‘Yes… it was certainly a monster.’ Just then the animal gave a final croak and hopped back into the water. There was a slight plop!and the thing swam away. Dick felt his flesh creep. He was wondering what further horror might suddenly appear.
He found he was shivering — the water seemed to be ice cold. He tried crawling, and found that he could make slow, though extremely painful, progress towards the shore. The naked mud was only a few feet away, but he could only move an inch or so at a time. Gasping, he asked Pentecue if he was in the water too.
‘Just mud, I think.’
‘Good.’ Dick thought: ‘If we don’t get out of here soon we might get serious radiation sickness.’ He wondered how much of the water he had swallowed before he came round.
As if by thought transference, Pentecue said: ‘Do you think we’re in much danger here? From gamma rays, or whatever it is?’ Dick hadn’t described the frog, but Pentecue was no fool. ‘I gather your frog was a mutation case.’
‘Yes, no doubt. Well, I’ve been trying to work out the likely dose-rate. At a very rough guess I’d say we’re getting something like 20 roentgens an hour, which isn’t too bad, as long as we get out of here in reasonable time. I don’t know anything about the life-cycle of the frog, but the animal — if you could call it an animal — that I saw is probably a first generation from eggs that were contaminated for as long as they took to hatch; so of course they would have got a terrific dose.’ There was only a yard or so separating him from the naked mud now.
Pentecue said: ‘I once saw a film about an ant — or some insect, anyway — that was about six times the size of a man. But the point was, it didn’t really horrify you because it still looked like an ant. What did your frog look like?’
‘A nightmare. Listen! Can you hear something?’
They both listened intently for a moment. Pentecue let out an exclamation. ‘It’s a chopper!’ Then: ‘He’ll never find us in this gully.’
‘Yes he will! He’s got a searchlight. Look!’
‘They’re taking an awful long time,’ said Ed Springle. He was surprisingly calm now, no longer playing the part of the musical-comedy father-to-be.
‘This is one thing you can’t hurry!’ said Angela. She felt tired and anxious, thinking more of that poor boy in the helicopter than she was of the routine birth of a baby. Ed didn’t know, she guessed; and she certainly had no intention of telling him just now.
A nurse came out of the delivery room, and Ed half rose in his chair. But, to the surprise of both of them, she signalled to Angela. ‘Can I have a word with you, Mrs Seff?’
Ed was hurt and surprised, but he didn’t say anything. Angela gave him a reassuring smile, then followed the nurse through to an office adjoining the theatre. The door swung to behind them. ‘Would you wait here a moment, Mrs Self?’ she said, with a sort of forced brightness. ‘The obstetrician would like a word with you.’ The nurse was gone before Angela could say anything. She had to wait nearly ten minutes in that little room before the doctor appeared. When he did his expression puzzled her.
He came straight to the point. ‘You are a close friend of the Springles, Mrs Seff?’
‘Yes. But—’
‘Do you happen to know whether there has been anything… unusual… about their relatives — on either side?’
‘Not that I know of. Won’t you please come to the point?’
‘Mrs Seff, I’m telling you in advance, because I think the Springles are going to need their friends to help them to face up to things.’
Angela waited breathlessly. ‘Yes?’
‘I’m afraid the baby may be totally blind.’ He let her digest this, then went on: ‘We don’t know for certain yet, but I’m afraid—’
She cut in. ‘But the child is… normal… in every other respect?’
He smiled. ‘Oh yes! A very beautiful boy.’
Angela sat down abruptly. ‘Blindness is bad enough. But for a moment I thought you might have meant something even worse.’
‘Why, Mrs Seff?’
‘Well, my husband—’ The doctor seemed to be angry about something, and she found herself stumbling over the words. ‘My husband is a scientist. He sometimes talks about… mutation, or something. I don’t know.’
‘And Mr Springle? Is he also a scientist?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘Has he been in contact with radiation?’ He was indeed grim.
‘I think he used to mine for uranium, way back when he lived in South Africa. Then he worked at Marsdowne.’
‘Oh, Marsdowne. Where all the trouble is.’ He handed her a cigarette, and saw her hands were trembling. So were his — with a suppressed rage. He lit the cigarette. ‘So of course he was exposed to radiation up there.’
‘I think he was, yes.’
‘And what about Mrs Springle? The mother? What about her?’
‘She never went to Marsdowne. Not the works, I mean. They sometimes stay up at Glennaverley, though.’
‘I see. And did you hear the wireless a few minutes ago? When they announced the fact that contaminated milk had been in circulation?’
‘The milk?’
‘Yes, Mrs Seff. The milk. Apparently at certain periods the milk at Glennaverley contained a significant concentration of caesium-137. And the effect of radio-caesium is to spread uniformly throughout the body and subject it to gamma rays. Naturally the uterus would take its fair share. In my opinion we should consider ourselves lucky that the infant has a whole body. Nevertheless, the blindness is tragic enough — the more so because it needn’t have happened. I only wish people would stop mucking about with things they don’t understand.’ His lips were a thin, straight line as he tipped his head back slightly in an unconsciously defiant posture. ‘Perhaps this might serve as a warning to your scientists. They’ve started something they can’t stop, so they’d better learn how to control it.’
Angela stood up a little unsteadily. This was one of the few occasions in her life when she had actually felt tired. ‘I think I understand how you feel, doctor,’ she said. ‘But whatever you may feel about scientists, it isn’t going to help Mrs Springle now, is it?’
The man relaxed a little. ‘I’m sorry. I just had to yell at someone. It was unfair and futile and probably proves I’m a very bad doctor.’
Angela said: ‘I understand.’ He was opening the door for her, but she paused at the threshold, adding: ‘You know, their love is something really special. And that baby means everything to them. I don’t know how they’re going to take this.’
They were in the passage-way now, and Angela could see Ed through the glass doors. The doctor turned the light out in the little office and shut the door, smiling at her. ‘Then you don’t need to worry,’ he said. ‘If there’s plenty of love, it will carry them through. You go away now and come back in the morning.’ He rested an arm on her shoulder… ‘Things won’t seem so bad when the sun comes up.’
‘You’ve had too much to drink!’ said the girl to Manson.
He tried to laugh, but it was a rough, ugly sound. ‘Is that bad?’
‘It’s not good. Not with your type.’
He tried to paw her, but she pushed his arm away. She was pretty drunk, too, but not drunk enough to want to be messed around by this ham-handed creature. ‘And what’s ‘my type’?’ he asked, persisting with his attentions and apparently unaware of her distaste for him. She didn’t answer the question, so he thought another drink might help. She took it gracelessly, in the manner in which it was offered.
Eventually she said: ‘Get a girl tight, and then try to take her home, I suppose. That the routine?’