And, in a corner, there was something else.
It was bigger than the rats, bigger than the cat. Its fur, where it wasn't bloodstained, was white. From the body a black, naked tail protruded stiffly.
Barrett was reluctant to touch it. He saw a gooseneck scraper hanging from a shelf, used it to turn the body over, revealing a gaping wound in the belly, a tangle of viscera. The forelegs—or the arms?—of the thing were almost human. In one hand it grasped one of those cardboard folders of matches that are used for advertising purposes. In the other hand was a match.
"The head on it," Barrett heard the admiral whisper. "Like a damned monkey."
"And the teeth," said Barrett. "Like a rat's."
"But what—?"
"Idt not been human," grunted Karl.
"That's what the ham operator in Pleasantville was trying to say, at the finish," whispered Pamela.
"I saw the rats," muttered the admiral. "I saw them in their hordes, attacking people. I saw what they did to the Shore Patrol that the O.I.C. at H. M. S. Watson sent out; the bloody fool had his men armed to the teeth, but wearing shorts. But I thought they were just running from the fires, the same as all of us were. I thought that they were crazed with fear.
"But now..." He had found a stick and was poking at the white-furred body. "This ... thing."
"King Rat," said Pamela.
Barrett looked at the matches still held in the claws— no, the hands. "The fires," he whispered.
The admiral cleared his throat. "In my younger days," he said, "before there was all this mucking around with rockets and nuclear weapons, it used to be axiomatic that one skilled saboteur with a box of matches could do more damage than a squadron of heavy bombers. How many of these things are there? How many, all over the world?"
"And where did they come from?" asked Barrett. "From Mars? Or perhaps the flying-saucer boys aren't so nutty, after all. And they exercise control over rats, use them as their shock troops while they do the really dirty work, the sabotage and arson."
"Mars be buggered," growled the admiral. He took the scraper from Barrett, pulled and prodded the body with it. "Look. This brute is as much a native of this planet as we are. Vertebrate. Mammal. Look at its digestive and excretory system. And the way that the limbs are articulated."
"Yes," muttered Barrett. "Yes."
And that, he thought, was the really frightening part of it all. The dead saboteur had not, in life, been pretty— but it was not alien. It was no more alien to Earth than the dead cat, no more alien—and no more pleasant—than the dead rats. King Rat, Pamela had said.
King Rat it was—or one of the many princes.
"The Russians," the admiral was saying. "Have to hand it to 'em. Damn clever biologists. Just suppose that over the past twenty years or so they've been trying to breed a race of small, practically invisible saboteurs."
"I rather gained the impression from that poor devil of a cosmonaut," said Barrett, "that Russia was having her troubles, too."
"The trouble with biological warfare," said the admiral, "is that it's liable to get out of hand. Given three or four turrets of sixteen-inch guns to play with, you do know just what you're doing."
"Your sixteen-inch guns wouldn't be much use now," said Barrett.
"And why not?"
"How can you use a weapon designed for use against ships, or even men, against enemies the size of this? Oh, there's always poison gas, I suppose, but it'd probably be ineffective against enemies normally living underground, whilst finishing off any human survivors left in the cities."
"Perhaps," suggested Pamela, "if we hold the meeting that we were supposed to be holding twenty minutes ago, somebody will come up with a bright idea."
The men agreed with her.
The crew's messroom provided seating for all the survivors. The only absentees were Joe, who had been left on the bridge as lookout, and Maloney, who was maintaining his wireless watch. Barrett had been able to have a few words with Jane when he had awakened her from her dazed sleep, had supported her down the companionways to the crew accommodation, had seen to it that she was comfortable on one of the padded settees.
While he was concerning himself with his wife, the admiral took charge. He stood at the forward end of the long compartment, an imposing figure despite his informal attire. His pale eyes stared bleakly at his audience until all chatter and murmurings ceased.
He said abruptly, "We're all at sea." He paused. "But we're not so much at sea as we were a few minutes ago. I think we know, now, what's fighting us. I think we know what we have to fight."
"Whom we have to fight, sir!" shouted a lean, bespectacled man wearing the crumpled remains of a gray business suit. "Whom we have to fight. There is no doubt, surely. And there must be rockets at Woomera with which we can retaliate."
"To fight, to try to fight would be blasphemy," cried the stout woman with the lavender dyed hair. "How can one do battle with God's ministers? The world was wicked, wicked beyond belief, beyond imagination, and this is the Judgment. We have hurled our impious rocketry towards Heaven itself—and now fire from Heaven is destroying us. We—"
"Thank you, Mrs. Taine." And Barrett found himself admiring the admiral, wishing that he, with a few short, polite words was able to bring a religious fanatic up short. "Thank you, Mrs. Taine, but I feel that the views expressed by Mr. Hannaway and yourself are not, at the moment, very constructive." He paused. "I am familiar with the stories of all of you by this time. I have heard of your escapes from burning houses, from hordes of hungry, vicious rats. But, unless by retelling them you can make some contribution of value, I do not wish to hear them again. Yes, Mr. Clarendon?"
Barrett looked curiously at the little man who had risen to his feet. He was shabbily dressed in an old-fashioned blue-serge suit, complete with vest. A gold watch-chain was a note of incongruous finery. Over the stiff white collar—now badly crumpled—the face was sharp, coming to a point at the nose, the chin and the forehead receding. An untidy straggle of hair on the upper lip did little to improve it.
His voice was squeakily irritating.
He said, "Most of you here know me. I am—or I was —your local rodent-control officer. Or, as we used to be called in the old days, the rat catcher. I catch rats. Or I'm supposed to catch rats. Or was supposed—"
"Come to the point, Mr. Clarendon!" snapped the admiral.
"I shall, sir, I shall. In my own time, in my own way. As you know full well—I have been trying to make my point for weeks now. For months. But nobody would listen. Nobody! Now perhaps—" His clawlike hands busied themselves with paper and fine-cut tobacco, lifted a bedraggled, skinny hand-rolled cigarette to his lips. He lit it. It went out. He lit it again.
He said, speaking through the acrid smoke, "It's my business to know rats. To study them. And I've made it my business to read all sorts of books on biology. After all, the control of any pest is merely applied science. And I've wondered, often enough, just what would happen to us if the rats started to mutate. There're so many of them, you know, and they're such fast breeders, and the ordinary rat's already quite intelligent.
"Now, this mutation business. There are so many causes, more than ever before. The rising level of radioactivity, due to fallout from tests. The increasing use of chemical pesticides. And some of these poisons are mutagenic. The use of rats in experiments involving radiation. The shooting of rats up into the stratosphere, and beyond, in rocket tests—
"Think it's fantastic? But it's not. Suppose just two mutants—one pair, intelligent, so stand a better chance of survival than others—look after their offspring better; breed as fast as ordinary rats, or faster; interbreed with ordinary rats, and breed true ... and spread ...
"How, you ask? How? The same way as rats have always spread. Stowing away on long-distance trains, aboard ships. And remember, too cunning to be worried by those silly pieces of tin you call rat guards—" He looked at Barrett "—which are usually dangling on their lanyards, anyhow. Quite u
seless.
"So they spread, all over the world. They keep contact with each other. How? Perhaps they can read and write— wouldn't surprise me. Or perhaps they're telepathic. Perhaps they control the unmutated rats by telepathy."
He chuckled creakily. "All theories, mind you. All theories. But nobody else has any. Nobody else has any that suit the facts. And I started making up these theories when the rat plague really got started. The babies mauled in their cradles and the old people and drunks killed. And then there was the so-called firebug, and that tied in with the odd things that rats were stealing, especially matches. There were the outbreaks of rat-carried disease in various parts of the world. There were the fires at sea, and the plane crashes ...
"They were all building up, you see. All building up to ... to something.
"And I can't say I blame 'em. Suppose they are telepaths. Suppose they can read our thoughts. Suppose they know that we're on the point of wiping out all life with our atom bombs. Wouldn't they be justified in trying to stop us?"
He rolled another cigarette. "All theories," he said. "I think there are mutants, but I'd like to see one—"
"Rubbish!" snorted a fat man at the after end of the messroom. "Comic-strip rubbish. I agree with Hannaway. It's the Russians."
"Mr. Barrett," said the admiral, "I think that after the meeting we might bring the mutant along here so that everybody can see what we're up against."
"After the meeting," said his niece firmly, "we're having breakfast, and then Tim's going to get some sleep."
CHAPTER 7
The meeting degenerated into a mere recital of horror stories; Clarendon had been the only person among those present with an important contribution to make. And he admitted frankly that he did not know what could be done at all. Barrett listened to the others drowsily—to the tales of fire and flight, of filthy, gray hordes sweeping up from underground, attacking ferociously anything living not of their own kind. But other people's troubles, he thought, are interesting only when one has none of one's own.
Beside him, on the settee, Jane was already sleeping again. He began to feel resentment. All right, so she had had a rough time of it. But she was not the only one. Some women, he thought, would have been on the bridge with him while he was beating through the perils of the harbor to seaward. Some women would have considered it a wifely duty to go down to make tea and toast for their husbands after a long and exhausting night. After all, Jane knew the ship, knew where everything lived. He turned to look at Pamela, who was sitting on his other side.
"Tim," she whispered. "You're all in. I'll get you and Jane out of here and rustle you up some breakfast."
He grinned. "I'll have my share of the eggs while they last. Soon enough we shall be living on potatoes and what fish we're able to catch."
He got to his feet, as did Pamela. Together they tried to lift Jane to a standing posture. She resisted feebly.
"What are you doing, Barrett?" demanded Keane.
"It's Captain Barrett's wife, Uncle Peter. She's fainted. We have to get her out of here."
"All right. But come straight back, both of you."
"Nobody orders me aboard my ship," snapped Barrett, suddenly wide-awake. He met the glare of the pale eyes without flinching.
The admiral coughed noisily. He said, "I'll deal with you later young man."
"Uncle Peter," Pamela told him. "Captain Barrett is doing his best. So far he has done well. If he is to continue doing well he must have some rest."
The admiral was beginning to look embarrassed. He thinks we're all letting the side down, thought Barrett. Officers aren't supposed to have differences of opinion in front of the lower orders. But he started it.
"We'll talk about this later," said Keane at last.
"Yes," agreed his niece. "Later. At noon. Or eight bells. Or twelve hundred hours."
Supporting Jane, she and Barrett made their way from the crew messroom to the saloon. Pamela left Barrett and his wife there, hastened out. Jane was awake now, after a fashion. She sprawled in her chair, looking at Barrett with dull eyes. "Tim," she asked. "What are you going to do? What are we going to do?"
He said. "I don't know."
She said, "But we must do something." She was becoming more alive. "We must try to rebuild. But it was so heartbreaking—the house we put so much into. First of all, those little, hairy monsters swarming through every room, chasing me as I ran for the car, and then the fire— the fires.
"I'm afraid I smashed the driveway gates getting out. I daren't stop to leave the car to open them. And by that time the hotels on the other side of the road were all blazing, and so was the Purdom house. And Ocean Street was just a torrent of traffic, all streaming down to the harbor, and there was another torrent on the New South Head Road, rushing in toward the city, to get over the bridge, I suppose, and I was caught in that—"
He said, "But you found your way—"
"I don't know how I did. But I was desperate. There was a man that I ran over just by the Town Hall, but I didn't stop—"
"You didn't run over him," said Barrett a little sourly. "You just missed him. It was me."
She ignored this. "And then, getting aboard at last and finding you gone was too much. Luckily Bill was able to do something to call you."
"Very luckily," he agreed.
Pamela came in with a tray. There was a pot of coffee, steaming and fragrant. There were three cups and three plates, on each of which reposed a large egg-and-bacon sandwich. "Dig in," she ordered. "I made these wiv me own fair hands."
Jane looked at her rather coldly. "Thank you, Pamela."
The three of them devoted themselves to their meal in silence, finally broken by Barrett. He said, "You must be tired yourself, Pamela. So must everybody—"
"Too right," she agreed. "But I've arranged with that nice German and that nice Italian of yours about keeping watches, and there's a Mr. Ryan, who used to be a naval telegraphist, who'll relieve your Mr. Maloney."
"Regarding accommodation," he said, "you can help yourselves, so long as you tell the others to keep out of the chief officer's cabin, the radio officer's cabin, the third engineer's cabin, and the two berth cabin in the crew's quarters that Joe and Karl share." He added, "I imagine your uncle will lay claim to the Old Man's palatial suite."
Pamela grinned. "He already has done so. And I'm in the second mate's dogbox if you want me." Her face was suddenly serious. "And there's still that dead man in the smoking room."
"I'd forgotten the poor bastard," Barrett admitted. "So much has happened. But he'd better be dealt with first of all."
Barrett conducted the service. Oddly impressive it was, the ship lying silent with stopped engines, the survivors standing in reverent attitudes on the afterdeck. Then, as Barrett said, "We now commit the body to the deep," Karl and Joe lifted the end of the painting stage—and the unknown man, sewn in his canvas shroud, with the heavy shackles at his feet, dropped to the surface of the gently heaving sea with the slightest of splashes and fell slowly down through the clear water.
Barrett did not watch. He went slowly to his cabin, stripped to his brief underpants and fell to his settee. Jane, in the bunk, was already sleeping.
It seemed to him that he had barely fallen asleep when he was awakened by somebody calling in a high, clear voice, "Rise and shine. The sun's burning your eyes out."
He opened his eyes slowly, focused them on Pamela. She was, as usual, carrying a tray. There was a jug on it this time, its sides bedewed with the moisture of condensation. There were three glasses.
He said, "Don't think I don't appreciate this, but already I'm starting to worry about the fresh water."
She said, "As a matter of fact, this is out of some tins of grapefruit juice I found in the stores."
"Oh," he said, "That lousy hound of a chief steward never put it on the table."
"Your chief steward," she reminded him, "is almost certainly a homeless refugee, and very probably dead."
"I'm sorry," h
e said soberly. "Would you mind passing me my dressing gown?"
She asked, "What does it matter? You're as adequately attired as you would be on a beach."
"Even so." He took the garment from her, got up from the settee and pulled it round himself, and sat down again. He saw that Jane was awake, was looking at him and the girl with a certain hostility. He passed her a glass of the cold drink.
Jane said, "You seem to get plenty of service."
He said, "And why not? I'm the master, even if only acting." He turned again to Pamela, who was sitting in his armchair. "Well, what's new?"
"Nothing. Everybody's sleeping, even Uncle Peter. Everybody, that is, but the lookout on the bridge and the radioman."
"We've nowhere to go," said Barrett. "Not yet, anyhow. It's just as well to catch up on sleep."
"But there must be somewhere to go," Jane insisted. "Something to do."
Barrett reached for a cigarette, offering the pack first of all to the two women, both of whom refused. He was relieved. The ship's supply of smokes was far from inexhaustible. He accepted a light from Pamela.
"Timothy Barrett," said his wife coldly, "don't you think that instead of sitting there smoking you might be doing something?"
"But what?" he asked. "I'm not the Lord Mayor of Hamelin. I don't know any pied pipers."
Pamela made an excited gesture, upset her glass. The liquid ran unheeded over the surface of Barrett's desk, dripping to the deck. "But I do," she said. "But I do!"
"Are you mad?" asked Jane.
"Far from it, dearie. Just wait until I've dragged Uncle Peter from the arms of Morpheus and we'll go into the matter more thoroughly."
"And now," said Jane, "perhaps if you'll get out of the way, I shall be able to get up and dress."
They were sitting in what had been Captain Hall's day cabin—Admiral Keane, Pamela, Barrett and little Clarendon. Jane, in spite of her husband's urging, had refused to be among those present.
Barrett knew where Hall kept the medical comforts, and he brought out the brandy bottle and glasses. Pamela got the tray of ice cubes from the refrigerator in the officers' smoking room. The three men and the woman sipped their drinks appreciatively.
The Hamelin Plague Page 7
