The City and the Stars

by Arthur Charles Clarke

  «And just what is that part?» asked Alvin, still very much is the dark, and becoming a little exasperate.

  «Let us say that I introduce calculated amounts of disorder into the city. To explain my operations would be to destroy their effectiveness. Judge me by my deeds, though they are few, rather than my words, though they are many.»

  Alvin had never before met anyone quite like Khedron. The Jester was a real personality-a character who stood head and shoulders above the general level of uniformity which was typical of Diaspar. Though there seemed no hope of discovering precisely what his duties were and how he carried them out, that was of minor importance. All that mattered, Alvin sensed, was that here was someone to whom he could talk-when there was a gap in the monologue-and who might give him answers to many of the problems that had puzzled him for so long.

  They went back together down through the corridors of the Tower of Loranne, and emerged beside the deserted moving way. Not until they were once more in the streets did it occur to Alvin that Khedron had never asked him what he had been doing out here at the edge of the unknown. He suspected that Khedron knew, and was interested but not surprised. Something told him that it would be very difficult to surprise Khedron.

  They exchanged index numbers, so that they could call each other whenever they wished. Alvin was anxious to see more of the Jester, though he fancied that his company might prove exhausting if it was too prolonged. Before they met again, however, he wanted to find what his friends, and particularly Jeserac could tell him about Khedron.

  «Until our next meeting,» said Khedron, and promptly vanished. Alvin was somewhat annoyed. If you met anyone when you were merely projecting yourself, and were not present in the flesh, it was good manners to make that clear from the beginning. It could sometimes put the party who was ignorant of the facts at a considerable disadvantage. Probably Khedron had been quietly at home all the time wherever his home might be. The number that he had given Alvin would insure that any messages would reach him, but did not reveal where he lived. That at least was according to normal custom. You might be free enough with index numbers, but your actual address was something you disclosed only to your intimate friends.

  As he made his way back into the city, Alvin pondered over all that Khedron had told him about Diaspar and its social organization. It was strange that he had met no one else who had ever seemed dissatisfied with their mode of life. Diaspar and its inhabitants had been designed as part of one master plan; they formed a perfect symbiosis. Throughout their long lives, the people of the city were never bored. Though their world might be a tiny one by the standard of earlier ages, its complexity was overwhelming, its wealth of wonder and treasure beyond calculation. Here Man had gathered all the fruits of his genius, everything that had been saved from the ruin of the past. All the cities that had ever been, so it was said, had given something to Diaspar; before the coming of the Invaders, its name had been known on all the worlds that Man had lost. Into the building of Diaspar had gone all the skill, all the artistry of the Empire. When the great days were coming to an end, men of genius had remolded the city and given it the machines that made it immortal. Whatever might be forgotten, Diaspar would live and bear the descendants of Man safely down the stream of time.

  They had achieved nothing except survival, and were content with that. There were a million things to occupy their lives between the hour when they came, almost full-grown, from the Hall of Creation and the hour when, their bodies scarcely older, they returned to the Memory Banks of the city. In a world where all men and women possess an intelligence that would once have been the mark of genius, there can be no danger of boredom. The delights of conversation and argument, the intricate formalities of social intercourse these alone were enough to occupy a goodly portion of a lifetime. Beyond those were the great formal debates, when the whole city would listen entranced while its keenest minds met in combat or strove to scale those mountain peaks of philoso-phy which are never conquered yet whose challenge never palls.

  No man or woman was without some absorbing intellectual interest. Eriston, for example, spent much of his time in prolonged soliloquies with the Central Computer, which virtually ran the city, yet which had leisure for scores of simultaneous discussions with anyone who cared to match his wits against it. For three hundred years, Eriston had been trying to construct logical paradoxes which the machine could not resolve. He did not expect to make serious progress before he had used up several lifetimes.

  Etania’s interests were of a more esthetic nature. She designed and constructed, with the aid of the matter organi-zers, three-dimensional interlacing patterns of such beautiful complexity that they were really extremely advanced prob-lems in topology. Her work could be seen all over Diaspar, and some of her patterns had been incorporated in the floors of the great halls of choreography, where they were used as the basis for evolving new ballet creations and dance motifs.

  Such occupations might have seemed arid to those who did not possess the intellect to appreciate their subtleties. Yet there was no one in Diaspar who could not understand some-thing of what Eriston and Etania were trying to do and did not have some equally consuming interest of his own.

  Athletics and various sports, including many only rendered possible by the control of gravity, made pleasant the first few centuries of youth. For adventure and the exercise of the imagination, the sagas provided all that anyone could desire. They were the inevitable end product of that striving for realism which began when men started to reproduce moving images and to record sounds, and then to use these techniques to enact scenes from real or imaginary life. In the sagas, the illusion was perfect because all the sense impressions involved were fed directly into the mind and any conflicting sensations were diverted. The entranced spectator was cut off from reality as long as the adventure lasted; it was as if he lived a dream yet believed he was awake.

  In a world of order and stability, which in its broad out-lines had not changed for a billion years, it was perhaps not surprising to find an absorbing interest in games of chance. Humanity had always been fascinated by the mystery of the falling dice, the turn of a card, the spin of the pointer. At its lowest level, this interest was based on mere cupidity-and that was an emotion that could have no place in a world where everyone possessed all that they could reasonably need. Even when this motive was ruled out, however, the purely intellectual fascination of chance remained to seduce the most sophisticated minds. Machines that behaved in a purely ran-dom way-events whose outcome could never be predicted, no matter how much information one had-from these phi-losopher and gambler could derive equal enjoyment.

  And there still remained, for all men to share, the linked worlds of love and art. Linked, because love without art is merely the slaking of desire, and art cannot be enjoyed un-less it is approached with love.

  Men had sought beauty in many forms-in sequences of sound, in lines upon paper, in surfaces of stone, in the move-ments of the human body, in colors ranged through space. All these media still survived in Diaspar, and down the ages others had been added to them. No one was yet certain if all the possibilities of art had been discovered; or if it had any mean-ing outside the mind of man.

  And the same was true of love.

  Six

  Jeserac sat motionless within a whirlpool of numbers. The first thousand primes, expressed in the binary scale that had been used for all aritmetical operations since electronic computers were invented, marched in order before him. Endless ranks of 1’s and 0’s paraded past, bringing before Jeserac’s eyes the complete sequence of all those numbers that pos-sessed no factors except themselves and unity. There was a mystery about the primes that had always fascinated Man, and they held his imagination still.

  Jeserac was no mathematician, though sometimes he liked to believe he was. All he could do was to search among the infinite array of primes for special relationships and rules which more talented men might incorporate in general laws. He could find how numbe
rs behaved, but he could not ex-plain why. It was his pleasure to hack his way through the arithmetical jungle, and sometimes he discovered wonders that more skillful explorers had missed.

  He set up the matrix of all possible integers, and started his computer stringing the primes across its surface as beads might be arranged at the intersections of a mesh. Jeserac had done this a hundred times before, and it had never taught him anything. But he was fascinated by the way in which the numbers he was studying were scattered, apparently ac-cording to no laws, across the spectrum of the integers. He knew the laws of distribution that had already been dis-covered, but always hoped to discover more.

  He could scarcely complain about the interruption. If he had wished to remain undisturbed, he should have set his annunciator accordingly. As the gentle chime sounded in his ear, the wall of numbers shivered, the digits blurred together, and Jeserac returned to the world of mere reality.

  He recognized Khedron at once, and was none too pleased. Jeserac did not care to be disturbed from his ordered way of life, and Khedron represented the unpredictable. However, he greeted his visitor politely enough and concealed all trace of his mild concern.

  When two people met for the first time in Diaspar-or even for the hundredth-it was customary to spend an hour or so in an exchange of courtesies before getting down to business, if any. Khedron somewhat offended Jeserac by racing through these formalities in a mere fifteen minutes and then saying abruptly: «I’d like to talk to you about Alvin. You’re his tutor, I believe.»

  «That is true,» replied Jeserac. «I still see him several times a week-as often as he wishes.»

  «And would you say that he was an apt pupil?»

  Jeserac thought that over; it was a difficult question to answer. The pupil-tutor relationship was extremely important and was, indeed, one of the foundations of life in Diaspar. On the average, ten thousand new minds came into the city every year. Their previous memories were still latent, and for the first twenty years of their existence everything around them was fresh and strange. They had to be taught to use the myriad machines and devices that were the background of everyday life, and they had to learn their way through the most complex society Man had ever built.

  Part of this instruction came from the couples chosen to be the parents of the new citizens. The selection was by lot, and the duties were not onerous. Eriston and Etania had devoted no more than a third of their time to Alvin’s up-bringing, and they had done all that was expected of them.

  Jeserac’s duties were confined to the more formal aspects of Alvin’s education; it was assumed that his parents would teach him how to behave in society and introduce him to an ever-widening circle of friends. They were responsible for Alvin’s character, Jeserac for his mind.

  «I find it rather hard to answer your question,» Jeserac replied. «Certainly there is nothing wrong with Alvin’s intelligence, but many of the things that should concern him seem to be a matter of complete indifference. On the other hand, he shows a morbid curiosity regarding subjects which we do not generally discuss.»

  «The world outside Diaspar, for example?»

  «Yes-but how did you know?»

  Khedron hesitated for a moment, wondering how far he should take Jeserac into his confidence. He knew that Jeserac was kindly and well-intentioned, but he knew also that he must be bound by the same taboos that controlled every-one in Diaspar-everyone except Alvin.

  «I guessed it,» he said at last.

  Jeserac settled down more comfortably in the depths of the chair he had just materialized. This was an interesting situation, and he wanted to analyze it as fully as possible. There was not much he could learn, however, unless Khedron was willing to co-operate.

  He should have anticipated that Alvin would one day meet the Jester, with unpredictable consequences. Khedron was the only other person in the city who could be called eccentric-and even his eccentricity had been planned by the designers of Diaspar. Long ago it had been discovered that without some crime or disorder, Utopia soon became un-bearably dull. Crime, however, from the nature of things, could not be guaranteed to remain at the optimum level which the social equation demanded. If it was licensed and regulated, it ceased to be crime.

  The office of Jester was the solution-as first sight naive, yet actually profoundly subtle which the city’s designers had evolved. In all the history of Diaspar there were less than two hundred persons whose mental inheritance fitted them for this peculiar role. They had certain privileges that protected them from the consequences of their actions, though there had been Jesters who had overstepped the mark and paid the only penalty that Diaspar could impose-that of being banished into the future before their current incarnation had ended.

  On rare and unforeseeable occasions, the Jester would turn the city upside-down by some prank which might be no more than an elaborate practical joke, or which might be a calculated assault on some currently cherished belief or way of life. All things considered, the name «Jester» was a highly appropriate one. There had once been men with very similar duties, operating with the same license, in the days when there were courts and kings.

  «It will help,» said Jeserac, «if we are frank with one another. We both know that Alvin is a Unique that he has never experienced any earlier life in Diaspar. Perhaps you can guess, better than I can, the implications of that. I doubt if anything that happens in the city is totally unplanned, so there must be a purpose in his creation. Whether he will achieve that purpose-whatever it is-I do not know. Nor do I know whether it is good or bad. I cannot guess what it is.»

  «Suppose it concerns something external to the city?»

  Jeserac smiled patiently; the Jester was having his little joke, as was only to be expected.

  «I have told him what lies there; he knows that there is nothing outside Diaspar except the desert. Take him there if you can; perhaps you know a way. When he sees the reality, it may cure the strangeness in his mind.»

  «I think be has already seen it,» said Khedron softly. But he said it to himself, and not to Jeserac.

  «I do not believe that Alvin is happy,» Jeserac continued. «He has formed no real attachments, and it is hard to see how he can while he still suffers from this obsession. But after all, he is very young. He may grow out of this phase, and become part of the pattern of the city.»

  Jeserac was talking to reassure himself; Khedron wondered if he really believed what he was saying.

  «Tell me, Jeserac,» asked Khedron abruptly, «does Alvin know that be is not the first Unique?»

  Jeserac looked startled, then a little defiant.

  «I might have guessed,» he said ruefully, «that you would know that. How many Uniques have there been in the whole history of Diaspar? As many as ten?»

  «Fourteen,» answered Khedron without hesitation. «Not counting Alvin.»

  «You have better information than I can command,» said Jeserac wryly. «Perhaps you can tell me what happened to those Uniques?»

  «They disappeared.»

  «Thank you: I knew that already. That is why I have told Alvin as little as possible about his predecessors: it would hardly help him in his present mood. Can I rely on your co-operation?»

  «For the moment-yes. I want to study him myself; mysteries have always intrigued me, and there are too few in Diaspar. Besides, I think that Fate may be arranging a jest beside which all my efforts will look very modest indeed. In that case, I want to make sure that I am present at its climax.»

  «You are rather too fond of talking in riddles,» complained Jeserac. «Exactly what are you anticipating?»

  «I doubt if my guesses will be any better than yours. But I believe this-neither you nor I nor anyone in Diaspar will be able to stop Alvin when he has decided what he wants to do. We have a very interesting few centuries ahead of us.»

  Jeserac sat motionless for a long time, his mathematics forgotten, after the image of Khedron had faded from sight. A sense of foreboding, the like of which he had never kn
own before, hung heavily upon him. For a fleeting moment he wondered if be should request an audience with the Council -but would that not be making a ridiculous fuss about noth-ing? Perhaps the whole affair was some complicated and ob-scure jest of Khedron’s, though he could not imagine why he had been chosen to be its butt.

  He thought the matter over carefully, examining the prob-lem from every angle. After little more than an hour, he made a characteristic decision.

  He would wait and see.

  Alvin wasted no time learning all that he could about Khedron. Jeserac, as usual, was his main source of information. The old tutor gave a carefully factual account of his meeting with the Jester, and added what little he knew about the other’s mode of life. Insofar as such a thing was possible in Diaspar, Khedron was a recluse: no one knew where he lived or anything about his way of life. The last jest he had contrived had been a rather childish prank involving a general paralysis of the moving ways. That had been fifty years ago; a century earlier he had let loose a particularly revolting dragon which had wandered around the city eating every existing specimen of the works of the currently most popular sculptor. The artist himself, justifiably alarmed when the beast’s single-minded diet became obvious, had gone into hiding and not emerged until the monster had vanished as mysteriously as it had appeared.

  One thing was obvious from these accounts. Khedron must have a profound understanding of the machines and powers that ruled the city, and could make them obey his will in ways which no one else could do. Presumably there must be some overriding control which prevented any too-ambitious Jester from causing permanent and irreparable damage to the complex structure of Diaspar.

  Alvin filed all this information away, but made no move to contact Khedron. Though he had many questions to ask the Jester, his stubborn streak of independence-perhaps the most truly unique of all his qualities-made him determined to discover all he could by his own unaided efforts. He had embarked on a project that might keep him busy for years, but as long as he felt that he was moving toward his goal he was happy.