, with only two arms. They seem to

have managed well, in spite of that handicap. Only two eyes as well, unless

there are others in the back. We were lucky to find this; it's about the only

thing they left behind." The ancient oil paintings stared stonily back at the

three creatures regarding it so intently. By the irony of fate, its complete

worthlessness had saved it from oblivion. When the city had been evacuated, no

one had bothered to move Alderman John Richards, 1909-1974. For a century and

a half he had been gathering dust while far away from the old cities the new

civilization had been rising to heights no earlier culture had ever known.

"That was almost all we found," said Klarten. "The city must have been

deserted for years. I'm afraid our expedition has been a failure. If there are

any living beings on this world, they've hidden themselves too well for us to

find them." His commander was forced to agree. "It was an almost impossible

task," he said. "If we'd had weeks instead of hours we might have succeeded.

For all we know, they may even have built shelters under the sea. No one seems

to have thought of that." He glanced quickly at the indicators and corrected

the course. "We'll be there in five minutes. Alveron seems to be moving rather

quickly. I wonder if Torkalee has found anything." The S9000 was hanging a few

miles above the seaboard of a blazing continent when Orostron homed upon it.

The danger line was thirty minutes away and there was no time to lose.

Skillfully, he maneuvered the little ship into its launching tube and the

party stepped out of the airlock. There was a small crowd waiting for them.

That was to be expected, but Orostron could see at once that something more

than curiosity had brought his friends here. Even before a word was spoken, he

knew that something was wrong. "Torkalee hasn't returned. He's lost his party

and we're going to the rescue. Come along to the control room at once." From

the beginning, Torkalee had been luckier than Orostron. He had followed the

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zone of twilight, keeping away from the intolerable glare of the sun, until he

came to the shores of an inland sea. It was a very recent sea, one of the

latest of Man's works, for the land it covered had been desert less than a

century before. In a few hours it would be desert again, for the water was

boiling and clouds of steam were rising to the skies. But they could not veil

the loveliness of the great white city that overlooked the tideless sea.

Flying machines were still parked neatly round the square in which Torkalee

landed. They were disappointingly primitive, though beautifully finished, and

depended on rotating airfoils for support. Nowhere was there any sign of life,

but the place gave the impression that its inhabitants were not very far away.

Lights were still shining from some of the windows. Torkalee's three

companions lost no time in leaving the machine. Leader of the party, by

seniority of rank and race was T'sinadree, who like Alveron himself had been

born on one of the ancient planets of the Central Suns. Next came Alarkane,

from a race which was one of the youngest in the Universe and took a perverse

pride in the fact. Last came one of the strange beings from the system of

Palador. It was nameless, like all its kind, for it possessed no identity of

its own, being merely a mobile but still dependent cell in the consciousness

of its race. Though it and its fellows had long been scattered over the galaxy

in the exploration of countless worlds, some unknown link still bound them

together as inexorably as the living cells in a human body. When a creature of

Palador spoke, the pronoun it used was always "We." There was not, nor could

there ever be, any first person singular in the language of Palador. The great

doors of the splendid building baffled the explorers, though any human child

would have known their secret. T'sinadree wasted no time on them but called

Torkalee on his personal transmitter. Then the three hurried aside while their

commander maneuvered his machine into the best position. There was a brief

burst of intolerable flame; the massive steelwork flickered once at the edge

of the visible spectrum and was gone. The stones were still glowing when the

eager party hurried into the building, the beams of their light projectors

fanning before them. The torches were not needed. Before them lay a great

hall, glowing with light from lines of tubes along the ceiling. On either

side, the hall opened out into long corridors, while straight ahead a massive

stairway swept majestically toward the upper floors. For a moment T'sinadree

hesitated. Then, since one way was as good as another, he led his companions

down the first corridor. The feeling that life was near had now become very

strong. At any moment, it seemed, they might be confronted by the creatures of

this world. If they showed hostility-and they could scarcely be blamed if they

did- the paralyzers would be used at once. The tension was very great as the

party entered the first room, and only relaxed when they saw that it held

nothing but machines-row after row of them, now stilled and silent. Lining the

enormous room were thousands of metal filing cabinets, forming a continuous

wall as far as the eye could reach. And that was all; there was no furniture,

nothing but the cabinets and the mysterious machines. Alarkane, always the

quickest of the three, was already examining the cabinets. Each held many

thousand sheets of tough, thin material, perforated with innumerable holes

and slots. The Paladorian appropriated one of the cards and Alarkane recorded

the scene together with some close-ups of the machines. Then they left. The

great room, which had been one of the marvels of the world, meant nothing to

them. No living eye would ever again see that wonderful battery of almost

human Hollerith analyzers and the five thousand million punched cards holding

all that could be recorded of each man, woman and child on the planet. It

was clear that this building had been used very recently. With growing

excitement, the explorers hurried on to the next room. This they found to be

an enormous library, for millions of books lay all around them on miles and

miles of shelving. Here, though the explorers could not know it, were the

records of all the laws that Man had ever passed, and all the speeches that

had ever been made in his council chambers. T'sinadree was deciding his plan

of action, when Alarkane drew his attention to one of the racks a hundred

yards away. It was half empty, unlike all the others. Around it books lay in a

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tumbled heap on the floor, as if knocked down by someone in frantic haste. The

signs were unmistakable. Not long ago, other creatures had been this way.

Faint wheel marks were clearly visible on the floor to the acute sense of

Alarkane, though the others could see nothing. Alarkane could even detect

footprints, but knowing nothing of the creatures that had formed them he could

not say which way they led. The sense of nearness was stronger than ever now,

but it was nearness in time, not in space. Alarkane voiced the thoughts of the

party. "Those books must have been valuable, and someone has come to rescue

them-rather as an afterthought, I should say. That means there must be a place

of refuge, possibly not very far away. Perhaps we may be able to find some

other clues that will lead us to it." T'sinadree agreed; the Paladorian wasn't

enthusiastic. "That may be so," it said, "but the refuge may be anywhere on

the planet, and we have just two hours left. Let us waste no more time if we

hope to rescue these people." The party hurried forward once more, pausing

only to collect a few books that might be useful to the scientists at

Base-though it was doubtful if they could ever be translated. They soon found

that the great building was composed largely of small rooms, all showing signs

of recent occupation. Most of them were in a neat and tidy condition, but one

or two were very much the reverse. The explorers were particularly puzzled by

one room- clearly an office of some kind-that appeared to have been completely

wrecked. The floor was littered with papers, the furniture had been smashed,

and smoke was pouring through the broken windows from the fires outside.

T'sinadree was rather alarmed. "Surely no dangerous animal could have got into

a place like this!" he exclaimed, fingering his paralyzer nervously. Alarkane

did not answer. He began to make that annoying sound which his race called

"laughter." It was several minutes before he would explain what had amused

him. "I don't think any animal has done it," he said. "In fact, the

explanation is very simple. Suppose you had been working all your life in this

room, dealing with endless papers, year after year. And suddenly, you are told

that you will never see it again, that your work is finished, and that you can

leave it forever. More than that-no one will come after you. Everything is

finished. How would you make your exit, T'sinadree?" The other thought for a

moment. "Well, I suppose I'd just tidy things up and leave. That's what seems

to have happened in all the other rooms." Alarkane laughed again. "I'm quite

sure you would. But some individuals have a different psychology. I think I

should have liked the creature that used this room." He did not explain

himself further, and his two colleagues puzzled over his words for quite a

while before they gave it up. It came as something of a shock when Torkalee

gave the order to return. They had gathered a great deal of information, but

had found no clue that might lead them to the missing inhabitants of this

world. That problem was as baffling as ever, and now it seemed that it would

never be solved. There were only forty minutes left before the S9000 would be

departing. They were halfway back to the tender when they saw the semicircular

passage leading down into the depths of the building. Its architectural style

was quite different from that used elsewhere, and the gently sloping floor was

an irresistible attraction to creatures whose many legs had grown weary of the

marble staircases which only bipeds could have built in such profusion.

T'sinadree had been the worst sufferer, for he normally employed twelve legs

and could use twenty when he was in a hurry, though no one had ever seen him

perform this feat. The party stopped dead and looked down the passageway with

a single thought. A tunnel, leading down into the depths of Earth! At its end,

they might yet find the people of this world and rescue some of them from

their fate. For there was still time to call the mother ship if the need

arose. T'sinadree signaled to his commander and Torkalee brought the little

machine immediately overhead. There might not be time for the party to retrace

its footsteps through the maze of passages, so meticulously recorded in the

Paladorian mind that there was no possibility of going astray. If speed was

necessary, Torkalee could blast his way through the dozen floors above their

head. In any case, it should not take long to find what lay at the end of the

passage. It took only thirty seconds. The tunnel ended quite abruptly in a

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very curious cylindrical room with magnificently padded seats along the walls.

There was no way out save that by which they had come and it was several

seconds before the purpose of the chamber dawned on Alarkane's mind. It was a

pity, he thought, that they would never have time to use this. The thought was

suddenly interrupted by a cry from T'sinadree. Alarkane wheeled around, and

saw that the entrance had closed silently behind them. Even in that first

moment of panic, Alarkane foun himself thinking with some admiration: Whoever

they were, they knew how to build automatic machinery! The Paladorian was the

first to speak. It waved one of its tentacles toward the seats. "We think it

would be best to be seated," it said. The multiplex mind of Palador had

already analyzed the situation and knew what was coming. They did not have

long to wait before a low-pitched hum came from a grill overhead, and for the

very last time in history a human, even if lifeless, voice was heard on Earth.

The words were meaningless, though the trapped explorers could guess their

message clearly enough. "Choose your stations, please, and be seated."

Simultaneously, a wall panel at one end of the compartment glowed with light.

On it was a simple map, consisting of a series of a dozen circles connected by

a line. Each of the circles had writing alongside it, and beside the writing

were two buttons of different colors. Alarkane looked questioningly at his

leader. "Don't touch them," said T'sinadree. "If we leave the controls alone,

the doors may open again." He was wrong. The engineers who had designed the

assumed that anvone who entered it would naturally wish to go somewhere. If

they selected no intermediate station, their destination could only be the end

of the line. There was another pause while the relays and thyratrons waited

for their orders. In those thirty seconds, if they had known what to do, the

party could have opened the doors and left the subway. But they did not know,

and the machines geared to a human psychology acted for them. The surge of

acceleration was not very great; the lavish upholstery was a luxury, not a

necessity. Only an almost imperceptible vibration told of the speed at which

they were traveling through the bowels of the earth, on a journey the duration

of which they could not even guess. And in thirty minutes, the S9000 would be

leaving the Solar System. There was a long silence in the speeding machine.

T'sinadree and Alarkane were thinking rapidly. So was the Paladorian, though

in a different fashion. The conception of personal death was meaningless to

it, for the destruction of a single unit meant no more to the group mind than

the loss of a nail-paring to a man. But it could, though with great

difficulty, appreciate the plight of individual intelligences such as Alarkane

and T'sinadree, and it was anxious to help them if it could. Alarkane had

managed to contact Torkalee with his personal transmitter, though the signal

was very weak and seemed to be fading quickly. Rapidly he explained the

situation, and almost at once the signals became clearer. Torkalee was

following the path of the machine, flying above the ground under which they

were speeding to their unknown destination. That was the first indication they

had of the fact that they were traveling at nearly a thousand miles an hour,

and very soon after that Torkalee was able to give the still more disturbing

news that they were rapidly approaching the sea. While they were beneath the

land, there was a hope, though a slender one, that they might stop the machine

and escape. But under the ocean-not all the brains and the machinery in the

great mother ship could save them. No one could have devised a more perfect

trap. T'sinadree had been examining the wall map with great attention. Its

meaning was obvious, and along the line connecting the circles a tiny spot of

light was crawling. It was already halfway to the first of the stations

marked. "I'm going to press one of those buttons," said T'sinadree at last.

"It won't do any harm, and we may learn something." "I agree. Which will you

try first?" "There are only two kinds, and it won't matter if we try the wrong

one first. I suppose one is to start the machine and the other is to stop it."

Alarkane was not very hopeful. "It started without any button pressing," he

said. "I think it's completely automatic and we can't control it from here at

all." T'sinadree could not agree. "These buttons are clearly associated with

the stations, and there's no point in having them unless you can use them to

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ArthurCClarke-ReachforTomorrow1956ContentsPrefaceRescuePartyAWalkInTheDarkTheForgottenEnemyTechnicalErrorTheParasiteTheFiresWithinTheAwakeningTroubleWithTheNativesTheCurseTime'sArrowJupiterFiveThePossessedPrefaceWritingisanoccupationaldiseaseofauthors,butitmustbegrantedthattheyhavealegitimateexcuse....

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Arthur C. Clarke - Reach for Tomorrow

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