Island of Death

by Barry Letts

  ‘Neither. Both,’ she answered. Getting up, she started to pace up and down as she must have done when she was lecturing her students, trying to get across to them the concepts that were so clear to her. ‘I told you earlier that I can’t read your mind. That’s true. It wasn’t necessary for survival, so it never evolved. But that’s not to say that my mind can’t impose a thought, a perception, onto yours.

  Natural selection has made sure of that. But it happens without any volition from me. What you’re looking at is a telepathic illusion of the original Hilda Hutchens. And yet, in a sense, it’s still me.’

  The Doctor frowned. ‘I think you must be mistaken...’

  Hilda laughed. ‘Recognised code for “You’re talking balderdash!” Right, Doctor?’

  ‘When I met you in Bombay, I shook hands with you...’ He stood up and took hold of her arm. ‘You’re as solid as the floor we’re standing on.’

  ‘I’ve seen many a deep hypnotic subject who would have said the same about an induced hallucination,’ she replied.

  And this is a thousand times more powerful than hypnosis. If I were to scratch your face with these fingernails - these fingernails that exist only as an idea in my mind and yours -

  believe me, you would bleed real blood.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it,’ said the Doctor. ‘You were saying...?’

  ‘You could take the total process as the physical analogue of a spiritual conversion,’ she said. ‘But I’m not just metaphorically born again. I’ve been remade. Literally.’

  If a professor of philosophy uses the word, she means it.

  Literally.

  ‘Each “egg”, as you call it, is breathed in by an individual and enters the bloodstream, and settles in the brain - to be exact, in the hypothalamus. As it grows, it takes over the host body cell by cell, starting with the brain itself. So, although the body gradually takes on the form of a Skang, it automatically uses this massive telepathic power to fool any observer that the original human still exists. And perhaps it does.’

  Not balderdash. But surely illogical... ‘But you’ve just described a physiological takeover that would destroy the very structure of the human being, cell by cell,’ the Doctor said.

  ‘Not destroy. Transmute, change. Where does your identity lie? What makes you the Doctor, rather than Joe Bloggs the dustman, or the next president of the United States?’

  ‘I see what you mean,’ said the Doctor slowly. ‘You’re saying that as the Skang grows into the brain cells and their neural pathways, it also takes over the memories and so on -

  the conditioning, the attitudes... The whole personality, in fact.’

  ‘Exactly. I never felt that there was something gradually possessing me. I just became more and more aware of this inner core of experience and knowledge that was growing inside me, which was the collective mind of the Skang itself.’

  ‘At first I thought I was going mad; and then it seemed that I must be having some sort of a mystical experience. But in a very short time - just over six weeks it took - everything became clear. I was a Skang - and it seemed as if I always had been, and had only just found out; and more than that, when I made contact with my fellows and discovered how to become the real me, I found that I was nothing less than the Great Skang himself! And that... that wasn’t an experience, something to categorise as good or bad. It just was. An utter liberation.’

  ‘I didn’t give a damn whether I was Hilda Hutchens or not.

  She went on existing as the complex of processes she’d always been, with all the likes and dislikes, all the opinions and beliefs and prejudices that she’d developed over the years.’

  ‘She never stopped knowing that she was Hilda Hutchens.

  And I’ll tell you something else. When I’m presenting myself as her, I’m as subject to the illusion of my physical solidity as you are. It’s another evolutionary necessity. We’d never get away with it unless we believed it utterly. So, does the “I” that was me before still exist? If you can answer that, Doctor, you deserve to win the next Nobel prize!’

  * * *

  Jeremy was feeling far from chuffed. In fact he decided that he was definitely unchuffed. Or should that be dischuffed? After all, you would think that twenty grand would make sure you didn’t find yourself shoved into the middle of a mixed bunch of scruffy hippy types - yes, of course he felt full of loving-kindness towards them and all, but there were limits. They’d been pushed and pulled around like a herd of cows.

  At least he was standing near to Emma. Though she hadn’t talked to him much today. She just sort of looked through him.

  Even when he was in the sixth form at Holbrook, Jeremy hadn’t managed to get the respect he deserved. Nobody asked him to be in the first eleven, for instance (or the second, for that matter), and when he sort of hinted at it, everybody fell about laughing. You’d never think that Mama was in the prospectus as one of their patrons; and that hadn’t cost a bag of salted peanuts either.

  And there was that time he’d tried to go to the front of the queue at dinnertime, and all those fags, a bunch of little blighters from the third form for crying out loud, they’d just crowded him out. Giggling too. Admittedly he wasn’t a prefect, but whose fault was that?

  ‘You know,’ he said to Emma, who’d been jostled into a position right next to him, ‘I was really pleased when we first arrived on the island and we found that our lot from London were in the chalet thingies down at the bottom, near the sea.

  I mean, for swimming and all. And sunbathing and stuff.’

  ‘I didn’t realise it would mean being right at the back of the flipping queue. With my luck, by the time we get up there, they’ll have run out of rewards. It jolly well isn’t fair.’

  Emma at last deigned to look at him. ‘Oh, for God’s sake belt up, you little twit,’ she said.

  ‘Ingurgitation? How disgusting. I much prefer the word we use, “assimilation”. But whatever you want to call it, Doctor, you’ll have to make up your mind by the time it starts. You haven’t very long. The time for the Prime Assimilation is non-negotiable, I’m afraid.’

  Should he pretend to go along with her extraordinary offer?

  It might give him a little more time to try to convince her -

  though his tactics so far had been a shameful failure.

  ‘Why is that?’ he asked. The information could be useful.

  Dame Hilda didn’t answer at once.

  ‘I suppose there’s no reason why you shouldn’t know,’ she said, after a moment’s consideration. ‘It’s a plain matter of fact, as you’ll see for yourself. This island wasn’t chosen at random. It lies between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, and...’

  The Doctor interrupted her. ‘And today is the day of the equinoctial spring tide!’

  She looked at him in amazement. ‘You astonish me, Doctor.

  How did you know that that was relevant?’

  ‘You told me that the Great Skang uses gravity to help navigate space. The influence of the gravity of the sun and the moon will be greater here, today, than anywhere else at any other time. So if the Great Skang is to descend to Earth...’

  Dame Hilda was smiling with delight.

  ‘I knew you should be one of us!’ she said. ‘You’re quite right. To use psionic energy alone would be far too costly. He will use the gravity waves to come down from the heavens to receive the... er...’ She paused.

  ‘The sacrifice?’ said the Doctor.

  ‘If you like. I was about to say, the glad offering of his disciples. It would be more accurate.’

  He was starting to feel angry again. The Inca virgins were equally glad to allow their priests to butcher them. They ended up equally dead.’ That must have blown it. Too late to pretend to be persuaded now.

  ‘You can’t do it, Doctor. You can’t rile me no matter what you say. I notice within a nano-second when Hilda’s reaction starts, and it’s gone in another.’

  So much for that. He w
asn’t doing very well.

  Hilda continued, ‘The trigger for his coming is the Prime Assimilation, which I shall carry out myself. So you see, the timing is crucial.’

  Indeed it was. Unless he could do something about it pretty soon, this gentle, white-haired old lady was going to stab a weapon sharper than any dagger into the throat of one of those youngsters out there, inject a noxious fluid, and absorb into herself the liquefied (and to a Skang, no doubt quite delicious) guts.

  The message from the Doctor was quite categorical. They had to be stopped no matter what it cost.

  The Brigadier shook his head to clear it. His headache had long gone, but it must be that he was still under the influence of the Skang drug to a certain extent.

  From what Sarah had told them, and from what they had seen on the beach and the road before they left the lagoon, it was plain that nothing was going to happen while the teachers were down in the hut village, among the Skangite devotees.

  The plan was to get into a position where the teachers could be ambushed as they returned to the temple, where the vital ceremony was to take place. Once they were inside, it would be impossible to surprise them. As long as the ring-leaders were taken in good time - could they really be disguised bug-eyed monsters? - there should be no need for any bloodshed.

  Though there might be some.

  ‘Lower away... Handsomely, handsomely!’ It was the voice of the Cox’n.

  The original landing parties were being mobilised anew; two boats would carry eighteen seamen, Petty Officer Hardy, himself and the two senior officers. Twenty-two armed men to arrest as many Skang, it seemed. Would it be enough?

  His internal chuntering was interrupted by Sarah’s voice.

  ‘They’ll all be out of their huts about now,’ she said in a worried tone. She glanced at her watch. ‘Must be getting ready to go up to the temple. Can’t we get a move on?’

  The Brigadier didn’t answer. These things took time. It was a rhetorical question in any case. It was just her anxiety talking. After all, she was very young, with little experience of things like this.

  He took another look at the temple, and the path outside.

  There was no sign of the disciples. But she was quite right. It couldn’t be long before they all started trooping up. And once they were inside, and they started the ceremony, according to the Doctor it would be too late.

  What were the crew doing down there? Surely they must be ready by now?

  Pete Andrews came up the ladder onto the bridge to take a look at the shore in his turn.

  The Brigadier glanced at him. ‘Can’t we get a move on?’ he said.

  ‘But you don’t have to have a reason, a purpose, for showing mercy. There is a natural moral law that demands it.’

  Knowing that time was running out, the Doctor was making one last effort.

  ‘Well tried, Doctor. But you’re forgetting that I’m a Skang.

  To fulfil our purpose is not just a categorical imperative. It’s the essence of our survival. Everything gives way to that.’

  Mother Hilda glanced at her watch and stood up; and then she tilted her head on one side and gave a little laugh. ‘There you are, you see, Doctor,’ she said. ‘A perfect example of our dual existence. Hilda Hutchens has to run her life to a strict timetable; she has done for years, so why should she stop now? But I don’t need a mechanical gadget to tell me that we have to bring this discussion to an end. I can feel in my real body that it won’t be long now before the sun and the moon will have aligned themselves with the Earth. The gravity waves are as palpable to me as a breeze on the cheek is to you.’

  So. All that was left was the hope that Sarah had managed to warn Lethbridge-Stewart.

  ‘What are you going to do with me?’ he asked.

  ‘You’ll be confined in here until after the ceremony. I can’t make the decision on my own. It may be that the Great Skang will decide to seed you whether you want it or not. I hope so, Doctor. I’ve enjoyed our talk. It would be pleasant to think that we might be able to continue it at some time in the future.’

  A voice came from the doorway. ‘There you are, you see. I told you she wasn’t to be trusted!’

  They both turned. Alex Whitbread was standing in the opening, flanked by half a dozen or more of the teachers and a couple of brawny guards.

  ‘Here’s clear evidence of her treachery,’ he went on.

  Dame Hilda’s years of authority came to the fore. ‘What the devil do you think you’re doing, Alex Whitbread?’

  She might have been talking to a bolshie undergraduate.

  ‘You’ve been deposed, Sister Hilda. You are no longer the leader. I have been asked to take over.’

  She looked at him over her glasses. ‘Leader? What sort of talk is that? When have I ever called myself a “leader”?’

  ‘Silence! You’ve had your say for too long. Guards!’

  The two men stepped forward. Unlike any other of the protectors of the Skang the Doctor had so far seen, they were carrying what appeared to be primitive but deadly spears of thick bamboo, with wickedly sharpened points.

  ‘You will be kept in protective custody until the New Council decides your fate. I have no doubt that they will agree with me that mere dissolution would be too good for you.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘You showed me no mercy. Why should I show you any?

  You called yourself Mother. Very fitting. You sentenced me to excision as casually as Mummy used to force her children to swallow tablespoonfuls of castor oil...’

  ‘In the hope that it might do them some good, yes! I can see that in this case the medicine has failed to do its job.’

  ‘Well, Daddy Alex has your best welfare at heart. We’ll see how you like the taste.’ He turned to the Doctor. ‘As for you,’

  he said, ‘it’s merely a matter of deciding the most satisfying way to rid our world of you. It was plain to me all along that it was you who was really the one in charge of the feeble attempt to hunt us down, not that fool of a soldier.’

  ‘You’d be well advised not to underestimate the Brigadier, Mr Whitbread.’

  ‘Is that so, Doctor? Maybe you’re right. The point is academic. HMS Hallaton has sailed out of the lagoon. Your friends have gone home and left you. What a pity you’ll have no opportunity to say goodbye.’ He turned to the guards.

  ‘Helmut, stay at the door - and Hank at the window. Come along, the rest of you. We have some mopping up to do before the ceremony.’

  He stalked away, followed by his little retinue. As they disappeared, his voice floated back. ‘If they try to escape, kill them.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  There were different sorts of fear, thought Sarah, as she kept watching the path up to the top of the mountain. This wasn’t the old butterflies in the tummy bit. This was more the solid lump rising into the throat that you got when you were ludicrously late for work, and you’d been warned, and you might get the sack, and you were so out of breath it hurt, and there wasn’t a hope in hell of making it.

  What would happen if they were too late to stop the Skang?

  At last! The rattle of feet up the metal steps, and Bob Simkins’ head popped up. ‘The landing parties are embarking now, sir.’ He disappeared.

  ‘About time,’ muttered the Brig as he turned to go. ‘Come along Miss Smith. But remember, keep your head down, and don’t get in the way.’

  Cheek! You’d think he’d know her better by now.

  Her choking apprehension had vanished in a moment. She started to put down the borrowed binoculars. But she couldn’t resist a last check.

  A flash of white.

  Oh no! A stream of long-robed figures nearing the top of the path! The teachers were going into the temple... and, yes, at the bottom there was a less orderly line of figures in the mixed bag of white clothing that showed them to be the queue of disciples, marshalled by the recognisable tall figures of the guards.

  ‘Brig! I mean, Brigadier! Come back, i
t’s too late!’

  ‘What?’ He was back beside her in no time, almost snatching the binoculars from her hand.

  After a quick look and a muffled exclamation (a Gaelic oath?), he turned and ran, literally ran, to the side of the bridge and leaned over.

  ‘Andrews! Up here! At the double!’

  This was clearly not the way to address the Commanding Officer of one of Her Britannic Majesty’s warships. Pete Andrews arrived as fast as the Brigadier wanted, but with the obvious intention of making this quite clear. ‘Who the devil do you think you’re...?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Sorry and all that, but the landing’s off!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Take a look for yourself.’

  Andrews seized the glasses and raised them to his eyes.

  There was a short pause, while he realised the implication of what he was seeing.

  ‘Shit!’ said the Commanding Officer of Her Majesty’s Ship Hallaton.

  ‘Exactly. There’s only one thing for it. Bombardment.’

  Pete stared at him. ‘We’re not a bloody battleship, man.

  What sort of damage do you think we could do with a forty-millimetre Bofors?’

  The Brigadier was in full fighting mode, unstoppable. He had a job to do and he was going to do it no matter what, thought Sarah.

  ‘With one of your missiles you could blast a hole in the Great Wall of China,’ he said.

  What? But they were just for show. Pete had said so himself.

  ‘But we’ve never even...’

  ‘I presume they’ve been kept in good order? Do you know how to fire them?’

  ‘Are you suggesting that...?’

  ‘Good. These things might possibly be impervious to bullets, but half a hundredweight of high explosive... They’ll wish they’d stayed in outer space. We’ll lob one into the crater and get rid of the lot of them in one go. Right?’