“I’ll disclose to you a secret of my youth. When I was in the Third Cycle School I fell in love with an engine driver on the Spiral Way and at that time I could not imagine anybody with greater power… but here comes the radio operator. Come along, Veter.”
Before the pilot would allow Veda Kong and Darr Veter to enter the cabin of the jumping jet aircraft he asked for a second time whether the health of the passengers could stand the great acceleration of the machine. He stuck strictly to the rules. When he was assured that it would be safe he seated them in deep chairs in the transparent nose of an aircraft shaped like a huge raindrop. Veda felt very uncomfortable, the seat sloped a long way back because the nose of the aircraft was raised high above the ground. The signal gong sounded, a powerful catapult hurled the plane almost vertically into the air; and Veda sank slowly into her chair as she would in some viscous liquid. Darr Veter, with an effort, turned his head to give Veda a smile of encouragement. The pilot switched on the engine. There was a roar, a feeling of great weight in the entire body and the pear-shaped aircraft was on its course, describing an arc at an altitude of twenty-three thousand metres. It seemed that only a few minutes had passed when the travellers, their knees trembling under them, got out of the plane in front of their houses in the Altai Steppes and the pilot was waving to them to get out of the way. Darr Veter realized that the engines would have to be started on the ground as there was no catapult there to propel the machine. He ran as fast as he could, pulling Veda after him. Miyiko Eigoro, running easily, came to meet them and the two women embraced as though they had been parted for a long time.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE HORSE ON THE SEA BED
The warm, transparent sea lay tranquil with scarcely a movement of its amazingly bright green-blue waves. Darr Veter went in slowly until the water reached his neck and spread his arms widely in an effort to keep his footing on the sloping sea bed. As he looked over the barely perceptible ripples towards the dazzling distant expanses he again felt that he was dissolving in the sea, that he was becoming part of that boundless element. He had brought his long suppressed sorrow with him, to the sea — the sorrow of his parting from the entrancing majesty of the Cosmos, from the boundless ocean of knowledge and thought, from the terrific concentration of every day of his life as Director of the Outer Stations. His existence had become quite different. His growing love for Veda Kong relieved days of unaccustomed labour and the sorrowful liberty of thought experienced by his superbly trained brain. He had plunged into historical investigations with the enthusiasm of a disciple. The river of time, reflected in his thoughts, helped him withstand the change in his life. He was grateful to Veda Kong for having, with the sympathy and understanding so typical of her, arranged the flying platform trips to parts of the world that had been transformed by man’s efforts. His own losses seemed petty when confronted with the magnificence of man’s labour on Earth and the greatness of the sea. Darr Veter had become reconciled to the irreparable, something that is always most difficult for a man.
A soft, almost childish voice called to him. He recognized Miyiko, waved his arms, lay on his back and waited for the girl. She rushed into the sea, big drops of water fell from her stiff, black hair and her yellowish body took on a greenish tinge under a thin coating of water. They swam side by side towards the sun, to an isolated desert island that formed a black mound about a thousand yards from the shore. In the Great Circle Era all children were brought up beside the sea and were good swimmers and Darr Veter, furthermore, possessed natural abilities. At first he swam slowly, afraid that Miyiko would grow tired, but the girl slipped along beside him easily and untroubled. Darr Veter increased his speed, surprised at her skill. Even when he exerted himself to the full she did not drop behind and her pretty immobile face remained as calm as ever. They could soon hear the dull splash of water on the seaward side of the islet. Darr Veter turned on to his back, the girl swam past him, described a circle and returned to him.
"Miyiko, you’re a marvellous swimmer!” he exclaimed in admiration; he filled his lungs with air and checked his breathing.
“My swimming isn’t as good as my diving,” the girl replied, and Darr Veter was again astonished.
“I am Japanese by descent,” she explained. “Long ago there was a whole tribe of our people all of whose women were divers; they dived for pearls and gathered edible seaweed. This trade was passed on from generation to generation and in the course of thousands of years it developed into a wonderful art. Quite by accident it is manifested in me today, when there is no longer a separate Japanese people, language or country.”
“I never suspected….”
“That a distant descendant of women divers would become an historian? In our tribe we had a legend. There was once a Japanese artist by the name of Yanagihara Eigoro.”
“Eigoro? Isn’t that your name?”
“Yes, it is rare in our days, when people are named any combination of sounds that pleases the ear. Of course, everybody tries to find combinations from the languages of their ancestors. If I’m not mistaken your name consists of roots from the Russian language, doesn’t it?”
“They aren’t roots but whole words, Darr meaning ‘gift’ and Veter meaning ‘wind’.”
“I don’t know what my name means. But there really was an artist of that name. One of my ancestors found a picture of his in some repository. It is a big canvas, you can take a look at it in my house, it will be interesting for an historian. A stern and courageous life is depicted with extreme vividness, all the poverty and unpretentiousness of a nation in the clutches of a cruel regime!
Shall we swim farther?”
“Wait a minute, Miyiko. What about the women divers?”
“The artist fell in love with a diver and settled amongst that tribe for the rest of his life. His daughters, too, became divers who spent their lives at their trade in the sea. Look at that peculiar islet over there, it’s like a round tank, or a low tower, like those they make sugar in.”
“Sugar!” snorted Darr Veter, involuntarily. “When I was a boy these desert islands fascinated me. They stand alone, surrounded by the sea, their dark cliffs or clumps of trees hide mysterious secrets, you could meet with everything imaginable on them, anything you dreamed of.”
Miyiko’s jolly laugh was his reward. The girl, usually so reticent and always a little sad, had now changed beyond recognition. She sped on merrily and bravely towards the heavily breaking waves and was still a mystery to Veter, a closed door, so different from lucid Veda whose fearlessness was more magnificent trustfulness than real persistence.
Between the big offshore rocks the sea formed deep galleries into which the sun penetrated to the very bottom. These galleries, on whose bed lay dark mounds of sponges and whose walls were festooned with seaweed, led to the dark, unfathomed depths on the eastern side of the island. Veter was sorry that he had not taken an accurate chart of the coastline from Veda. The rafts of the maritime expedition gleamed in the sun at their moorings on the western spit several miles from their island. Opposite them was an excellent beach and Veda was there now with all her party; accumulators were being changed in the machines and the expedition had a day-off. Veter had succumbed to the childish pleasure of exploring uninhabited islands.
A grim andesite cliff hung over the swimmers; there were fresh fractures where a recent earthquake had brought down the more eroded part of the coast. There was a very steep slope on the side of the open sea. Miyiko and Veter swam for a long time in the dark water along the eastern side of the island before they found a flat stone ledge on to which Veter hoisted Miyiko who then pulled him up.
The startled sea birds darted back and forth and the crash of the waves, transmitted by the rocks, made the andesite mass tremble. There was nothing on the islet but bare stone and a few tough bushes, not a sign anywhere of man or beast.
The swimmers made their way to the top of the islet, looked at the waves breaking below and returned to the coast. A bitter aro
ma came from the bushes growing in the crevices. Darr Veter stretched himself out on a warm stone, and gazed lazily into the water on the southern side of the ledge.
Miyiko was squatting at the very edge of the cliff trying to get a better view of something far down below. At this point there were no coastal shallows or piled-up rocks. The steep cliff hung over dark, oily water. The sunshine produced a glittering band along the edge of the cliff, and down below, where the cliff diverted the sunlight vertically into the water, the level sea bed of light-coloured sand was just visible.
‘“What can you see there, Miyiko?” The girl was deep in thought and did not turn round immediately.
“Nothing much. You’re attracted to desert islands and I to the sea bed. It seems to me that you can always find something interesting on the sea bed, make discoveries.”
“Then why are you working in the steppes?”
“There’s a reason for it. The sea gives me so much pleasure that I cannot stay with it all the time. You cannot always be listening to your favourite music and it is the same with me and the sea. Being away for a time makes every meeting with the sea more precious.”
Darr Veter nodded his agreement.
“Shall we dive down there?” he asked, pointing to a gleam of white in the depths. In her astonishment Miyiko raised brows that already had a natural slant.
“D’you think you can? It must be about twenty-five metres deep there, it takes an experienced diver.”
“I’ll try. And you?”
Instead of answering him Miyiko got up, looked round until she found a suitable big stone which she took to the edge of the cliff.
“Let me try first. I’ll go down with a stone although it’s against my rules, but the floor is very clean, I’m afraid there may be a current lower down,”
The girl raised her arms, bent forward, straightened up and then bent backwards. Darr Veter watched her at her breathing exercises, trying to memorize them. Miyiko did not say another word but, after a few more exercises, seized hold of the stone and dived into the dark water.
Darr Veter felt a vague anxiety when more than a minute passed and the bold girl did not reappear. He, too, began looking for a stone, assuming that he would need one much bigger. He had just taken hold of an eighty-pound lump of andesite when Miyiko came to the surface. The girl was breathing heavily and seemed fatigued. “There,” she gasped, “there’s a horse.” “What? What horse?”
"A huge statue of a horse, down there, in a natural niche. I’m going back to take a proper look.”
"Miyiko, it’s too difficult for you. Let’s swim bade to the beach and get diving gear and a boat.”
"Oh, no. I want to look at it myself, now! Then it will be my own achievement, not something done by a machine. We’ll call the others afterwards.”
“All right, I’m coining with you!” Darr Veter seized his big stone and the girl laughed.
“Take a smaller one, that one will do. And what about your breathing?”
Darr Veter obediently performed the necessary exercises and then dived into the water with the stone in his hands. The water struck him in the face and turned him with his back to Miyiko; something was squeezing his chest and there was a dull pain in his ears. He clenched his teeth, strained every muscle in his body to fight against pain. The pleasant light of day was rapidly lost as he entered the cold grey gloom of the depths. The cold, hostile power of the deep water momentarily overpowered him, his head was in a whirl, there was a stinging pain in his eyes. Suddenly Miyiko’s firm hand seized him by the shoulder and his feet touched the firm, dully silver sand. With difficulty he turned his head in the direction she indicated; he staggered, dropped the stone in his surprise and shot immediately upwards. He did not remember how he got to the surface, he could see nothing but a red mist and his breathing was spasmodic. In a short time the effects of the high pressure wore off and that which he had seen was reborn in his memory. He had seen the picture for an instant only but his eye had seen and his brain recorded many details.
The dark cliffs formed a lofty lancet arch under which stood the gigantic statue of a horse. Neither seaweed nor barnacles marred the polished surface of the carving.
The unknown sculptor had endeavoured mainly to depict strength. The fore part of the body was exaggerated, the tremendous chest given abnormal width and the neck sharply curved. The near foreleg was raised so that the rounded knee-cap was thrust straight at the viewer while the massive hoof almost touched the breast. The other three legs were strained in an effort to lift the animal from the ground giving the impression that the giant horse was hanging over the viewer to crush him with its fabulous strength. The mane on the arched neck was depicted as a toothed ridge, the jowl almost touched the breast and there was ominous malice in eyes that looked out from under the lowered brow and in the stone monster’s pressed-back ears.
Miyiko was soon satisfied that Darr Veter was unharmed, left him stretched out on a flat stone slab and dived once again into the water. At last the girl had worn herself out with her deep diving and had seen enough of her treasure. She sat down beside Veter and did not speak until her breathing had again become normal.
“I wonder how old that statue can be?” Miyiko asked herself thoughtfully.
Darr Veter shrugged his shoulders and then suddenly remembered the most astonishing thing about the horse.
‘“Why is there no seaweed or barnacles on the statue?”
Miyiko turned swiftly towards him.
“Oh, I’ve seen such things before. They were covered with some special lacquer that does not permit living things to attach themselves to it. That means that the statue must belong approximately to the Fission Age.”
A swimmer appeared in the sea between the shore and the island. As he drew near he half rose out of the water and waved to them. Darr Veter recognized the broad shoulders and gleaming dark skin of Mven Mass. The tall black figure was soon ensconced on the stones and a good-natured smile spread over the face of the new Director of the Outer Stations. He bowed swiftly to little Miyiko and with an expansive gesture greeted Darr Veter.
“Renn Bose and I have come here for one day to ask your advice.”
“Who is Renn Bose?”
“A physicist from the Academy of the Bounds of Knowledge.”
“I think I’ve heard of him, he works on space-field relationship problems, doesn’t he? Where did you leave him?”
‘“On shore. He doesn’t swim, not as well as you, anyway.”
A faint splash interrupted Mven Mass. “I’m going to the beach, to Veda,” Miyiko called out to them from the water. Darr Veter smiled tenderly at the girl.
“She’s going back with a discovery,” he explained to Mven Mass and told him about the finding of the submarine horse. The African listened but showed no interest. His long fingers were fidgeting and fumbling at his chin. In the gaze he fixed on Darr Veter the latter read anxiety and hope.
“Is there anything serious worrying you? If so, why put it off?”
Mven Mass was not loath to accept the invitation. Seated on the edge of a cliff over the watery depths that bid the mysterious horse he spoke of his vexatious waverings. His meeting with Renn Bose had been no accident. The vision of the beautiful world known as Epsilon Tucanae had never left him. Ever since that night he had dreamed of approaching this wonderful world, of overcoming, in some way, the great space separating him from it, of doing something so that the time required to send a message there and receive an answer would not be six hundred years, a period much greater than a man’s lifetime. He dreamed of experiencing at first hand the heartbeat of that wonderful life that was so much like our own, of stretching out his hand across the gulf of the Cosmos to our brothers in space. Mven Mass concentrated his efforts on putting himself abreast of unsolved problems and unfinished experiments that had been going on for thousands of years for the purpose of understanding space as a function of matter. He thought of the problem Veda Kong had dreamed of on the night of her f
irst broadcast to the Great Circle.
In the Academy of the Bounds of Knowledge Renn Bose, a young specialist in mathematical physics, was in charge of these researches. His meeting with Mven Mass and their subsequent friendship was determined by a similarity of endeavour.
Renn Bose was by that time of the opinion that the problem had been advanced sufficiently to permit of an experiment, but it was one that could not be done at laboratory level, like everything else Cosmic in scale. The colossal nature of the problem made a colossal experiment necessary. Renn Bose had come to the conclusion that the experiment should be carried out through the outer stations with the employment of all terrestrial power resources, including the Q-energy station in the Antarctic.
A sense of danger came to Darr Veter when he looked into Mven’s burning eyes and at his quivering nostrils.
“Do you want to know what I should do?” He asked this decisive question calmly.
Mven Mass nodded and passed his tongue over his dry lips.
“I should not make the experiment,” said Darr Veter, carefully stressing every word and paying no attention to the grimace of pain that flashed across the African’s face so swiftly that a less observant man would not have noticed it.
“That’s what I expected!” Mven Mass burst out. “Then why did you consider my advice to have any importance?”
“I thought we should be able to convince you.” “All right, then, try! We’ll swim back to the others.
They’re probably getting diving apparatus ready to examine the horse!”
Veda was singing and two other women’s voices were accompanying her.
When she noticed the swimmers she beckoned to them, motioning with the fingers of her open hand like a child. The singing stopped. Darr Veter recognized one of the women as Evda Nahl, although this was the first time he had seen her without her white doctor’s smock. Her tall, pliant figure stood out amongst the others on account of her white, still untanned skin. The famous woman psychiatrist had apparently been busy and had not had time for sunbathing. Evda’s blue-black hair, divided into two by a dead straight parting, was drawn up high above her temples. High cheek-bones over slightly hollow cheeks served to stress the length of her piercing black eyes. Her face bore an elusive resemblance to an ancient Egyptian sphinx, the one that in very ancient days stood at the desert’s edge beside the pyramid tombs of the kings of the world’s oldest state. The deserts have been irrigated for many centuries, the sands are dotted with groves of rustling fruit-trees and the sphinx itself still stands there under a transparent plastic shade that does not hide the hollows of its time-eaten face.
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