The Keeper of the Records looked up from his desk. His eyes lit when he saw Alvin.
"I never expected you to be early," he said—though there was relief behind the jesting words. "Shall I come to meet you?"
While Alvin hesitated, Seranis stepped forward, and Rorden saw her for the first time. His eyes widened and he leaned forward as if to obtain a better view. The movement was as useless as it was automatic: Man had not lost it even though he had used the visi-phone for a thousand million years.
Seranis laid her hands on Alvin's shoulders and began to speak. When she had finished Rorden was silent for a while.
"I'll do my best," he said at length. "As I understand it, the choice lies between sending Alvin back to us under some form of hypnosis—or returning him with no restrictions at all. But I think I can promise that even if it learns of your existence, Diaspar will continue to ignore you."
"We won't overlook that possibility," Seranis replied with just a trace of pique. Rorden detected it instantly.
"And what of myself?" he asked with a smile. "I know as much as Alvin now."
"Alvin is a boy," replied Seranis quickly, "but you hold an office as ancient as Diaspar. This is not the first time Lys has spoken to the Keeper of the Records, and he has never betrayed our secret yet."
Rorden made no comment: he merely said: "How long do you wish to keep Alvin?"
"At the most, five days. The Council meets three days from now."
"Very welclass="underline" for the next five days, then, Alvin is extremely busy on some historical research with me. This won't be the first time it's happened—but we'll have to be out if Jeserac calls."
Alvin laughed.
"Poor Jeserac! I seem to spend half my life hiding things from him."
"You've been much less successful than you think," replied Rorden, somewhat disconcertingly. "However I don't expect any trouble. But don't be longer than the five days!"
When the picture had faded, Rorden sat for a while staring at the darkened screen. He had always suspected that the world communication network might still be in existence, but the keys to its operation had been lost and the billions of circuits could never be traced by Man. It was strange to reflect that even now visiphones might be called vainly in the lost cities. Perhaps the time would come when his own receiver would do the same, and there would be no Keeper of the Records to answer the unknown caller. . . .
He began to feel afraid. The immensity of what had happened was slowly dawning upon him. Until now, Rorden had given little thought to the consequences of his actions. His own historical interests, and his affection for Alvin, had been sufficient motive for what he had done. Though he had humored and encouraged Alvin, he had never believed that anything like this could possibly happen.
Despite the centuries between them, the boy's will had always been more powerful than his own. It was too late to do anything about it now: Rorden felt that events were sweeping him along toward a climax utterly beyond his control.
"Is all this really necessary," said Alvin, "if we are only going to be away for two or three days? After all, we have a synthesizer with us."
"Probably not," answered Theon, throwing the last food containers into the little ground-car. "It may seem an odd custom, but we've never synthesized some of our finest foods—we like to watch them grow. Also, we may meet other parties and it's polite to exchange food with them. Nearly every district has some special product, and Airlee is famous for its peaches. That's why I've put so many aboard—not because I think that even you can eat them all."
Alvin threw his half-eaten peach at Theon, who dodged quickly aside. There came a flicker of iridescence and a faint whirring of invisible wings as Krif descended upon the fruit and began to sip its juices.
Alvin was still not quite used to Krif. It was hard for him to realize that the great insect, though it would come when called and would—sometimes—obey simple orders, was almost wholly mindless. Life, to Alvin, had always been synonymous with intelligence—sometimes intelligence far higher than Man's.
When Krif was resting, his six gauzy wings lay folded along his body, which glittered through them like a jeweled scepter. He was at once the highest and the most beautiful form of insect life the world had ever known—the latest and perhaps the last of all the creatures Man had chosen for his companionship.
Lys was full of such surprises, as Alvin was continually learning.
Its inconspicuous but efficient transport system had been equally unexpected. The ground-car apparently worked on the same principle as the machine that had brought him from Diaspar, for it floated in the air a few inches above the turf. Although there was no sign of any guide-rail, Theon told him that the cars could only run on predetermined tracks. All the centers of population were thus linked together, but the remoter parts of the country could only be reached on foot. This state of affairs seemed altogether extraordinary to Alvin, but Theon appeared to think it was an excellent idea.
Apparently Theon had been planning this expedition for a considerable time. Natural history was his chief passion—Krif was only the most spectacular of his many pets—and he hoped to find new types of insect life in the uninhabited southern parts of Lys.
The project had filled Alvin with enthusiasm when he heard of it. He looked forward to seeing more of this wonderful country, and although Theon's interests lay in a different field of knowledge from his own, he felt a kinship for his new companion which not even Rorden had ever awakened.
Theon intended to travel south as far as the machine could go— little more than an hour's journey from Airlee—and the rest of the way they would have to go on foot. Not realizing the full implications of this, Alvin had no objections.
To Alvin, the journey across Lys had a dreamlike unreality. Silent as a ghost, the machine slid across rolling plains and wound its way through forests, never deviating from its invisible track. It traveled perhaps a dozen times as fast as a man could comfortably walk. No one in Lys was ever in a greater hurry than that.
Many times they passed through villages, some larger than Airlee but most built along very similar lines. Alvin was interested to notice subtle but significant differences in clothing and even physical appearance as they moved from one community to the next. The civilization of Lys was composed of hundreds of distinct cultures, each contributing some special talent toward the whole.
Once or twice Theon stopped to speak to friends, but the pauses were brief and it was still morning when the little machine came to rest among the foothills of a heavily wooded mountain. It was not a very large mountain, but Alvin thought it the most tremendous thing he had ever seen.
"This is where we start to walk," said Theon cheerfully, throwing equipment out of the car. "We can't ride any farther."
As he fumbled with the straps that were to convert him into a beast of burden, Alvin looked doubtfully at the great mass of rock before them.
"It's a long way around, isn't it?" he queried.