“Doesn’t that take a lot of time?”
“Very often. I have sometimes had to wait twenty years for an answer. So won’t you sit down?” he added, the crinkles round his eyes belying his solemn voice.
Alvin had never met anyone quite like the Keeper of the Records, and he decided that he liked him. He was tired of being reminded that he was a boy, and it was pleasant to be treated as a real person.
Once again the synthesizer field flickered, and Rorden bent down to read the slip. The message must have been a long one, for it took him several minutes to finish it. Finally he sat down on one of the room’s couches, looking at his visitor with eyes which, as Alvin noticed for the first time, were of a most disconcerting shrewdness.
“What does it say?” he burst out at last, unable to contain his curiosity any longer.
Rorden did not reply. Instead, he was the one to ask for information.
“Why do you want to leave Diaspar?” he said quietly.
If Jeserac or his father had asked him that question, Alvin would have found himself floundering in a morass of half-truths or downright lies. But with this man, whom he had met for only a few minutes, there seemed none of the barriers that had cut him off from those he had known all his life.
“I’m not sure,” he said, speaking slowly but readily. “I’ve always felt like this. There’s nothing outside Diaspar, I know-but I want to go there all the same.”
He looked shyly at Rorden, as if expecting encouragement, but the Keeper’s eyes were far away. When at last he again turned to Alvin, there was an expression on his face that the boy could not fully understand, but it held a tinge of sadness that was somewhat disturbing.