I ran to the park gates, and searched around. There was a row of neat houses fronting the park, and I soon found the one bearing a doctor's name plate. The front door was swinging open, and I hurriedly explored the ground-floor rooms. At the back of the house was a small dispensary, and there I found, after ten minutes' search, a small anaesthetics cupboard.
I smashed the lock, and, by the greatest of good fortune, found a metal box containing ampoules of morphia, packed in cotton wool. On a lower shelf I found a hypodermic syringe.
It would be a risk to use it, I thought, as I ran back to the building in the park, but surely — yes! there were instructions printed on the inside of the lid.
I jabbed the point of the syringe into Krill Hvensor's arm. Within a few minutes he was sleeping peacefully.
I must abridge the story of our battle with these four minds. The three humans were comparatively easy to deal with, as we caught each one in the first moments of his awakening. Krill Hvensor took longer.
At the end of four hours, though, we had won, and, for the first time in countless years, one of his race was freed from the Vulcanid control.
CHAPTER NINE
When we had successfully revived Krill Hvensor, he sat breathing heavily for a few moments, and then rose and walked to the windows. In the west the sun was beginning to decline. He stood a moment and gazed at it, and then, with his left foot, drew a spiral pattern in the thick dust on the floor. With his hands crossed on his chest, he stood with bowed head contemplating the pattern, and his lips moved in silent words.
We stood back while he performed this ritual — a ritual we were to see repeated often in the next few days — and kept silence. We knew that Krill Hvensor's people followed what I can only describe as a religion, but we knew little of it. The spiral pattern, with the outer limb linked by a straight line to the inner starting point, we had seen often on Vulcan, and recognised it as the symbol of their religion.
There were now eight of us; eight free man to battle with the hosts of Vulcan for the minds and bodies of those who should follow us.
Krill Hvensor assured us that every available Disc would by now have left the Lunar base, and that we might expect those lucky enough to reach Earth, to arrive ten or twelve hours hence.
That gave us another breathing space, and time to lay our plans. We agreed that we would use anaesthetics, if necessary, to nullify the effects of the Vulcanid control. Krill Hvensor supported this project whole-heartedly. Such measures for procuring loss of consciousness were unknown on Vulcan, thanks to the extensive mind control existing there. They would, therefore, offer a valuable weapon against the Vulcanid Intelligences, who could have had no experience of combating them.
But none of us believed that we should have many hours' advance on the Vulcanid minds. By now, we reasoned, they would have realised that their loss of control over eight of their subjects was no mere accident, and would no doubt strike forcibly to keep other humans out of our grasp.
However, we could do nothing but wait, now.
We slept little that night. There was much to understand, and many questions to ask. For the first time we heard the truth about Krill Hvensor's race, and their age-long captivity. For the first time, too, we learned of the form the Intelligences of Vulcan took.
Many thousands of years ago, we learned, the secret of space travel had been discovered by the beings on a planet revolving in an orbit between that of Mars and Earth. They had travelled from planet to planet, until they reached Vulcan. These were the people of Krill Hvensor's race. They had called their own world Amar-Viri — "Daughter of the Sun" — and, with something like thirty thousand years of civilisation as their background, had evolved an almost ideal form of society. They spoke a common language, and had left nationalism far behind them, achieving a common race with common ideals.
Then had come their tragic journeys to Hafna. For some centuries they had visited the ill-omened planet, until at last they found themselves in the inextricable mental grip of the rulers of Hafna. They had been influenced into bringing more and yet more of their people to Hafna, so that the Intelligences ruling that world might study them, just as, later, they had decided to study Terrestrial humanity — with the object of habilitating the Vulcan form of life to life on a newer world.
But the Vulcanid plan to annex Amar-Viri was thwarted by a catastrophe of cosmic dimensions. That planet, dwelling in an orbit between Mars and Earth, gradually came within the gravitational influence of the Earth, and in the course of the centuries, was disintegrated by the ruthless attraction of Terrestrial gravity.
As Krill Hvensor told us of the traditions of his race, he pointed to the Moon, which was in its third quarter.
"That," he declared, "is the last visible remnant of Amar-Viri."
Earlier in this narrative, I referred to what is known as Hoerbiger's theory. I never thought, either when I first studied it, or when I wrote those words, that I should ever be afforded proof that Hoerbiger was right when he assumed that our Moon was the wreckage — or all that remained of the wreckage — of another planet.
What of the Vulcanid Intelligences? we asked Krill Hvensor. Thomas Ludlam sat silent. He knew. I thought that I, too, knew. I had been shown the two-foot high, froglike creatures on Vulcan, and had believed, as I was told, that these were the progenitors of the Vulcanid race as personified by Krill Hvensor. Arabin, also, had seen these, and had believed the story.
Krill Hvensor shook his head. The froglike beings were no more than a skilled race of craftsmen who were indigenous to Vulcan. They, until the Virians were enslaved, were the mobile intelligences of the planet. Now they had been restored to their earlier status as independent creatures, though working for the Rulers of the planet.
What, then, were the Intelligences, we persisted? They must have some physical form. What was it?
Krill Hvensor hesitated before he replied. They were almost static beings, he told us. They were capable only of slow movement under their own volition, and therefore must possess a subservient race to effect their movement for them, and to carry out their practical work. But as for brain work, they were entirely self-sufficient.
He explored his mind for a parallel that would enable him to offer us an explanation in English — which language, with others, he had learned, of course, in the course of his studies as host for the Vulcanids.
Thomas Ludlam helped him.
"Krill Hvensor," he explained, "has never seen such a thing as a sea-anemone, so cannot describe one.
If he had seen such a thing, he would tell you that the Vulcanids are like that. They are bigger — much bigger — of course. If you imagine a sea-anemone, rooted on dry land, and growing to a height of seven or eight feet — that is a Vulcanid."
While he spoke, he sketched his thoughts in the dust of the floor.
Krill Hvensor nodded vehemently. We shuddered.
The unknown, especially in an alien — completely alien — form of life can be terrifying.
We looked at Thomas's sketch in the dust. These, then, would have been our masters had we not escaped them.
David Cohen managed to make a joke. "Cor save us!" he said, "and I used to think bus drivers were the lowest form of life!" David had been a taxi driver in London.
His interruption reminded me of a small puzzle that had been at the back of my mind for days.
"David," I said. "We're somewhere north or south of London, aren't we?"
He nodded. "Don't know where you are, eh?"
"We don't. Do you?"
"Sarf-east London. Or maybe Metropolitan Kent. Yes. Metropolitan Kent, I should say. We came over Lewisham and Eltham, and we're out in the open here. Tell you what... Give us the candle a minute."
He took the candle — Thomas had prudently placed one or two in each room — and left us. In two minutes he was back, carrying a sheet of headed notepaper.
"There y'are," he declared triumphantly. "Primswood, Kent."
We looked at the notepaper, an
d read "Primswood Borough Council."
Of course! Why hadn't we thought of looking under our noses before? The only answer can be that we had been too busily occupied, first under the Vulcanid control, and then arranging our future movements.
"And this 'ere," David went on, "is Primswood Place. Turn out of the gates, and three miles up the High Street you come to Eltham. Keep on left, and you're in the Old Kent Road in no time. Blimey, and that nearly takes me home!"
That started another train of thought. If this was the Borough Council Office, there'd be a newspaper file somewhere about. Arabin and I went off to look for it.
Now that we had leisure, we took our time, and explored rooms we had not entered before. In one ground-floor room, we found the caretaker.
He was sitting at a table, his jacket hanging over the back of his chair and his head leaning forward.
Arabin walked over and touched him.
The man rolled off his chair at the touch, and collapsed in a bundle of clothes on the floor.
Where there had been a dead man, there was now a heap of dust inside the garments.
We stood silently for a moment. Here was something we could not yet explain. The poor fellow had died suddenly, whatever death had overtaken him. But this disintegration? Perhaps we should learn later. Now — there was a job to be done.
We must find out what we could about the disaster that had fallen upon the world.
In the next room we entered, we found our newspaper file.
It was the local weekly, and there on the front page we read of the terror that had struck the world the week that copy of the Kentish Chronicle had been printed.
The date-line at the top of the page was September 7th, 1973. Then more than ten years had passed on Earth since I ran across that Lancashire field to the black disc!
Under the banner heading, "Millions Head North to Escape Sonic Belt," we read the grim story the printers had stayed behind to publish. The front page of that paper is now preserved for future readers, and I copy the opening paragraphs of the tragic story here:
London, Thursday Night.
More than eighteen million more British subjects have been evacuated to Arctic areas during the past five days. Here in the Press Room of Evacuation Headquarters (writes a Kentish Chronicle reporter) the daily toll mounts so fast that we can only speak in thousands. Wave upon wave of refugees has surged across the 50th parallel from other European countries, and radio messages from Reception Centres in Murmansk, Hammerfest and Novaya Zemlya tell of further millions who are now encamped on the ice within the Arctic Circle.
Within 24 hours, it is expected that those who have reached Arctic zones will know whether they are safe there, for it is calculated that the advance of the supersonic death will have reached the polar regions by then, if it is going to extend so far.
Between the 50th parallel and the Arctic Circle, many more millions are speeding northward, but their journey will be tragically vain, for reports continue to pour into these head-quarters telling of isolated limbs of the supersonic belt reaching out faster than the leading edge is travelling.
Radio communication with Antarctic regions has now ceased, and it is feared that evacuees from the Southern Hemisphere who sought refuge there have perished.
If this is so, Professor Vogel's theory that there may be safety in surroundings of intense cold will be proved fallacious.
On the other hand, according to a statement to the Press of the world by General Weaver, it may be found that the super-sonic belt has affected radio transmissions only, and that mankind has found safety amid the ice, but is unable to communicate the fact.
It is now estimated that more than nine-tenths of the population of Great Britain has been evacuated. Of the four million remaining, many more will have gone within four hours' time. But it is now realised that many thousands will remain voluntarily in their home surroundings.
General Weaver has repeated his promise that every man, woman and child will be evacuated speedily upon application to local Evacuation Centres. Every aircraft the country possesses, including the fleet of eight hundred 300-seater trans-world Goliaths shared by the United States and this country, is at the immediate service of those wishing to be evacuated. By Saturday, he warns, it will be too late.
Already, it has been observed that the supersonic belt is advancing much more rapidly across the North Pacific and Eastern Asia. The leading edge approaching Europe from the South may accelerate its speed if the wind backs to the South.
This headquarters, General Weaver promises, will remain and function from the deep shelters in which it is now installed. Radio communications will be maintained as long as possible.
The staff here are optimistic that the sound belt will not travel far enough below ground to reach them in their 800-feet deep shelters When these deep shelters were constructed in 1968, they were proved safe from atomic radiation and all forms of atmospheric pollution, so it may be that those manning their posts here will survive.
The only element of doubt is created by the unknown nature of the sound belt itself. When Professor Vogel's thorium bomb was prematurely exploded, the experts had not yet analysed the reactions obtained by the laboratory experiments with the test bomb.
The list of cities overwhelmed by the belt now includes many centres further North. Rome, Marseilles, Athens, Washington, Vancouver and Seattle have now ceased radio communication.
…. And so the appalling story continued.
We carried the newspaper through to the others, who read it with growing horror. Less than a year ago, by my reckoning, a provincial newspaperman sat in some underground dungeon in London and
telephoned his catastrophic story through to some less fortunate copy-taker here in Primswood. And ten or twenty gallant compositors, stone-hands and pressmen had stayed behind to set and print the story.
Who had remained to read it?
We were certain that there had been few people in the little Kentish town there on the fringe of London when the end came, for we had seen less than a score of dead in the streets and buildings.
There could be no doubt that those who had stayed had known full well what their fate would be.
Previous issues of the paper, as we read them in the file, had told of the preliminary experiments with Professor Vogel's pernicious thorium bomb. And throughout the story ran a grim thread of doubt that had swelled to certainty the week before the cataclysm.
"Chain reaction," murmured Arabin. "The bloody fools. Vogel must have suspected... It's what we were always warned against. Up goes the bomb — and atoms go on splitting on all sides and can't be stopped."
We sat in silence for a time. There was little we could say that would seem decent.
One thing seemed certain: the Arctic ice had afforded no protection whatever, despite Vogel's hopes.
CHAPTER TEN
By dawn we were all out to await the arrival of any other Discs that might reach Earth. Krill Hvensor had assured us that they would not land in the dark, and that each following pilot would "home" on the radio impulses constantly being sent out by our one grounded Disc.
It was nearly noon when we saw our first Disc.
It gleamed a dazzling golden colour in the sunlight, and we caught our first glimpse of it when it was perhaps as much as ten miles away. Krill Hvensor sat by the controls of his own Disc — talking down the newcomer, we imagined, for we had little knowledge of the handling of the craft. Arabin, Karim and Ludlam had some elementary experience of flying the Discs under outside control, but of their means of communication we had everything to learn.
These Discs, I may not have mentioned, were much smaller than, and apparently quite different from, the enormous black Disc that had taken me back in 1963. The black Discs were the "mother" craft, Krill Hvensor told us, and were flown by the Nagani — the small, frog-like creatures I had seen on Vulcan.
As it spiralled down to earth, the newcomer fluttered oddly in the air, as though the pilot was ha
ving difficulty. When it landed, the seven of us who were out in the open stood at a distance and watched its passengers alight. They were led by two Virians, one of whom was half dragging the other. Then came eight people, most of whom we recognised. The gladdest sight of all was Casimir's wife, Rachelle, but we were saddened to see that she, like the others, was still under Vulcanid control.
However, time was too short for grieving, and we hustled all ten of the Disc's passengers into the rooms we had prepared for them. With drawn blinds keeping out the daylight, and after their fatigue of the journey, we had little difficulty in getting the newcomers to sleep.
We set Neil Flower the task of keeping a roll of all new arrivals, together with their occupations and every detail we knew of them.
Arabin was looking over the list, when a name caught his eye. He beckoned me over to him, and pointed to it.
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