The lion of comarre
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The corridors in which he had first found himself were drab and undecor-ated, purely utilitarian. In contrast, these spacious halls and assembly rooms were furnished with the utmost luxury. The twenty-sixth century had been a period of florid decoration and colouring, much despised by subsequent ages. But the Decadents had gone far beyond their own period. They had taxed the resources of psychology as well as art when they designed Comarre. One could have spent a lifetime without exhausting all the murals, the carvings and paintings, the intricate tapestries which still seemed as brilliant as when they had been made. It seemed utterly wrong that so wonderful a place should be deserted and hidden from the world. Peyton almost forgot all his scientific zeal, and hurried like a child from marvel to marvel. Here were works of genius, perhaps as great as any the world had ever known. But it was a sick and despairing genius, one that had lost faith in itself while still retaining an immense technical skill. For the first time Peyton truly understood why the builders of Comarre had been given their name. The art of the Decadents at once repelled and fascinated him. It was not evil, for it was completely detached from moral standards. Perhaps its dominant characteristics were weariness and disillusion. After a while Peyton, who had never thought himself very sensitive to visual art, began to feel a subtle depression creeping into his soul. Yet he found it quite impossible to tear himself away. At last Peyton turned to the robot again. 'Does anyone live here now?' 'Yes.' 'Where are they?' 'Sleeping.' Somehow that seemed a perfectly natural reply. Peyton felt very tired. For the last hour it had been a struggle to remain awake. Something seemed to be compelling sleep, almost willing it upon him. Tomorrow would be time enough to learn the secrets he had come to find. For the moment he wanted nothing but sleep. He followed automatically when the robot led him out of the spacious halls into a long ccrridor lined with metal doors, each bearing a half-familiar symbol Peyton could not quite recognise. His sleepy mind was still wrestling half-heartedly with the problem when the machine halted before one of the doors, which slid silently open. The heavily draped couch in the darkened room was irresistible. Peyton stumbled toward it automatically. As he sank down into sleep, a glow of satisfaction warmed his mind. He had recognised the symbol on the door, though his brain was too tired to understand its significance. It was the poppy. There was no guile, no malevolence in the working of the city. Impersonally it was fulfilling the tasks to which it had been dedicated. All who had entered Comarre had willingly embraced its gifts. This visitor was the first who had ever ignored them. The integrators had been ready for hours, but the restless, probing mind had eluded them. They could afford to wait, as they had done these last five hundred years. And now the defences of this strangely stubborn mind were crumbling as Richard Peyton sank peacefully to sleep. Far down in the heart of Comarre a relay tripped, and complex, slowly fluctuating currents began to ebb and flow through banks of vacuum tubes. The consciousness that had been Richard Peyton III ceased to exist. Peyton had fallen asleep instantly. For a while complete oblivion claimed him. Then faint wisps of consciousness began to return. And then, as always, he began to dream. It was strange that his favourite dream should have come into his mind, and it was more vivid now than it had ever been before. All his life Peyton had loved the sea, and once he had seen the unbelievable beauty of the Pacific islands from the observation deck of a low-flying liner. He had never visited them, but he had often wished that he could spend his life on some remote and peaceful isle with no care for the future or the world. It was a dream that almost all men had known at some time in their lives, but Peyton was sufficiently sensible to realise that two months of such an existence would have driven him back to civilisation, half crazy with boredom. However, his dreams were never worried by such considerations, and once more he was lying beneath waving palms, the surf drumming on the reef beyond a lagoon that framed the sun in an azure mirror. The dream was extraordinarily vivid, so much so that even in his sleep Peyton found himself thinking that no dream had any right to be so real. Then it ceased, so abruptly that there seemed to be a definite rift in his thoughts. The interruption jolted him back to consciousness. Bitterly disappointed, Peyton lay for a while with his eyes tightly closed, trying to recapture the lost paradise. But it was useless. Something was beating against his brain, keeping him from sleep. Moreover, his couch had suddenly become very hard and uncomfortable. Reluctantly he turned his mind toward the interruption. Peyton had always been a realist and had never been troubled by philosophical doubts, so the shock was far greater than it might have been to many less intelligent minds. Never before had he found himself doubting his own sanity, but he did so now. For the sound that had awakened him was the drumming of the waves against the reef. He was lying on the golden sand beside the lagoon. Around him, the wind was sighing through the palms, its warm fingers caressing him gently. For a moment, Peyton could only imagine that he was still dreaming. But this time there could be no real doubt. While one is sane, reality can never be mistaken for a dream. This was real if anything in the universe was real. Slowly the sense of wonder began to fade. He rose to his feet, the sand showering from him in a golden rain. Shielding his eyes against the sun, he stared along the beach. He did not stop to wonder why the place should be so familiar. It seemed natural enough to know that the village was a little farther along the bay. Presently he would rejoin his friends, from whom he had been separated for a little while in a world he was swiftly forgetting. There was a fading memory of a young engineer - even the name escaped him now - who had once aspired to fame and wisdom. In that other life, he had known this foolish person well, but now he could never explain to him the vanity of his ambitions. He began to wander idly along the beach, the last vague recollections of his shadow life sloughing from him with every footstep, as the details of a dream fade into the light of day. On the other side of the world three very worried scientists were waiting in a deserted laboratory, their eyes on a multichannel communicator of unusual design. The machine had been silent for nine hours. No one had expected a message in the first eight, but the prearranged signal was now more than an hour overdue. Alan Henson jumped to his feet with a gesture of impatience. 'We've got to do something! I'm going to call him.' The other two scientists looked at each other nervously. 'The call may be traced!' 'Not unless they're actually watching us. Even if they are, I'll say nothing unusual. Peyton will understand, if he can answer at all. If Richard Peyton had ever known time, that knowledge was forgotten now. Only the present was real, for both past and future lay hidden behind an impenetrable screen, as a great landscape may be concealed by a driving wall of rain. In his enjoyment of the present Peyton was utterly content. Nothing at all was left of the restless driving spirit that had once set out, a little uncertainly, to conquer fresh fields of knowledge. He had no use for knowledge now. Later he was never able to recollect anything of his life on the island. He had known many companions, but their names and faces had vanished beyond recall. Love, peace of mind, happiness - all were his for a brief moment of time. And yet he could remember no more than the last few moments of his life in paradise. Strange that it should have ended as it began. Once more he was by the side of the lagoon, but this time it was night and he was not alone. The moon that seemed always to be full rode low above the ocean, and its long silver band stretched far away to the edge of the world. The stars that never changed their places glowed unblinking in the sky like brilliant jewels, more glorious than the forgotten stars of Earth. But Peyton's thoughts were intent on other beauty, and once again he bent toward the figure lying on the sand that was no more golden than the hair strewn carelessly across it. Then paradise trembled and dissolved around him. He gave a great cry of anguish as everything he loved was wrenched away. Only the swiftness of the transition saved his mind. When it was over, he felt as Adam must have when the gates of Eden clanged forever shut behind him. But the sound that had brought him back was the most commonplace in all the world. Perhaps, indeed, no other could have reached his mind in its place of hiding. It was only the shrilling of his communicator set as it lay on the door beside his couch, here in the darkened room in the city of Comarre. The clangour died away as he reached out automatically to press the receiving switch. He must have made some answer that satisfied his unknown caller - who was Alan Henson? - for after a very short time the circuit was cleared. Still dazed, Peyton sat on the couch, holding his head in his hands and trying to reorient his life. He had not been dreaming; he was sure of that. Rather, it was as if he had been living a second life and now he was returning to his old existence as might a man recovering from amnesia. Though he was still dazed, one clear conviction came into his mind. He must never again sleep in Comarre. Slowly the will and character of Richard Peyton III returned from their banishment. Unsteadily he rose to his feet and made his way out of the room. Once again he found himself in the long corridor with its hundreds of identical doors. With new understanding he looked at the symbol carved upon them. He scarcely noticed where he was going. His mind was fixed too intently on the problem before him. As he walked, his brain cleared, and slowly understanding came. For the moment it was only a theory, but soon he would put it to the test. The human mind was a delicate, sheltered thing, having no direct contact with the world and gathering all its knowledge and experience through the body's senses. It was possible to record and store thoughts and emotions as earlier men had once recorded sound on miles of wire. If those thoughts were projected into another mind, when the body was unconscious and all its senses numbed, that brain would think it was experiencing reality. There was no way in which it could detect the deception, any more than one can distinguish a perfectly recorded symphony from the original performance. All this had been known for centuries, but the builders of Comarre had used the knowledge as no one in the world had ever done before. Somewhere in the city there must be machines that could analyse every thought and desire of those who entered. Elsewhere the city's makers must have stored every sensation and experience a human mind could know. From this raw material all possible futures could be constructed. Now at last Peyton understood the measure of the genius that had gone into the making of Comarre. The machines had analysed his deepest thoughts and built for him a world based on his subconscious desires. Then, when the chance had come, they had taken control of his mind and injected into it all he had experienced. No wonder that everything he had ever longed for had been his in that already half-forgotten paradise. And no wonder that through the ages so many had sought the peace only Comarre could bring! CHAPTER FIVE The Engineer Peyton had become himself again by the time the sound of wheels made him look over his shoulder. The little robot that had been his guide was returning. No doubt the great machines that controlled it were wondering what had happened to its charge. Peyton waited, a thought slowly forming in his mind. A-Five started all over again with its set speech. It seemed very incongruous now to find so simple a machine in this place where automatronics had reached their ultimate development. Then Peyton realised that perhaps the robot was deliberately uncomplicated. There was little purpose in using a complex machine where a simple one would serve as well - or better. Peyton ignored the now familiar speech. All robots, he knew, must obey human commands unless other humans had previously given them orders to the contrary. Even the projectors of the city, he thought wryly, had obeyed the unknown and unspoken commands of his own subconscious mind. 'Lead me to the thought projectors,' he commanded. As he had expected, the robot did not move. It merely replied, 'I do not understand.' Peyton's spirits began to revive as he felt himself once more master of the situation. 'Come here and do not move again until I give the order.' The robot's selectors and relays considered the instructions. They could find no countermanding order. Slowly the little machine rolled forward on its wheels. It had committed itself - there was no turning back now. It could not move again until Peyton ordered it to do so or something overrode his commands. Robot hypnosis was a very old trick, much beloved by mischievous small boys. Swiftly, Peyton emptied his bag of the tools no engineer was ever without: the universal screw driver, the expanding wrench, the automatic drill, and, most important of all, the atomic cutter that could eat through the thickest metal in a matter of seconds. Then, with a skill born of long practice, he went to work on the unsuspecting machine. Luckily the robot had been built for easy servicing, and could be opened with little difficulty. There was nothing unfamiliar about the controls, and it did not take Peyton long to find the locomotor mechanism. Now, whatever happened, the machine could not escape. It was crippled. Next he blinded it and, one by one, tracked down its other electrical senses and put them out of commission. Soon the little machine was no more than a cylinder full of complicated junk. Feeling like a small boy who has just made a wanton attack on a defenceless grandfather clock, Peyton sat down and waited for what he knew must happen. It was a little inconsiderate of him to sabotage the robot so far from the main machine levels. The robot-transporter took nearly fifteen minutes to work its way up from the depths. Peyton heard the rumble of its wheels in the distance and knew that his calculations had been correct. The breakdown party was on the way. The transporter was a simple carrying machine, with a set of arms that could grasp and hold a damaged robot. It seemed to be blind, though no doubt its special senses were quite sufficient for its purpose. Peyton waited until it had collected the unfortunate A-Five. Then he jumped aboard, keeping well away from the mechanical limbs. He had no desire to be mistaken for another distressed robot. Fortunately the big machine took no notice of him at all. So Peyton descended through level after level of the great building, past the living quarters, through the room in which he had first found himself, and lower yet into regions he had never before seen. As he descended, the character of the city changed around him. Gone now were the luxury and opulence of the higher levels, replaced by a no man's land of bleak passageways that were little more than giant cable ducts. Presently these, too, came to an end. The conveyor passed through a set of great sliding doors - and he had reached his goal. The rows of relay panels and selector mechanisms seemed endless, but though Peyton was tempted to jump off his unwitting steed, he waited until the main control panels came into sight. Then he climbed off the conveyor and watched it disappear into the distance toward some still more remote part of the city. He wondered how long it would take the superautomata to repair A-Five. His sabotage had been very thorough, and he rather thought the little machine was heading for the scrap heap. Then, feeling like a starving man suddenly confronted by a banquet, he began his examination of the city's wonders. In the next five hours he paused only once to send the routine signal back to his friends. He wished he could tell of his success, but the risk was too great. After prodigies of circuit tracing he had discovered the functions of the main units and was beginning to investigate some of the secondary equipment. It was just as he had expected. The thought analysers and projectors lay on the floor immediately above, and could be controlled from, his central installation. How they worked he had no conception: it might well take months to uncover all their secrets. But he had identified them and thought he could probably switch them off if necessary. A little later he discovered the thought monitor. It was a small machine, rather like an ancient manual telephone switchboard, but very much more complex. The operator's seat was a curious structure, insulated from the ground and roofed by a network of wires and crystal bars. It was the first machine he had discovered that was obviously intended for direct human use. Probably the first engineers had built it to set up the equipment in the early days of the city. Peyton would not have risked using the thought monitor if detailed instructions had not been printed on its control panel. After some experimenting he plugged in to one of the circuits and slowly increased the power, keeping the intensity control well below the red danger mark. It was as well that he did so, for the sensation was a shattering one. He still retained his own personality, but superimposed on his own thoughts were ideas and images that were utterly foreign to him. He was looking at another world, through the windows of an alien mind. It was as though his body were in two places at once, though the sensations of his second personality were much less vivid than those of the real Richard Peyton III. Now he understood the meaning of the danger line. If the thought-intensity control was turned too high, madness would certainly result. Peyton switched off the instrument so that he could think without interruption. He understood now what the robot had meant when it said that the other inhabitants of the city were sleeping. There were other men in Comarre, lying entranced beneath the thought projectors. His mind went back to the long corridor and its hundreds of metal doors. On his way down he had passed through many such galleries and it was clear that the greater part of the city was no more than a vast honeycomb of chambers in which thousands of men could dream away their lives. One after another he checked the circuits on the board. The great majority were dead, but perhaps fifty were still operating. And each of them carried all the thoughts, desires, and emotions of the human mind. Now that he was fully conscious, Peyton could understand how he had been tricked, but the knowledge brought little consolation. He could see the flaws in these synthetic worlds, could observe how all the critical faculties of the mind were numbed while an endless stream of simple but vivid emotions was poured into it. Yes, it all seemed very simple now. But it did not alter the fact that this artificial world was utterly real to the beholder - so real that the pain of leaving it still burned in his own mind. For nearly an hour, Peyton explored the worlds of the fifty sleeping minds. It was a fascinating though repulsive quest. In that hour he learned more of the human brain and its hidden ways than he had ever dreamed existed. When he had finished he sat very still for a long time at the controls of the machine, analysing his new-found knowledge. His wisdom had advanced by many years, and his youth seemed suddenly very far away. For the first time he had direct knowledge of the fact that the perverse and evil desires that sometimes ruffled the surface of his own mind were shared by all human beings. The builders of Comarre had cared nothing for good or evil - and the machines had been their faithful servants. It was satisfactory to know that his theories had been correct. Peyton understood now the narrowness of his escape. If he fell asleep again within these walls he might never awake. Chance had saved him once, but it would not do so again. The thought projectors must be put out of action, so thoroughly that the robots could never repair them. Though they could handle normal breakdowns, the robots could not deal with the deliberate sabotage on the scale Peyton was envisaging. When he had finished, Comarre would be a menace no longer. It would never trap his mind again, or the minds of any future visitors who might come this way. First he would have to locate the sleepers and revive them. That might be a lengthy task, but fortunately the machine level was equipped with standard monovision search apparatus. With it he could see and hear everything in the city, simply by focusing the carrier beams on the required spot. He could even project his voice if necessary, but not his image. That type of machine had not come into general use until after the building of Comarre. It took him a little while to master the controls, and at first the beam wandered erratically all over the city. Peyton found himself looking into any number of surprising places, and once he even got a glimpse of the forest - though it was upside down. He wondered if Leo was still around, and with some difficulty he located the entrance. Yes, there it was, just as he had left it the day before. And a few yards away the faithful Leo was lying with his head toward the city and a distinctly worried look on his face. Peyton was deeply touched. He wondered if he could get the lion into Comarre. The moral support would be valuable, for he was beginning to feel more need of companionship after the night's experiences. Methodically he searched the wall of the city and was greatly relieved to discover several concealed entrances at ground level. He had been wondering how he was going to leave. Even if he could work the matter-transmitter in reverse, the prospect was not an attractive one. He much preferred an old-fashioned physical movement through space. The openings were all sealed, and for a moment he was baffled. Then he began to search for a robot. After some delay, he discovered one of the late A-Five's twins rolling along a corridor on some mysterious errand. To his relief, it obeyed his command unquestioningly and opened the door. Peyton drove the beam through the walls again and brought the focus point to rest a few feet away from Leo. Then he called, softly: 'Leo!' The lion looked up, startled. 'Hello, Leo - it's me - Peyton!' Looking puzzled, the lion walked slowly around in a circle. Then it gave up and sat down helplessly. With a great deal of persuasion, Peyton coaxed Leo up to the entrance. The lion recognised his voice and seemed willing to follow, but it was a sorely puzzled and rather nervous animal. It hesitated for a moment at the opening, liking neither Comarre nor the silently waiting robot. Very patiently Peyton instructed Leo to follow the robot. He repeated his remarks in different words until he was sure the lion understood. Then he spoke directly to the machine and ordered it to guide the lion to the control chamber. He watched it for a moment to see that Leo was following. Then, with a word of encouragement, he left the strangely assorted pair. It was rather disappointing to find that he could not see into any of the sealed rooms behind the poppy symbol. They were shielded from the beam or else the focusing controls had been set so that the monovisor could not be used to pry into that volume of space. Peyton was not discouraged. The sleepers would wake up the hard way, as he had done. Having looked into their private worlds, he felt little sympathy for them and only a sense of duty impelled him to wake them. They deserved no consideration. A horrible thought suddenly assailed him. What had the projectors fed into his own mind in response to his desires, in that forgotten idyll from which he had been so reluctant to return? Had his own hidden thoughts been as disreputable as those of the other dreamers? It was an uncomfortable idea, and he put it aside as he sat down once more at the central switchboard. First he would disconnect the circuits, then he would sabotage the projectors so that they could never again be used. The spell that Comarre had cast over so many minds would be broken forever. Peyton reached forward to throw the multiplex circuit breakers, but he never completed the movement. Gently but very firmly, four metal arms clasped his body from behind. Kicking and struggling, he was lifted into the air away from the controls and carried to the centre of the room. There he was set down again, and the metal arms released him. More angry than alarmed, Peyton whirled to face his captor. Regarding him quietly from a few yards away was the most complex robot he had ever seen. Its body was nearly seven feet high, and rested on a dozen fat balloon tyres. From various parts of its metal chassis, tentacles, arms, rods, and other less easily describable mechanisms projected in all directions. In two places, groups of limbs were busily at work dismantling or repairing pieces of machinery which Peyton recognised with a guilty start. Silently Peyton weighed his opponent. It was clearly a robot of the very highest order. But it had used physical violence against him - and no robot could do that against a man, though it might refuse to obey his orders. Only under the direct control of another human mind could a robot commit such an act. So there was life, conscious and hostile life, somewhere in the city. 'Who are you?' exclaimed Peyton at last, addressing not the robot, but the controller behind it. With no detectable time lag the machine answered in a precise and automatic voice that did not seem to be merely the amplified speech of a human being. 'I am the Engineer.' Then come out and let me see you.' 'You are seeing me.' It was the inhuman tone of the voice, as much as the words themselves, that made Peyton's anger evaporate in a moment and replaced it with a sense of unbelieving wonder. There was no human being controlling this machine. It was as automatic as the other robots of the city - but unlike them, and all other robots the world had ever known, it had a will and a consciousness of its own. CHAPTER SIX The Nightmare As Peyton stared wide-eyed at the machine before him, he felt his scalp crawling, not with fright, but with the sheer intensity of his excitement. His quest had been rewarded - the dream of nearly a thousand years was here before his eyes. Long ago the machines had won a limited intelligence. Now at last they had reached the goal of consciousness itself. This was the secret Thordarsen would have given to the world - the secret the Council had sought to suppress for fear of the consequences it might bring. The passionless voice spoke again. 'I am glad that you realise the truth. It will make things easier.' 'You can read my mind?' gasped Peyton. 'Naturally. That was done from the moment you entered.' 'Yes, I gathered that/ said Peyton grimly. 'And what do you intend to do with me now?' 'I must prevent you from damaging Comarre.' That, thought Peyton, was reasonable enough. 'Suppose I left now? Would that suit you?' 'Yes. That would be good.' Peyton could not help laughing. The Engineer was still a robot, in spite of all its near-humanity. It was incapable of guile, and perhaps that gave him an advantage. Somehow he must trick it into revealing its secrets. But once again the robot read his mind. 'I will not permit it. You have learned too much already. You must leave at once. I will use force if necessary.' Peyton decided to fight for time. He could, at least, discover the limits of this amazing machine's intelligence. 'Before I go, tell me this. Why are you called the Engineer?' The robot answered readily enough. 'If serious faults developed that cannot be repaired by the robots, I deal with them. I could rebuild Comarre if necessary. Normally, when everything is functioning properly, I am quiescent.' How alien, thought Peyton, the idea of 'quiescence' was to a human mind. He could not help feeling amused at the distinction the Engineer had drawn between itself and 'the robots'. He asked the obvious question. 'And if something goes wrong with you?' 'There are two of us. The other is quiescent now. Each can repair the other. That was necessary once, three hundred years ago.' It was a flawless system. Comarre was safe from accident for millions of years. The builders of the city had set these eternal guardians to watch over them while they went in search of their dreams. No wonder that, long after its makers had died, Comarre was still fulfilling its strange purpose. What a tragedy it was, thought Peyton, that all this genius had been wasted! The secrets of the Engineer could revolutionise robot technology, could bring a new world into being. Now that the first conscious machines had been built, was there any limit to what lay beyond? 'No,' said the Engineer unexpectedly. 'Thordarsen told me that the robots would one day be more intelligent than man.' It was strange to hear the machine uttering the name of its maker. So that was Thordarsen's dream! Its full immensity had not yet dawned on him. Though he had been half-prepared for it, he could not easily accept the conclusions. After all, between the robot and the human mind lay an enormous gulf. 'No greater than that between man and the animals from which he rose, so Thordarsen once said. You, Man, are no more than a very complex robot. I am simpler, but more efficient. That is all.' Very carefully Peyton considered the statement. If indeed Man was no more than a complex robot - a machine composed of living cells rather than wires and vacuum tubes - yet more complex robots would one day be made. When that day came, the supremacy of Man would be ended. The machines might still be his servants, but they would be more intelligent than their master. It was very quiet in the great room lined with the racks of analysers and relay panels. The Engineer was watching Peyton intently, its arms and tentacles still busy on their repair work. Peyton was beginning to feel desperate. Characteristically the opposition had made him more determined than ever. Somehow he must discover how the Engineer was built. Otherwise he would waste all his life trying to match the genius of Thordarsen. It was useless. The robot was one jump ahead of him. 'You cannot make plans against me. If you do try to escape through that door, I shall throw this power unit at your legs. My probable error at this range is less than half a centimetre.' One could not hide from the thought analysers. The plan had been scarcely half-formed in Peyton's mind, but the Engineer knew it already. Both Peyton and the Engineer were equally surprised by the interruption. There was a sudden flash of tawny gold, and half a ton of bone and sinew, travelling at forty miles an hour, struck the robot amidships. For a moment there was a great flailing of tentacles. Then, with a sound like the crack of doom, the Engineer lay sprawling on the floor. Leo, licking his paws thoughtfully, crouched over the fallen machine. He could not quite understand this shining animal which had been threatening his master. Its skin was the toughest he had encountered since a very ill-advised disagreement with a rhinoceros many years ago. 'Good boy!' shouted Peyton gleefully. 'Keep him down!' The Engineer had broken some of his larger limbs, and the tentacles were too weak to do any damage. Once again Peyton found his tool kit invaluable. When he had finished, the Engineer was certainly incapable of movement, though Peyton had not touched any of the neutral circuits. That, somehow, would have been rather too much like murder. 'You can get off now, Leo,' he said when the task was finished. The lion obeyed with poor grace. T'm sorry to have to do this,' said Peyton hypocritically, 'but I hope you appreciate my point of view. Can you still speak?' 'Yes,' replied the Engineer. 'What do you intend to do now?' Peyton smiled. Five minutes ago, he had been the one to ask the question. How long, he wondered, would it take for the Engineer's twin to arrive on the scene? Though Leo could deal with the situation if it came to a trial of strength, the other robot would have been warned and might be able to make things very unpleasant for them. It could, for instance, switch off the lights. The glow tubes died and darkness fell. Leo gave a mournful howl of dismay. Feeling rather annoyed, Peyton drew his torch and twitched it on. 'It doesn't really make any difference to me/ he said. 'You might just as well switch them on again.' The Engineer said nothing. But the glow tubes lit once more. How on earth, thought Peyton, could you fight an enemy who could read your thoughts and could even watch you preparing your defences? He would have to avoid thinking of any idea that might react to his disadvantage, such as - he stopped himself just in time. For a moment he blocked his thoughts by trying to integrate Armstrong's omega function in his head. Then he got his mind under control again. 'Look,' he said at last, Til make a bargain with you.' 'What is that? I do not know the word.' 'Never mind,' Peyton replied hurriedly. 'My suggestion is this. Let me waken the men who are trapped here, give me your fundamental circuits, and I'll leave without touching anything. You will have obeyed your builders' orders and no harm will have been done.' A human being might have argued over the matter, but not so the robot. Its mind took perhaps a thousandth of a second to weigh any situation, however involved. 'Very well. I see from your mind that you intend to keep the agreement. But what does the word "blackmail" mean?' Peyton flushed. 'It doesn't matter,' he said hastily. 'It's only a common human expression. I suppose your - er - colleague will be here in a moment?' 'He has been waiting outside for some time,' replied the robot. 'Will you keep your dog under control?' Peyton laughed. It was too much to expect a robot to know zoology. 'Lion, then,' said the robot, correcting itself as it read his mind. Peyton addressed a few words to Leo and, to make doubly sure, wound his fingers in the lion's mane. Before he could frame the invitation with his lips, the second robot rolled silently into the room. Leo growled and tried to tug away, but Peyton calmed him. In every respect Engineer II was a duplicate of its colleague. Even as it came toward him it dipped into his mind in the disconcerting manner that Peyton could never get used to. 'I see that you wish to go to the dreamers,' it said. 'Follow me.' Peyton was tired of being ordered around. Why didn't the robots ever say 'please'? 'Follow me, please,' repeated the machine, with the slightest possible accentuation. Peyton followed. Once again he found himself in the corridor with the hundreds of poppy-embossed doors - or a similar corridor. The robot led him to a door indistinguishable from the rest and came to a halt in front of it. Silently the metal plate slid open, and, not without qualms, Peyton stepped into the darkened room. On the couch lay a very old man. At first sight he seemed to be dead. Certainly his breathing had slowed to the point of cessation. Peyton stared at him for a moment. Then he spoke to the robot. 'Waken him.' Somewhere in the depths of the city the stream of impulses through a thought projector ceased. A universe that had never existed crumbled to ruins. From the couch two burning eyes glowed up at Peyton, lit with the light of madness. They stared through him and beyond, and from the thin lips poured a stream of jumbled words that Peyton could barely distinguish. Over and over again the old man cried out names that must be those of people or places in the dream world from which he had been wrenched. It was at once horrible and pathetic. 'Stop it!' cried Peyton. 'You are back in reality now.' The glowing eyes seemed to see him for the first time. With an immense effort the old man raised himself. 'Who are you?' he quavered. Then, before Peyton could answer, he continued in a broken voice. 'This must be a nightmare - go away, go away. Let me wake up!' Overcoming his repulsion, Peyton put his hand on the emaciated shoulder. 'Don't worry - you are awake. Don't you remember?' The other did not seem to hear him. 'Yes, it must be a nightmare - it must be! But why don't I wake up? Nyran, Cressidor, where are you? I cannot find you!' Peyton stood it as long as he could, but nothing he did could attract the old man's attention again. Sick at heart, he turned to the robot. 'Send him back.' CHAPTER SEVEN The Third Renaissance Slowly the raving ceased. The frail body fell back on the couch, and once again the wrinkled face became a passionless mask. 'Are they all as mad as this?' asked Peyton finally. 'But he is not mad.' 'What do you mean? Of course he is!' 'He has been entranced for many years. Suppose you went to a far land and changed your mode of living completely, forgetting all you had ever known of your previous life. Eventually you would have no more knowledge of it than you have of your first childhood. 'If by some miracle you were then suddenly thrown back in time, you would behave in just that way. Remember, his dream life is completely real to him and he has lived it now for many years.' That was true enough. But how could the Engineer possess such insight? Peyton turned to it in amazement, but as usual had no need to frame the question. Thordarsen told me the other day while we were still building Comarre. Even then some of the dreamers had been entranced for twenty years.' The other day?' 'About five hundred years ago, you would call it.' The words brought a strange picture into Peyton's mind. He could visualise the lonely genius, working here among his robots, perhaps with no human companions left. All the others would long since have gone in search of their dreams. But Thordarsen might have stayed on, the desire for creation still linking him to the world, until he had finished his work. The two engineers, his greatest achievement and perhaps the most wonderful feat of electronics of which the world had record, were his ultimate masterpieces. The waste and the pity of it overwhelmed Peyton. More than ever he was determined that, because the embittered genius had thrown away his life, his work should not perish, but be given to the world. 'Will all the dreamers be like this?' he asked the robot. 'All except the newest. They may still remember their first lives.' 'Take me to one of them.' The room they entered next was identical with the other, but the body lying on the couch was that of a man of no more than forty. 'How long has he been here?' asked Peyton. 'He came only a few weeks ago - the first visitor we had for many years until your coming.' 'Wake him, please.' The eyes opened slowly. There was no insanity in them, only wonder and sadness. Then came the dawn of recollection, and the man half rose to a sitting position. His first words were completely rational. 'Why have you called me back? Who are you?' 'I have just escaped from the thought projectors/ explained Peyton. 'I want to release all who can be saved.' The other laughed bitterly. 'Saved! From what? It took me forty years to escape from the world, and now you would drag me back to it! Go away and leave me in peace!' Peyton would not retreat so easily. 'Do you think that this make-believe world of yours is better than reality? Have you no desire to escape from it at all?' Again the other laughed, with no trace of humor. 'Comarre is reality to me. The world never gave me anything, so why should I wish to return to it? I have found peace here, and that is all I need.' Quite suddenly Peyton turned on his heels and left. Behind him he heard the dreamer fall back with a contented sigh. He knew when he had been beaten. And he knew now why he had wished to revive the others. It had not been through any sense of duty, but for his own selfish purpose. He had wished to convince himself that Comarre was evil. Now he knew that it was not. There would always be, even in Utopia, some for whom the world had nothing to offer but sorrow and disillusion. They would be fewer and fewer with the passage of time. In the dark ages of a thousand years ago most of mankind had been misfits of some sort. However splendid the world's future, there would still be some tragedies - and why should Comarre be condemned because it offered them their only hope of peace? He would try no more experiments. His own robust faith and confidence had been severely shaken. And the dreamers of Comarre would not thank him for his pains. He turned to the Engineer again. The desire to leave the city had grown very intense in the last few minutes, but the most important work was still to be done. As usual, the robot forestalled him. T have what you went,' he said. 'Follow me, please.' It did not lead, as Peyton had half expected, back to the machine levels, with their maze of control equipment. When their journey had finished, they were higher than Peyton had ever been before, in a little circular room he suspected might be at the very apex of the city. There were no windows, unless the curious plates set in the wall could be made transparent by some secret means. It was a study, and Peyton gazed at it with awe as he realised who had worked here many centuries ago. The walls were lined with ancient textbooks that had not been disturbed for five hundred years. It seemed as if Thordarsen had left only a few hours before. There was even a half-finished circuit pinned on a drawing board against the wall. 'It almost looks as if he was interrupted,' said Peyton, half to himself. 'He was,' answered the robot. 'What do you mean? Didn't he join the others when he had finished you?' It was difficult to believe that there was absolutely no emotion behind the reply, but the words were spoken in the same passionless tones as everything else the robot had ever said. 'When he had finished us, Thordarsen was still not satisfied. He was not like the others. He often told us that he had found happiness in the building of Comarre. Again and again he said that he would join the rest, but always there was some last improvement he wanted to make. So it went on until one day we found him lying here in this room. He had stopped. The word I see in your mind is "death," but I have no thought for that.' Peyton was silent. It seemed to him that the great scientist's ending had not been an ignoble one. The bitterness that had darkened his life had lifted from it at the last. He had known the joy of creation. Of all the artists who had come to Comarre, he was the greatest. And now his work would not be wasted. The robot glided silently toward a steel desk, and one of its tentacles disappeared into a drawer. When it emerged it was holding a thick volume, bound between sheets of metal. Wordlessly it handed the book to Peyton, who opened it with trembling hands. It contained many thousands of pages of thin, very tough material. Written on the flyleaf in a bold, firm hand were the words: RolfThordarsen Notes on Subelectronics Begun: Day 2, Month 13, 2598. Underneath was more writing, very difficult to decipher and apparently scrawled in frantic haste. As he read, understanding came at last to Peyton with the suddenness of an equatorial dawn. To the reader of these words: I, Rolf Thordarsen, meeting no understanding in my own age, send this message into the future. If Comarre still exists, you will have seen my handiwork and must have escaped the snares I set for lesser minds. Therefore you are fitted to take this knowledge to the world. Give it to the scientists and tell them to use it wisely. I have broken down the barrier between Man and Machine. Now they must share the future equally. Peyton read the message several times, his heart warming toward his long-dead ancestor. It was a brilliant scheme. In this way, as perhaps in no other, Thordarsen had been able to send his message safely down the ages, knowing that only the right hands would receive it. Peyton wondered if this had been Thordarsen's plan when he first joined the Decadents or whether he had evolved it later in his life. He would never know. He looked again at the Engineer and thought of the world that would come when all robots had reached consciousness. Beyond that he looked still farther into the mists of the future. The robot need have none of the limitations of Man, none of his pitiful weaknesses. It would never let passions cloud its logic, would never be swayed by self-interest and ambition. It would be complementary to man. Peyton remembered Thordarsen's words, 'Now they must share the future equally.' Peyton stopped his daydream. All this, if it ever came, might be centuries in the future. He turned to the Engineer. 'I am ready to leave. But one day I shall return.' The robot backed slowly away from him. 'Stand perfectly still,' it ordered. Peyton looked at the Engineer in puzzlement. Then he glanced hurriedly at the ceiling. There again was that enigmatic bulge under which he had found himself when he first entered the city such an age ago. 'Hey!' he cried. 'I don't want—' It was too late. Behind him was the dark screen, blacker than night itself. Before him lay the clearing, with the forest at its edge. It was evening, and the sun was nearly touching the trees. There was a sudden whimpering noise behind him: a very frightened lion was looking out at the forest with unbelieving eyes. Leo had not enjoyed his transfer. 'It's all over now, old chap,' said Peyton reassuringly. 'You can't blame them for trying to get rid of us as quickly as they could. After all, we did smash up the place a bit between us. Come along - I don't want to spend the night in the forest.' On the other side of the world, a group of scientists was dispersing with what patience it could, not yet knowing the full extent of its triumph. In Central Tower, Richard Peyton II had just discovered that his son had not spent the last two days with his cousins in South America, and was composing a speech of welcome for the prodigal's return. Far above the Earth the World Council was laying down plans soon to be swept away by the coming of the Third Renaissance. But the cause of all the trouble knew nothing of this and, for the moment, cared less. Slowly Peyton descended the marble steps from that mysterious doorway whose secret was still hidden from him. Leo followed a little way behind, looking over his shoulder and growling quietly now and then. Together, they started back along the metal road, through the avenue of stunted trees. Peyton was glad that the sun had not yet set. At night this road would be glowing with its internal radioactivity, and the twisted trees would not look pleasant silhouetted against the stars. At the bend in the road he paused for a while and looked back at the curving metal wall with its single black opening whose appearance was so deceptive. All his feeling of triumph seemed to fade away. He knew that as long as he lived he could never forget what lay behind those towering walls - the cloying promise of peace and utter contentment. Deep in his soul he felt the fear that any satisfaction, any achievement the outer world could give might seem vain beside the effortless bliss offered by Comarre. For an instant he had a nightmare vision of himself, broken and old, returning along this road to seek oblivion. He shrugged his shoulders and put the thought aside. Once he was out on the plain his spirits rose swiftly. He opened the precious book again and ruffled through its pages of microprint, intoxicated by the promise that it held. Ages ago the slow caravans had come this way, bearing gold and ivory for Solomon the Wise. But all their treasure was as nothing beside this single volume, and all the wisdom of Solomon could not have pictured the new civilisation of which this volume was to be the seed. Presently Peyton began to sing, something he did very seldom and extremely badly. The song was a very old one, so old that it came from an age before atomic power, before interplanetary travel, even before the coming of flight. It had to do with a certain hairdresser in Seville, wherever Seville might be. Leo stood it in silence for as long as he could. Then he, too, joined in. The duet was not a success. When night descended, the forest and all its secrets had fallen below the horizon. With his face to the stars and Leo watching by his side, Peyton slept well. This time he did not dream. The Lion Of Comarre Author: Arthur C. Clarke Genre: science fiction First published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1949 Collected in The Lion of Comarre and Against the Fall of Night The Lion of Comarre was written at around the same time as Against the Fall of Night and shares the emotions of the longer work. Both involve a search, or quest, for unknown and mysterious goals. In each case, the real objectives are wonder and magic, rather than any material gain. And in each case, the hero is a young man dissatisfied with his environment.There are many such today, with good reason. To them I dedicate these words, written before they were born. |