News From Elsewhere (20 page)

“Kanna-Belle!” exclaimed Ynky in rapture. “What a perfect name.”

The Komodo dragon blushed once again. “It is unusual, isn’t it?”

“So tender, so appropriate,” said Ynky.

The Komodo dragon smiled, displaying rows of flawless teeth. “Oh, well, if you say so.” She turned toward the flying saucer. “Tell me, dear Ynky, what is
that
peculiar thing?”

Ynky puffed out his chest and explained his mission.

“Theoretically,” he concluded, “I should repair the saucer and take my report back to Woz. But, beloved, I can’t possibly recommend fumigation of the planet where we first set eyes on each other.”

“I should think not,” said the Komodo dragon indignantly. “Especially as I have no desire to emigrate. I am perfectly well adjusted to my present environment, thank you.”

“But there is my duty to consider,” said Ynky sadly. “Although you may not be aware of it, Kanna-Belle, the lizards of Woz are the most enlightened in the galaxy. Destiny has chosen us for the creation of a galactic empire which will be a monument to the indomitability of the lizard spirit for all time.”

“How terribly aggressive you are,” said the Komodo dragon demurely. “It frightens me.”

Ynky, who had completely lost his heart to this adorable creature, threw himself at her feet and said, “Kanna-Belle, I cannot bear to make you unhappy. If only it were possible for me to stay with you in this delicious paradise.”

The Komodo dragon looked thoughtful. “Perhaps that can be arranged,” she whispered. And her voice held such promise that Ynky forgot all about fumigation and galactic empires.

He leaped up exultantly. “My darling, why not? We will be inseparable.”

“Forever,” agreed the Komodo dragon with a faraway look in her eyes.

“The perfect partnership,” said Ynky. “My brains and your beauty.”

“Indissolubly united,” smiled Kanna-Belle, coiling her long and magnificent tail. “In life, and also in death. . . . Forgive me for mentioning it, my love, but I am really quite famished.”

Whereupon two hundred pounds of muscle uncoiled with the speed of a whiplash and the function of a blackjack. Ynky was permitted one moment of horrified disbelief before his confused brain was efficiently homogenized. He hit the ground with a reproachful sigh.

The Komodo dragon measured his corpse critically and

129

shook her head. Ynky was just a trifle undernourished by Komodo standards.

“Much better, my love,” she soliloquized sadly, “than a broken heart.... And how noble to perish for an ideal!”

Then she sat down and systematically ate him.

And this, my friends, is the true reason why Earth will not be fumigated for at least a couple of centuries, why Sam Goodwin’s Shady Nook Cafe has been remodeled as The Flying Saucer Roadhouse, why Ivan Sergeyevitch Poushov is an assistant ticket collector at Tomsk, and why Kanna-Belle, the Komodo dragon, has a snug circular apartment in the jungle—with atomic air conditioning!

The United Nations ship swooped low like a kingfisher over the vast desert, then rose suddenly in a bright arc of ascent as if she had decided that Mars was not worth exploring anyway. But at ten thousand meters the swift climb died into a moment of motionless beauty; and she sat lightly on a tail of green flame, suspended between stars and destination, until imperceptibly the flame shortened and she sank gently toward the arid waste.

Touch-down was smooth and undramatic. So smooth that it might have been the hundredth touch-down of a regular interplanetary ship handled by a bored and seasoned crew. As it happened, however, this was an occasion—one that would eventually become a date in a history book to plague the memory of small boys—for neither the United Nations ship nor any other terrestrial vehicle had visited the Red Planet before. And her crew 
were the first human beings to venture farther than the moon.

They were, however, all fairly experienced space travelers. Colonel Maxim Krenin, the director of the expedition and pilot of the
Pax Mundi,
had made the Earth-moon shoot five times. He had also made more than a score of lunar test shoots. So had Commander Howard Thrace, the navigator. And besides providing a very notable example of Russo-American technical cooperation, these two were firm personal friends.

The remaining three members of the expedition, Professor Bernard Thompson, representing Britain, Professor Yves Frontenac, representing France, and Dr. Chan S. Chee, representing China, had each logged at least three major shoots and an impressive number of satellite-orbit hours. During the long fall to Mars, they had had ample time to shake down as a team and to work out their exploration strategy in detail.

And now here they were in their slender titanium hull, poised like a classic monument on the equatorial Martian desert. Radiac tests had been made, the ground-level atmosphere had been analyzed, and the first Earthmen were about to set foot on the sands of Mars—symbolically, perhaps, at high noon.

Even before they stepped outside the ship, they already knew enough about Mars to be slightly humiliated by their own previous theories and the general opinion of scientists on Earth.

For decades, terrestrial astronomers had assured everyone that Mars was virtually inimical to life—despite an insistent popular belief in grotesque and complex life forms and even Martian intelligence.

Mars, claimed the astronomers with all the authority of men capable of making powerful deductions on the most slender evidence, was a planet almost without oxygen, water, or warmth. The so-called canals were not canals at all but a series of flux fissures entirely geological in origin. And they went on to predict that, because of the climate, the most highly developed forms of life that could be expected would be similar to lichen, perhaps, or simple cacti.

These, roughly, had been the general views of the U.N. expedition—until their arrival. But even before touch
down, while they were orbiting at a hundred thousand meters, they were able to discern among other things that the canals were, in fact—or had been—canals, and that the atmosphere contained enough oxygen to support human life if not comfortably, at least bearably.

Then, when they went into low-level orbit, they made a discovery that seemed to eclipse everything else—except perhaps the canals—in significance.

They saw pyramids: ten tremendous Martian pyramids spaced at great distances from each other over the comparatively featureless plains and naked deserts. The discovery was more than a discovery, it was a revelation. And the revelation had more significance, more far-reaching implications, than any other discovery in the entire history of man.

More than four centuries previously an obscure Polish astronomer, Nicolaus Copernicus, had shocked the world by his assertion that Earth was not uniquely fixed at the center of the cosmos. But eventually both theology and pride had recovered from the blow. For though Earth itself could no longer be regarded as unique in size, position, or significance, its master race,
Homo sapiens,
was still the chosen of God. Nowhere else, it was held, could there be creatures of such intelligence and inventiveness, able to be used as divine instruments in the eternal battle between good and evil. So said the priests and the philosophers and all who contributed to the cult of human significance.

And for four hundred years the proposition of the uniqueness of man was not seriously challenged.

But now?

The news of the Martian pyramids had already been beamed to Lunar City and Earth before the U.N. ship touched down. And back had come a definitive order to abandon for the time being the orderly sequence of scientific exploration and concentrate upon the pyramids. The expedition to Mars was, in financial terms, an extremely costly venture; and as, in the end, it would be the ordinary citizens who would have to foot the bill, here was a chance to give them something truly spectacular for their money.

The order did not cause any disappointment at all among the U.N. team. The mystery of the pyramids was

hypnotic in a way that no previous space discovery had ever been. Somehow the existence of structures designed and built by intelligent beings established an atmosphere of contact and communication which considerably diminished the heavy mood of loneliness that had built up on the long shoot to Mars. It was as if Mars had expected the 
Pax Mundi,
as if the pyramids were a kind of gigantic planetary greeting.

The nearest one now lay some three kilometers to the north of the U.N. ship, its smooth black symmetry rising almost half a kilometer from the desert. As Colonel Krenin came out of the airlock, glanced momentarily at the impressive shape, and then made his way down the nylon ladder, his feeling of awe seemed to expand like a great inward bubble.

Then suddenly the historic moment was over before he was aware of it. He had already set foot on the sands of Mars. After him came Commander Thrace and the rest. None of them said anything for nearly three minutes. They just stood and stared.

Presently the honor of uttering the first terrestrial words on the planet fell to Professor Thompson. He gazed at the pyramid, sighed deeply, and in modem Lingua Franca said, “At this very moment, more than anything, I want a cigarette.”

“Why not?” remarked Dr. Chee blandly. “The oxygen content of the air is rich enough. But I do not think your cigarette will taste quite the same.”

“Have a Gauloise,” said Professor Frontenac.

“Have a Stuyvesant,” said Commander Thrace.

The Englishman frowned slightly, felt in his own pocket, then accepted a French cigarette.

“You’re right,” he remarked after a few moments. “They taste quite different.”

“Gentlemen,” said Colonel Krenin., “a formal speech will be required for transmission to Earth, and since my Lingua Franca is less proficient than it might be. . . .” He took a miniature recorder from his shoulder bag and looked at his companions hopefully.

Professor Frontenac smiled. “The pyramids are probably the remains of a civilization that was ancient even when terrestrial man was still a creature of the caves and forests. Among us, Dr. Chee represents one of the oldest 
terrestrial civilizations. I think perhaps it is fitting . .

Dr. Chee bowed, then made a brief speech for the benefit of Krenin’s recorder, the waiting millions on Earth, and perhaps a solar posterity. He spoke of the wonder of the journey, the even greater wonder of discovery, and the solemnity of touch-down. But even Dr. Chee’s restrained language and abstract nouns could not avoid contamination by the boyish excitement and impatience that suddenly gripped the U.N. team.

While he was still talking, Commander Thrace ran back up the nylon ladder and swung the light electric derrick out from the ship’s lower entry-port. Then he and Professor Frontenac began to lower sections of the six-seater hiduminium monowheel they had brought. Soon the others were assembling it, and in less than half an hour the twenty-foot-diameter transport wheel was operational with its gyr©stabilizer purring evenly.

Professor Thompson shaded his eyes and gazed at the pyramid, massive and somber under the bright Martian sun. “Perhaps we should eat something before we venture on any exploration,” he suggested without much conviction.

“Do you feel like eating?” inquired Dr. Chee.

“No, but I thought—”

“I will bring some emergency packs,” called Colonel Krenin from the ship’s open airlock. “If necessary, we can dine at the pyramid.”

Commander Thrace had been staring fixedly at what appeared to be a large, rounded boulder, some fifty centimeters high, which lay a few meters from the base of the ship.

“Anybody notice this before?” he asked.

No one could remember seeing it.

“Look,” said the Commander. “Look closely.”

The boulder was moving very slowly over the dull red sand. They watched it move across what looked like a tiny patch of moss; but when the boulder had passed, the plant was no longer to be seen.

Frontenac went up to the boulder and touched it. Then he tapped it. There was a look of ecstatic mystification on his face.

“Let’s turn it over,” suggested Thrace.

They did so. The face of the underside was soft. It seemed like a compound of sponge and snail. Very slowly it began to withdraw into the security of its thick protective shell.

“Marvelous, superb, exquisite!” exclaimed Frontenac, lapsing into his native French. “What a beautiful animal!”

“Or plant,” added Thompson dryly.

“Animal,” insisted the Frenchman. “By all the laws—”

“On Mars,” interrupted Thompson, “the definitions we have been accustomed to use may not necessarily apply.”

Gently they replaced the “boulder” face down on the sand.

“Now we must go to the pyramid,” said Colonel Krenin. “Earth will want our first report quickly. I have put the still, cine-, and telecameras in the monowheel. Do each of you carry crew radios and personal recorders?”

They nodded.

“What of my specimen?” said Frontenac. “I wish to observe it.”

“Then you will also observe the ship,” said Krenin, smiling. “Someone should stay.”