For a moment it seemed to Tim that a signal must have been transmitted ordering all jellyfish in the area to co-ordinate an attack on the laboratory. Then suddenly he realised the terrible truth. The signal was his own fear. These jellyfish were predators hunting for food, with Sue, the sick child and Tim himself as prey.
In some subtle way, their desperation marked them out. It was a phenomenon not unknown in nature. Not recognising what they were doing, the victims were selecting themselves.
‘Tim! For Chrissake, come and help me! They’re getting in!’
Remembering something Jocelyn had said, Tim searched quickly among the jars on the laboratory bench for some acid.
‘We’ll try this!’
He pulled out the glass stopper and splashed a few drops over the jellyfish on the window ledge. Immediately they began to curl up, silently writhing. He turned, to scatter more on the one which had squeezed in at the foot of the door. It had the same effect: oh, if only they’d scream, he thought, nauseated.
An acrid smell wafted through the laboratory, catching in their throats and causing their eyes to smart. The sick child on the desk coughed pathetically, but there was nothing they could do for her. In that same moment, the cupboard against the door suddenly shifted under the sheer weight of the jellyfish heaped up outside and more of them tumbled in.
‘Tim — your glove!’ Sue shrieked as he splashed the acid too carelessly. ‘Quick, put it under the tap!’
Briefly, he held his hand under the stream of water. When he looked around, he saw she’d abandoned her makeshift spear and was busy emptying the contents of every jar she could find over the pile-up of jellyfish outside.
He seized the spear and began systematically to deal with those which had succeeded in getting into the room.
‘No, that won’t work!’ she shouted, stretching her arm through the hole in the door to pour yet more chemicals on to them. ‘There are too many!’
‘You might at least read the labels!’ he protested.
‘Why? I wouldn’t know the difference anyway. Let’s just pour the lot on them. Kill as many as we can before they kill us.’
Coughing and spluttering from the stench, they threw out everything they could find, clearing the benches, the shelves, even emptying out the fridge. It began to work, at least for the time being. Beyond the door, on the steps and in the short corridor, the rippling bodies became still again, with only here and there a weak sign of pulsation.
On the window-sill the remaining jellyfish bodies were quite inert. Tim jabbed at them with the knife-point but there was no reaction.
‘It’s not natural,’ Sue whispered, clutching his arm. ‘Tim, I’m scared.’
‘I think we’ve killed them.’
She shook her head. ‘Even if we have, there’ll be others. What do we do then?’
‘Drink… drink…’ the little girl on the desk called out suddenly, delirious. ‘Mummy said I must have something to drink. Always ask if you’re thirsty. Ask nicely.’
‘It’s all right, Sarita.’ Sue hurried over to her. ‘It’s over now.’
Several baby medusae lay in the sink like tiny rust-spots, and Tim found more on his glove. But they managed to filter some water into a beaker which they set over a burner to boil.
Tim raised the window again to make another attempt at closing it properly. The wooden frame was warped and it jammed every few inches. Outside, the ground was still under water. Hundreds of jellyfish were out there, hardly moving for the most part, though occasionally one would lazily change its position. It looked as though the whole earth was covered with some strange, pink fungus over which the mysterious green luminescence hung like marsh gas.
With their next attack they’ll succeed, he thought resignedly. There wasn’t all that much left to throw at them.
‘Anyone there!’ a cheerful voice called from inside the building. ‘Tim? Sue?’
‘Major Burton!’ Tim exclaimed. He strode over to the door. ‘Hello! Up here!’ he shouted through the hole. ‘Watch out for jellies, though!’
‘They’ve come for us?’ Sue looked incredulous, then threw herself on his neck. ‘Oh, Tim, we’re going to live! Oh, my darling, I was so convinced we — ’
For the first time, she broke down and cried. Then the water in the beaker began to boil and, sniffing, she took it off the flame.
Major Burton was still dressed in his anti-gas suit, though he had taken off the respirator. Tim had never imagined he’d be so glad to see those pale blue eyes again, regarding him with that same cool reserve. Two of the men with him pushed the jellyfish aside with their hoes to clear a path to the door.
‘These jellies are dead,’ he said. ‘How did you manage that?’
While Sue attended to the sick girl, dipping a corner of her handkerchief into the boiled water for her to suck, Tim explained what had happened.
‘You threw everything at them?’ The major sounded disapproving. ‘Regardless of what it was?’
‘In the end, yes. Everything we could lay our hands on. All except what’s left here, and that’s not much.’
‘Even this?’ The major stooped to pick up a light metal tube.
‘Several of those.’ For the first time, Tim noticed it bore the label Sabin. It held no meaning for him. ‘Is that what did it?’
‘I’ve no more idea what killed them than you have. One thing I do know is that after this we’re all going to be spending some time in quarantine.’ He went back to the door and leaned out. ‘You men! I want you to find several airtight containers. We’ll have to take a few of these jellies back with us. Jump to it, now!’
21
Sue spotted the house first. It was a pale, oldish semi built in yellow brick; a neat little garden in front, and a wooden container for milk bottles beside the spotless doorstep. Number twenty-one.
‘There’s no need for you to come in, love,’ Tim offered once again, feeling awkward about the whole thing. ‘Not if you don’t want to.’
‘You don’t expect me to sit and wait in the car?’ she retorted. ‘You don’t get rid of me that easily. Besides, a wife’s good for your image.’
The bell-push triggered off two-note chimes inside. Everything was so tidy, Tim thought as he looked around. The carefully-arranged front-room curtains looked as though each fold had been measured exactly; as for the potted plants on the window ledge, every leaf and petal curled at its appointed angle. It was certainly not what he’d expected.
In fact, he’d hardly known what to expect when the message came, out of the blue, that the thug would like to see him. No particular time or date mentioned, just that he’d something he’d like to say, so could Tim drop in when convenient? Reading it, Tim had shrugged and was about to throw the paper away when Sue rescued it. He ought to go, she said; the man obviously had something on his mind.
The woman who opened the door recognised Tim immediately. ‘Oh, Arthur will be so pleased!’ she exclaimed, her face lighting up. ‘Do come in. It means so much to him.’
She was small, almost mousy in appearance; hardly the sort of person Tim had imagined. Greying blonde hair kept meticulously in place, a blue hand-knitted jumper and plain skirt: she was as neat as the house she ruled over.
He introduced Sue, then asked how Arthur was keeping. Since that episode in the harbour he’d not set eyes on the man, though it was common knowledge among the Gulliver crew that he’d be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
‘It was the stroke, you know,’ she explained, shaking her head. ‘Them jellyfish was bad enough, but it was the stroke did for him. Still, he keeps cheerful. Must warn you, though, he can’t speak too well.’
Arthur was in the back room, sitting by the window. His face was terribly thin and pitted with scars. He was slumped in his wheelchair, his shoulders sagging forward, his muscles wasted away: a mere ghost of the man he used to be. On seeing Tim, his lips distorted into a shadow of a smile; his hand shook as he held it out.