hought to all those
who have flown to dead ^planets without water or atmosphere, who have
searched in vain for ruins, for the remains of towns and buildings in the
accidental shapes of the crevices, in the details of the lifeless rocks and
in the precipices of mountains that had never known life.
The earth of that distant world, scorched, churned up by violent
storms, without any trace of a shadow, flashed swiftly across the screen.
Erg Noor, recognizing the collapse of an ancient dream, strove to imagine
how such an incorrect conception of the planets of the blue sun could have
arisen.
"Our terrestrial brothers will be disappointed when they know this,"
said the biologist, softly, moving closer to the commander. ''For many
thousands of years millions of people on Earth have gazed at Vega. On summer
evenings in the north all young people, all those who loved and dreamed,
turned their eyes to the sky. In the summer Vega, bright and blue, stands
almost in the zenith, how could one not admire it? Many centuries ago people
knew quite a lot about the stars. But by some strange freak of thought they
did not suspect that almost every slowly rotating star with a strong
magnetic field had its planets in the same way as almost all planets have
their satellites. They did not know of this law but when they were overtaken
by bitter loneliness they dreamed of fellow-beings in other worlds, and,
more than elsewhere, on Vega, the blue sun. I remember translations from
some of the ancient languages of beautiful poems about semi-divine people
from the blue star...."
"I dreamed about Vega after the Parus communication," confessed Erg
Noor, turning to Eon Thai, "and in my hope that my dream would come true I
read my own meaning into that communication. Today it is obvious that
thousands of years of longing for distant, beautiful worlds have impaired my
vision and that of many clever and serious people."
"How do you understand the Parus communication now?"
"Quite simply. 'Vega's four planets quite lifeless. Nothing more
beautiful than our Earth, what happiness to return.' "
"You're right," exclaimed the biologist, "why didn't we think of it
before?"
"Perhaps somebody did, but not we astronauts and not the Council. That
is to our honour-bold dreams and not sceptical disappointment bring victory
in life."
The flight round the planet, as shown on the screen, was over. It was
followed by the records made by the robot station that had been put out to
study surface conditions on the planet. Next came a loud explosion as the
geological bomb 23 was dropped. The huge cloud of mineral dust
thrown up by the bomb explosion reached the keel of the spaceship where
powerful suction pumps drew
samples into the filtering side-channels of the vessel. Several samples
of mineral dust from the sands and mountains of the scorched planet were put
into silicolloid test-tubes and samples of the upper layers of the
atmosphere were put into quartz containers. Parus set off on its long
journey back home, a journey it was not fated to finish. Now the terrestrial
sister ship of Parus was carrying back to the people of Earth everything
that the lost travellers had won at the cost of such patient endeavour.
The remaining records-six reels of observations-were to be specially
studied by Earth's astronomers and the moat important details broadcast
round the Great Circle.
Nobody wanted to see films about the later history of Parus, the hard
struggle to repair the damaged ship and the battle with star T; nobody
wanted to hear the last sound spool as their own experiences were still too
fresh. They decided to leave the examination of the remainder until the time
came for the whole crew to be awakened. Leaving the commander alone in the
control tower the others went away for a brief rest.
Erg Noor's dreams had collapsed and he no longer thought of them. He
tried to estimate the value of those few pitiful crumbs of knowledge the two
expeditions, his and Parus', would bring back to mankind at such terrific
cost. Or did they seem pitiful only on account of his disappointment?
For the first time Erg Noor began to think of beautiful Earth as an
inexhaustible treasure-house of refined, cultured human beings who had an
insatiable thirst for knowledge now that they had been relieved of the
terrible worries and dangers that nature and primitive society had inflicted
them with. The sufferings of the past, the searchings and failures, the
mistakes and disappointments still remained in the Great Circle Era but they
had been carried to a loftier plane of creative activity in science, art and
building. Knowledge and creative labour had freed Earth from hunger,
over-population, infectious diseases and harmful animals. The world no
longer had to fear the exhaustion of fuel and useful chemical elements,
premature death and debility had been eliminated. Those crumbs of knowledge
that Tantra would bring home would also be a contribution to the mighty
stream of knowledge that made for constant progress in the organization of
society and the study of nature.
Erg Noor opened the safe that housed Tantra's records and took out the
box containing the piece of metal from the spiral spaceship on the black
planet. The heavy piece of sky-blue metal lay flat on his palm. Although he
had put off the analysis of this precious sample for the huge laboratories
on Earth, he knew that neither on Earth not-on any of the planets of the
solar system or neighbouring stars was any such metal to be found. The
Universe was made up of similar simple elements that had long before been
systematized in the Mendeleyev Table. Consequently no new element-no
metal-could be discovered; but in the processes of the creation of elements,
natural or artificial, countless isotope variations, possessing vastly
different physical properties, could emerge. Then again, directed
recrystallization changed the properties of elements to a great extent. Erg
Noor was convinced that this piece of the hull of a spaceship from worlds
inconceivably far away was a terrestrial metal whose atoms had been
completely rearranged. This would be something, perhaps the most important
thing after news of Zirda's ruin, that he would take bade to Earth and the
Great Circle.
The iron star was very close to Earth and a visit to its planet by a
specially prepared expedition would not now, after the experience of Purus
and Tantra, be particularly dangerous, no matter what multitude of black
crosses and medusae there might be in that eternal darkness. They had been
unfortunate in their opening of the spiral spaceship. If they had had time
to ponder over the tiling they would have realized then that the gigantic
spiral tube was part of the spaceship's propulsion system.
In his mind the commander went over the events of hat fateful last day.
He remembered Nisa spread over him like. a shield after he had fallen
unconscious near the roonster. Youthful emotions that combined the heroic
loyalty of the ancient women of Earth and the frank and wise courage of the
modern world had not had time to develop in her to the full....
Four Hyss appeared silently from behind him to relieve she commander at
his post. Erg Noor went through the library-laboratory but did not go on to
the central dormitory cabin; instead he opened the heavy side-bay door ; The
diffused light of an earthly day was reflected from the silicolloid
cupboards containing drugs and instruments, from the X-ray, artificial
respiration and blood-circulation apparatus. He drew back a heavy curtain
that reached up to the ceiling and entered the semi-darkness of the
sick-room. The faint illumination, like moonlight, acquired warmth in the
rosy crystal of the silicolloid. Two tiratron stimulators were kept
permanently switched on in case of sudden collapse; they clicked away almost
soundlessly, keeping the paralyzed patient's heart beating. In the
rosy-silver light inside the hood Nisa was stretched out motionless and
seemed as though she were sunk in calm, sweet slumber. A hundred generations
of the healthy, clean and full life of her ancestors had produced the strong
and supple lines of the female body that approached the acme of artistic
perfection-the most beautiful creation of Earth's powerful life.
Everything moves and develops in a spiral and Erg Noor could see in his
imagination that magnificent spiral of the common ascent as applied to life
and to human society. Only now did he realize with surprising clarity that
the more difficult the conditions for the life and work of organisms as
biological machines, the harder the path of social development, the tighter
the spiral is twisted and the closer to each other are its turns, the slower
the process and more standardized and similar are the forms that emerge. By
the laws of dialectics, however, the more imperceptible the ascent, the more
stable is that which has been achieved.
He had been wrong in his pursuit of the wonderful planets of the blue
sun and he had been teaching Nisa wrongly! They should not fly to new worlds
in search of some uninhabited planet that chance made suitable for life, but
man should advance deliberately, step by step, through his own arm of the
Galaxy in a triumphal march of knowledge and the beauty of life. Such as
Nisa....
In a sudden burst of deep sorrow Erg Noor dropped to his knees in front
of the astronavigator's silicolloid sarcophagus. The girl's breathing was
not perceptible, her eyelashes cast blue shadows on her cheeks and her white
teeth were just visible through her slightly parted lips. On her left
shoulder, at the base of her neck and near the elbow there were pale, bluish
marks-the places where the injurious currents had struck her.
"Can you see me, do you remember anything in your sleep?" asked Erg
Noor in agony, in an outburst of grief; he felt his own will-power becoming
softer than wax, it was difficult for him to breathe and there was a catch
in his throat. The commander strained his interlocked fingers until they
turned blue in his effort to transmit his thoughts to Nisa, to make her hear
his impassioned call to life and Happiness. But the girl with the auburn
curls lay as immobile as a statue of pink marble carved to perfection from a
living model.
Dr. Louma Lasvy entered the sick bay softly and sensed the presence of
somebody else in the silent room. Cautiously withdrawing the curtain she saw
the kneeling figure of the commander as motionless as a memorial to the
millions of men who have mourned their loved ones. This was not the first
time she had found Erg Noor there and her heart was moved with pity for him.
He rose gloomily to his feet. Louma went over to him and whispered in
anxious tones:
"I want to speak to you."
Erg Noor nodded and went out, blinking as he entered the lighted part
of the sick bay. He did not sit down on the chair Louma offered him but
remained leaning against the upright of a mushroom-shaped irradiation
apparatus. Louma Lasvy stood up in front of him to her full, lint not very
great, height, trying to make herself look taller and more important for the
impending talk. The commander's looks gave her no time for preparations.
"You know," she began uncertainly, "that present-day neurology has
discovered the process by which emotions emerge in the conscious and
subconscious divisions of the psyche. The subconscious yields to the
influence of inhibiting drugs administered through the ancient spheres of
the brain that control the chemical regulation of the organism, including
the nervous system and, to some extent, higher nervous activity...."
Erg Noor raised his brows. Louma Lasvy felt that she was speaking in
too great detail and too long.
"I want to say that medicine is able to affect those brain centres that
control the strong emotions. I could...." Understanding flashed up in Erg
Noor's eyes and developed into a slight smile.
''You propose affecting my love for Nisa and relieving me of
suffering?" he asked brusquely.
The doctor nodded in affirmation, afraid to spoil the tenderness of her
sympathy with words that would inevitably be schematic.
Erg Noor stretched out his hand gratefully but shook his head in
refusal.
"I would not give up the wealth of my emotions, no matter how much
suffering they cause me. Suffering, so long as it is not beyond one's
strength, leads to understanding, understanding leads to love and the circle
is complete. You're very kind, Louma, but it isn't necessary!"
And the commander disappeared through the door with his usual swift
gait.
Hurrying, as they would have done in an emergency, the electronic and
mechanical engineers erected the televisophone screen for the reception of
terrestrial transmissions. After thirteen years the screen was being erected
in the library of the central control tower as the ship was now in a zone
where radio waves, dispersed by Earth's atmosphere could be received.
The voices, sounds, forms and colours of their native Earth cheered the
travellers up and also served to increase their impatience-the great length
of the Cosmic journey was becoming intolerable.
The spaceship sent out a call to Artificial Earth Satellite No. 57 on
the usual wavelength used for long-distance Cosmic journeys and impatiently
awaited an answer from this powerful station that served as a link between
Earth and the Cosmos.
At last the call signals from the spaceship reached Earth.
The whole crew of the ship were awake and did not leave the receivers.
They were returning to life after thirteen terrestrial and nine dependent
years in which there had been no contact with their native planet! They
listened eagerly to reports from Earth, and they took part in the discussion
of important questions raised on the world radio network by anybody who
wished to do so.
Quite by chance they picked up a proposal from the soil scientist Heb
Uhr that gave them material for a six-weeks' discussion and very intricate
calculations.
"Discuss Heb Uhr's proposal!" thundered the voice of Earth. "Let
everybody who is working in that field; who has any similar ideas or
objections, say his word!"
This, the usual formula, had a pleasant sound for the travellers. Heb
Uhr had proposed to the Astronautical Council a plan for the systematic
exploration of the reachable planets of the blue and green stars. He
believed these to be special worlds with extraordinarily strong power
emanations that might chemically stimulate mineral compounds that are inert
under terrestrial conditions to struggle against entropy, that is, give them
life. Special forms of life from minerals that are heavier than gas would be
active in high temperatures and in the intense radiation of stars in the
higher spectral classes. Heb Uhr was of the opinion that the failure of the
Sirius expedition, the failure to find life there, was to be expected since
that rapidly rotating star was a binary that did not possess a powerful
magnetic field. Nobody disputed with Heb Uhr the fact that binary stars
could not be regarded as the originators of planetary systems in the Cosmos,
but the essence of the proposal called forth very lively opposition from
Tantra's crew.
The astronomers, headed by Erg Noor, compiled a report which was
transmitted as being the opinion of the first people who had seen Vega in
the film taken by Parus.
People on Earth listened with delight and admiration to the voice from
the approaching spaceship.
Tantra opposed the dispatch of the expeditions suggested by Heb Uhr.
The blue stars really did emanate tremendous energy per unit of their
planets' surfaces, sufficient to ensure the life of heavy compounds. Any
living organism, however, was at once both an energy filter and a dam which,
in its struggle against the Second Law of Thermodynamics, functioned only by
means of the creation of a complex, by means of the great complication of
simple mineral and gas molecules. Such complications could only occur in a
process of tremendously active development, which, in turn, entailed the
lengthy stability of physical Conditions. Stable conditions did not exist on
the planets of high-temperature stars which rapidly destroyed complicated
compounds in bursts and vortices of powerful radiation. Nothing there could
exist for long despite the fact that minerals acquired the most stable
crystal structure with a cubic atomic pattern.
Tantra was of the opinion that Heb Uhr was merely repeating the
one-sided assertions of the ancient astronomers who had not understood the
dynamics of planet development. Every planet lost the lighter substances
that were carried away into space and dispersed. The loss of light elements
was especially great in cases where there was great heat and great light
pressure from the blue suns.
Tantra gave a long string of examples and concluded that the process of
"increasing weight" on the planets of the blue stars did not permit the
emergence of living forms.
Satellite 57 transmitted Tantra's objections direct to the Council
observatory.
At last the moment came that Ingrid Dietra and Kay Bear, like all other
members of the expedition, had been awaiting so impatiently. Tnntra began to
reduce her speed from her subphotonic velocity, had passed the ice belt of
the solar system and was approaching the spaceship station on Triton. High
velocity was no longer necessary: travelling at a speed of 900 million
kilometres an hour, they would have reached Earth from Neptune's satellite.
Triton, in less than five hours. The acceleration of the spaceship, however,
took so long that she would have overshot the Sun and travelled far away
from it into space if she had set out from Triton.
In order to economize the precious anameson and save the ship from
carrying unwieldy equipment, communications inside the solar system were
effected by ion planet-ships. Their speed did not exceed 800,000 kilometres
an hour for the inner planets and 2,500,000 kilometres an hour for the most
distant outer planets. The usual trip from Neptune to Earth took two and a
half to three months.
Triton was a very big satellite, only a little smaller than the huge
third and fourth satellites of Jupiter, Ganymede and Callisto, or the planet
Mercury. It therefore possessed a thin atmosphere consisting mainly of
nitrogen and carbon monoxide.
Erg Noor lauded the spaceship at the appointed place at the satellite's
pole, far from the broad domes of the station buildings. On a ledge of the
plateau, near a cliff that was honeycombed with underground premises, stood
the gleaming glass building of the quarantine sanatorium.
Here the travellers were subjected to a five-week quarantine in
complete isolation from all other people. In the course of this time skilled
doctors would study their bodies to make sure that no new infection had
taken root. The danger was too great to be ignored: every person who had
landed on another planet, even on an uninhabited one, had to submit to this
inspection no matter how long he had afterwards been confined to the
spaceship. The interior of the ship itself was also inspected by the
sanatorium's scientists before the station gave permission for the journey
to Earth. Those planets that had been studied long before and had been
colonized by man, such as Venus and Mars, as well as some of the asteroids,
had their own quarantine stations where travellers were examined before the
ships left.
Confinement in the sanatorium was easier than in the spaceship. There
were laboratories in which to work, concert halls, combined baths using
electric currents, music, water and wave oscillations, daily walks in light
protective suits in the hills near the sanatorium, and, lastly, there was
contact with Earth, not always regular, but, still, Earth was only five
hours away!
Nisa's silicolloid sarcophagus was carried into the sanatorium with
every possible precaution. Erg Noor and the biologist Eon Thai were the last
to leave Tantra. They moved easily even though wearing weights to prevent
their making sudden leaps in the low gravitation on the satellite.
The floodlights around the landing fieldwere extinguished. Triton was
moving across Neptune's daylight side. Dull as the greyish light reflected
by Neptune was, the giant mirror of the planet, only 35,000 kilometres away
from Triton, dispelled the gloom and gave the satellite a bright twilight
like that of a spring evening in the northern latitudes of Earth. Triton
revolved about Neptune in the opposite direction to the planet's revolution,
that is, from east to west, once in about six terrestrial days so that the
"daytime" twilight lasted about seventy hours. In that time Neptune revolved
about its Own axis four times and at the moment of their arrival the shadow
of the satellite was noticeable as it crossed the nebulous disc.
Almost simultaneously the commander and the biologist noticed a small
ship standing near the edge of the plateau. This was not a spaceship with
its stern half broader than the bows and with high stabilizer ribs. Judging
by the sharp bows and slim hull it must have been a planetship hut its
contours differed in the thick ring at the stern and the long,
distaff-shaped structure on top.
"There's another ship here in quarantine?" half asked, half asserted
Eon. "Can the Council have changed its rules?"
"Not to send out stellar expeditions before a previous one has
returned?" asked Erg Noor in his turn. "We have kept to our schedule but the
report we should have sent to Earth from Zirda was two years late."
"Perhaps it is an expedition to Neptune," suggested the biologist. They
soon covered the two kilometres to the sanatorium and climbed up to a wide
terrace faced with red basalt. The tiny disc of the Sun, easily visible from
the pole of the non-rotating satellite, shone brighter than any other star
in the black sky. The bitter frost, --170° C., felt like the ordinary cold
of a northern winter on Earth through their heated protective suits. Huge
flakes of snow, frozen ammonia or carbon monoxide, fell slowly through the
still atmosphere, giving their surroundings the serene appearance of Earth
during a snow-fall.
Erg Noor and Eon Thai stared hypnotized at the falling snow-flakes as
did their distant ancestors in the northern lands for whom the first
snow-fall meant the end of the farm year. And this unusual snow also meant
the end of their journey and their labours.
The biologist, in response to a subconscious impulse, held out his hand
to the commander.
"Our adventures are over and we are still alive and well-thanks to
you!"
Erg Noor made an abrupt gesture repelling his hand. "Are we all well?
And thanks to whom am I alive?" Eon Thai was not put out.
"I'm sure Nisa will be saved! The doctors here want to begin treatment
immediately. Instructions have been received from Grimm Schar himself, you
know, the head of the General Paralysis Laboratory."
"Do they know what it is?"
"Not yet. But Nisa has obviously been struck by some sort of current
that condenses in the nerve nodes of the autonomous systems. When we find
out how to put a stop to its extraordinarily long action the girl will be
cured. We have discovered the functioning of persistent psychic paralysis
that was considered incurable for centuries, haven't we? This is something
similar caused by an outside exciter. We'll carry out some experiments on my
prisoners, whether they are dead or alive, then ... my arm will also begin
to function again!"
The commander felt ashamed and frowned; in his great sorrow he had
forgotten how much the biologist had done for him. Not at all decent in a
grown man! He took the biologist's hand and they expressed their warm
friendship in man's age-old handshake.
"Do you think the lethal organs of the black jelly-fish and that-that
cross-shaped abomination are of the same order?" asked Erg Noor.
"I don't doubt it, my arm tells me that. Adaptation to life in these
black creatures, inhabitants of a planet rich in electricity, has taken the
form of the accumulation and transformation of electric energy. They are
obviously beasts of prey but we still don't know whom they prey on."
"But do you remember what happened to us all when Nisa...."
"That's another thing. I have thought a lot about that. When that awful
cross appeared it radiated infrasonic waves of tremendous strength that
broke down our willpower. Sounds in that black world are also black and we
cannot hear them. This monster dulls the consciousness with infrasonic
effects, and then uses a sort of hypnosis much stronger than that once used
by the now extinct big terrestrial snakes, like the anaconda, for example.
That was what nearly finished us-if it had not been for Nisa...."
Erg Noor looked at the distant Sun that was at that moment also shining
on Earth. The Sun is man's eternal hope, has been since the prehistoric days
when man dragged out a pitiful existence in the teeth of ruthless nature.
The Sun is the incarnation of the bright forces of the intellect driving
away the darkness and the monsters of the night. And a joyful spark of hope
went with him for the rest of his journey.
The Director of the Triton Station came to see Erg Noor at the
sanatorium to tell him that Earth wanted to speak to him. The Director's
appearance in a building that was in strict quarantine meant that their
isolation was over and that Tantra would be able to complete her
thirteen-year journey. Erg Noor came back looking more business-like than
ever.
"We are leaving today. I have been asked to take six people from the
planetship Amat with us; the ship is remaining here to organize the mining
of new mineral deposits on Pluto. We are taking back the expedition and the
material they collected on Pluto.
"These six people re-equipped an ordinary planetship for the
performance of a deed of great valour. They dived into the depths of hell,
down through Pluto's thick atmosphere of neon and methane, they flew through
blizzards of ammonia snow, every second bringing fresh risks of collision
with gigantic needles of frozen water as hard as steel. They managed to find
a region where there are mountains.
"The mystery of Pluto has been solved at last-it is a planet that does
not belong to our solar system but one that was captured by the Sun during
its passage through the Galaxy. This accounts for Pluto's density being much
greater than that of any other planet. The explorers discovered strange
minerals on this alien world but more important still, on one ridge they
found an almost completely ruined structure that told of an inconceivably
ancient civilization. The research data must, of course, be checked. The
intelligent working of building materials has still to be proved. But still,
an amazingly valorous deed has been done. I am proud that our spaceship will
carry the heroes back to Earth and I am all impatience to hear their
stories. Their quarantine was over three days ago."
Erg Noor stopped, exhausted by such a lengthy speech.
"But there is a serious contradiction in this!" shouted Pour Hyss.
"Contradiction is the mother of truth!" Erg Noor answered calmly,
making use of an old proverb. "It's time to get Tantra ready."
The tried and tested spaceship got away from Triton very easily and
described a huge arc perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic. It was
impossible to get directly to Earth--any ship would have been destroyed in
the wide asteroid and meteoroid belt, a zone filled with the fragments of
the burst planet Phaeton that once existed between Mars and Jupiter and was
exploded by the gravitation of the giant of the solar system.
Erg Noor increased acceleration. He did not intend to take his
expedition back to Earth by the normal seventy-two day route but to use the
colossal power of the spaceship to make the journey in fifty hours with a
minimum expenditure of anameson.
Transmission from Earth raced through space to Tantra and the planet
greeted the victory over the gloom of the iron star and over the gloom of
icy Pluto. Specially written songs and symphonies in honour of Tantra and
Amat were performed.
The Cosmos resounded with triumphant melodies. Stations on Mars, Venus
and the asteroids called the ship, their chords merging with the general
chorus of homage to the
heroes.
'"Tantra... Tantra..." came, at last, the voice from the Council's
control post. "You may land on El Homra!"
The Central Cosmic Port was situated where there had formerly been a
desert in North Africa and the spaceship made its way there through the
sun-drenched atmosphere of Earth.
CHAPTER SEVEN. SYMPHONY IN F-MINOR, COLOUR TONE 4.75m
The wall of the broad verandah facing south towards the sea was made of
sheets of transparent plastic. The pale diffused light from the ceiling
complemented rather than rivalled the moonlight, softening its dense black
shadows. Almost the whole maritime expedition had gathered on the verandah,
only the very youngest members of the expedition were still frolicking in
the moonlit sea. Cart Sann, the artist, was there with his beautiful model.
Frith Don, the Director of the expedition, shook back his long, golden hair
as he told the people about the horse Miyiko had found. When they made tests
of the material from which it was made in order to calculate the weight to
he lifted they got the most unexpected results. Under the superficial layer
of some alloy the statue was pure gold. If the horse were cast solid then
its weight, after allowance had been made for water displacement, would be
four hundred tons. Special vessels with powerful salvage gear had been sent
for-an unexpected development from a pleasant afternoon's swim enjoyed by
Miyiko Eigoro and Darr Veter. Somebody asked how so much valuable metal
could have been used so foolishly. One of the older historians recalled a
legend discovered in the historical archives telling of the disappearance of
the gold reserves of a whole country, and that at a time when gold was the
monetary expression of labour values. Certain criminal rulers, guilty of
tyranny and the impoverishment of the people, had been forced to flee to
another country-in those days there were obstacles called frontiers
preventing contact between nations-and before absconding they gathered
together the entire gold reserve and cast a statue from it and placed it in
the busiest square of the country's chief city. Nobody was able to find the
gold. The historian presumed that in those days nobody had been able to find
the precious metal under the layer of the cheap alloy.
The story caused some excitement. The find of a large quantity of gold
was a fine gift to mankind. Although the heavy metal had long ceased to
serve as a symbol of value it was still very necessary in electrical
instruments, medicines and, especially, for the manufacture of anameson.
In a small group in a corner outside the verandah sat Veda Kong, Darr
Veter, the artist, Chara Nandi and Evda Nahl. Renn Bose sat down bashfully
beside them after his fruitless attempts to find Mven Mass.
''You were right when you said that artists, or rather, art in general,
must always inevitably lag behind the rapid advance of knowledge and
technique," said Darr Veter.
'"You didn't understand me," objected Cart Saun. "Art has already
corrected its errors and understood its duty to mankind. Art has ceased to
create oppressive monumental forms, to depict brilliance and majesty that do
not exist in reality, for all that was purely superficial. Art's most
important duty has become the development of man's emotional side, since
only art can rightly attune the human psyche and prepare it for the
acceptance of the most complicated impressions. Who does not know how
wonderfully easy it is to understand something when you have been pretuned
by music, colour or form, and how inaccessible the human spirit is when you
try to force a way into it. You historians know better than anybody else how
much mankind has suffered through a lack of understanding of the necessity
to train and develop the emotional side of the psyche."
"There was a period in the past when art craved abstract forms," Veda
Kong put in.
"Art craved abstract forms in imitation of the intellect that had
gained priority over everything else. Art, however, cannot find expression
in the abstract, with the exception, of course, of music, and that occupies
a special place and is concrete in its own way. Art in those days was on the
wrong track."
''What do you believe to be the right track?"
"I believe that art should be a reflection of the struggle and
anxieties of life in people's feelings, at times it should illustrate life
but under the control of a common purposefulness. This purposefulness, in
other words, is beauty, without which I cannot see happiness or a meaning
for life. Without it art can easily degenerate into mere fanciful invention,
especially if the artist has an insufficient knowledge of life and of
history."
"I have always wanted art to help conquer and change he world and not
merely to sense the world," added Darr Veter. I "I agree with that, but with
one proviso," said Cart Sann. "Art shouldn't treat the outside world alone;
it's more important to treat of man's inner world, his emotions, his
education. With an understanding of all contradictions ...."
Evda Nahl placed her strong, warm hand on Darr Veter's.
"What dream have you renounced today?" At first Veter wanted to put her
off, but realized that with Evda equivocation was impossible. And so he
pretended to be absorbed in the artist's discourse.
"Those who have seen the mass art of the past," continued the artist,
"cinema films, recordings of theatre shows, exhibitions of pictures, know
how. marvellously refined, elegant, purged of all superfluities our
present-day spectacles, dances and pictures seem by contrast. I am not
comparing them with the periods of decay, of course."
"He's clever but too verbose," whispered Veda Kong. "It's difficult for
an artist to express in words or formulas those complicated phenomena that
he sees and selects from his environment," Chara Nandi said in his defence
and Evda Nahl nodded approvingly.
"What I want to do is something like this," continued Cart Sann, "I
want to collect into one image the pure grains of the wonderful genuineness
of feeling, form and colour scattered among many people. I want to restore
the ancient images by the highest expression of the beauty of each of the
races of the distant past that have gone into the makeup of mankind today.
The Daughter of Gondwana is unity with nature, a subconscious knowledge of
the connections between things and phenomena, a complex of senses and
feelings interlaced with instincts.
"The Daughter of Thetis, the Mediterranean, has strongly developed
emotions that are fearlessly expansive and infinitely varying; here there is
a different degree of the union with nature, through emotions, the power of
Eros-that is how I imagine her. The ancient civilizations of the
Mediterranean, the Cretan, Etruscan, Hellenic and Proto-Indian-gave rise to
the type of man who, alone of all others, could have created that
civilization that stemmed from the rule of woman. I had the best of luck
when I discovered Chara: she is by pure accident a combination of the traits
of ancestors from amongst the Graeco-Cretans of antiquity and the later
peoples of Central India."
Veda smiled at the correctness of her guess and Darr Veter whispered to
her that it would be hard to find a better model.
"If my Daughter of the Mediterranean turns out a success then I must go
on to the third part of the plan- I must paint the golden- or flaxen-haired
northern woman, with her calm and transparent eyes, tall, somewhat slow in
her movements, her glance straightforward as she looks out at the world like
one of the ancient Russian, Scandinavian or English women. Only when that is
finished shall I be able to start on the synthesis, the image of the
present-day woman in which I shall have to portray the best features of each
of those ancestors."
"Why do you only paint 'daughters' and no 'sons'?" asked Veda, smiling
mysteriously.
"Is there any need for me to explain that by the laws of physiology the
beautiful is always more finished and more refined in woman?" frowned the
artist.
"When you are ready to paint your third picture, your Daughter of the
North, take a good look at Veda Kong," began Evda Nahl, "you'll hardly ...."
The artist rose swiftly to his feet.
"D'you think I'm blind? I am struggling against myself to prevent that
image becoming part of me at a time when I am full of another. But Veda
...."
"Is dreaming of music," continued Veda. "What a pity there is only a
solar piano here and it's silent at night."
"Is that the piano with a system of semi-conductors that works from
sunlight?" asked Renn Bose, leaning over the arm of his chair. "If it is, I
can switch it over to use the, current of the receiver."
"Will it take long?" asked Veda, pleased at the opportunity.
"It would take about an hour."
"Then don't bother. The news broadcast on the world circuit begins in
an hour and we want to see and hear it. We've been busy the past two
evenings and haven't switched on the receiver."
"Then sing us something, Veda," asked Darr Veter. "Cart Sann has the
eternal stringed instrument, the one that dates back to feudal society in
the Dark Ages."
"Guitar," guessed Chara Nandi.
"Who'll play? I'll try myself, perhaps I can manage."
"I'll play." Chara Nandi volunteered to go for the guitar.
"We'll run together," suggested Frith Don. Chara roguishly tossed back
her mass of black hair. Sherliss pulled a lever moving back the side wall of
the verandah giving them a view of the eastern corner of the bay. Frith Don
ran with long strides. Chara ran with her head thrown back and soon fell
behind but in the end they arrived at the studio together, plunged into the
un-lighted entrance and a second later reappeared to skim along the edge of
the sea, stubborn and swift-footed. Frith Don was the first to reach the
verandah but Chara vaulted over the open side partition and was first in the
room. Veda clapped her hands in admiration. "But Frith Don won last year's
decathlon!" "And Chara Nandi was graduated from the Higher School of Dance,
both departments. Ancient and Modern," retorted Cart Sann, in the same tone.
"Veda and I studied dancing too, but only in the lower grades," sighed
Evda Nahl.
"Everybody passes the lower grade nowadays," said the artist teasingly.
Chara ran her fingers lightly over the strings, sticking out her small,
firm chin. The guitar hummed low, pensive notes. The young woman's
high-pitched voice combined longing and challenge. She sang a new song, one
that had just come from the southern zone, a song of an unfulfilled dream.
Veda's low contralto joined in