View from Another Shore : European Science Fiction
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tentacles hung from it, some of them reaching the ground, while the upper part was tough and hard like a tortoise shell. However, it changed the
moment we were let down and became elastic. Smoke began to rise between
Beschir and myself, then a silky red feathery star blossomed forth from the smoke changing its form constantly until it took on the form of a sea creature.
It swayed and waved in an invisible current.
THAT IS THE TENTACLE CROWN OF ONE OF THE TUBE-DWELLING WORMS OF THE
REGION, the creature said. IN FACT IT IS VERY LIKE THE SHAPE I HAD FOR ONE
GENERATION OF MY LIFE—A SHAPE WHICH I TREASURE VERY MUCH. I AM KA
TEN, A VOYAGER AND I HEARD YOUR SARCASTIC ‘FATHER OF THE FAMILY
GREETING.’ I LIKED IT BECAUSE IT WAS VERY TRUE TO FACT. I HAVE NEVER
MET NATIVES HERE WITH WHOM I COULD CONVERSE. COME WITH ME TO THE
NORTH AND BE MY GUEST. I HAVE READ YOUR MIND AND PRESUME THAT THIS
WAS YOUR DESTINATION ANYWAY.
‘Yes, you are right. We have been observing space activities in this region since the spring of 2034, but none of our signals were answered. Why. . .?’ I
RECEIVED THEM. IS THERE ANY REASON WHY I SHOULD HAVE ANSWERED? It
was the mouth of the tentacle crown that asked.
I knew no answer.
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The insect beings went to pick up our packs and bring them on board.
*
*
*
*
*
Since we have been on board the flying ship, a feeling of unreality
grows in me and the fear that I shall lose myself to this unreality.
There are the insect beings, who take no notice of us, crouching in the
slipstream with their feelers lying flat on their backs. There is the bird-headed creature, its arms crossed over its smooth blue-black breast,
standing at the bow and keeping watch. But above all there is the
mouth of the wavering blossom of the sea speaking to us.
All this is frightening.
I looked up at Master Jack. His face was strange and was flooded
with the blue light of the awning.
‘You think you are dreaming’, he said.
I nodded. We were surrounded by the desert, but nearby, not even
a thousand feet, water began in which far off mountains hovered. The
Lake of the Devil. Naturally, I knew what it was. I knew that it was a
mirage and yet I was panic-stricken. The ghostly ship hovered,
groaning in the wind, over the centre of a grey island of light that
had broken away from the land rising in the bottomless sky, a sky that
had frozen into an expectant stillness. Then the island of light became
smaller until in the end it dissolved into the air.
‘Master Jack’, I gasped and covered my eyes. ‘Please help me!’
The vision wouldn’t move away. The succulent flower swayed and
waved. The bird-headed creature turned towards me. I saw his toes
for the first time. Instead of toenails, there were bent blades like
polished blue steel.
I fell down on to the shuddering tortoise shell of the ship which
changed its form instantly under my very back, felt the pulse of the
ship and stared up into the bright, fluttering sky of the canopy while I
lost consciousness and the shrinking island of myself was flooded over
completely by an oppressive darkness.
Extracts from the Journal of Master Jack
September 12th, 2036
Although the race of the voyagers comprises only a few thousand individuals, they have managed to infiltrate on a massive scale. They do not have any
particular form, but go through different generation-changes, taking on
physical forms in the water, on the land, and in the air. Forms that they
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133
can consciously manipulate after they reach a certain age, so that they can take on any form necessary at any particular moment. By means of a highly developed cloning technique and gene manipulation they are almost immortal, and because of their supernatural mental powers are in a position to live in more than one body. Shortly after their appearance in the evolution of their planet, they caught on very quickly to the fact that they could use every living thing in their world as a biomass and remodel it for their own
purposes. Everything from daily commodities to cars consists of genetically modified beings, whose form and function has been adapted to each
individual need . . . their bioprints.
This highly developed art of gene manipulation made them ideally suited for space technology. The only part of the brain that travels is the part that contains the ego, with its storage zones of all the experiences the individual has lived through, all the experiences that make up the ego. All the rest on board is biomass—gene material necessary for building individual bodies and billions of identical clones that are used as helpers.
Just like the heraldic animals on coats-of-arms, each voyager carries his special bioprints around with him and surrounds himself with them. They
are often fantastic constructions, biological works of art, whole biosets that in their composition are exactly tuned to one another, complement one another and form minibiospheres with their own chain of nourishment.
So this is the palace of the traveller of the stars, the voyager as he calls himself. I am looking along the white wall that stretches far into the
night, into the maze of corridors of foam and webbed tissue which
reaches far into the earth and in which hundreds of thousands of his
insect servants are swarming in order to search for whatever is to be
found in the buried city. They are called biotans, according to Master
Jack—artificially bred animals and demibeings.
One of these mute beautiful beings in his brown armour is standing
expressionless in front of my chamber and is looking at me with his
soft, yet vulnerable eyes. He seems to be able to read my mind and
hurries away to fulfil every wish immediately. Perhaps he really does
read my mind, just as the traveller of the stars reads Master Jack’s,
and sends the answers to his questions to his brain.
It is pleasantly cool here in the web-like interior and, whether it is
day or night, the walls of the corridors and chambers glow with light
as if they were transparent and the bright sky were filtering through
them.
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Wolfgang Jeschke
Extracts from the Journal of Master Jack
September 19th, 2036
Six thousand years ago another voyager was stranded here. The reason is
unknown. He had programmed the ship that waited in orbit to make its way
home automatically if he did not return after a certain period of time. The ship went back without him. Ka Ten then set off to try and salvage his
experiences, for he had roamed through unexplored regions of the galaxy for more than thirty thousand years. His brain must hold incalculable treasures of knowledge.
The most efficient natural knowledge carrier is the gene. Nature did not have enough time to develop methods of microminiaturization for memory and
consciousness. For this purpose, all higher forms of life require the electro-chemical storage capacity of what are still relatively large areas of the brain.
Our voyager is looking for this brain.
WHEN EF RE REALIZED THAT HE HAD FOUNDERED, HE WAS CONFRONTED WITH
THE PROBLEM OF SAVING HIS EGO. HE HAD TO MAKE SURE THAT HIS BRAIN
WOULD SURVIVE UNTIL ANOTHER VOYAGER COULD FIND IT AND COULD REVIVE
HIS EGO BY TRANSFERRING IT TO
A CLONE. IT SURELY CAN ONLY BE FOUND
UNDER ONE OF THOSE GIANT STONE TIME MACHINES THAT HE HAD HAD BUILT.
ONLY THERE WOULD IT HAVE HAD A CHANCE OF SURVIVING THOUSANDS OF
YEARS WITHOUT BEING DESTROYED BY ALL THE WARS AND NATURAL CATA-
STROPHES.
‘But why should he have had so many built?’
FROM OUTER SPACE, ONE OF THEM CANNOT BE DETERMINED IMMEDIATELY AS
AN ARTEFACT. TWO COULD BE A QUIRK OF NATURE. THREE—ALL IN A GEO-
METRICAL ROW—NEVER. EACH VOYAGER WILL BE ABLE TO INTERPRET THE
SIGN IN A MATTER OF MINUTES.
‘But dozens of pyramids were built in this country. Most of them truncated and not too beautiful to look at. . .’
That answers your question. There must have been imitators among the
natives that he created. Perhaps he created a native clone and it produced human offspring. It is possible that he taught them how to preserve their gene material and their egos in order to salvage them at some time in the future in case they themselves foundered. He could have taught them how to preserve their gene material in the cells by mummification to prevent it from decaying.
He also must have taught them that the brain, once taken out of the skull, must be preserved very carefully. But after his accident, the knowledge was perverted
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or couldn’t be understood any more. The bird-headed creatures, who were
originally given the tasks of preserving the brains, died out and only symbolic-ally guarded the urns in which the brains and inner organs of the dead rotted and they chiselled the ‘names of the stars’ of the dead into the sarcophagus, the
‘names of the eternal beings’ who had long since become transient.
I roamed through the labyrinth of the traveller of the stars. The light
in the interior of the web was always mellow. The walls gave off light
whether it was dark outside or whether the day burned with desert
sun. A fresh breeze flowed through the rooms and corridors, halls and
chambers. Everything seemed very much unfinished, set up provi-
sionally to be finished if necessary later.
There was a continual coming and going in all the corridors. The
insect beings swarmed up and down with silent industriousness. They
received the commands of the bird-headed ones via their feelers and
worked with an accuracy and quickness that frightened me. They
transported things they had found under the buried city. They were
measured and catalogued. Works of art, technical equipment, any-
thing and everything which seemed worth knowing and keeping for
posterity.
I was in the control centre of the palace where the bird-headed
creatures sat with their special bioprints and all kinds of equipment,
from where a continual data stream flowed to the space ship stationed
just above us in the sky. There was a droning as in a beehive. It filled
the rooms. Light zones flared up and went out again, clusters of
storage crystals changed colour when their inner structure changed,
when knowledge was poured into them or taken out of them in order
to make room for more knowledge.
I also discovered a room full of timepieces that the insects had dug
out of the city. It was a rare collection which by far surpassed that of
the king’s palace in El Fasher. If you want to judge just how far a
technical civilization has advanced, the voyager said, then have a look
at their timepieces.
Sometimes, roaming around, I was sure that I had seen human
beings, but they proved always only bird-headed creatures, who for
scientific purposes had covered themselves in webs that looked like
splendid old garments. At times their eyes had been altered by
complicated lenses that looked like Master Jack’s binoculars which
could be altered as needed.
Once, a young woman sat across from me. She didn’t move at all
and kept looking at me thoughtfully, supporting her chin with her
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Wolfgang Jeschke
hand. At first, I thought that I had frightened her and wanted to lay
my hand reassuringly on her shoulder, but, to my utter astonishment,
my hand sank through her. The girl was only a figure made of light
which one could actually walk through. Her eyes looked like round
transparent glasses. If you looked through them you could see a glare
of fire as in a forge.
Extracts from the Journal of Master Jack
September 28th, 2036
‘But how could he have foundered?’, I asked the omnipresent one. ‘With his ability for manipulating life, he must have been immortal here too.’
HE WILL BE ABLE TO TELL US AS SOON AS WE HAVE HELPED HIM REGAIN
CONSCIOUSNESS. EF RE WAS ALWAYS A GAMBLER. HE OFTEN TOOK UNNECES-
SARY RISKS AND ACTED THOUGHTLESSLY. IT IS POSSIBLE THAT HE CUT HIMSELF
OFF FROM HIS SPACESHIP THROUGH CARELESSNESS. IT COULD HAVE JUST
HAPPENED IN A MOMENT OF INATTENTION. HE WAS MORE CONCERNED
ABOUT HIS OWN SPLENDOUR THAN HIS OWN SAFETY. HE HAD A SPECIAL
PREFERENCE
FOR
BIZARRE
GENE
MATERIAL. HE CARRIED CREATURES
AROUND WITH HIM IN HIS BIOMASS WHO HAD NO OTHER FUNCTION THAN TO
IMPRESS THE NATIVES. IF HE ENTERED A WORLD, HE DID SO ONLY WITH THE
MOST COLOURFUL POMP AND SPLENDOUR POSSIBLE. THAT’S WHAT HAPPENED
HERE. ONE HEARS, WHEREVER ONE GOES, THE DESCRIPTIONS OF HIS GRO-
TESQUE BIOTANS. HE SEEMS TO HAVE USED THEM TO MAKE A LASTING
IMPRESSION ON THE NATIVES.
I MAKE DO WITH TWO HELPERS: THE WORKERS I HAVE BRED OUT OF A VERY
OLD AND UNIVERSALLY ADAPTABLE INSECT RACE, WHICH HAD A HIGHLY
TECHNICAL CIVILIZATION WITH SIMPLE FUNDAMENTALS AT THEIR DISPOSAL
OVER 500 MILLION YEARS AGO, AND THE GUARDS—WHO ARE AN IDEALLY
DESIGNED HYBRID FORM MADE UP ORIGINALLY OF DIFFERENT RACES. EVERY
VOYAGER CARRIES THEM WITH HIM IN HIS BIOMASS. YOU CAN RECOGNIZE
THEM BY THEIR QUICK ABILITY TO LEARN. THIS PERMITS THEM TO TAKE UP
DIRECT THOUGHT CONTACT WITH EVERY BIOLOGICAL OR ELECTRONIC INTELLI-
GENCE IN A MATTER OF SECONDS—OR TO CONNECT THEMSELVES TO IT IN
ORDER TO GAIN A MAXIMUM OF INFORMATION AND TO PROCESS IT. WHEN I
MAKE CONTACT WITH YOU IT IS ALWAYS THROUGH THESE BIOTANS.
I looked at the bird-headed creature who always accompanies me. Is it always the same one?
I awoke in the middle of the night because a great commotion seemed
to have taken over the whole palace. I went to Master Jack’s chamber
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137
but he was not there. He arrived a few minutes later and reported
excitedly that the brain of the voyager had been found. It was still
intact.
Extracts from the Journal of Master Jack
October 14th, 2036
Now that the brain of Ef Re has been found, the omnipresent one is making ready for departure. The storage crystals on board the mother ship are
insatiable. They store into the smallest possible space all the knowledge that the biotans have dug out of the rubble of buried museums.
Naturally, I have not been able to hide my wish to accompany him from the omnipresent one. But how will this be possible? He travels simply as a brain, leaving everything else behind him. He can create any form for himself from the gene material he carries with him and thus can travel with a minimum of biomass. What fantastic storage
capacity! Such enormous amounts of genetic, chemical and electrophysical information in such a small space!
IF YOU DECIDE TO TAKE THIS STEP, YOU MUST BE CONSEQUENT AND GIVE UP
EVERYTHING YOU EVER HAD BEFORE AND THROW IT BEHIND YOU. THIS LAW
GOVERNS THE COSMOS.
‘What could I give up?’
ALMOST EVERYTHING. EXCEPT PART OF YOUR BRAIN, ESPECIALLY THE CERE-
BRAL CORTEX. TECHNICALLY, THERE IS NO PROBLEM. ONLY THE YOU THAT
STAYS HERE WILL HAVE PROBLEMS. YOU WILL HAVE THE FEELING OF LOOKING
SIMULTANEOUSLY
THROUGH
TWO
WINDOWS
OF
YOUR
CONSCIOUSNESS
WATCHING YOUR REAL EGO REMOVE ITSELF FROM YOU FOREVER. WOULD
YOU WANT TO DARE THIS? DON’T SAY YES WITHOUT THINKING IT OVER CARE-
FULLY. IT’S NOT JUST AN ADVENTURE. IT IS POSSIBLE THAT YOU WILL REGRET
IT. IT IS A MADNESS OF A VERY SPECIAL KIND.
I sleep very uneasily since I learned of Master Jack’s innermost plans.
It is very seldom that I even see him. When I do he talks a lot of
bewildering nonsense and seems to be overjoyed. ‘Be prepared to give
away all things of this earth.’ I see a web before me in which millions
of Master Jacks crawl around. They are all speechless.
‘This is the fantastic maze of a strange technology’, he raves
enthusiastically. ‘A technology of biology and parapsychology.’
When can I leave this mad maze? I yearn for real human beings. The
palace of the traveller of the stars is really like a web. Each impulse is transmitted somewhere where it is registered, and sets off a reaction.
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Wolfgang Jeschke
Extracts from the Journal of Master Jack
October 17th, 2036
WE HAVE A LONG JOURNEY BEFORE US THROUGH UNEXPLORED SPHERES. WE
SHALL HAVE A LOT OF TIME TO ANALYSE THE DATA THAT WE HAVE TAKEN ON
BOARD. YOU COULD BE OF GREAT HELP TO ME IN THIS.
I am prepared.
From the beginning of time man has always contemplated the intellectual
being, the bodiless ego, the winged soul. What nonsense! The encephalo-
graphic basis is necessary: the stimulated molecules, the brain, the electro-chemical short and long term storage space, a biological organ capable of analysing all matter, the sensorium. This instrument reacts to impulses that signal threat to or conservation of life, it ‘tickles the nerve’, manifesting itself in hormones.