Edmund Cooper - Seahorse in the Sky

The next group of buildings, similar in shape and size, were, however, open to inspection. Leaving his companions outside, Russell entered the first one and found that it contained stores of some kind—long, low racks on which were neatly stacked metal, plastic and ceramic objects. Some of them looked as if they might be machine parts, while others looked like vessels of some kind. He stared at the long racks and was no wiser.

But in the second building, whose door was open, he discovered a workshop or laboratory staffed and operated by a number of spider robots. Russell sensed that they were aware of his presence; but they ignored him and scuttled about their tasks with complete indifference. He stayed for a while, trying to find out what they were doing. But their actions and the equipment they were using made little sense to him.

Finally, when Anna called out anxiously, he went out into the sunlight and recounted what he had seen. It was only while he was trying to describe the interior to Farn zem Marur that Russell realized he had seen no source of light in the buildings, yet everything had been as visible as if the structures were made out of transparent glass, and the igloos were penetrated by daylight.

With time passing, the sun having passed its zenith, Russell became impatient to press on to the column and the green translucent bubble that rested on top of it, vast and awe-inspiring, yet still looking so insubstantial that it might drift away on the next breath of wind. But, before they reached the column, they saw yet another group of buildings that were of an entirely different character from the previous ones.

There were five of the buildings altogether, each made out of stone or concrete and shaped like a cone.

The buildings were about thirty metres high, with small V-shaped openings in the walls near the bases.

Russell crawled through one of the openings—it was not big enough for him to walk through—and found himself in semi-darkness. When his eyes had adjusted to the gloom, he found that the building contained nothing but a series of plastic poles, each set horizontally in the wall, at right angles to it, and parallel with the floor. If all the poles, ten or twelve centimetres in diameter, had been extended they would have met in the centre of the building like the spokes of a giant wheel whose rim was embedded in the walls. But each of the spokes was only four or five metres long. And there were many of them. Too many to be counted easily…

They reminded him of something, but he could not recollect what it was until he was out in the sunlight once more, telling Anna and Farn zem Marur what he had seen.

Then he remembered. The poles reminded him of perches in a chicken house. And was it his imagination, or had there really been a trace of sweet-scented droppings on the floor of the gloomy interior?

In retrospect, he felt that he had been oddly aware of recent occupation. But there was no evidence of this and he dismissed it as a trick of the mind— suggested, perhaps, by his comparison of the poles with perches for fowls to roost upon.

Now, as the three of them stood at the base of the great metal column that rose giddily into the sky, supporting its green surrealistic bloom that cast a strange penumbra over the whole scene, Russell reviewed the events of the morning and was aware of two things. The first was that, apart from a brief glimpse of ‘fairies’ or ‘demons’, they had seen no living creatures. The second was that it was impossible to make any sense out of the evidence of civilization that had been discovered so far.

He was discouraged. He had lost his fear now, and was simply discouraged. He did not know what he had really expected to find. Yet he had certainly not expected indifference and emptiness. He was beginning to think that they would have to go back to the boat without having discovered anything that would enable them to establish contact with their captors or that would explain some of the mystery of their predicament.

The column and the bubble were massive, silent, inscrutable. They might be nothing more, thought Russell bitterly, than some monstrous alien cenotaph. What a joke it would be if they had travelled this far only to find a vast memorial to the dead of an unknown race!

But what of the machines, the stores, the spider robots, the perches? His head was aching and he was very tired. He looked at Anna and Farn zem Marur. The lines of fatigue and perplexity were etched on their faces also.

“We are not winning,” he said. “We are no wiser. Perhaps we ought to eat something then get back to the boat before sunset, if we can. By that time we shall all be in need of a good night’s rest.”

It was at that moment, as they turned away, that there was a great sound as of distant thunder.

Then a voice that seemed to fill the world rolled across the sky and spoke to them.

“Greetings!” it said. “From the Vruvyir to their children, greetings!”

Then, suddenly, all about them there was light and movement. And the air was a riot of iridescent wings.

THE VRUVYIR, RUSSELL realized dimly, were not fairies, not demons, not dragonflies. They were people. They had supple, almost reptilian bodies with suckers in the tail, which they clamped firmly to the ground, their roost poles or anything to which they wished to attach themselves. They had reptilian bodies, two pairs of short arms, two pairs of bright transparent wings and dazzling golden tendrils which fell in shaggy profusion over their amber faces. And they had faces strangely like those of grave sea-horses.

Yet they were people.

They were people because they had society and culture—and a science and a technology as yet undreamed of by such simple creatures as mankind. Above all, they were people because they had language—and the gift of tongues. Clearly, they were a great people.

Russell did not experience fear. He felt a great sensation of awe.

They had materialized—or so it seemed—out of thin air. And now they were ranged around the base of the great column, poised motionless upon their tails, occasionally fluttering their beautiful wings, and regarding with expressions of bland serenity the three human beings who confronted them.

Farn zem Marur stared at them with ashen face and with sword in hand. Anna held her crossbow unsteadily. Russell glanced at the grenade he was holding, then smiled and put it gently down at his feet.

The voice that seemed to fill the world rolled across the sky and spoke to them again. Russell looked at the Vruvyir. Their faces were mask-like, their sea-horse lips immobile. Yet the voice that spoke impeccable English—and. he supposed, perfect Russian and perfect Gren Li—was a real voice. The sound of it seemed to shake the very earth on which he stood.

“The Vruvyir, having greeted their children, ask: why have you come to this place?”

Russell licked his lips. The expressionless faces and the voice that came from nowhere unnerved him. When he spoke, his own voice was no more than a whisper. He could barely hear it himself, yet he was convinced that every one of the strange beings heard it clearly.

“Because there is much that we wish to know. Because we need to understand.”

Laughter rolled across the sky. “Children! Children! You need to understand?”

“Yes, we need to understand,” asserted Russell. “We need to know why we have been taken from our own worlds. We need to know why we were imprisoned behind a barrier of mist. We need to know what future there can be for us in a world that is not ours.”

Again the laughter rolled. “Children! Does the rat in the cage need to understand the scientist’s purpose? Does the earthworm need to grasp the ecology of nature? Does the amoeba need to comprehend parturition?”