The Heart of the Serpent
( Великое Кольцо - 2 )
Ivan Yefremov
The crew of a spaceship encounters an alien ship in deep space. Speculation ensues about whether the other crew might be hostile. Comparisons are made to American SF writer Murray Leinster’s story, “First Contact“, in which an elaborate protocol is developed to prevent the aliens from following the Terrans home and destroying them, or vice versa. The premise of Leinster’s story is debunked, in part by pointing out that in order for a planet’s civilization to become space-faring, they would need to be at peace among themselves and presumably have organized themselves into a planet-wide classless society, a point Yefremov had made earlier in his novel Andromeda. Thus the aliens must necessarily be peaceful.
Ivan Yefremov
The Heart of the Serpent
Original title Russian: Сердце Змеи, Latin: Cor Serpentis
Translator Roza Prokofieva
Foreign Languages Publishing House (Moscow) — 1961
Music broke through the mists of oblivion. “Awake, ye, yield not to sinister entropy…” The words of the familiar song stirred memories and started off an endless chain of accustomed associations.
Life returned to the great ship. It still trembled, but the automatic devices went on with their work. The whirls of energy that had enveloped the three beehive-shaped green metal domes in the control room had died down. In a few seconds the domes leapt up and disappeared in niches overhead among a maze of pipes, trusses and wires, revealing three men reclining in deep padded seats.
Two of the men remained motionless, but the third stirred, opened his heavy-lidded eyes and tossed back a mane of dark hair. He raised himself up from the depths of the soft insulation, and leaned forward to read the multitude of dials on the slanting illuminated surface of the main instrument panel that stretched across the compartment half a metre in front of the three seats.
“So we’re out of the warp,” he heard a strong voice say next to him. “I see you are again the first to awake, Kari. You really have the ideal constitution for an astronaut!”
Kari Ram, electronics engineer and astronavigator of the space ship Tellur, turned sharply to meet the still clouded gaze of the ship’s captain, Moot Ang.
The captain shifted his position with an effort, sighed with relief and turned his attention to the panel.
“Twenty-four parsecs[1]… We’ve passed right by a tar. New instruments are always inaccurate… or perhaps I should say we haven’t learned to use them properly yet. You can cut off the music — Tey’s awake.”
In the silence that fell Kari Ram could distinctly hear the uneven breathing of the man who had just regained consciousness.
The main control room was a good-sized circular chamber safely hidden deep in the bowels of the space ship. Above the instrument panels and hermetically sealed doors a bluish screen ran all round the wall. Forward, along the ship’s longitudinal axis, there was a gap in the screen for the locator disc, almost twice the height of man in diameter. Transparent as crystal, the disc seemed to merge with cosmic space, sparkling like a black diamond in the light from the instrument dials.
Moot Ang made an almost imperceptible movement and all three at once threw up their arms to shield their eyes. A gigantic orange sun had burst out on the port side of the screen. Although its intensity was reduced by powerful filters, the light was all but unbearable.
Moot Ang shook his head.
“We nearly went through the corona. No more exact courses laid out in advance for me! It’s much safer to by-pass.”
“The worst thing about these warp ships is that you lay the course and then shoot off blindly like a bullet fired into the night,” Tey Eron’s voice came from the depths of his seat. Tey was second in command and the head astrophysicist. “Besides, we too are blind and helpless cooped up inside the vortical protective fields. I don’t like this kind of cosmic flight, even though it’s the fastest way man has been able to devise.”
“Twenty-four parsecs, yet to us it has seemed like an instant,” Moot Ang said.
“An instant of death-like sleep,” Tey Eron muttered gruffly. “As for the Earth…”
“It’s best not to think about the Earth,” Kari Ram said, getting up. “Or the fact that seventy-eight years have passed down there since we took off, or of the friends and folks at home who’ve died of old age, or the other changes. What will it be like when we get back I wonder?”
“It would be the same no matter what type of space ship you use,” the captain said calmly. “The only difference is that in the Tellur time moves faster for us. Although we’re going farther out into space than anybody before us, we’ll be little changed when we return.”
Tey Eron went over to the computer.
“Everything’s normal,” he said a few minutes later. “That’s Cor Serpentis over there, or as the ancient Arab astronomers called it, Unuk al-Hay — the Heart of the Serpent.”
“Where is its neighbour?” Kari Ram asked.
“Behind the main star. Look here: spectrum K0. It’s eclipsed for us.”
“Strip all receptors!” ordered the captain.
The infinite blackness of the Cosmos enveloped everything — a bottomless blackness that seemed blacker still for the golden-orange blaze of Cor Serpentis port and aft. The Milky Way and other stars paled in the glare. Only one white star down below held its own.
“We’re nearing Epsilon Serpentis,” Kari Ram said. His voice was louder than necessary; he evidently expected a compliment from the captain. But Moot Ang said nothing. His eyes were turned to starboard, to the bright white blaze of the distant star.
“That’s where my old ship, the Sun, went,” he said at last, conscious of the expectant silence in the control room. “To explore new planets…”
“So that’s Alphecca of the Corona Borealis!”
“Yes, Ram. Or to use its European name — Gemma. But it’s time to get to work.”
“Shall I wake the others?” Tey Eron asked.
“No. We’ll make one or two warps if it’s all clear ahead,” Moot Ang said. “Switch on the optical and radio telescopes. Check the tuning of the memory machines. Tey, start the nuclear engines. We’ll use them for the time being. Accelerate.”
“Six-sevenths of the speed of light?”
The captain nodded and Tey quickly flipped over switches. Not a tremor passed through the space ship, only a blinding blaze lit up all the screens and completely blotted out the faint stars — our own Sun among them — of the Milky Way below.
“We have several hours to wait before the instruments complete the observations and check them over,” Moot Ang said. “We’ll eat now and then we had all better get some sleep. You carry on, Kari. I’ll relieve you.”
Kari Ram dropped into the swivel seat facing the centre of the control panel. When the two other men had gone, he switched off the stern receptors and the flames of the rocket engines disappeared from view.
The reflected glare of fiery Cor Serpentis danced on the gleaming surface of the instruments. The disc of the forward locator remained a black bottomless well. This was reassuring, for it showed that the calculations which had taken six years of work by the finest minds and computing machines on Earth were correct.
The Tellur, the first space-warp ship ever made on Earth, was moving down a great corridor in space devoid of stellar clusters and dark clouds. This type of ship, capable of moving in zero-space, was designed to reach much farther out into the Universe than the previous anameson nuclear-rocket ships which could not exceed five-sixths or six-sevenths of the speed of light. Operating on the p
rinciple of compression of time, warp ships were thousands of times faster. Their drawback was that during each lunge forward they were out of human control; as a matter of fact, astronauts could endure the moment of space warp only in an unconscious state, protected by a powerful vortical energy field. The Tellur moved in spurts, and before each spurt care had to be taken to see that the way ahead was clear.
Now the Tellur was on its way past the Serpent and through practically starless space in the high latitudes of the Galaxy to a carbon star in Hercules. The object of this incredibly distant journey was to study the still mysterious processes of transformation of matter directly on the carbon star. The findings would be of inestimable value to power development on Earth. There was a theory that the star itself had some connection with a disc-shaped electromagnetic dark cloud revolving edgewise to the Earth. Scientists thought the processes going on here in relative proximity to the Sun might be a repetition of the birth of our own planetary system, the “relative proximity” in this case meaning one hundred and ten parsecs, or three hundred and fifty light years.
Kari Ram checked the safety devices. They showed all the automatic installations of the ship to be working normally. He sat back and gave himself up to his thoughts.
The Earth was now far, far away. Seventy-eight light years separated them from the good and beautiful Earth which mankind had made a haven of happy life, of inspired, creative labour. In the classless society man had created for himself every individual knew his planet so well there was little left to learn — he knew not only its factories and mines and plantations, its marine industries and research centres, its museums and preserves, but also the quiet retreats where one could enjoy the beauties of Nature in solitude or with one’s beloved.
It was a wonderful world, but man in his insatiable desire for more knowledge had reached out to the icy chasms of cosmic space, searching for the solution to the riddle of the Universe, eager to fathom Nature’s secrets and subordinate her more and more to man’s will. First he had reached the Moon and seen the lunar plains and mountains drenched in a lethal shower of X-ray and uftra-viofet radiation from the Sun. Then on to torrid,
lifeless Venus with its oceans of oil, sticky, tarry soil and eternal fog; on to cold, sandy Mars with only a faint flicker of life in its subterranean depths. Hardly had exploration of Jupiter begun when new ships reached the nearest stars. Space ships from Earth visited Alpha and Proxima Centauri, Barnard’s star, Sirius, Eta Eridani and even Tau Ceti — not the stars themselves, but their planets or their immediate vicinities, as was the case with the twin stars of Sirius which have no planetary system.
But never had astronauts from Earth been on planets where life had reached its highest stage of development, in other words, planets inhabited by thinking beings.
From the infinity of the Cosmos ultrashort radio waves brought tidings of other populated worlds, sometimes reaching us thousands of years after they were sent out. Man was only learning to read these messages, obtaining the first inkling of the vast ocean of scientific and engineering skill and artistic accomplishment that washed the shores of the inhabited worlds of our Galaxy. These worlds were as yet beyond our reach. And what of those other worlds in island universes millions of light years away!
Knowledge of all this whetted man’s eagerness to journey to planets inhabited by men — perhaps unlike our Earthmen, but men nevertheless who, like ourselves, had built rational, sane societies where every member had the right to his share of happiness in a measure limited only by the degree of mastery acquired over Nature. It had already been established that there existed worlds inhabited by people like ourselves, and that these were probably the majority. For the laws governing the development of planetary systems and of life on their planets were the same not only through our Galaxy, but throughout the entire known Universe.
The space-warp ship, the latest triumph of human genius, had made it possible to answer the call of all these distant worlds. And now the Tellur was on its way. If the flight was successful, then… But as was the case with everything else in life, there was another side to this invention.
“Yes, there’s the other side,” Kari Ram said aloud, so completely immersed in his thoughts that he was unaware he had spoken until Moot Ang’s deep, resonant voice singing an old song brought him to with a start.
The other side of Love, Now rolling deep as the ocean’s flood, Now narrow as a winding stair, There’s no escape, ‘tis in your blood,
the captain sang.
“I had no idea you liked old songs too,” he said. “That one’s at least five hundred years old.”
“I wasn’t thinking about songs,” replied the astronavi-gator. “I was thinking of this flight. And what Earth will be like when we return.”
The captain’s face clouded.
“We have only made the first warp. Are you already thinking of our return?”
“Oh no! You know how eager I was to be among the few chosen for the voyage. I was just thinking that when we return to Earth seven hundred years of terrestrial time will have passed. And even though the average life-span has doubled, our sisters’ and brothers’ great-grandchiidren will be dead by then.”
“Didn’t you know that?”
“Of course. But something else has struck me.”
“The seeming futility of our flight?”
“Exactly. Long before the Tellur was built or even invented, ordinary rocket ships set out for Fomalhaut, Ca-pella and Arcturus. That was fifty years ago, but the Fomalhaut expedition is expected back only two years from now. The Arcturus and Capella parties will be returning in some forty or fifty years; you know Arcturus is twelve and Capella fourteen parsecs away. But the warp ships being built now can get to Arcturus in one warp. The distance there is nothing in comparison with this flight. And by the time we get back people will have completely conquered time, or space, whichever way you want to put it. The space ships they will build then will have a range much greater than ours and leave us to waddle back with a cargo of obsolete and useless information.”
“You mean our departure from Earth was something like death, and that we’ll return as primitive men, mere survivals of an age long past?” Moot Ang said.
“Yes.”
“You’re right and at the same time completely wrong. Accumulation of knowledge and experience, including exploration of the Universe, must never cease. Otherwise the laws of development would be violated, and development is always uneven and contradictory. Suppose the ancient scientists who now seem naive to us had waited for, say, the modern quantum microscope to be invented. Or if the farmers and builders of ancient times who drenched the earth with their sweat had decided to do nothing before automatic machines were made. Had they done that we would still be living in holes in the ground and subsisting on the crumbs Nature might bestow on us.”
Kari Ram laughed, but Moot Ang went on.
“Besides, we have our duty to perform, like every other member of society. The price of being the first to penetrate to hitherto inaccessible parts of the Universe is to die for seven hundred years. But those who remained behind to enjoy all the pleasures of terrestrial life will never know the wonder and joy of glimpsing the innermost secrets of the Universe. As for going back… I don’t think you need to fear the future. There has never been an age since the beginning of human history when mankind did not retain something of the past in spite of the ascending spiral of progress. Every century has had, besides its own unique peculiarities, features common to all times. Who knows but that the tiny particle of knowledge we shall take back to Earth will help to bring about a new advance in science, to make men’s lives still richer and fuller. And even if we ourselves will be returning from the distant past, are our lives not dedicated to the future? Can we be strangers to the new people we shall be going to? In general, can anyone who gives his all to society be a stranger to his fellow-men? You must admit that man is more than just an accumulation of knowledge; he is also a carrier of complex emo
tions, and in this respect we shall not be found wanting after the trials of our voyage.” He paused, then added in a lighter tone: “Speaking for myself, I am so eager to look into the future that for that alone…”
“You’re ready to die for a while as far as the Earth is concerned?” prompted the navigator.
The captain nodded.
“You’d better go and have something to eat,” he said. “It’ll soon be time for the next warp. What are you doing here, Tey?”
The second-in-command shrugged his shoulders.
“I wanted to take a look at the course the instruments have plotted. And it’s time to relieve you.”
He pressed a button in the centre of the panel and a polished concave cover slid open. A spiral of silver-coloured metal ribbon rose from the depths of the instrument. Through it ran a black needle indicating the course of the ship. Tiny lights gleaming like jewels on the spiral represented the stars of various spectral classes past which the Tellur’s course lay. On innumerable dials indicator needles danced as the computing machines worked out the direction of the next warp so as to keep the ship well away from the stars and dark clouds and luminous nebulae that might conceal unknown heavenly bodies.
Tey Eron was so engrossed in his task that he hardly noticed the passage of time. In the meantime the huge space ship continued hurtling through the black emptiness of the Cosmos. While the astrophysicist worked, his two comrades sat in silence in the soft depths of a semi-circular seat just inside the massive triple door that separated the control room from the rest of the ship.
Several hours later a gay tinkle of chimes announced that the computations were finished. The captain walked over to the control panel.
“Excellent! The next warp can be nearly three times as long as the first.”
“Not as much as that. Look at this…” Tey pointed to the tip of the black needle which was vibrating faintly in rhythm with a series of indicators.
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