by Basil Copper
It had seemed to me the best plan not to base ourselves in the village but in a small observation post or blockhouse about two miles out, along the cliffs, so that we might make the best of ourselves in the event of any emergency. This commanded long stretches of jagged cliff in either direction and gave us an admirable control of the situation; for we could not be surprised, either by the villagers, by animals, or anything else.
Although the blockhouse, which we called No. 1 Post, was a good distance from K4, we had wireless communication and behind it were undulating uplands which afforded us, for the most part, with an unimpeded retreat to base should we need it. Masters had some of the team carry stores and gear over for us a few days before we moved in, so that we would have an easy walk over the first day. We were to report night and morning, in between trips to the village. I did not know how long the investigation would take me, but I hoped that we would have the situation in hand inside a week.
Rort was more optimistic than I had seen him since my arrival at the island, but I put this down to the fact that we had our own small adventure to play. He was an introspective type and long laboratory sessions coupled with even longer sojourns in his own cabin had worked upon his nerves. So I was even more surprised when I saw him packing a murderous-looking flash-gun in its heavy composition case the night before our departure. It was an action that was to mean a great deal to our two-man party before many days were over.
V
A short while before Rort and I were due to move into No. 1 Post, I set off in the early morning to make contact with the village once more and prepare them for our arrival. It was a day of wild beauty with ragged cloud whirled by a boisterous wind over the down-lands and far below the yellow spume of the oily breakers achieved a slow-motion spectacle that seemed almost poetic, divorced of the stench that polluted the foreshore when one arrived at closer quarters. I saw nothing in my solitary walk - nothing living that is - save for a large, hawk-like bird that plummeted downwards into the tangle of underbrush, an action followed by the chilling shriek of some unfortunate creature.
As matters turned out I did not have to go the whole way, for on the rough track about a couple of miles from the village I met a gnarled man called Mclver gathering pieces of wood which he was loading on a sort of primitive sledge. A wild, red-bearded man with staring eyes he was, and he turned out to be the leader of the local collective - headman it would have been in bygone times. When I explained what I wanted he was immediately cooperative. I told him about the girl and the possible dangers to the community, and he assured me that everything would be ready for our arrival at the end of the week.
Greatly excited and embarrassingly grateful for our offer of help, he would not stop for his wood but hurried back to the village as fast as his legs would carry him down the stony path. I retraced my steps to No. 1 Post to see that the provisioning was satisfactory. This was in a commanding position some little way inland but with a fine view in both directions along the coast from a stone and metal observation tower. Something unusual distracted my attention shortly after my arrival.
After a while spent putting some of my more personal kit in order, I thought I would go up the tower to see what the view was like and also to find out what we would need in the form of special gear. There was a nasty echo from the metallized stair plates as I went up the narrow passageway. Through the ports that let in a sickly light I could gradually see the winding, stony track that led away towards the west and then, eventually, the panoramic view both east and west along the rocky cliffs and beach.
This post had been carefully sited and provided a valuable link in the island's observation points. I had some trouble with the sliding door of the platform at the top as the fastenings had become corroded with time, but I was pleased to see that the equipment had suffered little, protected as it was by thick, transparent plating. It was a small chamber, the centre clear, the circular walls lined with benches and machinery. The large, elongated ports had become obscured by salt sea-spume and would need cleaning, but even so it was an impressive view afforded. Towards the south-east, even with glasses I could not see K4, but it was reassuring to think that its tower was not far off beyond the ridged higher ground that sloped up from the marshes.
As I turned to go down again I became aware of a darkening of the sky towards the west and then saw that it was a large cluster of sea birds hovering at a point in the cove. I do not know what made me put the glasses to my eyes as such sights were common along here. As first I concentrated on the birds and then, lowering the lenses, I became aware that something on the foreshore was attracting their attention. It was a long way off, too far for me to make out any detail, even with glasses, and there were rocks in between but I had the vague impression that something was crawling across the blackness of the sand.
There was a small, sharply defined object that was outlined against the dull shimmer of the sea and then a greater mass which vaguely undulated; or it may have been a trick of the sea-shimmer. But the overall impression was faintly repellent and reminded me unpleasantly of the sheen I had noticed on the body of the girl.
The incident lasted only a moment because whatever it was flowed over behind a larger spur of rock, apparently impelled by the surge of the tide, and there remained only the birds. Uneasy, I went down the stairs and turned back towards the comforting reality of K4.
VI
I did not tell anyone at the station of my uneasiness, as I had already made something of a spectacle of myself, but I followed Rort's example and made certain that my personal effects included my heaviest flash-gun. One or two of our colleagues still affected to smile at our little expedition, but the majority were more serious and, I think, half envious of the small independent command Rort and I had achieved.
Masters had us in for final instructions and I could not help reflecting that he must have supervised many such investigations as ours over the past few years - new mutations, fresh parasitic forms, strange debased creatures appearing round the coasts; these were the aftermath of radiation, each presenting him and many other research heads like him, with a new problem wherever encountered. Though it could never become just routine with him, his easy, genial manner concealed a complete lack of nerves; his was the kind of will and organizing brain it was comfortable to fall back upon and I was glad he was the directing force at K4.
Those on duty in the observation tower crowded to the windows to wave us off as Rort and I set out with our packs, and two or three of those off duty accompanied us for the first mile or so, before starting back with waves and an occasional joking remark. As we breasted the first rise after leaving base, I had given a last look behind and had seen Karla's white, anxious face staring towards us from the observation port of her own cabin. Her rigid attitude jarred oddly on my sensibilities and though I waved to her cheerily again and again, she never acknowledged the salute or made any flicker of recognition.
We walked in silence, both weighed down by the strange, indefinable atmosphere of the afternoon, weird even for this island and for these sombre circumstances. Rort was, I knew, content to leave the operational details of the "expedition" to myself, but he was a man who could be absolutely relied upon in an emergency, for all his worrying, which was why I had chosen him. Again, he was a quiet companion which was a boon when two people had to be cramped up in close proximity for some time, as we would be at No. 1 Post.
We had to make a wide detour round the marshes which even now occasionally claimed a victim, though the villagers always avoided them whenever possible. The greenish, stagnant water exuded a strange, flickering miasma, which writhed purple, green, and red, forming a fiendish backdrop all the while our walk skirted them.
I planned a fortnight's stay as the maximum at No. 1, as fresh stores were then due and, like a child, I wished to be on hand when news and contact with a larger world would brighten K4 for a little while. Besides, the investigations should last only a few days. I could have the breeder up to the post f
or medical examination; I had her number and McIver was making all the other arrangements.
These and other thoughts, notably the increasing uneasiness of all at K4, linked with the personal fears of Karla and Rort, were filtering through my mind as we stumbled and slithered painfully across the rough ground rising from the marshes and came out onto the downs and eventually to the post.
All was as I had left it. The last of the stores had been stowed and the observation tower showed blind red and green eyes east and west into the darkening landscape as we came down the track towards it. I stopped by the entrance a moment longer as Rort went inside and looked once again across the wild landscape of jagged cliffs and pale green sea, which never failed to impress and awe me.
There was nothing unusual in sight and no smoke or other indication of the village round the cove.
As I went in over the smooth flagged approach to the door I slipped and only my hand on the metal guard rail saved me from a nasty fall. As it was I bumped the wall and grazed my shin. I swore loudly which brought Rort out. When I turned to see what had caused the mishap, I was surprised to observe little patches of jelly like substance on the ground and then noticed that there were other traces of it; in fact the whole area was dotted with slimy fragments. I had not noticed them on my last visit and was puzzled to account for the phenomena. There was also an unusual smell hanging on the air - musty, choking, and putrescent. Rort's eyes narrowed when I pointed this out to him. He said nothing but looked keenly around in the gathering dusk and a quarter of an hour later went out with a portable flame-thrower and thoroughly scorched the area. The slime seemed to shrivel into spores which went dancing off to seaward in the wind which was now springing up.
Inside our own quarters all had been made clean and cheerful and a few minutes later I was on the transmitter to Masters. His calm voice out of the darkness, only a few miles away across the ridge, provided a comforting reality in our lonely situation and gave the necessary lifeline we needed. I told him nothing but routine matters. In any case my thoughts made no sense even to myself and there was no point in putting doubts into his mind as to the advisability of letting me loose on my own.
When I had switched off the radio - we were to have a vision-tube link-up when Rort got the tower apparatus in working order -we ate a huge supper with an appetite born of our long walk. The wind, which had been rising steadily, began an unpleasant buffeting against the plate-glass ports. Our living room and bedrooms were on the second floor which was fairly high up, and the ground floor was given up to stores, a factor which was to have some importance later.
Soon afterwards Rort slipped quietly out and I heard the squeak on the metal treads of the staircase, though whether he went up or down I couldn't make out. There was a short pause and then a rasping noise as he shot the massive bolts of the main door which led into the post, an eminently sensible precaution which I should have thought of myself. Then he was in the room again, a wry smile on his face, which needed no explanation. After we had stowed the supper things, he unpacked and reassembled his flash-gun and carried it with him when he went up to look at the tower.
He whistled as he saw the state of some of the instruments and then rubbed at the observation panels so that we could see out into the palely green, writhing darkness before us. To the south and eastwards and westwards there was nothing but a misty blackness but the sea always had light, except when there was rain or thick fog.
There was obviously little we could do that night but we lingered up there in the eyrie, reluctant to go lower down. It was not only the wind, which was making ugly, fanciful noises as it roistered about the cliffs and the tower, but something in our minds, like a shadow vaguely seen out of the corner of one's eye, which made us uneasy and a prey to slight scalp crawl - another of the research man's occupational diseases. Though we strained our eyes seaward and landward we could see nothing. Eventually we went down at a late hour, brewed some coffee, and went to bed. We had an uneventful night and both slept well.
VII
The next morning was cold and Rort and I spent almost two hours getting the heating system working, nearly missing our early contact with K4 in our absorption. I was particularly anxious to get the whole place up to scratch so that I could start on my work without delay; once we had achieved that I could leave routine matters to Rort; he had generously given up his own research projects in order to accompany me as general assistant, as he felt that a more active life for a week or two would do him good.
As for myself, I had been deeply impressed by the extraordinary condition of the breeder I had seen by the seashore; in all my experience I had never encountered anything like it and though the circumstances surrounding the episode were far from natural, I still had the feeling that there was some perfectly logical explanation, medical or environmental - possibly a combination of both.
We had a late breakfast and then went up to the tower to unsheathe some of the instruments and inspect their general condition. They included a powerful telescope on a gyro-operated stand which I was particularly anxious to get into action. This would be most useful in both directions along the coast and its infrared twin in the same housing would help guard against surprise by night.
The landscape was normal when we looked out of the tower observation panels and there was nothing unusual; no movement except that of the sea and the flutter of an occasional bird. We did not get outside until almost midday and the door had remained bolted during that time. We then reconnoitred for a while along the rocky cliff path towards the eastwards in a region I had not seen before, but there was little of interest; the same rugged landscape, the same black sand and rocks, the same oily, sullen sea. It was almost an hour later when we returned and I was annoyed to see, as we made to enter the main door, a recurrence of the slime patches on the ground outside.
I made some comment to Rort and was about to go inside when he grasped my arm and brought me to a stop. I then saw a similar outbreak of the peculiar patches on the metal guard rail. The large door of the tower was of an old-fashioned pattern. It had been firmly secured by the authorities to guard against any incursion by the local inhabitants, but that special sealing had been removed when we took up our duties there.
Instead, the door was opened from the outside merely by a large metal ring operating a conventional latch. The door was now ajar. With an incredibly swift movement Rort's gun was unsheathed and in the aim position. I just had time to see that the metal ring was covered in slime before the panels went screaming back on their hinges at his kick and Rort had bounded over the sill. I followed, breathing fast, and our feet made a great deal of unnecessary noise as we took the metal stairs two at a time. There was nothing in the storeroom but more slime on the floor and similar patches on the treads.
The marks continued to the ramp outside the observation room and then ceased in a large patch on the floor, with the same sickening stench I had smelled before. There was no one - or rather I should say, nothing - in the tower and the other rooms were empty. I deliberately use the word nothing, because I think we both had a feeling that whatever came up those stairs was not human in the sense that we understood it.
We looked at one another and then Rort turned to the windows and gazed out across the bleak landscape of the island. He then stated something which I found difficult to dislodge from my mind for the rest of the day.
"Whatever it was," he said "could have seen us coming back and made its escape before we arrived."
Lunch was an uneasy meal and the big door remained locked, though it was full daylight…
VIII
It was early afternoon when we went down to the village. I felt we had spent enough time that day on restoration work and No. 1 Post was fully operational so far as my own sphere was concerned. We had neither of us said much about the happenings of the morning and Rort had carefully expunged the slime left by our visitor with a chemical solution. Neither had we informed K4 of the position by radio. There was no sense in r
aising an unnecessary alarm, and we could incorporate the information with our report of the day's doings during the evening call.
It was an interesting trip for us both. Rort had not been so far afield since arriving at the island, and I had not seen the village by daylight. It grew lighter or rather seemed to, as we came down the rough extent of track to that strange corner of land squeezed in between sky and sea. My eternal impression of this place was of the far off, long ago, extinct Eskimo villages that existed in former times; here again were the igloo dwellings domed, humped, and whorled, but instead of blocks of ice, concrete, presenting a ghastly, bleached effect from the constant action of the weather.
Here too were fungoid forms like fibroids overgrowing them and green, leprous stains that striated their surfaces into fantastic shapes. I supposed, correctly as it happened, that the government had erected these houses, for the technical problems involved were beyond the reach of these people. The domes were approached through a sliding metal door which led into a short corridor beyond which were two other doors, forming air-locks. Once inside, protective clothing was discarded and left in the last chamber before the house proper, chemical action automatically cleansing the material.
I had expected some activity on the village track and in what passed for its streets, but once again the place seemed to be deserted. There were the screams of sea-birds, the chumble of the sea between the massive shoulders of rock that descended from the hills, and the yellow green foam thundering up the black sand, but nothing more. We bore straight up the street for a large building that looked like a meeting place or village seat of government. The method of entry into this type of dwelling is by the conventional way - that is, by the insertion of a finger or any other obstruction into a metal slot alongside the door, which operates a solenoid and slides back the entrance.