Before The Golden Age - A SF Anthology of the 1930s

by Edited By Isaac Asimov

  A curious sound drew me back into wakefulness. A thin, high-pitched piping, pleasantly melodious. The musical notes beat insistently upon my brain, evidently originating quite near me.

  On first awakening, I was aware of no bodily sensation. My mind was peculiarly dull and slow. I was unable to recall where I was. My first impression was that I was lying in bed in my old rooming place at Midland and that my alarm clock was ringing. But soon I realized that the liquid piping notes that had disturbed me came from no alarm.

  I forced open heavy eyes. What startling nightmare was this? A tangle of green creepers, incredibly profuse. A wall of yellow thorns. A scarlet mountain beyond. And purple balloons floating in a rich blue sky.

  I tried to sit up. My body burst into screaming agony when I moved. And I sank back. My skin was stiff with dry blood. The deeper wounds were aching. And the poison from the thorns seemed to have stiffened my muscles, so that the slightest motion brought exquisite pain.

  The melodious pipings had been abruptly silenced at my movement. But now they rose again. Behind me. I tried to turn my head.

  Recollection was returning swiftly. My uncle’s telegram. The flight through space and time. My expedition to the jungle’s edge, and its horrible sequel. I still lay where I had fallen, on the bare sand below the spiky scrub.

  I groaned despite myself, with the pain of my stiff body. The thin musical notes stopped again. And the thing that had voiced them glided around before me, so that I could see it.

  A strange and wonderful being.

  Its body was slender, flexible as an eel. Perhaps five feet long, it was little thicker than my upper arm. Soft, short golden down or fur covered it. Part of it was coiled on the sand; its head was lifted two or three feet.

  A small head, not much larger than my fist. A tiny mouth, with curved lips full and red as a woman’s. And large eyes, dark and intelligent. They were deeply violet, almost luminous. Somehow they looked human, perhaps only because they mirrored the human qualities of curiosity and pity.

  Aside from red mouth and dark eyes, the head had no human features. Golden down covered it. On the crown was a plume or crest of brilliant blue. But strange as it was, it possessed a certain beauty. A beauty of exquisite proportion, of smooth curves.

  Curious wing-like appendages or mantles grew from the sides of the sleek, golden body, just below the head. Now they were stiffened, extended as if for flight. They were very white, of thin soft membrane. Their snowy surfaces were finely veined with scarlet.

  Other than these white, membranous mantles, the creature had no limbs. Slim, long, pliant body, covered with golden fur. Small, delicate head, with red mouth and warm dark eyes, crested with blue. And delicate wings thrust out from its sides.

  I stared at it.

  Even at first sight, I did not fear it, though I was helpless. It seemed to have a magnetic power that filled me with quiet confidence, assured me that it meant only good.

  The lips pursed themselves. And the thin, musical piping sound came from them again. Was the thing speaking to me? I uttered the first phrases that entered my mind, “Hello. Who are we, anyhow?”

  * * * *

  CHAPTER V

  The Mother

  The thing glided toward me swiftly, its smooth round golden body leaving a little twisting track in the white sand. It lowered its head a little. And it laid one of the white mantles across my forehead.

  The strange red-veined membrane was soft, yet there was an odd firmness in its pressure against my skin. A vital warmth seemed to come from it—it was vibrant with energy, with life.

  The pipings came again. And they seemed to stir vague response in my mind, to call dim thoughts into being. As the same sounds were repeated again and again, definite questions formed in my mind.

  “What are you? How did you come here?”

  Through some strange telepathy induced by the pressure of the mantle upon my head, I was grasping the thought in the piping words.

  It was a little time before I was sufficiently recovered from my astonishment to speak. Then I replied slowly, phrasing my expressions carefully, and uttering them as distinctly as I could.

  “I am a native of Earth. Of the great white globe you can see in the sky. I came here in a machine which moves through space and time. I left it, and was caught and jerked up into the air by one of those purple, floating things. I broke the web, and fell here. My body was so torn by the thorns that I cannot move.”

  The thing piped again. A single quavering note. It was repeated until its meaning formed in my mind.

  “I understand.”

  “Who are you?” I ventured.

  I got the meaning of the reply, as it was being piped for the third time. “I am the Mother. The Eternal Ones, who destroyed my people, pursue me. To escape them, I am going to the sea.”

  And the thin, musical tones came again. This time I understood them more easily.

  “Your body seems slow to heal its hurts. Your mental force is feeble. May I aid you?”

  “Of course,” I said. “Anything you can do—”

  “Lie still. Trust me. Do not resist. You must sleep.” When the meaning of the notes came to me, I relaxed upon the sand, closed my eyes.

  I could feel the warm, vibrant pressure of the mantle on my forehead. Vital, throbbing force seemed pulsing into me through it. I felt no fear, despite the strangeness of my situation. A living wave of confidence came over me. Serene trust in the power of this being. I felt a command to sleep. I did not resist it; a strong tide of vital energy swept me into oblivion.

  It seemed but an instant later, though it must have been many hours, when an insistent voice called me back from sleep.

  Vitality filled me. Even before I opened my eyes, I was conscious of a new and abounding physical vigor, of perfect health; I was bubbling with energy and high spirits. And I knew, by the complete absence of bodily pain, that my wounds were completely healed.

  I opened my lids, saw the amazing creature that had called itself the Mother. Its smooth golden body coiled beside me on the sand. Its large, clear eyes watching me intently, with kind sympathy.

  Abruptly I sat up. My limbs were stiff no longer. My body was still dried with blood, clothed in my tattered garments; the sticky scarlet coils of the web were still around me. But my ragged wounds were closed. Only white scars showed where they had been.

  “Why, I’m well!” I told the Mother, thankfully. “How’d you do it?”

  The strange being piped melodiously, and I grasped the meaning almost at once. “My vital force is stronger than your own. I merely lent you energy.”

  I began tearing at the coils of the crimson web about me. Their viscid covering seemed to have dried a little; otherwise I might never have got them off. After a moment the Mother glided forward and helped.

  It used the white, membranous appendages like hands. Though they appeared quite frail, they seemed able to grasp the red cable powerfully when they were folded about it.

  In a few minutes I was on my feet.

  Again the Mother piped at me. I failed to understand, though vague images were summoned to my mind. I knelt down again on the sand, and the being glided toward me, pressed the white, red-veined mantle once more against my forehead. An amazing organ, that mantle, so delicately beautiful. So strong of grasp when used as a hand. And useful, as I was to learn, as an organ of some strange sense.

  The meaning of the pipings came to me clearly now, with the warm, vibrant mantle touching my head.

  “Adventurer, tell me more of your world, and how you came here. My people are old, and I have vital powers beyond your own. But we have never been able to go beyond the atmosphere of our planet. Even the Eternal Ones, with all their machines, have never been able to bridge the gulf of space. And it has been thought that the primary planet from which you say you came is yet too hot for the development of life.”

  * * * *

  For many hours we talked, I in my natural voice, the Mother in those weirdl
y melodious pipings. At first the transference of thought by the telepathy which the wonderful mantle made possible was slow and awkward. I, especially, had trouble in receiving, and had many times to ask the Mother to repeat a complex thought. But facility increased with practice, and I at last was able to understand, quite readily, even when the white membrane did not touch me.

  The sun had been low when I woke. It set, and the dew fell upon us. We talked on in the darkness. And the earth rose, illuminating the jungle with argent glory. Still we talked, until it was day again. For a time the air was quite cold. Wet with the abundant dew, I felt chilled, and shivered.

  But the Mother touched me again with the white membrane. Quick, throbbing warmth seemed to flow from it into my body, and I felt cold no longer.

  I told much of the world that I had left, and of my own insignificant life upon it. Told of the machine. Of the voyage across space, and back through aeons of time, to this young moon.

  And the Mother told me of her life, and of her lost people.

  She had been the leader of a community of beings that had lived on the highlands, near the source of the great river that I had seen. A community in some respects resembling those of ants or bees upon the earth. It had contained thousands of neuter beings, imperfectly developed females, workers. And herself, the only member capable of reproduction. She was now the sole survivor of that community.

  It seemed that her race was very old, and had developed a high civilization. The Mother admitted that her people had had no machines or buildings of any kind. She declared that such things were marks of barbarism, and that her own culture was superior to mine.

  “Once we had machines,” she told me. “My ancient mothers lived in shells of metal and wood, such as you describe. And constructed machines to aid and protect their weak and inefficient bodies.

  “But the machines tended to weaken their poor bodies still further. Their limbs atrophied, perished from lack of use. Even their brains were injured, for they lived an easy life, depending upon machines for existence, facing no new problems.

  “Some of my people awoke to the danger. They left the cities, and returned to the forest and the sea, to live sternly, to depend upon their own minds and their own bodies, to remain living things, and not grow into cold machines.

  “The mothers divided. And my people were those that returned to the forest.”

  “And what,” I asked, “of those that remained in the city, that kept the machines?”

  “They became the Eternal Ones—my enemies.

  “Generation upon generation their bodies wasted away. Until they were no longer natural animals. They became mere brains, with eyes and feeble tentacles. In place of bodies, they use machines. Living brains, with bodies of metal.

  “Too weak, they became, to reproduce their kind. So they sought immortality, with their mechanical science. And still some of them live on, in their ugly city of metal—though for ages no young have been born among them. The Eternal Ones.

  “But at last they die, because that is the way of life. Even with all their knowledge they cannot live forever. One by one, they fall. Their strange machines are still, with rotting brains in their cases.

  “And the few thousands that live attacked my people. They planned to take the Mothers. To change their offspring with their hideous arts, and make of them new brains for the machines.

  “The Mothers were many, when the war began. And my people a thousand times more. Now only I remain. But it was no easy victory for the Eternal Ones. My people fought bravely. Many an ancient brain they killed. But the Eternal Ones had great engines of war, that we could not escape, nor destroy with our vital energy.

  “All the Mothers save myself were taken. And all destroyed themselves, rather than have their children made into living machines.

  “I alone escaped. Because my people sacrificed their lives for me. In my body are the seeds of a new race. I seek a home for my children. I have left our old land on the shores of the lake, and I am going down to the sea. There we shall be far from the Eternal Land. And perhaps our enemies will never find us.

  “But the Eternal Ones know I have escaped. They are hunting me. Hunting me with their strange machines.”

  When day came, I felt very hungry. What was I to do for food in this weird jungle? Even if I could find fruits or nuts, how could I tell whether they were poisonous? I mentioned my hunger.

  “Come,” the Mother piped.

  She glided away across the white sand, with easy, sinuous grace. Very beautiful, she was. Slim body, smooth, rounded. Compactly trim. The golden down was bright in the sunlight; sapphire rays played over the blue plume upon her head. The wondrous, red-veined mantles at her sides shone brilliantly.

  Regarding her strange beauty, I stood still for a moment, and then moved after her slowly, absently.

  She turned back suddenly, with something like humor flashing in her great dark violet eyes.

  “Is your great body so slow you cannot keep up with me?” she piped, almost derisively. “Shall I carry you?” Her eyes were mocking.

  * * * *

  For answer I crouched, leaped into the air. My wild spring carried me a score of feet above her, and beyond. I had the misfortune to come down head first upon the sand, though I received no injury.

  I saw laughter in her eyes, as she glided swiftly to me, and grasped my arm with one of the white mantles to assist me to my feet.

  “You could travel splendidly if there were two of you, one to help the other out of the thorns,” she said quaintly.

  A little embarrassed by her mockery, I followed meekly.

  We reached a mass of the green creeper. Without hesitation, she pushed on through the feathery foliage. I broke through behind her. She led the way to one of the huge white flowers, bent it toward her, and crept into it like a golden bee.

  In a moment she emerged with mantles cupped up to hold a good quantity of white, crystalline powder which she had scraped from the inside of the huge calyx.

  She made me hold my hands, and dropped part of the powder into them. She lifted what she had left, upon the other mantle, and began delicately licking at it with her lips.

  I tasted it. It was sweet, with a peculiar, though not at all unpleasant, acid flavor. It formed a sort of gum as it was wetted in my mouth, and this softened and dissolved as I continued to chew. I took a larger bite, and soon finished all the Mother had given me. We visited another bloom. This time I reached in, and scraped out the powder with my own hand. (The crystals must have been formed for the same purpose as the nectar in terrene flowers—to attract raiders, which carry the pollen.)

  I divided my booty with the Mother. She accepted but little, and I found enough of the sweetish powder in the calyx to satisfy my own hunger.

  “Now I must go on down to the sea,” she piped. “Too long already have I delayed with you. For I carry the seed of my race; I must not neglect the great work that has fallen upon me.

  “But I was glad to know of your strange planet. And it is good to be with an intelligent being again, when I had been so long alone. I wish I could stay longer with you. But my wishes are not my master.”

  Thoughts of parting from her were oddly disturbing. My feeling for her was partly gratitude for saving my life and partly something else. A sense of comradeship. We were companion adventurers in this weird and lonely jungle. Solitude and my human desire for society of any sort drew me toward her.

  Then came an idea. She was going down the valley to the sea. And my way led in the same direction, until I could see the triple peak that marked the location of the machine.

  “May I travel with you,” I asked her, “until we reach the mountain where I left the machine in which I came to your world?”

  The Mother looked at me with fine dark eyes. And glided suddenly nearer. A white membranous mantle folded about my hand, with warm pressure.

  “I am glad you wish to go with me,” she piped. “But you must think of the danger. Remember that I am hu
nted by the Eternal Ones. They will doubtless destroy you if they find us together.”

  “I have a weapon,” I said. “I’ll put up a scrap for you, if we get in a tight place. And besides, I’d very likely be killed, in one way or another, if I tried to travel alone.”

  “Let us go, Adventurer.”

  Thus it was decided.

  I had dropped the camera, the binoculars, and the vacuum bottle when the balloon-creature jerked me into the air. They were lost in the jungle. But I still had the automatic. It had remained in my hand—stuck to it, in fact—when I fell upon the sand. I carried it with me.

  The Mother objected to the weapon. Because it was a machine, and machines weakened all that used them. But I insisted that we should have to fight machines, if the Eternal Ones caught us, and that fire could be best fought with fire. She yielded gracefully.