The Silent Vulcan Read online

  Malone took the shoebox and examined its contents. "For Chrissake, there must a month's ration for an entire family here."

  "More like two months," said David, wondering what Malone would say when he found the hard-boiled eggs.

  Malone found them and muttered something about bloody farmers and Philistines. He finished his sandwich and started on another. There were enough of them for a small feast.

  "Chutney?"

  "How do you manage that?" asked Malone, taking the jar and spooning the contents into his sandwich.

  "Green tomatoes are plentiful at this time of year."

  "Hang on. You're a sheep farmer. How come you've got all this ham?"

  "I don't really think you want to know the answer to that, Mr Malone," said David, returning the shoebox and its uneaten ham sandwich contents to the back seat.

  Malone grunted and decided that perhaps David was right. The sandwiches had assuaged his hunger. He reclined his seat, and settled back, easing the loaded .45 from under his thigh. The revolver was a dead weight in his tracksuit pocket. "Might be an idea to get a bit of shuteye."

  He was nudged awake by David a few minutes after 1:00am.

  "Lima X-Ray has just reported activity in the centre of the target area."

  Malone stretched. "Our spyder emerging to spin another web of mystery," he said, much relieved. He switched on the map light and unfolded his operations map. He pointed out Lima X-Ray's position at the lake. A minute passed.

  "Lima X-Ray," said the police officer to identify himself. "Objective is showing no interest in the structure."

  "It climbed on the pontoon for a look-see last night," said Malone in answer to David's query.

  "Lima X-Ray. Objective Alpha zero. Bravo one-seven-zero."

  "Zero altitude?" David queried.

  "It's not flying," said Malone shortly. "And bearing 170 degrees means it's heading our way."

  Thirty minutes went by without a report being heard. Malone got restless. The silence was broken by Delta Charlie. Objective was at zero altitude and its bearing was 170.

  "It's covered a kilometre," said Malone, checking Delta Charlie's position on the map. He peered out of the side window at the moonlit field. "Come on, you bastard. Fly!"

  The two men got out of the Range Rover to stretch their legs. "It'll be another two hours at this rate," Malone grumbled. He was edgy about his men's welfare. It was relatively easy to track the spyder's course when it was flying but on the ground it was difficult to see. The last thing he wanted was for an over-zealous police officer to get too close.

  "Maybe it's frightened of heights?" David suggested.

  "Well it certainly doesn't seem to like flying," said Malone. "There was that time when it took off when I almost caught it. I got the impression that it sprouts wings only as a last resort."

  "But it flew last night when it killed the foxhounds?"

  "And it made a crap landing in the lake when it returned. Maybe flying canes its batteries or whatever it uses to store energy. Looks like the damned thing's saving them tonight and is going to walk all the way here."

  "All the more energy to zap you with, grandmother," David murmured.

  "That's not funny. I'm more worried about the moon setting before it gets here."

  The two men returned to the car. The next report indicated that the spyder was still heading their way and had increased its speed. Malone began to feel better. The storm that had been brewing Farside suddenly erupted with a silent ferocity that astonished the two men. The rain beat down with a savagery that tore into the shallow-rooted sedge grass along the flat stretch close to the Wall. Within minutes runnels were forming and merging into a seething cascade of water that was sweeping away grass and soil.

  The two men watched the mighty deluge without speaking. The radio broke in on their thoughts.

  "Foxtrot Juliet. Objective Alpha zero. Bravo one-seven-zero. It just passed under me. Going at a clip."

  "Foxtrot Juliet is up a tree," said Malone, consulting his map. "He's only a kilometre from here."

  After five minutes Malone lowered his side windows and trained his nightsight binoculars across the field to where he expected the spyder to appear. "All we want now is a report from Zulu Mike and the thing's here."

  "Zulu Mike," said the radio. "Objective Alpha zero. Bravo one-seven-five."

  "It's altered course," said David.

  "Looks like it not even interested in hedge-hopping," Malone replied, focusing his binoculars on the open gate that was the field's entrance from the lane. "That course change will take it to the entrance. It doesn't like the idea of pushing its way through a layered hedge." He stiffened, his thumb making fine adjustments to the knurled focussing wheel. "It's here," he said softly, and passed the binoculars to David. "You can't actually see it, but you can see the background distortion it causes as it moves."

  David adjusted the glasses. He could see nothing at first. And then he spotted a rippling effect -- a small patch of distortion that was moving purposefully along the grass towards the Wall markers. "Got it," he murmured, passing the glasses back to Malone. "About 200 metres off."

  After a few more seconds David could see the spyder with the naked eye. He could even make out its eight legs. It got within 50 metres of the Range Rover and seemed to merge with the background.

  "It's stopped," Malone whispered. "Bugger it. I think it knows we're here."

  "Didn't I say that this thing must look like a bloody beacon in the infra-red?"

  "Yes, you said. I was confident that it would ignore us. It's always ignored my lookouts."

  Malone kept the glasses trained on the spyder, willing it to resume walking towards the Wall but the machine remained motionless. As near as he could judge, it had turned towards the spinney where the Range Rover was hidden. It took a few steps in their direction and stopped, as if undecided or receiving instructions. Malone's thoughts were dominated by the images of the dead foxhounds. He concentrated on stopping his hands trembling. He lowered the binoculars as slowly as he could.

  "I think," he whispered. "That it might be a good idea if we got clear of the area."

  "Not in this thing!" David protested as Malone's hand went to the ignition key. "Let's leave it here as a decoy."

  "That might not be a bad idea. Softly does it."

  The two men eased the door catches open and slipped quietly from the Range Rover, their movements were smooth and silent as they edged away from the vehicle and backed deeper in the tree cover. The spyder's next move was wholly unexpected. It's shell-like back snapped open and the powerful rotors sprang from their housing. The machine was airborne in an instant. Far from being fooled by the Range Rover's heat source, it ignored it and swooped into the trees, twisting and banking, demonstrating an extraordinary manoeuvrability as it closed on the two men.

  David broke from the cover of the trees and sprinted across the grass with Malone following him while struggling to yank the revolver from his pocket. He freed it from the material, wheeled around and managed to fire a single shot at the diving spyder before the cloud of white gas enveloped him and David. The two men collapsed and lay still.

  The spyder wobbled in mid-air and made a heavy landing. It moved near the two still forms sprawled on the grass and carried out what seemed like a cursory examination by touching them in turn with a manipulator. It appeared to have trouble folding its rotors. It tried extending them again and refolding them but the casing did not close fully. Finally, it seized Malone by the collar and dragged him under the trees, and repeated the process with David before continuing its journey to the Wall and the torrential deluge that was awaiting it Farside.

  Chapter 49.

  TEN MINUTES AFTER THE downpour started, Ellen was forced to do something she hated: accept defeat. It was hopeless trying to keep the outside fire burning. Such was the ferocity of the rain in that terrible storm, it seemed that the atmosphere itself had been turned to a wall of iced water. It was only a matter of minutes
before the water charging through the drainage gullies broke down the sides and swept the sodden remains of the fire away.

  "Useless!" She yelled to Vikki and Claire, gesturing to the hut and having to cup her hands together to be heard above the thunder of the rain drumming on the hut's rapidly tightening hide covering.

  The three drenched, shivering women crowded into the hut, peeled off their clothes, and sat huddled around the hearth, not speaking. Conversation was impossible in that appalling uproar.

  Ellen poked at the fire to expose its hot core. The leaping flames met with Himmler's approval. He had had a bad day. After his meeting with the sabre tooth cat, he had taken a high-speed short cut across the surface of the river and had not returned until late afternoon. His breakfast quota was seriously down on the day and the hunger he was nursing was several notches above his usual ravenous. Unlike the fire, the noise of the rain did not meet with his approval. What was the point of having humans if they didn't keep the sound turned down to an acceptable level or keep his stomach filled? He treated his staff members to a sneer of contempt and crawled under the furs on Vikki's bed in an attempt to escape the racket.

  Claire re-positioned one of the oil lamps and resumed work on the scoop net she was making. She had formed the frame by steaming and bending an ash wand into a loop and tying it to a long, stout handle which she had shaved smooth with one of the flint scrapers. She had even mounted a cross-brace using a neat cross-halving joint. The netting she was dexterously knotting into a coarse mesh was made from an unravelled pullover that had been wound into a ball on a stick. Fortunately the yarn was a tough polyester. She was nearly finished. Ellen and Vikki watched her at work because there was nothing else to do. They had searched the other huts that afternoon in search of a similar device without success. Ellen had concluded that perhaps the fishing net had not been invented yet. While watching Claire at work, she wondered if several strands of the yarn would be strong enough to make a bow. She didn't think arrows would be too difficult to make.

  The rain continued hammering down with unremitting savagery. Ellen allowed her gaze to wander over the interior of the hut. There were some leaks, but they were little more than dribbles that ran down the inside of the covering. The hides themselves had shrunk and were now pulled drum tight over the ivory frames.

  Two hours passed and the rain started to ease slightly although normal conversation was still impossible. Vikki was stretched out on her bed, making a fuss of Himmler. Claire reached the toe of the net's sock and tied the final knots. She gestured to Ellen that the net was finished and offered it for inspection. It was a robust, practical tool. Ellen gave Claire a smile and a thumbs up gesture.

  Vikki sat up suddenly, staring at the hut's fastened door-flap. She slipped off her bed, caught the attention of her companions, and pointed. They both turned and looked at the flap. Vikki knelt beside Ellen and cupped her hands to the older woman's ear.

  "The spyder is outside!"

  "Our erstwhile Rin Tin Tin has returned?"

  "Yes!"

  The rain stopped abruptly. The suddenness of the silence was broken only by the sound of water rushing through the drainage gullies.

  "Thank Christ for that," Claire muttered to no-one in particular.

  "Better let the dog in," said Ellen. She rose from the hearth, unfastened the toggles, and pulled the heavy flap aside. The oil lamps flickered in the draught and the spyder walked into the hut.

  The three woman stared at the machine. It was in a sorry state. The two halves of its shell-like back were partially open and the gap was filled with mud and protruding tufts of grass and twigs. There was a deep gouge in the top of one of the shells. Mud was trapped around its manipulator joints that gave it a stiff gait as it moved. Most remarkable of all was that its light absorbing properties had either been switched off or were not working; for once it was possible to see it clearly, even in the poor light from the oil lamps, and appreciate what an intricate machine it was.

  Ellen was the first to break the silence that greeted its arrival. "Tell Rin Tin Tin," she said to Vikki, "that it's not to shake itself on pain of death."

  The spyder had had a bad time climbing down the slope in the terrible deluge. Normally it would have flown but that was not possible, and its skills with its manipulators had proved of little use if the ground it was trying to secure a purchase on kept getting washed away. At one point a sudden unleashed cataract had thrown it onto its side and it had spent several minutes extricating itself. Negotiating the steep slope had been like crawling down a waterfall and had taken far longer than it had anticipated.

  "They want us to leave," said Vikki.

  "And go where?"

  Vikki concentrated by staring at the spyder. "They won't say. Back to the cave, I suppose."

  Claire looked frightened. "And be found by those hounds?"

  "They say there aren't any hounds now," said Vikki.

  The spyder suddenly made the rattling noise with a manipulator that it had made before to express impatience.

  "We must leave now," said Vikki.

  "No," Ellen firmly. "We need an hour to clear up here. We're going to leave this place exactly as we found it."

  Vikki passed the message and Ellen was rewarded with a furious rattling by the spyder. Ellen sat down on her bed and regarded the machine. "Listen, Rin Tin Tin. You seem to be the product of some sort of highly advanced society, yet you can't communicate with me other than by banging a rattle, just like a baby. That pisses me off no end because it suggests you're not trying. Part of our social code is good manners. Good manners means clearing up this place. You didn't build it, you took advantage of it being here. So did we. So we're going to leave it neat as a pin, just as we found it, and there's nothing you can do about it." She jumped up. "Come on, girls. Housework time. Rin Tin Tin here can watch.”

  The spyder seemed resigned to the situation because it moved out of the way, watching the whirl of activity, contenting itself by making a rattling noise now and then when it considered that things were moving too slowly for its liking, such as Ellen insisting that they do their best to remove all the marks from the furs before rolling them into bundles and hanging them up. Himmler watched with deep misgivings. He knew all about housework and was poised, ready to leg it if a vacuum cleaner appeared. His staff rounded up a few scraps of food for him but they made him eat them outside, and there was nothing like enough to satisfy his gnawing hunger.

  Ellen unrolled the chamois tool kit to check that all the tools were present, that there were no empty loops. She held one of the beautiful antler-handled flint knives for the last time, relishing the touch of the sharp, carefully knapped blade. The tool was a link with her ancestors. It would be so easy to slip it into her pocket, but how could she? How could she, from a world that had everything, take something from these trusting people who had nothing other than what they had made for themselves to ensure their survival? She returned the knife to its rightful place, knotted the toolroll and put it back where she had first found it, hoping that no-one would see her tears.

  It took less than an hour to clean up the hut to her satisfaction. Last job of all was to shake out the woven matting.

  "Right," said Ellen. "Well -- we've done our best but they're sure to know that someone's been here. I think it would be good idea if we left them a present each. Claire -- I'm sure your fishing net, that ball of wool and your torches would be most acceptable. Vikki?"

  The girl thought for a moment and removed a tiny crucifix on a fine gold chain from around her neck. It had been given to Vikki by Malone before they had been incarcerated in the cave. It was one of the few things that he had passed to her from her mother.

  "You don't have to leave that, Vikki," said Ellen gently.

  Vikki shook her head. "I want them to have it. This place saved our lives."

  Claire smiled. "It'll probably drive them mad trying to work out how the chain was made and what it's made of."

  Ellen searche
d through her belongings and realised that she had nothing that would serve as a present. The box of matches wouldn't last even if the hut's owners found out how they worked. Himmler, cradled in Vikki's arms, gave her an idea.

  "How about leaving them that fleabag's collar?"

  Cat and girl resented the epithet.

  "What use would they have for a cat's collar without a cat?" Vikki queried.

  "It's got all sorts of interesting things," Ellen reasoned. "A silver bell. A name and address tag, some elastic, a tiny metal buckle. Those coloured sequin things. I think someone would be very proud to have it as a bracelet."

  "People are always bringing him back because he goes such long distances, searching for food," said Vikki doubtfully. "He'd be lost without his collar."

  "Okay. We leave him complete with collar. He'd make someone a nice pair of gloves."

  Eventually Vikki was persuaded to remove the collar and leave it with the other gifts.

  "Right, Rin Tin Tin," said Ellen briskly. "We're ready." Luckily the clouds were clearing and the moon was breaking through low in the west when they secured the hut's flap and set off up the storm-scoured slope. The climb was hard going -- the rain-loosened turf kept breaking away underfoot. It was not helped by the spyder wanting to take the shortest route rather than the easiest. At one point they even had to help it out of a deep gully. The machine, never very high in Ellen's estimation, sank even lower. Vikki's climb was not helped by Himmler's decision that the best way to make the journey was under her T-shirt with his head stuck out of the neck so that he could supervise the proceedings. She shivered when they climbed up to the spot where she had encountered the sabre tooth cat. Relieved to be on level ground, they followed the spyder to the point where they had first entered Farside.

  As before, it was the sudden change in temperature that told them that they had passed through the Wall. But this time warmth and humidity engulfed them instead of cold. Himmler clawed at Vikki's shoulder as he climbed halfway out of her T-shirt, his nose twitching in all directions before his sensitive olfactory system locked onto the nearby spinney. "Bloody cat!" she wailed in pain, pausing to disentangle Himmler and his claws, and hold him more securely.