Slime

by John Halkin

  He frowned as the answer came through.

  ‘Trouble?’ Tim enquired, gripping the side of the buggy to steady himself as the driver swung away from the track and into a tarred lane.

  ‘Five men – burns mostly, though it’s not yet clear how it happened.’ The major turned in his seat to face them both. ‘I should like to make one thing clear. Anything you feel you should see, just speak up. If it’s possible, I’ll arrange it. But I’m also responsible for your safety, so if I decide against – well, I’m afraid that’s final. No argument. OK?’

  ‘Of course,’ Jocelyn replied absently. ‘How far away are we?’

  ‘Three or four minutes.’

  The lane wound crazily between high hedges, climbing steadily. From time to time they caught glimpses of the extensive landscape beyond, with army vehicles crawling across it like models on a sand-table. The buggy’s engine grumbled noisily as the driver changed down.

  They reached the top of the hill unexpectedly, rounding yet one more bend to find themselves on a level stretch where a couple of troop carriers and a smaller truck were parked. The major jumped down and strode across to the small group of men standing near them, all muffled in masks and parkas.

  From somewhere in the distance came a series of dull thuds, one after another at regular intervals.

  ‘That’ll be the Navy dropping depth charges,’ Tim observed.

  ‘I can’t imagine that doing much good,’ Jocelyn said tartly. ‘It’d be better to use trawlers and fish them up. The fishing industry has done its best to wipe out all our stocks of cod and herring. Why don’t we turn them loose on jellyfish?’

  Major Burton summoned them from the jeep and introduced them to the offiers in charge of the sector. One – a Captain McNeil – passed Jocelyn his field glasses and explained that the hillside which dropped away immediately ahead of them had already been cleared. Action was now concentrated on the village they could see tucked away in the valley.

  ‘Not too many jellyfish so far,’ he said crisply. ‘Quite thin on the ground on the hillside, though if you look where the road enters the village… Got it?’

  ‘Hundreds of them,’ Jocelyn exclaimed grimly. She offered Tim the field glasses. ‘It’s… Oh, I don’t know. We’ve just got to find a way.’

  As Tim could see through the glasses, they lay across the roadway like a carpet, making the village seem bright and oddly enticing against the dullness of the day. They spilled over the pavement and into the churchyard where even the gravestones were gleaming unnaturally.

  ‘Hear you’ve had some casualties,’ the major was saying.

  ‘Bad business, that,’ Captain McNeil agreed. ‘Over there, where those trees are still burning. That ploughed field was clear, though they found a few in the ditches. We had hoped to spare that wood – well, it’s more of a copse, really – till we discovered them all congregated in there. A corporal was setting it alight when he got too close. They dropped on him from the branches. Stung him, probably. Anyway, he fell with the flame thrower still belching the stuff out. Five men injured.’

  ‘I want to go down there,’ Jocelyn announced.

  ‘We’re just about to launch the next assault, Dr Meadows. You’ll be a lot safer up here.’

  ‘I need to see them at close quarters,’ she insisted, her voice hardening. ‘I’ll not be in the way, but I do have a job to do.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I just don’t think – ’

  ‘Captain McNeil, in my laboratory I work with jellyfish all day and every day.’ Although her face was concealed behind the rubber mask, she was obviously in a cold fury. ‘I’ve not come here as a tourist.’

  ‘Conditions in your laboratory are probably a lot safer than in that village at the moment.’

  She refused to listen. ‘Tell him, Tim.’

  ‘Earlier this week Dr Meadows’s sister was killed by jellyfish, and two others with her,’ Tim explained reluctantly, praying that the officers would stand their ground. He certainly had no wish to get any closer to the village. ‘An accident in the laboratory.’

  ‘Accident!’ she snorted. ‘Well, if the army won’t drive me down there, I’ll have to walk.’

  Major Burton intervened. ‘Dr Meadows, please listen to reason, I beg you. There’s no telling what’s going to happen in the village. I must say I’m damned glad I’m not with that assault force. I’d rather go through the whole Falklands show again than do what they’ve got to do.’

  ‘Then I’ll go alone.’ She walked a few paces, then turned back. ‘We have to find some way of either killing the jellyfish or sending them back where they came from, without all this burning and destruction of other lives. As a scientist, that’s what concerns me. So I’ll go alone.’

  Tim looked hesitantly towards the major as she resumed her walk. Then, as there was no sign from him, he knew he’d no alternative. He had to go after her. A few steps and he’d caught up with her.

  ‘I’m coming too,’ he said. ‘Christ, I’ve faced enough jellyfish already. A few more won’t harm. We’ve got these hoes – that’s something.’

  A second later, they heard the sound of the ancient jeep behind them. Major Burton was standing beside the driver, holding on to the windscreen.

  ‘A damned sight quicker if you ride,’ he said with an ironic twist to his voice. ‘My orders are to take you to the front, so I imagine you’re in the right. And this road isn’t too pleasant to walk over, as you can see.’

  They got into the back and the old buggy jerked forward over the scorched, broken tarmac. From this point onwards the hedges on both sides were blackened and leafless, in some spots still smouldering; over the roadway itself, charred, snapped-off branches lay amidst the drifting ash and the dark, moist remains of burned jellyfish.

  Not only jellyfish, either. A hedgehog had died in the flames and was now on its back, stuck in the tar, its little legs pointing towards the sky; and a couple of birds had been caught, their feathers singed. They stared sightlessly at the buggy as it passed. Jocelyn tensed up when she saw them.

  ‘I hate this,’ Tim heard her mutter to herself. ‘There must be another way.’

  At the foot of the hill they drew up at the roadside where a group of soldiers were setting up a machine gun on a metal tripod. In their protective gear their movements were clumsy, and one or two had taken off their gauntlet gloves. The sergeant – his stripes were pinned to the sleeve of his parka – approached and saluted.

  ‘Sergeant Parker, sir!’

  Major Burton introduced them briefly, explaining the purpose of their visit. The sergeant smiled thinly behind his rubberised mask.

  ‘You’re just in time for the fireworks!’ he said. With a wave of his arm, he indicated the massing jellyfish some ten yards ahead, where the road went into a wide curve past the churchyard and into the deserted village. ‘Something odd about ’em, if you ask me. Other wild life disperses if you go out to hunt it: flies off or goes to ground. These buggers – if you’ll excuse the language – seem to group to meet us head-on. Still, we’ll cut ’em up a bit with Betsy here’ – he nodded towards the machine gun – ‘then give ’em a taste o’ the flame thrower.’

  Down the road, three men with garden hoes were posted to ensure the line of jellyfish didn’t advance any farther. The sergeant recalled them, ordering everyone to keep to the rear of the gun.

  ‘It’s a standard L7A1 machine gun, as used by all NATO forces,’ the major explained to Tim. ‘Seven point six two millimetre calibre. Be interesting to see what effect it has on our slimy friends. Dr Meadows, I heard about the incident at your place. I’m very sorry about that. How did you get rid of the jellies afterwards?’

  ‘My husband and I had to do it,’ she said simply, her voice under iron control. ‘There was no one else. We sent for the police, of course, but we couldn’t expect them to take the risk, not when I was supposed to be the expert.’

  ‘But you didn’t burn them?’

  She shook her head. ‘We used nitric
acid – just a few drops on those we really needed to kill. It was not very pleasant, but all we had available. We saved a few, less than half. Managed to get them back in the tanks and secured the covers with wire.’

  ‘I’d have slaughtered the lot of them!’ the major told her uncompromisingly. ‘If they’d done that to my sister.’

  ‘Oh, I shall.’ She spoke quietly, yet venomously. ‘Have no doubt about that.’

  ‘Fire!’ came the sergeant’s sudden command.

  The machine gun opened up, spitting out round after round in long, steady bursts. A stream of bullets chewed into the jellyfish, cutting them into fragments which were thrown a foot or two into the air, dropping back on to the road in a gleaming, squirming mess. However mangled they might be, dead they certainly were not.

  ‘Reload!’

  Tim’s ears sang in the unexpected silence; his nostrils were irritated by the acrid smell of the firing. Then – some distance away – he heard other machine guns: a reminder, if he needed one, that this was a co-ordinated offensive against the invaders.

  ‘Bloody hell, look at the fuckers!’ a soldier exclaimed, staring into the village as if hypnotised, the ammunition belt still in his hands.

  Easing their way along the village road – so slowly, the movement was hardly noticeable at first – came a second wave of jellyfish.

  ‘Bringing up reinforcements,’ the sergeant pointed out grimly. ‘What did I tell you?’

  The major turned to Jocelyn, clearly disturbed. ‘But surely that’s not possible, is it? It’d mean they were… well, intelligent.’

  ‘Group intelligence, yes. I’ve long suspected that.’ She borrowed some field glasses to take a closer look at them, fascinated by every move they made. ‘I don’t mean they think and talk as we do. That would require a much more complex nervous system. But a group instinct for survival, certainly.’

  ‘Intelligent? Let’s show the buggers who’s intelligent!’ the sergeant growled. ‘Stand by with that machine gun, and – Fire!’

  The shots raked the upper section of the road along which the new wave approached. Again, after a minute or two, the individual shapes began to merge into one quivering mass of mutilated bits. The gunner then turned his attention to his original target, firing quick short bursts at anything which looked like a complete jellyfish.

  ‘Cease fire!’ the sergeant bawled. ‘OK – flame throwers! In you go!’

  Three men with flame throwers advanced across the ten-yard strip towards the living remains of the jellyfish army. Backing them up, a second line of men went forward with hoes. The flames roared out of the nozzles, licking at the writhing segments of jellyfish. Within seconds the road surface was covered by a blackening, bubbling mixture like a devil’s pizza. From it arose a dense steam whose stench was unbearable.

  Jocelyn went nearer, gripping her hoe. With a warning glance at the major, Tim followed her. But she made no attempt to interfere. She soon lost interest in the burning jellyfish on the road and turned her attention to the low wall running alongside the churchyard.

  In two places they found large floppy jellyfish draped casually over the top, looking as though someone had put them there to be out of harm’s way. In each case, a couple of soldiers came along to deal with them, flicking their remains into the fire; in each case, also, the jellyfish tentacles shot out to seek their adversary and continued to curl and wriggle on the ground even after they had been cut off.

  ‘There may be some light sensitivity,’ Jocelyn observed suddenly. ‘An awareness of light and dark at any rate. I’ve run some experiments on that in the lab, though I still can’t be sure.’

  On the other side of the churchyard wall the mass of jellyfish had withdrawn a few feet. They remained gathered around the graves as if waiting to discover the humans’ next move. Or as if, Tim suggested uneasily, they were obeying orders.

  Jocelyn dismissed the idea out of hand. ‘More likely withdrawing from the heat. But how does the army aim to deal with that? They can hardly machine-gun the graveyard.’

  On the far side of the little Norman church a group of six soldiers led by an officer came into sight moving cautiously between the older graves, scorching the high grass with quick bursts from their flame throwers. The flames veered around, threatening the church itself.

  ‘There’s your answer,’ Tim grunted.

  In that moment, the largest jellyfish he had even seen appeared on the low wall, heaved itself over, and deliberately dropped down on their side. Major Burton staggered back as it fell against his leg, then settled across his foot. It must have been two yards across at least, Tim estimated, and it continued to ripple menacingly.

  ‘Wait!’ Jocelyn’s voice rang out as he was about to jab into it with his hoe. ‘I want to show you what it can do.’

  ‘Dr Meadows, I already know what it can do!’ the major snapped.

  ‘Just hold steady,’ she said calmly. ‘It can’t harm you so long as you don’t nick a hole in those waders. So don’t try stabbing at it. I’m going to transfer it to my own foot.’

  ‘You’re mad!’ Tim exclaimed.

  ‘Not totally,’ she replied, concentrating. She placed her foot next to the major’s; immediately, the tentacles began to reach out and explore. Then she poised the hoe above the far side of the jellyfish and brought it down sharply, slicing off some of the tentacles which were well away from her. The entire jellyfish shifted, covering its severed limbs. ‘Now isn’t that interesting? I’d have expected it to move away from danger, which would have brought it over here. But it’s responding aggressively, confronting the attack. What’s more, it doesn’t sense that I’m the enemy, nor where I’m standing.’

  ‘This is crazy!’ Tim protested.

  ‘It’s an interesting thought,’ she argued, defending herself. ‘If it’s true those in the churchyard drew back to avoid the fire, while this one here faced the attack, then that could mean they can distinguish between two different types of danger – fire and amputation, or whatever.’

  ‘In the churchyard they’re moving in this direction again,’ Tim observed. What she was saying did make some sort of sense. ‘They’re back up against the wall.’

  ‘Because the fire is now coming from a different side,’ she agreed.

  The major was busy trying to prise the jellyfish away with his hoe. Coolly, Jocelyn helped him by slicing off sections of it, like trimming a pie.

  Unlike pastry trimmings, these jellyfish segments continued to squirm on the ground, still alive and functional.

  She scattered them across the road. Tim felt sick.

  Then, from the churchyard came a shout as one of the soldiers slipped and fell. The jellyfish were on him immediately: broad glistening pink blobs sprawling across his legs and the lower part of his jacket.

  ‘They sense food,’ Jocelyn murmured, watching them with both hatred and fascination in her eyes.

  Luckily, his companion had the presence of mind to pull him to his feet before even attempting to brush them off. Had they reached his face he’d be dead, as Tim remembered only too well.

  ‘Seen enough?’ the major demanded abruptly. He turned to Tim. ‘It’ll be your job to put all this across to the public, what these men have to go through. The sacrifices.’

  As they went back up the road, a formation of three aircraft roared low overhead. Seconds later they heard a series of explosions and saw thick smoke and flames rising above the dark, wooded slopes of a hill some distance away. After the casualties earlier in the day they were obviously taking no more chances, Tim thought.

  ‘It’ll be like a desert – the whole area between here and the sea!’ Jocelyn pronounced gloomily as they trudged back up the road towards the buggy. ‘And you talk about madness!’

  ‘Tell me one thing, Dr Meadows,’ the major said crisply, changing the subject. ‘When you cut a jelly in half, won’t it join up again?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh?’ He seemed disconcerted. ‘Someone told me it would.’
>
  ‘I tried it in the lab, but nothing happened. If you chop off a tentacle it’ll grow another one. And I rather suspect if you cut one in half you’d end up in time with two complete jellyfish, assuming favourable conditions. They’re quite primitive creatures – I mean, low down on the ladder of evolution. That gives them a flexibility which I’m afraid we humans don’t possess.’

  ‘That’s hardly reassuring.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it to be.’

  Their driver came marching down the road to meet them, saluted, and delivered a message that Major Burton was requested to radio the command post. He excused himself and hurried off, leaving Tim and Jocelyn to wait at a discreet distance where they could not overhear what was going on.

  Tim felt nauseated by the whole business, though maybe that was what the Ministry wanted from him: full emotional commitment. Christ, as if he weren’t up to his throat in it already.

  The major returned and Tim sensed immediately that something was wrong, although it was impossible to judge the man’s expression behind that mask.

  ‘Sorry about the delay,’ he apologised abruptly. ‘Bit of a bad show really. More casualties.’

  ‘What happened?’ Jocelyn asked.

  ‘A truck skidded and overturned. In normal circumstances the men in the back might have had a chance, but as it was they landed in a patch of jellies. Five dead. Four badly injured; one with minor grazes.’

  ‘It skidded on the jellyfish?’

  ‘On the slime.’

  ‘It doesn’t do to underestimate them,’ she said with obvious bitterness in her voice. ‘Oh, those poor men…’

  ‘What else?’ Tim asked the major grimly, knowing in his bones there must be something more.

  ‘We’re operating on a ten-mile front to clear this stretch of coast, with all our forces concentrated here, yet the jellies must choose today to mount their own offensive to the west of us. Devon. One town completely surrounded; cut off, in fact. Luckily, most of the population was evacuated in time, but a couple of dozen are still there, marooned in the local hospital.’