A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay (reading strategies book TXT) 📗

day. You seem to have been hunting to some purpose, so we won’t lack for food.”

Haunte eyed him quizzically. “You certainly don’t lack impudence. However, I’m a man of that sort myself, and it is the sort I prefer. Your friend, now, would probably rather starve than ask a meal of a stranger. He looks to me just like a bewildered toad dragged up out of a dark hole.”

Maskull took Corpang’s arm, and constrained him to silence.

“Where have you been hunting, Haunte?”

“Matterplay. I had the worst luck—I speared one wold horse, and there it lies.”

“What is Lichstorm like?”

“There are men there, and there are women there, but there are no men-women, as with you.”

“What do you call men-women?”

“Persons of mixed sex, like yourself. In Lichstorm the sexes are pure.”

“I have always regarded myself as a man.”

“Very likely you have; but the test is, do you hate and fear women?”

“Why, do you?”

Haunte grinned and showed his teeth. “Things are different in Lichstorm.... So you want to see the sights?”

“I confess I am curious to see your women, for example, after what you say.”

“Then I’ll introduce you to Sullenbode.”

He paused a moment after making this remark, and then suddenly uttered a great, bass laugh, so that his chest shook.

“Let us share the joke,” said Maskull.

“Oh, you’ll understand it later.”

“If you play pranks with me, I won’t stand on ceremony with you.”

Haunte laughed again. “I won’t be the one to play pranks. Sullenbode will be deeply obliged to me. If I don’t visit her myself as often as she would like, I’m always glad to serve her in other ways.... Well, you shall have your boat ride.”

Maskull rubbed his nose doubtfully. “If the sexes hate one another in your land, is it because passion is weaker, or stronger?”

“In other parts of the world there is soft passion, but in Lichstorm there is hard passion.”

“But what do you call hard passion?”

“Where men are called to women by pain, and not pleasure.”

“I intend to understand, before I’ve finished.”

“Yes,” answered Haunte, with a taunting look, “it would be a pity to let the chance slip, since you’re going to Lichstorm.”

It was now Corpang’s turn to take Maskull by the arm. “This journey will end badly.”

“Why so?”

“Your goal was Muspel a short while ago; now it is women.”

“Let me alone,” said Maskull. “Give luck a slack rein. What brought this boat here?”

“What is this talk about Muspel?” demanded Haunte.

Corpang caught his shoulder roughly, and stared straight into his eyes. “What do you know?”

“Not much, but something, perhaps. Ask me at supper. Now it is high time to start. Navigating the mountains by night isn’t child’s play, let me tell you.”

“I shall not forget,” said Corpang.

Maskull gazed down at the boat. “Are we to get in?”

“Gently, my friend. It’s only canework and skin.”

“First of all, you might enlighten me as to how you have contrived to dispense with the laws of gravitation.”

Haunte smiled sarcastically. “A secret in your ear, Maskull. All laws are female. A true male is an outlaw—outside the law.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The great body of the earth is continually giving out female particles, and the male parts of rocks and living bodies are equally continually trying to reach them. That’s gravitation.”

“Then how do you manage with your boat?”

“My two male stones do the work. The one underneath the boat prevents it from falling to the ground; the one in the stern shuts it off from solid objects in the rear. The only part of the boat attracted by any part of the earth is the bow, for that’s the only part the light of the male stones does not fall on. So in that direction the boat travels.”

“And what are these wondrous male stones?”

“They really are male stones. There is nothing female in them; they are showering out male sparks all the time. These sparks devour all the female particles rising from the earth. No female particles are left over to attract the male parts of the boat, and so they are not in the least attracted in that direction.”

Maskull ruminated for a minute.

“With your hunting, and boatbuilding, and science, you seem a very handy, skilful fellow, Haunte.... But the sun’s sinking, and we’d better start.”

“Get down first, then, and shift that carcass farther forward. Then you and your gloomy friend can sit amidships.”

Maskull immediately climbed down, and dropped himself into the boat; but then he received a surprise. The moment he stood on the frail bottom, still clinging to the rock, not only did his weight entirely disappear, as though he were floating in some heavy medium, like salt water, but the rock he held onto drew him, as by a mild current of electricity, and he was able to withdraw his hands only with difficulty.

After the first moment’s shock, he quietly accepted the new order of things, and set about shifting the carcass. Since there was no weight in the boat this was effected without any great labour. Corpang then descended. The astonishing physical change had no power to disturb his settled composure, which was founded on moral ideas. Haunte came last; grasping the staff which held the upper male stone, he proceeded to erect it, after removing the cap. Maskull then obtained his first near view of the mysterious light, which, by counteracting the forces of Nature, acted indirectly not only as elevator but as motive force. In the last ruddy gleams of the great sun, its rays were obscured, and it looked little more impressive than an extremely brilliant, scintillating blue-white jewel, but its power could be gauged by the visible, coloured mist that it threw out for many yards around.

The steering was effected by means of a shutter attached by a cord to the top of the staff, which could be so manipulated that any segment of the male stone’s rays, or all the rays, or none at all, could be shut off at will. No sooner was the staff raised than the aerial vessel quietly detached itself from the rock to which it had been drawn, and passed slowly forward in