How ironic that a body named after Mars should provide the device which lead me to gain such an unprecedented view of our planetary neighbour!
I turned the switch on and off, and I fiddled with the crystal in its aperture, trying to reopen the line of communication. But the window closed as mysteriously as it had opened.
Still, I am too excited to be frustrated. I am certain that the phenomena shall be repeated.
Otherwise, I fear I have a head cold coming on. It may be the turn in the weather. I took a solution of salts in lemon and barley water. Though especially prepared by Mrs H. from her own curative recipe, this concoction served only to exacerbate my condition. I passed an indifferent night, with frequent recourse to the cp and my handkerchief.
September 8: Invasions!
That confounded cold has set in, in my head and chest. The servants have been lax in tending draught-excluders. Or else Signor Galvani’s foreign crew have imported alien bacteria into the household — for which they will be reprimanded. I am known for my good health. These minor ailments do not normally afflict me.
Breakfast — porridge, honey-glazed gammon, courgettes, preserved pears. More of Mrs H.’s vile (and inefficacious) home remedy. It’ll get worse before it gets better, I am assured — which is scarce comfort. I have instructed the housekeeper to dispense with her brews, and procure proper medicine from the chemist’s.
My digestion was incomplete when Flamsteed was impertinently invaded. In my study, making a start on notes for my Marsian Announcement, I became aware of a great ringing on the bell and knocking at the door. My first thought was that barbarians were at the gates. This proved to be the case — though, a singular barbarian, the opprobrious Ogilvy, rather than a horde.
I ventured out into the hallway and found Mrs Huddersfield in the process of calling the stableboy to throw Og off our front step. Much as it would have pleased me to see the inky git tossed into the gravel and given a good kicking, it occurred to me that he should be consulted. Plainly, he had some dim perception of the importance of the crystal egg. It would be best to find out what he knew.
I instructed Mrs H. to let Og into the house. She stood aside and I had momentary pause about my decision. Having run across a superfluity of madmen in recent days, I saw at once that Og was one of their number. His collar was exploded and his cravat tied carelessly. The skirts of his frock coat bore singe marks as if he had jumped through a bonfire. There was a peculiar burned smell about him. He had no eyebrows left and a serious case of the sun. It had been overcast lately and I doubted Og was freshly returned from some tropical adventure.
‘Brandy,’ he insisted. ‘Brandy, for God’s sake, Stent.’
Mrs H. frowned, but I told her to send Polly to fetch decanter of the third-best brandy. No sense in wasting the good stuff on a hysteric. I’ll need it to fight off this cold.
In my study, Og saw the egg, still fitted into the aperture of the new telescope.
‘So you know what it is?’ he exclaimed.
‘Indeed.’
‘A window — a portal — to the Red Planet. Have you seen the Martians?’
‘Marsians,’ I corrected.
‘Their tripod machines? Their firing pit? Their heat devices? Have you determined their purpose, Stent? Their hideous purpose?’
The fellow was ranting, but I expected as much.
‘I have made notes of my findings,’ I told him. ‘I will reveal my conclusions when I am ready to publish.’
‘Publish! Who will there be to typeset, print and bind your conclusions, Stent? Who to read them? Do you hope to amuse our new masters with your book? They don’t seem the types to be great readers, but I suppose you never know…’
Og was laughing, now — bitterly, insanely, irritatingly. Polly arrived, and Og snatched the decanter from her tray. He drew a mighty quaff, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Never the most savoury of characters, he had apparently decided to become a wild Indian.
‘There were four eggs,’ he said. ‘As far as we can tell.’
‘We? Of whom are you speaking?’
‘The Red Planet League,’ he said. ‘What there is left of it. When you took the final egg, we had this telescope delivered to you. I am loathe to admit it, but you are the greatest astronomical mind of the age…’
‘True, true…’
‘…and if anyone has a chance of cracking the egg’s secrets, it is you.’
‘No doubt.’
I fancied I caught a slight smirk from Polly. I told her she could be about her business. She left.
‘It must have been fate that brought you to Cave’s emporium. Cave is dead, by the way. The police report says “spontaneous combustion”, if you can credit it. There has been a rash of such phenomena. Almost an epidemic. Colonel Moran and I had a brush with the heat weapons, two nights back. We were separated afterwards. His nerve snapped. Terrible thing when a brave man’s nerve goes. He’s faced tigers and native rebels and charging elephants, but that flash from the copper tube boiled away all his heart. You saw Moran yesterday, I believe — before they caught up to him.’
‘I saw no one yesterday.’
‘In the Strand, outside Simpson’s. Moran would have seemed, ah, irrational. Lord knows, we all act like cuckoos. With what we have in our heads. It’s only to be expected. A big man, Moran. Red-complected…’
I remembered. The madman who was taken away by the hump-backed policeman.
‘Moran brought me into the League. He’s a big-game hunter and adventurer. He found the first of the eggs, in a temple in India. It was the eye of an idol worshipped by an obscene cult. When the light fell into the temple on certain days of the year, the portal opened and the cultists saw their “gods”. You know what they really saw, Stent. The men of Mars. Those tentacles, those eyes, those mouth parts! Another crystal was looted from the collection of the Emperor of China, carved into a goblet. I would not drink from that goblet for all the tea in its rightful owner’s dominions, would you? A third was found fresh, among the hot fragments of a new-fallen meteorite in the California desert. All these came to the League, and all have been taken — taken back, one might say.’
Og kept glancing at the crystal. I worried that he would snatch it from the telescope and flee the house.
‘This one was sent here, to England. I don’t know how Cave came by it. Dishonestly, I suppose.’
‘It is mine,’ I reminded him. ‘Paid for and bought.’
He wasn’t listening to me. ‘Stent, have they seen you? The portal opens both ways. That we can see them is incidental, an accident, a flaw in the great plan. From the other side, from Mars, they spy us. Spy on us. It’s what the eggs are for. They are taking our measure, making a study. Drawing plans. At first, the meteorites just brought the eggs. It’s only recently that they have come. Just a few, but enough — for their purpose. Across millions of miles of empty space! What explorers they must be, what conquerors! They ready their armada, Stent, their fleet…’
I concede that Og was alarming me. A great deal of what he said struck me as fanciful drivel. Conquerors, indeed — what nonsense, as if creatures without hands or clothing could hope to stand up to the military might of Great Britain! But I worried there were eggs in other hands. Dangerous hands — other scientists eager to ‘scoop’ the Great Stent. If half of what Og said is true, someone else might publish first.
I cannot let that happen.
The doorbell rang. Mrs H. came into the study, and presented a carte de visite.
Colonel Sebastian Moran, Conduit Street.
‘Your comrade in the League has extricated himself from the police,’ I told Og.