Famine (12 page)

“These creatures multiply ten-fold with each generation.”

 

 

“Your Excellency,” said the Lozanian interpreter, “I have the honour to present Dr. Palfrey.”

“Doctor.”

“Excellency.”

“And Mrs. Fordham.”

“Madame.”

“I'm glad to meet you, Mr. President.”

“Mr. Andromovitch.”

“Mr. President.”

“Professor Copuscenti.”

The Professor, perhaps more tense than any of those present, bowed stiffly.

The introductions, at the Palace of the Hills, overlooking the great Bay of Lozania, took less than five minutes. Copuscenti gave the impression that he thought every second was wasted. Stefan Andromovitch seemed the least troubled, the most composed, and Beth Fordham glanced at him continually, in wonder or in awe. The President, a silver-haired handsome man with bright, dark eyes and a high-bridged nose, bore the reputation of a benevolent dictator, his neo-Fascist leanings long part of the international scene. Once looked for, the resemblance between him and the tiny creatures was as noticeable as that between them and Taza.

Palfrey gave an involuntary shiver of apprehension.

“Mr. President,” he said at last, “the matter is urgent.”

“This I know,” said the President. “Dr. Palfrey, there are some matters I would prefer to discuss with you alone.”

“I would have to tell my colleagues immediately, sir.”

“I agreed to the ambassador's request that I should acquaint you of certain facts only if they could be kept in complete confidence.”

Copuscenti was glaring at the President, his hands clenching and unclenching.

“Your Excellency,” Palfrey said, “if we cannot find the truth about these creatures, quickly, the world will perish. Your name, your country's name, will have no significance if that should happen. If we can avoid identifying you or Lozania, we will – but if you have to be named so as to give us a chance of survival, then I shall name you.”

“Time!” Copuscenti breathed. “Every minute matters.”

“Dr. Palfrey,” said the President in his excellent English, “we are a small nation and we have been dependent on the largesse of our wealthier neighbours for a long time. We have few natural sources of wealth or energy, and the cost of nuclear power was far beyond our economy. We had the assistance of both Russian and German physicists. We worked along different lines from those of other nations. We discovered a method of carrying out certain limited experiments, even of nuclear weapons, without them being detected. We were confident of the success of our endeavours but the nuclear reactor research station was closely guarded. We selected a place which was accessible from the mainland and yet was far enough away to be cut off if anything went wrong. I speak, of course, of the Isle of Lozan.”

Palfrey could picture the island in his mind's eye. It was two or three miles off the coast, in the middle of the magnificent bay, a rocky island which had seemed ugly and bare of vegetation, a derelict jewel in the vivid blue of the sea.

“We flew over it,” Copuscenti muttered. “Get on, get on.”

“During the two world wars we have used the Island of Lozan for storing our precious inheritances – our art treasures, our historical relics, our records – everything. There are three secret tunnels from the mainland to the island.”

Palfrey had known there were such tunnels, but no more.

“When we began our nuclear research and our experiments we worked on the Isle,” the President went on. “All our hopes were vested in it. We made it a self-sufficient underground city with huge food stocks and supplies of all kinds. If anything happened above ground, we believed the underground city would be safe.”

After a pause, the President continued: “Five times we carried out undetected tests of defensive weapons which appeared to be wholly successful. We housed two thousand families on the Isle, in an underground city which had every amenity we could give it, to provide both nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. We also had some research laboratories – we were studying the effect of radiation on such diseases as cancer and leukaemia.”

Palfrey had vivid pictures of the subterranean city near Salisbury and the other near Smolensk. He did not speak, and none of the others spoke, each fascinated by what this grave-faced, austere man was saying. Palfrey was aware of Beth's arm touching his – both with assurance and for assurance.

“These families were to stay on the island until the work had been finished, and we had reached our objective – 
nuclear power,
the solution to our economic ills and our pitiful standard of living—”

Suddenly the President broke off, turned away and pressed a button on his desk. A whirring sound followed, and a large white screen dropped down over one of the windows. On a table opposite to this was a movie projector already loaded. The President moved across to it.

“Please bring chairs.”

“Have we time—” Copuscenti began.

Palfrey's hand tightened on his arm, silencing him. Andromovitch picked up a heavy chair in each hand, the others took one each.

“Because of the vital importance of security we had the island of Lozan watched by television and cine cameras, all equipped with sound recording attachments,” the President continued. “All the approaches were covered, and television and film cameras were placed at strategic points through the reactor station, which was built on several subterranean levels beneath the island. There was an underground city with all facilities for communal and family life, as well as the factory or research establishment, where the workers lived. Do you follow?”

“Clearly,” Palfrey said, and Andromovitch said: “Most certainly.”

“These cameras were all under electronic control, and movement was sufficient to operate them. Some were in action all day, and the closed circuit television was watched every minute. Each day, too, the film was brought here and studied. Any suspicious movement would be detected at once. I am about to show you of what happened on the second day of April, this year – four months and five days ago.

“After you have seen the pictures, there will be other films, which have been edited so that they present the story of events chronologically. A moment please, while I switch off the lights.”

He moved away; there was a click, and darkness dropped into the room. A moment later the beam from the projector pierced the dark, and the date April 2nd 196- appeared on the screen. Immediately afterwards a picture of the Isle of Lozan appeared in vivid colour, quite beautiful with its surf – and sand – ringed beaches, its inlets, its cliffs, the rich vegetation on the rocky slopes, the white houses, the children playing in or near the water, the mothers watching. The island was surrounded by deep water, big ships were in the channel between it and the port of Lozan, where a cruise ship gay with flags, and garlanded with flowers, was moving slowly from the dockside.

Copuscenti gasped: “I remember! I remember, the earthquake …”

To him, to Palfrey, to them all, what followed was not only hideous and horrible, but so vivid that it felt as if they were living through the awful day itself, and the weeks which followed.

 

All was peace and beauty on the island and in the Bay of Lozan on that lovely April day, when the sun shone and the wind blew.

Then, suddenly, the water at one side of the island erupted.

One moment, there was the idyllic scene; next it was blotted out by a great wall of water, and as this rose, the whole island vanished except for the top of the mountain. In a few seconds, an enormous tidal wave crashed with uncontrollable fury, swallowing up small craft and large. The sky turned dark. The cruise ship, so majestic for so long, was struck with such force that it was lifted out of the water and flung onto the quayside. As suddenly it was engulfed, swallowed in the mighty wave with all buildings and other ships nearby.

There was left only the horror …

The picture changed, to show the aftermath, a sultry sea, and on its bosom the wreckage of large craft and small, and the bodies of countless men and women and children. There was a great pall in the sky, hiding the sun, casting a red, sullen glow over the water.

One side of the island had vanished into the sea. The other remained, as it appeared today; dead and desolate.

As Palfrey and the others watched, appalled, the scene changed to pictures inside the island fortress, underground. They saw an underground city, far larger than that which Palfrey had seen near Salisbury, and Andromovitch near Smolensk; but much the same, with huge dormitories, communal kitchens, communal recreation rooms, a cinema, a theatre, nurseries – and in one place, new born babies with their mothers, a woman in the very act of giving birth.

The picture seemed to break; one moment everything was normal, the next it was as if everything was hurled into the air, in fire and smoke and awful bedlam. And the screaming rose to a terrible pitch …

Slowly, the smoke settled; and faded – like the mist had done on Salisbury Plain.

The President said huskily: “Not all the cameras were destroyed.”

On the screen there appeared the date:
April 30th.

After it, there came a different picture, a kind of miniature, like a child's model of the city they had seen destroyed in front of their eyes. The picture covered the same area, but ten, a hundred times more was crowded into it, and instead of the magnificent underground city it was primitive and rough. There were people, too; tiny people.

They moved about, near-naked, with a controlled busyness. No one smiled, or relaxed, or talked; instead, each group went about its work with a controlled application and energy which was appalling in itself; for these were tiny creatures; ant-like; yet they were midget humans, behaving as if they were trained to every movement and terrified in case they failed to do what they were there to do. Among them were a few slightly taller creatures who behaved as if with authority.

The picture changed.

Palfrey saw what Andromovitch had seen; the new-born in litters of eight and nine and ten. And he saw ‘children' fully grown; and the food stocks almost gone; great warehouses empty.

Copuscenti gasped: “In four weeks. Four
weeks.
It can't be.”

“You see it as it happened,” the President said. “And look.”

Next, ordinary men approached the tiny city, men wearing masks and equipped with all the protective clothing of anyone going into a radiation area; and yet the tiny creatures, near-naked, lived and thrived.

“No!” screamed Copuscenti.

Palfrey felt Beth's fingers tighten on his arm, and could imagine how she felt, for suddenly two of the creatures sprang upon the ordinary men, and rent their clothing and tore at their throats, killing them.

The picture changed.

It was hideous beyond words, for the tiny creatures, once with plenty of room to move in, were now jammed tight in every nook and cranny, wriggling like maggots. Palfrey felt sick. Copuscenti groaned. Andromovitch said: “It cannot be.” Beth turned her face away. Walsh sat staring, lips working.

And the seething, writhing mass of living creatures grew larger and larger.

They spread out through the rock. They tunnelled with tiny tools powered by some energy Palfrey did not understand. They reached the side of the mountain and the sea. They ate everything in their path. They swam, but few if any drowned. They were like a great shoal of fish, wriggling and writhing. And gradually they spread out, moving to every point on the compass, until at last they disappeared, and the sea was calm.

The projector stopped, and the silence was unbroken for what seemed a long, long time.

Then the President said: “I cannot show you what followed, Dr. Palfrey, but our greatest nuclear physicist, who escaped the disaster, can tell you all he knows.”

 

 

The man who came into the room was short and very broad. His face was small, and like that of a very old man, although there was youthful vigour in his body, and in the firmness of his grip as he shook hands with Palfrey, Copuscenti and Walsh. He nodded to the others as the President said: “Dr. Severini, I have told them everything I can up to the last days of the exodus.” The President's voice had an edge of weariness. “You understand it was only six weeks ago, Dr. Palfrey.”

“I understand,” Palfrey said.

“It is unbelievable,” said Andromovitch.

“Cancer
research,” Walsh rasped.

“Six weeks—and they are now in every part of the world,” Copuscenti said in a hoarse voice.

“The period of gestation is nine days,” Dr. Severini announced in good but heavily accented English. “We isolated four pairs, very early after the first discovery, and allowed them to mate. The result was phenomenal, quite phenomenal. Within ten days, from the four couples, there were thirty-seven young, one odd female whom the parents killed and ate – there is other evidence that they are cannibalistic, although their preference appears to be for small vermin, insects and birds, even small animals. They also eat large quantities of vegetable foods, fruits, and particularly, sugar. The young become fertile in fourteen days. As far as I can tell, there was a polygamous society—what do you say in England? Farmyard morals?”

He paused for comment.

“Farmyard morals,” Beth echoed huskily.

“So. Fifteen days after the birth of the first thirty-seven young, there were one hundred and sixty-three in the generation, or two hundred and seven including the first four pairs. Twenty-five days later, there were nearly seventeen hundred. They devoured all the food within the area; stripped two fields of corn, and then burrowed into the earth. We lost trace of them. They carry tiny supplies of dried leaves, which gives off smoke when burned. The smoke hides them. They ate their way across the southern tip of Lozania, and into the mountains – and none appear to have returned.” There was a pause in the monologue, one in which no one stirred. “I hoped that they would be unable to survive at certain altitudes and low temperatures, and certainly they disappeared. Our researches in the waters off the coast showed that many thousands had drowned, and I gave the President reasonable ground for hope that all of them had perished in the sea. Until—” he broke off.

Palfrey's eyes were closed as he tried to take this in.

“I have a report from a professor of the Department of Physics at the Lozan University,” Severini went on. “Observation has shown that about half of the average litter are females. Whether each female produces one or several litters is not significant in view of what is known of the fecundity. The Professor states that the population of the creatures will multiply by ten, in thirty-eight days, by one hundred in seventy-six days, and by one thousand in one hundred and fourteen days. So if the world has ten million now, in four months it will have ten thousand million of these creatures, or at least two for every human being. Beyond that, I cannot begin to comprehend, for they will multiply rapidly, soon covering all the world's surface, land and sea.”

No one spoke when he paused, and he went on again: “We have discovered that there are two degrees of intelligence and intellectual development in the creatures, much the same as in human beings. A few are brilliant technicians, and natural leaders. They have perfected a simple method of creating and using their energy but they need enormous quantities of food. They imitate human beings in most behaviour patterns and I believe much of this imitation is inbred. They can think, and yet they do foolish things. The leaders – sometimes the killers – soon lose their self-control, and often kill for the sake of killing. On the other hand they are highly protective to their own weaker brothers.”

Severini broke off again and looked appealingly at the President.

“Dr. Palfrey,” President Mortini said, with an obvious effort. “I devoutly hoped – all of us hoped – that the creatures had all perished. We heard no reports of them. My ambassadors throughout the world were instructed to keep the closest watch. So were our Intelligence agents. No word reached us until your discovery and the request for information from Z5.”

“Why didn't you give it at once?” Palfrey demanded.

The handsome face took on an expression of infinite sadness.

“I do not expect anyone to understand the horror I felt at such news. The sense of shame. The awful responsibility. I consulted Dr. Severini when I heard from Clemente Taza. He told me what I am sure is true – it would be a matter of days before you were aware of the nature and fecundity of these creatures. We could do no positive good. We hoped we might avoid admission of our responsibility. But some of the young, it now appears, were carried in the baggage of one of our diplomats in London. They were highly intelligent specimens. We do not know for certain, but we believe they were searching for new areas to colonise. They realise how desperately they will need to expand the land they live off, but they do not appear to have given a moment's thought to any form of birth-control.”

Beth said in a hushed voice: “Nor did we, until it was nearly too late.”

The President said quietly: “In South America, we have been more guilty than most countries about over-population, but—” He caught his breath. “Before we could stop them, they escaped, and we know that a colony grew beneath the house. An attempt to gas them failed. In the course of it we discovered that some of the creatures have this high intelligence and are able to communicate among themselves. Also they were travelling freely to and from the Embassy. The colonies are not wholly autonomous, there is some kind of communication between them. At some stage, presumably for protection, some assumed rabbit, cat and dog skins – and we now know that the fighters among them use a fur disguise.”

Palfrey moved across the room, twisting a strand of hair about his finger.

“They certainly have a high intelligence, with blank patches of sheer stupidity,” he said. “They have means of communication. They have scouts or fighters, to protect the colonies. They have engineers who build beneath the earth, and how they eat! Do you know what tools they use for building?”

“We believe that most of them are manual, but some are automatic, charged by the stupendous energy each one stores in the body,” said Severini. “We have tried to kill them by atomic radiation but they are quite immune to it. They have this abnormal physical strength.”

“Abnormal indeed!” cried Copuscenti. “Do you know the obvious truth, Palfrey?”

“There are so many,” Palfrey said. “Which one do you consider paramount?”

“That each of the creatures is powered by a built-in source of atomic energy. That is why they can work as they do, that explains their abnormal physical strength and their unbelievable staying power. To
swim
the South Atlantic, and the other great oceans – what physical strength they must have!”

Dr. Walsh's eyes were bright with excitement when he cut across Copuscenti's words.

“The research into cancer and leukaemia, the existence of sufferers from the diseases in the city would explain the malignancy of the tissues of the creatures,” he said. “It would explain why all of them are carriers of the malignant germ-cells in the blood, perhaps in the breath.

“The poisoning takes place only when the blood is exposed to the air,” Dr. Severini said. “Similarly, the nuclear energy is in the blood, generated in a way not yet known. Once there is bleeding the energy is dissipated – and it dissipates on death too. If they multiply at such a rate—” he broke off, almost choked by his own words and the horror of the facts.

Palfrey said flatly: “What are the figures and facts beyond those we already know?”

“The Professor's report is comprehensive and thorough on the known
data,”
declared Severini. “The figures are of course dependent on certain facts not yet known, because we have not been able to study the behaviour of the creatures over a long enough period. If half of each litter are in fact, females, and each female lives for several generations, mating again immediately on parturition, or carrying enough sperm from the first mating to fertilise a series of batches of ova, or is parthenogenic, and produces a litter every nine days, similar statistics hold. The population will multiply by ten about every twenty-six days, by a hundred every fifty-three days, by a thousand every seventy-five days. So, as we said before, an increase from ten million of the creatures to a thousand million would take fifty-three days, and the increase to a million million would take one hundred and thirty-two days. Whether the present estimate of ten million in existence is accurate or not makes little difference. Even if the starting figure was only ten thousand, the million million would be reached within two hundred and twelve days – or seven months.”

As he stopped, the only sound was the harsh breathing of the others, until Beth said: “So even if they do not infect us, we cannot stop them from eating us out of existence.”

“Even if we could we couldn't prevent them from driving us into the sea,” Palfrey said bleakly. “A million million of them would need to occupy an enormous area. Are there any statistics available on that?”

“Yes,” answered Severini. “If they had a square foot each – such a tiny space! – they would need thirty thousand square miles – more than half of England, Dr. Palfrey – mountain and valley, good land and bad included.”

“There would be a solid mass blotting out all London, all of Southern England from the Humber to the mouth of the Severn,” Palfrey said heavily.

Beth was holding his arm very tightly.

“That is so,” agreed Severini. “And now there are positive figures. If you can imagine these creatures in one circular patch, they would move out from the extreme fringe at the rate of four miles a day. Seventy-six days later they would cover three million square miles – all of North America except the North-West territories of Canada.”

“It would take less than a year to cover the whole land area of the earth,” said Andromovitch. And he shivered.

“And they did not all drown,” muttered Copuscenti.

“Not all of them would drown when they were pushed off the land masses,” agreed Severini.

“So not only could they starve us to death, but they could take up all our living space,” Palfrey said in a husky voice. “They could take over the world.”

“Unless they are stopped, then inevitably they will,” declared Andromovitch.

“What hope is there of stopping them?” demanded Beth, in a quivering voice.

Not one man answered.

Beth caught her breath.

“That horrible picture,” she said.

“Which one?”

“The one when they looked like maggots.”

“Well?”

“The whole world will be like that if they're not stopped. Don't you realise? They'll be worse than termites, worse than any insect, and they'll devour everything.”

Dr. Severini let out a long, slow, softly-hissing breath.

Palfrey unwound the strands of hair and smoothed them into the familiar flaxen curve.

“First things first. In a few months, they can create famine conditions anywhere in the world, that's unarguable. Dr. Severini—”

“Yes?”

“Do you know of any way of killing them, except by methods which draw blood?”

“I do not.”

“There is cyanide of potassium when they are in a confined space,” Andromovitch said, “but that cannot be used without grave risk to people. Moreover, the early reports from Russian pathologists state that death was by suffocation caused by the gas, not by the poison itself. It is not practical except in small concentrated doses, or in huge underground cities. On the surface we cannot use gasses.”

“No.” Palfrey said.

“We must capture a hundred, a thousand of these creatures,” Copuscenti said hotly. “We must capture enough to use every known gas and poison, until we find out what will kill them, and yet be harmless to human beings.”

“If there is such a thing.” Severini said despairingly.

“We must find a way of destroying them!” Copuscenti was beside himself.

Severini said heavily: “If we are to survive as a human race, yes. However, there is no law which guarantees our survival, is there? The world has been afraid of destruction by nuclear warfare, but, perhaps,
this
is going to lead to the end of the human race. Not by nuclear explosion, not by radiation, but simply by starvation – by famine. Be sure of this. If these creatures multiply at such a rate, the world will not have enough food to last for another year, perhaps not enough for six months. There are some of us who believed that the world would die of famine conditions in less than fifty years, unless the growth of population were strictly controlled. Unless these
Lozi
are destroyed—”

“Lozi?”
ejaculated Palfrey.

“It is the name we have given them,” Severini informed him. “Unless they can be destroyed, the world will starve in one year instead of fifty. You are right, Dr. Palfrey. They will devour the animal food and all vegetable food, and clearly there is a danger that they might be able to eat and digest the organic part out of the topsoil, leaving a sterile desert. The danger to food is more acute than the danger to living space.” Palfrey felt ice-cold.

“They must be killed,” said Copuscenti, his voice hushed by the enormity of what was being said.

“We cannot use gas. We cannot shed their blood, or the infection will kill the human race. Asphyxiation is impossible
en masse,
once they are above ground.” Severini was looking at Palfrey. “This is our dilemma, Dr. Palfrey. I do not envy you the task of resolving it.”