Free Quatermass by Nigel Kneale Page A

the war years. A flash of total recall. It was June 1948. Plus or minus a week, bristle-cone corrected.
    And the sticky little person who had clutched his hand . . . it would be another twenty-five years before a tiny egg would descend her Fallopian tube and turn into Hettie . . .
    “Oh, look!” cried Clare.
    Planet People on the road just ahead, marching fast, their ponchos swinging. Quatermass looked out as the waggon passed them. He saw no faces he recognized. They were not the weary creatures who had stumbled through Kapp’s station. Those could not have come so far in the time. And they looked fresher. Even moving uphill they kept to a jerky, swift jog.
    Then he saw what had made Clare cry out.
    There were half a dozen other troops of Planet People in the distance, some of only a few running figures, others in columns so long that whole sections were lost in dips or clumps of trees. But whether running or faltering, they all moved in the same direction.
    “Talk about lemmings!” Kapp swung the wheel to avoid a wandering group.
    “It’s like the old pop festivals,” Clare said. “Remember all the thousands jamming the roads?”
    “I remember pictures on television.”
    “You never went to one, did you?”
    “Not my scene, as they used to say.”
    “I did, twice,” she said. “I don’t really know why.”
    Round the next bend Kapp braked suddenly. Planet People were streaming obliquely across in front of him, reckless as deer. They knew the way better than the road did. They tore at the hedge to drag themselves over. Hundreds of them, milling and shoving.
    Soon the waggon was down to short bursts of speed between the trotting columns. It was no better behind. Kapp’s temper rose. He was sure there was a track leading off to the right, and he would take it, get clear away out of all this. It had been a mistake. Just to satisfy their curiosity about lunatics behaving like lunatics.
    There was no sign of the track. Soon Kapp was no longer sure there was one. He was down to walking pace.
    Then the hedges fell away and the road was running across open ground. Flat moorland with the long strings of scudding figures weaving across it, closing.
    “Hold on now!”
    He bounced the waggon off the road. Holding the horn button down, he accelerated across the turf, cutting through the panting columns and scattering them. They were on rising ground now. From the low hill ahead, he judged, they would be able to take in the whole idiotic scene and then get out.
    “There it is!” Clare cried.
    Ringstone Round. The great cluster of standing stones was only a few hundred yards away. Quatermass had forgotten the impact they made. He felt it again now. It was like encountering huge grey beasts that had momentarily frozen in their tracks.
    But it was different this time. The entire area round them was crammed with swaying figures.
    “They’ve swarmed,” said Kapp.
    That was it. No longer lemmings running blind. The very form of their excitement had changed. A cluster of bees Quatermass had once seen—where could it have been, on a lamp post or a telephone pole?—like a single pulsating organism, a crawling, concentrated multitude. A man had come to remove the swarm. He had heavy gloves and a net over his face that made him look like a veiled woman. Watching, little Bernard Quatermass had marvelled at the bees’ fierce energy and purpose.
    “We’ve seen it,” Kap said. “Let’s go.”
    “Not yet!” Quatermass was surprised at his own certainty.
    “What d’you want to do—show them your photographs?”
    Cheap. Kapp knew it. He was worried. “I’m going to try and break back. If I can. I saw another track—”
    “Wait!”
    Something was going on among the tall stones. Waves of ponchoed figures were sweeping forward and back, leaping so frenziedly that it was impossible to see. Now and again the swirling eddies seemed to break.
    Quatermass saw a clear space opening. He thumped Kapp on the shoulder.
    “Quick!