by Don Wilcox
He did nothing but breathe for many minutes. Then it seemed that more feeling was returning to the mass of paralysis that was his body. He reached out . . . Nothing.
Which way to go?’
His shirt caught between the stones proved which way he had come from. But that way was closed.
The strangeness of his situation evoked a bitter laugh from Randolph Hill. Now he was tending to jail up. All the blackness below him was, so far as his groping arms could discover, empty space.
But no longer could he fall downward. The only way to get farther was to climb. And down was the only possible direction—if it could still be called down. Randolph Hill climbed.
Twenty hours later he was still climbing.
II
When faint light seeped through the jagged fissure to greet Randolph Hill’s eyes he was almost past believing it could be true.
He was more dead than alive, more blind than seeing. There was only the dim realization that he had been climbing. Upward? Apparently so. Here he was ascending to a landscape of ugly grayish hlaek clouds groping upward on hands and knees through the mouth of a narrow cave.
Was he really out?
All that attracted him upon that first return of light were the bright blue lakes. He saw three of them very close. Without an instant’s hesitation, he staggered toward them.
They hung before him with a miragelike effect, seeming to lie on edge.
As if by magic they receded from him. His lips were so dry and swollen that he couldn’t even manage his bitterest laugh—the laugh that had carried him through a hundred hardships the average man couldn’t have endured.
Before Randolph Hill reached the nearest lake, the black clouds above him released their load, and the torrents of rain beat down. Hill dropped to the soggy ground and lay with mouth wide open.
He welcomed the harsh winds and the tattoo of hammering raindrops. They pounded new life into him.
Hours later after the clouds had broken and scurried on, Randolph Hill still lay on his back gazing at the new world. All around him it rose. As far as he could see the little patches of bright blue lay flat like windows in the great spherical walls of land.
This was the inside of an immense ball. It was everywhere around him, seemingly the whole surface of a planet turned outside-in.
He could not see to the top for the distance defied vision. Moreover, directly overhead, in what appeared to be the center of this vast globe, there was a cloud of blinding brightness. Its bluish-white light screened the upper areas of this enclosed world.
A hollow planet it was. How it could be, how long it had been, how it could contain lakes and rivers and clouds and windstorms—yes, and villages teeming with people—these and a thousand kindred questions were Randolph Hill’s to ask.
Before he left this hollow planet he would find some of the answers.
III
As the fates would have it, Randolph Hill never left the hollow planet.
He lived the rest of his life there, always searching for the lost tunnel by which he had entered, but never finding it.
Of all his interplanetary findings, none was so unique as the discovery of this enclosed world. But for all his dreams of returning home with the story of its wonders, he was denied that satisfaction. The fates had spared his life, but he was trapped. The hollow planet became his prison.
With the passing of time he tried to resign himself.
When he died he was buried in secret by one who loved him and partially understood him.
Among the few personal things that were buried with him was a notebook.
What he had written in it about life in the hollow planet would apply equally well to the times before his coming, or to the generations that followed him. Life here was almost changeless.
Randolph Hill lived and died, and time went on. Generations passed.
IV
Little Voileen was blue-eyed and all smiles until she started to school and the boys began teasing her about her great-grandfather.
“He was a crazy man,” the big boys would yell at her. “People called him Madman Hill.”
Voileen’s blue eyes would grow wide with dismay. She knew nothing about her great-grandfather except that her father would never talk about him.
“My great-grandfather is dead,” she would reply. “I never knew him.”
“Madman Hill! Madman Hill!” the boys would shout, laughing at her.
A thick-set boy named Ecker was the ring leader. He would say meaner things than the others, and would kick dirt at her.
“You’ll be crazy, too,” said Ecker. “You’ll be another Madman Hill, running around looking for caves.”
By this time Voileen felt tears rolling down her cheeks. She backed away from the big thick-set boy and wished she could run and hide in the dravoth marshes.
“Get away from me, you big-mouth,” she cried.
Ecker turned to his troupe of followers and sneered, “See. I told you she’s crazy. That’s just the way crazy folks talk. Isn’t it, Quanz? Isn’t it, Moo?”
Most of the boys agreed. Some of them said their parents had told them about old Madman Hill and Voileen was just like him.
But one of the youngest boys, Hajjah, only a little older than Voileen herself, suddenly stepped out in front of Ecker.
“You’re a bully, Ecker.” The smaller boy’s eyes snapped with anger. “You’ve no right to call her crazy.”
“Get out of my way.” Ecker tried to brush him aside. “Who are you?” Ecker’s followers volunteered the information. This was Hajjah, the son of a fandruff herder. He was just starting to school.
“So you’re coming to school. Do you think you’ll learn anything? Maybe you’ll learn to keep out of my way.” Ecker swung a fist at the smaller boy, who caught it on the cheekbone. All the boys laughed and gathered closer to Ecker to make sure they were on the right side. For a moment Hajjah rubbed his cheek. He glanced at Voileen, who was by this time quite terrified over the commotion she had caused.
“You’ll learn to leave her alone.” Hajjah spat the words fiercely. He flung his whole body into Ecker so suddenly that the larger boy was bounced off his feet.
Ecker sprang up as if he’d fallen on a hot stone. He reddened as the boys laughed at him, and grabbed Hajjah by the hair.
“You little mud fish.” Ecker’s right fist waved in front of the younger boy’s eyes. “You go careful or I’ll smash you. You must think Voileen is your girl.”
“Maybe she is,” Hajjah said defiantly.
“She’s not,” Ecker snarled. “If she’s anyone’s, she’s mine. Aren’t you, Voileen?”
With this inspiration, the bully released Hajjah and strode over to the girl, though she was shrinking away from him. He put his arm around her. “You are my girl, aren’t you?”
Voileen didn’t look up at Ecker. Her frightened blue eyes were fastened on Hajjah, who glared fiercely at this bold stroke.
“I’m not anyone’s girl,” Voileen said. “There,” Ecker blustered, trying to regain his bravado. “She says she’s my girl. You heard her, didn’t you, Quanz? Didn’t you, Moo?”
But the boys turned away and pretended to be interested in other things. And one of them, a little fat boy named Mooburkle, came over to Hajjah and said, “I’m on your side.”
Meanwhile, Voileen squirmed out of Ecker’s arms, instinctively realizing that his sudden pretense of friendship was only another taunt. She ran away and hid herself in the mountains and didn’t return to school for a long time.
When she did come back, no one asked her if she’d been searching for caves like her legendary great-grandfather.
V
From Randolph Hill’s notebook: This is the strangest world I ever saw. I can’t get over the feeling that I am in an enormous cathedral dome, lighted by a single enormous gas light hanging down in the center. Wherever I walk I find myself still at the bottom of this spherical enclosure. Any direction I look I see the land rising in concave wal
ls, but I can’t retain the illusion of climbing upward as I hike along. Always I seem to be at the bottom of this hollow planet, for the gravity draws me toward the ground with an even pull wherever I go. If I were standing at that point which is now my zenith, it would seem to be the bottom, no doubt, and I would look straight up toward this mountain where I am now perched. Though, of course, I wouldn’t be able to see it, for there is too much haze to see the top half of this dome.
Before I leave this realm I intend to walk all around it. The distance is said to be 377 dunes. Now that I am picking up a little of the language, I can translate units of time and distance into my own terms. The walk will require some fifty winds—roughly equivalent to forty or fifty Earth days. While the greatest circumference is 377 dunes, the travel route past mountains and lake will add up to all of 500 dunes (approximately 1750 Jupiterian tazervs, or nearly 1000 Earth miles.)
Food is scarce in this world. I’ll take a supply of dried fandruff meat when I set out on the 500 dune journey. However, if the natives continue to prove hospitable, the undertaking won’t be difficult. The upswing of the land makes it easy to pick a course. Roadcrossings, low-roofed houses, and open schools that are made of dravoth fences and look like stock pens—all these features lie in plain sight. For wherever there are lakes or dravoth marshes, villages will also be found.
Life is very quiet here. The natives live simply, and appear to be free from troubles.
VI
The great-granddaughter of Randolph Hill had troubles aplenty. The fight between Hajjah and Ecker was only the beginning.
Ecker became a regular trouble maker for the younger boys like Hajjah and Mooburkle. Ecker would steal their food and divide it among the older boys. Food was scarce, and losing your dinner was no joke, though Ecker pretended he was only teasing, not really stealing.
Instinctively, Voileen grew to hate and fear him. Nevertheless, he was clever enough to bring himself back into her good graces when her anger demanded it. And at such times he would assert boldly that she was his girl, and the lowly sons of fandruff herders had better keep out of the way if they didn’t want their eyes blackened.
There were black eyes aplenty as the seasons of schooling went on. Though Hajjah was much smaller, he made up in courage what he lacked in strength. The rivalry between him and Ecker grew tense and bitter.
But everyone knew that Hajjah was becoming a better fighter than Ecker.
“You’ll whip him some day,” Mooburkle would say. What Moo said, meant a lot to Hajjah and Voileen, even though Moo was funny-faced and fat, with a changing voice that resembled the bleat of a homesick fandruff.
Ecker was past the voice-changing stage now, and considered himself a man. Fights were childish; there were easier ways to get what you wanted than by fighting. Ecker’s chums considered him brilliant, and they gloated to see what he could accomplish by cleverness. He could anger Voileen with taunts, then silence her anger with cunning compliments.
Sometimes he could even make her laugh at his mockery against Hajjah.
He could out-talk anyone in the school, and could recite the Laws of King Witfessal so accurately that he was a joy to his teachers.
But this season he had ceased to make slurs about Voileen’s great-grandfather—and for good reason. The present teacher was none other than Voileen’s grandfather—the son of the legendary Madman Hill.
This thin, spry, white-haired old gentleman, known to all the world as Teacher Crassie, could hypnotize a pen of school children with the slightest movement of his angular shoulders.
There was a keenness about his steel blue eyes; and when he called a class to their recitations of the Witfessal Laws, everyone sat alert.
Ecker and his bumptious friends kept themselves on good terms with Teacher Crassie. No one ever mentioned what everyone knew: that this noted scholar was the son of that mysterious, restless man who had spent his last years searching for lost caves, who had talked in strange accents, and had tried to disseminate crazy, dangerous ideas.
Teacher Crassie dealt with all his pupils impartially. When the last class of the season was over, Ecker and his friends were among those who stayed to listen to a special lecture. Not a lecture about the Laws of King Witfessal, but a discussion of secret knowledge which no one but Teacher Crassie possessed.
VII
From Randolph Hill’s notebook: This hollow planet, for all its serenity, is remarkably fascinating, even exciting in some respects, to an observer from the outside. These people consider themselves to be the only people in the universe. Indeed, this, to them, is the complete universe.
The name of this land, Wanzuura, is interpreted, “All of the world.”
It is wonderfully simple to believe that all of everything is contained right here within these concave walls. A complete system of knowledge has been formulated, known as the Laws of King Witfessal. It explains all knowledge, the natives say, though most of them admit they need to brush up on their studies before trying to recite it.
I haven’t met King Witfessal yet, and am dubious about my chances. I’m told that his favorite hangout for several seasons past has been that bluish-white cloud up in the center of the enclosed sky that furnishes the more or less constant daylight. There’s no sky travel here; in fact, all travel is by foot or by fandruff cart over bumpy roads. (And I can’t get over the delusions that it’s always uphill.)
I’d like to send my respects to the King, if he’s not a phony. But I have my suspicions. That bright cloud—miniature spiral nebula, or whatever it is—is sixty dunes overhead. And through my field glasses it looks like something hot.
VIII
The tooth-and-nail fight took place near the footbridge on the road home from school. It began with a quarrel over the special lecture Teacher Crassie had given. Hajjah and some of the others had stopped to draw a map in the wet clay bank—a crude reproduction of the map Teacher Crassie had shown them.
“So you took it seriously!” Ecker hooted. He turned to Quanz and the others. “Look, fellows, Hajjah fell for it. He’s planning to dig for another world.”
“Maybe he didn’t know Crassie was only joking,” Quanz joined in. “All that silly talk about finding new sources of food—”
“We’d better give Haj some tools, so he and Moo can go to work.”
Mooburkle gave an uncomfortable grunt. “Just because you fellows weren’t smart enough to understand—”
“Don’t waste any talk on them. Moo,” Hajjah warned in a low voice, and went sketching lines in the mud.
“They don’t have the brains of a fandruff calf,” Moo mumbled.
“What’d you say?” Ecker snapped angrily.
“I don’t hear any talk,” Hajjah said to Moo, paying no heed to the others. “All I hear is the wind.”
“It’s an evil sounding wind,” said Moo. “It smells—”
A hard kick sent Mooburkle sprawling in the mud. His fat body struck with a smack, but he bounded up and his fists were loaded. He let fly a gob of mud that caught Ecker full on the chest.
On the instant, Ecker’s three companions hurled themselves into the fray with flying fists. Mooburkle beat a swift retreat across the marsh, and Hajjah found himself the first line of defense.
“Let me have him,” Ecker roared, swaggering toward Hajjah. “I’ve been waiting for this.”
Hajjah didn’t wait for the attack. He leaped straight for his old enemy. The other boys made way for him and he plunged headlong like a battering ram and knocked Ecker off his feet.
“What’s the matter with you fellows?” Ecker gasped. “A fine bunch of friends. Grab him!”
Hajjah’s fists were swinging. They caught the first two chargers for square blows. They staggered back. But Quanz made a hard dive for his feet, and he reeled. Again Ecker came at him, and again a flying gob of mud smacked him.
Fists, flying mud, roaring voices, slaps and bites and hair-pulling—and all at once Hajjah found himself locked within three pairs of arms that
held him while Ecker swung fists at his cheeks.
Things began to swim in blackness. One of his eyes had swollen shut, the other fell closed as his consciousness ebbed. But he could still hear Ecker’s voice.
“This will take care of you for some time.”
“You’re wrong, Ecker,” Hajjah gasped as he dropped to the ground.
Then he heard a sharp authoritative voice that could be no one in the world but Teacher Crassie. And there were sounds of footsteps pounding down the road.
When he managed to look up he saw that Ecker and the other three were chasing off toward the roadcrossing. Standing above him were Crassie and Voileen.
“That’s how it happened,” the girl was saying to her grandfather, having described the trouble from the start. “I was hiding in the marshes and saw.”
“So you took my talk seriously.” Teacher Crassie looked down at Hajjah, and his steel blue eyes might have been seeing visions, “Come, Hajjah. You and Voileen will go back to my house with me. I’ve something to show you.”
A wail came from the marshes where Mooburkle stood thigh-deep in the mud.
“What about me? I’m stuck.”
“Excellent,” said Teacher Crassie. “Stay right where you are till Hajjah comes back.”
IX
Randolph Hill’s notebook: These simple people don’t seem to realize that their food resources are terribly low. They are living on the ragged edges of starvation, apparently without knowing it. Dravoth is the staple. There is no other vegetable of any consequence, for dravoth grows wherever there is any soil. Along the marshes it grows to a height of ten or twelve feet with pulpy stalks much thicker than corn. These fertile spots are usually fenced off—with fences built of dried dravoth stalks—to keep the fandruffs from grazing it down. The fandruffs live entirely on the scrubby dravoth that tries to grow in the hills.
