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

by J. -H. Rosny aîné

  Targ’s last doubts vanished: a veritable subterranean river, long ago, had flowed there. A priori, this belief was encouraging. On further reflection, it bothered the Oasis Dweller. Nothing at all proved that because water once flowed here abundantly, that there was water now anywhere close by. On the contrary! All the springs actually being used were located far from the places where the life-giving liquid had once flowed . . . It was almost a law.

  Three times more, the gallery seemed to end in a cul-de-sac; each time, Targ found a way through. It finally ended, however. An immense hole, a gulf appeared before the man’s eyes.

  Sad and tired, he sat down on the stone. This was a moment more terrible than when he crawled, above, through the stifling gallery. Any further effort would be bitter folly. He had to go back! Yet his heart revolted at the thought. The soul of adventure stirred in him, enforced by the astonishing voyage he had just undertaken. The abyss no longer held terror for him.

  “And what if one had to die?” he exclaimed.

  Already he sought handholds in the granite.

  Given over to these sudden inspirations, he had already descended, miraculously, to a depth of thirty meters, when he made a false movement, and slipped.

  “It’s finished!” he sighed.

  He tumbled into the abyss.

  V. In the Depths of the Abyss

  A shock broke his fall. Not the brutal shock of falling on granite, but an elastic shock, violent enough however to knock him senseless. When he regained consciousness, he found himself suspended in the semidarkness, and, feeling over himself, he discovered that an outcropping of rock had snagged his tool bag. The straps of the bag, attached to his trunk, supported him; as they were made, like his ladder, of arcum fibers, he knew that they would not break. The bag, however, could slip off the outcropping.

  Targ felt strangely calm. He leisurely calculated his chances of being lost, or saved. The sack was caught on the overhang near the place where the straps were attached, which meant the anchor was solid. The explorer felt around the rocky wall. Besides the outcropping, his hand encountered rough surfaces, then the void; his feet found, toward the left, a foothold that he judged, after a few gropings, to be a small platform. By taking hold of the outcropping on one hand, and on the other hand by propping himself up on the platform, he was able to do without any other support.

  When he had chosen the position he judged the most convenient, he succeeded in detaching his bag. Much freer to move now, he flashed the beams of his radiatrix in all directions. The platform was large enough for a man to stand erect, and even make slight movements. Above, a ridge of rock allowed at the most for securing the hooks of the ladder; after this, an ascent seemed possible, back to the place from which the Oasis Dweller had fallen. Below, there was nothing but the abyss, sheer vertical walls.

  “I can go back up,” the young man concluded. . . . “But to go down is impossible.”

  He no longer pondered the fact that he had just escaped death; vexation at this vain failed effort alone tormented his soul. With a long sigh, he let go of the overhang and, holding on to the rough places, he succeeded in placing himself on the platform. His temples were buzzing, a torpor took hold of his limbs and his brain; his discouragement weighed so heavily that he felt himself little by little succumbing to the dizzying attraction of the void. When he came to his senses, he ran his fingers instinctively over the granite wall, and realized once again that it disappeared, at about halfway his height. He bent down then, he uttered a weak cry: the platform was located at the entrance to a cavity, which the beams of his radiatrix showed to be of considerable magnitude.

  He laughed silently. If he went down to defeat, at least he would have lived an adventure that was worth being attempted!

  Checking to see that none of his tools were missing, and especially that the arcum ladder was in good working order, he entered into the cavern. It spread before him a vault of rock crystal and gems. At each movement of the lamp, rays bounced around the walls, mysterious and enchanting. The souls of myriad crystals awoke to his light: here was a subterranean twilight, dazzling and fleeting, an infinitesimal hailstorm of colors that were scarlet, orange, jonquil, hyacinth, or red of sinop.26 Targ saw there a reflection of mineral life, of that life form both vast and minuscule, menacing and deep, that had the last word on mankind, that, one day, would have the last word on the ferromagnetic kingdom as well.

  At this moment, Targ had no fear of it. Yet he held this cavern in the same respect that all Last Men vowed to these mute beings that, having presided over the Beginnings, have kept their forms and powers intact.

  A vague mysticism stirred within him, not the hopeless mysticism of the decadent Oasis Dwellers, but the mysticism that once, long ago, had inspired reckless hearts. Even though he still distrusted the snares of the Earth, at least he had that faith that derives from successful actions and that carries victories from the past into the future.

  Beyond the cavern there was a corridor with irregular slopes. Several times again it was necessary to crawl in order to pass through the channels. Then, the corridor continued; the slope became steep to the point that Targ feared another chasm loomed. This slope became less steep. It became almost as easy to follow as a roadway. And the watchman was descending in all safety, when the traps resumed. The corridor became neither narrower in height or width, it simply closed off. A wall of gneiss was there, which glowed furtively in the lamplight. In vain the Oasis Dweller tested it in every direction: no large fissure was revealed.

  “This is the logical end of the adventure!” Targ moaned. “The abyss, which has mocked the efforts, the genius, and the machines of all mankind, could not suddenly give favor to one small, solitary animal!”

  He sat down, exhausted by fatigue and sadness. The road would be hard now! Beaten down by defeat, would he even have the strength to go on to the end?

  He stayed there a long while, crushed by distress. He could not make himself decide to go on. At intervals, he played his light over the pale wall . . . Finally, he got to his feet. But then, overcome by a sort of anger, he thrust his fists into all the small fissures, he pulled desperately at the outcroppings . . .

  His heart began to pound: something had moved.

  Something had moved. A section of the wall was moving. With a dull grunt, and with all his strength, Targ attacked the stone. It fell; it nearly crushed the man; a triangular hole appeared: the adventure was not over yet!

  Panting, full of apprehension, Targ entered the opening in the rock, at first bent over, then standing upright, for at every step the opening became larger. And he went on as if in a state of somnambulism, anticipating new obstacles, when all at once he thought he saw an abyss.

  He was not wrong. The crack ended with the void; and yet, toward the right, a mass that sloped downward stood out, enormous. In order to reach it, Targ had to lean out over the void and hoist himself by the force of his wrists.

  The slope was manageable. When the watchman had gone twenty meters or so, a strange sensation gripped him, and taking the cover from his hygroscope, he held it out over the chasm. Then, he positively felt the paleness and cold settle over his face . . .

  In the subterranean atmosphere, a vapor was floating, still invisible to the light. There was water there!

  Targ shouted in triumph. He had to sit down, paralyzed by the surprise and the joy of victory. Then, uncertainty took hold of him again. Without a doubt, the vital fluid was down there, it would soon be visible; but the deception would be all the more intolerable were it only an insignificant spring or paltry expanse of water. With slow steps, filled with fear, the watchman continued his descent . . . There was increasing evidence; at intervals a shimmering was seen . . . And suddenly, as Targ rounded an outcropping of vertical rock, the water became visible.

  VI. The Ferromagnetics

  Two hours before dawn, Targ was back on the plain, at the mouth of the same crevice where he had begun his journey into the world of shadows. Horrib
ly tired, he contemplated, on the far horizon, the scarlet moon, which resembled a round furnace, about to burn out. It disappeared. In the immensity of night, the stars rekindled.

  Then, the watchman desired to be under way again. His legs seemed heavy as stone, his shoulders sagged painfully, and throughout his whole body such languidness was felt that he let himself collapse on a rock. He relived, with eyelids half closed, the hours he had just spent in the abyss. The way back had been frightful. Even though he had been careful to multiply the traces of his passage, he had lost his way. Then, already exhausted by his previous efforts, he came close to passing out. The time seemed incommensurably long; Targ was like a miner who had spent long months beneath the cruel earth.

  Nevertheless, here he is, back on the surface, where his brothers still dwell, here are the stars that, throughout the ages, exalted the dreams of mankind; soon, the godlike dawn will reappear in the firmament.

  “The dawn!” the young man stammered. . . . “The light of day!”

  He held out his arms toward the east, in a gesture of ecstasy; then his eyes closed and, without being conscious of it, he stretched out on the ground.

  A reddish light awakened him. Raising his eyelids with difficulty, he glimpsed, at the end of the horizon, the immense orb of the sun.

  “Let’s go . . . get up . . .” he said to himself.

  But an invisible torpor pinned him to the ground; his thoughts floated in a numb haze, fatigue exhorted him to renounce his effort. He was about to fall asleep again, when he felt a faint tingling over his entire skin. And he saw, on his hand, next to the scratches he had made climbing over rocks, the characteristic rust-colored dots.

  “The ferromagnetics!” he murmured. “They are drinking my life!”

  In his lassitude, his adventure barely frightened him any more. It seemed like some distant thing, alien, almost symbolic. Not only did he feel no pain whatsoever, but the sensation turned out to be almost pleasant; it was a sort of vertigo, a slight and slow intoxication, which must resemble euthanasia. Suddenly the images of Érê and Arva flashed through his memory, followed by a resurgence of energy.

  “I don’t want to die!” he moaned. “I don’t want to!”

  In an obscure manner, he relived his struggle, his sufferings, his victory. Over there, in the Red-Lands, life called to him, fresh and charming. No, he didn’t want to die; he wanted to see dawns and dusks for a long time yet. He wanted to fight the mysterious forces.

  With a superhuman effort, rousing his sleeping will, he struggled to get to his feet.

  VII. Water, the Mother of Life

  In the morning, Arva had not realized at all that Targ was absent. He must have overworked himself the night before; undoubtedly, totally exhausted, he must be sleeping late. Yet, after two hours of waiting, his absence surprised her. Finally she went and knocked on the wall of the room the watchman had chosen. There was no response. Perhaps he had gone out while she was still sleeping. She knocked again, then she pushed the switch for the door; it revealed, as it rolled up, an empty room.27

  The young girl went inside the room, and saw everything arranged in good order. The arcum bed was raised up against the wall, all the toilet articles were untouched, nothing revealed the recent presence of a man. And a certain apprehension gripped the heart of the visitor.

  She went to find Mano; together they questioned birds and men, without receiving a useful response. This was not normal, and perhaps even disquieting. For after the earthquake, the oasis remained full of traps. Targ could have fallen into a crevice, or been caught in a landslide.

  “Probably he just went out early in the morning,” said Mano the optimist. “Because he is an orderly person, he would first have tidied up his room . . . Let’s go look for him!”

  Arva remained anxious. Communications had become unreliable and, because many of the sound wave receivers had been knocked down, the searches were going nowhere.

  Toward noon, Arva was wandering sadly, among the rubble, at the place where desert and oasis meet, when a flock of birds appeared, with long cries: “Targ has been found.”

  She only needed to climb up on the wall, she saw him walking toward her, still in the far distance, with weary steps.

  His clothing was torn; gashes scarred his neck, his face and hands; his entire body expressed fatigue; his gaze, alone, preserved its cool energy.

  “Where have you been?” Arva cried.

  He answered: “I come from the depths of the Earth.” But he did not want to say anything more.

  Word of his return having spread, his traveling companions came to meet him. When one of them reproached him for having delayed their departure, he answered: “Do not reproach me, for I am the bearer of great news.”

  This answer surprised and shocked his hearers. How could a man bring news that was not already known to all men? Such words had meaning once upon a time, when the Earth was uncharted and full of resources, when chance still lived among human beings, and whole peoples or individuals challenged their destiny. But, now that the planet is depleted, and men are no longer capable of fighting among themselves, when all things are resolved by inflexible law, and when no one predicts perils in advance of the birds or the instruments, such words seemed inept.28

  “ ‘Great news?” the man who had first reproached him repeated with disdain. “Have you gone crazy, watchman?”

  “You will soon see if I’ve become crazy! Let us go summon the Council of the Red-Lands.”

  “You have made them wait.”

  Targ did not respond. He turned to his sister and said: “Go, and bring the girl that I saved yesterday . . . Her presence is necessary.”

  The High Council of the Red-Lands had gathered, at the center of the oasis. It was not complete, as several of its members had perished in the catastrophe. There was no expression of pain, and barely one of resignation, in the attitude of these survivors. Fatality was bred into them, as deep as life itself.

  They greeted the Nine Emissaries with an almost inert calm. And Cimor, who presided, said in a monotonous voice:

  “You brought us aid from High Springs, and High Springs has itself been struck by disaster. The end of mankind seems very near. The oases no longer know which ones are capable of helping the others.”

  “They should no longer even help each other,” said Rem, the first master of the Waters. “The law forbids it. Once the waters have disappeared, it is just that solidarity vanishes. Each oasis must tend to its own fate.”

  Targ stepped before the Nine and spoke: “The waters can return.”

  Rem considered him with calm disdain: “Anything can return, young man. But they are gone for good.”

  Then the watchman, having cast a glance toward the back of the hall and perceived the hair of light, went on in a trembling voice:

  “The waters will return for the Red-Lands.”

  A gentle disapproval appeared on some faces; everyone remained silent.

  “They will return,” Targ exclaimed with force. “And I can say this because I have seen them.”

  This time a feeble emotion, one born of the sole image capable of moving the Last Men, the image of water springing from the ground, spread from person to person. And Targ’s tone of voice, in its vehemence and sincerity, nearly caused hope to be reborn. But doubt soon returned. His overly wild eyes, his wounds and torn clothes, inspired mistrust: although rare, madmen had not yet disappeared from the planet.

  Cimor made a slight sign. Slowly several men surrounded the watchman. He saw this move and understood what it meant. Calmly, he opened his tool bag, drew out his thin chromograph, and unrolling one of its sheets, he brought forth the proof that he had gathered in the bowels of the earth.

  The images were as precise as reality itself. When the men closest to Targ had set eyes on them, exclamations arose from all quarters. A veritable amazement, a near exaltation, took hold of those present. For all recognized the awesome and sacred fluid.

  More excitable than the ot
hers, Mano uttered a resounding cry. The cry, magnified by the sound wave receivers, echoed throughout the oasis; a multitude rapidly surrounded the hall. The sole frenzy still capable of arousing the Last Men intoxicated the crowd.

  Targ was transfigured; he became almost a god; people’s souls, like souls in olden times, offered up to him a mystical enthusiasm; faces opened to the flood of emotion, dull eyes filled with fire, a boundless hope shattered the age-old atavism of resignation. And the members of the High Council themselves, caught up as part of this collective entity, abandoned themselves to the tumult.

  Targ alone could command silence. He made a sign to the crowd that he wished to speak; the voices died away, the tumult of heads became calm, a passionate attention blossomed on every face.

  The watchman, turning toward Érê’s blond glow that stood out from the mass of dark hair, declared:

  “People of the Red-Lands, the water I have discovered is on your lands, it belongs to you. But human law gives me rights to it; before giving it up to you, I demand my privilege!”

  “You shall be the first among us!” said Cimor. “Such is the rule!”

  “That is not what I demand,” the watchman replied softly.

  He gestured to the crowd to let him pass. Then, he walked toward Érê. When he was near her, he bowed and said in an impassioned voice: “It is in your hands that I place the waters, mistress of my destiny. You alone can give me my reward!”

  She listened, surprised and trembling. For such words as these were heard no longer. At some other moment, she would have barely understood what they meant. But in the midst of all these exultant hearts, and in thrall to the magical vision of subterranean springs, her whole being was confounded; the magnificent feelings that stirred the watchman shone in the pearly cheeks of the virgin.

  VIII. And Alone the Red-Lands Survive

  In the years that followed, the Earth felt only minor tremors.

  But the last catastrophe had sufficed to deal the death blow to the oases. Those who had seen all their water disappear had never been able to get it back. At High Springs, it had dried up over eighteen months, then disappeared into the bottomless abyss. The Red-Lands alone had known vast hopes. The water table Targ had found gave water more abundant and less impure than that of the vanished springs. Not only did it suffice to nourish the survivors, but they were able to take in the small group that survived from Devastation, and many refugees from High Springs.