In the Wake of Man

by Roger Elwood (ed)

  They established a high orbit around Mars and focused the manual scanners on the uneven wasteland of its scarred surface.

  “What are we looking for, David?” Sharon asked.

  “Bases, perhaps, or a ship. Anything that appears not to be part of the natural landscape. I suggest that our first surveys be in hundred-mile strips. Then if we find nothing, we can make a more detailed search at a lower orbit.”

  “All right, dearest.” She was always very cooperative in any matter that had to do with the Search. In this, at least, she did not question his judgment.

  For three days they saw nothing. Then, on the fourth day, Sharon said, “I’ve found something!”

  David quickly focused his scanner into her search area. And there it was: the third ship! He found it hard to hide the elation which he felt.

  “I was right. The third ship did land on Mars!”

  “But why should the ship be there?” Sharon asked. “There is a far better landing site just twenty miles off.”

  “Perhaps that is where they wanted to land. Come on. I want to establish a landing orbit that will place us next to the ship.”

  He fed the data into the ship’s computer and received landing instructions. He eased the ship down and came to rest less than a quarter of a mile from the third ship. They approached it on foot, their eyes straining for any signs of life. There was nothing. The ship lay half-buried in a rust-colored sand. An airlock was open. They went inside the ship’s storage room.

  Nothing. Nothing but red dust deposited by centuries of fragile winds. David felt his mind go dark with disappointment. He did not know what he had hoped to find, but something…

  “There’s nothing here.” His voice had a dull, empty sound to it.

  “I’m sorry, darling. Truly sorry. I know how you must feel.”

  “We might as well go back to the ship.”

  “Shouldn’t we look for artifacts? Perhaps there will be some record of what happened to them.”

  “You’re right, of course.”

  They began to make a detailed search of the ship. His heart was not in it. What mattered how they had perished, as long as they were not here?

  “That’s strange.” Sharon spoke so quietly that he scarcely heard her. “I wonder why our ship did not have an escape hatch here?”

  He looked up at her words, and then to the escape hatch on the ship’s floor. “You’re right. There was no escape hatch here on our ship. I wonder—”

  He studied the locking device. It was the same type used on their own ship, which meant it could be released from either side. He went hurriedly through the ship, looking for the code panel which would contain the unlocking combination. He opened the control room door and stepped into the main part of the ship.

  “Sharon! Sharon, come here!”

  “What is it, David?”

  “Look. The air breeder unit is missing. The ship has been stripped.”

  “You’re right, darling. They did survive—at least for a while. They’ve removed everything except the hull.”

  “Look for the code panel. I want to open the escape hatch.”

  Two hours later they found the code which opened the door into the World of Man.

  A rush of escaping air pressed against them as the escape hatch was opened. Quickly they stepped inside. After assuring himself that it would open from the inside,

  David closed the door. Beneath them, a curved stairwell led deep into the earth. A soft, luminous light lit their way. They began to descend.

  Two hundred feet into the earth the stairway ended. They found themselves standing in a large tunnel which seemed to have been formed naturally by an extinct volcano. Their way was still lighted by that same soft lighting which seemed to emanate from the walls of the tunnel.

  They had followed the tunnel for perhaps one-half mile when they discovered the lichen field. The luxurious growth extended into several side tunnels as far as the eye could see. The air about them grew heavy with moisture as they passed through the fields. They stayed on what appeared to be a path which followed the main tunnel. Rounding a curve in the corridor, they came to a place where the ceiling was nearly twenty feet high and where the walls of the tunnel they had been following flowed outward on either side. Beneath their feet a different kind of growth appeared which was nearly six inches high. And in the distance they saw a number of animals grazing whose species David was able to identify from his study of ancient history.

  “Cows!” Sharon said.

  “Yes, cows. There are Men here. I’m sure of it.”

  “It doesn’t seem possible, but—cows!”

  “I think we should—” He broke off, his eyes straining into the misty field in front of them. Perhaps a hundred yards away a figure was coming toward them. The figure was walking upright. They had, at last, found Man. Nearer he came—nearer yet until they could clearly see his face. Something broke in David’s mind, an emotion more compelling than anything he had ever experienced before.

  He cast himself face down on the damp grass and buried his face in the earth. “O Man. O father of all intelligent beings, thy servant David asks leave to speak.”

  “Who are you?”

  The youthfulness of the voice broke through his reverence, and he raised his head. Beside him, Sharon lay prostrate on the ground, not daring to move. The first Man they were to see was obviously a boy of perhaps eleven years of age. Slowly, so as to cause no alarm, David stood up. How stupid he had been to give in to his instincts. He must be careful not to cause the boy further alarm.

  “Okay,” he said quietly to Sharon. “You may get up now.”

  She rose, still hardly daring to look the boy in the face. “Is it—is he—?”

  “Yes, but we must—”

  “Who are you?” the boy interrupted.

  “My name is David, and this is Sharon.”

  “Where is your kilt? Why do you come to the pastures of the Brown Kilt?”

  The boy’s voice was faintly hostile. It occurred to David that the culture Man had created on earth would not have survived for two thousand years in this environment. A hundred times he had imagined this first contact with Man, but somehow he had always imagined the race surviving with its knowledge and culture intact. Trespass might very well be a capital offense here where living space was undoubtedly so limited. He must proceed carefully and learn as much as he could about them before they met the others. It would be ironic indeed to fail now.

  “We come from another place,” David said. “What is your name?”

  “I’m Bill. Bill Brown. My father is the Headman of the Brown Kilt.”

  “I have come to see your father. Does he live near here?”

  “Sure. I told you he was Headman. What did you think—that he lived in Tech City?”

  “Can you take us to him?”

  “I have to watch the cows, sir. Last week they strayed into the Perry Kilt, and my father cut my rations for three days.”

  “How long must you watch the cows, Bill?”

  “Are you kidding? Everybody knows that the cows are brought in at the time of six dimmings.”

  “Yes, of course. Your father is a—a farmer, I take it.”

  “What’s a farmer? My father is a Dirt Man. All of the Browns are Dirt Men.”

  “I see. Are all your friends Dirt Men?”

  “Heck, no. I know lots of Techs.”

  “Do you mind if we wait here until the time of six dimmings? We would like to see your father.”

  “Sure, I don’t mind. It won’t be long. They’ve turned the moisture off. There’s our home.”

  David followed his pointing finger. The haze had lifted quite suddenly, and visibility became nearly perfect. The field which before had seemed almost limitless was now revealed to be perhaps a mile long and a half-mile wide. Here and there in the sides of the walls surrounding the pasture openings were visible, and it was to one of these that Bill was pointing. Soon the lights dimmed six times, and the twenty
or so cows began slowly to move together. There were other herds in nearby pastures, and those too began to head for the walls. Bill moved away from them for a moment to collect his herd into a tighter unit.

  “Did you see?” Sharon asked softly when Bill was out of hearing.

  “See what?”

  “He breathed. You could see the air coming out of his mouth when the fog was on. Man lives. He truly lives.”

  “I know,” he said. There was something akin to awe in her voice. He felt it himself even as he struggled to force the emotion from his mind. It was not easy to do. How often does a person meet his god? But the most immediate problem was to make contact with those who could evaluate the news which he brought to them. A highly isolated culture which must battle daily for survival must be a highly rigid culture. There were bound to be taboos. Perhaps even the idea of life above ground would seem preposterous to them. Who knows how much of their former knowledge was corrupted by the passage of time?

  They joined the boy as the herd began its leisurely trek toward the wall. Sharon walked as close to the boy as possible. Once she pretended to admire a simple metal ring the boy was wearing and took his hand in hers as though to inspect it more closely. “See?” she asked David. David took the boy’s hand for a moment. He knew then why she was so fascinated by it. There was a feel to human flesh that was different from his own. Sharon seemed to find fresh delight in each new demonstration of the boy’s humanity. Once the boy took a small object from his pocket and offered it to Sharon. She watched in fascination when, after she had refused it, the boy put the object in his mouth, chewed it, and swallowed it. Man’s ability to eat was a central part of many liturgies. Sharon appeared at last to be convinced that the boy was what he seemed to be. After that, she walked a respectful distance behind him.

  They arrived at the wall, and the boy drove his herd into a small corral adjacent to the wall. “Come on,” he said as he locked the gate. They went inside through the opening in the wall.

  They were on their way to Tech City. They traveled on foot, of course. There was no other form of transportation here. David and Sharon walked in front, followed by the boy’s father and several of his neighbors. David realized now that he had made a serious mistake in not telling the truth from the start. He had tried to find out more about their culture structure before telling them who he was, but in doing this he had only made them suspicious of his motives. The group of Men who were following them were ominously silent.

  At least he had learned something about them. Their population was slightly over twenty-two hundred. They had only two classes of citizens—Dirt Men and Tech Men. The Dirt Men were farmers, responsible for food production. The Techs were the keepers of the machines. Over the years, they had become highly specialized in manufacturing the machinery necessary to reconvert air and water into usable forms. The original converters, David guessed, had been obtained from the bases which had been established on Mars before the Final Days. There must still have been a few survivors on Mars when the starship had arrived. Apparently the Men from the starship had joined with survivors from the Martian bases to establish this underground retreat where Man was destined to make his last desperate stand for survival.

  During the early years, Man’s survival must have hung by a slender thread. A machine that broke down, a cow that died during calving, a technician who was careless— any one of a dozen things might have upset his precarious grip on life. But, gradually, life took hold and flourished. The lichens which had already been developed for the Martian bases were improved by careful experimentation. Two of the varieties were highly suitable for human life. One was used as food for the cattle and, carefully woven, also provided fabric for clothing. Fortunately, the ship had been a colonization ship which had been intended to settle another world. Its passengers were used to coping with the problems of a recycled economy. Otherwise, survival would have been impossible.

  Gradually, Man began to expand his breathing space. A limited number of children were permitted to be born. In order to qualify for children, a Man—whether Dirt or Tech—must hew from the hard rock enough living space to provide for his unborn child. This was a task which ordinarily took six years of hard manual labor, for each wheelbarrow of rock had to be taken to Tech City, where the converter extracted oxygen and water to replenish the small loss suffered each year in the conversion process. This process gradually eliminated the physically weak and the mentally unsound from the biological chain. The physically sound and the mentally resolute were the largest contributors to the race.

  All of this David had learned or surmised from things that were said before the suspicions of the boy’s father had led to a call to Tech City which, in turn, had led to their present escort there. He had learned very little about their social structure and nothing at all of the reason why they were being taken to Tech City.

  “Is that their city?”

  Sharon’s question jarred his reverie. She could not seem to understand the seriousness of their position. If they were destroyed here, and they might well be, it was extremely probable that Man was cut off from his home planet for all time. Yet she seemed unaware of the danger. She had placed her trust in Man.

  “Yes, that must be their city,” he said at last. As they approached, he could see that, even here, space was restricted. The ceiling rose to a height of perhaps a hundred feet. There were a number of large stone buildings which covered several acres. These, he guessed, contained their life-preserving machinery. There were a number of smaller structures in a larger area beyond, which appeared to serve as living quarters.

  The path they had been following changed into a street as they entered the city. As they continued to walk deeper into the city, David noticed that the street was beginning to fill with people. The crowd grew denser as they proceeded, and David realized that almost the entire adult population had found its way here. A natural pathway was left by the silent, staring crowd. At the end of the path, David could now see an isolated circular building which was unusual in two respects: first, because it was the only building constructed of metal; second, because, in this space-hungry environment, the building contained a courtyard of several hundred square yards which seemed to serve no utilitarian purpose.

  When they reached the courtyard, David placed a hand on Sharon’s arm and stopped. There was a silent expectancy in the eyes of the crowd. What was it they expected them to do? With some hesitation, David and Sharon walked slowly forward until they stood in the courtyard in front of the metal building.

  A Man emerged from the archway. Unlike the others, who wore undyed clothing, he was dressed in brilliant red robes. He was an old Man with white hair. He came forward until he stood only a few feet from them. He spoke in a voice that was strangely respectful.

  “Have you come from Earth?”

  “Yes,” David said. “We have come from Earth.”

  “Are you Men?”

  “No, we are not Men.”

  The old Man knelt on both knees. “Welcome, O Holy Ones. We have long awaited Thy coming.”

  David turned slowly. The square and the streets leading to it were filled with kneeling Men and Women.

  Suddenly he had to fight back the laughter which formed in his mind. Tomorrow he and Sharon would take with them the first load of two hundred Men to their native planet. It would be a world filled with gods. For a time, at least.

  It might be the first time in history that the gods had worshipped each other. Later, of course, each would lose his reverence for the other. Perhaps, then, his own race could work with Man for a time to help him shape his earth for future generations. But inevitably—and David understood this with a sudden insight that amounted to certainty—inevitably there would be no room (and no reason) for his kind. His own race would perish. It was inevitable.

  For a moment, David hesitated. Even now, he could ensure the preservation of his own kind. He could leave Man where he found him. Man had proved that he could survive. But no. He
would not doom this race to an existence beneath the ground. Earth belonged to Man. Only Man evolves. Only Man.

  There was a curiously tender note in David’s voice as he said: “Arise, Man. I bring you a message from Earth.”

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