The Invincible (25 page)

Resolutely, Rohan made an about-face and walked away. For quite some time, however, he could hear the tumult on the boulder hill and the repeated metallic dragging of feet, a sound that was tossed back and forth many times between the facing rocky slopes, a multiple echo. He made good headway now, since the path he had taken—over the flat stones in the dry brook—was fairly smooth and descended gently. Nothing was to be seen of the cloud; only an occasional trembling of the air above the slopes gave away the simmering in the black thicket. By now he had arrived at the widest part of the gorge, which opened into a basin, framed by rocky heights. He was roughly a mile and a half from the rock gate, where the catastrophe had occurred. Only now did he realize how hard it would be without an olfactometer, which could have helped him find human traces; but the instrument was much too heavy to be carried on foot. He would just have to get along without it. He stopped and examined the rocky walls. No one could possibly have taken refuge in the metal thicket. That left only the grottoes, caves and hollows in the rocks—he counted several from where he was standing. High rock shelves with vertical faces, that presented extraordinary difficulties for the climber, hid the caves’ interiors from sight, and he decided to begin by examining the grottoes, one after the other. Back aboard the spacecruiser, he had tried, together with the psychologists and the physicians, to figure out where he should search for the four lost men—in other words, where they were most likely to be hiding. But in reality the conference had been of little use, since the behavior of an amnesiac was unpredictable. The fact that the lost men had been together when they left the rest of Regnar’s group indicated that some kind of activity set them off from the others. And to a certain extent, the fact that the trails of the four men had not separated once at any point along the terrain explored so far, justified the hope of finding all four together in the same area—only if they were still alive, naturally, and had not spread out in various directions above the rock gate. Rohan made a thorough search in two smaller and four larger grottoes, one after the other, which he could enter fairly easily since he needed only to climb over a few large, slanting rock shelves. This was not dangerous and took only a few minutes. In the last grotto he stumbled on metal debris, partly covered with water. At first he believed it to be the skeleton of the second Arctane; but they were extremely old and unlike any design he had ever encountered before. In a shallow puddle of water, which was visible because the smooth, almost polished vaulted ceiling of the grotto reflected some sparse daylight, he saw an elongated form, something like a fifteen-foot-long cross. The outer metal hull had long since fallen apart, disintegrated, mixed with the muddy ground and now formed a rust-red mass. Rohan could not indulge in a closer examination of this unusual find, perhaps the wreck of one of the macro-automats that had been exterminated by the fittest of the inorganic evolution, the black cloud. All he could permit himself was to fix the image on his mind: hazy outlines of braces and poles which probably were used for flying rather than for walking. A glance at his watch urged him to hurry on, and without further delay he continued to search through the next caves. But they were so numerous—from the bottom of the ravine they peered out occasionally like dark yawning windows in the steep rock walls—and the often flooded subterranean corridors that sometimes led into straight-walled, vertical tunnels and ditches with icy, gurgling rivulets, were so tortuous that he did not dare penetrate too deeply into them. Besides, he carried only a small flashlight which provided relatively weak illumination and was especially powerless inside the more spacious grottoes with their tall, vaulted ceilings and innumerable galleries. Finally, totally exhausted and near collapse, he sat down on a huge flat sun-warmed boulder near the exit of a cave he had just finished examining, and chewed a few bars of the food concentrate, washing the dry mouthfuls down with some water from the little brook. Several times he thought he heard the rustling of the approaching cloud but it was probably just the echo from the Sisyphus-like labors of the Arctane reverberating from the upper regions of the ravine. After he had finished eating his meager provisions, he felt much better. What surprised him most was the realization that he was less and less worried about his dangerous surroundings, the black thicket that extended over all the slopes, wherever he looked.

He climbed down the rocky promontory in front of the cave after resting there for a while, and perceived a thin, rusty streak that extended across the dry stones to the opposite side of the gorge floor. As he reached the spot, he saw that they were traces of blood. They had dried completely and faded, and had it not been for the unusually bright white color of the limestone-like rocks, he would most likely have missed the tracks. He tried to determine which direction the wounded man must have taken, but it was hopeless. So he marched up the valley arbitrarily, driven by the thought that the blood must have come from someone who was wounded during the battle between the Cyclops and the cloud, someone who had tried to leave the battle scene. The tracks intersected and broke off in places, but eventually they led him toward a cave which was one of the first he had searched before. He was all the more astonished when—directly by the entrance to the cave—a vertical, shaft-like narrow cleft opened, which he had failed to notice earlier. The blood ended there. Rohan kneeled down and bent over the shadowy hole in the ground. Although he had been prepared for the worst, he could not suppress a stifled cry when he saw Benningsen’s head staring at him with empty eye sockets and bared teeth. He recognized the man by his gold-rimmed glasses, whose lenses had remained undamaged by some fluke of fate and now sparkled brightly in the light reflected from the limestone slab that tilted over the stone coffin. The geologist was wedged between boulders, his shoulders jammed into the natural lining of the rocky shaft, so that his body had remained upright. Rohan did not want to leave the man’s remains behind, but when he gathered up his courage and tried to lift the body, through the thick material of the protective suit he could feel the corpse disintegrating under his touch. Decay had already done its work, accelerated by the effect of the sunrays that penetrated this spot every day. Rohan finally zipped open the breast pocket in Benningsen’s suit and removed the scientist’s dog tag. Before moving on, he gathered up his last ounce of strength and rolled one of the nearest rock slabs toward the shaft to seal the rocky tomb.

The first man had been found. Not until Rohan was a good distance away did it occur to him that he ought to have tested the corpse for radioactivity, for the degree of contamination might shed some light on the fate that had befallen the geologist and his friends. A high radioactive count would have proved that the dead man had been near the scene of the atomic battle. But he had forgotten to make the test, and nothing could have induced him to roll the coffin’s stone lid aside again. At the same time, Rohan became aware how important a role chance was playing during his endeavors, for he had undoubtedly made a thorough search all around this spot when he had first been there.

Inspired by a new thought, he now hastily pursued the blood trail in order to find its beginning. The trail led almost in a straight line down into the valley, in the direction of the atomic battlefield. But after just a few hundred paces, the trail made a sudden turn. The geologist had lost a great deal of blood; thus it was all the more surprising that he should have come so far. The stones, which had not been touched by a single drop of rain since the catastrophe, were covered with blood. Rohan climbed some large wobbly boulders and found himself in a spacious, basin-like trough below a barren cliff. The first thing he saw was the huge metal sole of a robot. It lay on its side, evidently split down the middle by a Weyr gun. Off to the side, farther down, a man was leaning against a stone in a half-seated position, his body almost folded over in two halves; his helmet was blackened by soot. The man was dead. The Weyr gun still dangled from his limp hand, its glittering barrel touching the ground. Rohan did not immediately dare to touch the man; instead, he knelt next to him and tried to look into his face, but it was just as disfigured by decay as Benningsen’s had been. Just then he discovered the broad, flat satchel of the geologist hanging over the shrunken shoulder of the corpse. It was Regnar himself, the leader of the expedition that had been attacked in the crater. According to the radioactivity readings, the Arctane had been wrecked by the charge of a Weyr gun: the indicator registered the characteristic isotopes of rare earth. Rohan wanted to remove Regnar’s dog tag but he could not bring himself to do it. He simply unbuckled the satchel, so that he did not have to touch the corpse. But the satchel was crammed full with samples of various minerals. He hesitated briefly, then with his knife cut off the geologist’s initials which were fastened to the leather. He put the metal initials in his pocket. Then, standing on a tall rock, he surveyed the entire scene once more, trying to comprehend what actually had happened here. It looked as if Regnar had shot at the robot. Had the Arctane perhaps attacked the geologist or Benningsen? Was it even possible for an amnesiac to have fended off an attack? He realized that he would never find the solution to this mystery; he had to continue his search. Once more he glanced at his watch; it was almost five o’clock. If he had to rely on his own oxygen supply, then he would have to start back now. But it suddenly occurred to him that he could remove the oxygen container from Regnar’s backpack. He lifted the entire apparatus from the dead man’s shoulders and found that one of the flasks was still full. He exchanged it for his empty container and started to pile up stones around the corpse. This took nearly one hour, but he felt that the dead man had more than paid for it by handing over his oxygen supply. When the stone mound was complete, Rohan considered that it would have been a good idea to equip himself with a weapon, and the Weyr gun was probably still loaded. But again he had thought of it too late and had to leave the scene empty-handed.

It was close to six o’clock. He was so tired that he could hardly drag his feet. He still had four stimulant tablets in his possession. He took one of them and after a minute felt sufficiently revived to get up from the ground. Since he had not the faintest idea where to press on with his search, he simply walked forward in the direction of the rock gate. He was still more than half a mile away when his geiger counter warned him of increasing radioactive contamination. For the time being the contamination was fairly mild, and he walked ahead, keeping the surrounding terrain under observation. Since the ravine had many turns, only some of the rocks showed traces of the melting process on their surfaces. The farther he advanced, the more frequently he encountered the characteristic cracked glaze, until eventually he saw entire boulders congealed into one single, huge blister, where their rocky surface must have boiled when the thermal explosions hit. Actually there was no reason for him to stay here any longer; yet he kept walking on. The counter on his wrist gave off a light ticking sound that gradually picked up speed, until the instrument hand danced madly across the scale of the dial. At long last he recognized, far off in the distance, the remains of the rock gate, which had collapsed into a trough-like crater. The crater resembled a small lake whose waters, as a result of the tremendous impact, had splashed out over the shoreline, where they had become solidified in weird shapes. The base of the rock gate had changed into a thick lava crust and the formerly black pelt of the metal shrubs had turned into a uniformly ragged rug of ashes. Between the rock walls in the interior of the ravine glistened gigantic clefts of lighter coloration. Rohan swiftly turned back again.

Once again chance came to his aid. As he reached a second, considerably broader rock gate behind the scene of the battle, nearby, on a spot he had previously passed by, he noticed a sparkling metal object. It was the aluminum reductor of an oxygen container. In a shallow crevice between the rock and the dry bed of the brook he saw a man’s dark back clad in a spacesuit blackened by smoke. The corpse had no head. The terrible air pressure had hurled the man across a stone heap and dashed him against the rocks. To the side lay an undamaged weapon holster with a Weyr gun firmly wedged inside, gleaming brightly as if it had only recently been polished. Rohan picked up the gun. He wanted to identify the dead man, but it was impossible.

He continued to march up along the ravine. Over on the eastern slope, the light was already red and glided up like a flaming curtain as the sun sank behind the mountain crest. It was a quarter to seven. Rohan was faced with a real dilemma. So far he had been lucky—in one sense, at least: he had carried out his task, had escaped safe and sound, and could now return to the space cruiser. He was convinced that the fourth man was no longer alive, but they had assumed as much back aboard the
Invincible.
His duty now was to make sure that this was really the case. Did he have the right to turn back now? The oxygen supply from Regnar’s tank would last another six hours. However, a whole night lay before him, and he would be unable to undertake anything, not just because of the cloud, but simply because he was almost totally exhausted. He swallowed another pill, and while he waited for its effect to take place, he tried to design a halfway reasonable plan for the rest of his mission.

The blood-red glow of the setting sun now bathed the black jungle on the mountain ridge high above him with ever-deepening shades: the sharp points of the bushes sparkled and shimmered in deep violet hues.

Rohan still could not make up his mind. As he sat there under a huge boulder, he heard in the distance the full-toned hum of the approaching cloud. And strangely enough—he was not frightened. Throughout the course of this one day his relationship with the cloud had undergone strange changes. He knew—or at least he believed he knew—how far he could go, like a mountain climber who has no fear of the death lurking on the icy walls of a glacier. In point of fact, he was not fully aware of this inner change, for his mind had not consciously registered the moment when his senses first opened to the somber beauty of the black brushy growths that shimmered in opalescent tinges of violet on the slopes. But now, even as he caught sight of two black clouds swarming out off the opposite slopes and coming closer, he did not move at all, nor did he try to protect himself by pressing his face against the rocks. After all, it made no difference whatever he did as long as the hidden instrument was working properly. He fingered the thick cloth of his protective suit, trying to locate the coin-like disc sewn into his collar, and with his fingertips he felt a delicate vibration. In order not to challenge fate, he settled in a more comfortable position, to avoid shifting his body unnecessarily. The clouds now occupied both sides of the ravine. Some kind of an order-creating stream seemed to flow through the black globular densities, for now the clouds thickened at the edges, while their interior surfaces arched out steadily, reaching out toward each other. As if a giant sculptor were shaping them with swift, invisible strokes. Brief discharges flashed through the air between the closest points of the two clouds. They seemed to race toward each other, yet each remained on its own side, and only the spherical condensations in the middle fluttered in an increasingly violent rhythm. The glare of these bolts of lightning was strangely dark. Both clouds flared up in this light for a few seconds, like myriads of silvery-black crystals arrested in their flight. Muffled thunderclaps bounced back and forth a few times from the rock walls, which suddenly seemed covered by some sound-absorbing material, and then both sides of the black ocean met, quivering and tensed to the utmost, and flowed into each other. The air underneath grew dark, as if the sun had set, and at the same time blurry fleeting lines made their appearance inside. It was some time before Rohan understood what it was that confronted him there: the grotesquely contorted mirror image of the bottom of the valley. In the meantime, the mirage below the cloud bank surged and expanded, until all at once he perceived a gigantic human figure whose head projected into the darkness. The figure stared straight at him without moving, although the image itself quivered and danced ceaselessly, flaring up and dying down in a constant, mysterious rhythm. And once more several seconds passed before he recognized in it his own mirror image, a fata morgana floating in the empty space between the lateral lobes of both clouds. He was so amazed, so paralyzed by the inexplicable activity of the cloud, that he forgot everything. He thought that perhaps the cloud was aware of him, of the microscopic presence of the last living human being in the midst of the rocks: however, even that thought did not frighten him. Not that it seemed too unlikely—nothing was impossible at this point—he simply felt an urge to participate in this murky mystery, whose significance, he was quite sure, would forever remain beyond his understanding. His gigantic mirror image, through which he caught faint glimpses of the distant rock walls, became diffused in the upper parts of the gorge, where the shadow of the cloud did not extend. At the same time, innumerable arms extruded from the cloud. As soon as it had reabsorbed some of these projections, new ones appeared in their place. A black rain began to fall, constantly growing heavier. Tiny crystals dashed over him, brushed against his head and slid down along his protective suit, accumulating in the folds of the garment. The black rain kept falling and the voice of the cloud swelled to a crescendo, to a raging sound which apparently filled not only the valley, but the entire atmosphere of the planet. Individual whirlpools formed inside the cloud, like windows through which the sky could be seen. The black cloak tore right down the middle and two mountainous clouds sailed sluggishly toward the brushwork, submerged and finally vanished in the motionless, rigid thicket.