In the autumn of 1930, Miskatonic University dispatched a scientific expedition to the South Pole. During the exploration in Antarctica, the small team led by Reck was completely wiped out. And when Professor Dale found them, all he saw were corpses dismembered with unspeakable cruelty, and a gigantic grave in the shape of a pentagram. Behind the site of the massacre, colossal black mountains opened their arms to them.
There, Professor Dale's party discovered innumerable traces left behind by an ancient civilization. Everything was telling them that the Human race was not the first civilization on Earth. Once, a very advanced and powerful civilization had lingered here, but for reasons unknown, they had already vanished.
Or rather, at that time, the expedition members all believed this to be an Alien Civilization that had already gone extinct. Yet the truth was far more chilling: the Ancient Ones had not died out at all; they had merely fallen into slumber from the low temperatures. Reck discovered their bodies and, on his own initiative, dissected Ancient Ones that were still alive, thereby provoking a mad retaliation that cost him his life.
But even so, this was no more than one corner of the horrific truth. Such a mighty civilization of Ancient Ones toppled overnight, and all of it was simply because of an unnameable Evil God they themselves had created—the Shuggos.
At the Mountains of Madness is not a highly readable novel; it's more like a set of scientific field notes, or a setting compendium. There is no dramatic conflict, no plot twist, and the long-winded groundwork at the beginning will drive away most readers. Yet as long as one manages to read to the end, one can deeply appreciate the unique allure of the Cthulhu Mythos cycle of stories.
The most brilliant aspect of this story is that, whether it's the Protagonist Professor Dale or the reader, everyone advances through the mountains with the same archaeological mindset, constantly exploring. Therefore, when they finally realize the Ancient Ones have never actually left, every last strand of terror erupts in an instant.
It's like how the Human race has always believed itself to be alone in the cosmos, never having heard any reply. But then one day, when the Stars answer back, what people feel is not joy, but a terror beyond words.
When he learned of the events surrounding the Antarctic expedition, Shiller already guessed that this was when the Mountains of Madness incident was going to happen. Yet he could not halt the Human race's steps of exploration; someone was always going to go to the South Pole. If it wasn't Miskatonic University's expedition, the Foundation would still send others, and in the end that would only mean more people being sent to their deaths.
So Shiller did not choose to obstruct them; he merely did everything he could to reshuffle the expedition roster, first of all removing the merit-hungry, reckless Reck. If he hadn't violated regulations by dissecting an unidentified life-form on the spot, he wouldn't have buried an entire team there.
Even though this era did not yet have a well-developed set of experimental norms for biology, anyone with a brain knew that an unidentified life-form frozen in ice must not be casually thawed. But Reck not only thawed it, he dissected it. If he had dissected all of them, that might have been one thing; instead, he left several thawed but undissected. When the others woke and saw their companions skinned and flayed, killed in hideous fashion, it was only natural that they would repay tooth for tooth, eye for eye, and thus the Human race and the Ancient Ones became mortal enemies.
Yet even setting this accident aside, the Ancient Ones were not easy to deal with. Whether they would choose to coexist peacefully with the Human race is one question; what's certain is that Humanity would never accept their existence, and conflict between the two sides was bound to erupt. What Shiller had to do was to find a way of handling things that both sides could accept.
The party trudged on through wind and snow for another six hours. After the initial excitement faded, there was only endless silence. Everyone began to grow numb, merely repeating the motion of moving forward like machines. Now and then, the faint sounds of eating and drinking to restore Physical Strength could be heard, but no one spoke; there wasn't even any complaining.
Frank stopped several times to verify their course, which was crucial, because even though the mountains looked close at hand, the distance between them was still like a chasm. If they didn't pay attention to direction, it would be easy to go astray. After nearly nine hours of heavily loaded trekking, everyone's body and mind were on the verge of collapse.
Even though this was what the original plan called for, and everyone was mentally prepared, actually carrying it out was still unimaginably difficult. They were about two hours behind schedule; Professor Dale hesitated briefly, then decided they had to press on—they must reach the mountain's foot before making camp.
No one voiced any objection, because they all understood that on such flat terrain there was no way to withstand a blizzard. If they failed to reach the campsite, casualties were inevitable.
Everyone clenched their teeth and trudged on with their heads down. The cats had already hopped off; they followed at the rear of the column, occasionally firing up their jet devices, pretending they were moving quickly. The dogs' Physical Strength was flagging as well, but they kept going. Only when the outline of the mountain foot gradually appeared in their field of vision did everyone muster one last burst of Strength, and at last, after ten and a half hours of trekking, they arrived at the planned campsite.
The expedition members let out a breath of relief; some even dropped to their knees on the spot—not to thank God, but simply because they had no Strength left. They began helping one another to unload their burdens, eat a little food and drink some water, and after a brief rest they started setting up camp.
They raised the tents between the rock wall and the vehicles, erected windbreak panels around them, and hammered the stakes into the ground. This step was particularly difficult, but in the end they still managed it.
After the camp was set up, another problem surfaced. Everyone's Physical Strength was completely drained; they had no way to take turns resting. At this point, even if someone tried to stand Guard at night, there was simply no way to stay awake. Professor Dale called Shiller over.
Professor Dale sat cross‑legged in front of the vehicle, Shiller hopped up onto his lap. Professor Dale stroked his head, then said, "We have to rest now, little guy. You and your partners will be responsible for Guard duty. If anything happens, wake me up immediately."
Shiller nodded. The cats really weren't tired; in the first half of the trek they'd mostly been carried in people's arms, and in the latter half they'd relied on auxiliary gear. By coincidence, they were close to the polar day period now, and their equipment was powered by the Sun. With no shortage of energy, leaping over an entire mountain range wouldn't be a problem, so keeping watch at night certainly wasn't, either.
Frank didn't look very convinced; having cats stand Guard was just too strange—dogs would at least be easier to understand. Unfortunately, Tibbers was exhausted too; he'd actually fallen asleep already while the expedition members were still setting up the base. Counting on him was out of the question.
But for now, this was the only option. Fortunately, before departure, Dr. Henry had apparently given Frank special instructions, so Frank only grumbled a few words before going back into the vehicle to sleep. Everyone crawled into their own sleeping bags and sank into deep slumber.
The cats jumped onto the vehicles and held a brief meeting up there. The gist of it was: in this wretched place, every day less spent here is a day earned. The Human race's plan to establish a camp step by step was all well and good, but they'd never seen what super cats could do when they really went to work. It would be best if the cats could scout ahead while the Humans weren't paying attention—if they could pick up some data, even better. If the Humans made no progress for a long time, the cats would send the information over, then hurry up and pull out.
Even Bat Cat hadn't imagined the climate in the South Pole would be this vicious. It might also be that they'd come in the wrong season: winter wasn't fully over yet, the polar day hadn't begun, temperatures hadn't really risen, and blizzards were common. If they'd come in summer, it wouldn't have been nearly this troublesome.
The cats dutifully kept Guard all night, and thankfully, nothing weird happened. Another blizzard blew through in the dark; the cats ducked into the tents, but it didn't last long—barely more than twenty minutes before it passed.
Also, although it was close to polar day, it wasn't there yet. At night the sky still dimmed, though it wasn't as dark as elsewhere; even at "midnight," it looked like early morning in other places. But that hazy twilight gloom was even better at piling on psychological pressure. Little Superman clearly felt more irritable, and the upcoming polar day would only be even harder to bear.
When they got up the next day, most people still hadn't recovered their Strength—if anything, they were worse than yesterday. Yesterday they'd been running on adrenaline; today they finally understood what "aching all over like you're falling apart" meant. Many people could barely even stand, especially the younger students.
The cats had to reverse roles and start looking after the Humans—fetching food in their mouths, adding firewood to the stoves, a few of them darting up and down everywhere. If they weren't worried about frightening people, the Mechanical Arm and tentacles would probably already be stretched out to help.
Although the Professor and the students had long known this group of cats was extraordinary, seeing them voluntarily take care of the Human race still left them stunned—even more stunned than when they found out the cats could read. It just showed how low the bar set by their predecessors was: if your expectations of a species are only "don't wreck the house and don't scratch people," then as long as they behave even a little better than that, they'll earn loads of praise.
By comparison, the dog didn't perform so well in this area. Tibbers hadn't fully recovered either, but Frank was already pushing him to go stand Guard. Fortunately, Big Dog's muscle strain wasn't serious. After demolishing a basin‑sized portion of food, he went to Guard out in front of the vehicle.
The camp bustled with activity. Most people were cooking, and making hot meals for so many people was tough, so a lot of them just pulled out their rations and started gnawing. Supplies from the ship wouldn't arrive until later, so today they could only make do.
By afternoon, Big Dog, lying on the roof of the vehicle, suddenly stood up and stared in one direction. Out in the misty Fog, a convoy of vehicles emerged. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Most of these vehicles were engineering trucks, only carrying some supplies on top. But with this gear, they could finally start putting up structures.
Since they were working on a long‑term plan, the expedition wasn't just going to throw up a few shacks and call it a day—they wanted to build a base. Starting from scratch was a bit of a hassle though, so Frank planned to use his super drill to pierce straight into the rock wall and carve out a cave to serve as the main base, then add some facilities outside. This would become the Human race's base closest to the central region of Antarctica, and would also make things easier for future expeditions.
This decision came from many considerations, the most important being Professor Dale's earlier line of thought: if the Strength of one or two hundred people isn't enough, then bring one or two thousand, ten or twenty thousand. As long as this base existed, more and more research teams would choose this route. No matter how tall or distant that mysterious mountain range was, as long as explorers kept coming, one day they would reach into the unknown.