"I believe we have found our source," he said to me. I immediately saw what he meant. The pebble was a small rough stone. Holmes had managed to slice it in half and I looked down at the inner hemisphere. There was a small hollow almost dead center, hardly bigger than my little finger nail. It carried the barest tinge of green.
"The stone itself is mostly iron," Holmes said. "With a trace of nickel. I do believe you are holding your first visitor from beyond this planet."
After that Holmes seemed to settle somewhat. We sat by the fire and fired up our pipes. He repeatedly quizzed me on my experience inside the luminescence.
"It was dashed peculiar Holmes," I said. "I have experienced something similar before, while watching a Swami perform the rope trick in Delhi, but even there I felt in control. This time it felt like my very will had been drained from me. If you had not intervened, I do believe I would have given myself to it."
Holmes nodded, and went back to staring into the fire.
I left in the early morning to fulfill an obligation to a sick friend. When I returned Holmes was scarcely in any better spirits. I found him on the doorstep, delivering instructions to a group of urchins who were gathered around him as he distributed pennies.
As I entered I saw Mrs. Hudson packing materials back into the cupboard she used for her cleaning materials.
"Please Doctor. Can you not get him to settle? He'll be the death of me with all this commotion."
Holmes seemed oblivious to his landlady's protestations.
"We must be vigilant," he said as we once more sat by the fire. "As a doctor you well know the dangers of contagion re-emerging after a period of dormancy."
I saw that a black mood had descended on my friend, one that only action might shift. But there was no news forthcoming. In the late afternoon I went to stoke the fire. I searched for the old pair of bellows I customarily used, but they were nowhere to be found, and Holmes merely smiled at my mention of them.
We sat in conversation as darkness started to fall once again, our discussions ranging wildly with much speculation as to the nature of the green organism. But despite our intellects, we were unable to come to any firm conclusions. And I disagreed vehemently with one of Holmes' conclusions.
"I suspect a rudimentary intelligence is at work," Holmes said. "That much was obvious in the way you yourself were lured into the trap."
I tried to argue the case for instinct, and cited the many examples in the animal world of trap setting. But by then Holmes was once more deep in thought, and I contented myself with a fresh pipe of tobacco as I made some notes on the progress on the case so far.
*
Matters came to a head in the late evening.
"My eyes and ears are ready to report anything out of the usual," Holmes had said.
The news brought by the urchin who came to the door certainly qualified as out of the usual. To my eyes he looked like any other grime-ingrained child of the streets, but Holmes immediately saw something I had not.
"It is on a boat?" he asked, even before the child had spoken.
The child smiled, showing more gaps than teeth.
"That it is Mr. Holmes sir. ‘Tis down at Vauxhall Bridge. They say ‘tis a ghost ship, for it is all quiet and green like. Ain't nobody going near ‘till the coppers have had a look. That Inspector Lestrade has been sent for."
Holmes gave the lad a three-penny piece and sent him on his way. I was dispatched to find a carriage post-haste. Holmes himself went back inside and returned wearing his heavy winter coat. It seemed to bulge at the back, as if he carried something bulky underneath, but I knew from experience not to ask until he was ready for his revelation.
I only asked one question on the trip down to Vauxhall.
"How did you know about the boat Holmes?"
He smiled thinly.
"The boy had fresh pitch on his fingers. I smelled it even before I saw it. There is only one place you find tar so easily identifiable – on the deck of a boat."
He said no more as we bounced through the city, rattling like peas inside the cab. Holmes had requested speed and offered extra payment. The driver did not disappoint and had us at Vauxhall in record time, if a little shaken.
A small crowd had gathered on the bridge, looking down at a moored boat. Despite the fact it was not quite yet full dark, the luminescence was immediately apparent, a dancing green light that ran up the masts and along the rigging of a long schooner. The gathered watchers had the good sense to stay well back.
The same could not be said of the two policemen down on the dock itself. Holmes shouted down a warning, but they took no heed, stepping onto the boat while we were as yet too far away to go to their aid. By the time Holmes and I descended the steps to the dock the policemen had already gone aboard and disappeared down into the hold.
Holmes was in no mood to wait. He ran down the steps and I was hard pressed to keep up with him as he jumped on board the boat. I joined him at the hatchway leading to the hold. I realized we were already inside the glow of the luminescence but I felt none of the compulsion I had undergone earlier. Nevertheless my heart beat a little faster as we went down in to the bowels of the vessel.
Screams rose from beneath us. Holmes shed his overcoat. I stood behind him so was not able to see the full scope of the apparatus, but he carried two metal tanks on his back, secured at the shoulders with thick canvas straps. The tanks looked heavy, but did not slow Holmes any as he descended the steep steps to the hold. Saying a silent prayer I followed close behind.
At first it seemed we stood in impenetrable darkness but as my eyes adjusted I began to make out shape and shadow around us. The screams we had followed had already faded, replaced by the sound of piteous weeping to our left. I could make out Holmes ahead of me as we moved towards the wails.
We were too late to do anything for the poor policemen. One lay dead, green foam at lips and ears. The other would be following him soon. Most of his chest was a bubbling ruin. He tried to speak but more green fluid poured at his mouth and even as I bent to his aid he fell back, eyes wide, staring unseeing.
I realized I could see Holmes' face, his pale features seemingly behind a green mask. I turned to see the source of this new light. The whole far end of the hold was an aurora, sickly green shot through with an oily sheen that cast rainbows before it. Under other circumstances it might even be called beautiful.
Below the swirling lights lay a darker patch that seemed to ripple. I saw two ale casks, broken into splinters – the source of this recent outbreak.
Holmes walked forward towards it. I saw he held his fire-bellows in hand. A soft hose led to the tank on his back. He pushed the bellows together and sent a spray of liquid ahead of him. I smelled bleach. The shimmering light flared then faded and the dark green mass retreated.
Holmes kept walking, close enough to reach out towards the green luminescence.
"Careful Holmes," I called.
"I must know," he said, almost a whisper. "Is it an invader, or a missionary?"
Before I could stop him he stepped inside the glow. I was about to step up beside him, but he raised a hand. I heard his voice as if from a great distance.
"Stay back Watson," he said. "This won't take but a minute."
The dancing light played around him and the green carpet at his feet seethed, but still Holmes stood perfectly still. I saw him reach forward with his free hand and play it through the light. A new rainbow followed his movements.
"Fascinating," I heard him say, then he went completely quiet. The slime at his feet started to creep again, moving towards Holmes. He showed no sign of trying to avert it. I moved to one side to look at his face. He had a glazed, far off look, lost in reverie.
He had fallen into its snare.
With a yell I leapt forward, just as the slime surged. As he had done for me, I placed a hand on his shoulder. At once the spell was broken. . . and just in time. The light flared so bright as to be almost blinding. At the same moment the slime
surged, a wave flowing over Holmes' feet and ankles. He pushed at the bellows, twice, washing bleach around us. Once again I heard the high fluting screams, deafening in the confines of the hold, as pustules formed and burst all across the creeping carpet.
The slime retreated.
I pulled at Holmes' shoulder.
"Quick Holmes, let us beat a retreat before it returns."
"Not yet Watson. There is something at the heart of this that bends its will against us. I would rather like to have a look at it."
He washed more bleach in the direction of the slime and it fell back.
It was darker now, the luminescence having shrunk and faded until it ran in a layer less than an inch thick over the surface of the rolling slime. We followed its retreat across the hold until we stood before the burst and broken barrels. The remains of the slime had retreated to the shelter of a curved section that remained nearly intact.
Holmes motioned me forward and we peered into the gloom.
"Take a close look Watson," Holmes said. "We may never see its like again."
A darker patch of green sat there in the midst of the last small puddle of slime, an oval shape like a large dark egg. An oily green sheen ran over it and it pulsed rhythmically, almost as if it were breathing.
"Is this the source of the contagion?" I asked.
Holmes nodded.
"Although I am no longer sure of its intelligence. I detected nothing while under its influence to suggest it is anything other than what it seems."
I watched the thing pulse.
"And what do you suggest Holmes? We cannot allow this thing to escape into the general population."
Holmes was deep in thought.
"Indeed Watson. And while the scientists at the University would love to study this, there is a chance that the military would gain hold of it. I have heard of their experiments with Mustard gas. This thing would merely give them another excuse for developing weapons of terrible destruction."
I could see it in my mind. Whole battalions marching on a field of green, heads raised to the heavens in screams as they melted from the feet up.
My decision was simple.
"End it, Holmes. End it here."
He nodded and squeezed the bellows. The slime surged, one last time, then fell back, smoking. One final high whistle pierced the air then it was gone.
We stood there for a long time, watching, but all that remained of the terror from beyond was a patch of blackened material among the remains of the barrels.
Ripples in the Ether
As usual, I heard Challenger several seconds before I saw him.
"Get a quote from the old man," McGuire had said at our editorial meeting that morning. "You'll need to beef out the tale a good bit before we can run it. . . it's far too thin, even for an August edition."
McGuire hadn't believed there was a story in it at all, just a "silly-season" tale of something in the sky over Glasgow. "The citizens of that city have a reputation for exaggeration, especially when there might be a drink in it for them," he said. But he couldn't deny his own eyes. There was a picture; blurred and out of focus but a picture nonetheless.
So here I was, standing on Challenger's doorstep, and already knowing what my one-time travelling companion would say on seeing the photograph. I knocked again, but still didn't get an answer. Inside the house, Challenger was railing against something. I could hear him clearly, even though the thick door.
"Ten shillings a year that bloody license costs. You would think for that money they might check their facts first."
There was an almighty crash, followed by what sounded to me like a bellow of pain. I put my shoulder to the door, twice before it gave, and forced my way in, only to find Challenger standing in his study amid the wreckage of a Pye 2-valve radio set. He jumped up and down on it, crushing valves and woodwork alike into little more than glass and splinters.
"Ten shillings you say?" I said, trying to sound casual. "I think you'll find it's more like ten pounds for a new one of those."
Challenger finally took notice of my presence.
"Malone? What in blazes are you doing here?"
I motioned at the remains of the radio set.
"I might ask you the same thing old chap."
He smiled wryly.
"Dashed broadcasters can't even get a Latin name right. Chapman-Andrews has found fossilised dinosaur eggs in Mongolia - fine examples of Protoceratops. Damned radio said they were Prototeratops."
I laughed.
"And your poor set deserved what it got did it?"
Challenger kicked the debris into a corner and immediately forgot about it.
"Bloody waste of time anyway. Who wants to listen to voices in the ether all day?"
He motioned me to a chair by the fire. We got pipes going and blew smoke at each other for a spell while I tried to find a way to broach the subject at hand. In the end I settled for just passing him the photograph.
His reaction was exactly as I had expected.
"It's obviously fake," he said, and went to pass it back when something in the picture caught his eye. "Where was this taken?"
"Somewhere up on the Firth of Clyde," I said. "There's a bit of a flap on. Some say it's a new weapon the Germans are testing."
Challenger grunted.
"Bally Germans don't have the money to be testing anything for some years yet," he said. "And it's no more than a water drop on the camera lens, any fool can see that."
"In that case, there are a lot of fools in Glasgow," I replied. "For we have no fewer than twenty eye witness accounts as to the photograph's veracity."
He grunted again at that, then started to pay closer attention when I mentioned the plant die-off in Arrochar and Milngavie.
"Flattened and burned you say?"
I nodded.
"More like toasted according to all of the accounts."
I went on to give some description of what the witnesses were reporting, from strange lights in the sky to ruined crops, and even weirder accounts of fairies singing in the night from the Hebrides. By now Challenger was only halfway paying attention to me. He had a map out, and was marking off points as I mentioned the incidents. Then, with a ruler and a pencil, he starting trying to join the dots, obviously looking for a pattern.
Equally obviously, this proved fruitless and resulted merely in a random pattern of lines drawn in a heavy hand on the map. He snapped the ruler in two and threw the bits into the same corner as the remains of his radio set.
"This won't do Malone," he said, bristling with indignation. "This won't do at all. There's something going on here, and I can't put my hand on it yet. There's nothing else for it. We'll just have to go and see for ourselves. How's your expense account?"
*
And so it was, later that same afternoon, we settled in a first-class carriage making for Glasgow Central. Challenger's booming sermon on the evils of public radio had already cleared two old ladies from the compartment and sent them scurrying into the next carriage for some peace and quiet, leaving me to study the old chap while the rant continued.
It had been ten years and more since our adventure in the Amazon, but time had been kinder to Challenger than it had to me. He had wrinkles around the eyes now when he laughed, and some gray at the temples and in his beard, but they only served to give him an air of distinguished statesmanship. His broad shoulders had not yet started to slump, and the voice was as strident and booming as it had ever been. It was only when talk turned to his wife's illness that I saw the older man he would be in years to come.
"They say there is still hope," he said, his voice suddenly soft, almost tremulous. "And that is what I cling to. But I do not know what I will do should she be taken from me."
That was all he would say, and it was the closest to intimacy that he'd allowed himself to come with me for some time. Now he seemed almost embarrassed by it. He covered it in bluster and more pronouncements on the perils of mass broadcast radio. I let him say his
piece while studying once again the photograph that had started us on this journey.
It looked innocuous enough. Yes, it did indeed look like little more than a water droplet on the lens, one that was teardrop shaped and just about to start a dribble down the glass. But the observers on the ground had been photographed pointing at the appropriate spot in the sky, and several had found the experience frightening enough to report it to the authorities. If it was a hoax, it was a dashed large one involving doctors, policemen and dockhands alike.
Challenger and I had already resolved to visit the site where the picture was taken which was on the south coast of the river Clyde, just south of where the river widened into the Firth proper. On arrival in Glasgow I expected Challenger to be champing at the bit to get going, but, not for the first time, he surprised me.
"What kind of reporter are you anyway?" he said with a wide grin as we checked in to the Central Hotel. "Everybody in this city knows exactly where to go to get the latest information on anything whatsoever. Meet me back down here in half-an-hour and we'll see what we can do about your further education."
A quick wash and a shave later and I arrived back in the lobby in time to meet Challenger. He gripped me hard at the shoulder, reminding me, lest I had forgotten, that he had the strength of a bull, and half-dragged me across the busy thoroughfare outside the railway station and down a tall narrow alleyway that I would not have entered of my own free will.
"Welcome to the house of knowledge," Challenger said, and it was only then I spotted the pub sign. A large brass horseshoe hung over an old oak door. Opening the door let out noise, smoke, and the unmistakable smell of strong beer. Challenger strode in as if he owned the place.
Indeed, it seemed he was known, for the barman greeted him warmly.
"Nice to see you back Professor. What'll it be. . . beer or the cratur?"
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