by John Wyndham
‘ “He couldn’t very well. You see, we don’t even know that anyone does. Some people think that there may be life in some forms where conditions allow it, but others, the majority, think it unlikely.”
‘ “They’re daft.”
‘ “Which of them?”
‘ “The ones as don’t think so.”
‘I looked at him. His head was thrown back and his upturned face shone dimly white in the starlight. A rush of excitement, almost physically painful, made my heart thump.
‘It was hard to make my voice anything like normal as I asked:
‘ “Why?” and hung on his answer.
‘“Why! Because if it ain’t chaps like us doin’ things out there, ’oo is it?”
‘I did not dare to respond for a moment. From long experience I knew that at any display of excitement he took refuge in suspicious self-protection. Young Ted couldn’t be driven, only led cautiously.
‘ “It wouldn’t be God, would it?” he suggested hopefully.
‘I told him I considered it unlikely.
‘ “What is it? Voices?” I added, as if out of a mild interest.
‘ “No. It’s like—oh, like colours or notes.”
‘ “Music?”
‘ “No, and ’tain’t like any of the ordinary things, either. I’d know as it were different even if it weren’t a long way away like it is.”
‘It took some time as usual to discover what he was meaning, but I had the impression at last that it was a thing happening at the far limits of his extra sense. As one cannot see stars in daylight, so he could perceive this disturbance only when the more powerful stations were off the air. It was something, it seemed, which happened in three tones. Tones of what? Something which was neither sound nor colour. They occurred in some deliberately arranged sequence—he was emphatic that they could not be accidental—yet they did not exactly repeat. They were faint and far away. He knew, knew without doubt, that they meant something, yet he couldn’t tell what it was.
‘ “Like a chap gabbin’ foreign,” he tried, “you know as it means summat, but you don’t know what. Like that, only different,” he added with fair lucidity.
‘And as different from accidental influences as “singin’ from a motor ’orn.”
‘It left me more confused than usual. At one time I would think he implied someone signalling in a three-tone code, analogous perhaps to the dots and dashes of Morse. At another, that it was a system of communication which his intelligence could not grasp, in much the same way that we cannot grasp insects’ methods of communication.
‘But of one thing I went home that night quite certain. Here was such a possibility as I had never suspected. Beside it, all my earlier discoveries which had seemed so important, became trifling. Contact, perhaps some day communication, with the planets! ’
CHAPTER SIX
THE GIFT OF AGES
I thought over it all the next day with a great desire to do Nothing precipitate. A wrong move now, I felt, might have tremendous effects.
‘But the main result was that my earlier conviction grew clearer and clearer as a necessity. Young Ted must have a good education—the best we could get for him. The job of making sense of those signals, if it were possible at all, was not going to be easy.
‘To use a metaphor over again, he was in the position of a man who hears dots and dashes, realises they are rational, but has never heard of Morse and is ignorant of the language used—perhaps Ted would be up against a worse problem; a quite unsimilar, incomprehensible type of intelligence behind signs.
‘A puzzle like that is going to take all the intelligence and knowledge that can be brought to bear on it. For Ted to attempt it without all the resources one could give him would be inviting discouragement and failure. It needed a mind trained to patience and the scientific approach, perceptive and yet plodding, a mind with tenacity of purpose.
‘Perhaps you can’t give a mind those characteristics, but at least you can give it the chance to acquire them, and hope for the best. It was a chance I determined that young Ted in some way must have.
‘With my own mind fully made up I went to see Jim Filler next evening.
‘I intended to press again for Ted’s education, but not to bring out my new reason for its necessity save as a last resource. For now our positions were curiously reversed from those of eight years ago; then it was he who was afraid I would not believe him, now I was pretty certain of being unable to convince him of the further development.
‘It had been an uncertain kind of day, and there were dark clouds piling up on the horizon and a thundery feeling in the air when I arrived. Jim was working in his garden, but he stuck his fork into the ground when he saw me and led the way into the cottage.
‘It wasn’t difficult for him to guess what I’d come about. He was pretty used to my tackling him on the education issue by this time, though we never got any further, but this time the opening was easier than usual. It was, in fact, volunteered.
‘ “I’ve been thinkin’ it over about our Ted,” he said, “an’ I don’t know as it’ll do ’im any ’arm to learn a bit, even if it don’t do ’im no good.”
‘ “Good,” I said, feeling a bit taken aback at the complete volte face. “I was going to mention it.”
‘ “Y’ don’t say,” he answered drily.
‘ “I’m glad, very glad indeed,” I went on, “I’m sure you’ll never regret it, nor Ted either. Well, now we’ll have to go into the matter of raising the money.”
‘He shook his head.
‘ “No, we won’t. I said as ’ow I wasn’t borrowin’ for ’im, and I ain’t.”
‘ “But—well, it’s going to cost a bit, you know,” I told him.
‘ “I know. I’ve been into all that.”
‘I waited. Jim’s sort takes its own time.
‘ “ ’E’ll earn it ’imself. Maybe it’ll take ’im a year or two, but then ’e’ll be able to go to college an’ pay ’is own way.”
‘ “How?”
‘Jim chuckled.
‘ “Way you never thought of. Mr. Pauley’s notion, an’ a good one, too.”
‘I had known that it must come; it was surprising that I had had the field to myself for so long, yet I felt a hot resentment.
‘ “Pauley, where does he come in?” I asked, though I knew on the moment exactly where he came in. It was inevitable that someone should find out about young Ted soon, and who likelier than his schoolmaster.
‘ “Same way as thaself. ’E came ’ere sayin’ same as you, as ’ow our Ted ought to go to college. So I tells ’im just t’same as I tells you. Aye, an’ I tells ’im it’s no good ’im tryin’ to change my mind, seein’ as you been tryin’ to for t’best part of two years, and not done it. So ’e goes off. Next day ’e’s back. ’E’s been thinkin’, ’e ’as. ’E says why not let our Ted go on t’Alls and make a bit o’ money ’imself?”
‘ “The Music Halls?”
‘ “Aye. ’E says a friend of ’is could get Ted on as “The ’Uman Wireless Set.” Might make five quid a week and more.” ‘I thought of the plans I had made for the boy, a good school and then Cambridge if it could be managed—and now, “T’Alls! ”
‘ “Jim,” I said earnestly. “You can’t do this. He can’t afford it, man, he’s too important. He can’t afford to spend the most impressionable years of his life in Music Halls, it’d be the ruin of him. How could he settle down to learn after that kind of life? And he must learn, he’s got to study, as hard as he can, he must.”
‘Jim removed his pipe and looked hard at me.
’Oo says ’e must? ’E’s my own lad, isn’t ’e? I got a right to do what I think best for ’im, ain’t I?”
‘ “But you don’t understand, Jim, this is important, tremendously important. It may mean a major turning point in history, Jim, pivoting on him. It’s like a sacred trust, we must do our best to prepare him for it.”
‘I told him of my new discovery about Ted.
I put my case for all I was worth—and I might as well have shouted at the hills. I could see his face harden into the all-too-familiar lines of obstinacy as I talked. He could not, would not, see, even if he believed. The stupendousness of the possibilities, contact with life beyond the Earth, perhaps knowledge from older, wiser worlds, the coming of a stage when man gropes out from the isolation of his little planet and makes himself known in the universe beyond, the importance to science, to mankind itself; all this was wasted, blunted against his conviction that it wasn’t “right to borrow on t’lad’s future.”
‘Because I felt so deeply’ and partly because the coming storm made the air sultry and fretted the nerves, I lost my temper with him. But it would take more than words and threatening thunder to move Jim. Cloddish, without imagination, the embodiment of all the stupidities that clutter and clog the world, he seemed to me then.
‘He wouldn’t get excited, he refused to argue, he just sat there behind his unassailable rectitude, beating me off with flat negatives. No lash I used could sting him out of his quiet, narrow assurance. He just waited patiently for me to finish. I did that suddenly, for I felt that in another minute I should punch his silly face if only to make him come alive.
‘“I’m going to see Pauley,” I told him, “and I hope to Heaven that he at least has enough brains to see that this mustn’t be allowed to happen. God, to waste the gift of the ages in a Music Hall! ”
‘I flung out of the place and across the pavement to my car. I was going to see the schoolmaster right away; perhaps he would believe easily, perhaps he would need convincing, but either way I could not believe that he would fail to see that Ted was going to deserve the best education possible. We might be able to raise the money as a gift, though I had my doubts whether Jim would accept it now. But somehow or other we must ensure Ted’s—not only Ted’s; the whole world’s—chance.
‘And then a rumble of thunder made me pause with my hand on the door handle. I looked up, suddenly aware that the sky was full of ominous black clouds; they looked fantastically heavy with an evil, almost green light in their caverns.
‘That was why I did not rush off to see Pauley then; afterwards it wasn’t necessary….
‘The threat of the thunder brought young Ted vividly into my mind. I knew how storms worried him, I knew, too, that he was not at home. I hesitated. After my exit I could scarcely go back and ask where he was; besides, Jim could hardly fail in the circumstances to misconstrue my motive, which was, in fact, merely a desire to be sure that the boy was as well protected as possible against an electrical upset. Instead, I turned from the car and spoke to the woman who stood in the doorway of the next cottage studying the sky resentfully.
‘ “Young Ted Filler?” she said. “Aye, ’e’s along t’canal with our Rosie. Fair soaked they’ll be, the pair of ’em.”
‘I remembered Rosie; she was one of those children who get themselves remembered. She was suspected, and not without reason, of being concerned in any bit of trouble for streets around.
‘Even now I don’t quite know why I changed my mind and went to look for young Ted instead of for Pauley, but I did.
‘The canal ends in Irkwell so there was only one way to go. A few minutes later I stopped the car on a hump-backed bridge just as the first big drops of rain began to fall. From there I had a view of the towpath for half a mile each way, but I didn’t need it. The path was deserted save for two small figures a hundred yards or so away; any others who may have been there had wisely left to seek shelter.
‘The children were scuffling on the cinders a yard or two from the water’s edge, much too occupied to pay attention to me, the coming storm, or anything else but their own quarrel. Rosie was no silent scrapper; her yells of protest were forceful even at that distance. Perhaps that was not to be wondered at. It must be painful to have an opponent take a good grip of one’s hair, even if one does manage to get in a hack or two on his shins. I leaned out of the car and shouted at the little brutes.
‘ “Ted,” I called, “stop it and come here.”
‘Surprised, he looked round. The victim seized her chance to pull free. Quick as a flash she snatched his cap off, flung it into the water, and tore off down the towpath with screams of derision.
‘Ted clapped both hands to his head, as if in pain.
‘ “Come here,” I shouted, getting out of the car.
‘He heard me, for he turned and began to run with his hands still pressed to his head.
‘I started off the bridge to get down to him, then I saw him stagger and stop. In the same split second came a vivid flash right above us and a crash of thunder like the end of the world. The rain fell as if a cloud had ripped right open. When I reached the towpath young Ted was lying there, pathetically asprawl and soaked through already.’
He paused.
‘That’s all,’ he said, ‘that was the silly end of it.’
We looked out over the dark lake in silence for a while.
‘He was dead?’ asked one of the Americans, at last.
‘No, he wasn’t dead. But the thing that made him different was dead. That terrific discharge of lightning had finished his sixth sense for good. In that new sense he had gone as blind as a man without eyes, as deaf as one with split eardrums. He came round again, an ordinary little Irkwell urchin, with a raging headache. Now, he’s a quarryman like his father.
‘Some day perhaps he’ll do something silly and I shall be able to have a look at his brain—if his pigheaded relatives allow it. But there’s pretty cold comfort in that when one thinks of the possibilities which were snuffed out in a second.’
No one spoke again for some minutes. Then there was a movement in the darkness from the Lancashire man’s direction.
‘Aye, it were a rum do,’ he said, ‘but ’e’ll be ’appier that way, you know. Freaks ain’t ’appy. Now, there was one as I once talked to at Blackpool. ’E wasn’t ’appy, ’e said–-’
THE LAST LUNARIANS
CHAPTER ONE
THE VOYAGE OF THE SCINTILLA
The secretary of the Lunar Archaeological 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 Archaeological Society, had seen Dawcott’s among the faces at the windows before the Scintilla took off. And now the man was reported as having been 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 space-flights agreed unreservedly. The new Danielson acceleration compensators had proved their worth, and ridded space-flying for evermore 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 Archaeological 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 was worn 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 harbouring 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.’
