As for the Diurnals’ intelligence, comprehension, and faculties of adaptation and assimilation, they were revealed in a matter of minutes to be extremely keen, profound, highly-developed and immediate in their application.
For example, constructive beings, making continual progress in the art of construction, and hence intelligent and reflective architects, incessantly improving their constructions, cannot be ignorant of geometry. Now, geometry is the same throughout the universe; on no matter what planet inhabited by beings thinking and acting in a human manner, or very nearly, a triangle is a triangle, a circumference a circumference, etc., etc.—and it was by means of a few simple geometric diagrams that Saint-Clair and Gno Mitang established a primary intellectual rapport with the male Diurnal.
Fageat, Margot, Vitto and Soca were wonderstruck spectators, as were Véronique and her Rhean companion, for the female Diurnal had spontaneously sat down beside the young woman on the divan, and had extended a hand to her, which she held and caressed.
The first dialogue—for that expression can be authentically applied—between the world of the Earth and the world of Rhea only took place at first, between the male Diurnal on the one hand and LeoSaint-Clair and Gno Mitang on the other. After three hours, which passed with a rapidity that surprised the Terrans, Saint-Clair and Gno were able to exchange with their prodigious interlocutor a few of the simplest words, as two knowledgeable linguists of different nationalities, who had been totally unfamiliar with one another’s languages until then, could have done on Earth.
The endurance of the Diurnals was exhausted, though. Véronique was the only one who noticed it, for she was looking as keenly as she was listening. Being devoid of eyelids, the Rheans’ eyes could not betray fatigue by their gradual closure and struggling against sleep in an evident manner by striving to keep them apart, as human eyes would have done—but their limpidity, so astonishing in the state of normal wakefulness, became dull, like a sky veiled by mist, or transparent water in which a gray powder had just been dissolved. Devoid of human expression, but alive, the Rheans’ eyes visibly lost even the appearance of life. Moreover, Véronique felt the hand of her Rhean friend become limp within her own, losing all its nervous tension and muscular strength. And on the cushions of the divan, the seated body sagged.
“Leo!” called Véronique, when she was certain of the reality of her observations and their consequences. “Leo, the Rheans can’t do any more; they’re falling asleep—my neighbor as well as your interlocutor.”
A few moments later, their eyes totally deprived of all life, as if made of tarnished colored porcelain, their supple bodies, utterly abandoned and devoid of force, the two Rheans were asleep—or, at least, they were in a state equivalent to that of human sleep, calm and profound, with a silent respiration and scarcely-apparent rhythmic movements of the throat and neck.
There was a momentary silence, while al the Terrans looked at the sleeping Rheans. Suddenly, Gno Mitang said:
“Why have Terran novelists who have imagined voyagers to other planets only populated them with monsters? It’s simpler and more logical to assume, as we can observe today, that the majority of inhabited worlds include inhabitants of a species closely analogous to the human species, whatever physical, intellectual and moral difference there might be. There’s truly too much pride in thinking that humans are the only ones of that nature living in the infinite universe, of which the Earth is only an infinitesimal part.”
“Indeed,” said Saint-Clair.
Again, silence fell. Then Véronique, in a restrained voice that was hesitant at first, said:
“The enigmas that Rhea presents to us so numerously will, I think, be all the more exciting to elucidate—and I also think that we shall be able to elucidate them all, since the Rheans are endowed with an intelligence and a language open to our own intelligence and language. It’s merely a matter of being patient.”
Ariste Fageat, however, grumbled:
“Our patience won’t sustain such a long ordeal!”
“Very true,” Saint-Clair agreed. “We too need rest and sleep. Afterwards, Véronique, you’ll prepare a meal that the awakened Rheans will witness. A great diversity of foodstuffs will allow them to share it. By means of brief syllables, onomatopoeia and gestures we’ll apply ourselves to conversing with them. In a matter of hours we’ll know a great deal, I’m convinced of it—and I admit to you that I’m in a particular hurry to find out about the great drama of Rhean life—the antagonism of the Diurnals and Nocturnals. I think that it’s that antagonism which shapes the entirety of Rhean civilization. But enough talk. Let’s close the Olb.-I’s doors and portholes and go to sleep, in the complete safety of our inviolable fortress...”
When they awoke, it was with giant strides that the Terrans and the Diurnal Rheans entered into and progressed rapidly through the vast field—seemingly unlimited for a long time—of reciprocal knowledge and comprehension.
To record the details of the progress would require many thousands of lines, but intelligent readers may amuse themselves by imagining those details in following its various consequences.
To begin with, only one of the foodstuffs served at the Terrans’ table was comestible by the Rheans: roasted hazelnuts, which Véronique served among the desserts. The two Diurnals, smiling, succeeded in making it understood that their nourishment consisted entirely of fruits analogous to those nuts, but devoid of shells. The woods and forests of Rhea, comprising millions of trees, were primarily formed by those “hazels.” The germination and maturation of the fruit, which the Rheans called doa in their own language, were not seasonal but constant and continuous: flowers, ripening fruits and ripe fruits succeeded one another on a daily basis, with the result that the Diurnal population of Rhea was nourished at its leisure, without any other labor than gathering, which was not subject to any timetable; the nourishment of the body was thus ensured by nature, without labor, by a single superabundant aliment, whose productive trees belonged to everyone.
It was almost the same for the fabric from which the garments and bonnets that formed the Diurnal Rheans unvarying costume were made; every individual, male or female, wove it with extreme ease, from childhood onwards, by means of a fiber produced in inexhaustible abundance by the trunks of the “hazels”—which is to say, the doas. Because the problem of clothing did not exist on Rhea, any more than the problem of nourishment, there was no “social problem” or “class struggle” there, nor any kind of monetary system whatsoever, and hence no “economic law,” so harsh for terrestrial humanity.
In sum, the only legally obligatory work was the construction and maintenance of the edifices and encircling walls of cities, and that was such vital defensive work that all Rheans—children, adolescents, adults and even old people of both sexes—devoted themselves to it with a great and joyful ardor, in accordance with rules handed down from the remotest Rhean eras, which were so perfect that no Rhean, even those of genius—which did exist—ever tried to modify them.
With reference to that subject, however—the vital work of defense on the one hand and their joy of living on the other—the Terrans were soon enlightened as to the general and individual conditions of the lives of the Diurnal Rheans in the cities; that process had been hastened by the determination of Saint-Clair the Nyctalope, who was impatient to arrive at what seemed to him to be the most essential condition of all: the mortal antagonism between the Diurnals and the Nocturnals.
Rhean days last about 36 hours from sunrise to sunset, all through the year, for there are no seasons on Rhea. The temperature there is always the same, about 25° Réaumur,5 and thus pleasantly warm. The Terrans were unable to explain why, for their exchanges of words and signs with the Diurnals were still too summary. They had no doubt, however, that they would soon be fully informed about that, for the astronomical conditions of the planet Rhea were insufficient to explain the absence of different seasons and the almost-immutable temperature.
After a meal, at 4 p.m. on Sep
tember 5—adapting the terrestrial calendar to Rhea—the Terrans emerged from the Olb.-I again. They were not seven but six, for one of them remained on board.
They left the two Nocturnal Rheans behind, still tied up and lying in the darkness of the crew quarters, reserving them for particular study the following day—for the two Diurnals had refused, with abundant gestures, signs and words of fear and horror, to speak to those “monsters.”
Ariste Fageat stayed to guard the Nocturnals.
Saint-Clair had said, during the meal:
“One of us has to make the sacrifice today of keeping watch on our two captives. Vitto? Soca?”
The engineer had said, however:
“With your permission, Monsieur, that ought to be me. Last night, coming back from the city with the front shafts of the stretcher on my shoulders, I touched down after one of my leaps in such a way that my left foot landed awkwardly on a stone, and I think I have a sprain or a pulled muscle, or at least a bruise. When I put my weight on that foot, I feel a sharp pain and my leg buckles.”
No one doubted him. In its habitual gravity, Fageat’s coarse, emaciated face, with its short black beard, always seemed to be suffering.
“In that case,” Saint-Clair said, “you can stay here, Fageat. Look after yourself. The Olb.-I’s pharmacy contains ointments and liniments appropriate to beneficial applications and frictions. I hope that you don’t have a sprain or a pulled muscle that will immobilize you for days. A bruised foot is, indeed, painful, but might ease in 24 hours.”
“I hope so!” Fageat concluded, with the shadow of a smile.
Thus, the Diurnal male and female went out with the six Terrans whom they wanted to take to their city.
In daylight the Diurnals were not phosphorescent either in their skin or their clothing and headgear, but a pretty bright pink color that was common to the vestments as well as their bodies—by virtue of which they could seem to be naked when seen from a distance.
Saint-Clair, Véronique and their companions had made a close examination of the membranes that folded and unfolded between the upper arm and the flank, constituting, in sum, a pair of wings. They were made of smooth, relatively thick and very sturdy skin, with a framework of powerful tendons.
As for the eyes—the most astonishing part of the Diurnal body—they were not protected by eyelids but they were unbreakable, make of a substance so hard, in its limpid transparency, that nothing could pierce or breach it.
“Yes, truly,” Véronique had said, “out of everything in the physical constitution of the Diurnals, those eyes are the only substance, the only incomprehensible organ completely unknown to us and with no analogy anything familiar to all Terrans.”
Those inexpressive eyes, however—the materially and physically inviolable eyes of the Diurnal Rheans—were nevertheless alive and clear-sighted, able to see at distances that were practically unlimited.
“Living telescopes!” said Soca.
That was accurate, but so preposterous that everyone started laughing, including the two Diurnals, for they were naturally joyful and their laughter—a kind of pearly musical cascade—was very frequent.
The journey from the Olb.-I to the city was completed in less than an hour, and therefore very rapidly, because the Terrans were now habituated to their lightness in proportion to their muscular strength, and, although they made shallower and sorter leaps than those of the Diurnals, they repeated those leaps forcefully and without pause, so effectively that the Diurnals, lifting the delighted Véronique, only kept slightly ahead of them.
Left alone in the Olb.-I, Fageat decided to wait patiently for half an hour, in order to be sure that no one was coming back in order to pick up some implement whose utility had been perceived a trifle belatedly.
The engineer put a good portion of that 30 minutes to good use, plastering his left ankle with arnica and wrapping a carefully-contrived bandage around it. And while amusing himself thus he sniggered:
“That’s very good! A Saint-Clair, a Gno Mitang, those great minds, and a Véronique d’Olbans, that delicate creature, are easier to fool than the meekest of imbeciles and the dullest of swineherds.”
Then—walking, of course, without the slightest difficulty or the slightest pain—he went into the crew quarters, transformed into a dark prison for the two Nocturnals.
Immediately, he spoke in a loud voice, not in the hope of being understood, but to make his voice heard, to make it clear—for he was sure that the two captives would understand—that his voice was calm and devoid of animosity. He spoke, therefore, in a soft tone, albeit with a firm and forceful register.
“I have all the time I need! Saint-Clair, Véronique and the others will be away a long time visiting he city and talking to the various clan-leaders, as they put it, of the Diurnals. Perhaps they’ll even take a trip to the ‘region of vapors,’ as they also put it. I have at least 24 hours ahead of me. I hope that in such a span of time, I’ll be able to reach a good enough understanding with the Nocturnals to prepare the future… the future as I’ve been envisaging it for some time. A life that will no longer have anything terrestrial about it, but will be entirely Rhean, but which will be full of delicate charm and strong emotion, the amalgam of which will be a very happy existence for me.”
While speaking thus, Ariste Fageat had closed the door communicating with the central compartment. Then, feeling his way, he had gone to the nearest pothole and had opened it slightly—just enough for a thread of daylight to penetrate the room.
“No, that won’t do!” said the engineer, still speaking aloud, slowly and softly. “Not enough light for me to be able to see the Nocturnals’ eyes clearly—but if I open it any wider, those eyes might not be able to bear the light, and they’ll close their eyelids obstinately.”
He reflected momentarily in silence.
“Let’s see,” he said, suddenly, “the problem poses itself as follows: to create lighting here as closely similar as possible to that of the Rhean light, in which its two ‘moons’ and the stars shed that ‘obscure clarity’ of which, it’s said, the poet talks—which is exactly the circumstance necessary for an ordinary Terran and Rhean Nocturnals to be able to see sufficiently clearly. That’s the problem—what’s the solution?”
He reflected further, and suddenly slapped his forehead.
“Oh! I’ve got it! Véronique’s big blue veil.”
He left the room, went straight to Mademoiselle d’Olbans’ cabin and immediately located a large blue silken veil in a drawer under the bunk, with which the young woman sometimes liked to cover her head, fashioning it in the various fashions that a milliner of taste and talent would have admired equally.
Then, furnished with the veil, Ariste Fageat went back into the crew quarters and went to open another porthole in addition to the one he had left ajar. This one was placed in such a way that its light shone directly upon the two parallel hammocks in which the Nocturnals were lying, still bound.
When the porthole was open, however, Fageat began talking while he acted.
“There! Now, thanks to the rail supporting the little curtain of coarse cloth, leaving that curtain extended over the crystal, I suspend the blue veil. Good—and quite simple… no, it won’t do; the light’s still too bright. Fortunately, it’s a large veil. Let’s fold it in two… aha! That’s better, but what if it were tripled? Is it broad enough, long enough? Yes. Bravo! That’s exactly the degree, the tonality, the nuance and the lack of intensity required. For myself, I can only just see, but well enough. As for the Nocturnals, it’ll be exactly like the Rhean night. Perfect! But are the swine asleep or awake?”
First, Fageat went to close the first porthole. Then he came back to place himself between the two hammocks in which the giant Nocturnals were lying, their heads sticking out, supported on the beam to which the hook was attached.
Immediately, the engineer saw, to his delight, that neither of the two captives was asleep. Their eyes were wide open.
“Ah!” Fageat
exclaimed, immediately. “You’re still looking at me with the same avid and violent curiosity, eh? Just like the Diurnals, until they got their summary explanation, you’re wondering what sort of animal I am and where I come from. Well, my fine gorillas, we’ll try to reach an understanding, you and I. To begin with, that will be thanks to the prodigious faculty of expression your eyes have. I’ll find out right away whether your real intelligence is proportionate to the intense life of your gaze. For that, I’ll be content to appeal to the primordial need of every living creature—the need for nourishment.”
Then, before the two Nocturnals, evidently very attentive and curious, sometimes leaning over one and sometimes over the other but always clearly in view of both at the same time, he opened and closed his mouth, showed his teeth, clicked them and, touching the thick protruding lips of the Rheans, made them understand that he wanted to see their own teeth.
Fageat was not obliged to prolong the mime. At the fourth repetition, he was understood, and with a sort of broad rictus, the Nocturnals parted their lips in such a way as to uncover their teeth, with their jaws clamped.
“Damn!” the engineer swore. “What fine carnivorous teeth! Let’s count them. One, two...” And he concluded, at the end of the second row: “Forty-six! And all there: molars, canines, incisors. I understand the terror, when they saw that we were bipeds, of the little simian quadrumanes in the forest. They must often have been chased by the big Nocturnals, and devoured when captured. So you’re carnivores, gentlemen, although the Diurnals are specialist fructivores of a sort. Good! I’ll try to make you understand, now, that I’ll be a friend to you. Wait a minute!”
The Return of the Nyctalope Page 11
