The Essential John Wyndham: The Pulp Fiction Collection
Author: John Wyndham; Christopher Broschell
Date: 2021-02-16 04:00:00+00:00
Description: 20 short stories from the illustrious author of The Chrysalids, The Day of the Triffids and The Village of the Damned. Pillar to Post, No Place Like Earth, A Stray from Cathay, Judson's Annihilator, Never on Mars, Jizzle, The Living Lies, How Do I Do?, Technical Slip, …And the Walls Came Tumbling Down…, Confidence Trick, The Eternal Eve, Pawley's Peepholes, Bargain from Brunswick, The Wheel, Close Behind Him, Adaptation, The Red Stuff, Reservation Deferred and More Spinned Against.

The Essential John Wyndham
copyright ©2021 by Christopher Broschell.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced of transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN:
978-1-989999-16-5

Contents

Introduction

Pillar to Post (1951)

No Place Like Earth (1951)

A Stray from Cathay (1953)

Judson’s Annihilator (1939)

Never on Mars (1954)

Jizzle (1949)

The Living Lies (1946)

How Do I Do? (1953)

Technical Slip (1949)

…And the Walls Came Tumbling Down… (1951)

Confidence Trick (1953)

The Eternal Eve (1950)

Pawley’s Peepholes (1951)

Bargain from Brunswick (1951)

The Wheel (1952)

Close Behind Him (1953)

Adaptation (1949)

The Red Stuff (1951)

Reservation Deferred (1953)

More Spinned Against (1953)

Introduction

John Wyndham was one of those authors you would, if you were not an in-depth follower of science fiction, probably draw a blank about. His works, like many other writers, long survived him and have become classics in their own right. Wyndham is known for novels like Chocky (1968) and Stowaway to Mars (1935), but he is best known for his classics
The Day of the Triffids (1951), The Chrysalids (1955),  and The Midwich Cuckoos (1957), both of which were made into movies (The Midwich Cuckoos title was changed to The Village of the Damned – the one with those freakish blonde children).

Wyndham grew up in the small British village of Dorridge, landed at Normandy as a member of XXX Corps, then after the war engaged in more writing, though his experiences changed the tone of this work. In 1963 he married his friend of 20 years Grace Wilson and they remained married until his death six years later.

Pillar to Post (1951)

Forcett Mental Clinic

Delano, Conn.

18th Feb.

Messrs. Thompson & Handett

Attorneys-at-Law

512 Gable Street

Philadelphia, Pa.

Gentlemen:

In response to your request, we have conducted a thorough examination of our patient, Stephen Dallboy, and have established his identity beyond legal question.

Attested documents in support of this are enclosed and dispose entirely of his claim to the Terence Molton property. At the same time we admit we are bewildered. The condition of the patient has altered quite radically since our last examination, when he was indubitably feebleminded. Indeed, but for this obsession that he is Terence Molton, which he maintains with complete consistency, we should now classify him as normal. In view of the obsession and the remarkable assertions with which he supports it, we feel that he should remain here under observation, which may give us the opportunity of dispelling the whole fantasy system — and at the same time of clearing up several points we find puzzling.

In order that you may more clearly understand the situation, we are enclosing a copy of a statement written by the patient, which we suggest you study before reading our concluding remarks.

STATEMENT BY TERENCE MOLTON

I know this is difficult to believe. In fact, when the thing first happened, I didn’t believe it myself. I figured it was just a stage, maybe, in the deteriorating process. I’ve had enough dope long enough to play hell with my nervous system — yet the funny thing was how real it seemed right away. Still, I thought, everything would seem real to De Quincey when he was coked up, and to Coleridge, too.

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw ...

Vision is a poor word — all quality and no quantity. How strong was that vision? Could he put out his hand and touch the babe? He heard her sing, but did she speak to him? And did he find himself a new man, free from pain? I guess even the milk and honey of Paradise are relative. Some would yearn for a kind of celestial Hollywood, but just having no pain and being complete would have been Paradise enough for me.

It had been just over four years since that mine had got me — four years, nine operations and more to come. Interesting for the doctors, no doubt, but it had turned me into just a hulk in a wheelchair, with only half of one leg and no feet at all under the blanket.

“Go easy on the dope,” the surgeon had warned me.

“What’ll happen if I don’t?” I asked.

“You don’t want to become an addict, do you?”

That was funny. If they’d given me anything else to stop the pain, I wouldn’t have wanted to risk addiction. But they didn’t have anything else. And if they had refused me dope, I’d have killed myself. They knew that. So the nurses gave it to me, though always trying to talk me into cutting down.

And there was Sally. She used to come to the hospital every visiting day, bringing me candy or books and cigarettes, and leaning over the bed to kiss me, with that gentle little smile that needs only a word to turn it into hopeless weeping.

I finally said, “Look, Sally, this isn’t doing you or me any good. The sample I showed you was a healthy young guy. What you’d get now isn’t anything like the sample. Why don’t you go find somebody who is?”

Poor kid, it nearly broke her up. She argued out of mistaken loyalty, but I didn’t want her on my conscience. They tell me her husband’s a good joe and the baby is cute. Some of the nurses and Gray Ladies thought I was brooding about it. The fact is this is how I figure it should be. All the same, when every woman you see is kind to you — in about the same way she would be to a sick dog —

Oh, well, there was always the dope.

And then, when I wasn’t expecting anything at all except more pain and misery, there was this…this vision.

The day had been a rotten one for me. My right leg and my left foot were hurting a lot. But most of the right leg had been taken off and the left foot had had to go, too, a little later, so nothing could be done about it except to reach for the bottle. Maybe I took a little more than usual, but for all the difference it made to anyone else, I might as well be doped to the eyes all the time.

I lay back, feeling the pain fade out. I seemed to float smoothly and gently up and away, disembodied, filled with a surging lightness. The pain must have made me pretty tired, I guess, because I could feel myself falling asleep before I’d even begun to enjoy the lack of it ...

When I opened my eyes, there, in front of me, was the vision of the damsel. She didn’t have a dulcimer, and she certainly did not look Abyssinian, but she was singing, very quietly. It was an odd song, and for all I knew it might have been about Mount Abora, because I couldn’t understand a word of it.

We were in a room — well, yes, it was a room, though it was more like being inside a bubble. It was all cool green, with a soft opalescence, and the walls curving up so you couldn’t tell where they became ceiling. There were two arched openings in the sides. Through them were treetops and a patch of blue sky. Close to one of them, the girl was fiddling with something I couldn’t see. She glanced toward me and saw that my eyes were open. She turned and said something that sounded like a question, but it meant absolutely nothing to me.

I just looked back at her.

She was worth looking at. A tall, beautifully proportioned figure, with brown hair caught back by a ribbon. The material of her dress was diaphanous, yet there was a vast amount of it, arranged in multitudes of cunning folds. It made me think of the pre-Raphaelites’ versions of the classical. It must have been cobweb-light, for as she moved it swirled and hesitated in mid-air. The result was like that frozen high-wind effect so popular in late Greek sculpture.

When I did not reply, she frowned a little and repeated her question. I did not pay a lot of attention to the words. As a matter of fact, I was thinking: “Well, that’s that; I’ve had it,” and deciding that I was now in some kind of anteroom to Heaven, or — well, anyway, an anteroom. I wasn’t scared, not even greatly surprised. I remember feeling, “That’s a nasty experience finished with,” and wondering a little that the prelude to eternity should resemble certain Victorian schools of painting.

When I still did not answer, her dark eyes widened a little. There was a look of wonder in them, perhaps a slight tinge of alarm, as she came toward me. Slowly she said: “You— are — not— Hymorell?” Her English had a strange accent, and anyway I did not know what hymorell meant. I might be, or I might not. She went on: “Not— Hymorell? Some— other — person?”

It sounded as if Hymorell was a name.

“I’m Terry,” I told her. “Terry Molton.”

There was a block of the green stuff near me. It looked hard and cold, but she sat down on it and stared at me, her expression half-disbelief mixed with surprise. By this time I was beginning to discover myself. I was lying on a remarkably soft couch with some kind of blanket over me that smoothed itself out when I turned, instead of getting bunched under me. I don’t know how they got it to do that. It moved all the way down what should have been my right leg — including what would have been my right foot, if I’d had one.

I sat up suddenly, feeling my legs, both of them. There wasn’t any pain. But there were two legs and two feet! Then I did something I hadn’t let myself do in years — I burst into tears.

She began speaking to me in uncertain, foreign English, and I remember wondering how there could be a language problem at the gates of Paradise. But I was more concerned with myself. I threw back the blanket and sat staring at the legs. “They’re not mine,” I said dazedly, and then looked at the hand with which I felt them. “That’s not mine, either.”

“Of — course,” she said hesitantly. “How could — they be?”

“I can wriggle the toes and bend the fingers, so what’s the difference? You can’t expect any sense in a dream.”

I don’t recall what we talked about then. I suppose I was too excited and bewildered to take it all in. I do know she told me her name — Clytassamine – and I remember thinking it was a real mouthful. But what seemed more important was to swing the legs over the side and stand on them.

For the first time since that mine got me, I stood!

There’s no sense going into a lot of detail. What I might say would be about as informative as a Trobrian Islander’s first impression of New York. I just had to take most things on trust, the way he would. “You need — the word is — garments, is it not?” she asked.

I certainly did. Staying in a hospital for four years, you get to think of women as nurses, so I hadn’t been aware of it. She didn’t seem concerned and that helped me not to be. She stood me in a little cubicle that must have taken my measurements somehow, because clothes came out of a slot in the wall. There was a whale of a lot of it, and not a seam to be seen. Pretty filmy and ridiculous, it seemed to me, but it satisfied her, so I let her help me put it on. When I was dressed, she opened the door.

“You mean I have to go out in this damned nightgown?” I demanded.

“We all — dress — this way,” she said. “In other garments — people —notify.”

It stopped me for a moment. “Notice?” I asked.

“Notice,” she corrected herself without self-consciousness. “Come.”

We emerged into a great hall built of the same green composition. I figured that if Manhattan were to sink into the Hudson River, Grand Central Station under water would look about the way this place did. A number of people were around, none of them hurrying. All their clothes were of the filmy stuff, but as far as color and design went, it was apparently each to his own taste. There was a deadening of sound that I found oppressive, perhaps because you’d normally expect an echo in a huge place like this, whereas our slippers were silent on the floor and the quiet voices made only a soft hum.

Clytassamine led the way to a row of double seats set against the wall and pointed to an end seat. I sat down experimentally in it, and she sat confidently beside me. The seat rose about four inches from the floor and began to drift across the room.

“Are you sure this is all right?” I asked, worried.

“This is — conveyance. You — traveled? — went? — only by foot and by — animal?”

I looked at her in astonishment. “Are you kidding? I’ve been in cars, planes, tanks, ships, trains.” Did she think I came from a farm?

In the middle of the great room, we turned and slid silently toward an arch at the far end, and out into the open air. We rose until we had an elevation of a yard or so above the ground, while, from the shallow platform to which the seat was attached, a curved windshield came up to cover us.

We accelerated to twenty-five miles an hour, I’d say, and swept smoothly across parklike country, traveling a course between occasional trees and clumps of bushes. I suppose she was navigating the contraption in some way, but I couldn’t see how. In every way except speed, it was a better way to travel than anything else I’ve known — more in the magic carpet class.

It was a strange journey; something over an hour, I imagine, and in all that time we never crossed nor even saw a road, though twice I noticed paths that didn’t seem to be used much. “No cultivated fields or gardens?” I asked.

She looked blank. I tried to explain in terms of food, but that didn’t clear anything up. She seemed completely unfamiliar with the idea of vegetables or grains, which increased my feeling that I was in a spirit world where we were supposed to live on ambrosia. There were deerlike creatures that paid us no attention. I was afraid to ask if they were raised as meat animals.

The only signs of humanity were occasional large buildings to be seen above the trees, but they weren’t on our course. The trees were, though. Every time we came to a section of woods, I tried to pull back on a nonexistent stick and hop over it, but apparently the contraption didn’t work that way, for we always went around and not over obstacles. “Are you just showing me the sights, or are we heading anywhere in particular?” I wanted to know.

Both concepts gave her trouble. “All — things are sights,” she said, after I’d done my best to explain. “If nowhere to go, stay—home. With you it is — otherwise?” She should have seen weekend traffic. I didn’t describe it because by that time I began to catch glimpses of a building on a hill ahead of us.

I’m no architect and I can’t say this part showed this kind of influence and that part something else. It wouldn’t have made much difference if I could have, though, because every building I had ever seen had been based on some geometrical pattern. This looked more as if it had grown. Bushes came close up against it, and a lot were even sprouting on top. The only reason I was sure it was a building was that it couldn’t be anything natural.

As we got nearer, I became still more bewildered. I could see now that what I had thought to be small bushes were full-grown trees— even those on top of it. The place was unbelievably immense. Then, in the midst of my amazement, I remembered myself, and smiled. The dope dream was running true to form:

It was a miracle of rare device,

A sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice.

But when we arrived, it wasn’t at all like that. It rose before us like a cleverly designed artificial mountain. We swept into it through an entrance sixty yards wide and several hundred feet high, to emerge into a central hall of staggering size. There was no suggestion whatever of “pleasure dome,” though something of the “caves of ice” feeling came from the translucency of the pearly walls.

More slowly and seeming to drift like a feather in an air current, we floated across the place. There were a few men and women walking in a leisurely fashion, and a few chairs gliding as our own did. “A kind of railroad terminal?” I asked.

She didn’t get it, nor did airfield, bus station or waiting room mean anything to her. I gave up and watched us go through the enormous hall and through a dozen or more passages and lesser halls, wondering how she could find her way. But I wasn’t too surprised — it always puzzles me how people can get around in cities I don’t know, especially where the streets have names instead of numbers.

We came to a relatively small hall, where a dozen or so men and women were gathered, apparently waiting for us. There the chair stopped. It lowered the few inches to the floor and we got out, whereupon, in a way that could happen only in a dream, it lifted just clear and drifted away to the wall, as if parking itself. Clytassamine spoke to the group of people and indicated me. They nodded gravely in my direction. It seemed the polite thing to do, so I nodded back. Then, with her as interpreter, a kind of catechism began.

I think it was during that questioning that I really began to feel there was something seriously wrong with my dream. They wanted to know my name, where I came from, what I did, what had happened to my legs and why, what war and hospital meant, and a great deal more, and the answers I gave made them frown in a baffled way and pause now and then to confer.

It was all very logical and detailed, which was wrong. Dreams — my dreams, at any rate — have a more cinematic quality. They do not proceed in smooth sequence, but jump suddenly from one scene to another, as though directed by an erratic and impatient psychotic. But this was not at all like that. I was acutely aware of what was going on, both physically and mentally.

At last Clytassamine said, “They wish you — learn — language. More easy to— speak.”

“That’s going to take a long while,” I said, because not a single word that any of them had spoken had been familiar to me.

“No. Few thlana.”

“How much?”

“Quarter day,” she explained.

“A lousy linguist like me? I wasn’t even able to learn pig-Latin!”

She didn’t answer or argue. She gave me some food — a box of things that looked like candy and tasted good. They weren’t sweet or very big, but only a few took care of my hunger.

“Now — sleep,” said Clytassamine, pointing to a cold, unfriendly-looking block of the green stuff.

I got on it and found that it was neither chilly nor hard. I lay there worriedly, wondering if this was the end of the dream and I would wake up to find myself back in my own bed, with the old pain where my legs ought to be. But I didn’t wonder long. There must have been some drug in the food.

When I awoke, I was still there. Hanging over me was a kind of canopy of rose-colored metal which had not been there before. It was — I’m going to give up trying to describe things; there was too much basic unfamiliarity. What would an ancient Egyptian know of a telephone by looking at it? What would a Roman or a Greek make of a jet plane or a radio. And as for TV — !

Coming right down to the simple things, if you saw a slab of chocolate for the first time, you might think it was for mending shoes, lighting the fire, or building houses. About the last use you’d guess for it would be eating — and, when you did find out, you’d most likely try eating soap because the texture was similar and the color more attractive.

That’s the way it was with me. You grow up with your conditioning complete. You look at a machine and you don’t have to say to yourself, “Ah, that works by steam, or gasoline, or electricity,” because you know, and you generally have a good idea of what the machine does without having to think about it. But nearly all of what I was seeing now was foreign to me. I had no place to start. Not understanding what might cut or burn me if I touched it, I was scared of everything — just like a child or an aborigine. Naturally, I floundered around with wild guesses, but mostly they had to remain just that.

I guessed now that the canopy was part of a hypnotic teaching machine, something like those the Navy tried to use to teach Morse Code. I guessed that, however, because I found I could now understand what the people were saying — some of it, at least — but the concepts behind the language were totally alien. I knew only what I could translate directly.

The word “thlana” that Clytassamine had used, for example, I now knew was a measure of time — one hour and twelve minutes, making twenty thlana to the day — so I’d been out about five thlana, almost six hours. “Dool” was electricity, but “laythal” meant nothing to me. I knew it was some form of power and that was all, not where it came from or what it did, though Clytassamine did her best to explain: “The mizmo is changed into frengra, and that produces laythal. But it has to be senaced, of course, before it can be baxtoa.”

It wasn’t her fault. You try explaining how coal and water are converted into electricity without using terms that are unfamiliar to an illiterate, and laythal, as I understood it, was even more complicated. But these difficulties had the effect of enhancing the dreamlike quality. The utter blankness of certain words or ideas which kept cropping up, like the dead keys of an old piano, began to get me down.

“Enough, Clytassamine,” a man said, when my distress must have begun to show pretty plainly. “Take him away and look after him.” The relief was almost physical as I sat down beside her again on one of the flying-seats. I sighed and relaxed finally as it floated us back once more into the open air.

Even before I understood anything about this unfamiliar world, I was somewhat awed by Clytassamine’s power of mental adjustment. It seemed to me that it must be a frightening experience, discovering that a person you have known for a long while has without warning become a perfect stranger — with, maybe, unpredictable reactions. Yet she showed no alarm, and only occasionally made the slip of calling me Hymorell.

I realized why somebody recovering consciousness usually demands first of all, “Where am I?” I wanted to know that very much; without that information, I didn’t seem to be able to get my thinking started properly. There was no fixed point to begin from.

When we were back in the green room again, I began to ask questions. She looked at me doubtfully. “You should rest. Simply relax and don’t worry. We will look after you. If I were to try to explain, I would bewilder you more.”

“You couldn’t,” I told her. “Nothing could. I’ve got to the stage where I can’t pretend this is a dream any longer. I’ve got to get some kind of orientation or go crazy.”

She looked at me closely again, and then nodded. “Very well. But where am I to begin? What is most urgent?”

“I want to know where I am, who I am, and how it happened.”

“As to who you are, you know that. You told me you are Terry Molton.”

“But this—” I slapped my left thigh — “this isn’t Terry Molton.”

“Temporarily it is,” she said. “It was Hymorell’s body, but now all the qualities that make it individual — mentality, personality, character — are yours. Therefore, it is Terry Molton’s body.”

“And what happened to Hymorell?”

“He has transferred to what was your body.”

“Then he’s made a damn bad deal,” I told her. I thought for a moment. “That doesn’t make sense. I’m not the same as I was before I was shot up. Physical differences make mental differences. Injuries and dope changed mine to some extent — if they’d done it more, I’d have a completely different personality.”

“Who told you that?”

“Common sense.”

“And your scientists postulate no constant? Surely there must be some constant factor not affected by changes. And if there is that factor, may it not be a cause rather than an effect?”

“As I understand it, it’s simply a matter of balance — physical and psychological forces held in equilibrium.”

“Then you don’t understand it,” she told me.

I decided to drop that angle for the moment. “What is this place?” I asked.

“The building is called Cathalu.”

“No, I mean where is it? Is it on Earth? It looks like Earth, but nowhere that I ever heard of.”

“Of course it’s Earth. Where else would it be? But it’s in a different salany.”

I was up against another of those blank words once more. Salany meant absolutely nothing to me. “Do you mean it’s in a different — ?” I began, and then stopped, baffled. There didn’t seem to be a word in her language for “time,” at least in the sense I meant.

“I told you it would be bewildering,” she said. “You think differently. In terms of old thinking — as near as I can understand it — you come from one end of the human race. Now you are at the other.”

“But I don’t,” I protested.

“There were some twenty million years of human evolution before me.”

“Oh, that!” she said, airily dismissing those twenty million years with a wave of her hand.

“Well, at least,” I went on desperately, “you can tell me how I got here.”

“Roughly, yes. It is an experiment of Hymorell’s. He has been trying for a long time — “ in this straightforward sense, I noticed, there did seem to be a word for time— “but now he has made a new approach. A successful one at last. Several times before, he has almost done it, but the transfer did not hold. His most successful attempts were about three generations ago. He…”

“I beg your pardon?” I said.

She looked up questioningly. “Yes?”

“I thought you said he tried three generations ago.”

“I did.”

I got up from the block I’d been sitting on and looked out of the arched windows. It was a peaceful, sunny, normal-looking day out there. “Maybe you were right — I’d better rest,” I said.

“That’s sensible,” she agreed. “Don’t bother your head about the hows and whys. After all, you won’t be here long.”

“You mean, I’ll be going back — to be as I was?’

She nodded.

I could feel my body under the unfamiliar robe. It was a good body, strong, well-kept, lithe, whole, and there was no pain in it. “No,” I said. “I don’t know where I am, or what I am now, but one thing I do know — I’m not going back to that hell.”

She looked at me and shook her head pityingly.

The next day, after we had fed on more of the candies that were not candies, and drunk an elusive-flavored milky stuff, she led the way into the hall and toward the chairs. I stopped. “Can’t we walk? It’s a long time since I was able to.”

“Why, yes, of course,” she said, and we turned toward the doorway. Several people spoke to her, and one or two of them to me. There was curiosity in their eyes, but their manners were kindly, as though to set a stranger at ease. It was evident that they knew I was not Hymorell, yet they were too polite to mention it.

Outside, we walked across rough grass and found a path leading through a thicket. It was quiet, peaceful, Arcadian-like, beautiful. To me, feeling the ground beneath my feet as something precious, everything had the freshness of spring. The blood livened in my veins in a way that I had forgotten. “Wherever it is, it’s lovely,” I said, glancing around.

We walked on in silence for a while, until my curiosity came back. “What did you mean by the other end of the human race?” I asked her.

“Just that. We think we are coming to the end, finishing. We are practically sure of it, though there is always chance.”

“I have never seen anyone more healthy or more beautiful,” I said, looking straight at her.

She smiled. “It is a nice body. My best, I think.”

For the moment, I ignored that baffling addition. “Then what is happening? Is it infertility?”

“No. There are not a great many children, but that is more a result than a cause. It is that something in us is failing to reproduce — the thing that makes us human instead of merely animal. We call it malukos.” The word translated as something like a spirit or a soul, yet not quite either.

“Then the children—?”

“Nearly all of them lack that. They are — feebleminded. If things go on this way, they will all be like that one day, and then it will be over.”

I pondered that, feeling that I was back in the dream again.

“I don’t know,” she went on. “One doesn’t think of the salany arithmetically, though there is the perimetrical approach.”

I couldn’t make sense of that. “Aren’t there any records?”

“Oh, yes. That is how Hymorell and I learned your language. But there are very big gaps. Five times, at least, the race all but destroyed itself. There are thousands of years missing from the records at different periods.”

“And how long is it going to be before it is all finished?” I asked.

“We don’t know that, either. Our task is to prolong it because there is always chance. It may happen that the intelligence factors will become strong again.”

“How do you mean, ‘prolong it?’ Prolong your own lives?”

“We transfer. When a body begins to fail, or when it is about fifty years old and getting past its best, we choose one of the feebleminded and transfer to that. This,” she added, holding up her perfect hand and studying it, “is my fourteenth body. It’s a very nice one.”

I agreed. “But do you mean you can go on and on transferring?”

“As long as there are bodies to transfer to.”

“But— but that’s immortality.”

“No,” she said, scornfully, “nothing like it. It is just prolongation. Someday, sooner or later, there’ll be an accident. That’s mathematically inevitable. It might have been a hundred years ago, or it might be tomorrow—”

“Or a thousand years hence?” I suggested.

“Exactly, but one day it will come.”

I did not for a moment doubt that she was telling me the truth, for by this time I was prepared for any fantastic situation. All the same, I revolted against it. I had an instinctive sense of disapproval — prejudice, of course, the same prejudice which made me disapprove of the soft, flowing garments and the soft, easy manner of life. I couldn’t help feeling that the process she spoke of was allied to cannibalism in some symbolic fashion.

She must have read my expression, because she said – explaining, not excusing: “This body wasn’t any good to the girl who had it. I don’t suppose she was really even conscious of it. It was being wasted. I shall look after it. I shall have children. Some of them may be normal human children. When they grow old, they will be able to transfer. The urge to survival still exists, you see. Something may happen; someone may make a discovery to save us even now.”

“And the girl who had this body? What happened to her?”

“Well, she had very little beyond a few instincts. What there was changed places with me.”

“Into a body aged fifty? Losing thirty years of life?”

“Can you call it loss when she was incapable of using it?”

I did not reply to that, for a thought had struck me. “So that’s what Hymorell was working on! He was trying to transfer normal personalities from the past into feebleminded bodies! That’s it, isn’t it?”

She looked at me steadily. “He’s been successful at last. It is a real transference this time.”

I was strangely unsurprised. I suppose I had been working up to the realization before it actually came. But there was a lot I wanted to know about the why and how as I was affected. I asked her for more details. “Hymorell wanted to get as far as possible,” she told me. “The limit was the point where he could be sure of assembling the parts to make an instrument that would get him back here. If he went too far in history, certain essential metals would not be known, instruments would be inaccurate, electric power unavailable. In that case, it might take him years to build the instrument, if he could do it at all. The use of nuclear fission was the line he decided to draw. Further away than that, he thought, might be dangerous.”

“Then he had to find a contact. It had to be a subject where the integration was not good — where there was a lesion weakening the attachment of the personality to the physical shape. When we perform the operation, we can prepare the subject, which is easy. But he had to find one already in a suitable state. Unfortunately, those he could find were nearly all on the point of death, but he found you at last and then he had to study the strength of your tie to life. He was puzzled because it fluctuated a great deal.”

“That would be the dope,” I suggested.

“Possibly. Anyway, he worked out a rhythmic incidence of lesion, and then tried. This is the result.”

“I see,” I said. “How long did he figure it would take him to build the instrument for his return?”

“He couldn’t tell that. It depends on his facilities for assembling materials.”

“Then it’s going to take him quite a while, I’d say. A legless cripple wasn’t a convenient subject to choose, from that point of view.”

“But he’ll do it.”

“Not if I can help it,” I told her.

She shook her head. “Once you have transferred, you never can have the perfect integration you had with your own body. If at no other time, he will put on more power and get at you when you’re sleeping.”

“We’ll see about that,” I said.

Afterward, I saw the instrument that Hymorell had used for the transfer. It was not large. In appearance, it was little more than a liquid-filled lens mounted upon a box the size of a portable typewriter, from which protruded two polished metal handles. But within the box there was enough intricacy of wiring, tubes, and strange gadgets to fill me with great satisfaction. No one, I said to myself, was going to knock a thing like that together in a few days, or even a few weeks.

The days drifted the life by with them. That placidity which was their chief characteristic was, at first, restful. After that came periods when I wanted to go wild and break up something just for the diversion.

Clytassamine took me here and there in the great green building. There were concerts at which I understood not a thing. I sat there, bored and musing to myself while around me the audience went into an intellectual trance, finding something in the strange scales and stranger harmonies that was utterly beyond my perception.

And there was one hall where colors played on a large fluorescent screen. They seemed to be projected from the spectators themselves in some incomprehensible way. Everybody but me enjoyed it. You could feel that. And now and then, for no reason that I could perceive, they would all sigh or laugh together. Nevertheless, I thought some of the effects very pretty, and said so. By the way it was received, it was the wrong thing to say.

Only in the performances of three-dimensionally projected plays was I occasionally able to follow the action for a while — and when I thought I could, it usually shook me badly.

Clytassamine became impatient with my comments. “How can you expect to feel when you measure civilized behavior by primitive taboos?” she asked.

She took me to a museum. It was not like any I had thought of, being mostly a collection of instruments projecting sound or images, or both, according to selection. I saw some horrible things. We went back, back, and still further back in time. I wanted to see or hear something of my own time.

“There’s only sound,” she said.

“All right,” I told her. “Let’s have music.”

She worked at the keyboard of the machine. Into that great hall, a familiar sound stole softly and mournfully. As I listened to it, I had a sense of emptiness and vast desolation. Memories flooded back as if the old world — not, oddly enough, the one I had left, but that in which I was a child — were suddenly around me. A wave of sentimentality, of overwhelming self-pity and nostalgia for all the hopes and joys and childhood that had vanished utterly engulfed me, and the tears streamed down my face.

I did not go to that museum again. And the music which conjured a whole world up from the aged dust? No, it was not a Beethoven symphony, nor a Mozart concerto.

It was The Old Folks At Home.

“Do you never work? Does nobody work?” I asked Clytassamine.

“Oh, yes, if we want to.”

“But what about the unpleasant things — the things that must be done?”

“What things?” she asked, puzzled.

“Well, growing food, providing power, making clothes, building, transportation…”

She looked surprised. “Why, naturally, the machines do all that. You wouldn’t expect men to do those things.”

“But who looks after the machines and keeps them in order?”

“Themselves, of course. A mechanism that couldn’t maintain itself wouldn’t be a machine. It would be just a form of tool.”

“Oh,” I said. And I supposed it would, though the thought was new to me. “Do you mean to say,” I went on, “that for your fourteen generations — some four hundred years or so— you’ve done nothing but this?”

“Well, I’ve had quite a lot of babies. Three of them were quite normal. And I’ve worked on eugenic research from time to time. Almost everybody does when he thinks he’s got a lead.”

“But how can you stand it, just going on and on?”

“It is not easy sometimes and some of us do give up, but that is a crime, because there is always chance. And it’s not quite so monotonous as you think. Each transfer makes a difference. You feel as if the world had become a different place then. Even in one body, tastes can change quite a lot in one lifetime, and they inevitably differ between bodies. But you are the same person, yet you are young again. You’re hopeful, the world looks brighter, you think you’ll be wiser this time. And then you fall in love again, just as sweetly and foolishly as before. It’s wonderful, like a rebirth. You can know just how wonderful only if you have been fifty and then become twenty.”

“I can guess,” I said. “I was worse than just being fifty before this happened. But love? For four years, I haven’t dared to think of love…”

“You dare now,” she said. “Can’t you?”

I could. I did.

There was so much I wanted to know. “What happened to my world?” I asked her later. “It seemed pretty well headed for disaster, as I saw it. I suppose it nearly wiped itself out in some vast and destructive global war?”

“It just died, the same as all the early civilizations. Nothing spectacular.”

I thought of my world, its intricacies and complexities, the mastery of distance and speed, the progress of science. “Just died?” I repeated. “It can’t have. There must have been something that broke it up.”

“Oh, no. The passion for order is a manifestation of the deep desire for security. The desire is natural, but the attainment is fatal. There was the means to produce a static world, which was achieved. When the need for adaptation arose, it found itself unable to adapt. It inertly died of discouragement. That happened to many primitive peoples before.”

She had no reason to lie. but it was hard to believe.

“We hoped for so much,” I protested. “Everything was opening before us. We were learning. We were going to reach out to other planets and beyond.”

“Ingenious you certainly were, but each new discovery was a toy. You never considered its true worth. And you were a greedy, childishly aggressive people. You developed science without developing philosophy. Philosophy without science is fruitless speculation, likely to degenerate into superstition and ignorant quibbling. But science without philosophy is equally fruitless research that leads to pedantry, stasis, dogma.”

“That’s rather hard on us. We had very complex problems.”

“Mostly concerned with preservation of forms and habits. It never seems to have occurred to you that in Nature life is growth, and preservation is an accident. What is preserved in the rocks or in ice is only the image of life, but you were always regarding local taboos as eternal verities.”

My mind switched suddenly to my present situation. “But suppose I were to go back and tell them what is going to happen. It would alter things. Doesn’t that show I’m not going back?”

She smiled. “You think they would listen to you while they neglect philosophy, Terry?”

“Anyway,” I said, “I don’t intend to go back. I don’t like your world. I think it is decadent, and in many ways immoral, but at least I am a whole human being here.”

She shook her head. “So young, Terry. So sure of right and wrong. It’s rather sweet.”

“It’s not sweet at all,” I said, brusquely. “There have to be standards. Without standards, where are you?”

“Well, where? Where’s a tree, or a flower, or a butterfly?”

“We’re more than plants.”

“What do you do about opposing standards? Go gloriously to war?”

I dropped that. “Did we get to other planets?” I asked.

“No, but the next civilization did. They found Mars too old, Venus too young. You had a dream of men spreading out over the Universe; I’m afraid that never happened, though it was tried again later. They bred men specially for it as they bred them for all kinds of things. In fact, they produced some very strange men and women, highly specialized, who were even more zealous for order than your people — they would not admit chance, which is a great stupidity. When their end came, it was disastrous. None of the specialized types could survive. The population dwindled down to a few hundred thousand who had enough adaptability to start over again.”

“So you have come to distrust order and standards?”

“We have ceased to think of society as a structural engineering problem, or of individuals as components for assembly into some arbitrary pattern.”

“And you just sit and wait supinely for the end?”

“Oh, no! We preserve ourselves as material for chance to work on. Life was an accident in the beginning; survival has often been an accident. Maybe there’ll be no more accidents. On the other hand, there may.”

“That sounds very near defeatism.”

“In the end, defeat and the cold must come. First to the Solar System, then the Galaxy, then the Universe, and the rest will be silence. Not to admit that is a foolish vanity.” She paused. “Yet one grows flowers because they are lovely, not because one wishes them to live for ever.”

I did not like that world. It was as foreign as another planet might have been. The strain to understand was constant and wearisome; it was also unprofitable. Whatever comfort and ease I had there were centered in Clytassamine. For her I pulled down the barriers I had so bitterly erected around myself in the last few years, and I fell the more deeply in love on account of them.

Thus there was a second reason not to let things happen as Hymorell had planned. Even Clytassamine could not make the place heaven, but I had got out of hell and I intended to stay out. I spent unnumbered hours poring over the transference machine, learning all I could of it. My progress was slow, but some idea of the way it operated did begin at last to come to me.

But I could not settle. The feeling of transience would not leave me, and the days began to pass in long, nagging uncertainty. There was no way of telling whether Hymorell would be successful in getting all the equipment he needed. I had a haunting, mind’s-eye picture of him in my wheelchair, working away on the contrivance which would condemn me to suffering in that broken body again.

As the weeks went by, the strain began to affect me, and I grew tense. I was afraid to go to sleep lest the next time I woke I should find myself back in that chair. Clytassamine, too, began to look worried. Her genuine sympathy over my distress at the idea of going back was confused by her feeling for Hymorell, who must now be suffering what I had. There was also the fact that my mental strain wasn’t doing my temporary body any good, either.

And then, when six uneventful months had begun to give me hope, it happened without sign or warning. I went to sleep in the room of the great green building; I woke back home — with a raging pain in my missing leg.

All was just as it had been. So much so that I reached right away for the dope bottle. When I grew calmer, I found something which had not been there before. It was on the table beside me, looking like a radio set partially assembled. I certainly had not built it. Except for that, the whole thing might have been a dream.

I leaned back in my chair, considering that mass of wiring very carefully. Then I started to examine it closely, touching nothing. It was, of course, crude in construction, compared with the transference machine I had studied in the place that Clytassamine had called Cathalu, but I began to see similarities and notice adaptations. I was still looking at it when I fell asleep.

By the number of hours I slept, I knew Hymorell must have been driving my body without letup. When I awoke, I began to think frantically. My spell of soundness and health had left me with one firm decision — I would not remain an amputee.

There were two ways out. The first, the dope bottle, had always been there for the taking and still was. But now there was the transference instrument.

I did not understand a lot about it. I doubted whether I could successfully retune it if I tried, and I did not wish to try. For one thing, little though I liked that other world, Clytassamine would be there to help me. For another, what I had learned made me think that I might easily land somewhere even less desirable. So I left it on Hymorell’s setting.

The chief difficulty I foresaw was that the machine must remain. He had had to leave it, but had never guessed, I suppose, that I’d be able to use it. And if I were to use it, I’d have to leave it there for him to use again. My object must be to stop him doing that.

It would be risky to set the machine to destroy itself after I changed places with him. The process is to some extent hypnotic and by no means instantaneous. Something very queer indeed would be likely to happen if it were destroyed while the transmission was in progress. Besides, he would be able to build another. As long as he existed, he would be able to.

That made the answer fairly obvious.

When I had made my plan, I tried the instrument several times, but he was awake and wary. I saw that I would have to catch him asleep, as he had caught me, so I went on trying at intervals of four hours.

I don’t know whether he outguessed me or whether he was just lucky. I had got hold of the poison a year before to keep by me in case things became unbearable. My first idea was to swallow it in a capsule which would take some little time to dissolve. But then I realized what would happen if something went wrong and I could not make the transfer in time. That scared away from the scheme. Instead, I poured the poison into the dope bottle. The crystals were white, just like the dope itself, only a little larger.

Once I got a response from the instrument, it was easier than I had expected. I took hold of the two handles and concentrated all my attention on the lens. I felt giddy. The room swayed and blurred. When it cleared, I was back in that green room, with Clytassamine beside me.

I reached my hand toward her, and then stopped, because I could hear her quietly crying. I had never known her to do that before. “What’s the matter?” I asked.

For a moment she went absolutely quiet. Then she said, incredulously: “It’s — it’s Terry?’“

“Well, sure. I told you I wasn’t going to be kept back there.”

She started to cry again, but differently. I put my arm around her. After a while, I asked: “What is it? What’s all this about?”

She sniffed. “It’s Hymorell. Your world has done something dreadful to him. When he came back, he was harsh and bitter. He kept talking of pain and suffering. I was afraid of him; he was — cruel.”

It did not greatly surprise me, since they knew nothing of illness and physical discomfort. If a body became in the least defective, they transferred. They had never had to learn to bear suffering. “Why didn’t it do that to you, too?” she asked.

“I think it did at first,” I admitted. “But you find out after a while that that just makes things tougher.”

“I was afraid of him; he was cruel,” she repeated.

I kept myself awake for forty-eight hours, to make sure. I knew that one of the first things he would need when he woke was the dope, but I had to give him time to take it. Then I let myself sleep.

When I opened my eyes, I was back in the hospital. It was no slow awakening. I knew in a flash that he had somehow suspected the bottle of poison and avoided it. The instrument was beside me and I saw a thin curl of smoke rising from it, as though a cigarette had been left burning. I began to reach toward it, but then caution checked me. I caught the leads and pulled them out. In among the wiring, I found a small can with a glowing fuse attached. I flung the can hastily through the window. He too, however, had had to allow a safety margin: it was half an hour before the explosive went off.

I looked at the dope, I needed it badly, but I didn’t dare to touch it. I trundled my chair over to the cupboard where the spare supply was kept. When I took out the bottle, though, I hesitated. It looked like the real stuff and intact — but then, of course, it was essential that it should.

Deliberately, I threw it into the fireplace, smashing the bottle, and wheeled my chair to the telephone. The doctor was pretty nasty to me, but he came, bringing the stuff with him, thank God.

Various plans occurred to me. A poisoned needle, for instance, set strategically in the arm of the chair. But the disabled have so little privacy. It is difficult enough to get the deadlier poisons, anyway; when it can be done only by finding a third party ready to break the law, it becomes virtually impossible. And if someone did do it for me, he would later appear as an accessory to suicide. The same objection applied to laying my hands on a few sticks of dynamite. But I could buy a time-switch without any trouble — and I did.

It was, I thought, a neat arrangement. My old Army pistol was trained on the exact position my head would occupy when I was at the instrument. Only if you were searching for it would you notice the muzzle looking out from the bookshelves. It was fixed to fire when the two handles of the instrument were grasped — but not until the time-switch was on. Thus I could set the switch and operate the instrument. Two hours later, for safe margin, the switch would go over and the thing became lethal. If I tried and failed to make contact. I had only to set the switch again.

I waited three days, knowing that Hymorell would be as wary of sleep as I had been, and uncertain whether his little grenade had been successful. Then I tried successfully.

But three days later, I was back again in my chair.

Hymorell, damn him, was cautious; he must have spotted the extra lead to the switch right away. It had been snipped off.

But I found his little surprise package too — I would have melted the instrument, and most likely myself along with it, if I had touched it before disconnecting. (The switch was thermostatic this time, set to cut in as the room cooled down — very neat.)

The pistol and the time-switch had vanished, and I set about looking for them everywhere within range of my chair. I didn’t find the pistol, but the switch was in the cupboard under the stairs. It was arranged to set off a percussion cap which would ignite a gray powder obviously taken from the pistol cartridges. There were paper and oily rags close by.

Once I had made sure there were no other boobytraps around. I settled down to work out another little reception device of my own. I had been caught by a type of mine the Germans used which didn’t go up until the seventh truck had passed over it. The idea had its points.

I spent a couple of days fixing that. The transference machine, meanwhile, created other problems. I changed places with Hymorell, then returned involuntarily, and got back there again.

I was getting sick of the game, but it seemed to be a duel which could only end with one of us outsmarting the other. It was a stupid battle with too many risks for both of us. And neither of us dared to sleep. “Look here,” I said to Clytassamine. “Suppose I were to transfer to one of the feebleminded the way you people do. Then when Hymorell operates again, it will be the halfwit who will take my place in the chair. We’ll both be here and the whole thing will be solved.”

She shook her head. “You need some sleep, Terry. You’re getting fuddled. It’s your mind he’s working the exchange with. It wouldn’t make any difference what kind of body you were using.”

She was right, of course — I was fuddled. On the third day. I just had to sleep. It lasted about fourteen of their hours and I woke up in the green hall.

I couldn’t believe he’d let that length of time pass without making an attempt, if he were in any condition to do so. My little gadget must have gotten rid of him this time.

I began to feel easier.

As the days went on, I grew sure of my success. My dread of sleep diminished. At last I began to feel like a citizen of this other world and to look for my place in it. With unlimited time ahead of me, I didn’t intend to spend it hanging around the way the rest of them did. “Maybe there is only chance now,” I said to Clytassamine, “but didn’t you ever hear of making chances?”

She smiled, it seemed to me, a little wearily. “Yes,” she admitted, “I know. I felt like that for my first two generations. You are so young, Terry.” She sat looking at me wistfully and a little sadly.

Why the change should suddenly have come over me then, I can’t say. Maybe it wasn’t that sudden but had been working up a while; as I looked back at her, I found myself seeing her quite differently. A cold feeling came over me. I saw beyond her perfect form and young loveliness.

Inside, she was old — old and wearied — old far beyond my reach. She thought of me as a child and had been treating me as one. The vigor of my true youth had amused her. Perhaps it revived her own for a while. Now she was tired of it and of me. The freshness I had seen was nothing but a sham.

I must have stared at her quite a while. “You don’t want me anymore. You want Hymorell.”

“Yes, Terry,” she admitted quietly.

For the next day or two I pondered over what to do. I had never liked that world. It was effete and decaying. What pleasantness there had been had vanished. I felt imprisoned, stifled, appalled at the prospect of spending several lifetimes in it.

Now that a return to my former torment seemed improbable, the prospect here looked, in another way, little better. I began to wonder whether mortality, wasn’t one of life’s more desirable qualities. It’s frightening in most ways, but more frightening was the prospect of an almost eternal existence. You can’t believe that until you’re faced with it.

But my worry was unnecessary; I’m in no danger of immortality or anything like it. I went to sleep despondently in the great green building, and when I awoke I was in this mental institution instead of either the future or the hospital. And I wasn’t in either Hymorell’s body or my own — I was in somebody else’s.

There was a male attendant nearby, cleaning up around the bed. I knew better than to ask where and who I was; I had to get oriented first, on my own, without arousing comment or getting into whatever kind of trouble Hymorell might have cooked up for me. So I just lay there, watching the attendant.

But he turned around and saw my eyes on him. He gave a start, began approaching the bed, then abruptly ducked out. He came back a little later with a doctor, who lifted my lids and stared at the pupils, tried my reflexer and finally stood erect, his arms folded grimly while he stared at me. “What’s your name?” he asked. I didn’t answer. “Do you know where you are?”

“In a hospital,” I said.

“Remember how you got here?”

As a matter of fact, I wasn’t sure at all. Until I was, I had no intention of talking. That didn’t stop them from putting me through a whole series of tests. By the time they finished, I realized why my silence hadn’t accomplished anything.

Hymorell had transferred me to the body of a feebleminded man named Stephen Dallboy. When the male attendant had turned and seen the light of intelligence in Dallboy’s eyes, it hadn’t mattered whether I spoke or not, and the tests had amazed the doctors because, not knowing the situation, I had given normal responses. All except my name.

I don’t altogether understand how Hymorell worked the stunt. He must have been as tired as I was of the dangerous game we’d been playing. The way I see it, he probably built another transference machine and used it to locate some accessible body in the present. That would be easy — just think of the number of patients in mental institutions he had to choose from! He happened to pick this Stephen Dallboy, a congenital imbecile, transferred me into that body, and presumably transferred himself back into his own in the future.

Then what had happened to my body? Stephen Dallboy must be in it, naturally. Being feebleminded, he wouldn’t even try to work the apparatus, and I was confined to the asylum, unable to get to the machine.

It was a shrewd solution, taking me completely away from the transfer instrument but it got me sore. He could have transferred me into a body that wasn’t under confinement, couldn’t he? More important, though, Dallboy was a charity case, whereas I’d inherited money — not much, but enough to make a difference — and I would need it if I could ever get out of the institution.

I wrote a letter, signing it Stephen Dallboy, and asked about Terry Molton, whom I claimed as an acquaintance. The male attendant mailed it for me; I’d counted on him as a possible ally and won his friendship by playing chess with him.

The answer came back from the hospital, stating that Terry Molton was dead. He had apparently electrocuted himself with some experimental radio apparatus. The resulting fuse had started a fire in the room, which had been discovered and put out before it could spread, but not in time to save Molton.

Well, what did that signify? The fire had been detected about three hours after I had awakened to find myself in this asylum. Did that mean Hymorell deliberately set the boobytrap to destroy the equipment and Dallboy along with it, so I or anybody else wouldn’t be able to pull him back into the present ... or was it Hymorell who died in my body while Dallboy, still imbecilic, was in Hymorell’s in the future?

I decided it didn’t make a damned bit of difference. Getting even with somebody who won’t be born for maybe thousands of years makes no sense, especially for some poor guy to whom being alive or dead was the same thing. And my immediate situation is one hell of a lot more urgent.

If I pretend to be Stephen Dallboy, I am an imbecile committed to an asylum…and I can’t get back my own money. If I claim to be Terry Molton, I can be proved insane… and I still can’t collect my money. I don’t know what to do, except convince the doctors here that I’m normal enough to be released.

That wouldn’t be so bad, come to thing of it, money or no money. I at least have all the parts of a passable body now. And I ought to be able to use this body profitably in the kind of world I understand. So I’ve gained a lot more than I lost.

Nevertheless, I am Terry Molton.

Dallboy’s, as you will realize, is a well integrated hallucination; but if there is nothing more serious we shall undoubtedly have to release the patient in due course, as we see fit.

However, we do feel that we should acquaint you with one or two discrepant points. One is that, although the two men appear never to have met, Stephen Dallboy is informed in remarkably intimate detail of Terence Molton’s affairs. Another is that, when confronted for test purposes with two friends of Molton’s, he immediately addressed them by name and seemed to know all about them — to their great astonishment, since they have never to their knowledge met him before. Also, they state he does not in the least resemble Terence Molton.

Nevertheless, you will find herewith full legal proof that the patient is indeed Stephen Dallboy. Should there be any further developments, we will keep you advised.

Yours truly,

Jesse K. Johnson

(Medical Director)

No Place Like Earth (1951)

On the left bank lay the ruins of a great city. According to the Martians it was called something like Thalkia. It was unlike any waterside city, unlike, indeed, any city that Bert had seen on Earth. There were no vestiges or signs of quays. Instead, half a dozen stone-paved roads, ramps with low walls ran from the land into the water. Looking over the side of the boat one could follow them down into the murky depths. From them Bert had deduced that the Great Ones who had built the city had employed some kind of amphibious craft, able to run from the canal into the marketplaces or wherever it was that the cargoes were needed. It was just another of those hints about the Great Ones that, put together, added up to practically nothing.

Several times Bert had stopped there and made his way among the ruins. They told him little: he could not deduce even the size or nature of the Great Ones. Pale red sand had crept across much of the place. Out of it protruded pillars and walls of the darker red stone, and between them the corners of fallen blocks. Here and there great lintels, architecturally fantastic, and structurally impossible on Earth, still stood. It could be seen that the Great Ones had abhorred the straight line, delighted in the subtle curve, and had had a particular penchant for a gently swelled three-sided pillar. And, too, that there was nothing ephemeral in their building notions. Allowing for the different gravity, there was a massiveness which nothing on Earth, save possibly the Egyptian pyramids, had employed. It awed Bert quite a deal to be standing in the remains of the oldest structural work anyone had ever seen. The civilisation of Earth seemed by contrast like a quickly blown and burst bubble. He doubted whether Thalkia had looked much different at the time when men’s ancestors were leaving the trees for the ground. Each time he had come away humbled by antiquity, and with the desire to dig there one day and find out more about the Great Ones.

Yet this time as his boat chugged past Thalkia he almost failed to notice the place. His arm was over the tiller, and he steered without thinking. The eyes under his battered hat’s brim were not even conscious of what they saw.

Many miles behind him, beside a smaller canal than this, stood a ruined tower that had changed from its obscure original purpose to become the home of a Martian family, and it was there that his mind was lingering. The family sustained itself on the produce of a few fields irrigated by the usual wheel beside the canal. It was to keep the wheel turning and to repair such domestic objects as confounded the limited local talent that Bert had the family on his schedule of calls. Of seven Martian years (which would have been something over 1 3 Earth years had the disintegrated Earth survived as a measure of time) Bert had spent more than six wandering the canals in his boat, leading a tinker’s life from which he returned occasionally to base at the Settlement to pick up metal, make a few pots, and collect such supplies as he could conveniently remove. The small farms and scarce villages on his route had become used to him, and to putting broken objects aside for him to mend when he called, and he had grown to know and to like the people who lived in them. At first, to his Earth-raised mind, they had been too quiet, and ineffective, and fragile-looking, so that like most of the Earthmen he had thought them decadent. But in time he began to see himself and the other Earthmen with something like Martian eyes — as neurotic, acquisitive, and with values which were sometimes suspect. He had begun to wonder whether “drive” was always the virtue he had been taught it was — whether it might not sometimes be the expression of instability or poor integration. Though that was not a thought one would mention to another Earthman.

“To us it seems,” a Martian had once told him, “that a sense of guilt lies on each of you Earthmen. You all of you think that you ought to be better men, or bigger men, or at least different men in some way. We wonder why a whole race should have the inferiority complex which makes it base its virtues on the assumption of its own inadequacy. To us that seems strange.”

It seemed strange to Bert, too, and not very palatable when put in that way, so that he had disputed it. Nevertheless, as time went by, he had found himself understanding Martian views better, and Earthmen’s views less well.

It was disagreeable to realise, too, that the Martians mattered more now, because the Earthmen were finished. The ‘drive’ of the Earthmen, which was something superimposed upon the normal will to live, had brought them to the end. By accident, carelessness or irresponsibility it had torn the Earth into the millions of fragments which now circled the Sun as an inner asteroid belt. The few hundreds of men left stranded here and there were of no account any longer. It made little difference whether they died off from drink or illness or waited for old age to take them. In less than thirty Martian years the last of them would have gone, and the brief disturbance of their incursion would gradually drop out of Martian memory, leaving no sign but some admixture in the Martian blood Which brought Bert back to considering the family that lived in the ruined tower.

There, as in other places, he had been accustomed to telling tales to the children as he worked. He had been only half aware that they were growing up. Mars was a world so spent, so far into old age, that younger generations still growing up there seemed not only incongruous, but pointless to an extent where he scarcely admitted to himself that they were doing so. His last visit, however, had left no doubt about it, for the youngest daughter, Zaylo, whom he thought of as a little girl, had suddenly become transformed into a young woman. The realisation had disquieted him in a way that was quite new…

Bert had come to some sort of terms with the conditions thrust upon him. He was not interested in the few Martian girls who hung around the Settlement. Occasionally he came across one of the Earthmen who had settled down with a Martian girl. Sometimes it seemed a qualified success, more often it didn’t. In the early days some such idea had tentatively entered his own head, but he had dismissed it, rather as he had dismissed the idea of an alcohol-soaked life in the Settlement. The indications were, he decided, that it did not work well.

Bert was not analytical in the matter. It had not occurred to him that the chief factor in a Martian marriage would be the temperament of the man concerned — his ability, or lack of it, to adapt. Nor had he looked closely at the motives of his decision. He was aware that he resisted something but had anyone told him that in his heart he was sentimentally preserving a useless loyalty to a world and a race that had finished, he would not have believed it. If his informant had gone further and told him that the Earth he revered was an idealistic, romantic conception with little likeness to the vanished Earth of reality* he would not have understood.

What he did understand was that the sight of Zaylo had somehow pulverised in a moment a philosophy which had hitherto been adequate enough, and that the placidity of his existence had been torn to shreds. In his mind he could hear the voice of Annika, Zaylo’s mother, saying: “Life is not something which you can stop just because you don’t like it.” He did not want to believe that. There had been a poet once who wrote:

I am the Master of my Fate,

I am the Captain of my Soul.

That was what Bert believed — or hoped.

Ever since the day when he had accepted the grim fact that he was stranded on Mars for the rest of his life he had steered his own course. He had shown the Greater Fate that it could not get him down, and he intended to go on showing it. Zaylo was a trap — a beautiful trap, like a fly-eating orchid. The sight of her and the sound of her voice had pierced through all his defences. He ached from the resulting wound. He knew perfectly well that if he were to stay near her he could no longer hold that Captaincy undisputed. He was jealous of her power to move him, angry with her for revealing to him the dry sawdust within his life. And so he had run away…

He was now in the process of discovering the paradox that it takes a very strong mind to run away really efficiently, and that if the mind is that strong it probably doesn’t run at all. Certainly he had been unsuccessful in his efforts to leave Zaylo behind. She stood between him and everything.

When his eyes were on the massive ruins of Thalkia, what he was seeing was Zaylo. Zaylo in a deep yellow skirt stencilled with a pattern in warm brown, with her hair held high on her head by three silver pins: the delicacy of her hands and arms, the unhidden beauty of her young breasts, the curve of her shoulder, her skin like copper woven into satin, dark eyes looking depthless back into his own, red lips trembling on a smile.

But he did not want to see Zaylo. Deliberately he banished her. “Those,” he told himself aloud, “are the ruins of Thalkia, one of the greatest cities of Mars. That means only five or six miles now to Farga’s place. Take the waterway forty-five degrees right at the junction. Let’s see. Farga…” He consulted his notebook to refresh his memory regarding Farga’s family and household. Farga’s son, Clinff, would be pretty well grown up now. A useful boy, more mechanically minded than… And then somehow he was thinking of Zaylo who was also pretty well grown up now. He was watching her moving with the grace of a young Diana on delicate feet that seemed to caress the ground, noticing the carriage of her head, the rhythm of her walk, the –

Bert shifted and muttered. He brought a determined gaze to the water ahead. Yes, Clinff had a better mechanical sense than most of them. One might be able to teach him ... It was queer how difficult it was for Martians to grasp the simplest mechanical principles. Take the lever. When he had tried to explain it to Zaylo there had been a delightfully earnest little furrow between her brows.

Farga walked down to meet him as he ran the prow ashore on the shelving bank. The Martian was smiling and holding out his hand in welcome — it was a custom which he had picked up, and punctiliously observed with Earthmen. Bert had a first impression that he was slightly surprised by the visit, but in their greeting he forgot it. He slung a sack of belongings and tools over one shoulder. Farga laid hold of a smaller bag but failed to lift it. Bert reached down one hand and raised it easily. The Martian shook his head, with a smile.

“On the moons of Jupiter I, too, would be a strong man,” he observed.

“If I could go back to Earth now, I guess I’d be as weak as a kitten,” Bert said.

“As a what ?” inquired Farga.

“As a — a bannikuk,” Bert amended.

Farga grinned broadly. “You — a bannikuk !” he said.

They ascended the bank and made their way through the fringe of clinking tinker bells which crowned it. Bert was glad, and a little surprised, to see that Farga’s house was still standing. After Farga himself had built the walls of flat, uncemented stones, Bert had selected suitable roofing slabs from the Thalkian ruins and ferried them down. When he hoisted them into place he had doubted the strength of the walls to support them, but Farga had been satisfied, so they had left it. Even after years on Mars Bert still found his judgments of weight and strength fallacious; Farga was probably right, and the structure had no weather to contend with, only heat and cold.

The place was the ordinary pattern of Martian homestead. A few fields strung along the canal bank, a wheel to irrigate them, and the house — which was part shed and granary, and part human habitation. Meulo, Farga’s wife, appeared in the doorway of the dwelling part as they approached. Other interested but much smaller faces showed at the mouths of burrows close to the house, then the bannikuks came scampering out, filled with their usual insatiable curiosity. They began to climb Bert’s trousers the moment he stopped. He discouraged them gently.

The inside of the house was clean. The floor was paved with a jigsaw of flat stones. There was an immovable stone table, its top polished by use; a set of stools carved from soft rock. In one corner stood a simple loom — an object of some value for several parts of it were of wood — and in another was the bed with a mattress of dried, straw-like stalks. No one could say that Martians were sybaritic. On the table Meulo had set out a dish of what the Earthmen called potapples, for they looked like potatoes, and tasted, with the help of imagination, very slightly like apples.

Bert dropped his burdens and sat down. Four bannikuks immediately raced up the table sides to gather in an interested group immediately in front of him. Meulo shooed them off. Bert picked up a potapple, and bit into it.

“Things going well ?” he inquired.

He knew what the answer would be. A farmer’s living on Mars was sparse, but not hazardous. No vagaries of weather, few pests. Trouble usually arose through the few simple tools wearing out and breaking. Farga recited a brief list of minor calamities. Meulo added one or two more. Bert nodded.

“And Clinff ?” he asked. “Where’s he?”

Farga grinned. “You know what he is — interested in machines, almost like an Earthman. Nothing would hold him when he heard the news. He had to go off and see the ship for himself.”

Bert stopped in mid-munch. “Ship !” he repeated. “Ship on the canal?”

“No — no. The rocket ship.” Farga looked at him curiously. “Haven’t you heard?”

“You mean they’ve got one to work again?” Bert asked.

From what he recalled of the dozen or so ships lying on the Settlement landing ground it did not seem likely. The engineers had early reported that all the remaining fuel if pooled would leave little margin over one takeoff and one landing — so no one had bothered. Perhaps someone had succeeded in making a satisfactory fuel. If so, they must have been mighty quick about it, for there had been no talk of any such thing when he had left the Settlement half a Martian year ago. And why try, anyway ? There was no Earth to get back to. Then he recalled that during the first years there had been a number of rocket rumours which turned out to have nothing in them. The Martian grapevine wasn’t any more reliable than other bush-telegraph.

“When was this supposed to be ?” he asked cautiously.

“Three days ago,” Farga told him. “It passed south of here, quite low. Yatan who is a friend of Clinff ‘s came and told him about it, and they went off together.”

Bert considered. All but three of the ships at the Settlement had been stripped or broken up. The three had been kept intact because — well, someday, somehow there might be a use for them that nobody really believed in. “Which ship was it? Did he see her name or number?”

“Yes, she was low enough. Yatan said it was a long name in Earth letters — yours, not Russian — and then A4.”

Bert stared at him. “I don’t believe that. He must have made a mistake.”

“I don’t think so. He said it was different from all the ships at the Settlement. Shorter and wider. That is why Clinff and he have gone to see it.”

Bert sat quite still, looking back at Farga without seeing him. His hand began to tremble. He did his best to control his excitement. A4 would, he knew, be one of the new atomic-drive ships — at least, they had been new thirteen Earth-years ago. There had been a few in more or less experimental service then. Everybody had said that in a few more years they would replace the liquid fuel ships entirely. But there had not been one of them among those stranded on Mars. Perhaps the boy had been right... What he had said about the shape would be true. Bert could remember how squat they had looked in pictures compared with the lines of normal spaceships. He got to his feet unsteadily.

“I must go to the Settlement. I must find out,” he said, speaking as though to himself.

Meulo made as if to protest, but her husband stopped her with a movement of his hand. Bert did not notice either. His eyes seemed to be focussed on something far away. He started towards the door as if in a dream. Farga said: “You’re leaving your tools.”

Bert looked round vaguely.

“My – Oh yes, yes.” Still without seeming to know what he did, he picked them up.

They watched him go, with the bannikuks scampering unnoticed round his feet. He trudged on, brushing through the tinker bells, setting a thousand little leaves clinking and chiming as he passed, and disappeared over the rim of the bank. Presently came the familiar sound of his boat’s engine, then it speeded up, greatly beyond its usual phut-phut. Farga put his arm round Meulo.

“I feel I ought not to have told him. What can there be for any of these Earthmen? Their world has gone. Nothing can bring it back to them,” he murmured.

“Someone else would have told him,” she said.

“Yes but then I should not have had to be the one to see such loneliness suddenly in a man’s face — and such empty hope,” he told her.

When the night made its sudden fall Bert switched on his light and kept travelling. For the first time he wished that he had built his boat for more speed. On the third night he fell asleep at the tiller and grounded on the gradual bank with just enough impact to awaken himself to his need of proper sleep. On the fifth day he reached the Settlement.

In all that journey Zaylo troubled only his dreams. When he was awake his thoughts continually brought back pictures of Earth. That was stupid, he knew. Wherever the rocket had come from, it certainly could not have come from the swarm of circling asteroids which now represented Earth. Yet the association of ideas was unavoidable. It was as if an old, locked box in his mind had been opened, letting scenes and reminiscences spring out as the lid was raised. And he made no honest attempt to force them back.

For the last few miles he might have been upon an ocean. The body of water formed by the junction of several important canals, the curvature of Mars, and his own lowly position took him out of sight of land. But presently he was able to make out the slender spire of the useless radio mast dead ahead. An hour or so more, and he had driven the boat ashore at her usual berth. He jumped out, drove the grapple into the sand to hold her there, and strode off towards the Settlement.

The moment he set foot inside the fence he was aware that the place felt different. On previous visits its spiritlessness had closed around him like a blanket that became a little thicker each time. But now that sensation was missing. The few men he saw on his way to the central clubhouse did not drift in the old way. They looked as if they had received an injection which made them walk with a purpose.

In the clubhouse barroom the transformation was a little less complete. A number of the habitues sat at their usual tables, too alcohol-logged and sunk in cynicism to change much. When he had helped himself to a drink he looked round for someone who might be coherent and informative. A group of three talking earnestly at a table by the window caught his eye. He recognised the two bearded men as out-of-Settlement men like himself. He crossed the floor to join them. The man who was doing most of the talking was pale and sallow beside the others, but he had the more decisive manner. As Bert came up he was saying: “You put your names down now, that’s my advice. I’m willing to bet you get chosen for the first batch. You, too,” he added, glancing round as Bert pulled up a chair. “We want men like you. Half of them here have gone rotten. They’d never pass any physical examination — or stand the change. I’ll put your names up right now, if you like — with a priority mark to ‘em. Then once the doc’s looked you over, you’ll be all set. How about it?”

The two agreed without hesitation. The man wrote down their names and glanced interrogatively at Bert. “I’m only just in. What’s it all about?” Bert asked with an effect of calmness. He was rather pleased with the way he was managing to control the excitement thumping in his chest. “All I’ve heard is that a ship is said to have come in,” he added.

“It’s here now,” said one of the bearded men.

“From Venus,” added the other.

The pale man talked. The other two listened as eagerly as if all he said was fresh to them too. There was a gleam in their eyes and a look of purpose on their faces. Bert had not seen a look like that for a very long time. “Ever been to Venus?” asked the pale man.

Bert shook his head.

“The trip here was my first,” he said.

“There’s a future on Venus. There’s none here,” the pale man told him. “Things are going ahead there. We’d have let you know that long ago, but for that static layer over the place that cuts the radio out.”

He went on to explain that it had been clear from the time of the first landings there that Venus could be given a future. “Here on Mars,” he said, “conditions were far better than anyone had expected. The atmosphere was a great deal denser and higher in oxygen content than anyone had estimated, and the temperatures more tolerable. It had been thought that only lichens or similar low forms of life could exist. Well, we were wrong about that. All the same, it is pretty nearly finished here now — well on the way out. There are the useful deposits of minerals which for some reason the Great Ones never bothered to work, but that’s about all. It had gone too far to be worth a serious attempt to colonise. As for the moons of Jupiter — well, anybody who’s content to spend his whole life in a heated spacesuit might live there, but no one else. But Venus was something different.”

In a rather elementary manner he went on to explain why Venus was different. How the conditions on the younger planet could be considered as approximating roughly — very roughly — to those on Earth some millions of years ago. How the density of the atmosphere helped to offset the increased heat of the Sun so that, though the tropics were impossible, conditions at the poles were tolerable if not comfortable. How, in fact, it was possible to consider colonisation of limited areas.

“And we were still doing that — just thinking about it, that is. We had got as far as establishing an exploring and shipping base on the island of Melos not far from the northern pole, when we found out more or less by chance that the Slavs had sent out two loads of emigrants and actually established a colony on an island near the south pole.”

“I never heard of that,” Bert put in.

“You weren’t meant to. The Slavs kept quiet about it. They were kind of pathologically prone to secrecy, anyway. We kept quiet because we didn’t want a first-class international row on our hands. We’d have had to do something about it — and we knew that if we started we’d be in for some full-scale nastiness. The best thing we could do seemed to be to start our own colony, pronto.

“Well, the Slavs had the drop on us there. They’d done a bit of criminal transportation on simple, old-fashioned lines — the way we used to do ourselves. But nowadays we had to get recruits for it. That wasn’t easy. Maybe you’ll remember a lot of blarney on pioneer lines. Bands, flags, receptions and all that ? A lot fell for it. But there had to be other incentives, too, and as decent conditions as we could manage when they got there. And in that we did score over the Slavs. They’d just sent their lot out with as much equipment as they thought strictly necessary — and it’s wonderful how little that can be in a tough, well-ordered state. But then, the Slavs are a tough people.

“Still, with all the start we could give ‘em our first lot weren’t stuck on the place — but they’d signed for a minimum of five Earth years, and a pension at the end of it. There were twenty-five families in that first lot. Another twenty-five families were in space on their way there when whatever it was that happened at home did happen.”

Bert nodded. “I remember. They were due for takeoff about a week after we left.”

“They made it, too. Several other ships came in, as well. But a good many just vanished. They tell me that two ships that were on the Venus to Earth run managed to divert here. They hadn’t a chance to turn back, of course. Deceleration and acceleration again would have left them with no fuel for landing. The most they could risk was expending some fuel on making the diversion. But that didn’t apply to an atomic-drive ship. The Rutherford M had left Venus two days before, and she did have the reserve of power necessary for a stop, start and land, so she got back — with not a lot to spare. As far as we know, the other atomic ships all bought it. Al was smashed in a crash on Jupiter, you remember. A2, 3 and 5 are thought to have been on or near Earth when it happened.

“So you see our position was a lot different from yours here. We had about the same number of space-port personnel, but we didn’t have a whole lock of miners and prospectors — just a few explorers, botanists, chemists, and the like. And we had a colony containing some fifty women, and nearly a hundred children. Also we had a planet with its best years yet to come. We’ve got something to work with and to work for. This time the human race has got hold of a planet where it really is in on the ground floor. But what we need right now is as many men as we can get to help us. We’d be getting along a lot faster if we had more to oversee the work.”

“Oversee? What, one another?” said Bert.

“No. We’ve got the griffas working for us.”

“I thought – “

“You thought griffas were only good for making fur-coats ? That’s what everyone thought. On account of the price the furs brought nobody bothered to get nearer to them than shooting range. But that’s not so. They’ve got quite enough intelligence to do useful work, and they can be trained up to more tricky stuff when we’ve got the time. Of course, they’re small, but there’s any amount of them. The thing is they’ve got to be watched all the time. There has to be a man in charge — and there’s our chief limitation.”

“So what you’re offering is a kind of foreman job?”

“That’s about it— to begin with. But there’s opportunity. It’s a place that’s going to grow. One day it’s going to grow mighty big and have all that Earth ever had. Maybe the climate’s not too good, but there are decent houses to live in, and already there’s getting to be something that looks like civilisation. You’ll be surprised. Here on Mars there’s nothing to do but rot. So how about it?”

“You took a long time finding out you needed us,” Bert said.

“No, we knew that all right from the start. Trouble was the getting to get here. That took time. Fuel. To fuel a rocket you’ve got to produce fuel on the big scale. It takes a lot of labour and time that we couldn’t afford for the returns. Just building the plant was too expensive for us to think of. But when we ran across fissile material we could spare the time refining that to get the A4 into use. We want radioactive material anyway, so it became worth doing. Now we can take forty-five men this trip, picking the fittest first. You’ll make it, easy. You’ve not let yourself go to seed like most. So how about putting your name down?”

“I’ll think about it,” Bert said.

All the other three stared at him. “God almighty!” said the pale man. “A chance that’s almost a miracle to get off this sandheap — and you’ll think about it!”

“I was twenty-one when I came here,” Bert said. “Now I’m thirty-four, Earth reckoning. You kind of grow into a place in that time. I’ll let you know.”

He walked off, conscious of their eyes following him. Without noticing where he was going, he found himself back at the canal bank. He sat down there among the tinker bells and stared across the water.

What he was seeing again was a ruined tower beside another canal. A life that went on there placidly, harmoniously. A group of people content to live simply, to enjoy what life offered without striving restlessly for some undefined end. People who were quite satisfied to be part of a process, who did not perpetually itch to master and control all around them. It was true that Mars was close to dying. But the whole solar system, the whole universe was in the process of dying. Was there really so much more virtue in battling for thousands of years to subdue a planet than in living for a few centuries in quiet content ? What was it the Earthmen imagined they sought with all their strife, drive, and noise ? Not one of them could tell you that ultimate purpose. For all one knew there was none, it might be just a nervous tic. All their boasts need not be more than the rationalisations of a dominating egoism imposed upon a kind of transcendent monkey inquisitiveness.

The Martians were not like that. They did not see themselves as arbiters, as men to be made gods. But simply as a part of life.

Some lines from a poem came into his mind. Whitman had been speaking of animals, but it seemed to Bert to apply very well to Martians:

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,

They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins.

They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,

Not one is dissatisfied — not one is demented with the mania of owning things…

The image of Zaylo stepped into his thought’s sight. About her like an aura was a sense of peace to soothe his mind and heart. “Time to rest, Earthman,” her mother had said.

But he had fled because to rest, to settle down, to make a home there seemed like a betrayal of all that the vanished Earth had taught him. The act of surrender to Mars at last, against which the voice inside him still protested: “I am the Captain of my Fate.”

And now there was the chance to join others who thought that way. A pitiful few but determined to rise again above the catastrophe which had all but finished them. A vision of Earth as it had been replaced Zaylo in Bert’s mind. Cities full of life, wide farmlands rich in crops, the music of great orchestras, the voices of crowds, the liners on the seas and the liners in the air. The world made fit for man by man — the glorious dream of the composite mind of man come true. None who were living now would ever see Earth’s genius on its pinnacle again. But it could climb there in time. The spirit still was there. One day there would be re-created on Venus everything that had seemed lost with Earth — perhaps it would be a creation even more magnificent. What he was being offered was a chance to help to raise civilisation again out of disaster. That, or to stay on in puny futility on Mars.

The image of Zaylo stood before him again, lovely, gentle, like balm for a bruised spirit, like heaven for a lonely soul. But there beside her shimmered the spires and towers of new cities springing into Venusian skies, great ships cleaving Venusian seas, myriads of people laughing, loving, living, in a world that he had helped to build.

Bert groaned aloud.

The echo of a puritan ancestor said: “The hard way must be right: the easy way must be wrong.”

The murmur of another mocked it: “The way of vanity must be wrong: the way of simplicity must be right.”

No help there.

Bert sat staring into the water.

A sound came from the Settlement behind him. He did not hear it start. He was suddenly aware that men’s voices were singing. Occasional drunken bawling was familiar, but men singing lustily, cheerfully, with hope in their hearts was a thing he had n:it heard for a very long time. He raised his head, listening:

“Oh! There’s lots of gold so I’ve been told

On the banks of the Sacramento…”

It floated across the sands like an anthem. Shades of the forty-niners, ghosts of covered wagon trains crawling, crawling across prairies and deserts, over mountains, forging on against hardships and hunger. With not much gold at the end, perhaps — only an arid land. But a land which their sons would make to bloom like a garden there beside the Pacific.

Bert stood up. Decision poured into his blood like strong drink. He felt a glow of comradeship for the men who sang. He turned, squaring his shoulders. He carried himself like a man refreshed as he strode towards the Settlement again. Throwing back his head, he let it go with the rest:

“Oh-h-h! There’s lots of gold so I’ve been told,

On the banks of the Sacramento...”

Bert was gazing out of the window as the narrow-gauge electric train pulled away. The perpetual clouds which allowed never a glimpse of the sun, hung greyly over the landscape. The grass-like growth on the cleared ground looked pale, insipid, and scarcely green at all. The forest beyond rose like a woven wall of much the same ghostly tint. The details of the distance were blurred, of course, for it was raining — the way it did nine-tenths of the time on Venus.

On one side the line ran close to the landing-field. Hulks of spaceships lay about there like half-flensed whales. They had been gutted of all useful instruments and parts- long ago, and huge slices had been cut from the sides of many to supply the need for hard metals. Only the small Rutherford, A4, stood intact and shipshape, ready to take off in a day or two on a second trip to Mars. Figures were still busy around her. It was reckoned that she would be able to make three trips during this conjunction, after that she would have to lay off for a while until the next.

Over on the far side of the landing field coils of black smoke poured from the metal mills and rolled away across country, sooting the pale trees. Whatever else you might feel about it, you had to admit that a staggering amount of work had been put into the place in thirteen years.

Through the other windows which faced the inner side of the curve the line was taking one could see the houses of the Settlement dotted about. Here and there among them magnificent pennant-trees had been deliberately left standing. Their immensely long leaves rippled in the wind, writhing like Medusa’s hair. Crowning the central rise of the Settlement stood the massive palisades of the seraglio. The upper part of the stockaded wall bristled with down-pointing stakes, and above a top fringed with sharp spines an occasional roof ridge showed.

Bert’s neighbour noticed the direction of his gaze. “Pie in the sky,” he observed, shortly. “Jam tomorrow.”

Bert turned his head to look at him. He saw a man of middle height, perhaps ten years older than himself. As with all the Venusian colonists his skin was pale, and had a softened, flabby look. “Meaning ?” Bert inquired.

“Just that,” said the man. “The old dangling carrot. You’re one of the lot from Mars, aren’t you?” Bert admitted it. The man went on: “And you think that one day they’ll say: ‘Okay, you’ve been a good boy and let you into that place?”

“I’ve been examined,” Bert told him. “They’ve immunised me against everything anybody ever heard of, and they’ve given me a certificate which says I’m healthy and fit for parenthood.”

“Sure, sure,” said the man. “We’ve all got ‘em. Don’t mean a thing.”

“But it certifies.”

“I know. And what’d you have done if it didn’t certify ? You’d have raised hell. Well, they don’t want guys raising hell around here, so they give you one. S’easy.”

“Oh,” said Bert.

“Sure. And now they’ve given you a job so that you can show you’re a good, reliable type. If they’re satisfied with your work you’ll be granted full citizen rights. That’s fine. Only you’ll find that they can’t quite make up their minds about you on this job — so they’ll give you another, maybe one or two more before they do. And then, if you’re very, very good and respectful you’ll become a citizen — if you aren’t, you can still go on trying to make the grade. Take it from me, it’s a nice tidy kind of racket, pal.”

“But if I do become a citizen?” asked Bert.

“If you do, they’ll congratulate you. Pat you on the back. Tell you you’re a swell guy, worthy to become one of the fathers of the new Venusian nation. The old carrot again, pal. Unfortunately, they’ll say, unfortunately there isn’t a wife available for you just at the moment. ‘ So you’ll not be able to set up house in the seraglio for a little while. So sorry. But if you go on being a good boy. So you do. After a while you get restive and go to them again. They’re sorry, but nothing doing just yet. In fact there’s bit of a list ahead of you. Trouble is boys took to the climate here better than girls. Very unfortunate just at present. But it’ll be better later on. All you have to do is be patient — and go on being good — for a few years, and the balance will right itself. Then you’ll be able to move into nice comfortable married quarters in the seraglio. You’ll have a sweet little wife, become the father of a family, and a Founder of the State. Jam tomorrow, pal ... If you should get sore, and tell ‘em a few things, you lose your citizenship — like me. If you get to be a real nuisance around the place — well, you sort of disappear.”

“You mean that all they tell you is phoney?” asked Bert.

“Phoney, pal? It stinks. Chris Davey took this place over the day after we heard about Earth cracking up. Since then he’s let his buddies run it the way they like — so long as they produce the goods. The result is plenty of work for everyone — and no muscling in.”

Bert looked out of the window again. The Settlement was behind them now. The cleared ground on either side of the line was planted with unfamiliar, almost colourless crops. Here and there parties of the little yard-high griffas toiled between the rows, with the rain dripping from their silver fur as they worked. Occasionally a man in a long waterproof coat and a shovel-shaped hat was to be seen striding from one group to another and inspecting progress. Another part of his uniform was a whip.

“Well, they’ve got some results to show,” he said, looking back at the smudge from the metal mills, almost hidden now by rain and mist.

“Yes, they’ve got that,” the man admitted. “That’s the griffas mostly — the donkey work, I mean. There’s plenty of griffas — all you like to round up in the forests. Lucky for you and me.”

“How?” asked Bert.

“On account of they need us to supervise. The griffas won’t work without. So it’s no good having unlimited griffas without men to look after them. That makes Chris Davey’s buddies think twice before they wipe a man out. Take me. I’m what they call a subversive element — and I’d not be here now if they didn’t need all of us they can get to look after the griffas. It was even worth bringing your lot from Mars.”

“And what do the griffas get out of it ?” Bert asked.

“The chance to live a little longer — if they work,” said the man.

Bert made no comment on that. He sat looking out at the blanched landscape through the drizzling rain. Presently the train jerked itself aside on to a loop in the single line and settled down to wait for a bit. His neighbour offered him a roll of the curious local bread. Bert thanked him, and bit into it. For a time they champed in silence, then the man said: “Not what you expected, eh ? Well, it’s not what any of us expected. Still, it’s all we’ve got.”

“Huh!” grunted Bert, non-committal. His mind had been wandering very far away. He had been back in his old ramshackle boat idling along the canal. In his ears was the friendly chug of the engine mingled with the tinker-bell chimes. The thin, crisp air of Mars was in his lungs again. Beyond the bank red sands rolled on to low mountains in the distance. Somewhere ahead was a waterwheel that would surely be needing attention. Beside it a ruined tower of carved red stone. When he walked towards it the bannikuks would come bounding out of their holes, clinging and squeaking, and pestering him for nuts. In the doorway of the tower Zaylo would be standing in a bright coloured dress, the silver pins shining in her hair, her eyes serious, her lips slightly smiling…

“No,” he added. “Not what I expected.” He paused, then he added. “How did it get this way?”

“Well, the Administrator here was okay with authority behind him — but without it he was nothing. Chris Davey saw that right off and moved fast. The only serious opposition came from Don Modland who wanted a democratic set-up. But Don disappeared quite soon, and that had a kind of discouraging effect all round. So Davey and his mob took over. They built the seraglio stockade for the safety of the women and children — they said. If you’re one of Davey’s mob, that’s where you live. If you’re not, you never see the inside of the place. You only think you may — one day.

“Maybe it is true what they say about the birth rate and the death rate in there. Likely it’s not. There’s no way of checking. The place is guarded. It’d be hard to get in — harder still to get out, alive. If you’re one of Davey’s mob you carry a gun — if you’re not, you don’t. The long and the short of it is that if the results are coming along Chris doesn’t trouble how his buddies get them.”

“He’s made himself kind of — king of Venus ?” Bert suggested.

“That’s about it. This part of Venus, anyway. He’s sitting pretty, with everything the way he wants it. The doggone thing is that whether you like it or not, he’s making a job of it. He is building the place up — in his way. One of the things his buddies put out is that it’s a race between us and the Slav lot down in the south. If they get ahead, and come beating through the tropics some way, it’s going to be bad for us. So it’s better for us to get ahead.”

“And attack them, you mean?”

“That’s the way of it — sometime, when we’re ready.”

A train came clattering past on the other loop. Small open trucks loaded with produce, others full of iron-ore, some travelling pens packed with silvery griffas, a couple of glass-windowed carriages on the end. Their own train started off again with a series of jolts. Bert continued to look out of the window. His companion’s hand came down on his knee. “Cheer up, son. We’re still alive, anyway. That’s more than you can say for most.”

“I was alive on Mars,” said Bert.

“Then why did you come here?” asked the other.

Bert tried to explain it. He did his best to convey his vision of an Earth reborn. The other listened sympathetically, with a slightly wistful expression.

“I know. Like the Old Man said: ‘ — a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal’.”

“Something like that,” Bert agreed.

“Son,” said the other man, “you were very young when you left Earth.”

“I was twenty-one,” said Bert.

“Twenty-one’s still trailing clouds of glory — for all it thinks it knows. It was a grand thing the Old Man said, but have you ever thought how many empires had to grow up and be knocked out, or how many billions of poor guys had to die in slavery before a man could get up and say that ?”

“I hadn’t,” Bert admitted. “But it has been said. So why can’t this be a ‘nation conceived in liberty’?”

“Well, I guess perhaps the Old Man didn’t have quite the right phrase, maybe. You see, after a creature is conceived, it hat to go through all the stages — kind of recapitulate its evolution before it can get born.”

“That doesn’t sound much like a subversive element talking,” said Bert.

“You don’t have to be in a hurry to be subversive. All you got to do is to say ‘why ?’ when it ought to be ‘yes’. If you keep on saying it you find yourself booked for another spell of managing griffas in the quarries, the way I am now.”

“But there’s no reason to go back to the primitive. What’s been said and worked out is all there in the books — books that are here on Venus. What I’ve seen for myself and what you’ve told me goes against it all. The thing they’ve set up is something like an ancient slave-state. We all know there’s a better way of life than that — so, for God’s sake, what’s happening? With all the knowledge from Earth behind them, and the chance to build a new Earth here, surely they aren’t going to pour half history down the drain?”

The other man looked at him for some moments before he answered, then he said: “Son, I guess you’ve got it kind of wrong. Building a new Earth is just what they are doing. What you’re complaining about is that they’ve not started in building a new heaven.”

Bert regarded him more closely. “I don’t get that. I can remember Earth, you know.”

“Me too. The difference is, like I said, the clouds of glory. What did you do there?”

“I went to school, then to college, then to the School of Spacetraining.”

“And me. I worked on buildings, in factories, in ships, on docks, in spaceports, on railroads. I bummed around quite a stretch. Do you reckon I got to know what Earth was like my way — or was your way better?”

Bert sat silent awhile, then he said: “There were fine cities, happy people, music — and fine men, too.”

“Ever seen an iceberg? The part you do see looks mighty pretty in the sunshine.”

“There was enough to show the way a world might be, and ought to be.”

“Sure, sure. We all know the way things ought to be. We all got our little heavens.” He paused contemplatively. Looking at Bert again, he added: “Maybe one day. We have come quite a way in a few thousand years — but we’ve still got to grow up. Takes time, son, takes time.”

“But here things are wrong. They’re going back. They seem to have forgotten all the things we’ve learned. We have to go on, not back. Now the people on Mars “

“Sure. Tell me about Mars, son. That’s one place I never was.”

Bert went on telling him about Mars. About the place itself, about the way the people, for all the simple poverty of their lives, seemed to enjoy life as a gift in itself, not as a means to something else, and were happy that way.

The little train rattled along. A dim line of hills ahead became visible through the drizzle, but Bert did not see them. His sight was all nostalgic. It showed red deserts set with placid canals, green patches about little homesteads. Somehow he found himself telling the stranger about Zaylo. The stranger said nothing. Once or twice he made as if to ask a question, but let it go unspoken. Bert talked on, oblivious of the compassion in the listener’s eyes.

They were almost at the end of the line before the other broke in on Bert’s mood. He pointed out of the window at the hills now quite close. In places the green-grey vegetation on the slopes was scarred with the dark marks of workings. “There’s where we’ll be doing our jobs,” he said.

Presently the train jerked to a stop. Bert stood up, heavily and wearily. He collected his gear and followed the other man into the drizzling rain. He felt bowed down by his load. His feet shuffled in a clumsy trudge. He wondered how long it was going to take his muscles to adapt to Venus. At present the place bore down as heavily upon his flesh as upon his spirit.

Bert stood on the lip of a small quarry, surveying the scene beneath him. Because, rather remarkably, it was not raining he had an extensive view. But because it was likely to resume raining at any moment he still wore the long waterproof coat that was practically a local uniform. Beneath it his feet showed in large boots that were clumsy but did keep out the wet. At his waist was a belt supporting a machete and a sheath-knife on the left. His other instrument, a whip, with its twelve-foot lash carefully coiled, was thrust into the belt on his right-hand side.

Looking down almost between his feet he could see his party of fifty griffas at work. They were loading ironstone into small trucks which they would presently push on to the slope which led down to the terminus of the line, and later wind up again. Beyond the sheds and tangle of trucklines at the terminus itself he could see the electrified line, flanked all the way by cleared and cultivated fields, stretching like a rather uncertain swathe cut to the horizon. To either side the natural Venusian forest grew untouched. Mostly it was a monotone of the pallid and, to unaccustomed eyes, unhealthy looking grey-green. There was a little relief here and there from the pink flush of the displeasing plant they called the mock-rose — it reminded Bert more of a spiky petalled dahlia which had been swollen to some eight feet in diameter. Even more scattered, but giving some relief were occasional streaks of true green, and blobs of slatey-blue. Pennant-trees reared their crests magnificently above the ruck with their ribbons streaming. Still higher rose the feather-tops, swinging in great graceful arcs even in so light a wind. With the rippling fronds of the tree-ferns they helped to give the illusion that the whole plain was in undulating motion. Bert, pensively regarding the span from the mist-hidden sea in the east to the shadowy mountains in the west, loathed each acre of it individually and intensely.

The only things in sight he didn’t loathe were the griffas. For them he had a mixture of pity and fellow feeling. They were intelligent little creatures, but the general opinion was that they were dead lazy. As Bert saw it, that just showed narrow thinking. Laziness is a relative term to be measured against work. Nobody calls a flower or a tree lazy. The point was that a wild griffa never had any conception of work. When it was caught and shown work, it didn’t like it. Why should it ? The captives netted by a drive in the forest came in as sad-eyed, bewildered little figures, of whom a number went promptly into a decline and allowed themselves to die. The rest had no great will to survive. Life in captivity was very little better to them than no life at all. The only thing that made them work at all was the desire to avoid pain. They were intelligent enough to be taught quite complicated duties, but what no one had been able to instil into them was the sacred idea of duty itself. They could not be brought to the idea that it was something they owed to these human invaders of their planet. It was Bert’s job to keep them working by the only effective method. He loathed that, too.

There was also the uneasy feeling that his position in Venusian society was not all that different from theirs…

His wandering thoughts were brought back by the sight of the foreman overseer climbing the path to the quarry. Bert descended to meet him. The man gave him no greeting. He was dressed like Bert himself save for the sign of authority represented by the pistol on his belt. As he strode into the working it was plain that he was in a bad temper. His hard eyes looked Bert over with the full insolence of petty authority.

“Your lot’s down on production. Way down. Why?” he demanded. But he did not seem to expect an answer. He glanced round, taking the place in at a sweep. “Look at ‘em, by God! Your job here is to keep the little rats working, isn’t it? Well, why in hell don’t you do it?”

“They’re working,” said Bert, flatly.

“Working, hell!” said the overseer.

He drew his whip. The lash whistled. A female griffa screamed horribly and dropped where she stood. Her two companions, linked by chains to her ankles, stood quivering, with fear and misery in their dark eyes. The rest, after a startled pause, began to work very much more actively. Bert’s hand clenched. He looked down on the fallen griffa, watching the red blood well up and soak into the silver fur. He raised his eyes to find the overseer studying him.

“You don’t like that,” the man told him, showing his teeth.

“No,” said Bert.

“You’ve gone soft. Building this place up is a man’s job. When you’ve been here a bit you’ll learn.”

“I doubt it,” said Bert.

“You’d better,” the overseer said, unpleasantly.

“I didn’t come here to help build a slave-state,” Bert told him.

“No ? You’d just like to start at the top — with none of the dirty work — wouldn’t you ? Well, it can’t be done. You tell me one great nation or empire on Earth that didn’t have this behind it at one stage?” He swung his whip with a crack like a rifle shot. “Well, tell me?”

“It’s wrong,” said Bert, helplessly.

“You know a better way? Love and kindness, maybe?” the man said, jeering. “You’ve gone soft,” he repeated.

“Maybe,” Bert admitted. “But I still say that if there’s no better way of building than driving these creatures crazy with pain and fear until they die — then it’s not worth doing at all.”

“Tchah! Where’s your bible, Preacher? There’s just one way to get the work that’s got to be done, and this is it.”

His whip whistled again. Another little griffa screamed, and another. Bert hesitated a second. Then he drew his own whip. The lash sang through the air and wrapped itself around the overseer’s neck. At that moment Bert yanked on the handle with all his strength. The man lurched towards him, tripped on a chunk of ironstone, and came down on his head. Bert dropped the whip and dived to stop him drawing his pistol. His leap was superfluous. The overseer was not in a condition where he would be able to use a pistol — or a whip — anymore.

The griffas had stopped work and stood staring as Bert got up and fixed the holstered pistol to his own belt. He raised his eyes from the man on the ground and stared back at them. He turned and went towards the toolshed. There he took down the long-handled pincers that were customarily used to cut a dead griffa free from his fellows. Then he went back to them and got to work.

When it was over they still stood round puzzled, with dark, sorrowful eyes blinking at him from silver-furred faces. “Go on, you mugs! Beat it! Shoo!” said Bert.

He watched them scuttle away and disappear into the dense growth above the quarry, and then turned to reconsider the fallen man. The overseer was heavily built. It was laborious to Bert’s still unaccustomed muscles to drag him out of the quarry, but he managed it. A short way down the path he paused a little to recover his breath. Then, with a great effort, he lifted the body, and heaved it into a mock rose. The petal-like tendrils received the weight with a slow, engulfing movement like the yielding of a featherbed. The large outer leaves began to close. Presently the thing was a hard tight ball looking like an enormous, etiolated brussels sprout.

Bert sat down on a stone for ten minutes, regaining his strength, and thinking carefully. Then he stood up, with decision. But before he left he went back into the quarry to fetch his hat, because it had started to rain again.

Once the acceleration was over, Bert emerged from his hiding place and mingled with the rest. A full hour passed before someone tapped him on the shoulder and inquired: “Say, what the hell are you doing here?”

The Captain and the Chief Officer regarded him uncertainly as he was brought before them. The pistol he wore was almost a badge of rank in itself. “What’s the trouble ?” Bert inquired, blandly.

“You’re not listed. How did you get here?” the Chief Officer inquired.

Bert looked surprised. “Not listed? Somebody must have slipped up. They only put me on this job yesterday. But they said you’d been informed already, Captain.”

“Well, I hadn’t. And what is ‘this job’?”

“It’s — er — well, kind of recruiting sergeant. You see I can speak four Martian dialects, and get along in several more.”

“Recruiting Martians, you mean?”

“That’s the idea. Spin ‘em the yarn and bring ‘em along. They’ll be useful managing griffas if nothing else.”

He looked steadily back at the Captain as he spoke, hoping that it would not occur to him that a Martian transferred to Venus would only be able to crawl about, if he weren’t actually pinned flat by the gravitation. It did not. Probably the man had never even seen a Martian. He merely frowned. “I should have been informed,” he said, stiffly.

“Bad staff work somewhere,” Bert agreed. “But you could get radio confirmation,” he suggested.

“Do you know anything of radio conditions on Venus ?” inquired the Chief Officer shortly.

“No, but on Mars we – “

“Maybe, but Mars isn’t Venus. Well, since you are here, you’d better make yourself useful on the trip.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” agreed Bert, briskly.

By the look of it no one had touched the old boat since he had moored her. Bert patted the engine, and then primed it. A pull-up or two, and she started. He laughed aloud. The old phut-phut-phut was like music to set his feet dancing. He cast off. In the old seat, with his arm over the tiller, he chugged out on the great canal.

Beyond the junction, and on a smaller canal, he stopped. From a locker in the cabin he produced old, patched clothes and a pair of the crude shoes that he was accustomed to make for himself. Overboard went the clothes they had given him on Venus, and the heavy, laced boots with them. He hesitated over the pistol, and then threw it after them — nobody used or needed such a thing on Mars. He felt lighter as he watched them sink. The miseries of the last few weeks on Venus, the long journey back from the quarries to the Settlement when he dared to move his weary body only by night for fear of being seen, the long wait in hiding close to the landing ground, the keeping alive on shoots and roots, the perpetual wet misery of the rain which scarcely ever let up, the anxious waiting for the return of the Rutherford A4, the delay while she was being made ready for her third and last trip of the conjunction, and, finally, the nervous business of smuggling himself aboard — all these began to become a bad dream.

He hitched his trousers and tied them with a piece of cord. He was bending over the engine to restart it when the sound of a sudden thunder came rolling across the desert. Bert looked back.

Above the horizon a plume of black smoke rose and expanded. He nodded in a satisfied way. The Rutherford A4 would not be taking part in any more slaving expeditions. He whistled gently to himself as he coaxed the engine into action again.

It was the mind’s eye picture come to life — even to the squeak pitched above the tinker bell chimes telling that the waterwheel needed attention. As he walked towards the broken tower there was the familiar thump-thump of Annika, Zaylo’s mother, at her work of pounding grain. The bannikuks scampered up, pestering — only this time he had no nuts for them, and they wouldn’t seem to understand that. Annika rested her stone pestle as he approached.

“Hullo, Earthman,” she said. Her eyes searched his face keenly. “You have been ill?” she added.

Bert shook his head and sat down on a stone bench. “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Remember last time I was here you said that if Earth was re-created now it would be stranger to me than Mars ?”

“So it would, Earthman.”

“But I didn’t believe you.”

“Well — “

“I think I see what you meant now.” He paused. “Back home,” he went on, “we used to talk about men and women we called saints — the funny thing about them was that they never seemed very real. You see, once they were dead, people agreed only to remember the good things about them. Seems to me — well, it might be that there never was a place like the Earth I remembered…”

Annika nodded. “A heaven behind you is no good,” she said. “A heaven ahead is better. But to make a heaven around you is best.”

“You understand things, Annika. I was like a rich man who had been cheated out of all his money — the only worthwhile thing seemed to be to get it all back.”

“And now?” asked Annika.

“Now, I’ve stopped fooling myself. I don’t want it. I’ve stopped crying for the moon — or the Earth. I’ll be content to live and enjoy living. So this time…” He broke off.

Zaylo, coming out of the door in the tower base, had paused there at the sight of him. She stood quite still for a moment, poised with the grace of a young goddess. The coils of her dark hair shone like lacquer; her misted copper skin glowed in the sunlight. She put her hand to her breast, her eyes sparkled with sudden pleasure, her lips parted. Zaylo was not quite as he had pictured her. She was ten times more wonderful than anything memory could contrive.

“So this time,” Bert repeated. “This time I have come to stay.”

A Stray from Cathay (1953)

The parcel, waiting provocatively on the dresser, was the first thing that Hwyl noticed when he got in from work. ‘‘From Dai, is it?” he inquired of his wife.

“Yes, indeed. Japanese the stamps are,” she told him.

He went across to examine it. It was the shape a small hatbox might be, about ten inches each way, perhaps. The address: Mr. and Mrs. Hwyl Hughes, Ty Derwen, Llynllawn, Llangolwgcoch, Brecknockshire, S. Wales, was lettered carefully, for the clear understanding of foreigners. The other label, also hand-lettered, but in red, was quite clear, too. It said : EGGS— Fragile — With great CARE.

“There is funny to send eggs so far,” Hwyl said. “Plenty of eggs we are having. Might be chocolate eggs, I think?”

“Come you to your tea, man,” Bronwen told him. “All day I have been looking at that old parcel, and a little longer it can wait now.”

Hwyl sat down at the table and began his meal. From time to time, however, his eyes strayed again to the parcel. “If it is real eggs they are, careful you should be,” he remarked. “Reading in a book I was once how in China they keep eggs for years. Bury them in the earth, they do, for a delicacy. There is strange for you, now. Funny they are in China, and not like Wales, at all.” Bronwen contented herself with saying that perhaps Japan was not like China, either.

When the meal had been finished and cleared, the parcel was transferred to the table. Hwyl snipped the string and pulled off the brown paper. Within was a tin box which, when the sticky tape holding its lid had been removed, proved to be full to the brim with sawdust. Mrs. Hughes fetched a sheet of newspaper, and prudently covered the tabletop. Hwyl dug his fingers into the sawdust.

“Something there, there is,” he announced.

“There is stupid you are. Of course there is something there,” Bronwen said, slapping his hand out of the way.

She trickled some of the sawdust out on to the newspaper, and then felt inside the box herself. Whatever it was, it felt much too large for an egg. She poured out more sawdust and felt again. This time, her fingers encountered a piece of paper. She pulled it out and laid it on the table; a letter in Dafydd’s handwriting. Then she put in her hand once more, got her fingers under the object, and lifted it gently out. “Well, indeed! Look at that now! Did you ever?” she exclaimed. “Eggs, he was saying, is it?”

They both regarded it with astonishment for some moments. “So big it is. Odd, too,” said Hwyl, at last.

“What kind of bird to lay such an egg?” said Bronwen.

“Ostrich, perhaps?” suggested Hwyl.

But Bronwen shook her head. She had once seen an ostrich’s egg in a museum and remembered it well enough to know that it had little in common with this. The ostrich’s egg had been a little smaller, with a dull, sallow looking, slightly dimpled surface. This was smooth and shiny, and by no means had the same dead look: it had a lustre to it, a nacreous kind of beauty.

“A pearl, could it be?” she said, in an awed voice.

“There is silly you are,” said her husband. “From an oyster as big as Llangolwgcoch Town Hall, you are thinking?”

He burrowed into the tin again, but ‘Eggs,’ it seemed, had been a manner of speaking: there was no other, nor room for one.

Bronwen put some of the sawdust into one of her best vegetable dishes and bedded the egg carefully on top of it. Then they sat down to read their son’s letter :

S. S. Tudor Maid,

Kobe.

Dear Mam and Dad,

I expect you will be surprised about, the enclosed I was too. It is a funny looking thing I expect they have funny birds in China after all they have Pandas so why not. We found a small sampan about a hundred miles off the China coast that had bust, its mast and should never have tried and all except two of them were dead they are all dead now. But one of them that wasn’t dead then was holding this egg-thing all wrapped up in a padded coat like it was a baby only I didn’t know it was an egg then not till later. One of them died coming aboard but this other one lasted two days longer in spite of all I could do for him which was my best. I was sorry nobody here can speak Chinese because he was a nice little chap and lonely and knew he was a goner but there it is. And when he saw it was nearly all up he gave me this egg and talked very faint but I’d not have understood anyway. All I could do was take it and hold it careful the way he had and tell him I’d look after it which he couldn’t understand either. Then he said something else and looked very worried and died poor chap.

So here it is. I know it is an egg because when I took him a boiled egg once he pointed to both of them to show me but nobody on board knows what kind of egg. But seeing I promised him I’d keep it safe I am sending it to you to keep for me as this ship is no place to keep anything safe anyway and hope it doesn’t get cracked on the way too.

Hoping this finds you as it leaves me and love to all and you special.

Dai.

“Well, there is strange for you, now,” said Mrs. Hughes, as she finished reading. “And looking like an egg it is, indeed —the shape of it,” she conceded. “But the colors are not. There is pretty they are. Like you see when oil is on the road in the rain. But never an egg like that have I seen in my life. Flat the color is on eggs, and not to shine.”

Hwyl went on looking at it thoughtfully. “Yes. There is beautiful,” he agreed, “but what use?”

“Use, is it, indeed!” said his wife. “A trust, it is, and sacred, too. Dying the poor man was, and our Dai gave him his word. I am thinking of how we will keep it safe for him till he will be back, now.”

They both contemplated the egg awhile.

“Very far away, China is,” Bronwen remarked, obscurely.

Several days passed, however, before the egg was removed from display on the dresser. Word quickly went round the valley about it, and the callers would have felt slighted had they been unable to see it. Bronwen felt that continually getting it out and putting it away again would be more hazardous than leaving it on exhibition.

Almost everyone found the sight of it rewarding. Idris Bowen who lived three houses away was practically alone in his divergent view. “The shape of an egg, it has,” he allowed. “But careful you should be, Mrs. Hughes. A fertility symbol it is, I am thinking, and stolen, too, likely.”

“Mr. Bowen — “ began Bronwen, indignantly.

“Oh, by the men in that boat, Mrs. Hughes. Refugees from China they would be, see. Traitors to the Chinese people. And running away with all they could carry, before the glorious army of the workers and peasants could catch them, too. Always the same, it is, as you will be seeing when the revolution comes to Wales.”

“Oh, dear, dear! There is funny you are, Mr. Bowen. Propaganda you will make out of an old boot, I think,” said Bronwen.

Idris Bowen frowned. “Funny, I am not, Mrs. Hughes. And propaganda there is in an honest boot, too,” he told her as he left with dignity.

By the end of a week practically everyone in the village had seen the egg and been told no, Mrs. Hughes did not know what kind of a creature had laid it, and the time seemed to have come to store it away safely against Dafydd’s return. There were not many places in the house where she could feel sure that it would rest undisturbed, but, on consideration, the airing cupboard seemed as likely as any, so she put it back on what sawdust was left in the tin and stowed it in there.

It remained there for a month, out of sight, and pretty much out of mind until a day when Hwyl returning from work discovered his wife sitting at the table with a disconsolate expression on her face, and a bandage on her  finger. She looked relieved to see him. “Hatched, it is,” she observed.

The blankness of Hwyl’s expression was irritating to one who had had a single subject on her mind all day. “Dai’s egg,” she explained. “Hatched out, it is, I am telling you.”

“Well, there is a thing for you, now!” said Hwyl. “A nice little chicken, is it?”

“A chicken it is not, at all. A monster, indeed, and biting me it is, too.” She held out her bandaged finger.

She explained that this morning she had gone to the airing cupboard to take out a clean towel, and as she put her hand in, something had nipped her finger, painfully. At first she had thought that it might be a rat that had somehow got in from the yard, but then she had noticed that the lid was off the tin, and the shell of the egg there was all broken to pieces.

“How is it to see?” Hwyl asked.

Bronwen admitted that she had not seen it well. She had had a glimpse of a long, green-blue tail protruding from behind a pile of sheets, and then it had looked at her over the top of them, glaring at her from red eyes. On that, it had seemed to her more the kind of a job a man should deal with, so she had slammed the door, and gone to bandage her finger.

“Still there, then, is it?” said Hwyl.

She nodded.

“Right you. Have a look at it, we will, now then,” he said, decisively.

He started to leave the room, but on second thoughts turned back to collect a pair of heavy work gloves. Bronwen did not offer to accompany him. Soon there was a scuffle of his feet, an exclamation or two, then his tread descending the stairs. He came in, shutting the door behind him with his foot. He set the creature he was carrying down on the table, and for some seconds it crouched there, blinking, but otherwise unmoving.

“Scared, he was, I think,” Hwyl remarked.

In the body, the creature bore some resemblance to a lizard — a large lizard, over a foot long. The scales of its skin, however, were much bigger, and some of them curled up and stood out here and there, in a fin-like manner. And the head was quite unlike a lizard’s, being much rounder, with a wide mouth, broad nostrils, and, overall, a slightly pushed-in effect, in which were set a pair of goggling red eyes. About the neck, and also making a kind of mane, were curious, streamer-like attachments with the suggestion of locks of hair which had permanently cohered. The color was mainly green, shot with blue, and having a metallic shine to it, but there were brilliant red markings about the head and in the lower parts of the locks. There were touches of red, too, where the legs joined the body, and on the feet, where the toes finished in sharp yellow claws. Altogether, a surprisingly vivid and exotic creature.

It eyed Bronwen Hughes for a moment, turned a baleful look on Hwyl, and then started to run about the tabletop, looking for a way off. The Hughes watched it for a moment or two, and then regarded one another.

“Well, there is nasty for you, indeed,” observed Bronwen.

“Nasty it may be. But beautiful it is, too, look,” said Hwyl.

“Ugly old face to have,” Bronwen remarked.

“Yes, indeed. But fine colors, too, see. Glorious, they are, like technicolor, I am thinking,” Hwyl said.

The creature appeared to have half a mind to leap from the table. Hwyl leaned forward and caught hold of it. It wriggled and tried to get its head around to bite him, but discovered he was holding it too near the neck for that. It paused in its struggles. Then, suddenly, it snorted. Two jets of flame and a puff of smoke came from its nostrils. Hwyl dropped it abruptly, partly from alarm, but more from surprise. Bronwen gave a squeal and climbed hastily on to her chair.

The creature itself seemed a trifle astonished. For a few seconds it stood turning its head and waving the sinuous tail that was quite as long as its body. Then it scuttled across to the hearthrug and curled itself up in front of the fire.

“By dammo! There was a thing for you!” Hwyl exclaimed, regarding it a trifle nervously. “Fire there was with it, I think. I will like to understand that, now.”

“Fire indeed, and smoke, too,” Bronwen agreed. “There is shocking it was, and not natural, at all.”

She looked uncertainly at the creature. It had so obviously settled itself for a nap that she risked stepping down from the chair, but she kept on watching it, ready to jump up again if it should move. Then: “Never did I think I will see one of those. And not sure it is right to have in the house, either,” she said.

“What is it you are meaning, now?” Hwyl asked, puzzled.

“Why, a dragon, indeed,” Bronwen told him.

“Dragon!” he exclaimed. “There is foolish — “ Then he stopped. He looked at it again, and then down at the place where the flame had scorched his glove. “No, by dammo!” he said. “Right, you. A dragon it is, I believe.”

They both regarded it with some apprehension.

“Glad, I am, not to live in China,” observed Bronwen.

Those who were privileged to see the creature during the next day or two supported almost to a man the theory that it was a dragon. This, they established by poking sticks through the wire-netting of the hutch that Hwyl had made for it until it obliged with a resentful huff of flame. Even Mr. Jones, the Chapel, did not doubt its authenticity, though on the propriety of its presence in his community he preferred to reserve judgment for the present.

After a short time, however, Bronwen Hughes put an end to the practice of poking it. For one thing, she felt responsible to Dai for its wellbeing, for another, it was beginning to develop an irritable disposition, and a liability to emit flame without cause: for yet another, and although Mr. Jones’ decision on whether it could be considered as one of God’s creatures or not was still pending, she felt that in the meantime it deserved equal rights with other dumb animals. So she put a card on the hutch saying: PLEASE NOT TO TEASE, and most of the time was there to see that it was heeded.

Almost all Llynllawn, and quite a few people from Llangolwgcoch, too, came to see it. Sometimes they would stand for an hour or more, hoping to see it huff. If it did, they went off satisfied that it was a dragon; but if it maintained a contented, non-fire-breathing mood, they went and told their friends that it was really no more than a little old lizard, though big, mind you.

Idris Bowen was an exception to both categories. It was not until his third visit that he was privileged to see it snort, but even then he remained unconvinced. “Unusual, it is, yes,” he admitted. “But a dragon it is not. Look you at the dragon of Wales, or the dragon of St. George, now. To huff fire is something, I grant you, but wings, too, a dragon must be having, or a dragon he is not.” But that was the kind of cavilling that could be expected from Idris, and disregarded.

After ten days or so of crowded evenings, however, interest slackened. Once one had seen the dragon and exclaimed over the brilliance of its coloring, there was little to add, beyond being glad that it was in the Hughes’ house rather than one’s own and wondering how big it would eventually grow.

For, really, it did not do much but sit and blink, and perhaps give a little huff of flame if you were lucky. So, presently, the Hughes’ home became more their own again. And, no longer pestered by visitors, the dragon showed an equable disposition. It never huffed at Bronwen, and seldom at Hwyl. Bronwen’s first feeling of antagonism passed quickly, and she found herself growing attached to it. She fed it, and looked after it, and found that on a diet consisting chiefly of minced horseflesh and dog-biscuits it grew with astonishing speed. Most of the time, she let it run free in the room. To quiet the misgiving of callers she would explain: “Friendly, he is, and pretty ways he has with him, if there is not teasing. Sorry for him, I am, too, for bad it is to be an only child, and an orphan worse still. And less than an orphan, he is, see. Nothing of his own sort he is knowing, not likely, either. So very lonely he is being, poor thing, I think.”

But, inevitably, there came an evening when Hwyl, looking thoughtfully at the dragon, remarked: “Outside you, soon. There is too big for the house you are getting, see.”

Bronwen was surprised to find how unwilling she felt about that. “Very good and quiet, he is,” she said. “There is clever he is to tuck his tail away not to trip people, too. And clean with the house he is, also, and no trouble. Always out to the yard at proper times, Right as clockwork.”

“Behaving well, he is, indeed,” Hwyl agreed. “But growing so fast, now. More room he will be needing, see. A fine hutch for him in the yard, and with a run to it, I think.”

The advisability of that was demonstrated a week later when Bronwen came down one morning to find the end of the wooden hutch charred away, the carpet and rug smouldering, and the dragon comfortably curled up in Hwyl’s easy chair. “Settled, it is, and lucky indeed not to burn in our bed. Out you,” Hwyl told the dragon. “A fine thing to burn a man’s house for him, and not grateful, either. For shame, I am telling you.”

The insurance man who came to inspect the damage thought similarly. “Notified, you should have,” he told Bronwen. “A fire risk, he is, you see.”

Bronwen protested that the policy made no mention of dragons. “No, indeed,” the man admitted, “but a normal hazard he is not, either. Inquire, I will, from Head Office how it is, see. But better to turn him out before more trouble, and thankful, too.”

So, a couple of days later, the dragon was occupying a large hutch, constructed of asbestos sheets, in the yard. There was a wire-netted run in front of it, but most of the time Bronwen locked the gate, and left the backdoor of the house open so that he could come and go as he liked. In the morning he would trot in and help Bronwen by huffing the kitchen fire into a blaze, but apart from that he had learnt not to huff in the house. The only times he was any bother to anyone were the occasions when he set his straw on fire in the night so that the neighbors got up to see if the house was burning and were somewhat short about it the next day.

Hwyl kept a careful account of the cost of feeding him and hoped that it was not running into more than Dai would be willing to pay. Otherwise, his only worries were his failure to find a cheap, non-inflammable bedding-stuff, and speculation on how big the dragon was likely to grow before Dai should return to take him off his hands. Very likely all would have gone smoothly until that happened, but for the unpleasantness with Idris Bowen.

The trouble which blew up unexpectedly one evening was really of Idris’ own finding. Hwyl had finished his meal and was peacefully enjoying the last of the day beside his door, when Idris happened along, leading his whippet on a string.

“Oh, hullo you, Idris,” Hwyl greeted him, amiably.

“Hullo you, Hwyl,” said Idris. “And how is that phony dragon of yours, now then?”

“Phony, is it, you are saying?” repeated Hwyl, indignantly.

“Wings a dragon is wanting, to be a dragon,” Idris insisted, firmly.

“Wings to hell, man! Come you and look at him now then, and please to tell me what he is if he is no dragon.”

He waved Idris into the house and led him through into the yard. The dragon, reclining in its wired run, opened an eye at them, and closed it again. Idris had not seen it since it was lately out of the egg. Its growth impressed him. “There is big he is now,” he conceded. “Fine, the colors of him, and fancy, too. But still no wings to him, so a dragon he is not.”

“What, then, is it he is?” demanded Hwyl.

How Idris would have re-plied to this difficult question was never to be known, for at that moment the whippet jerked its string free from his fingers, and dashed, barking, at the wire-netting. The dragon was startled out of its snooze. It sat up suddenly and snorted with surprise. There was a yelp from the whippet which bounded into the air, and then set off round and round the yard, howling. At last, Idris managed to corner it, and pick it up. All down the right side its hair had been scorched off, making it look very peculiar. Idris’ eyebrows lowered.

“Trouble you want, is it? And trouble you will be having, by God!” he said.

He put the whippet down again and began to take off his coat. It was not clear whether he had addressed, and meant to fight, Hwyl or the dragon, but either intention was forestalled by Mrs. Hughes coming to investigate the yelping. “Oh! Teasing the dragon is it!” she said. “There is shameful, indeed. A lamb the dragon is, as people know well. But not to tease. It is wicked you are, Idris Bowen, and to fight does not make right, either. Go you from here, now then.”

Idris began to protest, but Bronwen shook her head and set her mouth. “Not listening to you, I am, see. A fine brave man, to tease a helpless, dragon. Not for weeks now has the dragon huffed. So go you, and quick.”

Idris glowered. He hesitated and pulled on his jacket again. He collected his whippet and held it in his arms. After a final disparaging glance at the dragon, he turned. “Law I will have of you,” he announced ominously, as he left.

Nothing more, however, was heard of legal action. It seemed as if Idris had either changed his mind or been advised against it, and that the whole thing would blow over. But three weeks later was the night of the Union Branch meeting.

It had been a dull meeting, devoted chiefly to passing a number of resolutions suggested to it by its headquarters, as a matter of course. Then, just at the end, when there did not seem to be any other business, Idris Bowen rose. “Stay, you!” said the Chairman to those who were preparing to leave, and he invited Idris to speak.

Idris waited for persons who were half-in and half-out of their overcoats to subside, then: “Comrades — “ he began.

There was immediate uproar. Through the mingled approbation and cries of “Order” and “Withdraw” the Chairman smote energetically with his gavel until quiet was restored. “Tendentious, that is,” he reproved Idris. “Please to speak halfway, and in good order.”

Idris began again: “Fellow workers. Sorry indeed, I am, to have to tell you of a discovery I am making. A matter of disloyalty, I am telling you: grave disloyalty to good friends and com — and fellow workers, see.” He paused, and went on: “Now, every one of you is knowing of Hwyl Hughes’ dragon, is it? Seen him for yourselves you have likely, too. Seen him myself, I have, and saying he was no dragon. But now then, I am telling you, wrong I was, wrong, indeed. A dragon he is, and not to doubt, though no wings.

“I am reading in the Encyclopedia in Merthyr Public Library about two kinds of dragons, see. Wings the European dragon has, indeed. But wings the Oriental dragon has not. So apologizing now to Mr. Hughes, I am, and sorry.”

A certain restiveness becoming apparent in the audience was quelled by a change in his tone. “But — “ he went on, “but another thing, too, I am reading there, and troubled inside myself with it, I am. I will tell you. Have you looked at the feet of this dragon, is it? Claws there is, yes, and nasty, too. But how many, I am asking you? And five, I am telling you. Five with each foot.” He paused dramatically and shook his head. “Bad, is that, bad, indeed. For, look you, Chinese a five-toed dragon is, yes — but five-toed is not a People’s dragon; five-toed is an Imperial dragon, see. A symbol, it is, of the oppression of Chinese workers and peasants. And shocking to think that in our village we are keeping such an emblem. What is it that the free people of China will be saying of Llynllawn when they will hear of this, I am asking? What is it Mao Zedong, glorious leader of the heroic Chinese people in their magnificent fight for peace, will be thinking of South Wales and this imperialist dragon?” he was continuing, when differences of view in the audience submerged his voice.

Again the Chairman called the meeting to order. He offered Hwyl the opportunity to reply, and after the situation had been briefly explained, the dragon was, on a show of hands, acquitted of political implication by all but Idris’ doctrinaire faction, and the meeting broke up.

Hwyl told Bronwen about it when he got home. “No surprise there,” she said. “Jones the Post is telling me, telegraphing Idris has been.”

“Telegraphing?” inquired Hwyl.

“Yes, indeed. Asking the Daily Worker, in London, how is the party-line on imperialist dragons, he was. But no answer yet, though.”

A few mornings later the Hughes were awakened by a hammering on their door. Hwyl went to the window and found Idris below. He asked what the matter was. “Come you down here, and I will show you,” Idris told him.

After some argument, Hwyl descended. Idris led the way round to the back of his own house and pointed. “Look you there, now,” he said.

The door of Idris’ henhouse was hanging by one hinge. The remains of two chickens lay close by. A large quantity of feathers was blowing about the yard. Hwyl looked at the henhouse more closely. Several deep-raked scores stood out white on the creosoted wood. In other places there were darker smears where the wood seemed to have been scorched. Silently Idris pointed to the ground. There were marks of sharp claws, but no imprint of a whole foot.

“There is bad. Foxes is it?” inquired Hwyl.

Idris choked slightly. “Foxes, you are saying. Foxes, indeed! What will it be but your dragon? And the police to know it, too.”

Hwyl shook his head. “No,” he said.

“Oh,” said Idris. “A liar, I am, is it? I will have the guts from you, Hwyl Hughes, smoking hot, too, and glad to do it.”

“You talk too easy, man,” Hwyl told him. “Only how the dragon is still fast in his hutch, I am saying. Come you now and see.”

They went back to Hwyl’s house. The dragon was in his hutch, sure enough, and the door of it was fastened with a peg. Furthermore, as Hwyl pointed out, even if he had left it during the night, he could not have reached Idris’ yard without leaving scratches and traces on the way, and there were none to be found.

They finally parted in a state of armistice. Idris was by no means convinced, but he wa3 unable to get round the facts, and not at all impressed with Hwyl’s suggestion that a practical joker could have produced the effect on the henhouse with a strong nail and a blowtorch.

Hwyl went upstairs again to finish dressing. “There is funny it is, all the same,” he observed to Bronwen. “Not seeing, that Idris was, but scorched the peg is, on the outside of the hutch. And how should that be, I wonder?”

“Huffed four times in the night the dragon has, five, perhaps,” Bronwen said. “Growling, be is, too, and banging that old hutch about. Never have I heard him like that before.”

“There is odd,” Hwyl said, frowning. “But never out of his hutch, and that to swear to.”

Two nights later Hwyl was awakened by Bronwen shaking his shoulder. “Listen, now then,” she told him.

There was an unmistakable growling going on at the back of the house, and the sound of several snorts. “Huffing, he is, see,” said Bronwen, unnecessarily.

There was a crash of something thrown with force, and the sound of a neighbor’s voice cursing. Hwyl reluctantly decided that he had better get up and investigate.

Everything in the yard looked as usual, except for the presence of a large tin can which was clearly the object thrown. There was, however, a strong smell of burning, and a thudding noise, recognizable as the sound of the dragon tramping round and round in his hutch to stamp out the bedding caught alight again. Hwyl went across and opened the door. He raked out the smouldering straw, fetched some fresh, and threw it in.

“Quiet, you,” he told the dragon. “More of this, and the hide I will have off you, slow and painful, too. Bed, now then, and sleep.”

He went back to bed himself, but it seemed as if he had only just laid his head on the pillow when it was daylight, and there was Idris Bowen hammering on the front door again. Idris was more than a little incoherent, but Hwyl gathered that something further had taken place at his house, so he slipped on jacket and trousers, and went down. Idris led the way down beside his own house and threw open the yard door with the air of a conjuror. Hwyl stared for some moments without speaking.

In front of Idris’ henhouse stood a kind of trap, roughly netting. In it, surrounded by contrived of angle-iron and wire, chicken feathers, and glaring at them from eyes like live topazes, sat a creature, blood-red all over.

“Now, there is a dragon for you, indeed,” Idris said. “Not to have colors like you see on a merry-go-round at a circus, either. A serious dragon, that one, and proper — wings, too, see?”

Hwyl went on looking at the dragon without a word. The wings were folded at present, and the cage did not give room to stretch them. The red, he saw now, was darker on the back, and brighter beneath, giving it the rather ominous effect of being lit from below by a blast furnace. It certainly had a more practical aspect than his own dragon, and a fiercer look about it, altogether. He stepped forward to examine it more closely.

“Careful, man,” Idris warned him, laying a hand on his arm.

The dragon curled back its lips and snorted. Twin flames a yard long shot out of its nostrils. It was a far better huff than the other dragon had ever achieved. The air was filled with a strong smell of burnt feathers.

“A fine dragon, that is,” Idris said again. “A real Welsh dragon for you. Angry he is, see, and no wonder. A shocking thing for an imperialist dragon to be in his country. Come to throw him out, he has, and mincemeat he will be making of your namby-pamby, best-parlor dragon, too!”

“Better for him not to try,”               said Hwyl, stouter in word than heart.

“And another thing, too. Red this dragon is, and so a real people’s dragon, see.”

“Now then. Now then. Propaganda with dragons again, is it? Red the Welsh dragon has been two thousand years, and a fighter, too, I grant you. But a fighter for Wales, look; not just a loud-mouth talker of fighting for peace, see. If it is a good red Welsh dragon he is, then out of some kind of egg laid by your Uncle Joe, he is not; and thankful, too, I think,” Hwyl told him. “And look you,” he added as an afterthought, “this one it is who is stealing your chickens, not mine, at all.”

“Oh, let him have the old chickens, and glad,” Idris said. “Here he is come to chase a foreign imperialist dragon out of his rightful territory, and a proper thing it is, too. None of your D. P. dragons are we wanting round Llynllawn, or South Wales, either.”

“Get you to hell, man,” Hwyl told him. “Sweet dispositioned my dragon is, no bother to anyone, and no robber of henhouses, either. If there is trouble at all, the law I will be having, of you and your dragon for disturbing of the peace, see. So I am telling you. And goodbye, now.” He exchanged another glance with the angry-looking, topaz eyes of the red dragon, and then stalked away, back to his own house.

That evening, just as Hwyl was sitting down to his meal, there was a knock at the front door. Bronwen went to answer it and came back. “Ivor Thomas and Dafydd Ellis wanting you. Something about the Union,” she told him.

He went to see them. They had a long and involved story about dues that seemed not to have been fully paid. Hwyl was certain that he was paid-up to date, but they remained unconvinced. The argument went on for some time before, with headshaking and reluctance, they consented to leave. Hwyl returned to the kitchen. Bronwen was waiting, standing by the table. “Taken the dragon off, they have,” she said, flatly.

Hwyl stared at her. The reason why he had been kept at the front door in pointless argument suddenly came to him. He crossed to the window and looked out. The back fence had been pushed flat, and a crowd of men carrying the dragon’s hutch on their shoulders was already a hundred yards beyond it. Turning round, he saw Bronwen standing resolutely against the backdoor. “Stealing, it is, and you not calling,” he said, accusingly.

“Knocked you down, they would, and got the dragon just the same,” she said. “Idris Bowen and his lot, it is.”

Hwyl looked out of the window again. “What to do with him, now then?” he asked.

“Dragon fight, it is,” she told him. “Betting, they were. Five to one on the Welsh dragon, and sounding very sure, too.”

Hwyl shook his head. “Not to wonder, either. There is not fair, at all. Wings, that Welsh dragon has, so air attacks he can make. Unsporting, there is, and shameful indeed.”

He looked out of the window again. More men were joining the party as it marched its burden across the waste ground, towards the slagheap. He sighed. “There is sorry I am for our dragon. Murder it will be, I think. But go and see it, I will. So no tricks from that Idris to make a dirty fight dirtier.”

Bronwen hesitated. “No fighting for you? You promise me?” she said.

“Is it a fool I am, girl, to be fighting fifty men, and more. Please to grant me some brains, now.”

She moved doubtfully out of his way and let him open the door. Then she snatched up a scarf, and ran after him, tying it over her head as she went.

The crowd that was gathering on a piece of flat ground near the foot of the slagheap already consisted of something more like a hundred men than fifty, and there were more hurrying to join it. Several self-constituted stewards were herding people back to clear an oval space. At one end of it was the cage in which the red dragon crouched huddled, with a bad-tempered look. At the other, the asbestos hutch was set down, and its bearer withdrew. Idris noticed Hwyl and Bronwen as they came up.

“And how much is it you are putting on your dragon?” he inquired, with a grin.

Bronwen said, before Hwyl could reply: “Wicked, it is, and ashamed you should be, Idris Bowen. Clip you your dragon’s wings to fight fair, and we will see. But betting against a horseshoe in the glove, we are not.” And she dragged Hwyl away.

All about the oval the laying of bets went on, with the Welsh dragon gaining favor all the time. Presently, Idris stepped out into the open, and held up his hands for quiet. “Sport it is for you tonight. Super colossal attraction, as they are saying on the movies, and never again, likely. So put you your money, now. When the English law is hearing of this, no more dragon-fighting, it will be — like no more to cockfight.”

A boo went up, mingled with the laughter of those who knew a thing or two about cockfighting that the English law did not. Idris went” on: “So now the dragon championship, I am giving you. On my right, the Red Dragon of Wales, on his home ground. A people’s dragon, see. For more than a coincidence, it is, that the color of the Welsh dragon — “ His voice was lost for some moments in controversial shouts. It re-emerged, saying: “ — left, the decadent dragon of the imperialist exploiters of the suffering Chinese people who, in their glorious fight for peace under the heroic leadership — “ But the rest of his introduction was also lost among the catcalls and cheers that were still continuing when he beckoned forward attendants from the ends of the oval, and withdrew.

At one end, two men reached up with a hooked pole, pulled over the contraption that enclosed the red dragon, and ran back hurriedly. At the far end, a man knocked the peg from the asbestos door, pulled it open, scuttled round behind the hutch, and no less speedily out of harm’s way.

The red dragon looked around uncertainly. It tentatively tried unfurling its wings. Finding that possible, it reared up on its hind legs, supporting itself on its tail, and flapped them energetically, as though to dispel the creases.  The other dragon ambled out of its hutch, advanced a few feet, and stood blinking. Against the background of the waste ground and slagheap it looked more than usually exotic. It yawned largely, with a fine display of fangs, rolled its eyes hither and thither, and then caught sight of the red dragon.

Simultaneously, the red dragon noticed the other. It stopped flapping and dropped to all four feet. The two regarded one another. A hush came over the crowd. Both dragons remained motionless, except for a slight waving of the last foot or so of their tails.

The oriental dragon turned its head a little on one side. It snorted slightly and shrivelled up a patch of weeds. The red dragon stiffened. It suddenly adopted a pose gardant, one forefoot uplifted with claws extended, wings raised. It huffed with vigor, vaporized a puddle, and disappeared momentarily in a cloud of steam. There was an anticipatory murmur from the crowd.

The red dragon began to pace round, circling the other, giving a slight flap of its wings now and then. The crowd watched it intently. So did the other dragon. It did not move from its position, but turned as the red dragon circled, keeping its head and gaze steadily towards it.

With the circle almost completed, the red dragon halted. It extended its wings widely and gave a full-throated roar. Simultaneously, it gushed two streams of fire, and belched a small cloud of black smoke. The part of the crowd nearest to it moved back, apprehensively.

At this tense moment Bronwen Hughes began suddenly to laugh. Hwyl shook her by the arm. “Hush, you! There is not funny, at all,” he said, but she did not stop at once.

The oriental dragon did nothing for a moment. It appeared to be thinking the matter over. Then it turned swiftly around and began to run. The crowd behind it raised a jeer, those in front waved their arms to shoo it back. But the dragon was unimpressed by arm-waving. It came on, with now and then a short spurt of flame from its nostrils. The people wavered, and then scattered out of its way. Half-a-dozen men started to chase after it with sticks, but soon gave up. It was travelling at twice the pace they could run.

With a roar, the red dragon leapt into the air, and came across the field, spitting flames like a strafing aircraft. The crowd scattered still more swiftly, tumbling over itself as it cleared a way.

The running dragon disappeared around the foot of the slagheap, with the other hovering above it. Shouts of disappointment rose from the crowd, and a good part of it started to follow, to be in at the death.

But in a minute or two the running dragon came into view again. It was making a fine pace up the mountainside, with the red dragon still flying a little behind it. Everybody stood watching it wind its way up and up until, finally, it disappeared over the shoulder. For a moment the flying dragon still showed as a black silhouette above the skyline, then, with a final whiff of flame, it, too, disappeared — and the arguments about paying up began.

Idris left the wrangling to come across to the Hughes.

“So there is a coward your imperialist dragon is, then. And not one good huff, or a bite to him, either,” he said.

Bronwen looked at him and smiled. “So foolish, you are, Idris Bowen, with your head full of propaganda and fighting. Other things than to fight, there is, even for dragons. Such a brave show your red dragon was making, such a fine show, oh, yes — and very like a peacock, I am thinking. Very like the boys in their Sunday suits in Llangolwgcoch High Street, too — all dressed up to kill, but not to fight.”

Idris stared at her.

“And our dragon,” she went on. “Well, there is not a very new trick, either. Done a bit of it before now, I have, myself.” She cast a sidelong glance’ at Hwyl.

Light began to dawn on Idris. “But — but it is he you were always calling your dragon,” he protested.

Bronwen shrugged. “Oh, yes, indeed. But how to tell with dragons ?” she asked.

She turned to look up the mountain. “There is lonely, lonely the red dragon must have been these two thousand years — so not much bothering with your politics, he is, just now. More single with his mind, see. And interesting it will be, indeed, to be having a lot of baby dragons in Wales before long, I am thinking.”

Judson’s Annihilator (1939)

CHAPTER I

A Demonstration

Major-General Stalham finished the kidneys and bacon and got down to the toast and marmalade. His nephew watched him patiently from the other side of the table.

“More coffee, Uncle?” he suggested.

The Major-General hauled in his faculties from a long distance. “Er — yes, thank you. Wish I could get coffee like this at home. No good. I’ve tried. No idea.” He drank and lapsed into silence again until the meal was finished. Then, with the first cigarette of the day between his lips, he became more sociable. “Where’s your friend?” he inquired.

“Judson?” answered Martin. “Oh, he’s outside, fiddling with his contraption, I fancy.”

The Major-General gave a half smile. “So you really think there’s something in it?”

“That’s for you to say, sir.”

The soldier nodded and got up from the table. “May as well go out to the lawn and see if he’s ready now,” he said, leading the way.

When they arrived Judson was bending attentively over a trapezoid black box mounted upon four well splayed legs. From beneath the box two cables emerged to curl away over the grass like thick black worms, in the direction of the stables. About ten yards further away lay a miscellaneous pile of broken bricks, pieces of wood, and odds and ends of metal, grotesquely out of place on the carpet like lawn.

Judson straightened up as they approached. He was a tall, thin man of thirty of the type which always looks slightly untidy in limbs and clothes despite its most careful efforts at control. In his case the effect was enhanced by thick fair hair which nothing could keep in permanent subjection. Both his long thin face and his pale blue eyes showed a trace of anxiety as he raised them; it was possible that the War Office man might resent being forced to watch a demonstration under such conditions. But his expression cleared when he saw that the other was genial and interested.

How about it? Ready for us?” the Major-General inquired.

“Yes, sir. It’s ready now.”

“Good. Where’d you want us to stand? What sort of range has this death-ray of yours got?”

Judson looked hurt. “It’s not a death ray, sir. It’s an annihilating screen. This particular machine has a range of a hundred feet over an angle of ninety degrees and is directed vertically upward. If you imagine a large fan, a hundred feet in length and extended to a quarter circle, balanced on its point on this box, that will give you the idea of its field of influence. Actually this is a kind of toy model. It is just as effective as the big one within its range, but the range is small.”

The soldier looked curiously at the box. There was not much to see externally save a switch or two. He noticed a slot, six inches by perhaps half an inch, in the top casing; within it was a gleam of glass. “And the thickness of this ‘fan’? The fore and aft spread, so to speak?” he inquired.

“Very little, sir. It is projected at the thickness of half an inch. My tests have shown an increase of about 1/64th of an inch at a hundred feet.”

“You mean that it has absolutely no influence beyond that half-inch thick quarter circle?”

“I have discovered none yet, sir. All the same, it is advisable to stand well clear while it is on. I mean, if one were to make a careless movement — “

“Yes, yes, of course. Where do you want us to stand?”

By Judson’s advice they moved ten yards or so toward the house; the side opposite from himself and his pile of rubbish. Judson nodded. “That’s it. Now please don’t come any nearer until I have shut off the machine again.”

“All right, my boy. We’re not fools,” said the soldier, testily.

“Sorry, sir. But it really is dangerous though it looks innocent. Here goes, then.”

He walked back a few steps, holding a switch attached to a cable. At the full extent of the cable he pressed the switch and dropped it on the grass. A red bulb lighted on top of the box. “It’s on now,” he said.

Major-General Stalham felt disappointed. He had not known what to expect, but he was aware that he had counted on some visible or audible manifestation. There was nothing save the red light and the young man’s claim that the machine was “on.”

Judson walked back to his pile of rubbish and picked up a stone. He faced them across the machine and drew back his arm. “Catch,” he shouted, flinging the stone toward them. The soldier instinctively put out his hands to receive it, but the stone did not arrive. Halfway on its journey, exactly over the machine, it vanished.

Judson chuckled.

“Try again,” he said, and lobbed over half a brick. It sailed through the air but at the top of its curve it just ceased to be.

The general grunted and stared. “Stone,” said Judson, and threw a flint out of existence. He followed it up with a piece of wood and then metal in the form of an iron bar. The soldier blinked. He had a hazy suspicion that he was being fooled by some kind of conjuring trick. Had he been able to see the emanations from the machine, or if the objects had disappeared with a flash or a bang it would have been less outrageous. Somehow the very neatness and cleanness of the operation encouraged his suspicion.

He and Martin, carefully keeping their distance, walked round to the side to observe the effect from there. It was even more odd to follow the parabola of a flying tin can and see it uncompleted because the can had winked out of existence. Judson switched off the machine and tossed half a brick over it; it fell with a thud. He switched on once more; a similar half brick never fell.

“This is remarkable,” said the general, though even his cautious nature felt that the words were a trifle inadequate.

Martin left his side and hurried into the house. He was back in a few minutes carrying a twelve-bore and a box of cartridges. “Here you are,” he said, handing them over.

A piece of notepaper was pinned to a pair of steps set up on one side of the machine; General Stalham took up a position on the other. He let the paper have the choke barrel and blew the middle out of it. Judson set up another piece of paper and waited until he had reloaded. “Now try again,” he said, as he pressed the switch.

The general let it have left and then right. He lowered the gun and stared incredulously at the unharmed paper. “Wait a minute,” he called, and hurriedly reloaded. Again he fired both barrels in quick succession; still there was no mark on the paper. An expression of real awe came over his face. His voice was uncertain as he spoke. “My God, Judson, what have you found?”

CHAPTER II

The Power of the Annihilator

“You two remember one another, don’t you?” said Judson, casually.

Martin found himself shaking hands with a serene young woman in whom it was difficult to recognize the schoolgirl Sheilah Judson of a few years ago.

It was ten days since the demonstration to his uncle, but a rush of business had intervened, making it impossible for him to call at Judson’s house until now. Sheilah was thanking him for helping her brother.

“It wasn’t much,” he told her. “Juddy really had the whole scheme cut and dried; all I had to do was to be a yes-man. Considering what he had to show, the whole thing was a foregone conclusion. What I want to know is how yesterday’s demonstration went. Sorry I couldn’t be there, but I had to go over to Paris.”

“I think it shook ‘em a bit,” Judson admitted.

Sheilah laughed. “You know him, Martin, most of his swans are geese. Shook them, indeed! I should say so. I’ve never seen a body of men so dumbfounded and knocked endways as they were when it had finished. I doubt whether they’re really believing their own senses yet. Tell him about it, Tommy.”

Judson, fishing in the cupboard for beer bottles, landed his catch, and turned round. “Sheilah’s right,” he admitted. “I wish you’d been there to see. They sent an army lorry and a squad of men. We loaded the big thousand yard brute aboard and the little one too, in case of accidents. I mean, the big one had never been tried out properly — it’s not the kind of thing you can fool about with in the backyard.

“We followed in style in a staff car to the site of the demonstration, a particularly desolate stretch of the Plain, a few miles beyond the camp. The exact position of the machine and its danger area were marked out, and power lines had been run there ready for us.

“It didn’t take long to open the cases and get the bigger machine assembled. And after we’d connected up to the mains there was nothing to do but hang about and wait for the nobs to arrive. They turned up in a whole covey of staff cars about eleven-thirty. Your respected uncle was well in evidence, as jumpy as a flea on a hot plate. I don’t know quite what the old boy had been telling them, but he was as nervous as hell lest the whole thing should be a flop — it must have been a good yarn to have got the demonstration arranged so soon. The rest weren’t much excited. They drifted up and sniffed round the machine as if it had a bad smell — they might have been more impressed if I’d painted it khaki.

“The show was timed to begin at twelve. About a quarter to they started telephoning to clear the course, running up danger flags, sounding bugles and all the rest of it. At twelve a lesser officer announced to a greater officer that all was clear — it had been perfectly clear for a couple of miles each way all the morning, but now it was technically clear. Then — oh, I forgot to tell you there’d been one or two lorries, a small field gun and some other things drafted up in the course of the morning; they were parked at a respectful distance. Well, then the big noise — he was a Field Marshal, and that speaks well for your uncle’s pull, told me to go ahead.

“He and his satellites moved off a bit, so I tagged along too, trailing the switch cable behind me. When they came to anchor I pressed the switch, and the red warning light went on. The bigger machine sets up a semi-circular screen, covering the whole hundred and eighty degrees from side to side.

“‘Well, what are you waiting for?’ the old boy said, shortly.

“‘Nothing, sir,’ I said, nicely and politely. ‘The screen’s up; it’s for your men to test the resistance of the field.’ And I explained to him that the game was to get anything past the machine within a thousand yards to either side, but not to go for the machine itself as it wasn’t protected at present. He just grunted and gave some orders.

“Out on the left six men marched up to a line about twenty yards from the screen. Their timing was perfect. Six pins were drawn, six arms swung over, and six little black bombs sailed away.”

Judson chuckled.

“I wish you could have seen the staff’s faces when the bombs vanished — the look of relief on your uncle’s face was nearly as good. The rest of them stared after the bombs, then they stared at me, and then again at the place where the bombs should have burst. There was a faint thudding noise far away in the distance if you listened for it, but no sign of an explosion. The Field Marshal pulled himself together and ordered another bomb shy. Of course that lot vanished too. Some of the staff began to look at me pretty strangely.

“Well, there’s no need to go into all the details. They went through a whole armory of weapons. They put machine guns on it with ordinary and tracer bullets, they pumped shells at it, tried flame throwers and all sorts. Some young fool even wanted to drive a tank at it; I was arguing with him when the accident occurred.

“There was a shout somewhere, and I turned round to see people pointing out to the right. A man was sawing away at the mouth of a bolting horse which was carrying him hell for leather at the screen. Everybody yelled at him to jump clear. I was a hundred yards from the switch then for we’d had to move back when the field gun got to work. I sprinted my best for it, but I was no more than halfway there when the horse and rider ran clean into the screen and vanished. I reached the switch and turned it off. Then I walked back.

“I arrived in a funny sort of silence. It was as if they had only just realized what the screen meant. The man who had suggested the tank idea looked particularly sick. The rest kept glancing over the plain as if they expected the horseman to reappear suddenly somewhere. We all walked down to the spot where he had disappeared. The hoofmarks were plain up to the screen line — there they stopped dead.

“The old Field Marshal turned and looked at me. He stood quite a time without speaking. Then he said, “‘God forgive you, boy, for what you may have begun.’ He turned away and went slowly back to his car. He didn’t seem to see us or anything about him.”

Judson paused. In a different tone he added; “Well, then it was all over. We packed up and came home.”

“And now?” Martin asked.

“Today I’ve been down at the War Office, talking for hours. It looks as if I shall be having a busy time for a bit. Curious men,” he added, reflectively, “they tested it yesterday with most things short of big guns — we shall be floating it on a raft and testing out big naval guns against it next week, by the way — but what really impressed them, you know, was that man on the horse. It got ‘em; meant more than all the rest. Nice, simple minded fellows.”

“I can understand that,” Martin said. “But, tell me Juddy, what actually does happen? I mean, I can understand that there may be a form of radiation that shakes things to bits — a kind of disintegrating wavelength — but it ought to vary with different substances, and there ought to be some kind of residue even if it’s only dust in the air. Or I could understand one that would incinerate immediately, but there again there ought to be a residue — certainly of metal — and there ought to be the dickens of a detonation in the case of explosives touching it. As far as I can see it’s against nature and science and everything else for things to cease to exist when they hit your screen. The most that can happen to them is that they are changed into something else: a gas, for instance. What actually does happen?”

Judson lifted his face out of his tankard and shook his head. “That’s where you’ve got me, old boy. And that’s a point the War Office people have been hammering at half the day. They can’t believe, though I’ve told them till I’m blue in the face, that I don’t know.”

“You don’t know!”

“Exactly. I have got hold of a force, but I don’t know what that force is. It’s another manifestation of the power of electricity. Radio is one, X-ray is another, and heaven knows how many others are waiting to be discovered. All I have found out — and to be frank it was half by accident — is that if you do certain things with an electric current you produce this result.”

“Do you mean to say you’ve no idea what happens to, say, a brick when you chuck it into the screen?”

“I do,” he admitted, “though we don’t know a great deal yet, we’re learning by degrees. For instance, Sheilah noticed on one of the early trials that it acts as a windshield. And there are funny things about sound. We’ve established that sound does not pass through it, but round it. That wasn’t surprising when we knew that it stopped air. But what is odd is the result if you throw a noise at it, so to speak. We set an alarm clock ringing and heaved it into the screen. It, of course, disappeared at once, but the ringing didn’t. I went as close to the screen as I dare, and I could still hear it faintly buzzing. A most uncanny sensation first time. And the hand grenades and shells also; there was that faint, far away thudding noise although they had vanished.

“As far as solids are concerned,” Judson explained, “ we don’t know a lot, but we can show you a few specimens.” He led the way into his study and picked up a piece of stick from a pile of objects in one corner.

“That,” he explained, “was once an old broom. Sheilah pushed the head of it into the screen, goodness knows what happened to that, but there is what was left in her hand.”

Martin examined the stick. The end which had touched the screen was a bushy mass of splayed-out fibres. “It was odd;” Sheilah told him. “The whole stick sort of shuddered in my hands; I could feel little tremors running up and down it, but it didn’t seem to twist or pull in any way.”

There were other examples: an iron rod twisted off; a glass rod curiously fractured. Martin inspected them all with interest. “It’s very odd indeed,” he said. “You mean to say that you thrust a rod into the screen, that the end of it disappears at once, that the end of it does not protrude on the other side of the screen — and yet it is not severed immediately?”

“Exactly. Sometimes — with the iron bar, for instance — it takes two or three seconds to part. But if you find that odd, look at this.”

He handed over a small branch from an oak. A few withered leaves still clung to it. The thick end showed a bunch of wrenched fibres similar to those on the broomstick. “We found it on the lawn one day when we were clearing up after an experiment,” he added.

Martin looked at it. It was quite unremarkable. “Well,” he said, “it looks as if you had set the machine up too close to a tree and lopped it off.”

“It does,” Judson agreed. “But the trouble is, old boy, that we haven’t an oak tree here, and there isn’t one anywhere near that either of us knows of.”

CHAPTER III

A Weapon of Defense

Martin became a not infrequent visitor at the Judsons’ during the next eighteen months, but he saw little of Judson himself. Judson, in fact, seemed to see very little of his home. Much of his time was spent traveling, and the intervals mostly in his study. Sheilah was worried about him.

“They’re working him to death,” she told Martin. “When he’s here he works until three or four in the morning and when he’s away he’s being rushed here and there all the time. He can’t stand that kind of thing too long. Besides, the organization and business side isn’t really his kind of work.”

Martin agreed. The few glimpses he had had of Judson were enough to show that. There were new lines on his face and signs of strain round his eyes; he fidgeted incessantly and was short tempered with his sister and with everyone else.

“It’ll end in a breakdown,” she said unhappily. “Lots of people have told him so, but he won’t take any notice.”

“I know,” Martin told her. “I hear from my uncle that he’s so edgy that he’s becoming impossible to work with. But the trouble is that they’re all in a hurry, and they can’t get on without him. He keeps too much in his own hands and won’t let go. Why on earth doesn’t he depute more and take it easier?”

“I’m not sure. I think he wants to keep all the control he can because at the bottom of everything he’s a bit afraid. You know what the old Field Marshal said to him, well, he still makes fun of that— makes fun of it too often for a man with an easy mind. I may be wrong, Martin, but I’ve an idea that he thinks he can stop it if it doesn’t seem to be working out as he expects.”

“But that’s ridiculous. He’d never have a chance now.”

“You’d think so, but I don’t know. He may be keeping some essential part of the machine a secret.”

“But would they take it on such terms, do you think?”

“They wouldn’t like it, but he makes the terms. Tommy can be remarkably stubborn, you know.”

Whether Sheilah was right or not about the cause it was clear that Judson could not keep on at his present pitch indefinitely. On her behalf Martin tried to reason with him. Judson put it aside. “You don’t understand, old boy. The work’s got to be done and done damn quick. There’s no time to lay off.”

“But you’ve been working madly for over a year now. Surely there’s someone else who can give you a breather for a bit,” Martin protested.

“Not now, not yet. It ought to slack off in a few months, then I’ll see. We’re working against time, and we’ve got to beat it. Now, if you don’t mind, old boy, there’s some work I must get on with...”

The scheme developed with remarkably little publicity. Large metal boxes on stands set in concrete began to appear here and there. There was one on the top of the London University tower, one on Bush House, others on Westminster Cathedral, on a chimney of Battersea Power Station, on a tower of the Alexandra Palace, and on one of the remaining towers of the old Crystal Palace. There was said to be one even on the top of the cross of Saint Paul’s. It was generally understood that the boxes contained air raid alarms of some kind though there were varied opinions on how they would work.

Other things less obvious than the metal boxes appeared. There were two telephone boxes on the most exposed parts of Hampstead Heath and another at Highgate which had locked doors and permanent “out of order” notices on them. There were several objects which looked like transformers to be found here and there upon high ground both in Surrey and Middlesex. Also on Surrey hilltops there appeared some new summerhouse-like huts reputed to be look-out shelters for fire-wardens. Out Dagenham way were to be found occasional oddly positioned structures bearing an entirely superficial and quite exasperating likeness to public lavatories. Down near Bromley several small water towers arose; only the local authorities knew that they contained no water — and they were at a loss to know what they did contain.

Nor was this outbreak of decidedly minor architecture confined to the London area. Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds, Glasgow, Edinburgh were a few of the many cities and towns it invaded. Certain seaports learned to their surprise that the landmarks which had served them perfectly well for several generations were inadequate and that it was urgently necessary for them to have new and more solid landmarks; as the Government unexpectedly undertook to defray the entire cost, they had them. Comment was sparse. True, certain of the unusable telephone boxes came in for scathing remarks in letters to local papers, but nobody can tell merely from its external appearance whether a transformer or a fuse box is unusable or not, and there is a natural reticence on the subject of being taken in by a dummy public lavatory.

If it was suspected that numbers of heavy cases leaving England for Singapore, Aden, Hong Kong and other strategically important spots did not in fact all contain pianos or agricultural tractors, no one mentioned it. There was activity in the naval dockyards and at the naval bases. New, strange bulges appeared at the foretops of His Majesty’s ships of war. There was no disguising them. Foreign agents learned by subtle questions that the British had discovered and were employing a new tap-proof method of wireless communication. Their various governments thereupon started to spend much time and money in the attempt to tap the untappable, not to say non-existent, system, and to disbelieve all normal radio messages.

The summer passed. The Roman Empire continued to rebuild itself in a series of sabre-rattling crises. The Reich made public references to fertile and foreign lands which were the natural heritage of Wotan’s children. The words of democracy heartened by the voice of freedom from across the water, grew a little more dependable. The Balkans took heart and stiffened slightly. There was a faint stirring in the east, a suggestive clink from the hammer and sickle. The sensation that the curtain was about to go up grew more acute.

The Rome-Berlin axis, though still slightly out of true, held together. An inconsiderable island off the Estonian coast was acquired by the Reich in conditions which resembled a forced sale. The Scandinavians looked on uneasily.

Late in October came a rising in Algeria, trouble in South West Africa, and renewed demands for colonies. Then, while anxious efforts were being made to localize the trouble on the north African coast, an Italian troopship and its escort vanished without trace on its way from Sicily to Tripoli. Threats, accusations and counter accusations flew wildly. In Government buildings in all parts of the world men nodded as they read. “Here it comes,” they said, with a half sigh of relief from the tension that was over.

There was no declaration of war; it was not expected that there would be. The value of surprise had grown too high to be thrown away lightly. It was acknowledged that the one who could first strike a crippling blow was halfway to winning. For three or four days, vituperation erupted from the presses; then came action.

At ten o’clock on the night of November the fifth trusted members of the Nazi Party engaged themselves in long, and sometimes not very important, foreign telephone calls. It came about that all lines from Germany were in use. The scheme was admirably calculated to stop any news getting out of the country, save in one particular — that the first batch of Germans so anxious to greet their friends abroad all wished to do so at exactly ten o’clock G. M. T., not a minute before and not a minute after. This curious occurrence taken in conjunction with the knowledge that the Belgian wires were also humming with business deals or friendly greetings in German, and that there was unusual pressure on the Italian service also, was warning enough. The general public knew nothing. There was no dimming of lights, no alarming notice from the radio; superficially all remained normal.

In an office in Whitehall a group of experts hurriedly summoned together sat in front of a large-scale map of southwest England which covered the whole of one wall. There was little talking. Judson, fidgeting and lighting one cigarette from another continuously, looked ill to the point of collapse. There was sweat on his forehead, and the cigarette trembled in his fingers as raised it. The old Field Marshal muttered to his aide to get the fellow a drink quickly.

On the tables were maps of smaller scale. Below the wall map an officer sat at a keyboard which suggested a calculating machine. At the back of the room were two operators with private exchanges. They called out telephone messages as they received them.

“British merchant vessel Ellen Kate, ten miles off Ostende reports large fleet of planes without lights passed over her in westerly direction, 11:32 p.m.”

“Mail plane, Amsterdam to Croydon, reports large number of planes without lights at great height heading west. Latitude, 51.56 north. Longitude, 2.55 east. 11:36 p. m.”

“H. M. Destroyer Nous reports considerable number of planes, estimate impossible, proceeding west; 12 to 14 thousand feet, without lights. Latitude, 51.50 north. Longitude, 2.30 east. 11:40 p. m.”

An orderly entered the room silently and handed a sheet of paper to the Field Marshal. He read it and passed it on to the Marshal of the Air. The message ran: “HMS Unappeasable reports large fleet of planes left Sicily. Passed south over Licata 11:30 p. m.” The Marshal of the Air looked up, his lips silently forming the word “Malta.” The Field Marshal nodded. Both turned their attention back to the maps and the telephonists. Messages were still coming in:

“Swedish liner, Varmland, Gothenburg to New York, reports fleet of unlighted planes to the south of her, apparently headed west. Latitude, 51.60 north. Longitude, 2 degrees east. 11:45 p. m.”

“U. S. S. R. merchant vessel Turksib, London to Leningrad, reports large number of planes passing north of her, heading west. Latitude, 51.71 north. Longitude, 1.90 east. 11:48 p. m.”

An officer looked up swiftly. “They’ve split, sir.”

“Warn Harwich.”

“Harwich on the line, sir. They’ve heard. They’re passing on warning to Leicester, Birmingham and Manchester. Hull on the line, sir. They’re warning Leeds and Sheffield. North Foreland calling, sir. The detectors there have picked them up. They’re passing north of the coast, following the estuary. They estimate five or six hundred planes.”

A pause followed, then: “Shoeburyness calling. They think the fleet’s divided again. Chatham calling. They say they will proceed independently according to plan.”

“Stand by,” ordered the Field Marshal abruptly. The man beside the map stiffened and poised his hands over the keyboard.

“Horizontal screens, sections D and E,” directed the old man.

The operator pressed two keys. The districts east of London, both north and south of the river glowed faintly on the wall map. “Tilbury reports that they are overhead,” intoned the telephonist.

“Alignment Seven,” snapped the Field Marshal.

The operator’s hands rattled over the keys. A string of lights broke out on the map. They ran in a curve from Brentwood, through Romford, Ilford, Woolwich, and Sidcup to Eynsford. A row of bright points which meant that the Judson Annihilator had come into action in earnest for the first time.

There was dead silence in the room for perhaps three minutes, then: “Add Alignment Twelve,” said the steady voice.

Again a string of lights starting at Brentwood sprang out on the map, but this time it ran by way of East Horndon, Orsett, Tilbury, Rochester, Kingsdown. In that irregular glowing circle there was contained to the best belief of everyone in the room every attacking plane of the southern division save the few handled by Chatham.

Someone opened a window. Above the regular murmur of the traffic there was another sound, the far away drone of hundreds of engines. Most of the men in the room crowded closer to the window and held their breath to listen the better.

“It’s getting less,” said someone. “By God, it’s getting less.”

Judson got up unsteadily. He looked round the room with a rather foolish smile. “Well, it’s the end for some of you chaps,” he said, quickly. “Better start looking for new jobs tomorrow.” He began to laugh and sway on his feet.

His neighbor caught him as he fell. “The fellow’s tight,” he said. “I’m not surprised. I’d be tight myself if I’d done half what he’s done.”

November the sixth dawned in London a clear, sunny day. Suburban trains decanted their regular thousands, offices and shops opened, trade went on as usual. Yet for all the appearance of normality there was a tenuous, indefinable sense of something in the wind. Fleet Street, which was buzzing with rumors, found little substantial enough to print. The later editions carried an official government regret for any disturbance its surprise aerial maneuvers might have caused to residents in east London and in certain other parts of the country. Contenting itself with that, Whitehall sat back and awaited developments, happily picturing the consternation in Berlin and Rome.

And consternation there was. Even a totalitarian state cannot hope to hush up indefinitely the complete disappearance of a large part of its air force and most of its best flyers. Agents estimated that in all, bombers and fighters to the number of a thousand or twelve hundred had set out upon the greatest raid in history. They had kept touch by radio until the English coast was reached — after that there had been silence. The cones of the home plane detectors remained turned skyward to catch the first sound of the return. Radio operators waited throughout the night for news, and in the dawn they were still waiting.

Official accounts written beforehand were set up in type and held ready; press time came and the accounts remained unused. London and all the other cities of England were untouched; even from the lips of their Embassy and consular staffs Berlin could scarcely believe it. Weary ground staffs still waited ready on the flying fields. The underground hangars remained forlorn. Radio men still called desperately into the unresponsive ether.

Rumors of disaster started to creep out from the flying fields and the newspaper offices. Those who had heard the fleet set out began to talk. The fiasco could not be kept quiet; the friends and relatives of the missing men could not all be quieted; there were too many of them. Gradually the tale got around of a new Armada which had never returned.

Similarly in Italy. A fleet estimated at about seven hundred planes had set out to blow Malta to bits. Malta still lay unperturbed in the kindly sunshine — but the planes; il Duce’s pride which were to ‘darken the sky with their wings’, where were they?

No one seemed to know; no one did know.

A near panic spread through the army councils of the world. England professed an inability to understand the situation. She had a number of planes up practicing on the night of the 5th; all had landed safely. But she understood that several German and Italian planes, also practicing, had disappeared. She offered help in the search, if informed of the localities of the disappearances.

Totalitarian speeches reached masterly heights of face-saving, but the planes were gone and the pick of the flyers with them. A new force must be trained, but — and here lay the real root of apprehension — for what? To vanish from the face of the earth like the rest?

CHAPTER IV

Strange Occurrences

It was four months later that Martin met the Judsons on their return from Cornwall. Letters from Sheilah had told him that her brother was making a good recovery from the strain of overwork, and they had not exaggerated. Judson was looking better than he had at any time since the demonstration of the machine to Major-General Stalham. Martin’s interest, however, was chiefly in Sheilah. In that time he had seen her only on two of her brief visits to London; hurried, unsatisfactory meetings which had had to be worked in between appointments — no fit occasions to find out whether she had made up her mind yet.

Things had been in that stage a long time now. She liked him, oh, yes, she liked him; she was fond of him. But marriage, well, that was different. Oh, yes, she’d sooner marry him than anyone else she knew; but she wasn’t sure that she wanted to marry at all — not at present. She didn’t know; she couldn’t make up her mind. A most uncomfortable and not very flattering state of affairs, Martin felt. A different type of man would, he knew, have forced the issue long ago; but he avoided that, aware that though failure would make him miserable, success would leave him uneasy. He preferred a voluntary answer, whichever it might be, to one sprung by shock tactics.

Judson was talkative, rambling from one subject to another. He inquired after Martin’s uncle. “How is the old boy? Haven’t seen him since the great day. Haven’t seen any of them, as a matter of fact. No loss to either side. I don’t like them, and they despise me.”

“Despise you?” Martin echoed, surprisedly.

“Well, it’s partly that and partly disapproval. For one thing it has now dawned on them that the annihilator has upset the entire military applecart, and for another they feel that there’s something ungentlemanly about it as a weapon. They’ve put up with me because they had to, but they don’t want to have more to do with me than they must. To your professional soldier war is a game, a kind of super chess — civilians like you and me who look upon it as a mess to be cleared up as soon as possible are gate crashers and boors.”

Martin understood, and agreed:

“I know. We’ve a number in the family. But what about you, Juddy? What are you going to do now it’s over?”

“Me. Oh, now I can get on with useful and sensible applications of the annihilator. There are all sorts of things one might do with it. It will be useful for rubbish disposal, for instance— just tip the stuff onto a screen, and it vanishes. No more dumps, no more hideous slag heaps. It may be possible to use it for smoke disposal so that we shall have decent, clean cities. I don’t know, there are plenty of possibilities, but the first thing to do is to learn more about it; make it reasonably safe to handle; work out positive controls; find an insulator if possible, and all that kind of thing. We’re going to get down to that as soon as we can get the stuff together.”

“We,” Martin noticed. That meant that Sheilah would be helping.

It did. Sheilah admitted it unhappily. A long conversation with her settled nothing new; it criss-crossed back and forth over the same old ground and got nowhere. She ended miserably: “It’s no good, Martin. I’ve got to be sure, and I’m not absolutely sure. And that makes it unfair for you. Martin, why don’t you find someone else? You deserve someone else, Martin — a nice sensible girl who can make up her own mind and make you happy.”

“There isn’t anyone else,” Martin said.

Judson took a roomy house in Surrey. It stood in forty acres of wall encircled grounds a few miles from Dorking, on the lower slopes of the hills overlooking the country to the south. Workmen were busy on it for some weeks and when he and his sister moved into it at the end of April it had become part dwelling house and part experimental workshops and laboratories. An electric alarm fence had been run around inside the boundary wall. Two assistants lived in the house, and two burly individuals who seemed to have no well-defined duties occupied the erstwhile coachman’s quarters. The ex-policeman who dwelt with his wife in the gatehouse gave all visitors severe scrutiny, and unless their names were on his list telephoned to the house before admitting them. Martin on his first visit had the sensation that he lived in a state of invisible siege.

“It’s all rather irritating and melodramatic,” Sheilah confessed, “but we hadn’t any choice in the matter. It was a case of putting up with what the War Office calls ‘adequate protection of official secrets’ or doing no work on it at all.”

Judson had overcome some technical difficulties and produced an annihilator throwing a quarter circle of ten feet radius. It had led to some interesting discoveries. One was that for annihilation it was necessary for the object to pass through the screen either by its own motion or by movement of the screen itself.

They took the ten-foot projector into the garden which was still untidy from the neglect of years. In front of a dreary looking laurel bush Judson set the machine low on the ground. He tilted the projection slot upward, switched on and brought the invisible screen down to horizontal. The bush vanished from the top downward until only a ragged stump remained.

“As I tilted it the bush passed through the plane of the screen,” he said. “But — “ he searched around and found a half dead tree. “Watch this,” he added.

The machine was set up again, this time the slot was horizontal, pointed directly at the trunk. He switched on, tapped the machine lightly, and switched off again. The tree, with a tired, slow motion, leaned over and fell in a crackle of its rotten branches. Martin stared at the stump.

“If you were to measure it you would find that a slice approximately half an inch thick has been taken out of the trunk,” Judson told him. “The work’s not quite as neat as a saw, but it ought to revolutionize the lumber industry.”

“Or quarry work,” Martin suggested. “Or canal digging and drainage work.”

Judson hesitated at that. He frowned. “You’d think so,” he agreed, “but that’s one of the things I’m up against. There’s something funny about that, something fundamental about it I can’t make out yet.”

“You mean you can’t make the solid earth disappear,” Martin smiled. “Well, there’s something consoling about that. But if a brick — why not earth?”

“Exactly. Why not? But I’ll show you.”

A few moments later he and Martin bent over a patch which had been swept by the annihilator’s rays. In theory there should have been a short ditch ten feet deep. There was not even a depression. Martin prodded his fingers into the soil. “It’s real enough,” he said, amazedly.

A few minutes ago the space in front of them had been a patch of barren earth with a covering of last year’s beech leaves. Now, along the line where the screen had passed, and nowhere else, was a covering of coarse grass.

“If it had been the other way around — “ he said, feebly.

“Quite,” Judson agreed. “But it isn’t.”

Later Martin mentioned the phenomenon to Sheilah. She nodded without surprise. “I know, there’ve been several things like that. Did you hear about my birds?”

Martin shook his head.

“That happened about ten days ago. I was working in the lab with the small machine when I suddenly found two swallows flying wildly around the room. They couldn’t have flown in just then because it happened that all the windows were closed. And it doesn’t seem likely that they’d been there all the time without my knowing because I’d been working for an hour and a half before they began fluttering about. They just came from nowhere.

“But that wasn’t nasty, like the thing that happened some months ago near London. They were trying out one of the defense machines when something plopped down close to the projector. When they went up to it they found that it was a man’s hand hacked off at the wrist. It was still warm when they picked it up, but it belonged to nobody who was there.

“There’s some explanation, of course,” she added, “some angle to the thing which neither Tommy nor I nor anyone else has any idea of yet. But we don’t seem to be getting much nearer the answer.”

Martin left later with plenty to think about and a feeling that there was an element of danger which none of their elaborate precautions covered. He had a sensation that Judson and Sheilah were not unlike people walking too close to the edge of a cliff in a thick fog. It was no light uneasiness, it would not be dismissed, and remained as a background to all his conscious thoughts. Next Sunday, he determined, he would have it out with Sheilah and try once more to get her away from it all. But that left time for a lot to happen.

Friday evening as Martin entered his club, intending to dine, the porter handed him a telephone message. Mr. Judson urgently wishes you to ring him as soon as possible. Five minutes later he heard Judson’s voice. “Thank the Lord,” it said. “I’ve been trying to get you all day. Martin, it’s about Sheilah. She’s disappeared.”

Martin put out a hand to steady himself. He felt as if he had had a physical blow. At the back of his mind a voice was gabbling — ‘It’s happened. This is what you were afraid of. That damned machine has killed her.’ He took a grip of himself. His voice was curiously flat as he said. “I’ll be there in an hour or so.”

It was a few minutes under the hour when he stopped his car with a spatter of gravel in front of the house. Judson himself opened the door and led him straight to the lounge. “What’s happened?” Martin asked.

Judson poured some whisky into a tumbler and handed it over. “Drink this. I’ll tell you. It happened about twelve o’clock this morning. I was upstairs working out some results. Sheilah was on the front lawn. She’d got a 180-degree projector there and was trying out some smoke experiments. All at once I heard her scream. I thought she’d hurt herself somehow and rushed to the window.

“She was down there on the lawn, and there was a man there too — a big fellow with a beard and ragged clothes. He’d got hold of Sheilah by the wrist, and she was fighting like a demon. She screamed again; I shouted and the man looked up. I just caught a glimpse of his face as I turned to bolt downstairs for all I was worth.

“It can’t have taken more than a few seconds, but when I came out both Sheilah and the man had gone. Just as I arrived the two guards came pelting around the corner of the house. They were at the back somewhere when she screamed, and they’d seen nobody as they ran to the front. One of the assistants turned up a moment later. He’d seen the struggle from the workshop window, but like me he’d missed the end of it.

“The alarm fence hadn’t been touched, so it was clear that they hadn’t got out of the grounds yet. We split into couples and searched the place. We didn’t find a trace of Sheilah or of the man. The lodgekeeper swore that the gate had not been open since half-past eleven. We know the alarm fence was in perfect order because we tested it. One of the guards suggested that the man might have climbed a tree and swung over the fence that way — it’s not likely because there are plenty of alarm wires about connected with the fence, besides that didn’t explain Sheilah’s disappearance.

“We put the local police on to it at once. They’ve pulled in one or two tramps, but not the man we wanted. And so far they’ve found no trace of Sheilah. Whitehall’s been on the phone cursing and swearing. They’ve got men watching the boats and the airports. I tell you, Martin, it’s a hell of a business. There’s no saying what they might do to her.”

“They?” Martin said.

“Yes, the people who’ve got hold of her. Don’t you see what it means? They’ll think she can give them the secret of the annihilator, and there’s nothing they’ll stop at to get it.”

“But can she?”

“No. I wish to heaven she could. She’s worked with it a lot, as you know, but I’ve never told her the basis of the construction — I thought it would be safer for her not to know. My God, what a fool thing to do! If she could tell them, that’d be that. But if they think she’s just holding out on them…There’s damn little chivalry in the espionage business. Oh, Lord, what the hell can we do about it?”

Martin sat silent. His reasoning power was swamped for the present. Instead of thinking he was looking at a series of fearsome mental images which he tried and failed to suppress. When, some hours later, they went upstairs, the idea of sleep was impossible; even to rest in a chair, intolerable. For more than two hours he paced back and forth across the room smoking furiously. At length he found himself methodically laying out each aspect of the affair, considering it and weighing the probabilities.

There was only one way out of the grounds which would leave no trace — Judson’s screen. What way into the grounds would leave no trace? Was that also Judson’s screen? There had been the birds, the severed hand, and, still longer ago, the inexplicable oak branch…

Surely the answer was that the annihilator did not annihilate. But what did it do? With that question still in his mind Martin dropped on the bed and surprisingly fell asleep.

The birds woke him. It was still early, soon after six. He crossed the room and looked out on the new late Spring day. The shadows still slanted, and the lines thrown by the tree trunks barred the lawn below him. In the middle of the open space he noticed the projector Sheilah had been using yesterday. It had been switched off, of course, but no one had remembered to put it away. He stood motionless for five full minutes, staring at it; then with his mind made up he turned and left the room cautiously.

The machine was in order. He had been half afraid lest the lead to the mains might have been disconnected, but the red warning light flashed on as he pressed the switch. To make certain he scrambled his handkerchief into a ball and threw it into the invisible screen. It vanished. Martin stepped back a few steps and braced himself. Somewhere behind him a window opened. Judson’s voice called in alarm; “No. Martin. Stop it, you damned fool!”

Martin clenched his fists, put his head down, and ran full tilt at the annihilator’s screen!

CHAPTER V

An Amazing New World

Something tripped him. He fell forward with a bizarre twisting, wrenching sensation, and met the ground with a thud which winded him. He struggled, gasping, to a sitting position. Not until then did he realize that he was no longer on the lawn.

The first thing to catch his eyes was the handkerchief he had thrown through the screen. It lay beside him on a tuft of wiry grass. He stared at it a moment and then lifted his gaze. He sat in an open space, a kind of gap in a hillside wood. Trees closed in his view on three sides, but in front the ground was clearer, encumbered only by shrubs and sprawling brakes of bramble. The slight downward slope enabled him to see over them into the distance beyond. The valley in the foreground was a sea of treetops; featureless save where some slight rise suggested a frozen green wave. Behind it, bounding the scene, rose a ridge of smoothly rounded hills. He gazed instantly at them, following the contours; there was no doubt about it, however unfamiliar the immediate surroundings, they remained the same line of Downs which one could see from Judson’s lawn.

He turned around to look again at the trees near him. They grew haphazard, unthinned and with little room to develop. Unrestrained ivy climbed to throttle them, and many of the trunks it had killed leaned on their still living neighbors for support. Among the boles was a choked undergrowth whence protruded occasional broken limbs of trunks slowly rotting in the tangle below.

Behind him the edge of the wood was only a few yards away. Nothing appeared to intervene between him and it. Thoughtfully, he reached for his handkerchief; he crumpled it up and threw it toward the undergrowth. Five feet from his hand it whisked out of existence. A moment later it reappeared, materializing from nowhere, to flutter down beside him. He got to his feet. As he straightened, another white object flew close past his head. He retrieved it; a piece of paper wrapped around a stone. On it was a hurried scribble in Judson’s hand: “What’s happened? Where are you?”

Martin found a pencil in his pocket. He turned the paper over and considered his answer. He looked again at the line of the Downs. They told unmistakably where he was, but — He shook his head, and wrote simply: “Am all right. Will try to find Sheilah. Screen invisible from this side. On no account move it. Keep it going till we come back.”

He rewrapped the stone and threw it back. Leaving his handkerchief to mark the spot, he went to the trees and returned with an armful of rotten branches. He broke them into smaller pieces and laid them carefully in a double row leading to the invisible screen. The thought that one had only to run up the path they marked to be projected back into the familiar everyday world gave considerable comfort.

So far he had acted in a dreamlike, half automatic way, forcing himself to believe in the reality of the surroundings. A little distance away a laurel bush lay on its side. The leaves were turning brown, and the stem was badly mangled. He recalled Judson’s demonstration the previous weekend. Not far away from it lay a curious wooden disc. He remembered Judson saying that a half inch slice from the trunk of the dead tree had been removed — well, here it was. But where was it — and where was he?

He stood still, listening. There was no sound but the rustle of the leaves in the light breeze, the song of small birds close at hand, and far away the call of a cuckoo. It was disturbing. In every place he had known save on the tops of high mountains there had been at least distant reminders of human presence; the sound of a car, the distant rattle of a train, the whistle of an engine, something to give assurance that one was not alone. Here, there was a sense of desolation.

He began a search of the open space. The result was disappointing until he drew toward the western edge, but there he came upon the faint suggestion of a track winding close to the fringe of the woods. It was not well trodden and showed little sign of recent use, but that it had been made by human feet was indisputable.

He looked carefully around once more to fix the aspect of the place in his memory before he left. Soon he was in the wood traveling circuitously though with little difficulty southward. At the bottom of the hill he crossed a stream by means of a fallen tree, and picked up the track again on the further bank with some difficulty. He consciously realized for the first time that whatever else might have changed, the season of the year remained about the same. It was an unwelcome thought for he was growing uncomfortably conscious of his hunger. He began to regret that he had not thought of asking Judson to throw food through the screen.

A short stretch of unexpected uphill led on to a sandy ridge where the deciduous trees gave way to pines. Among them was a pile of rubbish, grass and weed grown, but showing the ends of squared stones in places. He climbed to the top of it to get his bearings. To the north the wooded hillside was broken in several places by patches of grass, but he was unable to identify for certain the one on which he had found himself. In the other directions stretched a plain of swaying treetops without a landmark; not a spire, nor a chimney, nor a power pylon showed above them. Far away to the east there was a smudge of smoke, save for that nothing but the hills, the sky, and the trees — unending trees.

He descended to the path again and followed it doggedly. At the foot of the ridge a better used path joined it from the right, and the two bore eastward as one giving him hope that it must lead to a habitation of some kind before long. Down on the level the ground was moister and the increased lushness of the bushes shut him in, limiting his visibility to two or three yards in each direction. The discovery of the first clearing, therefore, took him completely by surprise. One moment he was imprisoned in the trees; the next he stood looking over an open space of five or six acres.

He stopped in astonishment for the rectangular patch had not only been cleaned, but tilled and planted. Rows of pale shoots which as a townsman he could not identify were already thrusting upward. He looked to right and left, half expecting to see bent figures at work, but there was no one in sight. Nevertheless, it was with rising hope that he went on, following the line which the path took straight across the field.

Halfway to the other side he stopped, staring down at the impression of a woman’s heel. It’s owner, he noticed as he went on, was not the last who had used the path. In many places the marks had been wholly or partly obliterated by shapeless impressions such as a soft slipper might make. Once, a little to the side of the main beat he found the print of a man’s boot with a plain sole and nailed heel. It made him curious, for he could find no repetition of it, and was irritably aware that to a man of experience the signs might read as plainly as a direction book. His eyes were on the print and he was unaware that there was any other living person near until a voice spoke suddenly close behind him.

He started violently and spun around. Ten feet away stood a young man in a soiled and much worn grey uniform who held in a steady, capable hand a large automatic pistol. Martin raised his hands instinctively though he had not understood the other’s words. The man spoke again. Martin shook his head: “Can you speak English?” he asked.

“Enough,” said the other. “You will stand still,” he added.

He stepped closer. The muzzle of the pistol pressed against Martin’s solar plexus as its owner patted pockets and armpits experimentally. Satisfied that Martin was unarmed, he withdrew a pace.

“How you are here?” he demanded.

Martin thought quickly. “I don’t know. Something funny has happened. I was walking in a garden — then I suddenly found myself in the woods up there. I don’t understand it. But,” he added more aggressively, “I don’t see that that gives you any right to threaten me with a pistol. What’s going on? Who are you?”

He was doubtful whether the other understood much of what he had said, but it seemed the right line to take. The man was impassive, he showed neither belief nor disbelief. After a few moments’ consideration; “You come with me,” he decided, and waved his pistol to indicate that Martin should turn around. “You keep to the path. Not to run.”

“But, look here — “ Martin began, more for the form of the thing than for any other purpose.

“You come,” said the man with the pistol, briefly.

CHAPTER VI

Incredible Discoveries

The language difficulty was a barrier. In the two miles or so of woods and occasional oases of cultivation which followed the man spoke only to give directions where the path branched once or twice. Martin marched obediently, acutely conscious of the pistol behind him, pondering what its presence and that of its owner implied.

They arrived at their destination almost without warning. The trees ended abruptly as usual. A few scrawny looking cows of no recognizable breed and some sheep of equally miscellaneous descent grazed on a meadow of rough grass. A small stream which crossed the place north to south was bridged by a few trunks crudely squared and set together. Close to the further bank clustered a village of wattle walled, thatched huts.

They crossed the bridge, passed between two of the insecure looking buildings, and came out on an open space. The inescapable first impression of the place was its smell. Each of the encircling hut dwellers appeared to dispose of his refuse by flinging it just outside the door so that the whole place was fringed with heaps of reeking, rotting matter. Opposite some of the doors and in front of the main exits and entrances the filth had been shovelled aside to leave a free path, and as these gauntlets were used swarms of gorging flies rose on either hand.

The few men and women who were to be seen were vastly outnumbered by the children who played in the dust or crawled adventurously over the heaps of filth. The smallest of these were naked, but the older ones and every adult in sight wore garments of coarsely woven, undyed and, it would appear, unwashed wool. On their feet were cross laced pieces of soft leather. The men were bearded more or less unkemptly, the lank hair of the women was mostly worn long and in plaits. None took more than passing notice of Martin and his captor. Martin, in spite of the pistol, stopped, and then looked at the other in amazement. The man wrinkled his nose and shook his head.

“Swine. We teach them,” he said, disgustedly.

They turned to the left. Further up the bank of the stream and well clear of the village they drew near a log-built house which if not luxurious, was a great improvement on anything the village had shown. At the rear, a clumsy, undershot water wheel turned slowly. On a small, roofed veranda in front, two men in uniforms similar to his captor’s were sitting in comfortable, crude chairs. The only other article of furniture present was a machine gun mounted on a block of wood.

The man with Martin shifted his pistol to his left hand and raised his right. “Heil Hitler!” he said.

The other two, one verging on middle age, and the other little more than a boy, rose and responded though their attention was on Martin. The new arrival reported rapidly in German, then all four entered the house.

The main room was lit dimly by two windows. There was no glass in them and they could be closed only by shutters of clay-filled basket work. Three or four chairs and a table ingeniously constructed from roughly trimmed wood were set on the naked earth floor. The rear wall was in shadow but he could make out a large wooden pulley which turned continuously, and the slow movement of the waterwheel beyond made a background of incessant creaks and groans.

The senior man pulled a chair up to the table. He produced a notebook, opened it carefully, and fixed Martin with a direct gaze. “Your name, occupation, nationality and place of birth?” he said in fluent, but throaty English.

“Just wait a minute,” Martin objected. “I want to know what’s happened first. Everything’s crazy. A few hours ago I was walking in an ordinary English garden. Now the whole world’s gone topsy-turvy. Miles of forest, no people, no houses — except an incredible stinking hut village — and you. I want to know what’s happened. Am I mad? You must explain.”

The man at the table shook his head. “I am not here to explain. You are an enemy subject, and our prisoner. Your name?”

“Enemy subject! What do you mean? There’s no war.” He was aware that they were all looking at him intently, seeming not to believe him. He went on: “I tell you. I was in London yesterday. There’s no war in Europe — and no immediate sign of it. There’s trouble in the East, and the Red Army is advancing in Brazil, but there isn’t war in Europe. It’s ridiculous to say that I am an enemy subject.”

“You were in London yesterday?” his questioner asked, slowly.

“Certainly I was.” Martin put his hand in his pocket and pulled out some letters. “Here you are, look at them, look at the postmarks and see the date.”

The man took the letters. All three bent over them and exchanged remarks. The leader looked up again. “These may be genuine, but they do not prove that there is no war. Letters are delivered even in wartime.”

“But I tell you — “

“War began on the 5th of November,” the other interrupted, dogmatically. “If, as you say, there is no war, when was peace made?”

“But war didn’t begin then. It — “

“On the 5th of November Germany sent out an aerial fleet to bomb London. If you are trying to tell me that England and France failed to reply with military action, then I do not believe you.”

“But London was not attacked,” Martin protested. He affected to think back. “I remember that there was some international excitement somewhere about then. It was said that Germany had lost a great number of planes on maneuvers, and Italy too, as it happened, but the papers were never quite clear as to how many or what actually happened to them. However, it is quite certain that there was no war.”

The three Germans looked at one another. They were a trifle less confident. The leader turned back to Martin. “Do you know how many planes were lost in these ‘maneuvers’?” he asked.

“No,” Martin admitted, “though according to the rumors it was a considerable number. The whole thing seemed to be kept as quiet as possible.”

“I see,” said the other, thoughtfully. After a moment or two of frowning contemplation he rose and crossed to the back wall, near the turning pulley. He did something there and began to talk rapidly in German. It took Martin some seconds to realize that the dark corner held a small wireless transmitter. After a short conversation he returned. “I have orders that you are to be sent to headquarters for examination. As it is late today for starting, you will leave tomorrow at dawn.”

It was an unpleasant suggestion. Martin had no wish to go to headquarters, wherever that might be. His object was to stay in the neighborhood and search for Sheilah. But the subject of the girl was not easily broached. If he were to let it be known that he was searching for her his captors would immediately and rightly assume that his presence was not accidental. Once let that become apparent and they would do their best to find out how much he did know. The situation was out of hand at present, and he could see no satisfactory means of dealing with it. He shrugged his shoulders with a fatalistic acceptance.

“Then may I have some food?” he asked. “I’ve eaten nothing today.”

The meal produced for him was of salted meat, served in a wooden dish, a bowl of chopped root vegetables, a few slabs of hard, dark bread, a little butter and some cheese. A woman, evidently from the hut village, made it ready for him. He watched her curiously as she came and went between the table and an adjoining room.

Like the others he had seen she was not attractive to the eye. Her single, clumsy garment of undyed wool bore marks of long wear, and the only attempts to relieve its pure utilitarianism were crudely stencilled or blocked designs in a dark brown pigment at hem and neck. Her only ornament was a necklace woven of copper wire. The skin of her arms, legs and face was brown from exposure, and her hair ill cared for. But despite the superficial neglect there was no slovenliness in her movements. They were quick and deft. With surprise he realized that she was much younger than he had thought at first. The shapeless dress had misled him, but as she stood where the light touched her face he could see that she was little more than a girl. He saw, too, a pair of alert, intelligent brown eyes with an expression, as they met his own, which was partly curiosity, and partly something he was at a loss to determine.

The leader of the Germans and the one who had brought him had gone out together, leaving the third and youngest member of their party on guard. He looked about twenty-four or twenty-five, and a not ill-disposed young man. He was healthy and well developed without being burly, with a look of straight-forward honesty in his blue eyes. Though the fair hair was a trifle ragged in its trimming, the shave not perfect and the uniform over well-worn, his manners suggested that the defects were due to necessity rather than carelessness. He politely informed Martin that for lack of table implements one had to makeshift with a pocketknife, and inquired whether he minded smoke during the meal. Upon Martin’s reassurance he deftly rolled some brown shavings into a leaf and lit them. An odor of autumn bonfires drifted through the room. Martin hastily offered a cigarette from his own case; it was accepted with gratitude.

Neither spoke again until the meal was finished. Martin, feeling the better for it, lit a cigarette for himself and set his elbows on the table. He looked thoughtfully at the other. The young German sat comfortably in one of the crude chairs. A large pistol holster at his belt was well in evidence, but his expression was not unfriendly, and there was a slight twinkle in the blue eyes as they met his own.

“Well, you’re a cool customer,” he said, and only a faint trace of accent told that it was not an Englishman speaking.

“Bluff,” Martin assured him. “In reality I’m an extremely bewildered customer, but there’s nothing to be gained by my registering bewilderment. However, I’d be very grateful if you would explain just what’s going on. For quite a long time I thought it was a nightmare, but I don’t seem to be able to wake up.”

“It is a nightmare,” said the other. We’ve lived in it for six months.”

“This place,” Martin said, waving an arm to include both immediate surroundings and far horizons, “where is it? It is unfamiliar, and yet it is not; I could swear that I know that line of hills to the south.”

“Probably you do. They are the Forest Ridges, and beyond them, a little to the west, the South Downs.”

Martin shook his head. “That only makes the nightmare more nightmarish. We can’t both be having the same hallucination. What’s happened? What sort of unknown England is this? How can a countryside change in a flash from a well populated farming and residential area to a land of forests and squalid settlements?”

“I don’t know,” the German admitted. “There are several theories, but — well, most of us just try to accept what’s happened and make the best of it.”

“But that’s what I want to know: what has happened?”

The other hesitated a moment, then: “I don’t see why I shouldn’t tell you as much as we know. After all, you’re in the same mess — you’ll have to live with us and like us…Can you spare me another cigarette, or are you treasuring them? You won’t be able to get any more, you know.”

“Go ahead!” Martin told him, offering his open case.

“Our squadron,” the German pilot began, “joined the main fleet soon after ten o’clock on the evening of November the 5th. Everything had been planned with precision. Just after ten we caught the first faint distant humming of the fleet. They were traveling fast. The noise grew quickly from a murmur to a throbbing, drumming sound which beat down upon us in waves. The whole world seemed to tremble with the noise of engines: never before had the sky been so full of sound. To hear it grow was exciting. One felt a surge of pride, a sense of overwhelming power at being part of such an irresistible force.

“As we flew on, other squadrons joined us. Sometimes they came into the flanks; at others, when we passed directly over their aerodromes, we could see them slide along the ground as they took off to climb after us.

“There was little radio communication, but as we approached the frontier, Franz, my observer, called to me that orders were for the whole fleet to extinguish navigation lights. The moon was up, giving a clear light. Our line stretched out many miles to my right. There were planes ahead of me, and planes strung out for miles behind: so great a number that as one looked across them there was a sense that we were stationary while the world revolved below.

“Before long we caught sight of the sea. It shone as brightly as the moon it was reflecting. Occasionally we thought we could make out ships like tiny dark specks on the spangled surface. Three quarters of the way across the order came to divide. The right wing altered course, and half the fleet fell away, bound for the industrial cities of the Midlands and North. The rest of us held on for the Thames estuary which would guide us up to London.

“The coast when it came into sight amazed us. We had expected that at least a late warning of our coming would reach England before we could hope to arrive. But it appeared that the English are indeed sometimes as casual as they would like others to believe. The coast towns were fully lighted; the lighthouses and lightships flashing as usual.

“We were dead on our course, and as we made the estuary we could see the glow of London painting the whole sky a dingy red in front of us. Before long we could see the massed millions of lights and signs which caused it. There was criminal negligence somewhere in the English service. Clearly no news had come through about us for not a district had dimmed. More amazing still, not a single British plane had climbed to intercept us.

“Franz called to me in a worried voice. He did not like it. Failing any other information, he said, the sound detectors on the coast must have picked us up long ago, but not one gun had opened fire. He had a superstitious feeling that it was too easy.

“Six bombers with their fighters were detached to attack Chatham. We went on. London lay open to us. The bombers would be at work now long before enemy planes could reach anything like our height. I did not feel as Franz did. The glittering, careless arrogance of the city just ahead angered me so that I regretted that I was not handling bombs.

“We began to extend for action, and it was then that the incredible thing happened. My machine seemed to wrench and twist in a quite unfamiliar way. For a moment I thought that a wing had collapsed. It had not, but something had gone very wrong with the engine. It slowed suddenly, with a horrible grinding noise; the plane shuddered all through with the jarring, then the whole thing seized solid. Simultaneously there was a shout from Franz in my earphones.

“‘It’s gone,’ he cried. ‘Herr Gott! it’s all gone.’

“I looked down. He was right. Every one of the millions of lights had vanished. All was black save for the gleam of the moonlight on the curling river. It was uncanny, a blackout beyond belief. Not a glare from a railway engine, not a flash from trams or electric trains, no lights of moving cars or of craft on the river, no glow from factory chimneys.

“‘No bridges,’ shouted Franz.

“He was right about that, too. There was not a single bridge over the pale Thames. Even the river itself looked different from the map I had memorized that afternoon. The turns were not the same, and there seemed to be lakes alongside it where no lakes should be.

“I glanced hurriedly round. A large number of planes seemingly in the same helpless state as ourselves was dropping down. I saw three falling in flames. Another, with a collapsed wing, fell past us and disappeared, twisting and turning beneath. Some had already hit the ground, their cargoes of bombs exploding with tremendous concussions. But still up above us was a mighty throbbing of engines telling that not all the fleet had been overtaken by the same fate.

“I turned my attention to making the best landing I could. We were lucky, Franz and me. I made a pancake. The soft ground tore off our undercarriage. The plane stood on her nose for a second, and then fell back. We had a nasty shaking, and I took a bump on my head. The next thing I remember was Franz offering me a flask.

“‘Pretty good work,’ he was saying.

“After a drink we lit cigarettes. We could still hear the sound of motors up above, but it was faint now, and as we listened it gradually died away. I felt forlorn as silence closed in on us, and so, I think, did Franz. And what a silence! It was as if the whole world were dead. Here and there was a glow of burning wreckage. Out on our right came a sudden new burst of flame. As we sat we could see the fire run across the fabric of a plane and take hold; for some seconds the frame glowed in ghostly outline before it collapsed.

“Franz and I looked at one another. We knew what that meant. Orders were to destroy one’s machine if forced down in enemy country. Nevertheless, we hesitated. We felt that there was something here that our orders had not reckoned with: we both felt it. A sense that the catastrophe was in some way uncanny. I looked questioningly at Franz; he shook his head.

“‘Let’s get ready, but wait until they come,’ he suggested. ‘We can fire it at the last moment.’

“Franz looked to the radio in the hope that it might still be unbroken. As far as one could tell from inspection it seemed to have survived, but the aerials had been carried away, and it took him some time to rig up a makeshift. When he had done it and connected up his earphones he looked at me with a grin of satisfaction.

“‘They’re calling,’ he said. ‘We are not to destroy our plane, but are to report, and await further signals.’

“In the morning the radio got busy again. The senior officer from each plane was to report personally to the Air Commodore if possible. But with every machine there must remain at least one man capable of destroying it if necessary and of tending to any injured. The Commodore’s position would be indicated by a smoke signal.

“Five minutes later a thin column of greasy black smoke rose to the southeast of us. I made ready to go. Franz looked dubiously at the ice-rimmed pools among the tussocks.

“‘Sooner you than me,’ he said. ‘Go carefully. It’s the kind of ground that can swallow a man.’

“More than a hundred of us came to that meeting, and a more bewildered lot of men never gathered. But even that pitch of consternation was raised by the return of a party of scouts. They had been sent to the hilltop with glasses and instruments. They showed us on a map the position their reckonings gave. They were unanimous in their figures, but more bewildered than we, for the point they had determined lay only a few seconds west of the Greenwich Meridian, almost on the Kent-Surrey border. Where the swamp and marsh stretched out toward the northern hills should have lain the city of London.

“One man who knew London well went further. He claimed that a hill upon which their glasses had shown them a cluster of huts among the trees stood in the exact geographical position of Ludgate Hill, and that a green mound further west and close beside the river was identical with the position of Westminster Abbey. Furthermore, observations taken with a range finder had supported him completely.

“The radio experts managed to get into touch with the part of the fleet which had not been forced down. It seems that after the sudden blackout about a third of our machines remained in the air unharmed. They did not understand what had happened to the rest of us and were thrown into confusion. They lost their bearings – though they could see the Thames, they could not identify any of the reaches. We gathered that there had been not only confusion, but a near panic. It was not clear who took command, but someone had ordered a retreat.

“On the way back they dropped many of their bombs in the sea to lighten the machines. They saw no ships lights. The Belgian coast was in complete darkness, and — most worrying of all — their radio could not make contact with their bases. The ether was dead save for communications between themselves.

“They crossed an utterly blacked out Belgium, flying entirely on their instruments. They crossed the Meuse still without answer from their bases. Beyond the frontier they found Germany as black as Belgium had been — incredibly and deathly black. In spite of desperate messages, not a landing field was lit. Orders went out for the survivors of squadrons to make for their own aerodromes. The main part of the fleet headed on toward Cologne.

“They found the Rhine familiarly turning and twisting northward — but Cologne they did not find. Then petrol began to run short, and the last order was: ‘Every man for himself.’

“Now they were in a worse state than we were. Most of the men had taken to parachutes and were scattered over a large area without means of communication. They believed that almost all their planes were total wrecks. The bomber in touch with us had been lucky. It was resting in the treetops two or three miles from Cologne— but where Cologne should have been there was nothing but dense forest.”

CHAPTER VII

Unexpected Aid

The German pilot went on to tell Martin of the days and weeks which followed, which resulted in this camp. Of how out of the early welter of speculation it was Ernst Groner who emerged with the greatest following. He was a physicist of considerable standing, and unsubstantiated though his theories were, they did recognize all the known facts.

Groner, basing his view on the conception of extra-dimensional time, held that it was no less possible theoretically to project an object into free-time than into free-space. They had, he maintained, flown into something which had jerked them into another groove of time, or another part of the same groove.

As an explanation of the fact that some of the planes had suffered and others not, he suggested that the instrument causing the jerk was some kind of active field, and that those which had encountered the field head-on had survived partly or entirely unharmed, while others, touching it obliquely and remaining for an appreciable period half in and half out of its influence had suffered since the revolutions of the two time phases, though similar, did not exactly coincide.[1]

That, Martin’s informant admitted, was about as far as he had been able to follow Groner’s theory. The mathematical backing of his arguments, though it impressed those who knew about such things, had conveyed little to him.

Martin listened without comment. He had to be careful not to give himself away while at the back of his mind he was wondering how Judson would take the theory. It could explain a number of puzzling points. The notion of the slightly dissimilar rotation of the two time phases, for instance, offered a tenable explanation of the odd way in which the sticks held in the screen had been broken off. That sounds were faintly audible through it might be due to air passing through in pulsations and thus transmitting the sound.

“And the natives?” Martin asked. “How do they take all this?”

“Oh, they don’t like it at present, of course. You could hardly expect them to. So far we’ve been taking all the time, and we’ve not been able to give them any of the benefits of civilization in return yet. But they’re a peaceful lot on the whole, and don’t give much trouble.”

Martin underwent a sudden change of mood. The utter impossibility of the situation came over him with a rush, swamping his acceptance entirely. He frowned. “But this gets more fantastic than ever — I mean, it just can’t be so. This is England, and I have no alternative to offer to the time theory. But if you are going to make these changes and build up a civilization there’ll be something left to show for it; some signs of your influence are bound to remain.”

“Of course. If not, why should we do it?”

“But they can’t, they don’t. Archeologists would have found at least traces of them.”

The young man looked puzzled, then his face cleared. He laughed. “Do you mean to say that you’ve been thinking that these dirty, hut dwelling savages are your ancestors?”

“But isn’t that what you’ve been telling me?” said Martin, perplexedly.

“Heavens no, man. They’re your descendants.”

Looking up, I saw that the girl who had brought the food was standing some six feet behind the opposite chair. How long she had been there, listening, he could not tell. She caught his eye, laid a finger on her lips, and nodded at the back of the unconscious German. Martin, glancing back quickly, saw that his momentary inattention had gone unnoticed. He made idle talk.

Out of the corner of his eye he was watching the girl. Not a sound betrayed her, but she was drawing closer to the man. In her hand she held a square of rough cloth. When she was directly behind him she paused and lifted the cloth. Martin edged forward on his chair and sat ready.

The cloth fell over his head. Martin was around the table in a flash. His left hand grabbed the hand which went to the pistol holster. His right shot up to the man’s jaw. There was weight behind it, and the other fell limply back in his chair. The girl backed half frightened across the room and beckoned him urgently. He delayed only long enough to take the pistol before he followed.

She led the way through the inner room, scrambled through its glassless window, and dropped crouched into the grass beneath. When he had joined her she raised her head and looked cautiously about, then, with a tug at his sleeve, she slipped away to the left and down the bank of the stream. Martin followed without hesitation and bending low to keep beneath the level of the banks trudged against the current behind her.

They kept to the stream for two hundred yards or more, until they were well screened by the woods, then they climbed out on the further bank. Still the girl said nothing but beckoned him on. After thrusting through a few yards of bushes they came upon a narrow footpath. She stopped and pointed along the path to the north and the hills behind. Then, still without a word, she turned and went back swiftly by the way they had come.

Martin stood without moving for some moments. The whole affair had bewildered him by its suddenness and unexpectedness. What reason could she have for rescuing him, a stranger, from people who were, after all, more kin to him than she was? Yet her manner showed that she knew what she was about: lacking any other advice he could do no better than to follow hers. He started toward the hills.

A quarter of a mile further on a movement to one side of the path caught his eye. He leveled his pistol at the bushes. “Come out of that,” he ordered.

“You needn’t shoot me, Martin,” said Sheilah, as she stepped on to the path.

CHAPTER VIII

Sheilah’s Story

“We shall have to stop somewhere till it gets light,” Sheilah said.

Little as he liked the idea, Martin had to assent. The light was failing fast: beneath the trees it was already so dark that the way was hard to see. They must be, he reckoned, about halfway up the hillside by now, though hemmed in by the trees it was little better than a guess.

The plan was to make for the hilltop first and then make west. When they were above the space where the annihilator stood they would turn downhill again and come to it from the north. It was a longer way round, but the certainty that the pursuit would have set out along the lower path as soon as Martin’s escape was discovered forced them to take it.

They left the track reluctantly at a point where the trees were thinner. In a few moments they were safe from the chance sight of anyone using it, and Martin was breaking off small branches to make a couch. “And now,” he said, sitting down beside her, “perhaps you’ll be kind enough to explain just what’s happened — and how you come to be capering about in that fancy dress.”

Sheilah looked down at her clothes. There was still light enough to show the clumsy, smock-like dress of unbleached wool and the crude, soft leather sandals on her feet. “It’s not becoming, is it?” she said. “But it couldn’t be helped.”

“Explain,” demanded Martin. “This affair’s gone all wrong. I set out as a rescue party of one after you; and end up by owing my own rescue to you. It’s all thoroughly untraditional.”

Sheilah chuckled. “All right, but I expect you’ve guessed all the first part. How that great bearded brute suddenly appeared while I was experimenting, and dragged me through the screen after him?”

“Yes, I supposed that was about what had happened,” Martin admitted.

“Well, the next thing I knew, I was sprawling on the grass. He’d fallen too, but he was still holding my wrist. After half a minute or so he got up and dragged me up with him. He stood staring at me in a puzzled way as if he didn’t quite know what to do next. His mind evidently worked slowly, but mine was going quickly.

“I looked over his shoulder as if I could see someone coming, and he fell for it right away. As he turned his head I bent and bit his arm and wrenched my hand away. Then I turned and ran toward where I knew the screen must be. The yard or two’s start I had should have been enough; it could not be much more than that from where we had fallen. In a few steps I should have come back on our own lawn, but I ran twice as far as I expected, and nothing happened.

“I stopped helplessly and let the man catch me, since I guessed why it was. Somebody had heard me call, and the first thing he had done when he got to the lawn was to turn the projector off and destroy my chance of getting back. The bearded man was more careful after that. He kept hold of my wrist until we were well in the woods, and then he made me walk in front. We went quite slowly. He seemed to be dawdling on purpose: in fact, he was.

“After we had gone some miles and crossed a cultivated field he deliberately turned off the path and waited there till it got dark. Before we went on he tied my wrists together, put his finger on his lips, and pressed the point of a very sharp arrow against my back. We came into the village quietly and got to one of the huts not far from the bridge, without meeting anyone.

“It was a filthy hovel and the smell of the whole place was nauseating. He lit a few sticks in the fireplace to give us some light, then he made me sit down on a dirty pile of straw and fastened my ankles together with coarse cord. After that he freed my hands and gave me something to eat it. It was nasty stuff, but I was hungry, and I ate it.

“I found that I was less afraid of him now. Whatever he intended to do, he showed no signs of being ill-disposed towards me. Evidently he had some plan which involved keeping me hidden, and I tried to find out what it was. When I talked he listened with a puzzled expression. And I was as perplexed by his reply, because among it I heard a few intelligible English words though they were twisted by an unfamiliar pronunciation. It wasn’t easy to get meanings across, but we managed to make a few things clear to one another. I understood, for instance, that I was not to show myself outside the hut or it would in some way be the worse for me — though just what would happen was not at all clear. But I could not discover what he intended to do, nor who he and his people were.

“After an hour or so he seemed to get tired of trying to talk. He tied my wrists together again, and with a final warning against being seen or heard, he left me. No more than two or three minutes after he had gone out a girl slipped in.

“She was the girl who helped you this afternoon. She stood in the middle of the beaten earth floor looking down at me with interest, but without surprise — which suggested that our arrival in the village had not been so secret after all. We faced one another for a while, then she began to speak carefully and, to my astonishment, in German. We talked for perhaps two hours. Many of the things I wanted to know she couldn’t tell me, but she did explain a great deal which had been perplexing me. And I learned something about her.

“She was the wife, according to tribal custom, of the man who had brought me there. This hut bad been her home until four months before when the three Germans had come. She could not tell me where they had come from, but by this time I had a pretty good idea. Not long after their arrival the leader had noticed her and suggested a change of domicile. Apparently without hesitation or scruples she had gone to the German, leaving her husband to shift for himself. She had, she said, never thought much of him, anyway.

“There was very little fuss about it. Whatever the village people think of the Germans’ intrusion, they are awed by them and too much afraid of their weapons to object actively to anything they may decide to do. They gave a demonstration of pistol practice soon after they came, and that was enough to make even an outraged husband think twice before starting trouble. So the girl continued to live peacefully with the leader.

“But that did not prevent her from keeping a prudent eye on her ex-husband’s behavior. She had no idea what was in his mind concerning me, but she meant to find out. For the present she warned me against trying to escape. It was unlikely that I would succeed in getting clear of the village unseen, and if I did I should be unable to find my way through the forests in the dark. With that, she left me, promising to come again next day.

“The bearded man returned not long after she had gone. He barely glanced at me. After throwing some wood on the fire, he lay down on a pile of straw on the other side of the room and went to sleep.

“The next morning — this morning, that is — he got up early, gave me a bowl of a kind of porridge, ate some himself, and then went out. And that’s the last I saw of him. It was after noon when the girl came at last. She said she had been delayed by the arrival of a new man whom the rest called an Englander. There wasn’t much difficulty in recognizing you from her description.

“She had brought me this dress and sandals like her own so that I could at a distance pass as one of the villagers, and the only hesitation I felt about changing into them was on account of their being so very second-hand. It didn’t take me long to do it, and then she was ready for us to leave — but I wasn’t, quite.

“‘Look here,’ I told her in German, ‘I’m as anxious to go as you are to get rid of me, but this Englander is a friend of mine. If I go, he goes, too. You’ve got to get him away somehow, or you don’t get rid of me.’

“Apparently it never crossed her mind that the German might, if offered the choice, prefer her company to mine. She had taken the opposite view flatteringly for granted, just as her ex-husband had.

“She looked distressed. ‘It will be difficult,’ she said.

“‘All the same, it’s got to be done,’ I told her. ‘If you don’t bring him to me, I shall come back.’

“And — well, it took her some time, but she did it. I don’t know how, but you do, so it’s your turn to do the talking for a bit,” Sheilah ended.

It was more than an hour after sunrise when they reached the smooth grass near the top of the hill. They climbed no more since there would be a risk of exposing themselves on the skyline. Instead, they turned west, keeping along the flank of the hill, a little above the tree level. It was easy going over the open ground; a light breeze was in their faces and an early morning freshness put a better complexion on the world.

“Did the Germans tell you their tale of how this state of things came to be?” Sheilah asked.

“No,” Martin admitted.

“Well, the girl told me. It’s the story of the devil-birds who lived in the land beyond the sunrise. It seems that the devil-birds’ lands were also overcrowded. The devil-birds had built nests on top of one another as the men had built their huts, but they reached the sky and couldn’t go any further. They began to want to build and to lay their eggs in the lands this side of the sunrise. But the men said ‘no.’ They wanted all their land to grow food on for themselves and their children, and that the devil-birds would be shot if they came.

“But the devil-birds went on complaining about overcrowding and at the same time laying more eggs and hatching out more families until their land could not support them. Then they came across the sunrise. They came in flocks so huge that they filled the sky, and they roared with anger so that the whole world trembled. They spat fire onto the land below. So mighty were their droppings that the earth staggered as they fell and the piles of huts were shaken down. A vapour arose from the droppings so terrible that all who breathed it died at once. They scattered poison into the sky, and the sky poisoned the earth.

“Then the devil-birds went back, but the poison stayed. It was in the air, in the water, in the food. The skins of men and women who took the poison came out in black patches. They went mad and died in agony — and the next day all their friends and families showed the black patches, and the braver ones killed themselves because they had seen what was going to happen. People died by the thousands, by the millions.

“Only a few small islands went untouched by the plague: places where the prevailing wind was off the sea, keeping the poisoned air away. The people on the islands shut themselves off from the mainland and from one another and waited.

“Some of the smaller islands could not support their inhabitants, but any men who could be found brave enough to go to the mainland did not return. So the islands communities grew less, though they hung on. The legend says that it was several generations before at last a man returned to tell them that it was possible to live on the mainland again. Probably that’s an exaggeration, but it implies a long time, and there were pitifully few of them left. Anyway, it shows you what I mean by the survivors of a civilization.”

“Gas, disease-bombs, airborne bacilli,” said Martin.

“Yes, a plague, started deliberately, and then getting out of control — probably by an unexpected mutation — so that it spread everywhere, wiping out its creators as well their enemies.”

“Could it? It seems impossible. It may have been some local affliction greatly exaggerated — I mean, think of the tales of the flood. After all, it’s only a legend.”

“Only a legend,” she agreed, “but it’s a remarkable legend for a simple people to have invented. Have you a better means of accounting for all this?” She waved an arm to include the whole wilderness of forest.

They walked on for a time in silence.

“Then Juddy’s Annihilator did not— will not — stop war,” Martin said.

“No. It’s just another new weapon to be counteracted,” Sheilah said.

“And the people in the village – I wonder if they will grow up just to destroy themselves in the end?”

“Who can say? Their minds may develop differently; they may lack suicidal will to war. They may consider the fighter a dishonorable man and a bad citizen. They may, unlike us, see their danger before it is too late.”

“But you don’t sound very hopeful.”

“Hopeful! Why should I be hopeful? Hasn’t civilization after civilization climbed up and then fallen down this sink of war? I thought that in helping Tommy I was doing something which might help to change all that— now I know I wasn’t. It makes me feel that the whole stock is tainted.” She turned to look up into his face. “I will marry you, Martin, if you still want me. But I don’t think I want to bring children into this kind of world.”

Sheilah stopped and pointed across the valley. “This is far enough. You see those two hill crests exactly in line. That’s how they look from the hill behind the house.”

“There should be a path,” Martin said.

She nodded. “I remember. It ran up the west edge. Let’s look a bit further.”

They found a track emerging from the tree belt a hundred yards further on. It was little used, but there was no other, and they took it. The track wound to take advantage of open ground, and they passed cautiously down the sides of two spaces similar to, but smaller than the one they sought. At the edge of the third Martin stopped. He could see the head and shoulders of a man who stood in the open. Sheilah touched his sleeve.

“It’s the man who caught me.”

He nodded. The man had known where to come. There was not much to be feared from him alone; the question was, had he brought the Germans with him?

The projector, he remembered, was not far from the top end of the open ground. To make a way through the trees to the left would bring them nearer to it and also give a better view of the whole place. The going was bad. Brambles and thorn brushes tore their clothes and faces. After a yard or two Sheilah’s legs were lacerated and bleeding, and her hair was continually tangling in small branches. In spite of their care Martin felt that a herd of cattle could scarcely have made more noise. After twenty-five or thirty yards of zigzagging to avoid the worst thickets he led the way downhill with still more caution. Sheilah kept close behind. Progress was slow and painful. At last he reached a point where it was possible to look out between the leaves.

He could see the double track of dead branches he had laid to mark the path to the screen; the screen itself should now be between him and them if Judson had obeyed instructions and kept it up — a bare thirty feet from the top fringe of bushes. The bearded man was also visible.

Martin turned his head slowly to whisper directions to Sheilah. She rose on tiptoe to see the ground beyond, and as she moved a branch went off like a cracker under her foot. The effect on the bearded man was immediate. He waved an arm at someone out of sight further down the hill and started toward their hiding place.

There was nothing for it but to make a dash. Martin flung himself through the last few yards of bushes. The oncoming man threw something which whizzed past his head; there was a thud just behind him. He fired wildly, and saw the man stop. He glanced back to see Sheilah laying where the missile had felled her.

As he picked her up he caught sight of the three Germans racing up the hill toward him, beyond the screen. Holding Sheilah, he ran headlong down the hill in their direction. He saw them come to a stop, looking puzzled. Then the sun seemed suddenly to leap higher in the sky. There was the same strange twisting fall that he had felt before. Trees and sky whirled before his eyes — and he dropped on a smooth lawn.

Martin scrambled to his feet, and staggered. There came one last message from the world beyond the screen: a bullet whistled past him, ricocheted from an iron seat, and broke a window in the house behind. He reached swiftly for the switch. The red light winked out. The screen was down.

He picked Sheilah up in his arms and walked to meet the men who were running from the house.

Never on Mars (1954)

The odds are that they won’t actually put Jeremy Chambet in jail. After all, a jury has to be satisfied beyond all doubt that any fraud was committed, much less by criminal intent. And I don’t see how, in spite of the newspapers and the radio and all the talk, some of the panel can fail to have a doubt or two.

All the evidence is circumstantial — or expert. Juries feel a bit uneasy when it’s entirely circumstantial. Nor are they very fond of expert witnesses. They’re impressed in a way, but antagonistic too. In the course of their lives they have all at some time or other had expert advice that turned out to be wrong.

All the same, Jeremy Chambet is in a spot. Public fickleness must be hell. First they put you on top of the world— then, given a whiff of righteous motive for an excuse, the whole lot will turn right round and jump on your neck with a jealous sadistic satisfaction. Nearly everybody is delighted to find himself holier than a hero in some way.

Jeremy’s story hasn’t sounded too good. Still, even Truth isn’t dressed non-crushably — and after she has been mauled around awhile she doesn’t look quite flavor-sealed-in, either.

When Jeremy told me the story in his own way soon after he got back it sounded fantastic, of course — any story told by the first man back from Mars was bound to sound fantastic — but that isn’t to say that it sounded untrue. Not necessarily anyway. It wasn’t till the prosecution took to pounding away at it that it began to look like hash.

Just to refresh your memory…

Not even the defense claims that Jeremy was the first man to reach Mars. Their contention is that he’s the first one to come back — and the source of his trouble is that so far he’s the only one to come back.

There were, you will remember, a crew of three aboard General Rockets’ ship, Uniac 5. Christopher Deeley was Captain — an excellent navigator with wide experience in rocketry, theoretical and practical, fine physique, dependable personality, altogether a first-class choice for the job.

There was Jeremy Chambet, a physicist of considerable reputation, no laboratory hermit, going along to observe and record technical data. And Peter Quorridge who, after a roving career chasing up troubles in all corners of the Earth as a special correspondent, had won the job of representing the eyes and ears of the world on the trip.

The takeoff was noted but not played up in the Press. It was about the tenth or twelfth shot — or maybe it would have had a still higher number if the Russians didn’t regard secrecy and misinformation as the prime national virtues. Since nothing had been heard of the others after they passed the radio-reflecting layers, news value and expectations had dwindled. Moreover Jeremy’s statement on what they expected to find could only have made the ordinary reader wonder why anyone was fool enough even to start. Those who did read it just wrote off another expensive ship and three more nuts.

But. this time they were wrong. Several months later Uniac 5’s automatic radio signals were picked up. Then came Jeremy’s voice calling. He was circling and reducing speed, he said. He was alone. He had no hope of landing the ship safely, so he proposed to drop her in the sea. His intention was to slow to a stop, check fall, shut off power and bale out before velocity mounted again. He’d leave the automatic going for stations to keep a fix on him.

The last wasn’t entirely necessary. The Uniac 5 not only assaulted the ears of the inhabitants of San Salvador Island in the Bahamas by thundering round their sky but treated them to unusual glimpses of a celestial firecracker gone crazy.

Jeremy explained afterwards that he could not get the balance of the thing right to keep it sitting on its jets. Every time he used the lateral stabilizers they overcorrected, first one way and then the other, until the thing swung over and whizzed off at an angle, so then he’d have to fight for height in order to have another try.

The wonder of it was, considering he had never tried to handle a rocket before, that he didn’t destroy it and himself at the first attempt. Finally, however, this cavorting had to come to an end because his fuel ran out, so then he had to jump for it anyway.

The Uniac 5 came down at high speed and blew up like a geyser — maybe she didn’t have any fuel but his haywire antics up there had run her tubes mighty hot. Jeremy himself dropped into the drink twenty miles away and floated around, firing smoke signals at intervals, until a helicopter came and dangled a ladder for him.

Well, it’s not likely you’ve forgotten the hoopla that followed. The contracts for advertising, radio, movies and the rest of it came raining in. Jeremy was sitting pretty with mountains of dollars growing up on all sides. But Jeremy isn’t a mean man. As far as we know no close relative of Peter Quorridge exists. But Chris Deeley had left a widow, Monica, and two children. Jeremy made over to them one half of the receipts. It was generous. When his friends pointed out, “It was you that took the risk. One third is fair enough, for her,” he replied. “Well, it was Chris who got us there — and landed us safely.”

The prizemoney was what began the trouble. The New York Epoch had offered the largest — one million dollars to the first crew to make the two-way journey — but there were a number of others, not negligible by any means.

The Epoch is not one of the ornaments of journalism. Maybe it gambled that there would never be a call for the cash. When the call came the Epoch thought it over and then informed Jeremy that since only one third of the crew had made the double journey it had decided to award only one third of the prize. That seemed a good idea to one or two other offerers, unexpectedly facing the results of their prodigal gestures.

Jeremy didn’t worry. More dollars than he had ever thought of were rolling towards him anyway, more than he knew how to use. But Monica Deeley was a tougher proposition. “Enough” was a word that she kept shut up in the dictionary. The moment she got the sharing agreement with Jeremy signed up she put in a claim against the Epoch and its similar-minded friends for payment in full.

The sympathy was all with her and Jeremy Chambet to begin with, but then rumors got going — from a guessable source. After all, there was only Jeremy’s word for what had happened on the expedition. The Uniac 5, with such records as might exist, lay scattered at the bottom of the sea.

It occurred to someone to turn Jeremy’s own generosity against him — after all he had no need to give Monica Deeley more than a third share, no compulsion to do even that. So was there something behind it? Conscience money?

A very distant relative of Quorridge showed up and put in a claim on the ground of Peter’s intestacy and as good as accused Jeremy of murdering both of his companions for the sake of the prizemoney. A few newspapers remained staunch but a number of the more sensational moved over to the side of the Epoch, which by this time had the characters of both Jeremy and Monica in shreds.

The Epoch lost its case and appealed. In addition, the libel writs had begun to fly. In the middle of it all Monica Deeley sprang a mine by going to the police and alleging that Jeremy had confessed to murdering her husband in order that he could marry her.

It was by no means a likely story but a lot of people pounced on it as an explanation of his generosity — that he intended to have the lot in the end, even if he had to marry Monica to get it. And once the charge had been made the authorities were unable to ignore it.

Monica Deeley is a fool — a dangerous fool. If she had let the whole thing alone and just sat back, taking the dollars as they came along, they’d both have had all they could ever want. Whoever it was that suggested to her that if Jeremy were put out of the way she would rake it all in has a lot to answer for. Now she stands to lose badly whatever happens. The charge failed to hold water, of course.

However, Jeremy still has to sit there in court and hear himself shredded. They have gleefully tripped him in a memory slip or two such as anyone’s memory might make — but he has made no contradictions of his main story and he is sticking to it. The trouble is not many people believe him anymore. Jeremy is becoming a second Dr. Cook, of North Pole infamy.

By this time we have all become so confused with the comments of the newspapers, and those of learned counsel, that what Jeremy actually said in the first place is becoming obscure. So let me give you the story as he told it to me soon after he had come back, well before the row began and all this forensic talent pitched into him.

The next time they send anyone to Mars (said Jeremy Chambet) they might let a competent psychologist in on the selection of the crew. Technical qualifications come first, of course, but the people who have them are going to have to live together at very close quarters and with no privacy whatever for a number of weeks. By far the most troublesome thing to control, when you’re shut into a small metal shell out there in space, is yourself.

Your sense of proportion goes all to pieces. Piddling little things you would never even notice anywhere else can drive you to distraction when they are thrust under your nose day after day and you can’t get away from them. Small habits, mannerisms, tricks of speech — they can get on your nerves in a way that would seem fantastic in ordinary life. Each man has to watch himself all the time to keep from showing how intolerable he finds another man’s way of clearing his throat, hesitating for a word, eating his food, and that becomes quite a strain by itself.

Roughly speaking, we were the man of action, the reasoner and the observer. We had been chosen because we had been trained to think in different patterns. It may be good coverage but it doesn’t make for easy as- sociation.

I am a scientist — that is to say that when I have assembled all the proved facts I draw a deduction which includes them all as logically as human frailty permits. Chris Deeley was the man of action, but as a modern, educated man of action he was also considerable of a technician. This gave us at least some ground in common.

But Peter Quorridge! Well, frankly, I don’t understand the type. Maybe I could find it amusing for an hour or so in a bar — but the Uniac 5 was no bar and it was a matter of solid weeks. It’s all right being revolutionary and skeptical about everything at twenty — most of the best are. But you expect a man to outgrow it. Maybe it was having to make a newspaper sensation out of everything that did it with Peter.

The way he watched you when you were speaking — you could almost see his mind picking out bits here and there and building up conclusions which left out all the rest. When, in exasperation, I said that it was more than ordinary perversity in him, something more like downright anti-rationality, he grinned. “And you’re not even constructive,” I added.

He shrugged. “Construction’s your job — not mine. And, my word, what you fellows do construct!”

“You’d rather be a demolition expert?”

He put his head on one side               and considered. “I’d not call myself that,” he said. “As I see my job I’m more like the Standards Bureau. I test. If the breaking strain is low the thing gives. And when I think of all the ethers, elements and crackpot theories you fellows have put up in your time I reckon I represent a pretty necessary safety device.”

That should give you some idea of his angle. He’d challenge pretty nearly every theory ever made, and quite a little of that was enough to be intensely exasperating. After all, if you don’t have some axioms how do you start going any place at all?

To begin with it wasn’t too bad. Once we had got over the start, which is a physically distressing business, we settled down. We arranged a rotation for meals and sleeping based on Earth-time. It’s the best you can do — it’d be a lot better if one could sleep most of the twenty-four hours instead of a smaller proportion than usual from lack of exercise. There’s a good opening there for a non-habit-forming hypnotic, by the way.

When things began to pall Peter was better off than we were. Chris’ periodical course-checks and my observations left us with a lot of unoccupied time but Peter had brought along a stack of notes that he was in the process of working up into a book. We got more bored with reading than he did with writing.

To help pass the time Chris taught me something of space-navigation. I found it fascinating — it also turned out to be useful. Without it I’d not be here now. But that didn’t take up all our time. Among other things, we discussed what we were likely to find on Mars — if we made it.

My own expectations were far from sensational. From all I knew I envisaged an almost arid planet. There would be little if any atmosphere. Rigorous cold by night, a day temperature of anything from thirty to eighty degrees at the equator, depending on the season. Polar caps of frozen methane or carbon-dioxide. Possibly, just possibly, a little vegetation of a primitive kind still surviving.

Perhaps the thing that I looked forward to most was clearing up once and for all the matter of those markings to which the astronomer, Schiaparelli, had given the name, in my opinion then so unfortunate, of canali.

Chris, of course hoped for more. I could see that though he did not press it he had been affected as most people have by the views of the irresponsible Lowell and others who have taken what seemed to the informed a childishly geomorphic view of the planets. It was while I was pointing out to him what a quantity of romantic mischief had originated in Flagstaff, Arizona, that I became aware Peter had stopped writing and was listening with his eyebrows slightly raised. “You honestly believe that’s all we’re going to find — Just red deserts?” he put in.

“Orange deserts — there’s a refractional effect,” I told him.

“All right, orange deserts then, split up by natural cleavages and with an odd patch of lichen here and there?”

“Yes — that’s about it,” I agreed.

“Then what in heck are we doing here?”

“Well, for one thing we’re verifying theory — adding to knowledge.”

Peter put away his pen.

“What are you expecting? Mr. Burrough’s Barsoom?” I suggested.

“My idea is to find out. If I knew I wouldn’t be here. You see, not being a scientist I don’t make my approach stuffed with prejudices.”

That was the perverse kind of remark I had learned to expect from him. This time I did not rise to if. “You must have some views,” I said, mildly.

“Well, I certainly have a number of questions. I want to know, for instance, why your despised canali markings take, unlike anything else in nature, the shortest path between two points. Also why the junctions are situated, as a rule, just where you might expect an engineer to put them. Why some astronomers speak of obscuration by clouds when others say there’s no. atmosphere. Oh, there are a whole lot of things I want to know — and intend to know. Only, not being a scientist. I don’t explain them to everyone before I do know.”

“That,” I said, “is not only frivolous, it’s a contradiction in terms. The word scientist by its very derivation means one who knows.”

“In practice,” Peter replied gently, “a scientist will often hotly defend a theory, with scientific proofs to show that it is a fact. Now, how can a fact need defense? It just is. So what the scientist is really trying to do is to prove his own beliefs — which puts him along with the rest of us, though on a slightly less intelligible level.”

What are you to do with a man who talks that way?

“At least,” I said to him another time, “science builds theories. If your attitude of mind were general nothing would ever get built at all.”

“True,” he admitted. “But let’s just think where we’d be if there weren’t people like me to challenge your scientific theories — and proofs. Offhand I can recall it was proved on paper that iron ships would not float. Then, when they did, disconcertingly for the experts, it was steel ships that wouldn’t be seaworthy.

“It was shown with figures that a steamship could not carry enough coal to get her across the Atlantic. Evidence was adduced that the human constitution could not withstand a speed of sixty miles per hour. At the number of times that it was proved that heavier-than-aircraft could never fly imagination positively boggles.

“In 1927 the father of a friend of mine gave up an aircraft designing job because it was proved to him that the limit of size of land-based planes had been reached. It was shown that the idea of the internal combustion turbine was comparable on visionary grounds with that of perpetual motion.

“You will yourself remember a lot of the things that were said authoritatively about nuclear fission. As for the possibility of rocket flight…And dozens more. But luckily there is always a class of people who don’t believe the scientists’ conclusions. But does that prevent scientists from continuing to prove the next thing is just as impossible? Not a bit of it.”

I’m afraid I used to get more than a little heated with him after a time, so that Chris felt it necessary to intervene tactfully. But people ought to have some respect for the opinions of experts in fields where they themselves know nothing. Peter Quorridge seemed to have none. You can’t argue unless you have common ground. I told him quite flatly that he was nothing better than an ignoramus in my subjects. He took it quite cheerfully.

“An African witch-doctor told me almost the selfsame thing once — and a Voodoo priest too. It must be a professional tenet,” he said.

How would you like to have to put up with week after week of close association with a man who talked such stuff? You see what I mean when I said he was anti-rational? He would, for instance, address me as ‘Father.’ When I objected he raised his eyebrows.

“My dear fellow, would you deny your calling? You are a priest of this century’s mystique. The educated accept you as an authority on the mysteries of nature, the uneducated think you’re crazy but a bit dangerous, so they respect you superficially too. You can’t explain your mysteries to the laity — yes, you often use the actual word — and you call anyone who attempts to do so a vulgarizer. It’s a cult, old man. All the characteristics of a priesthood — including profound faith in your own words.”

“What a lot of nonsense you do put over,” I told him. “You know as well as I do that the difference between the scientific method and the religious is that we deduce from proved facts.”

“That’s what amazes me. I can remember as a kid coming across a series of diagrams in an old magazine. They showed the build- up of resistance and thus proved scientifically that no airplane could fly faster than the speed of sound. How come — on your showing?”

“Faulty reasoning, of course.”

“I see. Nothing wrong with the system. Only the incompetent servant. Just the same way that that unfortunate woman, Joan of Arc, happened to get burnt.”

“If you can’t see — oh, go to hell!” I told him.

But Peter just grinned.

Added to the close-quarters living, lack of exercise and sheer boredom was the uncertainty. You forget that afterwards but at the time it tells. Then you don’t know you are going to make it. The chances are very much against you, and what you do know is that all the others who tried before you did not make it.

You’re very much aware, too, that you don’t know why they failed, so you can’t take any precautions against whatever it was that made them fail. It’s not at all good. While you lie there, trying to sleep, some pretty nasty pictures get into your mind — rockets floating on through space forever with just a load of human bones aboard — rockets sliced wide open by wandering asteroids — a rocket which has turned into just a patch of metal fragments in the Martian desert.

Things like that are difficult to fence out of your mind. The crew of the Santa Maria’s chief worry was whether they would sail over the edge — on the Uniac 5 we had a lot more possibilities. Maybe death, seeing that it catches up with everyone, isn’t so important as we like to think — but it can come in a hell of a lot of nasty ways. And you kind of get to thinking about them.

Nearer the end of the trip, when it began to look as if we might really make it, our mood changed. It’s the long-term waiting that gets you down. For a definite operation such as a landing you can brace yourself up. And we did. The thing depended on Chris Deeley now and we had a high level of trust in him. Peter Quorridge and I tacitly agreed to forget that we had not been speaking for a couple of weeks and dropped our armed neutrality.

We began to spend more and more time at the telescopes or bending over the projection table. We were fascinated out of our previous boredom. In spite of myself I began to be converted to the belief that the canali were artifacts of some kind, that possibly they had even been real canals at one time.

As they became clearer there seemed to be no other explanation. Over dark patches such as Syrtis Major and others to which the romanticists have definitely given the title of sea, I was still puzzled. So much water was highly unlikely and there was an indefinite quality about the edges. I found myself siding with those who claimed them to be areas of vegetation.

It had been for me to decide the position of our landing, subject to Chris’ practical considerations, and I had for some time made up my mind that it should be in the area of the Ismenius Locus. At this great junction of canali we would be able to settle the question for good and all and here, if anywhere, we would be able to find traces of civilization.

I’m not going to be technical. I’ll just say that Chris did set us down in a perfect landing somewhere in the northwest quadrant. Around the Ismenius Locus itself the ground was dark and broken for many miles and, in Chris’ opinion, likely to be swamp — so he took us some distance to the west along the line of the large channel called the Duteronilus.

The first thing I saw when we got the cover off a port was that the sand was orange red. I mention that now because in that, if nothing else, my predictions were right. You’ll be able to read all the details in my book when it comes out, so now I’ll keep as much as possible to what happened.

To my amazement the atmosphere showed sufficient oxygen content to sustain us — rarefied, of course, so that it might have caused us a little distress on Earth, but on Mars it required little output of energy to move our bodies. So, with the temperature showing at over forty, we risked going out without spacesuits.

Peter Quorridge took a deep breath and looked round. “H’m. No bug-eyed monsters anyway — yet,” he remarked.

I regret that such a frivolous remark should be the first recorded utterance of a human being upon Mars but I am merely reporting. Chris insisted that our first task should be to set the rocket up in the starting position. “Just a matter of making it possible to leave in a hurry if we should want to,” he explained.

The contingency seemed improbable but we helped him drive an anchor post and fix the trim. The little engine chugged, with its air-intake wide open, and through a fantastic reduction gear got on with the job of pulling, her up onto her tail fins.

There wasn’t a lot to see, but to me most of it was improbable. The sandy, rocky plain I had expected — but not the scrawny bushes that dotted it. They were poor gnarled things with just a few coppery leaves. To the south they grew closer together, to the north they became rapidly fewer. In all directions the land was flat, save to the southeast, where a tumulus of rocks broke the monotony.

Once the rocket was up and the living compartment high in the air we had an extended view. It was Peter who took the first look through the south-facing port. He picked up his glasses, then he grunted and handed them to me. “Lowell winning on points,” he said.

Beyond the bushes which thickened into a dark band I saw a gleam.

“Well?” asked Peter. “Now tell me it could be a saltpan.”

“It could,” I agreed, “but maybe it is water.”

We went there the next day. It was a canal, all right — and well filled at that. The edges were fringed with plants not unlike small terrestrial rushes, and where the water began there was plentiful submarine vegetation. Our position gave us a close watery horizon and we could not tell what the width of the canal might be.

To either side of us the bank ran away in a geometrically straight line — so straight in fact that I was surprised. One would have thought that even light wind erosion, which was probably all the wear it ever got, would have indented the edges here and there in time.

We withdrew through the fringe of more sturdy bushes which would have made walking along the actual bank a tiresome business and took an eastward course parallel with the canal, headed in the direction of the rocky pile. The nearer we got, the greater became our interest. The stones which formed it lay m a jumble upon one another but while we were still some distance away we lost all idea that unaided nature had produced them. The sharp edges of the stones had been worn smooth but the blocks themselves had been squared. We had no doubt that they were the ruins — of something.

But even when we reached them we could make tantalizingly little of them. It seemed tolerably clear that they could not lie as they did by a process of mere collapse. We all agreed that some immensely destructive force must at some time have hurled them about.

Another thing struck us. You would have expected any building or group of buildings close to the canal to front right upon it but this pile stood some three hundred yards back from the bank. On the bank side it was chopped off short in a reasonably straight line.

It looked at first as if the canal must have been narrowed at some time and the line represented the original waterfrontage. But Chris, climbing up on to one of the stones, disposed of that idea. He called to us to follow him and when we did we were able to see that the bare space between the pile and the canal showed traces of foundations in several places.

“Somebody, sometime, has been doing a bit of clearance work around here,” said Peter. “By the look of it they took the stones and shipped them down the canal — but quite a while ago.”

Chris hesitated over that. He pointed to some of the lower stones in the straight face of the pile. Their edges, unlike those above, were sharp. “These haven’t been exposed anything like as long as the rest,” he said.

“Only a few hundred thousand years, maybe,” said Peter. “Or are we on Barsoom after all? Beware of the bug-eyes and all that?”

“So far,” I pointed out, “we’ve not seen the smallest vestige of animal life of any kind.”

“Maybe that’s what makes it feel the way it does — even a few desert rats would give it a homey touch,” Peter murmured.

We spent the rest of the day taking photographs and collecting specimens. When we got back to the rocket Peter said. “Well, maybe you weren’t quite right in the details. Father, but your general slant was okay. If there’s anything duller than a worn-out planet I don’t want to hear about it.”

I spent the first part of the following day labeling specimens and writing up notes. Chris had insinuated himself into the non- habitable part of the ship and was inspecting things there. Peter, after hanging about pensively, went off somewhere on his own. He came back just as we were finishing our midday meal.

He didn’t say anything until he had eaten his share and lit a cigarette. Then, “I’ve found out where the stones went to,” he told us.

“Where?” asked Chris.

Peter grinned. “Into the canal,” he said.

We both looked at him. You never knew with Peter.

“Who’d want to lug them into the canal?” Chris asked.

“Exactly,” Peter agreed. “But that’s where they are.”

I knew enough of him by now to be sure that he had not finished. “How do you know that?” I said.

“I’ve seen ‘em. During the night I seemed to remember that the bank there isn’t quite straight like the rest. It’s been worn into a bit of a bow. At first I thought it could have been worn away by the ships or barges or whatever they were using. Then it occurred to me that the stones themselves would have gradually worn away the edge if they’d been pushed into the water.”

“That’s possible,” I agreed. “If anyone had any reason for doing it.”

“That’s what I wanted to find out. So I took along one of the inflatable mattresses and floated out a bit on it. It gets deep fairly rapidly but sixty yards or so out you can still see the bottom clearly. And that’s where the stones are.”

“But that’s crazy. Or — you mean the bottom of the canal is paved with them?”

Peter drew on his cigarette. “No I don’t. You see, what they apparently were wanted for was — building.”

Somewhere in the middle of the following night the rocket fell over — and an exceedingly lucky thing it was for all of us that our couches were free in their gimbals. Since one of their main purposes was to take up shock, none of us suffered more than an abrupt awakening. Chris sat up and turned on the light. A few loose articles had been thrown into a heap but no damage was done inside.

Peter’s voice said comatosely, “Let the damn thing stay put. It can’t fall any further.”

It seemed sound advice. If the ship were damaged, it would still be just as damaged when daylight came. But that wasn’t Chris’ way. He wanted to be reassured at once. He got out and sorted his clothes from the heap into which they had all been flung.

It was unfortunate for him that he happened to be balanced on one leg in the act of negotiating his pants when the rocket started to roll. He took several staggering hops before he managed to clutch his couch and haul himself aboard, half clad. At that moment the ship came down with a thud and we bounced on our springs.

“What the devil goes on?” Chris demanded as the ship continued to roll.

It was very odd indeed. The Uniac 5 wasn’t a perfect cylinder as you know. The three atmospheric stabilizing fins projected somewhat beyond her greatest girth. They should have made it quite impossible for her to roll. But they didn’t. She rose slightly as she turned, then thud again as we bounced once more. There was a secondary thump as the one port cover that was free dumped down on to its gasket on the turn.

Peter lit a cigarette. “There are two possible explanations,” he observed. “Either the damn planet’s got tilted up someway or something’s shoving. Hell!” he added, as we thudded over again.

Chris glared at him. “Put that thing out. We might fracture a fuel line or something any minute.”

Peter obliged and lay back. We swung in the gimbals while the place turned round us and thudded over again. “And something with a mighty powerful shove too,” he added.

Chris was reaching for a locker door. By the time he had got it open we had turned further so that the entire contents of the cupboard fell out on him — but he succeeded in grabbing the thing he wanted, a flashlight. When the port cover swung free he turned the beam on the port itself.

It was quite useless. The fused- quartz surface just reflected the light, making the darkness outside seem yet denser. Chris cursed. We continued to turn with regular thuds. The port cover looked like buckling its hinges. The next time it thudded shut he jumped down to secure it and managed to get back just before we went over again. He sat there considering for some moments.

Then, choosing his time carefully, he climbed to the pilot-seat and set it free to swing in its gimbals. He considered the instrument board thoughtfully for a minute, then depressed one key and held it down. He waited until we had thudded again, then he gave a light touch on another key. A tremor ran through the ship and the turning stopped.

“Fine,” said Peter. “Rout of bug-eyed monster.”

I was irritated. “That kind of fooling doesn’t help. This may be serious,” I said.

He turned an amused eye upon me. “You’ve got a scientific theory,” he said. “But me, I take things as they come — not as I think they ought to come.”

At that moment we began to turn again and thudded down onto the next fin. Chris played his piece on the lateral firing keys once more. We stopped again.

“I was premature,” said Peter, in the following pause. “The bug-eye has patience, and imperviousness to heat—hey! Here we go again!”

We did. It was not until Chris had repeated his treatment five or six times that the pause lengthened so that we began to feel it was permanent. “That would seem to have fixed them,” he said with satisfaction.

“If it is ‘them,’” Peter said. “We might take a look if we didn’t happen to be lying on the entrance port side.”

Next morning, after Chris had rolled us with a lateral blast, we went out to inspect. We now rested somewhat over a hundred yards to the south of our original position. The sand over which the ship had traveled showed not only the indentations made by the fins, but a number of shallow furrows — the kind of track that might be left by a full sack being dragged along. We could make nothing of them. They extended all round the ship as she now lay and stretched away on the other side in a broad trail to the south.

Chris inspected the vessel with increasing relief. “Okay, I think,” he said at length. “We have the local gravity to thank for that. Those fins would never have stood it with her Earth-weight.”

He debated whether to set her up again or not, then decided against it until we knew more about what was moving her. It would not do her any good to be toppled over once more. We decided to follow the trail to the south and see what we could find.

“There’s only one place that can lead,” said Peter and he went into the ship, to emerge shortly carrying a deflated mattress. He was right. The marks kept on approximately in a straight line. The bushes along the way had been flattened as though by a heavy weight. At the canal the trail ended. We examined the bank carefully for signs that a craft had been moored. There weren’t any.

“There’s one answer,” Peter said, looking at me with raised eyebrows.

When we had inflated the mattress we took turns floating a little way out and looking down into the water. I went second, after Chris.

I don’t mind saying that I had doubted Peter. It wasn’t that I thought he was putting up a spoof but I half expected to see something fortuitous though maybe bearing a close resemblance to what he fancied. I was wrong. Hanging my head over the edge of the mattress and shielding off reflections as best I could with my hands, I found myself looking down on no jumble of stones but an orderly collection of buildings.

Their design was, of course, strange, yet with an effort of the imagination one could almost fancy himself looking down from the air upon an alien city. One was built on a hillside and sloped away until it dimmed out of sight in the depths. I stared down at it long and incredulously. It presented so many degrees of improbability beyond the plain fact that it was there at all that I was utterly bewildered. But there was no hallucination about it. I could quite clearly see individual buildings with flat roofs and lane-like streets between them.

I strained my eyes to catch some sign of life or movement down there but saw none save a few small fish-like creatures idling along or nosing inquisitively into crevices. Then I noticed something more. In one or two of the upper buildings that I could see most clearly roof-slabs had fallen in and had not been replaced.

And on considering a ‘street’ which lay directly beneath me I observed that it was carpeted with weed which stirred as if in a slight current. Its untouched appearance in conjunction with the rest made me feel that I was looking down upon a deserted place. After a lengthy inspection which told me no more, I paddled back to the others on the bank. Peter looked inquisitive without speaking.

“I don’t understand it. I don’t understand it at all,” I admitted. “They can’t be houses that have been submerged. Yet they are simply a dry-land type under water. If we grant for a moment the possibility of an intelligent swimming creature — then we must admit that this is simply not the kind of structure it would build. The design just wouldn’t suit its nature or its needs. To assume that a creature able to move up and down as easily as sideways would adopt the same general forms we find convenient is arrant nonsense.”

Peter nodded. “For once we agree. And that leaves us with a choice of two possibilities, doesn’t it? Either the places were built by some approximately human types and later submerged — which, as you say, doesn’t look likely. Or whatever built them does not swim.”

“Some bottom-dwelling form — like a crab, for instance,” Chris suggested.

“Maybe — or maybe something not a bit like a crab. Somehow I don’t see any crustacean evolving a high IQ,” Peter replied.

“If there is anything there now,” I said, “it seems to have abandoned the shallower parts for the deeps.”

“Of course there’s something there,” Peter put in. “Our rocket didn’t roll by itself.”

We paused, contemplating the possibilities for a moment.

“Well, there’s one way of finding out — and that’s to go down and have a look,” Chris said.

The rest of the day he spent tinkering with one of our hitherto unused spacesuits. “I don’t see why it shouldn’t make a perfectly good diving suit,” he explained. “I know the pressure will be inverted but it won’t be great here even if the depth is considerable — which doesn’t seem likely. The trouble will be to keep down. Everything weighs so damned little.”

That night I was awakened from a dream of touring Mars along the bottoms of endless canals by a familiar bump. “Good old bug-eyes back again,” muttered Peter.

Chris grunted and swung himself into his chair. He repeated his counter measures but this time they were less effective in dealing with whatever was outside. Sometimes the motion was checked briefly, sometimes not at all. With a gesture of irritation he changed his tactics and let off a blast on the other side. The ship suddenly reversed her roll and thudded back. That seemed more effective.

Half an hour passed. But then we began to tilt again. Chris held his hand until we were on top center of the supporting fin and then let the foreside laterals have it again. We dropped back. Then a kind of seesaw contest went on for awhile. He began to look a little worried, reflecting, I believe, my own expression. “We’ve got a good fuel margin,” he said. “All the same we won’t be able to keep this up indefinitely.”

However the same appeared to apply to whatever was doing the pushing. After a bit more back and forth it — or they — apparently decided to call it off for the night.

By daylight we saw that the night’s work had been poorer from their point of view. Nevertheless the rocket now lay some thirty yards further in the direction of the canal. Chris climbed into the spacesuit on the bank. Before he closed the helmet he strapped on a belt hung with such weighty and portable objects as he could find and we fixed a spare air bottle in place on his back.

It had been arranged that Peter should float above him and observe for as long as he was able while I watched from the bank. I would have liked a running commentary on Chris’s discoveries but the built-in radio was not practical for underwater use.

Chris closed the helmet and tested, then waved his hand to me and began to walk carefully into the water. Peter, lying face down on the mattress, paddled it out slowly with his hands. After little more than a dozen paces Chris’s head disappeared beneath the surface. I sat down and lit a cigarette, watching Peter paddling gently out, pausing now and then and all the time looking steadily down into the water.

About an hour passed. I had got cold sitting there and was walking up and down the bank for exercise. Peter was a hundred and fifty yards or more away. I could see him cupping his hands round his eyes as he peered down. Suddenly he jerked up his head, rocking the mattress violently. His voice came to me in a shout. A moment later there was a splash near him and Chris shot up, rising more than half out of the water. He struck out for the mattress at once. Peter was reaching out a hand to help him aboard.

Then out of the water close behind him something rose, dripping. I can’t say what it was, a sort of grab perhaps — or a kind of claw. It moved too quickly. It swung over and fell on Chris and Peter with a mighty splash.

When the spray dropped there was nothing there.

I stood frozen while the ripples spread out and came lapping to my feet. Then I suppose I ran back and forth along the water’s edge, crazily wringing my hands. I can’t be sure — I was half out of my mind.

You see, there was something worse than losing my friends, worse than horror of whatever dwelt in the canal. I was suddenly alone, utterly alone, alone as a man has never been alone before. And all at once I was terribly afraid — afraid of the unbroken silence all round me — deadly afraid of fear itself.

You know how fear can tread close on your heels when you are alone on a dark night? This was something worse than that. Far, far worse — and in full sunlight. I was a mote, a tiny speck of life, the only thing that moved on the face of all that dreadful land — the only human soul in millions of miles of space.

I felt that I must burrow. I was a frightened shell-less creature that must dig itself in somewhere and side. Agoraphobia they call that — it’s so easy to pin a long name on what you have never felt. There was only one place I could hide. How I forced myself along that journey back to the rocket I don’t know. But once I was inside I slammed the port behind me and screwed it shut I was shaking like a man with a fever. The sweat and tears ran down my face together. I don’t understand it. I’m not a lot afraid of death — if I were I’d never have been there. I guess fear’s a lot more frightening than death somehow…

By the time night fell I had recovered a bit. Safe in a hiding hole I had been able to calm off gradually. I even made myself eat. But sleep of course was out of the question. I sat there in the silence, straining my ears for some sound to tell me that the creatures from the canal were coming again. I didn’t hear it but they came all right.

Sitting in Chris’ seat I felt the ship begin to roll. I did my best to imitate the movements he had made, but my knowledge of the controls was picked up from watching him and I hadn’t his touch. I wasn’t clear what I was supposed to be doing and I made a mess of it. Once or twice, by luck, I did something which gave the creature — or creatures — outside reason to pause and I did jerk the ship around a bit. But mostly it was ineffective. And they kept right on moving the ship.

Then, remembering Chris’ concern, I got into a panic at the thought of the good fuel I was wasting. It was a choice of evils but at least the thing outside was making pretty slow work of it. I made myself climb over to my berth and kept myself swinging there while the place continued to turn round me in jerks — thud — thud — thud.

The early light showed me that the night’s stint had shifted me a full three hundred yards nearer the canal. Two more nights at that rate would see the Uniac 5 pretty close to the water’s edge. The choice was clear enough — either she and I went down into the canal together or I risked trying to take her off. Well, you could scarcely call that a choice— it was just a chance and a poor one, I thought.

It took all my resolution to get me outside again but I did it. And I had the luck to find an outcrop of rock to which I could hitch the raising gear and save myself the labor of driving an anchor. While the engine was bringing her up slowly I studied Chris’ tables.

Take-off time there worked out just an hour or so after sunset. That was plain easy figuring — but I wasn’t risking it. I put the time forward a couple of hours and worked out the allowances — not such plain figuring but well worth the trouble.

I had my heart in my mouth when I did start. But it turns out there’s not a lot to shooting them off — any fool can do it with the tables, especially against Mars gravity. It’s bringing them down that takes skill — and I didn’t have any.

Well, that’s the way Jeremy told it to me. And when he had finished I said, “But these things in the canal — you must have some idea what they were like?”

“No,” he said. “I never saw them.”

That’s just one of the questions a lot of people have asked him since then.

The prosecution, having obtained a ruling that a ship in Space beyond the limits of Earth’s atmosphere should be considered a part of that territory wherein it was registered, has set out to prove that in fact Mars has not been reached. If this can be established, all claims to prizes will, of course, be conveniently invalidated.

For this purpose they have been calling a great deal of expert talent to the witness stand. Men with famous names have stood there to give scientific proof that Jeremy Chambet is lying. They have shown on scientific grounds that Mars cannot have a breathable atmosphere, that the canali are not canals, that whatever they are there cannot be any appreciable quantity of water in them.

Also that the chances against any form of life familiar to us — and certainly any intelligence of the human type — having ever developed there are so great as to make the whole idea sheer moonshine, that Jeremy cannot describe his creatures from the canals because there could not be any such. Nor could any form his imagination might create make their existence credible even to his own reason. That, in fact, every word of his story is a fabrication and a fraud.

Bitterest of all, they bring up against him his own scientifically deduced opinions of the conditions that must logically prevail on Mars written, some of them years before the Uniac 5 took off on its long journey.

Maybe the shade of Peter Quorridge is having a quiet laugh some place.

“But you yourself advanced this as scientific finding,” they say to Jeremy.

“I know,” he admits miserably. “But I was wrong.”

“Colleagues of yours have checked the deductions and support them.”

“I know,” he says again. “But they are wrong.”

“You deny the validity of scientific findings then?”

“I…” He raises his eyes. He gazes helplessly round the courtroom meeting the looks of men whose scientific integrity he has always revered, men of his own circle. He looks down at the floor. “I don’t know — now,” he murmurs.

And there he sits, looking a little more shrunken and gray each day as the logic of scientific conclusion piles up against him. A very bewildered man, for how can the findings of science be wrong?

And, you know, when he told his story to me I didn’t feel that he was inventing any of it. So I can’t believe they’ll actually pillory him — at least, I hope not.

Jizzle (1949)

The first thing that Ted Torby saw, when his reluctant eyelids had gathered enough strength to raise themselves, seemed to be a monkey, perched on the top of the cupboard, watching him. He sat bolt upright with a jerk that joggled Rosie awake and shook the whole trailer.

“Oh, God!” he said. It was a tone which held more of depressed realization than surprise. He closed his eyes, and then looked again, hard. The monkey was still there, staring from round, dark eyes.

“What’s the matter?” Rosie asked sleepily. Then she saw the direction of his gaze. “Oh, that! Serves you right.”

“It’s real?” said Ted.

“Of course it’s real. And lie down. You’ve pulled all the bedclothes off me.”

Ted leant back, keeping his eyes fixed warily on the monkey. Slowly, and hindered by a painful throbbing in his head, memories of the evening began to reassemble. “I’d forgotten,” he said.

“I don’t wonder — seeing the way you came home,” said Rosie, dispassionately. “I expect you’ve got a lovely head,” she added, with a slightly sadistic shading.

Ted did not answer. He was remembering about the monkey.

“How much did you give for that?” asked Rosie, nodding at it.

“Couple o’ quid,” said Ted.

“Two good pounds for that,” she said with disgust. “And you call your customers mugs!”

Ted made no response. In point of fact, it had been ten pounds, but he did not feel equal to meeting the storm that the admission would arouse. And he’d beaten the man down from fifteen, so it was a bargain. A big mano he was, speaking a nautical form of English heavily adulterated with some kind of French. He had made his brief entry into Ted’s life while the latter was in The Gate & Goat soothing his hard-worked throat after the evening’s work. Ted had not been greatly interested. He had, in his time, refused to buy all manner of things in bars from bootlaces to ferrets. But the man had been quietly persistent. Somehow he had got himself into the position of standing Ted a drink, and after that he had the advantage. Ted’s protests that he had nothing to do with the circus proper, and that he was utterly indifferent to its fauna, save for such rats as occasionally ventured into the trailer, made no impression at all. The man’s conviction that every person connected with the showground must have an encyclopedic knowledge of the whole brute creation was unshakable: all protestation was merely a form of sales resistance. He had then proceeded to talk with such animation across several relays of drinks of the attainments and charming qualities of something he referred to as ma petite Giselle that Ted had found it necessary to remind himself from time to time that the subject had not shifted beneath their tongues, and it was still a monkey that was under discussion.

In a way, it was hard luck on the mano that he should have chosen Ted for his approach, since Ted himself had been spending the earlier part of the evening in persuading the reluctant to part with half-crowns of known qualities in exchange for bottles of merely hypothetical virtue. But Ted was not mean-minded. He followed the technique with the attention of a connoisseur and was prepared to concede that the man wasn’t doing too badly, for an amateur. Nevertheless, it was scarcely to be expected that even the utmost perfervour and intensity could win more than his detached, and unprofitable, professional approval. Rosie’s crack about mugs had more spite than substance. The matter should have ended there, with the man butting at the immovable. Indeed, there it would have ended had not the man added a new accomplishment to the list of his Giselle’s remarkable qualities.

Ted had smiled. Sooner or later, the amateur always over-reaches himself. It was safe enough to say that the creature was clean, attractive, intelligent, for these qualities are conveniently relative. It was not dangerous even to say that it was “educated” — there being no public examination to set a standard of simian learning. But in making a definite claim which could be put to the test, the man’s inexperience was laying him wide open to trouble. At that point Ted had agreed to go to see the prodigy. The concession was almost altruistic: he did not believe a word of it, but neither did he mean trouble. He was the man of experience showing the promising beginner the kind of trouble he might have landed himself in by a simple divergence from the debatable to the disprovable.

It had been quite a shock, therefore, to find that the monkey was fully up to specification.

Ted had watched it, first patronisingly, then incredulously, and finally with an excitement which it required all his skill in deadpanning to disguise. Casually he offered five pounds. The man asked the ludicrous sum of fifteen. Ted would willingly have given fifty had it been necessary. In the end they compromised on ten and a bottle of whisky that Ted had intended to take home. There had been one or two drinks from the bottle to clinch the deal. After that, nothing was very clear, but evidently he had got back somehow  — and with the monkey.

“It’s got fleas,” said Rosie, wrinkling her nose.

“It’s a female,” said Ted. “And monkeys don’t have fleas. They just do that.”

“Well, if isn’t looking for fleas, what is it doing?”

“I read somewhere that it’s something to do with perspiration — anyway, they all do it.”

“I can’t see that that’s much better,” said Rosie.

The monkey broke away from its interests for a moment and looked seriously at both of them. Then it gave a kind of snickering noise.

“What’s it do that for?” Rosie asked.

“How would I know? — They just do.”

Ted lay and contemplated the monkey for a while. It was predominantly light brown, shot with occasional silver. Its limbs and tail seemed curiously long for its body. From a black wrinkled face in a round, low-browed head two large eyes, looking like black glass marbles with sorrowful depths, scrutinized first one and then the other with such directness that one almost expected it to produce some sign of opinion. However, it merely returned to its own interests with an indifference which was in itself vaguely offensive.

Rosie continued to regard it without favour. “Where are you going to keep it? I’m not going to have it in here.”

“Why not?” asked Ted. “She’s quite clean.”

“How do you know? You were tight when you bought it.”

“I got tight after I’d bought her. And don’t keep on calling her it. She’s a her. You get annoyed with me when I call a baby it, and it’s probably a lot more important to monkeys than it is to babies. And her name’s Jizzle.”

“Jizzle?” repeated Rosie.

“A French name,” Ted explained.

Rosie remained unimpressed. “All the same, I don’t hold with keeping her here. It’s not decent.”

Jizzle was at the moment in a complicated and unornamental attitude. She had disposed her right foot round her neck and was absorbed in an intense study of the back of her right knee.

“She’s no ordinary monkey — she’s educated,” said Ted.

“Educated she may be, but she’s not refined. Look at her now.”

“What —? Oh, well, monkeys, you know — “ Ted said vaguely. “But I’ll show you how educated she is. Worth a fortune. You watch.”

There could be no doubt whatever; one demonstration was enough to convince the most prejudiced that Jizzle was a gold mine.

“I wonder why he sold it — her?” said Rosie. “He could have made a fortune.”

“I guess he just wasn’t a showman — or a businessman,” Ted added. After breakfast he went out of the trailer and looked at his stand. It had an inscription across the front: —

Dr. Steven’s

Psychological Stimulator

About the rostrum boldly lettered posters asked; —

Is Hesitation Hindering Your Career?

Is Your Mind a Flip-Flap?

or stated: —

A Steady Mind is a Ready Mind

Planned Thinking Pays

Snap Beats Flap
and advised: —

Direct Your Own Destiny

Mobilize Mentally and Make Money

Plan Your Prosperity

For the first time the array failed to please him. Also for the first time he was astonished to think of the number of half-crowns it had helped to draw in exchange for the omnipotent Famous World-Unique Mental Tonic.

“May as well ditch this lot,” he said. “We’ll need a tent with benches and a stage.”

Then he went back to the trailer and turned Rosie out. “I got to think,” he explained. “I got to work out the patter and the publicity, and we’ll get you a new dress for the act.”

The tryout took place a couple of days later before a critical audience drawn from the profession. It included Joe Dindell, more widely known as El Magnifico of Magnifico and His Twenty Man-Eating Lions, Dolly Brag or Gipsy Clara, George Haythorpe from the Rifle-Range, Pearl Verity (nee Jedd), the Only Authentic Three-Legged Woman in the World, and a sprinkling of others from both the main and side shows.

The tent was not as large as Ted would have liked, and incapable of seating more than sixty persons, but better things would come. Meanwhile, he made his appearance before the curtain and delivered the build-up as though he addressed the rising tiers in a super-cinema. It was in the approved style of superlative, and when it ended with the phrase: “ — and now. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the greatest — the unbelievable — the supreme wonder of the animal world — JIZZLE!” the applause had a quality of discriminating appreciation.

As Ted concluded he had moved to the left. Now, as the curtains drew away, he turned, left hand extended towards the centre of the stage. Rosie, having hurriedly fixed the curtain, tripped a few steps on from the other side, stopped with her knees bent in a species of curtsy, projected charm at the audience, and extended her right hand to the centre of the stage. Between them stood an easel bearing a large pad of white paper and beside it, on a square table with a red fringed top, sat Jizzle. She was clad in a bright yellow dress, and a pill-box hat with a curled red feather: for the moment she had pulled the dress aside and was searching beneath it with great application.

Both Ted’s smile and Rosie’s were property affairs which could have deceived no one. A few minutes earlier she had flatly and finally declined to wear the new dress he had designed for her. “I don’t care,” she said. “I’ve told you I won’t, and I won’t. You can dress your beastly monkey how you like, but you won’t make me dress like it. I’m surprised at you asking it. Whoever heard of a man dressing his wife like a monkey?”

It was in vain that Ted protested she had it the wrong way round. Rosie’s mind was made up. She would appear in the costume in which she was accustomed to hand out bottles of the Psychological Stimulator, or not at all. To Ted’s mind it pettily ruined his whole carefully planned effect. It was unfortunate that her brown hair was of much the same shade as the dominant colour of Jizzle’s fur, but merely a coincidence.

Ted, after a few more high commendations of his protegee, moved over to the easel and stood beside it, facing the house. Rosie advanced, shifted the table with Jizzle upon it in front of the easel, and handed something to the monkey. Almost before she was able to bob and beam and resume her place, Jizzle was on her feet with her left hand holding on to the side of the pad, her right hand drawing swiftly. An astonished muttering broke out among the spectators. Her technique would not have met with approval in art schools, and it gave a certain simian flavour, hitherto unnoticed in her subject by others, but the final likeness to Ted was indisputable. Sheer amazement made the applause a trifle slow in starting, but when it came it was wholehearted.

Ted tore off the sheet and moved away, graciously waving Rosie into his place. She took it with a smile that was resolutely fixed. Ted pinned his picture to the back of the stage while Jizzle drew again. Once more the likeness was remarkable, though perhaps the simian quality was a shade more to the fore. Ted felt that from the domestic angle it was possibly just as well after all that Rosie had not worn the dress. Even so, the audience’s laugh put Rosie’s professional expression to a test which it only just survived.

“Now, if any lady or gentleman in the audience — ?” suggested Ted.

Joe Dindell was the first to oblige. Powerful and massive, he stalked onto the stage to take up one of his best El Magnifico poses beside the easel. Ted continued to try out his patter while Jizzle drew. She needed no persuasion. The moment one sheet was torn off she started on the next as if the plain paper were an irresistible invitation to doodle between clients. Once or twice Ted let her finish, making it clear that she was able to repeat from memory as well as draw from direct observation. By the end of the show the stage was decorated with portraits of the whole of the small audience who were clustered round, wringing Ted’s hand, predicting overwhelming success, and inspecting Jizzle as if they were even yet not quite convinced of what they had seen. The only person who held a little aloof in the celebration which followed was Rosie. She sat sipping her drink and speaking little. From time to time she turned a gloomy, speculative look on the self-occupied Jizzle.

Rosie found it difficult to be clear in her own mind whether she disliked Jizzle because she was unnatural, or because she was too natural. Both were, in her view, sound bases for distaste, Jizzle was abnormal, a freak, and it was natural to feel that way about a freak — except, of course, those like Pearl whom one knew well. On the other hand, certain frankness which would have been unperturbing in a dog, became embarrassing when displayed by a creature, and particularly a female creature, which providence had privileged to be at least a kind of burlesque of the form divine. There was also Jizzle’s attitude. It was true that monkeys often snickered; it was true that by the law of averages some of these snickers must be ill-timed — but still…

All the same, Jizzle became the third occupant of the trailer.

“She’s going to be worth thousands of pounds to us — and that means she’s worth thousands to others, too,” Ted pointed out. “We can’t risk having her pinched. And we can’t risk her getting ill, either. Monkeys need warm places to live in.” Which was all quite true; and so Jizzle stayed.

From the first performance of the act, there was not an instant’s doubt of its success. Ted raised the admission from one shilling to one-and-six, and then to two shillings, and the price of a Jizzle “original” from half-a-crown to five shillings without any loss of patronage. He opened negotiations for a larger tent.

Rosie tolerated her position as handmaiden for just one week, and then struck. The audience laughed at each of Jizzle’s drawings, but Rosie’s sensitive ear detected a different note when they saw the portrait of her. It rankled. “It — she makes me look more monkey-like every time. I believe she does it on purpose,” she said. “I won’t stand there and be made a fool of by a monkey.”

“Darling, that’s sheer imagination. All her drawing is a bit monkeyish — after all, it’s only natural,” Ted remonstrated.

“It’s more so when it’s me.”

“Now, do be reasonable, darling. What would it matter anyway, even if it were so?”

“So you don’t mind your wife being jeered at by a monkey?”

“But that’s ridiculous, Rosie. You’ll get used to her. She’s a nice friendly little thing, really.”

“She isn’t, not to me. She keeps on watching and spying on me all the time.”

“Come now, darling, hang it all — “

“I don’t care what you say, she does. She just sits there watching and snickering. I suppose she’s got to live in the trailer; I’ll have to put up with that, but I’ve had enough of her in the act. You can do it without me. If you must have someone, get Ireen from the Hoop-La. She won’t mind.”

Ted was genuinely distressed, and more at the troubled state of the larger partnership than the breaking up of the act. It was indisputable that something had happened and kept on happening to it since Jizzle’s arrival. It took the gilt off a lot of things. He and Rosie had always got along so well together. He had wanted her to have more pleasures and comforts than the returns from Dr. Steven’s Stimulator could provide; and now that the big chance had come, discord had arrived with it. No one acquiring such a valuable property as Jizzle could afford not to exploit her properly. Rosie was perfectly well aware of that — but, well, women got such strange fixed ideas. Upon that, he had an idea himself. He made a discreet search to discover if Rosie had been sewing any small garments in secret — apparently she had not.

Business thrived. Ted’s show was promoted to mention on the advance bills. Jizzle also thrived, and settled in. She took to Ted’s left shoulder as her favourite perch, which was somehow slightly flattering, and also had publicity value, but domestically things went the other way. Little was to be seen of Rosie during the day. She .seemed always to be helping or drinking cups of tea in some other caravan. If Ted had to go out on business he had to shut Jizzle up in the trailer alone when he felt that both her safety and well-being demanded someone to look after her. But his single suggestion that Rosie might act as guardian had met with so quiet yet determined a rebuff that he did not like to repeat it. At night Rosie did her best to ignore Jizzle altogether; the monkey responded with sulky moods which broke on occasion into snickers. At such times Rosie would relinquish indifference, and glare at her angrily. She gave it as her opinion that even the lions were more companionable creatures. But Rosie herself was far less companionable than before. Ted was aware of an uninterest and grudgingness in her that had never been there before, and he was puzzled: the money that now rolled in was by no means everything.

Had he not been a reasonable, clear-thinking man, he might have begun to feel some resentment against Jizzle, himself.

The puzzle was to a great extent resolved on a night when Jizzle had already been an established success for six weeks. Ted came back to the trailer later than usual. He had had several drinks, but he was not drunk. He walked into the trailer with a sheet of paper rolled in his hand, and stood looking down at Rosie, who was already in bed.

“You!’’ he said. He leaned over and smacked her face hard.

Rosie, startled out of a half-sleep, was as much bewildered as hurt. Ted glared down at her. “Now I understand quite a lot. Spying on you, you said. God, what a mug I’ve been! No wonder you didn’t want her around.”

“What are you talking about?” Rosie demanded, tears in her eyes.

“You know. I expect everyone knows but me.”

“But, Ted—”

“You can save your breath. Look at this!”

He unrolled the sheet of paper before her. Rosie stared at it. It was surprising how much obscene suggestion could reside in a few simple lines. “While I was doing the patter,” Ted said. “All sniggering their bloody heads off before I saw what was happening. Damn funny, isn’t it?” He looked down at the drawing. There could not be a moment’s doubt for any who knew them that the woman and man involved were Rosie and El Magnifico...

Rosie flushed to her hair. She jumped from the bed and made a vicious grab at the top of the cupboard. Jizzle evaded her skilfully. Ted caught her arm and jerked her back. “It’s too late for that now,” he said.

The flush had gone, leaving her face white. “Ted,” she said. “You don’t believe…”

“Spying on you!” he repeated.

“But, Ted, I didn’t mean…”

He slapped her again across the face. Rosie caught her breath; her eyes narrowed. “Damn you! Damn you!” she said and went for him like a fury.

Ted reached one hand behind him and unlatched the door. He turned round with her and thrust her outside. She stumbled down the three steps, tripped on the hem of her nightdress, and fell to the ground. He slammed the door shut and snapped the bolt. Up on the cupboard Jizzle snickered. Ted threw a saucepan at her. She dodged it and snickered again.

The next morning an air of concern spread outwards from the office where the manager and the ringmaster were considering the problem of finding at short notice a man of presence and intrepid appearance to take charge of the lion act. Quite half the day passed before anyone but Ted knew that Rosie also was missing.

Ted went through the next few days with remorse putting increasing pressure on righteous anger. He had not realized what Rosie’s absence would mean. He had done, as he saw it, the only thing a man could do in the circumstances — but very bitterly was he aware of the craven wish that he had never learnt the circumstances.

Jizzle’s confident predilection for his shoulder as a perch became a source of irritation. He took to pushing her off impatiently. But for the damned monkey he never need have known about Rosie ... He began to hate the sight of Jizzle.

For a week he continued to give the show, mechanically, but with increasing distaste; then he approached George Haythorpe of the Rifle Range. George reckoned it could be done. Muriel, his wife, could easily manage the Range with a girl to help her; he himself was willing to take over Jizzle and run the act with Ted retaining a 20% interest in the gross.

“That is,” George added, “if the monkey’ll stand for it. She seems mighty attached to you.”

For a day or two that appeared to be the most doubtful aspect of the arrangement. Jizzle continued to attach herself to Ted, and to watch him rather than George for instructions. But gradually, by patient and repeated removal, the change in mastery was made plain to her, whereupon she sulked for two days before deciding to accept it.

It was a relief to be free of Jizzle — but it did not bring back Rosie. The trailer seemed emptier than ever. After a few days of morbid inactivity, Ted took himself in hand. He pulled out his old stock, unrolled some of the old bills for the Psychological Stimulator and lettered some new ones: —

Modernize Your Mentality

Confidence Creates Cash

A Keen Mind Is a Key Mind

In a short while he was back at the old stand and the mugs were putting up their half-crowns with a will — but it wasn’t quite the same without Rosie handing out the bottles.

Jizzle had now settled in well with George. The act was on its feet again and playing to capacity, but he’d felt no tinge of jealousy or regret as he watched the crowds going in. Even his share of the takings brought him little pleasure; they still linked him with Jizzle. He would have given them all up on the spot just to have Rosie beside him again as he shouted the merits of his elixir. He began to try to trace her, but without success.

A month passed before a night on which Ted was awakened by a knock on the trailer door. His heart thumped. Even at that moment he had been dreaming of Rosie. He jumped out of bed to open the door.

But it was not Rosie. It was George, with Jizzle on his shoulder and one of the Range rifles in his hand. “What — began Ted dazedly. He had been so sure it was Rosie.

“I’ll show you what, you bastard,” said George, “just look at that!”

He brought forward his other hand with a sheet of paper in it.

Ted looked. Compromising would have been the severest understatement for the attitude in which George’s wife, Muriel, was displayed with Ted.

He raised his horrified eyes.

George was lifting the rifle. On his shoulder Jizzle snickered.

The Living Lies (1946)

I

Five little Green girls wrangled on the sidewalk; the central disputants held, one the legs, and the other the arms, of a large doll. “You said I could have her to-day,” yelled Legs, bitterly.

“No, I didn’t. You had her yesterday,” screamed Arms. “I want her.”

“You said I could,” Legs persisted doggedly.

“She’s mine. You let her go.” Arms tugged violently. The doll’s stitches strained, but it held together. “ Will you let go?” howled the one who held the arms.

On the last word she tugged with all her weight. The suffering doll’s arms tore off. The child, still holding them, staggered back and fell into the roadway. Her shriek, as a wheel crushed her, was drowned in the screams of her four little friends.

Leonie Ward, her hands on the wheel, her foot hard down on the brake, did not scream. Something seemed to take her by the throat, she felt her heart turn over inside her and her face went sickly pale. For an instant everything appeared to stop, held in a ghastly tableau. The people transfixed in the street, the car hanging on its gyroscopes, Leonie frozen in the driving seat; the only sound an unforgettable scream.

A woman flung herself into the road and dragged the child’s crushed body from between the wheels. For a moment she clasped it, then she looked up. The girl, half-stunned, had not moved from the wheel; she shivered as their eyes met. The woman’s face and the hands were as green as those of the child she held; it made her hatred and anguish the more horribly terrifying. Without lowering her burning eyes, crouched with the dead child pressed against her, she began to scream threats and curses.

There was a crowd round the car now, a ring of green faced men and women rapidly pressing closer. Still Leonie sat unmoving, unable to think or act, but feeling the growing hostility of the crowd.

Two burly men in uniform came shouldering their way through the press. They made a strange contrast with the others, since their faces beneath their padded hats and their hands, already clutching batons in readiness for trouble, were a brilliant magenta in colour. They worked close to the cream car and began pushing the people back. “Now then, get along. Move along there.”

One of them went to the mother of the child. Not unkindly he laid a hand on her shoulder. She shook it off, sprang to her feet and spat at him. “Don’t you touch me, you filthy Red.”

There was a murmur in the green-faced crowd. The woman seemed to forget him for a moment. She leaped towards the car and clawed at Leonie through the open window. “You murderess. I’ll kill you for that.”

A uniformed arm came over her shoulder and pulled her away. She turned and raked at the man’s red face with her nails. He put up a hand to save his eyes. “Bloody Green bitch,” he muttered, fending her off.

“D’you hear that? “ she shrieked. “D’you hear what he called me? “

The crowd had. Someone put an arm round the red man’s throat and dragged him backwards. Half a dozen green-faced men and women leapt upon him; simultaneously his companion went down in a whirl of crashing fists. From one of the fallen policemen came a scream of shuddering agony. It brought Leonie suddenly alive again. In terror she struck at the green arms reaching in to seize her, desperately she sought to restart the engine. With panic in her veins she did not care if she cut down a dozen of the Green people if she could only thrust clear of the mob. But even as the engine came to life she felt the car rise and sway and knew that they had lifted the driving wheel clear off the ground. A green hand caught her wrist and wrenched it off the wheel, she was dragged half out of the window. Her shoulder socket hurt like fire; she felt her arm being torn off like the doll’s. A row of gloating green faces awaited her. Then the whole car tilted beneath her and a curtain of black fell over everything.

She was lying on her back, looking up at a white ceiling. There was a moment before it all came back, then, fearfully, she turned her head. Close beside her she saw a face that was not green, magenta or black, but the pink and white of her own race. She burst into tears of relief, aware through them of a hand which patted her shoulder and a voice which tried to soothe her, but unable to stop the storm of weeping. “I’m sorry,” she said at last, as it subsided. “I’m sorry to be such a fool.”

“Nonsense,” a voice told her. “Best thing you could have done. Now drink this. No, don’t try to move. I’ll hold it.” A hand raised her head slightly. Another held a glass to her lips. The spirit stung her throat, but it worked like an elixir. In a few minutes she began to feel like an utterly new person.

She turned and studied the man beside her. Later middle aged, fifty-five, perhaps sixty, she judged. His hair was mostly grey, and surmounted a finely shaped, ascetic type of face. The eyes were grey, too, and kindly, with fine webs of little wrinkles at the corners; the mouth was firm, but without hardness.

“What happened? Where am I? Who are you? “ she asked, almost in one sentence.

The man smiled. “My name is Francis Clouster and this is my house. A friend of mine brought you here.”

But how did I get out of that crowd? “

“He’ll be able to tell you that better than I can. I’ll call him.” He went to the door and opened it. “Jimmy,” he said, “the lady would like to see you.”

Leonie recoiled involuntarily at the sight of the man who came in. She had expected a man of her own kind. The newcomer was green as a grass lawn. The two men either did not notice or affected not to notice her movement.

“This is Jimmy Craven,” the older man introduced, “Miss ... ? “

“Leonie Ward,” Leonie told them.

“Miss Ward would like to hear what happened, Jimmy,” said the older.

“I happened to be there when the accident took place,” the Green man said. “It was quite obvious to anyone who saw it that no driver could have avoided it. You were as quick on the brake as anyone could possibly be. No blame whatever can be attached to you. But most of the people who were in the crowd didn’t actually see it happen. Even so, it might have passed off quietly except for that Red policeman.

“Just as your car went over, a squad of Red police turned up. Green police might have smoothed things over, but that mob was just right for trouble with Reds, they’d killed two already, and they went baldheaded for this lot. In the mix-up I saw that half-crazy woman making for you. Your left arm was jammed under the car so that you couldn’t have fought her off, even if you’d been conscious. So I chased her off, managed to get your arm free, and carried you out of the mess. If anybody noticed they probably thought you were an injured Green, because I’d put a rug over you.”

Leonie was watching him as he talked, deciding that he was personable and, but for his colouring, might have been handsome. Possibly in the eyes of another Green he actually was so. She thanked him as he stopped. He shook his head. “It was common justice. The accident was in no way your fault. That women was crazy enough to have killed you or defaced you for life. If you don’t mind my saying so, it was extremely rash of you to come here alone at all. And in the circumstances you are lucky to have got off as lightly as you have done.”

“I don’t feel as if I had got off exactly lightly.”

“You’ve been pretty well bruised,” put in Clouster, “but your main injuries are a compound fracture of the left forearm and a badly strained right shoulder.”

“I wonder the shoulder wasn’t dislocated; it felt like it. But, tell me, why shouldn’t I have come here alone? “

“I should have thought that was obvious enough.”

“Do you mean I might have been attacked even if there had not been an accident? “

“I do.”

“But why? “

Her host and the Green man looked at one another. “Weren’t you warned against it? “ Clouster asked.

“Oh, yes, they did say something. But they used to tell me to be careful of all sorts of places on Earth and nothing ever happened.”

“Venus,” said Clouster, “is not Earth. Do you mean you’ve only just come here? “

“Well, I’ve only just come back — about a month ago — they sent me to be educated on Earth. I was very young when I left.”

“I see. Well, I’m afraid you’re going to find that a lot of things you can take for granted on Earth are very different on Venus. There is not the problem there of the Reds, the Blacks, the Whites of our kind, and the Greens of Jimmy’s.”

“There are Black men on Earth.”

“So there are, but they have learned to co-operate with Whites and Yellows.”

“They must be very different from our Blacks,” the Green man put in, bitterly. “All ours want to do is to rule.”

He looked up and caught the older man’s expression. “Yes, I know that’s not what you like to hear, Francis, but, hell, it’s true.”

“And the Greens? “ inquired Clouster.

“They want justice and permission to live in peace: is that too much?”

“That’s just what the Blacks tell me.”

“Oh, well, if you believe them.”

“Why not try believing them a bit, Jimmy? After all, what’s the difference beyond the colour of our skins? “

The Green man rose. “Sorry. If you’re going to preach, Francis, I’m leaving. Goodbye, Miss Ward. I’m glad to have been able to help you.”

Francis Clouster looked at the door as it shut. “And there,” he said, turning back to Leonie. “There you have the state of Venus in a nutshell.”

“Tell me some more about it,” Leonie said.

“All right. But hadn’t you better send some message to your family first? I’m afraid it won’t be possible for them to fetch you to-night. There’s too much trouble round here, but you ought to let them know. I’ll bring you the telephone.”

Leonie spoke into the instrument while he held it. It roused in her the feeling, always latent, that in coming back to Venus she had gone back a few centuries. Telephones, because radio wouldn’t work on Venus, but it wasn’t only the lack of radio…

Mr. Mattington Ward returned to the dinner table. “It was Leonie,” he explained to his guests. “She’s over in Chellan. Bit knocked about in a Green and Red riot, I’m afraid. Tells me not to worry, but to come over and fetch her in the morning when the neighbourhood’s quietened down a bit. She’s right, too. Police say there’s quite a bit of trouble down there.

The most important of his guests looked at him hard. Wilfred Baisham, head of the Venus Mineral Products Consolidation, had not only a dominating position, but an authoritative personality. “Chellan? “ he said. “What the devil was your daughter doing in Chellan? “

“Taking a short cut, I understand.” Mr. Ward, if he resented his guest’s tone, did not show it.

“But Chellan! “

“I’ve warned her, of course, but I suppose she didn’t really appreciate it. I don’t suppose it’s too easy for her to grasp at first.”

Mr. Baisham said, weightily: “I don’t approve of the practice of sending Venus-born children to Earth for education. It gives them false standards. How can they be expected to have a proper appreciation of our system when they are educated in another. It just gives them subversive ideas which they have to unlearn before or after they get into trouble.”

Mr. Ward made no reply. Indeed, at the back of his mind, he agreed with his guest. He would have preferred to have Leonie educated at home and would have done so but for the promise he had made to her mother. He had kept that promise in spite of a feeling that he was alienating his child and a fear that she might not be able to feel at home on Venus any more than her Earthborn mother had done.

“Who’s looking after her? “ Mr. Baisham inquired.

“Some people called Clouster, I gather.”

“Oh, yes, I know. Idealists, type that might have been missionaries on Earth at one time. They do some kind of social work in Chellan. They’ll look after her all right.” He smiled at a thought. “Funny, isn’t it, these people who give their lives to spreading brotherly love among Greens, Reds and Blacks. You’d think it would dawn on them that if people have to be told to love one another all the time there must be some pretty good reason why they don’t. But it doesn’t seem to. Well, it’s probably a good thing; it’ll teach your daughter to keep clear of Chellan and such places in future.”

Again Mr. Ward found himself in agreement. Leonie had given him no details of her injuries so that his impression was that she had had a scare — there was nothing like a touch of that kind of wind up to show a girl the necessity for conventions and taboos.

“Now tell me about Venus,” Leonie directed. “Nobody has, except for what I learned at school. It’s all so usual to everyone here that they don’t bother to explain any of it. Now and then they say ‘Don’t,’ that’s all. Now, like the geography books: ‘The inhabitants of Venus are of four types…’”

“…the Whites, the Greens, the Reds and the Blacks,” he took her up. “But I quarrel with your word ‘types.’ They are all the same type — only their skins are different colours.”

“They wouldn’t thank you for that from what I’ve heard.”

He nodded. “They wouldn’t; that’s the tragedy.” He went on to describe the Venusian social state, speaking not as a White, but as one who had tried to consider himself as one of all the four classes. As for the Whites, their position was simple, they were of Earth stock on both sides and some of them actually Earth born. They dominated socially, industrially, commercially: they were, in fact, the undisputed ruling class, they despised the coloured peoples, and the one common sentiment of the three colours was dislike, tempered by fear, of the Whites.

Leonie nodded. “Something like all the little nations on Earth before the Revolutions led up to the Great Union,” she suggested.

“Very like, in some ways,” Francis Clouster agreed, “but even more tragic here. On Earth there were physical differences as well as different languages to be overcome. Here the language is the same, the physical structure is identical. They differ in nothing but their skins — and they do not, they refuse to, know it. My wife and I know it. We have lived among Greens, Reds and Blacks; we have friends of each colour whom we trust, but who would hate one another at sight if we were to allow them to meet. You saw just now how even an intelligent Green reacts when one mentions a Black.”

“But he saved me — a White.”

“Certainly. You are a girl and very good looking. The dislike of the colours for the Whites is different from their dislike of one another, it is based on envy, not contempt. That makes a lot of difference, you see. I don’t want to be uncharitable, but it wouldn’t surprise me to hear that Jimmy is rather fancying himself for having rescued a White girl.”

He went on to talk of the three colours and the hatred they held for one another. How the Reds believed that the Blacks were dirty and dishonest, and the Greens were vicious and sly to a man: how the Greens and Blacks considered the Reds to be bullies and braggarts, frequently unstable in the small amount of brain they possessed. How the children of all three groups grew up in their homes and in their separate schools, hearing these things from their earliest years and believing them.

“There’s a parallel for that, too, in Earth history,” Leonie observed. “There was teaching like that against Jews.”

“Certainly. There are plenty of parallels. Too many. But the good one is yet to come.” He sat silent a minute, lost in thought.

“You mean like the Great Union? “

He nodded. “There was a day on Earth when the people revolted. They refused any longer to be thrown into slaughter of and by people of whom they knew nothing, for the profit of people who exploited them. They rose against it, one, another, and another, to throw out their rulers and rule themselves. And so came the Great Union. Government of the People, by the People, for the People, over the whole Earth. How long will Venus have to wait for that?”

“You are a revolutionary? “

He looked at her steadily. “Yes, I suppose I am that. A revolutionist with no party to lead,” he smiled wryly. “Quite harmless to the Whites and their authorities, I assure you. If I were to collect a following of Greens, the Blacks and Reds would unite to crush us: if I collected Reds the Blacks and Greens would combine. We should slaughter one another while the Whites went on living comfortably, untroubled.”

“But how did this happen? Who are these coloured peoples, where did they come from, and why do they hate one another so much? “

“That is not clear. They are said to be descendants of the first Earthmen who came to Venus long ago and mated with the natives. The theory is that the natives died out from contact with civilisation as some races died on Earth, but not before the ancestors of our present Blacks, Reds and Greens were fairly numerous.”

“What else could it be? “

“Exactly. What else? “

Leonie had opened her mouth to speak again when the door suddenly swung wide. A young man, green as her rescuer had been, strode in without noticing her where she lay on the daybed.

“Hullo, Dad, is Mother a...” he broke off suddenly as he caught sight of her. There was a moment’s silence. “Is Mother Clouster about, Francis? “ he asked, in an uncertain tone.

II

Leonie returned home to spend her convalescence in her father’s house on a slight rise overlooking the city of Tailor. The period coincided with that nostalgic depression which afflicts all but a few of the new arrived or newly returned on Venus. Leonie felt it the more since the best antidote of exercise was barred for her.

The garden was planted in pathetic imitation of gardens on Earth, with plants and flowers specially imported, yet in spite of sunlight lamps and prepared soil the blooms were pallid versions of those which grew naturally in Earthly gardens. They were unnatural, too, in losing their seasons, so that here, at the end of the Venus winter, Leonie discovered spring and autumn flowers struggling into bloom together. From the terrace where she spent most of her time she could make out the suburbs, Chellan where the Greens lived, Barro the Red quarter, Tingan which was almost entirely Blacks.

And in each she could see the big blocks of factories and warehouses where the people worked. North lay the cleared and cultivated country where they grew either indigenous crops or species bred by careful crossing with strains from Earth. West, where the ground was lower and waterlogged rose the thick wall of swamp forest cut by the broad channel to the sea. South lay more forest, it looked weakly and unhealthy to her eyes because of the paleness of its green, but, nevertheless, it was formed in reality of sturdy Venusian trees’ quite different from the soft growths of the swamp forest.

Venus knows no horizon line. All the way round the scene grew hazy at the edges, disappearing in the haze which thickened imperceptibly into the clouds. Sometimes above the southern forest she saw the clouds glow red as if a sunset tried to struggle through them; there was a distant, trembling roar and one knew that a rocket ship had arrived or had taken off from the great port clearing twenty miles beyond the city.

It was the haze and the ever-hanging clouds which depressed the Earth-accustomed. Never to see the sun, never to have a clear view, never to see a sharp cut shadow on the ground; despite the fact that the light was good its perpetual diffusion made them feel that they were living in a kind of monotony of twilight.

Everybody assured Leonie that this was to be expected; that all newcomers felt a lowering of spirit at first, and that it would pass, but she found it hard to believe. She was aware of a growing dislike for the planet, for its inhabitants, and for the kind of life which lay before her. She did not care for the standards of her father’s friends. She found in them a self-satisfied, almost callous, strain which was continually shocking her Earth-trained mind. The narrowness of their interests bored her and the lavishness of their style of living troubled her.

In Milota, their residential district of Tailor, no luxury that money could buy went unbought. Down in the coloured districts there was poverty and struggle without end, men and women living in warrens which must surely be as bad as those of Earth before the Great Union. Even Rome at its greatest, Leonie felt, could scarcely have shown greater discrepancies, yet it left Milota undisturbed. Beyond the occasional distribution of a little condescending charity Milota maintained its amusements and pursuits as though the people whose labour supported it did not exist.

It was the dull weeks of her convalescence which made her give more attention to those things than she might otherwise have spared; which made her feel strongly the sense of being a stranger among strangers, and set her clinging grimly to anything which made Earth seem closer. Much of her time was spent with a little recorder in her lap through which she dictated endless letter-reels of her impressions to her distant friends. Whenever a mail rocket came in she fell upon the reels addressed to her and hurried away to a quiet corner where she could listen to the little voices coming out of the machine, with her eyes closed, pretending that Venus did not exist. It was no way to cure Earth-sickness, but she did not wish to be cured. For the same reason she burnt herself painfully with her sunlamp, over-using it for fear she might under-use it and grow pale like a true Venus dweller.

There was little company for her during the long days and seldom, except in the evenings, anyone to talk to but the Magenta-Red house servants. From them she learned much to substantiate the things she had heard from Francis Clouster down in Chellan. The mention of a Black or a Green to any of them brought a curl of the lip which, off duty, would undoubtedly have been a sneer. The Reds, she discovered, considered themselves the aristocrats of the coloured peoples, ranking a little below the Whites themselves. It was later she learned directly the Greens’ opinions of the Reds — that not only were they bullies as Clouster had said, but that they were toadies and sycophants of the Whites, who chose them for house-servants and bribed them into meanness. It was impossible to get past those things, in every direction these barriers of colour cropped up — and every worthwhile position was reserved for the Whites.

In those eight weeks was thoroughly planted and set an idea which was never uprooted — that the basis of Venusian society was a state of hatred and spite. By the time she was recovered enough to drive the new car with which her father had replaced the smashed one, spring had come and the vegetation, never slow of growth, was bursting upward and outward with a furious energy almost alarming to a stranger. It was a season when hours of work in the factories had to be cut, and Leonie went out with parties of other Whites to watch the released workers fighting the encroaching forest back from the city’s outskirts and keeping it off the cultivated lands with hatchets and flame throwers.

There were expeditions to the flower groves. She took part in them but they disappointed her. Venusian flowers were almost all simple and primitive, not unlike magnolias, lovely to touch, making the air heavy and sweet with their scent, but appealing little to the eye. All the way they went they passed gangs of Greens or Blacks and sometimes Reds, hacking and burning back the vegetation which threatened to choke the roads.

There was another expedition which took her down to the sea. That was somewhat disappointing, too. The sea when reached looked much as the sea does anywhere else on a dull day, and you couldn’t do anything with it when you got there: you couldn’t go out in a small boat, because one good snap from one of the Saurians and it would be the end of you and the boat; and you couldn’t bathe because the water swarmed with tiny sharp toothed fish who would attack in thousands and have all the flesh off your bones in a few minutes. Even a picnic meal was a fidgety business; one of the party had to act sentry all the time for fear something or other dangerously nasty should come crawling out of the sea. There were occasional longer jaunts by plane to other cities which neither in themselves nor their inhabitants were noticeably different from Tailor.

Leonie began to find the first strangeness wearing off. Her eyes became accustomed to the softer colourings and she began to perceive delicacy of shading where before she had dismissed a view as merely “grey.” The scarcely recognised sense of claustrophobia caused by the hazy blanketing of all horizons began to wear off. But she refused to believe that she liked Venus anymore. The furthest she would go was to admit now that it might be made just tolerable, whereas before she had not believed even that.

One of the first things she had done when she was able to get about was to join a society of Whites which proclaimed charitable and philanthropic intentions towards the less fortunately coloured. It took her one meeting to discover that it existed chiefly to enhance the self-esteem of its own members, and three to resign, somewhat curtly, her association with it. Inquiries revealed another society, but one which existed it seemed, solely to rival the first. It took her some little time to get on to the track of one which appeared to have more serious intentions than social ambitions, and it was Francis Clouster who told her of its existence.

She had visited him several times — taking precautions suitable for the district — partly to thank him and his wife, Marion, for their care, but even more because they were the only people she knew who seemed to share in any way her own feelings on the injustices of Venusian life.

She pleased him by her opinion of the societies she had already investigated. “Rubbishy,” he agreed. “The real effect of charitable societies like that is to bolster up the very conditions which make them necessary.”

“But there must be others who are seriously interested? “

He looked at her thoughtfully. “You might try The Pan-Venus Club, perhaps.”

“Do you belong? “

“I did. I — er — fell out with them. It might be wiser not to tell them you know me.”

“Why did you fall out? “

He shrugged. “Difference of views.” Changing the subject he asked: “Do you really still feel as you did, even after living all this time up at Milota? “

“More, I think. I look at the people there, and I remember what happened down here. I can still see that policeman’s horror as he went down, I can still hear him scream as those savages killed him with their bare hands. It’s not the kind of thing one forgets. It means that there’s something dreadfully, tragically wrong underneath. You can’t build up a decent world with that kind of beastliness in the foundations.”

“‘Savages’ isn’t very kind to my friends the Greens.”

“I know, but it’s true. They were savages at that moment. It’s no good pretending they weren’t. The thing to do is to change the system which makes them savages.”

“So easy to say.”

“Yes. I begin to understand what you were telling me more now. But it can be done. If it could be done on Earth, and it was, it can most certainly be done on Venus.”

“It will be — one day.”

She looked at him, wondering at his tone. “You told me you were a revolutionary.”

“I am, but I am not a firebrand. You don’t know these people yet. Still at the back of your mind you feel you have only to say loudly enough ‘Unite and this World is Yours ‘ for them to perceive its truth. I know that that is not the way of it. First you’ve got to make these people want to rescue themselves. You talk to a bunch of, say. Greens on the wage rate — which is disgustingly insufficient. And what do you find their greatest interest is? To raise it, you would say. Well, you’d be wrong. Their real pressing anxiety is lest the Reds or the Blacks get more. That’s the kind of thing you’re up against.”

“But if you show them…”

“They don’t want to be shown, they don’t want reason. They’re too fond of their discontents. Doesn’t that discourage you? “

“Why should you want to discourage me? “

“I don’t. But nor do I want to see you run headlong into trouble — dangerous trouble. If you want to go on, do so by all means, but do it with your eyes open. Know what you are handling, and you may light a lamp on the road to freedom: ignore the human factor and you may be fuel for reaction.”

Francis and Marion Clouster saw her off together as she left. There was a frown on the woman’s face as the car drove off. “What do you think? “ she asked as they went back indoors.

Francis fingered his chin. “Good stuff, but it’s early to judge. Plenty of them came here from Earth feeling just like that. What are they now? Hostesses in the big Milota houses. Crown opinion too strong for them. Still, we shall see, we shall see.”

“I hear she’s seeing a lot of young David Sherrick.”

Francis looked at her in surprise. “Really, the things you manage to hear, shut away down here.”

“That might be interesting, don’t you think?”

“It might — and then again it might be just another couple of young marrieds in a new house on Milota.”

III.

“That girl of yours settling down all right?” inquired Wilfred Baisham, depositing the ash of his cigar with careful delicacy.

“So, so,” said Mr. Ward. “Takes time, of course. But she’s young. They all have these half-baked, socialistic ideas when they’re young, but they grow out of them.”

“Half-baked?” inquired Mr. Baisham, with a lift of his eyebrows. “What about the Great Union?”

“Yes, of course. But it can’t happen here.”

“Comforting theory. All Milota says that. Don’t you ever have less comfortable moments when it occurs to you that it might very easily happen here?” Mr. Ward looked up, startled and uncertain.

“You don’t mean that?”

“I decidedly do.”

“But our order of society is perfectly stable.”

“My good Ward, there never was an order of society yet which did not have to protect itself against disintegration — not just now and then, but continuously. Any . form of society is, after all, a method of training Nature, but Nature never sleeps, and never gives in. Just a little too much of this ‘it can’t happen here’ stuff, and one day — Pouf! And you and I, your mills and my mines — where are we? “

“But I had no idea of this, Baisham, what are we doing about it?”

“Oh, about the same as usual. Just seeing that it doesn’t take place.”

Mattington Ward reached for another cigar and lit it. “Confound you, Baisham, for a moment you scared me.”

“If your Leonie had her way it would happen here, from what they tell me.”

“She’s hardly more than a child, you know. It’s just these notions she picked up on Earth, she’ll forget them. But I must say I see more and more clearly that it was a mistake ever to send her. She wouldn’t have had all this readjustment to go through if she’d stayed here.”

“You’re right. The less contact between us and Earth except in the way of trade, the better.”

“Anyway, Leonie’s got another interest that’s soon going to put paid to all that,” said her father. “Dr. Sherrick.”

“Young David Sherrick! Well, I’m glad to hear that. Nothing like a little affair of that kind for knocking that sort of nonsense out of their heads.”

“I’m hoping it’ll be more than an affair.”

“Good. Fine young couple. By the way, I hear she goes down Chellan way to see that odd fish Clouster sometimes. See that she goes somewhere else on Wednesday.”

“Why? “

“Going to be trouble. Greens and Blacks. Only don’t tell anyone I told you.”

Dr. Sherrick came down the hospital steps to see a familiar car balanced patiently on its gyroscopes before the entrance. He went up to it. “Hullo, Leonie. What are you doing here?”

“Waiting to take you for a run I hope. Get in.”

He opened the door and slid in beside her. The car tilted slightly and then readjusted itself. “But I thought you were at the Pan-Venus Club?” he said, as they started.

“I should have been, but they’ve chucked me out — or at least asked me to resign. Same thing.”

David grunted.

“You’re not surprised?” she inquired.

“Not much.”

They rode for a mile or two in silence.

“What did you say? “ he asked. “I mean, to make them chuck you out.”

“I told them that they were dabblers. That if they really believed all the stuff they talk about the equality of man it would not be a club just for Whites, but for all colours — and with equal standing for all members. I said they were trying to square their consciences by talking and not doing — and seemed to be succeeding pretty well, to no one’s profit. I asked them to give me one example of one practical way in which they had tried to lower the colour hatred. And — oh well, quite a lot more.”

“That makes me even less surprised. What did you expect them to do? Cheer?”

“I didn’t care. I just wanted to jolt them a bit.”

“Well, I gather you did that.”

Leonie stopped the car. “David, they made me so angry. Even they don’t really care how these wretched people go on quarrelling and killing one another in their slums. Does anyone care?”

“Aren’t you doing them an injustice? I think if you talked to them separately you’d find they genuinely care, but they’re stuck. They don’t know what to do.”

“If they are, they’ve been stuck all their lives.”

“They’ve learnt some of the things not to do. For instance. I’m willing to bet that one thing you wanted them to do was to preach to all three coloured peoples that they are the same under their skins?”

“Yes, I did say something like that. In fact, I offered to do it.”

“Well, there’s quite enough reason for asking you to resign. They know better than that. When will you understand, Leonie, that each of the three colours considers itself superior to the others? A Black man is actually proud of being black because he thinks it shows he has none of the nasty characteristics he imputes to the Reds and Greens.”

“But...”

“Leonie, dear, there isn’t any but to that. It’s a fact.”

“It’s also a fact that there’s no racial difference. There must be some way of telling them that.”

“Telling, but not convincing. Listen, Leonie, I’ll tell you a story. I had a friend called Dick. We went through all our medical training together and qualified about the same time. Both of us felt, knew in our hearts, that this is a rotten system and that something ought to be done to clear it up. He, I suppose, felt more badly about it than I did, anyway, saw it more simply — he was more like you, and I was more like your Pan-Venus people.

“After we passed out he went and set up a practice among the Reds in Barro. He wasn’t popular, the practice began to fall off the moment he took it over, but he was a damned good man at his job, so he managed to keep going although they didn’t like him. And he knew well enough why they didn’t like him — it was because they knew that he refused to agree with them when they ran down Greens and Blacks. But he thought he could get over that. His idea was that if he went on doctoring and doing the best he could for them they’d gradually come round to paying some attention to what he said.

“My own belief is that they wouldn’t. The furthest they would have gone was to admit that he knew his particular job, but was quite obviously crazy in certain directions, notably on the racial question. Patience would have taken them that far, but unfortunately he hadn’t much gift of patience. Things went too slowly for him and he decided to speed them up.

“He did it at a public health meeting. The hall was packed with Reds, and what must Dick do but get up and tell them that not only were they every bit as good as the Whites, which they didn’t mind, but that the Greens and Blacks were every bit as good as the Whites, too. It was brave, but it was madness. They went for him like tigers, of course.”

“What happened?” Leonie asked.

David Sherrick looked at his hands, avoiding her eyes. “Nobody ever told the exact details, but the next day most of his clothing was found at the foot of a tree on the edge of the swamp forest. It was ripped to pieces and bloodstained. There were some ropes loosely tied round the tree, marks which showed that Saurians had been there — and a few human bones, that was all…”

Neither spoke for a few minutes. It was David who went on. “There have been other things like that. Everyone has heard of them, can you blame the Pan-Venus people for being careful? And if the Reds hadn’t dealt with Dick the Whites would have.”

“The Whites?”

“Well, the Government — it’s the same thing. He’d be in prison now for incitement to break the peace, subversive activities or something of the kind. You see, Leonie, I’ve already lost one friend, my best friend, through this and I’ve no wish to see what happened to Dick Clouster happen to you.”

Leonie was brought up short by the name. “Clouster? Was he related to Francis Clouster who lives down in Chellan?”

“Yes, he was his son, only son.”

Leonie opened her mouth to speak, and then thought better of it. There was a pause which she broke. “But, David, something must be done. You think that, don’t you?”

“I probably think it even more strongly than you do, Leonie. As a doctor I come into contact with its actual results. In hospital we’re never without cases who’ve been beaten up for no reason but their colour. And when there’s a big row we’re rushed off our feet with the wounded. It’s stupid and cruel, it causes endless suffering — you know how easily any cut gets infected here — it wastes our time when we might be doing really important work. God knows there are plenty of fevers to be tackled yet. Of course, something must be done, and we ought to do it. Damn it, it was the doctors who made it possible to colonise Venus at all by conquering rheumatism. But for that no one could have stood this climate, now it’s up to us to make it worth living in. But how? I wouldn’t mind using my life on it, but I’m hanged if I’m going to waste my life on it as Dick did. Listen, I’ll tell you another story.

“Three days ago they brought a Green woman in. She was dreadfully hurt. Heaven knows why she was still alive, but she was. There was nothing we could do for her but give her some dope. And I’ll tell you why it happened. You know, don’t you, that it’s about the equivalent of suicide for any woman on Venus to have a child anywhere but in a hospital?”

“Streptococcus infection?”

“Exactly. But sometimes by accident it does happen. Well, it had happened to this woman. When her husband saw that the baby was white, he went crazy. He killed the child, went for his wife with a knife and then ran out into the street and killed the first White he saw, just to show what he thought of us.”

“Because the baby was white? What would he have done if it had been red?” said Leonie.

David looked at her oddly. “It…” he began, and then checked himself. “And that’s not an isolated instance by any means. It’s a thing which is deliberately built up in their schools and their homes.”

“Deliberately.”

“I said deliberately.”

Leonie frowned. “I don’t think I understand. Isn’t it mostly a prejudice handed on in the families?”

“It is. But who stands to gain from that prejudice? Who rules and owns Venus? “

“The Whites, I suppose.”

“Exactly. The people living in luxury on Milota — and all the Milotas in the other cities. Don’t you see? It’s an old, old game. Make the people distrust one another, keep them at loggerheads, prevent them from uniting for their rights and you can rule. Let them combine and you’re sunk. Your precious societies on Milota like to patronise, but they don’t want Reds, Greens and Blacks to combine, that’d be the end of the Whites’ rule — and they know it.”

Leonie was silent, trying to grasp this new aspect. Hitherto she had believed at the back of her mind that her friends on Milota were merely apathetic and selfish, that they recognised the shamefulness of affairs but did not bother to bestir themselves to mend it. It required reorientation to see them as deliberate partisans. She found it difficult. And yet, why not? Wars on Earth had been engineered and countless people slaughtered for ends no more noble — indeed there were some who claimed that that was almost invariably the motive. But — her own father and his friends intentionally keeping the coloured peoples at enmity for their own profit? That was more than she could take in. Her feelings rejected it in spite of. her reason. “I can’t believe it.”

“Haven’t they tried to laugh you out of it, argue you out of it? Have they lost any opportunity of impressing on you that liberty, equality and fraternity may work on Earth, but it won’t do so here? Have they given you any encouragement whatever?”

Leonie turned and gazed miserably at him. She shook her head. It was perfectly true, every word. They had been tolerant sometimes as one might to a child, never more than that. She began to see it now. Milota and its rule would be swept away in a moment if the people rose and took their rights. David was watching her intently. He saw her take the shock, waver a moment in divided loyalties, then a hardening light in her eyes, a firmer line to her lips. “There is,” she said slowly. “There is a kind of absolute right. The right of any human being to freedom and equality of opportunity. And there is an absolute wrong; to enslave, and to incite to murder.”

David Sherrick sighed. “I was afraid of that. The other way would have been so much easier for you, Leonie, dear. And yet I’m. glad, so glad. You’re one of the real people, Leonie.”

He looked at her seriously. Her eyes dropped and she turned her head away. “No, no, darling, don’t cry,” he said.

She clung to him for a few moments. “David. I’m sorry. I — I feel as if I had lost something — something very precious.”

“You have, dear, but that had to be. You had come to the point where something had to be lost — either your illusions, or your principles.”

There was a silence, neither spoke for some minutes. Then David slipped his arm away from her. He looked straight before him. His tone was hard as he spoke. “Leonie, dear, I am going to shock you, I’m afraid. But I must. I am going to put myself in your hands because I trust you, because I know that you are the most genuine person I have ever met. And because I love you for it, Leonie, I am going to break a solemn oath…”

“David…”

“I am, because it is an oath which should never have been asked or given, there should have been no need for it.” For one last moment he hesitated on the brink, then he plunged.

“You asked what would have happened if the Green woman’s baby had been red.”

“Yes.”

“Well, it couldn’t have been. That’s all.”

“I don’t understand. If it could be white…”

“Leonie, all the babies are white. Red, Black, Green women: they all have white babies. Don’t you see?”

Nobody knew how nor quite when it had begun, David told, her. It must have been back in the early days of colonisation when men were struggling for a foothold on Venus. In those days, life had been a horribly uncertain business. Exploration had been dangerous, uncounted hundreds of men had gone out from the settlements so laboriously established and had never returned. The saurians had not learned from experience to avoid the high land and keep to the water and the marshes. Scientific acclimatisation had not yet been developed, so that the heat and humidity were a burden to everyone. The mortality rate was appalling. Fevers, infections in wounds, and, worst of all, rheumatic afflictions carried men and women off in such numbers that at one time the idea of permanent colonisation was all but abandoned.

They were times of chaos and uncertainty when even the least adventurous had no more than a slippery hold on life. It was then that someone’s ingenuity managed to establish it. It could never have been done on Earth, but on Venus where a woman must give birth to her child in the hospital or face certain death, it was somehow accomplished.

But if the how and when were uncertain, the why was plain. Colonisation began away back in the heyday of international finance in the days before the Great Union when groups of interests lived comfortably out of the profits which came from pitting one section of the Earth’s population against another. It was a technique developed over centuries, seldom failing, and yet unperceived for generations by the mind of the common man. The days of profit from victory of one’s own side had long gone by. To the big interest it mattered little any longer which side won; their concern now was two-fold, to sift wealth out of the waste of war, and to see that neither side emerged from a conflict dangerously strong. They were upheld, as it were, by a balance of forces ingeniously held in equilibrium; in peace the scales tilted slowly back and forth, in war there was a hurried throwing of weights into this pan and then that to prevent either coming down with a crashing victory. It was good while it lasted, and it had lasted a long time, but of late there had been signs that the central pivot was about to crack as the movements which were to culminate in the Great Union gathered force.

It was a system which had been developed out of the natural conditions of Earth and it had suited the select dwellers in Earth’s penthouses very well indeed, but now they saw the foreshadow of a world in which it would no longer work.

From what Machiavellian mind there first crawled the idea that it was possible to improve on Nature even in this respect is unknown; its owner remains unsung, unglorified. But it is clear what he saw. Here was a new world. Into it were beginning to flow colonists from the old. They were of different nationalities, but that was beginning to matter less than it did. They were nearly all of the white race. For the most part they were tough customers more occupied with the business of living than learning; individualists, too, anxious to get on rather than combine, anxious to be lent money to buy machinery and to be put into other men’s debt. That was satisfactory. But one day the ideas which were taking hold on Earth would be carried across space and begin to spread on Venus. There would be no racial bar to hold them back and little language difficulty; before long the people would rise as one. They would refuse to be exploited, to be chained down by heavy interest, to put up with low wages and poor conditions — and then the dominant moneyed class would dominate no more.

“They must not unite,” said the Machiavellian mind. “They must be divided amongst themselves. And what is the greatest factor of disunion on Earth? It is race. But Nature has not seen fit to create different races of men upon Venus. Very well, then, we will.”

Most sedulously unwritten is the history of early Venusian development. How did they set about the creation of coloured races? Did they steal children and adopt orphans? Did they distrain upon children for non-payment of debts? Did they bully or bribe? Did they drive men and women into actual slavery? Did they set up colonies in remote places? No one knows. No one is ever likely to know, for it was a secret well kept and now deep buried.

It is only known that strange men and women, Green, Magenta-Red and Black, began to be seen about. According to rumour they were the offspring of Whites and natives to be found in some secluded parts of Venus. No one had seen these natives, but each had a friend who had. It seemed natural, if scarcely commendable.

Simultaneously began a reduction in the quota of immigration from Earth. The supply of new White blood decreased, but the numbers of coloured people appeared to increase. Whites began to marry Green, Red or Black partners, and always the child was the colour of its coloured parent. It was odd. There was considerable talk about genes, but to little purpose. It seemed that the terrestrial laws and heredity did not hold on Venus.

Later the immigration laws were relaxed to some extent and careful attention paid to the balance of the sexes. It began to become uncustomary to intermarry with the colours. Later still it became not only illegal, but unethical.

By that time, David explained, the four “races “ were firmly established.

“But how was it ever allowed to happen?” Leonie wanted to know. “There must have been people who knew, why didn’t the doctors stop it?”

“For a very simple reason. Who do you think owned and ran the hospitals? A man could only be a doctor if he kept in with the authorities — and the same is true now. All doctors and hospital attendants are, as you may have noticed, of the White, the ruling, class. Oddly enough they despise the coloured for being coloured even though they are responsible for it. Even I, if I am honest with myself, do not feel that I am quite the same as a Red or a Green. That’s the pressure of mass opinion, of course; against all I know, and against all reason it is there. That’s where the truly diabolical nature of the thing lies. Once it was under weigh it had to go on. And what could or can we doctors do? Protest and be struck off the register or perhaps imprisoned for subversive activities? Protest that we will not give a Green woman the Green baby she expects? We cannot even protest that the colouration does any physical harm. It doesn’t.”

“Except to bring bloodshed and murder.”

“That’s not supposed to be in the doctor’s province.”

“But suppose you united and called a strike. Refused to do it anymore.”

“Well, to begin with, one would probably disappear or be struck off in the attempt to get unity. But even apart from that this thing has gone on so long now that I don’t think you would get unity at all. You see, there’s another side to it, too.

“Try to imagine yourself a Red woman. You have always been Red, so have your family, your friends, your schoolmates. You have married a Red man. All your life you have expected and looked forward to have a Red baby. What is going to happen if someone suddenly shows you a White baby after it is all over and says: ‘This is yours?’ You are going to disbelieve it, of course. It is somebody else’s baby, not yours. No amount of argument is going to kill the doubt in your mind. And what about your husband? He, too, has expected a Red baby. How is he going to take a White one — and what is he going to think? I told you what happened to a Green woman with a White baby. Even if you, a Red woman, were told it all as I have told it to you now and if you did believe it, you would still demand your Red baby, you would be ashamed, afraid to face your world with a White one.

“God, don’t you see what we’ve done? We’ve built a lie too colossal to be disbelieved.”

“And it must go on and on?”

“As long as each colour thinks itself the superior of the others — and the Government sees that it does — it must go on. There’s only one way that I can see in which it might be stopped and that’s by the elimination of the streptococci and other infections. That would make it safe for women to have babies in their own homes, and the whole thing would come down with a run. But until then…”

Leonie sat silent, a slight frown on her forehead, her eyes staring unseeing into the misty distance. “How is it done, Dick, this colouring? “

“Oh, that’s not very difficult. After the baby has been washed it is taken along to a special room. There it is smeared all over with a particular grease. Depending on the colour of its mother there is a colouring agent, Red, Green or Black latent in the grease. It is then placed under a projector which looks something like an X-ray tube, and is turned very carefully so that every inch of its body comes under the direct rays. They are short waves and carry the colour from the grease. They penetrate the skin and beyond, and their action is rather that of burning the special colouring agent right into and through the skin at low temperature. It sounds a little painful put that way, but actually it isn’t. The child feels nothing whatever. After that it is ready to be washed again and taken back to its mother. The whole thing takes less than five minutes.”

“And the colour is there for the rest of its life?”

“Yes. Though as I expect you’ve noticed, the colouring is rather more vivid in children than in adults.”

“David. I can hardly believe it even now. All these Red, Green and Black men and women…?”

“Every one of them, Leonie!”

“Was there ever a lie so big?” Leonie turned suddenly and grasped his arm. “David,” she said, desperately, “David, this mustn’t, this shan’t go on. It’s got to be broken. Somehow there must be a way of breaking it. We’ve got to find it.”

IV

“Hullo Reynick. Come along in. Have a drink.”

The Chief of the Tailor Police, secret and uniformed branches, did as he was bid. He sat down in a comfortable chair half-facing his host and raised his glass.

“Always a harbinger of trouble,” said Mr. Wilfred Baisham, amiably. “What is it now?”

Reynick sipped at his drink. “It’s not so much a matter of what is now,” he said, “more a case of what may be soon. It’s really guidance for the future I’m after. I don’t think anything like this has ever shown up before.”

“All right, no need to beat about. Guidance on what?”

“On Mr. Ward’s daughter.”

“What about her?”

“Subversive activities.”

“Oh, that. They’re all like that, they grow out of it. Most of ‘em get interested in some young man and forget about it. She must soon see that Earth ideas aren’t wanted here.”

“This one seems to be growing into it.”

“Give her time.”

“I’m inclined to think it’s more serious. In the last few months I’ve been hearing more and more about her. She’s been working around a lot among the coloured women, telling them they’re as good as the Whites, and she seems to have a way with her for I’m told they’ve been listening a bit.” He paused to light a cigar and went on: “Mind you, I don’t say they take her very seriously, and she’s certainly not got anything that could be called a following. All the same, one can’t pretend that that kind of thing is good. It might conceivably catch on a bit if there were to be a wave of unrest. Another thing, anybody else who feels like that — and there are quite a few of them — and sees her getting away with it feels encouraged to have a shot at it, too. To my mind it’s the kind of thing that it pays to nip right in the bud.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do about it? After all, nipping things is your job,” Mr. Baisham pointed out.

“Certainly, and if it had been anyone else I’d have done it by now. But this isn’t so easy. After all, Mr. Ward’s daughter…”

“Yes, I see that.”

“And it’s not only that. If we touch her, either taking her up in court, or — er — less officially, we advertise the whole thing and make it much more important. Of course, we could tip off the news strips to keep it quiet, but these things get round. Besides, what’s old man Ward going to say — and do? I can’t see him taking it quietly. It’s darned awkward. She’s not like the usual run of Milota charity women — they’ll take a hint, she won’t,”

Mr. Baisham leant forward and poured himself another drink. “What you’re really getting at, Reynick, is that you want me to have a go at Ward. Show him the error of his daughter’s ways?”

“Well, he would take it better from you than from me.”

“All right. I’ll try if you like. But to be candid, I don’t hold out much hope. It’ll worry him a bit, but it’s done that already. Between you and me, Reynick, the girl just doesn’t pay any attention to him now. Ungrateful little bit, after all he’s done for her and spent on her. Poor chap takes it hard. He’s been looking forward to having her home for years now and she treats him like the furniture. However, as I said, I’ll mention it. But if I were you I’d think up a second line.”

“Such as?”

“Well, if I were in your place I’d let her go on but keep a careful eye on her. You might even let it be known that you’re keeping an eye on her. Meanwhile, you could let a little rumour circulate that she’s’ trying to rouse trouble between, say, the Greens and the Blacks. That may make her draw in a bit, I hope it does. But if she goes on, sometime or other she’ll overstep the mark, then your men will have to see to it that she disappears. If it’s done neatly everybody will think it’s either the Greens or the Blacks who did it — and they can fight that out among themselves. I’d hate you to have to do it for her father’s sake as well as her own, she’s a live girl and she’s got pluck, but all the same, if she shows signs of getting dangerous, she’s got to be stopped, no matter who she is.”

“Palliam?” asked Reynick.

Wilfred Baisham frowned. Palliam, the penal island, the place of lifelong sentences never remitted. For the daughter of a good friend. It was not nice. But he shook his head regretfully. “I’m afraid so. There’s nowhere else as safe. But try everything else first.”

There was a frown on Leonie’s face as she shut the front door of a small Chellan house behind her and turned to walk to the spot where she had left her car in the main road. The street she must traverse to reach it was narrow and badly lit, one into which few, if any, of the other dwellers on Milota would have ventured alone by night. But Leonie had little nervousness of Chellan now. Francis Clouster had, she fancied, passed a word around on her behalf, but, more important, she had become a known figure there. It was understood by the Greens that though her ideas might be odd, she meant well.

Meant well…There lay the reason for her frown. That was their faintly damning opinion of her. Try as she would, shape her tactics as she might, she seemed unable to make progress. David had convinced her that her ambition to shout the truth about themselves to the coloured peoples would mean not only danger to herself, but disaster to her cause. They would not be told, realisation if it could come at all must not be thrust upon them so that they could resist it; it must come or appear to come from inside themselves. By hints, by becoming aware of discrepancies, by linking this and that together they must be led on to question their own state, to ponder its anomalies and arrive at the answer for themselves. She understood now that her part, if it were to be of use at all, must be played with subtlety and the utmost caution against a careless word. She must prompt ever so gently, undetectably. Urge and deflect without arousing a breath of suspicion that she was directing.

For months now she had been pursuing this course. Listening sympathetically to gain confidence, speaking little, dropping every now and then a word which should have struck a spark of inquisitive interest, but never seemed to. As far as she could see the months had been utterly wasted. There had been no progress; no Green, Red or Black had taken even the first step which might lead to his one day questioning his Greenness, Redness or Blackness. This evening had been typical of the lack of response. To a party of Green women she had in the natural course of conversation remarked how it had at first surprised her to find that Greens naturally had pink fingernails and toenails just like her own. She had even been a little obvious, but no one had been much interested or wanted to compare theirs with hers. One could only hope as one had hoped so many times that the suggestion would lie dormant to arise later. Meanwhile she must continue to watch a tongue that was for ever threatening to run away in its impatience.

A trifle disturbing, too, was the realisation that if her hints failed to register in the desired quarter,
they were getting home somewhere else, with the result that she herself became the recipient of hints referring for the most part to the unpleasant con- sequences encountered by persons who tried to stir up trouble. She was uncertain at first what value to put upon them, but their frequent recurrence from the most unexpected sources had lately begun to worry her more than a little. It was understandable that while her eyes were on the ground, steering her round the worst mud patches, her mind should be preoccupied.

She was without suspicion as she passed the entrance of a dark alley; taken completely by surprise when a hand from behind clapped down over her mouth and an arm simultaneously whipped round her, fastening her own arms to her sides. She lashed backward with a heel, bringing a grunt from the man behind her, but no slackening of his grip. A second man, no more than a dark figure in the gloom, dodged forward to catch her ankles and lift her feet from the ground. Without a word the two men turned to carry her back up the alley whence they had come. For a hundred yards or more they stumbled and slid along the uneven paving. Blocking the other end where the alley gave on to a wider road, she could see the shape of a car ready balanced on its two wheels. As they drew closer she could distinguish the faint humming of its gyroscopes. She struggled ineffectively. Held as she was she could do little but bend her knees and kick out again in an attempt to loosen the men’s holds. It made them stumble a bit, and the man in front swore in a grumble, but practical result there was none.

They came close beside the car. The man who held her feet released his held with one hand and reached for the door handle. At that moment there was a thud behind her. The hand dropped from her mouth and the arm round her relaxed. She felt herself falling. Simultaneously the man in front looked round. She had a vision of an arm which held something in its hand striking down at his head. He dropped without a murmur. A groping hand found her own arm and pulled her to her feet.

“Quick and be quiet,” breathed an urgent voice.

She was being dragged at a helter-skelter stumbling run back along the alley. Halfway down they swung into another passageway even darker, and then round comers one after another until all sense of direction was gone, and she felt like a bewildered child in a nightmare, staggering, slipping, panting, but dragged willy-nilly onwards through an endless dark labyrinth.

There came a pause at last. She leant against a wall, gasping for breath. Her companion was a black shadow in the darkness. She could hear him fumbling in his pockets. She had only one desire; to get back to her car and drive furiously home. “ My car…” she began.

“Damn your car. It’s your life you want to save,” said a low voice, curtly. He ceased to fumble. There was a sound of a key in a lock. A hand urged her forward into absolute blackness. The door shut behind them. He took her wrist again , leading her cautiously forward for a dozen yards or more. Then once more he stopped. “Lie down here,” he said. “I don’t suppose anyone will come, but if they do, pull the stuff right over you and don’t make a sound. Don’t breathe. I’m going now to see what’s happened. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

Bending over, Leonie felt a pile of coarse material like jute under her hand. She heard his footsteps moving away. By the door they paused. “If you put any value on your life,” his voice came softly, “you’ll stay here, and be safe.”

Leonie found her voice shaky and a little meek. “I’ll stay,” she said into the darkness. She dare not strike a light to look at her watch. If it was only an hour he was away, it was the longest hour of her life, and all though it she lay on the pile of sacking with ears strained for the faintest sound. The tone of urgency in his voice had done more to rouse her apprehensions than the actual events. At the long-delayed sound of the lock she started up, sitting; one hand ready to drag the musty cloth over herself.

“It’s all right,” said the same voice.

She let out her held breath and put a hand to her thumping heart. He came closer.

“Come along.” He led the way in the dark along passages, through doors and finally down a flight of steps. At the bottom he closed the last door and turned on the light. Leonie blinked and then opened her eyes to find herself facing a man whose skin was green as the patina on copper. There was something faintly familiar about him, but it was always difficult to recognise people of the colours, one had to learn to remember faces by form alone without the help of complexions.

“Who are you? “ she said.

“Never mind about that. The important point at the moment is that you, Miss Ward, are in a nasty spot.”

“Why?”

“I should have thought you could guess that yourself. Weren’t you warned that you were heading for trouble?”

“I suppose I was, but…”

“And who do you suppose those men were who grabbed you? “

“I’ve no idea. It was dark, Greens? I’d just been talking to some Green women.”

“You’ve talked to too many people. Those two were secret police.”

“Secret police, why I –”

“Yes, secret. It would have been a nice little secret business altogether. Total and inexplicable disappearance of prominent Milota citizen’s daughter.”

There was a pause. Leonie’s gaze wandered around the room. It had the appearance of a rough workshop. There was a bench on one side, a metal surfaced table on the other, racks of tools hung on the walls, a little pile of chips and shavings covered the floor. The only breaks in the four walls were a small ventilator and the door through which they had entered. A cellar, she supposed, taking the place in with only half her mind.

“What would have happened?” she asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. “It means you’re officially listed as dangerous. You’re not to be allowed to go about trying to spread disaffection on Venus. They daren’t send you to Earth for they won’t want your views spread there. I should say it means either imprisonment for life on Palliam or some such place — or perhaps something more drastic.”

Leonie looked at him hard. There was no doubt he meant what he said. “But without hearing — without trial?” she said, incredulously.

“Do you think they want to give you the chance to announce your views in public?”

“Then perhaps I have to thank you for my life?”

“We might see about that later on. The important thing just now is for you to disappear — only in a different way.” He laid on the bench a bag which he had been carrying slung from one shoulder. Out of it he pulled a large jar and a bundle of clothes and a dark bottle. He took up the jar and started to loosen the lid.

“The White Miss Ward has got to vanish,” he said. “You’ll have to become a Green.”

Leonie looked up at him, horror-stricken. “Me, a Green woman. No, oh, no. I can’t, I can’t look like them.”

“And why not?” inquired the Green man, coldly.

“To be a Green the rest of my life, never to see myself as I really am. I couldn’t.”

“Of course not. There’s a medium which will get this stuff off once you’re safely away from here and out of reach.”

“Oh, I see. How silly of me. For a moment I thought you meant I must be made Green like they make the babies.”

The Green man stared at her. Slowly he put down the jar on the bench. His eyes never left hers. “Who told you that?” he demanded.

“A — er — I — I must have heard it somewhere.”

“It’s scarcely the kind of thing one hears by accident. Now I begin to understand why they wanted you so much. Tell me, have you been spreading this about? No, of course you haven’t or you wouldn’t be here now. But just what were you up to?”

“I wanted to make them find it out for themselves.”

Surprisingly he laughed. “What a hope. A few hints and suggestions, I suppose. Did you think those were going to get through the mass of suggestion carefully built up all their lives? Do you know anything of crowd psychology?”

“I thought they might. There didn’t seem any other way. And, anyway, it doesn’t seem to surprise you. Who are you?”

“Never mind about that now. We must get on. You see the stuff in this jar.” He held it so that she was able to make out a dark green substance within. “ You must put this on. For a week at least it will make you indistinguishable from any other Green. In the bottle there’s dye for your hair. Now get your clothes off and go to it.”

“ But – “

“For God’s sake. Is this a time for fooling about the proprieties?”

“All right,” said Leonie, meekly.

He gathered up her clothes as she shed them and put them into the bag. “Now put the green stuff on. Do it properly, make yourself a thorough Green woman — we don’t want any silly accidents. Give it ten minutes or so to take, and then wash the rest off. There’s a tap in the corner. Maybe you’d better do your hair first — and don’t forget your eyebrows and eyelashes. Then get dressed in these things,” he pointed to the bundle of clothes he had brought, “and wait until I come back.”

The door slammed and he was gone, taking her clothes with him. Leonie set about the business of changing her “race.”

He was gone over two hours. When he returned he submitted her to a critical survey. Leonie withstood it awkwardly, conscious of the ill-fitting cheap clothes she wore. “Well?” she said, after his eye had taken her in from top to toe.

“You’ll do. Except for that watch. No Green woman could afford a watch like that. Better give it to me.”

She handed it over without protest and he slipped it in his pocket. “I might have done better with a mirror,” she observed.

“I doubt it. You’d most likely have quit altogether.”

Leonie gazed at her fantastically green arm, wondered what her face was like, and thought he was probably right. “And now?” she asked.

“And now we are going out. You are a Green woman in the Green quarter — your home, don’t forget. Miss Leonie Ward is dead — murdered to put it crudely. Somebody who didn’t like her took her out to the marshes and fed her to the Saurians. Only a few bloodstained rags of her clothing to show what happened. All most regrettable and upsetting, but rather the kind of thing you might expect to happen to a girl who would mix with the coloured peoples.”

Leonie paused at the door. Something clicked in her memory — “ Only a few bloodstained…Now I know who you are. You’re Dick Clouster, who’s supposed to be dead. I saw you at your father’s house once.”

“You did. And in one of my less cautious moments. It worried me for a bit afterwards.”

“And you’re not a real Green after all.”

“Who is? Come along now, we must be moving.”

Mr. Wilfred Baisham spoke into the telephone. “My dear friend. They’ve only just told me. What a ghastly thing to have happened. So young, such a lovely girl with all her life before her. An appalling tragedy.” He listened to a few sentences in Mattington Ward’s attenuated voice before he spoke again. “I? Well, yes, I have a little influence in the Police Department, I suppose, but I shan’t need to use it. This thing’s made their blood boil. It’s an outrage which Tailor is never going to forget. They’ll get them, you can depend on that, Mattington. They’ll be at it night and day until they find the men that did it. Fiends like that have got to be caught and caught quickly.”

He listened a little longer before he said goodbye and rang off. For a moment he sat and looked absent-mindedly at the misty world beyond the window. Then he picked up the telephone again and dialled a number. “Hullo, Reynick. Anything about the Ward girl yet? — No? Well, it’s a bit soon perhaps. By the way, her father and all Milota’s quite satisfied the Greens did it. Not a doubt between them. That’ll make things quite simple when you do find her. — Yes, I’m pretty sure. The whole thing was too convenient. Why choose just the moment when your men had got her? — Yes, I know people have been put out on the marshes before, but it’s always been done in hot blood, with a minor or major riot of some kind to carry it through. — Of course you have. You didn’t expect her to try to get away in her own car, did you? Now look here, when you do find her, I’d go steady. Don’t pounce the moment she’s spotted. Lie low a bit. We thought she was on her own, but it’s pretty clear now she’s not. There may be several under cover. When you make your jump you want to bag the lot if you can. Provided she’s here at all, of course. It’s not quite at all unlikely that she’s been acting as agent for a group outside Tailor altogether, in which case, she’s probably in another city already. Have you been able to get a line on how much she really knows? — Oh, you think that, do you? Then she’s more dangerous than we fancied. Still, she can’t do much now she’s on the run. By the way, it might do to keep an eye on that young man…Yes, Dr. David Sherrick…Yes, let me know.”

Again Wilfred Baisham sat gazing speculatively out of the window. For a quarter of an hour he was lost in thought before he reached once more for the telephone.

“West Milota Hospital? My name’s Baisham, I want to speak to the Director if he’s free. — Hullo, Dray. I’d like a word confidentially with you, it’s rather urgent. Mind if I come round right away? – Good, I’ll be there in ten minutes.

Leonie stared long and miserably into the mirror, studying every detail of the face which stared back. A face with a complexion soft as velvet, but green as grass. The lips, after the manner of most Green women, were painted a brilliant red, they matched the small rings in her ears. There was a faint shading of dusky powder on her eyelids which was also a fashion among Green women. When she opened her mouth her teeth gleamed a startling white: she opened it as little as possible. Her dark hair was now shorter and dressed differently from the way it had been when it was. fair. Still she could barely believe in its reality. She put a hand up to touch it, to feel that it was her own face — a green hand with fingernails painted red as her lips. This was herself. This thing in the mirror. This for ever more, if David failed. She hid her face in her green hands and wept.

It had been inescapable. Two days after the attack in the alley Dick Clouster had come up to the little room he had found for her. He was carrying a black case which he set down carefully on the table. “I’m afraid I’ve bad news for you. There’s a comb-out going on in Chellan.”

“The Police?” she asked, anxiously.

He nodded.

“Do you think they know I’m here?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. It’s quite probable someone else. You’re not the only White masquerading as a coloured. But that doesn’t make it any the less serious.”

“But they’ll never recognise me like this. I can stand questions. I’ve learnt that family history you gave me off by heart. I’m Doris Glandon, my father was –”

“I know, but they’ve got cute little dodges. I told you there was a medium which gets the green stuff off. Well, a little touch from a pad damped with that, and it’s all up. They get real Greens to mingle in the street and touch as many hands with it as possible. Or they put it on handles of doors, anything which a lot of people may touch, and set a watch. I’ve even known them spray it over a crowd in the hope that somebody will look spotty. The real Greens don’t mind. It doesn’t matter to them.”

“Well,” she said with a half apprehension of what was coming.

“I’m sorry, Leonie. It means you’ll have to stop playing at being a Green, and really become one.”

“No— no!”

“There’s no other safe way. I wish there were. If you don’t, they’ll spot you sooner or later. For all I know they may be starting on a house-to-house test right now.”

“But — oh, God, I can’t do that. I can’t.”

“Look, I’ve brought a projector. It’s rough, but it works — I know, because I had to use it on myself. We can get it done in ten minutes.”

“And for the rest of my life — oh, no.”

“Listen. I had to do it. Do you think I liked it? But if I hadn’t I should have been caught half a dozen times before this.”

“You’re not a woman.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake ! Won’t you realise that it is this or your life. Your life! A live Green woman — or a nice pink and white corpse. You choose.”

“Don’t.”

It had taken him the best part of two hours to ram it home to her, to batter down and demolish her stubborn opposition, until she was left weakly and tearfully consenting.

She scarcely recalled its actual accomplishment. Vague memories of being smeared with something, of being turned this way and that beneath a tube which glared and hummed and gradually obliterated the girl who had been Leonie Ward to put Doris Glandon in her place, and of her mind still feebly protesting while her body consented.

Within twenty-four hours the necessity had been proved, and by a more direct method than she expected. There was a barrier across one of the main streets and a party of Green police at its only gap. There was no going back, everyone was ordered to pass through, to press his or her hand on a damp pad and brush it lightly across a sheet of white paper.

“Why do you take so much trouble with me?” she asked Dick Clouster the following evening. “When I look at this,” she held out her green hand — “I’m not even grateful. I’m not worth your trouble.”

“My father and mother tell me differently,” he said,  “besides, I think you are in love with David. He was one of my best friends, you know.”

“Was! He would be now if he knew you were alive. And I was in love with him.”

“You’re not now?”

“I can’t let myself be now — like this.”

Dick Clouster had made no reply to that. He had sat for some minutes in silence. When he spoke it was to ask: “It was David who told you about the colouring of the babies, wasn’t it?”

She nodded.

“Why?” he asked. “He broke his professional word. He must have had some good reason.”

“Because he knows how I felt about this — this slavery of the colours. He knew that I meant to go on working against it though he warned me — he told me what happened to you, or, rather, what he thought happened to you, as a warning. And I would not take that warning.”

“Do you wish you had?”

“I don’t think I could have done. I should have gone on feeling as I did and it would have shown sooner or later. Anyway, when I didn’t, he knew that I should be bound to have to know about the babies sooner or later, so he told me.”

“And David himself. How does he see it?”

“He says he’s ready to use his life to stop it. But that any course he can see would lead only to his wasting his life without stopping it. And I understand that now,” she added, bitterly.

Dick got up and began to pace the room. Her gaze followed him back and forth. Suddenly he turned on her. “Will you swear this? Swear by everything most sacred to you that is how he really feels?”

“I’d put my life on it.”

His eyes held hers, intense and penetrating. He nodded. “I believe you.” He sat down again. In a calmer tone he went on. “Then there may be a chance. Now listen, I’m going to tell you something which very few people know.

“Very many years ago an accident happened up at one of the Milota hospitals. By some mistake the child of a white woman there was taken to the colouring room. He emerged Black, indelibly Black.  It was a disaster for the family. Their only son, and there were reasons why they could expect no more children. The mother nearly went out of her mind, the father was distracted, the child was taken home and hidden away out of sight. The father was an exceedingly rich man. If anything could be done about it, he determined to do it — at any cost. In the face of tremendous Governmental opposition he built a research laboratory, equipped it, financed it and brought experts to work in it. The prize he offered to the man who could perfect a system of harmless decolouring was fabulous. For over ten years he poured money into what appeared to be a hopeless quest, and then, suddenly, it seemed, it was found.

“The boy was treated and emerged a normal White. The Government swooped like lightning and seized the machine, but neither the father nor the inventor minded that much: the one had his son; the other, a fortune.

“The fate of the machine hung in the balance a while. A considerable body of officials was for its complete destruction; another body felt that a mistake which could happen once could happen again. In the end six machines were made, again in the face of strong opposition. They were deposited in the charge of the directors of the six largest hospitals on Venus, for use only in the gravest emergencies. One of them is in the West Milota Hospital.”

“Where David is,” murmured Leonie.

“For years,” Dick went on, “ I’ve been haunted by the thought of that machine locked uselessly away. I’ve never seen it, but I’ve been told about it. It’s a projector, not unlike the one which does the staining to look at, but it almost exactly reverses the process. A jelly is applied to the skin, the rays of the projector pass through it and the skin and break down the pigments into their components, and by some ductile effect of the special jelly they are drawn out and held. It may take three or even four applications and treatments to clear every trace of the pigmentation, but it does it.

“Yes, for years I’ve wondered how one could get hold of that machine. I’ve been a Green long enough to know some other Greens who would undergo the experiment if I had the machine. But there had to be someone at the other end, someone whom I knew I could trust to risk his life for it.”

“David’s been there a long time. Couldn’t you have – “

“Yes, I know. But he was younger when I knew him. I thought of him more than once, but I could never make up my mind to get into touch with him. You see, one’s got to be certain, certain beyond all shadow of doubt. And it must be successful. It’s not just our lives, yours, mine and his, that hang on it. It’s the fate of all the coloured people. I was afraid to make a move because I’m as sure as I am of anything that at a bungled attempt the Government would fly into a panic and destroy all six machines at once; they’d take no second chance. Now, I’m going to risk it at last. I’m going to stake everything on David. I can tell him where it is and how it is protected; the rest will be up to him. If he’ll do it,”

“I think he’ll do it. I know he will.”

“We must get into touch with him. That’ll have to be done carefully. Unless they’re perfectly satisfied about you they’ll be watching him. Probably they will anyway, because he was associated with a subversive person such as you. Yes, he’ll have to be warned about that right at the beginning.”

Hope revived in Leonie, but it was a much tempered hope. There would be so much risk, so many things to go wrong, so much strife to be faced later on. And would the coloured people believe even the evidence of their own eyes? Wouldn’t they even then be likely to think that they had been changed by a trick into Whites, rather than see that they had been restored to their, natural state? But perhaps that did not matter overmuch. They would learn in time. Success would mean something like civil war, more fighting and bloodshed. Treatment of a few of each colour done secretly would convince their friends and relatives. The desire to be a White, One of the ruling class, would spread like fire. But the power of the Government must be overthrown before they could settle down undisturbed to liberating the thousands, herself among them, from the bondage of their colours.

If David were to fail — well, thousands would never know. But she would. For the rest of her life a green face would look back at her from her mirror.

And David had come. Circuitously and, he believed, unobserved. He had been watched the last few days, he knew that, and he had taken elaborately particular pains to see that his followers were thrown off. She had been at the meeting place, a mean cottage on the outskirts of Chellan when he had arrived. He had walked into the room, his eyes had rested on her a second remotely, uninterestedly. She had had to step forward and say: “David!”

There had been a moment’s distaste in his eyes. A fraction of a second before his ear recognised her voice. She saw the realisation come home to him, surprise, concern and something less pleasant than concern passing across his face. “Leonie! Leonie, darling.” He opened his arms to her. She went to them and they closed round her. “Leonie, dear.”

Everything should have been the same…

Then Dick had come in to talk, advise and explain half through the night. And David had agreed as she had never doubted he would. Between the three of them they had plotted and planned down to the last detail. They had parted tired out, but buoyed up with a new hope. If it could be done at all, Leonie felt, David would do it.

But, oh, that look for a Green woman.

And so, Leonie wept.

VI.

Dick Clouster was on his feet expounding and exhorting. Leonie looked at the faces before him. They reminded her of a crowd listening to the patter of a quack medicine man. Hope, frank disbelief, satirical amusement, they were all there. Occasionally their eyes shifted to the apparatus which David was erecting on a table in the comer, and then came back to the speaker’s face. They listened, but without conviction.

There were over thirty of them in the room, men and a few women, all Greens. There had been an argument over that, but Leonie’s view that there ought to be representatives of all three colours had been borne down by the two men. For one thing there were few contacts with the Red and Blacks: it would not be easy to approach any and persuade them to come; and if they did come Dick and David were apprehensive of the results. It was notoriously difficult to handle successfully any meeting, even a small one, where the colours were mixed. Finally it was decided to introduce the machine to each group in turn, and to the Greens first because it was simplest for Dick, as a Green, to collect a group of them.

Leonie looked across at David. His face wore a serious intent expression as he bent over his work, assembling, adjusting and connecting. It was a month since the night he had come to Chellan. She had not seen him since then, it had been safer for him to seem to go on as usual and only to communicate with them if it were vitally necessary. During that time he had had to work on his own. To make certain the machine was still kept where Dick said it was; to put out of action the locks and alarms which secured it; to get it away; and finally, to cover every trace of his tampering.

She lifted her hand and looked at its green back. Soon that would be green no more. Once the organisation of the Whites was overthrown and the peril of their police removed, she would be free to put herself under the machine and become white once more.

David turned and beckoned her. She crossed over to help him erect and screw down the plated pillar which would suspend the machine over the table. In a few minutes now there would be a form lying on that table, losing for ever the affliction of its colour.’ It made the sight of her green hands working close to David’s white ones easier to bear.

Dick was coming to his peroration now. Showing his audience what it meant. Not just change of colour for a few individuals, but revolution; the liberation of all the colours. For a moment that sentiment did not seem to appeal. Clearly there was a section which felt that if it could be done it should apply only to themselves, the Greens. How would it lie possible to avoid contamination by the vicious Reds and the sordid Blacks if they were indistinguishable from other people? Wisely, Dick sensed the feeling and dropped that aspect. For some minutes he concentrated on the injustices suffered by the Greens themselves; the contrast between their way of living and that of the Whites on Milota.

Finally he asked: “Which one of you is going to be the first to regain his birthright colour? I could show you on myself how it can be done, but you might think I had tricked you. I want one of you whose family is known, whose parents and grandparents are known to everyone as Greens. Who?”

There was a pause, a dead silence. Then one of the women moved uncertainly forward. A dozen voices muttered a name, it was evident that she was known. She came slowly down the room breathing a little fast between brilliant red lips, red earrings swinging beside a face gravely beautiful in its lines, non-human in its colour.

Dick looked swiftly round the rest, his expression challenging an objection. There was none. He took her by the hand and led her towards the table. “Your arm first,” he said. “That will be enough proof.”

He rolled up her sleeve and began to apply a jelly-like stuff to her hand and forearm. David connected up his apparatus and snapped a switch on and off to assure himself that it was in working order. Leonie stepped back, watching the woman’s face, wondering how she felt, and remembering her own experience of the reverse process. Over the whole watching room was drawn a tension that could be felt, as if at long last they had begun to understand what it meant.

Dick put the woman’s arm in position beneath the projector. “You must turn it over, very slowly, when I tell you,” he instructed.

She did not seem to hear. She was looking down at it. Long, slim green fingers, beautifully shaped red nails. Leonie, the whole room, felt her hesitate and then finally make up her mind.

Dick stepped back. David put up one hand to steady the projector, his other on the switch. “And now to smash this lie forever,” he murmured.

The switch clicked in a breathless silence. For a second nothing moved. Then with a scream of agony the Green woman tore her arm from beneath the projector. Simultaneously the door across the room cracked and broke inwards.

The telephone bell rang. Mr. Wilfred Baisham turned over in bed and lifted the receiver. “Oh, hullo Reynick. I’ve been expecting to hear from you. What happened? Was I right?”

The Police Chief’s voice sounded thin and distant at his ear. “You were. We had a Green there as an observer. As it happens I’m glad I took your advice to let it go through. But it was cutting it pretty fine, you know, they actually started the machine working.”

“My dear, Reynick, don’t be absurd. It looked like the machine, I grant you — it was meant to. Well, what happened then?”

“Oh, I see now. That’s why you advised taking no action unless absolutely necessary. You might have told me before and saved me a nasty few minutes.”

“It seemed best to tell only the essential people. And it’s always best to let a thing like this break itself up without outside interference. Have you pulled in those three? They’re the only important ones.”

“No, we – “

“They went for them, did they, when they found it didn’t work? I thought they might.”

“No. As a matter of fact they didn’t. We were in the next room waiting for a signal from our observer — he, incidentally, doesn’t believe a word of what Clouster said. He thinks it was going to be some complicated kind of racket and so do the rest of the Greens who were there, at least those who got out do. Well, as I said, we were waiting and wondering and then suddenly there was a God-awful scream from a woman and a riot broke out.”

“I thought you said – “

“I did. It wasn’t the Greens. It was a gang of Reds. They’d got wind of the business somehow. As they saw it, the Greens had got hold of a dodge for making themselves look like Whites, and the Reds didn’t intend to let them have a monopoly — in fact, were out to grab it for themselves. In about three minutes there was a full-sized race riot spreading half over the district.”

“Tactically that was handy.”

“It was. We appeared only as restorers of the peace. I —By the way, you didn’t tip off those Reds, did you?” Reynick sounded suspicious.

“No, I’m afraid that was a subtlety which never occurred to me. What happened to the leaders?”

“Clouster and Sherrick got knifed, both of them — and fifteen or sixteen others, too.”

“And Leonie Ward?”

“Lynched — poor kid.”

Wilfred Baisham paused. “Nasty. Was it quick?”

“I think so.”

Mr. Baisham considered for a moment. “Perhaps it was better so. A little sooner, that’s all. She was too dangerous, that girl. Why must a girl with nerve like that get on the wrong side?”

“To her it was the right side, I suppose.”

“I suppose so. All the same. I’m sorry.” And, indeed, it was sorrow Mr. Baisham felt as he put down the receiver. But that did not prevent him sleeping more peacefully than he had slept for some nights past.

How Do I Do? (1953)

Frances paused to look into the showcase fastened to the wall between the pastry cook’s and the hairdresser’s. It was not a novelty. Passing it a hundred times, she could not fail to be aware of it, and of the open door beside it, but until now it had never really impinged. There had been no reason for it to impinge. Hers was a future that seemed, in its main outlines at least, and insofar as any woman’s is, pretty well charted.

Nor did the carefully worded leaflets behind the glass refer to the future directly. They offered Character Delineation, Scientific Palmistry, Psychological Prognosis, Semasiological Estimates, and other feats just beyond the scope of the Witchcraft Act or the practical interest of the police, but the idea of the future somehow showed through. And, for the first time, Frances found herself interested; for it is not every day that a girl sends her ring back and looks out upon a suddenly futureless world.

And yet, of course, and unlikely as it seemed at the moment, a future of some kind must lie ahead of her…

She read about Mastery of one’s Fate, Development of one’s Personality, Guidance of one’s Potentialities, went through a number of testimonials from persons who had been greatly helped, valuably guided, spiritually strengthened, and generally rendered more capable of managing themselves by the sympathetic counsels of Senora Rosa.

It was the word “guidance” occurring several times that set up the most responsive echo. Frances did not exactly imagine that she could go to this perfect stranger and extract a plan for living a neatly readjusted life, but the world, since she had handed that small, registered package across the post office counter, had become a place for which she had no plans of her own, and she felt that an improved acquaintance with her potentialities might be an aid.

She turned. She glanced along the street both ways, with the air of noticing and approving the freshness of the early summer day. Then, having observed no one whom she knew, she edged into the doorway, and climbed the dusty stairs.

“Marriage, of course,” said Senora Rosa, with the slightest trace of a hiccup. “Marriage! That’s what they all want to know about; it’s all they do want to know about. Want to know what he looks like— ‘s if that mattered. Don’t want to know if he’ll beat ‘em, or leave ‘em, or murder ‘em. Jus’ what he looks like— so they’ll know where to throw the lash— the lasso.”

She took a drink from the glass beside her, and went on: “Same with babies. Not interested to know if they’ll turn out to be gangsters or film shtarsh. Jus’ want to know how many. No ‘riginality. No ‘imagination. Jus’ like a lot of sheep— ‘cept, of course, they want a ram each.” She hiccupped discreetly again.

Frances started to get up. “I think, perhaps—” she began.

“No. Sit down,” the Senora told her. While Frances hesitated, she repeated, not loudly but quite firmly: “Sit down!”

Against her inclinations, Frances sat down rather to the front of the chair. She regarded the Senora across the small table which held a crystal and a lamp and knew that she had been a fool to come into the place at all.

With her swarthy skin, glittering dark eyes, and glaringly unnatural red hair, the Senora was difficult to visualize in the role of sympathetic counselor at the best of times. Slightly drunk, with the high comb which supported her torn mantilla listing to the right, an artificial rose sagging down over her left ear, and her heavy eyelids half-lowered against the trickle of her cigarette’s smoke, she became more than displeasing. It was, in fact, absurd not to have turned back at the very first sight of her, but somehow Frances had lacked the resolution then, and had not been able to gain it since.

“Fair return. That’s my rule, an’ no one’s going to say I break it,” announced the Senora. “Fee in advance, an’ fair return. Mind you, there’s nothing against a bit more for special satisfaction given. But fair return you shall have.”

She switched on a small, pink-shaded lamp close to the crystal, crossed the room a trifle uncertainly to draw the curtains, and returned to her chair. “Cozier,” she explained. “ ‘S easier to concentrate, too.”

She stubbed out her cigarette, drank off most of the remaining contents of her glass, gave her comb a push towards the vertical, and prepared to get to work. “ ‘S on me today,” she observed. “Some days it’s on you; some days it’s not— never can tell till you start. But I can feel it now. Tell you pretty near anything today, I could— I wouldn’t, of course. Something special you’d be wanting to know, beyond husbands, babies, an’ the usual?”

The low lighting worked quite a change in the Senora. It made the lines of her face more decisive and modified the redness of her hair; it glinted fascinatingly on her long brass earrings swinging like bell clappers, and glistened even more brightly in her dark eyes.

“Er— no,” said Frances. “As a matter of fact, I think I’ve changed my mind. So if you—”

“Nonsense,” the Senora told her shortly. “You’ll only be back in a day or two if you do, an’ then it might not be on me the way it is today. We’ll start on your future husband.”

“No. I’d really rather not—”

“Nonsense,” said the Senora, again. “They all want that. Jus’ you keep quiet now. Got to concentrate.”

She leaned forward, shading the crystal with one hand from the direct light while she gazed into it. Frances watched uncomfortably. For a time nothing happened, except that the earrings swung slowly to a stop. Then: “H’m,” said the Senora, with a suddenness that made Frances jump. “Nice-looking young feller, too.”

Frances had a vague feeling that such pronouncements, whatever their worth, were usually made in a more impressive tone and form, but the Senora went on : “Nice tie. Dark blue an’ old gold, with a thin red stripe in the blue.”

Frances sat suddenly still. The Senora leaned closer to the crystal. “Couple of inches taller than you. ‘Bout five foot ten. Smooth fair hair. Nice mouth. Good chin. Straight nose. Eyes sort of dark gray, with a touch of blue. Got a small, crescent-shaped scar over his left eyebrow, an old one. He—”

“Stop it!” Frances snapped.

The Senora looked up at her for a moment, and then back to the crystal. “Now as to children—” she went on.

“Stop it, I tell you,” Frances said again. “I don’t know how you found out about him, but you’re wrong. Yesterday I’d have believed you, but now you’re quite wrong!” The recollection of putting the ring with its five winking diamonds into its nest of cotton and closing the box became unbearably vivid. She was exasperatingly aware of tears starting to well up.

“There’s often jus’ a bit of a tiff—” began the Senora.

“How dare you! It’s not just a tiff, at all. It’s finished. I’m never going to see him again, so you can stop this farce now.”

The Senora stared. “Farce!” she exclaimed, incredulously. “You call my work farce! Why you— I’d have you know—”

Frances was angry enough for tears to wait. “Farce!” she repeated. “Farce, and cheating! I don’t know how you find out about people, but this time it hasn’t worked. Your information’s out of date. You— you— you’re just a drunken old cheat, taking advantage of people who are unhappy. That’s what you are.” She stood up to get herself out of the room before the tears came.

The Senora glared back at her. She snatched across the table and caught her wrist in a grip like a steel claw. “Cheat!” she shouted. “Cheat! Why, you silly, ignorant little ninny! Sit down!”

“Let me go,” Frances said. “You’re hurting my wrist.”

The Senora leaned closer. Her brows were lowered angrily over eyes that glittered more than ever. “Sit down there!” she ordered again.

Frances suddenly found herself more scared than angry. She stood for a moment, trying to outstare the woman; then her eyes dropped. She sat down, partly because the grip on her wrist was urging her, but more from nervousness. Senora Rosa sat down again, too, but she continued to hold Frances’ wrist across the table. “Cheat!” she muttered. “You call me a cheat!”

Frances avoided meeting her gaze, but: “Somebody must have told you about me and Edward,” she said, stubbornly.

“That told me,” said the Senora, pointing her free hand at the crystal. “That, an’ nothing else. Tells me a lot, that does. But you don’t believe it, do you? Think I’m a liar as well as a cheat, don’t you?”

“I didn’t really mean—”

“Don’t give me that. ‘Course you meant it. No respec’. No respec’ at all. Ninnies like you need lesson to teach ‘em respec’. Sh’ll I tell you when you’re goin’ to die, an’ how? Or when your Edward’s goin’ to die?”

“No— no, please,” said Frances.

“Ha! Don’t believe me— but you’re afraid to know.”

“I’m sorry. Really I am. I was upset. Please let me—” Frances began, but the Senora was not to be so easily mollified.

“Farce! Cheat!” she muttered. “Ninny!” she added forcibly and fell silent.

The silence lengthened, but the grip on Frances’ wrist did not relax. Soon, curiosity drove her to a swift upward glance. She had a glimpse of a quite different expression on the Senora’s face – more alarming in some indefinite way than her former anger. She appeared to have had some kind of inspiration. Her hand clutched Frances’ wrist more tightly. “Show you, that’s what,” she said, decisively. “Sick’ of ninnies. Jus’ show you. Look in the crysh— crystal!”

Frances kept her eyes down. The hand on her wrist twisted painfully. “Look in the crystal!” commanded the Senora.

Unwillingly, Frances lifted her head a little and looked at it. It was a quite uninteresting lump of glass, showing a number of complicated and distorted reflections. “This is silly,” she said. “I can’t see anything. You have no right to—”

“Be quiet! Jus’ look!” snapped the Senora.

Frances went on looking, wondering at the same time how she was going to get herself out of this. Even if she could pull free, it was impossible in the small room for her to reach the door without coming within the Senora’s. grasp— and there’d be delay in getting the door open, too.

Then her thoughts broke off as she noticed that the crystal was no longer clear. It seemed to have become fogged in some way, as though it had been breathed upon. But the foggy look grew thicker as she watched until it was like smoke wreathing inside it. Strange! It was some sort of trick of the old woman’s, of course – Some kind of hypnotic effect which made it seem to grow bigger and bigger.

It appeared to widen out and out as she watched it, until there was nothing at all anywhere but convolving whorls of fog. Then, like a flash, it was gone, and she was sitting in her chair, looking at the clear crystal. The grip on her arm was gone, too; and so, when she looked up, was the Senora.

Frances snatched up her bag and made for the door. No sound came from the inner room as she tiptoed across. She opened the door carefully, closed it quietly behind her, and skipped swiftly away down the stairs.

A very unpleasant experience, Frances told herself, walking briskly away. In fact, being held there like that against her will was the sort of thing one ought to tell a policeman about; it was probably assault, or something quite serious, really. Still not quite certain whether she actually wanted to see a policeman or not, she emerged from her thoughts and looked about her.

In the very first glance she made a discovery which drove such frivolous subjects as policemen right out of her mind. It was that everyone else in sight who had decided that the time for cotton had arrived was clad in a frock very much shorter and very much narrower than her own. She stared at them, bewildered. She must have had an inconceivable preoccupation with her own affairs not to have realized that there had been such a radical change of style.

She paused for a moment in front of a shop window to observe the reflection of the blue and white striped cotton frock that she had thought good for another summer. It looked terrible, just as if she had been upholstered. Another glance from it to the other frocks made her go hot with embarrassment: they must all be thinking she had come out wrapped in a large bedspread.

There was clearly one thing to be done about that, and done at once.

She started to walk hurriedly in the direction of Weilberg’s Modes. When Frances re-emerged into the street half an hour later, she felt considerably soothed. The congenial occupation of shopping, and the complete clearing of mental decks required for concentrating on the choice of a creation in an amusing pattern of palm trees and pineapples— plus the relief with which she had seen her old frock borne off to be sent to her flat— had helped to put Senora Rosa into proper perspective. Considered calmly over an ice-cream soda, the affair dwindled quite a lot— and her own part in it came to seem curiously spineless.

Her intention of informing the police faded. If there were a charge, and she had to give evidence, she’d scarcely be able to help exhibiting herself first as a fool for having gone to the place at all, and then as a nitwit for staying when she did not want to. Moreover, it would very likely be reported in the papers, and she’d hate that— so would Edward…

Which brought her back to thinking of Edward and to wondering whether she had perhaps behaved like a silly little fool there, too. After all, he had known Mildred for years and years— and just two or three dances. People said one ought to be careful about not feeling too possessive. All the same, just a few days after he had become engaged…No, it didn’t do to look cheap or easy, either. Really, life could be difficult.

Though Frances decided that she would walk home, she did not consciously choose the route. That is to say, she did not tell herself: “I’ll go by St. James’s Avenue, past that house that we decided would just suit us.” It simply was that her feet happened to carry her that way.

Coming nearer the house, she walked more slowly. There was a moment when she almost decided to turn back and go by another way. But she could not go around forever, avoiding every reminder; a person had to get used to things sooner or later. She walked resolutely on. Soon she was able to see the upper floor of the house, above the hedges. A comfortable, sensible-looking, friendly house, not new, but modern without being modernistic. It gave her a little knot high in her chest to see it again now. Then, as more of it came into view, the knot gave way to a feeling of dismay. There were curtains in windows that had been blank. The hedges had been trimmed. The board which had announced ‘For Sale’ was gone.

She paused at the front gate.

An astonishing amount had been done to the place in the few days since she had last seen it. The flower beds in the front garden were bright with tulips, the fig tree against the side wall had been cut and tied back, the windows shone. The doors of the garage were open, with a comfortable-looking car standing on the concrete driveway in front. The lawn had been closely mown. On it, a little girl of four or so, in a blue frock, was conducting a tea party with earnest admonitions to the guests, consisting of three sizes of teddy bear and a Raggedy Ann.

Frances was filled with a sharp indignation. The house had been almost hers. She had practically decided that it was the one her father was going to give them for a wedding present— and now it had been snatched away without a word of warning. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it hadn’t somehow contrived already to look so aggressively settled. Not that it really mattered, of course, now that she had finished with Edward. All the same, there was a feeling of having been cheated in some way that she didn’t quite understand.

The little girl on the lawn became aware of someone at the gate. She broke off from scolding the Raggedy Ann to look up. She dropped the miniature cup and saucer she was holding, and started to run toward Frances, “Mummy!” she called.

Frances looked around behind her. There was no one there. Then she bent down instinctively as the small figure hurtled itself toward her. The little girl flung her arms around Frances’ neck. “Mummy,” she said, with breathy intensity. “Mummy, you must come and tell Ann not to. She will talk with her mouth full.”

“Er— “ said Frances, out of the sudden stranglehold. “I— er— you— I mean—”

The little girl relaxed the embrace and tugged at her arm. “Oh, do come along, Mummy,” she said. “She’s ‘veloping bad habits.”

Dazed, Frances allowed herself to be led across the lawn to the tea party. The little girl improved the somewhat dissolute Raggedy Ann by propping her into a sitting position.

“There,” she told him. “Now Mummy’s here you’ll have to behave. Tell her, Mummy.” She looked at Frances expectantly.

“I— er— um— you— “ Frances began, confusedly.

The child looked up at her, puzzled. “What’s the matter, Mummy?” she asked.

Frances stared back at her, recollecting photographs of herself at about the same age. A peculiar feeling started to come over her. The small, earnest face seemed to swim slightly as she looked at it. Its expression grew concerned. “Aren’t you feeling well?”

Frances pulled herself together. “I’m— I’m all right— er— darling,” she said, unsteadily.

“Then do tell Ann she mustn’t. It’s awf’ly rude.”

Frances went down on her knees. She was glad to; the ground felt more solid that way. She leaned toward the offending doll, who fell flat on her face and was hastily corrected by her mistress.

“Er— Ann,” Frances told him. “Ann, I’m very shocked indeed to hear this about you. People who are invited to parties…”

So real! All of it!

Now that the lump in her chest which wasn’t quite panic or scare, but a bit like both, had subsided, Frances found herself able to regard the situation a little more calmly. The classic certificate was to be obtained by pinching oneself. She had done that, sharply, but without changing any of it. She looked at her hand, flexed it; it was her own hand, all right. She plucked a little grass from the lawn; real beyond doubt. She listened to the sounds about her; they had an authentic quality difficult to deny. She picked up the nearest teddy bear and examined it ... no dream ever finished anything with that amount of detail.

She sat back on her heels, looking up at the house, noticing the striped chairs on the porch, the patterns of the curtains, the recent coat of paint… She had always thought that hallucinations must be vague, misty experiences, but all this had a solidity that was rather frightening.

“Mummy,” said the little girl, turning away from her tea party, and standing up.

Frances’ heart jumped slightly. “Yes, dear?” she said.

“ ‘Mportant business. Will you see that Ann behaves herself?”

“I— think she understands now, dear,” Frances told her.

The small face in its frame of fair hair looked doubtful. “P’raps. She’s rather wicked, though. Back soon. ‘Mportant.”

Frances watched the blue frock as the child scampered away round the corner of the house on some mysterious errand. She felt suddenly forlorn. For some moments she remained on her knees, returning the shoe-button stare of the teddy bear in her hands. Then the absurdity of the whole thing flooded over her. She dropped the bear and got to her feet. At just that point a man emerged from the front door of the house on to the porch.

He wasn’t Edward.

He wasn’t anybody she’d ever seen before in her life.

He was tall, rather thin, but broad in the shoulders. His dark hair curled a little, and there were slight flecks of gray over his ears. He had been heading toward the car, but, at the sight of her, he stopped. His eyes crinkled at the corners and seemed to light up. “Back so early!” he said. “New frock, too; and looking like a schoolgirl in it. How do you manage it?”

“Uh!” gasped Frances, caught in a strong and entirely unexpected embrace.

“Look, darling,” he continued, without loosening his hold. “I simply must tear off now and see old Fanshawe. I’ll be back in less than an hour, though.”

His hug brought the rest of Frances’ breath out in another involuntary “Uh!” He kissed her soundly, slapped her behind affectionately, and dashed for the car. A moment later, it carried him out of sight.

Frances stood, getting her breath back, and staring after him. She found that she was shaking and filled with a most odd sensation of weakness, particularly in the knees. She staggered over to one of the chairs on the porch and subsided there. For a space, she sat motionless, her eyes glazed over, looking at nothing. Then, not quite accountably, she burst into tears.

With the decline of emotion to a sniff-and-dab, the unorthodoxy of Frances’ situation began to trouble her. In whatever peculiar way it had come about, the fact remained that she had been “Mummy” to someone else’s child, been warmly embraced by someone else’s husband, and was now sniveling on someone else’s porch. A convincing explanation to the someone else looked so difficult that the best way would be to get clear as soon as possible and avoid it.

She gave a final dab and got up with decision. She retrieved her bag from the medley of teddy bears and teacups and glanced at the mirror in the flap. She frowned at it and burrowed for her compact. The sound of a step caused her to look up. A woman was coming in through the gateway, a moderately tall, nicely built woman, dressed in a light-green linen suit, and carrying it well. A woman a few years older than herself, though still – but at that moment the woman turned so that Frances could see her face, and all coherent thought expired.

Frances’ jaw sagged. She gaped.

The other woman noticed her.

She looked hard at Frances but showed no great surprise. She turned off the path and came across the grass. There was nothing alarming about her. In fact, she was wearing the trace of a smile. “Hullo!” she said. “I was thinking this morning that you must be due somewhere about now.” Frances’ bag dropped from her fingers and spilled at her feet, but her eyes never left the other’s face.

The woman’s eyes were a little deeper and wiser than those she was wont to see in the mirror. There were the very faintest touches of shadows at their corners, and at the corners of the mouth. The lips favored a shade just a trace darker. Something as indescribable as the touch of dew had been exchanged for a breath of sophistication. But otherwise…otherwise…

Frances tried to speak, but all that came was a croak, strangled in rising panic. “It’s all right,” said the other. “Nothing to be scared about.” She linked her arm into Frances’ and led her back to the porch. “Now sit down there and just relax. You don’t need to worry a bit.”

Frances sank unresistingly into the chair and stared dumbly at her.

“Cigarette?” the other suggested. “Oh, no, of course. I didn’t, then.” She took one for herself and lit it. For what seemed a long time, they surveyed one another through the smoke. It was the other who broke the silence. She said: “How pretty— and charming! If I had only understood more— still, I suppose one could scarcely have had innocence and experience.” She sighed, with a touch of wistfulness. Then she shook her head. “No. Being young is very exhausting and unsatisfactory, really— although it looks so nice.”

Frances swallowed with difficulty. “Er— I think I must be going mad.”

The other shook her head. “Oh, no, you’re not. Nothing like it. Just take it easy and try to relax.”

“But this! I mean, you— me— as if— oh, I am going mad! I must be. It’s— it’s impossible!” Frances protested wildly. “Nobody can possibly be in two places at once. I mean nobody can be twice in the same place at once. I mean one person can’t be two people, not at the same—”

The other leaned across and patted her hand. “There, there, now. Calm down. I know it’s terribly bewildering at first, but it comes out all right. I remember.”

“Y— you remember!” stammered Frances.

“From when it happened to me, of course. From when I was where you are now.”

Frances stared at her, with a sensation of slowly and helplessly drowning.

“Look,” said the other. “I think I’d better get you a drink. I know you don’t take it, but this is rather exceptional. I remember how much better I felt for it. Just a minute.” She got up and went indoors.

Frances sat back, holding hard to both arms of her chair for reassurance. She felt as if she were falling over and over, a long way down. The other came back holding a glass and gave it to her. She drank, spluttering a little over the strange taste. But the other was right; she did immediately begin to feel somewhat better.

“Of course it’s a shock,” said the other. “And you are right about one person not being in two places —up to a point. But the way I think it must happen is that you just seem to go on being the same person. But you never can be, not really. I mean, since the cells that make you are always being gradually replaced, you can’t really be all the same person at any two times, can you?”

Frances tried to follow that, without success. “Well— I suppose not quite,” she conceded, doubtfully.

The other went on talking, giving her time to recover. “Well, then, when all the cells have been replaced, every seven years or so, then you can’t any of you be the same person any longer, although you still think you are. So that means that the cells that make up you and me are two quite different sets of cells —so they aren’t really having to be in two different places at once, although it does look like it, don’t you see?”

“I— er— perhaps,” said Frances, on a slightly hysterical note.

“So that sets a sort of natural limit,” the other went on. “I mean there obviously has to be a minimum gap of seven years or so in which it’s quite impossible for this to happen at all— until all your present cells have been replaced by others, you see.”

“I— I suppose so.”

“Just take another drink of that. It’ll do you good,” the other advised.

Frances did, and leaned back again in the chair. She wished her head would stop whirling. She didn’t understand a word that the woman— her other self; whoever it was— had said. All she knew was that none of it could possibly make sense. She kept hanging on to the arms of the chair until, presently, she began to feel herself growing calmer.

“Better? You’ve more color now,” the other said.

Frances nodded. She could feel the tears of a reaction not far away. The other came over and put an arm around her. “Poor dear, what a time you are having! All this confusion, and then falling in love on top of it— as if that weren’t confusing enough by itself.”

“F— falling in love?” asked Frances.

“Why, yes. I remember so well. He kissed you, and patted your behind— and you fell in love.”

“Oh dear— is it like that? I didn’t—” Frances broke off. “But how did you know about—? Oh, I see— of course.”

“And he’s a darling. You’ll adore him. And little Betty’s a love, too, bless her,” the other told her. She paused, and added, “I’m afraid you’ve rather, a lot to go through first, but it’s worth it. You’ll remember it’s worth it all?”

“Yes-s-s,” Frances told her, vaguely. She thought for a moment of the man who had come out of the house and vanished in the car. He would be— “Yes,” she said, more emphatically. She pondered for some seconds, and then turned to look critically at the other. “I suppose one does have to grow old— er— older, I mean,” she amended. “Somehow I’ve never thought—”

The other laughed. “Of course you haven’t. But it’s really very nice, I assure you. Such a much less anxious state than being young. Though, naturally, you won’t believe that.”

Frances let her eyes wander around the porch and across the garden. They came to rest on the teddy bears and the delinquent Raggedy Ann. She smiled. “But— I think I do,” she said.

The other smiled, too, her eyes a little shiny. “I really was rather a sweet thing,” she said.

She got up, abruptly. “You must go, my dear,” she said. “You’ve got to get back to that horrid old woman.”

Frances obediently got up, too. The other seemed to have some idea of what she was talking about, and what was necessary. Frances herself had little enough. “Back to the Senora?”

The other nodded without speaking. She put her arms around Frances and held her close to her. She kissed her gently. “Oh, my dear!” she said unsteadily, and turned her head away.

Frances walked down the short drive. At the gate she turned and looked back, taking it all, in. The other, on the porch, kissed her hand to her. Then she put it over her eyes and ran into the house. Frances turned to the right and walked back by the way she had come, toward the town and the Senora.

The cloudiness cleared. The crystal became just a glass ball again. Beyond it sat Senora Rosa, with her comb awry. Her left hand held Frances’ wrist. Frances stared at her for some moments. “You are a cheat,” she burst out. “You were telling lies, too. It wasn’t Edward. He wasn’t a bit like Edward.” She pulled her arm free with a sudden wrench. “Cheat!” she repeated. “You told me Edward and you showed me somebody else. It’s all cruel silly lies and cheating. All of it.”

Her vehemence was enough to take the Senora a little aback. “There was jus’ a little mistake,” she admitted. “By ‘n unfortunate—”

“Mistake!” shouted Frances. “The mistake was my ever coming in here at all. You’ve just made a fool of me and I hate you!”

The Senora recoiled, and then rallied slightly. With a touch of dignity she said: “The ‘xplanation’s really quite shimple. It was—”

“No!” Frances shouted. “I don’t want to hear any more about it.” She pushed the table with all her force. The edge of it caught the Senora in the middle. Her chair teetered backward. Then she, table, crystal, and lamp went down all in a heap, and Frances sprang for the door.

The Senora grunted and rolled over. She struggled to her feet, leaving comb and mantilla in the debris. “You idiotic little duffer,” she shouted. “That was your shecond marriage— an’ I shay the hell with both of ‘em.” But Frances was already out in the street, beyond earshot.

A very unpleasant experience —humiliating, too, thought Frances, as she pegged along with the jolting step of the outraged. Humiliating because— well, because she had nearly— no, she’d be honest, for a time she had fallen for it. It had all seemed so convincingly, so really real. Even now she could scarcely believe that she hadn’t walked up that drive, sat on that porch, talked to…but what a ridiculous thing to think. As if it could possibly be.

All the same, to find herself facing that horrible Senora again, and realize that it had all been some kind of trick ... If she weren’t in the public street now, she could have kicked herself, and wept with mortification. Soon, however, as the first flush of her anger began to cool, she became more aware of her surroundings. A number of the people she was passing were looking at her with curiosity— not quite the right kind of curiosity.

She glanced down at her frock and stopped dead. It was not her familiar blue and white striped cotton, but an affair covered with a squiggly pattern of palm trees and pineapples. She raised her eyes again and looked around. Every other cotton frock in sight was inches longer and far fuller than hers.

Frances blushed. She walked on, trying to look as if she were not blushing; trying, also, to pretend that the skimpy frock did not make her feel as if she had come out dressed in a rather inadequate bath towel.

There was, of course, clearly one thing to be done about that; and done at once.

She made haste toward Weilberg’s Modes.

Technical Slip (1949)

“Prendergast,” said the Departmental Director, briskly, “there’ll be that Contract XB2832 business arising today. Look after it, will you?”

“Very good, sir.”

Robert Finnerson lay dying. Two or three times before he had been under the impression that he might be dying. He had been frightened, and blusterously opposed to the idea; but this time it was different, he did not bluster, for he had no doubt that the time had come. Even so, he was still opposed; it was under marked protest that he acknowledged the imminence of the nonsensical arrangement.

It was absurd to die at sixty anyway and, as he saw it, it would be even more wasteful to die at eighty. A scheme of things in which the wisdom acquired in living was simply scrapped in this way was, to say the least, grossly inefficient. What did it mean? — That somebody else would now have to go through the process of learning all that life had already taken sixty years to teach him; and then be similarly scrapped in the end. No wonder the race was slow in getting anywhere — if, indeed, it were getting anywhere — with this cat-and-mouse, ten-forward-and-nine-back system.

Lying back on one’s pillows and waiting for the end in the quiet, dim room, the whole ground plan of existence appeared to suffer from a basic futility of conception. It was a matter to which some of these illustrious scientists might well pay more attention — only, of course, they were always too busy fiddling with less important matters, until they came to his present pass, when they would find it was too late to do anything about it.

Since his reflections had revolved thus purposelessly, and several times, upon somewhat elliptical orbits, it was not possible for him to determine at what stage of them he became aware that he was no longer alone in the room. The feeling simply grew that there was someone else there, and he turned his head on the pillow to see who it might be. The thin clerkly man whom he found himself regarding, was unknown to him, and yet, somehow, unsurprising.

“Who are you?” Robert Finnerson asked him.

The man did not reply immediately. He looked about Robert’s own age, with a face, kindly but undistinguished, beneath hair that had thinned and grayed. His manner was diffident, but the eyes which regarded Robert through modest gold-rimmed spectacles were observant. “Do not be alarmed, Mr. Finnerson,” he requested.

“I’m not at all alarmed,” Robert told him testily. “I simply asked who you are.”

“My name is Prendergast — not, of course, that that matters — “

“Never heard of you. What do you want?” Robert said.

Prendergast told him modestly: “My employers wish to lay a proposition before you, Mr. Finnerson.”

“Too late now for propositions,” Robert replied shortly.

“Ah, yes, for most propositions, of course, but I think this one may interest you.”

“I don’t see how — all right, what is it?”

“Well, Mr. Finnerson, we — that is, my employers — find that you are — er — scheduled for demise on April 20th, 1963. That is, of course, tomorrow.”

“Indeed,” said Robert calmly, and with a feeling that he should have been more surprised than he felt. “I had come to much the same conclusion myself.”

“Quite, sir,” agreed the other. “But our information also is that you are opposed to this — er — schedule.”

“Indeed!” repeated Mr. Finnerson. “How subtle! If that’s all you have to tell me, Mr. Pendlebuss — “

“Prendergast, sir. No, that is just by way of assuring you of our grasp of the situation. We are also aware that you are a man of considerable means, and, well, there’s an old saying that ‘you can’t take it with you’, Mr. Finnerson.”

Robert Finnerson looked at his visitor more closely. “Just what are you getting at?” he inquired.

“Simply this, Mr. Finnerson. My firm is in a position to offer a revision of schedule — for a consideration.”

Robert was already far enough from his normal for the improbable to have shed its improbability. It did not occur to him to question its possibility. He said: “What revision — and what consideration?”

“Well, there are several alternative forms,” explained Prendergast, “but the one we recommend for your consideration is our Reversion Policy. It is quite our most com- prehensive benefit — introduced originally on account of the large numbers of persons in positions similar to yours who were noticed to express the wish ‘if only I had my life to live over again’.”

“I see,” said Robert, and indeed he did. The fact that he had read somewhere or other of legendary bargains of the kind went a long way to disperse the unreality of the situation. “And the catch is?” he added.

Prendergast allowed a trace of disapproval to show. “The consideration,” he said with some slight stress upon the word. “The consideration in respect of a Reversion is a down payment to us of seventy-five per cent of your present capital.”

“Seventy-five per cent! What is this firm of yours?”

Prendergast shook his head. “You would not recall it, but it is a very old, established concern. We have had — and do have — numbers of notable clients. In the old days we used to work on a basis of — well — I suppose you would call it barter. But with the rise of commerce we changed our methods. We have found it much more convenient to have investable capital than to accumulate souls — especially at their present depressed market value. It is a great improvement in all ways. We benefit considerably, and it costs you nothing but money you must lose anyway — and you are still entitled to call your soul your own; as far, that is, as the law of the land permits. Your heirs will be a trifle disappointed, that’s all.”

The last was not a consideration to distress Robert Finnerson.

“My heirs are around the house like vultures already,” he said. “I don’t in the least mind their having a little shock. Let’s get down to details, Mr. Snodgrass.”

“Prendergast,” said the visitor, patiently. “Well now, the usual method of payment is this…”

It was a whim, or what appeared to be a whim, which impelled Mr. Finnerson to visit Sands Square. Many years had passed since he had seen it, and though the thought of a visit had risen from time to time there had seemed never to be the leisure. But now in the convalescence which followed the remarkable, indeed, miraculous recovery which had given such disappointment to his relatives, he found himself for the first time in years with an abundance of spare hours on his hands.

He dismissed the taxi at the corner of the Square and stood for some minutes surveying the scene with mixed feelings. It was both smaller and shabbier than his memory of it. Smaller, partly because most things seem smaller when revisited after a stretch of years, and partly because the whole of the south side including the house which had been his home was now occupied by an overbearing block of offices: shabbier because the new block emphasized the decrepitude of those Georgian terraces which had survived the bombs and had therefore had to outlast their expected span by twenty or thirty years.

But if most things had shrunk, the trees now freshly in leaf had grown considerably, seeming to crowd the sky with their branches, though there were fewer of them, A change was the bright banks of color from tulips in well tended beds which had grown nothing but tired looking laurels before. Greatest change of all, the garden was no longer forbidden to all but the residents, for the iron railings so long employed in protecting the privileged had gone for scrap in 1941, and never been replaced.

In a recollective mood and with a trace of melancholy, Mr. Finnerson crossed the road and began to stroll again along the once familiar paths. It pleased and yet saddened him to discover the semi-concealed gardener’s shed looking just as it had looked fifty years ago. It displeased him to notice the absence of the circular seat which used to surround the trunk of a familiar tree. He wandered on, noting this and remembering that, but in general remembering too much, and beginning to regret that he had come. The garden was pleasant — better looked after than it had been — but, for him, too full of ghosts. Overall there was a sadness of glory lost, with a surrounding shabbiness.

On the east side a well remembered knoll survived. It was, he recalled as he walked slowly up it, improbably reputed to be a last fragment of the earthworks which London had prepared against the threat of Royalist attack.

In the circle of bushes which crowned it, a hard, slatted chair rested in seclusion. The fancy took him to hide in this spot as he had been wont to hide there half a century before. With his handkerchief he dusted away the pigeon droppings and the looser grime. The relief he found in the relaxation of sitting down made him wonder if he had not been overestimating his recuperation. He felt quite unusually weary.

Peace was splintered by a girl’s insistent voice. “Bobby!” she called. “Master Bobby, where are you?”

Mr. Finnerson was irritated. The voice jarred on him. He tried to disregard it as it called again. Soon a head appeared among the surrounding bushes. The face was a girl’s; above it a bonnet of dark blue straw; around it navy blue ribbons, joining in a bow on the left cheek. It was a pretty face, though at the moment it wore a professional frown.

“Oh, there you are, you naughty boy. Why didn’t you answer when I called?”

Mr. Finnerson looked behind him to find the child addressed. There was none. As he turned back he became aware that the chair had gone. He was sitting on the ground, and the bushes seemed taller than he had thought.

“Come along now. You’ll be late for your tea,” added the girl. She seemed to be looking at Mr. Finnerson himself.

He lowered his eyes and received a shock. His gaze instead of encountering a length of neatly striped trouser, rested upon blue serge shorts, a chubby knee, white socks and a childish shoe. He waggled his foot, and that in the childish shoe responded. Forgetting everything else in this discovery, he looked down his front at a fawn coat with large, flat brass buttons- At the same moment he became aware that he was viewing everything from beneath the curving brim of a yellow straw hat.

The girl gave a sound of impatience. She pushed through the bushes and emerged as a slender figure in a long, navy blue cape. She bent down. A hand, formalized at the wrist by a stiff cuff, emerged front the folds of the cape and fastened upon his upper arm. He was dragged to his feet.

“Come along now,” she repeated. “Don’t know what’s come over you this afternoon, I’m sure.” Clear of the bushes, she shifted her hold to his hand, and called again.

“Barbara. Come along.”

Robert tried not to look. Something always cried out in him as if it had been hurt when he looked at Barbara. But in spite of his will his head turned. He saw the little figure in a white frock turn its head, then it came tearing across the grass looking like a large doll. He stared. He had almost forgotten that she had once been like that: as well able to run as any other child, and forgotten, too, what a pretty, happy little thing she had been.

It was quite the most vivid dream he had ever had. Nothing in it was distorted or absurd. The houses sat with an air of respectability around the quiet square. On all four sides they were of a pattern, with variety only in the colors of the spring painting that most of them had received. The composite sounds of life about him were in a pattern, too, that he had forgotten; no rising whine of gears, no revving of engines, no squeal of tires; instead, a background with an utterly different cast blended from the clopping of innumerable hooves, light and heavy, and the creak and rattle of carts. Among it was the jingle of chains and bridles, and somewhere in a nearby street a hurdy-gurdy played a once familiar tune. The beds of tulips had vanished, the wooden seat encircled the old tree as before, the spiked railings stood as he remembered them, stoutly preserving the garden’s privacy. He would have liked to pause and taste the flavor of it all again, but that was not permissible.

“Don’t drag, now,” admonished the voice above him. “We’re late for your tea now, and Cook won’t like it.”

There was a pause while she unlocked the gate and let them out. Then with their hands in hers they crossed the road toward a familiar front door, magnificent with new shiny green paint and bright brass knocker. It was a little disconcerting to find that their way in lay by the basement steps and not through this impressive portal.

In the nursery everything was just as it had been, and he stared around him, remembering. “No time for mooning, if you want your tea,” said the voice above.

He went to the table, but he continued to look around, recognizing old friends. The rocking-horse with its lower lip missing. The tall wire fireguard, and the rug in front of it. The three bars across the window. The dado procession of farmyard animals. The gas lamp purring gently above the table. A calendar showing a group of three very woolly kittens, and below, in red and black, the month — May 1910. Nineteen ten, he reflected; that would mean he was just seven.

At the end of the meal — a somewhat dull meal, perhaps, but doubtless wholesome— Barbara asked; “Are we going to see Mummy now?”

Nurse shook her head. “Not now. She’s out. So’s your Daddy. I expect they’ll look in at you when they get back — if you’re good.”

The whole thing was unnaturally clear and detailed: the bathing, the putting to bed. Forgotten things came back to him with an uncanny reality which bemused him. Nurse checked her operations once to look at him searchingly and say: “Well, you’re a quiet one tonight, aren’t you? I hope you’re not sickening for something.”

There was still no fading of the sharp impressions when he lay in bed with only the flickering nightlight to show the familiar room. The dream was going on for a long time — but then dreams could do that, they could pack a whole sequence into a few seconds. Perhaps this was a special kind of dream, a sort of finale while he sat out there in the garden on that seat: it might be part of the process of dying — the kind of thing people meant when they said ‘his whole life flashed before him’, only it was a precious slow flash. Quite likely he had overtired himself: after all he was still only convalescent and…

At that moment the thought of that clerkly little man, Pendlesomething — no, Prendergast — recurred to him. It struck him with such abrupt force that he Sat up in bed, looking wildly around. He pinched himself — people always did that to make sure they were awake, though he had never understood why they should not dream they were pinching themselves. It certainly felt as if he were awake. He got out of bed and stood looking about him. The floor was hard and solid under his feet, the chill in the air quite perceptible, the regular breathing of Barbara, asleep in her cot, perfectly audible. After a few moments of bewilderment he got slowly back into bed.

People who wish: “If only I had my life over again.” That was what that fellow Prendergast had said…

Ridiculous…utterly absurd, of course — and, anyway, life did not begin at seven years of age — such a preposterous thing could not happen, it was against all the laws of Nature. And yet suppose – just suppose – that once, by some multi-millionth chance…

Bobby Finnerson lay still, quietly contemplating an incredible vista of possibilities. He had done pretty well for himself last time merely by intelligent perception, but now, armed with foreknowledge, what might he not achieve! In on the ground floor with radio, plastics, synthetics of all kinds — with prescience of the coming wars, of the boom following the first — and of the 1929 slump. Aware of the trends. Knowing the weapons of the second war before it came, ready for the advent of the atomic age. Recalling endless oddments of useful information acquired haphazardly in fifty years. Where was the catch? Uneasily, he felt sure that there must be a catch: something to stop him from communicating or using his knowledge. You couldn’t disorganize history, but what was it that could prevent him telling, say, the Americans about Pearl Harbor, or the French about the German plans? There must be something to stop that, but what was it?

There was a theory he had read somewhere — something about parallel universes…

No. There was just one explanation for it all; in spite of seeming reality — in spite of pinching himself, it was a dream — just a dream ... or was it?

Some hours later a board creaked outside. The quietly opened door let in a wedge of brighter light from the passage, and then shut it off. Lying still and pretending sleep, he heard careful footsteps approach. He opened his eyes to see his mother bending over him. For some moments he stared unbelievingly at her. She looked lovely in evening dress, with her eyes shining. It was with astonishment that he realized she was still barely more than a girl. She gazed down at him steadily, a little smile around her mouth. He reached up with one hand to touch her smooth cheek. Then, like a piercing bolt came the recollection of what was going to happen to her. He choked.

She leaned over and gathered him to her, speaking softly not to disturb Barbara. “There, there, Bobby boy. There’s nothing to cry about. Did I wake you suddenly? Was there a horrid dream?”

He snuffled but said nothing. “Never mind, darling. Dreams can’t hurt you, you know. Just you forget it now and go to sleep.” She tucked him up, kissed him lightly, and turned to the cot where Barbara lay undisturbed. A minute later she had gone.

Bobby Finnerson lay quiet but awake, gazing up at the ceiling, puzzling, and, tentatively, planning. The following morning, being a Saturday, involved the formality of going to the morning room to ask for one’s pocket money. Bobby was a little shocked by the sight of his father. Not just by the absurd appearance of the tall choking collar and the high-buttoned jacket with mean lapels, but on account of his lack of distinction; he seemed a very much more ordinary young man than he had liked to remember. Uncle George was there, too, apparently as a weekend guest. He greeted Bobby heartily: “Hullo, young man. By jingo, you’ve grown since I last saw you. Won’t be long before you’ll be helping us with the business, at this rate. How’ll you like that?” Bobby did not answer. One could not say; “That won’t happen because my father’s going to be killed in the war, and you are going to ruin the business through your own stupidity.” So he smiled back vaguely at Uncle George and said nothing at all.

“Do you go to school now?” his uncle added.

Bobby wondered if he did. His father came to the rescue. “Just a kindergarten in the morning, so far,” he explained.

“What do they teach you? Do you know the Kings of England?” Uncle George persisted.

“Draw it mild, George,” protested Bobby’s father. “Did you know ‘em when you were just seven— do you now, for that matter?”

“Well, anyway, he knows who’s king now, don’t you, old man?” asked Uncle George.

Bobby hesitated. He had a nasty feeling that there was a trick about the question, but he had to take a chance. “Edward the Seventh,” he said, and promptly knew from their faces that it had been the wrong chance.

“I mean, George the Fifth,” he amended hastily.

Uncle George nodded. “Still sounds strange, doesn’t it? I suppose they’ll be putting G.R. on things soon instead of E.R.”

Bobby got away from the room with his Saturday sixpence, and a feeling that it was going to be less easy than he had supposed to act his part correctly.

He had a self-protective determination not to reveal himself until he was pretty sure of his ground, particularly until he had some kind of answer to his chief perplexity — was the knowledge he had that of the things which must happen, or was it of those that ought to happen? If it were only the former, then he would appear to be restricted to a Cassandra-like role: but if it were the latter, the possibilities were — well, was there any limit?

In the afternoon they were to play in the Square garden. They left the house by the basement door, and he helped the small Barbara with the laborious business of climbing the steps while Nurse turned back for a word with Cook. They walked across the pavement and stood waiting at the curb. The road was empty save for a high-wheeled butcher’s trap bowling swiftly towards them. Bobby looked at it, and suddenly a whole horrifying scene jumped back into his memory like a vivid photograph.

He seized his little sister’s arm, dragging her back towards the railings. At the same moment he saw the horse shy and begin to bolt. Barbara tripped and fell as it swerved towards them. With frightened strength he tugged her across the pavement. At the area gate he himself stumbled, but he did not let go of her arm. Somehow she fell through the gate after him, and together they rolled down the steps. A second later there was a clash of wild hooves above. A hub ripped into the railings, and slender shiny spokes flew in all directions. A single despairing yell broke from the driver as he flew out of his seat, and then the horse was away with the wreckage bumping and banging behind it, and Sunday joints littering the road.

There was a certain amount of scolding which Bobby took philosophically and forgave because Nurse and the others were all somewhat frightened. His silence covered considerable thought. They did not know, as he did, what ought to have happened. He knew how little Barbara ought to have been lying on the pavement screaming from the pain of a foot so badly mangled that it would cripple her and so poison the rest of her life. But instead she was just howling healthily from surprise and a few bumps. That was the answer to one of his questions, and he felt a little shaky as he recognized it.

They put his ensuing ‘mooniness’ down to shock after the narrow escape and did their best to rally him out of the mood. Nevertheless, it was still on him at bedtime, because the more he looked at his situation, the more fraught with perplexity it became.

It had, amongst other things, occurred to him that he could only interfere with another person’s life once. Now, for instance, by saving Barbara from that crippling injury he had entirely altered her future: there was no question of his knowledge interfering with fate’s plans for her again, because he had no idea what her new future would be.

That caused him to reconsider the problem of his father’s future. If it were to be somehow contrived that he should not be in that particular spot in France, when a shell fell there, he might not be killed at all, and if he weren’t, then the question of preventing his mother from making that disastrous second marriage would never arise. Nor would Uncle George be left single-handed to ruin the business, and if the business weren’t ruined the whole family circumstances would be different. They’d probably send him to a more expensive school, and thus set him on an entirely new course – and so on, and so on.

Bobby turned restlessly in bed. This wasn’t going to be as easy as he had thought ... it wasn’t going to be easy at all. If his father were to remain alive there would be a difference at every point where it touched the lives of others, widening like a series of ripples. It might not affect the big things, the pieces of solid history — but something else might. Supposing, for instance, warning were to be given of a certain assassination due to be attempted later at Sarajevo?

Clearly one must keep well away from the big things. As much as possible one must flow with the previous course of events, taking advantage of them, but being careful always to disrupt them as little as possible. It would be tricky…very tricky indeed.

“Prendergast, we have a complaint. A serious complaint over XB2832,” announced the Department Director.

“I’m sorry to hear it, sir. I’m sure — “

“Not your fault. It’s those Psychiatric fellows again. Get on to them, will you, and give them hell for not making a proper clearance. Tell them the fellow’s dislocated one whole ganglion of lives already — and it’s lucky it’s only a minor ganglion. They’d better get busy, and quickly.”

“Very good, sir. I’ll get through at once.”

Bobby Finnerson awoke, yawned, and sat up in bed. At the back of his mind there was a feeling that this was some special kind of day, like a birthday, or Christmas — only if wasn’t really either of those. But it was a day when he had particularly meant to do something. If only he could remember what it was. He looked around the room and at the sunlight pouring in through the window; nothing suggested any specialness. His eyes fell on the cot where Barbara still slept peacefully. He slipped silently out of bed and across the floor. Stealthily he reached out to give a tug at the little plait which lay on the pillow.

It seemed as good as any other way of starting the day.

From time to time as he grew older that sense of specialness recurred, but he never could find any real explanation for it. In a way it seemed allied with a sensation that would come to him suddenly that he had been in a particular place before, that somehow he knew it already — even though that was not possible. As if life were a little less straightforward and obvious than it seemed. And there were similar sensations, too, flashes of familiarity over something he was doing, a sense felt sometimes, say during a conversation, that it was familiar, almost as though it had all happened before.

It was not a phenomenon confined to his youthful years. During both his early and later middle age it would still unexpectedly occur at times. Just a trick of the mind, they told him. Not even uncommon, they said.

“Prendergast, I see Contract XB2832 is due for renewal again.”

“Yes, sir.”

‘‘Last time, I recall, there was some little technical trouble. It might be as well to remind the Psychiatric Department in advance.”

“Very good, sir.”

Robert Finnerson lay dying. Two or three times before he had been under the impression that he might be dying. He had been frightened…

…And the Walls Came Tumbling Down… (1951)

Report No. 1. From Mantus, Commanding No. 8 Expeditionary Party (Sol 3), to Zennacus, C-in-C Vanguard Emigration Forces (Electra 4).

Sir,

Craft State: Fully serviceable 4; Slightly damaged 1; Lost in action 2. Casualty State: Fit personnel 220; unfit 28; lost in action 102.

Present Position: 54/28/4 x 23/9/10 — Sol 3.

Supply State: v. satisfactory. Equipment: Satisfactory.

Morale: Fair, improving.

Approach was made to Sol 3 at 28/11 (Electra 4 time). Signs of hostility were immediately encountered. Expedition withdrew without counter action. Approach made in other hemisphere. Signs of greater hostility encountered. Two ships were disintegrated with all aboard. Third ship sustained minor fractures, ditto 28 crew, 2 lost. Expedition withdrew. Signs of hostility in all inhabited places visited. Conference was called. It was decided to set down in uninhabited area, if suitable. Very suitable position located after search. Expedition set down without interference 34/12 at reading given. In consideration of hostility encountered, construction of a redoubt was commenced immediately.

Dear Zenn, the above is for the official record but even from that you may judge that this planet, Earth, is one hell of a spot. Just my damned luck to draw Party No. 8. Serves me right for behaving like an honest fool when I could as easily have fiddled the draw.

I’ll never get any place in politics, I’m afraid — even if I ever do get back from this grotesquely misconceived planet. I would sum it up as a disgusting and dangerous dump with the potentialities of a paradise.

To begin with the worst features — about two-thirds of the place is waterlogged. This results in masses of suspended vapor forever hanging about in its atmosphere. Imagine the gloomy effect of that for a start!

But it is almost worse when the main masses of vapor clear, for then the humid air gives to the whole sky a hideously ominous shade of blue. Not, of course, that one would expect the place to look like home but there does seem to be a kind of wanton perversity over everything. One would assume that development would take place in the most suitable and salubrious spots — but not here. The larger centers were not difficult to distinguish from above, being clearly of artificial construction with marks (some form of communications?) radiating from them. And all were remarkably ill- situated.

As we steered close to one, we had thought ourselves unperceived, but on our approach it was clear that preparations had been made against us. The defences were, indeed, already in action — without any attempt to inquire whether we came in good faith. One must assume from this that the inhabitants are of an abnormally suspicious or possibly a sheerly vicious disposition.

Considering it possible that other parts of this world might be uninformed about us we moved halfway round the planet before making another approach. Here the centers of habitation were more frequent and had a more orderly appearance, many of them being laid out in lattice form.

They proved, however, to be even better defended, and over a considerable range. Indeed, so accurate was their estimate that two unfortunate vessels were completely disintegrated and another somewhat fractured.

We in the other four felt our craft and ourselves shaken so much and subjected to such stress and tension that we thought the end had come for us also. Luck, however, was with us and we were able to draw off to a safe distance with the loss of only certain fragile but unimportant objects. After that we proceeded with great caution to investigate several other cities. We found every one of them embattled against us.

We do not understand why the inhabitants should, without provocation or enquiry, turn weapons upon us in this way. We have been given no chance to explain that we come with peaceful intentions — nor indeed any chance to attempt communication at all. It is a very disappointing and ominous climax to our long journey and it has depressed us.

I called a conference to decide on our next move. The views aired there were not encouraging. Every contribution to the debate endorsed that this planet is crazy beyond belief. Some compensations did emerge, however. The concentration of civilization in unsuitable spots — moist humid areas, often alongside large bodies of water — cannot be accidental though its purpose is obscure. But it does, quite absurdly, mean that the most hospitable regions are without signs of life.

This observation, supported by several speakers, did much to raise our spirits. It was decided to set down in one such spot and there to build a redoubt where we can live safely until we shall have discovered some means of communicating with the inhabitants to assure them of our peaceable intentions.

This we have done at the position stated and I may explain the report on morale by saying that it has given everyone a great lift to be settled in a spot so rich, so lushly furnished with the good things of life. Imagine, if you can, an area composed almost entirely of silicates! This is sober fact. Never did I expect to see such a thing. It is Eptus’ opinion that the planet itself may consist almost entirely of silicates beneath the water and under a hideous green mould which covers most of the rest of its surface. It is difficult to believe in such a wonderful thing as that, so I am accepting his view with caution for the present.

If it were true, however, all our problems would be solved. A completely new era would open for us since we would be justified in assuming that the other planets of the Sol system are similar. In other words we should be able to report that we have found a whole system built of silicates in easily assimilable form and inexhaustible in extent.

This remains to be investigated and proved. It is not known to the rest of the company, who assume that this is a mere pocket delectably rich in silicates. The exact site chosen lies between two large rocks, which will provide natural bastions to the north and south sides of the redoubt, making it unnecessary for us to do more than build the east and west walls between them and roof the space thus enclosed.

This should take no great length of time. Sol is close enough to exert considerable force here. Several members of the party were immediately detailed to assimilate silicates until they were extended to the required shape and pattern. They then arranged themselves in a refractory formation bearing upon a remarkably pure quartz deposit. Fusing took place in quite a short time. Before long we had the material to make several furnace-lenses, and these are now fusing blocks of first-class boltik from the raw ingredients strewn all around us.

Since we set down we have seen nothing of the inhabitants, but several things lead us to suspect that the region, though neglected, is not entirely unknown to them. One is that a part of the ground surface has been hardened somewhat as though an exceedingly heavy weight of some kind had been dragged over it.

This mark lies in a line roughly east and west, passing between our two rocks. Westward it continues without feature for a great distance. To the east, however, it shortly joins a broader mark evidently made by the traction of a still heavier object. A little on our side of this junction stands a curious formation which, by its regularity, we take to be artificial. It is made of an impermanent fibrous material and bears apparently intentional markings. Thus:

DESERT ROAD

CARRY WATER

We do not understand the significance of this — if it has any.

Since I began this account Eptus and Podas have brought me the most fantastic news yet. I have to believe it because they should know what they are talking about and assure me that it is positively a fact.

It seems that Podas collected locally a few specimens for examination. Several of them were asymmetrical objects attached in some way to the ground. Another was of different type and showed some degree of symmetry. This latter was in the form of a soft cylinder, having a blunt projection at one end and a tapered one at the other, and was supported by four further projections beneath. It was by no means attached to the ground, being able to move itself with agility on the four lower projections. After examining them all carefully Podas declares that they are all living objects, and that the basis in both types is carbon! Don’t ask me how such a thing can be but Eptus supports him, so I have to accept it.

It has further occurred to them as a result of this discovery that if all life on this planet is on a carbon basis it may well account for the neglect of this excellent silicate region. It does not, however, account for the immediate and unprovoked hostility of the inhabitants, which is a matter that interests me more at the moment.

Podas states that none of his specimens exhibited intelligence, though the cylindrical object displayed some clear reflexes to external stimuli. I find it difficult to imagine what a carbon-based intelligence could possibly look like but I expect we shall find out before long. I must admit that I look forward to this event not only with some misgiving, but with a considerable degree of distaste.

Report No. 2. All states and positions: No change. Redoubt completed. No confirmed contact yet with intelligent forms.

Dear Zenn. Soon after the third rising of Sol enabled us to set the furnace-lenses to work again we produced enough boltik to finish our redoubt. The last block was fused into place halfway through the diurnal period, which is very short here. I am relieved that it has been completed without interruption. Now that we and our craft have this protection we can face the future with more confidence.

Podas and Eptus have examined more specimens. These confirm their earlier views but add little. So far we have not made contact with any intelligence here. After our earlier experiences we are not seeking it out but are waiting for it to come to us.

As a qualification I should add that Podas thinks we almost contacted an intelligence during the fourth Sol and still may do so. Eptus, however, disagrees with him and on the face of it one would say Eptus was right. What happened was this.

About the middle of the fourth Sol a cloud of dust was seen to the east of us above the long mark referred to in my last. It was soon evident that the creature responsible for the dust was traveling along this mark toward us. We observed it with increasing amazement because it was clearly to be seen that this creature supported itself upon four disks. Its body was black and shining; at the front were metal appendages which shone like silver. It moved at a moderate speed but clearly with discomfort since its disk supports transmitted the result of every inequality of the ground surface to its carcass. Eptus deduces from this that it evolved upon some level surface, possibly ice, and is ill adapted to this district.

That its intention was hostile there could be no doubt for it projected strongly against us. Luckily it was either ill-informed regarding us or was not capable of serious attack, for it operated upon a quite harmless range. Out of interest we let it come quite close before we turned the beam on it. When we did we saw with astonishment — and I must admit some consternation — that nothing whatever resulted. We watched it with growing anxiety as it came on, still keeping close to the line. Two more beams were turned on to it, still without effect.

Podas said, “I don’t think it can be sentient. It is coming as if we weren’t here at all.” And indeed it was. In spite of our defences it continued to come until, without slackening speed in the least, it ran right into the side of the redoubt where the front of it was crushed and some pieces fell off.

We waited some moments, and then when it did not stir again, we left the redoubt to examine it. It appeared to be a composite creature. One part had become detached and projected forward against the wall by the sudden stop. This we found to bear a generic resemblance to the cylinder spoken of in my last but unlike in that it was covered with detachable teguments. Its forward blunt projection had encountered the side of the redoubt with some force. Possibly this was the cause of its de-animation.

Podas, investigating, found a similar creature inside the body of the disked creature and unattached to it. Possibly this is some singular form of parturition natural to this planet. I could not say. It is hard enough in this crazy place to hang on to one’s reason, let alone try to apply it to the utterly unreasonable.

Against the idea is the fact that neither of the smaller creatures showed any vestige of disks. Also both of these were covered in teguments which can scarcely be natural — especially in the case of the latter creature, where the tegument seemed designed with the purpose of hampering the hinder limbs — though it may have some other purpose unguessed.

The two creatures were brought into the redoubt for closer examination. The parent or host — for Frinctus has put forward the theory that the two we have may be parasitic upon it — creature was left outside on account of its size. More careful examination showed that our two new specimens were not identical though the differences are of no great importance. The shortness of the fibers on the blunt projection of one compared with those on the other could easily be due to some kind of accident, for instance.

Podas, who set about opening up the revoltingly squashy body of our first find with a scientific lack of disgust that I can only envy, reports that its internal arrangements, while quite incomprehensible to him, are on the same general lines as those of the small cylindrical creature referred to in my last.

Eptus is anxious to open the other for confirmation but Podas is against it. He says that we shall learn nothing more from it than from the other and that furthermore it is not entirely inactive. It inflates and deflates in a most curious rhythmic manner which interests him. As it is Podas’ department the matter rests there for the moment.

Meanwhile, Orkiss, our chief mathematician, who had out of curiosity been examining the supposed parent creature outside, returned to say that in his opinion it is not a creature at all but an artifact. Podus went back with him to look at it again and now concurs. Eptus reserves his opinion. Podus has also tentatively suggested that our second specimen — the one with its nether limbs webbed by the odd tegument — may possibly be the vessel for an intelligence of some kind, since it was inside the artifact. To this Eptus objects strongly.

How, he asks, can any form of intelligence recognizable as such be expected from a sloppy collection of innumerable tubes slung on a hardened lime framework? Further, says he, reason presupposes at least the ability to comprehend a straight line. This type of creature has not a straight line in its make-up.

It is pudgy and squashy and would be almost amorphous but for its framework. Clearly it is not of a nature that could comprehend a straight line — and if it cannot do that it follows that It cannot be capable of mathematical nor, therefore, logical thinking. Which, I must say, sounds to me a very reasonable argument.

Podas replies that there are certainly straight lines in the construction of the artifact outside. Eptus says, if it is an artifact. Podas maintains that it definitely is an artifact and the product of some kind of reasoning. Eptus objects that the existence of a creature which is just a sack full of tubes is not reasonable in itself, let alone that it should generate reason.

And that, for the moment, is how things stand.

Report No. 3. All states and positions (except Casualty) — No Change. Casualty — One lost.

Little progress to report. One intelligent being of a kind has been discovered. Contact with it is not yet established. The term “intelligent” is here to be understood technically as being the power to influence reflexes to some extent.

Both ratiocination and perception are so restricted in the specimen observed as to make it appear unlikely that this can be the most advanced form here. The creature is hostile and has caused one casualty — Althis, engineer. Contact with more intelligent forms is still awaited.

Dear Zenn. Too much of the good things of life presents almost as many problems as too little. The temptation of such a wealth of easily assimilable silicates has proved too much for several of our party. A dozen have succumbed to it and indulged in what can only be described as an orgy of gourmandizing a little west of our position.

When discovered they had already created a pit of some size and had increased themselves beyond possibility of their re-entering the redoubt. So there they will have to stay and take their chance. I drew the attention of the rest to the result of such intemperance with, I hope, salutary effect. We shall see. Meanwhile Podas has turned out to be astonishingly justified in some of his deductions. Eptus is a trifle piqued about this and doggedly insists upon ap- plying reason in what seems to me — and to Podas — an unreasonable way.

As I pointed out to him, this was by no means a reasonable planet. After what we have seen of it I, for one, would be by no means surprised to find that two and two make seven by the local rules. To this Eptus obstinately asserts that reason is absolute and universal and therefore must hold good on even the craziest planet. All I can say to that is that it just doesn’t look that way from here.

Podas’ second specimen — the one taken from the disked artifact — after lying for some time doing nothing perceptible beyond expansion and contraction, then began for no discoverable reason to show signs of re-animation. It moved a little.

Then we observed that small flaps in the tegument — the permanent, not the dispensable tegument — covering the blunt projection were drawn back, uncovering a kind of lenses made, seemingly, of liquid. For a short while no more happened. But it was then that we realized that it did have intelligence of a kind.

We could feel its mind, which had apparently been absent or in some way diffused before, coalescing into some sort of form. Quite suddenly it raised its cylindrical main mass to the vertical on the rounded lower end — where, in this species, there is no tapered projection.

Immediate reflex concern filled its mind at the absence of the detachable teguments Podas had removed when examining it. This concern, however, was quickly replaced by another — an urgent fear of falling. It turned its lenses downward. There was immediate chaos in its mind but the dominant question seemed to be — why did it not drop to the ground some little distance beneath?

Well, why should it? It was supported on a solid block of boltik, which in turn rested on the solid boltik floor. This it soon discovered for itself by sliding one of its slender upper projections over the surface. At this its confusion grew rather than diminished.

Then we made the surprising discovery that its lenses were extraordinarily defective. Their range of vision was so limited that they were quite insensitive not only to boltik but to all our other materials, including ourselves! It had no means of detecting them or us except by touch.

Consequently, what it was now asking itself was how it came to be suspended above the ground in the middle of a desert. It gave a long look at the damaged artifact outside. It took hold of a part of itself, apparently with the intention of proving its own existence to itself.

Hostility is evidently instinctive to this species. Its weapon is concealed somewhere within it and is projected from an orifice a little below the lenses. It takes the form of a slot or a rough circle according to the force employed. It began to use it now, fortunately on a low power and register which caused us no more than a slight discomfort.

It moved one of its lower projections and found the edge of the block. Thence it felt downward to the floor. Assured by touch that that existed it put down the matching projection — but instead of bringing down the other pair of projections, it remained balanced upon two! At this point Eptus complained that he must be suffering from hallucinations. The creature was so manifestly top-heavy that it was against reason for it to remain stable in the position in which he now saw it.

We agreed in principle but pointed out that we were seeing the same thing, so that we must accept its reality in spite of reason. Eptus declared that Podas must have overlooked a gyroscope somewhere in the tangle of tubes. The creature remained vertical but stationary for a moment. It then began to make its way, by an ungainly swaying of its weight from one projection to the other, toward the disked artifact.

Not being able to perceive the wall of the redoubt it encountered it somewhat suddenly and with natural surprise. It continued its manifestations of hostility as it felt about the boltik surface in bewilderment. Then, discouraged, it turned back. It was at that moment that it saw for the first time the other specimen which Podas’ investigations had reduced to a rather disorderly condition.

It stopped. Its lenses widened. The slot below them also widened. In that instant we learned how terrible the attack of these creatures can be. Although it could not see us it must have sensed in some way that we were there — we could feel its awareness of danger — so it gave its weapon full power.

By misfortune, I think, rather than by design, it had the range of one of us exactly. Poor Althis, the engineer, was shattered in a twinkling and fell in a pile of dust. Simultaneously a fissure occurred in one of the interior walls of the redoubt. Luckily the sharp report of Althis’ disintegration startled the creature. It ceased the attack momentarily and stood looking round to see whence the sound had come. Before it could renew its attack we took action, holding the creature in such a way that it could not use its weapon.

Podas, with great presence of mind, cast a shape of boltik and cooled it —r we have found that the substance of these creatures calcines at quite low temperatures — and then fitted it to the creature in such a way that it could not open its slot and was thus virtually disarmed.

It is true that this did not pacify it, for it continued to attempt to use its weapon, but its power was reduced to mere nuisance value. When we released it, it struck at us with its upper projections although it could not see us. In doing so it cut its soft tegument on Eptus and left a smear of its red liquid upon him. The sight of this moving as he moved seemed to worry it a great deal. Finding that its soft members suffered in this way when they encountered us, it desisted and turned its attention to trying to rid itself of Podas’ frame in order to attack us again.

This was, of course, far beyond its feeble power and in a short time it began to feel its way round the interior of the redoubt, apparently seeking for a way out and still making suppressed attempts to use its weapon. It seemed also to have damaged its lenses in some way, for liquid from them was running down toward its slot. Its mind was so confused and disturbed that such thought processes as we could discern were by no means rational.

This was still going on when the approach of another disked artifact similar to the first was reported. It held to the mark in the same way but when it reached a point close behind the other it stopped. A part of it opened and a creature similar to our first specimen (i.e., the bifurcated, not the webbed type) emerged. It looked at the first artifact with obvious curiosity and peered within it.

Meanwhile, our specimen within the redoubt had also noticed the creature’s approach. It tried to move toward it but was, of course, held back by the redoubt wall. It stood there, obviously trying to bring its weapon into use against one of its own kind, which puzzled us very much.

Presently the creature outside looked up and saw the one inside. For a moment we expected an attack. Its lenses widened quite remarkably, its slot dropped wide open — but oddly enough nothing came from it immediately. When it did it was surprisingly weak and harmless.

“We should catch it before it attacks,” Eptus advised.

“It may not attack — unless we give it reason,” Podas replied.

“Reason — bah.’“ said Eptus, irritably.

A sudden confusion came over our specimen. It picked up a piece of the tegument which Podas had removed and held it against itself. The creature outside cleared its mind somewhat and began to project thoughts at the other. We found that when it made this direct form of address we could follow it concisely.

It said, “What a shame you’re not real, honey. If mirages are like this, I’ve wasted my time on bathing beaches.”

Why it said this we do not understand. But we observed the very curious fact that though its mind was by no means hostile it was making low-power aggression with its slot. We also observed that our specimen did not receive the message. It was, in fact, simultaneously putting out a confused plea for help which the other was not receiving — or was only faintly aware of.

“This is curious indeed,” said Podas. “There seems to be no comprehension between the two — and ours is struggling hard to use its weapon, yet with no aggressive intent in its mind. Is it possible that these weapons have the secondary purpose of communication?”

“In this place anything is possible and everything is unlikely,” said Eptus. “I have reached the state where I am prepared to believe that they normally communicate by battering one another to death if you claim that it is so.”

The creature outside approached and encountered the wall of the redoubt. It rubbed the part of itself that had made contact and explored the wall with both upper projections. Its mind was full of astonishment. Meanwhile the creature inside appeared to be trying to push itself through the wall. Finding that futile it started to make signs with its projections. It indicated itself, the artifact and the first specimen.

When the outside creature saw the first specimen, which, as I have said, Podas had left in a very untidy state, its mind hardened remarkably. It stepped back, and took something out of a slit in its tegument. It extended this object towards the redoubt. There was a crack — not dissimilar to the sound of a person disintegrating and therefore on a harmless range.

Something hit the wall and fell. The creature walked forward and picked up a round flat splash of metal. One could sense that it was extremely puzzled. Then it put its projections against the wall and felt carefully all the way along from the rock on one side, to that on the other.

It was dismayed. It shifted the tegument on its blunt projection and tried to aid its thoughts by stimulating the surface exposed. It went back to its artifact and returned holding a squat cylinder. This proved to contain a black viscous substance which it daubed on our wall. The marks are still there. From our side they appear as:

wait! i’ll be back.

Our creature comprehended this and made a sign. The other re-entered its artifact and went away.

And so the situation rests.

Eptus now agrees that the disked affair is an artifact but contends that so squashy and semi-liquid a creature as our specimens cannot have made anything so hard. Therefore, he argues, there must be another and doubtless higher type of intelligence here, housed in a harder form capable of dealing with such materials.

Podas is still trying to communicate with our specimen. It has folded itself up against an angle of the wall and floor where it again tries quite desperately at intervals to remove the boltik frame which prevents it from using its weapon.

He is convinced that the slot is somehow linked with its transmission of thought. Eptus says this is nonsense — it has become quite clear to him that our wall interrupts these creatures’ thought waves, so that they fall back on a secondary form of communication by marks. Podas objects that we were able to distinguish the outside creature’s thought waves — some of them very clearly. To which Eptus objects that it stands to reason that we are a great deal more sensitive than this soggy and revolting form of life.

Argument on such lines, it seems to               me, not only can go on for some time but doubtless will.

Interim Report.

Dear Zenn, I have become worried by recent developments. The plain fact is that we do not know enough about these strange creatures here to keep the situation firmly in hand. There is now a crowd of them with their artifacts outside our east wall.

Several of our party have disintegrated and I fear that more may go at any moment. The creatures fling the most dangerous frequencies around, not only without effort but regardless of consequences.

Podas suggests that they may not know the danger in the frequencies since their pudgy bodies are unlikely to respond, that they are, in fact, naturally sound absorbent. Fantastic as this may seem Eptus is for once inclined to support him. It is also apparently endorsed by our attempts to beam them.

We directed a most powerful beam upon them and ran it through a range of highly destructive frequencies. One cannot say it was entirely without effect. For a moment they did check and we were gratified — we thought we were near a critical length.

They turned to look at one another with obvious puzzlement in their minds. Then they started to communicate — it does look as if Podas were right, for they invariably accompany thought projection with movement of their slots.

As far as we could interpret they were “saying” such things as, “Do you hear it too? It’s not just my ears, is it? Like a funny kind of music — only it isn’t music ... No, not exactly music. It’s very strange…”

That last seemed to be the most general reaction. So far from disintegrating them it did not seem, even at full power, to do more than disturb them slightly, and puzzle them. In other words this powerful weapon is useless against them. And we are left somewhat at a loss.

Not caring for the situation, I decided to anticipate my usual report time and give you this immediate current account. The creature which had visited us previously returned accompanied by a number of similar artifacts. More followed later and indeed I can see still more approaching as I make this report.

Before that the creature we hold here had become listless. Podas was of the opinion that it required nourishment of some kind. Eptus put some silicates be-fore it, but it was clearly uninterested. Podas, recalling its chemical basis, reduced some of the local growths to carbon, and offered it that — also without success.

We do not wish to cause the creature unnecessary distress but it is difficult to know what to do about it. We might try injecting some carbon into it if we were at all sure which of its several orifices it uses for purposes of assimilation. However the return of the other creature stimulated it to some activity, so that it raised itself erect again.

Almost all the creatures that now arrived were the type with bifurcated teguments — a number of them being exactly similar in dark blue with metal attachments. Their reaction at the sight of our specimen was much the same as that of the other at first. It was then we discovered how rankly careless they are with their frequencies. Luckily, however, all were below danger level.

Like the other they began by feeling their way along the wall of the redoubt. All their minds were and still are full of astonishment. Having discovered the length of the wall, they set about determining the height, and presently there were some moving about on the roof above us.

Nearly all of them were given to stimulating their blunt, uppermost projections where they appear to carry their minds, by friction of their upper limbs. They made use of several metallic implements experimentally but the metal was, of course, far too soft to make any impression on boltik. They seemed as much at a loss to deal with us as we with them.

But not all of them were employed in the same way. One in particular remained close to its artifact, holding a small object before its slot, and making frequencies at it. It was clear from its mind that it was describing what went on — but to whom or to what or why we cannot perceive.

Thinking we might learn something new from an animate specimen of this type, we opened our door. One of them discovered the entrance as it felt along and came in. Podas had a frame ready to prevent it making distressing frequencies and we shut the door again behind it.

This seemed to cause some consternation to the others outside. By bringing the new specimen close to the other one, we established fairly conclusively the correctness of Podas’ theory of slot-communication in the species. Both struggled to use them but, failing, remained out of communication. Our attention was diverted from this interesting discovery by the arrival of more artifacts. Some of these contained creatures with webbed teguments. These are now established as the more dangerous. One of them, immediately upon emerging, uttered a frequency which was extremely painful to many of us.

Unfortunately Ankis and Falmus happened to hold just that critical periodicity and disintegrated on the spot. The sharp report of their simultaneous demise startled all the creatures, who began ineffectually to make a search for the source of it.

We cannot learn much from our new specimen yet. Its mind is quite chaotic with alarm. It seems particularly disorganized by the sight of Podas’ work on the first specimen. I have already suggested to Podas that he should incinerate this untidy object. I shall now insist...

I have done so. Unfortunately the result does not seem to have had a sedative effect upon the minds of either of our other specimens. We continue to be greatly puzzled by the creature which never stops emitting noises at its instrument. At first we heard it alone. Now, however, we hear it considerably amplified, issuing from several of the disked artifacts. How can this be? Why should it be? There is no sense in it. The creatures here are observing for themselves the very facts he is communicating. And it is very wearing to us.

A row of the creatures outside is now trying to communicate with our two specimens. They emit very strongly on a harmless though disagreeable frequency without success. Now they are making marks on white surfaces to which our two are responding by signs.

Another artifact with a lensed machine on top has arrived. It is directed at us by a creature standing behind it. It is quite ineffective, and does not trouble us at all. Still more disked artifacts continue to arrive. All the creatures are puzzled over what to do next. In one small group they are discussing whether they shall bring something — something that disintegrates violently — I do not understand clearly — against our wall but are afraid of destroying our two specimens at the same time. One of the creatures exploring our roof has discovered the further edge by falling off it. Others have come around to pick it up, so now they are on both sides of us.

Meanwhile, we are still trying to communicate with the specimens. Podas has arranged a battery of ten minds concentrating thought upon them simultaneously. The pressure is terrific — and entirely without effect. They are obtuse coarse hopeless clods, as insensitive to thought as they are to sound.

One of the webbed creatures outside has just emitted a frequency which has destroyed three of our party in a twinkling. This is a shocking business. We are going to try our beams again. They are surprised — but no more. The talking creature has stopped talking. It is holding up its instrument as though to catch our beams. What — ? Stop! Stop! STOP!

That was dreadful. Somehow our beams were coming back at us. There’s a fissure in our wall, cracks in our roof. Half a dozen more of us have disintegrated. I’m sure it was something to do with that talking creature and its instrument — but how? I don’t understand. Now it has started talking again.

All the creatures are trying to trace the sounds of the disintegrations. They are very bewildered. The talking creature has stopped talking — that’s better. But the reproduced sound from the disked artifacts has not stopped! How — ? Oh, it must be amplifying another creature now, the resonances are different. Curious!

It’s the sound they make— but it means nothing. I can catch no thought wave connected with it. It must originate somewhere else. I don’t understand …There, it has stopped now, and a good thing, too.

The — Oh, merciful heaven, what a sound from those reproducers! What excruciation! An appalling sound! Rhythmic, pulsating, piercing, devilish! This is killing us, damn them! It’s — oh! — it’s shaking us to pieces , . .

Dreadful…Agonizing…Oh — oh!

A couple of dozen have gone — Podas with them. Now Eptus . . .

The whole redoubt is trembling…That frequency…It’s almost critical ... If it goes any higher…

Too late! The boltik has shattered. It’s falling in powder round what’s left of us. Oh! That sound — that awful sound! I can’t — oh, what agony! Almost on my frequency . . .

Now it’s — Oh! — OH!— OH!

Confidence Trick (1953)

‘Never again,” Henry Baider said to himself, once he had been condensed enough for the doors to close, “never again will I allow myself to be caught up in this.”

It was a decision he had expressed before, and would probably, in spite of its face value, express another day. But, in between, he did do his best to assure that his infrequent visits to the City should not involve him in the rush hour. Today, however, already delayed by his business, he faced the alternatives of vexing his wife by delaying still further, or of allowing himself to be drawn into the flood that was being sucked down the Bank Station entrances. After looking unhappily at the moving mass and then at the unmoving bus queues, he had squared his shoulders. “After all, they do it twice a day and survive. Who am I — ?” he said and stepped stoutly forward.

The funny thing was that nobody else looked as if he or she thought it a sub-human, stockyard business. They just waited blank-eyed, and with more patience than you would find in a stockyard. They didn’t complain, either.

Nobody got out at St. Paul’s though the increased pressure suggested that somebody had inexplicably got in. The doors attempted to close, drew back, presumably because some part of somebody was inexpertly stowed, tried again and made it. The train drew heavily on.

The girl in the green mackintosh on Henry’s right said to the girl in the blue mackintosh who was jammed against her: “D’you think you actually know when your ribs crack?” but on a philosophical note of fair comment rather than complaint.

Nobody got out at Chancery Lane, either. A lot of exhortation, shoving and staggering achieved the impossible: somebody more was aboard. The train picked up speed slowly. It rattled on for a few seconds. Then there was a jolt and all the lights went out.

Henry swore at his luck as the train drew up, but then, almost the instant it had stopped, it started to pull again. Abruptly he discovered that he was no longer supported by the people around him and flung out an arm to save himself. It struck something yielding. At that moment the lights came on again, to reveal that the object struck had been the girl in the green mackintosh.

“Who do you think you’re — ?” she began. Then her mouth stayed open, her voice failed, and her eyes grew rounder and wider.

At the same moment Henry had started to apologize, but his voice, too, cut out, and his eyes also bulged. He looked up and down the coach that a moment ago had been jammed solid with people to the last inch. It now contained three others besides themselves. A middle-aged man who was opening his newspaper with an air of having been given his due at last; opposite him a woman, also middle-aged, and lost in contemplation; at the other end of the coach, in the last seat, sat a younger-looking man, apparently asleep.

“Well, really!” said the girl. “That Milly! Just wait till I see her in the morning. She knows I have to change at Holborn, too. Getting off and leaving me without a word!” She paused. “It was Holborn, wasn’t it?” she added.

Henry was still looking dazedly about him. She took hold of his arm and shook it.

“It was Holborn, wasn’t it?” she repeated, uncertainly.

Henry turned to look at her, but still with a vagueness in his manner. “Er… what was Holborn? “ he asked.

“That last stop — where they all got out. It must’ve been Holborn, mustn’t it?”

“I…er…I’m afraid I don’t know this line well,” Henry told her.

“I do. Like the back of my hand. Couldn’t be anywhere but Holborn,” she said, with self-convincing firmness.

Henry looked up the swaying coach, past the rows of strap handles emptily swinging. “I…er…didn’t see any station,” he said.

Her head in its red knitted cap tilted further back to look up at him. Her blue eyes were troubled, though not alarmed. “Of course there was a station — or where would they all go to?”

“Yes,” said Henry. “Yes, of course.”

There was a pause. The train continued to speed along, swaying more and jerking more now on its lightly loaded springs. “The next’ll be Tottenham Court Road,” said the girl, though with a touch of uneasiness. The train rattled. She stared at the black windows, growing more pensive. “Funny,” she said, after a while. “Funny-peculiar, I mean.”

“Look here,”‘ said Henry. “Suppose we go and have a word with those people up there. They might know something.”

The girl glanced along. Her expression showed no great hopes of them, but: “All right,” she said, and turned to lead the way.

Henry stopped opposite the middle-aged woman. She was dressed in a well-cut coat surmounted by a fur cape. An inch or two of veil fringed the round hat on her carefully dressed dark hair; her shoes, on the end of almost invisible nylon stockings, were black patent-leather with elegant heels; both her gloved hands rested on the black leather bag on her lap as she sat in absent contemplation. “I beg your pardon,” said Henry, “but could you tell us the name of the last station — the one where all the other people got out?”

The lids rose slowly. The eyes regarded him through the fringe of veil. There was a pause during which she appeared to consider the several reasons which could have led such a person as Henry to address her, and to select the most becoming. Henry decided that no-longer-young was perhaps more apposite than middle-aged.

“No,” she said, with a slight smile which did not touch the matter. “I’m afraid I didn’t notice.”

“It didn’t strike you that there was anything…odd about it?” Henry suggested.

The lady’s well-marked eyebrows rose slightly. The eyes pondered him on two or three levels. “Odd?” she inquired.

“The way they all went so very quickly,” he explained.

“Oh, was that unusual?” said the lady. “It seemed to me a very good thing; there were far too many of them.”

“Quite,” agreed Henry, “but what is puzzling us is how it happened.”

The eyebrows rose a little higher. “Really. I don’t think I can be expected to — “

There was a harrumph noise, and a rustling of newspaper behind Henry. A voice said: “Young man. It doesn’t seem to me to be necessary for you to bother this lady with the matter. If you have any complaints, there are proper channels for them.”

Henry turned. The speaker was a man with graying hair, and a well-trimmed moustache set on a pinkly healthy face. He was aged perhaps fifty-five and dressed City-comme-il-faut from black Homburg to dispatch case. At the moment he was glancing interrogatively towards the lady, and receiving a small, grateful smile in return. Then his eyes met Henry’s. His manner changed slightly; evidently Henry was not quite the type that his back view had suggested. “I am sorry,” Henry told him, “but this young lady may have missed her station. Besides, it does seem rather odd.”

“I noticed Chancery Lane, so the rest must have got out at Holborn — that is obvious, surely,” said the man.

“But they went so quickly.”

“A good thing too. The people in charge must have found some new method of handling the traffic. They’re always developing new ideas and techniques, you know — even under public ownership.”

“But we’ve been going on for nearly ten minutes, non-stop, since then, and we’ve certainly not passed a station,” Henry objected.

“Probably been re-routed. Technical reasons, I expect,” said the man.

“Re-routed! On the underground?” protested Henry.

“My dear fellow, it’s not my job to know how these things work — nor yours, I take it. We have to leave it to those who do. That’s what they’re there for, after all. Take it from me, they know what they’re up to, even though it may seem ‘odd,’ as you call it, to us. God bless me, if we don’t have faith in our expert authorities, where are we?”

Henry looked at the girl in the green mackintosh. She looked back at him. She shrugged slightly. They went and sat down, further up the coach. Henry glanced at his watch, offered her a cigarette, and they both lit up.

The train rattled along to a steady rhythm. Both of them watched the windows for the sight of a lighted platform, but they could see no more than their own reflections against outside blackness. When there was no more of the cigarette to hold, Henry dropped the remains on the floor and ground it out. He looked at his watch again, then at the girl.

“More than twenty minutes,” he said. “That’s impossibility, raised several powers.”

“It’s going faster now, too,” the girl observed. “And look at the way it’s tilted.”

Henry regarded the hanging-straps. There could be no doubt that they were running down an appreciable incline. Glancing forward, he saw that the other couple was now in quite animated conversation. “Shall we try them again?” he suggested.

“ – never more than fifteen minutes, even in the rush hour. Absolutely never,” the lady was saying as they came up. “I’m afraid my husband will be so worried about me.”

“Well?” inquired Henry, of the man.

“Certainly very unusual,” the other conceded.

“Unusual! Nearly half an hour at full bat without a station? It’s absolutely impossible,” said Henry.

The other regarded him coldly. “It is clearly not impossible because it is being demonstrated right now. Very likely this is some underground escape-route from London that they constructed during the war, and we have been switched on to it in error. I have no doubt that the authorities will soon discover the mistake and bring us back.”

“Taking them a long time,” said the girl. “Due home before this, I am. And I got a date at the Pallay this evening.”

“We’d better stop the train,” said the lady. Her eyes were on the handle, with its notice that threatened £5 for improper use. Henry and the other man looked at one another. “Well, if this isn’t an emergency, what is?” demanded the lady.

“Er…” said Henry.

“The authorities — “ the other began.

“All right,” she announced. “If you men are afraid to touch it, I’m not.” She reached up, took firm hold of the handle, and yanked it down. Henry dropped into a seat quickly, pulling the girl down too before the brakes should go on.

The brakes did not go on.

They sat waiting. Presently it became a fair bet that the brakes were not going to go on. The lady pushed the handle up impatiently and pulled it down again. Nothing happened. She expressed her opinion of it.

“Cor! Listen to her! Did you ever?” said the girl beside Henry.

“Fluent. Have another cigarette,” said Henry.

The train clattered and swayed along, the straps still hanging with a forward slant. “Well,” said the girl, after a time, “this properly dishes my date at the Pallay all right. Now that Doris’ll get him. D’you think I could sue them?”

“I’m afraid not,” Henry told her.

“You a lawyer?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, yes. Suppose we introduce ourselves. It looks as if we shall have to spend some time here, whatever they do. I’m Henry Baider.”

“Mine’s Norma Palmer,” said the girl.

The City man said: “Robert Forkett,” and nodded slightly to them.

“Barbara Branton — Mrs., of course,” said the lady,

“What about him?” asked Norma, pointing to the man at the far end of the coach. “D’you think we ought to wake him, and tell him?”

“I don’t fancy it would help much,” said Mr. Forkett. He turned to Henry. “I understood you to say you were a legal man, sir. Perhaps you can tell us just what our position is in this matter?”

“Well, speaking without my references,” Henry told him, “I should say that in the matter of delay, no claim by us would lie. I think we shall find that the Company only undertakes to provide…”

Half an hour later he became aware of a weight pressing lightly against him. Looking round, he found that Norma had gone to sleep with her head on his shoulder. Mrs. Branton, on the other side, had also dozed off. Mr. Forkett yawned and apologized. “Might as well all have a nap to pass the time, though,” he suggested.

Henry looked at his watch once more. Practically an hour and a half now. Unless they had been going in a closed circle, they must have passed beneath several counties by this time. The thing remained incomprehensible.

To reach a cigarette he would have had to disturb the girl, so he remained as he was, looking at the blackness outside, swaying slightly to the train’s motion, listening to the ti-tocketty-tock, ti-tocketty- tock, ti-tocketty-tock, of the hurrying wheels until his head drooped sideways and rested on the knitted cap on his shoulder.

The change of rhythm, the slight shuddering from the brakes brought Henry awake; the rest stirred a moment later. Mr. Forkett yawned audibly. Norma opened her eyes, blinked at the unexpected scene, and discovered the situation of her head. She sat up. “Well, I never,” she said, regarding Henry. He assured her it had been a pleasure. She began to pat her hair and correct herself according to her reflection in the still dark window opposite. Mrs. Branton reached under her cape and consulted a fob-watch.

“Nearly midnight. My husband’ll be quite frantic.”

The sounds of slowing continued to descend the scale. Soon the windows ceased to be altogether black; a light, rather pinkish compared with the lamps inside, started to show, and gradually to grow stronger. “That’s better,” said Norma. “I always hate this tunnel.”

The light grew brighter still, the speed dwindled, and presently they were running into a station. They leaned forward to catch the name but could see no plate on the wall. Mrs. Branton, on the other side, suddenly craned across. “There!”‘ she said. They turned quickly, but not soon enough. “It was something Avenue, or Avenue something,” she said.

“Well, we’ll soon find out now,” Mr. Forkett reassured them.

The train drew up, with a sigh from the braking system, but the doors did not open at once. There was a sound of echoing commotion further along the platform, out of which voices presently distinguished themselves calling: “All change End of the line!” — “All out here!”

“All very well — all change, indeed!” murmured Norma, getting up and moving towards the doors. The others followed her. Quite suddenly the doors ran back. Norma gave one look at the figure standing on the platform.

“Ee-ow!” she yelped and backed violently into Henry.

The figure wore little clothing. What there was seemed to be chiefly straps holding appurtenances, so that it was revealed as angularly male, in a rich mahogany red. Ethnologically, perhaps, the face might have been North American Indian, only instead of feathers it wore a pair of horns. Its right hand carried a trident; its left dangled a net. “All out!” it said, moving a little aside.

Norma hesitated, then scuttled past it. The others followed warily but more sedately and joined her on the platform. The creature leant into the open doorway, and they were able to observe his back view. The tail was waving with a slow, absent-minded kind of motion. The barb at the end of it looked viciously sharp.

“Er…” began Mr. Forkett. Then he changed his mind. He cast a speculative eye on each of his companions in turn and pondered.

The creature caught sight of the sleeper at the other end of the car. He walked down and prodded him with his trident. There was some inaudible altercation. The creature prodded a few more times, and soon the man came out to join them, with the sleep not yet out of his eyes.

There was a shout higher up the platform, followed by a sound of running feet. A tough-looking young man came sprinting towards them. A net whistled after him and entangled him so that he fell and rolled over and over. A hearty shout of laughter came from the other end of the platform.

Henry glanced about. The dim rosy light was strong enough for him to see and read the station’s nameplate. “Something Avenue!” he repeated under his breath. “Tch-tch!”

Mrs. Branton overheard him and looked at it. “Well, if that doesn’t spell ‘Avenue,’ what does it spell?” she demanded.

Before he could reply a voice began to call: “This way out! This way out!” and the creature motioned them on, with its trident at the ready. The young man from the other end of the coach walked next to Henry. He was a large, forceful, intellectual-looking young man, but still not quite clear of the mists of sleep.

“What is all this nonsense about?” he said. “Collecting for the hospitals or something? No excuse for it, now we’ve got the Health Scheme.”

“I don’t think so,” Henry told him, “in fact, I’m afraid it doesn’t look too good.” He indicated the station nameplate. “Besides,” he added, “those tails – I don’t see how it could be done.”

The young man studied the sinuous movements of one of the tails. “But really!” he protested.

“What else?” inquired Henry.

Altogether, and exclusive of the staff, there were about a dozen people collected at the barrier. They were passed through one by one while an elderly demon in a small hutch checked them off on a list. Henry learnt that the large young man was entered as Christopher Watts, physicist.

Beyond the barrier was an escalator of a somewhat antiquated type. It moved slowly enough for one to read the advertisements at the sides: preponderantly they offered specifics for burns, cuts, abrasions and bruises, with here and there the recommendation of a particular tonic or pick-me-up.

At the top stood an ill-used looking demon with a tray of tin boxes suspended against his chest. He was saying monotonously: “All guaranteed. Best quality.” Mr. Forkett who was in front of Henry caught sight of the card on the tray and stopped abruptly. The lettering ran :

FIRST-AID KITS COMPLETE
each £1 or $1.50 (U.S.)

“That’s an insult to the pound,” Mr. Forkett announced indignantly.

The demon looked at Mr. Forkett. He thrust his face forward aggressively. “So what?” he demanded.

Pressure of those behind pushed Mr. Forkett on, but he moved reluctantly, murmuring about the necessity for confidence, stability and faith in sterling.

After crossing a hall they passed into the open. There was a faint tang of sulphur in the air. Norma pulled on the hood of her mackintosh against the light drizzle of cinders. Trident-bearers shepherded them round to the right, into a wire-netted enclosure. Three or four demons followed in with them. The last paused to speak to the guard on the gate.

“Heaven’s harps, is that celestial bus behind time again?” he asked resentfully.

“Is it ever on time nowadays?” the gate demon asked.

“Never used to have these holdups when the old man was running his ferry,” grumbled the guard.

“Individual enterprise, that was,” said the gate demon, with a shrug.

Henry joined the others who were surveying the scene. The view to the right was rugged and extensive, though smoky. Far away, at the end of a long valley, could be seen a brightly glowing area in which large bubbles formed, rose slowly, and took tantalizingly long to burst. To the left of it a geyser of flame whooshed up intermittently. At the back right a volcano smoked steadily, while little streams of red-hot lava trickled down from its rim. In the middle distance the valley walls narrowed in two towering crags. The one on the left bore the illuminated sign: TRY HOOPER’S HIDEHARD. The other proclaimed: UNBURN IS THE ANSWER.

A little short of the right-hand crag, on the level valley floor, was a square encampment surrounded by several fences of barbed wire and overlooked by a guard tower at each corner. Every now and then a string of flaming arrows would fly tracer-like into the compound from one of the towers, and the sound of howls mixed with demonic laughter would be borne faintly on the sulphurous breeze. From that point one was able to follow the road as it wound up and past them to the station entrance. A building opposite the station appeared to be a barracks where demons were queueing up to sharpen their tridents and touch up their tail-barbs on a grindstone in the yard. The whole thing struck Henry as somewhat conventional.

Almost opposite their netted enclosure was a kind of gibbet. It was occupied at the moment by a lady with nothing on who was hanging suspended upside down from chains round her ankles while a couple of junior demons swung on her hair. Mrs. Branton searched in her bag and found a pair of spectacles.

“Dear me! Surely not…” she murmured. She looked more carefully. “So difficult to tell that way up, and with the tears running into her hair. I’m afraid it is, though. Such a nice woman, I always thought, too.”

She turned to the nearest demon. “Did she commit a murder, or something dreadful?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No,” he said. “She just nagged at her husband so that he would find another woman and she would be able to divorce him for the alimony.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Branton, a little flatly. “Is that all? I mean, there must have been something more serious, surely?”

“No,” said the guard.

Mrs. Branton remained thoughtful. “Does she have to do a lot of that?” she asked, with a trace of uneasiness.

“Wednesdays,” said the guard. “She does other things other days.”

“Pss-t!” a voice hissed suddenly in Henry’s ear. One of the guard demons beckoned him aside. “Want to buy a bit of the real stuff?” inquired the demon.

“What stuff?” Henry asked.

The demon brought his hand out of his pouch. He opened it and showed a metal tube which looked as if it might contain toothpaste. He leant closer. “The goods, this is. Best analgesic cream on the whitemarket. Just rub it on every time before tortures — you’ll not feel a thing.”

“No, thank you. As a matter of fact, I think they’ll probably find there’s been a mistake in my case,” Henry told him.

“Come off it, chum,” said the demon. “Look. I’ll take a couple of pounds — special to you, that is.”

“No thanks,” said Henry.

The demon frowned. “You’d better,” he advised, shifting his tail into a threatening position.

“Well, one pound,” said Henry.

The demon looked a little surprised. “Okay. It’s yours,” he said, and handed it over.

When Henry rejoined the group, he found most of them watching three demons exuberantly chasing an extensive, pink middle-aged man up the opposite mountainside. Mr. Forkett, however, was reviewing the situation.

“The accident,” he said, raising his voice a little to contend with the increased lowing of sinners in the concentration camp, “the accident must have occurred between Chancery Lane and Holborn stations, that’s fairly clear, I think. What is not at all clear to me, however, is why I am here. Undoubtedly, there has been a departmental error in my case which I hope will be rectified soon.” He looked speculatively at the rest. Everyone became thoughtful.

“It’d have to be a big thing, wouldn’t it?” asked Norma. “I mean, they wouldn’t send a person here for a little thing like a pair of nylons, would they?”

“Well, if it was only one pair of nylons — “ Henry was beginning, but he was cut short by an exclamation from Mrs. Branton. Following her gaze, he saw a woman coming down the street in a magnificent fur coat.

“Perhaps this place has another side to it that we’ve not seen yet,” she suggested hopefully. “After all, where there are mink coats — “

“She doesn’t look very pleased with it, though,” Norma remarked, as the woman came closer.

“Live minks. Very sharp teeth,” observed one of the demons, helpfully.

There was a sudden, startling yelp behind them. They turned to observe the dark young man, Christopher Watts, in the act of twisting a demon’s tail. The demon yelped again and dropped the tube of analgesic cream it had been offering him. It attempted a stab with its trident. “Oh, no, you don’t!” said Mr. Watts, skillfully avoiding the thrust.

He caught the trident by the shaft and wrenched it out of the demon’s hand. “Now!” he said with satisfaction. He dropped the trident and laid hold of the tail with both hands. He swung the demon twice round his head and let go. The demon flew over the wire-netting fence and landed in the road with a yell and a bump. The other demons deployed and began to advance upon Mr. Watts, tridents levelled, nets swinging in their left hands.

Christopher Watts squared up to them, grimly watching them come on. Then, suddenly, his expression changed. His frown gave place to a smile. He unclenched his fists and dropped his hands to his sides. “Dear me, what nonsense all this is!” he said, and turned his back on the demons.

They stopped abruptly and looked confused.

A surprising sense of revelation came over Henry. He saw quite clearly that the young man was right. It was nonsense. He laughed at the bewildered look on the demons’ faces and heard Norma beside him laughing too. Soon, all the party was laughing at the discomforted demons who looked first apprehensive, then sheepish.

Mr. Christopher Watts strode across to the side of the enclosure which faced up the valley. For some moments he regarded the smoky, luridly somber view. Then: “I don’t believe it!” he said quietly.

An enormous bubble rose and burst in the fiery lake. There was a woomph! as the volcano sent up a mushroom cloud of smoke and cinders, and spilt better, brighter streams of lava down its sides. The ground trembled a little under their feet. Mr. Watts drew a deep breath.

“I DON’T BELIEVE IT! ‘ ‘ he said loudly.

There was a loud crack. The dizzy crag which bore the recommendation for UNBURN split off and toppled slowly into the valley. Demons on the mountain side dropped their hunting and started to lope homewards with cries of panic. The ground shook violently. The fiery lake began to empty into a huge split which had opened in the valley floor. A tremendous gush of flame burst from the geyser. The mighty crag on the other side heeled over. There was a roaring and a crashing and a hissing of steam all around them, and through it Mr. Watts’ voice bawled again: “I DON’T BELIEVE IT!!”

Suddenly, all was quiet, as if it had been switched off. All was black, too, with nothing whatever to be seen but the lighted windows of the train where it stood on the embankment behind them. “Well,” said Mr. Watts, on a note of cheerful satisfaction. “Well, that’s that. Now let’s go home again, shall we?” And by the light from the train windows he began to scramble up the embankment.

Henry and Norma moved to follow him. Mr. Forkett hesitated.

“What’s the matter?” Henry asked him, looking back.

“I’m not sure. I feel it’s not quite…not quite…”

“You can’t very well stay here now,” Henry pointed out.

“No — no, I suppose not,” Mr. Forkett admitted and, half-reluctantly, he too began to climb the embankment.

Without any spoken agreement, the five who had previously travelled together again chose a coach to themselves. They had scarcely got aboard when the doors closed and the train began to move. Norma sighed with relief and pushed her hood back as she sat down.

“Like being halfway home already,” she said. “Thank you ever so much, Mr. Watts. It’s been a real lesson to me, it has, though. I’ll never go near a stocking counter again, never — except when I’m going to buy some.”

“I’ll second that — the thanks part, I mean,” said Henry. “I still feel that there was very likely some confusion between the legal and the common view in my particular case, but I’m extremely obliged to you for…er…cutting the red tape.”

Mrs. Branton held out a gloved hand to Mr. Watts. “Of course, you’ll realize that it was all a stupid mistake that I should be there, but I expect you’ve saved me hours and hours of dealing with ridiculous officials. I do hope you may be able to come and dine with us some time. I’m sure my husband will want to thank you personally.”

There was a pause. It lengthened. Gradually the realization that Mr. Forkett was not taking his cue drew all their eyes upon him. He himself was gazing in a pensive way at the floor. Presently he looked up, first at them, and then at Christopher Watts. “No,” he said. “I am. sorry, but I cannot agree. I am afraid I must continue to regard your action as anti-social, if not actually subversive.”

Mr. Watts, who had been looking rather pleased with himself, showed first surprise, then a frown. “I beg your pardon?” he said with genuine puzzlement.

“You’ve done a very serious thing,” Mr. Forkett told him. “There simply cannot be any stability if we do not respect our institutions. You, young man, have destroyed one. We all had confidence in this affair — even you, to begin with — then you suddenly go and break it all up, an institution of considerable standing, too. No, I really cannot be expected to approve of that.”

The rest of them stared at him.

“But Mr. Forkett,” said Norma, “surely you wouldn’t rather be back there, with all those demons and things?”

“My dear young lady, that is scarcely the point,” Mr. Forkett reproved her. “As a responsible citizen, I must strongly oppose anything that threatens to undermine public confidence. Therefore, I must regard this young man’s action as dangerous; verging, I repeat, upon the subversive.”

“But if an institution is phony — “ began Mr. Watts.

“That too, sir, is beside the point. If enough people believe in an institution, then it is important to those people — whether it is what you call phony or not.”

“You prefer faith to truth?” said Mr. Watts scornfully.

“You must have confidence, and if you have that, truth follows,” said Mr. Forkett.

“As a scientist, I consider you quite immoral,” said Mr. Watts.

“As a citizen, I consider you unscrupulous,” said Mr. Forkett.

“Oh, dear!” said Norma.

Mr. Forkett pondered. Mr. Watts frowned. “Something that is real isn’t going to fall to bits just because I disbelieve in it,” observed Mr. Watts.

“How can you tell? The Roman Empire was real enough once — as long as people believed in it,” replied Mr. Forkett. ‘

The argument continued for some little time, with Mr. Forkett growing more monumental, and Mr. Watts more fundamental. Finally Mr. Forkett summed up his opinion: “Frankly, your iconoclastic, revolutionary views seem to me to differ only in name from bolshevism.”

Mr. Watts rose to his feet. “The consolidation of society on faith, irrespective of scientific truth, is the method of a Stalin,” he observed, and withdrew to the other end of the car. “Really,” said Norma, “I don’t know how you can be so rude and ungrateful to him. When I think of them all with their toasting forks, and that poor woman hanging there without a stitch on, and upside-down, too — “

“It was all quite appropriate to the time and place. He’s a very dangerous young man,” said Mr. Forkett firmly.

Henry thought it time to change the conversation. The four of them chatted more generally as the train rattled on at a good speed, though not as fast as it had descended. But after a time the talk began to wilt. Glancing up the coach, Henry noticed that Mr. Watts had already gone to sleep again, and felt that there was no better way of spending the time.

He awoke to hear voices shouting: “Stand clear of the doors!” and to find that the carriage was full of people again. Almost as his eyes opened, Norma’s elbow stuck into his ribs.

“Look!” she said.

The straphanger in front of them was interested in the racing part of his paper, so that the front page faced them with the headline: RUSH-HOUR TUBE SMASH — 12 DEAD. Under it was a column of names. Henry leaned forward to read them. The holder of the paper lowered it to glare indignantly, but not before Henry had noticed his own name and those of the others.

Norma looked troubled. “Don’t know how I’m going to explain that at home,” she said.

“You get my point?” inquired Mr. Forkett on Henry’s other side. “Just think of the trouble there’s going to be straightening this out — newspapers, coroners, heaven knows what. Not a safe fellow to have about. Quite antisocial.”

“I don’t know what my husband is going to think. He’s such a jealous man,” remarked Mrs. Branton, not without satisfaction.

The train stopped at St. Paul’s, thinned somewhat, and then went on. Mr. Forkett and Norma prepared to get out. It occurred to Henry that he might as well get out, too. The train slowed.

“Don’t know what they’re going to say in the office, seeing me walk in. Still, it’s been ever so int’resting, really. Ta-ta for now, everyone,” said Norma, and wriggled into the departing crowd with the skill of long practice.

A hand grasped Henry’s arm as they stepped on to the platform. “There he is,” said Mr. Forkett. He nodded ahead. Henry saw the back view of Mr. Watts preceding them up the platform. “Can you spare a few minutes? Don’t trust the fellow at all.”

They followed up the escalator and round to the steps which brought them to the surface in front of the Royal Exchange.

There, Mr. Watts paused and looked around him, seeming to consider. Then his attention fixed itself on the Bank of England. He strode forward in a forceful manner and came to a stop facing the Bank, looked up. His lips moved.

The ground shook slightly underfoot. Three windows fell out of one of the Bank’s upper storeys. One statue, two urns, and a piece of balustrading swayed and toppled. Several people screamed. Mr. Watts squared his shoulders and took a deep breath.

“Good heavens! He’s — “ began Mr. Forkett, but the rest was lost as he sped from Henry’s side.

“I — “ announced Mr. Watts, at the top of his voice.

“DON’T — “ he went on, to the accompaniment of an ominous trembling of the ground.

“BE — “ but at that moment a strong push between his shoulder blades thrust him full in the path of a hurtling bus.

There was a shriek of brakes applied too late. “That’s ‘im! I sore ‘im do it!” screamed a woman, pointing at Mr. Forkett.

Henry caught up with him just as a policeman came running. Mr. Forkett was regarding the façade of the Bank with pride.

“No telling what might have happened. A menace to society, that young man,” he said. “They ought to give me a medal, but I’m afraid they’re more likely to hang me. After all, tradition must be observed.”

The Eternal Eve (1950)

The man came clear of the trees, showing as a small light dot against the background of dark trunks. Amanda got the glasses on to him. His clothing was in a worse state than her own: the pants had picturesque rents, and there was not a lot left of the shirt, Something unorthodox had happened to his hair and beard, too. He could have got it that way if he had let it grow until it bothered him and then impatiently hacked off a bunch here and there with a knife. At his back he carried a pack. A rifle hung by its sling from his left shoulder. When Amanda recognized him her lips pressed a little more closely together, and she reached for her own rifle.

A few yards out into the open he stopped, scanning the hillside before him. At his back the pale pennant trees streamed like weeds in a brook, tall feather-tops swung to the light breeze, the fronds of the tree-ferns rippled so that waves of motion seemed to wash across the whole plain. For a minute or two he stood quite still. His gaze passed over and beyond the spot where she lay, without a pause. Then he hitched his pack and began to plod upwards.

Behind her tuft of scrubby bushes Amanda waited, watching him detachedly, dispassionately. Soon, with slow, careful movements, she pushed her rifle gently forward, and set the telescopic sights. Her right hand slid back to the small, her finger on to the trigger. Then she paused. She let him come on another hundred yards, making a little to her left, and then reset the sights.

When she fired, he stopped, looking round wildly. He had no cover to drop to. She fired again. After he fell he did not move anymore. She put down the rifle and took up the glasses to make sure. All day long he lay there, with the pale, grass-like growth beneath him reddened by his blood. Towards evening she went down the hillside, carrying a rope. With it she dragged him laboriously to the edge of the cliffs. There she carefully unfastened the rope before she pushed the body over.

Then she went back to the cave.

Amanda lay on a blanket in the cave mouth. She rested on her elbows, her face cupped in her hands. In front the ground sloped steeply down to the cliff-edge. Beyond, growing dark now, was the sea — a fearsome, mysterious sea on which no ship had ever sailed.

At home, in such a setting, there would have been grey and white gulls wheeling plaintively, but here on Venus the birds were dark, business-like creatures, with no graceful leisure in their flight. The sea, by daylight, was a pale green, and slightly milky so that one could not look down into the water. A great deal of life went on in it — more, it seemed, in these latitudes than on the land. Birds, diving to catch fish in it, were likely not to reappear. Far out, large, unidentifiable shapes would break the water and stay visible for a few minutes. Sometimes huge, squid-like creatures swam slowly past. Now and then a kind of starfish, twenty or thirty feet across and looking like red coral, would cruise close inshore, keeping just awash. Most characteristic of all were the weed banks which came up on the northern current like floating islands with a life of their own, carrying colonies of small birds that pecked and fished in their pools as they drifted. Sometimes too, great limbs or flukes would slap the water, sending up clouds of spray from battle below. It was alien — and hostile to the very fringe. You had only to lean over the edge of the cliffs to see its outposts — the great crabs that patrolled the narrow foreshore like tanks on sentry-go.

Amanda, looking out across the unhorizoned sea, saw nothing of it. Her lips moved as she thought aloud, for she had been a long time alone. “No!” she said. “It was not wrong. I’ve a right to protect myself — a right... He had no right over me. No one else has rights over me. I’m my own…He need not have come — he would have been all right if he had left me alone.

“It wasn’t wrong — it was horrible, but it wasn’t wrong…If another of them comes I shall do it again… and again, until they don’t come anymore…They shouldn’t make me do it. They’ve no right...It’s horrible...horrible!”

The light faded behind the perpetual clouds, and the sea grew slowly darker. Stillness settled as the birds went to roost. Down in the forest the night would be beginning to hum with insects, but here there was none. There was only the gentle lap of the water — and from time to time a faint, brittle clashing. The great crabs down on the shore, where the body had gone, never seemed to sleep.

Amanda put her hands over her ears, but she could still seem to hear them restlessly clattering over the stones. She could picture them, too, stopping now and then to stand stock-still, their eyes alert and swivelling on their stalks, the enormous claws raised ready to seize anything that might fall from above.

She moved back into the cave and lit a little clay lamp for company. Its tiny flame kept the darkness just at bay. “It wasn’t wrong...” she said, again. “He had no right…I’m a human being, not an animal. I want love and kindness — tenderness ...”

She jumped to her feet and stood with her arms raised, both fists clenched, as though she hammered at something above her. “Oh, God,” cried Amanda. “Why me? Why me? Why out of all of them must it be we? I won’t ... I won’t. I refuse it. Do you hear? I refuse.”

She sank down again. Her lips trembled. The flame of the little lamp sparkled and then blurred as she let the tears come.

When Amanda Vark had first landed at the Melos settlement on Venus — and that was a time that now seemed infinitely further away than its measurement on the calendar — it had been in the expectation of an interesting, but uneventful assignment. In her concentration on the nature of the job itself, it had scarcely occurred to her that for eighteen months she would have to live as one of the residents of a pioneer settlement. But the fact that the place did have a life and mind of its own was made clear to them by the reserve with which the colony received them. The arrival of three men and two women who had nothing to do with prospecting, exploration or commerce, roused immediate suspicion. The fact that they introduced themselves as an anthropological expedition and were accredited as such, scarcely helped at all. For one thing, few of the residents had any idea what anthropology was, did, or might do, while those who believed that it somehow concerned the study of natives could only, in view of the non-existence of any human natives upon Venus, be disbelieved. The assumption, therefore, had quickly grown that they were some sort of inefficiently disguised government inquiry probably portending interference — and if there was one thing the colony felt solidly about, from the Administrator down to the visiting spacehand, it was interference.

Uncle Joe, as the eminent Dr. Thorer was known to his expedition’s company, set himself patiently to disperse this cloud of misunderstanding. It was true, he agreed, that there were no human natives, but there were the griffas. From the scientific point of view these timid, silvery-furred little creatures were believed to be interesting. They were known to be intelligent and to live by some kind of social system, and it was thought likely that but for man’s arrival they would in time have risen to be the masters of Venus. The expectation was, therefore, that they would provide valuable material for the study of primitive sociology.

He made slow headway. The only colonial value placed on griffas resided in their silver pelts. It was not readily comprehensible that anyone should spend good money on an expedition just to find out how they lived. Nevertheless, as it became obvious that the party’s did actually, if perplexingly, lie in these matters, suspicion began slowly to recede.

Gradually the men of the group came to be accepted, though still with reservation, but the position of the women was more difficult. The existence of two surname-less girls who had already established themselves in the colony did not make it any easier.

Maisie and Dorrie were a pair of those good-looking, well-built girls that inevitably turn up on frontiers. You could have found them with the forty-niners, or, at the right times, in Dawson City, Kimberley, or Coolgardie. It was Maisie’s fancy to move with a feline languor in shiny, inappropriate, but indisputably popular frocks. Her genuine blonde hair she wore dressed to a masterly height. When she became vocal it was to thrum deeply rather than to speak, and to convey with it the impression of a Southern accent. Dorrie’s line was vivacity. Her brown eyes gleamed in a lively face framed by dark curls. Her nose tilted up a little, and her mouth was red as a new wound. She chattered volubly, introducing, except in moments of stress, sounds that were vaguely continental.

The members of the colony knew where they were with them: with Alice Felson and Amanda Vark they did not, so they waited to see.

In the matter of Alice it was not necessary to wait very long. At the age of twenty-nine she had already acquired two distinct reputations— one of them scholarly. To her work and to matters which interested her she brought an acutely analytical mind; when she was not working, she rested it thoroughly. The brilliance which exacted respect in academic circles moved right into the back seat. What took over would have been remarkable even in an uninhibited, poorly balanced seventeen-year-old; it seemed to know of no control but the accelerator. She lost practically no time in surrounding herself with an array of incipient crises very wearing to the nerves of a closed community.

But Amanda had remained problematic. There was a rumor that she was engaged to be married to someone back home on Earth. It was not true, but when she heard it, she felt it to have its uses, and refrained from denying it, so that the slight aloofness remained.

A month after her arrival she still had scarcely spoken to either of the other two girls. She was aware of them and watched them with a naive admiration for their self-confidence. They made her feel terribly inexperienced and mousey by contrast in her plain shirt and trousers. Nor, she could see, were they unconscious of Alice and herself. They watched, too, and they noted, but out of a fund of experience they made no approach.

Things settled down like that. Amanda had plenty of work on her hands. She was by far the youngest of tire party, and, as such, the natural recipient of much of the donkey work. But she was interested. It had not been easy at first to make sympathetic contact with the griffas. Their naturally shy disposition had been greatly increased by the frontier tendency to shoot first and think afterwards — if at all. It took patience, perseverance, and numerous bars of chocolate to offset that result. Nevertheless, it was done, and she enjoyed helping to do it. She found them amusing and lovable little creatures, and with an intelligence so avid that the task became eminently worthwhile. Thus the party settled down to an assignment which seemed likely to prove for her, whatever it might be for Alice, unexciting. A matter of eighteen months (in Earth reckoning) of conscientious observation and note-taking, then the return home. No dream, no presentiment ever suggested to her that a time would come when she would be still on Venus living alone in a cave which she called her home — because there was no other home to go to.

Amanda’s better acquaintance with Maisie and Dorrie arose from an incident which revealed that the life of the colony, even outside Alice’s aura, was not always placid.

Markham Renarty had been seeing her back to her hut after the customary evening’s relaxation at the Clubhouse. Markham had his points — there was no need of defensive tactics with him as there was likely to be with David Brire who was the youngest male member of the party — or as there certainly would have been with other self-suggested escorts. Markham was a family man. He was, indeed, well launched on one of his interminable and pointless anecdotes about his singularly boring wife and family back home on Earth, when a piercing scream brought them up standing.

As they realized which hut it must have come from, they began to run. They set foot on the verandah just as the scream came again. The scene inside the hut required no explaining words. Dorrie, whose hut it was, stood pressed back against the further wall. Blood from a wound in her shoulder was trickling down one naked arm, and on the black satin bosom of her dress. Her visitor stood in the middle of the floor. He had a stained knife in his hand, and at the moment appeared to be trying to collect enough steadiness to approach her again. Amanda left him for Markham to deal with, and ran across to the girl. She was just in time to catch her as she folded up.

When Markham looked round from throwing out the drunk she was trying to staunch the wound with her handkerchief: “Better get the doctor quickly. She’s losing a lot,” Amanda told him.

“The doc passed out cold an hour ago,” he reminded her.

“Oh, God!” said Amanda. “Well, get the first-aid satchel from my hut, then — and hurry.”

Dorrie opened her eyes. “Is it bad?” she asked.

“It looks nastier and messier than it is. You’ll be all right,” Amanda told her, hoping that she sounded convincing. “Here, take a drink of this.” And she held a cup to lips which now looked like a second gash, in the girl’s white face.

“Pretty dim of me,” Dorrie said. “Must be losing my touch. I can usually handle ‘em okay.” And she fainted again.

Markham came back with the first-aid case and began to fill a bowl with water. “Do you know anything about this sort of job?” Amanda asked. “It’s worse than I thought.”

He shook his head. “Not a thing, I’m afraid.”

Amanda compressed her lips and began to open the kit. “Nor do I — but somebody’s got to do something,” she said, and set to work. “You’d better fetch her friend — if you can find her,” she told him.

Maisie put in her appearance some ten minutes later. She said nothing, but sat down beside Amanda, watching, and handing things as necessary. When it was finished, they put Dorrie to bed. Maisie looked at Amanda. She found a glass and poured a stiff drink into it. Coming back, she put her arm round her. “Good girl,” she said. “Here, take a shot of this. You need it.”

Amanda drank obediently. She choked a little on it — partly the strength of the spirit, but partly reaction. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m not the kind — I don’t usually — “ Then she burst soothingly into tears.

A look of gloomy purpose came into Maisie’s eyes as her arm tightened round Amanda’s shoulders. “You just watch me blast the pants off that doc tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll get him so that he jitters at the sight of a bottle — even a coke.”

From the next day the colony had seemed to shift up and make room for Amanda. The two girls adopted an attitude towards her which varied between awe at her scholarship — which they appeared to regard as a cleverly developed though rather impractical form of higher guesswork — and a sense of responsibility towards her inexperience. Maisie particularly seemed to take this to heart. There were remarks which would make her frown.

“What troubles me, honey,” she said once, “is your darned innocence. This ain’t no location for it. Maybe you do genuinely forget that you’re one quarter of the female population here — but others don’t. In a dump like this you gotta watch your step. Honest you have, all of the time. We know, don’t we, Dorrie?”

“Sure,” agreed Dorrie. “Kinda like juggling. You know those guys that keep a dozen balls in the air at once while they ride a bicycle on a wire? Well, that’s it.”

“I don’t see — “ Amanda began.

“That’s just what’s bitin’ me. You don’t see — but you will,” Maisie told her. “Trouble is you’ve spent your life learning things, and there’s a hell of a lot of difference between the things you learn and the things you just kinda get to know. But when you do see trouble beginning to come your way from some of the big irresistibles around here, then let us know. We can handle ‘em.”

Dorrie backed that up. With a confidence quite unimpaired by her recent lapse of skill, she added: “Sure. You just tell us. We can fix ‘em.”

Amanda did not see a great deal of them, for their lives were busiest at times when hers was not, but she was glad to have earned their good will. It was a comforting thought, even if there appeared to be no likelihood of her having to call on them for aid. It needed the coming of the unbelievable disaster to draw them closer together for mutual support.

In whatever way the first news of the disaster had reached the Melos colony their faith in all they knew would have stopped them from believing it for a time. Some never did believe: a few minds refused to take it, and pitifully broke down. In the event, the news came in installments, building up to the incredible climax.

When first the radio men could raise no reply from Earth, it was simply inconvenient, and they were blamed for poor maintenance of their gear. When the apparatus was found to be okay, the trouble was attributed to a radiation blanket which would pass in a while. When contact was made with the ship Celestes and her operator admitted that he too was unable to raise any of the Earth stations, it began to look more serious. But it was not until the Astarte which had put out from Venus a couple of weeks before reported that she would attempt to put about and return if possible — for lack of anywhere else to go — that it began to be unbelievable.

From that moment nobody talked of anything else — but they still did not really believe it. Even after the incoming Diana had grounded and her crew had told their story, one still hoped at heart that there had been some mistake, and a crowd still besieged the radio hut while, inside, the operators went on frenziedly trying to make contact with the Lunar Station, with the Port Gillington settlement on Mars, with ships in space, with anywhere that might answer with solid, reassuring news.

According to those on the Diana it had happened that there was a telescope turned back to Earth so that several of them had been able to watch the whole thing on the screen. One moment the Earth had been hanging in space, looking, as always, like a pearl with a coot, cloudy green shimmer; the next it resembled an overripe fruit that had split its skin, and the juice that burst from it was flame that stabbed thousands of miles into the darkness. There had been a few dazzling, awesome moments, and then it had begun to break into pieces. So rapid had been the disintegration that half an hour later the telescopes were unable to find more than a few measurable fragments. The Diana’s crew could tell no more than that.

Everyone’s recollection of the next few days was hazy. Most of them were dazed and absent-minded. Some cursed steadily; others fell hopefully to praying for the first time in their lives. The majority chose the shortest road to illusion via the bar where they drank themselves comfortably stupid or into baseless but passionate arguments as to whether the disaster had been a natural phenomenon, a new weapon of war that had overreached itself, or the product of some atomic carelessness. To the rest, the actual cause seemed a matter of utterly unprofitable speculation. Whatever it had been, it could not possibly help anyone to know any more about it now.

A few more ships came in. Some corroborated the Diana’s report. Others, looking out for a routine check of bearings, had found that where the Earth should have been there was nothing. The only additional information was that the moon was heading away into space and the planetary orbits were re-balancing themselves.

On the night after the Diana grounded, Amanda had gone out alone, still numbly incredulous. Looking up at the clouds eternally covering the Venusian sky she kept on telling herself that it could not be true. Whatever they were saying, the Earth must be somewhere up there still. Such a colossal catastrophe could not really happen.

Even later, when the other ships had added their evidence and she had to accept it, there was still a whisper somewhere which kept on saying: “It can’t be real. A thing like that just couldn’t happen. One day I’ll wake up and find it’s all there really — with things going on just as they always have.” It was a whisper which grew fainter and fainter, but it would never quite die away.

The Administrator made some attempt to pull things together, but not with success. His authority had been behind him, not in him, and now he lacked weight. His efforts did little but set malcontents recalling earlier grudges, but he persisted.

Amanda spent hours of these unreal days in the company of Maisie and Dorrie, consuming endless cups of coffee and innumerable cigarettes. For some reason — possibly because there had never been any stable background to their lives — they seemed less effected than the rest, and their companionship steadied her. As Maisie said: “It’s the guys with the biggest plans that get knocked silliest. Dorrie and me have always gambled anyway; so what? While you’re still breathin’ life’s gotta go on — they’ll get round to that in a while.”

Most other people Amanda avoided. She did not flock to the landing field with the rest when the few ships that had managed to make successful diversions came in to their final groundings. She was not even there when the last of all, the USS Annabelle Lee, made sanctuary on her last few pounds of fuel, bringing, among her crew, a young man named Michael Parbert.

On the afternoon of the day that somebody knifed the Administrator, Maisie drifted into Amanda’s hut. Amanda was working on some papers, but she pushed them aside and threw over a cigarette. “What’s the idea?” Maisie asked, as she lighted it. “That kind of stuff’s no use to nobody no more.”

“Uncle Joe’s idea,” Amanda explained. “He says that for all we know we’re the only ones left anywhere, so it’s up to us to make a record of all we know between us. Sort of encyclopaedia.”

“Uh-huh. And who for?” Maisie wanted to know.

“Well, there may be others — and failing everything else he says that the griffas will be up to learning it one day. We’ve come a long way in five thousand years or so, he says, but we’re only at the beginning really, so we ought to save what we can to help them along.”

“Ought we?” said Maisie. “Looking at the funny way we’ve come, I’d say give the griffas or anything else a clean start — but then, I wouldn’t know.”

“Nor me,” admitted Amanda, “ — but it makes something to do.” She changed the subject. “Who did it — the Administrator, I mean?”

Maisie inhaled, and blew the smoke out. She shook her head. “I wouldn’t know that, either. I might make a near guess, but what the hell? — If it wasn’t one, it’d have been another. He had it coming, anyway. The thing is, it kinda writes off the old setup.” She sent another cloud of blue smoke thoughtfully across the room.

“Meaning — ?” inquired Amanda.

Maisie leaned forward, and regarded her. “Honey, I got a feeling things are going to break open around here. In a dump like this you gotta have a boss of some kind. A stuffed one was okay — with a government in back of him — but when the government’s gone, and some guy’s let out the rest of the stuffing — well, then you just naturally find some other guys getting big ideas. And the climate’s likely to get kinda lively while they’re deciding whose idea is the biggest.”

“How lively?” Amanda asked.

Maisie shook her head. “I’d like to know that, too. What isn’t funny is having a lot of dopes around that are just about crazy on account of what’s happened back home. I know the poor devils can’t help it — but that don’t make it any healthier.”

“I see,” said Amanda.

Maisie looked doubtful. “Maybe you do see: maybe you don’t — quite. Trouble with educated gals is they keep seeing in one pocket and understanding in another.” She paused. Then she added: “You had a boy back home? One that you were set to marry, I mean — not just the kind a gal’s gotta have for self-respect?”

Amanda hesitated. “There was one…” she said, slowly. “But he didn’t… Well, he was the only one I ever wanted — and when he chose somebody else, I wasn’t interested in those things anymore. So I got this job and came here.”

There was a pause. Maisie said: “It ain’t natural, honey. You’re a swell kid, you’re young, you’re pretty, you got it all.”

“It’s natural to me,” said Amanda.

“In my experience,” observed Maisie, “every gal is a one-man woman just so long — or so short.”

“Except Alice?” suggested Amanda, attempting to deflect the conversation.

“Not excepting Alice. She’s the so short part. Kinda concentrated while it lasts.” Maisie ruminated a moment, and then reverted. “Well, I reckoned it’d be better for you to be expecting trouble when it comes. And when it does come, honey, take it from me the best thing is to — “

Amanda listened, impressed, to a sound, if unconventional, lecture in applied physiology. Her thanks at the end of it were as sincere as Maisie’s intention. She had a grateful feeling in the sense of a friend at hand.

Nevertheless, the next few days passed with less overt trouble than Maisie had led one to expect. No rival would-be leaders stood up to shoot it out, nor did any gang thrust an un- suitable chief into authority. The sensation of going to pieces continued quietly with an air of all round loosening up which it was no one’s appointed business to check. Almost a whole week more passed before Amanda had her first personal encounter with trouble. It was when the latch of her hut door rattled one evening just as she was on the point of going to bed that it came.

“Who’s there?” she called.

A thick voice that she could not place answered unintelligibly.

“Go away,” she said. “This is the wrong hut.”

But the man did not go away. She heard his feet shuffle, then something thudded against the door so that it bulged. There was a second thud, and it flew open as the bolt socket tore out. The man who stood in the doorway was tall, burly, red-headed, and unsteady. She recognized him as one of the maintenance-shop crew.

“Get out of here, Badger,” she said, firmly.

He swayed and steadied himself by the doorpost. “Now, now, ‘Manda. ‘S’not the way to speak to a visitor.”

“Go on, Badger. Beat it,” said Amanda.

“‘S’not ladylike — ‘beat it’!” Badger reproved. He groped behind him for the door, and shut it. “Listen, ‘Manda. You’re a nishe girl, you unnerstan’ things. I got nothing now, all gone, nothing to live for anymore. I wanna lose m’self.”

“You’ll have to go lose yourself some place else,” Amanda told him, unfeelingly. “Get along now.”

He stood approximately still, looking at her. Then his eyes narrowed, and there was a displeasing grin on his lips. “No, b’God! Why sh’d I go? C’m here.”

Amanda did not move. She faced him steadily. “Get out!” she said, again.

His grin widened. “So you don’t wanna play. Scared of me, huh.” He began to advance, slowly and not very straightly.

Amanda was rather surprised to find herself very little scared of him. She stood her ground, carefully calculating the distance. When he was near enough, she let fly with all her strength, using her foot.

It was an unexpected, and, in Badger’s view, highly dastardly form of attack. It was also successful. For the first time since his entrance she felt it safe to turn her back while she got her pistol. Then, to the groaning figure doubled up on the floor she said: “Now will you get out! Go on!”

The answer was a moaned string of curses.

Amanda pressed the trigger and sent a bullet through the floorboards close beside his head. “Go on. Beat it, quick,” she repeated.

The sound of the shot sent a gleam of sense through Badger’s befuddled discomfort. He dragged himself up and hobbled to the door. He paused with his hand on the post, as if considering some Parthian line, but the sight of the pistol discouraged it. He turned away into the darkness, and his picturesque mutterings faded out, to leave Amanda contemplating her own efficiency in the matter with some awe.

It seemed as if that had been the sign for more things to move. The very next day Alice’s present, a husky young engineer, was neatly drilled through the head by, presumably, one of her pasts. It was a privation which rendered her almost inconsolable for two whole days. A night or two later an enterprising spaceman was shot while looting the general storehouse by somebody else with the same idea. The following evening a ridiculous but bloody knife fight broke out in the saloon over a sentimental record agreeable to some but intolerably nostalgic to others. A couple of nights after that, Amanda, kept awake by an unusually turbulent fracas, or maybe party, in Dorrie’s hut, saw the silhouette of a man at work upon her window. She gave no warning but reached under the pillow for the pistol. She did not know whether either of her shots hit the arm she aimed at, but, anyway, he left. Hurriedly. The following evening a ridiculous ham to put some bars across the windows. That evening a shot whizzed close to his head as he returned from seeing her home. The next morning she went to see Maisie about it.

“Okay. I’ll get my grapevine humming,” Maisie promised.

Three hours later she came around to Amanda’s hut. “It’s that red-headed dope. Badger,” she said. “You’ve got him kind of sore at you, honey. He’s been telling his buddies you’re gonna be his girl. The idea seems to be that if he scares everyone else off, you’ll just take kindly to him sooner or later, out of lonesomeness.”

“Oh, is it?” said Amanda. “Well, what do I do about that?”

Maisie considered. “That Badger’s one-tracked — and just kinda naturally stupid. Trouble is he’s got quite a pull over that gang of his — so I guess they must be a grade more stupid. If I was you I’d let it ride awhile till things settle down. It could be it’ll just work off.”

And Amanda, with no better suggestion of her own, agreed reluctantly.

It was about that time that she began to be aware that Michael Parbert, of the Annabelle Lee, seemed to be a member of every group she sat with in the Clubhouse. Sedulously she took no more notice of him than of any of the others. It was impossible not to know’ that he was a personable young man — but so were a number of others. She began to understand Dorrie’s words on juggling and tightwires. There was a feeling that everyone was just waiting for her to fumble or slip. It needed immense concentration to show no suggestion of partiality. It even drove her to staying away from the Clubhouse some evenings, to ease the strain by sitting in her hut in resentful solitude.

Three uneasy weeks later Maisie came around to Amanda’s hut again. “Big fight last night,” she observed, as she lit her cigarette.

“Oh,” said Amanda. She was not greatly interested. There seemed to be fights big or small most nights lately.

“Yeh. That Badger got beaten up,” Maisie added.

Amanda looked up from the shirt she was mending. “Badger! Who was it?”

“Michael. He had Badger out cold at the end, they tell me.” She paused. Amanda said nothing. She went on: “You wouldn’t want to know what it was all about?”

“No,” said Amanda.

Maisie flicked her ash thoughtfully on to the floor. “Listen, honey. You gotta face it. What’re you gonna do?”

It was no good pretending not to understand Maisie Amanda had learned that. She said: “Nothing. Why should I?’*

Maisie shook her head. “You gotta do something.”

“I don’t see why.”

“Now, don’t act dumb with me, honey. You gotta pick yourself a boyfriend.”

Maisie looked at her. “Say, who do you think you are? There’s all these guys lined up — all the men that are left now — all you gotta do is point at one an’ say I’ll have that dope there’, an’ he’ll come runnin’. Sakes alive, what more do you want? It’s all on a dish — and you don’t even have to find a local Reno if he pans out bad.”

“No,” said Amanda. “I told you I only ever wanted one guy — I mean, man.”

“But listen. Things are all different. From now on you gotta live here — we all have. That’s not the same as just stayin’ awhile — an’ it’s no good foolin’ yourself that it is. You gotta quit playing the old act before it flops hard. You can’t go on being the little mascot anymore. An’ if you keep on trying it, you’ll be causing more trouble around here than that Alice. Maybe it’s nice for you to sit there like a pretty little honeypot with the lid tight on — I wouldn’t know; I never been that way — but it’s just hell and temptation for a lot of these guys. An’ you can’t blame ‘em for that; it’s human nature.”

“Human nature?” said Amanda, scornfully.

“Sure. What else? You gotta make up your mind. You gotta team up, so’s they can see the way things are. Just so long as you keep dangling around like a forbidden fruit we ain’t goin’ to have no kind of peace in this dump — an’ that’s a fact. Now what about this Michael, honey?”

“No,” said Amanda.

“Why not? I say he’s a good guy. I oughta know; I seen plenty of the other kind. An’ anyone who can lay out that Badger has got what it takes.”

“No,” said Amanda.

“Now, listen, honey — “

“No, no, no!” said Amanda, violently. ‘‘No! Do you hear? I won’t be the purse in a sluggers’ prize fight. And I’m certainly not going to run to the big strong victor for protection. It’s disgusting to be fought over as if I were a — a — a she-buffalo, or something. No!”

But Maisie was patient and persistent. “Things are getting kinda primitive here,” she said. “You ought to know the sort of thing that means, seein’ it’s your own subject. In a set-up that’s goin’ that way a girl’s got two lines open: either she plays ‘em along, the way Dorrie an’ I do — an’ I reckon you just ain’t got the temperament — or she takes up with a guy who can put the fear of God into the rest of ‘em. You think it over, honey, an’ you’ll see. You can get yourself a good guy to look after you, an’ have cute babies, an’ all that... It could be swell ...”

“If you’re so fond of babies — “ Amanda began, and then stopped suddenly. “I’m sorry, Maisie.”

“That’s all right, ‘Manda, dear. That’s the way life is, an’ I gotta take it. But you haven’t, honey-lamb. So just think it over ...”

“No!” said Amanda and shook her head.

Nevertheless, she did spend a considerable part of her time thinking it over. There was no dodging it anymore. She became increasingly aware of the tension around her as she sat in the Clubhouse, the way the men looked at her — and at one another. There were more fights; sometimes between surprisingly unexpected persons. She grew nervous and self-conscious, unable to speak naturally to any of them for fear of what a careless word might provoke. Even Uncle Joe felt himself moved to give her advice — and though its form was more classical, it was too much the same effect as Maisie’s.

The feeling of pressure building up made Amanda restless and edgy, but it also increased her obstinacy. “No!” she repeated to herself. “I won’t ... I won’t be driven at one of them. I’m me; my own self. They shan’t make me belong to one of them. Never, never. Damn them, all of them.”

But resistance did not diminish the pressure. The climax came when she wakened to hear a shot just outside her hut. Exactly what happened she never found out. To her ears it sounded like a private fight which the intervention of other parties turned into a brisk skirmish. In the course of it at least two bullets slammed in through the hut’s wooden wall, and out the other side. Amanda stayed in bed, having her mind made up for her. When the sounds of battle died away, she had reached her decision.

The next day she managed to slip off unnoticed into the forest to make contact with the griffas. The little creatures welcomed her. Since the disaster they had been neglected, for the classes to which they had come so eagerly, both for instruction and candy, had been discontinued.

It was difficult to know how much they grasped of the situation, but they seemed clear enough on two essentials — secrecy, and willingness to act as porters for payment in chocolate. They were able to come and go without causing comment, and for a week they did so, carrying away into the forest parcels suitable to their size.

On the final day Maisie came in again. She put up all the old arguments, and ended: “Honey, I know this isn’t your kind of life. They way I see you is in an old cottage somewhere in your England — a place with a garden, an’ you in a print frock, an’ a big hat, an’ so on — But, hell, kid, it just ain’t there anymore. You gotta face it.”

“No!” said Amanda.

It had been hard not to say goodbye to Maisie, but she resisted the temptation. There were tears in her eyes as she watched the tall figure in its ridiculous shiny dress sway lazily away. In the evening she wrote a note for Maisie. Then she strapped up her pack, fixed the holster on her belt, and put the rifle to hand. After she had turned out the light, she sat waiting, watching the uncurtained window.

The fuse took longer than she had calculated. Then, just as she was deciding that something must have gone wrong there came a felty thump, and in a few seconds flames burst from the windows of an empty hut a hundred and fifty yards away. There were shouts and sounds of running feet, against the flames she could see dark figures dodging excitedly about. When she was satisfied that the blaze had attracted the attention of all who chanced not to be paralytically drunk she opened her door and slipped quietly away through the darkness towards the forest.

The thing that saved both Amanda’s resolution and her reason was that the griffas did not abandon her during her months in the cave. Even when all the chocolate was gone their insatiable curiosity still brought them up from the forest to examine, observe, and ask endless questions until she found herself holding classes again. Long ago she had ceased to use even the little she had been able to learn of their language, and now they, too, seemed to be in the process of dropping it. Frequently she would hear them talking between themselves in their odd, fluty form of English — the more curious for its being learned from the Works of William Shakespeare and the Oxford Book of English Verse, which were Amanda’s only books.

Nor was it a one-sided arrangement. By way of payment they kept her supplied with fruits, vegetables and edible roots, teaching her to live off the l2ind in a way that she could never have taught herself. Nearly six months passed before she had any news of the settlement, then one of the griffas surprised her by producing a packet of paper tied round with a string. She opened it to find a number of sheets written in a large, unpractised hand, with the signature ‘Maisie’ at the end.

From them she learned that the colony, after passing through a crisis, had now become more orderly. At the worst time Badger had acquired a following which threatened to dominate the whole place unless it were suppressed. Accordingly, it had been suppressed, and Uncle Joe had been elected president, chief, or whatever you liked to call it. After that Badger had disappeared. The radio operator had picked up distorted sounds on the Mars wavelength to show that somebody there was alive still, at least. Alice had disappeared, and alone. This was so improbable, that everyone feared the worst. She had been moody for a couple of days, and then vanished. No one had seen her go, she seemed to have taken nothing with her, and after two months there was still no sign of her. Dorrie had been dangerously ill, but was now almost recovered. She was bitterly disappointed, though; apparently she had always wanted a baby, though nobody had guessed it, and now there was no more chance of it. Finally, what about Amanda coming back?

The implication was not lost on Amanda. She was now the very last hope. It was another bit of pressure to nag at her. “No!” said Amanda. “I won’t — I won’t. They can’t force me.” She wrote a brief reply on the back of one of the sheets, used the rest for lighting her fire, and decided to forget it.

For a day before he arrived Amanda had known from the griffas that there was a man coming her way. It did not greatly surprise her. Sooner or later someone would be bound to find out where she was. She had not known that it was Badger until she saw him through the glasses. Nor did she know how he had found her. She suspected that he must have caught and tortured a griffa till it told him. If so, he had got what he deserved. He’d torture no more griffas now.

After a day or two the shooting worried her less. If a soldier could claim a clear conscience in defending his country and his womenfolk, how could hers be the worse for defending herself?

Her life went on as before, for if one thing was certain, it was that Badger would not have passed on the details of his ill-gotten bit of information. Yet, a few weeks later, the griffas brought her the news of another man working that way.

Once more she took her rifle and concealed herself in the same spot. As before she watched a distant figure come out of the trees. Through the glasses she saw that it was Michael Parbert — the ‘good guy’ that Maisie had wanted her to choose. She lowered the glasses, with a frown. The situation would have been easier had it been one of Badger’s gang. She hesitated a moment, and then called to one of the griffas. A few minutes later she watched the little creature make a detour and then go scuttling down the hillside. As it got nearer to the man it raised its arms, and she knew that it was calling to him. Through the glasses, she watched them meet. She could see it giving him her warning, and telling him to go back, but he made no move to do so. For a moment he appeared to dispute. The griffa reached up and took hold of his pants, dragging back the way he had come. He did not move but stood looking up the hill. Then he shook the griffa off with an impatient movement and started to climb.

Amanda’s frown returned. “Very well, then,” she said grimly. And she reached for her rifle.

Later on, she slung the coil of rope over her shoulder, and set off down the slope with a purposeful step. What she had done before, she was prepared to do again. But when she got there he was not dead. He lay on the pale, matted grassy stuff, with the blood slowly oozing and caking round his two wounds. He was light-headed and crying like a child. She had never seen a man cry before. Her heart turned over, and she went down on her knees beside him.

“Oh, God,” said Amanda, with tears in her own eyes. “What have I done? What have I done?”

For several days it remained anybody’s guess what Amanda had done, but then, though he was very weak, he began unmistakably to get better. Amanda, with a dozen or so griffas assisting, had carried him up to the cave. She had made him the most comfortable bed she could contrive with a mattress of springy twigs. And there he lay, delirious at first, then resting most of the time with his eyes shut. He made no complaints when she moved him to dress his wounds, and at first he was too exhausted to talk much. Occasionally she would see that his eyes were open, and that he had been watching her as she moved about the cave. Once he asked: “Somebody shot me?”

“Yes,” Amanda told him.

“Was it you?”

“Yes,” she said, again.

“You’re a bad shot. Why didn’t you leave me there?”

“I don’t know.”

“Going to shoot me again when you’ve patched me up?”

“Go to sleep now, and stop asking silly questions,” Amanda told him.

“I’ve got a letter for you. It’s in my jacket— right hand pocket.”

She found it, and pulled it out. It was strange to see an envelope again, and with ‘Miss Amanda Vark’ neatly written on it.

“Uncle Joe?” she asked. He nodded. She tore it open. There were several sheets, and they started somewhat heavily. Dr. Thorer was prone to be a little pompous on paper:

My Dear Amanda,

This letter will not he easy for me to write, nor, perhaps, for you to read, yet I beg you to read it carefully and to consider its contents with the honesty which you would give to any social problem in your work...

Amanda read steadily on, with an expression which revealed nothing of her feelings to Michael as he watched her. When she had finished it, she went to the cave mouth. She sat there for some minutes, unmoving, and gazing out across the sea. Then she picked up the letter, and read the last few lines again:

…It may be that elsewhere in the system some of us will survive, but we do not know that, nor are we likely ever to know. What we do know is that here it is you, my dear, who hold the keys of life and death. Why it should be to you that this wonderful and terrible thing has happened we shall also never know. But there is the chance that you might have daughters... You, and you alone, are vas vitae, the vessel of our life. Are you content that this shall be the end of it all? Can you carry such a burden on your mind? For you, Amanda, here, at least, are — Eve.

When she looked up she saw that Michael was still watching her. “Do you know what this is?” she asked.

He nodded. “You did, too, even before you opened it,” he said.

Amanda turned and looked over the sea again. Her fists were clenched. “Why me? Why me? Am I an animal — a brood mare? I won’t, I tell you! My life is mine — it doesn’t belong to any of you. I won’t…I – “ She crumpled up the letter and threw it into the small fire before the cave. It curled, singed, and then caught.

“See! You can tell him. You can tell all of them when you go back.” And she ran away out of the cave.

Convalescence was slow. To begin with he tired quickly. In the evening the feebleness of the clay lamps left them with nothing to do but talk. He could, she found, do plenty of that, and she herself had some months of arrears to make up. Their conversations rambled in every direction, skirting only the present situation — though it was not always easy to do that. It was difficult when they spoke of laughter, crowds, children, not to stop short suddenly, remembering that these things would never be again.

But it was natural that most of the talk should be retrospective, and it could often be so without being altogether saddening. Talking of places made them live again — for a time. Amanda found herself growing familiar with Massachusetts Avenue, and the Common, with Brattle Street, and the Halls and elms of Harvard. She had all the best shops in Boston marked down and could have found her way to Aunt Mary’s house in Back Bay, if necessary. In return she toured him around the colleges of Oxford, took him for a summer evening in a punt on the river, and showed him the sunrise from Magdalen College tower.

The griffas continued to come for lessons, and as Michael grew stronger he, too, became a teacher. He made types of simple tools for them to copy; he showed them how to fish with both net and rod; made them a potter’s wheel, and a simple loom. It amused Amanda to look across and see him working with a serious expression, while the little creatures clustered about him no less intently, rather like — children. She knew that he was enjoying it, and for some reason it pleased her to see that he got on better with them than had the less practical men of her own party.

When he first began to get about again she had formed the habit of keeping her pistol handy at night. It occurred to her that he had not once treated her as he might not have treated a younger brother, nor did he show the least sign of changing that attitude. In fact it would have seemed more normal if…But, anyway, you never could tell. She did not know that he had noticed the pistol until one night she turned round from tucking it into its place and saw him looking at her. He was smiling. It was not an attractive kind of smile, because it turned the corners of his mouth down instead of up. He shook his head.

“You needn’t bother with that thing. You’re perfectly safe, you know. I’m kind of particular — allergic, you might say, to girls that shoot at me from cover. Sort of funny that way: just naturally got no interest in homicides, I guess.”

“Oh,” said Amanda, flatly. It didn’t seem the kind of thing you could follow up.

A day which had begun like any other day he laid aside his breakfast bowl, and told her without warning, “I’m okay now, near enough, so I’ll be moving along.”

Something hurt suddenly, and quite unexpectedly in Amanda’s chest. “You — you don’t mean you’re going?” she said.

“Yes. I can make it now — easy stages.”

“But not today?”

“Looks a perfectly good day to me.”

“But—”

“But what?”

“I — I don’t know... Are you sure you’re well enough yet?”

“Near ninety per cent, anyway. If I get stuck, one of the griffas can fetch someone to pick me up.”

“Yes, only — well, it’s so unexpected, that’s all.”

“Why? What did you expect?”

Amanda looked at him confusedly. She had been to some trouble to prevent herself forming definite expectations of any kind. “I — I don’t know ... I suppose it’s goodbye, then?”

“That’s it. Goodbye — and thank you for changing your mind.”

“Changing — ? But if you know I’ve — “ she began. Then she stopped. “What do you mean?” she asked awkwardly.

“About killing me. What else?”

“Oh,” said Amanda. “Oh, that.”

As if in a dream she watched him put on his pack, still with the hole where one of her bullets had torn it. Her knuckles were white. As he picked up his rifle she made an uncertain movement, and then checked it.

“Goodbye,” he said again.

“Goodbye,” said Amanda, and damned her voice for sounding funny.

He went out of the cave. Half a minute later she followed around the shoulder of the hill to a point where she could watch him go. A party of griffas emerged from the trees to join him, and he strode on into the forest amongst them. He did not give one backward glance.

The whole landscape blurred before Amanda’s eyes.

After he had gone, the cave should have reverted to what it was before he came. Logically, when one had got rid of the loom and all the other innovations by parking them in a smaller cave nearby, one was back to normal — only there was evidently something wrong with logic. Things did not automatically return to their former placid order. Amanda found herself restless. Conversation with none but the griffas irked her. She grew short-tempered with them, to their dismay and bewilderment, and then was contrite over her burst of impatience — only to find herself behaving in the same way again five minutes later.

More than ever was she aware of the alienness of the things about her. When one was alone they seemed to press more closely. She became aware of that loneliness and the quiet as she had never been before. The days lacked purpose. She seemed incapable of getting back into the old routine by day, and by night the cave was too quiet. If she woke in the darkness she missed the reassuring sound of his slow, steady breathing. Instead, the only thing to be heard was the distant scrape and stir of the crabs down on the shore.

For the first time she began to have misgivings about her own strength. It was no longer simple to be detached. In her more honest moments she knew that something was happening to her resolution — but it was happening too late. Some weeks ago she could have heeded Uncle Joe’s letter. She could have returned to the settlement and made her choice, with her pride saved by his appeal. But now — how could she go back now? After he had walked away from her — without once looking back.

She swayed between moods of loneliness and determination, misery, and bitter resolve. Yet she knew that the resolve was weakening. She would never again have the confidence which had coldly trained her rifle on the approaching Badger. She wondered what steps she would take when the griffas next warned her of someone’s approach…and then left it to be decided at the time.

In the event, it was a decision she did not have to make, since there was no warning. Early on a day about a month after Michael had left she heard the griffas arriving as usual for their lesson, but among the pattering of their feet she detected another step. She pulled the pistol from her belt and pointed it at the entrance. A figure, huge among its little escort, came to a stop in the cave mouth. Amanda’s heart leaped once, and then sank. Against the light she could not see who it was; but she knew who it was not. The figure stood still a moment, then it said slowly, on a reproving note: “Would you mind putting that thing down, honey lamb. It looks kinda nervous to me.”

Amanda lowered the pistol, and stared at Maisie as she came in. Something seemed to give way and pour up inside her. She ran forward and clung. Maisie put up both arms and held her. “There, there, Honey,” she soothed her. It was all either of them said for quite a little time.

“How did you get here?” Amanda asked.

She had recovered, and hospitably brought out baskets of sweet shoots, and flat cakes made from root flour.

“It wasn’t so much the getting, as the getting to get,” Maisie explained. “I’d have been here long before, but if there is one thing that those griffas have a thorough hold on, it’s the meaning of the word ‘secret’. I’ve been trying for months to persuade or bribe ‘em. But it’s kinda difficult with griffas, you know: now, if it had been men — Anyway, here I am — and three days of steady going it’s taken me.”

Amanda regarded her with admiring gratitude. Forest travel was not an activity one associated with Maisie, any more than one associated her with the practical suit she now wore. She said: “Why have you come, Maisie?”

“Well, honey, I wanted to see you. An’, for another thing, I reckoned that anyone else who came would likely get shot. It’s said to be sort of rough in these parts.”

“Then — then he did get back all right?”

“Yeh,” said Maisie. She did not amplify, but began a hunt in the pockets of her jacket and trousers. “I got a message for you some place.”

“Yes?” Amanda leaned forward, eagerly.

“Sure. Now where the hell would I have put it? This ain’t my kind of outfit, you know,” she complained. “Oh, here it is.” She smoothed out the envelope. “From Uncle Joe,” she added, handing it over.

“Oh...” said Amanda, flatly.

She took it. She opened it with reluctance, because she was sure what it would say. She was perfectly right. “No!” she said, again, crumpling it up. “No!” But the negative lacked something of its old force — and there was another quality about it, too.

“That’s all?” she asked.

“What else would there be?”

“I wondered…I don’t know…”

Suddenly Amanda was crying.

Maisie took her hand. “Now, honey, you don’t want to get that way. You’ve been too long alone here. Snap out of it now and come along back with me.”

“But — but I can’t — not now,” sobbed Amanda. “He doesn’t want me. He — he never looked back, not once. He s-said he h-hated girls that shoot from cover.”

“Nonsense,” Maisie told her, briskly. “Every smart girl always shoots from cover. So you’ve fallen for this guy, have you?”

“Y-yes,” wept Amanda,

“Huh,” said Maisie, “then I reckon that fixes it.” She got up and went to the entrance.

A minute later another step outside the cave made Amanda look up suddenly. “It’s — it’s — Oh, Maisie, you’ve been cheating!”

“Me, honey? Never on your life. It’s just what they call a forcing bid, maybe,” Maisie said, and she drifted out of the cave as Michael walked in. An hour later she returned, with a heavy footfall. “Long enough, you two,” she said. “I got the whoozies watching those darned crabs down there. Good place to be checking out of.”

Amanda, sitting close beside Michael, looked up. “Not yet,” she said, “we’re going to have a — a kind of honeymoon first.”

“Huh. Well, every gal to her taste — but I’d lay off any idea of beach parties around here. If you mean it. I’ll be getting along — and I’ll see about fixing a hut ready for you. And I’ll tell Uncle Joe you’ve decided to take his advice — he’ll be kinda tickled.”

“No!” said Amanda, with all her old decision. “I’m not taking his advice. This hasn’t got anything at all to do with duty to community, or to posterity, or to history, or to moral obligations, or the racial urge to survive — or with anything but me. I’m doing it because I want to do it.”

“Uh-huh,” said Maisie, peaceably. “Well, it’s your affair, so you should know, honey. Still, it wouldn’t surprise me one little bit to hear that the other Eve once said just that selfsame thing ...”

Pawley’s Peepholes (1951)

When I called round in the evening I showed Sally the paragraph in the Daniel City News. “What do you think of that ?” I asked her.

She read it, standing, and with an impatient frown on her pretty face. “I don’t believe it,” she said, finally.

Sally’s principles of belief and disbelief are things I never got a line on. How a girl can dismiss a pack of solid evidence like it was kettle steam, and then go and fall for an ad. that’s phoney from word one as if it were holy writ, I never did…Oh, well, skip it — it just keeps on happening, anyway.

This para read:

MUSIC WITH A KICK

Patrons at a concert at the Adams Hall last night got a shock when they saw a pair of legs dangling knee-deep from the roof while the music was on. Seemingly everybody there saw them, and all reports agree that they were bare legs with some kind of sandals on the feet. They were visible for some three or four minutes during which they moved several times back and forth across the ceiling. Then, after some movement like kicking they disappeared upwards. Examination of the roof shows no traces, and the owners of the Hall are at a loss to account for the phenomenon.

“It’s just one more thing,” I said.

“So what?” said Sally. “What does it prove, anyway?” she added, apparently forgetful that she wasn’t believing it.

“I don’t know — yet,” I admitted.

“Well, there you are then,” she said.

Sometimes I get the feeling Sally doesn’t go a lot on logic. Most people, if they’d noticed it at all, would be thinking the way Sally was then. I was acting cagey on account of experience has shown me that a lot of threads can fit screws that don’t belong, but already it looked like there were things happening that ought to be added together.

The first guy to bump up against it — the first I can find on record, that is —was one Patrolman Walsh. Maybe other fellows saw things before that and just put them down as a new kind of pink elephant. But Patrolman Walsh’s idea of a top-notch celebration rated around a couple of bottles of Coke, so that when he found a head sitting up on the sidewalk on what there was of its neck he stopped to look at it pretty hard. The thing that upset him, according to the report he turned in when he’d run half a mile to the section-station and stopped gibbering, was that it looked back at him.

Well, it’s not good to find a head on the sidewalk, and 2 a.m. makes it kind of worse, but as for the rest, you can get a reproachful look from a cod on a slab if your mind happens to be on something else. Patrolman Walsh didn’t stop there, however. He said the thing opened its mouth “like it was trying to say something.” If it did, he shouldn’t have mentioned it; it just naturally brought the pink elephants to mind. On the other hand, why say it unless he thought it was so ? But nobody in a respectable section-station wanted to hear a thing like that. However, he stuck to it, so after they’d bawled him out a bit and taken disappointing sniffs at his breath, they sent him back with another man to show just where he’d found the thing. Of course there wasn’t any head — nor blood — nor signs of cleaning-up marks. Nor did anyone later report the loss of a head, white race, sallow complexion, clean-shaven’, and mid-brown hair which was what he said it was. And that’s all there was about the incident — save, doubtless, a few curt remarks on the conduct-sheet to dog his future career.

But Patrolman Walsh hadn’t a big lead. Two evenings later an apartment house was curdled by searing shrieks from a Mrs. Rourke in No. 35, and simultaneously from a Miss Farrell who lived above her. When the neighbours arrived, Mrs. Rourke was hysterical about a pair of legs that had been dangling from her bedroom ceiling, and Miss Farrell the same about an arm and shoulder that had stretched out from under her bed. But there was nothing to be seen on the ceiling, and nothing under the bed beyond a discreditable quantity of dust.

There were some other little incidents, too.

It was Jimmy Lindlen who works, if that isn’t too strong a word for it, in the office next to mine who drew my attention to the whole thing. Jimmy’s hobby is collecting facts. In this he is what you might call the reductio ad opposite absurdum of Sally. For him, everything that gets printed in a newspaper is a fact — poor fellow. He doesn’t mind much what subject his facts cover so long as they look screwy. I guess he once heard that the truth is never simple and deduced from that that everything that’s not simple must be true.

He’s not the only one. There was a fellow called Fort who was the arch collector of the improbable. From the time he was a kid Jimmy has revered this Fort as the savant of the era. Right on at an age when most fellows are getting more improbability than they want from their girl friends, Jimmy’s desire to be baffled, bogged and bewildered never flags.

Now this Fort guy’s method was to labour mightily with scissors and paste, present the resulting collation, and leave it to a largely indifferent world to judge whether nearly everybody wasn’t wrong about most everything. But Jimmy’s technique was different — and less cautious. I’ve never actually seen him at work on it, but at a guess I’d say he dealt himself a hand of cuttings in which there was one constant factor, discarded the awkward ones, and then settled down to astonish himself as much as possible with theories about the rest. I got used to him coming into my room full of inspiration and didn’t take much account of it. I knew he’d shuffle and deal himself another hand that evening and stagger himself all over again. So when he brought in the first batch about Patrolman Walsh and the rest I didn’t ignite much.

But some days later he was back with more. Maybe work was slack, or maybe I was surprised by his playing the same type of phenomena twice running. Anyway, I paid more attention than usual. “You see. Arms, heads, legs, torsos all over the place. It’s an epidemic,” said Jimmy. “There’s something behind. Something’s happening!” he said, as near as you can vocalise italics.

When I’d read a few I had to admit that this time he had got something where the vein of strangeness was pretty constant. A bus driver had seen the upper half of a body upright in the road before him — but a bit late. When he did stop and climb out, sweating, to examine the mess there was nothing there. A woman hanging out of a window watching the street saw another head below her, doing the same — but this one was projecting out of the solid brickwork. There was a pair of arms which came out of the floor in a butcher’s shop, seemed to grope for something, and then withdrew into the solid cement without trace — unless you count some detriment to the butcher’s trade. There was the man on an erection job who became aware of a strangely dressed figure standing close to him, but in the empty air — after which he had to be helped down and sent home. Another figure was noticed between the rails in the path of a heavy freight train but had vanished without trace when the train had passed. The dozen or so witnesses agreed that it was wearing some kind of fancy dress but looked male.

While I skimmed through these and some others Jimmy stood waiting like a bottle of seltzer. I didn’t have to say more than “Huh.”

“You see,” he said. “Something is happening.”

“Supposing it is,” I conceded cautiously. “Then what is it?”

“The manifestation zone is limited,” Jimmy said, impressively. “If you look where I’ve marked the incidents on the city plan you’ll see they’re grouped. Somewhere in that circle is the ‘focus of disturbance’.” This time he managed to vocalise the inverted commas and waited for me to show that I was struck.

“So ?” I said. “Disturbance of just what?”

He dodged that. “I’ve a pretty good idea of the cause,” he told me, weightily. I rarely knew Jimmy when he hadn’t, though it might be a different one an hour later.

“I’ll buy it,” I offered.

“Teleportation,” he announced. “That’s what it is. Bound to come sooner or later. Now someone’s on to it.”

“Huh,” I said again.

“But it must be.” He leaned forward earnestly. “How else’d you account for it?”

“If there could be teleportation, or teleportage, or whatever it is, I reckon there’d have to be a transmitter and some sort of reassembly station,” I told him. “You couldn’t expect a person or object to be kind of broadcast and then come together again any old place.”

“But you don’t know that,” he pointed out. “Besides, that’s part of what I was meaning by ‘focus’. It may be focused on that area.”

“If it is,” I said, “he seems to have got his levels and positions all to hell. I wonder just what happens to a guy who gets himself reassembled half in and half out of a brick wall?”

It’s details like that that get Jimmy impatient. “Obviously,” he said, “it’s early stages. Experimental.” It struck me as pretty uncomfortable for the subject, early stages or not, but I didn’t press it.

That evening had been the first time I had mentioned it to Sally, and on the whole that was a mistake. After making it clear that she didn’t believe it, she went on to reckon that if it was true it would be just another invention. “What do you mean, ‘just another invention’? Why, it’d be revolutionary,” I told her.

“Should be,” she said, “but not the way we’d use it.”

“Meaning ?” I asked.

Sally was in one of her withering moods, I could see. She turned on that voice which she uses for the stupidities of people and the world. “We’ve got two ways of using inventions,” she said. “One is to kill more people more easily: the other is to help short-sighted business goons to make quick easy money out of suckers. Maybe there are a few exceptions, like X-rays, but look at the line we’ve got with movies and radio. Look at airplanes, too. Can you or I just get a nice cheap little helicopter to keep in the backyard? Can we hell!”

Sal gets like that sometimes.

“Inventions!” she said, with as near a snort as she comes. “What we do with the product of God-given genius is first we ram it down to the lowest common denominator, then multiply by the vulgarest possible fractions. What a century! What a world! When I think of what other centuries are going to say of us it just makes me go hot all over.”

“I shouldn’t worry. You won’t be hearing it,” I said.

The withering eye was on me. “I should have known. That remark is just about up to twentieth century standards.”

“You’re a funny girl,” I told her. “I mean, the way you think may be crazy, but you do it. Now most girls’ futures are all cloud-cuckoo beyond next season’s hat or next year’s baby. Outside of that it might snow split atoms for all they care — though down inside ‘em they’ve got a feeling nothing’s ever changed or ever will.”

“A lot you know about what most girls think,” said Sally.

“That’s it. How could I?” I said.

She seemed to have set her face so firmly against the whole business that I dropped it for the evening.

A couple of days later Jimmy looked into my room again. “He’s laid off,” he said.

“Who’s laid off what?”

“This teleporting guy. Not a report later than Tuesday. Maybe he knows somebody’s on to him.”

“Meaning you?” I asked.

“Maybe.”

“Well, are you?”

He frowned. “I got it all figured out. I took the bearings on the map of all the incidents, and the fix came on All Saints Church. I’ve been all over the place, but I didn’t find anything. Still, I reckon I’m close — why else’d he stop?”

I couldn’t tell him that. Nor could anyone else. But that very evening there was a paragraph about an arm and a leg that some woman had watched travel along her kitchen wall. I showed it to Sally. “Likely it’ll turn out to be some smart line in advertisement,” she said.

“Kind of secret ad?” I suggested. Then, seeing the withering look working up again: “How about a movie?” I suggested.

It was overcast when we went in to the movie; when we got out it was raining hard. Seeing it was under a mile to her place and all the taxis in town were busy, we decided to walk it. Sally pulled on the hood of her slicker. I took her arm. For a bit we didn’t talk, then: “Darling,” I said, “I know that I am regarded as an irritating cluck with a low ethical standard. But have you ever seriously thought what an opportunity there is here for reform?”

“Yes,” she said, decisively, and in quite the wrong tone.

“What I mean is,” I told her patiently, “if you happened to be looking for a good work to devote your life to, what could be better than reformation? The scope is tremendous, now look at.”

“Is this a proposal of some kind?” Sally inquired.

“Some kind! I’d have you know that in spite of all my dubious ethics Good God!” I broke off.

We were in Tyler Street. A short street, as becomes a minor President, rainswept, and empty now except for ourselves. What stopped me was the sudden appearance of a kind of vehicle further along. I couldn’t make it out very clearly on account of the rain, but I got the impression of a low built truck with several figures in light clothes on it crossing Tyler Street quite swiftly and vanishing. That wouldn’t have been so bad if there were any street crossing Tyler Street, but there isn’t; it just came out of one side, and went into the other.

“Did you see what I saw?” I said.

“But how on earth?” she began.

We walked on a few steps to the place where the thing had crossed, and looked at the solid brick wall on one side and the house-fronts on the other. “You must have been mistaken,” said Sally.

“Well, for — I must have been mistaken!”

“But it couldn’t have happened, could it?”

“Now, listen, Honey— “

But at that moment a girl stepped from the solid brick, about ten feet ahead of us. We gawked at her. I don’t know whether her hair was her own, art and science can do so much together, but the way she wore it, it was like a great golden chrysanthemum a foot and a half across with a red flower set in it a little left of centre. It looked terrible. She was wearing a kind of pink tunic. Maybe it was silk. It wasn’t the kind of thing you expected to see in Tyler Street on a filthy wet night, but in sheer coverage it would have got by in a show most any place. What made it a real shocker was the things that had been achieved by embroidery. I never would have believed that a girl could— oh, well, anyway, there she stood, and there we stood.

When I say “she stood,” she certainly did, but somehow she did it about six inches above ground level. She looked at us both, then she stared at Sally just as hard as Sally was staring at her. It must have been some seconds before any of us moved. The girl opened her mouth as if she were speaking, but no sound came. Then she made a forget-it gesture, turned, and walked back into the wall.

Sally stood quite still. With the rain shining on her slicker she looked like a black statue. When she turned so that I could see her face under the hood there was an expression on it that was new to me. I put my arm around her, and found she was trembling. “I’m scared, Jerry,” she said.

I was feeling more than a bit rattled myself, but she needed an act. “No cause for that, Honey. There’s bound to be a simple explanation some place.”

“But it’s more than that, Jerry. Didn’t you see her face? She was exactly like me!”

“She was pretty much like,” I conceded.

“Jerry, she was exactly like — I…I’m scared.”

“Must have been some trick of the light. Anyway, she’s gone now,” I said. All the same, Sally was right. That girl was the image of herself. I’ve often wondered about that since.

Jimmy came into my room next morning with a copy of the Daniel City News. It carried a brief, facetious leader on the number of local citizens who had been seeing things lately. “They’re beginning to take notice at last,” he said.

“How’s your own line going?” I asked.

He frowned. “I guess it’s not quite the way I thought. As I see it, it’s still in the experimental stage all right, but the transmitter may not be around here after all. This may be just the area he has it trained on for testing.”

“But why here?”

“How would I know. It’s got to be some place — and the transmitter could be any place.” He paused, looking portentous. “It could be mighty serious. Suppose the Russians had a transmitter and could project things or people here by teleportation…”

“Why here ?” I said again. “I’d have thought Oak Ridge, or maybe Brooklyn Navy Yard — “

“Experimental,” he said, reprovingly.

“Oh,” I said, abashed. I went on to tell him what Sally and I had seen the previous night. “She sort of didn’t look the way I think of Russians,” I added.

Jimmy shook his head. “Might be camouflage. After all, behind that curtain they have to get their idea of the way our girls look from our magazines,” he pointed out.

Which was about as far as we got.

Next day, after about seventy-five per cent, of its readers had written in to tell about the funny things they’d been seeing, the News dropped the facetious angle. In two days more the thing had become factional, dividing sharply into what you might call the Modern, and the Classical camps. In the former, schismatic groups argued the claims of teleportage against three-dimensional projection or some theory of spontaneous molecular assembly: in the latter, opinions could be sorted to beliefs in a ghostly invasion, a suddenly acquired visibility of habitual wandering spirits, or the imminence of Judgement Day. In the heat of debate it was becoming difficult to know who had seen how much of what, and who was enthusiastically bent on improving his case at some expense of fact.

On Saturday Sally and I met for lunch. Afterwards we took the car en route for a little place up in the hills which seemed to me an ideal spot for a proposal. But at the crossing of Jefferson and Main the man in front of me jumped on his brakes. So did I, and the guy behind me. The one behind him didn’t quite. There was an interesting crunch of metal going on the other side of the crossing, too. I stood up to see what it was all about, and then pulled Sally up beside me.

“Here we go again,” I said. “Look!”

Slap in the middle of the intersection was a — well, you could scarcely call it a vehicle— it was more like a flat trolley or platform, about a foot off the ground. And when I say off the ground, I mean just that. No wheels. It kind of hung there from nothing. Standing on it, dressed in coloured things like long shirts or smocks were half a dozen men looking around them. Along the edge of the platform was lettered: PAWLEY’S PEEPHOLES.

One of the men was pointing out All Saints Church to another; the rest were paying more attention to the cars and the people. The cop on duty was hanging a goggling face out of his little traffic-control house. He bawled, he blew his whistle, then he bawled some more. The men on the platform took no notice. He got out of his box and came across the road like he was a volcano that had seen a nice place to erupt. “Hey!” he bellowed.

It didn’t worry them. When he got a yard or two away they noticed him, nudged one another, and grinned. The cop’s face went purplish; his language was a pretty line in fission. But they just watched him with amused interest. He drew his stick and went closer. He grabbed at a fellow in a yellow shirt — and his arm went right through him.

The cop stepped back. You could see his nostrils kind of spread, the way a horse’s do. He got a hold on his stick and made a fine circular swipe at the lot of them. They grinned back at him as the stick went through them. I’ll hand it to that cop. He didn’t run. He stared at them a moment, then he turned and walked deliberately back to his box; just as deliberately he signalled the north-south traffic across. The guy ahead of me was ready for it, he drove right at, and through, the platform. It began to move, but I’d just have nicked it myself had it been nickable. Sally, looking back, said it slid away on a curve and disappeared through the front of the First National Bank.

When we got to the spot I’d had in mind the weather had come over bad; it looked dreary and unpropitious, so we drove around and then back to a nice quiet roadside restaurant just out of town. I was getting the conversation round to the mood where I wanted it when who should come over to our table but Jimmy. “Fancy meeting you two,” he said. “Did you hear what went off at the Crossing this afternoon, Jerry ?”

“We were there,” I told him.

“You know, Jerry, this is something bigger than we thought — a whole lot bigger. That platform thing. These people are technically way ahead of us. Do you know what I reckon they are?”

“Martians?” I suggested.

He stared at me. “Gee! Now how did you guess that?” he said, amazedly.

“I sort of saw it had to come,” I admitted. “But,” I added, “I kind of feel Martians wouldn’t be labelled ‘Pawley’s Peepholes’.”

“Oh, were they ? Nobody told me that,” said Jimmy, and went away sadly.

But he’d wrecked the mood.

On Monday Anna, our stenographer, arrived in the office more scattered than normal. “The most terrible thing just happened to me. Oh my, did I blush all over!”

“All over?” inquired Jimmy, with interest.

She scorned him. “I was in my tub this morning, and when I looked up there was a man in a green shirt standing watching me. Naturally, I screamed at once.”

“Naturally,” agreed Jimmy. “And what happened then, or shouldn’t I ask?”

“He just stood there,” Anna said, firmly. “Then he laughed at me, and walked away through the wall! Was I mortified!”

In this particular case I wasn’t certain of the answer, but Jimmy said: “Very mortifying thing, a laugh — and at you, too “

“That’s not what I — what I mean is, things like that oughtn’t to be allowed,” Anna said. “If a man’s going to be able to walk through a girl’s bathroom walls, where’s he going to stop?” Which seemed a pretty fair question.

The boss arrived just then. I followed him into his room. He wasn’t looking happy. “What the hell’s going on in this damned town, Jerry ?” he demanded.

“I’d like to know,” I told him.

“Wife comes home yesterday. Finds two incredible girls in the sitting room. Thinks it’s me. First bust-up in twenty years. Girls vanish,” he said, succinctly.

“Sure,” I said, sympathetically.

That evening when I went to see Sally I found her sitting on the steps of the house in the drizzle. “What on earth?” I began.

She gave me a bleak look. “Two of them came into my room. A man and a girl. They wouldn’t go. They laughed at me. Then they started — acting as if I weren’t there. I — I couldn’t stay there, Jerry.” Then, not altogether unaccountably, she burst into tears.

From then on it stepped up. There was a brisk if one-sided engagement on Jefferson next morning. Miss Dotherby, who was quite Daniel City’s most respected D.A.R., was outraged in every lifelong principle by the appearance of four mop-headed girls who were giggling on the corner of Chestnut. Once she’d retracted her eyes and got her breath back, she knew her duty. She gripped her umbrella like it was her Grandad’s sabre and charged. She sailed right through them, smiting right and left, and when she turned round they were laughing at her. She swiped wildly through them again, and they kept on laughing. Then she started babbling, so somebody called an ambulance to take her away.

By the end of the day the town was full of mothers crying shame and men looking staggered, and the mayor and the police were snowed under with protest and demands that somebody do something about it.

The trouble seemed thickest in that district that Jimmy had originally marked out. You could meet them elsewhere, but in that area you were liable any and every minute to encounter a gang, the men in coloured shirts, the girls with amazing hairdo’s and more amazing decorations on their shifts, sauntering arm-in-arm out of walls, and wandering indifferently through automobiles and people alike. They’d pause anywhere to point out things and people to one another and go into helpless roars of silent laughter.

What tickled them most was when folks got riled with them. They’d make signs and faces at them until they got them tearing mad — and the madder the funnier. They ambled as the spirit took them through stores, banks, offices and homes without a care for the raging occupants. Everybody started putting up “Private: Keep Out” signs: that amused them a lot.

You couldn’t seem to be free of them any place in the area though they appeared to be operating on levels that weren’t always the same as ours. In some places it looked as if they walked on the ground or the floor, but in others they were inches above it, and elsewhere you’d find them moving along as if they were wading through the solid surface. It was very soon clear that they could not hear us any more than we could them, so there was no getting at them that way. No notice seemed to do anything but whet their curiosity.

After three days of it there was chaos. In the worst affected parts there just wasn’t any privacy anymore. At the most intimate moments they were liable to wander through visibly giggling and guffawing. Folks began to complain the way Anna had, only more extensively. It was all very well for the police to announce that there was no danger, that the visitants couldn’t do anything, so the best way was simply to ignore them. There are times and places when giggling bunches of youths and maidens take more ignore-power than the average guy’s got. It sent even a placid fellow like me wild at times, while the women’s leagues of this-and-that, the purity promoters and the like were living in a constant state of blown tops.

The news getting around hadn’t helped, either. Newshounds of all breeds burnt the roads into town. They overflowed the place. Pretty well every street was snaked with leads to movie cameras, television cameras, and microphones, while the press photographers were having the snappy-shot time of their lives, and, being solid, were more nuisance than the visitants themselves.

But there was more to come. Jimmy and I happened in on the first demonstration of it. We were on our way to lunch doing our best to ignore visitants, as instructed, by walking through them. Jimmy was subdued. He’d given up theories on account of his facts had kind of submerged him. Just short of the lunch-bar we noticed that there was some commotion further along Main Street seemingly coming our way, so we waited for it. After a bit it emerged from a tangle of stopped cars further down and came towards us at some seven or eight miles an hour. Essentially it was a platform like the one Sally and I had seen at the Crossing that Sunday, but this was de luxe. There were sides to it glistening with new paint, red, yellow and blue, enclosing seats set four abreast. Most of the passengers were young, though there was a sprinkling of middle-aged men and women dressed in a soberer version of the same fashions. Behind the first platform followed half a dozen others. We read the lettering on their sides and backs as they went past:

PAWLEY’S PEEPHOLES ON THE PAST—

GREATEST INVENTION OF THE AGE

HISTORY WITHOUT TEARS— FOR $10

SEE HOW GREAT, GREAT GRANDMA LIVED

YE QUAINTE OLDE 20th CENTURY EXPRESSE

SEE LIVING HISTORY IN COMFORT—

QUAINT DRESSES—OLD CUSTOMS

EDUCATIONAL ! LEARN PRIMITIVE FOLKWAYS—

LIVING CONDITIONS

VISIT ROMANTIC 20th CENTURY— SAFETY GUARANTEED

KNOW YOUR HISTORY— GET CULTURE— $10 TRIP

BIG MONEY PRIZE IF YOU IDENTIFY OWN GRANDAD/MA

Most of the occupants of the vehicles were turning their heads this way and that in gog-eyed wonder interspersed with spasms of giggles. Some of the young men waved their arms and addressed us with witticisms to the admiration of their companions. Others leaned back, bit into large yellow fruits, and munched. They cast occasional glances at the scene, but most of their attention was paid to the contents of their left arms. On the back of the next to last car was lettered:

WAS GREAT, GREAT GRANDMA AS GOOD AS SHE SAID?

SEE THE THINGS YOUR FAMILY HISTORY DIDN’T TELL YOU
and on the final one :

SPOT THE FAMOUS BEFORE THEY GOT CAREFUL—

THE REAL INSIDE DOPE MAY WIN YOU A BIG PRIZE!

As the procession moved away it left the rest of us looking at one another kind of stunned. Nobody seemed to have much left to say just then. I guess that show must have been something in the nature of a grand premiere. After that you were liable almost any place about town to come across a platform labelled :

HISTORY IS CULTURE— BROADEN YOUR MIND
or:

KNOW THE ANSWERS ABOUT YOUR ANCESTORS
with full good-time loads aboard, but I never heard of a regular procession again.

The Mayor’s Office was tearing what was left of its hair and putting up big notices left, right and centre about what was not allowed to “tourists” — and giving them a big laugh. The thing grew more embarrassing. A lot of those on foot got to coming close up and peering at your face, and then consulting some book or piece of paper they were carrying — after which they looked disappointed and annoyed with you, and moved on. I calculated there was no prize at all for finding me.

Well, work has to go on. We couldn’t fix to do anything about it, so we had to put up with it. Quite a pack of families moved out of town for privacy and to spare their daughters from getting the new ideas about dress, and so on, but most of us had to keep on. Pretty near everyone you met those times looked dazed or scowling — except, of course, the “tourists.”

I called for Sally one evening about a couple of weeks after the trolley procession. When we came out of the house there was a ding-dong going on down the road. A couple of girls with heads that looked like globes of gilded basketwork were scratching the living daylight out of one another. There was a guy standing by looking mighty like a proud rooster, the rest were whooping things on. We went the other way.

“It just isn’t like our town anymore,” said Sally. “Our homes aren’t our homes anymore. Why can’t they go away and leave us in peace, damn them! I hate them!”

But outside the park we saw one little chrysanthemum head sitting on apparently nothing at all and crying her heart out. Sally softened a little. “Maybe they are human,” she said. “But why do they have to turn our town into a goddam Amusement Park?”

We found a bench and sat on it, looking at the sunset. I wanted to get her away out of it. “It’d be grand to be off up in the hills now,” I said.

“It’d be lovely, Jerry,” she sighed.

I took her hand, and she didn’t pull it away. “Sally, darling — “ I began.

And then, before I could get any further, two tourists, a man and a girl, had to come and anchor themselves in front of us. I was angry. You might see the platforms any place, but you reckoned to be free of walking tourists in the park, where there was nothing to interest them. — Or shouldn’t have been. These two seemed to find something, though. They stood staring unabashed at Sally. She took her hand out of mine. They conferred. The man opened a folder he was carrying and took a piece of paper out of it. They looked at the paper, then at Sally, then back at the paper. It was too much to ignore. I got up and walked through them to see what the paper was. There I had a surprise. It was a piece of the Daniel City News; obviously from a very ancient copy indeed. It was badly browned and tattered, and to keep it from falling to bits entirely it had been mounted inside some thin, transparent plastic. I looked where they were looking — and Sally’s face looked back at me from a smiling photograph. She had her arms spread wide, and a baby in the crook of each. I’d just time to see the headline: “Twins for City Councillor’s Wife,” when they folded up the paper, and made off along the path, running. I reckoned they’d be hot on the trail of one of their goddammed prizes — and I hoped it would turn around and bite them.

I went back, and sat down again beside Sally. That picture had kind of spoiled things — “Councillor’s Wife” ! Naturally she wanted to know what I’d seen on the paper, and I had to sharpen up a few lies to cut my way out of that. We sat on awhile; feeling gloomy, saying nothing.

A platform went by labelled :

PAINLESS CULTURE- GET EDUCATED IN MODERN COMFORT

We watched it glide through the railings and into the traffic. “Maybe it’s time we moved ?” I suggested.

“Yes,” agreed Sally, dully.

We walked back towards her place, me wishing that I’d been able to see the date on that paper. “You wouldn’t,” I asked her casually, “you wouldn’t happen to know any councillors ?”

She looked surprised. “Well, there’s Mr. Falmer,” she said, kind of doubtfully.

“He’d be a — a youngish man ?” I inquired, offhandedly.

“Why, no. He’s ever so old. As a matter of fact, it’s his wife I know really.”

“Ah!” I said. “You don’t know any of the younger ones?”

“I’m afraid not. Why?”

I put over a line about a situation like this needing young men of ideas. “Young men with ideas don’t have to be councillors,” she remarked. There again, like I said, Sal doesn’t make a lot of bases on logic, maybe; but she’s her own ways of making a guy feel better.

Next day found indignation right up the scale again. It seems there had been an evening service going on in All Saints Church. The preacher was just drawing breath to start his sermon when a platform labelled:

WAS GT. GT. GRANDAD ONE OF THE BOYS ?—

OUR $10 TRIP MAY SHOW YOU
floated in, and slid to a stop in front of the lectern. The preacher stopped dead. For some seconds he stood regarding it in silence. Then he crashed his fist down on his desk. “This,” he boomed, “this is intolerable. We shall wait until this object is removed.”

He remained motionless, glaring at it. And the congregation glared with him. The tourists on their platform had an air of waiting for the show to begin. When nothing happened, they started passing round bottles and fruit to while away the time. The preacher kept right on glaring. When still nothing happened, the tourists began to get bored. The young men tickled the girls, and the girls giggled them on. Several of them began to urge the man at the end of their craft, after a bit he nodded, and the platform slid away through the west wall.

It was the first point our side had ever scored. The preacher mopped his brow, cleared his throat, and then extemporised the sermon of his life, on the subject of “The Cities of the Plain.”

But no matter how many and how influential the tops that were blowing, there was a big zero getting done about it. There were schemes, of course. Jimmy had one of them: it concerned either ultra-high or infra-low frequencies that were going to shudder the projections of the tourists to bits. Maybe something along those lines might have been worked out sometime, but right then it wasn’t getting any further than being an idea. It’s darned difficult to know what you can do about what is virtually a movie portrait in three dimensions, unless you can find some way of cutting its transmission. All its functions are going on not where you see it, but some place where the origin is. So how do you get at it ? What you are actually seeing doesn’t feel, doesn’t eat, doesn’t breathe, doesn’t sleep?

It was while I was considering what it does do that I had my idea. It struck me all of a heap — so simple. I grabbed my hat in one, and took myself round to the Mayor’s Office.

By this time, a daily procession of highly carbonated citizens, threateners, and screwballs, had them acting pretty leery there, but I worked through at last to a man who got interested, though doubtful. “No one’s going to like it,” he said, uneasily.

“No one’s meant to like it. But it can’t be much worse than this — and it’s likely to do something for trade, too,” I pointed out.

He brightened a bit at that.

“The Mayor has his restaurants,” I went on. “And I don’t see why the whole town shouldn’t make a bit on it, too, at that.”

“I’ll grant you’ve got a good why-not there,” he admitted. “Okay. We’ll put it up to him.”

For all of three days we worked hard on it. On the fourth we went into action. Soon after daylight there were gangs out on all the roads into town setting up crossing-barriers at the city limits, and when they had those fixed, they put up big white boards lettered in red:

DANIEL CITY

THE COMMUNITY THAT LOOKS AHEAD COME AND SEE

BEYOND THE MINUTE — NEWER THAN TOMORROW

SEE THE WONDER CITY OF THE AGE

TOLL (Non-Residents) 25¢

The same morning the television concession was revoked, and papers all through the State and beyond carried large display ads:

UNIQUE! — COLOSSAL! — EDUCATIONAL!

DANIEL CITY presents the only authentic

FUTURAMIC SPECTACLE

Want to know:

What your great, great grandaughter will wear?

How YOUR great, great grandson will look?

How CUSTOMS wtll change?

Next century’s styles?

What a hundred years will do?

COME TO DANIEL CITY AND SEE FOR YOURSELF

IT’S THE OFFER OF THE AGES

THE FUTURE for 25¢

We reckoned that with the publicity there’d been already we’d not need more detail than that — though we ran a few more specialised ads some places:

DANIEL CITY

GIRLS! GIRLS ! GIRLS

THE SHAPES TO COME

SAUCY FASHIONS — CUTE WAYS

ASTONISHING — AUTHENTIC — UNCENSORABLE

GLAMOUR GALORE for 25¢
and so on. We took enough space to get mentions, too, in the news columns on account of those who like to think they are doing things for sociological, psychological, and other toney reasons.

And they came.

There’d been quite a few running into town to see the sights before, but now they learned it was something worth charging money for, the figures went up steeply — and the more they went up, the gloomier the City Treasurer got on account of we’d not made it 50¢ or even a dollar.

Within a couple of days it got so that we had taken over all vacant lots, and some fields further out, for car parks. When it came to evenings, that wasn’t enough, and folk were parking far enough out for us to run a bus service to bring them in. The streets were so full of crowds stooging around and greeting any of Pawley’s platforms with whistles, jeers and raspberries that the regular citizens mostly stayed indoors, and kind of smouldered there.

The lists of protests at the Mayor’s Office grew longer each day, but he didn’t have the time for that to worry him a lot, being so busy arranging special convoys of food and beer for his restaurants. Nevertheless, a few days of it started me wondering whether Pawley wasn’t going to see us out, after all. The tourists didn’t like it much, one could see, but that hadn’t done a lot to curb their habits of wandering about all over the place, and now, in addition, we had trippers in their thousands whooping it up with pandemonium for most of the night. Tempers all around were getting short enough for real trouble to break.

Then, on the sixth night when several of us had begun to wonder whether maybe we oughtn’t to leave town for a while, the first crack showed — a man in the Mayor’s Office rang me up to say he’d seen several platforms with empty seats on them.

The next night I went down to one of their regular routes to see for myself. There was a well-seasoned crowd round there, jostling, shoving and exchanging cracks. I didn’t have long to wait. A platform slid out on a slant through the front of Al’s Place. The label on it read:

CHARM AND ROMANCE OF 20th CENTURY— $7.50

It was good to see Pawley cutting his rates — and there were half a dozen empty seats at that.

The arrival of the platform brought a well-supported Bronx cheer, and a shrilling of whistles. The conductor remained indifferent as he steered through the people filling the street. His cargo looked less certain. Part of it did its best to play up. It giggled and made motions of returning slap for slap and grimace for grimace with the crowd to start with. Maybe it was as well the tourist girls couldn’t hear the things the crowd was shouting to them, but plenty of the gestures were clear enough. I’d say it couldn’t have been a lot of fun gliding straight into the men who were making them.

By the time the platform was clear of the crowd and disappearing into Hogan’s Store pretty well all the tourists had given up pretending it was, and some of them were looking kind of sick. By the expressions on one or two of the faces there I reckoned Pawley might be going to have a tough time explaining the culture aspect of it to a watch committee some place.

The next night there were more empty seats than filled ones.

The second night after that was busy on account of they didn’t show up at all, and we had to get down to the job of returning the 25¢ and refusing claims for wasted gas.

And the next night they didn’t come, either; nor the one after that. So then all we had to do was to pitch right in with the job of cleaning up Daniel City — and the reputation it had been getting lately — and the thing was pretty well over.

At least, we say it’s over. Jimmy maintains that’s only the way it looks from here. According to him, all they had to do was to modify out the visibility factor that was causing the trouble, and it’s likely they’re still peeping around— here and other places.

Well, he could be right, at that. Maybe the guy Pawley, whoever he is, or will be, has a chain of Fun Fairs operating all around the world and all through history right now. We wouldn’t know — and just so long as he keeps them out of sight we’d not care a lot, either.

Pawley had been fixed as far as we were concerned. He had to be fixed some way — even the vicar of All Saints appreciated that; and he had something when he began his address of thanksgiving with: “Paradoxical, my friends, paradoxical are the uses of vulgarity.”

And once it was fixed, I could find some time to go round and see Sally again. I found her looking brighter than she’d been in some weeks, and lovelier on account of it. She seemed pleased to see me, too.

“Hullo, Jerry,” she said. “I’ve been reading in the paper how you got it all fixed to fade them out. And I think it was just wonderful of you.”

A bit before, I’d maybe have taken that for a cue, but it didn’t trigger right now. I kind of kept on seeing her with armfuls of twins, and wondering how they got there, in a dead-inside way.

“Go to, honey! It wasn’t a lot. Any other guy might have hit the idea,’’ I told her, modestly.

“That’s maybe, but there’s a whole lot of people don’t think so. And I’ll tell you another thing I heard today. They’re going to ask you to stand for the Council, Jerry.”

“Me, on the Council, that’d be a big laugh—” I began. Then I stopped, kind of smitten. “If – Say, would that mean I’d be called ‘Councillor’?” I asked her.

“Why — why, yes, I guess so,” she said, looking puzzled.

Things shimmered a bit.

“Er — Sally, sweetheart, there’s — er — something — something I’ve been trying to get around to saying to you for quite a while ...” I began.

Bargain from Brunswick (1951)

The Partland home is the big house on the left, about a hundred yards, maybe, beyond that sign that says:

Welcome to

PLEASANTGROVE

Pop: 3,226
and the board beneath it which adds:

The Livest Little City

In This Or Any State

WATCH IT GROW

In the big Partland living room Mrs. Claybert was explaining: “My dears, I must apologise. Only this morning I said to myself: ‘Ethel, this time you’re going to be on schedule.’ That’s just what I said. And now I’ve kept all you girls waiting again. Am I mortified! Something always happens. I’m interruption prone, I guess. It was the mailman came, right as I was starting. He had a package from my boy, Jem. You know my Jem’s over in Europe, occupying those Nazis. Of course I couldn’t leave it that way. I just had to take a peek. And I was so thrilled when I saw what it was, I just had to bring it right along with me. There, now, look, isn’t that a cute present?”

Mrs. Claybert, with a conjuror’s air, stripped the paper from the object she carried and held it up. The ladies of the Pleasantgrove Cultural Club Musical Society, Recorder Section, gathered round, impressed. Among the modest instruments they were holding — and which they would have been playing by this time had Mrs. Claybert kept her schedule — it was a king. The whole length of its dark body was carved with an intricacy of vines and leaves in low relief. The sharpness of the pattern was softened as though by much handling. The polished wood, of darkest chestnut shade, gleamed like satin.

“Why, Ethel, that’s real antique. Maybe a hundred years old — maybe even more,” said Mrs. Muller. “Aren’t you the lucky girl! I didn’t know you’d a millionaire son. Must’ve set him back plenty.”

“Oh, my Jem’s a good boy. He’d never be a tightwad where his Mom was concerned,” said Mrs. Claybert, a trifle smugly.

Mrs. Partland was somehow in the middle of the group when she was thought to be on the outside. It was a way Mrs. Partland had. She took the instrument from Mrs. Claybert’s hands and examined it. “The workmanship’s just elegant,” she pronounced, though with an air of impugning any other quality it might possess. She slid her fingers over the smooth polished undulations. “Yes, it certainly was made by one of those old-time craftsmen. But,” she added severely, “is the pitch right?”

“I wouldn’t know,” admitted Mrs. Claybert. “I didn’t have time to try it. I simply said to myself: ‘Ethel, the girls’ll just love to see that,’ and I brought it right along with me.”

Mrs. Partland handed it back. “We’d better find out before we begin. Barbara, will you give Mrs., Claybert the ‘D’?” she directed.

Mrs. Cooper lifted her recorder, and obliged. It was a plaintive note. Mrs. Claybert found the finger-holes and raised the ivory mouthpiece of her resplendent instrument to her lips. She blew gently. A silence fell on the room and hung there a moment.

“Well, I guess it is ‘D’,” acknowledged Mrs. Muller. “But it’s a very unusual tone, isn’t it? It’s more like — well, I don’t know quite what it is like. But it certainly is a very remarkable tone indeed.”

Mrs. Partland, satisfied on the technical side, moved over to the footstool which served her as a rostrum. Mrs. Claybert was still looking at her instrument with astonishment and admiration. “You wouldn’t expect it to sound like a modern one,” she said. “I mean, we have machinery and things now. That must make a difference. I guess this is the way they all sounded in those olden times.”

Mrs. Partland rapped with her baton. “Girls!” she said, decisively, but for the moment she went unheard.

“You know,” Mrs. Claybert was saying, in a visionary fashion, “you know, somehow I can just see one of those old strolling players using maybe this very instrument in one of those big mediaeval halls. There’d be great oak beams, and rushes on the floor, and — “

“Ladies!” commanded Mrs. Partland. Her arresting tone cut short Mrs. Claybert and brought them all round facing her. She went on: “There’s that little thing by Purcell that we played last time. If we start with that, it’ll get our fingers limbered up nicely. Have you all got your sheets?”

The ladies disposed themselves, arranged their fingers on their recorders, and frowned at their parts. Mrs. Partland stood on her footstool, baton poised. “Now, is everybody ready? Well, I’m afraid you’ll just have to look over Mrs. Schultz’s sheet, Mrs. Lubbock. Now. One — Two — Three…”

From the first breath it was clear that something was not well. One by one the others faltered and stopped, leaving Mrs. Claybert with a long, sweet note proceeding from her instrument, and an astonished look about her eyes. Mrs. Partland drew an admonitory breath, but before she could speak Mrs. Claybert ‘s white fingers began to skip delicately on the dark wood. A tune, light, lilting, and lovely as a May morning danced through the room. Mrs. Claybert’s comfortable body began to sway lissomly as she played. She posed one foot forward. The air was enchanting, irresistible. She began to dance. Lightly as a ballerina she crossed the room and whisked beyond the door. After her swept and swayed the ladies of the Pleasantgrove Cultural Club, like nymphs upon a sward…

At the crossroads the lights were against them. They stopped, and stood there, looking dazed. The cop was a man of notable self-control. All the same, his eyes were still bulging slightly as he came across. He approached Mrs. Claybert with a look somewhere between compassion and suspicion. The glance he gave her instrument was wholly suspicious, as if it might be some ornamental kind of nightstick. “What would it be, lady? What goes on here?” he inquired.

Mrs. Claybert did not answer. Her eyes dwelt on him with the wondering look of one only half untranced. For a moment nobody else spoke, either. Mrs. Partland felt that it in some way devolved on her to clear things up. “It’s all right, Officer. We were just — well. Well, it was just a — a kind of — of — er — Corybantic fancy,” she finished desperately.

The cop looked them over. His eyelids lowered in a slow blink, lifted again. “I wouldn’t know much about that,” he admitted. “But, lady, if I was you, I’d go fancy it some place else.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Partland, with unusual meekness. “Girls — “ she began. Then out of the corner of her eye she saw Mrs. Claybert’s hands raising her instrument once more. She made a quick snatch. “Oh, no, you don’t,” she said. “Not again!”

Mr. Claybert examined the recorder. He peered at it this way and that under the light. He might have attempted to blow it had the mouthpiece not been removed to rest safely in Mrs. Claybert’s handbag.

“Yes,” he said, judiciously. “It certainly is old. But is it old enough — “

“How old would it have to be?” Mrs. Claybert asked.

“I can’t say for sure — ‘bout seven or eight hundred years, I guess.”

“Well — maybe it is that.”

“Uh-huh. Maybe. I wouldn’t know what seven hundred years looks like anyway.”

“If it is — “ Mrs. Claybert began. But she cut off the remark and lapsed into thought.

“You can find out,” observed her husband, pointedly.

She made no response. Mr. Claybert laid the recorder down carefully on the table. The silence that ensued was broken only by the rhythm of his fingernails on the arm of his chair. His wife moved irritably. “Harold, dear. Will you please to stop that drumming!”

Mr. Claybert obediently stopped, but though he controlled his fingers the rhythm went on in his mind. Turn! Turn! Te-tutta, te-tutta, te-Tum! He found that his foot was beginning to tap it. Tumi Turn! Te-tutta, te-tutta, te-Tum! He checked that, too, but it still went on inside him. Soon his head was nodding to it and his lips were framing the words, though silently: Rats! Rats! We gotta get ridda the Rats!

“Maybe there’d be enough rats even in Pleasantgrove for a test. Honey,” he suggested, at length.

Mrs. Claybert shuddered.

“If you think I’m going to fool around with a lot of rats, Harold — “

“But it’d prove it, Honey.”

“Maybe it would. But no rats. Not me.”

Mr. Claybert sighed. “The trouble with women is they got imagination, but they don’t apply it. I’m right out ahead of you. Honey. Look at it this way. If it works on rats, and it works on your friends, we’ve got something. Something big. Maybe we could get it really selective. Maybe we could get, say, all the smokers of Camels, or all the members of the After-Shave Club dancing in the streets. And would that be an ad! Oh, boy! And there’d be some nice political angles, too, I guess. Now, suppose you were to play it over a nation-wide hookup — “

“Harold! If you want any peace in this home, you’ll put that imagination of yours right back in its cage, and let me think,” Mrs. Claybert declared.

“But, Ethel, this thing can be big. We could figure out a movie angle, too. Kinda bandwagon for — “

“Harold! Please! — And will you stop that drumming!”

Breakfast the following morning was an even quieter meal than usual. Both the Clayberts appeared introspective. By a costly effort Harold Claybert had restrained himself from making further reference to the recorder. As a result it seemed to dominate the room in some way. He found his eyes wandering toward it continually. But only as he was about to leave did his resolution break down. At the door he hesitated. “Honey, I’ve not even heard you play it,” he said. “Couldn’t you — ? Well, just a note or two, maybe?”

His wife shook her head. “I’m sorry, Harold, but the very last thing I said to myself before I went to sleep was: ‘Ethel, don’t you dare blow that thing again till you get it some place where it can’t do any harm.’ And I guess I’d better stick to that.”

After he had gone, Mrs. Claybert did her cleaning speedily, if absentmindedly. When she had set the house to rights she picked up the recorder and polished it gently with a duster. She contemplated it in a thoughtful fashion for a moment, then she took the ivory mouthpiece from her bag and pushed it into place. She half lifted it to her mouth and paused. Then she lowered it and laid it on the table again. She went upstairs to fetch a coat. As she came down she picked up the recorder, and, with a slightly furtive air, hid it beneath the coat before she opened the front door.

Instead of getting out the car in her usual way she kept on down the path to the road. There she turned to her left, and began walking away from the town and the houses. After less than a mile a track led off to the right across a field. She followed it over that field and the next, and into the woods beyond. It was quiet there, and peaceful. Among the trees she felt removed from the world as well as hidden, and her own inner self stretched the creases out of its wings a little. A faint footpath slanted away from the track, and, following that for a short distance, she came to a small natural clearing. There, in the sun, she spread out her coat, laid the recorder carefully on it, and sat down.

In spite of the sunshine there was a tinge of gentle, eighteenth-century melancholy. In her present mood Mrs. Claybert found that not unpleasant. For a while she sat, pensive, dreaming a little, with a touch of nostalgia. Not that she was unhappy. There was Jem — and Harold, too, of course, and Harold was a good husband, as husbands come. But she missed Jem. Germany seemed a terrible long way away. There’s a kind of wistful mood that can come on you when you stop to think that the only child God let you bear has somehow turned into a man who’s halfway round the world — and you’re over forty now…You can’t help wondering about it sometimes. Not kicking; just wondering what it might all have been like if, maybe, it had been some other way…

After a bit Ethel Claybert picked up the recorder. She stroked the smooth wood with her fingertips because it was Jem who had sent it. She looked beyond it, beyond the trees, smiling a little. Then, still smiling, she put the ivory mouthpiece to her lips and began to play.

A meeting, on the front porch of Mayor Duncan’s house by the crossroads, included several of Pleasantgrove’s more influential citizens. Though it was informal, it was clearly aware of obligations; it had, perhaps, authority, too; but what it excelled in was bewilderment. The only face to wear an expression of decision was Mrs. Partland’s, but that was habitual, and this time nothing was coming of it. The look of reliability which Jim Duncan’s conception of office caused him to wear was a kind of drop-scene, deceiving nobody. Mrs. Muller was offering comment and suggestion at her usual high velocity, but they had an expendable, radio-background quality. Everybody present stood looking out on Main Street in perplexity. Everybody, that is, except Mrs. Claybert who sat in the rocker, weeping quietly.

The sight of the junction of Main Street and Lincoln Avenue at that moment was one that nobody was going to forget. Not only the crossing itself, but the entrances to the four streets were jammed with children. The girls for the most part wore flaxen plaits hanging in pairs from beneath white caps embroidered with coloured flowers. Short sleeves puffed out at their shoulders above tight bodices, and their full, striped skirts were covered in front with bright aprons. The boys were in tunics of green or brown, and long tight pants. Their hats were colored, with the brims shaped to narrow peaks in front, and the high crowns each set with a feather. All the roadway looked as if it had been spread with a brilliant but restless carpet from which rose a hubbub of young voices mingled with the clatter of hundreds of small clogs.

Astonishment was not one-sidedly restricted to the citizens of Pleasantgrove. The children’s faces reflected it. Most of them were still looking around them in bewilderment, and regarding the amenities of the town with cautious suspicion. Others were already discovering compensations. There was a group near the movie house stricken with delighted awe by the posters. Another had its noses flattened against the plate glass windows of Louise Pallister’s Candy Store. Over their heads Louise herself could be observed bobbing about stressfully behind her barricaded door, her hands clasped, and her mouth opening for alternate “Oh, dear!” — “Oh, my!” Across on the other corner there was a press where some juvenile instinct had already led to the discovery of the soda fountain in Tony’s Drug Store. But these high spots of adventure were only local, on the fringes of the crowd. Within, it consisted of children who stared about them in puzzlement while little girls and boys clung, big-eyed and fearful, to their elder sisters’ skirts.

Not one of the Pleasantgrove citizens showed the least joy in the situation.

“I don’t get it,” complained Al Deakin from the filling station. “Where the heck did they all come from?” he demanded. He turned aggressively on Mrs. Claybert. “How did they get here? Where did they come from?” he repeated.

Mrs. Claybert sniffed the unsympathetic atmosphere. Before she could answer Mrs. Partland said, decisively: “We can leave that till later. What I want to know is now they are here, who is going to do something about it?” She looked pointedly at Mayor Duncan. “Something has to be done,” she added, emphatically.

Jim Duncan maintained the air of a man detached and thinking deeply. He was still keeping it up when Elmer Drew shuffled forward and plucked urgently at his sleeve. Elmer was a housepainter who doubled in the less spacious art of signwriting, but both are professions which make a conscientious man finicky about details.

“How many do you reckon there’d be, Jim?” he asked.

Here was something a Mayor could try to answer. Jim relaxed slightly. “H’m,” he judged. “I’d say three thousand, Elmer. Not less. Maybe more.”

“Uh-huh.” Elmer nodded, and edged his way out of the group to get his brushes. The way he saw it, it’d be near enough to change the preliminary 3 of the population figure to a 6, just till someone made up the full count.

“Three thousand kids!” repeated Al Deakin. “Three thousand! Well, that fixes it, I guess. No community the size of ours can stand that.”

“And how does that fix it?” asked Mrs. Partland, coolly.

“Why, makes it a State job. It’s too big for us to handle.”

“No!” said Mrs. Claybert, distinctly.

They looked at her.

“What do you mean, ‘no’?” Al demanded. “What else? What can we do with three thousand kids? Comes to that, why should we? Seems to me you’ve got a mighty lot of explaining to do, Ethel Claybert.”

Mrs. Claybert cast a forlorn glance round the semi-circle that enclosed her. “Well, it’s difficult to explain...” she said.

Mrs. Muller came generously to her rescue. “I guess three thousand children are sometimes not much more difficult to explain than one,” she said, sharply. This reference to an obscure incident in Al Deakin’s past had the effect of deflating him for the moment.

“Well, we can’t just go on standing here and doing nothing,” Mrs. Partland said. “Those children are going to have to be fed soon, and — er — looked after.”

It was quite true. Wonder was giving way to fractiousness. Some of the larger girls had taken little ones up in their arms and were lulling them to and fro, golden plaits swinging. Mrs. Claybert ran down the steps and came back holding one pretty small thing close to her.

“That’s right. We have to do something’’’ agreed Mrs. Muller.

“There’s that old army camp out by Rails Hill,” said Mrs. Partland. “If we could feed them and take them out there — “

“And who’s going to feed them?” demanded A1 Deakin. “I hold that Ethel Claybert just ain’t got the right to dump three thousand kids down here and expect – “

“I reckon Pleasantgrove folks will be able to find a meal or two for them,” the Mayor put in. “But outside that — Oh, there’s Larry!” He broke off. Like a shipwrecked mariner hailing a lifeboat he called across the street: “Hey, Larry!”

The cop looked up and waved his big hand. He started to come over, wading carefully through children, and looking not unlike a man picking his way across a flowerbed. “Who did it, anyway? Who brought ‘em here?” he demanded as he climbed the steps.

Everybody looked at Mrs. Claybert. So did the cop. “Are you responsible — for all this lot?” he inquired.

“Well, yes — I suppose I am…” admitted Mrs. Claybert.

“Three doggone thousand of ‘em,” put in Al Deakin. “Fifteen hundred little Gretchens, and fifteen hundred little Hanses — and not one word of American between the lot.”

The cop tilted his cap back and scratched. “From Europe?” he asked.

“Well, yes...” said Mrs. Claybert again.

“You got their immigration papers?” inquired the cop.

“Well, no... “ Mrs. Claybert told him.

The cop turned and surveyed the vista of children. He turned back. “Lady,” he said, “some place there’s several freight cars of trouble marked ‘Rush’, and they’re all headed your way.” He paused. “What are they? D.P. children?” he added.

Mrs. Claybert detached her gaze from his and looked out over the street. “Why — why, yes,” she said. “Yes — I guess that’s just what they are.”

“They don’t look a bit like the D.P. children in Life” Mrs. Partland said. “Too clean. And tidy. Besides, they all looked happy before they began to get hungry.”

“Wouldn’t you be happy, coming to a town like Pleasantgrove after all those ruins over in Europe?” Mrs. Muller asked.

“They’ve got a right to look happy,” said Mrs. Claybert, with a sudden firmness. “And Pleasantgrove has a duty to see that they are happy.”

“Hey — !” began Al Deakin.

Mrs. Claybert clutched the little doll of a girl that she was holding more firmly to her breast. “Aren’t they lovely children? Did you ever see lovelier children?” she demanded.

“Sure they are, but — “

“And is there anything more valuable to a community than its children — and its children’s happiness?” she went on, fiercely.

“Well, no, but — “

“Then I guess that makes Pleasantgrove the richest community in this state,” concluded Mrs. Claybert, triumphantly.

There was a difficult silence.

“Er — sure. That’s mighty true,” agreed Mayor Duncan. “But right now we got to be practical.” He turned an appealing eye on the cop.

The fascination of novelty was fast wearing thinner with the children. More of the little ones had begun to cry, few of the older ones still smiled. A girl in a brightly striped skirt with an embroidered blouse frothing out of her laced velvet bodice climbed up on to a box near the front of the dry goods store. Her mouth opened, and she began to sway with her arms. At first nothing was audible from the porch. Then voices round her took up the song. It spread outwards across the crowd until it drowned the crying. The children began to sway together as they sang, rippling like a field of barley in the wind. Mrs. Claybert swung the one she held in time with the rest. She listened to the unfamiliar words with a smile on her lips and tears in her eyes.

“What we gotta do,” said the cop, cutting through the lilt of massed trebles, “what we gotta do is to get on to the State Orphanage and tell ‘em to start in sending trucks right away. Then we got to see about feedin’ the kids till the trucks pull in.”

Mrs. Claybert stiffened. “Orphanage!” she exclaimed, in a thrusting voice. She put down the little girl, and advanced.

“We gotta be practical — “ began the cop, but she stopped him with a gesture.

“For the first time in my life I’m ashamed to be a citizen of Pleasantgrove,” she proclaimed, bitterly. “You could send all these lovely children off to be orphans?”

“But, Mrs. Claybert, they are orphans — “

Mrs. Claybert swept that aside. “They come away from that dreadful Europe; they come here to the land of liberty and opportunity; they ask you for love — and you give them orphanages. Just what do you think they’re going to say about the American way of life when they grow up?”

Mayor Duncan looked at her helplessly. “But, Mrs. Claybert, you got to be reasonable — “

“Is this, or is this not, a Christian community?” demanded Mrs. Claybert. “I’ve lived in Pleasantgrove all my life. I thought Pleasantgrove folks were great-hearted folks. Now the test comes I find they haven’t got hearts or Christian charity.”

“Listen, lady,” said the cop, in a placatory tone. “‘We got hearts and we got Christian charity — but the little thing we can’t fix is Christian miracles.”

Mrs. Claybert glared at him, and then at the rest. Without comment she picked up the recorder from the floor beside the rocker. Looking out across the singing children, she settled her fingers on the holes. “You just don’t deserve to have lovely children,” she said. She lifted the pipe. Then she paused. “I guess — “ she said, wistfully — “I guess the only thing that’s wrong with children is that they grow up to be people like you.”

And she put the pipe to her lips.

As the long mellow note floated out across Main Street the children began to turn and look at Mayor Duncan’s porch. The singing faded away. The little ones ceased to cry, and smiled as their sisters put them on their feet. There was no sound but the single note, trembling a little. Mrs. Claybert put one foot forward. Her fingers flittered up and down the pipe stem. The air came, light and gay, tripping brightly as sunbeams on broken water. Hundreds of small clogs began to patter with a click-clocketty noise to its rhythm.

Down the steps danced Mrs. Claybert, and off across Main Street, through a lane that opened among the children. They closed in behind her as she went, golden plaits and bright skirts swirling, red stockings flashing, feet tat-tattering.

There was a scuffle inside the Mayor’s house and his two children bounded out across the porch to join the dancing crowd beyond. “Hey! Stop them!” Jim Duncan called, but somehow neither he nor anyone else could move to do it.

Mrs. Claybert turned down Lincoln Avenue with the children streaming like a bouncing, bubbling, coloured flood behind her. Down the front yards the American children came tumbling to join the rest. Out of the school poured another stream skipping and dancing to flow into the passing crowd and whirl away with them up the street.

“Hey! Mrs. Claybert! Come back!” bawled Mayor Duncan, but his hail was lost in the children’s voices.

The only sound that could top the laughing and the singing and the clatter of clogs was the tune of Mrs. Claybert’s pipe as she danced along ahead, across the fields, and way away to the woods beyond.

By the time that conscientious citizen Elmer Drew had finished turning the 3 into a 6 hotter news had reached him. So when the first carloads of reporters, detectives and FBI passed him as they came tearing into Pleasantgrove he was already painting out the population figure altogether, pending a revised estimate. After he had done that, he considered the lower board for a moment. Then he came to a decision, unscrewed it, and tucked it under his arm.

On his way back into town he met Mrs. Partland. Her children were walking sedately, one on either side of her. Elmer stopped and stared. Mrs. Partland beamed. “The American children chose to come back to their own folks,” she told him proudly.

“Yeh,” agreed Mortimer Partland, Junior, with a nod. “They didn’t have any ice cream, or movies, or gum — nothing but dancing! Was it corny!”

“And Mrs. Claybert?” asked Elmer.

“Oh, well, I guess she just likes dancing,” said the young Mortimer Partland.

Elmer turned and walked back up the road. On the board he rewrote “Pop: 3,226,” and then thoughtfully changed the last figure to a 5. Underneath, with a deep feeling of civic satisfaction, he refixed the board which said:

WATCH IT GROW

The Wheel (1952)

The old man sat on his stool and leaned back against the whitened wall. He had upholstered the stool elegantly with a hare skin because there didn’t seem to be much between his own skin and his’ bones these days. It was exclusively his stool and recognized in the farmstead as such: The strands of a whip that he was supposed to be plaiting drooped between his bent fingers, but because the stool was comfortable and the sun was warm the fingers had stopped moving, and his head was nodding.

The yard was empty save for a few hens that pecked more inquisitively than hopefully in the. dust, but there were sounds that told of others who had not the old, man’s leisure for siesta. From around the corner of the house came the occasional ‘plonk’ of an empty bucket as it hit the water, and its scrape on the side of the well, as it came up full. In the shack across the yard a dull pounding went on rhythmically and soporifically.

The old man’s head fell further forward as he drowsed.

Soon from beyond the rough, enclosing wall there came another sound, slowly approaching. A rumbling and a rattling, with an intermittent squeaking. The old man’s ears were no longer sharp, and for some minutes it failed to disturb him. Then he opened his eyes and, locating the sound, sat staring incredulously toward the gateway.

The sound drew, closer, and a boy’s head showed above the wall. He grinned at the old man, an expression of excitement in his eyes. He did not call out but moved a little faster until he came to the gate. There he turned into the yard, proudly towing behind him a box mounted on four wooden wheels.

The old man got up suddenly from his seat, alarm in every line. He waved both arms at the boy as though he would push him back. The boy stopped. His expression of gleeful pride faded into astonishment. He stared at the old man who was waving him away so urgently. While he still hesitated the old man continued to shoo him off with one hand as he placed the other on his own lips and started to walk towards him.

Reluctantly and bewilderedly the boy turned, but too late. The pounding in the shed stopped. A middle-aged woman appeared in the doorway. Her mouth was open to call, but the words did not come. Her jaw dropped slackly, her eyes seemed to bulge, then she crossed herself, and screamed.

The sound split the afternoon peace. Behind the house the bucket fell with a clatter, and a young woman’s head showed around the corner. Her eyes widened. She crammed the back of one hand across her mouth, and crossed herself with, the other. A young man appeared in the stable doorway and stood there transfixed. Another girl came pelting out of the house with a little girl behind her. She stopped as suddenly as if she had run into something. The little girl stopped too, vaguely alarmed by the tableau, and clinging to her skirt.

The boy stood quite still with all their eyes upon him. His bewilderment began to give way to fright at the expression in their eyes. He looked from one horrified face to another until his gaze met the old man’s. What he saw there seemed to reassure him a little — or to frighten him less. He swallowed. Tears were not far away as he spoke: “Gran, what’s the matter? What are they all looking at me like that for?”

As if the sound of his voice had released a spell the middle-aged woman came back to life. She reached for a hay fork which leaned against the shack wall. Raising its points towards the boy she walked slowly in between him and the gate. In a hard voice she said: “Go on. Get in the shed.”

“But, Ma — “ the boy began.

“Don’t you dare call me that now,” she told him.  In the tense lines of her face the boy could see something that was almost hatred. His own face screwed up, and he began to cry. “Go on,”‘ she repeated harshly. “Get in there!”

The boy backed away, a picture of bewildered misery. Then, suddenly, he turned and ran into the shed. She shut the door on him and fastened it with a peg. She looked round at the rest as though defying them to speak. The young man withdrew silently into the gloom of the stable. The two young woman crept away taking the little girl with them. The woman and the old man were left alone.

Neither of them spoke. The old man stood motionless, regarding the box where it stood on its wheels. The woman suddenly put her hands up to her face. She made little moaning noises as she swayed, and the tears came trickling out between her fingers. The old man turned. His face was devoid of all expression. Soon she recovered herself a little. “I never would have believed it. My own little David!” she said.

“If you’d not screamed, nobody need have known,” said the old man.

His words took some seconds to sink in. When they did, her expression hardened again. “Did you show him how?” she asked, suspiciously.

He shook his head. “I’m old, but I’m not crazy,” he told her. “And I’m fond of Davie,” he added.

“You’re wicked, though. That was a wicked thing you just said.”

“It was true.”

“I’m a god-fearing woman. I’ll not have evil in my house, whatever shape it comes in. And when I see it, I know my duty.”

The old man drew breath for a reply but checked it. He shook his head. He turned, and went back to his stool, looking somehow older than before.

There was a tap on the door. A whispered “Shh!” For a moment Davie saw a square of night sky with, a dark shape against it. Then the door closed again.

“You had your supper, Davie?” a voice asked.

“No, Gran. Nobody’s been in.”

The old man grunted. “Thought not. Scared of you; all of ‘em. Here, take this. Cold chicken, it is.”

Davie’s hand sought and found the other held out to him. He gnawed on a leg while the old man moved around in the dark searching for somewhere to sit. He found it and let himself down with a sigh. “This is a bad business, Davie, boy. They’ve sent for the priest! He’ll be along tomorrow.”

“But I don’t understand, Gran. Why do they all act like I’ve done something wrong?”

“Oh, Davie!” said his grandfather, reproachfully.

“Honest, I don’t know, Gran.”

“Come now, Davie. Every Sunday you go to church, and every time you go, you pray. What do you pray?”

The boy gabbled a prayer. After a few moments the old man stopped him. “There,” he said. “That last bit.”

“‘Preserve us from the Wheel’?” Davie repeated, wonderingly “What is the Wheel, Gran? It must be something terrible bad, I know, ‘cos when I ask them they just say it’s wicked, and not to talk of it. But they don’t say what it is.”

The old man paused before he replied, then he said: “That box you got out there. Who told you to fix it that way?”

“Why, nobody, Gran. I just reckoned it’d move easier that way. It does, too.”

“Listen, Davie. Those things you put on the side of it — they’re Wheels.”

It was sometime before the boy’s voice came back out of the darkness. When it did, it sounded bewildered. “What, those round bits of wood? But they can’t be, Gran. That’s all they are, just round bits of wood. But the Wheel —that’s something, awful, terrible, something everybody’s holy scared of.”

“All the same, that’s what they are.” The old man ruminated awhile. “I’ll tell you what’s going to happen tomorrow, Davie. In the morning the priest will come here and see your box. It’ll still be there because nobody dares touch it. He’ll sprinkle some water on it and say a prayer just to make it safe to handle. Then they’ll take it into the field and make a fire under it, and they’ll stand round singing hymns while it burns.

“Then they’ll come back and take you down to the village and ask you questions. They’ll ask you what the Devil looked like when he came to you, and what he offered to give you if you’d use the Wheel.”

“But there wasn’t any Devil, Gran.”

“That don’t matter. If they think there was, then sooner or later you’ll be telling them there was, and just how he looked when you saw him. They got ways. Now what you got to do is act innocent. You got to say you found that box just the way it is now. You didn’t know what it was, but you just brought it along on account of it would make good firewood. That’s your story, and you gotta stick to it. If you stick to it, no matter what they do, maybe you’ll get through okay.”

“But, Gran, what is there that’s so bad about the Wheel? I just can’t understand.”

The old man paused more lengthily than before. “Well, it’s a long story, Davie —  and it all began a long, long while ago. Seems like in those days everybody was happy and good and such, like. Then one day the Devil came along and met a man and told him that he could give him something to make him as strong as a hundred men, and make him run faster than the wind, and fly higher than the birds. Well, the man said that’d be mighty fine, and what did the Devil want for it? And the Devil said he didn’t want a thing — not just then. And so he gave the man the Wheel.

“By and by, after the man had played around with the Wheel awhile he found out a whole lot of things about it; how it would make other Wheels, and still more Wheels, and do all the things the Devil had said,  with a whole heap more.”

“What, it’d fly, and everything?” said the boy.

“Sure. It did all those things. And it began to kill people, too — one way and another. Folks put more and more Wheels together the way the Devil told them, and they found they could do a whole lot bigger things, and kill more people, too. And they couldn’t stop using the Wheel now on account of they would, have starved if they had.

“Well, that was just what the Devil wanted. He’d got ‘em cinched, you see. Pretty near everything in the world was depending on Wheels, and. things got worse and worse, and the old Devil just lay back and laughed to see what his Wheel was doing. Then things got terrible bad. I don’t know quite the way it happened, but things got so terribly worse there wasn’t scarcely anybody left alive, only just a few, like it had been after the Flood. And they were nearly finished.”

“And all that was on account of the Wheel?”

“Uh-huh. Leastways, it couldn’t have happened without it. Still, someways they made out. They built shacks and planted corn, and by and by the Devil met a man, and started talking about his Wheel again. Now this man was very old and very wise and very god-fearing, so he said to the Devil: ‘No. You go right back to Hell,’ and then he went all around warning everybody about the Devil and his Wheel and got ‘em all plumb scared.

“But the old Devil don’t give up that easy. He’s mighty tricky, too. There’s times when  a man gets an idea that turns out to be pretty nearly a Wheel, maybe like rollers, or screws, or something, but it’ll just pass so long as it ain’t fixed in the middle. Yes, he keeps along trying, and how and then he does tempt a man into making a Wheel. Then the priest comes and they burn the Wheel. And they take the man away, and to stop him making any more Wheels, and to discourage any other folk, they burn him, too.”

“They b-burn him?” stammered the boy.”

“That’s what they do. So you see why you got to say you found it and stick  to that.”

“Maybe if I promised never to — “

“That wouldn’t be no good, Davie. They’re all scared of the Wheel, and when men are scared they get angry and cruel. No, you gotta keep to it.”

The boy thought for some moments, then he said: “What about Ma? She’ll know. I had that box off her yesterday. Does it matter?”

The old man grunted. He said, heavily: “Yes, it does matter. Women do a lot of pretending to be scared, but once they do scare, they scare more horribly than men. And you Ma’s dead scared.”

There was a long silence in the darkness of the shed. When the old man spoke again, it was in a calm; quiet voice: “Listen, Davie, lad. I’m going to tell you something. And you’re going to keep it to yourself, not tell a soul till maybe you’re an old man like me?”

“Sure, Gran, if you say.”

“I’m tellin’ you because you found out about the Wheel for yourself. There’ll always be boys like you who do. There’ve got to be. You can’t kill an idea the way they try to. You can keep it down awhile, but sooner or later it’ll come out. Now what you’ve got to understand is that the Wheel’s not evil. Never mind what the scared men all tell you. No discovery is good or evil until men make it that way. Think about that, Davie, boy. One day they’ll start to use the Wheel again. I hoped it would be in my time, but — well, maybe it’ll be in yours. When it does come, don’t you be one of the scared ones; be one of the ones that’s going to show ‘em how to use it better than they did last time. It’s not the Wheel— it’s fear that’s evil, Davie. Remember that.”

He stirred in the darkness. His feet clumped on the hard earth floor. “Reckon it’s time I was getting along. Where are you, boy?”

His groping hand found Davie’s shoulder, and then rested a moment on his head. “God bless you, Davie. And don’t worry anymore. It’s goin’ to be all right.  You trust-me?”

“Yes, Gran.”

“Then you go to sleep. There’s some hay in the corner, there.” The glimpse of dark sky showed briefly again. Then the sound of the old man’s feet shuffled across the yard into silence.

When the priest arrived he found a horror-stricken knot of people collected in the yard. They were gazing at an old man who worked away with a mallet and pegs on a wooden box. The priest stood, scandalized.

“Stop!” he cried. “In the name of God, stop!”

The old man turned his head towards him. There was a grin of crafty senility on his face. “Yesterday,” he said, “I was a fool. I only made four wheels. Today I am a wise man — I am making two more wheels so that it will run half as easily again...”

They burnt the box, as he had said they would. Then they took him away.

In the afternoon a small boy whom everyone had forgotten turned his eyes from the column, of smoke that rose in the direction of the village and hid his face in his hands. “I’ll remember, Gran. I’ll remember. It’s only fear that’s evil,” he said, and his voice choked in his tears.

Close Behind Him (1953)

“You didn’t ought to of croaked him,” Smudger said resentfully. “What in hell did you want to do a fool thing like that for?”

Spotty turned to look at the house, a black spectre against the night sky. He shuddered. “It was him or me,” he muttered. “I wouldn’t of done it if he didn’t come for me — and I wouldn’t even then, not if he’d come ordinary.”

“What do you mean ordinary?”

“Like anybody else. But he was weird…He wasn’t — well, I guess he was crazy — dangerous crazy...”

“All he needed was a tap to keep him quiet,” Smudger persisted. “There wasn’t no call to bash his loaf in.”

“You didn’t see him. I tell you, he didn’t act human.” Spotty shuddered again at the recollection and bent down to rub the calf of his right leg tenderly.

The man had come into the room while Spotty was sifting rapidly through the contents of a desk. He’d made no sound. It had been just a feeling, a natural alertness, that had brought Spotty round to see him standing there. In that very first glimpse Spotty had felt there was something odd about him. The expression on his face — his attitude — they were wrong. In his biscuit-colored pajamas, he should have looked just an ordinary citizen awakened from sleep, too anxious to have delayed with robe and slippers. But some way he didn’t. An ordinary citizen would have shown nervousness, at least wariness; he would most likely have picked up something to use as a weapon. This man stood crouching, arms a little raised, as though he were about to spring.

Moreover, any citizen whose lips curled back as this man’s did to show his tongue licking hungrily between his teeth, should have been considered sufficiently unordinary to be locked away safely. In the course of his profession Spotty had developed reliable nerves, but the look of this man rocked them. Nobody should be pleased by the discovery of a burglar at large in his house. Yet, there could be no doubt that this victim was looking at Spotty with satisfaction. An unpleasant gloating kind of satisfaction, like that which might appear on a fox’s face at the sight of a plump chicken. Spotty hadn’t liked the look of him at all, so he had pulled out the convenient piece of pipe that he carried for emergencies.

Far from showing alarm, the man took a step closer. He poised, sprung on his toes like a wrestler. “You keep off me, mate,” said Spotty, holding up his nine inches of lead pipe as a warning.

Either the man did not hear — or the words held no interest for him. His long, bony face snarled. He shifted a little closer. Spotty backed against the edge of the desk. “I don’t want no trouble. You just keep off me,” he said again.

The man crouched a little lower. Spotty watched him through narrowed eyes. An extra tensing of the man’s muscles gave him a fractional warning before the attack.

The man came without feinting or rushing he simply sprang, like an animal. In mid-leap he encountered Spotty’s boot suddenly erected like a stanchion in his way. It took him in the middle and felled him. He sprawled on the floor doubled up, with one arm hugging his belly. The other hand threatened, with fingers bent into hooks. His head turned in jerks, his jaws with their curiously sharp teeth were apart, like a dog’s about to snap.

Spotty knew just as well as Smudger that what was required was a quietening tap. He had been about to deliver it with professional skill and quality when the man, by an extraordinary wriggle, had succeeded in fastening his teeth into Spotty’s leg. It was unexpected, excruciating enough to ruin Spotty’s aim and make the blow ineffectual. So he had hit again; harder this time. Too hard. And even then he had more or less had to pry the man’s teeth out of his leg.

But it was not so much his aching leg — nor even the fact that he had killed the man — that was the chief cause of Spotty’s concern. It was the kind of man he had killed. “Like an animal he was,” he said, and the recollection made him sweat. “Like a bloody wild animal. And the way he looked! His eyes! Christ, they wasn’t human.”

That aspect of the affair held little interest for Smudger. He’d not seen the man until he was already dead and looking like any other corpse. His present concern was that a mere matter of burglary had been abruptly transferred to the murder category — a class of work he had always kept clear of until now.

The job had looked easy enough. There shouldn’t have been any trouble. A man living alone in a large house — a pretty odd customer with a pretty odd temper. On Fridays, Sundays, and sometimes on Wednesdays, there were meetings at which about twenty people came to the house and did not leave until the small hours of the following morning. All this information was according to Smudger’s sister, who learned it third hand from the woman who cleaned the house. The woman was darkly speculative, but unspecific, about what went on at these gatherings. But from Smudger’s point of view the important thing was that on other nights the man was alone in the house.

He seemed to be a dealer of some kind. People brought odd curios to the house to sell to him. Smudger had been greatly interested to hear that they were paid for — and paid for well — in cash. That was a solid, practical consideration. Beside it, the vaguely ill reputation of the place, the queerness of its furnishings, and the rumors of strange goings-on at the gatherings, were unimportant. The only thing worthy of attention were the facts that the man lived alone and had items of value in his possession.

Smudger had thought of it as a one-man job at first, and with a little more information he might have tackled it on his own. He had discovered that there was a telephone, but no dog. He was fairly sure of the room in which the money must be kept, but unfortunately his sister’s source of information had its limitations. He did not know whether there were burglar alarms or similar precautions, and he was too uncertain of the cleaning woman to attempt to get into the house by a subterfuge for a preliminary investigation. So he had taken Spotty in with him on a fifty-fifty basis.

The reluctance with which he had taken that step had now become an active regret — not only because Spotty had been foolish enough to kill the man, but because the way things had been he could easily have made a hundred per cent haul on his own — and not be fool enough to kill the man had he been detected.

The attaché case which he carried was now well-filled with bundles of notes, along with an assortment of precious-looking objects in gold and silver, probably eminently traceable, but useful if melted down. It was irritating to think that the whole load, instead of merely half of it, might have been his.

The two men stood quietly in the bushes for some minutes and listened. Satisfied, they pushed through a hole in the hedge, then moved cautiously down the length of the neighboring field in its shadow.

Spotty’s chief sensation was relief at being out of the house. He hadn’t liked the place from the moment they had entered. For one thing, the furnishings weren’t like those he was used to. Unpleasant idols or carved figures of some kind stood about in unexpected places, looming suddenly out of the darkness into his flashlight’s beam with hideous expressions on their faces. There were pictures and pieces of tapestry that were macabre and shocking to a simple burglar. Spotty was not particularly sensitive, but these seemed to him highly unsuitable to have about the home.

The same quality extended to more practical objects. The legs of a large oak table had been carved into mythical miscegenates of repulsive appearance. The two bowls which stood upon the table were either genuine or extremely good representations of polished human skulls. Spotty could not imagine why, in one room, anybody should want to mount a crucifix on the wall upside down and place on a shelf beneath it a row of sconces holding nine black candles — then flank the whole with two pictures of an indecency so revolting it almost took his breath away. All these things had somehow combined to rattle his usual hard-headedness.

But even though he was out of the place now, he didn’t feel quite free of its influence. He decided he wouldn’t feel properly himself again until they were in the car and several miles away. After working around two fields they came to the dusty white lane off which they had parked the car. They prospected carefully. By now the sky had cleared of clouds and the moonlight showed the road empty in both directions. Spotty scrambled through the hedge, across the ditch, and stood on the road in a quietness broken only by Smudger’s progress through the hedge. Then he started to walk towards the car.

He had gone about a dozen paces when Smudger’s voice stopped him: “Hey, Spotty. What’ve you got on your feet?”

Spotty stopped and looked down. There was nothing remarkable about his feet; his boots looked just as they had always looked.

“What — ?” he began.

“No! Behind you!”

Spotty looked back. From the point where he had stepped on to the road to another some five feet behind where he now stood was a series of footprints, dark in the white dust. He lifted his foot and examined the sole of his boot; the dust was clinging to it. He turned his eyes back to the footmarks once more. They looked black and seemed to glisten.

Smudger bent down to peer more closely. When he looked up again there was a bewildered expression on his face. He gazed at Spotty’s boots, and then back to the glistening marks. The prints of bare feet.

“There’s something funny going on here,” he said inadequately.

Spotty, looking back over his shoulder, took another step forward. Five feet behind him a new mark of a bare foot appeared from nowhere. A watery feeling swept over Spotty. He took another experimental step. As mysteriously as before, another footmark appeared. He turned widened eyes on Smudger. Smudger looked back at him. Neither said anything for a moment. Then Smudger bent down, touched one of the marks with his finger, then shone his flashlight on the finger.

“Red,” he said. “Like blood…”

The words broke the trance that had settled on Spotty. Panic seized him. He stared around wildly, then began to run. After him followed the footprints. Smudger ran too. He noticed that the marks were no longer the prints of a full foot but only its forepart, as if whatever made them were also running.

Spotty was frightened, but not badly enough to forget the turn where they had parked the car beneath some trees. He made for it, and clambered in. Smudger, breathing heavily, got in on the other side and dropped the attaché case in the back. “Going to get out of this lot quick,” Spotty said, pressing the starter.

“Take it easy,” advised Smudger. “We got to think.”

But Spotty was in no thinking mood. He got into gear, jolted out of hiding, and turned down the lane. A mile or so farther on Smudger turned back from craning out of the window.

“Not a sign,” he said, relieved. “Reckon we’ve ditched it — whatever it was.” He thought for some moments, then he said: “Look here, if those marks were behind us all the way from the house, they’ll be able to follow them by daylight to where we parked the car.”

“They’d’ve found the car marks anyway,” Spotty replied.

“But what if they’re still following?” Smudger suggested.

“You just said they weren’t.”

“Maybe they couldn’t keep up with us. But suppose they’re coming along somewhere behind us, leaving a trail?”

Spotty had greatly recovered, he was almost his old practical self again. He stopped the car. “All right. We’ll see,” he said grimly. “And if they are — what then?”

He lit a cigarette with a hand that was almost steady. Then he leaned out of the car, studying the road behind them. The moonlight was strong enough to show up any dark marks. “What do you reckon it was?” he said, over his shoulder. “We can’t both’ve been seeing things.”

“They were real enough.’’ Smudger looked at the stain still on his finger.

On a sudden idea, Spotty pulled up his right trouser leg. The marks of the teeth were there, and there was a little blood, too, soaked into his sock, but he couldn’t make that account for anything.

The minutes passed. Still there was no manifestation of footprints. Smudger got out and walked a few yards back along the road to make sure. After a moment’s hesitation Spotty followed him. “Not a sign,” Smudger said. “I reckon — hey!” He broke off, looking beyond Spotty.

Spotty turned around. Behind him was a trail of dark, naked footprints leading from the car. Spotty stared. He walked back to the car ; the footmarks followed. It was a chastened Spotty who sat down in the car.

“Well?”

Smudger had nothing to offer. Smudger, in fact, was considerably confused. Several aspects of the situation were competing for his attention. The footsteps were not following him, so he found himself less afraid of them than of their possible consequences. They were laying a noticeable trail for anyone to follow to Spotty, and the trouble was that the trail would lead to him, too, if he and Spotty kept together.

The immediate solution that occurred to him was that they split up, and Spotty take care of his own troubles. The best way would be to divide the haul right here and now. If Spotty could succeed in shaking off the footprints, good for him. After all, the killing was none of Smudger’s affair.

He was about to make the suggestion when another aspect occurred to him. If Spotty were picked up with part of the stuff on him, the case would be clinched. It was also possible that Spotty, in a bad jam with nothing to lose, might spill. A far safer way would be for him to hold the stuff. Then Spotty could come for his share when, and if, he succeeded in losing the telltale prints. It was obviously the only safe and reasonable course. The trouble was that Spotty, when it was suggested to him, did not see it that way.

They drove a few more miles, each occupied with his own thoughts. In a quiet lane they stopped once more. Again Spotty got out of the car and walked a few yards away from it. The moon was lower, but it still gave enough light to show the footprints following him. He came back looking more worried than frightened. Smudger decided to cut a possible loss and go back to his former plan.

“Look here,” he suggested, “what say we share out the takings now, and you drop me off a bit up the road?”

Spotty looked doubtful, but Smudger pressed: “If you can shake that trail off, well and good. If you can’t — well, there’s no sense in us both getting pinched, is there? Anyway, it was you as croaked him. And one has a better chance of getting away than two.”

Spotty was still not keen, but he had no alternative to offer.

Smudger pulled the attaché case out of the back and opened it between them. Spotty began to separate the bundles of notes into two piles. It had been a good haul. As Smudger watched, he felt a great sadness that half of it was going to benefit nobody when Spotty was picked up. Sheer waste, it seemed to him.

Spotty, with his head bent over his work, did not notice Smudger draw the piece of lead pipe out of his pocket. Smudger brought it down on the back of his head with such force and neatness that it is doubtful whether Spotty ever knew anything about it.

Smudger stopped the car at the next bridge and pushed Spotty’s body over the low wall. He watched as the ripples widened out across the canal below. Then he drove on.

It was three days later that Smudger got home. He arrived in the kitchen soaked to the skin and clutching his attaché case. He was looking worn, white, and ready to drop. He dragged a chair away from the table and slumped into it. “Bill!” his wife whispered. “What is it? Are they after you?”

“No, Liz —  at least, it ain’t the cops. But something is.”

He pointed to a mark close inside the door. At first she thought it was his own wet footprint. “Get a wet cloth, Liz, and clean up the front step and the passage before anyone sees it,” he said.

She hesitated, puzzled.

“For God’s sake, do it quick, Liz,” he urged her.

Still half bewildered, she went through the dark passage and opened the door. The rain was pelting down, seeming to bounce up from the road as it hit. The gutters were running like torrents. Everything streamed with wetness save the doorstep protected by the small jutting porch. And on the step was the blood-red print of a naked foot.

In a kind of trance she went down on her knees and swabbed it clean with the wet cloth. Closing the door, she switched on the lights and saw the prints leading towards the kitchen. When she had cleaned them up, she went back to her husband. “You been hit, Bill?”

He looked at her, elbows on the table, his head supported between his hands. “No,” he said. “It ain’t me what’s making them marks, Liz — it’s what’s followin’ me.”

“Following you? You mean they been following you all the way from the job?” she said incredulously. “How did you get back?”

Smudger explained. His immediate anxiety, after pitching Spotty into the canal, had been to rid himself of the car. It had been a pinch for the job, and the number and description would have been circulated. He had parked it in a quiet spot and gotten out to walk, maybe pick up a lift. When he had gone a few yards he had looked back and seen the line of prints behind him. They had frightened him a good deal more than he now admitted. Until that moment he had assumed that since they had been following Spotty they would have followed him into the canal. Now, it seemed, they had transferred their attentions to himself. He tried a few more steps: they followed. With a great effort he got a grip on himself and refrained from running. He perceived that unless he wanted to leave a clear trail he must go back to the car. He did.

Farther on he tried again, and with a sinking, hopeless feeling observed the same result. Back in the car, he lit a cigarette and considered plans with as much calmness as he could collect.

The thing to do was to find something that would not show tracks — or would not hold them. A flash of inspiration came to him, and he headed the car towards the river.

The sky was barely gray yet. He thought that he managed to get the car down to the towpath without being seen. At any rate, no one had hailed him as he cut through the long grass to the water’s edge. From there he had made his way downstream, plodding along through a few inches of water until he found a rowboat. It was a venerable and decrepit affair, but it served his purpose.

From then on his journey had been unexciting, but also uncomfortable. During the day he had become extremely hungry, but he did not dare to leave the boat until after dark, and then he moved only in the darkest streets where the marks might not be seen. Both that day and the next two he had spent hoping for rain. This morning, in a drenching downpour that looked like it might continue for hours, he had sunk the boat and made his way home, trusting that the trail would be washed away. As far as he knew, it had been.

Liz was less impressed than she ought to have been. “ I reckon it must be something on your boots,” she said practically. “Why didn’t you buy some new ones?”

He looked at her with a dull resentment. “It ain’t nothing on my boots,” he said. “Didn’t I tell you it was following me? You seen the marks. How could they come off my boots? Use your head.”

“But it don’t make sense. Not the way you say it. What’s following you?”

“How do I know?” he said bitterly. “All I know is that it makes them marks — and they’re getting closer, too.”

“How do you mean closer?”

“Just what I say. The first day they was about five feet behind me. Now they’re between three and four.”

It was not the kind of thing that Liz could take in too easily. “It don’t make sense,” she repeated.

It made no more sense during the days that followed, but she ceased to doubt. Smudger stayed in the house; whatever was following stayed with him. The marks of it were everywhere: on the stairs, upstairs, downstairs. Half Liz’s time was spent in cleaning them up in case someone should come in and see them. They got on her nerves. But not as badly as they got on Smudger’s.

Even Liz could not deny that the feet were stepping a little more closely behind him — a little more closely each day.

“And what happens when they catch up?” Smudger demanded fearfully. “Tell me that. What can I do? What the hell can I do?” But Liz had no suggestions. Nor was there anyone else they dared ask about it.

Smudger began to dream nights. He’d whimper and she’d wake him up asking what was the matter. The first time he could not remember, but the dream was repeated, growing a little clearer with each recurrence. A black shape appeared to hang over him as he lay. It was vaguely manlike in form, but it hovered in the air as if suspended. Gradually it sank lower and lower until it rested upon him — but weightlessly, like a pattern of fog. It seemed to flow up towards his head, and he was in panic lest it should cover his face and smother him, but at his throat it stopped. There was a prickling at the side of his neck. He felt strangely weak, as though tiredness suddenly invaded him. At the same time the shadow appeared to grow denser. He could feel, too, that there began to be some weight in it as it lay upon him. Then, mercifully, Liz would wake him.

So real was the sensation that he inspected his neck carefully in the mirror when he shaved. But there was no mark there. Gradually the glistening red prints closed in behind him. A foot behind his heels, six inches, three inches…

Then came a morning when he woke tired and listless. He had to force himself to get up, and when he looked in the mirror, there was a mark on his throat. He called Liz, in a panic. But it was only a very small mark, and she made nothing of it.

But the next morning his lassitude was greater. It needed all his willpower to drag himself up. The pallor of his face shocked Liz — and himself, too, when he saw it in the shaving mirror. The red mark on his neck stood out more vividly.

The next day he did not get up.

Two days later Liz became frightened enough to call in the doctor. It was a confession of desperation. Neither of them cared for the doctor, who knew or guessed uncomfortably much about the occupations of his patients. One called a doctor for remedies, not for homilies on one’s way of life.

He came, he hummed, he hawed. He prescribed a tonic and had a talk with Liz. “He’s seriously anaemic,” he said. “But there’s more to it than that. Something on his mind.” He looked at her. “ Have you any idea what it is?”

Liz’s denial was unconvincing. He did not even pretend to believe it. “I’m no magician,” he said. “If you don’t help me, I can’t help him. Some kinds of worry can go on pressing and nagging like an abscess.”

Liz continued to deny. For a moment she had been tempted to tell about the footmarks, but caution warned her that once she began she would likely be trapped into saying more than was healthy.

“Think it over,” the doctor advised. “And let me know tomorrow how he is.”

The next morning there was no doubt that Smudger was doing very badly. The tonic had done him no good at all. He lay in bed with his eyes, when they were open, looking unnaturally large in a drawn white face. He was so weak that she had to feed him with a spoon. He was frightened, too, that he was going to die. So was Liz. The alarm in her voice when she telephoned the doctor was unmistakably genuine.

“All right, I’ll be around in an hour,” he told her. “Have you found out what’s on his mind yet?” he added.

“N-no,” Liz told him.

When he came he told her to stay downstairs while he went up to see the patient. It seemed to her that an intolerably long time passed before she heard his feet on the stairs and she went out to meet him in the hall. She looked up into his face with mute anxiety. His expression was serious, and puzzled, so that she was afraid to hear him speak.

But at last she asked: “Is — is he going to die, Doctor?”

“He’s very weak — very weak indeed,” the doctor said. After a pause, he added: “Why didn’t you tell me about those footprints he thought were following him?” She looked up at him in alarm. “It’s all right. He’s told me all about it now. I knew there was something on his mind. It’s not very surprising, either.”

Liz stared at him. “Not — ?”

“In the circumstances, no,” the doctor said. “A mind oppressed by a sense of sin can play a lot of nasty tricks. Nowadays they talk of guilt complexes and inhibitions. Names change. When I was a boy the same sort of thing was known as a bad conscience. When one has the main facts, these things become obvious to anyone of experience. Your husband was engaged in — well, to put it bluntly, burgling the house of a man whose interests were mystic and occult. Something that happened there gave him a shock and unbalanced his judgment.

“As a result, he has difficulty in distinguishing between the real things he sees and the imaginary ones his uneasy conscience shows him. It isn’t very complicated. He feels he is being dogged. Somewhere in his subconscious lie the lines from The Ancient Mariner:

Because he knows a frightful fiend

Doth close behind him tread
and the two come together. And, in addition to that, he appears to have developed a primitive, vampiric type of phobia. Now, once we are able to help him dispel this obsession, he — “ He broke off, suddenly aware of the look on his listener’s face. “What is it?” he asked.

“But, Doctor,’’ Liz said. “Those footmarks. I — “ She was cut short abruptly by a sound from above that was half groan and half scream.

The doctor was up the stairs before she could move. When she followed him, it was with a heavy certainty in her heart.

She stood in the doorway watching as he bent over the bed. In a moment he turned, grave-eyed, and gave a slight shake of his head. He put his hand on her shoulder, then went quietly past her out of the room. For some seconds Liz stood without moving. Then her eyes dropped from the bed to the floor. She trembled. Laughter, a high-pitched, frightening laughter shook her as she looked at the red naked footprints which led away from the bedside, across the floor and down the stairs, after the doctor. . . .

Adaptation (1949)

The prospect of being stuck on Mars for a while did not worry Marilyn Godalpin a lot — not at first, anyway. She had been near the piece of desert that they called a landing field when the Andromeda came into a bad landing. After that it did not surprise her at all when the engineers said that with the limited facilities at the settlement the repairs would take at least three months, most likely four. The astonishing thing was that no one in the ship had got more than a bad shaking.

It still did not worry her when they explained to her, with simplified astronautics, that that meant there could be no take-off for the Andromeda for at least eight months on account of the relative position of Earth. But she did get a bit fussed when she discovered that she was going to have a baby. Mars did not seem the right place for that.

Mars had surprised her. When Franklyn Godalpin was offered the job of developing the Jason Mining Corporation’s territory there, a few months after their marriage, it had been she who had persuaded him to accept it. She had had an instinct that the men who were in on the ground floor there would go places. Of Mars itself, as seen in pictures, her opinion was low. But she wanted her husband to go places, and to go with him. With Franklyn’s heart and head pulling in opposite directions she could have succeeded on either side. She chose head for two reasons. One was lest some day he might come to hold the lost chance of his life against her, the other because, as she said: “Honey. If we are going to have a family, I want them to have everything we can give them. I love you anyway you are, but for their sake I want you to be a big man.”

She had persuaded him not only into taking the job, but into taking her with him. The idea was that she should see him settled into his hut as comfortably as the primitive conditions of the place allowed, and then go back home on the next ship. That should have been after a four-week stop — Earth reckoning. But the ship intended was the Andromeda; and she was the last in the present oppositional phase.

Franklyn’s work left her little of his time, and had Mars been what she expected she would have been dismayed by the prospect of even an extra week there. But the first discovery she had made when she stepped on to the planet was that photographs can be literally true while spiritually quite false.

The deserts were there, all right. Mile upon mile of them. But from the first they lacked that harsh uncharitableness that the pictures had given them. There was a quality which in some way the lens had filtered out. The landscape came to life and showed itself differently from the recorded shades.

There was unexpected beauty in the coloring of the sands, and the rocks, and the distant, rounded mountains, and strangeness in the dark deeps of the cloudless sky. Among the plants and bushes on the waterway margins there were flowers, more beautiful and more delicately complex than any she had seen on Earth. There was mystery, too, where the stones of ancient ruins lay half buried — all that was left, maybe, of huge palaces or temples. It was something like that, Marilyn felt, that Shelley’s traveler had known in his antique land

Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Yet it was not grim. She had looked to find a sour desolation, the morbid aftermath of eruption, destruction, and fire. It had never occurred to her that the old age of a world might come softly, with a gentle melancholy, like the turning of a leaf in the fall.

Back on Earth, people were looking on the Martian venturers as the new pioneers attacking the latest frontier opposed to man. Mars made nonsense of that. The land lay placidly open to them, unresisting. Its placidity dwindled their importance, making them crude intruders on the last quiet drowsiness.

Mars was comatose, sinking slowly deeper into her final sleep. But she was not yet dead. Seasonal tides still stirred in the waterways, and things still lived in the waters, too, though they seldom gave any more sign of themselves than a vagrant ripple. Among the flowers and the tinker bells there were still insects to carry pollen. Kinds of grain still grew, sparse, poorly nourished vestiges of vanished harvests, yet capable of thriving again with irrigation. There were the thrippetts, bright flashes of flying color, unclassifiable as insect or bird. By night other small creatures emerged. Some of them mewed, almost like kittens, and sometimes, when both moons were up, one caught glimpses of little marmoset-like shapes. Almost always there was that most characteristic of all Martian sounds, the ringing of the tinker bells. Their hard shiny leaves which flashed like polished metal needed no more than a breath of the thin air to set them chiming so that all the desert rang faintly to their tiny cymbals.

The clues to the manner of people who had lived there were too faint to read. Rumor spoke of small groups, apparently human, further south, but real exploration still waited on the development of craft suited to the thin Martian air.

A frontier of a kind there was, but without valor — for there was little left to fight but quiet old age. Beyond the busy settlement Mars was a restful place. “I like it,” said Marilyn. “In a way it’s sad, but it isn’t saddening. A song can be like that sometimes. It soothes you and makes you feel at peace.”

Franklyn’s concern over her news was greater than Marilyn’s, and he blamed himself for the state of affairs. His anxiety irritated her slightly. And it was no good trying ,to place blame, she pointed out. All that one could do was to accept the situation and take every sensible care.

The settlement doctor backed that up. James Forbes was a young man, and no sawbones. He was there because a good man was needed in a place where unusual effects might be expected, and strange conditions called for careful study. And he had taken the job because he was interested. His line now was matter of fact and encouraging. He refused to make it remarkable.

“There was nothing to worry about,” he assured them. “Ever since the dawn of history there have been women producing babies in far more inconvenient times and places than this — and getting away with it. There’s no reason at all why everything should not be perfectly normal.”

He spoke his professional lies with an assurance which greatly increased their confidence, and he maintained it steadily by his manner. Only in his diary did he admit worrying speculations on the effects of lowered gravitation and air pressure, the rapid temperature changes, the possibility of unknown infections, and the other hazardous factors.

Marilyn minded little that she lacked the luxuries that would have attended her at home. With her maid Helen to look after her and keep her company she busied herself with sewing and small matters. Martian scene retained its fascination for her. She felt at peace with it as though it were a wise old counsellor who had seen too much of birth and death to grow vehement over either.

Jannessa, Marilyn’s daughter, was born with no great trial upon a night when the desert lay cold in the moonlight, and so quiet that only an occasional faint chime from the tinker bells disturbed it. She was the first Earth baby to be born on Mars. A perfectly normal six and a half pounds — Earth — and a credit to all concerned.

It was afterwards that things started to go less well. Dr. Forbes’ fears of strange infections had been well grounded, and despite his scrupulous precautions there were complications. Some were susceptible to the attacks of penicillin and the complex sulfas, but others resisted them. Marilyn, who had at first appeared to be doing well, weakened and then became seriously ill.

Nor did the child thrive as it should, and when the repaired Andromeda at last took off, it left them behind. Another ship was due in from Earth a few days later. Before it arrived, the doctor put the situation to Franklyn.

“I’m by no means happy about the child,” he told him. “She’s not putting on weight as she should. She grows, but not enough. It’s pretty obvious that the conditions here are not suiting her. She might survive, but I can’t say with what effect on her constitution. She should have normal Earth conditions as soon as possible.”

Franklyn frowned: “And her mother?” he asked.

“Mrs. Godalpin is in no condition to travel, I’m afraid. It’s out of the question. In her present state, and after so long in low gravitation, I doubt whether she could stand half a G of acceleration.”

Franklyn looked bleakly unwilling to comprehend. “You mean — ?”

“In a nutshell, it’s this. It would be fatal for your wife to attempt the journey. And it would probably be fatal for your child to remain here.”

There was only one way out of that. When the next ship, the Aurora, came in it was decided to delay no longer. A passage was arranged for Helen and the baby, and in the last week of 1994 they went on board.

Franklyn and Marilyn watched the Aurora leave. Marilyn’s bed had been pushed close to the window, and he sat on it, holding her hand. Together they watched her shoot upwards on a narrow cone of flame and curve away until she was no more than a twinkle in the dark Martian sky. Marilyn’s fingers held his tightly. He put his arm around her to support her and kissed her.

“It’ll be all right, darling. In a few months you’ll be with her again,” he said. Marilyn put her other hand against his cheek, but she said nothing.

Nearly seventeen years were to pass before anything more was heard of the Aurora, but Marilyn was not to know that. In less than two months she was resting forever in the Martian sands with the tinker bells chiming softly above her.

When Franklyn left Mars, Dr. Forbes was the only member of the original team still left there. They shook hands beside the ramp which led up to the latest thing in nuclear-powered ships. The doctor said : “For five years I’ve watched you work, and overwork, Franklyn. You’d no business to survive. But you have. Now go home and live. You’ve earned it.”

Franklyn withdrew his gaze from the thriving Port Gillington which had grown and was still growing out of the rough settlement of a few years ago. “What about yourself? You’ve been here longer than I have.”

“But I’ve had a couple of vacations. They were long enough for me to look around at home and decide that what really interests me is here.” He might have added that the second had been long enough for him to find and marry a girl who he had brought with him, but he just added: “Besides I’ve just been working, not overworking.”

Franklyn’s gaze had wandered again, this time beyond the settlement, towards the fields which now fringed the waterway. Among them was a small plot marked with a single upright stone. “You’re still a young man. Life owes you something,” the doctor said. Franklyn seemed not to have heard, but he knew that he had. He went on; “And you owe something to life. You hurt only yourself by resisting it. We have to adapt to life.”

“I wonder — ?” Franklyn began, but the doctor laid a hand on his arm.

“Not that way. You have worked hard to forget. Now you must make a new beginning.”

“No wreckage of the Aurora has ever been reported, you know,” Franklyn said.

The doctor sighed, quietly. The ships that disappeared without trace considerably outnumbered those that left any. “A new beginning,” he repeated, firmly.

The hailer began to call “All aboard.”

Dr. Forbes watched his friend into the entrance port. He was a little surprised to feel a touch on his arm and find his wife beside him. “Poor man,” she said, softly. “Maybe when he gets home — “

“Maybe,” said the doctor, doubtfully. He went on: “I’ve been cruel, meaning to be kind. I should have tried my best to crush that false hope and free him from it. But…well, I couldn’t do it.”

“No,” she agreed. “You’d nothing to give him to take the place of it. But somewhere at home there’ll be someone who has — a woman. Let’s hope he meets her soon.”

Jannessa turned her head from a thoughtful study of her own hand and regarded the slaty-blue arm and fingers beside her. “I’m so different,” she said, with a sigh. “So different from everybody. Why am I different, Telta?”

“Everybody’s different,” Telta said. She looked up from her task of slicing a pale round fruit into a bowl. Their eyes met, Jannessa’s china blue in their white setting looking questioningly in Telta’s dark pupils which floated in clear topaz. A small crease appeared between the woman’s delicate silvery brows as she studied the child. “I’m different. Toti’s different. Melga’s different. That’s the way things are.”

“But I’m more different. Much more different.”

“I don’t suppose you’d be so very different where you came from,” Telta said, resuming her slicing.

“Was I different when I was a baby?”

“Yes, dear.”

Jannessa reflected. “Where do babies come from, Telta?”

Telta explained. Jannessa said, scornfully: “I don’t mean that. I mean babies like me. Different ones.”

“I don’t know. Only that it must have been somewhere far, far away.”

“Somewhere outside; in the cold?”

“Farther than that.” Telta considered a moment, then she added: “You’ve been up to one of the domes when it’s all dark outside? You’ve seen the stars twinkling?”

“Yes, Telta.”

“Well, it must have been one of those twinkles that you came from. But nobody knows which one.”

“Truly, Telta?”

“Quite truly.”

Jannessa sat still a moment, thinking of the infinite night sky with its myriads of stars. “But why didn’t I die in the cold?”

“You very nearly did, dear. Toti found you just in time.”

“And was I all alone?”

“No, dear. Your mother was holding you. She had wrapped you round with everything she could to keep the cold away. But the cold was too much for her. When Toti found her she could only move a little. She pointed to you and said : ‘Jannessa! Jannessa!’ So we thought that must be your name.” Telta paused, remembering how when Toti, her husband, had brought the baby down from the surface to the life-giving warmth it had been touch and go. A few more minutes outside would have been fatal. The cold was a dreadful thing. She shuddered, recalling Toti’s account of it, and how it had, turned the unfortunate mother black, but she did not tell that to the child.

Jannessa was frowning, puzzled. “But how? Did I fall off the star?”

“No, dear. A ship brought you.” But the word meant nothing to Jannessa.

It was difficult to explain to a child. Difficult, for that matter, for Telta herself to believe. Her experience included only the system she lived in. The surface was a grim, inhospitable place of jagged rocks and killing cold which she had seen only from the protected domes. The history books told her of other worlds where it was warm enough to live on the surface, and that her own people had come from such a world many generations ago. She believed that that was true, but it was nevertheless unreal. More than fifty ancestors stood between her and life on a planet’s surface, and it is difficult for anything that far away to seem real. Nevertheless, she told Jannessa the story in the hope that it would give her some consolation.

“Which star did they come from? The same as mine?” the child wanted to know.

But Telta could not say. “I don’t think it can have been the same one. When the doctors were looking after you, they said that you must have come from a bigger world.”

“Did they have to look after me a lot?”

“Quite a lot.”

“Because of the cold?”

“That — and other things. But in the end they made it possible for you to live here. They had to work very hard and cleverly for you. More than once we thought we were going to lose you.”

“But what were they doing?”

“I don’t understand much of it. But you see you were intended for a different world. It must have been one where there was more weight, thicker air, more humidity, higher temperature, different food, and — oh, lots of things you’ll learn about when you’re older. So they had to help you get used to things as they are here.”

Jannessa considered that. “It was very kind of them,” she said, “but they weren’t very good, were they?”

Telta looked at her in surprise. “Dear, that’s not very grateful. What do you mean?”

“If they could do all that, why couldn’t they make me look like other people? Why did they leave me all white, like this? Why didn’t they give me lovely hair like yours, instead of this yellow stuff?”

“Darling, your hair’s lovely. It’s like the finest golden threads.”

“But it’s not like anyone else’s. It’s different. I want to be like other people. But I’m a freak.”

Telta looked at her, unhappily perplexed. “Being of another kind isn’t being a freak,” she said.

“It is if you’re the only one. And I don’t want to be different. I hate it,” said Jannessa.

A man made his way slowly up the marble steps of the Venturers’ Club. He was middle-aged, but he walked with a clumsy lack of certainty more appropriate to an older man. For a moment the porter looked doubtful, then his expression cleared. “Good evening, Dr. Forbes,” he said.

Dr. Forbes smiled. “Good evening, Rogers. You’ve got a good memory. It’s twelve years.”

They chatted for some minutes, then the doctor moved on leaving instructions that his guest should be shown to the smoke room. He had been sitting there some ten minutes when Franklyn Godalpin approached with outstretched hand. They chatted over a couple of drinks, and then went into the dining room.

“So now you’re home for good — and loaded with medical honors,” Franklyn said.

“It’s a curious feeling,” Forbes said. “Eighteen years altogether. I’d been there almost a year when you came.”

“Well, you’ve earned the rest. Others got us there, but it’s your work that’s enabled us to build there and stay there.”

“There was a lot to learn. There’s a lot yet.”

Forbes was not falsely modest. He was as aware as anyone of the results of his hard work. One of them was, indirectly the man who was facing him. Franklyn Godalpin was now all that counted in the Jason Mining Corporation, and a powerful man. But without the medical work which had gone into making humans fit for Mars and Mars fit for humans Jason itself would likely have folded up years ago. It made Forbes feel in a way responsible for Franklyn.

“You never remarried?” he asked.

“No.” Franklyn shook his head,

“You should have. I told you, remember? You should have a wife and family. It’s still not too late.”

Again Franklyn shook his head.

“I’ve not told you my news yet,” he said. “I’ve had word of Jannessa.”

Forbes stared at him. It he had ever thought anything more unlikely, he could not recall what it was. “Had word,” he repeated, carefully. “Just what does that mean?”

Franklyn explained. “For years I have been advertising for news of the Aurora. The answers came mostly from nuts, or from those who thought I was crazy enough for them to cash in on — until six months or so ago.

“The man who came to see me then was the owner of a spaceman’s hostel in Chicago. He’d had a man die there a little while before, and the man had something he wanted to get off his chest before he went out. The owner brought it to me for what it was worth. The dying man claimed that the Aurora was not lost in space, as everyone thought; he said that his name was Jenkins and he had been aboard her, so he ought to know. According to his story, there was a mutiny on the Aurora when she was a few days out from Mars. It was on account of the captain deciding to hand some of the crew over to the police on arrival, for crimes unspecified. When the mutineers took over they had the support of all but one or two of the officers, and they changed course. I don’t know what the ultimate plan was, but what they did then was to lift from the plane of the ecliptic, and hop the asteroid belt, on a course for Jupiter.

“The owner got the impression that they were not so much a ruthless gang as a bunch of desperate men with a grievance. They could have pushed the officers and the passengers out into space since they had all qualified for a hanging anyway. But they didn’t. Instead, like other pirates before them, they elected to maroon the lot and leave them to make out as best as they could — if they could.

“According to Jenkins, the place chosen was Europa, somewhere in the region of its twentieth parallel, and the time somewhere in the third or fourth month of 1995. The party they stranded consisted of twelve persons — including a Black girl in charge of a White baby.”

Franklyn paused.

“The owner bears a quite blameless character. The dying man had nothing to gain by a fabrication. And, on looking up the sailing list, I find that there was a spaceman named Evan David Jenkins aboard the Aurora.” He concluded with a kind of cautious triumph and looked expectantly across the table at Forbes. But there was no enthusiasm in the doctor’s face.

“Europa,” he said, reflectively. He shook his head.

Franklyn’s expression hardened. “Is that all you have to say?” he demanded.

“No,” Forbes told him, slowly. “For one thing I should say that it is more than unlikely — it is almost impossible that she can have survived.”

“Almost is not quite. But I am going to find out. One of our prospecting ships is on her way to Europa now.”

Forbes shook his head again. “It would be wiser to call her off.”

Franklyn stared at him. “After all these years — when at last there is hope — “

The doctor looked steadily back at him. “My two boys are going back to Mars next week,” he said.

“I don’t see what that has to do with it.”

“But it has. Their muscles ache continually. The strain of that makes them too tired either to work or to enjoy life. The humidity here also exhausts them. They complain that the air feels like a thick soup all around and inside them. They have never been free of catarrh since they arrived. There are other things, too. So they are going back.”

“And you stay here. That’s tough.”

“It’s tougher for Annie. She adores those boys. But that’s the way life is, Frank.”

“Meaning?”

“That it’s conditions that count. When we produce a new life, it is something plastic. Independent. We can’t live its life as well as our own. We can’t do more than to see that it has the best conditions to shape it the way we like best. If the conditions are in some way beyond our control, one of two things happens; either it becomes adapted to the conditions it finds — or it fails to adapt, which means that it dies. We talk airily about conquering this or that natural obstacle — but look at what we really do and you’ll find that more often than not it is ourselves we are adapting.

“My boys have been acclimated to Martian conditions. Earth doesn’t suit them. Annie and I have sustained Martian conditions for a while, but, as adults, we were incapable of thorough adaptation. So either we must come home — or stay there to die early.”

“You mean, you think that Jannessa — “

“I don’t know what may have happened — but I have thought about it. I don’t think you have thought about it at all, Frank.”

“I’ve thought of little else these last seventeen years.”

“Surely ‘dreamed’ is the word, Frank?” Forbes looked across at him, his head a little on one side, his manner gentle. “Once upon a time something, an ancestor of ours, came out of the water on to the land. It became adapted until it could not go back to its relatives in the sea. That is the process we agree to call progress. It is inherent in life. If you stop it, you stop life, too.”

“Philosophically that may be sound enough, but I’m not interested in abstractions. I’m interested in my daughter.”

“How much do you think your daughter may be interested in you? I know that sounds callous, but I can see that you have some idea of affinity in mind. You’re mistaking civilized custom for natural law, Frank. Perhaps we all do, more or less.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“To be plain — if Jannessa has survived, she will be more foreign than any Earth foreigner could possibly be.”

“There were eleven others to teach her civilized ways and speech.”

“If any of them survived. Suppose they did not, or she was somehow separated from them. There are authenticated instances of children reared by wolves, leopards, and even antelopes and not one of them turned out to be in the least like the Tarzan fiction. All were subhuman. Adaptation works both ways.”

“Even if she has had to live among savages she can learn.”

Dr. Forbes faced him seriously. “I don’t think you can have read much anthropology. First she would have to unlearn the whole basis of the culture she has known. Look at the different races here and ask yourself if that is possible. There might be a veneer, yes. But more than that — “ he shrugged.

“There is the call of the blood — “

“Is there? If you were to meet your great-grandfather would there be any tie — would you even know him?”

Franklyn said, stubbornly: “Why are you talking like this, Jimmy? I’d not have listened to another man. Why are you trying to break down all that I’ve hoped for? You can’t, yon know. Not now. But why try?”

“Because I’m fond of you, Frank. Because under all your success you’re still the young man with a romantic dream. I told you to remarry. You wouldn’t — you preferred the dream to reality. You’ve lived with that dream so long now that is part of your mental pattern. But your dream is of finding Jannessa— not of having found her. You have centered your life on that dream. If you do find her, in whatever condition you find her, the dream will be finished — the purpose you set yourself will have been accomplished. And there will be nothing else left for you.”

Franklyn moved uneasily. “I have plans and ambitions for her.”

“For the daughter you know nothing of? No, for the dream daughter; the one that exists only in your mind. Whatever you may find, it will be a real person — not your dream puppet, Frank.”

Dr. Forbes paused, watching the smoke curl up from his cigarette. It was in his mind to say: “Whatever she is like, you will come to hate her, just because she can not exactly match your dream of her,” but he decided to leave that unspoken. It occurred to him also to enlarge on the unhappiness which might descend on a girl removed from all that was familiar to her, but he knew what Franklyn’s answer to that would be — there was money enough to provide every luxury and consolation. He had already said enough — perhaps too much, and none of it had really reached Franklyn. He decided to let it rest there, and hope. After all; there was little likelihood that Jannessa had either survived or would be found.

The tense look that had been on Franklyn’s face gradually relaxed. He smiled. “You’ve said your piece, old man. You think I may be in for a shock, and you want to prepare me, but I realize all that. I had it out with myself years ago. I can take it, if it’s necessary.”

Dr. Forbes’ eyes dwelt on his face a moment. He sighed, softly and privately. “Very well,” he agreed, and started to talk of something else.

“You see,” said Toti, “this is a very small planet—”

“A satellite,” said Jannessa. “A satellite of Yan.”

“But a planet of the sun, all the same. And there is the terrible cold.”

“Then why did your people choose it?” Jannessa asked, reasonably.

“Well, when our own world began to die and we had to die with it or go somewhere else, our people thought about those they could reach. Some were too hot, some were too big – “

“Why too big ?”

“Because of the gravity. On a big planet we could scarcely have crawled.”

“Couldn’t they have…well, made things lighter?”

Toti made a negative movement of his head, and his silver hair glistened in the fluorescence from the walls. “An increase in density can be simulated; we’ve done that here. But no one has succeeded in simulating a decrease — nor, we think now, ever will. So you see our people had to choose a small world. All the moons of Yan are bleak, but this was the best of them, and our people were desperate. When they got here they lived in the ships and began to burrow into the ground to get away from the cold. They gradually burnt their way in, making halls and rooms and galleries, and the food-growing tanks, and the culture fields, and all the rest of it. Then they sealed it, and warmed it, and moved in from the ships, and went on working inside. It was all a very long time ago.”

Jannessa sat for a moment in thought. “Telta said that perhaps I came from the third planet, Sonnal. Do you think so?”

“It may be. We know there was some kind of civilization there.”

“If they came once, they might come again — and take me home.”

Toti looked at her, troubled, and a little hurt. “Home?” he said. “You feel like that?”

Jannessa caught his expression. She put her white hand quickly into his slaty-blue one. “I’m sorry, Toti. I didn’t mean that. I love you, and Telta, and Melga. You know that. It’s just…oh, how can you know what it’s like to be different— different from everyone around you? I’m so tired of being a freak, Toti, dear. Inside me I’m just like any other girl. Can’t you understand what it would mean to me to be looked on by everyone as normal?”

Toti was silent for a while. When he spoke, his tone was troubled: “Jannessa, have you ever thought that after spending all your life here this really is your world. Another might seem very…well, strange to you?”

‘‘You mean living on the outside instead of inside. Yes, that would seem funny.”

‘‘Not just that, my dear,” he said, carefully. “You know that after I found you up there and brought you in the doctors had to work hard to save your life?”

“Telta told me.” Jannessa nodded. “What did they do?”

“Do you know what glands are?”

“I think so. They sort of control things.”

“They do. Well, yours were set to control things suitably for your world. So the doctors had to be very clever. They had to give you very accurate injections — it was a kind of balancing process, you see, so that the glands would work in the proper proportions to suit you for life here. Do you understand?”

“To make me comfortable at a lower temperature, help me to digest this kind of food, stop over stimulation by the high oxygen content, things like that Telta said.”

“Things like that,” Toti agreed. “It’s called adaptation. They did the best they could to make you suited to life here amongst us.”

“It was very clever of them,” Jannessa said, speaking much as she had spoken years ago to Telta. “But why didn’t they do more? Why did they leave me white like this? Why didn’t they make my hair a lovely silver like yours and Telta’s? I wouldn’t have been a freak then — I should have felt that I really belonged here.” Tears stood in her eyes.

Toti put his arm around her. “My poor dear. I didn’t know it was as bad as that. And I love you — so does Telta — as if you were our own daughter.”

“I don’t see how you can — with this!” She held up her pale hand.

“But we do, Jannessa, dear. Does that really matter so very much?”

“It’s what makes me different. It reminds me all the time that I belong to another world, really. Perhaps I shall go there one day.”

Toti frowned. “That’s just a dream, Jannessa. You don’t know any world but this. It couldn’t be what you expect. Stop dreaming, stop worrying yourself, my dear. Make up your mind to be happy here with us.”

“You don’t understand, Toti,” she said, gently. “Somewhere there are people like me — my own kind.”

It was only a few months later that the observers in one of the domes reported the landing of a ship from space.

“Listen, you old cynic,” said Franklyn’s voice, almost before his image was sharp on the screen. “They’ve, found her— and she’s on the way home.”

“Found — Jannessa?” Dr. Forbes said, hesitantly.

“Of course. Who else would I be meaning?”

“Are you — quite sure, Frank?”

“You old skeptic. Would I have rung you if I weren’t? She’s on Mars right now. They put in there for fuel, and to delay for proximity.”

“But can you be sure?”

“There’s her name— and some papers found with her.”

“Well, I suppose — “

“Not enough, eh?” Franklyn’s image grinned. “All right, then. Take a look at this.”

He reached for a photograph on his desk and held it close to the transmitting screen. “Told them to take it there, and transmit here by radio,” he explained. “Now what about it?”

Dr. Forbes studied the picture on the screen carefully. It showed a girl posed with a rough wall for a background. Her only visible garment was a piece of shining cloth, draped round her, rather in the manner of a sari. The hair was fair and dressed in an unfamiliar style. But it was the face looking from beneath it that made him catch his breath. It was Marilyn Godalpin’s face, gazing back at him across eighteen years.

“Yes, Frank,” he said, slowly. “Yes, that’s Jannessa. I... I don’t know what to say, Frank.”

“Not even congratulations?”

“Yes, oh yes — of course. It’s…well, it’s just a miracle. I’m not used to miracles.”

The day that the newspaper told him that the Chloe, a research ship belonging to the Jason Mining Corporation, was due to make ground at noon, was spent absentmindedly by Dr. Forbes. He was sure that there would be a message from Franklyn Godalpin, and he found himself unable to settle to anything until he should receive it. When, at about four o’clock the bell rang, he answered it with a swift excitement. But the screen did not clear to the expected features of Franklyn. Instead, a woman’s face looked at him anxiously. He recognized her as Godalpin’s housekeeper.

“It’s Mr. Godalpin, doctor, she said. “He’s been taken ill. If you could come — ?”

A taxi set him down on Godalpin’s strip fifteen minutes later. The housekeeper met him and hurried him to the stairs through the rabble of journalists, photographers and commentators that filled the hall. Franklyn was lying on his bed with his clothes loosened. A secretary and a frightened-looking girl stood by. Dr. Forbes made an examination and gave an injection.

“Shock, following anxiety,” he said. “Not surprising. He’s been under a great strain lately. Get him to bed. Hot bottles and see that he’s kept warm.”

The housekeeper spoke as he turned away. “Doctor, while you’re here. There’s the ... I mean, if you wouldn’t mind having a look at…at Miss Jannessa, too.”

“Yes, of course. Where is she?”

The housekeeper led the way to another room and pointed. “She’s in there, doctor.”

Dr. Forbes pushed open the door and went in. A sound of bitter sobbing ended in choking as he entered. Looking for the source of it he saw a child standing beside the bed.

“Where — ?” he began. Then the child turned towards him. It was not a child’s face. It was Marilyn’s face, with Marilyn’s hair, and Marilyn’s eyes looking at him. But a Marilyn who was twenty-five inches tall — Jannessa.

The Red Stuff (1951)

(Note: The Government is of the opinion that in the present critical situation the widest possible publicity should be given to the facts of the case and the events which gave rise to it. It is, therefore, with official approval and encouragement that the proprietors of WALTERS SPACE-NEWS here reprint in pamphlet form the account first published in both the printed and broadcast versions of the issue of that journal dated Friday, 20th July 2051).

Here is an official Government emergency warning: “From now until further notice Clarke Lunar Station will be closed to traffic. No vessel of any kind at present on the Station may put to space, nor will any local craft be permitted to take off from there. All vessels now in space, whether earthward or outward bound, scheduled to call at Clarke must make immediate arrangements to divert to Whitley. Outward bound craft will ground at the normal Whitley Lunar Station base; earthward bound vessels will be directed to the emergency field and must ground there. Any vessel ignoring this instruction will be refused grounding and be dealt with severely. It is emphasized that any vessel grounding at or near Clarke for any reason whatsoever will be refused permission to leave. This warning is effective immediately.”

It is likely that only a few of the millions who heard that announcement, or the versions of it in other languages, broadcast on the evening of Monday last, 16th July, took any great notice of it, in spite of its seriousness of tone. After all, though wet call this the Space age, only a fractional percentage of us have ever been or ever will be in space.

Readers of this journal cannot fail to have been troubled, more likely alarmed, by the order, but they think of space in a specialized way as something directly affecting their calling or livelihood. But to the average man, what is the Moon? It is an airless, cheerless cinder, the scene of some mining, useful as a testing ground for space conditions, but chiefly notable as a waystation apparently designed by providence for the convenience of space-voyaging humanity. He knows that it is important, but he does not know how important, nor why.

He knows, perhaps, that the Clarke Lunar Station was first opened over fifty years ago, and that it was so named in honour of the octogenarian Doctor of Physics who did so much to further space-travel, but he does not realise what, in terms of mathematics, of power and payload, the existence of such a Station and fueling base means. Nor that its absence would entail suspension of space-travel almost entirely for a very long time, until we could completely organize our methods — if we could.

Luckily we are not altogether denied use of the Moon by the closing of Clarke: we can still operate through the Whitley Station— at present. But if that cannot be maintained in use, the question of continued space-travel with ships of the present types becomes grave to the point of hopelessness.

To our regular readers parts of the account which follows will not be new, but it has seemed to the editors desirable that at this critical juncture all the information available should be collated and presented to the public in the form of a narrative giving as honest a picture as possible of the present situation, and its potentialities.

CHAPTER 1

At 20.58 G.M.T. on the 6th January 2051 the radio-operator of the Madge G. reported to the Captain that he had picked up a message globe and asked for further instructions.

The Madge G. after a cautious route well out of the elliptic to hurdle the asteroid belt had corrected course and was now in fall towards her destination, Callisto, Moon IV, of Jupiter. Her Captain, John G. Troyte, was not pleased by his operator’s report. The passage of the asteroids is always a strain for a conscientious man; even at wide berth there is still the chance of lonely outflyers from the main swarm which will go through a ship as if she were a paper hoop. There is not a lot to be done about it; should the outflyer be anything above the size of a football, it is just too bad; if it is smaller, prompt action can save the ship, providing no. vital part is hit. Alertness sustained for the long period is extremely tiring and Captain Troyte felt that he had earned a period of repose and relaxation during the fall towards Callisto.

What was more, he was pretty certain it would not turn out to be a message-globe after all. He had had such a report half a dozen times in the course of his career, and it had always turned out to be untrue. In the whole of his time in space he could only recall five being picked up at all. They were a good idea, only they didn’t come off: they’d have been all right if there hadn’t been quite so much space for them to get lost in, but, practice being so different from theory, it was little wonder that the clause for their compulsory carriage had been struck out of the shipping regulations. They stood, in his opinion, as little chance of being picked up as a two-ounce bottle in mid-Atlantic, probably less. He went along to the radio-cabin himself. The operator was humming in rhythmic harmony with the High-Shakers broadcast from Tedwich, Mars, when he entered.

“Turn off that blamed racket,” said Captain Troyte shortly. “Now what’s all this about a globe?”

The operator clicked out the High-Shakers and touched a switch to bring in the pre-set receiver. He listened a moment and then handed over the headphones. The Captain held one to his ear and waited: after a few seconds came an un- mistakable da, da di. He looked at this watch, timing it. Exactly ten seconds later it came again — da, da di. He waited until it had repeated once more.

“Good heavens, I really believe it is,” he said.

“Can’t be anything else, sir,” said the operator, smugly.

“Got a line on it?”

The operator had. He gave the angles. The Captain considered; The globe was ahead. By rough clock-face placing, at four o’clock, 30 degrees oblique on the last reading, and widening. There was no likelihood of colliding with it. “Is it coming towards us, or are we chasing it?” he demanded.

“Can’t say, sir. At a guess I should say we’re more or less chasing it. It’s signal strength had improved, but only slowly.”

“H’m,” said the Captain thoughtfully. “We’ll have to get it in. Keep an ear on it. Don’t do anything until you’re sure the signal strength is past maximum, there’d be a nasty mess if we were to hit it head on. When it’s begun to fade get the activator going, and we’ll fish it in. But for God’s sake do it gently, we don’t want the thing hurtling at us like a cannonball. Better let me know once you’ve got it started.” The Captain returned to his own cabin more interested than he admitted. The message-globe was an ingenious contrivance which had looked like being more useful that it had proved. The problem had been to provide a ship with some means of communicating its trouble in case of radio failure or wreck. In theory it was to be discharged in the direction of the nearest spacelane where its signal could scarcely fail to be picked up; in actual use very few had been picked up and it had progressively less chance of being found as the area of space operation increased. The general opinion which had led to its omission from the statutory list of equipment was that the majority of the globes sent off continued to tick out their signals undetected until their power gave out whereupon they floated about in space as additional hazards. There was a feeling that the hazards of space were quite numerous enough without them.

The radio operator hung his phones on a hook where he could hear the intermittent signal from the globe conveniently, pondered whether he should try to listen to the High-Shakers at the same time, decided against it, and hunted for the sealed box in which the activator had lain ever since the Madge G. was launched. After study of the instructions which he had not seen since the day when he’d mugged them up for his final examination, he got it set up. Then, there was nothing to do but wait.

Two and a half hours later the meter showed the signal strength of the globe to be falling off slightly. He lit a cigarette, took another look at the operating instructions, and grunted. Then he pressed a key on the activator, and waited.

Nearly a thousand miles away in space the 2½-foot diameter steel globe revolved slowly as it drifted in a leisurely way upon the orbit into which it had fallen. To all appearance it was as inert as any other fragment of flotsam in the void. Then gradually, almost imperceptibly at first, its revolution began to slow. In a few minutes it was revolving clumsily like a ball with its weight out of true. Another five minutes and it failed to complete a revolution, it paused as though just short of top dead centre, swung back, oscillated gently awhile and then came to rest.

Back on the Madge G., the radio operator called up the navigator who did some quick figuring; Out in space the globe swung a little in response to the calculations. The radio-operator pressed another key. An observer, had there been one close to the globe, would have seen little jets of flame spurt from that side of it distant from the Madge G. as the relays went in. Simultaneously he would have watched it break from its orbit and scud away on a course calculated to intersect with that of the ship far out of sight.

The radio-operator informed the Captain that the globe was on its way. The Captain joined him, and together they went over the signal-meter. “What did you give?” asked Captain Troyte.

“Five seconds on low power, sir,” the operator told him.

The strength of reception according to the needle was almost constant. “H’m. Our own speed, near as damn it,” said the Captain after a few minutes. “Better give it the same again.”

“Aye, aye, air.’’ The operator pressed his key once more. Far away in the shining steel ball the relays clicked as before. Fuel was injected into the miniature combustion chambers and ignited. Little daggers of flame stabbed out into the darkness behind the globe, and it thrust forward on its way at twice its former speed.

“That’ll do,” the Captain said. “You’ve no idea of its distance yet?”

“Impossible to tell, sir. If the batteries are strong it may be a long way off. If they’re down at all it may be only a hundred miles or so away. ‘No way of knowing, sir.”

“All right. Tell your relief to keep a check on it, and I’ll have the navigator set a watch for it. If it is a long way off it may be a number, of hours before we spot it?”

“Yes, sir.”

The Madge G. continued uninterrupted in her fall towards Jupiter. The operator after further consultation with the navigator corrected the globe’s course slightly in compensation for the increased speed. Again there was nothing to do but wait while somewhere outside in the blackness of space the little globe tore through the emptiness on a course designed to bring it to a rendezvous with the ship at a point far ahead.

“Better read up on this,” said the operator, throwing the instruction book to his relieving operator. “You may have to fish it in.”

The relief looked at the book. “Oh God. Just my bloody luck. Might have known it when I skipped the lecture on the things,” he said, gloomily.

Five hours later his telephone rang. “Think we’ve spotted it, Bill,” said the voice of the assistant navigator. “Hold on. Let you know in a minute or two.” He came through again in under the two minutes. “No doubt about it now. Couldn’t be sure before because the way it lies you can only see a crescent of it. It’s coming in a few points from dead astern, making a fairly acute angle with our own course. Keep your box of tricks handy, and hold on here.”

The radio operator arranged the remote-control set in front of him and waited, telephone in hand. “Coming up,” said the assistant navigator’s voice. “Coming along nicely.” He paused. “Overhauling us fast. About three miles or so off. I reckon. Doesn’t seem to be converging much...Hang it, it isn’t converging at all: it’s diverging. Must have pretty well crossed our course behind us. Better bring it over a bit. Bill. Give it a touch on the port tubes. Just a touch, gently as you can... God, man, call that a touch? It leapt like a frightened kangaroo. Stand by to correct with starboard tubes. She’s coming…coming...Blast, she’s out of the field of this instrument — half-a-minute ... Yes, there she is swinging right across, and ahead of us now. Correct when I tell you…ready…ready…now!”

Through the instrument he caught the little flutter of fire to the right of the sphere as the radio operator obeyed. “Okay,” he said, “direction good. Travelling dead ahead of us. Only diverging slightly, but she’s running away. Get ready to brake her. Better try three seconds on low power.... No, she’s still pulling ahead…Give another two seconds... No, damn it, that’s too much: we’ll overrun her. One second low power acceleration...That’s better: that’s much better. Now the least possible touch on her starboard tubes, again. And gently this time...”

The jockeying went on for quite a while. Gradually by correction, re-correction, and correction again the globe was juggled closer and closer until ship and globe were falling through space together with only a few hundred feet between them. Again the globe was steadied, and once more orientated towards the ship. The operator gave the lightest touch he could on the main tubes, and almost immediately braked her again.

“Great work, Bill,” approved the assistant navigator. “She’s still moving, coming in nicely. Stand by for magnets... I’ll tell you when...ready. . .now!”

The operator pressed another key. A moment later there was a clang which rang through the Madge G., as if she had been hit with a sledgehammer. “Whew,” said the radio operator as he wiped his brow and started to search for his cigarette case.

Outside, as the current flowed into the magnets, the drifting globe had swerved in one last wild pounce at the ship, and now clung there like a limpet.

Two spacesuit-clad figures emerged from the port and walked along the side of the ship on their magnetic soles. Reaching the globe, they slid it back along the metal hull and into the air lock. It was trundled in on to the main deck, and a hand threw an electric blanket over it to even up the temperature before they went to work on it.

An hour later Captain Troyte received the bunch of papers taken from the message compartment of the globe. He read them through with some surprise and incredulity. Then he picked up the telephone and spoke to the navigator. “Where’s Pomona Negra?” he enquired.

“Where’s what, sir?”

“Pomona Negra. I gather it’s an asteroid.”

“I’ll ring you back, sir.” The navigator came through with his information a few minutes later after consulting his tables. “Pretty nearly at the other side of its orbit now, sir.”

“Other side of the sun, in fact?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good, that lets us out,” said the Captain, gratefully. He sent the papers over to the radio operator with instructions to transmit to Chapman Station, Mars, in their entirety.

“Gawd,” said the operator. “All that lot! Pity we ever hooked that perishing globe.”

Which was truer than he knew.

CHAPTER 2

(Digest of information contained in message globe secured by the Madge G. 6 January 2051. Originals signed by D. L. Foggatt, Master).

At 10.50 hrs. 20 December 2049, the Research ship Joan III, owned by Tempel Lines, London, and under my command, encountered a space phenomenon hitherto unobserved or, to the best of my knowledge, unrecorded. One moment all was as usual; the next, without perceptible impact or shock, all instruments were obscured and all windows with them, and radio reception decreased to an almost inaudible whisper.

The Joan III, three months out from Gillington, Mars, is engaged on exploratory work in the asteroid belt. My crew is composed of men experienced in difficult and dangerous work of the kind, but none of them is acquainted either personally or by hearsay with circumstances like those in which we now find ourselves. Leaving Mars we struck outward in the plane of the ecliptic. Upon approaching the Belt we turned, maneuvering our approach upon a tangent, and gradually edging our way into the main path at a speed approximately that of the asteroids themselves.

Travelling with them thus and in their orbit, we settled too our work of plotting and charting — copies of such charts being enclosed herewith. For the following four weeks we moved with caution and restraint in that section of the Belt dominated by the large asteroid Pomona Negra, continuing our work of classification and description of the bodies, and occasionally putting investigating parties aground on certain asteroids, though without making discoveries of more than minor interest. Noting untoward, nothing, in fact, but events of ordinary routine occurred, until on 19th December we sighted a red asteroid.

This we judged to be a body of no great size, estimating its diameter at some three miles, but at a considerable distance from us. It was distinguished from all other objects as a brilliant scarlet crescent glowing almost as though it were afire. Detailed study of it was difficult by reason of other bodies of varying sizes which frequently interposed themselves in the distance that separated us from it. After consideration I gave orders to suspend other work while we investigated the matter. After we had been picking our way towards it for some two hours it was observed that other and smaller asteroids in its neighborhood were also glowing redly, though whether we had failed to detect them earlier or whether they had only recently become red I am unable to say. They also were difficult to observe on account of erratic and puzzling obscuration. Approximately three hours after first sighting the red asteroid the sudden masking of our instruments and windows occurred.

At once I sent out the 2nd Officer and one of the men to investigate the cause. Radio communication between their spacesuits and our headsets was found to be unimpeded. I asked what the trouble was. The 2nd Officer answered me. “I can’t say, sir. It’s a red stuff — red as blood. The whole ship’s covered in it, as though she’s been through a bath of paint.”

I inquired what kind of “red stuff.”

Kind of slimy, sir, like — like a half-melted jelly, only not transparent.”

“That’s not a lot of help,” I said. “Anyway, the first thing to do is to clean it off the instrument glasses and then off the windows.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” he acknowledged. I ordered the lights in the navigation room switched off, and we were able to see that the darkness was not complete. Experimentally we unshuttered one of the windows sunward and found the glass behind to be shining with a fierce red glow. The navigator reported that one of his instruments had been cleared to a usable condition, and the internal lights were switched on again.

We could hear the two men outside commenting on the unpleasant stickiness of the stuff they were clearing from a second instrument glass. “Hullo, Navigator. How’s that?” asked the Second.

“Okay,” replied the Navigator. “But the first one’s clouded over again.”

There was a pause, then: “That’s funny,” said the Second. “It’s almost as thick as before. Just a minute. I’ll give it another wipe.” For some moments there was silence.

Then the other man’s voice said in thoughtful surprise: “Good Lord! This is a thing!”

“What’s the matter, Mr. Docker?” I asked.

“It’s bizarre, sir,” replied the Second. “I wiped some of it off, and then while we looked at it the edges of the smear started to creep over the glass again. They’re still doing it. Not exactly flowing back like a liquid: kind of encroaching, it’s…There, it’s covered the glass completely again.”

“The other instrument’s obscured again, too,” the Navigator put in.

“Well — “ began the Second. Then he stopped and we heard him mutter; “Good God — .” A moment later he added, as if to his companion: “What is it?”

“Well, what is it?” I repeated in irritation.

“I don’t know, sir. It seems to be something that — that grows.”

“All the same we must have those instruments clear,” I said.

“No good, sir,” he answered. “It grows back on them as fast as we can move it. It’s growing over us too, sir. It’s spreading up the suits. It’s above our knees an on our sleeves half way up to the shoulder already.”

I considered. Then I asked: “Are we clear of all bodies?”

“Yes, sir. Nothing within miles of us.”

“All right then, one of you come inboard and we’ll have a look at the stuff. The other to remain on watch.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” the Second responded.

Half a minute later a weird figure emerged from the airlock. His trunk was clad in the usual grey spacesuit, but both arms and legs were enveloped in a brilliant scarlet. The stuff glistened and did not look inviting to the touch. I scraped some of it off his sleeve with the blade of a knife and looked at it closely beneath the light. Quite perceptibly it was creeping up the clean part of the blade, and it seemed, as the Second had said, to grow rather than flow.

The other men in the room stood round regarding the man in the spacesuit curiously. One of them gave a sudden exclamation and pointed to his feet and the deck behind him. We looked down and saw the red film spreading out across the steel floor, not only from his feet as he stood, but from each footprint he had left in walking from the airlock. It was visibly, though slowly, extending even as we looked at it, and the substance on the man had passed beyond his arms to crawl on to his chest and shoulders. I told a man to fetch blowtorches and placed the knife carefully on to the floor near to the spreading mess. Instinctively we all avoided touching it while we waited.

The man returned with three blowtorches. When we’d started them up we tried one on a patch of the stuff on the floor. I think we all felt considerable relief when we saw the substance shrivel, smoke and char in the flame. The torches did not take long to destroy all that was left on the floor. The man in the spacesuit had made no attempt to remove his equipment and the torches could be run over him as he stood without injuring the insulating surface. It was a lucky state for him; how the stuff can be cleared from an inflammable or delicate surface such as clothes or the unprotected body we do not know.

By the time the last traces of the red stuff had been cleared the radio operator was reporting that he was receiving no reply to his calls, and that reception was faint after growing fainter even on full power. It appeared that the red substance must have some masking or leakage effect on the hull-aerial system.

The Second Officer came through again on the headset. He reported that the coating on the ship appeared to be building up and thickening.

“How’s it with you?” I asked.

“It’s all over me now, sir. I have to keep wiping the face plate every half minute or so to see at all. Otherwise I’m okay, sir.”

There was no falling off in his transmission which suggested that we had been right in assuming that interference with the hull-aerial system was the trouble. The radio operator decided to see if he could rig a serviceable internal aerial. So far, twenty-four hours later, he had not been successful in achieving transmission — at least, we were without replies to his messages.

It is difficult to see what can be done. Were we near any body with an atmosphere we might try by travelling reverse and flying into the blast of our own main tubes to burn ourselves clear of the mess; but, unfortunately, the only place with an atmosphere within many hundred thousand miles is Mars which we can have no hope of reaching with our instruments out of commission.

The only other way which suggests itself to us is the construction of some kind of pressure torches operated from our main full supply with which we may be able to incinerate the stuff, the engineers are at present attempting to construct devices of the kind.

Whether, if they are successful, it will be possible to carry out the operation in space we cannot say. We are therefore cautiously and by visual findings only of an officer on outside watch in the direction of Pomona Negra on which asteroid we can ground if necessary.

In the twenty-four hours which has passed since we encountered the red substance I have myself been outside twice to inspect the vessel. There is no doubt whatever that the layer which covers us is increasing in thickness, and in traversing the side of the vessel one’s feet slide through it as through a semi-liquid mud. The officer on watch is covered with the stuff so as to be almost indistinguishable from the ship and is under the necessity of wiping it from the faceplate of his helmet several times in a minute.

The nature of the substance we have not been able to determine since we dare not retain, a specimen inside the ship for examination. It is necessary to be most thorough in the decontamination of all persons re-entering after duty outside as any minute particle overlooked is capable of growing with surprising speed. The airlock so rapidly began to choke that it has to be decontaminated after every entrance or exit.

From superficial examination it has occurred to us that the substance may be some algae-like form capable of sustaining life by the creation of light alone, and of transferring this nourishment throughout the whole, though we are aware that this is somewhat in conflict with its observed ability to grow or reproduce itself within the ship as swiftly as without.

It has been decided to send out these particulars and other documents in a message globe lest we should be unable to establish radio- communication. The dispatch port will be cleared on the outer side by specially modified blowlamps so that it is hoped that the globe may be released without contamination.

Any vessel approaching us should be warned of the highly active nature of the substance and is advised not to make use of magnetic grapples or any other devices which may give a physical link with the ship. The date beneath the signature of the Master to the full version of the above report was 21st December 2049.

CHAPTER 3

On the 10th of February of the current year, a little over a month of the finding of the message-globe, the Annabelle, a service and research ship out of Gillington, Mars, made rendezvous with the Space-Control’s vessel Circe, despatched from Mexico, Earth, by way of Clarke Station.

The Annabelle pulled into the appointed area situated within the Asteroid Belt in the sector of Pomona Negra to find the Circe already arrived and lying idle at orbit speed as she waited. Even as his braking tubes went into action Captain Richard Bentley of the Annabelle made personal radio report to his opposite number in the other ship and announced himself.

“Oh, it’s you, Dick, is it?” responded the Circe’s Captain, with a tinge of relief evident in his tone. “They didn’t tell me who’d be in your ship. Glad you’re here. I’d a nasty feeling it might be one of those trip-round-the-Moon merchants — you never can tell with Head Office. I think the best thing would be for you to come over and have a chat once you’re up to us. Suit you?”

Bentley agreed. The Annabelle continued to brake smoothly until she too was down to orbit speed. Then, with occasional little tufts of flame from one steering tube and then another her pilot expertly manoeuvred her until she lay close in to the other ship. A magnetic grapple floated out towards the Circe with its cable looping lazily behind it. It moved a trifle wide of the ship and looked likely to miss it, but a momentary touch of current down the cable caused it to veer in the right direction. A minute or two later it made contact on the hull and clamped itself there as the power was switched on. Captain Bentley emerged, space-suited, from the airlock of his ship, laid hold of the cable and pulled himself across the void which separated the two. He seemed to swim through the black emptiness, using only one hand on the rope with a dexterity which revealed experience.

Inside the Circe’s lock Captain Waterson greeted him and, after he had got rid of the suit, led the way to his cabin. He handed the visitor a drink in a space-bottle, tapped a globule into his own mouth from another with the skill of long practice, and lit a cigarette. Dick Bentley lit one also and inhaled.

“Lucky man,” he said, “Our owners don’t allow smoking.”

“Bad luck,” said Captain Waterson. “Anybody would think we were sailing in wood and paper ships to read some Company’s rules. They want to spend some time in space and learn that a contented crew is more important. Well, now, what about this business?”

“I don’t know any more than there is in Foggatt’s report.”

“Nor does space-control. That’s why we’re here. They want all the details we can get.”

“What’s your own view?” Bentley asked.

“I’m not forming any views yet, but I’m not discounting anything Foggatt says; he is — or was — a sound man. It’s clear that Space-Control takes it seriously or they wouldn’t have arranged for the two of us to be on the job.”

Bentley nodded. “Well, you’re in charge, Tom. What’s the plan?”

“We’ve got two jobs really. One is to locate the Joan III and give all assistance we can. The other is to find some of this red stuff Foggatt talks about. Learn what we can about it and collect some specimens for examination at home.”

Bentley nodded again. “There shouldn’t be a lot of difficulty about the second part. From Foggatt’s account of the red asteroids I gather he thought that it existed on them. They’re somewhere in this area, so they ought not to be hard to find. What isn’t at all clear is how the Joan III became covered with the stuff. If the report’s right it didn’t gradually grow over her. The instrument glasses and windows were all covered at once more or less the same moment.”

“I know,” Captain Waterson agreed. “It would seem almost as if she ran through a cloud of the stuff just lying about in space, as it were. Strange things do lie about in space .... I’ve seen one or two myself in my time, but all the same…Besides, how was it they didn’t spot it before they ran into it? They don’t seem to have had a suspicion there was anything there.”

“There was some reference to obstruction of observations at the time,” Dick Bentley recalled, “though it seemed as if it referred to intervening flocks of petty asteroids.”

“H’m. Well if we find them maybe we’ll learn a bit more, — but it’s a big if. Nearly fourteen months now since they sent off that globe. Seems to me one of the things we’ve got to keep a sharp look out for round these parts is that we don’t get into the same kind of mess they did.”

“Maybe that’s why they sent the two of us,” Bentley suggested, thoughtfully.

They got down to the details of operation. There could be no doubt about the first move. It would be to examine the Asteroid, Pomona Negra, for any signs that the Joan III had indeed landed there as her intention had been. It was quite possible that crippled as she was on the navigation side and depending only on the directions of a lookout who would find difficulty in the conditions in using even field-glasses, she had been unable to reach it. If neither she nor any sign of her presence was to be seen, there would be a further conference on the method of search to be adopted.

Captain Bentley was content to leave the arrangement at that when he returned to the Annabelle. Half an hour later the two ships, at a speed very little above that of the asteroids themselves began to nose their way with a delicate fastidiousness into the Belt in the direction of Pomona Negra.

The next days were tedious with slow movement. The imperative quality was caution. It was impossible to observe and avoid all contact with asteroids which travelled not only in swarms, but often solitary and might be in size anything from a pebble to a large building, and therefore necessary to limit their speed to one at which the larger bodies could be seen and avoided and glancing or direct blows from the smaller would do no harm. For all on board the ships it was a disagreeable period of weariness which frayed the nerves and shortened the tempers.

Were Pomona Negra an outflyer such as Pallas or Eros, approach would be simpler: unfortunately she holds an orbit of low inclination to the ecliptic and travels attended by considerable ruck of cosmic debris, and there is no path to her that does not require patience and caution. Almost two weeks passed before Circe signalled observation of a body 75 miles in diameter in the position nominally occupied by Pomona Negra.

Bentley contacted Captain Waterson: “What’s this ‘nominally’ stuff, Tom? There can scarcely be two asteroids of that size around here.”

“That’s just the trouble, Dick. If Pomona Negra means anything it should be The Black Apple — because, presumably, the thing’s black. This isn’t — it’s bright scarlet.”

“Oh-ho,” murmured Bentley thoughtfully.

“Exactly my sentiments. Oh-ho, followed by, now what?”

“Well— what?”

“Investigate cautiously. Decrease speed, proceed with added care to avoid any suspicious object or substance. Pick your own course — it’s wiser to separate in case whatever the Joan III ran into is hanging around. Rendezvous 25-mile level to sunward of Pomona. Keep in radio touch. In case of radio failure the ship in trouble will reduce to Pomona’s orbit speed and the other ship will go to her aid. Got it?”

“Okay. That’s clear. And at the rendezvous we inspect and decide further?”

“That’s it. Good luck, Dick.”

“And to you, Tom.”

Three days later the two ships hung at the appointed twenty-five miles above the surface of the reputed Pomona Negra. No one had the least doubt that it was the right asteroid, but the name was now thoroughly inappropriate; no single spot of black was visible on its surface. Bentley, visiting the Circe once more, suggested that the first thing to do was to recommend that its name be changed to Pomona Rosa.

They looked out of the window at it: a globe of scarlet touched here and there by the fall of the light with a faint oily iridescence. The surface was smooth, fat, bulgingly unpleasant as if distended. More than anything else it reminded Bentley of a boil, angry and bloated with pressure.

Captain Waterson’s expression as he gazed at it was serious. “That thing,” he said, “should be a ball of rough black rock. Instead, it’s a perfectly smooth globe. God knows what quantity of the stuff there must be to have levelled off over all that area. The rate of growth! It doesn’t bear thinking about.”

“Assuming that the Joan III brought it here, you mean.”

“I think we’re justified in that. It can’t have been like this before or Foggatt would have noticed it and reported it.”

“He did report some of those red asteroids,” Bentley reminded him.

‘‘But nothing like this. We saw some small ones ourselves some twenty-four hours back, a few twenty or thirty footers, I expect you did. This is colossal, horrible — And it must have overrun the whole thing in less than fourteen months: that’s what gets me. I’d not believe it possible anything could grow at such a rate. Think of the area it covers!”

They gazed down in silence for some minutes on the asteroid. The more Bentley looked at it the less he liked it – though at moments it had the aspect of a vast vivid pearl, its constant suggestion was repulsively obscene tumescence. “What do you suppose it is?” he asked at length.

Waterson shrugged his shoulders. “What is life anyway? — some kind of seed floating about the universe until it finds suitable conditions to develop? May be. Lord knows what there may be in all this Space. Perhaps we were once a few chance spores; perhaps there are a lot of different kinds of life floating about waiting for time to give them their chance.”

“Still, that’s for the scientists to argue about when they get some of the stuff. The present question is what about Foggatt and the Joan III?”

Bentley stared down at the red mass. “I’m afraid there’s not much question there. Even if they could keep the stuff out of the ship, and manage to survive as long as this — which is doubtful, what is there to be done about it? Nothing if they’re buried in all that muck. You could try full power on the radio, but it’s unlikely, by the report, to reach them — and even if it could, it’s highly improbable that they’ve had anyone listening on the chance all this time. Honestly, I don’t see that there is anything to be done, poor devils.”

Waterson pondered, and then agreed reluctantly. “Nor do I, hanged if I do. I’m afraid that was finish for poor old Foggatt and his lot. Still, I shall go down and take a closer look — there might be something though I doubt it. Anyway, I’ve got to get the specimens. Your job’ll be to hang around here and keep an eye on things.”

“Okay, Tom. For Heaven’s sake be careful, though.”

“Oh, I’m not going to take any risks. Just shoot down some automatically closing specimen bottles and have a man standing by to burn them clean when we haul them up again. Simple. No, I’m not taking any chances with that stuff. Loathsome looking muck, it is.”

Back on the Annabelle, Bentley watched the Circe go down on a spiral matched to the rotation of the scarlet globe. Through the instruments they watched the shuttle-like, silver shape level off a mile or less above the surface and set itself to circle the asteroid.

“What’s it look like from there, Circe?” the Annabelle’s navigator asked his opposite number.

“More revolting, if possible,” the other assured him. “Like a mass of red mucous; disgusting. Not altogether stable, either. Unless it’s a trick of the light, there seems to be undulations in it. Might be a sort of tidal movement — or it might be something to do with its metabolism as it revolves, if Foggatt’s notion of its drawing sustenance from sunlight is right. Going to make a circuit now.”

Reception faded as the Circe passed round the other side of the monstrosity and came back as she reappeared. “The same all the way round.” said her navigator. “Just a nasty big blob. Another circuit at 90 degrees now.”

He watched the silver shape turn into line with the axis of the body and disappear over the nearer pole. No great time elapsed before it came into sight again flashing in the sunlight on the opposite side. “From what you can see in the dark round there, there’s no distinguishing feature anywhere,” came the navigator’s voice again. “Going down now. Descending to 300 feet, to take samples.”

From the Annabelle it looked as though the other ship were stationary. Only the reports of her navigator’s voice as he gave decreasing altitudes told them that she was actually sinking closer to the viscous surface. They heard him sing out: “Three hundred” and then: “Aye, aye, sir,” and, after a pause: “Two hundred, and steady, sir.”

Through the Annabelle’s instruments it was possible to discern some kind of disturbance on the red surface below the other ship. A sort of tide or tremor in roughly circular ripples seemed to be running through the mass. At first Bentley attributed t to the impact of the sample bottles which, he judged would now have been propelled into the substance, and thought it in consequence to be in a much more liquid state than he had hitherto imagined. Then he realised uneasily that the ripples were not spreading outwards as from a stone dropped into water but inwards. He doubted if the effect were as clearly observable from the close range of the other ship, and leaned over to speak into the navigator’s phone.

“Circe. There’s something strange going on just below you.” he said.

A voice came back: “It’s okay, sir. Just the effect of — ‘S’trewth!”

Bentley turned back to his instrument just in time to catch a glimpse of the cause of the exclamation. The stuff had gathered in a kind of mound beneath the Circe and flung out towards her a vast shapeless limb of itself, a reaching pseudopod like a licking red tongue.

Those on board wasted no time. There was a gush from the Circe’s main tubes, and she leapt forward like a flash. But swift as she was, she did not draw clear in time. She tore through the top of the extending tongue like a streak and emerged from it with speed undiminished, but she was no longer a silver ship: from bow to tubes she was coated in brilliant scarlet.

At once, with her hull aerial system fouled, radio communication died. Captain Bentley seized a headset of the type built into spacesuits and began calling. Evidently Waterson had done the same. His first remarks were vivid, but unprintable. Bentley waited for the picturesqueness to subside. “You all right?” he asked.

“What do you mean, ‘all right’? The main radio’s dead, and we can’t see a bloody thing outside, otherwise I suppose we are. Except that we’ll have lost the man in the airlock putting down the bottles, I’m afraid.”

Another voice cut in, speaking somewhat unsteadily: “I’m still here, sir, in the lock. Must have been knocked kind of silly for a minute when we started like that.”

“Good man. Look here — “

Bentley broke in on them: “Tom, what about braking? You’re still running free, you know.”

“God, yes!” He heard Captain Waterson shout orders for deceleration equal to previous impetus.

The man in the lock spoke again. “The place is crawling with this ruddy muck, sir.”

“Is the outer door damaged?”

There was a pause. “No, it’s shut all right, sir.”

“Good. Well, keep it shut. You’ve still got the blow torch?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Right. Clean up with it as much as you can in there. Don’t touch your suit fastenings. When you come out I’ll have a couple of chaps here with torches to finish it off. That clear?”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Captain Waterson turned his attention back to Bentley and the Annabelle. “Where are we?” he asked,

“About three hundred miles sunward from Pomona,” Dick told him. “You made some jump. We’re coming up to you now. You’re lying pretty well at orbit speed. Hold it like that.”

“We’re covered in the stuff, I take it?”

“Every inch.” He caused for another burst of lurid comment which ended with Waterson’s enquiry, “What the hell do we do now?”

“I suggest I try to burn you clean.”

“How?”

“First thing, I’m going to send over two grapples, one to bow and the other to stern.”

“The stuff will spread back along the cables to you.”

“We can take care of that. The thing I want to know is can you roll your ship? Without giving any directional movement, I mean.”

“Roll? What, you mean horizontally?”

“Sure.”

“God knows. In all my years in space I’ve never even wanted to try. You’d better speak to the engineer about that. What if we can?”

“Then I turn my tubes on to you. That ought to burn pretty near anything off.”

“It’ll shove you away.”

“Not if I put on the braking tubes to balance the thrust.”

“H’m. It’s an idea,” approved Captain Waterson. “Yes, it’s worth trying — only don’t go and concertina your ship in between the two thrusts.”

“We’ll take good care of that,” Bentley assured him, and turned to his preparations.

The two magnets were floated out, and since accurate placing was necessary, were guided into position by spacesuited men equipped with propulsive pistols. The two men took good care to project themselves back from the red hull before contact was made. The rest watching intently from the Annabelle’ s windows broke into comments; within half a minute it was possible to see the red substance begin to swarm up the sides of the magnets; in four it was starting to travel along the cables connecting the ships. Once it had begun, it continued to extend along them at a surprising rate. Then, some fifty out from the Circe, it came to an obstruction. The Annabelle’s men watched anxiously, and then relaxed for the progress of the red substance was checked. It had encountered the three-foot sections that had been wrapped in asbestos and bound with wire which now glowed incandescent, and it did not like them. The advance was stepped, and it contented itself with thickening upon that part of the cable already covered.

The Annabelle maneuvered delicately to place herself stern on to the other ship, and slightly closed the distance between them. “Hello, Circe,” Bentley called; “I’m about to start. Have your outside party ready with lamps to mop up when we finish. Be ready to start rolling when I give the word — and make it as slow as you can.”

A blaze began to glow from both forward and stern tubes of the Annabelle. Gradually it increased to a blast of fire gushing out from the stern tubes to envelope the scarlet ship in a roaring gale of fire. The effect upon the substance was immediate and encouraging. Under the scaring heat the red coating shrivelled, smoked and blackened.

“Roll Circe. Gently over,” Bentley ordered. Slowly, still bathed in the fiery spume, the Circe began to turn on one side, and as the further side rolled into the heat the scarlet vanished to leave nothing but a sticky, incinerated mess.

Bentley was being cautious. The Circe made six complete revolutions before he gave her the word to stop and shut off his tubes. A moment after she had ceased to turn half a dozen men with their adapted torches already lighted emerged from the airlock and scattered about the hull. Another half dozen joined them a minute later, and already a party was floating across from the Annabelle to join them. They found the smooth hull sterilized of all life. The remains were now no more than an inert rough covering baked on like a black varnish. Even so, the stuff had not been completely eliminated. Where there were crevices or angles protecting it from the direct flame it had managed to survive the heat of the metal beneath it, and with a persistent tenacity was starting to spread again from such sheltered spots as the bunched flanges mounting fore and rear tubes and others which had chanced to lie in the lee of some projection. The men swarmed around the danger points playing their flames into any and every cranny which had the least chance of holding a grain of the scarlet pest intact. After an hour’s work they were satisfied that the last vestige save for that enclosed in the specimen bottles had been completely exterminated. Nevertheless, Captain Waterson was taking no chances; when his men were called in, an outside party of four remained on watch, ready to pounce upon the first speck of red they might spy.

He and Bentley adjourned to his cabin and toasted the occasion. “Well, thank God they did send two ships — most intelligent thing I’ve ever known them do,” he said. “Even after Foggatt’s report I didn’t realise what a hell-brewed stuff it is until it got us. If is wasn’t for you, Dick — “ He shrugged and turned his thumbs down.

“Well, hang it, that’s what I was here for, wasn’t it? But I’m afraid it makes it pretty certain what happened to the Joan III,” Waterson nodded, and looked out of the windows towards the red globe which was Pomona.

“It does, Dick. That’ll be the report. If they want to find her now, they’ve got to find some means of clearing away that muck. God, if that stuff did get at them — horrible! It’d smother and blind you within five minutes.”

“And that’s all we’ve got to tell ‘em,” Bentley said. “Yes, that’s it, — but we’ve got samples of the stuff. I suppose that’s the really important thing. It may save others from going the way Foggatt did — and we nearly did.”

A few hours later the two ships turned sunward and began again their wearisome, cautious progress. Clear of the Belt they put on speed, risking the outfliers, and their ways diverged. The Annabelle set course for her home port on Mars. The Circe to return to Earth by way the Clarke Lunar Station.

CHAPTER 4

What happened while Captain Waterson and his crew relaxed and slept in the resthouse at Clarke Station during the period when the Circe was refuelled, checked and inspected preparatory to her home drop to Earth remains a mystery at present, and one to be cleared up at the official enquiry before the Space Control Commissioners.

It is difficult to believe that any member of the ship’s company, after their recent experience, would be either careless or negligent where the red substance was concerned. The specimen bottles are said to have been locked into a steel cupboard in the Captain’s cabin. If they were, and it is believed that evidence on this point is unimpeachable, then it would seem that one of two things must have happened; either some person moved by curiosity or the hope of a valuable find broke into that cupboard and opened one or more bottles: or some of the containers were faulty or damaged and the contents leaked— it would be able to pass beyond the door since an airtight fit for lockers and cupboards are not normally safe equipment in space. Possibly we shall never be certain which was the cause.

Whatever took place, the lamentable fact is that no report of the leakage was made until several hour later. That much is clear for the first party to notice a pool of red jelly found its edges already some yards from the ship. They were interested, but not alarmed, taking it at first for a pool of some kind of lubricant, and had even walked several steps into it before paying it serious attention. It then occurred to the leader that the extent was greater than he had supposed and thinking it likely that it might be some kind of fuel and possibly dangerous, he ordered his men back and went to report. Thus both he and his men spread it further on their boots.

The Station Official on duty who accompanied him to make examination was better informed, and realised what it was, but in his inexperience lacked the caution to avoid all contact with it. By the time the news of the outbreak reached Captain Waterson it was spreading in all directions from trails left by men who had stepped in it and others who had crossed them; half a dozen offices were already infected, and a number of workers daubed scarlet from head to foot were spreading it further every minute.

Confusion followed. Efforts were made to remove all uncontaminated ships, and force had to be used to prevent the Captains taking off in craft which had been contaminated. There is nothing to be gained by minimising the fact that for a time a regrettable state of panic reigned. But it is to the credit of certain officials that no infected ship did, in fact, succeed in leaving during that time.

Little could be done. The only torches modified to work in airless conditions were aboard the Circe. Had they been available they were too few and too small to have appreciable effect upon the area now affected. Fuel was plentiful but since it will not burn without an atmosphere, it was impossible to ring the area with fire.

So far it has been impossible to check the spread of the substance. Fire projectors of various kinds are being adapted as quickly as possible and will be rushed to the scene via the Whitley Lunar Station as soon as they are available. Every precaution is being taken against the starting of new outbreaks. The state is one of the gravest emergency calling for the enlistment of all scientific effort. Not only is our whole system of space navigation based upon use of the Moon as a waystation so that without it we must become earthbound again until new and more powerful fleets have been constructed, but there is the menace of the red substance itself.

There is no need for panic, but it is necessary for everyone to realize the full gravity of the situation. Whatever the cost, this substance must be prevented from spreading; above all, no grain of it must be allowed to reach Earth.

Volunteers are already fighting and dying on the Moon in order that that shall not happen. All our resources must back them without stint. Hope is expressed that certain radioactive materials may prove effective against the menace. Everything must be tried at all costs.

If anyone doubts the necessity of the sacrifices he may have to make, let him look through even a low-powered telescope at the Moon. A little east of Plato in the semi-circle of the Sinus Iridium, where Clarke Lunar Station used to stand, he will see a bright scarlet patch already flowing out across the Mare Imbrium. Let him imagine that it was not Clarke Station, but his own town that stood there, and let him make his sacrifices to prevent imagination becoming reality.

Reservation Deferred (1953)

Dying at seventeen, and provided the circumstances allow it to be decorous, can be terribly romantic. The picture one makes: pretty, though a little pale, spiritual-eyed; displayed, as it were, against a pile of pillows, with the frills of the nylon nightie showing beneath the lacy wool bed-jacket; the lights in one’s hair glistened by the bedside lamp, the slender hand so delicately ivory against the pale pink silk of the eiderdown comforter.

The bud scarce unfurled, the dew still undried, the heart not yet hardened.

Character, too: patience, sweetness, gratitude for the little things people do, kindly forgiveness to the doctors one has defeated, sympathy for those who are weepy about one, resignation, quiet fortitude. It can all be very beautiful and sad-romantic, and not nearly so distressing as people think —particularly if one is quite sure of heaven, as Amanda was.

Search as she might, she could find no more than a few featherweight reproaches to lay upon herself. The one or two peccadilloes she had managed to dredge up from earliest childhood — matters concerning an ownerless penny spent on sweets, an apple that had fallen from a barrow, one’s failure to own up to putting the thumbtack on Daphne Deakin’s chair — would, the Rev. Mr. Willis assured her, be unlikely to have any appreciable effect upon the granting of her entry permit. So, in a way, she had an advantage over other people who would have to go on living longer lives, and probably earning black marks in the course of them. There was a lot of compensation in being assured of heaven.

At the same time, she would have liked to be a little surer of what to expect there. Mr. Willis was positive enough about the place, but in such a general way; so difficult to pin down to details. He tended, too, to evade the more piercing questions, with unsatisfactory observations on the possibility of something happening which would make the exact nature of heaven a less urgent question for her. In fact, nobody seemed either to know much about heaven, or to be willing to discuss its organizations with her.

Dr. Frobisher, after admitting his ignorance, always steered the conversation to what he called a less morbid topic — though how heaven, of all places, could be classified as morbid Amanda failed to understand. It was much the same with her mother. Mrs. Day’s expression would cloud ; she would answer awkwardly once or twice, and then say, “Darling, let’s talk about something more cheerful, shall we?” So Amanda, though she did not in the least under- stand how heaven could be heaven if it weren’t cheerful, would, in the sweetness of her disposition, talk about something quite uninteresting, instead.

Still, it was very nice to know that one was qualified for heaven, and that everyone was agreed about it. Rather like winning a scholarship and becoming self-supporting at an early age and carrying something of an obligation to be kind and thoughtful towards those who had not such advantages.

A slow decline, someone had called it — a funny idea, that: the Present, the Imperfect, the Perfect — but it was prettier to think of petals falling, fluttering softly down until one day they would all be gone, and people would cry a little and say how brave she had been, and how happy she must be in heaven now.

And possibly it would have gone off tidily like that, except for the ghost.

Just at first, Amanda did not realise she was a ghost. When she woke up and saw her standing inside the door, she thought for a moment that perhaps they had now got a night nurse who was looking in to see how she was doing. Then it occurred to her that a nurse would very likely be wearing more than just silk panties and bra, and also that she oughtn’t to be visible at all, because the room was dark. The ghost, seeing her there, showed a trace of surprise.

“Oh, sorry to intrude,” she said. I thought you would have gone by now.” And she turned as if to leave.

She was a very unalarming-looking ghost. A seemingly friendly girl with slightly red hair, rather wide eyes, an enviable figure, and charming hands and feet. Amanda guessed her at about seven or eight years older than herself. “No. Please don’t go,” she told her, on impulse.

The ghost turned back, a little surprised. “You’re sure you don’t mind?” she said gratefully. “I mean, people are so touchy. Usually they scream.”

“I don’t see why,” said Amanda. “Anyhow, I’ll probably be a ghost or something myself soon.”

“Oh, I shouldn’t think so,” said the ghost, in a social-polite voice.

“Come and sit down. You can put the eiderdown round you if you feel cold,” invited Amanda.

“Luckily, that’s not one of my troubles,” said the ghost, sitting down and crossing one elegant leg over the other.

“Er…my name’s Amanda,” Amanda told her.

“Mine’s Virginia,” said the ghost. “I can’t imagine why.”

There was a pause, during which Amanda’s curiosity mounted. She hesitated, then she said: “I hope it’s not something I shouldn’t ask, but how do you happen to be a ghost? I mean, I thought people just went to one place or the other, if you see what I mean.”

“One place or the other?” repeated Virginia. “Oh, I see. No, it isn’t quite as simple as that. But, anyway, I’m a special case — a sort of D.P. at the moment. The whole thing is sub judice, so I just have to wander round until they’ve made up their minds.”

Amanda was puzzled. “How do you mean?” she asked.

“Well,” explained Virginia, “when my husband strangled me, it looked just like an ordinary murder, really. But then someone raised a question about the degree of provocation. If they decide I went above a particular reading, they can bring it in as suicide, which would be bad. Of course, I should appeal on grounds of prior counter-provocation. He’s that tame sort who would provoke a saint into provoking him. I suppose I did overdo it a bit. But if you knew him, you’d understand.”

‘‘What’s it like? Being strangled, I mean?” Amanda asked, interestedly.

“Horrid, really,” said Virginia. “And I’d have been more careful if I’d known it was going to lead to all this hanging around while they argue about it.”

“It’s disappointing,” said Amanda. “I was hoping you might be able to tell me something about heaven.”

“Heaven? Why?”

“Well,” said Amanda, “nobody here seems to be able to tell me, and I expect to be going there soon. So I thought it’d be nice to know what it’s like.”

“Good gracious!” exclaimed Virginia, opening her wide eyes wider.

Amanda did not see that there was any “Good gracious!” about it. Expecting to go to heaven seemed to her a very reasonable ambition. She said so.

“Dear, dear. Poor thing,” observed Virginia compassionately.

In anyone less sweet than Amanda, her faint moue might have been called sulkiness. “I don’t see what’s wrong with that,” she said.

“From personal observation, I wouldn’t — “ began Virginia.

“Oh, you do know about it, then?”

“I’ve looked it over. Parts of it, anyway,” Virginia admitted.

Amanda’s interest kindled. She propped herself a little higher against the pillows. “Oh, please tell me about it, please!” she begged eagerly.

Virginia considered. “Well,” she said, “the first district I saw was the oriental section. It’s all very gorgeous and technicolored, and you wear lots of jewels and a veil and transparent trousers. The men wear beards and turbans, and you have to cluster round them in groups of not less than twenty to each. It looks a bit like autograph-hunting, only it isn’t, of course. Then, after a time, he beckons one out of the mob, and it always turns out to be somebody else, and so you have to go and find another place to cluster, and everybody simply loathes you for crashing in on their lot. It’s all terribly frustrating.”

“Is that all?” asked Amanda unhappily.

“Pretty much. You can eat Turkish delight in the intervals of course, and I suppose by the law of averages — “

“I mean, it doesn’t sound a bit like I thought.”

“Oh, it’s different in different sections. The Nordic part isn’t a bit like that. There you spend nearly all your time washing and bandaging great gashes in heroes and making broth for them in between whiles. I suppose it’s all right for people who happen to have had a hospital training, but it seemed frightfully gory and messy to me. Besides, the heroes are such types. Never take a scrap of notice of you. They’re either bragging, or flat out, or just off to get some more gashes. All terribly tedious, I thought.”

“That doesn’t sound quite the kind — “ Amanda began.

But Virginia went on: “Still, I must say, for high-octane tediousness you want to take a look at the Nirvana district. Talk about highbrow! You can only see it if you peep over the wall, because there’s a notice saying ‘No women allowed’, and — “

“What I was meaning,” Amanda interrupted firmly, “is the ordinary kind of heaven. You know, the one they tell us about when we’re children, but never seem to explain properly.”

“Oh, that one,” said Virginia. “Oh, my dear! So prim. I wouldn’t advise it, really. So much choral singing and poetry reading all the time. Good, you know, high quality and all that, but sort of serious — and the music being all trumpets and harps gets kind of monotonous. So much white’s awfully tiring, too. The whole thing’s frightfully — what’s the word, antiseptic? — no, ascetic, that’s it. They’ve got a no-marriage law there. Imagine it! The result is nobody dares even ask you out for a cup of coffee after the music for fear of being arrested. Mind you, I daresay saints like it quite a lot — “ She broke off. “You’re not a saint, are you?”

“ — I don’t think so.”

“Well, unless you are, I simply wouldn’t recommend it.” Virginia went on, giving details.

Amanda listened to her with growing dismay. At last she broke in: “But it just can’t be like that. You’re simply spoiling everything for me. I was so happy knowing I was going to heaven, too. I think you’re just being cruel and beastly.”

Virginia stared at her. Then she said: “But my poor dear, don’t you understand. They’re all men’s heavens, and that’s hell for women. Seems as if nobody ever got around to designing a heaven for women, don’t ask me why. But, honest, I’d keep well clear of these men’s heavens if I were you.”

But at that point Amanda’s tears overflowed. The sound of her own unhappy sobs prevented her from hearing anymore, and when she looked up again Virginia had gone. In fact, Amanda was so disappointed that she was irritable and surprised everyone by starting to get better.

And when she was quite well she married an accountant who seemed to think of heaven as the perfect cybernetics machine, and that wasn’t very interesting to a girl, either.

More Spinned Against (1953)

One of the things about her husband that displeased Lydia Charters more as the years went by was the shape of him: another was his hobby. There were other displeasures, of course, but it was these in particular that rankled her with a sense of failure.

True, he had been much the same shape when she had married him, but she had looked for improvement. She had envisioned the development, under her domestic influence, of a more handsome, more suave, better-filled type. Yet after nearly twelve years of her care and feeding there was scarcely any demonstrable improvement. The torso, the main man, looked a little more solid, and the scales endorsed that it was so, but, unfortunately, this simply seemed to have the result of emphasizing the knobbly, gangling, loosely hinged effect of the rest.

Once, in a mood of more than usual dissatisfaction, Lydia had taken a pair of his trousers, and measured them carefully. Inert and empty, they seemed all right — long in the leg naturally, but not abnormally so, and the usual width that people wore — but, put to use, they immediately achieved the effect of being too narrow and full of knobs, just as his sleeves did. After the failure of several ideas to soften this appearance, she had realized that she would have to put up with it. Reluctantly, she had told herself: “Well, I suppose it can’t be helped. It must be just one of those things — like horsey women getting to look more like horses, I mean,” and thereby managed a dig at the hobby, as well.

Hobbies are convenient in the child, but irritant in the adult; which is why women are careful never to have them, but simply to be interested in this or that. It is perfectly natural for a woman — and Lydia was a comely demonstration of the art of being one — to take an interest in semi-precious and, when she can afford them, precious stones: Edward’s hobby, on the other hand, was not really natural to anyone.

Lydia had known about the hobby before they were married, of course. No one could know Edward for long without being aware of the way his eyes hopefully roved the corners of any room he chanced to be in, or how, when he was out of doors, his attention would be suddenly snatched away from any matter in hand by the sight of a pile of dead leaves, or a piece of loose bark. It had been irritating at times, but she had not allowed it to weigh too much with her, since it would naturally wither from neglect later. Lydia held the not uncommon opinion that though, of course, a married man should spend a certain amount of his time assuring an income, beyond that there ought to be only one interest in his life — from which it followed that the existence of any other must be slightly insulting to his wife, since everybody knows that a hobby is really just a form of sublimation.

The withering, however, had not taken place.

Disappointing as this was in itself, it would have, been a lot more tolerable if Edward’s hobby had been the collection of objects of standing — say, old prints, or first editions, or oriental pottery. That kind of thing could not only be displayed for envy, it had value; and the collector himself had status. But no one achieved the status of being any more than a crank for having even a very extensive collection of spiders.

Even over butterflies or moths, Lydia felt without actually putting the matter to the test, one could perhaps have summoned up the appearance of some enthusiasm. There was a kind of “nature’s living jewels” line that one could take if they were nicely mounted. But for spider’s – a lot of nasty, creepy-crawly, leggy horrors, all getting gradually more pallid in tubes of alcohol — she could find nothing to be said at all.

In the early days of their marriage Edward had tried to give her some of his own enthusiasm, and Lydia had listened as tactfully as possible to his explanations of the complicated lives, customs, and mating habits of spiders, most of which seemed either disgusting, or very short on morals, or frequently both, and to his expatiations on the beauties of coloration and marking which her eye lacked the affection to detect. Luckily, however, it had gradually become apparent from some of her comments and questions that Edward was not awakening the sympathetic understanding he had hoped for, and when the attempt lapsed Lydia had been able to retreat gratefully to her former viewpoint from which all spiders were undesirable, and the dead only slightly less horrible than the living.

Realizing that frontal opposition to spiders would be poor tactics, she had attempted a quiet and painless weaning. It had taken her two or three years to appreciate that this was not going to work; after that, the spiders had settled down to being one of those bits of the rough that the wise take with the smooth and leave unmentioned except on those occasions of extreme provocation when the whole catalogue of one’s dissatisfactions is reviewed.

Lydia entered Edward’s spider room about once a week, partly to tidy and dust it, and partly to enjoy detesting its inhabitants in a pleasantly masochistic fashion. This she could do on at least two levels. There was the kind of generalized satisfaction that anyone might feel in looking along the rows of test-tubes that, at any rate, here were a whole lot of displeasing creepies that would creep no more. And then there was the more personal sense of compensation in the reflection that though they had to some extent succeeded in diverting a married man’s attention from its only proper target, they had had to die to do it.

There was an astonishing number of test-tubes ranged in the racks along the walls; so many that at one time she had hopefully inquired whether there could be many more kinds of spiders. His first answer of five hundred and sixty in the British Isles had been quite encouraging, but then he had gone on to speak of twenty thousand or so different kinds in the world, not to mention the allied orders, whatever they might be, in a way that was depressing.

There were other things in the room besides the test-tubes: a shelf of reference books, a card-index, a table holding his carefully hooded microscope. There was also a long bench against one wall supporting a variety of bottles, packets of slides, boxes of new test-tubes, as well as a number of glass-topped boxes in which specimens were preserved for study alive before they went into the alcohol for his collection.

Lydia could never resist peeping into these condemned cells with a satisfaction which she would scarcely have cared to admit, or, indeed, even have felt in the case of other creatures, but somehow with spiders it just served them right for being spiders. As a rule there would be five or six of them in similar boxes, and it was with surprise one morning that she noticed a large bell jar ranged neatly in the line. After she had done the rest of the dusting, curiosity took her over to the bench. It should, of course, have been much easier to observe the occupant of the bell jar than those of the boxes, but in fact it was not, because the inside, for fully two-thirds of its height, was obscured by web. A web so thickly woven as to hide the occupant entirely from the sides. It hung in folds, almost like a drapery, and on examining it more closely, Lydia was impressed by the ingenuity of the work; it looked surprisingly like a set of Nottingham lace curtains — though reduced greatly in scale, of course, and perhaps not quite in the topflight of design. Lydia went closer to look over the top edge of the web, and down upon the occupant. “Good gracious!” she said.

The spider, squatting in the center of its web-screened circle, was quite the largest she had ever seen. She stared at it. She recalled that Edward had been in a state of some excitement the previous evening, but she had paid little attention except to tell him, as on several previous occasions, that she was much too busy to go and look at a horrible spider: she also recalled that he had been somewhat hurt about her lack of interest. Now, seeing the spider, she could understand that: she could even understand for once how it was possible to talk of a beautifully colored spider, as there could be no doubt at all that this specimen deserved a place in the “nature’s living jewels” class.

The ground color was a pale green with a darker stippling, which faded away towards the underside. Down the center of the back ran a pattern of blue arrowheads, bright in the center and merging almost into the green at the points. At either side of the abdomen were bracket-shaped squiggles of scarlet. Touches of the same scarlet showed at the joints of the green legs, and there were small markings of it, too, on the upper part of what Edward resoundingly called the cephalothorax, but which Lydia thought of as the part where the legs were fastened onto the body.

Lydia, leaned closer. Strangely, the spider had not frozen into immobility in the usual spiderish manner. Its attention seemed to be wholly taken up by something held out between its front pair of legs, something that flashed as it moved. Lydia thought that the object was an aquamarine, cut and polished. As she moved her head to make sure, her shadow fell across the bell jar. The spider stopped twiddling the stone and froze. Presently, a small, muffled voice said : “Hullo! Who are you?” with a slight foreign accent.

Lydia looked around. The               room was as empty as before.

“No. Here!” said the muffled voice.

She looked down again at the jar, and saw the spider pointing to itself with its number two leg on the right. “My name,” said the voice, sociably, “is Arachne. What’s yours ?”

“Er — Lydia,” said Lydia, uncertainly.

“Oh, dear! Why?” asked the voice.

Lydia felt a trifle nettled. “What do you mean, why?” she asked.

“Well, as I recall it, Lydia was sent to hell as a punishment for doing very nasty things to her lover, I suppose you aren’t given to—?”

“Certainly not,” Lydia said, cutting the voice short.

“Oh,” said the voice, doubtfully. “Still, they can’t have given you the name for nothing. And, mind you, I never really blamed Lydia, Lovers, in my experience, usually deserve — “

Lydia lost the rest as she looked around the room again, uncertainly. “I don’t understand,”  she said. “I mean, is it really — ?”

“Oh, it’s me, all right,” said the spider. And to make sure, it indicated itself again, this time with the third leg on the left.

“But — but spiders can’t — “

“Of course not. Not real spiders, but I’m Arachne — I told you that.”

A hazy memory stirred at the back of Lydia’s mind. “You mean the Arachne?” she inquired.

“Did you ever hear of another?” the voice asked, coldly.

“I mean, the one who annoyed Athene — though I can’t remember just how?” said Lydia.

“Certainly. I was technically a spinster, and Athene was jealous and — “

“I should have thought it would be the other way — oh, I see, you mean you spun?”

“That’s what I said. I was the best spinner and weaver, and when I won the all-Greece open competition and beat Athene she couldn’t take it; she was so furiously jealous and so she turned me into a spider. It’s very unfair to let gods and goddesses go in for competitions at all, I always say. They’re spitefully bad losers, and then they go telling lies about you to justify the bad-tempered things they do in revenge. You’ve probably heard it differently?” the voice added on a slightly challenging note.

“No, I think it was pretty much like that,” Lydia told her, tactfully. “You must have been a spider a very long time now,” she added.

“Yes, I suppose so, but you give up counting after a bit.” The voice paused, then it went on: “I say, would you mind taking this glass thing off? It’s stuffy in here; besides, I shouldn’t have to shout.”

Lydia hesitated. “I never interfere with anything in this room. My husband gets so annoyed if I do.”

“Oh, you needn’t be afraid I shall run away. I’ll give you my word on that, if you like.”

But Lydia was still doubtful. “You’re in a pretty desperate position, you know,” she said, with an involuntary glance at the alcohol bottle.

“Not really,” said the voice in a tone that suggested a shrug. “I’ve often been caught before. Something always turns up — it has to. That’s one of the few advantages of having a really permanent curse on you. It makes it impossible for anything really fatal to happen.”

Lydia looked around. The window was shut, the door, too, and the fireplace was blocked-up. “Well, perhaps for a few minutes, if you promise,” she al lowed. She lifted the jar and put it down to one side. As she did so the curtains of web trailed out and tore.

“Never mind about them. Phew! That’s better,” said the voice, still small, but now quite clear and distinct.

The spider did not move. It still held the aquamarine catching the light and shining, between its front legs. On a sudden thought, Lydia leaned down, and looked at the stone more closely. She was relieved to see that it was not one of her own.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” said Arachne. “Not really my color, though. I rather kill it, I think. One of the emeralds would have been more suitable — even though they were smaller.”

“Where did you get it?” Lydia asked.

“Oh, a house just near here. Next door but one, I think it was.”

“Mrs. Ferris’s — yes, of course, that would be one of hers.”

“Possibly,” agreed Arachne. “Anyway, it was in a cabinet with a lot of others, so I took it, and I was just coming through the hedge out of the garden, looking for a comfortable hole to enjoy it in, when I got caught. It was the stone shining that made him see me. A funny sort of man, rather like a spider himself, if he had had more legs.”

Lydia said, somewhat coldly: “He was smarter than you were.”

“H’m,” said Arachne, noncommittally.

She laid the stone down, and started to move about, trailing several threads from her spinnerets. Lydia drew away a little. For a moment she watched Arachne who appeared to be engaged in a kind of doodling, then her eyes returned to the aquamarine. “I have a little collection of stones myself. Not as good as Mrs. Ferris’, of course, but one or two nice ones amongst them,” she remarked.

“Oh,” said Arachne, absentminded as she worked out her pattern.

“I — I should rather like a nice aquamarine,” said Lydia. “Suppose the door happened to have been left open just a little...”

“There!” said Arachne, with satisfaction. “Isn’t that the prettiest doily you ever saw?” She paused to admire her work.

Lydia looked at it, too. The pattern seemed to her to show a lack of subtlety, but she agreed tactfully. “It’s delightful! Absolutely charming! I wish I could — I mean, I don’t know how you do it.”

“One has just a little talent, you know,” said Arachne, with undeceiving modesty. “You were saying something?” she added. Lydia repeated her remark. “Not really worth my while,” said Arachne. “I told you something has to happen, so why should I bother?”

She began to doodle again. Rapidly, though with a slightly abstracted air, she constructed another small lace mat suitable for the lower-income-bracket trade and pondered over it for an admiring moment. Soon she said: “Of course, if it were to be made worth my while…”

“I couldn’t afford very much — “ began Lydia, with caution.

“Not money,” said Arachne. “What on earth would I do with money? But I am a bit overdue for a holiday.”

“Holiday?” Lydia repeated, blankly.

“There’s a sort of alleviation clause,” Arachne explained. “Lots of good curses have them. It’s often something like being uncursed by a prince’s kiss — you know, something so improbable that it’s a real outside chance, but gets the god a reputation for not being such a Shylock after all. Mine is that I’m allowed twenty-four hours holiday in the year — but I’ve scarcely ever had it.” She paused, doodling an inch or two of lace edging. “You see,” she added, “the difficult thing is to find someone willing to change places with me for even twenty-four hours.”

“Er — yes, I can see it would be,” said Lydia, detachedly.

Arachne put out one foreleg and spun the aquamarine round so that it glittered. “Someone willing to change places,” she repeated.

“Well — er I — er — I don’t think — “ Lydia tried.

“It’s not at all difficult to get in and out of Mrs. Ferris’ house — not when you’re my size,” Arachne observed.

Lydia looked at the aquamarine. It wasn’t possible to stop having a mental picture of the other stones that were lying bedded on black  velvet in Mrs. Ferris’ cabinet.

“Suppose one got caught?” she suggested.

“One need not bother about that — except as an inconvenience. I should have to take over in twenty-four hours again, in any case,” Arachne told her.

“Well — I don’t know — “ said Lydia, unwillingly.

Arachne spoke in a ruminative manner: “I remember thinking how easy it would be to carry them out one by one, and hide them in a convenient hole,” she said.

Lydia was never able to recall in detail the succeeding stages of the conversation, only that at some point where she was still intending to be tentative and hypothetical Arachne must have thought she was more definite. Anyway, one moment she was still standing beside the bench, and the next, it seemed, she was on it, and the thing had happened.

She didn’t really feel any different, either. Six eyes did not seem any more difficult to manage than two, though everything looked exceedingly large, and the opposite wall very far away. The eight legs seemed capable of managing themselves without getting tangled, too.

“How do you? — Oh, I see,” she said.

“Steady on,” said a voice from above. “That’s more than enough for a pair of curtains you’ve wasted there. Take it gently, now. Always keep the word ‘dainty’ in mind. Yes, that’s much better — a little finer still. That’s it. You’ll soon get the idea. Now all you have to do is walk over the edge and let your self down on it.”

“Er — yes,” said Lydia, dubiously. The edge of the bench seemed a long way from the floor.

The figure towering above turned as if to go, and then turned back on a thought that occurred to her. “Oh, there’s just one thing,” she said.” “About men.”

“Men?” said Lydia.

“Well, male spiders. I mean, I don’t want to come back and find that—”

“No, of course not,” agreed Lydia. “I shall be pretty busy, I expect. And I don’t — er — think I feel much interested in male spiders, as a matter of fact.”

“Well, I don’t know. There’s this business of like calling to like.”

“I think it sort of probably depends on how long you have been like,” suggested Lydia.

“Good. Anyway, it’s not very difficult. He’ll only be about a sixteenth of your size, so you can easily brush him off. Or you can eat him, if you like.”

“Eat him!” exclaimed Lydia. “Oh, yes, I remember my husband said something — No, I think I’ll just brush him off, as you said.”

“Just as you like. There’s one               thing about spiders, they’re much better arranged to the female advantage. You don’t have to go on being cumbered up with a useless male just because. You simply find a new one when you want him. It simplifies things a lot, really.”

“I suppose so,” said Lydia. “Still, in only twenty-four hours — “

“Quite,” said Arachne. “Well, I’ll be off. I mustn’t waste my holiday. You’ll find you’ll be quite all right once you get the hang of it. Good-bye till tomorrow.” And she went out, leaving the door slightly ajar.

Lydia practiced her spinning a little more until she could be sure of keeping a fairly even thread. Then she went to the edge of the bench. After a slight hesitation she let herself over. It turned out to be quite easy, really.

Indeed, the whole thing turned out to be far easier than she had expected. She found her way to Mrs. Ferris’ drawing room, where the door of the cabinet had been carelessly left unlatched and selected a nice fire opal. There was no difficulty in discovering a small hole on the roadside of the front bank in which the booty could be deposited for collection later. On the next trip she chose a small ruby; and the next time an excellently cut square zircon, and the operation settled down to an industrious routine which was interrupted by nothing more than the advances of a couple of male spiders who were easily bowled over with a flip of the front leg and became discouraged.

By the late afternoon Lydia had accumulated quite a nice little hoard in the hole in the bank. She was in the act of adding a small topaz, and wondering whether she would make just one more trip, when a shadow fell across her. She froze quite still, looking up at a tall gangling form with knobbly joints, which really did look surprisingly spidery from that angle.

“Well, I’m damned,” said Edward’s voice, speaking to itself. “Another of them! Two in two days. Most extraordinary.”

Then, before Lydia could make up her mind what to do, a sudden darkness descended over her, and presently she found herself being joggled along in a box.

A few minutes later she was under the bell jar that she had lifted off Arachne, with Edward bending over her, looking partly annoyed at finding that his specimen had escaped, and partly elated that he had recaptured it. After that, there didn’t seem to be much to do but doodle a few lace curtains for privacy, in the way Arachne had. It was a consoling thought that the stones were safely cached away, and that any time after the next twelve or thirteen hours she would be able to collect them at her leisure.

No one came near the spider-room during the evening. Lydia could distinguish various domestic sounds taking place in more or less their usual succession and culminating in two pairs of footfalls ascending the stairs. And but for physical handicaps, she might have frowned slightly at this point. The ethics of the situation were somewhat obscure. Was Arachne really entitled? Oh, well, there was nothing one could do about it, anyway...

Soon the sound of movement ceased, and the house settled down for the night. She had half-expected that Edward would look in to assure himself of her safety before he went to work in the morning. She remembered that he had done so in the case of other and far less spectacular spiders, and she was a trifle piqued that when at last the door did open, it was simply to admit Arachne. She noticed, also, that Arachne had not succeeded in doing her hair with just that touch that suited Lydia’s face.

Arachne gave a little yawn and came across to the bench. “Hullo,” she said, lifting the jar, “had an interesting time?”

“Not this part of it,” Lydia said. “Yesterday was very satisfactory, though. I hope you enjoyed your holiday.”

“Yes,” said Arachne. “Yes, I had a nice time — though it did somehow seem less of a change than I’d hoped.” She looked at the watch on her wrist. “Well, time’s nearly up. If I don’t get back, I’ll have that Athene on my tail. You ready?”

“Certainly,” said Lydia, feeling more than ready.

“Well, here we are again,” said Arachne’s small voice. She stretched her legs in pairs, starting at the front, and working astern. Then she doodled a capital A in a debased Gothic script to assure herself that her spinning faculties were unimpaired.

“You know,” she said, “habit is a curious thing. I’m’ not sure that by now I’m not more comfortable like this, after all. Less inhibited, really.”

She scattered over to the side of the bench and let herself down, looking like a ball of brilliant feathers sinking to the floor. As she reached it, she unfolded her legs, and ran across to the open door. On the threshold she paused. “Well, goodbye, and thanks a lot,” she said. “I’m sorry about your husband. I’m afraid I rather forgot myself for the moment.” Then she scooted away down the passage as if she were a ball of colored wools blowing away in the draught.

“Goodbye,” said Lydia, by no means sorry to see her go.

The intention of Arachne’s parting remark was lost on her: in fact, she forgot it altogether until she discovered the collection of extraordinarily knobbly bones that someone had recently put in the dustbin.

[1]
Just as the expression “free-space” is inaccurate since a body situated in space must of necessity be held there by certain forces, so the expression “free-time” is inaccurate, or only relatively accurate. There would be stresses at work which for lack of a better word can be called time-gravitational attractions. If a rocket is shot into space at random it must either fall upon some sun or planet or settle into an orbit determined by their pull; it would not be free. Similarly an object projected into space-time would not be free; it would gravitate to a certain point determined by the conditions of its projection. The mental image of time as progress along a line from a beginning to an end, such as lay in most people’s minds, is a misconception and a barrier to a better understanding of its nature.

As a rough, though admittedly faulty analogy, instance the state of a gramophone which has been suddenly jolted. The machine still plays, the record is the same, the needle is still in the soundtrack — but it is in a different part of the track. — Author.

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