The Map of the Sky

by Félix J Palma

  Twenty minutes later, the men MacReady had picked were outside on the ice once more, warmly wrapped up, armed, and accompanied by a couple of sleds and a handful of dogs. In addition to Reynolds and the captain himself, the group consisted of Doctor Walker, Gunnery Sergeant Allan, and seven ordinary seamen with whom Reynolds scarcely had any association: Griffin, Wallace, Foster, Carson, Shepard, Ringwald, and the Indian Peters. After making sure they were all present, MacReady gestured energetically in the direction of the mountains, and without further ado the group set off.

  III

  DURING THE JOURNEY, REYNOLDS AVOIDED POSITIONING himself next to the captain, although that was the most appropriate place for him. He did not want to be drawn into a verbal battle with MacReady while they crossed the ice, so he deliberately hung back, until he found himself walking beside Griffin, the scrawny sailor whose remarks had aroused his curiosity. He remembered that Griffin had signed up for the Annawan at the last moment, when the ship’s crew was already complete, overcoming MacReady’s misgivings with his insistence on joining the discovery team and proving that not only was he genuinely passionate about the voyage but also able to surmount obstacles, including a boorish, stubborn captain. But, Reynolds wondered, why was it so important to Griffin to be there now, in that freezing cold?

  “I think you’re right, Griffin,” he said as they drew level. “No doubt we will find some kind of flying machine in those mountains.”

  Griffin was surprised that the man leading the expedition, who scarcely fraternized with the sailors, should address him in the tone of someone wanting to engage in pleasant chitchat. Visibly awkward, Griffin simply nodded his head, reduced to a ball of kerchiefs and scarves with a frozen nose and mustache poking out. But Reynolds was not put off by his reticence and resolved to strike up a conversation with the mysterious sailor, whether he liked it or not.

  “Why were you so keen on joining our expedition, Griffin?” he asked him outright. “Do you believe in my Hollow Earth theory?”

  The sailor looked at him for a moment, aghast. His thin mustache was caked with frost, and it occurred to Reynolds that when they returned to the ship, Griffin would have no choice but to chop off the frozen hair. This was precisely why Reynolds himself insisted on continuing to shave, even though he had to do it with a basin of melted ice. Clearly Griffin preferred not to put himself through that torture every morning.

  “The idea is very poetic, sir,” the sailor replied at last.

  “Very poetic, yes . . . But you don’t believe it,” Reynolds deduced, looking askance at Griffin. “I suppose like all the others you are here because of the money. But in that case, tell me why you were so keen to come aboard the Annawan. The wages are the same on any other ship, possibly higher, and the conditions less dangerous.”

  Griffin, who seemed increasingly upset about being questioned, reflected for a moment before replying.

  “I needed to board a ship that offered no guarantee of return, sir,” he said at last.

  Reynolds was unable to conceal his confusion. He recalled the advertisement MacReady had posted in the various New York newspapers in order to attract recruits, which when he had read it had made his blood run cold:

  Crewmen wanted for Antarctic expedition in search of the passage to the center of the Earth. Perilous conditions: extreme cold and constant risk. No guarantee of return. Honor, fame, and a handsome bonus if the mission is successful.

  “I never imagined that would tempt anyone,” said Reynolds, glancing at the little man with an expression bordering on respect.

  Up until then he had thought Griffin was no different from the others, whom he assumed had been enticed to join the Annawan by the advertisement’s last sentence. Yet for this skinny sailor it had been the penultimate one. Apparently, the ways of the human heart were as inscrutable as God’s own designs. Griffin shrugged and walked on in silence, until Reynolds’s quizzical gaze forced him to speak, “I don’t know what reasons the others had for embarking, sir,” he confessed, continuing to stare straight ahead, “but I am here to get away from a woman. At least for a while.”

  “From a woman?” the explorer asked, intrigued.

  With a heavy sigh, the sailor continued.

  “I had been courting a young lady for a little over four months, when suddenly, I’m not quite sure how, I found myself engaged to be married.” Griffin appeared to smile resignedly beneath the layers of cloth wrapped around his face. “And I’m not ready for marriage yet. I’m only thirty-two, sir! I still have so much I want to see!”

  Reynolds nodded, pretending to comprehend.

  “The day after I plighted my troth,” the sailor went on, “I signed up for this expedition. I detest the cold, but as I said before, the Annawan was the only ship that did not guarantee my return. That way I would have enough time to decide what I really wanted to do with my life.”

  “I understand,” said Reynolds, who did not understand at all. “And what about her?” he added, assuming the woman in question would have broken off her engagement to someone who prior to their nuptials would embark upon a suicide mission.

  “As you can imagine, she did not take kindly to this sudden postponement of our wedding for months, possibly years. Yet she understood my . . . my need for adventure.”

  “I understand,” Reynolds repeated mechanically.

  Griffin nodded, grateful for the explorer’s sympathy. As though having squandered the better part of the store of words he had brought with him for the voyage, he broke off the conversation, sinking once more into an unassailable silence. Reynolds gave up any further attempt at conversation and continued walking alongside Griffin, sharing his silence. An untimely fog closed in around them, the cold seeming to intensify.

  In order to take his mind off his frigid extremities, Reynolds tried to recall the strange machine’s vertiginous descent. It struck him as particularly odd that it had occurred precisely when they were there, as though arranged for their entertainment. If they had not become icebound, no one would have seen the machine, and its occupant, assuming someone really was steering the thing, would have perished alone. Then he wondered what country had the scientific capability to produce a machine like the one that had hurtled through the air at such an incredible speed, but he promptly shook his head. There was no point in speculating. In less than an hour he would find out for himself, he thought, and so he focused instead on the majestic beauty of the landscape, that never-ending expanse of pristine whiteness surrounding him on all sides, like an imitation marble palace. As he did so, he thought it ironical that the very qualities that gave the landscape its beauty would probably be the same ones that killed them.

  • • •

  DESPITE THE THICKENING FOG, they soon caught sight of the machine. The object that had fallen from the sky was so enormous it stood out ominously in the distance, like a beacon lighting their way. When they finally reached the site of the accident, they could see it was indeed some kind of flying machine. Almost as big as a tram, but round and domed, the machine stuck up from the ice like an idol from some unknown religion. It appeared undamaged, although the impact had cracked the ice in a thirty-yard radius, so that they had to tread carefully as they approached. The object was made of a shiny material, sleek as a dolphin’s skin, and seemed to have no door or hatch. The only blemish on the glossy fuselage was a cluster of strange embossed symbols from which a faint coppery light emanated.

  “Does anyone have any idea what the devil it is?” MacReady asked, glancing about inquiringly.

  No one spoke, although the captain was not really expecting a reply. They were all mesmerized by the machine’s gleaming surface, which mirrored their astonished faces. Reynolds studied his reflection as if it were a stranger’s. He was so used to seeing himself broken up into what looked like lopsided fragments in the tiny mirror he used for shaving that he was surprised to discover the pitiful result when they all came together. No one could deny he was impeccably clean shaven, yet his eyes
had a weary, feverish look from lack of sleep, and he seemed as slender as a wraith. Apart from that, the face peering back at him from the machine’s silky surface still had that same childish air that made it difficult for him to compete in the adult world, those plump lips that failed to command authority.

  Reynolds sighed resignedly and looked away from his reflection in order to examine the nearest cluster of markings. Most of these were finely drawn symbols, vaguely reminiscent of Asian characters, framed by what looked like geometric shapes. He could not resist stretching his right hand toward one of them, with the aim of running his finger along their wavy spirals. Although he was curious to know what that peculiar shimmering material felt like, he chose to keep his glove on for fear his hand might freeze. When he touched the symbol, a strange plume of smoke began to rise slowly into the air, and as Reynolds looked on in wonder, a tiny blue flame sprouted from his glove like an unexpected bloom. The explorer felt a stabbing pain, which instantly radiated through his whole body. He withdrew his hand, unable to stop the excruciating agony from emerging as a terrible roar. Reynolds caught a sudden whiff of singed fabric and flesh and amid the pain was scarcely able to grasp that on touching the strange symbol, his glove had caught fire, despite the subzero temperatures. The sailors standing next to him recoiled in horror, while Reynolds, his face screwed up in pain, fell to his knees on the ice, holding up his right hand, now wrapped in shreds of charred cloth, blackened and smoking like a witch’s claw.

  “Good God!” Doctor Walker exclaimed, hurrying to his aid.

  “No one is to touch the outside of that thing!” MacReady roared. “Damnation, if anyone touches anything without my permission I’ll string him from the yardarm!”

  The surgeon ordered Shepard, the sailor nearest him, to dig a hole in the ice as quickly as possible. Shepard took out his pickax and struck obstinately at the brittle crust until he managed to make a kind of burrow. As Walker thrust Reynolds’s arm down the hole, they all heard a noise like a red-hot iron being plunged into a bucket of water. When Walker deemed that was enough, or perhaps when he felt his own fingers begin to freeze through his glove, he yanked Reynolds’s hand out. The explorer, half stunned by the sudden contrast of fire and ice, put up no resistance.

  “I must take him back to the infirmary immediately,” Walker declared. “I have nothing to bandage his hand with.”

  “Captain!” cried Peters, before MacReady had time to respond.

  MacReady turned his head toward the Indian, who was standing about ten yards from the machine, pointing at the ice.

  “I’ve found some tracks, sir!”

  The captain opened his mouth in surprise, then collected himself and strode over to Peters, a few of the other sailors following behind.

  “It looks like something came out of the machine,” the Indian surmised.

  MacReady glared at Peters, as though he were to blame for everything, when clearly what he was angry about were the endless surprises that prevented him from showing his men the imperturbable calm every captain should possess. The Indian knelt by the prints, studied them in silence, then explained to the others what he saw in those scratches in the snow.

  “The prints are huge, too big for an animal, at least any I know,” he said, pointing at the outline. “Do you see? They’re almost as long as a man’s arm. And strangely oval shaped and deep, as if what made them weighed several tons. But the funniest thing is there are no toe prints in the snow. These look more like claw marks.”

  “Are you sure about that, Peters?” Wallace said, leaning over them. “They look more like hoofprints to me.”

  “Hoofprints? Since when did you become a tracker, Wallace?” Shepard scoffed.

  “I don’t know, Shepard, but I have goats and those prints are—”

  “Shut up, both of you!” MacReady bellowed at the two men. He turned to the Indian, who, rather than argue with them, was scowling silently, aggrieved perhaps that anyone should question his vast knowledge in this area. “Continue, please, Peters . . . You were saying the prints aren’t human?”

  “I’m afraid so, sir,” Peters confirmed.

  “But that’s impossible!” MacReady exclaimed. “What else could they be?”

  “Footprints never lie, Captain,” Peters replied. “Whatever came out of that machine is a creature that walks upright, but it isn’t human.”

  A deathly hush fell as the others leaned over the strange tracks.

  “And the prints are fresh,” he added. “I would say about twenty minutes old, possibly less.”

  Peters’s words alarmed the men, who glanced around anxiously, peering into the white void. All of a sudden, they were not alone.

  “And the next set of prints?” MacReady asked, trying to appear unruffled. “Which direction did this . . . creature take?”

  “That’s the odd thing, Captain,” said Peters, leading them a few yards farther on. “The next prints are over here, nearly six feet from the first. That means that in one stride the creature can cover a distance impossible for any other animal. And the next lot must be even farther away, because I can’t see them.”

  “Are you saying the creature moves in leaps?”

  “It seems so, Captain. In bigger and bigger leaps, which makes it very difficult to follow even without this fog. Unless we comb the area, we can’t know which direction it took. It could have gone anywhere.”

  “You see, Wallace?” Shepard piped up. “Could one of your goats do that?”

  The captain gave Shepard a black look and told him to shut up.

  “What do you suppose that thing is, Peters?” asked one of the other sailors, a man called Carson.

  The Indian remained silent for a few moments before replying, contemplating whether his companions were ready for the revelation he was about to share with them.

  “A devil,” he said in a grave voice. “And it came from the stars.”

  Inevitably, his words caused a great stir among the men. The captain raised his hand to quiet them down, then desisted. Did he have a better theory, one that might put his men’s minds at rest?

  “All right,” he said at last, trying to keep control of the situation. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. Whatever this thing is, it may still be in the vicinity. We’ll go and see. Doctor Walker, you and Foster take Mr. Reynolds back to the ship, dress his wound, and when he’s recovered, remind him to stop and think before touching anything. Even a child knows that.”

  The doctor nodded. He helped the sobbing Reynolds to his feet, while MacReady continued giving orders.

  “It’s best if we split up into pairs; that way we can cover the whole area around the machine. Peters and Shepard, you take one of the sleds and go south. Carson and Ringwald, you take the other sled and go north. Griffin and Allan, you go east, and you, Wallace, come with me. If you don’t find anything within a two-mile radius, come back here. This will be the meeting place. Any questions?”

  “I have a question, Captain,” said Carson. “What if we find the . . . demon?”

  “If you find it and it behaves in a threatening way, don’t hesitate to use your musket, Carson. And then finish it off.”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Good,” said the captain, taking a deep breath. “Now let’s get going. Let’s find that thing!”

  IV

  CRADLING HIS BANDAGED HAND, REYNOLDS WATCHED from the deck of the Annawan as the reddish-purple hues of dusk bled onto the ice fields, giving him the impression he was on the surface of the planet Mars. However hard he looked, he was incapable of seeing where the frozen ocean ended and the land began, for the snow had wiped away all trace of its union like a skillful tailor’s invisible seam. Reynolds only knew that MacReady had prohibited them from walking around the outside of the ship as well as on the port side. Although it did not look like it, the ice there was much thinner, scarcely eight inches thick, and could easily break under their weight, since what they would in fact be walking on was the waterway, now layered with ice, t
hat had brought them there. Consequently, he had ordered those sailors who were in the habit of emptying their bowels overboard to do so over the port side, with the result that enjoying the majestic frozen landscape from that part of the ship was not advisable.

  Looking away from the frozen desert, Reynolds tilted his head up toward the handful of stars that were out and contemplated them with the habitual reverence he reserved for the Creator’s majestic handiwork. If what Peters said was true, the machine that had fallen from the sky and landed on the ice must have come from up there. In fact, it was not such a crazy idea, he told himself; no more so than believing that the center of the Earth was inhabited, as he did. Although it might be more precise to say that he wanted to believe it, for the only path he had discovered that could lead to immortality was to become the last great conqueror of the last great undiscovered territory. But now another completely unexpected vista had opened before his eyes, one that contained an infinitely bolder promise of eternal glory. How many planets in the firmament were inhabited? And how much glory would go to the person who succeeded in conquering them?