The Kraken Wakes Part 9

"I did not. Nor have I been by any means the only one. Bocker's miscarriage warned us all to allow full gestation. Incidentally, I suppose you know that there have been further discolorations of currents, and that those first discoloured have returned to normal?"

"Yes, Captain Winters told me. What do you think would cause that?" Phyllis asked, just as one might who had not immediately rung up Bocker the moment she heard it, to demand an explanation.

"Well, pursuing the mining theory, one would suggest that all the loose sediment near the scene of operations would gradually be washed away. Imagine sticking the end of a suction-pipe into sand. At first you'd get sand coming through it, and you'd create a funnel-shaped depression. After a while you'd reach rock, but there'd still be some sand trickling down the sides of your depression, and having to be sucked clear. In time, however, your depression would be of such a shape that very little sand which, of course, represents the sedimental ooze would trickle down, and you would be able to work on the cleared rock-face without disturbing the surrounding sand, or ooze, at all.

"But, of course, on the sea-bed the scale of such an operation would be immense, and a colossal quant.i.ty of ooze would have to be s.h.i.+fted before you could get to a rock-face that would remain clear. It would certainly be better to mine horizontally where possible. Once work on the rock itself had begun, the detritus would be too heavy to rise more than a few hundred feet before it began to settle, so the surface-water would no longer be discoloured."

No one observing Phyllis's rapt attention would have suspected that she had already made use of this theory in a script.

"I see. You make it easy to understand, Doctor. Then the various discolorations will have enabled you to locate quite closely where this mining is going on?"

"With reasonable accuracy, I think," he agreed. "And so, of course. those spots become priority targets-in fact, to be honest, the only closely-localised targets, so far."

"There'll be an attack on them, then? Soon?" Phyllis asked.

He shook his head. "Not my side of things, but I imagine that any delay will be due simply to technical reasons. How much of the sea can we afford to poison with atomic weapons? Are we to risk s.h.i.+ps on the task? Or how long will it take to construct a depth-bomb light enough for air transport? The others have been exceedingly heavy, you know. There must be quite a number of points of that kind."

"And that is all we can do as a counter-attack?" said Phyllis.

"All that I have heard of," Dr Matet told her, cautiously. "The emphasis at the moment is naturally defensive, and on securing safety for s.h.i.+ps. There again, that's not my department at au: I can only give you what I have picked up." And he went on to do so.

It was generally agreed, it seemed, that s.h.i.+ps were liable to two forms of attack (three forms if one included electrification, but this had occurred only to s.h.i.+ps using cables at considerable depths for grappling or other purposes, and could be disregarded as far as the rest were concerned). Neither of these weapons was explosive: the explosions suffered by some of the s.h.i.+ps were almost certainly due to their own boilers blowing up when the stoke-holds were flooded, for there had been no similar explosions with the motor-vessels that had been lost.

One of the weapons appeared to be vibratory and capable of setting up sympathetic vibrations of such intensity in the attacked craft that she literally shook herself to pieces in a minute or two. The other was less obscure in its nature, but even more puzzling in its capacity. It was undoubtedly some contrivance which attacked the hull below the waterline. There were several obvious ways in which a device could be made to do this: what was less comprehensible was its method of a.s.sault, since the rapidity with which its victims sank, the fact that the air trapped in the hull blew the decks upwards, and various other effects, all tended to suggest some instrument that was capable, not simply of holing a s.h.i.+p, but of something that must be very like slicing the bottom clean off her.

Even before the Conference had begun Bocker had suggested that these devices might be found to form strategic barrages, or minefields, about certain deep areas, and might very well be regarded as perimeter defences. There would, he pointed out, be no great difficulty in constructing a mechanism to lurk inertly at any predetermined depth, and become active only on the approach of a s.h.i.+p-that, indeed, had been the principle of both the acoustic and magnetic mines. But on the means by which it could be made to slice through the hull of a s.h.i.+p with, apparently, the efficiency of a wire through cheese, even Bocker had no suggestions to make.

No one had disagreed with this, in general, but neither had anyone as yet been able to amplify it. The suddenness and success of the attacks, the small numbers of the survivors and the loose quality of their accounts give very little data.

"To my mind," said Dr Matet, "the important thing at the moment is to get across to the public that the danger is not incomprehensible, and so stop this silly panicking-for which we may blame the Stock Exchanges more than any other persons or inst.i.tutions. The attack comes from an utterly unexpected direction, it is true, but, like any other, it can and will be met, and the sooner people can be made to realise that it is simply a matter of finding a counter to a new kind of weapon, the sooner they'll cool off. I gather your job is to cool them off, so that is why I decided to tell you all this. In a few days I imagine there will be quite full and frank reports from the various Committees that are now being set up-once they have been brought to realise that here, at least, is one war in which there are no enemy spies listening." And on that note we parted.

Phyllis and I did our best during the next few days to play our part in putting across the idea of firm hands steady on the wheel, and of the backroom boys who had produced radar, asdic, and other marvels nodding confidently, and saying in effect: "Sure. just give us a few days to think, and we'll knock together something that will settle this lot!" There was a satisfactory feeling that confidence was gradually being restored.

Perhaps the main stabilising factor, however, emerged from a difference of opinion on one of the Technical Committees.

General agreement had been reached that a torpedo-like weapon designed to give submerged escort to a vessel could profitably be developed to counter the a.s.sumed mine-form of attack. The motion was accordingly put that all should pool information likely to help in the development of such a weapon.

The Russian delegation demurred. Remote control of missiles, they pointed out, was, of course, a Russian invention in any case; moreover, Russian scientists, zealous in the fight for Peace, had already developed such control to a degree greatly in advance of that achieved by the capitalist-ridden science of the West. It could scarcely be expected of the Soviets that they should make a present of their discoveries to warmongers.

The Western spokesman replied that, while respecting the intensity of the fight for Peace and the fervour with which it was being carried on in every department of Soviet science, except, of course, the biological, the West would remind the Soviets that this was a conference of peoples faced by a common danger and resolved to meet it by cooperation.

The Russian leader responded frankly that he doubted whether, if the West had happened to possess a means of controlling a submerged missile by radio, such as had been invented by Russian engineers working under the inspiration of the world's greatest scientist, the late Joseph Stalin, they would care to share such knowledge with the Soviet people.

The Western spokesman a.s.sured the Soviet representative that since the West had called the Conference for the purpose of cooperation, it felt in duty bound to state that it had indeed perfected such a means of control as the Soviet delegate had mentioned.

Following a hurried consultation, the Russian delegate announced that if he believed such a claim to be true, he would also know that it could only have come about through theft of the work of Soviet scientists by capitalist hirelings. And, since neither a lying claim nor the admission of successful espionage showed that disinterest in national advantage which the Conference had professed, his delegation was left with no alternative but to withdraw.

This action, with its rea.s.suring ring of normality exerted a valuable tranquillizing influence.

Concerning the less easily comprehensible vibratory weapon, it was announced that experiments with damping devices and counter-vibration fields had been begun, and were already showing hopeful results. The Conference appointed a Research and Coordination Committee to work in conjunction with Unesco, another for Naval Coordination, a Standing Committee for Action, several lesser Committees, and adjourned itself, pro tem.

Amid the widespread satisfaction and resuscitating confidence, the voice of Bocker, dissenting, rose almost alone: It was late, he proclaimed, but it still might not be too late for some kind of pacific approach to be made to the sources of the disturbance. They had already been shown to possess a technology equal to, if not superior to, our own. In an alarmingly short time they had been able not only to establish themselves, but to produce the means of taking effective action for their self-defence. In the face of such a beginning one was justified in regarding their powers with respect, and, for his part, with apprehension.

The very differences of environment that they required made it seem unlikely that human interests and those of these xen.o.bathetic intelligences need seriously overlap. Before it should be altogether too late, the very greatest efforts should be made to establish communication with them in order to promote a state of compromise which would allow both parties to live peacefully in their separate spheres.

Very likely this was a sensible suggestion-though whether the attempt would ever have produced the desired result is a different matter. In circ.u.mstances where there was no will whatever to compromise, however, the only evidence that his appeal had been noticed at all was that the word, "xen.o.bathetic", and a derived noun, "xen.o.bath", began to be used in print.

"More honoured in the dictionary than in the observance," remarked Bocker, with some bitterness. "If it is Greek words they are interested in, there are others-Ca.s.sandra, for instance."

The decision to avoid crossing the greater Deeps proved wise. For several weeks not a s.h.i.+p was reported lost. The markets settled down, confidence became convalescent, and the pa.s.senger lists began to fill up again, though slowly. Delays and higher freight-rates were continuing effects, nevertheless there presently arose a disposition to feel that the long-suffering public had once again been stampeded by sensationalism, and the advertising departments of all journals threatened falling revenues unless a note of sprightly plerophory were maintained.

Meanwhile, the brains moiled in the backrooms. and after some four months the Admiralty were able to announce that when certain naval craft had been equipped with the new counter-devices a test would be held over the series of Deeps south of Cape Race, in the neighbourhood where the Queen Anne had been lost.

It is possible that the omission of the Press from the test-party was due to a lukewarm enthusiasm in demanding its rights. Certainly no representative of my, acquaintance was genuinely burning to be included-or, it may have been that the authorities were disinclined to take greater risks than necessary. Whatever the cause, there was no correspondent further forward than the reserve s.h.i.+ps. For first-hand accounts we had to depend on a somewhat inexpert running commentary, and the descriptions given later by the personnel of the test vessels.

Phyllis got herself an introduction to a young Lieutenant Royde, and worked on him. When he came back, we took him Out to dinner, gave him some drinks, and listened.

"It turned out to be a piece of cake," he a.s.sured us. "Though, mind you, most of us were feeling pretty windy about it before-hand, and didn't mind admitting it.

"We all sailed together, and then hove-to some fifty miles short of the Deeps, and our party got its stuff all set up.

"The anti-vibration gadget is a bit wearing at first. In fact, anti- isn't quite the word I'd use because it sets up a constant hum which you can half-feel, half-hear; but you get used to it after a time.

"The other gimmick is a tin fish that you sling overboard a dolphin, they're calling it. It promptly makes away forward, and then settles down to travel about two hundred feet ahead of the s.h.i.+p at about five fathoms. It's under control, of course, but when it spots anything it flashes a signal on a screen, and goes for it automatically. What its spotting range is, how it spots, and just why it doesn't lash about and go for the parent s.h.i.+p isn't my pigeon. You'll have to ask the boffins if you want to know about that but, in the rough, that's the way it works.

"Well, when it was all fixed, and the boffins had finished tearing round and testing everything in sight, we set off with the whole s.h.i.+p buzzing like a bee-hive and the dolphin leading the way, and none of us feeling too good in our bellies-anyway, I wasn't. Everybody wore jackets, and orders were for all personnel who hadn't duty below to keep on deck, just in case.

"For about three hours nothing happened, and the sea looked just like any other sea. Then, while we were wondering whether the whole thing was going to turn out phoney, a voice from the hailer said: "Number One dolphin away! Make ready Number Two dolphin!"

"The dolphin party had just time to get Number Two swung out when Number One got home. And did it get home! By the record, it contacted whatever it was after at around thirty-five fathoms. When it blew. what we saw was several acres of sea going up in the air off the port bow. We raised a bit of a cheer. The hailer came through with: "Lower away there Number Two dolphin. Stand by Number Three dolphin."

"Dolphin Number Two went down in her sling, and ran away forward, and they hitched Number Three's sling ready.

"There was a boffin standing by me, looking pretty pleased with himself. He said: " 'Well, whatever it was, there was some pressure there. A dolphin going up on its own has about a quarter the punch of that.'

"We kept steady on the same course, all looking out like hawks now, though there wasn't anything to be seen. After about five minutes the hailer said: "'Dolphin away! Make ready Number Three dolphin!'

"It didn't take so long this time before another lot of sea went up with a woomph, and Number Three dolphin was lowered away.

"After that nothing happened for quite a while. Then the pitch of the humming that we'd got so used to that we didn't notice it began to change so that we did notice it. The boffin beside me gave a grunt and whipped back like a streak into a kind of float-off instrument-room they had rigged up on deck. You could feel a sort of trembling in the deck, and the humming kept on changing pitch, and everybody gave a hitch to his lifejacket, and got ready for something to happen.

"The thing that did happen was that Number Three dolphin way ahead of us blew up. It was a far smaller blow than the others had been, and they reckon it was just the vibrations that set her off. She certainly didn't go for anything. The hailer started to order out Number Four dolphin, and in the middle of that an excited boffin bounced out of the instrument-room and ordered the depth-charge-thrower to work. It lobbed off a couple of spherical containers which just sank. We kept on waiting for a couple of bangs until we realised that they weren't going to come. And that was roughly that.

"After a bit the humming settled down to what it had been before, and there was a noise of uproarious boffins slapping one another on the back in the instrument-room.

"We altered course to the north. About an hour later Number Four dolphin went up with a thundering good wham. The boffins, all of them pretty tight by this time, tumbled out on deck to cheer and sing Steamboat Bill, and that was about the end of it. We still had Number Five dolphin running serenely ahead of us when we reckoned we were clear of the area."

A nice lad, Lieutenant Royde, but not, perhaps, a source of technical information. However, it was eye-witness stuff we were after. We knew in a general way how the "dolphins" worked, and we had heard that the spheres launched by the mine-thrower were intended to home on the source of the vibrations, and were capable of reaching far greater depths than the dolphins. Even if it had been explained to us exactly how they did it we should probably not have understood.

The effects of the successful tests were immediate. There was an overwhelming demand for the defensive gear, and s.h.i.+pping shares began to rally. Freights, however, remained high. There was the cost of the gear to be covered, consumption of dolphins to be offset, and it would take some time before all cargo vessels could be equipped and revert to their normal courses. Meanwhile, the price of everything went up.

Progress in equipment was such, however, that six months later it was possible for London and Was.h.i.+ngton to speak optimistically. The Prime Minister announced to the House: "The Battle of the Deeps has been won. Our s.h.i.+ps, which we had to divert, are able once more to ply upon their usual courses.

"But we have seen before, and we must remember, that to win a battle is not of necessity to win a war. These menaces that have for a time played the highwayman upon our vital sea-lanes and caused us such grievous losses, these menaces still remain. And, as long as they remain, they are a potential danger.

"We cannot afford, therefore, any slackening of effort in combating them. We must use all our capacities and our wits to find out more, everything we can, about this peril that is lurking beneath our seas. For still, and in spite of the fact that we have won this battle, we know virtually nothing of it, save that it exists. No one-no one can describe these creatures if creatures they are; no one, so far as we know, has ever seen them. To us, here in the sunlight, these creatures of the darkness and the depths, are still, anonymously and amorphously, 'those things down there'.

"When we know more about them, their nature, their strength, and, most importantly, their weaknesses: when, in fact, we have a full view of what we are about, then we shall be able to launch our attack upon this pestilence so that, with its utter destruction, our s.h.i.+ps and our seamen shall be free to sail upon the high seas of the world facing only such perils as their gallant fathers faced before them."

But, a month later, a dozen s.h.i.+ps of various sizes were sunk in a week, four of them while attempting to rescue survivors of earlier disasters. The few men who were brought safely back could tell little, but from their accounts it appeared that the dolphins had operated successfully; the other gear for some reason had failed to prevent the s.h.i.+ps shaking to pieces under their feet.

Official advice once more recommended that the neighbourhoods of all the greater Deeps should be avoided pending further investigations.

Hard on that, but with a significance that was not immediately recognised, came the news first from Saphira, and then from April Island.

Saphira, a Brazilian island in the Atlantic, lies a little south of the Equator and some four hundred miles south-east of the larger island of Fernando de Noronha. In that isolated spot a population of a hundred or so lived in primitive conditions, largely on its own produce, content to get along in its own way, and little interested in the rest of the world. It is said that the original settlers were a small party who, arriving on account of a s.h.i.+pwreck some time in the eighteenth century, remained perforce. By the time they were discovered they had settled to the island life and already become interestingly inbred. In due course, and without knowing or caring much about it, they had ceased to be Portuguese and become technically Brazilian citizens, and a token connection with their foster-mother country was maintained by a s.h.i.+p which called at roughly six-monthly intervals to do a little barter.

Normally, the visiting s.h.i.+p had only to sound its siren, and the Saphirans would come hurrying out of their cottages down to the minute quay where their few fis.h.i.+ng boats lay, to form a reception committee which included almost the entire population. On this occasion, however, the hoot of the siren echoed emptily back and forth in the little bay, and set the sea-birds wheeling in flocks, but no Saphiran appeared at the cottage doors. The s.h.i.+p hooted again, but still there was no sign of anyone making for the quay. There was no response whatever, save from the sea-birds.

The coast of Saphira slopes steeply. The s.h.i.+p was able to approach to within a cable's length of the sh.o.r.e, but there was n.o.body to be seen-nor, still more ominously, was there any trace of smoke from the cottages' chimneys.

A boat was lowered and a party, with the mate in charge, rowed ash.o.r.e. They made fast to a ringbolt and climbed the stone steps up to the little quay. They stood there in a bunch, listening and wondering. There was not a sound to be heard but the cry of the sea-birds and the lapping of the water.

"Must've made off, the lot of 'em. Their boats's gone," said one of the sailors, uneasily.

"Huh," said the mate. He took a deep breath, and gave a mighty hail, as though he had greater faith in his own lungs than in the s.h.i.+p's siren.

They listened for an answer, but none came, save the sound of the mate's voice echoing faintly back to them across the bay.

"Huh," said the mate again. "Better take a look."

The uneasiness which had come over the party kept them together. They followed him in a bunch as he strode towards the nearest of the small, stone-built cottages. The door was standing half-open. He pushed it back.

"Phew!" he said.

Several putrid fish decomposing on a dish accounted for the smell. Otherwise the place was tidy and, by Saphiran standards, reasonably clean. There were no signs of disorder or hasty packing-up. In the inner room the beds were made up, ready to be slept in. The occupant might have been gone only a matter of a few hours, but for the fish and the lack of warmth in the turf-fire ashes.

In the second and third cottages there was the same air of unpremeditated absence. In the fourth then, found a dead baby in its cradle in the inner room. The party returned to the s.h.i.+p, puzzled and subdued.

The situation was reported by radio to Rio. Rio in its reply suggested a thorough search of the island. The crew started on the task with reluctance and a tendency to keep in close groups, but, as nothing fearsome revealed itself, gradually gained confidence.

On the second day of their three-day search they discovered a party of four women and six children in two caves on a hillside. All had been dead for some weeks, apparently from starvation. By the end of the third day they were satisfied that if there were any living person left, he must be deliberately in hiding. It was only then, on comparing notes, that they realised also that there could not be more than a dozen sheep and two or three dozen goats left out of the island's normal flocks of some hundreds.

They buried the bodies they had found, radioed a full report to Rio, and then put to sea again, leaving Saphira, with its few surviving animals, to the sea-birds.

In due course the news came through from the agencies and won an inch or two of s.p.a.ce here and there. Two newspapers bestowed on Saphira the nickname of Marie Celeste Island, but failed at the time to enquire further into the matter.

The April Island affair was set in quite a different key, and might have continued undiscovered for some time but for the coincidence of official interest in the place.

The interest stemmed from the existence of a group of Javanese malcontents variously described as smugglers, terrorists, communists, patriots, fanatics, gangsters, or merely rebels who, whatever their true affiliations, operated upon a troublesome scale. In due course the Indonesian police had tracked them down and destroyed their headquarters, with which loss went much of the prestige which had enabled them to dominate and extort support from several square miles of territory. In the dispersal which resulted, most of the rank and file following melted swiftly away into more conventional occupations: but, for two dozen moving spirits with varying prices on their heads, disappearance was less easy.

In difficult terrain and with small forces at their disposal the Indonesian authorities did not pursue them, but awaited the arrival of the informer who, sooner or later, would be tempted by easy money. In the course of a few months several informers applied; none, however, collected the rewards, for on each occasion the government party arrived only to find that the outlaws had moved on. After several such expeditions, informing fell off. No more was heard of the troublemakers, who seemed to have vanished for good.

About a year after the dispersal, a trading-steamer put in to Jakarta carrying a native who had an interesting tale to tell the authorities there. He came, it appeared, from April Island which lies south of the Sunda Strait, and at no great distance from. the British possession of Christmas Island. According to him, April Island had been pursuing its normal and not very arduous life in its immemorial manner until some six months previously when a party of eighteen men had arrived in a small motor-vessel. They had immediately introduced themselves as the new administration of the island, taken charge of the only small radio transmitter, posted up new laws and regulations, ordered that houses should be built for them, and helped themselves to wives. After the salutary shooting of a few persons who raised objections, a regime of a severely feudal type set in and was, so far as the informant knew, still in operation. Possible trouble with infrequently visiting s.h.i.+ps was forestalled by coralling a number of the inhabitants under the muzzles of rifles as hostages. This, since the invaders' trigger-fingers were well known to work with very slight provocation, had been effective, and the vessels had left again without suspecting that anything was amiss.

The informant himself had succeeded in hiding a canoe and getting away by night. He had been trying to reach the mainland in order to question the authenticity of this unpopular form of administration when he had been picked up by the steamer.

A few questions and his descriptions of the invaders satisfied the Jakarta authorities that they were once more on the track of their malcontents, and a small gunboat, flying the flag of the Indonesian Republic, was commissioned to deal with them.

In order to minimise the risk of a number of innocent people dying by the hostage technique the approach to April Island was made by night. Under starlight the gunboat stole stealthily into a little-used bay which was masked from the main village by a headland. There, a well-armed party, accompanied by the informant who was to act as their guide, was put ash.o.r.e with the task of taking the village by surprise. The gunboat then drew off. moved a little way along the coast, and lay in lurk behind the point of the headland until the landing party should summon her to come in and dominate the situation.

Three-quarters of an hour had been the length of time estimated for the party's crossing of the isthmus, and then perhaps, another ten or fifteen minutes for its disposal of itself about the village. It was, therefore, with concern that after only forty minutes had pa.s.sed the men aboard the gunboat heard the first burst of automatic fire, succeeded presently by several more.

With the element of surprise lost, the commander ordered full speed ahead, but even as the boat surged forward the sound of firing was drowned by a dull, reverberating boom. The crew of the gunboat looked at one another with raised eyebrows: the landing-party had carried no higher forms of lethalness than automatic rifles and grenades. There was a pause, then the automatic rifles started hammering again. This time, it continued longer in intermittent bursts until it was ended again by a similar boom.

The gunboat rounded the headland. In the dim light it was impossible to make out anything that was going on in the village two miles away. For the moment all there was dark. Then a twinkling broke out, and another, and the sound of firing reached them again. The gunboat, continuing at full speed, switched on her searchlight. The village and the trees behind it sprang into sudden miniature existence. No figures were visible among the houses. The only sign of activity was some froth and commotion in the water, a few yards out from the edge. Some claimed afterwards to have seen a dark, humped shape showing above the water a little to the right of it.

As close insh.o.r.e as she dared go the gunboat put her engines astern, and hove-to in a flurry. The searchlight played back and forth over the huts and their surroundings. Everything lit by the beam had hard lines, and seemed endowed with a curious glistening quality. The man on the Oerlikons followed the beam, his fingers ready on the triggers. The light made a few more slow sweeps and then stopped. It was trained on several submachine-guns lying on the sand, close to the water's edge.

A stentorian voice from the hailer called the landing-party from cover. Nothing stirred. The searchlight roved again, prying between the huts, among the trees. Nothing moved there. The patch of light slid back across the beach and steadied upon the abandoned arms. The silence seemed to deepen.

The Commander refused to allow landing until daylight. The gunboat dropped anchor. She rode there for the rest of the night, her searchlight making the village look like a stage-set upon which at any moment the actors might appear, but never did.

When there was full daylight the First Officer, with a party of five armed men, rowed cautiously ash.o.r.e under cover from the s.h.i.+p's Oerlikons. They landed close to the abandoned arms, and picked them up to examine them. All the weapons were covered with a thin slime. The men put them in the boat, and then washed their hands clean of the stuff.

The beach was scored in four places by broad furrows leading from the water's edge towards the huts. They were something over eight feet wide, and curved in section. The depth in the middle was five or six inches; the sand at the edges was banked up a trifle above the level of the surrounding beach. Some such track, the First Officer thought, might have been left if a large boiler had been dragged across the foresh.o.r.e. Examining them more closely he decided from the lie of the sand that though one of the. tracks led towards the water, the other three undoubtedly emerged from it. It was a discovery which caused him to look at the village with increased wariness. As he did so, he became aware that the scene which had glistened oddly in the searchlight was still glistening oddly. He regarded it curiously for some minutes without learning more. Then he shrugged. He tucked the b.u.t.t of his submachine-gun comfortably under his right arm, and slowly, with his eyes flicking right and left for the least trace of movement, he led his party up the beach.

The village was formed of a semi-circle of huts of various sizes fringing upon an open s.p.a.ce, and as they drew closer the reason for the glistening look became plain. The ground, the huts themselves, and the surrounding trees, too, all had a thin coating of the slime which had been on the guns.

The party kept steadily, slowly on until they reached the centre of the open s.p.a.ce. There they paused. bunched together, facing outwards, examining each foot of cover closely. There was no sound, no movement but a few fronds stirring gently in the morning breeze. The men began to breathe more evenly.

The First Officer removed his gaze from the huts, and examined the ground about them. It was littered with a wide scatter of small metal fragments, most of them curved, all of them s.h.i.+ny with the slime. He turned one over curiously with the toe of his boot, but it told him nothing. He looked about them again, and decided on the largest hut.

"We'll search that," he said.

The whole front of its glistened stickily. He pushed the unfastened door open with his foot, and led the way inside. There was little disturbance; only a couple of overturned stools suggested a hurried exit. No one, alive or dead, remained in the place.