But the Nagani were confident, superbly confident. Had they possessed active volcanoes on Hafna, they insisted, they would long centuries ago have' exterminated the Vulcanids.
We had to be content with their promise, and awaited the clearing of the atmosphere. For weeks the orange cloud hung heavy over the face of the Earth, and then six months later we saw the first break in the clouds. It came none too soon, for the weeks of heavy, depressing, sulphur-laden atmosphere were telling on our colony. The Nagani withstood it easily, but the poison and the psychological misery were affecting the humans and Virians badly.
Day by day, though, after that first rift in the dull cloud, the sun shone for increased periods. At last, some eight months after the Nagani experiment, the last traces of sulphur seemed to have left England, at least.
Then came the hunt for the Vulcanids. In Nagani piloted Discs we scoured the face of Britain, and our find was staggering. In the high places we sighted not a few dozen, but thousand upon thousand of the evil monsters from Hafna.
Every one, though, was dead.
There seemed to have been a variation in their reactions to the sulphur-charged air, for we found many who had been dead no more than a few weeks. They lay stiff and starkly green where they had fallen.
Others, though, were black with the corruption of months.
But we found not one living Vulcanid.
They had made for the high, open places when the plague of sulphur overtook them, and there they lay, strewn across mountain tops, straggling along the Pennines and the Pilgrim's Way, and dotted here and there wherever there was any considerable rise in the land.
The clearing of them would have taken years, but the Nagani assured us that within one year, their elements would have combined with the soil. This, happily, we found to be correct.
Although there seemed little doubt that any of the monsters could have survived, from that day forward Vulcanid hunting patrols were instituted. So far, I am relieved to be able to state, the patrols have brought nothing but negative reports.
There is little need for me to report on our co-operation with the Nagani. As the years have passed, we have seen that there is room for both races — Nagani and human — on Earth. Their first settlements were in the vicinity of large industrial centres. Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Nottingham and Northampton were picked out by them, in consultation with Leo Arabin, and it was agreed that they should operate their peculiar alien industry there as a beginning.
Now, of course, they are established alongside us, and humanity owes an infinite debt to their skill and craftsmanship.
I should have ended my report to the future at that stage, but Lucille has insisted that I add more information about our own little colony. She believes that humanity of the future will want to know more. I disagree. My record is written as a factual, objective report on an incident of tremendous import to humanity — the Return of Man to his own planet. Romance, I maintain, has no place in it.
Lucille, however, thinks differently, and, moreover, is so insistent that I must comply with her wishes.
She is — need I explain? — my wife now, and so claims some responsibility for my work. Her theory is that my years with the Mercury, writing cold fact in the most unemotional prose, have dimmed my view of what the public wants.
She insists that I inform the future that we have three sons now. The oldest, Thomas Ludlam, is now a fluent linguist, speaking a mixture of English, French, Spanish, Swedish — and Virian. His third birthday, which falls this week, is to be marked by a party of almost cosmic proportions. For the first time in the world's history, every human inhabitant of the planet will be assembled at one small boy's birthday party.
The Nagani have made a festival of the occasion, too, and plan to present him with the most fantastic present a boy ever had — a miniature Disc, which flies perfectly and is controlled by the human voice.
Leo refused to allow us to name one of our boys after him. One Leo Arabin in the Universe at a time was enough, he wrily suggested. But I suspect there is more behind his refusal than that. For some time, now, we have had reason to believe that Leo Arabin is an assumed name, although we can only guess at his true identity. However that may be, he gladly acted as godfather to each of our children.
The other two? Jonathan Tracey is the second, and Pierre is the most recent, and is at this moment scrabbling round my feet as I type this.
In the three years since the Nagani saved us from the Vulcanids, our human colony has prospered. The farm thrives, and the stock thereon — the most widely travelled animals the world has ever seen, I have no doubt — have multiplied prolifically. It looks as though mankind has established his footing again in his old home, and we thank God for it.
We now have eighteen more human inhabitants of the world, and much thought is being given to plans for their education, for of course it will be some years before they arrive at what used to be school age.
Our next great undertaking is to be a removal of the whole colony into Kent. London, as I indicated earlier, would be an impossible home for such a small group as ours. We must first build up our numbers until we can cope with a small town, and we have sorrowfully come to the conclusion that London may be an abandoned city for many centuries before mankind has flourished sufficiently to be able to live in such a vast home.
As time goes on, the record of our small achievements and of our continued progress will be continued by many hands, for we have seen to it that the future shall not only know about the Return itself, but shall learn something of our early struggles here.
For the present, it is enough to know that Man's foot is set firmly on his native heath. What the future holds none of us may know, but now — the Now that soon will be history — we are deeply and unashamedly grateful to whatever Powers we acknowledge, for we live again. And we shall try to justify our Second Chance.
EPILOGUE
It is I, Lucille Grafton, who add these words — words which I pray may be read in the future. Indeed, if we can pray that there may be a future for this world, we must do so with all our might.
For a new chapter has opened, and Denis is not here to write it.
A month after he wrote the last words of his narrative, a terrifying thing happened. The planet Varang-Varang not only became visible for the first time in countless centuries, but its visibility showed that it had drawn nearer to us by many millions of miles. The Nagani have told us that somehow, the inhabitants of that world, no doubt aided by the Vulcanid Intelligences, have come upon the ultimate secret of the Universe — the power to shift the orbit of their world.
We have seen distinctly on the scanning screens that vessels are leaving Varang-Varang and can travel as far as the more distant of its two moons. This means that the closed book of space travel is at last an open page to whatever creatures dwell there, and we now await the time when they shall attack us.
I wrote that we await the time: we have done more than that. We have sent out the whole Nagani fleet to meet the menace. First, they will try to learn what is in the mind of the people — if they be people — of Varang-Varang. Then they will try to establish a peaceful alliance with them. But we greatly fear that unless the nature of those beings on the one-time dark star has changed, there will be no peace to be made with them.
It is their race or ours, we feel, and so in the desperate attempt either to befriend or quell Varang-Varang, all our men have joined with the Nagani in the dreadful voyage.
We plot their course on the screens hourly. Within twenty days they should have entered the orbit of Varang-Varang. Even now their radio signals are fading.
Here on what was our newly-won world, we wait in fear, tempered with hope. If the Nagani fleet does not return, we have now, once again, the nucleus of a human population, in our children. But — what civilisation can there be for them if a whole world is pitted against them?
We can only wait — and hope. I cannot believe that this is the end.
&nbs
p; THE END
World in Eclipse Page 21