And Afterward, the Dark
Page 20
It was not until my last night at K4 that I told Masters what I had seen in the cave. The relief boat was coming back to pick me up the following day and I was to have the company of others on my return journey to the capital, where I was to stay for the next year, to allow my shattered nerves a chance to recover. The faint luminosity of the sea stirred uneasily, greenish-grey outside the great plated windows of the Commander's office, and blown spume dribbled across the glass in the light wind.
For in my last burst of anger and horror, in the dying flare I had seen, just before I killed the jelly-creature, the anguished face of Fritzjof, still alive, ingested by the fungoid mass and completely absorbed by it. His eyes seemed to implore me to destroy the still-living abomination which he had become, and his face was at peace before the final kiss of the flame effaced it for all time.
An even more fearful question had haunted my mind ever since, haunts it still.
"Supposing," I asked Masters, "the mountain did not destroy them when it fell? All the creatures, I mean. And that Karla and the others are still alive somewhere down there? If you can call it life...."
There was a long silence between us. Then my old chief drummed with his fingers on the desk before him. The brittle sound seemed to conceal great emotion.
"It is best not to ask such questions or to think such thoughts," he said gently.
Masters turned to face the ghastly green phosphorescence of the sea. When he spoke again his voice seemed to come from a great distance.
"Who knows, my friend, who knows?" he said.
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