Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke

kilometres an hour, falling slowly down from the empty heights of the stratosphere, the ship moved out to the great plains and to its second rendezvous with history. It settled down obediently before the waiting cameras and the packed thousands of spectators, so few of whom coul'~ see as much as the millions gathered round their TV sets.
    The ground should have cracked and trembled beneath
    56
    that tremendous weight, but the vessel was still in the grip of whatever forces drove it among the stars. It kissed the earth as gently as a falling snowflake.
    The curving wall twenty metres above the ground seemed to flow and shimmer: where there had been a smooth and shining surface, a great opening had appeared. Nothing was visible within it, even to the questing eyes of the camera. It was as dark and shadowed as the entrance to a cave.
    Out of the orifice, a wide, glittering gangway extruded itself and drove purposefully towards the ground. It seemed a solid sheet of metal with hand-rails along either side. There were no steps; it was steep and smooth as a toboggan slide and, one would have thought, equally impossible to ascend or descend in any ordinary manner.
    The world was watching that dark portal, within which nothing had yet stirred. Then the seldom-heard yet unfor-. gettable voice of Karellen floated softly down from some hidden source. His message could scarcely have been more unexpected
    "There are some children by the foot of the gangway. I would like two of them to come up and meet me."
    There was silence for a moment. Then a boy and a girl broke from the crowd and walked, with complete lack of self-consciousness, towards the gangway and into history. Others followed, but stopped when Karellen's chuckle came from the ship.
    "Two will be enough."
    Eagerly anticipating the adventure, the children-they could not have been more than six years old-jumped on to the metal slide. Then the first miracle happened.
    Waving cheerfi.illy to the crowds beneath, and to their anxious parents-who, too late, had probably remembered the legend of the Pied Piper-the children began swiftly ascending the steep slope. Yet their legs were motionless, and soon it was clear also that their bodies were tilted at right angles to that peculiar gangway. It possessed a private gravity of its own, one which could ignore that of Earth. The children were still enjoying this novel experience, and wondering what was drawing them upwards, when they disappeared into the ship.
    A vast silence lay over the whole world for the space of twenty seconds-though, afterwards, no-one could believe that the time had been so short. Then the darkness of the
    57
    great opening seemed to move forward, and Karellen came forth into the sunlight. The boy was sitting on his left arm, the girl on his right. They were both too busy playing with Karellen's wings to take any notice of the watching multitude.
    It was a tribute to the Overlords' psychology, and to their careful years of preparation, that only a few people fainted. Yet there could have been fewer still, anywhere in the world, who did not feel the ancient terror brush for one awful instant against their minds before reason banished it forever.
    There was no mistake. The leathery wings, the little horns, the barbed tail-all were there. The most terrible of all legends had come to life, out of the unknown past. Yet now it
    stood smiling, in ebon majesty, with the sunlight gleaming upon its tremendous body, and with a human child resting trustfully on either arm.
     
     
     
    6
    Furry years is ample time in which to change a world and its people almost beyond recognition. All that is required for the task are a sound knowledge of social engineering, a clear sight of the intended goal-and power.
    These things the Overlords possessed. Though their goal was hidden, their knowledge was obvious-and so was their power.
    That power took many forms, few of them realized by the peoples whose destinies the Overlords now ruled.