A shiver ran up the long spine of the ancient scholar and his mottled hand closed about a crystal tumbler, half-filled upon his desk. Sleep had not touched him in more than a week and could offer nothing to soothe the ache which filled his heart and the very marrow of his bones. The great clock upon the mantelshelf was even now ticking away mankind’s final hours. The prophecies were being fulfilled and the helplessness, to one who knew, but was yet unable to act, was beyond human endurance.
Professor Slocombe raked his hand across the desk and tumbled a stack of magazines to the carpeted floor. Computer Weekly, Softwear Review, Micro Times, Popular Processor: the poison fruits from the new technology’s tree of life. Mankind had finally reached its own level of super incompetence, and made itself obsolete. It had promoted itself into extinction. Uncomprehending, it had made a science out of the thing; established a new order, laid the foundation for a new culture, and ultimately created a god. Or more accurately, aided the reinstatement of one previously superseded. Computer technology had given mankind the opportunity to regress, to cease thinking and in so doing cease to be. Why bother to add? The machine can do it for us. Mankind had been subtly tricked into believing that sophistication was progress. That godhead technology could cure man’s ills at the flick of a switch, or if not that, then after a few more years of further sophistication. Man had lost sight of himself. Darkness was soon to triumph over the light, and the real means of confounding it were fading before the Professor’s eyes. It was progress. Mankind had made so much progress that it no longer had any hope of survival. The miracle of science had become a chamber of horrors.
Somewhere in the dark tower which pierced the Brentford sky, the bleak temple of technology, the dragon lay curled in its lair. Its moment of release drew nigh, and who was there to plunge the sword of truth into its black heart?
The old man drained his glass and refilled it. He watched the gilded pendulum endlessly carving its arc. Where was Holmes? He was to have returned at daybreak, having followed up certain of his own leads, but he was hours overdue. The Professor had put into his keeping certain documents which he felt might hold an ultimate solution; but where was he now? Crowds were gathering in the street and it was an invitation to disaster to venture out of doors.
The sound of rumbling wheels and wild applause drew his eyes once more towards the shuttered windows. Should they choose now to make an assault upon the house the Professor knew he would be powerless to stop them. If ever there was a time to rally the troops beneath the banner of truth, now was definitely it.
At the present time, the Legion of Light was holed up in an outside privy in Moby Dick Terrace. There was more than just a little of the Lost Patrol about these three particular stalwarts.
“Can you see anything?” asked Jim, as Omally put his eye once more to the door’s half-moon.
“I can see a good deal,” the brave Sir Knight replied, “and to be perfectly frank, I like not a bit of it.”
“Let’s have a squint,” said Soap Distant. “And you keep your hands to yourself, Pooley.”
“They’re in my pockets. Have a care where you step, it’s crowded in here.”
Soap’s pink eye rose to the carved crescent. “My God,” said he.
“Not mine,” said John Omally.
Beyond the broken trelliswork which topped the garden fence, the great Festival floats were moving in slow procession. The thin dawn light, now tinting their silhouettes, brought them form and solidity. They were vast, towering to fill the streets, extending outwards within inches of the house walls. But what were they? They had something of the look of great bloated sombre reptiles, with scaled flanks and rudimentary limbs. All gill slits and hulking slabby sides. But they were too large, too daunting, too top-heavy. They did not fit. How many of these monstrosities had already passed and how many more were yet to come? The three men skulking in the evil-smelling dunny chose not to make bets.
Soap tore his eye from the hole with difficulty. Already the terrible compulsion to watch each movement of the swaying behemoths had become all but overwhelming. “What are they?” he gasped, pressing his hands across the hole that he might see no more.
“The work of the Devil.” Omally’s voice, coming from the darkness, put the wind up even himself. “We have to get out of here. At least to the Professor’s, then I don’t know what.”
“A manhole, two gardens up, leads indirectly into a tunnel to his basement.”
“Oh no.” This voice belonged to Jim Pooley. “Down again we do not go. I will take my chances above ground.”
“Well, please yourself. Whatever killed Holmes could not pursue us, it was pretty big. The tunnels hereabouts are small. I shall travel below; you do as you see fit.”
“I think we should stick together,” Omally advised.
“Are you sure it’s safe, Soap?”
“To tell the absolute truth, I’m not too sure of anything any more.”
“Oh doom, oh desolation. Oooh, ooooow!”
“Come on then.” Omally eased open the door, and the three men, one now limping a little and clutching at himself, ducked across the garden and shinned up a dividing fence. Soap’s manhole was overgrown with weeds, which seemed promising. The hollow Earther took a slim crooked tool from his belt and, scraping away the undergrowth, flipped off the cover in a professional manner. “Follow me,” he said, vanishing from sight.
Pooley looked at Omally. “It’s all up and down these days, isn’t it?”
“After you, Jim. I should hate you to have cold feet.”
Muttering and complaining, the blighted billionaire clambered into the hole, followed by Omally, who drew the lid back into place.
Three darting images vanished from the screen of the Lateinos and Romiith computer scan, but already the information had been processed and relayed. No less than three Pooleys and a brace of Omallys were already scaling the garden wall. None of them were wearing carnival hats.
“Come on, lads.” Soap’s voice urged them on from the darkness. “And get a move on, something smells a bit iffy down here.” With hands about each other’s waists, the most unmusical of all conga lines moved along a few short feet beneath the streets of Brentford. The rumble of the heavy floats and the muffled sounds of chanting, coming faintly to them as the duplicates mouthed to the holophonic images pouring into their brains through their minuscule headphones, were anything but cheering.
Soap suddenly came upon a heavy door blocking his way. “There now,” said he.
“Where now, exactly?”
“We’re there.”
“Good man, Soap. Now open up, let’s not waste anytime.”
The sounds of Soap fumbling in his pockets preceded a long and dismal groan. “My keys.”
“Where are your keys, Soap?”
“In my desk, I think.”
A piercing white light illuminated the narrow black corridor. It shone directly on to three terrified faces, which had turned instinctively towards it. From about the light source came the flashing of blue sparks as several lethal handsets energized.
“Get out of the way,” said Omally. “Let me at that lock.” The Irishman squeezed past the pink-eyed man and dropped to his knees. A neat roll of house-breaking implements materialized from a hidden pocket in his waistcoat and were rapidly unfurled.
“John,” said Jim, “I had no idea.”
“They were the daddy’s. Keep out of the light and keep those bastards back somehow.”