As on a Darkling Plain

by Ben Bova

  “What do we do now?” someone asked.

  “There are other drawings on those walls,” Lee said. “Too faint to see without lights.”

  “We should photograph the entire place.”

  “Yes, but how?”

  Lee said, “I can take you down there, if we can put the whole clan to sleep for a few hours. Maybe gas...”

  “That could work,” Rassmussen agreed.

  “A soporific gas?” Pascual’s soft tenor rang incredulously in Lee’s ears. “But we haven’t the faintest idea of how it would affect them.”

  “It’s the only way,” Lee said. “You can’t dig your way into those caves.”

  “But gas... it could kill them all.”

  “They’re dead right now,” Lee answered. “We killed them a long time ago. But we’ve still got to find where they originally came from. Before their relatives do the same job on us.”

  * * *

  Lee slept less than ever the next few nights, and when he did he dreamed, but no longer about the buildings on Titan. Now he dreamed of the ships of an ancient Earth, huge round ships that spat fire on cities and roasted people as they ran. He dreamed of the Pup exploding and showering the planet with fire, blowing off the atmosphere, boiling the oceans, turning mountains into slag, killing every living thing on the surface of the planet, leaving a world bathed in a steam cloud, its ground ruptured with angry new volcanoes. Making hell out of heaven.

  It was a rainy dark night when you could hardly see ten meters beyond the cave’s mouth that they came. Lee heard their voices in his head as they drove the skimmer up onto the beach and clambered down from it and headed for the caves. Inside the caves, the people were asleep, sprawled innocently on the damp, musty ground.

  Lee watched them sleeping unguarded as he listened to the voices of Grote and the rest of them, approaching. He stepped out to the cave’s entrance and shuddered at the touch of the cold rain.

  Out of the darkness a huge, bulky metal shape materialized, walking with exaggerated caution.

  “Hello, Sid,” Jerry Grote’s voice said in his head, and the white metal shape raised a hand in greeting.

  The Others, Lee thought as he watched four more powersuited figures appear in the dark rain.

  He stepped out of the cave and let the rain wash over him, cold and numbing.

  Grote hitched a gauntleted thumb at one of the others. “Pascual’s got the gas. He’s insisting on administering it himself.”

  Lee nodded. “I’ll help. We’ve got to get it done quickly, without waking anybody. Who else is here?”

  “Chien, Tanaka, and Stek.”

  “All right. Carlos, let’s get going with the gas.”

  In the darkness, Lee couldn’t make out the faces inside the powersuit helmets. Pascual and another who identified himself as Tanaka went into the caves with Lee. They spent more than an hour administering the gentlest soporific that the two medical men could concoct. Then more time as the doctors checked the physical reactions on each of the unconscious bodies that sprawled across the musty cave floor.

  Finally Lee, Grote, and Stek headed for the lower caves. Even with the suit lamps to light the corridors, it was hard to retrace his steps down to the lowest level of the ancient shelter. But when they got to the bottommost chamber, Lee heard Stek break into a string of Polish exultation as he played his helmet lamp on the etched walls.

  “Star maps!” the physicist said at last. “These are star maps, etched into the walls... as decoration! Or maybe it was meant to be a classroom or a planetarium.”

  Lee barely heard him. He was staring at the crudely drawn stick figures and the spherical ships of the Others, scratched as if by children over the fine, precise astronomical charts that covered the metal walls.

  Grote photographed every inch of the walls in multispectrum film while Stek applied a kitful of radiation counters, X-ray cameras, and other equipment that Lee didn’t recognize to the walls, ceiling, and floor.

  “You want to know where these people originally came from?” Stek asked as he repacked his equipment after hours of work. “If they came from somewhere other than this planet, the information on these walls could tell us.”

  Lee said nothing.

  “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” Grote asked. Lee heard his radio voice, of course. “Now you’ll find out whether you’re right or wrong.”

  “Yeah,” said Lee.

  By the time they got back up to the main sleeping cave and out to the beach again, it was full daylight, hot and painfully glaring. After a few eye-watering minutes, Lee could make out their faces inside the plastic helmets. He went to Pascual and Tanaka.

  “We’ll have to keep them sleeping until almost dawn tomorrow,” he told them. “Otherwise they’ll suspect that something unusual’s happened.”

  Pascual’s face looked concerned. “We can do that without harming them, I suppose.”

  “They’ll be hungry when they wake up,” Tanaka said.

  Lee turned to Grote. “How about taking a skimmer out and stunning a couple of big fish and towing them back here to the shallows?”

  Grinning, Grote replied, “Hardly be fair game with the equipment on the skimmer.” He turned and trudged for the car.

  “Wait,” Stek called to him. “Give me a chance to get these tapes and films back into the skimmer and safely stowed away.” The physicist started off after Grote.

  “Sid,” Pascual said gently, “I want you to come back with us. You need a thorough medical check—”

  A warning flashed through Lee. “Medical?” he snapped. “Are you playing front man for Lehman?”

  Pascual’s eyes widened with surprise. “If you had a mirror, you’d see why I want to check you. You’re breaking out in skin cancers.”

  Instinctively, Lee held out his hands to look at them. Both hands and forearms were marked with a few tiny blisters. And there were more on his belly and legs.

  “It’s from overexposure to the ultraviolet in the sunlight. Hatfield’s skin-darkening didn’t fully protect you.”

  “Is it serious?”

  “I can’t tell without a full examination.”

  Just like a doctor. “I can’t leave now,” Lee said. “I’ve got to be here when they wake up, and make sure that they don’t suspect they’ve been visited by the... by us.”

  “And if they do suspect?”

  Lee shrugged. “That’s something we ought to know, even if we can’t do anything about it.”

  “Won’t it be dangerous for you?”

  “I doubt it.”

  Pascual shook his head. “You mustn’t stay out in the open much longer. I won’t be responsible for it.”

  “Fine. Do you want me to sign a release form?”

  Grote brought the skimmer back around sundown, with two good-sized fish that he splashed, still dazed, into the shallow water. The others got aboard the skimmer around midnight, and with a few final radioed calls of parting, they drove off the beach and out to sea.

  No word from Marlene. Lee felt annoyed. Then, turning it on himself, What did you expect? She doesn’t owe you a damned thing.

  At dawn the people woke up. They looked and acted completely normal, as far as Lee could tell. It was one of the children who noticed the still-sluggish fish in a shallow pool just outside the line of breakers. Every man in the clan splashed out, spear in hand, to get them. They feasted happily that day.

  The dream was confusing. Somehow the buildings of Titan and the exploding star got mixed together. Lee saw himself being chased by something vast and formless. Then he stood above the sleeping form of one of Ardraka’s people, curled peacefully on the ground. Lee drove a bone spear through the man. He writhed like a fish on the spear, then turned and smiled bloodily up at Lee. It was Ardraka.

  “Sid!”

  He snapped awake. It was dark, and the people were sleeping, full-bellied. He was slouched near one of the entry ways to the main sleeping cave, at the mouth of a tunnel that led to the open
ings in the cliff wall.

  “Sid, can you hear me?” Grote’s radio voice.

  “Yes.” He whispered so low that he could only feel the vibration in his throat.

  “I’m up on the beach about three kilometers from the relay unit. You’ve got to come back to the ship. Stek thinks he’s figured out the star charts.”

  Wordlessly, silently, Lee got up and padded through the tunnel and out onto the beach. The night was clear and bright. Dawn would be coming in another hour, he judged. The sea was calm, the wind a gentle crooning as it swept down off the cliffs.

  “Sid, did you hear what I said? Stek has the computer programmed to locate the frame of reference that the star charts were drawn from. By the time we get back to the ship, he’ll have the aliens’ homeworld pinpointed.”

  “I’m on my way.” He still whispered, and turned to see if anyone was following him across the sand.

  Grote was inside the skimmer, in a biosuit. No one else. He jabbered about Stek’s work on the charts all the way back to the ship.

  Just before they arrived, Grote suggested, “Uh. Sid, you are going to put on some coveralls, aren’t you?”

  When they got back to the ship, Lee insisted on seeing Stek before doing anything else. Unhappily, Pascual sprayed a biosuit over his coveralls and, still barefooted, Lee padded into the “insiders” part of the ship.

  Stek was in the computer room, pacing with unconcealed impatience. He was a large, round, florid man with thinning red hair and a slightly crooked mouth that made his face look as if he was sneering at you all the time.

  “One of the charts shows the sky from Sirius,” the physicist told Lee. “We’ve established that much. But the other one, on the opposite wall, has a completely different reference center. The computer’s checking out all the known star positions for a hundred parsecs’ radius. If it’s any one of those stars, we’ll nail it.”

  “That’s a lot of stars, isn’t it?”

  Nodding, Stek answered, “A few hundred thousand. The computer would’ve finished the analysis before you got here, except that the chart is old—really old. Star positions have changed since the chart was drawn. For example, there’s something that looks like the Big Dipper, but it’s—”

  Lee broke in, “Can you still find their homeworld, even though the charts are ancient?”

  Stek flushed momentarily. He didn’t like to be interrupted. “Yes, of course... if there’s enough astronomical data stored in the computer. We can backtrack and...”

  “Suppose the computer doesn’t have the data you need?”

  “It does,” Stek snapped. “I’m sure it does.”

  “But if it doesn’t?”

  “Then we’ll have to wait until we get back to Earth.”

  “When will we know?”

  Looking grim, Stek replied, “I thought we’d have had an answer by now. Something must be wrong with the programming. I’ll have to check it out.”

  For the first time, Lee looked past the physicist’s red-splotched face to the two unhappy crew members who had been pressed into programming the computer. They were sitting uneasily by the main input console, which flashed lights at them.

  “I’ll get the answer,” Stek promised, almost savagely. “Just give me a few hours more.”

  Lee nodded, “Call me when you do.”

  He headed back for the “outsiders” globe, with Pascual at his shoulder, thinking, We’ll find their homeworld. Ardraka’s homeworld. Ardraka’s people are our enemy. Their brothers, the ones who built the machines on Titan, are still out there somewhere. Maybe searching for Ardraka and any other survivors. Maybe searching for us.

  Marlene was back at the Sirius globe. When he saw her, he wanted to take her and hold her and love her. He wanted to forget about homeworlds and wars and ancient enemies. But Pascual and all the other “outsiders” were right there with them, so he merely smiled at her and said hello as Pascual led him to the dispensary.

  The six “outsiders” ate together after Lee’s medical checkup, a sort of reunion meal, although Lee wasn’t allowed to eat Earth food yet. There were the usual jokes about the terrible native foods.

  Marlene said seriously, “You’ve lost so much weight, Sid.”

  “Ever see a fat Sirian?” He meant it as a joke; it came out waspish. She dropped the subject.

  Lehman joined them, biosuited, after dinner. The six “outsiders” and the psychiatrist sat in the gallery area, trying to convince themselves they were relaxing over coffee and drinks. But Lee knew better.

  “What’s keeping Stek? He said he’d call when he had the job done.”

  Charnovsky rumbled, “He can’t backtrack the positions of a hundred thousand stars over thousands of years. The computer, doesn’t have the capacity... or the data storage.”

  “Then why doesn’t he admit it?” Marlene asked. “Why keep everyone in suspense like this?”

  “Stubbornness,” Charnovsky answered.

  Hatfield said, “I’m tenacious; he’s stubborn.”

  Nobody laughed.

  Lehman couldn’t eat or drink anything with the biosuit on. He merely sat back calmly in a web chair and asked, “Do you really think we’ll be able to find the homeworld of these people?”

  “Of course,” Charnovsky said. “But probably not until we return to Earth.”

  “Shouldn’t we radio the information back to Earth? That way it’ll get there in eight years, instead of thirty.”

  “Why do you think Stek is working so furiously?” Charnovsky countered. “Do you think he enjoys beating programmers with his tongue?”

  “Well, frankly...” Doris started.

  Charnovsky waved her silent. “No, our physicist wants to unravel the secret himself. He wants to solve the puzzle, get the glory. If he can’t do it, Rassmussen will beam the data to Earth and Stek’s name will be no more than a footnote.”

  “Wouldn’t you do the same thing, in his place?” Lehman asked.

  “Of course! But there is one additional step I would take, to guarantee success.”

  “What’s that?”

  Charnovsky grinned hugely, “I would sabotage the radio transmitter.”

  Lee had to admit that Charnovsky would probably do just that.

  While they were still laughing, Lehman turned to him, “And when we find where their homeworld is, what then?”

  Their laughter died. Lee shrugged and answered, “I don’t know. Maybe we go out and see if they’re still there. Maybe we reopen the war.”

  “If there was a war,” Marlene said.

  “There was. It might still be going on, for all we know. Maybe we’re still just a small part of it, a frontier skirmish.”

  “A skirmish that wiped out almost all the life on this planet?” Doris wondered.

  “And almost wiped out Earth, too,” Lee reminded her. And himself.

  “But what about the people on this planet, Sid?” Lehman insisted. “What about the people in the caves?”

  Lee couldn’t answer.

  “Do we let them die out, just because they might have been our enemies a few millenia ago?”

  “They’d still be our enemies, if they knew who we are,” Lee said tightly.

  “So we let them die?”

  Lee tried to blot their faces out of his mind, to erase the memory of Ardraka and the children and Ardra apologizing shamefacedly and the people singing as they brought in a fish....

  “No,” he heard himself say. “We’ve got to help them. They can’t hurt us anymore, and God knows we’ve hurt them enough.”

  He looked up and saw Marlene smiling at him.

  The viewscreen on the galley’s far wall suddenly buzzed into life. Stek’s face filled the screen: excited, flushed with exultation.

  “I’ve got it! I’ve got it! Look!”

  Somebody knocked a cup over as they turned to see the screen. It clattered to the floor unnoticed. They sat and stared at the screen.

  It showed the etched-metal chart from the alie
n’s underground chamber. Then the same chart, but this time on the computer’s output screen. Where there had been dull metal and fine-worked symbolic stars of four or six points, now there was a scintillating holographic projection and the stars were represented by white pinpoints.

  The stars began to move, shift across the field of view.

  “I took the original chart and tried to use the computer’s astronomical data storage to move the stars from their ancient positions as given on the chart to their present positions,” Stek explained with some pomposity. Lee noticed that now it was I rather than the we he’d used when the problem was still unsolved.

  “I tried about a thousand stars with no success at all. We’d always wind up with a completely unrecognizable pattern—which meant that we were on the wrong frame of reference.”

  The viewscreen still showed the pinpoints of light moving, drifting, leisurely, calmly, with stately deliberation.

  “The proof of the pudding, of course,” Stek went on, “is that when we hit on the right frame of reference, we’ll see the stars in their present positions, just as we see them at night right now.”

  Lee watched, frozen still, as the star pattern slowly became recognizable. There was the Big Dipper all right, still a lopsided, but definitely there. And Orion. And...

  The movement stopped. The stars hung in their places.

  Stek said, “That’s just how you’d see them right now. I found the original home star for these people.”

  “What is it?” somebody asked.

  Stek’s face reappeared in the screen. He was smiling and deadly serious at the same time.

  “It’s the sun,” he said.

  “The sun?”

  Lee felt the breath puff out of him, as if someone had hit him in the solar plexus.

  “The sun?” they were babbling.

  “Then they came from our solar system?”

  “But how...”

  “They came from Earth!”

  “Jesus Christ! They are Neanderthals!”

  Lee stood up. “They’re from Earth!” he shouted. “They’re part of us!”

  “But how could...”