“They’ll all write their first-hand accounts,” she said. “They asked how they should write it. I told them simply to tell what they saw, as if writing about it to their families.”
“The regular brass doesn’t like plain English,” commented Drake. “But the head-shrinkers will be charmed. Do you know what I think about this?”
Nora looked at him thoughtfully. Then she smiled.
“You don’t think a thing. You’re waiting for something to turn up.”
“I’m waiting,” said Drake, “for some value to become established. If twenty completely strange people told you twenty contradictory things, you wouldn’t assume that any one was right. You’d wait for something to give you a clue that this one might be lying, and that was probably telling the truth. Then you could assign some tentative values and get to work unraveling things. The hardest thing in the world is to suspend judgment until you’ve data to judge by!”
“You’re not a girl,” said Nora. “We do it all the time. We have to. Not that we don’t make mistakes!”
Drake looked at his watch.
“Don’t make the mistake of working any more today,” he ordered. “If anything especially high brass comes through, it’ll be brought to me. I’m going to take a walk.”
“With a Very pistol?”
“Why not?” Then he said: “If Spaulding’s right, nobody should ever be completely alone here. Something that isn’t a bird might get him. Or her. Would you like to walk with me to look at the sunset?”
She hesitated a bare moment.
“I’ll come. With a Very pistol, too!”
* * * *
When they reached the open air, the long gray twilight of high latitudes seemed to have begun. Yet it was not quite sunset. There was a cloudbank reaching almost down to the horizon to the westward, leaving a thread of clear sky. But it was not blue. It was luridly red from the sun the cloudbank still obscured. The thunder of the surf, as always, was deep and growling and very, very angry.
As Drake and Nora walked toward the cliffs, the edge of the sun appeared under the cloud. A ruddy light struck upon the island. The rocks showed strange highlights of crimson. The hillocks wore caps of brightness. The few, small, starveling trees of the island took on a festive appearance despite their wind-wrenched leaning shapes. And Nora’s face, in the sunset, seemed to glow.
Drake glanced at her from time to time with somehow enigmatic eyes.
From the cliff edge, the same red light glinted on the farther side of each gigantic breaker as it rushed toward the island. The shadow side of each great wave looked purple by contrast. Sea-birds came rocketing up the side of the cliffs, lifted by air currents splashing invisibly over the edge. Now and again a tiny, ice-cold droplet of spray could be felt. There was overwhelming sound. Even the sea-birds’ outcry seemed a mere murmur.
Drake started twice to speak, and twice checked himself. Then he said abruptly: “Spaulding’s been sticking closer to you than a brother. It’s rather conspicuous. I doubt his conversation is brotherly, though.”
Nora shrugged. She looked out to sea.
“I’ve got him put down for leave at the first opportunity,” said Drake. “Do you mind’?”
Nora turned her eyes to him.
“I’ll be glad when he gets it,” she admitted. “He means well, but it’s rather—harassing to have him think over every word one says. He gets wildly encouraged when I don’t mean to encourage him and desperately offended when I don’t intend to hurt his feelings.”
Drake considered.
“I want to say something unofficially,” he said with care. “This is not office stuff. Do you want leave, too?”
“No,” said Nora. “I’m all right. There are other people who need leave more than I do. And I rather like this duty.”
“I wonder why!” Drake granted, and then added. “I feel as if half the people here were on the thin edge of hysterics most of the time. But of course today’s business would play the devil with morale in any case. I don’t look forward to the next few days.”
“There must be an explanation for the plane affair,” said Nora, “and you’re going to find it. When you do, everybody will say they knew that was it all the time, and it’ll be all right.”
Drake did not speak for a moment. Then he said in a carefully detached voice: “Propinquity plus tedium plus tension, plus—say—extreme uneasiness, produce some queer situations. Spaulding’s been romantic. He may get more so or he may simply become unbearable. Now I—”
He stopped. Nora turned and stared at him.
“I have been romantic,” said Drake detachedly, “for a long time. I think I’ve kept it pretty well under cover. With the state of things on this island and the job I have to do, for me to act romantic would be tragically unwise. I have to act like a pretty cold fish. Especially now, until this damned plane mystery is solved. But I have some cold chills running up and down my spine. It isn’t that I have specific ideas of danger to come, but because they aren’t specific. Anything may turn up, or nothing. I don’t know which. Frankly, I’m scared.”
Nora shook her head, looking at him oddly.
“No,” he agreed. “Not especially for myself, but for you. I don’t want to worry about you more than I must. Will you—well—will you oblige me by taking all the precautions I suggest? Will you watch out for yourself? You’re not timid, and I don’t suggest that you should be. But I’ll be infinitely grateful if you’ll take care of yourself.”
“Why me?” asked Nora, clearly startled.
Drake grunted again.
“I said I was romantic, didn’t I? When it’s time for you to take leave, I’ll ask if you mind if I apply for leave at the same time. And if you don’t mind—why—” He grinned suddenly. “I’m giving you notice that if we’re ever back home at the same time—which I can arrange—If we’re ever where there is no other pressure on you, I should try to overwhelm you with the charm of my personality. But in the meantime, please take care of yourself!”
Nora hesitated. She glanced at him and away again. Then she said vexedly: “I don’t understand you! I can tell you right now that I don’t mind and won’t mind. I’ve practically been throwing myself at your head!”
She looked at him expectantly. He made no move. She stirred, as if to stamp her foot.
“I’m not really a cold fish,” said Drake apologetically. “But we’re in sight from the buildings. On this island, that’s necessary. Spaulding is undoubtedly watching us right now. Maybe others. Everybody watches everybody, here. I have to act like a wise and cold-blooded monster or my authority will go to pot and everybody’ll think me as much of a fool as themselves. Which will be quite true. But I have to act otherwise.”
Nora laughed, somehow reluctantly.
“This is funny!” she said. But she looked at him with soft eyes. “You’ve said you’re going to propose to me, and I’ve the same as said I’m going to say yes. And we stand here—”
“Not doing a thing about it. Yes,” said Drake doggedly. “But you’ve promised not to be foolish. What happened on the plane may try to repeat itself on the island here. It could. Spaulding’s sure it will. I’m not sure it won’t.”
Nora put out her hand and touched him lightly.
“All right,” she said. “Do you intend to go straight back? Not even on the near side of a hillock of a clump of trees for even one instant?”
Drake growled: “Yes. Straight back. This is no time for fooling, even for fooling ourselves. Come on!”
They headed back toward the clump of buildings which hugged the rocky ground. The structures on Gow Island were singularly devoid of beauty. They were drab and ungraceful, and they had been set up with absolutely no consideration save of efficiency. Now the sun had crossed the thin line of open sky at the horizon, and was out of sight around the rim of the world. The twilight was gray. The wind sock had lost its cheerful color. There was only the baffled roaring sound of surf against the cliffs, and the sound of t
heir footsteps on somehow brittle turf.
But Nora smiled as she walked. Her face seemed to glow a little. She looked happy.
Tom Belden appeared, close by a quonset warehouse. He stared wildly about him, and saw Drake. He came racing toward the two people who walked toward the buildings.
“Sir!” panted Tom Belden, from thirty yards away. “It’s—it’s happened! It’s here!”
Drake waited. Tom Belden came to a breathless, gasping stop before him. The young mechanic’s face was deathly white, even more pallid than the twilight would account for.
“Mr. Beecham,” he panted thickly, “said we ought to fix things so somebody would sit with Captain Brown. A wake, sir. So I got some chairs to carry to the warehouse where he—where he is. And when I got close I heard something moving inside, sir! It’s dark in there, but something was stirring around there in the dark! I called, sir, and nobody answered! But something started for me and I ran.”
A light flickered on in one of the windows of the men’s barracks. It showed clearly in the deep, gray dusk. There was no other light anywhere in all the world.
Without a word, Drake moved toward the warehouse. Tom Belden struggled with himself, and followed. Drake halted.
“Take Miss Hall back to the recreation room,” he commanded. “There’ll be somebody in there.” To Nora he said curtly: “You can send somebody, armed, to back me up. Get the other girls together with somebody, armed, to stay with them. You stay with them too.”
“Please!” said Nora desperately. “You asked me to take care—”
Drake scowled.
“I won’t go inside alone,” he promised. “Just send somebody to join me.”
* * * *
He went on. He was irritated with himself for being unarmed. If he’d taken Spaulding’s suggestion and had a Very pistol with him, to shoot colored lights, he’d have felt better.
He moved very quietly as he drew near the dark half-cylinder which was the quonset warehouse. It had been brought twelve thousand miles to be set up here. It held variegated stores that the bases on the polar ice-cap would need from time to time. Planes could carry them. It could be warmed and it could be lighted. It was windowless. Now the large door at its end was closed, but a man-size door stood open. Tom Belden had opened it. Right beside the opening was the fusebox and the switch to control the lights within.
Drake approached that doorway very quietly. There hung in the air, as always, the deep-toned thunder of the surf. But something toppled and fell inside the warehouse. Something was in motion inside that abysmally dark interior. Drake strained his ears. He heard another sound. It was a peculiar, slithering noise. It was not footsteps. It was not a padding made by paws. It was a sustained, sliding, grating sound.
A box fell in the darkness within.
There were shouts over by the other buildings. It was Spaulding, calling: “We’re coming!”
Drake fumed. There was no need to advertise! But whatever was in the storehouse was in the dark. He could imagine nothing normal which would fumble with stored objects without any light. If there was something unnatural in the Quonset, to which darkness was congenial, then if it came out it would come into almost-congenial deep dusk. The sky was heavily overcast. The twilight of high latitudes was dimmed by the cloudbank overhead. Anything nocturnal, though, would be able to see clearly, while men would not.
Figures came running toward him through the semi-dark. If anything came out—
Drake raced past the open doorway, flipping the switch which would flood the warehouse with light. He was angry because his spine prickled and his scalp crawled when he was nearest the black open door.
Light leaped into existence behind him. He faced about, and saw a yellow glare pouring out the partly opened small doorway. The running men were very near, now. He called to them: “There is something in the warehouse,” he said harshly. “I heard it knocking things over! Somebody give me a gun. We’ll go in and see what it is.”
Spaulding triumphantly thrust a Very pistol into his band. It was heavy, clumsy, an octagonal brass barrel firing a colored light the size of a shotgun charge. Drake swore. But it was at least a weapon. And he knew that nothing had come out of the warehouse. Whatever had slid about in the darkness was still there—and now in the light.
He led the way. He went in. There was no sound. The lights at the top of the arched ceiling glowed brightly. There were boxes and bales and crates, piled high with proper neatness. There were drums of this and that. Here were all the various stores of a supply depot for men on the Antarctic ice. All were brightly lighted. The concrete floor was clearly visible.
Something had moved clumsily about here, and recently. A tier of crated food-tins had fallen over. The biological specimens from the Hot Lakes were scattered. Something had fallen on top of the crated scientific records awaiting shipment, now that the plane which had brought them was disabled. There was disorder strangely mixed with tidiness, as if something unguessable had fumbled blindly at things it did not understand.
But there was nothing in the warehouse to account for the confusion. They searched with an almost frantic thoroughness. They found nothing which could have made things fall down. Nothing which could have made a grating, sliding noise as it moved.
Nothing had gone out the lighted door. Nothing remained in the warehouse which did not belong there.
But something which should have been there, was not.
The body of the plane’s dead pilot was missing.
CHAPTER THREE
There was night. Overhead the sky was black. No faint glow from moon or stars relieved the absolute absence of light. The island lay wrapped in darkness as profound as that at the bottom of nothingness. There was sound, of course. The booming, malevolent roar of surf continued. There were times when the rock which was the island seemed to quiver from the impact of seas which had come a thousand leagues to attack it. But there were also little whining noises in between the roarings. They were wind-gusts from the darkness to westward, making grisly high-pitched snufflings about obstacles in their way.
At one place on the island and at one place only, there were absurd small glimmerings. Light-bulbs shone inside the structures—drab by day—which at night were set in a desolation like that of the Pit. There was the radio shack, where a light made a tiny rectangle of brightness in the midst of the illimitable dark. There was the recreation hall, where the people of the island were gathered nervously, with no thought of recreation in their minds. There was the barracks, in which only the smallest of dismal yellow bulbs now burned. Elsewhere there was one man-size door in the end of a warehouse, open to that building’s lighted interior. That was all.
Drake took two men out of the recreation hall. He had them carry flashlights. As they made their way toward the radio shack, the flash-beams flicked here and there in wider sweepings than were customary on Gow Island at night. There was more than a suspicion of jumpiness, especially in the sweeping of the search-beams toward the sky. They swept through great arcs, themselves despairingly puny in the vastness.
“I’ll see that you’re relieved,” said Drake crisply. “While you’re on watch, you’re to see to it that one of you has his eyes on the radar screen every second. If you alternate every five minutes, you’ll be less likely to lose interest—to be bored.”
A man grunted. He was Casey, one of the warehousemen.
“You’ll get bored!” said Drake drily. “Nobody can stay jumpy with nothing to keep him so. A man can’t even stay scared indefinitely.”
Casey grunted again.
“I’ve been scared all day,” he said. “Nice to know it’ll stop presently! But I ain’t sure I believe in what I’m scared of!”
They neared the radio shack. The generator in the engine room attached to it thumped and bumped. There were two generators, of which either one was competent to supply electricity for all of Gow Island. Only one was running now. Drake opened the door to the radio room. The operator started. Then
he grinned shakily.
“I was getting lonesome,” he said. “Nothing new. I got Valparaiso. Some string band! But it’s good to have company. I got the boojey-man jumps.”
“There’s to be a special watch,” explained Drake, “against boojers, if you want to call it that. Somebody’s to watch the radar screen every second. Anything real, including boojers, should show up on radar. You get a foggy sort of blip from the nesting ground in the daytime, don’t you? Don’t birds in the air practically mask that part of the horizon?”
The radio operator put his finger on the radar screen.
“Here,” he said positively. “Mornings and evenings you couldn’t pick up a battleship beyond those birds. But they’re all grounded now.”
“Right,” said Drake. “So the radar’s a better watching instrument at night. You understand what you’re to look for.”
Casey said, looking pained: “Yeah. And we hope we don’t see it.”
“You won’t,” promised Drake. “This is a precaution. If—if—anything’s aloft that could overtake a plane in flight and get rough with it, it’ll show up on the screen. Then you’ll let us know.”
“We’ll holler!” grunted Casey. “You’ll hear us, too! You going back through the dark?”
“Naturally,” said Drake.
He went to the door. There was silence, the three men watching him. The silence held as he went out. They’d come here with him, waving flashlights while they moved together. They’d been distinctly uneasy, and ashamed to admit it. Now they would still not confess it, but there was none of the three who would willingly have walked in the outside darkness alone. None could have given a reason, but an atmosphere of acute unease existed everywhere on the island.
With the shack door closed behind him, and the thumping of the generator sounding loud between the more savage bellowings of the surf, even Drake felt small pricklings at the back of his neck. He growled to himself, furious as he marched toward the recreation hall. The disk of white light from his hand-flash wavered and swayed on the ground before him. He wanted to swing it around, to make sure that nothing moved stealthily toward him in the darkness. The urge became intense. He imagined movement almost at his heels.
The Murray Leinster Megapack Page 131
