It was in the year 2,000 A.D. when nobody could any longer blame flying saucers on imagination or indigestion. They became apparent in the June of that year in all parts of the world. From the North to South Pole the telecasts and ’phone lines were busy, and news editors were working themselves into the grave welding together the flood of information which poured in from reporters all over the globe.
London, New York, Paris, Moscow, Melbourne, Bombay … The saucers had been seen everywhere. Apparently invasion of Earth was imminent. Fleets of the queer, disc-like craft had passed over every principal city, done no damage, and vanished from sight again. Earth’s fastest fliers had gone in pursuit, without result. To pursue the saucers into the void was left to the toughest rocket-men Earth possessed—but even in free space, permitting of terrific velocities, it had not been possible to catch up with the saucers. As always, they eluded capture, or, if anybody came too close they were wiped out completely.
Nobody thought of talking about anything except flying saucers and imminent invasion. Stock markets declined; big concerns took preventative measures to safeguard their possessions. Industrial and atomic-product cities tested their defences; country leaders made speeches. Yet it was left to a London policeman to see the first signs of the unusual.
P.C. 567’s beat lay along Oxford Street. He had followed it so many times it was sheer monotony—but not on this ill-fated afternoon of June 9th, 2,000. He had just closed up the police ’phone-box, in which he had made his report of progress to headquarters, when it happened.
Suddenly, out of the yellow-blue of the summer sky, there flashed a light of intolerable brightness. It turned dingy London to a fairy city for a few flashing seconds, like an agglomeration of white buildings seen at night for a moment in the blaze of a magnesium flare. What happened after that P.C. 567 was not sure, but it seemed to him that the great buildings around him started to smoke, and then crumble. The heavy stone itself actually seemed to melt; windows tinkled and smashed: the whole mass of the metropolis, bathed in unholy radiance, began to shift and slide like wax under a radiator.
P.C. 567 fell flat on his face as the pavement ruptured beneath him. He was not alone in his fall. In all directions men and women dropped helplessly, and then screamed as molten masonry and bending girders crashed over and down on top of them. Some looked skywards and were forever blinded. Others caught fire. The more fortunate fell into cavities made by fallen girders and escaped the pinning weight of debris which rained on top of them.
For perhaps ten minutes the section of London where P.C. 567 was, lay intermittently flooded with light and unimaginable heat. He, pinned down amidst wreckage, was unhurt, but scared to death. He was perfectly convinced it was an attack by the flying saucers and on an unprecedented scale. He listened to the battering thunder of falling buildings, the screams of men and women, the screech and hoot of traffic. Then very gradually, the frightful disturbance seemed to abate and at last all was quiet. He began shoving and pushing and perhaps fifteen minutes later poked a dust- and sweat-caked face into the normal summer afternoon sunlight.
Astounded, he looked about him. The very heart of London had disappeared. There was nothing but smoking rubble, forlorn and twisted girders, mangled bodies, piled-up traffic, listing standards … As far as he could see, in all directions, everything had been razed. Then came the scream of ambulance and fire sirens, the arrival of rescue workers. He dragged himself entirely free of the debris and stood up, his puzzled gaze on the blank blue sky. Nothing was in sight. No saucer, no blinding glare, no ’plane. Just the soft warmth of June, a devilish mockery amidst such carnage.
There was no police ’phone-box; no headquarters at all, so P.C. 567 began walking unsteadily, holding his aching head. He passed bemused and tattered men and women, looking vaguely around them. Some were severely injured and did not seem to realise it. Others were savagely burned; still others were groping around in darkness, the penalty of having gazed at that searing sky.
Atomic bomb? P.C. 567 considered this and then recalled there had been no blast. In any event, the alarm system round Earth was so perfect that no ’plane or space-ship could have approached within hitting distance without being instantly detected. In fact, the business was a mystery, and P.C. 567 had only one idea in mind. He was an officer of the law and as such had only one duty: to report in detail the terrible cataclysm in which he had been involved.
It was late in the afternoon when at last he staggered wearily to a region on the outskirts of the city centre. Here the buildings were still standing, and the further he walked the more normalcy returned. He gathered he was somewhere in the region of Putney or Wandsworth—which meant that the very heart of London had been totally destroyed … He found a police station, stumbled in to make his report, and then collapsed …
But his report was the most decisive of any, and the most detailed. With a policeman’s eye for facts, he had photographically absorbed everything, and whilst he lay in the hospital undergoing treatment, his statement was transmitted to the Public Bureau of Safety, a newly-created organisation devised solely for the purpose of protecting the citizen in the event of interplanetary war … and that war, it seemed, had come, with first blood to the enemy.
At the head of the Bureau of Safety was Captain Grant Englefield, thirty-six years of age, with experience measuring to twice his years. Hardened space-pilot, scientist, and with his finger always on the public pulse, he was admirably fitted for his job as guardian of public safety. But at this moment he was the target for furious protests and declamations from all directions. The lowliest citizen and the highest Government authority was blaming him for the disaster which had struck London during the afternoon—and because he had no answer to the riddle he had to sit in his office and take it.
The bureau stood on the outskirts of London—for which reason it had missed the disaster which had blasted the heart out of the city. To it were linked all the private wires and television and radio stations from which reports were sent, and not one of them had ever even glimpsed invaders over London before disaster had struck.
“I just don’t understand it!” Englefield declared at last, getting up from the desk and pacing around in the evening sunlight. “Something of inconceivable power struck the metropolis and yet not a soul, not a damned soul, knows a thing about it. The only answer we get is a terrific blaze in the sky. We saw that ourselves, but not full on, and took it for some kind of solar reaction … It’s a mystery.”
Bob Curtis, Englefield’s right-hand man and secretary, nodded slowly. He was short, broad-shouldered, sandy, and strong as an ox—a contrast to Englefield’s tall, hawklike figure with the black hair and piercing grey eyes.
“My guess is an atom bomb,” Bob Curtis said finally, looking through the reports.
“No, Bob. No ’plane could have dropped one. It would have been seen; and certainly no flying saucer could get through the defence ring. Even if it had made itself invisible its mass would still be there to react on the alarm system.”
“Why drop the bomb from above? Why not a delayed-action one, buried at some time or other, which exploded when the limit had expired?”
“I’d thought of that, but that policeman’s report disproves it. There was that blinding glare in the sky, which certainly could not have come from a ground-bomb, unless there was some kind of atomic current produced between earth and sky.” Englefield pondered this point and then shook his head. “I can’t credit that, either. I don’t believe it was an atom-bomb. The effect was too completely disastrous even for an A-bomb. It was something else, but I’ll be damned if I know what. I shall probably get a better idea when the investigators have finished probing the ruins.”
“There’s certainly never been anything like it,” Bob Curtis said soberly, looking at the London map on the wall, around an area of which a red circle had been drawn. “Look at that! Everything within an area bordered by Islington, Bow, Canning Town, Greenwich, Peckham and Pimlico has been utterly wiped out. Not one brick on top of another! The death roll at the moment runs close to the million mark, and the injured are in the same number.”
“You don’t have to tell me! I …” Englefield broke off as the intercom buzzed. He snapped it on. “Yes? Englefield speaking.”
“The Prime Minister to see you, Captain.”
“Oh?” Englefield looked surprised then straightened up. “Yes, I’ll see him at once, of course.”
In another moment the office door opened and an elderly grey-headed man was admitted. He had the thin features of an aristocrat, and the chin of a man of iron resolve. Thrice-elected as Prime Minister of Britain, Sir Douglas Jaycott was a man to be respected and—at times—feared. He was one who never hesitated over ruthless and unpopular decisions if he thought them necessary for the good of the country.
“A pleasure, Sir Douglas,” Englefield said quietly, shaking hands. “Do sit down.”
“Thank you.” The Prime Minister seated himself at the huge desk and then opened his brief-case. “Half-an-hour ago I received a most extraordinary communication,” he said, coming straight to the point as usual. “It was sent direct to my Berkshire home where, fortunately, I have been staying during the summer months, otherwise I’d have been caught in that disaster. However, this is the message.”
The Prime Minister handed it over, a transcription from a radio communication on an official Government form:
You have seen what has happened to London. It can, and will, happen elsewhere unless you are prepared to convey authority to accredited agents who will be named to you. If you are prepared to come to terms for the transfer of power to ourselves you can signify your willingness by firing an explosive rocket ship at a two-mile height as a signal.
THE COSMIC FLAME
Englefield read the message through twice, his thin lips hard. Bob Curtis studied it over his shoulder; then both men looked at Sir Douglas.
“Where that message came from I don’t know,” he said, shrugging. . . .
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