A Voyage to Arcturus

by David Lindsay

  Chapter 5. THE NIGHT OF DEPARTURE

  When they returned to the house, the windows were all in darkness andthe door was ajar, just as they had left it; Krag presumably was notthere. Maskull went all over the house, striking matches in everyroom—at the end of the examination he was ready to swear that the manthey were expecting had not even stuck his nose inside the premises.Groping their way into the library, they sat down in the total darknessto wait, for nothing else remained to be done. Maskull lit his pipe, andbegan to drink the remainder of the whisky. Through the open windowsounded in their ears the trainlike grinding of the sea at the foot ofthe cliffs.

  “Krag must be in the tower after all,” remarked Maskull, breaking thesilence.

  “Yes, he is getting ready.”

  “I hope he doesn’t expect us to join him there. It was beyond mypowers—but why, heaven knows. The stairs must have a magnetic pull ofsome sort.”

  “It is Tormantic gravity,” muttered Nightspore.

  “I understand you—or, rather, I don’t—but it doesn’t matter.”

  He went on smoking in silence, occasionally taking a mouthful of theneat liquor. “Who is Surtur?” he demanded abruptly.

  “We others are gropers and bunglers, but he is a master.”

  Maskull digested this. “I fancy you are right, for though I know nothingabout him his mere name has an exciting effect on me.... Are youpersonally acquainted with him?”

  “I must be... I forget...” replied Nightspore in a choking voice.

  Maskull looked up, surprised, but could make nothing out in theblackness of the room.

  “Do you know so many extraordinary men that you can forget some ofthem?... Perhaps you can tell me this... will we meet him, where we aregoing?”

  “You will meet death, Maskull.... Ask me no more questions—I can’tanswer them.”

  “Then let us go on waiting for Krag,” said Maskull coldly.

  Ten minutes later the front door slammed, and a light, quick footstepwas heard running up the stairs. Maskull got up, with a beating heart.

  Krag appeared on the threshold of the door, bearing in his hand a feeblyglimmering lantern. A hat was on his head, and he looked stern andforbidding. After scrutinising the two friends for a moment or so, hestrode into the room and thrust the lantern on the table. Its lighthardly served to illuminate the walls.

  “You have got here, then, Maskull?”

  “So it seems—but I shan’t thank you for your hospitality, for it hasbeen conspicuous by its absence.”

  Krag ignored the remark. “Are you ready to start?”

  “By all means—when you are. It is not so entertaining here.”

  Krag surveyed him critically. “I heard you stumbling about in the tower.You couldn’t get up, it seems.”

  “It looks like an obstacle, for Nightspore informs me that the starttakes place from the top.”

  “But your other doubts are all removed?”

  “So far, Krag, that I now possess an open mind. I am quite willing tosee what you can do.”

  “Nothing more is asked.... But this tower business. You know that untilyou are able to climb to the top you are unfit to stand the gravitationof Tormance?”

  “Then I repeat, it’s an awkward obstacle, for I certainly can’t get up.”

  Krag hunted about in his pockets, and at length produced a clasp knife.

  “Remove your coat, and roll up your shirt sleeve,” he directed.

  “Do you propose to make an incision with that?”

  “Yes, and don’t start difficulties, because the effect is certain, butyou can’t possibly understand it beforehand.”

  “Still, a cut with a pocket-knife—” began Maskull, laughing.

  “It will answer, Maskull,” interrupted Nightspore.

  “Then bare your arm too, you aristocrat of the universe,” said Krag.“Let us see what your blood is made of.”

  Nightspore obeyed.

  Krag pulled out the big blade of the knife, and made a careless andalmost savage slash at Maskull’s upper arm. The wound was deep, andblood flowed freely.

  “Do I bind it up?” asked Maskull, scowling with pain.

  Krag spat on the wound. “Pull your shirt down, it won’t bleed any more.”

  He then turned his attention to Nightspore, who endured his operationwith grim indifference. Krag threw the knife on the floor.

  An awful agony, emanating from the wound, started to run throughMaskull’s body, and he began to doubt whether he would not have tofaint, but it subsided almost immediately, and then he felt nothing buta gnawing ache in the injured arm, just strong enough to make life onelong discomfort.

  “That’s finished,” said Krag. “Now you can follow me.”

  Picking up the lantern, he walked toward the door. The others hastenedafter him, to take advantage of the light, and a moment later theirfootsteps, clattering down the uncarpeted stairs, resounded through thedeserted house. Krag waited till they were out, and then banged thefront door after them with such violence that the windows shook.

  While they were walking swiftly across to the tower, Maskull caught hisarm. “I heard a voice up those stairs.”

  “What did it say?”

  “That I am to go, but Nightspore is to return.”

  Krag smiled. “The journey is getting notorious,” he remarked, after apause. “There must be ill-wishers about.... Well, do you want toreturn?”

  “I don’t know what I want. But I thought the thing was curious enough tobe mentioned.”

  “It is not a bad thing to hear voices,” said Krag, “but you mustn’t fora minute imagine that all is wise that comes to you out of the nightworld.”

  When they had arrived at the open gateway of the tower, he immediatelyset foot on the bottom step of the spiral staircase and ran nimbly up,bearing the lantern. Maskull followed him with some trepidation, in viewof his previous painful experience on these stairs, but when, after thefirst half-dozen steps, he discovered that he was still breathingfreely, his dread changed to relief and astonishment, and he could havechattered like a girl.

  At the lowest window Krag went straight ahead without stopping, butMaskull clambered into the embrasure, in order to renew his acquaintancewith the miraculous spectacle of the Arcturian group. The lens had lostits magic property. It had become a common sheet of glass, through whichthe ordinary sky field appeared.

  The climb continued, and at the second and third windows he againmounted and stared out, but still the common sights presentedthemselves. After that, he gave up and looked through no more windows.

  Krag and Nightspore meanwhile had gone on ahead with the light, so thathe had to complete the ascent in darkness. When he was near the top, hesaw yellow light shining through the crack of a half-opened door. Hiscompanions were standing just inside a small room, shut off from thestaircase by rough wooden planking; it was rudely furnished andcontained nothing of astronomical interest. The lantern was resting on atable.

  Maskull walked in and looked around him with curiosity. “Are we at thetop?”

  “Except for the platform over our heads,” replied Krag.

  “Why didn’t that lowest window magnify, as it did earlier in theevening?”

  “Oh, you missed your opportunity,” said Krag, grinning. “If you hadfinished your climb then, you would have seen heart-expanding sights.From the fifth window, for example, you would have seen Tormance like acontinent in relief; from the sixth you would have seen it like alandscape.... But now there’s no need.”

  “Why not—and what has need got to do with it?”

  “Things are changed, my friend, since that wound of yours. For the samereason that you have now been able to mount the stairs, there was nonecessity to stop and gape at illusions en route.”

  “Very well,” said Maskull, not quite understanding what he meant. “Butis this Surtur’s den?”

  “He has spent time here.”

  “I wish you would describe this mysterious individual, Krag. We may no
tget another chance.”

  “What I said about the windows also applies to Surtur. There’s no needto waste time over visualising him, because you are immediately going onto the reality.”

  “Then let us go.” He pressed his eyeballs wearily.

  “Do we strip?” asked Nightspore.

  “Naturally,” answered Krag, and he began to tear off his clothes withslow, uncouth movements.

  “Why?” demanded Maskull, following, however, the example of the othertwo men.

  Krag thumped his vast chest, which was covered with thick hairs, like anape’s. “Who knows what the Tormance fashions are like? We may sproutlimbs—I don’t say we shall.”

  “A-ha!” exclaimed Maskull, pausing in the middle of his undressing.

  Krag smote him on the back. “New pleasure organs possible, Maskull. Youlike that?”

  The three men stood as nature made them. Maskull’s spirits rose fast, asthe moment of departure drew near.

  “A farewell drink to success!” cried Krag, seizing a bottle and breakingits head off between his fingers. There were no glasses, but he pouredthe amber-coloured wine into some cracked cups.

  Perceiving that the others drank, Maskull tossed off his cupful. It wasas if he had swallowed a draught of liquid electricity.... Krag droppedonto the floor and rolled around on his back, kicking his legs in theair. He tried to drag Maskull down on top of him, and a little horseplaywent on between the two. Nightspore took no part in it, but walked toand fro, like a hungry caged animal.

  Suddenly, from out-of-doors, there came a single prolonged, piercingwail, such as a banshee might be imagined to utter. It ceased abruptly,and was not repeated.

  “What’s that?” called out Maskull, disengaging himself impatiently fromKrag.

  Krag rocked with laughter. “A Scottish spirit trying to reproduce thebagpipes of its earth life—in honour of our departure.”

  Nightspore turned to Krag. “Maskull will sleep throughout the journey?”

  “And you too, if you wish, my altruistic friend. I am pilot, and youpassengers can amuse yourselves as you please.”

  “Are we off at last?” asked Maskull.

  “Yes, you are about to cross your Rubicon, Maskull. But what aRubicon!... Do you know that it takes light a hundred years or so toarrive here from Arcturus? Yet we shall do it in nineteen hours.”

  “Then you assert that Surtur is already there?”

  “Surtur is where he is. He is a great traveller.”

  “Won’t I see him?”

  Krag went up to him and looked him in the eyes. “Don’t forget that youhave asked for it, and wanted it. Few people in Tormance will know moreabout him than you do, but your memory will be your worst friend.”

  *****

  He led the way up a short iron ladder, mounting through a trap to theflat roof above. When they were up, he switched on a small electrictorch.

  Maskull beheld with awe the torpedo of crystal that was to convey themthrough the whole breadth of visible space. It was forty feet long,eight wide, and eight high; the tank containing the Arcturian back rayswas in front, the car behind. The nose of the torpedo was directedtoward the south-eastern sky. The whole machine rested upon a flatplatform, raised about four feet above the level of the roof, so as toencounter no obstruction on starting its flight.

  Krag flashed the light on to the door of the car, to enable them toenter. Before doing so, Maskull gazed sternly once again at thegigantic, far-distant star, which was to be their sun from now onward.He frowned, shivered slightly, and got in beside Nightspore. Kragclambered past them onto his pilot’s seat. He threw the flashlightthrough the open door, which was then carefully closed, fastened, andscrewed up.

  He pulled the starting lever. The torpedo glided gently from itsplatform, and passed rather slowly away from the tower, seaward. Itsspeed increased sensibly, though not excessively, until the approximatelimits of the earth’s atmosphere were reached. Krag then released thespeed valve, and the car sped on its way with a velocity more nearlyapproaching that of thought than of light.

  Maskull had no opportunity of examining through the crystal walls therapidly changing panorama of the heavens. An extreme drowsinessoppressed him. He opened his eyes violently a dozen times, but on thethirteenth attempt he failed. From that time forward he slept heavily.

  The bored, hungry expression never left Nightspore’s face. Thealterations in the aspect of the sky seemed to possess not the leastinterest for him.

  Krag sat with his hand on the lever, watching with savage intentness hisphosphorescent charts and gauges.