Arthur C Clarke - City And The Stars by Clarke Arthur C

Author:Clarke, Arthur C. [Clarke, Arthur C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Thirteen

The master had come to earth amid the chaos of the transition centuries, when the galactic empire was crumbling but the lines of communication among the stars had not yet completely broken. He had been of human origin, though his home was a planet circling one of the seven suns. While still a young man, he had been forced to leave his native world, and its memory had haunted him all his life. His expulsion he blamed on vindictive enemies, but the fact was that he suffered from an incurable malady which, it seemed, attacked only homo sapiens among all the intelligent races of the universe. That disease was religious mania. Throughout the earlier part of its history, the human race had brought forth an endless succession of prophets, seers, messiahs, and evangelists who convinced themselves and their followers that to them alone were the secrets of the universe revealed. Some of them succeeded in establishing religions that survived for many generations and influenced billions of men; others were forgotten even before their deaths. The rise of science, which with montonous regularity refuted the cosmologies of the prophets and produced miracles which they could never match, eventually destroyed all these faiths. It did not destroy the awe, nor the reverence and humility, which all intelligent beings felt as they contemplated the stupendous universe in which they found themselves. What it did weaken and finally obliterate, were the countless religions, each of which claimed with unbelievable arrogance, that it was the sole repository of the truth and that its millions of rivals and predecessors were all mistaken. Yet, though they never possessed any real power once humanity had reached a very elementary level of civilization, all down the ages isolated cults had continued to appear, and however fantastic their creeds they had always managed to attract some disciples. They thrived with party p cular strength during periods of confusion and disorder, and 1 it was not surprising that the transition centuries had seen a great outburst of irrationality. When reality was depressing, men tried to console themselves with myths. The master, even if he was expelled from his own world, did not leave it unprovided. The seven suns had been the center of galactic power and science, and he must have possessed influential friends. He had made his hegira in a small but speedy ship, reputed to be one of the fastest ever built. With him into exile he had taken another of the ultimate products of galactic science-the robot that was looking at alvin and hilvar even now. No one had ever known the full talents and functions of this machine. To some extent, indeed, it had become the master's alter ego; without it, the religion of the great ones would probably have collapsed after the master's death. Together they had roved among the star clouds on a zigzag trail which led at last, certainly not by accident, back to the world from which the master's ancestors had sprung. Entire

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