Short Fiction Fritz Leiber (free e books to read .txt) 📖

“Yes, Mummy.”

Edmund rapped for attention. Celeste, Frieda, and Theodor glanced around at him. He looked more frightfully strained, they realized, than even they felt. His expression was a study in suppressed excitement, but there were also signs of a knowledge that was almost too overpowering for a human being to bear.

His voice was clipped, rapid. “I think it’s about time we stopped worrying about our own affairs and thought of those of the Solar System, partly because I think they have a direct bearing on the disappearances of Ivan and Rosalind. As I told you, I’ve been sorting out the crucial items from the material we’ve been presenting. There are roughly four of those items, as I see it. It’s rather like a mystery story. I wonder if, hearing those four clues, you will come to the same conclusion I have.”

The others nodded.

“First, there are the latest reports from Deep Shaft, which, as you know, has been sunk to investigate deep-Earth conditions. At approximately twenty-nine miles below the surface, the delvers have encountered a metallic obstruction which they have tentatively named the durasphere. It resists their hardest drills, their strongest corrosives. They have extended a side-tunnel at that level for a quarter of a mile. Delicate measurements, made possible by the mirror-smooth metal surface, show that the durasphere has a slight curvature that is almost exactly equal to the curvature of the Earth itself. The suggestion is that deep borings made anywhere in the world would encounter the durasphere at the same depth.

“Second, the movements of the moons of Mars and Jupiter, and particularly the debris left behind by the moons of Mars. Granting Phobos and Deimos had duraspheres proportional in size to that of Earth, then the debris would roughly equal in amount the material in those two duraspheres’ rocky envelopes. The suggestion is that the two duraspheres suddenly burst from their envelopes with such titanic velocity as to leave those disrupted envelopes behind.”

It was deadly quiet in the committee room.

“Thirdly, the disappearances of Ivan and Rosalind, and especially the baffling hint⁠—from Ivan’s message in one case and Rosalind’s downward-pointing glove in the other⁠—that they were both somehow drawn into the depths of the Earth.

“Finally, the dreams of the E.S.P.s, which agree overwhelmingly in the following points: A group of beings separate themselves from a godlike and telepathic race because they insist on maintaining a degree of mental privacy. They flee in great boats or ships of some sort. They are pursued on such a scale that there is no hiding place for them anywhere in the universe. In some manner they successfully camouflage their ships. Eons pass and their still-fanatical pursuers do not penetrate their secret. Then, suddenly, they are detected.”

Edmund waited. “Do you see what I’m driving at?” he asked hoarsely.

He could tell from their looks that the others did, but couldn’t bring themselves to put it into words.

“I suppose it’s the time-scale and the value-scale that are so hard for us to accept,” he said softly. “Much more, even, than the size-scale. The thought that there are creatures in the Universe to whom the whole career of Man⁠—in fact, the whole career of life⁠—is no more than a few thousand or hundred thousand years. And to whom Man is no more than a minor stage property⁠—a trifling part of a clever job of camouflage.”

This time he went on, “Fantasy writers have at times hinted all sorts of odd things about the Earth⁠—that it might even be a kind of single living creature, or honeycombed with inhabited caverns, and so on. But I don’t know that any of them have ever suggested that the Earth, together with all the planets and moons of the Solar System, might be⁠ ⁠…”

In a whisper, Frieda finished for him, “… a camouflaged fleet of gigantic spherical spaceships.”

“Your guess happens to be the precise truth.”

At that familiar, yet dreadly unfamiliar voice, all four of them swung toward the inner door. Dotty was standing there, a sleep-stupefied little girl with a blanket caught up around her and dragging behind. Their own daughter. But in her eyes was a look from which they cringed.

She said, “I am a creature somewhat older than what your geologists call the Archeozoic Era. I am speaking to you through a number of telepathically sensitive individuals among your kind. In each case my thoughts suit themselves to your level of comprehension. I inhabit the disguised and jetless spaceship which is your Earth.”

Celeste swayed a step forward. “Baby⁠ ⁠…” she implored.

Dotty went on, without giving her a glance, “It is true that we planted the seeds of life on some of these planets simply as part of our camouflage, just as we gave them a suitable environment for each. And it is true that now we must let most of that life be destroyed. Our hiding place has been discovered, our pursuers are upon us, and we must make one last effort to escape or do battle, since we firmly believe that the principle of mental privacy to which we have devoted our existence is perhaps the greatest good in the whole Universe.

“But it is not true that we look with contempt upon you. Our whole race is deeply devoted to life, wherever it may come into being, and it is our rule never to interfere with its development. That was one of the reasons we made life a part of our camouflage⁠—it would make our pursuers reluctant to examine these planets too closely.

“Yes, we have always cherished you and watched your evolution with interest from our hidden lairs. We may even unconsciously have shaped your development in certain ways, trying constantly to educate you away from war and finally succeeding⁠—which may have given the betraying clue to our pursuers.

“Your planets must be burst asunder⁠—this particular planet in the area of the Pacific⁠—so that we may have our last chance to escape. Even if we did not move, our pursuers would destroy you with us.