Star of Ill-Omen

by Dennis Wheatley

  All trace of the sandstorm had disappeared, so as they moved off they could see the outside of the warren in which they had been. Although their hopes that the inventors of the Flying Saucers might live in marble palaces surrounded by gracious gardens had been shattered hours ago, it still seemed reasonable to expect that the exterior of their habitation would show some evidence of their achievements, perhaps in the form of carved windows and doorways, such as those that have for centuries delighted travellers to the rose-red rock-dwellers’ city of Petra; but there was nothing of the kind.

  On the contrary, the closest scrutiny of the long, twenty-foot-high cliff would not have revealed a single trace of the marvels within. The entrance used by the captives appeared to be no more than a jagged hole that might lead to a small cave. It was the only one of its size and had no doubt been made just large enough for the giants to enter when they were required to render their masters some service inside. All the other entrances, of which there were a number dotted inconspicuously about, were clefts or boles, in no case exceeding a few inches in width; but that they were entrances was shown by the fact that here and there some of the big insects were descending from the sky to land at them, or coming out to fly busily off at high speed.

  The cliff-face formed the only perpendicular side of a shallow depression in the desert, and they had been carried little more than a hundred yards up a gentle slope before it faded into the reddish-brown landscape behind them. As the trolley breasted the low crest they could see the bean-fields in the far distance across a great waste of sand, and, although they had been underground for several hours, the position of the sun in the heavens informed them that it could not be much past noon.

  Carmen looked up at the sky and said, ‘We seem to have been in that place so long that I should not have been surprised to find it night on coming out.’

  ‘It seemed longer than it was because our minds had to grapple with so many startling new ideas,’ Escobar told her.

  Kem grinned. ‘Anyhow, it’s one up to us that those dictatorial little brutes should have thrown their hand in by mid-day. Look! There are the bean-fields. We are being taken back to barracks.’

  ‘That is a much more appropriate name for the giants’ habitation than “warren”,’ commented Escobar. ‘Although I am not sure that “stable” would not be better still. It is clear now that they are not even a sub-race, as we at first supposed. In the Martian hierarchy they are definitely animals, and made use of only because they possess great strength coupled with a limited degree of intelligence and memory. They are probably regarded by the bee-beetles in very much the same was as man regards the trained elephants in India.’

  ‘That’s about it,’ Kem agreed. ‘They are simply used for the heavy work. No doubt earlier generations of them were used to dig the canals, and they are still employed on mining and handling this foolproof form of transport, as well as in cultivating the beans.’

  ‘What about the Saucers, though?’ Carmen enquired. ‘These great clumsy brutes could not possibly have made such wonderful pieces of mechanism, even under instruction. I know that elephants have been used to help build houses, but no amount of teaching would enable them to put together the parts of a motor-car engine.’

  ‘No, of course not. The bee-beetles must carry out all work of that kind themselves.’

  ‘How could four-inch-long insects possibly build flying-machines larger than anything we have on Earth?’

  ‘Why not, when seventy-inch-tall men have succeeded in building great liners like the Queen Mary?’

  ‘You are quite right there,’ Escobar put in. ‘And when one comes to think of it, they possess all the essentials that have given man his dominant position among the animals. Their heads are as large as ours in proportion to the bodies. Flight gives them a range of vision much greater than our own, with the ability to escape from their larger enemies; and having pincers on the ends of their horns enables them to grip things, just as we do with our fingers and thumbs.’

  As he finished speaking they entered the bean-fields. The sun blazed down mercilessly from a cloudless sky, but the families of giants were still working there. They now resembled groups of satyrs and bacchantes, as most of them were wearing wreaths of beans to protect their bald heads; but they were still naked and Carmen commented that she wondered that they did not get badly sunburnt.

  Escobar shrugged. ‘It can be as hot as this only for an hour or two in the middle of the day, and we know how tough their skins are. Elephants never get sunburnt, yet they are often made to work for long hours in much greater heats than this with no coverings except a head-cloth.’

  As they progressed through the bean-fields they noticed again the little black objects hovering over the giants’ heads that in the morning they had taken for small birds; now they saw that they were really bee-beetles, and evidently playing the part of overseers keeping their gangs of big slaves hard at work. After remarking on this they fell silent, as they still found talking most laborious, and they did not speak again until they reached the barracks. There, the two giants took them to the room they had occupied the night before and left them to their own devices.

  For a while they employed themselves in sorting out the things that had been brought back to them in the morning, and using such items as were suitable, together with some of the bean-fibre mats, to make up three beds. When they had done, Escobar, who had reset his watch approximately by the sun, said that it could not yet be much after two o’clock; so, unless they were sent for again, they had the whole afternoon as well as the night before them.

  On the previous night they had naturally supposed themselves to be locked in their cell, but when the giants had come for them soon after dawn they had noticed that the great door was not made of wood or any sort of metal and had a rough surface which made it look like a huge hurdle. Closer examination now disclosed that it consisted of several layers of coarse basketwork woven out of the thickest bean-stalks. Moreover, it had no lock and was secured only by a staple on its outer side. The staple could be seen through a two-inch gap, and by tapping it from underneath with the handle of Carmen’s mirror Kem succeeded in knocking it out. A strong pull was then all that was needed to make the massive sheet of basket-work swing inward on its creaking hinges.

  Smiling over his shoulder at the others, he said: ‘Nothing venture, nothing win. Are you game to risk a spot of trouble by doing a little exploring?’

  ‘Short of using physical violence they can’t treat us much worse than we are being treated already,’ Carmen replied; and with Escobar behind her she followed Kem into the lofty tunnel.

  The light there was dim, but just sufficient for them to see by. Tiptoeing along to the next doorway, they peered through the crack down its side, and saw that it gave on to a room similar to the one they had left. In it two giants were sitting, quite motionless, with their backs against a wall.

  When they had drawn back, Kem whispered, ‘I think they are our guards; but one can’t be certain as there is so little to distinguish these great oafs from one another.’

  The next chamber into which they peeped was similar, but empty; and it so proved all along the row until they reached the entrance to the tunnel. As they emerged into the sunshine Escobar said:

  ‘It looks as if you were right about the two we saw. They have probably been given the day off to look after us. Otherwise, it seems that the whole of this miserable race—men, women and children—are compelled to spend their days working in the bean-fields.’

  ‘They must have crèches for the little ones,’ Carmen objected.

  Her husband shook his head. ‘To think of these people as even remotely human is to foster misleading ideas. What we learned this morning put an end to any lingering doubts about that. They are as far removed from the most advanced form of life on Mars as cattle are from men, and their resemblance to humans can be no more than accidental. If they were covered in fur, instead of having hide-like skins, and went about on all fours
, we should have regarded them from the beginning as a species of huge ape; and baboons don’t run crèches; wherever they go they take their young with them.’

  ‘I certainly saw some quite small ones crawling about among the bean-stalks,’ Kem said thoughtfully. ‘And, of course, their babies must be nearly as big as we are, which would give the impression that they are much older than they are in fact. But I think they are a good bit more intelligent than any of our apes.’

  ‘Than wild apes perhaps; but one could train a chimpanzee to do most of the things they do, and if a dog had hands its quicker mind would make it superior to them. As far as we know they are the only type of animal remaining on Mars, and it is by no means improbable that they owe their survival to having been chosen as the most suitable to domesticate. Given a race of great apes and hundreds of generations in which to train them, it should not have been difficult to teach them to perform all sorts of simple services in return for regular food and protection from their natural enemies. That, I am now convinced, accounts for both the activities and limitations of the giants. They are nothing more or less than highly trained animals.’

  While they had been talking they had walked a little way down the smoothly polished road, but the dreary sameness of the arid landscape on every side offered no temptation to proceed further; so they sat down on a sand-bank, and between intervals for rest necessitated by the effort of breathing, spent the next two hours or so discussing their extraordinary experiences of that morning.

  When they had come out from the bee-beetles’ hive the Saucer they had seen on their way there, or another like it, had still been visible in the sky, but low down on the western horizon. Since then it had climbed to the zenith and now, without the least deviation from a straight path, it was sinking at a slow, even pace towards the east. In the meantime another, smaller or more distant, Saucer had appeared above the eastern horizon and, at an even slower pace, was gradually mounting the sky.

  As the afternoon advanced the temperature dropped with a swiftness they found surprising; but, as the only alternative to remaining where they were was a return to their cheerless cell, the increasing chill alone would not have driven them in before sunset. It was the sight of a distant duststorm that made them spring to their feet and run for cover in the tunnel. By the time they reached it the wind was already howling like ten thousand devils and the clouds of driven sand stinging their hands and faces. A few yards down the tunnel the air was still clear, so they were able to gasp it in; but running several hundred yards in that rarefied atmosphere had proved a frightful strain, and, having staggered back to their cell, they practically collapsed there.

  It was the best part of an hour before they were fully recovered and soon afterwards the giants came in to give them their evening ration of water and beans. While they were doing so, Kem remarked:

  ‘For future convenience we may as well christen these two. Unless anyone has a better idea, I suggest we call the chap with the birthmark Gog II and his pal Magog II.’

  As neither Carmen nor Escobar could think of any other famous giants, they agreed, and Carmen said that they really are animals makes it more awful, in a way, that those callous little insects should have left our original Gog and Magog to burn to death in the Saucer.’

  ‘I shouldn’t think they had much option,’ Escobar shrugged, ‘if, as it is reasonable to suppose, they had decided that they dared not let the Saucer land from fear that it would form a centre of infection.’

  ‘They saved their own skins all right, though,’ Kem said quickly. ‘Of course, none of us realised what the Thinking Lights were then; but the bevy of them that appeared above the Saucer just after the fire in it started must have been its crew leaving the sinking ship.’

  ‘I expect they had themselves decontaminated by the same process as was used on us. But I don’t see how they could have got Gog and Magog out of the Saucer without landing it, owing to their size.’

  ‘No; we agreed on that last night. It’s queer, though, to think that all those weeks a dozen or so of the bee-beetles must have been living within a few feet of us, and that we never even saw a sign of them.’

  ‘Yes, you did. Those shadows you saw moving about inside the lighted control tower, while the Saucer was still in the darkness of night on Earth, must have been cast by the heads of the bee-beetle crew as they busied themselves with the take off.’

  ‘True; I’d forgotten that. I wonder what enables the little brutes to light themselves up at night. D’you think it is natural’ or some invention that they carry about with them?’

  ‘I should say the odds are greatly in favour of their possessing luminous organs similar to our fire-flies. They, too, are a species of beetle, and their luminosity comes from layers of cells mainly situated in the base of the abdomen.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right; but, if so, the light these creatures give out must be far more powerful, because one can see them from quite a long way off.’

  ‘For a fire-fly’s size its light is remarkably bright,’ Carmen put in. ‘At home the peasants often catch a few, then put them in a fine mesh wire cage and use it as a lantern, to save the expense of burning their oil-lamps.’

  ‘And,’ Escobar added, ‘these insects must be about a hundred times the size of a fire-fly.’

  Just then daylight in the lofty, cell-like chamber began to fade. With the same suddenness as dawn, twilight came and went; two minutes later darkness hid them from one another, until their eyes became accustomed to a light which seemed to have a much whiter quality than that which had lit the window high up in the wall all through the previous night.

  Noticing it, Escobar remarked, ‘This evening, one or both of Mars’ moons must be up.’

  ‘How queer it must seem to see two moons in the same sky,’ Carmen said. ‘Are they as big as ours?’

  ‘Oh no, infinitely smaller. In fact, they are so small that their existence was not even suspected till 1877. But whereas our Moon is nearly a quarter of a million miles from Earth, Mars’ moons are quite close to her, so they must look fairly large from her surface. One is called Phobos and the other Deimos.’

  ‘Those are the Latin words for Fear and Dread, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes; they were named so as attendants on Mars—the God of War.’

  ‘And very suitably named, too,’ put in Kem. ‘But tell us about them. Do they go round and round together like Castor and Pollux.’

  ‘No. Their behaviour is about as different as that of two moons could be. Phobos moves so quickly that she appears to break the universal law by rising in the west and setting in the east. This is because she goes round the planet faster than the planet turns upon herself. Her circuit takes her only seven hours and thirty-nine minutes, so she makes it a little over three times a day. Deimos, on the other hand, takes thirty hours and eighteen minutes to complete her circuit; so they can be seen at the same time at most only every other night, and then only for an hour or two when Phobos is near the western or eastern horizon, because she is less than 6,000 miles away, and therefore so near that she is eclipsed by Mars’ shadow for the greater part of each night. Deimos is a bit over 14,000 miles off, so we can see for longer; but both her distance and size would make her appear much smaller, as she has a diameter of only five miles.’

  ‘How big is Phobos?’

  ‘Her diameter is ten miles. But the diameters of both are only guesswork, as from Earth they can be seen only as tiny points of light. They are, too, regarded as something of a mystery by our astronomers, because the complete absence of volcanoes on Mars would suggest that she is not the type of planet ever to have thrown out any moons at all, and neither of them shares her red tint; so they may be captured asteroids, but there are also strong arguments against that.’

  They now fell silent. The rough couches they had made up enabled them to settle down a little, if not much, more comfortably than had been possible the night before; and as, during the past twenty-four hours, they had been through more
exhausting experiences than any they had ever met with in their lives, they soon dropped into a dreamless sleep.

  Dawn woke them, and shortly afterwards Gog II and Magog II appeared. They brought with them the usual ration of water but, to the captives’ great surprise, no issue of beans. In spite of the fact that they intensely resented the deadly monotony of having nothing to eat but raw beans twice a day, they no longer complained on that account and had become accustomed to chew them with Spartan indifference. To be suddenly deprived of them now, either by design or oversight, seemed to justify the most violent protest. They made it, pointing at their open mouths, and shouting for beans with an insistence that, had they witnessed it in themselves a few weeks earlier, they would have taken for certain signs of madness. The fuss they created was in vain; either the giants could not or would not understand them. Angry and still breakfastless, they were put upon the trolley, which ran out of the tunnel and headed in the direction it had taken the previous day.

  On reaching the canal zone, the now familiar sight of the giants picking beans caused them to realise that they were actually hungry; and had the trolley not been moving too fast they would have jumped off it with the idea of snatching a few beans before they could be recaptured. But they were soon given something else to think about. They had left the fields barely a mile behind when they were caught in another dust-storm. This time, however, it did not prove such a severe ordeal, as, before leaving their cell, they had taken precautions against such a possibility by bringing with them two silk scarves and a mantilla belonging to Carmen. Wrapping these round their heads, they huddled together and reached the cliff-face in which lay the bee-beetles’ hive, breathless but still fully conscious.

  With Gog crawling before them and Magog behind, they were taken to the room in which they had been shown the pictorial record of historical happenings on Earth. Two Thinking Lights had lit them down the inner passage, and now the captives knew what they were it was easy to recognise them at close quarters as large insects. The black blobs that Kem had taken for instrument boxes were their heads, and the things he had thought to be dangling wires were their legs. As on the previous day, they disappeared behind the screen and, after a few moments, a new series of short films was shown.