Eden Page 10

  Preparing the fuel mixture took six hours, but required only one person, who checked the pile from time to time. Meanwhile the Engineer and the Captain crawled on all fours through the passageways below the deck, checking and replacing the cables that ran between the control room and the distributor units in the engine room. The Chemist had built himself a kind of stove outside, close to the ship, and was heating up a greasy substance that bubbled like a muddy volcano. He was melting and stirring bits of plastic, the plastic that had been brought out of the ship in buckets. Nearby lay molds, with which he intended to make new instrument panels for the control room. He was in a vile temper and wouldn't speak to anyone, because his first molds had failed dismally.

  The Captain, the Chemist, and the Doctor were supposed to head south at five, which was three hours before nightfall. As usual, no one kept to schedule, and it was almost six by the time everything was ready and packed. A thrower was placed on the fourth seat. And on the carrier in the back they strapped a twenty-five-gallon canister, for water.

  After dinner the Engineer, equipped with large binoculars, clambered up the ship's hull. The ship had penetrated the ground at not much of an angle, but because of its length the end of the hull, the exhaust funnels rose a good three stories above the plain. After finding a place to sit between the conical mounting of the upper funnel and the hollow of the main body, the Engineer first looked down along the huge sunlit cylinder to where the men were standing, no larger than beetles, beside the black dot that was the tunnel entrance. Then he brought the binoculars to his face with both hands and carefully pressed the eyepiece to his eyes. The magnification was considerable, but the view quivered. He had to steady his arms by propping his elbows on his knees, which was not easy. It wouldn't take much to fall off, he thought. The scratch-proof ceramite surface was smooth, almost slippery. Pressing the contoured rubber sole of his left boot against the funnel, he began to sweep the horizon systematically with his binoculars.

  The air shimmered from the heat. He could feel the pressure of the sun on his face when he turned south. He was glad that the Doctor had agreed to the Captain's plan, which everyone else had accepted. The Doctor did not even want to hear of apologies—he made a joke of their argument. But what really surprised the Engineer was the end of their conversation. He had been alone with the Doctor, and it had seemed that they had nothing more to say to each other, when suddenly the Doctor tapped him on the chest.

  "I wanted to ask you something… Do you know how to set the ship upright when it's repaired?"

  "First we get the freight robot and the digger to…" the Engineer began.

  "No," the Doctor interrupted him. "The technical details, as you know, mean nothing to me. Just tell me if you—you personally—know how to do it."

  "What, are you frightened by the figure of sixteen thousand tons? Archimedes said he could move the Earth, given the right fulcrum. We'll dig it out and…"

  "I'm sorry, that's still not what I mean. I'm not questioning your theoretical knowledge, the textbook methods. Can you actually do it and—wait!—if you say yes, can you give me your word that you are thinking yes?"

  That had made the Engineer hesitate. There were still a couple of points he was not clear on, but he had always told himself that, when it came down to it, somehow or other it would all work out. Before he could reply, the Doctor squeezed his hand.

  "Henry," he said, "do you know why you shouted at me? It's because you're as big a numskull as I am and don't want to admit it."

  And, smiling in a way that recalled the photograph of him as a student, which the Engineer had seen in his drawer, the Doctor added, "Credo quia absurdum—did they teach you any Latin?"

  "Yes, but I've forgotten it all," said the Engineer.

  The Doctor winked, released his hand, and walked away, leaving the Engineer alone. Still feeling the Doctor's fingers on his hand, the Engineer had the impression that the man had wanted to say something quite different, and that, if he thought hard, he might guess what the Doctor had left unsaid… But he couldn't concentrate, feeling—for no clear reason—fear, despair. The Captain called him to the engine room, where fortunately there was so much work to do that there was no time for reflection.

  He now recalled that scene and that feeling. He had gained no insight into it. In his binoculars was a plain with gentle hummocks separated by strips of shadow. What he had expected the evening before and had kept to himself—the conviction that they would be discovered, and that there would be a battle at daybreak—had not materialized. How many times had he resolved not to take his forebodings so seriously! He squinted to see better. The binoculars showed clumps of willowy gray calyxes obscured at times by clouds of dust. The wind must be strong there, though he could not feel it where he sat. Near the horizon the terrain gradually rose, and still farther away—though that might not be land but low clouds ten miles away—was a formation of a darker hue. Now and then something ascended and either dissolved or disappeared. It was too indistinct to tell him anything, though the phenomenon was strangely regular. Having no idea what he was watching, he measured the frequency with which the change occurred, consulting his watch: eighty-six seconds.

  He put the binoculars back in their case and, planting his feet carefully on the ceramite surface, made his way down. After he had taken about ten steps, he heard something following him. He turned around—and lost his balance. Arms flailing, he fell onto the hull and heard the sound of his fall repeated.

  Hunched, he got to his knees.

  About twenty feet away, on the very edge of the upper funnel, sat something small, the size of a cat, watching him intently. The animal—it was definitely an animal—had a protruding pale-gray belly and sat bolt upright, like a squirrel, its paws folded across its belly, all four of them, meeting comically in the middle. The creature was clasping the rim of the ceramite funnel with something yellowish that shook like gelatin, and which issued from the end of its torso. The small, round, gray head had neither eyes nor mouth, but was covered with shiny black beads, like a pincushion with pins, stuck into it, one beside another. The Engineer took three steps toward the animal, so dumbfounded that he almost forgot where he was, and then heard a triple reverberation, the echo of his own footsteps. The creature imitated sounds. He moved slowly closer, and was wondering whether he ought to remove his shirt and use it as a net, when suddenly the animal changed.

  The paws on the belly began to tremble, the abdomen spread and unfolded like a great fan, the pincushion head rose stiffly on a long hairless neck, and the creature took to the air, surrounded by a faintly flickering aureole. For a moment it hung motionless above him, then moved off, spiraling, gathering speed, circling one more time, and disappearing.

  The Engineer climbed down and told the crew, as accurately as possible, what had happened.

  "Good. I was beginning to wonder why there were no flying animals here," said the Doctor.

  The Chemist reminded him of the white flowers by the brook.

  'They looked more like insects," said the Doctor, "like, well, butterflies. But the air here is, on the whole, not highly populated. When living organisms evolve on a planet, a biological pressure develops, thanks to which every possible environment, every niche, must be filled. There's a surprising lack of birds here."

  "It was more like a … bat," said the Engineer. "It had hair."

  "That's possible," said the Doctor, who never paraded his biological knowledge before the crew. And he added, as though more out of politeness than because it interested him, "You say it imitated the sound of your footsteps? That's curious. Well, the imitation must serve some survival function."

  "We should try to cover more ground this time. I don't think anything will break down," said the Captain, crawling out from under the jeep, which was now ready. The Engineer was a little put off by the indifference with which his discovery had been received, but he told himself that perhaps he had been impressed more by the unexpectedness of the encounter than
by the flying creature itself.

  Everyone was uncomfortable at the moment of parting. Those who remained behind stood beneath the ship and watched as the odd-looking vehicle described larger and larger circles around it under the confident control of the Captain, who sat in front, with only the narrow-barreled thrower as traveling companion by his side, while the Doctor and the Chemist sat behind him. Passing close to the ship, he called out, "We'll try to be back by midnight. Good-bye!" He increased the speed, and a moment later all that could be seen was a high and distant golden wall of dust blowing slowly westward.

  The jeep was a bare metal skeleton covered only from below, by a base that was transparent so the driver could see every obstacle. It had an electric motor in each wheel, and two spare tires and a can of fuel fastened to the back. It could go forty miles an hour if the ground was smooth. Looking back, the Doctor soon lost all sight of the ship. The motors hummed, and dust rose from the parched ground, billowed, and dispersed, falling back onto the steppelike land.

  Nobody spoke. The windshield protected only the driver, so the two men sitting behind him got the wind full in the face and could talk only by shouting. The land became more undulating; the gray calyxes disappeared.

  They passed individual clumps of spidery scrub, scattered and distant. Lung-trees, withered, stood here and there, their leaf clusters dangling, trembling only occasionally, as if gasping. Up ahead they caught sight of long grooves, but saw no disks. The tires bounced gently when they crossed the grooves. Sharp-edged limestone, as white as dried bone, jutted from the ground; long tongues of scree snaked down the long slope they were climbing; the sharp gravel grated noisily under their tires. The slope increased, which slowed down the jeep, and though its engine had reserve power, the Captain did not use it on this rough terrain.

  Higher up, between two buff-brown ridges, they saw a long thin band that seemed to block their path. The Captain reduced speed still further. Athwart the slope, where it leveled off to a plateau from which vague shapes rose in the far distance, they saw a mirrorlike strip embedded in the ground and running off in both directions. The jeep stopped, touching the edge of the strip with its front tires. The Captain got out, touched the smooth surface with his jector butt, hit it a little harder, then finally stood on it and jumped on it. The strip did not move.

  "How many miles have we gone?" asked the Chemist when the Captain got back in.

  "Thirty-eight," the Captain said and carefully started up. They rode over the strip, which looked like a ribbon of hardened mercury, and with increasing speed passed, to the left and to the right, masts with columns of air churning above them. Then the masts curved eastward, but the men went straight, keeping their compass needle on the letter "S."

  The plateau presented a cheerless sight. The vegetation was slowly losing its struggle against the sand blown by the hot east wind. Blackened scrub, pale carmine at ground level, grew out of low dunes; leathery pods dropped from it. Once in a while something gray would move through the dry brush, or something would leap away from beneath the wheels of the jeep, but the men did not get a good look at the creature; it scurried too fast into the scrub.

  The Captain picked his way carefully, avoiding the thick clumps of thorns. Once he even had to backtrack, when the glade they entered came to a dead end in a mound of sand. The terrain resembled a maze and more and more had the character of a desert: the plants rustled like paper in the wind. The jeep went between walls of overhanging branches. From burst pods yellowish dust blew into the windshield and covered the men's suits and faces. Heat poured from the thicket, and it was difficult to breathe. Then the jeep stopped.

  The tableland ended a few dozen feet ahead, and the thicket ended, too, like a black brush shining amber in the sun. Beyond were distant hills rising high above a valley that the men could not see from their position. The Captain stepped out and walked to the last bush, its long withes swaying gently against the sky.

  "We're going down," he said when he came back.

  The jeep proceeded slowly; its rear lifted, and lifted more. The canister rattled in the carrier, and the brakes gave a warning squeal. The Captain turned on the pump, and the tires grew, compensating for the steepness of the slope. The men saw a layer of fleecy clouds, through which rose a column of brown smoke, cylindrical at the bottom and bulbous at the top. The column hung in the air undispersed, high above the hilltops, like the smoke from a volcano. It lasted a minute or two, then descended at an unusual speed and was concealed in the white clouds, as if whatever had belched it forth now sucked it back in.

  The valley had two levels, one in the sun and one, lower, screened by the clouds toward which the jeep now drove, rocking and bouncing. As the sun set, its rays hit the distant hills facing the men, where squat structures amid gray and violent brushwood blazed with mirrors. It was difficult to look at them, they were so bright. The layer of cloud was closer. Behind the men, outlined high against the azure sky, stood the jagged bushes. They went slower, then were enveloped in rolling vapor, humid and stifling; everything became dim. The Captain inched the jeep forward, switched on the headlights, but turned them off immediately, since the glare in the fog made visibility worse.

  Suddenly the fog cleared. It was cooler. They found themselves on much less of an incline and just beneath the clouds, which stretched into the distance toward indistinct gray and black patches deep in the valley. Ahead, something glimmered, like a light through an oily liquid, and they felt their eyes blur. The Doctor and the Chemist tried rubbing their eyes—it didn't help. A dark object came toward them out of the glimmering. The ground now was flat, and smooth enough to have been artificially leveled and hardened. The object grew larger; they could see that it was a vehicle on tires—it was their jeep, a reflection in some surface. Then they could almost see their own faces, but the image broke up and vanished at the place where they expected to find a mirror. They drove through, encountering nothing, though they were brushed by a sudden warmth, as if that marked the crossing of an unseen barrier. At the same time whatever had blurred their eyes the moment before went away.

  The tires splashed: the jeep was going through puddles. Patches of turbid water gave off a faintly bitter smell, as if there were ashes in them. Mounds of lighter, upturned clay lay here and there between the puddles. Rubble appeared on the right—not fragments of wall, but pieces of crumpled, soiled fabric heaped one on top of another, rising as high as twenty feet in some places, and at ground level there were black irregular openings in them. The men drove through this area—what lurked in the holes, they could not see. The Captain stopped near one mound, so close that one of the front tires came to rest against it. He alighted, walked to the top of it, and peered into a rectangular well. Seeing the expression on his face, the others ran up to him. The Doctor slipped on the clay, but the Chemist gave him a hand.

  In the hole, whose vertical walls looked as though they had been excavated by a machine, a naked corpse lay floating on its back. Only the very top of its powerful chest, from which a childlike torso protruded, was above the dark water.

  The three men looked at one another, then walked down the mound of clay. Water trickled and gathered in their footprints.

  "Is there nothing but graves on this planet?" asked the Chemist.

  They stood by the jeep, undecided. The Captain turned away, pale, and looked around. There, were mounds everywhere, in uneven rows. To the right lay more gray rubble-heaps, with a low white line snaking through them. To the left, beyond some more upturned clay, was an inclined plane, broad at the bottom and narrowing at the top, made of pitted metal. Beyond that, through wisps of vapor, they could see—barely—something vertical and black, like the sides of a huge caldron.

  The Captain was climbing back into the jeep when a deep sigh, as if from underground, reached their ears. The white clouds that before had concealed everything were dispersed, on the left, by a powerful gust that a moment later enveloped the men in a bitter, penetrating odor. They then saw a mo
nstrous chimney reaching to the sky and, spewing from it, a brown column perhaps three hundred feet across, a waterfall in reverse that forced apart the clouds and disappeared upward. This lasted a minute, then silence followed, then came another muffled groan, and a gust in the opposite direction tugged at their hair, and the clouds returned in long curls and covered the black chimney completely.

  The Captain motioned to the others, they got in, and the jeep went clumsily over the uneven clay to the next mound. They looked inside. It was empty, apart from some black water. Again they heard a muffled sound, the clouds parted, a brown geyser poured from the chimney, and again the column was sucked back in. They paid less and less attention to this alternation of cloud and smoke as they rode from mound to mound, jumping onto soft clay, climbing slopes of slippery mud, and peering into the wells on top. Sometimes there would be a splash at the bottom, if a clod of clay was dislodged by their feet. Then they would return to the jeep and ride on.

  Out of the eighteen wells they examined, they found corpses in seven. Oddly, their horror and repugnance diminished, the more corpses they found. They noticed, becoming more objective, more observant, that there was less water in the holes nearer the huge chimney. And in one of the holes, the entire bottom of which was covered by a body bent double, they noticed that the body was not quite like the others. It seemed paler, differently formed. They drove on, unable to verify this impression; the next two holes were empty, but in the third, which was completely dry and situated only a few hundred feet from the metal ramp, they saw a body on its side, and one of the arms belonging to its smaller torso was divided at the end into two appendages.

  "What's that?" said the Chemist in a strange voice, gripping the Doctor's shoulder. "Do you see it?"

  "I see it."

  "A fork—instead of fingers?"