Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke Read Free Book Online

sing-song voice replied:
    "Do you know who, or what, the Overlords really are?"
    Stormgren almost smiled.
    "Believe me," he said, "I'm quite as anxious as you to discover that."
    "Then you'll answer our questions?"
    "I make no promises. But I may."
    There was a slight sigh of relief from Joe, and a rustle of anticipation ran round the room.
    "We have a general idea," continued the other, "of the circumstances in which you meet Karellen. But perhaps you
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    would describe them carefully, leaving out nothing of importance."
    That was harmless enough, thought Storingren. He had done it many times before, and it would give the appearance of co-operation. There were acute minds here, and perhaps they could uncover something new. They were welcome to any fresh information they could extract from him-so long as they shared it. That it could harm Karellen in any way he did not fur a moment believe.
    Stormgren felt in his pockets and produced a pencil and an old envelope. Sketching rapidly while he spoke, he began:
    "You know, of course, that a small flying machine, with no obvious means of propulsion, calls for me at regular intervals and takes me up to Karellen's ship. It enters the hull-and you've doubtless seen the telescopic films that have been taken of that operation. The door opens again-if you can call it a door-and I go into a small room with a table, a chair, and a vision screen. The layout is something like this."
    He pushed the plan across to the old Welshrnan, but the strange eyes never turned towards it. They were still fixed on Stormgren's face, and as he watched them something seemed to change in their depths. The room had become completely silent, but behind him he heard Joe take a sudden indrawn breath.
    Puzzled and annoyed, Stormgren stared back at the other, and as he did so, understanding slowly dawned. In his confusion he crumpled the envelope into a ball of paper and ground it underfoot.
    He knew now why those grey eyes had affected him so strangely. The man opposite him was blind.
     
     
    Van Ryberg had made no further attempts to contact. Karellen. Much of his department's work-the forwarding of statistical information, the abstracting of the world's press, and the like-had continued automatically. In Paris the lawyers were still wrangling over the proposed World Constitution, but that was none of his business for the moment. It was a fortnight before the Supervisor wanted the final draft: if it was not ready by then, no doubt Karellen would take what action he thought fit.
    And there was still no news of Stormgren.
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    4
    Van Ryberg was dictating when the "Emergency Only"
    telephone started to ring. He grabbed the receiver and listened with mounting astonishment, then threw it down and rushed to the open window. In the distance, cries of anlazement were rising from the streets, and traffic was slowing to a halt.
    It was true: Karellen's ship, that never-changing symbol of the Overlords, was no longer in the sky. He searched the heavens as far as he could see, and found no trace of it. Then, suddenly, it seemed as if night had swiftly fallen. Coming down from the north, its shadowed underbelly black as a thundercloud, the great ship was racing low over the towers of New York. Involuntarily, van Ryberg shrank away from the onrushing monster. He had always known how huge the ship. of the Overlords really were-but it was one thing to see them far away in space, and quite another to watch them passing overhead like demon-driven clouds.
    In the darkness of that partial eclipse, he watched until the ship and its monstrous shadow had vanished into the south. There was no sound, not even the whisper of air, and van Ryberg realized that despite its apparent nearness the ship had passed at least a kilometre above his head. Then the building shuddered once as the shock wave struck it, and from somewhere came the tinkling of broken glass as a window blew inwards.
    In the office behind him all the telephones had started