| "Men Without Bones" | |
|---|---|
| Author | Gerald Kersh |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Horror, science fiction |
| Published in | Esquire |
| Publication type | magazine |
| Media type | paperback |
| Publication date | August 1954 |
"Men Without Bones" is a 1954 horror short story by British writer Gerald Kersh.
Gerald Kersh (1912–1968) was a British and later also American writer of novels and short stories.
A passenger on a banana boat called the Claire Dodge at Puerto Pobre, sees a feverish-looking little man. Everyone believes the man is mad. The man asks for passage. He introduces himself as Goodbody, Doctor of Science of Osbaldeston University. He was an assistant of Professor Yeoward, who was lost in the upland jungle beyond the source of the Amer River. He begs to be allowed to leave, to escape the "men without bones".
Banana boat was a term, a descriptive nickname, given to fast ships also called banana carriers engaged in the banana trade designed to transport easily spoiled bananas rapidly from tropical growing areas to northern markets that often carried passengers as well as fruit. During the first half of the twentieth century, the refrigerated ships, such as SS Antigua and SS Contessa, engaged in the Central America to United States trade also operated as luxurious passenger vessels. Surplus naval vessels were converted in some cases in the search for speed with Standard Fruit converting four U.S. Navy destroyer hulls, without machinery, to the banana carriers Masaya, Matagalpa, Tabasco and Teapa in 1932. Transfers to naval service served as transports and particularly chilled stores ships such as USS Mizar, the United Fruit passenger and banana carrier Quirigua, and the lead ship of a group that were known as the Mizar class of stores ships. Modern banana boats tend to be reefer ships or other refrigerated ships that carry cooled bananas on one leg of a voyage, then general cargo on the return leg.
He tells about their lost expedition, which had bad luck, losing two canoes and half their supplies at the Anaña Rapids. They also lost Doctor Terry, Jack Lambert, and eight carriers. They made friends with the Ahu Indians and bribed them to carry their remaining belongings westward through the jungle. The object of Professor Yeoward's expedition was to investigate a series of Indian folk tales that tallied. Legends of a race of gods that came down from the sky in a great flame when the world was very young.
They found the nameless place, called a 'bad place' by the Ahu. They refuse to accompany them. The two venture on through thirty miles of jungle, making about a quarter of a mile a day.
Finally, they reach a plateau and climb the slope. There they spot the remains of a gigantic machine. Originally it had a pear-shape, at least a thousand feet long and, in its widest part, six hundred feet in diameter. The impact of its landing had made a great valley in the middle of the plateau. The metal is so old that it turns to powder at their touch.
On the third day, Yeoward finds a semi-circular plate of hard metal, covered with diagrams. After several days study, Yeoward recognizes it as a star chart, and a chart of a course from Mars to Earth.
A star chart or star map, also called a sky chart or sky map, is a map of the night sky. Astronomers divide these into grids to use them more easily. They are used to identify and locate constellations and astronomical objects such as stars, nebulae, and galaxies. They have been used for human navigation since time immemorial. Note that a star chart differs from an astronomical catalog, which is a listing or tabulation of astronomical objects for a particular purpose. Tools utilizing a star chart include the astrolabe and planisphere.
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System after Mercury. In English, Mars carries a name of the Roman god of war, and is often referred to as the "Red Planet" because the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance that is distinctive among the astronomical bodies visible to the naked eye. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmosphere, having surface features reminiscent both of the impact craters of the Moon and the valleys, deserts, and polar ice caps of Earth.
That night the boneless things surround their camp. Goodbody shoots one and the rest scatter. At dawn, they find the corpse, which was "grey and, in texture, tough and gelatinous. Yet, in form, externally, it was not unlike a human being. It had eyes, and there were either vestiges—or rudiments—of head, and neck, and a kind of limbs." Goodbody is instinctively afraid of the thing. He dissects the thing reluctantly. It has "a kind of digestive system enclosed in very tough jelly, a rudimentary nervous system, and a brain about the size of a walnut." The entire creature, stretched out, measures four feet long.
As the sun rises, the corpse melts and liquifies, turning to slime. Yeoward starts to avoid Goodbody. On a trip into the jungle, he sees a horde of the boneless things attack and devour a tree sloth. They do not bite, but suck, their color changing from gray to pink and then to brown. He finds that they are afraid of him also.
Sloths are arboreal mammals noted for slowness of movement and for spending most of their lives hanging upside down in the trees of the tropical rainforests of South America and Central America. The six species are in two families: two-toed sloths and three-toed sloths. In spite of this traditional naming, all sloths actually have three toes. The two-toed sloths have two digits, or fingers, on each forelimb.
On his return, he finds that Yeoward has been bitten by a jararaca. He dies two hours later, entrusting Goodbody with the metal star chart. The boneless things return that night and he shoots again and again until they leave. He buries Yeoward and leaves. He has forgotten the way back, however and he becomes thinner and weak. Eventually, he ties the star chart to a tree with liana-vine and goes on.
Bothrops jararaca — known as the jararaca — is a species of pit viper endemic to southern Brazil, Paraguay, and northern Argentina. The specific name, jararaca, is derived from the Tupi words yarará and ca, which mean "large snake". Within its geographic range, it is often abundant and is an important cause of snakebite. No subspecies are currently recognized.
A liana is any of various long-stemmed, woody vines that are rooted in the soil at ground level and use trees, as well as other means of vertical support, to climb up to the canopy to get access to well-lit areas of the forest. Lianas are characteristic of tropical moist deciduous forests, but may be found in temperate rainforests. There are also temperate lianas, for example the members of the Clematis or Vitis genera. Lianas can form bridges amidst the forest canopy, providing arboreal animals with paths across the forest. These bridges can protect weaker trees from strong winds. Lianas compete with forest trees for sunlight, water and nutrients from the soil. Forests without lianas grow 150% more fruit; trees with lianas have twice the probability of dying.
He reaches the territory of the Ahu, who nurse him back to health. He takes some of the stores they had left and makes his way back to the coast.
The passenger disbelieves the story, believing that the 'boneless men' were Martians. Goodbody counters that "Those boneless things are men. We are Martians!" [1]
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