Ivan Yefremov - Andromeda (A Space-Age Tale)

While still air-borne Darr Veter noticed huge patches on the dull steel-grey plain — the one on the right was almost circular and the other was more elongated, an oval with the narrow end turned away from the other. These patches had been made by the spaceships of the 38th Cosmic Expedition that had recently left.

The circle came from the spaceship Tintagelle that had gone to the terrible star T and was loaded with all sorts of apparatus for the siege of the disc ship from distant worlds. The oval was made by Aella whose ascent was less steep; this ship was taking a large group of scientists to investigate the changes in matter that took place on the white dwarf of the triple star Omicron 2 Eridani. The ash that remained where the ships’ exhausts had burnt up the stony ground was about five feet thick and was covered with a binding material to prevent its being wind-carried. All that remained was to move the red fences from the old take-off ground, and this would be done as soon as Lebed left.

And there stood Lebed, iron-grey in her heat armour that would burn off during her passage through the atmosphere. After that the ship would continue its flight with gleaming walls capable of reflecting any known radiations. Nobody, however, would see it in this magnificence except the robot astronomers that tracked the flight: these machines would provide the people with nothing more than photographs of a flashing dot in the sky. When a ship came back to Earth it was always covered with dross and scored with furrows and hollows made by the explosions of tiny meteoric bodies. Darr Veter remembered how Tantra had returned — greyish-green and rust-red with parts of her outer walling in a state of collapse. None of the people standing around Lebed would ever see her again since none of them could live the hundred and seventy-two years that must elapse before she returned — a hundred and sixty-eight independent years of travel and four years to explore the planets….

Darr Veter’s work was such that he would probably not live long enough even for the ship to arrive at the planet of the green star. Just as in those days of doubt, Darr Veter once again felt great admiration for the bold ideas of Renn Bose and Mven Mass. What did it matter that their experiment had failed — what did it matter that the problem, one which affected the very foundations of the Cosmos, was still far from solution — what did it matter, if it was all nothing more than a figment of the imagination…. These lunatics were giants of creative thought for even in the refutation of their theories and the failure of their experiments people would make tremendous progress in many fields of knowledge.

Lost in thought, Darr Veter almost stumbled over the signal indicating the safety zone, turned round and saw a well-known figure. Running his fingers through his unruly red hair and screwing up his sharp eyes, Renn Bose came running towards him. A network of thin, scarcely perceptible scars had changed the face of the physicist by wrinkling it into an expression of pained intensity.

“I’m glad to see you well again, Renn!”

“I want you urgently!” said Renn Bose, holding his tiny freckled hands out to Veter.

“What are you doing here, so long before the take-off?”

“I saw Aella off, I’m very interested in the gravitation of such a heavy star. I heard you would come and so I waited for you.”

Darr Veter waited for an explanation.

“I hear you are returning to the observatory of the Outer Stations as Junius Antus has requested.”

Darr Veter nodded.

“Antus has recently recorded several undeciphered messages received from a Great Circle transmission.”

“Every month messages are received outside the usual transmission hours and each month the transmission time is advanced by two terrestrial hours. In the course of a year’s testing this amounts to an earthly day and in eight years it makes a whole hundred-thousandth of a galactic second. That is how the gaps in the reception of the Cosmos are filled in. During the last six months of the eight-year cycle we have been receiving incomprehensible messages that undoubtedly come from a great distance.”

“I’m very interested in them and would like you to take me as your assistant.”

“It would be better for me to help you. We’ll examine the records of the memory machines together.”

“What about Mven Mass?”

“We’ll take him, of course.”

“Veter, that’s just wonderful. I feel very awkward since that ill-fated experiment of mine, I’ve a feeling of guilt as far as the Council is concerned. But I can get along easily with you even if you are a member of the Council and a former Director and the one who advised me against the experiment.”

“Mven Mass is also a member of the Council.”

The physicist thought for a while, smiled at some memory of his own.

“Mven Mass, he has a feeling for my ideas and tries to concretise them for me.”

“Wasn’t it in the concretisation that you made a mistake?”

Renn Bose frowned and changed the subject.

“Is Veda Kong coming here?”

“Yes, I’m waiting for her. Did you know that she almost lost her life during the investigation of a cave, some ancient technical storehouse where there was a closed steel door?”

“It’s the first I’ve heard of it.”

“I forgot that unlike Mven Mass you have no great interest in history. The whole planet is discussing the affair and wondering what might be behind the door. Millions of people have volunteered to dig it out. Veda has given the problem to the Academy of Stochastics and Prognostication. Is Evda Nahl coming here?”

“No, she can’t come.”

“A lot of people will be disappointed! Veda’s very fond of Evda and Chara is simply devoted to her. D’you remember Chara?”

“That’s the panther-like girl… either Gypsy or Indian in origin!”

Darr Veter spread his hands in mock horror.

“How well you appreciate feminine beauty! However, I’m always making the mistake that people made in the past when they did not know anything about the laws of psychophysiology and heredity. I always want to see my feelings and my perceptions in other people.”

“Evda, like everybody else on the planet,” said Renn Bose, ignoring Veter’s confessions, “will be watching the take-off.”

The physicist pointed to a row of high tripods carrying chambers for white, infrared and ultra-violet reception placed in a semi-circle around the spaceship. The different groups of spectral rays introduced into the coloured reproduction made the screen breathe with real warmth and life in the same way as the overtone diaphragms [27] Overtone Diaphragms — diaphragms that transmit the overtones of the human voice and so remove all difference between the living voice and the sounds of its reproduction (imaginary). destroyed the metallic resonance in the transmission of the human voice.

Darr Veter looked towards the north whence came the heavily laden automatic electrobuses, swaying across the earth. Veda Kong jumped out of the first bus to arrive and ran towards them, catching her feet in the grass. At a run she threw herself on Darr Veter’s broad chest with such force that the long plaits that hung down from either side of her head were thrown over his shoulders and hung down his back.

Darr Veter held Veda off at some distance and looked into that infinitely dear face to which her unusual hair-do imparted new qualities.

“I was playing the Northern Queen of the Dark Ages for a children’s film,” she said, panting slightly. “I hardly had time to change and could not stop to do my hair.”

Darr Veter could imagine her in a long, tight brocade dress and a golden crown with blue stones, her ash-blonde plaits reaching down below her knees, with fearless grey eyes — and he smiled with pleasure.