Quatermass (21 page)

It started to split.

That was all the horrified watchers saw. In the next instant the room was solid with mist, impenetrable. Through it came a shock that thudded eardrums in and blew their lungs empty. Their skin was stung by a hail as sharp as needles.

They gasped and fought for breath. The haze tasted sweet and nauseating. A retching nurse blundered out through the shattered glass door.

Annie Morgan’s feet crunched as she moved. There were crystals too on the bed, all over it, layered thick among the rags of plastic. But that was all.

There was no Isabel.

1 0

A
rotund old man was moving through the scrap yard between the hills of derelict cars.

It was Jack, swollen by his thief’s harness. Slung over one shoulder he had a heavy sack which he lowered to the ground as he drew back into cover to get his breath and glance round at the way he had come. He did not like to be on the move in daylight, but things had gone wrong. And in the last mile or so he had had the conviction of being followed. He had always been good at knowing.

He was particularly careful in his approach to the wheel-less van. He headed obliquely away from it, then doubled back and kept low. If anybody had their eyes on him, he had a good idea from which direction, and he made sure he was screened from that side. He crawled along beside an overturned truck, tugging the sack after him. Past a Lamborghini, a Rover and a Morris Minor, and he was home. He scrambled inside the van.

The only trace of his passage was a tiny trail of white from the sack.

He clumped his way down the ladder, panting hard, and made straight for the open part of the catacomb.

The old folk began to stir.

This was always an exciting time, seeing what Jack had brought. Arthur woke up in his Austin 1300 chair. Edna threw her knitting aside.

“Jack,” she said, “we worried after you. You’ve been so long.”

Jack threw the sack down. A puff of white rose.

“I won some flour,” he said. “That’s all I got.” He threw his coat open to show them the empty harness.

“Didn’t they have nothing?”

“They wasn’t there!”

“What!”

Jane simply refused the information. “They must’a been,” she said.

“I’m telling you,” said Jack. “Not a one of ’em!”

They still doubted him, as they had learned to doubt themselves.

“Not Peewee nor nobody?” asked Arthur.

As if he hadn’t searched all that time! “No sign!” said Jack.

“But they’re always there. You told us.”

“Well, they wasn’t!” Jack was getting angry.

“You should’a waited longer,” said Jane, and to the others: “He should’a done.”

“I reckon Jack did his best,” said Edna. “He always does.”

Winnie came sleepily out of her cubicle. “What happened?”

“The soft gang,” said Jane. “He couldn’t find them.”

“Oh, dear.”

“He should have,” said Jane.

Jack gave a grunt of exasperation and started tearing himself free of the coat and harness. Edna helped him.

“What d’you reckon, then?” said Arthur.

“They’ve gone!” said Jack. He was as worried as the rest but he had had more time to think about it. Dismay was spreading rapidly.

Winnie whispered: “Oh, what’ll we do?”

“P’raps they haven’t gone for good,” said Edna.

Jack nodded. “P’raps not.”

“We’ve been lucky,” said Edna. “They’ve been good to us.”

“
I
never liked ’em,” Arthur said. “I never trusted ’em.”

Jack rounded on him in rage. “You never bloody met ’em! You took good care you never!”

“From what you told us—”

“But you’re goin’ to do your bit now, mate!”

“So I will—”

“You’re goin’ to ’ave to!”

They were frightened now. Their existence was at risk. Winnie was crying softly.

“Don’t fret, Win,” said Edna. “We’ll manage. We’ll find some other way.”

Jack was looking about the place. “Where is he?”

“Who?” said Arthur.

“ ’Im!”

“With old Chisholm,” said Edna. “He’s in there all the time.”

“Then ’e’ll keep a bit longer till I tell ’im. Gimme a drink o’ water.”

Quatermass had just shared another of the strange mixtures of food with the nonagenarian. Now he sat listening to the ancient voice rustling on. It had not after all turned out to be a waste of time. His imagination was at work.

“I had a good nose,” said Chisholm. “I’ve little way of telling how far it’s deteriorated now, of course. Nothing to test it on but the mildews. At my peak I could differentiate one thousand and thirty-two separate odours. That is not a record, of course. Far from it. There was an American named Crocker who claimed over nine thousand. But my modest score took much training.”

Quatermass was less interested in Chisholm’s nose.

“What you were saying a little while ago about musk—”

“Ah, musk. That’s the noble perfume.”

“About making it—”

Chisholm said reprovingly: “We never used synthetics at Greeley and Prosser’s.”

“I mean obtaining it.”

“Well, of course, nowadays—”

Nowadays, Quatermass had found, covered the past fifty years.

“How should it have been?” he asked.

The old man heaved the covers up round himself. “The genuine article can only be got from the male musk deer. From its preputial follicles. You know what those are?” The saurian grin showed it must have been a dirty giggle among the apprentices at Greeley’s. “Found beneath the creature’s foreskin. Mm, mm. The finest quality was called Tonkin musk but actually it came from Tibet!” Another shop joke. “They would send it to us in catties. Those were boxes of a peculiar design lined inside with lead and covered outside with silk. The musk was so precious, you see.”

“But the deer?”

“What about the deer?”

“Were they always killed?”

Mr. Chisholm looked faintly irritated. “Well, of course they were. How else could it be got? If you were in their situation would you be inclined to surrender your follicles?” Quatermass waited for the snicker to subside. “The finest animals are found in the Kokonor Mountains. That’s Tibet, as I said. The hunters must be wary because they have extremely acute hearing.”

“So they’re hard to take?”

Chisholm considered. “That very faculty is employed to betray them. The hunter plays upon a flute, which astonishes the creatures. They have never heard such a melody. It makes them curious. It lures them as it echoes among the crags. They lose their caution.” He chuckled. “And subsequently their follicles. Mm, mm. Another method is to trap them in nets made out of wild hemp, green and unbroken so that they cannot see it.” He clucked his satisfaction at the skill of the Tibetan huntsmen.

The thought that had been troubling Quatermass broke surface. “How much of the animal was ever used?”

Chisholm looked surprised. “Oh, a trace. Even of the follicles the actual odoriferous principle formed only—yes, the merest trace.” He ruminated for a moment. “Our Mr. Greeley’s father had travelled to the East in his youth, and he observed the methods by which—”

There was a scream.

It echoed along the tunnel. An old woman, frightened. Then other voices, shouting.

Quatermass pulled himself to his feet. He looked at Chisholm but the old man was showing only a glassy calm.

“So they’ve come at last,” he said. “The gun gangs.”

He spread his covers neatly.

Down the passage, in the open area, old people clung in terror. The invaders who had come scrambling down the ladder were wearing combat jackets and carrying guns. Their leader, Jack saw, had the tabs of a captain and a pistol in his hand.

“Now where is he?” he shouted. “What have you done with him?”

“Done with ’oo?” said Jack.

Susie wailed in terror: “Oh, don’t shoot me! Please don’t!”

The captain turned to his men.

“Search!”

They started whipping through the cubicles, guns ready.

“What’s in there?” the captain demanded. He tore down the curtain that covered the entrance to the stores tunnel. He kicked down a stack of cans.

“Don’t take our food!” cried Jane.

The captain jabbed his gun into Jack’s ribs and cocked it.

“Right, you’re the one. We followed you. Where have you put him? I’ll give you three seconds!”

“Is it me you want?” asked Quatermass.

The officer spun round, to see him standing at the entrance to the further tunnel.

“Are you Professor Quatermass?”

“I am.”

The captain turned to his squad. “Right—take him!”

They rushed at Quatermass. Before he could manage a protest he was being borne towards the ladder. The captain’s gun was still trained on the others as he backed.

“Just don’t move.”

“Where are you taking him?” cried Edna. “What are you doing to him? He hasn’t done any harm—he’s been hurt—!”

But Quatermass was already out of sight. Torrance swung himself up the ladder. It had all happened in a few seconds.

Edna turned shakily to Jack. “Who were they?”

“Army,” said Jack. He licked dry lips. “The real thing.”

Quatermass was being carried helplessly along. The soldiers moved with remarkable speed through the maze of scrap. Captain Torrance brought up at the rear, gun ready for a quick shot.

Quatermass found it difficult to protest. He was having the breath shaken out of his body. “What’s this—about? If you—imagine kidnap—they were only—!”

“I’ve got my orders, sir,” said Torrance. “Take no chances.” He shouted to his men: “Keep going, keep going!”

At the edge of the scrap yard a squat featureless vehicle was waiting, like an iron box on wheels. It was painted in camouflage colours with bright regimental markings. A couple more soldiers were waiting beside it. And Annie Morgan.

He could only stare at her as they put him down. The distress and relief were plain in her face. She came to him and embraced him.

“You had to be somewhere round here if you were still—oh, my dear!”

“How did you find me?”

Torrance was grinning. “When we heard you were slap in the middle of the biggest no-go area of West London—well, it was time to use our contacts.”

“There’s something called a soft gang.”

“See you’re learning, sir. There’s all sorts of gangs round here. Mainly Blues. That’s Blue Brigades. You were lucky. We thought they had you at one time.” Torrance became brisk. “Right, get him in the pig.”

Quatermass found himself being helped willy-nilly in through steel doors.

Torrance was taking a look round through binoculars.

“See something? asked Annie.

He pointed and gave her the glasses. Beyond the scrap yard there was a wasteland of little streets, and beyond those the bridgelike shape of an abandoned railway viaduct. Straggling figures were making their way along it.

“Blue Brigade,” said Annie.

They were unmistakable with their guns and their shoulder flags. But there were others too, clad in ponchos. Some of these were swinging plumb-bobs.

She frowned. “Planet People? Running with them?”

“Yes. I’d never have thought—!” He grabbed the binoculars back to take another look. He was clearly fascinated. She could hear him humming very softly. He must be itching to have a go at them, she thought.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Torrance. He helped her into the iron pig beside Quatermass and turned to his squad.

“Has it happened again?” asked Quatermass.

Annie nodded.

“I’ve been afraid. Many times?”

She nodded again.

“Where? Was I right about the megalith connection? You must tell me. There are so many places that could be at risk. Like Joe Kapp’s outfit. They’ll have to be warned. Some attempt made at least—”

She would tell him later.

“Most important, what about the child?”

“She died.”

Soon he would hear how.

She was wiping her face smearily as Torrance and his squad came scrambling aboard and the engine started.

They found Dr. Kelso trying to compile a report. He was finding it hard because he could make no sense of his own recorded figures and because his hands would not stop shaking. To steady them he had been drinking a mixture of ethyl alcohol and water, and his speech was thick. When he discovered who Quatermass was and that he could hand over to him, he became emotionally moved. He took Quatermass to the hospital mortuary, apologizing for the cooling system. But there was little left in the jars. Most of the crystals had sublimed in the first moments.

“Come along, people, please!” sang Johnny Ingrams, pressing the lever to send it through the studio. Singing it made it less of an impersonal demand. He always used the same little tune, like a bird.

It was getting dangerously close to power-cut time and the rehearsal had a long way to go. There was a bad atmosphere in the studio today. Three of the dancers had failed to turn up and that always spread fear. A late start and sloppy work.

They got going again. The music thumped. The lurid beams of light were on target.

The Tittupy Bumpity Show might be television’s last kick but it would be done with a flourish. As somebody had said, the rats would leave the sinking ship with their banners held high.