The Silent Vulcan

by James Follett

  Ellen considered the inscrutable Mike Malone to be a man of the highest integrity. By guaranteeing the safety of Claire and her unborn baby in order to rescue herself and Vikki, meant that the same guarantee extended to herself and Vikki. Which also meant that all three would have to remain in hiding until Malone was 100 per cent certain that Adrian Roscoe's power had been irrevocably broken.

  Claire's help enabled Vikki to close the gap in her Scrabble score. So good to see Vikki smiling, Ellen thought. But why? What had brought about this profound change in the girl? What was it that she had said a few minutes ago about not being so innocent?

  Oh, for God's sake! Stop acting the over-anxious den mother!

  The curious appropriateness of the analogy amused Ellen.

  But not enough to dispel her concern about Vikki's altered personality.

  Chapter 3.

  WHILE THE THREE WOMEN PLAYED Scrabble, eager children were helping the two men stow the deflated Zodiac dingy and their equipment on a horse-drawn cart. Harding's efforts were hampered by a four-year-old who considered he had an inalienable right to ride on the retired scientist's shoulders and pull his ears while their steed shook hands with parents and did his best to answer their questions, even some pointed queries from an elderly couple who liked the new life and the renewed community spirit it had engendered.

  Malone watched with interest. There was no doubt that Harding was well-liked. But Prescott's easy-going bonhomie and wealth ensured that he had core of influential supporters. The difference was that Prescott had gone out of his way to be seen to be popular, even to the extent of arranging for groups of his supporters to hang about outside Government House to cheer him when he appeared, whereas Bob Harding always seemed genuinely surprised and touched by the warmth that greeted him during the seven days he had been chairman. Malone reflected that he and his fellow conspirators had made good choice. A bloody civil war between the town and the country had been averted although the grievances were still there -- particularly over Pentworth's food shortages and the widespread belief in the town that farmers and growers were withholding supplies.

  "Papa One-Six. Mr Malone? Do you copy?"

  Malone raised his PMR radio's speaker-microphone to his lips. "Go head, One-Six."

  "Free to speak?"

  Malone moved away from the cart. "Go ahead."

  "Are you still at the lake, Mr Malone?"

  "Yes. Yes." Malone disliked revealing his location. Adrian Roscoe's Bodian Brethren were more than capable of retuning their Motorola Handie-Com radios to listen to police channels.

  "The Bodian search party from Pentworth House is heading your way, Mr Malone."

  Malone glanced up and picked out a distant group of eight figures skirting the far end of Pentworth Lake. There was something familiar about the confident stride of the leader and the way he swung his long staff with every step. The flash of Roscoe's ice-blue eyes was apparent even at this distance. Malone cursed inwardly. It seemed that Adrian Roscoe had gone back on the terms of Bob Harding's amnesty that there would be no more search parties organised from the Bodian Brethren's HQ at Pentworth House. "I can see them," he answered. "Any reason for drawing my attention to them? Over."

  "They're being led by Adrian Roscoe. Also Nelson Faraday is with him. They were discharged from the hospital this morning."

  Malone acknowledged, said that he didn't require back-up and cleared the channel. He moved to the footpath that the approaching group were using and stood facing them, hands clasped behind his back, waiting.

  Nelson Faraday was the only member of the group not wearing a gown. He was dressed in his customary black but not his leather trousers and crimson-lined black leather cloak. They had been damaged in the fire at Government House that had been the opening shot of the coup. Like Adrian Roscoe, his hands were bandaged. All those in Asquith Prescott's palatial Government House office when Harvey Evans had fired a marine distress rocket through the window from his microlight aircraft had suffered varying degrees of burns. Asquith Prescott's injuries had been the worst. The former chairman of the Governing Council of Pentworth had displayed a remarkable degree of courage when the conflagration had erupted in his office by rolling Vanessa Grossman in a carpet. The only fatality of that fateful night had been Harvey Evans when his microlight aircraft had crashed into the building, setting the roof on fire and destroying Pentworth Radio's simple broadcast studio. The moment transmissions had ceased, Bob Harding had come on air using a spare transmitter in his workshop to announce that Asquith Prescott's rule was over.

  The group drew level with Malone and stopped. Adrian Roscoe's intense blue eyes flared at the police officer from a gaunt face set deep in the cowl.

  "Good morning, Mr Roscoe," said Malone affably. He made a point of never using `Father' when addressing the sect leader.

  Roscoe leaned on his staff. The sleeve of his gown fell away showing that his arm was bandaged to the elbow. "What do you want, Malone?"

  "I hear Dr Vaughan has just discharged you and your Man Faraday here from hospital." Faraday scowled and said nothing. Malone continued, "Naturally I'm concerned that you're up and about so soon. Shouldn't you be resting?"

  "I do not rest when there is God's work to be done." The rich, resonant tone of Roscoe's voice combined with his unblinking blue eyes made him a formidable orator.

  The six other members of the Bodian Brethren in the party remained standing a little way back, hoods pulled forward, eyes downcast. Of all the social misfits that Roscoe had recruited to his cult movement before the appearance of the Wall, they were the biggest and most intimidating. There was little that intimidated Malone but the police officer could well-guess their impact on farmers and residents in out-lying areas.

  "If you would step aside, please," said Roscoe coldly.

  "When you've told me what you're up to."

  "That is none of your business."

  Malone stared dispassionately at Roscoe. "Please yourself... There's no hurry. I'll have all of you taken into custody. I'm incredibly busy at the moment so you'll have at least three days wait before I get around to questioning you. You're in breach of an undertaking you gave last week to stop these intimidating search parties for Vikki Taylor and Ellen Duncan."

  "I've told you. We are on God's work," Roscoe snapped.

  "I trust he pays well."

  "As you well-know, Claire Lake has disappeared. She's a prominent member of our brethren. I take her safety seriously, Malone, even if you don't."

  "She's over 18 and has every right to leave your cult if she so wishes," Malone observed.

  Bob Harding joined the group and looked inquiring at Roscoe and Faraday. "What's the problem, Mr Malone?"

  "It would seem, Mr Chairman, that Mr Roscoe has forgotten the terms of your generous amnesty -- that his search party charades for Vikki Taylor and Ellen Duncan would cease."

  "I agreed that I would no longer concern myself with the whereabouts of those two devil's acolytes until they reappear, as they eventually must," Roscoe responded, not taking his icy gaze off Malone. "I did not promise to set aside my concern for the safety and mental state of a young girl whom I rescued from the gutter when she was contemplating suicide."

  "She's not contemplating it now," said Malone evenly. "So you can go home or be arrested."

  Harding frowned. "Do you know where Claire Lake is, Mr Malone?"

  The policeman was undecided about answering the question. It didn't take a genius to guess that the three missing women were together. He had no doubt that Adrian Roscoe was using his supposed concern for Claire Lake as a cover for continuing his hunt for Vikki and Ellen. The cult leader's hatred of Ellen Duncan, whom he was convinced was a witch and responsible for Pentworth's troubles, was more than mere paranoia -- it was a burning obsession that had led to Ellen and Vikki falling into his clutches and being tried as witches and found guilty of witchcraft. The crazy trial in Penthouse House's manorial court and the condemning to death of the two women had bee
n a major factor that had led to the coup of the previous week. He decided to side-step the question.

  "I know someone who knows where she is." It was an economic but truthful answer.

  "And is she well?" Harding asked.

  "Safe and well, Mr Chairman," Malone replied, returning Roscoe's hard gaze.

  "In that case, Father Roscoe," said Harding. "I'm prepared to accept Mr Malone's word on the matter and I require you to do the same. There must be no more search parties. If you persist, you are in breach of the amnesty and will be arrested. All of you."

  "The girl is confused and emotionally unstable," snarled Nelson Faraday, speaking for the first time. "Father Roscoe is not the sort of man to turn his back on his responsibilities."

  "Claire Lake was confused and frightened," Malone corrected, staring dispassionately at Faraday. "Brought about by the sexual perversions that she was forced to take part in when she was in supposed care of the Bodian cult." Malone decided to play a bluff. He returned Roscoe's icy stare. "I have a full statement from her and corroborative statements from two other members of your cult. I have enough evidence to arrest both of you on several charges of abduction and rape, and I won't hesitate to do so if you continue with these absurd search parties."

  Malone's gamble paid off. Roscoe appeared to be undecided for a moment. Malone knew from what Claire Lake had told him that there were at least two other supposedly staunch members of the Bodian Brethren who were unhappy with conditions in Pentworth House -- particularly the hours they now had to work on the estate's farms to take advantage of the long hours of daylight.

  With a parting glare at Malone, Roscoe turned abruptly and strode back along the footpath with Faraday and the sentinels trailing behind.

  "First time I've ever known him to capitulate without a fight or a compromise," Harding observed.

  "For which he'll exact a price, Mr Chairman," said Malone, watching the dwindling group.

  "Oh, I don't know. He's been effectively neutralised. There's no reason why Ellen and Vikki, and this Claire Lake can't come out of hiding."

  "You cannot neutralise a fanatic short of killing him," said Malone categorically. "Nothing will shake Adrian Roscoe's crazy beliefs. Adrian Roscoe sees his fanaticism as a God-given tool to save the earth. To him Ellen Duncan and Vikki Taylor are satanic apostles and he will stop at nothing to destroy them. That's why I maintain that they must remain in hiding."

  Chapter 4.

  DAVID WEIR JUMPED DOWN FROM THE hissing, throbbing second love in his life and helped his farm manager, Charlie Crittenden, shovel anthracite beans into her roaring firebox.

  "Steady on, Charlie," said David, anxiously eyeing the smoke belching from the huge traction engine's tall smokestack. "I've only got a permit to burn a couple of hundred kilos."

  "'Tain't no good testing our Brenda proper unless we can run her half an hour at full pressure, Mr Weir," said Charlie. The muscles in his brawny, tattooed arms bulged as he used a long, heavy iron to break up a lump of clinker in the firebox, exposing the nearly white hot core of the fire. Charlie heaved his bulk up the traction engine's step plates to the driver's position, taking care to avoid the spinning flywheel, and checked the pressure gauges. "180psi and steady," he announced. "Never had her up to that before."

  David was pleased. Brenda was the prize in his Temple Farm's collection of now-valuable ancient machinery -- a monstrous Charles Burrell showman's engine -- a steam-powered traction engine that had, in its day, met the electricity needs of a travelling fun fair. The huge dynamo mounted on top of the engine's boiler, when driven by a belt from the steam engine's flywheel, had provided enough electricity to run bumper cars, big wheels, whips, ghost trains and all the thousands of lights that were a traditional part of travelling fairs of the first half of the 20th Century. When David had found her she had been rotting in a field for half a century. He had bought the wreck on the assurances of Charlie that it would be possible to restore it. Charlie knew his traction engines. The former traveller and his family had fun fairs in their blood. The Crittendens had settled their caravans at Temple Farm before the Wall had appeared.

  Five years previously, David had sold his share in a London art gallery, bought Temple Farm, and used his boundless energy to turn the farm into a theme farm -- a working museum based on pre-industrial revolution agricultural practices and equipment. His acceptance into local society had been confirmed when he had been voted onto Pentworth's former town council. He had been a leading conspirator in the rescue of Ellen and Vikki and the coup d'etat a few days later that had overthrown Asquith Prescott. He and Mike Malone were the only people in Pentworth who knew where the three women were hidden.

  He walked around the engine, keeping clear of the steam screaming from the stuffing boxes that were still leaking and required Charlie's skilled attention. The machine was a sorry sight. A piebald mass of red blotches where primer had been applied to the worst of the rust patches on her boiler. All that was left of the long canopy that had extended the length of the machine and its massive dynamo were a few upright supports. The dynamo had been removed to have its bearings rebuilt and its armature rewound.

  The Wall had put paid to David's plans to restore the showman's engine to her former gleaming glory. The only thing that gleamed about her now was the brass plate engraved with the venerable machine's name. The plate had been restored by Charlie's wife for the occasional when, a few weeks before, Brenda had taken part in the massed but fruitless assault on the Wall by nearly 400 vehicles. "200psi," said Charlie jumping down and regarding the hissing monster with a critical eye. "She's holding up real nice, Mr Weir." The traveller went around with a pot of paint, marking pipework joints that still needed attention. "Just a few little jobs and I reckon we can mount the dynamo in a couple of days."

  Chapter 5.

  SOME FIFTY CREATURES OF THE night paused in their business of staying alive and watched the spyder emerging from the shallows of Pentworth Lake. It walked across the artificial bathing beach on eight curiously articulated legs. Emotions among creatures varied from the speculative to the apprehensive, depending on their assessment of the strange creature's likelihood of eating them or vice versa. It was at least twice the size of an alert dog fox who, having once tangled with a small but ferociously determined cat, decided that small rodents and chickens offered a less hazardous diet. It slunk off into the shadows, which was as well because the spyder had detected its presence in the infra-red part of spectrum and had a formidable array of self defence armament to call on if needed.

  The few people who had seen the spyder on its previous forays, who included Mike Malone, had likened it to a mechanical crab. The name "spyder" had been coined by the first person to see it and the term had stuck. It was not an entirely inaccurate name because the device was primarily intended for surveillance although its many secondary abilities were phenomenal.

  The previous March, a few hours after the Visitors' arrival, it had visited Vikki Taylor, asleep in her bedroom, and examined the stump where the teenage girl had had an accident as a child that had resulted in the loss of her left hand. The spyder had even studied the artificial hand on the girl's dressing table, sending back information to its makers deep in Pentworth Lake. They had divined the purpose of the prosthetic hand and instructed the spyder to identify, isolate, and trigger the stem cells that had determined the growth of Vikki's hands when she was in her mother's womb. The operation was carried out while Vikki slept. The result was that Vikki had, to her dismay, grown a new and perfect left hand within the space of a few hours. The spyder's makers could not have foreseen the problems that the new hand would cause Vikki and end up with her being branded as a witch and condemned to death.

  The spyder needed less than a second to check its systems to ensure that none had been impaired by water penetration during it ascent from the depths of the lake. Its back opened like a clamshell and contra-rotating rotors were extended and unfolded. The rotors started spinning, rapidly winding u
p to full speed and raising a cloud of swirling sand. The whine of its motors deepened as the rotors bit on the humid night and the extraordinary machine lifted vertically to a height of 500 metres.

  Hovering cost energy. Without pause, the spyder set off southward. The direction was unimportant because instead of watching humans, this time it was going to examine the 30 kilometre circumference of the Wall where it reached the ground. The spyder's makers disliked using their machine's flight capabilities because displacing air to keep it airborne meant that it made a certain amount of noise. It was unavoidable. Like all intelligent creatures throughout the universe, they were bound by universal laws of physics; they had great ingenuity but they could not work miracles. Their machine's eight crab-like legs meant that it was admirably equipped to move over the roughest terrain but that would've taken too long for tonight's mission and would've meant spreading the reconnoitre over several nights, increasing the chances of it being seen. The spyder flew on in a straight line, its whining rotors thrashing the humid night air. After a few minutes, it detected the presence of Wall where it sliced across a field. It banked hard left within a few metres of the Wall's invisible presence and began its counter-clockwise examination, storing a continuous stream of data in its memory for its controllers. No intervention was required on their part for this task. Their machine had been instructed; it was capable of acting on its own initiative and generally looking after itself.

  It flew at a steady 20 knots to conserve the charge in its energy cells. Occasionally it passed over isolated farmhouses, and singled some out for closer attention by slowing down. Startled occupants emerged and stared up at the night sky, looking for the source of the strange whining sound and saw nothing.