Here and Now. John Russell Fearn
Towards the end of August he got his wish. At work during the day he had noticed the sultry gathering of storm clouds as late afternoon came, and by seven o’clock when he had gained the hut laboratory there were all the signs of a beauty coming up to the accompaniment of distant rolls of thunder.
As he had expected, he was not alone in his laboratory for long, before fat and perspiring Dave arrived on his motorcycle; and then the impeccably cool Bruce in his sports car. Having both read the signs of the sky they meant taking advantage of the elements if it were at all possible.
“No guarantee, of course, that this storm will be as electrically fruitful as the last one,” Chris said as he switched on the power and checked the instruments with a nervous intensity. “We may not get anything at all except a shattered aerial.”
“Cheerful, isn’t he?” Bruce murmured. “You ought to earth that aerial and save damage....”
“Can’t be done. Once it’s earthed, reception intensity drops by half. Besides—”
Chris paused and glanced up briefly as a brilliant lightning flash made itself evident against the two windows. After an interval of a few seconds the thunder rolled heavily, growling thickly into the distance.
“There’s one thing I’ll say,” Dave remarked, perching his gross body on the nearby stool. “If this glorious wench is only going to appear during thunderstorms, her appearances will be mighty infrequent after September.”
Chris was not even listening. His attention was all for his instruments as he operated the tuning dial carefully. Upon the screen appeared the occasional sprays of energy as the lightning affected it, and one after the other the usual amateur and professional television channels flashed through on their predetermined wavelengths. Then, as the lightning was becoming more frequent, Chris moved the tuning dial into that blank area, somewhere in the midst of which lay the unknown station. By fractional degrees he kept moving it, hoping to land on the ideal spot.
Dave started to say something, but thunder drowned him out Not that it mattered anyway, for at this moment something was happening to the screen. It was flowing and ebbing with little rivers of colour. It looked like glass with melting oil paints upon it. In the speaker there was a sizzling of powerful static, underlined now and again by the greater electrical stab of lightning.
“I believe…I’m on to it.” Chris sounded as though he were half afraid to breathe. “That’s how it began the last time—a lot of flowing of colours which gradually took on shape, and then—”
He stopped talking, for little by little the colours were doing just as he had hoped they would, smearing into each other in the most amazing fashion, until at length they had the definite outline of a head and shoulders. As on that other night, Chris quickly altered the focusing controls, then Dave and Bruce gazed in transfixed admiration at the good-looking girl with the auburn hair who was gazing at them from the screen.
“Satisfied?” Chris demanded, with a quick glance of triumph over his shoulder. Then: “Dave—grab the camcorder over there on the bench and switch it on! Focus it on the screen! We want a recording of everything for later study…especially if the girl speaks to us.”
Dave obeyed with alacrity.
“Can you hear me?” Chris asked deliberately. “Nod if you can….”
As on the previous occasion the girl with the azurine eyes seemed to be watching his mouth. Either she did not understand or else no sound was coming through to her, for she turned aside and picked up a card on which was written a message. In amazement the three men stared at it as she held it in full view.
“What kind of a language is that?” Dave asked blankly, when a shattering explosion of thunder had died away.
He could be forgiven his incredulity, for here was a written language totally unlike anything ever seen before, even in the ancient times. It was not symbolic or hieroglyphic, but a mass of queer, semi-mathematical signs and occasionally a single diagonal stroke.
“More I see of this the more I think communication with Mars may be right,” Bruce Wetherall muttered. “I’ll gamble no linguist on earth could disentangle that.”
“Notice the background?” Chris asked quickly. “It’s exactly the same as before. Sort of waterfall pattern and two pillars.”
Bruce and Dave nodded, too overwhelmed to say much. Then as the girl at last lowered her written message and gave a look of inquiry, Bruce made an irritated movement.
“Surely there’s some way in which we can get sound through. It’s too exasperating to be muted like this.”
Chris worked again on his apparatus and meanwhile Dave nodded and smiled to the picture in the screen. To his satisfaction the girl smiled back—laughed even—to reveal regular white teeth.
“She’s no Martian,” Bruce mused, studying her intently. “In every particular she’s earthly. Two ears, two eyes, the head and face. Everything about her spells E-A-R-T-H. And she’d put many a film and television star in the shade when it comes to looks—”
“The fault seems to be at her end,” Chris interrupted. “My receiver is in perfect order, so I just don’t understand what’s wrong.”
He turned back to the screen and tried by motions to convey to the girl that her sound transmission was haywire. She watched his actions with a pretty, thoughtful intelligence, then she looked at something below her and out of screen view. Her long, slender fingers reached forward and began to operate something vigorously.
Tensely, Chris, Dave and Bruce waited—and they nearly came to the verge of whooping with joy when all of a sudden the hiss of power through the speaker was swamped by a voice.... And what a voice! It had the tinkle of fairy bells, a curious other-world quality which was incredibly fascinating. Here was a voice such as no woman in the world had ever been known to possess before.
“That,” Bruce said in a kind of silent ecstasy, “is a voice in a million.”
“So’s the girl who owns it,” Dave added.
Evidently their remarks had reached the girl, for she suddenly stopped talking and frowned instead. Then she gave a shrug of her shoulders and talked again.
“Make anything of it?” Chris asked, listening intently. “Sounds to me as though it has an Oriental flavour.”
Bruce shook his head. “I’ve been in the Orient a good deal and I never heard a voice like that. Wonder if she can sing?”
Chris looked at her image and asked deliberately: “Can you sing?”
She gazed vaguely, obviously not understanding, so for her benefit he pantomimed the action of a singer, opening and shutting his mouth and putting his hand on his chest. The act seemed to amuse the unknown girl more than somewhat, for she burst into laughter. Chris gave her a reproving look, which quickly melted into one of profound admiration as she started singing in her incomprehensible language. The words did not matter in the least: it was her astounding range that counted. Without the least apparent physical effort she sailed up into and even beyond seven octaves, her final note being so high and pure as to slowly merge beyond audible range.
“Wow!” Dave exclaimed, his eyes bright. “If ever there was a girl worth a fortune this is she. Ask her if—”
He broke off, gazing in consternation as the scene suddenly began to smear, revolve, and then fade. In spite of everything he could do with the controls, Chris failed and the screen was finally blank, with a silent speaker. Puzzled, he sat gazing at the apparatus.
“What caused it?” Dave demanded, switching off the camcorder. “Just when things were getting interesting too!”
Chris glanced at him. “Probably the aerial’s gone west again as it did last time. Hop out and take a look, will you?”
Dave nodded, and laying the camcorder back on the bench, he crossed to the laboratory door and wrenched it open.