“Ah, Miss Bennet, isn’t it? Jones’s friend. Come to see the toppled tyrant, have you? Oh, don’t be cautious, you’re safe enough. I’m manacled quite securely.”
“I’m not here to make conversation. Here.” She handed him a metal cup of water.
“Thank you.” With his one free hand he sipped the water. “Why?”
“Not even a man like you deserves to die of thirst, Commodore.”
“How weak you are. I’d have had me killed.”
“Then I thank God I’m not like you.”
Jones appeared at the tent entrance. He looked crumpled, grimy, exhausted. “Thelma. They said I’d find you here. Should have known you’d be doing your bit, even for a man like this.”
Godwin said, “Ah, Caliban! You look a bit less cocksure. Plans not going well? But what of it? We humans are like rats, like fleas. The Magmoids can’t kill us all.”
Thelma walked out of the tent. “Ignore him, Jones. Come away.”
Jones said, “I let that man pollute my head for too long tonight.”
“Is there really no hope?”
“I can’t think why it didn’t work in the first place. Look, Thelma—we still have a choice to make. You and I.”
Thelma said, “You mean, we could go back to London.”
“This isn’t your fight—you’re a civil servant, not a soldier.”
“But we can’t simply leave, can we? Look—we came here by chance. We didn’t know any of these people two days ago—Clare, Winston, Mrs. Stubbins. But they are decent, brave folk. It’s like life, really.”
“Is it?”
“Certainly. When you’re born you’re dropped into a point of space and time, entirely at random, and you just have to do the best you can for the people around you.”
“Hmm. Well, you’re one decent, brave person yourself, Miss Bennet…”
She heard Tremayne calling. “Jones? Oh, confound the man—where are you?”
“Over here, Tremayne.”
Tremayne came bustling over, almost as grimy as Jones, but looking agitated.
Thelma asked, “What’s wrong?”
“What’s right—I hope. It’s Winston. He’s got something. Come on!”
Inside his tent, Godwin watched them go. He prised the handle off the metal cup Thelma had left with him, and began to saw at his cuffs.
They hurried back to Phillips’ command tent, where Winston Stubbins was looking very nervous.
Phillips said, “Right. This had better be worth it.”
Tremayne said, “It’s all right, Winston. Just tell it to Doctor Jones as you explained it all to me.”
“It just occurred to me. You said the Earth’s core is an inner planet.”
“Go on.”
“Then we’re like one tiny radio station trying to broadcast to the whole world. And there’s an awful lot of noise, isn’t there?”
“Yes. So my signal was drowned out.”
“What we have to do is target our signals.”
“Yes, yes. But how?”
Winston said, “Interference.”
Jones opened his mouth and closed it again. “Yes, of course. Winston, you’re a genius!”
Phillips said, “What are you talking about? Sound like the physics lessons I slept through at school.”
“We set up another source, Captain. Another field of explosives. We feed my signal to both of them simultaneously.”
Tremayne said, “So the seismic waves emanate from two sources at once—”
“And if we get the timing and position right, the two sound fields will reinforce, just where we want them to. The Magmoids won’t be able to miss that!”
Phillips said, “Ah. I see.”
“Really?”
“Well, no, but I have to trust you. But what about the practicalities? How far away does this ‘second source’ have to be?”
Jones said, “Umm—to penetrate deep into the mantle, I’d say two or three hundred miles. Have to be south of here, I suppose.”
Thelma put in, “How about the military range on Salisbury Plain?”
Phillips said, “Oh, is that all you want? And how soon do you want this?”
Jones glanced through the fence at the wreckage of Aldmoor base. “Well, how long can you stay here under the Magmoids’ assaults?”
Phillips said, “Now we’ve broken the stand-off I’m thinking of abandoning the base altogether. I don’t see how we can withstand another of their ninety-minute strikes.” He glanced at his big army watch. “The next is due at around 0730. Less than an hour—”
Jones said, “Then that’s our deadline.”
“I’ll tell you flat it’s impossible. Nationally we’re stretched thin—there isn’t a chance in hell I could get that through channels in time.”
Tremayne said, “Channels! Oh, you military types.”
Winston said, “Then that’s that.”
“Not at all.” Thelma linked her arm through Phillips’s and drew him away. “Come on, Captain. We in DS8 have some ‘channels’ of our own to exploit. Let’s see what we can sort out.”
Jones watched them go, grinning. “What an asset she is. And in the meantime we need to set up another signal minefield here—and work out a fresh message. Come on, Tremayne, Winston—there’s no time to lose!”
The hospital tent shook at the latest explosion.
Hope said, “Christ, that was a near one.”
Clare looked around, uneasy. “That’s the Magmoids. The ninety minutes isn’t even up yet. They’re getting closer again, aren’t they?”
Buck Grady approached. “Ladies.”
“Buck. What’s happening?”
“Well, we got everything set up pretty good. Everybody who needs it is getting food, hot drinks, medical attention. Um, we’ve set up a temporary morgue for the civilians who fell, and the soldiers. And there seem to be no hard feelings. The Geordies and the Yanks are talking about a soccer game—”
Hope snapped, “Come on, man. We’re not kids.”
Buck hesitated. Then he sat on a canvas stool beside her. “All right. Look, the wider news isn’t good. Whatever Doctor Jones’s trying doesn’t seem to be working. Locally the Magmoid attacks are intensifying, if anything. Won’t be much left of the base soon.”
Clare asked, “What about further afield?”
“All this volcanism is still going on. There seem to be secondary effects—destabilisations. Volcanoes spouting in Japan and Italy and Africa. Tremors in San Francisco. Like the whole planet’s hurting. Listening on the radio, you get the sense it’s all sort of unravelling.”
“My God.”
Hope said, “Sergeant. Do one thing for us.”
“Yeah?”
“Take us back to the base.”
Clare said, “Now, Mrs. Stubbins—”
“I want to be with the lad.”
Buck nodded. “Leave it with me.”
There was another explosion.
Hope said, “Hold me hand, Clare, eh?”
Once again a hundred soldiers worked their way out over a patch of cleared ground, implanting small ordinances and improvised junction boxes.
Phillips hovered at Tremayne’s shoulder. “How’s it going, Professor?”
“We’re all set. There should be an identical set-up in place on Salisbury Plain in a few minutes. Then Doctor Jones will be ready to talk to the Magmoids again.”
The ground shuddered to a fresh detonation, deep in the earth. “Well, he’d better make it soon,” Phillips said.
Godwin, hiding behind a field gun, heard all this. “A machine to talk to the Magmoids. But there is only one voice worth hearing. Mine…”
Jones came bustling up, a fresh paper scrap in his hand. Winston was at his side, looking excited, drawn, over-tired. Jones imagined the boy would sleep for a week—if they all survived the next few minutes and hours.
And Hope Stubbins was wheeled across the broken ground by a sheepish-looking Buck Grady. Clare and Thelma were at her side. Hope called, “Winston?”