Frontier of the Dark

by A Bertram Chandler

  The Lady Mother was disappointed when Falsen did not volunteer to help with the recalibration.

  “But I am not an engineer, Gracious Lady,” he had said.

  “And certain of my engineers,” she had told him, “have given, as their excuse, that they are not navigators. I had hoped that you, who have already displayed your versatility, would assist … ”

  “I should only be in the way. With your permission, Gracious Lady, I should like to take a stroll outside the ship. After all, we shall not be staying on this world much longer. And by day it should be safe enough.”

  “All right, Mr. Falsen. But take a side arm with you.”

  So, he was standing here with Linda, looking at the ship. He could visualize what was happening inside her, in the Mannschenn Drive room. There would be the complexity of gleaming gyroscopes, planes of rotation set at eye-baffling angles each to each. There would be the monitor screens exhibiting not the normal wave forms but luminous straight traces. There would be the Lady Mother with the Mannschenn Drive Manual opened to the right page. Somebody would be at the main switchboard, other officers would be watching the monitors.

  Better them than me, thought Falsen.

  Beside him, Linda cried out sharply.

  The ship was wavering, dimming. It was as though some internal illumination had been switched off. The air seemed to crackle with strain as the very fabric of the continuum was warped; beneath their feet the ground undulated and the surface of the pool was whipped into a brief frenzy, although there was no wind.

  And then the ship was as she had been, standing proudly luminous.

  “Is that all?” asked the girl.

  “No,” said Falsen. “That was only the first step, just finding out if the Drive works. The next steps will be to find out if it can be controlled.”

  “And what if it can’t be?”

  “From our point of view, there’ll be an implosion — the air rushing in to occupy the space where the ship was.”

  “And from the viewpoint of those aboard her?”

  “I don’t know. There have been accidents during calibration — but nobody has ever come back from wherever and whenever it was they were flung. One theory is that the ship digs her own black hole and then falls into it.”

  “But a black hole? Surely that would destroy the planet … .”

  “By the time temporal precession has built up to such a level, the planet will have left the ship far, very far, behind. In any case, there are safety devices, cutouts … ”

  “Which might not work.”

  Again there was the feeling of unbearable tension, but this time the ship did not fade but shone brighter and brighter, a dazzling column of incandescence, orange, white, dazzlingly blue. And there came the compelling sensation of déjà vu. It was experienced by all spacemen at the beginning of every voyage, when the Mannschenn Drive was started, when the temporal-precession field built up, when the tumbling gyroscopes began their long fall down the dark dimensions through the warped continuum, dragging the ship and all aboard her with them. Sometimes there was prevision of an actual future (at the start of the journey in Epsilon Crucis Falsen had seen the dismal landscape of this planet but, after trajectory had been set and things in the control room were back to normal, had shrugged it off as some odd vision with no foundation in reality); sometimes a probable or only a remotely possible future was glimpsed; sometimes, and frequently, whatever was seen was an hallucinatory experience.

  And now …

  It was bitterly cold and, high in the sky, a huge full moon was pouring silvery radiance down onto the wide, almost featureless white plain. Ahead of Falsen as he ran, with Linda beside him, was a sort of open carriage on runners, drawn by three horses. The hooves of the galloping animals broke the surface of the snow, making the going difficult for the pursuers. Falsen stumbled, uttered a wordless curse. Recovering, he pulled out to the left, clear of the runner tracks, the hoof marks. Linda pulled out to the right.

  He ran, his feet silent on frozen surface.

  From ahead he could hear the cracking of a whip, the pounding of hooves, a terrified whinny. The horses had to be at the very limit of their endurance; surely they could not maintain this speed for much longer. Falsen was gaining on the sleigh, as was Linda. He could smell fear, equine and human … .

  Human?

  But it was an oddly familiar smell nonetheless.

  Closer was the sleigh, and closer, and the cracking of the driver’s whip was a continuous fusillade. Inside the vehicle, at the back of it, somebody was standing up. Falsen expected to see the gleam of a leveled weapon, to hear the sharp report of its being fired, but was surprised when something — someone? — fell or was pushed from the rear of the sleigh. It — he? she? — sprawled blackly on the white snow, arms extended. The scent was warm, sweet.

  Linda got to it first, was tearing at it hungrily. Falsen roughly pushed her to one side. He was the male; she would have to be content with his leavings. He shook it angrily, lifting it up from the ground with ease. It was a long coat tailored from some dark fur. It was empty save for the odor of whoever it was that had worn it.

  Falsen dropped the garment, resumed the chase. Linda had already done so. Slowly he overhauled her, drew level with her. Louder and louder he could hear the cracking of the whip, the thudding of the hooves. He laughed as more garments were jettisoned; their emptiness was so obvious as they fluttered down to the snow. He was gaining on the sleigh — slowly, slowly, but still decreasing the distance between pursuers and pursued.

  Suddenly the vehicle lurched, swinging broadside onto Linda and Falsen. A horse was down, neighing shrilly, its flailing legs sending up a flurry of snow crystals that glittered in the blazing moonlight like tiny diamonds. Another horse was down, felled by a wild kick. The remaining beast plunged frantically and ineffectually in its restraining harness. It was screaming.

  Somebody jumped down from the sleigh to the ground, was walking, slowly yet unafraid, towards Falsen. It was a woman. She was quite naked, small-breasted and heavy-haunched. A smile curved her wide, sensual mouth.

  Falsen snarled.

  She he must have.

  He advanced to meet her. His nose told him that she was in heat.

  He …

  Abruptly the scene faded as though it had been switched off.

  Falsen realized that he was on his hands and knees on the muddy bank of the pond, looking across the smooth dark surface of the water at something big and pale, some animal, on the further side. He got hastily to his feet, knew that they were bare when he felt the slime oozing up between his toes. A very slight stirring of the air was suddenly cool on his skin. Not only his feet were naked.

  He stared across the pool at … Carlin.

  She, too, was unclothed, was just coming slowly erect from a crouching posture. Her scent, carried to him by the merest ghost of a breeze, was that of the woman in his precession-induced dream.

  “Carlin!” Linda called sharply.

  Falsen turned to look at her. She was as naked as he was.

  “Carlin!” Linda cried again. “What are you doing here? Spying on us?”

  “Spying, Miss Veerhausen? I thought that you were about to take a swim and would not mind if I joined you … .”

  “Come on in,” shouted Falsen. “The water’s fine!”

  It was not.

  It was dirty, and it stank, but he struck out for mid-pool, making a great show of enjoyment. Carlin met him there while Linda splashed unenthusiastically in the shallows.

  Treading water, he asked, “I thought that you’d have been helping to recalibrate the Drive controls.”

  She said, “The Lady Mother thinks that she knows everything. I left her to it. But I suppose that I’d better get back on board now.”

  She swam sinuously to her side of the pool, clambered out and walked away. She must, thought Falsen, have shed her clothing some distance from the water.

  CHAPTER 39

  Falsen stared
at the ship. She looked normal enough now. All the tension had gone from the air; there was no longer the sensation of being poised, tottering on the brink of some abyss, some rift in the very fabric of space-time.

  Linda asked, “Have they finished the recalibration?”

  “I think so,” he said.

  She began to pick up her discarded clothing. “We … we must have changed,” she muttered. “It is a good thing that Carlin didn’t come upon us when we were … ”

  “If she had,” said Falsen, “it would have been too bad for her.”

  “Did you … dream? I did. But it wasn’t a prevision. It was more like a reenactment of something in the past. The distant past. There was moonlight, a full moon. But the moon was wrong. No. Not wrong — but the way that it must have been. A long time ago … .”

  “Without the scars of the open cast-mine workings around Tycho,” he said. “Without the reflection of the sunlight from the colony domes.”

  “How did you know?”

  “You were in my dream. We must have shared it.”

  “Do you have any Russian ancestors?” she demanded. “Yes. Do you?”

  “Yes.” She smiled suddenly. “It’s a small universe, isn’t it?” Then, “But Carlin can’t possibly have any Russian ancestors. And she was in my dream? Was she in yours?”

  “Yes,” he admitted.

  “And what was she doing running around naked, both in the dream and in real life?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know. You wouldn’t. Oh, no. Not you. Could it just possibly be that she was living through some occasion in the past when you screwed her — or some occasion in the future when you’ll be screwing her again? Why else should she strip off?”

  “It’s the usual thing to do before you have a swim,” he said.

  “It’s the usual thing to undress on the bank, not at least half a kilometer from the water.”

  “She must have found a dry place to leave her clothes.”

  “Just for a change, it’s not raining — or hadn’t you noticed?”

  “Carlin is an alien,” he told her patiently. “You just don’t know how her mind works.”

  “But you know how her body works.”

  He said sullenly, “Isn’t this rather a pointless discussion?”

  “You might think so.”

  She turned away from him, began to dress. She must have disrobed hastily; her uniform shirt, already several times repaired, was again no more than tatters topped by a pair of gold-braided shoulderboards. His own shirt, as he discovered when he put it on, was no better.

  They began to walk slowly back to the ship, keeping behind those of the Doralan crew who had not stayed on board during the recalibration. Some of them, he noted incuriously at first, looked almost as ragged as himself and Linda. His imagination was stirred by the sight of naked shoulders and rumps gleaming through the rents in the scarlet fabric. He wondered what their own precession-induced visions had been, visualized some sort of Lesbian orgy. Or not, perhaps, Lesbian … The presence of those male stowaways was proof enough of the heterosexuality of some, if not of all the Doralans. A matriarchal society must breed female chauvinist pigs.

  But what of the Doralan males? he wondered. They had been obliged to remain on board, in hiding, during the recalibration of the interstellar-drive controls. Would there not have been a danger of their reverting to a period in history when their sex had been dominant and running amok? But there must have been that danger every time that the Mannschenn Drive had been started up — and it was a danger that could be coped with, quite easily, by a heavy dose of some sedative.

  They came at last to the foot of the ramp, mounted it to the after air lock. Prenta was standing there, a clipboard in her hand, obviously keeping a tally of the returning personnel. She was as sour-faced as ever, made the final ticks as Linda and Falsen boarded.

  She snarled, “With the Jonahs off the ship, the recalibration went smoothly.”

  “We are not Jonahs,” said Falsen.

  “Then, if you aren’t, what are you?” she retorted.

  “A good question,” said Linda sweetly before Falsen’s elbow in her ribs could stop her.

  But Prenta merely sneered at the riposte.

  CHAPTER 40

  Falsen found it hard to sleep that night. Although his belly was full, the food that had been served at the evening meal, nutritious enough, failed to satisfy. There could be no meat until the tissue culture vats, themselves damaged and their contents ruined at the time of the disastrous landing, were restocked. And restocked they could not be unless some suitable indigenous meat animal were found. There was a perfectly good way of growing a fresh supply of edible flesh, of course, one that would entail only a minor sacrifice by one or two of the Doralans, or from Falsen or Linda, but it was not likely that the Lady Mother would tolerate cannibalism, even though there would be no real victims, no taking of life.

  He could not sleep and at last gently disentangled himself from Linda, who was twitching and whimpering as she dreamed. He pulled on his shorts, let himself out into the alleyway. He hesitated at the door of his own cabin, then went on to the nearest entry into the axial shaft. He pushed the button for the elevator. He waited only seconds before it came. Once inside the cage, he hesitated again. Should he call on Carlin? Would she welcome him? More importantly, did he feel like another torrid session with her? He did not, he decided. It would be far too soon after his brief but savage coupling with Linda. But he might, he just might, be able to scrounge a drink from her, although Carlin almost certainly would be reluctant to give away anything unless she received something in return. He remembered, then, that Pansir had the control-room watch — and the airshipwoman would almost certainly have cigarettes with her. Perhaps a smoke would have a soporific effect upon him.

  He took the elevator up to the captain’s deck, then climbed the short ladder up to the hatch that gave access to the control room. As on a past occasion, it was quite light inside this compartment, reflected illumination pouring in through the big ports as the blazing searchlights probed the terrain around the ship. The air smelled of burning tobacco, the sweetly acrid fumes drifting from the scarlet-uniformed figure seated by the display of the bio-sensitive radar.

  Falsen walked slowly towards the Doralan, making a slight scuffling noise as he did so. The glowing tip of the cigarette suddenly vanished as it was snuffed out before Pansir swiveled in her seat to see who it was approaching her.

  She said sharply, “Oh, it’s you, Mr. Falsen. I thought that it was the Lady Mother. She does not approve of smoking … .”

  “And this is her control room that you’re stinking up, Lady Pansir, not the gondola of your airship.”

  “Is there a … stink? I shall have to increase the revolutions of the extractor fans.”

  “And for a consideration I’ll promise not to tell the Lady Mother that you have been smoking in here.”

  “A consideration? Oh, of course.” She laughed, extended the packet to him. “Now I have bought your silence.”

  She took a fresh cigarette for herself. They both lit up, smoking in companionable silence, he standing just behind her, looking with her into the screen, almost hypnotized by the steady rotation of the sweep, the tiny bursts of scintillation that indicated the presence of life forms on the ground surface, all of them small.

  She said, “A quiet watch. The way that all watches should be.” She laughed again. “A year ago I never dreamed that I should be standing a watch in the control room of a spaceship — even one not in space but sitting quietly on a planetary surface. I was happy then, flying my mail and passenger route from Dwill to Kandoor and back, threading my way through the passes in the Tevenal Range. Oh, we had some storms among the high mountains and some anxious moments, I admit. It’s because I was an experienced captain on that run that I was selected to be this expedition’s airship pilot. But I’m an airwoman, Mr. Falsen, not a spacewoman. It’s the only life for me. I
suppose you find my attitude strange. You’re a spaceperson and that’s your way of life.”

  “It won’t be for much longer. Lady Pansir.”

  “I am sorry, truly sorry. The Lady Mother has told me of her proposal to you. I think that you will be wise to accept.”

  “Perhaps I shall see something of you on Dorala after I take up my appointment.”

  “Of course you will. And you will always be an honored passenger aboard any airship that I command.”

  “As long as you don’t have any giant leeches running loose through the aircraft,” he laughed.

  She said nothing, in a way that was more meaningful than words could have been.

  “I’m sorry,” he told her at last. “That wasn’t very funny.”

  “It was not,” she said. “Was that an example of what you Terrans call black humor?”

  “I suppose so.”

  He stubbed out his cigarette in the empty container that she had been using as an ashtray. She followed suit, then offered him the pack. He was about to accept when his hand froze in mid-motion. In the screen there had suddenly appeared six large blobs of luminescence, moving fast, obviously not tiny ground-crawlers.

  “Look!” he almost shouted.

  Whatever they were, they were heading toward the ship. But there was nothing to worry about. She was tightly sealed and, pursuant to the Lady Mother’s orders, the air-lock doors were not only shut but spot-welded on the inside. There was to be no repetition of that massacre when the predators had got inside the hull.

  “Wait here, Mr. Falsen,” said Pansir, “while I call the captain. I do not think that there is any need to sound the general alarm.”

  She got up from her chair, went to a telephone. Falsen continued his watch on the screen. The things had slowed down, had stopped. They seemed to be milling around. Perhaps they had caught something, were tearing it to pieces, devouring it. But any large animal would have shown up in the display.

  Pansir, who had been talking rapidly and urgently, came back, joined Falsen at the radar.

  “No!” she cried. “No!”