Until now, the Colony had gone its way without any form of interference from the Overlords. They had left it completely alone, as indeed they ignored most human activities that were not subversive or did not offend their codes of behaviour. Whether the Colony's aims could be called subversive was uncertain. They were non-political, but they represented a bid for intellectual and artistic independence. And from that, who knew what might come? The Overlords might well be able to foresee the future of Athens more clearly than its founders -- and they might not like it.
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Karellen's request, though it might have been expected at any time since the foundation of the Colony, was something of a bombshell. It represented, as everyone was fully aware, a crisis in the affairs of Athens, and nobody could decide whether good or bad would come of it.
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Of course, if Karellen wished to send an observer, inspector, or whatever one cared to call him, there was nothing that could be done about it. Twenty years ago the Overlords had announced that they had discontinued all use of their surveillance devices, so that humanity need no longer consider itself spied upon. However, the fact that such devices still existed meant that nothing could be hidden from the Overlords if they really wanted to see it.
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The current chairman of the council was the philosopher, Charles Yan Sen, an ironic but fundamentally cheerful man who was not yet in his sixties and was therefore still in the prime of life. Plato would have approved of him as an example of the philosopher-statesman, though Sen did not altogether approve of Plato, whom he suspected of grossly misrepresenting Socrates. He was one of the islanders who was determined to make the most of this visit, if only to show the Overlords that men still had plenty of initiative and were not yet, as he put it, "fully domesticated".
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All these matters were debated endlessly while the preparations were under way. Nothing was known of the visiting Overlord, but it was assumed that he could absorb culture in unlimited amounts. The experiment would at least be attempted, and the reactions of the victim observed with interest by a battery of very shrewd minds.
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There were some on the island who welcomed this visit as a chance of settling one of the minor problems of Overlord psychology -- their attitude towards Art. Did they regard it as a childish aberration of the human race? Did they have any forms of art themselves? In that case, was the purpose of this visit purely esthetic, or did Karellen have less innocent motives?
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Nothing in Athens was done without a committee, that ultimate hallmark of the democratic method. Indeed, someone had once defined the Colony as a system of interlocking committees. But the system worked, thanks to the patient studies of the social psychologists who had been the real founders of Athens. Because the community was not too large, everyone in it could take some part in its running and could be a citizen in the truest sense of the word.
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It was almost inevitable that George, as a leading member of the artistic hierarchy, should be one of the reception committee. But he made doubly sure by pulling a few strings. If the Overlords wanted to study the Colony, George wanted equally to study them. Jean was not very happy about this. Ever since that evening at the Boyces', she had felt a vague hostility towards the Overlords, though she could never give any reason for it. She just wished to have as little to do with them as possible, and to her one of the island's main attractions had been its hoped-for independence. Now she feared that this independence might be threatened.
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After the first day, the islanders ceased to pay much attention when the official car murmured past on its sightseeing tours. The visitor's correct name, Thanthalteresco, proved too intractable, for general use, and he was soon christened "The Inspector". It was an accurate enough name, for his curiosity and appetite for statistics were insatiable.
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The Overlord arrived without ceremony in an ordinary manmade flyer, to the disappointment of those who had hoped for something more spectacular. He might have been Karellen himself, for no one had ever been able to distinguish one Overlord from another with any degree of confidence. They all seemed duplicates from a single master-mould. Perhaps, by some unknown biological process, they were.
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Mrs. Sen greeted her husband anxiously on his return. They were a devoted couple, despite his playful habit of calling her Xantippe when they were entertaining guests. She had long ago threatened to make the appropriate retort by brewing him a cup of hemlock, but fortunately this herbal beverage was less common to New Athens than the old.
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Charles Yan Sen was quite exhausted when, long after midnight, he had seen the Inspector back to the flyer which was serving as his base. There, no doubt, he would continue to work throughout the night while his human hosts indulged in the frailty of sleep.
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"Was it a success?" she asked as her husband settled down to a belated meal.
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"I think so -- but you can never tell what goes on inside those remarkable minds. He was certainly interested, even complimentary. I apologized, by the way, for not inviting him here. He said he quite understood, and had no wish to bang his head on our ceiling."
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"What did you show him today?"
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"The bread-and-butter side of the Colony, which he didn't seem to find as boring as I always do. He asked every question you could imagine about production, how we balanced our budget, our mineral resources, the birth rate, how we got our food, and so on. Luckily I had Secretary Harrison with me, and he'd come prepared with every Annual Report since the Colony began. You should have heard them swapping statistics. The Inspector's borrowed the lot, and I'm prepared to bet that when we see him tomorrow he'll be able to quote any figure back at us. I find that kind of mental performance frightfully depressing." He yawned and began to peck halfheartedly at his food.
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"Tomorrow should be more interesting. We're going to do the schools and the Academy. That's when I'm going to ask some questions for a change. I'd like to know how the Overlords bring up their kids -- assuming, of course, that they have any."
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That was not a question that Charles Sen was ever to have answered, but on other points the Inspector was remarkably talkative. He would evade awkward queries in a manner that was a pleasure to behold, and then, quite unexpectedly, would become positively confiding. Their first real intimacy occurred while they were driving away from the school that was one of the Colony's chief prides. "It's a great responsibility," Dr. Sen had remarked, "training these young minds for the future. Fortunately, human beings are extraordinarily resilient: it takes a pretty bad upbringing to do permanent damage. Even if our aims are mistaken, our little victims will probably get over it. And as you've seen, they appear to be perfectly happy." He paused for a moment, then glanced mischievously up at the towering figure of his passenger. The Inspector was completely clothed in some reflecting silvery cloth so that not an inch of his body was exposed to the fierce sunlight. Behind the dark glasses, Dr. Sen was aware of the great eyes watching him emotionlessly -- or with emotions which he could never understand. "Our problem in bringing up these children must, I imagine, be very similar to yours when confronted with the human race. Wouldn't you agree?"
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Dr. Sen did not press the point. The forthrightness of the reply was not altogether flattering: moreover, they had now arrived at the Academy, where the assembled pedagogues were waiting to sharpen their wits on a real, live Overlord.
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"In some ways," admitted the Overlord gravely. "In others, perhaps a better analogy can be found in the history of your colonial powers. The Roman and British Empires, for that reason, have always been of considerable interest to us. The case of India is particularly instructive. The main difference between us and the British in India was that they had no real motives for going there -- no conscious objectives, that is, except such trivial and temporary ones as trade or hostility to other European powers. They found themselves possessors of an Empire before they knew what to do with it, and were never really happy until they had got rid of it again."
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"Without the slightest hesitation," replied the Inspector.
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"And will you," asked Dr. Sen, quite unable to resist the opportunity, "get rid of your empire when the time arises?"
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"As our distinguished colleague will have told you," said Professor Chance, Dean of the University of New Athens, "our main purpose is to keep the minds of our people alert, and to enable them to realize all their potentialities. Beyond this island" -- his gesture indicated, and rejected, the rest of the globe --"I fear that the human race has lost its initiative. It has peace, it has plenty -- but it has no horizons."
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"Yet here, of course…?" interjected the Overlord blandly.
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Professor Chance, who lacked a sense of humour and was vaguely aware of the fact, glanced suspiciously at his visitor.
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"Here," he continued, "we do not suffer from the ancient obsession that leisure is wicked. But we do not consider that it is enough to be passive receptors of entertainment. Everybody on this island has one ambition, which may be summed up very simply. It is to do something, however small it may be, better than anyone else. Of course, it's an ideal we don't all achieve. But in this modern world the great thing is to have an ideal. Achieving it is considerably less important."
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"As you doubtless know, sir, one of the great problems of our culture has been the dichotomy between art and science. I'd very much like to know your views on the matter. Do you subscribe to the view that all artists are abnormal? That their work -- or at any rate the impulse behind it -- is the result of some deep-seated psychological dissatisfaction?"
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The Inspector did not seem inclined to comment. He had discarded his protective clothing, but still wore dark glasses even in the subdued light of the Common Room. The Dean wondered if they were physiologically necessary, or whether they were merely camouflage. Certainly they made quite impossible the already difficult task of reading the Overlord's thoughts. He did not, however, seem to object to the some- what challenging statements that had been thrown at him, or the criticisms of his race's policy with regard to Earth which they implied.
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The Dean was about to press the attack when Professor Sperling, Head of the Science Department, decided to make it a three-cornered fight.
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Everyone waited for him to complete it. But when it suited their purpose the Overlords could be impeccably tactful.
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Professor Chance cleared his throat purposefully, but the Inspector forestalled him.
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"I've been told that all men are artists to a certain extent, so that everyone is capable of creating something, if only on a rudimentary level. At your schools yesterday, for example, I noticed the emphasis placed on self-expression in drawing, painting and modelling. The impulse seemed quite universal, even among those clearly destined to be specialists in science. So if all artists are abnormal, and all men are artists, we have an interesting syllogism…"
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The Inspector came through the symphony concert with flying colours, which was a good deal more than could be said for many human members of the audience. The only concession to popular taste had been Stravinsky's "Symphony of Psalms": the rest of the programme was aggressively modernistic. Whatever one's views on its merits, the performance was superb, for the Colony's boast that it possessed some of the finest musicians in the world was no idle one. There had been much wrangling among the various rival composers for the honour of being included in the programme, though a few cynics wondered if it would be an honour at all. For all that anyone knew to the contrary, the Overlords might be tone deaf. It was observed, however, that after the concert Thanthalteresco sought out the three composers who had been present, and complimented them all on what he called their "great ingenuity". This caused them to retire with pleased but vaguely baffled expressions.
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It was not until the third day that George Greggson had a chance of meeting the Inspector. The theatre had arranged a kind of mixed grill rather than a single dish -- two one-act plays, a sketch by a world-famous impersonator, and a ballet sequence. Once again all these items were superbly executed and one critic's prediction --"Now at least we'll discover if the Overlords can yawn"-- was falsified. Indeed, the Inspector laughed several times, and in the correct places.
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And yet -- no one could be sure. He might himself be putting on a superb act, following the performance by logic alone and with his own strange emotions completely untouched, as an anthropologist might take part in some primitive rite. The fact that he uttered the appropriate sounds, and made the expected responses, really proved nothing at all.
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Though George had been determined to have a talk with the Inspector, he failed utterly. After the performance they exchanged a few words of introduction, then the visitor was swept away. It was completely impossible to isolate him from his entourage, and George went home in a state of extreme frustration. He was by no means certain what he wished to say even if he had had the chance, but somehow, he felt sure, he could have turned the conversation round to Jeff. And now the opportunity had gone.
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His bad temper lasted two days. The Inspector's flyer had departed, amid many protestations of mutual regard, before the sequel emerged. No one had thought of questioning Jeff, and the boy must have been thinking it over for a long time before he approached George.
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"Well, he came to our school, and I heard him talk to some of the teachers. I didn't really understand what he said -- but I think I recognized his voice. That's who told me to run when the big wave came."
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"You are quite sure?"
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"Not quite -- but if it wasn't him, it was another Overlord. I wondered if I ought to thank him. But he's gone now, hasn't he?"
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"Yes," replied George grimly.
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"Daddy," he said, just prior to bedtime. "You know the Overlord who came to see us?"
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"Yes," said George. "I'm afraid he has. Still, perhaps we'll have another chance. Now go to bed like a good boy and don't worry about it any more."
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Jeff hesitated for a moment.
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When Jeff was safely out of the way, and Jenny had been attended to, Jean came back and sat on the rug beside George's chair, leaning against his legs. It was a habit that struck him as annoyingly sentimental, but not worth creating a fuss about. He merely made his knees as knobbly as possible.
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"It happened," George replied, "but perhaps we're foolish to worry. After all, most parents would be grateful -- and of course, I am grateful. The explanation may be perfectly simple. We know that the Overlords have got interested in the Colony, so they've undoubtedly been observing it with their instruments -- despite that promise they made. Suppose one was just prowling round with that viewing gadget of theirs, and saw the wave coming. It would be natural enough to warn anyone who was in danger."
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"But he knew Jeff's name, don't forget that. No, we're being watched. There's something peculiar about us, something that attracts their attention. I've felt it ever since Rupert's party. It's funny how that changed both our lives."
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"What do you think about it now?" asked Jean in a tired, flat voice. "Do you believe it really happened?"
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George looked down at her with sympathy, but nothing more. It was strange how much one could alter in so short a time. He was fond of her: she had borne his children and was part of his life. But of the love which a not-clearly-remembered person named George Greggson had once known towards a fading dream called Jean Morrel, how much remained? His love was divided now between Jeff and Jennifer on the one hand -- and Carolle on the other. He did not believe that Jean knew about Carolle, and he intended to tell her before anyone else did. But somehow he had never got round to it.
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"Very well -- Jeff is being watched -- protected, in fact. Don't you think that should make us proud? Perhaps the Overlords have planned a great future for him. I wonder what it can be?"
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He was talking to reassure Jean, he knew. He was not greatly disturbed himself, only intrigued and baffled. And quite suddenly another thought struck him, something that should have occurred to him before. His eyes turned automatically towards the nursery.
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"I wonder if it's only Jeff they're after," he said.
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In due course the Inspector presented his report. The Islanders would have given much to see it. All the statistics and records went into the insatiable memories of the great computers which were some, but not all, of the unseen powers behind Karellen. Even before these impersonal electric minds had arrived at their conclusions, however, the Inspector had given his own recommendations. Expressed in the thoughts and language of the human race, they would have run as follows:
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"We need take no action regarding the Colony. It is an interesting experiment, but cannot in any way affect the future. Its artistic endeavours are no concern of ours, and there is no evidence that any scientific research is progressing along dangerous channels.
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"As planned, I was able to see the school records of Subject Zero, without arousing curiosity. The relevant statistics are attached, and it will be seen that there are still no signs of any unusual development. Yet, as we know, Breakthrough seldom gives much prior warning."
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"I also met the Subject's father, and gathered the impression that he wished to speak to me. Fortunately I was able to avoid this. There is no doubt that he suspects something, though of course he can never guess the truth nor affect the outcome in any way."
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George Greggson would have agreed with the Inspector's verdict that there was nothing unusual about Jeff. There was just that one baffling incident, as startling as a single clap of thunder on a long, calm day. And after that -- nothing.
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Jeff had all the energy and inquisitiveness of any other seven-year-old. He was intelligent -- when he bothered to be -- but was in no danger of becoming a genius. Sometimes, Jean thought a little wearily, he filled to perfection the classic recipe for a small boy: "a noise surrounded by dirt". Not that it was very easy to be certain about the dirt, which had to accumulate for a considerable time before it showed against Jeff's normal sunburn.
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"I grow more and more sorry for these people."
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By turns he could be affectionate or morose, reserved or ebullient. He showed no preference for one parent rather than the other, and the arrival of his little sister had not produced any signs of jealousy. His medical card was spotless; he had never had a day's illness in his life. But in these times, and in such a climate, there was nothing unusual about this.
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Unlike some boys, Jeff did not grow quickly bored by his father's company and desert him whenever possible for associates of his own age. It was obvious that he shared George's artistic talents, and almost as soon as he was able to walk had become a regular back-stage visitor to the Colony's theatre. Indeed, the theatre had adopted him as an unofficial mascot, and he was now highly skilled at presenting bouquets to visiting celebrities of stage and screen.
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Yes, Jeff was a perfectly ordinary boy. So George reassured himself as they went for walks or rides together over the Island's rather restricted terrain. They would talk as sons and fathers had done since the beginning of time -- except that in this age there was so much more to talk about. Though Jeff never left the Island, he could see all that he wished of the surrounding world through the ubiquitous eye of the television screen. He felt, like all the Colonists, a slight disdain for the rest of mankind. They were the elite, the vanguard of progress. They would take Mankind to the heights that the Overlords had reached -- and perhaps beyond. Not tomorrow, certainly, but one day.
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They never guessed that that day would be all too soon.
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