The Map of the Sky (11 page)

Ridding himself of Symmes in this way left a bitter aftertaste, yet there was no point in tormenting himself about it for the rest of his days, as a more sensitive soul would doubtless have done. And so the explorer decided to consign it to the place in his memory where he stored all his other shameful deeds and to carry on with his plan, as if the ex–army officer’s death would have happened even without his intervention. And so, unencumbered at last, Reynolds resumed giving lectures up and down the East Coast, papering the walls with illustrations by Halley, Euler, and others, just as he had done when Symmes was still alive. Given that his private expositions appeared to have failed, out of desperation Reynolds began to charge a fifty-cent admission fee for his public talks in an attempt to drum up funds for the expedition Symmes had never made. But he soon realized the gesture was more idealistic than practical and decided it was time to set his sights higher. He went from city to city proselytizing, knocked on office doors with redoubled vigor, but received only rejections. Then it occurred to him to turn America’s inferiority complex with regard to its European fellow nations to his advantage: he attempted to sell his polar expedition as the most important patriotic exploit ever undertaken. Thanks to what he instantly considered as a well-earned stroke of luck, his strategy caught the attention of John Frampton Watson, a wealthy businessman who was willing to fulfill Reynolds’s dreams. Watson’s money attracted a host of other powerful backers, who between them formed an intricate network of interests. Overnight Reynolds found himself scrutinized from behind the scenes by an alliance of powerful forces that were poised to celebrate his success—or to pounce on him if he failed. And so, amid wild cheers, the
Annawan
set sail from New York Harbor in search of the polar entrance to the inner Earth, while the press hailed the dream that had poisoned Symmes’s life as the Great American Expedition.

•   •   •

A
ND YET, HERE THEY
were now in a place that did not seem to belong to the world, where the crowds’ wild cheers no longer rang out, surrounded by a silence akin to oblivion. And as if that were not enough, something completely unexpected had happened, the consequences of which Reynolds was still unable to fathom. They had arrived in the Antarctic with the aim of finding the passage to the center of the Earth and had instead chanced upon a monster from the stars. Although at that moment fear blurred everything, Reynolds could not help beginning to play with the not entirely implausible idea that this accidental discovery might also crown him with glory and bury him under a pile of money. Did not the majority of important discoveries happen by chance? Did Columbus not stumble upon the New World when he was searching for a sea route to the East Indies? Indeed, the fate of great men seemed to be ordained by forces as powerful as they were mysterious. All of this could not be mere coincidence, he told himself. He was destined for glory, to go down in History, and he was determined to succeed come what may.

Reynolds tried to stay calm. Now more than ever he needed to study every possibility open to him. This much was obvious: if they managed to capture the demon and take him back to New York, it would cause a stir the like of which had never been seen before. The implications for humanity of the existence of other beings in outer space were incalculable. If the creature and its machine really came from there, as Peters claimed, they gave Man the opportunity to reconsider his place in nature and might even change his idea about the meaning of life. Like it or not, Man, that arrogant ruler of the universe, would have to acknowledge that Earth was just another planet in the vast firmament. In short, he would be forced to realize how terribly insignificant he was. Unquestionably, the monster from the stars would be an earth-shattering discovery, although, of course, they had to capture him first. But was that
possible? All of a sudden another idea occurred to Reynolds: what if the monster from the stars was not an evil being, as everyone assumed, but had traveled to Earth on a peaceful mission? Would it be possible to communicate with him? Reynolds had no idea, but perhaps he ought to try, for it would be a far greater achievement than simply taking his head back to New York. The first ever communication with intelligent life from another world! What marvels a creature like that might reveal to the human race! And how Reynolds would be remembered for centuries as the instigator of such a miracle! The explorer had to stop his imagination from running away with him. All of this remained to be seen. First they had to find a way home, for what use would there be in freezing to death with the knowledge that other worlds existed, even if they had taken tea with a creature from one of them?

Two figures standing out against the horizon interrupted his meditations. Reynolds took the spyglass out of the pocket of his oilskin and trained it on a pair of dark shapes advancing toward the ship. Although he could not make out their faces at that distance, it had to be Carson and Ringwald. So they had not been eaten alive by the monster. And from the way they were walking they did not seem to be injured either. Then Reynolds noticed the sled they were pulling between them, on top of which was a large mound draped in a tarpaulin. Reynolds’s jaw dropped in astonishment. This could only mean one thing: Carson and Ringwald had captured the monster from the stars.

V

T
HE ARRIVAL OF THE MEN THEY HAD GIVEN UP
for dead created the same stir among the crew of the
Annawan
as if they had seen a ghost. Reynolds, Captain MacReady, Doctor Walker, the boatswain Fisk, and some of the sailors, among them Peters, Allan, and Griffin, clambered down the makeshift ramp to welcome their lost companions, although most of them seemed more excited by the prospect of the two men having captured the monster from space. They came to a halt in front of the sled, plunged into a reverential silence.

“Did you find the demon?” MacReady asked, still unwilling to show any admiration for the two sailors whom he considered the most inept on the ship, while pointing at the mound upon which all eyes were focused.

“No, Captain,” Ringwald replied, “but we found this.”

The sailor gestured to his companion, and each tugged at a corner of the tarpaulin, revealing what was on the sled. The sight drew a murmur from the crew, for it was no less shocking than if it had been a demon from the stars. What Ringwald and Carson had brought from their search was the head of a gigantic elephant seal. The neck of the animal had been ripped apart, its huge skull crushed. The animal’s wounds were so extreme that no one dared to imagine what might have caused them. While the astonished group were examining the carcass, Ringwald explained that when they had found it, the animal’s innards were still steaming, which meant it could not have been long dead. The thick
fog made it impossible for them to continue, so they had decided to open up the animal’s abdomen even further and to take turns sheltering inside its still-warm interior. In this way, they had avoided freezing to death, although both had lost all feeling in their toes. Hearing their story, the others tried not to retch when they saw the thick, foul-smelling film covering the sailors’ oilskins. They could not help imagining the two of them curled up inside the bloody cocoon, brandishing their muskets at the fogbound air. Leaning over the animal, Reynolds saw near its mouth what appeared to be shreds of strange reddish skin.

“Well, perhaps we still don’t know what the monster looks like, but at least we know its skin is a bright crimson,” he said, standing up straight. “It will be easy enough to spot in the snow.”

“Crimson, sir?” one of the sailors said in surprise as he studied the shreds of skin. “It looks yellow to me.”

“In that case, Wallace, you need your eyes tested,” another sailor named Kendricks chimed in. “It’s obviously blue.”

Wallace insisted it was as yellow as straw, at which the other sailors leaned over to see which color the monster’s skin was. Each appeared to see a different color.

“Stop arguing, damn it!” roared the captain, tired of this absurd debate. “Can’t you see it doesn’t matter what color the creature is? For God’s sake, look at what it’s capable of!”

Suddenly ashamed, the sailors fell silent. For his part, Reynolds felt a degree of disappointment as well as horror as he contemplated the carcass.

At that moment, Captain MacReady stepped back from the remains, scanning the horizon through narrowed eyes while the others looked on apprehensively.

“Listen carefully,” he said, turning to them at last. “From now on, no one leaves the ship without my permission. We’ll take shelter inside and take turns on watch. If that thing did this to an enormous elephant seal over sixteen feet long, I don’t need to tell you what it could do to any of us.”

An anxious murmur spread through the crew.

“As for the head of the seal,” he added, “take it on board. At least we’ll have something to eat while we wait for that thing to come after us, which it will do sooner or later.”

The crew nodded as one and trudged back to the ship, trying to come to terms with the state of siege into which they had suddenly been plunged, although their apparent composure probably owed more to the fact that there was no one to gripe at. As if freezing to death on that accursed lump of ice were not enough, now they had to contend with a monster that could tear an elephant seal to ribbons. Reynolds, who had taken up the rear of the gloomy procession, noticed that Allan was still standing next to the sled, gazing thoughtfully into the distance. Finally, the young gunner turned around and followed the group, head bowed, a grim look in his eyes.

“We are alone . . . ,” he said, as he drew level with Reynolds. “Alone with the creature.”

His words made Reynolds’s blood run cold. All of a sudden, that vast space seemed to him terribly small.

•   •   •

T
WO DAYS LATER, EVERYTHING
was still calm. It was a tense calm, filled with furtive glances and fearful faces, where the slightest noise made everyone jump, and the more sensitive souls spilled half their broth, while muskets sat alongside spoons at the table. A wary, strained composure where tempers frayed easily and arguments were generally resolved by one party drawing a knife or by the intervention of Captain MacReady. In short, the kind of nail-biting stillness that made them all secretly wish the monster from the stars would attack once and for all, so that they could see if they could defeat it—or, on the contrary, find out if all resistance was useless, as in the case of the seal, whose flesh was now sating their hunger in broths.

So that the monster’s arrival would not take them by surprise, MacReady had posted four lookouts on deck, one at each compass point of the ship, and had ordered the men to take two-hour watches. Despite having been exempted from lookout duty, whether because of his status
as leader of the expedition or because of his wounded hand, Reynolds would occasionally come up on deck to take the air and escape the long hours of confinement that made his already cramped cabin seem even narrower. However, on this occasion it was not to escape his cabin, but rather because his room was too close to the infirmary in the ship’s prow, and he had just learned that Doctor Walker, who had been so merciful toward his scalded hand, was intent upon amputating Carson’s right foot before it became gangrenous. Having been subjected a few moments earlier to the hellish screams of Ringwald, who had only lost three fingers, Reynolds preferred to be freezing on deck than to face such brutal evidence of the cruel conditions endured by members of polar expeditions, such as the one he had so merrily organized.

Judging from the intense cold that hit him as he stepped outside, the temperature that afternoon must have been forty degrees below zero. A fierce wind roared above the stunted masts and up the ramp, blowing the snow hither and thither. Reynolds wrapped himself in his oilskin and glanced about. He was pleased to see that Allan was one of the lookouts. The gunner’s figure, which seemed to be made up of long, slender limbs like those of a spindly bird, was unmistakable even beneath several layers of clothing. The sergeant was scanning the horizon attentively, cradling his musket in his poet’s hands. After watching him for a few moments, Reynolds decided to engage him in conversation. After all, the youth from Baltimore was the only man in the crew whose impressions of what was happening might interest him.

As he had done with Griffin when they were walking over to the flying machine, Reynolds had first approached Allan to discover why someone who had so little in common with the others had signed up for his expedition. Allan stood out among those loutish men, with their vulgar tales and simple vices. From the very beginning, Allan had proved a brilliant conversationalist so that the explorer contrived to bump into him whenever possible, in order to lift his spirits. As the days went by and Allan also seemed at ease in his company, Reynolds had decided to invite him to his cabin to help him make inroads into the store of brandy
he had brought from America. As a result, Reynolds had been able to witness the devastating effects of drink on poor Allan: if the first sip turned him into an eloquent speaker, the second made him ramble, losing himself in his own discourse, and the third left him sprawled across the table, semiconscious, a nearly full glass in front of him. Reynolds had never met anyone with less tolerance for alcohol than the gunner.

Those erratic, exalted discussions had allowed the explorer to form a clear enough picture of Allan’s life. He discovered that the poet had joined the crew of the
Annawan
for no other reason than to escape his atrocious relationship with his stepfather. After years of discord, and even threats from both sides, which had rendered the atmosphere in the family home intolerable, the exhausted Allan had devised a way of placating the obdurate tyrant who had become his guardian following his parents’ demise: he would offer to enroll at West Point. As Allan had anticipated, his stepfather accepted, relieved that the tiresome youth had at last found the path that would deliver him from idleness. However, as the day of his enrollment dawned, Allan realized there was nothing he would like less than to go to West Point. All he wanted was to disappear, for the earth to swallow him up or, if not, to find a place where time would stop miraculously and he would be able to think, gather his strength, decide what he wanted to do with his life, perhaps to write the new poem he could feel emerging in his mind, without having to worry about where his next meal was coming from. Was there such a place apart from prison? He realized there was when he heard about the expedition of the
Annawan,
which gave no guarantee of return but offered plenty of adventure.