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The Coming Of The Darakua by Francis G Rayer
This story first appeared in the magazine Authentic, Issue Number 17, publication undated. [January 1952]
"Technical Editor": H J Campbell [Uncredited Editor: L G Holmes] Publisher: Hamilton and Co (Stafford) Ltd.
Country of first publication: Great Britain (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland).
This work is Copyright. All rights are reserved.
The Coming Of The Darakua
By Francis G. Rayer
The little seaside town baked under a hot summer sun and Barnaby Smith mopped his face as he drove along the seafront road. Even the wind coming in from over the sea seemed hot. He passed the sands, and a pier, where small sailing boats and an old steamer lay on the sparkling sea. He picked out her name, Silver Star, in tarnished gold, then gave his attention to the road ahead. It rose, flanked by woods on his right hand and cliffs falling away to the sea at his left. He changed the old van into second, thinking of the iced beer and lemonade he would mix when he reached home.
An hour later he was half asleep, with his feet on a chair when running steps sounded and his ten-year-old son shot into the room and landed with a thump on the chair-arm.
“ The Revellers of the Range, Dad!" he pleaded. “They’re on the radio! Going to listen?"
Barnaby opened his eyes and scanned the clock. His good-humoured brown face expressed disgust; his forehead crinkled right up to his sandy hair.
" Help yourself, Jimmie,” he suggested. " I'm tired.”
Jimmie was already at the radio, and Barnaby wondered why the Revellers of the Range had to have their programme on Saturday afternoons, thereby interrupting his rest . . . He would have to listen. It was too hot in the garden, and lying on the bed upstairs was too obviously lazy. so that his wife, Janey, would complain.
" I can't get them,” Jimmie said abruptly, Barnaby frowned, got up, and went to the wireless. " You’ll never make a radio mechanic, son," He turned the dial, but the Revellers and their station were inaudible. No comic voices filled the room with cowboy songs, and no banjoes thrummed musically. He tuned to the local station.
It came in, but at greatly reduced strength, and when he turned the volume control to maximum there was a frying, bubbling sound at all wavelengths round the tuning dial. Jimmie, in brown shirt and shorts, sat on the carpet, eyeing him curiously.
" What is it, dad?"
Barnaby looked at the receiver with his brows drawn down.
“ Can’t say as easy as that, son." He shook his head slowly. “ Never heard a noise like that before. It’s not mains hum, but seems to be some sort of external interference.”
He tried the short-wave band. The noise was louder. and no stations came in, and after a few minutes he switched off. The radio was one he had made, always reliable,,and he was sure that the bubbling sound was not being generated in the set itself. The sound was odd, making his nerves creep. He wondered whether it had been his fancy, or whether the strange burbling had indeed been growing louder every moment.
" I’ll have to get my service kit, son,” he decided. “But there's nothing wrong with the set, so far as I can tell without proper testing. Seems I can't get away from my work, even on Saturday afternoons!"
He laughed, sighed, and went outside to the garage where the van was kept. Janey was coming up the path. She was neat in white, with an apron on, and a small garden fork in one hand, and hot from working in the sun.
“ Old Mr. Dakers wonders if you could look at his radio, Barnaby," she said. " He just called over the fence. I said I'd tell you."
Barnaby frowned heavily. This was odd, coming just at the moment when he was experiencing the same trouble. “ I’ll go right over,” he said abruptly.
Henry Dakers was waiting at the garden gate, and took him in. A girl with corn-coloured hair bobbed out from the kitchen and Barnaby patted her head. Mavis Dakers was a pretty child and often played with his son.
Dakers shood her away. “ Off an’ play now, Mavis." He was seventy, mild, white-haired, and Barnaby had the greatest respect for the way he played chess. He took Barnaby into their living-room, shutting his little grand- daughter determinedly out. “ Sorry to bother you like this, Mr. Smith," he said, " but Mavis likes the Revellers of the Range, The set won’t work.”
Barnaby tried it. The result was as he had half suspected. There was a bubbling, frying sound, loudest when the volume was adjusted to maximum, and on the higher frequencies. It was external interference, of a type he had never heard before, and not tunable.
“ It`s not the set itself,” he said. “ If you disconnect the aerial lead-in it almost stops. That proves it’s picked up from outside.”
Grandpa Dakers blinked behind his glasses. “ Like sunspots, or something?" he asked.
“ Like sunspots," Barnaby agreed,
He went out quickly, and stood for a moment on the pavement, wondering whence the noise came, and what it meant. Every time he turned on his radio the interference was louder, and reception of the local transmission worsened. The distant stations faded away first, followed by those nearer, as if the range of the radio-wave propagation was slowly decreasing. Finally the local station became inaudible against the strange noise burbling from the loudspeaker, and Barnaby switched off in disgust and went to bed. He slept little, still wondering what it meant.
The Sunday papers carried headlines telling of interrupted radio communications, and Barnaby studied all the reports carefully. The interference was strongest in the northern latitudes, though the southern latitudes had not wholly escaped. Long distance cables were beginning to suffer and the interference was increasing. A small paragraph said directive readings by an observatory suggested the static sounds came from the direction of the Milky Way, where for many years a faint hiss had been audible on radio apparatus. No one offered a complete explanation,
and Barnaby could not settle down during the whole of the day, but prowled the house and garden restlessly.
Monday morning brought the local daily paper, filled with news of interrupted telephone and cable communications, and Barnaby’s expectation that there would be a stream of customers into the radio store was fulfilled. He watched them come with mixed feelings. Some wondered when conditions would improve, or if anything could be done; others thought their sets out of order, and Barnaby counted eleven stacked-up for ‘repair’ by noon, and expected others. After a meal he began to work on a radiant heater which had been brought in, putting the radio-repair jobs on one side. The bubbling sound had reached such strength that the noise they made was intolerable.
Half an hour later he sat back on his stool and his lingers trembled slightly as he put down the clips of the test-meter. The resistance of all electrical conductors was going up. When the heater elements were under test the meter pointer crept slowly along the scale. At first the movement was scarcely visible, but it was increasing. He tested the mains voltage and found it a trifle low, and again the needle crept slowly down the scale.
The drop in conductivity continued throughout the afternoon, reaching a loss of ten per cent. by the time he left work. The van starter-motor was a trifle sluggish, but he took the homeward road without incident. The tiny stretch of beach was not busy, he noted. But that might mean nothing - it never was. The hot evening sun slanted across the water; overhead, the sky was gloomy - - a leaden grey, suggesting more an absence of light than the effect of cloud.
Home, he tried to pick up the news bulletin, but failed, and felt that the little town was becoming isolated from the world. At work, he had scarcely noticed how the isolation had grown, but its full force struck him with a sudden mental impact. The interference over-rode all other signals and no one really knew what was happening. One could assume that things in the rest of the world went on as usual; but Barnaby wondered. Only local news got into the paper. Other items could have been crowded out . . . or, he thought, perhaps no cable or phone messages had got through. He noted that a usual feature from a city correspondent was absent.
“ The cooker's slow,” Janey said unexpectedly from the door.
He looked at the clock and saw that it was much later than he had supposed. His lips compressed, he put down the paper and followed her into the kitchen. The meat refused to cook; the electric elements were scarcely hot enough to scorch the hand, and he thought of the drop in mains power he had previously noted. He tried the kitchen light. It was dim. To make sure, he fetched a meter from the van; it showed the mains voltage was down thirty per cent.
T he same decreasing conductivity, he thought. It was now making itself felt in the power-lines. He wondered where it would end. Civilised life depended almost exclusively on electricity...
Young voices sounded in the garden, and Jimmie, followed by Mavis Dakers, appeared, He listened to them, guessed what was coming, and nodded, forcing a smile.
"Tell your grandfather the mains are down in voltage, Mavis," he said. " It’s no use for me to come and look at your cooker . . ."
He left it at that and sat on a sawn-off tree-stump at the corner of the lawn. He wondered if other electric engineers had noticed what he had noticed, and decided that they would. He filled his pipe, trying to calm the uneasiness in his mind. It could not be dismissed merely as arising from the nerve-shock which he had suffered. once, under a shell-torn, raining sky.
Mavis and Jimmie were playing with a ball and sticks, and he watched them, glad of the company of their laughter. The sun was gone, and, with it, the warmth of the day. The sky looked chill . . . That was an odd thought, he decided. Perhaps things were playing on his nerves, after all.
They ate a meal which Janey confessed was not cooked as she would like, and he prowled round the garden. Henry Dakers was digging, and put his white head over the fence.
“ Strange business, this, Smith," he said.
Barnaby went to him. " Never been such interference with radio and electrical apparatus before,” he agreed.
Dakers nodded, apparently full of information. “ Folk do say that there’s been no messages come into town since noon. My nephew’s boy works in the newspaper office, and he says they've had no outside news since then. And I do know that nobody can telephone anywhere, because I heard them talking about it, and our neighbour over the other side tried to phone his folk up-country to see how they were.”
Barnaby realised he had been out of contact with local developments, and he let Henry Dakers talk. When he at last went in it was growing dark. The lights were dim in their shades and Jimmie had grown subdued. His eyes were often fixed solemnly on Barnaby and his mother, who were silent. Unnaturally silent, Barnaby thought, and he avoided Janey’s eyes.
When he went to bed he flung up his window and looked out. The street lamps were dim, stretching in a weak string from sight. The neons of the town's only cinema, usually visible over low buildings opposite, did not glare in their usual red and blue. Somewhere along the dark street people were talking loudly, but he could not catch the words, and closed the window, shivering at the chilling touch of the air.
CHAPTER TWO
Barnaby awoke from uneasy sleep. The first light of dawn weakly illuminated the sky and he reached for the switch above his head. At his pressure it clicked on, but the bulb did not glow. Memory returned quickly and he sat up, straining his eyes to discern the time by the bedside clock. It was a little before five.
He lay back and wondered about the bedside lamp, trying to keep calm. At last he got out of bed and operated the switch by the door. The ceiling globe would not work, either.
“ What is it, Barnaby?"
He started at the voice from the gloom. “Must be a power breakdown, Janey.”
He did not believe it, and doubted if she did. He began to dress, feeling too restless and undecided to return to bed, and had scarcely finished when a knocking began on the door below. He opened the window and looked down. It was lighter outside and a man was staring up.
" This Barnaby Smith’s house?"
“ Yes, that’s me. What is it?"
“ Sorry for the noise, but somebody down the road told me you could help." The voice sounded relieved. “ My car’s stuck at the corner. Ignition trouble, I fancy. I wouldn't have bothered you like this, but it seems there's no garage anywhere near, and I’m in a hurry." There was silence, then as if the man fully realised his action required an excuse: “If you could look at it I'd be grateful. You'd be doing a real service. I’m a doctor. If it wasn’t urgent I wouldn’t have knocked."
“ I’ll be down," Barnaby stated.
As he descended the stairs he recalled his previous impression- civilisation seemed to be faltering . . .
"She was misfiring badly," the man told him on the step. “ The lights had been weakening, too. I don’t know
much about such things, but supposed perhaps the battery has gone flat.”
Barnaby unlocked the garage and felt his way to the van, This, he thought, was a grave moment, not without its drama. He turned on the dash switch, but the bulb did not light. When he operated the headlamp switch the lamps emitted only a dim glow. He knew the starter motor would not operate, and took out the starter handle. The engine would not fire.
Beaten, he stood beside the van in the gloom, his thoughts spinning. It all fitted. And the full horror of the picture was only now beginning to dawn.
He thought of the extent to which electrical apparatus was employed, and all his uneasiness of the previous day returned vividly. If this state of non-conduction was general, and continued, there would be no radio, telephones, transport.
“ Won't she go?" The doctor’s voice expressed impatience.
Barnaby went out, refusing to let his alarm find expression in words until the last moment. “ No. Sorry We'll walk down."
They went to the corner, where the vehicle’s lamps made a dim glimmer, and Barnaby’s hopes died. He knew that he had kept that last hope alive only with difficulty. In some way yet inexplicable electrical apparatus of all kinds was failing. In the vehicle’s ignition spark-coil were hundreds of feet of wire, and each turn now had an abnormally high resistance. The same thing was happening to all conductors. He gnawed his lower lip.
“ I .can’t do anything for you,” he said. He wondered whether a state of complete non-conductivity might come eventually, bringing to a total halt every mechanism which depended on electricity for its operation. He gave instructions for finding the nearest garage and turned homewards, walking jerkily.
The sky had brightened considerably but no early vehicles moved in the streets, and no windows were illuminated. A woman he recognised was approaching, and she hesitated, staring at him uneasily in the half-light.
"Do you know what's happening, Mr. Smith? I shall be late for my early shift at work."
“ It’s a general power failure," Barnaby said.
He almost added that it would be wasted time to go to work because factory machines needed electrical power, but bit his lips into silence. Not yet could he allow his full apprehension to find expression in words. If electricity failed, could civilisation survive? He did not know. Thinking of great cities, of crowded skyscraper blocks, he shivered. In big towns the confusion might be terrible. . . . He went home slowly, fantastic plans coming to his mind. If this effect did not pass, a man would need all his wit to survive.
His cold breakfast finished, Barnaby went outside and looked up and down the road from his gate. So far he had seen no vehicles, though two men on bicycles passed, hurrying towards the centre of the town. The sun had risen; the eastern sky was light, but directly overhead was a huge, circular expanse of darkness. Barnaby looked up at it and tried to decide what it was. It might have been high rain-clouds, far above a lower layer of mist- and yet that explanation did not seem wholly to fit. It gave him a feeling of deep foreboding; seemed, he thought, like some ominous shape descending slowly on the town. It was almost like a hole in the sky-- a vast area where light ceased. He noticed that the stiff breeze coming in from the direction of the sea was not dispersing it, or driving it inland, but that it remained directly overhead. He shivered, wondering if his imagination was too vivid, and it was only heavy cloud.
He examined his van, but could get no spark from the ignition. Electrical appliances in the house were dead. Electric power had gone from everything, drawn by some external potency. He saw that Janey was striving to create the impression that things were almost normal, but there was increasing uneasiness in her eyes.
" There’s been nothing along the road except cycles and people walking, Barnaby,” she said as she finished washing up.
Barnaby wondered why they clung so desperately to the pretence that things were normal. “It must be some general atmospheric disturbance,” he told her. "Like the Aurora Borealis. ”
He went back into the garden. The high, dark nimbus had settled lower; the sun was quite gone behind its edge, and a leaden twilight made the garden as dim as at evening. Barnaby examined the sky, frowning heavily. A stiff wind blew in from the sea, and the earlier mists were quite gone, but the cloud had not moved.. He tried to estimate its height, but failed. It was of a uniform greyness, and its outline was diffused, so that it was impossible to estimate its size or height accurately. Only seawards could clear sky be seen beyond its edge; landwards, it obscured the heavens as far as he could see beyond the rooftops, making a great pall extending almost from horizon to horizon. As he gazed upwards, a sensation of strangeness and personal danger came. The air was oppressive as before fierce thunder, and the sensation that the cloud somehow foreshadowed evil became stronger. He scanned the horizon again, and a chill grew in his nerves, mounting almost to terror. The strip of light sky over the sea was narrower -the cloud. if cloud it was, was drifting slowly against the wind ....
With nerves like taut wire, he went out on to the road. A heavy, unnatural light overhung the houses. People hurried by on foot, flung him quick, uneasy glances, and went on, speaking in voices that were hushed.
“ W - what is it, Mr. Smith?" a child's voice asked.
Barnaby turned and saw that Mavis Dakers had come from her door; her little round face was white and the school satchel hanging from her shoulder was empty. He tried to smile reassuringly, but knew he had failed.
“Just a storm, Mavis."
She went back in, not speaking, and Barnaby listened intently. The town was hushed; there was no thrumming of rubber on the roads, or murmur of traffic. He looked at his watch and started with surprise. The hour was late and the sun should have been high, glaring down on hot, busy streets. Instead, gloom overshadowed the road and an odd chill was creeping into the air, as if the cloud above was drawing away heat, as well as light .... He tried to shrug the feeling away, telling himself that it was merely the shadow which made the air so chill -that, and the wind coming in from the dark sea.
Henry Dakers came from the house. His wrinkled eyes screwed up, he examined the heavens, then looked at Barnaby.
“ Where’s your boy?"
“ In bed. He was still asleep, and I told Janey to leave him."
Dakers nodded and looked up and down the street.
“Mavis jumped out of bed to see the time, and we couldn’t keep her there. It'll soon be eleven."
Barnaby knew the old man was not speaking his thoughts. “And this?” Barnaby said, jerking a thumb upwards. "What do you make of it?"
Dakers did not look up, but began filling an old pipe with fingers that trembled visibly. “ I don’t like it,” he said at last. “ We’re cut off. My nephew says there's been no telephone messages, and no mail, today. There’s no traffic on the roads, and he said there’s been a bad smash on the railway because a signal failed. They had hoped to get out a morning edition of sorts, he said, but have only got a hand-worked proof-press. As far as the outside world is concerned, this town is off the map." He considered pensively. “ We might say, instead, as far as we're concerned, the rest of the world is off the map. Put it which way you like."
True, thought Barnaby. Communication was paralysed. From the same cause factories would stop work; in large towns, there must already be signs of the panic which would come with the halt in transport and other services. No electricity. No vehicles. Food shortage, famine, panic. . . . He pulled up his shocked thoughts with a jerk.
A youth pedalling furiously on a bicycle appeared in the road; approaching. His face was terrified, white despite his frenzied exertion, and as he sped past he shouted and waved one arm at them.
“ It's landed the other end of the town! Nobody can go that way ! ”
He disappeared down the sloping road towards the water- front. Barnaby saw Janey and Jimmie looking from the front window, startled and curious, and with a muttered word he went in. A glance showed him the black nimbus had settled lower, and its underside struck coldly like a frosty winter sky.
“ Get your outdoor things on, Jimmie”, he decided suddenly, “ We're leaving. Janey, put food in a carrier- but don't be long."
That neither argued showed how they felt, Barnaby thought. He quickly got together a few things he considered essentials, and only when they were going out and he was locking the door did Jimmie voice a question.
“ Shall we come back, dad?”
Barnaby did not answer. An hour before Jimmie would never have asked such a question, but now, things had changed. Suddenly the old standards were slipping away. An hour before he would have answered, " Of course we shall come back.” But now he did not know.
The leaden sky was dark, cold and near. Barnaby did not repeat the cyclist’s words: he did not understand them himself. It’s landed the other end of the town. Mavis Dakers was by their gate, very near to tears. Her small face lit up momentarily, and Barnaby hesitated.
“ Where's your Grandad, Mavis?"
“ He- went back into the town,” she whispered. “Didn’t say why."
Barnaby followed her pointing finger. In that direction the sky was as dark as midnight, and it was a strange darkness, seeming to settle upon the very buildings like a cloak.
" He told me I could come to you,” Mavis said.
Barnaby nodded. This was not the time to argue.
Other people were coming along the road from where the sky was so dark. They were talking together, gesticulating, and excited.
“ A freak storm," a man said. " just like a water- spout. They say it knocked a row of houses flat -"
" Did you see it?" Barnaby demanded.
“ No.”
The man hurried on and Mavis tugged at Barnaby's arm. “ Why did Grandpa go back that way, Mr. Smith?" Barnaby did not answer. He did not know, and the waterspout explanation did not convince him. For a moment he wondered whether it could indeed be any natural phenomenon. Yet what other explanation was possible? He did not know. Within the boundaries of the town was such confusion no one seemed to know, and back over the city the heavy black nimbus had settled so low that even the houses were hidden. Barnaby guessed that there would soon be a panic-stricken flight from that direction.
They went down the sloping road to the waterfront, where a crowd, urgent and driven by panic, met them. There was an intermingling, and Barnaby caught scraps of information which alarmed him. He withdrew with the others into an embrasure in the seafront wall while the crowd went on and the hubbub of excited voices drifted away. He saw the question in Janey’s eyes and made a gesture of defeat.
“ I don’t know what’s happened, nor does anyone. But it won't help to get in a panic."
He shivered, glad of his topcoat. The dark cloud had settled slowly down on the landward side, but over the sea it tilted slightly heavenwards so that now a long, narrow strip of clear sky was visible beyond the far rim of its underside. The wind had ceased- almost as if they were in a pocket walled off from the outside world by the unmoving cloud, Barnaby thought. At the end of the pier smoke rose from the single funnel of the old Silver Star, and he took up the carrier of provisions.
“ That's the way we’ll go," he decided.
They went along the deserted pier, and Barnaby hailed a seaman who was coiling a rope on the steamer’s deck.
" Making a passage out?"
The man straightened. " The Old Man says so. Says he’s scheduled to sail at noon, so sail he will, and be damned."
Five minutes later they were aboard and the Captain had returned to his tiny bridge. Almost imperceptibly the Silver
Star began to gain way seawards. Mavis shivered, her face blue and pinched, and Barnaby sent her and Jimmie below, under Janey’s care, to the tiny cabin, close to the measured thump-thump of the engine. Then he returned to the deck, looking back towards the town.
The air was icy, the town silent and hidden by the dark cloud, except for a few buildings on the waterfront. The people had vanished, and as the cloud settled buildings slowly disappeared from sight. A line of white on the beach caught Barnaby’s eye. It was ice, and only once, in mid-winter, had he seen it so far down the estuary. A few days before bathers had lain on that same sand in the hot summer sun.
A foaming wake lay behind the Silver Star and ahead was a gradually opening sky, with a strip of sunlight on the horizon.
“ Decided what it is, Smith?" a cool voice asked.
Barnaby turned round and with a start recognised the man who had spoken.
" Hickinson! You here!"
The other nodded, the expression on his face not wholly amiable. " I was fetched to see why the ship’s radio wouldn’t operate."
" I see,” Barnaby said. Hickinson had been in the same radio repair store; had never liked him, though he had concealed it since Barnaby had been made branch manager in the repair section.
" This phenomenon beats explanation,” Hickinson said, leaning on the rail. He was a big man, wide-shouldered and with a jaw that was square and heavy. " It undoubtedly caused the radio trouble, and judging by the fall in temperature, it’s absorbing heat radiations, too."
Barnaby nodded. He knew Hickinson often had ideas and was no fool. Apparently he seemed ready to overlook their previous lack of amicability in this common danger. “ What’s your theory?" he asked.
“ It may be strongly ionised gas." Hickinson pursed his lips. “ Possibly it entered our atmosphere from beyond space."
"Then why didn’t it drift on the wind?"
“ There may have been some attractive force, electrical or magnetic, which kept it over the town. There are metal strata running through the hills."
Barnaby did not feel that the explanation fitted. Ahead, the strip of sunlit sky was broadening, and the Silver Star slowly came out from under the edge of the cloud. Looking up, Barnaby saw that its rim was quite even, though slightly diffused, like the edge of an enormous saucer. The heat of the sun was strong after the arctic chill under the cloud. As the ship went on and the view extended Barnaby looked back.
The black cloud was completely spherical except for its base, which was flattening slowly as it settled earthwards, extending as far as the horizon on each side, and high, like a giant dome, above the town. It was several miles in diameter, he judged, and its nearer side hid the more distant part. It seemed to have settled directly over the town, and was still sinking slowly, flattening into a giant inverted saucer as it did. Waves were following the ship now, coming rapidly to meet those driven landward by the wind, which was following the tide to the shore, and Barnaby felt the chill of fear and incomprehension return ten-fold. Those waves were caused by the displacement of the giant mass settling slowly into the water. Therefore the cloud was not gaseous.
It was late afternoon when Captain Lacy brought the old Silver Star down to bare steerage-way in response to a hail from the look-out. Barnaby heard the engines reduce their measured beat and went back on deck. Far behind was a tiny craft, scarcely more than a row-boat with a brown, triangular sail, and making dangerously heavy weather of the oblique cross-currents of the tide. A seaman stood in the bow; astern, a second man was half crumpled over the tiller, and even at that distance Barnaby recognised him as Henry Dakers.
At last the boat came alongside. Dakers' face was blue; his clothing was drenched and he had to be lifted to the Silver Star from the sinking boat. There, he collapsed, and Barnaby knelt beside him, feeling his heart. The old man's’s eyes flickered open; such terror was in their depths Barnaby felt almost as if struck by a physical blow. Dakers’ lips twitched; he tugged Barnaby’s arm, half rising. " Smith- it- it’s alive .... "
CHAPTER THREE
Out of blue sky a high sun shone on a sparkling sea where white-crested waves ran before the wind. Toy-like, an old steamship with a single funnel kept her bow to the tide, plodding on towards the horizon with such seeming slowness that only the expanding wake at her stern told that she did not float motionless. The men on her deck, tiny, motionless figures, gazed back, eyes anxiously searching the sea and sky. They swayed slightly to the rise and fall of the ship, shading their eyes against the hot sun, and against the dancing reflections on the water.
Many miles behind the ship the sea rolled against an undulated coastline, precipitous except where the waters of an estuary had discharged into a narrow bay where the tide could run up silvery-golden sands. Now, the confluence of river with sea was deadly still, locked in an arctic, frigid silence. Ice piled high along the sands; the waters of the river were frozen into glacier immobility, stretching blue through the quiet city. In the streets no one moved; no vehicles passed, nor did anyone on foot move between the grey,-frozen buildings, or stir within them. The frost on road and pavement, precipitate of the frozen moisture in the air. bore no sign that wheel or foot had passed, and no sound made by man came through the chilled air. Only, rarely, sounded a sharp crackling, as the frozen masses of the river strained against each other, forced onwards by the pressure of water in the higher reaches, which over-flowed on to the glacier below, there to freeze almost instantly, adding mounting thicknesses of heavy ice.
Above the city loomed the dark mass that had drifted for uncounted millenia in the vastness of space beyond the galaxy. Not matter as Earth knew it, the mass nevertheless had many attributes of matter; though semi-gaseous,
it did not diffuse into the wind. Though having weight, the Earth could exercise no gravitational pull upon it, for the structure of its atoms was alien to Earthly science. Immeasurably huge, it rested over the city and absorbed the free radiations near it. There was no limit to the frequencies it could absorb. Across ten thousand miles of space it had sensed and drawn away Hertzian waves, sinking more rapidly to the planet whence they had come. It sensed the power generated by the movement of free atoms, and absorbed that power.
A frigid iciness came into being under it; above it, sun- light itself was absorbed, so that it was surrounded by shadows. From the many miles of its perimeter the cold struck out far beyond the limits of the city. A hundred miles away, men, suddenly divested of the things of civilised life, halted, wondering at the numbing chill borne on the wind. In distant continents technicians worked desperately over apparatus so completely dead that it seemed that electricity no longer existed, and that all the mechanisms which depended upon it for motivation must lie for ever silent. People anxiously asked each other what had happened, but what answer could there be?
The huge mass over the city was conscious in a manner no man would understand; it was sentient, having its being in the ebb and flow of the extra-galactic molecules constituting it. Resting, it lay above the city, not recognising the buildings as artifacts because the creatures who had built them did not come within its classification of life. Mere physical existence did not come within the sphere of its cognizance, and it did not observe their terrified flight, or the death of many.
Above it, the abruptly chilled air was forced to rise high into stratospheric regions, meeting there moist winds coming from the south. The weather fronts mingled, building up towering masses of inky cloud, which piled upon each other, overshadowing a vast area of the heavens. The wind mounted, backing to drive the cloud seawards, where new moisture condensed rapidly under the changing temperature. The sky slowly changed from black to a leaden yellow and the cloud sank lower, piling up mightily before the wind that drove it out to sea.
From the deck of the Silver Star Barnaby looked back. Never could he recall having seen the sky so heavy with approaching storm. Heavy clouds almost resembling masses of yellow smoke were sweeping up to overtake the ship. The sky was leaden, and a new swell ran against the tide so that he had to grasp the rail firmly, feet wide on the heaving deck.
“ Dakers doesn’t seem any better, Barnaby,” a voice said.
He turned and saw that Janey had come to the deck. Her coat was drawn tightly around her by the wind that was springing up, humming through the scanty rigging of the ship and tossing out the strands of her golden hair. The first raindrops splashed on her oval face, outlined against her coat collar, and an expression which hurt Barnaby more than he would admit was in her dark eyes.
" Still unconscious?" he asked.
" Yes. He’s in a bad way. He’s an old man, Barnaby, and has had a bad shock - -"
Just how bad, Barnaby wondered, and knew that was what Janey was asking herself. "It's alive," Henry Dakers had said, and Barnaby had pondered on the full meaning of those words, but reached no solution.
A cold wind struck them. He shivered, looking back. The rolling motion of the vessel was more noticeable, and the overburdened sky seemed ready to break in a storm of terrible violence. The ship's plates creaked every time she rose against the swell, and brown seas were beginning to splash over the rails and run foaming across the deck. Janey clung to the rail.
“ You think it's true?"
" I don’t know.” Barnaby shook his head.
“How can it be? How could a thing like that- be alive?" She stared into the gathering murk and she shivered.
“I don’t know.” Barnaby placed a hand round her shoulders and drew her away from the rail. " There may
be other kinds of life, out there." He indicated the heavens, lowering with the coming storm. " Space is big. There is an infinity of stars and there may be innumerable other worlds on which evolution, and the whole processes of life, may differ from Earth standards.”
They went below and to the cabin where Henry Dakers lay in a narrow bunk, his face white in the dim illumination of the swaying lantern suspended from the ceiling, and his eyes closed. His lips twitched, showing that his mind still dwelt on some inner conflict, and once his hands moved restlessly over the blanket. Barnaby watched him, listening to the pounding of seas upon hull and deck, and the creaking of the ship's timbers and plates. He wondered what Dakers knew, and whether he would ever recover sufficiently to tell them ....
“ Do you think he imagined it?" Janey whispered un- easily.
Barnaby shook his head with conviction. He had always considered Henry Dakers to be a man with a singularly lucid mind, unimpaired by age. Even the way he played chess showed that and his eyes would twinkle like a youngster's when he made a move of superlative cunning.
No, Barnaby thought, Dakers was not the man to fall victim to such fancies.
Almost an hour had passed when Barnaby felt the Silver Star tremble as if a solid wall of wind-driven sea had struck her. The cabin floor rose, sloping steeply. The lantern oscillated violently, casting intermittent light and shadow across the cabin. Mavis Dakers began to cry softly. Jimmie crouched on the edge of the bunk, gripping it tightly, and Barnaby pressed his shoulder.
"She's a good, strong ship, son, though old."
Holding the handrails, he went along to the foot of the companion-ladder. Water splashed down the steps and round his ankles, and the wind plucked at him as his head came above deck level. Mountains of water were racing round the ship, sensed by the thunder they made against the hull, rather than seen, so dark was the sky. Rain lashed at him, stinging by its violence. Seas swept over the deck, drenching him, and a seaman appeared, clinging to the rails under the bridge, and gesticulating.
"We're going to seal the hatches! Get below - -”
His words were whipped away on the wind, and Barnaby withdrew his head. The hatch slammed shut above and there was the sound of its fastenings being driven into place.
Barnaby knew there had never been such a sudden and violent storm. He descended the vibrating ladder and returned along the narrow passage to their cabin. He supposed that the abrupt and unnatural drop in temperature had been responsible.
The hours dragged by and Barnaby wondered whether the storm would ever subside. Shaken by its violence, he could only sit helpless, listening to the drumming of water on the ship and wondering if the night would ever end. No word came from above to tell them how the vessel fared, and the measured thud of the engines was inaudible, or had ceased. He made Mavis and Jimmie lie in the second bunk. but their eyes did not close. Janey sat at their feet, and Barnaby wedged himself against Dakers' bunk, sometimes watching him and listening to his rambling speech.
Barnaby knew it to be nearly dawn when the harsh scraping of steel against rock brought him upright out of the torpor induced by the monotonous hours of waiting. The ship trembled, seemed momentarily free, then sank with a crash which almost sent him to his knees. Motion ceased.
" I don't think there’s . . . danger," he said.
He went to the deck. A seaman had just opened the hatch and there seemed relief in his attitude.
“ At least we're ashore," he said.
Barnaby saw that the old steamer was indeed ashore, and would never take to sea again. A wave running fast before the wind, had lifted her high upon broken rocks. Her deck slanted; her hull was shattered, buckled plates torn away. He walked slowly along the rail, marvelling that they had escaped with their lives. The violence of the wind had slightly lessened, and a patch of clear, light sky showed in the east. Ahead was a rocky mainland; behind, sea that lapped up round the stern of the grounded Silver Star.
Captain Lacy came from the bridge-house, his eyes hollow and his cheeks sunken from fatigue.
“ First time I’ve lost a ship." His lips twitched. " We'd best get ashore. She's breaking up."
He went below and Barnaby silently followed him. He wondered what was happening elsewhere, what was happening to the rest of the world.
That was a thing he often wondered, as the weeks passed. They were isolated. The Silver Star her back broken, moved until bow and stern were almost at right angles, and only buckled plates at one side prevented the halves from parting. Captain Lacy went inland, and returned with a sober expression on his grave face. They had grounded on an island. It was uninhabited, and a man might easily tramp its whole perimeter in a day. There was no other ship in sight, and the Silver Star's boats had been carried away long before she grounded.
Barnaby listened to the information in silence, and wondered what the others felt, Jimmie and Mavis seemed to be taking the news easily, as if some mere holiday adventure was involved, and he was glad. Janey did not speak, but he saw the deep trouble in her eyes. Captain Lacy expressed no opinion, and the three men of his crew took their lead from him, Hickinson swore lucidly, and stamped off alone along the cliffs.
" I think we should get - all the stores to safety," Barnaby said. " There may be a long time to stay here, before a ship comes.”
He did not say that he doubted if any ship would ever come. That was one of the things it was best not to think of, for the moment.
Winter gales swept over the little island, piping round the crude huts which had been erected there. Spring came slowly, and often figures came from the huts, to fish from the rocks or climb to the highest part of the island, to scan the horizon from near where a flagpole stood with tattered canvas flapping at its top. Often a boy and girl went up there together, or swam and fished in the sea which ran up a tiny stretch of beach. Summer sun sparkled on the waves, but at last winter came again. Snow lay on the island and hut roofs, from which smoke drifted up thinly. Every day a man appeared from one doorway, making his way up to the summit of the island. His steps hastened with hope as he went, but lagged with disappointment as he returned. Summer came, followed by winter, and by summer and winter again, The broken hull on the rocks was now a mere skeleton of rusting iron, deprived of everything of value. As the years passed no one visited it. Only gulls waded in its silted shell, or mewed raucously above the pools into which its stern disappeared. High summer came, and a girl, tall and long-limbed, with sparkling eyes and golden hair hanging to her shoulders, waded bare-footed to the wreck. With her went a youth, dark-haired, strong and quick, laughing as he tugged at her hands to help her up. She laughed, too, and the breeze coming in from the dancing sea carried the sound up to the higher rocks, where a man stood alone, his good-humoured, tanned face pensive, but his eyes smiling.
Barnaby felt glad that Jimmie and Mavis were such good companions, and that they, at least, had not seemed to find life a hardship. He listened to their laughter as they clambered over the broken hull, and hoped nothing would arise to silence it. For uncounted times he had ascended the hill; time and time again, hopefully, he had scanned the sea. And time and time again, disappointed, had descended to the huts. No ship came. Once, far in the distance, he thought he had seen a sail, hidden by early mists. But it went from view, and his hope died.
He saw Janey coming along the cliff, and went to meet her. She smiled, flushed from the brisk wind, then sighed.
“ Can it always be like this, Barnaby?"
" No,” he said factually. “ The, cargo of the old Silver Star won't last for ever, and we can scarcely live on fresh fish. Somehow - somehow -we’ve got to get away ....
He fell silent. The twisted iron of the wreck would not help them, and they had no tools or materials to make any seaworthy craft.
“ It’s- seven years, Barnaby," Janey said quietly.
He nodded. Seven years during which Jimmie and Mavis had grown up. Henry Dakers had died early in that first winter, his words never explained. Captain Lacy was an ageing man, though still buoyant with a philosophy which made the best of everything. One seaman had vanished, whether through an accidental fall from the cliffs or because he had grown tired of solitude, none knew. The others had grown surly and dispirited; with Hickinson they swore and argued - sometimes fought- and Barnaby avoided them.
"In seven years no ship has picked us up, Janey," he said slowly. "Do you know what that means?"
She nodded, and Barnaby was glad that he did not need to voice his thoughts. “ You won't be happy until you get back to see what’s happened, will you,” she said.
" Never! What’s happened to the rest of the world - to the people? They won't all have been as lucky as us! Think of the big cities, of the townspeople who relied upon rapid transport to bring them food, and of the chaos which must have arisen! I want to get back - to know, to help .... "
If there remained anyone to help, he thought. Janey had not answered. Head tilted back, she was watching the sky. Barnaby followed her eyes, and frowned.
Immeasurably high, a brilliant blue spark was slanting through the heavens. For a moment he thought it must be a meteorite, incandescent from its passage through the air, then he realised some other explanation must be sought. Behind it, at equal distances, sped two further dots of blue light. Too remote for any detail to be seen, the three swept away eastwards and were lost in the distance where sea and sky met.
“ What the devil do you make of that?" a gruff yet pleasant voice asked.
Barnaby found Captain Lacy beside him. The Captain’s light blue eyes were wrinkled almost from sight under the tufts of his brows. Barnaby shook his head.
“ Your guess is as good as mine, skipper.”
Lacy still scanned the sky. " Seems silly," he said at length. “ Yes - seems silly to say it -- but --"
"But?" Barnaby prompted.
Captain Lacy sought for words. “ They held a course like ships might, one behind the other. I’ve seen as many shooting stars as any man, but never one that colour. It seems silly, but - "
“ You think they're vessels,” Barnaby put in.
Lacy pulled his bearded chin. “ I’d not go so far as to say that. How could they be? But I do say I’ve never seen the like of it before."
He went back along the cliff. Barnaby wondered how near the truth their guess had been. The three blue orbs had seemed to move too smoothly on their course for such an explanation to fit correctly.
Jimmie and Mavis were coming up the rocks and he watched them, wondering if they had seen the lights in the sky. He had tried to teach them to be observant, he thought, and to use their minds for themselves. He had not allowed them to grow up as mere savages, but had taught them all he knew, and often told stories of the old way of life, already half-forgotten by their young minds.
" I’ve an odd feeling they'll be important, one day, Janey," he had said. “ It would be easy for mankind to slip into a new dark-age, after this."
He had left it at that, knowing she understood. Above all, one fact obsessed his mind - for seven years, no ship had come ....
It was later than usual when Barnaby went up to the hill-top. Evening sunshine slanted across the island and sea. He turned his gaze slowly round the circle of the horizon, and abruptly his attention quickened.
A boat was drifting slowly before the wind. Open, and with an improvised sail, he first thought it empty. But a man lay crumpled in its stern, alone. For a moment Barnaby stared, scarcely believing that the whole was not some mirage, then he turned and sent his feet flying down the worn path. He shouted for the others as he ran, elation making his heart bound. That boat was worth more than a king's ransom!
CHAPTER FOUR
Barnaby lifted the man out of the boat, amazed that he recognised him. It was one of those coincidences such as only happened in real life, he thought. The man was thinner, and his features aged, but there could be no mistake. He was the doctor who had knocked at Barnaby’s door, and whose saloon had stood useless down the road.
The others had helped pull the boat to safety and were examining it. Hickinson stood with a calculating expression in his eyes.
“ It won't hold us all. We shall have to decide who goes and who stays,” he stated suddenly.
Barnaby laid his burden down. “ It’ll hold us well enough.”
“ Not with stores,” Hickinson objected. By his expression Barnaby sensed again the antagonism which had once existed between them.
“ We’ll see, Hickinson,” he said. " Captain Lacy is the man to decide this.”
The other scowled. “ Who do you think you’re giving orders to, Smith?"
“ Nobody.” Barnaby held his anger in check. “ I’m merely being sensible- it’ll pay us all to be that.”
He took the unconscious man to one of the huts and saw with relief that he did not appear in serious condition but had collapsed from fatigue, exposure, and hunger. He removed the soaked clothing, wrapped him in blankets, and trickled a little thin, warmed soup between his lips. The doctor's eyes opened and recognition gradually dawned in them. He tried to speak, but appeared too exhausted. Barnaby gave him more soup and left him to rest.
Outside, he saw that Hickinson and one of the seamen were already loading stores into the boat. Jimmie stood watching them, features downcast. His face brightened as he saw Barnaby.
" They reckon they’re going right away,” he said.
" We’ll see.”
Barnaby went down to the boat; the pair scowled at him, but did not stop work. "This offers the only chance of reaching the mainland we’ve had in seven years,” Barnaby stated. “ It’s a chance we must all take- together. This needs thinking out, not rushing. In any case we can't go for several days.”
Hickinson got out of the boat. " Why not?"
" Because the man who came in it isn’t strong enough for a second trip, yet, and we can’t leave him behind."
Hickinson lifted a case of provisions salvaged from the Silver Star over the gunwale, and straightened up.
" The fewer of us who go, the longer the food we can take will last," he declared.
Barnaby felt irritation anew at Hickinson’s selfishness. “ We can easily take enough food to reach the mainland, even with all of us aboard. We can keep a straight course by the sun.”
" And have you thought that it may not be only on the trip that we need food?" Hickinson demanded.
Barnaby did not answer. His eyes turned in the direction in which he knew they must go, and he wondered what lay there, beyond the miles of ocean. He knew what Hickinson meant - he had considered that possibility himself.
“ Even so, we stick together," he said.
He left them and sought out Captain Lacy. As he explained Lacy nodded. "They're fools," he stated bluntly. " We're all in this, and we all go together. The boat will hold the lot of us, and provisions.”
Satisfied, Barnaby returned to the hut. The man was sleeping quietly, and much of his colour had returned. In another hour it would be dark. and Barnaby sat down to watch him, and to think. The boat meant escape from the island. and he knew just how much that meant to every one of them. He had not missed the excitement in Lacy’s eyes, or the flush which had come to Janey's cheeks. Jimmie and Mavis had been frankly exuberant, and he himself had felt the same excitement and anticipation, though he had concealed it. At last he made his patient more comfortable, and settled down to sleep nearby. Seven years was a long time, he thought, as he began to doze. Many things could happen in seven years.
A movement of the man Barnaby had settled down to watch aroused him from sleep. The man groaned, then was still, except for his regular breathing. Barnaby watched him for a few moments, then rose stiffly and went to the door. A clear, full moon shone in an almost cloudless sky. An incoming tide murmured on the beach and Barnaby thought of the boat, and wondered whether it was secure. It would be as well to see, he decided. The boat was irreplaceable.
He hurried to the cliff top. The sea was loud on the rocks. The boat lay below and he gazed down, suddenly aware that two shadows moved near it. Momentarily he thought it must be some deception of the moonlight, then realised his error. Two men were preparing to cast off, and already the boat was in nearly sufficient depth of water.
“Hi ! Stop that!" he shouted.
He realised he had made a mistake. Their heads turned in his direction, then they began to force the boat seawards with their oars. Barnaby sped for the path down, stumbling in the dim light.
He got to the beach as the boat rose free on an incoming wave. Hickinson struck at him with an oar, missed, and Barnaby clawed over the gunwale. He grasped Hickinson's knees and flung him down; they rolled together, and Hickinson gained the upper position. His fist caught Barnaby on the jaw. Barnaby grunted and lifted a knee, getting his foot on his opponent’s chest. He heaved, and Hickinson went over backwards, swearing. He clambered up as Barnaby gained his feet and jumped forward, fists upraised.
"You’ll be sorry for this, Smith!"
Barnaby hit him on the jaw, in the stomach, and on the jaw again.. " Traitor,” he said. He parried a blow and hit him over the heart. Hickinson went down, gasping. Barnaby kicked him.
“ Get the hell out of here !”
Hickinson scrambled back into the water, swearing, his face livid. The seaman had crouched in the bow, and Barnaby scowled at him.
“ Get the boat back and tied up !”
His white-hot rage subsided as the man sculled close in to the shore and hastily secured the painter to an iron stake thrust among the rocks. The man disappeared into shadows, and Barnaby heard Hickinson abusing him fiercely.
At length the voices grew silent, and Barnaby sat down to watch. He thought it unwise to leave the boat to fetch help, and doubted if they would try to attack him, now that he had the advantage. Once he heard a sound among the rocks, quite near. Even rats may turn, Barnaby thought. He freed the boat and drifted out a little way, mooring it to an oar pushed into the sand. Fifteen yards of water lay between him and the shore, and he felt confident no surprise attack was possible.
The time dragged. The boat should never go unguarded, Barnaby decided, as he swayed gently to its motion. He knew he now had a mortal enemy in Hickinson. Eventually dawn began to lighten the sky. Barnaby watched it, and felt his interest quicken. Three blue sparks of light appeared, sped through the heavens, and vanished. They had been travelling in the same direction as those he had seen before, had moved with the same speed, and kept the same formation. It was very odd, he thought. Odd and inexplicable.
Three days passed before Barnaby decided all was ready. Hickinson grumbled, but avoided him. Barnaby felt uneasy at what they would find, after his first talk with his patient, who said he was ready to leave.
"My name’s Flemming- Doctor Flemming," he had said, “ not that names seem to matter much, any more.” His kindly eyes were fixed unseeingly on the opposite wall and his shoulders drooped. “ As you say, it’s useless staying here.”
Barnaby had agreed, and asked many questions, but the other had not answered. " You must not expect too much -when you get back there,” he said at last, his gaze meeting Barnaby's for the first time. “ Things aren’t like when you left.”
He seemed too dazed to say more, and Barnaby left him. Their stores, much reduced, were loaded into the boat. Captain Lacy thought she was seaworthy, given fair weather, despite the heavy cargo. On the morning of the fourth day they went down to the beach.
“ In a way it's almost like leaving home," Janey said.
They rowed in turn, helped by a light wind until evening, when it veered slightly against them and they took down the sail. The island was gone from view. The changed wind had a new chilliness, and mist promised to hide the stars. Captain Lacy had held a true course throughout the day, but a changing wind and obscured sky might result in the boat drifting many miles. Fog was descending, growing impenetrable as night came, and they lit a lantern tied to the mast.
Mavis and Flemming were asleep; Janey sat by them, only the glint of her eyes in the lantern light revealing her wakefulness. One of the seamen was rowing opposite Jimmie; the other sat with Hickinson in the bow.
" What do you make of our chances, skipper?" Barnaby asked.
Captain Lacy sat with his back to the mast, the light above his head. " With no stars or moon to take course by, we may drift. There are strong currents along this coastline. I plan to keep our bow into the wind until dawn, unless the sky clears."
Barnaby listened to the slap of water against their planks. The boat rolled monotonously, surrounded by an obscure, dim greyness which their feeble light did not penetrate. Faintly through the blanket of mist came a low gurgling, as of a large body moving in the sea. All his attention concentrated, Barnaby listened. It came again, more distant, then stopped. Lacy moved uneasily, but did not speak.
After a long time Barnaby tried to sleep. He wondered what the sound had been. Rowing slowly to keep the boat into the wind, Jimmie had not heard; nor had Mavis. Barnaby was glad, and shivered as he remembered the sound.
Some hours passed, and through the fog Barnaby heard the murmur of the sea against rocks -an unmistakable sound, and quite different from that mysterious gurgling. Lacy got up, an exclamation suppressed on his lips, and sounded over the bow with an oar.
“ A reef,” he said. “ We’ll anchor here till dawn.”
They drew the boat close in and Barnaby got out. “ You plan to stay until morning, skipper?" he asked.
Lacy nodded, testing the rope, “ We need the sun to set our course by."
" Then I'm going along the rocks to see if there's anything to hint where we are. Leave the lantern burning."
A dim whiteness lay all around him. Barnaby guessed that the mist formed a thin layer over the sea, and that the air was clear at higher levels. The glow of the boat’s lantern was almost immediately concealed. But with care, he should be able to retrace his way. Captain Lacy would not leave without him.
He climbed up broken rocks, ascending what he assumed was the raised spine of the reef. With amazing suddenness he came out into clear moonlight. Below, the mist lay in a silvery blanket, concealing the sea and lower levels over which he had come. Ahead was a conical elevation, higher still than where he stood, and he sought a way towards it.
From its top he looked round, disappointed. No land was visible. The low-lying mist stretched as far as he could see, glistening with moonlight. Very slowly a feeling of increasing chillness crept around him, and he abruptly remembered the strange sound he had heard. He remembered, too, the numbing cold which had existed under the cloud that had gathered so many years before, bringing to a halt life in the seaside town. It would be wise to go back to the boat, he decided, and turned.
A silvery wall had raised itself in his path. For a moment he thought it was mist, then knew he was wrong. The wall was smooth, and approaching. It glided forwards, gaining speed, and Barnaby felt panic leap into being in his mind, He spun round, beginning to run . . . and halted. A second silvery wall was moving in to prevent his escape. Paralysed, his nerves taut wire, he saw the vertical silvery masses meet, encircling him, and rush inwards. A chill struck through his body, numbing thought and movement; he seemed to be lifted off his feet and turned over and over in a world of grey space. A turbulence surrounded him; the sensation of cold ceased. He became still. Bodily feeling had gone, but his mind seemed vividly alive - and another mind, another intelligence, was interacting with it.
The thoughts that came were inarticulate, wordless. There was an alien strangeness about them. Their symbols were not those of Earth, but in that quick, brief rapport of mind with mind Barnaby felt that the intelligence sur- rounding him was striving to tell him something of the gravest importance, and to discover whether he understood. Then his consciousness blacked out, overwhelmed by the inrushing sensations. He did not know that he was borne along in the greyness, and lowered to the rocks a dozen paces from the boat. Nor did he sense or see the silvery mass withdraw rapidly and completely without sound into the mist.
Barnaby slowly became aware that his head was pillowed on Janey's lap and that Jimmie was chafing his hands. His head ached and his thoughts were spinning like a wheel. He remembered the terrifying exchange of intelligence which had arisen, and groaned. His mind seemed to be sucked dry; yet, somewhere in his subconscious, lurked the knowledge that he had learned something which was both new and vitally important to them all. He strove to recall it, but could not.
" Are you all right, Barnaby?"
He opened his eyes, groaned again, and saw Janey bending very close over him.
“ Yes. I think I must have -fallen."
This was not the time to tell them what had happened, he thought. The sentience that had trapped him still lay somewhere in the misty darkness. They would disbelieve him, or, if they believed, be terrified. He struggled to a sitting position. The boat’s lantern glowed a few paces away.
"Jimmie went to look for you and Mavis," Janey said, standing up, “He found you."
Barnaby experienced a shock. “ Mavis?"
“ Yes. She came out soon after you, saying she would follow. Did you see her?"
“ No," Barnaby said. His lips compressed. “ No, I didn’t see her.”
He stood up shakily. Jimmie had already gone ahead into the mist and Barnaby opened his mouth to call him back, but was silent. Jimmie would go, either way. If he knew what had happened, that would only make his search more eager.
Barnaby swore at himself, yet felt unable to go back up the slope. His knees trembled, his temples hurt, and his strength seemed gone. He went slowly to the boat. Lacy, Hickinson, and the two seamen stood near it.
"We must get a search-party out." Barnaby was surprised at the weakness of his own voice. “ If we all go we can easily find them.”
Hickinson made a sound expressing derision. " They were fools enough to go out in this murk -so let them find their own way back!"
Lacy’s eyes met Barnaby's, and Barnaby knew what the captain was thinking. It was not safe to go away and leave Hickinson with the boat.
“ But-" Barnaby said.
He dropped silent. Janey had come back to the boat and was listening. Somehow he could not bring himself to say that an unspeakable danger lay somewhere along the reef. He could not bring his thoughts into clear order. His mind still quivered from the impact it had endured and insistently whispered that there was something which he must remember ....
He groaned, got into the boat, and sat down by the doctor, who still slept. He must remember, he told himself. It was vital. But memory would not come, only a vague terror, underlying the fear he had felt before, and growing more intense as he strove to recall whatever it was which lay over the borderland of remembrance.
CHAPTER FIVE
“ You’ve got to come with us, son," Barnaby said again. “ Mavis isn’t on the reef- you can see that for yourself.”
Jimmie looked agonised.
“ I- just can’t believe she's dead,” he said miserably. “She must be lying injured somewhere - "
“ Perhaps.” Barnaby did not believe it was true. They had searched the narrow reef and it was now almost noon, yet Mavis had not been discovered. He did not voice his thoughts, but pressed Janey's shoulder. “Look, son, I’ll make a bargain; I know how you feel - -but we have a duty to the others. We must reach the mainland. After that, you can come back to search, if you like. We're in a tough spot. We are only ordinary people, son, and there's no scope for heroics, The skipper thinks we’re within a few hours of land, and wants to leave. He knows best; he’s boss, and we do what he says."
Jimmie’s face looked stubborn. " But--"
“ No buts,” Barnaby interrupted. "We go- now." He pushed the other towards the boat. 'They had examined the whole reef, and the surrounding sea, from the elevation of the rocks, and Barnaby knew that Mavis was not there. Undisturbed waves lapped round the reef, and he alone knew of the thing that had risen through the mist. Remembering that, he thought he knew what had happened to Mavis, and determined that his son should not spend a night alone on the reef. A dark, thin line on the horizon was visible from the highest point; Lacy was sure it was land, and was eager to be away.
They rowed in silence and the slender backbone of rock dropped away astern.
“ You could have let me stop behind," Jimmie said once.
Barnaby shook his head. “ It’s best this way."
He did not explain. His headache had gone, but the feel- ing that he could not recall something of vital importance remained. He wondered why he should forget like that. He was sure that during those moments when the shattering interchange of knowledge had arisen, some fact had been planted in his mind. A vitally important fact -but one he could not now remember. It was odd.
The dark land-mass drew slowly nearer until they could distinguish low cliffs. Barnaby judged that they were many miles from the mouth of the river from which the old Silver Star had set out on her last voyage. He searched the far distance for some sign of the little town that had stood on the estuary mouth, but his eyes could discern nothing except cliffs that faded from view at the limits of visibility.
It was almost evening when they grounded on shingle. Broken, precipitous rocks stretched up to the headland above, and Barnaby felt that his curiosity and impatience, restrained for seven years, would not let him rest until he had at least glimpsed what lay there. It proved to be a stiff climb, and the light was almost gone when he reached the cliff top. Landward, the ground sloped away to a lower elevation, dotted with trees which could just be discerned. To his left across the turf bushes grew thickly, and Barnaby walked along near them. The bonnet of a vehicle came into view, and he hastened, anticipation quickening his step. He reached it, and stopped. It was a bus, quite deserted. One door hung open. Rain and wind had blown in through the broken windows, covering seats and floor. Outside, the paint was stained and peeling away, and rust had eaten into the bodywork.
Barnaby drew back from the derelict. It gave weight to all his fears. His feet were on a hard surface, and he saw that he had walked for some distance along a road, not knowing. Rotten leaves covered it, tufted with grass, In places brambles had stretched out from the roadside, obliterating the handiwork of men, now that no men returned to cut them away.
Someone had ascended to the top of the cliff, and Barnaby went back to him. He saw that it was the doctor ; his face was bleak, and he shook his head slowly.
“ I told you not to expect too much, Smith,” he said.
" But- can everywhere be like this?" Barnaby asked slowly.
“ Indications are that it is. Civilised man had come to rely on electricity; when electricity failed, mankind failed, too. We're like savages abruptly deprived of fire. With more careful organisation, many people might have survived. But the interruption to communications caused chaos. Some rural communities could have survived- had not hungry, frantic masses poured from the cities. There was disorder. Crops were torn from the fields. Stock was slaughtered. Then famine came." The doctor groaned, and Barnaby look at him, momentarily forgetting his own dismay.
“ You saw it?" he asked.
"A little. I did my best. There wasn't much we could do.” Flemming was silent, gazing with misted eyes out over the deserted slopes. "There was disease- terrible disease. We had no medicines. The people who had survived the fighting and near-starvation of those early years had no resistance, and died. Some farmers tried to hide grain, to plant. They were hanged.” He laughed wholly without mirth: an abrupt, hard sound. "There was one rule in those days- if you haven't got food, and a neighbour has, steal it. If he resists, kill him. Yes, it was as bad as that." He sighed, and turned towards the cliffs.
Barnaby followed him, and abruptly the other stopped and looked back. “ You mustn't think the whole world went insane in its hunger," he said. “ But three-quarters did- and they slew the other quarter. I've seen farmers and their families die fighting to protect their stock and crops. I've seen people we would once have called civilised and intelligent roaming in bands through the fields, tearing away the half-ripe wheat with their hands, apparently never thinking that one has to plant, in order to reap! Those who had wit enough to provide food for themselves were just the ones the mobs turned on .... ”
The cultured voice was again silent, and Barnaby wondered through what vivid scenes of human folly the doctor had lived. His face was noble, though deeply marked with suffering, and Barnaby pitied him.
“ I shall never forget it," Flemming said, as if following his thoughts. “Civilisation was based on having enough of everything. When we had too little of everything, we became animals."
" But there must be some people---” Barnaby said.
“ Amazingly few. To live, one must have food. And if a man was found keeping food for himself, he was hanged."
Doctor Flemming began to search tor a path down to the boat. It was true, Barnaby thought. Improvident mob-rule would have precipitated the catastrophe. With curiosity he wondered what those who had survived were like. He scanned the slopes, but there were no campfires or signs to show whether another human being was within miles. He saw that it would soon be quite dark, and began to descend towards the beach. Suddenly the feeling that he somehow held an important item of knowledge returned. He halted, puzzled. It was as if he held in his hand a section of a puzzle, but did not know where it fitted, or, indeed, what kind of puzzle it belonged to. His mind was groping, as if trying to understand something so large in its implication that his brain could not encompass it. For a long time he stood there, then went slowly on, frowning.
Two days passed. The stores were removed to the top of the headland, and Jimmie and one of the seamen set out to return to the reef. Seeing the misery in his son’s eyes, Barnaby let them go. He, too, recalling that he had emerged unharmed, was not certain that Mavis was dead. Captain Lacy hid half their provisions in a cache marked with a rock, and they marched inland with the remainder. They went down the slopes, rose out of the dip, and emerged upon what might once have been a common. Barnaby saw several deserted houses. Their doors were open and their windows broken. A wilderness of nature's making was quickly returning, obliterating roads and gardens, fields and hedges.
Towards evening the outline of a town began to show ahead, and Barnaby realised that it was to this that Flemming had been leading them. Finally they came into the streets themselves, and Barnaby’s heart sank. Vehicles rusted where they had stopped. Shop windows were broken, and the interiors stripped of everything that could be used for food, fuel, or clothing. In some parts of the town fire had raged. Flemming led them into a big store, and down marble steps littered with rubbish. "This was my headquarters," he said.
He unlocked a basement door and they went in. One corner of the long cellar was occupied by a bed; a small heap of tinned foods stood near, and there were boxes which Barnaby judged had been salvaged from numerous chemists' shops.
They ate and rested. Afterwards, Barnaby went up into the deserted streets, wanting to be alone. He saw that Janey was completely tired out, and would probably sleep from sheer fatigue. The others, too, were near exhaustion, but he felt unable to rest.
The city was as still as some ancient necropolis untrodden by men for a thousand years. Buildings and gutted ruins towered against the sky. Once he came to an old barricade of ironwork, timber and vehicles, and turned back, wondering what hand-to-hand battle had raged there. Slowly he became conscious that someone was following him, stopping when he stopped, slipping into doorways when he looked back, but never being far away. He thought of Hickinson and his bitter antagonism, but dismissed that possibility. Hickinson had flung himself down to sleep -and the follower slipping through the streets behind him was stealthy and skilful. Barnaby quelled a desire to run, his neck creeping, turned quickly left, and stopped with his back to the wall in an alleyway. Minutes dragged by, then shuffling steps whispered up to the corner. An old man came round, peering ahead, and Barnaby stepped out behind him.
“ We’re both human beings, and want to do each other no harm- I hope," he said.
The old man faced about. His eyes were keen, his face hairy, and his clothing tattered.
" As you wish, stranger,” he said.
Barnaby was shocked by the cultured voice. He had expected abuse, oaths- anything but this. The old man smiled, looking up into Barnaby’s face. Momentary suspicion replaced the friendliness. . .
“ You’re not-trying to steal my food,” he whispered.
Barnaby shook his head quickly. “ We have plenty." He knew it was a lie; but diplomatic.
The other examined him gravely. “ You’re strange to these parts, he declared. " You’ve got to be- I haven’t seen a man in the town this month or more.”
" There were others?” Barnaby asked quickly.
"One. A doctor. No other people since the raids. They went away .... "
He sought for words, as if tongue-tied from long solitude. “They killed each other, and took the food,” he said. “Except mine. I'd hidden it.”
He began to back away. Abruptly he seemed very aged, and a mere tramp. The wind flapped his garments; his cheeks were sunken, and his eyes wild.
“You wouldn’t steal from an old man,” he whined. “ You wouldn’t follow me .... ”
" You followed me," Barnaby pointed out.
" That wasn’t to see if you’d got food. I knew you were a stranger. I wanted to warn you.”
Barnaby had been about to turn away. He halted. “ Warn me?"
" Yes. Not to go over the hall. They’re there -and the Darakua."
Barnaby felt chilled by the intensity of the words. The strangeness and danger of the situation momentarily forgotten, swept back into his mind.
"The Darakua?" he echoed.
" The mist -the cloud. That’s what they call it.” The old man took Barnaby’s arm. “ It’s alive, you know. It's thinking, down there, over the hill .... ”
He pointed, hand trembling. Barnaby followed his gaze, but even the top of the distant line of hills was invisible in the gloom. He shivered. So it had been named. The name was oddly impressive - as impressive and strange as the object itself.
" You can see it from the hilltop,” the old man said.
He began to back away, reached an opening between the houses, and disappeared into it. Barnaby called, but there was no answer. Frowning, he went back the way he had come. They're there, the old man had said. But there was no apparent explanation to that part of his warning.
“The human mind is a strange thing,” Doctor Flemming said pensively. “ It has its own safeguards and protective devices. Sometimes there are things it is best to forget. When that is so, we often forget them. In extreme cases loss of memory may arise - which is only our mind's way of protecting us against knowledge we can't face."
Alone with him, Barnaby nodded. The others had gone up to street level, and Flemming was seated on the edge of his bed, watching Barnaby keenly.
“ If there’s something you can't remember, it may be because the knowledge is so terrifying that your conscious mind cannot face up to it. So, to protect itself, the mind forgets. That’s how amnesia arises,"
Barnaby licked his lips, which were dry. This fitted, he thought. During that moment when he had been in mental contact with the Darakua, as the old man named it, he had learned something so staggering, So fearful, that his memory now refused to recall it.
"And- what can be done?" he asked thinly.
Flemming pursed his lips. “ If you can eventually bring yourself to face the situation, memory may return. Certain methods of psychological recall may help. You may even get some clue in your dreams, and form associations which will help you to remember.”
Barnaby got up from where he had been sitting on the edge of the table, and walked jerkily round the basement room. The haunting feeling of something forgotten persisted. It tormented his waking moments, and disturbed his sleep. Sometimes when he awoke he could scarcely distinguish nightmare and fantasy from fact, and would stare into the dark, sweat cold on his brow. He had told Flemming everything, and the doctor looked grave.
" It could be part of your shell-shock,” he had said.
Barnaby had not agreed. This was different- - and more important. In some inexplicable way he felt it vital to everyone. Once he had felt knowledge returning, like a long forgotten name. But with it had come the terror: it had paused on the edge of his conscious mind, then slipped away. By no effort of will could he bring it back.
" It was something I learned from the Darakua," he repeated for the tenth time.
Beyond that he could not go. The others returned and they settled down to sleep. That day they had explored the town, and found no one, though Barnaby had seen the old man watching them from a distance. No food had been discovered to increase their meagre store.
Barnaby slept uneasily, vivid, half-formed images of the Darakua haunting his mind. He started up out of fitful slumber with the feeling that someone had called his name. But the room was silent. Very slowly came the knowledge that the call had not come to his ear, but to his mind itself. Whether as part of a nightmare, he could not tell.
The feeling persisted. He rose quietly, and felt his way up to street level. A low moon illuminated the faces of the buildings on his left, and he walked slowly down the street, still as only an empty city could be. In the countryside, with night, creatures moved and leaves rustled. But here was complete silence. Only the empty windows seemed to watch him. His steps echoed faintly. The night air cooled his brow, and he went on, wondering at the compulsion which had brought him out. The streets and road-junctions drifted away slowly behind, and still he went on, reaching the outskirts of the city. There, he did not hesitate. Looking straight ahead, not asking himself if danger lay there in the night, he strode on. Rising ground now lay before him, silvery grey in the moonlight. He slowed almost imperceptibly as he began to mount the hill, whose top formed an undulating line against the sky.
CHAPTER SIX
Barnaby awoke suddenly, as though from a deep sleep. The top of the hill lay far behind, and the moon had traversed a segment of the heavens. Slopes dotted with bushes and trees led down to what appeared to be a dense wood, though distance and the dim light tricked the eye, and he could not be sure. A thin, keening whine sounded overhead, and he looked up, realising that it was this which had jerked him awake.
Three sparkling blue lights were moving through the sky. Swift and evenly spaced, they sloped down towards the horizon, and were lost behind the wood. Barnaby watched them go in wonder. They had the same appearance and formation as the orbs he had seen from the island, but were much nearer. He wondered whether he should go back. But his curiosity was too strong. Frowning, he went on down the slope.
He stopped a dozen paces from the wood. He saw, now, that it was no mass of ordinary trees. The growths were slender, of a translucent green, and moved slowly like reeds in a stream. They were tall, seemingly fragile, and hung with little groups of spatulate leaves. Barnaby went nearer slowly, until the edge of the forest towered high into the sky above him. Abruptly he noticed that all the flat leaves faced him. It was odd. He looked behind uneasily and began to go along the edge of the wood. A faint rustling followed, and he grew conscious that the leaves turned slowly as he went by, so that their flat surfaces were always presented to him. He halted, and they were still, but when he went on again the motion continued, a slow ripple of turning leaves keeping pace with his progress. When he was still the whisper of moving leaves ceased; still, too was the depth of the wood. No night-creatures moved there, and Barnaby withdrew, going on a little way up the slope.
He knew that his first sensation of danger and strangeness had been justified. The plants were not of Earthly origin.
At last the forest ended. Ahead was another derelict city, below him in the foot of the vale. He went down slowly into it, wondering whether here, at least, would be some indication that people still lived. As he walked his hope faded. Houses were dark and silent; no light showed; no voice or sound of man was heard. Occasional piles of rubbish littered pavements and road, as if angry crowds had torn everything movable from its place in their search for food. He went between rows of desolate shops, where no window remained unbroken, and emerged upon a cross.
A slender apparatus stood centrally at the intersection of the roads. Perhaps fifteen feet tall, it seemed to be constructed of immeasurably fragile girders which formed a tracery almost as thin as wire. It tapered to a narrow point, above which was suspended a disc of faint green light.
Barnaby withdrew into the cover of the shops, his amazement turning to dismay. Of one thing he was sure - the mechanism was not of human origin.
He went round back streets and on into the town, moving cautiously and often stopping to listen. At another large intersection a second mechanism, similar to the first, stood. He did not go near it, but kept to smaller streets, his curiosity increased a hundredfold. These signs of non- human activity could only mean one thing, he decided. Intelligent beings other than men now inhabited the planet.
Once he saw lights far ahead in the ruined city, and halted. The lights were pink and conical in shape, and bobbed and moved round one of the houses. He watched for a long time, wondering what weird activity was in progress, then he went on again, with increasing care. The road descended so that the scene ahead was hidden from view and he began to wonder if it would be wiser to turn back. It would take three hours at least, to reach the basement where the others would be waiting, he judged.
He turned round, and halted. Far away at the other end of the street which he had traversed, and barring his path, moved the pink, conical shapes. They rose and fell, moving towards him, sometimes apparently at ground level, sometimes rising up through the air.
Abruptly alarmed, Barnaby slipped down a side street which would bring him to a road parallel with the first. That road, too, was not empty, now. Shimmering faintly, the lights came drifting towards him, oscillating and bobbing.
Barnaby began to run. He made three detours in an attempt to find a road which would take him back to safety, and each time was halted by the appearance of further pink cones of light, which came bobbing towards him. He felt that his presence was known, and his way of escape was barred. Wherever he went the dipping, weaving pillars blocked his path, driving him farther and farther on into the city, not allowing him to return. He paused, wiping his brow, realising the truth - the things were hunting him.
He wondered whether he could hide, and entered an empty building whose door had been torn away. The interior was empty, devoid of anything which would form fuel, but steps led to an upper story. He went up quickly and into a tiny room, dark, with a small, broken window. He crouched against the wall near it, his position bringing into view a narrow section of the street below.
Minutes passed, and the lights came into view, much closer than he had ever seen them before. They seemed to curl and eddy within themselves, and had a core of increased intensity. Bobbing and oscillating, they passed slowly by the window, sometimes level with him, some- times sinking down to the road below. Barnaby felt every nerve tense. Scarcely breathing, he wondered whether they would go on, or whether some sense would inform them that he hid near at hand.
The beings slowly returned, congregating in large numbers and seeming to search round the building. For a long time Barnaby remained completely still, and at last the pink, radiant cones drifted away. The sky was beginning to grow light in the east and he risked a careful glance through the window. Several remained at the end of the street, preventing his escape. They knew he was still there, he thought.
Though life-forms totally alien to Earth, they had perceptions which nevertheless had enabled them to follow him, and they knew he had not gone on ahead.
He went down and along narrow back alleys, keeping as far as possible in the concealment of the deserted buildings, until he was near the edge of the city. Beyond the last row of suburban houses stood one of the fragile towers, its faint green circle of light vibrating. Barnaby withdrew, feeling it dangerous to go near, and went through a tangled garden and into a red-brick villa. From an upper window he examined the countryside, and realised that there was little chance of escape that way.
Far in the distance, at his left, was the dark mass of more of the alien plants. Pink cones of light moved along its edge. Nearer, almost directly before him, glistened blue, flattened circular vessels of a kind he had never seen before. Distance made an accurate estimation of their size impossible, but he judged them to be extremely large. One glowed with a radiance visible even in the early sunshine. and rose, gaining speed rapidly. It curved heavenwards, blinked like an ascending blue spark, and was gone. Behind it the clouds curled in the turbulence of its wake. which formed a hollow funnel up into the sky. Barnaby knew it was one of the vessels which he had first seen from the island.
He examined the impenetrable forest of alien plants again. The beings seemed to be vanishing one by one into its shadow, and he could glimpse them bobbing and oscillating among the tall, fragile stems. He shivered involuntarily. Here were life-forms utterly strange and quite alien to all Earthly standards. Yet they were highly organised and possibly had an intelligence superior to man, judging by the vessels they used, and the spidery towers which they had erected throughout the city.
Far away at the limits of his vision to the right shone a silvery haze. Barnaby examined it for a long time, unable to distinguish it clearly against the sun, then withdrew from the window.
The house had been inhabited fairly recently, he saw with surprise. One broken window had been boarded up. A chair stood by a hearth still littered with wood-ash and cinders, and a roll of bedding occupied one corner. He could not decide whether weeks had passed since the occupant of the room had last been there, or a much longer period. He searched the house and found every room empty. One door alone was locked. It seemed to give access to a cellar, and he left it untouched.
He returned to the bedroom and moved the bedding, searching for some indication of its owner's identity. A notebook lay hidden below, and he took it up eagerly. It contained very many entries, all in a high, sloping hand. With a shock he saw that the last paragraph was dated almost a year before. “ I must try to locate more food, though it is unsafe to go out," it stated. " They seem to have been watching the house all day, and may suspect my presence."
All the pages beyond were blank. Barnaby sat down and began to examine the earlier entries. The story they told seized his interest, and little by little he began to assemble the pieces in his mind. At last he laid the book down and sat motionless, reviewing what he had learned.
The entries showed that the man had hidden there alone for almost two years, going out when he dared, to search the derelict shops for food. He had seen the human savagery and folly which had changed the city into an unpeopled relic of a race no longer great, and had seen the arrival of the first alien vessel. The description was unmistakable and Barnaby’s gaze instinctively sought the window. The blue ships still lay at the edge of the wood, each shining with something more than mere reflected sunlight.
" They are of non-terrestrial origin,” the man had written. "I assume they came from beyond our system, and are totally unlike any form of life as we know it. I believe they have taken advantage of the universal chaos to settle on our planet, bringing with them their own peculiar vegetation, without which they apparently cannot live. They have set up artifacts of unknown purpose at many points in the city, and I have seen them kill wanderers whom they have caught. I cannot say whether mankind would have been able to repel them, under more favourable conditions. I suspect, however, that they may have observed Earth for many, many years, and only made their initial landing when they decided it was safe to do so.”
So his personal danger had been-- and still was - real enough, Barnaby thought. The presence of the pink cones constituted an actual threat to life.
"I have also discovered that the vegetation they have brought is inimical to terrestrial vegetable and animal life,” the journal stated. “ It spreads rapidly, killing trees and all kinds of herbage by the speed of its growth. After the immediate success of their first landing, the beings have continued to appear in increasing numbers."
Other entries told the same story in increased detail, and Barnaby noted the writer’s growing despair. An entry very near the end was poignant with helplessness and anger.
" Must our Earth become a mere colony of some alien life-form from beyond the stars? Must the very last of mankind hide in the ruins of the great cities we once built, afraid to come out upon the planet which was our own? Anything would be better than this, for it means the end of Man. We should fight- yet have no weapons and no organisation, and are too few .... "
Barnaby put the book away and went downstairs. All was quiet. He placed his back to the closed door, and heaved, one foot on the passage wall opposite. The thin wood splintered abruptly, and the door swung open. Steps led down into gloom, and he descended them.
At the bottom, half hiding one wall, was a pile of opened food containers. Beyond them, just visible, something lay. Barnaby stepped forward, then halted. The shape crumpled on the floor resembled a dummy without stuffing. Bony contours showed under the dusty clothing. The head was in darkness, and he did not go closer. The search for food had not been successful, he thought. Or the man had not dared go out.
He returned to the passage and closed the door, his face bleak. A prolonged, silent drama had been played out here. It could be repeated, with himself as the principal character, this time.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A tall tripod stood on the plain. Glowing faintly, as if constructed from some luminous metal, it emitted a murmuring hum like taut wires in the wind. Barnaby had wakened as the sound began, and had gone to the window. He had not dared to leave the red brick house, and had slept, exhausted, through the afternoon. The sun had now gone and he saw that the conic forms had emerged from the vegetation, and bobbed eerily around the tripod. He wondered how they had erected it - certainly there had been no sign of any part of the strange mechanism when he had lain down to sleep.
He judged the tripod to be at least twice the height of the building in which he hid. A spherical orb of golden radiance rose and fell rhythmically between its extended legs and above its top floated a green disc of light similar to that he had seen above the spidery towers. Fascinated, wondering what remarkable product of unearthly science he was observing, he crouched by the window. The murmuring rose and fell in even pulsations, and the golden orb oscillated up and down with increasing speed. A pile of dark earth began to appear beside the tripod, growing larger and larger as the minutes passed.
Barnaby dragged his gaze away. The flat, circular vessels were beginning to show more clearly as the light failed and the evening shadows grew more dense. He thought they were more numerous. A little way beyond them stood another structure which he had not seen before - a dome, with a saucer-shaped underside, about which many of the pink cones moved. He shivered involuntarily. He had always felt that life on other planets would in some manner parallel that of Earth, or that the creatures would at least be recognisable as flesh and blood. These beings were not. They were completely alien, the products of a totally dis- similar environment, and employed sciences about which he knew nothing.
His gaze returned to the tripod, and he saw with a start that an enormous pile of earth and fragmented rock had arisen. The orb still oscillated up and down, and the humming whine echoed from the sky. The aliens were mining , he realised with amazement. With their strange apparatus they were boring for minerals, or some other element they required. The speed with which the pile of rock grew seemed to him to demonstrate their power, and the wonderful efficiency of their contraption, more vividly even than the ships which sped at enormous velocity through the heavens.
A rippling movement began at one edge of the excavated rock. A brilliant spark like burning magnesium wire flickered into being there, and the rock began to disappear. Barnaby felt that he would give a great deal to know what processes were taking place, and what scientific principles were involved.
Darkness came. The white spot of light burned on, crackling and flickering and illuminating fitfully a rising
column of smoke. Barnaby decided that he must go out. The risk was preferable to certain starvation. And he might discover more about the aliens, despite the danger. He felt it his duty to do so if he could.
The streets were dark and silent, The humming and spluttering of the apparatus erected on the plain echoed over the rooftops, but every house was quiet, and every turning empty. He went between the unoccupied houses towards the edge of the city. Beyond the roofs the intermittent glimmer shone in the sky. He crossed an old railway bridge and the scene of activity came once more into view. The dome he had noticed now blazed with light Barnaby halted, transfixed with wonder. It was moving slowly away across the plain, quite without sound, despite its awesome size.
Barnaby watched for a long time, then began to work his way along the edge of the city, keeping the dome in view. Much activity had centred round it, and no pink cones came into view along the streets, following him. The mobile
structure slowly mounted a slope, reared against the sky-line, and began to sink from view beyond. Barnaby decided that it was unsafe to leave the shelter of the buildings, but a high block of flats was at his right, and an iron fire-escape stairway zigzagged upwards at its rear. He mounted it rapidly, and emerged upon a flat roof commanding an extended view of the countryside beyond.
Far in the distance glinted a silvery, mist-like shape that extended farther than he could see. The dome was moving slowly towards it, strangely suggestive of some purpose. The space between gradually decreased, then abruptly vivid orange light sprang from the dome, playing along the edge of the silver mist. Barnaby trembled, awed by the crackling fury that glared at the sky, and deeply shaken by his realisation of what it meant. He put hands to his ears to quieten the thunder which echoed from heaven to earth, and screwed up his eyes against the brilliant orange that burned through the night.
“ The Darakua!" he breathed.
The aliens were attacking it with energies unleashed by sciences they alone understood. Its edge writhed visibly, withdrawing away into the darkness, then slipping back until the orange rays struck it again. Still the dome advanced slowly, the curvature of its top strongly outlined by reflected light. Flecks of fire scintillated into the sky curving down upon a vast area of the countryside. The continuous reverberations of displaced air made unending thunder in the night, and Barnaby felt sweat cold upon his brow. Never had he thought to witness such a fearful demonstration of power. The building quivered, and somewhere below glass tinkled to the iron staircase. He hid his face, feeling the greatest works of man were mere puny playthings, and wondered how men could hope ever again to regain the Earth against such forces.
Slowly he became aware that the thunder was ceasing, and that the orange flashes burned less fiercely through the dark. He lowered his hands, afraid at what he would see.
One side of the dome had collapsed. Its top was sagging like crumpled paper. Out of it rose a myriad pink cones oscillating wildly. Then abruptly their buoyancy ceased; they sank earthwards, and vanished. A silvery mist was sweeping up round the destroyed dome, encircling and covering it. It tilted, rearing its torn rim against the sky. then vanished. The air grew silent; the night dim and quiet. Even the hum of the tripod and the movement near it had ceased, Barnaby realised, and he could hear his own hastened breathing.
He went down the stairs a little way, fearing to be seen against the sky. Multitudes of pink cones appeared on the plain, intermingling rapidly, but they did not follow the path the dome had taken. After a time some began to approach the city, and Barnaby hastily descended to street level.
At the corner of the block of flats he halted. Two cones bobbed at the opposite side of the road, each shining with its dim radiance, its more intense inner core swirling like smoke in a glass.
He retreated. The other way from the flats was barred, too, and he hastily ascended the iron stairway, sharply aware of his own danger. He looked over the edge of the flat roof carefully, scanning the streets below. Many of the beings were converging unmistakably on the block of flats, and his nerves grew taut. Soon the building was surrounded, and the shapes began to waver and bob up through the air, rising slowly. Some drifted in through the broken upper windows of the flats opposite, and he could glimpse them moving inside.
He found a trapdoor, but it was secured on the inside. Only at one corner of the roof, where chimneys emerged, was any cover offered. He crouched down between them and the low parapet wall, waiting.
Pink cones bobbed up level with the roof, and came across it. Never had he seen them so close. Taller than a man, they seemed almost to be living flame. They wavered eerily, and he quelled the impulse to jump up and run- even to fling himself from the roof, to escape them. He wondered in what remote galaxy they had originated, and upon what inexplicable plane their intelligences operated. They passed and repassed the chimneys, yet seemed unaware of his presence. Scarcely breathing, he waited.
At last they began to drift away across the roof. He moved his head round the brickwork, watching them. Immediately they began to bob back towards him. He shrank back, still as the masonry against which he crouched, cursing his impatience.
They passed over him and slowly circled the chimneys rising and falling slowly. Only by an effort of will could he prevent his lips uttering a cry of terror. Only a vague hope kept him motionless as they passed the very spot where he was hidden.
After a long time they moved away across the roof, but did not leave it. Barnaby did not alter his position, only his eyes following them.
They could not distinguish him from the stones against which he crouched, he thought. But their senses immediately detected movement. When an object moved, they knew it lived .
His flesh crept. If they did not go away he would die- or move, and be discovered.
There seemed no way to escape them. They could not be judged by the standards with which he was familiar, or by any standard ordinarily applicable to Earth. Alien in form, their senses existed on some para-normal level he could not hope to comprehend. Because of that, his danger was increased a hundredfold.
He reviewed what he had witnessed, and a sudden thought occurred to him. They and the Darakua were antagonistic. They had moved against it to destroy it, but had been destroyed in their turn. He shuddered. It seemed doubly horrible to think of two such alien life-forms battling for possession of the planet, while the few surviving men could only watch in fear, unable to pit their strength against either of the invaders.
Time passed and he grew stiff, but dared not move. Four pink cones remained on the distant edge of the roof, oscillating gently. Barnaby felt that they would never go away. They knew that he was hiding somewhere, and would wait until he was forced to move. . .
He wondered what had happened to Jimmie. and whether he had located any trace of Mavis on the reef. Janey would be worried, too, he thought. She would wonder why he had not returned, and so would Lacy and the others. It had been foolish to venture out so far, he decided. But regret was too late, now. He remembered what Flemming had said, and felt that he had somewhere missed an important clue. Things seemed to fit, yet could not be reduced to one comprehensible whole. There was the shattering exchange of knowledge which he had experienced with the Darakua, and the feeling that he possessed information vital to them all. He remembered what Flemming had said - a man could forget. because he was afraid to remember. It was a protective device of the human mind.
And yet, he asked himself, what could men do? They were too few, as the diary he had found said, and too morally shaken by the catastrophe which had arisen.
He moved, trying to ease his limbs. The pink cones wavered across the roof, but halted once more as he froze. Perspiration beaded his forehead, but he did not wipe it away. He wondered, instead, how long he would be able to keep still.
A humming began on the plain. Barnaby strained his gaze round the angle of the chimneys, and he saw that the tripod now occupied a different position. The golden orb was once again rising and falling rhythmically, continuing with its work. Three of the circular vessels rose into the sky and vanished, travelling westwards rapidly. He wondered if other human eyes fearfully watched the scene, or whether his fellows had been eliminated from the face of the Earth.
At last he slept from absolute exhaustion. Vivid dreams occupied his mind. He imagined himself the very last of men, alone on a desolated planet, and hunted . . . Whenever he awoke the pink cones were still there, wavering and bobbing, but not going away He felt delirious with fatigue, and watched them with red-rimmed, aching eyes.
He was hoping for too much, he thought, They would never go away.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Captain Lacy shook his head slowly. “ It’s not safe to go, lad,” he said.
Jimmie compressed his lips. "Are we going to do nothing while we disappear one by one! First Mavis; now - "
“Your dad should be able to look after himself," Lacy pointed out, " I shouldn't worry too much about him. He may have a very good reason for not coming back."
"It may be a different kind of reason than you think!"
Lacy made an expressive gesture. “ I'm only giving you my own opinion, lad. If you want to try to find him, we shan’t stop you. But I say it's safer and better for you to stay here. We shouldn't split up."
Jimmie saw that the other was quite confident of his own opinion. He almost wished, now, that he had not gone back to the reef. His search had been absolutely without result, and he had returned to find Barnaby gone. He wondered if the old captain was right.
“ I- I can’t decide,” he said.
He looked down the silent, empty street which Barnaby must have followed. Had he gone the other way, that would have brought him to the coast again. Jimmie had not seen him, and decided he had gone inland.
“ Even if you go, there’s little chance you’ll find him,” Lucy said. “ There's a thousand places he might be.”
“ You've no idea where he was going?"
The grizzled head shook regretfully. "None, lad. When we woke up he’d gone. Never said a word about it to any of us."
Jimmie bit his lips, wondering if the same mysterious fate had overtaken two out of the three he most loved. Mavis, with her corn-coloured hair and sparkling eyes had gone . . . but, against all the dictates of logic, he could not believe her dead. Her loss was a burning sorrow to his heart, and he could not rest.
A man came out of the entry to the basement. The expression on his square face was unpleasant, and he leaned against the corner of the wall, eyeing them with disfavour. His gaze settled on Lacy.
“ If the kid wants to go, let him. It’s no loss to any of us."
Jimmie experienced a surge of anger. “I believe you hope dad doesn’t come back!" he accused.
Hickinson shrugged, levering himself upright. He pushed his hands into the pockets of his ragged coat. “If he doesn’t come back that’s no loss to any of us, either," he said. " He’s too fond of giving orders - which we aren't all ready to take.”
Jimmie stifled the retort which sprang to his lips. It had been clear for a long time that Hickinson fancied himself as leader of the little group of survivors, and was ready to say so, now that Barnaby was gone. Lacy did not speak, and Jimmie read the significance of his expression. It was best to avoid any open conflict, if possible. They were too few, and their position too hazardous, for enmity between them.
“ We must stick together," Lacy murmured. “ And we can’t afford to lose any of our number,"
Hickinson’s face expressed disagreement. " If Smith was fool enough to go into danger, that was his fault.”
Determined not to become involved, Jimmie entered the building. For a moment he thought Hickinson was going to bar the entrance, but he moved aside, openly sneering. Lips compressed, Jimmie descended to the basement. His mother was there, tall, slender, and still young in appearance. Worry had marked her face.
" I’m- going,” he said.
She nodded slowly, not moving. “ I thought you would . . . You may find him . . .”
“ I’ll try."
There seemed nothing more to say. He put a little food into a canvas bag, conscious that she watched him all
the time. She did not speak again until he was at the door.
" I’ll- hope.”
It was only a whisper. He went up. The others had gone from view, and he turned his face towards the distant hills, his step quickening now that indecision was gone.
Jimmie looked back, listened, and went along the edge of the spindly forest. The whisper of turning leaves followed him, ceasing only when he halted, and he wondered uneasily whether the movement was an automatic one. Or were the plants aware of his presence, by some sense of theirs? Except for the vibration of the spatulate leaves, there was no sound on the evening air.
As he walked he watched eagerly for some sign to show that men still lived. Small houses he passed were empty. No lights shone in the windows; no voice sounded, and no one appeared to greet him. Only was the darkening evening sky, and he quelled his feelings of bitter disappointment. He had hoped- even expected- that there would be people on the mainland. But the empty houses mocked him; the silence seemed so complete that it would never again be broken by human voice. And the loneliness suggested that mankind had gone for all time.
The forest slipped behind, and the outline of a city appeared ahead. He hastened, mounted a rise, and stopped. On the plain beside the city a multitude of faintly-radiant pink shapes moved. He watched them for a long time, puzzled, and trying to decide what they were. Then he went on, keeping at an angle which would take him away from them to the other side of the city. It would be best not to go into the streets near the plain at all, he decided. Danger could lie that way, and it was no part of his plan to be numbered among the missing.
He walked the streets for an hour, and realised the hopelessness of his search. It would require several days of unremitting effort to traverse all the numerous by-ways of the town, and, even then, he might pass within yards of a sick or injured man, not knowing he lay there. Night was coming, but he saw that the moon would rise full and clear. He sat down a little while on a stone bench outside a once imposing municipal building, but could not rest.
Something fluttered at the end of the street. He started to his feet, staring, and wished that the moon was already high, so that the intense black shadows did not extend across to the buildings opposite. He stilled an impulse to call out. He felt the movement had been that of a woman in flight, who had crossed the road junction beyond, but was not absolutely sure. He ran down the pavement to the corner, his steps echoing, excitement reaching a new intensity in his mind. If not a woman, then what?
He reached the junction and gazed down the intersecting road. Half in moonlight, half in shadow, someone flitted towards the turning beyond windowless shops. A surge of emotion, half triumph and half fear, swept through him.
“ Mavis ! " he called.
He was sure it had been she. Fantastic, it seemed unbelievable. Yet true. By an inexplicable miracle, Mavis, fleeing through the silent streets in the moonlight, the white of her dress fluttering . . .
He ran past the shops, and to the corner. She was halfway down the next block, crouching against the wall. Even at that distance he could distinguish the terror on her face. He called again, but she turned, running on.
Calling her name, he ran on, hating to terrify her, yet knowing that he might never find her again if once she slipped away into the maze of streets and buildings. She ran quickly, gaining so that he guessed she could not hear his voice. Once he thought that he had lost her, but he saw a movement of white inside a broken shop. She slipped through it and into an alley, going on deep into the town. He didn't call again, but ran rapidly. Then he emerged into a wide street. She stood on the pavement opposite, looking back, her shoulders heaving and her hair so loose and thick that her face was almost hidden. He stepped out slowly into the moonlight, standing so that she could see him. He saw her terror subside.
“ Jim! I didn't know it was you . . . !”
He crossed quickly, and she wept in his arms.
He stroked her hair, wondering at the extremity of her terror. Her body quivered and her face had worn such an expression as he had never before seen. Slowly her trembling subsided, and she stepped back.
“ How did you get here?" he asked. He felt amazed still at the seeming miracle of it.
Doubt came into her eyes, and some of the terror began to return.
“ I- I don't know,” she whispered.
He felt alarmed. Her expression had changed. Her lips were quivering and a haunting fear was revealed in her eyes. He wondered through what extremities of dread she had lived, that such emotion should be plain on her face. He pressed her arm.
“ Don’t worry. How did you get from the reef?"
“ I- don’t know." She looked both ways along the road quickly. Her face was white in the moonlight. “ It isn’t safe here . . .”
It was not safe anywhere, he thought, but remained silent. She seemed almost to have lost touch with her surroundings, and he guided her into an arched doorway between high buildings. They listened, but the city was silent as the unpeopled relic of some forgotten age.
“You haven’t seen- anyone?" he asked. He thought it best not to mention names, yet. The knowledge would only distress her further.
She shook her head. “ No. "
She scarcely seemed to be listening, and Jimmie remembered what Doctor Flemming had told him about Barnaby. Lost memory, the doctor had said; Barnaby had lived through some experience which his mind refused to recall.
Mavis still had her eyes fixed as if looking at things beyond the reach of normal vision. “ I only remember going quite a little way from the boat,” she said slowly. “ I thought it would be easy to get lost. There was no sign of Barnaby. A mist seemed to come along the reef." She shivered. " That’s all I remember . . .”
Jimmie felt his curiosity and uneasiness augmented. “ A mist?"
" It seemed like that-- but it moved by itself. I- I think I tried to run away, but it caught me--"
Her voice trailed into silence. Then the silence was split by a scream. Short and sharp, it echoed from house to street, and was gone. Jimmie’s head jerked round. It had come from the part of the city away towards the plain where he had seen the pink cones bobbing. Nerves quivering, he wondered whether it would come again. Something in the timbre of the sound had immediately recalled his father.
The silence, utterly complete, grew. He could hear their breathing. Minutes passed. The abrupt sound, so final, did not come again.
“ It was somebody,” Mavis breathed.
Jimmie wondered whether she knew, or suspected. He did not like the manner in which the sound had cut off into nothing.
" Let’s- go that way,” he suggested.
They went silently along the street between the dark shops. Every window was shattered - obviously broken in some scramble for food, or hand-to-hand struggle. He knew that every building was an empty shell, stripped to the walls by people whom necessity had made lawless. He imagined those early years, and their terror. Unable to produce more, civilised man had cleared his larders of the goods he needed, then perished, frozen and starved.
Ahead was a wide avenue, with high blocks of flats beyond. Jimmie stopped, drawing Mavis to a halt at the corner. Many of the pink cones of light swayed and oscillated around one of the buildings. They floated thickly down from the level of the roof, congregating in the road between that block and the next.
“ I- saw a lot of them outside the town," Mavis whispered.
They kept still, watching. Slowly the conical forms began to bob away towards the edge of the city. Jimmie’s flesh crept, as if some sixth-sense warned him that he was exposed to great danger. Only when the last of the shapes had gone from view did he breathe easily.
" It was here the cry sounded,” Mavis said.
Jimmie was silent: to answer seemed impossible. After a little while the bobbing shapes began to return to the road opposite, and he drew Mavis back round the corner.
“ It doesn't seem safe to stay here . . ."
He went with her back the way they had come. Once or twice he glimpsed a pink shape at the junctions behind them, and he hurried. His first joy at discovering Mavis had gone, submerged by anxiety for her, and for Barnaby. He stole a glance sideways. Her face was white and had a curiously waxen, set expression which suggested that she had lived through so much that all feeling had gone. She stumbled, and he held her arm.
" We’ll find somewhere you can rest," he said.
Night air breathed in through the unglazed window. The room was shadowy, its further walls unseen beyond ghostly shapes of disused machinery. Dust and fallen plaster covered the floor, and Jimmie sat uncomfortably on an iron bin which he had turned up out of the rubbish. Mavis was crouched against the wall, his folded coat behind her head, and he changed his position cautiously, not waking her. So extreme was her exhaustion of mind and body that sleep had come almost at once, and he had settled down to watch. Her face, dimly seen, twitched, and she said something inaudible.
He tried to decide the meaning of what she had told him, but failed. Clues were missing, and her fragmentary explanation incomplete. Though tired, he decided it best not to sleep. The surrounding dangers demanded watchfulness. Mavis groaned, stirring, and he bent close to her, trying to catch what she said. The words were inarticulate. He sat upright again, gazing at the oblong of the window, now a trifle more light, as if dawn was not far away. Memories vividly remained of the short, sharp cry, which had rang so loudly of terror and pain- particularly of pain.
These things should not happen to ordinary people, he thought. He remembered- not very clearly- a time when the world had been different. Humanity had been unprepared. Only indistinctly could he recall seeing the streets and buildings full of people, Now, for all he knew, Mavis and himself might be the only humans left alive in all the world.
She moved again, and he saw that her eyes were open. She stared at him, not speaking.
" We’re safe," he said. " It's all right . . ."
Her eyes were wide, and their gaze did not waver or change. He felt sudden uneasiness. He had never seen her face like this- so set and still.
He moved to her side, putting an arm round her shoulders. She was trembling. He felt afraid.
“ Are you- all right . . .?” he asked.
His voice sounded strained even in his own ears. She drew away from him, a hand fluttering to her lips.
" W- where am I?" she whispered.
The question had a vacant, empty ring to it which turned his heart cold. The look in her eyes was wild-unreasoning. Her face was white, expressing terror only. No recognition was there, nor gladness at his presence.
She drew back more closely against the wall, "Who are you . . . ?" Her gaze strayed round the room, lingering on the machinery. “ Why? Why am I here. . .?"
Jimmie felt his throat run dry. The dread became a certainty, and almost panic. He stared at her, not knowing what to say. Almost he wished that he had not found her, or that she were dead. Death would be better than this vacuity, this empty, uncomprehending stare. His mind cried out against it, striving to deny it, but he could not.
She edged away from him along the wall, her fingers clawing at the brickwork, her eyes terrified. He tried to touch her arm, comforting her.
" Don't worry." He tried to make his voice confident. "You’re safe."
She only drew back, lips quivering. " I- I- Who am I...?"
CHAPTER NINE
Barnaby rubbed his shoulder, so numbed that when he pinched it he felt nothing, It has been like an electric shock, but ten times more terrible. Try as he would, he had been unable to keep wholly still. Cramped muscles cried out for relief, and he had moved. The pink cones had come across the roof, and one had brushed his shoulder . . .
The discharge of energy would have killed him, he thought, except for the protection of his old leather coat, and the way the asbestos roofing compound provided insulation, so that the current had not been able to travel through him to earth. Had he been at street level, or in contact with some grounded body, the touch would have been fatal. He quivered still from the shock of it. A cry had been forced from his lips, then his consciousness had blinked out. When he slowly became aware of his surroundings he did not know how long had elapsed, but he guessed that his motionlessness had saved him, for the pink cones of radiant light had gone away.
Early-morning light illuminated the roof-top. He rose from the sitting position to which he had lifted himself, and looked into the streets. They were empty. Still rubbing his aching shoulder, he went cautiously to the fire escape.
The weak forelight of dawn illuminated the plain, and pink conical shapes were already drifting away into the fragile vegetation. Many circular vessels rested there, and three shone with their own radiant energy. Some of the forms wavered towards them, though their outlines were already beginning to grow less clear as the shadows weakened.
Barnaby descended the steps and sought a way towards the edge of the city. He felt that circumstances had given him a chance to watch the newcomers to Earth at close quarters. From experience they doubtless assumed that when one of their number came into contact with an organism of flesh and blood, the latter died. Presuming him dead they had left the flats. Furthermore, their activity became reduced when daylight came, and they retired into the cover of the plants with which they had apparently seeded large areas. Circumstances might never again be so favourable, he thought.
He hastened to the end of the town away from the mass of spindly trees. The rising ground over which the strange, domed machine had moved offered cover, and he struck out at right angles. Ahead, broken, uneven earth with a thin scattering of bushes promised some degree of concealment at his left, between him and the aliens’ camp. Half a mile from the outskirts of the town a tiny stream crossed his path. He drank, bathing his face, and felt that some of the stiffness had gone from his shoulder.
He followed the watercourse for some distance, and went on behind a ridge, which ended in an outcrop of rock. From its cover he made a careful examination, and saw that the nearest of the three alien vessels which he had previously noted was a mere fifty yards away. He felt amazed at its size, Saucer-like, it shimmered with its own light. Equally spaced round its perimeter, at ground level, were many open entrance-ports. No oscillating pink forms were in sight.
Barnaby’s intense amazement turned to strong curiosity. He wondered what miracles of other-world sciences lay concealed in the huge hull, He wondered, too, whether some weakness in the aliens, or in the contrivances they built, might not be discovered. Though they were unearthly, he refused to believe them invulnerable. And though their technological achievements exceeded any attained by man, he would not credit them with perfection. Perhaps his hope was illogical, he thought wryly, but hope had helped to make mankind glorious, and he would not abandon it.
The thought had scarcely come when he sent his feet flying over the green turf. He bounded along a dip, emerged on to level ground, and sprinted towards the glimmering bulk. As he reached it its bulging shape over- shadowed him mightily, concealing the sky. It gleamed almost like blue glass illuminated from behind, and the whole vast hull seemed to vibrate with dormant energy.
The inside was divided into spacious segments radiating from the centre like the intervals between spokes of a wheel, and Barnaby saw that the vessel must be almost or quite empty. Floor and walls were of the same shimmering substance. He pressed his hand along them, and it moved without friction. A feeling of slight warmth came to his fingers, and he imagined that he felt a slight vibration as if it was not solid matter which he touched, but a barrier of radiations, maintained by unseen apparatus. The whole of the chamber was bathed in a faint blue radiance, but he could not see where it came from. Doorways led off each side into similar chambers, and he went through one, curious to see if he could reach the heart of the ship.
Abruptly his feeling of weight increased, almost driving him to his knees. He stumbled, the sensation of increased gravity persisting, and dragged himself to one of the perimeter entrances.
The surface of the Earth was dropping away at fantastic speed. Already he was so high that the town lay spread out below like a toy, and sun shone round him, though the plain below was still in shadow. He could see a long, wide strip of alien vegetation, rapidly receding; far beyond was a glimpse of the sea. Then the vessel’s course took it in a long, rising curve through clouds. Vapour eddied in its wake, obscuring the view below, and Barnaby drew back from the door.
Air whined past the hull, which sang with power. Sick with horror, he watched a curved panel slowly slide over the entrance. His view of the clouds below was cut off and the noise of their motion was reduced to the whisper of air past the outer fabric of the vessel. He turned, his back against the wall, listening. No sounds other than the subdued thrumming of the ship itself reached his ears, but he knew that did not mean he was safe. The pink cones moved completely without sound.
Small oblong sections of the outer walls were transparent. He gazed down from that nearest at hand, trying to glimpse
the earth below. The patches of cloud were intermittent; and he judged that the ship was keeping at an altitude of perhaps a little over two miles. Gradually the atmosphere cleared, giving an uninterrupted view of hills, plains, rivers and valleys. Barnaby crouched at the window his gaze searching for some indication of human activity.
There was none. Every town was empty. Unchecked fire had apparently burned through some, leaving great dark scars among the buildings. Vehicles rusted where they had stopped. Great factories stood as silently as deserted toys. Already the force of nature was beginning to obliterate the works of man. Railway tracks and roads were green-grown; tangled weeds covered fields that had been arable! hedges were relapsing into one with increasing wilderness. And clumps of the alien vegetation thrived everywhere. Some were quite small - mere clusters of spindly plants soon to spread. Others were large, covering acre upon acre that had once been green fields and dappled forests. Examining the masses of tall vegetation, Barnaby saw that the flora of Earth was engaged in a losing battle. Even trees could not survive. A wood passed below, half submerged in the tide of spindly growths. Some trees still stood, but were dead, as if the surrounding vegetation had robbed them of light, air and moisture. Barnaby guessed that none of the creatures of Earth found refuge in the alien forests. The plants were inimical to terrestrial life, both animal and vegetable. Were, indeed, part of the aliens’ attack on a defenceless planet.
the same scene was repeated . Empty towns and country soon to be overrun by the vegetation of non-earthly origin passed below until Barnaby withdrew from the window, dismayed. It was very clear that the activity of the pink cones was not confined to any one area, but was extensive, and increasing.
He went into the next segment of the vessel. A passage led inwards towards the ship's axis, and he went along it. No place was safe, he thought. It might be equally dangerous to stay in the section he had first entered. The passage was long, and opened into a tall, circular chamber. One glance told him two things- that he was in the most important part of the ship, and that he could never comprehend the strange equipment with which it was filled.
Naked power radiated from the central apparatus, keeping the vessel in flight-perhaps even maintaining the fabric of the hull itself, he thought. The apparatus sang with a note that filled every chamber. Circles of energy whirled and wavered like giant wheels meshing together. Sparks danced, tainting the air with ozone as they streamed between electrodes of unknown purpose. Never had Barnaby seen anything so mighty, so complex, and so remote from the conventionalities of Earthly science. Unable even to guess at the principles involved, he gazed at the vibrant apparatus, his sense of personal danger momentarily forgotten in wonder. This, he decided, proved his suspicions. The pink cones were more advanced than man. Men, with all their civilised machinery, had never approached this awesome level, where matter and energy were controlled direct, and made to fulfil purposes mere human mind could not even comprehend.
He felt that the vessel was beginning to descend and went quickly back along the corridor. Hills passed below, flanking country quite unfamiliar to him. He wondered what fantastic velocity the ship had reached, and how many hundreds- or thousands - of miles lay between him and the plain where he had boarded it.
Still it skimmed earthwards, low over vegetation of the kind he had come to expect, its speed decreasing. It grounded almost imperceptibly, and the curved doors began to slide open.
Barnaby backed against the wall, every sense keenly awake. Possibilities sped through his mind. He could never hope to reach Lacy and the others without aid. Only one chance existed- that the ship would eventually return to the plain beside the ruined city, and that he would then be able to escape. The possibility seemed slight.
A myriad of pink cones began to come from a distant strip of the vegetation towards the ship. He retreated into he passage, hurried down it, and emerged into the central chamber. There, he pressed himself back into an angle formed by the wall and a curved structure which rose high into the domed roof above, and waited.
A feeling of electrical tenseness slowly grew in the air; a whispering, so faint that his ears could scarcely catch it, filled the ship, and pink, bobbing cones were reflected on the glittering blue walls opposite. The whispering continued for a long time, then slowly faded away. It was, Barnaby thought, like the movement of many bodies - but of bodies so ethereal in substance that they moved almost without sound. A shaft of light reflected up the passage disappeared, and he knew that the outer doors had closed. The ship began to rise.
The walls and hull murmured softly to themselves. Time passed and three conical forms came through the door. Barnaby watched them, only his eyes moving. They wavered across the chamber and went from sight beyond the whirling apparatus. He felt that a cold dew had started to his forehead. If they touched him, he would die.
He wondered if the ship was returning to the plain, or speeding towards some other destination. It was difficult to judge the passing time, but he began to feel that the camp by the ruined city should already have been reached, unless their speed was reduced.
The glowing cones reappeared from behind the apparatus and oscillated slowly a bare ten paces away. Abruptly, frighteningly, a searing thought-message struck its way through into his mind.
" We know you are in our ship. We shall find you.”
Barnaby almost sprang from hiding. The warning had not been in words, but had impinged directly upon his brain. He felt that he was already discovered, but held down his panic.
“ You, cannot escape,” the thought came. " We are many - you are one only."
He wondered upon what strange levels their perceptions existed. It was clear that they did not possess the power of vision, or any equivalent, Had they, he would have been seen standing against the wall.
" You are a fellow of the intelligent species which once inhabited this planet. You are intelligent, therefore dangerous. Accordingly we shall eliminate the last of you"
Barnaby's brain sang at the impact of the para-mental vibrations induced in it. They stung so that his scalp prickled, and he wondered what chance of escape, if any, existed. If he moved, they would catch him.
The three near the apparatus had not changed their position; they seemed, indeed, almost to be waiting to discover him, if he sought to reach the door. Minutes passed slowly, then new thoughts began to strike into his consciousness.
" Except for your small group, the planet is now without your species. We shall destroy all that remain of you. We are a superior life-form, and shall supplant you."
The communication ceased, but the three beings across the floor began to come slowly towards him, wavering from side to side and spreading apart. They now knew approximately where he was, Barnaby thought. Perhaps some directive apparatus had been in action, locating the spot . . . Perhaps the messages which had impinged on his mind had only been a kind of beam, seeking him out . . . Perhaps they had not simply tried to trick him into moving, as he had thought . . .
They were close, converging on his hiding place. They glowed, their intense cores swirling. Even in his panic Barnaby noted with wonder that he could see straight through their bodies, as through shining pink mist, to the apparatus beyond.
He sprang from the corner. The cones curved sideways, following him. Others came in through a door to his right, bearing between them by some invisible means a hollow green tube with a yellow interior, about one end of which a thin halo played. The tube followed him, and the cones came across the floor, hastening.
He ran behind the whirling apparatus, eyes searching for some means of escape. The axis of the vessel was transparent, and the Earth showed far below, patchily visible through cloud. Dozens of tiny levers rested in sockets along the flank of the apparatus, controls, Barnaby thought.
They could be nothing else. And if he had to die, he would not die alone!
He jerked up the levers frantically. Shocks ran up his arms, sparks arced, and the vast, spinning wheels vanished as if switched instantly out of existence. The floor sloped; the sensation of weight ceased, and he knew they were falling. The pink cones ceased to advance, hesitated, and receded towards the doorway leading to the outer segments. He followed them at a distance. The curved doors in the hull were sliding open. Rapidly, but without apparent panic, the aliens slipped out. He saw them floating through the air, bobbing and oscillating, and realised that they would reach Earth safely. Little more than cores of energy, they were almost without weight.
He clung to the edge of the door, now sloping as the vessel skimmed down, its speed increasing. Trees and hills, far below, raced up to meet him. Far beyond them was the vast silvery outline of the Darakua, brooding silently like a circular area of mist which would not disperse. Barnaby cursed his own impatience. Had he been able to evade capture a few minutes longer, the ship might have landed at the camp. Instead, it was falling out of control, gathering speed every minute. As it descended, it turned slowly about its own axis, giving a momentary view of the scene behind. Two other ships followed, curving high above. The pink cones that had left the damaged vessel were drifting earthwards in groups.
The rotation carried him again to the leading edge of the disc, and he saw that it was now over the area of the Darakua. The vast size of it filled him with wonder. Its remote limits were out of sight, and he knew that the descending vessel must soon strike it obliquely.
Air roared through the open door, and the silvery surface seemed to leap up towards the ship. Barnaby saw that there were few seconds left. He clung to the edge of the port, judged that the best instant had come, and flung himself down and outwards. The huge saucer-shaped bulk passed overhead, skimming into the mist. He turned over and over, falling . . .
CHAPTER TEN
A silvery haze surrounded Barnaby Smith. He was not aware of falling any more, but seemed to be floating in a space where gravity was nullified, so that no sensation of weight remained. He felt no terror, only a mild surprise. It seemed difficult to remember how he had come to be in the silvery haze. He merely wished to be encompassed by it, resting, not even thinking.
He noted that the haze was not still. It eddied and curled around him, areas of increased density coming near, then receding again. And the vapour seemed vibrant with life, and aware of his presence.
Aware of his presence! He repeated the words to himself, shocked out of the sleepy feeling of calm. His thoughts clarified, and he looked round, trying to find a glimmer of daylight through the mist.
There was none. Above, below, and on all sides it filled the whole area of his vision. In some curious way it seemed to be bearing him along - there was a sensation of motion, though there was no object by which he could judge his speed. He remembered hurtling down from the damaged ship, expecting to land with bone-shattering force on unyielding earth. He wondered whether he was still falling downwards, through high masses of vapour, but decided that he was not. Instead, he felt buoyant in the silvery mist, as if it had cushioned his fall.
A naked elm, its branches ghostly beyond the haze, seemed to glide past, and he knew that he was indeed in motion, and at no great distance from the surface of the Earth. The mist ahead grew brighter, thinning almost imperceptibly, as if he already approached its edge, and would emerge into open daylight.
It was odd, Barnaby thought. There seemed no explanation - no purpose . . . No purpose? He spoke the words aloud. He was wrong: there had been a purpose.
It all came back, now. The mist had communicated with him. He had lain as if unconscious in its depths, while the thoughts played around him. He had learned many things. They all came back to memory. The mist was sentient. Like all living things, it learned from experience. It had come from a remote galaxy, drifting for millenia across space. It had not recognised the flesh and blood creatures of this planet upon which it had landed as being alive. They were too different from its conceptions of life. But now it knew. It knew, and regretted their death. It was not antagonistic. It could not hate, or be unjust. But it could feel regret. And in some inexplicable way it had made him know that it regretted what had happened. It had not intended harm, it said. All the creatures of Earth had been so minute it had not recognised them as living . . .
The mist thinned; a hilly slope showed dimly through it, grew more clear, and then stood out, fully seen. Barnaby felt his feet upon turf. Moving air came along the slope, cool on his face. Ahead, just visible, were the tops of buildings.
He took a few paces and looked back. Behind him was a vast, silvery hump, so high that he could not see its top. It was withdrawing silently, rolling back like smoke before the wind.
He experienced fear and disbelief, then both were replaced by acceptance of what he saw and knew. The cosmos was immeasurably huge, he thought, and there was no reason why man should assume that all other forms of life should run parallel to himself. And this had happened. It was not imagination. The thing they had named the Darakua had drifted in from the stars beyond the Milky Way, and lay behind him.
He glanced back, hurrying on. I am Barnaby Smith, he thought, an ordinary, sane man. This is happening to me. It is unusual, but happens. I must accept these facts, not try to close my mind to them. I must realise that this is happening, and that there is a reason for it . . .
He felt better, more confident and hopeful. After all, he thought, strange things did happen. A man’s
experiences were always widening. It was part of the ability of the human mind to accept new data, evaluate it, and form logical and sane decisions upon the result.
Two figures stood on the edge of the town, watching him. One beckoned, waving, and Barnaby recognised him with heart-felt relief. The other he recognised, too, but she did not wave. As he drew closer he saw that her face bore a fixed, blank expression, without recognition.
Jimmie drew him back quickly into cover of the buildings. “ It’s not safe here, dad.” His eyes shone with relief, but clouded as he looked at his companion.
Barnaby followed the gaze. “ What happened, son . . . ?”
“ I don’t know. She's had a shock.”
" You found her on the reef?"
“ No, here, in the town."
Barnaby’s breath hissed between his teeth. Mavis had been lost on the reef- -yet found in the city! Miles of sea spanned between the two.
“You don’t know what the shock was?" he asked thinly.
“ No. She went to sleep - and woke up like this."
“ I see."
The shock of remembering, Barnaby thought. It was, perhaps, that. She had remembered the mist which had borne her to the mainland . . . but her mind had not been able to accept what had happened as actual truth. It refused to believe, because the experience was so remote from previous experience. It refused to remember, because she could not endure remembrance.
Jimmie looked around uneasily. “We mustn't stop here."
They went back through the silent streets, branching off twice down side alleys, to avoid fragile towers which stood at the main road junctions. Barnaby supposed them to be some kind of watching-tower, and he was glad when at last they reached the distant side of the city.
They rested, Mavis stared straight ahead, not speaking. She seemed lost in a private reverie and scarcely aware of their presence. Her eyes were shadowed; her lips drooped, and she looked immeasurably tired.
“ I don’t think there are any other people alive," Barnaby said quietly at last, " Or only very, very few. We occupied a unique position, on the island. “We had food, and avoided the bloodshed which must have been terrible when the rioting was at its worst." He jerked his head the way they had come. " I suspect that our enemies back there have been removing survivors. We are a threat to their dominance. Therefore we must expect trouble,”
Jimmie pursed his lips, his lean, brown face expressing comprehension. “ They may attack?"
“ I think we must expect it."
Silence came between them, each occupied with his own thoughts.
"Mavis and your mother may be the only living women remaining on this planet," Barnaby said after a time. “ You’ll need to -protect her."
Jimmie nodded slowly, but did not speak.
“If that is so, as I suspect, you may be the progenitors of any future humanity,” Barnaby said.
He did not add that he believed the impression received from the thought-transference which had arisen in the saucer-shaped vessel was true, and that nowhere did people remain on all the Earth. But he felt that Mavis had become immeasurably valuable. If what he suspected was true, upon her well-being would depend the whole future as far as mankind was concerned. Looking at her, he wondered by what fragile thread the fate of the whole species hung. Gone was the sparkle of her laughing eyes; gone, too, her quickness and vivid awareness of living. Instead, she moved as in a dream, listless, pale, and sad.
They went on, passing the alien forest, whose leaves followed their motion, and ascended the hill. From the slopes they could see a little way beyond the city. Barnaby looked back, his face bleak. He asked himself what chance they had against the multitudes of the enemy. None, unaided . . .
" Let’s hurry and get back to camp," Jimmie said uneasily. “ The others will be waiting for us . . . "
They turned and went on, walking quickly.
Hickinson balanced himself on the balls of his feet, his arms folded across his chest. His chin was slightly uptilted ; his face expressed disdain, contempt, and superiority.
" It’s obvious that we’re not safe here,” he said. " We’re defenceless. We should leave immediately- - -”
“ No.” Barnaby shook his head with conviction. "Running away will only delay the end. They would follow us, wherever we went. There's no lasting safety in flight."
“ But we could find a better place," Hickinson contradicted. " At least that’s my opinion - and I'm prepared to back it up.”
They were momentarily silent. Only a dim light filtered down into the basement, and Barnaby examined the faces of the others, trying to decide what their feelings were. Janey and Jimmie would support him. Lacy and Flemming appeared to be unconvinced, but keeping open minds. Hickinson was openly antagonistic, and the seaman who sat on an upturned box at his side would probably follow his lead.
"I believe we shall find nowhere better than this,” Barnaby said slowly. “The two alien life-forms now on Earth are enemies of each other. The first phenomena which caused all this - which we now all know to be living, and which was called the Darakua --is the enemy of the beings who came in the blue ships.”
" Then if there’s going to be a conflict between the two, the farther away we are, the better!" Hickinson put in.
The seaman nodded. " There's a lot in that."
Barnaby wondered whether he would ever convince them that the great, cosmical entity that had settled on the planet wished them no harm. He had tried to explain. but Hickinson had been openly incredulous, and his disbelief had influenced the others.
Barnaby’s face set. " I intend to stay here," he said.
Jimmie moved uneasily, and Captain Lacy cleared his throat. " We must not split up,” he objected gruffly.
Barnaby saw that their discussion had come to a standstill. He turned abruptly away and went out of the basement up to street level. He knew that Hickinson had not been pleased by his return. It had been difficult, too, to describe his experience when enveloped by the silvery mist. He knew. That was all. It was almost impossible to convey that to the others.
Janey came up behind him. She had walked so quietly that he started.
“ Barnaby, don’t you think perhaps you made a mistake?" she said.
Barnaby frowned. " What about?"
“ The Darakua, as we call it. Perhaps you fell- were unconscious- imagined it all.”
So even she did not really believe. She looked for other explanations - explanations which fitted more easily and could be readily understood.
“ I was not unconscious! " He felt annoyance that no one would believe him. "Not in that way. It's friendly. That's the one thing which we must realise. It does not wish us harm - - -"
"But it caused this disaster."
“ Unknowingly. We are so different, perhaps so low down the scale of life, that it did not recognise us as living. It merely landed here by chance. When you boiled the drinking-water this morning you destroyed millions of bacteria, That’s an analogy. The only difference is, that you intended to destroy them, whereas it did not intend to destroy us." His gaze turned back in the direction of the hills. His face grew bleak. “What’s more, I’m confident that it would help us, if it could," he said thinly. " It tried to communicate with Mavis- and her mind couldn’t stand it. It tried to communicated with me - and that knocked me flat, mentally, the first time . . .”
Janey followed his gaze, and her face went a shade pale You mean- ? "
“ That if one of us had the mental stamina to communicate with it, it could help us! That's what I believe. And if we could communicate with it, a solution might be evolved! ”
Her hand came on his arm. " You’re not going back to it?"
He would not look at her, and resolutely ignored the pleading in her voice.
“ I- don’t know, yet," he said.
He went below to find Flemming. The doctor had intelligence, he thought, and a great knowledge of the way the human mind worked. Flemming had gone out, but Lacy was sitting on the bunk, carefully collecting together fragments of tobacco from a folded paper. His gaze settled on Barnaby.
“Is there anything in what you say about the Darakua?" he asked gruffly " I mean, about it being intelligent. Seems a queer idea to me.
“A jellyfish is intelligent," Barnaby snapped. " It learns by experience.”
" Maybe, but a jellyfish is flesh and blood, of a kind. Frankly, I feel you may have - have--"
" Dreamed it?" Barnaby prompted.
Lacy looked uncomfortable, and bent over his tobacco scrapings. “ Yes, if you care to put it that way," he said at last.
He was the same as Janey, Barnaby thought. The Darakua was outside their experience: therefore they could not believe.
“ I'm ready to back you up if there's anything in it," Lacy continued slowly. " But I’m not convinced that there is. If it’s dangerous to stay here, we must move.”
Barnaby left him, searched the adjoining rooms, which they had cleared for storage and sleeping, and returned to street level, wondering where Flemming had gone. The doctor was well advanced in years, and had endured great privation. Usually, he rested below, only going into the streets occasionally.
Jimmie was standing by the door. “ Mavis is asleep," he said.
In his tone Barnaby read the depth of his feelings. "We must hope she’ll get better, son."
“ I’m beginning to doubt if she will.” Jimmie gazed pensively down the street, now empty. "‘ And I suspect trouble. Hickinson feels he’d like to be boss.”
" There may be- other opinions," Barnaby said.
He wondered if they, the last group of mankind, were to be split by pointless quarrelling. Divided, their chances of survival would be reduced.
A man appeared in the street, running shakily. Barnaby recognised him as Doctor Flemming. He stumbled, looking back as if expecting pursuit. Panting, he drew near, his steps slowing. Barnaby caught him almost as he fell. The doctor was shaking, and he clutched Barnaby's arm.
“Look, from- the hill---”
He pointed back, momentarily unable to speak. Barnaby lowered him to a sitting position against the wall. Jimmie had already started along the street, feet flying, and Barnaby followed him. As he ran he wondered what this meant.
They reached the top of the sloping road almost together, and halted. It commanded a view which extended over the roofs of the more distant buildings, and on towards the hills beyond which lay the city where the pink cones had set up their machines. Jimmie’s breath escaped in a whistle of astonishment, and Barnaby felt a chill surprise run through him.
A silvery mass was advancing slowly over the hills. It flowed towards them almost like heavy smoke. Once. Barnaby might have supposed it to be mist; now, he knew that it was not. It was oddly purposeful as it came towards the town. It did not hurry, but never slowed. It flowed silently over and round the trees and bushes in its path, obscuring them from view. All at once, perhaps for the first time- Barnaby fully realised what an incalculable, enormous entity was the thing they had named the Darakua. It had lived in the void of space; had drifted between the stars for periods of time so lengthy that nations on Earth had arisen and waned. No man could ever hope to comprehend it, he thought. No man could understand its power, or the processes by which it lived and moved. But, in seeing it rolling over the hills, a man might realise its full mightiness, as never before. He felt awed, amazed -yet no longer incredulous. This thing was. It had drifted in from worlds unknown to man, and was now advancing down the slopes towards the town.
“ W- we must tell the others.”
Jimmie's voice, almost a whisper, jerked him from his deep reverie of wonder. With a last backward glance, Barnaby began to hurry back along the streets which had echoed to Doctor Flemming’s hastening feet.
The others stood in a group in the street. Flemming was with them, but still appeared shaken. Barnaby wondered what they would decide to do- probably leave immediately. If so, he himself would have to make a difficult decision: to go with them, or to remain and endeavour to contact the cosmic entity advancing on the town.
Hickinson stepped out from the group. His eyes were angry, his expression nasty.
“ It was you who argued that we should stay!" he snapped. “ Except for that we should have left the town hours ago.”
Barnaby retained his temper, meeting the other's gaze levelly. “ I still think that we shouldn’t go. If some of you decide otherwise, there’s still time.”
Hickinson glared at him. " That’s just it,” he said, “there isn't time!"
“ But it’s moving quite slowly, and has a long way to come.”
Barnaby wondered if Hickinson was trying to stage a row. If it had to come to a showdown, he himself would not try to avoid it, he decided.
Hickinson's eyes blazed. “ ‘It's too late,” he stated with great emphasis. " Too late. You haven’t been to the other side of the city- I have. . . .
A shock ran through Barnaby; his gaze went questioningly to Captain Lacy, who nodded soberly.
“ It's as he says, Smith. We can't leave in the other direction. We’re surrounded- by the beings you saw on the plain, that side.”
Hickinson nodded. His lips were set, his face not with- out terror. “ I saw three ships land,” he said. “ Others were following. They know we’re here, and they plan to get us. There were more of them than I could count.”
Barnaby was shocked into silence. This development was unexpected, and had come at the worst moment. He wondered if the attack from one flank had, in some way they did not know, precipitated that from the other.
“We must all leave - now." Hickinson stated. “There’s just a chance we could slip through, or some of us, if not all.”
Barnaby’s mouth set in a thin, straight line. “ I don’t feel that's a solution,” he said.
They looked at him, and Lacy nodded very slowly. "We mustn't panic. We need shelter and food. We have them here. It might be possible to hide, or barricade ourselves in one of the houses."
Hickinson made a gesture of impatience. “ We should have to come out eventually!"
Barnaby saw that argument would get them nowhere.
“ I'm staying," he declared. “ I may be able to contact the Darakua."
Incredulity came to Hickinson’s face. Lacy looked grave. “ We shouldn’t split up, Smith,” he objected.
“I, for one, won't stay!” Hickinson stated. “That’s final. ”
Barnaby bit his lip. Suppose he himself was wrong, he thought. Suppose he jeopardised them all by his determination to stay? It was too great a risk to take.
“ I will abide by Captain Lacy’s decision," he said at last. “ I feel it best to stay. But if he considers we should leave, and remain together, I will stay with you . . .”
The intent eyes turned from him, and Lacy pursed his lips. Barnaby felt that even Hickinson would agree to the captain’s decision. He had always been just, and still had an air of authority, despite his years.
Lacy looked both ways along the street, then at them.
" I feel there may be something in what Smith says,” he stated at last. “ On the other hand, our chances of escape grow less with every hour, though it seems to me that it will take some little time for the town to be completely surrounded. His eyes settled on Hickinson. “ It will soon be dark, Smith has seen these beings, and says they are most active at night, but comparatively quiet during the day, possibly to shield themselves from the sun’s radiations. We cannot escape tonight. I therefore propose that we wait until morning, when we have most chances of getting away." His eyes returned to Barnaby. “ That gives you until then, Smith. If you can produce any proof of your claim that the Darakua wants to help us, and that it’s best to stay here, in the meantime, then we will stay. Failing that, we leave at dawn.” He had grown crisp; years seemed to be slipping from him. “You others can begin to collect stores. We shall need everything we can carry. ”
Only until morning, Barnaby thought. So little time.
He went alone to the top of the road. The shimmering mass of silvery grey was still coming over the hill, though its nearest edge was still far from the outermost limits of the town. Barnaby keenly sensed his own insignificance. So vast was the approaching entity that most of it still lay beyond the hills.
" You’re not - going down to it?" a quiet voice asked hesitantly.
Janey had followed; she stood very near to him, not looking at him, but at the distant hills, dimly seen.
“ I may,” he murmured.
She bit a lip. "Why not wait until morning, then come with us - for your own safety?"
“ Because the safety of an individual can cease to be very important, when greater things depend on what he may achieve.” He gazed across at the silvery mass, so deceptively appearing like mist. "It’s changed," he said. “ The bitter cold we first experienced near it has ceased. It’s not absorbing heat, now. Why? Possibly because it knows such cold is death to any of the creatures of this planet in its vicinity? If so, that proves it is not antagonistic to our kind of life. It also proves that it can control its processes, to some extent. If it does so deliberately, it must be conscious.”
They were silent, until at last she pressed his arm. “You’ve thought a lot about this, Barnaby.”
“ I have,” he agreed. “ There are few enough times when I’m not thinking of it. My beliefs are deduced from what I have seen.”
“ But that still doesn’t show how it can help us. What can it possibly do?"
“ I don’t know," Barnaby said slowly. “ I only hope. I’ve no proof, which is what Lacy wants. I don’t blame him. His decision was a big responsibility. It just seems to be a chance which I must take, because something may come of it.”
He left it at that, knowing she understood. Voices sounded behind them, coming up the road. Hickinson and the seaman had emerged from a side-turning, and were carrying a heavy wooden box with rope handles. Hickinson appeared triumphant, and they set the box down, breathing heavily. His, eyes glinted as he turned them on Barnaby.
“We'll Show it we're not beaten,” he said, and jerked his head towards the hills. “ I don't intend to sit back and do nothing.”
Barnaby looked at the box, and back at them. "It's . . . ."
“ Dynamite,” Hickinson said. “ A few sticks of this may make it change its mind - if it’s got a mind.” He laughed, nodded at the seaman, and picked up the box.
Barnaby's hand fell heavily on his shoulder. “ You promised you’d give me until morning! ”
The other pulled himself away. “We hadn't found this dynamite then! Why should we all risk our lives because of some silly idea you’ve got?"
He scowled, and Barnaby felt very near to striking him. He thought of the Darakua - sentient, mobile, and enormous. What would its reactions be when the explosives tore through the living, ethereal fabric of its being? Anger and dismay swept through him.
" You don't know what you're doing!" His voice was harsh, “ You’ll change it into our enemy-"
“ It's that now ! " Hickinson snapped.
"Not in my opinion. Captain Lacy ordered you do nothing like this until dawn."
“ I'm not interested in your opinions- nor in Lacy’s orders! He’s an old fool."
Hickinson looked ugly, and Barnaby knew that no argument would turn him from his purpose. Anger swelled within him, and he caught the other by the tunic at his chest.
“ It’s you who's the fool, Hickinson! I was told I’d have until dawn, and have until dawn I will, if I have to knock you out to get it!" He put his fist under Hickinson’s nose. “ I’ve put up with enough of your trouble-making! That thing down there is friendly, I tell you- friendly! Will it be that when you’ve thrown dynamite into it? And do you think a few sticks of explosives would stop it, anyway? It’s big. Ten thousand men couldn’t stop it, so what use are two?" He released Hickinson, sending him staggering backwards, and compressed his lips. “ Get back into the town!" he ordered. “ I’ve thrashed you once, and can do it again!"
He advanced, eyes flaming, and Hickinson hesitated, then retreated towards a break between the houses, cursing. The seaman followed him. Both disappeared, and Barnaby scowled at the box of dynamite, half on the pavement and half on the road.
“ They don’t realise what they’re playing with," he said quietly. " I'm going back to tell Lacy to keep an eye on them, then .... ”
His gaze flickered towards the distant hills, and the silvery mass slowly gathering between them and the town, and the corners of his mouth turned down. He swung on his heel abruptly, leaving Janey standing by the box. Her expression hurt him; he would not let himself look at her, or think of what she had said.
They stood together in the empty, silent street, and Captain Lacy nodded his shaggy head pensively.
" We should have expected something like this from that pair," he said slowly. “They've got their own ideas, and they try them out without thinking much, Smith. It’s lucky you spotted them, I’d say."
" Then you'll stop them, skipper? " Barnaby pressed.
“ Aye, if they’ll take any notice of me. At least I’ll watch ’em.”
Barnaby felt momentary relief. An attack on the Darakua might be disastrous, he suspected. They both turned as a step sounded in the doorway, and Jimmie emerged from the entrance to the basement. Even in the fading light his frown was apparent; he looked both ways, then his gaze returned to Barnaby.
" Seen Mavis anywhere?"
Barnaby shook his head. Concern for her had momentarily slipped out of his mind, driven by the pressure of more urgent danger. Lacy, too, made a negative gesture.
“ Haven’t seen her here, lad,” he said. “ She was down in the basement when I came up."
“That’s where I last saw her," Jimmie agreed. “ I began making up the packs to carry, how you said, and when I went back she was gone.”
They looked at each other, and Barnaby wondered what sudden impulse had taken the girl off alone, into the maze of streets and turnings of the town. Captain Lacy swore under his breath.
“ If we don’t find her by morning it’s going to cause trouble!"
Barnaby saw what he meant, and Jimmie nodded. “ I shan’t leave without her,” he stated levelly. He listened, looking round at the empty buildings with something of hopelessness on his face. " I'm not going until she’s found -not even if the rest of you do !”
His voice had risen slightly in tone and Barnaby put a hand on his shoulder. “ Steady, lad. We’ll find her."
He wondered if they would. The town was big, its streets many, and its open doorways uncountable. But Jimmie had lived through enough, for one day, he thought. He was only a youngster- an ordinary lad who should have had no such problem to face. They were all ordinary people, Barnaby thought, sucking in his cheeks. Simple, ordinary people, who had been caught up in momentous events.
Light, hurrying steps sounded near. For a moment he thought it was Mavis, already returning, but Janey emerged from the increasing gloom. At his first glance Barnaby knew that something was wrong.
She halted, breathing quickly, her face a dim, white oval.
"They - came back and took the dynamite,” she said. “ I- I couldn’t stop them.”
Barnaby felt extreme dismay. “They’re going - to attack the Darakua. . . ?”
She nodded breathlessly.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The last houses, outskirts of an empty town, slipped away behind, and Barnaby's gaze searched the countryside ahead for some indication of the two men. He halted, listening, but the only sound was the thin, faint whispering of the night breeze across the slopes. No voices came; if near at hand, the pair were silent.
He went on among bushes, and crossed a disused road, wondering whether the two would attack him, and wishing that the moon would rise to relieve the darkness. When he looked back, trying to judge his position, the dark, quiet town could not be seen, and he could not be certain that he was not deviating from his way. No stars had yet appeared to help his sense of direction, and he found that at some point unknown he had strayed from the path he had previously followed.
The surrounding bushes and trees became more dense, visible as darker clumps in the gloom. Soon he had to push a way between them, and seemed to be among young saplings which sprang up thickly, but among whose spindly trunks he could thread a way. He wondered whether the two were far ahead, and cursed them for bringing him on such a search when he should have been making better use of the few hours Lacy had promised.
He slowly became aware that a faint rustling kept pace with his movements, always seeming very near, and he halted. The sound stopped; silent and dark, the night pressed around, and he gazed heavenwards. just visible against the sky were large, spatulate leaves. A shock of surprise ran through him, and he stepped back involuntarily. He had seen leaves like that before. . . .
He turned, examining the tiny clearing in which he was. The spindly trunks seem to rise as thickly as prison-bars, and the leaves tilted, following each move he made. Their leathery, quiet rustling chilled him, and he recoiled from touching them, looking, instead, for a clear way to pass. In momentary panic he thought of those genus of plants which trapped living prey. Did a similar explanation account for the silence of the clumps of alien growth, where no birds flew, and no creatures ran between the boles? He shivered, and plunged determinedly towards the spot where the surrounding stems grew most sparsely.
The leaves clung to his limbs and face, and when he brushed them away a faint, strange odour came on the air. Sap flowed from each leaf he touched; his steps grew unsteady and he stumbled, seeming to move in a dream. Leaves that had lifted as he came hung thickly, opposing his return, dribbling sap as he pushed them aside, so that his clothing reeked with it.
He halted on stony ground where the plants did not grow, and breathed deeply of the cool night air coming down from above. Had the wood been thick, and had he penetrated far into it, he would never have escaped, he knew. But ahead lay the road which he had crossed, making a dark, straight tunnel through the plants. He followed its centre, listening to the rustle of the leaves near at hand each side, and quelling the impulse to run, which might send him headlong into some unseen obstacle.
He emerged between thorn trees which fringed the alien growth, and wiped his brow with a shaking hand. The odour still clung in his nostrils, soporific and heavy. His feet felt leaden, and he sat down at the roadside, momentarily so dizzy that he thought he would fall.
Quietly through the bushes came crying, sad, desolate, without hope. Barnaby raised his head, listening. It ceased, then began again, and seemed near. He rose unsteadily, determining its direction, and struck off the road into the thorn trees. The sound stopped, and he wondered whether he should call, but decided against it. If Hickinson and the seaman were watching for him it would be best that his position remained unknown to them.
He went between briars, and halted. Mavis was crouched on the turf, her hands over her face, and her eyes staring up intently, terrified, at him. Some of the fear went from their depths, and she tried to stand up.
“ The- the trees tried to hold me," she whispered, “ My ankle .... ”
Barnaby put his arm round her, taking her weight. He wondered why she had come this way. She gazed in the direction of the thickets of spindly trees, her eyes large and dark .
“ The leaves- move,” she whispered.
“ I know."
She looked at him. “ I thought perhaps you were one of - them."
So the two men he sought had been near, Barnaby thought. He was glad that her distress was subsiding, and wondered abruptly what had jerked her memory back to normal. There had been no blank stare in her eyes; her face was pale, but mobile with feeling.
" You’ve remembered," he said softly.
“ Yes.”
The word was scarcely audible, and he sensed the depth of feeling behind it. She had remembered- but for the moment she did not wish to speak of that, or of what she had recalled. Barnaby suspected that he already knew the extent of her knowledge. He could be wrong, but felt that the first explanations must come from her, when she was ready.
She put her injured foot down carefully, trying her weight upon it.
" It seems better," she said.
Barnaby listened, but the night was silent. Time was passing, he thought, and the pair with the dynamite getting farther ahead.
"I heard voices, but I don’t know which way they went," Mavis said, seeming to follow his thoughts. " It was just before I got among the spindle-trees."
She shuddered and Barnaby vividly remembered his own danger. " I must stop them attacking the Darakua,” he said. He led her back towards the road. “ They don’t realise what they’re doing.”
Mavis halted, resting her leg. " I talked with it .... " Her tone was suppressed and taut. " It seemed to know everything - to be aware of everything. I-couldn't endure it."
Barnaby nodded. This was just as he had thought. The giant entity was so vast that the impact of its intelligence was more than the human mind could bear. It was overpowering to remember.
Night air breathed down from the distant hills; stars glimmered distantly in a half obscured sky. Still trees edged the road, reaching shadowy branches overhead. No sound told that other beings lived and moved under the night sky; nor was relic of mankind here visible, showing that once millions had teemed upon a populous Earth. Only was the black heavens above and the soft turf beneath their feet, and, in Barnaby’s mind, the burning realisation that the pair somewhere ahead must be found and stopped.
Man was small, Barnaby thought. The knowledge that he must communicate with -- and be guided by -the entity that had drifted down from intergalactic space was too much.
He remembered how Janey had tried to dissuade him from returning to the Darakua.. Her voice had beseeched, her eyes implored. Almost he had agreed: almost. She had feared what might happen.
Mavis had hesitated, and she touched Barnaby’s arm. "You’re going on."
He nodded. “ To find those two, if I can - and to see what it's got to tell me."
Dismay came over her face. " You’re going to try to get into communication with it?"
“ Yes. I feel it wants to help; can help, perhaps.”
The dismay changed to terror; her eyes grew wide, and she faced him in the starlight, relieved now by a dim reflection of the moon on thin cloud. Her lips parted, but Barnaby never knew what she was going to say. Far ahead beyond the trees a vivid flash blinked on, illuminating the sky. An explosion echoed closely after it, rocking the night with sound, reverberating thunderously from the hills, and grumbling away into the distance.
Barnaby felt the blood drain from his face. Almost immediately a second flash and concussion came. echoed; and faded into silence.
“ The fools!" His voice was harsh. “They’ve reached it already!"
Mavis gripped his arm. “Don’t go, Barnaby. Don't. . . !"
He pulled himself away and plunged into the darkness, running fast.
The Darakua writhed back, its fabric vibrant with alarm. The shattering explosions had torn through the edge of its forward rim, dissipating gaseous fragments upwards. Never before during the hundreds of thousands of years of its existence had it experienced such hurt, No mere physical impact of matter could harm it, for the atoms of which it was made were more widely spaced than those of air under partial vacuum. But the abrupt, violent heat, and explosive diffusion of burning, radiant particles, made a ripple of pain pass through its whole vast bulk.
Its broken rim coalesced, mending itself. Fragment cohered with fragment, and it regained its smooth, curved outline. It became still, fully on top of the hills, its first alarm changing slowly into enmity for whatever had attacked it. It had survived in the proximity of fierce suns, and drifted unharmed through the vastnesses of space; it had learned to survive by adapting itself to its environment, withdrawing when radiation was too vigorous, or drifting towards sources of light and heat when it needed them. Able to inhibit or increase the ability of its surface to absorb all radiations, it had navigated at will among the stars. Extremely adaptable, it nevertheless knew that there were limitations to the environment which it could endure. To survive, it must keep within those limits. It had the instinct to self-preservation inherent in all living things, and ceased its advance towards the point whence the two sudden stabs of pain had come.
Its intelligence reviewed the data constituting its awareness of the situation. Two of the mobile, intelligent organisms which it knew had been the prevalent life-form of the planet had advanced towards it. From them had come the sharp, sudden agony. It felt a repetition of that
agony could not be endured, and wondered whether it should concentrate a mass of its atoms, forming a pseudopod with which to sweep up and destroy the attacking organisms, or relax its grip upon the gravitational forces of the planet, so that once again it would drift away into space, safe and unharmed.
Without haste, it evaluated the possibilities, slowly coming to its decision.
Breathing heavily, Barnaby emerged through bushes, and halted. Silvery and unmoving, the Darakua rested on the hills ahead, and his gaze searched the territory between for sign of the two men. The smell of dynamite was still on the air, and two figures moved behind bushes a long way towards the slopes, carrying something. Barnaby started towards them, running as quickly as the light would allow. One of the figures pointed towards him. They put down the box, opening it. Then the taller and broader of the two straightened, holding something in his hand.
Barnaby halted ten paces from them, furious at what they had done.
Hickinson made a threatening gesture. “Keep your distance, Smith! We’ve had enough of your interference.”
His tone was dangerous, and Barnaby did not move. He looked at the distant mass of the Darakua, still motionless on the hills, then back to them.
“ You’ve alienated it from us!" he snapped. “ Don’t you understand it wished us no harm? Don’t` you see that this is the worst possible thing you could do ! ”
“ No, I don’t!” Hickinson stated. “ You’ve no proof. But I have!" He pointed. "It’s stopped - we’ve shown it we’re not helpless!"
Barnaby swore. " If it’s stopped that’s because it chooses to! It could overwhelm the lot of us, if it wanted, dynamite or no dynamite. What’s more- we need its help. Have we any hope of getting that now?"
They glared at each other, and Hickinson grunted disbelief; “ Its help! How could it help us- tell me that!"
Barnaby did not answer: he did not know. When men were desperate they could only be convinced by dramatic, obvious proof and he had none. All that he could do was to risk his own life for the chance of saving his fellows, and trust everything upon his belief that the Darakua wished, in the depths of its unfathomable consciousness, to help them.
" We plan to follow up with half a dozen more sticks,” the seaman said.
Barnaby turned abruptly from them. He could not fight them both, and did not like the way Hickinson held the dynamite in his hand as if ready to forestall a rush. He heard them talking as he slipped away, and the lid of the box creaked. Hurrying, he went up the first slopes which led to the hills. As he walked, his feeling of tension grew. He realised that it was all a gamble, and his hurrying steps almost slowed involuntarily. But he forced himself on, and came out upon the foot of the hills.
The silvery mass was absolutely still, resembling a heavy layer of mist on a night that was without wind. But there was wind, coming more strongly along the hills- and Barnaby knew that the translucent haze was no mere mist, but an unearthly, vitally-alive sentience.
Walking jerkily, he approached its edge, his step slower now upon the rising slope. Opposite him the mist seemed to be coagulating into a state of increased density, forming a core that had every appearance of solidarity. It was by some such way, he thought, that the Darakua had halted his earthward fall from the circular vessel.
The darker protuberance slowly began to approach him. He overmastered his desire for flight, halting, terrified now- that the moment had come, despite all the strength of his will.
The silvery mist came around him, seeming to sweep his feet from the ground. All sense of direction was instantly lost; he did not know which way freedom lay, and there was no sensation of springy turf beneath him. Into his, mind abruptly speared anger and hate, so violent, so shattering, that he cried aloud with the impact. He strove to turn, but could not; tried to run, but found no earth beneath his feet. Even the exclamation which had been wrung from his lips seemed sucked away into some absorbent vortex. But the sensation of hate surrounding him did not go away. It oppressed his mind as if a terrible nightmare, enveloping him fiercely. With his last conscious thought Barnaby cried out against Hickinson, and the folly that had made an enemy of the thing which might have helped them.
Night winds drove clouds across the face of the high moon. Jimmie listened yet again, wondering whether his ear had been deceived, or whether there had indeed been a cry, far away and muted. A long time had passed since he fancied it had drifted from the direction of the hills. Two explosions, heavy even at the distance, had brought him out; soon after had come that cry - ever since, silence ....
He had wasted an hour in searching the town for Mavis without result, and had returned to their basement headquarters to find Doctor Flemming waiting for him. The doctor had shaken his head.
" No, she hasn’t come back. Some problem was obsessing her mind, and she may have gone out in an attempt to find a solution."
Jimmie had looked at him quickly. “ You mean- to the Darakua?"
" Probably, if it was through it that her problem arose, as seems likely. That she told no one shows how urgent she felt it to be."
As he went on Jimmie recalled Flemming’s tone, and knew that the doctor was more sharply concerned than his simple words conveyed.
The ground began to rise and the bushes thinned. Ahead, a little group stood in tableau: two men, side by side, faced by a girl, momentarily still as hewn stone. Hickinson . . . . Mavis .... Jimmie ran towards them, an exclamation on his lips, Mavis turned at the sound of his steps; her shoulders were rising and falling quickly, her hair was wild, her eyes flashing with the vividness of her determination.
" It will kill him!" she declared intensely. “Him and all of us! It wants to kill us! ”
Jimmie froze. “Who .... ?"
“ Barnaby! It’s changed. It doesn’t want to help us any more!” Her strained face showed the degree of her feeling. “ I went back to find out if it would help us, and how. It was angry." She shuddered visibly, momentarily silent. “ Angry- and you can’t imagine how terrifying that was. I had only brushed the edge of it- I didn’t intend to go right in. But I sensed the anger- felt it - and ran away .... "
She swayed slightly on her feet, and Jimmie held her. Hickinson and the seaman were startled, and exchanged low words.
“ I knew it meant to kill us all,” Hickinson said gruffly. “That's why we got the dynamite.”
Mavis turned on him in fury. “ It didn’t want to harm us before! You’ve caused it-- don’t you see? You've made it change like this!"
" It always was against us.”
" It wasn’t - it wasn't!”
She subsided into angry trembling. Jimmie saw that she had lived through experiences that had shaken her deeply, and was near to hysteria, and he squeezed her arm reassuringly.
" Don't argue with them," he whispered. " It's no use."
They drew back a little way, and he saw with relief that Mavis was calmer now. Hickinson and his companion went on among the bushes and silence returned. Jimmie hooked an arm through the girl’s.
“ I’m going to take you back and put you under the care of Doctor Flemming,” he stated quietly. " No more running off like this!”
He wondered where Barnaby was. But obviously he could not leave Mavis, he decided. Nor could she go on without him, for she was in no state to be confronted with new dangers.
He had just come from the basement entrance when he saw Hickinson and his companion bearing something down the moonlit street. Their burden sagged heavily; Jimmie gazed a moment at it, dismay sweeping powerfully through him, then ran towards them. They lowered the figure they had carried, swinging him round so that his shoulders were against the wall. The eyes were closed, the face colourless, its kindly, good-humoured lines drawn deep with suffering.
" He’s alive," Hickinson said laconically. " My pal suggested we might as well bring him."
His tone suggested that he himself had cared little, either way. Jimmie sank to one knee at Barnaby’s side, feeling for his heart. It still beat slowly; his limbs were deathly cold, and he did not move. Yes, alive, Jimmie thought- just! He looked up.
" What happened? ”
Hickinson shrugged. " He went into the Darakua. When it withdrew we found him like that. We were following it with more dynamite, but my mate got scared.”
He turned abruptly and went on, but his companion hesitated, looked at Barnaby.
" Help me carry him,” Jimmie suggested.
The man nodded. " I'm not so sure we did right, using that dynamite,” he said with reluctance. “ It wasn’t my idea."
They carried the motionless form the little remaining way and Jimmie fetched Doctor Flemming up out of the basement. He looked grave as he made a quick examination.
" He’s had a shock," he said. “ An extreme shock. He has no external injuries, but is in a bad way. He needs warmth and rest. We’d better get him below.”
Barnaby felt the blankets being placed around him. Jimmie’s voice sounded faintly, and Janey, anxious. He felt numbed; his energy was sapped away, the very thread of life tenuously drawn out to the danger point. Every cell of his body was chilled; his heart pulsated but slowly, faltering.
For a long time the voices seemed to come and go around him, though he had no real sense of passing time. He longed for rest and sleep, but knew that something urgently demanded that he wake to full consciousness. Every moment was vital, its loss an increasing danger. But his
leaden limbs would not respond to his bidding, and his eyelids seemed weighted down by a terrible inertia which he was powerless to dispel.
Only at last, after a seeming infinity of effort, did his yes open. Janey was bending closely over him. He saw that she had been crying, and slowly moved, pressing her fingers weakly. A new radiance suffused her face; her lips came very near his ear.
" We have to go, Barnaby- soon.”
He made a weak gesture of negation. “ No, We must- stay here.”
She shook her head so that her hair bobbed, her eyes not straying from his face." It's not safe here, any more, Barnaby. We shall be attacked- from both directions."
He took that in slowly. " The Darakua-? ”
“ It’s coming towards the town. The Captain has been watching it, and says its approach is quite rapid."
Barnaby felt exhausted. “We must- stay here,” he repeated.
He closed his eyes, resting. For a few moments he recalled the anger of the entity that had so changed Earth and shivered. The memory would always be vivid.
“ It tried to kill you," Janey whispered.
Barnaby did not answer. He heard someone come into the basement, and low voices, and caught the pith of their meaning. The conical pink forms were massing along one edge of the town, growing so numerous that it seemed they must be coming from all over the planet. Yet still their ships burned through the sky, and the multitudes increased. Apparently they did not know the extent of the human opposition they would encounter, he thought, and were taking no chances. The Darakua, too, was coming down from the hills, spreading as if to encircle the city. No one had dared approach it; Hickinson, awed, had used no more dynamite.
Captain Lacy thought that they must leave now, the voice whispered, or they would have no chance of getting away. As he listened Barnaby felt a little of his strength returning, and he opened his eyes.
Janey was alone again, hastily tying a pack. With an effort Barnaby lifted his head.
“ It’s vital we stay here," he whispered.
She looked round quickly. From her face he knew she thought him irrational. And irrational it sounded, he supposed- against all proof to the contrary, he was still insisting that they stay in the threatened town!
Yet he knew that he was right: that to go meant certain death for them all, while staying gave at least a slender chance of life.
“ We’re- all that’s left of humanity!" he breathed. “ We must stay . . . .”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Barnaby stepped weakly into the street, supporting himself against the wall. Dawn was coming, and already the sky was streaked with red in heavy layers, giving way to purple overhead, and black, to westward. The silent sky was low over the empty town, and hazy with mists drifting in from the sea. Janey had followed him, watchful.
Everything was ready for their retreat. Food was stowed in canvas packs the seamen had made- and the two men could have carried the lot.
“We are the last people, without refuge,” Flemming murmured. He was aged, worn with the scenes he had witnessed, and from hoping when there was no belief that better things could come. “When we leave, this place, like all the cities of the Earth. will be wholly empty. Centuries will pass. Buildings will crumble, but no human will look upon the remains with regret, or wonder what knowledge lies beneath the dust.”
He stared at the dawn, his face thin. Lacy came along the street; his tired eyes suggested that he had slept little, or not at all, and the corners of his mouth were drawn down.
Barnaby wondered whether the approach of the Darakua had continued during the intervening hours. Lacy seemed to guess what news they awaited and made a gesture expressing something very near defeat.
" It’s right up to the end of the town, already over some of the houses,” he said. “ It seems bent on encircling us, rather than coming straight through and driving us out. To begin with, I never believed the thing was alive- but I do now. It shows that it’s got some purpose by the way it moves! We must leave -now.”
He hurried into the basement entrance. Barnaby shook his head slowly to himself. Against all logic and appearances- against even his terrifying experience of the night before- he still believed that safety did not lie in flight. He realised his belief now amounted to obsession, but it nevertheless persisted. He looked round. Janey had gone below, probably to fetch some last, almost-forgotten item. Flemming had accompanied Lacy, and the others had gone on through the town to observe where escape might best be attempted.
He was alone. Suddenly his idea became decision. Turning, he started along the road, walking quickly but unsteadily. The way seemed shorter, now, in daylight, and he was almost at the top of the gentle slope before a call sounded, behind. He looked back. Janey had come from the basement, and was waving, but he could not hear what she said.
He went on along the street, and reached the rise, beyond which the road sloped down and away to the out-skirts of the town.
The Darakua rested on the suburbs. Misty and gleaming, it had flowed over and around the houses, hiding them, and he began to descend the road towards it.
He reviewed what had happened upon the previous occasions when he had penetrated its rim. Always, its intelligence had been so vast that he had been dazed. First, it had wanted to help them. But the shock of that knowledge had been too much for him, and for Mavis. He could not realise- would not comprehend- that the giant, hazy mass was indeed living, and that upon it mankind must rely, for help. It had been a shattering realisation that man was, after all, so insignificant. Shattering, too, had been the knowledge that immeasurably superior life-forms existed, and that only with the aid of one could the human species survive. It was devastating to the self-esteem. Then, later, the Darakua's enmity had come as a shock, terrifying because of the aspect of personal danger, and dreadful because of the implication that it would no longer help mankind. Barnaby wondered whether anyone had ever before experienced such an ultimate, two-fold shock.
A voice drifted down behind him. He looked back and saw Jimmie, running.
"Don’t go to it! Don’t go to it - - Mavis says it will kill you .... ! "
His ears caught the words, but he did not halt. The huge, sentient entity had the power to kill him, Barnaby knew. In some way incomprehensible to men, it could govern the way in which it absorbed radiations. It could suck the latent heat from his body, transforming him to brittle ice. Or it could carry him away into the fabric of itself.
He was very near to it now. To enter it was like walking into a patch of fog, he thought. His steps slowed; the vapour eddied around him, blanketing out his view of the sky. He could still hear Jimmie shouting, but distantly, as if muted by sound-absorbent material between.
The mental energy surrounding him intruded itself again into his mind, inducing thought, and knowledge of its presence. Meaning came through, gaining coherence, and Barnaby halted. Deep and significant, the Darakua seemed to be pronouncing a judgment that was upon him and upon all men. It had sifted its knowledge, evaluating what it knew of the aims and conduct of mankind.
Barnaby stood as if stone, knowing that he was only a little way within the mist. He could still hear Jimmie calling and the voice grew louder. A young face, white as chalk, emerged through the haze.
“ It’s -- dangerous.. . .
The words came as a whisper, though Jimmie appeared to be shouting. With a mighty effort Barnaby withdrew part of his consciousness from the intelligence contacting it.
“ Go back, lad .... " His voice, too, was muted. “ Go, now, while you can .... ”
Jimmie held his arm, not answering or moving, and Barnaby felt the mind of the Darakua slipping back into contact with his awareness. From the grip on his arm, he knew that Jimmie had felt it, too.
The Darakua had evaluated man by studying his actions, the thoughts stated. It had seen that many men were self-seeking and ignoble, and unworthy to live. It had been attacked when it meant no harm, and had never suffered such pain.
With the shred of his self-consciousness which remained, Barnaby thought that this was what he should have expected. Hickinson’s act could never be undone . ...
Man was a strange organism, thinking only of himself, the Darakua told him. Men were selfish, putting their own wellbeing before the wellbeing of the whole ... .
Barnaby felt the grip on his arm relax, and saw Jimmie sink down through the mist. Powerless to aid him, or to move, he stood on, eyes fixed on the eddying vapour, and mind ringing with the thoughts impinging on his consciousness.
Many men were ignoble; but some were not. That was shown by the way he himself had risked his life for the chance of saving his fellows, the Darakua stated. It was shown, too, by the way his son had followed him, trying to save him, while fearing that to enter the mist would mean death. A species must be judged by its better elements. . . . . the better elements of mankind deserved to survive ....
Many of the ringing thoughts were lost upon Barnaby. Their impact was so great that his brain reeled, striving to master them. Very slowly the curling mists began to thin, withdrawing from around him. Time seemed to have stopped, but he realised that he was standing in the road, with Jimmie crumpled at his feet, and that the edge of the silvery mass was moving away between the houses.
Trembling, he picked up the inert form and saw that colour was already returning to the young face. He stumbled up the road towards the rise, and Jimmie’s eyes opened.
“ We - we must not leave the town," he breathed
Barnaby nodded. " I know.”
" We've been over all that before,” Captain Lacy stated decisively. “ For all we know it may be some kind of trap by the thing, to keep us here.”
Barnaby exchanged glances with Jimmie: he had known it would prove impossible. Only those who had actually had communication with the Darakua could understand his conviction. And the others were impatiently waiting to go.
Lacy swung up his pack. " I agreed to wait until dawn, and I have. Now it’s for you to keep your side of the bargain, and come with us. If we split up we shall be weakened."
He swung on his heel; Hickinson and the seaman followed. The doctor shrugged, an eloquent gesture, and went after them. Janey and Mavis hesitated, and Barnaby put a hand on Jimmie’s shoulder.
“ We go, too, son- for their sakes.”
They went through winding streets to the edge of the town, and Barnaby felt extreme regret. Lacy, ahead and following a neglected avenue of trees, stopped, gestured, and came abruptly back.
" There’s no escape that way," he said flatly.
They tried elsewhere. Myriads of pink cones bobbed and oscillated on the surrounding countryside. Barnaby watched them with growing excitement; Lacy and the others, with increasing dismay. The sun was high when at last their leader stopped.
"There's no way left out of the town,” he said. “ We should have gone before."
Barnaby did not meet the eyes that turned to him.
The day passed slowly. A further attempt to leave the town failed. During the whole of the afternoon and evening blue ships slanted down upon the perimeter of the city, unloading pink, conical beings which joined the masses already waiting.
Darkness came slowly, and Barnaby watched from a high building. The whole night was aglow; the distant housetops stood outlined against a sky pink with reflected light from the vast hordes of aliens. Slowly, as the hours passed, they began to draw nearer, bobbing and weaving in a continuous wall of fiery light.
Barnaby did not sleep. He judged that midnight was past when Janey came and stood beside him. She watched the pink forms calmly for a time, and put her arm through his.
“ Every one of them on Earth must be here," she said. She sighed. " I'm sorry it had to end like this- for Jimmie's sake, if not for our own. And there’s Mavis, too. They have never had the chance to live .... ”
Barnaby remained silent. The sky had grown obscured, so that no stars shone there, but so vast was the multitude of pink shapes around the town that every street was dimly illuminated with the combined glow. An hour slipped by before his companion spoke again.
“ We'd best go back to the middle of the town, with the others, Barnaby.”
He nodded. It was unsafe to remain. Slowly yet surely the glowing pink tide was drifting into the city, filling streets and buildings.
They went back slowly, and Barnaby wondered if escape would indeed have been possible if they had slipped away the night before. Perhaps, he thought. Yet what use was it, hunted over the surface of the planet, never being safe?
A grey dawn came slowly, obscured and distant. As Barnaby watched, a desperate new hope was born, and grew.
The Darakua floated above the town, so extended that its outer rim could not be anywhere seen. And it was descending, its perimeter sinking more rapidly so that it seemed a vast inverted saucer.
“ It said some men deserve to survive,” he breathed, "and that it would help us."
Now for the first time, he realised what the nature of that help would be. Things which he had known for a long time, but failed to correlate, came vividly into his mind, and formed one clear picture.
“ I- don't understand,” Janey said.
Barnaby felt sudden triumph. “Remember that first day, and how it absorbed radio waves? And electricity?
It can control what it absorbs, and absorb all radiation. It’s helping us in the only way it can- and the only way which would succeed ! ”
He remembered the great machine which had moved over the hills, and knew that he was right.
" It will absorb them ! " he stated.
The pink multitude was glowing less brightly, An enormous parachute, the silvery mist settled over them. Slowly, irrevocably, the oscillating cones grew dim, shredding away into tenuous wisps of radiant energy which drifted slowly up to the overshadowing surface, and vanished.
At last, very slowly, it began to lift. Sunshine streamed in under its edge. No pink cones remained, and, far in the distance, Barnaby could distinguish the shells of the circular vessels. Thousands of them stood upon the slopes. Sapped of the power that had maintained their structure, they were revealed as immeasurably fragile contrivances of spidery girders. Even as he watched one collapsed under its own weight into fragments
The Darakua was moving slowly westward, its altitude increasing. For a moment Barnaby experienced a strange feeling, as if a message was emanating from it and flowing through some unknown mental plane to reach his mind. It seemed to express regret at the damage it had unknowingly brought to men .... Barnaby felt thanks run through him, but he could not be sure if the consciousness contacting his own understood. He felt something very near to affection for the vast wandering entity, ageless, complex, and incomprehensible.
“ So it’s- all right," Janey whispered.
They looked down from the window. Jimmie and Mavis were in the street below. Farther on stood the others, their heads tilted back, their eyes straining upwards. Barnaby returned his gaze to the westward sky.
The Darakua was receding rapidly, a circular cloud, lit by the sun, and he watched it
“You know, it was right in what it said,” he murmured, " There much in mankind that did not deserve to survive. We must be different. We must build. "
The End
Francis G. Rayer.
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For your consideration:
At the time this story was written, electric mains were not as abundant as today, especially in old "working class" houses. This writer recalls houses lit with gas, coal fires, and the only electric supply in at least one old house was for lighting, no power sockets, resulting in a festoon of wires and adaptors all running from a single ceiling point, with the wireless plugged into a light socket. A whole village with one telephone kiosk and no domestic telephones - and about 1950, the arrival of running water for the outside toilet and a mains tap ONLY in the kitchen.... (inevitably in due course that is the room the posh bath went, replacing the tin bath in front of the range...).
In 1952 most trains were still steam although electric units were known especially in the South. Most railway signals would still be mechanical although electric motor operation and electric colour light signals were spreading.
An author needs to write for the magazine that is going to print his story. He cannot post a science paper in "My adventure weekly". The "Science Fiction Encyclopedia" describes Authentic like this:
Authentic represented a third tranche of British sf that had emerged from the Pulp paperback jungle of the early 1950s. The magazine never really lost that hard-edged (at times almost "hard-boiled") gritty science-fiction adventure image that drove the early novels and which was a key part of E C Tubb's writing.... Authentic's rates of payment were low even for the time."
This work is Copyright. All rights are reserved. F G Rayer's next of kin: W Rayer and Q Rayer. May not be reprinted, republished, or duplicated elsewhere (including mirroring on the Internet) without consent.