Edmund Cooper: Seahorse in the Sky

Then he added inscrutably: “Therefore, I rejoice to find my friends as they are.”

“How is Farn?” asked Russell. “Is he well and rested?”

Absu met the question with another question. “Lord Russell,” said Absu formally, “I require to know how my pathfinder bore himself. Did he bring dishonour to his sept?”

Russell was shaken. “Farn zem Marur, your servant and our friend and companion, is a brave man.

He endured much and with great courage.”

“Then there is no debt to pay?”

Russell was puzzled. “What kind of debt?”

Absu appeared tremendously relieved. “No matter, Russell.

It was my duty to ask. I am glad the pathfinder carried himself as a man. That is enough.”

“How is he?”

“Dead.”

“Dead!”

“He returned,” said Absu, “tormented by visions. He spoke of a green sun, and of voices and of dragons. He spoke much that I could neither understand nor wish to understand. Finally, realizing his own affliction in a moment of lucidity, he ran upon a lance. Perhaps it was best. I did not care to look upon him in such distress.”

“Absu,” said Russell, “Farn zem Marur was not mad. He was a valiant comrade, and I do not doubt that he spoke truly of what he had seen and heard. It is hard for me to find the words to tell you, but I will try to explain all that happened to us.”

When he had finished speaking, Absu remained silent. He was silent for a long time. He, Russell and Anna were sitting by themselves on the steps outside the hotel, watching the stars turn bleakly and remotely in a still strange and alien sky.

“Clearly,” said Absu at length, “the Vruvyir are great magicians.” He smiled. “But you, also, are a sept of magicians. Therefore the odds are not too great.”

Russell shook his head. “There is no war, Absu. It is not a question of lances or of magic.”

“I know that, my friend. We have a task. It is our task to demonstrate that we are men.”

“It is our task,” said Anna, “to show that we are one race.”

“Above all,” said Russell simply, “we have to grow. We really have to grow.”

But it was Absu mes Marur, duplicate of Absu mes Marur, lord of sept Marur, gonfalonier of the western keeps, and charioteer of the red spice caravans, who summed it ail up “It is written,” he said softly,

“that if the seed be fertile, and if the weather be passing fair, the harvest will be bountiful. It is written in the earth. It is written in the sky.”

IN THE YEAR 741 A.V. at Port Grahame, the first orbital rocket sat on its launching pad. The skin was of pyro-titanium; and upon it, painted in deep crimson, there was the emblem of a sea-horse with wings.

Two kilometres away in a blockhouse that had been built on the site of an hotel demolished long ago, a man and a woman watched the countdown.

Jansel Guptiregson had long golden hair and a deceptively beautiful face that concealed the mind of a brilliant mathematician. Varn Graymark was bald and small and intensely masculine. He was the telecommunications expert. They loved each other. But then they loved many people.

“Ninety seconds,” said Varn. “All systems operate. What can stop us now? That damned old sea-horse is going to lift.”

“There is no such creature as a sea-horse, Varn. I don’t know why you insisted on the symbol.

Why not a winged pulpul? Why not a flying lance?”

“You’ve read the Book of Howard?”

“Sixty seconds. Of course I’ve read the Book of Howard. It is still required in Middle School.

Though why they can’t give a bit more time to comparative religion, I’ll never know.”

“In the Book of Howard,” said Varn, “there is the story of Creation. You will recall, no doubt, the Lord Russell’s encounter with the winged sea-horse in the Globe of Life.”

“So?”

“So I like the notion. It’s absurd, beautiful. I like it… Forty-five seconds.”

“But why a myth? Why not something real? Something practical?”

Varn Graymark laughed. “You, a mathematician, deriding myths! What will I hear next?”

“Thirty seconds,” said Jansel. “Myth or not, it is a beautiful creature. I suppose it is the kind of nonsense that appeals.”

Varn laughed. “My mother still believes that Lord Russell was the first man to break out of the Garden of Erewhon. She prays to his ghost every night.”

“Do you believe in ghosts?”

“Twenty seconds. No, I believe in people. But one should always be able to afford some spiritual extravagance.”

“Fifteen seconds,” said Jansel. “What is your spiritual extravagance?”

Varn Graymark laughed. “I want to find a place that doesn’t exist,” he said. “That’s why I was drawn to rocketry. I want to find a planet called Earth. The abode of the gods.”

“Ten,” said Jansel. “You’re crazy.”

“Nine. So I am.”

“Eight. I want your child.”

“Seven. It’s a pleasure.”

“Six. What shall we call him?”

“Five. Absu.”

“Four. Why?”

“Three. Because.”

“Two. Unanswerable.”

“One. You understand.”

“Zero. I understand.”

“It’s away!” shouted Varn exuberantly. “It’s up and away! The first stage in the journey. A fiery sea-horse leaping out among the stars.”

He peered through the triple window, listening to the muted roar of the rocket engines. It sounded like a great chord of music swelling to the sky. For a moment, the crimson sea-horse seemed to sit majestically on a tail of fire. Then, as if having made a decision, it rose, accelerating smoothly through the long arc that led to an orbital path.

Varn Graymark was thinking; and, as usual, he was thinking fancifully. This day a key was turning in a lock. This day a door would be opened. This day a staircase would be revealed.

No doubt it would be a long and hazardous climb to the stars. But surely it was in the very nature of man to make such journeys. Just as it was in the nature of man to dream such dreams.

All Fool’s Day

A Far Sunset

Five To Twelve

Kronk

Who Needs Men?

The Uncertain Midnight

The Last Continent

Transit

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