There is so much—so very much—of this unintelligible apparatus around us that there must be many blanks in this account. For example, the highest importance is attached by the Nagani to a strange device that revolves rapidly like one of those crazy “mobile” decorations we used to know on Earth years ago. To us, the thing is quite shapeless, and only occasionally does it show anything more than a blurred outline. I suppose that its vibrations are outside the range of our vision. The Nagani consult this device frequently and with the greatest urgency. It seems to have no point of support, and hangs in mid-air in one of the control cabins. We have not the slightest idea of what it can be, let alone how it works. Such things are completely beyond our comprehension.
At the other end of the scale of credulity are a series of simple small things like spherical crystals. These are each mounted on a heavy base, and there is always a Nagani watching over them. They do nothing, these crystals. They never move, nothing can be seen in them, they do not change colour—nothing happens to them. Nothing, that is, within our comprehension.
Again, here is something beyond our range of understanding, for the Nagani regard these crystals as a mariner would regard his compass.
II
This is written ten days after the last chapter was closed. Our immediate destination is Ganymede, Jupiter’s third satellite. From there we are to observe the erratic movement of Varang-Varang and, I imagine, complete the plans for the next stage of our journey. We are also to carry out some process involving the field of force of our Disc. Whether one could call this refuelling I do not know. Recharging might be the more correct term.
Varang-Varang has swung far out of its original orbit, and now follows an elliptical course roughly in the plane of Jupiter’s orbit, and lying between that and the orbit of Vulcan.
We shall not use Vulcan for any purpose at all. The Nagani, when they left that globe, sealed the underground labyrinths where life—Vulcanid, Nagani, Virian and Terrestrial—had adapted itself through thousands of years. They may also have left behind them some destructive force to ensure that the tenacious Vulcanids shall not survive and re-establish themselves.
Wherever else in the System we may be taken, whatever bizarre forms of life we see, whatever perils await us, will never be able to compare with the horror we should feel at being returned to the planet where we were to have been used as guinea pigs by the foul Vulcanids.
Meanwhile, within the frail walls of this Nagani Disc we wait. We know that we and the Nagani must seek out and reach the planet Varang-Varang. But when we find it and reach it—what then?
We may find that the displacement of Varang-Varang has been caused by some cosmic catastrophe such as that which swept humanity from the Earth. If so, shall we find that any of the inhabitants of Varang-Varang survive?
A further ten days have passed, and now we approach the end of this first stage of our journey.
Ahead of us we see the enormous disc of Jupiter looming frighteningly. His third satellite, Ganymede, lies off to our left and beyond Jupiter. By Terrestrial physics, we ought now to be within range, of the giant planet’s gravity, but Nagani physics must have found some way of evading the enormous pull of Jupiter, equal to more than two-and-a-half times the pull of Earth.
Ganymede, though, being little more than twice the size of Earth’s Moon, should offer a greatly reduced gravity to us when we land.
As the hours pass, we have swept round the curve of Jupiter’s limb and now see ahead of us the growing disc of Ganymede. We can see distinctly surface markings that could indicate continents and oceans. There is an atmosphere; great banks of clouds prove that.
One thing that we Terrestrials have talked about at length is the possibility of indigenous life on Ganymede. We are told by the Virians that Jupiter (their name for the giant planet is Marghannor) has a life of its own, a strange form of existence which they describe as thread-like filaments, living, breathing and sentient. It is possible that the Virian concept of Jovian life is fostered by thousands of years of legend among Krill Hvensor’s race. When we have pressed the Virians for more details of their knowledge of Jovian life-forms, they have hesitated, and insisted that “Life is a thread on Marghannor; we know it, and we have always known it.” But how they know they cannot explain. So we may learn, from our station half a million miles from the great planet, something more explicit.
Now we are spinning downwards—at last we can think of “up” and “down” with relation to our Disc—towards the cloud-veiled globe of Ganymede. Since I started writing the last few pages the disc of the satellite has grown enormously, and now it fills our televisor screens. We can now pick out areas of land and what may be water. The distribution of geographical features seems to be the direct reverse of what we have become used to on Earth. The greater mass of the satellite appears to be solid, with four enormous inland seas.
We have circled the globe probably three times already, and find that, like Earth’s Moon, it turns the same face constantly towards its gigantic parent planet, round which it speeds in less than eight hours.
On the remote side from Jupiter is the largest of the seas, occupying more than half that side of the satellite. The face turned towards Jupiter is marked by three smaller seas, or immense lakes.
We seem to be directing our course towards the edge, or limb of the satellite as it would be observed from Jupiter. That will mean that our field of vision, when we land, will not be so obscured by the overhang of the great planet, which must surely fill a great part of Ganymede’s skies.
Our Disc now takes us into that pendulum-like swing that characterises the landing technique of these craft.
Accordingly, the picture of what lies below us is now blurred to a greater extent, and until our pendulum-swing ends, we shall not get a close view of the terrain below us.
So, until I have further definite news, I leave this narrative.
Six hours have passed. We are now stationary on the surface of Ganymede. Our screens show us a bleak landscape much resembling that of Luna.
The Nagani are busily engaged on their cryptic tasks, and I believe that we may be preparing for leaving the Disc.
Leo Arabin suggests that the Nagani may be making tests as to the nature of the atmosphere and effects of Ganymede’s gravitational field.
On the televisor screens we can see tall tapering mountains, with a curious spiked appearance, due, I suppose, to the much lower gravitational pull of Ganymede. Here in the Disc we feel no gravitational difference, of course. These craft incorporate their own regular gravity, a little lower than that of Earth. But when we set foot outside, we shall feel that our weight is greatly reduced. For the same reason, apparently, geological features such as the mountains we see will show a different conformation from that on Earth.
The number of these mountains is abnormal by our standards, too. They stand in great clusters, with large flat valleys between the clusters. The Disc lies in such a valley. Except for dark patches here and there the ground seems bare, and without rocks or boulders.
Overhead, chains of small clouds chase each other across a dark sky. Out here in Jupiter’s orbit the sun seems very remote and pale, and only a fraction of the size it appears from Earth. Will the cold (for cold there must be, so far from the sun) be harmful? We cannot tell. We know that the Nagani, being so differently constructed, may stand extremes of temperature that would destroy humanity.
Now Adda Manganna has rejoined us, and we learn that we are to leave the Disc. We are glad of it, because our insatiable curiosity would have become maddening, had we stayed within the Disc as it sat on the soil of an unknown world.
I shall resume this narrative when the opportunity arises. At this moment, we are preparing to step outside—the first humans, at least, to set foot on Ganymede.
III
What can I write about Ganymede that will be of service to those who read this? We found Jupiter’s third moon much as one would expect to find a half-frozen ball of rock of i
ts type. Cold, dust, needle-like mountains, and sparsely growing lichens greeted us as we stepped—or rather floated—from the Disc.
As we leaped gingerly from the upper surface of the Disc, we caught our breath as the reduced gravity of Ganymede took gentle hold of us and floated us to the ground. Our feet sank into ankle-deep dust, which shimmered up in a grey cloud high above our heads. Every step set up a slowly drifting dust-storm that hovered above and around us. If man is to explore such dead worlds thoroughly he must find a way of doing so from the air, for the dust throws up an opaque curtain round him whenever he sets foot to the ground.
We live, during our halt on Ganymede, inside the Disc. Its steadier gravity, its warmth and comfort—compared to Ganymede’s inhospitable surface—make that essential.
Four other Discs arrived during the first twenty-four hours, and floated down around ours.
One feature of Ganymede that puzzles us is the cloud formation. There seems to be nothing like the cirrus and cumulus type of cloud here. Instead, small oval clouds chase each other from east to west across the sky in closely linked chains.
The spires of the slender mountains, too, are deceptive in their appearance. On closer inspection they are only a fraction of the height they appear to be, due, of course, to the lack of anything with which to compare them, and to the nearer horizon. On Earth, a mountain on the horizon might be many miles away. Here, where the globe’s diameter is so much less than that of Earth, they might be no further than two miles.
Although this account refers to days, they are not Terrestrial days. Here, the time between dark and daylight is only about six hours. So, although my watch has registered the passing of 48 hours, we have spent four of Ganymede’s days and nights here.
We have seen living beings on what we thought was a dead world.
Our first glimpse of them came this morning, when we awoke to find a crowd of about fifty small creatures packed tightly and inquisitively around one of the Discs. They seemed to converse together busily and wheezily in shrill snorts and whistles, and if I had seen them at a distance on Earth I should have said they were wallabies.
They stand about thirty inches high on their hind legs, and have a fine close covering of blue-grey fur. The forelegs are short, and taper to fairly large hands. They have eight—no, nine—fingers to each hand; I know the exact number because one of the creatures is sitting up gazing at me curiously as I write this. There is no keeping them out of our affairs, short of driving them away, and any such treatment sets them wailing most dismally.
Their chief feature seems to be an intense and intelligent curiosity. When I just now took the hand—or paw—of my Ganymede wallaby here, he gave it freely, and watched with a tense expression as I counted his fingers. He then gently took my hand and counted my fingers!
Then he slowly and thoughtfully twitched his long, flexible nose, gazed at his own hands and looked puzzled. There is no doubt whatsoever that these wallaby-like animals have an intelligence much higher than that of Terrestrial animals. But then, for all we know, they may be the highest form of life here and be capable of far greater mental exercise than we can guess.
They are everywhere they can find an open door. The Na-gani have accepted them stolidly, but have closed all the doors leading to anything of importance. Karinga Varga, of course, was an immediate success with the busy little creatures. At once they sensed that he would understand them better than any of the rest of us, and surrounded him eagerly.
He has been set the task of trying to learn as much as possible about, the wallabies. His undoubted telepathic gifts as regards animals may give us much information about them.
I have had Karinga Varga’s report on the wallabies, and although there are many gaps in what he has to tell, it is a valuable contribution to this record.
The wallabies are, as we thought, the major race on Ganymede, but they have not always been so. At some time in the past—how long ago we cannot tell—there were beings similar to humanity here. Karinga Varga tells me that he gets a positive sense of recognition when he explores their minds. They set up a train of thought comparing us with creatures of whom they have many legends.
They are friendly. We should have found it hard to believe otherwise, from their conduct, but with an alien race one can never be sure. Gestures of friendliness in one species may signify hate in another—as witness the dog who wags his tail to show pleasure, and the cat who does the same in fury.
Among their racial memories, Karinga Varga is sure, is a strong legend of great stone buildings, but whether these were on Ganymede or Jupiter, we cannot discover. The wallabies may have come originally from Jupiter. On such a gigantic world, massive size would be essential if buildings were to stand firm.
It seems certain that the wallabies, intelligent though they are, came here, or developed here, much as the dog has developed on Earth—as the companion of a higher race.
They show little interest in the Nagani, which is a surprising thing, for the Nagani are a fantastically advanced race, far ahead of humanity in intellectual concept. It may be that the Nagani already know of the wallabies, and consequently accept them as humans would accept dogs.
It may also be that the wallabies have seen the Nagani before, for we do not know whether the little frog-like creatures have visited this near-dead world in the past. The minds of the wallabies register nothing for Karinga Varga when he tries to set them thinking of the Nagani.
The Nagani, of course, are fully occupied here on Ganymede in observing the planet Varang-Varang and making their plans for its interception or pursuit. How they go about this we do not know.
They have erected certain apparatus outside the Discs, but like most of their constructions, the articles mean nothing to the human mind. All day long, and probably all of Ganymede’s short night as well the Nagani are working on something. We conclude that it has to do with the pursuit of Varang-Varang, but even of that we cannot be sure.
And so in the meantime we are glad of the diversion caused by the arrival of the wallabies, and are taking every opportunity of studying them.
One thing I must mention: the magnificent sight of great Jupiter. The giant planet seems to overhang our horizon by about sixty degrees, and its apparent close proximity—an illusion caused by its enormous size—gives us a good view of the surface. j
I should have said “the visible surface,” for much of Jupiter is obscured *by dense white cloud. The famous red spot now appears brilliantly over our horizon every ten hours or so. We are only able to see what must be a fraction of it, but what we can see clearly shows that the red spot is volcanic.
Every time the red spot has passed into our view it has been covered by cloud. But more than once we have seen through a rift in the cloud the seething redness of volcanic activity beneath. So intense must the heat be that even the thick cloud covering the red spot often glows violently and pulsates with the source of heat beneath it.
It is difficult for us to imagine the appalling extent of this glowing inferno, with only our Terrestrial experience of volcanoes to aid us. But once more we have proof that size is only a matter of comparison. The red spot on Jupiter could engulf this globe of Ganymede many times, but to the total area of Jupiter it bears only a small significance.
The clouds—and our lack of Terrestrial instruments — prevent our having a clear view of Jupiter. What would we not give for even a pair of binoculars! But there is something odd even about the cloud formation. Regular tides of clouds seem to set across the northern hemisphere of the planet. Their shape is far more regular than those to which we were accustomed on Earth, and they stream across the sky of Jupiter at a steady pace. Unfortunately, our position on the limb of Ganymede does not give us a steadily uninterrupted view of Jupiter, so we are unable to make regular and constant observations.
For some reason the Nagani will not focus their televisor system on Jupiter. We do not know why, unless it could be that they fear some mechanical reaction from the tremendo
us volcanic area.
While we were out in space on our journey here we were allowed to share, to some extent, in their televisor activity, and the screen in our own compartment showed us much of our journey, and occasional glimpses of our distant runaway quarry. Now, though, our screen is blank.
Adda Manganna will try to persuade the Nagani to give us a glimpse of Varang-Varang and to take us into their confidence about our future movements. We cannot believe that we are to stay here indefinitely.
My wallaby companion has been sitting enraptured by my work at the typewriter. His fore-arms are folded and he sits back on his haunches leaning against the wall, with the Ganymede equivalent of a delighted smile on his face. Every now and again his long flexible nose is wreathed in wrinkles as he rotates it thoughtfully.
His origin is much like our own, I am sure, for in the middle of his rotund belly is a distinct navel.
Now that was a remarkable thing! Even as I wrote that and looked towards him, he glanced down at his navel, and his nose described a frenzied series of circles. I am sure that these creatures are telepathic.
He seems to be able to receive many of my thoughts, but I find it quite impossible to receive his, unfortunately.
It seems probable that the telepathic sense has been fostered by the dense dust of Ganymede, which prevents the use of sight by any normal—by Terrestrial standards, at least—creature. The dust has little adherence in it, for these wallabies are quite clean, and when leaving the area of the dust a brisk shake —like a dog leaving the water—frees their coats of the dust But the coating of it that they deposit on their surroundings is quite abominable. We have persuaded them to make use of the air-locks at the Disc’s entrance port, and now it is a comical sight to see the little groups of wallabies enter the open port, shake themselves busily, and then open the inner port.
Children of the Void Page 2
