The Dark Design

On first meeting him, Burton had been puzzled when Frigate had identified himself as a science fiction writer.

"What in Gehe

"Don't ask me to define science fiction," Frigate had said. "No one was ever able to give it a completely satisfactory definition. However, what it is ... was ... was a genre of literature in which most of the stories took place in a fictional future. It was called science fiction because science was supposed to play a large part in it. The development of science in the future, that is. This science wasn't confined to physics and chemistry but also included extrapo­lations of the sociological and psychological science of the author's time.

"In fact, any story that took place in the future was science fiction. However, a story written in 1960, for instance, which projected a future of 1984, was still classified as science fiction in 1984.

"Moreover, a science fiction story could take place in the present or the past. But the assumption was that the story was possible because it was based on the science of the author's time, and he merely extrapolated, more or less rigorously, what a science could develop into.

"Unfortunately, this definition included stories in which there was no science or else science poorly understood by the author.

"However (there are a lot of howevers in science fiction), there were many stories about things which could not possibly happen, for which there was no scientific evidence whatsoever. Lake time travel, parallel worlds, and faster-than-light drives. Living stars, God visiting the Earth in the flesh, insects tail as buildings, world deluges, enslavement through telepathy, and more in an endless list."

"How did it come to be named science fiction?"

"Well, actually, it was around a long time before a man named Hugo Gernsback originated the label. You've read the Jules Verne novels and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, haven't you? Those were considered to be science fiction."

"It sounds as if it were just fantasy," Burton had said.

"Yes, but all fiction is fantasy. The difference between mundane fantasy, what we called mainstream literature, and science fiction was that mainstream stories were about things which could have happened. They also always took place in the past or the present.

"Science fiction stories were about things that could not happen or were highly improbable. Some people wanted to name it specula­tive literature, but the term never caught on."

Burton never thoroughly understood what science fiction was, but he did not feel bad about it. Frigate couldn't explain it clearly either, though he could give numerous examples.

"Actually," Frigate had said, "science fiction was one of those many things that don't exist but nevertheless have a name. Let's talk about something else."

Burton had refused to drop the subject. "Then you were in a profession which didn't exist?"

"No, the profession of writing science fiction existed. It was just that science fiction per se was nonexistent. This is begi

"Was the money you made from your writings also nonexis­tent?"

"Almost. Well, that's an exaggeration. I didn't starve in a garret, but I also wasn't driving a gold-plated Cadillac."

"What's a Cadillac?"

Thinking of that now, Burton found it strange that the woman who slept with him was the Alice who had been the inspiration for Lewis Carroll's two masterpieces.

Suddenly, Frigate said, "What's that?"

Burton looked eastward toward the strait. Unlike the areas above and below it, the strait had no banks. High hills rose abruptly along its length, hills which were smooth walls. Below the strait some­thing-no, two objects-were moving toward him, seemingly sus­pended above the fog.

He climbed a rope ladder to get a better look. The two objects were not suspended in the air. Their lower parts were just hidden by the mists. The nearest was a wooden structure with what seemed to be a human figure on its top. The second, much farther back, was a large, round, black object.

He called down. "Pete! I think it's a raft! A very large one! It's moving with the current, and it's headed directly toward us! There's a tower with a pilot on it. He isn't moving, though, just standing there. Surely ..."

No, not surely. The man on the tower had not moved. If he were awake, he would have seen that the raft was on a collision course.

Burton hooked an arm around a rope, cupped his hands, and bellowed warnings. The figure leaning against the guardrail did not move. Burton stopped shouting at him.

"Wake up everybody!" he thundered at Frigate. "On the dou­ble! We must get the boat out of the way!"

He climbed swiftly down and went over the side onto the dock. Here, where his head was below the surface of the fog, he could see nothing. By ru

In his haste, he rammed into a post and for several seconds hopped around holding his knee. Then he resumed his work.

Having completed his part of unloosing, he groped back along the hull. Someone had by then let down the gangway. He went up it, his hands sliding along the railing, and came aboard. Now he could see the tops of the women's heads and the American's face.

Alice said, "What's going on?"

"Have you gotten the poles out?" he said to Frigate.

"Yeah."

He swung up onto the rope ladder again. The two objects were still on a course that must end at the docks. The man on the watch tower had not moved.

By now there were voices coming from the island. The Ganopo were awake and calling out questions.

Monat's head and shoulders rose from the greyness. He looked like a monster sliding up out of the fog of a Gothic novel. The skull was similar to that of a human being's, but the fleshy features made him seem only semihuman. Thick black eyebrows curved down alongside the face to knobbed cheekbones and flared out to cover them. Thin membranes that swung with the movement of his head hung from the lower part of his nostrils. At the end of his nose was a deeply cleft boss of cartilage. His lips were like a dog's, thin, black, and leathery. The lobeless ears were convoluted like seashells.

Kazz bellowed somewhere near Monat. Burton could not see him since he was the second shortest of the crew, only about 5 feet or 1.5 meter tall. Then he came very close, and Burton could make out the squat figure.

"Get the poles and push the boat from the docks!'' Burton yelled.

"Where in hell are they?" Besst called.

Frigate said, "I pulled them from the rack. They're on the deck below it."

Burton said, "Follow me," and then he cursed as he stumbled over something and fell flat on his face. He was up again at once, only to bump into somebody. From the bulky shape, he thought it must be Besst.

After some confusion, the poles were gotten and their wielders were stationed along the sides. At Burton's orders, they thrust the ends against the top of the dock, there being no room between the hull and the side of the dock for the poles to shove against the stone bottom of the underwater shelf. Since they had to fight against the current, which was strongest on the middle of the lake, they could only move the vessel very slowly. Once past the dock, they lowered the ends of the poles into the water and pushed against the rocky bottom. Even so, the poles slipped on the bare, smooth rock.

Burton ordered that they should let the prow of the boat swing around. This was done, and then the polers on the port side moved to the starboard to help the others keep the vessel from drifting side-wise against the spire. At this point, both the beach and the underwater shelf abruptly ceased. Now they had to hold the poles hori­zontally and shove against the wall of the spire.