by Basil Copper
Again the mewing cries and purple ink shot across in a wide arc, staining the dank sea walls. A grey, wrinkled form which seemed to detach itself from the background, a vague, amorphous shape ascended from the depths of the pit, stirred in front of me. Three long, whip-like antennae with whitish suckers thrashed the sand; the skin was glowing with soft inner fire and shimmered and sparkled in the light as though coated with mucus. Low mewing calls emanated from the mass like the sensuous purrs of a cat; the rounded hump at the top of the structure was bisected by a long slit which opened and closed as though taking in air.
Someone knelt at my elbow and fired a flare into the interior; the star-burst revealed a cavern of the proportions of a cathedral leading away into Future knew what unspeakable depths. The great mass in front of me swayed and pulsated and purple ink drenched our small group. I wiped my mask clear and saw Rort spraying fire into other forms beyond. I felt sick at heart for, as the great form had turned, I saw what appeared to be a human shape down within the jelly. A moment of madness then which turned to sick loathing and horror.
Cleansing flame burned from the jet of my gun into the heart of the abortion before me and the mewing changed into eldritch screams; the mass crumpled before my eyes, disintegrated in black oily smoke and flame. I fired again and again until the sickness and horror were dispersed in healing fire and nothing was left on the dark sand but minute lumps of jelly which dispersed in the rising wind.
More of the creatures appeared from the tunnels which now opened up before us; they moved with alarming speed and the antennae which had formerly been lethargic and leisurely in their movements now sliced the air like whips so that one had to exercise extreme caution. A man on my right screamed suddenly and I turned to find two of the antennae about him; one round the waist, the other pinioning his arm. His flame-gun clattered to the rock floor and he was drawn inexorably towards the pulsating mass of jelly. Rort then blotted out man and jelly in a white-hot spurt of merciful fire.
The cries had changed their note to that of alarm and anger; the air was filled with smoke through which we groped with difficulty. Bodies blundered against me in the murk and there was real danger that my companions might mistake each other for the creatures, with fatal results. The very floor of the rock cathedral seemed to tremble at the ponderous tread of these viscous monsters.
We stopped, fired, paused to strain our eyes through the fog of smoke; moved on, fired again in a nightmare of noise and high-pitched cries. A mass of the creatures were blocked in a narrow part of the tunnel ahead of us; it was a dangerous place. They were baffled at the failure of their previously successful tactics and I knew that if we were drawn into that place within reach of their antennae, the dangers were incalculable.
I waved my nearest companions back and then turned, on hearing an agonized cry; it was Rort. His beard bristled in the light of the dying flares and I saw that he had somehow fallen so that his mask had been knocked aside. Purple ink from the creatures' sacs drenched his clothing; he threw away the flashgun, held his hands wide, and marched towards the creatures, whose tentacles reached out to embrace him. I saw his face just before the flares died; it was something I had to live with for the rest of my life. It was radiant with happiness as the gelid mass closed over it.
I performed the same mercy for Rort then as I should myself have been grateful for. Discharge after discharge of purifying flame reduced my old friend to cinders and incinerated with him the pulsating excrescence that was devouring him alive. Sickened then, we fell back in the smoke and flame as the note of a klaxon pierced the depth of the cavern. The eight or nine survivors of our bloody sortie regained the open beach to full daylight.
The remaining monsters from the sea were being slaughtered in the shallows as Masters's inexorable ring of attackers closed round them. It was evident that we had gained the day here, but at our warning cries our rearmost companions faced about to find a solid wave of grey, fungoid beings pouring out of the cave onto the sand. I tripped on the soft beach and caught myself against a rock; pain stabbed through my side and the daylight faded before my eyes. Strong hands sustained me as a radiation-unit fried a mass of squirming creatures jammed in the cave entrance. A rocket burned then against the sky and as jet after jet of flame convulsed the fungoids that vainly tried to make their way over the black sand, the watchers on the headland detonated the explosive charges laid two days before and brought the whole of the cliff side down on the cave of horror, blotting out the creatures from the sight of man forever. I fainted as I was being carried to the boat and when I regained my senses briefly, saw that sinister shoreline recede for the last time.
XV
All that was long ago and is now the distant history of these awful times in which we live. What the vision-tube commentators and news bulletin readers called the invasion of the Flabby Men lasted but a brief period, but for that time the future of the world and with it that of humankind trembled in the balance. For the irruption into the world of men of the debased creatures who had taken so many of our companions, was not confined to our island alone. It was part of a large-scale general invasion by these creatures along many parts of the coast and it was only through the mustering of volunteer forces and extreme efforts by the Central Committee, that the attempt was defeated.
But many died and the campaigns lasted many months before the creatures which had ascended from the sea and from the depths of sea-caves were annihilated or driven back to whence they came. And who knows whether their survivors, possibly breeding at a fearful rate, may not yet mount another, more successful attack upon the last bastions of mankind? How they came, how they lived and bred, and why they took our companions we were never able to discover. In death they returned to a state of liquescence which defied the analysis of our laboratories. And what intelligence animated them and how they were able to communicate over long distances in order to synchronize their attacks upon the whole of our coastline - that again was beyond the analysis of our finest scientists and scholars.
Years have come and rolled away again; I am a senior administrator now, wise and calm after decades of decision and strife, but my sleep is still troubled by remembrance of my companions.
Fritzjof and Karla and Rort, my old friend, are those I particularly remember, of course, and the terrible and inexplicable manner of their going. It was many weeks and only a few days before I left the island forever, that I was able to piece together an overall picture of the chaos the Flabby Men had wrought upon our flimsy and ill-founded civilization. And even today, when the cloud still hangs over the earth, and radiation sickness and mutations are still with us, I find it difficult to blot out the final horror of the scenes we witnessed on that beach and in that cave.
It was found that I had two cracked ribs on my return to K4; long after the battle was over and the expedition had returned to headquarters, I lay ill with some sort of fever. I was not up for more than two weeks and it was another two still before I felt something of my old self again. I sat once more in Masters's office and answered questions put by that kindly and most resolute of men. We often discussed the implications of what was perhaps the strangest adventure that ever befell mankind, but we were never able to arrive at any logical answer. Perhaps it is better so. An odd conclusion, perhaps, for a scientist, but the result may be more acceptable for the world's peace of mind.
It was not until my last night at K4 that I told Masters what I had seen in the cave. The relief boat was coming back to pick me up the following day and I was to have the company of others on my return journey to the capital, where I was to stay for the next year, to allow my shattered nerves a chance to recover. The faint luminosity of the sea stirred uneasily, greenish-grey outside the great plated windows of the Commander's office, and blown spume dribbled across the glass in the light wind.
For in my last burst of anger and horror, in the dying flare I had seen, just before I killed the jelly creature, the anguished face of Fritzjof, still alive, ingested by the
fungoid mass and completely absorbed by it. His eyes seemed to implore me to destroy the still-living abomination which he had become, and his face was at peace before the final kiss of the flame effaced it for all time.
An even more fearful question had haunted my mind ever since, haunts it still.
"Supposing," I asked Masters, "the mountain did not destroy them when it fell? All the creatures, I mean. And that Karla and the others are still alive somewhere down there? If you can call it life…"
There was a long silence between us. Then my old chief drummed with his fingers on the desk before him. The brittle sound seemed to conceal great emotion.
"It is best not to ask such questions or to think such thoughts," he said gently.
Masters turned to face the ghastly green phosphorescence of the sea. When he spoke again his voice seemed to come from a great distance.
"Who knows, my friend, who knows?" he said.
Shaft Number 247
The process of delving into the black abyss is to me the keenest form of fascination.
-H. P. Lovecraft
Driscoll looked at the dial reflectively. The Control Room was silent except for the distant thumping of the dynamos. The dim lights gleamed reassuringly on the familiar faces of the instruments and on the curved metal of the roof, its massive nuts and bolts and girders holding back the tremendous weight of the earth above their heads. The green luminous digits of the triangular clock on the bulkhead pointed to midnight.
It was the quietest part of the Watch. Driscoll shifted to a more comfortable position in his padded swivel armchair. He was a big man, whose hair was going a little white at the edges, but his features were still hard and firm, unblurred by time, though he must have been past fifty.
He glanced across at Wainewright at the other side; he had the earphones clamped over his head and was turning one of his calibrating instruments anxiously. Driscoll smiled inwardly. But
then Wainewright always had been the worrying type. He could not have been more than twenty-nine, yet he looked older than Driscoll with his lean, strained features, his straggly moustache, and the hair that was already thinning and receding.
Driscoll’s gaze rested just a fraction on his colleague, drifted on to bring into focus a bank of instruments with large easy-read dials on the far bulkhead, and finally came to rest on the red-painted lettering of the alarm board situated to his front and in a commanding position. The repeater screen below contained forty-five flickering blue images, which showed the state of the alarm boards in the farthest corners of the complex for which Driscoll, as Captain of the Watch, was responsible.
All was normal. But then it always was. Driscoll shrugged and turned his attention to the desk in front of him. He filled in the log with a luminous radionic pencil. Still two hours to go. But he had to admit that he liked the night duty better than the day. The word “enjoy” was frowned on nowadays, but the word was appropriate to Driscoll’s state; he actually enjoyed this Watch. It was quiet, almost private, and that was a decreasing quality in life.
His musings were interrupted by a sharp, sibilant exclamation from Wainewright.
“Some activity in Shaft 639!” he reported, swiveling to look at the Captain of the Watch with watery blue eyes.
Driscoll shook his head, a thin smile on his lips.
“It’s nothing. Some water in the shaft, probably.”
Wainewright tightened his mouth.
“Perhaps... Even so, it ought to be reported.”
Driscoll stiffened on the seat and looked at the thin man; the other was the first to drop his eyes.
“You have reported it,” he said gently. “And I say it is water in the shaft.”
He snapped on the log entries, read them off the illuminated repeater on the bulkhead.
“There have been seventeen similar reports in the past year. Water each time.”
Wainewright hunched over his instruments; his shoulders heaved as though he had difficulty in repressing his emotions. Driscoll looked at him sharply. It might be time to make a report on Wainewright. He would wait a little longer. No sense in being too precipitate.
“Shaft clear,” Wainewright mumbled presently.
He went on making a play of checking instruments, throwing switches, examining dials, avoiding Driscoll’s eye.
Driscoll sat back in his chair again. He looked at the domed metal roof spreading its protective shell over them; its rivets and studs winking and throwing back the lights from the instrument dials and the shaded lamps. He mentally reviewed Wainewright’s case, sifting and evaluating the facts as he knew them.
The man was beginning to show signs of psychotic disturbance. Driscoll could well understand this. They did not know what was out there, that was the trouble. He had over forty miles of galleries and communicating tunnels alone in the section under his own command, for example. But still, that did not excuse him. They had to proceed on empirical methods. He yawned slightly, looked again at the time.
He thought of his relief without either expectation or regret; he was quite without emotion, unlike Wainewright. Unlike Wainewright again, well suited to his exacting task. He would not be Captain of the Watch otherwise. Even when he was relieved he would not seek his bunk. He would descend to the canteen for coffee and food before joining Karlson for a brief session of chess.
He frowned. He had just thought of Deems again. He thrust the image of Deems from his mind. It flickered momentarily, then disappeared. It was no good; it had been two years now, but it still came back occasionally. He remembered, too, that he had been Wainewright’s particular friend; that probably explained his jumpiness lately. Nevertheless, he would need watching.
He pursed his lips and bent forward, watching the bright green pencil of tracery on the tube in front of him. He pressed the voice button, and Hort’s cavernous voice filled the Control Room.
“Condition Normal, I hope!”
There was a jovial edge to his query; the pronouncement was intended to be a joke, and Driscoll permitted himself a smile of about three millimeters in width. That would satisfy Hort, who was not really a humorous man. There was no point in knocking himself out for someone so devoid of the absurd in his makeup.
“Nothing to report,” he called back in the same voice.
Hort nodded. Driscoll could see his multi-imaged form flickering greenly at the corner of his vision, but he did not look directly at it. He knew that annoyed Hort, and it pleased him to make these small gestures of independence.
“I’d like to see you when you come off Watch,” Hort went on.
He had a slightly sardonic look on his thin face now.
Driscoll nodded.
“I’ll be there,” he said laconically.
He waved a perfunctory hand, and the vision on the tube wavered and died, a tiny rain of green sparks remaining against the blackness before dying out.
He was aware of Wainewright’s troubled eyes seeking his own; he ignored the other man and concentrated instead on a printout which was just coming through. It was a routine check, he soon saw and he leaned back, his sharp eyes sweeping across the serried ranks of instruments, his ears alert for even the slightest aberration in the smooth chatter of the machinery.
He wondered idly what Hort might want with him. Probably nothing of real importance, but it was best to be prepared; he pressed the repeater valve on the desk in front of him, instantly memorizing the latest data that was being constantly fed in by a wide stream of instruments. There were only three sets of numbers of any importance; he scratched these onto his pad and kept it ready at his elbow.
There would be nothing else of note in the Watch now, short of an unforeseen emergency. He momentarily closed his eyes, leaning back in the chair, lightly resting his fingertips on the smooth polished metal of the desk. He savored the moment, which lasted only for a few seconds. Then he opened his eyes again, refreshed and wide-awake. A faint humming vibration filled all the galleries and corridors adjacent to the Control Room.
The vents were open for the moment; all was as it should be.
The rest of the Watch passed almost too quickly; Wainewright was already being relieved by Krampf, Driscoll noted. The bulkhead clock indicated nine minutes to the hour. But then Krampf always was more zealous than most of the personnel here. Driscoll really knew little about him. He glanced incuriously at the
man now, dapper and self-confident, his dark hair bent over the panel opposite, listening to Wainewright’s handing-over report. Then he had adjusted the headphones and was sliding into the padded seat.
Wainewright waited almost helplessly for a moment, and then went hurriedly down the metal staircase. Krampfs eyes rested on Driscoll and his lips curved in a smile; he gave the Captain of the Watch a jaunty thumbs-up signal. Driscoll felt vaguely irritated.
There was something about Krampf he did not quite understand. He had none of the anxiety to please that Wainewright displayed; indeed he exuded a disconcerting air of suppressed energy and egotistical drive.
Still, it was none of his business; he only saw Krampf for a very few minutes when they were changing over Watches. Three or four minutes in a week, perhaps, for sometimes their duties failed to overlap. His own relief was at his elbow now and Driscoll got up, almost reluctant to vacate the seat. He handed over with a few smooth phrases and went down the staircase in the wake of Wainewright.
There was no one in the canteen but Karlson. A plump, balding man, he nodded shyly as Driscoll came up. He rose and made room for him on the smooth plastic bench. Soft music was drifting from louvers in the ceiling. Karlson had already set up the board and had made his opening move. It was his turn to start. Driscoll glanced briefly at the problem and then crossed over to study the menu on the screen.