Three Science Fiction Novellas: From Prehistory to the End of Mankind

by J. -H. Rosny aîné

  The planetary transformations that followed favored the new kingdom: in a compensating manner, its presence became less menacing, for the amount of metal needed by human industry diminished gradually, and seismic disorders brought to the surface massive amounts of iron in its pure state, formerly unattainable to the invaders. Thus, the struggle against them slowed to the point of becoming insignificant. Of what importance was peril on the organic level when one was faced with immense planetary disaster?

  At present, the ferromagnetics barely concern us at all. With our walls of red hematite, of limonite and iron spar coated with bismuth, we imagine ourselves impregnable. But if some improbable upheaval brought water back to the surface, the new kingdom would pose incalculable obstacles to human development, at least to development on any large scale.

  Targ cast a long look over the plain: everywhere he saw the violet hue and the sinusoidal forms unique to ferromagnetic agglomerations.

  “Yes,” he murmured, “if humanity would recover some of its former ambition, it would be necessary to begin the work of the ancestors over again. It would have to destroy the enemy or make use of it. I fear that its destruction is impossible: a new kingdom necessarily carries within itself means of success that defy the predictions and the energy of an old kingdom. In opposite manner, why might we not find a means that would permit the two kingdoms to coexist, even to help each other? Yes, why not . . . insofar as the ferromagnetic world has its origin in our industry? Is this not an indication of some deep compatibility?”

  Then, lifting his gaze toward the huge peaks in the West:

  “Alas, my dreams are foolish. And yet, and yet . . . don’t they help me go on living? Don’t they give me a bit of that youthful happiness that has forever fled from the souls of men?”

  He stood straight, his heart skipped a beat: There before him, in a cleft in the mountain of Shadows, three large white gliders had just appeared.

  III. The Homicidal Planet

  These gliders appeared to skim the Tooth of Purple, inclining toward the abyss. An orange shadow enshrouded them; then they took on a silvery hue in the sun at its zenith.

  “The messengers from the Red-Lands!” cried Mano.

  He brought no new news to his traveling companions; in fact his words were nothing more than a signal cry. The two squadrons hastened their course; soon, their pale forms swooped down toward the emerald wing feathers of the High Springs craft. Greetings resounded, followed by a silence; hearts were heavy; the only sound was the soft hum of engines, and the rustle of wings. All felt the cruel force of these deserts that they seemed to crisscross as masters. Finally Targ demanded, in a fearful voice:

  “Is the extent of the disaster known?”

  “No,” answered a swarthy-faced pilot. “It will be many long hours before we will know exactly. All we know is that the number of dead and wounded is considerable. That would be nothing in comparison! But we fear the loss of several springs.”

  He bowed his head, with bitter calm.

  “Not only are the crops lost, but many of our provisions have disappeared. However, provided there are no further tremors, with the help of High Springs and Devastation, we will be able to live for several years. . . . Our race will temporarily cease to reproduce, and perhaps we can get by without sacrificing anyone.”

  For a moment longer the two squadrons flew side by side, then the pilot with the swarthy face changed direction: those of the Red-Lands moved away.

  They passed between formidable peaks, over the abyss, and along a slope that, once upon a time, would have been covered with pastures: now the ferromagnetics were there, multiplying their descendants.

  “This proves,” Targ mused, “that this slope is rich in human ruins!”

  Once again, they were gliding over valleys and hills; with two-thirds of the day gone, they found themselves three hundred kilometers from the Red-Lands.

  “Still an hour left,” exclaimed Mano.

  Targ scanned the space ahead with his telescope; he perceived, still vaguely, the oasis and the scarlet zone from which it had taken its name. The spirit of adventure, numbed by the encounter with the great gliders, awoke once more in the young man’s heart; he accelerated the speed of his machine and pulled ahead of Mano.

  Flights of birds were circling over the red zone; several advanced toward the squadron. At fifty kilometers from the oasis, they flocked; their monotonous chant confirmed the disaster and predicted immanent tremors. Targ, his heart constricted, listened and watched, unable to speak a word.

  The barren earth appeared to have endured the bite of a gigantic plow; as they came nearer, the oasis revealed its collapsed houses, its ruptured wall, its crops nearly engulfed by the earth, miserable human ants swarming among the rubble . . .

  Suddenly, an immense clamor tore through the atmosphere; the flight of birds scattered in strange confusion; a terrible quivering shook the vast expanse.

  The homicidal planet was finishing its work!

  Targ and Arva alone had uttered a cry of pity and horror. The other aviators continued on their flight, with the calm sadness of the Last Men . . . The oasis lay before them. It resounded with sinister moans. One saw pitiful creatures running, crawling, or gasping for breath; others remained motionless, struck down by death; from time to time a bloody head seemed to rise up from the ground. The spectacle became more and more hideous as they gradually were able to make out what had happened.

  The Nine hovered, uncertain what to do. But the flight of birds, at first agitated by the terror, regained its harmony; no new tremor was expected, it was safe to land.

  Several members of the High Council greeted the delegates from High Springs. Words were few and rapid. The new disaster required all available energies, the Nine joined forces with the rescuers.

  The moans seemed intolerable at first. The atrocious wounds overcame the fatalism of the adults; the cries of the children were like the strident and savage soul of Pain.

  Finally, the anesthetics worked their salutary effect. The most acute suffering sank into the depths of the unconscious. Only scattered cries were heard, the cries of those trapped deep in the ruins.

  One of these cries drew Targ’s attention. It was a cry of fear, not of pain; it had a charm that was enigmatic and sweet. For a long time the young man was unable to locate it . . . Finally he discovered a hollow from which the sound emerged more clearly. The watchman was impeded by slabs of rock, which he began to move aside with care. He was constantly obliged to halt his work, in the face of muted menaces from the mineral world: sudden holes formed, stones fell in landslides, or he heard suspicious vibrations.

  The moaning stopped; nervous tension and fatigue brought sweat to Targ’s temples . . .

  Suddenly all seemed lost; a face of the wall was collapsing. The excavator, feeling himself at the mercy of the mineral world, lowered his head and waited. A block brushed by him; he resigned himself to fate; but silence and stability were restored.

  Raising his eyes, he saw that a huge cavity, almost a cavern, had opened to his left; in the shadows, a human form lay stretched out. With difficulty the young man lifted this living wreck, and exited the ruins, at the exact instant that a new landslide closed the passage . . .

  It was a young woman or an adolescent, dressed in the silver shirt of those of the Red-Lands. Above all other things, her hair stirred the rescuer. It was of that luminous sort that occurred, atavistically, barely once in a century among the daughters of men. Shimmering like precious metals, cool like water welling up from deep springs, it seemed a web of love, a symbol of the grace that had adorned woman throughout the ages.23

  Targ’s heart swelled, a heroic pounding beat through his head; he imagined magnanimous and glorious actions, those which never again came to pass among the Last Men . . . And, as he was admiring the red flower of her lips, the delicate curve of the cheeks and their pearly flesh, two eyes opened, eyes that had the color of mornings, when the sun is vast and nature’s soft breath move
s across the solitary lands . . .

  IV. Into the Depths of the Earth

  It was after dusk. The constellations were rekindling their keen flames. The oasis, silent, concealed its distress and its sorrows. And Targ walked near the wall, his soul in the throes of fever.

  The hour was horrible for the Last Men. One after another, the planetaries had announced immense disasters. Devastation was destroyed; at the Two-Equatorials, at Grand Combe and Blue Sands, the waters had disappeared; it was receding at High Springs; Clear Oasis and Sulfur Valley reported either destructive tremors or rapid loss of water.

  All of humanity was experiencing disaster.

  Targ stepped across the ruined wall, he went out into the silent and terrible desert.

  The moon, nearly full, rendered the feeblest stars invisible; it lit up the red granite and the violet patches of ferromagnetics; a pale phosphorescence pulsated at intervals, a mysterious sign that these new beings were going about their business.

  The young man went forth into the solitude, oblivious of its funereal grandeur.

  A brilliant image shone above the distressing aspects of the catastrophe. The star Vega twinkled like the pupil of a blue eye.24 It seemed to him to be a twin of the vermillion hair. Love was becoming the very essence of his life; and that life was more intense, more profound, prodigious. It opened up to him fully that world of beauty he had intuited, the world for which it was better to die than to live for the dismal ideal of the Last Men. From time to time, like a name become sacred, the name of the one he had pulled from the rubble came to his lips: “Érê.”

  In the ferocious silence, the silence of the eternal desert, comparable to the silence of the vast ether where the stars flickered, he continued on. The air was as immobile as granite; time seemed dead, the space encountered was other than that of men, a space merciless, glacial, haunted by lugubrious mirages.

  And yet, life was there, abominable because it was that which would replace human life, cunning, terrible, unknowable. Twice Targ paused to watch the behavior of the phosphorescent forms. Night never brought them to sleep. They moved here and there, going about some mysterious task; the manner in which they glided across the ground could not be explained as being the product of any organ. But he soon lost interest in them. The image of Érê carried him far away; there was a confused relation between this solitary trek and the heroism reawakened in his soul. In a confused way he was seeking adventure, impossible adventure, chimerical adventure: the discovery of Water!

  Water alone could give him Érê. All the laws of mankind separated him from her. Yesterday, he still could have dreamt of taking her as his wife. All that was necessary was that a girl from High Springs be taken, in exchange, by the Red-Lands. After the catastrophe, such an exchange became impossible. High Springs would take in refugees, but would condemn them to celibacy. The law was inexorable; Targ accepted it as a higher necessity . . .

  The moon was bright; it spread its disc of mother of pearl and silver over the western hills. As if hypnotized, Targ made his way toward it. He came to a place where the soil was rocky. Marks of the disaster remained there; several rocks had been overturned, others were split in half. Everywhere, there were cracks in the siliceous earth.

  “It would seem,” the young man murmured, “that the tremor reached its most violent level here.” His dream faded a bit, the surroundings piqued his curiosity. “Why?” he asked himself again. . . . “Yes, why?”

  He stopped at each moment to examine the rocks, and out of caution as well; this tortured ground had to be full of traps. A strange sense of elation gripped him. He mused that if there were a path to the Water, there was a good chance it might be found in a place like this that had been so radically reconfigured. Having switched on his “radiatrix,” which he always took with him on voyages, he ventured into the cracks and corridors: every one narrowed rapidly, or ended in a cul-de-sac.

  Finally, he found himself in front of a narrow crevice, at the base of a tall, very large rock, which the tremors had barely touched. He needed only to look at the rift, which glittered in places like crystals, to tell that it was recent. Targ, judging it unimportant, was about to move away. The glittering attracted him. Why not explore it? If it were not deep, there would only be a couple of steps to take.

  The crevice revealed itself to be longer than he would have first thought. Nevertheless, after thirty paces or so, it began to narrow; soon Targ thought he would not be able to go any farther. He stopped; he scrupulously examined the details of the walls. The passageway was not totally impracticable, but he had to crawl. The watchman hesitated only an instant; he entered a hole, whose diameter was barely larger than that of a man. The passage, sinuous and strewn with sharp rocks, became narrower yet; Targ wondered if it would be possible for him to turn back.

  He was as if embedded in the depths of the Earth, captive of the mineral realm, a small thing, infinitely weak, which a single stone could pulverize;25 but because he had begun the task, a fever pulsed in him. Were he to abandon the task, before it was seen to be totally impossible, he would hate and despise himself ever afterward. He persevered.

  His limbs soaked with sweat, he crawled for a long time into the bowels of the rock. Finally, he collapsed. The pounding of his heart, which at first sounded like a beating of giant wings, became weaker. It was no more than a feeble palpitation: courage and hope fell from him like heavy burdens. When his heart regained some strength, Targ judged himself ridiculous to have embarked on such a primitive adventure.

  “Am I not a madman?”

  And he began to crawl backward. Then he was smitten with a dreadful despair. The image of Érê flashed across his mind so vividly that she seemed to be beside him in this hole.

  “My madness is still preferable to the terrible wisdom of my fellow men . . . Forward!”

  Again Targ began his adventure; he risked his life with savage determination, resolved only to stop when faced with the insurmountable.

  Luck seemed to reward his audacity; the crevice widened, he found himself in a high basalt corridor whose vault seemed supported by columns of anthracite. A violent joy seized him; he began to run, everything seemed possible.

  But the world of stone is as full of enigmas as was once upon a time the virgin forest. Suddenly, the corridor ended. Targ found himself facing a dark wall, which absorbed all but a few reflected beams from his radiatrix. Nonetheless, he did not stop exploring the walls. And he discovered, at a spot three meters high, the opening of another crevice.

  This was a rather sinuous opening, tilted at a more or less forty-degree angle from the horizontal, large enough to permit the passage of a man. The watchman contemplated it with a mixture of joy and disappointment. It attracted his idle hopes, because here finally was a passage that was not definitely closed; on the other hand, it showed itself in a discouraging light, because it took an upward direction.

  “If it doesn’t turn back downward again, chances are it will take me back to the surface instead of into the depths,” the explorer grumbled.

  He made a gesture that was heedless and defiant, a gesture that was alien to him, as to all men of his time, and that recalled some ancestral gesture. Then, he made preparations to scale the wall.

  It was almost vertical and slick. But Targ had brought with him a ladder made of arcum fibers, an item aviators never forgot to carry. He drew it from his tool sack. After having served several successive generations, it was as supple and strong as the day it was made. He unrolled its fine, light texture and, taking it by the middle, gave it the necessary toss. The movement was perfectly executed. The hooks at the end of the ladder took hold effortlessly in the basalt. In a few seconds the explorer reached the opening.

  He could not hold back a cry of displeasure. For if the crevice was perfectly accessible, on the other hand it sloped upward quite steeply. So many efforts would then have been in vain!

  Nonetheless, after folding the ladder, Targ entered the crevice. The first steps were di
fficult. Then the terrain leveled off, a corridor opened up, wide enough that several men could have walked down it abreast. Unfortunately, the path still sloped upward. The watchman estimated that he must be some fifteen meters above the level of the external plain; the subterranean voyage was becoming an ascension! . . .

  He went on toward the end, whatever it might be, with a bitter calm, all the while reproaching himself about this mad adventure: what had he done to make a discovery that would surpass in importance all the other discoveries men had made for hundreds of centuries? Was it enough merely that he had a fanciful character, a soul more rebellious than others, in order to succeed there where the collective effort, equipped with remarkable tools, had failed? An attempt such as his, did it not call for a resignation and a patience that were absolute?

  Distracted, he did not notice that the path was becoming less arduous. It had become horizontal when, with a sudden start, he came to his senses: a few steps in front of him, the gallery was beginning to slope downward! . . .

  It descended gradually, for a distance of more than a kilometer. Large, deeper in the middle than on the edges, the path was in general easily practicable, barely impeded by a stone here, a fissure there. Without a doubt, at some distant period in the past, a subterranean stream flowed here.

  Even so, debris had piled up, among which was some recent rubble; then the passage seemed blocked again.

  “The gallery did not end here,” the young man said. “Some upheaval in the Earth’s crust caused this rupture, but when? Yesterday . . . a thousand years ago . . . a hundred million years ago?”

  He did not stop to examine the mass of fallen rocks, among which he would have recognized signs of recent convulsions. All of his perspicacity was directed toward finding an opening. It was not long before he located a fissure. Narrow and high, hard, rough, repellant, it did not lead him astray: he found his gallery again. It continued its descent, becoming more and more spacious as it went: finally, its average width reached more than one hundred meters.