The Night of the Triffids (21 page)

    I agreed. But a small voice in the back of my head told me that I'd been too generous to my American friends with information about my homeland's assets. If this community had no access to petroleum or its associated products then the Processor would be like the goose that laid the golden egg. Nevertheless, I'd already opened my trap (reticence was never my strong point): The truth was out. I sincerely hoped that I wouldn't come to regret my earlier careless talk on the ship.

    Dr Wiseman tactfully withdrew to freshen his drink. This left Kerris, her father and myself chatting over cocktails. The general waved a hand towards a pair of plush sofas that faced each other across a coffee table. The moment the men occupying them saw General Fielding moving towards them they vacated their seats quickly. Kerris and I took one sofa, General Fielding sat in the other. And so we chatted, facing each other. Meanwhile, the sweet strains of Strauss floated through the air.

    By now I had recovered from my surprise at seeing the general's ruined eye. In fact, I had seen the same condition before. Yellow Eye is caused by a splash of triffid poison, a fate that had nearly afflicted my father thirty years ago. Only prompt first-aid treatment and irrigation of his eyes with a saline solution had saved him from permanent damage. Fielding had not been so lucky, clearly. He would, I knew, be blind in his left eye.

    Meanwhile, his good eye scanned my face constantly, as if he was reading words on a page. Here was someone who would assess a man's character in seconds, then judge him according to what he thought he saw.

    'Tell me, David,' General Fielding said. 'You have a family on the Isle of Wight?'

    I told him I had a father, a mother and two sisters.

    'In good health, are they?'

    'Extremely. My father has his work, which is something of a holy quest for him.'

    The general appeared keen to know more about my father. I told him something of his background, how he had managed to survive the Blinding and the wholesale triffid takeover of thirty years ago. In a way that reminded me of the questioning I had undergone on the Atlantic crossing he asked me about the economics of the Isle of Wight and its infrastructure. Then he asked casually about its military capabilities.

    The small voice in my head spoke again.
Play your cards close to your chest. Don't reveal too much.

    'Oh, we have a number of warships as well as military aircraft,' I said, smiling with a deliberate vagueness that a clergyman would have envied.

    'Yes, I heard you had to crash land your jet. A fighter, wasn't it?'

    'A fighter-bomber.'

    'And you burn triffid oil in the engine?'

    'A refined version, yes.'

    'But I dare say spare parts and ammunition must be scarce these days.'

    'We are able to manufacture spare parts,' I pointed out, 'as well as ammunition and bombs.' That voice in the back of my head, small though it was, was wise. It prompted me to implant the idea in the general's mind that the Isle of Wight was no mere helpless farming community: that we had teeth and could bite.

    The general nodded, absorbing the information before asking bluntly, 'How many jet fighters do you possess?'

    'Oh, enough for defence.' Again I gave him my deliberately vague smile.

    'Ah, I see; you want to be discreet about your weaponry. Fair enough. After all, we don't know each other's intentions yet, do we?'

    I acknowledged his point with another smile.

    'Here, let's refresh our cocktails.' With barely a nod of his head he attracted the attention of a waitress who quickly brought more drinks. 'Can I get you anything else, David. Cigar? Something to eat?'

    'No, I'm fine with this, thanks.' I indicated my glass.

    'Now, David. I hope I can speak quite frankly with you. Kerris has, no doubt, told you that our aim here in New York is to establish contact with other communities, no matter where they are in the world?' Without waiting for my reply he pressed on. 'We shall establish trade links, exchange knowledge, personnel.'

    'But some communities aren't interested in talking.'

    'Precisely. Several of our people have been brutally murdered. Even when they approached those places under a white flag. Which is one reason why we have to maintain an effective military force.'

    'So you will
compel
communities who are, let's say, a little on the shy side to come to the negotiating table?'

    'No, of course not, David. But we must be able to defend our city here as well as our shipping lanes.'

    'If it doesn't sound too impertinent, General Fielding, what is your ultimate aim?'

    'To conquer the world, of course.'

    He watched for my reaction. I allowed myself none.

    A smile creased his face, tightening the scarred skin around his yellow eye.

    'Or, to be more precise,' he told me, 'I should say reconquer the world. For all of us. For the human race. And wipe out the one true enemy.'

    'The triffids?'

    He nodded.

    'That's going to be quite a tall order, isn't it?'

    'I have a weapon, David. A wonderful weapon.'

    'The atom bomb?'

    'Oh, we certainly have
those
,' the general said crisply, 'but that's too crude a device. A damn sight too mucky as well. What's the point of incinerating the triffids only to be left with a million acres of contaminated soil? No, I'm talking about the
ultimate
weapon. The weapon that is the oldest known to mankind, as well as being the most powerful.' He smiled a rather hard smile, then inclined his head, inviting me to guess.

    'I'm intrigued. This weapon sounds something pretty special.'

    'Oh, it is.' He leaned forward, enjoying this moment of revelation. 'The weapon
is
Man himself. Or rather men. And not just men by the dozen, or the thousand. But men - and women! - by the million.' Enthused, he spoke in hushed tones. 'Imagine, if you will, that this city is a huge factory. What it produces, David, is people.'

    'And people are your secret weapon?'

    'Yes, of course. Look, New York is manufacturing people at such a rate that our population will explode.' His yellow eye appeared to burn with a light all its own. 'Within ten years the population will be so great that even a city as great as this will not -
cannot -
contain it. Its boundaries will burst and people will spill out, hacking and trampling triffids into the dirt where they belong.'

    'But aren't you in danger of expanding the population beyond the limits of self-sufficiency?'

    'Then that threat of famine becomes the spur to drive mankind on.'

    'But surely a slower, more controlled expansion would be a safer-'

    'Safety be damned, man. This is war. Man against triffid. Survival versus extinction. Of course there will be casualties, but with huge reserves of men and women our losses can be replaced in an instant. Wherever a man falls against a triffid, there will be a dozen men to fill the gap.'

    'But isn't increasing the human population going to be a long job?'

    'That's why we have turned procreation into an industrial process,' the general said. 'We bring techniques of mass production to the business of birth.' He touched his fingers, ticking off each point in turn. 'The notion of a woman expending nine months of her valuable childbearing years to produce just one child is unthinkable in the world of today.'

    'You're suggesting that women have litters of babies - like animals?'

    'You call such births litters, which is rather derogatory. We would describe such women as bountiful.'

    'But is it possible to find women capable of bearing twins to order? Surely-'

    'Not twins. I'm talking about triplets or even quads being the norm. In fact, that
has
been the norm for the last twenty years. Woman receive fertility drugs to produce multiple births.'

    I felt an increasing unease. Hearing this man jubilantly describing how women had been reduced to the level of battery hens had taken quite a lot of the gloss off this community for me.

    'Listen, childbearers are spared the tiring and time-consuming business of raising children. That role is undertaken by women who are either infertile or above childbearing age or suffer some other bar to motherhood.' The general's sharp single good eye read the distaste on my own face. 'You don't approve. Yet I hear your people have their own methods of increasing the birth rate.'

    I thought of the cheerful Mother Houses brimming with happy, much-loved children. 'We do,' I allowed. 'But the manufacturing process is less scientific'

    'You mean it's more haphazard? That you're unable to eliminate birth defects? That one woman squanders nine precious months to produce one child?'

    'It may seem haphazard but it works for us.'

    'And your population is thirty thousand?'

    'Thereabouts.'

    'With, what? - hmm, let's see - fifty per cent of the population being under twenty-five?'

    I nodded.

    'Here,' he said, '
ninety
per cent of our population are under the age of twenty-five. So you see, we have an energetic, lively people. Young people with the ambition and the need - yes, the
sheer need
- to create living space for themselves.' Sighing, the general clasped his hands together in his lap. 'Look at the history books, David. Empires flourished when they had a strong birth rate. On the other hand, empires failed when their birth rate declined. Now, consider how various societies increased their birth rates. In some cultures birth control was banned, in others women who produced large families were handsomely rewarded. Everyone, from pauper to king, did their bit. In short, people equal power. One man can move a stone. A thousand can move a mountain.'

    By the end of this, it had become less a conversation than a political speech delivered by General Fielding. Kerris sat quietly throughout. I wondered then how many she was destined to become mother to? Twenty children? Thirty?

    What's more, I knew General Fielding wanted the Masen-Coker Processor. In turn, I wondered if he'd export his philosophy of population growth, along with his fertility drugs, to my people. That, I can tell you, gave me ample food for thought for the rest of the evening.

    

    

    

    'OK, David. Why the long face?'

    Midnight. We walked along Fifth Avenue arm in arm, the endless traffic producing a dazzling - even dizzying - river of light. A car motor seized with a
clang,
stopping it dead in the traffic. Horns sounded.

    'David?' Kerris prompted.

    'Oh, nothing.'

    'Clearly you find
nothing
disheartening?'

    'Well, it's all this business about…' I began peevishly, then trailed off with a shrug.

    'Didn't you like my father?'

    'No… I mean, it's not your father. He's an extraordinary man.' I stopped short of saying that I actually
liked
him. I had sensed an icy ruthlessness behind the professional smile. 'It's just this production of human babies on what amounts to an industrial scale - which I find unusual, to say the least.'

    'I can't say I've ever really thought about it. But then, this is a foreign land to you, Mr Masen.'

    'And foreigners do things differently, Miss Baedekker.' I smiled. 'Yes, but it's just the thought that one day you… well, dash it all, Kerris, I simply don't like the idea of you mothering Heaven knows how many children.'

    She stopped suddenly and looked at me with those green eyes. Then she put her hand to her mouth and laughed.

    'What's wrong?' I asked, puzzled.

    'David… oh, David. You've a lot to learn. Me with dozens of children? That's ridiculous.'

    'Why? Your father said-'

    'No. David, listen.' She wiped away tears of laughter. 'I don't have the Mother Card.'

    'Mother Card?'

    'Yes. Girls are assessed at thirteen, then they receive their Life Certificates. I have a Career Card, which means I went to college to study for, as the name implies, a career suited to me. Other girls become professional mothers.'

    'Oh.'

    'And they have comfortable rooms, eat well, watch TV until it comes out of their ears. It's not a bad life, being a professional Mother, you know?'

    'I see.'

    'Another thing you should know.' She gave my arm a squeeze. 'When I decide the time is right to have children of my own. I'll get 'em in the old-fashioned way.'

    Here was the rub. General Fielding's vision of what amounted to a tidal wave of human beings sweeping away the triffid menace had made me uneasy. Especially when I heard about multiple births promoted by the intensive use of fertility drugs. After all, a bitch forced to have litters of pups too frequently is destined for premature death. But, distasteful as the general's strategy was to me, I knew it had its merits. It made what I'd hitherto considered the Isle of Wight's impressive birth rate look paltry by comparison. If we were to wage war against the titanic number of triffids, we would need an army of equally titanic proportions. More importantly, General Fielding was driving his community to expand into the triffid-held mainland; to reconquer the world for the human race. While we, on our little island off the coast of England, were content to slumber away our days in blissful ignorance of what was happening in the outside world. We were static, some might even say slothful; we had no plan to re-establish communities on the mainland. My mind returned to the conversation with my father on that fateful evening just a few weeks ago. When he had warned that the island community that he had helped to found faced the real danger of withering away. Although veiled from the population's eyes at the moment, the truth was that the Isle of Wight's peaceful isolation would one day become its nemesis.