Up to the Sky in Ships Page 5

  They went inside. Wendell switched on the radio, but they never heard any report. Some powerful transmitter close by was jamming reception on all frequencies. Furness realized suddenly that the spacing of the dots and dashes followed the same pattern as that of the flashing light.

  A car drew up outside the house. There were footsteps on the path. The bell of the front door rang.

  "That'll be the police," said Furness. "I'll go."

  The older man followed him to the door.

  "Inspector Welsh," he said to the uniformed police officer standing there, "do you think we should evacuate?"

  "If there's any need for that, Mr. Wendell, we'll soon tell you. Now, sir, are you Mr. Furness? You saw the thing fall, didn't you? Now, if you'll be so good as to show us where—"

  "You'll find it all right," said Furness. He pointed to the flashing light against the dark sky. "Still, I'll come with you."

  "I don't like it," said the inspector at last. "It's out of my province. All I can do is place road blocks and post a guard. Meanwhile, Mr. Furness, we'll go back to the station and put through a call to the military—"

  "Or the Air Force," suggested Furness.

  "Yes. Might be more their cup of tea than anybody's."

  They got into the car, sat in silence while the driver took them through the streets of the little town to the police station. As they entered, the desk sergeant got to his feet.

  "I know it's no concern of ours, sir," he said, "but there've been nothing but telephone calls from householders complaining about interference on their radios . . ."

  "It's all part and parcel of it," said the inspector. "Put a call through for me to Wainham, will you? I want to speak to the officer in charge —Group Captain Boyle, isn't it? Anyhow, get him for me."

  The call wasn't long in coming through. The inspector told his story, then Furness was called to the telephone to tell his. Welsh went back to the instrument then, talked for a few more minutes before hanging up.

  "Back to Hanman's Wood, Mr. Furness," he said. "The Group captain's sending a couple of experts here by helicopter."

  Furness stood with the inspector and watched the helicopter coming in. The light from the crater caught it, pinned it against the black sky like some huge, silvery insect in a showcase. It came in slowly, carefully, grounding at last about fifty yards from the thing from the sky. Two dark figures tumbled out hastily; as soon as they were clear of the aircraft it lifted again, flew away in the direction of Wainham.

  Furness and the inspector walked up to them.

  "I'm Inspector Welsh," said the police officer, "and this is Mr. Furness. He saw the thing come down."

  "My name is Brown," said the taller of the two airmen. "Wing Commander Brown. This is Squadron Leader Kennedy." He began to walk towards the crater. "You saw the thing come down, Mr. Furness. Did it seem to you to be a rocket?"

  "No," said Furness slowly. "There didn't seem to he any exhaust. It seemed to behave—until it hit—like all the meteorites, the ones that have reached the Earth's surface, that is, I've ever read about—"

  "It's certainly not behaving like one now," said Brown. "Have you got the goggles, Kennedy? There's a couple of spare pairs, Mr. Furness—you and the inspector had better have one each—"

  The polarized goggles helped. It was possible, now, to look directly at the glowing ovoid. The four men stumbled over the rim of the crater, walked cautiously down to its center. Furness was surprised that there was so little heat; realized that the thing, now, must be barely warm.

  "No sign of a venturi," muttered the Wing Commander. "Any joy from the Geiger counter, Kennedy?"

  "No."

  "I suppose you've a field telephone rigged, inspector. We were going to use our walkie talkie, but there's too much interference from this thing . . ."

  "A field telephone—" muttered the inspector. "I thought that you gentlemen—"

  "Oh, well, if it goes up we all go up together, and the world will never know what we've done to earn our posthumous VCs— Got your tape handy, Kennedy? Four foot six, you make it, by three feet. Hm-m-m. Noisy brute, isn't it? Much more of this confounded whistling will give me a really vile headache—"

  "Is that lettering on the side of it?" asked the inspector suddenly. "It's very worn, if it is—"

  "You're right, inspector. Could be Russian? No. But it looks almost familiar. . . . Almost—"

  "That symbol there could pass for the Greek letter pi," said Furness.

  "It could, at that," admitted Brown. "Well, inspector, I don't think that there's any danger of twenty square miles of countryside being wiped out by an atomic explosion. All the same, keep your road blocks up and, whatever else you do or don't do, chase the small boys away from here. They'll be round in the morning, never fear."

  "What are your intentions, sir?"

  "Oh, Squadron Leader Kennedy and I will stay around to find out what we can. The helicopter will be back and forth a few times with more gear and all the rest of it.

  Then— Well . . . I have an idea that this affair is going to finish up at a very high level. Oh, Mr. Furness, the inspector will know where to find you, won't he?"

  "Within the next two weeks," said Furness. "Not after. My leave will be up by then."

  "R.N. ?"

  "No. Merchant Navy."

  "Thanks anyhow, Mr. Furness. We'll let you know if we should want you. Meanwhile—don't talk about what you've seen."

  The police car took Furness to his parent's home where, by his refusal to answer the questions of his father and mother, he conveyed the impression that he had witnessed either the beginning of a long-range rocket bombardment or the arrival of the advance guard of the Martians.

  The following day Furness saw the thing from space for the last time. He was eating a belated and leisurely breakfast when Welsh called for him.

  "Better get dressed quick, Mr. Furness," said the inspector. "There is all sorts of high brass out at the site. They want to hear you say your piece."

  "I want to finish my toast," said Furness.

  "Does it mean war, inspector?" asked Furness' mother anxiously. "With Jimmy at sea—"

  "I don't know what it means, madam," replied the inspector. "I can tell you this—that rocket, or whatever it is, never came from either Russia or America. And it's not one of ours— Please hurry, Mr. Furness."

  "All right," said Furness. He wiped the marmalade from his lips, threw down his napkin. With a visible effort the inspector restrained himself from following him upstairs. Furness, submitting to the excitement that he had not shown in front of the police officer, hastily got out of his pajamas and dressing gown, climbed into flannel slacks and a sweater. When he came down again Welsh was still assuring Mrs. Furness that a shooting war was not imminent.

  The two men left the house, climbed into the car. The driver took them to the site at a speed which would have earned an ordinary citizen a stiff fine. Furness was amazed at the crowd of men and vehicles around the crater. He saw the uniforms of all three British services as well of those of the American Air Force.

  A sentry challenged them as the car drew to a halt. The inspector barked a few words to the soldier, who replied, "Go right through, sir. You'll find the professor at the bomb site."

  Welsh and Furness made their way through the crowd. The crater itself had been kept dear; only three men, civilians, were in the center of it, standing by the strange ovoid. This, Furness saw, was still glowing, still flashing, but—it may have been the effect of the daylight—dimly. It seemed that the high-pitched whistling was much fainter, too.

  The inspector approached the more elderly of the three men, saluted,. said, "Mr. Furness, sir."

  "Oh, yes. Thank you, inspector."

  Furness looked at the scientist, recognized the upstanding brush of white hair, the thin, lined features. It was a face that he had seen often in the pages of the illustrated press.

  "Ah, Mr. Furness— You saw this ... ah ... thing land, I believe?"
/>   "Yes, sir."

  "From which direction did it approach?"

  "From the east, sir. I was looking towards Jupiter at the time, and it first appeared just a few degrees below the planet."

  "Ah. An amateur astronomer?"

  "No, sir. A professional navigator."

  "I see. Now—"

  "Professor!" yelled one of the other two men. "Down! Something's happening !"

  Furness, from his prone position, heard a sharp crack. Cautiously, he lifted his head, looked towards the ovoid. It had fallen apart, into four neat segments. A white mist, slowly dissipating, hung over the center of the crater. The sailor got to his feet, looked down into the opened cannister. There was the gleam of yellow metal there, and there were sheets of what looked like paper.

  One of the scientists was already examining this strange treasure. He turned to Furness, a golden disk on the palm of his outstretched hand.

  "Coins," he was saying. "Coins. Look!"

  Furness took one of the gold pieces, examined it curiously. On one side there was the head of a man, helmeted, on the other was a galley, a bireme.

  "Greek?" he muttered. "But—" The professor pushed him to one side.

  "Never mind the money, Burgess," he snapped to his assistant. "That won't blow away. The papers, man. The papers!"

  "But what's the language?" demanded Burgess of nobody in particular. He was waving one of the paperlike sheets in front of his face "I thought at first that it was Russian. But it's not."

  "Gentlemen!"

  Furness, with the three scientists, turned to face the new arrival. He was, obviously, somebody. His black jacket and black Homburg hat were like a uniform, and there was the Royal cipher on his brief case.

  "Gentlemen," he said again. "I must insist that these . . . pieces of evidence be removed at once to Whitehall." He looked at Furness. "I must insist, too, that all unauthorized personnel leave this site Inspector!"

  "Sir?"

  "See to it, will you?"

  "That means you, Mr. Furness, said the inspector apologetically "All right. I'll see that you're take home."

  For the remainder of his leave Furness went through every newspaper every day to learn more, to learn something, of the mysterious missile. Most evenings he would meet Welsh in the Rose and Crown, and would try to pump the inspector about what, if anything, had been discovered—but the inspector knew as little as he did, knew only that the affair had passed from the hands of the physicists into those of the experts on languages.

  Furness never mentioned the coin that he had, inadvertently, slipped into his pocket. He carried it with him always as a good luck piece.

  Standing on the boat deck, by number three hatch, the archaeologist saw the Third Officer walk to the wing of the bridge. What he was carrying was, indubitably, a gin bottle. The Third threw the bottle out and away, watched it until it fell into the water well clear of the ship's side, then returned to the wheelhouse.

  "Really, Chief," said the professor, "your junior officers go altogether too far—"

  "What do you mean?" asked the Chief Officer.

  "Drinking on watch. I saw the Third dumping the empties just now."

  "It was an empty all right," said the Mate. "But it wasn't emptied on the bridge. It was one of mine, as a matter of fact. And it had a message in it."

  "I'd no idea that the Twentieth Century was so romantic. Pirates? Buried treasure?"

  "No, professor. Just date and time and position of dumping. We do it for the Hydrographic office. It gives 'em data—if the bottles ever are picked up—for their current charts and such. Drift, and all that."

  "I see," said the scientist. "It reminds me rather of a queer business I was mixed up in some years ago— It was near Wainham, the Air Force Station, you know. It—" He paused. "I'm not sure that I can tell you. It was all very much Top Secret at the time."

  "Near Wainham—" said the Chief Officer slowly. "Would it have been a sort of guided missile from— Outside?"

  "I'm sorry, I can't tell you."

  "Come up to my room," said the Mate. "We'll start to empty another gin bottle, and I'll show you something."

  He led the way up the ladder, into his cabin. After he had seated his guest he opened his wine locker, took out the necessary bottles and glasses, poured two drinks. He went to his desk, then, pulled out a drawer, took from it a small, gleaming object. He handed it to the archaeologist.

  "Did they show you any of these?" he asked.

  The scientist looked at the coin—at the helmeted head, and bireme.

  "How did you get it? It can't have all been a hoax, not—"

  "I saw the missile land. Then I was there at the site . . . Sir Humphrey Williams, although he wasn't Sir Humphrey then, had sent for me to tell him all that I'd seen when the thing came in ... when it broke open. One of his assistants handed me this coin, and then some cove from one of the Ministries took charge and 1 was hustled away pronto. I never found out what it was all about."

  "Neither did they," chuckled the archaeologist, "until they thought of calling in those more concerned with the past than with the future. Oh ... it was tough. I had to work back from the comparatively modern Greek of Homer. Grimm's Law came into it, of course—but you wouldn't know anything about that. I had to make allowances for periods of absolute savagery during which only a handful of scholarly priests kept the written word alive."

  He held the coin on the palm of his left hand, pointed to the script around its circumference with a gnarled forefinger.

  "D'ye know what this says? I'll translate for you. REPUBLIC OF ATLANTIS, YEAR THIRTEEN HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN—'

  "And what about the papers?"

  "You've already told me, Mr. Furness."

  "I've told you?"

  "Yes. Date and time and position —and the promise of a reward they were posted back to Port Anachreon without delay. And a lot of stuff altogether over my head, about etheric currents and such—Oh, it had the physicists crazy, I can tell you—"

  "But the ship," said Furness in tensely. "The ship—"

  "Let me see, now ... Atlanta ... Bound Sol III to Procyon IV—"

  Furness refilled the glasses.

  "Gin bottles are cheaper," he said. "And they don't take such a long time getting there."

  Ghost

  OUR LANDING ON WELDON, third world of the planetary system of Alpha Gruis, was unscheduled. No ships ever called at Weldon any more; it had dropped from its importance —never a great one—in the scheme of interstellar commerce with the exhaustion of its mineral resources. Man had come. Man had gutted the planet of its wealth. Man had left.

  We hoped that the spaceport was still in a fit state for a landing. We hoped that the supplies of spare parts, of repair equipment, had not deteriorated too badly with the passage of the years. We hoped that the Pilot Book, according to which large quantities of such material had been left behind, as a cheaper alternative to its being shipped to a "live" planet, was not lying.

  We could, of course, have hoped that our Drive would hold out until we reached the busy, prosperous worlds of the Centaurian system, to which we were bound. We could have done so—and, in all probability, made one of the swelling number of ships listed as "Overdue, believed lost". Nobody is quite sure what happens when the Mannschenn Drive gets out of control—according to some authorities one is slung into the remote past, according to others one finishes up in the remote future. They agree on one point — there's no returning.

  I'm no technician, but I had been uneasily aware for some time that all was not well with the intricacy of spinning, precessing wheels that is the Drive. The note—which should be high, steady, almost supersonic— wavered, at times deepening to a low hum, at times rising painfully above normal aural range. And with almost every action there was the haunting sense of familiarity, the feeling of I've-done-this-before.

  I was trying to check freight lists, and not making much of a job of it, when the buzzer of my telephone sounded. I picked up
the instrument.

  It was the Old Man on the other end.

  "Mr. Rayner," he said, "come up to Control, will you?"

  I wasn't sorry to leave my papers. I unbuckled myself from my chair, pulled myself out from my office to the axial shaft, caught the guide-line and pulled myself towards the nose—and the brains—of the ship. On the way I passed a few of the passengers, and I could see that they, like me, were aware that something was wrong. I didn't stop to answer their questions, which, even though I didn't know the answers, was rather foolish of me.

  When I reached the Control Room it was obvious that some sort of conference was in progress. The Old Man was there, looking even more worried than the Master of an interstellar ship usually looks; I swear that the lines on his face had deepened, that his hair had become appreciably greyer in the few hours since I had last seen him. Caulfield, the Navigator, was there; the wrinkles on his brow seemed to be spreading up and over his glistening bald scalp. Welles, the Drive Engineer, was there, looking as miserable as only a fat man can look.

  "All right, Mr. Welles," the Old Man was saying. "So you can't make repairs in space. You think that you can keep the Drive running for two more days, ship's time, but no longer."

  "That's the strength of it, Captain," said Welles sullenly.

  "Weldon's our best chance, sir," said Caulfield. "A ghost planet, but according to the book it has a breathable atmosphere, no lethal extremes of temperature and, even better, a stock of spares. The planet was evacuated when the mines closed down but, as there are no inquisitive natives, we have every reason to hope that we shall find the stocks intact."

  "Weldon it has to be," said the Old Man. "You, Mr. Welles, will have to keep the Drive running for three more days." He turned and saw me. "You, Mr. Rayner, will inform the passengers. Whatever you do, don't frighten them."

  "On the intercom, sir?" I asked, reaching for the microphone.

  "No. Of all the instruments devised by man for spreading panic, the loudspeaker's the worst. The customers know that there's something wrong. An authoritative, reassuring statement over the intercom will be anything but reassuring. We want the personal touch—and that's the Purser's job. Circulate, Mr. Rayner. Tell them that everything's under control. Tell them how lucky they are to get a look at a ghost planet—and all for free. Blind them with science.... "