Phantoms

“Isn't a poltergeist supposed to be a ghost?” Bryce asked. “What could ghosts have to do with your area of interest?”

“Nothing,” Isley said, “We don't believe in ghosts. But we wondered if perhaps poltergeist phenomena might result from an attempt at interspecies communication gone awry. If we were to encounter an alien race that communicated only by telepathy, and if we were unable to receive those telepathic thoughts, maybe the unreceived psychic energy would produce destructive phenomena of the sort sometimes attributed to malign spirits.”

“And what did you finally decide about the poltergeist up there in Vermont?” Jenny asked.

“Decide? Nothing,” Isley said.

“Just that it was… interesting,” Arkham said.

Jenny glanced at Lisa and saw that the girl's eyes were very wide. This was something Lisa could grasp, accept, and cling to. This was a fear she had been thoroughly prepared for, thanks to movies and books and television. Monsters from outer space. Invaders from other worlds. It didn't make the Snowfield killings any less gruesome. But it was a known threat, and that made it infinitely preferable to the unknown. Jenny strongly doubted this was mankind's Just encounter with creatures It-from the stars, but Lisa seemed eager to believe.

“And what about Snowfield?” the girl asked, “Is that what's going on? Has something landed from… out there?”

Arkham looked uneasily at Major Isley.

Isley cleared his throat: As translated by the squawk box on his chest, it was a racheting, machinelike sound. “It's much too soon to make any judgment about that. We do believe there's a small chance the first contact between man and alien might involve the danger of biological contamination. That's why we've got an information-sharing arrangement with Copperfield's project. An inexplicable outbreak of an unknown disease might indicate an unrecognized contact with an extraterrestrial presence.”

“But if it is an extraterrestrial creature we're dealing with,” Bryce said, obviously doubtful, “it seems damned savage for a being of 'superior' intelligence.”

“The same thought occurred to me,” Jenny said.

Isley raised his eyebrows, “There's no guarantee that a creature with greater intelligence would be pacifistic and benevolent.”

“Yeah,” Arkham said, “That's a common conceit: the notion that aliens would've learned how to live in complete harmony among themselves and with other species. As that old song says… it ain't necessarily so. After all, mankind is considerably further along the road of evolution than gorillas are, but as a species we're definitely more warlike than gorillas at their most aggressive.”

“Maybe one day we will encounter a benevolent alien race that'll teach us how to live in peace,” Isley said, “Maybe they'll give us the knowledge and technology to solve all our earthly problems and even to reach the stars. Maybe.”

“But we can't nile out the alternative,” Arkham said grimly.

Chapter 26 London, England

Eleven o'clock Monday morning in Snowfield was seven o'clock Monday evening in London.

A miserably wet day had flowed into a miserably wet night. Raindrops drummed on the window in the cubbyhole kitchen of Timothy Flyte's two-room, attic apartment.

The professor was standing in front of a cutting board, making a sandwich.

After partaking of that magnificent champagne breakfast at Burt Sandler's expense, Timothy hadn't felt up to lunch. He had fore one afternoon tea, as well.

He'd met with two students today. He was tutoring one of them in hieroglyphics analysis and the other in Latin. Surfeited with breakfast, he had nearly fallen asleep during both sessions. Embarrassing. But, as little as his pupils were paying him, they could hardly complain too strenuously if, just once, he dozed off in the middle of a lesson.

As he put a thin slice of boiled ham and a slice of Swiss cheese on mustard-slathered bread, he heard the telephone ringing down in the front hall of the rooming house. He didn't think it was for him. He received few calls.

But seconds later, there was a knock at the door. It was the young Indian fellow who rented a room on the first floor. In heavily accented English, he told Timothy the call was for him. And urgent.

“Urgent? Who is it?” Timothy asked as he followed the young man down the stairs. “Did he give his name?”

“Sand-leer,” the Indian said.

Sandier? Burt Sandier?

Over breakfast, they had agreed on terms for a new edition of The Ancient Enemy, one that was completely rewritten to appeal to the average reader. Following the original publication of the book, almost seventeen years ago, he had received several offers to popularize his theories about historical mass disappearances, but he had resisted the idea; he had felt that the issuance of a popularized version of The Ancient Enemy would be playing into the hands of all those who had so unfairly accused him of sensationalism, humbug, and money grubbing. Now, however, years of want had made him more amenable to the idea. Sandler's appearance on the scene and his offer of a contract had come at a time when Timothy's ever-worsening poverty had reached a critical stage; it was truly a miracle. This morning, they had settled on an advance (against royalties) of fifteen thousand dollars. At the current rate of exchange, that amounted to a little more than eight thousand pounds sterling. It wasn't a fortune, but it was more money than Timothy had seen in a long, long time, and at the moment it seemed like wealth beyond counting.

As he went down the narrow stairs, toward the front hall, where the telephone stood on a small table beneath a cheap print of a bad painting, Timothy wondered if Sandier was calling to back out of the agreement.

The professor's heart began to pound with almost painful force.

The young Indian gentleman said, “I hope is no trouble, sir.”

Then he returned to his own room and closed the door.

Flyte picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“My God, do you get an evening newspaper?” Sandler asked. His voice was shrill, almost hysterical.

Timothy wondered if Sandier was drunk. Was this what he considered urgent business?

Before Timothy could respond, Sandier said, “I think it's happened! By God, Dr. Flyte I think it's actually happened! It's in the newspaper tonight. And on the radio. Not many details yet. But it sure looks as if it's happened.”

The professor's worry about the book contract was now compounded by exasperation. “Could you please be more specific, Mr. Sandler?”

“The ancient enemy, Dr. Flyte. One of those creatures has struck again. Just yesterday. A town in California. Some are dead. Most are missing. Hundreds. An entire town. Gone.”

“God help them,” Flyte said.

“I've got a friend in the London office of the Associated Press, and he's read me the latest wire service reports,” Sandier said, “I know things that aren't in the papers yet. For one thing, the police out there in California have put out an all-points bulletin for you. Apparently, one of the victims had read your book. When the attack came, he locked himself in a bathroom. It got him anyway. But he gained enough time to scrawl your name and the title of your book on the mirror!”

Timothy was speechless. There was a chair beside the telephone. He suddenly needed it.

“The authorities in California don't understand what's happened. They don't even realize The Ancient Enemy is the title of a book, and they don't know what part you play in all this. They think it was a nerve gas attack or an act of biological warfare or even extraterrestrial contact. But the man who wrote your