Stephen Baxter - The Massacre of Mankind

‘Unearthly,’ I said aloud.

‘Indeed,’ Frank replied. He reached down a hand. ‘You’d better come out of there.’

When I stood up, I felt oddly giddy, I gasped for breath, and was grateful for his hand as I stepped back up onto the bridge.

Frank said, ‘It’s different when you see it on the ground, isn’t it? The Vicar I mentioned fancies himself as something of a naturalist. Once he collected beetles, he told me.’

I smiled, though I still felt queasy. ‘A follower of Darwin, then.’

‘Now he has widened his field of study. Where the Martian plants grow, he says, the red creepers and the weed, our native flora and fauna cannot compete. The green plants that once colonised this river bed, and on land the earthworms and the ladybirds and the flies and the spiders, and the birds who used to feed on them – all dying back. We are seeing extinction in action, he says. He references a French fellow named Cuvier, which means little to me. For all the strutting of the fighting-machines and the sinister shadows of their flyers, this is the real stranglehold that Mars is imposing on the earth.’

I took deep breaths. ‘And the air? Why is it I feel as if I’ve run an Olympic steeplechase?’

‘I’ve done some study on that myself, after my surgery was plagued by patients who complained of breathlessness after working the river-bed fields.’

‘What river-bed fields?’

Ted Lane looked down the shallow valley of this stream. ‘Perhaps like those.’

Glancing that way, I made out a number of figures toiling in the mud or the shallow water, perhaps a quarter-mile away. I thought some were soldiers, from the baggy clothes they wore and a faint sense of discipline about them – and the fact that one or two of their number did not work but strolled about watching the work of others, as NCOs and officers will. But there were other, more enigmatic forms among them – different sorts of people, I thought, a taller, slender sort, and a squat, hunched-over variety whose bent backs appeared to bristle with hair. The oddest thing about those fellows, dimly glimpsed from a distance, was that they didn’t seem to be wearing clothes at all… Curiosity sparked in me, even as a lingering sense of unreality deepened. After the tunnel, the whole day was like a dream.

Frank was still speaking, rather dully, of the changes in the air. ‘I’m no scientist, but I’ve done some simple tests. Schoolboy chemistry stuff – you know. Over the weed, where it is densest anyhow, the composition of the air differs from the norm of the atmosphere. I suspect the Martian plants are in fact removing the dominant components of our air, that is the nitrogen and oxygen, leaving an apparent excess of the rest: water vapour and carbon dioxide and so on. Also I suspect there’s a higher concentration of argon – as Rayleigh determined, argon is the next significant component in our air – but I’d need a more sophisticated chemistry set than I’ve been able to scramble together to establish that.

‘It’s a steady sequestration. I believe the nitrogen and oxygen are being fixed in some compound in the weeds’ root system, deep underground, just as some of our own plants will fix nitrogen. Whatever other purpose the weed serves – and both sorts of Martian folk can eat the weed, even if we can’t – it’s a pretty efficient air extractor! And if you imagine that action scaled up to a field, or a few acres, or square miles…’

I looked at him. ‘Martian folk? Both sorts? What Martian folk?’

Frank pointed downstream to the working party. ‘Let me show you.’

We made our way in that direction.

Of course it was the soldiers Ted was most interested in speaking to, and never mind Martian exotica; we had to take a short detour and meet them. And of all the sights I might have expected to see in this confiscated corner of England, I would never have guessed at German soldiers tending potatoes.

It was all rather gentlemanly. One of the chaps strolling around inspecting the others’ work turned out to be senior, though like the rest he wore a shapeless straw hat, shirtsleeves, and trousers with braces. As Frank introduced us he shook my hand, and Ted Lane’s. ‘Newcomers, eh? Welcome to the madhouse. I’m Bob Fairfield, Lieutenant-Colonel if it makes a difference any more.’ He eyed me with open speculation, and my dusty state, and I wondered what he knew of my mission – ether the cover story or the true purpose. Uneasily I began to realise that I had no idea who I could trust here.

Ted, meanwhile, stood to attention and snapped out a salute. ‘Sorry, sir.’

‘Oh, at ease, Sergeant.’ Fairfield glanced at his toiling troops, earthing up rows of potato plants with rusty spades, who looked upon us with a kind of resentful curiosity. ‘Two years it’s been since the great Martian curtain came down and trapped us all in here. We must keep up discipline; I’ve always been convinced it’s the best way for the men – and as you can see, there’s plenty of work to be done. After two years we’ve long since exhausted the bully beef and beans we brought with us, and we must make do with what we can grow. I can always use an enthusiastic NCO, if you’re up for it.’

Ted glared at the privates, who looked back at him, mudstreaked and sweating and resentful. Ted grinned. ‘It’ll be a pleasure, sir.’

‘Meanwhile let me introduce you to my colleague. I’m sure it’s well known outside that a number of Germans, fighting alongside us against the Martians, were trapped in here too. Damn good allies they were during the battle, and damn good companions they’ve proved in this big green prison camp. Their most senior officer is a Feldwebelleutnant Schwesig. Let’s see if I can find him…’

They strolled off among the toiling men. Beyond this riverbottom field I could clearly see those others that I had seen before, the tall skinny ones, the squat hairy ones.

Frank was more interested in the potatoes. ‘Actually it was my idea. Or rather Mildred Tritton’s, and I took it to Fairfield and the rest.’

‘Mildred?’

‘Local farmer. Absolute brick; you’ll meet her soon enough. We tried to get ourselves organised from the beginning, you know. The loss of the electricity and the telephones hit us on the first night; grub was the issue by the end of the first week. So we dug old ploughshares and the like out from the back of barns, and set to work opening up fields that hadn’t been ploughed for twenty or thirty years. All back-breaking labour without machinery, of course, and we had a lack of horses too, but we got it done, and the soldier boys were a pool of muscle that needed application. We resurrected other old skills as the months went by. We had to mend our clothes because we couldn’t buy new. Some of the old dears remembered local cottage industries like straw-plaiting, and now you’ll see English privates in straw hats like Chinese coolies. As for medicine, we’ve had drops of supplies of antibiotics and various drugs, and splints and bandages and the like. Anyhow that was how we got through the first year, with stores, and hard work, and good will.’

‘And the Martians just let you do all this? Play Old MacDonald at the feet of the fighting-machines?’

He gave me an oddly furtive look – a look I would quickly come to recognise in the Cordon. ‘If they’re certain we are doing them no harm they let us be. We’re survivors, Julie. Not warriors.’

‘I’m not here to judge, Frank.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘And what of the potatoes in the river bed?’

‘A challenge of the second year. Just when we were getting somewhere with the field clearances and such, the rivers started drying up. Look – you can see how the Martian weed is choking the stream, using up all the surface water. Bad news for us and our animals, of course.