Aretenon was waiting for them on the far bank. He moved rather slowly now, but his eyes were still bright with the old, eager intelligence. He greeted Eris warmly.
‘I’m glad you could come now. You’re just in time.’
That, Eris knew, could mean only one thing.
‘The ships are back?’
‘Almost: they were sighted an hour ago, out on the horizon. They should be here at any moment, and then we shall know the truth at last, after all these years. If only—’
His thoughts faded out, but Eris could continue them. They had come to the great pyramid of stones beneath which Therodimus lay—Therodimus, whose brain was behind everything they saw, but who could never learn now if his most cherished dream was true or not.
There was a storm coming up from the ocean, and they hurried along the new road that skirted the river’s edge. Small boats of a kind that Eris had not seen before went past them occasionally, operated by Atheleni or Mithraneans with wooden paddles strapped to their forelimbs. It always gave Eris great pleasure to see such new conquests, such new liberations of his people from their age-old chains. Yet sometimes they reminded him of children who had suddenly been let loose into a wonderful new world, full of exciting and interesting things that must be done, whether they were likely to be useful or not. However, anything that promised to make his race into better sailors was more than useful. In the last decade Eris had discovered that pure intelligence was sometimes not enough: there were skills that could not be acquired by any amount of mental effort. Though his people had largely overcome their fear of water, they were still quite incompetent on the ocean, and the Phileni had therefore become the first navigators of the world.
Jeryl looked nervously around her as the first peal of thunder came rolling in from the sea. She was still wearing the necklace that Therodimus had given her so long ago: but it was by no means the only ornament she carried now.
‘I hope the ships will be safe,’ she said anxiously.
‘There’s not much wind, and they will have ridden out much worse storms than this,’ Aretenon reassured her, as they entered his cave. Eris and Jeryl looked round with eager interest to see what new wonders the Phileni had made during their absence: but if there were any they had, as usual, been hidden away until Aretenon was ready to show them. He was still rather childishly fond of such little surprises and mysteries.
There was an air of absentmindedness about the meeting that would have puzzled an onlooker ignorant of its cause. As Eris talked of all the changes in the outer world, of the success of the new Phileni settlements, and of the steady growth of agriculture among his people, Aretenon listened with only half his mind. His thoughts, and those of his friends, were far out at sea, meeting the oncoming ships which might be bringing the greatest news their world had ever received.
As Eris finished his report, Aretenon rose to his feet and began to move restlessly around the chamber.
‘You have done better than we dared to hope at the beginning. At least there has been no war for a generation, and our food supply is ahead of the population for the first time in history—thanks to our new agricultural techniques.’
Aretenon glanced at the furnishings of his chamber, recalling with an effort the fact that in his own youth almost everything he saw would have appeared impossible or even meaningless to him. Not even the simplest of tools had existed then, at least in the knowledge of his people. Now there were ships and bridges and houses—and these were only the beginning.
‘I am well satisfied,’ he said. ‘We have, as we planned, diverted the whole stream of our culture, turning it away from the dangers that lay ahead. The powers that made the Madness possible will soon be forgotten: only a handful of us still know of them, and we will take our secrets with us. Perhaps when our descendants rediscover them they will be wise enough to use them properly. But we have uncovered so many new wonders that it may be a thousand generations before we turn again to look into our own minds and to tamper with the forces locked within them.’
The mouth of the cave was illuminated by a sudden flash of lightning. The storm was coming nearer, though it was still some miles away. Rain was beginning to fall in large, angry drops from the leaden sky.
‘While we’re waiting for the ships,’ said Aretenon rather abruptly, ‘come into the next cave and see some of the new things we have to show you since your last visit.’
It was a strange collection. Side by side on the same bench were tools and inventions which in other cultures had been separated by thousands of years of time. The Stone Age was past: bronze and iron had come, and already the first crude scientific instruments had been built for experiments that were driving back the frontiers of the unknown. A primitive retort spoke of the beginnings of chemistry, and by its side were the first lenses the world had seen—waiting to reveal the unsuspected universes of the infinitely small and the infinitely great.
The storm was upon them as Aretenon’s description of these new wonders drew to its close. From time to time he had glanced nervously at the mouth of the cave, as if awaiting a messenger from the harbour, but they had remained undisturbed save by the occasional crash of thunder.
‘I’ve shown you everything of importance,’ he said, ‘but here’s something that may amuse you while we’re waiting. As I said, we’ve sent expeditions everywhere to collect and classify all the rocks they can, in the hope of finding useful minerals. One of them brought back this.’
He extinguished the lights and the cave became completely dark.
‘It will be some time before your eyes grow sensitive enough to see it,’ Aretenon warned. ‘Just look over there in that corner.’
Eris strained his eyes into the darkness. At first he could see nothing: then, slowly, a glimmering blue light became faintly visible. It was so vague and diffuse that he could not focus his eyes upon it, and he automatically moved forward.
‘I shouldn’t go too near,’ advised Aretenon. ‘It seems to be a perfectly ordinary mineral, but the Phileni who found it and carried it here got some very strange burns from handling it. Yet it’s quite cold to the touch. One day we’ll learn its secret: but I don’t suppose it’s anything at all important.’
A vast curtain of sheet lightning split the sky, and for a moment the reflected glare lit up the cave, pinning weird shadows against the walls. At the same moment one of the Phileni staggered into the entrance and called something to Aretenon in its thin, reedy voice. He gave a great shout of triumph, as one of his ancestors might have done on some ancient battlefield: then his thoughts came crashing into Eris’s mind.
‘Land! They’ve found land—a whole new continent waiting for us!’
Eris felt the sense of triumph and victory well up within him like water bursting from a spring. Clear ahead now into the future lay the new, the glorious road along which their children would travel, mastering the world and all its secrets as they went. The vision of Therodimus was at last sharp and brilliant before his eyes.
He felt for the mind of Jeryl, so that she could share his joy—and found that it was closed to him. Leaning toward her in the darkness, he could sense that she was still staring into the depths of the cave, as if she had never heard the wonderful news, and could not tear her eyes away from that enigmatic glow.
Out of the night came the roar of the belated thunder as it raced across the sky. Eris felt Jeryl tremble beside him, and sent out his thoughts to comfort her.
‘Don’t let the thunder frighten you,’ he said gently. ‘What is there to fear now?’
‘I do not know,’ replied Jeryl. ‘I am frightened—but not of the thunder. Oh, Eris, it is a wonderful thing we have done, and I wish Therodimus could be here to see it. But where will it lead in the end—this new road of ours?’
Out of the past, the words that Aretenon had once spoken had risen up to haunt her. She remembered their walk by the river, long ago, when he had talked of his hopes and had said: ‘Certainly nothing we can learn from Nature will e
ver be as great a threat as the peril we have encountered in our own minds.’ Now the words seemed to mock her and to cast a shadow over the golden future: but why, she could not say.
Alone, perhaps, of all the races in the Universe, her people had reached the second cross-roads—and had never passed the first. Now they must go along the road that they had missed, and must face the challenge at its end—the challenge from which, this time, they could not escape.
In the darkness, the faint glow of dying atoms burned unwavering in the rock. It would still be burning there, scarcely dimmed, when Jeryl and Eris had been dust for centuries. It would be only a little fainter when the civilisation they were building had at last unlocked its secrets.
Superiority
First published in The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy, August 1951
Collected in Expedition to Earth
‘Superiority’ was inspired—if that is not too pretentious a word—by the German V2 rocket programme. With 20/20 hindsight, it is now clear that the Third Reich’s attempts to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile, which was too late to have any major influence on World War II, sapped its resources and contributed to the Allied victory.
Soon after publication ‘Superiority’ was inserted into the Engineering curriculum of MIT—to warn the graduates that the Better is often the enemy of the Good—and the Best can be the enemy of both, as it is always too late.
And I must confess that the two characters in this little squib were based on Dr Wernher von Braun and General Walter Dornberger, both of whom later became good friends. To put the record straight, may I say that Wernher was nothing like the Dr Strangelove image many people have of him: he had a wonderful sense of humour and was greatly liked by all those who worked under him—Germans and Americans.
In making this statement—which I do of my own free will—I wish to make it perfectly clear that I am not in any way trying to gain sympathy, nor do I expect any mitigation of whatever sentence the Court may pronounce. I am writing this in an attempt to refute some of the lying reports published in the papers I have been allowed to see and broadcast over the prison radio. These have given an entirely false picture of the true cause of our defeat, and as the leader of my race’s armed forces at the cessation of hostilities I feel it my duty to protest against such libels upon those who served under me.
I also hope that this statement may explain the reasons for the application I have twice made to the Court, and will now induce it to grant a favour for which I can see no possible grounds of refusal.
The ultimate cause of our failure was a simple one: despite all statements to the contrary, it was not due to lack of bravery on the part of our men, or to any fault of the Fleet’s. We were defeated by one thing only—by the inferior science of our enemies. I repeat—by the inferior science of our enemies.
When the war opened we had no doubts of our ultimate victory. The combined fleets of our allies greatly exceeded in number and armament those which the enemy could muster against us, and in almost all branches of military science we were their superiors. We were sure that we could maintain this superiority. Our belief proved, alas, to be only too well founded.
At the opening of the war our main weapons were the long-range homing torpedo, dirigible ball-lightning and the various modifications of the Klydon beam. Every unit of the Fleet was equipped with these and though the enemy possessed similar weapons their installations were generally of lesser power. Moreover, we had behind us a far greater military Research Organization, and with this initial advantage we could not possibly lose.
The campaign proceeded according to plan until the Battle of the Five Suns. We won this, of course, but the opposition proved stronger than we had expected. It was realized that victory might be more difficult, and more delayed, than had first been imagined. A conference of supreme commanders was therefore called to discuss our future strategy.
Present for the first time at one of our war conferences was Professor-General Norden, the new Chief of the Research Staff, who had just been appointed to fill the gap left by the death of Malvar, our greatest scientist. Malvar’s leadership had been responsible, more than any other single factor, for the efficiency and power of our weapons. His loss was a very serious blow, but no one doubted the brilliance of his successor—though many of us disputed the wisdom of appointing a theoretical scientist to fill a post of such vital importance. But we had been overruled.
I can well remember the impression Norden made at that conference. The military advisers were worried, and as usual turned to the scientists for help. Would it be possible to improve our existing weapons, they asked, so that our present advantage could be increased still further?
Norden’s reply was quite unexpected. Malvar had often been asked such a question—and he had always done what we requested.
“Frankly, gentlemen,” said Norden, “I doubt it. Our existing weapons have practically reached finality. I don’t wish to criticize my predecessor, or the excellent work done by the Research Staff in the last few generations, but do you realize that there has been no basic change in armaments for over a century? It is, I am afraid, the result of a tradition that has become conservative. For too long, the Research Staff has devoted itself to perfecting old weapons instead of developing new ones. It is fortunate for us that our opponents have been no wiser: we cannot assume that this will always be so.”
Norden’s words left an uncomfortable impression, as he had no doubt intended. He quickly pressed home the attack.
“What we want are new weapons—weapons totally different from any that have been employed before. Such weapons can be made: it will take time, of course, but since assuming charge I have replaced some of the older scientists by young men and have directed research into several unexplored fields, which show great promise. I believe, in fact, that a revolution in warfare may soon be upon us.”
We were skeptical. There was a bombastic tone in Norden’s voice that made us suspicious of his claims. We did not know, then, that he never promised anything that he had not already perfected in the laboratory. In the laboratory—that was the operative phrase.
Norden proved his case less than a month later, when he demonstrated the Sphere of Annihilation, which produced complete disintegration of matter over a radius of several hundred meters. We were intoxicated by the power of the new weapon, and were quite prepared to overlook one fundamental defect—the fact that it was a sphere and hence destroyed its rather complicated generating equipment at the instant of formation. This meant, of course, that it could not be used on warships but only on guided missiles, and a great programme was started to convert all homing torpedoes to carry the new weapon. For the time being all further offensives were suspended.
We realise now that this was our first mistake. I still think that it was a natural one, for it seemed to us then that all our existing weapons had become obsolete overnight, and we already regarded them almost as primitive survivals. What we did not appreciate was the magnitude of the task we were attempting and the length of time it would take to get the revolutionary super-weapon into battle. Nothing like this had happened for a hundred years, and we had no previous experience to guide us.
The conversion problem proved far more difficult than anticipated. A new class of torpedo had to be designed, as the standard model was too small. This meant in turn that only the larger ships could launch the weapon, but we were prepared to accept this penalty. After six months, the heavy units of the Fleet were being equipped with the Sphere. Training manoeuvres and tests had shown that it was operating satisfactorily, and we were ready to take it into action. Norden was already being hailed as the architect of victory, and had half-promised even more spectacular weapons.
Then two things happened. One of our battleships disappeared completely on a training flight, and an investigation showed that under certain conditions the ship’s long-range radar could trigger the Sphere immediately after it had been launched. The modification neede
d to overcome this defect was trivial, but it caused a delay of another month and was the source of much bad feeling between the naval staff and the scientists. We were ready for action again—when Norden announced that the radius of effectiveness of the Sphere had now been increased by ten, thus multiplying by a thousand the chances of destroying an enemy ship.
So the modifications started all over again, but everyone agreed that the delay would be worth it. Meanwhile, however, the enemy had been emboldened by the absence of further attacks and had made an unexpected onslaught. Our ships were short of torpedoes, since none had been coming from the factories, and were forced to retire. So we lost the systems of Kyrane and Floranus, and the planetary fortress of Rhamsandron.
It was an annoying but not a serious blow, for the recaptured systems had been unfriendly and difficult to administer. We had no doubt that we could restore the position in the near future, as soon as the new weapon became operational.
These hopes were only partially fulfilled. When we renewed our offensive, we had to do so with fewer of the Spheres of Annihilation than had been planned, and this was one reason for our limited success. The other reason was more serious.
While we had been equipping as many of our ships as we could with the irresistible weapon, the enemy had been building feverishly. His ships were of the old pattern, with the old weapons—but they outnumbered ours. When we went into action, we found that the numbers ranged against us were often 100 per cent greater than expected, causing target confusion among the automatic weapons and resulting in higher losses than anticipated. The enemy losses were higher still, for once a Sphere had reached its objective, destruction was certain, but the balance had not swung as far in our favour as we had hoped.
Moreover, while the main fleets had been engaged, the enemy had launched a daring attack on the lightly held systems of Eriston, Duranus, Carmanidor and Pharanidon—recapturing them all. We were thus faced with a threat only fifty light-years from our home planets.
The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke Page 15