“You must be wonderfully clever, sir,” Lucy remarked admiringly, her blue eyes very bright.
Hugh Benton shook his head; his answer was surprising.
“Not clever, young lady; just possessed of an intellect several times greater than any other being on Earth. That is not egotism; it is pure fact.”
The girl looked away, half frightened. His deep, mysterious, grey eyes were upon her. She felt in them a sense of terrific solitudes, of loneliness supernal, of coldness—the utter coldness of interstellar space itself. It came to her in a suddenly vivid thought that Hugh Benton was not a man at all. He was.…
But that was impossible. She straightened up to find him serenely smiling again.
“I hope you have both enjoyed the demonstration?” he asked politely. “Perhaps I am not altogether the perfect host, but it pleases me to show you my machines. I love them, take a pride and joy in their upkeep and maintenance.”
As he talked he led the way into a comfortable lounge, where he provided a light and palatable refreshment. During a lull in the conversation, Price looked at the strange scientist with a very direct gaze.
“Mr. Benton, there is something which I feel you ought to know,” he said quietly. “I am, of course, a scientist—though nothing approaching your cleverness ever happened to me—and I feel you ought to know that something far worse than any war is threatening the world. Namely, destruction by plant life.”
“Indeed?” Benton’s eyebrows rose. “In what way?”
Quickly and concisely Price related once more his theory of the spores from outer space, the story of how they had been seen on the Atlantic eighteen months before, and of the hot, scorching summer that undoubtedly must have aided their growth.
“Remarkable,” Benton said finally, thinking. “Your theory is, of course, correct; but you may take my word for it that no harm will befall the Earth. There is nothing to fear.
“I am sorry to hear that you were discredited by so-called experts, but it does not surprise me when one considers the narrow limits of the average human brain. I can only repeat: there is nothing to fear.”
“You are certain of that?” Lucy demanded quickly.
Benton shrugged. “Absolutely, Mrs. Driscoll.” Then he stood in silence for a space, and Price and the girl again felt that air of intangible mysticism, hanging over him.
“I—I think, Mr. Benton, that we’d better be getting along,” Price ventured at length. “Please don’t think us discourteous, but—”
“Quite so, quite so,” Benton responded pleasantly. “I’m to blame for having kept you so long. Come; my car is at your disposal.”
Again followed the curriculum of door-locking and gate-slamming, then the return journey along the narrow lane commenced. Benton sat in silence at the wheel, lost in thought, his driving purely mechanical. Price and Lucy watched him, fascinated.
Who was he? What was he? Just an enigma, with a personality as obscure and unplumbed as space itself.
The Alien Growths
Hugh Benton did not make his presence felt again at the farm, and Price and Lucy, as the days of their holiday slipped by, could not help but wonder why he had so suddenly and mysteriously come into their lives and then as suddenly vanished. Once they debated the idea of a second visit to him, but the memory of calm yet strangely friendless grey eyes made them decide otherwise.
Consequently, they spent the waning time in almost childish pursuits. On the day before they were due to return to London, they became explorers of forest undergrowth a mile away from the farm. With sandwiches in haversacks upon their backs, hatless and happy-go-lucky man and woman were suddenly transformed by the irresistible magic of perfect summer weather into a boy and girl again.
No sense of things unexpected touched them until, in a mad gambol for the shelter of a tree where they might lunch, Lucy tripped headlong over a hidden root and went sprawling into a mass of cool bracken and fern. In a moment Price was after her, had hauled her laughing to her feet.
Then, with solemn pomp, he returned to the offending root and kicked it vengefully. To his stupefied amazement, a brilliant, sickly green sap oozed from the abrasion to the ground below.
The sap’s colour was remarkable enough; but even more astounding was the fact that from its treacly unpleasantness there sprang up what appeared to be thousands of tiny weeds, exactly similar to the parent branch. There was something nauseating, repulsive, about its stupendous rate of growth.
“Good Lord!” Price said at last, in utter amazement.
“Whatever makes it grow like that?” the girl asked, wide eyes fixed on the now eight-inch high weeds as they quivered into more leaf and stem. “It’s uncanny!”
For a long time Price stood quite still, his eyes fixed on that tumultuous growth. Even as he looked the things spread. With another savage kick he broke four of them; they oozed sap, and more weeds sprang up to take their place.
“Lucy, it’s come!” he exclaimed at last, clutching her arm. “The spores from Mars!”
The girl looked at him, stupefied. He seized her by the shoulders and shook her, to bring her to her senses.
“Lucy! Lucy Don’t you begin to understand? All this time—these eighteen months—those spores that settled on the Atlantic have pushed their roots right the way to land, up through the soil of England. This great log here is but one of the roots.
“You can’t stop it growing! As fast as you break it, it drips more sap, and that in turn transforms into plants. Oh, God! Why didn’t I warn the world when I had the chance?”
With an effort, Lucy tore her eyes from the swaying, thriving weeds. “But, Price, Mr. Benton said—”
“Damn Benton! This convinces me! He didn’t know what he was talking about. These weeds will be everywhere before long… Come on; let’s get out of this confounded wood; it gives me the creeps!”
Clutching the girl by the hand, Price forced her along at a rapid pace. As they ran they realised for the first time that the plants on all sides of them were identical to the miniature ones they had seen growing. The place was a mass of the deadly weed!
Panting and hot, they arrived at last in the lane near which the wood was situated. Price’s face was grim and perspiring; the girl’s flushed and troubled.
“Well, what now?” she asked, breathlessly. “Even if we have found the weed, what can we do about it? See Benton?”
Price shook his head. “Useless, I’m afraid. Besides, he’s such a queer sort of chap… No, we’d better get back to London tomorrow—away from all this.”
So, the picnic forgotten, they retraced their steps to the village and farmhouse. On the way they beheld further evidences of alien growth. Here and there were outcroppings of the silently swaying, growing vegetation. At first it seemed it was the wind blowing them; then the two realised with a jolt that it was—expansion!
Everywhere, it seemed, the ground was infested with Martian plant life. The seal of danger and insecurity had settled upon Earth’s face…
War!
Back in London again, the memory of the holiday and Hugh Benton rapidly becoming forgotten, Price wondered whether the strange plant life that he and Lucy had encountered had not, after all, been something akin to the rapidly growing puff-ball. Once or twice he examined the saner aspects of the matter and finally decided that, even if the affair had been genuine, nobody would believe him in any case. Besides, he had a lot of work to catch up with.
So came the return to monotony. He went to and from his work every day, dreaming of ideals and vaguely realising that he had not the finance with which to mature them. Lucy, for her part, pursued an equally unremarkable course in keeping the little out-London bungalow presentable.
Then, like a bombshell, came—war! Two of the world’s principal countries had declared war against the remainder of the world. The outcome was inevitable. There would be a terrific, all-embracing battle. Nobody knew just what the war was about. It was just…well, war.
Price found himself called upon to enlist within four days. The news was half expected, but bitter. On the verge of securing for himself a sound position in life, he was now to be plunged into the welter of ruin and chaos…
Grim-faced, disillusioned, he stood in the drawing room two nights before he was due to depart for the front.
“And after all that fool Benton had to say!” he growled. “He was going to stop war! I don’t know what he wasn’t going to do! And look at the world—-just inside out! Civilisation against civilisation, Lucy, and there’s only one end to that! Wholesale annihilation! For years mankind has simmered on the brink of such an outburst as this, and now it has come I shudder to think of the results.”
“If only we could find Benton again,” the girl said, thoughtfully. “I feel sure, in spite of all you say, Price, that he spoke the truth. I read it once in his eyes. There was something in them that was…well, godlike! I can’t explain it.”
Pshaw!” Price snapped irritably. “Switch on the radio, will you? We might as well learn how much butchery is going on since I’m to be in it.”
The girl reached out and pressed the switch. Followed a few slight adjustments, then the early news bulletin from London came through. For a space the announcer rambled through irrelevant preliminaries, then—
“A remarkable state of affairs has arisen on the First Frontier. Reports from an official source state that the entire front line of infantry collapsed today whilst advancing on the opposing side. The opposers, believing they had an easy victory, advanced to the attack, when they too were overtaken by some strange form of paralysis which petrified them at their posts.
“Surgeons have conducted rigorous examinations and are quite at a loss to account for the malady. It seems to be a condition of advanced catalepsy, in which state the victim is alive, and yet apparently dead. The heartbeats drop to minimum, and there is only just enough respiration to keep the victim alive.
“How long the condition will last cannot be conjectured; the latest bulletin reports no chancre in the men’s condition, and the cause is equally unaccountable. A germ attack could be the probable cause, were it not for the fact that both armies are suffering from the same trouble. It is understood that the malady is rapidly spreading.…”
The announcer paused, and Price looked round amazedly.
“Benton!” he expostulated. “He spoke the truth after all! He’s stopping the war, and—”
“A further remarkable news item in this troubled world comes from Cornwall,” the announcer continued. “The inhabitants of the little village of Rendford reports the appearance of a strange type of plant life that seems to have its roots in the sea. It is rapidly growing, and the English Channel is green with the mysterious weed as far as the eye can see.
“According to accounts, nothing can be done about it. It seems impervious to fire; indeed, it extinguishes fire, and cutting only makes it grow the faster. The report has yet to be verified, but steps are being taken to ensure its authenticity. That concludes the—”
With a hand that shook slightly Lucy switched the instrument off and got to her feet.
“Price,” she said slowly, “that plant we saw wasn’t a dream. It was all too real. And you were right!! That thing we found must have been a root. Now the plant is appearing from the Atlantic as well, where the spores originally fell.”
“I know, and that might not have been the only place they fell,” Price replied, sombrely. “They may have been disseminated all over the world, for all we know.”
He stopped, thinking deeply, then resumed in a grim voice. “Lucy, I’m not going to the war, even though I’ve enlisted. For one thing, there will soon be no war to demand my presence; and for another, this weed is getting a hold. It will grow and grow…unless a means is found to stop it.”
“But what can stop it?”
“I don’t know off-hand, but being an analyst I can find out. Ultra-violet might do it, or germs of some kind…
“You know, I still can’t fathom why Benton said that weed meant nothing. He lied!”
“Perhaps he was only diplomatic,” Lucy corrected, quietly.
CHAPTER III
“It’s the End of the World!”
Paralysis, mysterious and complete, overtook all the armies on every battlefield the following day. Not only the soldiers, airmen and surgeons were affected, but also the sailors at sea. From every quarter of the globe flashed frenzied messages of universal paralysis creeping over the entire world. Nobody was dead, and yet nobody was alive!
The affair was taking on a deadly seriousness. War? What time was there for that now? Man had turned to fighting a common enemy, a mysterious disease that made life a perpetual sleep from which there was perhaps no awakening.
Whole countries began to get uneasy. Price Driscoll and his wife became uneasy, too, when they learned that the decision to cease hostilities had not stopped the paralysis.
It was rapidly spreading to affect everybody. Already the entire American continent was dead from Mains to California, and those liners which were midway between England and the United States had come to a standstill, passengers and crew somnolent, rigid.
“This is going too far!” Price breathed, the following evening. “One more day and the whole world will go under! What on Earth does Benton think he’s playing at, I wonder? I understood he was only going to stop war, not wipe out mankind. It’s—it’s unthinkable! Isn’t it?”
“Yes, I suppose it is,” Lucy admitted. “Why don’t we go and see him again? He could tell us something, no doubt.”
Price considered for a moment, then nodded quickly.
“All right, we will! Get dressed and I’ll get the car out.”
Fifteen minutes later they were on their way through London’s busy thoroughfares, a few odds and ends slung in the car’s rumble-seat. Knowing the drive was to be a long one, Lucy made herself comfortable in the corner of the two-seater, and alternately dozed and watched the darkening countryside.
The sun had been set for some time; darkness came with the slowness common to summer. Still the little car rattled on, its engine humming strongly, keeping up an almost constant speed of forty miles an hour along the deserted country roads.
Blackness came at last. The headlights flooded into being. Wearied, Lucy tried to compose herself for a brief sleep. Her thoughts had trailed off into dim channels when suddenly she heard Price give a sharp exclamation. Shot out of her doze, she jerked upright, then screamed in alarm.
A mighty wall of livid green was directly in front of the car’s bonnet, stretching across the lane. The steering wheel flew round in a circle, and the car veered off to the left. A second later, it slid down a bank, turned over, and crashed heavily on to its side.
Dazed, but not hurt, Price clambered from beneath the overturned vehicle, dragging Lucy after him. A quick examination revealed that they had suffered nothing worse than abrasions.
“What on earth was it?—a hedge?” Lucy demanded, pushing back her disordered hair and trying to see her husband’s face in the rising moonlight.
“Hedge nothing!” he retorted savagely. “It was a huge branch of that weed! Come back with me, and we’ll have a look at what’s going on.”
They scrambled up the bank to the slightly rising ground bordering the road. At the sight they beheld, horror clutched at their hearts, and they stood utterly dumbfounded.
The Moon was now clear of horizon-mist, and in its yellow light lay a scene never before witnessed by living creatures. From their slightly higher vantage point the two could see right across the countryside, and upon every hand, like a vast sea, there stretched billowing green—writhing, struggling green that swayed sickeningly in the silence. Leaves upon leaves, branches upon branches, countless millions of feet of tendrils. A plant, smothering the entire south of England in a steadily advancing blanket!
Even as the two stood, stunned, the nearer branches and shoots of the i
ncredible stuff were coming down the road. Dimly, Price realised that it was the sea of vegetation with which he had nearly collided.
“Great heavens!” he said at last. “Now I begin to understand why nobody is recovering from the paralysis. Don’t you see? Benton must have been overwhelmed—killed, before he could use his counteracter. It’s—it’s the end of the world, Lucy! The end of the world!”
Tendrils of Death
The girl clung closer to him. Her voice broke. “What—what can we do?”
“Get back to London at top speed. It’s the only chance of survival!”
They raced back to the overturned car and set about trying to right it. It was only a small two-seater, but all the same its weight was considerable. Desperately they heaved and pushed. The engine, still in order, roared fitfully, but the frantic spinning of the one wheel remaining on the ground did nothing save move dirt.
At last, panting and drenched with perspiration, the two ceased their struggles. Price swore softly, while Lucy mopped her face.
Then the girl started at a light touch on her ankle. She glanced down, puzzled, then uttered a scream. A thin, whip-like tendril, similar to that of Virginia creeper, had securely noosed itself round her leg!
“Price! Price!” she shouted frantically, starting to run forward; but three more powerful tendrils reached out and clutched her flailing arms, her waist. She toppled over helplessly, unable to retain her balance.
“Good God!” Price gasped in horror, wheeling round, to behold in the moonlight a mighty streamer of the advancing weed cascading over the bank and smothering all before it.
He had a vision of his struggling, screaming wife in the midst of the frightful stuff, wrapping round her body like cotton round a reel… She moved within it, struggling feebly. It gained the car and rapidly began to bury it in bands of swelling green.
Price saw his wife in danger of death from strangulation unless he acted at lightning speed. Already she was difficult to see through the tangle of branches and speeding tendrils. Whipping off his coat, he snatched his penknife from his pocket, snapped open the largest blade, and charged to the attack.
The John Russell Fearn Science Fiction Megapack Page 23
