Collected Stories Of Arthur C. Clarke by Arthur Clarke C. Read Free Book Online Page A

escape and from their stubborn material the mind forges a masterpiece of literature, of philosophy or music. From such fleeting, fragmentary themes are the Symphonies of Sibelius built – perhaps, with the Theory of Relativity and the conquest of space, the greatest achievements of the century before the year 2000.
    Even within the limits set by logic, the artist need not starve for lack of material. We may laugh at Fearn, but we must admire the magnificent, if undisciplined, fertility of his mind. In a less ephemeral field, Stapledon has produced enough themes to keep a generation of science fiction authors busy. There is no reason why others should not do the same; few of the really fundamental ideas of fantasy have been properly exploited. Who has ever, in any story, dared to show the true meaning of immortality, with its cessation of progress and evolution, and, above all, its inevitable destruction of Youth? Only Keller, and then more with sympathy than genius. And who has had the courage to point out that, with sufficient scientific powers, reincarnation is possible? What a story that would make!
    All around us, in the commonest things we do, lie endless possibilities. So many things might happen, and don’t – but may some day. How odd it would be if someone to whom you were talking on the phone walked into the room and began a conversation with a colleague! Suppose that when you switched off the light last thing at night you found that it had never been on anyway? And what a shock it would be if you woke up to find yourself fast asleep! It would be quite as unsettling as meeting oneself in the street. I have often wondered, too, what would happen if one adopted the extreme solipsist attitude and decided that nothing existed outside one’s mind. An attempt to put such a theory into practice would be extremely interesting. Whether any forces at our command could effect a devoted adherent to this philosophy is doubtful. He could always stop thinking of us, and then we should be in a mess.
    At a generous estimate, there have been a dozen fantasy authors with original conceptions. Today I can only think of two, though the pages of UNKNOWN may bring many more to light. The trouble with present-day science fiction, as with a good many other things, is that in striving after the bizarre it misses the obvious. What it needs is not more imagination or even less imagination. It is some imagination.

The Awakening
First published in Zenith , February 1942 (revised version published in Future , January 1952)
Collected in The Best of Arthur C. Clarke 1937–1955
First published by Manchester fans Harry Turner and Marian Eadie, in their fanzine, Zenith , and significantly revised for publication in Future in 1952.
    The Master wondered whether he would dream. That was the only thing he feared, for in a sleep that lasts no more than a night dreams may come that can shatter the mind – and he was to sleep for a hundred years.
    He remembered the day, still only a few months ago, when a frightened doctor had said, ‘Sir, your heart is failing. You have less than a year to live.’ He was not afraid of death, but the thought that it had come upon him in the full flower of his intellect, while his work was still half finished, filled him with a baffled fury. ‘And there is nothing you can do?’ he asked. ‘No, Sir, we have been working on artificial hearts for a hundred years. In another century, perhaps, it might be done.’ ‘Very well,’ he had replied coldly. ‘I shall wait another century. You will build me a place where my body will not be disturbed, and then you will put me to sleep by freezing or any other means. That, at least, I know you can do.’
    He had watched the building of the tomb, in a secret place above the snow-line of Everest. Only the chosen few must know where the Master was to sleep, for there were many millions in the world who would have sought out his body to destroy it. The secret would be preserved