by J. T. Wilson
“I suppose,” replied McKittrick eventually, as a commotion in the corridors attracted his attention. Returning his interest to Nathanial, he raised his voice somewhat. “Now, come on, you lubber! This is no time to cavort with womenfolk! Don’t make me clap you in irons again, you dog!”
Nathanial shook his head and smiled.
4.
WAITING FOR Sovereign to descend the gorge was a tedious ordeal for Annabelle, during which she observed the men. Judging by the nervous looks they exchanged, she ventured few of them had ever set foot on an alien world before. George Bedford, she noticed, conversed with Captain Folkard, probably confirming the plans of the mission. Annabelle still felt awkward with her new leg, so did not move to join them. The less she moved, she believed, the less her physical infirmity would be in evidence. She felt an odd excitement in her chest of unfamiliar cause. Certainly it did not link to the reunion with her uncle: thinking about the meeting left her with a feeling of dread, rather than the elation she currently felt.
George approached her and she wondered if she had not fully recovered from her exploits aboard Peregrine Station and Mars, because her heart suddenly seemed to hammer in her chest as if the workings of some great machine.
“Permission to escort you to the door, Miss Somerset?” George asked.
“George, the door is only a matter of feet away,” replied Annabelle, but she allowed him to assist her nonetheless. After all, she had barely had time to familiarise herself with the cane.
“Are you certain you are up to this? Your face is flushed. If your wound should reopen…”
“I am fine, George, I assure you. This very handsome cane, which one Seaman Jack Fenn was good enough to loan me, takes much of the weight, even when I will no longer have the pleasure of your arm. And with six sailors as my escort, all of them carrying revolvers under their jumpers, I shall be nearly as safe as I was in sickbay, and a good deal happier to be out and doing something.”
It was a handsome cane, she thought, black lacquered wood polished to a mirror finish, and an ornate heavy silver head which might serve as a bludgeon if needed. She was not entirely sure why a seaman would possess such a thing, and she was hardly in a position to enquire, so she merely accepted the loan with gratitude and felt very flattered by the broad smile Mister Fenn had given her upon her open admiration of the cane.
Annabelle stumbled as her cane slipped on the smooth steel decking by the ramp to the cutter’s hatch, but George tightened his grip on her arm and steadied her. She paused and looked up at the yawning hatch of the small craft and felt a sudden stab of fear. She shuddered involuntarily.
“Annabelle…”
“No, it is nothing. I just…the last time I boarded a cutter of this sort I was bleeding and close to death. When last I saw that cutter it lay broken and scattered in the Martian waste. Unpleasant memories, George, but nothing more than that, I assure you.” As she and George stood by the boarding ramp five of the naval rating filed past them and into the cutter. She was to be paired with Able Seaman Howard Henry, who Annabelle understood to have served some time in prison but who was otherwise unknown to her. She had no worries about this—she had handled worse than an ex-lag, after all—but she did wish that she had the opportunity to spend more time with George.
“Ah, I believe we have reached our destination,” said George, turning to face her. “You may find Luna much changed from your previous voyages and not, alas, for the better. I wish you the best of luck, Miss Somerset. Perhaps a handshake to confirm my well wishes?”
Annabelle was surprised by the gesture, but acquiesced regardless. As she did so, she felt the exchange of some mysterious package into her hand, a leather pouch no larger than her palm, but solid and with weight to it. Not normally a man disposed to mendacity, Bedford handing Annabelle a parcel in this furtive manner could only suggest something at once useful to Annabelle and yet confidential. Annabelle secreted the mysterious package in the side pocket of her jacket, aware that now was not the time for scrutiny.
“It’s a shame that you won’t be joining us on Luna, Lieutenant,” Annabelle said. “Certainly your resourcefulness helped me out last time.”
Bedford smiled ruefully. “I fulfilled the boyhood dream of stepping on Luna on the last expedition. Now duty demands I stay behind. I sincerely hope your trip will be as boring as the captain anticipates.”
5.
WITHIN AN hour they reached the entrance to the large side cavern holding the base. Chief Coxswain’s Mate Charles manoeuvred the cutter in and to the landing ground of the base and then settled down. Upon disembarking they took stock of their surroundings.
Folkard had been here before, of course, but it was an entirely novel, and very alien, environment for most of the others. The Great Cavern was roughly spherical and was about a mile in diameter, softly lit by the glow of the uniquely luminescent lunar fungus which covered much of the ceiling. The floor was roughly level, formed from broken rubble fallen from the roof. A sparkling lake filled over half of the base of the cavern and the research station sprawled along its rocky shore.
Despite its official-sounding name, Otterbein Base was in fact little more than a scattered gaggle of buildings which served to house a set of dormitories, storage sheds, mess and administration facilities, and laboratories. The base had a tidier look than Folkard remembered; the buildings now linked by neatly whitewashed pathways of crushed stone.
The cutter’s arrival drew the attention of a dozen or more people in the open area and more soon emerged from the buildings. Visitors were not common here.
Folkard noted a khaki-clad and turbaned soldier trotting crossing the open ground in the long-striding shuffling trot used in low gravity, his rifle carried at the slope. Judging by his tightly rolled beard, Folkard made him a Sikh. When he reached the shore party he came to attention smartly and saluted.
“Sir! Private Anil Singh, Third Sikh Infantry, Punjab Frontier Force. Colonel Harrison’s compliments, and please allow me to guide you to the headquarters.”
“Very good, Private. Mister Charles, form the shore party up and follow the private. Professor Stone, Miss Somerset, if you would be so good as to accompany us? Seaman Henry, give Miss Somerset your arm if she should require it.”
Folkard led, naturally, with Nathanial and McKittrick central and Annabelle and Henry heading up the rear. The journey was not a smooth one for Annabelle as her peg kept sinking an inch or two into the crushed rock surface of the walk, and she nearly stumbled once, but she maintained her composure. Seaman Henry steadied her arm and remained mute.
Singh led them to the door of the central building in the base and held the door for them. “Wait, please, and they will come for you,” he said but remained outside at his guard station.
The party found themselves waiting in an anteroom which was little more than an entrance hall. The headquarters had been one of the few permanent buildings the Russians finished before being discovered and driven off by the British. Folkard noted that some touches of Muscovite baroque remained, despite the attempts to Anglicise the building.
A door at the back of the anteroom opened and a man in civilian clothes but a military-appearing handlebar moustache stepped through it. “Ah, the crew of HMAS Sovereign, I take it? Mister Singh just telephoned through,” he added, by way of explanation.
“Quite so. Colonel Harrison, I presume?” Folkard said.
“Unfortunately Colonel Harrison is detained elsewhere. I am Professor Robert George, director of the base. Please accept my apologies on the colonel’s behalf. I’m sure you’re aware of Luna’s delicate position; the colonel is attending to what he suspects to be a security breach earlier in the day. Quite possibly he is over-zealous in his caution. One simply can’t be too careful, Admiral Folkard,” he noted, offering his hand to the commanding officer.
“Captain Folkard, Director,” Folkard corrected, taking his hand. “In any case, yes, sadly I’m all too aware of the politics here on Luna. One mus
t wonder how you cope.”
“If I might say so, Professor George, you have established a rather excellent base here, from the little I have seen of it,” interjected Stone. “With your permission, Captain, perhaps I might be able to discuss the work here with some of Professor George’s men?”
“I can see no reason why that shouldn’t be possible,” said George, nodding. “You are Nathanial Stone, I presume? Doctor Grant has said much about you. A collaborator and sometime-rival, I believe, of sorts, but—let me see, what was the phrase? ‘An eminent scientist and an honourable man’, I think.”
Miss Annabelle shot Folkard a knowing look, but he elected to ignore it, and looked back at the base director. “In fact it was Doctor Grant we have come to see, Director. Might he be at the base now, so that we might have a word?”
Professor George smoothed his moustache. “Ah. I’m afraid that may be a problem. Why don’t you come through to the central chamber and we can provide you with an adequate reception?”
6.
ANNABELLE WAS quick to secure the best seat in the room: a chair at the head of the table which allowed her a view of as many of the group as possible, yet also discreetly disguised her disability. The room was uncomfortably intimate for the size of the party within. Several luminaries from the base had been called in to meet with the group and, when combined with the contingent from Sovereign, the occupants outnumbered the furnishings, leaving McKittrick, Henry and the other ratings to scowl at the back while the officers and scientists sat at a central table. The room had been designed in the fashion of the lounges one might expect at Oxford or Cambridge University, but with wrought iron and plants in lieu of oak panelling and books, the overall effect was rather less of the academic and more of the allotment.
Annabelle sat at an angle, as her artificial leg, still without a bendable knee, stuck straight out from her chair, covered only partly by her skirt. Even arranging herself so the table’s wooden leg did not interfere with her own similarly-constituted limb was awkward. She recalled that on Earth and again on Luna, her uncle Cyrus had marvelled at her physical aptitude and boundless energy. What would he make of her now, little more than a cripple? She felt that the Annabelle Somerset whom Cyrus Grant had known was now as dead as her dear parents, leaving only this one-legged husk in its wake.
“Perhaps you might start by explaining your recent work with Doctor Grant, Doctor Staples?” Professor George requested of the eldest man in the room, a harried-looking fellow whose black hair, through the balding process, was retreating to the top of his skull.
“Certainly I will endeavour to, Director,” nodded Staples. “Doctor Grant and I were engaged in some work which attempted to address how best to traverse the asteroid belt, based on the problems we all know to exist. Grant was convinced of some rather radical ideas, which he believed he could find evidence of. It was his conviction, although I’m afraid I can’t explain as to why, that the solar system may host life outside of the inner planets. He was rather dependent on the Heart, although he refused to explain what information the Heart had been giving him, or how he arrived at the conclusions he did.”
“Scarcely surprising, Staples. Grant’s work here was hardly characterised by transparency even then, to say nothing of punctuality and reliability,” interrupted another of the scientists.
“Ah. This is Doctor Howard Phillips,” Professor George said with some embarrassment. “He is our resident entomologist, a specialist in that new branch called myrmecology, which is to say the study of ants. He is here with several of his students studying the biology of the Selenites. Somewhat similar to terrestrial ants, you understand—apart from size, of course.”
“I offer no argument,” admitted Staples directly to Phillips. “Doctor Grant’s behaviour had become increasingly erratic throughout our association and by the end he was rarely, if ever, showing up.”
“By the end?” Folkard interrupted. “What do you mean by that?”
There was an uncomfortable silence among the researchers, who were clearly uncertain whether or not to confess to their visitors. A bell rang outside in the anteroom, breaking the silence.
“Captain Folkard, Grant has not been seen in several weeks,” Professor George finally admitted. “We believe that he was in search of some great mystery of Luna, a mystery he chose not to share with us. Happily we have sources who can tell us more, one of whom I believe is at the door.” The director rose and left the room and an uncomfortable silence settled over all of them.
Annabelle felt a sinking feeling in her stomach at the news of her uncle’s disappearance. He could have been seized by all manner of enemy, human or otherwise, and subjected to unthinkable torture to extract the knowledge in his mind. She swallowed before speaking.
“Gentlemen, Cyrus Grant was―is―my uncle,” she managed. “I am sorry to report that we have no other family. Do you know whether he might be in any danger?”
The men exchanged glances. “I’m afraid it’s entirely possible, Miss Somerset,” Phillips admitted. “Your uncle was never one to exercise caution. Particularly with the sort of things with which he surrounded himself, if the rumours are true.”
“The rumours are true. Unspeakable things!” agreed Staples. “I shudder to think of them. You must remember, he had been on Luna longer than anyone else and…well…his interests seemed to change from those of his colleagues as time passed. Drastically so, let us merely add that.”
Even the dimmest person could realise that he was being diplomatic to prevent further embarrassment to Annabelle. Annabelle, however, had concerns which far outweighed her possible embarrassment.
“What do you mean, ‘unspeakable things’, Doctor?” she asked. “The Selenites played a crucial part in the securing of this base. Uncle Cyrus and I have a good deal of respect for them; surely he has conveyed this to you?”
“You are quite correct about the Selenites, Miss Somerset,” said Staples. “The creatures to which Doctor Phillips refers, however, were no Selenites. I could scarcely begin to describe them. As soon as I saw them I felt that no good could come from their presence; and indeed, none has.”
“Wait!” Nathanial interjected. “Creatures? Beings other than Selenites? Do you mean to say you have encountered another intelligent race here on Luna? Why in God’s name did you not report this at once?”
“Yes,” Folkard added forcefully, “I’d like to know that as well.”
Staples and Phillips exchanged confused looks for a moment.
“Why, we did so, Captain Folkard,” Staples said, “in our regular heliograph reports to the Colonial Office. Do you mean to say you were not informed?”
“Informed in vague terms that the reports from the base had become ‘disquieting’, I think was the word. But no specific intelligence as to the content of the reports was passed to me. Blast and damn those secretive pencil-pushing fools. This puts a different light on the matter!”
Annabelle, deducing from this that her uncle was in very grave trouble indeed, turned to Folkard with a look of despair. “Thank goodness we arrived when we did. We may still be in time to save him. Surely we know which way he will be heading, Captain. Is that not enough of a lead to pursue?”
Folkard nodded, but paused, lost in thought for a moment. It was clear that he had understood Annabelle’s hint that Cyrus had gone to the Heart. “Last time we followed that particular lead, there were a number of lives lost, Miss Somerset. We must consider whether it is prudent to make a further visit into the caverns that litter Luna. I can ill afford to exercise so little caution again. Yet at the same time…” His sentence ran down at that point and Folkard retreated into his thoughts.
Presently the door of the conference room opened and Professor George returned, accompanied by a guest familiar to some of the party. While the men who had had no prior dealings visibly shuddered to look upon such a bizarre countenance, those already acquainted with the strange creature were delighted to see him.
“K’chuk, ol
d man! A pleasure to see you again!” said Folkard, who had risen from his seat. He offered a hand to the Selenite, but thought better of it. Annabelle had no such qualms and, forgetting herself slightly, staggered over to K’chuk and caught him in an embrace.
“I echo the captain’s sentiment, K’chuk,” added Nathanial, “it seems like forever since we saw you last. The memories are still all too vivid, mind you. How are your Selenites?”
K’chuk was the Retainer of Knowledge for the Compuntos colony, a position of some seniority which meant that his viewpoint of the Selenites’ position on Luna carried no little weight. Choosing to remain standing for reasons of necessity as well as of decorum, he made a melancholy movement with his head. “Much different, friend Nathanial. So much different for Selenites and for humans here. Hard for Selenites here.”
“What is the issue?” asked Folkard. “Not those Russians creating trouble again?”
“Russians,” confirmed K’chuk, “but not only Russians. Others, too. Everywhere trouble for Selenites. Baddoctor is not the only problem for us now.”
“I’m sure you appreciate, K’chuk,” said Professor George, “that the British representation on Luna has only the best interests of the Selenites at heart. I assure you we have never intended any harm to the Selenites, nor am I aware that we have inflicted any.” K’chuk’s role in his village placed him in a position between tribal leader and wise man. His co-operation was crucial for the continued relations between the British and the Selenites, which accounted for Professor George’s obsequious tone, Annabelle decided. “Our gratitude at the continued assistance of the Selenites cannot be underestimated. But I digress. Now, we’ve called you here on this occasion because these fellows from Sovereign are looking for some assistance.”
“That’s right. Thank you, Director,” Folkard said and turned to the Selenite. “We’ve returned to Luna with the intention of gaining audience with Cyrus Grant. I anticipated meeting him here but it seems our expectations have been disappointed. Have you or your village seen him at all?”