Heredity is dependent on the complex patterns of genes and chromosomes, which are particularly vulnerable to radiation. An error in a biological research unit led to the birth of a thing so bestial and so powerful that it became a target so Security. As it grew, its strategic potential developed until whispers of its monstrous power filtered out to the rest of the world. Other nations were interested and one intrepid agent reached the secret bunker where the powerful thing was kept. His interference shattered a safety device and the thing escaped. It strode across the world with the fury of a tornado. Nothing seemed able to stand in its path. Mighty cities were shattered like ant-hills as the mutant monster continued its rampage. Dazed, disorganised humanity strove desperately to strike back before it was too late...
Release date:
January 30, 2014
Publisher:
Orion Publishing Group
Print pages:
320
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THE train stopped. It stopped with a smooth, quiet, electrical efficiency, and within seconds of Roger Quentin’s alighting it was on its way again. There was a particularly rural, peaceful atmosphere surrounding the station. As Roger looked at its gardens, its neat, white platform-edgings and its newly polished windows, he began to wonder whether he really was within fifty miles of London.
He compared it to the smoky grime of the northern station which served his university town. He compared it to the dingy darkness of Liverpool Street. Then, having told himself that this was reality, he walked towards the station exit, swinging his case.
There were two reasons why the case was not particularly heavy. Roger Quentin liked to travel light; he couldn’t really afford to travel any other way. Apart from the sports jacket and flannels, and the neatly pressed suit folded carefully in the case, together with two changes of shirt and a spare pair of socks, Quentin had no other wardrobe to pack. Roger, like many other final year medical students, was finding it no easy task to eke out his minute grant. This vac. job down in Kent had seemed rather a long way to come, but as they had promised to pay his fare, and as the wages were considerably higher than usual, Roger was pleased to find himself standing on the flower-lined platform. He handed in his ticket to a gnome-like stationmaster, whose bright little eyes twinkled up at him from beneath bushy grey brows.
“I don’t suppose you could tell me where Dr. Durger’s house is?” asked Quentin.
The stationmaster looked him up and down thoughtfully. “Are you going to work for the doctor?”
It seemed rather a pertinent question, and Quentin, who was used to suffering the indignities which some sarcastic lecturers felt it was their privilege to inflict upon the students in their charge, felt rather resentful.
“I have business with Dr. Durger,” he said, quietly but firmly. The little man continued to smile, but his eyes had grown a shade colder.
“Yes, I can tell you where the house it. You go straight out of the station and down the hill; at the crossroads, first left, then second right, across the ford, and you’ll see it set well back on the left-hand side.”
“Thank you.” Quentin took two or three paces away from the wicket and then, as an after thought, turned and called over his shoulder: “Is it far?”
“ ’Bout three miles.”
It hadn’t sounded as far as that from the old station-master’s directions. Quentin wondered whether there was any chance of a lift. Then he thought about the money. Pity they hadn’t been able to meet him at the station; still, it was one of those things. He set out briskly. It was a fine July day. Kent was rich in summer loveliness. He swung his case back and forth with brisk enthusiasm. Beneath his feet he could feel the hard, rather dusty surface of the road. It was not the kind of road that got itself included on the smooth, straight, red lines of a motoring atlas.
After about half a mile of brisk walking, Quentin stopped and leaned on a gate, looking all around him. Kent in summer was a glorious sight, he decided. Over the distant crossroad he watched a party of hop pickers making their way towards the broad, dark green fields and, in the distance, Roger Quentin could see the unmistakable points of the oast houses. A part of the essential English tradition that was in danger of passing for ever, he thought. A bee droned by lazily. Above him, as he glanced up to follow the flight of the insect, a flock of plover moved gracefully across the sky. Quentin looked around until his travelling gaze came down to the road surface again. He sniffed the air before unwinding himself from the gate and setting off once more. As he sniffed, he found the scent of hops and flowers, hedgerows and trees, ripe and rich in the warm Kentish breeze. He walked on a little less briskly than he had done. Although Quentin was by nature an energetic young man, he was by no means a vigorously fanatical athletic one! He thought how sedentary his college work was. Drawing a deep breath, he continued on his way, enjoying the sounds, sights and scents of the countryside.
He had followed the old stationmaster’s directions with a certain amount of carelessness and, passing the village policeman, who was cycling slowly, Quentin stopped and asked again for Dr. Durger’s house. The policeman, a tall, broad-shouldered individual, looked at Quentin with an interest which amounted almost to suspicion.
“You’ve not very far to go now, young fella.” He had a dark-brown voice, a traditional police voice, thought the student. “What might you be wanting there?”
Being short with the stationmaster was one thing, thought Quentin; being off-hand with the local representative of law and order was a different matter. It would not do to make an unnecessary enemy of the policeman as he began his six-week stay in the area. With a smile he said: “I’m hoping to work there, officer.”
“Work there?”
“Yes, I’m a medical student—final year.”
“Oh, I see. You mean final year before your hospital work?”
“That’s right. You seem to know something about medical training.”
“A little,” returned the policeman. “Got a nephew at Edinburgh.”
“Really?” Quentin was genuinely interested.
“He’s only in his first year,” volunteered the policeman.
“How’s he getting on?” Quentin was always pleased to talk to, or about, other students, even though he didn’t know them. He was a carefree, friendly character by nature, despite his rebuff of the stationmaster.
“Oh, he’s doing pretty well, says he enjoys it, anyway! His father’s very proud of him,” said the worthy custodian of the law. His attitude to Quentin had now changed from one of observant semi-suspicion to one of semi-fatherly interest. “You take my advice, young fella, you be very careful how you go and what you do in Durger’s place. He’s an odd sort of character. I’ll tell you this, the local people don’t like him one little bit.” He hesitated. “Well, now, I mustn’t say things I shouldn’t, but be on your guard. He’s neither an easy nor a pleasant man to get along with.”
“Oh,” said Quentin dubiously. “Can’t you tell me a bit more?”
“There are such things as the laws of slander,” said the policeman ponderously, “and it would be very unfitting for a man in my position to go and tell you a lot of things which may or may not be true about your prospective employer. If you’d come down for a permanent job, I might have been inclined to warn you right away from the place, but from what my nephew tells me, I know money’s none too plentiful in student years, so you just goin’ for a few weeks like, I daresay you’ll be all right. But I wouldn’t like no friend o’ mine to work there, and certainly no son o’ mine.”
“Well, what exactly is wrong?”
“ ’Speriments!” replied the policeman darkly. “Unwholesome ’speriments!”
“What kind of experiments?”
“There’s a lot of animals go in that house, I see the lorries bringing ’em—and there’s very few come out!”
“Well, medical research does require a lot of animals for experimental purposes. After all, I believe this is some sort of experimental biological unit that the doctor has, isn’t it?”
“Ah, legitimate medical research is one thing,” said the policeman. “The sort of things Durger gets up to is another, by the sound of it. Some of the local women they’ve had, you know, used to go up and clean. You won’t get anybody from the village now. They said they’ve seen things up there—ach!” He shuddered. “Animals cut up while they were alive and kept alive with tubes; things of that nature. Horrible sights!”
“What’s the purpose of his research? It just said ‘general biological research’ in his letter to me,” said Roger, defensively.
“You ever heard of ’Arry Bolton?” demanded the policeman.
“Harry Bolton? The name’s vaguely familiar,” said Roger. “Wait a minute—isn’t he one of these tycoons or something—take-over bids—is that where I’ve heard the name?”
“You may have done a few years ago, but not now,” said the policeman. He seemed singularly well informed on current affair. “ ’Arry Bolton is what you’d call an eccentric. If a man is poor they say he’s mad and lock him up.” He laughed. “If you’re rich, you’re eccentric and entitled to your whims.” The policeman mopped his brow and replaced his helmet. “I’m saying things I oughtn’t to.”
“What about Harry Bolton, then?”
“He owns the place. Durger’s working for him. Bolton’s no longer a young man, you see.…”
Facts began to flash into the young medical student’s mind. “You mean Bolton is interested in finding some method of prolonging his life?”
“Well, folks seem to reckon that’s the long and short of it though, of course, it’s only whispers and supposition. Very little is known outside the village. And also what I said is probably only idle gossip and I should ha’ known better. I hope you won’t treat any of this as being in the least official. Just pretend you stopped and had a friendly chat, forget I’ve got my uniform on; you’ll do us both a favour.”
“Certainly,” agreed Quentin.
The policeman seemed a little embarrassed at having said as much as he had. Quentin took his leave of the officer and set off in the direction which the worthy custodian of the law had pointed out to him.
It was only another ten minutes’ walk to the house. As the stationmaster had said, Durger’s place was set well back from the road, and by the time Roger Quentin had walked up the drive he was quite convinced that those in the house must have been aware of his approach. Durger stood in the doorway. He was tall, slim but powerful, a hawk-like man, with an intense, dark and earnest face. As Quentin arrived, Durger held out a hand in greeting.
“You must be Roger Quentin?”
“Dr, Durger, I presume?”
“You sound like Stanley, the explorer, except that you won’t find me a missionary—at least, not a missionary in the accepted sense.” Durger’s voice was as intense and vital as his general appearance. “Come in, Mr. Quentin.”
Durger ushered Roger through into a long white hall from which various doors opened off, and from which a staircase rose at an angle to disappear into the upper heights of the building. From the outside Quentin had noticed the house was large, but the impression of size increased as he paused and looked round the interior.
“A big place you have here, Doctor.”
“Yes, scarcely large enough for all my work, but it will do. Bolton likes it because it’s secluded, you know.”
“Bolton?” Quentin pretended that he didn’t understand.
“Yes, this isn’t really my research unit,” sa. . .
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