The Invincible (26 page)

Rohan still dared not make a move. He could not make up his mind whether it was advisable to shake off the crystals that were strewn all over him. They lay everywhere on the stones, and the entire bed of the brook, that heretofore had glistened as white as snow, seemed sprayed with ink. Carefully, he seized a triangular crystal between thumb and forefinger. Suddenly it appeared to come alive, brushed against his hand with a delicate breath of warmth and rose into the air as Rohan instinctively opened his fist. All of a sudden, as if on cue, the whole surrounding area began to crawl like an anthill. The movement was chaotic for a bare second, then black points formed a kind of misty layer hovering close to the ground, concentrated, grew dense, clustered and climbed skyward like pillars. It looked as if the boulders themselves had turned into gigantic, sacrificial flameless torches. At this instant an incomprehensible maneuver took place: while the ascending swarm hung exactly above the center section of the gorge, hovering there like a cumulus cloud, there emerged, pitted against the gradually darkening sky the gigantic black balloons of those clouds that but a short while ago had vanished in the brushy growths and now raced with incredible speed toward the first cloud suspended quietly in mid-air. Rohan thought he heard the peculiar grinding noise of colliding air masses, but it was probably just a delusion. He was all ready to believe that he was witnessing a battle, that the clouds had managed to expel the dead insects they had wanted to get rid of and dash them to the bottom of the valley—and then it all turned out to be nothing but a false conclusion on his part. The clouds parted and nothing remained of the puffed-up sphere. They simply had swallowed it. Soon after, only the mountain tops bled as before in the last rays of the setting sun, and the wide basin lay quiet and deserted.

Rohan got to his feet and stood there on shaky legs. Suddenly he felt ridiculous standing there with the Weyr gun he had taken so hastily from the dead man: he felt so superfluous in this realm of perfected death, where only dead forms could emerge victoriously in order to enact mysterious rites never to be witnessed by any living creature. Not with horror, but rather with numbed awe and great admiration had he participated in the fantastic spectacle that just had taken place. He knew that no scientist would be capable of sharing his sentiments, but now his desire was no longer merely to return and report what he had found out about their companions’ deaths, but to request that this planet be left alone in the future. Not everywhere has everything been intended for us, he thought as he slowly descended. There was still some light in the sky, and he soon arrived at the scene of the battle. There he had to speed up his pace, because of the increasing radiation from the glassy boulders, which whizzed by like eerie silhouettes in the descending dusk. The rock walls picked up the reverberation of his steps and passed it on, and accompanied by the sound of this endless echo, summoning him to a tremendous haste, he jumped from rock to rock, straining to the utmost, ran past fragments of machines, molten beyond recognition, and reached a winding slope—but here too the dial glowed ruby red as he checked his radiation counter.

He dared not stand still, although he had become short of breath. Without slowing down his pace he turned the reductor of his oxygen tank almost all the way over to stop. Even if he used up all his oxygen by the time he arrived at the end of the ravine, and then had to breathe the air of this planet, it would certainly still be preferable to remaining here longer than absolutely necessary, where each square inch of rock emitted deadly radiation. The oxygen pounded against the inside of his mouth like a cool wave. He raced easily over the surface of the congealed lava stream, which the retreating Cyclops had left behind along the trail of its defeat. The path was smooth, in some places even glassy. Fortunately he wore well-fitting shoes with rubber-tread soles and did not skid. In the meantime it had grown so dark that he could make out the downward road only by occasional brightly gleaming pebbles which peered out from under the layer of glass. The path led downhill all the time. He knew that there was at least another mile and a half of such road ahead. It was impossible during this wild chase to make any calculations but now and then he nevertheless managed to glance quickly at the pulsating red dial of his radiation counter. About one hour would be the upper safety limit for staying here among these rocks, bent and cleft due to the annihilation; then his exposure to the rays would not exceed 200 Roentgen. An hour and a quarter would still be acceptable, but if he should not reach the desert’s edge by that time, there would no longer be any reason to hurry.

About twenty minutes later Rohan reached the crisis point. His heart felt like a cruel insuperable entity that alternately tried to push his chest apart from the inside and then squeezed it together again. The oxygen burned his mouth and throat like raw, liquid fire; sparks danced before his eyes. The worst part, however, was that he began to stumble more and more frequently. Although the radiation had diminished somewhat by now and the indicator barely glimmered in the dark, like a dying ember, he knew that he must hurry on despite all, had to keep running, while his legs threatened to give out. Every muscle fiber had had enough by now; every cell of his body was screaming for him to stop and throw himself down onto the seemingly cool, harmless, cracked glass sheets on the grounds. He tried to glance up to the stars but he tripped and fell headlong onto his outstretched hands. Sobbing, he gasped for air. He scrambled to his feet again, staggered on for a few steps, until the rhythm returned and carried him along. By now he had lost all sense of time. How could he find his way around at all in this gloomy blackness? He had forgotten the dead, the bony, sardonic grin of Benningsen; Regnar, resting under the heaped-up stones next to the demolished Arctane; the man without a head whom he had been unable to identify; he had even forgotten, yes, the cloud. He was totally crushed by this darkness; it had forced the blood into his eyes that, in vain, looked for the big starry sky above the desert—the sandy wasteland seemed like a port of refuge to him now. He hurried on blindly, his eyelids smarting with sweat, driven by some inner force whose undiminished presence kept amazing him from time to time. Would this ceaseless running, would this night ever take an end?

His eyes no longer saw. His feet made headway only with the greatest effort and kept sinking into the soil. In a last fit of despair, he raised his head and realized in a flash that he had reached the desert. He saw the stars on the horizon, and as his legs began to give way under him, his eyes sought the dial of the radiation counter, but in vain: it was dark and silent, he had left the invisible death behind him in the congealed lava bed. That was his last thought, for as he felt the rough, cool sand on his face, he did not fall asleep, but into a kind of stupor, while his body kept laboring desperately, his ribs twitched, his heart beat wildly. Then, from the twilight zone of total exhaustion, he slipped into another, even deeper state of semi-trance, until, finally, he lost consciousness.

With a start he regained his senses again, though he had no idea where he was. He moved his hands, felt the cool sand, which trickled through his fingers, sat up and moaned involuntarily. He felt hot. Slowly he returned to a state of complete consciousness. The phosphorescent hand of the manometer pointed to zero. There were still eighteen atmospheres left in the second container. He opened the valve and got to his feet. It was one o’clock. The stars stood out sharply against the black backdrop of the nocturnal sky. With the help of his compass he found the direction he had to follow and started out. At three o’clock he took the last stimulant tablet. Shortly before four the last of the oxygen was depleted. Resolutely he threw away the container and walked on, at first breathing almost reluctantly. But soon the fresh air of the approaching dawn filled his lungs; he quickened his steps, straining to think of nothing but this march through the sand dunes, where at times his legs would sink in up to the knees. He felt slightly intoxicated, but he could not tell whether this was due to the gases in the atmosphere or simply lack of sleep. He had figured out that he would need to do between two and three miles per hour in order to arrive at the space cruiser by eleven o’clock.

He tried to regulate his speed with the pedometer then, but it was no use. The firmament was divided into two uneven parts by the immense whitish streak of the Milky Way. By now he had adjusted so well to the sparse light of the stars that he was able to steer around the biggest dunes. He trudged along, wading through the sand until he suddenly noticed on the horizon a strangely even patch without stars, an angular silhouette. Without knowing what it might be, he ran toward it, paying no attention to the fact that he was sinking deeper and deeper into the sand. Then, as he plunged forward like a blind man, his outstretched hands hit against some hard metal. It was an overland vehicle, vacant and deserted. Maybe it was one of those that Horpach had sent out the previous morning, or perhaps a different one, one from Regnar’s group. Rohan did not stop to think about the car’s origin. There he stood, panting, and embraced the machine with both arms. His fatigue drew him towards the ground. Just to sink down next to the vehicle, to fall asleep and march on after sunrise…

He climbed slowly onto the armored hull, hand over hand, his fingers searching for the handle, and opened the hatch. The lights went on. He slid down onto the seat. Yes, now he knew that he was in a state of intoxication—poisoned by the gas in the atmosphere, no doubt—for he was unable to find the switches. He could not remember where they were located, he no longer knew anything… Finally his groping hand accidentally bumped into the worn-out knob and pushed it to one side. The engine emitted a slight noise and started. He unclasped the lid of the gyro-compass. The one number he still remembered clearly was the direction for the return trip. For some time, the vehicle rolled along in the dark; Rohan had forgotten that there were headlights.

It was still dark at five o’clock, when suddenly in the distance, between the white and bluish stars, he perceived a ruby-red star, quite low above the horizon. Rohan blinked his eyes in confusion. A red star? Unthinkable… He imagined that someone was sitting next to him—Jarg, of course—and he wanted to ask him what kind of star it was. Suddenly he came to with a start. He was thunderstruck. It was the headlight of the
Invincible.
He traveled straight toward the ruby droplet in the darkness. The light gradually climbed higher and finally turned into a bright sphere, in whose reflection the spaceship’s hull gleamed softly in the dark. The red eye between the clock dials flared up; the buzzer rang, indicating the vicinity of an energy field. The vehicle rolled down a sandy slope and came to a halt. He was not certain that he would have enough strength to climb back into the car once he had left it, so he reached into the tool compartment, pulled out a Very pistol and—since his hand was trembling—leaned his elbow on the steering wheel while he steadied his right hand with his left and pulled the trigger. An orange-red streak raced through the dark. The short trajectory of the flare ended suddenly in a burst of stars—it struck the barrier of the energy field like an invisible glass wall. He shot again and again, until the magazine rattled drily. The ammunition had been all used up. But he had been spotted. The first to sound the alarm were most likely the personnel on duty in the control center, for almost simultaneously two giant kleig lights flared up under the nose of the spacecruiser; the white tongues of the kleig lights licked at the sand and their beams crossed above the vehicle. At the same time, the ramp was lit up by a powerful floodlight and the entire shaft of the outside elevator glowed like a cold flame in the splendor of the neon tubes. Within seconds, the gangways were swarming with men, the sand dunes around the
Invincible
flared up in the glaring cones of the rotating searchlights; soon the lane of blue beacons indicated that passage through the protective barrier was clear.

The Very pistol had dropped from Rohan’s hand, and he did not register the moment when he had slid down to the ground over the vehicle’s side. With unsteady, exaggerated strides, stiffly drawn up to his full height, his fists clenched in order to suppress the unbearable trembling of his fingers, he strode straight towards the twenty-storey-high spaceship that, bathed in a blaze of light, stood outlined before the paling sky. There it towered, majestic as ever in its motionless grandeur—as if it were indeed invincible.