More of the Essential John Wyndham, page 51
“Hi,” called the sergeant’s voice in some agitation, “there’s one of the darned things up here.”
David scrambled back to the roof, the paint can, which was his only weapon, still in his hand. The sergeant was staring and pointing towards a spot near the center of the coping. Already, the supports had been laid bare, and a piece of wood was rising into the air. His pot was almost empty, but he flung the last few drops at the place. They were enough to reveal two or three pairs of snapping jaws. The creature was not only on the roof with them, but it was gnawing away at the supports. He threw the useless can away and looked around.
Branches thrust themselves against the end wall of the hut. It would be a fair jump to the tree trunk. He looked at the other doubtfully. The policeman grinned as he saw that look. “Used to do a bit of jumping in the old days, and I’m still good for that distance,” he said.
He led the way to the end, scrambling astride the gable. There was need of hurry, because the whole roof would collapse the moment the creature began seriously on the main tie-beam. He stood there poised on the extreme gable end, steadying himself with a hand on David’s shoulder. He launched with a powerful leap well into the branches. “Good. Now climb up a bit and I’ll come over.”
He felt his right foot slip as he took off and heard the sergeant’s startled cry. Desperately, he grappled at the branches, only to feel them snap beneath his weight. Something sluggishly yielding broke his fall. Like a flash he hurled himself to one side and rolled. Even as he went, he heard the tearing sound of fragments of his coat ripping away. The sergeant’s voice called after him hoarsely.
David sat up, and in that momentary rush of elation which follows a narrow escape, grinned up at him. “I fell on one of ’em,” he announced, “What do you know about that?”
“Fell on it?”
“I did, and it’s a lucky thing for me that it hasn’t got teeth on top. It was right under the tree, and — ”
He stopped suddenly as he noticed that the creature was eating into the tree trunk. It was not big, he judged, since the floating chunks of wood were no larger than lumps of sugar, nevertheless, the tree was slowly but surely being undercut. The other had started to descend, but he called to him to stop. With a stick dropped by one of the retreating bombers, he thrashed furiously at the invisible feeder. There was no apparent effect. The wood chips continued to flow neither slower nor faster than before. David calmed himself. At the present rate it would be some time before the tree fell — that was, if the food did not cause the animal to grow. With a swift inspiration, he thrust a broken branch into the undercut so that it must be gnawed through before the trunk could be continued. Behind him, the roof of the hut collapsed with a startling crash.
“Not much too soon,” he muttered as he watched the rising cloud of dust.
“Look here,” objected the sergeant, “I can’t stay up here forever.”
“Why not? It’s the safest place.”
Another smashing thud caused him to jump around. Less than forty feet away, a tall tree had toppled and fallen. It became uncomfortably clear to both of them that, this was not a safe place after all. The sergeant’s perch was overtopped by trees on all sides, many of them already showing deep cuts. Any one of them falling in his direction would certainly sweep him down. He began to descend hastily. “Wait a minute. You can’t come down the trunk.”
Cautiously testing the way before him with his stick, David made for a spot beneath the lowest spreading bough. He thrust all around and ascertained that the ground was indeed as empty as it looked. “All clear here, you can drop.” The sergeant obediently landed beside him. "Now we’ve got to get clear of this place at once. The best way will be — Good God, what’s that?”
There was no need to ask. A crackle of snapping sticks was followed by a thud almost beside them. One of the creatures, caught in the higher branches, had succeeded in eating away its own supports.
They backed away in haste. The sergeant pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his damp brow. “Like a doggone nightmare,” he mumbled, looking nervously around and above. “That was a near thing. I don’t get this at all. The inspector said there was only one of the brutes.”
“Did he? Well, he was wrong. So was Captain Forbes. Dirk was the only one of us who had any sense — he cleared off. And that’s just what we are going to do now, if we can.”
They began a slow journey. Every foot of the ground had to be tested with sticks which they waved before them like the feelers of some giant insect. Frequently, they cast anxious glances upwards for fear of another falling creature, or of the trees themselves. An hour and a half of such progress found them nervier and jumpier than ever. Each had discarded several sticks worn down by constant snapping and so far, they had encountered no sign of any other survivors. The sergeant paused and wiped his forehead again.
“We must get clear of ’em soon,” he said, without a great deal of conviction.
“I think there are less of them now,” said David, “but they’re bigger. They’ve been growing hard all the time we’ve been getting here. Come on.”
Five minutes later there came a snap which removed a ten-inch length of David’s stick. He recoiled. So large a bite proclaimed it as a monster which should be given a wide berth. They started beating around to one side without any success, and then tried the other. The way ahead proved to be completely blocked by a semi-circle of the snapping invisibles. The only thing left to do was to retrace their steps and detour around the spot. They turned back by common consent and began to trace the path with waving sticks. The sergeant was in the lead, and he knew that they had an almost straight track for some yards. He was the more surprised, therefore, when he encountered an obstacle straight ahead. He grunted and tried either side in vain. The two looked at each other. “We found a way in, so there must be a way out,” David said desperately. If there was, they both failed to find it. The circle about them seemed complete.
“Listen!” said the sergeant.
For half an hour they had been penned in the diminishing circle, and lusty hails from both had failed to produce any result. Except for the invisible monsters, they might have been alone in the world. Faintly, out of the silence came an unmistakable “Hullo?” Both replied with full lung power.
“Coming,” the voice sang back. “Stay where you are.”
Any other course being impossible, David replied with instructions to hurry. But it took another fifteen minutes before they saw the owner of the voice cautiously approaching. He was a small young man with large glasses and he whistled cheerfully. One hand waved a long, metal rod before him. Beneath the other arm he clutched a bundle of thin sticks, each tipped with a white knob.
“Hullo. What’s wrong with you two?” he asked.
“Surrounded,” answered David curtly. The casual air of the newcomer irritated him considerably.
“Uncomfortable,” commented the young man. “Never mind. We’ll soon have you out of that.”
He thrust with his rod until he encountered the snapping barrier. Snatching a stick from his bundle, he held out the knobbed end. Immediately it had been broken off, he held out other little sticks to left and right to suffer the same fate.
“Who are you ?” he asked. The sergeant told him. “They thought you were done for,” he said, pointing back over his shoulder. “Most of your lot were.”
Curiosity got the better of David’s disapproval of the nonchalant young man. “What are you doing? Poisoning them?”
“No, we haven’t found a suitable poison for them yet. Watch.”
He pointed to the recently swallowed white knob and they saw that it had turned to a bright blue.
“Methylene blue wrapped in soluble paper,” he explained. “Away goes the paper and, presto, visibility. My boss, Cadnam, the biologist, had some hundreds of these pills made up. A man called Dirk Robbins came to him in a fearful state yesterday. Cadnam saw that we’d have to make the brute visible before anything else could be done.”
“Good old Dirk,” said David.
The other nodded. “He had a bit more sense than the rest of you,” he said ungracefully. “Unfortunately, by the time we got here, some fool had been playing Fourth of July inside the brute.”
The blue stain, growing less intense as it dissolved, rapidly spread throughout the creature. They could see now not only the domed outline which they had expected, but could look right into it as though it were a stained specimen on a slide. It became easy to trace the many throats to their common stomach and also to observe a kind of vascular system. At the root of each of the many “heads,” a kind of valve could be seen rhythmically contracting and expanding. The young man pointed to one of these organs and shook his head. “That’s what caused most of the trouble,” he explained. Neither David nor the sergeant felt in the mood for a lecture. More than four feet of the creature blocked their way to freedom, and visibility had not interfered in the least with its appetite. They said as much.
“Oh, that’s all right,” said the young man cheerfully. He drew a rapier-like instrument from among his bundle of sticks and set himself to piercing the contractile organs with care and accuracy. As he worked, he continued to explain: “A very interesting arrangement, not unlike a heart — but the thing only needs one heart really, and it’s got scores. It’s a kind of composite animal, and when it was blown to bits, every part with a pulse like that became a separate individual. It quickly reformed and began to live on its own. When two of them press closely together, they merge again — I expect that that’s how you got surrounded. A very primitive form, really. So far as we know at present, the only way of killing them seems to be to put every pulse out of action — as long as there’s one left going, it can rebuild itself.”
When he had finished off all the heads he could reach from his side, he tossed the spike over to David. After a few minutes work, the erstwhile danger became no more than an inert lump of bluish jelly over which they could climb.
“Thank God for that,” said David as they reached the far side in safety. The sergeant grunted and mopped his brow again.
The young man led them back over the way he had come. “What about the original creature? Was that entirely shattered?” David asked.
“Most of it was, but it’s building up again. However, we’ll be able to deal with it, now that we can see it. Even I felt it was a bit creepy, at first. Transparency is one thing — invisibility, quite another.”
They came at length to irregular rows of the creatures, already stained. They were still gnawing the trees but seemed almost harmless when deprived of their armor of invisibility. In the distance was a group of men diligently disposing of the monsters with sharp probes. The young man bade them goodbye. “Keep straight ahead,” he directed, “It’s clear there. And it would please me if you would tell Captain Forbes what I think of him, when you see him.”
“He’s safe?”
“Sure to be. That kind always comes out of it all right.”
He was correct. When they reached a group which seemed to be at the center of operations, the captain was amongst it. He seemed to be explaining that the failure of his attack was due to the premature explosion of two of the bombs. Dirk detached himself from the others and greeted them heartily.
“Let’s clear out,” he said a few minutes later, “The gallant captain now has a theory that it would be quicker to gas the brutes. We’ll be safer a few miles away.”
And so ended the menace of the Invisible Monsters.
The Moon Devils
1934
The secretary of the Lunar Archeological Society approached his employer with a nervous diffidence. His method of stating his business was, to put it mildly, indirect. The president was a man who hated circumlocution. He became testy. “Come on, man. What’s the trouble? Out with it.”
Still the secretary hesitated, then, with a sudden decision, thrust a packet of papers clumsily towards his chief. "These came this morning, sir. I thought you ought to know. They’re a bit — er — peculiar.”
"All right. I’ll look at ’em.”
The secretary departed with some relief and the president turned back to his interrupted work. Half an hour later, he remembered the pile of papers and took up the covering letter which lay on top. A name standing out amid the type caught his eye. He stiffened, stared at it, and began to read more carefully. The heading was a Liverpool address, and the date a fortnight old.
"Dear Sir,” it began. "On the sixteenth of June last,' the S. S. Turkoman, to which I was medical officer, rescued a man at a point not far from the Solomon Islands. He was found drifting in a native canoe and, judging from his condition, had been in it for some days. The results of such exposure were aggravated by the serious ill-treatment he had received in the form of severe cuts and wounds. At first it appeared to be impossible to save him, but his body eventually responded to treatment though his mind still wandered. He was a man of considerable education and gave his name as Stephen Dawcott. Upon arrival here I placed him in a mental home. During the next four months I was absent, and when I returned, it was to find that he had made good his escape. The authorities were mystified and handed to me the enclosed manuscript which he had left behind. They saw it as the raving of a madman, but to me it seems a matter requiring a less facile explanation. I await your reply with interest.”
The signature was “John Haddon,” and to it were appended the letters, "M. D.”
The president frowned as he set aside the letter and took up the manuscript. There had been a Stephen Dawcott, an anthropologist of some note, aboard the Scintilla. But the Scintilla was lost. From the day she had left the flying field on her maiden trip to the moon, nearly a year ago, not a word had been heard from her. She had roared from Earth into mysterious non-existence. But Stephen Dawcott had been aboard her — he was sure of that. He and others of the Lunar Archeological Society had seen Dawcott’s among the faces at the windows before the Scintilla took off. And now the man was reported as picked up in Melanesia, of all unlikely places. The president’s frown deepened as he began to read the manuscript:
...The Scintilla behaved in an exemplary manner on her outward journey. She justified the high hopes of her designers by the smooth swiftness with which she leapt out from Earth. Captain Toft was delighted with her performance and swore that there could be no sweeter ship to handle in all the ether. Those of us who had taken part in earlier spaceflights agreed unreservedly. The new Danielson acceleration compensators had proven their worth and ridded space-flying forevermore of the starting strain and its unpleasant effects. In design, furnishing, and facilities for carrying such fragile relics as we might find, the Scintilla was a credit to the Lunar Archeological Society who had built and so lavishly equipped her. The perfect start, followed by the peaceful smoothness of our voyage could have raised no apprehensions in the most psychic soul. Indeed, what possible cause could there be for apprehension? The silver globe before us warworn out, arid and still with the supreme stillness of death. No ship cruising above that gutted shell of a world had seen sign of as much life as lies in a blade of grass. Even the crater of Linne, which had been suspected of harboring the last vestiges of life, had been found as barren as the rest.
“Dead,” I murmured as we gazed out of the living-cabin windows at the withered satellite. “All the ‘fitful fevers’ done and gone – a whole world mummified and at rest.”
But I did not know Luna then. I did not know to the full that desperation with which life strives and clings.
We made first for the Northeast Quadrant and sank to a gentle landing on the glittering, metallic dust which makes the crater of Aristarchus the brightest spot on the face of the moon. This was to be a preliminary trip. Our object was to survey the ground for future operations rather than make them ourselves. A number of sites were to be examined and reported upon with a view' to deciding which would be the most profitable to excavate. Aristarchus held little of interest for us save the almost obliterated remains of a small settlement upon the northern side. The details of our trip are of little interest here, so I merely record that we moved next, unprofitably, to the Mare Crisium and thence across the equator to Tycho. Next, Clavius, greatest of all the craters, provided quantities of material and showed indisputably that a great civilization had once flourished in what is now only a vast bowl of sand and rock, a hundred and forty miles in diameter. Thus we came at last to the Mare Serenitatis, the Sea of Serenity.
Who named this immense oval plain? I cannot remember, but I do know that he saw it only through a telescope, two hundred and thirty-nine thousand miles away. He did not see it as we did — a huge sterile stretch, grey-floored and gloomy. Had he been able to stand upon one of the tortured mountains at its brink and look out across that somber desolation of sand, he would have called it not the Sea of Serenity, but the Sea of Foreboding.
We sailed slowly across to the Northwest. Every member of the expedition was at the windows scanning the featureless floor for any sign the ancient Lunarians might have left. Until now we had felt no uneasiness. All the moon is bare, but the harshness of its vistas had not played upon our nerves. It was only what we had expected and could scarcely affect us, but now the monotony of this great dry seabed seemed to impress us all in greater or lesser degree. Unromantic scientists though we were, we felt a mis- giving which none of us was willing to put into words.
