The Man From Beyond
John Wyndham
ONE of the greatest sights in Takon* these days was the exhibition of discoveries made in the Valley of Dur. In the building erected especially to house them Takonians and visitors from other cities crowded through the corridors, peering into the barred or glass-fronted cages, observing the contents with awe, interest or amusement according to their natures.
[* All Venusian terms are rendered in their closest English equivalents.]
The crowd was formed for the most part of those persons who flock to any unusual sight, providing it is free or cheap. Their eyes dwelt upon the exhibits. Their minds were ready to marvel and be superficially impressed. But they had come to be amused and they faintly resented the efforts of the guides to stir their intelligent interest. One or two, perhaps, studied the cases with real appreciation.
But if the adults were superficial the same could not be said of the children. Every day saw teachers bringing their classes for a practical demonstration of the planet's prehistoric condition. Even now Magon, a biology teacher in one of Takon's leading schools, was having difficulty restraining his twenty pupils for the arrival of a guide. He had marshalled them beside the entrance and, to keep them from straying, was talking of the Valley of Dur.
“The condition of the Valley was purely fortuitous and it is unique here upon Venus,” he said. “Nothing remotely resembling it has been found, and it is the opinion of the experts that nothing like it exists anywhere else. This exhibition you are going to see is neither a museum nor a zoo, yet it is both.”
His pupils only half attended. They were fidgeting, casting expectant glances down the row of cage fronts, craning to see over one another's backs, the more excitable among them occasionally rising on their hind legs for a better view. The passing Takonian citizens regarded their youthful enthusiasm with a mild amusement. Magon smoothed back the silver fur on his head with one hand and continued to talk.
“The creatures you will see belong to all ages of our world. Some are so old that they roamed Venus long before our race appeared. Others are more recent, contemporaries of those ancestors of ours who, in a terrible world, were for ever scuttling to cover as fast as their six legs would carry them.”
“Six legs, sir?” asked a surprised voice.
Some of the youths in the group sniggered but Magon explained considerately.
“Yes, Sadul, six legs. Did you not know that our remote ancestors used all six of their limbs to get them along? It took them many thousands of years to turn themselves into quadrupeds but until they did that no progress was possible. The forelimbs could not develop such sensitive hands as ours until they were carried clear of the ground.”
“Our ancestors were animals, sir?”
“Well – er – something very much like that.” Magon lowered his voice in order that the ears of passing citizens might not be offended. “But once they got their forelegs off the ground, released from the necessity of carrying their weight, the great change began. We were on the upward climb – and since then we've never stopped climbing.”
He looked around the circle of eager-eyed, silver-furred faces about him. His eyes dwelt a moment on the slender tentacles which had developed from stubby toes on the forefeet. There was something magical in evolution, something glorious in the fact that he and his race were the crown of progress.
It was a very wonderful thing to have done, to have changed from shaggy six-footed beasts to creatures who stood proudly upon four, the whole front part of the body raised to the perpendicular to support heads which looked out proudly and unashamed at the world.
Admittedly several of his class appeared to have neglected their coats in a way which was scarcely a credit to the race – their silver fur was muddied and rumpled – but then boys will be boys. No doubt they would trim and brush better as they grew older.
“The Valley of Dur—” he began again but at that moment the guide arrived.
“The party from the school, sir?”
“Yes.”
“This way, please. Do they understand about the Valley, sir?” he added.
“Most of them,” Magon admitted. “But it might be as well—”
“Certainly.”
The guide broke into a high-speed recitation which he had evidently made many times before.
“The Valley of Dur may be called a unique phenomenon. At some remote date in the planet's history certain internal gases combined in a way yet imperfectly understood and issued forth through cracks in the crust at this place, and this place only.”
“The mixture had two properties. It not only anaesthetized but it also preserved indefinitely. The result, was to produce a form of suspended animation. Everything that was in the Valley of Dur has remained as it was when the gas first broke out. Everything which has entered the Valley since has remained there imperishably. There is no apparent limit to the length of time that this preservation may continue.”
“Among the ancients this place was regarded with superstitious fear and though in more recent times many attempts have been made to explore it none were successful until a year ago when a mask which could withstand the gas was at last devised.
“It was then discovered that the animals and plants in the Valley were not petrified as had hitherto been believed but could, by means of certain treatment, be revived. Such are the specimens you are about to see – the flora and fauna of a million years ago – yet alive today.”
He paused opposite the first cage.
“Here we have a glimpse of the carboniferous era – the tree ferns and giant mosses thriving in a specially prepared atmosphere, continuing the lives which were suspended when Venus was young. We hope to be able to grow more specimens from the spores of these. And here,” he passed to the next case, “we see the beginning of one of Nature's most graceful experiments – the earliest form of flower.”
His audience stared in dutiful attention at the large white blossoms which confronted them. They were not very interesting. Fauna has a far greater appeal to the adolescent than flora. A mighty roar caused the building to tremble. Eyes were switched from the magnolia-like blossoms to glance up the passage in anticipatory excitement.
Attention to the guide became even more perfunctory. Only Magon, to the exasperation of the pupils, thought it fit to ask a few questions. At last, however, the preliminary botanical cases were left behind and they came to the first of the cages.
Behind the bars a reptilian creature, which might have been described as a biped, had its tail not played so great a part in supporting it, was hurrying tirelessly and without purpose to and fro, glaring at as much of the world as it could from intense small eyes. Every now and then it would throw back its head and utter a kind of strangled shriek.
It was an unattractive creature covered with a grey-green hide, very smooth. Its contours were almost streamlined but managed to appear clumsy. In it, as in so many of the earlier forms, one seemed to feel that Nature was getting her hand in for the real job.
She had already learned to model after a crude fashion when she made this running dinosaur but her sense of proportion was not good and she lacked the deftness necessary to produce the finer bits of modelling which she later achieved. She could not, one felt, even had she wanted, have then produced fur or feathers to clothe the creature's nakedness.
“This,” said the guide, waving a proprietary hand, “is what we call Struthiomimus, one of the running dinosaurs capable of travelling at high speed, which it does for purposes of defence, not attack, being a vegetarian.”