The Best of (28 page)

It seemed also to have damaged its lenses in some way, for liquid from them was running down towards its slot. Its mind was so confused and disturbed that such thought processes as we could discern were by no means rational.

This was still going on when the approach of another disked artifact similar to the first was reported. It held to the mark in the same way but when it reached a point close behind the other it stopped. A part of it opened and a creature similar to our first specimen (i.e. the bifurcated, not the webbed type) emerged. It looked at the first artifact with obvious curiosity and peered within it.

Meanwhile, our specimen within the redoubt had also noticed the creature's approach. It tried to move towards it but was, of course, held back by the redoubt wall. It stood there, obviously trying to bring its weapon into use against one of its own kind, which puzzled us very much.

Presently the creature outside looked up and saw the one inside. For a moment we expected an attack. Its lenses widened quite remarkably, its slot dropped wide open—but oddly enough nothing came from it immediately. When it did it was surprisingly weak and harmless.

"We should catch it before it attacks," Eptus advised.

"It may not attack—unless we give it reason," Podas replied.

"Reason —bah !" said Eptus, irritably.

A sudden confusion came over our specimen. It picked up a piece of the tegument which Podas had removed and held it against itself.

The creature outside cleared its mind somewhat and began to project thoughts at the other. We found that when it made this direct form of address we could follow it concisely.

It said, "What a shame you're not real, honey. If mirages are like this, I've wasted my time on bathing beaches."

Why it said this we do not understand. But we observed the very curious fact that though its mind was by no means hostile it was making lowpower aggression with its slot. We also observed that our specimen did not receive the message. It was, in fact, simultaneously putting out a confused plea for help which the other was not receiving—or was only faintly aware of.

"This is curious indeed," said Podas. "There seems to be no comprehension between the two—and ours is struggling hard to use its weapon, yet with no aggressive intent in its mind. Is it possible that these weapons have the secondary purpose of communication?"

"In this place anything is possible and everything is unlikely," said Eptus. "I have reached the state where I am prepared to believe that they normally communicate by battering one another to death if you claim that it is so."

The creature outside approached and encountered the wall of the redoubt. It rubbed the part of itself that had made contact, and exploded the wall with both upper projections. Its mind was full of astonishment.

Meanwhile the creature inside appeared to be trying to push itself through the wall. Finding that futile, it started to make signs with its projections. It indicated itself, the artifact and the first specimen.

When the outside creature saw the first specimen, which, as I have said Podas had left in a very untidy state, its mind hardened remarkably. It stepped back, and took something out of a slit in its tegument. It extended this object towards the redoubt. There was a crack—not dissimilar to the sound of a person disintegrating and therefore on a harmless range.

Something hit the wall and fell. The creature moved forward and picked up a round flat splash of metal. One could sense that it was extremely puzzled. Then it put its projections against the wall and felt carefully all the way along the rock on one side to that on the other.

It was dismayed. It shifted the tegument on its blunt projection and tried to aid its thoughts by stimulating the surface exposed. It went back to its artifact and returned holding a squat cylinder. This proved to contain a black viscous substance which it daubed on our wall. The marks are still there. From our side they appear so:

WAIT! I'LL BE BACK.

Our creature comprehended this and made a sign.

The other reentered its artifact and went away.

And so the situation rests.

Eptus now agrees that the disked affairis an artifact but contends that so squashy and semiliquid a creature as our specimens cannot have made anything so hard. Therefore, he argues, there must be another and doubtless higher type of intelligence here, housed in a harder form capable of dealing with such materials.

Podas is still trying to communicate with our specimen. It has folded itself up against an angle of the wall and floor where it again tries quite desperately at intervals to remove the boltik frame which prevents it from using its weapon.

He is convinced that the slot is somehow linked with its transmission of thought. Eptus says this is nonsense—it has become quite clear to him that our wall interrupts these creatures' thoughtwaves, so that they fall back on a secondary form of communication by marks.

Podas objects that we were able to distinguish the outside creature's thought waves—some of them very clearly. To which Eptus objects that it stands to reason that we are a great deal more sensitive than this soggy and revolting form of life.

Argument on such lines, it seems to me, not only can go on for some time but doubtless will.

Interim Report.

Dear Zenn, I have become worried by recent developments. The plain fact is that we do not know enough about these strange creatures here to keep the situation firmly in hand. There is now a crowd of them with their artifacts outside our east wall.

Several of our party have disintegrated and I fear that more may go at any moment. The creatures fling the most dangerous frequencies around, not only without effort but regardless of consequences.

Podas suggests that they may not know the danger in the frequencies since their pudgy bodies are unlikely to respond, that they are, in fact naturally soundabsorbent. Fantastic as this may seem Eptus is for once inclined to support him. It is also apparently endorsed by our attempts to beam them.

We directed a most powerful beam upon them and ran it through a range of highly destructive frequencies. One cannot say it was entirely without effect. For a moment they did check and we were gratified—we thought we were near a critical length.

They turned to look at one another with obvious puzzlement in their minds. Then they started to communicate—it does look as if Podas were right, for they invariably accompany thought projection with movement of their slots.

As far as we could interpret they were 'saying' such things as, "Do you hear it too? ... It's not just my ears, is it? ... Like a funny kind of music—only it isn't music ... Not, not exactly music ... It's very queer..."

That last seemed to be the most general reaction. So far from disintegrating them it did not seem, even at full power, to do more than disturb them slightly, and puzzle them. In other words this powerful weapon is useless against them. And we are left somewhat at a loss.

Not caring for the situation, I decided to anticipate my usual report time and give you this immediate current account.

The creature which had visited us previously returned accompanied by a number of similar artifacts. More followed later and indeed I can see still more approaching as I make this report.

Before that the creature we hold here had become listless. Podas was of the opinion that it required nourishment of some kind. Eptus put some silicates before it, but it was clearly uninterested. Podas, recalling its chemical basis, reduced some of the local growths to carbon, and offered it that—also without success.

We do not wish to cause the creature unnecessary distress but it is difficult to know what to do about it. We might try injecting some carbon into it if we were at all sure which of its several orifices it uses for purposes of assimilation.

However the return of the other creature stimulated it to some activity, so that it raised itself erect again.

Almost all the creatures that now arrived were the type with bifurcated teguments—a number of them being exactly similar in dark blue with metal attachments. Their reaction at the sight of our specimen was much the same as that of the other at first. It was then we discovered how rankly careless they are with their frequencies. Luckily however, all were below danger level.

Like the other they began by feeling their way along the wall of the redoubt. All their minds were and still are full of astonishment. Having discovered the length of the wall, they set about determining the height, and presently there were some moving about on the roof above us.

Nearly all of them were given to stimulating their blunt, uppermost projections where they appear to carry their minds, by friction of their upper limbs. They made use of several metallic implements experimentally but the metal was, of course, far too soft to make any impression on boltik. They seemed as much at a loss to deal with us as we with them.

But not all of them were employed in the same way. One in particular remained close to its artifact, holding a small object before its slot, and making frequencies at it. It was dear from its mind that it was describing what went on —but to whom or to what or why we cannot perceive.

Thinking we might learn something new from an animate specimen of this type, we opened our door. One of them discovered the entrance as it felt along and came in. Podas had a frame ready to prevent it making distressing frequencies and we shut the door again behind.

This seemed to cause some consternation to the others outside. By bringing the new specimen close to the other one, we established fairly conclusively the correctness of Podas' theory of slotcommunication in the species. Both struggled to use them but, failing, remained out of communication.

Our attention was diverted from this interesting discovery by the arrival of more artifacts. Some of these contained creatures with webbed teguments. These are now established as the more dangerous. One of them, immediately upon emerging, uttered a frequency which was extremely painful to many of us.

Unfortunately Ankis and Falmus happened to hold just that critical periodicity and disintegrated on the spot. The sharp report of their simultaneous demise startled all the creatures, who began ineffectually to make a search for the source of it.

We cannot learn much from our new specimen yet. Its mind is quite chaotic with alarm. It seems particularly disorganized by the sight of Podas' work on the first specimen. I have already suggested to Podas that he should incinerate this untidy object. I shall now insist...

I have done so. Unfortunately the result does not seem to have had a sedative effect upon the minds of either of our other specimens.

We continue to be greatly puzzled by the creature which never stops emitting noises at its instrument. At first we heard it alone. Now, however, we hear it considerably amplified, issuing from several of the disked artifacts, How can this be? Why should it be? There is no sense in it. The creatures here are observing for themselves the very facts he is communicating. And it is very wearing to us.

A row of the creatures outside is now trying to communicate with our two specimens. They emit very strongly on a harmless though disagreeable frequency without success. Now they are making marks on white surfaces to which our two are responding by signs.

Another artifact with a lensed machine on top has arrived. It is directed at us by a creature standing behind it. It is quite ineffective, and does not trouble us at all.

Still more disked artifacts continue to arrive. All the creatures are puzzled over what to do next. In one small group they are discussing whether they shall bring something—something that disintegrates violently—I do not understand two specimens at the same time. One of the creatures exploring our roof has discovered the farther edge by falling off it. Others have come around to pick it up, so now they are on both sides of us.

Meanwhile, we are still trying to communicate with the specimens. Podas has arranged a battery of ten minds concentrating thought upon them simultaneously. The pressure is terrific—and entirely without effect. They are obtuse coarse hopeless clods as insensitive to thought as they are to sound.

One of the webbed creatures outside has just emitted a frequency which has destroyed three of our party in a twinkling. This is a shocking business. We are going to try our beams again.

They are surprised—but no more. The talking creature has stopped talking. It is holding up its instrument as though to catch our beams. What? Stop!Stop! STOP!

That was dreadful. Somehow our beams were coming back at us. There's a fissure in our wall, cracks in our roof. Half a dozen more of us have disintegrated. I'm sure it was something to do with that talking creature and its instrument—but how? I don't understand. Now it has started talking again.

All the creatures are trying to trace the sounds of the disintegrations. They are very bewildered.

The talking creature has stopped talking—that's better. But the reproduced sound from the disked artifacts has not stopped! How? Oh, it must be amplifying another creature now, the resonances are different. Queer!

It's the sound they make—but it means nothing. I can catch no thoughtwave connected with it. It must originate somewhere else. I don't understand ... There, it has stopped now, and a good thing, too.

The—Oh, merciful heaven, what a sound from those reproducers! What excruciation! An appalling sound! Rhythmic, pulsating, piercing, devilish! This is killing us, damn them! It's —oh!—it's shaking us to pieces—

Dreadful... Agonizing ... Oh —oh!

A couple of dozen have gone—Podas with them. Now Eptus— The whole redoubt is trembling ... That frequency ... It's almost critical... If it goes any higher ...

Too late! The boltik has shattered. It's falling in powder round what's left of us...

Oh! That sound—that awful sound! I can't, oh, what agony! Almost on my frequency...

#10 The Best Of John Wyndham

John Wyndham

(1952)

whenDuncan Weaver bought Lellie for—no, there could be trouble putting it that way—when Duncan Weaver paid Lellie's parents one thousand pounds in compensation for the loss of her services, he had a figure of six, or, if absolutely necessary, seven hundred in mind.