The Hamelin Plague

by A Bertram Chandler

  "Piper?" repeated the other woman. "Piper? Dr. Piper? I don't think he's one of our members, although with our Christian-names-only rule—but we have only one doctor— Annette—and I'm sure her other name's not Piper."

  "Members?" asked Barrett, mystified.

  "Of the Sun Island Club, of course."

  "This Dr. Piper," said Pamela, "is not a nudist, as far as I know. And he's not a medical doctor. He's a scientist. We think that he has a laboratory on one of the Broughton Islands."

  "Not this one," said the naked woman definitely. "But perhaps if you will follow me to the office."

  "Take me to your leader," whispered Barrett, appreciatively watching the swing of the shapely, sun-darkened buttocks—and then yelped as Pamela's sharp elbow caught him in the ribs.

  They sat on the terrace outside the club's office—Barrett, still in his sweat-soaked khaki, still with the pistol belted to his waist, Pamela, now as unself-consciously naked as the Sun Islanders, the benign, bronze Buddha whose name was Charles and who was club president, and Betty, whom they had met on the path and who was club secretary. Before the terrace were twenty or so members, their bright towels and mats spread on the cropped grass. It was an idyllic scene, thought Barrett. Incongruously idyllic. And yet, he knew, it was himself that struck the one incongruous note. In his stiff, hot clothing, with the ugly weapon at his hip, he was like a Time traveler from the twentieth century intruding upon some Edenic culture of the past. Or of the future.

  "Well, Captain Barrett?" said Charles.

  "Keep to your club rules," suggested Pamela, with not unpleasant mockery. "Call him Tim."

  "Well, Tim?"

  "I think we had better wait until Sue is back," said Betty.

  They could hear the returning messenger hurrying up the path. Then the young girl walked out on the lawn, peeling off her blouse as she did so. She stepped out of her shorts, plopped down on the grass. She looked at Barrett with the scorn of which only adolescents are capable, and said, "I don't see how anybody can wear clothes on a day like this."

  "That will do," snapped Betty. "Did you pass the message?"

  "Of course. I called to the men in the boat, told them that Captain Barrett had things under control and would be some time. They said that they would go back to the ship to wait. There's a ship out there in the bay, Betty."

  "So you've a ship," Betty said. "What is this, Captain? Tim, I mean. An invasion?"

  "Yes," Barrett told them. "But not by us. Don't you people listen to the news?"

  "Sometimes," admitted Charles. "But our only radio broke down some days ago and, believe it or not, there's not a single working transistor set on the island. But Tom and Jerry took the launch in this morning for supplies. They'll bring the papers back with them."

  Barrett said, "There won't be any papers. Perhaps not ever again. And Tom and Jerry mightn't be back."

  "So you really don't know what's been happening?" asked Pamela.

  "No," said Charles. "There do seem to have been some rather bad bush fires on the mainland, but that happens every summer. But what was that about the papers, and about Tom and Jerry not being back? What was that about an invasion? Is it the third world war?"

  "We should have heard the blasts," said a painfully thin woman. "We should have seen the mushroom clouds. And surely, by this time, some of us would be exhibiting the symptoms of radiation sickness."

  "Are you sure of that, Annette?" asked Charles.

  Before she could answer, Barrett said, "There's been no third world war—at last, not the kind you're all thinking about. There have been rockets fired—but, as far as I know, the only cities destroyed by thermonuclear weapons have been Moscow and Leningrad, and they were bombed by the Russians themselves."

  "Then our cities," said Charles, "are safe."

  "They aren't," said Barrett. "I witnessed the destruction of Sydney myself, and I think that every other town and city—aye, and every village—went the same way."

  And then, trying to keep his voice cold and dispassionate, he told his story. He noticed the club members looking at him and at each other, uneasily, as he did so. But he went on. He told them of what he had seen and experienced himself, of what the others had seen and experienced, of what had been heard on the radio before it had been put out of commission by the pirates' rifle fire.

  At last he finished.

  "He's mad," said Betty scornfully.

  "It's true," snapped Pamela. "Every word of it."

  And they would believe her, Barrett realized, when they would not believe him. He was still the stranger, the out-lander, to be treated with suspicion. She, by disrobing, had made herself one of them, especially since on some private roof or balcony she had already built up an over-all tan as deep as theirs.

  "It could be true," said the doctor, Annette, judiciously. "It could well be true. Too much and too far have we drifted from healthy simplicity; too much have we interfered with the balance of nature. I have often had cause to suspect the mutagenic nature of certain chemical pesticides myself. I remember that the last time I took the launch over to see Theodore we discussed the problem."

  "Theodore," repeated Pamela. "Theodore Piper—"

  "Yes. Piper's his name."

  The girl was on her feet. "Is he still here? We must see him."

  "Yes. He's still around, as far as I know, although he's more of a recluse than any of us, even. But I haven't been across to his island since he got the rats."

  "The rats?" asked Barrett, his heart sinking.

  "Yes. A cage, or a few cages, of white rats for experimental purposes."

  "Then there's still time," breathed Pamela.

  "Of course there's time. But you'll never find Theodore's place without a pilot; it's tucked away up one of the inlets. If you don't mind waiting until I get dressed—"

  Meanwhile, Betty and Charles were arguing. The girl was saying, "I still maintain that the story is utterly fantastic."

  "Suit yourself," said Barrett, breaking in. Then, to Charles, he said, "Meanwhile, what weapons can you muster? There's no police force, no army or navy or air force to defend you."

  "I think that Des has a three-oh-three," muttered the president. "That right, Des? And there are a couple of pea rifles."

  "Get yourself organized," said Barrett. "Apart from the mutants, there are the odd fishermen turned pirate, and the like." He got to his feet, and the stiff khaki that he had been hating so much now felt like comforting armor on his body. "Furthermore, you'd better get some clothes on, all of you. Rats are dirty fighters and go for the essentials."

  "If the rats come," sneered Betty. "If there are any rats."

  "There are rats, all right," Pamela told her grimly. She quoted: " 'They fought the dogs and killed the cats.

  And bit the babies in the cradles ...' "

  And worse," said Barrett. "Much worse."

  "Post lookouts," Pamela told them. "Set up an alarm system. I think you're fairly safe here, but it wouldn't surprise me if they were able to handle a small boat."

  Annette came out from a cabin on the other side of the lawn. She was wearing slacks and a heavy shirt. She said, "I overlooked all that, and I advise you all to do as the man says, at the first hint of danger."

  "Even so, it's a pity," grumbled Pamela, climbing back into her own clothing.

  CHAPTER 10

  The three of them—Barrett, Pamela and the woman doctor —made their way down the winding path to the jetty, shouted and waved to attract the admiral's attention. They saw Keane wave in reply from Katana's bridge, saw the crew clambering down the Jacob's ladder to the waiting boat. It pushed off from the ship, moving smartly across the water toward them.

  Old Karl was at the tiller. As soon as he was within hailing distance he said, "Mister, der admiral mit you wishes to have der word."

  "All right," said Barrett.

  He saw the two women into the lifeboat, followed them down the ladder. He told Karl to remain at the tiller. When the boat was a
longside the ship he ordered everybody to remain seated, then climbed the pilot ladder to the saloon deck, then the two ladders to the bridge. He was out of breath when he confronted the admiral.

  "Well?" demanded Keane. "Did you find him?"

  "Not yet," admitted Barrett. "He's on one of the other islands, but we have somebody in the boat who knows the way to his landing place."

  "That woman?"

  "Yes."

  "Who is she?"

  "I don't know her surname. She's a woman doctor. Her Christian name's Annette."

  "Must be very informal people at that guest house, or whatever it is in there," grumbled the admiral.

  "Yes. Very. Very informal, but far from well informed. They have no radio. They don't know what's been happening on the mainland."

  "They know now, I suppose."

  "Yes, they know now," agreed Barrett.

  "All right. I suppose you know what you're doing. Off you go again."

  Barrett sketched a sloppy salute, clattered down the ladders again to the waiting boat.

  It was just as well that they had Annette with them. By themselves they could never have found Piper's laboratory. The woman doctor told Karl to steer into what appeared to be no more than a brief indentation in the coast line of one of the smaller islands, a small, shallow bay with bold, bare rocks marking its entrance, a wall of unbroken greenery enclosing its inshore limits. Then she told the German to head for a dead tree, and as the boat approached it the channel beyond revealed itself.

  It was deep enough, but winding, and too narrow for any craft of greater beam than the ship's boat. It was more of a tunnel than a channel, actually, roofed by the spreading branches, the dense foliage of the trees. The air was humid, stifling almost, and alive with midges.

  Then they came to the wharf. A little, stone-faced quay it was, and there was a flight of weed-covered stone steps, and there was a small, manually operated swiveling crane. And there were notices, huge boards painted a startling yellow, and on each one of them, in scarlet, the conventional skull and crossbones and, below it, the words, DANGER! KEEP OUT! and, anticlimactically, TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED.

  "He missed something," commented Pamela sourly. "He should have added, This means you!"

  "He'll always see me," said Annette. "Although he hates to be interrupted."

  "He used to be fond enough of me," said Pamela, "in the days when he was a frequent guest at our place."

  "So if there's any shooting," said Barrett, "I shall be the target, I suppose."

  "How right you are," Pamela told him sweetly.

  "Better stay in the boat, all of you," said Barrett to Karl and the crew. "There may be mantraps scattered around."

  He followed the women up the steps to the quay. He let Annette take the lead. The thin doctor set off at a good pace, climbing the steps of stone and concrete that led up the hillside. Barrett was next, keeping his hand on the butt of the forty-five. Pamela brought up the rear.

  They came to a shelf on the slope, a clearing in the luxuriant brush. It was concreted over. In the middle of this shelf stood a square, unlovely building of fiberboard, with a corrugated asbestos roof. From a smaller building a little to one side came the regular putt-putting of an internal combustion engine. It did not look much like the headquarters of a mad scientist, thought Barrett. It looked more like the home of a not very well-to-do farmer.

  "What do we do now?" he asked Annette. "Go to the front door and knock? Or ring? Or knock and ring?"

  "No," said the doctor sharply. "No. Definitely not. That's something he's always warned me about. Any unexpected visitor is liable to run into something ... lethal. I don't think it's intentional booby traps, but stray radiation from his experiments."

  Mad Scientist, complete with Death Ray, thought Barrett. But still the building—it was a little too large to be called a shack—looked depressingly drab and ordinary. But there was that peculiar humming sound coming from inside, the almost subsonic vibration that raised the goose-flesh on Barrett's skin, sent the cold shivers chasing over his body.

  "Theodore!" Annette was calling. "Theodore!"

  "Uncle Ted!" shouted Pamela. "Uncle Ted!"

  After a while there was an answer. A speaker over the doorway crackled and an amplified, distorted voice said, "I heard you the first time. You'll have to wait."

  "This is important!" yelled Annette. She had a surprisingly powerful voice for so fragile-seeming a woman.

  "Uncle Ted!" screamed Pamela.

  "Is that young Pam?" demanded the disembodied voice. "What the hell are you doing here?"

  "I want to see you!"

  "Then why didn't you say so?"

  The weird humming ceased abruptly. The door slid silently open. The speaker in the wall over the doorway crackled irritably, then said, "Come in, come in. Annette knows the way."

  Pamela and Barrett followed the doctor along a passageway. They passed a room that seemed to combine the functions of sleeping quarters and kitchen. Barrett could understand why the two women snorted indignantly. At the end of the passage they came to a white door which, like the signs on the quay, had the scarlet warning stenciled on it. As they approached it, it opened slowly.

  The compartment behind the door was a large one— and yet hardly large enough for the apparatus it contained. Later, searching for a simile, Barrett was to say that it made him feel like a cockroach who had wandered into the works of a radar set. There were wires everywhere, and banks of vacuum tubes, some of which still emitted an eerie, pulsing glow, and things that looked like the parabolic reflectors of searchlights, and other things that looked like the antennas of radio telescopes. Half hidden by the massed equipment was the far wall, on which were the shelves and the ranked cages. From behind the bars gleamed the ruby eyes of the big white rats.

  Piper emerged suddenly from the confusion of glassware and wiring, stood looking at them. Barrett felt absurdly cheated. The scientist was such an ordinary-looking man. He was neither short nor tall, neither thin nor fat, and his face was the face of every man opposite whom Barrett had ever sat on a train journey, the face of every man whom Barrett had ignored and who had ignored Barrett. He was typical of that peculiar breed of invisible man produced by twentieth-century civilization.

  But nobody is really invisible, thought Barrett.

  The voice, unamplified and without distortion, was quiet and gentle. "Annette! And Pam, of all people. It must be years since I last saw you, my dear!" He looked rather dubiously at Barrett, at the uniform, at the holstered revolver. "I don't think I've had the pleasure..."

  "Uncle Ted, this is Captain Barrett. You can call him Tim. And Uncle Peter's with us, too, but he has to stay in charge of the ship—"

  "But Peter's retired." The scientist looked again at Barrett. "And I always thought a captain's uniform had four gold bands, not three—"

  "Dr. Piper," Barrett said firmly. "Is there any place where we can sit down? It's a long story that I have to tell you—that we have to tell you. And I'd like to get it over and done with as soon as possible."

  "There's my bedroom," said Piper hesitantly. He looked at the two women. "No. Perhaps not. If I'd known you were coming..." His face brightened. "There's a bench and a couple of deck chairs outside."

  He led the way and they followed. Once settled, Barrett told his story. It was easier to convince the scientist than the Sun Islanders. Piper had not heard any news bulletins simply because he had not bothered to listen. His powerful short-wave receiver was in perfect working order, even though there was little in the way of information for it to drag in. But there was enough. There was the broadcast made by the provisional government of Canada, urging listeners to destroy by fire all untenanted buildings and all stocks of foodstuffs for which safe storage was unavailable. There was the ham in New Zealand, calling, calling, in the vain hope that somebody, somewhere, would answer, praying that somewhere in the world there was a town or city that had escaped the fate of Napier and Hastings. And then,
from England, there was the faint voice, calm and making a virtue of understatement, that was promulgating the order for the evacuation of London—or what was left of London.

  "They must have a couple or three bombs that haven't been sabotaged," said Barrett. "They must be going to do the same as the Russians."

  Piper asked him what the Russians had done, and Barrett told him.

  The scientist got out of his deck chair, stood looking down at the seaman and the two women. He said slowly, "I'm not a nuclear physicist. I can't make you a bomb to drop on Sydney or Melbourne or Canberra. Even if I could—what good would it do?"

  "Uncle Ted," said Pamela, "We're not asking you to make a bomb. But this death ray of yours. Is it ready?"

  Piper snorted loudly. "Death ray! Comic strip rubbish. I thought better of you than that, Pam. If you must know, I can kill a rat with my supersonic beam. At a range of twelve inches. If I had all the output of the Snowy River power stations at my disposal, I might be able to kill one at twenty feet."

  "Even so—" began Barrett.

  "Even so, as a weapon it's completely useless. Perhaps in the future it might be some good—but after what you've told me, after what we've heard, it doesn't look as though there's going to be any future."

  An odd hunch was troubling Barrett. He said diffidently, "I wonder if we could see the thing in operation?"

  "What good will that do? You're not a scientist. Annette can't understand it, and she's more of a scientist than you."

  "But—" persisted Barrett.

  "Uncle Ted," Pamela cut in, "maybe there's something you've missed."

  He said, "What could I have missed?"

  Annette had risen to face him. "Theodore," she said, "I've always warned you about becoming too much of a sacred cow. Tim and Pamela aren't scientists, but they aren't fools. And neither am I. I dare say their wits have been sharpened by what they've been through—"

  "Laymen!" scoffed Piper.