New Writings in SF 9 - [Anthology] Read online

  In front of them loomed a high red wall...

  His foot leaped from the accelerator to the brake pedal. And the back started to drift to the right, gathering momentum. He flung the wheel to the left. The impossible red wall hurtled towards them.

  He had driven into the skid too quickly. The car spun— but, spinning, saved them. They missed the wall by inches and came to rest in a ditch, pointing back the way they had come.

  The air in his lungs came out in a shuddering sigh as he saw that Gwen was all right. Her knuckles were white against the seat where she still sat crouched against impact.

  “It’s all right, dear. We missed it. I should have been watching the road.”

  She straightened up.

  “It wasn’t your fault. It was a clear road. Then— then------”

  They were suddenly conscious of the red light filtering into the car.

  “Stay here,” he said. He got out.

  The barrier must have been twenty feet high and stretched across the road, not quite reaching the near side. But on the other it extended beyond, and there, its base no longer on a flat surface, it had tumbled. For it was made of blocks. He crossed the road and picked one up.

  It had a hexagonal section, with a flat top and bottom. About a foot across and in depth, but very light. Each one exactly the same size and shape. Matt red. Some kind of plastic.

  He was aware of the sound of an engine. It stopped. Two figures in blue picked their way round the other end of the barrier.

  “What’s going on here ?” one of them asked.

  “You tell me,” Bryan said grimly.

  The policeman pushed his cap back and scratched his head.

  “We get called out on a few things, but...”

  His mate said, “We were on our way to check on a report by some nut that he had found his house surrounded by a lot of------”

  “That nut was me,” Bryan told him.

  “Name of Dudley ?”

  Bryan nodded.

  The policeman coughed. “Sorry, sir. That was what we thought before we saw this.”

  “Forget it. It’s not people who are going crazy.”

  The policeman gestured to the car. “Are you all right? And the lady?”

  “We’re all right. But I’d like your help to get our car back on the road. On the Framley side of that.”

  The other policeman said, “Easier said than done, sir, I’m afraid. That barrier’s yards thick. We’ll give you a lift into Framley. I’ll report this and they’ll probably get a squad out here to shift it. Thank heaven it’s not on the main road. But we’ll certainly get your car back to town.”

  Bryan shrugged. “All right.” There was nothing else for it.

  He told Gwen and they transferred their bags to the police car. When they got to the hotel he handed his car keys to the police driver. He rang in his firm and told them not to expect him back that day. At least, he started to, but the switchboard girl was too panicky for him to pursue the matter. Five minutes ago a mountain of green had materialized on Keld Industries’ doorstep.

  * * * *

  At six thirty that evening, Bryan was doing his best to be coherent to a B.B.C. television interviewer about the piles of objects that were appearing in and around Framley. The newsmen had latched on to him as being the first to have reported the things.

  “Mr. Dudley—you say that these things aren’t dangerous?”

  “No. I simply said that the object I had analysed wasn’t dangerous.” He had already given that information to the authorities. “That was the first lot, the golden metal things.”

  “And the red plastic cubes?”

  “Hexagons. At least, they had a hexagonal------”

  “Ah, yes.” The interviewer riffled news slips. “We’ve since had reports of pink plastic cubes. No, sorry, they were metal.”

  “The red plastic things seemed harmless. Like a child’s building block, only several times bigger.”

  The interviewer—he wore heavy-rimmed glasses and a bow tie; Bryan had seen him often on television—said:

  “Do you have any idea at all what these things can be?”

  “I’ve told you—no.”

  “But now that you’ve had time to think?”

  “I haven’t had any time at all to think.”

  “Do you think they’re some kind of------”

  And he stopped, in front of several million viewers, just as Bryan had in front of his wife. But now Bryan followed it through.

  “A weapon?” The other flinched. “No, I don’t think so. I’m sure not.”

  The interviewer breathed out in relief. “And why do you say that?”

  “They couldn’t have been dropped from the sky. All the things I’ve seen have been too ... too geometrically placed. More like goods stacked up in a warehouse than weapons.” He had a wild thought. “Like a lot of parcels from Ox-fam.”

  The interviewer seized on the notion. “Gift parcels? Do you think they could be that ?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “It’s an interesting thought. Gifts. But where from ?”

  Bryan was getting ragged. A hectic day was beginning to catch up on him. “How the hell do I know? Some benevolent American manufacturer distributing samples? Some company demonstrating a means of instant transport? God?”

  “God? Are you a churchgoer, Mr. Dudley?”

  Bryan felt a fleeting sympathy for the man. Confronted with the inexplicable, he still went through the motions, the stock questions.

  “God ... any of the gods ... take your pick.”

  “The gods ? Ah, gifts of the gods!”

  * * * *

  And that was the phrase everybody woke up next morning to find spread across the front pages of their newspapers, followed by one or more question marks according to the paper. Everybody, that is, except a large part of the population of Framley itself. For by morning the distribution of anything in the town had become difficult. Through the night the spate of objects had continued. It was like a town cut off by a blizzard. Bryan took one look out of the window and decided, although the police had delivered his car to the hotel within a few hours of the incident of the red shapes, to walk to the office.

  He told Gwen to rest, and set off.

  People were flocking the streets to greet the sudden appearances of the things. Until, as was inevitable, some materialized too close to people for comfort, and then the more timorous fled, having visions of being engulfed in a mountain of blue pyramids or orange cylinders.

  That didn’t happen quite. But, a few hundred yards down the road from the hotel, Bryan witnessed a car meet the fate that he had only just missed the previous day. The crowds were thinner here away from the centre of the town and a frustrated driver had just opened up. He was doing about thirty-five when a multi-coloured wall materialized in front of him.

  Bryan winced as brakes screamed.

  The car ploughed straight into the wall—and emerged on the other side. The reaction came yards beyond it; the car jumped like a nerve and Bryan saw a white face turn back for an instant. For seconds afterwards a rainbow snow settled over the street and its houses. Bryan picked up a piece. It was a helix, gossamer light. But when he tried to pull it apart in his fingers, he found that it was surprisingly tough. He tucked it in his pocket and walked on.

  He got to Keld Industries to find that a narrow way had been cleared through the green mountain. Inside, only a skeleton staff had reported for duty.

  Guest, the manager, summoned him to his office and seemed disappointed when Bryan confessed that he knew little more about the things than anyone else.

  “But you were on television. The only paper I’ve seen this morning has got a picture of you on the front page. You got one of those things analysed, didn’t you? Where did you get that done?”

  Bryan coughed. “That wasn’t difficult.”

  Guest shot him a suspicious glance. “Well, next time at least mention the name of the company.”r />
  “I hope there won’t be a next time,” Bryan told him and went back to his office. But everything was too disrupted to carry on with normal work. Telephone calls from customers and suppliers were all questions about what had happened to Framley and kidding congratulations on his having become a celebrity. At noon he packed up for the day.

  He got back to the hotel to find Gwen with the jitters. The radio was broadcasting a news bulletin as he entered the room. She looked up, relief at seeing him back only retaining for a moment her near panic.

  “Let’s get out! It’s getting worse.”

  “Calm down, dear. It’s not as bad as that. Nobody’s in any danger.”

  “No? Then why are they sending troops in?”

  “Troops ? You must be------”

  “It came over the radio!”

  He took her hand. “Only to help clear the mess. I bet that’s all they’re for.”

  “They’re sending all kinds of experts. They wouldn’t do that unless------”

  “Quiet then. Let me hear.”

  “—repeating the bulletin on Framley.” The news reader cleared his throat.

  “Four days ago, objects started appearing in and around Framley New Town in Sussex. Yesterday they began appearing in larger and more frequent quantities. The first report came from a Mr. Bryan Dudley who------”

  “It’s been terrible with all the reporters. They’ve been------”

  “Please!”

  “—testing stations, and all analyses indicate that none of the objects—and so far thirty-nine different kinds have been reported—is toxic or dangerous in any way. Their appearance is only an inconvenience. Motorists in the area are asked to keep their cars off the road, or—if their journey is absolutely necessary—to drive at no more than five miles per hour, to avoid the risk of collision. No bad accidents have been reported. A milkman, on his round this morning, drove his float into a stack of black objects which materialized in his path. He was taken to hospital suffering from shock, but from nothing worse.

  “Souvenir hunters are warned to keep away from the objects. Several cases of minor injury have been reported from the stacks being disturbed and falling. All steps are being taken to clear the area and to cope with continuing arrivals of the objects.

  “The Leader of the Opposition accused the Government in the House of Commons this morning of, as he put it, ‘running round in circles’ over the incident. The Prime Minister replied that, despite its unusual nature, the incident was under control. Service units had been rushed to the spot------”

  “There you are,” said Gwen accusingly. “What did I tell you?”

  “Quiet!”

  “—into operation. Forklifts from local factories and bulldozers and lorries from the firms engaged in the development of Framley have been commandeered. Every government department has been alerted. The Prime Minister named, as specialists who have started to arrive in Framley: engineers, salvage experts, security agents—anybody whose speciality might be of use in the matter. He named particularly—to laughter and ironical cheers from both sides of the House—crown assessors of treasure trove and customs officers. We asked Mr.------”

  Bryan reached over and switched off the set.

  “Customs men!” He put his arm round his wife’s shoulder. “You see—there’s nothing to fear. I know it’s crazy, what’s happening, but the experts will come up with an answer.”

  She looked at him like a repentant child. “I know I’m being silly. But I’m not the only one. A woman in the next room went into hysterics. They took her away.”

  “Well, you didn’t. And you won’t. Come on down to the bar. I’ll buy my favourite girl a drink.”

  Over whiskies he suddenly remembered the spiral thing he had picked up. He took it out of his pocket.

  “There you are,” he said, holding it up. “There can’t be any danger in things like this.” It shone prismatically. “Make a fine ornament—an earring or something.” He held it out towards her, but she flinched from it. He put it back in his pocket and didn’t mention, as he had intended to, the incident of the crash that hadn’t been. Instead, he said:

  “You know, I’m beginning to think that what I said to that TV chap isn’t so far off the mark. It just came into my head. Afterwards I thought it must have sounded silly. But what else could it be? Somebody’s trying to make contact with us. Somebody------”

  “Who in their right minds would want to send anybody presents like these things ?”

  “I don’t know. Somebody in another world. Another place.”

  “Place ? What kind of place ?”

  “I don’t know. Drink up and have another one.” He signalled to the waiter. “Some place very much different from this, that’s obvious. Going by their choice of gift.”

  “But all these different things?”

  “Well, they wouldn’t know what we would like, would they? They’re just experimenting. That’s it.”

  “In millions?”

  “Perhaps they’re generous people.”

  “People?”

  “All right—creatures.”

  She shivered slightly. “And how will they know when they’ve sent us something useful? Send a squad to check?”

  He was grateful for the waiter’s coming over at that moment. Over fresh drinks he said: “Don’t mind me. Just random thoughts. There’s a better explanation, I’m sure. You see what the experts have to say.”

  * * * *

  But by next morning the only theory the experts had come up with was an amplification of his own surmise. The news bulletin gave the recorded voice of some space expert who said that the objects were obviously the products of a superior science to our own, as was the means of their transportation here. It was possible that a race on some other star system had found a means of matter transmission. But it was more likely that the race existed very close to Earth—invisible to us in another dimension. The speaker hailed with enthusiasm the fact that the human race at last knew of the existence of another intelligent species in the universe. One obviously benevolent, however alien. Contact had been made. It now remained to Earth scientists to discover the nature of the link. Then perhaps we could return the compliment.

  He smiled at Gwen a trifle smugly.

  “What Dudley says today ...”

  Gwen smiled wanly. “All right, Bryan. But it’s still crazy. Let’s get out of Framley.”

  “I can’t, honey. I’ve got my job to do.”

  “But you told me yesterday that you couldn’t get on with anything.”

  “That was yesterday. Things will get back to normal.”

  He hadn’t got very far on his walk to the office before feeling that normality was receding at an ever-increasing rate. Many more stacks of things had appeared. Battalions of men were working at removing them into queues of lorries. Many of the men were in uniform. On the outskirts he saw something which was more disturbing. Troops were arguing with the burly civilian driver of a lorry—and they were armed. The lorry was half-filled with a multi-coloured freight.

  Bryan saw the name on its side as he passed: Barney Lee, Scrap Merchant, 633 Tortobello Road, London W.n. The sight of the homely, rough-painted letters served to dispel his disquiet at seeing armed troops. The profit motive might not be the worthiest of human characteristics, but its appearance here was a welcome aspect of normality. The troops would stop arguing when they realized that scrap merchants could only help the process of trying to keep Framley clear before the tide.

  It even had its humorous aspects. It was ironical, certainly, that this should have happened in a half-completed new town. If it had been a weapon—a nuisance weapon— whoever used it couldn’t have picked a better site for maximum effect.

  He was within sight of the works gates before the full implication hit him. He stopped in his tracks. Then he turned about and hurried back to the hotel.

  Gwen was still in a dressing-gown.

  “Come on,” he told her. “We are getting
out—and quick.”

  “Thank heaven! But what’s happened? What’s made you change your mind?”

  “Just get your clothes on and get packed. I’ll explain as soon as we get clear.”

  * * * *

  It was like a slowed-up sequence in a nightmare, getting out of the town. They had not gone far before he had to back and take a side road. That petered out into mud, where contractors had cleared the first earth for a connecting road. Bryan took the car through it, only to come up against a pile of violet things standing athwart what there was of road. He gritted his teeth and sent the car bumping over the countryside.