Edmund Cooper: A Far Sunset

The star ship blew itself to glory, as the three of them knew it would, on the thirty-fifth day of their imprisonment in the donjons of Baya Nor. If they had shared the same cell, they might have been able to help each other; but since the day of their capture they had been kept separate. Their only contacts had been the noia who lived with each of them and the guards who brought their food.

The explosion was like an earthquake. It shook the very foundations of Baya Nor. The god-king consulted his council, the council consulted the oracle; and the oracle consulted the sacred bones, shivered, went into a trance and emerged from it a considerable time later to announce that this was the signal of Oruri, that Oruri had marked Baya Nor down for greatness, and that the coming of the strangers was a favourable omen.

The strangers themselves, however, knew nothing of these deliberations. They were incarcerated with their noias until they were rational enough—which meant until they had learned the language—to be admitted to the presence of the god-king.

Unfortunately the god-king, Enka Ne the 609th, was not destined to make the acquaintance of all of them; for the destruction of the star ship was a very traumatic experience. Each of the strangers wore an electronic watch, each of them had been able to keep a very accurate calendar. And each of them knew to the minute when the main computer would finally admit to itself that the crew had either abandoned the ship or were unable to return. At which point the main computer—for reasons obvious to the people who had built the vessel—was programmed to programme destruction. Which meant simply that the controls were lifted from the atomic generator. The rest would take care of itself.

Each of the strangers in his cell began a private countdown, at the same time hoping that one or more of the other nine members of the crew would return in time. None of them did. And so the star ship was transformed into a mushroom cloud, a circle of fire burnt itself out in the northern forests of Baya Nor, and a small glass-lined crater remained to commemorate the event.

In the donjons of Baya Nor, the second engineer went insane. He curled himself up into a tight foetal ball. But since he was not occupying a uterus, and since there was no umbilical cord to supply him with sustenance, and since the noia who was his only companion knew nothing at all about intravenous feeding, he eventually starved himself to death.

The chief navigator reacted with violence. He strangled his noia and then contrived to hang himself.

Oddly enough, the only member of the crew who managed to remain sane and survive was the star ship’s psychiatrist. Being temperamentally inclined to pessimism, he had spent the last fifteen days of his captivity psychologically conditioning himself.

And so, when the donjons trembled, when his noia cowered under the bed and when in his mind’s eye he saw the beautiful shape of the star ship convulsed instantly into a great ball of fire, he repeated to himself hypnotically: ‘My name is Poul Mer Lo. I am an alien. But this planet will be my home. This is where I must live and die. This is where I must now belong … My name is Poul Mer Lo. I am an alien. But this planet will be my home. This is where I must live and die. This is where I must now belong…’

Despite the tears that were running unnoticed down his cheeks, Poul Mer Lo felt extraordinarily calm. He looked at his noia, crouching under the bed. Though he did not yet perfectly understand the language, he realized that she was muttering incantations to ward off evil spirits.

Suddenly, he felt a strange and tremendous sense of pity.

‘Mylai Tui,’ he said, addressing her formally. ‘There is no thin g to fear. What you have heard and felt is not the wrath of Oruri. It is something that I can understand, although I cannot explain it to you. It is something very sad, but without danger for you or your people.’

Mylai Tui came out from under the bed. In thirty-five days and nights she had learned a great deal about Poul Mer Lo. She had given him her body, she had given him her thoughts, she had taught him the tongue of Baya Nor. She had laughed at his awkwardness and his stupidity. She had been surprised by his tenderness, and amazed by his friendship. Nobody—but nobody—ever acknowledged friendship for a simple noia.

Except the stranger, Poul Mer Lo.

‘My lord weeps,’ she said uncertainly. ‘I take courage from the words of Poul Mer Lo. But his sadness is my sadness. Therefore I, too, must weep.’

The psychiatrist looked at her, wondering how it would be possible to express himself in a language that did not appear to consist of more than a few hundred different words. He touched his face and was surprised to find tears.

‘I weep,’ he said calmly, ‘because of the death of a great and beautiful bird. I weep because I am far from the land of my people, and I do not think that I shall ever return…’ He hesitated. ‘But I rejoice, Mylai Tui, that I have known you. And I rejoice that I have discovered the people of Baya Nor.’

The girl looked at him. ‘My lord has the gift of greatness,’ she said simply. ‘Surely the god-king will look on you and be wise.’

That evening, when at last he managed to get to sleep, Poul Mer Lo had nightmares. He dreamed that he was encased in a transparent tube. He dreamed that there was a heavy hoar frost all over his frozen body, covering even his eyes, choking his nostrils, sealing his stiff immovable lips. He dreamed also that he dreamed.

And in the dream wi thin a dream there were rolling cornfields, rippling towards the horizon as far as the eye could see. There was a blue sky in which puffy white clouds drifted like fat good-natured animals browsing lazily on blue pastures.

There was a dwelling—a house with walls of whitened mud and crooked timbers and a roof of smoky yellow reeds. Suddenly he was inside the house. There was a table. His shoulder was just about as high as the table. He could see delicious mountains of food—all the things that he liked to eat best.

There were toys. One of them was a star ship on a launching pad. You set the ship on the launcher, cranked the little handle as far back as you could, then pressed the Go button. And off went the star ship like a silver bird.

The good giant, his father, said: ‘Happy birthday, my son.’

The wicked witch, his mother, said: ‘Happy birthday, darling.’

And suddenly he was back in the transparent tube, with the hoar frost sealing his lips so that he could neither laugh nor cry.

There was terror and coldness and loneliness.

The universe was nothing but a great ball of nothing, punctured by burning needle points, shot through with the all-embracing mirage of stillness and morion, of purpose and irrelevance.

He had never known that silence could be so profound, that darkness could be so deep, that starlight could be so cold.

The universe dissolved.

There was a city, and in the city a restaurant, and in the restaurant a specimen of that vertical biped, the laughing mammal. She had hair the colour of the cornfields he remembered from childhood. She had eyes that were as blue as the skies of childhood. She had beautiful lips, and the sounds that came from them were like nothing at all in his childhood. Above all, she emanated warmth. She was the richness of high summer, the promise of a great sweet harvest.

She said: ‘So the world is not enough?’ It was a question to which she already knew the answer.

He smiled. ‘You are enough, but the world is too small.’

She toyed with her drink. ‘One last question, the classic question, and then we’ll forget everything except this night… Why do you really have to go out to the stars?’