John Brunner - To Conquer Chaos

The guess was correct. It was the old man himself who broke the spell after a moment’s quick consultation with two or three other mature men of the group. He put his hands to his mouth and called out.

“We are the descendants of Station Repair and Maintenance Crews A through G!” he shouted, his voice cracking a little. “Who are you?”

Silently uttering a prayer in memory of the Duke, who had accurately predicted this encounter, Yanderman called back. “Jervis Yanderman of Esberg and-uh-Conrad Lagwich! I hope we did right to kill this thing you drove towards us!”

Conrad gave him a respectful glance. He had barely managed to follow the old man’s pronunciation, let alone make sense of the words he used. He whispered, “ What did he say they were?”

Surprised, Yanderman glanced at him. “Don’t you-? Oh, of course not. That was something I dug out of you in trance, which you don’t remember consciously. I’ll explain later.”

“Come forward and be welcome!” the old man shouted. “It’s a long time since we saw anyone from the outside world!”

“How long?” Yanderman asked. There was a pause for consultation. When the answer came, Conrad could hardly believe it.

“About four hundred and sixty years, we think!”

Now some of the old man’s more venturesome companions were cautiously closing on the collapsed monster. A last tentacle twitched, and a young man with an axe dived to the ground to avoid it, while one of his companions, wielding a single-edged sword, slashed it in two. The severed part seemed to have a life of its own, and writhed for minutes, making Conrad’s scalp crawl.

He tried to concentrate on the people instead. They were all, without exception, short and wiry and most of them were heavily tanned. Their clothing was various; some of them wore jerseys and pants of dark but clean-looking material, while others wore only a kind of kilt supplemented with belts and other body-harness. They were staring at him with just as much curiosity as he was exhibiting, but not at all uncivilly. It was as though they had been waiting personally for this moment … waiting four hundred and sixty years.

With gravity, the old man bowed to Yanderman and then put out his hand. “Do you-do you have any news of my son?” he said after a pause.

“Your son?” Yanderman said slowly. He looked around the silent group of isolates. “Was it your son who set out to cross the barrenland and reach the outside world? About twelve years ago?”

“Yes.”

“Then I am afraid he is dead. The journey was too much for him. But it was because we found his remains that we set out in search of you.” Yanderman phrased the half-truth instantly.

The old man winced and put his hand on the arm of the girl beside him for support. He said, “So! Still, if his death served to bring you here, that’s a reward.” He coughed, a dust-dry noise. “Well, no matter now. I myself am Maxall-Chief Engineer, I suppose one would say if one kept up the ancient forms. Ah … Keefe, crew boss Maintenance,” he went on, indicating the one-eyed man who had helped him out from the vicinity of the dome. “Egrin, crew boss Hydroponics-oh, and my granddaughter Nestamay here.”

The girl at his side shook back her long hair and smiled, and Conrad felt suddenly faint.

He had seen that face before. He had copied that face, struggling to make it more like Idris’s, as he carved his fine white block of soap the day of Yanderman’s arrival in Lagwich, the day his life was turned topsy-turvy for good and all.

But he had no chance to utter the words that boiled up in his mind. Nestamay was looking at him with frank physical interest, and he realised abruptly that among these lean, almost starved-looking people he was as much taller than the average as Duke Paul’s troops had been in Lagwich. Moreover, the days when he had been Idle Conrad, the dirty soap-maker, were past. Now he was Conrad the explorer of the barrenland, Conrad the gifted visionary who could remember the secrets of the past, Conrad the killer of monsters!

Well … a monster, anyway. Nobody could question this second one.

The girl was smiling broadly now, and there was no doubt what was pleasing to her. Conrad smiled back, hoping the expression wouldn’t spread into an idiot grin. He cut it short and tried to look purposeful instead, as Yanderman did.

“Maxall,” Keefe was saying, “we can’t stand out here till sunset, you know. There’s business to attend to-a little matter of an alarm which should have gone off and didn’t.”

“Yes!” Nestamay took her eyes off Conrad for the first time in some while and turned to her grandfather. “Now you don’t need to swallow Jasper’s dreadful behaviour any longer!”

The old man sighed and nodded. He spoke to Yanderman in terms of courtly apology.

“It’s quite true. We must see why the alarm which usually warns us of the advent of a dangerous thing failed to operate this time. You must be tired and hungry after your magnificent journey, and as soon as we’ve settled this urgent question we’ll place ourselves at your disposal. If you’ll come with us …?”

The curious but largely silent group fell in behind the old man and Yanderman, and made their way towards the dome. Nestamay stepped to Conrad’s side.

“Hello!” she said.

“Ah-er-hello!” Conrad echoed. “Ah-er-ah-oh yes! It was-uh-your father, wasn’t it, who tried to contact the outside world? He must have been a brave man.”

Not a good choice of subject. The girl’s face clouded. She said after a pause, “Not brave. Desperate. You two are the brave ones. You weren’t driven to it, were you?” She paused. “It must have been a terrible journey.”

“No, it wasn’t as bad as we thought,” Conrad said, wishing he could convey that he wasn’t being modest, only speaking the plain truth. “We had a compass, you see, which perhaps your father didn’t have, and Yanderman made a map of all the streams and rivers so we didn’t have to carry our own water all the time. Eight hours was the longest we had to spend away from water.”

“A map?” Nestamay sounded astonished. “Where did you get a map?”

“Yanderman drew it up.”

“But from what?” she persisted.

“Well-” Conrad was about to explain, when he realised the party had halted facing the dome. He heard Yanderman.

“You mean the thing just tore clear through the dome to the outside?” he was demanding, his eyes on the enormous gash it had left. Conrad glossed the words: why, this must be the place where the things originated, as Yanderman had suspected! And yet here were all these people …

“Ohhhh!” Nestamay’s fingers were suddenly tight on his arm; with the other hand she was pointing into the darkness under the dome. Something moved there-another monster? No, a human shape. A human shape beginning to scream as it emerged into the open. There was a wave of shock and terror tangible about them.

“Jasper!” she whispered. “It is-it is !”

How she recognised him, Conrad could not tell. For his head and shoulders were completely covered with a glistening black jelly-like mass, at which his hands clawed hopelessly while his voice grew weak with shrieking.

For a long second nothing moved except the condemned Jasper. Then Grandfather Maxall stirred and spoke.

“Kill him,” he said in a voice like death itself.

“No! No!” A woman came running from the fringe of the group, clawing at the old man with crazed violence. “No, you can’t kill my son!”

“If you would rather watch him die as the seeds grow on his body,” the old man said, and let the rest hang in the air. The woman paid no attention, but clung to him and cried for mercy.