The Great White Space Page 7

  Like an engraving to illustrate the stories of Poe or a work by Dore or Samuel Palmer, the Black Mountains literally ingested us; they were above, behind and before us and now their own ebony opaqueness stretched beneath our feet. Van Damm had joined me and then the others; the tractors were formed into the familiar triangle and we ail stood about, talking little, overcome by this bitter darkness which blackened our very spirits. Only Scarsdale seemed unmoved; in fact his demeanour was positively jaunty under the circumstances and he gave out at great length over our al fresco lunch on the nearness of our destination and the positive tasks on which we would shortly be engaged.

  We were under way again within the hour and the soft crunching of our progress along this dark sea of sand combined with the whine of the motors to lull my mind into a semblance of rest. The far-off rays of the sun had disappeared behind the far hills long ago but the light in the sky was still brilliant when I looked through the windscreen and saw that the way before us was at last blocked.

  Darkness stretched supreme from the black floor of sand to the dizzy heights of the mountain peak far above us; Scarsdale drove the tractor onwards, over a hummocked ridge, where the sand lay in strange whorls like the casts of crabs, presumably sculptured by the wind. I got out the tractor. The sand terrace sloped away from me gently towards the face of the cliff; darkness married with darkness in the gigantic face of rock before me.

  The echo of something like great wings broke the silence as the other two tractors whined to a halt, our companions leaping to the ground. I found a crack in the rock formation with my eye, followed it up to misty heights like a Gothic cathedral. A huge shard of rock breaking out of the sea of sombre sand shocked with its pallidity. I walked over to it. The rock, white and crystalline like quartz, shone like a blasphemy in that place of shadows. My suddenly shaking hand traced out the outlines of strange and obscenely-shaped hieroglyphs upon it. It seemed to point like a finger towards the entrance which beckoned before us. I turned to look again as Scarsdale walked towards me.

  A warm wind blew out of the cliff and with it the memories and associations of something far off and long ago. My eyes raked the cliff again, refusing to believe what they saw. A hewn doorway in the black basaltic surface of the natural rock. A doorway that seemed to lead to the utmost depths of the earth. A doorway, moreover, that must have been all of five hundred feet high.

  Eight

  1

  Aeons seemed to pass as we gazed silently at that stupendous entrance. My soul was completely overwhelmed at the sight and I could not, did not in fact, dare contemplate what manner of being could have used such a doorway in the dawn of time. Unless the construction had a purely symbolic significance. To cover my confusion I returned to the Command tractor and sought my photographic equipment; the photographs I busied myself taking were excuse enough not to engage in speculation with my companions. Scarsdale was the only person who did not seem overwhelmed by the sight before us.

  He stood with his legs and his arms folded across his massive chest and gazed before him as though he were in the tranquil atmosphere of one of the London or American museums; in his eyes was an infinite satisfaction and I realised that this moment represented a culmination of his life's work. In one way his entire career had been an advancement towards this point. The others recognised it too, and kept apart from the Professor, the small knot they made clustered in front of the gigantic entrance symbolising their puny stature by comparison with this freak of architecture.

  I finished my moving picture work and picked up my still camera again; I was setting up my tripod to take close-ups of the hieroglyph inscriptions on the stone when a shadow fell across the pale surface of the obelisk. I turned, expecting Van Damm, but it was the Professor. He gazed without saying anything, while I completed my exposures. I turned back to him when I had dismantled my equipment. His lips were moving noiselessly as he traced the carvings on the stone with his fingers. He seemed almost oblivious of my presence.

  'Let he who will, enter,' he said, like a man who was choosing his words with care. He knotted his brows together and tried again, stumbling over the phrases.

  'Let he who enters, remain,' he continued. Van Damm had joined him by this time and watched the performance with grim concentration.

  'He who remains will not return,' the Professor concluded. He made some notes in his books.

  'I didn't know you were able to decipher the inscriptions. Professor,' I ventured.

  Scarsdale looked at me with thinly disguised triumph. 'I have been working long years at this, my dear Plowright,' he said. 'These carvings are hardly unfamiliar to me. And I had The Ethics of Ygor to guide me.'

  'Hardly an inviting message for such an entrance,' said Van Damm with a return to his old waspish manner. He looked an oddly enigmatic figure as he stood in his old cord riding breeches, legs in brown leather boots straddling the sand.

  'I do not think we need worry overmuch,' said Scarsdale comfortably. 'The Old Ones were inclined perhaps to exaggerate. You forget that I have been here before.'

  'And you returned safely,' I put in. The tension seemed to lift as I said this. We had been joined by the other two now and we all stood in a small group round the Professor, like students at a site lecture. Which is exactly how I felt. All these men had greater knowledge than I as to why we were here and Van Damm and Scarsdale were two of the foremost authorities in their own fields.

  'Perhaps the Old Ones wanted the Professor to return,' said Van Damm softly. 'He is, in effect, drawing others in.'

  Scarsdale smiled. 'You have too much imagination for a man of science, doctor,' he told his tall colleague. 'I have, as Plowright so aptly observed, returned to tell the story. Not without difficulties, as you all know. But my struggles were against physical obstacles only. There is nothing within the caverns that would lead me to believe they support any form of life inimical to man.'

  'That may be because you did not penetrate far enough, Scarsdale,' said Van Damm calmly. 'The Trone-Tables speak of the guardians and there are other, certain indications, possibly more forbidding…

  'This is no time to discuss it,' Scarsdale broke in authoritatively. 'It will be dark in an hour or two and we have much to do. We camp here tonight and tomorrow we leave Number 3 tractor as a reserve inside the entrance. From then on we travel in two machines only, in constant radio contact. You will command Number 2 Van Damm, as hitherto and I Number 1. We will take it in turns to lead.'

  Van Damm nodded and the small group broke up, its members walking back towards the tractors. Their footprints made disturbing trails in the dark sand behind them.

  I lingered for a moment, looking for a lens-cap which had somehow escaped its cord and fallen to the ground. As I found it and replaced it on the camera I was startled to hear again something I had heard before, echoing from the darkness beyond the lintel of the great door. It sounded like the distant beating of gigantic leathery wings.

  2

  Curiously enough, that evening saw a reversal of our usual practice regarding the camp sites. It may perhaps have been the brooding atmosphere of the great entrance in front of the mountain; or possibly the connotations of the message on the massive stone obelisk but without anyone saying anything specific those of us who were driving the tractors formed them into the familiar triangular pattern on the sand outside, well before darkness fell.

  Neither was there the usual camp-fire gathering. Instead, we all foregathered in Scarsdale's Command tractor for a rather special meal. Holden, who was acting as cook on this occasion, excelled himself in preparing the tinned delicacies and Scarsdale himself even went so far as to break out three bottles of champagne from our precious reserve store.

  He did another strange thing also; there were, in the roofs of the tractors, special skylights of toughened glass, which were protected inside and out by heavy steel shutters, controlled electrically. I had never seen these in use during training in Surrey or in the field, but tonight, moved by some whim, t
he Professor drew back the shutters. The brilliance of the stars overhead illuminated the interior of the vehicle and Van Damm moved to the control panel, clicking switch after switch, until all the interior lights were off.

  The faint luminosity from outside grew in strength until it seemed to us as though the starlight were bright enough to read by; we must have made a strange sight, sitting in that pale glow, sipping champagne, the only other sources of light the minute radiance given off by the Professor's pipe and by the tip of Van Damm's celebratory cigar.

  Then, after half an hour of this, Scarsdale got up to trip the light switches and the shutters rumbled back across the skylight. The atmosphere grew brisker. The Professor gave us a final briefing; he urged caution on the morrow and reiterated his instructions on the importance of the radio link. He reminded us too that we should be using the searchlights on the tractors under field conditions for the first time.

  He himself had charted the way on his previous journey and he anticipated no difficulties during the first day; we would wear light clothing as the caves and passages were warm and dry. We would carry sidearms at all times and no-one was to leave a vehicle without specific permission from him as leader of the expedition. All this was sensible enough and yet I felt a faint unease as he continued his discourse, his strong face outlined in the glow from the Command vehicle's instrument panel. I thought again of the leathery flapping I fancied I had twice heard from within the cave entrance. I

  wondered, not for the first time, what were the Professor's reasons for taking along so many heavy weapons. Looking round at the racks of equipment and lethal arms in the interior of the tractor, I reflected that we seemed more like a band of mercenaries invading a fairly weak nation, than scientists bound on an archaeological field expedition. It was a feeling which persisted long after the start of our journey the following day.

  I slept badly this last night. I drifted off to sleep on each occasion, only to awake an hour or so later, my mind vaguely troubled. The last time I looked at the illuminated dial of my watch to discover that it was only a quarter to four in the morning. A sudden scraping noise jarred my nerves; the bright yellow of Scarsdale's match threw a glow over the whole interior of the tractor. He puffed irritably at his pipe for a moment or two, his strong features beneath the beard looking like the image of some old Nordic god. It was a comforting sight before it died, leaving only the faint glow of burning tobacco.

  I heard the rustle of blankets as Scarsdale put his matchbox down somewhere on his bedding.

  'Are you awake, Plowright?'

  It was a statement not a question.

  I admitted that I was.

  'You are worried about the coming operations?'

  The word had slipped out; once more the activities of the expedition had assumed those of a military adventure, rather than that of a strictly scientific affair.

  'Only inasmuch as your true purposes are obscure to me. Professor,' I said. 'I have every confidence in your abilities both as a man and as a scientist, if that has any value to you.'

  'Thank you, Plowright,' said Scarsdale. 'It is true that I have been perhaps a little lax in not preparing you more fully for what we may find. But that is only because I myself am not certain. Most of my reasons exist as mere theories in my notebooks. I would prefer to measure them against actual experience in the field.'

  'I quite understand,' I said. 'Please do not think I am complaining.'

  I found myself searching for the right words. The Professor said nothing but emboldened by the steady and comforting glow of his pipe in the darkness, I went on.

  'I must admit the size of that doorway and the somewhat forbidding inscription on the stone had a certain effect on my mind,' I told him. 'But you'll not find me wanting if we run into any difficulties on this trip.'

  'I never doubted it, my dear Plowright,' the Professor said. 'That was one of the major reasons for your selection. But you have other reservations? Your tone seemed to imply it.'

  'They're perhaps too intangible to qualify,' I said hesitantly.

  'Would you care to trust them to plain speech?' the Professor said, with a return to something of the manner he had maintained when we were training in Surrey.

  'Fancies, perhaps,' I said. 'I am possibly over-imaginative where such places as this are involved. Your models, the caves and the other details you gave us in the original briefing were among my major reasons for coming along. Imagination's my strong suit, as you may well know and I certainly need it for my photography and artistic work.'

  'And you felt the Great Northern Expedition would give you such scope in your capacity as cinematographer and official cameraman?' he concluded for me.

  'Something like that,' I admitted.

  The Professor was silent for a long moment and then I heard the soft click as he put the dashboard panel lights on; their blue dimness outlined the details of the cabin.

  'But you now feel that your imagination may be a handicap once we get underground?' he continued.

  'It may be,' I said. 'Though we shall be within the tractors most of the time. I have been underground before, of course, but it's not just that. There's something different about this trip and not only from what you've said, though that was bizarre enough.'

  'Would you care to give me a concrete example?' he asked.

  I hesitated for another long moment. Then I told him about my feeling at the entrance of the cave.

  'Ah, then you heard it too,' he said sharply. 'I wondered at the time. Yes, it was very like the beating of wings, as you say. Bats, perhaps.'

  We did not return to the matter again and in a few moments more we slept. But within I did not think the noise I had heard had been made by bats and I could swear that the Professor did not think so either.

  Nine

  1

  The honour of being the first one within the great portal was given to Holden; I say honour, such as it was, because the event, like most long-awaited incidents, was almost an anticlimax. We were awake and out early next morning and soon after six a.m. the three tractors affronted the morning air with their motors. What little sun there was penetrated our dank spit of dark sand reluctantly and its gilt was soon lost again against the black, basaltic rock which seemed to absorb light and somehow stain it. The simile is fanciful, I know, but the only one that readily springs to mind.

  Holden drove the tractor across past the obelisk and into the cave-mouth where the machine was rapidly lost to sight; Scarsdale was already alongside the entrance and followed him in on foot. We waited for perhaps ten minutes and then both men appeared; Holden re-joined Van Damm in Number 2 tractor and Scarsdale assumed command of Number 1. He put the key of Number 3 vehicle into a drawer in the chart-table; we would pick up the spare vehicle on the way back.

  I looked out through the windscreen; Van Damm's machine was describing a circle, ready to fall in behind us and the tinny static of the radio receiver in our cabin was already alive with the doctor's waspish injuctions.

  'I will take over the controls, Plowright, if you please,' said Scarsdale. 'I know the route, as you realise and I shall need you to control the radio and searchlights. We shall carry out the same routine we have regularly practised.'

  As he spoke I was already vacating my padded chair at the chart-table; to be perfectly candid, I welcomed the arrangement because the radio and other work was nominal, whereas the control of the tractor was exacting, both physically and mentally and likely to be difficult within the winding caverns of which Scarsdale had so often spoken. Besides, I hoped to do some photographic work with the special fast film I had brought along, if Scarsdale's lighting units permitted.

  I acknowledged Van Damm's perfunctory verbal message and thanked him for the formal good wishes to Scarsdale for the success of the enterprise. Scarsdale could, of course, hear perfectly well what was being said via the monitor speaker mounted on the bulkhead over the chart-table and he gave an irascible snort at what he considered to be Van Damm's excessive
formality. I left the switch at the open position, for that was the instruction, and I should also have to relay back to Van Damm any special orders relating to obstacles we might meet en route.

  I ran my eyes over the lighting switchboard and then looked ahead as the massive portal of the huge doorway loomed in front, the lintel lost to sight high above. In the steel rear mirror I could see Van Damm's machine, pennants fluttering, skirting the obelisk; then we were within the cave- mouth and the darkness reached out to embrace us like a cloak. A warm wind blew from the interior of the earth - we had the air vents open and I could feel this — and the whine of the motors echoed back shrilly within the cave walls.

  The noise died as Scarsdale reached forward and cut off the air vents from the outside; at the same moment the light of the sky faded to a feeble yellow. At a nod from Scarsdale I switched on the main searchlight, which was mounted in a nacelle above the tractor windscreen and could be swivelled by a control from within the machine. The yellow incandescence, with which we were all to become so familiar, outlined the faint contours of a rocky wall which was lost as it curved upwards into a blackness darker than any night known to outer earth. Shadows fled fantastically across the middle distance and I was momentarily startled to see a vast fluttering until I realised it was our own image thrown upon the tunnel by the searchlight of Van Damm's vehicle behind. I looked briefly in the mirror to see that he had taken station about thirty feet back and acknowledged his movement by using my microphone.

  Holden replied laconically; I concentrated ahead and saw that Scarsdale was following the tracks of Number 3 tractor. We saw it a moment or two later, parked up against the right- hand side of the tunnel wall, where it bulged out to make a natural bay. We did not stop but drove straight on, only virgin sand before us now. The tunnel was about thirty feet wide here and it was not to vary much for the next few hours; I had already switched on our measuring instrument so that we could keep a constant check on the miles we covered each day.