Sheldon sat down slowly and wiped his streaming face and chest, then he looked puzzled. “There’s one thing I don’t understand, Dr. Gray. How is it that Holmes should be attacked like that outside, and yet we in here are not? Even poor Meadows, back on the floor there, didn’t devolve even though he died.”
Gray glanced towards the corpse that had now been drawn up close by the wall and covered with a tarpaulin sheeting. “I have only one explanation to offer,” he said at length. “This Annex is, of course, directly under an overhanging ledge of rock. It is possible that, though light waves are able to penetrate it at the moment, the very short ones responsible for devolution are not—not in any great quantity anyway. The rock also contains lead, which must act as a natural deflector. Out there, where the unfortunate Holmes is lying, there is no protection whatever—and we see the result.”
“Then what killed Meadows?” another of the men asked.
“Possibly radiations; possibly heat-stroke. We were not able to discover—” Gray turned back impatiently to the instruments. “Gentlemen, we are wasting our time on idle conjectures and we have other things to do. How are your instruments behaving, Mr. Sheldon?”
“Fairly well, sir. The light photometer shows a deflection of half a circumference. That, translated into ordinary terms, means an apparent shift of image over dozens of miles in some cases.”
“Which will mean mirages wherever the deflection occurs,” Gray said. “Possibly it will be most noticeable over the open sea and large tracts of desert areas. As for the rest of these instruments, recording ultraviolet, infrared, and so forth, they seem to be utterly out of action. They just don’t make sense.” Gray clenched his fist. “If only radio were operating and we could get some information from other parts of the world. As it is we can only record what we observe and pool our results afterwards with the other experts.”
“Granting there is ever an end to this hideousness,” Sheldon commented gloomily.
“I remain convinced that there must be,” Gray insisted: “A flaw in the ether surely can’t be infinite in extent, any more than a rainstorm can last forever? It is only a phase, and an extremely dangerous and uncomfortable one, but it must end somewhere.”
“If it doesn’t kill us in the process,” Sheldon sighed. “Maybe we’ll get some better idea when night comes and we can take a look at the heavens—providing the light-waves are straight enough to make observation possible.”
“Unless we’re out of the flaw by night it just won’t help us,” Gray said quietly. “We’re doomed, I’m afraid, to an eternal day! Don’t you realise that, since the sun is shining through solids, there is no reason why it shouldn’t shine clean through Earth itself? That’s why I wish we could get in touch with Australia, so that we can discover how they are faring. The old saying may be true—the sun never sets!”
* * * * * * *
Even if the sun was not actually setting it was certainly lower in the sky, particularly in Sussex where Martin Horsley was at the close of the largest meal he had eaten in years. Here it was towards nine o’clock in the evening, Sussex being some five hours ahead of New York time. Since four o’clock the heat had been climbing degree by degree, which in itself was fantastic as, normally, the heat abates as the evening advances. This time no such thing had happened and the diagonal rays of the late June sun were blasting through the trees around the hotel, and straight through the walls and roof.
Not that Martin Horsley seemed worried. He was in an exceptionally genial mood, smiling to himself over the empty plates in the private dining room, regardless of the shafts of light blinding and stabbing at him from every side. He was possibly the only man in the hotel who was fully dressed. In other directions the management and staff were prostrate, striving in vain to shield themselves from the glare, swilling down drinks so constantly that they thought they would float away.
The only other person in the room with Horsley was the faithful Dawson, still in shirtsleeves, and Horsley was in far too pleasant a temper to demand that his factotum should wear a full uniform.
”This, Dawson, is the most wonderful day in the history of the world!” Horsley declared presently, pushing back his chair and rising to his feet. “If it has done for other unfortunate souls what it has done for me then the day will be remembered as one of blessing.”
“I rather think, sir, that your reaction is exceptional,” Dawson remarked weakly. “The rest of the people in this hotel are completely laid out with the heat. Some of them are complaining of violent headaches, too.”
“Headaches? Bah!” Horsley spread his arms and then thudded his clenched fists against his chest. “They should do as I have done—eat a thundering good meal and enjoy the warmth. Never in my life have I been so comfortable. We’ve been to many places, you and I, Dawson, looking for warmth. Persian Gulf, the Sudan, Morocco, California—but we never found it until today.”
“Yes, sir, I quite agree,” Dawson muttered, dabbing his face. “And the temperature’s still rising. Last time I looked at it in the hall it was a hundred and thirty. I can’t understand how you thrive on it, sir!”
“You would if you’d always been as cold as me! But it isn’t just that, Dawson,” Horsley continued, musing. “It’s a complete change in the mental outlook. I don’t feel at all like the same ailing man who came into this hotel earlier today. I felt then as I have always felt—that I might die any minute and be glad to go. But now! Why, the very zest of life is upon me. I want to work, and walk, and leap, and struggle! Bounding energy, Dawson! Bounding energy!”
This time Dawson did not say anything: he was beyond it. The metamorphosis of Martin Horsley was quite beyond him—as much as it was beyond Horsley himself. Since Horsley was not a scientist—nor was his factotum—he was not capable of understanding that the ultra-short waves penetrating to Earth were having a remarkable effect upon his nervous system. Whereas they over-stimulated and killed human beings in perfect health—or else devolved them, as in the case of Woodstock J. Holmes—there were many instances similar to Horsley’s where invalids had responded to the stimulus in a different fashion and suddenly found glowing health and vigour. Horsley and Holmes were but two examples of one particular wavelength killing in one instance and restoring in another, so haphazard is Nature in the bestowal of her curses and blessings.
“Soon be sunset,” Horsley commented, crossing to the window and looking out quite unconcerned into the blazing diagonal glare. “Take a look at that scene, Dawson! Did you ever see anything so magnificent? Like a flood of gold! I could laugh when I recall how we were warned of all sorts of horrors to come and instead we get only beauty. Even the trees are swallowed up in the radiance.”
“I shouldn’t stand in the direct eye of that sunlight, sir,” Dawson warned. “It might do things to you.”
“Only good things, Dawson, believe me,” Martin Horsley smiled. “There is beneficence, health, and power in that light outside. I even feel minded to go for a walk to the village and back.”
“It’s a risk, sir,” Dawson insisted.
“Nonsense, man! You don’t have to come with me if you feel afraid. I’ll be all right.”
Dawson, who always felt it his responsibility to look after Horsley’s well being, made another vague protest but Horsley would not listen. Singing cheerfully to himself he strode from the dining room and went upstairs for his hat.
Five minutes later he came downstairs again, stick in his hand and hat on his head. In some surprise he looked at the proprietor, drenched in perspiration, lolling on his reception desk.
“What’s the matter, my friend?” Horsley chuckled. “Feeling warm?”
“I’m—I’m dying, Mr. Horsley. Honest I am.” The proprietor breathed hard and pointed a shaky finger towards the thermometer. “Look at that mercury! One hundred and thirty-two! It’s more than flesh and blood can stand!”
“Nonsense, man. You’re just out of condition, that’s all. Look at me! Never fitter. Anyway, I’ll b
e back for supper.”
“Supper?” the proprietor repeated blankly. “You actually mean you are going to eat a supper after that huge meal?”
Horsley nodded calmly. “Certainly! Think of the years I’ve lived on peptonised rubbish! Time I made up for it, isn’t it?”
The proprietor was too dumbfounded to make any further comment, so Horsley went cheerfully on his way, striding out into the low rays of the intolerable sun as it hung just clear of the horizon.
Horsley, despite the tremendous emotional and physical stimulation he had received, was nonetheless conscious of the vast, impalpable difference in everything. Normally at this hour the birds should have been singing their last song before nesting; there should have been purple mists couched to catch the sun for the night; the sky should have been mistily blue with here and there a star peeping out of advancing twilight.
Not one of these aspects of a summer evening in England was evident. Instead, once he got beyond the shimmering blaze of sunlight and trees around the hotel, Horsley found himself alone in the lane. Here the sun was shining straight at him, a titanic flooding golden ball ahead, and though a quarter of it was below the horizon it didn’t somehow seem to make any difference. The horizon might have been. composed of water for all the solidity it presented.
To a man in a less incredibly exalted state than Horsley the evening would have struck terror. Not a soul in sight; the empty lane leading straight down to a village which looked mysteriously lit from behind, with no shadows anywhere. It seemed to Horsley as he progressed that he was in a world suddenly made of glass where everything was transparent. Once he looked straight into the eye of the bewildering sun and then wished he hadn’t. He felt something stir painfully at the back of his brain and for a second or two his sense of fantastic well being wavered—then as quickly returned. Stimulation! Stimulation! With every moment that the sun soaked its fifth-octave radiations into him he was being transformed—but a human body can only absorb so much stimulus, and then....
Ten minutes of brisk walking brought Horsley to the village and by this time the sun should have been below the horizon. Perhaps it was. Horsley could not exactly tell. He stood alone in the centre of the village street, trying to picture the people within the semi-transparent houses. He stood alone, a wondering man, impressed by the fantastic power of Nature when she behaves contrary to rule.
The sun had set, yes: there was no doubt of that—if by setting is meant that the sun is below the horizon. But to Horsley it appeared that the sun was still shining at him obliquely from somewhere below with those searing, blinding rays. He held up his free left hand for a moment to cover his eyes and saw the bones of his fingers lined starkly against his flesh.
This was enough for Horsley. He turned his back abruptly on the blinding orb and began to trace his way down the lane towards the hotel. It occurred to him as he went that untended cattle were still in the fields, cows chiefly, most of them moaning pitifully and all of them with their backs to the glare. No birds sang and the leafy trees were deathly still, touched by the satanic golden flood that should long since have subsided into night.
“There is no night,” Horsley whispered to himself. “No night any more. Just day—and light—and strength!”
But was there strength? He was not quite so convinced of it now as he had been. That stupendous energy and exaltation which had propelled him out of the hotel to indulge in this amazing walk was not quite so obvious now. In fact the great barrier of Earth, masking many of the sun’s radiations even though his light was practically unshielded, was automatically cutting off the rejuvenating wavelengths that had raised Horsley from the depths of invalidism to the heights of well being. He was still vigorous—even hungry—but the zenith had been reached, and passed. And as it was for him, so it was for the tens of thousands who had likewise been affected.
He returned to the hotel in a far less exuberant mood, and the moment he entered the main hallway he stopped in astonishment, faced with a scene almost as fantastic as that which existed outside.
The proprietor and one or two members of his family were slumped helplessly on tables and chairs, overcome by the raging heat. Behind them, seeming as though it were centred just below the base of the main wall, loomed the overpowering circle of the sun. Against this, swirling about the hall and up and down the stairway in clouds, were bats. Hundreds of them, and their numbers rapidly increasing, the air thick with the leathery rustle of their wings.
“What the devil!” Horsley exploded, and his exclamation brought the tottering, sweat-drenched figure of Dawson from the lounge. He was dripping wet, wearing only shorts, and clutched .a massive poker in his hand.
“I’ve been trying to get rid of these beastly things, sir!” he panted. “They seem to have come from the old belfry at the top of the building—probably driven out by the fact that night hasn’t come as it should. It’s ten o’clock and the sun’s still shining.”
“I can see that,” Horsley snorted. “Bats! Filthy things! Here—I’ll help you.”
“Mind how you do it, sir. They bite. Look at me—”
Dawson put forth his arms and there were distinct blood specks upon them where he had been nipped.
”I think they’re crazy, frantic,” he said. “They can’t make head or tail of what’s happened to everything—not that I can myself.”
“We need help,” Horsley gasped, as three of the hats flew dangerously near his face. “Why the hell isn’t the proprietor doing something? Wake him up!”
“No use, sir,” Dawson muttered. “He’s dead. So are these two servants—and in the upper rooms his wife and daughter are also dead.”
Horsley said nothing for the moment. This sudden wholesale wiping out of everybody living was sobering in the extreme. “Why?” he asked abruptly. “What killed them? You’re all right, and I know I am.”
“I feel about all in, sir,” Dawson muttered, swaying as he spoke. “The temperature is a hundred and thirty-six and I’m pretty nearly at the end of my rope. That battle I had with the bats nearly finished me.”
Horsley looked at them swirling around in the maddening golden light. “Bit you?” he repeated. “Why should they? These aren’t the South American vampires: just long-eared English bats. Harmless.”
“Harmless normally, yes—but at present they’re as crazy as anything else. If we’re going to stay here—and I suppose we are if only for protection—we’ve got to be rid of them. Look out!” Dawson finished hoarsely, and made a terrific swipe with the poker as a bat flew straight for Horsley’s face.
He jerked on one side, lashing out with his walking stick at the same time. The bat collapsed under the blow it received and this seemed to stir some kind of vindictive kinship amongst its fellows.
The hordes descended, black as autumn leaves against the diagonal sunshine and within seconds Horsley and Dawson found themselves engaged in the most incredible battle ever. They could not know it, but the curious sixth sense of a bat had been disturbed the world over, and the chaos of Nature had turned their natures completely round. They were savagely dangerous and were anything but confined to this lonely hotel. The sweltering countryside was thick with them, and everywhere they went they attacked, whether their prey were bird, animal, or human.
They came from the belfry above the hotel; they came from the open back and front doors; they came in their hundreds and then in their thousands—and with them there also arrived myriads of curious stinging gnats, mysteriously evolved “midges” armed now with venomous stings. Horsley and Dawson hardly had the chance to realize what had hit them so thick did the choking air become with the hurtling pests. They were everywhere, festooning the walls, pecking at the dead bodies lying in various parts of the hallway, blacking out the glare of the sun at intervals, or else hanging in front of it in X-ray formation.
In seven minutes of bitter fighting with the poker Dawson was spent. He could struggle no more. With a hopeless, dazed look on his face he drop
ped his weapon, staggered and winced under the myriad cuts and stabs he received, and at last he crashed over on his face.
“Dawson, you fool!” Horsley yelled, lashing around him. “Don’t die on me now, man! Get up!”
Dawson did not get up. He was definitely finished, his body already disappearing under the dark clouds of bats and insects. Horsley gave one glance at him then his own stupendous energy rose to a final surge. He had to get out of this hotel: that seemed the only way. Better to be outside in the unnatural day-night than penned in here with these! So, he started fighting for the front doorway, battering and slashing defiantly as he went—but the more he fought the thicker the hordes descended upon him and the more he felt his strength failing.
It couldn’t fail! It mustn’t! He had risen to such heights of health and vigour it couldn’t let him down now—but it did, completely. With the vital radiations no longer reaching him from the sun, blocked by the various metals and veins of which Earth herself is composed, Horsley was running down like a clock with a failing mainspring.
His efforts became weaker. He stumbled and fell flat on his face. His life went out under the thickening cloud of bats and insects that surged relentlessly about him.
CHAPTER FIVE
FIRST CONTACT
But surely it was in the equatorial regions where the full fantastic effect of the flaw in the fabric of space was most noticeable, those regions directly in line with the sun and in the thick of his mysteriously changed wavelengths.
In his African bungalow Henry Brand, the crooked trader, drank all the whiskey he could consume following his wild dash out of the jungle after upbraiding M’Bonga and his tribesmen. He was quivering, half drunk, staring with smarting eyes into a sunlight which was now blasting down through the trees and the vegetational roof of his ‘home’. It did not make sense to him that plants and lichens should be growing whilst he watched them: it made even less sense for the sun to be shining through solid branches and leaves. Everything was crazy—everything.
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