The Long Voyage

by Ron Cocking

after-deathpreservative used by all Martians.

  Both of us recognized his still features at once, and in addition hisname-tattoo, required by Martian law, was clearly visible on his leftforearm.

  * * * * *

  For a brief instant the discovery stunned us. Klae dead? Klae whose IQhad become a measuring guide for the entire system, whose Martian headheld more ordinary horse sense, in addition to radical postulations ontheoretical physics, than anyone on the planets. It wasn't possible.

  And what was the significance of his body on Norris' ship? Why hadNorris kept its presence a secret and why had he given out the story ofKlae's disappearance?

  Mason's face was cold as ice. "Come with me, you two," he said. "We'regoing to get the answer to this right now."

  We went along the passage to the circular staircase. We climbed thesteps, passed through the scuttle and came to the door of the bridgecuddy. Mason drew the bar and we passed in. Norris was bent over thechart table. He looked up sharply at the sound of our steps.

  "What is the meaning of this intrusion?" he said.

  It didn't take Mason long to explain. When he had finished, he stoodthere, jaw set, eyes smouldering.

  Norris paled. Then quickly he got control of himself, and his old blandsmile returned.

  "I expected you to blunder into Klae's body one of these days," he said."The explanation is quite simple. Klae had been ill for many months, andhe knew his time was up. His one desire in life was to go on thisexpedition with me, and he made me promise to bury him at the site ofour new colony. The pact was between him and me, and I've followed it tothe letter, telling no one."

  Mason's lips curled in a sneer. "And just what makes you think we'regoing to believe that story?" he demanded.

  Norris lit a cigar. "It's entirely immaterial to me whether you believeit or not."

  But the story was believed, especially by the women, to whom theromantic angle appealed and Mason's embryonic mutiny died without beingborn, and the _Marie Galante_ sailed on through uncharted space towardher ninth and last landing.

  As the days dragged by and no word came from the bridge cuddy,restlessness began to grow amongst us. Rumor succeeded rumor, each storywilder and more incredible than the rest. Then just as the tension hadmounted to fever pitch, there came the sickening lurch and grindingvibration of another landing.

  Norris dispensed with his usual talk before marching out from the ship.After testing the atmosphere with the ozonometer, he passed out the heatpistols and distributed the various instruments for computingradioactivity and cosmic radiation.

  "This is the planet Nizar," he said shortly. "Largest in the field ofthe sun Ponthis. You will make your survey as one group this time. Iwill remain here."

  He stood watching us as we marched off down the cliff side. Then theblue _hensorr_ trees rose up to swallow him from view. Mason swung alongat the head of our column, eyes bright, a figure of aggressive action.We had gone but a hundred yards when it became apparent that, as aplanet, Nizar was entirely different from its predecessors. There wasconsiderable top soil, and here grew a tall reed-shaped plant that gaveoff varying chords of sound when the wind blew.

  It was as if we were progressing through the nave of a mighty churchwith a muted organ in the distance. There was animal life too, a strangelizard-like bird that rose up in flocks ahead of us and flew screamingoverhead.

  "I don't exactly like it, Bagley," he said. "There's somethingunwholesome about this planet. The evolution is obviously in an earlystate of development, but I get the impression that it has gonebackward; that the planet is really old and has reverted to its earlierlife."

  Above us the sky was heavily overcast, and a tenuous white mist risingup from the _hensorr_ trees formed curious shapes and designs. In thedistance I could hear the swashing of waves on a beach.

  Suddenly Mason stopped. "Look!" he said.

  Below us stretched the shore of a great sea. But it was the structurerising up from that shore that drew a sharp exclamation from me. Shapedin a rough ellipse, yet mounted high toward a common point, was a largebuilding of multiple hues and colors. The upper portion was eroded tocrumbling ruins, the lower part studded with many bas-reliefs andtriangular doorways.

  "Let's go," Mason said, breaking out into a fast loping run.

  The building was farther away than we had thought, but when we finallycame up to it, we saw that it was even more of a ruin than it had atfirst appeared. It was only a shell with but two walls standing, aloneand forlorn. Whatever race had lived here, they had come and gone.

  We prowled about the ruins for more than an hour. The carvings on thewalls were in the form of geometric designs and cabalistic symbols,giving no clue to the city's former occupants' identity.

  And then Mason found the stairs leading to the lower crypts. He switchedon his ato-flash and led the way down cautiously. Level one ... leveltwo ... three ... we descended lower and lower. Here water from thenearby sea oozed in little rivulets that glittered in the light of theflash.

  We emerged at length on a wide underground plaisance, a kind ofamphitheater, with tier on tier of seats surrounding it and extendingback into the shadows.

  "Judging from what we've seen," Mason said, "I would say that the racethat built this place had reached approximately a grade C-5 ofcivilization, according to the Mokart scale. This apparently was theircouncil chamber."

  "What are those rectangular stone blocks depending from the ceiling?" Isaid.

  Mason turned the light beam upward. "I don't know," he said. "But myguess is that they are burial vaults. Perhaps the creatures wereornithoid."

  Away from the flash the floor of the plaisance appeared to be a greatmirror that caught our reflections and distorted them fantastically andhorribly. We saw then that it was a form of living mold, composed ofmillions of tiny plants, each with an eye-like iris at its center. Thoseeyes seemed to be watching us, and as we strode forward, a great sighrose up, as if in resentment at our intrusion.

  There was a small triangular dais in the center of the chamber, and inthe middle of it stood an irregular black object. As we drew nearer, Isaw that it had been carved roughly in the shape of this centralbuilding and that it was in a perfect state of preservation.

  Mason walked around this carving several times, examining it curiously.

  "Odd," he said. "It looks to be an object of religious veneration, but Inever heard before of a race worshipping a replica of their own livingquarters."

  Suddenly his voice died off. He bent closer to the black stone, studyingit in the light of the powerful ato-flash. He got a small magnifyingglass out of his pocket and focused it on one of the miniaturebas-reliefs midway toward the top of the stone. Unfastening his geologichammer from his belt, he managed, with a sharp, swinging blow, to breakoff a small protruding piece.

  He drew in his breath sharply, and I saw his face go pale. I stared athim in alarm.

  "What's wrong?" I asked.

  He motioned that I follow and led the way silently past the otherstoward the stair shaft. Climbing to the top level was a heart-poundingtask, but Mason almost ran up those steps. At the surface he leanedagainst a pillar, his lips quivering spasmodically.

  "Tell me I'm sane, Bagley," he said huskily. "Or rather, don't sayanything until we've seen Norris. Come on. We've got to see Norris."

  * * * * *

  All the way back to the _Marie Galante_, I sought to soothe him, but hewas a man possessed. He rushed up the ship's gangway, burst into centralquarters and drew up before Navigator Norris like a runner stopping atthe tape.

  "You damned lying hypocrite!" he yelled.

  Norris looked at him in his quiet way. "Take it easy, Mason," he said."Sit down and explain yourself."

  But Mason didn't sit down. He thrust his hand in his pocket, pulled outthe piece of black stone he had chipped off the image in the cavern andhanded it to Norris.

  "Take a look at that!" he demanded.

 
Norris took the stone, glanced at it and laid it down on his desk. Hisface was emotionless. "I expected this sooner or later," he said. "Yes,it's _Indurate_ all right. Is that what you want me to say?"

  There was a dangerous fanatical glint in Mason's eyes now. With a suddenquick motion he pulled out his heat pistol.

  "So you tricked us!" he snarled. "Why? I want to know why."

  I stepped forward and seized Mason's gun hand. "Don't be a fool," Isaid. "It can't be that important."

  Mason threw back his head and burst into an hysterical peal of laughter."Important!" he cried. "Tell him how important it is, Norris. _Tellhim._"

  Quietly the Navigator filled and lighted his pipe. "I'm afraid Mason