Journey to Infinity - [Adventures in Science Fiction 02]

by Edited by Martin Greenburg

  But the thought refused to be disposed of so easily. All the time that Angam was working he was contrasting his lot, cast among a plenitude of air and water, with that of those who lived—and who were now dying—upon Loana. He wondered what conditions were like on that little, senile world, His imagination, vivid though it was, was unequal to the task.

  He made the last connection.

  “Shut her down, Carran,” he ordered his subordinate. The master valve atop the great cylinder head spun rapidly, the noise of escaping air rose octaves in pitch, from a low whistle to a barely audible hiss, then ceased. Through the smaller valves the compressed air poured into the bottles. Gauge needles flickered and crept to their maxima, valves were shut and metal flasks sent to join the long line of their identical twins on the chute to the warehouse. It was all part of a normal working day at the Darnala power storage plant. It was power, it was air compressed by the rising waters. And on the prime source of that power, on the world whose gravitational pull sent the tidal waves sweeping from ocean to ocean, the air and water were almost gone.

  Angam dipped his hands into a container of alcohol, agitated them until every trace of grease was washed from the close, ruddy fur. He dried them upon a clean piece of fabric. Then, hands clasped behind his back, he padded on broad, bare feet through his domain. Save for the occasional hiss of escaping air, the occasional plash of agitated water, it was very quiet. The row of tall, black cylinders, inside which the rams were rising with the rising tide, dwarfed the workers around their bases. A man of another age, another species, would have compared the atmosphere with that of a cathedral —but such a concept would have been incomprehensible to Angam and his fellows. True—they worshiped Ramanu, Lord of Life, in their fashion, but it was a fashion that recognized the need for ritual whilst refusing any belief in the supernatural,

  The big clock on the landward wall of the plant, its polished weights gleaming dully in the subdued light, marked the tenth hour. Somewhere, somebody pulled a lanyard. A deep, boomingly melodious whistle told all Darnala that the sun was at the meridian, that this was the hour of the midday meal. All but the few who would tend the simple machinery whilst their workmates dined were streaming from the plant. Angam found Carran, assured himself that the other was conversant with all that was happening, then followed his underlings out into the blaze of noonday heat and light. He paused at the parking lot, undecided whether or not to take his car and run home, there to enjoy his midday meal with his two wives. He decided against it. They would not be expecting him. He should have dispatched a messenger earlier in the forenoon. Which reminded him—his messenger bill for the last month was far too high.

  On foot he sauntered along the waterfront to the eating house kept by one Lagan,

  He found Mollin Momberig, manager of the pottery, in Lagan’s. It was often said that you would find there the executives of all the industries clustered around the harbor and the tidal power plants. The cooking was good and the prices were a little higher than those of the usual run of such places. High enough, in fact, to discourage those of the lower income levels. Equalitarian though society was it was recognized that equality of taste, behavior, conversational standards is impossible of attainment.

  Momberig was seated in one of the little booths, a bowl of soup and a pitcher of light wine before him. He saw Angara enter, peer around in the rather dim lighting as he searched for a familiar face, Moniberig raised his hand and called in his rather high pitched voice—”Angam! Angam Matangu! Will you honor me?”

  “The honor is mine,” replied Angara.

  He took his seat opposite the other, looked with appreciation at the waitress as she brought the bill of fare. He wondered if that peculiar shade of gold were natural. Natural or not—its effect was striking. He watched the girl as she threaded her way among the tables, her muscles moving smoothly under the blond, silky pelt.

  “I must come here more often, Mollin,” he said.

  Mollin laughed. “You might get away with it with Evanee—she doesn’t know you yet. But Linith—Oh, by the way, what does Evanee think of your Loana gazing?”

  Angara grinned, showing his big, strong teeth.

  “She thinks it very romantic,” he said.

  But his smile wasn’t all good humor. There was bitterness there —the bitterness of a man when he finds that a loved one does not, cannot take seriously those things which to him are of the utmost importance.

  “Of course, she’s young—” he concluded.

  Mollin pushed away his empty soup bowl, began vigorously to attack the crusty bread and strong cheese.

  “I watched Loana this morning,” he remarked in a sputter of crumbs. “The lights are going out, one by one.”

  “You know Tandrirf,” said Angam pensively. “What does he make of it?”

  “What could he make of it? All that he’s concerned with is turning out ephemerae for the seamen. He wouldn’t care if Loana were made of green cheese as long as she kept to her proper orbit, as long as the bold mariners were able to navigate their ships with her aid. Talking of mariners . . . ahoy, captain. Join us in a pitcher of Tironian wine!”

  From out the adjoining booth a short, more than normally thickset figure was making his way to the door. He hesitated, then retraced his steps to where Angam and Mollin were sitting. Angara studied him with interest, decided that he liked the man. Two pale-gray eyes from beneath heavy brows regarded him steadily. The facial hair, and that of the body, was graying—yet there was an impression of youth. And the heavy gold bracelet on each wrist denoted the wearer’s rank.

  “Captain Noab,” introduced Mollin. “Angam Matangu, manager of the power storage plant.” The two men bowed. “You know what we were talking about, captain?” the master potter went: on. “The city lights on Loana. What do you think is happening?”

  The mariner waited until the blonde had brought him his pitcher of wine. He drank long and appreciatively. Then—

  “I’ve watched Loana,” he rumbled. “I’ve looked long at those city lights, wondered what it would be like if we had ships that could get up there. And when those lights started going out one by one—why, it was like losing old friends.”

  “But what is happening?”

  “I don’t know, gentlemen. But I have my own—theories. Perhaps the people of Loana are like some of the ‘people’ aboard our ships. They are not nice people to know. Now that the air is thin, now that the water can be counted by drops, they are fighting each other for what little remains.”

  “Fighting? But that’s impossible! They must be at least as civilized as ourselves. And surely, under those conditions, they would band together and attempt to stave off doom by common effort.”

  “Yes. If they were like us. But are they? You landlubbers don’t get to know rats as we seamen do. In spite of all we can do to exterminate them they still infest our ships. They are not unintelligent. If—Ramann forbid —they should ever band together it would go hard with us, the human crew. But they are incurably vicious. They fight among themselves. They live on a plane of sheer savagery undreamed of by us or, indeed, by the big majority of our four-footed brethren.”

  Mollin’s face was incredulous. “You mean that the people of Loana are—rats?” he managed at last.

  “No. But I do mean that most of us have been far too prone to think of them as people like ourselves. But it seems to me that those city lights are going out, one by one, because those living in the cities are grappled in a dreadful struggle for the last drop of water, the last lungful of air. Working with one common end in view they might save themselves. But they are sealing the doom of themselves and their world.”

  Angam looked up at the clock. Its big hand marked one quarter of an hour to the eleventh hour. He rose to his feet.

  “I must go,” he said. “My assistant awaits his relief.”

  “I will come with you,” said Moffitt He signaled to the blond waitress, initialed with a pencil from his pouch the bill that she presented. N
oah leading they emerged from the eating house into the early afternoon sunshine.

  Angam had noted the captain’s ship on his way to his meal. She could hardly escape notice. Perhaps to a seaman’s practiced eye there were many details in which she differed from the smaller coastwise craft berthed all around her, but size alone made her stand out like a mastodon in a herd of bison. Her clean, russet painted hull and buff-colored upper-works were pleasing to the eye —yet she was so well designed that even had she been painted a drab, uniform gray her perfect lines would still have been a delight.

  High above the covered-in bridge towered the tall funnel, dull crimson, and on it, in gold, a rampant lion. From the lofty masts depended the derricks, idle now dur­ing the meal hour, and piled high upon the quay, awaiting shipment, were cases and casks and bales of merchandise.

  “You have a fine ship, Captain Noah,” said Angara. “Tell me, when does Arrak sail?”

  “It has not yet been decided. The stores and cargo should be aboard tomorrow. But I believe there is still some delay in the selection of the colonists.”

  “I should have liked to have come with you. They will need tidal engineers in this new land to the westward. But—”

  “Angam is a much married man, captain,” put in Mollin.

  “Yes. You know what women are.”

  “I do,” replied Noab. “That is why I have never married. But call aboard, Mollin Momberig, some time when you are free. And you too, Angam Matangu. We will drink a pitcher of wine together!”

  ~ * ~

  It was barely four weeks later.

  Angam Matangu stood with his two mates on the flat roof of his house on the outskirts of Darnala. The summer air was heavy with the scent of the night-flowering shrubs that grew in profusion in the garden below, that flaunted their pallid, faintly luminous blossoms from the plot in the center of the wide expanse of roof. The stars hung low in the warm sky. To the east was a growing, spreading pallor—a light wan and ghostly in contrast to the live, pulsing stars, the sparse, ruddy-burning lamps irregularly spaced along the thoroughfares of the city.

  Yet, in spite of the warmth, there was more than a suggestion of autumn in the air. Mixed with the scent of the flowers was a subtle hint of overripeness, of sweet decay. There was the dim foreknowledge that soon would come the cold gales from the north, that soon the trees and the flowering shrubs would stand stripped to the cold rains, that the lesser plants would be beaten down to the earth from which they had sprung.

  But, this morning the air was calm.

  From the rooftops of adjoining houses came a whispering, a murmuring. Once, almost alone in Darnala, Angam had kept his vigil. Now it seemed that all the city had arisen early to await the rising o f Loana.

  For the lights of the little sister world were now almost all gone. But one city remained—and all along its outskirts flashed and blazed other lights—evanescent, briefly flaring, somehow menacing.

  Angam thought of Captain Noab and his rats. Once he had visualized the people of Loana as beings not unlike himself—now he saw them as things small and active and evil with sharp teeth and rending claws.

  But those lights—

  The idea of a weapon was foreign to Angam’s people. True —their cattle herders in remote districts carried spears as a protection for themselves and their charges against the great cats—but beyond that they had not gone. Vegetarians as they were they were never hunters. Their herds supplied them with milk and cheese —but meat was an unknown diet to them.

  But those lights—

  Could it be, thought Angam, that they were using some kind of blasting powder against their fellows? Once he had seen the results of a premature burst in a quarry—even now, the memory brought nausea. But his engineer’s mind could conceive how —if it were imperative to kill one’s fellows—explosives could be uti­lized. A metal tube, for example, sealed at one end and with a little ball or rod working within it like a piston, expelled by the force of the explosion. Or a metal ball filled with blasting powder and with a slow-burning fuse. It could be thrown at one’s enemies. .. .

  Linith rose from her seat on the parapet and walked to his side.

  She slipped her arm inside his, said nothing. She was very comforting.

  Evanee got up, too. She hurried across to where her husband and his first wife were standing, made haste to possess herself of his free arm.

  “Why do you worry about Loana?” she pouted. “It’s miles away. Nothing that happens there can possibly affect us.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “What was it that Captain Loab was saying the night we had dinner aboard Arrak?” interrupted Linith. “Wasn’t it that this was like being aboard a big, well-found ship, standing by some smaller vessel foundering in a storm and being unable to raise a finger to help?”

  “Yes,” replied Angam. “That’s just what it is like, Linith. Can’t you see, Evanee? There are people there. They may be like us—they most probably are not. They have hopes and fears like us. And loves—”

  “And hates,” said Linith somberly.

  “So you believe in old Noab’s wild theory.”

  “Don’t you?”

  From the airport came a flashing of lights, a shouting, an orderly confusion. Released from its moorings the northbound mail floated up, a vast, black bulk against the stars. But there was no whine of turbines, no threshing of screws. The airship rose almost vertically, a distant splashing noise telling of the jettison of water ballast. It seemed that her pilots, too, had sensed that this rising of Loana would be momentous, were determined that neither they nor their passengers would miss whatever spectacle was to be unfolded before their wondering and horrified eyes. The people of Attrin could do nothing to help their close, unknown neighbors in space—but the mere fact that they would be silent, helpless witnesses of the death of a world gave them the sense of an obligation fulfilled.

  Along the eastern horizon were low, dense clouds. A slight paling of the blackness above them gave brief warning of the rising of Loana. The silver crescent showed first the merest tip of one of its horns, just a single point of light over the dark sea. The point became a triangle, the triangle a scimitar. Then Loana in her entirety ruled briefly the eastern heavens. The ghost of the new Loana shone wanly within the half encircling rim of brilliance. And this pale, reflected light on the dark side was almost the only illumination. Just one little cluster of pin points of radiance remained, lost and lonely in the expanse of darkness.

  “The last city,” said Linith. “The last bastions against the everlasting night.”

  Last bastion it may have been—and even to these distant watchers it was obvious that it was suffering assault. Around its perimeter could be seen a continual flickering, briefly flaring flames that, even at this extreme range, seemed to sear the retina. Abruptly fully half of the remaining city lights went out.

  Then it happened.

  The tiny luminosities seemed to fuze, to coalesce. For an infinitesimal fraction of a moment there was complete darkness—and then the whole of Loana spouted flame. An intolerable radiance swept over the little world. Not one of those watching saw the last act of the distant tragedy played out to its conclusion. The light was of a brightness too intense to be borne, brighter than the torrents of fire sweeping down the sky during a summer thunderstorm, brighter than Ramanu at the meridian. Every detail of Darnada was thrown into sharp relief. The startled birds in the trees set up a fear-crazed chattering. And the sea to the east threw back the light from the sky so that all must either close their eyes or turn their faces inland.

  Evanee uttered a low cry, a little scream. She fell to the rooftop, heavily. Angam bent over her, all anxious solicitude. But it was Linith who took charge.

  “Can’t you see?” she said. “It was the shock, look after her. Hurry and get the doctor!”

  Angam straightened. Even now he could not resist the urge to take one last look at the sky. But there was nothing to be seen. A warm, gusty wind had arisen
and was blustering through the widely spaced houses. The sky was overcast. And from the southward came a continual flickering of lightning and dull grumbling of thunder. And it was very hot. His pelt was damp with perspiration, and beneath it his skin prickled with an almost unendurable irritation.

  “Shall I help you down with her?” he asked.

  “No. I’ll manage. But you might put the lights on and start some water heating on your way to the street.”

  In Evanee’s bedroom Angam flicked with his thumb the lever of her table lamp. The spark caught at once, there were a few seconds of hissing and spluttering and then the incandescent mantle passed swiftly from red heat to a soft, white light. In the kitchen the boiler gave no trouble. Nevertheless he assured himself, before going out, that the oil -reservoir was full. He felt rather proud of his level-headedness.