Fletcher Pratt Read online

  Through the cloud of steam the expressionless mask that covered Ashembe's features became visible. "Are you liberated?" he asked, anxiously.

  I extended toward him the hand that had been caught. Around the fingers still clung fragments and tatters of the iridescent jelly of the thing that had tried to drag me down, its heart a mass of color too lovely to be deadly. He reached an inquisitive finger toward it, touched, and the jelly clung to him as it had to me. Torn as it was, it took our united strength to pull it loose, and when we returned to the Shoraru after our journey, there were still bits of it hanging here and there on the atotta suit.

  "You are extremely faulty," Ashembe told me severely. "It is the very good rule we have never to interfere with unknown plants and animals. All have great potentialities of danger."

  "But who would think a formless thing like that—?"

  "In your own planet you have the blossoms of some plants, not only harmless looking but artistic in appearance, that are highly dangerous," was his reply. "Some of them catch insects and small animals. I have visited other planets and in each found obviously innocent objects that were really of danger. Beware."

  We had been forging on as we spoke, and the water had now become definitely shoal. A moment later we stepped out on land. But what a land! The huge, languid sun still shone through the yellow fog to show us a land without earth, a coast of striated, tortured rock, with long cracks running through it away back into the distance. Under our feet the rock was hard and bare, and every few paces we came upon a little pocket of jagged stones, black and fearfully rough, like the clinkers from a furnace. Over these Ashembe paused. They seemed to excite his interest, and he picked up several to add to the collection of similar objects in the cylinder he had brought.

  "I am justified," he said as we worked slowly up the rough slope from the foreshore. "This is clearly the outflow from a volcano, these rocks being ordinary volcanic cinders. We must hasten. Dangerous to remain here on account of volcanic activity."

  Soon we were assisting each other over and around big boulders, and then without realizing the gradations, were climbing, hand and foot, up a veritable mountain. We must have been at it for three or four hours before my indefatigable companion paused for a rest.

  I looked around. The thickness of the atmosphere obscured everything, but we could see away behind us the slope up which we had come, jagged and torn, like nothing on Earth, so much as the slope of Vesuvius just beyond Naples. Above us the same slope stretched on to an invisible height.

  "How are we going to find our way back?" I asked. From his belt Ashembe produced a little instrument, not unlike a watch with a bright metal face. "Attend," said he, holding it up, its face pointing down the slope up which we had come, then slowly turning it so that it swept the compass. At one point he paused. A loud ticking sound was audible and the gleaming metal face was clouded over.

  "In that direction lies the Shoraru," said my companion, pointing toward the locality the instrument faced. "This is the Boshee, always used by our explorers. In the Shoraru is a—a small radio apparatus, you would call. The Boshee is a receiver, attuned to receive only impulses from this apparatus. It has within an arrangement like ears on either side." He pointed to two tiny, bell-shaped openings on opposite sides of the instrument. "When the impulse entering by one ear is equal to that entering by the other it causes the instrument to make sound and obscures the receiving mirror. Thus it must point in the correct direction."

  "But what if it is pointed in the direction exactly opposite to the right one?"

  "Then it makes the sound, but the mirror is not obscured. The impulses within the Boshee are directed in the direction from which they come—reflected. When it is pointed in the exact opposite direction, they are reflected to the back of the instrument, and there is no cloud on mirror. See." He turned the Boshee and, as he had said, the ticking was distinctly audible, but the mirror remained unclouded.

  We resumed our progress, climbing heavily over the crags that now barred our path. It was monotonously alike—gray rocks with tearing edges that crumbled and broke as we climbed, fog, red sun and silence.

  It became apparent, after a little further progress, that we were no longer going upward. For a while longer we stumbled among the rocks of a kind of plateau and then found ourselves going definitely downward through the same infinitudes of monotonous gray stone, featureless save for the fantastic shapes given them by successive outpourings and crumblings of bluetonian material. I grew weary, begged Ashembe to halt, and as we paused again, throwing ourselves flat to rest, we heard a low drum-beat of sound, regularly repeated.

  "What's that?" I asked, starting to a sitting position.

  "The possibility is a volcano," he declared with entire calm. "Let us proceed with caution."

  We "proceeded with caution" toward the sound. The down slope, like the upgrade before it, now came to an end, and we found ourselves in a valley between cyclopean blocks of detritus from some silent volcano, all as void of life or any sign of it as everything we had passed since we emerged from the swamp of the algae. The sound became louder, a steady boom-boom of reverberations somewhere in the distance, and when we stopped we could feel the ground vibrate with the attendant shock. Suddenly Ashembe gripped my arm and pointed straight ahead.

  "You see?" he asked.

  I could see nothing but the silent sun and rock and said so. "No? Well, come," and we toiled on for another quarter mile or so. My attention was taken up with negotiating the ground, which now began to show a series of alarming cracks beneath out feet, but when we next halted I could see dimly, in the distance, a black cloud like a darker spot in the surrounding murk, floating high above the surface. Beneath it and equally far was a great red funnel of flame, dimmed to a ghostly pink by the distance. The booming sound we heard came from it, and all around us the vibration of the ground was now clearly perceptible.

  "A volcano?"

  "Certainly. What else?"

  We pressed on. The shock of the eruption became more pronounced as we advanced. Here and there small pieces of the gray rock would tumble from overhanging balconies of stone, startling by the sharp clash of sound they made in that enormous silence. The red outpouring of the volcano, with its crown of black cloud, became clearer, though the air was thicker than ever. One could see millions of tiny dust-motes dancing about as in a sunbeam. Off to one side, from a long crack, a slow curl of heavy vapor oozed into the air. I pointed it out to my companion.

  "Ah!" he cried with awakened interest and in an instant was clambering over the rocks toward the spot, to hold over it one of the bottles he had brought. "If there is pleci anywhere here, it is within such gas," he announced as he put the bottle away in one of the pockets of his suit.

  Still forward. (Why didn't he turn back?) The long valley up which we had been traveling gradually wore out to a flat and then became an upward slope as we approached the volcano. More fumaroles, like the one I had first seen, made their appearance to either side. The rocks seemed firmer for some peculiar reason, and Ashembe led the way with obvious caution. Then, rounding a block as big as a house that stood all by itself, he stopped altogether, indicating something ahead. I followed his finger to see a long, smoking surge of volcanic material moving ever so gently down the slope toward us.

  "The magma," he said, and began to produce another collecting bottle.

  I detained him. "Isn't it hot?"

  "Certainly. But we have atotta suits. We would have been too hot long ago but for them. Temperature probably about forty of your centigrade system degrees." And leaving me to wonder over the statement, he was off with his bottle to get a sample of the gas from over the burning lava.

  We turned back after that, guiding our course by means of Ashembe's "boshee." For myself I was quite ready to stop and take a prolonged rest. We had been traveling for something like five hours and had eaten nothing in that time. I was aching in every muscle from the exertions of climbing among the torn and broken rocks
. But Ashembe's desire for speed was insatiable. "Dangerous to remain," he said.

  The reason became apparent as we reached the foot of the valley up which we had approached the volcano. Smoke and steam were pouring from a crack at the left of our path in quick, short puffs like the exhalation of an automobile's exhaust. There was an ominous underground rumbling, and we had gotten hardly two hundred yards beyond the spot when the rumbling rose to a roar and the ground began to tremble so violently we could hardly keep our feet.

  Casting a glance over my shoulder, I saw the crack widen and run. Through the mouth thus made a quick flicker of flame poured forth. Not merely dust, but rocks of considerable size began to fall about us. The sound of the eruption rose to a deafening outburst. "Come!" I heard Ashembe's shout faint above the racket, and tailed after him down the quivering path, giving no attention to direction. The shower of rocks and ashes increased to a perfect hailstorm.

  We ran. My God, how we ran!

  It was I who stopped first. Stones or not, I could not go another step, and I flung myself down in the shelter of an overhanging block of stone, declaring my intention to move no further. Ashembe, unwilling perhaps to leave, sank down by my side, and for some time we lay there, breathing in deep gasps and wondering whether the stone would collapse on us or a lava stream engulf us.

  Neither of which happened. The dust and ashes grew round us like a black snowstorm to a depth of several inches, but the fall of stones had ceased, and we had managed to put enough distance between ourselves and the eruption to avoid the lava streams. After an hour or so of rest, we set out again, moving cautiously and regulating our direction by the "boshee," but making a wide circuit around the scene of the eruption. We reached the edge of the swamp dead beat at a point not at all resembling that where we had left our car....

  Both of us snatched a little food and fell asleep like dead men, not troubling to remove our suits. The air of even the small space of the car was wonderfully good after ten or twelve hours in the constricted quarters of the atotta garments. I woke up stiff in every muscle. Ashembe was already up, conducting a chemical analysis at the end of the chamber, a slight frown of concentration on his face as he worked.

  "I'm hungry," I remarked.

  "Ah, so you are aroused," my companion answered. "Your muscles feel as though ankylosed?"

  "I don't know," I said truthfully, "but they're stiff."

  "Apply this with care," he said, tossing me a little box of ointment according to his directions.

  "Very small quantity in gas from the crater," he said. "I fear not large enough to use without extensive recovering process which would consume much time and mercury. Such would make the trip uneconomic and I hesitate to use."

  "That's too bad," I said. (The ointment stung and burned but removed all the stiffness and fatigue from my muscles.) "What made the volcano break out like that? Are there more eruptions coming?"

  "This is the very young world, like your planet or mine in an extremely early stage of history. Water not yet formed upon the surface. All is semi-fluid state underneath, with thin crust, liable to break through at any moment. It is in the state corresponding to the Archaeozoic of your scientists. Represented by oldest volcanic rocks. Very low forms of life alone exist here."

  "Then it will go through the course of development our world has?"

  "Perhaps. Who can tell? Now all is very early; nothing but algal growths and eruptions. But I do not think it will be the same. This Venus is unfortunate. It must become always very cold at night and grow very hot in daytime. The higher forms of life, when they develop, will be more heat and cold resistant than our forms and will therefore be different."

  "Is your world so much like ours then?"

  "Very much, but longer developed. Do you not wonder that I should have the same bodily form as you? This is because of the law of adaptive symmetry, which we have found to be universal. That is, similar conditions always produce similar effects."

  "And your conditions on Murashema are similar to ours? ... By the way, this blue stuff tastes uncommonly good. What is it?"

  "A protein compound, valuable as a stimulant. Yes, our conditions are similar. Our planet occupies the same relation to its star as this Venus does to your sun. But we have two moons. The geological history is much similar, however. Your own scientists have the beginnings of the correct idea that similar causes produce always similar effects."

  "How is that?"

  "Do I not find in your knowledge-book and your biological book what they call 'convergence'? Your shark, your fish, your ichthyosaur, your mosasaur, your dolphine, they all have the same outward bodily form. They all have the same mode of life and pursue the same kind of food.

  Many internal details are dissimilar, but they have more likenesses than dissimilarity. Your rhinoceros and your monoceratops are equally alike, though both are different to start with, like all the marine animals I have mentioned. It is because in such cases animals are coping with similar environments. That is, the life spirit is dealing with similar causes and produces similar effects."

  "I see."

  "Attend then. Your scientists have this idea. They only lack the application of it to the evolution of worlds as" like individual forms. But ... Ah, sorrow."

  I looked up.

  "Not sufficient quantity of pleci in any of these gases or rocks to be of economic recovery. What now?"

  "There's another planet—" I began.

  "I am aware. There is very good opportunity. We may be able to obtain pleci from the atmosphere of the sun at that distance, since pleci is very light and is driven out to high distances through radiation pressure. With no planetary atmosphere to interfere, it should be present."

  He fell silent, absorbed in thought, and after a moment or two began to work the calculating machine he had been using so much on our journey. Finally:

  "There is a choice," he said. "It is difficult...

  "Yes," I said, encouragingly.

  "Three things are to be done. The first is to remain on this Venus and extract quantity of pleci from volcanic gases. Difficulty is that following such operation, we would need a necessary return to your Earth for larger supply of mercury. Also it would take a very long time, four or five of your years. Also it would be a work of danger, but all courses remaining open have parallel dangers.

  "The second course is to go on to your inner planet Mercury. How is it that metal and planet have the same name? Danger of this course is that we do not find pleci drive far enough from your sun by radiation pressure. Also there is the danger that we may land on the wrong place on this very minor planet, on the very bright side where quantity of heat would be bothersome, or very dark side, where we could not work. There is also danger that uncareful operation of this Shoraru would cause us to miss the planet entirely and throw us into your sun, then goodbye. Also that we cannot go anywhere else if fuel is all gone and pleci is unobtainable.

  "The third course is to return to your Earth, reconstructing now Shoraru with helium power. The danger is that helium power plant would be insufficient after all to return me to Murashema, and thus I would wander for perpetual time in empty space. Not to speak of the delay. But you would arrive home."

  "I'm for the second plan. The most dangerous thing is frequently the safest," I said boldly.

  Ashembe glanced at me with approval.

  "I am glad you say thus. May you be happy." He made the formal salute of courtesy. "What then, let us depart." And he turned to stowing away the various articles that had been taken from their racks.

  If the trip from the Earth to Venus had been a bore after the novelty wore off, that from Venus to Mercury was nerve-racking. Every possibility of destruction he had outlined was fresh and clear in my mind—and I had nothing else to think about. I hardly slept at all during the two days the trip consumed, and Ashembe, busied with computations and navigation (now become a task of extreme delicacy) was of no help at all as a companion.

  It was about this
time I discovered that my watch had stopped. I wound it up again and marked the minutes as we spun through the void toward what might be our last stop in the universe.

  It was about thirty-six hours from the time I wound my watch when Ashembe called me to look through the screens. Spread out below us (for we had already reached the stage where we seemed to be falling down into it) I saw the panorama of the planet Mercury.

  The surface we were approaching was on the border of night and day, like a moon at its half-moon stage. And like the moon when seen through a telescope, all the upper surface of the planet was pitted and ridged with wide, jagged rings that cast long shadows where light joined dark. Very tall must those Mercurian craters be and very rough their sides.

  Toward the dark side they seemed taller than on the side facing the sun. On the solar side, indeed, there was a tendency for them to lose form and run into one another, to have less jagged and more rounded edges. The craters just at the border line resembled holes punched in the sand with a child's stick, while those over on the light side looked like the same holes after a wave has passed over them, breaking down the sharp lines to a conformable smoothness.

  VII

  THE GROUND of the planet rushed up at us with a speed I had not imagined possible. I caught a glimpse of the peak of one of the mountains flashing past, then saw Ashembe feverishly working the keys at the base of the Shoraru. There was an outburst of sound, loud even inside the car, as he fired the motors at the base, all at once, to check our too rapid progress, and right on the heels of the explosion came a shock that sent me rolling from one side to the other of the compartment. We had landed.