The Shores of Death (5 page)

He got into his aircar and made for the Great Glade, his much-admired mind sick with confused thoughts.

In the Great Glade, Narvo said to Fastina: “I’m sorry that Clovis couldn’t get here in time. I’ll just have to make the announcement anyway.”

Almost every available seat was being used. Fastina looked around her. Tier upon tier of seats rising upwards in a great semi-circle, the multicoloured clothing of the people looking like a fantastic mosaic. And above them, shading the arena, the neatly parked aircars, as varied in colouring as the costumes of their owners.

Narvo glanced at the young mediator who stroked his moustache and nodded. Narvo mounted the dais and began to speak.

“This morning we inspected the last intergalactic ship,” he said slowly. “Its passengers were all death. They were in a similar state to those who went out in the previous ships. We expected nothing else.” He paused.

“Therefore I have this to suggest to you—to our race—that we should build a gigantic transmitter far larger than anything we have ever built before. By means of this transmitter we can send out a message to the universe. A message that will travel forever. A message that will survive after we have perished and will tell any intelligences there may be that the human race once lived.”

‘What is the message?” several voices asked.

“Simply this:
We Are Here!”

Narvo looked around the tiers of seats. There was no immediate reaction from the assembly—just a rustling, a stirring, a murmuring as the words were repeated.

“We Are Here! ” called Narvo. “We will shout it through eternity. A message that will be picked up by all manner of creatures—perhaps some will be like us. It will convey our pride in our existence—in the accident that made us reason.”

Most of the assembly had now caught some of his enthusiasm. Fastina smiled, admiring the old man’s simplicity, his idealism—his nobility. Though logically his suggestion seemed odd and pointless, emotionally it meant a great deal to her and, she could see, to the rest of the assembly. The words and the idea went below the ordinary conscious levels of their minds and struck a chord.

“We Are Here!
”

Now the voices changed from a murmur to a shout as the words were repeated like a war cry. Some wept, some laughed, some had rapt expressions that Fastina found indescribable, as if the people had sensed a vision, some truth that was so pure that it shocked them.

What was it that Narvo had said that conjured up such strong emotions?

We Are Here—the words seemed to open up a vision in her, also—a vision she could not define. She wept with those who wept, she laughed with those who laughed.

And her face was the face of a saint.

No need for experiments, no need for ships and the waste of men. No need for wild parties. No need to forget. The race had found an aim. It was going to create something that would outlast itself. It was going to achieve its immortality after all.

The atmosphere at
 
the Great Glade startled Clovis Marca more than he had been startled by the news of the alien ship. There was an air of profound happiness here...

As he drifted down and saw the unexpected expressions on people’s faces, heard the great warm wash of sound without hearing the words, he wondered if perhaps the news of the ship had proceeded him. But why should the news receive such an odd reception?

He saw Narvo Velusi’s old face smiling, saw the white-maned head nodding, the hand waving, the eyes shining. And then Fastina—she looked so beautiful that he felt afraid. Whatever he learned, nothing would ever explain Fastina’s expression. It was too big. Too big.

He tried to remember Narvo’s scheme. A message. A big broadcast through space. That could not be it, surely. The idea had been idealistic, certainly, but pointless. As he landed, he made out the words.

“WE ARE HERE!”

So it
was
Narvo’s scheme that had affected them. And he, Clovis Marca, humanitarian, philosopher, man of good will, respected First Citizen of Earth, was completely unimpressed.

He sat down. His face was blank and stiff, his body rigid. What had happened to him? What had he become? Was he so changed that an idea that could sway the rest of humanity left him unmoved?

Clovis Marca felt ashamed at first. Then he felt angry at himself, and shocked. That expression on Fastina’s face—whatever emotion it was she felt, it dwarfed any personal vision he might have, any emotion he might experience. All this went through him swiftly until he was calm again.

7
will go on with it,
he told himself coldly.
I will go on with it in spite of everything.
But even as he made the decision, he realised that he had irrevocably lost something and with the losing of it he knew that he would never understand what it was. Never again.

He got up then and he spoke in a very calm voice.

“May I speak?”

Slowly they quieted, but he could sense their exhilaration still. They silenced their shout in respect to him, their First Citizen. Noble Clovis Marca who deserved their sympathy though they did not know it.

He was still polite, still civilised, still the man of integrity and strength.

“I am sincerely sorry to interrupt you—I realise the impact that Narvo’s message has had on you—I share your enthusiasm— ”

Fastina and Narvo turned to look at him then. They gave him a faintly puzzled look. They had caught something in his tone, perhaps, or his choice of words.

“I share your enthusiasm—but there is more news.” He waited for a moment, feeling barren. The only fire that drove him was that of his ambition. No longer was he moved by love, hatred, desire of any kind, but one—one desire, the desire he must keep secret or lose the respect of them all. And he still needed that respect, must use it, for they would help him so long as they did not realise what it was he sought.

“There is more news,” he repeated, forcing himself to continue coherently. “A ship has been sighted coming towards Earth. It is an extraterrestrial ship—that is a non-human ship ...”

The assembly received the news with excited interest, but not with the same stunned emotion with which he had received it. The assembly was moved, certainly, but not sufficiently. He wanted them to hate the intrusion of the ship as much as he did. He called: “An alien ship,” and then, against his better judgment. “It could even be an invasion craft.”

But this did not alarm them.

Yulof’s voice came in his earbead. “The ship’s land-in, Clovis. It’s landing in the sea off the coast of Sector 1005—the American West Coast.”

“The ship is landing in the sea,” Clovis said. He told them where.

Narvo slapped him on the shoulder. “Now I know what’s troubling you. Don’t worry, Clovis, it can’t be an enemy—and even if it were we couldn’t do much against it—we’ve no warships. Come on, let’s go and greet it.”

Laughing and calling to one another the assembly members broke up, making for their cars, rising into the air like a great flock of excited birds.

“Which carriage shall we use?” Narvo asked. “Yours or mine?” .

“It’s all right,” Clovis said.
“
You and Fastina go in yours and I’ll go in mine.”

Again Narvo gave him that slightly puzzled glance, then accepted his statement.

Fastina said gaily: “What a day, Clovis! What a
rich
day!”

“Ah, yes,” he murmured. “Rich.”

He went up to his car, fingering the keyboard of his subsonic whistle to give the car its directions. As it started off, he looked down at the colourful blossoms of the trees, at the empty glade, and he felt empty too.

The cars were streaming away all around him. He moved with them, but apart from them, slightly above and to one side. They moved like a huge school of tropical fish, a horde of scintillating craft bearing their stimulated, emotion-drunk passengers towards the sea.

Soon they could see it in the distance, partially immersed in the sea. The bright sun gleamed on the green, shiny water, on the white beach and the brown cliffs—and on the pale-blue and dark-blue checks of the ship. The smell of brine was strong.

What remained above sea-level looked like a huge blue box with rounded corners, the size of a large building. The sea foamed around it as the cars began to arrive and hover expectantly.

The image of the flock of birds persisted as the cars swooped and wheeled like gulls about the ship, their occupants calling to one another.

Then a large oblong section of the roof opened and tall, yellow bipeds stepped out to stand looking up at the welcoming party.

They were, in a way, bird-like, too.

There were four of them; obviously two males and two females.

They stood about eight feet high and had very lean, angular bodies.

Their skins were a bright yellow, tinged with green.

Their heads were rather like eggs set on their sides, balanced on thin necks.

Their plumage was very bright—red, blue and purple with green crests on their strange, oval heads. The females had long, sweeping tail feathers that reached to the ground, but the darker-skinned males had a kind of collar of feathers around the throat.

The head tapered to a hard-looking beak-like muzzle in which the nostrils and the long, down-curved mouth were set.

The eyes were very large and blank and did not blink.

Arriving behind the others, Clovis was in time to see the visitors raise their arms—three slender fingers and what seemed to be two thumbs on each hand—and signal to one of the nearest aircars.

In spite of his resentment towards them, Clovis now felt curious enough to speed close to the ship in order to study them.

Then one of the aliens spoke. Clovis could faintly hear his piping voice. The crowd became silent, listening to the strange tones that were reminiscent of the language of dolphins.

Evidently they don’t know Earthish, thought Clovis, moving closer. He heard Narvo yell at him:

“Clovis—you ought to be the first to speak to them! ”

He looked for his friend and saw him hanging over the side of his aircar, waving at him from above.

“What shall I say?” He tried to smile, to speak lightly. “I certainly don’t know their language.’

“We ought to say
something
in reply—to be polite.”

What I want to say it not polite, thought Clovis. “Welcome visitors from space,” he began laconically. The aliens cocked their heads to listen to him, rather in the manner of cockatoos. “We of Earth greet you and offer you hospitality.”

The aliens continued to cock their heads, but he refused to say any more.

Now that he was facing the problem of communicating with them, he became more interested. He knew what to do. “Telepaths! ” he cried. “Is there anyone here who is a good telepath? Volunteers to try and make contact with these people!”

Four voices answered affirmatively, and four aircars moved towards where Clovis hovered close to the aliens at their eye-level. In one of the cars was dark-faced Andros Aimer whom Clovis recognised as Fastina’s ex-lover. He nodded to him and then spoke to all of them. As well as Aimer, there was a thin, fresh-faced girl, a bulky man in a green quilted coat with pale features, and a young man in a flamboyant hat and flaming red jacket.

“Presumably these people wish to communicate with us and won’t resent any attempt to make telepathic contact. We don’t know, of course, if they know about telepathy, but if they’re as advanced as they seem, they’ll probably understand its principal. One at a time, I want you to attempt a tentative contact, see what results we get. He pointed at the girl. “Would you like to begin?”

She nodded.
“
I need a mild trance—so don’t be alarmed. I’ll try one of the females—there’s probably a better chance.”

The aliens watched with interest as the girl stared hard at the tallest female. They watched as the girl’s eyes seemed to go out of focus and then close. She sat rigidly by the side of her car, her lips moving a little. Clovis switched his attention to the alien female. Her crest rose stiffly and her tail feathers rustled. Evidently the girl was having some sort of success.

The girl began to speak at the same moment as the alien closed her own eyes.

“It’s strange—strange ...” her voice sounded distant. “
Reds and blacks
—
stars
—
pleasure
—
curiosity
—
love, is is it} Huge butterflies of gold and green, waves of purple, memory of fear, reds and blacks, reds and blacks ... golden butterflies.. .globes
—
blue
—
no, not blue, not blue —it
must
be blue
...
Shafts of indigo fire, yellow men with bright features—A PICTURE, that was a picture
—
no, I lost it—more colours, mingling colours, like paint swirling across space
—
hope, tension, excitement, pleasure, curiosity, joy—lilac seas
...”

Aimer spoke to Clovis. “With due respect, Clovis, this isn’t helping much. The young lady is obviously mainly sensitive to colour-impressions and emotions. The emotions are probably linked with the colours, at that. We need a more logical mind—more objective—someone able to link words and ideas together and get an inkling of their language. Once we’ve got the basics of the language we can let the computers take over and we’ll be able to converse in a few hours.”

“I agree,” said Clovis, but instead of letting Aimer try, he gestured at the bulky man. “Would you like to attempt contact now—perhaps with a male?”

The bulky man nodded. He stared hard at one of the males. The male stared back into his eyes. The alien seemed to get an idea of what was happening and seemed ready to co-operate.

The bulky man spoke in a very matter-of-fact tone, although his voice had something of an edge to it.

“It’s very odd. I’m getting patterns, mainly. Geometric patterns in sharp colours—triangles and circles—now some sort of pentagram—there’s an idea of machinery there, too—big machinery—some huge ship, perhaps— bigger than the one they came in—a planet—yes, a planet and a vast machine I think.”