The Touch of Death (20 page)

“You are looking at the world as it would be seen from another planet – from Mars, the Moon, any one you care to name,” said Anak. “This is the way that we on this planet look at Mars and the Moon. This particular model is to scale, of course. Also, it is in radio contact with the world itself – you see that?”

A light glowed at Sydney, Australia.

“At the moment,” said Anak, “we are in direct radio-beam contact with Sydney – at Sydney Bridge. Do you see that little red knob, Palfrey – little more than a pin-head? . . . That is a lever. If it were pulled, it would light up. Sydney, or that part of it we were beaming, would crumble to dust. Still, I've nothing against Sydney! Some of its slums will have to be cleared eventually, but there is no hurry, and there are plenty of worse places. The slums in the East End of London, for instance – there are a lot of them, aren't there, Palfrey? I am sure that your great humanitarian mind is often sick with grief because of the unfortunates living there. Well, here is your chance to take them out of their squalid surroundings, to ease their life of misery. You see those red lights—”

Tiny red lamps began to glow, round the base of the instrument.

Palfrey said hoarsely: “Yes.”

“Good. Go forward. As you draw nearer, you will see that each is labelled. Pull the little lighted lever which says London, and there will be no more East End slums. The radio beam will set off the controlled atmospherical disturbances which will destroy it –
pulverise
it. Go forward, Palfrey. And perhaps after this you will persuade the governments below to stop arguing.”

Anak stopped.

Palfrey didn't move.

“Or perhaps you would prefer to destroy part of Chicago or New York or Moscow – perhaps you would gladly cleanse part of someone else's city and not your own. You've a great sentimental regard for the East Enders of London, possibly, but not for those who live on East Side, New York. Very well, find the New York lever. The beam is already poised. Not a single modern building will be touched. Of course a few highly intelligent people might suffer with the rest, but does that really matter?”

He stopped.

Palfrey didn't move.

“Go forward,” Anak said, softly.

Palfrey found himself being pulled from his chair by forces which he was powerless to resist.

 

 

Banister could remember what had happened when he had been in a smaller room than this, and when he had sent the order to the world for the release of
fatalis
at the stadium. He, Neil Banister, had actually set that dreadful tragedy in motion.

He felt frozen with the horror of that, even now.

It was useless to tell himself that if he had refused, he would have been pushed aside, someone would have sent the order – or perhaps sent
pulveris
waves spinning towards the earth. He had been a tool used by Anak; used by the Leader to compel him to admit how utterly he was in the power of his captors.

He might have refused.

He had known in advance what he had to do.

“You must do it,” he had told himself. “You must do it, you must
prove
how loyal you've become. It will give us a little more time.”

He had known that the conspirators who had not been found were working. He knew that Doggett and Sophie had disappeared – and at times dared to hope that they had escaped.

The conspirators had needed time.

So Banister had pulled the lever and given an order. Before he had recovered from the physical and mental revulsion, he had been shown cine pictures of what had happened in the stadium. From that moment on, he had moved about like an automaton. He could not understand how he managed to keep calm; how he avoided losing his head completely, how he kept his hands off Anak.

He dreamed of killing Anak. He dreamed of breaking his neck. He had nightmares of Morris-Jones, trying to kill Anak – and suffered physical torment because he, Neil Banister, had stopped him – had pulled the maddened Professor away.

He had done nothing, because:
“
We
must have time
.”

In the past few days, since the moment when he had given the signal to spread
fatalis,
there had come a new fear.

Even the knowledge that he was being watched everywhere he went had faded. He had almost believed that they had come to trust him, believing that he had been drawn into the conspiracy against his will. In fact, he thought, Rita had pleaded for him. In the back of his mind was the horror of knowing that but for her, he would have suffered much more; would be dead.

Whatever the reason for the easing of the control, the watchers had appeared again, and the television screens had glowed all the time. If he went to bed, and slept, and woke in the darkness of the night, that glow would still be there; he was never free from the watching eyes.

He had heard that Palfrey was coming.

Now, he saw Palfrey getting out of his chair, as if drawn by forces which were too strong to resist, pulling him towards the lever which could strike disaster on London and on a million of its people.

 

Palfrey was moving towards the circle of lights; and could now read the names of the cities on them.

He went more slowly.

“Go on, Palfrey,” jeered Anak. “It will take only a moment. Just a flash of time. Then you can congratulate yourself – you will have given some of them a chance to live a little longer.”

Palfrey didn't speak, but turned to face him. There was just light to show him Anak's face; to glisten on the Leader's eyes.

“Perhaps you'd like some help,” jeered Anak. “Banister, say, he's an expert by now. How about it, Banister?”

Banister didn't move.

After a pause, Anak spoke with sudden fury which burst from him viciously, brutally: “You weak-bellied fools! Now you'll do one each – Banister the East End of London, Palfrey New York's East Side. One each, and—”

Banister shouted: “I won't do it! I won't do it again! Palfrey, can't we stop him, can't we—”

Men came towards him; held him; and held Palfrey. The light grew brighter. Faces and figures showed up clearly. Rita was by Anak's side, standing up; and Klim was on her other side. She had never looked more lovely. Banister tried to move towards her, tried to say that he couldn't stand it any more; tried to make her understand that she couldn't allow
this
.

She smiled at him, and at Anak.

Anak put his arm round her shoulders.

“Rita won't help you,” he said. “Rita is loyal, aren't you, my sweet?” He hugged her to him. “Did you really hope she would change, Banister?” The sneer was like flame. “Never mind, you'll soon forget that – when I've punished you! You'll forget everything then. So will the rest of the conspirators. You were allowed some freedom to see whether you contacted them. You didn't, but we found them all the same. They were all detained when you came in here this afternoon. Palfrey's arrival was the signal for the arrest.”

Banister didn't speak.

The men let him go.

“Press those switches,” Anak ordered. “Palfrey – you too.”

Neither man moved.

Anak's laboured breathing sounded very loud in the great hall. He strode forward. He slashed Palfrey across the face, and Banister too.

He roared: “Very well,
I'll
do it. But I'll destroy whole cities – watch them go, watch them crumble into dust,
watch them
.” He raised his hands over the little levers. “You'll see them light up, you'll see what happens to them.” He flung his arms round, his hands touched a dozen levers, and smashed at more, pressing them down, as if the moment had driven him mad. “Watch them disappear, watch them die!” he roared.

The lighted cities remained as they had been, in clean relief on the great globe. There was no sign of crumbling cities.

Anak's voice, roaring like a lion's, gradually faded. The last note was one of disbelief.

Banister and Palfrey, watching the cities, knew that he had expected to see them disappear. He was astounded, and
alarmed
,
because of the stillness.

He struck at more levers.

The same thing happened.

He said in a strange voice: “What does this mean? What has happened?”

“It means that I could not stand by and see you destroy the world,” Rita said, very softly, very clearly. “I have seen you going more and more mad. I could not go on with this. So, I helped the conspirators. I freed Doggett and Sophie – that is how they escaped. They are busy, now – they've cut off the beams, Anak, but they're going to destroy—”

She broke off.

Everyone present knew that this was the final truth. It showed in Anak's face, and in Klim's. It was like a sentence of death.

Banister felt a great exaltation.

Television screens, dark until that moment, began to glow all round the walls.

No one but Rita spoke in this hall.

Doggett's face appeared.

“Rita, get away if you can. Use escape shaft two – we've cut the
pulveris
beam off the lower world, it's now on High Peak and we can't stop it. It's on the other cities, too – hear that, Anak, everything you've built is being destroyed, everything. Rita—Rita, try—”

The glow faded, abruptly.

There was darkness.

There came a deep rumbling sound.

 

Palfrey and Banister saw and heard everything that went on, without fully understanding it. Banister had one clear picture; of Rita. Life and death were trivial things compared with the knowledge of what she had done.

He heard her voice.

“Take Palfrey – go to the door marked four. Hurry along the tunnel beyond it. I'll stop—”

A man leapt at her, and touched her; and there was a flash of light. The man fell. In that flash Palfrey and Banister saw the faces of the other men, the incredulous dismay on Anak's. In that flash they saw other men leap at Rita, but she had only to spread out her arms and touch them.

“Go to the door!” she cried.

They ran towards it. Banister looked behind him, and saw that she was backing towards it. Only Anak and Klim were alive, and they were following her. Yet they did not move quickly. Banister saw Anak put his hand to his pocket, and saw him draw a knife.

“
Rita!
”

The floor of the great chamber was trembling. Banister, in the doorway, felt it, felt himself shaking as if he were in the centre of a great earthquake. There was the thunderous rumbling of the splitting earth and the breaking walls of the chamber.

A great gap appeared at Anak's feet.

Before he could throw the knife, it swallowed him up. Klim disappeared into it, and the great machine vanished. The earth shook and the walls began to crumble. The walls broke.

Rita was running towards Banister.

The door stood open; Palfrey was holding it. Ahead lay a lighted tunnel, so far untouched.

“
Run, run, run!
” screamed Rita.

As they ran, the walls and the floor shook, and the noise of the vanishing mountain stronghold was in their ears every moment, as if giants were roaring and deafening them. Lights went out, one by one. They could hardly see, they could only hear – it sounded as if the world itself were chasing them.

Behind them, the floor crumbled away.

They ran with wild speed, unseeing, drawn by distant lights, until suddenly a blast of icy wind came towards them. Beyond, they could see the pale light of evening. They passed through a doorway which should have been locked and bolted, and was made of steel. They stumbled out into the snow. As they fell, one against the other, the mountain itself shook and quivered. Snow was tossed up into the air and fell again, like a gigantic waterfall.

Out here, the noise was more terrifying still.

Explosions split the mountain. Beneath the gentle light of the evening sky, huge craters appeared. One mountain peak, its summit so high that it looked as if it were touching the stars, began to fall.

It toppled . . .

The topmost peak vanished into the crater that the disappearance of the mountain made.

The three people on the mountain-side felt the awful coldness of the wind and the snow; but watched the gaunt gigantic shapes disappear. The whole skyline changed.

As they had watched, the longer shadows of the night had fallen upon them, and now it was dark but for the brilliance of the stars. Dust rose in mighty clouds, but the wind drove it away, and to the north there was the clear sky and those stars.

They began to walk, Rita between the two men; and each felt perished, each knew that the cold was so great that there was little hope of survival, even if they could walk across the new-flung rocks without vanishing into the frozen bowels of the earth.

Then they saw a light.

They heard nothing, but they saw more lights.

They saw men.

One man came towards them, bringing his lantern. He was so close that they could see him opening his mouth, but could not hear anything that he said. Soon, he was with them. It was Doggett.

He took Rita and carried her over his shoulder, and led the way. In a few minutes they were in the warmth of a cave, sheltered from the wind and the snow; and there was real warm food, the promise of life – even if it were only the life they could lead in these mountains.

“We've two ‘planes – Project Ninety-seven – that we think will work,” said Doggett. “Enough for taking us all away. Nine survivors. All that's left of High Peak. Couldn't salvage anything. Can't get samples of
fatalis
or the details of
pulveris,
can't—”

“We're going to get away!” Banister shouted.

“We're going to escape!” Palfrey cried.

Rita sprang to her feet, jumping, shouting, waving her hands wildly, laughing, crying.

“I didn't think we'd do it,” she gasped wildly. “I didn't think we should.” She flung herself into Banister's arms, kissed him fiercely, wildly. “I thought we'd die. I thought we'd fail. It's been worth it, worth it, worth it!” She ran from Banister and seized Palfrey, kissed him, flung herself into his arms, laughing, crying, screaming the same words, and of them all, the clearest were: “It's been worth it, worth it, worth it!”