golden-bronze one, had long since burned out. They were of no value to him, or anyone, now. Within its translucent skin Hresh could see the master control’s core of shining quicksilver stained and blackened by corrosion.
As he hefted the two dead instruments thoughts of the Great World came into his mind. He was swept by powerful envy for the people of that vanished era. How stable their world had been, how tranquil, how serene! The various parts of that grand civilization had meshed like the gears of some instrument designed by the gods. Sapphire-eyes and humans, hjjks and sea-lords, vegetals and mechanicals, they all had lived together in harmony and unity, and discord was unknown. Surely it was the happiest time the world had ever known.
But there was something paradoxical about that; for the Great World had been doomed, and its people had lived under the knowledge of that impending doom for a million years. How then could they have been happy?
Still, he thought, a million years is a long time. For the people of the Great World there must have been much joy along the way to the inevitable end. Whereas our world has the precariousness of a newly born thing. Nothing is secure yet, nothing has real solidity, and we have no assurance that our fledgling civilization will last so much as a million hours, or even a million minutes.
Somber thoughts. He tries to brush them aside.
From the parapet’s edge he looked out over Dawinno. Night was beginning to descend. The last swirling purples and greens of sunset were fading in the west. The lights of the city were coming on. It was very grand, yes, as cities of the New Springtime went. But yet tonight everything about it seemed dreamlike and insubstantial. The buildings that he had long thought were so majestic appeared to him suddenly to be nothing more than hollow façades made of molded paper and held up by wooden struts. It was all only the mere pretense of a city, he thought dismally. They had improvised everything, making it look as they thought it should. But had they done it the right way? Had they done anything at all that was right?
Stop this, he tells himself.
He closed his eyes and almost at once he saw Vengiboneeza once again, Vengiboneeza as it had been when it was the living capital of the Great World. Those great shining towers of many colors, the swarming docks, the busy markets, the peoples of six vastly different races existing peacefully side by side, the shimmering vessels arriving from the far stars with their cargoes of strange beings and strange produce—the grandeur of it all, the richness, the complexity, the torrent of profound ideas, the poetry, the philosophy, the dreams and schemes, the immense vitality—
For a moment its beauty delighted him, as it always had. But only for a moment; and then he was lost in gloom again.
How small we are, Hresh thinks bitterly.
What a pathetic imitation of the lost greatness we’ve created here! And we’re so proud of what we have done. But in truth we’ve done so little—only to copy, like the monkeys that we are. What we have copied is the appearance, not the substance. And we could lose it all, such as it is, in the twinkling of an eye.
A dark night, this. The darkest of the dark. Moon and stars, yes, shining as they always had. But very dark within, eh, Hresh? You’ve thrown a cloak over your soul. Stumbling around in unyielding blackness, are you, Hresh?
For a moment he thought of tossing the useless globes over the side of the parapet. But no. No. Dead as they were, they were still able to summon lost worlds to life in his mind. Talismans, they were. They would lead him out of this bleakness. He caresses their silken-smooth surfaces and the endless past opens to him. And at last he begins to extract himself a little way from this smothering weight of clamoring misery that has engulfed him. Some perspective returns. Today, yesterday, the day before the day before yesterday: what do they matter,
As he hefted the two dead instruments thoughts of the Great World came into his mind. He was swept by powerful envy for the people of that vanished era. How stable their world had been, how tranquil, how serene! The various parts of that grand civilization had meshed like the gears of some instrument designed by the gods. Sapphire-eyes and humans, hjjks and sea-lords, vegetals and mechanicals, they all had lived together in harmony and unity, and discord was unknown. Surely it was the happiest time the world had ever known.
But there was something paradoxical about that; for the Great World had been doomed, and its people had lived under the knowledge of that impending doom for a million years. How then could they have been happy?
Still, he thought, a million years is a long time. For the people of the Great World there must have been much joy along the way to the inevitable end. Whereas our world has the precariousness of a newly born thing. Nothing is secure yet, nothing has real solidity, and we have no assurance that our fledgling civilization will last so much as a million hours, or even a million minutes.
Somber thoughts. He tries to brush them aside.
From the parapet’s edge he looked out over Dawinno. Night was beginning to descend. The last swirling purples and greens of sunset were fading in the west. The lights of the city were coming on. It was very grand, yes, as cities of the New Springtime went. But yet tonight everything about it seemed dreamlike and insubstantial. The buildings that he had long thought were so majestic appeared to him suddenly to be nothing more than hollow façades made of molded paper and held up by wooden struts. It was all only the mere pretense of a city, he thought dismally. They had improvised everything, making it look as they thought it should. But had they done it the right way? Had they done anything at all that was right?
Stop this, he tells himself.
He closed his eyes and almost at once he saw Vengiboneeza once again, Vengiboneeza as it had been when it was the living capital of the Great World. Those great shining towers of many colors, the swarming docks, the busy markets, the peoples of six vastly different races existing peacefully side by side, the shimmering vessels arriving from the far stars with their cargoes of strange beings and strange produce—the grandeur of it all, the richness, the complexity, the torrent of profound ideas, the poetry, the philosophy, the dreams and schemes, the immense vitality—
For a moment its beauty delighted him, as it always had. But only for a moment; and then he was lost in gloom again.
How small we are, Hresh thinks bitterly.
What a pathetic imitation of the lost greatness we’ve created here! And we’re so proud of what we have done. But in truth we’ve done so little—only to copy, like the monkeys that we are. What we have copied is the appearance, not the substance. And we could lose it all, such as it is, in the twinkling of an eye.
A dark night, this. The darkest of the dark. Moon and stars, yes, shining as they always had. But very dark within, eh, Hresh? You’ve thrown a cloak over your soul. Stumbling around in unyielding blackness, are you, Hresh?
For a moment he thought of tossing the useless globes over the side of the parapet. But no. No. Dead as they were, they were still able to summon lost worlds to life in his mind. Talismans, they were. They would lead him out of this bleakness. He caresses their silken-smooth surfaces and the endless past opens to him. And at last he begins to extract himself a little way from this smothering weight of clamoring misery that has engulfed him. Some perspective returns. Today, yesterday, the day before the day before yesterday: what do they matter,
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