The Council chamber had altered little since Alvin’s last visit, for the seldom-used projection equipment was so inconspicuous that one could easily have overlooked it. There were two empty chairs along the great table: one, he knew, was Jeserac’s. But though he was in Lys, Jeserac would be watching this meeting, as would almost all the world.
If Rorden recalled their last appearance in this room, he did not care to mention it. But the councillors certainly remembered, as Alvin could tell by the ambiguous glances he received. He wondered what they would be thinking when they had heard Rorden’s story. Already, in a few months, the present had changed out of all recognition-and now they were going to lose the past.
Rorden began to speak. The great ways of Diaspar would be empty of traffic: the city would be hushed as Alvin had known it only once before in his life. It was waiting, waiting for the veil of the past to be lifted again after-if Calitrax was right-more than fifteen hundred million years.
Very briefly, Rorden ran through the accepted history of the race-the history that both Diaspar and Lys had always believed beyond question. He spoke of the unknown peoples of the Dawn Civilizations, who had left behind them nothing but a handful of great names and the fading legends of the Empire. Even at the beginning, so the story went, Man had desired the stars and at last attained them. For millions of years he had expanded across the Galaxy, gathering system after system beneath his sway. Then, out of the darkness beyond the rim of the universe, the Invaders had struck and wrenched from him all that he had won.
The retreat to the Solar System had been bitter and must have lasted many ages. Earth itself was barely saved by the fabulous battles that raged round Shalmirane. When all was over, Man was left with only his memories and the world on which he had been born.
Rorden paused: he looked round the great room and smiled slightly as his eyes met Alvin’s.
“So much for the tales we have believed since our records began. I must tell you now that they are false-false in every detail-so false that even now we have not fully reconciled them with the truth.”
He waited for the full meaning of his words to strike home. Then, speaking slowly and carefully, but after the first few minutes never consulting his notes, he gave the city the knowledge that had been won from the mind of Vanamonde.
It was not even true that Man had reached the stars. The whole of his little empire was bounded by the orbit of Persephone, for interstellar space proved a barrier beyond his power to cross. His entire civilization was huddled round the sun, and was still very young when- the stars reached him.
The impact must have been shattering. Despite his failures, Man had never doubted that one day he would conquer the deeps of space. He believed too that if the Universe held his equals, it did not hold his superiors. Now he knew that both beliefs were wrong, and that out among the stars were minds far greater than his own. For many centuries, first in the ships of other races and later in machines built with borrowed knowledge, Man had explored the Galaxy. Everywhere he found cultures he could understand but could not match, and here and there he encountered minds which would soon have passed altogether beyond his comprehension.