Star of Ill-Omen

by Dennis Wheatley

  That is as far as he does go, but several of the greatest living authorities on magnetism now go even further. They argue that Einstein’s Unified Field Theory leaves out of account the behaviour of the particles of the atom, and that to fit this into the picture it is necessary to concede that certain frequencies, or invisible rays if you prefer, travel very much faster than light. If they are right, given the secret of how to harness magnetic waves, an object could be carried through Earth’s atmosphere by them at the rate of 280,000 miles per second, and beyond it there would be nothing to stop that object from travelling at a million miles a second.’

  Slowly, Kem shook his head. ‘I understand what you say, and I’m sure you know what you’re talking about; but I’m afraid that the idea of moving through space at a million miles a second is too much for my mind to grasp.’

  ‘I shouldn’t worry about that. It could not grasp the idea of moving through space at a hundred miles a second, either. That is one of the natural limitations of the human brain. And, after all, the speed at which we are travelling has very little bearing on our situation.’

  ‘But it has! It makes an enormous difference in the time required to complete our journey. If we are travelling at some fantastic speed we may get there quite quickly.’

  ‘Not necessarily. That depends on our destination. Supposing that we are moving at a million miles a second, it would still take us approximately eighteen months to reach Wolf 359. But they may be carrying us off to some much more distant system.’

  Kem groaned again, and lowered himself to the deck; but suddenly his eyes brightened and he exclaimed: ‘By Jove! I believe you’re right about this magnetic business, though. That wall we saw when we looked over the edge of the deck was made of thousands of strands of wire. I believe the middle section of this thing is one huge magnet.’

  ‘So you have tumbled to that at last,’ Escobar smiled. ‘I realised it at once, but I have been leading you up to it by easy stages. It explains much that we have heard about Flying Saucers. They were reported to have been seen whizzing round and round one another. When doing so they must have been temporarily recharging themselves. Then on a number of occasions they were seen in the Antarctic. No one could offer an explanation to account for their going there, but evidently their goal was the South Magnetic Pole. By hovering over it they would be able to pick up a full load of power before starting on their long journey home.’

  ‘That’s about it,’ Kem agreed. ‘Anyhow, it makes your million miles an hour stuff a bit easier to believe. Unfortunately, though, you’ve also made it damnably clear that we’re condemned to remain cooped up in this thing for, at the very least, eighteen months. Oh, God, what a thought!’

  Escobar eased himself down beside Kem and laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘I fear we must make up our minds to that as our most probable fate, but there is one possible alternative. I have hesitated to mention it before because it sounds so trite and theatrical. There is just a chance that we may be going to Mars, If so, even at a speed far less than that of light, we might arrive within the next few days—or hours.’

  Kem seized upon this proffered straw of comfort, and for a moment was immensely cheered by the thought that perhaps, after all, they were not to be torn from the old solar system, and their last link with things that, though immensely distant, had always been familiar. Then a new wave of depression surged over him, and he exclaimed:

  ‘Oh, what the hell’s it matter where we’re going, when there’s not the faintest hope of our ever getting back!’

  11

  The Old Adam

  For a time Kem and Escobar sat side by side in dejected silence; then Carmen began to pray again. When they turned to her she still did not recognise either of them; so they forced her to swallow two of the bromide tablets, then bathed her face with eau-de-Cologne, brushed her hair and made her as comfortable as possible. Kem feared that she had gone completely out of her mind, but Escobar did not agree. He maintained that her general state confirmed their original belief that she was suffering from shock, and thought that, if they could keep her under bromide, provided she were not called on to face any fresh crisis in the near future, there was a good hope that she would soon recover her wits.

  When they had done the best they could for her, they set about making a more careful examination of the things that had been brought with them from the estancia. Besides the brief-case, Carmen’s suitcases contained only clothes. Her dressing-case held her jewels, toilet things and a number of oddments that might come in useful; a workbag with scissors, pins, needles and thread, a mirror, a writing-case with paper, pencils and a fountain-pen; a tube of seccotine, a perpetual calendar, a small torch, a rosary, cigarette lighter, a bottle of lighter fuel, and a box containing the best part of a hundred Turkish cigarettes.

  At the sight of the last Kem felt a sudden desire to smoke. So far his mind had been too fully occupied with other matters to give it more than a casual thought and realise, to his annoyance, that he had lost his cigarette-case with his coat in Carmen’s bedroom. But normally he was quite a heavy smoker and the urge came upon him with sudden strength. With a slightly guilty glance at Escobar, he asked:

  ‘Do you think Carmen would mind if we took a couple?’

  Escobar shook his head. ‘That is not the question. I lost my case during our fight in the wood; so I have none either. The same idea occurred to me; but dare we light up? There is good reason to suppose that these Saucers are highly in-flammable. There must, too, be certain currents in them which maintain the temperature at a fixed level and supply us with enough oxygen. It is possible there are others, the purpose of which we do not understand, but which would act as conductors of fire. We don’t want to blow the whole thing to pieces.’

  ‘That true,’ Kem agreed slowly, ‘and anyhow there are only enough here to last for a few days. If we are in for a long journey the sooner we get used to doing without the better.’ Then, with sudden resolution, he carried the box over to the lavatory and emptied its contents down the chute, adding, ‘There, that’s put temptation out of our way for good.’

  As the cigarettes floated slowly downwards he noticed a curious thing. Not one of them hit the mouth of the funnel or touched the side of the long foot-wide pipe. When he mentioned it to Escobar, the scientist said:

  ‘That is interesting. Normally, a proportion of such objects would be certain to brush the sides of the pipe in an eighteen-feet drop. It must mean that the sides of the thing are magnetised to repel any matter going down it. That would explain how it is kept so spotlessly clean without the use of water. There must be, too, some ray making an invisible trap at its exit; some force that matter can penetrate owing to its weight, but is sufficient to seal it off so that the atmosphere in there cannot escape that way.

  ‘No doubt you’re right; but unfortunately it doesn’t get over the fact that it is about as public as an advertisement hoarding and we’ll have to share it with the giants. That’s not going to be very pleasant for poor Carmen when she comes to her senses.’

  Escobar shrugged, and muttered callously, ‘Oh, she will soon get used to it.’

  Kem looked round the bleak chamber, then his glance fell on the jumbled bedding. ‘Anyhow,’ he said, ‘help me to arrange these things somehow so that they will give her a little privacy.’

  Together, they sorted out the other items. There were the beautifully embroidered Spanish shawl that had been used as a bedspread, two sheets, a pillow and two blankets. Among them they found another bottle of sleeping tablets, a cut-glass decanter and broken drinking glass, an onyx ashtray, a Roman Catholic missal and a novel in French by Paul Morand, all of which had been swept from Carmen’s bedside-table.

  Floating the bedding across to the far side of the control tower from the lavatory, they held the sheets out over two of the tanks, then let them settle, so that they covered the tanks and the gap between them, which then formed a cave three feet high, about four deep and at its widest nearly five feet
long. From outside, the erection had the appearance of a flat-topped tent and, although owing to the very low degree of gravity it was a most diaphanous affair, as there were no draughts in the chamber to lift its edges, it showed no tendency to float away as long as it was handled carefully. Having placed the dressing-gown on top of one tank and the suitcase on the other, so that what little weight they had would help to keep the sheets in position, they drew Carmen across the deck and settled her in her new quarters.

  Both the men were now feeling very tired. It was not that either of them had been active for long, but both had returned to consciousness with head injuries that still pained them. Moreover, the full realisation that they had been driven from Earth, were prisoners compelled to submit to a journey of unknown duration, and were condemned to an entirely unforeseeable future, had proved a great strain on their minds. Only nervous excitement caused by finding themselves in such a fantastic situation, and acute anxiety about what fate might have in store for them, had enabled them to speculate for an hour on the Saucer’s possible speed and destination.

  As Kem was still in his shirt-sleeves, his tiredness now made him also feel a little chilly; so he caught hold of the Spanish shawl, folded it cornerwise and, having wrapped it about his shoulders, tied its ends round his waist. Then, with hardly a word said, they used the blankets to cover the gaps between the tanks on either side of Carmen, so as to give their eyes some protection from the full light, eased themselves into these flimsy shelters and soon fell asleep.

  How long they slept neither of them had any idea, but they were woken by the blankets being flicked from above their heads and a piercing scream. Coming to his feet, Kem saw that one of the giants had chosen this method of rousing them: he was kneeling opposite their triple-bayed tent, which had now ceased to exist, with the blankets and sheets clasped between his mighty hands.

  Escobar had also risen, but Carmen still lay on the deck, staring with terrified eyes at the monster. Her husband and her lover cried almost simultaneously:

  ‘It’s all right! Don’t be frightened! He won’t hurt you.’

  Carmen gasped, but her expression of terror relaxed, and she whispered, ‘It—it’s really true, then?’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ Kem said quietly; and Escobar added: ‘I, too, thought I had gone mad when I first came round. But it is neither an hallucination nor a nightmare. All three of us are awake and sane.’

  As she swayed into a sitting position, her long dark hair floated out behind her head and remained there like a streamer. ‘What… what does it mean?’ she stammered. ‘Where are they taking us?’

  The giant’s intervention prevented them from telling her of their speculations as, at that moment, he gave Kem a prod with his forefinger, which sent him swimming through the air to the far side of the control tower, then pushed Carmen and Escobar after him. The monster’s intension was quite clear, as round there the tank containing the water and the other that was partly filled with beans both stood open. The second monster was squatting in front of the open tanks, and motioned them to drink. Evidently on the first occasion the tanks had been opened for them as a special favour, but normally they were opened only at fixed hours for an issue of rations.

  After each in turn had had a fair suck at the pipe, the squatting monster took it from them, so that they should not waste the water by drinking more than they actually needed. Then he handed them five beans apiece and, as the tanks closed down of their own accord, slithered away to join his companion on the far side of the deck.

  Carmen’s expression of dismay, as she looked at the five beans she had been given, was so comical that Kem had difficulty in suppressing a smile. ‘Pretty poor fare, isn’t it?’ he remarked. ‘But I’m afraid it’s all we’re going to get; and not even a choice of having them à la Portugaise, or fried in butter, for a change. Still, they don’t taste bad and they do satisfy hunger. Estévan and I were given some several hours ago and I’ve not got any appetite back yet.’

  It was the only possible consolation he could offer her in the circumstances; but he was by no means surprised when she took it with an ill grace, then went on to exclaim and lament at there apparently being no bathroom or even a wash-place.

  Escobar had been regarding her with a curious expression. Suddenly he snapped at her impatiently: ‘Oh, shut up! You’ve got only what you deserve, and you would be little better off had we not been kidnapped by these people.’

  Round-eyed, she stared at him. ‘What on earth do you mean?’

  ‘Well, you did your best to murder me, so that your lover could get away, didn’t you?’

  ‘Oh, come!’ Kem protested. ‘I thought we’d agreed to forget all that.’

  The aggrieved husband swung round towards him. ‘As far as you and I are concerned, yes. When I was a younger man I might have acted as you did; both in trying to get hold of those papers for my country and in seducing any pretty woman who gave me the least encouragement; so I bear you no malice. But her case is very different.’

  ‘You are being unjust to her. She meant to hit me on the head and hit you by mistake.’

  ‘I do not believe that. Neither would anyone else. Had I been found next morning by the police she would have been charged with attempted murder and given a long prison sentence. That is what I meant when I inferred that within a few days, anyway, she would have been deprived of all her comforts and put on a diet little better than water and beans.’

  Kem was about to say, ‘Oh, no, she wouldn’t; because we should have been over the frontier into Uruguay, and passing under different names, before the Argentine police even knew anything about the matter.’ But he was forestalled by Carmen.

  With sudden humility she hung her head, then burst out: ‘It is true! I deserve all this! I should not complain of my punishment, for I have sinned grievously. I did not mean to kill you; but I broke my marriage vows on the ship. Then, led on by my guilty passion, I used violence towards you with the intention of abandoning myself to a permanent life of sin. It is a terrible thing to have done. O Holy Mother, witness my repentance and let this confession weigh a little against my wickedness!’

  Greatly embarrassed, Kem could think of nothing to say; but Escobar remarked with sharp malice, ‘No amount of repentance is going to get you your marble bath back; so you had better make up your mind to that.’

  ‘Listen!’ urged Kem. ‘All of us are in about as bad a spot as any three human beings ever found themselves. Being either morbid or quarrelsome can only make our situation more miserable than it is already. For what occurred in the past I am entirely to blame, as I took advantage of Carmen’s weakness when she had been away from home for a long time and was in the sort of surroundings where such things are particularly liable to happen. You, Estévan, say very generously that you bear no malice; and since I am prepared to shoulder the sins of both Carmen and myself I can see no reason why she should either. There remain the two of you. For God’s sake enable us to face whatever we have to face united, by refraining from making any further references to what happened in a life that is now as distant as if we had lived it in ancient Rome.’

  ‘No one can take another’s sins upon his shoulders,’ said Carmen unhappily.

  Escobar spread out his hands. ‘For my part I will make her no further reproaches; but you cannot expect me to pretend that I would not put her from me on account of what she has done, were we still down on Earth.’

  It was a far from satisfactory compromise, and Kem would have given a great deal to be able to bestow Anglo-Saxon mentalities on his two companions. Carmen might then have been just as deeply religious, but not so hag-ridden by the teachings of her Church, and so the better able to bear any guilt she felt about having betrayed an unloved husband without making such a parade of it. Escobar obviously did not love her any more, and owing to her coldness to him Kem would have given long odds that since early on in their marriage he had been consoling himself with a series of mistresses whenever he visited Buenos Aires.
He was suffering only from injured pride, and had he not been a Latin of little breeding he would not have been so callously realistic. In such a situation as the present he would, in the first place, have refrained from all mention of his wife’s affaire, and had the subject been raised in spite of that, would have at least pretended to forgive her.

  For a few moments they chewed their beans in awkward silence, then Carmen regained her savoir faire and remarked in the calm, conversational voice that she might have used in her own drawing room: ‘Well, do either of you know where we are being taken? I suppose it is certain to be Mars.’

  ‘Estévan thinks that most probable,’ Kem replied. ‘He favours a planet in one of the star systems, and as all of them are a great way off I’m afraid we’ve got to make up our minds to a long journey.’

  ‘No, no!’ Estévan corrected him quickly. ‘I did not say that Mars was altogether unlikely. My view is that it is only one of a great number of possibilities, and that, therefore, the odds are against it.’

  Carmen wrinkled her smooth forehead. ‘But, surely, Mars being the nearest place where there is thought to be life makes it the most probable?’

  ‘Not necessarily. As I was explaining to Kem a few hours ago, if the Saucer is travelling on a magnetic wave it could cover vast distances in a comparatively short time. That alone reduces the chance of Mars being our destination to equality with a score of other possibilities. It is further reduced by the fact that, while it is now agreed that there is a form of life on Mars, it is believed to be only of a very low type.’