The Seeds of Time (6 page)

It was a day of which Bert recalled very little else but that there seemed to be sections of him being torn slowly and painfully apart, yet still so close that sometimes he looked out from one section, and sometimes from the other. He would see himself in his boat, sliding along the endless canals in the sunlight with vastnesses of desert stretching out on either side, sitting out the sudden dust-storms in his small cabin where the throat-drying sand managed still to penetrate every ingenuity, and then going on as usual to do tinker's work at the next inhabited area. That was the life he had got used to, and life he had chosen – he could go on with it as before and forget Zaylo – yet he knew it would not be quite as before because it was not going to be easy to forget her. There were pictures which he would not be able to leave behind; Zaylo smiling as she played with her sister's babies, Zaylo walking, sitting, standing; Zaylo herself. There were dreams rising inadvertent and beneath his guard, imaginings which swam into his mind in spite of his intention to keep them out; the warmth of Zaylo lying beside him, the light weight of her on his arm, the firmness, the lovely colour of her, the relaxation there would be in having a place to lay one's heart, and a hand to cherish it. It all hurt like a hardened dressing drawing from a wound.

After the evening meal he went away from the rest, and hid himself in his boat. Looking across the table at her it had seemed to him that she saw all that was going on inside him, and knew more about it than he did himself. She made no gesture, no sign, but she was aware of everything with a calmness somehow alarming. He did not know whether he hoped or feared that she might follow him to the boat – but she did not come.

The
sun set while he sat, unconscious that he had begun to shiver with the chill of the Martian night. After a time he moved stiffly, and roused himself. He paddled through the few inches of water and climbed the bank. Phobos was shedding a dim light across the fields and the arid land beyond. The ruined tower was a misshapen black shadow.

Bert stood looking out into the great darkness where his home had been. Mars was a trap to hold him alive, but he would not let it pet and tame him. He was not to be wheedled by softness from the harsh grudge he owed providence. His allegiance was to Earth, the things of Earth, the memory of Earth. It would have been better to have died when the mountains and oceans of Earth were burst open; to have become one more mote among the millions memorially circling in the dark. Existence now was not life to be lived; it was a token of protest against the ways of fate.

He peered long into the sky hoping to see one of the asteroids which once was some corner of the loved, maternal Earth: perhaps, among the myriad points that shone, he did.

A wave of desolation swept through him; a hungry abyss of loneliness opened inside him. Bert raised his clenched fists high above his head. He shook them at the uncaring stars, and cursed them while the tears ran down his cheeks.

As the far-off chugging of the engine faded slowly into silence there was only the clinking of the tinkerbells to disturb the night. Zaylo looked at her mother with misty eyes.

‘He has gone,' she whispered, forlornly.

Annika took her hand, and pressed it comfortingly:

‘He is strong, but strength comes from life – he cannot be stronger than life. He will be back soon – quite soon, I think.' She put up her hand and stroked her daughter's hair. After a pause she added: ‘When he comes, my Zaylo, be gentle with him. These Earthmen have big bodies, but inside them there are lost children.'

The house shook, the windows rattled, a framed photograph slipped off the mantel-shelf and fell into the hearth. The sound of a crash somewhere outside arrived just in time to drown the noise of the breaking glass. Graham Toffts put his drink down carefully, and wiped the spilt sherry from his fingers.

‘That sort of thing takes you back a bit,' he observed. ‘First instalment of the new one, would you think?'

Sally shook her head, spinning the fair hair out a little so that it glistened in the shaded light.

‘I shouldn't think so. Not like the old kind, anyway – they used to come with a sort of double-bang as a rule,' she said.

She crossed to the window and pulled back the curtain. Outside there was complete darkness and a sprinkle of rain on the panes.

‘Could have been an experimental one gone astray?' she suggested.

Footsteps sounded in the hall. The door opened, and her father's head looked in.

‘Did you hear that?' he asked, unnecessarily. ‘A small meteor, I fancy. I thought I saw a dim flash in the field beyond the orchard.' He withdrew. Sally made after him. Graham, following more leisurely, found her firmly grasping her father's arm.

‘No!' she was saying, decisively. ‘I'm not going to have my dinner kept waiting and spoiled. Whatever it is, it will keep.'

Mr Fontain looked at her, and then at Graham.

‘Bossy; much too bossy. Always was. Can't think what you want to marry her for,' he said.

After dinner they went out to search with electric lamps. There was not much trouble in locating the scene of the impact. A small crater, some eight feet across, had appeared almost in the middle of the field. They regarded it without learning much, while Sally's
terrier, Mitty, sniffed over the newly turned earth. Whatever had caused it had presumably buried itself in the middle.

‘A small meteorite, without a doubt,' said Mr Fontain. ‘We'll set a gang on digging it out tomorrow.'

‘You shouldn't have touched it,' said the Police Inspector, shaking his head. ‘It ought to have been left where it was until the proper authorities had inspected it.'

‘And who,' inquired Mr Fontain coldly, ‘are the proper authorities for the inspection of meteors?'

‘That's beside the point. You couldn't be sure it was a meteor, and these days a lot of other things besides meteors can fall out of the sky. Even now you've got it up you can't be sure.'

‘It doesn't look like anything else.'

‘All the same, it should have been left to us. It might be some device still on the Secret List.'

‘The Police, of course, knowing all about things on the Secret List?'

Sally considered it time to break in.

‘Well, we shall know what to do next time we have a meteor, shan't we? Suppose we all go and have a look at it? It's in the outhouse now, looking quite unsecret.'

She led the way round to the yard, still talking to stave off a row between the Inspector and her father.

‘It only went a surprisingly short way down, so the men were soon able to get it out. And it turned out to be not nearly as hot as we'd expected, either, so they could handle it quite easily.'

‘You'd not say “quite easily” if you'd heard the language they used about the weight of it,' observed her father.

‘It's in here,' Sally said, leading the party of four into a musty, single-storey shed.

The meteor was not an impressive sight. It lay in the middle of the bare board floor; just a rugged, pitted, metallic-looking sphere something over two feet in diameter.

‘The only kind of weapon that it suggests to me is a cannon-ball,' said Mr Fontain.

‘It's the principle,' retorted the Inspector. ‘We have standing
orders that any mysterious falling object is to remain untouched until it has been examined by a War Office expert. We have already informed them, and it must not be moved again until their man has had a look at it.'

Graham, who had hitherto taken no part, stepped forward and put his hand on it.

‘Almost cold now,' he reported. ‘What's it made of?' he added curiously.

Mr Fontain shrugged.

‘I imagine it's just an ordinary chunk of meteoric iron. The only odd thing about it to me is that it didn't come down with more of a bump. If it were any kind of secret weapon, it would certainly be an exceedingly dull one.'

‘All the same, I shall have to give orders that it is not to be moved until the W.O. man has seen it,' said the Inspector.

They started to move back into the yard, but on the threshold he paused.

‘What's that sizzling sound?' he inquired.

‘Sizzling?' repeated Sally.

‘Kind of hissing noise. Listen!'

They stood still, the Inspector with his head a little on one side. Undeniably there was a faint, persistent sound on a note just within the range of audibility. It was difficult to place. By common impulse they turned back to regard the ball uneasily. Graham hesitated, and then stepped inside again. He leaned over the ball, his right ear turned down to it.

‘Yes,' he said. ‘It is.'

Then his eyes closed, and he swayed. Sally ran forward and caught him as he sagged. The others helped her to drag him out. In the fresh air he revived almost immediately.

‘That's funny. What happened?' he asked.

‘You're sure the sound is coming from that thing?' asked the Inspector.

‘Oh, yes. Not a doubt about it.'

‘You didn't smell anything queer?'

Graham
raised his eyebrows: ‘Oh, gas, you mean. No, I don't think so.'

‘H'm,' said the Inspector. He turned a mildly triumphant eye on the older man. ‘Is it usual for meteors to sizzle?' he inquired.

‘Er – I really don't know. I shouldn't think so,' Mr Fontain admitted.

‘I see. Well, in the circumstances I suggest that we all withdraw – preferably to a well-shielded spot on the other side of the house, just in case – while we wait for the expert,' announced the Inspector.