Famine Read online

  The Prime Minister put the paper down staring blankly at Palfrey, giving the impression that he had not taken in the full significance of what he had read. He rubbed his eyes, as if they were tired.

  “I see,” he said at last. He pressed a bell for the detective who stood outside the door, and the man came in at once. “Inspector, will you give my compliments to the deputy leader and tell him I may be further delayed. If I am not back by ten o’clock he must make my speech for me. He has a copy.” He turned to Palfrey. “Is there any danger of this leaking out, Palfrey?”

  Expecting opposition, or at best a diplomatic temporising, Palfrey was conscious of tremendous relief.

  “Yes, sir. I’ve instructed the Wiltshire Police to talk about an unknown species of rats which might spread disease.”

  “Good idea. I’ll arrange for an inspired leak about that, then. Ambassadors being ambassadors, I would say twelve noon tomorrow for drinks before luncheon. Will you make sure I receive any reports as they come in—anything you think I should know?”

  “I will indeed, sir.”

  “I’ll make a dozen telephone calls, and then try to make that speech on the world food shortage,” the Prime Minister added drily. “Food production is falling behind the population growth, year by year. Any threat to staple foods could be deadly in itself. If we’ve a new form of consumption or wastage—but you know the problem. Good night, Palfrey.”

  He nodded and moved across to a telephone, Palfrey already dismissed from his mind.

  Chapter Seven

  The Alarming Pathologist

  Palfrey returned to his headquarters in a more relaxed frame of mind than he had known since this affair began. He had learned more about the Prime Minister in ten minutes than in the many hours of previous conversation; here was that truly rare combination, a man of action who could think while he acted. At least there was not likely to be any political obstruction. One factor stood out, moreover; Mason had grasped the implications of the midget men very quickly, and was alarmed.

  Palfrey heard no sound as he passed Joyce’s door. He looked in. She was lying at full length on a couch, back towards him, obviously tired out. He went to his own room and put the finishing touches to his message, then called for one of the headquarters staff to distribute it. Most agents, even in remote parts of the world, would have it by morning, there might well be a flood of reports by tomorrow evening. He ran through some incoming reports which Joyce had already put on his desk. Only one referred to his earlier note about the ravages of food; a big sugar warehouse in Southern Germany, near Munich, had been practically emptied.

  “Depredation by rats is suspected.” The report finished.

  It was half past ten. Palfrey got up, went to an easy chair, and switched on a radiogram; a hi-fi rendering of a Brahms concerto crept softly into the room, relaxing, comforting. He even began to wonder whether he was worrying too much about these midgets, but suddenly he had a vivid mental picture of Betty Fordham, in the moment when she had realised that her husband was dead. She was quite a remarkable person, and it was easy to believe she meant it when she said that fear did not last long with her. Could Z5 find a use for her services? He made a note: Screen Betty Fordham, wrote an instruction about it, then rang for a messenger.

  “Put this in hand at once.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Palfrey went back to his chair. His mood had changed, and the face of the woman was constantly in his mind, as well as acute awareness of the way the midget men attacked. He was on edge now, and wanted to talk to the pathologists, but they would still be at their job and it would be pointless to attempt to hurry them. Suddenly it came to him that he had asked Kenneth Campson to carry out an autopsy on Neil Anderson, not on the midget men. What was the matter with him? He rang for Joyce, forgetting for the moment that she had been sleeping, but when she did not come in at once, he remembered.

  Very soon, she was at the door, her alert intelligence little impaired by the summary awakening.

  “We want autopsies carried out on the ‘rabbit’ men,” he said abruptly.

  Joyce stared. “Yes. Of course. I took that for granted. I told Mr. Campson so.”

  “Oh,” said Palfrey. “That’s fine.” He could have laughed at himself in his deflation; he must never forget how much could safely be left to others. “I’ve sent off the general request for news – with the Prime Minister’s blessing. And I’m having Mrs. Fordham checked. We might find her very useful. You go back and rest – the reports should be coming in soon, and once they do, there won’t be much chance of relaxing.”

  “Sap,” Joyce said, after a pause.

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t do too much yourself, please. You look tired out already. You never make allowances for the nervous energy you use up at the beginning of an investigation.”

  “I’ll be careful,” he promised, aware that his response was glib and unconvincing.

  “May I make a suggestion?”

  “Of course.”

  “Ask Stefan to come to London.”

  She knew, and Palfrey knew, that Stefan Andromovitch, the second-in-command of Z5, was the only man who could really share the burden of responsibility, one who would think along the same lines, with the same vigour as Palfrey. Stefan was in charge in Moscow and the Far East, because he knew so much more than Palfrey about the mentality, the customs, the traditions and the pride, of Orientals.

  “I’ll think about it,” Palfrey said. “If this affair grows as I’m afraid it will, he’ll be needed in Peking as much as I’ll need him here.”

  “I suppose so,” she said, her voice troubled.

  “I’ll lean on you!”

  She looked at him steadily, and her lips curled in an un-amused smile.

  “I used to think I could give you the kind of help you need, but I’ve long realised I can’t. I began to think Lady Diana Hall could, but she can’t either, can she?”

  Almost reluctantly, he said. “She lives too much in the future she thinks should be the present.”

  “And I don’t live vividly enough in the world you’re trying to improve. Sap – you can’t go on alone. You really can’t. You need companionship of a kind you simply haven’t got. Music, books, the arts, they’re not enough. They’re really not enough.”

  She meant what she said deeply, and in one way he agreed with her. He wished he felt differently towards her, but knew he was never likely to. She was still smiling in that impersonal, half-sardonic way, and he had no doubt that there was much on her mind she had not said. She was so good, so right, so determined.

  “I get by,” he said.

  Joyce took a step forward, surprising him by her intensity: “Sap, you don’t get by! Every day takes a little more out of you. You’re drawing on your reserves far too often. I’ve known you take a situation like this in your stride but you haven’t taken this one in your stride, have you?”

  How right she was!

  “You need someone to relax with, you need—” Joyce broke off. “Oh, I don’t mean you need sex! Sap—” She came towards him, hands outstretched, no sign of the sardonic twist to her lips now. “Sap, you’re starved of affection. You’re the most affectionate man I’ve ever known, and you’ve never really had it since your wife died, have you?”

  It was impossible even after six years to think of Drusilla, his wife, without hurt.

  “No,” he admitted, “but you’re wrong, Joyce. I can get along very well with my music and my books and my friends.”

  But when she had gone, he knew that he was lying to her and to himself, and she had forced him to think of Drusilla, whom he had loved so much, who had truly been part of him. He was restless again, disgruntled, even a little resentful that Joyce had done this to him, although he knew that was unfair. He sat back, losing himself in a piano concerto by Liszt
… and did not realise he had dozed.

  He heard his name called, and felt a hand on his shoulder. “Sap.”

  His eyes opened instantly. Joyce was standing in front of him, obviously alarmed. Sleep fell away, and his voice was crisp and sharp.

  “What is it?”

  “Mr. Campson is here.”

  Campson. The pathologist.

  “But I understood he was at Salisbury.”

  “He wanted to see you in person.”

  “Right,” said Palfrey. “Where is he?”

  “In my office.”

  “Bring him in,” Palfrey said.

  She hesitated.

  “What is it?” he demanded. “What else is there?”

  “We’ve had the reports from villages around Salisbury,” Joyce told him. “At least a dozen shops and warehouses have been broken into, and cereals stolen. Other food has gone, too, particularly sugar and chocolate. And—”

  “Yes?”

  “Three people have seen the rabbit men.”

  “Not the midgets?” He thought of the tiny, hairless creatures.

  “No. Rabbit men,” she insisted, and panic was not far away from her.

  Palfrey stood up, very slowly.

  “Three you say? Right.” He hesitated, almost afraid to go on, but forced himself to ask: “Any more attacks?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  “Is there anything I’ve overlooked?”

  “I don’t think so,” Joyce replied. “The military and the police had been alerted, all storage places for staple foods are being checked – if any of the ‘rabbit’ men or the midgets are seen, we’ll be told. There’s no trace of the smokescreen, and surprisingly little trace of the passage of the colony over the countryside. We can’t really do anything more until we’ve located another colony, can we?”

  “Or the Salisbury colony,” Palfrey remarked. “We want to examine the area over which the cloud was seen, find out if, or where, they’ve dug themselves in. The whole area must be minutely scrutinised. All right, send Mr. Campson in.”

  Kenneth Campson was not only the nation’s leading pathologist … he was an old friend of Palfrey from medical school days, and he had done a great deal for Z5. One thing was quite certain: he would not have come here to report in person unless he felt his evidence was serious enough to be brought to Palfrey’s ears alone. He came in, a rather attenuated man with veiled blue eyes, and an air of casual untidiness. In many ways he was not unlike Palfrey, and it would have been easy to take them for brothers. Now, he seemed to be labouring under some strong emotion.

  “Hallo, Ken.” Palfrey waved a hand in brief salutation. “What will you have to drink?”

  “Nothing, thanks – Joyce is going to bring in some coffee.”

  “Good. Sit down.” There was a pause. “What’s on your mind?” When Campson did not answer immediately, Palfrey went on: “Neil Anderson?”

  “Bled to death,” the pathologist said. “But—” he caught his breath.

  “Yes?”

  “There was something else I haven’t yet been able to diagnose,” said Campson.

  “What sort of thing?”

  “A kind of blood condition,” the pathologist answered. “Blood samples are being tested. I don’t know for sure but I suspect bleeding was much faster than usual, and the blood seemed to thin out, not coagulate, when it first came into contact with the air. I’m very puzzled by it.” Campson stretched his legs out, and went on: “I can tell you one other thing.”

  “Go on.”

  “The dwarf corpses have the same human blood characteristics as Anderson’s. They are very thin-blooded. I’ve never come across anything quite like it.” Palfrey could have echoed: “Nor have I,” but he did not. “They are fully mature males as far as I can judge. Average height twelve and a half inches, and the variation is no more than half an inch. The size of arms, legs, heads, necks, chests, waists, hands, and feet hardly vary. They could almost have been turned out of the same plastic mould.”

  Palfrey didn’t speak, touched with a kind of horror which obviously affected the pathologist.

  “The weight of each one is practically identical—one pound twelve ounces,” Campson went on. “Their muscles are the same size and strength as far as I can judge – their leg muscles in particular are exceptionally well developed. I’m not surprised they can jump several feet from a standing start. I get the impression of absolute physical fitness – the peak of condition. All of those I saw died of suffocation.”

  Palfrey was listening to this recital in a curious mood, almost of disbelief. His mind was not working as it should do, and he thought of Joyce, and confounded her perception.

  “What else?” he demanded.

  “There isn’t much else – except this almost unbelievable uniformity. All the organs are healthy as far as I can judge – eyes, ears, nails, hair, all are perfectly normal. The bodies don’t appear to be subject to the usual human infant variations.”

  “Brains?” asked Palfrey.

  “For their proportions, remarkable in both size and weight.”

  “Hearts?”

  “The same answer.” Campson sat upright as the door opened and Joyce came with coffee on a tray. “They’re real, Sap. There’s nothing synthetic about them. They’re real flesh and blood, even if the blood is thin.” He smiled in a strained way at Joyce: “Can’t you make sure this man gets more sleep, my dear?”

  “Now don’t you start,” said Palfrey. “Pour out for us, Joyce.” He went on in the same level tone of voice: “Not synthetic, you say … Does that mean mammals?”

  Campson said jerkily: “Oh, yes. They’re mammals all right – the sexual organs are normal except for being so tiny.” Campson stretched out for a cup of coffee; his hand was shaking.

  “Could they be automatons?” Palfrey demanded.

  “Scientists have been trying to create human life for a long time and obviously it’s conceivable they’ll succeed one day. If they do, then the resulting creatures might not be unlike these midgets. They could be artificially created and incubator bred. I don’t say they are, I simply say they might be.”

  Palfrey took a cup of coffee.

  “Yes. We’re all guessing. Stomach contents?”

  “Mostly carbo-hydrates.”

  Palfrey moistened his lips: “Teeth?”

  “They’re probably carnivorous, but haven’t eaten much meat lately. One thing isn’t quite normal,” went on Campson. “Their stomachs are larger, in proportion to the rest of their bodies, than any other organs. I would say they’ve very healthy appetites, and their food goes to muscle. Usually with a mainly carbo-hydrate diet it runs to fat. There’s some factor in their metabolism which might be exactly what we’ve wanted for the cure of obesity. However, that isn’t quite what you’re worried about, is it?” He was more composed now; the telling had eased his mind.

  Palfrey said: “Not yet.”

  “Well don’t shout too soon,” warned Campson. “There’s one factor that worries me a great deal. This blood condition is allied to certain forms of leukaemia. There is a trace of radioactivity in the cells, and the condition is not unlike the early stages of leukaemia caused by exposure to atomic radiation. I don’t know the significance of it, but I do know that you should call in your specialists on the effect of atomic radiation on the human body. If these people are radioactive in any way, they might be like disease carriers – always able to pass the disease on to others but inoculated against it themselves. I didn’t want to tell anyone else this – I imagine you would like the findings to be a close secret until you really know the strength of them, wouldn’t you?”

  He didn’t add: “And what that strength proves to be is the thing which terrifies me.”

  Chapter Eight

  No Sens
e of Fear

  Palfrey sat very still and silent. Joyce stirred. Campson, with an assured matter-of-factness, held out his cup for more coffee, and the girl did not notice immediately. Palfrey began to twist strands of hair round his forefinger.

  “Radioactivity,” he said, almost mumbling. “Nasty thought. Joyce.”

  “Yes.”

  “Telephone Harwell, immediately. We would like Professor Copuscenti and his staff to examine these bodies independently of Mr. Campson’s report. Ask him to treat it with extreme urgency. Is Baretta back?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell him to make all arrangements – Harwell’s not far from Salisbury, there’s no reason why the examination should not be carried out there.”

  “I’ll see to it,” said Joyce. She noticed Campson’s cup, took it, poured out, and then stretched out for Palfrey’s. He waved her away. She went out immediately, while Palfrey continued to toy with those strands of silky hair.

  “Cheer up,” said Campson, better now that the report was off his mind. “I may be wrong.”

  “And if you’re right, then we know that radioactive midgets are running loose in the Salisbury area, and probably all over Southern England.” Palfrey gave a little bark of laughter. “We’ve inspired a rumour that we’re worried about rats spreading disease.”