The Navigators of Space

by J. -H. Rosny aîné

  Seen thus, at a distance, now that darkness had fallen completely, the scene seemed even more supernatural and more overwhelming to their barbarian brains. The warriors were about to resume their flight when an important observation made them pause: it was that, whether they were chasing warriors, women or children, the Forms abandoned the pursuit beyond a fixed boundary. However tired or impotent the victim was, even if they fainted, as soon as that invisible frontier was crossed, all peril ceased.

  This very reassuring observation, soon confirmed by 50 instances, calmed the frantic nerves of the runaways. They dared to wait for their wives and their poor children, escapees from the slaughter. One of them—their hero—initially stunned and scared by the superhuman nature of the incident, eventually recovered the spirit of his great soul, lit a fire and sounded a buffalo-horn to signal the fugitives.

  Then, one by one, the wretches arrived. Many of them were lame, dragging themselves along with their hands. Mothers, with indomitable maternal instinct, were protecting, herding and carrying the fruit of their loins through the panic-stricken crowd. Many donkeys, horses and cows came back, less frightened than the humans.

  They spent a dismal, sleepless night in silence, during which the warriors continually felt shivers down their spines—but first light came, palely insinuating itself through the dense foliage, and then the dawn fanfare of colors and singing birds: an exhortation to live and cast off the terrors of Darkness.

  The Hero, the natural chief, assembled the crowd in groups and began a head-count of the tribe. Half the warriors, some 200, were missing, having probably been killed. The losses were much less among the women, and almost none among the children.

  When the count was finished and the livestock had been assembled—few animals were missing, thanks to the superiority of instinct over reason during crises—the Hero disposed the tribe according to the customary arrangement; then, ordering them to wait, he headed for the clearing, pale and alone. No one dared follow him, even at a distance.

  He went to a spot where the trees were widely spaced, a short distance within the limit identified the day before, and studied the scene. In the distance, in the cool transparency of the morning, the delightful spring was flowing. On the banks, reunited, the fantastic troop of Forms was resplendent. Their color had changed; the cones were more compact and their turquoise tint had become greener, the cylinders were tinted with violet, and the planes resembled virgin copper. Inside each of them, however, the star shed its radiance—which was dazzling, even in the daylight.

  The metamorphosis extended to the shapes of the phantasmagorical Entities, the cones tending to broaden out into cylinders and the cylinders to spread out, while the planes had become slightly curved. As on the day before, though, the Forms suddenly began to undulate, their Stars flickering.

  The Hero slowly went back across the frontier of safety.

  II. A Hieratic Expedition

  The tribe of Pjehou stopped outside the door of the great nomad Tabernacle, into which only chiefs entered. In the star-filled depths, three high priests stood beneath the male image of the Sun. Lower down, on the gilded steps, were 12 sacrificers of inferior rank.

  The Hero went forward and gave a detailed account of the incident in the Forest of Kzour, to which the astonished priests listened very seriously, sensing a diminution of their power in confrontation with this extra-human adventure.

  The supreme high priest demanded that the tribe offer a dozen bulls, seven onagers and three stallions to the Sun. He recognized the divine attributes of the Forms and decided to mount a hieratic expedition after the sacrifices. All the priests and all the chiefs of the Zahelal nation would take part in it.

  Messengers were sent into the mountains and plains 100 leagues around the place where the Ecbatana of the mages would eventually be built.5 The sinister tale made people’s hair stand on end everywhere, and all the chiefs made haste to respond to the sacerdotal summons.

  One autumn morning, the Male pierced the clouds and inundated the Tabernacle, reaching the altar where the bloody heart of a bull was smoking. The high priests, the immolators and fifty tribal chiefs uttered a triumphant cry. Outside, 100,000 nomads assembled in the fresh dew, echoed the clamor, turning their tanned heads toward the prodigious Forest of Kzour and shivering slightly. The omen was favorable.

  Then, with the priests at their head, an entire people marched through the woods. About three hours into the afternoon, the Hero of the Pjehou called the multitude to a halt. The large clearing had been turned russet by the autumn; a flood of dead leaves extended majestically, covering its moss. On the banks of the stream, the priests perceived that which they had come to adore and appease: the Forms. They were gentle on the eyes in the shade of the trees, with their tremulous hues, the pure fire of their stars, and their tranquil circulation on the edge of the spring.

  “It is necessary,” said the supreme high priest, “to offer the sacrifice here, so that they will know that we are submissive to their power!”

  All the old men bowed. One voice was raised, however; it was that of Yushik, of the Nim tribe—a young counter of stars; a pale prophetic watcher of nascent renown—who audaciously requested permission to approach the Forms more closely. The old men, whose hair had turned white in the exercise of wise words, prevailed, however; the altar was constructed and the victim led forth: a superb stallion, a fine servant of humankind. Then, in the silence, while the people prostrated themselves, the bronze knife found the animal’s noble heart.

  A great moan rose up, and the high priest said: “Are you appeased, O Gods!”

  In the distance, among the silent tree-trunks, the Forms were still circulating, polishing themselves, preferring the locations where the sunlight streamed more densely.

  “Yes! Yes!” the enthusiast cried. “They are appeased!” Seizing the warm heart of the stallion before the curious high priest could utter another word, Yushik launched himself into the clearing. Howling fanatics followed him. Slowly, the undulating Forms drew together, skimming the ground. Then they suddenly precipitated themselves upon the temeritous invaders, and a lamentable massacre terrified the 50 tribes.

  Six or seven fugitives, hotly pursued, were able to reach the boundary by a great effort. The rest, including Yushik, were dead.

  “They are merciless gods!” said the supreme high priest, solemnly.

  They decided to erect a circle of stakes outside the line of safety. In order to determine the extent of that ring, they decided to force slaves to expose themselves successively to the attack of the Forms, around the entire perimeter. This was done. Under threat of death, slaves went into the circle. Very few, however, perished there, thanks to the excellence of the precautions. The frontier was firmly established, rendered visible to everyone by its perimeter of stakes.

  Thus, the hieratic expedition was successfully concluded, and the Zahelals believed themselves to be protected against the subtle enemy.

  III. Darkness

  The preventive measures taken by the council were, however, soon shown to be impotent. The following spring, the Hertoth and Nazzum tribes, passing close to the circle of stakes without any suspicion of danger, in slight disarray, were cruelly assaulted by the Forms and decimated. The chiefs who escaped the massacre told the great Council of Zahelal that the Forms were now much more numerous than they had been the previous autumn. As before, they were limiting their pursuit, but the boundary had been extended.

  This news disturbed the people; there was much mourning and many sacrifices. Then the Council decided to destroy the Forest of Kzour by fire. In spite of their best efforts, they only succeeded in setting fire to its fringes. Then the priests, in despair, declared the forest sacred, forbidding anyone to go into it.

  Two summers went by.

  One October night, the encampment of the Zulf tribe, two bowshots from the fatal forest, was invaded by the Forms while the tribesmen were asleep. Another 300 warriors lost their lives.

  After that d
ay, a sinister and mysterious story, corrosive of belief, went from tribe to tribe, whispered in the evenings of the vast starry nights of Mesopotamia. Humankind was going to die. The others, still broadening out with every passing day, in the forests and over the plains, indestructibly, would devour the doomed race—and that black and dreadful conviction haunted their poor minds, sapping all the fighting strength and superb optimism typical of young races. The human wanderer, thinking about that, no longer dared to love the sumptuous native pastures, and sought on high with his weary eye for the constellations to halt their progress. It was the Millennium of the infant populations, the knell of the end of the world—or, perhaps the resignation of the red man of the Indian savannah.

  And in that anguish, primitive meditators developed a bitter religion: a cult of death preached by pale prophets, a cult of Darkness, more powerful than the Stars; a Darkness that would engulf and devour the holy Light, the resplendent fire.6 Everywhere, in the fringes of the wilderness, one encountered the immobile, emaciated figures of the inspired, silent men who periodically spread out through the tribes, relating their frightful dreams of the approaching Dusk of the great Night, and the death-throes of the Sun.

  IV. Bakhoun

  Now, at that time, there lived an extraordinary man named Bakhoun, a member of the Ptuh tribe and a brother of the foremost high priest of the Zahelals. In his youth he had abandoned the nomadic life, choosing to settle in a beautiful wilderness in a narrow and lush valley between four hills, through which ran the musical clarity of a spring. He had fashioned a fixed tent from slabs of rock, forming a cyclopean dwelling. Patience, regular harvests and the careful husbandry of cattle and horses had made him wealthy. With his four wives and 30 children, he lived an Edenic life there.

  Bakhoun professed singular beliefs, which might have got him stoned to death without the respect in which his elder brother, the supreme high priest, was held by the Zahelals. Firstly, he believed that the sedentary life, in a fixed abode, was preferable to nomadic life, conserving a man’s strength to the advantage of his mind. Secondly, he believed that the Sun, the Moon and the Stars were not gods, but luminous objects. Thirdly, he said that men should only believe firmly in things proven by Measurement. The Zahelals credited him with magic powers, and the boldest among them sometimes took the risk of consulting him. They were never sorry that they had done so. It was claimed that he had often aided unfortunate tribes by distributing food to them.

  Now, in the dark hour when the melancholy alternatives presented themselves of abandoning the fecund regions or being destroyed by the inexorable divinities, the tribes thought of Bakhoun, and the priests themselves, after struggling with their pride, sent three of the most important members of their order to him as a deputation.

  Bakhoun gave the most anxious attention to their story, making them repeat it, and asking numerous and precise questions. He asked for two days to meditate. When that time had elapsed, he simply announced that he was going to devote himself to the study of the Forms. The tribes were a little disappointed, for it had been hoped that Bakhoun would be able to save the land by magic. Nevertheless, the chiefs expressed their satisfaction with his decision, hoping for great things.

  Then Bakhoun established himself in the borders of the Forest of Kzour, withdrawing when it was time to sleep, and made observations all day long, mounted on the swiftest stallion in Chaldea. Soon, convinced of the superiority of the splendid animal to the most agile of the Forms, he was able to begin his bold and scrupulous investigation of the enemies of Humankind—the study to which we owe a great cuneiform book consisting of 60 large tablets, the most beautiful lapidary book that the nomadic ages have left to the modern races.

  It is in this book, admirable for its patient observation and sobriety, that evidence is found of a system of life absolutely dissimilar to our animal and vegetable kingdoms: a system that Bakhoun humbly confesses to being unable to analyze, save for its grossest and most external appearance. It is impossible for Humankind not to shiver on reading this monograph on the beings that Bakhoun calls the Xipehuz, and the objective details—never extended to marvelous systematization—that the ancient scribe reveals in relation to their actions, their modes of locomotion, combat and reproduction, which demonstrate that the human race has been on the edge of extinction, and that the Earth almost became the inheritance of a Sovereignty of which we have lost even the concept.

  It is necessary to read the marvelous translation by Monsieur Dessault, the fruit of his unexpected discoveries in pre-Assyrian linguistics—discoveries unfortunately more admired abroad, in England and Germany than in his own fatherland. The illustrious savant has deigned to put at our disposition the salient passages of the precious work, and these passages, which we offer hereafter to the public, will perhaps inspire a desire to read the Master’s superb translations.7

  V. Extract from Bakhoun’s Book

  The Xipehuz are evidently Living Beings. All their movements reveal the free will, capriciousness, co-operation and partial independence that serve to distinguish animals from plants or inert objects. Although their mode of locomotion cannot be defined by comparison—they simply glide over the ground—it is easy to see that they control it as they desire. They can be seen to stop abruptly, turn around, launch themselves in pursuit of one another, move around in twos and threes, and manifest preferences that cause them to quit one companion in order to draw away and join another. They do not have the ability to climb trees, but they succeed in killing birds by attracting them, by undiscoverable means. They can often be seen to surround forest animals or to lie in wait for them behind bushes; they never fail to kill them and then consume them. One may posit as a rule that they kill all animals, without distinction, if they can reach them, and without any apparent motive—for they do not eat them, but simply reduce them to ashes.

  Their manner of consumption does not require fire; the incandescent point that each one has at its base is sufficient for that operation. Ten or 12 of them gather in a circle around large animals they have killed and converge their radiance upon the carcass. For small animals—birds, for example—the radiance of a single Xipehuz suffices for the incineration. It should be noted that the heat that they are able to produce is not instantaneously violent; I have often intercepted the radiation of a Xipehuz with my hand, and the skin only begins to get hot after some time.

  I do not know whether it can be said that the Xipehuz have different species, for they can transform themselves successively into cones, cylinders and planes, and can do so within a single day. Their color varies continually, which I think it necessary to attribute, in general, to the metamorphoses of light from morning to evening and from evening to morning. Some variations of shade, however, seem to be due to individual whims, especially to their passions, if I might use that term, and thus constitute veritable expressions of physiognomy—even the most simple of which I am quite unable, in spite of ardent study, to determine other than hypothetically. Thus, for instance, I have been unable to distinguish an angry hue from a tender one, which would surely have been the most elementary discovery of that sort.

  I have used the word passions. Previously, I had already mentioned their preferences, which I shall call their friendships. They also have their hatreds. One Xipehuz constantly keeps its distance from another, and vice versa. Their fits of anger seem violent. I have seen them colliding, with movements identical to those observed when they attack large animals or human beings, and it was those same combats that taught me that they are not immortal, as I was initially disposed to believe, for on two or three occasions I have seen Xipehuz die in these encounters—which is to say, to fall, condense and solidify. I have carefully preserved some of these bizarre cadavers,8 and perhaps they will be able, at a later date, to assist in the revelation of the nature of the Xipehuz. They are yellowish crystals, irregularly shaped, streaked with blue lines.

  From the fact that the Xipehuz are not immortal, I have deduced that it must be possible
to fight them and defeat them, and since then I have begun a series of experiments in warfare, of which more will be said in due course.

  As the Xipehuz are always sufficiently radiant to be seen through thickets, and even behind thick tree-trunks—a broad aura emanates from them in every direction, giving warning of their approach—I have often been able to venture into the forest itself, confiding myself to the speed of my stallion at the slightest alert. There I have attempted to discover whether they have constructed shelters, but I admit to being frustrated in that research. They do not move objects or plants, and appear to be strangers to any kind of tangible and visible industry—the only industry appreciable to human observation. Consequently, they have no weapons, in the sense in which we use the term. It is certain that they cannot kill at a distance; every animal that has been able to run away without being subjected to the immediate contact of a Xipehuz has escaped, without exception—I have witnessed that on many occasions.

  As the members of the unfortunate Pjehou tribe have already noticed, they cannot cross certain invisible barriers in pursuit of their victims, but these limits have always increased from year to year and month to month. I was obliged to attempt to discover the cause of this.

  Now, this cause seems to be nothing but a phenomenon of collective increase, and, like the majority of Xipehuz phenomena, it is inaccessible to human intelligence. In brief, this is the general principle: the limits of Xipehuz action are enlarged in proportion to the number of individuals—which is to say that, as soon as there is a procreation of new creatures, there is also an extension of the frontiers; but while the number remains invariable, every individual is utterly incapable of escaping the habitat attributed (by the nature of things?) to the whole race. That rule was suggestive of a more intimate correlation between the group and the individual than the similar correlations observed in humans and animals. The reciprocity of that law has been subsequently observed, for as soon as the Xipehuz began to diminish in number, their frontiers were proportionately restricted.