Alien Earth

Farris became conscious of all his accumulated weariness, as he went the last few yards. He wondered whether he could get a decent bed here, and what kind of chap this Berreau might be who had chosen to bury himself in such a Godforsaken post of the botanical survey.

The bamboo house was surrounded by tall, graceful dyewoods. But the moonlight showed a garden around it, enclosed by a low sappan hedge.

A voice from the dark veranda reached Farris and startled him. It startled him because it was a girl’s voice, speaking in French.

“Please, Andre! Don’t go again! It is madness!”

A man’s voice rapped harsh answer, “Lys, tais-toi! Je reviendrai—’’

Farris coughed diplomatically and then said up to the darkness of the veranda, “Monsieur Berreau?”

There was a dead silence. Then the door of the house was swung open so that light spilled out on Farris and his guide.

By the light, Farris saw a man of thirty, bareheaded, in whites — a thin, rigid figure. The girl was only a white blur in the gloom.

He climbed the steps. “I suppose you don’t get many visitors. My name is Hugh Farris. I have a letter for you, from the Bureau at Saigon.”

There was a pause. Then, “If you will come inside, M’sieu Farris—”

In the lamplit, bamboo-walled living room, Farris glanced quickly at the two.

Berreau looked to his experienced eye like a man who had stayed too long in the tropics — his blond handsomeness tarnished by a corroding climate, his eyes too feverishly restless.

“My sister, Lys,” he said, as he took the letter Farris handed.

Farris’ surprise increased. A wife, he had supposed until now. Why should a girl under thirty bury herself in this wilderness?

He wasn’t surprised that she looked unhappy. She might have been a decently pretty girl, he thought, if she didn’t have that woebegone anxious look.

“Will you have a drink?” she asked him. And then, glancing with swift anxiety at her brother, “You’ll not be going now, Andre?”

Berreau looked out at the moonlit forest, and a queer, hungry tautness showed his cheekbones in a way Farris didn’t like. But the Frenchman turned back.

“No, Lys. And drinks, please. Then tell Ahra to care for his guide.”

He read the letter swiftly, as Farris sank with a sigh into a rattan chair. He looked up from it with troubled eyes.

“So you come for teak?”

Farris nodded. “Only to spot and girdle trees. They have to stand a few years then before cutting, you know.”

Berreau said, “The Commissioner writes that I am to give you every assistance. He explains the necessity of opening up new teak cuttings.”

He slowly folded the letter. It was obvious, Farris thought, that the man did not like it, but had to make the best of orders.

“I shall do everything possible to help,” Berreau promised. “You’ll want a native crew, I suppose. I can get one for you.” Then a queer look filmed his eyes. “But there are some forests here that are impracticable for lumbering. I’ll go into that later.”

Farris, feeling every moment more exhausted by the long tramp, was grateful for the rum and soda Lys handed him.

“We have a small extra room — I think it will be comfortable,” she murmured.

He thanked her. “I could sleep on a log, I’m so tired. My muscles are as stiff as though I were hunati myself.”

Berreau’s glass dropped with a sudden crash.

CHAPTER 2 Sorcery of Science

Ignoring the shattered glass, the young Frenchman strode quickly toward Farris.

“What do you know of hunati?” he asked harshly,

Farris saw with astonishment that the man’s hands were shaking.

“I don’t know anything except what we saw in the forest. We came upon a man standing in the moonlight who looked dead, and wasn’t. He just seemed incredibly slowed down. Piang said he was hunati.”

A flash crossed Berreau’s eyes. He exclaimed, “I knew the Rite would be called! And the others are there —”

He checked himself. It was as though the unaccustomedness of strangers had made him for a moment forget Farris’ presence.

Lys’ blonde head drooped. She looked away from Farris.

“You were saying?” the American prompted.

But Berreau had tightened up. He chose his words now. “The Laos tribes have some queer beliefs, M’sieu Farris. They’re a little hard to understand.”

Farris shrugged. “I’ve seen some queer Asian witchcraft, in my time. But this is unbelievable!”

“It is science, not witchcraft,” Berreau corrected. “Primitive science, born long ago and transmitted by tradition. That man you saw in the forest was under the influence of a chemical not found in our pharmacopeia, but nonetheless potent.”

“You mean that these tribesmen have a drug that can slow the life-process to that incredibly slow tempo?” Farris asked skeptically. “One that modern science doesn’t know about?”

“Is that so strange? Remember, M’sieu Farris, that a century ago an old peasant woman in England was curing heart-disease with foxglove, before a physician studied her cure and discovered digitalis.”

“But why on earth would even a Laos tribesman want to live so much slower?” Farris demanded.

“Because,” Berreau answered, “they believe that in that state they can commune with something vastly greater than themselves.”

Lys interrupted. “M’sieu Farris must be very weary. And his bed is ready.”

Farris saw the nervous fear in her face, and realized that she wanted to end this conversation.

He wondered about Berreau, before he dropped off to sleep. There was something odd about the chap. He had been too excited about this hunati business.

Yet that was weird enough to upset anyone, that incredible and uncanny slowing-down of a human being’s life-tempo. “To commune with something vastly greater than themselves,” Berreau had said.

What gods were so strange that a man must live a hundred limes slower than normal, to commune with them?

Next morning, he breakfasted with Lys on the broad veranda. The girl told him that her brother had already gone out.

“He will take you later today to the tribal village down in the valley, to arrange for your workers,” she said.

Farris noted the faint unhappiness still in her face. She looked silently at the great, green ocean of forest that stretched away below this plateau on whose slope they were.

“You don’t like the forest?” he ventured.

“I hate it,” she said. “It smothers one, here.”

Why, he asked, didn’t she leave? The girl shrugged.

“I shall, soon. It is useless to stay. Andre will not go back with me.”

She explained. “He has been here five years too long. When he didn’t return to France, I came out to bring