The Martian War

CHAPTER SIX


AN UNINVITED GUEST AT THE SYMPOSIUM

On the day of the symposium, Wells arrived in the lecture hall early enough to get a spot in the front row. He wasn’t entirely sure what Huxley expected of him, but he did not intend to disappoint the professor. It was an unparalleled opportunity.

He settled himself in a varnished wooden chair and took out his papers and a lead pencil. He didn’t want to miss a word that was said. In the center of the oratory stage, a dark wooden lectern stood like a pulpit. Remembering Huxley’s showmanship when lecturing his biology students, Wells hoped the old professor still had his rhetorical abilities.

One by one, scientists filed in. Some still wore stained laboratory coats; many had tousled hair and bloodshot eyes, as if they had continued working through the night and all morning, trying to squeeze out one more result. Several men wore formal jackets, as if they expected an audience with the queen.

Wells was surprised to note impressive representatives filing in on the other side of the room. He recognized Prime Minister Gladstone himself, who had served in his post four times since 1868 in an alternating dance with his conservative rivals, the Marquis of Salisbury and Benjamin Disraeli. Numerous admirals and generals of the Imperial armed forces sat beside the prime minister in stiff, formal uniforms.

Wells surveyed them with amazement. The presence of such people drove home the importance of what would be discussed here. Self-consciously, he straightened his brown hair and moustache, then brushed imagined lint from his sleeves. His mother would swoon if she knew where her “Bertie” was now—and probably try to shoo him out of the auditorium so that “his betters” could do their important work.

T.H. Huxley entered from a side door, full of confidence. He wore a fine new suit and a perfectly knotted cravat. As he passed Wells, he paused. “Sit quietly and listen. Take notes of what is discussed and, most importantly—think about it. I may ask you questions afterward. I will make up my own mind, of course, but I would appreciate your analysis.”

The whispering from the audience grew louder, then fell off as the old professor took long-legged steps across the lecture stage. Huxley bowed to his audience, then made a special show of recognizing Prime Minister Gladstone, the various lords, Members of Parliament, and military officers. When he was finished with the formalities, he grasped the lectern as if he were about to teach a class full of fresh students.

“The greatest minds of the British Empire serve this institute. Some arrived openly, some in the middle of the night. Each one knows the importance of what is discussed and developed here behind closed doors.”

The professor summarized the familiar threats to the Empire, including the growing danger of the German Second Reich and her unexpected alliances with Russia, and the always-unruly French. Huxley swept his gaze across every listener. “How, then, is the British Empire to prepare? By leading the march of progress, rather than allowing ourselves to be trampled by it!” He turned to the dignitaries. “Gentlemen, distinguished M.P.s, your Lordships, Mr. Prime Minister, I present to you the secret work of the Imperial Institute.”

While the symposium continued, Wells feverishly took notes and wondered how he could possibly help reshape the world.

The next two speakers, Professor Redwood and Mr. Bensington, were quite ordinary-looking fellows. Redwood cleared his throat, and Bensington did the same, only with more gusto, as if competing with his partner. Professor Redwood began, “We have created a food substance called Herakleophorbia—”

“I thought of the name,” Bensington said. “Sounds quite impressive, doesn’t it?”

“Though it’s the devil to spell!” Redwood retorted, then returned his attention to the talk. “When used as a food source, Herakleophorbia greatly promotes growth and increases the size of any living creature.”

Bensington leaned closer to the lectern. “Ideally, we will be able to create giant warriors who can overthrow any enemy army.”

Redwood held up a hand. “For now, though, our amazing foodstuff has been tested only on laboratory animals.”

“But with extraordinary success!”

Both men gestured to their assistants, who disappeared behind the stage and then returned, tugging two heavy wooden carts. In each cart rested a large cage that contained a snarling, ferocious-looking brown rat as large as a sheep, with a rope-thick pink tail, flashing eyes, and long sharp teeth. Their shrill squeaking could be heard all the way to the back of the lecture hall. The mammoth rodents clawed at the cages, gnawing on the criss-crossed bars with jaws powerful enough to sever an oak sapling in a single bite.

While some of the lords and generals stared wide-eyed, Prime Minister Gladstone applauded. “Bravo! With such a substance we could feed the hungry, grow crops and meat animals large enough to fill every need. The trade union  s and syndicalists and downtrodden poor will no longer have anything to complain about.”

“Well, Mr. Prime Minister, that is certainly one application,” said Mr. Bensington. “Very astute of you to grasp that promoting social harmony is in itself a method of defending Britain.” Redwood scowled at his partner. Wells couldn’t understand how the two men could work together without coming to blows. “Unfortunately, sirs, there are still certain … inconsistencies in the formula. For instance, Herakleophorbia seems to promote a great deal of aggression in the subjects.”

Bensington would not be brushed aside so easily. “Yes, aggression—which is an advantage if we mean to create soldiers!”

“On the other hand, no one wants our pigs to become so vicious we cannot butcher them for their gigantic bacon!” Redwood added.

A few chuckles rippled across the audience.

With piercing squeaks, the enormous rats hurled themselves against the bars of the cages. One of the bars looked perilously loose, and Bensington signaled for the assistants to wrestle the swaying cages away. He sketched a quick bow to the prime minister and his cronies. “Nevertheless, you can certainly see the potential of Herakleophorbia.” He tugged Professor Redwood from the stage, beating a hasty retreat as the rats’ clamor grew louder.

For the next presentation, Dr. Hawley Griffin walked onto the stage. The eccentric chemist looked much tidier today: he was well groomed and wore a clean lab coat, but his expression shifted with extraordinary swiftness. Running hands through his bristly dark hair, Griffin presented his ideas about the military benefits of his experimental invisibility formula.

“Unseen soldiers could win every war, gentlemen. How could an enemy succeed in killing them, except by accident? Invisible spies could ferret out any secret, steal any document. Transparent assassins could slip in anywhere, kill any target. The possibilities are endless!” Griffin’s face was flushed. “He who possesses my invisibility formula could rule the world!”

Huxley stood abruptly to cut off the other man’s rant. “Ah, thank you very much, Dr. Griffin. None of us needs to be reminded that the aim of Britannia is to protect herself and carry on the burden of the Empire, not to conquer the world— as, perhaps, Kaiser Wilhelm wants to do.”

Without much subtlety, Huxley escorted the chemist away from the lectern, turning to smile reassuringly at Gladstone. “Dr. Griffin’s formulas have already succeeded in significantly increasing the transparency factor. Before long, he will have an effective demonstration. For now, ponder the applications and possibilities, should his work come to completion soon.”

Next, Dr. Selwyn Cavor talked about his extremely lightweight alloy. “My demonstration sphere is fully armored and impenetrable to even the heaviest artillery shell, yet it weighs less than a hundredth of a similar vessel covered in iron plating.”

“A weightless ironclad? Amazing.” The admirals and generals were abuzz with excitement.

“Well … not entirely weightless yet, Mr. Prime Minister. However, I believe I’m on the cusp of making a material that is opaque to gravity itself, immune to the tug of the Earth.”

For hours, one by one, prominent researchers gave brief demonstrations of their schemes. Wells continued writing his furious notes, and all the listeners continued to be amazed.

A medical expert and bacteriologist named Philby spoke about isolating the deadly cholera bacillus. He had already separated, purified, and concentrated the germ, which he kept in a locked container in his laboratory. Hearing Philby’s scheme, one of the uniformed generals blew through his long moustache, then grumbled with anger. “This is preposterous! A truly horrendous means of waging war, and very ungentlemanly.”

“But is it not something we must consider?” Philby insisted. “One small vial contains more ammunition than a hundred thousand bullets. We must not blindfold ourselves to reality. Certainly the Germans have already considered such a thing.” The general was obviously sobered as he pondered the implications.

Late in the afternoon, the auditorium door opened with a loud crash. Everyone in the audience turned as a disheveled but arrogant-looking man strode in as if he were a king. In the corridors behind him, incensed security men hustled forward, blowing whistles and shouting for the man to stop. But the barrel-chested intruder strode down the central aisle.

At the side of the stage, Huxley wore a terrible expression on his face. “Moreau! How dare you enter here?”

Moreau squared his shoulders, and his voice boomed out. “I dare, Thomas, because I must save you all from becoming fools.” His eyes were bright and defiant. “The Imperial Institute has a much too narrow view of the true threat that is upon us.”

Huxley struggled to regain his composure. “Guards, remove this man. He is not welcome here, nor in any facility of higher education in the British Empire. In fact, Scotland Yard has several outstanding warrants for his arrest.”

“Thomas Henry Huxley, you pride yourself on being a scientist, but you are pathetic when you allow emotions to rule you.” Moreau crossed his arms over his chest. “I know you dislike me. You and I have a bitter history, and you have accused me of committing heinous crimes.” He pointed an accusing finger at the professor. “But will you—before all these other researchers and the prime minister himself—refuse to hear what I have to say, though it may have a bearing upon the survival of every man, woman, and child on Earth? Where is your much-vaunted scientific objectivity?”

Huxley glowered. Wells had never seen the professor so angry. Moreau directed his words to Prime Minister Gladstone, but his voice still held an overconfident sneer. “I swear to you that the coming war will not only encompass all of the British Empire, but the entire world—nay, two worlds. You sit here clucking like old hens, worried about an insignificant shadow when the whole sky is falling on you.”

“What is this man saying?” Gladstone said, flustered. Guards had come into the auditorium, ready to drag Moreau away, but the unwelcome scientist did not budge. Wells wondered how Moreau had learned of this gathering of great scientists, when the entire research wing was supposedly a closely guarded secret.

Huxley fumed. “Very well, Moreau. What is it? Be succinct and make your words pertinent. Do not waste our time here.”

The audience members stirred and grumbled. “Silence! So that I may speak!” Moreau bellowed. The hubbub dwindled, and he waited for complete silence. “You will consider my information vital, though some may have been squeamish about my past methods. If you would drive me out now, you would blind yourselves to the most terrible danger the Earth itself has ever known!”

Huxley tapped the lectern impatiently. “Enough grandstanding, Moreau. What threat is greater than the Germans, or the Russians, or the French?”

Moreau said a single word in a deep, forbidding tone. “Martians.”

The lecture hall resounded with gasps, then chuckles.

“Enough! I assure you this is not a joke.” Moreau turned to the anxious-looking guards still standing in the doorway. “You there! Haul in my specimen. Go on!”

When the men hesitated, Moreau looked as if he intended to chase them into the corridor himself. “Come, come! Men entrusted with protecting this facility should be capable of lugging a single crate!”

While Wells watched with intense curiosity, the guards returned through the doors. Grunting and straining, they dragged a heavy rectangular crate nearly as large as the cages that had held the enormous rats. The crate was covered with a tarpaulin that hid its contents from view.

Moreau strode up to the crate and clutched the fabric with both hands. He looked back at Huxley. “Now you shall see. You all will see.” With a flourish, he yanked away the sheet to reveal an abominable, misshapen creature contained inside a glass-walled aquarium. “This is the true face of our enemy, gentlemen.”

The lecture hall resounded with gasps and exclamations. The unearthly creature was obviously dead, preserved in murky formaldehyde. The bulbous, brown-skinned thing was composed mostly of a gigantic brain sac. Huge milky-white eyes looked like overcooked eggs. Snake-like tentacle appendages dangled from a soft and hideous body.

“It looks like that deformed Merrick chap,” cried Philby, the medical researcher. But Wells, who had seen pictures of the “elephant man,” knew that this supposed Martian was much more disgusting in appearance.

Wells scribbled notes furiously, attempting to record or even sketch what he witnessed. He swallowed hard as he scratched with his lead pencil, sure he had blundered onto the doorstep of history in the making.

He looked at the blustering bearded man. His immediate reaction was one of distaste. Moreau seemed to be a person of some genius, but little tact. Wells preferred Huxley’s approach to the mysteries of science, yet Moreau’s convictions stood taller and more impregnable than all of Wells’s book learning. The abrasive man did not seem to care that he was liked among his colleagues, so long as he was proved right. Moreau stood buffeted by the wash of the audience’s distaste, but showed no sign of backing down. His shocking announcement had at least shaken them, forced them to listen.

Smug now that he had their full attention, Moreau raised his voice. “This Martian died in the crash of a first cylinder in the Sahara, apparently a scout ship from the red planet. I have dissected and analyzed it thoroughly and recorded the full details here in my personal journal.”

He removed a bound volume from his suit and held it up in a large hand. “This specimen is only the first—the first of an entire invasion force from Mars!”