The Martian Ambassador (7 page)

‘I see. In that case, you will at least join us in a cup of tea.’

Blackwood could see that this was, in fact, a command, and replied, ‘I would be most grateful, Your Majesty.’

As she poured the tea, Victoria said, ‘I hope you will forgive us for requesting a progress report at such an early stage in your investigation, Mr Blackwood, but as I am sure you will understand, the present circumstances are as delicate as they are tragic.’

‘I can assure you, Ma’am, that I am distinctly aware of that unfortunate fact,’ replied Blackwood, accepting the cup.

‘Excellent. Well, then. Please tell us what, if anything, you have discovered so far.’

Blackwood felt Petrox Voronezh’s huge, dark eyes upon him as he described his meeting with Dr Cutter and the pathologist’s bizarre conclusions as to the cause of the Ambassador’s death.

‘Then he
was
assassinated,’ said Voronezh when the Special Investigator had finished.

‘I’m afraid that is the likeliest explanation for his tragic demise.’

Victoria glanced from Blackwood to Voronezh. ‘We hope that you are now pursuing at least one line of enquiry,’ she said in a quiet yet stern voice.

Blackwood returned her gaze and gave a very small shudder. There it was, that quality in her eyes, that light which was not a light, as if something strange and rarefied were moving subtly there. He forced himself to concentrate on the business at hand. ‘Indeed I am, Ma’am. It seems that the microscopic creatures which proved so lethal to the Ambassador are related in some way to the experiments of a certain Mr Andrew Crosse, an amateur scientist who lives in Somerset...’

‘You are saying that a human was responsible for the Ambassador’s death,’ interrupted Voronezh, leaning over Blackwood.

‘No sir, I am not. I feel that it would be premature at this stage to arrive at such a conclusion. I am merely saying that it
appears
that the cause of death is an organism native to the Earth.’

‘Who is this Mr Crosse?’ demanded Victoria. ‘We have never heard of him.’

‘It seems there are few who have, Ma’am, for the man is evidently a recluse, an idiosyncrasy made worse by his spurning by the Royal Society some time ago, when he tried to present the results of his experiments in the creation of artificial life to them.’

‘
Artificial life?
’ echoed Victoria, aghast.

Blackwood nodded. ‘It seems that Mr Crosse managed somehow to develop a means of creating microscopic living creatures from inanimate matter, through some electro-chemical process. Dr Cutter discovered very similar organisms in Ambassador R’ondd’s breathing apparatus and oesophageal tracts, which absorbed the air before it could reach his pulmonary sacs.’

The Queen quickly recomposed herself, and added, ‘Leaving aside the outrageousness of such experiments, why would anyone contrive such a bizarre method of committing murder? It is utterly outlandish!’

Blackwood was about to agree, but before he could do so, Voronezh spoke up again. ‘Psychological warfare,’ he said.

‘I beg your pardon, sir?’ said Blackwood.

Voronezh began to pace back and forth across the carpet, his thin arms clasped behind his back, his long legs moving in a strangely elegant way which reminded Blackwood of the motion of the Martian tripods. ‘Allow me to explain,’ he said. ‘There are certain things of which we Martians are profoundly afraid; I suppose that you might call them phobias, pathological terrors which afflict all of us, haunting our racial memory at a deep, primordial level. We have tried to rid ourselves of these fears through various means – psychological and chemical – but they are tenacious, drawing on the strength of accumulated ages, and they will not leave us. One of those fears is that of parasitic infestation...’

Voronezh hesitated, as if he were finding it difficult to speak of this. ‘Do please go on,’ said Blackwood, fascinated. This was a side of Martians he had never seen before; they seemed so coolly and calmly logical in their thoughts and actions that the thought of their being subject to an irrational fear of any kind was shocking.

‘Our scientific research has caused us to conclude that every inhabited world undergoes periods of natural upheaval, during which great extinctions occur. On your own Earth, this has happened several times – to the great saurians which once roamed its primeval forests, for example. Similar extinctions have occurred on our world also, one of which nearly destroyed our entire race.’

‘When did this happen?’ Blackwood asked.

‘A long time ago: many hundreds of thousands of your years. But the memory of those dreadful times is with us still, dwelling like some horrible canker in the depths of our psyches. It was a plague, caused by microscopic larvae which descended upon the surface of our world from the depths of the Æther, and which, once inhaled, grew to maturity within our bodies. I will not describe the symptoms of that affliction, or the manner of the death which was the inescapable outcome of infection. I will say only that our race was all but decimated: our archaeologists estimate that upwards of ninety-five percent of our people perished.’

‘Good grief,’ said Victoria, casting an uneasy glance at Blackwood. ‘Did you ever discover the origin of this horrible scourge?’

‘Our astronomers and archaeologists have concluded that it was caused by our world’s passage through the tail of a comet in the distant past. We have long speculated on the possibility of comets being bearers of primitive life, or at least the building-blocks of life. We discovered that Mars’s proximity to this comet coincided with the period of the great catastrophe, the near-extinction of our race.’

‘How
did
your people survive?’ Blackwood asked, his voice tinged with appalled sympathy.

‘The immune systems of some proved capable of defeating the infestation, and once our planet had passed out of the comet’s tail, the rain of death ceased.’

‘And I take it the comet has never returned,’ said Blackwood, thinking of the horrific consequences of such an event befalling the Earth.

‘No, it has not. We assume that its period is long... perhaps it has left our Solar System entirely, never to return. We hope so.’

‘And the memory of that dire event has remained with your people, down all the long millennia since it occurred,’ said Victoria in wonderment.

‘The concept is not nearly so strange as you might believe, Your Majesty,’ replied Voronezh. ‘Your Mr Darwin explained the true history of your species fifty years ago, and there are memories of your earliest times that exist still in the dimmest recesses of your minds: memories of the caves in which you dwelt, memories of the dangers lurking perpetually beyond your ill-defended thresholds, memories of your own trials and disasters which have given rise to the myths and legends on which your civilisation has been built. And would you deny that there are yet other memories unaccountable in their strangeness, the origin of which has long slipped from the consciousness of your species? I am reminded of words written by your fine essayist, Charles Lamb: “Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimeras – dire stories of Celaeno and the Harpies may reproduce themselves in the brain of superstition – but they were there before. They are transcripts, types – the archetypes are in us, and eternal.” The great catastrophe which befell my race all those hundreds of thousands of years ago has become just such an archetype in the collective consciousness of all Martians. It has been strengthened by the passage of time, and will, I fear, never leave us.’

Blackwood considered this in silence for a long moment. Presently, he looked up at Voronezh. ‘So what you are saying is that this was more than a “mere” assassination, if you will forgive the expression. In fact, it was an act of terror, calculated to cause maximum fear and distress among your people.’

‘It is the only explanation I can think of to account for such a bizarre method of committing murder, to use Her Majesty’s phrase.’

‘Be that as it may,’ said Victoria, ‘the question remains: why? Why commit this act of psychological warfare? Who is behind it, and what are their ultimate intentions?’

Blackwood sighed. ‘I regret to say, Ma’am, that I have yet to discover the answer to those questions.’

‘Apologies are quite unnecessary, Mr Blackwood,’ replied Victoria decisively. ‘I am sure Mr Voronezh will join us in thanking you for your work thus far, with which we are quite satisfied.’

Victoria glanced up at Voronezh, and Blackwood couldn’t resist doing so as well. The Martian regarded them in silence with his huge, inscrutable eyes.

‘Is that not the case, Mr Voronezh?’ she persisted.

After a moment’s hesitation, he bowed slightly and replied, ‘Quite so, Your Majesty... although I would repeat my earlier request to you to allow our own investigators to handle this affair.’

‘And we repeat to you our earlier response,’ said the Queen forcefully. ‘We believe that the answers we seek will be discovered much more quickly by operatives who can blend in with their surroundings, which would, with all due respect, be quite impossible were your own people to become directly involved.’

Voronezh seemed to bridle somewhat at this. He blinked rapidly several times, and his head gave a spasmodic twitch.

‘This crime,’ continued Victoria, driving her point home, ‘was committed on British soil, and it will be investigated – and solved – by the British authorities. Make no mistake, Mr Voronezh, we are quite adamant in this!’

Blackwood waited with more than a little trepidation for the Martian to respond. Presently, Voronezh bowed again, and replied, ‘As you wish, Your Majesty. But I have been instructed by my government to inform you that we
do
require a satisfactory conclusion to this lamentable affair. As you yourself have noted, this crime – the first of its kind: the murder of a Martian – took place on British soil, and if the British government cannot solve it and bring the perpetrator to justice, I can assure you that the Martian government will.’

And with that, Petrox Voronezh turned and stalked from the room.

When the door had closed behind him, Victoria looked at her Special Investigator and said, ‘Mr Blackwood, we are presented with the greatest crisis in six years of relations between Earth and Mars. For the love of God, sir, get to the bottom of this, and quickly!’

It was mid-morning when Blackwood returned to his rooms in Chelsea. His meeting with the Queen and Petrox Voronezh had deeply disturbed him, particularly Voronezh’s outburst. He had not expected the Martian to be so forthright in delivering what was in fact a thinly-veiled threat of direct intervention in the affairs of Her Majesty’s Government. Victoria had been visibly shocked, and Blackwood sympathised entirely: such was the Martian level of technological development that, were they to decide to make good on their threat, there would be precious little to be done about it.

For his part, Blackwood felt that the ultimatum had been presented a little too quickly: it had been only three days since the Ambassador’s death, and already it looked like the Martians were beginning to draw plans against the British Empire. While human relations with the Red Planet were, of course, still in their infancy, the Martians had until now shown themselves to be a very calm and level-headed people, and while the loss of Ambassador R’ondd was a tragedy of the first order, it was most worrying that they had reacted in this way.

And yet, he mused, according to Voronezh, the manner of the Ambassador’s death had been intended to create the maximum level of fear and revulsion in the Martian mind, to rekindle the ancient terror the species felt for the notion of parasitical invasion. Voronezh was quite correct: this
was
an act of psychological warfare. Was it any wonder, then, that the Martians should react with such anger, that they should be prepared to act in such a peremptory fashion?

In addition, Blackwood supposed, the intricacies of Martian politics and governance were ill-understood by Humanity, and one could easily imagine the existence of movements and factions which would demand strong and decisive action in response to this crisis. He found himself wondering how long it would be before the Human Ambassador to Mars, Lord Ashbourne, was expelled and diplomatic relations between the two worlds broke down completely.

Heaving a dejected sigh, Blackwood went to his study and sat down at his desk. There was nothing for it but to follow up the single lead he had. He needed more information on this Andrew Crosse fellow, and the nature of the strange experiments he had apparently been conducting at his home in the Quantocks. Blackwood still considered it most unlikely that a recluse living in the wilds of Somerset would have been able to infiltrate the Martian Embassy and place the
Acarus galvanicus
larvae in R’ondd’s breathing apparatus. Nor was a motive clearly apparent. Of course, Crosse must have been hurt and angered at his treatment by the Royal Society and may even have harboured the desire for revenge... but why would he visit that revenge upon a man from another world, who had taken no part in his humiliation?

Blackwood decided that there were three possibilities: one, Crosse had placed the larvae in the Ambassador’s breathing apparatus; two, he had supplied the larvae to someone else, who had then committed the deed; and three, someone else had succeeded in creating
Acarus galvanicus
independently and had used the creatures to assassinate R’ondd.

In any event, Blackwood felt that a visit to Andrew Crosse was in order. He reached for the brass switch on the side of his new cogitator, flipped it, and was gratified to see a pale mist form in the scrying glass. The Helper had been true to his word: it looked like the contraption was up and running. The mist formed itself into words:

Welcome to the Tara III, powered by De Danann.

What would you like to do today?

Blackwood flexed his fingers, typed on the keyboard PLEASE CONNECT ME TO THE ÆTHER and pressed the carriage return key.

Almost immediately, the message in the scrying glass dissolved into mist again and then formed a new message:

You are now connected to the Æther.

Please type your next command.

Blackwood typed: I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW THE ADDRESS IN SOMERSET OF THE AMATEUR SCIENTIST MR ANDREW CROSSE.

A moment later, more words appeared in the glass:

Mr Andrew Crosse lives at Fyne Court,

in the village of Broomfield, four miles north of Taunton.

Would you care to view some photographs?

Good idea
, thought Blackwood.
Won’t hurt to get a feel for the layout of the place
. He typed: YES, PLEASE, pressed the carriage return key and sat back in his chair, thinking that cogitators weren’t such a bane after all. He certainly couldn’t deny the usefulness of this one.

This time, however, the words remained in the scrying glass.
Spoke too soon
, Blackwood thought, and pressed the carriage return again.
Oh, dash it all! Here we go again!

He was about to press the HELP key, when the words abruptly vanished from the glass, and were replaced with another message in ugly, misshapen characters:

Error … Error … Error

Oh dear

Something seems to have gone wrong

‘Oh, bugger it!’ shouted Blackwood. He reached for the HELP key again. ‘Where’s that little blighter? I’m going to have it out with him!’

As he glanced into the scrying glass, he saw that the error message had vanished. In its place was a darkness that swirled and eddied strangely. Blackwood had the impression that he was looking into a bottomless pool of murky water, in which indistinct shapes writhed and twisted, flitting in and out of the depths.

‘What the deuce...?’

Blackwood made to turn away but found that he could move neither his body nor his eyes, which remained locked upon the scrying glass. The malfunctioning cogitator began to hum; it shook and rattled upon its ornate brass gryphon’s feet.

Again Blackwood tried to look away, but it was useless: whatever moved within the glass seemed to have reached out to his mind, defeating his volition,
forcing
him to remain where he was.

Oh no
, he thought, as another message began to flicker intermittently in the glass.

This cogitator has been infected

with an ætherial virus.

You are advised to vacate the area immediately.

Suddenly, a tendril of writhing darkness swept through the message, transforming it into a swirling mist, which quickly dissipated. In the next instant, the tendril thrust out from the scrying glass and lashed at Blackwood, knocking him backwards off his chair. As he landed on the floor, jarring his shoulder painfully, he felt the temperature in the room drop suddenly by at least ten degrees.

Looking up at the cogitator, he saw more tendrils of darkness whipping back and forth in a horrible, unnatural silence. They appeared to be composed of filthy-looking smoke, in which pinpoints of lurid crimson light flashed and quivered obscenely. He tried to avert his horrified gaze, but it was held fast by the tentacle-like things emerging from the scrying glass.

Blackwood gazed helplessly into the smoke-tendrils and felt the lightless depths of his own mind being laid bare, his darkest thoughts and fears, the black terrors that lurk at the heart of every human being, exposed and molested in revolting ways.

He saw the lightless void of the Æther filled with gibbering stars; he saw spiked chains puncturing the flesh of screaming infants, their mouths filled with writhing maggots; he saw Precambrian oceans churning with the Earth’s first terrified consciousness, while Jesus Christ hung from the Cross, laughing hysterically; he saw columns of fire and whirling spheres of ice strung with pulsating vessels. He saw self-contemplating shadows whispering to each other across gulfs of Eternity, dreaming of the hole at the centre of the Universe, and a vast, lipless mouth shouting frantically at the bottom of Space and Time...

Somehow, in the chaos of his terror, Blackwood knew that his mind was being torn apart by the ætherial virus, and that very soon it would be eaten, leaving him a quivering lump of insensate flesh, fodder for the madhouse.

Somehow, Thomas Blackwood knew that the frenzied screams that had begun to issue from his contorted lips were the last thing he would ever hear...