The small Æther ship was well hidden in the depths of the wood. Its dark metal hull, blackened and pitted by the vehicle’s entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, lay half buried in the soft humus covering the ground, beneath a thick camouflage of leaves and branches. The ship had not come with a gaudy fanfare, like the Martian cylinders; it had crept in silence upon the world, carrying its hunger and envy within it, like a perversely-cherished malady.
The humans had not noticed its arrival, for their eyes and their minds were firmly fixed upon another point in the sky. They looked to Mars when they thought of the future, never suspecting that their final destiny might arrive from Venus.
Indrid Cold, who had piloted the Æther ship to Earth, shivered in the delicious chill of morning. What a beautiful climate this was! To breathe the autumn air was like quenching one’s thirst with fresh, cold water. Even the summers were a delight: a soft, tentative warmth that caressed the body and lifted the spirit, making one want to walk forever over the lush green landscape, with face turned up to the gentle blue sky. They were nothing like the summers on Venus, where the livid sun breathed fire upon the empty, blasted world, and the only chance of survival was to remain at the poles and in the deep cavern-cities, cowering like animals while the rocks above grew hotter and hotter. One day, even the caverns and the poles would offer no refuge, and when that day came, the people of Venus would roast.
It was inevitable that that day would come, but it was
not
inevitable that the Venusians would still be there when it did.
Indrid Cold removed the camouflage of branches from the Æther ship’s hatch and opened it. Leaning inside, he retrieved the object for which he had returned to Leason’s Wood. The wood lay to the east of the Biggin Hill Cosmodrome in the heart of the Kent countryside, between London and Sevenoaks. It was from Biggin Hill that the humans were taking their first tentative steps into the infinite Æther, and it was here that they had built the world’s first Cosmodrome to receive the interplanetary cylinders which were coming more and more frequently from Mars.
Cold cradled the object in his arms, examining the long, pipe-festooned metal tube carefully, making certain it was in good working order.
Then he took off the pale mask that covered his true face, and when he did so, the birds fled in panic from the surrounding trees…
*
Blackwood and Sophia arrived at the Cosmodrone at ten o’clock, forty-five minutes before the cylinder was due to depart. Detective de Chardin was already there, along with a large contingent of Templar Police, who had cordoned off the area and stationed themselves at various points around the complex and its central launching platform.
The platform was a circle of grey concrete a hundred and fifty yards in diameter, at the centre of which was a deep depression, its vertical sides containing a spider web of support gantries and a number of electrical connection points, fed by three large generators of Martian design.
Within the depression stood the interplanetary cylinder, the upper half of its one-hundred-yard length protruding above the ground, its smooth hull, the colour of burnished copper, glinting in the weak morning sunlight. From his vantage point near the edge of the launching platform, Blackwood gazed up at the craft. He could not deny that it was a fabulous sight, a marvel of engineering prowess, and yet he could not help thinking that it looked like a vast zeppelin that had taken a blackly comical nose-dive into the ground, half burying itself in the tranquil English countryside.
De Chardin saw them and walked over. ‘Good morning, Blackwood, Lady Sophia.’
‘Good morning,’ said Blackwood. ‘Is everything in order?’
‘My men have checked and re-checked the perimeter of the Cosmodrome. The area is secure. We are standing by.’
‘Excellent.’
De Chardin cast his gaze from the faintly humming tower of the cylinder to the surrounding buildings, which included the Æther traffic control centre and the reception lounges, and gave a nervous sigh. ‘Do you think it likely that Indrid Cold will try something here, today?’
‘You must admit that it’s the perfect opportunity to cause more mischief. Then again, perhaps our very presence will deter him.’
‘Let us hope so,’ said Sophia, as she watched the arrival of the cylinder’s flight crew. The four Martians – Captain, Co-Pilot, Astrogator and Engineer – walked past them without even a glance in their direction, strode across the access walkway connecting the launching platform with the craft’s main entry hatch, and vanished into the dimly-lit interior.
‘Good morning to you, too,’ muttered de Chardin.
Blackwood turned away. ‘The Ambassador is here,’ he said.
In silence they watched the arrival of a Martian self-propelled carriage, which mounted the ramp leading up to the launching platform and trundled slowly across the concrete towards the waiting cylinder. Here was another marvel of Martian ingenuity, thought Blackwood as he observed the vehicle’s progress. It was about the size of a horse-drawn omnibus, but its motive force was more advanced even than the internal combustion engines of the motor cars which were beginning to make their appearance in the streets of London and the larger towns. It was powered by electricity stored in several batteries, smaller versions of the ones aboard the cylinder, which were at present being recharged by the surrounding generators.
Its design was at once ineffably beautiful and startling in its strangeness. Its six wheels, which had rubberised pneumatic tyres, were hidden behind a sweeping cowl fashioned from the same copper-like metal as the interplanetary cylinder – although this was adorned with intricate curlicues of silver which caught the light and made it dance across the vehicle’s flanks. The passenger cabin sat atop this arrangement, its strange geometry echoing the elegant lines of the cowl, giving the impression of one frozen wave rising from another. The windows were irregularly shaped, their dark-tinted glass hinting at further wonders of design within.
The vehicle moved past without altering its stately pace, and Blackwood, Sophia and de Chardin walked along beside it until it had reached the access walkway. Here it stopped, and a door opened upwards like a giant bird’s wing. Five Martians emerged and descended to the concrete platform, among them Petrox Voronezh. The Assistant to the late Ambassador looked down at the humans, his dark eyes utterly inscrutable.
‘Good morning, Mr Voronezh,’ said Blackwood.
‘Good morning to you all.’
‘A very sad day, sir,’ said de Chardin.
Voronezh ignored the comment, his attention remaining fixed on Blackwood. ‘I am glad to see that your security arrangements seem to be in order.’
Blackwood nodded to de Chardin as he replied, ‘We have the Templar Police to thank for that. Her Majesty sends her apologies for being unable to attend, as does the Prime Minister…’
‘I quite understand,’ said Voronezh. ‘It would be foolish to risk their safety, no matter how tight the security.’
De Chardin visibly bridled at this but kept silent.
‘Will you be accompanying Ambassador R’ondd on this sad journey, sir?’ asked Sophia.
‘No. I must remain on Earth to make preparations for the arrival of the new Ambassador. I accompany my friend this far to bid him farewell.’
While they were speaking, the other four Martians opened the rear of the carriage and slowly withdrew a plain sarcophagus, alabaster-pale and unadorned by any markings or ornaments. As Blackwood and the others watched, the pallbearers carried the Martian Ambassador across the access-way and into the cylinder.
The three humans crossed themselves as the hatch slid shut with a barely perceptible whine, and withdrew to a safe distance, followed by the electric carriage.
As the cylinder made its final preparations for lift-off, a vivid green glow emerged from the depression in which the craft stood, accompanied by a deep rumble which the onlookers felt through the soles of their shoes. Sophia felt the breath catch in her throat at this manifestation of the fantastic power harnessed within the machine, and instinctively she took Blackwood’s arm. There was a
basso profundo
crackle, the teeth-jarring concussion of nearby thunder, as the Vril energy powering the vessel was directed downwards and released, and the cylinder began to emerge majestically from its steel and concrete nest.
Although all three humans had witnessed the departure of interplanetary cylinders before (in the six years since the Martians’ arrival, it had become a great and eagerly-watched spectacle, to which people came from all over the country), they were stunned anew by the display as the vehicle, as elegant as it was massive, emerged fully from the ground, its copper skin shining in the anaemic autumn light, and climbed into the sky on an emerald pillar of pulsating Vril energy.
What fools we were to believe that we could harness such power
, thought Blackwood.
How many centuries are to come before we can stand as equals to these beings?
The air grew thick with the low-frequency growl of the cylinder’s engines, and instinctively Sophia drew further away from the rising behemoth. Blackwood placed an arm around her shoulders and whispered in her ear, ‘It’s all right, my dear. We are quite safe.’
She looked up into his eyes – eyes that were as green as the terrifying Vril energy emerging from the cylinder – and for a moment her heart beat even faster, and her breath shuddered in her throat.
At that moment, de Chardin suddenly cried out, ‘Hark!’ – and pointed up at the glowing base of the craft, which by now had risen perhaps a thousand feet into the air. A needle-thin beam of blue light had lanced up from the ground, and connected with the mass of energy seething upon the vessel’s underside. De Chardin looked at Voronezh. ‘What is that?’
The Ambassador’s Assistant made no reply; he simply stood, gazing up at the beam of light.
‘Mr Voronezh,’ de Chardin persisted, ‘what
is
that?’
‘It is coming from the northeast,’ said the Martian. ‘And it is
wrong
.’
The blue beam had the same effect on the Vril energy as water poured into a pan of boiling oil. With a deafening roar, the lower half of the cylinder tore itself asunder, disgorging a vast fireball which bloomed and expanded like a hideous flower, engulfing and incinerating the upper section.
Sophia screamed and clapped her hands upon her ears in a futile effort to shut out the cacophony, while Blackwood took her in his arms and shouted, ‘
Great God!
The thing is destroyed!’
‘As are we!’ de Chardin cried, pointing up at the million glowing fragments which were all that remained of the great vessel, and which were now raining down upon the Cosmodrome like molten lava from an erupting volcano. The sky was filled with them, for they had been cast outward by the force of the explosion to a distance of several hundred yards. ‘We’ll never get clear in time!’ de Chardin shouted, his voice boiling with rage and despair. ‘We’re done for!’
In Which the Shadows of War Begin to Gather
The sky was torn with the thunder of the interplanetary cylinder’s destruction; the air above them was rent by the expanding fireball of livid red and green, which swelled like some strange new star in the pangs of its birth. All around them the ground was pummelled and set afire by the glowing fragments of the great craft, which descended in an incandescent, meteor-like rain over the Cosmodrome.
‘We’re done for!’ de Chardin repeated, his voice all but lost in the cacophony.
Blackwood glanced around, his desperate gaze seeking cover – anything that might offer some protection from the death bearing down upon them. But the buildings of the Cosmodrome were too far away to be reached in time, and in any event they were now being battered into blazing ruin by the wreckage of the cylinder. He caught a glimpse of people running in blind panic from the Æther traffic control centre, the reception lounges and the maintenance hangars which bordered the launching platform. Many fell victim to the debris, and Blackwood turned his eyes away in despair as their fleeing bodies were smashed to burning smithereens by the deluge of glowing metal.
There was nowhere to hide, nothing to offer shelter…
Except…
He pointed to the electric carriage which had brought Lunan R’ondd’s body to the Cosmodrome. ‘All of you, in there!’ he shouted, taking Sophia by the hand and hauling her along after him.
De Chardin and Petrox Voronezh followed. The humans were running at full tilt, but so tall was the Martian that his elegant strides took him to the vehicle well ahead of them. He pulled a lever in the flank, and the door lifted up. As Blackwood was helping Sophia up into the carriage, Voronezh said to him, ‘This will offer protection from the smaller fragments, but if a larger piece should fall upon us…’
‘I understand,’ Blackwood replied as he shoved de Chardin in after Sophia. ‘How fast can this contraption go?’
‘Quite fast,’ said the Martian.
Blackwood climbed in and glanced around. The rear of the passenger cabin was now empty, having been previously given over to the Ambassador’s sarcophagus; the forward section contained six large seats, upholstered in blue-green Martian leather. Up front were two more seats, in one of which sat the driver, who looked at his new passengers with wide, unblinking eyes. Although he found it difficult to interpret Martian expressions, Blackwood guessed that the driver was as shocked and dismayed by the disaster as everyone else.
‘Drive!’ Blackwood shouted as Voronezh closed the carriage’s door. ‘Get us away from here, now!’
The driver turned to his controls and began to pull brass leavers and throw jewel-like switches. A low hum filled the cabin, punctuated by loud, sickening crashes as flaming debris hit the ground all around them.
‘As fast as you can, Ghell’ed,’ said Voronezh as he took the seat next to Blackwood.
The hum quickly rose in pitch to a frantic whine as the driver opened the throttle on the carriage’s electric engines. The vehicle surged forward, and Blackwood heard the squeal of pneumatic tyres on the shuddering concrete beneath them.
Sophia screamed and covered her head instinctively as the cabin’s ceiling reverberated with sizzling cracks, and Blackwood looked up and prayed that the roof would be able to withstand the debris that was now striking it repeatedly. They were thrown violently back and forth in their seats as the driver swerved to avoid the incandescent clumps of wreckage. Blackwood looked out of the window and was both astonished and gratified at the terrific speed the carriage had attained in just a few moments. The concrete of the launching platform, now scarred and pitted like a battlefield, was rushing by in a blur of grey and glowing crimson, and, craning his neck a little, he could see that they were fast approaching the edge of the platform.
‘Brace yourselves,’ said Ghell’ed as he gripped the steering column.
Blackwood took hold of his seat’s armrests and felt the entire vehicle tilt forward as it left the edge and sailed through the air. The platform was eight feet thick, and there was a bone-crunching impact. Blackwood felt as if he had been kicked in the rump by a horse. The vehicle’s shock absorbers groaned and squealed in protest as it hit the ground, but the carriage was undamaged and continued on across the flat grassland surrounding the Cosmodrome.
‘Keep going, Ghell’ed,’ said Voronezh. ‘We are not out of danger yet.’
It was true, for so powerful had been the detonation of the cylinder’s Vril engines that the entire area was prey to the deadly rain from the sky. The carriage sped on across the grass, between piles of wreckage and half-melted components which burned and smouldered upon the charred ground.
As their distance from the destruction increased, Blackwood turned and looked through the carriage’s rear window. A great pall of smoke hung over the ruined Cosmodrome. The titanic explosion had now spent itself, leaving a vast grey ball of gas and atomised metal from which long streamers descended to the ground like the legs of a monstrous spider. The greatest danger had retreated now, for the heavier pieces of wreckage had fallen, leaving only the lighter fragments to float down, cooling as they went.
Ghell’ed brought the carriage to a halt near a stand of ash trees, and all in the cabin breathed ragged sighs of relief as the whine of the engines subsided, leaving an eerie silence.
Blackwood reached out and took Sophia’s hand. ‘Are you all right, my dear?’
She nodded. ‘Yes, Thomas, I am. But the Cosmodrome! Those poor people!’
‘I know.’ He turned to Voronezh. ‘Does this carriage have a telegraph?’
‘It does.’
‘Would you please send a message to the emergency relief services?’
‘Of course.’ Voronezh left his seat and moved forward to the driver’s section, while de Chardin opened the door and stepped down from the carriage. Blackwood and Sophia followed him out. De Chardin stood with balled fists resting on his hips. ‘My God, Blackwood,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Look at that… look at the carnage!’ He shook his head, and his voice cracked as he said, ‘My men…’
‘I’m sorry, de Chardin,’ said Blackwood, laying a hand on the Templar Knight’s shoulder.
Petrox Voronezh appeared in the doorway, and stepped down. ‘Ghell’ed is sending the message, Mr Blackwood.’
‘Thank you.’
De Chardin shook his head. ‘What the devil happened? What caused the explosion?’
‘That beam of blue light,’ said Blackwood. ‘What was it?’
‘An energy beam,’ replied the Martian. ‘A weapon.’
‘Fired by whom?’ demanded de Chardin.
‘I think we all know the answer to that question,’ said Voronezh.
Blackwood glanced at him. ‘Indrid Cold?’
‘He’s playing us off against each other,’ said de Chardin suddenly. ‘Earth and Mars.’
Sophia nodded her agreement. ‘First he attacks the innocent citizens of the Empire, sowing seeds of terror throughout London, while planting in the minds of the people the notion that Mars is somehow responsible. Then he murders the Ambassador by means which are guaranteed to cause a primal revulsion to seize all Martians. Now, he destroys an interplanetary cylinder, which will further outrage the people of Mars, once they receive the news. Detective de Chardin is right: Indrid Cold is attempting to foment mistrust and hatred between our two worlds.’
‘He’s trying to start a war,’ muttered Blackwood. ‘But why? For what purpose?’
‘I suggest that we ask him,’ replied Voronezh.
‘How may we do that, Mr Voronezh?’ asked Sophia.
The Martian pointed towards the northeast. ‘The beam came from that direction, and from its steep angle, of which I took note, I would say that it was fired from quite close by.’
‘That’s Leason’s Wood,’ said de Chardin.
‘I believe it is possible that Indrid Cold might still be there, especially if he assumes that his handiwork has left no survivors.’
‘Then there’s not a moment to lose!’ declared de Chardin. ‘Come, let’s see how quickly this contrivance of yours can get us there!’