Star of Ill-Omen

by Dennis Wheatley

  While they settled the details of how they would proceed with their demonstration, Kem wrapped the pill up in a piece of cotton wool from Carmen’s dressing-case, and put it in the inner pocket of his colourful coat. Then they got their coverings and joined the others in their usual evening’s recreation.

  After their first few trolley rides all of them had discovered that they did not need the giants to lift them on to a trolley’s six-foot-high deck, as, owing to the low gravity, they could easily jump that height at a single bound. In consequence, they had now become accustomed to getting on the trolleys themselves; and, next morning, as soon as the Russian party had got aboard theirs Kem and Carmen jumped up beside them.

  Uncle Sam was squatting at the control lever and took no notice; but John Bull stared dully at his two new passengers for a moment, then made a movement to push them off. Zadovitch, in accordance with the instructions he had received, grasped the monster’s great hand, and, exerting all his strength, thrust it back, while Harsbach stood up and fixed his grey eyes on John Bull’s saucer-like blue eyes, willing him to take no further action. After a few seconds the giant relaxed, shook his head stupidly and turned away. As he did so Uncle Sam pushed on his lever and the trolley ran forward, following out of the tunnel that upon which Escobar was being taken as usual to the hive.

  When it reached the canal, instead of crossing the hump bridge towards the hive, it turned south along a road that ran parallel to the covered waterway. Kem and Carmen had never been so far in that direction before, so they now began to look about them with new interest; but, owing to the flatness of the landscape, they were carried another two miles before they could see anything other than the great half-pipe on their right. Then they saw ahead of them a second canal branching out at right angles from the first, and two minutes later the trolley sped over a bridge across it, bringing them into the oasis, where the plant was situated.

  Harsbach had always referred to this place as the ‘Oasis’ from association with the Earth-made maps of Mars, upon which all the big greenish-coloured spots where several canals crossed one another were so called; but it bore no resemblance whatever to the fertile patches in the African desert with their picturesque groups of palms. It resembled more a vast yard cut up into a number of square and triangular sections, the walls of which were formed by lengths of the semicircular coverings of the intersecting canals.

  There were no tall chimneys, no great erections of steel girders, no dumps of coal, and no buildings of any kind resembling those usually seen at a factory. Neither were there any networks of railway lines. The floors of the yards were bare, spotlessly clean and, like the roads, of polished stone. Everything was moved about them on the magnetised trolleys, and to load them, or lift weighty objects as required, magnets on T pieces that appeared to be made of concrete were used. The only structures were cube-shaped storage tanks, from which ran pipes of varying dimensions, and a number of large concave discs on stands, that looked rather like the sound range-finders used by anti-aircraft batteries.

  All work was carried out in the open, and the first yard was a scene of great activity. Hundreds of bee-beetles were busying themselves at a great number of troughs and moulds of all shapes and sizes, and scores of giants were acting under their orders. Some of the insects were adjusting the flow of liquids from pipes into the moulds, others were directing the knocking out of their contents after it had set, or superintending the despatch by trolley of finished articles to other yards.

  As the trolley on which Kem sat rolled over the hump of another bridge he glimpsed the domed tops of three grounded Flying Saucers about a quarter of a mile away. Next second, beyond them, against the blue horizon he caught sight of the morning dust-devil.

  Almost immediately afterwards there came a loud howling sound and a violent wind tore at his hair and clothes, but not a particle of sand was carried on it. Harsbach leant over and said to him:

  ‘Those things that look like sound detectors are wind machines. All of them are orientated either upward or towards the circumference of the oasis. By turning them on whenever there is a duststorm the insects are able to keep their plant free of the particles of sand which would prove ruinous if they got into the more delicate parts of the things they are making.’

  A few moments later, and for some time afterwards, they witnessed a curious phenomenon. Immediately above the oasis there remained a large circular patch of bright blue sky, but on every side there had risen what appeared to be a solid yellow wall that shut them in. It was like being at the bottom of an enormous roofless gasometer.

  Meanwhile the trolley had crossed two more bridges, and three yards in which a number of unfamiliar objects were being assembled. On the far side of the fourth yard it halted, and they all got down within a few feet of a torpedo-like structure that was obviously the Herr Doktor’s bomb-case. A group of about twenty bee-beetles stood near it and, as he approached them, waved their horns in greeting.

  Kem produced from his pocket three drawings he had prepared for the occasion. The first showed him picking up the explosive pill; the second showed three figures, distinguishable by their clothes as Carmen, Anna and himself, looking about for something on the ground; the third showed them again with several giants heaving clods of earth on to a trolley. Looking first at the group of bee-beetles, then at Harsbach, Kem asked:

  ‘Have you any idea which are the top boys of this party?’

  The Herr Doktor shook his head. ‘No; none whatever. The fact that there is no way of recognising these creatures is one of the major obstacles to communicating with them. I can never be certain that I am endeavouring to convey my thoughts to the same ones for two days running. My recent lack of success may be due to my having tried to transmit ideas to a succession of different shifts, instead of having the advantage of being able to reiterate my wishes again and again to one group that would gradually become conscious of what was in my mind. But, of course, it may be that the idea of this expedition was too complex for them to grasp solely by telepathy and a certain amount of dumb show.’

  Kem laid his sketches down before the bee-beetles, then brought out the explosive pill and showed it to them. Harsbach, meanwhile, erected a simple apparatus he had made on the previous day, which consisted of a tripod carrying at its apex a receptacle to hold the pill, and a length of wire that when jerked would release a hammer. With the ‘nothing up my sleeve’ sort of gesture that came so easily to Kem from his amateur conjuring, he placed the pill in its container and stepped back. Then Harsbach pulled the wire.

  There came a blinding flash and a far louder report than Harsbach had expected. Instantly the whole plant was thrown into wild confusion. From the yard in which they stood, and those adjacent to it, thousands of bee-beetles flew up into the air, while the giants stampeded, cackling with fright, and flung themselves upon one another to huddle terrified in corners.

  Carmen clapped her hands, Zadovitch and Anna waved their clenched fists in the air and shouted joyfully in Russian. They had suffered so many humiliations and discomforts at the hands of their captors that their delight at this first turning of the tables was understandable. They felt, too, that it was an earnest of more sweeping victories to come. But Kem and Harsbach exchanged a worried look. Both were wondering if, by this demonstration, they had not played their best card prematurely, and might, within the next few minutes, have to pay a very heavy price for it.

  22

  Zadovitch’s Mistress

  Still laughing and clapping, both the girls congratulated Kem and Harsbach on the result of their experiment. From fear of frightening them, the two men refrained from voicing their thoughts or showing their acute anxiety; but with secret concern they gazed skywards. Up there above them the bee-beetles now formed a solid black cloud that hovered ominously. Should it suddenly descend and attack, Harsbach and Zadovitch had their pistols, so might drive them off temporarily; but if the attack was persistent the hundreds of insects could smother them in a few seconds
. In any case it would mean the opening of war to the death, and that was the very last thing they wanted at the moment.

  For a good five minutes, that seemed like fifty, the swarm remained almost stationary, then a score of insects broke away from its sides and began to circle over the yard.

  ‘We had better sit down,’ said Kem. ‘That may reassure them.’

  It was only then that the girls realised that there was any danger of their being attacked, and the whole party followed Kem’s example.

  This pacific move apparently had the desired effect, as the score of beetles came lower, and after a further cautious circling, settled within about fifteen feet of the twisted tripod. For a further two minutes both the humans and the insects remained quite still; then, as though at a signal, the swarm above broke up and, coming down, its members began to chivy the still terrified giants back to their work.

  Greatly relieved, Kem stood up, advanced towards the group on the far side of the tripod and again spread his sketches out on the ground in front of them. Cautiously they gathered round to examine the drawings. Then Harsbach joined him and kept pointing, first at the wrecked tripod, then at the empty warhead of his bomb.

  Within a few minutes it was evident that the insects had got the idea, as some of them began to fly round Kem’s head, then alight on the trolley, to which Uncle Sam and John Bull had now crept back on all fours. With a directness characteristic of them they obviously wanted Kem to start at once on his self-proposed mission; but he had no intention of doing so without adequate preparations.

  Turning over one of his sketches he drew on the back of it two trolleys—as a precaution against one breaking down in the desert—four giants, a row of Pan-pipe water flasks and some beans: then on another a sketch of the sun rising and setting on Mars with twenty semicircles above it, indicating that they might be away about three weeks. Again the bee-beetles were quick in picking up his meaning. Three of them flew on to the trolley and by waving their pincers practically beckoned him to join them, while others ordered up another trolley with two more monsters.

  Kem grinned at his companions. ‘Well! I will say this is service. I had no idea that we would get results so quickly but since we have, there doesn’t seem much excuse for us to delay our departure. As I started this excitement they will expect me to go, and Anna must do so, because she’s the only one among us who knows in what sort of ground we are likely to find lead and uranium. Carmen, you’ll come, won’t you? The trip will provide a new interest for us.’

  Anna promptly walked towards the trolley, jumped, and landed lightly on it. Muttering something in Russian, Zadovitch followed her example; but Carmen made no move and said to Kem in Spanish:

  ‘No, Sem. You must go; otherwise they might call off the expedition; but I prefer to stay behind. If I had to spend several days as well as nights with that little Russian we should end by tearing one another’s eyes out. Besides, as you and I arrived here with Estévan, it would be unkind for both of us to leave him without even a word of warning.’

  ‘Oh, come!’ Kem protested. ‘Estévan will have Harsbach to keep him company; and it is silly to get all het up just because Anna has been educated with completely different standards from yourself. Besides, I can’t leave you to wander about day after day on your own.’

  Harsbach’s smattering of Spanish had enabled him to understand the gist of this, and he said to Carmen: ‘Just now Zadovitch declared that wherever Anna goes he means to go, too; so that leaves me entirely without assistance. He was quite unskilled, but nevertheless in many ways I found him useful. Would you care to take his place and come here every day to help me?’

  ‘Indeed I would, Herr Doktor,’ Carmen replied. ‘Nothing would please me better than to have a job to occupy my mind.’

  Kem gave her a rather unhappy look. Bored as he had been in her company for the past week, he was very loath to leave her; and now that he was about to set off into the unknown he felt a sudden impulse to seize her in his arms and hold her very tightly to him. But he repressed it and, a little awkwardly, held out his hand.

  She took it and smiled into his eyes. ‘Please don’t be offended, Sem; but I’d already made up my mind that if this expedition came off it would be a good thing for us to separate for a while; although I hadn’t expected such a sudden parting. If I thought you were going into danger I should come, too; but there is no reason to think you will come to any harm, and when you get back we shall have lots of new things to talk about.’

  He grinned a trifle sheepishly at this disclosure that she had recently been as bored as himself, and gave her hand a squeeze. Then, as she wished him good luck, he turned, nodded to Harsbach and jumped up on to the trolley beside Anna and Zadovitch.

  No sooner had he landed on its deck than Uncle Sam started it up and it rolled forward towards the nearest bridge. As Kem turned to wave to Carmen he noted that the second trolley was following them and remarked to Anna:

  ‘Now we have another couple of monsters attached to us we must decide on names for them. How about Stalin and Molotov?’

  His suggestion had been made as a leg-pull, and he had expected her to retort that she thought President Truman and Winston Churchill more suitable; but to his surprise he saw that her face had gone almost apoplectic with indignation. Her blue eyes popping and her cheeks bright red, she stuttered:

  ‘How… how dare you liken those wonderful men to brutes?’

  ‘Sorry,’ he apologised. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you; but your national leaders are just statesmen like any others, and I don’t see anything particularly wonderful about them.’

  ‘Of course they are wonderful,’ she protested hotly, ‘and quite different from those of other countries. The others are all greedy warmongers, whereas ours are idealists of great vision who work selflessly and tirelessly for the welfare of the workers of the whole world.’

  Kem saw that it would be pointless to contradict her. He suddenly realised, too, that the Russians had not christened their monsters Uncle Sam and John Bull from any sense of fun, but because they really thought those characters represented all that was hideous and brutal. Clearly, if he wished to remain on speaking terms with Anna he must remember that her sense of humour did not extend to matters concerning the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. With a shrug he said, ‘Never mind: let’s call them Mutt and Jeff.’

  With the three bee-beetles who had taken charge of the party buzzing above them, the trolleys crossed the other bridges out of the oasis and twenty minutes later reached the barracks. On the way through the tunnel the bee-beetles consulted with others of their kind who had charge of the storerooms there. A whole basketful of beans, some fifty water flasks and a quantity of fibre mats were piled on to the second trolley, then the little cavalcade rolled on out into the sunshine again. Turning to Anna, Kem said: ‘This is your party, as it is you who have to produce the goods. Which way do you wish to go?’

  She had not spoken since her outburst but no longer showed any trace of ruffled feelings, and replied in a brisk, business-like voice: ‘As far as we know the deserts on Mars do not differ from one another, so we may as well go straight ahead. First I shall look for lead, as without it to protect him it would be dangerous for Comrade Harsbach to reduce uranium to its components. Lead, too, should be much easier to find; as there must be any amount of it on Mars. Our only difficulty will be to identify a high-content lead-bearing ore in a place where it is easily workable.’

  ‘What sort of ground must we keep a look-out for?’ Kem enquired.

  ‘The principal lead ores are galena and cerussite,’ she informed him; ‘the former being more common. It is usually found in veins in slaty clay, accompanied by copper and iron pyrites, but it also occurs in pockets in limestone; so our best prospect will be to examine any likely cliffs that we may come to.’

  Kem’s German was progressing well, but, apart from the bit about cliffs, Anna’s explanations proved too much for him; so he forbore from questioning her f
urther on geological matters and left it to her to point out to Uncle Sam the directions in which she wished him to drive the trolley, or order a halt whenever she wished to get down to look at outcrops of rock.

  By midday they reached the nearest canal to the north and found that, like the one with which they were already familiar, it had five-miles-deep belts of bean-fields on either side of it; but no giants were working in them. Crossing it, they entered another desert, which, again, was indistinguishable from the one they already knew. Every half-hour or so Anna pulled the trolley up to make an examination, but although she found indications of galena on two occasions, she pronounced both sites much too un-promising for working.

  Soon after they had suffered the evening sandstorm, sundown caught them about a mile off the road near a pile of big boulders; so they decided to camp there for the night. Apart from selecting the best protected places in which to arrange their coverings, there was no camp to make; but, once they had settled down, they found the change from the great gloomy cell to the open, under the starry heavens, a very pleasant one. For a while Zadovitch sang to them in his melodious baritone, then he wished them good night in Russian and turned over to go to sleep.

  But Anna was not sleepy, and now that Carmen was not present to resent it, Kem led her on to talk about life under the Soviets. She proved an even more fanatical Communist than he had supposed, and spoke with glowing enthusiasm of the time when the workers of the whole world would enjoy the fruits of their labours, instead of being ground down and robbed by the horde of parasites who battened on them in every country except Russia.

  He did not attempt to argue with her, and knowing the miserable conditions under which the vast majority of the Russian masses still lived thought it rather pathetic that she should think them so much better off than the masses in the democratic countries. Yet it was obvious that she honestly believed her people to enjoy a freedom unknown elsewhere, and that it needed only a few more five-year plans to make Russia a Utopia.