Eden by Stanislaw Lem Page A

his way up.
    Several disks flew past the copse, but none appeared to notice the men. In the gondola there was seating space for four, not six, so two had to lie on the concave floor. A familiar bitter smell assailed their nostrils, reminding them of everything that had happened, and their euphoria vanished.
    The Doctor and the Chemist, on the floor, could see nothing. There were long panels under them, like the staves of a boat. Another shrill clang, and they could feel themselves moving. Almost immediately the panels on which they were lying became transparent, and they could see the plain below them, as though they were sailing over it in a balloon. There was a great noise around them. The Captain talked feverishly with the Engineer, both forced to assume unnatural and extremely tiring positions near the finlike object in the front of the gondola, which held the controls. Every few minutes one of them would spell the other, and that exchange required the Physicist and Cyberneticist to lie on top of the two men at the bottom.
    "How does it work?" the Chemist asked the Engineer, who had inserted both hands into the deep openings in the fin and was keeping the craft on a straight course. They were moving rapidly, along a groove. In the gondola there was no sense of gyration—it was as if they were floating.
    "I have no idea," groaned the Engineer. "A bad cramp—you take it now!" As he slid over and the Captain squeezed in, the disk shook, jumped off its groove, braked violently, and began making a sharp turn. The Captain put his hands into the control mechanism and a moment later steered the gigantic top out of its turn and back onto the groove. They sped along faster now.
    "Why does it travel so slowly outside the groove?" asked the Chemist. He was propped against the Engineer's shoulders to keep his balance; between his outspread legs lay the Doctor.
    "I told you, I have no idea," said the Engineer, massaging his wrists, which bore welts from the steering. "It may have something to do with a gyroscope. Who knows?"
    They passed a second chain of hills. The terrain below appeared familiar—they had crossed it before, on foot. Around them was the barely visible outline of their disk. The groove suddenly changed direction: to return to the ship, they would have to leave it. Their speed fell to less than fifteen miles an hour.
    "These craft are practically useless outside the grooves—we'll have to remember that!" the Engineer shouted over the noise.
    "Take over!" cried the Captain.
    This time the switch went smoothly. Then they were ascending a steep slope at little more than a walk. The Engineer found the canyon with the clay walls. When they reached the lung-trees, he got a cramp.
    "Take it!"
    As he pulled out his hands, the Captain rushed to replace him. The disk tilted and came dangerously close to the precipice. At that point there was a sharp crack; the rim of the whirring craft had hit a treetop. Broken branches flew, and the gondola crashed sideways with a hellish din. An uprooted tree swept the sky with its crown, and thousands of blister-leaves exploded with a hiss over the craft, as a landslide half-buried it. A cloud of white seeds filled the air; then there was silence. The gondola, dented, was embedded in the cliff.
    "Crew?" said the Captain, shaking his head to clear it. His ears rang.
    "One," groaned the Engineer, on the floor.
    "Two," came the Physicist's weak voice.
    "Three," said the Chemist, holding his bloody mouth.
    "Four," said the Cyberneticist.
    "Fi … ve." The Doctor was under everyone else, at the very bottom of the gondola.
    They all laughed.
    They were covered with a layer of fluffy, tickling seeds that had found their way inside through the apertures at the top of the gondola. The Engineer banged on the wall of the craft to make the door open. The others, whoever had the room to, pushed against the concave surface. The hull shuddered, a faint cracking could be heard, but the gondola would not