My mind was beginning to function normally, to analyze and to ask questions. Was this a building, a shrine—or something for which my language had no name? If a building, then why was it erected in so uniquely inaccessible a spot? I wondered if it might be a temple, and I could picture the adepts of some strange priesthood calling on their gods to preserve them as the life of the Moon ebbed with the dying oceans, and calling on their gods in vain.
I took a dozen steps forward to examine the thing more closely, but some sense of caution kept me from going too near. I knew a little of archaeology, and tried to guess the cultural level of the civilization that must have smoothed this mountain and raised the glittering mirror surfaces that still dazzled my eyes.
The Egyptians could have done it, I thought, if their workmen had possessed whatever strange materials these far more ancient architects had used. Because of the thing’s smallness, it did not occur to me that I might be looking at the handiwork of a race more advanced than my own. The idea that the Moon had possessed intelligence at all was still almost too tremendous to grasp, and my pride would not let me take the final, humiliating plunge.
And then I noticed something that set the scalp crawling at the back of my neck—something so trivial and so innocent that many would never have noticed it at all. I have said that the plateau was scarred by meteors; it was also coated inches deep with the cosmic dust that is always filtering down upon the surface of any world where there are no winds to disturb it.
Yet the dust and the meteor scratches ended quite abruptly in a wide circle enclosing the little pyramid, as though an invisible wall was protecting it from the ravages of time and the slow but ceaseless bombardment from space.
There was someone shouting in my earphones, and I realized that Garnett had been calling me for some time. I walked unsteadily to the edge of the cliff and signalled him to join me, not trusting myself to speak. Then I went back towards that circle in the dust. I picked up a fragment of splintered rock and tossed it gently towards the shining enigma. If the pebble had vanished at that invisible barrier I should not have been surprised, but it seemed to hit a smooth, hemispherical surface and slid gently to the ground.
I knew then that I was looking at nothing that could be matched in the antiquity of my own race. This was not a building, but a machine, protecting itself with forces that had challenged Eternity. Those forces, whatever they might be, were still operating, and perhaps I had already come too close. I thought of all the radiations man had trapped and tamed in the past century. For all I knew, I might be as irrevocably doomed as if 1 had stepped into the deadly, silent aura of an unshielded atomic pile.
I remember turning then towards Garnett, who had joined me and was now standing motionless at my side. He seemed quite oblivious to me, so I did not disturb him but walked to the edge of the cliff in an effort to marshal my thoughts. There below me lay the Mare Crisium—Sea of Crises, indeed—strange and weird to most men, but reassuringly familiar to me. I lifted my eyes towards the crescent Earth, lying in her cradle of stars, and I wondered what her clouds had covered when these unknown builders had finished their work. Was it the steaming jungle of the Carboniferous, the bleak shoreline over which the first amphibians must crawl to conquer the land—or, earlier still, the long loneliness before the coming of life?
Do not ask me why I did not guess the truth sooner—the truth that seems so obvious now. In the first excitement of my discovery, I had assumed without question that this crystalline apparition had been built by some race belonging to the Moon’s remote past, but suddenly, and with overwhelming force, the belief came to me that it was as alien to the Moon as I myself.
In twenty years we had found no trace of life but a few degenerate plants.
No lunar civilization, whatever its doom, could have left but a single token of its existence.
I looked at the shining pyramid again, and the more remote it seemed from anything that had to do with the Moon. And suddenly I felt myself shaking with a foolish, hysterical laughter, brought on by excitement and over-exertion: for I had imagined that the little pyramid was speaking to me and was saying: “Sorry, I’m a stranger here myself.”
It has taken us twenty years to crack that invisible shield and to reach the machine inside those crystal walls. What we could not understand, we broke at last with the savage might of atomic power and now I have seen the fragments of the lovely, glittering thing I found up there on the mountain.
They are meaningless. The mechanisms—if indeed they are mechanisms—of the pyramid belong to a technology that lies far beyond our horizon, perhaps to the technology of para-physical forces.
The mystery haunts us all the more now that the other planets have been reached and we know that only Earth has ever been the home of intelligent life. Nor could any lost civilization of our own world have built that machine, for the thickness of the meteoric dust on the plateau has enabled us to measure its age. It was set there upon its mountain before life had emerged from the seas of Earth.
When our world was half its present age, something from the stars swept through the Solar System, left this token of its passage, and went again upon its way. Until we destroyed it, that machine was still fulfilling the purpose of its builders; and as to that purpose, here is my guess.
Nearly a hundred thousand million stars are turning in the circle of the Milky Way, and long ago other races on the worlds of other suns must have scaled and passed the heights that we have reached. Think of such civilizations, far back in time against the fading afterglow of Creation, masters of a universe so young that life as yet had come only to a handful of worlds. Theirs would have been a loneliness we cannot imagine, the loneliness of gods looking out across infinity and finding none to share their thoughts.
They must have searched the star-clusters as we have searched the planets.
Everywhere there would be worlds, but they would be empty or peopled with crawling, mindless things. Such was our own Earth, the smoke of the great volcanoes still staining its skies, when that first ship of the peoples of the dawn came sliding in from the abyss beyond Pluto.
It passed the frozen outer worlds, knowing that life could play no part in their destinies. It came to rest among the inner planets, warming themselves around the fire of the Sun and waiting for their stories to begin.
Those wanderers must have looked on Earth, circling safely in the narrow zone between fire and ice, and must have guessed that it was the favorite of the Sun’s children. Here, in the distant future, would be intelligence; but there were countless stars before them still, and they might never come this way again.
So they left a sentinel, one of millions they have scattered throughout the universe, watching over all worlds with the promise of life. It was a beacon that down the ages has been patiently signalling that fact that no one had discovered it.
Perhaps you understand now why that crystal pyramid was set upon the Moon instead of on the Earth. Its builders were not concerned with races still struggling up from savagery. They would be interested in our civilization only if we proved our fitness to survive—by crossing space and so escaping from the Earth, our cradle. That is the challenge that all intelligent races must meet, sooner or later. It is a double challenge, for it depends in turn upon the conquest of atomic energy and the last choice between life and death.
Once we had passed that crisis, it was only a matter of time before we found the pyramid and forced it open. Now its signals have ceased, and those whose duty it is will be turning their minds upon Earth. Perhaps they wish to help our infant civilization. But they must be very, very old, and the old are often insanely jealous of the young.
I can never look now at the Milky Way without wondering from which of those banked clouds of stars the emissaries are coming. If you will pardon so commonplace a simile, we have broken the glass of the fire-alarm and have nothing to do but to wait.
I do not think we will have to wait for long.
2001: A SPACE ODYS
SEY Metro-GoldwyM-Mayer 1968
141 minutes. Produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick: director of photography, Geofrey Unsworth, B.S.C.; additional photography, John Alcott; production designed by Tony Masters, Harry Lange and Ernest Archer; special effects supervisors, Wally Veevers, Douglas Trumbull, Con Pederson and Tom Howard; associate producer, Victor Lyndon, art direction by John Hoesli; edited by Ray Lovejoy wardrobe by Hardy Amics, makeup by Stuart Freeborn; music by Richard Strauss, Johann Strauss, Gyorgy Ligeti, Aram Khachaturian, et al.; scientific consultant, Frederick l. Ordway III; production artists, Roy Naisbit and John Rose. Filmed in Todd-AO 70mill.
Cast Keir Dullea (Mission Commander David Bowman), Gary Lockwood (Commander Frank Poole), William Sylvester (Dr. Heywood Floyd), Douglas Rain (Voice of Hal 9000 Computer), Daniel Richter (First Apeman), Leonard Rossiter (Prof.
Andrei Smyslov), Frank Miller (Mission Control Head), Alan Giirord (Poole’s Father), Vivian Kubrick (Floyd’s Daughter).
THE RACER by Ib Melchior filmed as
DEATH RACE 2000
(New World Pictures, 1975 )
It’s the year 2000 and the population of the United States has been emotionally dulled by the horrors of countless wars and the lingering effects of the Great Depression of 1991. Only the Annual Transcontinental Death Race—where every pedestrian is fair game and the winner is determined by the highest body count—can create more than a ripple of excitement. Five drivers compete in the bizarre elimination, each behind the wheel of a vehicle embellished with a variety of claws, steer horns, bayonets and even machine guns.
So begins one of the strangest and most satirical SF films ever conceived.
The original story first appeared around 1956 in a long-forgotten men’s magazine called Escapade; and, thus, has escaped the attention of most readers and anthologists. Its author, Ib Melchior, went on to become a successful Hollywood scenarist (The Angry Red Planet, Robinson Crusoe on Mars) and today is best known for his riveting war novels that are partially based on his own fascinating experiences overseas.
“I first got the idea for ‘The Racer,’” recalls Melchior, “one afternoon at a local speedtrack. Hearing the crowd roar with enthusiasm after a particularly grisly smash-up, I realized the omlookers weren’t there to see who won ... but who died. After that disconcerting experience, the story just seemed to pour out of me.”
The biting tale obviously affected independent producer Roger Corman enough to put the work up on the screen with stars David Carradine and a pre-Rocky Sylvester Stallone. “It was a pretty violent movie,” claims Carradine, but he hastens to add that “it’s hardly a one-note film. The script had everything—comedy, drama and a good deal of revolutionary thinking.”’
After the premiere screening, Melchior was more than a bit perturbed by the liberties taken with his concept. Screenwriters Robert Thom and Charles Griffith had injected their treatment with an abundance of comedy and a much greater sense of the absurd. Talking in retrospect, however, the author admits that “cinematically, they did just the right thing and I now enjoy watching the picture very much.”
But whether you’ve seen this little gem of a picture or not, its basis, “The Racer,” will nevertheless be an unforgettable reading experience.
THE RACER
by Ib Melchior WILLIE FELT the familiar intoxicating excitement. His mouth was dry; his heart beat faster, all his senses seemed more aware than ever. It was a few minutes before 000 hours—his time to start.
This was the day. From all the Long Island Starting Fields the Racers were taking off at 15-minute intervals. The sputter and roar of cars warming up were everywhere. The smell of oil and fuel fumes permeated the air. The hubbub of the great crowd was a steady dim This was the biggest race of the year—New York to Los Angeles--100,000 bucks to the winner! Willie was determined to better his winning record of last year: 33 hours, 27 minutes, 12 seconds in Time. And although it was becoming increasingly difficult he’d do his damnedest to better his Score too!
He took a last walk of inspection around his car. Sleek, lowslung, dark brown, the practically indestructible plastiglass top looking deceptively fragile, like a soap bubble. Not bad for an old-fashioned diesel job. He kicked the solid plastirubber tires in the time-honored fashion of all drivers. Hank was giving a last-minute shine to the needle-sharp durasteel horns protruding from the front fenders.
Willie’s car wasn’t nicknamed “The Bull” without reason. The front of the car was built like a streamlined bull’s head complete with bloodshot, evil-looking eyes, iron ring through flaring nostrils—and the horns. Although most of the racing cars were built to look like tigers, or sharks, or eagles, there were a few bulls—but Willie’s horns were unequalled.
“Car 79 ready for Start in five minutes,” the loudspeaker blared. “Car 79. Willie Connors, driver. Hank Morowski, mechanic. Ready your car for Start in five minutes.”
Willie and Hank took their places in “The Bull.” At a touch by Willie on the starter the powerful diesel engine began a low purr. They drove slowly to the starting line.
“Last Check!” said Willie.
“Right,” came Hank’s answer.
“Oil and Fuel?”
“40 hours.”
“Cooling Fluid?”
“Sealed.”
“No-Sleeps?”
“Check.”
“Energene Tabs?”
“Check.”
“Thermo Drink?”
“Check.”
The Starter held the checkered flag high over his head. The crowds packing the grandstands were on their feet. Hushed.
Waiting.
“Here we go!” whispered Willie.
The flag fell. A tremendous cry rose from the crowd. But Willie hardly heard it. Accelerating furiously he pushed his car to its top speed of 190 miles an hour within seconds—shooting like a bullet along the straightaway toward Manhattan. He was elated; exhilarated. He was a Racer. And full of tricks!
Willie shot through the Tunnel directly to Jersey.
“Well?” grumbled Hank. “Can you tell me now?”
“Toledo,” said Willie. “Toledo, Ohio. On the Thruway. We should make it in under three hours.”
He felt a slight annoyance with Hank. There was no reason for the man to be touchy. He knew a driver didn’t tell anyone the racing route he’d selected. News like that had a habit of getting around. It could cost a Racer his Score.
“There’s not much chance of anything coming up until after we hit Toledo,” Willie said, “but keep your eyes peeled. You never know.”
Hank merely grunted.
It was exactly 1048 hours when “The Bull” streaked into the deserted streets of Toledo.
“O.K.—what now?” asked Hank.
“Grand Rapids, Michigan,” said Willie laconically.
“Grand Rapids! But that’s—that’s an easy 300 miles detour!”
“I know.”
“Are you crazy? It’ll cost us a couple of hours.”
“So Grand Rapids is all the way up between the Lakes. So who’ll be expecting us up there?”
“Oh! Oh, yeah, I see,” said Hank.
“The Time isn’t everything, my friend. Whoever said the shortest distance between two points is a straight line? The Score counts too.
And here’s where we pick up our Score!”
The first Tragi-Acc never even knew the Racer had arrived. “The Bull” struck him squarely, threw him up in the air and let him slide off its plastiglass back, leaving a red smear behind and somewhat to the left of Willie—all in a split second....
Near Calvin College an imprudent coed found herself too far from cover when the Racer suddenly came streaking down the campus. Frantically she sprinted for safety, but she didn’t have a chance with a driver like Willie behind the wheel. The razor sharp horn on the right fender sliced through her spine so cleanly that the jar wasn’t even felt inside the car.
Leaving town the Racer was in luck again. .n elderly woman had left t
he sanctuary of her stone-walled garden to rescue a straying cat. She was so easy to hit that Willie felt a little cheated.
At 1232 hours they were on the speedway headed for Kansas City.
Hank looked in awe at Willie. “Three!” he murmured dreamily, “a Score of three already. And all of them Kills—for sure. You really know how to drive!”
Hank settled back contentedly as if he could already feel his 25,000 dollar cut in his pocket. He began to whistle “The Racers Are Roaring” off key.
Even after his good Score it annoyed Willie. And for some reason he kept remembering the belatedly pleading look in the old woman’s eyes as he struck her. Funny that should stay with him .
He estimated they’d hit Kansas City at around 1815 hours, CST. Hank turned on the radio. Peoria, Illinois, was warning its citizens of the approach of a Racer. All spectators should watch from safety places.
Willie grinned.
That would be him. Well—he wasn’t looking for any Score in Peoria.
Dayton, Ohio, told of a Racer having made a Tragic Accident Score of one, and Fort Wayne, Indiana, was crowing over the fact that three Racers had passed through without scoring once. From what he heard it seemed to Willie he had a comfortable lead, both in Time and Score.
They were receiving Kansas City now. An oily-voiced announcer was filling in the time between Racing Scores with what appeared to be a brief history of Racing.
“... and the most popular spectator sports of the latter half of the 20th Century were such mildly exciting pursuits as boxing and wrestling. Of course the spectators enjoyed seeing the combatants trying to maim each other, and there was always the chance of the hoped-for fatal accident.
They Came From Outer Space Page 35