Stephen Baxter - The Massacre of Mankind

‘Canals, we call ’em, but that’s our joke – Martians, see – they’re digging gullies between the pits. No water in ’em, however. No idea what they’re for.’

But I saw, inspecting his maps; the Martians were connecting their impact scars with lines and loops to make a sigil of just the kind Walter had discerned in the ’07 landscape, and had predicted now. He was right.

Marriott got out of his chair and stood by me; he smelled faintly of cigar smoke and body odour. ‘Yes, we know this landscape very well, after two years.’

Verity said, ‘And you’ve had the word, have you? You mentioned a “spectacular”coming up tomorrow.’

‘A particular opportunity we spotted. There’s a kind of flood, a dam the Martians created for themselves, where a small charge might do a lot of damage – yes, we’ve had the go-ahead to try it. Don’t do anything without orders, we’re soldiers in here and not a rabble, just as Captain Tolchard left us.’

I broke in, ‘Look – all I’m interested in is Cook. Do you know where he is or not?’

I could see pride and caution war in the man’s small face.

‘Yes,’ he conceded at last. ‘Yes, I know where he is. Tell you something. He’s no friend to mankind, that I can see – from what’s said of him. But at least he’s his own man, I suppose.’ Verity said, ‘Unlike the folk at Abbotsdale, you mean.’

‘Yes – not just sitting around, munching on home-grown spuds and ordering people about. Here ,if you’re comfortable, if you’re well fed, what with the government and the rest cut out of the picture – it suits some folk, doesn’t it? So what if every now and then one of you disappears, plucked as if by some choosy god?’

I faced Marriott. ‘I’m asking again. Will you help me find Cook?’

‘Tell you what – help us tomorrow, and the day after that we’ll get you to Cook. How does that sound?’

I exchanged a glance with Verity. We had no right to demand, I saw. ‘Very well. But help you how? Shall we lug a few boxes of dynamite for you? As Jeff or Toby found out earlier, we’re stronger than we look.’

But Verity put her hand on my arm. ‘No,’ she said firmly.

‘Let’s leave that to the experts.’

We spent a not uncomfortable night at the inn. We two had to share an upstairs room that must once have been let out to travellers; it had its own wash stand, though the taps did not run, and there was a chamber pot under the bed. I slept well enough.

Oddly, in this period of my life I rarely had trouble sleeping.

It was as if I had grown weary of being afraid, if you can imagine it. I saw it in my mother, when she knew she was dying of a lung condition. Nobody can be afraid all the time; it recedes to the back of your head, and your awareness fills up with the stuff of the mundane world, of the day. Besides, the bit of exercise I had had on the bicycle that day had helped wear me out. It is odd that veterans of those years often speak nostalgically of the cleanness of the English air, with human industry all but shut down across swathes of the southern counties.

In the morning, I woke relieved to find that nobody from Abbotsdale had tracked us down – not Frank, not Ted Lane. The scheme was still on, then. Over a breakfast of rabbit and potato, washed down with a decent nettle tea, we learned of Marriott’s plan – and we found that during the night he’d revised it, to include our active participation.

He brought up his maps from the cellar to the inn’s lounge to show us. In fact I had already glimpsed the scene of the action which Marriott indicated now; it was that flooded area I had seen to the west of Amersham. Marriott’s pale bank manager’s finger traced the lines on the map. ‘This is the course of the Misbourne. Very minor, as rivers go; it rises in Great Missenden, here, and flows east-south-east down the valley through the old part of Amersham, and eventually it joins the Colne near the Western Avenue bridge, here. Or it used to.

When the Martians came down on Amersham, all unknowing, they created a kind of dam with the earth their landings threw up.’

I remarked, ‘And we know that the Martians are rather innocent regarding water, which is a lesser element on their world, and long mastered.’

‘You’re right. That’s the intelligence.’ Marriott indicated a pencil shading. ‘The extent comes and goes with the rain and the seasons, but the result of the damming has been a flood, a permanent one, which has reached right back up the valley of the Misbourne, to beyond Little Missenden, here . And here is where the accidental dam lies right across the old river course.’

This was at a village called Mantles Green, near the junction of the Wycombe road, on which our inn stood, and the main road that ran through that part of Amersham towards Uxbridge. Verity nodded. ‘I get it. And that’s where you plan to plant your dynamite.’

‘Not I, but my men… We’ll smash the dam. As you say, Miss Elphinstone, the Martians are innocents when it comes to wild water. That dam has trapped behind it a great weight of water – which has, of course, three times the weight it would have on Mars. I am sure they do not realise the implication, which is why they have left their accidental blockage unguarded and without any deliberate reinforcement. Even though, downstream, squatting in the ruins of Amersham and sprawling east towards Little Chalfont, you have the Martians’ citadel – their headquarters in England, as far as anybody can tell.’ Verity nodded. ‘I can see why you’ve had the approval to proceed. You could indeed do a lot of damage to the Martians,’

and she glanced at ‘Toby’ and ‘Jeff’, ‘while risking not much.’ One of the fellows, the one who had grabbed me, looked offended; the other, a more cheerful sort, blew her a kiss. Marriott said, ‘The Martians are suspicious of any moving vehicle, we know that. But if you take it calm they might not go at you straight away, at least. Which is where you two might be useful.’

Verity snorted. ‘As cover?’

‘Well, it seems to be a fact that the Martians can distinguish between men and women…’

That was true enough, and a puzzle to the scientists who pointed to the sexlessness of the Martians themselves. ‘And they seem to know that an attack is more likely to come from a body of men than of women, or a mixed group.

You’ll be two couples out for a joy ride, you see? Might buy us that bit more time. Especially if you act a bit merry, full of champagne, like…’

That was the scheme. As Marriott went over details with his men, Verity drew me aside.

I murmured, ‘Seems to me we can’t honourably refuse. Not if we want them to help us with Cook. And it’s not actually a bad idea.’

Verity, with more military experience than me, was more sceptical. ‘True. But, stringing along with this pack of idiots, a bank manager and a couple of lecherous pot-men – we’ll do well to get out of this with our skins in one piece. Most likely the only harm we’ll do to the Martians will be if they split their sides laughing at us… Do Martians laugh?’

‘Scientific opinion is divided,’ I said with mock gravity. ‘I’m worried about that dynamite too. Look, just follow my lead…’

Within half an hour they had the cars ready – two of them. And what cars they were! I had been impressed by the Rolls with which Frank had picked me up after my passage under the perimeter. Now I recognised a recent-model Mercedes, and another Rolls, a Silver Ghost. But both these cars had been disfigured by having slabs of iron or steel welded and strapped to the body work, and the front windows had been knocked out and replaced by more steel plate with a fine slit for the driver to see through. And I could see that a box of dynamite had been stashed in the trunk of the Rolls.