By 7 p.m., darkness had already invaded the undergrowth; they halted again to take their evening meal and rest, this time for a longer period.
“If my pedometer isn’t deceiving me,” Saint-Clair said, “we’re scarcely two kilometers from the Fifteen’s base. I took careful account of its position relative to the place where the Condor dropped us off. We’ll rest here until midnight. After we’ve eaten, Max, I’ll sleep for two hours and you’ll keep watch. Then you’ll sleep and I’ll keep watch.”
“Yes, Commander.”
“All that we’ve done so far is nothing,” the Nyctalope went on, gravely. “It’s after midnight that we’ll need all our physical and mental strength. It’s necessary to get into the Fifteen’s base, make ourselves masters of it by force or trickery, and elucidate this mystery. Tomorrow is October 14—the final deadline is October 18. We shall therefore have three full days to succeed or succumb. You understand, Max?”
“Perfectly.”
“You’re decisive, strong, fearless, as pitiless towards yourself as to anyone else?”
Jolivet’s blue eyes gleamed; his young face had a furtive harshness. In a voice that did not tremble, but which did not betray the least boastfulness, he replied: “Yes, sir”—but his heart was beating with emotion, and he was possessed by the lucid, noble and exalted madness that had persuaded 15-year-old gamins to join the heroic ranks of the Republican army in 1793.
“That’s good, Max,” said the Nyctalope, simply. “Let’s go into that thicket, eat and get some rest.”
Saint-Clair’s chronometer indicated midnight exactly when, after a brief rest untroubled by any alert, the two bold adventurers resumed their march.
The Nyctalope was cool, resolute, all his senses wide wake and all his strength prepared for action. Jolivet, being younger, less the master of his impulsive nature, his heart and his nerves, was quivering with determinedly-contained excitement. His leader was counting on him, though; by virtue of his courage, vigor and intelligence, the young man of 17 was worth as much as any adventurer hardened by danger. Besides, before quitting the thicket, Saint-Clair had once again emphasized to Max the perils that awaited them—perils all the more redoubtable because they emanated from the situations, conjunctions, hazards, desires and forces of an unknown enemy.
Oedipus had once marched resolutely towards the Sphinx and its riddle; he had guessed the riddle and had understood the Sphinx as he died. It was towards a sort of modern sphinx, whose riddle was not was not a quasi-infantile puzzle but a much more arduous series of scientific problems, that Saint-Clair and Jolivet were going. On the other hand, Oedipus had approached the ancient sphinx voluntarily, and it was only dangerous if one did not give the correct answer to its question; by contrast, the approach to the XV’s base was forbidden on pain of death—probable for Christiane, certain for Leo and Maximilien—bristling with obstacles, defended by unknown machines and architectural dispositions, guarded by powerful and pitiless men, and, finally, hidden by the very mystery of its own riddle. And against these tenebrous powers; against this modern sphinx a thousand times more redoubtable than the sphinx of old, whose eloquent legend had not faded away in 30 centuries; against the horror of death with a thousand faces, one man and a child were simply going forward—moved by love and affection, it is true, but, above all, by the need to know, which is the immortal bearer of the grandeur and progress of restless humankind!
Nevertheless, Saint-Clair and Jolivet were only men, bearing in the depths of their own innermost being the possibilities of every weakness. The Nyctalope knew that; Max sensed it. That is why their determination was strong, cold and masterful, exaggerated to the point of making them a single emanation of fatality—and, like fatality, they were going forward in such a fashion that nothing could stop them but death.
This time, the march was undertaken with the utmost care. The Nyctalope went forward slowly, his eyes alert, piercing the darkness, followed step-by-step by Jolivet—who, having not switched on his little electric light, guided his own footfalls by the sound of Saint-Clair’s. The path they were following described numerous curves, and at each change of direction the Nyctalope would whisper “left” or “right.” So profound was the obscurity that Jolivet could not see Saint-Clair, although he was only an arm’s length away from him. Each of them carried his carbine in his right hand, ready to shoulder it and take aim, the necessity of protecting their lives being the most important of all. If one of the two were merely wounded by a wild animal or the arrow of a Vouatoua dwarf, it would be the death of all their hopes.
About three quarters of an hour had gone by since they had left the thicket where they had slept briefly when Saint-Clair grabbed his companion’s left arm and whispered: “Stop! We’re here.”
What a silence! A distant dull roaring only emphasized the impressive grandeur of that silence. Not a breath of air passed through the trees; all the animals that crawled, flew, chattered or leapt must be asleep, unless this region of the forest had been depopulated, for not the slightest noise of a broken branch or rustling foliage was audible—nothing! Nothing, but the periodic distant roaring of some hunting lion.
Jolivet could hear his own heartbeat, but he was strong and resolute. “What can you see?” he asked. For him, the night had lost nothing of its black opacity; he could see nothing in the darkness, but the Nyctalope’s strange, phosphorescent eyes.
“Twenty paces from here,” Saint-Clair replied, “I can see the esplanade through the trees.”
“What are we going to do?” asked Jolivet.
“Stay exactly where you are, there, standing up, facing in that direction. If you hear me whistle, go straight in front of you. I’ll look in your direction; the light of my eyes will guide you once you come out of the undergrowth—but if I don’t whistle, don’t move, whatever you see or hear.”
“And if I’m attacked?”
“Kill! Man or beast, aim straight between the eyes. If it’s hand-to-hand, you have automatic pistols or the hatchet. Cool and calm… nothing precipitate!”
“Don’t worry, Commander!”
“Put out your hand… Good, it’s not shaking. I’m going!”
And Saint-Clair marched towards the esplanade, gliding rapidly and smoothly between the tree-trunks in a feline manner, without bumping into them. Nor did he brush the foliage of the bushes or become tangled in the dangling lianas even once. He had no idea of what awaited him. Ready for anything, his mind lucid and alert, his nerves steady and his muscles tensed, he carried his carbine in both hands, his index-finger on the trigger, ready to aim and fire.
He soon arrived at the edge of the undergrowth. He knelt down beside the bole of a tree and looked out, with his two piercing eyes, for which darkness only existed when he closed his eyelids.
The immense esplanade extended in front of him, as flat and as clear as a scrupulously-leveled and carefully-swept airfield. Some way off, in the center, the slender framework of 300-meter pylon stood up against the sky, like a sort of giant lightning-conductor or the fantastic skeleton of a prodigious factory-chimney. Innumerable metallic wires, most of which became invisible at a certain point because they were suspended at too great a height, sprang from the circumference of the esplanade and extended diagonally towards the pylon’s framework.
It’s a colossal radiotelegraphic installation, Saint-Clair said to himself. But where are the controls? Where do the men live and work?
The Nyctalope seized two flexible branches on a bush, bent them and tied them together at their extremities; thus, when he came back, he would easily find the precise spot from which he had emerged from the undergrowth.
Standing up, he took 20 slow and light steps, with his ear carefully cocked, then stopped, listened and looked around. Nothing! The esplanade seemed to be made of concrete. He resumed walking. Five minutes, perhaps, went by. He stopped again. Still nothing!
Evidently, he thought, the esplanade is unguarded; I could have been killed 20 times over since I emerg
ed from cover.
He went forward again, more rapidly this time. Eventually, he reached the foot of the immense pylon. Good!
He inspected it minutely. The eight pillars at the base of the pylon were embedded in the esplanade, leaving a large empty space between them of about twenty square meters. The Nyctalope passed under one of the metal arches into that space and looked down; there was nothing beneath his feet but the uniform surface. Then he looked up. The metal uprights extended vertiginously—to infinity, it seemed—connected by X-bars. Eight enormous cables, clad in insulating fabric, wound around the uprights.
What kind of infernal machine is this? Saint-Clair asked himself.
He had an idea then. He lay down flat and applied his ear to the cold concrete—and shivered, murmuring: “Damn!”
A dull rumbling sound, accompanied by a rhythmic hum, was audible beneath the esplanade, whose surface was vibrating almost imperceptibly. They’re living down below, Saint-Clair thought, watching and tending unknown, but powerful machines. But how do they get in and out? They must come out into the open air occasionally.
He had another idea. He got up. I’ll find the place on the esplanade where the luminous message that told me about Christiane was displayed in an abruptly-opened cavity, he said to himself. Let’s go!
But it was in vain that he walked back and forth in every direction, exploring the esplanade according to the major divisions of the compass, and went around it 20 times following the tracks of imaginary concentric circles; he saw nothing but the uniform nudity.
At the edge of the forest, the concrete surface came to an abrupt stop, to give way to the humus of the natural soil. With his hatchet, Saint-Clair dug a hole in the soil at the point where the esplanade finished. He found nothing but wall of concrete, which extended to a depth of about a meter without his seeing anything but the bare surface. He got up again.
The first glimmer of dawn was already brightening the sky and causing the stars to fade.
“Until tomorrow night!” the Nyctalope murmured, not without a gesture of annoyance.
After getting his bearings, he strode along the edge of the forest to rejoin Jolivet.
He soon found the two flexible branches that he had knotted together at their ends before setting foot on the esplanade. He went into the undergrowth and headed for the spot, scarcely 20 meters away, here he had left Maximilien—and he whistled softly, in order to attract the young man’s attention.
Saint-Clair stopped almost immediately, and a shudder ran down his back. He recognized the sycamore beside which he was certain he would be shaking Max’s hand. He looked around, at the ground. The black humus, bare at that spot, bore the occasional recognizable imprints of is own boots and Jolivet’s. At the foot of the sycamore, in front of other deeper imprints—evidently produced by Max standing still force a long time—was a hollow undoubtedly made by the butt of a carbine, on the barrel of which Max must have been leaning, in the normal attitude of a sentry standing at ease…
At the risk of being attacked by wandering Vouatoua or men from the mysterious station, Saint-Clair spent four hours searching the forest around the place where he had left Jolivet, but in vain. There was no trace of him. At noon, weary and exhausted, he ceased his futile exploration and, hiding himself as best he could in a bush, he ate a few bananas; that was his entire meal. The haversack with the supplies of food had disappeared along with the young man.
The situation was a little frightening. What had become of Maximilien Jolivet? How had he disappeared without leaving the slightest trace? The place where he had been standing offered no indication of a struggle. During the night, no sound had reached Saint-Clair’s ears as he explored the esplanade. What, then? Had Max left voluntarily? Any such hypothesis was absurd. Where could he have gone? Why would he have abandoned his post? One more enigma to add to countless others! That might have made an ordinary man despair, but Saint-Clair was a stranger to despair, or even discouragement, just as a new-born babe is a stranger to crime. Only a dull anger rose up within him—the kind of anger that, when it finally bursts, can provoke a cataclysm.
Nevertheless, having eaten the bananas and looked at his situation from every angle, he said to himself: I mustn’t do anything excessive that would exhaust my strength. Tonight, I’ll resume the hunt. But 24 hours will then have gone by with no other result than Max’s inexplicable disappearance. Is he dead or alive? Has he been taken prisoner by the Fifteen or fallen victim to the Vouatoua? I hope that I can find an answer to at least one of these questions tonight.
Completely hidden in an enormous bush, extended on a bed of brushwood, Saint-Clair went to sleep.
Certain men, whose mental energy exercises a masterful influence on their physique, have the faculty, when nature forces them to yield to the need for sleep, of waking up at an hour exactly fixed in advance. As he lay down, the Nyctalope had said to himself: I shall wake up at sunset—and when the Sun’s light had disappeared, giving way, almost without any transitional twilight, to the darkness of night, he opened his eyes.
He ate the three bananas that remained to him from his meager morning meal, and immediately set about his hunt.
It’s pointless, he told himself, to search for Max. There’s no clue to guide me. First I must explore the esplanade again, to see if anything abnormal has appeared. I’ll act then according to the circumstances.
Alas, the Nyctalope found action impossible!
The entire night passed in fruitless investigation. On and around the esplanade there was nothing—except for the continuous rumbling in the mysterious subterranean depths that he had already remarked on the previous night.
In the morning, exhausted and feeling the boiling tide of anger rising within him, the Nyctalope abandoned all precaution and scoured the forest around the esplanade as if there were no danger to fear. No danger, in fact, presented itself—and by degrees, Saint-Clair came around to asking himself whether, in seeing that luminous message threatening Christiane, he might not have been the victim of a hallucination. But no! Klepton had seen it, and the Admiral too, and Ensign Damprich, and that Thoth, whom they had shot. It was true. The luminous message had been real, It had lit up, twice over, at a precise point on that stupid esplanade. But which point? He felt that he was beating his head against the concrete, which would not open up again to yield its secret.
On the afternoon of October 15, Saint-Clair went back to the bush that had served him as a shelter on the preceding night. He wanted to sleep. This time, it was in vain. The enormous anger growing within him was making his brain seethe as if it were in a heated cooking-pot.
Today’s October 15, he told himself. I only have two days. Two days!
His habitual self-possession abandoned him completely, in consequence of the exasperation of his nerves.
Night fell. The Nyctalope returned to the esplanade, marched at a furious pace to the pylon, and began striking the uprights with the butt of his revolver—but nothing populated the emptiness or troubled the silence; no one attacked him.
Oh, I’m going mad! he thought. And indeed he was, of frustration, shame, resentment, curiosity, apprehension and desperation.
“Come out! Just come out, bandits!” he cried, into the darkness that his eyes discovered devoid of any human form. “Come out, attack me—let’s fight!”
He thought about Xavière, about Christiane, about Max, about the Admiral, about Klepton, about Koynos, about Bastien, about Thoth, and all the other human beings mixed up in this phantasmagoric adventure, whose dangers were swarming around one when one did not look for them and vanished when one went straight towards them. And he had, that night, a horrible sensation of annihilation!
October 16 passed as the previous day had: not a single man, not a single Vouatoua, not even a single animal, showed itself to the Nyctalope’s maddened eyes.
Midnight arrived. It was now October 17 already! Only another 24 hours and then, all would be lost. Bastien had said “before October 18.” The
luminous message had insisted “until October 18.”
“One o’clock in the morning!” said the Nyctalope, looking at his chronometer. “Less than 24 hours left. Oh, bandits, bandits! Shall I summon the Condor? The rockets are there, in my bag. One strike of the lighter and the rocket whistles away. Klepton is alerted, he descends—and we blow this accursed esplanade to smithereens with shells. Yes, but then, Christiane dies, since it’s not yet October 18. Oh, I’d give every drop of my blood for…”
Madly, no longer having sufficient reason to calm his seething brain, he marched across the esplanade for the thousandth time, went underneath the pylon, struck the uprights with the blunt end of his hatchet, and went so far as to fire a few revolver-shots—but with no response.
The night passed; daylight arrived again after the rapidly-mounting glimmer of dawn. Saint-Clair did not even take the precaution of going back into the forest. He remained standing on the esplanade, leaning on one of the pylon’s pillars, trembling with exacerbated nerves, his fingers clenched on the stock of his carbine. He had not eaten for three days, nor drunk any water. He felt furious madness invade his brain, but something within him that was not himself resisted that madness…
From time to time, he looked at his chronometer. “Still 17 hours… Another 16 hours… Still 12 hours… Noon! Another 12...”
He counted thus, and his exasperation and desperation increased accordingly. Night fell without Saint-Clair having budged an inch since morning. But suddenly, the darkness having devoured the last glimmer of daylight, the Nyctalope shuddered, and marched off…
Beneath Saint-Clair’s very boots, however, beneath the bare esplanade, the pillars of the pylon extended, traversing a vast empty cavern as they descended, and then, in the middle of an immense subterranean hall, setting their formidable bases on eight cyclopean pedestals of reinforced concrete.
The Nyctalope on Mars 1: The Mystery of the Fifteen Page 15
