Arthur C Clarke - City And The Stars

by The City

  Diaspar saw little of alvin for the next few weeks, though only a few people noticed his absence. Jeserac, when he discovered that his erstwhile pupil was spending all his time at council hall instead of prowling around the frontier of the city, felt slightly relieved, imagining that alvin could come to no trouble there. Eriston and etania called his room once or twice, found that he was out and thought nothing of it. Alystra was a little more persistent. For her own peace of mind, it was a pity that she had become infatuated with alvin, when there were so many more suitable choices. Alystra had never had any difficulty in find-ing partners, but by comparison with alvin all the other men she knew were nonentities, cast from the same featureless mold. She would not lose him without a struggle: his aloofness and indifference set a challenge which she could not resist. Yet perhaps her motives were not entirely selfish, and were maternal rather than sexual. Though birth had been forgotten, the feminine instincts of protection and sympathy still remained. Alvin might appear to be stubborn and self-reliant and determined to have his own way, yet alystra could sense his inner loneliness. When she found that alvin had disappeared, she promptly asked jeserac what had happened to him. Jeserac, with only a momentary hesitation, told her. If alvin did not want company, the answer was in his own hands. His tutor neither approved nor disapproved of this relationship. On the whole, he rather liked alystra and hoped that her influence would help alvin to adjust himself to life in diaspar. The fact that alvin was spending his time at council hall could only mean that he was engaged on some research project, and this knowledge at least served to quell any suspicions alystra might have concerning possible rivals. But though her jealousy was not aroused, her curiosity was. She sometimes reproached herself for abandoning alvin in the tower of loranne though she knew that if the circumstances were re-peated she would do exactly the same thing again. There was no way of understanding alvin's mind, she told herself, un-less she could discover what he was trying to do. She walked purposefully into the main hall, impressed but not overawed by the hush that fell as soon as she passed through the entrance. The information machines were range side by side against the far wall, and she chose one at random. As soon as the recognition signal lighted up she said, "i am looking for alvin; he is somewhere in this building. Where can i find him?" even after a lifetime, one never grew wholly accustomed to the complete absence of time lag when an information ma i chine replied to an ordinary question. There were people w hp knew-or claimed to know-how it was done, and talked, learnedly of "access time" and "storage space," but that made the final result none the less marvelous. Any question of a 1 purely factual nature, within the city's truly enormous range of available information, could be answered immediately. Only if complex calculations were involved before a reply could be given would there be any appreciable delay. "He is with the monitors," came the reply. It was not very helpful, since the name conveyed nothing to alystra. No machine ever volunteered more information than it was asked for, and learning to frame questions properly was an art which often took a long time to acquire. "How do i reach him?" asked alystra. She would find what the monitors were when she got to them. "I cannot tell you unless you have the permission of the council."this was a most unexpected, even a disconcerting, development. There were very few places in diaspar that could not be visited by anyone who pleased. Alystra was quite certain that alvin had not obtained council permission, and this could only mean that a higher authority was helping him. The council ruled diaspar, but the council itself could be overridden by a superior power-the all-but-infinite intellect. Of the central computer. It was difficult not to think of the central computer as a living entity, localized in a single spot, though actually it was the sum total of all the machines in diaspar. Even if it was not alive in the biological sense, it certainly possessed at least as much awareness and self-consciousness as a human being. It must know what alvin was doing, and, therefore, it must approve, otherwise it would have stopped him or referred him to the council, as the in-formation machine had done to alystra. There was no point in staying here. Alystra knew that any attempt to find alvin-even if she knew exactly where he was in this enormous building-would be doomed to failure. Doors would fail to open; slideways would reverse when she stood on them, carrying her backward instead of forward; elevator fields would be mysteriously inert, refusing to lift her from one floor to another. If she persisted, she would be gently i conveyed out into the street by a polite but firm robot, or else shuttled round and round council hall until she grew fed up and left under her own volition.

  She was in a bad temper as she walked out into the street. She was also more than a little puzzled, and for the first time felt that there was some mystery here which made her per-sonal desires and interests seem very trivial indeed. That did not mean that they would be any the less important to her. She had no idea what she was going to do next, but she was sure of one thing. Alvin was not the only person in diaspar who could be stubborn and persistent.