by Kim Newman
Then, before supper, I was passing the kitchens and happened to overhear Mrs Huddersfield, the new housekeeper, tell the butler to ‘look into the crystal’, referring to our fresh stock of Waterford glassware, a scant instant before Polly, the new undermaid, exclaimed ‘egg!’ in answer to a question about the secret ingredient of the face paste which keeps her complexion clear. To my ears, these separate voices melded to produce a single sentence, the madman’s ‘look into the crystal egg’.
Lady Caroline is at her sister’s. I dined alone, unable to concentrate on supper. Every detail of the business on the Strand resurfaced in my mind.
I was shocked out of my reverie only by the sweetness of dessert – and looked down into a crystal bowl to see a quivering scarlet blancmange, with a curiously eye-like glacé cherry at its summit. In its colour, the dish reminded me of the planet Mars, and, in its movement, the somehow unnatural hump of the strangely spoken police constable.
Only then did I remember the paperweight snatched out from the grasp of the odious Ogilvy yesterday.
A mass of crystal, in the shape of an egg!
A crystal egg! Could the madman of the Strand have been referring to this item of bric-a-brac?
Unable to finish my dessert for thinking.
September 7: Still later. A great discovery!
After supper, I repaired to my study, where I keep my collection of antique and exotic optical and astronomical equipment: telescopes, sextants, orreries and the like. Signor Galvani’s men have disturbed them greatly while seeing to the electrification of the room.
A new reflecting telescope arrived this morning, a bulky cabinet affair on trestles, with an aperture where a separate lens must presumably be attached. It is an unfamiliar design – a presentation, in honour of my achievements in mapping the night skies, from an august body who call themselves the Red Planet League. I have had my secretary respond with an autographed photograph and a note of thanks. Entering the study, I saw at once that the workmen had mistaken this gift for a species of lamp, and wired it up to the mains. I would be inclined to chide Galvani most severely, had this error not nudged me on the path to discovery.
I unwrapped the supposed paperweight and made close examination of it under the steady illumination of the electric lamps. Cave, the vendor, had mentioned an ‘inner light’ – a phenomenon I soon discovered for myself. It is a trick of the optics, of course – if held up to the light, the interior of the crystal egg coruscates, seeming to hold multiple refractions and reflections.
By accident, when Polly reached into the room and turned off the lights at the wall switch, I discovered the crystal had the unusual property of retaining luminosity even when the light source was gone. I did not measure the time of glow-decay, because the undermaid was fussing and apologising for not seeing I was still in my study when she plunged me into darkness. She whimpered that these newfangled inventions were not like proper gas. I fear Lady Caroline’s ‘indoor lightning’ theory has infected the servants with irrational terror.
‘What’s that egg?’ exclaimed the maid, meaning my crystal. ‘And why’s it lit up?’
I ventured to explain something of the laws of refraction, but saw my learning was wasted on this simple soul. Nevertheless, it is to Polly that I owe my next, most extraordinary discovery. She picked up the crystal egg, rather boldly for a person in her position I might say.
‘Doesn’t it go here, sir?’ she said, slipping the egg into an aperture of the Red Planet League’s reflecting telescope. It was a perfect fit. Before I could chide her, Polly had fiddled with a switch which triggered an incandescent lamp inside the cabinet – projecting a beam through the crystal, which diffracted out into the room. Suddenly, the opposite wall was covered by a swirling, swarming red cloud. Polly yelped, and fled – but I hadn’t the heart to pursue and chastise her.
I was transfixed by the pictures on the wall.
Yes, pictures! Pictures that move! With a faint flicker, accompanied by a definite whirring from inside the reflecting telescope. I had never before seen the like.
At once it came to me that my crystal egg was in fact a crystal lens. When light passed through it just so, the crystal egg – by some means as yet undetermined by science – transmitted images from its interior.
The process was astounding, but I was more overwhelmed by the picture. It was as if I were looking out of a window which floated high over a ruddy desert far from Greenwich. Faintly visible above the horizon were familiar stars, skewed in the sky – as observed not from our home world, but from a body which must be considered (on a cosmic scale) our near neighbour. I perceived the tiny blue-green circle of Earth, and knew with utter certainty that this window looked out onto the plains of Mars.
The Red Planet.
All the tiny incidents of the last two days impelled me, inch by inch, towards this discovery.
I knew the subject of my next lecture, my next book. Indeed, the remainder of my career could be devoted to this. I am Master of Mars. No other can come close. Og must have had some inkling, but this is to be Stent’s triumph – not Ogilvy’s. From henceforth, this acreage of red dust will be Stent’s Plain. In the distance, I saw slumped, worn hills, more ancient than the sharper peaked mountains of Earth – the Caroline Range! A deep channel grooves across the landscape, flowing with a thick, red, boiling mud – Polly’s Canal, to commemorate the child whose unknowing hand urged me to this discovery! Nearby, a gaping pit was scraped raw like a bloody gouge in the Marsian soil. I named this Victoria Regina Chasm in honour of the gracious lady who has bestowed so many honours on my name.
Inside VR Chasm, something stirred. My heart stopped, I am sure, for long, long seconds. Pads like large leaves, a richer scarlet than the crimson of the desert dirt, flopped over the rim and anchored in the soil. These were the tips of sinewy tentacles, which held fast and contracted as a Marsian being hauled itself out of its hole.
What manner of men might inhabit the Red Planet? Not men at all, it seems – but creatures beyond classification.
I saw its bulging, filmed-over eyes. Its beak-like mouth. Its mess of limbs. Its swelling carapace.
The thinner atmosphere of Mars and a colder, drier climate have shaped that planet’s ruling species differently from us. I had no doubt that I was looking at a Man of Mars, not a brute animal. All around were signs of an intelligent species, a civilisation perhaps older than our own.
There were structures – a Marsian factory, perhaps, or a school. The Marsian hauled itself across metal frames, fighting the pull of its planet, and came closer to the window.
I confess to a moment of stark, irrational fear. As I could see the Marsian, could it see me? Did the crystal egg have a twin on Mars?
With no earthly object for comparison, it was difficult to get a sense of scale. The Marsian could be the size of a puppy or an elephant.
It wriggled closer to the ‘window’. Its features grew gigantic on the study wall. I could see the wallpaper, the bookshelves and pictures through its phantasmal image. Then, suddenly, it shut off. There was a flapping sound, and a brief burst of bright, blank light – that died too, along with the incandescent bulb inside the Red Planet League’s reflecting telescope.
How ironic that a body named after Mars should provide the device which lead me to gain such an unprecedented view of our planetary neighbour!
I turned the switch on and off, and I fiddled with the crystal in its aperture, trying to reopen the line of communication. But the window closed as mysteriously as it had opened.
Still, I am too excited to be frustrated. I am certain that the phenomena shall be repeated.
Otherwise, I fear I have a head cold coming on. It may be the turn in the weather. I took a solution of salts in lemon and barley water. Though especially prepared by Mrs H. from her own curative recipe, this concoction served only to exacerbate my condition. I passed an indifferent night, with frequent recourse to the cp and my handkerchief.
September 8: Invasions!<
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That confounded cold has set in, in my head and chest. The servants have been lax in tending draught-excluders. Or else Signor Galvani’s foreign crew have imported alien bacteria into the household – for which they will be reprimanded. I am known for my good health. These minor ailments do not normally afflict me.
Breakfast – porridge, honey-glazed gammon, courgettes, preserved pears. More of Mrs H.’s vile (and inefficacious) home remedy. It’ll get worse before it gets better, I am assured – which is scarce comfort. I have instructed the housekeeper to dispense with her brews, and procure proper medicine from the chemist’s.
My digestion was incomplete when Flamsteed was impertinently invaded. In my study, making a start on notes for my Marsian Announcement, I became aware of a great ringing on the bell and knocking at the door. My first thought was that barbarians were at the gates. This proved to be the case – though, a singular barbarian, the opprobrious Ogilvy, rather than a horde.
I ventured out into the hallway and found Mrs Huddersfield in the process of calling the stableboy to throw Og off our front step. Much as it would have pleased me to see the inky git tossed into the gravel and given a good kicking, it occurred to me that he should be consulted. Plainly, he had some dim perception of the importance of the crystal egg. It would be best to find out what he knew.
I instructed Mrs H. to let Og into the house. She stood aside and I had momentary pause about my decision. Having run across a superfluity of madmen in recent days, I saw at once that Og was one of their number. His collar was exploded and his cravat tied carelessly. The skirts of his frock coat bore singe marks as if he had jumped through a bonfire. There was a peculiar burned smell about him. He had no eyebrows left and a serious case of the sun. It had been overcast lately and I doubted Og was freshly returned from some tropical adventure.
‘Brandy,’ he insisted. ‘Brandy, for God’s sake, Stent.’
Mrs H. frowned, but I told her to send Polly to fetch decanter of the third-best brandy. No sense in wasting the good stuff on a hysteric. I’ll need it to fight off this cold.
In my study, Og saw the egg, still fitted into the aperture of the new telescope.
‘So you know what it is?’ he exclaimed.
‘Indeed.’
‘A window – a portal – to the Red Planet. Have you seen the Martians?’
‘Marsians,’ I corrected.
‘Their tripod machines? Their firing pit? Their heat devices? Have you determined their purpose, Stent? Their hideous purpose?’
The fellow was ranting, but I expected as much.
‘I have made notes of my findings,’ I told him. ‘I will reveal my conclusions when I am ready to publish.’
‘Publish! Who will there be to typeset, print and bind your conclusions, Stent? Who to read them? Do you hope to amuse our new masters with your book? They don’t seem the types to be great readers, but I suppose you never know...’
Og was laughing, now – bitterly, insanely, irritatingly. Polly arrived, and Og snatched the decanter from her tray. He drew a mighty quaff, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Never the most savoury of characters, he had apparently decided to become a wild Indian.
‘There were four eggs,’ he said. ‘As far as we can tell.’
‘We? Of whom are you speaking?’
‘The Red Planet League,’ he said. ‘What there is left of it. When you took the final egg, we had this telescope delivered to you. I am loathe to admit it, but you are the greatest astronomical mind of the age...’
‘True, true...’
‘...and if anyone has a chance of cracking the egg’s secrets, it is you.’
‘No doubt.’
I fancied I caught a slight smirk from Polly. I told her she could be about her business. She left.
‘It must have been fate that brought you to Cave’s emporium. Cave is dead, by the way. The police report says “spontaneous combustion”, if you can credit it. There has been a rash of such phenomena. Almost an epidemic. Colonel Moran and I had a brush with the heat weapons, two nights back. We were separated afterwards. His nerve snapped. Terrible thing when a brave man’s nerve goes. He’s faced tigers and native rebels and charging elephants, but that flash from the copper tube boiled away all his heart. You saw Moran yesterday, I believe – before they caught up to him.’
‘I saw no one yesterday.’
‘In the Strand, outside Simpson’s. Moran would have seemed, ah, irrational. Lord knows, we all act like cuckoos. With what we have in our heads. It’s only to be expected. A big man, Moran. Red-complected...’
I remembered. The madman who was taken away by the hump-backed policeman.
‘Moran brought me into the League. He’s a big-game hunter and adventurer. He found the first of the eggs, in a temple in India. It was the eye of an idol worshipped by an obscene cult. When the light fell into the temple on certain days of the year, the portal opened and the cultists saw their “gods”. You know what they really saw, Stent. The men of Mars. Those tentacles, those eyes, those mouth parts! Another crystal was looted from the collection of the Emperor of China, carved into a goblet. I would not drink from that goblet for all the tea in its rightful owner’s dominions, would you? A third was found fresh, among the hot fragments of a new-fallen meteorite in the California desert. All these came to the League, and all have been taken – taken back, one might say.’
Og kept glancing at the crystal. I worried that he would snatch it from the telescope and flee the house.
‘This one was sent here, to England. I don’t know how Cave came by it. Dishonestly, I suppose.’
‘It is mine,’ I reminded him. ‘Paid for and bought.’
He wasn’t listening to me. ‘Stent, have they seen you? The portal opens both ways. That we can see them is incidental, an accident, a flaw in the great plan. From the other side, from Mars, they spy us. Spy on us. It’s what the eggs are for. They are taking our measure, making a study. Drawing plans. At first, the meteorites just brought the eggs. It’s only recently that they have come. Just a few, but enough – for their purpose. Across millions of miles of empty space! What explorers they must be, what conquerors! They ready their armada, Stent, their fleet...’
I concede that Og was alarming me. A great deal of what he said struck me as fanciful drivel. Conquerors, indeed – what nonsense, as if creatures without hands or clothing could hope to stand up to the military might of Great Britain! But I worried there were eggs in other hands. Dangerous hands – other scientists eager to ‘scoop’ the Great Stent. If half of what Og said is true, someone else might publish first.
I cannot let that happen.
The doorbell rang. Mrs H. came into the study, and presented a carte de visite.
Colonel Sebastian Moran, Conduit Street.
‘Your comrade in the League has extricated himself from the police,’ I told Og.
The fellow looked further stricken, which was not what I expected. I got little sense from him. I feared this would also be true of Moran – yesterday, he had been singing from the same hymn book.
‘Don’t let him in,’ said Og, grabbing my lapel. ‘In the name of all that’s...’
‘There’s a policeman with the caller, sir,’ said Mrs H. ‘Constable Purbright.’
I could not have been more relieved. With all the ranting, raving and lapel grabbing, a policeman might be just what the doctor ordered. Clap these madmen in irons, and leave me to conclude my Marsian studies.
‘Show them in,’ I said.
‘Very good, Sir Nevil. Don’t you be straining yourself. Remember you’re not a well man.’
Og threw himself into an armchair, in a pose of stark terror. Under his sunburn, he even went pale.
‘Hullo... Sir... Nevil... Hullo... Ogilvy...’
It was the madman from the Strand, but much changed. His demeanour was more sober, respectable. His voice was uninflected, somehow metallic. And, since yesterday, he had grown a humpback. A long, red scarf wound around his ne
ck, ends trailing down his back.
‘Good... morning... gentlemen,’ said the police constable beside Moran.
They could have been brothers, with the same shifting deformity, the same strange manner of speech.
‘Keep them away from me,’ shrieked Og ‘They’re... them!’
‘Don’t... make... a... fuss... old... chap.’ Moran and Purbright spoke in unison, like a music hall turn. Their voices scraped the nerves. I was overcome by a powerful wish that all my visitors would leave. I could do with a medicinal tot and some peace.
The constable walked, stiff-legged, across the room, to the telescope. He laid a hand on the crystal egg.
‘That’s delicate scientific equipment,’ I warned Purbright.
‘Evidence... sir,’ he said, twisting the egg free.
‘I must protest...’
‘Obey... the... law...’ Colonel Moran said.
Moran was in my way. Beyond him, I saw the constable slipping the crystal egg into his tunic.
‘I paid five pounds for that!’
‘Stolen... goods...’ Moran said.
I tried to strong-arm him out of the way, but he was immovable. My hand fell on his hump, and his long scarf unwound, showing where his jacket seam was split by the swelling. An angry, inhuman eye looked out from the hole! Sinewy, venous scarlet ropes wound around Moran’s exposed neck. A beak-like barb was fixed to his throat, under the ear, blood dribbling from the conjunction.
A cowardly knee met my groin and I doubled over.
When I righted myself, Moran had rearranged his scarf. I knew what I had seen.
Og leaped up from the chair and flew at Moran.
From a pocket, Moran pulled a curious object – a tube with a burnished copper disc at one end. A beam of light seemed to project from this – and fell on Og, whose jacket started smoking. With a scream, Og fled from the room, down the hall, and out of the house. His clothes were on fire.
Moran turned to me. Purbright had also produced one of the heat-casting devices. Both were aimed in my direction.