The thudding steps were on the terrace now. I knew nothing of the house. I was helpless, but I spoke pleadingly to my host. “Dr. Palgrave, these men, these friends of yours, have declared war against citizens of your world of science as bitterly as against Poles or Czechs. This Commandoman is fighting your own scientific battle. You must—”
Dr. Palgrave indicated a small door across the room. “In there,” he said tersely. Herr Oberst Heinz von Schwarzenau was with the squad this time. He plumped his pudgy body into the most comfortable chair and came straight to the point. “My dear Dr. Palgrave, I assure you that I regret inconveniencing you. But I fear that this charming, if haunted, villa of yours is harboring a democratic dog of a Commandoman.” Dr. Palgrave said nothing. He sat at his desk and fiddled nervously with some gadgets in front of him. I spoke up. “Your men searched here once, Herr Oberst.”
He glared at the men, and there was terror beneath their impassivity. “They did so. They searched badly. A loyal peasant has informed us, after only the slightest persuasion, that he saw the pig-dog enter this house.”
I shrugged. “Dr. Palgrave and I have been sitting here, drinking our . . . coffee, and talking about the ghost. The only interruption was your searching squad.” Dr. Palgrave still said nothing.
“So? I begin to understand now the purpose of that ghost legend. How was the ghost described? Black-faced and clad in dirty dungarees and tattered tennis shoes? So if a servant should see one of these Commando devils here he might think only, ‘Aha! The ghost.’ Most ingenious. Most ingenious. We have caught a glimpse of this man, and how well he would serve as your ghost— And you, Dr. Palgrave. I had thought you so faithful an adherent of the New Order.”
Dr. Palgrave’s fingers twitched at gadgets. You know me, colonel,” he said, almost pitifully. “Can you imagine me a participant in a plot to give sanctuary to Commandos?”
“Frankly, no.” The colonel smiled. “But once before in my life I misjudged a man. It can happen; I admit it. That one died slowly, and when he died he was no longer a man—” He chuckled. “But I could think of a more appropriate emasculation for you, dear doctor. If you do not reveal to us the hiding place of this Commando dog—I no longer trust the searching abilities of these dolts—I shall take great personal pleasure in slowly and thoroughly smashing every piece of scientific apparatus in this villa.”
Dr. Palgrave started to his feet with a little choking gurgle of “No—”
“But, yes, I assure you. I shall give you fifteen seconds, dear doctor, to make up your mind. Then I shall proceed happily to the task of demolition. I tolerated your eccentric researches while they amused me and you were faithful. Now the devil take them.”
“Fifteen seconds—”
Colonel von Schwarzenau glanced up from his wrist watch. “Five are gone.”
The Barras thumping rose crescendo in the silence. If our Commandoman escaped, that lethal humming might stop forever. If he were taken—
“Ten are gone,” the colonel announced.
Dr. Palgrave rapped nervously on his desk. He toyed with dials and verniers. He plucked at his lower lip.
“Fiftee—”
Silently, Dr. Palgrave rose and pointed to the small door. I started from my chair, then sank back as the armed squad passed me. I could do nothing. There was ashen dread on Dr. Palgrave’s face, and a grin of ugly self-satisfaction on that of the colonel. The corporal jerked open the door.
A stranger stepped out. He was a good-looking young man with a curly red beard, faultlessly dressed in Savile Row white flannels, a subtly figured white shirt, and a professionally arranged ascot. His skin glowed with clean health.
Colonel Heinz von Schwarzenau stared speechlessly. The corporal peered into the room and made a flabbergasted announcement in German to the effect that there were no facilities there for washing or changing clothes, nor any sign of the Commando. One little glimmer of hope shone in von Schwarzenau’s eyes. He stepped forward and tugged at the beard.
The stranger said, “Ouch!”
Dr. Palgrave smiled. “I could not resist the joke, my dear colonel. I happened to have another American guest whom you had not yet met. The temptation to build a dramatic introduction was too much for me. But now if you wish to search the house personally for your mythical Commandoman, I shall be glad to be of any assistance that I can. You know my loyalty to you and your friends.”
The stranger and I sat silent under the watchful eyes of the corporal while von Schwarzenau searched the house. He returned glowering. “Pigs!” he snorted. “Weakling offspring of impure dogs! You bring me information and what is the result! You allow that one makes a fool of me!”
Not until the footsteps were dead in the distance did anyone speak. Then the stranger burst out, “What goes here, brothers? Where have I been and how did I get back here and— I thought I was dead and was that a heaven for you!”
I began to understand. “Then you—”
“Yes, Holding,” Dr. Palgrave explained. “Our friend here is indeed the ghost. I realized that the exact description could not be coincidental. And if he was the ghost, then my time machine must be successful with a human traveler. It must be I who sent him back to Uptonleigh’s classic party. And the ghost changed in those six weeks, you will recall, cleaned up and grew a beard. If I could bring him back, he would be completely unrecognizable to von Schwarzenau. So I sent him into my traveling cabinet.”
“But how— You didn’t go near it.”
“I explained to you that it operated by remote control. I sent him on his journey and fetched him back under von Schwarzenau’s very eyes, while he thought I was indulging in mere nervous twiddling.”
“Brother,” the Commandoman said, “I had you tagged all wrong. You’re a right guy, after all, and I’m sorry I waved Betsy at you. You’ve done a good deed today for the United Nations.”
“The United Nations?” Dr. Palgrave blinked. “Oh, yes. Yes— But what is important is that I have proved that my time machine is a practical device capable of carrying human life.”
The Commandoman gulped. “You mean I was a guinea pig?” His hand sneaked toward Betsy, but he dropped it again. “Who cares? You saved me, that’s the main thing.”
“That colonel,” Dr. Palgrave spoke reflectively, “he meant what he said—”
“They mostly do, them boys.”
“He really meant that he would wantonly destroy all my invaluable apparatus merely to— And I thought he had a respect for science, an understanding of my—”
It was my chance to strike. “You get it now, Dr. Palgrave? You’ve been his dupe, his court jester. And when amusement palled, neither you nor your work meant a thing to him. All your research would have been wiped out without a moment’s compunction.”
“The . . . the devil—” Dr. Palgrave gasped.
I tried not to smile. “You’ve learned it now, sir. You’ve learned that your holy world of science isn’t sacred to them, doesn’t stand apart from the rest of the world. There are no islands any more. There never have been. No man is an island, entire of himself. And every man who is not a part of their black force is going to find himself and all that he holds holiest destroyed when it suits their convenience. One by one, we learn our lesson. Some of us had sense and soul enough to learn it as part of mankind from seeing the sufferings of others; some, like you and me, had to be pushed around personally to learn it. But every lesson learned, from whatever motive, is one more blow aimed at their heart.”
“That’s telling him, brother,” said the Commandoman.
Dr. Palgrave stood erect, and his eyes did not blink. “Your next step, sir, I believe, will be to resume your former condition of grime. I shall aid you in any way possible. Consider this house your sanctuary, and inform those who follow after you, if you are fortunate enough to return, that this villa is theirs.”
“Thanks, brother. I’ll do that little thing.”
“And tell your commander of this experience. He will doubt
less not believe you, but insist that he communicate with the general staff. Take these formulas, and see that they reach the finest physicists in England. They will at least understand the possibility of what I am doing. Then we can arrange some communication and figure out a method for practical applications. I can already foresee, for instance, how futile would be advance secret-service notice of a Commando raid if the Commando moved back to do its damage the day before it landed here.”
The Commandoman swung to his feet. “Me,” he said, “I don’t understand a word of this. I know something screwy has happened and I got away from the Gestapo, and was I ever on a sweet party! But I’ll do what you say, brother.” He raised two spread fingers.
My own part in the experiments for the next week and the details of my escape in the fishing boat are not essential to this narrative. I can best conclude it by a newspaper dispatch which I read when last in London, and the comment thereon by one of my friends in higher military circles.
VICHY, June 23.—The Vichy government announces the execution of twelve hostages for the recent sabotage at the Barras plant near *** and the murder of Colonel Heinz von Schwarzenau on June 12th. “The Jews and Communists involved in the treachery,” the announcement reads, “have not yet been apprehended. It is believed that they were aided and reinforced by a party of Commando troops. Twelve more hostages will be shot daily until they are under arrest.
“But you know, old boy,” young Wrothbottam insisted, “that’s devilish peculiar. There was no Commando raid at *** on the twelfth. And what’s odder yet, there was one on the thirteenth. Reported operations successful, but there hasn’t been a word about it in the Vichy dispatches.”
Transfer Point
There were three of them in the retreat, three out of all mankind safe from the yellow bands.
The great Kirth-Labbery himself had constructed the retreat and its extraordinary air-conditioning—not because his scientific genius had foreseen the coming of agnoton and the end of the human race, but quite simply because he itched.
And here Vyrko sat, methodically recording the destruction of mankind, once in a straight factual record, for the instruction of future readers (“if any,” he added wryly to himself), and again as a canto in that epic of Man which he never expected to complete but for which he lived.
Lavra’s long golden hair fell over his shoulders. It was odd that its scent distracted him when he was at work on the factual record, yet seemed at times to wing the lines of the epic.
“But why bother?” she asked. Her speech might have been clearer if her tongue had not been more preoccupied with the savor of the apple than with the articulation of words. But Vyrko understood readily; the remark was as familiar an opening as P-K4.
“It’s my duty,” Vyrko explained patiently. “I haven’t your father’s scientific knowledge and perception. Your father’s? I haven’t the knowledge of his humblest lab assistant. But I can put words together so that they make sense and sometimes more than sense, and I have to do this.”
From Lavra’s plump red lips an apple pip fell into the works of the electronic typewriter. Vyrko fished it out automatically; this too was part of the gambit, with the possible variants of grape seed, orange peel . . .
“But why,” Lavra demanded petulantly, “won’t Father let us leave here? A girl might as well be in a—a—”
“Convent?” Vyrko suggested. He was a good amateur paleolinguist. “There is an analogy—even despite my presence. Convents were supposed to shelter girls from the Perils of The World. Now the whole world is one Peril—outside of this retreat.”
“Go on,” Lavra said. She had long ago learned, Vyrko suspected, that he was a faintly over-serious young man with no small talk, and that she could enjoy his full attention only by asking to have something explained, even if for the nth. time.
He smiled and thought of the girls he used to talk with, not at, and of how little breath they had for talking now in the world where no one drew an unobstructed breath.
It had begun with the accidental discovery in a routine laboratory analysis of a new element in the air, an inert gas which the great paleolinguist Larkish had named agnoton, the Unknown Thing, after the pattern of the similar nicknames given to others: neon, the New Thing; xenon, the Strange Thing.
It had continued (the explanation ran off so automatically that his mind was free to range from the next line of the epic to the interesting question of whether the presence of ear lobes would damage the symmetry of Lavra’s perfect face), it had continued with the itching and sneezing, the coughing and wheezing, with the increase of the percentage of agnoton in the atmosphere, promptly passing any other inert gas, even argon, and soon rivaling oxygen itself.
And it had culminated (no, the lines were cleaner without lobes), on that day when only the three of them were here in this retreat, with the discovery that the human race was allergic to agnoton.
Now allergies had been conquered for a decade of generations. Their cure, even their palliation, had been forgotten. And mankind coughed and sneezed and itched—and died. For while the allergies of the ancient past produced only agonies to make the patient long for death, agnoton brought on racking and incessant spasms of coughing and sneezing which no heart could long withstand.
“So if you leave this shelter, my dear,” Vyrko concluded, “you too will fight for every breath and twist your body in torment until your heart decides that it is all a little too much trouble. Here we are safe, because your father’s eczema was the only known case of allergy in centuries—and was traced to the inert gases. Here is the only air-conditioning in the world that excludes the inert gases—and with them agnoton. And here—”
Lavra leaned forward, a smile and a red fleck of apple skin on her lips, the apples of her breasts touching Vyrko’s shoulders. This too was part of the gambit.
Usually it was merely declined. (Tyrsa, who sang well and talked better; whose plain face and beautiful throat were alike racked by agnoton . . .) This time it was interrupted.
Kirth-Labbery himself had come in unnoticed. His old voice was thin with weariness, sharp with impatience. “And here we are! Safe in perpetuity, with our air-conditioning, our energy plant, our hydroponics! Safe in perpetual siege, besieged by an inert gas!”
Vyrko grinned. “Undignified, isn’t it?”
Kirth-Labbery managed to laugh at himself. “Damn your secretarial hide, Vyrko. I love you like a son, but if I had one man who knew a meson from a metazoon to help me in the laboratory—”
“You’ll find something, Father,” Lavra said vaguely.
Her father regarded her with an odd seriousness. “Lavra,” he said, “your beauty is the greatest thing that I have wrought—with a certain assistance, I’ll grant, from the genes so obviously carried by your mother. That beauty alone still has meaning. The sight of you would bring a momentary happiness even to a man choking in his last spasms, while our great web of civilization—”
He left the sentence unfinished and switched on the video screen. He had to try a dozen channels before he found one that was still casting. When every gram of a man’s energy goes to drawing his next breath, he cannot tend his machine.
At last he picked up a Nyork newscast. The announcer was sneezing badly (“The older literature,” Vyrko observed, “found that comic but still contriving to speak, and somewhere a group of technicians must have had partial control of themselves.
“Four hundred and seventy-two planes have crashed,” the announcer said, “in the past forty-eight hours. Civil authorities have forbidden further plane travel indefinitely because of the danger of spasms at the controls, and it is rumored that all vehicular transport whatsoever is to come under the same ban. No Rock-lipper has arrived from Lunn for over a week, and it is thirty-six hours since we have made contact with the Lunn telestation. Urope has been silent for over two days, and Asia for almost a week.
‘“The most serious threat of this epidemic,’ the head of the Academy has said in an author
ized statement, ‘is the complete disruption of the systems of communication upon which world civilization is based. When man becomes physically incapable of governing his machines . . .”’
It was then that they saw the first of the yellow bands.
It was just that: a band of bright yellow some thirty centimeters wide, about five meters long, and so thin as to seem insubstantial, a mere stripe of color. It came underneath the back drop behind the announcer. It streaked about the casting room with questing sinuosity. No features, no appendages relieved its yellow blankness.
Then with a deft whipping motion it wrapped itself around the announcer. It held him only an instant. His hideously shriveled body plunged toward the camera as the screen went dead.
That was the start of the horror.
Vyrko was never to learn the origin of the yellow bands. Even Kirth-Labbery could offer no more than conjectures. From another planet, another system, another galaxy, another universe . . .
It did not matter. Kirth-Labbery was almost as indifferent to the problem as was Lavra; precise knowledge had now lost its importance. What signified was that they were alien, and that they were rapidly and precisely completing the destruction of mankind begun by the agnoton.
“Their arrival immediately after the epidemic,” Kirth-Labbery concluded, “cannot be coincidence. You will observe that they function freely in an agnoton-laden atmosphere.”
“It would be interesting,” Vyrko commented, “to visualize a band sneezing . . .”
“It’s possible,” the scientist went on, “that the agnoton was a poison-gas barrage laid down to soften the Earth for their coming; but is it likely that they could know that a gas harmless to them would be lethal to other life? It’s more probable that they learned from spectroscopic analysis that the atmosphere of this Earth lacked an element essential to them, which they supplied before invading.”
The Compleat Boucher Page 54