Andromeda (A Space-Age Tale) вк-1

by Ivan Yefremov

  There were two men and two women in the hall. They stood in pairs wearing different clothing. The pair standing closer to the emerald panel wore short golden clothes, something like elegant overalls, fastened with a number of clips. The other pair wore cloaks that covered them from head to foot and were of the same pearl tone as the walls.

  Those standing before the panel made some graceful movements, touching some strings stretching diagonally from the left-hand edge of the panel. The wall of polished emerald or glass became transparent and in time with the movements of the man and woman, clearly defined pictures appeared in the crystal. They appeared and disappeared so quickly that even such trained observers as Junius Antus and Darr Veter had difficulty in following the meaning of them.

  In the procession of copper-coloured mountains, violet seas and amethyst trees the history of the planet emerged. A chain of animal and plant forms, sometimes monstrously incomprehensible, sometimes beautiful, appeared as ghosts of the past. Many of the animals and plants seemed to be similar to those that have been preserved in the record of the rocks on Earth. It was a long ladder of ascending forms of life, the ladder of developing living matter. The endlessly long path of development seemed even longer, more difficult and more tortuous than the path of evolution known to every Earth-dweller.

  New pictures flashed through the phantom gleam of the apparatus: the flames of huge fires, piled-up rocks on the plains, fights with savage beasts, the solemn rites of funerals and religious services. The figure of a man covered by a motley cloak of coloured skins filled the whole panel. Leaning on a spear with one band and raising the other towards the stars in an all-embracing gesture, he stood with his foot on the neck of a conquered monster with a ridge of stiff hair down its back and long, bared fangs. In the background a line of men and women had joined hands in pairs and seemed to be singing something.

  The picture faded away and the place of the tableaux was taken by a dark surface of polished stone.

  At this moment the pair in golden clothing moved away to the right and their place was taken by the second pair. With a movement so rapid that the eye could not follow it the cloaks were thrown aside and two dark-red bodies gleamed like living fire against the pearl of the walls. The man held out his two hands to the woman and she answered him with such a proud and dazzling smile of joy that the Earth-dwellers responded with involuntary smiles. And there, in the pearl hall of that immeasurably distant world, the two people began a slow dance. It was probably not danced for the sake of dancing, but was something more in the nature of eurhythmics, in which the dancers strove to show their perfection, the beauty of the lines and the flexibility of their bodies. A majestic and at the same time sorrowful music could be felt in the rhythmic change of movement, as though recalling the great ladder of countless unnamed victims sacrificed to the development of life that had produced man, that beautiful and intelligent being.

  Mven Mass fancied he could hear a melody, a movement in pure high tones played against a background of the resonant and measured rhythm of low notes. Veda Kong squeezed Darr Veter’s hand but the latter did not pay her any attention. Junius Antus stood motionless watching the scene, without even breathing, and beads of perspiration stood out on his broad forehead.

  The people of the Tucana planet were so like the people of Earth that the impression of another world was gradually lost. The red people, however, possessed bodies of refined beauty such as had not by that time been universally achieved on Earth, but which lived in the dreams and the creations of artists and was to be seen only in a small number of unusually beautiful people.

  “The more difficult and the longer the path of blind animal evolution up to the thinking being, the more purposeful and perfected are the higher forms of life and, therefore, the more beautiful,” thought Darr Veter. “The people of Earth realized a long time ago that beauty is an instinctively comprehended purposefulness of structure that is adapted to definite objectives. The more varied the objectives, the more beautiful the form — these red people must be more versatile and agile than we are…. Perhaps their civilization has progressed mainly through the development of man himself, the development of his spiritual and physical might, rather than through technical development. Even with the coming of communist society our civilization has remained rudimentally technical and only in the Era of Common Labour did we turn to the perfection of man himself and not only his machines, houses, food and amusements.”

  The dance was over. The young red-skinned woman came into the centre of the hall and the camera of the transmitter focussed on her alone. Her outstretched arms and her face were turned to the ceiling of the hall.

  The eyes of the Earth-dwellers involuntarily followed her glance. There was no ceiling, or, perhaps, some clever optical illusion created the impression of a night sky with very large and bright stars. The strange combinations of constellations did not arouse any association. The girl waved her hand and a blue ball appeared on the index finger of her left hand. A silvery ray streamed out of the ball and served her as a gigantic pointer. A round patch of light at the end of the pointer halted first on one then on another star in the ceiling. In each case the emerald panel showed a motionless picture extremely wide in scale. As the pointer ray moved from star to star the panel demonstrated a series of inhabited and uninhabited planets. Joyless and sorrowful were the stone or sand deserts that burned in the rays of red, blue, violet and yellow suns. Sometimes the rays of a strange leaden-grey star would bring to life on its planets flattened domes or spirals, permeated with electricity, that swam like jelly-fish in a dense orange atmosphere or ocean. In the world of the red sun there grew trees of incredible height with slimy black bark, trees that stretched their millions of crooked branches heavenwards as though in despair. Other planets were completely covered with dark water. Huge living islands, either animal or vegetable, were floating everywhere, their countless hairy feelers waving over the smooth surface of the water.

  “They have no planets near them that possess the higher forms of life,” said Junius Antus, suddenly, without once taking his eyes off the star map of the unknown sky.

  “Yes they have,” said Darr Veter, “although the flattened stellar system to one side of them is one of the newest formations in the Galaxy, we know that flattened and globular systems, the old and the new, not infrequently alternate. In the direction of Eridanus there is a system with living intelligences that belongs to the Circle.”

  “VVR 4955 + MO 3529… etc.,” added Mven Mass, “but why don’t they know of it?”

  “The system entered the Great Circle 275 years ago and this communication was made before that,” answered Darr Veter.

  The red-skinned girl from the distant world shook the blue ball from her finger and turned to face her audience, her arms spread out widely as though to embrace some invisible person standing before her. She threw back her head and shoulders as a woman of Earth would in a burst of passion. Her mouth was half open and her lips moved as she repeated inaudible words. So she stood, immobile, appealing, sending forth into the cold darkness of interstellar space fiery human words of an entreaty for friendship with people of other worlds.

  Again her enthralling beauty held the Earth-dwellers spellbound. She had nothing of the bronze severity of the red-skinned people of Earth. Her round face, small nose and big, widely-placed blue eyes bore more resemblance to the northern peoples of Earth. Her thick, wavy black hair was not stiff. Every line of her face and body expressed a light and joyful confidence that came from a subconscious feeling of great strength.

  “Is it possible that they know nothing of the Great Circle?” Veda Kong almost groaned as though in obeisance before her beautiful sister from the Cosmos.

  “By now they probably know,” answered Darr Veter, the scenes we have witnessed date three hundred years back.”

  “Eighty-eight parsecs,” rumbled Mven Mass’s low voice. “Eighty-eight…. All those people we have just seen have long been dead.”

  A
s though in confirmation of his words the scene from the wonderful world disappeared and the green indicator went out. The transmission around the Great Circle was over.

  For another minute they were all in a trance. The first to recover was Darr Veter. Biting his lip in chagrin he hurriedly turned the granulated lever. The column of directed energy switched off with the sound of a gong that warned power station engineers to re-direct the gigantic stream of energy into its usual channels. The Director of the Outer Stations turned back to his companions only when all the necessary manipulations had been completed.

  Junius Antus, with a frown on his face, was looking through pages of written notes.

  “Some of the memory records taken down from the stellar map on the ceiling must be sent to the Southern Sky Institute!” he said, turning to Darr Veter’s young assistant. The latter looked at Junius Antus in amazement as though he had just awakened from an unusual dream.

  The grim scientist looked at him, a smile lurking in his eyes — what they had seen was indeed a dream of a wonderful world sent out into space three hundred years before… a dream that thousands of millions of people on Earth and in the colonies on the Moon, Mars and Venus would now see so clearly that it would be almost tangible.

  “You were right, Mven Mass,” smiled Darr Veter, “when you said before the transmission began that something unusual was going to happen today. For the first time in the eight hundred years since we joined the Great Circle a planet has appeared in the Universe inhabited by beings who are our brothers not only in intellect but in body as well. You can well imagine my joy at this discovery. Your tour of duty as Director has begun auspiciously! In the old days people would have said that it was a lucky sign and our present-day psychologists would say that coincidental events have occurred that favour confidence and give you encouragement in your further work.”

  Darr Veter stopped suddenly: nervous reaction had made him more verbose than usual. In the Era of the Great Circle verbosity was considered one of the most disgraceful failings possible in a man — the Director of the Outer Stations stopped without finishing his sentence.

  “Yes, yes…” responded Mven Mass, absent-mindedly. Junius Antus noticed the sluggishness in his voice and in his movements; he was immediately on the alert. Veda Kong quietly ran her finger along Darr Veter’s hand and nodded towards the African.

  “Perhaps he is too impressionable?” wondered Darr Veter staring fixedly at his successor. Mven Mass sensed the concealed surprise of his companions; he straightened up and became his usual self, an attentive and skilled performer of the task in hand. An escalator took them to the upper storeys of the building where there were extensive windows looking out at the starry sky that was again as far away as it had always been during the whole thirty thousand years of man’s existence — or rather the existence of that species of hominids known as Homo sapiens. Mven Mass and Darr Veter had to remain behind.

  Veda Kong whispered to Darr Veter that she would never forget that night.

  “It made me feel so insignificant!” she said, in conclusion, her face beaming despite her sorrowful words. Darr Veter knew what she meant and shook his head.

  “I am sure that if the red woman had seen you she would have been proud of her sister, Veda. Surely our Earth isn’t a bit worse than their planet!’’ Darr Veter’s face was glowing with the light of love.

  “That’s seen through your eyes, my friend,” smiled Veda, “but ask Mven Mass what he thinks!” Jokingly she covered his eyes with her hand and then disappeared round a corner of the wall.

  When Mven Mass was, at last, left alone it was already morning. A greyish light was breaking through the cool, still air and the sky and the sea were alike in their crystal transparency, the sea silver and the sky pinkish.

  For a long time the African stood on the balcony of the observatory gazing at the still unfamiliar outlines of the buildings.

  On a low plateau in the distance rose a huge aluminium arch crossed by nine parallel aluminium bars, the spaces between them filled in with yellowish-cream and silvery plastic glass; this was the building of the Astronautical Council. Before the building stood a monument to the first people to enter outer space; the steep slope of a mountain reaching into clouds and whirlwinds was surmounted by an old-type spaceship, a fish-shaped rocket that pointed its sharp nose into still unattainable heights. Cast-metal figures, supporting each other in a chain, were making a superhuman effort to climb upwards, spiralling their way around the base of the monument — these were the pilots of the rocket ships, the physicists, astronomers, biologists and writers with bold imaginations…. The hull of the old spaceship and the light lattice-work of the Council building were painted red by the dawn, but still Mven Mass continued pacing up and down the balcony. Never before had he met with such a shock. He had been brought up according to the general educational rules of the Great Circle Era, had had a hard physical training and had successfully performed his Labours of Hercules — the difficult tasks performed by every young person at the end of his schooling that had been given this name in honour of ancient Greece. If a youngster performed these tasks successfully he was considered worthy to storm the heights of higher education.

  Mven Mass had worked on the construction of the water-supply system of a mine in Western Tibet, on the restoration of the Araucaria pine forests on the Nahebt Plateau in South America and had taken part in the annihilation of the sharks that had again appeared off the coasts of Australia. His training, his heredity and his outstanding abilities enabled him to undertake many years of persistent study to prepare himself for difficult and responsible activities. On that day, during the first hour of his new work, there had been a meeting with a world that was related to our Earth and that had brought something new to his heart. With alarm Mven Mass felt that some great depths had opened up within him, something whose existence he had never even suspected. How he craved for another meeting with the planet of star Epsilon in the Tucan Constellation!.. That was a world that seemed to have come into being by power of the best legends known to the Earth-dwellers. He would never forget the red-skinned girl, her outstretched alluring arms, her tender, half-open lips!

  The fact that two hundred and ninety light years dividing him from that marvellous world was a distance that could not be covered by any means known to the technicians of Earth served to strengthen rather than weaken his dream.

  Something new had grown up in Mven’s heart, something that lived its own life and did not submit to the control of the will and cold intellect. The African had never been in love, he had been absorbed in his work almost as a hermit would be and had never experienced anything like the alarm and incomparable joy that had entered his heart during that meeting across the tremendous barrier of space and time.

  CHAPTER THREE

  CAPTIVES OF THE DARK

  The fat black arrows on the orange-coloured anameson fuel indicators stood at zero. The spaceship had not escaped the iron star, its speed was still great and it was being drawn towards that horrible star that human eyes could not see.

  The astronavigator helped Erg Noor, who was trembling from weakness and from the effort he had made, to sit down at the computing machine. The planetary motors, disconnected from the robot helmsman, faded out.

  “Ingrid, what’s an iron star?” asked Kay Bear, softly; all that time he had been standing motionless behind her back.

  “An invisible star, spectral class T, that has become extinguished and is either in the process of cooling off or of reheating. It emanates the long infrared waves of the heat end of the spectrum whose rays are black to us and can only be seen through the electronic inverter. An owl can see the infrared rays and, therefore, could see the star.”

  “Why is it called iron?”

  “There is a lot of iron in the spectrum of those that have been studied and it seems there’s a lot of it in the star’s composition. If the star is a big one its mass and gravity are enormous. And I’m afraid we’re going to meet one o
f the big ones.” “What comes next?”

  “I don’t know. You know yourself that we’ve got no fuel. We’re flying straight towards the star. We must brake Tantra down to a speed one-thousandth of the absolute, at which speed sufficient angular deviation will be possible. If the planetary fuel gives out too, the spaceship will slowly approach the star until it falls on it.”

  Ingrid jerked her head nervously and Kay gently stroked her bare arm, all covered with goose-flesh.

  The commander of the expedition went over to the control desk and concentrated on the instruments. Everybody kept silent, almost afraid to breathe, even Nisa Creet, who, although she had only just woke up, realized instinctively the danger of their situation. The fuel might be sufficient to brake the ship; but with loss of velocity it would be more difficult to get out of the tremendous gravitational field of the iron star without the ship’s motors. If Tantra had not approached so close and if Lynn had realized in time… but what consolation was there in those empty “ifs”?

  Three hours passed before Erg Noor had made his decision. Tantra vibrated from the powerful thrust of the trigger motors. Her speed was reduced. An hour, a second, a third and a fourth, an elusive movement of the commander’s hand, horrible nausea for everybody in the ship and the terrifying brown star disappeared from the forward screen and reappeared on the second. Invisible bonds of gravity continued to hold the ship and were recorded in the measuring instruments. Two red eyes burned over Erg Noor’s head. He pulled a lever towards himself and the motors stopped working.

  “We’re out!” breathed Pel Lynn in relief. The commander slowly turned his glance towards him.

  “We’re not. We have only the iron ration of fuel left, sufficient for orbital revolution and landing.”

  “What can we do?”

  “Wait! I have diverted the ship a little, but we are passing too close. A battle is now going on between the star’s force of gravity and the reduced speed of Tantra. It’s flying like a lunar rocket at the moment and if it can get away we shall fly towards the Sun and will be able to call Earth. The time required for the journey, of course, will he much greater. In about thirty years we’ll send out our call for help and another eight years later it will come.”