Robert Silverberg: Mournful Monster

The next day, they continued to forge onward. Marshall was still obsessed with the thought of the dead alien.

“Imagine,” he said to Lois. “An entire planet full of giants like that—can you picture even a city of them? Fantastic!”

“And all gone,” Lois said.

“Yes. Every one. Not a fossil remains. If we ever get back to civilization, I hope to be able to organize a search party to bring back the skeleton of that giant. It’ll be quite an exhibit at the Galactic Science Museum, if we ever find it.”

In the distance, a hyena cackled. A huge shadow crossed the path in front of them—the shadow of an enormous flying reptile winging its solitary way over the jungle. Far away, the rhythmic bellowing of some jungle creature resounded echoingly.

Marshall wondered if they ever would get back. They had covered many miles, sure enough, but they had not yet even reached the halfway point in their journey to New Lisbon. And who knew what dangers still lay ahead for them?

They marched on, through that day and the next, and the one after that. Heat closed in around them like a veil, and the rain was frequent and annoying. But they managed. They killed for meat, and fished when they came to water, and by this time they had all become experts on which vegetables were edible and which were likely to provide a night of indigestion and cramps.

Day blurred into day. Marshall’s beard became long and tangled. They looked like four jungle creatures rather than Earthmen.

And then one day shortly after high noon—

“Look!” Garvey yelled shrilly. “Look up there, everyone! Look!”

Marshall could hear the droning sound even before he could raise his eyes. He looked up, feeling the pulse of excitement go through him. There, limned sharply against the bright metallic blueness of the afternoon sky, a twin-engine plane circled the jungle!

For a moment they were all too numb, too stupefied with joy to react. Marshall was the first to break from his stasis.

“The flare-gun—where is it?”

“In the survival kit!” Garvey exclaimed.

Hasty hands ripped open the fabric of the kit that had served them so long. Marshall hurriedly jerked out the flare-gun, inserted a charge with fumbling fingers, lifted the gun, fired.

A blaze of red light blossomed in the sky. Shading his eyes, Marshall saw the plane wheel round to investigate. He inserted another flare and fired it.

“Shirts off, everyone! Signal to them!”

They waved frantically. Minutes passed; then, the hatch of the plane opened and a small dark object dropped through. A parachute bellied open immediately. The plane circled the area and streaked off toward the east.

Through some sort of miracle the parachute did not become snagged in the trees on the way down, and the package came to rest not far from where the four stood. Marshall and the others ran for it. They found a note pinned to the wrapping:

We were just about to give up hope of ever finding any of the crash survivors when we saw the flares go up. Your area is too heavily wooded to allow for a landing, and so we’re returning to New Lisbon to get a ’copter. Remain exactly where you are now. We expect to be back in about two hours. In the meantime we’re dropping some provisions to tide you over until we return.

“We’re going to be rescued!” Lois cried. “They’ve found us!”

“It’s like a miracle!” Garvey’s wife exclaimed.

The two hours seemed to take forever. The four squatted over the provisions kit, munching with delight on chocolate and fruit, and smoking their first cigarettes since the day of the crash.

Finally they heard the droning sound of a helicopter’s rotors overhead.

There it was—descending vertically, coming to a halt in their clearing. Three men sprang from the helicopter the moment it reached the ground. One wore the uniform of a medic. They sprinted toward the survivors. Marshall became uncomfortably aware of his own uncouth appearance, and saw the women attempting to cover the exposed parts of their anatomy in sudden new-found modesty.

“Well! I’m Captain Collins of the New Lisbon airbase. I certainly didn’t expect to be picking up any survivors of that crash!”

“My name’s David Marshall,” Marshall said. He introduced the others.

“You the only survivors?”

Marshall nodded. “A fifth man was thrown from the plane alive, but he died later. We’re the only ones who survived. How far are we from New Lisbon?”

“Oh, three hundred fifty miles, I’d say.”

Marshall frowned. “Three hundred fifty? That means we covered better than six hundred miles on foot since the crash. But aren’t you a little far from home base? How come you searched for us here?”

The New Lisbon man looked uncomfortable, “Well, to tell the truth, it was a kind of a hunch. We got this crazy message—”

“Message?”

“Yes. A few days back. Damn near everyone in the colony heard it. It was a kind of telepathic voice telling us that there were still a few survivors from the crash, and giving an approximate position. So we sent out a few scouts. Say, any one of you folks a telepath?”

“No, not us,” Marshall said. “It must have been the alien.”

“Alien? There’s an alien here?”

“Past tense. He’s dead.” Marshall smiled oddly. “But he must have decided to do us one last favor before he died. In return for the favor we were doing him. He must have broadcast a telepathic message to New Lisbon.”

The New Lisbon man eyed Marshall strangely. “Are you telling me that you found an intelligent alien in the jungle?”

“That’s right. And we’re going to go back and locate the body, and see if we can preserve it for science. It’s the least we can do for him. At least one remnant of his race will be preserved. They won’t die away without leaving a trace,” Marshall said, as he walked toward the helicopter that would take him back to civilization.