News From Elsewhere (10 page)

Lukas almost ignored him. His attention was riveted to the tractor.

Chirico was sitting at the wheel, stiff as a ramrod, gaz
ing fixedly ahead with a vacancy of expression that seemed to suggest a state of hypnosis. Duluth, his eyes open, his brain still working, had slumped on his seat in a catatonic stupor. Alsdorf lay quietly on the floor, curled up in a tight foetal ball.

With a sudden blaze of anger, Lukas turned to Masumo, raising his arm for a crushing blow. Then he saw the expression in the old hominid’s eyes, and his arm dropped impotently to his side.

It was as if the landscape had darkened, as if Masumo had somehow become luminous, as if he had grown taller than the ship. As if his head had suddenly filled the yellow sky.

Lukas gazed at the eyes, fascinated. They became lakes, then whirlpools of infinite depth, drawing him down. Masumo’s smile did not change, his lips did not move, but the voice spoke once more.

It was a calm, quiet voice. And yet, the voice of thunder.

“
Man-of-the-sky, you came to my village, and 1 read your heart. I saw there the picture of your machine-made civilization, its dreams of conquest, its nightmares of fear. Your people are but children. We can allow them to play a little longer. But presently they must put away their childish toys. Presently they must learn to take their place as a single world-spirit m the star culture of immortals.

Men live and die. But the racial purpose is beyond time. We of this world had learned to surrender to that purpose, to become one with all world-spirits throughout the vast pattern of stars, before your people could stand upright on two feet.

Someday your race will find itself and freely follow the universal destiny. We, the enlightened ones, whom you have chosen to see only as ignorant savages, will await you. Until then it is our task to see that you do not plunder the stars too much.

Suspecting the reason for your visit, Man-of-the-sky, we tested you and your companions with the rare metals you desire. And thus we learned how far you have yet to travel to reach enlightenment. . .
 
.

You will leave this planet now. When you are voyaging through the dark oceans of the sky, your companions will recover. But neither they nor you will remember these 
happenings. You will know only that the journey was futile, that the planet was barren of all you sought. . .
 
. 
Farewell, Man-of-the-sky. May your people reach the ultimate tranquillity in which diverse worlds—greater in number than the sands of the sea—have found their common end.”

Suddenly Masumo seemed to return to his normal stature. He raised his arm once more to Lukas, lightly touched the center of his forehead, then turned and walked slowly away over the sand belt toward the dark line of the forest.

Lukas watched until the hominid was no more than a moving speck. Then, like a remotely controlled automaton, he went to the tractor.

Presently, some time after the sun had set, the
 
Henri Poincare
 
emitted a jet of green flame from its planetary drive. Swiftly it began to climb in a blinding arc until, moving up into the reaches of sunlight again, its path was etched like a bow of burning gold.

In the few seconds before it passed beyond the visible range, it was observed from the surface of Fomalhaut Three—by eyes that were no longer dark and without luster. Eyes that radiated an incomprehensible power, that glowed like twin diamonds, that burned like bright binary stars.

I am an old man now, but the memory of that September morning fifty years ago has burned into my brain so that day or night the scene is still alive for me with all the terrible reality of a nightmare. I shall not be sorry to die, because then the memory too will die. And for me that is the only possible meaning of peace.

Sometimes I realize that it is very pleasant here on the farm in this Derbyshire valley. Especially in spring when I have finished the morning stint of weaving and can look forward to spending a long, lazy afternoon sitting in the doorway of my cottage. There is nothing to do then but watch the sunlight slanting over low blue-green hills and 
listen to the
voices of the children at play. And wait until 
darkness
falls. . . .

They are a strange breed, these children of the Dark Age. Their blue eyes are filled with longing and their thoughts are centered not upon the future but on what they regard as the glorious past. The age of heroes, the almost mythical age of powered machines and teeming cities, radio and television, jetcraft and fast cars.

And on clear evenings there are still satellites passing across the sky like bright stars in hurried transit. A few nights ago one of them fell out of orbit and passed through the upper atmosphere, a thin, curved shaft of radiance, until the friction made it explode into a tiny flower of light. And so, perhaps, they will all eventually come down—one by one, until there is nothing left to show that man was once at the very gateway to the stars.

The children like to hear about the satellites. But I think they do not quite believe in them. Or at least, not in the way that I do. As a survivor of the age in which satellites were fired into orbit, I can recognize them for what they are—engines of destruction, awaiting the signal to release their bombs from a button that is no longer there to be pushed. Though some of them—the first ones—are no more than tiny celestial laboratories, perhaps still sending their faint bleep-bleeps down to a deaf world. . . .

For the children, however, the satellites are simply mobile stars—impressive only because they were sent upon their lonely journeys by the Great Ones.

The Great Ones!

It is sad to think that an entire mythology can grow in the space of a single lifetime. Human beings do not seem to be able to live without myths, and perhaps, after all, the myths created from an already shadowy past are merely clouded mirror images of hope for the future. Perhaps the children are creating for themselves some kind of challenge, an ideal that will carry them through this Dark Age into a world where progress will have a clearer objective than racial suicide.

Yet whenever I hear them talk of the Great Ones, I find it hard to suppress a surge of bitter inward laughter. Somehow I manage to keep silent, for it is unwise to disillusion the young. But I cannot help thinking that now there are probably less than ten million people on a planet that once supported nearly four thousand million. And that, to me, is a fitting epitaph for the Great Ones. . . .

I remember them as men—ordinary men in an extraordinary world of their own m
akin
g. Men with fast brains and slow hearts, with the gift of creation in their dreams and the impulse of destruction in their fingers.

Most of all, I remember that bright September morning when civilization died, and the few terrible days that followed when it seemed as if the human race could no longer survive.

It was a crisp and beautiful morning, with sunlight spreading a gold patina over fields and hills and cities, and with all the strange, exhilarating scents of early autumn drifting lazily across the still air.

I had just been discharged from the hospital after a minor operation. And to me the world was doubly attractive, because after spending two weeks in the restricted cosmos of a general ward, I felt as if I were seeing it for the first time.

Justine, my wife, had come to meet me. We were both especially pleased because I had been discharged in time to celebrate her twenty-fifth birthday. She had a taxi ready to take me home, and I remember how we quarreled a little even while we were kissing each other, because I wanted to walk through the park and she was convinced that the effort would exhaust me. Eventually I won my point. The morning was too lovely for us to waste any of it riding in a taxi, and we set off arm in arm, walking very slowly because my muscles were still stiff and, although the incision had healed remarkably well, my stomach was still very tender.

After twenty minutes we reached the park. By then the exertion of being upright was beginning to tell on me, so we found a bench where I could sit down and rest for a 
few minutes. We were not the only ones taking advantage of the sunshine. Here and there babies and small children were romping about, watched indulgently by their mothers, while on the other benches a few old people basked with half-closed eyes as if they had all the time in the world before them.

About two hundred yards away I noticed a small group of people standing in the middle of the carriageway. They looked as if they were gazing at something on the ground, but I didn’t pay much attention until I saw a figure detach itself from the group and run quickly toward the far end of the park. Somewhere in the distance we heard the incongruously frenzied ring of an ambulance bell.

“There must have been an accident,” said Justine. “Do you think I ought to . .

“No, darling,” I said. “Stay here and look after your own invalid. There are enough people about, and I suppose they’ve done what’s necessary.”

The ambulance had already turned into the broad carriageway at the other end of die park.

“I should hate to have to go into the hospital on a morning like this,” murmured Justine as she watched the ambulance heading toward the little group.

“Hear, hear,” I agreed with some feeling. “Maybe it’s not very serious. I expect some dear old soul has slipped on a banana skin, or something like that.”

But even as I spoke the subtle ordinariness of that lazy autumn morning was crushed like a rose beneath some invisible foot. Suddenly the ambulance swerved from the carriageway and lurched drunkenly across the grass toward a large oak tree. The thud of impact rolled dully through the still air.

“My God! What the hell—” I stopped. A small child—a girl of about seven—who had been playing near our bench suddenly began to scream. But the scream was terminated abruptly by a spasm of projectile vomiting. Her whole body convulsed as the contents of her stomach were thrown up in a thin, pathetic stream.

Justine jumped to her feet and ran toward the child. But she had taken no more than half a dozen steps before the little girl crumpled at the knees and fell onto the grass, her tiny body still shaken by that terrible retching.

By the time I had managed to get to my feet and walk gingerly to where Justine was kneeling by the child, the convulsion had subsided into a peculiar twitching. Justine was loosening the little girl’s frock, which seemed to be rather tight. I tried to kneel down and help her, but there was a sudden stab of pain in my operation scar and I couldn’t.

I just looked down helplessly at the now unconscious child. Mucus was trickling slowly from her nose and out of the comer of her mouth. Justine had loosened the clothing and was cradling the little girl in her arms. Occasionally there was a deep sigh and then half a moan, as if the child were simply asleep and troubled by nightmares.

“What is it, darling?” asked Justine, gazing at me anxiously. “We shall have to get some help, shan’t we?”

I was about to reassure her that it was probably just a nasty spot of tummy trouble when I remembered the ambulance and glanced vaguely across the park to see what was happening. The words died on my lips.

About forty yards away an old man was being sick. The way he heaved almost made me think I could hear his gasping. A little beyond him a youngish woman had fallen from one of the park benches and lay on the ground, her limbs contorting as if she had suddenly become a victim of some kind of epileptic fit.

Farther away there was a young mother running toward a child who was trying to scream and be sick at the same time. But after eight or nine steps she too collapsed and became helpless in the grip of her own spasms.

It was happening everywhere. With terrifying abruptness, the park had begun to look like a nightmarish battleground where an invisible enemy struck quickly and at random. A few minutes ago there had been nothing more important to do than sit on a bench and bask in the warm serenity of 'an early autumn day. But now . . .

Now I thought that perhaps I was mad. There was a terrible sound in my ears, which for a second or two I refused to recognize. It was strangely low, yet piercing, and seemed to come not only from the park but from the entire city beyond. It was the sound of people. . . .

Justine’s eyes were wide with horror. I wanted to give her some comfort or reassurance, but I had none to give.

“Oh, darling!” she cried. “
What’s happening
?”

I could only look at her helplessly. The weakness I had felt after coming out of hospital seemed to be rolling over me in waves.

Then the child stirred. She opened her eyes and glanced at Justine with a puzzled expression.

“Where is Mummy? I’m hurting. I want—” She began to sob.

“Mummy is coming,” said Justine. “She won’t be long now. We’ll just look after you until—”

But suddenly Justine was flung over backwards as the pathetic little body became racked with convulsions. The whole frenzied attack could not have lasted more than half a minute. Then the convulsions gave way to a harsh, dry coughing. The child’s fingers burrowed into the earth until she was clutching tiny handfuls of soil and grass. I could not bear to see the expression on her face.

“We’ve got to get away from here,” I said desperately. “It’s like some damned plague spot. There must be somewhere that—”