The Big Book of Science Fiction

by The Big Book of Science Fiction (retail) (epub)

  We’re perfectly safe in our icesuits, of course, but we get terribly tired. We’re ascending a series of gigantic ice terraces which seem to go on forever. It takes a day to cross from one terrace to the wall of the next, then another day or so to climb the wall and move the equipment up. The small sun is visible throughout an entire cycle of the planet at this time of year, but the “day,” when both suns are visible, is only about three hours. Then everything’s very bright, of course, unless it’s snowing or there’s a thick cloud cover, and we have to protect our eyes. We use the brightest hours for sleeping. It’s almost impossible to do anything else. The vehicles are reliable, but slow. If we make any real speed we have to wait a consequently longer interval until they can be recharged. Obviously, we recharge during the bright hours, so it all works out reasonably well. It’s a strangely orderly planet, Gerry: everything in its place. Those creatures I told you about were not as intelligent as we had hoped. Their resemblance to spiders is remarkable, though, even to spinning enormous webs around their nests; chiefly, it seemed to us, for decoration. They ate the rations we offered and suffered no apparent ill effects, which means that the planet could probably be opat-gen in a matter of years. That would be a laugh on Galtman. Were you serious, by the way, in your letter? You couldn’t leave your USSA even to go to Canada when we were together! You wouldn’t care for this ice. The plains and jungles we explored last year feel almost deserted, as if they were once inhabited by a race which left no mark whatsoever. We found no evidence of intelligent inhabitants, no large animals, though we detected some weirdly shaped skeletons in caves below the surface. We were told not to excavate, to leave that to the follow-up team. This is routine official work; there’s no romance in it for me. I didn’t expect there would be, but I hadn’t really allowed for the boredom, for the irritation one begins to feel with one’s colleagues. I’m so glad you wrote to say you still love me. I joined to find myself, to let you get on with your life. I hope we both will be more stable when we meet again.

  The gennard is warmed up and I’m being signalled, so I’ll close this for the time being. We’re about to ascend another wall, and that means only one of us can skit to see to the hoist, while the others go up the hard way on the lines. Helander’s the leader on this particular op. I must say he’s considerably easier going than old IP, whom you’ll probably have seen on the news by now, showing off his eggs. But the river itself is astonishing, completely encircling the planet; freshwater and Moldavia’s only equivalent to our oceans, at least until this ice age is really over!

  8/7/17 “Dawn”

  A few lines before I fall asleep. It’s been a hard one today. Trouble with the hoists. Routine stuff, but it doesn’t help morale when it’s this cold. I was dangling about nine hundred metres up, with about another thousand to go, for a good hour, with nothing to do but listen to Fisch’s curses in my helmet, interspersed with the occasional reassurance. You’re helpless in a situation like that! And then, when we did all get to the top and started off again across the terrace (the ninth!) we came almost immediately to an enormous crevasse which must be half a kilometre across! So here we are on the edge. We can go round or we can do a horizontal skit. We’ll decide that in the “evening.” I have the irrational feeling that this whole section could split off suddenly and engulf us in the biggest landslide a human being ever witnessed. It’s silly to think like that. In relationship to this astonishing staircase we are lighter than midges. Until I got your last letter I wouldn’t have cared. I’d have been excited by the idea. But now, of course, I’ve got something to live for. It’s peculiar, isn’t it, how that makes cowards of the best of us?

  9/7/17

  Partridge is down in the crevasse at this moment. He thinks we can bridge, but wants to make sure. Also our instruments have picked up something odd, so we’re duty-bound to investigate. The rest of us are hanging around, quite glad of the chance to do nothing. Fedin is playing his music and Simons and Russell are fooling about on the edge, kicking a ration-pack about, with the crevasse as the goal. You can hardly make out the other side. Partridge just said he’s come across something odd imbedded in the north wall. He says the colours of the ice are beautiful, all dark greens and blues, but this, he says, is red. “There shouldn’t be anything red down here!” He says it’s probably rock but it resembles an artefact. Maybe there have been explorers here before us, or even inhabitants. If so, they must have been here relatively recently, because these ice-steps are not all that old, especially at the depth Partridge has reached. Mind you, it wouldn’t be the first practical joke he’s played since we arrived.

  Later

  Partridge is up. When he pushed back his visor he looked pale and said he thought he was crazy. Fedin gave him a checkup immediately. There are no extraordinary signs of fatigue. Partridge says the outline he saw in the ice seemed to be a human figure. The instruments all suggest it is animal matter, though of course there are no life-functions. “Even if it’s an artefact,” said Partridge, “it hasn’t got any business being there.” He shuddered. “It seemed to be looking at me. A direct, searching stare. I got frightened.” Partridge isn’t very imaginative, so we were all impressed. “Are we going to get it out of there?” asked Russell. “Or do we just record it for the follow-up team, as we did with those skeletons?” Helander was uncertain. He’s as curious as the rest of us. “I’ll take a look for myself,” he said. He went down, said something under his breath which none of us could catch in our helmets, then gave the order to be hoisted up again. “It’s a Roman Catholic cardinal,” he said. “The hat, the robes, everything. Making a benediction!” He frowned. “We’re going to have to send back on this and await instructions.”

  Fedin laughed. “We’ll be recalled immediately. Everyone’s warned of the hallucinations. We’ll be hospitalised back at base for months while the bureaucrats try to work out why we went mad.”

  “You’d better have a look,” said Helander. “I want you to go down one by one and tell me what you see.”

  Partridge was squatting on his haunches, drinking something hot. He was trembling all over. He seemed to be sweating. “This is ridiculous,” he said, more than once.

  Three others are ahead of me, then it’s my turn. I feel perfectly sane, Gerry. Everything else seems normal—as normal as it can be. And if this team has a failing it is that it isn’t very prone to speculation or visual hallucinations. I’ve never been with a duller bunch of fact-gatherers. Maybe that’s why we’re all more scared than we should be. No expedition from Earth could ever have been to Moldavia before. Certainly nobody would have buried a Roman Catholic cardinal in the ice. There is no explanation, however wild, which fits. We’re all great rationalists on this team. Not a hint of mysticism or even poetry among us. The drugs see to that if our temperaments don’t!

  Russell’s coming up. He’s swearing, too. Chang goes down. Then it’s my turn. Then Simons’s. Then Fisch. I wish you were here, Gerry. With your intelligence you could probably think of something. We certainly can’t. I’d better start kitting up. More when I come up. To tell you the absolute truth I’m none too happy about going down!

  Later

  Well, I’ve been down. It’s dark. The blues and greens glow as if they give off an energy of their own, although it’s only reflections. The wall is smooth and opaque. About four metres down and about half a metre back into the ice of the face you can see him. He’s tall, about fifty-five, very handsome, clean-shaven, and he’s looking directly out at you. His eyes seem sad but not at all malevolent. Indeed, I’d say he seemed kind. There’s something noble about him. His clothes are scarlet and fall in folds which suggest he became frozen while standing naturally in the spot he stands in now. He couldn’t, therefore, have been dropped, or the clothing would be disturbed. There’s no logic to it, Gerry. His right hand is raised and he’s making some sort of Christian sign. You know I’m not too hot on anthropology. Helander’s the expert.

  His expression seems to be one
of forgiveness. It’s quite overwhelming. You almost find your heart going out to him while at the same time you can’t help thinking you’re somehow responsible for his being there! Six light-years from Earth on a planet which was only catalogued three years ago and which we are supposedly the first human beings to explore. Nowhere we have been has anyone discovered a shred of evidence that man or anything resembling man ever explored other planets. You know as well as I do that the only signs of intelligent life anyone has found have been negligible and certainly we have never had a hint that any other creature is capable of space travel. Yet here is a man dressed in a costume which, at its latest possible date, is from the twentieth century.

  I tried to stare him down. I don’t know why. Eventually I told them to lift me up. While Simons went down, I waited on the edge, sipping ade and trying to stop shaking. I don’t know why all of us were so badly affected. We’ve been in danger often enough (I wrote to you about the lavender swamps) and there isn’t anyone on the team who hasn’t got a sense of humour. Nobody’s been able to raise a laugh yet. Helander tried, but it was so forced that we felt sorry for him. When Simons came up he was in exactly the same state as me. I handed him the rest of my ade and then returned to my biv to write this. We’re to have a conference in about ten minutes. We haven’t decided whether to send back information yet or not. Our curiosity will probably get the better of us. We have no specific orders on the question, but we’re pretty sure we’ll get a hands-off if we report now. The big skeletons were one thing. This is quite another. And yet we know in our hearts that we should leave well alone.

  “Dawn”

  The conference is over. It went on for hours. Now we’ve all decided to sleep on it. Helander and Partridge have been down for another look and have set up a carver in case we decided to go ahead. It will be easy enough to do. Feeling very tired. Have the notion that if we disturb the cardinal we’ll do something cataclysmic. Maybe the whole planet will dissolve around us. Maybe this enormous mountain will crumble to nothing. Helander says that what he would like to do is send back on the cardinal but say that he is already carving, since our instruments suggest the crevasse is unstable and could close. There’s no way it could close in the next week! But it would be a good enough excuse. You might never get this letter, Gerry. For all we’re told personal mail is uninspected I don’t trust them entirely. Do you think I should? Or if someone else is reading this, do they think I should have trusted to the law? His face is in my mind’s eye as I write. So tranquil. So sad. I’m taking a couple of deegs, so will write more tomorrow.

  10/7/17

  Helander has carved. The whole damned thing is standing in the centre of the camp now, like a memorial. A big square block of ice with the cardinal peering out of it. We’ve all walked round and round the thing. There’s no question that the figure is human. Helander wanted to begin thawing right away, but bowed to Simons, who doesn’t want to risk the thing deteriorating. Soon he’s to vacuum-cocoon it. Simons is cursing himself for not bringing more of his archaeological gear along with him. He expected nothing like this, and our experience up to now has shown that Moldavia doesn’t have any archaeology worth mentioning. We’re all convinced it was a living creature. I even feel he may still be alive, the way he looks at me. We’re all very jittery, but our sense of humour has come back and we make bad jokes about the cardinal really being Jesus Christ or Mahomet or somebody. Helander accuses us of religious illiteracy. He’s the only one with any real knowledge of all that stuff. He is behaving oddly. He snapped at Russell a little while ago, telling him he wasn’t showing proper reverence.

  Russell apologised. He said he hadn’t realised Helander was superstitious. Helander has sent back, saying what he’s done and telling them he’s about to thaw. A fait accompli. Fisch is unhappy. He and Partridge feel we should replace the cardinal and get on with “our original business.” The rest of us argue that this is our original business. We are an exploration team. “It’s follow-up work,” said Fisch. “I’m anxious to see what’s at the top of this bloody great staircase.” Partridge replied: “A bloody great Vatican, if you reason it through on the evidence we have.” That’s the trouble with the kind of logic we go in for, Gerry. Well, we’ll all be heroes when we get back to Earth, I suppose. Or we’ll be disgraced, depending on what happens next. There’s not a lot that can happen to me. This isn’t my career, the way it is for the others. I’ll be only too happy to be fired, since I intend to resign as soon as I’m home. Then it’s the Seychelles for us, my dear. I hope you haven’t changed your mind. I wish you were here. I feel the need to share what’s going on—and I can think of nobody better to share it than you. Oh, God, I love you so much, Gerry. More, I know, than you’ll ever love me; but I can bear anything except separation. I was reconciled to that separation until you wrote your last letter. I hope the company is giving you the yellow route now. You deserve it. With a clean run through to Maracaibo there will be no stopping the old gaucho, eh? But those experiments are risky, I’m told. So don’t go too far. I think I know you well enough to be pretty certain you won’t take unnecessary risks. I wish I could reach out now and touch your lovely, soft skin, your fine fair hair. I must stop this. It’s doing things to me which even the blunn can’t control! I’m going out for another walk around our frozen friend.

  Well, he’s thawed. And it is human. Flesh and blood, Gerry, and no sign of deterioration. A man even taller than Helander. His clothes are all authentic, according to the expert. He’s even wearing a pair of old-fashioned cotton underpants. No protective clothing. No sign of having had food with him. No sign of transport. And our instruments have been scouring a wider and wider area. We have the little beeps on automatic, using far more energy than they should. The probes go everywhere. Helander says that this is important. If we can find a vehicle or a trace of habitation, then at least we’ll have the beginnings of an answer. He wants something to send back now, of course. We’ve had an acknowledgement and a hold-off signal. There’s not much to hold off from, currently. The cardinal stands in the middle of the camp, his right arm raised in benediction, his eyes as calm and sad and resigned as ever. He continues to make us jumpy. But there are no more jokes, really, except that we sometimes call him “padre.” Helander says all expeditions had one in the old days: a kind of psych-medic, like Fedin. Fedin says he thinks the uniform a bit unsuitable for the conditions. It’s astonishing how we grow used to something as unbelievable as this. We look up at the monstrous ice steps ahead of us, the vast gulf behind us, at an alien sky with two suns in it; we know that we are millions upon millions of miles from Earth, across the vacuum of interstellar space, and realise we are sharing our camp with a corpse dressed in the costume of the sixteenth century and we’re beginning to take it all for granted….I suppose it says something for human resilience. But we’re all still uncomfortable. Maybe there’s only so much our brains can take. I wish I was sitting on a stool beside you at the Amset having a beer. But things are so strange to me now that that idea is hard to accept. This has become normality. The probes bring in nothing. We’re using every instrument we’ve got. Nothing. We’re going to have to ask for the reserve stuff at base and get them to send something to the top. I’d like to be pulled back, I think, and yet I remain fascinated. Maybe you’ll be able to tell me if I sound mad. I don’t feel mad. Nobody is behaving badly. We’re all under control, I think. Only Helander seems profoundly affected. He spends most of his time staring into the cardinal’s face, touching it.

  Helander says the skin feels warm. He asked me to tell him if I agreed. I stripped off a glove and touched the fingers. They certainly feel warm, but that could just be the effect of sun. Nevertheless, the arm hasn’t moved; neither have the eyes. There’s no breathing. He stares at us tenderly, blessing us, forgiving us. I’m beginning to resent him. What have I done that he should forgive me? I now agree with those who want to put him back. I suppose we can’t. We’ve been told to sit tight and wait for base to send som
eone up. It will take a while before they come.

  11/7/17

  Russell woke me up. I kitted up fast and went out. Helander was kneeling in front of the cardinal and seemed to be mumbling to himself. He refused to move when we tried to get him to stand up. “He’s weeping,” he said. “He’s weeping.”

  There did seem to be moisture on the skin. Then, even as we watched, blood began to trickle out of both eyes and run down the cheeks. The cardinal was weeping tears of blood, Gerry!

  “Evidently the action of the atmosphere,” said Fedin, when we raised him. “We might have to refreeze him, I think.”

  The cardinal’s expression hadn’t changed. Helander became impatient and told us to go away. He said he was communicating with the cardinal. Fedin sedated him and got him back to his biv. We heard his voice, even in sleep, mumbling and groaning. Once, he screamed. Fedin pumped some more stuff into him, then. He’s quiet now.

  Later

  We’ve had word that base is on its way. About time, too, for me. I’m feeling increasingly scared.

  “Dusk”

  I crawled out of my biv thinking that Helander was crying again or that Fedin was playing his music. The little, pale sun was high in the sky, the big one was setting. There was a reddish glow on the ice. Everything seemed red, in fact. I couldn’t see too clearly, but the cardinal was still standing there, a dark silhouette. And the sounds were coming from him. He was singing, Gerry. There was no one else up. I stood in front of the cardinal. His lips were moving. Some sort of chant. His eyes weren’t looking at me any longer. They were raised. Someone came to stand beside me. It was Helander. He was a bit woozy, but his face was ecstatic. He began to join in the song. Their singing seemed to fill the sky, the planet, the whole damned universe. The music made me cry, Gerry. I have never heard a more beautiful voice. Helander turned to me once. “Join in,” he said. “Join in.” But I couldn’t because I didn’t know the words. “It’s Latin,” said Helander. It was like a bloody choir. I found myself lifting my head like a dog. There were resonances in my throat. I began to howl. But it wasn’t howling. It was chanting, the same as the cardinal. No words. Just music. It was the most exquisite music I have ever heard in my life. I became aware that the others were with me, standing in a semicircle, and they were singing too. And we were so full of joy, Gerry. We were all weeping. It was incredible. Then the sun had set and the music gradually faded and we stood looking at one another, totally exhausted, grinning like coyotes, feeling complete fools. And the cardinal was looking at us again, with that same sweet tolerance. Helander was kneeling in front of him and mumbling, but we couldn’t hear the words. Eventually, after he’d been on the ice for an hour, Fedin decided to sedate him. “He’ll be dead at this rate, if I don’t.”