Twenty-Four Hours

by Neil Charles, Denis Hughes

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Alien Contact; Space Opera

Synopsis

Fate's selection of Nick and Pat for the task of preserving the world is one of those problems which will always remain unsolved. Outwardly, they were hardly a suitable pair. One was liable to be branded a traitor; the other was incurably ill. And yet to them fell the colossal responsibility of doing what they did - destroying the alien threat at terrible sacrifice to themselves...

Release date: October 27, 2016

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 99

Sample

Transcribed and Edited

by

NEIL CHARLES

from the Original Shorthand Record

Time’s running pretty short now—three or four hours at the outside. If my watch hadn’t staged a go-slow strike I could be more definite. Not that it will make a lot of difference in the long run, but when you reach the point when you measure your life in minutes it’s queer how important they become. Besides, there’s a lot to get down on paper, though personally I doubt if anyone will ever find it, let alone read this record. Still, Pat has a hunch I’m wrong. She says it’s our duty to put it all down. I hope she’s right. It was her idea anyway, and she has enough courage to back it up. Far more than I possess. After all, she knew she was bound to die in any case; with me it was different. Even if we did somehow get out of this alive—which would be a miracle—they’d have a firing squad lined up to meet me. I think I’d rather go out like this, thanks. No fuss, no frills, and less disgrace because no one knows about it but Pat and me. Incidentally, she’s just reminded me quietly that I’m not only wasting time but talking rubbish as well. She still doesn’t believe in the firing squad part of it; says I’ve made what she calls atonement, which sounds pretty good but doesn’t mean very much at the moment. Maybe when this is all over she’ll be vindicated. I like to think so, but it rests with a higher Judge than any mortal one. Whatever the outcome we’re both honest enough to face the undeniable fact that as living, breathing entities capable of speech, thought and emotion our period of survival is now limited to a very short span. The one thing for which we’re really grateful is that when we do go out it will not be on some unnamed alien world but on our own prosaic globe. That knowledge is worth a great deal.

So much for the position at the moment of beginning this record. Pat is sitting on the floor with my notebook and pencil. Standing behind her, looking down over her shoulder as she scribbles away in shorthand, I can scarcely believe that everything has happened as we know it to have done. And the curve of her cheek and neck make this girl the most desirable thing in my whole life to date. It’s a pity there isn’t more time; but she understands and is taking it all down as calmly and coolly as if she was back in an office in New York City.

The dead creature is sprawled a yard or two away to my right, hideous even now, made more so by the ghastly greenish light that comes from God knows where and passes for day in this weird place. It makes my eyes ache, and Pat, I know, must be getting awfully tired. To be honest we’d both give a lot to sleep, but that’s out of the question. I dare not take my eyes off the door for long in case They try to get us. It’s a mercy that even with all their devilry they can still be killed by bullets if you take them unawares. But I’m running ahead of the record.…

Way back, at least thirty hours ago, I had a first class job and one of the guiltiest consciences this side of hell. The job was chief test pilot for the big Namall Aircraft concern, probably the biggest manufacturers in the whole of the U.S.A. and Canada put together. The pay was fine, and I looked like being their blue-eyed boy for a good many years to come. The only snag was that I’d been pretty wild in the years just following the war and landed myself to the neck in a network of international intrigue that I’d rather not talk about now. In those days it had seemed innocent enough, but it grew and grew and my own value to the organisation increased in direct proportion to the responsibilities I undertook in my work. What it boiled down to was that without fully realising the enormity of it in the early stages I was gradually brought into use as a source of technical information. In other words, I was a spy, a traitor to my own land and the people I loved. But by then it was far too late to wriggle out. I was caught, hook, line and sinker. The pressure increased, though I’m glad to say I did manage to stall off the giving away of anything really vital. My masters were not over-pleased with results; it did not take a genius to realise that before long something drastic would be done about it. Unless I came up to scratch there was likely to be an accident in which my corpse would figure as Exhibit A. They made it pretty clear one way and another when they asked me to get them the gen on the prototype Namall Zenith, the fastest jet bomber in the world.

The Zenith was my own particular baby when it came to flying tests. No one else was allowed to fly the thing. I’d brought it through from the first short hop to the many long distance, duration and speed trials that followed. She was the best kite that ever left the ground, with a range sufficient to take an H-bomb three-quarters of the way round the world at a speed in the region of six-fifty plus. A useful weapon, in fact. Small wonder that my “friends” were anxious to examine the prototype at their leisure. I was to make delivery of the plane intact, fly it straight into their hands or else. Not an easy assignment, you’ll agree, and one that went completely against the grain as far as I was concerned. But if I failed to make the attempt I’d be put on the spot in double quick time; and if I did make it I was finished anyway.

What I ought to have done, of course, was to have gone to Authority and told them everything. I guess I didn’t have the courage for that; I was yellow. Instead I worked out another scheme, a desperate one such as desperate men with tortuous minds will turn to in extremes.

The opportunity came, as I knew it would sooner or later, when the Zenith was to feature in a very special combined Army Air test of such tremendous importance that I didn’t know a thing about it till the morning of the take-off, so great was the secrecy they coddled it up in. But it was just the chance I’d been praying for. I took it because I knew it would be the last I should get. The Namall Zenith, with myself at the controls, was bound for foreign parts. In one blow I was hoping to wipe off the score in all directions. It would be, I knew, my last public appearance, but somehow that didn’t count anymore.

Pat has said I was brave, but mine was the courage of desperation. I was certainly scared stiff as I sat in the cabin and checked up before the take-off. My hands were running with sweat and I could feel that queer cold rice pudding sensation in the pit of my stomach. This was it, I thought. The runway stretched in front like a ribbon of treacle in the glaring sun. Even in the soundproof cabin the muted whine of the jets was loud. Everything was perfect. One of the brass-hats from the Army came across and gave me final details. We sat side by side in the cabin and talked. It was queer that last short conversation. I barely listened to what he was saying; it was a waste of time; it had no connection with my future plans and yet I had to pretend to be dead keen.

He was gone and I was alone again. I waved the chocks away and answered the signal from central control. The kite rolled forward, gathering speed. I gave a sickly grin and settled more comfortably, wondering what they’d have to say if they knew my intentions. Thank heaven they didn’t.

The next hour was the vital one in my programme. In it I had to leave the plotted course and go my own way without being seen or intercepted. It could be done, I thought, but it meant ignoring any radio calls and flying at maximum ceiling till the Zenith was well clear and far out across the ocean. Once I was well up pursuit didn’t worry me a lot. The Zenith could out-fly most fighters and I felt pretty confident of pulling it off. But the butterflies were still at work in my stomach and the rice pudding was colder than ever. This was the first aircraft I’d ever stolen, not counting an ME 109 I “borrowed” from Jerry back in ’44.

The Zenith went like a bird. Before long I was well clear and going my own sweet way, but the radio was persistently demanding a report of my location. They’d lost track of me, and I was far too valuable to lose, especially on this trip. Someone at the other end was getting frantic when I didn’t reply. I listened in on the other network, picking up the cool voice of a girl operator at some air force station giving orders to a fighter wing to carry out a sweep and find me. They were only about a thousand miles too far east; and the blue of the Pacific was below me. I was flying in the opposite direction to the way I was supposed to go. Back in the States things must have been pretty hectic judging from what I heard on the radio. At first they thought I’d pranged somewhere, but then they got a report that I’d been plotted by the coastal radar boys. At that they smelt a rat and the hunt was up with a vengeance. They threw out a screen of interceptors, the fastest they had; but they were still way behind me and the Zenith was driving on at maximum. I altered course a little, throwing them even further off. They didn’t stand a chance now, which gave me a great deal of satisfaction in an odd, distorted fashion. Ahead, there was no opposition capable of climbing high enough or flying fast enough to touch me. I was sitting pretty—heading for the special oblivion I’d steeled myself to take as the best way out. The prospect didn’t bring much joy, but at least it dispelled some of the bitterness that galled my mind. I was no longer afraid of what I was doing.

Carey, my own immediate boss at Namall, came on the air. He sounded so worried I was sorry for him. “Nick,” he said, “for God’s sake think what you’re doing! We have a hunch what it is. Don’t do it, son! I’ve always trusted you before; now you’re destroying yourself and our faith. Come back before it’s too late.”

I didn’t reply; there was nothing I could have told him in any case, and I certainly wasn’t going back. It was too late now. But the tone of his voice brought the bitterness to the surface again. I switched off the radio and left it. The accusing voice was dead, inaudible now. I tried to relax and found it more difficult than before. With the plane running on automatic pilot there was little to occupy my mind. The sky was perfectly clear and blank, the sea far below a vivid blue carpet, smoothed out by distance to the texture of azure velvet. I drank some coffee from a flask and nibbled a sandwich that tasted like putty. The cabin was comfortably warm in spite of the extreme altitude. When they designed the Zenith they thought of everything. She was pressurised and heated with as much care as a luxury airline job, and although a big crate could easily be flown by one man.

I was two hours out from the coast, when I sighted something several thousand feet above me and a mile or so away to starboard. Seeing anything up there was a shock, and the fact that it seemed to be kee. . .