Star of Ill-Omen

by Dennis Wheatley

  The site of their find was a more than usually rugged tangle of rocks that must have once formed an island, as it was surrounded by a depression which in some places was as much as forty feet below the general level of the desert. After showing the bee-beetles that they had discovered the material for which they had been searching, they made camp among the rocks, but owing to the distance they had covered it was eight days before squads of giants reached them to undertake the mining.

  At first Kem had feared that it would prove impossible to secure any considerable quantity of the pitch-blende without sending back to Harsbach a request to make some more explosive pills for use in blasting; but the great strength of the giants, which was multiplied by the low gravity of Mars, enabled them to prise the rocks apart and break them up in a way that could have been equalled only by the fabled Titans. Within a week Anna declared herself satisfied, further work was called off, and the whole company set out on its return trip. The original expedition reached base forty-eight days after it had set out.

  During the mining operations and the homeward journey Anna’s spirits had remained buoyant from the consciousness that she had succeeded in a difficult task; but Kem, being nothing more than a supercargo, had had all his work cut out to conceal his true feelings. He was thoroughly sick of Anna, and suffering far more than she was from the cold. They had travelled to a point that was not far off Mars’ arctic circle, and in the northern hemisphere of the planet autumn was now approaching. No trace of cloud obscured the blue sky, but even when they made their way southwards the midday heats were less and the nights much colder.

  They arrived only a little before sundown, so were taken by their escort to the barracks and, soon afterwards, Carmen, Escobar and Harsbach joined them there. The first cargo of pitch-blende had come in five days earlier, and Harsbach congratulated Anna most heartily upon her discovery. Then, as the scientist now had the material necessary to manufacture atomic warheads for his bombs, they got down to discussing in more detail how they should make use of them.

  One bomb would obviously have to be exploded in order to terrify the bee-beetles into submission, and if it were simply dropped in the desert they might regard that as only a satisfactory experiment; so some target which would shake their morale had to be selected.

  ‘There are only three to choose from,’ Kem remarked; ‘the barracks, the hive and the oasis.’

  ‘I think it would be wrong to annihilate wantonly a number of either the giants or the insects,’ Carmen said. ‘Would not blowing up one of their canals serve our purpose?’

  Harsbach shook his head. ‘No; our target is already dictated by circumstances. It must be the oasis. Firstly, because the Saucer carrying the bombs will ascend from there, and as we shall not know how to navigate it we could not fly it over any other target even if we wanted to. Secondly, it is at the oasis that all our work is being carried out. It is of the first importance that we should destroy all traces of it and the insects who have worked with us; otherwise they might suceed in making further fission bombs after we have left, and later bombard the Earth with them.’

  They saw at once that he was right, but Escobar gave a twirl to his black moustache and asked, ‘Having made our demonstration, what then?’

  ‘We shall threaten the crew of the Saucer that unless they take us back to Earth we will use the second bomb to blow up the hive.’

  ‘Should they refuse, since we cannot fly the Saucer ourselves, how are we to get over it?’

  That was a poser to which no one could provide an answer at the moment; but it was the general opinion that, even if the Saucer landed them with the second bomb unexploded, their possession of such a terrible weapon would enable them to force the insects into making terms with them.

  After a moment Kem said, ‘Say we can force them to fly us back, where are we going to order them to land us?’

  ‘In the Soviet Union,’ replied Anna, without a second’s hesitation. ‘The bombs are ours and none of you stands any chance of getting away without them; so obviously the choice of destination lies with us.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Carmen disagreed sharply. ‘There are three of us and only two of you.’

  Harsbach shrugged. ‘I am sorry; but Anna is right. We shall have an unexploded bomb on board made from my formula, which is the property of the Soviet Government. I cannot possibily allow that to fall into the hands of any other government.’

  ‘You could explode the bomb after landing,’ Escobar suggested. But they all knew that there was much more at stake than the bomb, as the far more valuable secrets of the Saucer itself would become available to the country in which it was landed; and Harsbach promptly rejected the suggestion on the grounds that they would not have with them the necessary apparatus to explode it from a safe distance.

  For a while they sat in silence, having, apparently, reached a deadlock; then Kem said: ‘What about Mexico? That is a neutral country with sympathetic leanings towards the Soviet. I agree to that; but you can’t expect Carmen, Estévan and me to go with you to Russia, with the possibility that we may be held prisoners for the rest of our lives.’

  ‘That seems a reasonable compromise,’ Harsbach commented thoughtfully, but Anna would not hear of it, and there ensued a sharp exchange between them in Russian. Apparently, however, she gave way, as the Herr Doktor turned from her to Kem and said:

  ‘Mexico it shall be; but on the understanding that, having landed you there, you will not seek to prevent Anna and me making the insect crew fly us to the Soviet Union.’

  Kem had very different views about the ultimate destination of the Flying Saucer, but as Harsbach held the key to the only possibility of their getting away at all, this was not the moment to give him any idea of them. So, after a brief consultation with Escobar and Carmen, he accepted Harsbach’s terms on his party’s behalf.

  Next day they all went to the oasis. During the seven weeks that Kem and Anna had been absent both bombs had been completed, except for the filling of their warheads, and the Herr Doktor had finished making the lead screens to protect himself and Escobar from the radium rays given off by uranium. They were now engaged on manufacturing sulphuric acid for the reduction of the pitch-blende, and under their direction the other three helped with the work.

  A few days later Harsbach succeeded in extracting a small quantity of nearly pure, whitish uranium from about a hundredweight of the black, shiny pitch-blende, and declared that, if all continued to go well, the process he had invented should enable him to produce enough nuclear explosive to fill the two warheads in a little under a month. All of them were delighted to learn that there was a chance of then being able to make their attempt to get away from Mars so soon; but none of them more so than Kem, for since his return he had been plunged into the utmost depths of misery.

  He and Anna had taken up their quarters in the empty cell they had occupied for one night on their return from their first journey, but his attitude to her, and hers to him, was utterly different now that they had been living together for nearly two months. Then, they had at least had the bond of mutual physical attraction and a considerable curiosity about each other. Now, there remained nothing whatever to hold them together, except the fact that they slept under one lot of mats from habit. They were quite incapable of understanding one another’s points of view on practically every subject, and the more they learned about each other’s mentality the less they liked it.

  Not unnaturally, Kem had sought an early opportunity of unburdening himself to Carmen. He had frankly admitted how right she had been in asserting that he had nothing whatever in common with the little Russian, so therefore ought to have had more strength of mind than to allow himself to enter into a liaison with her. But Carmen had not displayed the pleasure at his repentance that he had expected. She had simply said that he had chosen Anna of his own free will and that she was not prepared to share him with her. She had added that during the seven weeks he had been away she had got to know the Herr Doktor well
, and found him extraordinarily knowledgeable; so she preferred to devote such leisure as she had to continuing her interesting talks with him, rather than to providing for Kem the companionship which Anna was incapable of giving him.

  A further forty-eight hours had been sufficient for Kem to become the victim of violent jealousy. The sight of Carmen and Harsbach, each time they went off for a stroll together, turned the knife in the wound and he found the greatest difficulty in preventing himself from quarrelling openly with the German. Anna soon saw what was in the wind and maliciously began to twit him about it. Matters were brought to a head one night a week after their return by her casually announcing that she now knew for a fact that Carmen had become Harsbach’s mistress.

  Kem felt certain she was lying in order to torment him. He told her so, and that she was not fit to lick Carmen’s shoes. Then he boxed her ears, and picking up his mats left her screaming insults at him. But his return to the fold got him no further with Carmen. She treated him politely, yet kept him at a distance, and continued to spend all her spare time in Harsbach’s company.

  Although Kem had not believed Anna, the thought she had put into his mind nagged at him so persistently that he felt he must try to get his peace of mind back by killing it once and for all. So when he was next able to get Carmen on her own for a few minutes he said to her:

  ‘When I broke with Anna two nights ago it was because she said that you and Kruger Harsbach were living together. It’s not true is it?’

  ‘Of course not!’ she exclaimed scornfully. ‘You should know how I feel about that sort of thing better than to believe her.’

  ‘I didn’t. I smacked her face and told her she was a liar. But you seem so keen on that damn’ German, and never have a moment for me now. I couldn’t help feeling that you might have fallen in love with him.’

  She smiled. ‘Poor Kem. I think I’ve punished you enough now for letting me down so badly.’

  His face lit up, and he exclaimed, ‘D’you mean you’ve just been using him to teach me a lesson?’

  ‘More or less. I do enjoy talking to him, because he has done all sorts of interesting things, and he has been teaching me Russian. That helped a lot to keep my mind occupied while you were away, and I’ve got on quite well with it. But I’m not the least in love with him. I love you, darling, and I always shall.’

  At her words Kem found himself trembling with happiness. Taking her hand, he kissed it and said: ‘It is an age since we had a real talk together. Will you come up on to the roof of the barracks for a while after sunset this evening?’

  She hesitated. ‘It will be absolutely icy up there. Still, I suppose we could carry up some of our mats to cover us. All right: we’ll go up immediately after we’ve had our rations.’

  A few hours later they were ensconced among the boulders. The cold was incredibly bitter, and as they arranged the mats she said: ‘We will have to cuddle up, or we’ll freeze to death. You will behave, won’t you, Kem?’

  ‘Of course I will,’ he promised; and, as she laid her cheek against his, he took her in his arms.

  In the frosty air the stars looked so near that by stretching out a hand one could have plucked them from the sky; but to leave their faces exposed for long was to risk frostbite, so they soon drew the mats right up over their heads, for an hour they talked in whispers, finding immense solace in once more being able to give free expression to their true feelings for one another after the two months during which Anna had come between them. Carmen admitted that during his absence the thought that had troubled her even more than his unfaithfulness had been suspicions that he had killed Zadovitch to get hold of his mistress; but he assured her that he had done so only to save his own life, and described what had happened in detail; upon which she agreed that he had had little choice.

  As they talked on it was borne in upon him more strongly than ever before that Carmen represented everything that was best worth loving and striving for, and that he would never be really happy unless he could make her his wife, so he said:

  ‘Listen, my sweet. In about three weeks now we shall be making our attempt to get away from this ghastly planet. Should we succeed in reaching Earth, how long do you think it would take you to secure an annulment of your marriage to Estévan?’

  After a moment she sighed. ‘Oh, darling, I wish you hadn’t brought that up. I’ve thought of it, of course; but it’s out of the question.’

  ‘Why? Quite a lot of Roman Catholic couples who wish to marry again succeed in getting annulments.’

  ‘I know; but in my case there are no legitimate grounds.’

  ‘There must be ways in which that could be got over.’

  ‘It could if I were prepared to tell a lot of lies.’

  His voice hardened a little. ‘Surely you don’t think such a minor crime too high a price to pay to enable us to get married. For my part there are jolly few things I’d stick at to make you mine for good.’

  She sighed again. ‘Dearest if I could ensure that by hacking one of my hands off with a hatchet, I swear I would; and if these were ordinary lies I wouldn’t think twice about it. But I’d have to swear them in front of a priest, so they would be perjury. If we do get away it will only be by God’s mercy. How could I bring myself to mock the Holy Virgin and the Saints after they had hearkened to my prayers to intercede for us?’

  Kem did not argue with her. He knew only too well how adamant she always became when her religion was in question. But the sadness of his tone wrung her heart as he said, ‘Then it seems we’ve no chance of permanent happiness till Estévan is dead.’

  She began to cry softly and one of her tears splashed, warm for a second, on his face as she whispered: ‘If we get away you must give me up, Kem. It would be all wrong for a man like you to devote his life to a woman in my position.’

  ‘No; I’ll never do that,’ he muttered doggedly. ‘After all, we are years younger than Estévan, and one never knows what may happen.’ He did not add the thought that he could not help coming into his mind—that Escobar now appeared to be far from a good life. He had aged a great deal since their arrival on Mars and, whereas the younger people had gradually become accustomed to the rarefied atmosphere, his heart continued to give him trouble whenever he exerted himself.

  For the moment Kem took such comfort as he could from the fact that Carmen had forgiven him. During the fifteen days that followed they resumed their old attachment as though it had never been interrupted and, in some ways, the link between them seemed stronger than it had ever been before. Harsbach grumbled a little about her giving him less of her time, but they were now all too occupied with the imminence of their bid to overcome their captors to think of much else; so when one night Escobar declared that he did not feel very well, no one showed great concern about him, except to express the hope that he would be better in the morning.

  But he was not better. He said that he had not slept all night and complained of acute pains in his bones. There was little they could do for him, except give him some of Carmen’s bromides, which had been hoarded for such a purpose; and when the others went off to the plant she stayed behind to keep him company.

  Kem was of the opinion that Escobar had simply caught a chill, and would soon recover if he spent a few days indoors beneath his mats; so he was somewhat surprised when, at midday, Harsbach declared his intention of going back to the barracks to see how his fellow scientist was. He was even more surprised when the German returned half an hour later to report that their friend was now delirious and very ill indeed.

  It so happened that Kem had been put on a job that would have been ruined had he left it unfinished, so he worked on until nearly four o’clock; then, having completed his tricky task, he at once took a trolley and set off for the barracks to see if he could be of any help to Carmen.

  As he entered the cell he saw at once that Escobar was dead. Carmen was kneeling in prayer beside the body. At the sound of Kem’s footsteps she turned, and as her glance rested
on him he saw her big eyes dilate with horror.

  Suddenly, in a low, tense voice, she spoke. ‘Get out of here! Don’t dare play the hypocrite! I know you now for what you are. You killed Zadovitch to get Anna. Now you’ve killed Estévan in the hope of getting me. But you never shall. Never! And God will punish you for these vile murders.’

  25

  The Last Bean

  Kem stared at Carmen in amazement. Escobar’s illness had not even brought back to his mind the conversation he had had with her fifteen days earlier; now he recalled it in every detail. With an indignant gasp he cried:

  ‘Carmen! You cannot possibly believe that I am responsible for this!’

  Slowly she stood up. Her face was haggard, her voice rasping, as she said: ‘What else can I believe? You were only a boy when you went into the war. You were trained as a commando—educated as a killer. You have told me yourself of the tricks you used to lure German soldiers to their deaths, and of how you struck others down in the dark. You swear that you killed Zadovitch in self-defence; but it was because you took his woman from him first that he attacked you. A fortnight ago you said you would stick at nothing to get me for your wife, and—’

  ‘I did not say that.’

  ‘You implied it. When you found that I was not willing to perjure myself in order to get an annulment, you made it plain that you did not mean to give me up. But poor Estévan stood between us. You said then, “After all, one never knows what may happen to him”. What else could you have meant, but that he might die through a convenient accident? knowing your record I should have guessed then what had come into your mind. I should have guessed, too, that you would not risk waiting to get back to Earth, where the law might find you out. Besides, it must have been so simple to bring about his death while he was engaged in such dangerous work.’