The Dark Design

by Philip José Farmer

  After he had wiped it clean of blood, he said, “It’s black.”

  He wrapped the little ball in a cloth and dropped it into his bag.

  “What do you want to do with the bodies?”

  Jill looked at the blazing mass of crumpled metal. “There’s no use wasting foam to put the fire out now,” she said in a dull voice. She looked at the men who had followed them. “Peterson, you get the body back to the ship. Wrap it up first. The rest of you follow me.”

  A few minutes later, they halted before the dome. Searchlights from the dirigible were turned on it, making it look like a ghost of an Eskimo igloo. Using her lamp, Jill saw that the dome was made of the same gray metal as the tower. It seemed to be continuous with the metal of the tower. At least, there was no sign of welding, no seams. It was as if it were a bubble blown from the surface.

  The others stood back from its arched entrance, waiting for her to decide what to do. Their lights revealed an opening like a cavern. About 10 meters beyond, the walls curved in, forming a corridor about 3 meters wide and 2.5 meters high. The walls were of the same gray substance. At its end, about 30 meters away, the hall curved abruptly. If there was an entrance down into the tower itself, it had to be just beyond the curve.

  Just above the opening were two symbols, both in altorelief. The top one was a semicircle, and it bore the seven primary colors. Below it was a circle inside of which was a looped cross, the Egyptian ankh.

  “A rainbow above the emblem of life and resurrection,” Jill said.

  Piscator said, “Pardon me. The cross within the circle is also the astrological-astronomical symbol for Earth. However, in that symbol, the cross is a simple one, not the looped cross.”

  “A symbol of hope, that rainbow. And, if you remember the Old Testament, it’s God’s sign of covenant with His people. It also evokes the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the Emerald City of Oz, and many other things.”

  Piscator looked curiously at her.

  She was silent for a minute, overcome with awe and a fear that she hoped would not become overwhelming.

  Then she said, “I’m going in. You wait here, Piscator. When I get to the end of the hall, I’ll signal you to come on in, too. If there’s no trouble, that is.

  “If anything should happen to me, I don’t know what, you and the men get the hell back to the ship. And take off. That’s an order.

  “You’ll be the captain. Coppename’s a good man, but he doesn’t have your experience, and you’re the steadiest man I know.”

  Piscator smiled. “Firebrass ordered you not to land if something happened to him. Yet you did land. Could I allow you to be in a dangerous situation and just leave you?”

  “I don’t want you to endanger the ship. Or the lives of almost a hundred men.”

  “We shall see. I’ll act as I feel the situation demands. You wouldn’t do otherwise. And then there is Thorn.”

  “One thing at a time,” she said.

  She turned and walked toward the entrance. As she neared it, she gasped.

  A low light had filled the hall.

  After hesitating several seconds, she continued. As she passed beneath the arch, she was suddenly in a bright light.

  Jill stopped. Piscator said, “Where is the light coming from?”

  Jill turned and said, “I don’t know. There doesn’t seem to be any source. Look. I don’t have a shadow.”

  She turned back and started to walk slowly. And then she stopped again.

  “What’s the matter? You…”

  “I don’t bloody know. I feel as if I’m in a thick jelly! I can’t breathe, but I have to struggle to take another step!”

  Leaning into the palpable, invisible barrier as if she were going against a strong wind, she managed to force herself three more steps. Then, panting, she stopped.

  “It must be a field of some sort. There’s nothing material here, but I feel like a fly caught in a spider’s web!”

  “Could it be that the field is affecting the magnetic tabs in your cloths?” he called.

  “I don’t think so. If that was it, the tabs would be pulling the cloths, and that’s not it. I’ll try it, though.”

  Feeling some shyness at stripping in front of fifty men, she pulled the tabs loose. The air temperature was just above freezing. Shivering, teeth chattering, she again tried to force her way into the thick element. She could not go a centimeter beyond the limit of her original advance.

  She bent down to pick up her cloths, noting that she could do so easily. The force acted only in a horizontal direction. After backing away two steps, and feeling the force diminish, she put her cloths back on.

  Outside the entrance again, she said, “You try it, Piscator.”

  “You think I could succeed where you can’t? Well, it is worth experimenting.”

  Naked, he walked in. To her surprise, she saw that he was not affected by the field. Not, at least, until he had gotten several meters from the curve. Then he called back that he was encountering difficulty.

  He moved ever more slowly, struggling, his panting so loud that she could hear it.

  But he did get to the curve, and there he paused to regain his breath.

  He said, “There’s an open elevator at the end. It seems to be the only way to get down.”

  “Can you get to it?” she called.

  “I’ll try.”

  Moving like an actor in a slow-motion film, he plowed ahead. And he was gone around the bend.

  A minute passed. Two. Jill went into the corridor as far as she could. “Piscator! Piscator!”

  Her voice rang strangely, as if the corridor had peculiar acoustical properties.

  There was no answer, though if he were just around the curve, he would be able to hear her.

  She shouted again and again. Silence replied.

  There was nothing she could do except to return to the entrance and let others try.

  The men went in by twos to save time. Some progressed a little farther than she; some, not as much. All shed their cloths, but this did not help them at all.

  Jill used the walkie-talkie to order the men in the ship to make the attempt. If one out of fifty-two could do it, perhaps one of the forty-one in the ship might succeed.

  First, though, everybody except herself had to return to the vessel. They trooped off, phantom figures in the dimly lit fog. She had never felt so lonely in all her life, and she had known many hours of the blackest isolation. The mists pressed wet hands against her face, which seemed to be congealing into a mask of ice. The funeral pyre of Obrenova, Metzing, and the others burned fiercely. And there was Piscator, somewhere around the corner. What situation was he in? Was he unable either to go ahead or to go back? Returning had not been difficult for her or the other men. Why should he not be able to retreat?

  But then she did not know what other obstacles there were beyond that grim gray hall.

  She muttered to herself Virgil’s line, “Facilis descensus Averni.” (“It is easy to go down into Hell.”)

  What was the rest of it? After so many years, she found it difficult to remember. If only this world had books, reference materials.

  Now it came back.

  It is easy to go down into Hell. Night and day, the gates of Death stand wide. But to climb back again, to retrace one’s steps to the upper air. There’s the rub, the task.

  The only real trouble with that quotation was that it was not appropriate. It had been very hard to get to the gates, impossible for all but one. And climbing back—except for one—had been easy.

  She switched on the walkie-talkie.

  “Cyrano. The captain here.”

  “Yes, what is it, my captain?”

  “Are you crying?”

  “Yes, but of course. Did I not love Firebrass dearly? I am not ashamed of my grief. I am not a cold Anglo-Saxon.”

  “Never mind that. Get hold of yourself. We have work to do.”

  Cyrano sniffled, then said, “I know that. And I am wil
ling and able. You will find me no less a man. What are your orders?”

  “You know you’re to be relieved by Nikitin. I want you to bring along twenty-five kilograms of plastic explosive.”

  “Yes. I hear you. But do you intend to blow up the tower?”

  “No, just the entranceway.”

  A half-hour passed. The men in the ship had to come out and those out had to go in. This was a long process, since, for every man that left, one had to go in immediately. Taking turns this way slowed the business but was necessary. Forty-eight leaving all at once would make the ship too buoyant. It would rise, leaving the end of the ladder above the reach of those on the ground.

  Finally, she saw their lights and heard their voices. She told them what had happened, though they already knew. Then she told them what they were to do, which they expected.

  The result was that no one got anywhere as far as Piscator.

  “Very well,” Jill said.

  The plastic explosive was applied against the exterior of the dome opposite a point halfway down the corridor. She would have liked to have set it at the juncture of the back of the dome and the tower wall. She was afraid that the explosive might blow a hole in the dome. If it did so, it might also kill Piscator.

  They retreated to the dirigible and the explosive expert pressed a switch on a transmitter. The blast was deafening, though the plastic had been applied to the side of the dome away from them. They ran to it, then stopped, coughing from the fumes. After the air was cleared, Jill looked at the dome.

  It was undamaged.

  “I thought so,” she said to herself.

  She had called in to Piscator that he should not come out until after the explosion. There had been no answer. She had a hunch that he was not in the vicinity, but hunches were not certainties.

  Jill went back into the dome as far as she could. There was no force against the long-handled hook she thrust ahead of her. And she could throw a cloth weighted with metal to the end of the corridor. So, the field was no barrier to inanimate objects.

  If they had a periscope long enough to reach to the end of the corridor, they could see around it. However, a periscope was not part of the ship’s supplies.

  She was not defeated by this. There was a very small machinist’s shop on the Parseval. A wheeled device which would go to the end of the corridor could be built. A camera could be attached to its end, and the camera could be activated by a radio transmitter.

  The chief machinist’s mate thought he could construct the “contraption” in an hour. She told him to do so, and then she ordered three men to stand guard in the dome.

  “If Piscator shows, radio me.”

  Having returned to the ship, she phoned the machinist’s shop.

  “Can you do your work while we’re aloft? The air might be rough.”

  “No sweat, sir. Well, only a little, anyway.”

  The process of untying the ship and getting it into the air took fifteen minutes. Nikitin took the Parseval up above the tower and then sent her down toward its base. Radar indicated that the helicopter was now against the base of the tower. Though the sea was not violent, its waves were short and choppy, and it had probably smashed the machine against the tower. However, if they were lucky, the damage could be minimal.

  Aukuso radioed Thorn again without success.

  Because of the updraft by the tower, it was impossible to bring the dirigible close to the helicopter. Nikitin piloted it down close to the surface and held her against the wind. The belly hatch was opened, and three men in an inflatable boat with an outboard motor were lowered. It headed for the tower, guided by the radarman on the ship.

  Boynton, the officer in charge, gave a running report.

  “We’re alongside the chopper now. It’s bumping into the tower, but its pontoons have kept the vanes from being damaged. The pontoons don’t seem damaged, either. We’re having a hell of a time with this pitching sea. Report back in a minute.”

  Two minutes later, his voice came back on.

  “Propp and I are in the chopper now. Thorn’s here! He’s pretty bloody, looks as if he got a bullet in the left chest and some richocheting fragments got him in the face, too. He’s alive, though.”

  “Is there an opening or entrance of any sort in the tower?”

  “Just a minute. Have to light a flare. These lamps aren’t strong enough… no, there’s nothing there but smooth metal.”

  “I wonder why he landed there?” she said to Cyrano.

  He shrugged and said, “I would guess that perhaps he had to land quickly before he passed out.”

  “But where was he going?”

  “There are many mysteries here. We might be able to clear up some of them if we apply certain methods of persuasion to Thorn.”

  “Torture?”

  Cyrano’s long, bony face was grave.

  “That would be inhumane, and, of course, the end never justifies the means. Or is that statement a false philosophy?”

  “I could never torture anybody, and I wouldn’t permit anyone else to do it for me.”

  “Perhaps Thorn will volunteer information when he realizes that he cannot be free until he does so. I do not really think so, however. That one looks very stubborn.”

  Boynton’s voice came in again. “With your permission. Ms. Gulbirra, I’ll fly the chopper out. Everything looks okay. My men can bring Thorn back in the raft.”

  “Permission granted,” Jill said. “If it’s operable, take it up to the top of the tower. We’ll be along later.”

  Within ten minutes, the radar operator reported that the helicopter was lifting. Boynton added that everything was running smoothly.

  Leaving Coppename in charge, Jill went down to the hangar bay. She arrived in time to see Thorn’s cloth-wrapped body being lifted out of the raft. He was still unconscious. She followed the stretcher bearers to the sick bay, where Graves immediately took charge.

  “He’s in shock, but I think I can pull him through. You can’t question him now, of course.”

  Jill posted two armed guards at the door and returned to the control room. By then the ship was lifting, headed for the tower. A half-hour later, the Parseval was again poised above the landing field. This time, it stayed 200 meters from the dome. Its nose was pointed against the slight wind, and its propellers spun lazily.

  After a while, the little wagon made by the machinists was lowered onto the surface. After being pulled to the entrance, it was pushed as far as two men could get. Then long poles made by the machinists were used to push the wagon deeper. Extensions were added to the poles as needed. In a short time, the forward end of the wagon was against the far wall.

  After six photographs were taken, the wagon was pulled back by a long rope. Jill eagerly removed the large plates, which had been developed electronically at the moment of exposure.

  She looked at the first one.

  “He’s not there.”

  She handed it to Cyrano. He said, “What is this? A short hall and a doorway at its end. It looks like an elevator shaft beyond, yes? But… there is no cage and there are no cables.”

  “I don’t think They would have to depend upon such primitive devices as cables,” she said. “But it’s evident that Piscator got through the field and that he took the elevator.”

  “But why does he not come back? He must know that we are concerned.”

  He paused, and then he said, “He must also know that we cannot stay here forever.”

  There was only one thing to do.

  She gave the order to tie the ship up again. After this was done, she summoned the entire crew to the hangar bay. The photographs were passed around while she told them in detail everything that had happened.

  “We’ll wait here a week if we have to. After that, we must leave. Piscator would not willingly stay down there so long. If he doesn’t come back within twelve hours we can presume that he’s being detained by… Them. Or perhaps he has had an accident and has been killed or hurt. There’s
no way of knowing. We can do nothing except wait for a reasonable period of time.”

  No one would think of deserting Piscator at this time. But it was evident that they did not like the idea of staying seven days in this cold, dark, wet, ominously silent place. It was too much like camping outside the gates of hell.

  By then, helicopter No. 1 had quit burning. A work party went out to recover the bodies and to investigate the cause of the explosion. Mechanics began checking the other copter for pontoon damage and replacing the bullet-torn windshield and port door.

  A three-man guard was posted just inside the dome. Just before Jill went to the mess room, she got a call from Dr. Graves.

  “Thorn’s still unconscious, but he’s rallying. I’ve also looked at what’s left of Firebrass’ brain. I can’t do much since I don’t have a microscope. But I’d swear that that little black sphere was attached to the neural system of the forebrain. I considered the possibility that it was extraneous and had been injected by the force of explosion into his brain. But the mechanics tell me there wasn’t any such thing in the copter’s equipment.”

  “You mean that you think that sphere had been surgically implanted in his brain?”

  Graves said, “There isn’t enough frontal skull left to say for certain. But I’m going to cut the others open, too. In fact, I’m going to do a complete dissection on all the victims. That’ll take time, especially since I have to keep an eye on Thorn.”

  Trying to keep her voice from trembling, she said, “You realize the implications of that sphere?”

  “I’ve been doing some thinking about it. I don’t know what the hell it means except that it’s important. Now, Jill, I’ve been doing dissections for years, not because I had to but just to keep my hand in. And I’ve never found anything out of the ordinary in a thousand corpses.

  “But I’ll tell you this. I think I know why Firebrass insisted on x-raying the skulls of his crew. He was looking for people with black spheres on, or in, their forebrains.

  “I’ll tell you something else. I think he rushed Stern’s corpse off to The River because he knew that Stern had a ball in his brain.