The Ninth Science Fiction Megapack

by Arthur C. Clarke

  Kramer sat there a long time, mulling over the situation, as the vibration finally ceased. He wondered if there were any possibility of using the phenomena as a trap. A last and final trap that would forestall Blanchard for once and for all.

  But he had no time for further thought. His gaze had turned idly to that length of canal down which he had just passed. And far off, almost at the limit of his vision he saw something which made his mouth suddenly fall slack.

  A man was toiling through the sand, slowly advancing toward him. Blanchard!

  Leaping to his feet, he raced away, fleeing madly at top speed. Nor, thereafter, did he relax for an instant his frenzied efforts to escape.

  Six days later Kramer entered the last lap of his trek. He knew it was the last lap because the way station at the confluence of the two mighty canals was clearly marked and described on the map. Any moment now he should be sighting the cavern mouth that led to the retnite deposit.

  After that his worries would be over. He would extract a quantity of the deposit—the folio gave a detailed account of the method to obtain and purify it. He would swing into Canal 28 Northwest and manage somehow to reach Crater City. Blanchard was close on his heels, yes. But in some way he would take care of Blanchard.

  Give him a year then—six months, and success would be his. The mental doors that would be flung open to him would eliminate all necessity of subsistence worry, and the law would be a trivial thing which he could dispense with.

  Remained only one item unanswered—the Void. Since he had entered Canal Grand, Kramer had tried to put that mystery out of his thoughts. It had persisted, however, and now that he was nearing his goal, he thought about it more and more.

  It lay ahead somewhere, a gulf which he must cross. Not until he had reached it would he know the answer.

  He began to study the canal sides now with care. The hieroglyphics had long since disappeared, and there was utterly no sight of life.

  All that long Martian day he walked steadily onward. His throat was dry; his arm and shoulder felt strange and numb like alien parts of his body; at intervals reddish spots danced before his eyes.

  At three o’clock by his Earth watch Kramer was startled to see the left canal wall swing outward on a tangent, forming a vast ellipse before him. Simultaneously the sand floor began to descend, deeper and deeper, until he could no longer discern the tops of the banks.

  An hour later a cry of amazement escaped his lips.

  Scattered across the canal floor a quarter mile ahead was an array of incredible objects. He saw modern rocket ships; he saw thirtieth century stepto planes with their curious elongated wing exhaust jets. All of them lay there in the oppressive silence, conning doors open as if their crews had left only a moment before and would shortly return.

  But as he passed them at closer range, he saw, too, that they had been there a long time. The hulls were half buried in the sand. The glassite ports were yellowish and opaque with the peculiar dull hue brought about by long exposure to the Martian atmosphere.

  There were some twenty ships of types and manufacture he recognized. One of them was the ill-fated Goliath, whose disappearance, he vaguely remembered, had caused a furor when he was a child. Older vessels loomed as he walked on, some of them antedating the ancient models he had seen in his history books.

  Kramer did not have to be told that this was the end of the trail for these ships. They too had come this far, hoping to probe the Void. But what had become of their crews? Why had they not returned?

  He passed the last vessel at length and reached a point where the view before him was unrestricted. Here he halted, oppressed by an inner sense of unease. He drew out the oil skin pouch and began a close survey of the folio.

  Almost at once a cry of triumph came to his lips. It seemed queer he had not noticed it before, but this widening point of the canal was marked on the map. More than that, the map also showed the retnite deposit to lie in the center of the huge bowl.

  Two trails leading to the lode were shown. One of them a narrow, round-about route was marked with a dotted line. The other trail, larger, shorter bore two words in early Martian at its entrance. A-krey menarga, it read.

  Kramer stood up and walked a hundred yards east. He saw no trail. Nothing but trackless sand. And then abruptly, as he turned his eyes slightly upward, he did see it.

  Extending before him was a narrow corridor where the sand floor somehow seemed tilted at a different angle and where the atmosphere bore a curious glazed effect, as if he were looking through a double thickness of glass. Also, he thought he saw a row of black spots, like a dotted line, stretching into space before him.

  But even at that moment with success at his finger tips, Kramer did not forget himself—or Blanchard. Two trails were marked on the map, this one and another farther on. He threw the map to the sand, grinding it under his heel to give the impression it had been dropped there accidentally.

  Then he continued walking east. And shortly afterward his efforts were rewarded. The second trail was larger, more inviting. A stone floor stretched out before him across the sand. But here, too, he received the impression he was looking at it through imperfect plates of glass.

  Without hesitation Kramer swung into it. Almost at once he had a feeling of exhilaration, of mental buoyancy. Mingled with it was a feeling that the way behind him was closing up.

  The stone floorway led up. And that was odd. For Kramer could have sworn that the sand bowl was flat as a vast die. As he went on, however, he thought less about his surroundings and more about the stolen folio.

  A-krey menarga? What did those words mean? Menar he knew, was an early Martian prefix, meaning bent or twisted. And the only logical definite of krey was space.

  Kramer stopped while an icy chill crawled up his spine. Into the space warp! …Of course, that was what the secret of the Void was. A space warp would account for everything: the eternal division of North and South Mars, the disappearance of the various expeditions, the dehydration of the canals. It meant that another world—another dimension—was impinged at this point and whoever blundered into it would be lost forever!

  Quite slowly, Kramer began to walk again.

  He forced his eyes ahead where the usual perspective was supplanted by a jumble of angles, tilted ellipses and quadrants. But at length he could stand it no longer, and he turned.

  Nothing! There was nothing behind him at all. Only the way ahead, stretching like a forsaken causeway into measureless distances.

  THE LOCH MOOSE MONSTER, by Janet Kagan

  This year the Ribeiro’s daffodils seeded early and they seeded cockroaches. Now ecologically speaking, even a cockroach has its place—but these suckers bit. That didn’t sound Earth authentic to me. Not that I care, mind you, all I ask is useful. I wasn’t betting on that either.

  As usual, we were short-handed—most of the team was up-country trying to stabilize a herd of Guernseys—which left me and Mike to throw a containment tent around the Ribeiro place while we did the gene-reads on the roaches and the daffodils that spawned ’em. Dragon’s Teeth, sure enough, and worse than useless. I grabbed my gear and went in to clean them out, daffodils and all.

  By the time I crawled back out of the containment tent, exhausted, cranky, and thoroughly bitten, there wasn’t a daffodil left in town. Damn fools. If I’d told ’em the roaches were Earth authentic they’d have cheered ’em, no matter how obnoxious they were.

  I didn’t even have the good grace to say “hi” to Mike when I slammed into the lab. The first thing out of my mouth was, “The red daffodils—in front of Sagdeev’s.”

  “I got ’em,” he said. “Nick of time, but I got ’em. They’re in the greenhouse—”

  We’d done a gene-read on that particular patch of daffodils the first year they’d flowered red: they promised to produce a good strain of preying mantises, probably Earth authentic. We both knew how badly Mirabile needed insectivores. The other possibility was something harmless but pretty that sh
ip’s records called “fireflies.” Either would have been welcome, and those idiots had been ready to consign both to a fire.

  “I used the same soil, Annie, so don’t give me that look.”

  “Town’s full of fools,” I growled, to let him know that look wasn’t aimed at him. “Same soil, fine, but can we match the rest of the environmental conditions those preying mantises need in the goddamn greenhouse?”

  “It’s the best we’ve got,” he said. He shrugged and his right hand came up bandaged. I glared at it.

  He dropped the bandaged hand behind the lab bench. “They were gonna burn ’em. I couldn’t—” He looked away, looked back. “Annie, it’s nothing to worry about—”

  I’d have done the same myself, true, but that was no reason to let him get into the habit of taking fool risks.

  I started across to check out his hand and give him pure hell from close up. Halfway there the com blatted for attention. Yellow light on the console, meaning it was no emergency, but I snatched it up to deal with the interruption before I dealt with Mike. I snapped a “Yeah?” at the screen.

  “Mama Jason?”

  Nobody calls me that but Elly’s kids. I glowered at the face on screen: my age, third-generation Mirabilan, and not so privileged. “Annie Jason Masmajean,” I corrected, “Who wants to know?”

  “Leonov Bellmaker Denness at this end,” he said. “I apologize for my improper use of your nickname.” Ship’s manners—he ignored my rudeness completely.

  The name struck me as vaguely familiar but I was in no mood to search my memory; I’d lost my ship’s manners about three hours into the cockroach clean-out. “State your business,” I said.

  To his credit, he did: “Two of Elly’s lodgers claim there’s a monster in Loch Moose. By their description, it’s a humdinger.”

  I was all ears now. Elly runs the lodge at Loch Moose for fun—her profession’s raising kids. (Elly Raiser Roget, like her father before her. Our population is still so small we can’t afford to lose genes just because somebody’s not suited, one way or another, for parenting.) A chimera anywhere near Loch Moose was a potential disaster. Thing of it was, Denness didn’t sound right for that. “Then why aren’t they making this call?”

  He gave a deep-throated chuckle. “They’re in the dining room gorging themselves on Chris’s shrimp. I doubt they’ll make you a formal call when they’re done. Their names are Emile Pilot Stirzaker and Francois Cobbler Pastides and, right now, they can’t spell either without dropping letters.”

  So he thought they’d both been smoking dumbweed. Fair enough. I simmered down and reconsidered him. I’d’ve bet money he was the one who side-tracked Pastides and Stirzaker into the eating binge.

  Recognition struck at last: this was the guy Elly’s kids called “Noisy.” The first thing he’d done on moving into the neighborhood was outshout every one of ’em in one helluva contest. He was equally legendary for his stories, his bells, and his ability to keep secrets. I hadn’t met him, but I’d sure as hell heard tell.

  I must have said the nickname aloud, because Denness said, “Yes, ‘Noisy.’ Is that enough to get me a hearing?”

  “It is.” It was my turn to apologize. “Sorry. What more do you want me to hear?”

  “You should, I think, hear Stirzaker imitate his monster’s bellow of rage.”

  It took me a long moment to get his drift, but get it I did. “I’m on my way,” I said. I snapped off and started re-packing my gear.

  Mike stared at me. “Annie? What did I miss?”

  “You ever know anybody who got auditory hallucinations on dumbweed?”

  “Shit,” he said, “No.” He scrambled for his own pack.

  “Not you,” I said. “I need you here to coddle those daffodils, check the environmental conditions that produced ’em, and call me if Dragon’s Teeth pop up anywhere else.” I shouldered my pack and finished with a glare and a growl: “That should be enough to keep you out of bonfires while I’m gone, shouldn’t it?”

  * * * *

  By the time I grounded in the clearing next to Elly’s lodge, I’d decided I was on a wild moose chase. Yeah, I know the Earth authentic is wild goose, but “wild moose” was Grandaddy Jason’s phrase. He’d known Jason—the original first generation Jason—well before the Dragon’s Teeth had started popping up.

  One look at the wilderness where Elly’s lodge is now and Jason knew she had the perfect EC for moose. She hauled the embryos out of ship’s storage and set them thawing. Built up a nice little herd of the things and turned ’em loose. Not a one of them survived—damn foolish creatures died of a taste for a Mirabilan plant they couldn’t metabolize.

  Trying to establish a viable herd got to be an obsession with Jason. She must’ve spent years at it, off and on. She never succeeded but somebody with a warped sense of humor named the lake Loch Moose and it stuck, moose or no moose.

  Loch Moose looked as serene as it always did this time of year. The waterlilies were in full bloom—patches of velvety red and green against the sparkles of sunlight off the water. Here and there I saw a ripple of real trout, Earth authentic.

  On the bank to the far right, Susan’s troop of otters played tag, skidding down the incline and hitting the water with a splash. They whistled encouragement to each other like a pack of fans at a ballgame. Never saw a creature have more pure fun than an otter—unless it was a dozen otters, like now.

  The pines were that dusty gold that meant I’d timed it just right to see Loch Moose smoke. There’s nothing quite so beautiful as that drift of pollen fog across the loch. It would gild rocks and trees alike until the next rainfall.

  Monster, my ass—but where better for a wild moose chase?

  I clambered down the steps to Elly’s lodge, still gawking at the scenery, so I was totally unprepared for the EC in the lobby. If that bright-eyed geneticist back on Earth put the double-whammy on any of the human genes in the cold banks they sent along (swore they hadn’t, but after the kangaroo rex, damn if I believe anything the old records tell me), the pandemonium I found would have been enough to kick off Dragon’s Teeth by the dozens.

  Amid the chaos, Ilanith, Elly’s next-to-oldest, was handling the oversized gilt ledger with great dignity. She lit up when she saw me and waved. Then she bent down for whispered conversation. A second later Jen, the nine-year-old, exploded from behind the desk, bellowing, “Elleeeeee! Nois-eeeeee! Come quick! Mama Jason’s here!” The kid’s lung-power cut right through the chaos and startled the room into a momentary hush. She charged through the door to the dining room, still trying to shout the house down.

  I took advantage of the distraction to elbow my way to the desk and Ilanith.

  She squinted a little at me, purely Elly in manner, and said, “Bet you got hopped on by a kangaroo rex this week. You’re real snarly.”

  “Can’t do anything about my face,” I told her. “And it was biting cockroaches.” I pushed up a sleeve to show her the bites.

  “Bleeeeeh,” she said, with an inch or two of tongue for emphasis. “I hope they weren’t keepers.”

  “Just the six I saved to put in your bed. Wouldn’t want you to think I’d forgotten you.”

  She wrinkled her nose at me and flung herself across the desk to plant a big sloppy kiss on my cheek. “Mama Jason, you are the world’s biggest tease. But I’m gonna give you your favorite room anyhow”—she wrinkled her nose in a very different fashion at the couple to my right—“since those two just checked out of it.”

  One of the those two peered at me like a myopic crane. I saw recognition strike, then he said, “We’ve changed our minds. We’ll keep the room.”

  “Too late,” said Ilanith—and she was smug about it. “But, if you want to stay, I can give you one on the other side of the lodge. No view.” Score one for the good guys, I thought.

  “See, Elly?” It was Jen, back at a trot beside Elly and dragging Noisy behind her. “See?” Jen said again, “If Mama Jason’s here, I won’t have to go away, rig
ht?”

  “Right,” I said.

  “Oh, Jen!” Elly dropped to one knee to pull Jen into one of her full-body-check hugs. “Is that what’s been worrying you? Leo already explained to your mom. There’s no monster--nobody’s going to send you away from Loch Moose!”

  Jen, who’d been looking relieved, suddenly looked suspicious. “If there’s no monster, why’s Mama Jason here?”

  “Need a break,” I said, realizing I meant it. Seeing Elly and the kids was break enough all by itself. “Stomped enough Dragon’s Teeth this week. I’m not about to go running after monsters that vanish at the first breath of fresh air.”

  Elly gave me a smile that would have thawed a glacier and my shoulders relaxed for the first time in what seemed like months.

  I grinned back. “Have your two monster-sighters sobered up yet?”

  “Sobered up,” reported Ilanith, “and checked out.” She giggled. “You should have seen how red-faced they were, Mama Jason.”

  I glowered at no-one in particular. “Just as well. After the day I had, they’d have been twice as red if I’d had to deal with ’em.”

  Elly rose to her feet, bringing Jen with her. The two of them looked me over, Jen imitating Elly’s keen-eyed inspection. “We’d better get Mama Jason to her room. She needs a shower and a nap worse than any kid in the household.”

  Ilanith shook her head. “Let her eat first, Elly. By the time she’s done, we’ll have her room ready.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said, “if the kids waiting tables can take it.”

  “We raise a sturdy bunch around here. Go eat, Annie.” She gave me a kiss on the cheek—I got a bonus kiss from Jen—and the two of them bustled off to get my room ready. I frowned after them: Jen still seemed worried and I wondered why.

  Ilanith rounded the desk to grab my pack. Standing between me and Leo, she suddenly jammed her fists into her hips. “Oh, nuts. Ship’s manners. Honestly, Mama Jason—how did people ever get acquainted in the old days?” With an expression of tried patience, she formally introduced the two of us.