“So they have only been countering your moves.”
“It seems so. I got up close to one of their ships once. It was many-sided, like a cut diamond or something, and it was dark. But the strangest thing was how reflective it was. I could see myself and everything else around as if in a huge mirror. And that’s like what they seem to be doing in the war: they reflect and magnify everything we do.”
“You should have done nothing.”
“It’s too late for that now.”
“Too late for you. Not for me.”
“You still have no compassion for your fellow humans? Remember, these are not people we’re fighting, but something else, something – alien.”
“What’s the difference? Obviously they’re intelligent. And anyway, is it doing any good to fight them?”
“Look, I know how you feel. You’re right: I’ve read your file, I’ve read transcripts of interviews, I’ve traced your family history as far back as I could.”
Bethany smiled, still without warmth. “Why would you be so interested in one little Conscientious Objector? No one has cared until now. I’ve been thrown in with these crazy-ass wackos and forgotten.”
Margaret raised her hands in a gesture of futility. “We’re bolstering armies with prisoners, old folks, pre-teens, the insane – anyone we can grab. But we know it won’t do any good. Face-to-face, or I guess I should say face to no-face, we know we’re no match for them. So we’ve been brainstorming, trying to come up with something unusual, unconventional, something wild and unexpected we could try. And that’s when we thought of you.”
“Me?” For the first time since Margaret had met her an unguarded emotion crossed Bethany’s face: surprise.
“Well, not just you. People like you.”
“I was led to believe I was unique. An anomaly, an abnormality.”
“No. There are quite a few others, both men and women.”
“And they are all willing, like me, to be dismembered rather than fight?”
“Yes.”
“If that doesn’t beat everything. You isolated us from each other to break down our wills, to make us think that we were all alone. Unity would only strengthen our convictions, right?”
“That’s right. Only now… Only now…”
Comprehension lit up Bethany’s face. “You want to send us to them. You’re hoping they’ll mirror the way we feel. If they do they’ll stop fighting. They might even pack up and go home.”
Margaret nodded. “We want to surrender, to plead for mercy, but there’s no one to surrender to. We figure if we send you to them, they might pick up our intentions.”
For a moment Bethany was incredulous, then she started to cry. “You bastards! You bastards! After all I’ve been through – after all we’ve been through – you ask us to walk right out to the enemy and try to save the world!”
“I’m sorry,” Margaret said. “I…”
Wiping her tear-stained face, with a chuckle that sounded like a sob, Bethany said, “This must have killed you. This must have just killed an old military warhorse like you to come here and tell me this.”
In her confusion of emotions Margaret was finding it hard to keep her composure. “It… It’s a last resort.”
“Meaning that if you had your way you’d blow them to hell first, right?”
“We’ve been trying to defend our country, our world.”
“But it hasn’t worked.” Bethany grabbed some toilet paper and wiped her eyes, blew her nose. “Have you talked to the others? What do they say?”
“What do you say?”
“I say why should I? You say either I do this or I’ll be torn to pieces. Forget it. You’re not worth saving. Let them have this messed-up world. Maybe they’ll do better with it than we have.”
“It’s not like that.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean the dismemberment. It was just a threat. We never intended to do it.”
“What?”
“We had to know who was sincere and who was just a coward.”
Bethany shook her head in disbelief. “You still don’t understand, do you? Maybe you never will.”
“I’m trying to.”
“And if you’re not going to cut us up if we refuse to help, what are you going to do with us?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“We realized for this to have any chance to work it must be sincere – completely voluntary. As of this moment you are a free woman, whether you choose to help us or not.”
“You’re kidding. Do you mean I can just walk out that cell door and out of this prison and never look back?”
“Yes. Well, you’d have to come with me to the warden’s office first to sign some forms.”
Bethany sat motionless, still as a statue, her jaws set in a frown of concentration, rivulets of tears gleaming on her cheeks. Finally she spoke in a low voice. “If we did this, there would be no tricks, right? No hidden bombs or bugs on us, no backstabbing them if they drop their weapons.”
“No.”
“You powers-that-be are behind it? You’re willing to back it for the long term?”
“Yes.”
“What’s your name? You never told me your name.”
“Margaret Keller.”
“Are you, Margaret, personally, willing to unequivocally turn your sword into a plowshare? Figuratively speaking, of course.”
Margaret hesitated before saying, “Yes.”
“I see. You’ll do it, but reluctantly. I guess that’s the best that can be expected at this stage. How soon are you planning to try it?”
“As soon as possible. As soon as we assemble the team. Volunteers are being sought out around the world, everywhere where ships have landed. When everyone is ready we’ll synchronize the advance.”
Bethany thought again for a time and then said, “I miss my mother. I want to go home.”
“That’s understandable.”
“Can we leave now?”
“All right.”
Margaret swung the door open, and Bethany stepped gingerly through, as if unsure whether she really had permission to do so or not. She waited for Margaret to come alongside her before she went farther.
Margaret hesitated. “Uh… I seem to have lost my sense of direction. Which way?”
“This way. Come on.” They turned right towards an intersection of corridors. Some of the ceiling fixtures ahead had been smashed, so that part of the hall was in shadow, and part washed in pale yellow light.
They had gone but a few steps when five women in gray prison coveralls appeared from around a corner and blocked their way. Two were black, one looked Hispanic, and two were white. They all brandished makeshift weapons: steel pipes from bunk frames, and metal scraps shaped like knives, taped at one end for a handle and sharpened at the other.
A tall heavy-set black woman tapped her pipe rhythmically on the palm of her hand. “Where you goin’, Bethy?” she said. “We haven’t said goodbye yet.”
“Back off,” Margaret said. “My business is only with Bethany. Stay out of it.”
The woman continued the thump of pipe on palm. “Well, our business is with Bethany too. And if you don’t want some of it yourself, you’d better back off. Don’t you know what she is? She’s a coward.”
“No, Emma,” said Bethany. “I’m not a coward. I’m willing to be dismembered. You’re the ones who ran away.”
Emma gripped her pipe with both hands and raised it over her head. “Why, you bitch!”
Bethany began to slowly walk towards the prisoners. “It’s natural to be scared, Emma. Everyone’s scared. Even those who pretend they’re not.”
Emma half-lowered the pipe and said, “Don’t be callin’ me a coward.”
“All right. I’m sorry. Pleas
e let us pass.”
For a moment Margaret was mesmerized. She had considered Bethany a coward, nothing more, yet here she was advancing on women who had already announced their intention of thrashing or possibly even killing her. And the women, spellbound by her boldness, were slowly stepping back, and even lowering their weapons. It looked like they would make it past the prisoners unscathed.
But then Margaret’s training reasserted itself. Bethany was a part of the larger plan now, and too valuable to take a chance with. She drew her pistol, held it at arm’s length, and shouted, “I said back off! Do it now!”
The Hispanic woman shouted, “She’s got a gun!” They all raised their weapons again, as if they were going to charge Margaret.
Five deafening shots boomed through the corridor.
For a timeless moment Margaret became disoriented, and imagined herself on a battlefield, with bombs exploding, bullets flying, smoke filling the air, and all around the stench of burning flesh.
Then there was a long silence.
When her vision cleared Margaret saw that four of the women lay still on the floor, shots to the head having killed them instantly. Emma, however, was bleeding from the chest, and more blood gathered between her lips and flowed down her cheek; Bethany sat in the mud and blood cradling Emma’s head in her lap, looking into Emma’s frightened eyes.
Margaret’s arm fell to her side; the pistol dropped to the floor with a loud clatter. Then the only sound was Emma’s quiet bubbling cough.
From a distant corridor came shouts and footfalls.
Bethany raised her head and looked at Margaret. “You don’t deserve it,” she said. “You don’t deserve to be saved.”
* * *
For months the enemy had been dormant.
The time had come.
The plain was littered with the debris of old battles: crumpled and rusting vehicles, shattered weapons, bits and shreds of materials and components of the robotic soldiers the enemy used to fight for them. In the distance, at the edge of the sere hills, sat three of the enemy’s dark multifaceted ships.
Some people were milling about, some standing still; some were talking, some silent. They were men and women, young and old, black, brown, and white, tall and short, fat and thin, some bald and some with hair down to their waists, some with tattoos, some with bangles and beads and necklaces and bracelets and earrings and nose rings and rings in their lips; some were formally dressed and some casually, some sported clothes with wild flamboyant colors and some were scarcely dressed at all.
It was almost time to start. Margaret hurried through the crowd, searching.
Then she saw her, standing by herself gazing at the dark ships. She wore brown leather sandals, blue jeans, and a pink blouse. The scar and bruise-marks were still on her face, but she looked healthier, more robust, like she’d been eating well and had filled out.
“Bethany.”
Margaret had expected bitterness and animosity, but Bethany merely smiled. “Oh. Hello.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“Well, it’s true what I said, that you don’t deserve to be saved. But then, none of us do.”
“You must hate me.”
“No. How could I walk out now with these others if I did?”
“I came to say…” Margaret’s voice broke; she hesitated and tried again. “I came to say I’m sorry.”
“There were times at the prison, after they had worked me over, that I wanted to kill them too.”
“But I…”
“It’s all right.” Bethany hugged her, and kissed her cheek. “Come. Walk with me.”
Margaret shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Why?”
“I have responsibilities. No, that’s not the reason. I guess I’m not ready.” Margaret felt the urge to cover up her confusion, so she turned and left the crowd. A three-story-high platform had been erected from which military personnel could view the outcome of the event; she rode the lift to the top.
She spotted Bethany’s pink blouse; she was still standing where Margaret had left her.
The signal was given. The people below began to move slowly forward, some walking hand-in-hand, some alone, and some in groups.
Beyond, the dark ships waited.
The War of the Worlds
H.G. Wells
But who shall dwell in these worlds if they be inhabited?… Are we or they Lords of the World? … And how are all things made for man?
Kepler (quoted in The Anatomy of Melancholy)
Book I – The Coming of the Martians
Chapter I
The Eve of the War
No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.
The planet Mars, I scarcely need remind the reader, revolves about the sun at a mean distance of 140,000,000 miles, and the light and heat it receives from the sun is barely half of that received by this world. It must be, if the nebular hypothesis has any truth, older than our world; and long before this earth ceased to be molten, life upon its surface must have begun its course. The fact that it is scarcely one seventh of the volume of the earth must have accelerated its cooling to the temperature at which life could begin. It has air and water and all that is necessary for the support of animated existence.
Yet so vain is man, and so blinded by his vanity, that no writer, up to the very end of the nineteenth century, expressed any idea that intelligent life might have developed there far, or indeed at all, beyond its earthly level. Nor was it generally understood that since Mars is older than our earth, with scarcely a quarter of the superficial area and remoter from the sun, it necessarily follows that it is not only more distant from time’s beginning but nearer its end.
The secular cooling that must someday overtake our planet has already gone far indeed with our neighbour. Its physical condition is still largely a mystery, but we know now that even in its equatorial region the midday temperature barely approaches that of our coldest winter. Its air is much more attenuated than ours, its oceans have shrunk until they cover but a third of its surface, and as its slow seasons change huge snowcaps gather and melt about either pole and periodically inundate its temperate zones. That last stage of exhaustion, which to us is still incredibly remote, has become a present-day problem for the inhabitants of Mars. The immediate pressure of necessity has brightened their intellects, enlarged their powers, and hardened their hearts. And looking across space with instruments, and intelligences such as we have scarcely dreamed of, they see, at its nearest distance only 35,000,000 of miles sunward of them, a morning star of hope, our own warmer planet, green with vegetation and grey with water, with a cloudy atmosphere eloquent of fertility, with glimpses through its drifting cloud wisps of broad stretches of popu
lous country and narrow, navy-crowded seas.
And we men, the creatures who inhabit this earth, must be to them at least as alien and lowly as are the monkeys and lemurs to us. The intellectual side of man already admits that life is an incessant struggle for existence, and it would seem that this too is the belief of the minds upon Mars. Their world is far gone in its cooling and this world is still crowded with life, but crowded only with what they regard as inferior animals. To carry warfare sunward is, indeed, their only escape from the destruction that, generation after generation, creeps upon them.
And before we judge of them too harshly we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon animals, such as the vanished bison and the dodo, but upon its inferior races. The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness, were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European immigrants, in the space of fifty years. Are we such apostles of mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit?
The Martians seem to have calculated their descent with amazing subtlety – their mathematical learning is evidently far in excess of ours – and to have carried out their preparations with a well-nigh perfect unanimity. Had our instruments permitted it, we might have seen the gathering trouble far back in the nineteenth century. Men like Schiaparelli watched the red planet – it is odd, by-the-bye, that for countless centuries Mars has been the star of war – but failed to interpret the fluctuating appearances of the markings they mapped so well. All that time the Martians must have been getting ready.
During the opposition of 1894 a great light was seen on the illuminated part of the disk, first at the Lick Observatory, then by Perrotin of Nice, and then by other observers. English readers heard of it first in the issue of Nature dated August 2. I am inclined to think that this blaze may have been the casting of the huge gun, in the vast pit sunk into their planet, from which their shots were fired at us. Peculiar markings, as yet unexplained, were seen near the site of that outbreak during the next two oppositions.
Alien Invasion Page 68
