by John Creasey
There might not be, thought Palfrey. Probably, there was not. But he had learned one thing which the Master did not appear to realise. There was this simplicity and ingenuousness in this man who had such scorn for the people on Earth. There was no cunning. He appeared to believe that opposition was impracticable and in any case could be brushed aside. He did not even consider the possibility that Nega itself could be destroyed, and if that happened then the Nega waves could not be sent out from the satellites. If the Earth were left free from attack then in a year the effect of the rays would fade and life could become normal again.
As these thoughts passed through his mind, creating a fierce excitement, the Master touched him on the arm, and said quietly, ‘As for our work, conception and pregnancy colonies, I shall permit you to see for yourself. There are colonies close by, and I shall escort you.’
To Palfrey, the next two hours were almost unbelievable.
The Master showed him workshops and factories where there was no noise, where only a few men clad in the metallic-looking sheath suits controlled computers. In some workshops the Nega ray projectors, like machine guns to look at, were manufactured; in others, furniture made of plastic, clothing, foodstuffs which had little bulk but, the Master said, luscious flavour to those who had acquired the taste.
Then, he was taken to what looked like a huge hospital, and in the rows of beds lay young women, sleeping or drugged, much like Azran to look at. From time to time an older woman approached one of those on the bed and inserted a small syringe into the vagina and pressed the plunger, as if this were a hypodermic needle. Clearly, the ova were being extracted, and the women did not stir. In other great wards, semen was extracted from the men. In other rooms again were batteries of balloon-like objects of different sizes, and a chill went through him when he realised these were the artificial wombs. Adjoining these were birth-chambers, which opened like the natural womb, for each child to be born, helped only by a nurse. The crying of these newly born infants seemed eerie, even grotesque.
There were also convalescent homes, where the young women nursed the children, fed them from bottles and nurtured them. Other groups studied, went to the theatre, read books, played chess and cards. Then these groups were taken to departure centres.
‘They will go from here to satellites,’ the Master said. ‘And some, like Azran, will be trained to supervise Terrestrial humans once you have shown the governments how inevitable our conquest is.’
On Earth, Belinda Compton was crying herself to sleep.
On Earth, hundreds of thousands of women were telling themselves that as they could no longer become mothers, their main purpose of living was gone.
On Earth, twenty-three clinics in main population centres from Chile to the Argentine, Mexico to India, and the Middle East to lands such as Laos and Cambodia, were destroyed because they were believed to have laid a curse upon the women.
‘Palfrey,’ said the Master.
‘Yes?’
‘Do not attempt to have this planet destroyed from the Earth.’
‘I don’t see how it could even be located,’ Palfrey said.
‘You know better than that. Some of your anti-missile defences, some of your own space probes, some of your space control centres, have a very great and accurate range. Don’t do it, do you understand?’
‘I can’t promise what others will do,’ Palfrey said. ‘And I have to tell them the truth or they won’t be sufficiently impressed.’
‘Then tell them this, also,’ said the Master. ‘I need not wait even twenty or thirty days. I can add to the Nega waves bacteria which will be so contagious that once it affected one country the whole world would be affected in less than a week. You do fully understand, don’t you?’
‘I understand fully,’ Palfrey said, his blood chilling. After a moment he went on, ‘Does it matter to you where I land?’
‘You have only to say where,’ said the Master.
‘Then I would like to go to Moscow,’ Palfrey told him.
‘Moscow,’ murmured the Master. ‘For any special purpose?’
“The second in command of Z5 is there.’
‘Oh, I remember,’ the other said. ‘Stefan Andromovitch. Will you want him warned to expect you?’
‘Please,’ said Palfrey, almost humbly. ‘Please.’
As he walked along the passages towards the launching pad, he thought with bitter irony of the strange fact that so much of his conversation with the Master was commonplace, even trite. It was so ordinary that it was almost possible to forget what he was going down on Earth to do.
Stefan Andromovitch stood in the Red Square, with the Tomb of Lenin and Stalin a few yards behind him, the onion spires of the Cathedral of St. Basil on his right. The great wall of the Kremlin was lined with troops who stood at attention on either side of the tomb.
Red Square had been cleared of all civilians.
Barriers were at all the approaches, those from the hotels and the Museum on the south to the roads leading towards Gym, the great department store, on the west. The big cobbles of the square itself shone faintly in the first light of dawn.
With Andromovitch were two members of the Presidium, as well as officers of the secret police, the army and representatives of the Communist Party. Also with him were some of the scientists who planned the Russian space probes. A cordon of soldiers was formed about the square, and searchlights shining on the scene were still stronger than the light of dawn.
Inside the Kremlin, Andromovitch knew, were representatives from most European Governments as well as their ambassadors and consuls from far off lands who were already here. Across the world’s skies presidents and leaders of nations were already flying, soon to congregate in one of the great halls of the Kremlin’s many palaces.
No one knew exactly what to expect.
Aircraft circled the square, their engines roaring, and already spectators were gathering. For news of the powerful Nega waves had spread through Russia as if the air itself conveyed the story.
Television and film cameras were placed at various vantage spots in Red Square, on roofs and walls and at windows. Radio commentators and microphones were already in position.
The daylight slowly brightened.
Suddenly there was a curious wind-like sound, as of air rushing through trees. Then what might have been a rocket landed, base first, with no sound on contact. Retractable feet, spread wide to cushion the landing, gradually drew themselves into the base of the capsule, and there was stillness except in the breasts of men, who had been shaken out of their calm by the sudden apparition.
Soldiers moved towards the capsule but before they reached it the door opened and Palfrey stepped out.
He appeared so commonplace and ordinary that it was very much an anti-climax. His hair was awry, he looked as if he had slept in his rumpled clothes, and he might have stepped out of an armchair in his own home. There was no uniform, no space suit, nothing to betray the fact that he had travelled at least a quarter of a million miles since he had stepped into the space capsule.
He blinked about him, half-dazed, and it was some seconds before he espied Stefan Andromovitch. Andromovitch broke ranks and moved towards him with great strides. The cameras whirred or flashed, microphones were switched on, as the leader and the deputy leader of Z5 embraced in Red Square under those thousands of anxious, watching eyes. At last, they drew away from each other, and Stefan asked with quivering intensity, ‘Have you really news, Sap?’
‘Of a kind,’ answered Palfrey.
‘Is there hope?’ The question seemed to force its way out.
Palfrey knew that Stefan must be under pressure to ask these questions at this moment, for nothing could be said until he had discussed the ultimatum with the leaders of nations. He saw pleading in Stefan’s eyes, a desperate plea for an answer.
He sai
d crisply, ‘Hope for the living, yes. For the future, possibly.’
‘Are you sure?’ Stefan barked.
‘I’m quite sure,’ Palfrey declared. ‘Quite, quite sure.’
Question and answer swept round the world. There was hope for the living but much less hope for those unborn. On screens and from microphones the brief question and answer came, and then the world waited as Palfrey and Andromovitch were led towards the wide gates and went to join the assembly behind the Kremlin walls.
Chapter Eighteen
THE REPLY
The great assembly listened to Palfrey as he told them exactly what the Master had said, what he himself had seen and promised to do. He spoke from the stage of the New Kremlin Theatre, with the great chandeliers glistening above the heads of the people who sat in the auditorium, elbow to elbow. All colours and all races were together, there was no division of black or white, or East or West.
Palfrey had never known an assemblage so subdued, as if without hope. There had been many threats to the world, threats of great calamity, and even of extinction. Always when he had reported, there had been individuals who had shouted defiance.
‘We will never give in.’
‘We must fight back.’
‘We must destroy them.’
But no such cries were made. There was a mood of utter defeatism when Palfrey had finished. From here and there came a subdued attempt to break through this.
‘We must do something,’ or, ‘There must be something we can do.’
A woman, one of a dozen in an assemblage of over a thousand, said in a very clear voice, ‘This is the first time I’ve ever known men acknowledge such need of women.’
Somewhere near by an elderly woman was crying, quite shamelessly. A man called out in a husky voice, ‘It is beyond the imagination. No more children to be born into this world.’
‘Palfrey,’ a man called. He was South African or Rhodesian. ‘Palfrey!’
‘Yes?’ Palfrey looked across at him.
‘You’ve never sounded so absolutely hopeless before. Isn’t there any way you can prevent this appalling disaster?’
‘I can see none,’ Palfrey answered flatly. ‘I’ve explored every possible way and I think the Master’s stranglehold is complete. I’ve considered every possibility, and I’m here to ask for suggestions from you.’ When there was no response at all, he turned to Andromovitch. ‘Have you any ideas, Stefan?’
The huge man shook his head with great sadness.
A man beside him spoke in Russian, and Stefan translated into English sentence by sentence. Everyone in the great theatre strained forward to look at the speaker and to hear Stefan.
‘Is it not possible with all our resources to trace the satellite—Is this not an occasion when the Americans and ourselves should work together and destroy the satellite?—Would the Americans agree?’
A man called from the audience, ‘We’d certainly go along with that. Anything is worth a try.’
Palfrey could not see who was speaking, but he had no doubt at all that the White House and the Kremlin would agree to work together – they had a common interest in the survival of the human race even if the day came when they tried to destroy each other.
A tremor of hope seemed to run through the assembly.
‘If it could be traced—’
‘Would our war-head missiles be trained on it—’
‘Can it be traced?’
One of the men with Stefan, Cossokov, a vice-chairman of the Presidium, rapped on the table with his gavel.
‘Please ask your questions to me,’ he rebuked.
In a flash Palfrey’s thoughts were taken back to the Council meeting at Middlecombe, to the West Country chairman in his heavy tweeds, calling for questions through the chair. That seemed to have happened a whole decade ago.
‘I just want to know, can it be traced?’ a man called.
A heavily-built man next to the chairman whispered in the other’s ear, and all attention was soon riveted on him. Never had Palfrey known an audience so much on edge, switching its attention from one speaker to the next – as if they were watching the ball in a match at Wimbledon.
‘Comrade Vassilov,’ the chairman said.
‘Gentlemen.’ Vassilov had a gentle voice which would not have been heard but for the microphone in front of Cossokov. ‘I can answer that question. Yes, this satellite could be traced. It could perhaps be destroyed. But from what Dr. Palfrey has said there is no way of being sure that it would not complete its task before this happened. Any satellite which can be controlled as this one would undoubtedly be able to take unusually effective evasive action. I have already a report on the capsule in which Dr. Palfrey travelled here. It is of greatly advanced design, we have no small capsules which are comparable. It can be used—it has already been used—as an offensive weapon, and it can almost certainly be used defensively also. The chances of our destroying this satellite before it destroys us are small. indeed, are negligible.’
There was a sudden, very noticeable change of mood, which showed in the tones of many voices, in eyes, on a hundred faces, as if suddenly hope had been reborn.
‘If there is any chance—’
‘We ought to try everything!’
‘How long would you take—’
‘Gentlemen,’ interrupted the chairman with a heavy blow of his gavel. ‘We must not all talk at once. Dr. Palfrey, you have perhaps something to say at this stage?’
‘When the Master told me that he could add bacteria to the Nega waves which would quickly spread death over all the Earth, I believed him,’ Palfrey said simply. ‘I don’t see how we can defeat the man who calls himself the Master.’
A man screamed, ‘But there must be a way!’
‘There is a way for those of us who are alive to stay alive,’ Palfrey stated. ‘God knows I wish I hadn’t got to say it but I don’t see any alternative but capitulation.’
This time, no one spoke.
He knew what many were thinking. that with space probes, space stations on the way to the moon and every conceivable form of anti-warhead weapon available, there must be a way of locating and destroying the satellite Nega. There must be . . .
But could they find it in time?
In the satellite, Joyce Morgan and Reginald Maddern sat in front of a small television screen, watching and listening with their hearts in their mouths. They could see Palfrey and the others on the platform and through microphones plugged into their ears, could hear every word. Stefan’s strong and handsome face showed vividly, so did the strength in Palfrey’s, even though he had obviously no hope at all. They heard him say, ‘—I don’t see any alternative but capitulation.’ Maddern closed his eyes, and Joyce said in a husky voice, ‘Oh, Sap, Sap, what’s happened to you?’
Maddern said, ‘Isn’t he usually like this?’
‘Like this? He’s the most courageous man I know. He never gives up hope.’
Maddern glanced at her as if in surprise and then edged towards her. He spoke so low that she could hardly hear.
‘Is he hopeless?’
‘I don’t understand you.’
‘You’ve worked for him so long that you ought to know,’ said Maddern, still in that low-pitched voice. ‘Isn’t he up to some little game of his own?’
Joyce didn’t reply as she looked into his eyes, but after a while she said huskily, ‘He could be. Yes, he could be.’
They fell silent, and the voices came again from the theatre in the Kremlin.
Palfrey was watching the assembly closely, wondering how many of these people had the faintest idea what the odds were. There was a kind of artificial vitality among everyone now, the Russian had lit the fires of hope, and everyone was adding fuel. Yet there was really only the one hope – that the planet could be destroyed f
rom within. As it controlled the satellites, its destruction would be the end of the Nega galaxy.
If he could get back to Nega taking with him an explosive strong enough for complete destruction, then there was hope for the world. If the chance were one in a million, it had to be taken. In the meantime it was better to allow these delegates to talk, better that he should be pessimistic and urge surrender. This way he would be more likely to retain the Master’s confidence, and without that strange man’s trust, he could never go back.
There were Joyce and Maddern, of course, two precious lives which might have to be sacrificed, with his own, to save the lives of millions upon millions. But there was no other choice.
He had to get back to Nega.
And he had to take with him something which could destroy the planet and everything in it.
A man in the audience stood up and called in a penetrating voice, ‘We’re getting nowhere, Mr. Chairman. We have now to decide what to do.’
‘We can make no decisions,’ retorted the chairman. ‘We can only take recommendations back to our governments. Isn’t that so, Dr. Palfrey?’
‘Of course,’ Palfrey agreed. ‘I must return to London soon, each delegate to his own government. I hope all the official responses will be sent to me. I can’t be sure but I believe that the man who calls himself the Master will allow us at least four days in which to decide.’