In the Beginning: Tales From the Pulp Era

by Robert Silverberg

  But there was a rumor that somewhere on Loki lived the remnants of an almost-extinct alien race. Marshall had pegged his hopes on finding that race. He had arrived in Marleyville a week ago and had spoken to some of the old settlers. Yes, they knew the rumors, they told him; no, they couldn’t offer any concrete information. But there were some early settlers in New Lisbon who might be able to help. So Marshall was on his way to New Lisbon. And if he drew a blank there, it was back to Earth.

  His thoughts were running in that depressing channel, and he decided to try to get some sleep instead of doing still more brooding and worrying. He nudged the seat-stud, guiding the seat back into a more comfortable position, and closed his eyes.

  An instant later a shriek sounded in the ship.

  Marshall snapped to attention. He glanced across the cabin and saw what the cause of the shriek had been. Great reddish gouts of flame were streaking from the engine on the opposite wing. Moments later the ship yawed violently to one side. Over the public address system came the pilot’s voice: “Please fasten seat belts. Remain seated.”

  An excited buzz of conversation rippled through the ship. Marshall felt strangely calm and detached. So this was what it was like to become involved in an aircraft accident!

  His ears stung suddenly as the ship lost altitude. It was dropping in a long, slow glide toward the ground. Shockwaves ran through the passenger cabin as the smoking jet engine exploded. Above everything came the tight, tense voice of the pilot: “We are making an emergency landing. Remain calm. Do not leave your seats until the instruction is given.”

  The ship was swooping toward the jungle in an erratic wobbling glide now. Cries of panic were audible. With one engine completely gone, the pilot was having obvious trouble controlling the ship. It came stuttering down through the atmosphere. Marshall could make out individual features of the landscape now. He saw jungle, wild, fierce-looking, untamed.

  “Prepare for landing!” came the pilot’s words. Marshall gripped his chair’s arms tightly. A second later the ship thundered to the ground, accompanied by the crashing sound of falling trees. Marshall glanced out the window. They had crashlanded in the thick of the jungle, pancaking down on top of the trees and flattening them.

  He ripped off his safety belt. No time to stop to think—had to get out of the plane. He fumbled for his portfolio, picked it up, saw something else under the seat. In big red letters it said SURVIVAL KIT. Marshall grabbed it.

  Passengers were rising from their seats. Some were stunned, unconscious, perhaps dead from the violent impact of landing. Marshall stepped out into the aisle. Words met his eyes—EMERGENCY EXIT. His hands closed on a metal handle. He thrust downward, out.

  The door opened. He tumbled out, dropping eight or nine feet to the soft, spongy forest floor. He knew he had to run, run fast.

  He ran—helter-skelter, tripping and stumbling over the hidden vines. Sweat poured down his body. Time seemed to stand still. He wondered how many other passengers would escape in time from the doomed ship.

  The explosion, when it came, seemed to fill the universe. A colossal boom unfolded behind him. The jungle heat rose to searing intensity for a moment. Marshall fell flat, shielding his head against metal fragments with his arms. He lay sprawled face-down in the thick vegetation, panting breathlessly, while fury raged a few hundred yards behind him. He did not look. He uttered a prayer of thankfulness for his lucky escape.

  And then he realized he had very little to be thankful for. He was alive, true. But he was alive in the middle of a trackless jungle, with civilization a thousand miles away at the nearest. Desperately, he hoped that there had been other survivors.

  He waited for a few minutes after the blast had subsided. Then he rose unsteadily. The ship was a charred ruin, a blistered hulk. Fragments of the fuselage lay scattered over a wide area. One had landed only a few dozen feet from where he lay.

  He started to walk toward the wreckage.

  Figures lay huddled in the grass. Marshall reached the first. He was a man in his fifties, heavy-set and balding, who was clambering to his feet. Marshall helped him up. The older man’s face was pale and sweat-beaded, and his lips were quivering. For a moment neither said anything.

  Then Marshall said, in a voice that was surprisingly steady, “Come. We’d better look for other survivors.”

  The second to be found was the girl in the violet dress. She was sitting upright, fighting to control her tears. Marshall felt a sudden surge of joy when he saw that she was still alive. She had not completely escaped the fury of the blast, though; her dress was scorched, her eyebrows singed, the ends of her hair crisped. She seemed otherwise unharmed.

  Not far from her lay two more people—a couple, who got shakily to their feet as Marshall approached them. Like the others, they were pale and close to the borderline of hysteria.

  Five survivors. That was all. Marshall found six charred bodies near the plane—passengers who had succeeded in escaping from the ship, but who had been only a few feet away at the time of the blast. None of the bodies was recognizable. He turned away, slowly, shoulders slumping. Five survivors out of twenty. And they were lost in the heart of the jungle.

  “We’re all that’s left,” he said in a quiet voice.

  The girl in the violet dress—her beauty oddly enhanced by the tattered appearance of her clothing and the smudges of soot on her face—murmured, “It’s horrible! Going along so well—and in just a couple of moments—”

  “It was an old plane,” muttered the older man bitterly. “An antique. It was criminal to let such a plane be used commercially.”

  “Talking like that isn’t going to help us now,” said the remaining man, who stood close to his wife.

  “Nothing’s going to help us now,” said the girl in the violet dress. “We’re in the middle of nowhere without any way of getting help. It would have been better to be blown up than to survive like this—”

  “No,” Marshall said. He held up the small square box labelled SURVIVAL KIT. “Did any of you bring your survival kits out of the plane? No? Well, luckily, I grabbed up mine before I escaped. Maybe there’s something in here to help us.”

  They crowded close around as he opened the kit. He called off the contents. “Water purifier…compass…a flare-gun and a couple of flares…a blaster with auxiliary charges…a handbook of survival techniques. That’s about it.”

  “We’ll never make it,” the girl in the violet dress said softly. “A thousand miles back to Marleyville, a thousand miles ahead to New Lisbon. And no roads, no maps. We might as well use that blaster on ourselves.”

  “No!” Marshall snapped. Staring at the stunned, defeated faces of the other four, he realized that he would have to assume the leadership of the little group. “We’re not giving up,” he said sharply. “We can’t let ourselves give up. We’re going ahead—ahead to New Lisbon!”

  The first thing to do, Marshall thought, was to get organized. He led them a few hundred yards through the low underbrush, to the side of a small stream. Strange forest birds, angry over the sudden noisy invasion of their domain, cackled shrilly in the heavy-leaved trees above them. Marshall took a seat on a blunt boulder at the edge of the stream and said, “Now, then. We’re going to make a trek through this jungle and we’re going to reach New Lisbon alive. All clear?”

  No one answered.

  Marshall said, “Good. That means we all have to work together, if we’re going to survive. I hope you understand the meaning of cooperation. No bickering, no selfishness, no defeatism. Let’s get acquainted, first. My name is David Marshall. I’m from Earth. I’m a graduate student of anthropology—came to Loki to do anthropological research toward my doctorate in alien cultures.”

  He glanced inquisitively at the girl in the violet dress. She said in a faltering voice, “My name is Lois Chalmers. I’m—I’m the daughter of the governor of the New Lisbon colony.”

  Marshall’s eyes widened slightly. Governor Alfred Chalmers was one of the m
ost important men in the entire Procyon system. Her presence here meant that there would surely be an attempt to find the survivors of the crash.

  Marshall next looked toward the married couple. The man, who was short, thickset, and muscular, said, “I’m Clyde Garvey. This is my wife Estelle. We’re second-generation colonists at Marleyville. We were going to take a vacation in New Lisbon.”

  The remaining member of the little band was the middle-aged man. He spoke now. “My name is Kyle, Nathan Kyle. I’m from Earth. I have large business investments on Loki, both at Marleyville and New Lisbon.”

  “All right,” Marshall said. “We all know who everybody else is, now.” He looked up at the sky. It was mid-afternoon, and only the overhanging roof of leaves shielded the forest floor from the fiercely blazing sun. “We were just about at the halfway point of the trip when we crashed. That means it’s just as far to Marleyville as it is to New Lisbon. Probably we’re slightly closer to New Lisbon. We might as well head in that direction.”

  “Maybe it’s better to stay right where we are,” Nathan Kyle suggested. “They’re certain to search for survivors. If we stay near the wreckage—”

  “They could search this jungle for a hundred years and never cover the whole territory,” Marshall said. “Don’t forget that the only transcontinental plane on this world just crashed. All they have is a handful of short-range copters and light planes—not sufficient to venture this deep into the jungle. No; our only hope is to head for New Lisbon. Maybe when we get close enough, we’ll be spotted by a search-party.”

  “What will we eat?” Estelle Garvey wanted to know.

  “We’ll hunt the native wildlife,” Marshall told her. “And supplement that with edible vegetation. Don’t worry about the food angle.”

  “How long will it take to reach New Lisbon?” Kyle asked.

  Marshall shrugged. “We’ll march by day, camp by night. If we can average ten miles a day through the jungle, it’ll take about three months to reach safety.”

  “Three months—!”

  “I’m afraid so. But at least we’ll get there alive.”

  “Nice to know you’re so confident, Marshall,” Kyle said bleakly. “Three months on foot through a jungle thick with all sorts of dangers—”

  “Don’t give up before we’ve started,” Marshall said. He studied the survival kit compass for a moment, frowning. “We want to head due east. That way. If we start right away, we can probably cover five or six miles before nightfall. But let’s eat and freshen up first.”

  The blaster supplied in the survival kit had one hundred shots in it, plus an extra hundred in the refill. Marshall was a fair shot, but he knew he would have to do better than fair if they were to survive the trip. Every shot would have to count.

  He and Garvey struck out into the forest while Kyle and the women remained behind to fashion water-canteens out of some gourds that grew near the water’s edge. The two men entered the darkest part of the jungle, where the treetops were linked a hundred feet above the forest floor by a thick meshwork of entangled vines that all but prevented sunlight from penetrating.

  They moved slowly, trying to avoid making noise. Garvey heard a threshing in the underbrush and touched Marshall’s arm. They froze; a second later a strange creature emerged from a thicket a few feet from them. It was vaguely deerlike, a lithe, graceful beast whose hide was a delicate grayish-purple in color. In place of horns, three fleshy tendrils sprouted from its forehead.

  The animal studied the two men with grave curiosity. Evidently it had never seen human beings before, and did not know whether or not to be afraid. Slowly the forehead-tendrils rose in the air, until they stood erect like three pencils on the beast’s head.

  Marshall lifted the blaster. Alarmed at the sudden motion, the animal gathered its legs and prepared to bound off into the darkness. Marshall fired quickly. A bolt of energy spurted from the blaster; he aimed for the chest, but his aim was high, and he caught the beast in the throat instead. The animal blinked once in surprise, then slipped to the mossy carpet of the forest.

  Marshall and Garvey carried their prey back to the stream slung between them. The women had worked efficiently while they were gone, Marshall saw. Five gourds lay ranged neatly along the stream’s bank, each one carefully hollowed out. Kyle was busy with the water purifier.

  Marshall and Garvey dumped the deer-like creature in the middle of the clearing. “Our first meal,” Marshall said. “I hope there aren’t any vegetarians among us.”

  It was a messy business, skinning the animal and preparing it for cooking. Marshall drew that job, and performed it with the small knife from the survival kit. Garvey and his wife built the fire, while Kyle cut down a green branch to use as a spit.

  The cooking job was extremely amateur, and the meat, when they finally served it, was half raw and half scorched. None of them seemed to have much of an appetite, but they forced themselves to eat, and washed it down with the purified water. After the meal, Marshall carefully wrapped up the remainder of the meat in the animal’s own hide, tying the bundle together with vines. They filled their gourd canteens and plugged them shut.

  No one said much. A tremendous task faced them—a trek across half a continent, through unknown jungle. All five seemed subdued by the enormity of the job that confronted them.

  They started out, hacking their way through the intertwined brambles, following the compass on an easterly course. The stream followed right along with them, which made things a little easier. It was always good to know that your water supply was heading in the same general direction you were going.

  Loki’s day was twenty-eight hours long. Marshall’s wristwatch was an Earth-type standard one, so it was of little use to him, but Garvey wore a watch which gave the time as half past three in the afternoon, Loki time—Marleyville time. But they were a thousand miles east of Marleyville, and heading further east with every step. Marshall did not attempt to adjust the time to the longitude. Life was complicated enough as it was, just then.

  If Garvey’s watch were right, though, they had about six more hours of marching time before nightfall would arrive. If they could average a mile an hour while walking, Marshall thought, it might be possible to reach New Lisbon in eighty or ninety days. If they lived that long, he added grimly.

  The stream widened out after a while, becoming a fairly broad little river. Water beasts were slumbering near the bank. Marshall approached to look at them. They were reptiles, sleek velvet-brown creatures twenty feet long, with tails that switched ominously from side to side and toothy mouths that yawned hungrily at the little party of Terrans. But the animals made no attempt to come up on shore and attack. They simply glared, beady-eyed, at the Earthman.

  After more than an hour of steady marching Lois Chalmers asked for a few minutes to rest, and they halted. She pulled off the stylish pumps she was wearing, and stared ruefully at her swollen feet.

  “These shoes of mine just aren’t intended for jungle treks,” she said mournfully. “But I can’t walk barefoot in the jungle, I suppose.”

  Garvey said, “If you’d like, I’ll make you some sandals out of bark and vines.”

  The girl brightened. “Oh, would you!”

  So there was a fifteen-minute half while Garvey fashioned crude sandals for her. During the wait, Marshall ventured down to the river-bank again. The big sleeping reptiles lay sunning themselves on the mud by the side of the water. Marshall saw golden shapes gliding through the water. Fish. Another source of food, he thought, and one that would not consume the precious blaster-charges. They would need to make hooks from slivers of bone, and fishing-line from the sinews of animals. He smiled to himself as the idea occurred. David Marshall, late of the University of Chicago, had no business knowing anything about such primitive things as home-made fishing equipment.

  But a man had to survive, he thought. And to survive you had to use your brains.

  He peered at the slowly-moving fish below in the water, and nodded to
himself. The first opportunity they had, they would improvise some fishing equipment.

  The river narrowed to a stream again, later on, and veered sharply off to the south. The party continued on the eastward path, even though they were no longer with a water supply: The afternoon darkened into night, and the jungle heat subsided.

  As dusk began to gather around them, Marshall said, “We’d better stop now. Make camp here, continue in the morning. We’ll get into trouble if we try to hike in the dark.”

  They settled in a small clearing fenced in by vaulting trees whose trunks were the thickness of a dozen men. The forest grew dark rapidly; Loki’s three gleaming moons could be seen bobbing intermittently above the trees, and a sprinkling of stars brightened the night.

  Marshall said, “We’ll stand watch in shifts through the night. Kyle, you take first watch. Then Lois. I’ll hold down the middle slot. Mrs. Garvey, you follow me, and your husband can have the last shift. Two hours apiece ought to do it.”

  He opened the survival kit and handed the blaster and flare gun to Kyle. The businessman frowned and said, “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Stay awake, mostly, and keep an eye out for visiting animals. And if you happen to hear an airplane overhead, shoot off one of the flares so they’ll be able to find us.”

  “Do you think they’ll send a plane this far?” Lois asked.

  Marshall shook his head. “Frankly, no. But it can’t do any harm to be prepared.”

  He and Garvey built a fire while the others collected a woodpile to use as fuel through the night. They remained close together; Marshall chose a clump of grass as his bed, while the Garveys huddled in each other’s arms not far away and Lois bedded down on the other side of the fire. Kyle, as first watch, sat near the fire.

  Marshall did not find it easy to fall asleep. His senses were troubled by new sensations—the chickk-chickk of the jungle insects, the far-off hooting of night-flying birds, the occasional unnerving trumpet-call of some huge wandering animal settling down for the night. The flickering of the campfire bothered him no matter how tightly he clamped his eyelids together. He remained awake a long while squirming and shifting position, his mind full of a million thoughts and plans. He was still half awake and dimly aware of what was happening when Kyle’s shift ended, for he heard the financier talking to Lois, waking her up. But some time after that he dozed off, because he was soundly asleep when Lois came to fetch him for his shift on patrol.