The House that Stood Still

by A. E. van Vogt

  The House

  that

  Stood Still

  A. E. van Vogt

  Copyright

  Copyright © 1950, by A. E. van Vogt

  Copyright © 1960, by Galaxy Publishing Corp. Copyright renewed by A. E. van Vogt.

  All Rights Reserved.

  All characters in this work are wholly fictitious and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  In 1960 the novel appeared under the title, The Mating Cry.

  The UK editions all appeared under the title The Undercover Aliens.

  This restored and corrected first electronic edition published 2014 by

  Agency Editions, Inc. Los Angeles, California.

  ISBN 978-1-940392-04-2

  Prolog

  His first awareness was of a man saying quietly from the darkness: “I’ve heard of such wounds, doctor, but this is the only one I’ve seen.”

  He realized, then, that the bullet which had been fired at him out of an alleyway—he remembered that clearly—must only have wounded him, and he was still alive. Still alive! . . . His joy dissolved like jelly in warm water, as he sank again into deep sleep. When perception returned, a woman was saying:

  “Tannahill . . . Arthur Tannahill of Almirante, California . . .”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m his uncle’s secretary. I’d know him anywhere.”

  It was the first time he had thought of having a name or place of origin.

  He grew stronger. And then, suddenly, there was movement. “All right,” a voice whispered, “ease him through the window.”

  Darkness, and a feel of being swung out and down, then a swaying movement. A man laughed curtly, and a woman said: “If the spaceship isn’t there on time, I’ll—”

  He was next conscious of a powerful forward movement, with an intense throbbing sound somewhere in the background. The sensation ended finally in darkness. And then a man’s voice said: “Of course the funeral attendance will be large. It’s important that he look dead at the service . . . ”

  His body swelled with resistance to the idea of being a pawn in a dream. But the all-enveloping paralysis held him quiet as death, while rich, solemn funeral music played somewhere near. And held him like a vise in the terrible moment when a lid was clamped into place.

  The dirt of the grave made a hollow sound as it struck the wooden box inside which was his coffin. Darkness pressed like a blotter over his mind, but something inside him must have continued the desperate fight. Because, suddenly, he had the sharpest awareness of his long sleep.

  He was still in the coffin, but a cool draft of fresh air was blowing across his face. In the blackness, Tannahill put out his hand. On all sides and above, he touched cushiony satin, but after a minute the air was wafting as coolly as ever into his nostrils. As he began to strain again in a more conscious horror, he heard movement. Digging sounds.

  Somebody was opening his grave.

  A man’s voice said: “All right, lift the box, and get the coffin out fast The ship is waiting.”

  The reaction was too great for human endurance. When he awakened the next time, he was in a hospital bed.

  I

  It was three days before Christmas and Stephens had stayed late at his office to finish some work that would leave him with a free conscience over the holidays.

  Later, he came to regard his presence in the building as the most important coincidence of his life.

  He was putting away his law books just before midnight, when the phone rang. He picked up the receiver and said mechanically, “Allison Stephens.”

  “Western Union,” said the girl at the other end. “Night telegram from Walter Peeley, Los Angeles, for you, sir.”

  Peeley was the chief attorney for the Tannahill properties. It was he who had appointed Stephens as local administrator for the estate. Stephens wondered blankly: What now? Aloud he said: “Read it, please.” The girl did so, slowly: “Arthur Tannahill due to arrive, or already arrived, in Almirante, last night or tonight. Hold yourself on call, but please do not push yourself upon him. It might be advisable for you to wait till after Christmas before introducing yourself. Mr. Tannahill has just emerged from a prolonged hospital convalescence, the result of an accidental shooting; and he seemed very secretive. He plans to spend some time in Almirante. His exact words were that he wanted to ‘find out something.’ Give him all the assistance he asks for, and be your own judge as to the extent of your relationship with him. He is in his early thirties, your age bracket, which should help. Remember, however, that the Tannahill residence known as the Grand House does not concern you in your capacity as local agent unless Mr. Tannahill makes some direct request of you in connection with it. This is just a word of caution. Good luck.”

  The girl finished: “That’s the message. Would you like me to read it again?”

  “No, I’ve got it. Thank you.”

  He hung up, locked the drawer of his desk, and turning, paused to gaze out of the great window. Only a few scattered lights were visible, the main part of the city of Almirante being out of sight to his left. The sky was pitch dark, and there was not a glint of water to indicate that the Pacific Ocean was less than a third of a mile distant.

  Stephens scarcely noticed. He was disturbed by the wire he had received. The over-all tone of the message seemed to suggest that Peeley was concerned and uncertain. On the whole, however, the advice was good. If the Tannahill heir was acting queerly, then his lawyers would have to be careful. It would be foolish, for instance, for him to lose the agency because the young man thought him a nuisance.

  “I’ll call him tomorrow,” Stephens decided, “and place my services at his disposal If that offends him, then I won’t be here long anyway.”

  He paused in the outer hallway to jiggle the door to make sure it was locked. And he was standing there when, clear and unmistakable, a woman’s high-pitched moaning cry came from somewhere in the remote distance of the interior of the building.

  Stephens twisted about.

  At first there was no sound. But as he relaxed he began to hear the vague noises of the separate units of the building still reacting to the absence of the day-time swarm of human beings, and to the changing temperatures as the cool, damp air from the ocean encroached upon the land. Hardwood floors shifted, crackling faintly. Blinds flapped in open windows. Doors rattled.

  There was no further indication of human presence. “As the agent for this place,” he thought, frowning, “I suppose I should investigate.”

  The Palms Budding was a spreading structure on a deep lot. The corridor on which his office opened was long, and two dim overhead lights shed a pale radiance on it. The middle corridor had three ceiling lights and the far end corridor two. No one, and nothing out of the ordinary was visible along any of the three.

  Swiftly, Stephens walked to the elevator and pressed the UP button. The response was immediate. The elevator door slammed. The electric hum of the motor and the whine of the cables expanded upward. And stopped. The door rolled open. Jenkins, the night operator, said cheerfully:

  “ ’Lo, Mr. Stephens. Getting home kind of late, aren’t you?”

  Stephens said, “Bill, who else is up here?”

  “Why, uh, only those Indian worshippers upstairs in 322. They—” He broke off, “What’s the matter, sir?”

  Stephens explained grudgingly. He was already chagrined at his excitement. A single phrase of Jenkins’ brought the disillusionment. Indian Worshippers! He remembered 322 dimly from the rent books of the building. It was occupied by a Mexican firm.

  “Well, they’re not exactly Indians,” Jenkins answered his question. “They’re white enough except for two of �
��em. But Madge says the place is full of Indian stone images.”

  Stephens nodded in rueful understanding. Part of the Tannahill fortune derived from early Mexican sculpture, and after becoming agent for the estate, he had read up on it. An unpleasant subject. Barren, barbarous, wretched people—that was his reaction. But the scream was explained. It became a simple product of one of the innumerable cults whose members moaned and groaned and cried and shrieked in every sizable town along the west coast.

  “I think,” said Stephens, “we’d better knock and—”

  The second scream, muffled, drawn-out, terrifying in its suggestion of unendurable anguish, cut him off. When it had finished, Jenkins’ face was a grayish hue.

  “I’ll get the police,” he said hastily.

  The elevator door slammed, and the cage fell creaking into its abyss. Stephens was alone again, but this time he knew where to go.

  He went with the reluctance of a man who had no desire to get mixed up in something that might interfere with the pleasant routine of his life.

  The sign on the door said: MEXICAN IMPORT COMPANY. A light glowed dully through the frosted glass panel, and Stephens could see shadows inside. They were human shadows, for they moved slightly. The sight of so many made him cautious. Very gently, he tried the door knob. The door, as he had expected, was locked.

  Inside the room, a man began to speak in a low, angry voice. The words varied in distinctness, but enough came through for Stephens to follow the meaning.

  “. . .There is no such thing as separate action . . . You are with us, or against us . . . The group acts nationally and internationally as a . . .” There was a murmur of agreement that drowned out the rest of the sentence; then: “Make up your mind!’’

  A woman’s strained voice said: “We’ve got to stay even if there is an atomic war, and you’ll have to kill me before—”

  There was a snapping sound, and she screamed with pain.

  A man uttered an earthy curse, but Stephens didn’t hear the words that followed. He pounded on the glass with his fist.

  Inside the room, the confusion ended. A shadow detached itself from the group and came towards the door. The lock clicked, and then the door opened. A small, yellow-faced man with an enormous nose peered up at Allison Stephens.

  “You’re late,” he began.

  A startled look flashed into his face. He tried to shut the door, but Stephens moved his leg and his palm forward and, using the power of his hundred and ninety pounds, pressed the door open against the other’s desperate resistance. A moment later, he stepped across the threshold, and said loudly:

  “I’m the manager of this building. What’s going on here?”

  The question was rhetorical. What was going on was quite apparent. Nine men and four women were standing or sitting in various tensed positions. One of the women, an amazingly good-looking blonde, had been stripped to the waist; her ankles and wrists were tied with thin ropes to the chair in which she sat sideways. There were bloody welts on her tanned back, and a whip lay on the floor.

  From the corner of one eye, Stephens saw that the little man with the big nose was drawing a spindly object out of his pocket. Stephens didn’t wait to identify it. He took a step, and with the back of his hand struck the other’s wrist. The weapon, if it were one, glittered with a crystalline brightness as it spun through the air. It hit the floor with a curiously musical sound, and slid under the desk out of sight.

  The little man uttered a curse. His hand moved and, from somewhere on his body, he drew a knife. Before he could use it, another man nearby said sharply:

  “Tezla, stop it!” He added resonantly to the others: “Release her! Let her get dressed!”

  Stephens, who had drawn back from the knife more amazed than alarmed, said: “You can’t get away! The police are coming.”

  The man gave him a thoughtful look. He said in an unhurried, speculative tone: “So you’re the manager of the building . . . Allison Stephens . . . Captain in the Marines, appointed two years ago, law degree from UCLA . . . Well, it seems harmless enough. What I’d like to know is how did you happen to be here at this hour?”

  He turned away as if he didn’t expect an answer. Neither he nor the others paid Stephens any further attention. The man and two women who had been untying the prisoner finished doing so. Four men stood in a corner beside several stone images, and talked in low tones. Tezla—the only one who had been named—was down on his knees getting the spindly object from under the desk where it had fallen.

  The tableau held a few seconds longer. Then somebody said: “Let’s go.”

  They began to stream past Stephens who, feeling himself outnumbered, made no effort to stop them. “The back stairs,” a man’s voice said quietly from the hallway. In a minute, there was no one in the room but Stephens and a very white-faced young woman who was struggling to get into a blouse. She succeeded, and grabbed for a fur coat that lay on the floor behind a desk. She swayed as she picked it up.

  “Careful,” said Stephens.

  She was sliding into the coat now. She turned. Her eyes narrowed. “Mind your own business!” she said shortly.

  She started towards the door and then, as the clang of the elevator came from the corridor beyond, she stopped and turned back. She mustered a smile.

  “I ought to thank you,” she said somberly, but no friendliness showed in her green eyes.

  Stephens, who was beginning to relax again—though he was startled by her ungrateful remark—said satirically, “Your decision to thank me couldn’t, I suppose, have anything to do with the arrival of the police.”

  Footsteps were near in the hall now. A police patrolman loomed in the doorway. Jenkins hovered behind him, and it was he who spoke: “You all right, Mr. Stephens?”

  “What’s been going on here?” said the officer.

  Stephens turned to look at the young woman. “Perhaps the lady can explain it.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know why you were called, officer. Somebody has made a mistake.”

  Stephens blinked. He was astounded. “A mistake!” he said loudly.

  She studied him. Her eyes were green pools of innocence. “I don’t know what you think happened, but we were having a little ceremonial here, and suddenly—” She turned to the officer— “this gentleman was pounding at the door—” She indicated Stephens.

  “Ceremonial!” said the officer, looking around the room and taking in the stone figures with what seemed to Stephens was an expression of comprehension on his face. Stephens could imagine what the other was thinking, and he could hardly blame the man. His own surprise at the denial was yielding to a disgusted desire to get the thing over with. Nevertheless, he explained that he “thought” he had heard her being whipped.

  The patrolman turned to the girl. “What do you say to that, madam?”

  “It’s all a mistake. It was a ceremonial only.” She shrugged, and admitted with apparent reluctance. “I suppose there were some grounds for Mr. Stephens believing what he did.”

  It was evident to Stephens that the incident was just about over. The officer did ask him if he wanted to lay a charge, but that was merely a formality. Without the victim’s corroborative evidence, there was no point in taking action. The girl ended the affair by saying:

  “May I go now, officer?”

  She didn’t wait for an answer, but slipped past him into the hallway. The click of her heels receded into the distance.

  Jenkins stirred. “I’d better get back to the elevator.”

  The policeman did not linger long. Left alone, Stephens surveyed the room, and wondered what actually had been going on. What he had heard, now that he thought it over, didn’t make much sense. The stone images of whatever ancient gods they were supposed to be stared at him with their stone eyes. The silence crept in around him.

  He remembered suddenly that the small man who had answered the door had expected someone else, someone so near in size to Allison Stephens that he had momenta
rily made a mistake in identity. Chilled, Stephens took a hasty look along the corridor. But there was no one.

  He re-entered the office, and he had his finger on the light switch beside the door when he saw the woman’s purse lying near the desk, where her coat had been. Without hesitation he walked over and picked it up. He fingered it dubiously, then opened it. He found the identifying card he wanted. Mistra Lanett, he read.

  Once more, he looked around the drab outer room of the Mexican Import Company. And one thought kept recurring to him. What kind of national and international policy would have made a group of cultists whip one of their members because of an atomic war?

  Frowning, Stephens carried the purse down to his own office and then took the elevator to the street floor.

  “Goin’ to the Tannahill place?” Jenkins asked.

  Stephens came out of his reverie, and his first thought was that Jenkins had heard about young Tannahill coming home. He said at last, cautiously, “Why should I go up there?”

  “You ain’t heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  “Murder.”

  Stephens’ mind jumped to the thought that the Tannahill heir had been killed. “Oh, my God!” he said, but before he could ask, Jenkins went on:

  “The police found the Negro caretaker lying in one of those old wells at the back of the house.”

  “Oh!” Stephens was momentarily relieved, then he frowned as he remembered the import of the message from Peeley. He glanced at his watch. Half past twelve. Hardly the time to introduce himself to the Tannahill heir.

  Outside, he walked to the corner from which many times he had glanced up at the Grand House. It took several seconds before the vague outlines of the house showed up against the night sky above the darker bulk of the mountain on which it stood. There was no light that he could see. Satisfied that the place was deserted, Stephens went to his car and drove home.

  Inside the house, on the way to his bedroom he paused to knock on the door of the housekeeper, intending to tell her that he wanted an early breakfast. The door was ajar and he remembered he had given the woman a two weeks’ vacation to visit her family. She had left the day before.