The City and the Stars / The Sands of Mars by Arthur C. Clarke Read Free Book Online Page B

Sometimes it was very hard to believe that he was not part of the scene himself, for the illusion was so flawless. When one of the phantoms in the mirror appeared to move behind Alvin, it vanished just as a real object would have done; and when one moved in front of him, he was the one who was eclipsed.
    He was preparing to leave when he noticed an oddly dressed man standing a little apart from the main group. His movements, his clothes, everything about him, seemed slightly out of place in this assembly. He spoiled the pattern; like Alvin, he was an anachronism.
    He was a good deal more than that. He was real, and he was looking at Alvin with a slightly quizzical smile.

CHAPTER
    5

    I n his short lifetime, Alvin had met less than one-thousandth of the inhabitants of Diaspar. He was not surprised, therefore, that the man confronting him was a stranger. What did surprise him was to meet anyone at all here in this deserted tower, so near the frontier of the unknown.
    He turned his back on the mirror world and faced the intruder. Before he could speak, the other had addressed him.
    “You are Alvin, I believe. When I discovered that someone was coming here, I should have guessed it was you.”
    The remark was obviously not intended to give offense; it was a simple statement of fact, and Alvin accepted it as such. He was not surprised to be recognized; whether he liked it or not, the fact of his uniqueness, and its unrevealed potentialities, had made him known to everyone in the city.
    “I am Khedron,” continued the stranger, as if that explained everything. “They call me the Jester.”
    Alvin looked blank, and Khedron shrugged his shoulders in mock resignation.
    “Ah, such is fame! Still, you are young and there have been no jests in your lifetime. Your ignorance is excused.”
    There was something refreshingly unusual about Khedron. Alvin searched his mind for the meaning of the strange word “Jester”; it evoked the faintest of memories, but he could not identify it. There were many such titles in the complex social structure of the city, and it took a lifetime to learn them all.
    “Do you often come here?” Alvin asked, a little jealously. He had grown to regard the Tower of Loranne as his personal property and felt slightly annoyed that its marvels were known to anyone else. But had Khedron, he wondered, ever looked out across the desert or seen the stars sinking down into the west?
    “No,” said Khedron, almost as if answering his unspoken thoughts. “I have never been here before. But it is my pleasure to learn of unusual happenings in the city and it is a very long time since anyone went to the Tower of Loranne.”
    Alvin wondered fleetingly how Khedron knew of his earlier visits, but quickly dismissed the matter from his mind. Diaspar was full of eyes and ears and other more subtle sense organs which kept the city aware of all that was happening within it. Anyone who was sufficiently interested could no doubt find a way of tapping these channels.
    “Even if it is unusual for anyone to come here,” said Alvin, still fencing verbally, “why should you be interested?”
    “Because in Diaspar,” replied Khedron, “the unusual is my prerogative. I had marked you down a long time ago; I knew we should meet some day. After my fashion, I too am unique. Oh, not in the way that you are; this is not my first life. I have walked a thousand times out of the Hall of Creation. But somewhere back at the beginning I was chosen to be Jester, and there is only one Jester at a time in Diaspar. Most people think that is one too many.”
    There was an irony about Khedron’s speech that left Alvin still floundering. It was not the best of manners to ask direct personal questions, but after all Khedron had raised the subject.
    “I’m sorry about my ignorance,” said Alvin. “But what is a Jester, and what does he do?”
    “You ask ‘what,’ ” replied Khedron, “so I’ll start by telling you ‘why.’ It’s a