News From Elsewhere

by Edmuind Cooper

  The remaining three members of the expedition, Professor Bernard Thompson, representing Britain, Professor Yves Frontenac, representing France, and Dr. Chan S. Chee, representing China, had each logged at least three major shoots and an impressive number of satellite-orbit hours. During the long fall to Mars, they had had ample time to shake down as a team and to work out their exploration strategy in detail.

  And now here they were in their slender titanium hull, poised like a classic monument on the equatorial Martian desert. Radiac tests had been made, the ground-level atmosphere had been analyzed, and the first Earthmen were about to set foot on the sands of Mars—symbolically, perhaps, at high noon.

  Even before they stepped outside the ship, they already knew enough about Mars to be slightly humiliated by their own previous theories and the general opinion of scientists on Earth.

  For decades, terrestrial astronomers had assured everyone that Mars was virtually inimical to life—despite an insistent popular belief in grotesque and complex life forms and even Martian intelligence.

  Mars, claimed the astronomers with all the authority of men capable of making powerful deductions on the most slender evidence, was a planet almost without oxygen, water, or warmth. The so-called canals were not canals at all but a series of flux fissures entirely geological in origin. And they went on to predict that, because of the climate, the most highly developed forms of life that could be expected would be similar to lichen, perhaps, or simple cacti.

  These, roughly, had been the general views of the U.N. expedition—until their arrival. But even before touchdown, while they were orbiting at a hundred thousand meters, they were able to discern among other things that the canals were, in fact—or had been—canals, and that the atmosphere contained enough oxygen to support human life if not comfortably, at least bearably.

  Then, when they went into low-level orbit, they made a discovery that seemed to eclipse everything else—except perhaps the canals—in significance.

  They saw pyramids: ten tremendous Martian pyramids spaced at great distances from each other over the comparatively featureless plains and naked deserts. The discovery was more than a discovery, it was a revelation. And the revelation had more significance, more far-reaching implications, than any other discovery in the entire history of man.

  More than four centuries previously an obscure Polish astronomer, Nicolaus Copernicus, had shocked the world by his assertion that Earth was not uniquely fixed at the center of the cosmos. But eventually both theology and pride had recovered from the blow. For though Earth itself could no longer be regarded as unique in size, position, or significance, its master race, Homo sapiens, was still the chosen of God. Nowhere else, it was held, could there be creatures of such intelligence and inventiveness, able to be used as divine instruments in the eternal battle between good and evil. So said the priests and the philosophers and all who contributed to the cult of human significance.

  And for four hundred years the proposition of the uniqueness of man was not seriously challenged.

  But now?

  The news of the Martian pyramids had already been beamed to Lunar City and Earth before the U.N. ship touched down. And back had come a definitive order to abandon for the time being the orderly sequence of scientific exploration and concentrate upon the pyramids. The expedition to Mars was, in financial terms, an extremely costly venture; and as, in the end, it would be the ordinary citizens who would have to foot the bill, here was a chance to give them something truly spectacular for their money.

  The order did not cause any disappointment at all among the U.N. team. The mystery of the pyramids was

  hypnotic in a way that no previous space discovery had ever been. Somehow the existence of structures designed and built by intelligent beings established an atmosphere of contact and communication which considerably diminished the heavy mood of loneliness that had built up on the long shoot to Mars. It was as if Mars had expected the Pax Mundi, as if the pyramids were a kind of gigantic planetary greeting.

  The nearest one now lay some three kilometers to the north of the U.N. ship, its smooth black symmetry rising almost half a kilometer from the desert. As Colonel Krenin came out of the airlock, glanced momentarily at the impressive shape, and then made his way down the nylon ladder, his feeling of awe seemed to expand like a great inward bubble.

  Then suddenly the historic moment was over before he was aware of it. He had already set foot on the sands of Mars. After him came Commander Thrace and the rest. None of them said anything for nearly three minutes. They just stood and stared.

  Presently the honor of uttering the first terrestrial words on the planet fell to Professor Thompson. He gazed at the pyramid, sighed deeply, and in modem Lingua Franca said, “At this very moment, more than anything, I want a cigarette.”

  “Why not?” remarked Dr. Chee blandly. “The oxygen content of the air is rich enough. But I do not think your cigarette will taste quite the same.”

  “Have a Gauloise,” said Professor Frontenac.

  “Have a Stuyvesant,” said Commander Thrace.

  The Englishman frowned slightly, felt in his own pocket, then accepted a French cigarette.

  “You’re right,” he remarked after a few moments. “They taste quite different.”

  “Gentlemen,” said Colonel Krenin., “a formal speech will be required for transmission to Earth, and since my Lingua Franca is less proficient than it might be. . . .” He took a miniature recorder from his shoulder bag and looked at his companions hopefully.

  Professor Frontenac smiled. “The pyramids are probably the remains of a civilization that was ancient even when terrestrial man was still a creature of the caves and forests. Among us, Dr. Chee represents one of the oldest terrestrial civilizations. I think perhaps it is fitting . .

  Dr. Chee bowed, then made a brief speech for the benefit of Krenin’s recorder, the waiting millions on Earth, and perhaps a solar posterity. He spoke of the wonder of the journey, the even greater wonder of discovery, and the solemnity of touch-down. But even Dr. Chee’s restrained language and abstract nouns could not avoid contamination by the boyish excitement and impatience that suddenly gripped the U.N. team.

  While he was still talking, Commander Thrace ran back up the nylon ladder and swung the light electric derrick out from the ship’s lower entry-port. Then he and Professor Frontenac began to lower sections of the six-seater hiduminium monowheel they had brought. Soon the others were assembling it, and in less than half an hour the twenty-foot-diameter transport wheel was operational with its gyr©stabilizer purring evenly.

  Professor Thompson shaded his eyes and gazed at the pyramid, massive and somber under the bright Martian sun. “Perhaps we should eat something before we venture on any exploration,” he suggested without much conviction.

  “Do you feel like eating?” inquired Dr. Chee.

  “No, but I thought—”

  “I will bring some emergency packs,” called Colonel Krenin from the ship’s open airlock. “If necessary, we can dine at the pyramid.”

  Commander Thrace had been staring fixedly at what appeared to be a large, rounded boulder, some fifty centimeters high, which lay a few meters from the base of the ship.

  “Anybody notice this before?” he asked.

  No one could remember seeing it.

  “Look,” said the Commander. “Look closely.”

  The boulder was moving very slowly over the dull red sand. They watched it move across what looked like a tiny patch of moss; but when the boulder had passed, the plant was no longer to be seen.

  Frontenac went up to the boulder and touched it. Then he tapped it. There was a look of ecstatic mystification on his face.

  “Let’s turn it over,” suggested Thrace.

  They did so. The face of the underside was soft. It seemed like a compound of sponge and snail. Very slowly it began to withdraw into the security of its thick protective shell.

  “Marvelous, superb, exquisite!” exclaimed Front
enac, lapsing into his native French. “What a beautiful animal!”

  “Or plant,” added Thompson dryly.

  “Animal,” insisted the Frenchman. “By all the laws—”

  “On Mars,” interrupted Thompson, “the definitions we have been accustomed to use may not necessarily apply.”

  Gently they replaced the “boulder” face down on the sand.

  “Now we must go to the pyramid,” said Colonel Krenin. “Earth will want our first report quickly. I have put the still, cine-, and telecameras in the monowheel. Do each of you carry crew radios and personal recorders?”

  They nodded.

  “What of my specimen?” said Frontenac. “I wish to observe it.”

  “Then you will also observe the ship,” said Krenin, smiling. “Someone should stay.”

  The Frenchman wore the look of one who wished mightily to be in two places at once.

  After a final checkover, the rest of the expedition climbed aboard the monowheel, with Commander Thrace taking the control stick. As they set off toward the pyramid, they saw Professor Frontenac kneel down and put his head close to the sand. He was trying to see how his pet “boulder” managed to move.

  The desert was, for the most part, surprisingly smooth, and the journey to the pyramid took barely ten minutes. On the way they passed several small varieties of plant and one curious patch of tall grass that contrived to strike with whiplike force at the monowheel as it went by. They also passed several of the “boulder” creatures, which Professor Thompson temporarily called Frontenac’s Friends.

  As they neared the base of the great pyramid, their sense of excitement became so intense that it seemed to fuse into an unnatural calm. They were drunk with wonder. They felt like sleepwalkers who were yet wide awake.

  The structure not only dominated the landscape; it seemed to reach the very zenith of the sky. Compared to this, the pyramids of Egypt were as the toys of a child.

  First of all they drove slowly around the whole edifice in the monowheel, just gazing at it, unable to find either adequate comment or adequate explanation. It seemed quite beyond explanation—beyond possibility even. Yet there it stood: the greatest monument ever presented to the sight of man.

  Its face appeared to be constructed of layer upon layer of a kind of black basalt, each single slab of which, though worn perhaps by sandstorm and blizzard, was still flawless in its dimensions. The layers rose inward like a triangulated giant’s stairway, reaching toward the shimmering apex that was itself a steppingstone to the sky.

  But in the center of each of the massive steps, there was a shiny whitish slab veined with gold and crimson and green and silver—iridescent as a crystal mirror, more beautiful than any known marble of Earth.

  The first of these slabs, like the layer of. basalt in which it was set, lay half-covered by the dull red Martian sand. The four men climbed out of the monowheel and gazed at it; and as they did so, the slab immediately above swung noiselessly back, revealing a faintly luminous passage. Out of this a long, light metal gangway extended itself with equal silence, its protruding end being lowered slowly to the level of the sand more than two meters below.

  The end of the gangway came to rest almost at Colonel Krenin’s feet.

  “By all the saints!” murmured Professor Thompson hoarsely. “It knows we’re here!”

  Commander Thrace was the first to recover himself. “Photo-electric equipment,” he suggested helpfully. “Or maybe vibration sensors.”

  “The point is,” said the Colonel, “do we accept the invitation or not?”

  Dr. Chee smiled. “At least it has been put to us very gracefully.”

  “It could be some kind of trap,” remarked Commander Thrace.

  Krenin frowned. “Too elaborate. We could have been dealt with more efficiently and economically.”

  Professor Thompson smiled. “Will you walk into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.”

  “Some parlor,” said Thrace.

  “It could be an intelligent spider,” retorted the Englishman.

  Dr. Chee raised his eyebrows slightly. “One can hardly appreciate the psychology of a race capable of constructing pyramids to trap space travelers,” he ventured dryly.

  Colonel Krenin became practical. “Two of us will accept the invitation,” he said, “and two will remain here.”

  “We’ll draw lots,” said the Commander. He took four cigarettes from his pack, tore the filter tips from two of them and put them behind his back. When he displayed his hand once more, four smooth cigarette ends were showing. “The two short ones stay.”

  Colonel Krenin drew first and got a full cigarette. Both Thompson and Chee drew short ones.

  “We will limit ourselves to a maximum of one hour,” said the Colonel. “We will make radio contact only in an emergency. On no account are you to follow.” He tested the gangway with his foot.

  “Good luck,” said Professor Thompson.

  “You already have too much of it,” grumbled Dr. Chee.

  With Krenin leading, the two men went cautiously up the gangway. At the top they turned to look at their companions for a moment, then entered the passage.

  The inside walls were faced with the same kind of stone as the slab that had swung back to reveal the entrance. It glowed greenly, providing a pleasant and restful light by which the two men were able to see their way ahead. After a brief hesitation they walked forward.

  The passage proceeded in a straight line, sloping slightly downwards, and looked as if it must lead to the center of the pyramid’s base. If that were so, Krenin and Thrace were in for quite a long walk.

  At first they advanced slowly and in silence as if they half expected a pit to open suddenly at their feet, or some other equally noxious trick. But there were no tricks, and after a few minutes they gained enough confidence to walk forward at a brisk pace. After a time, they turned around and looked back. The opening was still visible as a tiny point of light, but it already seemed several kilometers away.

  “The plot thickens,” said Commander Thrace softly to himself in English.

  “I beg your pardon?” said Colonel Krenin in Lingua Franca.

  “Sorry. The situation is absolutely baffling.”

  “Not absolutely,” remarked Krenin with a thin smile. “There is much to indicate order, intelligence, and purpose.”

  Suddenly Thrace grabbed his companion’s arm and pointed to the wall just ahead. A rectangular slab of black stone had been let into it, and on the stone a diagram had been engraved.

  It was a symbolic, representation of the solar system. All the planets but two were shown simply as circles on lines indicating their orbital paths. But the third planet, Earth, was represented by a brilliant green stone; and the fourth planet, Mars, by an even more brilliant red one.

  Krenin and Thrace were more than amazed: they were dumbfounded.

  After a few moments, Commander Thrace broke the spell. “We’d better press on,” he said. “We have only forty-five minutes left, and I have a feeling there are more and bigger surprises waiting for us.”

  He was right.

  After a few more steps they discovered another black slab let into the opposite wall. This one showed the symbols for an atom of hydrogen, one of oxygen, and one of carbon. The two men stared at it in silence and then passed on. Words seemed totally inadequate.

  The next slab they encountered showed what seemed to be a representation of a simple protein molecule. After that came what looked like the molecular pattern of deoxyribonucleic acid. And after that came the greatest shock of all.

  There were two parallel slabs, one on each side of the passage. They showed with brilliant anatomical detail two human beings—a man and a woman. Both were represented, however, without any hair.

  “I will now believe anything,” said Commander Thrace in a shaky voice. “Anything at all.”

  “Then—then man is not a unique product of Earth!” exclaimed the Colonel. “Or perhaps . . .” The thought was too f
antastic to be expressed.

  With an effort, Thrace managed to rouse himself from the subtle state of hypnosis into which the diagrams seemed to be drawing him. “We ought to keep moving,” he said reluctantly.

  Krenin glanced at his own wristwatch and sighed.

  “There is so much—so much to observe, to consider.”

  They continued on their way along the greenly glowing passage, feeling like children trapped in a mysterious dream world that was somehow confused with reality. Presently they came to a sharp turn in the passage, and as they negotiated it they were presented with the most fantastic sight of all.

  Suddenly they found themselves in a vault large enough to contain any of the great cathedrals of Earth. It was suffused with the same green glow as the passage, but deeper now, so that for— a moment the two men felt as if they were walking across the floor of a great subterranean ocean.

  Then the oceanic feeling gave way to lofty revelation—a feeling of infinite space and infinite beauty. It was as if they were engulfed by a cloud of soundless music blown all about them by dark draughts of light.

  For a bright suspended moment, the two men felt as if they were dying. And then as if they were instantly reborn.

  The walls of the vault were alive with solid pictures, fading and merging and blooming in a magnificent visual symphony. Here, for a moment, they glimpsed in all its awful grandeur the birth of the solar system. The fiery wisps of planets were flung out from a ravaged solar womb, out into the dark immensities of space. The wisps condensed into burning droplets, the droplets into solid spheres. And then the vision dissolved into a pattern of lifeless oceans, of monstrous volcanoes and blinding rivers of rock, of explosion and cataclysm and deluge, of floating continental islands and desperate aeons of scalding rain.

  Again the patterned pictures changed. . . .