“I thought as much,” said Cameron. “Go ahead, kill me if you dare! My men will be here in a matter of seconds, and they’ll blast this place of yours apart, if I’m not handed over, alive and kicking.” “My communication system is quite adequate to warn me of the approach of any of your primitive colleagues with their equally primitive weapons,” sneered Anzar. “I was saying, that you earth people of all—oh how ironic it is—that you earth people should ask whether I, Anzar, am telling the truth. I arrived on your planet in this strangely amorphous condition, the only survivor.
There was no focal beam reception unit to take me, and allow me to recondense, in safety. I had to find some kind of thought pattern round which I could re-crystallise my molecular structure, so that I could resemble one of you. I wished to resemble one of your scientists. The obvious place to go was a library, but time was short. It was dark when I arrived, light would be coming shortly, and with light would come people. And as a helpless blob I was very vulnerable. As a transparent sphere the most ignorant of your yokels could have cut me to pieces with an axe. I was like a hermit crab without its shell. Like a giant puff ball, rolling along your pavements and your roads. A drunk in a car could have cut me to ribbons. A child pushing a pram would have been fatal to me, as I was in that condition. I passed through the wall of one of your library buildings by dint of great effort, more by telekinesis than by physical power, I managed to tug loose one book that was not as far in the shelf as the others, and was not as tightly wedged. How was I to know that your race indulged in some strange whim that you called fiction? How was I to know that you wrote things that were not the truth for the amusement of your kind? How was I, who came from a scientific race who write nothing but highly scientific text books, serious conjectural theories all of which are logically based, how was I to know that on this crazy planet you indulge in stories?” The professor spat out the word ‘fiction’ as though it was a dirty word.
“I open this book and I find what I think must be the life story of one of your leading scientists of a few years ago. I am in luck. I manage to turn a page or two and there is a photograph and a description of the man. His name is Challenger. I realise I must not use the same name, but, obviously if he lived a few years ago there will be few alive today who recognise him, so it is obvious that the book is a year or two old, I take on the physical characteristics of this man as near as I can model them. I read his description, I try and make myself into a Professor Challenger, but I retain the name Anzar. I also gather from the book that students from the universities are somehow connected with your learning faculties. Once I had assumed a body, I moved swiftly out of the library. I travelled from one university to another, endeavouring to equip myself with all the necessary degrees,—O how you people love paper qualifications, and how little they are really worth. The only thing that matters is man’s intelligence, that can’t be measured by the amount of knowledge that he is able to assimilate in a mere memory … but why should I enlighten you about the higher points of educational theory. Perhaps I talk too much. Perhaps I waste time, however, that is as it may be.… Having become accepted by your higher scientists I was able to gain access to the necessary equipment to enable me to build my focal beam receptor unit, so that others of my kind may follow. Unfortunately, just as I was on the point of achieving success, one or two of the more astute of my fellow scientists said they didn’t like the direction in which my experiments were heading, and demanded the right to examine my equipment and my laboratory. Now even though the most brilliant of your scientists are moronic by my standards, they might have smelt a rat, put two and two together and come up with three, even if they didn’t make quite four. They might have tried to place me under some restraint which would have prevented me from completing my mechanism. It was therefore necessary to me to sever relationship with the international scientific council. This was tragically unfortunate from my point of view. It put my work back years. It is only in recent weeks that I have succeeded in constructing an experimental focal beam reception tube. Now I wish to make an experiment.” His eyes flashed fire: Intelligent fire, yet deadly, despicably cruel, cold, fire, in the direction of the IPF lieutenant. “You have seen fit to come meddling in my affairs, very well then, I shall project you through the tube to my own home world. If you survive the journey I shall send the signal for others of my kind to come. It will then be only a matter of days before we take over your pitiful planet.”
“I thought you were going to kill me,” said Don quietly.
“Ah, yes, I shall have you destroyed, afterwards but first you will be useful as experimental material.” “Perhaps you don’t have a similar custom, but in our culture the condemned man is allowed a last request,” said Cameron. “My last request is this—I want you to answer a question for me. You tell me that you are connected with these mysterious happenings round here, with things like the autocar crash, strange happenings in old Tom Farrows garden, the road surface, and the interference on the radio, the ghostly images; explain to me how those things happened and why.”
“All part of the experiment on which I am working,” said Anzar. “This focal tube requires the generation of fantastically powerful electro-magnetic forces. Those forces in conjunction and combination with peculiar hormone type fertilisers, and radioactive invigorators which old Farrow was using caused peculiar effects on the plants. That was what caused the trees to take up their roots and walk, if I may misquote from one of your ancient holy books. And so, the autocrashes. Not done deliberately, just an unlucky combination of factors. The hover craft design is another matter. The jets are accelerated by an electronic field super charger. When my force field came into existence it multiplied the actual rocket boost which was going into the tubes, as a result of which, the unfortunate occupants of the hover car found themselves hundreds of feet in the air. It was lucky for them that they had a soft landing, otherwise they’d have gone the same way as the occupants of those cars, run into the walking trees. My beam also produced the highly localised storm effect over six miles of your road. The flashes of energy which were released were invisible, but their effects were not, and I am afraid I have made rather a nasty mess of your northern highway.” He smiled a cynical, evil, cold, laconic smile. “The TV interference, of course, is practically self-explanatory but as for the ghosts—I’m afraid I have a little confession to make,” he paused and gave an evil cackle. “You see you will not be the first to be projected through my tube. One or two other people have disappeared lately, you’ll know all about it if you just consult your files of missing persons, but unfortunately, my apparatus was not perfectly complete, and instead of projecting them to Sirius it hurled them off on a horizontal plane. The church was just in the way.”
“You mean that those ghosts that the Rev. Tremayne thought he saw,” blurted Cameron, “those weird, semi-illuminated images, were the outlines—sort of two dimensional existences, and astral bodies, in a way——”
“If you like to confuse science with metaphysics and folk lore,” said Anzar “yes … what the Rev. Tremayne saw in the cellar of his church——”
“Crypt, please,” said Cameron. “Don’t call it a cellar!”
“All right then! You and your strange languages! Peculiar words for peculiar places. This church crypt happened to be on the horizontal plane along which I was projecting these experimental victims to Sirius. They went in the wrong direction. They were electronic people.…”
“Were they still alive?” asked Cameron, a terrible edge to his voice.
“I don’t know,” said Anzar. “Life and death are difficult terms to define when you understand science fully. I don’t think they’re alive in the same sense that you are or as I am. Now, I must introduce you to the machine. We have talked long enough.”
Chapter Six
I.P.F. Attack
THEY were coming! Coming in from all points of the compass. Thundering down the great North Highway bouncing, jolting, rattling over the pitted inden
tations that had been caused by Anzar’s electro-magnetic energy beams. They were coming across from the east and forming up around the base of the cliff. They were coming from the west and settling themselves on the gentle slopes leading up to the back of Anzar’s gaunt residence. They were coming through the sky, and across the land. They were coming in autocars and tanks. They were flying overhead in jet planes. They were coming in force in answer to the call that Pete Neil had sent out. The call that Joe Harding had sent out before he had disappeared. They were coming in answer to Cameron’s pre-arranged signal. The three hours was up. It had been up from the moment that Joe Harding had disappeared. The IPF were angry. If there is any crime that can be more deadly than another, that crime is endangering the life of an IPF Officer or Trooper. They come down with force enough upon ordinary murder, but to kill, or even to threaten an IPF man, is the ultimate offence. The IPF were violently angry. They were coming in great retributive waves, men and machines, the finest warriors and the finest weapons. Anzar appeared to have bitten off more than any one man could reasonably be expected to chew.… They came in past the block of flats where the radio and Television interference had first been recorded. They came past the crypt of St. Mark’s, past the ancient Norman church standing on its hill above the town. They came down from the north, from Braydon. They came past old Tom Farrow’s garden and cottage. They came from Radville. They came from all points of the compass. Every space IPF patrol, men off duty; men recalled from holiday; this was a case for the entire force in the entire area. There had been enough whispers about Anzar to rouse interest among the IPF men, and besides the IPF the rumours and the whispers seemed to have gone out to the surrounding townships, and keeping themselves at a respectable distance the citizens of both Radville and Brayton were watching and waiting with bated breath to see what the outcome of this strange conflict could possibly be. Major Clem Grosvenor was in charge of operations.… He was a crop haired, grizzled old campaigner, who had seen service on Mars and Venus during the very earliest pioneer days. He could handle men and space creatures! In the raw, and in the rough. The stranger an alien was, the more Clem Grosvenor liked it. “The tougher they are,” ran his motto “the harder they fall. The tougher they are, the bigger the crack when they do crack.”
He deployed his forces brilliantly.
A loud speaker van boomed out his message, tremendously amplified. A message which could neither be ignored nor misheard by any living creature in the House of Anzar.
“This is Major Clem Grosvenor, in control of the IPF, speaking, Professor Anzar, two members of our force went up to your house to make routine enquiries and have not returned. It is obvious that you are restraining them against their will. We order you now to return those men to us unharmed, before we come in there and get them!” There was no answer, just an awful echoing, empty silence, as the tones of the big loudspeaker died away.
Major Grosvenor looked at his junior officers.
“All right,” he said. “We shall have to go in to the attack. I want the flame throwers first. Buzz him low, make him think we’re going to bomb.” The first trio of the IPF squadron went winging off in big winged super jets, with their electronic boosted reactors. They cut in very low over the cliff house. They came at supersonic speed and the air shook and reverberated with the echoing crash of the noise that they made. After they had flown clear, into the blue void above, once more, Grosvenor used his loud speaker again.
“That was just a warning flight, Anzar. Next time we come in they’ll be dropping high explosive.” The other men looked at him to see if he meant it.
“I didn’t say we were going to drop it on the house,” he whispered behind his hand. “I just said we were going to drop it. We’ll shake every tile and window out of that ramshackle, but not near enough to do any damage.…”
He flashed a signal to his men and the second trio of the squadron winged away. Down went the sticks of H.E., and the house of Anzar rattled and vibrated as they landed … in its gardens, in its environs, and at the base of the cliff beneath it, showering dirt and debris high into the air. The atmosphere was charged with the stench of exploding gelignite and cordite. The whine and hum of shrapnel fragments seemed to live on in their ears, even after the physical sound had died away.
“Do you reckon there really is anybody in there?” asked one of the junior officers presently. Major Grosvenor eyed him thoughtfully.
“I don’t know,” said Clem. “I’m not sure about that. The only question is, young fella, if Anzar and our men are not still in there, where the blazes are they?” The young officer pointed to the cliff, “Tunnels do you think sir? Escape routes?”
“Not a bad idea! Let’s get the radar and the sonar at work on those cliffs. Get the detective gear going—the long-range, high-penetration X-rays. See if we can dig anything out.”
The IPF technical vans ran forward towards the base of the cliff. Ten minutes later their report was back. The major turned to his fellow officers, captains and lieutenants.
“There appears to be an extensive network under there, it also appears to be empty! Let’s get the detecting gear going on the house itself, sir, shall we?” said an up-and-coming young captain.
“All right,” concurred the Major. “Give the orders.” The young officer hastened away and gave the necessary instructions to the technicians in charge of the vans. The long-range equipment came into play. X-rays, sonar, and radar of a highly advanced pattern bit deeply into the crumbling fabric of the ancient house. The technicians were soon back with a report
“Things are so darned quiet,” said Grosvenor, as he took the sheet from the NCO, “I don’t like it when things are quiet. It gives me the idea it’s the lull before the storm.” He held up the information sheet. “Well,” he turned to his fellow staff officers “Occupied or unoccupied?” Before he had time to read the report sheet and translate its technical sounding data into straight forward tactician’s English, there was a sudden movement from the house of Anzar.…
Billows of a weird yellow mist suddenly poured from the doors and lower storey windows.
“What the blazes——? What the devil is he up to?” the report in the major’s hand was forgotten. It was quite obvious from the eruption of yellow vapour that had just taken place that the house was certainly occupied. The yellow vapour, far heavier than air, was, for some strange reason, disinclined to disperse and blend with the surrounding atmosphere, but rolled on like a great tide of yellow cotton wool.
The major gave a choking gasp as the first thin wisp of the vapour reached his nostrils.
“It’s poison,” he croaked. “It’s deadly, It’s burning the inside of my lungs … get back.…” as his strength was failing, he reached for the communicating switch.
“Evacuate,” he spluttered. “Evacuate all areas. Come back in suits,” he slumped face down into the yellow mist. The technical boys of the IPF were as usual prepared for any emergency. Not only had they guns aboard their small high speed tanks, they carried suits as well. Poison gas was no new thing in the border wars that took place on the frontiers of the three planet empire. And on more than one fracas on Mars and Venus the IPF had been very glad that they had been carrying suits which could be whipped on. A space suit which takes three hours to bolt and strap into position is of very little use to a man whose life may depend on his ability to be a quick change artist. The men in the tank nearest to Major Grosvenor were ready. The driver eased it swiftly forward beside his prostrate commander, flung open the hatch, leapt out, seized the major under the arms and dragged him into the shelter of his vehicle.…
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he crackled over his suit radio, and the tank jerked and churned its way out of the seemingly endless fog of thick yellow poison mist that was contaminating the area for miles around.
“Seems to be no limit to the stuff,” gritted the driver over his radio.
“What are we going to do?” asked the radio operator.
�
�It can’t spread indefinitely,” answered the driver, “it seems to be thinning out here. There’s no more of it pumping out. But what an end to our attack.…”
“What attack?” said the radio op. ruefully. “It got smashed before it got started. Nobody was expecting that stuff.”
“Well we’re ready for it now,” said the driver grimly. They drove on a few hundred yards more till they were sure the yellow fog would not reach them. They got the major out.
“Get a doctor over here quick, and signal for some oxygen too,” said the driver, as he pushed back his helmet and sniffed the air tentatively. “Yes, it’s O.K.”
“There’s some spare oxygen on my suit,” said the co-driver of the tank.
The first man took it, opened the cylinder to high pressure velocity, and literally blew the major’s lungs clean. The inert figure of the commanding officer, suddenly stirred and opened his eyes.
“Well done lads,” he gritted, as he sat up. “Phew, that feels better! I dunno what that stuff is, but it’s deadly, horrible. It reminds me of the chlorine I read about in the war histories of two centuries ago … pretty filthy stuff apparently. Used to roll down across the trenches. Rather ironically one day—so I was reading—a Gerry had released a lot on our chaps, and the wind changed and blew it all back over him. They said there was never such cheering heard in the British ranks for a week before or since. This stuff isn’t chlorine—I dunno what it is. It didn’t only poison, I felt paralysed … it was ghastly. It’s an indescribable experience to inhale that stuff. My head is spinning. I still don’t know if I’m on my head or my feet. Let’s have a little more of that oxygen.”
“Certainly sir,” the driver turned on the cylinder again. “I’ve sent for some more sir. There’s a couple of spare cylinders coming over. You gave us all a nasty turn then, sir, we thought——”
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