Seahorse in the Sky

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

THE CITY—IF, indeed, it was such and not some kind of scientific station—was small and strange beyond imagining. It was deserted. It was like a ghost-town—and yet there was an air of cleanness and use, and the subtle impression of recent occupation. It had, above all, the mood of a place that was waiting for something to happen. That something would happen—something fantastic, or beautiful, or terrible—Russell had no doubt. The signs all pointed to it. All three of the explorers had the uneasy sensation of being watched; and, in fact, all three knew that their progress towards the great column had been watched.

The column was even taller, more impressive and more inexplicable than he had expected. It stood at the centre of the city/ghost-town/scientific station, rising almost a kilometre into the sky, supporting the vast, shimmering green bubble like some monstrous flower on a rigid metal stem.

As he stood gazing at it in awe, the events of the morning flashed rapidly through Russell’s mind, convincing him more than ever that he, Anna and Farn zem Marur were the principal actors (or victims?) of a drama that would shortly unfold.

Shortly after daybreak, they had breakfasted and then looked for a suitable place to leave the boat/wagon. They found it a few hundred metres downstream, where there was a small gully sufficiently deep to conceal the boat from curious eyes. With the harness over his shoulders, Farn zem Marur hauled the boat to its hiding place. Then he and Russell lowered it carefully down the side of the gully. From ten paces away it was impossible to be seen, and even from the river it would have been very difficult to pick out.

They chose the food and equipment to take with them very carefully. It would be folly to weigh themselves down, but it would also be stupid to travel without enough food or adequate defence. With sad hindsight, Russell realized that they should have brought rucksacks or even suitcases—of which there were several at the Erewhon Hilton. But, according to the original concept of the journey, they would have been taking the boat with them wherever they went. As it was, they had to make rough bundles out of blankets. Besides an assortment of clothing, Farn zem Marur carried his sword, poniard and a food bundle.

Anna carried her crossbow and a supply of water in bottles wrapped carefully so that they would not smash against each other. And Russell carried his own crossbow, two grenades, a coil of rope, the binoculars and a can or two of food in his pockets.

The morning was a fine one with the sun shining steadily and warmly from a blue sky. When they were ready to move, the small party headed directly towards the high column that, in bright sunlight, seemed even more curious than on the previous day and, somehow, oddly alive.

Russell glimpsed the first sign of movement less than half an hour after the journey across the grassy plain had begun. He had formed the habit of stopping every few minutes to survey the landscape through his binoculars; and on one of these occasions he had noticed an irregular flashing, two or three kilometres away, as of sunlight on something shiny.

He gave Anna the binoculars. Presently she handed them to Farn. Whatever was causing the flashes was making its way at a fairly high speed towards the river and the wall of mist. With this interesting discovery, Russell judged it wise to take a short rest. The three of them lay down on the grass so that they could see without being seen.

But their progress, apparently, had already been noticed. The flashes became larger and seemed now to be coming directly towards them. Farn zem Marur gripped his sword expectantly, Anna fitted a bolt to her crossbow, and Russell held his gas lighter and one of the gunpowder grenades.

Presently, the flashing was identified. It was caused by a small troop of spider robots, the sunlight dancing on the metal spheres that housed their sensing and control mechanisms.

This was the first time that Russell and Anna had seen the spider robots in action and in daylight. It was the first time that Farn zem Marur had seen them at all. But the pathfinder, Russell was relieved to note, did not panic—not even when the spider robots were within fifty paces.

“We might as well stand up now,” said Russell. “They know we are here… If they have any orders or instructions concerning us, we shall soon find out.”

“Lord,” said Farn zem Marur grimly, “a sword is perhaps not the best of weapons to combat creatures such as these.”

Russell glanced at the grenade. “No, pathfinder, but this may help. If the robots attempt to harm us, some will need a few spare parts afterwards.”

There were five of the spider robots, and each of them was carrying a box with the four multi-jointed appendages it used as arms. The boxes appeared to contain provisions that were probably destined for the Erewhon Hilton. The five robots came to within twenty paces of the three humans, halted for a moment, then abruptly turned away, almost as if they had just received further instructions. Russell watched them scuttling urgentlv towards the mist barrier which now lay more than two kilometres behind, looking in the sunlight like a wall of solid ice. He wondered if the robots would simply march straight through the freezing barrier or whether there was a special place for entry and exit. It would have been useful to find out; but even if he had wished to backtrack and follow the robots, it would have been impossible to keep their pace. He picked up his crossbow and the coil of rope, and signed to the others to continue the journey. Suddenly he was aware of the sweat dripping down his face, and realized that he had been very much afraid.

He looked at Anna and Farn, perversely pleased to note the traces of fear evident on their drawn faces and still in their eyes. “If one senses danger,” he said, “it becomes harder to bear when nothing happens.” He laughed. “At least, it seems that we are not to be punished prematurely for breaking out of prison… So let us get to that tower and try to find out what it is all about.”

They resumed their march in silence, each preoccupied with private doubts and anxieties. Every now and again, Anna came and held Russell’s hand for a few moments, as if she were reassuring herself of his actual presence or as if she were able to draw some consolation or strength from mere contact.

By Russell’s calculations, they had just about completed the first half of the journey from the river to the column when they saw the ‘fairies’. Although no more detail of the column or the green bubble was apparent than when they had originally seen it, its sheer size, its utter domination of the surrounding landscape both oppressed and excited them. It was possible to discern, also, that the structures round its base were buildings of some kind; and this gave Russell added reason to hope/fear that at last they would encounter some of the race that had been responsible for their abduction from worlds far away.

It was Farn zem Marur who noticed the ‘fairies’—he thought of them as demons—first. He was too horrified to speak, and could only point with a shaking hand.

The ‘fairies’—perhaps nine or ten of them—were flying swiftly through the air at an altitude of about one hundred metres. They seemed to be heading towards the green bubble, and they seemed to be responsible for a curious kind of low, even humming that reminded Russell of the sound made by a musical spinning top he had once possessed long ago in the bright world of childhood.

But there was hardly time to form any impression at all; for, suddenly, the ‘fairies’ vanished. In mid-flight, they seemed to wink out of existence as if someone, somewhere, had just thrown a switch and abolished them.

Russell rubbed his eyes, blinked, and felt his knees become unsteady. He regretted bitterly that no brandy had been included in the stores.

“You saw them?” He turned to Anna. But before she could reply, he already knew the answer.

“I saw them.” Her voice was shaking. “I saw them… Russell, Russell, I want to go back.” Her voice rose in pitch and intensity. “Please take me back to our friends. Please, please take me back! If we go any further, we are all going to go mad… We shall die, and then—”

He slapped her, and the hysterical torrent of words was cut off. Anna pulled herself together.

“Thank you,” she said simply. When she had calmed down a little, she said with a faint smile: “I am reminded that a Russian woman is, after all, only a woman.”

“I didn’t hurt you?”

“Only enough.”

Russell turned to Farn zem Marur. “Pathfinder, we have seen what we have seen. Is it your wish to go forward and, perhaps, encounter yet stranger things?”

Farn zem Marur’s voice was none too steady. “It is my wish and my duty to follow the lord Russell Grahame, that I may not be dishonoured in the eyes of my sept lord and in my own eyes.”

“Let us go then. The answer to such mysteries as we have seen may lie ahead.”

“Lord, they were not demons?”

“No, Farn, they were not demons.”

“Nor were they fairies,” said Anna. “I was reminded of something… I was reminded of large dragonflies… Perhaps they are only some kind of great insect.”

“Insects which can disappear at will,” said Russell drily. “I can see why Paul Redman thought they were fairies, though—the brilliant wings, the golden hair…”

Anna laughed somewhat unsteadily. “They were not fairies. They had no wands. Only, I think, four legs.”

Presently, when the sun was high in the sky, they came to the first group of buildings, which lay no more than a kilometre from the base of the great column. The buildings were low, windowless, igloo-shaped and constructed of what appeared to be a plastic similar to that of the ‘coffin’ from which Russell had emerged on his first day on Erewhon.

Cautiously, the explorers approached the nearest building. They were aware of a kind of muted throbbing, such as might emanate from very powerful engines. They felt the vibrations first through the soles of their feet; but as they came closer it seemed as if the air around them was somehow charged with great pulses of energy.

Even if they had wanted to—and they were not entirely eager—they were unable to investigate the source of the throbbing further, for what were clearly the entrances to the buildings, squat tunnel-like protrusions about a metre high and a metre wide, were closed. The doors were made of metal, and there was no visible means of opening them.

The next group of buildings, similar in shape and size, were, however, open to inspection. Leaving his companions outside, Russell entered the first one and found that it contained stores of some kind—long, low racks on which were neatly stacked metal, plastic and ceramic objects. Some of them looked as if they might be machine parts, while others looked like vessels of some kind. He stared at the long racks and was no wiser.

But in the second building, whose door was open, he discovered a workshop or laboratory staffed and operated by a number of spider robots. Russell sensed that they were aware of his presence; but they ignored him and scuttled about their tasks with complete indifference. He stayed for a while, trying to find out what they were doing. But their actions and the equipment they were using made little sense to him.

Finally, when Anna called out anxiously, he went out into the sunlight and recounted what he had seen. It was only while he was trying to describe the interior to Farn zem Marur that Russell realized he had seen no source of light in the buildings, yet everything had been as visible as if the structures were made out of transparent glass, and the igloos were penetrated by daylight.

With time passing, the sun having passed its zenith, Russell became impatient to press on to the column and the green translucent bubble that rested on top of it, vast and awe-inspiring, yet still looking so insubstantial that it might drift away on the next breath of wind. But, before they reached the column, they saw yet another group of buildings that were of an entirely different character from the previous ones.

There were five of the buildings altogether, each made out of stone or concrete and shaped like a cone.

The buildings were about thirty metres high, with small V-shaped openings in the walls near the bases.

Russell crawled through one of the openings—it was not big enough for him to walk through—and found himself in semi-darkness. When his eyes had adjusted to the gloom, he found that the building contained nothing but a series of plastic poles, each set horizontally in the wall, at right angles to it, and parallel with the floor. If all the poles, ten or twelve centimetres in diameter, had been extended they would have met in the centre of the building like the spokes of a giant wheel whose rim was embedded in the walls. But each of the spokes was only four or five metres long. And there were many of them. Too many to be counted easily…

They reminded him of something, but he could not recollect what it was until he was out in the sunlight once more, telling Anna and Farn zem Marur what he had seen.

Then he remembered. The poles reminded him of perches in a chicken house. And was it his imagination, or had there really been a trace of sweet-scented droppings on the floor of the gloomy interior?

In retrospect, he felt that he had been oddly aware of recent occupation. But there was no evidence of this and he dismissed it as a trick of the mind— suggested, perhaps, by his comparison of the poles with perches for fowls to roost upon.

Now, as the three of them stood at the base of the great metal column that rose giddily into the sky, supporting its green surrealistic bloom that cast a strange penumbra over the whole scene, Russell reviewed the events of the morning and was aware of two things. The first was that, apart from a brief glimpse of ‘fairies’ or ‘demons’, they had seen no living creatures. The second was that it was impossible to make any sense out of the evidence of civilization that had been discovered so far.

He was discouraged. He had lost his fear now, and was simply discouraged. He did not know what he had really expected to find. Yet he had certainly not expected indifference and emptiness. He was beginning to think that they would have to go back to the boat without having discovered anything that would enable them to establish contact with their captors or that would explain some of the mystery of their predicament.

The column and the bubble were massive, silent, inscrutable. They might be nothing more, thought Russell bitterly, than some monstrous alien cenotaph. What a joke it would be if they had travelled this far only to find a vast memorial to the dead of an unknown race!

But what of the machines, the stores, the spider robots, the perches? His head was aching and he was very tired. He looked at Anna and Farn zem Marur. The lines of fatigue and perplexity were etched on their faces also.

“We are not winning,” he said. “We are no wiser. Perhaps we ought to eat something then get back to the boat before sunset, if we can. By that time we shall all be in need of a good night’s rest.”

It was at that moment, as they turned away, that there was a great sound as of distant thunder.

Then a voice that seemed to fill the world rolled across the sky and spoke to them.

“Greetings!” it said. “From the Vruvyir to their children, greetings!”

Then, suddenly, all about them there was light and movement. And the air was a riot of iridescent wings.