Titus Crow [1] The Burrowers Beneath (16 page)

‘Overall, I should think we can take it that some hundreds of the beings are now alive and spreading.’

‘This is fascinating,’ Crow murmured. ‘How do you track them down, Peaslee -what system do you employ to detect the beasts?’

‘Initially, as your English professor suggested, we tried specialized seismological equipment, but the system wasn’t accurate enough. For example: how might one tell a “natural” from an “unnatural” tremor? Of course, we also have a worldwide news service, and our headquarters at Miskatonic is ever on the lookout for inexplicable disappearances or anything else suggesting the involvement of the CCD. For the last few years, though, we’ve been using people gifted as you yourself, Crow, are gifted.’

‘Eh?’ My friend was taken aback. ‘Gifted like me? I fail to see what you’re getting at, Peaslee.’

‘Why, your dreams, my friend! Even though you were not then “on the books”, as it were, of the CCD, still you picked up impressions from their monstrous minds. To a degree - certainly on the Cthonian thought-levels - you’re telepathic, Crow! And, as I’ve said, you’re not alone in your ability.’

‘Of course,’ I cried, snapping my fingers. ‘But that explains why I came back from France, Titus! I could sense that something was wrong; I knew that somehow I was being called back to England. Furthermore, it explains my moods of depression in the weeks prior to your inviting me in on this thing - I was picking up the echoes of your own gloom!’

Peaslee was immediately interested, and made me relate to him all of my doom-fraught sensations throughout the period leading up to my return from Paris, ‘as though drawn back’, to London.

When I was done, he said, ‘Then it seems we must acknowledge you, too, de Marigny, as being something of a telepath. You may not be able to project your thoughts and emotions, as Crow here obviously can, but you can certainly receive such sendings! Good - it seems that the Foundation has recruited two more extremely valuable members.’

‘Do you mean to say,’ Crow pressed, ‘that you’re using telepaths to track these creatures down?’

‘Yes, we are. It is easily the most successful phase of all our operations,’

the professor answered.

‘And yet’ - Crow seemed puzzled - ‘you haven’t discovered the whereabouts of R’lyeh, Cthulhu’s seat at the bottom of the sea?’

‘What? You surprise me!’ Peaslee seemed shocked. ‘Do you really think we’d risk men by asking them to contact Cthulhu?’ He frowned. ‘And yet, in fact . .

. there was one of our telepaths who took it upon himself to do just that. He was a “dreamer”, just like you, and he was on a nonaddictive drug we’ve developed to induce deep sleep. But on one occasion, well, he didn’t follow orders. Left a note explaining what he was trying to do. AH very laudable -and very stupid! He’s in a Boston asylum now; hopeless case.’

‘Good God … of course!’ Crow gasped as the implications hit him. ‘He would be!’

‘Yes,’ Peaslee grimly agreed. ‘Anyhow, this method of ours of using telepaths didn’t evolve properly until two years ago, but now we’ve developed it fully.

I flew over here yesterday in the company of one of our telepaths, and later today he’ll be off to look up a British colleague - a pilot, ostensibly in

“Ordnance Survey”. They’ll hire a small aeroplane, and tomorrow or the day after they’ll start quartering England, Scotland, and Wales.’

‘Quartering?’ I asked.

‘It’s our term for dividing into a series of squares an area to be

“prospected”,’ Peaslee explained. ‘David Winters - that’s the telepath’s name

- can detect a CCD up to a distance of twenty-five miles; he can pinpoint them from five miles away! In a matter of a week or two we’ll know the location of every nest and each individual horror in all three countries - if all goes according to plan.’

‘And Ireland?’ I asked.

‘We have no reason to believe that the Emerald Isle has yet been invaded,’ the professor answered. ‘Ireland will, though, be checked over at a later date.’

‘But they can move!’ Crow protested. ‘By the time your telepath has done with his job, his early, er - sightings? -could be a hundred miles away from where he first plotted them!’

‘That’s true,’ Peaslee agreed, unperturbed, ‘but we’re after numbers, mainly, and large concentrations. We have to know the best spots to start drilling, you see?’

Crow and I, both equally baffled by this new phase of the professor’s revelations, looked at one another in consternation. ‘No,’ I eventually answered. ‘I don’t think we do see.’

‘Let me explain,’ Peaslee offered. ‘We have men with the big companies; with Seagasso, Lescoil, the NCB, ICI,

Norgas, even in govermental circles. Now a few of these men are Americans, trained at Miskatonic and slotted in over here when opportunities presented themselves, but most are of course natives of Great Britain contacted and recruited over the years through the machinery of the Wilmarth Foundation. We have, too, interested parties in certain ministries: such as the Ministry of Land and Development, Agriculture and Fisheries, National Resources, etc.

“The “Great Britain Operation”, as we call it, has been planned for some years now, but when this opportunity came along - that is, the opportunity to do a bit of incidental, valuable recruiting, as well as to intervene in what might well have turned out to be a very nasty affair - well, it seemed to me that this was the perfect time to put the plan into operation.

‘I will in fact supervise and coordinate the project in its entirety. You two gentlemen will no doubt be able to help me tremendously in this, and learn a lot about the Foundation’s workings at the same time. For instance, though these may seem relatively minor points to you, I don’t like the idea of driving on the left, I’m not at all sure of your British road signs, and I’m damned if I’ll be driven around for the next few months in a cab! The latter’s out of the question, anyway, for we’ll be seeing some pretty strange things before we’re through, and the presence of a cabdriver is just not acceptable.

Obviously, the public must be kept in the dark about all this. We’ll need a large automobile -‘

‘I have a Mercedes garaged at Henley,’ Crow hastily put in.

‘And of course I’ll need someone with a good knowledge of British geography, topography, and so on. All of which is where you gentlemen should come in very nicely,’ Peaslee finished.

‘But wait,’ I dazedly protested, one part of my mind following the conversation, another groping at what had gone before. ‘You were talking about drilling!’

‘Ah, yes! So I was. I’m often guilty of a little mental wandering when I’m a bit weary. You’ll excuse me, de Marigny, but I’ve a lot on my mind and these details are just routine to me. Drilling, yes - well, the plan is this: once we’ve ascertained where the nests are, we’ll choose two or three centrally situated drilling sites as far out of the way of the general public as we can manage, and then we’ll commence the drilling of our star-wells - ‘

‘Star-wells?’ this, again, was from me. ‘Yes, that’s what we call them. Deep shafts to accommodate star-stones. We drill five equally spaced star-wells in a great circle some hundreds of yards across, and one central hole to take the eggs. The idea is that once we let the eggs down the central shaft - until which time, incidentally, they’ll be kept “prisoned” by the proximity of star-stones so that local adults will not know of their whereabouts - we can expect the adults to come burrowing to the rescue. Of course, their rescue attempt will fail! As soon as our telepaths and instruments tell us of the arrival of a sufficiently large number of the adult creatures … then we’ll let down the star-stones into the perimeter wells. All the Cthonians within the circle will be trapped.’ ‘But these creatures can move in three dimensions, you know, Wingate,’ Crow pointed out. ‘Surely your star-stones will be lying on a strictly two-dimensional plane? What’s to stop the adult Cthonians from simply burrowing straight down - or worse still … up?’

‘No, the circle ought to be sufficient, Titus. We’ve experimented, as I’ve said - you remember what I told you of the eggs we hatched? - and we’re pretty sure that our plan is sound. What we might do, if we’re lucky enough to be able to get our hands on them at the right

time, is this: instead of using eggs we’ll use young female creatures! They’ll provide a sure draw. And then, well, even if the adults do try to make an escape after we lower the star-stones, it will be far too late!’

Crow held up his hands and shook his head. ‘Hold on a minute, Peaslee! First off, where will you get your young females; and secondly, why will any attracted adults be “too late” to get away?’ Doubt was showing on my friend’s face again.

‘As to your first question,’ the professor answered, ‘we have a regular hatchery at Miskatonic. We took two dozen eggs from G’harne, and we’ve collected others since then. That’s where your four eggs are destined for, by the way. Your second question? Well, as soon as the adults appear on the scene and after we’ve set the star-stones in place - then we flood the whole underground area by pumping water down the shafts under high pressure!’

For a moment there was silence, then Crow said: ‘And you say there’ll be a number of these sites?’

‘Yes, and the timings for the operations will of course be perfectly synchronized - simply to ensure that if the Cthonians do manage to get

“distress signals” out past the star-stones, well, at least we’ll have cleaned out a large number of them at one swipe. In that event, it would mean searching for a new plan of attack for later projects, but…’ Peaslee frowned thoughtfully for a moment, then added: ‘But anyway, after we’ve had this initial bash at the burrowers - then we’ll be able to turn our attentions to the other British CCD.’

‘Others?’ I exploded. ‘What others?’ I noticed that Crow seemed less surprised.

‘Well, we know that there are a number of different types of these beings, Henri, these dwellers in the deep earth,’ the professor patiently explained.

‘And therefore

it’s a fair bet that Great Britain has her share. Some, though, are apparently far more vulnerable to orthodox weapons. One of our men - an Englishman, by the way -has had a certain amount of personal experience with just such a being. This same chap is a drilling expert; a fellow known as “Pongo” Jordan, who used to be with Seagasso’s oceangoing rigs. Now he’s a member of the Foundation -but it took a lot of persuasion. Ostensibly, he works for Land Development. He’ll be supervising the positioning of the star-wells once David Winters’ report is in.’

‘Jordan … ?’ Crow mused, then looked startled. He frowned. ‘Not the same Jordan who … And your telepath, David Winters! Well, I’ll be - ‘

‘Go on,’ Peaslee said. ‘Do you know Jordan and Winters?’

‘I know that the Cthonians fear them desperately, as they fear you,’ Crow answered. Then my friend proceeded to tell the professor of his dreams during the period when the seagoing rigs were stricken with that series of puzzling disasters, following this up with his latest nightmare wherein the Cthonians had tried to ‘buy him off’.

When Crow had done, Peaslee excitedly dug into his great briefcase. ‘You know, you two,’ he said, ‘when I first decided to fly over here, I had no idea it would be so easy to convert you to the Foundation’s cause. Because of my uncertainty I gathered together certain testimonials which I hoped would help to convince you. One of these is a letter Jordan wrote to one of his superiors shortly after he lost his rig, Sea-Maid. Ah! Here it is. I’m sure you’ll be interested to read it.’

The Night Sea-Maid Went Down

(From the Files of the Wilmarth Foundation)

Queen of the Wolds Inn Cliffside

Bridlington, E. Yorks. 29th Nov.

J. H. Grier (Director)

Grier & Anderson

Seagasso

Sunderland, Co. Durham

Dear Johnny,

By now I suppose you’ll have read my ‘official’ report, sent off to you from this address on the fourteenth of the month, three days after the old Sea-Maid went down. How I managed that report I’ll never know - but anyway, I’ve been laid up ever since, so if you’ve been worried about me or wondering why I haven’t let on further about my whereabouts till now, well, it hasn’t really been my fault. I just haven’t been up to doing much writing since the …

disaster. Haven’t been up to much of anything for that matter. God, but I hate the idea of facing a Board of Inquiry!

Anyhow, as you’ll have seen from my report, I’ve made up my mind to quit, and I suppose it’s only right I give you what I can of an explanation for my decision. After all, you’ve been paying me good money to manage your rigs these last four years, and no complaints there. In fact, I’ve no complaints period, nothing Seagasso could sort out at any rate, but I’m damned if I’ll sink sea-wells again.

In fact, I’m finished with all prospecting! Sea, land … it makes no real difference now. Why, when I think of what might have happened at any time during the last four years! And now it has happened.

But there I go, stalling again. I’ll admit right now that I’ve torn up three versions of this letter, pondering the results of them reaching you; but now, having thought it all out, frankly, I don’t give a damn what you do with what I’m going to tell you. You can send an army of head-shrinkers after me if you like. One thing I’m sure of, though, and that’s this - whatever I say won’t make you suspend the North-Sea operations. ‘The Country’s Economy’, and all that.

At least my story ought to give old Anderson a laugh; the hard, stoic, unimaginative old bastard! And no doubt about it, the story I have to tell is fantastic enough. I suppose it could be argued that I was ‘in my cups’ that night (and it’s true enough, I’d had a few), but I can hold my drink, as you well know. Still, the facts - as 1 know them - drunk or sober, remain simply fantastic.

Now, you’ll remember that right from the start there was something funny about the site off Hunterby Head. The divers had trouble; the geologists, too, with their instruments; it was the very devil of a job to float Sea-Maid down from Sunderland and get her anchored there; and all that was only the start of the trouble. Nevertheless, the preliminaries were all completed by early in October. We hadn’t drilled more than six hundred feet into the seabed when we brought up that first star-shaped thing. Now, Johnny, you know something? I wouldn’t have given two damns for the thing, except I’d seen one before. Old Chalky Gray (who used to be with the Lescoil rig, Ocean-Gem, out of Liverpool) had sent me one only a few weeks before his platform and all the crew, including Chalky himself, went down twelve miles out from With-nersea. Somehow, when I saw what came up in the big core - that same star-shape - I couldn’t help but think of Chalky and see some sort of nasty parallel. The one he’d sent me came up in a core too, you see? And Ocean-Gem wasn’t the only rig lost that year in so-called ‘freak storms’!