“Petra…”Jan hesitated. “In case we don’t get another chance to talk, I’d like to say…What I mean is…”
“I already know what you mean,” Petra said, keeping her voice calm, resolutely thrusting aside her natural fears. “Don’t you think it would be best if we got on with the job and saved the talking till later?”
Jan nodded. “Let’s go!”
They climbed the long slope and at the top had to clamber over some lichen-covered masonry, a reminder that the whole area had once been a city. Old instincts prompted them to negotiate the massive blocks as quietly as possible. They then found their view obscured by a screen of shrubs and tall fleshy fronds, but they did not need to see the alien being to know they were close to it. The air was oppressively hot and heavy, loaded with electrical tension, and although there was no breeze Jan felt the hairs on his forearms begin to stir. They had become charged with static electricity. Without any help from scientific instruments, Jan and Petra could tell that they were close to the inconceivable concentration of power which surrounded their monstrous enemy.
“Can you hear a noise like a dynamo?” Petra said. “A kind of low humming?”
“I’m not sure if I can hear it or feel it.” Jan pressed a fingertip against one of his ears. “And there’s something else, isn’t there? This is like telepathy…you can sense something…the monster is gloating…”
“It knows exactly where we are,” Petra said in a low voice. “It’s waiting for us.”
“In that case, let’s not disappoint it.”
Jan and Petra tightened their grips on their swords and swung the grey blades, cleaving the screen of vegetation. They froze into shocked immobility as they took in the scene which lay beyond.
Several hundred metres away was a squat, windowless black tower—the stronghold of the inhuman fiend which had descended on Verdia centuries earlier. The force of evil and of hatred emanating from it was almost tangible, a silent assault on the mind which made all who encountered it want to cower away.
No vegetation grew in the vicinity of the tower, as though even plant life was repelled by the thing which lurked within. The ground all around was flat and paved with dark granite, looking much as it would have done when the ancient city was in its heyday, forming a perfectly level battleground.
And on that battleground, their menacing shapes fitfully illuminated by lightning flashes, were perhaps fifty tanks and other machines of war. They were slowly circling the black tower in two contra-rotating rings, forming an impenetrable defence.
“Oh, Jesus!” Petra gasped as the burden of total despair descended on her.
Standing beside her, Jan swore bitterly. The slim hope they had pinned on the possibility of primitive hand-to-hand combat with the alien had vanished. This was why there had been no attack from the military machines as he and Petra were making their way north along the bed of the stream. The alien, knowing where they were going, had summoned the armoured juggernauts directly to it—and now they were ready to destroy the insignificant humans who had dared oppose their master.
“We’re finished!” Jan whispered, his eyes prickling with sheer frustration and dismay. “We’re bloody well done for!”
“It looks…” Petra tilted her head. “Listen!”
From behind them came the sound of crashing trees and the squealing of machinery. The army of bulldozers and earth-movers, steadily approaching from the south, had almost caught up with them. They were trapped at the centre of a legion of invincible steel monsters!
Pale and silent, Jan and Petra exchanged glances and then—accepting that there was no hope of escape in any direction—walked forward on to the dark granite of the huge plaza. Several of the tanks circling the tower turned and surged towards them at once, their tracks emitting discordant screeches of triumph as they converged on their human quarries. A moment later, behind the pair, the last trees of the jungle were toppled and crushed as the enormous shapes of the bulldozers came into view. Petra and Jan were now almost completely surrounded by the instruments of the alien invader, and the trap was inexorably closing on them.
Jan lowered his head and tried to compose himself, wondering how quickly the end would come, and if there would be much pain. He felt oddly at peace with himself. His main regret was that Petra and he had not even been able to scratch the alien, but they could hope that others would one day follow in their footsteps, and that they would inflict on the alien the punishment it so richly deserved.
Petra, walking with her head held high, found it difficult to accept that she had entered the last minutes of her life. Death had always seemed a remote event, especially as medical science had extended life expectancy to almost a hundred years. To die at the age of sixteen was an unbelievably harsh consequence of her impulsive action in jumping into the Seeker’s cockpit when Jan had been knocked unconscious. But there’s no point in fretting about the past, she told herself. The thing to do now is to cheat the grim reaper for as long as possible—even if it’s only for a matter of seconds.
Jan’s thoughts were interrupted by an insect-like fluttering in the breast pocket of his shirt. Bemused, wondering why he was bothering with such trivia while on the verge of extinction, he put his hand into the pocket. There was nothing there but the miniature compass. He brought it out and saw that the fluttering vibrations were being caused by the needle. It was standing vertically on its microscopic universal joint, quivering violently, a reminder that this spot was precisely on Verdia’s north pole.
Jan stared at the needle for a moment, wondering why its antics should suddenly seem important to him, then his memory began to stir. He seemed to hear Major Haines, the dead science officer, speaking to Petra and him again…
“…alien creature arrived here from space…power to control and direct electromagnetic forces…alien being is still alive…in the tower which marks Verdia’s north pole…and it is feeding on…feeding on…”
Feeding!
FEEDING!
That was the key word!
Jan gasped aloud as he received a sudden insight into the nature of the alien. “Petra!”
Petra dragged her gaze away from the advancing tanks. “What is it?”
“The monster! It doesn’t only control electromagnetic forces—it feeds on them!”
Petra scanned Jan’s face, noting his obvious excitement. “Does that help us?”
“It might, it might,” he exclaimed, almost running his words together in his eagerness to get them out. “That’s why the monster decided to base itself here—exactly at the north pole. The force lines of Verdia’s magnetic field are concentrated on this spot. They’re food and drink to the monster. They keep it alive…supplying all its energy…giving it the power to…”
“To control the machines!” Petra cut in, suddenly understanding Jan’s excitement.
“Yes, and if only we can find a way of interrupting that flow of energy into and out of the monster we could isolate it from the tanks and bulldozers. They’d all stop moving. Then it would be something like a fair fight between us and the…”
Jan broke off, his mind working with fear-induced speed as the tanks and bulldozers continued to close in on them. One way to prevent electrical energy waves from reaching the alien would be to encase it in sheet metal, but that was a task which would take weeks—whereas Petra and he needed a solution which could be carried out in minutes. It was crazy to imagine that such a solution existed, and yet…and yet…