INTRODUCTION
I can find no information on Alexey Matveyevich Volkov, possibly a pseudonym, aside from the fact that he died during World War II. "Aliens" was the only story Volkov published and was originally published in the February 1928 issue of "World of Adventure", where it made the cover of the issue. It was later republished in the March 1961 issue of "Searcher" in severely abridged form which cuts about half the text. This translation is taken from the original printing in "World of Adventure" which can be found here:
https://www.maxima-library.com/new-books-2/b/12656?format=read
This translation is based off the original February 1928 "World of Adventure" printing, with illustrations by N.M. Kochergina.
For what brief biographical information there is on Volkov, see:
https://archivsf.narod.ru/persona/volkov/volk_a_x.htm
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| Cover of February 1928 issue of "World of Adventure" |
ALIENS
The black water pushed up against some object and flashed with bright light; flaming streams of liquid fire were flowing about this object, splashing all around. Outlines of the buoys were drawn by the light of the streaming flames.
Instead of a flag, the tops of the buoys had wet hair and a pair of eyes on their sides, which despite the darkness, were wide open.
In Russia, the buoy with gray hair was called Nikolai Ivanovich Vragin, professor of biology. The second buoy was myself. In the water between us, the heavy grating of our deck hatchway floated us along according to whims of the current.
It seemed that several days had passed and merged into one continuous, languid night, from the moment when, after much hesitation, we decided to jump off of the side of the burning steamer into the water, throwing the hatchway grate off first. Clutching the grate, we floated side by side - it was too small to support the weight of even one of us.
A liquid light quivered near our very faces, diffused and elusive, illuminating the grating's black crosses. Dawn came unexpectedly and all at once. Suddenly the current died out, and sloping watery muddy gray mounds came out of the thinning darkness, slowly, smoothly rising and falling; our gnarled fingers dug into the rough grate, while Vragin's face was pale but calm.
Rowing with all our might, we now tried to steer our raft towards land.
The pre-dawn twilight in the tropics is short, but the sun had not yet risen when we approached close enough to where we could make out three human figures standing motionless on the top of one of the dunes, which from afar looked just like pegs driven into a hillock. One of the figures began to descend towards the water.
The hot, blazing sun rose from behind a ridge of sandy hills to the side. Colors began to sparkle, dazzling reflections were jumping around on the green-blue water.
Eventually, swimming closer, we peered intently at the figures on the shore. Europeans or natives? In a half hour we could find ourselves among cultured civilization or... in captivity. This is possible on the western coast of Africa, no matter what those enlightened people who imagine the whole world being like the outskirts of Peterhof or Sestroretsk say.
Lifted up by a large wave, I saw, much closer than I expected, a wide, white, winding strip - the foam of the surf. In the shallow water, the waves became stronger. The surf was thundering very close.
The yellow-red dunes were quite near. In the deafening chaos, the sounds of the ocean were like blaring cannon fire hitting ramparts nearby.
A large wave crashed into me and lifted me up on its crest, carried me along its rushing back, and with a thundering roar and a splash, awashed far onto the shore with great speed, spread out and rapidly gushed back in a foamy stream. Pebbles were bouncing around and making clicking noises like living beings; they hastily rolled after the receding water, as if they were afraid to fall behind and find themselves on dry land. Gasping, half-stunned, I found myself on the wet sand. All around, the rivulets of the runaway wave were still murmuring and foaming. On all sides, the waves were furiously raging. I laid there without making a single movement. Close by, about five paces away, among the tufts of foam and running puddles, Nikolai Ivanovich was crawling on all fours.
Twenty sazhens away, three men in dark overcoats were heading towards us in bold strides, no doubt those whom we had noticed from the sea.[Translators note: Sazhen; antiquated unit of measurement equal to seven feet.] The two in front had driving goggles over their eyes, and the third was wearing a pith helmet. Europeans! The ends of long, thin rods swayed elastically above their heads as they hastily moved. A rather ludicrous notion popped in my head - they've come to go fishing.
As if under the heel of a colossal beast, the gravel was making prolonged creaking and groaning noises. With the hissing and whistling of a monstrous snake and the speed of a bird, another huge wave flew in. Before I could turn my head, for a moment, out of the corner of my eye I saw, nearby, almost at my feet, a high wall of turbulent water curving forward, composed of rapidly moving bubbles as if it was boiling. The wall pushed a turbulent stream up the ground ahead of it. Seething and shuddering with a murmur, tightly curling up at the top like giant shavings, the wall loomed over me even further. The bubbles on its very crest quickly appeared, scattered and burst.
The wall came crashing down. I was lifted up and thrown about. The impact thundered like an explosion of gunfire. With heaps of algae and a river of water, I was ejected even further forward onto the shore. I felt the water pressure weaken, once again heard the clicking and bouncing of the running pebbles and the rustling of the gravel. Consciousness faded. Another hit and I'd be a bountiful feast for the crabs... At this thought, with desperate tension, gathering my last strength, gasping for breath, I hastily crawled away, blinded, half-stunned for several steps and without getting up, struggled for a long time to take a breath of air, choking on the water that entered my lungs.
At the same time, my thoughts flashed to those rushing to our aid. Of course, they're already approaching. They're probably from some nearby port or mission. All the same, now our misadventures will soon end... And how is Vragin?... My head was spinning, my whole body ached from bruises.
II.
I slowly stood up with difficulty, staggering from weakness. And, without yet raising my head, I noticed that they were standing very close, two steps ahead, to the left.
My gaze scanned the figure of the nearest one from his feet up to his head. And, my hands went immediately cold and numb, my face felt like it was being pricked with small needles from all the draining blood. It was something completely unexpected, as if the terrible head of a huge snake had suddenly shot up from the dense tall grass thickets with lightning speed and froze in ominous immobility right next to my very face.
Level with my eyes, the disgusting head of the vile reptile stood looking at me, terrible in its nightmarish ugliness.
How can I convey to you the delirious visions that appeared to me in flesh and blood on that inexplicable morning? A hallucination! A mask! - conjectures of a confused mind flashed and swirled in a whirlwind of sparks, replacing one another after a brief moment.
Instead of the face I expected, there was something unimaginably nightmarish, monstrous. Mistaken from afar for driving glasses, they turned out to be huge bulging walleyes, about the size of an average saucer. The eyes sat very close together, disproportionately large in comparison to an almost normal-sized head and occupied their entire face.
When viewed from a certain angle, thanks to their amazing size and color, it looked like their head consisted of only two huge eyes. They protruded from their sockets like convex porcelain-white lentils. No forehead, no cheeks, no cheekbones - just eyes! Two white balls on a neck, with a stem extending out from the shoulders. The shiny white enamel of the bulging walleyes was horizontally split in half from edge to edge by thin, black cracks - the slits of severely constricted pupils.
The rigid fold of the tightly closed, disgustingly huge frog-like mouth on dirty green skin, as well as the wrinkled and rough scales of a reptile dryly covering its entire head and the portion of the face that was free from its eyes, gave its head inexpressibly ferocious expression, nightmarish in its inhuman abnormality.
The slit of the wide mouth, curving upward, ended far up the sides of the head in flabby folds of skin under the ears, covered by the hanging earmuffs of a flat hat that looked like a pancake. The protruding, narrow and blunt jaw of the reptile without a chin made it possible to see the wrinkled, drooping, folded, sinewy neck of the alert lizard.
My amazed attention, initially distracted by the extraordinary, had missed a detail: - between the colossal eyes, right at their junction, there was a small, irregularly shaped hole - a single nostril - which as if sniffing at something, was convulsively contracting its nervous, lighter edges...
A terrible mask, frozen in a grimace of cold, merciless cruelty.
Without turning my head, I looked at the embodiment of a nightmare standing at arm's length from me. If I saw this head on a reptile's body, no less terrible and disgusting than the head itself, there would not have been that impression of repulsive unearthliness. But the monster's head on a human body! A felt cap on the ugly head of a snake! Confused, powerless thoughts struggled like a bird in a snare. A dream, a fairy tale in reality, it defied explanation.
Silently, as if from behind a thick stone wall, the rumbling and roaring of the surf reached my ears.
Sensing a strange lightness, feeling how my whole body, engulfed in the freezing cold, was quickly going numb and the earth was shaking beneath me, but unable to withdraw, as if my gaze was riveted by a magnet, I looked, without turning away, I looked in horror at the hypnotizing mask of the monster. Silent and terrifying, without moving, it looked into my face. And suddenly the narrow slit of the pupil instantly widened into an oval, the barely perceptible golden outline stretched, flashed with sparks of gold, a fire from hidden smoldering coals. Then, as if from the cutting pain of a bright light, the eyelid on the side, from the ear, covered the eye with a thin membrane, and the huge eyeball turned under the eyelid's translucent film, like a lizard basking in the sun.
Like a sharp drill, it bore into my brain with terrible speed. The dunes instantly lost their colors and the head of the reptile rushed into the abyss, then flew up to the sky...
III.
I don't know what happened next. Or how it happened. But I imagine that I saw everything. And this picture, in color and with sound, now appears before me in all its details. I see how a man who had fallen dead was lifted from the wet sand in the spray of the waves.
I imagine how they then carried us - Vragin and myself. And our two lifeless bodies swayed on thin flexible rods, in time with their footsteps. How their feet sank in the loose sand, how the breath of the disgusting mouths fanned our emotionless faces, and how they gazed dispassionately and blindly with their terrible eyes. How they silently carried us to the dunes, up into the sandy mounds. As if in the middle of the day, under the bright sun and blue sky, a procession moved openly - a procession of creatures materialized from a fairy tale, boldly mocking rational thought.
...Silence reigned. I opened my eyes. In front of my very face, fine, transparent red sand spread out in the glare of the sun, and rose several sazhens further upward in a gentle, crude slope. I was lying on my side, in the shadow of a large rock.
My head was still spinning. But my consciousness brightened. I quickly sat up and looked around in amazement. The sea... Surprisingly, the sea had disappeared! Even the sound of the waves couldn't be heard. I had just recalled the terrible meeting on the shore, but dismissed everything as hallucination, the product of prolonged nervous and physical stress. How else could it be explained if not by the play of upset nerves? But the rest of the details remained. Where is... the shore, the sea?.. With the intention of peering behind the stone, I turned around.
The bottoms of large oilskin bales, their cornices lying one on top of one another, were standing behind me.
There was nothing strange in this if I could find myself here, but it was very strange that I was abandoned, left without guard. Vague conjecture stirred within me. With my heart gripped in anticipation of the unknown, I cautiously looked out from behind the "rock." About ten paces away, more bales in tarpaulins, tin crates, three or four iron barrels of oil, several folded mattresses, and several large chests of polished wood were scattered in disarray on the sand.
It was only because I was sitting close to the bales that were separated from the total mass of cargo that I didn't initially see this open-air warehouse.
Stretching my head even further, I pulled back as if I had been burned. A hot wave flooded my chest. I saw it again. It was sitting on a bale, among the cargo. A convex diving helmet now covered its head down to its shoulders, but behind the smoky glass I immediately saw the porcelain-white eyes. Nearby, was the thin shaft of a long spear standing upright with its end driven in the sand, clearly visible against the light blue sky.
IV.
My first impulse was to run. But how? Crawling along the bare sand was a childish idea. Cover myself with a crate, sneak behind it and then cross the dune?.. But what is it? Is this hallucination still?.. No, no!.. Of course not. Suddenly it dawned on me: - madness. So deformed physically and mentally, he could not be normal. That's an explanation for the diving helmet on its head.
How could I escape unnoticed!
I turned around, crawled to the other end of the bale, looked around the corner and was speechless, petrified by the horrifying picture. On the tarpaulin, stretched out on his back, was the motionless body of Vragin lying in an unbuttoned frock coat. Two monsters were bent over the body, unnaturally arching their spines like ridged caterpillars. One slowly plunged a large, thin, shiny needle into my friend's slightly heaving chest. Another, also wearing a helmet, held Nikolai Ivanovich's outstretched, raised arms.
It would be a reckless death in vain to try to save Vragin. But... leaving him to a terrible death under torture... I was certain that the memory of the base cowardice and meanness on display would never cease weighing on me for the remainder of my life.
Realizing the madness of this act, with the anguish of waiting for the unavoidable, inevitable death, I jumped up, as if against my will. An involuntary cry escaped from my throat.
At that very moment, whistling shrilly, as if thrown by a spring, the seated monster launched up high with the leap of an amazing acrobat, jumped two sazhens closer and, waving his spear in mid-flight, pointed it at my chest. It turned out that he was sitting on Vragin's head. If I had just looked further away the first time, I would have seen them all at once.
The thin shaft swayed like the steel tip of a rapier. I knew that if by some miracle I was not pierced, then I risked being struck by the slightest erroneous movement. For several moments, I stood motionless. Somewhere nearby a bird chirped. The monsters by Vragin stood straight up and looked at me. Through the silence, my keen hearing caught the barely audible sound of the sea and the sharp cries of seabirds, faintly reaching me from behind the dune on the right. The sea, therefore, was not particularly far away. I had previously determined its direction by means of the sun.
The camp was located between the dunes, in a depression shaped like an irregular horseshoe. A sandy grave!.. But maybe it's not too late to calmly turn around and escape? I seemed to forcefully turn a lever in my brain, suppressing this thought and compelled myself to move. With dying languor, in the hopeless despair of being sentenced to death, I moved slowly, approaching Vragin. A small red spot was on the left side of the chest under the heart.
I picked up the cold corpse. Why? I was like a wound-up automaton. For the third time that day, everything that happened seemed like a dream to me.
The sun was scorching, the sultry air was flowing, the hot sand breathed heat that burnt my bare feet; with their plumage camouflaging them in the color of sand, the invisible birds of the dunes chirped and whistled. With a clouded consciousness, every second expecting to hear a wild scream, enduring the terrible pain of the impact, under this heavy burden as if inside a red fog, I slowly moved my feet in the loose sand. But arshin after arshin, a pink cloth unfurled in front of my lowered face and the moments slowly dragged on - no shouting, no sound of footsteps chasing after me![Translator's note: Arshin, obsolete unit of measurement equal to 28 inches.] Only the birds, frightened by my advance, increased their whistling.
I was irresistibly pulled into looking back - the silence was so unexpected. Now I'm only surprised how I was able to carry Vragin these hundreds of steps. A thick, twisted cacti with a pale shadow at its base was creeping past me... Bare sand again... Once more, I almost stumbled on the cacti and looked back. The loose plume of the hill obscured the view of the path that I traversed.
The extreme nervous and physical tension immediately broke. I dropped Nikolai Ivanovich's body and fell unconscious. However, it seems that I immediately woke up and turned over towards Vragin. The reddish dot on his bare chest blurred into a wide spot of sunburn. I put my hand on my chest and immediately took it off - there was no doubt - I'd been carrying around a corpse - the risky attempt had been in vain. They've killed him! There, on the bale, Vragin was still breathing. I bent down, looked carefully, and couldn't find a trace of the injection. This last blow finished me off.
There was no point in expecting outside help. It's unlikely that anyone would wander out here. The only thing left was to go around. I calmly drew conclusions and turned about. The dark blue smooth surface of the tranquil ocean spread out in a convex area, like it was part of a colossal mirrored sphere. The blue, gradually turning pale, turned further into a transparent white haze and merged with the cyan sky. And on the cyan-blue background were red waves of sand. The expanse and profound tranquility of the desert.
One row of dunes separated us from the flat coastal strip. For a moment, my attention was drawn to movement on the large dune opposite. Four men in helmets climbed up from the shore side and began to descend into a ravine, dragging heavy sacks.
The camp, in the form of a scattered pile of luggage in disarray, was visible forty sazhens to the left in the ravine. Figures were moving there too. This means there were not just three of them. Indifferent to my fate and the fate bestown upon Vragin, I mechanically sank to his body. And suddenly, he opened his eyes wide. Vragin was lying on his side, steadily and deeply breathing. Out of surprise, my apathy temporarily dissipated. I feverishly examined him a second time. A reddish spot covered the entire chest up to the neck. I covered the sleeping man's head from the scorching rays, laid down next to him and immediately fell asleep.
V.
I woke up from the extremely unpleasant sensation of being watched. The nightmarish catlike eyes of the ugly creature stared into my eyes with an unbearably intent gaze from narrow pupils. Holding its spear in its hands, it stood three steps away, peering into my face, as if trying to read something on it. Quite instinctively, I cowered, expecting to be struck. We looked into each other's eyes for a minute. Not a single human thought, not a single feeling was reflected in the living mask. It was the face of a living sphinx.
The creature suddenly bent down quickly and grabbed a handful of sand. He pointed towards himself, towards the sea, upward, and, drawing back its spear while throwing the sand into the air, he made a rapid movement, piercing the cloud of falling grains of sand in mid-flight. And he stared at me motionless. I dumbly followed his movements. What was he saying? Something about himself, of course. But what? Perhaps about a shipwreck, about the storm and lightning that struck the ship? I nodded my head. My gaze fell on the end of the lowered spear. I ran my hand over the thin band on the shaft, and a shiver of disgust ran through my body - such smooth, worm-like fingers, like fingers without joints, of a green frog leg, clasped the shaft.
The monster turned, quickly, without looking back, walked towards the camp. I watched him with an indifferent gaze. Without trying to explain them, I accepted the facts and nothing more.
- "Enough sleeping!" - I heard Vragin's laughing voice penetrate my dreams. Thundering noises shook the air, like the firing of deployed batteries from behind the dune. The sun was setting. "Then snore, the dunes will crumble," Vragin smiled.
He was sitting up. A sleeve, torn from his undershirt, was wrapped around his head like a turban. He spat out some green gum and handed me a piece of cactus with its spines worn-down. "Are you thirsty? - instead of water for now. Yes - here" - he tore off a second sleeve - "cover your head!" With a glimmer of joy, I became convinced that Vragin was the same Vragin.
I told him all the details of what happened. His eyes sparkled at the mention of the meeting on the shore, and at the end of the story, they glowed with excitement. Is it possible that in our age an unknown tribe could exist, even in Africa? Maybe a disease, causing the bulging eyes?
- "Hardly. These are aliens... Let's get closer to them! However, my knee is badly bruised. I'll lean on you - help me."
Beyond the winding ravine, a view of their camp appeared with a seated solitary figure. The other five were scurrying about on top of the large dune. Reflecting the dazzling rays of the sun, a network of huge cobwebs spread between thin stakes was glittering and sparkling. Yes, they weave a web! The sentry, turning his head, watched our approach, but was no longer grasping his weapon.
Apparently there was no danger to us. I took a closer look at their amazing ugliness. I felt a complete loss of strength, an irresistible fatigue, I wanted to lie down and fall asleep.
Birds whistled in alarm.
- "Now as well?!"
- "What?" - I didn't understand.
- "Did you whistle? Or was it the little birds"?
- "All the time. But why...?"
- "Did they whistle back just now too?" - Vragin interrupted impatiently. "You didn't say a word? - This means they are!.. - And the others are responding... Let's move away... For now."
We sat down by the first group of cacti. I chewed and sucked a cactus, closed my eyes, but could not fall asleep. Vragin was hypothesizing. Occasionally, individual words escaped his lips: "Evolution... Lizards... Another path... But the helmets?.."
From the camp, tearing through the sultry air, a wild screech came, was replaced by a short, vicious clicking sound and turned again into a screeching grinding and howling, like the running of a circular saw.
Vragin jumped up, groaned, and wandered limping towards the camp. I saw him come up, stand for about five minutes, turn around and go back.
- "A short rod is inserted vertically into a large crate, and a cloudy sphere is rotating on the rod with a terrible speed. Those sounds are coming from the crate." He sat down silently and thought.
The piercing sound, not ceasing until sunset, rushed through the ravine and spread across the deserted surroundings.
- "Listen, the tide is going out soon. It's time! Let's go get dinner."
We crossed the dune near the netting on the stakes. Six nickel-plated rods two meters long stuck into the sand and fenced off a small round area, three or four meters in diameter. In its center stood a seventh rod - the shortest. A dense network of the finest gossamer threads of wire connected the upper ends of all seven rods with one another like a silk veil.
Coming back, we carried our catch of crabs, shells and dry logs from the shore. The sun was quickly setting behind the dune, and a slanting shadow was creeping towards us. The shadow crawled to the camp. All sounds instantly fell silent. Our fire burned in the deepening shadow of the ravine, and we crunched on the baked crabs as the sun set.
In the darkness of the rapidly approaching night, five figures could be seen hastily climbing the dune and disappearing behind the gray ridge.
- "Did you see them? Let's go. And note: low tide. You said that in the morning you also went during low tide. - And were carried. - Let's go check it out! Maybe we'll solve a piece of the puzzle."
We climbed up close to the stakes.
In the ever-deepening darkness below, the familiar coastal strip stretched out before us. The sea, which had already retreated far away, left puddles of water, strips of silt and mud, slippery fragments of rocks, and heaps of algae. Five black specks, sometimes merging into one, moved in the distance, quickly approaching the water. Straight ahead, above the low, long waves of the ebb tide, towered a black mass exposed by the sea; it could have been mistaken for a large block of stone - a flat, but wide underwater rock, if the five from the camp hadn't been heading there.
- "Their sunken ship."
- "A ship, yes, but is it theirs? Isn't it ours? And the cargo from our ship..." I objected.
An hour and a half later, in the light of the stars, they approached from below, hauling heavy cargo. From somewhere on our side from behind the dune, a jackal leapt out. Having stumbled upon us, it darted away in fear and headlong like a black ball, rolled down towards those walking below. But this thief of the night would not be startled a second time. There was a flash from a blinding burst of lightning, with a thunderous blow that rumbled the earth. The jackal disappeared. We were showered with sand. The group, as if nothing had happened, continued to move.
- "There's an interesting case of a lightning strike." - Vragin looked up. - "And it made short work of the poor devil! Rough luck."
They walked by silently, without uttering a sound. But... five left, six returned. Discussing this occurrence, we descended. I went straight to the smoldering coals to fan the fire. Vragin thoughtfully turned and went into the camp and carried out two large woolen blankets from there.
- "A whole pile is loose. They didn't take them away," he explained laconically. - "They fiddle with the mattress. I think it's a folding tent," Vragin finished, making himself more comfortable on the sand and wrapping himself in a blanket.
VI.
Turning over half an hour later on my other side, I managed to catch how, against the background of the starry sky above the neighboring camp, something huge shot up in a dense cloud of black smoke and almost instantly disappeared into the heights.
Flashes and flickering on the dune caught my attention. Blue, green, ultramarine sparks were flashing, jumping between the glowing stakes and dancing in the wire network of the web.
I woke Vragin up. Lifting ourselves on our elbows, we watched the flickering of multi-colored lights. Vragin got up, walked around, and sat down on the blanket again. Were we hallucinating?
A bright meteor slid smoothly and softly across the starry vault, leaving a long smoky trail. The straight line of dim light slowly melted away.
Suddenly Vragin jumped up.
- "Hurry! Over there! Over to them! Hurry! Hurry!"
He spoke these last words while running. I ran after him, not wanting to leave him to his own devices. He ran towards the camp. A rapid approach could be considered an attack and met with weapons - even with sticks.
Silhouettes moved leisurely in the camp. Did the alerted sentries there wake up or did they not sleep at all? I heard their strange whistling. After a few steps, Vragin slowed down, and we approached at a walk. They treated our arrival with apathy, or rather, indifference.
But Vragin impulsively grabbed the hand of the nearest one, then bent down, grabbed a handful of sand and repeated the gesture of the creature who woke me up that day with his gaze.
The effect of the strange gesture was amazing!
Under heavy stress, I slowly moved my feet in the shifting sand.
Except for the seventh, who was absorbed in some activity near an open crate, the rest let out a whistle and surrounded us in a ring, looking at us as if they had only just seen us. I moved closer to Vragin so that we could meet an attack together. Their terrible heads and eyes moved in very close. Their pupils expanded from narrow slits to the size of glass in a large pocket watch and reflected the dancing sparkles of the stars.
- "They're up to no good." - My voice stopped. - "After all, this is the height of recklessness..." - I didn't finish. Vragin squeezed my shoulder and almost screamed from the excitement gripping him.
- "You're wrong. Understand this, damn it. They are from another, real, alien world. They are as natural and normal as we are."
Unshakable confidence sounded in Vragin's voice.
And so, what happened was something that could have only been foreseen, could have only been fantasized about by the most ardent of dreamers.
Since that night, I've known that any day, any hour, we can expect guests from the unknown. And since that night I haven't said the word "impossible."
Their melodic, lively whistling voices, singing, speech, or rather, sounds I can't identify, sometimes reminded us of the ringing of the sleepy chirping and whistling of a awakened flock of birds heard through the night's silence, disturbed accidentally in the middle of the night in their dense foliage of dormant bushes.
The dark cloud seemed to swallow the moon. In the encroaching darkness, obscured by the light of the moon, an unevenly pulsating purple radiance was weakly shining, hung like a halo above the crate with the silhouette of a bent figure in a helmet. The convex glass reflected a blue splotch. Faint, quiet squeaking and chirping could be heard from the crate.
One approached the cylinder on folded bales and a beam of parallel rays of bright sunlight flooded the camp and rested on the dune, cutting through the darkness of the sandy depression.
The pupils of those around me constricted again into narrow slits, but their whole appearance didn't seem nearly as disgustingly terrible to me now as it had during the day. The one standing closest to me touched the crate; the lid softly bounced up on the rods in the corners. Inside the crate lie meticulously stacked piles of papers.
A shiver of excitement took possession of me. We stood on the threshold of one of the secrets of the universe, the veil was lifted from an unknown world, lost in star dust, in the immeasurable distance of infinity.
VII.
The one that opened the crate took a long narrow sheet from the top and pointing to the starry sky, handed it to us. I stared with greedy eyes. At the top of it was a drawing of a spiral nebula. Below, a second drawing showed it magnified, no longer as a nebula, but as a visible star cluster with a small square outlined in red at its edge. In a third drawing, which only depicted an enlarged part of the cluster, a proportionally enlarged red square separated several dozen stars of varying brightness from similar ones, and encompassed inside of the square was a small blue triangle that enclosed a single star, which, however, appeared no different from any of the others. In the next drawing, inside a large blue triangle, a bright star burned with blue fire; in the drawing even lower, the star clearly was split into two.
We seemed to be rushing with quickness of thought, piercing the abyss of the universe in some specific point that we were approaching.
In the last drawing, both luminaries of the greatly enlarged double star, surrounded by thin swirling wisps, were so skillfully painted with amazingly executed strokes that as if looking through the eyepiece of a super-telescope, I saw two glowing suns, one blue and one orange, revolving around a common center. For a moment I forgot that it was only a drawing in front of me. Below the drawing was a diagram of their solar system - two tiny dots - grains of sand circling around their suns.
Drawn on the side were two circles of noticeably different diameters, connected by thin dotted white lines on the diagram that indicated the comparative sizes of the planets. The smaller planet was closer to its orange sun than the blue sun's planet.
The drawings and figures, extremely clear, had a sequence, building upon one another.
Probably, such cases were foreseen, and all these sheets with maps and drawings were specially made to be carried on board the expedition in order to help explain things to the inhabitants of other worlds.
They unfolded a large wide sheet with eight flat projections. The silvery areas denoted water, we were informed of this by a gesture towards the sea.
The smaller sized planet's only landmass was not very large, more like an island among the planet's continuous ocean than a continent. It was brown in color. But three vast, bizarre shapes of dark green color, splotches with blurry edges among the solid ocean, were a mystery.
An additional color drawing cleared up the confusion. A dense jungle of bright green plants of strange shapes, more like grass than trees, but grasses of a colossal, overwhelming size, rising straight out of the water to a terrible height, surging above the surface of the greenish-tinged waters. There was perhaps a boat, perhaps a large sheet on the water, and the two large-eyed humanoids that emerged from the water by the base of the stem gave one an idea of the enormous height of this sea jungle.
Unfolding the sheet silently, but with eloquent movement, he traced over it in a circle and, with a pointed metal needle, drew another planet near the other circle, almost equal in diameter, as a comparison of the size of our Earth with the size of this planet.
On a second sheet, equally wide, eight flat projections showed a map of the surface of the blue sun's planet, the one they inhabited. The finest geometric network of hexagonal cells covered all the maps on both sheets. But here, in addition to the land, water and the grid, there were many other markings, the first one that caught the eye was an encircled sphere in the center, as if it was being clasped by a thin bracelet - this was a golden thread that wound around the planet over its equator several times, through seas and land.
Red spots, green spaces, yellow stripes, dashes, dots, squares and circles of different colors and sizes in a bright motley pattern covered the land and part of the sea. Straight thin lines of different colors on the water and dotted lines on land... The eye discovered more and more new signs. All of these needed explanatory drawings; only the silvery twists of the rivers were clear.
Nearby, dry, clicking noises were raining down, as if two large, empty chestnuts were frequently clapping against one another.
Vragin straightened up, as if having come to his senses.
- "Listen," he spoke quickly, throwing out abrupt phrases. - "Tonight, an aerostat soared to the edge of the atmosphere. A sphere - instead of a wireless telegraph mast. Perhaps not the first. Possibly last night too. There's a stellar antenna on the dune. That one, in the helmet, works the apparatus. They're calling someone from the abyss of outer space. It seems they're not alone. They're rushing to make contact. With others, who race at the speed of light and - we can really say with confidence - no - even faster, racing through the silent depths of interstellar deserts. They're in a rush to communicate so that they won't be separated by an unimaginably huge distance, inaccessible even by their waves. They don't intend to stay here, on our Earth, an illuminated speck of dust hanging in the black void of the abyss. On a speck of dust, which they landed on only for a brief moment on their enormous voyage, and accidentally crashed. Their gesture with sand signifies a path through the stars. The delicate, multi-colored sparks in the antenna are the answer. You can expect them to appear any minute. Those who answered just now. Did you hear their voices?! They're now sending them a response."
Signals! Maybe directions!
Under the influence of the previous thought, he grabbed his head.
- "Our duty to humanity, to earthly culture, is not to break communication, not to miss the opportunity... An exceptional case, perhaps - one every thousands of years. Let's focus all our brain power on this. In ten minutes we need to find a solution. Let's move away, we'll unwittingly get distracted here."
He dragged me away from the camp, almost forcibly. We silently reached the abandoned blankets. Vragin sat down and turned around. The apparatus was silent. Half a minute later the floodlight went out. The earthly night surrounded us, shrouded us in darkness, and twinkled with stars...
VIII.
And then I saw how against the background of the dark blue sky above us, the edge of the cloud that covered the moon suddenly began to rotate, as if captured by a strong whirlwind in the air, or the upper end of a tornado, and was torn to shreds.
Sparks rained down on the dune like fireworks, a cloud of blue flame shot up and the dune blackened. The apparatus in the camp cracked five times in a row, broke off and fell silent. High above our very heads, a small cloud appeared in a sharp, perfect circle. Without moving from its center, without losing its perfect shape and thickness, it rapidly increased in diameter.
I barely had time to understand that it was falling like a rock, and in a second now it would fall upon us, as something enormous in the giant black circle was hanging over the ravine, tens of meters above the ground. Slowly, smoothly and silently it sank even lower and froze motionless in the air. Starting to understand, I watched with bated breath.
For a moment, a large oval of white light was shining on the sand all around us. The floodlight on the pole flickered, trembled, and went out. From below, the beam of another floodlight rose vertically and, resting on something impenetrable, illuminated the metal's flat, even, moving surface.
A huge disk the size of a large circus arena emerged out of the darkness, rotating slowly and silently like a gramophone record.
A narrow sheaf of rays from the lower floodlight shone in a white circle at its very center, far from covering the entire area of the metal, and through the thick darkness, only scattered and reflected the light that vaguely outlined the rest of the disk to its very edges, the borders of the huge circle, a half-lit mass hanging over us.
Then the ship of the ether sank even lower and hung with a flat, vast arch in the air, three sazhens above the ground.
The smooth surface of the metal above and the slightly undulating area of dimly lit sand below formed a wide, but narrow gap; the light of the floodlight in the center supported the low, flat ceiling like a pillar.
We ran towards the camp.
The floodlight illuminated the central portion of the ship's underside.
In the very center of the disk, which continued its slow rotation, the hole of a round hatch blackened in a wide convex frame of white polished metal. The immobility of the carriage indicated that only the ship's outer shell was rotating.
While Vragin, gesticulating, tried to explain something to the two large-eyed inhabitants of the distant world who were silently watching and trying to understand him, I observed an unfamiliar, unusual activity.
From the hatch, an elevator cage descended on two thin tubular rods. As soon as the one in the helmet went inside it, the cage took off and plunged into the black hatch. Following this, a large tangle of jumbled metal joints appeared and slowly began to crawl out of the hatch, crawled out and sluggishly unclenched into a huge hand and an elbow then lazily appeared behind the hand. It was as if the Cyclops, waking up, was stretching overhead. Half-opened fingers hung an arshin above the ground. Suddenly coming to life, the hand rose, turned bending its elbow, stretched out, extending over our heads under that very arch, the metal hand carefully lowered onto the two outer bales, and the metal fingers squeezed the bales like a hawk would a chicken, and in an instant disappeared inside the hatch with its prey.
One went to the dune - of course, to remove the antenna. Everything pointed to an imminent departure.
Low overhead, spreading far in all directions and lost in the twilight, the matte surface of the metal slowly rotated like a straight, even ceiling.
In a flash, a thought, a fearful human thought, flared up and grasped the heart with a clawed fear.
What if suddenly, for a second, the amazing force ceased to function, wrested from nature by the genius of these unknown creatures encased in metal armor? It would crash into the ground like a monstrous hammer, now raised above our heads - the terrible weight of the ship and these suspended machines. In a brief moment, the gap will close... In a moment, the unimaginable pain of crushed bones. Our heads under inexorable pressure. During these moments I wanted to run out from under the ship into the open space of my homeworld's night. But an even stronger voice, the voice of human pride and reason, ordered me to remain in place until the end.
IX.
The excited, joyful voice of Vragin shouted:
- "It's over! I've done it!.."
- "What?.. Are they staying?" - I rejoiced.
- "No, I'm going with them... It's my only way out of here. The connection will not be broken. I'll be back in ten to twenty years. During this time I'll be able to learn a great deal."
- "But you might not come back!"
- "I'll be back, believe me. They're definitely flying! A whole squadron. Take care of Lida."
We descended and rose up in the elevator. And the iron hand of the locked Cyclops that protruded from the hatch carefully and lightly placed the heavy cylinders and crates on the sand, as if it were playing with toys. Then, unexpectedly and silently, the aviostella broke from its place, rose several meters almost completely imperceptibly to the eye, and, without rotating, lowered its hatch, sped up, and disappeared behind the dune.
As dawn quickly arrived, we climbed on top of the dune. Above the sea, above the bulk of the ruined ship slightly protruding from the high tide water, almost touching the crests of the running shafts, hung the huge millstone of the aviostella, frozen in the air.
I then saw how like iron under a magnet obeying an unknown force, the bulk of the sunken ship was pulled out of the shallow water.
As if bound by invisible chains, the two airships rose together, one above the other, until they disappeared behind a mother-of-pearl cloud, scattering it to pieces. Here, the two circles, the two flat pills appeared in the bright sky and, quickly increasing in size, smoothly descended over the ravine.
From the side of the dunes, in the morning light, one could get an excellent view of the enormous size and shape of these amazing structures. Both alike in size and shape, they resembled a simple millstone enlarged to the area of a large circus. But even from the dunes I couldn't see whether or not there were any hatches or windows on top; only the edge of the upper section was visible, about ten meters from the lower one.
We went down into the ravine. In the narrow hole under the ship it was gloomy, ghastly. One ship hung with its hatch above the cargo. By the light coating of greenish algae, I recognized the newly raised ship.
A head peeked out from the open hatch. They, it would seem, have not all come to land.
The mechanical arm quickly pulled in the load.
Then our short-lived neighbors began to ascend. One handed me a folded map which was used during their recent explanations with Vragin. Vragin shook my hand.
- "Wait, give my last regards to Lida. Well, she won't forget me."
- "Nikolai Ivanovich!.."
He didn't let me finish.
- "Yes, I know. I know you, and I can be at ease. I'm counting on you. Wait for me... We'll land in the clearing behind the house... Though it will be in twenty-five years... Wait for me."
He once again shook my hand with his trembling hand. They raised up the last guest of the Earth. The empty cage lowered. Vragin entered. We exchanged a final handshake. Under my left palm, I felt the metal of the elevator, and the cage disappeared into the metal armor. A few moments later, Vragin's head and shoulders appeared behind the railing in the hatch.
- "Farewell!"
The hatch's opening was blackened by a round pupil... I heard from the darkness:
- "Farewell!.."
The pupil closed tightly, securely...
Imperceptible to the eye, the gray bulk of the giant millstone began to rise.
Faster, faster and even faster, the huge disk was spinning. Suddenly I noticed that it was already much higher than it had just been. A strip of blue sky appeared around it.
When it was at an altitude of several tens of meters, still continuing to rise vertically, and the eye could no longer notice the rotation, I began to look for another ship. Much higher, already at the height of a verst, quickly tapering in diameter, it stood overhead, screwing into the sky.[Translator's note: Verst, an antiquated measurement about 1.067 kilometers] Then the small circles contracted into dots. The dots then melted in the sky. The feeling of unimaginable nervous tension weakened and disappeared.
X.
I stood alone in the middle of the deserted ravine. There was a moment when suddenly I wanted to be there, with Vragin... At the cost of my life! Only the image of Lida and Vragin's last words prevented me from falling into the sand in despair.
Two days later, a dinghy with sailors under command of an officer of a British cruiser, who arrived too late in response to our telegraphed distress call, picked me up not that far from that spot.
The good sailors didn't want to leave without making an attempt to pick up survivors on the shore, and, while searching, they rowed around the part of the shore where the current and tides would wash up either the corpses or the living. I was half-delirious and did not want to part with the piece of colorful paper.
The young naval officer questioned me very carefully, and carefully examined and analyzed the map. It seems he even made a copy. But I almost nothing I told him was coherent, not out of any deliberate action, but because my thoughts were just running wild. I was delirious. He was probably not far from off figuring that out. And, of course, he was the only person I met who accepted the possibility of the events that I've recounted and could believe me.
XI.
- "Where's that map, Alexander Matveyevich?" - asked one of those listening to this unusual story.
The narrator pointed to the partition between the windows.
- "You, most likely, figured it was an enlarged map of Mars? Come closer! You know, no one's believed me... At best, they've advised me to take out a patent for the new composition of paints and method of papermaking which I've allegedly used to draw up this map."
- "And Lida?.." - I asked uncertainly.
He looked at his wife sitting next to him with a smile.
- "Lida will now treat you to tea. The bus to Sochi won't be here anytime soon." And he finished seriously:
- "And so we'll wait. They'll be coming down here. We have been waiting for 14 years and will wait until the end of our lives. They'll be back!.."
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