by Phillip Mann
One of the Spideret leaders, dangling by its thick cord from the roof of the assembly chamber, spoke these words. THE TIME OF WAITING MUST END. THIS SACRIFICE MUST BE THE LAST. EACH DAY WE FEEL THE BAND OF OUR SERVITUDE GROW TIGHTER. WE CANNOT WALK MEEKLY INTO DEATH. AT THE NEXT DEMAND OF THE HUMANS WE SHALL ATTACK, WHETHER WE HAVE THE SUPPORT OF THE COUNCIL OR NOT. THAT IS OUR FINAL WORD.
And no one doubted that it was. The aged Spideret was challenging the wisdom of the Tree itself. It opened its mandibles and spat, sending its venom in a long arc down to the floor of the chamber.
Within the Tree, pale colours flowed and bright charges of electricity crackled in its wide canopy. But yet it spoke gently in the minds of the assembled aliens.
THE TRAP IS READY. ANY DAY IT WILL BE SPRUNG. ODIN IS WITH THE PAXWAX NOW. THE SACRIFICE OF THE SPIDERETS HAS BOUGHT US THE TIME WE NEED.
VERY WELL, replied the Spideret. WE ARE WAITING. And then it shinnied up its cord and scuttled to refuge with its colleagues.
14
ON ULTIMA THULE
Pettet and his companions aboard the tiny ship were drifting close to Ultima Thule.
They had approached cautiously.
Haberjin at the controls, his hands moving like nervous birds, monitored the tilt and spin of the ship. He was ready at the slightest hint of danger to flip them deep into space. The problem that exercised him was one of recognition. How would he recognize danger when it came? He hardly expected dab rays, or a mined freighter screaming “mayday”. Danger might be as seductive as a smile or soft lips. All Haberjin had to guide him was his instincts. But they were a good guide. They had never failed him yet. Still … Haberjin’s eyes never left his instruments as he edged the ship towards the blazing green world. He felt like a blind man who knows he stands close to the edge of a cliff. One wrong….
“Hold her steady, Haberjin,” called Pettet. “We’ll ride for a while at this distance.”
The six companions lay on their survival couches in the main control cabin. Facing them was a screen on which was depicted an image of Thule. It was a simple visual image obtained from a telescope. Normally the ship used a vivante camera for exploration outside the ship, but the vivante plate was useless. Something in the presence of Ultima Thule distorted the incoming signals so that all that was received was inchoate patterns of sparks. Since their arrival close to the small solar system they had had no contact with home.
The green planet shone before them. The edge of its disk was hard and clear. Beyond was shadowy purple Erix. It held no fear for them now. It was an enemy that had been faced and bested. Ultima Thule was different.
Pettet manipulated the telescope so that they seemed to swoop towards the planet’s surface. It grew until it completely filled the viewscreen, and as it grew it became brighter. This was just one of the planet’s mysteries. It radiated more energy than it received. Visually the effect was extraordinary … To Peron, curled up on his couch and squinting through half-closed eyes, it was as though a brilliant light blazed just beneath the surface of the green world.
The visual magnification reached its maximum and stopped. They were at the equivalent of roughly 200 miles above the surface.
Ultima Thule was revealed.
They looked upon a landscape of green hills and valleys. It was like a sheet of crumpled paper. In the hollows of the valleys were lakes which spread like many-fingered hands, and each reflected pinkly the dull light of Erix.
Pettet altered the view, sending the landscape lurching before them. Thule was a dappled world. The green which seemed so uniform from space was broken into many shades. Forests vied with grasslands for dominance on its surface.
However, it was not just the vegetation that caught their attention. Scattered across the surface of the planet were bright silver disks, like coins. At this resolution it was not possible to make out details. Haberjin calculated that the average diameter of the disks was three miles. “Could be landing ports,” he offered but no one seemed convinced.
“Sensors,” said Pettet. “Like on Lumb. There might be a subterranean civilization down there. What do you think, witch-woman?”
Cordoba stretched. “Yes,” she said finally. “They have a brooding power. I can feel them reaching out to us.”
“Are we safe?”
“No. But I can’t say that we are in danger, either. They are other. I don’t know how to describe what I feel.”
“Tank. Any thoughts?”
Tank grinned. His head was covered with a short stubble and his beard, which seemed to grow more quickly than the hair on his head, was already well-formed. The pallor which had marked him ever since his encounter with Erix was all but gone. “I think we saw the worst when we dipped into that other world. I think we should go down and see. We have nothing more to lose than we have risked already, and a great deal to gain. We may begin to understand what is going on here.”
Peron nodded. He liked Tank’s reasoning, though he rarely offered an opinion unless asked. Pettet turned to him. “Well, historian, you seem keen to thrust your head into the jaws again. I had never believed you to be so impetuous. It makes me wonder how you have managed to survive for so long.” The other members of the crew smiled at Peron’s embarrassment.
“My reasoning is as follows,” Peron said. “Whatever resides down there on Thule, it is surely of a high order of sentience.” Cordoba pulled a face. She did not like such phrases. “What I mean is that it is not foolish. It, they, whatever, will watch us. If they don’t want us near they will warn us off. We are not threatening. It is threatening behaviour which inspires an aggressive response. Perhaps those sensors down there will simply ignore us and let us look about and then depart in peace.”
Wystan had not spoken all the while. Now he sat up and they were all surprised to see that his face was set, almost angry.
“Let us have no more talk about sensors and civilization,” he said. “Those disks are living. To me they are the crowns of mushrooms. They carry wisdom from the deepest soil. Let us go down there and greet them.”
But still Pettet delayed. As captain he would not be rushed. He chewed on his lip. He thought briefly of Raleigh. He imagined her sitting in the view chamber on Lumb and staring up at the green world and willing him love and care and safe return. He remembered also the map from the ill-fated ship Candie and the crosses which marked the planet which now stood before them. He weighed and puzzled and finally knew he had no alternative. “Take us down slowly, Haberjin. Set us for auto-jump. Everyone keep alert.”
Haberjin tapped the controls lightly and the ship edged forward and began a slow orbital descent.
The planet grew before them.
After several hours they could make out details: promontories which stuck out into the lakes, vast forests of pale blue and green trees. But most interesting of all were the silver disks. They came into focus and showed themselves to be giant trees with vast canopies. They soared above the surrounding vegetation and cast long undulating shadows.
Came the moment when the ship slowed. They watched as a change came over some of the trees. Pulses of grey and green light flowed up the stems and radiated out across the wide canopies.
“Are they signalling to us?” asked Peron.
“In a way,” answered Wystan. “They are responding to us, but I don’t think that message is for our benefit any more than a flower opens its petals just so that we can enjoy its beauty.”
“We are resting at the limit of their inner psychic world,” murmured Cordoba. “Now, will they let us in? Try to relax, gentlemen. There is nothing that any of us can do now.”
Briefly the image on the monitor blacked out, as though the great green planet had winked at them. Then the surface of the planet seemed to stretch and all the trees and greenery undulated slowly. And at the same moment they all felt that they could breathe more freely. They had not been aware of their tension, but they relaxed. The ship moved on.
“Are we still in full control?” asked Pet
tet.
“Yep. Still in the saddle. You want me to pull us back?”
“No. Just hold steady.”
Haberjin looked down at the green world. He looked at the margin, where bright grass met the high shady trees of a temperate jungle, and he thought of women. He imagined himself lying back in that long grass and with a roguish and willing lass in his arms. To his astonishment, the faces of the women he had loved popped into his mind, laughing and calling and blowing kisses. “Now that can’t be bad,” he said to himself, and vaguely remembered the desert on Erix. It seemed a universe away.
Tank was studying colours and textures. He observed the muscular white trunks of the giant trees and likened them to pillars of salt. He noted something in the sweep of the blue-green trees, like an eddy in water, like a child’s hand opening from the wrist with the fingers uncurling. He had tried to capture that grace before. Without thinking he reached for his drawing pad and a stub of charcoal.
Merry, thought Pettet. The planet is merry. Now who would have thought …? Raleigh would love it. I must bring her here.
Cordoba began to croon to herself in her reedy old voice.
I learned the truth the other night,
Like a shower of gold it came,
And caught in my hair and in my eyes
And spoke to me by name.
“Come lover why stand so idly
Trying to trap the moon.
For no man pays the piper,
And no man calls the tune.
Let the sad tides of gravity
Cast time on a stony shore.
Let heroes eat their drifting dust
As many have done before.
Take the moment gladly,
With your bright eyed love along.
For no man pays the piper
And no man calls the song.”
A tear formed in Cordoba’s eye to the memory of her dead husband and the children she had lost. As lovers they had never stood idly, and had accepted life as it came.
Peron thought of Pawl Paxwax and didn’t know why. Something in this world reminded him of Pawl. Perhaps the shifting greens, like shifting moods. A silly thought. He concentrated on the green world, trying to see if he could see any animals roaming under the trees.
Only Wystan brooded. He was contending with the knowledge that he had come to a place he had known in his dreams and that he would never leave.
“What the hell is that?” shouted Haberjin, pointing with one hand while instinctively bringing the ship round. “Something shining … I thought ….”
The ship dipped and entered the shadow under the canopy of one of the silver trees. Below them was a clearing with sharp edges, as though shaped by a razor. The clearing was filled with bright frothy foliage.
Poking up through this green wilderness was something completely alien to this garden world … the broken and vine-bound superstructure of an ancient spaceship.
They hovered in the shadow and stared down at the wreck. All the windows were punched open and stuffed with large fleshy leaves. Plates were prised apart and twisted in the grip of dark roots. No identification marks could be read on the ship, which lay, slowly breaking up, trapped in the greenery.
“Can you identify it?” asked Tank.
Both Haberjin and Pettet shook their heads.
“Can we go down?” asked Wystan.
“No,” said Pettet. “We’ll get the hell out from under this tree for a start and then decide what to do. Haberjin –” But the pilot was already busy feeding energy, and the ship slid out from under the veined canopy of the tree and into the bright sunlight. Pettet was worried by memories of the Snake, of bones at a cave mouth.
“Sorry captain,” said Haberjin. “I put us at risk, didn’t I? I don’t know what I was thinking about.”
For some time they cruised round the tree studying the decaying ship. It was impossible to tell how long it had been there, since they did not know how quickly the foliage grew. But everyone’s guess was that it was a long time. “And I’ll tell you something else,” said Haberjin. “That ship didn’t crash. It landed carefully.”
Peering above the neighbouring hills was another tree, and they visited this, but could find no evidence of a ship in the clearing at its base.
They began to follow a valley. It twisted and turned and its sides became steep. The vegetation that grew in it was the colour of ivy. Deep in its depths was a tumbling river like a thread of white cotton.
The valley seemed to be leading them. It opened into a natural amphitheatre surrounded by high hills. Standing in the centre was one of the tallest trees they had encountered so far. To Peron it looked like a sentinel, standing guard. It gave an impression of great age. The bark was swollen and veiny and broken branches like stiff arms of coral hung down from its domed canopy. It looked heavy and yet there was immense vigour in the sweep of its branches.
At its base, bright and beautiful as the day it landed, was a ship of red and gold. The force-field which surrounded it made it glitter and dip in and out of focus.
Both Pettet and Haberjin shook their heads before any question could be asked. Neither had ever encountered anything like it in fable or picture. But both men responded to the authority of its design. It had the same appeal as a finely-crafted, well-tempered musical instrument.
And had they known the truth about this ship they might have wondered. For this ship was the oldest artefact they had ever seen. It was old even before Earth itself was formed. It was a ship of the Craint, the species that had once ruled the evolving galaxy and was now no more. It shimmered as it drifted in and out of time, aging only seconds as the centuries slipped by. Had they known how, they could have entered that ship and vanished to any point in space-time. But they would not have known how to control it. For the ship was nothing more than a vast mental accumulator which could take a wish and turn it into actuality. The ship will stand there until the expanding universe reaches its limit and begins to contract. Only then will it falter and shake to dust.
Haberjin’s eyes gleamed and he licked his lips like a dog that scents a meal coming. He brought their ship to a halt, suspended as close as he dared to the sentinel tree. “It looks as if it could take off at any moment. Look, you can see the sparkle of anti-grav under it. Shall I land?” This was more pleading than a question.
“We’ll not land,” said Pettet, though he was as curious as Haberjin. “We’ll hang about and watch. Perhaps whoever, whatever, flew that ship in here is still about. Use the loudspeakers. Cause a commotion.”
For several hours they held their position, drifting round the tree, occasionally bellowing like a bull elephant. Haberjin tried every electronic means of contacting the ship but received only static in reply. Nothing moved as the day wore on. No creature wandered into the clearing in response to their summons.
Peron sat and studied the spaceship and the tree. He alone of all the companions had some inkling of where it came from. He noticed that there was a burn mark on the tree. It started just under the canopy and continued down to the ground to where the force field protecting the ship just touched the massive trunk. Either the tree grows quickly, he thought, or that ship has stood there since the tree was a sapling.
Evening began to spread over the planet. A purple dusk gathered as Candle dipped below the horizon and Erix rose. There was no sunset. The valleys filled with a rotten light and finally Pettet ordered the ship back out into space. It moved easily. Though they felt no resistance, they were aware as they left the tight psychosphere of the planet.
“And what now, captain?”
“Now we move with even greater caution. We have all seen the warning signs. Abandoned, decaying ships. What happened to the occupants? Haberjin and I can read a ship like that last one we saw. It has energy to spare. It belonged to a race that knew both beauty and power. God knows where it came from and how long ago, but whatever defeated that crew is worthy of the utmost respect.
“Tomorrow we will continue to
explore. But we will not land. Tank, make whatever images you can. I want you to record everything. Cordoba, send your mind out. Protect us. Try to discover what manner of life there is down there. Wystan …?”
But Wystan was asleep already, his mouth open and his body sagging in relaxation.
For the next five days they visited Thule, dipping into its psychosphere when they were refreshed and withdrawing when they were tired. They avoided the baleful light of Erix. They quartered the planet and spent their time measuring, evaluating and testing. They found that the air was breathable. They discovered that the planet had no poles and seemed able to control and regulate its environment. Two-thirds of the giant trees had spaceships decaying in the clearings at their base. Most of these were broken and pulled apart by the vegetation. Some were little more than burial mounds. Occasionally they revisited the ship of the Craint, but there was never any movement there.
Finally, towards the end of the fifth day, they were over a part of the planet where there were many mountains and cliff-sided valleys. The dark holly green of the jungle was everywhere. There were many lakes. Some were black, like lakes where vegetation is dying. Others were choked with a bright yellow-green weed. Half-submerged in one of the lakes was a giant ship, bigger by far than any they had seen so far. The water lapped against its pitted sides. Hanging over it with its roots lost in the dark water was a tall silver tree.
“That tree has a personality I recognize,” said Cordoba in surprise. “I can feel it. There is something of us down there.”
Haberjin took the ship in a wide arc round the tree like a ball tied to a piece of string. Both Haberjin and Pettet studied the ship. There was something familiar….
“It looks like an old Pleiades freighter,” said Pettet. “But what a size! No one ever built freighters that big.”
“Pleiades freighters like Hell!” shouted Haberjin. “Look at its colour. Red as the scales of a Hammer … and look at those burn vents. Look at the housing for the symbol transformation generators … like the bosses for a bell. Can’t you see it? Don’t you know what it is? I’ll eat my hair and toe-nails too if that’s not the Fare-Thee-Well. We’ve found the Fare-Thee-Well.”
