Page 23 - Fables volume 1

How the Snail Risked his Life in the Interest of Science

colonies flourished. Then some gigantic catastrophe occurred:
everything was swept away, destroyed overnight; and, in its place,
this.”
“I know that legend,” said the doctor to the back of Thordal’s shell.
“Thanks to its survival, I am making this hazardous quest. It is my
theory that our ancestors were visited by snails from outer space,
members of a society far in advance of ours in technology. They
possessed the power to blast away great stretches of fertile forest and
replace them with this rock-like substance.”
“I do not find this topography different from other rocky surfaces,
except in size and lack of curvature.”
“Yes, yes, I know all those objections,” fretted Vondon, struggling
to maintain the pace set by the other. “All the so-called experts believe
that the cosmos cannot have sustained the cataclysmic changes of
myth and legend, that whatever exists today developed slowly and
uniformly, over a period of weeks, or even months.”
Thordal did not respond, so he went on. “You see, that is why it is
so important that I document the Inscriptions: they are the proof I
need to show the world that I am right.”
“I don’t see what those indentations prove, Doctor Vondon. There
are all sorts of cracks and fissures in the rock, some of them extending
in straight lines as far as the eye can see. The Inscriptions could be the
result of natural forces; or, if not, then our ancestors themselves could
have created them for some long-lost ritual purpose of their own.”
“No, no,” expostulated the learned gastropod. “From all reports,
they are too regular to be the product of chance erosion or earth
movement, and their scale means only one thing: they were meant to
be seen from the air.”
“What! By birds?” Thordal’s voice betrayed no trace of skepticism.
“Of course not. By aliens. Perhaps the extraterrestrials were
stranded and left the Inscriptions as a message to their comrades out
in space, to aid in their rescue. Or, possibly, after the contact had
ended, our ancestors carved out the Inscriptions as a way of calling
the visitors back—or of worshipping them. If can record the designs
precisely, then perhaps they can be deciphered and their origins
discovered. Now do you comprehend the significance of my
mission?”

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