by John Creasey
Then he went very still - and after a minute he spoke very quietly.
“My God,” he said, “I can beat them. Eve!” He uttered her name as if she were in the room as he rushed towards the door. He stopped abruptly, not through any change of mind, just a change of tactics. He had a strength greater than he had dreamed, a power over Davos, a power Davos had given him, but he mustn’t lose his head.
If he could find the right way to wield that power, he could at least gain time, and give the outside world some chance.
How could he wield it?
If he could talk to Eve . . .
At least that was one thing they would be glad for him to do.
He made himself sit on the edge of the bed, and smoked furiously while he tried to see all the new angles. He stayed there for ten minutes, then stubbed out a cigarette, and went to the door. It wasn’t locked, but the two uniformed men were outside, both elderly, both pleasant-looking.
“Is there anything we can do for you, sir?” one man said. He was very like Barney, who had a twinkle, a pleasant voice, a courteous manner - and who had released the panther which had killed Adam.
“I’m going to see Miss Eve.”
“I should think that would be all right, sir,” the man said.
Woburn snapped: “Of course it’s all right.” He turned from the doorway and marched to the head of the stairs; they followed him. Another man stood at the head of the stairs, one at the foot by the gallery. The two from his room followed him all the way. A man stood outside another room. Eve’s?
“This is Miss Eve’s room, sir,” the speaker said.
Woburn nodded, abruptly. He tried the handle of the door, wondering what to do if Eve had locked it. It wasn’t. He knocked, but there was no answer. He opened the door and went inside, closing the door with a snap. There was a bolt on the door. He shot it, before he looked round.
The bed was empty.
Fool, if Eve were somewhere else—
The french windows leading to a small balcony were open, and the dim light shone out into the night. He went across. He saw Eve standing against the rail of the balcony, looking out towards the starlit sky and the sea which had come that day, and to the mainland where disaster upon disaster was flooding the earth.
She heard him, and looked round sharply. He heard the intake of her breath, sensed the way that her body stiffened. He joined her. The night was warm and quiet, except for the droning of aircraft overhead; he hadn’t heard that in his own room. He could see the lights. He could see other lights, on the water some distance off, and it dawned on him that there were naval vessels out there, military or naval aircraft above, maintaining a constant, fearful patrol.
Nearby, were the island guards on their ceaseless watch.
“Eve,” Woburn said in a low-pitched voice, “there’s a way of gaining time, perhaps even beating them.”
She didn’t speak.
“I think we can play a card they haven’t thought about,” Woburn went on; then his voice fell away.
The starlight glistened on Eve’s eyes, but he couldn’t see her face clearly. She was still fully dressed. He tried to guess what had been passing through her mind; whether she knew the same kind of empty hopelessness, the same terrible despair, as he.
“I don’t believe there is anything we can do,” she said in an empty voice. “They’ve been talking to me. The octi are everywhere. They have only to have them fertilised with malic acid, and the floods will come. They’ve already started in Europe and America, they’ll start them in Australia, India and Russia in a few days.”
“Few days?” Woburn barked.
“Days, weeks, what does it matter?” Eve asked, and her voice still had the dead, empty note. “It’s unbelievable, but it’s happening. To me, to you.” Some feeling came into her voice, a kind of passion. “Don’t you know what’s happening, are you fooling yourself? The octi can flood the whole world. And my father, my father, sees you and me the father and the mother of a new one. It’s— it’s satanic! Don’t stand there and look at me, I tell you that my own father must be the very Devil himself! Who else would conceive such an idea? To murder millions, and calmly tell me that I have to live with you, have children so that— God! It’s so awful that when I think about it I could jump out of this window and put an end to it all.”
Woburn didn’t interrupt.
She turned away, and said drearily: “But how would it help? How would it help?” For a moment, there was silence; then with unexpected passion Eve swung round, snatched at Woburn’s hand and led him into the bedroom, across it, to a door which he thought led to a dressing-room. He had no time to notice the fittings, the furniture, the beauty of this room, before she flung open the door and threw out her arm in a gesture that had the touch of hysteria he knew so well. “Look at that!” she cried, “the bridal chamber, the womb of the new world!”
Woburn stepped inside; into a room of great beauty; into the conception of a man’s mind.
It was a great chamber, with circular walls, panelled in pale, unstained wood. In each panel hung a painting, and each painting had much in common with the others; scenes from the Garden of Eden. The Eve in every one was Eve beautifully painted. The Adam was the face of a man who lay in a coffin, ready for burial in unconsecrated ground. The domed ceiling might have been found in any great church, with its angels and its cherubim. There was the huge bed, with its gilded canopy, standing on a raised platform, with two steps leading up to it.
“They’ve been working on it for months,” Eve said hopelessly. “They wouldn’t let me go in, my father said that he wanted it for a surprise. He showed me tonight, and seemed to think I ought to be proud! Proud!”
She turned to face Woburn.
“Bob,” she said in a helpless tone, “what are we going to do? What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to tell him that unless he accepts certain conditions,” Woburn said, “we shall kill ourselves.”
She didn’t respond; the full significance of that didn’t sink in at first, he could tell that from her expression.
“ We’re going to— what?”
“Kill ourselves,” he repeated, very quietly.
He hadn’t realised how closely together they were standing. It was very close. He took her arms. In the gentle light here he could see every feature of her face, the tensions and the bewilderment. Gradually, bewilderment began to fade, as understanding dawned. He felt the quickening of her body. Hope poured back into her.
“Of course,” she said, “of course.”
“If the new Adam and the new Eve were dead,” Woburn said dryly, “where would the first creatures of his new world be? At least we’d have a chance of gaining time, it would be a sharp set-back for him. He can’t make us live together and he can’t make us live if we prefer to die. He can destroy the world or he can make this new Garden of Eden with us to inhabit it, but he can’t do both.”
Eve looked at him with twisted lips, with eyes which had a new-born calmness. He remembered the way she had reacted once before, when the humanity in her had brought a smile against all the odds. He remembered his own grin. Both of them felt much the same now as they had then.
“Bob,” she said, “we’ll go and tell them that we won’t have any children unless he does what we want. What would we call it? A limited experiment? And when he’s trying to cope, when he thinks we’re waiting for his answer, I’ll try to get away. If I can once reach the water—”
Suddenly, completely, she was in his arms, half laughing, half crying. He felt the warmth of her body, and knew that this was one way in which to comfort her. He felt as if this was not only the present, but their future. He and Eve; Adam and Eve. He could almost laugh. It was so simple, now that he saw it clearly; out of their weakness they had a greater strength than Davos and Faversham, they were the real masters..
Then Eve drew away from him.
“Bob.” Her voice was sharp.
“Yes?”
&nbs
p; “Supposing it’s too late. Supposing the octi are maturing everywhere.”
Woburn said with new roughness: “Come on, let’s go and see him.”
20
“I do not think that they will give us a great deal of trouble,” Davos was saying to Faversham, “and if they do not submit readily to our will and to each other, then—” he shrugged his slim shoulders and gave his little deprecatory smile. “Then we shall have to subdue them, as we have the animals. It doesn’t greatly matter whether they accept the inevitable now, or whether we have to wait for a few weeks, does it?”
Faversham, erect as a lamp-post, gave his quick, too toothy smile.
“Of course not,” he said. “Not at all.”
“And when all is said and done, they are an intelligent couple,” Davos went on, “when they see how inevitable it is, I’m sure they will give no trouble.”
He glanced away from Faversham as a tap came at the door. He called: “Come in,” and when Eve appeared, he smiled.
“Ah, my dear! I’m glad you’ve come. I wanted to see you and Mr. Woburn together. I’ll send for him, and—”
“I’ve told him,” Eve said stonily.
“You have! Well done, my dear. I am sure he realises—”
Eve said, in the same icy tone: “Nothing will make either of us do what you want, if you continue with the flooding. If it doesn’t stop—”
She broke off.
“My dear,” her father said, “you cannot make terms with me. You must make that clear to him. Doesn’t he realise what a magnificent opportunity he has? Don’t you? To have the first-born of the new world, the ruler, the King. My dear, go and tell him to come and see me.”
Eve said: “It was just a dream, Bob. Nothing will move him.”
The guards were there; the stars gave light enough to see them.
There was no way out, but Woburn had to try.
He put out the light in his room, waited a while, and then opened a window. He had a vivid mental picture of Adam, being torn by the panther. He didn’t flinch, but climbed out. He made no noise, and the guards seemed to notice nothing.
He would be heard when he dropped down, unless he could reach one of the buttresses.
He edged to one side.
He reached a buttress, and climbed down.
He dared hardly breathe as he reached the ground and, walking on the grass, passed the guards outside his window. He was through. God help him, he was on his way.
The best place to climb the wall was by the portcullis. It was still in position, and he could use it to climb to the arched gate. He began, with the same dread of making a noise.
He reached the top, and managed to haul himself over the top of the gate. Beyond were the moors, the craggy land, the water; and in sight, the lights of small craft, waiting. Once in that water—
He stood up, to turn round and climb down, and as he did so a great ringing sound broke the night’s quiet. Lights flashed, one into his face. He tried to scramble down, but there were guards outside the gate, too; he hadn’t a chance.
He reached the ground and began to run, but the nearest man brought him down.
Some hours earlier, at the London headquarters of Z.5, where Palfrey spent much of his time when he was in England, there was a large gathering of silent men. Service chiefs, Cabinet Ministers and civil defence chiefs had been here for some time. In all, thirty men and three women sat round a large table in a great room in the heart of London, listening to Palfrey.
He was standing up, with a hand at his head, toying with his hair.
“I wish I had better news,” he said in the quiet, diffident manner which had puzzled Woburn. “In fact, it is bad. Very bad indeed. If we attack Ronoch Castle we might be even worse off. Davos obviously has the power to make such reprisals that, on the advice of the Prime Minister, no assault is to be made yet.”
Palfrey took his hands away from his forehead; the few strands of hair stuck out.
A man asked: “Do you think we should attack, Palfrey?”
“By and large, I wouldn’t believe a word that Davos said.” He moved his hand, sharply, as a wasp buzzed fiercely past him. “I’d wait until dawn, I think. I’ve still a man at Ronoch, perhaps two. And we may yet find something to help. We’ve every research laboratory working on the octi that we’ve caught, but we haven’t anything like enough – once they’ve burst, they’re useless. We’ve made some discoveries. They contain a large store of hydrogen, in a jelly-like substance, and a catalyst we can’t identify. When the octi burst, the hydrogen shoots out, explodes with the oxygen in the air, and creates this mass of water, which comes out at great speed. As far as we can judge, there’s no limit to the flood risk, which is controlled wholly by the number of octi. These can be created almost as swiftly as frost, overnight; they can cover the earth.”
He paused again, but no one spoke, so he went on: “Every conceivable effort’s being made to find out more.”
Silence . . .
The wasp smacked against a large window which overlooked a quiet square, and that was the only sound in the room except the breathing of these men and women.
Then a man said abruptly: “You don’t think we have much hope of stopping the floods if they really start, do you?”
“No more than I’ve told you,” answered Palfrey; he did not feel as icily cold as he sounded. “The only possible thing to do is to broadcast warnings to all low-lying areas, coastal and inland, to all river areas, and all towns. Emergency measures should be put in hand at once, and action taken. Sandbags, sea and river wall reinforcements – exactly as we would do for a great flood. And, of course, a full description of the octi has now been circulated to all public authorities and police stations, to all military establishments – in fact everywhere. We must expect hundreds of false reports about them having been seen, but must check each report.” He patted the hair down on his forehead, very deliberately, and added: “There isn’t another single thing we can do.”
Ten minutes later the meeting broke up.
Twenty minutes later Palfrey walked down the fine staircase of the house, and reached the hall, hesitated, and then went down another flight of steps into a basement of reinforced walls, as impregnable as one could be. In a large room, here, sat a thin, pale-faced man, wearing a green eyeshade as he pored over a paper on his desk.
He glanced up, vaguely; then sat back.
“Oh, hallo, Sap.”
“Hallo. What’s on?”
“Another false alarm,” said the man who sat at the desk. He was Jim Kennedy, secretary of the Z.5 organisation and he seldom left this house. He looked very tired; Palfrey could not remember a time when he hadn’t; his voice sounded tired, too. “No word from Adam Reed since last week – nothing at all. Of course if he’s locked in that damned castle—” he broke off. “I can’t help wondering if he sold out. We had a distorted message on the Ronoch wavelength, but we can’t make it out, except one word – malic. Mean anything?”
Palfrey said sharply: “Malic? Malic acid.” He looked straight into Kennedy’s eyes. “Tell all the laboratories that, Jim. And then try to find out if anyone else picked up more of that message. Trace every amateur radio station, and check. Everything.”
“Right,” Kennedy said, and added quietly: “If you don’t get some rest, you’ll crack.”
Palfrey smiled.
He stifled a yawn, and said mildly: “I’m going to take forty winks now. Don’t seem to have slept for weeks. Wake me if any more of that message comes through.”
Kennedy nodded.
An hour afterwards Palfrey was lying at full length on a camp bed in a small room next to Kennedy’s office. He felt his shoulder being shaken and woke up to see Kennedy standing by his side, looking as near excited as the secretary could.
Palfrey swung his feet to the floor.
“News?”
“Of a kind,” Kennedy said, “and the hell of it is we don’t know whether the message was intercepted, and stopped, or
whether the broadcast faded out. I—” he gulped.
“Sorry. Your chap Woburn managed to broadcast from the Castle. Reception was bad. All we have for certain is that octi are already everywhere, we should ignore Davos’s warning and attack the Castle. He said malic acid makes them grow. There’s a gap we haven’t been able to fill in, but we’re still trying. Meanwhile—”
Palfrey, now wide awake, said sharply:
“Yes?”
“The P.M. wants you to go to the flood area near Cromer,” Kennedy told him.
Book III
THE GREAT FLOOD
21
The sea swept over the land.
Where there were high cliffs, they crumpled. Concrete sea walls were pounded, cracked and broken and swept inland, crushing everyone in their path. The great waves went on and on. Torrents poured through every gap, into every accessible valley, and worked their way along streams and across low-lying land, and in their path there was disaster.
Vast acres of land were lost.
Some seaside villages, filled with holiday-makers, vanished under the onslaught.
The people were drowned, thousands upon thousands of them in their beds, or while they hurried desperately to pack a few belongings and to get out of the path of the disaster.
The roads leading away from the coast towns were filled, first, with lone lines of walking people, shocked and frightened, carrying what they could with them, sometimes carrying babes in arms, or small children. Gradually the line of refugees thickened. Military transport roared along the roads, only to come up against massed crowds, who couldn’t be thrust aside. So the rescue transport stopped. The authorities, flinging all emergency atomic raid plans into action, found the mass of refugees too great for the plans to work.
On they came.
Trudging, frightened people, with the flood waters on their heels.
For the floods came more quickly than men and women could walk.
Of them all, perhaps the greatest single tragedy of the dread night of the great floods, happened in “Norfolk, England.