The Inhabited Island

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Maxim opened the hatch a little way, stuck his head out, and apprehensively glanced at the sky. The sky was low and solid-looking, without that frivolous transparency that hints at the unfathomable depth of the cosmos and a multitude of inhabited worlds; it was a genuine biblical firmament, smooth and impervious. And this firmament, which no doubt rested on the mighty shoulders of some local Atlas, was lit by an even phosphorescent glow. Maxim searched at its zenith for the hole punched through it by his ship, but there wasn’t any hole, only two large black blots, spreading out like drops of ink in water. Maxim swung the hatch all the way open and jumped down into the tall, dry grass.

The air was hot and thick, with a smell of dust, old iron, crushed vegetation, and life. There was also a smell of death, ancient and incomprehensible. The grass came up to his waist, and there were dark thickets of bushes close by, with dismal, crooked trees haphazardly jutting up out of them. It was almost light, like a bright, moonlit night on Earth, only without any moonlight shadows and without any of that bluish moonlight haze; everything was gray, dusty, and flat. His ship was standing at the bottom of an immense depression with gently sloping sides. The terrain around the ship rose noticeably toward an indistinct horizon. And this was strange, because nearby a river, a large, calm river, flowed to the west, uphill across the slope of the depression.

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