by Bob Shaw
“Hello there, Jim,” he boomed in a jovial voice, doubtless imagining I was giving out more tickets.
‘Bart,” I said carefully, I’m having a bit of trouble here at the theatre.”
“Oh!” His voice immediately became wary. “What sort of trouble?”
“Well, it isn’t very serious. It’s just that most Wednesday nights this screwy character comes in for the last feature. He doesn’t actually do anything—he just sort of puts on funny clothes while the show’s running—but I’m a bit worried about him. Never know when somebody like that might go over the edge, do you?”
“Why don’t you refuse to let him in?”
“That’s the trouble—I’m not even sure what he looks like. He’s normal enough on the way in, but when he’s coming out he could be dressed differently. He might even …’ I swallowed painfully, ‘… be tricked out like a Roman centurion.”
There was a lengthy silence. “Jim,” Wightman said finally, ‘you haven’t been drinking, have you?”
I laughed. “At this time of the day? You know me better than that.”
“All right. What do you want me to do?”
“Could you have a squad car in the district from say nine o’clock till 10.45 when the crowd is leaving?”
“I suppose so,” he said doubtfully. ‘But if this guy does show up, how will I know him?”
“I told you—he’ll probably be wearing funny clothes. I have an idea that …’ I laughed again,”… he looks a bit like Robert Taylor,” When I set the phone down I was perspiring freely, and it took two more drinks to get my nerves quieted.
Porter Hastings looked surprised when I followed him upstairs to the projection room. “Don’t breathe on me,” he said. “I want to keep a clear head for the night’s work.”
“I only had a quick one—is it noticeable?”
“I wish I could figure out what’s eating you these days.” His tone left no doubt he was pretty disgusted with me. “What do you want up here, Jim?”
“Ah … it’s about the Wednesday night dim-outs.”
His eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. “What about them? I told you there’d be complaints.”
“There haven’t been any complaints as yet, and there aren’t going to be any. I’ve found out what’s causing the power drain.”
He paused in the act of hanging up his jacket. “What is it?”
“This is a little awkward for me, Port. I can’t explain it to you right now, but I know what we have to do to stop it for good.” I gestured at the stand-by projector with the reel of Quo Vadis in place.
“What the … !” Hastings scowled resentfully at the projector as he realised his domain had been invaded during his absence. “What have you been doing in here, Jim?”
I tried to smile casually. “Like I said, I can’t explain it now, but here’s what I want you to do. Have the stand-by projector warmed up and at the very first sign of a dim-out tonight cut your main lantern and switch over to the stand-by. I want this piece of film on the screen when the power starts to fade. Got it?”
“This is just crazy,” he said moodily. “What difference will that particular piece of film make?”
“For you, a lot of difference,” I promised him. ‘Because if it doesn’t come on just the way I want it—you’re fired.”
The main feature that night was Meet Me In Manhattan—a movie which had an unusually large number of bit parts for Simpson’s alien to choose from. During the supporting programme I stood in my niche at the back of the hall trying to reassure myself about the possible consequences of my plan. If the alien existed only in my fevered imagination no harm would be done; and if it was real I was doing a service for mankind by exposing it. Put like that, there was nothing to worry about, but the normally amiable dimness of the familiar hall seemed to be crawling with menace and by the time the main feature started I was too jumpy to stay in one place.
I went out to the lobby and spent some time scanning the few late arrivals. Jean Magee, who runs the box office, kept staring through her window at me, so I walked outside to check that the squad car promised by Bart Wightman was in the vicinity. There was no sign of it. I debated trying to get him on the phone, then noticed a vehicle which might have been a police cruiser parked near the end of the block. It was raining a little, as is usual on a Wednesday night, so I turned up my collar and walked towards the car, glancing back at the theatre every now and again. The incongruous architecture of the yellow cube looked more out of place than ever in the quiet street, and its neon sign fizzed fretfully in the rain, like a time bomb.
I was nearing the car when the reflections on the wet pavement and store windows dimmed abruptly. Spinning on my heel, I saw that the marquee lighting had faded out. The theatre remained in darkness for a good ten seconds, longer than on previous Wednesdays, then the lighting came on strongly again.
Suddenly scared stiff, I sprinted towards the car and saw its police markings. One of the windows rolled down and a policeman stuck his head out.
“This way,” I shouted. “This way.”
“What’s the trouble?” the officer demanded stolidly.
“I … I’ll explain later. Just then I heard running footsteps and turned to see Porter Hastings belting towards me in his shirtsleeves. I began to get a ghastly premonition.
“Jim,” he gasped. “You’ve got to get back there—all hell has broken out.”
“What do you mean?” The question was rhetorical on my part, because I suddenly knew only too well what had happened. “Did you project that piece of film as I instructed?”
“Of course, I did.” Even under stress he still found time to look indignant at his professionalism being queried.
“The exact frames which were in the gate?”
He looked guilty. “Well, you didn’t say anything about that. I ran a bit of the film to see what it was.”
“And did you wind it back to the frames I wanted?”
There was no time—and no need—for him to answer, because at that moment a wild commotion broke out farther down the street. The police officers in the car, Porter Hastings and I got a grandstand view of something which hasn’t been seen on Earth for over fifteen hundred years—a Roman legion fighting its way out of a tight corner. Their helmets, shields and short swords glinted as they formed a tight square under the marquee, ready to take on all comers. And above their heads, with an irony I was in no mood to appreciate, my neon sign spelled out the word: COLOSSEUM.
“There must be an explanation for this,” one of the policemen told me as he reached for his microphone to call headquarters, ‘and all I can say is, it had better be a good one.”
I nodded glumly. I had a good enough explanation—but I had an uneasy feeling that my Wednesday night trade was ruined for ever.
…And Isles Where Good Men Lie
Lt. Col. John Fortune spat out a piece of chocolate wrapping paper and swung round in his swivel chair. Half a million miles beyond the orbit of the Moon the cylindrical bulk of Nesster spaceship Number 1753 carried out a similar rotation….
Still spitting noisily, Fortune pushed himself up and walked heavily to the window. Half a million miles beyond the orbit of the Moon the ship made a minute course correction….
It was determined to land in Fortune’s lap.
Or that was the way it seemed as he stared out across the Icelandic airfield on which United Nations Planetary Defence Unit N186 was based. It was a cold October afternoon and over the plateau the clouds were seahorses of frozen grey steel, moving across the sky with senseless clockwork precision. In the distant centre of the field a silver tactical transport rose vertically and drifted away, the punishing roar of its multiple lift jets animating the floor under Fortune’s feet.
He had been intensely aware of Nesster ship 1753 since the moment, a week previously, the sweeping fans of the Lunar deep radar had shown it to be cruising north of the Line. He had promptly developed a suspicion that this one, this single out-of-l
ine ship, was heading straight for his sector, and since then he had been able to feel it boring down through the sky towards him. When he walked or drove or changed position in any way he felt Number 1753 swing its blunt nose on to new bearings with the intent passion of a rifleman seeking the moment of maximum vulnerability. Which was crazy, Fortune told himself, because if anybody was going to be alarmed it ought to be the Nessters on board that ship.
Lt. Griffin, the Unit’s information officer, came in from the adjutant’s office and saluted, his neat golden head almost luminescent in the gloom. He glanced reproachfully at the top three buttons of Fortune’s trousers which Fortune had undone to ease the after-lunch pressure around his middle.
“We’re almost ready to begin, sir,” Griffin said. “We’ve got eight reporters and six cameramen.” There was the faintest possible emphasis on the last word, which was Griffin’s way of saying, smarten yourself up, slob, you’re supposed to look like a hero.
Fortune fingered his staining shirt buttons. “What is it about the public relations business,” he asked conversationally, ‘which makes it attract people who are completely hopeless in private relations?”
Griffin’s blond eyebrows moved an eighth of an inch upwards, which for him was a violent display of emotion. ‘Being purely an information officer,” he said, making a fine distinction which was lost on Fortune, “I’m not qualified to say much about public relations practitioners, but I suppose one is likely to encounter misfits in all walks of life, sir,” His gaze travelled significantly round the drab green walls of Fortune’s office then he walked out quickly.
A slob and then a misfit. Fortune pulled in his stomach angrily and did up the buttons. I must lose weight, he thought in sudden desperation, no more starch for a whole month.
From the outer office came sounds of Griffin organising his little group of local pressmen who were out to make the most of the possibility of Iceland’s first Nesster landing. The country’s first landing would be a big sensation, but the fact that the Col. Fortune would be there to handle it was an out-and-out gift—the legendary Captain Johnny back in action again after a lapse of four years, complete with piratical name and swashbuckling reputation. Yes, if it came off it would be a newsman’s dream, and Fortune wanted nothing to do with it. He had done his share of defending the planet against the invaders during that first incredible year of 1983, but there was a limit to the amount of guilt he was prepared to accept.
Griffin herded the pressmen in from the adjutant’s office. The reporters sat on the chairs which had been borrowed from other offices for the occasion and the cameramen moved to strategic corners.
“Gentlemen,” Griffin began, “I don’t think there is any need for me to introduce Lt. Col. Fortune, so we’ll get started right away. The colonel will outline the situation very briefly and afterwards you may ask any questions that occur to you.” There was a quiet murmur of assent and Fortune realised that four years of obscurity had made no difference at all to his reputation. The newsmen were impressed by him.
“The first thing I must stress,” Fortune said, ‘is that Nesster ship 1753 may not land in Iceland at all. There is, in fact, only a one-in-three chance of this happening. Preliminary computations based on reports from the Lunar radar bases indicate that the South Greenland and South Baffin Island Sectors are equally likely touchdown areas.
“The second point I want to bring out is that even if 1753 does select this sector, the chances of it putting down on top of a town or village are so small as to be negligible. I know you have all heard of towns being flattened, but it has only occurred in places like parts of Africa and Japan where the buildings were of a type which would not show up well on whatever radar system the Nessters use. A Nesster ship is huge and massive but, like any other space or aircraft, it needs a flat piece of ground on which to land. It will even avoid a properly constructed cowshed.” Fortune smiled momentarily and was answered by appreciative grins from the group.
“In any case, no matter where the ship lands, we’ll be waiting for it—and we have considerable experience in this type of work.” There were more appreciative grins and Fortune knew he was going over well, opening up in response to their admiration. Slob, misfit—and traitor.
“Why did you come to Iceland, Colonel Fortune?” The reporter from the Visir made no apology for deviating from the main subject of the conference.
“I guess I started to feel sorry for those Nessters.” There were outright laughs at that one and even Lt. Griffin smiled thinly. Fortune felt his shirt begin to stick to his shoulders with perspiration.
“The Captain Johnny series on television is said to be accurately based on your early exploits against the Nessters, Colonel. Was it really like that?”
“Well, for one thing, I don’t remember all those pretty girls.” This is just fine, Fortune thought. The ship up there has swung in closer, thousands of miles closer, and all I have done is turn into a quick-fire comedian. A five-year exposure to history was all it had taken to change him from a normal young engineering graduate to a fat sweating clown….
Looking back on it, he was not sure when he had begun to realise the truth about the Nessters. At first there had been no time to think. The big ships had begun to land at random points across the Earth and each one poured out several hundred black scaly nightmares whose bacteria-laden breath was usually enough to kill any nearby human who was not properly masked. The Nessters were unarmed—if the word could be applied to fifteen-foot-long armoured bulldozers—but they made formidable opponents, and many men became heroes. John Fortune, an infantry lieutenant doing a two-year stint with the UNO Independents, was one of the first to discover the techniques of killing Nessters. He was involved in several spectacular actions, he was photogenic, he had a romantic, buccaneering name. He was, within a matter of months, Captain Johnny—the man of the moment.
It was not until the techniques of killing became comparatively easy, comparatively safe, that he had begun to ask questions. Why did the Nesster ships land one at a time at scattered points? Why did the drive engines of each ship run wild soon after landing, forcing the Nessters to abandon their shelter regardless of how hostile conditions outside were? In fact, why was a race with the technological prowess of the Nessters making such a painful, pitiful mess of taking over an unprepared planet?
The answer, when he found it, hurt. Captain Johnny, Earth’s super-soldier, had made his name slaughtering unarmed families of immigrants.
Scientific intelligence teams had gradually uncovered the story. The big cylindrical ships displayed meteor erosion which indicated that they had been travelling for not less than six hundred years. They were fully automated—they had to be, because the generations of Nessters who had lived and died during the journey would have had no idea of how to handle them at landfall. The truth was that, in spite of being ugly, black and deadly, the Nessters were innocents walking blindly to the slaughter.
And the thing which destroyed Fortune was the discovery that the truth made no difference. The Nessters simply were … unacceptable.
“How does your wife like living in Iceland, colonel?”
“My wife likes it here very much,” Fortune said carefully, aware of a brief feather-flick of apprehension which felt strange because it had nothing to do with the Nessters. If the papers got to know about Christine there could be an explosion of publicity which could blast Fortune out of his cosy Iceland command.
He had engineered the appointment to Sector N186 because it was one of the least likely to draw Nesster landings. It was a place where he could throw another log on the fire, serve tea and close bright curtains across the windows to shut out the darkness. There had been nothing else for him to do, for Earth was not going to stop killing Nessters and the Nessters were not going to stop arriving. One ship had been landing every twenty-two hours for five years and still the caravan stretched right out beyond the Solar System, beyond the farthest reach of Earth’s deep space probes.
Estimates of how long the daily landings could continue varied considerably—the lowest figure was fifty years; the highest was in the region of twelve centuries. A few people on Earth were worried sick about the Nesster problem, but far more were putting their sons into the army. It was, as far as soldiers were concerned, a big, beautiful sellers’ market.
As the pressmen dispersed at the end of the conference Fortune opened the right-hand drawer of his desk. In it was a shallow cardboard box, presented to him every month by a confectionery company, containing several dozen chocolate soldiers wrapped in brilliant foil. Slanted across the chest of each in yellow-limned red letters was the name, Captain Johnny.