Future Lovecraft (23 page)

Maxim retired and went to bed, yet Fyodor, himself, remained sitting near the samovar and candle with its flickering flame. Alone, he calmly drank his tea, while the plumes of smoke drifted through the obscurity of the dormitory. Under the rough sheets, Maxim watched him for a long time without attracting his attention.
I like you a lot, Fyodor. That doesn’t prevent you from being an old fool.
He turned over in his bed and abandoned himself to sleep.

Crime and Peace

Maxim admired his
dacha
, planted on the edge of a birch forest. The sun shone down from heaven in long, golden firmaments. In the sky without snow, he noticed a blue planet...
Could that be Terra? Where am I? On Mars? In Paradise?

He pushed the door open and entered the house. The interior was not particularly rich, but was decorated with taste. Slowly, he advanced across the floor, which creaked as he passed. On the wall, he found photographs of his family. Photos in black-and-white of his parents, of his brothers, of beautiful Natasha and of little Alex.

“Papa...Papa, is it you?”

The call came from the foyer. Max turned on the carpet. The door opened and Alex appeared, running. He threw himself into the arms of his father.

“
My little boy! Oh, I’m so happy!”

“Papa! I love our
dacha
a lot, but without you, it’s not the same. Why did you abandon us?”

Maxim knelt in such a way as to hold his offspring in his arms.

“But I didn’t abandon you!”

“Why did you leave us, Mama and me?”

“But I told you...ALEX! What is happening to you?”

The face of his gamin child engaged in a monstrous mutation. It swelled visibly, transforming into a creature most disquieting: His skin was covered in scales, his traits taking the form of a snake. In his mouth, there quivered a tongue, pink and forked.

“WHY, PAPA?”

Max recoiled, horrified by the terrifying spectacle. Then a feminine voice came from upstairs.

“MAXIM! MAXIM!”

Terrorised, Maxim ran and mounted the stairs to the second story, from where she continued to call.

He recognised the voice of the woman.

“MAXIM! MAXIM!”

In a rage, he ran and opened the door from which came the incessant cries.

Inside, he saw Natasha, his spouse, tied to a bed. She struggled while, around her, stood monsters from the abyss of time. Dinosaurs with the feet of goats, birds with brown fur, hydras issued from the worst nightmares of Humanity. Their yellow eyes nailed him with terror.

“MAXIM! WHY DID YOU ABANDON US?” cried his wife.

While the beasts growled, a sort of hideous mouth appeared from the shadows, just above the head of his wife. Four hooked mandibles chattered with ferocity.

“NO! There’s nothing I can do, Natasha! NOTHING!”

“Max! Max, wake up!” A voice from beyond the grave hailed him. And dragged his limbs from sleep.

When he opened his eyes, he saw the weathered face of Fyodor looming over him.

“What is...What happened to me?”

“You were screaming in your sleep. You woke up everyone!”

Maxim sat up on the edge of the bed, his face still marked by his dream.

“I had a horrible nightmare.”

“Everyone has them here, you know.”

“There were these unclean monsters....”

“The Great Old Ones have visited you.”

“What? Stop it with all your legends....”

“So, you, too, you take me for an old fool?”

“No, Fyodor. I have always listened to you with great attention, but....”

“Know that, for all of these years, I was not simply relating stories from a long oral tradition.”

“I just find it difficult to swallow all these stories...It’s not based on any concrete proof.”

“We are mystical creatures. We need to believe in something. Of what material do you make yours?”

Fyodor paused, as if to catch his breath from panting. This gave Max a chance to describe his nightmare.

“I saw my...my wife and my son...It was disgusting....”

“I had the same kind of dream in the beginning. And then, little by little, it faded. Time effaced all memories.”

“You know, Fyodor, that makes four years, to the day, that I haven’t seen them again...four years that I’ve been in this hell.”

Fyodor fixed him with his empty stare. Any speech was unnecessary.

“Registration number 25B43!”

A guard had just entered the dormitory with a crash. He was shouting, spit flying from his mouth.

“Yes, that’s me, said Maxim,” who got up and mechanically followed the guard. Here, he was only a number.

***

Max was simply designated. The fruit of hazard. The whim of a bureaucracy. Should he rejoice or worry? He hesitated. But he quickly accepted his part because, in any case, he had little choice.

He must accompany a geological expedition into the zones as yet unexploited. The guy in question had need of a flunky and they had assigned Brahms to this utterly thankless task, but it would change his monotonous routine. And that was priceless.

‘Leon Kelonen’. That was his name, inscribed on his suit. With a gruff air, blond hair, and skin like milk, his name indicated that he was certainly of Finnish origin, but Maxim couldn’t verify it.

The two men practically didn’t communicate and when the other spoke to him, he used a sort of rumbling, tinged hatred that Maxim only understood half the time. No species of consideration transpired in his words and in his scientific spirit, devoted body and soul to the regime. The convict must be reduced to a simple beast of burden.

The two of them left on an exploration trip, far from camp. The prison guards were very confident of them: They could leave the prisoner alone with this stranger. He would make no attempt to escape, even though, of course, this possibility passed through his head.
But go where? Escape to where?
In any case, his reserves of air were not inexhaustible, and in less time than it takes to say, he would have eventually suffocated after a few hours, if by chance he had wanted to run.
Escape from this hole would be impossible.

They took a six-wheel-drive jeep, setting a course straight toward a region situated farther to the west. They attained their objective after three hours’ journey. The place they had to explore was streaked by large canyons that wound through the middle of a vast, reddish plain. Deep ravines with vertiginous slopes. Kelonen stopped the engine near one of them and ordered Maxim to help him get out all of the paraphernalia that would permit them to use the levels and measures. There were a lot of electronic devices of which the convict was ignorant about their true value. Although fascinated by science, he had never been very gifted in this domain....

He obeyed promptly each order from his new master because he savoured with delectation this little moment of liberty that was offered to him. He was happy. Happy to be out of the camp, happy to see something else.
If I behave myself, who knows? Perhaps I could gain the right to be called again for another mission. Better to be here than in the mine, slaving away like a donkey!

Gusts of wind raised the reddish dust, which evaporated in elegant swirls. Encumbered by all their material, the two men roamed the border of the principal canyon, which was run through by ravines, giving the impression of ripples on the surface of a sea. Souvenirs of an epoch when water streamed across the surface of Mars.

Max then lifted his head toward the sky to try to find Phobos, one of the two natural satellites of the Red Planet. It was Fyodor who had taught him to spot the moon. The old man knew a lot about this desolate world.

Kelonen ordered his acolyte to quit daydreaming and pick up the pace. It was at this moment that a detail drew his attention to the geology. On a sort of natural platform, in a slight depression, stood an opening in the rock. The convict immediately thought of the entrance to a cave.

“We’ll go take a look in there. It could be interesting,” said the other man into his microphone.

Maxim obeyed and followed the scientist, who had already descended into the cavity.

It was necessary to take care not to slip on the stones, at the risk of falling down the hill to the bottom. The two men advanced with the greatest of prudence, then reached the edge of the hole.

“Go in first and tell me what you see,” said Kelonen, holding the flashlight.

Max wanted to protest, but a hateful glance from his interlocutor through the plexiglass of his helmet, and the severe air of the geologist, showed to what extent he was serious. The prisoner knew it was useless to argue. With the help of a rope, he entered the crevasse and was immediately engulfed.

A few silent seconds passed before that silence was broken.

“So, what do you see? Describe to me what you’re observing,” demanded Kelonen.

“Ah...it’s necessary that you come see, Comrade...it’s...it’s incredible...I believe...I am not sure...It could be that I’m delirious....”

“Wait. I’m coming. But I warn you, buddy. If you’re playing me a turn, I’ll freeze you, here and now.”

And, removing the safety on his weapon, Kelonen descended for his turn in the grotto. Flooded with light by the grace of the torch that he had just unhooked, the cavern revealed was vaster than he could imagine. It made him think of a sort of natural cathedral. He went down the slope, four by four, and joined Maxim, who was standing there, some steps away from him.

Before them stood a colossal door, carved into the Martian rock. They remained silent for a long time, mouths agape, totally absorbed by this thing that they found before them and which, normally, would not have been there.

Max thought of the city of Petra in Jordan.
Though less monumental, perhaps.
Of course, he had never visited that architectural jewel—only some of the privileged could go abroad and, most of the time, only to neighbouring countries—but he remembered the photos of the site that he had seen in the pages of his geographical manual, laminated onto the school benches. All he had before his eyes was measured within the environ of fifteen meters high and inevitably evoked the antique style. Two pairs of enormous, crenelated columns guarded the entryway on each side. At their summits, the pyramidal heads bore a tablet decorated with a carved frieze. The convict remembered the fantastic animals that had haunted his dream, the monsters of his nightmare. It seemed to him that these creatures moved on the infinite steppes or on the grey ranges. He also noticed the suites of signs and of designs, recalling Egyptian hieroglyphs.
Who? Who could do such a thing?
If he had been on Earth, he might have thought of some Greek or Roman
œuvre
. But something didn’t work, a detail wrong, giving the impression of an edifice all askew. The top of this entrance constitutes a sort of circular crown, from which flowed, at regular intervals, a dozen pinnacles with roofs of scales. This gave a strange impression and resembled nothing that Maxim knew.

It evoked a species of artistic melting pot, an architectural catchall where were mixed different styles and many epochs. Finally, there was no door, proper, to speak of. Nothing obstructed the entrance, but long, iridescent ribbons, constructed of an unknown material, floated in front of the opening. They undulated slightly, carried by mysterious currents of air, sometimes out of the eyesight of those who regarded them, to intrude on
the other side
.

Max tried to see what was happening
out there
, while Kelonen prudently held back. The convict approached with small steps, overwhelmed by such majesty. As far as he advanced, he could perceive some of the colours as he traversed the forest of ribbons. Some green. Some blue. But all remained unclear.

“Do you have any ideas concerning this
stuff
?” Kelonen asked him.

This phrase, which resonated through the headphones of the prisoner, had the same effect as that of pulling him from a dream. Since the two men had discovered this strange building, no word had been pronounced. Too medusaed to be able to discuss what they saw. Once his stupor had passed, Max realised that his guard had spoken to him as if he were a normal being. No aggressiveness, no hate. This unexpected spectacle devastated all codes.

“I don’t know a fucking thing!” he said. “We have put a finger on something that will revolutionise our knowledge of Mars.”

The two men remained silent for several seconds. In their capsised spirits clashed curiosity and fear of the unknown. All their bearings on which they could draw seemed to crumble and fall into an unknown abyss.

“The solution resides in here,” said Max, indicating a passage where the glittering curtain moved in arabesques.

“It could well be. But I don’t want to take any risks. We’ll return to base and I’ll make a report to the captain. They’ll advise us what to do next. Hey, come back here!
Let’s go!”

“Wait. Look,” Maxim said, showing him the opening where the silver filaments fluttered. I see something on the other side.

And he was not lying.

“Stop! Stop, or I’ll shoot you down!” the other man cried, pointing his weapon at Max.

Maxim hesitated and looked again toward that other place which he had at his fingertips. Through the shimmering stripes, he glimpsed green landscapes. He could not believe his eyes...On the other side, a savage nature, almost original, held out its arms.

He temporised, clenching his fist before making an about face and turning back to the scientist. In a few seconds, he was level with the man who menaced him with his sidearm. He faced him down without flinching and it all went very quickly. In a flash, animated by a mad rage that increased his strength tenfold, the prisoner succeeded in disarming his attacker. In an ultimate gesture of despair, the other man tried to protect himself, but Max had already torn his hose that connected to his oxygen supply. The other man panicked and tried to replace it. It was already too late. His flushed face twisted in agony. He succumbed in only a few seconds, asphyxiated by the impure air of Mars.