The Outward Urge by John Wyndham

Author:John Wyndham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Published: 1960-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

and I seemed to hear them, too: they had no words, they were on the threshold of sound, but they encouraged me…

And, God knows, I needed encouragement, crouched there in my flimsy dome…

The voices cry – but the elemental terrors prowl. We need numbers to sustain us; in numbers we can dispel the terrors; alone, we are weak, mutilated. Taken from our pool of corporate strength we gasp, we wriggle defencelessly while the terrors circle round, slowly closing in…

Perhaps the voices are just sirens – but I think not. I think they are the calls of destiny, leading, not luring, onward and outward. I think we shall, we must, follow them – but not like this! Never again like this! Not, oh God – alone…!

♦

The little sun rode over the horizon like a delivering knight. I almost knelt in worship of him as he drove the fingering terrors from my side – not away, but further off, giving me the room, and the courage, to move.

I had meant to eat again, but I could not wait for that. I craved only for the security of the ship. I put my helmet on with shaking hands, packed the dome aboard the platform, lifted to a few feet, and sped across the sand towards the Figurao as fast as I could.

Two of the tripod legs were twisted and bent, and the third torn off, but the hull was surprisingly little damaged I had to clear a lot of sand to get at the airlock as the ship now lay. Much of it I managed to blow away with the platform’s jets, but the rest I had to scrape out.

The lock worked perfectly. Inside the ship there was far less damage than I had expected – except to poor Camilo.

I take some pride in having been able to force myself outside again to bury him, as I had buried Raul. I knew that it must be done at once if I were to be able to face it at all so, somehow, I did it. And then hurried back…

It was after that that the gap comes – a long gap, according to the calendar-clock. It looks as if I spent some part of it trying to repair the radio-transmitter; for some reason I seem to have rigged up a light to shine out of each port; the platform is still outside, but not quite as I left it when I first came in…Probably there are other things…I don’t know…I can’t remember…

Perhaps someone will come…

I have food enough for nearly three years…

Food enough – but not, I fear, spirit enough…

There is a letter here for my dear Isabella. Give it to her, please…

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