Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke [50]
Jan gave a wry smile.
"It's a morbid thought, but I suppose they've got a fine stuffed group of Homo sapiens in their collection by this time. I wonder who was honoured?"
"You're probably right," said Rupert, rather indifferently. "It would be easy to arrange through the hospitals."
"What would happen," continued Jan thoughtfully, "if someone volunteered to go as a live specimen? Assuming that an eventual return was guaranteed, of course."
Rupert laughed, though not unsympathetically.
"Is that an offer? Shall I put it to Rashaverak?"
For a moment Jan considered the idea more than half seriously. Then he shook his head.
"Er-no. I was only thinking out loud. They'd certainly turn me down. By the way, do you ever see Rashaverak these days?"
"He called me up about six weeks ago. He'd just found a book I'd been hunting. Rather nice of him."
Jan walked slowly round the stuffed monster, admiring the skill that had frozen it forever at this instant of greatest vigour.
"Did you ever discover what he was looking for?" he asked. "I mean, it seems so hard to reconcile the Overlords' science with an interest in the occult."
Rupert looked at Jan a little suspiciously, wondering if his brother-in-law was poking fun at his hobby.
"His explanation seemed adequate. As an anthropologist he was interested in every aspect of our culture. Remember, they have plenty of time. They can go into more detail than a human research worker ever could. Reading my entire library probably put only a slight strain on Rashy's resources."
That might be the answer, but Jan was not convinced.
Sometimes he had thought of confiding his secret to Rupert but his natural caution had held him back. When he met his Overlord friend again, Rupert would probably give something away-the temptation would be far too great.
"Incidentally," said Rupert, changing the subject abruptly, "if you think this is a big job, you should see the commission Sullivan's got. He's promised to deliver the two biggest creatures of all-a sperm whale and a giant squid. They'll be shown locked in mortal combat. What a tableau that will make!"
For a moment Jan did not answer. The idea that had exploded in his mind was too outrageous, too fantastic to be taken seriously. Yet, because of its very daring, it might succeed.
"What's the matter?" said Rupert anxiously. "The heat getting you down?"
Jan shook himself back to present reality.
"I'm all right," he said. "I was just wondering how the Overlords would collect a little packet like that."
"Oh," said Rupert, "one of those cargo ships of theirs will come down, open a hatch, and hoist it in."
"That," said Jan, "is exactly what I thought."
***
It might have been the cabin of a spaceship, but it was not. The walls were covered with meters and instruments; there were no windows-merely a large screen in front of the pilot. The vessel could carry six passengers, but at the moment Jan was the only one.
He was watching the screen intently, absorbing each glimpse of this strange and unknown region as it passed before his eyes. Unknown-yes, as unknown as anything he might meet beyond the stars, if his mad plan succeeded. He was going into a realm of nightmare creatures, preying upon each other in a darkness undisturbed since the world began. It was a realm above which men had sailed for thousands of years; it lay no more than a kilometre below the keels of their ships-yet until the last hundred years they had known less about it than the visible face of the moon.
The pilot was dropping down from the ocean heights, towards the still unexplored vastness of the South Pacific Basin. He was following, Jan knew, the invisible grid of sound waves created by beacons along the ocean floor. They were still sailing as far above that floor as clouds above the surface of the Earth…
There was very little to see; the submarine's scanners were searching the waters