Upon a Sea of Stars

by A Bertram Chandler

  “You’re the boss,” said Sonya.

  “Yes. So I suppose I’d better do something about something.” He turned to his executive officer. “Make it landing stations, Commander Williams.”

  “Landing stations it is, sir.”

  The officers went to their acceleration chairs, strapped themselves in. In seconds the intercom speakers were blatting, “Secure all for landing stations! Secure all for landing stations! All idlers to their quarters!” And then the maneuvering gyroscopes hummed and whined as the ship was tilted relative to the planet until the surface was directly beneath her. The sounding rockets were discharged as she began her descent, each of them releasing a parachute flare in the upper atmosphere, each of them emitting a long, long streamer of white smoke.

  Faraway Quest dropped steadily—not too fast and not too slow. Grimes made allowance for drift and, as the first of the flares was swept west by a jet stream, he applied lateral thrust. Down she dropped, and down, almost falling free, but always under the full control of her master. The picture of the surface on the target screen expanded. The city could be seen now, a huddle of ruins on the river bank, and beside the lake there was the oval of the Stadium, Eau de Nil in the midst of the indigo of the older growth. The last of the flares to have been fired was still burning down there, the column of smoke rising almost vertically. The brush among which it had fallen was slowly smoldering.

  Grimes shivered. The feeling of déjà vu was chillingly uncanny. But he had seen this before. He had been here before—and, save for the different choice of landing site, circumstances had been almost exactly duplicated, even to that luckily unenthusiastic bush fire. And again there was the sensation that supernal forces—malign or beneficent?—were mustering to resist the landing of the ship.

  But she was down at last.

  There was the gentlest of shocks, the faintest of creakings, the softest sighing of the shock absorbers as the great mass of the vessel settled in her tripodal landing gear. She was down. “Finished with engines!” said Grimes softly. Telegraph bells jangled, and the inertial drive generators muttered to themselves and then were still. She was down, and the soughing of the fans intensified the silence.

  Grimes turned in his swivel chair, looked toward the distant mountain peak, the black, truncated cone sharp against the blue sky. “Sinai,” Presbyter Cannan had named it. “Olympus,” Grimes had called it on his new charts. It was there that the neo-Calvinists had attempted to invoke Jehovah, and there that the old gods of the Greek pantheon had made their disastrous appearance. Grimes hoped that he would never have to set foot upon that mountain top again.

  He was not first off the ship; after all, this was no newly discovered planet, this was not a historic first landing of Man. The honor fell to the Major of Marines, who marched smartly down the ramp at the head of his clattering column of space soldiers. He barked orders and the detachment broke up into its component parts, fanning out from the landing site, trampling through the bushes. From somewhere came a sharp rattle of machine-pistol fire. The Commodore was not concerned. He said, “There’ll be fresh pork or rabbit on the table in the Marines’ mess tonight. Or pigburger or rabbitburger if the man who fired was too enthusiastic.”

  “Pigs? Rabbits?” inquired Sonya.

  “Descendants of the livestock brought here by the original colonists. They—the pigs, probably—seem to have wiped out most of the indigenous fauna. And, come to that, the hens and the sheep and the cattle.” He lit his pipe. “They were, I suppose, the two species best fitted to survive. The pigs with their intelligence, the rabbits with their ability to go underground and to breed . . . like rabbits.”

  She said, “I could do with some fresh air after weeks of the tinned variety. What’s good enough for pigs and rabbits and Marines is good enough for me.”

  “Just as well that the gallant Major didn’t hear you say that. Commander Williams!”

  “Sir!” replied the burly Executive Officer.

  “Shore leave is in order, as long as a full working watch—and that includes the manning of weaponry—is left aboard the ship at all times. And every party of boffins is to be accompanied by at least one officer or one Marine other rank, armed. Nobody is to go down the ramp without checking out or without wearing his personal transceiver. Apart from that, we’ll make this a day of general relaxation. After all, there are no physical dangers on this world. As for the other kind—I doubt if the Federation’s Grand Fleet could cope with them.”

  “Good-oh, Skipper,” replied Williams.

  Grimes glared at him, then laughed. “I wondered how long it would be before the veneer of your last drill in the Reserve wore off. Anyhow, those are the orders—and just try to remember now and again that this is an auxiliary cruiser of the Rim Worlds Navy, not your beloved Rim Mamelute.” He closed on a formal note. “The ship is yours, sir, until my return.”

  “The ship is mine, sir, until your return.”

  Then Grimes and Sonya went down to their quarters, replaced their light uniform sandals with knee-high boots, strapped on their wrist transceivers, buckled on the belts from which depended their holstered hand weapons. The Commodore was sure that these would never be required but, as leader of the expedition, he could not break the orders that he had issued. It was, he already knew, warm outside; the slate grey shorts and shirts that he and his wife were wearing would be adequate.

  They made their way down to the after airlock, checked out with the officer on gangway duty, walked slowly down the ramp. The fresh air was good, and the last traces of smoke from the now dead fire added a pleasant tang to it. The light of the sun, past its meridian and now dropping slowly to the west, was warm on the exposed portions of their bodies. (I made much better time down than Rector Smith did in his Piety, thought Grimes smugly. It had been late afternoon when that ship had landed.) And yet there was a chill in the air—psychological rather than physical. There was a chill in the air, and with the scent of green growing things there was a hint of corruption.

  Sonya shivered. “There’s something . . . wrong,” she stated.

  “That’s why we’re here,” Grimes told her.

  They were met by the Major. He was returning to the ship, seven of his men behind him. Four of them carried the bodies of two large boars, slung on branches; the others were loaded down with rabbits. The young officer saluted cheerfully. “Enemy beaten off, sir, with heavy casualties.”

  “So I see, Major. But this is more than a hunting party, you know.”

  “I know, sir. I’ve set alarms all around the field so that we shall be alerted if anything large and dangerous approaches.”

  “Good.”

  Grimes and Sonya walked on, picking their way with care over the tangle of tough vines, making their slow way toward what had once been the Stadium’s grandstand, now a terraced, artificial hillock overgrown with flowering creepers. They saw the two dowsers, stumbling about happily with their gleaming divining rods in their hands, trailed by a bored-looking junior officer. They passed a party of the more orthodox scientists setting up a piece of apparatus that looked like a miniature radio telescope. They met Mayhew and Clarisse.

  “Do you feel it?” demanded the Psionic Radio Officer. “Do you feel it, sir? None of these others seem to.”

  “Yes, I feel it. And so does Sonya.”

  “Like something that has been waiting for us for a long time. Like something getting ready to pounce. But it’s not sure that it has the strength anymore . . .”

  “Yes . . . I thought myself that the ominous atmosphere wasn’t quite so pronounced as when I was here last. What do you think, Clarisse? You were here too.”

  “I’m not as scared as I was then, John. But there are reasons for that.”

  “It’s pronounced enough for me,” said Sonya.

  “It’s here still,” admitted Grimes. “But it could be fading. It could be that this planet has been at the very focus of . . . forces, and now the focus is shifting.” He laughed. “We shan�
��t be at all popular if, after our masters have sent us here at enormous expense, nothing happens.”

  “Frankly,” said Clarisse, “I hope nothing does.”

  Nothing did.

  Day followed day, and the parties of scientists spread out from around the landing site, on foot and in Faraway Quest’s pinnaces. The archeologists grubbed happily in kitchen middens that they discovered on the banks of the lake and the river, penetrated the caves and photographed the famous paintings in a wide range of illuminations. Nothing new was found in the middens, no evidence that would throw any light at all on the disappearance of the aboriginal race. The rock paintings were just rock paintings, the pigments dry and ancient. The dowsers dowsed, and discovered deposits of metals that would be valuable if the planet were ever recolonized, and found oil, and mapped the meanderings of underground streams in desert areas. The other specialists plotted and measured and calculated—and found nothing that could not have been found on any Earth-type planet.

  “At least,” said Grimes, “we’ve proven that this world is suitable for resettlement.” He, with Sonya and Clarisse and Mayhew, was sitting over after dinner coffee in his comfortable day cabin. “All hands are really enjoying a marvelous outdoor holiday.”

  “Except us,” said Sonya in a somber voice.

  “There’s a reason for that, my dear. You’re sensitive to my moods, as I am to yours. And I had such a scare thrown into me when I was here last that I could never feel at ease on this planet. And Clarisse was more frightened than I was—and with good reason!—and all the time she was in telepathic touch with Mayhew.”

  “I still say that there’s something wrong,” insisted Mayhew. “I still say that we should be absolutely sure before we put in a report recommending another attempt at colonization.”

  Grimes looked at Clarisse. “Would you be willing to repeat that experiment?” he asked.

  She replied without hesitation. “Yes. I was going to suggest it. I’ve talked it over with Ken. And I feel that if I try to call those old gods, rather than the deity of the neo-Calvinists, the results might be better. It could be that it is in their interests that this world be peopled again—this time with potential worshippers.”

  “Like your Blossom People,” said Mayhew, unmaliciously.

  “Yes. Like the Blossom People. After all, the slogan Make love, Not War, would appeal to Aphrodite if not to Ares . . .”

  Grimes laughed, but without real humor. “All right, Clarisse. We’ll arrange it for tomorrow night. And we’ll have all hands out of the ship and well scattered just in case Zeus is too handy with his thunderbolts again. Williams has been getting too fat and lazy; it’ll do him good to have a job of organization thrown suddenly onto his lap . . .”

  Williams enjoyed himself; things had been altogether too quiet for his taste. And then, with the ship quiet and deserted, Grimes, with Sonya and Clarisse and Mayhew, and with a full dozen of assorted scientists, boarded one of the pinnaces, in which the necessary materials had already been stowed.

  It was just before sunset when they landed on the smooth, windswept plateau that was the summit of the mountain. A thin, icy wind swept into the little cabin as the door opened. One by one, Grimes in the lead, the members of the party clambered down on to the bare, barren rock, the last ones to emerge handing down the equipment before making their own exits. There was an easel, as before, a floodlight, pots of paint, brushes. There were cameras, still and cinematographic, one of which would transmit a television picture to receivers on the plain below the mountain. There were sound recorders.

  Silently, slowly, Mayhew and his wife walked to the center of the plateau, accompanied by Grimes and Sonya, carrying what she would be using. Grimes set up the easel, with its stretched black canvas, and the powerful floodlight. Sonya placed the painting materials at its foot. Mayhew, his thin face pale and anxious, lifted the heavy cloak from Clarisse’s shoulders. She stood there as she had stood before, naked save for the brief, rough kilt of animal hide, her arms crossed over her full breasts for warmth rather than from modesty. She looked, thought Grimes (again) as her remote ancestresses on this very world must have looked, was about to practice the magic that they had practiced. Mayhew had produced from a pocket a little bottle and a tiny glass—the psychedelic drug. He filled the glass, held it out to her. “Drink this, my dear,” he ordered gently.

  She took it from him, drained it, threw it down. It shattered with a crystalline crash, surprisingly loud in spite of the wind. “Your bare feet . . .” muttered Mayhew. He squatted down, carefully picking up the glittering fragments. She did not appear to see what he was doing, stood like a statue when he, on his feet again, laid his free hand on her bare shoulder in an attempted gesture of reassurance and . . . farewell?

  He whispered to Grimes, his voice taut with strain and worry, “I can’t get through to her. Somebody, something’s got hold of her . . .”

  The three of them walked back to where the scientists were standing by the pinnace, their recording apparatus set up and ready. And suddenly the sun was gone, and there was only the glare of the floodlight, in which Clarisse was standing. Overhead was the almost empty black sky with its sparse scatter of dim stars, and low to the east was the arc of misty luminescence that was the slowly rising Galactic Lens. The wind could have been blowing straight from intergalactic space.

  Conditions were almost the same as they had been on the previous occasion. Almost. It was the human element that was different. This time those on the mountain top were skeptics and earnest inquirers, not true believers. But the feeling of almost unendurable tension was the same.

  Hesitantly, Clarisse stooped to the clutter of materials at her feet. She selected a brush. She dipped it into one of the pots, then straightened. With swift, sure strokes she began to paint.

  But it was wrong, Grimes realized. It was all wrong. It was white paint that she had used before; this time she was applying a bright, fluorescent pigment to the canvas. A figure was taking shape—that of a tall, slender man in red tights, with a pointed beard, a mocking smile . . . A man? But men do not have neat little goatlike horns growing from their heads; neither do they have long, lissome tails ending in a barbed point. . .

  A god?

  Pan, perhaps.

  No, not Pan. Pan never looked like that.

  There was a dreadful crack of lightning close at hand, too close at hand, but the flash was not blue-white but a dull, unnatural crimson. There was a choking, sulphurous stench. And then he was standing there, laughing; amid the roiling clouds of black smoke, laughing.

  Grimes heard one of the scientists almost scream, “What the devil. . . ?”

  And the devil advanced, still laughing, his very white and very sharp teeth flashing. His surprisingly elegant right hand stretched out to rest on the Commodore’s wrist. “You are under arrest,” he said. “And I must warn you that anything you say will be taken down and may be used as evidence.”

  “By what authority?” Grimes heard Sonya cry. “By what . . .?”

  And then there was darkness deeper than that between the universes, and absolute silence.

  How long did the journey last? An eternity, or a fraction of a microsecond? It could have been either.

  There was light again; not bright, but dim and misty. There was light, and there was solidity underfoot—and there was still the pressure of that restraining hand on his wrist. Grimes looked down—he was reluctant to look up—and saw what looked like a marble pavement. At last he allowed his eyes slowly to elevate. There were the slim, pointed red shoes, inches from his own. There were the slender yet muscular legs in their skintight scarlet hose. There were the elaborately puffed trunks. There was the scarlet, gold-trimmed doublet . . . Suddenly Grimes felt less frightened. This was the Mephistopheles of fancy dress balls, and of opera, rather than a real and living embodiment of unutterable evil. But when he came to the face his assurance began to ebb. There was a reckless handsomeness, but there was power, too much power, po
wer that would be used recklessly and selfishly.

  Behind Grimes a very English voice was saying, “We must congratulate our friend on his speedy arrest, Watson.”

  A deeper voice replied, “Yes, yes, my dear Holmes. But are we sure that we have the right man? After all, to judge by his uniform, he’s an officer, and presumably a gentleman . . .”

  Mephistopheles laughed sneeringly. “Well I know the villainies of which so-called gentlemen are capable. But I have carried out my part of the bargain and now I shall return to my own place; it’s too infernally cold here for comfort.”

  There was a flash of dull crimson light, the stench of burning sulphur, and he was gone.

  “Turn around, fellow, and let us look at you,” ordered the first English voice.

  Slowly Grimes turned, and what he saw was no surprise to him. There was the tall man with aquiline features, wearing peculiar garments that he knew were a Norfolk jacket, an Inverness cape and a deerstalker cap. There was the short, stout man with the walrus moustache, formally clad, even to black frock coat and gleaming top hat.

  Grimes looked at them, and they looked at him.

  Then, “Hand it over, sir,” ordered the tall man. “Hand it over, and I shall prefer no charges.”

  “Hand what over?” asked Grimes, bewildered.

  “My pipe, of course.”

  Silently the Commodore drew the leather case from his pocket, placed it in the outstretched hand.

  “A remarkable piece of deduction, my dear Holmes,” huffed the stout man. “It baffles me how you did it.”

  “Elementary, my dear Watson. It should be obvious, even to you, that a crime, any crime, cannot take place in the three dimensions of space only. The additional factor, the fourth dimension, time, must always be taken into account. I reasoned that the thief must be somebody living so far in our future that our fictional origin will be forgotten. Then I enlisted the aid of the London branch of the Baker Street Irregulars—those fellows are always absurdly flattered when I condescend to share their dreams! Through them I maintained a round the clock watch on the antique shop that stands where our lodgings used to be. At last it was reported to me that my pipe had been purchased by a red-haired young lady of striking appearance. I learned, too—once again through the invaluable Irregulars—that she was the wife of one Commodore Grimes, of the Rim Worlds Naval Reserve, and would shortly be returning to her husband, who was resident in a city called Port Forlorn, on a planet called Lorn, one of the Rim Worlds. These Rim Worlds are outside our ambit, but I was able to persuade that learned colleague of yours who dabbles in magic to persuade his . . . er . . . colleague, Mephistopheles, to place his services at my disposal. Between us we were able to lay a very subtle psychological trap on yet another planet, one with the unlikely name of Kinsolving . . .” Holmes opened the case, took out the pipe, looked at it, sniffed it. His face darkened. “Sir, have you been smoking this?”