Free Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke Page B

a foolish thing to do, but-well, I was only sixty at the time."
    He chuckled to himself and then continued.
    "It's not much of a story to have brought you all this way. You see, it didn't work."
    "You saw nothing ?"
    "No, nothing at all. I'm afraid you'll have to wait-but
    after all, there are only twenty years to go!"
    Twenty years to go. Yes, Karellen bad been right. By then the world would be ready, as it had not been when he had spoken that same lie to Duval thirty years ago.
    Karellen had trusted him, and Stormgren had not betrayed his faith. He was as sure as he could be of anything that the Supervisor had known his plan from the beginning, and had fbreseen every moment of its final act.
    Why else had that enormous chair been already empty when the circle of light blazed upon it! In the same moment he had started to swing the beam, fearing that he was too late. The metal door, twice as high as a man, was closing swiftly when he first caught sight of it-closing swiftly, yet not quite swiftly enough.
    Yes, Karellen had trusted him, had not wished him to go down into the long evening of his life haunted by a mystery he could never solve. Karellen dared not defy the unknown powers above him (were they of that same race also?) but he had done all that he could. If he had disobeyed them, they could never prove it. It was the final proof, Stormgren. knew, of Karellen's affection for him. Though it might be the affection of a man for a devoted and intelligent dog, it was none the less sincere for that, and Stormgren's life had given him few greater satisfactions.
    "We have had our failures."
    Yes, Karellen, that was true: and were you the one who failed, before the dawn of human history? It must have been a failure indeed, thought Stormgren, for its echoes to roll down all the ages, to haunt the childhood of every race of man. Even In fifty years, could you overcome the power of all the myths and legends of the world?
    Yet Stormgren knew there would be no second failure.
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    When the two races met again, the Overlords would have won the trust and friendship of mankind, and not even the shock of recognition could undo that work. They would go together Into the future, and the unknown tragedy that must have darkened the past would be lost forever down the dim corridors of prehistoric time.
    And Stormgren hoped that when Karellen was free to walk once more on Earth, he would one day come to these northern forests, and stand beside the grave of the first man to be his friend.
     
     
     
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    55
    n
    THE GOLDEN AGE
     
     
    5
    "Tins is the day!" whispered the radios in a hundred tongues. "This is the day!" said the headlines of a thousand newspapers. "This is the day!" thought the cameramen as they checked and rechecked the equipment gathered round the vast empty space upon which Karellen's ship would be descending.
    There was only the single ship now, hanging above New York. Indeed, as the world had just discovered, the ships above Man's other cities had never existed. The day before, the great fleet of the Overlords had dissolved into nothingness, fading like mists beneath the morning dew.
    The supply ships, coming and going far out in space, had been real enough; but the silver clouds that had hung for a lifetime above almost all the capitals of Earth had been an illusion. How it had been done, no-one could tell, but it seemed that every one of those ships had been nothing more than an image of Karellen's own vessel. Yet it had been far more than a matter of playing with light, for radar had also been deceived, and there were still men alive who swore that they had heard the shriek of torn air as the fleet came in through the skies of Earth.
    It was not important: all that mattered was that Karellen no longer felt the need for this displayof force. He had thrown away his psychological weapons.
    "The ship is moving !" came the word, flashed instantly to every corner of the planet. "It is heading westward!"
    At less than a thousand