by John Creasey
‘I hate what I’ve had to do,’ he said.
‘There wasn’t any other chance. You must know that.’
‘I know,’ Palfrey agreed. ‘I know.’
How could he tell her that the real and vivid picture in his mind was Azran? How could he tell her, or anyone in the world, that the Master’s planet could blow up at any moment? If anyone had the faintest idea of that and the Master found out, he might be able to save the satellite yet. No one must know until it was over, and it might be days or even weeks before he could possibly be sure.
‘Sap,’ Joyce said, ‘the strain has been too much for you.’
‘I’m half-inclined to believe you’re right,’ mumbled Palfrey.
‘Will you take a rest?’ When he didn’t answer Joyce went on, ‘If it would help, I would stay here and brief everyone else. And I could send for you in an emergency.’
Palfrey gave her a hug.
‘Bless you,’ he said, ‘but no. You start the new life, Joyce my love. It will be a good one, please God. I’ll ask Stefan to come and take over in London while I visit our main agencies abroad and combine some business with pleasure. Stefan was quite right. London is too often the centre of operations, we don’t use the overseas headquarters enough.’
‘Will you start at once?’ asked Joyce, anxiously.
‘Soon,’ he promised.
She stared at him, puzzled again, then took both of his hands in hers. She had never looked more attractive, and in spite of her obvious anxiety over him, there was a glow, a promise of radiance, in her eyes.
‘Sap, there’s something very much the matter. What is it?’
‘When I can tell you I’ll tell you,’ he promised, gripping her hands. ‘And no, it has nothing to do with you.’
She left him and told Maddern all that he had said, and they speculated, while Palfrey waited hour by anguished hour. It was on the morning of the third day after Azran had gone when he went into the Observation Room and sensed a mood of excitement, rare since the wholesale capitulation. Had Joyce been here, he would have called her; as it was he had slept fairly well and felt quite able to cope.
‘What’s on?’ he asked a young man above one of the computer-controls.
‘No one’s quite sure.’ The answer came with tense excitement. ‘But the great telescopes make it seem like a war between two galaxies! There was an explosion of unusual violence and rage beyond the moon during the night and dozens of smaller but equally bright explosions all around in space. The furthest away was about two million miles, the nearest only two hundred thousand. Everyone is desperately anxious to know what it is.’
Chapter Twenty
THE NEW BIRTH
The newspapers, eager for something which would take the minds of their readers off the capitulation to the Master, made tremendous play with the explosions.
WAR BETWEEN THE PLANETS! ran one headline.
WAR IN SPACE, screamed another.
NUCLEAR WAR IN THE HEAVENS, cried a third.
IS A NEW GALAXY BORN, questioned a fourth.
DID A PLANET BLOW UP? demanded both the London and the New York Times.
Tidings of the explosions poured into Z5 headquarters together with demands for an explanation. At Cape Kennedy, Houston, Woomera and Jodrell Bank as well as space centres in Russia and China, reporters hurled question after question at scientists who could explain little if anything.
Palfrey assessed all the reports, as slowly and deliberately as he could.
Joyce stayed, to help.
Stefan Andromovitch was in hourly touch from Moscow. Others were in hourly touch from New York, Tokyo, Peking, in fact all the world’s capitals. Palfrey made no statement but waited until midday passed, and there was no word from the Master. He held on until midnight, and when there was still no word he sent messages in code to all the governments of the world. Could they have delegates, ready to listen to a shortwave broadcast he would make from Z5 headquarters at twelve noon, next day—British Standard Time. Only half an hour before noon did he call Joyce, Maddern and some department leaders to his apartment.
‘I have news,’ he said evenly. ‘Better news than any of us dared hope. I can tell you that the space explosions were started off by the destruction of the manmade satellite Nega, which set off a series of chain reaction explosions in its own family of satellites. Nega was the planet from which the Nega waves struck the Earth and created barrenness among so many women. As I understood it from the ruler, called the Master, of Nega, the effect of the waves would last a year at most. Everything else he told me has proved true, and there is every reason to believe this is true, also. There is no danger to anyone not already affected, and after a year even those who were affected will be able to bear children again. I have not discovered how the waves caused the de-fertilising effect. I am convinced that the waves did come from a manmade galaxy, and I have every reason to believe that a similar attack could have been made from anywhere on Earth or in space.’
Even here, among these Z5 agents who dealt in their daily lives with threats and disaster, many were choked with emotion. When Palfrey made his sound broadcast, there was a strange sense of emotional reaction even among those who listened. As he finished, a call came for him from the American Ambassador in London.
‘Yes, Mr. Kerr?’
‘Is this one hundred per cent certain, Palfrey?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Palfrey stated.
‘Can you tell me how the Nega satellite was destroyed?’
‘No, sir,’ Palfrey answered.
‘But it is good enough to broadcast to the American people?’
‘To all people,’ Palfrey assured him quietly. ‘I think it wants doing by national leaders. I hope our Prime Minister, possibly the Queen, will broadcast in England.’
He rang off, slowly.
A hundred people rang Z5, wanting to know the same thing as the American Ambassador, and once the news was broken—in England by the Prime Minister—the Press wanted to know how.
‘Was it your doing, Palfrey?’ A man asked at a crowded Press Conference in the Élite Hotel.
‘How was it done?’
‘Did you know there was a chance?’
‘Did you do it, Palfrey? If you did, you ought to tell the world.’
‘You owe it to the world—’ a man began.
‘Any debt I ever owed to the world I’ve paid,’ Palfrey said heavily.
‘No one could ever pay the debt the world owes Palfrey,’ a man called.
‘At last someone has some sense,’ Joyce spoke very clearly.
Someone began to clap. Someone began to sing ‘For he’s a jolly good fellow’. Everyone began to take up the refrain, in tens, in hundreds. The room was filled to overflowing and soon everyone was singing:
For he’s a jolly good fell-el-ow
And so say all of us!
It was as if they had all become young again. And as naive as the Master.
Afterwards, Palfrey, Joyce and Maddern were together in a room at the Élite Hotel, the first time they had been free since Palfrey had made the announcement. There was a curiously subdued mood while they ate cold ham and beef, melon and cheese and biscuits on a balcony which overlooked Green Park, the very spot from which Azran had taken off on her last flight.
‘Sap,’ Joyce said, ‘did Azran take the explosive up?’
Palfrey looked at her with pain in his eyes. Soon, he found his voice.
‘I had expected to have to do it myself. I was fully prepared. Then the Master agreed that I could stay on Earth another week and that she should go back. She thought he feared that she was beginning to enjoy the fruits of the Earth too much. I would have gone,’ he declared. ‘I would have blown you two up with it if that had been the only way. But it wasn’t because the Master came to trust me.’
‘Sap,’ Joyce said, huskily. ‘We have to evolve, but his way wasn’t even the right beginning. You know that. I wish—I wish with all my heart that you could help to look for the right way. You’re always working against the megalomaniacs who think they’ve found it, but if anyone ever does find it, it will probably be you.’
Palfrey gave a funny little laugh.
‘Not I,’ he said. ‘I’m not a creator, even of ideas. I’m really the world’s greatest obstructionist.’ He began to twist a few strands of hair about his forefinger. ‘I don’t believe I’ll ever start anything,’ he went on, ‘but one day I might find a man or woman who has the right ideas. If ever I do I might be able to help them. Z5 might be able to, too.’
‘I’m not so sure you’re right,’ Maddern said. ‘Sap, I would just like to say this—knowing you makes me feel there’s much more hope for mankind than I’d ever dreamed.’
Joyce and Maddern married a few days later . . .
And nearly two years after they were married, Palfrey received a telegram:
Stanislaus Alexander Maddern is now an hour old stop Mother and son both doing well will you please be his godfather?
In a private ward at the Middlecombe Cottage Hospital Maggie Cray finished washing the baby, looked at it with love and then turned into the main maternity ward. There in a corner Jane Gunnison was nursing her newborn child, and others who had been among the first afflicted by Nega waves were suckling their young. In another room Belinda Compton was looking down at her firstborn, eager and happy, all the fears behind her, all the trials and the problems, the love and the pain, the pride and the heartache of motherhood ahead.
All over Britain and all over the world, children were being born again.
Series Information
Published or to be published by
House of Stratus
Dates given are those of first publication
Gideon Series
(Writing as JJ Marric)
These Titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels
Gideon's Day (Gideon of Scotland Yard) (1955)
Seven Days to Death (Gideon's Week) (1956)
Gideon's Night (1957)
Gideon's Month (1958)
Gideon's Staff (1959)
Gideon's Risk (1960)
Gideon's Fire (1961)
A Conference for Assassins (Gideon's March) (1962)
Travelling Crimes (Gideon's Ride) (1963)
An Uncivilised Election (Gideon's Vote) (1964)
Criminal Imports (Gideon's Lot) (1965)
Gideon's Badge (1966)
From Murder to a Cathedral (Gideon's Wrath) (1967)
Gideon's River (1968)
Gideon's Power (1969)
Gideon's Sport (1970)
Gideon's Art (1971)
Gideon's Men (1972)
Gideon's Press (1973)
Gideon's Fog (1975)
Gideon's Drive (1976)
Vigilantes & Biscuits (Gideon's Force) (1978)
Other Series by John Creasey
Published or to be published by
House of Stratus
Dates given are those of first publication
Alternative titles in brackets
'Department 'Z'' (28 titles)
'Dr. Palfrey Novels' (34 titles)
'Inspector West' (43 titles)
'Sexton Blake' (5 titles)
'The Baron' (47 titles) (writing as Anthony Morton)
'The Toff' (59 titles)
along with:
The Masters of Bow Street
This epic novel embraces the story of the Bow Street Runners and the Marine Police, forerunners of the modern police force, who were founded by novelist Henry Fielding in 1748. They were the earliest detective force operating from the courts to enforce the decisions of magistrates. John Creasey's account also gives a fascinating insight into family life of the time and the struggle between crime and justice, and ends with the establishment of the Metropolitan Police after the passing of Peel's Act in 1829.
'The Toff' Series
These Titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels
Introducing the Toff (It's the Toff!) (1938)
The Toff Goes On (1939)
The Toff Steps Out (1939)
Here Comes the Toff (1940)
The Toff Breaks In (1940)
Salute the Toff (1941)
The Toff Proceeds (1941)
The Toff Goes to Market (1942)
The Toff Is Back (1942)
The Toff on the Trail (short stories) (1942)
The Toff among the Millions (1943)
Accuse the Toff (1943)
The Toff and the Deadly Parson (The Toff and the Curate) (1944)
The Toff and the Great Illusion (1944)
Feathers for the Toff (1945)
The Toff and the Lady (1946)
Poison for the Toff (The Toff on Ice) (1946)
Hammer the Toff (1947)
The Toff in Town (1948)
The Toff Takes Shares (1948)
The Toff and Old Harry (1949)
The Toff on Board (1949)
Fool the Toff (1950)
Kill the Toff (1950)
A Knife for the Toff (1951)
A Mask for the Toff (The Toff Goes Gay) (1951)
Hunt the Toff (1952)
Call the Toff (1953)
The Toff Down Under (Break the Toff) (1953)
Murder Out of the Past (short stories) (1953)
The Toff at Camp (The Toff at Butlins) (1954)
The Toff at the Fair (1954)
A Six for the Toff) (A Score for the Toff) (1955)
The Toff and the Deep Blue Sea (1955)
Kiss the Toff) (Make-Up for the Toff) (1956)
The Toff in New York (1956)
Model for the Toff (1957)
The Toff on Fire (1957)
The Toff and the Stolen Tresses (1958)
Terror for the Toff (The Toff on the Farm) (1958)
Double for the Toff (1959)
The Toff and the Runaway Bride (1959)
A Rocket for the Toff (1960)
The Toff and the Kidnapped (The Kidnapped Child) (1960)
Follow the Toff (1961)
The Toff and the Toughs (The Toff and the Teds) (1961)
A Doll for the Toff (1963)
Leave It to the Toff (1963)
The Toff and the Spider (1965)
The Toff in Wax (1966)
A Bundle for the Toff (1967)
Stars for the Toff (1968)
The Toff and the Golden Boy (1969)
The Toff and the Fallen Angels (1970)
Vote for the Toff (1971)
The Toff and the Trip-Trip-Triplets (1972)
The Toff and the Terrified Taxman (1973)
The Toff and the Sleepy Cowboy (1975)
The Toff and the Crooked Copper (1977)
Inspector West Series
These Titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels
Inspector West Takes Charge (1942)
Go Away to Murder (Inspector West Leaves Town) (1943)
An Apostle of Gloom (Inspector West At Home) (1944)
Inspector West Regrets (1945)
Holiday for Inspector West (1946)
Battle for Inspector West (1948)
The Case Against Paul Raeburn (Triumph for Inspector West) (1948)
Inspector West Kicks Off (Sport for Inspector West) (1949)
Inspector West Alone (1950)
Inspector West Cries Wolf (The Creepers) (1950)
The Figure in the Dusk (A Case for Inspector West) (1951)
The Dissemblers (Puzzle for Inspector West) (1951)
The Case of the Acid Throwers (The Blind Spot; Inspector West at Bay) (1952)
Give a Man a Gun (A Gun for Inspector West) (1953)
Send Inspector West (1953)
So Young, So Cold, So Fair (A Beauty for Inspector West; The
Beauty Queen Killer) (1954)
Murder Makes Haste (Inspector West Makes Haste; The Gelignite Gang; Night of the Watchman) (1955)
Murder: One, Two, Three (Two for Inspector West) (1955)
Death of a Postman (Parcels for Inspector West) (1956)
Death of an Assassin (A Prince for Inspector West) (1956)
Hit and Run (Accident for Inspector West) (1957)
The Trouble at Saxby's (Find Inspector West; Doorway to Death) (1957)
Murder, London - New York (1958)
Strike for Death (The Killing Strike) (1958)
Death of a Racehorse (1959)
The Case of the Innocent Victims (1959)
Murder on the Line (1960)
Death in Cold Print (1961)
The Scene of the Crime (1961)
Policeman's Dread (1962)
Hang the Little Man (1963)
Look Three Ways at Murder (1964)
Murder, London - Australia (1965)
Murder, London - South Africa (1966)
The Executioners (1967)
So Young to Burn (1968)
Murder, London - Miami (1969)
A Part for a Policeman (1970)
Alibi for Inspector West (1971)
A Splinter of Glass (1972)
The Theft of Magna Carta (1973)
The Extortioners (1974)
A Sharp Rise in Crime (1978)
'The Baron' Series
These Titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels
Meet the Baron (The Man in the Blue Mask) (1937)
The Baron Returns (The Return of the Blue Mask) (1937)
The Baron Again (Salute Blue Mask) (1938)
The Baron at Bay (Blue Mask at Bay) (1938)
Alias the Baron (Alias Blue Mask) (1939)
The Baron at Large (Challenge Blue Mask!) (1939)
Versus the Baron (Blue Mask Strikes Again) (1940)
Call for the Baron (Blue Mask Victorious) (1940)
The Baron Comes Back (1943)
A Case for the Baron (1945)
