was not the sound alone that had started her screaming for George.
It was the sight of that commonplace, brightly coloured rattle beating steadily in airy isolation half a metre away from any support, while Jennifer Anne, her chubby fingers clasped tightly together, lay with a smile of calm contentment on her face.
She had started later, but she was progressing swiftly. Soon she would pass her brother, for she had so much less to unlearn.
“You were wise,” said Rashaverak, “not to touch her toy. I do not believe you could have moved it. But if you had succeeded, she might have been annoyed. And then, I do not know what would have happened.”
“Do you mean,” said George dully, “that you can do nothing?”
“I will not deceive you. We can study and observe, as we are doing already. But we cannot interfere, because we cannot understand.”
“Then what are we to do? And why has this thing happened to us?”
“It had to happen to someone. There is nothing exceptional about you, any more than there is about the first neutron that starts the chain reaction in an atomic bomb. It simply happens to be the first. Any other neutron would have served—just as Jeffrey might have been anybody in the world. We call it Total Breakthrough. There is no need for any secrecy now, and I am very glad. We have been waiting for this to happen, ever since we came to Earth. There was no way of telling when and where it would start—until, by pure chance, we met at Rupert Boyce's party. Then I knew that, almost certainly, your wife's children would be the first.”
“But—we weren't married then. We hadn't even—”
“Yes, I know. But Miss Morrel's mind was the channel that, if only for a moment, let through knowledge which no one alive at that time could possess. It could only come from another mind, intimately linked to hers. The fact that it was a mind not yet born was of no consequence, for Time is very much stranger than you think.”
“I begin to understand. Jeff knows these things—he can see other worlds, and can tell where you come from. And somehow Jean caught his thoughts, even before he was born.”
“There is far more to it than that—but I do not imagine you will ever get much closer to the truth. All through history there have been people with inexplicable powers which seemed to transcend space and time. They never understood them: almost without exception, their attempted explanations were rubbish. I should know—I have read enough of them!
“But there is one analogy which is—well, suggestive and helpful. It occurs over and over again in your literature. Imagine that every man's mind is an island, surrounded by ocean. Each seems isolated, yet in reality all are linked by the bedrock from which they spring. If the oceans were to vanish, that would be the end of the islands. They would all be part of one continent, but their individuality would have gone.
“Telepathy, as you have called it, is something like this. In suitable circumstances minds can merge and share each other's contents, and carry back memories of the experience when they are isolated once more. In its highest form, this power is not subject to the usual limitations of time and space. That is why Jean could tap the knowledge of her unborn son.”
There was a long silence while George wrestled with these astounding thoughts. The pattern was beginning to take shape. It was an unbelievable pattern, but it had its own inherent logic. And it explained—if the word could be used for anything so incomprehensible—all that had happened since that evening at Rupert Boyce's home. It also accounted, he realized now, for Jean's own curiosity about the supernormal.
“What has started this thing?” asked George. “And where is it going to lead?”
“That is something we cannot answer. But there are many races in the universe, and some of them discovered these powers long before your species—or mine—appeared on the scene. They have been waiting for you to join them, and now the time has come.”
“Then where do you come into the picture?”
“Probably, like most men, you have always regarded us as your masters. That is not true. We have never been more than guardians, doing a duty imposed upon us from—above. That duty is hard to define: perhaps you can best think of us as midwives attending a difficult birth. We are helping to bring something new and wonderful into the world.”
Rashaverak hesitated: for a moment it almost seemed as if he was at a loss for words.
“Yes, we are the midwives. But we ourselves are barren.”
In that instant, George knew he was in the presence of a tragedy transcending his own. It was incredible —and yet somehow just. Despite all their powers and their brilliance, the Overlords were trapped in some evolutionary cul-de-sac. Here was a great and noble race, in almost every way superior to mankind; yet it had no future, and it was aware of it. In the face of this, George's own problems seemed suddenly trivial.
“Now I know,” he said, “why you have been watching Jeffrey. He was the guinea pig in this experiment.”
“Exactly—though the experiment was beyond our control. We did not start it—we were merely trying to observe. We did not interfere except when we had to.”
Yes, thought George—the tidal wave. It would never do to let a valuable specimen be destroyed. Then he felt ashamed of himself: such bitterness was unworthy.
“I've only one more question,” he said. “What shall we do about our children?”
“Enjoy them while you may,” answered Rashaverak gently. “They will not be yours for long.”
It was advice that might have been given to any parent in any age: but now it contained a threat and a terror it had never held before.
19
There came the time when the world of Jeffrey's dreams was no longer sharply divided from his everyday existence. He no longer went to school, and for Jean and George also the routine of life was completely broken, as it was soon to break down throughout the world.
They avoided all their friends, as if already conscious that soon no one would have sympathy to spare for them. Sometimes, in the quietness of the night when there were few people about, they would go for long walks together. They were closer now than they had been since the first days of their marriage, united again in the face of the still unknown tragedy that soon would overwhelm them. At first it had given them a feeling of guilt to leave the sleeping children alone in the house, but now they realized that Jeff and Jenny could look after themselves in ways beyond the knowledge of their parents. And, of course, the Overlords would be watching too. That thought was reassuring: they felt that they were not alone with their problem, but that wise and sympathetic eyes shared their vigil.
Jennifer slept: there was no other word to describe the state she had entered. To all outward appearances, she was still a baby, but round her now was a sense of latent power so terrifying that Jean could no longer bear to enter the nursery.
There was no need to do so. The entity that had been Jennifer Anne Greggson was not yet fully developed, but even in its sleeping chrysalis state it already had enough control of its environment to take care of all its needs. Jean had only once attempted to feed it, without success. It chose to take nourishment in its own time, and in its own manner. For food vanished from the freezer in a slow, steady stream: yet Jennifer Anne never moved from her cot.
The rattling had ceased, and the discarded toy lay on the nursery floor where no one dared to touch it, lest Jennifer Anne might need it again. Sometimes she caused the furniture to stir itself into peculiar patterns, and it seemed to George that the fluoro-paint on the wall was glowing more brilliantly than it had ever done before.
She gave no trouble; she was beyond their assistance, and beyond their love. It could not last much longer, and in the time that was left they clung desperately to Jeff.
