The Carpet Makers

by Andreas Eschbach

  “Has anything happened on the border?” Cheun asked into the impenetrable night.

  “No,” someone said.

  Cheun crept forward until he could see down into the plain. The other light was there, the light of the enemy. An almost imperceptible dark blue rim of light defined the course of the fortified border. The light was so diffuse that no details could be seen, only the angular silhouettes of colossal machines that had drawn up along the boundary.

  Cheun remembered the first time he had seen this sight as a child. Before then, the border had been an endless, inconspicuous wire fence that killed everyone who came too close to it with a lightning bolt and whose flickering blue light glimmered at night like an ever-present threat. Then one day the machines arrived—slowly, like great beasts of gray steel. An endless column lined up side by side, one next to the other, until the front of moving machines finally stretched from horizon to horizon.

  He had stood there at first and waited to see what would happen next. His tribe had not waited; they had packed up their few possessions and fled. But from a distance, he had continued to watch: men arrived and dismantled the fence. And as young as he was, Cheun still understood that they were clearing the way for the Gray Land, for the enemy who wanted to kill them all, even though they had done nothing to him.

  And so it went, on and on. Again and again they had to flee, ever farther north, where it became ever colder and the food ever scarcer. Sometimes they had to fight other tribes whose territories they had entered in their flight from the enemy. And now they had reached the edge of the rocky Northern Massif. Now, the only path led into murderously cold, infertile desolation where they would die between the bare cliffs and steep chasms.

  “What do you think, Cheun?” Onnen asked suddenly beside him.

  Cheun jumped. He had been absorbed in his thoughts and memories and had not heard the clan chief approaching.

  “I don’t know where we can run now,” he explained. “The only way left to us leads into the stony wasteland and, beyond that, the eternal ice. It makes no difference what we do—we can only choose a quick death or a slow one.”

  “And what do you choose?”

  “I choose to fight.”

  Onnen was silent for a while. “I had planned to move on toward the sunrise, when it became necessary. If the reports are true, there are warm valleys there with fertile soil and many well-nourished animals. But it would be a long trek, and we would still need the next harvest in order to survive the journey. Their attack is coming too early. The enemies will move in the next few days and destroy our last fields down below, and if we’re still there when they come, they will kill us.”

  “Then there’s no other way but to flee and leave the old ones and the weakest behind,” Cheun observed. During one escape, he had had to leave his sick mother behind and, from a great distance, had seen her hut disappear in a blast of fire from the enemy.

  “I have another plan,” said Onnen. “We could try to stop them.”

  Suddenly, Cheun was not sure whether this was just a bad dream. Stop them? What was the clan chief saying? None of their weapons was capable of inflicting even a scratch on the enemy’s steel behemoths.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I want to kill one of them and take his weapons,” Onnen said calmly. “Our weapons are capable of nothing against the machines, but if we fire their own weapons against them, maybe we have a chance.”

  It must be a dream. A nightmare. “Onnen, there are thousands of machines. Even if we could destroy one of them, it wouldn’t change anything—”

  “But if we take one and use it to attack the others … that would change things!”

  “They’re too powerful, Onnen. Destroy one, and a hundred others take its place.”

  The voice of the chief was suddenly sharp and impatient. “Didn’t you say you choose to fight, Cheun?”

  Cheun didn’t reply.

  “Now is our only chance to act,” Onnen declared. He put his arm around Cheun’s shoulder, and though he could not see it, Cheun imagined that the chief was pointing down to the plain, to the border. “They’ve taken down the fence that throws lightning bolts, and their machines are far enough apart for a man to slip between them. And look carefully—there is very little light between some of them. We can sneak up under cover of darkness, penetrate the Gray Land, and attack from behind—they won’t expect that for sure. We’ll wait until one of them is alone and kill him with an arrow.”

  Cheun had to admit that Onnen had thought this plan through. During the daytime, they had often seen single individuals walking behind the row of mobile machines. The Gray Land offered no hiding places, but that would not be necessary as long as it was dark. The enemies would not be expecting an attack from that direction, and because the machines sat in the pale blue light, it would be possible to see the enemy without being seen themselves.

  And it was better to die in battle than on a sickbed.

  “I’m with you,” said Cheun.

  Onnen slapped him on the shoulder, pleased and also relieved. “I knew it.”

  Now that the daring venture had been decided on, they didn’t hesitate for a moment. Onnen gathered the men around him and explained again what they would do. He designated one of the youngest as the sentry who would remain behind. He had them inspect the few weapons they possessed—stone axes, spears, bows and arrows—and then they began their descent to the fields.

  Even in the darkness, they found the path. Fingers felt for protruding rocks and the stumps of dead branches, for dusty moss and clefts in the stone. Feet shuffled along, feeling their way across the scree to locate footholds, steps, and rock ledges. Every man knew when he had to duck and where he had to take care not to plunge headlong from the mountain.

  Cheun felt violent rage igniting in his heart and stoking his battle lust. He had often suppressed his hate for the enemies because it was so painful to admit his inferiority—his absolute impotence—to himself. Just the idea, that it might be possible to inflict a wound on this vastly superior enemy, opened the floodgates of a lifetime’s pent-up hate and filled him with unrelenting energy.

  They had come from another world to kill and to destroy, and if there had ever been a reason, it had been forgotten ages ago. And what would happen when they someday completed their senseless work, when they had killed everyone and had covered the whole planet with their gray stone? Maybe, Cheun thought, maybe things would all unfold differently than the legends prophesied. Maybe they had to annihilate their enemies in order to see the stars again.

  Finally, he felt the parched grass of the plain against his legs. His mouth was dry, and he knew the others felt the same. Nobody spoke a word.

  They marched toward the blue glow—over dry, rustling bunches of grass, through the treacherous snapping of cripplewood thickets, and through fields of new crops that would never ripen. Blackness surrounded them, except in the direction of the dark blue shimmer, which stretched like a seam from one end of the world to the other. Except for the sound of their steps and their breathing, everything was silent. All animals, even the smallest rodents and insects, fled away from the Gray Land border. They alone were marching toward it.

  When they had put the fields behind them, Onnen stopped the warrior band.

  “We must consider carefully how to proceed,” he whispered. “I think it’s best to split up into groups of two. Each pair will search out a different gap, and we will meet again over there in the Gray Land. And we’ll go in turns, not all at once. Or does anyone have a better suggestion?”

  No one spoke. Hands groped through the dark, silently dividing the men into pairs.

  “Now—go!” the clan leader rasped.

  The first pair slipped away. After a while, the silhouettes of the two young warriors became visible against the border light. In front of the enemy vehicles, they appeared unexpectedly small and fragile, and only now, seeing this contrast, did Cheun realize how enormous the machines were—gigan
tic, gloomy metal mountains on armored wheels.

  Involuntarily he shook his head. The enemies really were servants of the Evil One—yes, and they were more powerful. Their strength was boundless. They were the victors and would remain the victors forever.

  No hope remained but for an honorable death. At least that would bring freedom from endless fleeing and hopeless suffering.

  Two bangs cut through the frosty night air like cracks of a whip, and the waiting group jumped. Horrified, they watched as the two warriors collapsed, their arms jerking about as they fell.

  “Halt!” Onnen called out to stop the second pair that had already headed off.

  They stood there motionless and waited. Nothing happened; everything was still.

  We have to think of another way,” Onnan whispered finally. “There seems to be no way through, even though the fence is gone. We have to think of something else.”

  Cheun reached out his hand and touched Onnen’s arm. “It’s no use, Onnen. If we can’t penetrate the Gray Land, we can’t accomplish anything.”

  “I refuse to just give up!” Onnen hissed angrily. “We have to think of something—”

  Suddenly, the air was filled with a deep, rumbling sound that slowly grew louder, a sound like distant thunder. Cheun spun around once and tried to identify the source of the noise. It sounded dangerous.

  “The attack,” someone whispered. “It’s starting.”

  “They’ve never advanced during the night,” Onnen insisted stubbornly.

  A high-pitched whirring joined in, like a gigantic swarm of insects coming relentlessly closer. Now Cheun was sure that it emanated from the chain of massive vehicles. It grew ever louder and shriller.

  “It is!” he said. “It’s the machines.”

  Then light flooded over them, unbearably bright after the total darkness, overwhelming in its reach from horizon to horizon. It struck their unprepared eyes so unexpectedly that it seemed brighter than the sun, brighter than a hundred suns. Cheun pressed his clenched fists to his closed eyes, and light still penetrated his eyelids, as though it were being pressed into his head, and it hurt. Then the ground shook beneath his feet, and he knew what it meant: the enemy’s machines had begun their onslaught, rolling toward them, unstoppable.

  “Retreat!” he screamed, and stumbled back, still with closed, tear-filled eyes in which the light burned like fire. The dull growling of the gray colossi filled the air, the screeching, grinding crunch of their wheels and the explosions of rock and tree beneath them. All at once it was so loud, he could no longer hear the others.

  Then sharp popping sounds came again, followed each time by the screams of his comrades. Cheun ran, ran for his life and for the life of his tribe. The rage and fear inside him gave wings to his feet. Fight. This could be fighting, too. Sometimes fighting meant running, running away from a superior foe and doing whatever it took to escape.

  Again a blast like the crack of a whip far behind him, and this one was meant for him. He felt the sudden pain inside himself like a lightning bolt that passed through his whole body and flung him forward like an unexpected blow to the back. Without thinking and without slowing his dash, he grabbed at the place where the pain began, and through the tears in his eyes, he saw blood on his hand. A lot of blood.

  The enemy had hit him, but he was still alive. Don’t give up. Keep running. The enemy made a mistake. Even the enemy can make a mistake. Even these monstrous machines were not all-powerful. He had been far enough away to be able to escape. He would escape. He would make it. He was bleeding, yes, but that didn’t mean anything. He struggled. Run. Run farther and farther. He always chose to fight. The challenge. He, the warrior. He, Cheun of the clan of the Oneuns. He made it to the foot of the mountains, even made it partway up the path, now brightly lit, before he collapsed.

  But now, finally, the time had come. Cheun lay on his back—eyes closed, hands pressed to his wound—and felt life drain from him. With unexpected clarity, he knew he would die, and he only regretted it for the sake of the tribe: now they had to flee without their warriors into a hostile, lifeless expanse where they would all die.

  He listened to the sounds of the advancing enemies, felt the uncontrollable quaking of the earth against his back, and heard the thousandfold crackling and snapping of trees being crushed. His breathing was labored. So this is what it is like, the end. His end. At least he would bleed to death, long before the machines began to scale the mountains. He considered whether there was anyone he wished to have here with him, but he could think of no one. This was what his end was like: wretched.

  Then it was suddenly quiet, and no light penetrated his eyelids. Cheun opened his eyes. Above him, in the boundless night sky, he saw the stars.

  XVI

  The Return

  WHAT GOOD DID ALL this do? He didn’t know. After all the years, all the grizzly discoveries and bloody incidents, after all the nightmares …

  “Captain Wasra?”

  He looked up reluctantly. It was Jegulkin, the Navigator, and it was clear that he regretted having to disturb him.

  “Yes?”

  “We’re approaching Planet G-101/2. Do you have special instructions?

  Wasra needed no time to think it over. He had visited so many planets like this in the past months, had proclaimed the end of the Empire so often that he sometimes felt he was in a never-ending nightmare, condemned to say the same things and make the same hand gestures forever. No, it occurred to him, this time it was different; he had a special mission on this planet. But that didn’t make it any easier.

  “No special instructions. We’ll look for the spaceport and land there.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Wasra stared at the large main screen, which showed the universe as the naked eye would have seen it. A small, dully glowing dot came closer: the second planet of Sun G-101. Here, too, lived hair-carpet makers, just as on thousands of other planets—planets that all seemed the same.

  And behind it, the stars glimmered cold and rigid, each one a different sun or a different galaxy. Wasra wondered grimly whether they would ever succeed in finally putting the Empire behind them, in finally ridding themselves of the Emperor’s heritage. It seemed so futile to him. Who would ever be able to say definitively that there was not another undiscovered part of the Empire hidden behind one of these rigid points of light, or that there was not another door waiting to reveal another terrible secret?

  He saw his reflection in one of the instrument covers and was surprised—as so often in past weeks—that his face still looked so young. The gray captain’s uniform seemed made of heavier material than the uniforms he had previously worn, and the badge of his rank seemed to weigh more as each day passed. When he joined the expedition under General Karswant, he had just reached the age of majority—a young soldier looking for excitement and wanting to prove himself. And today, after only three years in this gigantic province, he felt ancient, as old as the Emperor himself, and couldn’t understand why it didn’t show on his face.

  They had made thousands of landings like this one, it seemed, and there was no end in sight.

  But … no—this planet really was different. In a certain sense, everything had started here. Supplied with bad, outdated maps, the Salkantar had visited this planet once before on an arduous, wandering journey that took weeks. He was just a regular crewman then, and nobody anticipated the bloody battles ahead against Imperial Troops who didn’t know that the Emperor was dead and that the Empire had been defeated. At that time, it seemed the expedition was as good as completed. They were getting ready to return home, making careful preparations for the great leap through empty space between the galaxies. Wasra was directing cleanup work on the third deck, and if anyone had told him he would be captain of the Salkantar two years later, he would have laughed. But that is exactly what happened, and these two years had mercilessly made a man out of the boy he had once been. And everything started here on this planet, whose bright, desolate, sandy-br
own disk was growing slowly larger and rounder and on whose surface they could make out the first features.

  Wasra remembered a conversation with General Karswant as though it had been yesterday instead of weeks ago. The bearish old man that everyone feared, but loved nonetheless, had shown him a photograph. “Nillian Jegetar Cuain,” he said, and there was an unexplained sadness in his voice. “If it weren’t for this man, we would have been home almost three years ago. I want you to find out what happened to him.”

  This man had landed on G-101/2, despite explicit instructions to the contrary, and had discovered the hair carpets. At first, Wasra couldn’t believe the rumors that trickled down to the crew quarters, they seemed so absurd. But then Nillian’s report was verified in every detail. The expedition leadership announced that hair carpets were extremely lavish knotwork rugs made of human hair. So lavishly time consuming, in fact, that a carpet maker completed only one carpet in his entire lifetime. But all that would have been just a notation in the expedition log, had it not been for the unexpected explanation: these carpets, so the carpet makers claimed, were destined for the Palace of the Emperor, and their production was a sacred duty. That caused a stir—because everyone who had ever been in the Imperial Palace could attest that it contained the most remarkable things, but certainly no hair carpets.

  The expedition fleet began surveillance operations, and in fact, within a few months, a large transport ship in miserable disrepair landed on the planet and departed again after about two weeks. They followed the ship and lost it, but they stumbled onto a second planet where hair carpets were tied with the same religious justification. Then they found another and another still … quickly there were dozens and soon hundreds. After expedition ships had swarmed out and found more and ever more worlds making these carpets, hordes of automated reconnaissance robots were sent off with the same result. When ten thousand such planets had been discovered, the search was called off, despite the assumption that there must yet be others.…