World in Eclipse

by William Dexter

  "Dr. Axel Bjornstrom," he read. "Remember him?"

  "Only slightly. Didn't see much of him. Why?"

  "He's our man for attending to the newcomers as they arrive. Don't you see? A surgeon... he can give

  'em all the dope that's safe. Might speed up the process of getting rid of the control."

  We accordingly set to work on the doctor first.

  Here we were extremely fortunate, for we found that the doctor — a tough, rugged Swede — had known that he was being controlled. His release was thus comparatively easy, and after ten minutes' talk with him, we had him free.

  Before we awoke the others, I took him across the park to the doctor's surgery I had looted earlier. I stood by while he ransacked the dispensary, and together we carried back to the building every bottle, every instrument, that he needed.

  He selected a man who was sleeping by himself in a separate room as his guinea pig. While the man was still sound asleep, Dr. Bjornstrom gave him a stab in the arm with a syringe, into which he had carefully measured a clear liquid.

  "Pentothal," he explained. "Will take longer time, the pentothal, but will be more good — more easy to tell him all we want to tell him."

  . His patient started to wake after the shock of the stab, but Bjornstrom gently pushed him back and held him down. In a few seconds the man was deeply unconscious.

  Flower checked the fellow's name on his list.

  "Frenchman," he said. "Someone'll have to speak to him in French."

  We sent for Karim, who was outside with the Disc-spotters. His second tongue was French, though he also spoke — as most educated Alexandrines do — Greek and some Italian. We left him with the man, and went outside to watch for Discs.

  For three hours there was no sign from the sky, and then we sighted no less than eight Discs, circling in formation high overhead. Six of them made perfect landings in line across the park, but the last two suddenly shot upwards.

  While they were still clearly within sight, we were horrified to see them take on an incandescent glow, and a few seconds later, with a burst of flame, they vanished completely.

  Krill Hvensor bowed his head and crossed his arms on his breast and made the sign of the spiral with his foot.

  But again, there was no time to waste in mourning the loss of the two Discs and their passengers, and each one of us, save Karim and Dr. Axel, ran to lead the Discs' passengers into the darkness of the building.

  As we entered, we found Karim and Dr. Axel joyfully leading out the previous ten newcomers. The pentothal treatment, it appeared, had worked well, although the Virians, as was to be expected, had been difficult to free of their controls.

  Flower was kept busy with his register, and by the time he had listed all those who had come in the last six Discs to land, we found that we could muster sixty-five humans and thirteen Virians.

  This, Arabin and I agreed, was almost better than we had hoped for. Another encouraging factor was the presence of Dr. Axel. His efforts had freed every newcomer within the hour, and we no longer feared the Vulcanid mind-control.

  So cheered were we, that as night fell, and we sat round a veritable blaze of Thomas's candles in what had been the Council Chamber of our Town Hall, we planned our schedules for meeting other incoming Discs day by day. We would wait here — or a party of us would wait here — indefinitely as long as the Discs came in, we agreed.

  The Virians were singularly quiet, though, as we laid our plans. They had reason to be, as we found during the next week. During that time, although we now mounted a twenty-four-hour watch, not a single Disc landed.

  On the fourth day, Krill Hvensor and I stood on the roof of our building, straining our eyes skyward.

  We now had binoculars to aid us, for we had raided many shops in Primswood's short High Street.

  "I think no more will ever come," said the Virian, sadly. The thought had long ago occurred to most of us. I waited for him to continue.

  "Those of us who did reach your world," he said, "were gifted with luck that cannot continue. It has been so easy for the Vulcanids... They had but to plant a thought in a pilot's mind: 'I must destroy my Disc,' and it would be done. Who will ever know how many of my people and yours they have destroyed out there in space?"

  It became apparent during the next three days that he was right. Not one Disc — not even the flash of an exploding Disc — was seen. Each of the Discs we had lying on the grass there at Primswood had been on radio watch continuously, and not one faint signal had any of them received.

  There was a grim consolation in the thought that every Virian Disc pilot had been annihilated, for the Virian population on Vulcan had never been large. The fewer there were to remain in Vulcanid servitude, the less chance there was of any counter-attack upon us.

  After a week we still maintained a daylight watch every day, in the faint hopes that a Disc or two might break through the Vulcanid mind-barrier, but none came.

  At last, we assumed that none had left the Lunar base once the first flight had taken off. By then, the Vulcanid Intelligences had learned of the plot to desert them, and had either prevented other Discs following the first flight, or had destroyed them in space. Whatever the truth of the matter was, it was agreed among us that our immediate concern was our own survival.

  During our week of waiting, much had been done in addition to our watch on the sky. Dr. Axel, aided by Arabin and a former laboratory assistant — our nearest approach to a physicist — had been in London gleaning what information they could about the nature of the great catastrophe. They had combed through the files of newspapers in Fleet Street for shreds of clues that would tell them just how mankind had died.

  Axel and Ducrot, our stand-in for a scientist, had conducted extensive laboratory tests with what cadavers they had succeeded in finding in a state of anything like preservation. For the most part, the poor corpses they found had long ago disintegrated into a fine ashy dust, but here and there, where a man had been especially well protected, they were able to examine his remains.

  Axel had formed the opinion that death had been caused not by asphyxiation or poisoning, but by a sudden shock to the brain, and he held the theory that supersonic impulses — "sound" too incalculably high-pitched to be heard by human ears — may have been responsible.

  The disintegration of the bodies, he believed, had been caused by some side-effect of the explosion of the Vogel bomb. This theory, however, he had not yet been able to investigate fully.

  Another aspect of our work while we waited was inspired by David Cohen. He had idly wondered aloud what should be done in the event of a black Disc, or perhaps some other and as yet unsuspected space ship, approaching Earth.

  Arabin had at once seized upon the idea, and we had debated it at length. The result was seen next day, when half a dozen men were despatched to the Primswood Drill Hall, and there installed as anti-aircraft gunners. Each had seen service in that role during the war of 1939-1945, and with the glibly optimistic motto, "Once a gunner, always a gunner," had set to work on the anti-aircraft guns we found at the Drill Hall.

  We were not too happy about our defensive situation as yet. For all we knew, the repellent screen of the Vulcanid world might have been incorporated into the Discs, in which case, our shells would merely bounce before hitting the target.

  But the main thing was, in those early days, to provide occupation, and necessary' occupation, for all our people.

  Some we set to scouring the countryside by car, in the hopes — vain, they turned out to be — of finding cattle that had survived the catastrophe. Poultry, too, was non-existent, and even as we planned the search, we compared notes and found that none of us had heard a bird singing since our return.

  True, we had unlimited supplies of canned food at our disposal. Every shop throughout the world was a potential larder for us, but — how long would such food be eatable? It might even last out our lifetimes, but what of the next generation?

  For we were confident that th
ere would be a next generation. We had every reason to believe that the sterility of humanity on Vulcan was imposed by the Vulcanids' devilish science.

  And so, through that first week, we planned a make-shift defence of our tiny patch of inhabited world, we tried to learn what had killed our kind, we sought for food, and we talked — how we talked!

  It was the talk that determined us on some sort of rule among ourselves.

  Perhaps by right of our having led the Return, perhaps because nobody better offered, a Council of Five was elected to organise our affairs. Arabin, Krill Hvensor, Thomas Ludlam, Casimir Karim and myself found ourselves responsible for the administration of seventy-eight people there in Primswood Place.

  And at the end of the first week, we assembled everybody in the Council Chamber to discuss our future.

  There were vast problems to be solved, and the first question was: could we attempt their solution out there in the country?

  Those who knew their London were at once in favour of moving to the Metropolis, which was but twelve miles to the north of us. Those who did not, and especially those who had been bred in other cities, demanded the right to remain on the fringe of the city. For, they reasoned, food must be cultivated, and in the absence of animal food, mankind would have to depend upon a vegetarian diet in the future.

  David Cohen, the shrewd Jewish Cockney, interrupted quietly with: "...an' a nice bit o' fish, perhaps."

  There was a chattering in many tongues, as the English-speakers translated for the others.

  David waited for silence, and went on: "Nobody seems to have taken a peep at the fishpond right outside this window, do they? 'Ave a dekko."

  Someone by the french windows slipped put, followed by others, and there was a sudden glad shout.

  There were living creatures left on Earth, then! The pond contained a score or more of lively goldfish.

  What had they fed upon? For fish in a pond could not sustain life without some kind of food.

  There must, then, be insects.

  Examination showed that insect larvae were thick in the pond, although, when we considered, we had seen no signs of any insects ourselves. Still, that was a question for the future.

  The immediate question: where were we to settle? was coped with by planning a tour of London and the surrounding countryside, and a couple of dozen representatives were selected to spy out the land in this manner.

  There was no lack of transport: the main roads even out here were thronged with empty cars. It appeared that evacuation of this particular district had been carried out from the neighbouring Biggin HD1 airfield, and many cars and buses had been parked by the roadside as their passengers had been picked up by the evacuation vehicles for transportation to the airfield.

  On the ninth day of our Return, a bus load of us left for the Cook's Tour, as David, driving the bus, called it. The route was left to him. With his native shrewdness, in view of the fact that most of his passengers were anti-London voters, he drove round the Royal parks, and halted after driving up the Edgware Road and Marylebone Road to Regent's Park.

  He leaned on the wheel as the passengers alighted and walked wonderingly round on the overgrown lawns of Queen Mary's Garden.

  "You can grow anything here," he solemnly declared, "anything at all — melons, coconuts, wheat, anything you like. Wonderful soil in London!" He winked at me.

  "An' if this don't suit 'em," he added, confidentially, "we'll take 'em to Kew Gardens."

  When we returned, there was another conference, whereat it was agreed that London had the

  advantage. For four hours we discussed our movement, and finally solved the problem by dividing our Terrestrials into two parties. The smaller party, numbering twenty-three, would settle on some suitable farm, when one should have been found. Thomas Ludlam, who had been a country lad — and so many, many years ago! — was to lead this section.

  The Virians were to come to London with the larger party, which would leave as soon as quarters had been reconnoitred.

  Here it seems appropriate to mention the composition of our parties.

  Among the Terrestrials were half a dozen married couples, and the rest of us were, under the present circumstances, and whatever we had been before, single. Apart from the married couples there were forty-two men and youths, and eleven women and girls.

  Of the women and girls, eight were of marriageable age and three were frankly past middle-age.

  There were many nationalities among us, including three negro youths and the sister of one of them, two Eskimos, two Chinese, and three full-blooded Blackfoot Indians.

  As I write this, it seems difficult to believe that those who read it will have little notion of what these descriptions mean. It will be taught in years to come, though, that the first people of the Return were of mixed colours and spoke various languages. And as the years pass, it may even be that the people inhabiting the world will divide into nations again.

  Who can tell, at this stage? Indeed, who can tell whether there will be any human survival at all?

  Of the Virians, nine were male and four female. For long I and the other Terrestrials had been schooled in the belief that these were non-human creatures. The belief lingered until even now I find myself writing "humans" and "Virians," whereas perhaps I should write "People."

  The fact is, of course, that humanity until this day has never conceived of the possibility of living side by side with beings from another world. We shall long find it hard to separate the Virians in our minds from the concept of non-humanity.

  And yet, seeing them among us, hearing them speak our own languages, observing them closely and studying their physical make-up, I am coming to the realisation that, if they are not human, they are indistinguishable from that state.

  Even Dr. Axel, who should know, if any man does, proclaims that bodily, the Virians are identical with us. Their mental processes vary, sometimes incredibly. For example, we have only found since the Return that members of the same family of Virians are able to communicate soundlessly with each other. I hesitate to describe this communion as telepathy, but I have yet to find a better word for it.

  They have a complex system of taboos, and their religious ideals are, they tell us, incomprehensible to a non-Virian mind.

  But physically, they are our match in everything. If I had not known them to be inhabitants of another planet, I would have believed them to be North American Indians. Side by side with our three Blackfoot Indians, they are almost indistinguishable as non-humans.

  Perhaps, some day, we may find that the two races, from two different worlds — the Terrestrials and the Virians — are akin enough to intermarry.

  In the meantime, they are our brothers in adversity.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Once the decision to divide was made, the necessary moves were quickly planned. Within four days we had found what had been a fine, flourishing small farm half a mile from our first landing ground, and there the rural party settled in as comfortably as was possible under the unique circumstances.

  The town party moved up to London, where Arabin had picked out a small private hotel, the Parkside.

  It overlooked Hyde Park from the Bayswater Road, and was one of the few buildings we had

  reconnoitred where there were no corpses left behind. The larder was well-stocked, as though the landlady ("Prop. Mrs. E. Flewitt") had laid down a good hoard when first the news about impending trouble had leaked out.

  The women in each party undertook to look after all house-keeping duties, and it gave us all great happiness to find ourselves so comfortably placed.

  Quartering and food supplies were, for the moment, no problem. Canned foods of every kind were ours for the taking. For the present, the water supplies functioned perfectly, but nevertheless we made early plans for obtaining water if the mains supply failed.

  After some exploration, we found a deep shelter, beneath the Admiralty, where water was tapped from a natural spring, but as this was some two
miles from Parkside, we made plans to move over there in a complete body, if necessary, rather than transport water to Parkside.

  There were other matters of organisation that were not so simple, however. Much would have to be done by trial and error principles, but we started in what we hoped would be an efficient manner.

  There was the question of our farming community, for instance. Not one of them had experience of the necessary kind, although there were several enthusiastic gardeners among that party. We could not guarantee that we should be provided with crops of any sort, save the easier vegetables. Accordingly, one of the first details to be organised was a research party, of which Arabin made me the nominal head.

  This "information bureau" took up its headquarters in, of all places I had never expected to see again, the library of the Mercury offices in Fleet Street. There, with a scout to rob other libraries of books we did not possess, we sat in state, prepared to advise upon any problem that might face the others. Ours was the easy task — to find the information. To the others fell the harder work of putting our advice into practice.