by Brian Aldiss
Nancy seized Gregory’s arm. ‘Can we please, Gregory, can we? I ent been to Norwich for long enough and it’s a fine city.’
‘It would be a good idea,’ he said doubtfully.
Both of them pressed him until he was forced to yield. He broke up the little party as soon as he decently could, kissed Nancy goodnight, and walked hurriedly back down the street to the baker’s. Of one thing he was certain: if he must leave the district even for a short while, he had to have a look to see what was happening at the farm before he went.
The farm looked in the summer’s dusk as it had never done before. Massive wooden screens nine feet high had been erected and hastily creosoted. They stood about in forlorn fashion, intended to keep the public gaze from the farm, but lending it unmeaning. They stood not only in the yard but at irregular intervals along the boundaries of the land, inappropriately among fruit trees, desolately amid bracken, irrelevantly in swamp. A sound of furious hammering, punctuated by the unwearying animal noises, indicated that more screens were still being built.
But what lent the place its unearthly look was the lighting. The solitary pole supporting electric light now had five companions: one by the gate, one by the pond, one behind the house, one outside the engine house, one down by the pigsties. Their hideous yellow glare reduced the scene to the sort of unlikely picture that might be found and puzzled over in the eternal midnight of an Egyptian tomb.
Gregory was too wise to try and enter by the gate. He hitched Daisy to the low branches of a thorn tree and set off over waste land, entering Grendon’s property by the South Meadow. As he walked stealthily towards the distant outhouses, he could see how the farm land differed from the territory about it. The corn was already so high it seemed in the dark almost to threaten by its ceaseless whisper of movement. The fruits had ripened fast. In the strawberry beds were great strawberries like pears. The marrows lay on their dunghill like bloated bolsters, gleaming from a distant shaft of light. In the orchard, the trees creaked, weighed down by distorted footballs that passed for apples; with a heavy autumnal thud one fell over-ripe to the ground. Everywhere on the farm, there seemed to be slight movement and noise, so much so that Gregory stopped to listen.
A wind was rising. The sails of the old mill shrieked like a gull’s cry as they began to turn. In the engine house, the steam engine pumped out its double unfaltering note as it generated power. The dogs still raged, the animals added their uneasy chorus. He recalled the saliva tree; here as in the dream, it was as if agriculture had become industry, and the impulses of nature swallowed by the new god of Science. In the bark of the trees rose the dark steam of novel and unknown forces.
He talked himself into pressing forward again. He moved carefully through the baffling slices of shadow and illumination created by the screens and lights, and arrived near the back door of the farmhouse. A lantern burnt in the kitchen window. As Gregory hesitated, the crunch of broken glass came from within.
Cautiously, he edged himself past the window and peered in through the doorway. From the parlour, he heard the voice of Grendon. It held a curious muffled tone, as if the man spoke to himself.
‘Lie there! You’re no use to me. This is a trial of strength. Oh God, preserve me, to let me prove myself! Thou has made my land barren till now – now let me harvest it! I don’t know what you’re doing. I didn’t mean to presume, but this here farm is my life. Curse ’em, curse ’em all! They’re all enemies.’ There was more of it; the man was muttering like one drunk. With a horrid fascination, Gregory was drawn forward till he had crossed the kitchen flags and stood on the verge of the larger room. He peered round the half open door until he could see the farmer, standing obscurely in the middle of the room.
A candle stood in the neglected hearth, its flickering flame glassily reflected in the cases of maladroit animals. Evidently the house electricity had been cut off to give additional power to the new lights outside.
Grendon’s back was to Gregory. One gaunt and unshaven cheek was lit by candle-light. His back seemed a little bent by the weight of what he imagined his duties, yet looking at that leather-clad back now Gregory experienced a sort of reverence for the independence of the man, and for the mystery that lay under his plainness. He watched as Grendon moved out through the front door, leaving it hanging wide, and passed into the yard, still muttering to himself. He walked round the side of the house and was hidden from view as the sound of his tread was lost amid the renewed barking of dogs.
The tumult did not drown a groan from near at hand. Peering into the shadows, Gregory saw a body lying under the table. It rolled over, crunching broken glass as it did so, and exclaimed in a dazed way. Without being able to see clearly, Gregory knew it was Neckland. He climbed over to the man and propped his head up, kicking away a stuffed fish as he did so.
‘Don’t kill me, bor! I only want to get away from here. I only want to get away.’
‘Bert? It’s Greg here. Bert, are you badly hurt?’
He could see some wounds. The fellow’s shirt had been practically torn from his back, and the flesh on his side and back was cut from where he had rolled in the glass. More serious was a great weal over one shoulder, changing to a deeper colour as Gregory looked at it. A brawl had taken place. Under the table lay another fish, its mouth gaping as if it still died, and the pseudo-goat, one button eye of which had rolled out of its socket. The cases from which they had come lay shattered by the wall.
Wiping his face and speaking in a more rational voice, Neckland said, ‘Gregory? I thought as you was down in Cottersall? What are you doing here? He’ll kill you proper if he find you here!’
‘What happened to you, Bert? Can you get up?’
The labourer was again in possession of his faculties. He grabbed Gregory’s forearm and said imploringly, ‘Keep your voice down, for Christ’s sake, or he’ll hear us and come back and settle my hash for once for all! He’s gone clean off his head, says as these pond things are having a holiday here. He nearly knocked my head off my shoulder with that stick of his! Lucky I got a thick head!’
‘What was the quarrel about?’
‘I tell you straight, bor, I have got the wind up proper about this here farm. They things as live in the pond will eat me and suck me up like they done Grubby if I stay here any more. So I run off when Joe Grendon weren’t looking, and I come in here to gather up my traps and my bits and leave here at once. This whole place is evil, a bed of evil, and it ought to be destroyed. Hell can’t be worse than this here farm!’
‘So he caught you in here, did he?’
‘I saw him rush in and I flung that there fish at him, and the goat. But he had me! Now I’m getting out, and I’d advise you to do the same. You must be daft, come back here like you did!’
As he spoke, he pulled himself to his feet and stood, keeping his balance with Gregory’s aid. Grunting, he made his way over to the staircase.
‘Bert,’ Gregory said, ‘supposing we rush Grendon and lay him out. We can then get him in the cart and all leave together.’
Neckland turned to stare at him, his face hidden in shadows, nursing his shoulder with one hand.
‘You try it!’ he said, and then he turned and went steadily up the stairs.
Gregory stood where he was, keeping one eye on the window. He had come to the farm without any clear notion in his head, but now that the idea had been formulated, he saw that it was up to him to try and remove Grendon from his farm. He felt obliged to do it; for although he had lost his former regard for Grendon, a sort of fascination for the man held him, and he was incapable of leaving any human being, however perverse, to face alone the alien horrors of the farm. It occurred to him that he might get help from the distant houses, Dereham Cottages, if only the farmer were rendered in one way or another unable to pepper the intruders with shot.
The machine house possessed only one high window, and that was barred. It was built of brick and had a stout door which could be barred and locked from the outside. Perhap
s it would be possible to lure Grendon into there; outside aid could then be obtained.
Not without apprehension, Gregory went to the open door and peered out into the confused dark. He stared anxiously at the ground for sight of a footstep more sinister than the farmer’s, but there was no indication that the Aurigans were active. He stepped into the yard.
He had not gone two yards before a woman’s scream rang out. The sound seemed to clasp an icy grip about Gregory’s ribs, and into his mind came a picture of poor mad Mrs Grendon. Then he recognised the voice, in its few shouted words, as Nancy’s. Even before the sound was cut off, he began to pelt down the dark side of the house as fast as he could run.
Only later did he realise how he seemed to be running against a great army of animal cries. Loudest was the babel of the pigs; every swine seemed to have some message deep and nervous and indecipherable to deliver to an unknown source; and it was to the sties that Gregory ran, swerving past the giant screens under the high and sickly light.
The noise in the sties was deafening. Every animal was attacking its pen with its sharp hooves. One light swung over the middle pen. With its help, Gregory saw immediately how terrible was the change that had come over the farm since his last visit. The sows had swollen enormously and their great ears clattered against their cheeks like boards. Their hirsute backs curved almost to the rafters of their prison.
Grendon was at the far entrance. In his arms he held the unconscious form of his daughter. A sack of pig feed lay scattered by his feet. He had one pen gate half open and was trying to thrust his way in against the flank of a pig whose mighty shoulder came almost level with his. He turned and stared at Gregory with a face whose blankness was more terrifying than any expression of rage.
There was another presence in the place. A pen gate near to Gregory swung open. The two sows wedged in the narrow sty gave out a terrible falsetto squealing, clearly scenting the presence of an unappeasable hunger. They kicked out blindly, and all the other animals plunged with a sympathetic fear. Struggle was useless. An Aurigan was there; the figure of Death itself, with its unwearying scythe and unaltering smile of bone, was as easily avoided as this poisoned and unseen presence. A rosy flush spread over the back of one of the sows. Almost at once, her great bulk began to collapse; in a moment, her substance had been ingested.
Gregory did not stay to watch the sickening action. He was running forward, for the farmer was again on the move. And now it was clear what he was going to do. He pushed into the end sty and dropped his daughter down into the metal food trough. At once, the sows turned with smacking jaws to deal with this new fodder. His hands free, Grendon moved to a bracket set in the wall. There lay his gun.
Now the uproar in the sties had reached its loudest. The sow whose companion had been so rapidly ingested broke free and burst into the central aisle. For a moment she stood – mercifully, for otherwise Gregory would have been trampled – as if dazed by the possibility of liberty. The place shook and the other swine fought to get to her. Brick crumbled, pen gates buckled. Gregory jumped aside as the second pig lumbered free, and next moment the place was full of grotesque fighting bodies, fighting their way to liberty.
He had reached Grendon, but the stampede caught them even as they confronted each other. A hoof stabbed down on Grendon’s instep. Groaning, he bent forward, and was at once swept underfoot by his creatures. Gregory barely had time to vault into the nearest pen before they thundered by. Nancy was trying pitifully to climb out of the trough as the two beasts to which she had been offered fought to kick their way free. With a ferocious strength – without reason – almost without consciousness – Gregory hauled her up, jumped until he swung up on one of the overhead beams, wrapped a leg round the beam, hung down till he grasped Nancy, pulled her up with him.
They were safe, but the safety was not permanent. Through the din and dust, they could see that the gigantic beasts were wedged tightly in both entrances. In the middle was a sort of battlefield, where the animals fought to reach the opposite end of the building; they were gradually tearing each other to pieces – but the sties too were threatened with demolition.
‘The Aurigan is here somewhere,’ Gregory shouted. ‘We aren’t safe from it by any means.’
‘You were foolish to come here, Greg,’ Nancy said. ‘I found you had gone and I had to follow you. But Father – I don’t think he even recognised me!’
At least, Gregory thought, she had not seen her father trampled underfoot. Involuntarily glancing in that direction, he saw the shotgun that Grendon had never managed to reach still lying across a bracket on the wall. By crawling along a transverse beam, he could reach it easily. Bidding Nancy sit where she was, he wriggled along the beam, only a foot or two above the heaving backs of the swine. At least the gun should afford them some protection: the Aurigan, despite all its ghastly differences from humanity, would hardly be immune to lead.
As he grasped the old-fashioned weapon and pulled it up, Gregory was suddenly filled with an intense desire to kill one of the invisible monsters. In that instant, he recalled an earlier hope he had had of them: that they might be superior beings, beings of wisdom and enlightened power, coming from a better society where higher moral codes directed the activities of its citizens. He had thought that only to such a civilisation would the divine gift of travelling through interplanetary space be granted. But perhaps the opposite held true: perhaps such a great objective could be gained only by species ruthless enough to disregard more humane ends. As soon as he thought it, his mind was overpowered with a vast diseased vision of the universe, where such races as dealt in love and kindness and intellect cowered forever on their little globes, while all about them went the slayers of the universe, sailing where they would to satisfy their cruelties and their endless appetites.
He heaved his way across to Nancy above the bloody porcine fray.
She pointed mutely. At the far end, the entrance had crumbled away, and the sows were bursting forth into the night. But one sow fell and turned crimson as it fell, sagging over the floor like a shapeless bag. Another, passing the same spot, suffered the same fate.
Was the Aurigan moved by anger? Had the pigs, in their blind charging, injured it? Gregory raised the gun and aimed. As he did so, he saw a faint hallucinatory column in the air; enough dirt and mud and blood had been thrown up to spot the Aurigan and render him partly visible. Gregory fired.
The recoil nearly knocked him off his perch. He shut his eyes, dazed by the noise, and was dimly aware of Nancy clinging to him, shouting, ‘Oh, you marvellous man, you marvellous man! You hit that old bor right smack on target!’
He opened his eyes and peered through the smoke and dust. The shade that represented the Aurigan was tottering. It fell. It fell among the distorted shapes of the two sows it had killed, and corrupt fluids spattered over the paving. Then it rose again. They saw its progress to the broken door, and then it had gone.
For a minute, they sat there, staring at each other, triumph and speculation mingling on both their faces. Apart from one badly injured beast, the building was clear of pigs now. Gregory climbed to the floor and helped Nancy down beside him. They skirted the loathsome masses as best they could and staggered into the fresh air.
Up beyond the orchard, strange lights showed in the rear windows of the farmhouse.
‘It’s on fire! Oh, Greg, our poor home is afire! Quick, we must gather what we can! All father’s lovely cases –’
He held her fiercely, bent so that he spoke straight into her face. ‘Bert Neckland did this! He did it! He told me the place ought to be destroyed and that’s what he did.’
‘Let’s go, then –’
‘No, no, Nancy, we must let it burn! Listen! There’s a wounded Aurigan loose here somewhere. We didn’t kill him. If those things feel rage, anger, spite, they’ll be set to kill us now – don’t forget there’s more than one of ’em! We aren’t going that way if we want to live. Daisy’s just across the meadow here, and she’ll bear
us both safe home.’
‘Greg, dearest, this is my home!’ she cried in her despair.
The flames were leaping higher. The kitchen windows broke in a shower of glass. He was running with her in the opposite direction, shouting wildly, ‘I’m your home now! I’m your home now!’
Now she was running with him, no longer protesting, and they plunged together through the high rank grass.
When they gained the track and the restive mare, they paused to take breath and look back.
The house was well ablaze now. Clearly nothing could save it.
Sparks had carried to the windmill, and one of the sails was ablaze. About the scene, the electric lights shone spectral and pale on the tops of their poles. An occasional running figure of a gigantic animal dived about its own purposes. Suddenly, there was a flash as of lightning and all the electric lights went out. One of the stampeding animals had knocked down a pole; crashing into the pond, it short-circuited the system.
‘Let’s get away,’ Gregory said, and he helped Nancy on to the mare. As he climbed up behind her, a roaring sound developed, grew in volume and altered in pitch. Abruptly it died again. A thick cloud of steam billowed above the pond. From it rose the space machine, rising, rising, rising, suddenly a sight to take the heart in awe. It moved up into the soft night sky, was lost for a moment, began dully to glow, was seen to be already tremendously far away.
Desperately, Gregory looked for it, but it had gone, already beyond the frail confines of the terrestrial atmosphere. An awful desolation settled on him, the more awful for being irrational, and then he thought, and cried his thought aloud, ‘Perhaps they were only holiday-makers here! Perhaps they enjoyed themselves here, and will tell their friends of this little globe! Perhaps Earth has a future only as a resort for millions of the Aurigan kind!’
The church clock was striking midnight as they passed the first cottages of Cottersall.
‘We’ll go first to the inn,’ Gregory said. ‘I can’t well disturb Mrs Fenn at this late hour, but your landlord will fetch us food and hot water and see that your cuts are bandaged.’