The Navigators of Space

by J. -H. Rosny aîné

  “Good—we have nothing more to teach you,” Jean concluded.

  “Nothing to learn! I only know the theory; now I need to see and understand. That’s more complicated.” She interrupted herself, her eyes staring, and extended her arm. “That’s one of their monsters, isn’t it?” She was pointing at an immense ochreous shape with orange strips, which was moving rapidly about 300 meters away. “The largest reptiles of the Secondary Era weren’t as long as that!”

  “But a great deal thicker! That monster’s an immense pancake! Look out—it might attack us!”

  The Stellarium rose up to an altitude of fifty meters. We examined the colossus with our binoculars. It stopped, its appendices and cilia contracting. We could see its three lateral zones, separated by furrows, quite clearly.

  “A triple octopus, a vast mushroom and a leviathan bug—made up of three bugs each the size of a brontosaurus—all at the same time,” Violaine murmured, thoughtfully. “But all those images are false. The comparisons fail as soon as they’re imagined. Ah! It’s getting under way again.”

  It headed for the area where the little and medium-sized Zoomorphs were swarming. It reached it. We saw it extend itself over some fifty of its paltry kin. Bluish phosphorescence enveloped the group.

  “A carnivore!” said Jean. “It’s devouring its victims’ energy.”

  “They won’t die of it!”

  Violaine, excited to the point of exaltation, remarked: “This world is less cruel than our own, then?”

  “Who can tell? Everything is so different. Our experiments haven’t yielded any conclusive revelation of a sensitivity, unless it’s very obtuse, let alone an intelligence analogous or homologous to ours. We’ve never observed any alliance or solidarity, or the slightest sign of affective instinct.”

  “Which doesn’t prove anything,” said Antoine.

  “No, nothing,” Jean agreed. “Even if they don’t act in concert, they nevertheless have their methods of invasion and conquest.”

  “So do our lichens, grasses and trees—and how energetically. Who believes, though, that they make concerted plans and have elective affinities?”

  We remained there, observing, for some time. Other Zoomorphs of medium size passed by. Their cilia quivered as they moved, but did not provide any support, and their progress was most often disordered, never clearly directional.

  “In fact,” said Violaine, “they don’t have limbs, do they?”

  “No,” Jean replied. “We haven’t been able to discover the function of the cilia. I’m inclined to believe that they help to summon motive energies.”

  “I’d like to walk on the planet’s surface,” Violaine said. “It seems to me that I’ll only get a precise sense of the reality outside. In here, I’m still bound to the Earth.”

  Zoomorphs were now appearing from every direction. At any moment, a colossus might approach our refuge.

  “Let’s find a less populous spot!” Antoine proposed.

  The Stellarium, which had landed in the course of the discussion, took off just in time to avoid danger; two monsters were arriving at great speed.

  “We wouldn’t have been able to get away, Violaine, if we’d let them come any closer. One alone nearly caused our death before. Two would probably be sufficient to rid the planet of our curiosity.”

  One of the monsters passed over the very ground on which we had landed. The other was very close to it.

  “Fortunately, they can be kept at a distance,” Violaine murmured.

  “Yes, we’re better armed than before. Our portable ray-guns are more powerful too.”

  The Stellarium was already a long way from the landing-ground. Antoine brought it to a halt above a long valley through which one of the great rivers of Mars had flowed, incalculable ages ago.

  “I assume that a magnificent tropical life once flourished here,” said Jean. “And we know that the planet’s flora was beautiful—it still is.”

  “The primitive flora must have been even more so. Our Triped friends are more distant from it than we Terrestrials are from our primary flora.”

  By evoking ancient fecundity, the structure of the location rendered the present petrifaction more striking.

  “Shall I have the joy of setting foot on this wild terrain?” asked Violaine. She was standing next to me. I was glad. I was gently and tenderly intoxicated by her proximity. I was free of the confused dread that accompanies the most reassuring Earthly love…but nevertheless, I had a passionate desire to see Grace again.

  “We can,” Jean agreed, having scanned the valley with his binoculars. “There are no large Zoomorphs on the horizon, and few medium-sized ones.”

  The Stellarium settled on a plateau. No gravitational field was added to the feeble Martian weight.

  “Let’s arm and armor ourselves!”

  A quarter of an hour later, we bore a considerable resemblance to those deep-sea divers one sees in old engravings—so different from our own aquatic explorers. Thus equipped, we emerged from the Stellarium.

  We could not help being inconvenienced by our lightness, even though we had become accustomed to it during our first voyage. Every step carried us further than we expected. Gradually, though, equilibrium was restored, although it was a slower process for Violaine, who nearly fell over several times. She laughed, however, delighted with the lightness in spite of the inconvenience.

  “It’s like a dream!” she said—and then added: “It’s so dead that one ends up feeling sympathy for the Zoomorphs.” Gaily, she started to run—and this time, after several gigantic bounds, lost her balance.

  She got up immediately, hardly having felt the fall. “No terrestrial animal would be able to match me,” she said—not even the swiftest hare…or an eagle or a falcon.”

  She set off again, moderating her pace. I followed her, trying not to go quickly but moving nevertheless at a vertiginous speed.

  Suddenly, I lost sight of her. She had just disappeared behind a large red rock. No longer having her in sight, in that formidable desert, made me anxious. I accelerated my pace and rounded the rock.

  She was lying on the ground, motionless. Several meters away was a huge Zoomorph enveloped by a bluish light, which went out before I got close. In spite of my anguish, I did not lose a sense of necessity—a jet of radiation stopped the monster in its tracks. Although large in size it was not a colossus. Soon, it began to retreat, slowly at first, and then swiftly.

  Livid, her limbs inert, Violaine had the indecisive appearance of a corpse. I was bending down to pick her up when Jean and Antoine appeared. We looked at one another, not daring to say anything. The impassive Antoine seemed as disturbed as us. Finally, trembling in every limb, Jean said: “I’m a fool!”

  He had no need to say any more; I felt that I was sharing his remorse. I thought that I was as responsible as he was. Antoine, however, had already recovered his composure. He applied his ear to Violaine’s breast. His eyelids quivered—a sign, in him, of sharp emotion.

  “Well?” cried Jean, exasperated by anguish.

  Antoine made no reply. We knew him too well not to deduce what his silence signified.

  Jean tried to listen in his turn, but he was obliged to abandon that attempt. The noise of his own arteries would not have permitted him to perceive a normal heartbeat. Deafened by the tumult of my own blood, I failed too.

  “There’s nothing for it but to go back to the Stellarium,” said Antoine, whose face had almost resumed its normal appearance.

  Jean picked Violaine up, and we went back to the vessel. Antoine and I took bounds of several meters. Again we were forced to restrain ourselves; at top speed, we could not maintain our equilibrium. Because he was carrying Violaine, Jean had more stability even though he was moving more rapidly than he would have been able to do on our native planet and making maximum effort.

  Near the Stellarium, a terrible spectacle stopped us; three colossal Zoomorphs were barring our path. One of them was at least 50 meters long, the others
nearly 40.

  “Idiots!” Antoine muttered. “We’ve been idiots!”

  Our apparatus was certainly safe from any attack. Ten or twenty Zoomorphs acting together would have been incapable of doing it any harm, even if these monsters had been equipped with muscles like terrestrial monsters, and had launched their mass at a vertiginous speed—but their mass was greatly diminished by their slender thickness. Besides, Zoomorphs never employed brute force; their levels of radiation, terrible for us, posed no danger to the Stellarium.

  Would our ray-guns be adequate to drive all three of them away? Wouldn’t the energetic expenditure be too great for a prolonged battle? All the more so because it would have been highly dangerous to act at short range; they would perceive our presence, rush toward us—and their velocity would be too great for us to have any possibility of escape!

  “It would doubtless be best,” I said, “to attack the largest one together?”

  “Let’s be careful!” Antoine replied. “I think it’s best to attack them all at once, with a moderate expense of radiation. That will doubtless suffice to hold them in respect, initially…perhaps even to drive them away, after a few minutes…”

  “But if they take too long to go away,” Jean remarked, “we’ll exhaust our energy before having obtained a conclusive effect.”

  I was of the same opinion. We had no time to lose; the chances of saving Violaine were decreasing by the second.

  “Well,” said Antoine, “let’s try both methods. I’ll attack the largest one.”

  Jean and I having each made our choice, the attack began. For two minutes, it seemed ineffective, the Zoomorphs neither advancing nor retreating, although they gave signs of agitation.

  Jean’s energy reserves, and mine, employed without restraint, were beginning to run low.

  “You see!” Antoine said, softly.

  Jean did not reply. He had just taken possession of Violaine’s ray-gun, and was already making use of it to double the intensity of the attack.

  The Zoomorph retreated almost instantaneously, and drew away at increasing speed. Then, attacked by three ray-guns simultaneously, the one that I had chosen as a target—which was already giving signs of distress—drew away in its turn.

  Before we had joined our ray-guns to Antoine’s, the third Zoomorph began to withdraw; a blast of radiation accelerated its retreat. The way to the Stellarium was free.

  We had no lack of means to reanimate Violaine, if she had not ceased living. By degrees, we started up the artificial respiration apparatus. Antoine prepared the cardiac stimulator and oxygen insufflator.

  Violaine’s heart remained inert. No mist tarnished the glass of the dew-detector. Then Antoine intervened with the cardiac stimulator, while I forced three small doses of oxygen into her lungs. Several minutes went by, in mortal suspense—and then Jean uttered a loud exclamation: “Ah! Finally!”

  The heart had begun to beat again; a slight mist appeared on the detector’s glass. There was one more minute of anxiety, and then the young woman’s eyes opened.

  Jean and I were weeping like infants.

  IV.

  “It’s understandable that our friends the Tripeds haven’t been able to resist these formidable creatures,” said Antoine, when order was restored again. “The instinct that leads them to attack us is rather surprising. Strictly speaking, we don’t belong to the same realm as the Tripeds and pseudo-animals of Mars.”

  “We’re from a homologous realm.”

  “But so different! Not much more than the composition of our flesh and internal liquids. It’s evident nevertheless that if we were to found a Martian colony, that colony would find deadly enemies in the Zoomorphs.”

  Violaine was listening, pensively. Her face retained no trace of the near-fatal accident. Personally, I was subject to the retrospective fear that is so violent in imaginative people. The idea that her apparent death would have become eternal within another minute or two set my heart hammering.

  “I don’t believe,” she remarked, “that it’s a matter of instinct. It’s something like a reflex. Our presence is doubtless sufficient to provoke a radiant reaction.”

  “That’s entirely possible,” said Antoine.

  “The most primitive terrestrial creatures might have been subject to similar impulses of aggression or defense. Our purely organic appetites and repulsions still are. The odor or sight of a foodstuff is sufficient to excite a physical or chemical desire.”

  “Our viscera are great laboratories of physics and chemistry!” Jean exclaimed. “Life would be impossible otherwise.”

  The image of Grace suddenly appeared to me with an extraordinary intensity. I was gripped by an overwhelming desire to see her again—a singular thing, at a moment when Violaine had awakened such powerful emotions.

  “Isn’t it time that we went to find our friends the Tripeds,” I murmured.

  “I was just thinking the same thing,” said Violaine.

  Our gazes met. Might a rivalry arise between that beautiful human woman and the marvelous Martian female? Could Violaine have the merest inkling of the nature of an affection so different from any terrestrial affection? It was certainly love, and of incomparable force, but as pure as love must be for a flower.

  “All right—let’s go see our friends.”

  We scarcely had any need to get our bearings; during our first sojourn, we had explored Mars in every direction several times over. Scarcely 3000 kilometers separated us from Triped lands.

  “It must still be night there,” Jean observed.

  “Yes, but dawn is not far off. Then again, Violaine hasn’t seen the Ethereals yet. We’ll make a stop on the far side of the equator while waiting for daylight.”

  “Just as long as our friends have been able to keep the Zoomorphs at bay.”

  “They will have been able to in the region that we fortified, but it’s only too certain that the Zoomorphs are advancing elsewhere—fortunately, with extreme slowness. They’ll require several hundred centuries to invade all the lands that the Tripeds still occupy. I estimate that their first invasions must date back millions of years. Their progress must have been imperceptible at first. It has accelerated over the millennia.

  “What proportion of the surface area still belongs to the Tripeds?”

  “To the Tripeds and their pseudo-animal and pseudo-plant realm, perhaps an eighth—still a considerable extent, the surface area of Mars being not much different from that of our continents, as there are no oceans here. There’s very little surface water in the majority of the territories invaded by the Zoomorphs. When I say water…”

  “Yes, I know,” said Violaine, “you mean a kind of water.”

  “Exactly—but from which we’ve learned to extract distilled water.”

  “In sum, it’s not only the Zoomorphs that are driving the Tripeds back, but also the desiccation?” said the young woman.

  “Yes. Even so, there must be many reservoirs of subterranean water here.”

  While they were talking, the astroship, moving at low speed, crossed the equator and entered the dark region. The starry sky appeared abruptly, and the conversation ceased. The Stellarium, having slowed down further, finally came to a standstill on a plateau, at the top of a hill. Then, all four of them contemplated the sky in silence.

  Violaine immediately was astounded by the innumerable legions of the Ethereals. They formed a palpitating Milky Way, radiant and profound, in which luminous dots were moving in every direction with vertiginous rapidity.

  They could still see the starry sky, however, with periodic eclipses, and the large topaz-emerald star that was the Earth.

  “Oh, that’s beautiful!” Violaine sighed.

  “Beyond beauty and ugliness,” Jean remarked.

  The young woman quickly discerned the moving constellations and groups of constellations formed by the Ethereals. “You’re right!” she murmured. “It’s beyond beauty.”

  “It’s better,” Antoine muttered. “What we call
beauty is merely a human fable. Even on Earth, it bears no relationship to reality.”

  “That’s why one can apply the term as easily here as on Earth,” I said. “It’s sufficient for us to have a corresponding sensation. So far as I’m concerned, I’m sensitive to the moving beauty of these creatures.”

  “I congratulate you,” said Antoine, ironically.

  We fell silent, exalted by the prodigious spectacle. I was astonished that we had ever doubted that the Ethereals were living beings. Their movements did not exhibit any uniformity, or any energetic servitude. Not only were they circulating in all directions, but every one of them, and every group, seemed to be moving haphazardly. It is true that molecules also move in all directions and that their trajectories vary continually, but they do not partake of the alternation of order and disorder, repose and activity, which immediately characterizes the Ethereals.

  It took more than an hour to cool our enthusiasm; then the Stellarium got under way again, very slowly, at 1000 kilometers an hour. Even so, the Triped region did not take long to appear, in the pale light of dawn. We landed on a low plateau that overlooked the plain. As soon as the Sun appeared, visibility spread out over a vast extent. In the rarefied atmosphere, the details of the location appeared with extreme clarity.

  “A land of dreams,” said Violaine, after a silence. “Almost terrestrial dreams. That wood over there is reminiscent of a wood of gigantic and fantastic mushrooms, and it’s a sort of red grass that’s growing on the plain. As for the lake, without the strange plants that surround it, it reminds me of Lake Zurich.”

  The flying creatures rising up slowly from the plateau astonished Violaine. “Five wings—and what wings! Perhaps pterodactyls looked like that.”

  “Not at all,” said Antoine. “No reptile, bat or bird, nothing feathered or hairy: a sort of velvety fly.”