Clifford Simak’s "Photographs of the Battle of Marathon," Summary

The book explores the mysteries of time, contacts with extraterrestrial intelligence, and the secrets of Earth’s prehistory. Characters encounter material traces of vanished civilizations, study the phenomenon of biological longevity, and navigate interstellar space. This collection of science fiction stories by American writer Clifford Simak was published in 1986.

The book’s short story, "The Grotto of the Dancing Reindeer," first published in 1980, won the world’s leading science fiction awards — the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards.

Cylinder

Charles Spencer returns to the closed university town of Coon Creek at the invitation of his old mentor, Prather. Alumni have gathered there. Along with the haughty mathematician Leonard Asbury and the talented composer Mary Holland, the visiting physicist investigates the gardener’s unusual discovery.

A metal cylinder shimmers in a birch grove. Periodically, objects from other times appear near the artifact, including a mathematical treatise from the twenty-third century. Spencer identifies the metal mechanism as the engine of a crashed alien ship.

The meeting participants draw lots. Mary Holland boldly turns the dial clockwise and instantly disappears. Rushing to the device, Charles hastily turns the dial in the opposite direction.

The hero travels fifteen years forward to find the campus under the new director, Kirby Winthrop, who created an artificial intelligence to safely isolate the chronal field and build an interstellar fleet. The explorers have reached the constellation Cygnus. Enormous funds for the spaceport’s construction were donated by the now-missing Mary, who amassed a colossal stock market fortune in the nineteenth century. Spencer remains in the campus for future flights.

Singing Well

Writer Thomas Parker compiles a family tree for his elderly Aunt Elsie. The client demands the truth. His search leads him to a high, desolate ridge, untouched by the destructive passage of ancient glaciers.

Civil War veteran Ned Parker once drilled a deep water well here. A huge windmill spins continuously. During north winds, the well begins to emit a loud, trumpet-like howl. Farmers abandoned the plateau.

While examining the rock debris, Thomas finds a cache of smooth gastroliths from an extinct lizard in a crevice. The surface of the smooth stone contains an ancient artificial engraving in the shape of two triangles. This artifact raises alarm.

At night, the camp is surrounded by massive silhouettes. Seized with primal terror, the explorer starts the van and tries to force his way through the raging storm to safety, watching in the moonlight as the gigantic silhouettes of the extinct inhabitants of the ancient land dance around the howling platform. The vehicle suddenly stalls.

Thomas steps outside and calmly strides through the dense ranks of prehistoric monsters, clutching the polished basalt he found in his pocket. The ancient shadows recognize the carved stone as a symbol of faith and open the way. Parker leaves.

Photo of the Battle of Marathon

Geology professor Andrew Thornton lives in a secluded cabin in the woods. His colleague, Neville Piper, discovers the body of Stephen, a caretaker from an abandoned mansion called the Wigwam, by a stream. The deceased man had no personal belongings. In the wet grass, Piper picks up a transparent, four-centimeter cube containing a detailed, three-dimensional scene from the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC. The historian leaves hurriedly.

A passing plane hits the barrier. A heavy metal seat with control buttons falls from above into Thornton’s yard. The owner hides his find. Soon, two residents of the mansion appear near the stream: a sharp woman named Angela and a burly man named Charles.

Thornton goes fishing. A chance squirrel draws the geologist’s attention to the buried entrance of an old adit. A clicking sound comes from the cave. Using a pickaxe, the scientist extracts a four-hundred-million-year-old metal cylinder from Ordovician limestone.

Charles descends into the dungeon. The traveler appears, claiming to be a representative of the distant future, searching for the cultural legacy of a lost insectoid civilization to save a degenerating humanity. The deceased guard, Stefan, suffered from cruelty and secretly collected holographic images of bloody eras. Andrew hands the cylinder to the alien.

In the Lodge’s living room, an intoxicated Angela forces the geologist to peer into the center of a complex navigational instrument, temporarily transporting the professor’s naked consciousness to the terrifying, scorched wastelands and charred ruins of a lost Earth in the distant future. Coming to, Thornton knocks Charles unconscious and immediately leaves.

The house is empty. Andrew finds cubes hidden by Stefan in the cave, depicting the coronation of Charlemagne and a mundane scene of a Roman crucifixion. An editor’s note reports Thornton’s own imminent disappearance without a trace.

Grotto of the Dancing Deer

Archaeologist Boyd completes his exploration of a prehistoric site in the Pyrenees near the village of Gavarnie. Worker Louis plays the flute.

Before leaving, the scientist notices subtle cracks in the rock and cuts a secret passage. The hole leads to a hidden chamber with colorful rock paintings of leaping bison, galloping horses, and a circle of dancing deer. An ancient palette and an identical flute lie on a ledge. Boyd takes the items.

Laboratory testing in Washington confirms the age of the organic matter in the paint at twenty-two thousand years, and the fingerprints of the ancient master are a perfect match for Louis’s fresh fingerprints on the wine bottle.

Boyd returns to the cave. His interlocutor reveals the secret of his own longevity: the Cro-Magnon man lived for two hundred centuries thanks to extreme caution, constantly changing names, and refusing to participate in any historical upheavals. The joyful drawings in the grotto became the artist’s personal protest against the grim hunting magic of his fellow tribesmen. Having handed the scholar a map showing the location of Charlemagne’s convoy’s demise in 778, the immortal traveler departs for the mountains forever.