John Brunner - To Conquer Chaos

They were at the mid-point of this eight-hour stage when Yanderman, slightly in the lead as usual, stopped abruptly and gave a gasp that turned Conrad’s heart over.

“What is it?” he demanded.

“Look!” Yanderman pointed at a sheltered cranny between two boulders, and Conrad peered down.

There was a plant there-the first they had seen on the barrenland. But it was no reassurance. It did have leaves and stems like an honest vegetable, but the leaves were a blackish brown stained with white fuzz, and the stems were brittle and dry-looking.

“Don’t touch it!” Yanderman warned. “I’ve never seen anything like it, have you?”

Conrad shook his head.

For a little while they remained, studying the curious intruder; then Yanderman sighed and made to move on. “Keep an eye out for any more plants,” he ordered. “If it’s true that there’s an island in the barrenland where people have clung to life, we may get a guide towards it from an increasingly dense vegetation.”

There was no real increase in density, however; only a thin scattering of alien plants, perhaps one in a hundred paces, whose single comforting quality was that unlike the things which moved they did occur in distinct family groups.

The next two or three hours found them scrambling among rocks and plodding down rain-eroded gullies. The sensation was akin to being an ant crawling over a skeleton, and Conrad felt a prickling of the scalp every time he encountered another of the mysterious plants. Yet nothing moved or seemed to threaten them; he forced himself to concentrate on making progress rather than giving way to wild fancies.

Yanderman had just paused to make another distance-mark on his map, and to promise a sight of water within the hour, when the welkin rang with an ear-splitting hoot from a short distance away. Map forgotten, gun swinging to the ready position, Yanderman ordered Conrad to dive for cover.

When long minutes of staring had failed to reveal the creature which had given that appalling bellow-it was certainly an animal noise-he got up slowly.

“I think it’s close,” he whispered. “Perhaps over that rise to our left. Come with me, but move carefully.”

Conrad complied, wishing he could head in the opposite direction. But when they topped the rise and could see the thing that had hooted, he felt ashamed of the panicky impulse.

It was as enormous as its voice, but it was clearly no danger to them, for it was dying.

As long as twenty men, the thing lay among boulders in the slanting afternoon sunlight. It had no discernible head or limbs-only a vast massing of bulbous bladders of many hues and all sizes from that of a man’s head to that of a horse’s belly. Between the bladders trailed ragged white membranes, dry and curling at the edges as though the sun were too much for them to withstand.

A wide smeared trail indicated the direction from which it had come: roughly, from the north. By what means of progress? By crawling? That seemed absurd to Conrad-why should such a colossus have to crawl?

Yet apparently that was the truth. For now it heaved and humped itself and tried to move onwards, and the source of the incredible noise was suddenly clear. A sharp boulder struck one of the distended bladders, ripped it, and the gas within came gushing out to the accompaniment of another deafening hoot, leaving behind more of the drying whitish membrane.

“It’s helpless,” Yanderman said softly. “We can leave it be.”

“I’ll be glad to!” Conrad admitted. “What-what is it?”

“If it’s true that there are other worlds than this, and the things hail from them, that might have been born on a world of the kind where-” He checked himself, then resumed with a shake of his head. “Where things weigh less than they do here. This is another aspect of the story I’ve never understood. Weight is weight, and you’d think-but never mind. What matters here and now is that the course this creature has followed leads back to its point of origin.”

“You mean we should go that way?” Conrad gasped. “To the very place where the things come from?”

Yanderman cocked his head. “Has it only just struck you?” he said with genuine astonishment. “Logically, if we’re hunting for survivors in the middle of the barrenland whose duty is to try and stop the things emerging into the world, we have to go where they are-to the middle.”

“I suppose so,” Conrad said. “But I wish …”

Yanderman clapped him on the shoulder. “Bear up!” he said. “Tomorrow afternoon at latest we should reach the centre of the barrenland, and all our questions will be answered. Mark you, for every question that’s answered we’ll probably learn to ask a score of new ones, but that’s hardly to be helped.”

Conrad essayed a smile at the joke, gave a last glance at the dying monster, and moved on.

It was more disconcerting than ever when late that night Yanderman mentioned the possibility of the survivors at the centre regarding strangers with hostility. Again, Conrad had had the information to go on, and hadn’t used it. If Rost and the wise men of Lagwich could argue that a man from the barrenland was by definition a devil, the cut-off community here-if it existed-might feel similarly.

Yanderman had a precaution against that risk, however. He sketched in a line of rocky hills to the east of the centre point, which he had located in one of Conrad’s visions. A detour in that direction, he argued, would give plenty of cover for their final approach, and a chance to sum the place up before showing themselves.

It made sense. But when he was scrambling among the rocks late the following afternoon, Conrad found himself once again wishing he was anywhere but here. His mouth was dry, his feet were blistered and cut, his hands were scratched, his shoulders ached from the weight of his equipment-

And he had forgotten all his discomforts within the past second. Flat on his belly beside Yanderman, peering over a rim of rock, he saw the most incredible sight he had ever dreamed of, far surpassing anything in his familiar visions.

A sort of dome lay ahead, between them and the setting sun, so vast that one had to turn one’s head to take it all in. Gashed and holed, slightly buckled, it was still mind-shaking. Like a super-monster it lay stranded in the sea of the desert, blotched with smears of greenish vegetation, creepers and free-standing plants. At one end there was a cluster of smaller buildings- buildings, for all that they were tiny and ramshackle. At the other, so dwarfed by the immensity of the dome, there were …

“Are those people?” Conrad said in a shaking voice.

“Yes!” Yanderman’s answer was equally unsteady, and when Conrad glanced around he was astonished to see that his companion’s cheeks were bright with tears. “Yes, Conrad, they’re people, and it’s true, it’s all true! I was so terrified we might come here and find only desolation, but we were right!”

Conrad stared towards the insect-sized group of human beings again. They were moving purposefully, following a plan, under orders. They knew what they were doing. They must hold the key to the mystery of the barrenland and the origin of the terrifying things which wandered out of it to Lagwich … And surely they couldn’t be hostile to visitors from the outside world. They’d know there was an outside-why, if Rost’s “devil” had been a man, that implied they’d even attempted to reach it! What could have gone wrong? He and Yanderman had made the crossing uneventfully enough, but of course they’d had a compass and the aid of his own vision-memories-

He was so lost in thought that at first he didn’t realise what was happening at the foot of the dome before him. Only a cry from Yanderman and the snicking of a rifle-bold brought him to full awareness.