The Molecule Men and the Monster of Loch Ness

Book 0: Fred Hoyle's World of Science Fiction

by Fred Hoyle, Geoffrey Hoyle

Genres: Science Fiction; Hard Science Fiction; Space Opera

Synopsis

Dr John West, Cambridge don and private investigator, was present at the trial of an odd duck, R. A. Adcock, who was being most uncooperative in answering questions about a bank robbery. At length, Adcock had made a dash for it from the courtroom - through a glass window, and what should have been a three storey drop to the street. But suddenly, Adcock wasn't there, and at once a swarm of bees came into the courtroom. Thus begins The Molecule Men, which takes many fascinating and terrifying turns to its chilling conclusion. In the second story, the Monster of Loch Ness, Tom Cochrane, an independent scientist, determines to find out why the waters of Loch Ness are inexplicably warming up. What was it that caused the waters of the loch to pour up into the air like the worst rainstorm any of the observers had ever seen? What was at the bottom of the loch? These two short novels by a celebrated father and son team will hold the interest of the science fiction fan from page one on.

Release date: June 24, 2015

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 177

Sample

I watched with impatience as luggage emerged from a kind of crematorium in reverse. Fortunately, I thought sourly, this labour-saving airport device was only half automatic. Recently I’d encountered a fully automated system, a marvel of technology, which ripped labels off outgoing luggage and accumulated incoming bags in mysterious undiscoverable back-waters.

My profession has two sides to it. On the surface I’m a Cambridge don. Under the surface I’m what you might call an industrial spy, nothing political or military. Oddly enough, the two activities fit very well together, the respectable side being a natural complement for the not-so-respectable. While in Cambridge I work on highly academic problems and this gains me access to chemical companies all over the world. It gives me the status to walk in at the front door, so to speak. And out by the front door too, having learned one or two things that my company, United Chemicals, want to know.

On this particular morning I was irritated and sour because I’d been sent to the United States on a wild goose chase. The lunar soil episode started when NASA reported that plants grow more rapidly in it than in ordinary terrestrial soil. Why?

On account of some trace element, fairly obviously. Plant growth depends not just on the common constituents of soil but on small quantities of rare materials as well. Since the rare materials are different on the Moon, it was a fair bet that the root of the problem lay there. United Chemicals was interested because of the possibility of introducing the same critical trace materials into ordinary agriculture, as a kind of super fertilizer. My doubt, the reason for my lack of enthusiasm, was simply that the odds were a hundred-to-one against the idea being economically feasible.

I was turning over in my mind certain pungent remarks specially selected for one of the Directors of United Chemicals, when an incident occurred that brightened the day for me. After collecting my bag at wearisome length I was walking unobtrusively through the customs hall when I was knocked sideways by a man in a harsh blue suit and a Homburg hat. As I retrieved my case a posse of officials rushed past in pursuit of the now rapidly retreating figure. What an incredible amateur I thought to myself.

But as soon as I stepped outside the airport building, at about 7.30 a.m. on a cold dark January morning, I realized the fellow had a fair chance of slipping away in the misty gloom.

The wind was chilly, so instantly I jumped into the nearest taxi, saying ‘United Chemicals, in the Strand.’

On the motorway the taxi pulled laboriously into the right-hand lane to overtake an airline bus. As we moved alongside I glanced idly up at the windows. A hard flat face was looking down at me. It wasn’t the face itself that had particular meaning, it was the electric blue suit the fellow was wearing. All the way to the Strand I kept wondering why anybody would wear a suit like that, especially if he were making a break for it.

Cambridge is the most depressing place on wintry days. The east wind slices across the open fenland turning the portals of learning into cold icy stone. In fact the weather conditions are very similar to the feelings that run like hidden rivers under the placid exterior of the city.

My college is Emmanuel, but the events I am now to describe took place in Jesus. A fellow chemist had invited me there to the annual Candlemas Feast, which took place about a week after my return from the United States, in the first few days of February.

I suppose seventy-five people were at dinner, all men. We sat ourselves down at long tables, with candlelight shedding those ominous long fluttering shadows. Gradually as more and more wine was consumed the sound level rose higher and higher until at last we were all bawling our heads off. My host, Carswell, a rubicund, jolly-looking man, who I happened to know had a connection with Government Intelligence, insisted towards the end of the meal that we should go back to his rooms—with a few others—for a final nightcap.

We were about to leave the Dining Hall when I noticed an elderly Fellow with flowing white hair attacking a fly on the table in front of him. With furious persistence the old man flailed away with his napkin, but the insect just seemed to hop from side to side, somehow avoiding the napkin and the wind it produced. Then in apparent desperation the old boy let loose with the flat of his hand on the middle of the table.

‘Tremendous reactions, old Simons has,’ said Carswell rising.

‘He’s pretty strong certainly,’ I replied as the crockery settled back onto the table. The old man drew back his hand but there was no sign of a crushed fly underneath. I smiled and followed Carswell out of the Hall.

‘I’ve seen him around, in summer.’

‘Pruning the bushes no doubt.’

‘I suppose he’s retired.’

‘Officially, yes. Unofficially he’s still writing the second volume of his history of England. Been at it for thirty years.’

‘What happened to the first volume?’

‘A best-seller to have lasted so long,’ said Carswell as we entered his rooms. ‘Gentlemen, may I introduce Dr John West.’

I nodded to three men already assembled there.

‘Here we have another historian, Chris Spottiswood,’ went on my host, pointing to a lean fellow who looked like Chalky in a Giles cartoon.

‘This is the Dean, Professor Underwood, and this is Mr Harrison, from London.’

‘Good evening, Dr West,’ said Harrison, standing up to address me. He was a tall thin man, dressed very precisely, dinner jacket and old-fashioned stiff shirt.

‘Well now, who’s for port?’ asked Carswell, clinking glasses.

We sat digesting our meal and making polite conversation for a while. The talk among such a small number was coherent rather than scattered. Eventually it emerged that Harrison was a police officer, Special Branch. I say ‘eventually’, for I could have told them so from the moment I set eyes on the man. At any rate I could have pinpointed him as something special, whether police, intelligence service, or the like. In my not-so-respectable capacity, I’ve seen these types so often before.

While Harrison was entertaining the group with one or two prepared anecdotes, I turned the situation over in my mind. So far as I was concerned there was nothing in it for the police. The only sensitive area would lie with the investigating officers at the Treasury. And this would be more a matter for United Chemicals generally than for me in particular.

The point of course is that you can’t finance espionage, whether through government or through industry, in a manner suited to a normal balance sheet. Every government agency has its own special budget which lies beyond normal scrutiny. Industrially we are not permitted special budgets, at any rate officially. So rules simply have to be broken. The situation is absurd but it goes on.

Eventually the party broke up, not before time. Harrison contrived to delay me a moment while Carswell was seeing the others out.

‘Dr West, I believe you travelled on TWA Flight 99 from Chicago? On the night of January 23rd.’

Deliberately I took out my diary and flipped through the pages.

‘That’s right. I flew from Chicago on the 23rd, TWA. I’m not sure about the flight number.’

‘What time did you land?’

‘I suppose about 7.15 a.m.’

‘That would be the right flight.’

With rising anger I noted that Carswell hadn’t re-joined us. Planting Harrison on me had been deliberate then.

‘Inspector Harrison, if you have questions to ask me—official questions—why not arrange an appointment?’

Rather to my surprise Harrison seemed embarrassed. He scratched his ear for a moment.

‘Well, to be absolutely frank, I don’t have official questions. It’s just that I’m badly puzzled.’

‘By what?’

‘A man in a Homburg hat.’

I must have reacted, for Harrison picked up my reflex.

‘You saw him?’ he asked.

‘Saw him! He almost bowled me over. Ran into me in the customs area.’

‘Then you could describe him?’

‘As a matter of fact I couldn’t. By the time I’d recovered my wits he was away, disappearing into the distance. Oddly enough it was the hat and the colour of his suit which occupied my attention.’

‘Blue?’

‘Very blue.’

‘Surely you have some impression of the man?’

‘Well, I’m pretty certain he was of compact build. Not small—but chunky.’

‘Did you notice him on the plane?’

‘No.’

‘In the queue at the immigration desk?’

‘No.’

‘Can you describe what happened after the plane landed. Up to the time of the incident in the customs hall.’

‘It was quite a walk from the arrival gate to immigration. I put on a fair turn of speed, partly to stretch my legs and partly to be at the head of the immigration queue. I passed perhaps a dozen people. Your man wasn’t among them. The immigration people let me straight through. Then I waited quite a time for my bag.’

‘Did you see the man—while you were waiting?’

‘No.’

‘After you got your bag, exactly what happened?’

‘Well, there are two exits, one marked: FOR PASSENGERS WITH GOODS TO DECLARE—or some such title, and the other for passengers without goods to declare. I went through the second. The collision happened shortly after that.’

‘I see. Was it a random encounter?’

‘Meaning what, Inspector?’

‘You didn’t see him again, this man?’

‘No.’

Which wasn’t true. I was pretty sure I’d seen the fellow again on the airline bus. I didn’t feel like admitting it because it seemed too much of a coincidence. The last thing I wanted was to have Harrison connecting me with the Homburg hat.

‘What was the fellow up to?’ I asked.

‘I wish I knew.’

‘You must know something. Otherwise you wouldn’t have arranged with Carswell …’

‘I’m sorry about that.’

Harrison was scratching his head now. He certainly looked a seriously baffled man.

‘It started at the immigration desk. One of the immigration officers became suspicious.’

‘About what?’

‘Just about the man.’

‘His passport?’

‘No, the passport seemed in order.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Harrison paused for quite a while, and then went on, ‘I’m not sure I do either. When I questioned the officer he insisted the man didn’t seem right. Those were his words.’

Oddly enough, I had a similar feeling.

‘He left his fellow officer—there were two officers on the desk?’ asked Harrison.

‘Yes. As far as my experience goes there always are.’

‘Well, he left his fellow officer to watch the man while he went to get the TWA passenger list.’

‘I’d expect immigration officers to have the passenger list already.’

‘Apparently they hadn’t.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘Very simple. The man made a break for it. He ran down into the customs area where he collided with you, and then out into the open.’

‘It was pretty foggy and dark outside.’

‘The airport security people were plain slack, if you ask me.’

‘Why are you so concerned with the case, Inspector?’

Harrison shifted his legs uneasily, sweeping them over a wide arc. In the rather dim light of Carswell’s rooms I noticed his hair was beginning to silver. ‘Why shouldn’t I be concerned with it?’ he answered.

‘Come off it, Inspector. The Special Branch isn’t called in to chase every immigrant-on-the-loose. There has to be a lot more to it.’

‘Which I might prefer to keep to myself.’

‘Of course. But since you were at such pains to make this a social conversation I thought I might ask. You must have followed up the passport. What was the name?’

‘Adcock. R.A.Adcock.’

‘I suppose it was forged?’

‘Yes and no. The material of the passport was genuine—the paper. But no passport was issued to any R.A.Adcock on the date stamped on it.’

‘By the Foreign Office?’

‘Nothing by the Foreign Office.’

‘So the forger had access to the official watermark. You’d better start watching for counterfeit banknotes.’

‘The point hadn’t escaped me.’

‘And the address—on the passport?’

‘Nineteen Wellington Road, Pimlico.’

‘Where dwells a little old lady, no doubt.’

‘Where dwells a rough tough dock worker. Talk to him about Homburg hats and he’d give you a quick left that might send you to casualty.’

‘I still don’t see what there is in all this to involve you personally, Inspector. Or me either.’

‘You’re hardly seeking to tell me my own business, Dr West?’

‘Of course not. But I take it you’re checking up on all available passengers—on this flight I mean?’

‘As far as I can.’

‘A lot of trouble for a straightforward case.’

‘A straightforward case of what?’

‘Forgery and smuggling.’

‘Not straightforward.’ Harrison leaned forward and tapped me on the knee. ‘Let me tell you this. The name of the docker is Ronald Arthur Adcock. No doubt about it. I’ve checked him from A to Z. What manner of forger would use an actual name and an actual address? Besides there was no Adcock on the TWA passenger list.’

For the first time I began to realize that Harrison had a genuine sense of unease. So had I myself for that matter. It just didn’t figure, as the Americans would say, any of it. Both Harrison and I, in different ways, were concerned with unusual aspects of life. On the face of it we might have been expected to react to unusual circumstances more calmly than most people. But this affair was so far outside our experience, it verged so much on the ridiculous, as to put us quite out of stride. Farce doesn’t mix with cloak and dagger stuff. Harrison put it very well, just before Carswell returned.

‘I’ve always believed there was a clear-cut logical explanation to everything. This business reached my desk by way of information, not for action. But I just couldn’t put it out of my mind. So I simply had to get involved. There has to be an explanation somewhere.’

It was dark, the main College lights being turned off, as Carswell let me out of the Jesus car park. Since he was unaware that I knew a good deal about his extra-curricular activities, I gave no hint that the connection with Harrison had been obvious to me. I drove to my home in Newnham feeling all the time there was someone immediately behind me. Not since I was a small boy had I felt so frightened, particularly at the moment I entered the darkened house.

The weeks rolled by with the usual outrages continually reported in the press. Turmoil abroad, strikes at home, demonstrations against this and that, tragic accidents, and the usual crop of violent crimes.

A bank robbery in Lewisham was exceptional only in that it was perpetrated not by masked intruders equipped with guns and smoke bombs but by one of the bank’s own tellers. The case gathered interest, however, when it came before the magistrates’ court. The defendant, a ‘quiet man’ of about forty-five with a hitherto blameless record, proceeded to deny the charge with the utmost vehemence. He continued to do so throughout his subsequent trial saying he had not gone to work at all on the day in question. But when asked for evidence of some sort of alibi he could produce none. And to the question of where he’d been on the fateful day all he could answer was ‘my mind was a blank’. Against a mountain of eye-witness accounts of the robbery, some witnesses being his own colleagues at the bank—men he’d worked with for several years—this flimsy defence stood no chance of success. The bewildered teller was given a seven-year sentence, and nothing further would have been heard of him, at any rate for the period of his sentence, had it not been for a remarkable intervention from R.A.Adcock. The morning paper carried half a column:

ROW FLARES OVER MISIDENTIFICATION

A man, charged yesterday at Lewisham police station in the name of Ronald Arthur Adcock, 41, of 19 Wellington Road, Pimlico, confessed to the robbery of the National Westminster Bank, Lewisham High Street on February 23rd. He will appear in court on Friday.

In April, Kenneth Sheppard, a teller at the bank, was tried and convicted for this robbery. At his trial Sheppard strenuously denied all knowledge of the crime and collapsed when sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment.

Disquiet is being widely expressed at what may be yet another case of misidentification. Sir William Birch, Conservative M.P. for Streatham, said: ‘There have been too many serious mistakes of this kind. Coming on top of two misidentification incidents in Bradford and the recent one in Glasgow makes me feel that we are all in jeopardy if this sort of thing is allowed to go on. I shall be asking the Home Secretary for a full statement on the case.’

Friday the 23rd found me early at the Civic Hall, Lewisham.

‘Good morning, can you tell me where I can find the Magistrates’ Court?’ I asked at the information desk.

‘Two floors up. Then it’s number 4, last door on the left.’

I suppose the courtroom was something of the order of seventy by fifty feet. The public benches were already reasonably full. I managed to squeeze into the front one. Surveying the scene, to my right was the prisoner’s dock with a staircase leading down to the cells. In the middle of the room, an odd assortment of people was distributed around a large square table, some facing a kind of stage with a long narrow table and three large magisterial. . .