The Ancient Voice
by Eando Binder
First of all I want to say that Norman Ross was normal. What I mean isthat there was nothing odd or peculiar about him. He was just a common,ordinary, likable, erring human being like the rest of us. I say thisnow so that at the end of the story you won't have any illusions abouthim.
Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't escape all this--these tossingnights of sleeplessness, that awakening in a cold sweat of horror, thetortured thoughts that rack my brain continuously? It would be so easy;a quiet, dark night, the rippling water--one splash and it would bedone. Perhaps I will be driven to it; I feel that way sometimes.
But I will tell the story as best I can.
Norman Ross and I were operators for the International Radio NewsService. Thrown together by chance, we had become good friends in thetwo years before this happened. We had always been on the day shift andhandled calls from Europe. We liked the work and got good pay and oftenwent out together for a little recreation. That is why I can say thatNorman Ross was normal; two years of friendship means a lot.
Well, one day just after working hours Hegstrom, our boss, called usinto his office--both of us together.
"Boys," he said, "I need two operators for Central Asia calls in thenight shift. I've always had my eye on you two and I'm going to offerthe positions to you two first. There's a little more responsibilityand difficulty, but the pay is higher. Then it's night work. Do youwant it? Think it over and tell me tomorrow. It's nothing compulsory."
We thought it over that evening, over glasses of beer, and decided totake it for a change. Hegstrom was pleased.
So we took up the night work. A veteran Oriental call operator broke usin the first night and then we went on our own.
We found the work mightily interesting. Many of the calls came in inbroken English. You know, the English that a foreigner speaks that helearned from a book. I handled Persia and a couple of little countrieswith funny names. My friend Ross took the calls from China.
It was a little odd at first getting used to being alone. When wehad the day shift, we were only two out of fifteen operators takingcalls from Europe. In the night shift, the big room was empty exceptfor us two. The sound of our typewriters was always extra loud in thesilence. But we got used to it, and inside three weeks didn't mind theloneliness a bit. We had a chance to talk to each other occasionally,if Ross and I both happened to get short calls at the same time, andhad to wait for the next ones. But the rest of the time the calls keptus busy, taking the messages from the Far East.
We had a little trouble, too, getting used to sleeping in daylight.Even with the blinds down you can't forget it's daylight outside andthat makes it hard to go to sleep. Neither of us was married so wewould hop right home after work (Ross lived with an uncle and aunt)I roomed alone and sleep until middle afternoon. Then we'd dressup and have a meal together and later roam around together lookingfor diversion. With the increased pay we got for the night work, wewere able to see all kinds of expensive shows. Our lady companionsliked that and we had just about a choice of any. Then after the showwe would steer to some beer garden (thank the Lord Prohibition wasrepealed ten years ago) and laugh and talk the hours away. Ross andI would boast about our work and tell the girls strange--and a bitdistorted--stories of some of the calls we took in from the mysteriousEast.
But I had better leave these abstract ruminations and return to thestory. Only I wanted to show you that Norman Ross was really normal inall respects. Then, too, it eases my troubled mind now to think back tothose happy days--days that will never be again.
It was just a month after our transfer that it all happened. Ross wassitting as usual with one leg off the floor, the heel of his shoe on abig throw switch on the control panel. It was a dead switch, though,that had never been taken out. Down low close to his stomach was thetypewriter and he typed with his elbows resting on the arms of thechair. It was his own chair that he had bought for that particularpurpose because he said he couldn't do any work with the regulararmless chair that other operators used. He had used that chair for twoyears; Hegstrom didn't care a bit, so long he did his work and did itgood. Personally, I think Ross had a spark of laziness in him.
Well the particular night this whole story centers about--now my handis trembling, I hate to go on. But I must. It will explain things toothers. Anyway, Ross was imbedded as per custom with that right leg ofhis in the air. During ordinary calls he would slowly swing his toeback and forth as his heel rested on the dead switch. Once in a whileit would stop and then I would know that something a little excitingwas coming to him, war news from the north or perhaps a bandit raid inthe stormy western part of China. His typewriter, too, would clack alittle sharper as he bore down harder on the keys.
It was along about three a. m. that we had a breathing spell afterwe both had short calls. We discussed a few clipped plans for thefollowing evening and which of the ladies we would take out. When Rosstalked to me, he wouldn't budge an inch. He would merely twist hisneck in my direction and talk with that toe of his swinging lazily.We both kept our eye on the clock so that we wouldn't be late for acall--Hegstrom would get mighty fussy over complaints from the centralwave-traffic office that operators at our station took calls late, evena few seconds.
So about half a minute before his next call was due, Ross turned fromme with a sigh--that is, turned his neck back--and stretched a lazyhand to the dial to get ready for the carrier wave. My next callwasn't due for another two minutes so I watched my friend without anyparticular purpose in mind.
He reached a slow hand to his head and adjusted the phones on his earsa bit. Then both his hands dropped into position above the typewriterand I heard him say tonelessly, "Call-call-call--xxw2 call--" and thenhis voice clipped off like a voice in a broadcast clips off when a tubeblows out.
Watching him I saw first that toe of his stop swinging. Somethingimportant, I thought to myself. But then I began to sit up tense. Inthe first place, Ross hadn't touched his keys; in the second place heleaned forward in his chair and _dropped his leg to the floor_.
Now that may sound silly that I mention his leg dropping to the floor,but to a person that knew Ross as well as I did that _is_ something. Ihad never seen it happen before.
I sat up stiff as a board. He had just reached up his two hands to thephones and was pressing them closer to his ears like the message wasfaint.
Now I knew something big was up and I jumped from my chair.
"What's got into you, Norm?" I said, getting in front of him.
But he didn't seem to hear me or know I was there. He only pressed theearphones tighter. When I looked at his face, I was shocked. Only oncebefore had I ever seen that rapt expression--when he got the call fromLondon two years before at the end of that three-month war telling howthe whole city had been gassed and bombed, leaving not one soul alive.
I looked at the clock. It was a minute past the time for his regularcall.
I shook his shoulder. "Listen here, Norm," I yelled. "You've got to getthat call or--"
"Listen to this, Bob," he cut in, handing me the phones.
I put them about my ears. All I heard was a faint voice. I pressed thephones close as Ross had done. Then I distinguished it.
In strangely muffled tones, the voice came in, full of sharp hissingsounds and hard consonants. I could understand not a word.
I tore off the phones. "You fool!" I cried. "What's the ideaof listening to some foreign station? Look!"--I pointed to theclock--"You're over a minute late on your regular call!"
Ross pointed to the wave-length dial. "See?" he said. "I've got it onthe right wave. Eighteen point seven five meters."
I stared a moment in bewilderment. Sure enough, it was where it shouldbe.
"Sure you want eighteen point seven five? Better check," I cried in asmall panic, thinking of what Hegstrom would say.
Ross gave me a withering glance which said without words, "Sure I wantit? Did I ever lose my memory.
/> "Well, I can't fuss around here," I said with a hasty glance at theclock. "My call is due in about ten seconds."
Before I took my call I cried to my friend. "Probably something wrongwith the dial control. You better try and find your call on some othernumber."
Then I snapped my button. The carrier wave was already coming in. I hadcaught my call just in time.
"Call-call-call--xxw2-zz5" I spluttered.
Next minute I was busily typing the routine news from Persia. Witheverything going along smoothly, I turned my eyes in Ross's direction.A good operator can do anything with his eyes while taking routinenews; he can even use half his brain to think about other things.
I saw Ross playing with the dial and felt relieved that he was takingmy suggestion that something had gone wrong with the works so thatthe dial was in error. Hegstrom would be awful sore when he got thecomplaint that Ross had failed to get his call. But then I would bewitness that it wasn't his fault at all--that some foreign station hadcome in on that wave-length and spoiled the regular call. Only it wasfunny--it came to me then--that the regular call hadn't registeredat all; I hadn't heard a background of English in the few seconds Ilistened to the foreigner. Maybe something had happened to the stationin China!
I turned my eyes back to my favorite spot--a dull paint spot on thepanel--because I was getting some technical stuff and needed toconcentrate.
When I next looked at Ross about two minutes later, I heaved a mightysigh of relief. He was picking at the keys, taking his call. Onlyone thing bothered me: his leg was still on the floor. "Oh, well," Ithought to myself, "that upset him so much that he's a bit off center,"and with this philosophy, I went on with my call in a much morepeaceful frame of mind.
I finished my call in about fifteen minutes and then I had a breathingspell of four. I looked at Ross. He still had that leg of his downon the floor and worse yet, his elbows were not resting on the armsof the chair; they were in the air and he was sitting up in his chairstiff as a knife. But he was peacefully typing out his call so afterall everything was all right. I did notice one other thing then butnot until later did it become significant: his face, as much of itsexpression as I could get from a side view, had a look of--I knownow what it was although then I couldn't get it--amazement; stark,bewildered amazement.
Restless as I could be while waiting for my next call, I walked to aposition just behind Ross to see what it was that had so excited himthat his foot was on the floor and his elbows in the air.
I bent down close to see what he had typewritten and then blinked myeyes. The stuff he was taking down was not English any way you lookedat it. It was a mess of consonants and s's that sent chills up my spine.
"Listen here," I shouted when I got my wits back, "listen, Ross! Whatin Heaven's name are you doing? What in thunder is that stuff?"
But Ross kept right on typing as if his life depended on it. Only inone way did he show that he had heard me. He tossed his head sharplyonce in an unmistakable gesture for me to let him alone.
From this point on my blood pressure rose and my heart pounded--myheart has been pounding ever since then even when I forget for a momentabout all this.
I automatically looked at the clock and saw that my next call was due.I calmed down somewhat as I pecked down the routine news. But I felta growing fear in my heart as time and again I looked over to myfriend to see him typing like a robot, his foot on the floor, elbowsin the air. Then my friend, my only real pal, was going crazy--howthat thought tortured me. I knew perfectly well that he didn't knowany other language than English. Why in the wide world should he beclacking down something he didn't understand?
It was just three thirty that suddenly Ross ripped the head-phones offand dropped them to the floor. He stood a moment looking at the paperin his hand and I noticed then that his skin was deadly white.
I couldn't stand it anymore. I jerked off my own phones and ran to him.Call or no call, I couldn't stand by while my pal was in danger oflosing his mind or something else as bad.
"Norm!" I cried, "for God's sake! Tell me what it is! What--"
But I didn't finish. With an explosion of curses, Ross crumpled thepaper in his hand and began to walk up and down the room. He was sounconscious of everything else that he bumped squarely into me, reeleda moment, and then went on racing up and down feverishly.
I tried to stop him--grabbed his arm and jerked it--but Ross was a muchbigger and stronger fellow than I am, and he went on without noticingme. He didn't shake me off, you understand, but just tore on as if hehadn't even felt my hand. I didn't say anything because I had lost myvoice looking at the terrible picture of his face twisted in some agonyof his mind.
Then he began to speak, throwing his hands about hopelessly, andswinging his head like a maniac. While I--I just stood there, out ofthe path of his walk, panting like I had run ten miles, and listened.
"Great God in Heaven," he cried in a voice that I hope never to hearagain in reality, although I hear it every night in my tortured dreams.
"It can't be ... it's impossible ... I'm going mad ... I _am_ mad!...what did I ever do to deserve this?... how can it be? oh! how _can_ itbe?"
For a while he just repeated those things until I wanted to screamout in frenzy. But I didn't do a thing. I could see he was beyond myreach--beyond anybody's reach.
Then his voice changed, it became low, full of intense energy,ominously quiet. "What did he say? He said the weather had becomefrigidly cold ... that it would not be long ... that soon the Ice wouldcover the whole earth...."
Then he stopped a moment, his eyes burned maniacally. "But ... Iknow something about geology ... that was over fifty thousand yearsago ... do you hear me?"--he wasn't talking to me, he was talking tohimself--"do you get that?... _fifty thousand years ago!_"
His voice became low and intense again so that my blood turned towater: "What did he say?... he said to his friend that the land wasbeing flooded with creatures--maddened men and frenzied animals--thatwere retreating before the Ice ... retreating before the Ice ... the_ice_ ... but good God! I tell you that was fifty thousand years ago!"
Then his voice became high-pitched and sobbing: "Oh! Dear Mary andOur One God! release me from this mad dream ... save me from thedestruction that will overwhelm me ... how can it be?... it'simpossible ... how _can_ it be?"
He repeated that dozens of times while he rumpled his hair and groundhis teeth.
I mustered up courage and grabbed him by the shoulders. Next moment Iwas spinning backward and hit the wall with a thump. I fell down andstayed there, looking up at Ross with an expression that I sometimeswonder could be. I know my eyes became salty with tears of mentalagony--maybe it was blood that I sweated out that night.
Then I heard him again, head to one side, staggering like a drunkenman: "The radio was only invented twenty-five years ago ... _this_was fifty thousand years ago ... what did he say?... he said to hisfriend that this would probably be his last broadcast as the heatcoils were running out ... goodbye ... he said ... goodbye, my friend... civilization is doomed ... the Ice will cover all ... but I knowsomething about geology, I tell you!... that was over fifty thousandyears ago!... do you see what that means?"
He paused as if expecting an answer, but I knew--my chilled brain toldme--that he wasn't talking to me, didn't know I was there. He was stillarguing with himself.
"You see?... it means that I have received a message broadcast fiftythousand years ago just before the Ice came! ... that's what it means... do you hear me?"
Then he fell into a senseless jargon that I knew meant the coming ofthe end of his mind's fortitude. It would collapse soon.
"And then," came his voice to me, a bloodcurdling knife of a voice,"and then, how can you explain that I _understood_ that voice?... tellme that ... I never heard that language before ... it was just a jumbleat first ... and then ... and then ... in a flash ... I _understood_ it... just as if I had lived there ... lived there fifty thousand yearsago."
His voice became a w
ild shriek, a voice that a ghost might have: "Ah!Saviour! God! How can it be?... how _can_ it be?"
That was all. I sprang to my feet joyfully--as joyfully as I couldafter passing through that--and ran to him. The light of madness haddied out of his eyes. He had seen me and recognized me. His shouldersdrooped as if he carried the weight of a world on them.
With a babble of sobs and broken cries I threw my arms around him andthanked the Lord he had been saved.
He gently disengaged me.
"O.K. Bob," he said weakly. "I'm over it now."
"Darn right you are!" I said more calmly, realizing I must show abraver front than I had. "And what's more, we're going to get out ofhere!"
I took him to the door of his uncle's house and left him there,satisfied that the crisis was over. Then I went back to the stationand finished up my calls. How I had the courage and fortitude to doit, I don't know. Before the day shift came in, before I did a lot ofexplaining how Ross had been suddenly taken sick in the stomach and hadto go home, I picked up a crumpled piece of paper from the floor, toreit into little bits, and threw the confetti in a waste paper basket.
I got the news when I went to my room. Norman Ross had committedsuicide at seven o'clock in the morning. That was an hour after I lefthim at his door.
* * * * *
I told Hegstrom plain out that I wouldn't work that night shift anymorefor love or money. He said he'd have me transferred but would I stayone more night until he got a new man? Like a fool, I agreed.
* * * * *
It was three a.m. that next night that I turned the dial to where theChina Station should come in that had failed once. I sat petrified forfive seconds while I listened to a muffled voice that spoke in hissesand sharp consonants.
Then I tore the earphones off my head, smashed them against the panelwith all my strength, and dashed out of the room. I remembered seeingthe other operator--the one who had taken my calls--popping his eyesout. Then I was out in the cool air, panting like I had been runningfor hours.
* * * * *
So it is that I wonder if I shouldn't escape it all--tossing nights,cold sweats of stark terror, a tortured, fevered brain? It would be soeasy: a dark night, real dark, you know, so no one would see me andtry to stop me, then the cool water to moisten my feverish brow--nicecool water, inviting water--just one little splash, not a noisy one--noone would know--no one would care--no one would understand--just onesplash--and then peace.
* * * * *
My friends tell me not to take on so over the death of my one and onlypal. They do not know the story. I have told no one. My friends, theytell me there is a haunted look in my eyes, that lines are deepening inmy face. They tell me to buck up, to face life squarely.
* * * * *
But I can't. I simply can't. I'll tell you why. After that nightwhen I ripped out the earphones and blew a fuse in the station byshort-circuiting a switch on the panel (I found that out later) Iwent back in answer to a call from Hegstrom. He was very kind andsympathetic. Wanted to know what had caused me to act so strangelythe night before--also wanted to know what had caused Ross's suicide.Hegstrom is sharp. He saw the connection. But I clamped my jawstogether and refused to say anything.
* * * * *
Then Hegstrom asked if the thing he held in his hand had anything todo with Ross. I took the paper. Then I think I gasped or screamed orsomething. It was a paper filled with some of that balderdash that Rosshad written that night. He must have filled two sheets, and I onlydestroyed one.
* * * * *
I left Hegstrom as mystified as ever, but I had that paper in mypocket. I had a plan to save my sanity. I took the paper to a professorat a college--a professor famous as a language specialist, ancient andmodern. I gave him the paper and one hundred dollars (he afterwardsreturned the money) and asked him to find out from what country orplace it came from.
* * * * *
I got my answer a week later.
* * * * *
There was no such language in either the modern or recorded ancienttimes!