XXVII

 

 

Rory Dunstable had hoped not to see this road again for at least three weeks; he was on leave and intended to spend his free time water-skiing and skin diving in the Channel Islands. Late last night he had been stowing all his gear in the car, ready for an early start this morning. There was a girl, working through the summer as a hostess in a Guernsey discothèque. …

But she was going to be extremely disappointed today, and possibly tomorrow as well. What he had seen when he went around to the local newsagents to pick up the morning papers had sent him running for the car.

Every now and again he swore at the air, his car racing at the legal limit down the broad eastward highway towards Brindown.

 

“Gone?” Tom echoed stupidly, and thrust in behind Innis to survey the constant-temperature room.

“You find it!” Innis said savagely, tearing off his helmet. He stepped back, and his booted foot encountered something lying on the floor. He glanced at it, and started.

“That’s the grille of the ventilation pipe!” he exclaimed. He dropped on one knee and groped under the lowest shelf.

“Of course, ws never thought of that,” Netta sighed. “In its plastic state, just after changing, it could sort of pour itself down a pipe like that!”

Tom snapped his fingers. “But this means the creature is even more dangerous than we thought. It must be able to remember and reason even while it’s going through the change process. It must have wanted to get away as soon as possible; it must have realized directly I walked in and found it that its escape would be blocked by the corridor route, and figured out that it could get down that pipe while it was still—well, as I said, still a puddle!”

“How could a puddle tear loose that grille?” Innis demanded. “Mr. Neville made quite sure it was anchored.”

“It didn’t tear it loose. It—well—it digested it loose.” Tom held the metal mesh up; the ends of the bars were scarred with the marks of acid.

“So we’ve lost it back to the sea,” Innis muttered. “Now there’s no knowing what innocent person may fall victim to it next time it needs to feed and change.”

“No, we haven’t,” Netta said.

“What?” Innis blinked at her. “But that pipe leads out over the water—has to, to keep the air in here humid.”

“Not any longer,” Netta said. “At least not over the sea. It leads to the dolphin pens!”

“After it, then!” Innis snapped, and led them in a rush down the corridor.

 

A little uncertain, Rory drew his car in alongside the Hermetic Tradition’s van. He recognized it—it was known to everyone in the pop music industry—and was at a loss to know why it should be here. Then he recalled the vague mention he had heard, during the discussions he had eavesdropped on between Tom and Netta while they were arguing about the curious fish-thing brought in from Organic Acids, of a visit by the group to this part of the country.

He got out, went through the gate, and called out for the Reedwalls or Dr. Innis. Not hearing a reply, he walked right through the station until he rounded the corner of one of the largest buildings and suddenly saw not only the staff scientists, but also Bruno’s group, gathered on the edge of a large water-filled pit rimmed with concrete like an overgrown swimming pool.

He called out again. They turned around, and by the looks on their faces Bruno and Gideon, who knew him from their visits to Radio Jolly Roger, were astonished to see him here. Muttering greetings to them, he went directly over to Innis.

“Sir, I think I probably owe you an apology,” he said.

“What?” Innis glanced at him, preoccupied.

“Yes.” Rory sounded as depressed as he felt. “I was at a party last night, and I got talking to someone I didn’t know, and—well, I was a bit drunk, to be honest. And he was interested in fishing, and I started talking more freely than I should have done. And I see from this morning’s papers that something has got out about this thing you have here.”

“Now which of us was right about that ‘bloody reporter’?” Gideon muttered, nudging Glenn, who scowled but held his tongue.

Rory had expected Innis to fly off the handle, but instead the elderly scientist merely sighed. “That’s not the only thing that’s got out,” he muttered. “Look down there and you’ll see the things as they are in life instead of laid out on a dissecting table!”

With an awful sensation as though he had just been pitched into a bottomless chasm, Rory turned his attention for the first time to the water in the dolphin pens and there saw, feebly swimming about, two weird creatures like enormously elongated men, as though one were to take a human body and try to force it to resemble an eel.

Swallowing hard as he stared at the appalling deformed beasts, he said, “But I thought they actually copied people!”

“They’re cleverer than that,” Innis said somberly. “The only way those two could get out of where we’d imprisoned the—the parent one was down a narrow pipe. And it, or they, gambled on getting away. They didn’t quite make it. But all that stopped them was the lucky chance that the final phase of their transformation came too soon, while they were still compelled to stay slender enough to pass through the pipe. Otherwise no doubt they’d have come out as perfect as the other copies.”

“I think they’re getting stronger,” Netta said nervously. “I told Tom right at the start I suspected the change was terribly fast. If we leave them much longer they’ll be strong enough to climb out.”

“We’ll have to trap them, then,” Tom said.

“How? They’re probably as clever as we are by now, having absorbed not just old Miss Beeding’s crazy thoughts but Stevens’s and now Sam’s as well.” Netta gulped, as though talking rationally of Fletcher’s fearful fate were still beyond her powers of self-control.

“Nets, I suppose,” Tom shrugged.

“But you can’t net them if they stay in the middle of the pool, and if you wait until they’re fully recovered they maybe able to break free and run for it!”

“So we tackle them before they’re fully recovered,” Tom snapped. “Go fetch my scuba kit, quickly!”

“Darling, you—!” Netta paled.

“I’ll tackle the other one,” Rory said. “I have my scuba in the car. And I’m pretty good at this, though I say it myself.”

Innis stepped up between them. “Dr. Reedwall, are you sure you want to do this? Remember, those creatures probably have some of their aquatic memories, too—they’ll be far more at home in the water than you are.”

“Short of poisoning the pool, what else do you suggest?” Tom rapped. “We have four husky young men to help us hold them once we get them out of the water, and drag them back where they came from—we ought to manage it okay. But if we delay too long, they’ll have completely got over the change process. Someone go find some nets for us! Someone block off the outlet of that pipe to stop them trying the same trick twice!”

He was stripping off his shirt as he spoke.

 

Once the decision was taken, the rest of them forgot their doubts. While Tom and Rory were putting on their scuba gear, watched from the body of the dolphin pen by the two weak but wary shapechangers, Netta took the others briskly in charge, directing Sellers to fetch nets from the shed on the wharf where they were kept—tough webs of green nylon far stronger than a man could tear apart—while the others hunted for wire, hammers, staples, and anything else that might serve to block the end of the ventilation pipe. It was difficult to reach from the side of the pool, but it could be done.

“They must have been too soft to stand up,” Netta said with grim humor. “Otherwise they’d never have needed to fall into the water at all!”

When the moment came, the watchers were so tense they hardly dared breathe, but Tom was perfectly matter-of-fact as he dropped over the side of the pool, legs together, net in one hand and a trident harpoon in the other. Sensing, or calculating, what was to be done, the shapechangers had swum to the far end from where the watchers were assembled.

“You, young fellow—you’ve got a good reach on you!” Innis rapped at Gideon. “Find a pole or something, and if they try to climb out beat ’em back! I’ve just noticed something that may make all the difference! They’re staying at the surface, aren’t they? They must have fixed themselves in the air-breathing phase. If they try to breathe water again they may even drown themselves!”

“Yes, of course!” Netta exclaimed, showing the first hint of cheerfulness she had managed since Tom announced his intention of going into the pool after the creatures. “Their memories must be short from one phase to the next, mustn’t they? They wouldn’t want to start behaving like sharks when they were pretending to be halibut!”

Gideon had taken station at the far side of the pool, armed with a long metal pipe. He gestured at the creatures in the water as though shooing geese, and shouted. Startled, they darted back, and at the same moment Rory joined Tom in the water.

Staring down at the creatures she had called, on the spur of the moment, shapechangers, Netta dug her nails into her palms. It would have been bad enough watching a contest like this without Tom being involved; with him down there, she hardly knew whether to shut her eyes or hold them open with her fingers so as not to miss a single movement.

Like aquatic gladiators, nets spreading out in the water, Rory and Tom closed on their quarry. Without having to consult about it, they hit on the best course immediately: to try and separate them into opposite halves of the pool. Tom feinted with his harpoon at the nearer creature, and it darted back. Rory copied him, and his darted in the same direction. For a while there was only that silent maneuvering, like the opening of a chess game where each player warily forestalls his opponent’s traps.

Suddenly, without warning, one of the creatures plunged at Rory. He spun in the water and thrust out his harpoon. The creature’s flesh seemed to absorb it, shedding no blood, and its vastly elongated arms encircled him, seeking to pull off his breathing mask. He stabbed vainly, again and again, and without effect.

Meantime Tom seized his chance and dived headfirst at the other creature. At the last moment before collision, he swerved aside like a matador and left his net in the creature’s path. The instant there was contact, he kicked frantically toward the bottom, dragging the creature with him. Its limbs hampered by the net, he calculated that it stood no chance of drawing him to the surface, and if he held it under long enough, breathing with his mask, it must either drown or risk the change to a water-breathing phase, which would trap it effectively anyway, here in the dolphin pen.

Turning, triumphant, he saw with horror that Rory was in difficulties. For a single heartbeat he came close to letting go the net he clutched. Then reason prevailed. He could not go to the rescue for fear of releasing his own captive, and then it in turn might attack him.

Alarmed, he saw how the creature clawing at Rory was managing to turn the tables, dragging him toward the side of the pool, its eel-thin legs flailing the water well out of reach of Rory’s and much more powerful.

Then, suddenly, the creature stiffened and jerked like a frog’s leg on a galvanic plate, and Rory seized his chance. He broke free and frantically tangled his own net around the creature, leaving it to flail around while he stood off out of reach and discouraged its attempts to grab him again with jabs of his trident.

Tom strained to see what had saved Rory’s bacon, and suddenly recognized it, lying on the bottom: the length of pipe Gideon had taken in hand, hurled down like a javelin the instant the creature broke the surface.

After that, it was a matter of waiting. Within five minutes, the churning and thrashing in the nets ceased, and with an exchange of nods he and Rory swam with their captives to the side of the pool, where Sellers and the members of the Hermetic Tradition seized them, dragged them out, and carted them off to be locked up again in the prison from which they had so brilliantly escaped. And this time the exit to the pool was sealed.

 

They were still busy with compliments and congratulations, Netta kissing Tom with shining eyes, Rory trying to make Gideon accept proper thanks in face of a barrage of shrugs and half-embarrassed disclaimers, when there was the noise of another car approaching. Around the corner Chief Inspector Neville appeared, face like thunder, calling loudly for Dr. Innis.

Innis hurried over to him, while the others fell silent one by one and wondered what could have happened. Half under her breath, Netta said, “I never thought—oh, God! If the one we had here needed to eat and change this morning, then someone else must have been taken, by the one which is still at large!”

They hastened to join Innis and Neville, demanding to know whether there had indeed been another victim.

“Another victim?” Neville snapped. “Me! That’s all! I’ve been arguing with the Chief Constable since half-past eight, because I called out the army and laid on road blocks yesterday! I’m going to be carpeted, the search has been cut back to the kind of level you’d lay on for—for a stolen car, damn it! They’ve sent the army home, there’s going to be an inquiry—Christ, it makes me sick. The pompous, block-headed, nit-witted old idiot!”

“But they mustn’t!” Innis exclaimed. “We’ve had a casualty this morning—one of our staff came in without being told what was locked up in the constant-temperature room, and …” His voice trailed away.

“Has anyone else been reported missing yet?” Netta cried.

“That’s the whole bloody point, isn’t it?” Neville said savagely. “Someone gone missing the old fool might understand, but there just isn’t room in his head for the idea of there being too many people! He thinks I’m crazy. And in the meantime that monster can roam loose all over the county!”