by L. P. Davies
And the few that were more intelligent than the rest were presumably the leaders. Maver had said that Adam Sokel—never having met the man I found it easy to think of him as a Toparian—had been a person of some importance in his own country.
And then I remembered something and, pursuing that memory, came up with other things too—things the Professor had told us. And they slotted together to form a picture that turned my blood to ice.
Ready to voice my fears I swung to face the room. In the same moment Maver sat up quickly and addressed a question to Lee, his voice sharp with urgency.
“When you first arrived—when you were on the hill. Can you be absolutely certain that you were not moved—not taken inside the Nest?”
“We’re sure,” Lee said. “There was proof. A stone, a patch of grass—” And he would have gone on to enlarge upon the proof, but his uncle was talking again.
“The Vorteds must have extended their screen to enclose you. This is something the Toparians don’t know about, or if they do, my informant didn’t mention it. A new facet … The Vorteds are able to alter the shape of their boundaries. Under general conditions they obviously maintain the figure of a circle because that is the most efficient shape for their purpose, the one that encloses the largest area of land. The Nests are growing, but only slowly. They are clearly unable to enlarge their boundaries at will. But if the need arises they can change their shapes, drawing in the screen at one sector, extending it at another.”
“Flexible,” Lee said. “That’s probably what happened. They stretched out and took us in.”
“They captured you as they would any other potential victims who ventured within reach,” Maver said in a flat tone. “But then they read in your minds that you were something very different from the usual victims. They discovered you had come from another world. To enable them to suck as much information from your minds as possible they created surroundings which they assumed would make you relax and feel at ease. Where there is no tension, thoughts come easily and smoothly. They learned that you had come from a world of rich lands, a civilized world free of the constant magnetic storms of this.
“There is one factor I had overlooked, although it was staring me in the face. The Toparians have their problem of growing population and dwindling food. The Vorteds must have the same problem. Only, restricted as they are by their boundaries, their problem must be even more acute. Do you understand what I am trying to say?”
For a moment or two it was clear that Lee didn’t. But I did, and horror flowed over me like a tide.
“It was curiosity,” I said with an effort. “But not idle curiosity. They had a reason.”
“They had a reason for picking your brains,” Maver said. “They made you relive your entry into this dimension so that they could discover the means you used. Now they know how you did it and where the field is. And they will know that you are expecting the field to come back again. And when it does—”
Lee understood now. His voice was the same grey monotone as his uncle’s.
“They will reach out to enclose it,” he said. “Then they will go through the door when it opens. They will try to invade Earth.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Professor Maver made it all very clear.
“They will withdraw the screens on two perimeters. The circle will become first an ellipse, then a narrow strip. The strip will reach out to enclose the area where the door is due to appear. And when it does—”
He broke off.
And I had two fears to contend with, the one I had worked out for myself and which was still unvoiced, and now this second one, infinitely more horrifying.
“Is there nothing we can do about it?” I asked. And knew before the words were out how stupid the question had been.
Maver ignored me.
“If only we knew something about them,” he said. “So many questions without answers. Why, when they are intelligent enough to develop a force field, are they unable to enlarge their territory at will? Why, when they had you in their power, did they choose to remain out of sight? Unless they didn’t want to alarm you by their appearance … That might be the answer.”
Lee said, “I thought once that they might be invisible.”
“Invisible?” The Professor shook his head. “No, Lee. I don’t think so for one moment. Don’t let your imagination run riot. Use the few facts we know when making your guesses. We know they must be made of the matter of destruction of the Magnetic War. Vapourised fluids, including blood. Vegetable and animal cells. Dust. The plant life of this world, the little that has survived, is very similar to plant life on Earth. Even without the proof of a microscope I am certain the cellular make-up will be the same. The common or garden cell enclosed in a cellulose wall. The nucleus set in cytoplasm. A very ordinary carbohydrate cell, the inevitable product of conditions that are the same here as on Earth.
“Animal life here is much like that which we have in our world. The cells will certainly be similar. Whatever form of life exists now inside the Nests will be solid. But I cannot envisage what that life may be like in appearance. Perhaps wholly animal, perhaps wholly vegetable. Perhaps a little of each. And then, too, the dust… Sandstone dust. Silica …”
My mind filled with pictures, terrifying pictures. I turned to look through the window again.
“If only it were possible to get into one of the Nests,” came the Professor’s voice. “To examine, to investigate. Learn from the surroundings, even if those surroundings are artificial. There must be clues …”
The shadows had lengthened appreciably since the last time I had looked outside. Dusk couldn’t be far away. There could be little of the Professor’s two hours left to go. I had best stay at the window to watch for whoever would bring the evening meal. Lee and I could hide in one of the other rooms. And afterwards?
“We can’t just sit here like this—doing nothing!” That was Lee, his voice bursting out harsh, almost unrecognisable.
And then: “Adam. He can help us. God knows you did him a favor, making it possible for him to get back home. He owes you that much. You can speak the lingo, Uncle John. When they bring the food, talk to them. Make them see it’s urgent we see Adam.”
“No!” I spoke involuntarily, sharply, before Maver had a chance to reply. I turned to face them again. “It’s no use asking Adam for help, Lee.”
“Why the hell not?” he demanded. “Just because he’s kept out of the way? That’s plain damned stupid!”
“Not that.” I shook my head. “Something else.” It was time to tell them of the conclusion I had reached before the Professor dropped his bombshell. But where to start?
“Remember Wembley Stadium?” I asked Lee.
He gaped. “What about it?”
Maver looked from my face to Lee’s. “I don’t understand—”
“Portable,” I said quickly. “Made to stand on a slope. Ladders leading up to the platform on top. Platform about five feet from the ground.” I paused fractionally. “Which is just about the height of the door from the top of the hill. And the ground below slopes.”
For a moment Lee was puzzled. Then understanding came and exploded on his face.
“Not the Toparians too?” he gasped incredulously.
“Everything points to it. There was that heavily-armed party we saw waiting nearby. There’s the fact that Adam didn’t see fit to tell your uncle that the door had reappeared and that we’d come through. He must have known about us, even if the door wasn’t spotted. The fact that—”
“What’s all this about?” Maver broke in brusquely, almost angrily.
Lee told him briefly about the wooden contraption we,had come across in the hollow near our hill. That, in itself, was convincing enough.
The Professor came to his feet.
“That explains the unusual activity here today,” he said. “Men from other villages, strangers, all carrying weapons; some passing through, others staying, settling themselves out of sight in the houses
…”
Lee, being who he was, indulged in a flash of wry humour.
“Aliens queuing up to invade Earth,” said he. “Three starters—including our little party. And who are the favorites?”
Maver held up his hand. “Quiet. Let me think.”
“We’ve got to get out of here,” I said.
The ugly face looked absently at me. “Yes.”
“The Vorteds are already within reach of the door —only a stone’s throw away. So are the Toparians. We must get out there too.”
“Yes,” Maver agreed again. And then, almost pathetically. “I liked Adam. I always trusted him.”
“They’ll soon be here with the evening meal,” I said.
“Eh?” He seemed unable to cope with his thoughts. “Yes. Very soon.”
I turned back to keep watch.
“The Vorteds are the greatest threat,” Lee said behind me. “The unknown quantity. What they’re capable of—what sort of weapons they’ll have … At least we know almost everything there is to know about the Toparians. Except how many of them there are.”
“This is an average settlement,” came Mayer’s heavy reply. “Population—oh, five hundred, over half of them men. There is no great distance between any of the villages so far as I know. There must be scores, hundreds within marching distance. It’s obvious men are already coming in from outlying districts. They’re massing. And most of those I’ve seen were carrying heat-projectors.”
“That’s what I was thinking of,” Lee said. “Tanks wouldn’t stand a chance. In any case, they’d be well established before tanks could be brought up. Infantry would be massacred. How far can those damned heat-rays reach?”
“In theory,” Maver said, “to infinity.”
“We’d have to use atomic weapons against them. Drop an atomic bomb smack in their middle. That’d stir things up. No … They’d be able to bring the plane down before it got anywhere near.”
“Surmise of that kind is only a waste of time.”
But Lee pursued his theme.
“Missiles then. If they could be brought to bear before the rays got to them.” An idea occurred to him and he became excited. “Light … You say the projectors work by reflecting sunlight. That means they can’t be used at night or when there’s no sun.”
“The light source need not be the sun,” Maver said. “Any source will serve, no matter how faint. The light is collected inside the tube until it is powerful enough to form the beam. The fainter the source, the longer it takes to bring the weapon into use. That’s all. Even a lighted match, if it could burn long enough, would be sufficient.”
I was impatient at an interchange that seemed to be a waste of time. But there was nothing we could do until the evening meal was brought.
“Does only one of them come with the food?” I asked without taking my eyes from the twilight space outside.
“Two,” Maver replied. “One with the food, the other with water for the bathroom.”
“How do they carry the water?”
“In bags made of animal hide.”
“Two of them, Lee.” I watched his reflection in the glass.
“We’ll cope,” said he, and I was able to see his nod of assurance. “One each side the door, yes? We could use some kind of help—” He looked about him.
“Home-made coshes.” I dug my foot into the packed earth and dust of the floor, loosened it and scraped a pile together. “Socks filled with this.”
“Even when we shared the same digs,” Lee said, “you were always a great one for improvisation.” While he busied himself removing his shoes and socks, I excavated more filling, without taking my eyes from the window. Crouching at my feet he filled the sandbags.
“No need for a ceiling break-out this time,” he grunted. “We wait until it’s really dark and then leave in style by the front door. Right?”
“Right,” I agreed, and Maver said shortly: “No. We can’t move in darkness. It would be suicide.”
“Suicide?” Frowning, Lee straightened, a dirt-packed sock in each hand. “Why?”
“That should be obvious, Lee. Even the Toparians are too afraid to leave the village at night, and they know all the places of shelter out there.”
“You mean because of the storms?”
“Today has been a quiet day. There’s been only the one storm, and that was a comparatively mild one. At night, when the sky is dark, there is little or no indication that one is on its way. They break almost without warning. And to be caught in the open during a bad one means death—a very unpleasant death.”
“What about the moons and the stars?” Lee asked. “Can’t we keep an eye on those? Surely they’ll give some kind of warning.”
I left them to thrash it out.
Maver had another reason for not moving by night.
“We would have to make for the hills. And up there we would be faced with the hazard of the paralysing bushes.”
“We’ll just have to take the risk,” Lee said flatly. “One thing’s for sure—we’ve got to get back to our hill and we can’t wait for daylight. We wouldn’t stand an earthly chance of getting away.”
His reflected, raised brows invited my agreement. I nodded—very reluctantly—but I nodded. “We’ll have to take our chances with both storms and spines. There’s no alternative.”
“There’s no question of chancing the storms,” Maver said grimly. “There’s been at least one every night all the months I have been here. Don’t be misled by the one you experienced today. That was little more than a stiff blow.”
He went across the room to rest one hand on the wall.
“Have you noticed how they build their houses with sloping walls? That’s to obviate the risk of being blown down. Have you seen how thick the walls are? Two feet and more. Solidly constructed. And I have known times when the whole house shook as if it were made of reeds. The roofs, flat to offer no resistance, pliable to give with the force, are still often swept bodily away.
“You must understand the nature of these storms. They are the direct result of the Magnetic War, caused by the distortion to the natural magnetic fields. A long time ago the storms were much more frequent and destructive. As time goes by, so their intensity decreases. One day, in the remote future, there will be an end to them. But now they are something we have to take into account. A man could not stay alive in a bad one. The combination of the magnetic surge and driving dust would flay the flesh from his bones.”
“You conjure up a pretty picture,” Lee observed dryly.
“No more than the truth,” rejoined his uncle simply. And then, after all his attempts at dissuasion—or perhaps he had not meant his earlier rejection of our plan to move during darkness, perhaps he had not been trying to make us change our minds but had only wanted us to be sure we knew the danger involved—after all that long discussion he said, “But you are right, of course. If we are to leave here, it will have to be under cover of darkness. All we can do is provide ourselves with food and water—and then make for the hills with all possible speed in the hope of finding adequate shelter in time.”
And now it was dark. Burning scarlet and blazing gold streaked the horizon sky. The moons had not yet risen, but overhead unfamiliar patterns of stars twinkled. I looked down from them to find the area in front of the house empty no longer.
“They’re coming,” I warned.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Twilight seemed to last a long time in this dimension. Although the sun had set and the stars were out, there was still enough light left for us to see what we were doing.
We stood, one each side of the door, with our backs against the wall.
“You’d better take the far side,” Lee had suggested only half jocularly. “Being left-handed you’ll get a better crack at them from that side.”
I found reassurance in the feel and weight of my improvised cosh.