“About a year ago I began to concentrate on the idea of transport. It was obvious that Diaspar must have had many links with the rest of the world, and although the Port itself has been buried by the desert for ages, I thought that there might be other means of travel. Right at the beginning I found that the Associators would not answer direct questions: Alaine must have put a block on them just as I once did for your benefit. Unfortunately I can’t remove Alaine’s block, so I’ve had to use indirect methods.
“If there was an external transport system, there’s certainly no trace of it now. Therefore, if it existed at all, it has been deliberately concealed. I set the Associators to investigate all the major engineering operations carried out in the city since the records began. This is a report on the construction of the central park- and Alaine has added a note to it himself. As soon as it encountered his name, of course, the machine knew it had finished the search and called for me.”
Rorden glanced at the paper as if rereading part of it again. Then he continued:…
“We’ve always taken it for granted that all the moving ways should converge on the Park: it seems natural for them to do so. But this report states that the Park was built after the founding of the city-many millions of years later, in fact. Therefore the moving ways once led to something else.”
“An airport, perhaps?”
“No: flying was never allowed over any city, except in very ancient times, before the moving ways were built. Even Diaspar is not as old as that! But listen to Alaine’s note:…
“‘When the desert buried the Port of Diaspar, the emergency system which had been built against that day was able to carry the remaining transport. It was finally closed down by Yarlan Zey, builder of the Park, having remained almost unused since the Migration.’“
Alvin looked rather puzzled.
“It doesn’t tell me a great deal,” he complained.
Rorden smiled. “You’ve been letting the Associators do too much thinking for you,” he admonished gently. “Like all of Alaine’s statements, it’s deliberately obscure lest the wrong people should learn from it. But I think it tells us quite enough. Doesn’t the name ‘Yarlan Zey’ mean anything to you?”