He sat looking into the twilight, so still that an inquisitive bannikuk climbed up to explore his pocket. He brushed the little creature away.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’ve always liked coming here, but …’
‘But what, Earthman?’
‘That’s just it – “Earthman”. I don’t belong here with you. I don’t belong anywhere. So I just keep visiting, and moving on.’
‘You could belong here – if you would. If Earth were re-created now, it would be stranger to you than Mars.’
That he could not believe. He shook his head.
‘You feel it would be disloyal to think that – but I fancy it is true, nevertheless,’ Annika said.
‘It can’t be.’ He shook his head again. ‘Anyway, what does it matter?’
‘It matters this much,’ Annika told him, ‘that you are on the verge of finding out that life is not something which can be stopped just because you don’t like it. You are not apart from life: you are a part of it.’
‘What has all that to do with it?’ Bert asked.
‘Just that mere existence is not enough. One exists by barter. One lives by giving – and taking.’
‘I see,’ said Bert, but doubtfully.
‘I don’t think you do – yet. But it would be better for you to, and better for us, if you were to stay. And there is Zaylo.’
‘Zaylo?’ Bert repeated, wonderingly.
III
Zaylo came to the bank while he was repairing the wheel the next morning. She settled down a few feet away on the slope, and sat with her chin on her knees watching. He looked up and their eyes met. Something entirely unexpected happened to Bert. Yesterday he had seen her as a child grown up, today it was different. There was a pain in his chest and a hammering, the skin on his temples felt oddly tight, his hand trembled so that he almost dropped the bar he was holding. He leaned back against the wheel, staring at her but unable to speak. A long time seemed to pass before he could say anything, and the words sounded clumsy in his own ears.
What they talked about he could never afterwards remember. He could only recall the sight of her. Her expression, the depth of her dark eyes, the gentle movements of her mouth, the way the sun shone on her skin as though there were a mist over polished copper, the lovely line of her breasts, the slim feet in the sand beneath the brightly patterned skirt. There were a host of things he had never noticed before; the modelling of her ears, the way her hair grew, and the ingenuity of coils which could be held firmly on top of her head by the three silver pins, the slenderness of her hands and fingers, the pearled translucence of her teeth, and on through a catalogue of wonders hitherto incredibly unobserved.
It was a day of which Bert recalled very little else but that there seemed to be sections of him being torn slowly and painfully apart, yet still so close that sometimes he looked out from one section, and sometimes from the other. He would see himself in his boat, sliding along the endless canals in the sunlight with vastnesses of desert stretching out on either side, sitting out the sudden dust-storms in his small cabin where the throat-drying sand managed still to penetrate every ingenuity, and then going on as usual to do tinker’s work at the next inhabited area. That was the life he had got used to, and life he had chosen – he could go on with it as before and forget Zaylo – yet he knew it would not be quite as before because it was not going to be easy to forget her. There were pictures which he would not be able to leave behind; Zaylo smiling as she played with her sister’s babies, Zaylo walking, sitting, standing; Zaylo herself. There were dreams rising inadvertent and beneath his guard, imaginings which swam into his mind in spite of his intention to keep them out; the warmth of Zaylo lying beside him, the light weight of her on his arm, the firmness, the lovely colour of her, the relaxation there would be in having a place to lay one’s heart, and a hand to cherish it. It all hurt like a hardened dressing drawing from a wound.
After the evening meal he went away from the rest, and hid himself in his boat. Looking across the table at her it had seemed to him that she saw all that was going on inside him, and knew more about it than he did himself. She made no gesture, no sign, but she was aware of everything with a calmness somehow alarming. He did not know whether he hoped or feared that she might follow him to the boat – but she did not come.
The sun set while he sat, unconscious that he had begun to shiver with the chill of the Martian night. After a time he moved stiffly, and roused himself. He paddled through the few inches of water and climbed the bank. Phobos was shedding a dim light across the fields and the arid land beyond. The ruined tower was a misshapen black shadow.
Bert stood looking out into the great darkness where his home had been. Mars was a trap to hold him alive, but he would not let it pet and tame him. He was not to be wheedled by softness from the harsh grudge he owed providence. His allegiance was to Earth, the things of Earth, the memory of Earth. It would have been better to have died when the mountains and oceans of Earth were burst open; to have become one more mote among the millions memorially circling in the dark. Existence now was not life to be lived; it was a token of protest against the ways of fate.
He peered long into the sky hoping to see one of the asteroids which once was some corner of the loved, maternal Earth: perhaps, among the myriad points that shone, he did.
A wave of desolation swept through him; a hungry abyss of loneliness opened inside him. Bert raised his clenched fists high above his head. He shook them at the uncaring stars, and cursed them while the tears ran down his cheeks.
As the far-off chugging of the engine faded slowly into silence there was only the clinking of the tinkerbells to disturb the night. Zaylo looked at her mother with misty eyes.
‘He has gone,’ she whispered, forlornly.
Annika took her hand, and pressed it comfortingly:
‘He is strong, but strength comes from life – he cannot be stronger than life. He will be back soon – quite soon, I think.’ She put up her hand and stroked her daughter’s hair. After a pause she added: ‘When he comes, my Zaylo, be gentle with him. These Earthmen have big bodies, but inside them there are lost children.’
Meteor
The house shook, the windows rattled, a framed photograph slipped off the mantel-shelf and fell into the hearth. The sound of a crash somewhere outside arrived just in time to drown the noise of the breaking glass. Graham Toffts put his drink down carefully, and wiped the spilt sherry from his fingers.
‘That sort of thing takes you back a bit,’ he observed. ‘First instalment of the new one, would you think?’
Sally shook her head, spinning the fair hair out a little so that it glistened in the shaded light.
‘I shouldn’t think so. Not like the old kind, anyway – they used to come with a sort of double-bang as a rule,’ she said.
She crossed to the window and pulled back the curtain. Outside there was complete darkness and a sprinkle of rain on the panes.
‘Could have been an experimental one gone astray?’ she suggested.
Footsteps sounded in the hall. The door opened, and her father’s head looked in.
‘Did you hear that?’ he asked, unnecessarily. ‘A small meteor, I fancy. I thought I saw a dim flash in the field beyond the orchard.’ He withdrew. Sally made after him. Graham, following more leisurely, found her firmly grasping her father’s arm.
‘No!’ she was saying, decisively. ‘I’m not going to have my dinner kept waiting and spoiled. Whatever it is, it will keep.’
Mr Fontain looked at her, and then at Graham.
‘Bossy; much too bossy. Always was. Can’t think what you want to marry her for,’ he said.
After dinner they went out to search with electric lamps. There was not much trouble in locating the scene of the impact. A small crater, some eight feet across, had appeared almost in the middle of the field. They regarded it without learning much, while Sally’s terrier, Mitty, sniffed over the newly turned earth. Whatever had caused it had presumably buried it
self in the middle.
‘A small meteorite, without a doubt,’ said Mr Fontain. ‘We’ll set a gang on digging it out tomorrow.’
Extract from Onns’s Journal:
As an introduction to the notes which I intend to keep, I can scarcely do better than give the gist of the address given to us on the day preceding our departure from Forta* by His Excellency Cottafts. In contrast to our public farewell, this meeting was deliberately made as informal as a gathering of several thousands can be.
His Excellency emphasized almost in his opening words that though we had leaders for the purposes of administration, there was, otherwise, no least amongst us.
‘There is not one of you men and women† who is not a volunteer,’ looking slowly round his huge audience. ‘Since you are individuals, the proportions of the emotions which led you to volunteer may differ quite widely, but, however personal, or however altruistic your impulses may have been, there is a common denominator for all – and that is the determination that our race shall survive.
‘Tomorrow the Globes will go out.
‘Tomorrow, God willing, the skill and science of Forta will break through the threats of Nature.
‘Civilization is, from its beginning, the ability to co-ordinate and direct natural forces – and once that direction has been started, it must be constantly maintained. There have been other dominant species on Forta before ours: they were not civilized, they did not direct Nature: they dwindled and died as conditions changed. But we, so far, have been able to meet conditions as they have changed, and we flourish.
‘We flourish, moreover, in such numbers as undirected Nature could never have sustained. In the past we have surmounted problem after problem to make this possible, but now we find ourselves faced with the gravest problem yet. Forta, our world, is becoming senile, but we are not. We are like spirits that are still young, trapped in a failing body …
‘For centuries we have kept going, adapted, substituted, patched, but now the trap is closing faster, and there is little left to prop it open with. So it is now, while we are still healthy and strong, that we must escape and find ourselves a new home.
‘I do not doubt that great-grandchildren of the present generation’s great-grandchildren will be born on Forta, but life will be harder for them: they will have to spend much more labour simply to keep alive. That is why the Globes must go now, while we have strength and wealth to spare.
‘And for you who go in them – what? Even guesses are vain. The Globes will set out for the four corners of the heavens, and where they land they may find anything – or nothing. All our arts and skills will set you on your courses. But, once you have left, we can do no more than pray that you, our seed, will find fruitful soil.’
He paused, lengthily. Then he went on:
‘Your charge you know, or you would not have offered yourselves. Nevertheless, it is one which you will not be able to learn too well, nor teach too often. In the hands of each and every one of you lies a civilization. Every man and woman of you is at once the receptacle and the potential fountain of all that Forta signifies. You have the history, the culture, the civilization of a planet. Use it. Use it well. Give it to others where it will help. Be willing to learn from others, and improve it if you can. Do not try to preserve it intact; a culture must grow to live. For those who cling too fondly to the past there is likely to be no future. Remember that it is possible that there is no intelligence elsewhere in the universe, which means that some of you will hold a trust not only for our race, but for all conscious life that may evolve.
‘Go forth, then. Go in wisdom, kindliness, peace, and truth.
‘And our prayers will go out with you into the mysteries of space …’
… I have looked again through the telescope at our new home. Our group is, I think, lucky. It is a planet which is neither too young nor too old. Conditions were better than before, with less cloud over its surface. It shines like a blue pearl. Much of the part I saw was covered with water – more than two-thirds of it, they tell me, is under water. It will be good to be in a place where irrigation and water supply are not one of the main problems of life. Nevertheless, one hopes that we shall be fortunate enough to make our landing on dry ground or there may be very great difficulties …
I looked, too, at some of the places to which other Globes are bound, some small, some large, some new, with clouded surfaces that are a mystery. One at least is old, and in not much better case than our own poor Forta – though the astronomers say that it has the ability to support life for several millions of years. But I am glad that our group is going to the blue, shining world: it seems to beckon us, and I am filled with a hope which helps to quieten my fears of the journey.
Not that fears trouble me so much now; I have learnt some fatalism in the past year. I shall go into the Globe, and the anaesthetic gas will lull me to sleep without my being aware of it. When I wake again it will be on our shimmering new world … If I do not wake, something will have gone wrong, but I shall never know that …
Very simple, really – if one has faith …
This evening I went down to look at the Globes; to see them objectively for the last time. Tomorrow, in all the bustle and preparation there will be no time for reflection – and it will be better so.
What a staggering, amazing – one had almost said impossible – work they are! The building of them has entailed labour beyond computation. They look more likely to crush the ground and sink into Forta herself than to fly off into space. The most massive things ever built! I find it almost impossible to believe that we can have built thirty of these metal mountains, yet there they stand, ready for tomorrow …
And some of them will be lost …
Oh, God, if ours may survive, let us never forget. Let us show ourselves worthy of this supreme effort …
It can well be that these are the last words I shall ever write. If not, it will be in a new world and under a strange sky that I continue …
‘You shouldn’t have touched it,’ said the Police Inspector, shaking his head. ‘It ought to have been left where it was until the proper authorities had inspected it.’
‘And who,’ inquired Mr Fontain coldly, ‘are the proper authorities for the inspection of meteors?’
‘That’s beside the point. You couldn’t be sure it was a meteor, and these days a lot of other things besides meteors can fall out of the sky. Even now you’ve got it up you can’t be sure.’
‘It doesn’t look like anything else.’
‘All the same, it should have been left to us. It might be some device still on the Secret List.’
‘The Police, of course, knowing all about things on the Secret List?’
Sally considered it time to break in.
‘Well, we shall know what to do next time we have a meteor, shan’t we? Suppose we all go and have a look at it? It’s in the outhouse now, looking quite unsecret.’
She led the way round to the yard, still talking to stave off a row between the Inspector and her father.
‘It only went a surprisingly short way down, so the men were soon able to get it out. And it turned out to be not nearly as hot as we’d expected, either, so they could handle it quite easily.’
‘You’d not say “quite easily” if you’d heard the language they used about the weight of it,’ observed her father.
‘It’s in here,’ Sally said, leading the party of four into a musty, single-storey shed.
The meteor was not an impressive sight. It lay in the middle of the bare board floor; just a rugged, pitted, metallic-looking sphere something over two feet in diameter.
‘The only kind of weapon that it suggests to me is a cannon-ball,’ said Mr Fontain.
‘It’s the principle,’ retorted the Inspector. ‘We have standing orders that any mysterious falling object is to remain untouched until it has been examined by a War Office expert. We have already informed them, and it must not be moved again until their man has had a look at it.’
/> Graham, who had hitherto taken no part, stepped forward and put his hand on it.
‘Almost cold now,’ he reported. ‘What’s it made of?’ he added curiously.
Mr Fontain shrugged.
‘I imagine it’s just an ordinary chunk of meteoric iron. The only odd thing about it to me is that it didn’t come down with more of a bump. If it were any kind of secret weapon, it would certainly be an exceedingly dull one.’
‘All the same, I shall have to give orders that it is not to be moved until the W.O. man has seen it,’ said the Inspector.
They started to move back into the yard, but on the threshold he paused.
‘What’s that sizzling sound?’ he inquired.
‘Sizzling?’ repeated Sally.
‘Kind of hissing noise. Listen!’
They stood still, the Inspector with his head a little on one side. Undeniably there was a faint, persistent sound on a note just within the range of audibility. It was difficult to place. By common impulse they turned back to regard the ball uneasily. Graham hesitated, and then stepped inside again. He leaned over the ball, his right ear turned down to it.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It is.’
Then his eyes closed, and he swayed. Sally ran forward and caught him as he sagged. The others helped her to drag him out. In the fresh air he revived almost immediately.
‘That’s funny. What happened?’ he asked.
‘You’re sure the sound is coming from that thing?’ asked the Inspector.
‘Oh, yes. Not a doubt about it.’
‘You didn’t smell anything queer?’
Graham raised his eyebrows: ‘Oh, gas, you mean. No, I don’t think so.’
‘H’m,’ said the Inspector. He turned a mildly triumphant eye on the older man. ‘Is it usual for meteors to sizzle?’ he inquired.