“As to the nature of that change, we can tell you very little. We do not know how it is produced — what trigger impulse the Overmind employs when it judges that the time is ripe. All we have discovered is that it starts with a single individual — always a child — and then spreads explosively, like the formation of crystals round the first nucleus in a saturated solution. Adults will not be affected, for their minds are already set in an unalterable mould.
“In a few years, it will all be over, and the human race will have divided in twain. There is no way back, and no future for the world you know. All the hopes and dreams of your race are ended now. You have given birth to your successors, and it is your tragedy that you will never understand them — will never even be able to communicate with their minds. Indeed, they will not possess minds as you know them. They will be a single entity, as you yourselves are the sums of your myriad cells. You will not think them human, and you will be right.
“I have told you these things so that you will know what faces you. In a few hours, the crisis will be upon us. My task and my duty is to protect those I have been sent here to guard. Despite their wakening powers, they could be destroyed by the multitudes around them — yes, even by their parents, when they realize the truth. I must take them away and isolate them, for their protection, and for yours. Tomorrow my ships will begin the evacuation. I shall not blame you if you try to interfere, but it will be useless. Greater powers than mine are wakening now; I am only one of their instruments.
“And then — what am I to do with you, the survivors, when your purpose has been fulfilled? It would be simplest, perhaps, and most merciful, to destroy you — as you yourselves would destroy a mortally wounded pet you loved. But this I cannot do. Your future will be your own to choose in the years that are left to you. It is my hope that humanity will go to its rest in peace, knowing that it has not lived in vain.
“For what you have brought into the world may be utterly alien, it may share none of your desires or hopes, it may look upon your greatest achievements as childish toys — yet it is something wonderful, and you will have created it.
“When our race is forgotten, part of yours will still exist. Do not, therefore, condemn us for what we were compelled to do. And remember this — we shall always envy you.”
21
Jean had wept before, but she was not weeping now. The island lay golden in the heartless, unfeeling sunlight as the ship came slowly into sight above the twin peaks of Sparta. On that rocky island, not long ago, her son had escaped death by a miracle she now understood all too well. Sometimes she wondered if it might not have been better had the Overlords stood aside and left him to his fate. Death was something she could face as she had faced it before: it was in the natural order of things. But this was stranger than death — and more final. Until this day, men had died, yet the race had continued.
There was no sound or movement from the children. They stood in scattered groups along the sand, showing no more interest in one another than in the homes they were leaving forever. Many carried babies who were too small to walk — or who did not wish to assert the powers that made walking unnecessary. For surely, thought George, if they could move inanimate matter, they could move their own bodies. Why, indeed, were the Overlord ships collecting them at all?
It was of no importance. They were leaving, and this was the way they chose to go. Then George realized what it was that had been teasing his memory. Somewhere, long ago, he had seen a century — old newsreel of such an exodus. It must have been at the beginning of the First World War — or the Second. There had been long lines of trains, crowded with children, pulling slowly out of the threatened cities, leaving behind the parents that so many of them would never see again. Few were crying: some were puzzled, clutching nervously at their small belongings, but most seemed to be looking forward with eagerness to some great adventure.