View from Another Shore : European Science Fiction Read online

  roamed around it. It was sunset before he came back.

  We stayed a second and a third day. Master Jack drew a lot of

  pictures in which every detail of the ruins of the dam could be seen.

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  The next day we hit upon a strange obstacle. It was a sort of curtain

  made of a white spun yarn hanging across the river from shore to

  shore. White root-like things held it to the shore. It spread over the

  surface and its web-like yarn seemed to hang deeply in the water. The

  most peculiar thing about it was that this structure moved as if it were

  alive. It pulsated, pulling itself together and then slackening again.

  We approached it slowly. It was a tenacious spongy web-like fabric

  over which the keel of the boat glided without any effort at all.

  ‘Unbelievable’, Master Jack said, feeling it and poking around with

  his ticker. ‘I am sure that this web is alive and that it is capable of

  cleaning the water. Once over the obstacle, radioactivity is almost

  non-existent here. And the water seems to be substantially cleaner.’

  We passed over four such web-like obstacles in the course of the

  day. The improved quality of the water changed the appearance of the

  shore. Dry clay desert became luscious grass, shrub and palm trees.

  Goats could be seen, and thatched huts, and people appearing

  suddenly between the huts. We proceeded with caution to one of

  the islands, moored our boat and looked for a place to camp. On the

  other side, on the left shore, we saw goats in the river drinking the

  water. A naked man was standing near them, leaning on his spear.

  Master Jack called out to him. He didn’t answer and disappeared with

  his goats into the bushes.

  For the first time we actually dared to take a bath in the river. It was

  heaven. Master Jack scooped up a pot full of water and boiled it for a

  long time. Then he drank a drop. I held my breath as I watched him

  and prayed to Allah not to let him drop dead before my eyes. My

  prayer was heard. However, I decided not to let Master Jack out of my

  sight for the next few hours.

  Night had not yet fallen when we heard shouting from the watering

  place. We were afraid of being attacked and, in the encroaching dusk,

  stared across to where the screams had come from. Master Jack

  looked through his glass.

  ‘It really is true’, he whispered. ‘It is true.’

  ‘What, Master Jack?’

  He gave me the glass and I looked through. With the artificial eyes

  the shore seemed much brighter.

  I saw a confusion of bodies that encircled two creatures. They were

  hitting them with clubs, although the beings did not put up any

  resistance. The two figures looked like huge insects walking upright

  with dark brown shells and long feelers which grew over their faceted

  eyes like rams’ horns and hung down over their shoulders and behind

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  their backs, while their front limbs ended in scissor-like tools. It was

  amazing that these creatures, obviously so capable of defending

  themselves, hadn’t made the least effort at resistance although they

  were being attacked with knives and spears. Finally, they were torn

  down and disappeared under a heap of naked human bodies. We

  could hear screams of triumph.

  ‘What’s that?’, I asked breathlessly.

  ‘Perhaps they are the ones I’m looking for’, Master Jack answered.

  ‘I undertook this long journey because of them.’

  ‘Then, we have arrived too late, Master Jack’, I said. ‘They are dead!’

  He lifted his glass to his eyes. ‘My God’, he whispered. ‘Why are

  they doing that?’

  At that very moment a flash of lightning bathed the river and shore

  in a white glaring light. Blinded, we clutched one another while

  thunder erupted around us. I had never experienced anything like it

  before. When it died down, we could hear the cries of pain from the

  drinking place, but neither Master Jack nor I considered it the right

  thing to do to hurry to the aid of these savages in the darkness. The

  crying and moaning could be heard all night long from the other

  shore. We kept waking up again and again and the light continued to

  reflect in our eyes.

  5

  The Web

  We ventured across at the first sight of daylight. Master Jack held his

  ticker carefully over the bow, but it didn’t react. We couldn’t find any

  signs of a fight. The first thing we noticed when we found the insect

  beings was that they in no way looked like scarabs or cockroaches.

  They were two-legged beings whose legs and bodies were covered

  with shiny dark brown exoskeletons. Their legs ended, like their

  upper limbs, in small, ribbed, three-membered pincers, which were

  obviously just as good for walking as for seizing or handling things.

  The strong armour of the backs and chests had been slashed through

  and hacked to pieces. There was very little left of the high domed

  heads and the large dark eyes except a grey and whitish mass of

  tissue. It was evident that the brains had filled most of the heads. They had been torn out and destroyed, probably so they could be eaten.

  Nearby were eleven people, nine of whom were light-skinned.

  They were a pitiable sight. Most of them were still suffering from

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  shock. They lay paralysed where the fire had thrown them down. A

  few had succeeded in pulling themselves up enough to crawl to the

  shore and scoop up water in the hollows of their hands to cool their

  blinded eyes.

  We moored the boat and went to help the wounded. Master Jack

  bent over a slight fair-haired middle-aged woman who was cowering

  naked on the shore. Her once voluptuous breasts sagged like empty

  calabashes over the water.

  ‘Can I help you?’, Master Jack asked.

  ‘Hey!’, the woman cried and slanted her head to be able to hear

  while her blinded eyes sought Master Jack. ‘Did I hear you right,

  young man? Did you ask me if you could help me?’ She laughed a

  stifled laugh. ‘Are you from the International Red Cross or from

  UNESCO or from one of those legendary relief organizations that we

  never heard of again?’

  ‘Unfortunately not’, Master Jack said. ‘They no longer exist.’

  ‘I thought so’, the woman groaned with an ugly grin. ‘I can’t see

  any more because that thing spat its fire on us. Are you black or

  white?’

  ‘What is that thing that spits fire on you?’

  ‘That thing, it’s that thing, you idiot. It’s established its headquarters up there in the north and has covered everything with its web and

  lets its cockroaches swarm over the earth as though it had lost

  something.

  ‘Listen!’ She grabbed Master Jack’s legs with vehemence. Master

  Jack put up no resistance at all, while I stared at the sagging breasts

  with a mixture of fascination and disgust. ‘I don’t know who you are,

  but if you have any power at all—please kill it! That thing is

  responsible for bringing the holocaust to our planet to conquer it. It


  has destroyed mankind as if they were vermin.’

  ‘We destroyed ourselves, I understand.’

  ‘Nonsense! Never! They ordered the whole thing to happen. We are

  vermin to them. It doesn’t respect mankind any more than it respects

  vermin. No more than you respect a worm or a sparrow that picks

  crumbs from the dirt at your feet. It respects you even less. It respects you like the dirt under your feet.’

  ‘You can’t complain. The water is being decontaminated as far as I

  can see. . .’

  ‘Not for us! For its brood of insects that swarm out of the earth. And

  it has just as little respect for them. It doesn’t send them after us. It’s only interested in the brains that it rummages around for in the earth.

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  It is only interested in seizing the soul of the earth and loading its ship with it.’

  ‘Whose brains? Whose soul?’

  ‘The brains of the people. The soul of the dead earth.’

  ‘Who says so?’

  ‘Those who have talked to it. But don’t believe’, she mocked, ‘that

  you will get an answer from it so easily. Go up the shore! One of its

  ships is stranded there. Ask it! You’ll get no answer. It will send its fire if you touch its biomass by mistake.’

  ‘Biomass?’

  I was inspecting one of the strange containers that the insect beings

  had carried with them. When I laid my hand on the spongy, water-

  filled tissue, it twitched convulsively. Suddenly, out of the corner of

  my eyes, I saw how one of the men crept up on Master Jack from

  behind with a knife in his hand, while the woman still held on to his

  legs tightly. It dawned on me that it was a deadly trap. I grabbed one

  of the spears lying on the ground and hit the idiot over the head with

  the shaft as hard as I could. He sank down without saying a word. The

  woman began to shriek, pulled Master Jack down and threw herself

  over him. I hit her over the head so that Master Jack could tear

  himself away and she screamed and kicked blindly around her while

  her breasts bobbed up and down. The pitiable figures, insofar as they

  could rouse themselves, crawled threateningly towards us. I jumped

  into the boat and began to row wildly. Master Jack waded up to his

  hips in the water before he could pull himself into the boat. He gasped

  for air.

  ‘It’s a man’s duty to help his brother!’, a tearful voice cried after us

  from the shore. It was a young man, but with his bald head and his

  mottled skin he looked like an old man. ‘Whoever does not help his

  brother is on the side of that thing!’

  ‘My goodwill to mankind is not that great. I am not willing to let

  myself be plundered and possibly eaten by you!’, Master Jack shouted

  across to him.

  ‘Be damned!’, the young man called and the woman laughed her

  shrill laugh. I rowed as fast as I could.

  Half a mile downstream Master Jack manoeuvred back to shore.

  ‘I want to find out what this ship is doing here.’

  We dragged our Kheasaht up on land and hid it in the bushes. After

  we had covered our traces as best we could we set off up on the slope

  overlooking the river. An hour later we reached the edge of the desert

  plateau and saw the strange ship no more than 500 feet in front of us.

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  It looked surprisingly fragile and was not half as impressive as I had

  imagined after all the tales we had heard about it. It measured

  perhaps 15 or 20 feet from bow to stern and was rather flat and

  raft-like without any high superstructure except for the small dome

  right around the stern.

  ‘Almost like the cuttlebone of a cuttlefish’, said Master Jack, who

  had stopped dead in his tracks beside me. A canopy had been set up

  over the stern and it fluttered in the wind. It was an unusually intense

  light colour of blue that had something unreal about it in the grey-

  brown surroundings.

  Looking at the structure, I felt that I was confronted with a pitiable

  creature which had somehow foundered and was in difficulties.

  Twenty-five or 30 insect beings were crawling around the ship

  evidently trying to get the thing in the air again, as the keel of the

  ship was grounded. A bird-headed creature stood in front of the ship,

  absolutely motionless, its arms crossed over its chest, staring at us

  silently.

  I looked at Master Jack. He stuck his chin out with a determined

  look, placed the crossbow he had automatically reached for back over

  his shoulder and marched ahead. I followed him. My steps weren’t

  long enough to keep pace with his. With every step we took—and this

  we didn’t know at the time—we left reality, as we knew it, behind us

  forever.

  Extracts from the Journal of Master Jack

  September 5th, 2036

  It’s really true after all—the proof—extraterrestrial beings right in front of us! Although, for the past two years, I had always thought it possible and for the past few weeks was absolutely convinced that an immediate confrontation would take place, it now seems unreal and absurd.

  The situation is more than banal in a distorted sort of way. Shall I pose as representative of what remains of civilization and bid them welcome with a speech full of empty words like the mayor of a city receiving the local

  magistrate of a foreign town, to seal twin-city friendships? I see myself rather in the role of father of a family whose visitors have arrived unexpectedly and who suddenly remembers that a fire has been raging in the living room.

  Excuse us, please, but an accident has just happened in our historical

  development. We were faster in finding a solution to our arms problems

  than in finding a solution to certain racial and ideological problems. Some

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  maintain that a death wish also played a role, a certain pleasure in the

  destruction of the world. I think they exaggerate. The truth is that the halfhearted as well as under-financed peace research proved useless when the run on the last resources of the world began. Then some of the veneer of

  civilization chipped off. Just look around you—you can see for yourselves.

  Fifty years ago, we were three or four billion more inhabitants. But let’s not get petty about it. The truth is we can’t estimate just how many are left that easily. One thing is certain—enormous areas of this once so beautiful planet will be uninhabitable for generations to come, some areas forever. We now have several million mutants with whom we shall have the greatest difficulties coming to terms, because our already contaminated gene pool will be messed up even more. Seeds of future discontent have already been sown. But let’s not look at the whole of history in a negative manner. Let’s try to be constructive.

  Let’s say it had a regulative, if not cathartic function. We have bombed

  ourselves back to a level of civilization when we are—I hope—or are you of another option—more able to cope at our present stage of evolution. Don’t judge us too hard; do be fair. We are on the point of rolling up our sleeves and cleaning up the mess. Let me bid you welcome. Do make yourselves at home

  . . . oh, pardon, I really didn’t mean to offend you. It just slipped out. The Horus stood directly in front of me, a fascinating creature. Exactly as I had seen him in so many Egyptian drawings. The overly slender human figure

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bsp; with dark skin, the long delicate arms and legs, the beautiful sexless body, so perfect that it had something artificial about it, something artistic, the head with its superb blue green metallic plumage falling to its shoulders. However, most impressive of all were his eyes, hard, impenetrable black with an

  expressionlessness as unfathomable as polished obsidian. In spite of this, its eyes showed a certain intelligence, the uncompromising, cruel intelligence of a spy who was not impressed by appearances, eyes that in their robot-like,

  target-seeking field of vision absorbed every photon, but never gave any

  information about the receiver of all this data.

  Between the curved, black, half-questioning open beak was the blue-black

  swollen curve of its tongue.

  Horus, the falcon-headed one. Were the story tellers of Omdurman right?

  Have the gods of the ancient Egyptians risen from the Kingdom of the Dead, that realm to which they guided the souls and bodies of the pharaohs? Have they returned from the land of Osiris?

  THOSE WERE THE BIOPRINTS OF ANOTHER VOYAGER. I looked around and saw

  no one. Beschir looked at me terrified. BUT HE ALSO CARRIED WITH HIM THE

  ONE YOU CALL HORUS.

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  ‘What’s the matter, Master Jack?’

  ‘Didn’t you hear the voice?’

  ‘No, I didn’t hear anything at all.’

  I ALWAYS FORGET THAT FOR YOU HUMAN BEINGS WITH EYES THERE MUST

  ALWAYS BE SOMETHING VISIBLE IN FRONT OF YOU OR ELSE YOU ARE IRRI-

  TATED. SIT DOWN, I’LL ARRANGE SOMETHING VISIBLE. THAT DEFECT SHALL BE

  FIXED IMMEDIATELY FOR I WELCOME YOU ABOARD.

  With a penetratingly shrill clatter as if glass pearls were bouncing against one another at an amazing speed, the bow raised itself from the ground and

  sprang to and fro while the stern remained in the sand. Then the clatter died down and the bow fell back into the sand. In another attempt, this time with double the effort, the ship finally succeeded in getting into the air and hovered noiselessly about three metres over the earth.

  The Horus raised its head as if listening to a voice that could not be heard by humans. Then he gestured to us that we should board the ship.

  A sling was let down and I grabbed hold of it. It cramped itself together like a muscle and pulled me on board. Beschir and the Horus followed. The bottom of the ship seemed to be made of a spongy substance, the whole length of

  which was about twelve and the width four metres. Two to three dozen