With a great effort the girl overcame the weight of her tired arms and stretched them out to the commander. He took her little hands in his and stroked them gently. Nisa’s cheeks flushed till they matched the tight auburn curls on her head, new strength flowed through her tired body. She pressed her cheek to Erg Noor’s hand as she had done in the moment of the dangerous landing and she forgave the biologist his seeming treachery to Earth. To show that she was in agreement with both of them she told them of an idea that had just entered her head. They could furnish one of the water-tanks with a self-closing lid, place a piece of fresh preserved meat (a rare luxury that they sometimes enjoyed in addition to their canned food) as bait and, should the “black something” crawl inside and the lid close, they could fill the tank with inert terrestrial gas through a previously arranged tap and seal the edges of the lid.
Eon was very enthusiastic over the resourcefulness of the auburn-headed girl. He was almost the same age as Nisa and permitted himself the gentle familiarity that is born of school years spent together. By the end of the nine days of the planetary night the trap, perfected by the engineers, was ready.
Erg Noor was busy with the adjustment of a manlike robot and he also got ready a powerful hydraulic cutting tool with which he hoped to make his way into the spiral disc from some distant star.
The storm died down in the now familiar darkness, the frost gave way to warmth and the day that was nine terrestrial days long began. They had work for four terrestrial days to load the ion charges, some other supplies and valuable instruments. In addition to these things Erg Noor considered it necessary to take some of the personal belongings of the lost crew so that, after a thorough disinfection, they could be taken to Earth for the relatives of the dead people to keep in their memory. In the Great Circle Era people did not burden themselves with many possessions so that their transfer to Tantra offered no difficulties.
On the fifth day they switched off the current and the biologist and two volunteers, Kay Bear and Ingrid Dietra, shut themselves up in the observation turret at Parus. The black creatures appeared almost immediately. The biologist had adapted an infrared screen and could follow the movements of the jelly-fish. One of them soon approached the tank trap; it folded up its tentacles, rolled itself up into a ball and started creeping inside. Suddenly another black rhombus appeared at the open lid of the tank. The one that had first arrived unfolded its tentacles and star-like flashes came with such rapidity that they turned into a strip of vibrant dark-red light which the screen reproduced as flashes of green lightning. The first jelly-fish moved back and the second immediately rolled up into a ball and fell on to the bottom of the tank. The biologist held his hand out towards the switch but Kay Bear held it back. The first monster had also rolled up and followed the second, so that there were two of the terrible brutes in the tank. It was amazing that they could reduce their apparent proportions to such an extent. The biologist pressed the switch, the lid closed and immediately five or six of the black monsters fastened on to the zirconium covered tank. The biologist turned on the light and asked Tantra to switch on the protection of the road. The black phantoms, as usual, dissolved immediately except for the two that remained imprisoned in the hermetically sealed tank.
The biologist went out to the tank, touched the lid and got such a severe shock that he could not restrain himself and shouted out aloud. His left arm hung limp, paralysed.
Mechanic Taron put on a high-temperature protective spacesuit and was then able to fill the tank with pure terrestrial nitrogen and weld the lid down. The taps were also welded and then the tank was wrapped in a spare piece of ship’s insulation and placed in the collection room.
Success had been achieved at a high price, for the biologist’s arm remained paralysed despite the efforts of the physician. Eon Thal was in great pain hut he did not dream of refusing to take part in the expedition to the disc ship. Erg Noor, compelled to submit to his insatiable thirst for exploration, could not leave him on Tantra.
The spiral-disc, a visitor from distant worlds, turned out to be farther from Parus than they had expected. In the diffused light of the projectors they had not judged the size of the spaceship correctly. It was a truly gigantic structure nearly three hundred and fifty metres in diameter. They had to take the cables from Parus in order to stretch their protective system as far as the disc. The mysterious spaceship hung over the travellers like a vertical wall, stretching high over their heads and disappearing in the speckled sky. Jet-black clouds massed around the upper edge of the giant disc. The hull of the vessel was covered in some green substance the colour of malachite; it was badly cracked in places and proved to be about a metre thick. Through the cracks gleamed some bright, light-blue metal that had turned to a dark blue in places where the malachite covering had been rubbed off. The side of the disc facing Parus was furnished with a protuberance that curved in a spiral fifteen metres in diameter and some ten metres thick. The other side of the disc, the side that was lost in the pitch darkness, was more convex, like a section of a sphere attached to a disc twenty metres thick. On that side also there was a spiral protuberance that looked like the end of the spiral pipe emerging from the ship.
The edge of the gigantic disc was sunk deep into the ground. At the foot of this metal wall the explorers saw that stones had melted and flowed away in all directions like thick pitch.
They spent many hours looking for some sort of entrance or hatch. Either it was hidden under the malachite paint or dross or the ship’s hatches closed so neatly that no trace of them was left outside. They could not find any orifices for optical instruments or stop-cocks for any sort of blast. The metal disc seemed to be solid. Erg Noor had foreseen such a possibility and had decided to open up the ship with an electro-hydraulic tool capable of cutting through the hardest and most viscous covering of the terrestrial spaceships. After a short discussion they all agreed that the robot should open the tip of the spiral. There should be a hollow space there, a pipe or a circular gangway leading round the ship, through which they hoped to get into the ship without the risk of running into a number of bulkheads that would bar their way.
The study of the spiral-disc would be of great interest. Inside this visitor from distant worlds there might be instruments and records, all the furniture and utensils of those who had brought the ship through such expanses that, in comparison, the journeys made by terrestrial astronauts were nothing but timid sallies into outer space.
On the far side of the disc the spiral came right down to the ground. A floodlight and high-voltage cable were taken there and the bluish light that was reflected from the disc was dispersed in a dull haze spreading across the plateau as far as some high objects of indefinite shape, probably cliffs, in which there was a gap of impenetrable blackness. Neither the pale reflected light of the hazy stars nor the floodlights gave any feeling of ground in that black gap; it was probably a steep slope leading down to the lowland plain that had been seen when Tantra was landing.
With a low, dull growl, the automatic car, loaded with the only universal robot on the ship, crawled towards the disc. The unusual weight did not make any difference to the robot and it moved quickly to its place beside the metal wall: it resembled a fat man on short legs, with a long body and a huge head that leaned forward menacingly.
The robot was controlled by Erg Noor; in its four front limbs it raised the heavy cutter and stood with its legs placed firmly apart ready to begin its dangerous undertaking.
“Only Kay Bear and I will direct the robot since we are wearing high-protection suits,” said the commander in the intercommunication ‘phone. “All those in light biological spacesuits will go farther away.”
The commander hesitated. Something penetrated into his mind causing inexplicable anguish and made his knees weaken under him. The proud will of man had wilted away and given place to the dumb obedience of an animal. Sticky with perspiration from head to foot, Erg Noor, with no will of his own, strode towards the black gap in the
darkness. A cry from Nisa that he heard in the telephone, brought him back to his senses. He stood still, but the power of darkness that had taken control of his psyche again drove him forward.
Following the commander, halting and obviously struggling with themselves, went Kay Bear and Eon Thal, who had been standing on the fringe of the circle of light, Away out there, in the gates of darkness, in the clouds of mist, there was a movement of weird forms beyond the comprehension of man and, therefore, the more awe-inspiring. This was not the now familiar jellyfish-like creature — in the grey half-light there moved a black cross with widely outstretched arms and a convex ellipse in the middle. Three points of the cross had lenses on them reflecting the light of the flood lamp that scarcely penetrated the misty, humid atmosphere. The base of the cross was invisible in the darkness of an unilluminated depression in the ground.
Erg Noor, who was walking faster than the others, drew near the unknown object and fell to the ground about a hundred paces away from it. Before the stupefied onlookers could realize that it was a life and death matter for their commander, the black cross had risen above the ring of cables. It bent forward like the stem of a plant and clearly intended leaning over the protective field to get Erg Noor.
Nisa, in a frenzy that lent her the strength of an athlete, ran to the robot and started turning the control levers at the back of its head. Slowly and somewhat uncertainly, the robot lifted the cutter. Then the girl, afraid that she would be unable to work the intricate machine, jumped forward and with her body covered the commander. Serpentine streams of light or lightning came from the three points of the cross. The girl fell on Erg Noor with her arms spread out on either side. Fortunately the robot had by this time turned the funnel of the cutter, with its sharp instrument inside, towards the centre of the black cross. The thing bent convulsively backwards, seemed to fall flat on the ground and then disappeared in the impenetrable darkness under the cliffs. Erg Noor and his two companions immediately recovered, lifted up the girl and retired back behind the disc. The others had by this time recovered from the shock and were wheeling out the cannon improvised from a planetary motor. With a savage ferocity such as he had never before experienced. Erg Noor directed the destructive radiation beam to the cliffs with their gate-like gap, taking special care to sweep the plain without missing a single inch. Eon Thal knelt on the ground in front of the motionless Nisa, calling her softly in the telephone and trying to get a glimpse of her face through the silicolloid helmet. The girl lay dead still with her eyes closed. No sound of breathing could be heard in the telephone nor could the biologist detect it through the spacesuit.
“The monster has killed Nisa!” cried Eon Thal bitterly, as soon as Erg Noor approached them. It was impossible to see the commander’s eyes through the narrow slit in the high-protection helmet.
“Take her to Louma on Tantra immediately.” The metallic note resounded more strongly than ever in Erg Noor’s voice. “You, too, help her find out the nature of the injury. The six of us will remain here and continue the investigation. The geologist can go back with you and collect specimens of all the rocks between here and Tantra, we cannot remain on this planet any longer. Any exploration here must be carried out in high-protection tanks but if we go on like this we’ll only ruin the whole expedition! Take the third car and hurry!”
Erg Noor turned round and without looking back made his way to the disc spaceship. The “cannon” was pushed forward. The engineer-mechanic who stood behind it swept the plain with it every ten minutes, covering a semicircle, with the disc at its centre. The robot raised his cutter to the second outer loop of the spiral which, on the side where the edge of the disc was deeply sunk in the ground, was level with the robot’s breast.
The loud roar that followed could be heard even through the high-protection space helmets. Thin cracks appeared on the section of the malachite coating that had been chosen. Pieces of that hard material flew off and struck resoundingly against the metal body of the robot. Lateral motions of the cutter removed a big slab of the outer layer revealing a bright light-blue granular surface that was pleasant to the eyes even in the glare of the floodlamp. Kay Bear marked out a square big enough to allow a man in a spacesuit to pass and set the robot to making a deep channel in the blue metal without cutting right through it. The robot cut a second line at an angle to the first and then began moving the sharp end of the cutter back and forth, increasing the pressure as it did so. When the mechanical servant cut the third side of the square the lines he had made began to move outwards.
“Look out! Get back, everybody- lie down!” howled Erg Noor in the microphone as he switched off the robot and staggered back. The thick slab of metal suddenly bent outwards like the lid of a tin can. A stream of extraordinarily bright, rainbow-coloured fire burst out of the hole, and flew off at a tangent from the spiral protuberance. This, and the fact that the blue metal melted and immediately closed the hold that had been cut, saved the unfortunate explorers. Nothing remained of the mighty robot but a mass of molten metal with two short metal legs sticking pitifully out of it. Erg Noor and Kay Bear escaped because of the special protection suits they were wearing. The explosion threw them far back from the peculiar spaceship; it hurled the others back, too, overturned the “cannon” and broke the high-voltage cables.
When the people recovered from the shock they realized that they were defenceless. Fortunately for them they were lying in the rays of the undamaged floodlight. Although nobody had been hurt Erg Noor decided that they had had enough. They abandoned unnecessary tools, cables and the floodlamp, piled on to the undamaged car and beat a hurried retreat to their spaceship.
This fortunate outcome of an incautious attempt to open an alien spaceship was by no means due to the foresight of the commander. A second attempt would have ended with some serious accident… and Nisa, the pretty astronavigator, what of her?…. Erg Noor hoped that the spacesuit would have weakened the lethal power of the black cross. After all the biologist had not been killed by contact with the black medusa. But out in the Cosmos, so far from the mighty terrestrial medical institutions, would they be able to counteract the effects of an unknown weapon?
In the air-lock Kay Bear drew near to the commander and pointed to the rear side of his left shoulder armour. Erg Noor turned towards the mirrors that were always provided in the locks for those who returned from an alien planet to examine themselves. The thin sheet of zircono-titanium of which the shoulder armour was made had been torn. A piece of sky-blue metal stuck out of the furrow it had cut in the insulation lining although it had not reached the inner layer of the suit. They had difficulty in removing the metal splinter. At the cost of great risk and, in the final analysis, by sheer chance, they had obtained a specimen of the mysterious metal of which the spiral-disc spaceship was made and which would now be taken back to Earth.
At last Erg Noor, divested of his heavy spacesuit, was able to enter his ship or rather to crawl in under the influence of the gravity of the fearful planet.
The entire expedition was relieved when he arrived. They had watched the catastrophe at the disc through their stereovisophones and had no need to ask what the result had been.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE RIVER OF TIME
Veda Kong and Darr Veter were standing on the little round flying platform as it swept slowly over the endless steppes. The thick, flowering grasses rolled in waves under the gentle breeze. In the distance they could see a herd of black and white cattle, the descendants of animals bred by crossing yaks, domestic cows and buffaloes.
This unchanging lowland with its low hills and quiet rivers in wide valleys, a part of Earth’s crust once known as the Hanty-Mansy Territory, breathed the peace of great open spaces.
Darr Veter was gazing contemplatively at the land that had formerly been covered with the dismal swamps and sparse, stunted woods of Yamal. It brought to mind a picture by an old master that had impressed itself on his memory when he was still a child.
Where t
he river curved round a high promontory, there stood a church, timber-built and grey with time, its lonely gaze turned towards the wide fields and grasslands across the river. The tiny cross on the dome was black under masses of low, black clouds. In the little graveyard behind the church a cluster of birches and willows bowed their tousled heads to the wind. Their low-hanging boughs almost brushed the rotting crosses, thrown down by time and storm and overgrown with fresh damp grass. Across the river gigantic violet-grey masses of cloud were piling up until they became tangibly dense. The wide river gave off a cruel, steel-coloured gleam, a cold gleam that lay on everything round about. The whole countryside, far and near, was wet in the miserable autumn drizzle, so cold and uninviting in those northern latitudes. The whole palette of blue-grey-green tones used in the picture told of stretches of barren land, where it was hard for man to live, where man was cold and hungry, where he felt so strongly the loneliness that was typical of the long-forgotten days of human folly.
This picture, seen in a museum, had seemed to Darr Veter to be a window looking into the past; it was kept under a plexiglass shield, its colours ever fresh in the illumination of invisible rays.
Without a word Darr Veter looked at Veda. The young woman put her hand on the rail around the platform. With her head bent she stood there, deep in thought. watching the stems of the tall grass as they bent to the wind. Wave after wave swept slowly across the feathergrass and equally slowly the round platform floated over the steppe. Tiny hot whirlwinds rushed suddenly on the travellers, ruffled Veda’s hair and dress and breathed heat mischievously into Darr Veter’s eyes. The automatic stabilizer, however, worked more rapidly than thoughts and the flying platform merely heaved or swayed slightly.
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