Children of the Void

by William Dexter

  On that world we had encountered many of the Esoes— externalised sensory organs—but the bat-creatures had brought with them to Earth only eight, one for each of the invading aliens. “Invading”: perhaps the word is wrongly chosen, for subsequent happenings showed us that this was not an invasion in the belligerent sense of the word. However, we could not know this then.

  The rest of that night we spent in learning of the bat-men’s plans.

  They had, we learned, teleported themselves aboard our Disc before it left Varang-Varang. Where they had stowed away on board the craft we did not know; much of the Disc was unknown territory to us. The uncommunicative Nagani may have known of these stowaways of space, but they had not passed the information to us.

  Once here, the bat-men had left the Disc in a similar manner, but had suffered severely by careless tactics in teleporting themselves to a place of darkness—and, for them, safety. Some of them had been exposed to daylight for the fractional part of a second, and the actinic reaction had been almost fatal to their light-sensitive organisms.

  But they had secured themselves in darkness at last—in the deep shelter at the Admiralty, the shelter we had once examined and discussed using for our own purpose.

  They had survived by adapting their systems to the food and drink we had stored there, and were now fairly acclimatised to Terrestrial conditions, except that even the dimmest light still meant injury or destruction for them.

  And at last we began to learn something of their search— the search that had led these miserable survivors of a stricken race through space to they knew not what. It was, we learned, the legacy of the “Wise Ones.” These unknown entities appeared to have breathed a whisper of their purpose to the bat-creatures, a whisper that had sent them hurtling from world to world on their strange, cosmic quest.

  When the war-seeking bat-men had driven the Wise Ones from Varang-Varang—and also driven the planet itself from its appointed course in space—those who had survived had been entrusted hastily with the quest. They knew nothing, as yet, of the possible consequences of finding their mysterious talismanic rock, but only continued in the blind faith they had held in their “Wise Ones.” They were confident that, once found, the object of their search would reveal its own purpose.

  Their inability to withstand light would be overcome, they intimated, by the use of their Esoes, which could, to a certain degree, support many conditions that the bat-creatures could not endure.

  Already, we heard, the Esoes had trundled around London in a baffled search for something—their controlling minds hardly knew what. Already the bat-men had realised that they could not succeed without our help.

  We held a hasty conference, and decided that, if we could keep the bat-men secure in the Admiralty shelter, we would aid them—if we could.

  We received a ready promise (though we did not know what it would be worth) that the bat-creatures would remain in the deep shelter, and this was fortified by the information that while the Esoes were remotely detached from their presence, the bat-men were unable to exercise their powers of teleportation. They could, certainly, activate the Esoes by a process of telekinesis—the power to move otherwise inanimate objects at a distance—but they could not still maintain their own weird gift of projecting themselves through solid matter.

  But what did they seek?

  We came to understand, after long questioning and after much verbal suggestion—for they depended entirely on words we had used to express their own meaning—that the object of their search was some form of mineral that would form, in some way, the complement to that which they had brought with them.

  They could not describe their purpose any more accurately than this, but they were so convinced of the necessity for their search—and its success—and of the existence on our Earth of the complementary mineral, that we decided we would make their search ours. Even though we had not the faintest idea of the outcome, we resolved to conduct the Esoes in this bizarre quest. Such was the power of conviction conveyed to us by the argument of the bat-creatures. It may, to some readers in the future, seem incredible that intelligent humans should be so influenced by alien minds. But surely, those who would condemn us in the future will know the prize we sought, even though we, at that time, did not.

  When this project was disclosed to the rest of our colony the next day, there was of course the most frenzied speculation. But first, Dr. Axel demanded that the Esoes be investigated.

  We had doubts as to the wisdom of this. By that time, of course, the bat-men were back in the deep shelter, and we could not know whether even the handling of those weird globes would harm them or their controlling entities.

  But Axel was insistent, and at last half a dozen of us found ourselves gathered round a table in the elaborate operating theatre he had claimed as his own at the Middlesex Hospital.

  On the table were two of the “hermit crabs,” now motionless. Their controlling minds, we now realised, knew that we were investigating them, and we took as a good sign the fact that they made no effort to move the externalised sensory organs away out of our reach.

  Axel started his examination in a dim light, later bidding Ducrot increase the light until finally the ivory-like globes were illuminated in an intense brilliance.

  “No harm with strong light for these,” he murmured, as he examined the strange creatures (we found it impossible to think of them other than as separate entities) under a strong magnifier.

  Through the small, geometrically accurate apertures in the shells of the Esoes we saw a mass of tissue that seemed to palpitate from time to time. But the holes in the outer covering were not large enough to allow us a detailed examination of the tissue. Axel, however, seemed baffled by what he could see of the interiors.

  “Not like anything that lives on this world,” he insisted. “But is animate... is sensitive, too.”

  We who had met these things on Varang-Varang knew this much, of course, and Arabin pressed Axel for a closer description.

  Axel stooped for long over his magnifier, turning the globe this way and that, and shaking his head slowly as he rose. “Hmm! Could be one thing,” he said thoughtfully. “But you will not believe it if I tell you. I think I do not believe it myself, but I do not know anything else they could be.”

  “Tell us,” said Arabin.

  Axel looked solemnly at each of us over his spectacles.

  “Ectoplasm,” he said.

  What could we do? We had to accept Axel’s theory, scientifically absurd though it may have been. There seemed little object in debating the existence or non-existence of ectoplasm, which was as good a word as any other to describe the contents of the spherical shells.

  Once, I would have contested Axel’s analysis excitedly. But since those days I have undergone experiences that made me wonder just how little I had ever known about scientific matters.

  So, if Axel, a man with scientific training, said the things contained ectoplasm . . . they contained ectoplasm, as far as I was concerned.

  Ducrot, who had once worked for a mining and prospecting company in Canada, was the nearest approach to a mineralogist we could muster, and so he was deputed to handle the matter of this quest for the Esoes. His original plan was to take the weird things through an examination of each of the known elements, in numerical order. This, however, we soon discarded as quite impracticable with our slender scientific resources.

  He then went to the other extreme, and resolved upon a trial-and-error system, with the result that Arabin and myself found ourselves that afternoon alighting from a jeep at the doors of the Geological Museum at South Kensington. Ahead of us had gone Ducrot and Axel in a large car, with the eight Esoes packed neatly on the rear seat like fretwork ivory footballs.

  They were waiting for us on the steps of the museum, and we joined them, carrying four powerful battery lamps.

  When we showed them the exhibits on the ground floor, we thought we noted a little excitement among the Esoes, as they rolled off
rapidly towards a group of cases containing fluorescent minerals. It was a false hope, though. After the hermit crabs had “examined” the contents of the cases as we laid them on the floor, they rolled away slowly and disinterestedly in various directions.

  Floor by floor, and case by case, we combed the museum for three days. At the end of that time it was apparent either that the Esoes did not know what they were looking for, or that nothing we had found was what they sought.

  By then, weary and irritated, we had decided to let Ducrot himself conduct the Esoes in their search. The rest of us had work to do in preparing for our move to the country.

  XIV

  The main purpose of this chronicle is to set down a record of the astonishing aftermath of our mission to Varang-Varang. If that were not so, I could write much about our move from London to the semi-rural districts on the outskirts of the former capital. I could tell of the many difficulties that beset us, and of the first murmurings of dissension among our tiny population—dissension caused by the mass exodus, when some of our people would have preferred to stay in London. Then there were some who would have chosen other districts, but if they had been permitted to do this, our population would have been too scattered.

  At last we arranged the move by deciding upon two centres of population on the southern outskirts of London. About half of our people moved out to Primswood and settled in the neighbourhood of the farm, while the others elected to go to the more urban districts around Bromley and Beckenham.

  These two centres were within easy reach of each other and were also convenient for getting to and from London. Also, our great store houses in the hangars on the Downs were not too far away from the new settlements.

  We maintained at all times a group in London, changing this by rota each week. There was still much work to be done in the great dead city, now that the urgency of the bat-men’s search had been communicated to us.

  I do not quite know how we came to be infected with this sense of urgency, but it is a fact that we soon accepted the bat-creatures’ search as our own. In the light of later knowledge I can perhaps imagine that other minds than ours were willing us to do this thing.

  However it may have been, we had work ahead of us. After the task of moving from London was completed, we organised the search for the bat-men’s talisman on more thorough lines.

  Ducrot remained in authority, for he was the most knowledgeable among us in the matter of mineralogy. Under him, a considerable amount of research was carried on. His helpers were divided into three teams: one to conduct research into the science of mineralogy, a second to collect and transport different materials for the consideration of the Esoes, and a third to conduct four of the Esoes to inspect various metals and other substances in their natural surroundings.

  Early in this work, Karim came to see me, with a thoughtful look on his face.

  We talked of many things, and still he remained pensive. At last, after a suitable interval of Levantine procrastination, he came to the point.

  “I am remembering,” he said, “that when I was a boy in Zagazig (that is in Egypt, you understand) we used to dig wells—wells for water.”

  He paused, to let this latter profound remark sink in. Then he continued: “And sometimes we did not find water. Do you know what we did then, when we could not find water?”

  “Use a neighbour’s well,” I suggested, not being very interested in his story.

  “Tsk! To use a neighbour’s well would have meant being taken to prison by the shawish. No, Denis—we would send for old Ali Maher Hussein, the imam.”

  “Yes, to be sure!” I murmured politely. “And what would old Ali Thingummy do then?”

  “Ali Maher Hussein was a wise old man,” went on Karim. “He had a secret way to find water, but he once showed it to me. He would take a stick shaped like . . . shaped like gamma” —and he drew with his finger an inverted “y”—“and by holding this stick, so, and walking slowly...”

  “A water diviner, eh?” I interrupted, more interested now.

  “Exactly. A water diviner, as you say. Well, Denis, I have thought much about this. Somehow, Ali Maher Hussein’s piece of stick would lead him to the water. That was Ali Maher Hussein’s secret. But I have been wondering whether perhaps my piece of rock from Varang-Varang might lead as to the other piece of rock which the bat-men seek. Do you think, now, that perhaps... ?”

  And he drew from a bulging pocket the chipped little boulder he had picked up on the doomed planet.

  Within half an hour we had made big changes in our plans. I called Fernand Ducrot at once on the radio, and he and Arabin hurried down from London to discuss Karim’s strange new theory.

  The bat-men had persisted in retaining their piece of mineral and so we had been unable to attempt any analysis of it. But with Karim’s rock, forgotten until now, we found ourselves in possession of a specimen of the principal—perhaps the only— type of mineral now existing on Varang-Varang.

  Next morning found us all at Ducrot’s laboratory, where he carefully chipped the already battered hunk of stone to secure slips for analysis.

  But alas! our scientific resources, as I have said, were too slight, and our knowledge too limited, to provide us with much information. We did learn that the rock was of high density, and that it was insoluble in any solution we could compound, but we were quite unable to identify it as resembling any substance we knew of on Earth. Our knowledge of such matters, after all, was pitifully small, and we never regretted the fact more than that day in Ducrot’s laboratory.

  However, although we learned little from our ill-tutored analysis, we did have a stronger foundation on which to build future experiments.

  By now, we had many samples of various minerals that had been collected, and we assembled these in Ducrot’s workrooms. With four of the Esoes on the table, we laid Karim’s piece of rock against each specimen of Terrestrial mineral. The Esoes, of course, did not possess independent powers of thought, or, for the matter of that, any power of personal reasoning, but were entirely controlled by their ruling intelligences, the bat-creatures. But nevertheless, it was difficult to believe that their movements were not made of their own volition. Their speed of reaction and their prompt reflex action would have deceived anyone not knowing the source and cause of their mobility.

  At first, the horny globes showed no interest in this series of experiments until we laid the rock against a certain piece of lead. It happened to be the third piece of lead. The other two, however, had produced nothing from the Esoes but a mild rocking back and forth.

  But when our stone was placed near the third piece, it was a very different picture indeed. At first the Esoes rolled quickly towards it, then away, and then back towards it. Between them they surrounded the two mineral specimens in tight formation. It might have been said that they fairly quivered with excitement. There was a positive vibratory movement among them.

  “From where is it come, the lead?” called Ducrot to one of his team of assistants. “Tell, please, quickly!”

  The man turned the slab of lead over, and checked by his note the number scratched on its under side.

  “From the X-ray clinic at St. Thomas’s Hospital,” he replied.

  “So! Could be radio-active,” declared Ducrot excitedly. “We shall call the bat-men to us.”

  And he led us into the permanently darkened room we kept for conferences with the light-sensitive creatures, carrying one of the Esoes, as a medium of communication, under his left arm.

  “Door is closed, all now dark,” he said, whispering almost confidently to the grisly bony thing he held.

  Almost at once we heard the distinctive detonation that told us at least one of the bat-creatures had teleported himself among us.

  “Is this your mineral—this piece we have shown the Esoes?” asked Ducrot, speaking huskily into the darkness.

  “I think it is not,” came the harsh voice we recognised. “Yet there is something about it that makes us think you are
near finding it. What is this . . . this ‘radio-active’ word you use?”

  “No matter. It would be too long a story to tell you,” replied Ducrot. “But we will find other radio-active material for your Esoes to examine. I think that this way we shall find your stone—or your metal, whichever it may be.”

  We ended the brief conference and the creature from Varang-Varang had vanished before we opened the door and returned to the light.

  From then on, we searched London for radio-active material. From the start we took the most stringent precautions for our safety, and only handled or approached the deadly stuff properly clothed and equipped. Even so, we must have run a grave risk, for our sole knowledge of radio-activity was gained from our reading, and not from practical experience. For all we knew, we might easily have exposed ourselves to the danger of radiation through being inadequately protected. Still, we did our best, and although our precautions must often have been overdone, and much time was lost thereby, we suffered no casualties.

  That may well have been because at first we did not recognise true radio-activity. I still think that, had we found anything really “live” we should have lost some of our operators.

  Much of what we produced in our first searches elicited not the slightest response from the Esoes, and we realised that perhaps these negatives specimens were not, after all, radioactive.

  It was David Cohen who set us on the right lines in our investigations.

  After one of his foraging expeditions he brought back his lorry loaded with scores of glass jars, each packed with various powders and crystals. They were racked carefully in the lorry, and several hundredweight of sawdust had been packed around them.

  “Found ’em in a fireworks factory over Ilford way,” he explained. “Take care of ’em . . . we don’t want another big bang.”

  So we scooped out a little from each jar, and again we went to work on the Esoes, laying Karim’s rock against each little pile, and then stopping to watch the reactions of the Esoes.