WANDERERS OF TIME
John Wyndham was born in 1903. Until 1911
he lived in Edgbaston, Birmingham, and then
in many parts of England. After a wide
experience of the English preparatory school
he was at Bedales from 1918 to 1921. Careers
he tried included farming, law, commercial art,
and advertising, and he first started writing
short stories, intended for sale, in 1925. From
1930 to 1939 he wrote stories of various kinds
under different names, almost exclusively for
American science fiction publications. He also
wrote detective novels. During the war he was
in the Civil Service and afterwards in the Army.
In 1946 he went back to writing. His most
famous novels are THE DAY OF THE
TRIFFIDS, THE KRAKEN WAKES (both of
which have been translated into several
languages), THE MIDWICH CUCKOOS
(filmed as THE VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED)
and TROUBLE WITH LICHEN. John Wyndam
died in March 1969.

Also by the same author,
and available in Coronet Books:
The Secret People
Stowaway to Mars
Sleepers of Mars

Wanderers of
Time
John Wyndham
Writing as John Beynon Harris
Introduction by Walter Gillings
CORONET BOOKS
Hodder and Stoughton

Copyright ©1933, 1939, 1934, 1933, by the
Executors of John Beynon Harris
First published in this form by
Coronet Books 1973
Second impression 1973
Third impression 1974
Fourth impression 1974
Fifth impression 1977
The characters and situations in this book are
entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real
person or actual happening
This book is sold subject to the condition that
it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be
lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated
without the publisher's prior consent in any
form of binding or cover other than that in
which this is published and without a similar
condition including this condition being
imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Printed and bound in Great Britain for
Hodder and Stoughton Paperbacks, a
division of Hodder and Stoughton Ltd.,
Mill Road, Dunton Green, Sevenoaks,
Kent (Editorial Office: 47 Bedford
Square, London, WC1 3DP)
by Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press), Ltd,
Bungay, Suffolk
ISBN 0 340 17306 8

Contents
Before the Triffids	7
Wanderers of Time	9
Derelict of Space	61
Child of Power	90
The Last Lunarians	117
The Puff-ball Menace	135

introduction
BEFORE THE TRIFFIDS ...
To those who have enjoyed The Day of the Triffids, The
Kraken Wakes and other John Wyndham novels, it may come
as a surprise to know that he was writing imaginative fiction
with conspicuous success forty years ago. His novels, The
Secret People and Stowaway to Mars (both recently repub-
lished by Coronet Books), delighted tens of thousands of
readers when they first appeared in the 1930s as serial stories in
a popular weekly as well as in volume form. Most of his
shorter stories, however, first appeared in a magazine specialis-
ing in 'science fiction' (a term he detested) which was pub-
lished in the U.S.A., which offered the only receptive market
for most of his work in this genre. Writing under his own
name, John Beynon Harris became familiar to readers of
Wonder Stories as a contributor of thoroughly convincing
tales in which the motivating idea, however fantastic, was al-
ways subservient to the narrative and the characters as believ-
able as the background, however exotic.
Not until 1937. when the British magazine Tales of Wonder
began to cultivate this restricted field, were more than a few
hundred readers on this side of the Atlantic able to enjoy such
stories as you will find in this volume. And soon afterwards
came Fantasy, to widen still further the international circle of
admirers who knew him equally well as John Beynon.
In the days before the world had heard of Wernher von
Braun or Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the concept of space-travel
was derided by all but the readers and writers of science fic-
tion. To John BeYnon the notion was part of his stock-in-
trade. which he replenished by listening to the debates of the
British Interplanetary Society, then a mere handful of enthu-
siasts. In 'The Last Lunarians,' with its visions of lunar dig-
gings. he anticipated today's Moonwalk activities with an
accuracy which would seem uncanny if we did not know how
well he did his research—among speculations as well as facts.
Hopefully, the disastrous turn of events in 'Derelict of Space'
will be avoided; but the idea of salvaging vessels which have
come to grief in the interplanetary void is not inconsistent
with recent orbital crises which have kept the whole world in
suspense.

8
The mythical kingdom of 'Spheres of Hell' might seem,
now, even more remote. Yet the irony is still to be relished,
and I have been tempted to include it here because, for sheer
artistry combined with originality, it has always appealed to
me as among the finest examples of John Beynon's work. In
'Child of Power,' for which he used the pseudonym Wyndham
Parkes (derived from two of his middle names), those who are
familiar with The Midwich Cuckoos may recognise a near-
relative of those remarkable children. But perhaps the most
startling of all his creations are the insectile machines you will
encounter in 'Wanderers of Time,' one of his more ambitious
tales which takes us into the future to a time when man is no
longer the dominant creature on this planet. Here is a story
which will never cease to evoke the essential quality of wonder
which is the basis of all good science fiction.
Ilford, Essex
Walter Gii.lings
May 1972

WANDERERS OF TIME
chapter one
THE TIME-TRAVELLER
The pompous little man who had been strutting his way
through a wood near the Saber property, a few miles out of
Chicago, came suddenly to a standstill, blinked rapidly and
dropped his lower jaw. For perhaps five seconds he stared be-
fore him with a fish-like expression of astonishment; then a
fear of the inexplicable, inherited from far-off ancestors, sent
him scuttling for cover. Once in the safe obscurity of the
bushes, he turned again to goggle amazedly at the centre of the
glade.
A moment before, he had faced a small clearing holding in
itself nothing more substantial than golden sunlight. Then,
even as he looked—he was certain he had neither blinked nor
turned his head—a glittering cylinder had appeared; and it
stayed there, in the exact centre of the open space, looking like
an immense projectile of polished steel—an apparition sudden
and alarming enough to make the little man entirely justified
in running. Now, from his vantage-point, he examined it with
less panic and a rising indignation. The cylinder's length he
estimated at somewhere about eighteen feet, and its diameter
at three feet The metal covering appeared at this range to be
seamless, and it scintillated in the afternoon sunshine with a
harsh brightness.
'Not quite like steel,' he corrected himself. 'Colder ... more
like chromium plate. But what the devil is it?'
The discretion of remaining among the bushes appealed to
him far more than the valour of a closer inspection. A large
object like this, which could appear abruptly and in complete
silence before one's very nose, was to be treated with circum-
spection. Less than half a minute later, he snatched a sudden
breath. A rectangular patch of darkness had become visible in
the upper surface of the cylinder. Fascinatedly, he watched the
slit broaden as a panel was slid back. A man's head was thrust
cautiously through the opening, turning to left and right as he
reconnoitred. Presently, seemingly satisfied that he was un-
observed, he slid the panel back to its limit and levered him-

10
self out of the opening.
A glance at the man's full face brought a short gasp from
the watcher, and he moved involuntarily, snapping a twig be-
neath his foot. For a moment he held his breath, but became
easier when the other showed no sign of having heard the
sharp crack. He had turned back to his machine—for such it
seemed to be—and with one arm plunged into the dark in-
terior, was fumbling for something. When he straightened
again, the little man stiffened, for the right hand held a pond-
erous revolver which pointed in his direction. Any hope that
this might be accidental was quickly dispersed.
'Come on,' commanded the man in the glade. 'Out of that,
quick!'
He flourished his weapon impatiently at the watcher's
momentary hesitation. 'Put 'em up, and come out,' he re-
peated.
The man in the bushes waited no longer. Hands well above
his head, he marched into the open.
'Who are you?' asked the other.
'Henry Q. Jones,' the little man answered. He was finding
himself less afraid of the man before him than he had been of
the impersonal cylinder. He even added: 'Who are you, if it
comes to that?'
'My name is no business of yours,' replied the other, watch-
ing him closely, 'but it happens to be Roy Saber.'
Henry Q. Jones' mouth started to open, and then shut
quickly.
'You don't believe me?'
Henry Q. grunted non-commitally.
'Why not?'
'Well, if you must know, for one thing, Roy Saber is
younger than you are—though you're mighty like him—and,
another thing, I happened to see Roy Saber board the Chicago
train a couple of hours ago.'
'Awkward,' commented the other. 'Nevertheless, I am Roy
Saber.' He contemplated his captive for a moment.
Henry Q. Jones returned the scrutiny with curiosity. The
other's clothes differed greatly from the little man's propriety
of dress. His suit was of an unusually bright blue, and though
the trousers were full in cut, the jacket fitted.closely; and
though it gave a double-breasted effect, the front flap was in
reality carried right across to the left side and secured by a zip-
fastener. The broad lapel was of a slightly lighter shade of blue
and stretched, like a triangular slash, from the right shoulder
to its apex on the left of the waist. The neck-opening showed a

WANDERERS OF TIME
11
soft collar with surprisingly long points, and a tie striped with
the two blues of the suit.
'Well, Henry Q.,' he said at length. 'I've nothing against you
personally except that you are a damned nuisance, but I'll
have to tie you up or you might ditch the whole plan.'
Roy Saber was inexpert at trussing. He used more rope than
was necessary, and his knots were the jumbles of the amateur;
nevertheless, he contrived to reduce the other to a state of log-
like immobility. Then he produced a handkerchief and care-
fully began to roll it diagonally.
'I'm sorry, but I can't afford to have you bawling for help.
Open!'
Henry Q.'s mouth remained obstinately shut. He received a
painful jab in the ribs.
'Open!'
He opened. His captor turned back to the cylinder and care-
fully shut the en trance-panel. Then he thrust the big revolver
into a pocket, and picked up the bound man. At the edge of
the clearing, he laid him down among the concealing bushes.
'I'll only be about a couple of hours,' he remarked con-
siderately.
Henry Q. twisted his head and glared balefully after him as
he disappeared between the tree-trunks.
Roy Saber was back in something under the two hours, and he
did not return alone. By his side walked a girl, whose fair hair
shimmered in the shafts of sunlight which penetrated the
foliage. Her face was fresh-coloured and her chin was rounded,
but firm. With her blue eyes and impertinent nose, none could
deny her prettiness; but somehow her mouth, though not too
small, failed to suggest an equable disposition. She looked up
at her companion with a slightly puzzled frown.
'But, Roy,' she said, 'you look older. Your hair's not all black
—I'm sure I can see grey streaks here and there. And you're
wearing such funny clothes. What's happened?'
'I am older, Betty, but there's no time to explain just now.
You must wait a bit.'
He looked admiringly at her. so neat and lithe in her close-
fitting red frock—a deep red, to contrast with her fairness.
They paused beside the clump of bushes where he had hidden
Henry Q. As he parted the leaves, Betty heard him mutter
under his breath.
'What is it?'
Roy did not answer for a moment. He stared thoughtfully at
a few tangled cords which were the only evidence of Henry

12
Q.'s late presence. Then he glanced out at the clearing where
the cylinder still lay.
'Wait a minute,' he directed, and ran off to one side. He was
back in less than the minute. 'It's all right,' he said, leading her
into the open. 'I thought someone might be laying for me
behind the machine.'
He thought for a moment. 'I meant to talk to you a bit
before we risked anything, but this changes things. We'll have
to hurry.'
'I don't understand—what are you talking about?'
'I'll explain it all later,' he said, as he hastened her towards
the cylinder. He drew the revolver from his pocket, and she
looked at it askance.
'What	?'
'Later,' he repeated, hurriedly sliding back two panels in the
curved surface. He pointed to the end space. In you get,
Betty!'
She peered doubtfully at the dark opening. It was possible
to see that the whole of the interior was thickly padded and
supplied with loose cushions.
'But——'
'Quick, quick!' he insisted, lifting and helping her through
the space. He slid the cover over her. Even as it clicked into
place, he heard a crackle of running feet among the trees and
a voice came bellowing across the clearing.
'Stop where you are! Put 'em up!'
Henry Q. Jones had evidently returned, with reinforce-
ments. Witli eel-like agility, Roy slid into the cylinder. As he
did so, two men in uniform burst from the trees and came
pelting into the clearing, pistols in hand.
'He's got a gun,' called Henry Q.'s voice from somewhere
behind them.
Roy had a glimpse of one of the policemen taking aim. Like
lightning, he ducked and slammed the panel over his head.
There came a crash as the bullet struck the cylinder some-
where forward of him. He blanched at the thought of the blob
of lead in its delicate machinery, but thanked the Lord it had
hit the forward compartment and not the rear, where Betty
lay. In frenzied haste, he twisted the dials on his small control-
panel, and snapped in the minor switches.
The policemen had reached the cylinder now. They were
battering on it with their pistol-butts, and Roy could hear
their voices raised in a muffled shouting. With a desperate
hope that the shot had injured no vital part, he wrenched over
the main switch.

WANDERERS OF TIME
13
Outside two bewildered policemen stared open-mouthed at
each other. Even while they hammered on its walls, the
cylinder had vanished without trace.
'Well I'll be	!' one muttered. The other said nothing; he
looked badly scared. Henry Q. Jones emerged from the safety
of the trees.
'And you call yourselves cops,' he sneered, unpleasantly.
Roy's biggest surprise, when he had made his first journey in
the cylindrical machine, had been the entire absence of sensa-
tion. He had closed the sliding lid and shut out the view of his
workroom. Then he had pulled the switch and waited, tensely,
for something to happen. Apparently nothing did, and he had
started to reopen the panel with the conviction that the ex-
periment had miscarried and that further adjustment would
be necessary. He had gasped to find that, after all, the contriv-
ance had worked perfectly—had, in fact, moved him back ten
years in time, without changing his position on Earth.
It was the more surprising in the face of the witnesses'
prophecy of utter failure. Sam Hanson, his attorney, had pro-
tested :
'It's ridiculous, Roy—impossible! Why, if you did go back
ten years, you would have to be in two places at one and the
same time—you might even meet yourself! It would be entire
confusion. Just think of the disorganisation that success would
imply. There'd be neither past nor future any more.'
Roy had shook his head. 'I shan't meet my younger self: I
should remember it now, if that meeting had ever occurred.
And as for being in two places at the same time—well, why
not? Has anyone ever proved it impossible? It is just a ridicu-
lous assertion made by persons completely ignorant of the
nature of time. Anyway, I'm going to try!'
And he had succeeded. Succeeded, not only in travelling
through time, but also in his main purpose, which was the
finding of Betty. Now he was carrying her home in triumph.
He had meant to put the plan before her first, but the intru-
sion of Henry Q. Jones had upset that. It would be good to see
the amazed faces in his work-room when they both climbed
out of the machine... .
For a second after he had pulled the switch, nothing hap-
pened. Then there came a jolt. The cylinder swayed, as though
poised uncertainly. Further and further over it leaned, until it
tilted violently over to the right, rolling him up the padded
side of his compartment. As it twisted, he wondered what

>4
could have happened; after that, he became too busy to specu-
late. The cylinder was bumping unevenly, and turning with
increasing speed. Grimly, he drove his elbows and knees into
the padding, in an effort to wedge his body instead of having it
bounced around like a ball. The forward end brought up
against some obstruction with a crash; the machine slewed
violently, and the bump with which Roy's head met the end of
the compartment was but little softened by the padding.
He thought with anguish of the havoc that crash must have
caused amid the mechanism. He stretched one hand up to-
wards the sliding panel. The movement, small as it was, served
to upset the precarious balance. Again the cylinder canted
over, and recommenced its jolting progress, spinning and
bouncing like a runaway barrel as it went. After long-drawn
minutes, it slowed arid rolled jerkily to a stop. Roy moved
cautiously to assure himself that, this time, it was stable. It
was, but he made a disconcerting discovery.
'Betty!' he shouted.
'Yes?' Her voice came faintly through the partition between
their compartments.
'Are you all right?'
The reply was unintelligible.
'We're upside down,' he continued, 'and I can't open the
panel. When I call three, throw yourself against the right side,
and we may be able to roll on half a turn.' He paused, then:
'One—two—three.'
The cylinder lurched a little, hovered, and then settled back.
'Try again.'
The second attempt met with no more success than the first.
Roy wiped his brow; it was getting very warm in the cramped
quarters.
'Something in the way,' he called. 'Better try swinging her
from side to side, and see if we can roll over it.'
They struggled for over a minute, but very little movement
was possible. There appeared to be obstructions on both sides,
and Roy began to fear that his time-traveller would prove a
double coffin.
'Once more,' he yelled.
Still the cylinder refused to surmount the obstacles. Roy lay
back, sweating and exhausted, puzzling to find a way out of
the situation. Once he thought he heard a movement outside,
but decided that it must be the girl stirring.
'Betty!' he shouted again.
As though in answer, there came three deliberate taps on the
outer wall.

WANDERERS OF TIME
15
'Betty, there's somebody outside! Let's try again. One—two
—three.'
He threw every ounce of his weight against the side. Hesi-
tantly the cylinder rolled, this time, until the ports came
uppermost. For a second it hung poised; then there came a
clank against the side, just in time to stop it from settling
back.
chapter two
THE MAN FROM 10,402
Swiftly Roy reached up and slid back his panel, to admit a
welcome gust of fresh air. Sitting up, he thrust out his head
and looked back, to see that Betty's panel also was open. Her
dishevelled head appeared, but she gazed beyond rather than
at him. He spun round, and stared in astonishment at the
figure which stood by the battered forepart of the cylinder. His
surprise was reciprocated, and for some seconds the two faced
one another in silence.
Roy felt a shock at the sight of the man before him. He
stood barely four feet in height, and his body, hands and feet
were in good proportion to that size. But his totally bald head
was of normal dimensions—perhaps a trifle larger—and gave
an odd effect of being insecurely balanced on his small frame.
His visible clothing consisted of a single silvery garment de-
signed on the lines of a smock, but caught around his waist by
a broad leather belt to which a number of dangling objects
were hooked.
He approached them as they climbed out of the cylinder.
Betty shrank back, an expression of disgust on her face. Roy
pulled himself together.
'You speak English?' he inquired.
'English is my language,' the other replied, his accent differ-
ing but little from Roy's own. He continued to regard the two
with a puzzled air.
'Then we have you to thank for our rescue. I am Roy Saber,
and this lady is Miss Betty Mordan.'
'And I,' returned the little man, 'am Del Two-Forty-A.'
In the ensuing pause, Roy became aware of the unexpected
aspect of the countryside. A large, red Sun was pouring down
from the cloudless sky to show, not the fertile land he had left,

i6
but a tumbled scene of sand and rock. Nowhere was it relieved
by a single soothing patch of green, and over all hung the
deathly silence of desolation. They stood in a steep-sided
valley, whose floor was dotted with fallen masses of rock and
banked in many parts with drifts of sand. An unhurried river
ran twisting past them, disappearing where the curve of the
valley cut off their view, a mile away. There was inexpressible
dreariness in the barren vista. Roy glanced up at the hillside
behind them.
'It's a miracle we weren't smashed in rolling down there,' he
murmured.
'It certainly is,' replied Betty's voice, harshly. 'And no credit
to you, either. Now suppose you get us back—and quick. I'd
like to know what sort of game you think you're playing with
me?'
Roy stared at her, and then recovered himself. After all,
there was some excuse for her tone.
'Something went wrong,' he began. 'That cop	'
'Oh, yes? Something went wrong, did it? Well, it's your job
to see that it darned well goes right again. Say, do you realise
that this is abduction?'
Roy spread his hands helplessly, looking ruefully at his
ruined time- traveller.
'I can't make that work again. When the cop fired into the
machinery, he jammed something. And now that roll down
here's smashed the thing right up.'
The dwarf had been peering interestedly into the wreckage
of the fore-part, prying among the tangled wiring and examin-
ing the remains of shattered vacuum tubes. Still looking per-
plexed. he turned to Roy again.
'What is your date?' he asked.
Roy suffered another surprise. He had not expected the
immediate recognition of his time-traveller for what it was.
'I'm from 1951,' he replied.
'1941,' Betty corrected. 'What's wrong with your memory?'
'No, 1951. I'll explain later.'
'So early? That is remarkable,' said the little man, indicating
the cylinder. 'My own date is 10,402.'
'Say, what is all this about?' Betty demanded.
'It means that the cop's shot has landed us in the year
10,402,' Roy informed her.
Betty's regard was scornful and scathing. 'Suppose,' .she sug-
gested, 'you quit the kidding. I'm in no mood for it. What's
more, the sooner you get us back home, the better it's going to
be for you. Get me?'

WANDERERS OF TIME
17
Roy stared at her. Her menacing tone of voice shocked him.
He felt bewildered, as though the girl he knew had suddenly
turned into a stranger. In his surprise, he had forgotten Del,
who broke in as he turned:
'You are mistaken. I meant to say only that I started from
the year 10,402. What this year is, I do not know—save that it
is many millennia later.'
'That's right,' said Betty. 'You must keep the joke up! But
I'm not laughing—I can't see that you're both so damned
funny as you think you are.'
A plaintive expression passed over Del's face. 'What does she
mean?' he inquired.
Roy changed the subject. Turning to the dwarf: 'Why did
you come to this year?' he asked.
Del shook his head. 'Something was wrong with my
machine, just as something was wrong with yours. It is over
there.' He pointed to a large boulder some twenty yards away.
The end of a bright metal bar protruded from behind it.
'It is smashed too?'
'Only slightly damaged.'
'Let's go and look at it.'
Before they left the cylinder, Roy groped in the control
compartment and produced his revolver. He stuffed a handful
of cartridges into each side pocket, and they moved off. Betty
followed sulkily.
Del's machine bore no resemblance to his own. The impres-
sion it gave was of a cubical cage with six-foot sides, and built
of an intricate criss-cross strutting of two metals, one silvery,
the other black. A padded bucket-seat was set in the middle,
with a small control-board before it. The driving mechanism
was evidently contained in three black boxes clamped to the
base framework and inter-connected by heavy cables. Roy's
heart sank as he saw it. An idea that parts of his own cylinder
might be used to render Del's machine workable was roughly
quashed. The two contrivances had nothing constructionally
in common.
Del mutely pointed to one base comer, where the frame-
work was wrenched and sadly twisted. It was also noticeable
that the cover of one of the black boxes was split open. Roy
leaned over to examine the damage more closely.
'You see,' Del began, 'unlike your machine, this works by the
capillary absorption of light. The rays striking	'
'Look, look!' cried Betty, behind them.
They wheeled to find her pointing up at the sky-line of the
opposite hill, where a row of strange objects was progressing in

i8
single file. There was nothing to give them scale, and Roy was
able to estimate their height only very roughly in the neigh-
bourhood of twenty feet. Each consisted of an egg-shaped
main bulk balanced upon two trellised supports, tapering to-
wards the ground. These 'legs' were jointed in the middle and,
like the 'body' above, were coloured a bright red. Around the
main upper bulk, complexities of levers were folded.
For some seconds, the three stood motionless and staring.
'What	?' Roy began; but Del shook his head before the
question was formed. There had been nothing like these in his
century.
From the leader of the five red contrivances, a jointed arm
suddenly swept to the ground and caught up a rock. Without
pausing in its stride, it sent the mass, fully half a ton in weight,
sailing across the valley. Somewhere on the hill behind them it
landed, with a crash and a clatter of metal. Roy abruptly
dragged his companions into the shadow of the nearest
boulder, fearful that discovery might bring a rock hurtling in
their direction.
The red machines strode on their way with unhurried,
stilted gait, a faint metallic clanking accompanying their
movements. Apparently the rock had accomplished its purpose,
whatever that might be: at any rate, no more followed, and
the metal arm was refolded against the egg-shaped body-piece.
The three watched in silence as the five red figures carried
themselves away in long, stiff strides. Even Betty's indignation
had momentarily given way to nervousness.
'What were they?' she demanded.
Roy shrugged his shoulders. Speculation was worse than use-
less. He stood up to assure himself that the machines were
truly out of sight. As he rose, there came a clatter of metal
against stone, a sound rapidly approaching up the valley. His
hand snatched at his revolver.
A group of machines came abruptly round the masking turn
of the valley. Contrary to Roy's expectations, they bore little
similarity to the rock-hurling monsters of the hill-top. Only
the shape of the body-pieces was similar. They stood some
seven feet to the highest point of the rounded back, and their
egg-shaped hulls progressed with a scurrying motion upon six
jointed legs. Four waving metal tentacles protruded from the
extreme front and, above them, two lenses were set flush in the
smooth case-work.
They stopped at sight of Roy, with the suddenness of com-
plete surprise, and stood motionless save for their waving

WANDERERS OF TIME
19
tentacles. He called in a low tone to the others to remain
hidden, and stepped forward, revolver in hand. An indecisive
movement ran through the ranks of the machines. They
seemed on the point of retreat; but at that moment Betty,
ignoring Roy's advice, chose to emerge from behind the rock.
The machines moved as one, and came scuttering forward
with a great waving of tentacles. Three shots from Roy's re-
volver crashed among them, with no visible result. He turned,
to become aware that Del was now out of concealment, fumb-
ling with a tube which looked like a flashlight.
'Run!' Roy snapped. 'Get to the river!'
He had some faint hope that the machines might not be
water-tight. Betty was already fleeing, and Del turned to fol-
low her. Roy stayed long enough to send another three shots,
and then started to run with the machines almost upon him,
but he made no more than a dozen yards before something
fouled his ankle and flung him heavily to earth. As the
machines overtook him, he saw Del turn and raise his tube,
and two tentacles of the nearest pursuer fell to the ground as
though they had been chopped off. Del switched the tube at
another, but now there were a half-dozen of the machines
bearing down on him.
One more tentacle fell; then, like a silver whip-lash, another
struck the tube from the dwarf's hand and wrapped itself
around him. The tube sailed high through the air and fell
with a splash into the river. A fountain of steam, like the
jetting plume of a geyser, roared into the sky, while the water
all around broke, seething and bubbling. Betty, almost at the
brink, recoiled. The feeler of a pursuing machine snatched at
her, tearing away her red frock. It tossed the garment away,
wrapped the feeler like a shining belt about her waist, and
carried her back towards Roy and Del.
With relief, Roy saw that no injury seemed intended to-
wards any of the party. Each of them was carefully picked up
in a wrapping of tentacles, and the machines set off down the
valley in the direction from which they had appeared. For five
miles they followed the tortuous river course; then the hills
were left behind and they came out upon a level plain where
patches of coarse grass, half choked by drifting sand, struggled
hardily to grow. The machines changed their formation as
they reached the open country, and Roy found that Del's cap-
tor was travelling alongside his own, while Betty's was some
yards in advance. He spoke across to Del, and received assur-
ance that he was uninjured.
'The most unfortunate thing is that my tube is lost,' the

ao
dwarf added.
'What was it? I've never seen anything like that before.'
'A heat-ray. You did not have such things in the twentieth
century?'
Roy shook his head, and went on to talk about their captors.
On this subject, both were equally at a loss.
'Robots? Distant-control mechanisms? They might be
either,' Del suggested.
'Or, perhaps, vehicles,' added Roy. 'The bodies of the race
may have atrophied into complete uselessness and made these
machines necessary for carrying the brains.'
Del considered the theory an unlikely one. 'But they cer-
tainly have a high level of intelligence. No doubt you noticed
that they are bringing along our wrecked machines?'
Roy, glancing back past the curving metal flank of his cap-
tor, could see his battered cylinder supported by the tentacles
of two following machines.
chapter three
CAPTIVES OF THE MACHINES
Betty had caught the sound of their voices. She called back,
querulously, to know why Roy did not do something. The
indignity of capture had done nothing to soothe her temper
and, now that no immediate danger threatened, her tone had
resumed its nagging quality. After a devastating flow of abuse,
Del inquired curiously:
'Is she hurt?'
'Yes; but not in the way you mean. She's been pinked in her
pride. She was riled to begin with. Now she's lost her dress and
is being carried over a desert in her underclothes. She's hurt,
all right 1'
Del looked surprised at Roy's tone. He was silent for some
moments before he suggested :
'I wonder whether that red dress had anything to do with
the attack? It was at her appearance that the machines went
into action, and when the dress was torn away, they became
much calmer. Also, the first machines we saw were coloured
red...
No reply came from Roy. He seemed uninterested in the
suggestion. Del relapsed into a contemplative silence.

WANDERERS OF TIME
21
During their advance, the country was losing severity. The
hard, wiry grass gradually became supplanted by a softer type,
growing more luxuriantly and almost hiding the sandy soil. A
dotting of infrequent, stunted shrubs managed to find susten-
ance. In the distance, a line of darker green suggested the
presence of trees.
'Thank God for that,' Roy said, fervently. 'I had begun to
fear that the world might be all desert.'
'I think we're headed for that,' said Del. He nodded ahead
towards a vast spike which stabbed up into the heavens.
Roy looked at it. The base was hidden among the trees
many miles away, but even at this distance he could tell that
its height must be measured in thousands of feet. Observation
at such a distance gave no clue to its nature, save that it was
too isolated and too abrupt to be a natural formation; yet it
was roughly shaped, lacking the symmetry and lines of a nor-
mal artificial structure. Its vastness induced a sense of import-
ance and a feeling of fatalism, and he watched it with rising
disquiet until the great, red Sun died in a livid blaze.
The machines did not hesitate, but held to their course
through a mysterious, dark world in which the only sound was
the scuttering of their own progress. Throughout the night
they pursued a winding way among the trees, still bearing in
the direction of the mighty spire. The darkness appeared to
have little or no hampering effect upon them, and dawn found
them with but few miles left to cover. And it was with a very
weary thankfulness that the captives were carried clear of the
forest into the open space surrounding the base of the artificial
mountain. For they were not only fatigued, but hungry and
thirsty, and oppressed by the impossibility of making their
wants known.
The mass of the building at short range was stupendous and
overwhelming, rearing before them like an ill-smoothed cliff
and dwarfing them into a feeling of helplessness. One high,
arched entrance pierced it at ground level, and through this
diey were borne into ever-increasing gloom.
For five minutes they travelled through pitch-black corri-
dors filled with the scuttering sounds of many mobile
machines; then their captors came to a stop, for the first time
since they had left the rocky valley. There came a click, fol-
lowed by a rattle, as a door of sheet metal slid up into the roof.
Beyond it was revealed a dimly lit, cave-like hall. The binding
tentacles loosened, to set the three on their feet. Gentle thrusts
sent them staggering stiffly forward. The metal door clattered
down behind them.

22
For a moment they stood silently gazing about them. The
meagre light emanated from a group of translucent balls
placed in the middle of the floor, and served to show imper-
fectly the rear end of the hall. Of the other end. beyond the
lights, nothing could be seen but a velvety darkness. Roy took
a step forward, and then stopped abruptly at the sound of
something moving in the shadows. He drew his revolver and
pointed it menacingly, as he continued his advance. Two
figures came dimly into view, rounding the clustered light-
balls.
'Stop!' Roy ordered. He turned to speak to Del, but the
little man brushed him aside and rushed excitedly forward,
calling to the two figures.
Roy, with Betty beside him, was left to look on wonderingly
as the three greeted one another. He could see, now, that the
strangers were similar to Del both in stature and clothing. A
few moments later, they were led up and introduced. They
regarded Roy and Betty with the same curiosity as Del had
shown at the first meeting, and evinced the same incredulous
surprise at hearing of their twentieth-century origin. Del ex-
plained :
'These are my friends, Kal Two Eleven A and Ril Three
Thirty-Two A. They were both of them my assistants,' he
added.
Roy's wonderment grew. 'Then you are also from 10,402?'
he asked.
The dwarfed Kal shook his large head. 'No, we are from
10,424. It took us over twenty years to duplicate the time-
travelling machine.'
'But you know what date we have reached now?'
Again Kal shook his head. 'We have no more means of dis-
covering than you have. One can only guess	'
The clatter of the metal door cut short his speculation. The
group spun round, to see three more human beings urged
gently into the hall. There was a fleeting look of alarm on the
face of the tallest of the newcomers. As the door rattled down
behind them, he produced a black tube and advanced, holding
it trained upon them.
'Who are you?' he demanded in a firm tone. 'And by what
right have you made us prisoners?'
Roy looked the man over. He stood perhaps six feet, and
was built with slender strength, in excellent proportions. His
hair, though fine and sparse, was jet-black, as were the eye-
brows which ran in a single frowning bar across his forehead.
His jaw was square, his mouth thin-lipped and firm, and his

WANDERERS OF TIME
23
eyes keen. The strength of character which he showed seemed
out of accord with the soft silk (or synthetic silk) garments
which clung in lustrous folds to his knees. One of his com-
panions was similarly clad. The third newcomer hung back,
little more than a shadow in the dim light.
'Who are you, I say?' repeated the speaker.
It was Del who answered. He gave particulars of his own
group, and countered with a like request. The new arrival put
away his tube.
'I am Hale Lorrence, and this is my companion, Julian
Tyne.' He indicated the other silk-robed man. 'We have come
from the year 3920.'
'And the third member of your party?'
The man who called himself Hale shrugged his shoulders.
'She has told me that her name is Jessica Tree. She claims to
have started from a.d. 2200.'
The vaguely seen figure stepped forward. She revealed her-
self as a girl of perhaps twenty-four or twenty-five. A russet
tunic, heavily worked with metallic thread, covered her to her
knees. Her legs were a sunburnt brown, and her feet were
encased in shoes to match her tunic. Black hair, cut short,
clustered about her softly oval face, and she surveyed the com-
pany from a pair of lustrously dark eyes. Her tone, as she
spoke, betrayed her dislike of Hale's manner.
'It is more than a mere claim,' she said, coldly. 'It is a fact
that I come from 2200.... What year is this?'
Del shrugged his shoulders. That is what we all want to
know.'
'I don't,' cried Betty's voice, viciously. 'I don't care a damn
what year it is! The one thing I'm certain about is that I have
been kidnapped. And if somebody doesn't do something to get
me back where I belong—and do it darned quick—there's
going to be trouble around here. See?'
Hale Lorrence regarded her speculatively for a moment,
and then turned to Del.
'We are hungry and thirsty. Is there any food here?'
Kal had ascertained that there were dishes of water at the
other end of the cavern, but no food.
After they had drunk, Roy started on an exploratory tour of
their prison. He could discover no opening other than that
closed by the metal door. The walls would have easily revealed
any crack, for they were smooth and unornamented. The
finish to them puzzled him not a little. Although they were
hard and smooth, the effect was not that obtained by any

24
mechanical finishing process. It was, he felt, the kind of result
one would expect if a giant hand had attempted to shape the
material in its plastic state, without the use of tools.
The end of the circuit found him no wiser than the begin-
ning. He returned to find the rest of the party endeavouring
to clear away some of their mystification. Del was saying:
'... therefore, this must be a kind of "dead" spot in time. It
is as though our machines had been thrown into the flow of
time and swept along until, for some unguessable reason, they
met an obstruction at this point. Every one of us has arrived
here because his machine was faulty in some way or other. To
take an illustration—a bad one, I admit, but enough for our
purpose—one may consider time as a river. You may turn
boats adrift on it at many points, and they will all collect
together at the same serious obstacle, whether they have trav-
elled a hundred miles or two miles. We are now at some
period where the straight flow of time has been checked—per-
haps it is even turning back upon itself. We know no details at
present, but it is certain that the same curious phenomenon
has thrown us all together.'
'But,' Hale objected, 'time, like space, surely is curved?'
'It may be—in fact, it must be; but I see no reason why
there should not be interruptions in time. After all, are not
the stars interruptions in space?'
'You mean that space may interrupt time in the same way
that time distorts space?'
'Roughly, yes—if you can consider the two apart, which I
find impossible. I merely repeat that we have struck some
barrier and been thrown up like so much jetsam.'
'Then there may be others, besides ourselves?'
'As many others as made faulty time-travellers.'
Julian Tyne joined in the conversation. He spoke with a
lazy drawl which irritated his listeners.
'But what is all this?' He waved a languid arm. 'This place,
these queer machines—both the tall, red things and the
smaller, white ones which caught us—what are they all doing?
It doesn't seem to make sense.'
Del glanced at him. 'Suppose an alien form was plunged
into your world of 3920,' he said. 'How much do you suppose
he would understand? I doubt whether it would "make sense"
to him. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that you would
have very little understanding of the organisation of my world
of 10,402, had your machine taken you there instead of here.'
Roy broke in, dragging the conversation back to the main
issue: 'But what do you think these machines are? Slaves of

WANDERERS OF TIME
25
greater intelligences—robots? Or have the machines indeed
beaten men, as Samuel Butler, at the end of the nineteenth
century, feared they might?'
'I don't yet pretend to be able to offer any explanation,' Del
replied, shaking his head, 'but of one thing I am certain, and
that is that they are not robots. You notice, for instance, the
irregular finish of this building, both inside and outside. In-
disputably, if it had been built by machines, the construction
would be mathematically exact. I am convinced that some-
where at the back of all this we shall find a biologically devel-
oped intelligence.'
'And it is up to us,' remarked Hale, 'to see that whoever, or
whatever, it is doesn't get things all his own way. What
weapons have we?'
He and Julian Tyne produced black tubes, which Del and
his companions examined with some amusement. Julian ap-
peared nettled.
'What have you?' he asked.
Kal and Ril showed tubes similar to that which Del had lost
in the river. They had come prepared with two each.
'Ten times as powerful as yours,' Del explained, 'and for all
practical purposes, inexhaustible.'
Roy's revolver was inspected with much the same mirthful
contempt as a catapult would have received. Del made an in-
ventory.
'Four high-power heat tubes, two low-power tubes, one solid
bullet projector. Not too bad an armoury, though I am sorry
that my own heat-ray was lost.'
chapter four
THE 'NUMEN'
The clang of the metal door roused the whole party from
sleep; though how long they had slept, they could not tell. Roy
sprang suddenly to a sitting position. He could see by the dim
glow that a number of white metal machines were scuttering
towards them. Hale was fumbling for his ray tube.
'No,' said Del's voice. 'Your tube has not enough power to
hurt them—besides, we are trapped. They may intend no
harm.'
The machines advanced with tentacles extended. Roy felt
one wrap firmly around his waist and lift him again into the

26
air. It was in his mind to show fight, but Del had advised
against it, and he was coming to have a respect for the dwarf's
judgment. The rest of the party quietly submitted to like
treatment, and were carried towards the still open door.
For a time they passed through corridors in utter blackness.
Again they were aware of movement all around them: the
clicking and scraping of invisible machines, orderly and un-
hurried, as they passed to and fro. At last an arch of daylight
showed, wanly and minutely, ahead. Roy breathed a sigh of
relief at the prospect of leaving the oppressive gloom of their
strange prison. But he was to be disappointed. Forty yards
from the passage mouth, the machines stopped, and it was
light enough for him to see one of them plunge a feeler into a
hole in the wall. There came a familiar clatter as a metal door
slid up.
The hall which they now entered was far larger than their
former prison, and was lit by the soft, white rays of more than
a dozen of the luminous globes. The machines evidently had
sufficient knowledge of their prisoners to realise that light was
necessary. A surprised exclamation broke from Del. The
others, following the line of his pointing finger, observed a row
of mechanisms arranged along one wall.
'Our time-traveilers!' Hale exclaimed.
Roy identified the remains of his cylinder and Del's dam-
aged cage, but was puzzled to see that there were more than a
dozen other queer-shaped constructions in company with them.
Without a pause, they were carried on towards a large
machine which occupied the centre of the room. Like their
bearers, its body-case was ovoid in shape, but unlike them, it
possessed no legs and stood half as high again. Save for a pair
of lenses and a bunch of metallic tentacles, it lay like a mon-
strous egg with a gleaming shell. The prisoners were drawn
into a line before it. and the bearers scuttled away, closing the
door behind them.
'Well,' said Roy. 'what do you suppose is the next move?'
Del was staring at the machine. Its tentacles were flourishing
back and forth, weaving intricate patterns in the air. A hand
suddenly grasped Roy's arm. He looked at Jessica Tree, stand-
ing beside him.
'What is it	?' he began.
She only pointed. Three shambling figures had emerged
from behind the central machine. Roy looked at them amaz-
edly. as they came forward to join the party. All three stood
well over six feet, superbly muscled and completely naked.
Their heads were small, and seemed even smaller above their

WANDERERS OF TIME
27
magnificent chests and the broad spread of their shoulders. A
look of bewilderment in their eyes gave way, as they caught
sight of Kal and Ril, to relief, mingled with a piteous gladness.
They bowed before the two dwarfs in a trustfully submissive
manner, and the latter, after momentary confusion, acknow-
ledged the salute by raising their arms in some ancient greet-
ing. Then the three newcomers slouched back a few steps and
stood waiting, while Kal and Ril hurriedly conferred.
'Tak Four A?' Kal suggested, cryptically.
'Undoubtedly, but this must have taken many centuries,'
answered Ril.
'What are they?' Roy was still regarding the unclassifiable
men. Kal offered explanation.
'I imagine they are the result of Tak Four A's artificial selec-
tion. He held that we were becoming too atrophied physically
—you see we are dwarfs, compared with you—and he decided
that a more muscular race, which he proposed to call
"Numen," must be created. It looks as if he had been ex-
tremely successful.'
'Then these are the masters of the world, now?'
'I don't think so. They seem more confused and surprised
than we are.'
He turned and spoke, clearly and carefully, to one of the tall
creatures. For a moment the other looked puzzled, then the
light of intelligence came into his eyes. He spoke excitedly,
and jabbed with a finger in the direction of the derelict time-
travellers by the wall.
'So they are in the same jam with us,' mused Roy. 'But
surely they could not have built	'
'Certainly they could not,' Kal agreed. 'At a rough guess, I
should say they were taught to work the thing and sent on an
experimental trip by an inventor who valued his own life.'
Jessica, her first fright abated, looked at them with under-
standing.
'Poor things,' she murmured. 'For all their size, they're
scared to death—frightened, like lost children.'
Del's voice suddenly brought their attention back to the
central machine.
'The thing is trying to communicate with us, but we'll never
be able to make anything of all that waving of feelers.'
The whole party stared blankly at the writhing tentacles,
flashing in meaningless gestures. Abruptly, as though realising
that this form of signalling was making no progress, all the

28
feelers save one withdrew and coiled up. The one still ex-
tended dropped to the floor and began to scratch a series of
queer characters on the earthen surface.
It stopped. The feeler pointed first to them and then to the
marks it had made. Del stepped forward and inspected the
scratchings more closely. He shook his head. The machine
grasped the meaning of the gesture. It smoothed the ground
and began again. The characters it produced on the second
attempt were undeniably different forms from the first, but
were no more intelligible.
Patience was evidently the machine's long suit. Four times it
had repeated the smoothing and scratching before they craned
over to stare at its moving tentacle in excited silence.
'M,' it wrote.
'M—E—N?'
Del dropped to his knees. Swiftly he traced a large 'YES,' in
the dirt.
'HOW?' it asked, after an interval.
Del pointed to the time-travelling machines, and ran across
the room to indicate the broken part of his own. The machine
understood his meaning, and its feeler fell to scratching what
proved to be the beginning of a tedious written conversation.
'For the Lord's sake,' said Roy, some time later, 'tell it to
give us some food—we're all in pretty bad need of it!'
The door opened, a few minutes later, in response to some
unknown method of communication, and a machine scuttled
in bearing circular objects a foot in diameter and three inches
thick. Roy picked one up, examined it, and then knocked it
experimentally with his knuckles. It gave an unmistakable
sound.
'Wood 1' he said, disgustedly. 'What the dickens does it think
we are? Try it again, Del. Say "fruit" or something like that.'
Some hours later, feeling very much better for the fruit
which had been produced in generous quantities, Roy sat be-
side Jessica and watched the three dwarfs hard at work on one
of the time-travellers. The damage to Del's machine had been
less serious than he had feared. Such parts as had been ruined
could be supplied from the duplicate contrivance in which Kal
and Ril had travelled, A couple of hours' toil saw the replace-
ments almost completed.
'Not that it's going to help us any,' said Betty, complain-
ingly. 'You couldn't get more than four into that cage affair,
even at a pinch.'
Del agreed. 'But this'—he pointed to the tentacled machine

WANDERERS OF TIME
29
—'is intelligent. Maybe it can duplicate it for us from a pat-
tern.'
'That's good!' Betty sneered. 'I suppose you're trying to kid
me that you're not going to slip off in that traveller and leave
us here?'
'We have no intention of doing such a thing.'
Betty shrugged her shoulders and moved away. She favoured
Roy with a contemptuous glance as she passed him, and made
her way to the side of the moody Hale Lorrence. It was notice-
able that, a few minutes later, much of his moodiness had
evaporated and the two were deeply engaged in a whispered
conversation.
Jessica was puzzled by the relationship between Roy and
Betty.
'But I don't understand why you brought her,' she said.
'You're not in love with her.'
Roy agreed, with a slow nod.
'No, I'm not in love with her—not now. But in 1941, I was.
She disappeared that year, and for ten years afterwards I de-
voted myself to building a time-traveller, so that I might find
her again. I can see, now, that for all that time I was idealising
her. By 1951, I was no longer in love with Betty, but with an
ideal girl of my own imagining—a Betty I had built up in my
own mind. You understand?'
'I understand. So when you went back to the real Betty ...?'
'It was to fetch her from 1941 to 1951. On the return trip,
the machine let me down. And,' he added, in a voice so low
that she could scarcely hear it, 'I'm glad it did.'
He paused a moment before he went on: 'Tell me, how did
you get here—and alone?'
'There's very little to tell. It happened entirely by accident.
I had been helping my father to build the machine. Perhaps
helping is rather a grand word for the little part I took, but he
had no other assistant. My part of the work was far more
practical than theoretical. I was very hazy as to the principles
of the machine, but I was frequently called upon to make tests
of the wiring and connections. Yesterday—thousands of years
ago, it is now—I was testing some switches in the traveller. My
father must have made the main battery connections and for-
gotten to warn me. The next thing I knew was that the labora-
tory had disappeared and there was a sandy plain all around
me.
'I realised at once what had happened, and I worked the
levers desperately. Nothing responded. I got out of the

3°
machine, with an idea of going to find help. Then a red thing
came marching over the plain. I was frightened, so I hid as
best I could. The thing came up without noticing me. It lifted
up the traveller and threw it down on one side, breaking it
badly. Then it went on, and I think I lost my head for a time,
for I knew I could never mend the machine. I never re-
member crying in my life before, but I felt so terribly desolate
and alone. A little later, the white machines came along and
found me.'
'Well, you've got company now, at any rate,' said Roy. 'And
I don't think there is any need to be sad. Del will get us back
somehow. I've a great faith in that little chap, queer as he
looks.'
Hale Lorrence and Betty rose to their feet and began to
saunter in the direction of Del and his fellow-workers. After
some moments' close examination of the cage, Hale said:
'Your machine is on a slightly different plan from mine.
Will you explain it?'
Del indicated the controls and settings, while his assistants
put finishing touches to the repairs. Betty climbed into the
traveller and began fingering the switches. Roy stopped talk-
ing to Jessica and watched. There was a furtiveness about the
pair that he did not like. Hale seemed to be edging round, as
though he wanted to gain a coveted position. Kal looked up
and proclaimed that the work was finished. Immediately, a
gleam came into Hale's eyes.
'Look out!' Roy shouted. But he was too late. Like a flash,
Hale snatched a high-power heat-ray from Kal's belt.
'Back!' he roared, pointing it at them. 'Back, all of you!'
There was no disobeying the command. Kal and Ril drew
ray tubes, but both hesitated to use them—the precious time-
traveller stood right behind Hale. As they backed away, the
egg-shaped metal creature in the middle of the room stirred its
limbs, as though realising what was afoot. One metal tentacle
came snaking across the floor towards Hale. Without hesita-
tion, he pressed the catch of his tube and lopped the shining
limb away. Another came shooting in his direction, and it too
fell to the ground. He turned, and sent a savage jet of heat
searing full at the metal body. He swung back, glaring at the
group of men; it seemed for a moment that he was minded to
end their existences with a final sweep of the heat-beam.
Roy's revolver came into action with a crash. The heavy
bullet took Hale in the arm. The tube dropped from his hand,
and he bolted into the machine. Roy, as he took aim again,
saw the other, unwounded hand reach for the switch. Once

WANDERERS OF TIME	31
more his revolver spurted, but the bullet flattened itself
against the wall. The time-traveller, and with it, Hale and
Betty, had vanished.
chapter five
THE SECRET OF THE MACHINES
An inarticulate cry, something between a moan and a scream,
brought them facing to the centre of the room. One of the
Numen was clawing wildly at his body and emitting animal-
like howls. Behind him lay the remains of the machine, split
by Hale's ray-stroke into two parts. From it a glistening, black
tide of life v. as flowing in their direction. The unfortunate
Numan had stood nearest, and already the black flow covered
him thickly. Even as they watched in unmoving amazement, he
fell writhing to the ground and his body became a mere
mound in the blackness.
'Ants!' cried Roy, as the black horde advanced. 'Millions of
ants!'
The affrighted group backed up the hall, the two surviving
Numen gibbering with fear. Del caught up the tube which
Hale had dropped.
'Low power.' he ordered. 'Ray them all.'
There was little need for the command. Kal and Ril were
already playing their tubes back and forth across the advanc-
ing line, withering the insects by thousands. Julian Tyne,
shaken into activity, first by the desertion of his friend and
then by the threatening menace, joined in, sweeping his own
ray with telling effect.
At every pass they made, thousands of ants shrivelled and
became no more than light ash; but still they pushed relent-
lessly on, marching blindly to certain death. Their centralisa-
tion had disappeared with the wreckage of their machine, and
now they were left only with the old instinct to attack. There
was little real danger; even Julian's lesser ray could have
wiped them all out in five minutes. But there came an inter-
ruption : the familiar clatter of the metal door. Del turned to
see a trio of machines scuttering in through the opening. He
pushed up his ray to full power and cut away the fast-moving
legs with one sweep. The metal bodies dropped, and impeded
those behind.
Del switched a withering blast of heat on the lintel of the

32
doorway. More by luck than knowledge, he succeeded in melt-
ing away the supporting catches, and the metal sheet crashed
down, bisecting two entering machines as it fell. Kal sprang to
Del's side and trained a ray on one of the stranded machines,
turning it incandescent; but already, from the broken halves
in the doorway, more black streams of insects were flooding to
the attack. Switching his ray to low power lest he should melt
the door behind, Del swept a myriad of infuriated ants into
eternity. Julian and Ril, behind him, continued the destruc-
tion of the first swarm.
Kal dealt rapidly with all three of the powerless machines.
Each was rendered red-hot, and its crew incinerated before it
could escape. Then he joined Del in repelling the second
attack. There came a pandemonium of battering against the
door as the machines outside attempted to crash their way in,
but the metal sheet was massive enough to defy their most
strenuous efforts. The slaughter of the ants was quickly com-
pleted. The four tube-holders rayed, on low power, every
corner of the great hall, to make certain that none had
escaped. Only when they were satisfied that the last ant was
wiped out did they have opportunity to pause and consider.
'We'll have to get out of this—and quick!' exclaimed Roy.
'But how? There's no way but the door.'
'Burn our way out,' replied Del. 'We're not far from the
open, here. You remember we were near the entrance when
they turned in here. Which direction was it?'
'The left wall,' said Roy, definitely. 'But we can't burn
through that—all the molten stuff will run back on us in here.'
Del shook his head. 'We can get rid of that.'
A heat-ray was rigged up, pointing directly down at the
floor, and then switched on to full power. For ten or twelve
seconds the circle of earth below it boiled and seethed furi-
ously, while waves of heat rolled through the cavern. Then,
abruptly, it vanished, leaving only a dark hole. Roy stared.
'What happened?' he inquired. Del, switching off the tube,
smiled at his astonishment.
'There's no magic about it,' he answered him. 'You see, this
place we are in is nothing more or less than a mammoth ant-
hill. But ant-hills have workings extending below ground as
well as above. We simply melted through the roof of the level
below us, and the residue has flowed through the passages
down there.'
Approaching as closely as possible, Del began to cut a trench
from the foot of the wall to the lip of the newly-drilled hole.

WANDERERS OF TIME
33
His back was towards the door, and it was only a warning
scream from Jessica which saved him from the fate of the
luckless Numan. All looked where she pointed. A black carpet
of ants was spreading towards them, streaming between the
base of the door and the ill-fitting threshold in their hundreds
of thousands.
Del turned like a flash, and his tube, still at full power,
swept them to instant annihilation. Simultaneously, a corner
of the door became a ragged hole in the metal, its edges drip-
ping molten blobs to the floor. Del set Julian to guard the
vulnerable spot and turned, with renewed energy, to the drill-
ing of the escape tunnel.
Muffled as much as possible against the heat, he stood back
on the far side and trained his ray forward. The solid wall
began to liquefy. It oozed and dripped down into the trench
he had prepared, flowing along until it poured to unknown
depths through the hole in the floor. The operation took no
more than a few minutes, but the belching waves of heat re-
duced them, in even so short a time, to the limit of their
endurance. The hot air of the cavern became all but un-
breathable. The radiation seemed to scorch them even through
their clothing when, to Del's surprise, daylight broke through
at ten to a dozen yards distance.
'We've been fortunate,' he remarked, shutting off his tube.
'We were nearer the outside than I suspected. I've drilled the
shaft on a slant so that it will drain, but it will be some hours
before it is passable. Now we must get to work—when we've
made that doorway safe.'
Narrowing his beam, he cut an overhanging piece of the
roof so that it fell squarely in front of the hole in the door.
Satisfied that the entrance was now completely blocked, he
turned his attention to the row of derelict time-travellers.
'These,' he said, with a wave of his hand, 'are the only means
we have of regaining our own time. We cannot take them
bodily with us. But we must select the more intricate and
essential parts, and carry them off. We may be able to discover
material for framework, but such things as vacuum tubes,
Lestrange batteries, light-impulse cells and the like, would be
a great labour to construct—even if we could do so, which is
doubtful.'
Very little of Roy's machine was worthy of salvage. When he
had extracted his two undamaged Lestrange batteries, he
walked over to the two Numen, who were standing helplessly
by their crumpled vehicle, and directed them to unbolt such
impulse cells as remained intact. Then he became interested in

34
the other machines. Among those unclaimed by anyone pre-
sent stood two dented metal cubes. Del came over to join him
as he pulled on the door of one. It came grudgingly ajar,
hanging askew on the twisted frame, and a breath of corrup-
tion sent the two men staggering back a pace. Holding his
breath, Roy reapproached and peered inside. The shrivelled
body of a man. in a far state of decomposition, lay huddled
into one of the farther corners.
'Poor devil,' he muttered. 'At least, we've been luckier than
he was.'
Del, with his tube at low power, cremated the decaying
body, and after waiting a moment for the air to clear, they
both entered. One wall was lined with rows of tubes and
resistances, while on another were control-panels attended
with tortuous convolutions of wiring. Roy peered hopefully
among the serried switches and dials for some clue to the
machine's date of origin, but without success. Del pondered
silently over the mechanism for a while. An expression of
wonder came over his face.
'What is it?'
Del answered half to himself. 'I considered it impossible.'
'What do you mean?'
'This vehicle is radically different from ours. It does not
plunge instantaneously through the time-flow. Instead, it has
the property of slowing down its contents, so that the world
ouside slips by at high speed by comparison. A slow, in-
efficient machine—but it worked.'
'I don't understand.'
'I mean that both our .machines, yours and mine, work simi-
larly to the extent that they insulate us entirely from time—-
that is to say, ages pass by us in a flash and we are not affected.
But this is not a complete insulating machine; it works with a
kind of drag action. For instance, if the operator turns this
main dial to indicate a speed half-way between the normal
time-flow and complete insulation, events inside his chamber
will take exactly twice as long to happen as they would in the
outer world. During the period which seems an hour to him,
the events of two hours will take place outside. If he turns the
dial farther, the events of a week, or a year, flash past in what
appears to be an hour. See, he even has a window through
which he can watch the happenings of the world fly past.'
Roy noticed a square of glass set in one wall.
'I think I understand. But what happened?'
'He must have made a mistake somewhere, just as we did;
but unlike us, he was travelling so slowly, even at his top

WANDERERS OF TIME
35
speed, that before he reached this date he starved and died on
the way—another martyr to experiment. It's a pretty safe guess
that we shall find the same fate overtook the man in the other
cube.'
Kal came over to summon Del with the information that the
salvaged parts had been laid out, awaiting his decision as to
which should be taken and which left. Under his direction, the
selected fragments were divided among the party for portage.
A further inspection of the passage revealed that it was still
too hot for use; they must wait at least another hour. Dei
looked worried, and examined the joints of floors and walls
carefully for any traces of the ants breaking through.
'Ants,' said Roy, musingly, as they waited. 'Insects working
those machines—ruling the world, perhaps. It's incredible.'
'It's logical,' Del contradicted.
'I don't get that.'
'It was inevitable, sooner or later. They've always had a far
better organisation than man, even in my century—no wasted
effort, no need to struggle continually with subversive factors.
The only thing which stopped them being masters of the
world, from the beginning, was their size. Now. they have
found a way of overcoming that disability. There's a natural
limit to the size of insects. They do not breathe as we do. but
absorb the oxygen through the surface. If they became large,
there would not be enough absorption area in proportion to
the bulk inside, and they would die of suffocation.'
'Yes, I see that. But to find them working machines—and
such machines—just staggers me.'
'But why? It's the natural way out of the difficulty. After all,
we did the same. Where would man have been without his
machines? If you want a parallel, just think of one of the
warships of your own time—twelve hundred or more men
working a great floating monster, just as these insects in their
thousands work their scuttering metal machines. It puzzles me
that I didn't think of it the moment we saw the style of their
machines. But these things always seem so obvious afterwards.'
Roy nodded. 'But, still, I would never have believed if I
hadn't seen,' he added.
A rattle of falling dirt startled the group. They looked
apprehensively upward. A shining metal tentacle protruded
through a small hole in the room. An increasing rain of debris
pattered all about them as it moved from side to side, enlarg-
ing the aperture.
Kal's tube sent a shaft of heat shooting up. Either from haste

36
or misjudgment, he had it notched at full-power. The tentacle
was melted off, and fell, but the heat-beam had seared on into
the roof. There came an ominous cracking, and the men, with
a startled glance, took to their heels in the direction of the
escape tunnel. Almost as they drew clear, the weakened spot
gave way and the machine, with an avalanche of dirt, crashed
to the floor. Even as it broke open, rivers of ants came swarm-
ing out of the gaping seams. With a second crash, another
machine fell through the hole, and after it, another. It seemed
that the insects cared little how many machines were wrecked
to secure the victory.
'Into the tunnel!' shouted Del. 'We must risk it, now.'
The rest scampered to obey, holding their precious burdens
in their arms. Kal charged ahead with his weapon held ready
and his short legs moving with twinkling rapidity. The others
followed him closely. Roy heard a howl of agony break from
the two Numen as their bare feet encountered the hot surface,
but their fear of the ants was greater than their discomfort,
and they held on their way.
The heat of the passage was intense; it beat at them like a
furnace glare. Jessica staggered just ahead of Roy. He caught
her around the waist with his free arm, and dragged her on.
The two of them pitched together over the outer edge into the
daylight—he had forgotten that the slant of the tunnel meant
a six-foot drop at the other end. Del had remained till the last.
He rayed furiously at the increasing horde of ants until he was
sure that his companions were clear; then he, too, turned and
ran for safety. He fell from the tunnel's mouth, narrowly miss-
ing the prostrate Roy.
'Only a dozen yards of that inferno,' said the latter, sitting
up, 'yet it seemed like a hundred. Anyhow, it's a sight too hot
for the ants to get across it. We're clear of them for a bit.'
Del agreed, but he wished to make sure. 'Lift me up on your
shoulders,' he directed. Roy did so, and the dwarf played a
narrow ray on the sloping passage roof till it fell, completely
closing the entrance.
'Any casualties?' Roy inquired, as he lowered the other.
'No, except these two.' Jessica pointed to the two Numen,
who were sitting down ruefully examining their scorched soles.
'And they're more surprised than hurt. But I should think,'
she added, 'that the vacuum tubes have suffered.'
A hurried inspection revealed that only one had been
smashed.
'And now, where do we go from here?' Roy asked Del, who,
by general consent, had become director of the party.

WANDERERS OF TIME
37
'We get away very quickly, before they realise what has hap-
pened and start a search for us,' Del replied.
It took but a short time to cross the open ground and gain
the cover of the forest. Roy, looking back for a final view of
the rearing cliffs which formed the side of the stupendous ant-
hill, was relieved to discern no signs of pursuit.
chapter six
THE DAY OF THE INSECT
Several hours of heavy going found them a weary party. The
three dwarfs had very soon given out; their small bodies were
of little use for this kind of rough going. One of the Numen,
noticing their distress, handed his bundle over to his fellow
and, as though it were the most natural thing in the world,
raised Kal and Ril to his broad shoulders. The other placed
both bundles upon one shoulder and seated Del on the other.
'That proves it!' declared Kal, as he recovered from his
surprise. 'These are the descendants of Tak Four A's Numen.
Brawn, developed to assist brains.'
For some miles they had proceeded along the bed of a
stream, with the dual purpose of losing the scent and of mak-
ing slightly easier progress than was possible among the trees.
On a corner, the leading Numan stopped short. Roy craned
round him to ascertain the cause, and found himself staring at
one of the six-legged machines. It stood motionless on the
grass verge of the left bank, glistening in the sunlight.
Del pulled out his tube, but as he levelled it, the machine
became aware of them and scurried swiftly sideways. For a
moment it paused, waving its tentacles slightly, as though un-
certain whether to attack or not; then it flashed away into the
trees and out of sight.
'Damn it!' said Roy, as he watched the last glitter of the
receding shell. 'It will give the alarm.' Rather bitterly, he
added: 'Why didn't you melt the thing?'
'Because I had no desire to set the whole forest on fire,' Del
replied calmly.
Tired as they were, they pressed on with greater speed. They
must, Del pointed out, reach some defensible spot. While they
remained among the trees, they were liable to concealed attack
from any side. Another two hours brought them to a district
where open spaces were more frequent, but still Del was un-

38
satisfied. At the edge of a sizeable clearing, Roy demurred.
'Jessica's dead beat, Julian's very little better, and I've had
enough, too. We'll find nothing to beat this. If we camp in the
middle, we can defend all round '
Julian upheld the suggestion in a tired, dispirited voice. Del
opened his mouth, but before he could speak there came an
interruption.
'Get into the trees, you fools!' roared a voice. For a second,
nobody moved. 'I mean it,' called the voice, somewhere above
their heads. 'They're coming after you. Get moving!'
The tone was so insistent that, this time, they obeyed with-
out question. As Roy, who was the last to climb, swung himself
up the branches, he heard the approach of a multitudinous
scuttering. Looking down, he could see the flashing surfaces of
a dozen or more passing ant-machines.
'Close call,' said a voice above him.
'Certainly was—and it'd have been a damn sight closer if
you hadn't been about,' Roy answered softly.
'It's all right; you needn't whisper. Those tin things can't
hear. I've tried 'em. What's more, they're too dumb to look for
anything up above 'em. You're safe here.'
Roy leaned back and looked up at the speaker on his higher
branch. He was a man of knotty, compact build, clad in a torn
shirt and ill-used khaki trousers. The greater part of his face
was hidden beneath an unruly growth of black beard and
whiskers, but his mouth smiled, and there was a zestful twinkle
in his eyes. Roy climbed higher and stretched out his hand. It
was taken in a hardened, calloused grip.
'You can't guess how glad I am to see you folks, whoever you
are. I reckoned I'd got the world to myself, 'cept for them
crawlin' tin cans down there. I'm Jim Hollis. About four days
ago, I was somewhere near Indianapolis—the Lord knows
where I am now!'
Roy introduced himself. He added; 'Do you know of any safe
place for us? We're mostly about played out.'
Jim Hollis scratched his chin reflectively through his matted
beard. He cast a glance towards the Sun, now well in the
west.
'Can you make two miles—maybe, two and a half?' he in-
quired.
'If it's worth while, I guess we could manage that.'
'It's worth while, all right. There's some caves I found in a
cliff over there.' He jerked his head in an easterly direction.
'I'd be there now. myself, but I couldn't make the entrance on

WANDERERS OF TIME
39
my own. Way up above my head.'
'It can be defended?' asked Del, from a branch near-by.
The man looked curiously at the dwarf. 'Sure,' he agreed,
'but it don't need it. If I couldn't make the grade, I'm damned
if one of them tin things could. If we're goin', we'd better
move right now. It'll be sunset in a couple of hours.'
He swung himself down the branches and dropped to the
ground. The rest of them followed his lead. The dwarfs' true
proportions were revealed when they had descended, and at
sight of them and the accompanying Numen, the man's eyes
widened with amazement.
'Say, what the	?' he began.
Roy tactfully interposed. 'Lead on,' he said. 'I'll tell you as
we go.'
'You'll have to. I'm all dazed up. It's all happened so sudden-
like. I was just hiking along, hoping to jump a truck-ride to
Indianapolis, when a guy comes out from a shack by the road-
side and says he'll give me five bucks if I'll lend him a hand.
I'd clean forgot what five bucks looks like, so I said I would.
He'd got a piece of machinery he couldn't move by himself,
and he wanted it brought out of the shack into the yard.
Rummy lookin' sort of cage, with a sling-seat in it. We got it
out easy enough between us, and then he went back to find the
five bucks, so I sat down in the sling-seat. There was a lot of
little switches and thingummies in front of it, so I pressed one,
just interested like. Next thing I knew, me and the machine
was crashin' down through a lot of branches like these.'
He looked disparagingly at the growths about him. 'And
they ain't even ordinary trees. Nothin's ordinary around these
parts—what's more, I ain't got my five bucks.'
Roy attempted to explain the situation, and to tell how the
rest of them had similarly come to grief. Jim Hollis grunted
doubtfully.
'Sounds crazy to me,' he observed, 'but then, it's no crazier
than having them tin things runnin' about the place. Ants
inside of 'em, you say?'
'Yes, ants.'
Jim sniffed. He was still a trifle uncertain whether this
might not be some deep scheme to pull his leg.
'And what about the big red things that walk on two legs?
What's in them—black beetles?'
Roy had forgotten the red machines. He smiled at Jim's
suggestion, and admitted that none of the party had yet had an
opportunity of investigating these inhabitants of this strangely
transformed world.

4o
Jim's estimate of two miles was modest by half, but they
came at length, and without hesitation, to the edge of the
forest. Across a hundred yards of turf rose a cliff-face, pitted in
many places with dark holes.
'How's that?' asked Jim, triumphantly pointing to the larg-
est. It measured some ten feet in diameter at the entrance.
'But how do we get there?' Julian objected, looking at the
twenty-five feet of sheer cliff which must be scaled.
'Easy enough to reach it by standing on one another's
shoulders.'
'I have a better idea than that,' said Del. He produced a ray
tube and, with a series of heat-jets, drilled a zig-zag line of
holes up the rock face.
'Gee! That's a dandy flashlight you've got,' Jim murmured
admiringly.
Roy ascended the holds, after a short interval for cooling. As
a precaution, he took with him a heat-ray set ready at low-
power. The first glance showed him that the cave was both
empty and dry. It broadened out to about fifteen feet, a yard
or two inside the entrance, and ran back nearly thirty feet into
the cliff. Luck had favoured them with an ideally safe refuge.
He stood up at the mouth and looked out towards the setting
Sun.
'It's okay,' he called to the group of upturned faces. 'Come
on, all of you! Back to the Stone Age 1'
'The problems of food and water have been easily settled,' said
Del, addressing the group on the following day. 'It is indeed
lucky for us that fruit grows in such profusion, but though this
will keep us alive, it will not assist us to solve the problem of
our return. For that, one thing is essential—we must have
metal.'
Roy looked up from his occupation of plaiting creeper
strands into a rope.
'I was wondering what you intended to do about that,' he
remarked.
'What's the metal for?' asked Jim.
'We must have a framework for the machine which I pro-
pose to build—and it must be a metal framework. You want to
get back, don't you?'
'Sure I do. That guy still owes me five bucks.'
'What kind of metal?' Roy inquired.
Del shrugged his shoulders. 'A steel containing chromium
and tungsten in small quantities would be best; failing that,
some other hard metal could be made to serve. I also want

WANDERERS OF TIME
41
some copper, or other good conductors. Very luckily, most of
our salvaged parts have withstood the journey.' Turning to
Tim, he added: 'Is your machine still in the branches where it
fell?'
'No; the tin things found it and carried it off. I watched
them from a tree.'
Reflectively, Del looked out of the cave towards the giant
ant-hill towering over the trees in the distance. Jim's arrival
accounted for one of the extra time-travellers they had seen
there. He wondered about the others ... Jim's voice broke in
on the unprofitable speculation.
'Maybe, if we scouted round a bit more, we might find a
town or something. Anyway, there ought to be a road leading
to a town—and where there's a town, there's sure to be metal.'
Del shook his head gently. 'You don't realise. There are no
towns.'
'No towns?'
'Neither towns, nor men.'
'You're foolin' me! They can't all be dead.'
'They must be, or the insects would not be ruling.'
'But—but do you mean the ants have killed all the men?'
'It seems unlikely. Probably men just stopped.'
'I don't get you.'
'Men did not kill off the great reptiles who ruled the world
before them—the reptiles just stopped. It seems to me that
man, too, has "had his little day and ceased to be." '
'But what's the good of his ever havin' lived, if it all finishes
this way?'
'What is the use of life? Perhaps man came to a glorious
finish, fulfilled his destiny and vanished from the Earth—he
had to leave the Earth sooner or later. At least, he has not been
compelled to linger on a globe which is drifting into senile
decay.'
'It doesn't look decaying to me.' Jim gazed out at the gently
swaying trees.
'But we found ourselves in a desert when we stopped. Miles
of it, overlaying what once was fruitful country... . How far
did that desert stretch? For all we know, this may be an oasis
of forest in a world of deserts. And have you noticed the Sun—
how much larger and more fiery red it is than our accustomed
Sun? Signs of the coming end, both of them.'
He was silent for a moment before he added: 'Then there
was the ant-machine which questioned us. Its knowledge of the
past must have been profound, yet it tried us with a series of
symbols utterly unknown to any of us. One wonders what

42
strange creatures used those symbols, some time between the
end of man and the rise of the insect. Yes; we are far past the
age of homo sapiens....'
No one spoke for a while. It was Roy who broke the spell.
'This is morbid,' he declared. 'Our present concern is to
regain the age of homo sapiens—and our immediate need is
metal.'
Jessica, sitting beside him, drew a breath as though to speak,
and then changed her mind.
'Yes?' he encouraged.
'I hardly like to suggest it. I mean, it's dangerous.'
'What is it?'
'Well, the ants' white machines	'
'Yes?'
'Well, they must be made of a very hard metal.'
Roy brought his hand down on his knee with a slap of
approval.
'Good girl, you've hit it! We've got to grab one of those
machines, somehow or other.'
The expeditionary force eventually comprised only three
men: Roy, Jim Hollis and Julian. The two Numen would
have been useful but, since it was considered unwise to trust
them with heat-rays, they would have been defenceless in case
of an attack. They would, therefore, be summoned later to
help with the portage, if necessary. Moreover, it was important
that some weapons should be left with the rest of the party, in
case of trouble. Both Roy and Jim. before they left, were
handed high-power rays and instructed in the use of them.
Julian retained his own, low-power weapon.
'What puzzles me is how we are going to attract the things,'
Roy said.
'Forget it. There's no attractin' needed.' Jim assured him.
'All we've got to do is get up a tree near a clearing, and wait.
They'll come along soon enough. It's dollars to dough-nuts we
spot some within a couple of hours. Them tin things are for
ever snoopin' around—the Lord knows what for.'
They progressed cautiously, with Jim in the lead, scanning
the surrounding growths for the slightest sign of a metallic
flash, and ready to jump for the branches. The chosen clear-
ing, a mile or so distant, was reached without alarms. There,
they climbed one of the loftiest trees and settled themselves
among the boughs to wait. After an hour of patience, Roy
caught the sound of activity on the far side of the open space.
As it approached, it resolved itself into a crackling of branches

WANDERERS OF TIME
43
accompanied by a faint clanking. He moved into an attitude
of readiness, and slipped the ray tube out of his pocket. Jim
put out a restraining hand.
'It ain't the tin things. It's the big, red brutes. I know the
sound of 'em.'
The next minute proved him right. Five of the twenty-foot,
machines left the trees and stalked stiffly on their trellised legs
across the other end of the clearing.
'Five again,' Roy murmured.
'Always five together—never more, nor less. And if I know
anything about it. it means that some of the ant-machines are
around these parts.' Jim replied.
Less than ten minutes after the red stalkers had disappeared,
there came a flash of reflected sunlight among the trees. A
moment later, no less than ten of the six-legged machines
emerged. They paused in a bunch, and there was a great wav-
ing of silver tentacles. Roy wondered why it was that the
machines were not rendered less conspicuous with a coating of
neutral-shaded paint; it was merely one of many puzzling
points about them.
As a result of the conference, the party broke up. Eight
scurried away in the wake of the red monsters; another
doubled back the way they had come, while the remaining one
retreated to the shadow of the trees and stood motionless. Jim
nudged Roy.
'There's our meat,' he said.
chapter seven
CASTAWAYS IN A DEAD WORLD
With stealth and care, they wriggled back along the branches
and slid to the ground. Keeping about twenty yards back from
the edge of the clearing, they began to work round into pos-
tion. The fact that their progress was accompanied by a con-
siderable crackling of twigs underfoot did not worry them, but
it was essential that no waving of bushes, carelessly brushed
aside, should attract the attention of the sharp lenses. More-
over, a look-out must be kept for other roving machines. At
fifty yards' range, Jim suggested that they take to the trees
again.
Roy, through a leafy gap, trained his ray on the motionless
sentry, and pressed the catch. His aim was good. A quick

44
switch of the wrist from left to right, and the narrow blade of
intense heat scythed the legs from beneath it. It fell with a
thud. The tentacles writhed for a few seconds, and then
dropped, to lie listlessly on the ground. As they sank, the ant
army came surging from its fallen craft. Roy swiftly adjusted
his tube to lower power and wider aperture, and joined Jim
and Julian, who were already fanning their beams at the black
flood. In a few moments, the insects had withered from sight,
and the damaged machine was theirs.
Roy swung down from the tree, and advanced with his tube
cautiously levelled against the possibility of another rush of
ants. He tapped experimentally on the metal casing, but none
emerged. Again he set his ray to a small aperture, preparatory
to slicing the metal into portable sections. Barely had he raised
the tube when there came a cry from Jim, who pointed wildly
across the clearing.
Roy spun round, to see two more white machines headed in
a scuttering dash towards him. He swung his ray without hesi-
tation, and brought down the leader. Its own momentum sent
it sliding a dozen yards on its shining belly. As it fell, he
turned his attention to the other. But the second attacker was
not destined to fall such an easy victim.
He was raising his hand when a metal tentacle from behind
him snapped around his body, knocking his weapon spinning
towards the tree. He realised, as the arm gripped him. that he
had been fooled. Some of the ants still remained in the first
machine, and had successfully played 'possum until this mo-
ment. He cursed himself for not having the foresight to put its
lenses out of action.
The trees behind him literally exploded into flame, as the
tube fell among them. Jim and Julian leaped from their
perches with lightning agility, and came pounding to Roy's
defence with ready weapons. The last, unharmed machine,
dashing on with tentacles extended, was almost upon him.
Their line of fire was masked by Roy's body. He tugged
frenziedly at his metal bond, but it had frozen into inflexi-
bility, holding him as prey for the other.
Jim-decided to take a desperate chance. He steadied, and
aimed. The searing heat-beam passed within inches of the
helpless Roy, and the hot air scorched his face, but the blast
passed on to shear the legs from one side of the rushing mon-
ster. The unsupported side fell with a crash, and the machine
swivelled wildly to one side. It rolled over and over, till it
came to a final rest within a yard of Roy's feet. But the danger
was far from over. Jim bounded towards him, fused the re-

WANDERERS OF TIME
45
straining tentacle at its base, and dragged him free just as the
swarming ants broke from their wrecked craft. Only then did
the three men become aware of the great flames licking out
from the blazing trees towards them.
'We've got to get out of this quick. We've sure started some-
thing this trip,' said Jim, as Roy unwrapped the severed ten-
tacle. 'The Lord knows what that tube will do, now it's on the
loose. All the walk in' tin cans in this crazy world are likely to
happen along, just to see who's been jokin' around here.'
'But the metal	'
'Damn the metal. There's plenty more—we can't move fast
and carry the stuff. Till this blows over, we can go home and
lie doggo for a bit.'
The three crossed the clearing at top speed. In the shelter of
the opposite trees, they paused to look back. A vast funnel of
flame was belching into the heavens and, above it, thick clouds
of smoke broadened, mushroom-like. Jim shook a rueful head.
'Ain't that just our darned luck?' he growled.
There followed several weeks, uneventful to the castaways.
Roy and Jim had returned to the scene of their fight, on the
following day, and made encouraging discoveries. The first
was that the fire started by Roy's lost tube had spread only a
very little distance beyond its raging centre. With no wind to
fan them, the flames had dwindled away, and finally snuffed
out. The tube itself was irretrievably lost, somewhere in a
crater of its own making. It had melted the ground and the
rocks beneath it, and sunk out of sight into the molten pool.
Whether it had destroyed itself, or whether it was still digging
deeper and deeper into the earth, neither of the men knew,
nor cared to any extent. They were far too elated at finding
that the machines they had vanquished still lay where they had
fallen.
'Wonder why they haven't taken them away?' Roy had said.
Jim snorted.
'You're always wondering about the things. What's the use
of tryin' to get inside an insect's mind, anyway? You couldn't
do it in a life-time. Maybe they never repair—only build new
machines. The thing that counts, now, is that here's the metal
just waiting for us to carry it off.'
With the help of most of the party, the transport had been
successfully accomplished; though more than once on the
journey it was necessary to drop their burdens and take to the
trees, to avoid wandering machines. A growing acquaintance
with the dangers of the world about them, and with the

46
limited capabilities of their enemies, began to have a tonic
effect on the party. Jim Hollis had never shown anything more
than contempt for what he called 'walking tinware,' and the
rest were fast adopting his point of view.
Del, with Kal for an assistant, had gone to work right away
on the construction of a new time-traveller, once he had
assured himself that the metals were suitable. Ril, whose offers
of assistance had been refused on the ground that more than
one helper would lead to confusion, busied himself in experi-
menting with the least damaged of the captured machines, a
pursuit in which he was joined by Julian. Jim Hollis was
appointed head of the foraging staff and, with the help of the
two Numen, saw that a plentiful supply of fruit and water was
maintained.
Jessica and Roy found themselves much together. Since the
ant-machines were seldom to be seen in the immediate vicinity
of the cliffs, they had formed the habit of taking their strolls in
the neighbourhood. Roy, after a month or more of this exist-
ence, had come to accept their way of life as a commonplace
rather than an adventure. He discovered, with a sense of sur-
prise, that Jessica did not share this view.
'How long,' she asked him one morning, 'do you think it
will be before Del completes his machine?'
Roy looked at her doubtfully. There was something in her
tone that he could not place. It was not exactly an eagerness
for release from this strange world, and yet...
'Not more than a day or two, now, I believe; but he is not
sure that some further adjustments won't be necessary. You're
feeling homesick?'
Jessica failed to reply for a moment. She held her gaze fixed
straight ahead, and there was a slight petulance in the line of
her mouth. At length she answered, in a dull voice:
'I suppose I am. After all, one could hardly wish to stay here
for ever. Sometimes, at nights, it comes over me in a perfect
wave of longing. I look out and see nothing but the dimness of
the stars, and hear nothing but the stirring of the trees; then I
long for our bustling twenty-third century. I want to see the
sky split by the green fire at the tail of an Asia-bound rocket,
or the red gush from the Europe express.
'Sometimes, on clear nights, we could see from our house the
pure-white flames streaming from the Mars space-ship as it
spurted from its cradle. And then, too, there was never this
terrible quiet. Even when one was shut away, there was always
a sense of movement, of a world where men and their
machines all worked to some purpose—a rustling sense of life

WANDERERS OF TIME
47
even in the quietest places. I feel a horrible sense of futility
that it has all come only to this—to the insects.'
'I'm sure you are wrong there. If we had found men still
existing at this date, I should feel that it did seem futile. It
would mean that man must die when the world dies. But,
since there is no sign of him. I am convinced that he achieved
his true end—whatever that may have been—and gone on his
way, leaving the world to other forms of life so that they may
in turn achieve their ends.'
'I think you are an optimist, Roy, but I hope you are right. I
confess, I don't feel very cheerful about anything just now.'
'While I seem to feel happier than I ever remember, I could
almost hope that Del's machine should turn out a failure. I
wish ...' He stopped abruptly. A light crept into Jessica's eyes.
The corners of her mouth lifted, ever so slightly.
'Yes?' she prompted, gently. But Roy was not looking; he
did not see the change that had come over her.
'I don't know. It seems so unnecessary that we should go
back to our own centuries—and yet, we must.'
'Must?'
'Well, imagine what a misfit I should be in Del's century.'
Jessica sighed to herself over the obtuseness of men. 'I can't
imagine you in Del's century,' she said. But Roy missed the
emphasis which was laid upon the word 'Del,' and took the
statement at its face value. Jessica let the subject drop. She had
learned what she wanted to know; the rest was a matter of
careful handling. She might even have to propose herself, in
the end....
Half an hour later, as they were returning to the cave, Roy
announced that there was a surprise awaiting her. Ril and
Julian, in their experiments with the captured ant-machine,
had succeeded in making it workable. The machinery cased in
the lower part of the ovoid body, and partitioned off, had been
found to be intact. It had not been a great labour, with the
help of the heat-rays, to braise on salvaged legs in place of
those shorn away. Then, more to give themselves employment
than for any other reason, the two men had set about adapting
the controls for human use. To this end. they had applied
themselves to the solution of a number of ingenious problems
which turned out. in most cases, less difficult than they had
expected. Much of the work consisted merely of clearing away
many of the stages necessary for insect manipulation.
'What I mean is,' said Roy, explaining, 'a man might need a
block and tackle to lift a heavy log which an elephant would

48
lift direct. This time, Ril and Julian were in the position of
the elephant—they could dispense with much of the inter-
mediate mechanical aid. They're as pleased with the thing as a
child with a new toy. It's going to be ready to show off its
tricks when we get back.'
'But what's the good of it?'
'None, I think. They merely felt an interest in the thing,
and it gave them something to do. They solved it as one might
solve any other puzzle. You'll see it soon.'
His words were borne out, a few hundred yards from home.
They saw the glittering machine approach, slowly scrabbling
over the ground towards them. It stopped as they came into
view, and stood still, its tentacles waving in the usual manner
of the ant-operated craft. Roy gave a chuckling laugh.
'A pretty good imitation. If I hadn't been expecting it, I'd
have rayed the thing right off—and that would have been very
uncomfortable for Ril and Julian.'
As if at the thought, his hand went to his belt. It encount-
ered the butt of his revolver, but the ray tube was missing. He
cursed his carelessness in not bringing it; such an omission
might well have had tragic results. He and Jessica advanced
together.
'Now, Ril, put it through its paces,' he called. But the
machine merely stood there, waving its tentacles. A sudden
misgiving shot through Roy's mind. To reassure himself, he
called: 'What are you trying to do? Scare us?'
Jessica drew closer to his side. She was aware of an uncom-
fortable sense that all was not well.
'Suppose it isn't	?' she began. She got no further, for at
that moment the machine snapped into action. It came scut-
tering full at them, tentacles outstretched.
'Run!' cried Roy, but instead, she shrank towards him. He
jerked out his revolver and spat a burst of ineffective shots.
The machine charged down on them. A feeler wrapped about
Jessica's waist and snatched her from his side; another looped
about his wrist, dragging him along. With a violent twist of his
arm, he broke its grip and fell to the ground. Jessica screamed
as the metal legs thudded past within inches of his head. The
machine did not wait to recapture him; holding the girl clear
of the ground, it made straight for the trees. Roy grabbed for
his fallen revolver, jumped to his feet and raced vainly after it.
The danger of hitting Jessica was too great for him to risk a
shot, and the machine, looking like some great, shining beetle,
was travelling twice his speed. The girl gave one final, despair-

WANDERERS OF TIME
49
mg cry; then captor and captive disappeared among the
branches.
For a few dazed seconds, Roy continued to run, before his
senses reasserted themselves and sent him shouting in the
direction of the cave. Consternation reigned in the group as he
panted out his news.
'Give me a ray tube,' he demanded. 'I'll wreck that machine
and bring Jessica back, if it's the last thing I do.'
Del caught his arm. 'You could never catch it before it
reached the ant-hill, and it's no good trying single-handed
to	'
Ril broke in. He had exchanged a hurried whisper with
Julian, which sent the other running towards the cave.
'We'll take the machine,' he said. 'Julian and I have finished
it and tested it.'
Roy, without hesitation, dashed to the spot where the reno-
vated craft lay, and started hurling aside the branches which
masked it. Ril clambered up a rough ladder set against the
side, and slid into the interior through a hole in the top.
'Tubes—we must have them,' Roy called. Del handed over
two high-power tubes and one low one. The only remaining
tube he retained, in case of attack.
'Get the girl back, and we will go,' he said. 'The time-
traveller will be ready when you return.'
Julian came running back with an armful of additional
apparatus, which he lugged aboard. Roy slid in last, and
slapped the covering panel shut. Ril and Julian were already
at the controls. The machine stirred with a slight lurch; then,
with metal legs flashing in the sunlight, it scuttered at full
speed for the trees and the spire of the giant ant-hill beyond
them.
chapter eight
THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
For the first hour, silence was scarcely broken. Ril could spare
no attention from the delicate occupation of steering the un-
familiar machine, and Julian was engaged in arranging some
of the apparatus he had so hurriedly gathered. Noticeable
among it was the lamp which they had used to light the cave.
Roy moved restlessly about the confined space, peering
through one or another of the observation holes which had

3°
been pierced in the metal hull. Continually he turned to urge
Ril to greater speed. The dwarf shook his head. Already they
were at the speed limit of safe travel, and time and again he
avoided a crash with some tree only by the swiftest dexterity.
The greatest concern which beset him was lest they should
reach some unfordable stream and be forced to a long detour,
but the fear was unfounded. The first water they encountered
was a clear brook, flowing rapidly over a shallow bed of stones,
and without hesitation, they took it in a shower of sparkling
drops. As they were mounting the further bank, the first un-
toward incident occurred; there came a mighty crash to one
side, and a tree toppled slowly. It missed them as it fell by only
a few feet. Another crash, close at hand, caused Ril to steer the
machine hastily to the right. Roy was flung to the floor by the
sudden change of direction.
'What was that?' he demanded, as he scrambled up.
'Rocks,' said Ril briefly. 'They nearly got us, too.'
Roy remembered the scene they had witnessed on the day of
their arrival.
'It's the red things. They've spotted us! Here, give me a
ray.'
He thrust his head and shoulders out of the top panel, and
looked about him. No enemy was visible, but away ahead he
could hear the crackling of branches as something drew nearer.
'Coming this way. Move off a bit.'
Ril obeyed speedily and, a moment later, a rock landed on
the spot where they had paused. Roy guessed that they must
have been seen as they made the crossing, and that the rocks
were being thrown by guess-work. A red machine stalked into
view and halted uncertainly. The silver ant-craft was now
effectively screened from its view by a clump of bushes. A
second presently joined it. Roy hesitated only for a second—
with Jessica still at stake, they could afford to waste no time;
he lifted the ray tube. One sweep sliced off a trellised leg, and
the machine, as it tottered, fell against its companion. The two
swayed for a space, and then went down together with a re-
sounding crash and a furious flailing of their jointed arms.
'Right away—flat out.' Roy called, and Ril threw in the
lever which sent them scurrying on their course.
The red machines were about the countryside in unusual
numbers, they discovered as they continued; but further direct
encounters were successfully avoided. Moreover, as they drew
nearer to the ant hill, they began to meet with an increasing
number of machines similar to their own. These, at first, they
gave a wide berth, but it soon became obvious that they had

WANDERERS OF TIME
51
no need to fear molestation, since the ants gave no sign of
suspecting their presence.
They were still some two miles from the hill when Roy, at a
forward peep-hole, gave an excited cry. Disappearing into the
trees on the far side of a clearing, he had caught a glimpse of
Jessica's captor, with her form still closely wrapped in its ten-
tacles. Ril urged them at full speed across the open ground
and plunged into the forest, hard on the track. But despite his
utmost efforts, it was not until they emerged into the space
ringing the base of the ant-hill that they caught another
glimpse of the marauder.
Their gain had been appreciable, and Roy decided to risk a
ray flash; they could not hope to overtake the other before it
reached the dark entrance to the hill. His ray, at low power,
flashed on the twinkling legs with no result. He pushed the
power up a notch, and tried again. This time he succeeded in
fusing one of the rear leg-joints, so that the metal limb became
rigid. Unfortunately, it projected clear, and hampered pro-
gress not at all. The tube was just levelled for a third shot
when a hand grasped his wrist, and he turned to face Julian.
The latter spoke angrily.
'Put that away, you fool I' he snapped. 'Can't you see that if
you did bring the thing down, it would most likely kill Jessica
in the fall? Even if it didn't, she'd be covered with ants in a
few seconds.'
The possibility shook Roy badly; he cursed his own fool-
hardiness as he returned the tube to his belt. Julian turned his
back and began to adjust the lamp, now erected at one of the
larger spy-holes. A minute later, the leading machine, still
clutching Jessica, disappeared into the dark mouth of the
entrance. After it, all six legs threshing furiously, pounded
the avenger.
Julian pressed a switch, and a beam of dazzling brilliance
bored down the tunnel before them. The vast central roadway
stretched out like a dirigible hangar of infinite length. Here
and there, the upsweeping curves of the walls were pierced
with side-turnings; mysterious, gaping mouths whose immense-
ness was dwarfed only by the proportions of the main artery.
Of traffic, there was little at the present, but such machines as
were visible scuttled along with a methodical orderliness,
keeping to the right of the track and paying no attention
either to pursuer or pursued.
'Why don't they attack us?' Roy wondered.
'Too specialised,' replied Ril. 'Their whole organisation is

52
worked on a basis of calculation, precision and instinct. They
know, for instance, that there is danger from the red stalking-
machines outside; that danger is calculated and allowed for.
But when they face us, they are up against the incalculable,
and their instincts are not any help to them. For centuries,
perhaps, they have not been called upon to cope with the
unexpected.'
'But they attacked and captured us in the first place.'
'True, but then they were in the open, where dangers might
be expected and their instinct was to overcome a challenge. It
requires more than instinct and simple calculation to grasp the
idea of one of their own machines being turned against them.
You notice that even the one we are following has shown no
sign of perturbation; it has just kept steadily on its way and
paid no attention to anything else.'
'Then we are safe from interference? All we have to do is to
recapture Jessica when we reach the other machine, and march
out with her.'
Ril looked doubtful. It seemed unlikely that it would be as
simple as that.
'We are all right, I think, until we are discovered by the
central intelligence. We can't tell what will happen then.'
'But how do you know there is a central intelligence?'
Ril lifted one hand from the controls of the racing vehicle,
and waved it in an expressive sweep.
'Something must control all this. Besides, you remember the
machine which wrote on the floor—it was obviously designed
for brain-work of some kind. It had no legs to move about on.
It was a calculating machine—a kind of composite-thinking
mechanism. Somewhere in this ant-mountain there must be a
super-calculator, capable not only of working from known fac-
tors, but of reasoning from probabilities; a kind of central
brain, of which our questioner was a mere subsidiary.'
'It sounds too improbable.'
'I don't think so. Since the insects had even more natural
obstacles to overcome than man had, they must, of necessity,
use more involved apparatus.'
While Ril spoke, they gradually gained on the machine
ahead. Now, a bare twenty yards separated the two. Julian
already had his hands on the control-levers of the tentacles,
and was ready to send them coiling out the moment the range
permitted. The leader turned, with a sudden swerve, down a
passage to the left. Only by skilful manipulation did Ril avoid
overshooting the corner, but he succeeded, and they gained yet
another couple of yards. The three men grew more tense as

WANDERERS OF TIME
53
the distance lessened. Julian's knuckles were white on the
levers, and his face strained. Roy again thrust his head and
shoulders through the top panel, and held his tube ready for
action. Then, with disconcerting suddenness, the passage walls
fell away and they sped out into a large, circular hall.
Roy had a glimpse of serried ranks of the white metal
machines, gleaming and glittering in the rays of their lamp;
then his eyes rose to the structure which dominated the whole
vast room. It stood, raised on a dais in the exact centre—a
huge, metallic shape, sprouting with a multitude of shining
feelers. At that moment, Julian went into action. Judging his
distance to a nicety, he sent a tentacle whipping round one of
the rear legs of Jessica's captor.
Simultaneously, Ril slowed their machine, and there came a
jerk which almost dislodged Roy from his perch. The legs of
the leader crumpled beneath it, and the shining belly met the
ground with a thud. Julian, with the full power of the at-
tached tentacle, began to draw it back towards them. From his
vantage-point, Roy sliced with a pencil-thick ray at the roots
of the feelers which bound Jessica. The whole affair had taken
place so quickly that they had been unmolested; but as the last
strand parted, there came an ominous stirring in the ranks of
the surrounding machines.
Ril's voice rose insistently. 'Quick! Get that central globe I'
Roy perceived that the many feelers around it had sprung
into furiously writhing signals. With sweeps of his ray at full
power, he carved it into sections. As the parts fell, he saw the
outflow of myriads of ants, running in glistening streams
across the floor.
'Too late!' cried Ril. 'It's given the order.'
Roy swung his beam around the closing circle of machines,
while the tentacles under Julian's control sought and grasped
the prostrate form of Jessica. They snatched her from the
ground a split second before the insect hordes swept the spot.
'We've got to run for it,' Ril called up, as he manoeuvred
their craft to the right-about. 'Clear a way to the passage.'
The few machines in their path were swiftly dealt with, but
while Roy's attention was taken aside, the rest of the circle was
closing in.
'Full speed!' he roared down to the dwarf.
They tore forward with a jerk, the light and Roy's heat-ray
blazing ahead of them. Once in the comparative safety of the
corridor, he turned around and devoted his attention to
hindering the pursuit. Dozens fell to his ray, but he saw that,

54
in spite of his destruction, the mass was gaining. At a sudden
idea, he thrust the power of his tube down a couple of notches,
and gave an exclamation of satisfaction at the result. The
machines, instead of being blotted out, were now being fused
into immobility and thus presenting considerable difficulties
to the advance of those in the rear. A second inspiration
struck him, and he called to Ril to slow down.
He swung his ray across the passage and rendered useless the
first rank of the pursuers. As those behind came climbing over
them, he swung the ray back along the line so that they were
fused above their fellows. Still more came scrambling over,
and again the ray swept across. A grim smile of success
twitched his mouth as he steadily continued his tactics. At
great speed, he was building a solid wall of fused metal be-
tween himself and the pursuers. It was but a short time before
it blocked the passage from the floor to the curved roof.
The moment it was complete, he jumped to the ground and
ran forward to where Jessica's inert form rested in the grip of
the feelers. He was thankful that she had been unconscious
throughout the rescue. It was the work of a few seconds to strip
off the clinging remnants of her captor's tentacles and lift her
up to Julian, who had taken his place at the panel opening.
Swinging himself hurriedly aboard, he called to Ril for full
speed. There was no telling how long the fused wall would
hold.
The remaining length of passage was covered without inci-
dent, or even sight of other machines, but they emerged into
the main traffic artery to find a different state of affairs. They
had last seen it almost empty; now, it was crowded. A number
of mechanisms rushed at them with antagonistic intent, and
were promptly rayed before they reached a dangerous dis-
tance. Following them were others; but by no means all the
machines in sight were concerned in the attack. The majority
continued peacefully to go about their appointed tasks. Either
the alarm had not been intended for all. or else it had been cut
short before it became general. Whatever the cause, the result
was a great jostling and tangling of machines at cross-pur-
poses. The attackers were obstructed and hindered at every
turn by the instinctive way in which the others pursued their
routine work.
Ril, quick to perceive their advantage in the turmoil of the
two inflexible orders, steered to one side and jostled into the
stream of outgoing vehicles. The whole procession moved at a
steady, uniform speed, and they were swept along with it. The
attackers, unable to alter the instinctive march, were left with

WANDERERS OF TIME
55
no course but to follow in their wake at such points as they
could contrive to wedge themselves into the moving queue.
Roy looked round over the moving ranks and realised that
they were safe, barring accidents, until the open should be
reached.
Within the metal shell, Julian was doing his best to restore
Jessica to consciousness, and looking with anger at the great
weals imprinted on her arms and legs. When her abductor was
caught, it had evidently closed its grip the more firmly in a
determination not to lose its prey, and she had fainted from
the constriction. At last her eyes opened, and she looked up at
him.
'What's happened?' she asked, attempting to move her stiff-
ened limbs. He explained.
'And Roy?'
At the sound of her voice, Roy withdrew from his observa-
tion post and walked forward, in the crouched attitude that
the cramped quarters demanded. He took one of her hands in
both of his, and gazed down into her smiling face.
'Thank God you're safe, Jessica. Until that thing snatched
you away, I didn't realise	'
Jessica's eyes were starry. 'You didn't realise what, Roy?'
'I didn't realise how much I	'
'Heat-rays ready!' interrupted Ril. 'We're nearly out.'
'Oh, damn!' muttered Roy. as he sprang back to his station.
chapter nine
THE ESCAPE TO THE PAST
In the open, Ril gave the machine full power and sent it tear-
ing away from the main body. Presently, the pursuers also
drew clear and came scudding in swift chase. Roy picked off
the leaders with sharp blasts of heat, but every second more
and more of the machines pouring out of the mountain en-
trance were joining die hunting pack. It became no longer a
straggling pursuit, but a solid block of shining mechanisms
bearing down. Had the way ahead been clear, possibly they
could have held their own in the matter of speed, but once in
the forest, the superior control and familiarity of the insects
with their own machines began to tell. Roy, with a ray tube in
each hand, thanked Providence that no ballistic weapons were
known to the ants; he had his work cut out to pick off the

56
advancing units.
'Ahead!' cried Ril, and Roy whipped round, to see a line of
machines drawn across their path. A quick switch of the ray
served to clear the way, but it also sent a patch of trees burst-
ing into flame. Ril held on, and plunged them through the
gauntlet of fire.
Something fell across Roy's shoulders and half wrenched
him from his perch. He turned to find an insect-machine
racing alongside; it had pursued a parallel course behind
masking trees, and seized his momentary diversion of attention
to cut in on him. He crooked one arm beneath the metal
casing-edge, in an effort to resist the pull, but slowly he felt his
muscles giving in beneath the relentless tugging. Desperately
he wriggled the other arm, in an attempt to bring the ray to
bear. He was thankful that it had not occurred to the insects to
snatch at the fast-moving legs of the stolen machine. . ..
The pull of the tentacle grew stronger, and he called loudly
to the others. He felt a pair of arms clutch his legs. He ached
painfully, as the machine tightened its grip. Fingers grasped
the ray tube from the arm he had crooked below, and Jessica
thrust herself up beside him with the tube in her hand. Quick
as thought, the whole bunch of tentacles were shorn from their
roots. Then, turning it downward, she fused the front legs.
The fore end dropped suddenly, and the attacker pitched back
over front in a final, shattering somersault.
Roy disentangled himself from the wrapping feeler and, side
by side with Jessica, went to work at clearing away the nearest
of the pursuers. The rays flashed in a furious semi-circle, but
the encroaching machines were constantly supplemented; it
seemed that they must shortly be overcome by sheer, clogging
weight of numbers.
'Hold tight, there! We've got to risk this,' called Ril from
below. Roy glanced ahead, and saw that they had again
reached the river—unfortunately, not at the same shallow spot
as they had crossed before. This time, a steep bank must be
descended and deeper water negotiated. It would be chancing
too much to turn along the bank, for they had no means of
telling how far their pursuers were spread out to either side.
The machine slithered down the bank and waded out. The
water rose above the leg-sockets, but it did not flow through
the universal joints. It rose further—to within inches of the
observation holes; then, thankfully, they felt the floor lift up as
the stream-bed rose. On the farther bank, Roy called Ril to
halt. The machines had not followed them. They had collected
in a line, hesitant and unwilling to risk a wetting. It seemed

WANDERERS OF TIME
57
that the fugitives were safe. Then, just as Roy drew a breath of
relief, one machine, more intrepid than the rest, came sliding
down. Instantly he rayed it; and a burst of steam arose from
the water around.
But the necessary lead had been given. A second later, half a
dozen or more were slithering into the water. With no com-
punction, he played his ray upon them. He hoped by example
to stop them from making a mass attack, for it would be im-
possible to check all the hundreds which now lined the bank.
But as he vaporised the last of the waders, an interruption
occurred. Something came swinging above their heads and
landed with a crash on the opposite bank.
'The red stalkers!' cried Jessica. 'They're attacking them.
Quickly, Ril, get into the trees! They haven't seen us yet.'
They scuttered from the danger zone. Under cover of the
branches, they stopped and looked back. Indescribable con-
fusion was raging among the machines, and at first it was diffi-
cult to see the reason. But as they watched, a net of glittering
red metal came sailing through the air and fell upon the white
machines. Evidently the red stalkers used rocks only against
isolated enemies; when they really went into action, they had
other weapons. One net followed another, and with every
move they made, the white machines became more hopelessly
entangled. From being a collection of perfectly controlled
units, they soon changed into no more than a writhing mass of
a myriad glittering parts, surging frantically this way and that,
enmeshing themselves the more as they struggled to escape.
Roy caught a glimpse of the first red biped striding forward,
metal nets swinging from its jointed arms.
'Time for us to go,' he said.
Ril threw in the switch, and they scurried away into the
green obscurity of the forest.
An unexpected sight greeted them at the cliffs. Del's time-
traveller, constructed for safety within the cave, had been
brought out and lowered to the ground. The other five mem-
bers of the party were clustered round it, apparently in con-
ference over some knotty point. One of the Numen let out a
cry, as they broke from the trees. Jim Hollis swung round with
ready weapon. Roy hailed him loudly, and the other's face
broke into a grin. A moment later, the machine came to a halt
in the middle of a congratulatory group. The greetings over,
Roy asked:
'Why have you brought the traveller down here? Either an
ant-machine or a red stalker may come along any minute. One

58
stone landing on that would ruin all your work.'
Del explained. It was necessary that the traveller be some-
how conveyed to the cliff-top. A break, less than a mile away,
offered ample possibility for men to climb, but the problem of
raising the machine appeared hard to solve.
'But why lift it at all? Why not work it here?'
'Look at the cliffs,' said Del.
'Well, what about them?'
'They've been caused by some earth-fault, and are very
recent. If we were to work the machine here, we would prob-
ably finish in the part of the cliff now fallen away—the result
of that, I leave to your imagination.'
Roy looked thoughtful. 'I hadn't thought of that danger,'
he admitted.
'Nor did many others—or else they risked it, as we did.
Many travellers must have been built in the past. I w7onder
how many of their unfortunate occupants reached this year at
the bottom of new seas, entombed in mountains or even high
above ground-level. It is nothing less than miraculous that we
few survived.'
Roy gazed dubiously at the cage-work in which all their
hopes were centred. His expression cleared; turning to Ril, he
asked:
'Couldn't the machine carry it?'
Ril was doubtful. Since the traveller had to contain the
whole party, it was far heavier and larger than its forerunners.
'We can try,' he said, with little conviction. Edging their
captured ant-machine close, he wound the four tentacles
firmly around the traveller, and carefully drew back the lifting
lever. The burden lurched slightly, but it did not rise; instead,
the white machine tilted forward, its back legs in the air.
'Too heavy in the bows,' Jim Hollis remarked. 'Let's see if
we can bring her stern down.'
The combined weights of himself, Roy and the two Numen,
perched at the extreme rear, served effectively to change the
balance. The traveller was lifted clear of the ground. Very
cautiously and slowly, Ril set the legs in motion, and the
machine, with its load, moved unsteadily forward.
Progress to the break in the line of cliffs was slow, but slower
still was the tedious climb to the top. Again and again it was
necessary to assist the slipping legs of the machine, and to give
purchase to scrambling metal claws. Nevertheless, their ad-
miration for the adaptability of the machine rose as it over-
came successive obstacles, forging patiently and relentlessly up
the rough way. All nine of the castaways became increasingly

WANDERERS OF TIME
59
jubilant as the top was neared, even the two Numen being
caught up in the prevailing high spirits, and wearing grins of
pleasure.
As they scrambled at last over the skyline, Roy looked back
in triumph at the way they had come. But the sight which met
him sent the joy from his face. He called out, and pointed
below. Ant-machines were scuttling from the trees in a silver
stream, racing for the gap.
A few yards more, and they were upon level ground where
the traveller could be set down. Assured of its safety, Roy and
Jim leaped down and ran back to the brink to meet the attack.
Already the leaders were half-way up the rough scramble, be-
fore a fanning of rays sent them tumbling back on their fel-
lows. Unencumbered as they were, they could climb with
astonishing agility; and. as ever, they seemed careless of their
casualties. Once the first rush was checked, it became an easy
matter for the two men to hold them back. Jim Hollis made a
grimace of distaste.
'How long do we keep this up?' he asked. 'It's nothing but a
slaughter, even if they are only insects.'
Roy glanced back over his shoulder. He could see that Del
was already in the traveller, intently setting his controls.
'Not long, now. Just until Del gets it all fixed,' he returned.
An alarmed cry broke from Jessica. She was pointing along
the cliff-edge, where five red stalkers were advancing with de-
liberate strides. Roy gasped, for he could see that their jointed
arms held nets, ready for use. He heard Ril call to him, and
saw that the dwarf was manoeuvring the captured ant-craft to
face the new danger.
'Your ray tube!' Ril cried, as Roy joined him. 'Hold it up in
front!'
Wonderingly. he obeyed. Ril wrapped a tentacle about the
tube and set the appendage swaying slowly from left to right.
A red metal net came flying towards them. It fell only a few
yards short. Ril flicked over the lever which would set the
machine marching towards the red stalkers. Then he jumped
clear. Roy caught him as he fell, and together they ran for the
time traveller.
The entrance snapped to, and through the trellised sides of
the cage, Roy took his last sight of the fantastic world. In
front, a swarm of silver machines had reached the cliff-top and
was pouring over the edge. Away to the right marched their
capture, mechanically raying at the red giants. One had al-
ready fallen, to go hurtling below, but even as the leg was
shorn from another, a metal net settled about the lone attacker.

6o
A glimpse he had of another red net, sailing through the air
towards themselves. Then Del pushed over the switch	
Roy and Jessica stood in the darkness. Beside them was the
traveller. Of the original nine, it now contained only two. Ril
and Kal had been returned to the year 10,424, and with them
had stayed the two Numen. Julian had regained his world of
3920, and now they rested at 2200.
'You're determined not to stay?' Roy asked Jim Hollis.
'I am. Twentieth century is where I belong, even if it is a bit
over-civilised for me. Say,' he added, 'I wonder what they're
goin' to say back there, when I spin 'em this yarn?'
'They won't believe you.'
'Maybe not, but I'll try it.'
The final farewells were exchanged. The entrance closed,
and Del set off to deliver his last passenger before he returned
to his own future age. Before the eyes of the two, the cage
blurred and then, suddenly, was not. A green streak cut the
sky.
'That means we're home,' said Jessica. 'It was the Asia-
bound rocket.'
'Home,' Roy echoed.
'And we'll never leave it again?'
'Never again!' Roy meant the words as he said them. But
somewhere at the back of his mind was a hankering, and that
hankering would grow.... What civilisation, for instance, had
preceded the ants? What manner of creatures drove the red
stalkers? And, above all, what had happened to mankind?

DERE1JCT OF SPACE
INI RODUCTION
Even those too young to remember the Belford affair can
scarcely fail to have heard of it, if only through the legend of
Captain Belford's treasure hidden somewhere on the Moon.
There can be few boys who have not read how Belford and a
companion overpowered their police guard in the car that was
taking them to prison nearly 60 years ago. And how, dressed in
the uniforms of their captors, they bluffed the authorities at an
airport and stole a racing rocket-ship from under the official
noses.
Everyone who has heard the tale must have wondered what
happened to the two who vanished from human knowledge in
that ship, as well as about the treasure said to be on the Moon.
Now comes Captain Fearon's explanation. It was he who
was the other man in that exploit. For reasons which will be
obvious, he withheld publication until after his death, though
the account which follows was dictated by him to our repre-
sentative some six years ago. We have checked much of the
story and are fully satisfied that Captain Fearon was actually
that same Fearon associated with Captain Belford.
The account which follows was signed and sworn by him,
and the original is still in our possession.
chapter one
ON PASSAGE TO JUPITER
It all happened a long time ago. I'm eighty-three now: I was
twenty-five then. But, although a lot of things get forgotten,
Belford and I seem to have been remembered—though the
funny thing is that we're remembered all wrong.
It's queer to live and hear yourself grow into a legend, get-
ting a bit different and a bit more untrue all the time. And
I've got a mind to clear things up a bit before I die. If only it

62
stops people going to the Moon and making fools of them-
selves over the 'Belford Treasure' it'll be something.
The world was different when I first went to space—mind
you, I'm not saying it was better or worse but, looking back on
it, it seems to have been a whole lot simpler.
I was twenty-four when I got a berth as Second Officer
under Captain Belford on the old Dido. And right now I'll tell
you there wasn't a better man sailing the system; whatever
they said about him afterwards. They didn't know him, most
of 'em; I did. And when you've been a year in a space-ship
with a man there's not much you don't know about him. What
happened to him was just a bit of bad luck, such as might have
happened to any man on the same job.
He was a big man, such as you don't often find in space-
ships; well over six foot, big shouldered, strong as a couple of
the rest of us; but he was worth his extra weight, every ounce
of it, and in spite of it he could move as fast and sure as a cat.
He'd a record as clean as a baby's. If he hadn't he'd not have
been there because it cost the Company a pretty penny getting
space-suits and suchlike specially made for him.
The Company was the R.R.R.; gone long ago now but in
those days it meant something—Red Ribbon Rocketlines—
and the Dido was a queer old tub that wouldn't even get a
spaceworthiness certificate nowadays. She wasn't on the regu-
lar lines, never had been. She was built as a salvage ship, and
handy for the job she was. In those days nearly all the regular
rocket lines ran salvage ships. It was a profitable sideline, not
only for getting your own ships out of trouble, but because
there were plenty of wrecks drifting about. Ships weren't safe
the way they are now. All manner of things could happen to
them and, apart from the danger to liners, it wasn't sense to
leave valuable ships and cargoes hanging around out there if
there was any way of getting them back.
Of course, there wasn't the organisation about it that there
is today. That didn't happen till the Dutch got their salvage
and towing service fixed—funny, isn't it, how they developed
the best space tugs, just as they did the best sea-going tugs?—
but there was a lot of work done, a Central Salvage Register
Office and all that. Trouble was rivalry between the lines. If
we'd only co-operated then, maybe the Dutchmen would never
have got a look in.
Well. I was telling you about the old Dido. I don't know
why she was called Dido 'cept that the line named all its ships
after women and would have them end in 'o,' which made the
choice pretty narrow when you come to think of it—perhaps

DERELICT OF SPACE
63
that's why they went out of business a few years later; couldn't
find any more women ending in 'o,' so couldn't have any more
ships. Anyway, she was a forty-eight tube ship, less than half
the size of a modern Dutch tug, carrying eleven of us all told,
well found and, for those days, not too tricky to handle. At
least Captain Belford could handle her as well as they manage
nowadays with all their modern improvements.
The First Officer was a man called Sinderton. He was a silent
sort of chap but good at his job. The crew of eight were all
experienced men—there was no room for greenhorns on a sal-
vage ship.
The trip when the trouble occurred started as usual. We took
off from the Caledonian Rocket Yard and called in at the
Moon to refuel, the same way the tugs do nowadays—a tug,
you know, still can't carry enough fuel to get her away from
Earth and do her job in space without replenishing some-
where.
When that was done we set out on a course which paralleled
but lay to one side of the traffic lane to Jupiter—or rather to
the moons of Jupiter, for no one had at that time made a
successful landing on the giant himself.
Life on a salvage ship consisted, and probably still does, of
spells of complete inaction and rushes of exacting work with
no telling how long each is likely to last. It was one of the
harder things to get used to and one of the main reasons why a
seasoned crew was necessary.
This time we began placidly enough. For over two weeks
(Earth-time) we coasted along with the rocket tubes shut off;
just being on hand if anyone should need us. But it seemed
that nobody did. At regular intervals we would call up all our
ships on the Company's lightband wave and ask how things
were, and all of them would give us an okay. We began to wish
something would happen—and when it did we should wish we
had been left in peace. That's the way of it. But just at present
nobody was burning out tubes, developing air leaks, getting
holed by meteorites or doing any of the hundred and one
inconvenient things they so often did do.
It was not until the sixteenth reckoned day that we got a
message which started our tubes roaring again and sent us
scurrying across space. The liner Sappho, homeward bound
from Ganymede with a cargo of high-yield pitchblende had
sighted a presumed derelict. It was a good, clear direction,
giving the positioning of the derelict at the time and her speed
and direction, with confidence. We acknowledged, altered

64
course and started up in a few minutes.
Time meant a lot on such jobs. We had got to reach the
derelict before anyone else spotted her. The ruling was that
salvage rights could be claimed by the first ship to establish
contact with the wreck. Immediately that was done, the office
back on Earth was informed, the claim was then checked and
registered, and an announcement of its validity broadcast. The
principle seemed fair enough, though more than once two or
even three salvage ships informed of the chance at more or less
the same time had pelted across space, half-killing their crews
with acceleration in their efforts to make the claim. On this
occasion there was no one else in on it so far as we knew, but it
was always risky to waste time.
Two days later, close on the position we had calculated the
wreck to have reached, we were decelerating as violently as we
had speeded up. Captain Belford was at the controls while the
First Officer and I were swivelling telescopes from one point of
light to another, desperately searching the star-pricked black-
ness for the one little gleam which was a rocket-ship. Of
course, that was no way to find her, but there was just the
several-millions-to-one chance that we might catch a glimpse
of her: it is said to have been done once or twice.
Belford called Sinderton away from his telescope and
handed over the controls to him. While we were still decelerat-
ing he set up the sensitive screens ready for use when we
should come to a stop. On the screens, as you probably know,
moving bodies trace lines of light and though all the bodies in
the heavens are moving, those which are closest appear to
travel fastest. In our position there could be nothing nearer
than the derelict—except the unlikely presence of a second
derelict—so that it was necessary for us to scan each section of
space for the fastest moving line of light. If we could find it
among the rest—no easy task in itself—we should have found
the ship. Well, we did: it took us a good twelve hours of
screen studying before we located her, but that wasn't bad. It
might easily have taken three days or more. I've known it do
that.

chapter two
WRECK OF A TREASURE SHIP
As soon as we'd made certain of the derelict we turned and
steadied the Dido on her side tubes, then one brief burst on
the main propeller tubes was enough to send us sliding in her
direction. As we closed, another short burst on the forward
rockets brought us to rest within a couple of hundred yards of
her. (When I say 'brought us to rest' I use the term figur-
atively, of course, to mean that we and she were travelling in
the same direction at the same speed.)
Captain Belford picked up his telephone and spoke to two
men already wearing space-suits and waiting in the air-lock.
'All right. Let 'em go,' he said.
We watched from the windows as the men heaved out an
electro-magnet. We couldn't see the men, of course, but we
saw the magnet float out slowly and deliberately with its leads
and cable looping behind it in slow-motion. A few seconds
later another followed it. The Captain waited, hands on two
rheostats, until they were over half-way to the wreck.
'Make connection and stand by,' he told the radio operator,
then he turned the knob.
It's a fascinating thing to watch coupling-magnets come to
life, so to speak. One moment they are drifting idly along, the
next they appear to awake and suddenly discover a purpose.
They veer a little and surge gently forward towards the
nearest mass of metal while the looping lines which hold them
gradually straighten out. The Captain gave them a minute's
power to pull them towards the derelict, and then shut off and
waited. As the first magnet made gentle contact with the hull
he switched on again and it glued itself to the metal side. A
moment later the second magnet gripped.
'Make the claim,' he. told the operator.
Two space-suited figures left our ship, pulling themselves
along the magnet cables to the other at great speed. The Cap-
tain took up a micro-wave headset and listened. One of the
men in space-suits reached the wreck and pushed himself off
the magnet so that he floated round to her bow.
'Excelsis,' said the Captain suddenly. 'Tell the Register
Office.'
'Aye, aye, sir,' acknowledged the operator.
'Haul in,' ordered the Captain, putting down the micro
wave set.

66
A small motor began to whirr and the cables between the
two ships started to tighten.
'Cut,' said Captain Belford as we started to drift together.
We waited while the two ships slowly approached one
another.
It began to be possible to get a better idea of the Excelsis's
size. The proportion of our space-suited men against her had
told us she was big, but we did not fully realise how big until
we came closer alongside. She'd have made ten of the old Dido.
'Excelsis, that'll be a Three Star ship,' murmured the Cap-
tain. 'I seem to remember something about her, but I can't
recall it at the moment.'
'Third of three sister ships on the Three Star service, sir,'
said the First Officer. 'Supposed to be the last word in safety in
their day. She and the Isis were both lost. The other, the
Artemis, was broken up several years ago. I'm afraid I can't
remember anything else offhand. It'll be in the book, sir.'
'Never mind, we'll know soon enough.'
A minute or two later the operator announced:
'Claim of Captain Belford of the Dido, to salvage of Excel-
sis, Captain Whitter, registered and approved subject to con-
firmation. Work may proceed. Excelsis, 250 tubes, lost in space
12 years ago, homeward bound from Ganymede. Reported
serious damage to propeller tubes. Unnavigable. Search ves-
sels unable to find her. 60 passengers. 20 officers and crew,
mixed cargo. Gold, patchatal oil, tillfer fibre, ganywood, 3 bags
of mail. Property of Plume Line, successors to Three Star
Line, yards at Lough Swilly, Ireland.'
The Captain looked half-elated, half-dubious as he listened to
the radio operator's message. If the cargo mentioned was in
any quantity it looked as if we should net something like a
record salvage payment—if we could get it home.
'Gold,' he muttered, 'and ganywood. The two heaviest
things they could find. There's some sense in ganywood, at
least it's useful. But gold, what's the good of that? You can't
use it for anything.'
'Except money.' I said.
He looked at me contemptuously.
'Nobody's used gold as money for God knows how long. You
never see it except in jewellery. It's pretty near useless, and yet
they're forever digging it out of mines all over the system. And
what for? Just to take it to Earth and bury it somewhere
where no one ever sees it. Then they all look bright and
pleased and say their credit's gone up. Damned nonsense, I

DERELICT OF SPACE
67
call it. Trying to get gold from one planet to another has cost
more lives and money than anything else in spacework.'
'And yet,' said I, 'if everybody wants it, that means it has a
value.'
'Fictitious value,' he snorted.
'Fictitious or not, it'll mean a lot to you and to us if we get it
back all right,' I said.
'Maybe, but I still say it's not worth the fuss they make
about it. It might as well be lying about out there,'—he
pointed to the starry blackness beyond the window—'just
floating around in space as locked up in a vault on Earth. If I
had my way that's where it would be. and a lot of good space
sailors who are going to lose their lives handling it would keep
them. There's some heavy stuff you've got to handle, but it's
not gold.'
All the time he was talking the two ships were slowly com-
ing together. I was paying more attention to them than I was
to the Captain. The 'gold menace' was one of his hobby-horses.
I'd heard it all before and a lot more. And however he felt
about it the fact remained that he'd do his damnedest to get it
safely to Eardi and we should all be rewarded for assisting
him.
As the two ships gently touched he resumed his official
manner.
'Mr. Fearon, you will attend to the grappling and conduct a
preliminary survey of the ship, please.'
'Aye, aye, sir,' I said.
I had put on my space-suit in readiness. It did not take long
to add the helmet and with two of the crew I passed out of the
air-lock.
We three, with the help of the two men already on the
Excelsis, manoeuvred with cables until we had brought the
two locks conveniently close, and then made fast. I reported
over the micro-wave, there came a gentle flare from the Dido's
stern tubes, and as the two ships started to move we turned our
attention to examining our capture.
I find that Worldsmen often find it difficult to grasp space
conditions, so it may help if I explain a little.
It must be understood that a derelict in space is never
stationary. Very often she is travelling at a considerable speed
and quite possibly in an altogether different direction from the
one the salvage ship intends her to take. The first thing to be
done after making fast is therefore to ease her gently on to the
right course, for it is easy to see that as long as she is allowed to

68
continue on her own, time which cannot be made up is being
wasted.
It is a ticklish bit of work this, for, however strong your steel
coupling hawsers, the strain must come on them gradually and
not too intensely at any time. Set on the right course the tug
begins to apply a cautious acceleration, perhaps of not more
than a few feet per second, if a big ship is in tow. This means
time is being saved, but causes no inconvenience to men work-
ing on the derelict. In space there is no subjective difference
between travelling at seven miles a second or at one mile an
hour; acceleration is what you feel and an increase of a few
feet per second is negligible in practice.
The only risk is of a man losing his hold and being left
behind, and that is slight; for one thing he should be using a
life-line, but even if he is not, the recoil from a shot or two
with a hand pistol should easily enable him to catch up.
When we saw the rockets start, all five of us clipped life-
lines to our belts and began our preliminary survey, reporting
back on the micro-wave as we went.
It was clear enough pretty quickly what had happened.
Something had struck the Excelsis's tail, carrying away three
quarters of her tubes and mangling the rest. The stern was just
a mess but the rest of her seemed intact. I heard the Captain
grunt as I reported, and though he made no comment I knew
what he was thinking.
It was going to be a nasty business. It is better, far, far better
to find a derelict which has been finished off quickly. When a
meteorite has knocked away part of the habitable quarters, or
when it has gone right through and the air has rushed out,
you know it was all over quickly. Death is never too good to
look at, though if it's sudden it's usually pretty clean. But
when the living quarters are undamaged and the people in
them have had to wait and see death come slowly, you'll find
that some pretty horrible things have happened before the
end. I could tell you some things—but I shan't: I don't care to
think of them even now.
'Have to cut into her?' the Captain asked.
'Yes, sir.'
'All right. I'll put the stuff out.'
Cutting into a ship is a tedious business. First you attach a
large metal cup to the side and weld it on all round the edges
and it looks as if the ship had developed a boil. Then a man
gets into the cup by a small door in the top of it.
A cutter is handed in after him. He shuts the door from his
side, for it's made to resist outward and not inward pressure,

DERELICT OF SPACE
69
and gets to work with the cutter. The object of the cup is, of
course, to prevent the escape of any air.
First, the man cuts away a circle of the outer hull, making a
hole large enough for him to crawl through. If he is satisfied
that the inner hull is intact, he re-opens the door of the cup
and gets rid of the circle he has cut by pushing it outside.
Then, after shutting the door again, he turns his attention to
the inner hull. He trains his cutter steadily on a single point
and watches carefully.
This is the part of the job which needs most judgment. The
moment the area under the flame of his cutter begins to bulge,
he switches off. His object is to let the air come as gently as
possible into the evacuated space between the inner and outer
hulls. If he lets it come with a rush he may have an extremely
unpleasant time of it. More than that, if it so happens that the
welding-on of the cup was imperfect, he and it may be shot off
into space and the air from the wreck irretrievably lost.
Therefore, he makes the smallest hole he can and keeps a
careful watch on his pressure gauge as the air comes through.
Not until the needle has ceased to move can he go any further.
When that has happened, however, and the pressure in his cup
ceases to rise, he cuts a circle through the inner hull as he did
through the outer, and at last he is able to get into the ship.
Straightaway he reports and makes his way to the air-lock.
There he gets ready to operate the lever which opens the outer
door.
It would, of course, be much simpler if someone could de-
vise a satisfactory method of opening the outer door from out-
side, but for several reasons—the main one being the super-
heating of outer shell in an atmosphere—no reliable mechan-
ism has yet been made.
chapter three
SALVAGE IN SPACE
With the Excelsis, it took several hours' work before the cutter-
in was able to report that we could come aboard.
'All right. Open up,' Captain Belford directed.
The rest of us who had retired on board the Dido to wait
looked at him expectantly. He chose the boarding party and
we hurried into our suits. While we dressed he talked to the
man on the other ship.

7°
'How is it?'
'Pretty grim, sir.'
We were all wearing micro-wave sets in preparation for the
job, and we could follow both sides of the conversation.
'Air pressure?' asked the Captain.
'Thirteen point seven pounds, sir. Seems to have held it
perfectly. Releasing it into the double hull seems just about to
account for the drop from normal.'
'Breathable?'
'Pretty bad, sir, by the look of things. I didn't risk trying.'
'Don't then. Got the lock open yet?'
'Yes, sir.'
'All right. We're coming now.'
From our own lock we pushed off and floated across to the
open door of the other. We took little with us but welding arcs
and some batteries to start up the air purifiers.
I'm not going to tell you what the Excelsis was like inside;
it's not decent to try. All I'll say is that some of the passengers
and crew had contrived to last a pretty long time. I felt pretty
green and wondered if I was going to be sick. I had to take a
hold on myself: being sick in a space-suit's a dangerous as well
as an unpleasant business.
I was detailed, with the help of one of the hands, to weld up
the recently made cut and to pump the air back from between
the hulls. I think both of us were pretty glad to leave the
clearing up operations to the rest.
Since space travel began it has been the practice to leave its
victims out in space. And in my opinion it is a good thing, too.
Certainly it could be no consolation to relatives to see the poor
things which have to be thrust out of a wreck's air-lock to drift
slowly astern. And that's another reason for keeping up some
acceleration while salvage work is going on. If you don't, you
can't lose those bodies. They just keep on drifting round,
gravitating gradually to the mass of the ship. It's bad for the
nerves to see dead men floating past the windows all the time.
When we'd finished our welding and pumping we found
that the rest were nearly through with the nastiest part of the
job.
The man in charge of the disposal squad was reporting
tonelessly to the Captain who had been conducting a detailed
examination of cargo and stores.
Thirty complete bodies, sir. Seventeen of those identified.
Here's the list of them, sir.'
Captain Belford held out his hand and took it slowly. No
one spoke for a minute or more. Only thirty complete bodies

DERELICT OF SPACE
71
—and there had been eighty passengers and crew....
The Captain carefully put the list away in a pocket. Then
he stepped over to a window and stood a moment looking at a
thousand suns flaring in their bed of black. I felt he was trying
to see them in all their pitilessness as the men on the Excelsis
had seen them. His space-suit made a grotesque giant of him.
Then with a scarcely audible sigh, he began to recite the
prayer for those who have died in space.
The clearing up of the Excelsis was regular routine work.
Only two of her fuel tanks had leaked, and the first thing we
did was to fill our own from those which hadn't leaked—it's
axiomatic to fill your tanks when you can in space. You never
know when you are going to need just that extra bit of power.
There was a little food, just a few unopened tins of biscuits.
The poor devils had made the food last longer than the water,
for those tanks were dry to the last drop. The gold was intact
in the strong room; we checked it over. The ganywood was
still safely clamped down in the hold. One of the drums of
patchatal oil had been broken open—we reckoned some poor
thirst-crazy chap had tried to drink it. The rest were intact,
and so were the bales of tillfer fibre.
The personal belongings we left in the cabins where we
found them, just fastening any loose things down for safety.
When we got the ship in, someone would go through them
with the passenger list and return them to the next of kin.
All that is the lighter part of salvage work. A bit depressing,
of course, but easy because once the air purifiers have got
going you can dispense with space-suits.
Next came the outside work, and the first thing was to get a
wide mesh net round the part of the ship we were going to
work on. You can't cling on to the polished hull and you must
have something to give you purchase when you're handling
tools, so the answer is the net. You can climb about on it and
hook yourself into it when necessary. When we'd got that fixed
we began fixing ringbolts in the side.
It's a tedious job, but it has to be done and it has to be done
well. There's only one way of easing the fall of a derelict or a
ship out of control—that is by use of parachutes. And the
attachment of parachutes is going to depend in the last stage
upon the firm fixing of those ring-bolts. The strength of the
parachutes' fabric, the braking effect of their area, the tensile
strength of their steel hawsers; all that can be worked out
mathematically on paper, but the fixing of the bolts is differ-
ent; it must be trusted to the skill, care and conscientious

72
workmanship of the men doing the job. There must be no
botching or covering up of bad work. Luckily, it's a job that
seldom has to be hurried.
The Excelsis was a big ship. To make as sure of her as
possible we were going to attach every parachute we carried
and that meant a lot of work. Nevertheless we had more than
three-quarters of the bolts in place before we began to de-
celerate. That meant we'd plenty of time, for our rate of de-
celeration was the same as our acceleration and would there-
fore take longer. We had to lose, you see, not only the speed
we had worked up, but also the speed the wreck was travelling
when we found her, in order to ease her close to Earth at as
slow a rate as possible. It meant several weeks of slowing up.
It's no good my being too technical, but I must give you
some idea of the ticklish job it is to land a wreck successfully.
There are a hundred things which can go wrong. Dozens of
calculations to make, and a slip in any of them is likely to
mean failure.
The first stage is to attain a state of equilibrium between the
Earth and the Moon where one is stationary—again I speak
relatively as one must do in space, actually one is moving
round the Earth, but at a constant distance from it. There the
final preparations for descent are made.
The salvage ship again refills her fuel tanks and any surplus
fuel from the derelict is jettisoned for safety. Much wreckage
has already been cut away in the first clearing up, now the
empty fuel tanks are cut out and set adrift with an impulse in
the direction of the Moon. The hulk is made as light as pos-
sible for it is intended to drop her in the sea and it is hoped
that she may float. We had little hope of the Excelsis floating,
seeing the weight of gold and ganywood she carried, but on
general principles we saw to it that she was as light as she
could be.
Then the ship is sealed up, the main coupling hawsers which
have bound the two together are cast off leaving only the mag-
nets and their hawsers as links, and the parachutes are made
fast to the ring-bolts. The practical work for the crew is fin-
ished; the rest depends upon the captain's calculations and his
consequent manoeuvres. He and the first officer get down to
figuring and checking one another's results.
This is no light work. The captain knows the approximate
spot where he intends to drop the derelict and he has got to
get her into such a position that she will fall there or there-
abouts. He knows the load his magnets will hold and that,
with his estimated weight of his salvage, tells him how much

DERELICT OF SPACE
73
pull and steerage effect he will be able to exert. He must work
out the balancing of forces—the pull of the Moon, of the Sun,
of the Earth, and the rotation of the spot he aims at, relatively
to the Moon. Everything which can be used to slow or shorten
the final descent must be employed. Finally, he must find out
by radio as much as he can about weather conditions on Earth
and make allowance for them at the last possible moment.
In general, we were feeling that we were near the end of a
profitable and not too onerous piece of work. From the
salvagers' point of view the Excelsis was as straightforward a
job as one could hope for, except for the heavy cargo. It sim-
plifies tasks a great deal when the air has been held; you don't
have to build new pieces of double wall or fit automatically-
closing valves to take in air as she drops.
Seeing that the Plume Line yards were in North Ireland,
Captain Belford aimed to drop her a bit out in the Atlantic
and make it a short tow by sea. He informed the Salvage
Register Office that he was aiming at the neighbourhood of
51° North by 12° West and received their approval. He and
the First Officer verified the chronometer's reading and went
ahead with the calculations. They checked and re-checked one
another's figures with care before they announced to us the
exact minute of action.
With some eight hours to go before that time came we all
turned in for a while.
chapter four
FALL OF THE EXCELSIS
Half an hour before we were due to start, Captain Belford
had already fastened himself into his chair and was firing short
bursts on the side tubes to obtain the right inclination. We all
strapped on our safety-belts and waited, watching the minute-
hand on the chronometer.
On the correct second the Dido began to throb gently as her
tubes fired. We felt a slight tug a moment later as the hawsers
on the magnets took up. We moved gradually Earthward. Be-
hind us came the Excelsis, started on her long last fall.
The First Officer and I were making continuous observa-
tions, reporting our angles and distances to the Captain. He
verified them on a table he had drawn up and pinned on a
board in front of him, correcting the slightest deviation from

74
his planned time-course by a short burst on one or another of
the bunches of rocket tubes.
This manoeuvre, known technically as a 'linked fall,' would
go on for a long time yet. It should last, in fact, until we were
within four or five thousand miles of the Earth's surface when
we would cast off and look to our landing while the Excelsis
fell free.
But all the first part was a time of constant watch and cor-
rection. We were falling together, but the Dido's was no dead
fall. All the time she was moving laterally, now this way and
now that, tugging and altering the course of the larger vessel,
trimming her to hit a calculated spot on the surface of Earth
which grew all the time larger and nearer. As delicate a job as
any there is. for the disabled ship must be urged to one side or
another with the utmost nicety and precision; there must be
no jerks or sudden bursts of power which might detach the
magnets from her hull. Their hold was the limiting factor of
our power over her, but used by an expert it was enough.
The radio operator looked up quickly and reported.
'North-westerly wind rising rapidly to gale force, west of
Ireland, sir,' he said.
Captain Belford, hunched in front of his chart, grunted.
'Tell them I'll try to compensate.' He altered the position of
some of his controls, muttering more to himself than us:
'Gale, and they gave it as twenty-four hours fair prospect. I
suppose they'll learn something about weather, one day.'
He steered the Dido round to the other side of the Excelsis
and in that moment the thing, which was to spoil the rest of
his life, happened.
He fired on his tail rockets and I say it now, again, as I said
it in evidence before, no man could have handled them with
better judgment. There was no jerk. I was looking out of the
window directly facing the Excelsis and I saw the magnet float
away from her side. To this day I cannot say why—it may be
that the cable kinked and broke, that there was a short some-
where; I can't tell, but I know that that magnet was loose
before our cable to the other magnet drew taut.
Instinctively and instantaneously I shouted a warning, but it
came too late. Captain Belford's judgment had been based on
the hold of two magnets. Before he had time to reach the
controls the second magnet had pulled off and came skimming
towards us as though the wire rope which held it had been
elastic.
I had never known the Captain to lose his head, and he kept

DERELICT OF SPACE
75
it now. A burst on the side tubes jumped us out of the way, so
that the heavy magnet just missed us and went past with its
goo yards of cable looping behind it.
'Cast off,' he ordered.
A man leaned over and pulled a switch. An automatic jaw
severed the cable and the magnet sped away into space with
the rope curling like a slowly moving snake behind it.
It was a nasty half-minute. That second magnet had sprung
back at us with a force which might have holed us if it had
hit: at best, we should have got some nasty dents. With that
danger past we looked again at the Excelsis.
The distance between us had widened and she was falling
free. I saw Captain Belford frown, but there was only one
possible decision. Even had it been possible to close with her
we should not have time to manoeuvre her after the delay of
recoupling. The course he took, and to my mind the only
useful course, was to check our own fall and to hope for the
best as far as she was concerned. There was nothing to be
gained by running the risk of losing both ships.
He made up his mind in a few seconds. First, he cut free the
other magnet, then a touch of the side tubes turned our stern
to Earth, and the main rockets began to fire. It felt as if strong
brakes had suddenly been applied. The Excelsis with her un-
opened parachutes tied about her in bundles, seemed to shoot
down from our level towards the growing Earth beneath. She
dwindled to a silver shell, a shining bullet, a point of light and
then suddenly was gone.
The Captain spoke to the radio operator.
'Inform the Salvage Register Office that the Excelsis has
been lost and is now in free fall. Confirm that her intended
descent was to be at 51° North, 12° West and that it is not
possible at this distance to predict her degree of deviation.
'Get the weather report from the Caledonian Yard and tell
them that we are coming in.'
And that's the plain truth about the Excelsis. That and
nothing more. A simple accident and not a Machiavellian
scheme. Things like that are bound to happen from time to
time, and they may happen to anyone. Sometimes no harm is
done, at others the wreck may be lost altogether, and then the
captain of the salvage ship will have to account for all his
actions before the regular official board of inquiry. There is no
doubt that had such a routine investigation taken place Cap-
tain Belford would have been exonerated from all blame by a
body of men as conversant with the hazards of space as he
himself. Instead, he was called upon to face fantastic accusa-

76
tions thrown at him by men who were grossly ignorant of the
possibilities and impossibilities of spacemanship.
The first hint of the trouble occurred about an hour after we
had landed.
We were in the Yard clubroom drinking a welcome whisky
while officials went over the Dido. It was always a tedious wait.
Before we could get the all-clear and be allowed to go our
ways, the Excise men had to search the ship for dutiable goods,
the police for prohibited articles, and the Company's officers
had to check up on equipment, stores, fuel and so on.
We were glad enough to be back, but we didn't talk a lot.
The main question for all of us was whether we should see any
return for our work on the Excelsis, or whether she was utterly
lost and our salvage money with her. The Captain, with the
weight of responsibility upon him, stared gloomily into his
glass most of the time, and, except when it needed refilling,
seldom opened his mouth to speak.
We had been there close on a couple of hours and were
beginning to feel that our clearance papers were about due
when the door opened and the head of the Caledonian Rocket
Yard Police came in. We all looked at him hopefully. Inspec-
tor Macraig was as popular with spacemen as any policeman
was likely to be. He was a man of integrity, a stickler for the
spirit of the law, but no fusser about its letter. He'd done
spacework himself and he knew how it felt. This time, how-
ever, he did not give us his usual cheery greeting. He was
frowning slightly and there was a troubled look in his eyes. He
nodded abstractedly to the rest of us and made his way straight
to Captain Belford. At his expression, the Captain checked his
natural invitation to a drink and waited.
'William Belford, Wilfred Sinderton, James Fearon,' he
said, 'it is my duty to place you under arrest.'
No one spoke for a moment. My own first reaction, and the
First Officer's too, he told me afterwards, was to wonder which
of us on the Dido had been smuggling or running dope—and
how it had been done, for on that trip we had called nowhere
but at the Moon, and there's precious little chance of getting
hold of prohibited drugs or anything else there.
The Captain looked stunned for a moment, then he rose to
his feet, overtopping the inspector by a good nine inches.
'And the charge?' he asked.
'Criminal negligence,' said the Inspector quietly.
His expression changed as he looked into the Captain's in-
credulous face.

DERELICT OF SPACE
77
'I'm sorry, Belford. Direct 'phone orders from London.'
'Negligence of what?' the Captain demanded.
'They didn't say. No details were given officially.'
'But unofficially?'
'Well, information has just been received here that the
Excelsis came down somewhere in Germany and blew half a
town to hell.'
We all stared at him.
'But that's impossible,' I broke in.
'Absurd,' said Sinderton. 'Why I supervised the cutting away
of her tanks myself. There wasn't an ounce of explosive on
her.'
We both looked at the Captain.
'There's a mistake somewhere,' he said. 'I made an inspec-
tion of the ship with Mr. Sinderton and Mr. Fearon. All fuel
that had not been taken on to the Dido was jettisoned.'
The Inspector looked unhappy.
'I know you, and I know that there must be a mistake. But
my orders were clear. I am to send you to London under arrest
as soon as possible. I'm sorry.'
'It's not your fault. Macraig, of course. There's some official
muddle somewhere. The sooner we can get to London and
clear it up, the better for everyone. When can we start?'
'At once, I imagine. I told them to get a rocket-'plane ready.
It ought to be waiting by now.'
'All right.' The Captain tipped down the last of his whisky.
'Let's go,' he added, and led the way purposefully to the door.
chapter five
DISASTER EXTRAORDINARY
We could not tell what had happened to cause the misunder-
standing, but all of us suspected mere exaggeration. It was
possible that the ship had disintegrated as it hit: in that case
hurried reports might easily have represented a severe impact
as an explosion. There would be no difficulty, we thought, in
clearing ourselves of an explosion charge; every man of the
Dido's company would testify that the wreck had been cleared
out of fuel to the last ounce. There might be a charge of
inefficiency in fixing the cables, but we all had good records
for workmanship and every incentive to bring the Excelsis

78
down safely if we could.
We made the trip to London less in a state of worry than of
irritation at misrepresentation.
An official police-car was waiting for us on King's Cross
landing-roof and in it we were carried swiftly to Scotland
Yard. Inside the building we were conducted without delay to
the office of the Deputy Assitant Commissioner of the Special
Branch. We did not know which he was at first, for three men
apparently of equal rank awaited us. The manner in which
they received us was curious, it seemed an odd blend of
formality and sympathy. Certainly, it did not suggest that they
considered us to be criminally negligent.
First, we received the customary warning. They wished to
question us, but we were legally within our rights in refusing
to answer.
Captain Belford waved that aside. He had a clear conscience
and was willing to give all the help he could. He was sure he
could say the same for his two officers. We agreed and settled
down to answer a series of questions.
Were we sure all the explosive had been jettisoned? Might
there not have been some other kind of explosive concealed
among the tillfer fibre or in the stacked ganywood? How many
ringbolts and parachutes had we attached? Just how had we
come to lose the Excelsis? How much gold was there on board
of her?
The men knew their job. Their questions were apposite and
exhaustive. It went on for quite a time. We answered all we
could and they seemed satisfied with our replies.
The Captain told them all they asked and kept to the point.
Not until they appeared to have finished did he put a question
of his own.
'Can't you tell us something about it?' he said. 'We've only
heard that the Excelsis fell and did damage somewhere in Ger-
many.'
For answer one of the interrogators picked up a newspaper
which had recently been brought in and handed it to him. The
First Officer and I got up and read it over his shoulder. The
headline was right across the page:
'ROCKET SHIP WRECKS TOWN'
There followed a short but lurid account. It needed only
half an eye to see that it had been hurriedly written up from
very scanty information.
We learned that the disaster had occurred in Pfaffheim,

DERELICT OF SPACE
79
Wiirtemburg, shortly before 12.30 p.m. (11.30 a.m. G.M.T.). A
series of colossal explosions had occurred, rocking the whole
town, shattering a number of buildings and causing the col-
lapse of many more. So great had been the detonation that it
had startled citizens in Stuttgart, 40 miles away. No figures of
the dead and injured were yet available, but it was feared that
they would run into thousands. The loss of life might have
been greater but for the fact that most workers had left the
factories for their mid-day meal.
Numerous witnesses had testified to seeing a rocket ship un-
braked by any parachutes falling rapidly into the town im-
mediately before the explosions occurred. Inquiries at the Sal-
vage Register Office revealed that only one ship was known to
be approaching Earth in a free fall, the Excelsis. It was un-
likely. in the extreme, that there could be another.
We read the sketchy and unsatisfactory account rapidly. I
don't think any of us doubted for a moment that it was the
Excelsis. The Central Office would have been sure to know of
another ship in a similar condition, for it is in every salvage
ship's interest to register her claim to a wreck as soon as pos-
sible. But, for all that, we did not clearly understand the
account.
'A series of explosions?' asked the Captain, looking up at the
three officials. 'What do they mean by that? If there had been
explosives on her she'd have gone up in one mighty bang.'
'Where is Pfaffheim?' asked Sinderton, before the others
could answer. 'I thought I knew Wiirtemburg fairly well, but
I've never heard of the place.'
'Our own official notification from Germany speaks of one
explosion not a series,' said the man who had given us the
newspaper. 'As for Pfaffheim	•' He reached for a gazetteer,
found the right page and pushed it across the desk.
He watched us with raised eyebrows as we read:
Pfaffheim: Village, Wiirtemburg, river Jagar, 30 miles S.E,
Stuttgart, pop. 2,100. Agricultural.
'There seem,' I said, 'to be some differences of opinion here.
One explosion, not a series, 30 miles from Stuttgart, not 40,
thousands of casualties in a population of 2,100, among factory
workers in an agricultural district.'
I looked at the date on the gazetteer. It was current all
right.
'Well?' I asked.

8o
Our leading questioner shrugged his shoulders.
'It appears certain enough that the Excelsis fell there and
that one or more explosions followed. Further than that, well,
I frankly don't understand at present. There is more than the
usual first report inaccuracy, but we ought to be able to clear
it up before long.
'You gentlemen will have to appear before a magistrate, of
course, but I think you may safely assume that there will be no
difficulty about bail.'
He was quite right about that. There was a special and
expeditious handling of our charge, and we were able to re-
turn to our families that evening. Sinderton went home, I
know, with the same feeling as I did: that a day or two would
see the whole mistaken business satisfactorily explained. But
Captain Belford—well, perhaps he had a naturally more sus-
picious mind than we had, or it may have been some kind of
premonition.
So far, the public had no interest in the affair. The reports
were, of course, in all the evening papers, but even in those
days nobody paid serious attention to an evening paper's head-
lines. So it can be said that the Belford affair, as it came to be
known, really started the next day, with such introductions
as:
'TREASURE SHIP WIPES OUT TOWN'
'GOLD ROCKET DESTROYS THOUSANDS'
'DEATH SHIP DROPS IN CITY'
The last was particularly effective on the contents bills; it
left it to the readers to find out that the city referred to was not
the City of London.
I bought several papers and read them carefully without
learning much. They were all on much the same lines as
yesterday's report. Pfaffheim was still taken to be a town of
several thousands of working-class inhabitants, though a single
explosion, not a series, was now reported. All reports still bore
an appearance of being written up from meagre information.
Nevertheless, in spite of its slender knowledge, The Radio-
gram seized the opportunity for improving the occasion with a
leader in which it demanded a public inquiry and more than
hinted at inefficiency and carelessness in the handling of sal-
vage.
I read it through. It was in its usual vituperative style. I

DERELICT OF SPACE
82
could not take it very seriously, and I did not suppose anyone
else would. Who was going to believe that rather than open a
:ew fuel-cocks we were going to run the risk of almost cer-
tainly losing our salvage money? Fuel is valuable, of course,
but apart from anything else it must be obvious to everyone
that the extra weight of full tanks would inevitably have torn
the Excelsis free from her cables and crashed her.
I was still skimming the various accounts when the tele-
phone rang and a voice told me that the D.A.C. of the Special
Branch would be pleased to see me if I would step along about
12 o'clock. There are several ways of being invited to Scotland
Yard. This one was perfectly amiable.
Captain Belford and Sinderton were already there when I was
shown in. The D.A.C. and his secretary were the only others
this time. The three were bending over a photograph on the
desk. The D.A.C. pointed to it, and I looked more closely.
It showed a rocket-ship lying on her side. In the foreground
and far into the background was a scene of desolation and
utter destruction. Here and there were deep craters; the only
vestiges of buildings were piles of bricks and rubble. The vista
suggested a vast, dreary rubbish dump.
The angle at which the picture was taken showed that one
side at least of the ship had been badly gashed and battered.
Nevertheless, to those as well acquainted with her as we were,
it was not difficult to recognise the old Excelsis.
While I was still looking at it, the Captain straightened up.
'What does this mean?' he asked the D.A.C.
The policeman took a cigarette and pushed across the box.
'As far as we can see it means quite a lot. I'm not sure how
much yet, but I shall be surprised if it doesn't spell trouble of
some kind.'
He offered us chairs.
'Perhaps the best aspect of it,' he went on, 'is that it will
clear you gentlemen of the charge of negligence. It's perfectly
obvious that if the Excelsis had been in fuel when she hit there
wouldn't be a plate or a rivet of her to be found—-but here she
is, only a bit battered. No, it may be more serious than that.'
'Well, what did happen? Let's have it,' said the Captain.
The D.A.C. was not to be hurried.
'Since you were here we've been in touch with the Secret
Service and learned quite a few interesting things. The chief
one is that Pfaffheim ceased to be an agricultural village about
two years ago. What you've done is to drop your Excelsis right
into the centre of a new thriving and extremely hush-hush

82
centre of explosives manufacture. As a result, you've achieved
the destruction of five or six factories, wiped out an unknown
number of storage depots, and utterly wrecked innumerable
buildings. Furthermore, you have caused the sudden departure
to Valhalla of several high officials, dozens of skilled chemists,
to say nothing of between three and four thousand employees.
That is what happened. And I may add that the authorities
over there are very annoyed about it.'
He paused. 'They're even more annoyed that the report of
the disaster got out. They moved fast, but not quite fast
enough. It was too big a thing for even their censorship to
hold in. News of a series of explosions was half across the
world before they put out their official version of one explo-
sion, and a British Agent had got this picture before they were
reorganised enough to stop him.
'According to his report, the Excelsis landed right on top of
one of the largest subterranean stores. He doesn't know the
type of explosive stored there, but apparently it went oil on
concussion. Someone told him that so immense was the force
of the explosion that the ship was blown into the air again and
landed a full hundred yards to the side of its first hit. No one
can say quite how that set off the rest, of course, but there
seem to have been eight or ten major explosions, if not more.'
We were all a bit stunned. Our own satisfaction at being
cleared from suspicion of neglect was rather damped down by
the scale of the catastrophe.
'The Foreign Office,' the policeman went on, 'is inclined to
link it up with reports that they've found a method of stabilis-
ing liquid oxygen bombs—which means very cheap produc-
tion of explosives. They think that the stabilising may require
several processes and the Excelsis concussed and set off some
which were in an intermediate stage. The detonation of these
might then conceivably have... .'
But we were in no mood for theoretical consideration of
causes. Our own position was by now uppermost in our minds
again. Captain Belford asked what all three of us wanted to
know when he said:
'I suppose this means that the charge against us will be
dropped?'
The other broke off and switched his attention to this side of
the affair.
'You will have to attend the hearing, I'm afraid. But it will
only be a matter of a few minutes. The police will inform the
magistrate that in the light of further information they do not
wish to proceed. That will dispose of the police side. The

DERELICT OF SPACE
83
formal Government inquiry into the loss of the Excelsis is a
different matter; that will take place in the usual course.'
It was a relief to all of us to hear that. It is a funny thing
that for most men the whitest conscience is no protection from
some apprehension in the presence of the police.
chapter six
CRIMINALS OF SPACE
We three had lunch together and went our ways with the
feeling that it had all blown over quite satisfactorily for us.
The prospect of a formal inquiry did not worry us: after all,
that follows in three out of every four cases of salvage. For me
the feeling lasted until 7 o'clock when I read in a late evening
edition that Captain William Belford had been arrested at his
house at Highgate.
I found the news in the stop-press after I had read the rest
of the paper. They had, it appeared, now discovered that
PfafEheim was not an agricultural village, but they cautiously
refrained from saying just what it was. However, I noticed that
some emphasis was laid on the series of explosions in contrast
to the official report. I only happened to notice the sentence in
the stop-press by accident; two minutes later I was on the
'phone to Scotland Yard, I gave my name and they put me
through to the D.A.C. at once.
'What's this about arresting the Captain?' I demanded.
'Have they repeated yesterday's news or something?'
'No. It's right enough,' he told me. 'We've been looking for
you, too. Where are you?'
'What's it about?' I asked cautiously.
'It's about murder and attempted murder. You didn't go
home this afternoon did you?'
'No. I'm just on my way there now.'
'Well, change your mind. I want you round here as soon as
you can manage it.'
'But...
'No buts. This is serious. I'll tell you when you come.'
I hesitated.
'All right. In about ten minutes,' I told him.
'Glad you saw that news,' he said, as I entered. 'We hoped
you would. Didn't know how else to get at you before you
went home.'

84
'But you said this morning....' I began.
'Oh, this morning. That's different. Let me tell you this. If
you'd gone home you'd most likely not be alive now. Captain
Belford was shot at and wounded in front of his house about
half-past three. Mr. Sinderton was murdered on his own door-
step about the same time. It's ten to one they were ready for
you, too.'
'Sinderton dead?' I said, incredulously.
'With five bullets. The Captain had only a flesh wound in
the arm. luckily.'
I just gaped at him.
'But I don't understand. Who... ? What... ? What do you
mean, ready for me?'
'I mean that your two friends were the subjects of deliberate
attacks—And I'm pretty sure you would have been, too, if
they'd known where to find you.'
'But I don't understand,' I said again. 'Who do you mean by
"they?" Who on earth would want to shoot me?'
'Might it not be some friends or—er—associates of the
people at Pfaffheim?' he suggested.
I pulled myself together and considered. I couldn't see it.
'Quite unlikely, I should say,' I returned, pretty calmly.
'What on earth would be the good of that? What would be the
point of shooting us on account of an accident? It's not sen-
sible.'
'I don't know,' he said slowly. 'But can you think of any
other reason why there should be attempts on them both?'
'I can't think of any reason at all. What you suggest cer-
tainly isn't a reason,' I told him.
'Possibly you're right. We shall see. At any rate, I shall be
glad if you will make arrangements to stay away from home
for a night or two until it is cleared up.'
I argued with him a bit. I couldn't see any reason why I was
in danger, but he was persuasive. Without actually putting it
into words, he somehow suggested that there was a lot at the
back of the business. By the time he got through I had an
uneasy feeling that any corner might hide a gunman waiting
for me. It's not a nice sensation. In the end I agreed to stay,
though not without a sense that I was scared of a shadow.
Either the Secret Service had released their photograph or
some enterprising journalist had contrived to smuggle out
another, for there was the picture of the damaged Excelsis,
among the debris she was supposed to have caused, large in
every paper, and on the front page of most. It made it clear to

DERELICT OF SPACE
85
everyone that the ship had not blown up. Furthermore, the
later editions ran a translation from German papers. Realising
that their censorship had broken down, they were shouting
their heads off with another theory.
The whole thing, we learned, was an infamous plot. Jewish
influence, combining behind the Jewish Captain Belford, had
aimed a blow at the defences of the Reich; the first blow in the
covert war which World Jewry was opening against Germany:
the blood of two thousand five hundred German martyrs was
on their heads. Investigations by the Gestapo had revealed that
Captain Belford and his officers had been bribed to the extent
of £250,000 to drop the Excelsis on the defenceless town of
Pfaffheim and to make it appear an accident. It was no acci-
dent. It was a bolt fired at Germany and German defence. The
two thousand five hundred Aryan Germans who had been its
victims had fallen for the Fatherland as truly as any soldier in
the field. They would be avenged. The people of the Third
Reich demanded that the murderers be surrendered to Ger-
man justice.
The well-known technique of 'the big lie' was at work again.
I had been given quarters with the Captain and we read the
stuff through together, marvelling that anyone should find it
worth printing.
'But I'm not a Jew,' said the Captain, bewilderedly.
'What do you think that matters?' I said. 'You're accused of
an anti-Nazi plot, so you must be a Jew.'
'And how the hell do they think I did it? Don't they know
that even under the best conditions you can't be sure within
fifty miles either side where a derelict will fall?'
'Of course they know. But does the public? After all don't
we spend a deuce of a lot of time trying to convince them of
the accuracy and dependability of the Rocket Service?'
'Two-fifty thousand. H'm. It'd almost have been worth try-
ing,' muttered the Captain.
The D.A.C.. accompanied by the Assistant Commissioner
himself, came to visit us.
'Well,' he said, as his eye fell on the papers. 'They're out for
your blood, aren't they? We've already had a demand from the
Embassy for your extradition.'
'I'll sue them for libel.' said the Captain.
'In a German court?' asked the Assistant Commissioner,
with a smile.
'But this stuff's all rot. They must know that,' I protested.
'Of course they do. But they're out to get you one way or
another, aren't they?' he pointed to the sling which held the

86
Captain's arm. 'The question is why?'
'It's absurd. A state doesn't revenge itself like that on in-
dividuals for what it knows must have been a pure accident,' I
told him.
'Quite. I agree. So there must be another reason, mustn't
there?'
'But what?'
'Have you forgotten the Excelsis's cargo? There was gold,
they're very short of that.'
The Captain gave a snort. He showed signs of launching
himself on one of his customary attacks on gold, but thought
better of it.
'And there was ganywood—nearly as valuable. And there
was a lot of tillfer fibre—-how about that?'
It was an aspect which had not struck me before. Tillfer
fibre under treatment produces Etherium. the lightest known
gas; we used to use it in the wings of 'planes to give added lift,
among other things. Since tillfer grows only on Ganymede
and in limited quantities there, and also because there was an
Anglo-American trade protectorate in force there, the Ger-
mans couldn't get it. It was one of the raw materials they felt
sore about. Hard on them, of course, but how much would
they have let us have if it had been their trade protectorate?
That's an easy answer.
'So what?' I asked.
'I don't know. But suppose, just suppose, they would only
hand over that cargo on condition you were turned over to
them.'
'Would that do them any good?'
They could claim for their own people's benefit to have
dealt with plotters as they should be dealt with.'
'Fantastic. Who's going to believe that?' the Captain asked.
The Assistant Commissioner shrugged his shoulders.
'Quite a lot of people if it's shouted loudly enough. The
same kind of thing has worked often before. It's wonderful
what they take.' He ruminated a few moments. 'They made a
mess of 1914. They came a cropper in 1940. And now they're
working up for it again. You know, when I look at them, I
know just how Henry the Second must have seen Thomas &
Becket.'
But the A.C. was wrong. Public indignation over the de-
mand worked up quickly, and, as ever, concentrated in groups
on various aspects: against the presumptuous belief that the
handing over of British subjects to a foreign court could be
tolerated for a moment: against the existence of any plot:

DERELICT OF SPACE
87
against the feasibility of such an arrangement. The calmest
partisans suggested that there should be a trial for the purpose
of clearing us, but that it should be held in England where a
sense of justice and not the good of the state could be relied on
to produce a verdict.
The next day the situation was inflamed. Reports of the
murder of Sinderton and the attempt on Captain Belford were
published. We learned that the Embassy was still pressing for
our extradition on the ground that we had, in dropping the
derelict from no charted territory, committed an act of piracy
which placed us beyond the protection of our government.
A news message from Germany went one better. The Excel-
sis, it said, carried no cargo. She was an empty hulk. This, they
claimed, was substantiated by a member of the crew who had
confessed that we had stopped at the Moon and hidden the
cargo there before coming on to Earth.
The Captain and I gasped over this latest piece of effron-
tery. They had gone one better than the A.C.'s prophecy: they
wanted both us and the cargo.
Well, maybe their own people believed that about the cargo,
but it didn't go down too well over here at first. It takes civil-
ised people quite a while to appreciate 'the big lie' technique.
It was queer, too, why we should bother to drop an empty
hulk when it might have been full of explosives as they had
previously claimed. But they didn't seem to bother about little
points like that. It was years later that some journalist dug up
the story of the treasure on the Moon and people began won-
dering about it.
At the time, the whole thing seemed to us to be just farcical.
However, when the Assistant Commissioner came to see us
once more it turned out to be not so humorous after all.
'They want you over there,' he said. 'You realise what that
means. Execution. And more. Before you are condemned
they'll have a confession out of you by some means that you
stole the Excelsis's cargo and hid it on the Moon. They'll
brand you as both pirates and criminals.
'We, naturally, have no wish to surrender you. But, and it is
a big but, according to international law their claim is per-
fectly good. A person accused of engineering a crime in free
space is eligible for trial in the country of the plaintiff.'
That was a facer. Naturally, until that moment, we had
neither of us given serious consideration to the German claim.
'It puts us in an awkward position,' he went on, for all the
world as if it didn't put us in a jam. 'It boils down to this.

88
Either we must hand you over and connive at what we know
to be injustice, or else we must commit a flagrant breach of
international law.
'We have, I repeat, no wish to do the former. Yet, in our
position can we do the latter?
'The Government is very worried over you two. You see,
you have a political aspect, too, now. Foreign relations are
none too easy; it's no time to flout international agreements.
On the other hand, the party majority at home is none too
stable. Any big popular outcry will almost certainly result in
their losing the next election: and handing you over would
raise an almighty shindy.'
I felt that if we were to be political counters it was ex-
tremely lucky that we had the feeling of the people with us.
'As I, and several who are much more influential than I, see
it,' he went on, 'there is one remedy, and one only. You two
are going to have to disappear.'
'Disappear?'
'Make an escape—preferably a spectacular escape—from
custody.'
'I don't like that,' said the Captain. 'I'm a man with a clean
record. I've done nothing I'm ashamed of. I ought to have a
chance to clear myself.'
'Of course, you don't like it. Nor do we. But you'd like still
less being made to sign a false confession.'
'Let them try to make me.'
'I'd rather not,' said the Assistant Commissioner. There was
a lot of unpleasant suggestion in his voice. It took quite a time
to din a full realisation of the position into the Captain, he
was so satisfied with the clearness of his own innocence. It was
an hour before we could get him to see the thing in the round,
so to speak.
Then there was a lot to arrange. False names, and passports.
A method by which his wife could also disappear and join
him. Money to be banked for us under our new names. But we
got it all fixed at last, with the Captain still looking a bit
bewildered as if his sense of values had been turned upside
down.
Well, that's about where truth ends and legend begins, and as
everyone knows the legends, I need not repeat them here.
It seems a pity in a way to spoil a daring and exciting ex-
ploit this way, but, as you see, with the whole thing beautifully
stage-managed and all guns loaded with blanks it wasn't really
too difficult. We just shot off into the blue.

DERELICT OF SPACE
89
I kept my new name for some years until the whole thing
had blown over and when I changed it back no one thought of
identifying me with the escaped Fearon. Belford's name had
become too well known, so he had to stick to his new one for
the rest of his life.
My hope is that this account will at last put a stop to these
perpetual treasure hunts to the Moon. Several lives and a lot
of money have been thrown away on them. Once and for all,
then; Captain Belford's treasure does not exist. It never did.

CHILD OF POWER
chapter one
OF MICE AND MEN
It was one of those evenings more often imagined than
granted in the Lake District. The stir in the air scarcely
ruffled the water and it was warm enough to enjoy sitting out
on the terrace after sunset. Peace had crept gradually over the
valley to settle down finally with the closing of the public bar.
The peak of the mountain opposite was still silhouetted
against the lingering afterglow, lights occasionally wandered
across its black base and the sound of a car engine came over
the lake to us no louder than the buzz of a bumble bee. One
sat and drank beer and smoked and chatted.
We were a chance-met group, such as any pub in the district
might have held that night. A business man and his son from
somewhere in Lancashire, two American college boys energeti-
cally seeing England from bicycles bought within an hour of
their arrival at Southampton, a tall man in whose speech was a
faint suggestion of the north Midlands, his wife, and Joan and
myself. The four others in the place, two young men and
young women whose notion of a holiday seemed to consist of
dissipating the maximum of ergs in the minimum of time, had
already left us in order that no mountain might put them to
shame on the morrow.
Conversationally, we had rambled quite a way. We had con-
sidered the inhabitants and character of the neighbourhood,
thence we had somehow arrived at the Spanish question and
settled that, which had entailed pur decision that certain social
reforms were vitally necessary all over the world, and this in
its turn had led us to speculation on the future in general and
the future of man in particular. One of the Americans was
touched into eloquence on the subject.
'It's such a darned muddle in most people's minds,' he said.
'They know that nothing is really static, it's all got to change,
but along with that they're convinced that modern man is
God's last word—and yet that's contradicted again because if
they were as convinced of it as they think they are they'd do
something to straighten out the system and make it a decent

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world for this climax of evolution to live in—to settle down in
permanently.'
'As it is,' put in his companion, 'they just tinker away at it a
bit because instinct rather than reason tells them that it's a
waste of time to make the perfect social set-up for our kind of
man when he may be superseded by another kind who won't
be satisfied with that set-up at all.'
'What do you mean by another kind of man?' asked the
Lancashire man from behind his pipe. 'What other kind can
there be?'
'What about a type with a super brain?' suggested his son.
'Something like "The Hampdenshire Wonder" that Beresford
wrote about, or Stapledon's "Odd John." Didn't you read
those books?'
'No, I didn't,' his father said, bluntly. 'I've something better
to do with my time than readin' tales about fancies and freaks.'
'It's only the form,' said his son. 'What they're suggesting is
that the next step will be a great brain development.'
'Oh, aye. Chaps wi' big 'eads, and suchlike. I don't believe
it.'
'That's not the only possibility,' put in Joan, beside me. 'I
think the next step will be psychic. Perhaps telepathy, or a
kind of clairvoyance that can really be used; or perhaps they'll
be able to see things that we can't see now—as some people say
animals can.'
'Sounds retrogressive to me,' the first American told her. 'I'd
say most of those things did exist in man, and do in animals to
a certain extent now, but that they've atrophied with the de-
velopment of the brain. No, I guess brain development's the
way it goes. Though in a way I'd say you're right about seeing
things. Eyes are still improving. Maybe they'll be able to see
the infra-red or the ultra-violet, and p'raps some emanations
we know nothing about. But I think the brain and the reason-
ing faculties will gradually develop beyond anything we can
conceive at present.'
'Why gradually?' asked his friend. 'There doesn't seem to
have been much change in the last five thousand years. Why
not at a jump?—that's the way with mutations.'
'Maybe, but how do you think a sudden mutation is going to
survive boneheads like us? We'd probably put it out of the
way out of kindness, or lock it up in an asylum and not let it
breed. I can see us defending ourselves mighty toughly against
any mutations.'
'And very right, too,' said the Lancashire man. ' 'Oo wants to

92
breed freaks or mutilations or whatever they are? Put 'em out
of their misery, be 'umane, I say.'
'But they wouldn't be freaks, Father. If they were the
natural next step in development, they'd be normal.'
'If they 'ad big 'eads and thought different from other
people they'd be freaks. A big 'ead's a freak, same as a bearded
woman. I've seen 'em at Blackpool. A man's the same as the
rest of us or 'e's a freak. Stands to reason.'
The tall man from the Midlands spoke out of the darkness to
the Americans.
'I think you're right about the jump, but what sort of a
jump's it going to be? That's the question. It can't be too big a
physical change at one step. We, just like the wild animals,
hate a variation from our norm, and I agree we'd be pretty
sure to suppress it for a humane or for any other reason which
happened to suit us. No, we must have survived to reach this
stage by taking a series of small and not very obvious jumps in
safety.'
'But small jumps would mean pretty frequent jumps, or
we'd never have had time to get from the amoeba to here.' said
one of the Americans. 'Now, if there's been a jump worth a
nickel in the last five thousand years I've not heard of it.
That's surely a long time to stay put. Maybe we have come to
the end or maybe nobody's noticed it when it happened.'
'Or,' said the tall man, 'maybe it's just about to happen.' He
puffed at his cigarette so that it glowed and lit up his face. One
had a feeling from his tone that he was not just speaking at
random. The American asked :
'You've an idea what it might be?'
'Might be—well. yes. But, mind you, I'm laying no claim to
prophecy. As far as I go is to say that I have seen a variation
from the normal which does not seem to be due to any of those
glandular upsets which commonly cause freaks. It is, to the
best of my knowledge, unique, but, of course, there may be
others. If there are, I see no reason why they should not sur-
vive and stabilise the new type.'
'Which is?' prompted the American.
'An additional sense. A sixth sense.' There was a slightly
disappointed pause.
'Well, I don't know that there's much in that,' said the
Lancashire man. 'Means knowing things as nobody told you,
and you 'aven't read. There's a word for it—oh, aye, intuition,
that's it. Young lady I once knew 'ad it. She went into the
fortune reading business. Didn't do so bad, either.'

CHILD OF POWER
93
'That's not what I mean,' the tall man told him a trifle
shortly. 'I'm not talking about a mixture of guesswork, hum-
bug and adding two and two. I mean a real sense, with organs
of perception as real as your eyes and your ears and your nose
and your tongue.'
'I don't see as you need any more. They're enough, aren't
they?'
The rest ignored him.
'Organs for the perception of what?' asked the elder Ameri-
can curiously.
The tall man did not reply at once. He turned up the end of
his cigarette and regarded it for a moment.
'All right,' he said. 'I'll tell you about it. But I warn you that
all the names and places will be faked. If there is any chance
of following the business up, I want to do it myself.'
chapter two
THE STRANGE CASE OF TED FILLER
The tall man paused again as though seeking an opening.
'It's an odd little story, and to explain to you how I come to
know so much about it, I shall have to reveal that I practise
medicine. That's a thing I keep quiet as a rule when I am
away from home. It alters people's attitude if they know it and
shuts one off from them almost as much as if one were a
clergyman.
'However, that is my profession and for twenty years, until,
in fact, two years ago when I moved south, I practised in
Irkwell in Derbyshire. It's a place which is typical of the kind
of semi-industrialised village you find round there. Most of the
men are employed in the quarries or the mills, a few work lead
in the pits where there's any left to work. The women work in
the mills, too, until they marry and start having more children
than they want. The place is partly cottages of local stone but
mostly rows of shoddy cottages put up in the last century when
the mills came. In general, it's a kind of semi-rural slum. Not
the kind of place you'd expect to produce any advance on
modern humanity—and yet there's no doubt in my mind that
young Ted Filler was something more than an ordinary freak.
'His mother, Ada. regarded his arrival more as an act of God
than a personal achievement until she found out that he was a
boy. It was a discovery which had the result of infusing more

94
interest into the family life. Her three previous contributions
had all been girls, and this, and the deaths of the two younger
in infancy, had helped to give her an attitude of discouraged
fatalism about the whole business. But with Ted's birth she
seemed to make a fresh start and he began his independent
existence enviably protected by first child devotion and fourth
child experience.
'Not that he appeared to be in the least in need of special
treatment. He was a healthy, well-formed child whose yells
when he was washed were encouragingly lusty. I did not detect
the least sign of abnormality in him, nor do I think would
anyone else have done so. I was able with complete honesty to
assure his father and mother that they had a remarkably fine
son—and that wasn't too common in my Irkwell practice.
'Nevertheless, when I called on Mrs. Filler again I found
satisfaction somewhat diluted.
'" 'E worries us, 'e does," she said. "Not but what 'e ain't a
dear little chap and me proud of 'im," she added, in the man-
ner of one anxious not to appear ungrateful. "But 'e ain't like
the others was. 'E's that difficult to get to sleep, you'd never
believe. And then sometimes when you've got 'im to sleep 'e'll
wake up all of a sudden and look at you just like 'e's 'ad the
fright of 'is little life, then 'e'll begin to 'owl. Ee, an' 'e does
'owl. Fair frightened me and Jim first time 'e done it. We
thought 'e wasn't never going to stop. An 'e didn't, not till 'e
was fair wore out—and so was we. I'd like you to 'ave a look at
'im, Doctor, if you will. I don't feel easy about him, an' that's a
fact."
'I gave the child a careful examination; From what I knew
of Ada Filler I was fairly certain she wasn't one to get worked
up unnecessarily, though of course you can never be sure. The
baby was lying in its cot, blue eyes wide open, but quite quiet
and peaceful. There didn't seem to be a thing as it shouldn't
be and I said so.
' "I'm glad to 'ear that," said his mother. "Still—I don't
know. 'E'll lie quiet that way for hours when you'd think 'e'd
be asleep, then all of a sudden, for no reason, off 'e'll go like a
'ooter. An' nowt as I can do'll stop 'im."
'Well, there wasn't anything really to worry about. Some
children are like that; they take one look at the world and hate
it on sight and you can't blame them much in a place like
Irkwell, but in the end they learn to put up with it, like the
rest of us. Nevertheless, young Ted Filler seemed to be taking
his time about settling down. Whenever I looked in during the
next few weeks it was the same tale. Once or twice I heard him

CHILD OF POWER
95
howling. It was a remarkable achievement. I didn't wonder
that his parents were looking worn and that the rest of the
street was behaving pretty offensively to them.
'" 'E don't sleep enough, not near enough," his father
assured me. " 'T'ain't natural. 'T'ain't fair on a man as 'as to
work, either."'
All I could tell them was that I'd stake my reputation there
was nothing wrong with the child and that he would soon
outgrow it.
'It was two months later that something occurred which might
have given me an early clue to the whole thing had I had the
wit to perceive it as a clue.
'I had called at the Fillers' cottage about something to do
with their daughter, Doreen, I think, and naturally inquired
after the baby.
' "Oh, I found out what to do with 'im," his mother said.
'She showed me. The heir of the Fillers was sleeping peace-
fully and with an expression of blissful satisfaction. His bed
was made up in an ordinary galvanised iron bath with a
handle each end. He could have passed for an Italian cherub
or a patent food advertisement.
' "Sleeps pretty near all the time now. Makin' up for it,
like," she said.
' "How did you do it?" I asked.
'She explained that it had happened by accident a week or
two before. She had been ironing when Ted started one of his
howls. She had fetched him down to the kitchen because, even
if you couldn't stop him. you could keep an eye on him, but no
sooner had she got him downstairs than the insurance man
had called.
The baby had to be put somewhere while she got the money
and paid the man and the handiest place for the moment was
on top of the clean linen stacked in one of the tin baths. When
she came back from the door he had not only stopped crying
but was fast asleep, so she left him there as long as possible.
The next time he yelled she did the same again, and with the
same result. It seemed to work every time.
' "So now I makes 'is bed in there regular," she added.
"Seems queer, but it suits 'im. Good as gold, 'e is, in there.
Won't sleep nowhere else."
'I didn't take much notice at the time. A preference for
sleeping in a tin bath just seemed one of those odd infantile
idiosyncrasies which the wise accept and use gratefully.
'Well, time went on. I used to look in at the Fillers'

96
occasionally, so I saw young Ted from time to time. I didn't
take a great interest in him for he was a healthy enough baby.
I gathered that he persisted in his odd preference for sleeping
in a tin bath, but beyond that he seemed undistinguished. And
yet, when I came to think it over afterwards, there was another
incident which might have given me a hint.
'On that occasion he was lying in a dilapidated perambula-
tor outside the back door. He did not show that he noticed me.
His eyes were wide open, gazing far away, but he was not quite
silent; he seemed to be humming a little tune. As I bent over
him I could swear I caught that theme from the New World
Symphony. You know how it goes.'
The doctor broke olf and hummed a few bars.
'That was what it seemed. Hummed by a child one year old.
I was curious enough to ask Mrs. Filler whether she had heard
it on the wireless and learned that the family taste fancied
variety, sports news and cinema organs almost exclusively. I
remember thinking that even if the child had happened to
hear a version on a cinema organ he showed astonishing tonal
memory, and then for one reason or another I forgot the inci-
dent until later. Probably, I very reasonably told myself that I
had made just a foolish mistake.
'I must have seen the child several times during the next two
or three years, but I admit I've no recollection of doing so, for,
as I said, he was too healthy to be really interesting, though I
wish now I'd kept an eye on him. It was not until his boy was
over four that Jim Filler came to see me one Monday evening
and gave me an interest in the boy which I'm never likely to
lose.
'Jim had cleaned up and polished off the quarry dust for the
occasion. He seemed a bit uncertain of himself.
' "I don't want to waste your time, Doctor," he said, "but I
would be grateful if you'd come, casual-like, and 'ave a look at
our Ted sometime when me and the missus is there."
' "What's wrong with him?" I said.
'Jim fiddled his cap in his hands.
' "I don't know as there's owt wrong with 'im, exactly," he
said. "It's—it's, well, 'e's a bit queer, some'ow, in a manner o'
speakin'. It's got me and the missus fair worried an' all. She
don't know as I've come 'ere. So if you could drop in kind of
accidental like, you know	?"
" "But what's wrong with him?" I asked again. "Do you
think he's backward; not up to the rest, or something like
that?"
' "Nay, t'lad's bright enough that way. 'Taint nothin' o'

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that kind. Fact, some ways 'e's a bit too bright, that's a funny
thing. 'E don't often talk like a nipper and many's the time
I've eard 'im use words what I'm sure 'e ain't never 'eard from
me and the missus. Understands what's said to 'im, too, better
than any kid I know."
'I asked a few more questions, but Jim seemed to be holding
back for some reason or other. If it had been another man I
might have been short with him, but I knew Jim. His type is
the incarnation of stubborn commonsense. In the end I got rid
of him by promising to go round the next evening, though I
didn't expect to find much amiss.'
chapter three
THE BOY WHO SAW SOUND
'Evidently Jim Filler had changed his mind and told his wife
that I was coming, for she didn't seem surprised to see me. In
honour of the occasion they took me into the front room, an
apartment with a curious stage-set appearance, but I stopped
Ada Filler as she was putting a match to the fire and suggested
that we all went to the kitchen. We'd all feel more natural and
less Sunday-best in there, as well as warmer.
'Even so, it wasn't easy to begin. Neither of them was
anxious to come out plainly with the trouble. We had to ex-
change a number of ineffective sentences before Jim cut
through it and became his usual forthright self again. He put
on a dogged expression.
' "I know it'll sound daft, Doctor, but it's God's truth. Me
and the missus's ready to swear to that, so if you'll 'ear me
right through	?"
' "Go ahead and tell me. I'll ask questions afterwards," I
assured him.
' "Well, this is 'ow it was. Saturday tea time we was all in
'ere waitin' for news on t'wireless so as I could check my
coupons	" he began.
'It certainly was an odd tale that Jim had to tell.
'Mrs. Filler had been setting the table, while her husband
and the two children waited for their tea. Jim had copies of his
pool entries and a pencil ready to check them. At six o'clock
he switched on to Droitwich. It meant that they'd have to
listen to the weather forecast and a lot of political talk before

98
the important stuff came along, but you could never be sure
how long it would take to get the sports bulletin and it wasn't
worth risking missing any of it. Well, he switched on all right
and the dial lit up, but nothing came out of the speaker. He
pressed the switch on and off a bit and looked at the outside
connections. They were right enough.
' "Eeh-h-h, there's summat wrong wi't' bastard, there is, an'
all," he decided.
'He turned the set round and took off the back. It looked all
right, at least there was nothing obviously adrift. He scratched
his head. It's not as easy to trace trouble in a modern mains set
as it was in the old battery days. The insides look alarmingly
efficient.
'It was then that young Ted took an interest.
' "What's oop with it, Dad?" he asked, coming closer.
' " 'Ow should I know?" inquired Jim, with irritation.
'Well, it was then that the strange thing happened. Jim said
that young Ted had looked at him "sort of surprised like,"
then the child had pushed in between him and the set. He
didn't look inside it, Jim said; he put his head down at it as if
he were going to butt it, then he lifted his face again and
looked at his father.
' "It's in there. That's where it stops," he said and pointed to
a black object in the cabinet.
' "It were a transformer," Jim said. "An' 'e were right, too.
Chap 'ad a look at it yesterday and one of the windin's was
gone."
'Later, Jim had remembered another "funny thing."
'Several weeks previously he had been taking his son for a
Sunday walk. They were on the Derby road where the grid
lines run almost alongside when young Ted looked up at a
pylon for no reason and said suddenly, "It's stopped."
'Jim couldn't make out what he was talking about and
probably didn't care much, but he remembered that on the
way back young Ted, equally without reason, had said, "It's
going again, now."
'It wasn't until he got back that he learned there had been a
breakdown somewhere which had put the grid out of action
for half an hour or so.
'But he only recalled that afterwards. At the moment, he
was chiefly concerned over the prospect of missing his football
news.
' Now I'll 'ave to go and buy t'Football Special, when
t'papers come in," he groused.

CHILD OF POWER
99
'Young Ted had made no immediate reply to that. He had
sat silent for a while looking rather puzzled, then with the air
of one who had considered the subject unsatisfactorily from all
angles he said:
' "Why, Dad?"
' "Why, what?" asked Jim, whose mind had gone on.
' "Why'll you 'ave to get a paper?"
' "Because," explained Jim, patiently, "because we can't 'ave
t'bloody wireless, that's why."
'There was a pause while young Ted took this in.
' 'D'you mean you can't 'ear what the man's sayin'?" he
inquired.
' "Course that's what I mean. Ow d'you think any of us is
goin' to 'ear owt now t'set's busted? You shut up, and eat your
tea."
There was another pause.
' "I can," said young Ted thoughtfully.
' "You can what?"
' " 'Ear what 'e's sayin'."
'Jim transferred his gaze from his tripe to his son. He looked
at him hard for some moments without speaking. He didn't
want to turn on the lad for lying if it was only some childish
make-believe game.
' "Well, tell us what t'chap is sayin', then," he invited.
'Young Ted did. "Brentford, one," he said. "Stoke City,
nought. Derby County, nought. Birmingham, one. Everton,
two...."
' "An' 'e were right," Jim went on, leaning forward. "I know
'e were right. I checked 'em up on my list as 'e said 'em, an'
then I went out an' got t'paper to make sure. 'E were dead
right, every time."
'Ada Filler went on as he stopped.
' "I never 'eard of nothin' like it. It don't seem natural. Do
you think it's dangerous, Doctor?"
'I looked at them, feeling pretty puzzled. There was no
doubt they believed what they said. Jim was in dead earnest
and a bit worried. Ada was more worried; she showed all that
maternal solicitude which so oddly hopes that its child will be
outstanding while being absolutely normal, distinguished
while being indistinguishable.
'I was at a loss for a reply. In my mind I was searching for a
set of circumstances which could possibly produce the appear-
ance of what they believed to have happened, and I could not
find one at the moment. There floated into my mind the
memory of the child's curious humming as it lay in its peram-

lOO
bulator, over three years ago now. Curiosity prompted me to
ask.
' "Is Ted fond of music?"
' "Well, 'e can't play anything," Mrs. Filler said, "It's early
days for that, ain't it? But 'e's often 'ummin' things, all sorts of
tunes I never 'eard of."
'Jim was looking at me.
' "You don't believe it, Doctor? Not that 'e was really 'earin'
the wireless without a set, I mean?"
' "Well, it takes a bit of swallowing you know, Jim. Would
you believe it if you were in my position? There must be some
explanation."
' "Oh, there's that, all right, but it'll be a queer one, not a
trick one. I'll get t'lad down 'ere and you'll see."
'He left the room. We heard him clatter upstairs and then
down again. He came in carrying young Ted in his arms and
put him down in a chair. The little boy sat there, sleepy and
perhaps a trifle pale, though he looked well enough otherwise.
' "Now, Ted, lad, tell t'doctor what's on t'National now."
' "Ain't it mended?" said Ted, eyeing the wireless set on the
dresser.
' "Aye, it's all right. But you just tell 'im what's on t'Nat-
ional."
'Young Ted appeared to think for a moment, then:
' "Music," he said. "Loud music."
' " 'Ow does it go?" his father persisted.
'Ted began to hum a part of a march quite recognisably one
of Sousa's, I think.
' "That's right, lad. Now you keep on 'ummin'," said Jim,
and switched on the radio set.
'Nobody spoke while the set warmed up. The only sound
was Ted humming his march with a fine martial air. Jim
leaned over and turned the volume control. A march came
flooding out of the speaker. It was the same tune exactly on
the beat and in pitch with Ted's humming.
'I couldn't think of anything to say. I just sat staring at the
child. Jim turned the volume control right down to nothing
and reset the dial.
' "What's on Regional?" he asked his son.
' "People clappin'," said young Ted with the briefest pause.
"Now there's two men talking."
' "Sayin' what?"
' "Good evening, cads," said young Ted, in a travestied
drawl.

CHILD OF POWER
101
'Jim turned the knob. The weary-toned wit of the Western
Brothers pervaded the room.
' "What else?" Jim asked, damping out again.
' "Lots of things. A man shouting very loud over there." Ted
pointed to a corner of the room. He lapsed into a gabble
which sounded like a vocal cartoon of German.
' "Try Berlin," I suggested to Jim.
' "That's 'im," said young Ted, between the bolts of impas-
sioned rhetoric which leapt out at us.
'Jim gave it a few moments and then switched off.
' "Well, there it is, Doctor," he said.
'There, indeed, it was, unmistakably. And I was supposed to
make something of it.
'I looked at the boy. He was not paying attention to us.
There was an abstracted expression on his face, not vacant in
the least, but preoccupied. As his father said:
'" 'Tain't no wonder 'e seems dreamy-like sometimes if 'e's
got that goin' on in 'is head all the while."
' "Ted," I asked him, "do you hear that all the time?"
'He came out of his abstraction and looked at me.
' "Aye," he said, "when it's going."
'It occurred to me then for the first time that I had been
thinking of him—and that he had behaved—as if he were
quite twice his age or more.
' "Does it worry you?"
' "No," he said, a bit uncertainly, " 'cept at night, and when
it's so loud I 'ave to look at it."
'He always used that queer hybrid of expression. He talked
about "quiet" and "loud" and yet coupled them with "look-
ing."
' "At night?" I asked.
' "Aye, it's loud then."
' "Always puts a tin box over 'is 'ead at nights, 'e does," his
mother put in. "I've tried to stop 'im time and again. Doesn't
seem natural, not to sleep with yer 'ead in a tin box, it doesn't.
But 'e would 'ave it, and it does keep 'im quiet. 'Course, I
didn't know about this 'ere. 'E just said it were noises and
music, and I thought it were fancies."
'I remembered the tin bath of his babyhood.
' "Does the box stop it?" I asked him.
' "Middlin'," said young Ted.
'"Maybe," I said cautiously, 'we could stop it altogether at
nights somehow. Would you like that?"
' "Aye." •
' "Well, come here and let me have a look at you."

103
'His mother stretched out her hand and brought him over
under the light.
'As I've told you there was nothing at all unusual about his
appearance, it was just that of any normal little boy. With the
story of the tin and the memory of Jim's description of him as
he bent at the wireless set, I put my hands on his head and
began to feel the structure. It wasn't long before I came on
something decidedly unusual.
'On either side of the vault of the skull, about two inches
above the temples, I found a round, soft spot about the size of
a halfpenny. Hair grew on the spots as thickly as on the rest of
the skull, but there was certainly no bone beneath, and the
spots were situated with exact symmetry. The child winced
involuntarily as my fingers touched them.
' "Does that hurt?" I asked him.
'His "no" sounded a little doubtful.
'I told him to close his eyes and then touched the lids with
the tips of my fingers. It brought exactly the same wincing
reaction. I was aware of a curiously excited feeling growing
inside me. I had never heard of anything at all like this. It was
unique. I parted the hair over the soft spots and looked
closely. The skin was continuous and unbroken. There was
nothing to see. Again I cautiously explored the spots with my
fingers. The child did not like it. He dodged and broke away
from me.
'I was aware of his parents looking at me expectantly, but I
kept my eyes on young Ted. I was trying to control my own
excitement. I think an astronomer who has found a new
planet or an explorer who has discovered a new continent
must have felt rather as I felt then. Unable to believe his own
luck and busily cramming his imagination down with reason;
seeking for a hold on the hard facts and their implications.
'I had an automatic desire to keep the child as unaware as
possible of his singularity and an instinctive impulse to belittle
its importance for his parents' benefit. The motives for that
impulse were, I confess, mixed. In fact, I've never really been
able to sort them out honestly yet. There was a professional
desire not to be sensational, undoubtedly a jealous wish to
keep the thing to myself for the time being until I could learn
more about it, and probably a lot of others.
'His mother took the child upstairs again and I waited for her
to come back before I said anything, then I was deliberately
matter of fact.
' "It's unusual, most unusual," I told them, "but it's cer-

CHILD OF POWER	103
tainly not anything to be frightened about. It's an extra sensi-
tivity which, I confess, I don't altogether understand at pre-
sent, but we shall undoubtedly learn more about that from
talking to him and watching him, now that we know what to
look for. I'd like you to observe very closely all he does or says
with reference to electricity and let me know in as much detail
as you can. His general health appears to be perfectly good,
but if you like I'll go over him thoroughly tomorrow.
' "One thing strikes me, and that is that perhaps he's not
getting enough sleep, or not sleeping soundly when he does.
We may be able to get over that by giving him a better shield
than a tin box. About the rest of it, his being so forward for
his age in the way he speaks and understands questions, and
that kind of thing—I don't think you need worry either. It's
rather soon to be definite about anything yet, but it does seem
likely that if he has had this kind of thing going on all the
time the constant stimulation may have forced his brain to
develop abnormally fast. He doesn't laugh much, does he?"
' "No, 'e's a solemn one."
' "Well, you know, I'd say at a guess that his brain's pretty
tired. You see, it gets no rest from this, night or day, except
perhaps when he's sleeping—we can't tell that for certain until
we know more about it—and that's bound to tire him. Besides,
although it must stimulate in one way, yet in another it
deadens because it gives his mind no chance to develop along
its own lines. We shall have to find a way of altering that. It
may not be very difficult.
' "I'm very glad you called me in now because, though of
course we don't know how he actually feels it, it's difficult to
believe that it isn't putting a considerable strain on him, and
the sooner we can relieve the strain to some extent, the easier
he will find things.
' "There's nothing to worry about. I'll come round tomor-
row, as I said, and perhaps I shall be able to explain more
about it"
'I left them puzzled, though considerably, if vaguely, re-
assured. But I myself went home with my mind revolving un-
restrainedly around the most astounding discovery. The boy
had a sixth sense, something I had never heard, read or
dreamed of. But from that moment I had not a vestige of
doubt that young Ted was—the word seemed to coin itself—
electro-sentient.'

chapter foxjr
STRANGE NEW WORLD
The tall man paused. His face became suddenly visible in the
darkness as he lit another cigarette.
'It must be difficult for a non-medical man to appreciate all
that meant to me,' he went on. 'There were so many sides to it.
The sheerly professional interest, the fact oneself and no other
had the opportunity to study it, the evolutionary aspect and
the question of whether such a thing would become stabilised,
the developments which would ensue if it did, as well as the
work to be done in determining its capacities, limitations and
nature.
'Some people would say, I've no doubt, that I should, in the
interests of science, have announced the discovery—and so I
shall one day—but you can judge the playing up and sensa-
tionalism which would have swamped us and made quiet,
normal observation impossible. Imagine what would happen
when the newspapers got it—it would be worse than that silly
Quins business and make scientific study even more difficult
than it is with them. I thought, and I still think, that the way
to learn about young Ted was to study him in his natural
setting and not in a three-ring circus of advertisers and pub-
licity men. So I laid myself out to play the whole thing down
and keep it as quiet as possible.
'It wasn't as difficult as you might think to work that. Ada
Filler was anxious to co-operate; her fear lest the neighbours
should think there was anything "queer" about him was a
great help. Jim wasn't awkward either. If he had been unem-
ployed it would have been different, but he had a decent job
and enough sense to see that, although there might be a bit of
money in it, once the thing was known young Ted would
become of public interest and virtually pass out of his parents'
control.
'" 'Ave to 'appen one day, I s'pose," was his opinion, "but
the later the better, both for 'im and 'is mother, I say."
'More of a problem was young Ted himself. The most likely
source of leakage was a child's natural desire to show off before
other children. Luckily, when he did try it later, chance so
arranged things that he was unconvincing and merely gained a
discouraging reputation among his friends as a liar. That
didn't matter, nearly all children boast and expect it of others,
sometimes they believe one another, more often and without

CHILD OF POWER
106
resentment, they don't.
'The first necessity seemed to me to give him a more efficient
means of shielding himself from electrical influences than the
one he had discovered. It was clear from his behaviour that his
sense organs were always open to them, as one's ears are to
sound, but with much more troublesome results. For the pur-
pose I cut a strip of copper foil, padded it on one side and
covered the other with brown cotton, with the idea that he
might wear it as a kind of broad fillet. Experimentally there
was a wire lead from it with a clip at the end, for it appeared
likely that the screen might work better if it were earthed.
'I took the contraption round the following evening and let
him try it on. The results were as good as I hoped; with an
earth connection the radio influence was almost entirely
screened off. It acted, one might say, as the eyelid of his new
sense.
'Later, I developed a variation on it for daytime use. The
fillet was hidden under a cap, and wires running down inside
his clothes were attached to metal tips on his boots. This, he
found, had considerable damping effect; if he could put his
feet on a wet surface the screening was almost complete. The
device became particularly useful later when he went to
school. I supplied a certificate stating that, owing to a sensitive
condition of the skull, it would be necessary for him to wear a
cap indoors; but for this, I think he would have found concen-
tration against the distractions which poured in on him diffi-
cult, if not impossible.
'When I set myself to learn what I could about young Ted's
sensory experiences I very soon found myself engaged on a
harder task than I had bargained for. Imagine yourself born
blind and trying to understand the power of sight, or born
deaf and being told about sound and music, and you'll begin
to see something of what I was up against. Add the fact that
your only source of information is an infant—extremely pre-
cocious in speech and understanding, it is true, but with an
infant's wandering interest—and that no words exist to ex-
press his sensations except in terms of other senses, and pro-
gress is understandably slow.
'Nevertheless, I made some headway and began to form
some hazy conceptions of the world his sixth sense showed
him. It seemed to me that the new organs were somehow
interconnected with the centres of vision and hearing, not like
smell and taste, but more after the fashion of touch and hear-
ing—you know how you can both feel and hear a deep note.

io6
'For instance, he did not care to go very near the high-
tension pylons. He complained sometimes that they were "too
loud" and sometimes that they were "too bright." The percep-
tion itself seemed to partake of the nature of both. There was
no occlusory device, so that, like his ears, the new organs were
always on duty, yet, like eyes, they were capable of a kind of
focus.
'The analogy which gradually built itself up in my mind was
something like this. Imagine a man standing on a hilltop.
Around him in every direction—and he can see in every direc-
tion at once—is a vivid, almost glaring, landscape. He can
focus on any detail of the landscape and see it clearly amid the
rest whenever he likes, but focused or not, he cannot help
looking, for his eyes are fixed open.
'Or sometimes I would think of a man surrounded by all the
intentional and unintentional instruments of noise; the sound
waves beat at him incessantly, but he can pick out certain
instruments if he tries. That, however, is a poorer analogy, for
the boy's "electro-sentient" organs had a much greater power
of discrimination than the human ear has.
'I'm afraid I can only convey poorly what I very dimly per-
ceived myself, but I hope you can catch the idea to some ex-
tent. One was so hampered by lack of words and the looseness
of meaning in those that had to be used. One continually ran
up against things like this. It was clear enough that whatever
Ted's system of reception of radio, his cognition made it intel-
ligible to him as music and speech just as our auditory system
does for us, but if one took him close to a transmitter, as I did
experimentally, he complained that the broadcasting was "too
bright."
' "You mean too loud," I suggested.
'But no. He wouldn't have that at all. For him it was "too
bright."
'I don't want to bore you with technicalities and detailed
accounts of my findings. That sort of thing is for the experts;
I've got volumes of notes at home which I shall publish one
day for them to scratch their heads over. More patience went
into those than I have ever put into anything. I had to grasp
each little hint and be ready to return to it later as the boy
grew, for it was no good trying to force description and ex-
planation before he was sufficiently developed to understand
what I asked him. That sort of treatment produces, as I expect
you know from experience, only a defiant sulkiness.
'Very often it was no good putting a question flatly. One had

CHILD OF POWER	108
to set the scene and observe results. For instance, I had dis-
covered that for him telegraph wires were alive, "lighted" he
called it, with their electric messages. But it was no good put-
ting the general question which occurred to me as a natural
corollary: "Can you overhear telephone conversations?" He
had probably never noticed whether he could or not—try ask-
ing the average child about overtones or the composition of a
shade of colour. One had to take him close to a telephone wire
and inquire the result. Actually the result was positive. He
could "overhear" up to a distance of ten feet or so from the
wires though he found it "faint."
'There were plenty of other discoveries. He knew at once
whether an electric wire was "live" or not. The current he
seemed to perceive perhaps as a fluid stemmed by the gap in
the circuit. The radiation from cars with magnetos worried
him, coil ignition bothered him only a little. He could judge
voltages in wires with astonishing accuracy up to about 500
volts. Above that he found them all "bright."
'He had a high sensitivity, too, to static electricity, so much
so that in certain weather nothing could induce him to brush
or comb his hair, and, perhaps as a side issue of this, he showed
a power of weather prediction some degrees more accurate
than his elders'.'
chapter five
VOICES OF THE VOID
'By the time young Ted was ten and a half Jim had come to
accept his son's powers as a permanent quality and not, as he
had half suspected before, something which would be out-
grown with childhood. He began to make plans for him. More
impressed, perhaps, by the means of Ted's first self-revelation
than by any of its subsequent manifestations Jim had ambi-
tions to get him into the best wireless shop in Irkwell when he
should leave school at fourteen.
' "That's the thing," he said. "Just let em try 'im once, that's
all. Why 'e can tell where any set's wrong in a jiffy—and put it
right, too. There's good money in a wireless shop, if a man
knows the job, which most of 'em don't, seemingly. The lad
ought to do well—maybe get a better job in one of the big
places in Derby in a year or two."
'He looked disappointed when I shook my head.

io8
' "What's wrong wi' that?" he demanded.
' "Not good enough, Jim," I told him. "What he ought to
have if it can be managed is a real training. He'd just be
wasting his time in a shop."
' "What, a college trainin' like? Seems to me like that's more
like wastin' 'is time than t'other. If t'lad can do a job and's a
chance, let 'im do it, I say. There's plenty o' chaps full of book
learnin' an' unemployed with it."
' "Ted wouldn't be," I said. "You don't realise it, Jim. This
gift makes him something altogether exceptional. There's no
telling where it may lead. Have you ever seen him examine a
wireless valve? The contempt he has for it! He looks at it as
you or I might look at a car without springs. I took him to a
hospital once to show him the apparatus; he looked at all the
radiography stuff and the rest of the electrical set-up the same
way.
' "You see, Jim, all our most advanced electrical appliances
seem quite primitive to him. Before long he'll begin to im-
prove them. I tell you, Jim, I'm as certain of it as I ever was of
anything in my life that he's going to revolutionise our con-
ceptions and use of electricity. Once he gets going we're going
to learn more in a few years than we've learned in the hun-
dred and fifty since Volta made his battery. I can't see, no one
can see, what changes he may bring about. Not just here, Jim,
not just in England, but all over the world. It's going to be
tremendous, I know it. And it's up to us to see that he has the
best start we can give him."
'I think now that I made a tactical error in putting it to him
like that. It might have been better if I had taken his own
ideas for Ted and worked him up to broader views by degrees.
Sprung on him like that, it just didn't register properly. In his
own mind he probably put it down as a crazy idea. A sugges-
tion that the boy might become locally important would have
carried more weight. He shook his head.
' "Tha knows there's no money to send our Ted to college,
Doctor."
' "Not much difficulty in raising it for a boy like him," I
said.
' "What, borrow on the chance of 'is- payin' it back when 'e
'ad a job? 'Oo's goin' to lend like that—'e might never 'ave a
job, there's plenty as 'asn't; then what?"
' "No fear of that."
' "You can say so, but you can't be sure. I don't like it. I've
always paid my way and owed nobody owt. It'd be a fine thing
if I was to borrow for the lad and leave 'im to find t'money to

CHILD OF POWER
109
pay back. Might take 'im years. 'Amperin' not 'elpin', that'd
be. No, 'e shall 'ave the best I can give 'im, but what I can't, 'e
shan't 'ave; and that's flat.'
And flat it remained. No amount of reasoning or argument
did anything but confirm him in what to his eyes was the
decent, self-respecting course. When at last I was forced to
recognise the hopelessness- of converting him I tried to tell
myself that in the long run it would make little difference—a
bit more slogging, more time wasted in beginning, but the
same later on—yet at the back of my mind I knew that wasn't
the whole thing.
'Young Ted developed well, with all his father's sturdiness, a
good share of the local commonsense outlook, and an amiable
enough disposition. He held his place easily at school, not, I
think, because his brain was anything but average, but because
it was still in advance, though to a less extent, of his years. He
got on well enough with the others and was frequently to be
seen roving the town as a member of a gang of his own age or
playing with them in the Irkwell Urban District Gardens. One
was glad that, superficially, his interests seemed quite dully
normal.
'In his eleventh and twelfth years, when I had feared he
might want to forsake my company entirely for that of his
gang, I still managed to see quite a lot of him—largely because
he liked to come out in my car, I fancy—and it was when he
was nearly twelve that I got a hint of something which bowled
my imagination over.
'We were out late. My car had run a big-end up on the
moors miles from anywhere. We had reached a main road and
at last succeeded in getting a lift part of the way home, but we
were left with five miles to cover and only our feet to carry us.
It was a fine summer night and about as warm as it ever is on
top of the hills. We had been going for some twenty minutes
when Ted took off his cap and with it the copper shield which
he wore concealed in the lining.
' "It's stopped," he said.
'I knew without asking that he meant that the B.B.C. middle
and long-wave stations had closed down, and most of the
powerful foreigners, too.
' "After midnight, then," I said.
' "Aye."
'We trudged on without speaking for a while. I knew that he
was ranging about that queer electrical landscape of his, aware
of things I should never know. And never had I been so—well,

103
so jealous, I suppose it was, of his power as I was at that
moment. Just then I felt that I would have given anything that
could be asked of me just for a glimpse of the world through
his sixth sense—just a glimpse, no matter how brief, so that I
could begin to understand.
'He was at ease now. He complained these days that when
the big stations were on, they were too loud so that they
"dazzled" him unless he wore a shield, just as he complained
that electric sparks hurt him like a very loud noise "only
brighter-like." I knew that was so for I had seen him wincing
painfully on account of a quite distant thunderstorm. I found
myself suddenly and irrationally angry with him for having
this extra world open to him and being unable to convey it to
me. ,
'It was he who broke the silence and with it my unreason-
able mood. He raised his hand and pointed upwards.
' "What's out there, Doctor?"
'I looked into the star scattered blue-black sky.
' "Space," I said. "Emptiness, or nearly, with little suns and
planets floating about in it."
' "Aye, Mr. Pauley learned me that at school. But he didn't
say owt about what goes on out there."
' "Goes on?"
' "Aye, goes on. 'E said as they was worlds, maybe like this,
some of 'em, but nowt about t' chaps as lives on 'em, and what
they do there."
' "He couldn't very well. You see. we don't even know that
anyone does. Some people think that there may be life in some
forms where conditions allow it, but others, the majority,
think it unlikely."
' "They're daft."
' "Which of them?"
' "The ones as don't think so."
'I looked at him. His head was thrown back and his up-
turned face shone dimly white in the starlight. A rush of
excitement, almost physically painful, made my heart thump.
'It was hard to make my voice anything like normal as I
asked:
' "Why?" and hung on his answer.
' "Why! Because if it ain't chaps like us doin' things out
there, 'oo is it?"
'I did not dare to respond for a moment. From long experi-
ence I knew that at any display of excitement he took refuge
in suspicious self-protection. Young Ted couldn't be driven,
only led cautiously.

CHILD OF POWER
111
* "It wouldn't be God, would it?" he suggested hopefully.
'I told him I considered it unlikely.
' "What is it? Voices?" I added, as if out of a mild interest.
' "No. It's like—oh, like colours or notes."
' "Music?"
' "No, and 'tain't like any of the ordinary things, either. I'd
know as it were different even if it weren't a long way away
like it is."
'It took some time as usual to discover what he was meaning,
but I had the impression at last that it was a thing happening
at the far limits of his extra sense. As one cannot see stars in
daylight, so he could perceive this disturbance only when the
more powerful stations were off the air. It was something, it
seemed, which happened in three tones. Tones of what? Some-
thing which was neither sound nor colour. They occurred in
some deliberately arranged sequence—he was emphatic that
they could not be accidental—yet they did not exactly repeat.
They were faint and far away. He knew, knew without doubt,
that they meant something, yet he couldn't tell what it was.
' "Like a chap gabbin' foreign," he tried, "you know as it
means summat, but you don't know what. Like that, only
different," he added with fair lucidity.
'And as different from accidental influences as "singin' from
a motor 'orn."
'It left me more confused than usual. At one time I would
think he implied someone signalling in a three-tone code,
analogous perhaps to the dots and dashes of Morse. At
another, that it was a system of communication which his
intelligence could not grasp, in much the same way that we
cannot grasp insects' methods of communication.
'But of one thing I went home that night quite certain. Here
was such a possibility as I had never suspected. Beside it, all
my earlier discoveries which had seemed so important, became
trifling. Contact, perhaps some day communication, with the
planets!'
chapter six
THE GIFT OF AGES
'i thought over it all the next day with a great desire to do
nothing precipitate. A wrong move now, I felt, might have
tremendous effects.

103
'But the main result was that my earlier conviction grew
clearer and clearer as a necessity. Young Ted must have a good
education—the best we could get for him. The job of making
sense of those signals, if it were possible at all, was not going to
be easy.
'To use a metaphor over again, he was in the position of a
man who hears dots and dashes, realises they are rational, but
has never heard of Morse and is ignorant of the language
used—perhaps Ted would be up against a worse problem; a
quite unsimilar, incomprehensible type of intelligence behind
signs.
'A puzzle like that is going to take all the intelligence and
knowledge that can be brought to bear on it. For Ted to
attempt it without all the resources one could give him would
be inviting discouragement and failure. It needed a mind
trained to patience and the scientific approach, perceptive and
yet plodding, a mind with tenacity of purpose.
'Perhaps you can't give a mind those characteristics, but at
least you can give it the chance to acquire them, and hope for
the best. It was a chance I determined that young Ted in some
way must have.
'With my own mind fully made up I went to see Jim Filler
next evening.
'I intended to press again for Ted's education, but not to
bring out my new reason for its necessity save as a last re-
source. For now our positions were curiously reversed from
those of eight years ago; then it was he who was afraid I would
not believe him, now I was pretty certain of being unable to
convince him of the further development.
'It had been an uncertain kind of day, and there were dark
clouds piling up on the horizon and a thundery feeling in the
air when I arrived. Jim was working in his garden, but he
stuck his fork into the ground when he saw me and led the
way into the cottage.
'It wasn't difficult for him to guess what I'd come about. He
was pretty used to my tackling him on the education issue by
this time, though we never got any further, but this time the
opening was easier than usual. It was, in fact, volunteered.
'"I've been thinkin' it over about our Ted," he said, "an' I
don't know as it'll do 'im any 'arm to learn a bit, even if it
don't do 'im no good."
' "Good," I said, feeling a bit taken aback at the complete
volte face. "I was going to mention it."
' "Y' don't say," he answered drily.
' "I'm glad, very glad indeed," I went on, "I'm sure you'll

CHILD OF POWER	114
never regret it, nor Ted either. Well, now we'll have to go into
the matter of raising the money."
'He shook his head.
' "No, we won't. I said as 'ow I wasn't borrowin' for 'im, and
I ain't."
' "But—well, it's going to cost a bit, you know," I told him.
' "I know. I've been into all that."
'I waited. Jim's sort takes its own time.
' " 'E'll earn it 'imself. Maybe it'll take 'im a year or two, but
then 'e'll be able to go to college an' pay 'is own way."
' "How?"
'Jim chuckled.
' "Way you never thought of. Mr. Pauley's notion, an' a
good one, too."
'I had known that it must come; it was surprising that I had
had the field to myself for so long, yet I felt a hot resentment.
' "Pauley, where does he come in?" I asked, though I knew
on the moment exactly where he came in. It was inevitable
that someone should find out about young Ted soon, and who
likelier than his schoolmaster.
' "Same way as thaself. 'E came 'ere sayin' same as you, as 'ow
our Ted ought to go to college. So I tells 'im just t'same as I
tells you. Aye, an' I tells 'im it's no good 'im tryin' to change
my mind, seein' as you been tryin' to for t'best part of two
years, and not done it. So 'e goes off. Next day 'e's back. 'E's
been thinkin', 'e 'as. 'E says why not let our Ted go on t'Alls
and make a bit o' money 'imself?"
' "The Music Halls?"
' "Aye. 'E says a friend of 'is could get Ted on as "The
'Uman Wireless Set." Might make five quid a week and more."
'I thought of the plans I had made for the boy, a good
school and then Cambridge if it could be managed—and now,
"T'Alls!"
' "Jim," I said earnestly. "You can't do this. He can't afford
it, man, he's too important. He can't afford to spend the most
impressionable years of his life in Music Halls, it'd be the ruin
of him. How could he settle down to learn after that kind of
life? And he must learn, he's got to study, as hard as he can, he
must."
'Jim removed his pipe and looked hard at me.
' " 'Oo says 'e must? 'E's my own lad, isn't 'e? I got a right to
do what I think best for 'im, ain't I?"
' "But you don't understand, Jim, this is important, tremen-
dously important. It may mean a major turning point in his-

ii4
tory, Jim, pivoting on him. It's like a sacred trust, we must do
our best to prepare him for it."
'I told him of my new discovery about Ted. I put my case
for all I was worth—and I might as well have shouted at the
hills. I could see his face harden into the all-too-familiar lines
of obstinacy as I talked. He could not, would not, see, even if
he believed. The stupendousness of the possibilities, contact
with life beyond the Earth, perhaps knowledge from older,
wiser worlds, the coming of a stage when man gropes out from
the isolation of his little planet and makes himself known in
the universe beyond, the importance to science, to mankind
itself; all this was wasted, blunted against his conviction that it
wasn't "right to borrow on t'lad's future."
'Because I felt so deeply, and partly because the coming
storm made the air sultry and fretted the nerves, I lost my
temper with him. But it would take more than words and
threatening thunder to move Jim. Cloddish, without imagina-
tion, the embodiment of all the stupidities that clutter and
clog the world, he seemed to me then.
'He wouldn't get excited, he refused to argue, he just sat
there behind his unassailable rectitude, beating me off with
flat negatives. No lash I used could sting him out of his quiet,
narrow assurance. He just waited patiently for me to finish. I
did that suddenly, for I felt that in another minute I should
punch his silly face if only to make him come alive.
' "I'm going to see Pauley," I told him, "and I hope to
Heaven that he at least has enough brains to see that this
mustn't be allowed to happen. God, to waste the gift of the
ages in a Music Hall!"
'I flung out of the place and across the pavement to my car. I
was going to see the schoolmaster right away; perhaps he
would believe easily, perhaps he would need convincing, but
either way I could not believe that he would fail to see that
Ted was going to deserve the best education possible. We
might be able to raise the money as a gift, though I had my
doubts whether Jim would accept it now. But somehow or
other we must ensure Ted's—not only Ted's; the whole
world's—chance.
'And then a rumble of thunder made me pause with my
hand on the door handle. I looked up, suddenly aware that the
sky was full of ominous black clouds; they looked fantastically
heavy with an evil, almost green light in their caverns.
'That was why I did not rush off to see Pauley then; after-
wards it wasn't necessary....

CHILD OF POWER	116
'The threat of the thunder brought young Ted vividly into
my mind. I knew how storms worried him, I knew, too, that he
was not at home. I hesitated. After my exit I could scarcely go
back and ask where he was; besides, Jim could hardly fail in
the circumstances to misconstrue my motive, which was, in
fact, merely a desire to be sure that the boy was as well pro-
tected as possible against an electrical upset. Instead, I turned
from the car and spoke to the woman who stood in the door-
way of the next cottage studying the sky resentfully.
' "Young Ted Filler?" she said. "Aye, 'e's along t'canal with
our Rosie. Fair soaked they'll be, the pair of 'em."
'I remembered Rosie; she was one of those children who get
themselves remembered. She was suspected, and not without
reason, of being concerned in any bit of trouble for streets
around.
'Even now I don't quite know why I changed my mind and
went to look for young Ted instead of for Pauley, but I did.
'The canal ends in Irkwell so there was only one way to go.
A few minutes later I stopped the car on a hump-backed
bridge just as the first big drops of rain began to fall. From
there I had a view of the towpath for half a mile each way, but
I didn't need it. The path was deserted save for two small
figures a hundred yards or so away; any others who may have
been there had wisely left to seek shelter.
'The children were scuffling on the cinders a yard or two
from the water's edge, much too occupied to pay attention to
me, the coming storm, or anything else but their own quarrel.
Rosie was no silent scrapper; her yells of protest were forceful
even at that distance. Perhaps that was not to be wondered at.
It must be painful to have an opponent take a good grip of
one's hair, even if one does manage to get in a hack or two on
his shins. I leaned out of the car and shouted at the little
brutes.
' "Ted," I called, "stop it and come here."
'Surprised, he looked round. The victim seized her chance to
pull free. Quick as a flash she snatched his cap off, flung it into
the water, and tore off down the towpath with screams of
derision.
Ted clapped both hands to his head, as if in pain.
' "Come here," I shouted, getting out of the car.
'He heard me, for he turned and began to run with his
hands still pressed to his head.
'I started off the bridge to get down to him. then I saw him
stagger and stop. In the same split second came a vivid flash
right above us and a crash of thunder like the end of the

103
world. The rain fell as if a cloud had ripped right open. When
I reached the towpath young Ted was lying there, pathetically
asprawl and soaked through already.'
He paused.
'That's all,' he said, 'that was the silly end of it.'
We looked out over the dark lake in silence for a while.
'He was dead?' asked one of the Americans, at last.
'No, he wasn't dead. But the thing that made him different
was dead. That terrific discharge of lightning had finished his
sixth sense for good. In that new sense he had gone as blind as
a man without eyes, as deaf as one with split eardrums. He
came round again, an ordinary little Irkwell urchin, with a
raging headache. Now, he's a quarryman like his father.
'Some day perhaps he'll do something silly and I shall be
able to have a look at his brain—if his pigheaded relatives
allow it. But there's pretty cold comfort in that when one
thinks of the possibilities which were snuffed out in a second.'
No one spoke again for some minutes. Then there was a
movement in the darkness from the Lancashire man's direc-
tion.
'Aye, it were a rum do,' he said, 'but 'e'll be 'appier that way,
you know. Freaks ain't 'appy. Now, there was one as I once
talked to at Blackpool. 'E wasn't 'appy, 'e said	'

THE LAST LUNARIANS
chapter one
THE VOYAGE OF THE SCINTILLA
The secretary of the Lunar Archaeological Society approached
his employer with a nervous diffidence. His method of stating
his business was, to put it mildly, indirect. The president was a
man who hated circumlocution. He became testy.
'Come on, man. What's the trouble? Out with it!'
Still the secretary hesitated, then, with a sudden decision,
thrust a packet of papers clumsily towards his chief.
'These came this morning, sir. I thought you ought to know.
They're a bit—er—peculiar.'
'AH right. I'll look at 'em.'
The secretary departed with some relief, and the president
turned back to his interrupted work. Half an hour later, he
remembered the pile of papers and took up the covering letter
which lay on top.
A name standing out amid the type caught his eye. He
stiffened, stared at it and began to read more carefully. The
heading was a Liverpool address, and the date a fortnight old.
'Dear Sir,' it began. 'On the sixteenth of June last, the S.S.
Turkoman, to which I was medical officer, rescued a man at a
point not far from the Solomon Islands. He was found drifting
in a native canoe and, judging from his condition, had been in
it for some days. The results of such exposure were aggravated
by the serious ill-treatment he had received in the form of
severe cuts and wounds. At first it appeared to be impossible
to save him, but his body eventually responded to treatment,
though his mind still wandered.
'He was a man of considerable education, and gave his name
as Stephen Dawcott. Upon arrival here, I placed him in a
mental home. During the next four months I was absent, and
when I returned, it was to find that he had made good his
escape. The authorities were mystified and handed to me the
enclosed manuscript, which he had left behind. They saw it as
the raving of a madman, but to me it seems a matter requiring
a less facile explanation. I await your reply with interest.'
The signature was 'John Haddon,' and to it were appended
the letters, 'M.D.'

103
The president frowned as he set aside the letter and took up
the manuscript. There had been a Stephen Dawcott, an an-
thropologist of some note, aboard the Scintilla. But the Scin-
tilla was lost. From the day she had left the flying field on her
maiden trip to the Moon, nearly a year ago. not a word had
been heard from her. She had roared from Earth into mysteri-
ous non-existence.
But Stephen Dawcott had been aboard her; he was sure of
that. He, and others of the Lunar Archaeological Society, had
seen Dawcott's among the faces at the windows before the
Scintilla took off. And now the man was reported as having
been picked up in Melanesia, of all unlikely places. The presi-
dent's frown deepened as he began to read the manuscript: —
The Scintilla behaved in an exemplary manner on her out-
ward journey. She justified the high hopes of her designers by
the smooth swiftness with which she leapt out from Earth.
Captain Tott was delighted with her performance, and swore
that there could be no sweeter ship to handle in all the ether.
Those of us who had taken part in earlier space-flights
agreed unreservedly. The new Danielson acceleration compen-
sators had proved their worth, and ridded space-flying for
evermore of the starting strain and its unpleasant effects. In
design, furnishing, and facilities for carrying such fragile relics
as we might find, the Scintilla was a credit to the Lunar
Archaeological Society who had built and so lavishly equipped
her.
The perfect start, followed by the peaceful smoothness of
our voyage, could have raised no apprehensions in the most
psychic soul. Indeed, what possible cause could there be for
apprehension? The silver globe before us was worn out, arid
and still with the supreme stillness of death. No ship cruising
above that gutted shell of a world had seen sign of as much life
as lies in a blade of grass. Even the crater of Linni, which had
been suspected of harbouring the last vestiges of life, had been
found as barren as the rest.
'Dead,' I murmured, as we gazed out of the living-cabin
windows at the withered satellite. 'All the "fitful-fevers" done
and gone; a whole world mummified and at rest.'
But I did not know Luna then. I did not know to the full
that desperation with which life strives and clings. ...
We made first for the North-East Quadrant, and sank to a
gentle landing on the glittering, metallic dust which makes the
crater of Aristarchus the brightest spot on the face of the
Moon.

THE LAST LUNARIANS
120
This was to be a preliminary trip. Our object was to survey
the ground for future operations rather than make them our-
selves. A number of sites were to be examined and reported
upon, with a view to deciding which would be the most
profitable to excavate. Aristarchus held little of interest for us,
save the almost obliterated remains of a small settlement upon
the northern side.
The details of our trip are of little interest here, so I merely
record that we moved next, unprofitably, to the Mare Crisium,
and thence across the equator to Tycho. Next, Clavius, great-
est of all the craters, provided quantities of material, and
showed indisputably that a great civilisation had once flour-
ished in what is now only a vast bowl of sand and rock, a
hundred and forty miles in diameter. Thus we came at last to
the Mare Serenitatis, the Sea of Serenity....
Who named this immense oval plain? I cannot remember,
but I do know that he saw it only through a telescope, two
hundred and thirty-nine thousand miles away. He did not see
it as we did—a huge sterile stretch, grey-floored and gloomy.
Had he been able to stand upon one of the tortured moun-
tains at its brink and look out across that sombre desolation of
sand, he would have called it, not the Sea of Serenity, but the
Sea of Foreboding....
We sailed slowly across to the North-West. Every member of
the expedition was at the windows, scanning the featureless
floor for any sign the ancient Lunarians might have left.
Until now we had felt no uneasiness. All the Moon is bare,
but the harshness of its vistas had not played upon our nerves;
it was only what we had expected and could scarcely affect us,
but now the monotony of this great, dry sea-bed seemed to
impress us all in greater or lesser degree. Unromantic scientists
though we were, we felt a misgiving which none of us was
willing to put into words.
And then, less than twenty miles from the far side of the sea,
the steady throbbing of our rockets was interrupted. The fir-
ing tubes began to stutter uncertainly. I was with Captain
Toft when the chief engineer rang through and reported that
it would be necessary to descend for repairs.
The hasty glance which Toft gave through the control-dome
windows told me that he had conceived the same distaste for
the locality as had the rest of us. He decided swiftly to make
for the cliffs now looming ahead at the sea's edge. There could
be no better landing surface than the level, grey sand beneath
us, but he preferred to stop near its confines. With some

103
anxiety, he inquired the extent of the failure, but was told that
this could not be ascertained while in flight.
The Scintilla continued to forge lamely ahead, gradually
sinking. She took the sand at length some two hundred yards
from those high, perpendicular cliffs which once had stood like
the ramparts of giants against a beating sea.
The Captain left the dome to interview the engineer, and I
made my way to the central saloon. A deal of chatter greeted
me as I opened the door. My colleagues were peering excitedly
at the cliffs; all signs of their depression had vanished. Robson,
the leader of the scientific side of the expedition, drew me
forward and thrust a pair of field-glasses into my hands.
'Look at those cliffs, man. Just look at them!'
I focused eagerly. The sand in the immediate foreground
was dotted with rocks of all sizes which had fallen from the
heights, and beyond them was a line of darkness which hid the
cliff-face in deep shadow. The meagre, reflected light was just
enough to show regular markings of some kind. I fancied that
I could make out the carved figure of a man.
'Wait a minute,' cried Robson, as he turned and dashed
from the room.
A moment later, a searchlight was playing a flood of bril-
liance on to a scene which caused us to gasp incredulously.
The surface of the granite-like rock, to the height of some
seventy or eighty feet, was covered with carvings in high relief
—an involved, ingenious ordering of the figures of men, ani-
mals, and conventional forms.
The first astonished silence was succeeded by a babel of ex-
cited talk. Everyone spoke at once, and no one listened. And
no wonder; compared to this revelation, our earlier discoveries
dwindled to mere nothings. It seemed that we might have
found the lunar Book of the Dead carved upon this mighty
stone page.
chapter two
CORPSES OF THE MOON
Robson came back and started to tow me in the direction of
the space-suit lockers. He continued to babble excitedly as he
lifted the clumsy garments from their hooks. The suits were
essential, for although, contrary to expectation, it had been

THE LAST LUNARIANS
121
found that some air still existed upon the Moon, and in the
deepest craters was almost breathable during the lunar day,
yet the rarity of such as lingered in the beds of the vanished
seas compelled artificial aid.
As we left the ship and drew near the cliffs, I think there
was no doubt in any of our minds that the design was picture-
writing of some kind. The irregular repetition of certain
glyphs practically established the fact. None of us, of course,
could yet attempt any translation, but the photographers were
already arranging their cameras to provide a record for more
leisured study.
I watched them work with an untraceable sense of uneasiness
creeping over me. I have said before, and I repeat, that al-
though I am a hard-headed scientist, I was nevertheless aware
of a distinctly unscientific misgiving....
The rest were too enthusiastic, too occupied with pointing
out details and symbols which might, or might not, be analo-
gous with similar symbols on Earth, to share my anxiety; and I
did not mention it—it was too irrational, illogical.
It was Robson who made the great find. He had gone close
up to the cliff, and was examining a floridly incised square of
the surface. Presently his cry sounded in all our receivers:
'A door,' he said. There's a door in the cliff!'
We crowded up to him and found that the square was bor-
dered all around by a narrow crack. Millennia ago, when there
had been a wind upon the Moon, the grey sand had drifted up
at the foot, but it took only a few moments' scratching to lay
bare the threshold of the stone panel. Already, at the ruins in
Clavius, we had established that the luna practice had been to
swing a door upon a central pivot so that it turned sidewise
through ninety degrees, leaving a passage to either side.
Accordingly. Robson flung himself upon one side and
pushed. Finding it immovable, he transferred his strength to
the other. It moved back an inch or so and then stuck. Spurred
on, he brought every once of his strength to bear, and slowly
the great rock door, which would have defied the efforts of
three men on Earth, swung around.
Without hesitation, he switched on the light at his belt and
walked in. We followed him for ten yards; then he stopped.
'Another door.' he complained irritably. 'They certainly
meant to preserve whatever's inside. Let's have some more
light on this.'
The second door was plainer than the outer, and the only sign
on it was a deep-graven circle. As I looked at that circle, my

103
premonitions intensified. The circle—the world-wide sign of
infinity, eternity—could it be possible that here, on Luna ...?
I almost called upon the others to stop, but realised in time
how weakly my warning would fall before their exploring zest.
'It's sealed,' someone discovered. He pointed to a dozen or
more blobs of black, shiny composition fixed across the jambs.
On each of these, too, was impressed the sign of the circle.
To the non-anthropologist, it may seem strange that I
should have attached an Earthly importance to the sign of the
circle here on the Moon. But it is, with the possible exception
of the cross, the earliest and most widely used of symbols. It
was significant of man's will to immortality in all parts of the
globe from far back in pre history and it remains significant
still. It had dominated the lives of many races, and now here it
was again—on the Moon!
I stood unhappily aside and watched the rest break the seals.
But the door still refused to yield, even to the efforts of five
men. They drew their knives and fell to scraping out a tight-
plugged paste around the edges. They tried again, but still the
stone square stood adamant.
Robson suggested a small charge of explosive. 'The door has
no value,' he pointed out. 'There's no carving on it except the
circle.' The rest agreed, after a momentary hesitation. Ten
minutes later, the face of the door was cracked across, and a
crow-bar was levering the fragments apart. The barrier soon
succumbed, and we scrambled over the ruins to arrive in a
large hewn room. Here and there, black openings in the walls
suggested corridors to further rooms, but we gave them little
attention at present, for our interest was centred in a scatter of
long boxes lying on the floor.
They were made of some grey metal which reflected the rays
of our lamps only dully. One, close by the door, had suffered
from the explosion. The lid was loosened and lay awry.
Through the space it had opened, there hung a human
hand....
Robson laid hold of the battered edge and wrenched the lid
clean away. As his eyes fell on the contents, he started back in
surprise. We hurried to his side and stared down in astonish-
ment—men of Earth looking for the first time upon a man of
the Moon!
He was perfectly preserved, and we, poor fools, wondered at
the artistry which had been able so to conserve an unshrouded
corpse that after thousands—perhaps millions—of years, it
could have appeared to have lived but yesterday. Not one of us

THE LAST LUNARIANS	124
guessed the truth about that body. We were sufficiently con-
ceited to believe that no race could have surpassed us in any
branch of knowledge.
We looked down upon the Moonman, noting his almost
unbelievable chest development; remarking his brown pig-
mentation and the Mongolian slant of his eyes; observing that
he was a litle shorter than the shortest of us, and telling one
another that he was brachycephalic; classifying him. If any one
of us happened to notice that the lips were drawn back in a
smile, he did not mention it—of what interest to a scientist is a
dead man's smile ...?
When we returned to the Scintilla for rest and replenish-
ment of our oxygen supplies, Captain Toft greeted us with the
information that the wear in our firing tubes was more exten-
sive than had been suspected. It would take, he thought,
nearly twenty-four hours to effect the replacements.
The delay irritated him, for he had meant to follow daylight
around the Moon to the invisible side. The present situation
would cause night to overtake us, for the flaring Sun was al-
ready not far from the horizon, and the dark line of the two
weeks long lunar night was crawling towards us, a bare twelve
hours away.
But we did not share his anxiety to be off. Indeed, we wel-
comed the delay, for it gave us some time for investigation.
Night or day would not matter to us in the rock vault.
A dozen specimen coffins were loaded aboard the Scintilla,
after we had opened them to assure ourselves that they con-
tained the bodies of six men and six women. With these safely
stowed away, we felt at liberty to examine the vault more
thoroughly.
There was little to repay detailed investigation of the place
itself. No carving or decoration graced the interior, but we
found that it and the subsidiary chambers contained a surpris-
ing quantity of coffins—altogether, more than four hundred of
them.
Each one, when opened, revealed a puzzling device whose
purpose we could not guess. As the lid was raised on its hinges,
two secondary occurrences took place. At the first loosening of
the catches, something inside dropped with a musical tinkle.
Investigation revealed the fragments of a small glass globe,
smashed to pieces. Then the actual pushing up of the lid
thrust, by means of an ingenious arrangement of levers, a
slender, hollow glass spike deep into the corpse's flank. This
was automatically withdrawn as the lid passed the perpendicu-
lar.

124
Robson and I examined the device curiously, but could
make nothing of it.
'I guess it's something to do with preservation,' he suggested
vaguely, and turned his attention to the other contents.
chapter three
FROM OUT OF THE PAST
Many of the coffins enclosed not only trinkets and trappings
upon the still forms, but also sheets of withered writing
material covered with a quasi-pictorial script. This obviously
must be collected, but since prolonged work in space-suits is
inadvisable, we came to an arrangement of shifts. My turn
came some six hours before sunset, and my companions were
Jay Royden and Walter Greg, good men both.
We were not unduly depressed when we left the Scintilla's
lock. My own earlier misgivings had all but disappeared under
the cheering influence of the others, and if I thought at all, as
we made for the vault entrance, it was of the good luck which
had caused the Scintilla to have her misadventure here. But
for that, we might never have seen the rock carvings.
The three of us were soon scrambling once more into the
hewn tomb. For an hour or more we worked quietly. Neck-
laces, bangles, daggers and rings, which would soon be proudly
shown in the museums of Earth, were methodically stripped
from their owners' still forms. The Lunarians, it seemed, did
not know clothes as we do. What little they wore was not for
covering, but for ornament in the way of worked belts, intri-
cate breastplates and the like.
Very soon our miscellaneous collection began to form a size-
able pile, and I decided that it would be more convenient to
remove it from the chamber where we were working to a spot
nearer the main entrance. Two journeys were necessary, and
as I made the second. I came upon a sight which brought me
up with a jerk. One of the coffins by my way lay open, and the
inmate's hand rested on the edge	
I stared in shocked horror. It had not lain so during my pre-
vious journey. I hurried past with a thumping, painful heart. I
dropped my burden with the other plunder, and turned to
scan the vault with the awful intensity of growing panic.
My ears strained to listen, though I was cut off from all

THE LAST LUNARIANS
125
external sounds. Something seemed to flicker just beyond the
rays of my lamp. I jerked stiffly towards it. but the light
showed nothing amiss. I turned on, scouring the place with my
lamp. Nothing.... Nothing....
Then I looked back to the first corner. My arms fell weakly;
my heart hammered in panic. A corpse sat upright in its
coffin 1
I must have cried out, for I heard Walter's voice in my
receiver. 'What is it?' he was calling anxiously.
'Come here, quick,' was all I could manage.
The urgency in my voice started them without further ques-
tion. I stood with my back to the main entrance and turned
my light on the passage-mouth from which they must emerge.
Something moved again outside the circle of light, but I dared
not throw the rays upon it.
The two grotesque, space-suit-clad figures came hurrying
into sight. As they saw me, Walter demanded again: 'What is
it?'
I did not answer him; instead I shouted: 'Look out!' A
dimly-seen shape was moving in the shadow behind them.
Walter snatched at his knife and made to turn, but swift as
he was. he was too late.
A naked, brown arm came snaking over his shoulder. Its
elbow crooked under the front of his helmet and dragged his
head back. Another brown hand shot groping for his knife.
And even as Jay turned to help, another pair of brown arms
came twining about him, and I had a glimpse of a slant-eyed
face leering beyond.
The hand which sought Walter's knife tore it from his
grasp. I could hear him grunt as he struggled to keep it. Then
clearly through the microphone came a tearing sound, as the
knife ripped the space-suit, and the following whistle of exhal-
ing air. Walter gave one choking cry....
The whole affair had been too sudden for me to give any
help. Before I could take more than a step, came a second
tearing sound and I knew that Jay, too, was past help.
I stopped suddenly—no use to go on. Then I saw that the
corpse which had caused my fright was no longer sitting—he
was climbing out of his coffin, his face leering towards me. . . .
I turned and sprang for the open, racing for my life across
the sea-bottom.
They didn't believe it. Already I had shown signs of queer
behaviour, and now I was babbling fantastic nonsense. Dead
men coming to life I Dead men fighting the living I Obviously,

126
my brain was turned.
The doctor attempted to soothe me. Robson vainly at-
tempted to reach Walter and Jay on the radio. There was an
odd expression on his face when he turned back to look at
me.
'Can't raise them,' he said. 'Something's certainly wrong. Do
you think	?' He broke off and nodded suggestively towards
me. The rest looked serious. They did not put their thoughts
into words, but they were plain enough on their faces. Three
men alone—and one of them a madman!
Two volunteered to go out and search. The rest began to
help them into their space-suits. I begged and besought them
not to go, but they only cursed me for getting in their way.
Others dragged me back and held me penned in a corner.
'Good God, you fools,' I raged at them, 'wouldn't they have
called you if I'd run amuck like you think? Can't you see that
I'm telling you the truth? If you go over there, they'll get you,
you fools—you bloody fools! They'll get you!'
Nobody gave me a scrap of attention. The men were clad
and their helmets affixed. As they left the air-lock, Robson
switched on the radio to keep in communication. My anger
passed as I helplessly watched them trudge towards the search-
lit cliff-face. Nothing I could do would save them now.
We saw them pause by the open stone door and heard their
voices in the speaker as they settled who should take the lead.
Then they disappeared. For a few seconds there was nothing
but the sound of breathing. Suddenly a voice with a tinge of
nervousness spoke.
'What was that? Something moved.'
'Nothing,' answered the other. For our benefit, he added:
'We are just climbing over the remains of the second door—
now we're in the vault. There's—God, what's that?'
His voice was suddenly shrill—and then it broke. 'Quick,
out of this, quick, man—back, for Heaven's sake!' After that it
was a jumble—hard breathing mingled with odd phrases.
'—dozens of 'em.' '—got him.' 'Keep together.' Then: 'Look
out, he's got a knife!' Horror-stricken, we heard the sound of
stout cloth ripped asunder—gasping cries. After diat, all was
silent....
My companions turned wondering eyes upon me, full of un-
easy fears. Robson murmured something which might have
been an apology. He begged for the whole story. I told him as
calmly as I could all that I knew.
He found it meagre. 'Have you any theories?' he demanded.

THE LAST LUNARIANS
127
I had been thinking, but I hesitated. 'It's rather a fantastic
theory,' I admitted.
'Of course it is! The whole thing's fantastic. Let's have it.'
'You remember what happened when we opened the coffins?
A globe of something dropped and smashed. Then, too, there
were those glass needles.... There must have been a purpose
behind them.'
Robson looked hard at me. 'You mean that the needles
might have been some kind of hypodermic?'
'Something of the sort,' I nodded.
'And that they revived what we thought were corpses?'
'There were the glass globes, too,' I reminded him.
'But it's ridiculous, preposterous! After thousands of years.
... There might be a possibility of suspended animation for a
short time, but this . ..'
'Why should it be impossible for an indefinite length of
time? The fact that we don't know how to do it doesn't prove
its impossibility. Those coffins were air-tight; they may have
been full of preserving gas, for all we know. We couldn't
notice that while we were wearing space-suits.'
'But	'
'Oh, all right,' I said. 'I'm only offering a theory. Can you
think of a better one?'
Robson turned to contemplate the cliff.
'But why?' he murmured. 'Why?'
'Why do men put up memorials?' I asked. 'It's a habit, an
instinct to perpetuate. I should say these people had just the
same instinct. Their world was dying; the race was dying. Per-
haps they thought that it was only a phase and that the Moon
would become fertile once more. Anyway, on the face of it, it
looks as though they decided to take a chance and try to save
some of their race for whatever future there might be.'
'But how can they live?' asked someone. 'There's hardly any
air.'
'But remember the enormous lung capacity,' suggested Rob-
son.
chapter four
BESIEGED BY THE MOON-MEN
With the suggestion of a rational explanation, the fears of the
party grew less intense. Some of the more adventurous even

128
volunteered to undertake a further investigation. They could
go prepared and well armed.
Robson vetoed the idea at once. He pointed out that there
were over four hundred Lunarians ready to over-run them
faster than they could fire.
'But we don't mean them any harm.'
'Nor did the others, but they got theirs. It doesn't seem to
have occurred to you that they must have food. There was
nothing to eat in the vault.'
We looked at one another. This implication of the immedi-
ate capture of our men had not struck us before. It did so now,
unpleasantly. ...
Robson summoned Captain Toft. This was a danger which
concerned the whole ship, not merely our scientific group.
The Captain's incredulity was easily beaten down by our
massed conviction. He was all for action and rescue, until he
realised that the space-suits had been slit and that the men
were past all help. Robson pressed for the immediate removal
of the Scintilla from the Mare Serenitatis to a less dangerous
resting-place in some crater; but Toft shook his head.
'The engines are down for repairs. Even by forcing work to
the limit, it'll take another ten hours.' Our faces looked
anxious enough to make him add: 'I'll do my best, gentlemen,
you may depend on that, but I can't promise a minute less
than ten hours.'
Robson thought for a while. At last he spoke.
'We must keep them penned up as long as we can. I want
two men to go outside and take rifles. Every man or woman
who tries to get out of that vault must be shot.'
Two volunteers were immediately forthcoming. They hur-
ried into space-suits, and were on their way to the lock when a
shout from a watcher at the window stopped them.
'Too late,' he called. 'They're out!'
A knot of a dozen or more Moonmen had just emerged.
They halted a few paces from the cliff and stood on the grey
sand, shielding their eyes with their hands from the glare of
our searchlight, and looking.,about them.
Now that they were erect, their differences from Earth-men
appeared more pronounced. The large ears developed for
catching sounds in the thin air seemed to dwarf their heads,
and the huge bulging chests were so disproportionate as to
render all the limbs skinny and spindly by contrast. They
looked bewildered by the barrenness of the world they now
faced. Not only did it fail to fulfil their expectations, but it
was obviously different from their last view of it.

THE LAST LUNARIANS
129
One man raised his arm and pointed to a distinctively dis-
torted crag, as though it were a recognisable landmark. The
rest nodded and let their eyes wander, searching for other
familiar sights. More of their kind came out of the vault and
joined them. After a short conference, they seemed to reach a
decision and the whole group turned towards the Scintilla.
The doctor, standing next to me, was watching them with
close attention.
'They're not doing too well,' he murmured. 'Even those
great lungs are labouring a bit. The atmosphere must have
been a great deal denser when they went in. I wonder just how
long ago	?'
Robson's voice cut him short. He was addressing the two in
space-suits.
'They mean mischief. You two get up into the control-dome
and take your rifles. We'll evacuate the dome, and then you
can open the windows and pick them off, if necessary.'
The two men left the room, and we heard them clattering
up the metal ladders. Robson was right. The Moonmen and
women did mean mischief. It was in their gleaming eyes and
bared teeth as they approached.
They had resumed the trappings that we had pilfered. Each
wore the broad worked belt of Luna, and about their necks
and ankles glittered metal bangles. Black hair, held back from
their faces by ornate circlets, depended in a lank mane upon
their shoulders and down their backs.
One man, slightly taller than the rest, appeared to be the
leader. As they drew close, he turned to incite the rest. A
moment later, a volley of rocks and stones clattered futilely
against the Scintilla's metal sides.
We took heart. The primitive simplicity of such an attack
encouraged us. Half a minute later, two Moon-men dropped
inert. Our men in the dome had gone into action. The at-
tackers, by now a hundred strong, were thrown into momen-
tary confusion. But the wavering was brief, and in a few sec-
onds, they were running towards us. They had seen in a flash
that once beneath the ship's overhanging sides, they would be
safe from the marksmen above.
A well-placed rock put the searchlight out of action and
plunged the cliff-face into intense shadow. It became impos-
sible for the riflemen to pick off the reinforcements which
would pour from the tomb. They would be all but invisible
until the line of sunlight was reached—and that line was craw-
ling slowly closer to us with the sinking of the Sun.
Another searchlight was switched on, but it, too, was swiftly

i3°
obscured. The main body of the attackers was now out of view
from our windows, though a large number of stragglers con-
tinued to dart from the shadow towards the ship. Of these, a
number fell to the guns, but a larger number won through
unharmed.
From down the corridor came the sudden clanging of an
attack upon our outer door. We looked at one another and
smiled. There was precious litde to be feared from that direc-
tion. Nor were the Moon-men long in realising that the steel
would defy their utmost efforts. In a very short time, they
came clustering around the window, hungrily gloating and ex-
citedly jostling one another as they peered in.
The leader picked up a prodigious rock which could not have
been stirred by one man on Earth. He flung it with a mighty
heave against the fused pane. The pane was unharmed, but
Robson looked serious.
'I don't know how much of that sort of thing it will stand,'
he said doubtfully. 'If they try two or three of those rocks
simultaneously	?'
The same idea had occurred to the Moon-men. We saw
them collecting the largest rocks they could handle. There was
a leering look of triumph on the face of the leader as he re-
garded us through his slant eyes.
Robson rushed back and opened the door. 'Quick, out of
this!' he shouted.
We left in a headlong rush, and as the last of us came
through, we heard the crash of the shattered window. The
door snapped to behind us automatically as the air pressure
fell.
Within a couple of minutes, a furious battering began to-
wards the stern. Half a dozen of us raced down the ship. As we
clattered through the engine-room, the chief engineer looked
up, spanner in hand. He was working all he knew. The grime
on his face was trickled with sweat and his hair lay damp and
flat.
'Clamp on the emergency plates,' he called as we passed.
There had been no time in the main cabin to fix the heavy
steel plates across the windows, but now we seized them from
their racks and set to with a will. No sooner was a plate fixed
over one port-hole than the Moon-men turned their attack to
another, and we had to rush that also to cover with an emerg-
ency plate.
In the middle of our activity came word that the men in the
control-dome were abandoning their position. The place was

THE LAST LUNARIANS
becoming untenable on account of the bombardment of rocks,
for while the rocks could be thrown on a trajectory which kept
the throwers concealed, the riflemen must have direct vision
before their shots could be effective.
For what seemed several hours, we lived in a nightmare of
rushes from point to point. As fast as we made one spot safe,
another was attacked. Then, at last, when we were weary to
the point of exhaustion, we became aware that the frenzy was
lessening. The batterings grew fewer and feebler, until at
length they stopped altogether.
We waited, puzzled. It was almost an hour before we cauti-
ously removed an emergency plate and peered out. Only then
did we understand the abrupt cessation of hostilities. The Sun
had set, and the sea-bed shimmered coldly in the pale, green-
blue Earth-light. Of the Moon-men, only a few still, crumpled
forms were to be seen.
'They've gone.' I said. 'But why?'
Robson pointed towards the cliff, and I saw that the stone
door was now closed.
'The cold,' he explained. 'Right now it's colder out there
than anything you've ever known. In a little while, it will be so
cold that what littleiair there is left will freeze solid.'
'And the Moon-men?'
'It means the end of them. Even in their vaults, the air will
freeze—though they'll freeze first.'
'Poor devils,' I said. 'To wait all those thousands of years
just for this—to freeze to death I'
I had an unhappy vision of the last luckless Moon-men and
women huddled together in their lightless tomb, waiting with-
out hope for the creeping coldness of death. Robson's voice
broke my mood.
'AH hands on the job,' he said briskly. 'We've got to get ship-
shape again. Captain Toft, what are your orders, sir?'
chapter five
THE TWELVE COFFINS
It was decided that we would make for Earth. The morale of
the Scintilla's company was too shaken to undertake the ex-
ploration of Luna's hidden side on our present trip. Since
little or no calculation was necessary, Toft waited only until

132
the engines were repaired before he headed straight for the
great pale disc of Terra.
The ground fell away, and we looked for the last time on
that misnamed Sea of Serenity. A few scattered brown figures
were visible in the Earth-light; they seemed like a sad symbol
of the littleness of that passing phase of worlds which we call
life. With that final glimpse, those of us not on duty turned
away and sought our cabins for overdue rest.
I slept long. It was all of twelve hours before I reopened my
cabin door. My way down the passage led me past the chief
engineer's room, and I hesitated outside his door, wondering
whether to take him along for breakfast or whether to let him
have his sleep out. My hand was on the knob when the door
opened abruptly and in the doorway stood a woman—a Moon-
woman !
I stood frozen with the shock, staring at her. She returned
the stare, white teeth and dark eyes glinting. She crouched
slightly, becoming the more grotesque and horrifying. Her
right hand slid forward, and I saw that it held a knife which
was red with blood.
I lunged to grip her wrist, but she was too swift. With a
twist and a cry, she had passed me and was away up the cor-
ridor. I hesitated, then turned into the engineer's cabin. One
look at him was enough; that Moon-devil must have slashed
and slashed....
For a moment I stood irresolute. The engineer's fate might
well have been mine—and I was not safe now. I ran into the
corridor; the rest must be warned.
At the threshold of the living-cabin, I checked in horror.
Five still forms lay on the floor, each of them horribly muti-
lated. I recoiled and fled to the control-dome, hoping des-
perately.
My fears were not vain. Just in the entrance, I stumbled
over the bodies of two officers. Beside a third figure crouched a
Moon-woman. At my entrance, she arose and whirled towards
me; I could see that the man at her feet was Toft, alive, but
bound and helpless.
She faced me like some terrifying Medusa, stepping cat-like,
a knife in either hand. I backed and grasped a chair, intending
to use it as a weapon—I had forgotten that all furniture on the
ship must be fixed. She gave a cry, semi-human and chilling. A
door on the far side of the dome opened suddenly to reveal a
group of the grotesque Moon-men and women.
It was more than I could stand; I fled, bolting the door
behind me.

THE LAST LUNARIANS
133
For the next twelve hours, I remained locked in my cabin.
There was plenty of time to review our folly. How could we,
even in our excitement, have overlooked the possibility of
menace from those twelve coffins that we had taken aboard?
And not only had we taken them aboard, but we had even
opened them to assure ourselves of their contents. Surely, some
of us should have foreseen the danger! Either Robson or my-
self ought to have fastened down the lids, or, better still, have
jettisoned them upon the Moon.
And in the middle of my self-blame, it came to me that this
was not the end. They must have taken the ship completely by
surprise and murdered every man they had found except Toft;
they would make him show them how to work the ship, or else
force him to guide the Scintilla back to Earth himself. The
Moon-people had planned thousands of years ago their bid for
survival, and it had not yet failed. A dozen of the Lunarians
might yet be let loose upon Earth.
I was unarmed, for all the weapons were kept in a cupboard
off the main living-cabin. I would have to get there before I
could avenge my comrades and wipe out the Moon-folk. I
crept to the door and listened. One hasty glance up and down
the corridor assured me that it was empty, and I made stealth-
ily in the direction of the bows.
I reached the main cabin undetected, and slipped inside.
Averting my eyes from the shambles on the floor, I sought the
armoury cupboard. Its steel door was locked....
Footsteps rang on the floor beyond the opposite door. In a
flash, I was across the room and back by the way I had entered
—weaponless, and perhaps the only survivor, unless they had
permitted Toft still to live. What could I do? I could think of
nothing but that I must live and carry my warning. And to
live, I must have food.
By devious ways I gained the store-room, and piled the
necessities of life into an empty case. I had lugged it half-way
back to my cabin when misfortune overtook me. Rounding a
corner, I came face to face with a Moon-man.
His surprise was greater than mine—I got in a good drive to
the chin while he still stared. He went down with a cry which
was half shout and half groan. It was not loud, but it served to
alarm his fellows. There came a din of feet pounding down
the corridor behind me. Leaving my case of food, I jumped
over the prostrate man and fled.
Running and sliding on the metal floors, I made for the
only safe place I knew; my cabin. The clatter of pursuing feet
grew louder, spurring me on. Turning at last into the final

34
alley, I found my way blocked. But I was desperate, and there
was only one thing to do. I put my head down and charged
like a bull at the four brown figures before me.
There was a brief, whirling nightmare of kicking and ham-
mering, and then somehow I broke out of that melee and
gained my cabin. With a final effort, I slammed the door in my
pursuers' faces. My chest and face were bloody and lacerated. I
remember pulling free a Moon-man's dagger which lodged in
my left shoulder; and after that—nothing....
The jolt of a rough landing finally roused me from my sleep
or coma. With an excruciating effort, I raised my still body to
look through the small port-hole. Outside was a stretch of
white sand and beyond it a line of frothing breakers, glistening
in the sunlight. Somehow, the Moon-men had brought the
Scintilla back to Earth.
I was a sick man, and it took me a long time to move. When
at length I managed to stagger down the passage, it was to find
the entrance wide open and the ship deserted. Somewhere in
the green forest which fringed the beach, the Moon-folk were
prowling and hunting.
I made my difficult way to the fuel-store, and close to the
tanks I lit a slow fuse; at least there would be no Scintilla as a
safe base for the Moon-devils' operations. Then, as fast as I
could, I made my way along the shore.
A few days later, I found a long-neglected canoe. I repaired
it the best I could and paddled it out to sea.
The President of the Lunar Archaeological Society frowned.
He pulled his ear reflectively, and shook his head slowly. He
turned the bunch of papers over and, still frowning, began to
read them again.
Preposterous, of course, but—well, there had been a Stephen
Dawcott, and he had sailed on the Scintilla....

THE PUFF-BALL MENACE
The Prince Khordah of Ghangistan was in a bitter mood. His
council, seated cross-legged upon a semi-circle of cushions be-
fore him, had come to know too well that look of dissatis-
faction. Of late it had seemed to dwell perpetually upon his
dark features. The members of the council were aware of his
words before he spoke, so often had they heard them.
'To all great nations,' he observed, 'might is right. Today we
hear much talk of the rights of small nations—and to what
does it amount? Nothing but so much dust in the wind to fill
the eyes of those who would see.'
He glowered upon his councillors. Each appeared occupied
in an interested study of the mosaic floor; the beauty of its
patterns was more soothing than the expression on the Prince's
face. More than one grimy forefinger scratched in its owner's
beard in order to give a misleading suggestion of thought.
The council was formed entirely of old men. Not that old
men are always wise, but they do have the advantage of less
fiery ambition, and, whether one is a Prince in Ghangistan, or
a Big Shot in Chicago, too much ambition at court will prove
embarrassing. The ambitions of most of the council rose little
higher than a bountiful supply of food and drink and an occa-
sional change of wives. The Prince continued to address un-
responsive figures:
'What can we do? These English, and other foreigners, trifle
with us. They do not so much as stir to consider our demands.
We are treated like children—we, of Ghangistan, whose
temples and palaces were weathered when these English hid in
caves, whose ancestors reach back unbroken to the creation.
We offer them war, and they laugh as one laughs at the
ferocity of a cornered mouse. Here we must sit, impotent,
while they pour over our country the froth and ferment of
their way of life, in mockery of the wisdom of our sacred
ancestors.'
Again the Prince paused and looked questioningly about
him. At the lack of response he shrugged his shoulders; some

136
of the spirit seemed to go out of him, and he threw out his
hands in token of helplessness.
'And we can do nothing. We have no big guns, no aero-
planes. We must sit by and watch our ancient race seduced
from its gods, and hear the voice of wisdom drowned by the
sounding emptiness of materialism.'
He finished dejectedly. His anger had subsided beneath
fatalism, and he brooded amid the respectful, if slightly bored
silence of the council. One ancient looked up and studied the
Prince. He allowed a decent interval to elapse before he in-
quired :
'Is it permitted to speak?'
The Prince regarded him with but little lifting of his
despondency. 'It is permitted to you, Haramin,' he agreed.
The old man stroked his beard for some moments in placid
reflection.
'It has seemed to me,' he began with slow deliberateness,
'that already we are more affected by the Westerners than we
acknowledge. Even our methods of thought have become curi-
ously coloured by their mental processes. We begin now to
distort our pure wisdom to fit their strange conventions.'
A murmur of protest ran round the council, but none dare
give full voice to his indignation, for the old man was privi-
leged.
'Explain the full meaning,' commanded the Prince.
'It is well shown by an example, My Prince. See how these
Westerners wage war. First they send a declaration to warn
their enemies—is this not absurd? Then they use against that
enemy a series of weapons similar to his own—which is plainly
ridiculous. They have, in fact, rules for war—a conceit worthy
only of children or imbeciles.
'We, in our wisdom, know better. We know that wars should
be won or lost; not childishly prolonged until both sides give
up for very weakness and weariness. And yet'—he paused and
looked around him—'and yet we sit here lamenting our lack of
weapons, lamenting that we cannot meet our oppressors on
their own ground. It is a foolishness to consider the standards
of the West in war.'
The Prince Khordah frowned. The tone of the other's
speech displeased him, but he was aware that some deeper
thought had prompted it. He asked coldly:
'Is it necessary here, Haramin, to lurk like an old fox in a
thicket of words?'
'I have a nephew, Prince, a man of great learning in the
ways of the West, yet retaining the wisdom of his ancestors. He

THE PUFF-BALL MENACE
137
has a plan which should interest Your Highness.'
The Prince leaned forward. At last they seemed to be get-
ting somewhere.
'Where is this nephew, Haramin?'
'I have brought him to await Your Highness' summons.'
The Prince struck a silver gong beside him. To the entering
servant he said:
'The nephew of Haramin waits. Let him be brought before
us.'
chapter one
THE MYSTERIOUS GROWTHS
Ralph Waite's father beamed genially across the dinner-table.
'It's good to have you home again, my boy,' he said. 'How
long do you think you can manage?'
Ralph, a lusty, fair-haired young man, turned towards him.
'Only the week-end, I'm afraid, Dad.'
Mrs. Waite looked up with a little wrinkle of concern and
disappointment.
'Is that all, dear? Don't you think if you wrote nicely to
them they might let you stay a little longer?'
Ralph checked a rising smile. 'I don't think it would be
much good writing nicely to Amalgamated Chemicals,
Mother,' he said gravely.
'I suppose you know best, dear, but	'
Mr. Waite broke in with some little excitement:
'I've got something to show you after dinner, Ralph. Quite
the most remarkable thing in all my gardening experience.'
His eyes were on his plate, so that he missed die look with
which his wife favoured him.
'But, dear,' she began, 'Ralph will want to	'
Ralph checked her with a glance. Of course he wanted to go
and see Dorothy. His real desire was to rush off at this very
moment, but he knew his father's enthusiasm for his hobby.
The old man would be sadly disappointed if he could not
impress his son with his latest horticultural triumph. After all,
Ralph reflected, the old boy got little enough pleasure, pushed
away in this little Cornish town for the rest of his life.
'What is it?' he asked.
Mr. Waite chuckled. 'You'll see, my boy. All in good time;
all in good time.'

38
The town of St. Brian lies not far from the south coast of
Cornwall. A swift river, the Bod, flows through it on its way to
join the English Channel at a point where it is almost the
Atlantic Ocean. To the north one can see those strange, daz-
zling white cones which are the refuse of the clay pits, and
from the higher points it is possible to trace the course of the
Bod right down to the sea in the south.
The houses are mostly built of grey stone, their roofs
clamped down upon them lest they should be whirled off by
the gales which in winter sweep in from the Atlantic. In shel-
tered spots, where they are able to take advantage of kindly
climate, flowers and plants thrive, as was excellently testified
by Mr. Waite's garden.
Dinner concluded, he led the way importantly across a
stretch of smooth lawn to the thick hedge masking the far
corner of his ground. As they reached a gap he paused, and
with something of the manner of a showman, waved his son
forward.
There, my boy,' he said proudly. 'Just take a look at that!'
Ralph, as he stepped forward to the hedge, was fully pre-
pared to be impressed, but at the sight which met him, the
nicely turned phrases he had thought up for the other's gratifi-
cation fled away. He stared speechlessly for a moment, then:
'What on earth's that?' he demanded.
'Ah, I thought it'd surprise you. Fine growth, what?'
'But—what is the thing?' persisted Ralph, gazing in hor-
rified fascination.
'Well,' Mr. Waite admitted doubtfully, 'I don't think it's
been named yet—sort of experiment they got me to try out. A
new form of marrow or something of the sort, I gather. Wait a
minute, and I'll get the letter ...'
He bustled across the lawn while his son turned to regard the
'fine growth' with renewed interest. Experiment or not, he
decided that it was quite one of the most unwholesome look-
ing plants he had ever seen. Roughly spherical, it reminded
him mostly of a pumpkin with a diameter every bit of two
feet.
But it was not so much the size which was responsible for his
surprise as the colour. It lay before him, clammily glistening in
the evening sunlight, a ball of blotchy, virulent yellow. The
ground all round it was bare, and it lay on one side attached to
the earth only by a poor, twisted wisp of a stalk, as foolishly
disproportionate as a pig's tail.
'Must be a good weight, a thing that size,' he muttered to

THE PUFF-BALL MENACE
139
himself. With some distaste, he inserted his hand beneath it,
and then stared at the thing in blank surprise. It weighed
possibly a pound.
He was still staring at it when Mr. Waite returned with a
paper fluttering in his hand.
'Here you are. That, and the instructions for growing, are
all I know about it.'
Ralph took the typewritten letter. It was headed 'Slowitt 8c
Co.,' and underneath in smaller type was added: 'Agents for
Experimental Growers' Company.'
Dear Sir [he read], In the course of our experimental
work we have succeeded in evolving a new form of vegetable.
We have the greatest hopes that this extremely prolific
plant will successfully adapt itself to a great range of cli-
matic conditions. In so far as we have been able to repro-
duce the various conditions in our laboratories, the results
leave nothing to be desired, and we now feel that the time
has come to put the plant to test in the actual climates it
will have to face.
Our agents, in pursuance of our instructions to find per-
sons likely to be -interested in this development, forwarded
us your name as that of a consistently successful exhibitor at
a number of fruit and vegetable shows, and as one who takes
an interest in the scientific side of horticulture. We have,
therefore, great pleasure in asking you if you would consider
assisting us in the introduction of this new form ...
Ralph read far enough to enable him to grasp essentials.
'This is all very well, Dad,' he remarked. 'But what on
earth's the good of the thing? It must be hollow; have you felt
its weight?'
'Oh, that's all right. It says in the growing instructions,
which they sent with the seeds, that one must not be surprised
at the extraordinary lightness. I gather that when it is full-
grown it begins to solidify or harden. Though it is a queer
looking thing, I'll admit, and so were the seeds.'
He fished in his pocket and found an object which he
handed over.
'I kept this one out of curiosity. You see, they've enclosed
it-—or, rather, several of them—in a kind of capsule. The in-
structions were emphatic that the capsule must not be opened
in any circumstances.'
'Then how	?'
'You just bury the whole thing and water it very plentifully;

140
I suppose that dissolves the capsule and lets the thing begin to
grow. It certainly shows a fine turn of speed. You'd never guess
how long it is since I planted this chap.' He stirred the yellow
ball with his toe.
Ralph did not attempt the guess. 'How long?' he inquired.
'Three days,' said his father with pride. 'Only three days to
reach that size! Of course, I'm not sure how long it will be
before it's any use, but it's started very well, and——'
But Mr. Waite's intended lecture was frustrated. His wife's
voice tactfully summoned him to the house.
'Don't tell anyone about this, yet, my boy. I promised to
keep it quiet till the thing should be full-grown,' he said as he
hurried across the lawn.
Ralph thankfully departed on his intended visit. Later, he
was unable to remember whether it was curiosity or absence of
mind which caused the one remaining seed capsule to find its
way into his pocket; he only knew that it was lucky he had
kept it.
Dorothy Forbes had expected Ralph earlier. She had even em-
ployed sundry of her waiting moments in inventing such re-
proaches as might be becoming in a lady slightly neglected. It
was a pleasant mental exercise, but little more; Ralph's
method of greeting did not allow of the interview being placed
on a dignified basis.
Instead of venting displeasure, she smoothed her frock,
shook back her fair hair, wondered for a moment why one
should blush quite so warmly, and suggested that there was a
swing seat in the garden.
The swing seat was such a success that it was quite half an
hour before an object on the other side of the garden caught
Ralph's eye and caused him to sit up, staring. Just visible over
the top of a cucumber frame was a curved section of a familiar
yellow surface.
'Good Lord!' he said.
'What?' asked Dorothy. Following his line of sight, she
added: 'Oh. that's one of Daddy's secrets—you're not sup-
posed to see it.'
'Well, now I have seen it, what about a closer view?'
'I suppose it doesn't really matter, but don't tell him you've
seen it.'
A few seconds sufficed to settle any lingering doubt. The
plant behind the frame was identical with that in his father's
garden, though possibly a few inches smaller.
'That's queer,' Ralph murmured.

THE PUFF-BALL MENACE
141
Dorothy nodded, though she misapplied the remark.
'I think it's horrid. I told Daddy I'm sure it's unhealthy, but
he only laughed at me. Somehow I hate the thing. There's such
a nasty, poisonous look about that yellow.'
'He's keeping it secret?'
'Yes; he's very jealous about it. He says it will make him
famous one day.'
Ralph nodded. This made it queerer still. He considered for
a moment. Two people, each thinking himself unique, were
growing this most unprepossessing vegetable.
'What about a little walk?' he suggested. Dorothy, with
slight surprise at the sudden change of subject, assented.
It was a wandering stroll, apparently aimless. Nevertheless,
it took them close to a number of back gardens. Altogether,
they counted over twenty of the strange yellow balls.
chapter two
THE RASH
When Ralph returned home to London, it was obvious that in
a very short time there would be no more concealment of the
strange growths. They were swelling to prodigious sizes with a
swiftness which was rendering secrecy impossible. Already two
peppery gentlemen who had considered themselves favoured
experimenters had discovered one another's rivalry and were
indulging in wordy unpleasantness.
It could not be long before all twenty, and other yet undis-
covered growers, would hear about it and join in the indigna-
tion. Dorothy's next letter, therefore, did not astonish him
when it announced that the cats were out of the bag and the
gardeners of the town of St. Brian were in full cry for one
another's blood.
'When our fathers discovered that they were rivals,' she
wrote, 'it was bad enough. But now there are more than a
score of them tearing their hair and threatening legal proceed-
ings. It isn't only in St. Brian, either. We've heard reports that
hundreds of gardeners both in Cornwall and west Devon are
growing the things.
'Ours is so big, too. It's over four feet in diameter now, and
looks more evil than ever. I'm beginning to feel a bit afraid of
it; I know that sounds silly, but it's the truth. I told Daddy the
other day that there was something wicked about it and that I

142
was sure it was never meant to grow in England, but he only
laughed and said neither were potatoes. All the same, I think
the balls are beastly things. I hear that some boys cut the stalk
of one near Newquay and rolled it down the cliffs so that it
burst. I'd like to do the same with ours, only I hate the idea of
touching the thing—ugh!'
The earlier part of the letter caused Ralph some quiet
smiles. He knew very well the temperament of the amateur
gardener, with all its jealousies and enthusiasms, and the pros-
pect of the warfare which must now be disturbing the com-
munity could give the unprejudiced onlooker no little amuse-
ment. But he grew more serious as he recalled the sickening
appearance of those growths when they were only two feet in
diameter; already they had swelled to four... .
Unreasoning as Dorothy's dislike of them might be, he
found himself able to understand it and to sympathise with it.
He was worried by the feeling, for he preferred reason to pre-
judice.
Nevertheless the matter was gradually slipping into the back
of his mind until it was recalled a few days later by a para-
graph tucked away at the foot of a newspaper column :
'Several cases are reported from Newquay, the well-known
Cornish holiday resort, of an outbreak of rash which is
puzzling the local doctors. It is thought that the condition
may be consequent upon prolonged or injudicious exposure
of the skin while sunbathing.'
For a moment he was puzzled to know when he had lately
thought of Newquay; then he remembered that it was near
there that the yellow ball had been pushed over the cliffs.
Dorothy's next letter informed him that a state of excitement
was prevailing all over the West Country. The inhabitants, it
appeared, had split into two schools of thought on the subject
of the yellow balls.
The growers and their friends were noisily upholding their
rights to grow what they liked on their own land, while the
opposition, without apparent grounds for the statement, pro-
claimed that the things were unhealthy. They shared, Dorothy
surmised, her revulsion against them. Some days before a
minor riot of protest had taken place in Bodmin. In the course
of it, three balls had been slashed open.
After he had finished the letter, Ralph turned to his news-
paper and found information which brought wrinkles of

THE PUFF-BALL MENACE
143
speculation to his forehead.
The cases of rash at Newquay had become serious. One of
the victims had died, and the others were in a precarious con-
dition. It was, according to the correspondent, impossible to
state definitely that the rash was the cause of death, but he
evidently had more than suspicions.
Then followed the information that the same mysterious
rash had made its appearance at Bodmin, coupled with an
assurance that it could not, in the later cases, be in any way
attributed to sunbathing.
Thoughtfully, Ralph withdrew his father's seed capsule
from his pocket and regarded it.
'I may be a fool. It's probably just a coincidence, but it's
worth investigating.' he told himself.
Before he sought his own office, he called in at the labora-
tory of a friend who worked in the bio-chemical department of
Amalgamated Chemicals, Ltd.
Two days passed before he heard any result of the examina-
tion of the capsule. Then Arnold Jordan, the bio-chemist,
entered his office just as he was finishing off for the day.
'You've tackled it?' asked Ralph.
Arnold nodded.
'Yes, I've tackled it. And I'm not sure whether I owe you a
dinner for putting me on to it, or whether you owe me a
dinner for putting in the devil of a lot of work. On the whole,
I approve of the latter.'
'Oh, all right. You look as if some good food wouldn't do
you any harm. Come on!'
It was not until the end of the dinner, over the coffee and
cigarettes, that Arnold consented to discuss his conclusions.
Then he began with an expostulation.
'I do think, old man, you might have given me a bit more
warning about that beastly stuff you brought along.'
'Well, I told you I had an idea it was pretty noxious,' Ralph
pointed out. 'But, after all, the reason I brought it at all was
that I didn't know much about it.'
'Where did you get it?' asked Arnold curiously.
His manner shed its slight banter, and a look of seriousness
crept into his eyes, as Ralph explained.
'Good God! You don't mean to say these things are being
grown! What for?'
'Food—what else does one grow vegetables for?'
'But this is a fungus.'
'I thought it looked that way, but quite a lot of fungi are
edible when they're cooked.'

144
Arnold failed to reply for some seconds; he seemed not to have
heard and was staring fixedly into space. When he turned back
Ralph was startled by the expression on his face.
'Do you know anything about fungi?'
'No,' replied Ralph promptly.
'Well, I'll be short about it, but I'll try to show you what
this business means. First of all, there are two types of fungi.
Either a fungus is a saprophyte and lives upon decaying
matter, or else it is a parasite, in which case it exists upon
living matter. As far as the saprophytes are concerned—well,
you've eaten a good many in your time as mushrooms or
cheese, or a hundred other ways; but the parasites are not so
numerous—die kind which most frequently afflicts human
beings is ringworm.
'Now this particular bit of evil which you kindly handed to
me is neither one nor other of these forms; it is both. That is
to say that it flourishes equally well on decay, or on living
flesh. Do you see what I'm getting at?'
Ralph began to see.
This thing,' Arnold continued, 'is not only a parasite, but a
more vicious parasite than any known. All these growths you
have told me of must be scotched—utterly wiped out and
obliterated before they can become ripe. Once allowed to
burst and scatter their spores	' He spread his hands expres-
sively.
Ralph regarded him nervously. 'You're sure of this?'
Arnold nodded. 'Of the danger I am certain. About the
plant itself I'm very puzzled. Obviously the spores were en-
closed in a soluble capsule so that they might be planted and
brought to fruit in safety.
'If your information is correct, the whole thing seems to be
deliberate, and on a large scale. It is not merely a case of
scattering a few spores to grow haphazard, but immense
trouble has been taken to induce people to cultivate the fungi
so that millions of spores will be spread.'
He paused, and added: 'It's up to us to try to stop this
thing, old man. Somebody must, or it's God help thousands of
miserable people!'
Ralph was silent. He remembered the mysterious rash at
Newquay, and the similar outbreak at Bodmin. He recalled,
too, the sight of that slimy, yellow ball in his father's garden,
and his face was pale as he looked at the other.
'We're too late,' he said. 'It's begun.'

chapter three
THE DANGER INCREASES
'Stuff! ' said Major Forbes, with some violence. 'Stuff and non-
sense! You ought to have known better, young man, than to
come to me with an old wive's tale like that.'
Ralph gave up his attempt to convince the old man. After
Arnold's warning of the previous evening, he had caught the
earliest possible train for the West Country and travelled all
night. There had not been any time to lose. So far as he knew,
the enormous puffballs might burst of their own accord at any
hour, quite apart from the danger of one of them receiving an
accidental puncture and spreading its spores about the neigh-
bourhood.
He had arrived, tired and anxious, to be greeted by both his
own and Dorothy's father with complete disbelief. In vain he
put the cases of rash forward as evidence and quoted Arnold's
warning. It was useless. Each, at the back of his mind, seemed
determined that this was some deep ruse by rival growers to
get him out of the way; and, even if the thing was a fungus,
what man worth his salt was going to be scared by a mere puff-
ball, however big?
'No,' Major Forbes repeated firmly. 'You say that your
mother and my daughter are willing to leave—of course they
are. Women are alwdys wanting to run up to London for some
fal-lal or other. Take 'em along with you; the change'll do 'em
good. But don't come bothering me!'
And there was a similar interview with his own father. Mrs.
Waite attempted to smooth over her husband's irritation.
'Now, don't worry your father any more, dear. You must see
that he doesn't want to come. I should like to go to London
for a week or so, but don't bother him. I should have to go
soon, in any case, to do a little shopping.'
'But you don't understand, Mother. This is really serious—
it's dangerous. These things he is growing are rank poison!'
Mrs. Waite looked a little distressed.
'Do you really think so, dear? I mean, it seems so unlikely—
and the people who sent them don't seem to think so. They
definitely said they were vegetables.'
'Never mind what they said. Take it from me—or, rather,
from Arnold, who is an expert—that these things are deadly
and must be destroyed.'
'Eh? What's that?' Mr. Waite chimed in. 'Destroyed? I'd like

146
to see anyone attempt to destroy my specimen. I'd show him
what's what! There's still a law in the land.'
'You'll promise me, won't you, John, not to eat any of it
while I am away?' Mrs. Waite spoke as though her presence
should nullify the plant's poisonous quality. Her husband un-
graciously conceded the point.
'All right,' he said gruffly. I'll promise you that much—
though I repeat that I think the whole thing is a scare.'
'Well, if you won't come, I can't make you,' said Ralph, 'but
I do beg of you	-'
Again he went over the details of Arnold's warning, only to
succeed in thinning his father's temper and his own. At last he
turned back to Mrs. Waite.
'This is a waste of time. You'd better pack your things and
get ready, Mother.'
'You mean now, dear?'
'Yes. At once.'
'Oh, but I couldn't possibly be ready before tomorrow.
There are such a lot of things which just have to be finished
off.'
Ralph went around again to see Dorothy.
'We'll have to wait until tomorrow,' he told her. 'I can't
make them believe there's any danger in delay.'
'Well, one day won't make much difference,' she suggested.
'It might. I want to get you both out of here as soon as
possible. Any moment it may be too late.'
'We'll be right away this time tomorrow. Now let's talk
about something else.'
'I can't think of anything else. I've heard Arnold on the
subject, and you haven't. Let's go out and have a look at the
brutes.'
'Hullo,' said Arnold, entering Ralph's office. 'Where the devil
have you been for the last two days?'
'Down in Cornwall; trying to make my people clear out.'
'Did you?'
'Got Dorothy and my mother up here. Neither of the fathers
would shift—stubborn old fools! What have you been up to?'
Arnold disregarded the question. 'You've done all you
could?'
'Of course I have—short of kidnapping the old blighters.'
Arnold looked grave.
'I'm afraid the news is rather serious,' he began. 'The morn-
ing after our chat I went round to see a fellow I know at the
Ministry of Health, and diey welcomed me there with open

THE PUFF-BALL MENACE
147
arms. This thing is a good many times bigger than we thought
it was. The authorities have been minimising—didn't want to
ruin the holiday traffic, or some rot like that. They told me
that there have been hundreds of cases of the rash and several
dozen deaths. Not only that, but soon after the dead have been
buried those yellow puff-balls start growing from the graves.
'Their experts were as sure as I was that this form of fungus
has never been heard of before, and most of us are pretty
certain that somebody has been up to some rather ugly cross-
breeding, with malice aforethought. They issued orders yester-
day that no more of the things were to be planted, but that
was useless; already round the centres where the things have
burst, the place is littered with the balls.'
'Growing already?'
'Thousands of them, around Newquay and Bodmin and
several other places. And nobody dare touch them.'
'But aren't they doing anything—destroying them?'
'How?'
'Can't they—can't they spray them with acids, or something?
Do you realise that the first lot hasn't reached its natural
bursting point yet? All this second crop is the result of acci-
dental breakage. God knows what will happen if they are
allowed to burst.'
'Nobody seems to know how to tackle the situation. But
they're not lying down; they see the danger all right, and
they're going after it day and night. You can see yourself that
the problem is how to destroy the balls without liberating the
spores.'
'There must be some way...'
'Oh, they'll find' a way, but it's got to be drastic and well
organised. The thing they're most anxious about at present is
that there shall be no panic. You know what people are like
when they lose their heads. If they go wild and start smashing
the things wholesale, there'll be hell to pay. You can take it
from me that the departments concerned are already making
things hum behind the scenes.'
'Meanwhile, the first crop of balls must be pretty nearly
ripe...'
Ralph searched the lounge of the hotel where his mother and
Dorothy were staying. He eventually found Mrs. Waite occu-
pying a comfortable arm-chair in a secluded corner. He
greeted her, and seated himself beside her.
'Where's Dorothy?' he asked a few minutes later. 'Getting
ready?'

148
'Ready?' repeated Mrs. Waite inquiringly.
'We arranged to go out and dance this evening.'
'Oh, dear me, of course. Then you didn't hear from her—
she said she would telephone.'
'She didn't. What was it about?'
'Well, she won't be able to go out tonight. You see, she's
gone down to Cornwall.'
'She's what?' shouted Ralph, in a voice which echoed across
the lounge.
'Yes, dear, she said she felt she must go to Cornwall,' Mrs.
Waite repeated placidly.
'But why didn't you stop her? Surely you realise the danger?
Good God, she may have caught the rash—she may die of
it!'
Mrs. Waite looked a little shocked.
'Well, dear, I did tell her that I didn't think you would like
it. But she seemed so anxious about her father—such a nice
trait in a young girl, I always think—that I didn't feel it was
right to interfere.'
Ralph made no reply. His mother, glancing at him, saw that
his face was drawn into tight creases. There was an expression
in his eyes which hurt her. For the first time she began to
appreciate that there was real fear behind his actions and talk
of the last few days. Futilely she started to talk when she
should have kept silent.
'Of course, this may not be so very dangerous after all. I
expect it's just another of these scares. Things will be all right
in the end, and we shall all have a good laugh at our fears.
Don't you worry, dear; I expect—-good gracious!'
Ralph was roused out of his thoughts to see what had caused
her exclamation of surprise. He looked up to find himself fac-
ing his father and Major Forbes. An hour ago he would have
been pleased to see them and cheered by the thought that the
whole party was reunited; but now his greeting was cold.
Major Forbes looked around him.
'And where is Dorothy?' he asked.
Ralph answered him bitterly.
'She's gone to save you,' he said.

chapter four
FIGHTING THE MENACE
'Yes, my boy,' said Mr. Waite, 'we certainly owe our escape to
you. You seemed so positive about the danger that I did a bit
of investigating; poked about a bit among the local officials.
'It was old Inspector Roberts who gave me the tip—he's
always considered himself in my debt over that matter of his
boy. "Mr. Waite," he said, "I ought not to tell you; in fact, I'm
breaking orders by doing so, but if you take my advice you'll
get out of the district just as soon as you can." '
'Yes, it was a straight tip, by gad!' agreed the Major. 'I
managed to hear a few things about the country round about
■—pretty bad. Some fool started a panic in Launceston. Half
the town was out with sticks and stones and knives, smashing
all the yellow balls they could find.
'A man told me the ground was white with spores, as if there
had been a snowstorm. Some of the growers tried to interfere,
and there was something like a battle. Pretty much the same
thing seems to have happened in Tavistock and other places in
west Devon.'
Ralph looked up.
'Spores or riots,' he said, 'I'm going down by the midnight
train to get Dorothy out of that. What's the time now?'
The Major snorted,
'Don't be a fool, young manl The girl's all right. She'll be
back any moment now, I'll warrant. They're not allowing any-
one to enter the area now, so she'll have to come back. Your
father and I came out on one of the last trains allowed
through.'
'What's the time?' Ralph demanded again.
'Twenty to ten,' said the Major, 'and I repeat that you are
wasting your time if you go down there.'
'The news,' Mr. Waite said suddenly. 'There's sure to be
something about all this.' He called a waiter and asked for the
radio to be switched on. A few moments later they were listen-
ing to the calm, familiar voice of the London announcer.
The general weather report was unencouraging and the
voice went on to add:
'Gale warning. The Meteorological Office issued the follow-
ing warning to shipping at twenty hours, Greenwich Mean
Time. Strong westerly winds, rising to gale force, may be ex-
pected on all the Irish coast. English coast west of a line from

•5°
Southampton to Newcastle, and English Channel.'
Ralph glanced at his father, who caught his eye, but sent a
warning glance in the direction of his mother. Both of them
grasped the implication. Thousands of light, yellow balls at-
tached merely by skimpy stalks—and a gale rising. .,.
The announcer began on the news :
'We are asked by the Ministry of Transport to broadcast the
following. Suspension of service. All train services between
Exeter and points west thereof have been temporarily sus-
pended. Further details will be announced tomorrow.'
The Major looked at Ralph triumphantly.
'I told you so! They're isolating the whole district. There's
no point in your going down. We shall have Dorothy back
here in no time.'
But Ralph was unconvinced. Dorothy had set out to get to
her home, and he had a horrid fear that she would do it if it
were humanly possible. The Major did not seem to know his
own daughter's tenacity of purpose. Ralph stood up with de-
termination.
'I'm going down there now. There are still cars, even if they
have stopped the trains.'
Thump ... thump ... thump ... went Ralph's mallet. It was
three days since he had left London, and now he was engaged
in driving stakes into the hard soil of Dartmoor.
A message earlier in the day had informed him that no news
had been received of Dorothy. There could be no doubt that
she had been trapped in the isolated area and was now—if she
had succeeded in reaching St. Brian—still forty or fifty miles
to the west of him. He reflected angrily on the events which
had landed him at his present occupation.
He had rushed from the hotel in search of Arnold. Before
midnight he had borrowed the other's car and was running
down Piccadilly, in company with the taxis of homeward-
bound theatre-goers. The traffic grew faster and sparser as he
passed through sprawling suburbs: He looked forward to
showing a good turn of speed on the Great West Road. But
when he reached it the volume of traffic had undeniably in-
creased once more.
Long lines of trucks, not too punctilious about keeping to
the side of the road, stretched before him. A constant flow of
private cars against him, unprecedented for the time of night,
made it a difficult business to overtake the trucks. Ralph
cursed the obstruction of the lumbering line and noticed for
the first time that they were not commercial vans, but were

THE PUFF-BALL MENACE	152
painted khaki or g^ey, with Army markings on their sides. He
swore again. A piece of foul luck to get mixed up in Army
manoeuvres; but perhaps they would drop off at Aldershot.
They did not. They held on the road to the west and, to his
exasperation, were augmented by hundreds more.
Anybody would think,' he muttered to himself, 'that there
was a war on. The whole blooming Army seems to be going
my way!'
To add to his troubles, the wind was rising, bringing with it
sharp flurries of rain. Instead of making a dash through the
night as he had intended, his speed was reduced to a crawl.
Only infrequently did the traffic against him allow him to cut
past a few of the lumbering shapes ahead. It was full daylight
long before he reached Exeter, and he passed through the nar-
row streets of the old city still escorted by the Army wagons.
Two miles beyond, the road was blocked by a barricade.
Sentries with fixed bayonets were assisting the police to turn
back all private cars. The representatives of both forces were
equally unmoved by his offers of money or his loss of temper.
'It's no good makin' a fuss, young feller,' advised a police
sergeant. 'If I'd been taking money today, I could have made
my fortune and retired on it. You get back 'ome now!'
There had been nothing for it but to turn his car round and
drive sullenly back to Exeter. There he munched a necessary,
though unappreciated, meal, while he decided on the next
move.
'No private cars along 'ere,' the policeman had said. But the
trucks were going through—those same damned trucks which
had hindered him all night. Hundreds of them. They were
passed without question, and, moreover, without a search. It
ought to be possible to jump one and stow away....
After a number of uncomfortable miles the truck stopped.
The tail-board was lowered.
' 'Ere, you, come along out of it,' demanded a voice. A hand
fastened firmly on to Ralph's collar and dragged him painfully
from his hiding-place amid wooden stakes and rolls of barbed
wire. He landed among a group of men under the command
of a sergeant. The latter came close to him, his pointed mous-
taches adding ferocity to his expression as he shouted:
'What the	blazes do you think you were doing in that
	lorry? You come along 'ere with me.'
The officer to whom he was taken had heard him out and
then regarded him seriously.
'I like your spirit,' he said, 'but just listen to me a minute.

>5«
You seem to know something of the situation, but you're tack-
ling it the wrong way. It's no good your going over there.' He
waved his hand to the west. 'You couldn't do a damned thing
if you got through, except make yourself another victim.
'Your girl doesn't want you to die. You know, if you give it a
moment's thought, that she'd be far prouder of you for help-
ing to fight this stuff and beat it; for helping to blot the
damned growths out and make thousands of people safe.'
'But she's	1'
'And don't you realise that from the body of every man who
dies out there, more of the yellow balls grow? If you go out
there, you'll not only be helpless, but you'll be giving your
body to feed them. No, my lad, your job is to help us to fight
against the menace. This is a state of emergency, and we need
all the help we can get. What about it?'
Ralph at length consented, though with not too good a
grace. He knew the officer was right. It was his job to fight, not
to throw away his life, but ... He did not quite trust himself.
Sometime the urge to find Dorothy might prove too strong for
him....
His working partner's voice broke in on his thoughts. 'What
d'yer say to a cigarette, mate?'
Ralph delivered a final blow to the stake they were fixing,
and agreed. To right and left of them across the moorland
hills stretched the long line of posts. Here and there, parties of
men who had completed their sections were already beginning
to weave an impenetrable net of barbed wire around the
stakes. Behind, on the roadway, was a never-ending line of
trucks loaded with more wire and yet more stakes, while
closer, between themselves and the road, a sweating army of
men laboured to dig a broad trench.
Ralph was amazed at the organisation which in two or three
days had enabled the authorities to be well on the way to
barricading off a whole corner of the country. At the same
time he was puzzled; the purpose of the wire was obvious, but
he failed to understand the reason for the broad, shallow
trench. Nor was his partner, Bill 'Awkins, as he called himself,
able to explain its use. But he was ready to concede that the
authorities knew what they were about, and were not wasting
any time.
'Yus,' he remarked, 'they're quick on the job. they are. Why,
a few nights ago there was a gale warning—p'raps you 'eard
it?'
Ralph nodded.
'Well, the minute they knew that, they changed their plans

THE PUFF-BALL MENACE
>53
like a flash. This 'ere line was to 'ave been miles farther for-
ward; they'd even begun to get the supplies up there when the
order for retreat came. You see, the wind in these parts is
pretty near always from the west; that's what's got 'em scared
—the idea of this stuff being swept right across the country. If
it's true what they say about some feller a-startin' it on pur-
pose, then 'e picked a likely place.
' 'Owever, the wind didn't come to much, after all. Most of
them yeller balls just rolled a bit, and then got stuck in the
valleys and 'ollows and suchlike—blamed lucky it was, too.'
'Then all this,' said Ralph, indicating the defences, 'is in
case a real storm comes along?'
'That'll be about the idea,' Bill agreed.
They smoked for a while in silence. From time to time a
great plane would roar across the moor, carrying food supplies
to be dropped to the isolated; and, once, a large caterpillar
tractor came swaying and plunging past them, bound for the
west. Bill grinned as he caught sight of the men aboard it and
the instruments they held.
'What are they?' asked Ralph. 'Looks like a squad of divers
going on duty.'
'Asbestos suits and masks,' the other explained. 'And they're
carrying flame-throwers. Those'll give the blinkin' things a bit
of a toasting!'
chapter five
THE ATTACK ON THE WIND
Some six nights later, Ralph sat with a group in the stable
which was their billet. One man was holding forth pessimistic-
ally.
'I suppose they're doing a bit of good with all this flame-
throwing and whatnot, but it ain't getting 'em far. It's the
plant underneath that they want to get at, not just the yellow
balls. They're only the fruit—you don't kill an apple-tree by
knocking off the apples. Fungi have a sort of web of stuff
spreading all through the ground around them; that's the life
of the things, and that's what they	'
There came a thunderous knocking on the door and a sten-
torian call to turn out.
'Wind's rising,' said the sergeant. 'You all know your jobs.
Get to 'em, and look slippy!'

154
The wind swept in from the Atlantic at gale force. The first
few puffs stirred the yellow balls and rolled them a little at the
ends of their skimpy stalks. Later followed a gust which
twisted them so that the stalks snapped and they were free to
roll where the wind urged. As the pressure grew to a steady
blast, it swept up a mass of the light balls and carried them
bounding across the countryside, an army of vegetable in-
vaders launching their attack to capture the land and destroy
human beings.
The wind of a week before had moved only the balls in the
most exposed positions, but this time, none but the youngest
and least developed had the strength in their stalks to resist
the air which tore at them. Every now and then a splashing
flurry of white would spring from the hurtling, bouncing
horde as the tough, yellow skin of one was ripped by some
sharp spike or the corner of a roof. Then the great spores
themselves were caught up by the wind and carried on faster
as an advance guard of the yellow army.
The gale seemed to display a diabolical zest for this new
game. It increased its force to drive the balls yet more furi-
ously. Hedges, ditches and trees failed to check the headlong
charge. Even rivers proved no obstacle; with the wind behind,
the balls sailed across in their thousands, bobbing and jerking
on the rough surface.
They were thrust relentlessly down the narrow streets of the
little towns, jostling and jamming against the corners of the
buildings until the houses were hidden in a cloud of swirling
spores, and the surviving balls tore loose to follow bowling in
the wake of their fellows.
This time, the wind did not desert them. Many lodged in
sheltered hollows, but they served merely to fill them up and
make a path over which the rest could travel. The wave of
invaders climbed the slopes and swept up and out on to the
moor, where, unobstructed, they gathered speed to charge yet
more swiftly upon the defenders.
There was a line of fire across the country. Ralph had soon
learned the purpose of the broad trench. Filled now with blaz-
ing oil and wood, it formed a rampart of flame.
'Here they come,' cried the look-out, clinging to a swaying
perch high above.
Soon all could see the few whirling balls which seemed to
lead the way, and the turgid mass of yellow pressing close
behind the outrunners.
They held their breaths....
The first balls hurled themselves to destruction upon a

THE PUFF-BALL MENACE
155
cheval-de-frise, a hedge of bristling spikes which slit and tore
their skins and set free the spores to go scudding on into the
flames. But they came too thick and fast. In many places they
piled up solid against the sharp fence, forming ramps for those
behind to come racing over the top and fall among the meshes
of barbed wire.
Every now and then a ball seemed to leap as though it pos-
sessed motive power within itself. Missing the wire, it would
bowl across no-man's-land to a final explosion in the flaming
ditch, its burning spores shooting aloft like the discharge of a
monstrous firework.
'My God!' muttered the man next to Ralph. 'If this wind
doesn't drop soon, we'll be done. Look at that!'
'That' was one of several balls which, miraculously escaping
all traps prepared for it, had leaped past them into the dark-
ness behind.
'They'll catch it in the nets back there and burn it when the
wind drops,' Ralph replied with a confidence which he
scarcely felt. 'The thing that worries me is that the fires may
die down—we can't get near to fuel them from the lee side
here.'
But, as luck had it, the fires outlasted the wind.
'Men,' began the officer in charge, the next morning, 'it was a
pretty near thing last night, and we have to thank providence
that we successfully withstood it. But we can't afford to waste
time. We've got to get to work at once. There may be another
wind any time, and that mass of stuff choking the spikes must
be cleared before it comes. I want every man who has experi-
ence of flame-throwers to step forward.'
Ralph, in company with many others, stepped out. He had
no knowledge of flame-throwers, but it was the only way he
could acquire an asbestos suit and get out into the danger
area. For more than a week he had stifled his anxiety to know
Dorothy's fate, and now he could bear it no longer.
As he struggled into the heavy covering which would not
only insulate him from fire, but also withstand the deadly
spores, he turned over his plan. Perhaps such a simple getaway
was unworthy of the name of a plan. Roughly, it consisted in
placing himself among the foremost of those who would be
clearing the ground with their fire-sprays, and working gradu-
ally ahead until the thickly scattered balls should give him
concealment from the rest of the party. All he had to do then
was to walk off to the west.
The only risk, once he was away, was that one of the food-

156
carrying planes might spot him. But the chance was remote,
and it was unlikely that a lone straggler would be considered
worthy of investigation.
The scheme worked as he had expected. No hue and cry was
raised after him as he wormed away. In a very little while he
stood alone at the threshold of the stricken district.
As far as he could see in three directions, the land was
dotted with the yellow balls, poised ominously where the wind
had left them, and seeming to wait for the next gale to pick
them up and send them swirling onward to more victims. Sur-
rounded by the evilly glittering skins, he shuddered for a
moment before his determination reasserted itself.
He drew a deep breath through his mask, threw back his
head and strode on, a lone, grey figure, the only moving object
in a scene of desolation.
In the first village he found a motor-cycle with its tank half-
full, and for six miles it shattered the silence of the moor as he
drove it, zigzagging to avoid the growths which littered the
road. Then came a sharp valley so choked with balls that he
must leave the motor-cycle, throw away the heavy flame-
thrower and climb across the balls themselves.
On several occasions one burst beneath his weight and he
dropped some feet in a flurry of spores which threatened to
choke his breathing mask until he could wipe them away.
Then, laboriously, he must pick himself up and struggle on,
while streams of sweat soaked his clothing beneath the clumsy
suit. Once he almost turned back to pick up the flame-thrower
with the idea of burning his way through the mass, but he
remembered that its cylinder was already half discharged. Des-
perately he battled, until at last his feet found the bracken and
heather of the farther hill-side.
Afterwards, he could recall little of that journey. He became
uncertain even of the number of days which passed as he
tramped on and scrambled through one choked valley after
another.
Only odd incidents startled him now and then out of a
stupid weariness: the little town on the moor where men and
women lay dead in the streets while the fungus preyed on
them, and the windows of the houses were full of yellow balls
which mercifully hid the rooms .. the voice of a madman
chanting hymns in a barricaded hut; hymns which turned to
cursing blasphemies as he heard Ralph's step outside ... the
things which had been men, and which he was forced to move
when thirst tortured him to find a drink in a dead inn	

THE PUFF-BALL MENACE
157
But somehow, with dulled senses, he strove on through the
nightmare while with every mile he covered, the fear of what
he might find at his goal increased.
He felt that he was almost home when he crossed the River
Tamar which separates Devon from Cornwall. The bridge was
choked with the fungus. Upstream was wedged a solid mass of
yellow, but below it the river raced, bearing an occasional
serenely floating ball which would later meet its fate before
the fire boats in Plymouth Sound.
At last, St. Brian. The balls were fewer here. The wind
had carried most of them away. His own home. Farther on,
Dorothy's home—blank, locked . .. deserted?
He broke a window to enter, and wandered about the empty
rooms. No trace of fungus inside the house. No trace, either, of
Dorothy. Perhaps she was upstairs. He was weak and hungry.
Every step of the climb was an effort.
At the door of her room he hesitated. Would she be there;
the yellow balls growing from her, feeding upon her still
body? He opened the door; anything was better now than
uncertainty. No one on the bed—no one in the room at all. He
began to laugh hysterically. Dorothy had fooled the balls.
They hadn't got her. She was alive, he was sure now—alive in
spite of those damned balls. He fell on the bed, half-laughing,
half-crying.
Suddenly he stopped. A sound outside. Voices? Painfully he
crawled across to look out of the window. A group of people
was coming up the road. People he knew. They were wearing
ordinary clothes, and among them was Dorothy—Dorothy!
He tore off his mask and tried to shout to them. Funny; his
voice wouldn't work, somehow. Never mind. Dorothy had
fooled the yellow balls. That was damned funny. He was
laughing again as he sank to the floor.
'Yes, dear, I'm real,' said Dorothy, at the bedside.
'But—but how	?'
'When I got here I found that Daddy had gone. The only
thing was for me to go, too. Several of us went down the river
in a boat and rowed along nearly to Land's End. Right in the
toe of Cornwall we were beyond the balls, and to windward of
them. Then, when it was safe	'
'Safe?'
'Yes, dear. It's safe now. The balls are just like an ordinary
fungus now—they don't attack living things any more. Then
we came home and found you here.'
'But	'

58
'Not now. You mustn't talk any more, dear. You've been
very ill, you know.'
Ralph acquiesced. He went to sleep peacefully, her hand in
his and a smile on his face.
ENVOI
The Prince Khordah of Ghangistan regarded the nephew of
Haramin, bent low before him.
'Your plan has failed,' he said.
The nephew of Haramin nodded dumbly.
'But,' continued the Prince, 'it has cost that accursed coun-
try more than did ever our wars—and we have lost nothing.
Tell me, why did it fail?'
'Your Highness, the stock did not breed true. After two or so
generations it was no longer a parasite, but had reverted to a
common, saprophytic fungus.'
'Which, however, it will take them many years to suppress?'
'Many years,' the other repeated hopefully.
The Prince Khordah spent a few moments in contempla-
tion.
'We are not displeased,' he said at length. 'Doubtless the first
arrow did not kill a lion. There are other means, nephew of
Haramin?'
The bent figure heaved a sigh of relief.
'There are other means,' he agreed.

JOHN WYNDHAM
SLEEPERS OF MARS
SLEEPERS OF MARS
Disturbed from the sleep of centuries, they found they
had been cheated of their future. Fertile plains were now
endless barren desert. ..
WORLDS TO BARTER
It was simply an exchange of lives - the present in-
habitants of earth were to change places with those of
the future. But their world was dying ...
INVISIBLE MONSTER
The crowded spaceship held a hidden terror - it was
man-eating and it was multiplying I
THE MAN FROM EARTH
To the Venusians the strange-looking creature was
unique - the last of his kind ...
THE THIRD VIBRATOR
He knew the weapon had already destroyed two ancient
civilisations - for he had created it.
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