The Record of Currupira Read online

task of starting the film, inquiredoffhandedly, "You got the photostat of the label inscription? What didyou make of it?"

  "Not much more than Henderson did on Mars. There's the date of therecording and the place--the longitude doesn't mean anything to usbecause we still don't know where the Martians fixed their zeromeridian. But it was near the equator and, the text indicates, in atropical forest--probably in Africa or South America.

  "Then there's the sentence Henderson couldn't make out. It's obscure andrather badly defaced, but it's evidently a comment--unfavorable--onthe subject-matter of the recording. In it appears twice a sort ofinterjection-adverb that in other contexts implies revulsion--somethinglike _ugh_!"

  "Funny. Looks like the Martians saw something on Earth they didn'tlike. Too bad we can't reproduce the visual record yet."

  Dalton said soberly, "The Martian's vocabulary indicates that for alltheir physical difference from us they had emotions very much likehuman beings'. Whatever they saw must have been something we wouldn'thave liked either."

  The reproducer hummed softly. Thwaite closed the motor switch and theancient film slid smoothly from its casing. Out of the speaker burst astrange medley of whirrings, clicks, chirps, trills and modulateddrones and buzzings--a sound like the voice of grasshoppers in adrought-stricken field of summer.

  Dalton listened raptly, as if by sheer concentration he might even nowbe able to guess at connections between the sounds of spokenMartian--heard now for the first time--and the written symbols that hehad been working over for years. But he couldn't, of course--thatwould require a painstaking correlation analysis.

  "Evidently it's an introduction or commentary," said the archeologist."Our photocell examination showed the wave-patterns of the initial andfinal portions of the film were typically Martian--but the middle partisn't. The middle part is whatever they recorded here on Earth."

  "If only that last part is a translation...." said Dalton hopefully.Then the alien susurration ceased coming from the reproducer and heclosed his mouth abruptly and leaned forward.

  For the space of a caught breath there was silence. Then another voicecame in, the voice of Earth hundreds of centuries dead.

  It was not human. No more than the first had been--but the Martiansounds had been merely alien and these were horrible.

  It was like nothing so much as the croaking of some gigantic frog,risen bellowing from a bottomless primeval swamp. It bayed of stinkingsunless pools and gurgled of black ooze. And its booming notesdescended to subsonic throbbings that gripped and wrung the nerves toanguish.

  Dalton was involuntarily on his feet, clawing for the switch. But hestopped, reeling. His head spun and he could not see. Through hisdizzy brain the great voice roared and the mighty tones below hearinghammered at the inmost fortress of the man's will.

  On the heels of that deafening assault the voice began to change. Thenumbing thunder rumbled back, repeating the pain and the threat--butunderneath something crooned and wheedled obscenely. It said,"_Come ... come ... come...._" And the stunned prey came on stumblingfeet, shivering with a terror that could not break the spell.

  Where the squat black machine had been was something that was alsosquat and black and huge. It crouched motionless and blind in the mudand from its pulsing expanded throat vibrated the demonic croaking. Asthe victim swayed helplessly nearer the mouth opened wide upon longrows of frightful teeth....

  The monstrous song stopped suddenly. Then still another voice criedbriefly, thinly in agony and despair. That voice was human.

  Each of the two men looked into a white strange face. They werestanding on opposite sides of the table and between them the playbackmachine had fallen silent. Then it began to whir again in the locustspeech of the Martian commentator, explaining rapidly, unintelligibly.

  Thwaite found the switch with wooden fingers. As if with one accordthey retreated from the black machine. Neither of them even tried tomake a false show of self-possession. Each knew, from his firstglimpse of the other's dilated staring eyes, that both had experiencedand seen the same.

  Dalton sank shivering into a chair, the darkness still swirlingthreateningly in his brain. Presently he said, "The expression of awill--that much was true. But the will--was not of man."

  * * * * *

  James Dalton took a vacation. After a few days he went to apsychiatrist, who observed the usual symptoms of overwork and worryand recommended a change of scene--a rest in the country.

  On the first night at a friend's secluded farm Dalton awoke drenchedin cold sweat. Through the open window from not far away came ahellish serenade, the noise of frogs--the high nervous voices ofpeepers punctuating the deep leisured booming of bullfrogs.

  The linguist flung on his clothes and drove back at reckless speed towhere there were lights and the noises of men and their machines. Hespent the rest of his vacation burrowing under the clamor of the citywhose steel and pavements proclaimed man's victory over the very grassthat grew.

  After awhile he felt better and needed work again. He took up hisplanned study of the Martian recordings, correlating the spoken wordswith the written ones he had already arduously learned to read.

  The Martian Museum readily lent him the recordings he requested foruse in his work, including the one made on Earth. He studied theMartian-language portion of this and succeeded in making a partialtranslation--but carefully refrained from playing the middle sectionof the film back again.

  Came a day, though, when it occurred to him that he had heard not aword from Thwaite. He made inquiries through the Museum and learnedthat the archeologist had applied for a leave of absence and leftbefore it was granted. Gone where? The Museum people didn't know--butThwaite had not been trying to cover his trail. A call to Global AirTransport brought the desired information.

  A premonition ran up Dalton's spine--but he was surprised at howcalmly he thought and acted. He picked up the phone and calledTransport again--this time their booking department.

  "When's the earliest time I can get passage to Belem?" he asked.

  With no more than an hour to pack and catch the rocket he hurried tothe Museum. The place was more or less populated with sightseers,which was annoying, because Dalton's plans now included larceny.

  He waited before the building till the coast was clear, then, withhandkerchief-wrapped knuckles, broke the glass and tripped the leveron the fire alarm. In minutes a wail of sirens and roar of arrivingmotors was satisfyingly loud in the main exhibit room. Police and firedepartment helicopters buzzed overhead. A wave of mingled fright andcuriosity swept visitors and attendants alike to the doors.

  Dalton, lingering, found himself watched only by the millenniallysightless eyes of the man who lay in state in an airless glass tomb.The stern face was inscrutable behind the silence of many thousandyears.

  "Excuse me, Oswald," murmured Dalton. "I'd like to borrow something ofyours but I'm sure you won't mind."

  The reed flute was in a long case devoted to Earthly specimens.Unhesitatingly Dalton smashed the glass.

  * * * * *

  Brazil is a vast country, and it cost much trouble and time andexpense before Dalton caught up with Thwaite in a forlorn riverbanktown along the line where civilization hesitates on the shore of thatvast sea of vegetation called the _mato_. Night had just fallen whenDalton arrived. He found Thwaite alone in a lighted room of the singledrab hotel--alone and very busy.

  The archeologist was shaggily unshaven. He looked up and saidsomething that might have been a greeting devoid of surprise. Daltongrimaced apologetically, set down his suitcase and pried the wax plugsout of his ears, explaining with a gesture that included the worldoutside, where the tree frogs sang deafeningly in the hot stirringdarkness of the near forest.

  "How do you stand it?" he asked.

  Thwaite's lips drew back from his teeth. "I'm fighting it," he saidshortly, picking up his work again. On the bed where he sat werescattered steel cartridge clips. He was going thr
ough them with asmall file, carefully cutting a deep cross in the soft nose of everybullet. Nearby a heavy-caliber rifle leaned against a wardrobe. Otherthings were in evidence--boots, canteens, knapsacks, the toughclothing a man needs in the _mato_.

  "You're looking for _it_."

  Thwaite's eyes burned feverishly. "Yes. Do you think I'm crazy?"

  * * * * *

  Dalton pulled a rickety chair toward him and sat down straddling it."I don't know," he said slowly. "_It_ was very likely a creature ofthe last interglacial period. The ice may have finished its kind."

  "The ice never touched these equatorial forests." Thwaite smiledunpleasantly. "And the Indians and old settlers down here havestories--about a thing that calls in the _mato_, that can paralyze aman with fear.