Read Online The Shores of Death by Michael Moorcock - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Michael Moorcock
Tags: Sci Fi & Fantasy
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boy reading by a river, sometimes he talked with friends, sometimes he made love to a woman. Pleasant enough illusions, these, when not accompanied by the pain. But they were always accompanied by the pain, always showed him what he could enjoy, but never allowed him to enjoy it. And although all the illusions were of Earth and the things of Earth, they were not always so inviting. Sometimes they were nightmares of shouting voices, violent gestures, threatening figures of beasts and men, earthquakes and tempests, whirlpools and volcanoes, all the most menacing images of nature at its most destructive, images that had no relation to his own experiences, that were racial memories, handed down by remote ancestors to torment him and order him home.
But home he would not go. He had given up the chance when he locked his destination in.
His destination was Klobax in Antares. All the worlds of Antares could support Man, though none of them were to his taste. They were barren worlds of raw, overpowering colours that made Man seem an insignificant intruder, totally out of place in their bleak and ragged landscapes. Even the vegetation was massive and of solid, ungraded colours—slabs of colours that blinded the eye and confused the mind. Bleak they were, and with only the most primitive animal and insect life and thus their dramatic and well-deserved name—the Bleak Worlds.
Yet some were attracted to them. Some would submit to the complex conditioning, training and drugging that, together with simulated Earthly-environments, would make stay on a planet almost bearable. For there was something archetypal in these worlds, a grandeur that could only elsewhere be experienced in a mescalin-dream. Some who first saw the Bleak Worlds even doubted their existence in material space, for they seemed to be the work of mad painters possessed of alarming and metaphysical visions.
There was a faint sound from the ship’s engine, a vibration through its semi-sentient atomic nervous system, and Clovis Marca’s clenched and wincing body was borne into hyper-space for seventeen seconds.
Then the ship was in normal space again and Antares was only 5,926,000 million miles away.
There were five worlds circling Antares. Klobax lay fourth from the sun, a large world in a system where the largest planet was the size of Mars.
The ship was soon inside the system and heading for Klobax, though Clovis Marca did not know it.
All Clovis Marca knew before the ship touched down was that he swam in a salt-warm sea and every movement of his arms tangled his nerves into nests of incessant agony.
The ship landed beneath ochre skies shot with a lurid yellow. The dull grey expanse of the pads terminated abruptly at a rolling landscape of scarlet and black moss that was relieved by slim, jagged crags of brown and orange. Near the ship was a large building, not unlike similar buildings on the spacefields of Earth. A man left the building and began to move slowly towards the ship.
The man was young, but his face was lined and sagging. He had the face of a hound and his large, black eyes were soft, giving no indication as to his character. He was dressed in a tight-fitting jerkin and slacks of a dull, purplish colour. He was fairly short and he held his shoulders back as he walked. He gripped a small kit-box in his hand. In it was a master sonar-key with which he could open the ship’s airlock if it became necessary, a hypogun and an arsenal of drug cartridges.
But inside the ship, Clovis Marca was already being irradiated in the cocoon. The illusions disappeared and so did much of the pain. He blinked his eyes and hauled himself upwards, like a man rising from his coffin. His face was pale, gaunt and held more than a hint of torment. He checked the ship’s instruments, picked up his sonarkey and shut off the power. Then he went to the airlock and opened it manually. He looked out, blinking as the colours struck his eyes. He saw the man below him, looking
But home he would not go. He had given up the chance when he locked his destination in.
His destination was Klobax in Antares. All the worlds of Antares could support Man, though none of them were to his taste. They were barren worlds of raw, overpowering colours that made Man seem an insignificant intruder, totally out of place in their bleak and ragged landscapes. Even the vegetation was massive and of solid, ungraded colours—slabs of colours that blinded the eye and confused the mind. Bleak they were, and with only the most primitive animal and insect life and thus their dramatic and well-deserved name—the Bleak Worlds.
Yet some were attracted to them. Some would submit to the complex conditioning, training and drugging that, together with simulated Earthly-environments, would make stay on a planet almost bearable. For there was something archetypal in these worlds, a grandeur that could only elsewhere be experienced in a mescalin-dream. Some who first saw the Bleak Worlds even doubted their existence in material space, for they seemed to be the work of mad painters possessed of alarming and metaphysical visions.
There was a faint sound from the ship’s engine, a vibration through its semi-sentient atomic nervous system, and Clovis Marca’s clenched and wincing body was borne into hyper-space for seventeen seconds.
Then the ship was in normal space again and Antares was only 5,926,000 million miles away.
There were five worlds circling Antares. Klobax lay fourth from the sun, a large world in a system where the largest planet was the size of Mars.
The ship was soon inside the system and heading for Klobax, though Clovis Marca did not know it.
All Clovis Marca knew before the ship touched down was that he swam in a salt-warm sea and every movement of his arms tangled his nerves into nests of incessant agony.
The ship landed beneath ochre skies shot with a lurid yellow. The dull grey expanse of the pads terminated abruptly at a rolling landscape of scarlet and black moss that was relieved by slim, jagged crags of brown and orange. Near the ship was a large building, not unlike similar buildings on the spacefields of Earth. A man left the building and began to move slowly towards the ship.
The man was young, but his face was lined and sagging. He had the face of a hound and his large, black eyes were soft, giving no indication as to his character. He was dressed in a tight-fitting jerkin and slacks of a dull, purplish colour. He was fairly short and he held his shoulders back as he walked. He gripped a small kit-box in his hand. In it was a master sonar-key with which he could open the ship’s airlock if it became necessary, a hypogun and an arsenal of drug cartridges.
But inside the ship, Clovis Marca was already being irradiated in the cocoon. The illusions disappeared and so did much of the pain. He blinked his eyes and hauled himself upwards, like a man rising from his coffin. His face was pale, gaunt and held more than a hint of torment. He checked the ship’s instruments, picked up his sonarkey and shut off the power. Then he went to the airlock and opened it manually. He looked out, blinking as the colours struck his eyes. He saw the man below him, looking
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