A thought has occurred to me: perhaps these creatures are not merely inquisitive in the everlasting pursuit of us; perhaps it is they who are investigating us.
Arabin, Karim and myself have been wondering why Ganymede should have been chosen as a base. It is now fourteen Terrestrial days since the Discs landed here. We think it possible that this is the only station in the Solar System that will support Nagani and human life, while yet permitting the Na-gani to continue their observations of Varang-Varang.
It may be, too, that the Nagani find it necessary to site their base on the orbit of Jupiter for other reasons (e.g. the recharging of the Discs’ system of power?). We have plotted a rough chart on which we find that Varang-Varang is now receding from us, and that soon it will lie on the far side of the Sun. This would mean that we may have to wait here for a matter of months to catch Varang-Varang on the next time round.
But there must be some reason for all this, we are sure. The crazy orbit of Varang-Varang is something that would have baffled Terrestrial science in the old days, but the Nagani seem to be equipped for studying it. This makes us believe that they have either experienced something similar before, or that they were expecting it to happen.
IV
Now we are in space again, with Ganymede fast receding from us, and ahead of us the increasing glow of Varang-Varang on our televisor screen.
Now we feel that we are nearer to accomplishing our mission of seeking out the planet Varang-Varang and learning the purpose of its inhabitants in displacing the orbit of their world.
The Nagani, even though their emotions are almost imperceptible to us, seem fired with purpose now. We must conclude that their period of investigation from Ganymede has been successful, for now our Disc is established on a firm course without deviation.
When we shot upwards into the thin skies of Ganymede, there was some fear among the human passengers in this Disc that giant Jupiter might pick us up in his gravitational net. But far from that being the case, the proximity of the enormous planet seemed to have the effect of renewing our Disc’s source of power. We catapulted past the brilliant face of Jupiter at a speed that was discernible even on the televisor screens. Whatever their system of propulsion may be, it is clear that the Nagani had no fear of being trapped by Jupiter’s gravity.
The hours since we left Ganymede have grown into days, and now we see Varang-Varang clearly as a disc, instead of a point in space. We think that we can discern markings on the face of the runaway world.
Our course seems to lie around a gigantic ellipse, and already it has brought us within recognisable distance of Earth. We are trying to plot the course, and if our rough reckoning is correct, our aphelion—furthest point from the Sun—will lie far out beyond the orbit of Jupiter, perhaps even into the dim, almost sunless realm of Uranus away towards the fringe of the System.
But by the time our aphelion is reached anything may have happened. We may by then have come into contact with Varang-Varang. We hope so, most sincerely, for we earnestly wish for an end to this venture, and a return to those—few as they are—whom we left on Earth.
Ten days have passed since my last writing. It is now fifty-two days by my reckoning since we left Earth on this chase through the Solar System.
And now we may be near to the climax of our enterprise, for Varang-Varang looms large and menacing on our forward screen. We see the planet from perhaps fifty thousand miles distance, though I have no means of checking this. We see it, as I imagine an observer fifty thousand miles out from Earth would see our own world.
So there, at last, is our quarry. To us speeding towards Varang-Varang the planet looks peaceful and harmless, despite the age-long legends of the Virians, which have taught them that the beast-men of Varang-Varang are a menace to life only equalled by the Vulcanids.
The conformation of the face of Varang-Varang is remarkable for its alternation of land and water in narrow strips and whorls. I assume that the distinction in colour of these neighbouring elements means that they are land and water, but I can get no confirmation for that.
Where Terrestrial land masses and seas are separated into large continents and oceans, on Varang-Varang they are intricately interwoven, whether by design or by Nature, we do not know. Along each strip of what we assume to be land lies a darker band, something like the rib of a willow leaf. To each side the land seems bare, but the central rib shows great differences of colour and density.
The other four Discs have been left many hundreds of miles behind us. We know this because the field of view on the rear screen suddenly flashed the other four Discs into sight. They were circling slowly, when all at once they slowed and took up a diamond formation. Then they rapidly became smaller and smaller until they were only points of light on the screen, patterned like a tiny diamond against the blackness of the background.
So now we in this Disc are alone in our venture, but we know that in reserve we have a force four times greater than our own, ready to aid us if necessary.
We now lie no more than half a mile, I estimate, above the surface of Varang-Varang. Our Disc seems, according to the motionless picture on our lower screen, to be hovering. Around us lies a cloud, built up, I am sine, by some force applied by the Nagani.
The same phenomenon, I remember, used to be remarked years ago, before the Catastrophe, when “Flying Saucers,” as they were then known, used to hover above Earth. We who survived know that these mysterious craft, so often derided as hallucinations, were none other than Nagani Discs.
There is no sign of life below us. It is possible that what life there was has been destroyed in the immense upheaval caused by displacing the planet from its original orbit.
One thing we are sure of: there is an atmosphere, for our own private cloud seems to hang and drift a little, much as a Terrestrial cloud does. According to Virian tradition, Varang-Varang has an atmosphere that will support human life, for legend has it that their own people have existed on Varang-Varang.
To the Virians this world holds a dreadful significance, for their racial hero, who has grown to the stature of a religious figure, was destroyed by the inhabitants of Varang-Varang many thousands of years ago. And so for them this journey has a sacred purpose. If they are able to learn more of the death of Han Dralmi, and perhaps to avenge his slaughter, they will have completed a story that started in their race’s remote past history.
As we hang silently over Varang-Varang we see the shadow of the planet’s night creep across the distant horizon and towards us. Soon we shall be engulfed in it ourselves.
Now the planet has turned sufficiently to throw us and the ground immediately beneath us into dark shadow. In a few moments we shall be in complete darkness.
High above us the tiny points of light that are the radiations from our four fellow-Discs merge into one bright speck, to reassure us that whatever the darkness may bring, their assistance is at hand.
For the first time on this journey we have been afforded a glimpse into the minds of the Nagani. We have been summoned to one of their control cabins and by way of their incredible tele-mentor circuits have seen something of what is to happen in the near future.
We were assembled around a low table on which the telementor equipment was mounted. The leads from the set, with their fiat, flexible terminals, were applied to our foreheads above the site of the pineal gland, and under the guidance of one of the Nagani we were shown a quick mental picture of our plans.
We saw in our minds’ eye the slow, silent descent of our Disc towards a spot near a main nodal point. We saw the erection, outside the Disc, of some small, complex equipment that shimmered in its outline—four-dimensional apparatus— and around which a crew of the Nagani clustered, operating its incomprehensible controls.
We saw only Nagani outside the Disc at first. Then we were shown a picture of ourselves, and the Virians, emerging from the exit ports. There was a sense of danger, of multiple threats to each of us, of a host of possible menaces that could harm us
. This, we gathered, was to warn us that even the Nagani did not know what would meet us on landing, and that we ourselves must be prepared and alert
How we are to protect ourselves, should danger actually threaten, I do not know, for we have no arms, and, to the best of my knowledge neither have the Nagani.
The tele-mentor picture showed us no actual beings, but rather a sensation of attack from one quarter and then another. Then it faded, at the control of the Nagani operator, and we saw ourselves in strange buildings, weird landscapes, and meeting unknown creatures whose shape altered in nightmare fashion. Again, we assumed that the Nagani were showing us a picture of what might be, rather than what they knew would be.
And so we are to land. We do not know when. We sit in our compartment, the nine of us (for Krill Hvensor has come in to share our watch on the screens) and wait for some sign on the televisor screens. And as we wait I write these lines . . .
V
How long has passed since I wrote those last words? We do not yet know—maybe we shall never know. Although I must tell this story in some sort of sequence, it is going to be difficult, for time-scales on Varang-Varang have some incomprehensible variation.
When the exit ports on the top of our Disc at last slid open we stepped out with the greatest hesitancy. We had been assured that the atmosphere would not harm us, but nevertheless, we felt considerable fear in venturing out on to the surface of this fear-ridden world.
I left the Disc in the company of Arabin, Karim, and
Karinga Varga, the near-telepathic Virian. With us were four of the bustling, scurrying little Nagani.
As we stood on the gentle curve of the upper surface of the Disc, we felt the bitter cold that reigns in those far realms of the Solar System, but something in the atmosphere, some vivifying element that exhilarated and stimulated us, seemed to combat the chilling effect of the thin air.
As we dropped from the Disc to the ground five feet below us, we felt the effect of the reduced gravity of the smaller planet, but it was not so decided as it had been on the much smaller Ganymede. The whole landscape, dark and gloomy in the dusk of the early night, seemed to close in on us. As we had stood on the higher curve of the Disc’s upper surface we had seen a horizon apparently many miles distant, but now the horizon had drawn much, much nearer.
“Curvature more pronounced on a smaller world like this,” Arabin said. “The horizon can’t be further away than a mile or so, and dropping to a new eye-level like this has altered the entire view except in the foreground.”
“Maybe—but very confusing,” muttered Karim, gently stirring the thick dust with his foot.
Now we saw the surface of Varang-Varang in its natural colours, but, due to the growing darkness, it seemed almost as monochromatic as it had appeared on the televisor screens. What colour we could discern seemed predominantly slaty-blue, but on the brighter sky-line the high points varied from ice-blue to deep indigo.
The Nagani had set themselves to their cryptic work as soon as they had set foot to ground, and were hurrying round the Disc in a wide circle. They were marking out some form of perimeter, I believe, with the Disc as its centre. For what purpose we did not know. What to them are routine matters seems to us to be either ritualistic or meaningless.
Arabin sifted a handful of the blue dust between his fingers. “Lighter than I’d have thought,” he said. “But it still drops straight down.”
Below the top layer of dust was a stratum of fine granules, again of lighter weight than seemed natural even for a small planet. One would have thought that such a light surface material would have been dissipated by any winds there might be. Here and there were small rocky formations below the dust, about as big as a small football, but by the time we had discovered these it was too dark to examine them.
This reminded us that we must not leave the Disc too far away, and we turned to go back to it.
Quite suddenly, a horrible thing happened.
Arabin, who was ahead of the rest of us, started to sink into the dust.
We grabbed wildly at him as he slowly settled into what was becoming a wide inverted cone-shaped depression. Then, before we could save ourselves, all four of us were struggling in the grip of the tenacious under-surface of the dust. We shouted, and our call brought a crowd of Nagani rushing towards us.
Then the blue dust closed over our heads, and the darkness was complete.
We seemed to sink rapidly. The choking sensation as I held my breath, striving to avoid drawing the horrible dust into my lungs, lasted for some seconds, and then we fell heavily to a hard floor.
We were in a dim cavernous place. From no discernible source was there any issue of light, and yet we could see each other and the walls of our cave, which stretched away like a tunnel.
The floor was level and the walls were tooled to a certain smoothness.
There was no sound, save for our own breathing. Then Karim spoke.
“Not far, we fell. The Nagani will soon dig us out”
Arabin shook his head. “It seemed to me we fell a long way,” he said. “I was all in when we landed here. Seemed like a hundred feet or so.”
My own view was that we had passed through perhaps ten or twenty feet of the dust.
The sudden relief at being freed from the blinding, choking dust had made us forget something. We all remembered at the same time, as we looked up to find the shaft we had fallen through.
There was no sign of the smallest aperture in the roof over our heads. Beside us, below us and above us the walls of the cavern stretched smoothly away on either side.
Arabin bent his head forward and rubbed a bruise. His eyes closed tightly as he shook his head. “It’s just impossible," he sighed. “Even after all we’ve been through in the past, this is something that couldn’t happen.”
The practical Karim rose to his feet and touched the walls of the cavern. “Has been worked on, the wall,” he exclaimed. “Has been made, this wall, by someone ... or something.”
Karim was right. The floor and walls—we could not reach the roof at that spot—were hewn from the rock, although the floor was softer. The floor, indeed, seemed to be of some manufactured substance rather than rock, but we could not be positive.
We hesitated about moving from the spot. If the Nagani did attempt to dig us out, they would not expect to have to search through tunnels for us. But at last common sense commanded that we at least look around us to see if there were any way out of our trap. So, leaving Karim and Karinga Varga to mark the spot, Arabin and I set off in opposite directions.
The tunnel I took seemed to run straight ahead, but when I had gone several yards along it, I saw that it curved. I turned to make sure that my way back was clear, and that I had passed no unnoticed apertures in the wall, and went forward again.
The curve took me downwards and to the right, and seemed to extend out of sight.
I turned back and hurried in the direction of my friends. After a few yards it seemed that I must have taken a wrong direction, for quick walking brought me nearer to the place where I had left Karim and Karinga Varga.
I ran, and still there was no sign of them.
I called and shouted and there was no reply.
Then I ran blindly, calling as loudly as I could, until at last I could run no more. Terrified, I sat down and looked back and forth along the cavern. Nowhere was there any sign of a side entrance down which I could have strayed.
Then I remembered something.
We had fallen through the roof, and our way in had been sealed off at once. Had something like that happened now? Had the conformation of the tunnel altered, and was I now in some other passage?
I called again, and there was an answering shout from Arabin.
I was so relieved to hear his voice, that I did not at once realise that it came from behind me.
He appreciated this first.
“But... I just left you over there!” he said sharply, pointing in the direction from which he had come.
I shook my head. “That way,” I said. “You were walking
away in the opposite direction. Remember? You went one way and I went the other.”
“Must run round in a circle, the tunnel,” said Leo thoughtfully. “But even so, how did you get to this point so quickly?”
I stooped down and laid a pencil from my pocket on the floor, pointing in the direction I had been heading. I meant to take no more chances of losing my way.
Then I explained to Arabin that, not only should I have been going back towards our departure point, but that I had been running for at least ten minutes. As proof, I could wish for nothing more convincing than my breathing, which barely allowed me to speak, so desperate had been my pace.
“But that’s impossible!” he argued. “Not thirty seconds-ago I left you and came this way. You were behind me .... Look, if we go back twenty paces we shall see Karim and Karinga Varga.”
We turned and walked back, after I had picked up my pencil
For minutes on end we hurried down the single curving tunnel, but without seeing either of our two friends.
Endless seemed the long curve of the cavern as we hurried back along what we were sure was the right way. Then Arabin halted us.
“No good going further,” he said. “There’s some trick of perspective that deceives us. Somehow, we’ve both got into another corridor, and our entrance way has been sealed like the hole in the roof was closed. Now what?”
Children of the Void Page 3
