Pym_ A Novel - Mat Johnson [51]
THE others came running quickly down the snow-packed path. This was because I was shrieking. It seems that Garth, the white creatures, and I were not far from that opening hall through which we had first descended, and that the rest of Creole’s crew were waiting just beyond the bend. Considering this fact, it was probable that these other beings, standing so close and so still, were very conscious of our group’s presence. That they’d been monitoring our presence. Assured that our group was contained and about to head back up to the surface, the beings had swooped in for further observation. Not counting on two slower members to get lost, not counting on us swooping in on them instead. Regardless of the alien nature of these figures, their expressions of shock were clear. The cringing, the cautious backstepping. They were enormous, and even their frightened movements of retreat were terrifying. If it had not been for the arrival of the rest of my co-workers at the opposite entryway, they would have quickly escaped me, returning into fantasy and rumor, the story ending on this very page.
We looked on the six of them as they looked at us, but we were the more awed of the two camps. Their size alone, their towering presence, would have been enough to provide a spectacle. Given my own height of six four, I would have to say that their median height was at least seven four or higher. Their bodies were mountainous and hidden, covered in hooded capes that hung broadly from the shoulders and concealed their bulk in folds. What we could see of their very thick legs and feet were bound as well, but by how much material it was impossible to tell. All the cloth was off-white, composed of what appeared to be the rawhide of skinned animals. In the dim light it was difficult to make out depth and distance. The only things that were clearly visible were their heads, and those were what froze us. What I at first glance had assumed to be horrific masks proved instead to be their actual faces. The color, or lack of it, was striking. Albino, it seemed clear, but their eyes contradicted that. Looking into them as they stared intently back at my own, I realized that I had never truly seen pale blue eyes before. I had seen blue but never in this shade, the lightest possible variant, which had more in common with the snow around us than with any accepted form of ocular pigment. These darting, acute, haunting orbs bobbed over noses that were so long and pointy I assume they served some sort of evolutionary purpose that was at the moment unclear. The nostrils were cavernous stretches of ovals, from which gusts of steam—the sole visual evidence that these were actually hot-blooded creatures—pulsed. Also from the holes in their noses came hair, straight and brittle, that fed into their beards, thick corn silk completely devoid of coloring, pouring out of their ponchos. The only pigment attached to them was a yellowing around the mouths and noses, presumably from feeding or bodily fluids.
“Chris? Say something. Do something,” Angela, poking me from behind, put to me, as I was standing the farthest forward. I don’t know if attempting communication was the consensus plan of the others, but to me it seemed profane to break the silence of this moment. And for a second I couldn’t be sure the creatures before us wouldn’t kill us for the sacrilege.
“Your hands,” I whispered to the others. It was thought said aloud. “Drop whatever’s in your hands, and hold them out to show that they’re empty.” Simple deduction. That’s what waving and shaking hands are all about: showing we have no weapons to attack with. Since they were tool users, it made sense that the beasts would get this logic, and they did,