by Brian Aldiss
That repulsive sight would have been the last my eyes ever dwelt on had it not been for Grubby, the simple farmhand I have had occasion to mention before.
As I threw the flour, Grubby gave a great cry and rushed forward, dropping the pitchfork. He jumped at the creature as it turned on me. This put out our plan, which was that he and Bruce Fox should pitchfork the creature to death. Instead, he grasped it as high as he possibly might and commenced to squeeze with the full force of his mighty muscles. What a terrifying contest! What a fear-fraught combat!
Collecting his wits, Bruce charged forward and attacked with his pitchfork. It was his battle cry that brought me back from my paralysis into action. I ran and seized Grubby’s pitchfork and also charged. That thing had arms for us all! It struck out, and I have no doubt now that several arms held poisoned needle teeth, for I saw one come towards me gaping like a snake’s mouth. Need I stress the danger – particularly when you recall that the effect of the flour cloud was only partial, and there were still invisible arms flailing around us!
Our saving was that the Aurigan was cowardly. I saw Bruce jab it hard, and a second later, I rammed my pitchfork right through its foot. At once it had had enough. Grubby fell to the ground as it retreated. It moved at amazing speed, back towards the pool. We were in pursuit! And all the beasts of the barnyard uttered their cries to it.
As it launched itself into the water, we both flung our pitchforks at its form. But it swam out strongly and then dived below the surface, leaving only ripples and a scummy trail of flour.
We stood staring at the water for an instant, and then with common accord ran back to Grubby. He was dead. He lay face up and was no longer recognisable. The Aurigan must have struck him with its poisoned fangs as soon as he attacked. Grubby’s skin was stretched tight and glistened oddly. He had turned a dull crimson. No longer was he more than a caricature of human shape. All his internal substance had been transformed to liquid by the rapid-working venom of the Aurigan; he was like a sort of giant man-shaped rotten haggis.
There were wound marks across his neck and throat and what had been his face and from these wounds his substance drained, so that he slowly deflated into his trampled bed of flour and dust. Perhaps the sight of fabled Medusa’s head, that turned men to stone, was no worse than this, for we stood there utterly paralysed. It was a blast from Farmer Grendon’s rifle that brought us back to life.
He had threatened to shoot me. Now, seeing us despoiling his flour stocks and apparently about to make off with a calf, he fired at us. We had no choice but to run for it. Grendon was in no explaining mood. Good Nancy came running out to stop him, but Neckland was charging up too with the pair of savage dogs growling at the end of their chains.
Bruce and I had ridden up on my Daisy. I had left her saddled. Bringing her out of the stable at a trot, I heaved Bruce up into the saddle and was about to climb on myself when the gun went off again and I felt a burning pain in my leg. Bruce dragged me into the saddle and we were off – I half unconscious.
Here, I lie now in bed, and should be about again in a couple of days. Fortunately, the shot did not harm any bones.
So you see how the farm is now a place of the damned! Once, I thought it might even become a new Eden, growing the food of the gods for men like gods. Instead – alas! the first meeting between humanity and beings from another world has proved disastrous, and the Eden is become a battleground for a war of worlds. How can our anticipations for the future be anything other than gloomy?
Before I close this over-long account, I must answer a query in your letter and pose another to you, more personal than yours to me.
First, you question if the Aurigans are entirely invisible and say – if I may quote your letter – “Any alteration in the refractive index of the eye lenses would make vision impossible, but without such alteration the eyes would be visible as glassy globules. And for vision it is also necessary that there should be visual purple behind the retina and an opaque cornea. How then do your Aurigans manage for vision?” The answer must be that they do without eyesight as we know it, for I think they naturally maintain a complete invisibility. How they “see” I know not, but whatever sense they use, it is effective. How they communicate I know not – our fellow made not the slightest sound when I speared his foot! – yet it is apparent they must communicate effectively. Perhaps they tried originally to communicate with us through a mysterious sense we do not possess and, on receiving no answer, assumed us to be as dumb as our dumb animals. If so, what a tragedy!
Now to my personal enquiry. I know, sir, that you must grow more busy as you grow more famous; but I feel that what transpires here in this remote corner of East Anglia is of momentous import to the world and the future. Could you not take it upon yourself to pay us a visit here? You would be comfortable at one of our two inns, and the journey here by railway is efficient if tedious – you can easily get a regular waggon from Heigham station here, a distance of only eight miles. You could then view Grendon’s farm for yourself, and perhaps one of these interstellar beings too. I feel you are as much amused as concerned by the accounts you receive from the undersigned, but I swear not one detail is exaggerated. Say you can come!
If you need persuasion, reflect on how much delight it will give to
Your sincere admirer and friend,
Gregory Rolles.’
Reading this long letter through, scratching out two superfluous adjectives, Gregory lay back in some satisfaction. He had the feeling he was still involved in the struggle although temporarily out of action.
But the late afternoon brought him disquieting news. Tommy, the baker’s boy, had gone out as far as the Grendon farm. Then the ugly legends circulating in the village about the place had risen in his mind, and he had stood wondering whether he should go on. An unnatural babble of animal noise came from the farm, mixed with hammering, and when Tommy crept forward and saw the farmer himself looking as black as a puddle and building a great thing like a gibbet in the yard, he had lost his nerve and rushed back the way he came, the letter to Nancy undelivered.
Bruce Fox arrived that evening to see how his friend was, and Gregory tried to persuade him to take the letter. But Fox was able successfully to plead a prior engagement. They talked for a while, mainly running over the horrors of the previous day once more, and then Fox left.
Gregory lay on the bed worrying about Nancy until Mrs Fenn brought up supper on a tray. At least it was clear now why the Aurigans had not entered the farm house; they were far too large to do so. She was safe as long as she kept indoors – as far as anyone on that doomed plot was safe.
He fell asleep early that night. In the early hours of the morning, a nightmare visited him. He was in a strange city where all the buildings were new and the people wore shining clothes. In one square grew a tree. The Gregory in the dream stood in a special relationship to the tree: he fed it. It was his job to push people who were passing by the tree against its surface. The tree was a saliva tree. Down its smooth bark ran quantities of saliva from red lips like leaves up in the boughs. It grew enormous on the people on which it fed. As they were thrown against it, they passed into the substance of the tree. Some of the saliva splashed on to Gregory. But instead of dissolving him, it caused everything he touched to be dissolved. He put his arms about the girl he loved, and as his mouth went towards her, her skin peeled away from her face.
He woke weeping desperately and fumbling blindly for the ring of the gas mantle.
Dr Crouchorn came late next morning and told Gregory he should have at least three more days complete rest for the recovery of the muscles of his leg. Gregory lay there in a state of acute dissatisfaction with himself. Recalling the vile dream, he thought how negligent he had been towards Nancy, the girl he loved. His letter to her still lay undelivered by his bedside. After Mrs Fenn had brought up his dinner, he determined that he must see Nancy for himself. Leaving the food, he pulled himself out of bed and dressed slowly.
The leg wa
s more painful than he had expected, but he got himself downstairs and out to the stable without too much trouble. Daisy seemed pleased to see him. He rubbed her nose and rested his head against her long cheek in sheer pleasure at being with her again.
‘This may be the last time you have to undertake this particular journey, my girl,’ he said.
Saddling her was comparatively easy. Getting into the saddle involved much bodily anguish. But eventually he was comfortable and they turned along the familiar and desolate road to the domain of the Aurigans. His leg was worse than he had bargained for. More than once, he had to get the mare to stop while he let the throbbing subside. He saw he was losing blood plentifully.
As he approached the farm, he observed what the baker’s boy had meant by saying Grendon was building a gibbet. A pole had been set up in the middle of the yard. A cable ran to the top of it, and a light was rigged there, so that the expanse of the yard could be illuminated by night.
Another change had taken place. A wooden fence had been built behind the horse trough, cutting off the pond from the farm. But at one point, ominously, a section of it had been broken down and splintered and crushed, as if some monstrous thing had walked through the barrier unheeding.
A ferocious dog was chained just inside the gate, and barking its head off, to the consternation of the poultry. Gregory dare not enter. As he stood wondering the best way to tackle this fresh problem, the door of the farmhouse opened fractionally and Nancy peeped out. He called and signalled frantically to her.
Timidly, she ran across and let him in, dragging the dog back. Gregory hitched Daisy to the gatepost and kissed her cheek, soothed by the feel of her sturdy body in his arms.
‘Where’s your father?’
‘My dearest, your leg, your poor leg! It’s bleeding yet!’
‘Never mind my leg. Where’s your father?’
‘He’s down in South Meadow, I think.’
‘Good! I’m going to speak with him. Nancy, I want you to go indoors and pack some belongings. I’m taking you away with me.’
‘I can’t leave father!’
‘You must. I’m going to tell him now.’ As he limped across the yard, she called fearfully, ‘He has that there gun of his’n with him all the time – do be careful!’
The two dogs on a running chain followed him all the way down the side of the house, nearly choking in their efforts to get at him, their teeth flashing uncomfortably close to his ankles.
Near the elms, he saw that several wild birds lay in the grass. One was still fluttering feebly. He could only assume they had worn themselves out trying to feed their immense and hungry broods. Which was what would happen to the farmer in time, he reflected. He noticed Neckland below Grubby’s little hut, busy sawing wood; the farmer was not with him. On impulse, Gregory turned into the sties.
It was gloomy there. In the gloom, Grendon worked. He dropped his bucket when he saw Gregory there, and came forward threateningly.
‘You came back? Why don’t you stay away? Can’t you see the notice by the gate? I don’t want you here no more, bor. I know you mean well, and I intend you no harm, but I’ll kill ’ee, understand, kill ’ee if you ever come here again. I’ve plenty of worries without you to add to them. Now then, get you going!’
Gregory stood his ground.
‘Mr Grendon, are you as mad as your wife was before she died? Do you understand that you may meet Grubby’s fate at any moment? Do you realise what you are harbouring in your pond?’
‘I ent a fule. But suppose them there things do eat everything, humans included? Suppose this is now their farm? They still got to have someone tend it. So I reckon they ent going to harm me. So long as they sees me work hard, they ent going to harm me.’
‘You’re being fattened, do you understand? For all the hard work you do, you must have put on a stone this last month. Doesn’t that scare you?’
Something of the farmer’s poise broke for a moment. He cast a wild look round. ‘I ent saying I ent scared. I’m saying I’m doing what I have to do. We don’t own our lives. Now do me a favour and get out of here.’
Instinctively, Gregory’s glance had followed Grendon’s. For the first time, he saw in the dimness the size of the pigs. Their great broad black backs were visible over the top of the sties. They were the size of young oxen.
‘This is a farm of death,’ he said.
‘Death’s always the end of all of us, pig or cow or man alike.’
‘Right-ho, Mr Grendon, you can think like that if you like. It’s not my way of thinking, nor am I going to see your dependants suffer from your madness. Mr Grendon, sir, I wish to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage.’
For the first three days that she was away from her home, Nancy Grendon lay in her room in The Wayfarer near to death. It seemed as if all ordinary food poisoned her. But gradually under Doctor Crouchorn’s ministration – terrified perhaps by the rage she suspected he would vent upon her should she fail to get better – she recovered her strength.
‘You look so much better today,’ Gregory said, clasping her hand. ‘You’ll soon be up and about again, once your system is free of all the evil nourishment of the farm.’
‘Greg, dearest, promise me you will not go to the farm again. You have no need to go now I’m not there.’
He cast his eyes down and said, ‘Then you don’t have to get me to promise, do you?’
‘I just want to be sure we neither of us go there again. Father, I feel sure, bears a charmed life. But I – I feel now as if I’m waking from a nightmare!’
‘Don’t think about it! Look, I’ve brought you some flowers!’
He produced a clay pot overloaded with wallflowers with gigantic blooms and gave it to her.
She smiled and said, ‘They’re so large! Greg – they’re – they’re from the farm, aren’t they? They’re unnaturally large.’
‘I thought you’d like a souvenir of the nicer side of your home.’
With all her strength, she hurled the pot across the room. It struck the door and broke. The dark earth scattered over the boards and the flowers lay broken on the floor.
‘You dare bring the curse in here! And, Greg, this means you’ve been back to the farm, doesn’t it, since we came away together?’
He nodded his head, looking defiantly at her. ‘I had to see what was happening.’
‘Please don’t go there again, Greg, please. It’s as if I was now coming to my senses again – but I don’t want it to be as if you was losing yours! Supposing those things followed us here to Cottersall, those Aurigans?’
‘You know, Nancy, I’ve wondered several times why they remain on the farm as they do. You would think that once they found they could so easily defeat human beings, they would attack everyone, or send for more of their own kind and try to invade us. Yet they seem perfectly content to remain in that one small space.’
She smiled. ‘I may not be very clever compared with you, but I tell ‘ee the answer to that one. They ent interested in going anywhere. I think there’s just two of them, and they come to our little old world for a holiday in their space machine, same as we might go to Great Yarmouth for a couple of days for our honeymoon. Perhaps they’re on their honeymoon.’
‘On honeymoon! What a ghastly idea!’
‘Well, on holiday then. That was father’s idea – he says as there’s just two of them, treating Earth as a quiet place to stay. People like to eat well when they’re on holiday, don’t they?’
He stared at Nancy aghast.
‘But that’s horrible! You’re trying to make the Aurigans out to be pleasant!’
‘Of course I ent, you silly ha’p’orth! But I expect they seem pleasant to each other.’
‘Well, I prefer to think of them as menaces.’
‘All the more reason for you to keep away from them!’
But to be out of sight was not to be out of mind’s reach. Gregory received another letter from Dr Hudson-Ward, a kind and encouraging one, but he
made no attempt to answer it. He felt he could not bear to take up any work that would remove him from the neighbourhood, although the need to work, in view of his matrimonial plans, was now pressing; the modest allowance his father made him would not support two in any comfort. Yet he could not bring his thoughts to grapple with such practical problems. It was another letter he looked for, and the horrors of the farm that obsessed him. And the next night, he dreamed of the saliva tree again.
In the evening, he plucked up enough courage to tell Fox and Nancy about it. They met in the little snug at the back of The Wayfarer’s public bars, a discreet and private place with red plush on the seats. Nancy was her usual self again, and had been out for a brief walk in the afternoon sunshine.
‘People wanted to give themselves to the saliva tree. And although I didn’t see this for myself, I had the distinct feeling that perhaps they weren’t actually killed so much as changed into something else – something less human maybe. And this time, I saw the tree was made of metal of some kind and was growing bigger and bigger by pumps – you could see through the saliva to big armatures and pistons, and out of the branches steam was pouring.’
Fox laughed, a little unsympathetically. ‘Sounds to me like the shape of things to come, when even plants are grown by machinery. Events are preying on your mind, Greg! Listen, my sister is going to Norwich tomorrow, driving in her uncle’s trap. Why don’t the two of you go with her? She’s going to buy some adornments for her bridal gown, so that should interest you, Nancy. Then you could stay with Greg’s uncle for a couple of days. I assure you I will let you know immediately the Aurigans invade Cottersall, so you won’t miss anything.’