Читать книгу Two in a Train and Other Stories - Warwick Deeping - Страница 14
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ОглавлениеTerror upon terror, sensation after sensation.
The Prime Minister had not returned from Surrey. None of those who had hurried down to investigate had returned.
Heston Aerodrome, which had sent out two scouting planes, reported both machines as missing.
Moreover, doctors in the area surrounding that centre of darkness and of silence were being summoned to hundreds of people who had fainted and remained unconscious for short periods of time. The On-force, lethal over a definite field, weakened upon dispersal until it produced nothing more than syncopic attacks, giddiness, nausea.
A telephone operator, speaking to the Brighton exchange, was left stranded in sudden silence.
“Hallo—Brighton, hallo.”
Brighton did not reply.
Other people who were speaking to friends in Brighton experienced the shock of that same silence. Voices died away, and did not return.
Trains that had left Brighton after dark, or were in the Brighton area, failed to arrive.
Horsham, Cuckfield, Hassocks were equally silent. So were Peacehaven and Shoreham, Steyning and Lewes. Worthing and Eastbourne reported hundreds of cases of people fainting in the streets, on the sea front, in cinemas, hotels, houses.
The area over which the On-force was active had the shape of an elongated egg. It spread gradually from its point of origin, reached a certain extreme width, and then contracted. Earth contours, hills and valleys, appeared to have no obstructing effect upon the force. It penetrated wherever there was air. People were killed in tunnels, subways and cellars.
During that first night very few people slept. A venturesome aviator, flying in the early morning over Surrey and Sussex, returned safely to Croydon Aerodrome. He and his observer had the stark faces of men who had looked upon some horror.
“Brighton’s a vast morgue. Yes, we flew low along Brighton front. Thousands of people lying dead there.”
The Cabinet, sitting at No. 10, Downing Street, received the news of this latest cataclysm. Already they had called in scientific experts, among them Professors James and Beddington. Maps were spread. With such facts as they could command, these ministers and experts attempted to define the area of death and to arrive at some explanation of the mystery.
There was the problem of a public panic and the Press.
“Better stop all the morning papers.”
“Wouldn’t that be more likely to produce a panic? Press has been asked to refrain from publishing too much detail.”
Professor Beddington, bending over a map, was shading certain portions of it with a blue pencil. He had a police report beside him.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer bent over Beddington’s shoulder.
“Any theory, Beddington?”
Beddington was a dispassionate, large-headed man who had the appearance of a farmer.
“There seems to be a definite focus. Our information goes to show that the focus is on the North Downs between Guildford and Dorking.”
The Leader of the House, standing by a window and smoking a pipe, asked the question that was at the back of every mind:
“It might happen—to London?”
Professor Beddington looked up.
“Yes. Obviously—so.”
Somewhere in the room a voice sounded a note of fear.
“What—is—the damned thing? My God—we must find out!”
“Any views on the Martian theory, Beddington?”
The man at the table tapped his teeth with the end of the blue pencil.
“Not very likely. If Mars was bombarding us with some kind of cosmic ray—there would be more dispersion. I mean, I think the area covered would be larger. We have had no reports from the Continent, have we, of similar happenings?”
“No.”
The Leader of the House, his pipe in his right hand, came and stood at the table.
“Then the thing’s—human?”
“Inhumanly human. Satanic.”
“Well?”
Professor Beddington leaned back in his chair.
“Supposing some individual who was anti-social and not quite sane had discovered how to control and use such a thing as—shall we say—atomic energy.”
There was a moment’s silence.
“Is that possible? Of course, Beddington, you are one of the few men——”
“It is what we have been working for—but beneficently so.”
“Then, the inference is that if some malignant genius had evolved something of the kind he could wipe out humanity?”
“Exactly.”
“Good God! how would one deal with him?”
Professor Beddington smiled.
“Ah—how?”
Professor James had been scribbling on a writing-pad. He raised his head suddenly and spoke.
“I have been jotting down names, Beddington, alphabetically. I have just come to Pye. Did you ever meet Pye?”
“Once.”
“Rather a poisonous little person, but infernally clever. I happen to know that Pye lives in Surrey. He had a grievance against—everybody and everything. He was supposed to be researching on his own. Now, supposing, for argument’s sake, a man like Pye——?”
Professor Beddington nodded his large head.
“That’s my feeling too, James. I think we have to deal with some infernally clever super-megalomaniac. One ought to try and put one’s hand on every physicist in the country.”
Said the Man with the Pipe, “Why not begin with this fellow—Pye? He can be located; he can be——”
Once again Professor Beddington smiled his quiet smile.
“Yes—but supposing Pye to be the man—Pye will be—unapproachable. We cannot raise Pye to the Teeth—by—just deciding to do so. Pye can elevate us all to Paradise—before——”
“Good God!” said the frightened voice—“we are like a lot of doomed rats in a ship.”
The Man with the Pipe relit it.
He said, “I never felt less like a rat.”
