“Look down at the pond,” Gregory said. “That's where the -Aurigans live. My GodBert, look, there one goes!”
The urgency in his voice made the farmhand look down where he pointed. Together, the two men watched as a depression slid over the black water; an overlapping chain of ripples swung back from it. At approximately the middle of the pond, the depression became a commotion. A small whirlpool formed and died, and the ripples began to settle.
“There's your ghost, Bert,” Gregory gasped. “That must have been the one that got poor Mrs. Grendon. Now do you be– lieve?”
“I never heard of a ghost as lived under water,” Neckland gasped.
“A ghost never harmed anyonewe've already had a sample of what these terrifying things can do. Come on, Bert, shake hands, understand I bear you no hard feelings. Oh, come on, man! I know how you feel about Nancy, but she must be free to .make her own choice in life.”
They shook hands and grinned rather foolishly at each other.
“We better go and tell the farmer what we seen,” Neckland said. “I reckon that thing done what happened to Lardie last evening.”
“Lardie? What's happened to her? I thought I hadn't seen her today.”
“Same as happened to the little pigs. I found her just inside the barn. Just her coat was left, that's all. No insides! Like she'd been sucked dry.”
It took Gregory twenty minutes to summon the council of war on which he had set his mind. The party gathered in the farmhouse,, in the parlor. By this time, Nancy had somewhat recovered from the shock of her mother's death, and sat in an armchair with a shawl about her shoulders. Her father stood nearby with his arms folded, looking impatient, while Bert Neckland lounged by the door. Only Grubby was not present. He had been told to get on with the ditching.
“I'm going to have another attempt to convince you all that you are in very grave danger,” Gregory said. “You won't see it for yourselves. The situation is that we're all animals together at present. Do you remember that strange meteor that fell out of the sky last winter, Joseph? And do you remember that ill– smelling dew early in the spring? They were not unconnected, and they are connected with all that's happening now. That meteor was a space machine of some sort, I firmly believe, and it brought in it a kind of life thatthat is not so much hostile to terrestrial life as indifferent to its quality. The creatures from that machine1 call them Aurigansspread the dew over the farm. It was a growth accelerator, a manure or fertilizer, that speeds growth in plants and animals.”
“So much better for us!” Grendon said.
“But it's not better. The things grow wildly, yes, but the taste is altered to suit the palates of those things out there. You've seen what happened. You can't sell anything. People won't touch your eggs or milk or meatthey taste too foul.”
“But that's a lot of nonsense. We'll sell in Norwich. Our produce is better than it ever was. We eat it, don't we?”
“Yes, Joseph, you eat it. But anyone who eats at your table is doomed. Don't you understandyou are all 'fertilized' just as surely as the pigs and chickens. Your place has been turned into a superfarm, and you are all meat to the Aurigans.”
That set a silence in the room, until Nancy said in a small voice, “You don't believe such a terrible thing.”
“I suppose these unseen creatures told you all this?” Grendon said truculently.
“Judge by the evidence, as I do. Your wife1 must be brutal, Josephyour wife was eaten, like the dog and the pigs. As everything else will be in time. The Aurigans aren't even cannibals. They aren't like us. They don't care whether we have souls or intelligences, any more than we really care whether bullocks have.”
“No one's going to eat me,” Neckland said, looking decidedly white about the gills. “How can you stop them? They're invisible, and I think they can strike like snakes. They're aquatic and I think they may be oftly two feet tall. How can you protect.yourself?” He turned to the farmer. “Joseph, the danger is very great, and not only to us here. At first, they may have offered us no harm while they got the measure of usotherwise I'd have died in your rowing boat. Now there's no longer doubt of their hostile intent. I beg you to let me go to Heigham and telephone to the chief of police in Norwich, or at least to the local militia, to get them to come and help us.”
The farmer shook his head slowly, and pointed a finger at Gregory.
“You soon forgot them talks we had, bor, all about the coming age of socialism and how the powers of the state was going to wither away. Directly we get a bit of trouble, you want to call in the authorities. There's no harm here a few savage dogs like my old Cuff can't handle, and I don't say as I ent going to get a couple of dogs, but you'm a fule if you reckon I'm getting the authorities down here. Fine old socialist you turn out to be!”
“You have no room to talk about that!” Gregory exclaimed. “Why didn't you let Grubby come here? If you were a socialist, you'd treat the men as you treat yourself. Instead, you leave him out in the ditch. I wanted him to hear this discussion.”
The farmer leant threateningly across the table at him.
“Oh, you did, did you? Since when was this your farm? And Grubby can come and go as he likes when it's his, so put that in your pipe and smoke it, bor! Who do you just think you are?” He moved closer to Gregory, apparently happy to work off his fears as anger. “You're trying to scare us all off this here little old bit of ground, ent you? Well, the Grendons ent a scaring sort, see! Now I'll tell you something. See that shotgun there on the wall? That be loaded. And if you ent off this farm by midday, that shotgun ont be on that wall no more. It'll be here, bor, right here in my two hands, and I'll be letting you have it right where you'll feel it most.”
“You can't do that. Father,” Nancy said. “You know Greg– ory is a friend of ours.”
“For God's sake, Joseph,” Gregory said, “see where your enemy lies. Bert, tell Mr. Grendon what we saw on the pond, go on!”
Neckland was far from keen to be dragged into this argument. He scratched his head, drew a red-and-white spotted kerchief from round his neck to wipe his face, and muttered, “We saw a sort of ripple on the water, but I didn't see nothing really, Master Gregory. I mean, it could have been the wind, couldn't it?”
“Now you be warned, Gregory,” the farmer repeated. “You be off my land by noon by the sun, and that mare of yours, or I ont answer for it.” He marched out into the pale sunshine, and Neckland followed.
Nancy and Gregory stood staring at each other. He took her hands, and they were cold.
“You believe what I was saying, Nancy?”
“Is that why the food did at one point taste bad to us, and then soon tasted well enough again?”
“It can only have been that at that time your systems were not fully adjusted to the poison. Now they are. You're being fed up, Nancy, just like the livestockI'm sure of it! I fear for you, darling love, I fear so much. What are we to do? Come back to Cottersall with me! Mrs. Fenn has another fine little drawing room upstairs that I'm sure she would rent.”
“Now you're talking nonsense, Greg! How can I? What would people say? No, you go away for now and let the tempest of Father's wrath abate, and if you could come back tomorrow, you will find he will be milder for sure, because I plan to wait on him tonight and talk to him about you. Why, he's half daft with grief and doesn't know what he says.”
“All right, my darling. But stay inside as much as you can. The Aurigans have not come indoors yet, as far as we know, and it may be safer here. And lock all the doors and put the shutters over the windows before you go to bed. And get your father to take that shotgun of his upstairs with him.”