C.S. Lewis
GREAT PAN G403
First published 1938 by John Lane the Bodley Head Ltd.
This edition published 1952 by Pan Books Ltd, 8 Headfort Place, London, S.W. 1
2nd Printing 1955
3rd Printing 1956
New Edition 1960
NOTE
Certain slighting references to earlier stories of this type which will be found
in the following
pages have been put there for purely dramatic purposes. The author would be
sorry if any
reader supposed he was too stupid to have enjoyed Mr. H. G. Wells's fantasies or
too ungrateful
to acknowledge his debt to them.
OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET
C. S. LEWIS
XI
EVER SINCE he awoke on the space-ship Ransom had been thinking about the amazing
adventure of going to another planet, and about his chances of returning from
it. What he had
not thought about was being on it. It was with a kind of stupefaction each
morning that he
found himself neither arriving in, nor escaping from, but simply living on, Malacandra; waking,
sleeping, eating, swimming, and even, as the days passed, talking. The wonder of
it smote him
most strongly when he found himself, about three weeks after his arrival,
actually going for a
walk. A few weeks later he had his favourite walks, and his favourite foods; he
was beginning
to develop habits. He knew a male from a female hross at sight, and even
individual
differences were becoming plain. Hyoi who had first found him - miles away to
the north - was
a very different person from the grey-muzzled, venerable Hnohra who was daily
teaching him
the language; and the young of the species were different again. They were
delightful. You
could forget all about the rationality of hrossa in dealing with them. Too young
to trouble him
with the baffling enigma of reason in an inhuman form, they solaced his
loneliness, as if he had
been allowed to bring a few dogs with him from the Earth. The cubs, on their
part, felt the
liveliest interest in the hairless goblin which had appeared among them. With
them, and
therefore indirectly with their dams, he was a brilliant success.
Of the community in general his earlier impressions were all gradually being
corrected. His
first diagnosis of their culture was what he called 'old stone age.' The few
cutting instruments
they possessed were made of stone. They seemed to have no pottery but a few
clumsy vessels
used for boiling, and boiling was the only cookery they attempted. Their common
drinking
vessel, dish and ladle all in one was the oyster-like shell in which he had
first tasted hross
hospitality; the fish which it contained was their only animal food. Vegetable
fare they had in
great plenty and variety, some of it delicious. Even the pinkish-white weed
which covered the
whole handramit was edible at a pinch, so that if he had starved before Hyoi
found him he
would have starved amidst abundance. No hross, however, ate the weed (honodraskrud)
for
choice, though it might be used faute de mieux on a journey. Their dwellings
were beehiveshaped
huts of stiff leaf and the villages - there were several in the neighbourhood -
were
always built beside rivers for warmth and well upstream towards the walls of the
handramit
where the water was hottest. They slept on the ground. They seemed to have no
arts except a
kind of poetry and music which was practised almost every evening by a team or
troupe of four
hrossa. One recited half chanting at great length while the other three,
sometimes singly and
sometimes antiphonally, interrupted him from time to time with song. Ransom
could not find
out whether these interruptions were simply lyrical interludes or dramatic
dialogue arising out
of the leaders' narrative. He could make nothing of the music. The voices were
not
disagreeable and the scale seemed adapted to human ears, but the time pattern
was meaningless
to his sense of rhythm. The occupations of the tribe or family were at first
mysterious. People
were always disappearing for a few days and reappearing again. There was a
little fishing and
much journeying in boats of which he never discovered the object. Then one day
he saw a kind
of caravan of hrossa setting out by land each with a load of vegetable food on
its head.
Apparently there was some kind of trade in Malacandra.
He discovered their agriculture in the first week. About a mile down the
handramit one
came to broad lands free of forest and clothed for many miles together in low pulpy vegetation
in which yellow, orange and blue predominated. Later on, there were lettuce-like
plants about
the height of a terrestrial birch tree. Where one of these overhung the warmth
of water you
could step into one of the lower leaves and lie deliciously as in a gently
moving, fragrant
hammock. Elsewhere it was not warm enough to sit still for long out of doors;
the general
temperature of the handramit was that of a fine winter's morning on Earth. These
foodproducing
areas were worked communally by the surrounding villages, and division of labour
had been carried to a higher point than he expected. Cutting, drying, storing,
transport and
something like manuring were all carried on, and he suspected that some at least
of the water
channels were artificial.
But the real revolution in his understanding of the hrossa began when he had
learned enough
of their language to attempt some satisfaction of their curiosity about himself.
In answer to
their questions he began by saying that he had come out of the sky. Hnohra
immediately asked
from which planet or earth (handra). Ransom, who had deliberately given a
childish version of
the truth in order to adapt it to the supposed ignorance of his audience, was a
little annoyed to
find Hnohra painfully explaining to him that he could not live in the sky
because there was no
air in it; he might have come through the sky but he must have come from a handra. He was
quite unable to point Earth out to them in the night sky. They seemed surprised
at his inability,
and repeatedly pointed out to him a bright planet low on the western horizon - a
little south of
where the sun had gone down. He was surprised that they selected a planet
instead of a mere
star and stuck to their choice; could it be possible that they understood
astronomy?
Unfortunately he still knew too little of the language to explore their
knowledge. He turned the
conversation by asking them the name of the bright southern planet, and was told
that it was Thulcandra - the silent world or planet.
"Why do you call it Thulc?" he asked. "Why silent?" No one knew.
"The séroni know," said Hnohra. "That is the sort of thing they know."
Then he was asked how he had come, and made a very poor attempt at describing
the spaceship
- but again:
"The séroni would know."
Had he come alone? No, he had come with two others of his kind - bad men ('bent'
men was
the nearest hrossian equivalent) who tried to kill him, but he had run away from
them. The hrossa found this very difficult, but all finally agreed that he ought to go to
Oyarsa. Oyarsa
would protect him. Ransom asked who Oyarsa was. Slowly, and with many
misunderstandings, he hammered out the information that Oyarsa (1) lived in
Meldilorn; (2)
knew everything and ruled everyone; (3) had always been there; and (4) was not a hross, nor
one of the séroni. Then Ransom, following his own idea, asked if Oyarsa had made
the world.
The hrossa almost barked in the fervour of their denial. Did people in
Thulcandra not know
that Maleldil the Young had made and still ruled the world? Even a child knew
that. Where
did Maleldil live, Ransom asked.
"With the Old One."
And who was the Old One? Ransom did not understand the answer. He tried again.
"Where was the Old One?"
"He is not that sort," said Hnohra, "that he has to live anywhere," and
proceeded to a good
deal which Ransom did not follow. But he followed enough to feel once more a
certain
irritation. Ever since he had discovered the rationality of the hrossa he had
been haunted by a
conscientious scruple as to whether it might not be his duty to undertake their
religious
instruction; now, as a result of his tentative efforts, he found himself being
treated as if he were
the savage and being given a first sketch of civilized religion - a sort of hrossian equivalent of
the shorter catechism. It became plain that Maleldil was a spirit without body,
parts or
passions.
"He is not a hnau," said the hrossa.
"What is hnau?" asked Ransom.
"You are hnau. I am hnau. The séroni are hnau. The pfifltriggi are hnau."
"Pfifltriggi?" said Ransom.
"More than ten days' journey to the west," said Hnohra. "The harandra sinks down
not in to
handramit but into a broad place, an open place, spreading every way. Five days'
journey from
the north to the south of it; ten days' journey from the east to the west. The
forests are of other
colours there than here, they are blue and green. It is very deep there, it goes
to the roots of the
world. The best things that can be dug out of the earth are there. The
Pfifltriggi live there.
They delight in digging. What they dig they soften with fire and make things of
it. They are
little people, smaller than you, long in the snout, pale, busy. They have long
limbs in front. No
hnau can match them in making and shaping things as none can match us in
singing. But let
Hman see."
He turned and spoke to one of the younger hrossa and presently, passed from hand
to hand,
there came to him a little bowl. He held it close to the firelight and examined
it. It was certainly
of gold, and Ransom realized the meaning of Devine's interest in Malacandra.
"Is there much of this thing?" he asked.
Yes, he was told, it was washed down in most, of the rivers; but the best and
most was
among the pfifltriggi, and it was they who were skilled in it. Arbol hru, they
called it - Sun's
blood. He looked at the bowl again. It was covered with fine etching. He saw
pictures of
hrossa and of smaller, ahnost frog-like animals; and then, of sorns. He pointed
to the latter
inquiringly.
"Séroni," said the hrossa, confirming his suspicions. "They live up almost on
the harandra.
In the big caves."
The frog-like animals - or tapir-headed, frog-bodied animals
- were pfifltriggi.
Ransom turned it over in his mind. On Malacandra, apparently, three distinct
species had
reached rationality, and none of them had yet exterminated the other two. It
concerned him
intensely to find out which was the real master.
"Which of the hnau rule?" he asked.
"Oyarsa rules," was the reply.
"Is he hnau?"
This puzzled them a little. The séroni, they thought, would be better at that
kind of question.
Perhaps Oyarsa was hnau, but a very different hnau. He had no death and no
young.
"These séroni know more than the hrossa?" asked Ransom.
This produced more a debate than an answer. What emerged finally was that the
séroni or
sorns were perfectly helpless in a boat, and could not fish to save their lives,
could hardly swim,
could make no poetry, and even when hrossa had made it for them could understand
only the
inferior sorts; but they were admittedly good at finding out things about the
stars and
understanding the darker utterances of Oyarsa and telling what happened in
Malacandra long
ago - longer ago than anyone could remember.
'Ah - the intelligentsia,' thought Ransom. 'They must be the real rulers,
however it is
disguised.'
He tried to ask what would happen if the sorns used their wisdom to make the
hrossa do
things - this was as far as he could get in his halting Malacandrian. The
question did not sound
nearly so urgent in this form as it would have done if he had been able to say
"used their
scientific resources for the exploitation of their uncivilized neighbours." But
he might have
spared his pains. The mention of the sorns' inadequate appreciation of poetry
had diverted the
whole conversation into literary channels. Of the heated, and apparently
technical, discussion
which followed he understood not a syllable.
Naturally his conversations with the hrossa did not all turn on Malacandra. He
had to repay
them with information about Earth. He was hampered in this both by the
humiliating
discoveries which he was constantly making of his own ignorance about his native
planet, and
partly by his determination to conceal some of the truth. He did not want to
tell them too much
of our human wars and industrialisms. He remembered how H. G. Wells's Cavor had
met his
end on the Moon; also he felt shy. A sensation akin to that of physical
nakedness came over
him whenever they questioned him too closely about men - the hmâna as they
called them.
Moreover, he was determined not to let them know that he had been brought there
to be given
to the sorns; for he was becoming daily more certain that these were the
dominant species.
What he did tell them fired the imagination of the hrossa: they all began making
poems about
the strange handra where the plants were hard like stone and the earth-weed
green like rock and
the waters cold and salt, and hmâna, lived out on top, on the harandra.
They were even more interested in what he had to tell them of the aquatic animal
with
snapping jaws which he had fled from in their own world and even in their own
handramit. It
was a hnakra, they all agreed. They were intensely excited. There had not been a
hnakra in the
valley for many years. The youth of the hrossa got out their weapons - primitive
harpoons with
points of bone - and the very cubs began playing at hnakra-hunting in the
shallows. Some of
the mothers showed signs of anxiety and wanted the cubs to be kept out of the
water, but in
general the news of the hnakra seemed to be immensely popular. Hyoi set off at
once to do
something to his boat, and Ransom accompanied him. He wished to make himself
useful, and
was already beginning to have some vague capacity with the primitive hrossian
tools. They
walked together to Hyoi's creek, a stone's throw through the forest.
On the way, where the path was single and Ransom was following Hyoi, they passed
a little
she-hross, not much more than a cub. She spoke as they passed, but not to them:
her eyes were
on a spot about five yards away.
"Who do you speak to, Hrikki?" said Ransom.
"To the eldil."
"Where?"
"Did you not see him?"
"I saw nothing."
"There! There! " she cried suddenly. "Ah! He is gone. Did you not see him?"
"I saw no one."
"Hyoi," said the cub, "the hmân cannot see the eldil!"
But Hyoi, continuing steadily on his way, was already out of earshot, and had
apparently
noticed nothing. Ransom concluded that Hrikki was 'pretending' like the young of
his own
species. In a few moments he rejoined his companion.
XII
THEY WORKED hard at Hyoi's boat till noon and then spread themselves on the weed
close to
the warmth of the creek, and began their midday meal. The war-like nature of
their
preparations suggested many questions to Ransom. He knew no word for war, but he
managed
to make Hyoi understand what he wanted to know. Did séroni and hrossa and
pfifltriggi ever
go out like this, with weapons, against each other?
"What for?" asked Hyoi.
It was difficult to explain. "If both wanted one thing and neither would give
it," said
Ransom, "would the other at last come with force? Would they say, give it or we
kill you?"
"What sort of thing?"
"Well - food, perhaps."
"If the other hnau wanted food, why should we not give it to them? We often do."
"But how if we had not enough for ourselves?"
"But Maleldil will not stop the plants growing."
"Hyoi, if you had more and more young, would Maleldil broaden the handramit and
make
enough plants for them all?"
"The séroni know that sort of thing. But why should we have more young?"
Ransom found this difficult. At last he said:
"Is the begetting of young not a pleasure among the hrossa?"
"A very great one, Hman. This is what we call love."
"If a thing is a pleasure, a hmân wants it again. He might want the pleasure
more often than
the number of young that could be fed."
It took Hyoi a long time to get the point.
"You mean," he said slowly, "that he might do it not only in one or two years of
his life but
again?"
"Yes."
"But - why? Would he want his dinner all day or want to sleep after he had
slept? I do not
understand."
"But a dinner comes every day. This love, you say, comes only once while the
hross lives?"
"But it takes his whole life. When he is young he has to look for his mate; and
then he has to
court her; then he begets young; then he rears them; then he remembers all this,
and boils it
inside him and makes it into poems and wisdom."
"But the pleasure he must be content only to remember?"
"That is like saying 'My food I must be content only to eat.' "
"I do not understand."
"A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered. You are speaking, Hmân, as
if the
pleasure were one thing and the memory another. It is all one thing. The séroni
could say it
better than I say it now. Not better than I could say it in a poem. What you
call remembering is
the last part of the pleasure, as the crah is the last part of a poem. When you
and I met, the
meeting was over very shortly, it was nothing. Now it is growing something as we
remember
it. But still we know very little about it. What it will be when I remember it
as I lie down to
die, what it makes in me all my days till then - that is the real meeting. The
other is only the
beginning of it. You say you have poets in your world. Do they not teach you
this?"
"Perhaps some of them do," said Ransom. "But even in a poem does a hross never
long to
hear one splendid line over again?"
Hyoi's reply unfortunately turned on one of those points in their language which
Ransom had
not mastered. There were two verbs which both, as far as he could see, meant to
long or yearn;
but the hrossa drew a sharp distinction, even an opposition, between them. Hyoi
seemed to
him merely to be saying that every one would long for it (wondelone) but no one
in his senses
could long for it (hluntheline).
"And indeed," he continued, "the poem is a good example. For the most splendid
line
becomes fully splendid only by means of all the lines after it; if you went back
to it you would
find it less splendid than you thought. You would kill it. I mean in a good
poem."
"But in a bent poem, Hyoi?"
"A bent poem is not listened to, Hmân."
"And how of love in a bent life?"
"How could the life of a hnau be bent?"
"Do you say, Hyoi, that there are no bent hrossa?"
Hyoi reflected. "I have heard," he said at last, "of something like what you
mean. It is said
that sometimes here and there a cub at a certain age gets strange twists in him.
I have heard of
one that wanted to eat earth; there might, perhaps, be somewhere a hross
likewise that wanted
to have the years of love prolonged. I have not heard of it, but it might be. I
have heard of
something stranger. There is a poem about a hross who lived long ago, in another
handramit,
who saw things all made two - two suns in the sky, two heads on a neck; and last
of all they say
that he fell into such a frenzy that he desired two mates. I do not ask you to
believe it, but that is
the story: that he loved two hressni."
Ransom pondered this. Here, unless Hyoi was deceiving him, was a species
naturally
continent, naturally monogamous. And yet, was it so strange? Some animals, he
knew, had
regular breeding seasons; and if nature could perform the miracle of turning the
sexual impulse
outward at all, why could she not go further and fix it, not morally but
instinctively, to a single
object? He even remembered dimly having heard that some terrestrial animals,
some of the
'lower' animals, were naturally monogamous. Among the hrossa, anyway, it was
obvious that
unlimited breeding and promiscuity were as rare as the rarest perversions. At
last it dawned
upon him that it was not they, but his own species, that were the puzzle. That
the hrossa should
have such instincts was mildly surprising; but how came it that the instincts of
the hrossa so
closely resembled the unattained ideals of that far-divided species Man whose
instincts were so
deplorably different? What was the history of Man? But Hyoi was speaking again.
"Undoubtedly," he said. "Maleldil made us so. How could there ever be enough to
eat if
everyone had twenty young? And how could we endure to live and let time pass if
we were
always crying for one day or one year to come back - if we did not know that
every day in a life
fills the whole life with expectation and memory and that these are that day ?"
"All the same," said Ransom, unconsciously nettled on behalf of his own world, "Maleldil
has let in the hnakra."
"Oh, but that is so different. I long to kill this hnakra as he also longs to
kill me. I hope that
my ship will be the first and I first in my ship with my straight spear when the
black jaws snap.
And if he kills me, my people will mourn and my brothers will desire still more
to kill him. But
they will not wish that there were no hnéraki; nor do I. How can I make you
understand, when
you do not understand the poets? The hnakra is our enemy, but he is also our
beloved. We feel
in our hearts his joy as he looks down from the mountain of water in the north
where he was
born; we leap with him when he jumps the falls; and when winter comes, and the
lake smokes
higher than our heads, it is with his eyes that we see it and know that his
roaming time is come.
We hang images of him in our houses, and the sign of all the hrossa is a hnakra.
In him the
spirit of the valley lives; and our young play at being hnéraki as soon as they
can splash in the
shallows."
"And then he kills them?"
"Not often them. The hrossa would be bent hrossa if they let him get so near.
Long before
he had come down so far we should have sought him out. No, Hmân, it is not a few
deaths
roving the world around him that make a hnau miserable. It is a bent hnau that
would blacken
the world. And I say also this. I do not think the forest would be so bright,
nor the water so
warm, nor love so sweet, if there were no danger in the lakes. I will tell you a
day in my life that
has shaped me; such a day as comes only once, like love, or serving Oyarsa in
Meldilorn. Then
I was young, not much more than a cub, when I went far, far up the handramit to
the land where
stars shine at midday and even water is cold. A great waterfall I climbed. I
stood on the shore
of Balki the pool, which is the place of most awe in all worlds. The walls of it
go up for ever
and ever and huge and holy images are cut in them, the work of old times. There
is the fall
called the Mountain of Water. Because I have stood there alone, Maleldil and I,
for even
Oyarsa sent me no word, my heart has been higher, my song deeper, all my days.
But do you
think it would have been so unless I had known that in Balki hnéraki dwelled?
There I drank
life because death was in the pool. That was the best of drinks save one."
"What one?" asked Ransom.
"Death itself in the day I drink it and go to Maleldil."
Shortly after that they rose and resumed their work. The sun was declining as
they came
back through the wood. It occurred to Ransom to ask Hyoi a question.
"Hyoi," he said, "it comes into my head that when I first saw you and before you
saw me,
you were already speaking. That was how I knew that you were hnau, for otherwise
I should
have thought you a beast, and run away. But who were you speaking to?"
"To an eldil."
"What is that? I saw no one."
"Are there no eldila in your world, Hmân? That must be strange."
"But what are they?"
"They come from Oyarsa - they are, I suppose, a kind of hnau."
"As we came out today I passed a child who said she was talking to an eldil, but
I could see
nothing."
"One can see by looking at your eyes, Hmân, that they are different from ours.
But eldila are
hard to see. They are not like us. Light goes through them. You must be looking
in the right
place and the right time; and that is not likely to come about unless the eldil
wishes to be seen.
Sometimes you can mistake them for a sunbeam or even a moving of the leaves; but
when you
look again you see that it was an eldil and that it is gone. But whether your
eyes can ever see
them I do not know. The séroni would know that."
XIII
THE WHOLE village was astir next morning before the sunlight - already visible
on the
harandra - had penetrated the forest. By the light of the cooking fires Ransom
saw an incessant
activity of hrossa. The females were pouring out steaming food from clumsy pots;
Hnohra was
directing the transportation of piles of spears to the boats; Hyoi, in the midst
of a group of the
most experienced hunters, was talking too rapidly and too technically for Ransom
to follow;
parties were arriving from the neighbouring villages; and the cubs, squealing
with excitement,
were running hither and thither among their elders.
He found that his own share in the hunt had been taken for granted. He was to be
in Hyoi's
boat, with Hyoi and Whin. The two hrossa would take it in turns to paddle, while
Ransom and
the disengaged hross would be in the bows. He understood the hrossa well enough
to know
that they were making him the noblest offer in their power, and that Hyoi and
Whin were each
tormented by the fear lest he should be paddling when the hnakra appeared. A
short time ago,
in England, nothing would have seemed more impossible to Ransom than to accept
the post of
honour and danger in an attack upon an unknown but certainly deadly aquatic
monster. Even
more recently, when he had first fled from the sorns or when he had lain pitying
himself in the
forest by night, it would hardly have been in his power to do what he was
intending to do today.
For his intention was clear. Whatever happened, he must show that the human
species also
were hnau. He was only too well aware that such resolutions might look very
different when
the moment came, but he felt an unwonted assurance that somehow or other he
would be able
to go through with it. It was necessary, and the necessary was always possible.
Perhaps, too,
there was something in the air he now breathed, or in the society of the hrossa,
which had
begun to work a change in him.
The lake was just giving back the first rays of the sun when he found himself
kneeling side
by side with Whin, as he had been told to, in the bows of Hyoi's ship, with a
little pile of
throwing-spears between his knees and one in his right hand, stiffening his body
against the
motion as Hyoi paddled them out into their place. At least a hundred boats were
taking part in
the hunt. They were in three parties. The central, and far the smallest, was to
work its way up
the current by which Hyoi and Ransom had descended after their first meeting.
Longer ships
than he had yet seen, eight-paddled ships, were used for this. The habit of the
hnakra was to
float down the current whenever he could; meeting the ships, he would presumably
dart out of
it into the still water to left or fight. Hence while the central party slowly
beat up the current,
the light ships, paddling far faster, would cruise at will up and down either
side of it to receive
the quarry as soon as he broke what might be called his 'cover.' In this game
numbers and
intelligence were on the side of the hrossa; the hnakra had speed on his side,
and also
invisibility, for he could swim under water. He was nearly invulnerable except
through his
open mouth. If the two hunters in the bows of the boat he made for muffed their
shots, this was
usually the last of them and of their boat.
In the light skirmishing parties there were two things a brave hunter could aim
at. He could
keep well back and close to the long ships where the hnakra was most likely to
break out, or he
could get as far forward as possible in the hope of meeting the hnakra going at
its full speed
and yet untroubled by the hunt, and of inducing it, by a well-aimed spear, to
leave the current
then and there. One could thus anticipate the beaters and kill the beast - if
that was how the
matter ended - on one's own. This was the desire of Hyoi and Whin; and almost -
so strongly
they infected him - of Ransom. Hence, hardly had the heavy craft of the beaters
begun their
slow progress up-current amid a wall of foam when he found his own ship speeding
northward
as fast as Hyoi could drive her, already passing boat after boat and making for
the freest water.
The speed was exhilarating. In the cold morning the warmth of the blue expanse
they were
clearing was not unpleasant. Behind them arose, re-echoed from the remote rock
pinnacles on
either side of the valley, the bell-like, deep-mouthed voices of more than two
hundred hrossa,
more musical than a cry of hounds but closely akin to it in quality as in
purport. Something
long sleeping in the blood awoke in Ransom. It did not seem impossible at this
moment that
even he might be the hnakra-slayer; that the fame of Hmân hnakrapunt might be
handed down
to posterity in this world that knew no other man. But he had had such dreams
before, and
knew how they ended. Imposing humility on the newly risen riot of his feelings,
he turned his
eyes to the troubled water of the current which they were skirting, without
entering, and
watched intently.
For a long time nothing happened. He became conscious of the stiffness of his
attitude and
deliberately relaxed his muscles. Presently Whin reluctantly went aft to paddle,
and Hyoi came
forward to take his place. Ahnost as soon as the change had been effected, Hyoi
spoke softly to
him and said, without taking his eyes off the current:
"There is an eldil coming to us over the water."
Ransom could see nothing - or nothing that he could distinguish from imagination
and the
dance of sunlight on the lake. A moment later Hyoi spoke again, but not to him.
"What is it, sky-born?"
What happened next was the most uncanny experience Ransom had yet had on
Malacandra.
He heard the voice. It seemed to come out of the air, about a yard above his
head, and it was
almost an octave higher than the hross's - higher even than his own. He realized
that a very
little difference in his ear would have made the eldil as inaudible to him as it
was invisible.
"It is the Man with you, Hyoi," said the voice. "He ought not to be there. He
ought to be
going to Oyarsa. Bent hnau of his own kind from Thulcandra are following him; he
should go
to Oyarsa. If they fid him anywhere else there will be evil."
"He hears you, sky-born," said Hyoi. "And have you no message for my wife? You
know
what she wishes to be told."
"I have a message for Hleri," said the eldil. "But you will not be able to take
it. I go to her
now myself. All that is well. Only - let the Man go to Oyarsa."
There was a moment's silence.
"He is gone," said Whin. "And we have lost our share in the hunt."
"Yes," said Hyoi with a sigh. "We must put Hmân ashore and teach him the way to
Meldilorn."
Ransom was not so sure of his courage but that one part of him felt an instant
relief at the
idea of any diversion from their present business. But the other part of him
urged him to hold
on to his new-found manhood; now or never - with such companions or with none -
he must
leave a deed on his memory instead of one more broken dream. It was in obedience
to
something like conscience that he exclaimed:
"No, no. There is time for that after the hunt. We must kill the hnakra first."
"Once an eldil has spoken," began Hyoi, when suddenly Whin gave a great cry (a
'bark'
Ransom would have called it three weeks ago) and pointed. There, not a furlong
away, was the
torpedo-like track of foam; and now, visible through a wall of foam, they caught
the metallic
glint of the monster's sides. Whin was paddling furiously. Hyoi threw and
missed. As his first
spear smote the water his second was already in the air. This time it must have
touched the
hnakra. He wheeled right out of the current. Ransom saw the great black pit of
his mouth
twice open and twice shut with its snap of shark-like teeth. He himself had
thrown now -
hurriedly, excitedly, with unpractised hand.
"Back," shouted Hyoi to Whin who was already backing water with every pound of
his vast
strength. Then all became confused. He heard Whin shout "Shore!" There came a
shock that
flung him forward almost into the hnakra's jaws and he found himself at the same
moment up
to his waist in water. It was at him the teeth were snapping. Then as he flung
shaft after shaft
into the great cavern of the gaping brute he saw Hyoi perched incredibly on its
back - on its
nose - bending forward and hurling from there. Almost at once the hross was
dislodged and
fell with a wide splash nearly ten yards away. But the hnakra was killed. It was
wallowing on
its side, bubbling out its black life. The water around him was dark and stank.
When he recollected himself they were all on shore, wet, steaming, trembling
with exertion
and embracing one another. It did not now seem strange to him to be clasped to a
breast of wet
fur. The breath of the hrossa, which, though sweet, was not human breath, did
not offend him.
He was one with them. That difficulty which they, accustomed to more than one
rational
species, had perhaps never felt, was now overcome. They were all hnau. They had
stood
shoulder to shoulder in the face of an enemy, and the shapes of their heads no
longer mattered.
And he, even Ransom, had come through it and not been disgraced. He had grown
up.
They were on a little promontory free of forest, on which they had run aground
in the
confusion of the fight. The wreckage of the boat and the corpse of the monster
lay confused
together in the water beside them. No sound from the rest of the hunting party
was audible;
they had been almost a mile ahead when they met the hnakra. All three sat down
to recover
their breath.
"So," said Hyoi, "we are hnakrapunti. This is what I have wanted all my life."
At that moment Ransom was deafened by a loud sound - a perfectly familiar sound
which
was the last thing he expected to hear. It was a terrestrial, human and
civilized sound; it was
even European. It was the crack of an English rifle; and Hyoi, at his feet, was
struggling to rise
and gasping. There was blood on the white weed where he struggled. Ransom
dropped on his
knees beside him. The huge body of the hross was too heavy for him to turn
round. Whin
helped him.
"Hyoi, can you hear me?" said Ransom with his face close to the round seal-like
head.
"Hyoi, it is through me that this has happened. It is the other hmâna who have
hit you, the bent
two that brought me to Malacandra. They can throw death at a distance with a
thing they have
made. I should have told you. We are all a bent race. We have come here to bring
evil on
Malacandra. We are only half hnau - Hyoi..." His speech died away into the
inarticulate. He
did not know the words for 'forgive,' or 'shame,' or 'fault,' hardly the word
for 'sorry.' He could
only stare into Hyoi's distorted face in speechless guilt. But the hross seemed
to understand. It
was trying to say something, and Ransom laid his ear close to the working mouth.
Hyoi's
dulling eyes were fixed on his own, but the expression of a hross was not even
now perfectly
intelligible to him.
"Hnâ-hmâ," it muttered and then, at last, "Hmân hnakrapunt." Then there came a
contortion
of the whole body, a gush of blood and saliva from the mouth; his arms gave way
under the
sudden dead weight of the sagging head, and Hyoi's face became as alien and
animal as it had
seemed at their first meeting. The glazed eyes and the slowly stiffening,
bedraggled fur, were
like those of any dead beast found in an earthly wood.
Ransom resisted an infantile impulse to break out into imprecations on Weston
and Devine.
Instead he raised his eyes to meet those of Whin who was crouching - hrossa do
not kneel - on
the other side of the corpse.
"I am in the hands of your people, Whin," he said. "They must do as they will.
But if they
are wise they will kill me and certainly they will kill the other two."
"One does not kill hnau," said Whin. "Only Oyarsa does that. But these other,
where are
they?"
Ransom glanced around. It was open on the promontory but thick wood came down to
where it joined the mainland, perhaps two hundred yards away.
"Somewhere in the wood," he said. "Lie down, Whin, here where the ground is
lowest.
They may throw from their thing again."
He had some difficulty in making Whin do as he suggested. When both were lying
in dead
ground, their feet almost in the water, the hross spoke again.
"Why did they kill him?" he asked.
"They would not know he was hnau," said Ransom. "I have told you that there is
only one
kind of hnau in our world. They would think he was a beast. If they thought
that, they would
kill him for pleasure, or in fear, or" (he hesitated) "because they were hungry.
But I must tell
you the truth, Whin. They would kill even a hnau, knowing it to be hnau, if they
thought its
death would serve them."
There was a short silence.
"I am wondering," said Ransom, "if they saw me. It is for me they are looking.
Perhaps if I
went to them they would be content and come no farther into your land. But why
do they not
come out of the wood to see what they have killed?"
"Our people are coming," said Whin, turning his head. Ransom looked back and saw
the
lake black with boats. The main body of the hunt would be with them in a few
minutes.
"They are afraid of the hrossa," said Ransom. "That is why they do not come out
of the
wood. I will go to them, Whin."
"No," said Whin. "I have been thinking. All this has come from not obeying the
eldil. He
said you were to go to Oyarsa. You ought to have been already on the road. You
must go
now."
"But that will leave the bent hmâna here. They may do more harm."
"They will not set on the hrossa. You have said they are afraid. It is more
likely that we will
come upon them. Never fear - they will not see us or hear us. We will take them
to Oyarsa.
But you must go now, as the eldil said."
"Your people will think I have run away because I am afraid to look in their
faces after
Hyoi's death."
"It is not a question of thinking but of what an eldil says. This is cubs' talk.
Now listen, and
I will teach you the way."
The hross explained to him that five days' journey to the south the handramit
joined another
handramit; and three days up this other handramit to west and north was
Meldilorn and the seat
of Oyarsa. But there was a shorter way, a mountain road, across the corner of
the harandra
between the two canyons, which would bring him down to Meldilorn on the second
day. He
must go into the wood before them and through it till he came to the mountain
wall of the
handramit; and he must work south along the roots of the mountains till he came
to a road cut
up between them. Up this he must go, and somewhere beyond the tops of the
mountains he
would come to the tower of Augray. Augray would help him. He could cut weed for
his food
before he left the forest and came into the rock country. Whin realized that
Ransom might meet
the other two hmâna as soon as he entered the wood.
"If they catch you," he said, "then it will be as you say, they will come no
farther into our
land. But it is better to be taken on your way to Oyarsa than to stay here. And
once you are on
the way to him, I do not think he will let the bent ones stop you."
Ransom was by no means convinced that this was the best plan either for himself
or for the
hrossa. But the stupor of humiliation in which he had lain ever since Hyoi fell
forbade him to
criticize. He was anxious only to do whatever they wanted him to do, to trouble
them as little
as was now possible, and above all to get away. It was impossible to find out
how Whin felt;
and Ransom sternly repressed an insistent, whining impulse to renewed
protestations and
regrets, self-accusations that might elicit some word of pardon. Hyoi with his
last breath had
called him hnakra-slayer; that was forgiveness generous enough and with that he
must be
content. As soon as he had mastered the details of his route he bade farewell to
Whin and
advanced alone towards the forest.
XIV
UNTIL HE reached the wood Ransom found it difficult to think of anything except
the
possibility of another rifle bullet from Weston or Devine. He thought that they
probably still
wanted him alive rather than dead, and this, combined with the knowledge that a
hross was
watching him, enabled him to proceed with at least external composure. Even when
he had
entered the forest he felt himself in considerable danger. The long branchless
stems made
'cover' only if you were very far away from the enemy; and the enemy in this
case might be very
close. He became aware of a strong impulse to shout out to Weston and Devine and
give
himself up; it rationalized itself in the form that this would remove them from
the district, as
they would probably take him off to the sorns and leave the hrossa unmolested.
But Ransom
knew a little psychology and had heard of the hunted man's irrational instinct
to give himself up
- indeed, he had felt it himself in dreams. It was some such trick, he thought,
that his nerves
were now playing him. In any case he was determined henceforward to obey the
hrossa or
eldila. His efforts to rely on his own judgment in Malacandra had so far ended
tragically
enough. He made a strong resolution, defying in advance all changes of mood,
that he would
faithfully carry out the journey to Meldilorn if it could be done.
This resolution seemed to him all the more certainly right because he had the
deepest
misgivings about that journey. He understood that the harandra, which he had to
cross, was the
home of the sorns. In fact he was walking of his own free will into the very
trap that he had
been trying to avoid ever since his arrival on Malacandra. (Here the first
change of mood tried
to raise its head. He thrust it down.) And even if he got through the sorns and
reached
Meldilorn, who or what might Oyarsa be? Oyarsa, Whin had ominously observed, did
not
share the hrossa's objection to shedding the blood of a hnau. And again, Oyarsa
ruled sorns as
well as hrossa and pfifltriggi. Perhaps he was simply the arch-sorn. And now
came the second
change of mood. Those old terrestrial fears of some alien, cold intelligence,
superhuman in
power, subhuman in cruelty, which had utterly faded from his mind among the
hrossa, rose
clamouring for readmission. But he strode on. He was going to Meldilorn. It was
not possible,
he told himself, that the hrossa should obey any evil or monstrous creature; and
they had told
him - or had they? he was not quite sure - that Oyarsa was not a sorn. Was
Oyarsa a god? -
perhaps that very idol to whom the sorns wanted to sacrifice him. But the hrossa,
though they
said strange things about him, clearly denied that he was a god. There was one
God, according
to them, Maleldil the Young; nor was it possible to imagine Hyoi or Hnohra
worshipping a
bloodstained idol. Unless, of course, the hrossa were after all under the thumb
of the sorns,
superior to their masters in all the qualities that human beings value, but
intellectually inferior
to them and dependent on them. It would be a strange but not an inconceivable
world; heroism
and poetry at the bottom, cold scientific intellect above it, and overtopping
all some dark
superstition which scientific intellect, helpless against the revenge of the
emotional depths it
had ignored, had neither will nor power to remove. A mumbo-jumbo ... but Ransom
pulled
himself up. He knew too much now to talk that way. He and all his class would
have called the
eldila a superstition if they had been merely described to them, but now he had
heard the voice
himself. No, Oyarsa was a real person if he was a person at all.
He had now been walking for about an hour, and it was nearly midday. No
difficulty about
his direction had yet occurred; he had merely to keep going uphill and he was
certain of coming
out of the forest to the mountain wall sooner or later. Meanwhile he felt
remarkably well,
though greatly chastened in mind. The silent, purple half light of the woods
spread all around
him as it had spread on the first day he spent in Malacandra, but everything
else was changed.
He looked back on that time as on a nightmare, on his own mood at that time as a
sort of
sickness. Then all had been whimpering, unanalysed, self-nourishing,
self-consuming dismay.
Now, in the clear light of an accepted duty, he felt fear indeed, but with it a
sober sense of
confidence in himself and in the world, and even an element of pleasure. It was
the difference
between a landsman in a sinking ship and a horseman on a bolting horse: either
may be killed,
but the horseman is an agent as well as a patient.
About an hour after noon he suddenly came out of the wood into bright sunshine.
He was
only twenty yards from the almost perpendicular bases of the mountain spires,
too close to them
to see their tops. A sort of valley ran up in the re-entrant between two of them
at the place
where he had emerged: an unclimbable valley consisting of a single concave sweep
of stone,
which in its lower parts ascended steeply as the roof of a house and farther up
seemed almost
vertical. At the top it even looked as if it hung over a bit, like a tidal wave
of stone at the very
moment of breaking; but this, he thought, might be an illusion. He wondered what
the hrossa's
idea of a road might be.
He began to work his way southward along the narrow, broken ground between wood
and
mountain. Great spurs of the mountains had to be crossed every few moments, and
even in that
lightweight world it was intensely tiring. After about half an hour he came to a
stream. Here he
went a few paces into the forest, cut himself an ample supply of the ground
weed, and sat down
beside the water's edge for lunch. When he had finished he filled his pockets
with what he had
not eaten and proceeded.
He began soon to be anxious about his road, for if he could make the top at all
he could do it
only by daylight, and the middle of the afternoon was approaching. But his fears
were
unnecessary. When it came it was unmistakable. An open way through the wood
appeared on
the left - he must be somewhere behind the hross village now - and on the right
he saw the road,
a single ledge, or in places, a trench, cut sidewise and upwards across the
sweep of such a
valley as he had seen before. It took his breath away - the insanely steep,
hideously narrow
staircase without steps, leading up and up from where he stood to where it was
an almost
invisible thread on the pale green surface of the rock. But there was no time to
stand and look
at it. He was a poor judge of heights, but he had no doubt that the top of the
road was removed
from him by a more than Alpine distance. It would take him at least till sundown
to reach it.
Instantly he began the ascent.
Such a journey would have been impossible on earth; the first quarter of an hour
would have
reduced a man of Ransom's build and age to exhaustion. Here he was at first
delighted with the
ease of his movement, and then staggered by the gradient and length of the climb
which, even
under Malacandrian conditions, soon bowed his back and gave him an aching chest
and
trembling knees. But this was not the worst. He heard already a singing in his
ears, and noticed
that despite his labour there was no sweat on his forehead. The cold, increasing
at every step,
seemed to sap his vitality worse than any heat could have done. Already his lips
were cracked;
his breath, as he panted, showed like a cloud; his fingers were numb. He was
cutting his way
up into a silent arctic world, and had already passed from an English to a
Lapland winter. It
frightened him, and he decided that he must rest here or not at all; a hundred
paces more and if
he sat down he would sit for ever. He squatted on the road for a few minutes,
slapping his body
with his arms. The landscape was terrifying. Already the handramit which had
made his world
for so many weeks was only a thin purple cleft sunk amidst the boundless level
desolation of
the harandra which now, on the farther side, showed clearly between and above
the mountain
peaks. But long before he was rested he knew that he must go on or die.
The world grew stranger. Among the hrossa he had almost lost the feeling of
being on a
strange planet; here it returned upon him with desolating force. It was no
longer 'the world,'
scarcely even 'a world': it was a planet, a star, a waste place in the universe,
millions of miles
from the world of men. It was impossible to recall what he had felt about Hyoi,
or Whin, or the
eldila, or Oyarsa. It seemed fantastic to have thought he had duties to such
hobgoblins - if they
were not hallucinations - met in the wilds of space. He had nothing to do with
them: he was a
man. Why had Weston and Devine left him alone like this?
But all the time the old resolution, taken when he could still think, was
driving him up the
road. Often he forgot where he was going, and why. The movement became a
mechanical
rhythm - from weariness to stillness, from stillness to unbearable cold, from
cold to motion
again. He noticed that the handramit - now an insignificant part of the
landscape - was full of a
sort of haze. He had never seen a fog while he was living there. Perhaps that
was what the air
of the handramit looked like from above; certainly it was different air from
this. There was
something more wrong with his lungs and heart than even the cold and the
exertion accounted
for. And though there was no snow, there was an extraordinary brightness. The
light was
increasing, sharpening and growing whiter; and the sky was a much darker blue
than he had
ever seen on Malacandra. Indeed, it was darker than blue; it was almost black,
and the jagged
spines of rock standing against it were like his mental picture of a lunar
landscape. Some stars
were visible.
Suddenly he realized the meaning of these phenomena. There was very little air
above him:
he was near the end of it. The Malacandrian atmosphere lay chiefly in the
handramits; the real
surface of the planet was naked or thinly clad. The stabbing sunlight and the
black sky above
him were that 'heaven' out of which he had dropped into the Malacandrian world,
already
showing through the last thin veil of air. If the top were more than a hundred
feet away, it
would be where no man could breathe at all. He wondered whether the hrossa had
different
lungs and had sent him by a road that meant death for man. But even while he
thought of this
he took note that those jagged peaks blazing in sunlight against an almost black
sky were level
with him. He was no longer ascending. The road ran on before him in a kind of
shallow ravine
bounded on his left by the tops of the highest rock pinnacles and on his right
by a smooth
ascending swell of stone that ran up to the true harandra. And where he was he
could still
breathe, though gasping, dizzy and in pain. The blaze in his eyes was worse. The
sun was
setting. The hrossa must have foreseen this; they could not live, any more than
he, on the
harandra by night. Still staggering forward, he looked about him for any sign of Augray's
tower, whatever Augray might be.
Doubtless he exaggerated the time during which he thus wandered and watched the
shadows
from the rocks lengthening towards him. It cannot really have been long before
he saw a light
ahead - a light which showed how dark the surrounding landscape had become. He
tried to run
but his body would not respond. Stumbling in haste and weakness, he made for the
light;
thought he had reached it and found that it was far farther off than he had
supposed; almost
despaired; staggered on again, and came at last to what seemed a cavern mouth.
The light
within was an unsteady one and a delicious wave of warmth smote on his face. It
was firelight.
He came into the mouth of the cave and then, unsteadily, round the fire and into
the interior,
and stood still blinking in the light. When at last he could see, he discerned a
smooth chamber
of green rock, very lofty. There were two things in it. One of them, dancing on
the wall and
roof, was the huge, angular shadow of a sorn: the other, crouched beneath it,
was the sorn
himself.
XV
"COME IN, Small One," boomed the sorn. "Come in and let me look at you."
Now that he stood face to face with the spectre that had haunted him ever since
he set foot
on Malacandra, Ransom felt a surprising indifference. He had no idea what might
be coming
next, but he was determined to carry out his programme; and in the meantime the
warmth and
more breathable air were a heaven in themselves. He came in, well in past the
fire, and
answered the sorn. His own voice sounded to him a shrill treble.
"The hrossa have sent me to look for Oyarsa," he said.
The sorn peered at him. "You are not from this world," it said suddenly.
"No," replied Ransom, and sat down. He was too tired to explain.
"I think you are from Thulcandra, Small One," said the sorn.
"Why?" said Ransom.
"You are small and thick and that is how the animals ought to be made in a
heavier world.
You cannot come from Glundandra, for it is so heavy that if any animals could
live there they
would be flat like plates - even you, Small One, would break if you stood up on
that world. I do
not think you are from Perelandra, for it must be very hot; if any came from
there they would
not live when they arrived here. So I conclude you are from Thulcandra."
"The world I come from is called Earth by those who live there," said Ransom.
"And it is
much warmer than this. Before I came into your cave I was nearly dead with cold
and thin air."
The sorn made a sudden movement with one of its long fore-limbs. Ransom
stiffened
(though he did not allow himself to retreat), for the creature might be going to
grab him. In
fact, its intentions were kindly. Stretching back into the cave, it took from
the wall what looked
like a cup. Then Ransom saw that it was attached to a length of flexible tube.
The sorn put it
into his hands.
"Smell on this," it said. "The hrossa also need it when they pass this way."
Ransom inhaled and was instantly refreshed. His painful shortness of breath was
eased and
the tension of chest and temples was relaxed. The sorn and the lighted cavern,
hitherto vague
and dream-like to his eyes, took on a new reality.
"Oxygen?" he asked; but naturally the English word meant nothing to the sorn.
"Are you called Augray?" he asked.
"Yes," said the sorn. "What are you called?"
"The animal I am is called Man, and therefore the hrossa call me Hmân. But my
own name
is Ransom."
"Man - Ren-soom," said the sorn. He noticed that it spoke differently from the
hrossa,
without any suggestion of their persistent initial H.
It was sitting on its long, wedge-shaped buttocks with its feet drawn close up
to it. A man in
the same posture would have rested his chin on his knees, but the sorn's
legs
were too long for
that. Its knees rose high above its shoulders on each side of its head -
grotesquely suggestive of
huge ears - and the head, down between them, rested its chin on the protruding
breast. The
creature seemed to have either a double chin or a beard; Ransom could not make
out which in
the firelight. It was mainly white or cream in colour and seemed to be clothed
down to the
ankles in some soft substance that reflected the light. On the long fragile
shanks, where the
creature was closest to him, he saw that this was some natural kind of coat. It
was not like fur
but more like feathers. In fact it was almost exactly like feathers. The whole
animal, seen at
close quarters, was less terrifying than he had expected, and even a little
smaller. The face, it
was true, took a good deal of getting used to - it was too long, too solemn and
too colourless,
and it was much more unpleasantly like a human face than any inhuman creature's
face ought to
be. Its eyes, like those of all very large creatures, seemed too small for it.
But it was more
grotesque than horrible. A new conception of the sorns began to arise in his
mind: the ideas of
'giant' and 'ghost' receded behind those of 'goblin' and 'gawk.'
"Perhaps you are hungry, Small One," it said.
Ransom was. The sorn rose with strange spidery movements and began going to and
fro
about the cave, attended by its thin goblin shadow. It brought him the usual
vegetable foods of
Malacandra, and strong drink, with the very welcome addition of a smooth brown
substance
which revealed itself to nose, eye and palate, in defiance of all probability,
as cheese. Ransom
asked what it was.
The sorn began to explain painfully how the female of some animals secreted a
fluid for the
nourishment of its young, and would have gone on to describe the whole process
of milking and
cheesemaking, if Ransom had not interrupted it.
"Yes, yes," he said. "We do the same on Earth. What is the beast you use?"
"It is a yellow beast with a long neck. It feeds on the forests that grow in the
handramit.
The young ones of our people who are not yet fit for much else drive the beasts
down there in
the mornings and follow them while they feed; then before night they drive them
back and put
them in the caves."
For a moment Ransom found something reassuring in the thought that the sorns
were
shepherds. Then he remembered that the Cyclops in Homer plied the same
trade.
"I think I have seen one of your people at this very work," he said. "But the
hrossa - they let
you tear up their forests?"
"Why should they not?"
"Do you rule the hrossa?"
"Oyarsa rules them."
"And who rules you?"
"Oyarsa."
"But you know more than the hrossa?"
"The hrossa know nothing except about poems and fish and making things grow out
of the
ground."
"And Oyarsa - is he a sorn?"
"No, no, Small One. I have told you he rules all nau" (so he pronounced hnau)
"and
everything in Malacandra."
"I do not understand this Oyarsa," said Ransom. "Tell me more."
"Oyarsa does not die," said the sorn. "And he does not breed. He is the one of
his kind who
was put into Malacandra to rule it when Malacandra was made. His body is not
like ours, nor
yours; it is hard to see and the light goes through it."
"Like an eldil?"
"Yes, he is the greatest of eldila who ever come to a handra."
"What are these eldila ?"
"Do you tell me, Small One, that there are no eldila in your world?"
"Not that I know of. But what are eldila, and why can I not see them? Have they
no
bodies?"
"Of course they have bodies. There are a great many bodies you cannot see. Every
animal's
eyes see some things but not others. Do you not know of many kinds of body in
Thulcandra?"
Ransom tried to give the sorn some idea of the terrestrial terminology of
solids, liquids and
gases. It listened with great attention.
"That is not the way to say it," it replied. "Body is movement. If it is at one
speed, you
smell something; if at another, you hear a sound; if at another, you see a
sight; if at another, you
neither see nor hear nor nor know the body in any way. But mark this, Small One,
that the two
ends meet."
"How do you mean?"
"If movement is faster, then that which moves is more nearly in two places at
once."
"That is true."
"But if the movement were faster still - it is difficult, for you do not know
many words - you
see that if you made it faster and faster, in the end the moving thing would be
in all places at
once, Small One."
"I think I see that."
"Well, then, that is the thing at the top of all bodies - so fast that it is at
rest, so truly body
that it has ceased being body at all. But we will not talk of that. Start from
where we are,
Small One. The swiftest thing that touches our senses is light. We do not truly
see light, we
only see slower things lit by it, so that for us light is on the edge - the last
thing we know before
things become too swift for us. But the body of an eldil is a movement swift as
light; you may
say its body is made of light, but not of that which is light for the eldil. His
'light' is a swifter
movement which for us is nothing at all; and what we call light is for him a
thing like water, a
visible thing, a thing he can touch and bathe in - even a dark thing when not
illumined by the
swifter. And what we call firm things - flesh and earth - seems to him thinner,
and harder to
see, than our light, and more like clouds, and nearly nothing. To us the eldil
is a thin, half-real
body that can go through walls and rocks: to himself he goes through them
because he is solid
and firm and they are like cloud. And what is true light to him and fills the
heaven, so that he
will plunge into the rays of the sun to refresh himself from it, is to us the
black nothing in the
sky at night. These things are not strange, Small One, though they are beyond
our senses. But
it is strange that the eldila never visit Thulcandra."
"Of that I am not certain," said Ransom. It had dawned on him that the recurrent
human
tradition of bright, elusive people sometimes appearing on the Earth - albs,
devas and the like -
might after all have another explanation than the anthropologists had yet given.
True, it would
turn the universe rather oddly inside out; but his experiences in the space-ship
had prepared him
for some such operation.
"Why does Oyarsa send for me?" he asked.
"Oyarsa has not told me," said the sorn. "But doubtless he would want to see any
stranger
from another handra."
"We have no Oyarsa in my world," said Ransom.
"That is another proof," said the sorn, "that you come from Thulcandra, the
silent planet."
"What has that to do with it?"
The sorn seemed surprised. "It is not very likely if you had an Oyarsa that he
would never
speak to ours."
"Speak to yours? But how could he - it is millions of miles away."
"Oyorsa would not think of it like that."
"Do you mean that he ordinarily receives messages from other planets ?"
"Once again, he would not say it that way. Oyarsa would not say that he lives on
Malacandra and that another Oyarsa lives on another earth. For him Malacandra is
only a place
in the heavens; it is in the heavens that he and the others live. Of course they
talk together ...."
Ransom's mind shied away from the problem; he was getting sleepy and thought he
must be
misunderstanding the sorn.
"I think I must sleep, Augray," he said. "And I do not know what you are saying.
Perhaps,
too, I do not come from what you call Thulcandra."
"We will both sleep presently," said the sorn. "But first I will show you
Thulcandra."
It rose and Ransom followed it into the back of the cave. Here he found a little
recess and
running up within it a winding stair. The steps, hewn for sorns, were too high
for a man to
climb with any comfort, but using hands and knees he managed to hobble up. The
sorn
preceded him. Ransom did not understand the light, which seemed to come from
some small
round object which the creature held in its hand. They went up a long way,
almost as if they
were climbing up the inside of a hollow mountain. At last, breathless, he found
himself in a
dark but warm chamber of rock, and heard the sorn saying:
"She is still well above the southern horizon." It directed his attention to
something like a
small window. Whatever it was, it did not appear to work like an earthly
telescopes Ransom
thought; though an attempt, made next day, to explain the principles of the
telescope to the sorn
threw grave doubts on his own ability to discern the difference. He leaned
forward with his
elbows on the sill of the aperture and looked. He saw perfect blackness and,
floating in the
centre of it, seemingly an arm's length away, a bright disk about the size of a
half-crown. Most
of its surface was featureless, shining silver; towards the bottom markings
appeared, and below
them a white cap, just as he had seen the polar caps in astronomical photographs
of Mars. He
wondered for a moment if it was Mars he was looking at; then, as his eyes took
in the markings
better, he recognized what they were - Northern Europe and a piece of North
America. They
were upside down with the North Pole at the bottom of the picture and this
somehow shocked
him. But it was Earth he was seeing - even, perhaps, England, though the picture
shook a little
and his eyes were quickly getting tired, and he could not be certain that he was
not imagining it.
It was all there in that little disk - London, Athens, Jerusalem, Shakespeare.
There everyone
had lived and everything had happened; and there, presumably, his pack was still
lying in the
porch of an empty house near Sterk.
"Yes," he said dully to the sorn. "That is my world." It was the bleakest moment
in all his
travels.