Arthur C. Clarke - Expedition to Earth

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Contents
Contents
Second Dawn 1
"If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth ..." 36
Breaking Strain 41
History Lesson 73
Superiority 83
Exile of the Eons 95
Hide and Seek 112
Expedition to Earth 125
Loophole 138
Inheritance 145
The Sentinel 155
Second Dawn
"Here they come," said Eris, rising to his forefeet and turning to look down the long valley. For a
moment the pain and bitterness had left his thoughts, so that even Jeryl, whose mind was more closely
tuned to his than to any other, could scarcely detect it. There was even an undertone of softness that
recalled poignantly the Eris she had known in the days before the War—the old Eris who now seemed
almost as remote and as lost as if he were lying with all the others out there on the plain.
A dark tide was flowing up the valley, advancing with a curious, hesitant motion, making odd pauses
and little bounds forward. It was flanked with gold—the thin line of the Atheleni guards, so terrifyingly
few compared with the black mass of the prisoners. But they were enough: indeed, they were only
needed to guide that aimless river on its faltering way. Yet at the sight of so many thousands of the
enemy, Jeryl found herself trembling and instinctively moved toward her mate, silver pelt resting against
gold. Eris gave no sign that he had understood or even noticed the action.
The fear vanished as Jeryl saw how slowly the dark flood was moving forward. She had been told what
to expect, but the reality was even worse than she had imagined. As the prisoners came nearer, all the
hate and bitterness ebbed from her mind, to be replaced by a sick compassion. No one of her race need
evermore fear the aimless, idiot horde that was being shepherded through the pass into the valley it
would never leave again.
The guards were doing little more than urge the prisoners on with meaningless but encouraging cries,
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like nurses calling to. infants too young to sense their thoughts. Strain as she might, Jeryl could detect no
vestige of reason in any of those thousands of minds passing so near at hand. That brought home to her,
more vividly than could anything else, the magnitude of the victory—and of the defeat. Her mind was
sensitive enough to detect the first faint thoughts of children, hovering on the verge of consciousness.
The defeated enemy had become not even children, but babies with the bodies of adults.
The tide was passing within a few feet of them now. For the first time, Jeryl realized how much larger
than her own people the Mithraneans were, and how beautifully the light of the twin suns gleamed on
the dark satin of their bodies. Once a magnificent specimen, towering a full head above Eris, broke loose
from the main body and came blundering toward them, halting a few paces away. Then it crouched
down like a lost and frightened child, the splendid head moving uncertainly from side to side as if
seeking it knew not what. For a moment the great, empty eyes fell full upon Jeryl's face. She was as
beautiful, she knew, to the Mithraneans as to her own race— but there was no flicker of emotion on the
blank features, and no pause in the aimless movement of the questing head. Then an exasperated guard
drove the prisoner back to his fellows.
"Come away," Jeryl pleaded. "I don't want to see any more. Why did you ever bring me here?" The
last thought was heavy with reproach.
Eris began to move away over the grassy slopes in great bounds that she could not hope to match, but
as he went his mind threw its message back to hers. His thoughts were still gentle, though the pain
beneath them was too deep to be concealed.
"I wanted everyone—even you—to see what we had to to do to win the War. Then, perhaps, we will
have no more in our lifetimes."
He was waiting for her on the brow ot the hill, undistressed by the mad violence of his climb. The
stream of prisoners was now too far below for them to see the details of its painful progress. Jeryl
crouched down beside Eris and began to browse on the sparse vegetation that had been exiled from the
fertile valley. She was slowly beginning to recover from the shock.
"But what will happen to them?" she asked presently, still haunted by the memory of that splendid,
mindless giant going into a captivity it could never understand.
"They can be taugh how to eat," said Eris. "There is food in the valley for half a year, and then we'll
move them on. It will be a heavy strain on our own resources, but we're under a moral obligation—and
we've put it in the peace treaty."
"They can never be cured?"
"No. Their minds have been totally destroyed. They'll be like that until they die."
There was a long silence. Jeryl let her gaze wander across the hills, falling in gentle undulations to the
edge of the ocean. She could just make out, beyond a gap in the hills, the distant lines of blue that
marked the sea— the mysterious, impassable sea. Its blue would soon be deepening into darkness, for
the fierce white sun was setting and presently there would only be the red disk— hundreds of times
larger but giving far less light—of its pale companion.
"I suppose we had to do it," Jeryl said at last. She was thinking almost to herself, but she let enough of
her thoughts escape for Eris to overhear.
"You've seen them," he answered briefly. "They were bigger and stronger than we. Though we
outnumbered them, it was a stalemate: in the end, I think they would have won. By doing what we did,
we saved thousands from death—or mutilation."
The bitterness came back into his thoughts, and Jeryl dared not look at him. He had screened the depths
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of his mind, but she knew that he was thinking of the shattered ivory stump upon his forehead. The War
had been fought, except at the very end, with two weapons only— the razor-sharp hoofs of the little,
almost useless fore-paws, and the unicorn-like horns. With one of these, Eris could never fight again,
and from the loss stemmed much of the embittered harshness that sometimes made him hurt even those
who loved him.
Eris was waiting for someone, though who it was Jeryl could not guess. She knew better than to
interrupt his thoughts while he was in his present mood, and so remained silently beside him, her
shadow merging with his as it stretched far along the hilltop.
Jeryl and Eris came of a race which, in Nature's lottery, had been luckier than most—and yet had
missed one of the greatest prizes of all. They had powerful bodies and powerful minds, and they lived in
a world which was both temperate and fertile. By human standards, they would have seemed strange but
by no means repulsive. Their sleek, fur-covered bodies tapered to a single giant rear-limb that could
send them leaping over the ground in thirty-foot bounds. The two forelimbs were much smaller, and
served merely for support and steadying. They ended in pointed hoofs that could be deadly in combat,
but had no other useful purpose.
Both the Atheleni and their cousins, the Mithraneans, possessed mental powers that had enabled them to
develop a very advanced mathematics and philosophy: but over the physical world they had no control
at all. Houses, tools, clothes—indeed, artifacts of any kind— were utterly unknown to them. To races
which possessed hands, tentacles, or other means of manipulation, their culture would have seemed
incredibly limited: yet such is the adaptability of the mind, and the power of the commonplace, that they
seldom realized their handicaps and could imagine no other way of life. It was natural to wander in great
herds over the fertile plains, pausing where food was plentiful and moving on again when it was
exhausted. This nomadic life had given them enough leisure for philosophy and even for certain arts.
Their telepathic powers had not yet robbed them of their voices and they had developed a complex vocal
music and an even more complex choreography. But they took the greatest pride of all in the range of
their thoughts: for thousands of generations they had sent their minds roving through the misty infinities
of metaphysics. Of physics, and indeed of all the sciences of matter, they knew nothing—not even that
they existed.
"Someone's coming," said Jeryl suddenly. "Who is it?"
Eris did not bother to look, but there was a sense of strain in his reply.
"It's Aretenon. I agreed to meet him here."
"I'm so glad. You were such good friends once—it upset me when you quarreled."
Eris pawed fretfully at the turf, as he did when he was embarrassed or annoyed.
"I lost my temper with him when he left me during the fifth battle of the Plain. Of course I didn't know
then why he had to go."
Jeryl's eyes widened in sudden amazement and understanding.
"You mean—he had something to do with the Madness, and the way the War ended?"
"Yes. There were very few people who knew more about the mind than he did. I don't know what part
he played, but it must have been an important one. I don't suppose he'll ever be able to tell us much
about it."
Still a considerable distance below them, Aretenon was zigzagging up the hillside in great leaps. A
little later he had reached them, and instinctively bent his head to touch horns with Eris in the universal
gesture of greeting. Then he stopped, horribly embarrassed, and there was an awkward pause until Jeryl
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came to the rescue with some conventional remarks.
When Eris spoke, Jeryl was relieved to sense his obvious pleasure at meeting his friend again, for the
first time since their angry parting at the height of the War. It had been longer still since her last meeting
with Aretenon, and she was surprised to see how much he had changed. He was considerably younger
than Eris—but no one would have guessed it now. Some of his once- golden pelt was turning black with
age, and with a flash of his old humor Eris remarked that soon no one would be able to tell him from a
Mithranean.
Aretenon smiled.
"That would have been useful in the last few weeks. I've just come through their country, helping to
round up the wanderers. We weren't very popular, as you might expect. If they'd known who I was, I
don't suppose I'd have got back alive—armistice or no armistice."
"You weren't actually in charge of the Madness, were you?" asked Jeryl, unable to control her
curiosity.
She had a momentary impression of thick, defensive mists forming around Aretenon's mind, shielding
all his thoughts from the outer world. Then the reply came, curiously muffled, and with a sense of
distance that was very rare in telepathic contact.
"No: I wasn't in supreme charge. But there were only two others between myself and—the top."
"Of course," said Eris, rather petulantly, "I'm only an ordinary soldier and don't understand these
things. But I'd like to know just how you did it. Naturally," he added, "neither Jeryl nor myself would
talk to anyone else."
Again that veil seemed to descend over Aretenon's thoughts. Then it lifted, ever so slightly.
"There's very little I'm allowed to tell. As you know, Eris, I was always interested in the mind and its
workings. Do you remember the games we used to play, when I tried to uncover your thoughts, and you
did your best to stop me? And how I sometimes made you carry out acts against your will?"
"I still think," said Eris, "that you couldn't have done that to a stranger, and that I was really
unconsciously co-operating."
"That was true then—but it isn't any longer. The proof lies down there in the valley." He gestured
toward the last stragglers who were being rounded up by the guards. The dark tide had almost passed,
and soon the entrance to the valley would be closed.
"When I grew older," continued Aretenon, "I spent more and more of my time probing into the ways of
the mind, and trying to discover why some of us can share our thoughts so easily, while others can never
do so but must remain always isolated and alone, forced to communicate by sounds or gestures. And I
became fascinated by those rare minds that are completely deranged, so that those who possess them
seem less than children.
"I had to abandon these studies when the War began. Then, as you know, they called for me one day
during the fifth battle. Even now, I'm not quite sure who was responsible for that. I was taken to a place
a long way from here, where I found a little group of thinkers, many of whom I already knew.
"The plan was simple—and tremendous. From the dawn of our race we've known that two or three
minds, linked together, could be used to control another mind, if it were willing, in the way that I used to
control yours. We've employed this power for healing since ancient times. Now we planned to use it for
destruction.
"There were two main difficulties. One was bound up with that curious limitation of our normal
telepathic powers—the fact that, except in rare cases, we can only have contact over a distance with
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someone we already know, and can communicate with strangers only when we are actually in their
presence.
"The second, and greater problem, was that the massed power of many minds would be needed, and
never before had it been possible to link together more than two or three. How we succeeded is our main
secret: like all such things, it seems easy now it has been done. And once we had started, it was simpler
than we had expected. Two minds are more than twice as powerful as one, and three are much more than
thrice as powerful as a single will. The exact mathematical relationship is an interesting one. You know
how very rapidly the number of ways a group of objects may be arranged increases with the size of the
group? Well, a similar relationship holds in this case.
"So in the end we had our Composite Mind. At first it was unstable, and we could hold it together for
only a few seconds. It's still a tremendous strain on our mental resources, and even now we can only do
it for—well, for long enough.
"All these experiments, of course, were carried out in great secrecy. If we could do this, so could the
Mithraneans, for their minds are as good as ours. We had a number of their prisoners, and we used them
as subjects."
For a moment the veil that hid Aretenon's inner thoughts seemed to tremble and dissolve: then he
regained control.
"That was the worst part. It was bad enough to send madness into a far land, but it was infinitely worse
when you could watch with your own eyes the effects of what you did.
"When we had perfected our technique, we made the first long-distance test. Our victim was someone
so well-known to one of our prisoners—whose mind we had taken over—that we could identify him
completely and thus the distance between us was no objection. The experiment worked, but of course no
one suspected that we were responsible.
"We did not operate again until we were certain that our attack would be so overwhelming that it
would end the War. From the minds of our prisoners we had identified about a score of Mithraneans—
their friends and kindred—in such detail that we could pick them out and destroy them. As each mind
fell beneath our attack, it gave up to us the knowledge of others, and so our power increased. We could
have done far more damage than we did, for we took only the males."
"Was that," asked Jeryl bitterly, "so very merciful?"
"Perhaps not: but it should be remembered to our credit. We stopped as soon as the enemy sued for
peace, and, as we alone knew what had happened, we went into their country to undo what damage we
could. It was little enough."
There was a long silence. The valley was deserted now, and the white sun had set. A cold wind was
blowing over the hills, passing, where none could follow it, out across the empty and untraveled sea.
Then Eris spoke his thoughts almost whispering to Aretenon's mind.
"You did not come to tell me this, did you? There is something more." It was a statement rather than a
query.
"Yes," replied Aretenon. "I have a message for you— one that will surprise you a good deal. It's from
Therodimus."
"TherodimusI I thought—"
"You thought he was dead, or worse still, a traitor. He's neither, although he's lived in enemy territory
for the last twenty years. The Mithraneans treated him as we did, and gave him everything he needed.
They recognized his mind for what it was, and even during the War no one touched him. Now he wants
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to see you again."
Whatever emotions Eris was feeling at this news of his old teacher, he gave no sign of them. Perhaps
he was recalling his youth, remembering now that Therodimus had played a greater part in the shaping
of his mind than had any other single influence. But his thoughts were barred to Aretenon and even to
Jeryl.
"What's he been doing all this time?" Eris asked at length. "And why does he want to see me now?"
"It's a long and complicated story," said Aretenon, "but Therodimus has made a discovery quite as
remarkable as ours, and one that may have even greater consequences."
"Discovery? What sort of discovery?"
Aretenon paused, looking thoughtfully along the valley. The guards were returning, leaving behind
only the few who would be needed to deal with any wandering prisoners.
"You know as much of our history as I do, Eris," he began. "It took, we believe, something like a million
generations for us to reach our present level of development—and that's a tremendous length of time!
Almost all the progress we've made has been due to our telepathic powers: without them we'd be little
different from all those other animals that show such puzzling re- semblances to us. We're very proud of
our philosophy and our mathematics, of our music and dancing—but have you ever thought, Eris, that
there might be other lines of cultural development which we've never even dreamed of? That there might
be other forces in the Universe besides mental ones?"
"I don't know what you mean," said Eris flatly.
"It's hard to explain, and I won't try—except to say this. Do you realize just how pitiably feeble is our
control over the external world, and how useless these limbs of ours really are? No—you can't, for you
won't have seen what I have. But perhaps this will make you understand."
The pattern of Aretenon's thoughts modulated suddenly into a minor key.
"I remember once coming upon a bank of beautiful and curiously complicated flowers. I wanted to see
what they were like inside, so I tried to open one, steadying it between my hoofs and picking it apart
with my teeth. I tried again and again—and failed. In the end, half mad with rage, I trampled all those
flowers into the dirt."
Jeryl could detect the perplexity in Eris's mind, but she could see that he was interested and curious to
know more.
"I have had that sort of feeling, too," he admitted. "But what can one do about it? And after all, is it
really important? There are a good many things in this universe which are not exactly as we should like
them."
Aretenon smiled.
"That's true enough. But Therodimus has found out how to do something about it. Will you come and
see him?"
"It must be a long journey."
"About twenty days from here, and we have to go across a river."
Jeryl felt Eris give a little shudder. The Atheleni hated water, for the excellent and sufficient reason
that they were too heavy-boned to swim, and promptly drowned if they fell into it.
"It's in enemy territory: they won't like me." "They respect you, and it might be a good idea tor you to
go—a friendly gesture, as it were."
"But I'm wanted here."
"You can take my word that nothing you do here is as important as the message Therodimus has for
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you— and for the whole world."
Eris veiled his thoughts for a moment, then uncovered them briefly.
"I'll think about it," he said.
It was surprising how little Aretenon managed to say on the many days of the journey. From time to
time Eris would challenge the defenses of his mind with half-playful thrusts, but always they were
parried with an effortless skill. About the ultimate weapon that had ended the War he would say nothing,
but Eris knew that those who had wielded it had not yet disbanded and were still at their secret hiding
place. Yet though he would not talk about the past, Aretenon often spoke of the future, and with the
urgent anxiety of one who had helped to shape it and was not sure if he had acted aright. Like many
others of his race, he was haunted by what he had done, and the sense of guilt sometimes overwhelmed
him. Often he made remarks which puzzled Eris at the time, but which he was to remember more and
more vividly in the years ahead.
"We've come to a turning-point in our history, Eris. The powers we've uncovered will soon be shared
by the Mithraneans, and another war will mean destruction for us both. All my life I've worked to
increase our knowledge of the mind, but now I wonder if I've brought something into the world that is
too powerful, and too dangerous, for us to handle. Yet it's too late, now, to retrace our footsteps: sooner
or later our culture was bound to come to this point, and to discover what we have found.
"It's a terrible dilemma: and there's only one solution. We cannot go back, and if we go forward we may
meet disaster. So we must change the very nature of our civilization, and break completely with the
million genera- tions behind us. You can't imagine how that could be done: nor could I, until I met
Therodimus and he told me of his dream.
"The mind is a wonderful thing, Eris—but by itself it is helpless in the universe of matter. We know
now how to multiply the power of our brains by an enormous factor: we can solve, perhaps, the great
problems of mathematics that have baffled us for ages. But neither our unaided minds, nor the group-
mind we've now created, can alter in the slightest the one fact that all through history has brought us and
the Mithraneans into conflict—the fact that the food supply is fixed, and our populations are not."
Jeryl would watch them, taking little part in their thoughts, as they argued these matters. Most of their
discussions took place while they were browsing, for like all active ruminants they had to spend a
considerable part of each day searching for food. Fortunately the land through which they were passing
was extremely fertile— indeed, its fertility had been one of the causes of the War. Eris, Jeryl was glad to
see, was becoming something of his old self again. The feeling of frustrated bitterness that had filled his
mind for so many months had not lifted, but it was no longer as all-pervading as it had been.
They left the open plain on the twenty-second day of their journey. For a long time they had been
traveling through Mithranean territory, but those few of their ex-enemies they had seen had been
inquisitive rather than hostile. Now the grasslands were coming to an end, and the forest with all its
primeval terrors lay ahead.
"Only one carnivore lives in this region," Aretenon reassured them, "and it's no match for the three of
us. We’ll be past the trees in a day and a night."
"A night—in the forest!" gasped Jeryl, half petrified with terror at the very thought.
Aretenon was obviously a little ashamed of himself.
"I didn't like to mention it before," he apologized, "but there's really no danger. I've done it by myself,
several times. After all, none of the great flesh-eaters of ancient times still exists—and it won't be really
dark, even in the woods. The red sun will still be up."
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Jeryl was still trembling slightly. She came of a race which, for thousands of generations, had lived on
the high hills and the open plains, relying on speed to escape from danger. The thought of going among
trees—and in the dim red twilight while the primary sun was down —filled her with panic. And of the
three of them, only Aretenon possessed a horn with which to fight. (It was nothing like so long or sharp,
thought Jeryl, as Eris's had been.)
She was still not at all happy even when they had spent a completely uneventful day moving through
the woods. The only animals they saw were tiny, long-tailed creatures that ran up and down the tree-
trunks with amazing speed, gibbering with anger as the intruders passed. It was entertaining to watch
them, but Jeryl did not think that the forest would be quite so amusing in the night.
Her fears were well founded. When the fierce white sun passed below the trees, and the crimson
shadows of the red giant lay everywhere, a change seemed to come over the world. A sudden silence
swept across the forest —a silence abruptly broken by a very distant wail toward which the three of
them turned instinctively, ancestral warnings shrieking in their minds.
"What was that?" gasped Jeryl.
Aretenon was breathing swiftly, but his reply was calm enough.
"Never mind," he said. "It was a long way off. I don't know what it was."
And Jeryl knew that he was lying.
They took turns keeping guard, and the long night wore slowly away. From time to time Jeryl would
awaken from troubled dreams into the nightmare reality of the strange, distorted trees gathered
threateningly around her. Once, when she was on guard, she heard the sound of a heavy body moving
through the woods very far away—but it came no nearer and she did not disturb the others. So at last the
longed-for brilliance of the white sun began to flood the sky, and the day had come again.
Aretenon, Jeryl thought, was probably more relieved than he pretended to be. He was almost boyish as
he frisked around in the morning sunlight, snatching an occasional mouthful of foliage from an
overhanging branch.
"We've only half a day to go now," he said cheerfully. "We’ll be out of the forest by noon."
There was a mischievous undertone to his thoughts that puzzled Jeryl. It seemed as if Aretenon was
keeping still another secret from them, and Jeryl wondered what further obstacles they would have to
overcome. By midday she knew, for their way was barred by a great river flowing slowly past them as if
in no haste to meet the sea.
Eris looked at it with some annoyance, measuring it with a practiced eye.
"It's much too deep to ford here. Well have to go a long way upstream before we can cross."
Aretenon smiled.
"On the contrary," he said cheerfully, "we're going downstream."
Eris and Jeryl looked at him in amazement
"Are you mad?" Eris cried.
"You'll soon see. We've not far to go now—you've come all this way, so you might as well trust me for
the rest of the journey."
The river slowly widened and deepened. If it had been impassable before, it was doubly so now.
Sometimes, Eris knew, one came upon a stream across which a tree had fallen, so that one could walk
over on the trunk— though it was a risky thing to do. But this river was the width of many trees, and
was growing no narrower.
"We're nearly there," said Aretenon at last. "I recognize the place. Someone should be coming out of
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those woods at any moment." He gestured with his horn to the trees on the far side of the river, and
almost as he did so three figures came bounding out on to the bank. Two of them, Jeryl saw, were
Atheleni: the third was a Mithranean. They were now nearing a great tree, standing by the water's edge,
but Jeryl had paid it little attention: she was too interested in the figures on the distant bank, wondering
what they were going to do next. So when Eris's amazement exploded like a thunderclap in the depths of
her own mind, she was too confused for a moment to realize its cause. Then she turned toward the tree,
and saw what Eris had seen.
To some minds and some races, few things could have been more natural or more commonplace than a
thick rope tied round a tree trunk, and floating out across the waters of a river to another tree on the far
bank. Yet it filled both Jeryl and Eris with the terror of the unknown, and for one awful moment Jeryl
thought that a gigantic snake was emerging from the water. Then she saw that it was not alive, but her
fear remained. For it was the first artificial object that she had ever seen.
"Don't worry about what it is, or how it was put there," counseled Aretenon. "It's going to carry you
across, and that's all that matters for the moment. Look—there's someone coming over now!"
One of the figures on the far bank had lowered itself into the water, and was working its way with its
fore-limbs along the rope. As it came nearer—it was the Mithranean, and a female—Jeryl saw that it
was carrying a second and much smaller rope looped round the upper part of its body.
With the skill of long practice, the stranger made her way across the floating cable, and emerged
dripping from the river. She seemed to know Aretenon, but Jeryl could not intercept their thoughts.
"I can go across without any help," said Aretenon, "but I'll show you the easy way."
He slipped the loop over his shoulder and, dropping into the water, hooked his fore-limbs over the
fixed cable. A moment later he was being dragged across at a great speed by the two others on the far
bank where, after much trepidation, Eris and Jeryl presently joined him.
It was not the sort of bridge one would expect from a race which could quite easily have dealt with the
mathe- matics of a reinforced concrete arch—if the possibility of such an object had ever occurred to it.
But it served its purpose, and once it had been made, they could use it readily enough.
Once it had been made. But—who had made it?
When their dripping guides had rejoined them, Aretenon gave his friends a warning.
"I'm afraid you're going to have a good many shocks while you're here. You'll see some very strange
sights, but when you understand them, they'll cease to puzzle you in the slightest. In fact, you will soon
come to take them for granted."
One of the strangers, whose thoughts neither Eris nor Jeryl could intercept, was giving him a message.
"Therodimus is waiting for us," said Aretenon. "He's very anxious to see you."
"I've been trying to contact him," complained Eris. "But I've not succeeded."
Aretenon seemed a little troubled .
"You'll find he's changed," he said. "After all, you've not seen each other for many years. It may be
some time before you can make full contact again."
Their road was a winding one through the forest, and from time to time curiously narrow paths
branched off in various directions. Therodimus, thought Eris, must have changed indeed for him to have
taken up permanent residence among trees. Presently the track opened out into a large, semicircular
clearing with a low white cliff lying along its diameter. At the foot of the cliff were several dark holes of
varying sizes—obviously the openings of caves.
It was the first time that either Eris or Jeryl had ever entered a cave, and they did not greatly look
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forward to the experience. They were relieved when Aretenon told them to wait just outside the opening,
and went on alone toward the puzzling yellow light that glowed in the depths. A moment later, dim
memories began to pulse in Eris's mind, and he knew that his old teacher was coming, even though he
could no longer fully share his thoughts. Something stirred in the gloom, and then Therodimus came out
into the sunlight. At the sight of him, Jeryl screamed once and buried her head in Eris's mane, but Eris
stood firm, though he was trembling as he had never done before battle. For Therodimus blazed with a
magnificence that none of his race had ever known since history began. Around his neck hung a band of
glittering objects that caught and refracted the sunlight in myriad colors, while covering his body was a
sheet of some thick, many-hued material that rustled softly as he walked. And his horn was no longer the
yellow of ivory: some magic had changed it to the most wonderful purple that Jeryl had ever seen.
Therodimus stood motionless for a moment, savoring their amazement to the full. Then his rich laugh
echoed in their minds, and he reared up upon his hind limb. The colored garment fell whispering to the
ground, and at a toss of his head the glittering necklace arched hike a rainbow into a corner of the cave.
But the purple horn remained unchanged.
It seemed to Eris that he stood at the brink of a great chasm, with Therodimus beckoning to him on the
far side. Their thoughts struggled to form a bridge, but could make no contact. Between them was the
gulf of half a lifetime and many battles, of myriad unshared experiences—Therodimus' years in this
strange land, his own mating with Jeryl and the memory of their lost children. Though they stood face to
face, a few feet only between them, their thoughts could never meet again.
Then Aretenon, with all the power and authority of his unsurpassed skill, did something to his mind
that Eris was never quite able to recall. He only knew that the years seemed to have rolled back, that he
was once more the eager, anxious pupil—and that he could speak to Therodimus again.
It was strange to sleep underground, but less unpleasant than spending the night amid the unknown
terrors of the forest. As she watched the crimson shadows deepening beyond the entrance to the little
cave, Jeryl tried to collect her scattered thoughts. She had understood only a small part of what had
passed between Eris and Therodimus, but she knew that something incredible was taking place. The
evidence of her eyes was enough to prove that: today she had seen things for which there were no words
in her language.
She had heard things, too. As they had passed one of the cave-mouths, there had come from it a
rhythmic, "whirring" sound, unlike that made by any animal she knew. It had continued steadily without
pause or break as long as she could hear it, and even now its unhurried rhythm had not left her mind.
Aretenon, she believed, had also noticed it, though without any surprise: Eris had been too engrossed
with Therodimus.
The old philosopher had told them very little, preferring, as he said, to show them his empire when
they had had a good night's rest. Nearly all their talk had been concerned with the events of their own
land during the last few years, and Jeryl found it somewhat boring. Only one thing had interested her,
and she had eyes for little else. That was the wonderful chain of colored crystals that Therodimus had
worn around his neck. What it was, or how it had been created, she could not imagine: but she coveted
it. As she fell asleep, she found herself thinking idly, but more than half seriously, of the sensation it
would cause if she returned to her people with such a marvel gleaming against her own pelt. It would
look so much better there than upon old Therodimus.
Aretenon and Therodimus met them at the cave soon after dawn. The philosopher had discarded his
regalia— which he had obviously worn only to impress his guests —and his horn had returned to its
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file:///G|/eMule/Incoming/Clarke,%20Arthur%20C%20-%20Expedition%20to%20Earth.txtContentsContentsSecondDawn1"IfIForgetThee,OhEarth..."36BreakingStrain41HistoryLesson73Superiority83ExileoftheEons95HideandSeek112ExpeditiontoEarth125Loophole138Inheritance145TheSentinel155SecondDawn"Heretheycome,"saidEr...

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