Baird struggled to speak until Challenger relaxed his grip, but only slightly.
"I will admit I am working on a system that forms images from reflected radio waves and can transmit them across large distances. The Fibonnacci series is the final test. I shall call it Photovision." He almost smiled but another shake from Challenger put paid to that. "I know nothing of destruction though – I merely sent out some messages. . . "
"Aye," Challenger replied. "And something merely responded in kind. Quick man. . . can you reverse the sequence?"
"Certainly. I have it encoded in a spring-loaded coil. Rather ingenious actually, I think you'll like it. It. . . "
Challenger shook him again,
"Can it be done!" he bellowed.
"Yes. It'll take five minutes."
Challenger looked at the glowering sky. It was already several shades deeper red.
"Better make it three," he said, and pushed Baird through into the laboratory.
*
Given the time I could have spent many happy hours in Baird's laboratory. It was obvious he was trying out several different inventions at any one time. There was a particularly strange pair of shoes with pneumatic soles; a razor blade that looked to be made of glass, and a bench piled high with many pairs of long socks that could be internally heated through a cunning weave of copper wires attached to a dynamo.
The lab proper was crammed with chugging generators, sputtering valves and arcing electricity, and Logie Baird darted around excitedly among the equipment with the air of a giddy schoolgirl. A flat white screen stood at the rear of the laboratory, with a contraption mostly made of spinning disks and copper wire projecting a spluttering light onto it. Baird pulled a switch. . . and a flickering image came slowly into focus. It was immediately recognizable – a crude line drawing, of a teardrop, just about to start its dribble down a window.
I was still thinking about the implications when I realized that the white screen had taken on a distinct pinkish glow. I turned to see Challenger looking up through a skylight window to where red clouds gathered angrily above us. Another lightning bolt crashed, too close for comfort and the small laboratory shook and rattled. Challenger was putting in his earplugs even as he bellowed at Baird.
"Reverse the bloody sequence. There is no time left."
I followed Challenger's lead with the earplugs, and got them in place just as the dissonant chanting returned, louder than we had yet heard it. My stomach churned as the whole lab pounded in time, as if we were caught inside a kettledrum. Through the skylight I saw wispy tendrils of smoke, then the whole view was obscured as a red teardrop, in shape a perfect replica of the image projected on the screen, fell on the laboratory.
Baird was busy fiddling with a piece of equipment on the far side of the lab – so intent on his work that he did not notice when a piece of the roof was melted away, dissolving as fast as a piece of ice dropped in boiling water. Smoky tendrils wafted down towards the inventor.
I heard, as if from a distance, a loud bellow of defiance and watched dumbfounded as Challenger swept a large table free of the mechanisms that festooned it and, carrying the table above his head, moved to stand over Baird. I saw his intent immediately, and ran over to hold one end of the table, using it like an umbrella to protect us all from the falling tendrils.
"Hurry man," Challenger shouted as Baird fumbled with the mechanism below us. The table started to feel lighter in my hands and I smelled smoke. I looked up to see that the wood was melting and flowing, like wax in a hot flame.
"I've got it," Baird shouted. A second later Challenger pulled us away just as a fresh clutch of tendrils wafted in our direction. The chanting rose to a crescendo that threatened to shake the bones from my flesh. We crawled ignominiously under a trestle as the tendrils snaked around us.
"Did you reverse the sequence?" Challenger shouted.
Baird had fresh blood at his ears and nostrils, and his eyes fluttered alarmingly, but he was aware enough to reply.
"It's done. But if the transmitter goes, then it will never get sent."
I do believe that Challenger might have put his own body between the tendrils and that transmitter if it was required, but our luck changed for the better at that point. Just as I feared the very structure of the shed itself might be completely melted the chanting diminished to an almost acceptable level, the red haze started to lift, and the smoky tendrils wafted up and away.
I saw a patch of blue sky above, and remembered to breathe.
*
And there you have it – as much of the tale as my understanding can tell. Challenger tried to fill in some blanks for me later that evening.
We had returned to Glasgow, and were once more at a quiet table in the corner, nursing our second flagon of ale. The events in the laboratory were already taking on a dreamlike quality in my memory. I barely remembered the rush back to the train wreckage to clear the railway track of rescuers before the imminent return of the entity, the hurried explanations to the authorities – most of which we left to Baird – and the slow bus journey back through Glasgow to our hotel. It was only after I had a beer inside me that I started to be able to look at the day dispassionately.
"What in blazes was it Challenger?"
He spent a while staring into his beer, then dipped a finger in it, and let a drop fall back into the glass.
"Baird unwittingly caused ripples in the space-time continuum when he bounced those messages off the magnetic field of the planet," he said, leaving me none the wiser. "And something took note and followed them back to their source. We may never know what it was exactly, but I believe there are entities of magnetic energy out there. It maybe that they are just cruising the ether. Until they meet a ripple."
He made a swirling motion with his finger pointed downward over the beer, dipping ever closer to the surface.
"Luckily for us, we stopped it in time."
He reversed the spin and drew his finger away. That was when I understood. I could finally see it in my mind's eye – the teardrop hanging over Helensburgh starting to spiral away and upwards, slowly at first then ever faster out into the black depths of space and away into an unimaginable distance.
"I have asked Baird to keep the transmitter running for some months," he said. "That should be ample time for the planetary orbit to take us far enough apart to avoid further interference."
Challenger drained his beer in one smooth motion. The same child as the previous night arrived at that moment at the barroom door.
"The singing's back. Down at the bridge again."
Challenger stood. I thought he might want to have another look at the entity, but instead he went to the bar and returned with two more beers.
"It is merely the return leg of the spiral. As long as the crowd stays back the danger is passed – for now," he said. "But Baird is only a pioneer. Others will follow. We are announcing our presence into the ether. And who knows what might reply?"
He took a long swig of his beer, and looked as pensive as I have ever seen him.
"Watch the skies, Malone. Keep watching the skies."
The Doom That Came To Dunfield
"Get it done, or don't come back."
That's what they said at the ministry just before they packed us off to Southampton to catch the boat to Newfoundland. What they didn't tell us was that the crossing would be foul, the food would be worse, and the weather once we got to our destination would be sub-arctic, and getting colder by the day. I stood on deck, a gale-force wind trying to blow me back to Blighty, watching a small group of frozen scientists and completely disgruntled sailors tried to put together a patchwork contraption of chrome, wire and electrical components, all of which were a complete mystery to me.
At least before the war they'd been sending me to warm, dry factories in the West Country. But the Nazis changed everything; Hitler's thirst for a technological advantage meant that the Germans threw vast amounts of money into research. And it wasn't until the fighting was o
ver and the dust settled that Britain realized we were no longer rich enough to keep up.
That's when I got recruited to the think tank.
"Come up with smart stuff nobody else has thought of yet."
Not much of a brief, but it had been enough for us to be going on with. Since the late Forties we'd got by with the occasional report, a couple of not-too-disastrous demonstrations, and the promise of results at an unspecified later date. It had been an easy, if uneventful, life, and I was already looking forward to early retirement and some gentle rounds of golf.
Everything changed with the new decade. A new broom swept Whitehall, one that almost swept us away with the rest of the dross. Professor Muir arrived at the opportune moment and became both savior and Satan. He had a reputation to maintain – iconoclastic, eccentric and abrasive, but also undoubtedly brilliant. He'd been the man responsible for jamming the buzz bombs' guidance systems, for finding an antidote to a plague the populace never even got to hear of, and for finding a way to clog enemy harbors with rampant seaweed. In another country he might be feted and honored; here he'd insulted too many people in power, rode roughshod over too many regulations. They gave him the think tank in the hope that he'd run us quickly into oblivion.
Instead, he once again did something remarkable.
My own specialty is in Human Biology, with Chemistry second and applied Mathematics a distant – very distant – third. Muir's explanation that we sat through back at the Ministry had gone completely over my head. The only bit I understood was his opening, and closing, question.
What if we could make a battleship invisible?
The Professor did just enough to persuade the Ministry that a field trial was at least a possibility. They in turn insisted on somewhere away from prying eyes. With the help of our friends the Canadians we started to plan the trip to Newfoundland, although I will admit that I did canvass hard for an alternative spot in a quiet bay in the Mediterranean.
But Newfoundland in what passed for spring in these parts it was to be, and after several months of frantic preparation Muir finally announced he was ready. I still had little clue as to how he proposed to do it, or even whether it was at all possible, for the final experiments had been undertaken above my clearance level. For a while I even held out hope that Muir meant to take the trip without me altogether, but that was dashed three days before departure.
"I need you, Duncan," he said, mollifying me somewhat with a large glass of some excellent Scotch. "You keep me on the ground. Besides, a trip like this can never have enough Scotsmen."
We both laughed at that, but there was something in my countryman's eyes I hadn't seen before. It looked like doubt – and possibly more than a trace of fear. Whatever it was, he wouldn't be drawn on the matter, even after we'd made serious inroads into the whisky. All I got from him was a muttered oath about damn stupid researchers.
In the morning I asked around. Dick Roberts, a young lab technician, hadn't been seen for several days, but that was all that was known, all anybody knew. I didn't get to the truth of the matter until much later, and by then, of course, it was far too late.
*
I was thinking about Muir's bottle of Scotch while I stood on the windy deck of the battleship. A dram or two would have been most welcome at that point, but I knew better than to leave my post. I might not be a naval man, but on this trip it was best to obey the chain of command; it was either that or risk a stint in the brig. Captain Squire had taken pains early on to show that he was in charge and would not hesitate to prove it. At some point I knew that he and Muir would have a serious disagreement, but so far they had kept to their separate corners. I only hoped the peace lasted long enough to get the job done.
I was brought out of my reverie by a shout from Muir himself.
"Let them know we're ready," he called out. It was finally the time for my one bit of action in the proceedings. I made the signal to the watchers on the shore some four hundred yards away. Even from here I could see that their tent on the exposed promontory was billowing and blowing in the increasing gale, but I saw their answer clear enough. They too were ready.
I gave Muir the nod, and did the same again in Captain Squire's direction to show that I acknowledged his authority. Muir was not so polite. He stepped forward and, without further ado, threw a lever on his box of tricks.
Nothing of any consequence happened. Something sparked, there was a distinct hum that lasted for maybe three seconds, then all I could hear was more wind, and all I felt was cold rain in my face. I turned away in time to see Captain Squires' smirk before he headed for the relative warmth to be had inside. I lingered just long enough to have a word with the Professor.
Muir did not seem too perturbed by the outcome.
"A blown valve," he said. "I forgot to factor in the effect of the degaussing panels. These things happen. Give me an hour and we'll try again."
But the hour turned into two, then three, and Muir's temper frayed with the dimming of the day. By the time it came round to sunset he had to give up hope of getting anything done that day.
"It's the blasted rain," he said as we made our way to the Captain's quarters for pre-dinner drinks. "It's causing too many shorts."
Squires heard that as we entered.
"Perhaps some kind of umbrella might be in order?" he said, and laughed long and loud, which only caused Muir's brows to furrow deeper and his mood to darken further. By the time we got round to eating it was obvious an explosion was imminent.
Mr. Jones, the Purser, tried to lighten the mood by telling a long, involved tale of shore leave, a brothel, and a Spanish prostitute who was more man than many of the sailors, but it fell mostly on deaf ears. The Captain seemed determined to rub Muir's nose in what he deemed already to be a failure.
"You do know that the Yanks tried this already?" Squires said, loud enough for all to hear. "Back in '43, with the Etheridge I believe. A bloody disaster all around, or so I'm told. At least you managed to avoid that."
At first Muir tried to control himself.
"I'm not about to recreate that mistake," he said. "I have carefully modulated all of the sub-stream harmonics and ensured that the frequency shifts are calibrated. I. . . "
Squires interrupted him again by laughing loudly.
"There's your typical scientist, gentlemen. Never uses one big word when two will do. It's no wonder that everything they touch turns to dust."
"And there's your typical military man, gentlemen," Muir replied, so loud that everyone else fell silent. "So full of his own self importance that he cannot recognize the worthiness of anything but his own kind."
The Professor started warming to his topic. I put a hand on his arm, hoping to mollify him somewhat, but he was too far gone for that.
"Without science you wouldn't have this fine vessel," he bellowed. "Without science you wouldn't have these electric lights." He reached up and set the overhead lamp swinging, sending alternating bands of shadow and light over all the faces that were gaping at his performance. Muir lifted up his whisky tumbler. "And without science you wouldn't even have the glass to hold this dishwater you have the nerve to call whisky."
He threw the glass against the wall. I winced, anticipating the shatter. It didn't come. The tumbler hit the wall. . . and kept going, disappearing from view and leaving a series of ripples behind in the solid steel, ripples that almost immediately hardened in place.
"Is it working?" the Purser asked.
"It seems something is," Muir replied deadpan. "Maybe you should send a scientist to check?"
*
We made our way swiftly up on deck to find that the ship was becalmed in dense fog, gathered around us so thickly that I could only just make out the bow to my left and the gun turrets to my right although they were mere yards away.
Muir headed towards the experiment. He hadn't quite reached it when the first scream pierced the night. I turned towards the sound, and was just in time to see a sailor sink into the deck, as if h
e'd fallen into a pool of water. He waved his arms, and what had been metal splashed, slowly, as if thick and viscous. The man opened his mouth to scream again. The liquid flowed and spilled down his gullet. Then, as quickly as it had liquefied, it hardened, and became solid metal once more. The sailor was mercifully quite dead by the time I reached him.
"Turn that bloody thing off," I shouted. Muir didn't move. I left the stricken sailor, strode across the deck and grabbed the Professor's arm, turning him around until we stood nose to nose. "Turn it off," I yelled into his face.
He replied, remarkably calmly.
"That's a problem, Duncan. It isn't switched on."
I saw immediately that he had told the truth; the contraption of wires, valves and coils sat in the middle of the deck, inert and silent.
"So what the blazes is happening?"
Muir shook his head.
"I don't rightly know. Maybe some residual effect from when we started it up earlier; maybe something got started that would have been stopped if we kept going. Maybe. . . "
"There's a few too many maybes there for my liking," I replied.
He nodded.
"Mine too. But I need more information before I can hypothesize."
A shot rang out from the stern, bringing all speculation to an abrupt end as more screams filled the sudden silence that followed.
*
When I reached the stern I was at first unsure exactly what was happening, for the fog was, if anything, even thicker here; so thick that it looked almost solid. That thought proved rather too close to reality as a waft of wind blew a more dense area over the top of three sailors nearby. They reacted as if hit by a wall of searing flame. Flesh melted and sloughed off their bones in oily sheets even as their screams tore at my ears. Mercifully it was all over almost before I had time to move. Another breeze wafted past, the denser fog moved away to starboard, and we were left on a quiet deck with only the brutalized bodies to remind us of what had just happened.
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