Hartinger's Mouse (Commander Shaw Book 12)

by Philip McCutchan

  “I suppose you mean the growth-pattern in animals.” He didn’t comment directly on that but said, “I must experiment on humans as well as animals. Animals are easily come by, humans not so easily. I am short of humans. I need more and more of them, to become breeding grounds for my organisms.”

  *

  I was put back in that hell-hole after one of the men, on orders from Fesse, had cleaned and bandaged my leg. I didn’t know where they took Jagger. The horror in his eyes had been appalling as I was shoved back in the makeshift cell. I dare say he saw the same kind of look in mine. The future didn’t bear thinking about. Focal House seemed very far away, almost on another planet. In a sense, it was just that. Jagger and I were to become moon fodder, and to that extent would have our earth connexions cut away. We would become moon vegetables, breeding moon filth. Our bodies would crawl. It was a terrible ending and if possible, in that enclosed, claustrophobic space, it seemed even worse. We were so helpless. No-one outside would have any idea what had happened to us. In a day or so, when we made no contact with our respective offices, some sort of search would be mounted and naturally this would centre on Balnachan; but the chances of anyone stumbling on this set-up were so remote as to be not worth while bothering about. On the face of it, we’d had it, Jagger and I. That was bad enough but there was something bigger than both of us, and that was, to put it in a nutshell, Great Britain. If the antidote to the disease wasn’t found, and a stopper put on Fesse and the boys, it might be all over very quickly indeed. Morag’s illness, from inception to death, had lasted less than twelve hours.

  They came for me at last and once again I went through the roll-and-pull routine. That sort of thing got at a man, undermined his dignity and self-confidence. I hated grovelling at anyone’s feet. This time Fesse wasn’t present, but the bearded Scot was, plus three other men who didn’t talk much but who, when they did, bore mid-European accents. They were probably part of WUSWIPP. If they were, they weren’t men I had come up against before. I wondered where Weiler was. In the background, probably — very much so. Weiler usually let other people do the dirty work, or at least the work that was likely to lead a man into real trouble. Not that anyone around here looked like getting into much trouble currently, apart from Jagger and me.

  And, as I discovered soon after, someone else, because when we met Fesse again it was in one of those compartments leading off the tunnel below the lock. It seemed to be a laboratory; there was a strong smell of mouse and urine-soaked sawdust and on an expensive, bang up-to-date operating table which looked as though it had come straight from somewhere like the London Clinic was a girl: Jane Airdrie.

  9

  FESSE, surgically dressed in a green gown and cap, was sitting behind a desk, writing carefully in a lined foolscap book. Jagger was there, being held, like me, at gun point. His eyes looked hollow and his long hair was hanging down in dank rat’s-tails, like a woman in need of a set. I looked at the girl on the operating table; I couldn’t tell for sure if she was alive or dead — I couldn’t see any movement of the breasts to indicate breathing. But she was wearing a sort of hospital nightdress and where this didn’t cover her I could see the horrible sores of the disease injected by Fesse.

  Fesse went on writing. He was using an ordinary fountain pen, not a ballpoint, and it was a scratchy one. Its scratch was the only sound in the compartment other than a faint hum of an electric motor coming from somewhere or other. Since the air in this room was warm and dry, in contrast to the dampness of the tunnel itself, I concluded that the hum was from an air-conditioning plant. No doubt Fesse would need to be able to control such things as temperature and humidity so as to get the best out of his infernal mice. And sheep, and whatever other animals he had chosen to experiment on.

  I said, “What about getting it over, Fesse?”

  “Patience,” he said. “Patience.” He didn’t even look up, just carried on scratching in that book of records. Maybe this was all part of some process of psychological pressuring, but if so, I really didn’t see the point. He had us where he wanted us and I doubted if he regarded us as anything more than specimens. I didn’t think he was the torturing-for-torturing’s-sake type; he was too detached for that, or too dedicated to his as yet unknown purpose. Which made the whole thing more horrible, more soulless and clinical. Anyway, soon after I had spoken he closed the book, screwed the cap back on his fountain pen, and got to his feet. He went over to have a look at Jane Airdrie. Jagger and I watched. He pulled down the top of the nightdress and ran his hands over and below her breasts. He frowned, lifting his head a little and staring sightlessly into space like any doctor anywhere who is feeling for a symptom, or palpating or whatever they call it. He replaced the nightdress at the top and pulled it up her body from lower down and did some more palpating. Then he carried out a close visual examination, at the end of which he nodded to himself and looked pleased.

  He straightened, and looked across at Jagger and me. He was smiling. He said, “Very satisfactory indeed.”

  “I’m so glad,” I said, coldly. “Just what is so satisfactory?”

  “This young lady’s condition is improving.”

  “Improving? Is that what you want, Fesse?”

  “Of course it is,” he said. “Do you not understand this, that I am experimenting in this instance with a means of controlling the disease?”

  I said, “I’m glad to hear that, too. Do you mean you’re making progress?”

  “Yes, quite considerable progress.”

  “You work fast.”

  He shrugged. “You are so kind. It has been fast, yes, but not as fast as you may think. This most recent return of spacemen from the moon was not the start of my experiments, my dear Shaw. They began many, many months before, indeed with the third load of soil from the moon. You see, as a result of that third moon probe, I was fortunate enough to acquire certain samples. In Houston there was a good friend —?”

  “Hartinger?”

  He smiled. “As you say, Commander — Hartinger.” I was intrigued by his use of the Commander; he’d called me Mister back in Fenlavington and also in Balnachan. He must have been doing some digging since and now I was finally disinterred. He went on, “Yes, Hartinger was very helpful in those days. We were good friends, you know —”

  “He betrayed his trust, for the sake of a friendship?”

  “In a sense I suppose he did, though this was not the way he saw it. I persuaded him that knowledge should be shared — scientific knowledge. As a scientist, as a medical man, he agreed. He agreed fully. Hartinger’s thoughts always ran along the lines of internationalism rather than a narrow, stupid nationalism.”

  “Good WUSWIPP principles,” I said sardonically. “Was Hartinger a member of that mob?”

  “No.”

  “But you are, of course.”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “Why do you say of course?”

  “Because the British Government knows about you, Fesse, knows of your connexions with Weiler and WUSWIPP. You’ve been rumbled, Fesse. I’m sorry if the knowledge puts you off your stroke — but there it is.”

  Fesse said, “This fails to, as you say, put me off my stroke. Quite fails. Naturally, I have heard from Weiler that you yourself have had dealings with WUSWIPP in the past —”

  “Not dealings,” I broke in. “Little wars. Let’s get the record right, shall we? So far, I’ve managed to win those wars.”

  “So far, possibly. No more, I would suggest.”

  “Look, Fesse,” I said, trying to put on a show of complete confidence, “Do you imagine, now the British Government knows of the WUSWIPP connexion, and knows that I’ve disappeared somewhere around Balnachan, that they aren’t going to find this place of yours?”

  “It is doubtful, Shaw. Very doubtful.”

  “I wonder.” I looked around the room we were in. I produced a theory that had come to me while I was cramped up in the hole leading off the end chamber where the ladder led to the fresh air. “You didn’t
excavate all this lot yourself, did you, Fesse? It has the feel of some sort of army work about it, a left-over from the war perhaps. If that’s the case, it’s not going to take London long to find it again, is it, Fesse?”

  He was smiling again. “No army. No war. No, no! This tunnel … I believe it was initially a natural cavity through the rock beneath the water. Whether or not this is the case, it was the site of an embryonic and stillborn attempt to build a dam — years and years ago, indeed in the middle of the eighteenth century. Some excavation was done with a view to determining the nature of the ground beneath the loch. I have found this excavation most useful.” He shrugged. “It will not be found, be assured of that! Its existence is lost in history … the ends on either side of the loch fell in many, many years ago, and if anybody should think today about the tunnel at all, which is doubtful, it would be simply to reflect that the whole extent of it was said to be broken — and to wonder where it was that it once ran.” He added, “It was my good bearded friend, whom you have met, who was able to tell me all this. He knows his locality — and his neighbours — well enough, you may be sure.”

  “And he hides you, when you come up here?”

  Fesse nodded. “Yes. His is the house you can see by the loch. He has been most helpful. As I have told you, I have worked on my project for a long time now, and I have had plenty of time in which to restore the tunnel and line it and fit it for my purposes, but this could not have been achieved without help.”

  Hope had sunk again; Fesse sounded both convinced and convincing. I said, “You still haven’t told me what those purposes of yours are.”

  “You have not guessed?”

  I said, “I know you want to spread this moon disease. I’ll grant you, you’ve been damnably successful! But I still don’t see why, unless it’s just scientific egocentricity. That’s a disease the whole of WUSWIPP seems to suffer from.”

  “It is not that,” Fesse said. There was a strange light in his eyes, the light of dedication, of discovery — of blind devotion, I think, to the principles of WUSWIPP. I had so often seen that light in other men’s eyes, WUSWIPP men. Weiler had it, just to name one. It meant you couldn’t reason with the man who had it; his mind was utterly closed. Usually the organization’s aims were fantastic to normal men; such was bound to be the case this time. But Fesse didn’t seem to be in any hurry to explain himself, which was not in the usual pattern of WUSWIPP. Mostly, they fell over themselves to propound their theories in the sure and certain hope that their captive audience would be lost in boundless wonder at their brilliance and far-sightedness. Curiously, in spite of so many reverses over the years, that hope never seemed to leave them.

  Fesse said, “Things will become clear soon. For now, I wish to begin my experiments on you and your friend. If you will please —”

  “Just a moment,” I said. “If you’re not going to talk about your end product, I haven’t finished yet. I’m still interested in Ewart Hartinger. I suppose you had him killed, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Fesse said, “Because he had the intention of withdrawing his support. I was notified of this by WUSWIPP regional underground headquarters in New York. He developed a repugnance for what I meant to do —”

  “You mean he saw through you in the end. I suppose he meant to split on you to the British Government, knowing you were going to operate in this country … and he was trying to contact me as an intermediary, and hand over that mouse he’d brought with him?”

  Fesse nodded. “This comes close to the facts, yes. He had to die, you see.”

  I asked, “What about that yellow dust deposit? What’s the connexion?”

  “You see a connexion?”

  “It started the disease going, didn’t it? It wasn’t all done through mice. Or sheep.”

  “Yes, this is true. But all in good time.” He looked at me curiously. “You saw the sheep?”

  “That was what led me here. Probably other people saw it too.”

  “But did not follow, as I would assume you did, Shaw. The sheep was unfortunate. It was accidentally infected by a rat, this is my assumption. Now you will please come with me, you and Mr Jagger.”

  “What’s to happen,” I asked, “to the girl?”

  Fesse said, flexing his thick arms, “I am hopeful that she will recover. If she does, a few more similar experiments, a few more injections, should confirm absolutely that I have the antidote. As I have said, I think, I am already close to this. I have found that the microorganisms that I believe provide the cure, exist alongside the micro-organisms that cause the skin-loss which is followed by death. They are co-existent in the same batches of moon-surface samples. Such, as perhaps you know, is not normally the case in earth-bound sicknesses, but nevertheless we have a certain analogy with this phenomenon. Here upon earth, have we not the nettle and the dock leaf, the one always to be found growing in close proximity to the other, to act as the antidote when the nettle stings us?”

  “If somebody outside happens to stumble on that one,” I said, “you’re going to be scooped, aren’t you, Fesse?”

  *

  God, how I hoped and prayed he would be! But he hadn’t seemed in the least worried by any such prospect and I dare say he knew his business best. He could perhaps have some special edge on the thing that knocked Houston’s aeromedics and researchers out of the reckoning. Anyway, a few moments after that conversation we were forced to follow Fesse out of the room and along the tunnel a few yards to another door. We were prodded inside by the guns in our backs and I saw we were in another laboratory, or ward — anyway, a place with two operating tables in it and the same nice warm, dry atmosphere. We were made to strip and lie on these operating tables — I didn’t imagine, and events proved me right, that Fesse intended performing any operations, they were merely in use as makeshift beds and that was all. When we were at full stretch the gunmen groped around at both ends of the tables and came up with web straps which they pulled tightly across our chests and calves and secured somewhere underneath and out of sight. Then our watches were removed and our wrists were arranged neatly together on our stomachs, and hand-cuffed. After this the guards withdrew and another man came in, an orderly wearing a green gown similar to Fesse’s. He and Fesse spoke together in low tones for a minute or so, over by a cabinet filled with bottles and resting on a marble-topped table. Then Fesse came over towards us holding a hypodermic and squinting at its end as he put a little pressure on the plunger to expel the air. He waited while the orderly swabbed at my arm with an ether pad, and then he laid the needle’s point against my flesh and gently pushed it in. I saw that the barrel of the hypodermic was filled with a liquid of brilliant, almost startling yellow.

  Here, at last, was some tenuous connexion with the yellow dust.

  All I felt at first was the actual prick as the needle went in, no other effects. Fesse went across to Jagger and gave him the needle also. The orderly dabbed at our arms again, then left. Fesse messed around by his bottle cabinet for a few moments, then gave us each a bright smile, said he hoped we would be comfortable, and went off. But before he went through the door he turned and said, “Oh, by the way, gentlemen, you will be watched continually from a closed-circuit television screen. I shall note your reactions on this from time to time.”

  We watched him go and then we heard the key turn in the lock outside and a couple of bolts go across. I looked around the room. Up in a corner was a small black object which I took to be the television camera. I glanced at Jagger, who hadn’t uttered throughout our interview with Fesse. “Chin up,” I said. I tried my best to sound hopeful. “We’re a long way from done for yet.”

  I was surprised when Jagger said, “Sailor, you’re a bloody fool.”

  “Why?”

  “Giving away the basic point in that Porton paper. You’ve broken security.”

  “Security my backside!” I was angry, which was a better emotion than fear. “Fesse knew the score, al
l right! He knows I’ve been on to WUSWIPP for years now.”

  “You’ve still broken security.”

  “Bugger security. Forget Whitehall, Jagger. We’re a long, long way from the Home Office now. And I’ll tell you something else: hold on to any more talk. Fesse said we were on the telly. You can take it we’re wired for sound as well.”

  “So you’ve got back your sense of security, have you, after all!”

  I didn’t respond to that. Jagger wasn’t normally all that security-minded — much less so than me, in point of fact. I’d grown up with the Official Secrets Act, he had only a casual acquaintance with it and a disrespectful one at that; his very dress and hair-style were poles apart from Official anything. He was doing no more than try to anchor his thoughts on something in the outside world and to find all the hope he could that there was going to be a future where such things would come into focus again. Better to let him carry on.

  *

  Ten minutes later the injection hit home with a sudden vicious bite. It was a piercing shaft of pure agony that ripped a cry from me before I could clench my teeth on it. I saw Jagger’s pale, startled face looking at me, then I saw the change in his expression as he, too, felt that bite. The pain went after what seemed like hours but was actually, I believe, a matter of minutes. It drained away and left a dragging sensation behind it in my arm, as though the flesh had been screwed up in a knot and was being pulled downwards. That lasted a little longer than the sharp pain and then it, too, faded. It left me feeling very drowsy but otherwise all right, no discomfort at all but just that rather pleasant sleepiness. I wondered how long that would last, how long it would be before the filthy horror of the sores started. After a while some sound obtruded into our ward — at first music, quickly switched off, then a voice that could only have been, and was, that of a BBC announcer. We were being fed, it seemed, Radio Four. It was being fed us with a purpose, too. What that announcer was giving out was a summary of the situation vis-à-vis the sickness and the fight against its spread. The voice, of course, was calm and confident and reassuring, but reading as it were between the lines I reckoned that things were getting out of hand to the extent that the authorities had decided platitudes would no longer meet the situation and the public must be told the truth, or at least given as many of the facts as were not too unpalatable, so that rumour-mongering would be nipped in the bud before worse damage to morale ensued.