Clive Bedford - Mistress of torment

But Gerry awoke at the sound of Sonia's voice, bright, alert, excited.

"Gerry! Gerry! Wake up! Something's happened?"

He sat up with an effort. Lack of exercise had left him stiff and weak.

"What do you mean? What's happened?"

"I don't know. But about an hour ago I suddenly had this feeling. Oh, Gerry, I'm me again!" She fell over Gerry, almost smothering him, and began to cry.

"Unstrap my hands, Sonia, for Pete's sake!" She roused herself to release him. He bent forward and took the hobble off his legs. Then he put his arms around Sonia and held her. "Where's the guard?" he asked.

"There isn't one! Gerry, there isn't anyone! I can't find them. And they've stopped whatever they were doing to me! Look at me!"

Gerry did. Once more Sonia was the sweet companion with whom he had entered into danger for a cause greater than either of them. Her eyes were soft and tender; her cheeks stained with tears. He held her tight, trying to come to grips with the situation.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Yes. About an hour ago I was sitting – I have spent most of my time just sitting, Gerry. I was waiting for the signal to… to come… when suddenly, just like that, something seemed to clear in my mind. I got up, opened the door and crept out. Gerry, I've been almost all over the ship – and they've all gone! There's no one about that I can find. The only place I know where I haven't been is Gulda's office, and the door's locked."

"We'll have to get out of here, fast!" said Gerry, but he did not move. It was so long since he had been called upon to make any decision for himself that he was inhibited. "They may come back."

At last they got up and stumbled along corridor and down stairways until at last, by accident they came to the door of Gulda's office.

Gerry stood silent for a moment, listening. He thought he could hear moaning. He tapped on the door, tried the buzzer, but got no response.

Sonia said, "I was here once when the power was cut off for a few minutes. One of the guards opened a little door up there and took out some kind of key."

Gerry found the tiny closet, took out the metal rod and inserted it into a hole in the door, which slid wide open. The light seemed dimmer than usual, but a the two crept into the room, they could see a recumbent form lying on the couch and hear a kind of sobbing moan. They went nearer and saw that it was Gulda. She turned at a sound and stared at them, her eyes wild. She made no effort to sit up.

"I am ill," she said, her voice cracked. "I am ill. My skin burns; my head is bursting… Help me…"

Gerry looked at her coldly. "I guess she's dying," he said.

Sonia clung to him. "What is it?" she whispered, although there was no one to over-hear.

Gerry laughed, a short, harsh laugh shorn of humor. "Bacteria!" he said.

"Bacteria?"

"Yes, mankind, that proud creature of creation has been saved at the eleventh hour by the smallest and most despised things on Earth. She's got influenza, or something very like it! And I'll bet that's what has happened to the others." He began to move away toward the door.

"We can't leave her alone to die," said Sonia, softly.

"Why not? We don't owe her anything!"

"She looks so, lost, so bewildered… poor thing…"

So the two of them sat in Gulda's room for almost two hours, while she died. Sonia found water and did what she could to ease the proud and powerful Andromedans last minutes. But she did not understand, nor show any appreciation until, toward the end she stopped moaning for a moment and, with a great effort, said, "I wish I knew what this love was…" A few minutes later Gulda sighed deeply and stopped breathing.

The recovery is something we all know about from personal experience. It was several years before any really concerted effort was possible, but then we began to rebuild our world. It isn't a "brave new world", as old-time humanists like Wells envisaged. In many ways it is no better than the old one; in some ways it is not nearly as good. But there is hope in one direction, because we are no longer tensed, waiting to leap at one another's throats. There's the over-riding fear now of another invasion from Outer Space. We are not by any means sure that the Andromedan invasion was the whole force, or merely a skirmish in strength. We watch, and we wait… and we don't dare start fighting one another. So, some good came out of it all in the end.

As for our two young friends, well they got out of the deserted space ship which lay, an empty hulk near the edge of Ashdown Forest, not far from the village of Sevenoaks in Kent. And they made their way by slow stages to London, traveling two-hundred miles on foot to make a thirty mile journey, trying to avoid the worst centers of turmoil. And, at last, in an underground shelter deep under Highgate Hill they came face to face once more with Chief Inspector Dodds. He looked twenty years older than when Gerry had seen him last, tired and white-faced, but every inch alive, vibrant, full of energy. He welcomed them both and put them to work.

About two years later, a chemist working on all that the Andromedans had abandoned, trying, with the physicists, mathematicians and others to rescue what could be rescued from the highly advanced technology of the Andromedans, discovered, quite by accident, a way of removing those metallic chastity belts. He was using a very weak acid, and spilt some on a table-top covered with the material. As he watched, the metallic plastic split and curled up. Gerry was not the only one to be glad of the discovery. Sonia also was among the thousands of people who were restored to the possibility of a normal sex-life.

Sonia and Gerry were much together during those days. In fact, purely for convenience, in view of the universal shortages of food, fuel and other essentials, they lived together in two small rooms. But they bad no sexual relationship. Their mutual affection was strong, but love seemed to have died somewhere in the belly of that great space ship. They both had a hard fight against shame and self-disgust, even though both were innocent parties.

But one evening after work, with a simple and not very adequate meal inside them, they huddled in front of a tiny wood-fired stove which they allowed themselves for a couple of hours each night in the depth of winter, in the darkness except for the glow of the front of the stove, Sonia put her hand in Gerry's and whispered, "We didn't get far with founding a new race of Andromedans, Gerry. Do you think we could do better with a new race of men?"

Gerry gripped that tiny hand hard in his own. For a fleeting moment he felt a spasm of regret for all that might have been; for the joy of youth and irresponsibility; for careless rapture and the days of wine and roses; for innocence and virginity gone forever. Then he drew himself together. Life had to be lived. It was hard and real; there was so much to do, so few people to do it. The penis that began to throb at his loins was no longer that of a youth, overeager, callow, inexperienced. This was the organ of a man that began to demand its just dues!

He sighed. "The fire's beginning to go out," he said at last, rising to his feet. "Come to bed, darling. Someone's got to keep the flames burning…"