The Giant Stumbles Read online

  “You can’t look at it like that,” Nigel said.

  “I haven’t got the time to bother with everyone,” Rex said. “I’m not God. That’s His look-out, not mine. Suppose this thing is only momentary—a split second. Suppose it wrecks pretty well everything and kills a few million. There’ll be some left. I’ll be one of ’em. And I’ll have something to start with. You get me?”

  Nigel pushed his chair back, and as he did it, Rex moved forward so that he was standing over the sitting man.

  “You’re a dangerous man, Ni. You have a following of millions all over the world, because your integrity has never been questioned. You have never published anything that you have not honestly checked, rechecked and got every advice that ensures accuracy. Because of that, you have never been wrong. People won’t believe that you are wrong now if once thay are told about these storms.

  I’m scared of the damage you can do before the world does it for you. I’m not going to let you have a free hand, Ni. You understand me?”

  “What can you do to stop me?” Nigel said.

  “I can do almost anything, Ni. Don’t make any mistake about that.” Nigel stared at him.

  “I never knew you were this sort of man, Rex”

  Rex began to smile.

  “You’ve got to be strong if you’re going to hold on,” he said.

  “But you can’t watch me for days!”

  “There may be ways, Ni.”

  III

  Benstead looked odd his expression almost grinning.

  Leila stood on the veranda staring out, over the sea. Benstead stood close by, watching her

  “You believe him don t you?” he said

  His voice seemed to have lost some of the hesitancy.

  “Yes,” she said and turned to look at him. “Yes, I do”

  “The figures can’t be wrong, you know” Benstead said.

  “It isn’t the figures,” she said, oddly. “ it was his whole manner. It compelled belief.”

  “He’s a saint,” Benstead said.

  Leila gave a short, impatient laugh.

  “I’ve never thought of him like that,” she said.

  “It was a shock at first, when I understood what he was getting at,” Benstead said. “But then I saw how simple it was, and of course, I knew the figures couldn’t be wrong.” “Figures,” she said contemptuously. “They mean nothing to me.”

  “They prove things,” he said. “You can’t argue against them.”

  She looked angrily at him, then turned away again and walked down the steps to the beach. He hesitated a moment, watching her, then followed her down to the sand.

  “You’re going to die,” he said.

  She stopped.

  “What’s the matter with you?”

  “You believe it, though, don’t you?” he said.

  “You’ve got to die some day,” she said.

  “But this is now—very soon,” he said. “What do you feel?”

  “It isn’t the first time people have known when they must die,” she said. “But I’ve never been in a death cell, so I don’t know.”

  “But now,” he said urgently. “What do you feel about now?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “Nothing at all.”

  “Shock,” he said. His voice was vibrating with some kind of excitement. “Do you know what I feel? I feel free! I feel that ordinary things don’t matter any more. We can do what we like.”

  “You are a moron, Mr. Benstead.”

  “Oh, no. All my life I’ve been bound by rules. I’ve obeyed them. Every one of them. I did it for the good of society. But now, it doesn’t matter any more. There isn’t going to be any more society.”

  “You talk almost as if you’ve known about this for some time,” she said suddenly.

  “In a way I have,” he said slowly. “Nigel thinks he has hit on this suddenly. I don’t think so. I look back on some of the problems he’s sent me of recent months and I can see now they have all been leading to the same inclusion. His articles, too. There was one about the steady deterioration of weather throughout the world, the floods, wild winds. You remember?”

  “I bought it,” she said.

  “That was part of the same theory,” Benstead said, and licked his dry lips. “Gradually, you see, he has been setting himself this problem and then finally it crystalized.”

  They walked on slowly, feet shifting on the firm sand.

  “It’s rather inspiring to think that soon there won’t be my more of all this,” he said, and offered a hand to the sea, the sky, the land and the little buildings glowing in the moonlight.

  “Inspiring!” she said. “You must be mad!”

  “Oh no, not mad. Emancipated,” he said, smiling. “I have the feeling I can do exactly as I like.”

  “Supposing you do and it doesn’t happen,” she said.

  “It will,” he said. “It must. You know that.”

  She felt suddenly tired. She stopped by the wooden stump of a breakwater and sat down.

  “Can you give me a cigarette?” she said.

  “Of course.”

  They stayed smoking for a while, he standing erect, almost proud, she sitting on the stump, trying to think, to adjust her thoughts to her startling new belief.

  “It’s only one man,” she said, frowning.

  “One man who is right,” he said.

  “Would we have believed if it hadn’t been for the storm?” she asked.

  “Of course,” he said. “The storm helped the pagans among us. No one can dispute the facts—the figures. There has never been so perfect a solution.”

  She looked up at him, tall and gaunt against the moon. “What are you going to do?” she asked curiously.

  “I shall obey my instincts,” he said. “I shall never go back to my work, to anyone who knew me.”

  “Aren’t you married?” she asked.

  “No. The company of women has never appealed to me.”

  “That doesn’t sound conventional.”

  “I did not say I was conventional.”

  She looked out to sea again. “I’m sorry.”

  Suddenly she felt his hand stroking her shoulder under the silk of her kimono. Something inside her curled up and shut, like an oyster shell. She was frightened, but she said nothing, and save for her sudden rigidity, she did not move. The sensual touch became more definite.

  “Please don’t do that,” she said.

  He stopped but said nothing, and she got up.

  “We should go back.”

  “No—not yet,” he said.

  Beyond his shoulder she could see the empty beach, and she stifled an incipient shiver. He stayed there quite still in front of her, then reached out and touched her arm lightly.

  “I should like to know a woman,” he said.

  She shook his hand off with a small movement.

  “Do let us go back. The others……”

  “Others don’t matter any more,” he said. “You and I know that.”

  “They will matter until the last day.”

  He smiled and shook his head.

  “A man only matters to himself now,” he said.

  “There are these few days left,” she said. “Something might happen in that time.”

  “Nothing can happen to stop it. There is nothing anyone can do.”

  “Nigel thinks there is. That’s why he asked for publication.”

  “You couldn’t publish it,” Benstead said.

  “Someone might.”

  “It’s best known only to a few. What good can it do for the masses to know?”

  “Perhaps none. But there is always the chance … I’m worried.”

  “There’s nothing to do, so there’s nothing to be worried about,” he said.

  “Let’s go back,” she said.

  “No. I want you to stay here.”

  She felt fear then, but it was an odd, unreal sensation, as if she could not separate her sudden fear of him from the dark, long shad
ow on the coming days. It was an atmosphere of utter strangeness that was seeping into her mind, changing the colours of everything, as if nothing had its true value any more.

  She saw him smiling at her.

  “You’re scared to death,” she said suddenly. “That’s all your freedom is. Fear! ”

  “I’m scared of death,” he said. “But not of living any more.”

  She stood quite still as he stepped close to her, smiling.

  IV

  Rex stood against the door, staring at him. Nigel, the first shock over, sat back in his chair and watched.

  “You can’t stop me, Rex,” he said.

  “I can,” Rex said. “Don’t make any mistake about me. Ni. I’m dead against you on this, and you’ll have to do as I say.”

  Nigel shook his head.

  “Sorry,” he said, and got up. “I do as I believe is right. This news is a shock. I’m surprised that you believed it so completely at the start. I thought I was going to have great difficulty persuading you that I was right.”

  “I can’t explain that myself,” Rex said. “It’s even more mysterious than the storm, but it’s happened—just like the storm. Like a bolt from the blue. A couple of hours back I would never have thought the way I’m thinking now. But as it is, I agree with you, just as if it’s something I secretly knew for years that needed only your inspiration to bring it out.”

  “Well, if you truly believe it, you must know what the right course is,” Nigel said.

  “Keep quiet,” said Rex, between his teeth. “That’s the right course.”

  “It may not be possible, Rex,” Nigel said. “Supposing these indications get worse? People can’t go on ignoring them.”

  “I’ll risk that.”

  “There are no more risks,” Nigel said. “There’s just one dead cert.”

  ‘‘Put it how you like,” Rex said. “I know the way I’m thinking of it.”

  Nigel noticed the sweat on his face. The August night was hot, but Rex’s was the sweat of something more than weather.

  Nigel got up.

  “Are you going to let me phone?” he said.

  “No.”’

  “How can you stop me—eventually?”

  “You’ve got rather a lot of tender points—like a mine,” lid Rex. “Don’t push me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I couldn’t frighten you, physically,” Rex said. “But you’re out on a limb with a family like you’ve got.” Nigel’s mouth twisted.

  “You’d threaten the children?” he said.

  “Children or grown-ups—what’s the difference now, prophet?”

  Nigel turned away.

  “We might as well go downstairs,” he said, tonelessly. Rex drew a deep breath and at last stood away from te door.

  Nigel did not look at him as he passed by.

  Rex followed him down into the moonlit courtyard and came up beside him.

  “You’d better explain it to Hal,” he said. “Just say you saw my point of view.”

  Nigel stopped suddenly and faced the man. Rex was smiling at him in a bitter, fixed way.

  The sound of a noisy car sounded on the still night and ended with a little squeal of brakes. A door slammed. Nigel went up the step and into the house corridor facing the front entrance, which was open, moonlight streaming in liked iced air.

  Joe came running up the steps, breathless, excited.

  “Oh—Dad !” He almost skidded to a stop on the doormat. “I say—do you know? The phone’s dead. I tried to get through from Amanda’s house, and there’s no dice.”

  He turned and picked up the phone from the table beside the door. Nigel stood there, watching and listening. Close behind, on the garden step, Rex brought a cigarette case from his pocket and waited.

  “Dead as a doornail,” said Joe. “Hers was working though.”

  Rex turned, gave a slight shrug and walked away across the garden in the direction of the beach.

  “I’m so excited I feel sick,” said Joe, with a touch o uneasiness. “Do you know I felt that several times today coming into this house ? You haven’t got any new gadget on, have you, Dad ?”

  Nigel watched him standing there grinning in the moonlight.

  “No, nothing new, Joe,” he said, and then hesitated as if to say more, but changed his mind. “Nothing new,’ he ended.

  “Well, I’m off to bed—by way of the fridge,” said Joe cheerfully. “Good night, Dad.”

  “Good night, my dear boy.”

  As he walked away Joe stopped and looked back at his father, surprised; but he did not know why. He walked on to the kitchen.

  Nigel waited a moment, then went to the phone and reached down to pull the cable, to see if it had been cut, As he touched it a tingling, burning little shock shot up his arm muscles, and he drew his hand back quickly.

  He reached out and switched on the light. He could see nothing wrong with the phone, and the cable had not been cut The extension lines were still intact. Nothing had been touched at all.

  Just coincidence, perhaps. But how had the shock come through the cable insulation?

  He touched it again, and once more the little high voltage tremor ran up his arm. He felt his jaw muscles lock with a sharp little pain, but it went as he let the wire go.

  “Induction,” he said aloud. “It’s started all right.”

  For a moment he felt a fear that his calculations might be wrong; that the pause would come sooner than he had reckoned. Sweat burned on his face, then turned to ice.

  “No, the figures are right,” he said.

  The light overhead flickered, grew bright and then burnt out. He did nothing about it. He knew what it was.

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER THREE

  I

  It was while Nigel stood there that Hal came out of the children’s bedroom.

  “Was that Joe?” she said, and as he nodded she came up to him. “Did you do it?”

  He hesitated.

  “The phone’s bust,” he said.

  “Oh dear.” She looked anxious. “What will you do?” “I must wait.” He wanted to change the subject, get away from it until his mind settled over Rex. “What’s the matter? Children awake?”

  “John has the tingles, or something,” she said. “He itches, but I can’t see anything wrong … Has Joe gone to bed?”

  “He’s in the kitchen, I think.”

  She stood there, trying to make up her mind.

  ‘Don’t talk to him tonight,” he said, touching her hand. “Let it simmer down.”

  She nodded. “Where are the others?”

  “Just wandering around,” he said. “It’s quite one of our normal parties.”

  She stared out at the moonlight.

  “Everything’s so strange now,” she said, and gave a little shudder. “We’ve got to do such a lot and there’s not much time, is there ?”

  He watched her intently for a moment.

  “What do you mean, Hal?” he asked softly.

  “I’m being awful, I know,” she said. “It’s such a tremendous thing. That sounds silly—but it’s too big to put into words. I can’t think like that. I can only think of you and the children and me. We’ve got to think of something, Nigel.”

  He took her in his arms and held her very tightly, and while he did he thought of Rex. And perhaps not only Rex. He realized that there would be a lot more like him. In the top crust and the positions of power throughout the world, Rexes would be there.

  “Yes,” he said. “We’ll have to think of something.”

  He let her go.

  “Come in here,” he said, and went to the lounge. The room was empty. He poured drinks, the bright blue moonlight showing everything. “I could get blotto,” he went on. “In fact, I’d love to.”

  She went to the windows and stepped out to the veranda. To the west she saw a small figure, a long, long way off on the beach, walking away from them. She could see no one else.

  “I
’ve got to tell you something,” he said urgently. “But you must promise not to fly off the handle.”

  “Why?”

  “Promise?” he countered.

  “All right.”

  He told her what Rex had said, then reached out and gripped her wrist as if to stop her rushing out to find him.

  “You promised,” he said.

  She stayed for a while not saying anything. He knew what she was thinking; only of the threat against the children. That mattered more than everything else. In fact, in the midst of cosmic disaster he knew she would think of nothing but her very own.

  “All right,” she said, and sighed. “I suppose people just aren’t themselves when they hear a thing like this.”

  “I don’t think that anyone has ever heard it before,” he said.

  “How could he harm the children?” she demanded.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But he could.”

  ‘You mustn’t be beaten by him, Nigel.”

  He laughed shortly. “You don’t think I mean to be, do you?”

  “That’s good,” she said. “You’ve got to do what you believe is right and we’ll find a way to keep the children safe.”

  He finished his drink and poured another-.

  “I’m beginning to feel better,” he said. “I was so tired. You’ve no idea. I was all out, flat. It wasn’t really me that told them tonight.”

  “I know that, Nigel,” she said. “It was queer—just as if you were talking in your sleep. I think that’s what made it seem so terrible and real. You were forcing yourself.”

  “I think the point of exhaustion has passed,” he said. “I’m on another lap now.”

  “All the same you should try and get some sleep.”

  “One hardly feels in the mood, Hal. Besides, I’m not sure we will sleep. There’s some sort of induction in this house at the moment. I think we’re very near the centre of the disturbances. The phone wire is alive. It’s probably blown the fuse out. Johnny’s tingles—probably the same thing.”