Balant: A Beginning

by Sam Smith

  Most of the timber we required lay within reasonably easy reach on the lower slopes; but the finding of four slender poles, twice the length of the shuttle proved to be the most difficult part of the entire enterprise. We found them eventually in a deep mountain valley the other side of our bathing pool. Then we had to fell them with our stone axes and carry and drag them down to the desert.

  We needed four poles because, when we came to take the actual dimensions, we discovered that, for the hull to rest on the hypotenuse, the two triangles would have been so close together that the sled would hare been unstable. While, if the triangles had been far enough apart to be stable, the shuttle would then have slipped between the two hypotenuse, have been supported only by its wings. So we lashed the centre two poles like rails, the width of the shuttle's belly, between the two hypotenuse.

  To prevent the uprights digging into the sand, I had the minder cut two holes in the large trunks re were using as runners. With its small tools that took the minder two days. The front of the runners we chamfered to an acute angle. And it was finished.

  When we came to turn the shuttle around — to place it on the sled — we discovered that the sled was marginally heavier than the shuttle. Though this caused me to voice many reservations, Dag thought the difference so slight as not to affect his theory. So, using levers and makeshift hoists, we proceeded to inch the shuttle up onto the sled.

  In that position the shuttle was too uncomfortable to live in, so we retired that night to the cave. The following morning we gathered some long vines and we walked out into the desert alongside the shelter. We all of us wore our boots as the sand burnt our feet.

  Where the last of the trees grew we began laying our landing ropes, tying each end of the rope around a tree. Then, as I thought that those ropes, taken singly, might not be enough to stop us; down either side of the landing strip we tied all the trees together. By the time we had chopped down three large trees in the centre of the landing strip, another four days had passed and Malamud was complaining of blisters on his hands.

  “Tomorrow,” Dag said, "we'll go to the pool." Which was warmer since the earthquake. "We'll have a day’s rest, have all our wits about us for the test flight."

  There followed an evening of argument in the cave, continuing the next day at the pool. For, now that the reality was upon us, we were forced to consider the hard choice before us: we could either escape the planet, and possibly die in the attempt; or we could spend the next twenty two years on Balant in the faint hope that we might live to be rescued. Although that is not to decry the last few happy weeks that I had spent on Balant; but, had they been even happier, one inevitably grows weary of the idyll and seeks new challenges.

  Realising that we truly had no option, that we had to make the attempt, we finally agreed that all three of us should go on the test flight. Not one of us wanted to be the one left alone on Balant. Was that what had happened to the spaceman?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Take-off, flight & landing, discoveries, discussion and disquiet.

  So that we could take off as early as possible, we slept the night in the inclined shuttle. It was a restless night and, at the first twitterings of day, the three of us nervously breakfasted.

  Moving around inside the shuttle being a precarious business, it was with some impatience that we completed our ablutions and strapped ourselves into our seats. This time Dag sat beside me, Malamud to the rear. Assuming that our take-off was a success, we thought it prudent that we all three learn to pilot the shuttle.

  Taking hold of the control column I pressed it forward so that only the rear engines would operate and so propel the sled over the sand. I gently started the engines.

  We did not move.

  I increased power Still we did not move.

  Around us rose a dust storm — created by the blast of the engines. Bringing the column to the central position, I gave the engines more throttle. The rear engines were now roaring, the sled trembling.

  "We’re moving," Dag said.

  The sled ground forward. I increased power. With alarm I saw that, although the sled was still creeping but slowly forward, the shuttle was starting to rise up the ramp. Fearing that, even if I decreased power now, our momentum would carry us over the end of the sled, in panic I pulled the column to me. Both wing engines flashed into life. We rose above the sled. Then we were flying over the desert. So easy.

  So very easy.

  A moment's bemusement, a moment’s fright at being unsupported so far above the ground, then I gave an inarticulate shout of triumph. We were flying!

  So easily, so quickly had it been accomplished that I felt more than a little foolish for all my weeks of caution. But, so accustomed had I become to the walking distances of Balant, so conditioned had I become by our primitive way of life that I had forgotten the powers that had been manufactured in Space. My mind, in that instant of take-off, had had to leap centuries.

  Although I did not truly repent one iota of my prudence, an apology, an explanation at the very least, to Dag and Malamud seemed in order. But, no sooner had I begun to excuse my unnecessary precautions, than Dag cut me short,

  "Better safe than sorry.”

  Even Malamud, overcome by the unexpected suddenness of our ascension, let the opportunity for a caustic remark pass.

  As we were climbing, I judged, too rapidly, I eased the engines back, put the column slightly forward. We began a long slow dive over the desert.

  "Bear with me gentlemen,” I said. “A few experiments while we are still over sand. I want to see how fast we can go and still,” we were now half way across the desert, “remain airborne."

  I let the rear engines almost die, levelled off to a few hundred meters above the desert. We were going appreciably slower than when we had landed. Much much slower. On coming from space it had seemed impossible that we could move so slowly and not drop to the ground. But, now that I had experience of both the dimensions of space and of Balant, I could marry the two. So I eased right back on the engines. When we began to descend, I blasted the wing engines.

  Apart from a slight forward impetus, we were almost stationary. If anything we were rising slightly. I slowed the wing engines. Our ascent gradually ceased; and, almost imperceptibly, we began to descend.

  "Landing should now be no trouble gentlemen," I said. And, picking up speed and height, again I banked as we came to the far mountains Our right wing engine flicked on and off, then we were heading back across the desert into the rising sun.

  I now had the feel of the craft. My nervousness, my worrying over my ad hoc repairs disappeared, and I began to enjoy myself. Dag and Malamud too relaxed and began to look about them. Of a sudden Dag slapped my knee,

  "Told you philosophy would make us fly!"

  I smiled at him, did not dispute his happy assertion; for, although I now knew that we could have flown without all of the cumbersorne contraptions that we had so time-consumingly manufactured, we would not have made that discovery but far Dag’s insistence that we would fly.

  "What's that burning?" Malamud pointed between us.

  Slowing the shuttle I banked along the side of the mountains. The blast from our engines had made a bonfire of our shelter. I hovered slowly past it. The sled had moved but a few meters. It too appeared charred.

  “Now, I suppose, we'll have to build another sled," Malamud grumbled.

  "Now that I've got the hang of it," I said, "I don't think we'll need one anymore." Increasing speed, I skimmed out over the desert, began gaining height to cross the sunlit mountains ahead.

  My intention was to go with the sun around the planet, letting it gradually overtake us, and so return to the desert at sunset; my hope being that, in so doing, our energy uses would be constantly replenished.

  Now we shot up through the clouds over the mountains and, when we reached a height where both oceans were visible, I levelled off and told the shuttle to hold our present course and speed. The console displayed no faults.<
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  “We can unstrap now,” I told Dag and Malamud.

  "Did you see that town back there?” Dag asked as he unstrapped himself. “It had streets. Much bigger than the settlement across the other side." I had been looking at the instrument panel, hadn’t seen it. Nor had Malamud, who had been unstrapping himself. Now Malamud went to the rear of the shuttle.

  "Danger gives me an appetite," he said, and tossed Dag and I an apple each. The shuttle was packed with all sorts of fruit.

  “Just how long do you think this round trip will take?" I asked Malamud.

  “In case we crashed," Malamud blushed. From that blush I knew that he too had become used to Balant's walking pace, had deliberately stocked us with provisions enough for several days.

  We had all of us overrated the force of gravity and underrated the power of the shuttle. A mere shuttle. Consequently we were now all of us a little ashamed of our self-duplicity. So I did not crow over Malamud's cautious store of supplies, not when I had had them sweating days on end building an unnecessary sled.

  "There's a road down there," Dag said. I joined him at the rear port.

  The road was no more than a single track through the otherwise unbroken forest.

  “Must join two towns," I posited. “Can’t be at war with each other then?”

  We watched the track snake around low hills, lost it under the cover of the forest, saw it emerge into a town — built in a circle, with its four main streets forming a cross.

  "People there," Dag said.

  "They appear to be looking at us," I said, "Think we should go higher?"

  "Won't see anything from up there. They'll probably ascribe us to some superstition."

  So on we went, the sun slowly rising behind us, the northern ocean breaking in lines of white upon the continent's shore. The southern ocean appeared calm. Our energy supplies held steady. On the dirt track, which joined the towns, we glimpsed a wheeled cart drawn by a team of four-legged beasts.

  I had to adjust our course to bring us from a slight drift to the south; and, with nothing else to do, I told the shuttle to scan the land below for uranium, rubidium and potassium 40. It soon found all three.

  “There’s potassium 40 down there," I told Dag. "Balant's not that old."

  "How old?" Malamud asked me.

  "About one billion years."

  "That all?"

  We were almost on the opposite side of the planet when Malamud shrieked,

  "There! A silver trail! There!" Dag and I rushed to where Malamud wildly pointed.

  A block of mountains almost spanned the entire breadth of the continent. From out of those snowcapped mountains, to the north and to the south, flowed two wide rivers. Between those two rivers, and curling around the side of the mountain block, was a wide silver trail.

  "Can we go down for a closer look?” Dag asked me.

  Strapping ourselves back into our seats I took the control column in my hands.

  "Manual,” I told the shuttle. We wobbled slightly as control was transferred, then I banked and, in a slow falling curve, I took us down to the mouth of the southern river. Flying up the river, we then hovered slowly along the silver trail.

  The trail was about twenty meters wide and composed of, what appeared to be, a thick slimy substance not unlike, save for its undeviating course, the trail of a snail. The ground beneath the transparent slime was either bare soil or bare rock. The rock appeared to have been smoothed over.

  We flew the length of the trail twice. I wondered why we hadn't seen it when we had first orbited the planet.

  “They may have made it," Malamud suggested, "after we landed."

  "Probably not,” Dag said, as we gained height and speed, resumed our course, "This was on the dark side of the planet then. And, even had it been lit on our arrival, it would then have been late afternoon here. The trail would have been in the shadow of the mountains. Apart from which,” we all unstrapped ourselves, "the other evidence points to their having been here for some considerable time.”

  "What other evidence?" I asked him.

  “On a planet of this nature, with two such oceans, in the course of development, any warm-blooded intelligence would have fished the seas. Easy meat is an old expression." Malamud made a face. "But," Dag continued, "there's not one town by the sea. In fact that trail explains a lot. The buildings are way ahead of their transport. Compared to their houses that cart back there was inelegant. Their few fields look recent. Not established farming. They're comparatively new to it. Their evolution is all out of kilter."

  "And there are so few towns," I postulated, "because they tried to defy the Nautili?"

  “Could be..." Dag thoughtfully nodded. "Could be..."

  We paused once more on our flight.

  Within the forest, on a wide meandering river, there appeared a large area, several kilometres in diameter, that was sparsely wooded. On closer inspection we discovered, what we took to be, the remains, earthworks and rubble, of what must once have been, and not so long ago, a large city. Indeed we could make out broad avenues, tumbled blocks of stone.

  This latest discovery answered some questions and begged others. We had seen only six or seven large towns, the rest had been small isolated settlements, such as the one we had found on the other side of the mountains.

  What, I wondered, could account for Balant being so thinly populated? At their stage of development, Dag maintained, the dominant intelligent species should have been competing for resources. Were the Nautili responsible? Yet Dag hadn't heard of the Nautili pursuing a policy of genocide on their other planets. So long as the land-based inhabitants did not intrude upon their watery domain the Nautili appeared content to live and let live. So why had Balant's one city been destroyed, and why was the rest of its land so under-populated?

  "Disease?” I said.

  "Could be.”

  Much sobered by our discoveries we continued our flight, only to pass over, soon after, the earthworks and ruins of another city, this one near the coast. While I increased speed to make up for our diversions, Malamud fell to wondering if it had been the Nautili who had destroyed the spaceman's ship.

  “Then why,” I asked him, “did the Nautili not destroy the robots too?"

  Not one of us could fathom that mystery. Indeed it dogged our thoughts at every turn, with the Nautili now to add another element to our speculations.

  To get them off that weary topic, I asked if we should leave our cave and move closer to the centre of the continent. After taking off I had seen that our cave, from a height, had appeared to be almost on the coast; although the settlement was even closer to the coast than we were. Dag and Malamud decided that, as we intended leaving Balant as soon as we were able, there seemed little point in moving.

  Accusing myself of, once again, being overcautious, I agreed with them. Truth be told we were all of us loathe to abandon the cave that we had made our own, take up residence in another.

  The glare of the sun directly ahead was almost blacking out the screen when I descried the desert. Immediately I took over the controls and began slowing the shuttle for our landing. The oblique angle at the sun meant that we were now taking on little energy.

  To avoid passing over the settlement, I took the shuttle in an arc inland, came back across the desert losing height and slowing all the while. The sun at our backs the screen cleared; and, while I went even slower, I jibed at myself for having come in so fast when we had first landed. But then, I again excused myself, I had had no experience of flight within a planet's atmosphere, had known only the speeds of space.

  When we reached the landing ropes I hovered over them; and, although I now doubted that we would need it, I released the towline with its makeshift anchor. Then, performing a balancing act with the control column, I gradually decreased engine speed. Slowly, wobbling slightly, we descended to the desert floor. The closer we got to it the more enveloped did we become in a cloud of sand. The moment I felt the shuttle touch, I switched off the engi
nes.

  The shuttle teetered on its rounded hull, then listed to the right hand side.

  “When do we leave?" Malamud asked us.

  On the console was a fault. Familiar now with its coding I saw it to be in the life-support block. (I assumed then that it was one of my ersatz components, later discovered that the pressure of one of the ropes holding the block in place had severed a wire.)

  At that time, however, I pointed to the fault and said, "When that is repaired and we have tested the shuttle in space." Whereupon Dag suggested a trip to the other planets. Malamud and I agreed.

  I looked over to the smouldering remains of the shelter and the sled, "We'll need two blocks so that next time we can land on an even keel."

  “That would be,” Malamud said, as he slid off his seat, “most helpful."

  Chapter Fifteen

  We investigate our neighbours and make more disquieting discoveries.

  First we collected what timbers remained of the shelter and the sled; and, making of them two triangular bundles, we used them as chocks to keep the shuttle on an even keel. Then, for the remainder of that day, Dag and Malamud wandered up to the cave to collect some bags of the dried fruit. Our intention was to eat only that on our trip to the other planets; and, according to how much we ate, calculate the amount required to take us home.

  While they were gone I made the repair to the shuttle, checked that the ropes around the other blocks would not break any more wires; and I idly toyed with speeds and trajectories required to leave Balant.

  Excited by the prospect of our trip, we were late that night in going to sleep. The daybreak bedlam, however, didn't fail to rouse us. We breakfasted quickly on the dried fruit, which had the taint of smoke and took some chewing, albeit that it did satisfy our hunger. Then, strapping ourselves in, as the sun cleared the mountains, I started the engines.