Morgan smiled. It might have been a joke I had made.
"They're a different sort of creatures now," he said. "They've had to stop thinking of earth as a place to live, and men as food and drink. And so they're trying their luck on Venus. But the luck is worse for them there, if anything."
"To judge from what I myself saw in the crystal, Venus is hot and lifeless," I said.
"That's the right of it, Dr. Watson, hotter than boiling water and nothing alive but those invader people, in whatever shelter they've been able to rig up. The Professor has it that they came from somewhere beyond this solar system of ours, to set up colonies. And their whole try at doing that has failed. Now they're trying to exchange their thoughts with us, as if they want to be friends. They've even passed on some of their scientific knowledge."
"That, at least, would be a profit from an acquaintance with them," I said at once.
Morgan opened the drawer of a side table and rummaged in it.
"We might wind up by learning the secret of their heat-ray," he said. "See here, Dr. Watson."
He produced a cylindrical porcelain container, somewhat like a jam pot in size and shape, and carefully screwed off the lid. He set it on the table before me and began to fill an old clay pipe.
"There," said he, "you have the central active element of their heat-ray. I myself fetched this from one of their machines, up there in that great pit on Primrose Hill."
I looked into the container. At the bottom lay a rounded object, the size of a pea. It had many facets, like a cut gem. To me it seemed to give off a faint light, as did the crystal, but pale pink and ember-like instead of blue.
"I don't understand," I said. "The heat-ray was like a great beacon. I never saw one in action, but I've been told that it sent out an invisible ray that obliterated houses and sent rivers up in steam."
He struck a match for his pipe. "I know," he said. "But what you have there is only the core of the thing. The power it contains is turned on by a switch and directed by a sort of curved reflector. Take it out and look at it closely. Don't be afraid, it's quite harmless."
I gazed at the little pill, hesitating.
"Take it out," he invited me again. "You will be holding in your hand the very essence of their destructive science."
"Don't touch it, Watson!" snapped a voice at the hallway door, and we both looked up.
Sherlock Holmes came striding in. He held a revolver, leveled at Morgan.
27
"My dear Holmes, what brings you here?" I cried, but he paid no attention to me. His narrowed eyes were fixed on my companion.
"If that object is harmless, as you say, take it in your own hand," he ordered Morgan. "Do as I tell you—now, this instant!"
Morgan was out of his chair. He shrank from the table and the container with the object inside. The lid was still in his hand.
"You said that it was harmless," Holmes reminded him icily. "I heard you as I opened the door. Why do you hesitate to touch it?"
Morgan slammed the lid down on the container and backed another step away. "No," he stammered. "N-no, I won't touch it. You can't make me."
"Which signifies that you knew that a touch of that object would kill Dr. Watson," Holmes accused. "You would like to kill me, too, I have no doubt."
"What does he mean, Morgan?" I demanded.
"You do not have his name exactly right, Watson," said Holmes, the revolver still pointing. "Drop the g and call him Moran. For this is the son of Colonel Sebastian Moran—the second most dangerous man in London, back in 1894 when you helped me capture him in Camden House, just across from our lodgings."
Morgan sagged down in Challenger's chair again.
"This is fantastic," he protested, more strongly. "You have nothing against me, Mr. Holmes."
"Which is exactly what all trapped criminals say and very seldom prove. I have just come from tracking down one Ezra Prather."
Morgan started involuntarily as Holmes spoke the name.
"Ah, you know who he is, I perceive," said my friend triumphantly. "We walked in upon him just as he was in the act of cutting up certain jewels, to make them easier to sell. Caught red-handed, he readily confessed how you and he stole them from their cases in the Tower, on the very day that Challenger telegraphed to Paris the news that the invasion had collapsed."
Morgan stood up again, trembling in every fiber.
"I've been doing my best," he blubbered. "I was a good soldier. I tried to fight the invaders, I was almost killed in action. Here lately I've helped Professor Challenger. He will speak to my helping him. Whatever Prather says—"
"And Prather has said a good deal," said Inspector Stanley Hopkins, also entering through the open door. "He made a full statement to Inspector Lestrade at Scotland Yard and signed it. It tells us all about who you really are, what you did to assist him, and how to find you here."
He produced a pair of handcuffs. "Place your wrists together," he ordered.
The fellow mutely held out his arms. I heard the snap of the irons as they locked upon him.
Challenger came bursting from the inner room. "How can I work profitably with all this commotion?" he growled, staring dangerously at Hopkins. "Who are you, sir, and why are you putting those handcuffs on Morgan?"
"His name is Moran, Challenger," said Holmes, pocketing his revolver, "and he is a thief and a would-be murderer. He tried to kill Watson just now, because Watson once helped me capture his father. You were wishing it was I, weren't you, Moran?"
"Come along with me," said Hopkins, his hand on Moran's arm. "It is my duty to inform you that anything you say will be taken down in writing and may be used against you."
"Stay," pleaded Moran suddenly. "Hear me out, hear what I can offer—the secret of the invaders' heat-ray and how it is used."
Challenger puffed out his cheeks and locked his brows. "If you know that, you have concealed from me important messages from those creatures on Venus," he charged. "Whatever your crimes have been, this is a worse one still."
"I'll tell you everything," Moran chattered at us. "Yes, I kept some information. I have whole tables of formulas that explain the power. They tell how to direct impulses that will explode atoms."
Holmes's eyes started from his head, and so also must have mine.
"But that is a scientific impossibility," I gasped. "It has baffled the greatest scientific researchers."
"Not quite the greatest," Challenger corrected me. "I have not as yet given the problem my attention." He tramped toward Moran. "If those formulas are operable, then is your price for them your freedom? Show me those figures, at once."
Moran lifted his shackled hands and searched inside his coat. "Here," he said, bringing a sheaf of folded papers into view. "See for yourself, Professor, if you are able to understand."
"You insult me by expressing any doubt of that," Challenger said harshly as he snatched the papers.
He spread them out in both his hands and studied them. His eyes gleamed in his shaggy face. Holmes struck a match.
"By God, you are right," Challenger roared out in his excitement. "To a well-informed, highly capable intellect, this summation—yes, and this, the building upon it—is comprehensible. It is the most amazing—"
Holmes made a lightning-swift stride. In his outstretched hand was the lighted match. He held it to the papers in Challenger's fist.
They blazed up, with a howl Challenger dropped them on the floor. They blazed brightly, while Challenger nursed his burnt fingers.
"Holmes, are you utterly mad?" he yelled.
"Utterly sane, as I hope," replied Holmes evenly. "Sane enough to be disturbed at the sight of a brilliant chimpanzee experimenting with his trainer's loaded pistol."
Challenger knelt beside the burning papers. They fell into gray ashes.
"Lost!" he lamented, rising again. "Morgan-Moran, if that is your right name—do you remember—"
Morgan shook his head in despair. "No, sir, I only wrot
e down the figures from the crystal. It would be impossible to reproduce them."
"Lost," groaned Challenger again, pressing his hands to his temples.
"Then let man himself find out the secret," said Holmes. "With a weapon such as exploding atoms, he could easily destroy himself and all his world around him. If in future he finds the wisdom to solve the mystery, perhaps he will at the same time achieve for himself the control that having such power must entail."
Challenger breathed heavily for a long moment. I wondered if he would throw himself upon my friend.
"I must endorse that proposition," he said at last. "It should not have been necessary for me to have been reminded by you, Holmes. Now and then I think too much in the abstract. It is a fault I should overcome."
"There, Moran," said Holmes. "You see that we have declined your offer. Take him away, Inspector Hopkins."
Hopkins took Moran by the shoulder and led him out. Challenger carefully screwed the lid back upon the container.
"I must keep this in a far safer place than my drawer," he said. "Now, as for those unfortunate creatures on Venus—"
"You have been in contact with them again, Professor?" I asked.
"And for the last time, I fear. But come and see."
We followed him into the darkened rear room. The crystal egg gleamed softly. Within it we seemed to see what may have been some sort of card or board, and upon it a single large 0.
"A zero," I said. "But that means nothing."
"More probably a farewell signal," said Holmes. "The pattern of events is fairly clear. They died on earth; now they find Venus inhospitable and must flee from there. A tale of failure."
The light died in the crystal. The blue mist faded.
"And as I think, the survivors at the base on Mars must also depart or perish," declared Challenger.
"And begone forever from our latitudes of space?" I suggested.
"Not necessarily forever," said Holmes.
"No," agreed Challenger. "They may well return, better equipped for survival. Since they dare not eat us, they may make scientific studies of us. They may well train us to understand their more fundamental conceptions, as they have already done successfully with me. Now that you have solved your latest case, Holmes, perhaps you will take dinner here and discuss the matter at greater length."
"Thank you, but some other time," said Holmes as we returned to the study. "At present, I have a matter of the utmost importance to attend to at my rooms. Watson, however, will be glad to stay and hear your views. I wish you good-bye for the time being."
He walked out, closing the door behind him.
"A matter of the utmost importance," I mused aloud. "But he completed his work on the jewel robbers when he arrested Moran, and that was his only case on hand. Why, nobody could be waiting for him at home but Mrs. Hudson."
Challenger turned upon me a gaze of the utmost weary pity.
"Cerebral paresis," he said. "Mental inertia. Remarkable!"
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, nothing of great consequence." He turned to the door. "Suppose I tell my wife that you will be our guest at table tonight. For the moment you might like to study my notes and Moran's drawings."
APPENDIX
A LETTER FROM DR. WATSON
Plum Villa,
Axtellford,
Bucks
April 25, 1909
Mr. H. G. Wells,
Spade House,
Sandigate,
Kent.
Dear Sir:
I am writing to you personally in order to clarify certain matters which have not been fully dealt with. When my first chronicle was published I received letters from some of your supporters, protesting that the non-Martian origin of the invaders was not demonstrated by the evidence I offered. I therefore wrote a second article, massively proving that the invaders were not native to Mars, and some of my critics wrote to me and retracted. However, no statements by yourself have ever been passed along to me, and I am therefore challenging you directly.
Your supporters have complained that, in calling your book "frequently inaccurate" and full of exaggerations, I have failed to elaborate. Specifically, I meant that you vastly exaggerated your own experiences, resorting sometimes to pure faking. The contents of the 13th chapter of Book I and of the first four chapters of Book II are partially imaginary. Shortly after your book was published, Holmes did research and found that the curate of whom you wrote was your own invention, simply created in order to discredit Christianity. Your atheism is notorious. In your book you portray yourself as a Christian—or, at least, a man who believes in God and in prayer—but this is sheer posturing.
The most blatant piece of fraud in the entire book occurs in the chapter entitled What We Saw from the Ruined House. You report that you saw the invaders trying to raise themselves on their hands, but unable to do so because of the terrestrial gravity. This is sheer fabrication, simply intended to support the view that they were native Martians. In my two articles there is ample evidence that the invaders could move about on our planet as easily as men. The rest of this chapter—apart from the fiction of the curate, since in fact you were alone in the basement—is accurate and informative. But what can be thought of a writer who mixes factual observation with pure invention, just to uphold a questionable thesis? Doubts about the Martian origin of these invaders were being circulated even while the invasion was in progress. You had surely heard about this long before you started writing your book, and in order to refute the suggestion you resorted to dishonesty. For the rest, I call attention to these errors:
(1) In your account of the battle at St. George's Hill, the action immediately preceding the discharge of the Black Smoke, you write that the invader who had been overthrown crawled out of his hood and repaired his support. This is so absurdly impossible that I should not even have to refute it, but apparently I must. In point of fact, the machine was repaired by its two companions, the pilot remaining in his cowl. Holmes learned this at Donnithorpe on Tuesday, June 10, 1902, from scouts who had observed it.
(2) In that same chapter, describing the tragedy in Surrey in the night of June 8, you say that none of the artillerymen near Esher survived the black gas. It can be shown, however, that there were many survivors; numerous soldiers realized the danger in time to escape. Holmes interviewed some of them at Donnithorpe, for his presence there was widely rumored, and survivors of the catastrophe naturally sought him out to relate their experiences and hear his conclusions.
(3) You insist in your book that the slaying of an invader at Weybridge a few hours before the black smoke tragedy was a lucky accident, and you quote Moran to the same effect. All of the troops at Weybridge were wiped out by the ray, but some civilians (notably including yourself) escaped; and several of them contradict you on this point. Their testimony, again given Holmes at Donnithorpe, clearly shows that the pilot was killed by a shrewdly aimed shell. An officer was heard shouting: "Aim for that turning cowl! It's something like a man's head! A shell striking there is like a bullet through the brain!" One gunner absorbed this order and, with swift and expert marksmanship, aimed the fatal shell. If only his name and his officer's were known, they should have statues in their honor, much like the monument which, at Holmes's suggestion, has been built in memory of the crew of the Thunder Child—whose exploit you describe very vividly in the best and most thrilling chapter of your unequal book.
(4) Your first chapter contains a startling mathematical error. You imagine the Mars-based cylinders as moving at several thousand miles per minute. Yet the first one was fired at midnight on May 12, 1902, and landed just after midnight of June 5. If it had been traveling at a speed of (for instance) about 10,000 miles per minute, it would have crossed the distance in about three days. In fact, it took over three weeks.
(5) The invaders crossed from Mars to Venus shortly after the failure of their expedition to earth, the Venusian expedition breaking down in October, 1902. This i
s chronicled in my second essay. Yet you, writing in the year 1908, contend in your Epilogue that evidence of the Venusian landing was observed "seven months ago now" by the astronomer Lessing. You therefore disclose a shocking ignorance of the astronomical reporting in the 1902 press, and a gross misunderstanding of what Lessing described in 1907. Lessing, in a letter to Professor Challenger, has retracted his statements, admitting that faulty equipment and hasty judgment were responsible.
I must now correct an error of my own. I wrote my second article without consulting Holmes and quoted an observation of mine which I now realize to be mistaken. When speaking to Holmes and Challenger, I suggested that the captured specimen might be a late arrival, and that his earlier companions might have already succumbed. But Holmes, upon reading my published article, informed me that this was quite wrong, and that he really should have corrected me at the time. The specimen we captured on the afternoon of June 15 was the first disease fatality. All were dead or dying by the evening of the 20th.
If you ignore this letter, I will have it published.
Yours sincerely,
John H. Watson, M.D.
WARNER BOOKS EDITION
First Printing: September, 1975
Copyright © 1975 by Manly W. Wellman and Wade Wellman All rights reserved
Parts of this book have appeared in
THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION
Cover illustration by F. Accanero
Warner Books, Inc., 75.Rockefeller Plaza, New York, N.Y. 10019
A Warner Communications Company
Printed in the United States of America
Not associated with Warner Press, Inc. of Anderson, Indiana
ebook version by MOS1, accept no butchered imitations.
Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds Page 19