Childhood's End

by Arthur C. Clarke

  “We’re ruled by a Council of eight directors, representing Production, Power, Social Engineering, Art, Economics, Science, Sport, and Philosophy. There’s no permanent chairman or president. The chair’s held by each of the directors in rotation for a year at a time.

  “Our present population is just over fifty thousand, which is a little short of the desired optimum. That’s why we keep our eyes open for recruits. And, of course, there is a certain wastage; we’re not yet quite self-supporting in some of the more… specialised talents.

  “Here on this island we’re trying to save something of humanity’s independence, its artistic traditions. We’ve no hostility towards the Overlords; we simply want to be left alone to go our own way. When they destroyed the old nations and the way of life Man had known since the beginning of history, they swept away many good things with the bad. The world’s now placid, featureless and culturally dead; nothing really new has been created since the Overlords came. The reason’s obvious. There’s nothing left to struggle for, and there are too many distractions and entertainments. Do you realise that every day something like five hundred hours of radio and TV pour out over the various channels? If you went without sleep and did nothing else, you could follow less than a twentieth of the entertainment that’s available at the turn of a switch! No wonder that people are becoming passive sponges — absorbing but never creating. Did you know that the average viewing time per person is now three hours a day?

  “Soon people won’t be living their own lives any more. It will be a full-time job keeping up with the various family serials on TV!

  “Here, in Athens, entertainment takes its proper place. Moreover, it’s live, not canned. In a community this size it is possible to have almost complete audience participation, with all that that means to the performers and artists. Incidentally we’ve got a very fine symphony orchestra — probably among the world’s half-dozen best.

  “But I don’t want you to take my word for all this. What usually happens is that prospective citizens stay here a few days, getting the feel of the place. If they decide they’d like to join us, then we let them take the battery of psychological tests which are really our main line of defence. About a third of the applicants are rejected, usually for reasons which don’t reflect on them and which wouldn’t matter outside. Those who pass go home long enough to settle their affairs, and then rejoin us. Sometimes, they change their minds at this stage, but that’s very unusual and almost invariably through personal reasons outside their control. Our tests are practically a hundred-per-cent reliable now; the people they pass are the people who really want to come.”

  “Suppose anyone changed their mind later?” asked Jean anxiously.

  “Then they could leave. There’d be no difficulty. It’s happened once or twice.”

  There was a long silence. Jean looked at George, who was rubbing thoughtfully at the side-whiskers currently popular in artistic circles. As long as they weren’t burning their boats behind them, she was not unduly worried. The colony looked an interesting place, and certainly wasn’t as cranky as she’d feared. And the children would love it. That, in the final analysis, was all that mattered.

  * * *

  They moved in six weeks later. The single-storied house was small, but quite adequate for a family which had no intention of being greater than four. All the basic labour-saving devices were in evidence; at least, Jean admitted, there was no danger of reverting to the dark ages of domestic drudgery. It was slightly disturbing, however, to discover that there was a kitchen. In a community of this size, one would normally expect to dial Food Central, wait five minutes, and then get whatever meal they had selected. Individuality was all very well, but this, Jean feared, might be taking things a little too far. She wondered darkly if she would be expected to make the family’s clothes as well as to prepare its meals. But there was no spinning-wheel between the automatic dish-washer and the radar range, so it wasn’t quite as bad as that…

  Of course, the rest of the house still looked very bare and raw. They were its first occupants, and it would be some time before all this aseptic newness had been converted into a warm, human home, The children, doubtless, would catalyse the process rather effectively. There was already (though Jean did not know it yet) an unfortunate victim of Jeffrey’s expiring in the bath, as a result of that young man’s ignorance of the fundamental difference between fresh and salt water.

  Jean moved to the still uncurtained window and looked across the colony. It was a beautiful place, there was no doubt of that. The house stood on the western slopes of the low bill that dominated, because of the absence of any other competition, the island of Athens. Two kilometres to the north she could see the causeway — a thin knife-edge dividing the water — that led to Sparta. That rocky island, with its brooding volcanic cone, was such a contrast to this peaceful spot that it sometimes frightened her. She wondered how, the scientists could be so certain that it would never reawaken and overwhelm them all.

  A wavering figure coming up the slope, keeping carefully to the palm-trees’ shade in defiance of the rule of the road, attracted her eye. George was returning from his first conference. It was time to stop day-dreaming and get busy about the house.

  A metallic crash announced the arrival of George’s bicycle.

  Jean wondered how long it was going to take them both to learn to ride. This was yet another unexpected aspect of life on the island. Private cars were not permitted, and indeed were unnecessary, since the greatest distance one could travel in a straight line was less than fifteen kilometres. There were various community-owned service vehicles — trucks, ambulances, and fire-engines, all restricted, except in cases of real emergency, to fifty kilometres an hour. As a result the inhabitants of Athens had plenty of exercise, uncongested streets — and no traffic accidents.

  George gave his wife a perfunctory peck and collapsed with a sigh of relief into the nearest chair.

  “Phew!” he said, mopping his brow. “Everyone raced past me on the way up the hill, so I suppose people do get used it. I think I’ve lost ten kilograms already.”

  “What sort of day did you have?” asked Jean dutifully. She hoped George would not be too exhausted to help with the unpacking.

  “Very stimulating. Of course I can’t remember half the people I met, but they all seemed very pleasant. And the theatre is just as good as I’d hoped. We’re starting work next week on Shaw’s Back to Methuselah. I’ll be in complete charge of sets and stage design. It’ll make a change, not having a dozen people to tell me what I can’t do. Yes, I think we’re going to like it here.”

  “Despite the bicycles?”

  George summoned up enough energy to grin.

  “Yes,” he said. “In a couple of weeks I won’t even notice this little hill of ours.”

  He didn’t really believe it — but it was perfectly true. It was another month, however, before Jean ceased to pine for the car, and discovered all the things one could do with one’s own kitchen.

  New Athens was not a natural and spontaneous growth like the city whose name it bore. Everything about the colony was deliberately planned, as the result of many years of study by a group of very remarkable men. It had begun as an open conspiracy against the Overlords, an implicit challenge to their policy if not to their power. At first the colony’s sponsors had been more than half certain that Karellen would neatly frustrate them, but the Supervisor had done nothing — absolutely nothing. This was not quite as reassuring as might have been expected. Karellen had plenty of time; he might be preparing a delayed counter-stroke. Or he might be so certain of the project’s failure that he felt no need to take any action against it.

  That the colony would fail had been the prediction of most people. Yet even in the past, long before any real knowledge of social dynamics had existed, there had been many communities devoted to special religious or philosophical ends. It was true that their mortality rate had been high, but some had survived. And the foundations of Ne
w Athens were as secure as modern science could make them.

  There were many reasons for choosing an island site. Not the least important were psychological. In an age of universal air transport, the ocean meant nothing as a physical barrier, but it still gave a sense of isolation. Moreover, a limited land area made it impossible for too many people to live in a colony. The maximum population was fixed at a hundred thousand; more than that, and the advantages inherent in a small, compact community would be lost. One of the aims of the founders was that any member of New Athens should know all the other citizens who shared his interests — and as many as one or two per cent of the remainder as well.

  The man who had been the driving force behind New Athens was a Jew. And, like Moses, he had never lived to enter his promised land, for the colony had been founded three years after his death.

  He had been born in Israel, the last independent nation ever to come into existence — and, therefore, the shortest lived. The end of national sovereignty had been felt here perhaps more bitterly than anywhere else, for it is hard to lose a dream which one has just achieved after centuries of striving.

  Ben Salomon was no fanatic, but the memories of his childhood must have determined, to no small extent, the philosophy he was to put into practice. He could just remember what the world had been before the advent of the Overlords, and had no wish to return to it. Like not a few other intelligent and well-meaning men, he could appreciate all that Karellen had done for the human race, while still being unhappy about the Supervisor’s ultimate plans. Was it possible, he sometimes said to himself, that despite all their enormous intelligence the Overlords did not really understand mankind, and were making a terrible mistake from the best of motives? Suppose, in their altruistic passion for justice and order, they had determined to reform the world, but had not realised that they were destroying the soul of man?

  The decline had barely started, yet the first symptoms of decay were not hard to discover. Salomon was no artist, but he had an acute appreciation of art and knew that his age could not match the achievements of previous centuries in any single field. Perhaps matters would right themselves in due course, when the shock of encountering the Overlord civilisation had worn off. But it might not, and a prudent man would consider taking out an insurance policy.

  New Athens was that policy. Its establishment had taken twenty years and some billions of Pounds Decimal — a relatively trivial fraction, therefore, of the world’s total wealth. Nothing had happened for the first fifteen years; everything had happened in the last five.

  Salomon’s task would have been impossible had he not been able to convince a handful of the world’s most famous artists that his plan was sound. They had sympathised because it appealed to their egos, not because it was important for the race. But, once convinced, the world had listened to them and given both moral and material support. Behind this spectacular façade of temperamental talent the real architects of the colony had laid their plans.

  A society consists of human beings whose behaviour as individuals is unpredictable. But if one takes enough of the basic units, then certain laws begin to appear — as was discovered long ago by life-insurance companies. No one can tell what individuals will die in a given time — yet the total number of deaths can be predicted with considerable accuracy.

  There are other, subtler laws, first glimpsed in the early twentieth century by mathematicians such as Weiner and Rashavesky. They had argued that such events as economic depressions, the results of armament races, the stability of social groups, political elections, and so on could be analysed by the correct mathematical techniques. The great difficulty was the enormous number of variables, many of them hard to define in numerical terms. One could not draw a set of curves and state definitely; “When this line is reached, it will mean war.” And one could never wholly allow for such utterly unpredictable events as the assassination of a key figure or the effects of some new scientific discovery — still less such natural catastrophes as earthquakes or floods, which might have a profound effect on large numbers of people and the social groups in which they lived.

  Yet one could do much, thanks to the knowledge patiently accumulated during the past hundred years. The task would have been impossible without the aid of the giant computing machines that could perform the work of a thousand human calculators in a matter of seconds. Such aids had been used to the utmost when the colony was planned.

  Even so, the founders of New Athens could only provide the soil and the climate in which the plant they wished to cherish might — or might not — come to flower. As Salomon himself had remarked; “We can be sure of talent; we can only pray for genius.” But it was a reasonable hope that in such a concentrated society some interesting reactions would take place. Few artists thrive in solitude, and nothing is more stimulating than the conflict of minds with similar interests.

  So far, the conflict had produced worthwhile results in sculpture, music, literary criticism and film-making. It was still too early to see if the group working on historical research would fulfil the hopes of its instigators, who were frankly aiming at restoring mankind’s pride in its own achievements. Painting still languished, which supported the view of those who considered that static, two-dimensional forms of art had no further possibilities.

  It was noticeable — though a satisfactory explanation for this had not yet been produced — that time played an essential part in the colony’s most successful artistic achievements. Even its sculpture was seldom immobile. Andrew Carson’s intriguing volumes and curves changed slowly as one watched, according to complex patterns that the mind could appreciate, even if it could not fully comprehend them. Indeed, Carson claimed, with some truth, to have taken the “mobiles” of a century before to their ultimate conclusion, and thus to have wedded sculpture and ballet.

  Much of the colony’s musical experimenting was, quite consciously, concerned with what might be called “time span”. What was the briefest note that the mind could grasp — or the longest that it could tolerate without boredom? Could the result be varied by conditioning or by the use of appropriate orchestration? Such problems were discussed endlessly, and the arguments were not purely academic. They had resulted in some extremely interesting compositions.

  But it was in the art of the cartoon film, with its limitless possibilities, that New Athens had made its most successful experiments. The hundred years since the time of Disney had still left much undone in this most flexible of all mediums. On the purely realistic side, results could be produced indistinguishable from actual photography — much to the contempt of those who were developing the cartoon along abstract lines.

  The group of artists and scientists that had so far done least was the one that had attracted the greatest interest — and the greatest alarm. This was the team working on “total identification”. The history of the cinema gave the clue to their actions. First, sound, then colour, then stereoscopy, then Cinerama, had made the old “moving pictures” more and more like reality itself. Where was the end of the story? Surely, the final stage would be reached when the audience forgot it was an audience, and became part of the action. To achieve this would involve stimulation of all the senses, and perhaps hypnosis as well, but many believed it to be practical. When the goal was attained, there would be an enormous enrichment of human experience. A man could become — for a while, at least — any other person, and could take part in any conceivable adventure, real or imaginary. He could even be plant or animal, if it proved possible to capture and record the sense impressions of other living creatures. And when the “programme” was over, he would have acquired a memory as vivid as any experience in his actual life — indeed, indistinguishable from reality itself.

  The prospect was dazzling. Many also found it terrifying, and hoped that the enterprise would fail. But they knew in their hearts that once science had declared a thing possible, there was no escape from its eventual realisation…

  This, then, was New Athens and so
me of its dreams. It hoped to become what the old Athens might have been had it possessed machines instead of slaves, science instead of superstition. But it was much too early yet to tell if the experiment would succeed.

  Chapter 16

  Jeffrey Greggson was one islander who, as yet, had no interest in aesthetics or science, the two main preoccupations of his elders. But he heartily approved of the colony, for purely personal reasons. The sea, never more than a few kilometres away in any direction, fascinated him. Most of his short life had been spent far inland, and he was not yet accustomed to the novelty of being surrounded by water. He was a good swimmer, and would often cycle off with other young friends, carrying his fins and mask, to go exploring the shallower water of the lagoon. At first Jean was not very happy about this, but after she had made a few dives herself; she lost her fear of the sea and its strange creatures and let Jeffrey enjoy himself as he pleased — on condition that he never swam alone.

  The other member of the Greggson household who approved of the change was Fey, the beautiful golden retriever who nominally belonged to George, but could seldom be detached from Jeffrey. The two were inseparable, both by day and — if Jean had not put her foot down — by night. Only when Jeffrey went off on his bicycle did Fey remain at home, lying listlessly in front of the door and staring down the road with moist, mournful eyes, her muzzle resting on her paws.

  This was rather mortifying to George, who had paid a stiff price for Fey and her pedigree. It looked as if he would have to wait for the next generation — due in three months — before he could have a dog of his own. Jean had other views on the subject. She liked Fey, but felt that one hound per house was quite sufficient.

  Only Jennifer Anne had not yet decided whether she liked the colony. That, however, was hardly surprising, for she had so far seen nothing of the world beyond the plastic panels of her cot, and had, as yet, very little suspicion that such a place existed.