‘I came back each day, when I could spare the time, and by the end of the week we were firm friends. It may surprise you that I was able to conceal these visits from my colleagues, but the island was quite large and we each did a lot of exploring. I felt somehow that Professor Takato was my private property, and did not wish to expose him to the curiosity of my companions. They were rather uncouth characters, graduates of some provincial university like Oxford or Cambridge.
‘I’m glad to say that I was able to give the Professor a certain amount of assistance, fixing his radio and lining up some of his electronic gear. He used radioactive tracers a good deal, to follow individual termites around. He’d been tracking one with a Geiger counter when I first met him, in fact.
‘Four or five days after we’d met, his counters started to go haywire, and the equipment we’d set up began to reel in its recordings. Takato guessed what had happened: he’d never asked me exactly what I was doing on the island, but I think he knew. When I greeted him he switched on his counters and let me listen to the roar of radiation. There had been some radioactive fall-out—not enough to be dangerous, but sufficient to bring the background way up.
‘“I think,” he said softly, “that you physicists are playing with your toys again. And very big ones, this time.”
‘“I’m afraid you’re right,” I answered. We wouldn’t be sure until the readings had been analysed, but it looked as if Teller and his team had started the hydrogen reaction. “Before long, we’ll be able to make the first A bombs look like damp squibs.”
‘“My family,” said Professor Takato, without any emotion, “was at Nagasaki.”
‘There wasn’t a great deal I could say to that, and I was glad when he went on to add: “Have you ever wondered who will take over when we are finished?”
‘“Your termites?” I said, half-facetiously. He seemed to hesitate for a moment. Then he said quietly, “Come with me; I have not shown you everything.”
‘We walked over to a corner of the lab where some equipment lay concealed beneath dust sheets, and the Professor uncovered a rather curious piece of apparatus. At first sight it looked like one of the manipulators used for the remote handling of dangerously radioactive materials. There were hand-grips that conveyed movements through rods and levers, but everything seemed to focus on a small box a few inches on a side. “What is it?” I asked.
‘“It’s a micromanipulator. The French developed them for biological work. There aren’t many around yet.”
‘Then I remembered. These were devices with which, by the use of suitable reduction gearing, one could carry out the most incredibly delicate operations. You moved your finger an inch—and the tool you were controlling moved a thousandth of an inch. The French scientist who had developed this technique had built tiny forges on which they could construct minute scalpels and tweezers from fused glass. Working entirely through microscopes, they had been able to dissect individual cells. Removing an appendix from a termite (in the highly doubtful event of the insect possessing one) would be child’s play with such an instrument.
‘“I am not very skilled at using the manipulator,” confessed Takato. “One of my assistants does all the work with it. I have shown no one else this, but you have been very helpful. Come with me, please.”
‘We went out into the open, and walked past the avenues of tall, cement-hard mounds. They were not all of the same architectural design, for there are many different kinds of termites—some, indeed, don’t build mounds at all. I felt rather like a giant walking through Manhattan, for these were sky-scrapers, each with its own teeming population.
‘There was a small metal (not wooden—the termites would soon have fixed that!) hut beside one of the mounds, and as we entered it the glare of sunlight was banished. The Professor threw a switch, and a faint red glow enabled me to see various types of optical equipment.
‘“They hate light,” he said, “so it’s a great problem observing them. We solved it by using infrared. This is an image-converter of the type that was used in the war for operations at night. You know about them?”
‘“Of course,” I said. “Snipers had them fixed on their rifles so that they could go sharpshooting in the dark. Very ingenious things—I’m glad you’ve found a civilised use for them.”
‘It was a long time before Professor Takato found what he wanted. He seemed to be steering some kind of periscope arrangement, probing through the corridors of the termite city. Then he said: “Quick—before they’ve gone!”
‘I moved over and took his position. It was a second or so before my eye focused properly, and longer still before I understood the scale of the picture I was seeing. Then I saw six termites, greatly enlarged, moving rather rapidly across the field of vision. They were travelling in a group, like the huskies forming a dog team. And that was a very good analogy, because they were towing a sledge…
‘I was so astonished that I never even noticed what kind of load they were moving. When they had vanished from sight, I turned to Professor Takato. My eyes had now grown accustomed to the faint red glow, and I could see him quite well.
‘“So that’s the sort of tool you’ve been building with your micromanipulator!” I said. “It’s amazing—I’d never have believed it.”
‘“But that is nothing,” replied the Professor. “Performing fleas will pull a cart around. I haven’t told you what is so important. We only made a few of those sledges. The one you saw they constructed themselves.”
‘He let that sink in: it took some time. Then he continued quietly, but with a kind of controlled enthusiasm in his voice: “Remember that the termites, as individuals, have virtually no intelligence. But the colony as a whole is a very high type of organism—and an immortal one, barring accidents. It froze in its present instinctive pattern millions of years before Man was born, and by itself it can never escape from its present sterile perfection. It has reached a dead end—because it has no tools, no effective way of controlling Nature. I have given it the lever, to increase its power, and now the sledge, to improve its efficiency. I have thought of the wheel, but it is best to let that wait for a later stage—it would not be very useful now. The results have exceeded my expectations. I started with this termitary alone—but now they all have the same tools. They have taught each other, and that proves they can co-operate. True, they have wars—but not when there is enough food for all, as there is here.
‘“But you cannot judge the termitary by human standards. What I hope to do is to jolt its rigid, frozen culture—to knock it out of the groove in which it has stuck for so many millions of years. I will give it more tools, more new techniques—and before I die, I hope to see it beginning to invent things for itself.”
‘“Why are you doing this?” I asked, for I knew there was more than mere scientific curiosity here.
‘“Because I do not believe that Man will survive, yet I hope to preserve some of the things he has discovered. If he is to be a dead end, I think that another race should be given a helping hand. Do you know why I chose this island? It was so that my experiment should remain isolated. My supertermite, if it ever evolves, will have to remain here until it has reached a very high level of attainment. Until it can cross the Pacific, in fact…
‘“There is another possibility. Man has no rival on this planet. I think it may do him good to have one. It may be his salvation.”
‘I could think of nothing to say: this glimpse of the Professor’s dreams was so overwhelming—and yet, in view of what I had just seen, so convincing. For I knew that Professor Takato was not mad. He was a visionary, and there was a sublime detachment about his outlook, but it was based on a secure foundation of scientific achievement.
‘And it was not that he was hostile to mankind: he was sorry for it. He simply believed that humanity had shot its bolt, and wished to save something from the wreckage. I could not feel it in my heart to blame him.
‘We must have been in that little hut for a long time, exploring
possible futures. I remember suggesting that perhaps there might be some kind of mutual understanding, since two cultures so utterly dissimilar as Man and Termite need have no cause for conflict. But I couldn’t really believe this, and if a contest comes, I’m not certain who will win. For what use would man’s weapons be against an intelligent enemy who could lay waste all the wheat fields and all the rice crops in the world?
‘When we came out into the open once more, it was almost dusk. It was then that the Professor made his final revelation.
‘“In a few weeks,” he said, “I am going to take the biggest step of all.”
‘“And what is that?” I asked.
‘“Cannot you guess? I am going to give them fire.”
‘Those words did something to my spine. I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the oncoming night. The glorious sunset that was taking place beyond the palms seemed symbolic—and suddenly I realised that the symbolism was even deeper than I had thought.
‘That sunset was one of the most beautiful I had ever seen, and it was partly of man’s making. Up there in the stratosphere, the dust of an island that had died this day was encircling the earth. My race had taken a great step forward; but did it matter now?
‘“I am going to give them fire.” Somehow, I never doubted that the Professor would succeed. And when he had done so, the forces that my own race had just unleashed would not save it…
‘The flying boat came to collect us the next day, and I did not see Takato again. He is still there, and I think he is the most important man in the world. While our politicians wrangle, he is making us obsolete.
‘Do you think that someone ought to stop him? There may still be time. I’ve often thought about it, but I’ve never been able to think of a really convincing reason why I should interfere. Once or twice I nearly made up my mind, but then I’d pick up the newspaper and see the headlines.
‘I think we should let them have the chance. I don’t see how they could make a worse job of it than we’ve done.’
Cold War
First published in Satellite, April 1957
Collected in Tales from the White Hart
The story quoted really appeared in a Miami newspaper on the date given, and may even be accurate.
Some of the wealthier Arab states once looked into the possibility of towing icebergs from the Antarctic to irrigate their rather arid kingdoms. I’ve heard nothing of the idea for many years, and suspect that the engineering problems were insuperable.
A job for unemployed nuclear submarines?
One of the things that makes Harry Purvis’s tales so infernally convincing is their detailed verisimilitude. Consider, for instance, this example. I’ve checked the places and information as thoroughly as I can—I had to, in order to write up this account—and everything fits into place. How do you explain that unless—but judge for yourself…
‘I’ve often noticed,’ Harry began, ‘how tantalising little snippets of information appear in the Press and then, sometimes years later, one comes across their sequels. I’ve just had a beautiful example. In the spring of 1954—I’ve looked up the date—it was April 19—an iceberg was reported off the coast of Florida. I remember spotting this news item and thinking it highly peculiar. The Gulf Stream, you know, is born in the Straits of Florida, and I didn’t see how an iceberg could get that far south before it melted. But I forgot about the whole business almost immediately, thinking it was just another of those tall stories which the papers like to print when there isn’t any real news.
‘And then, about a week ago, I met a friend who’d been a commander in the US Navy, and he told me the whole astonishing tale. It’s such a remarkable story that I think it ought to be better known, though I’m sure that a lot of people simply won’t believe it.
‘Any of you who are familiar with domestic American affairs may know that Florida’s claim to be the Sunshine State is strongly disputed by some of the other forty-seven members of the Union. I don’t suppose New York or Maine or Connecticut are very serious contenders, but the State of California regards the Florida claim as an almost personal affront, and is always doing its best to refute it. The Floridians hit back by pointing to the famous Los Angeles smogs, then the Californians say, with careful anxiety, “Isn’t it about time you had another hurricane?” and the Floridians reply, “You can count on us when you want any earthquake relief.” So it goes on, and this is where my friend Commander Dawson came into the picture.
‘The Commander had been in submarines, but was now retired. He’d been working as technical adviser on a film about the exploits of the submarine service when he was approached one day with a very peculiar proposition. I won’t say that the California Chamber of Commerce was behind it, as that might be libel. You can make your own guesses…
‘Anyway, the idea was a typical Hollywood conception. So I thought at first, until I remembered that dear old Lord Dunsany had used a similar theme in one of his short stories. Maybe the Californian sponsor was a Jorkens fan, just as I am.
‘The scheme was delightful in its boldness and simplicity. Commander Dawson was offered a substantial sum of money to pilot an artificial iceberg to Florida, with a bonus if he could contrive to strand it on Miami Beach at the height of the season.
‘I need hardly say that the Commander accepted with alacrity: he came from Kansas himself, so could view the whole thing dispassionately as a purely commercial proposition. He got together some of his old crew, swore them to secrecy, and after much waiting in Washington corridors managed to obtain temporary loan of an obsolete submarine. Then he went to a big air-conditioning company, convinced them of his credit and his sanity, and got the ice-making plant installed in a big blister on the sub’s deck.
‘It would take an impossible amount of power to make a solid iceberg, even a small one, so a compromise was necessary. There would be an outer coating of ice a couple of feet thick, but Frigid Freda, as she was christened, was to be hollow. She would look quite impressive from the outside, but would be a typical Hollywood stage set when one got behind the scenes. However, nobody would see her inner secrets except the Commander and his men. She would be set adrift when the prevailing winds and currents were in the right direction, and would last long enough to cause the calculated alarm and despondency.
‘Of course, there were endless practical problems to be solved. It would take several days of steady freezing to create Freda, and she must be launched as near her objective as possible. That meant that the submarine—which we’ll call the Marlin—would have to use a base not too far from Miami.
‘The Florida Keys were considered but at once rejected. There was no privacy down there any more; the fishermen now outnumbered the mosquitoes and a submarine would be spotted almost instantly. Even if the Marlin pretended she was merely smuggling, she wouldn’t be able to get away with it. So that plan was out.
‘There was another problem that the Commander had to consider. The coastal waters round Florida are extremely shallow, and though Freda’s draft would only be a couple of feet, everybody knew that an honest-to-goodness iceberg was nearly all below the waterline. It wouldn’t be very realistic to have an impressive-looking berg sailing through two feet of water. That would give the show away at once.
‘I don’t know exactly how the Commander overcame these technical problems, but I gather that he carried out several tests in the Atlantic, far from any shipping routes. The iceberg reported in the news was one of his early productions. Incidentally, neither Freda nor her brethren would have been a danger to shipping—being hollow, they would have broken up on impact.
‘Finally, all the preparations were complete. The Marlin lay out in the Atlantic, some distance north of Miami, with her ice-manufacturing equipment going full blast. It was a beautiful clear night, with a crescent moon sinking in the west. The Marlin had no navigation lights, but Commander Dawson was keeping a very strict watch for other ships. On a night like this, he’d be able to avoid them without being sp
otted himself.
‘Freda was still in an embryonic stage. I gather that the technique used was to inflate a large plastic bag with supercooled air, and spray water over it until a crust of ice formed. The bag could be removed when the ice was thick enough to stand up under its own weight. Ice is not a very good structural material, but there was no need for Freda to be very big. Even a small iceberg would be as disconcerting to the Florida Chamber of Commerce as a small baby to an unmarried lady.
‘Commander Dawson was in the conning tower, watching his crew working with their sprays of ice-cold water and jets of freezing air. They were now quite skilled at this unusual occupation, and delighted in little artistic touches. However, the Commander had had to put a stop to attempts to reproduce Marilyn Monroe in ice—though he filed the idea for future reference.
‘Just after midnight he was startled by a flash of light in the northern sky, and turned in time to see a red glow die away on the horizon.
‘“There’s a plane down, Skipper!” shouted one of the lookouts. “I just saw it crash!” Without hesitation, the Commander shouted down to the engine room and set course to the north. He’d got an accurate fix on the glow, and judged that it couldn’t be more than a few miles away. The presence of Freda, covering most of the stern of his vessel, would not affect his speed appreciably, and in any case there was no way of getting rid of her quickly. He stopped the freezers to give more power to the main diesels, and shot ahead at full speed.
‘About thirty minutes later the lookout, using powerful night glasses, spotted something lying in the water. “It’s still afloat,” he said. “Some kind of airplane, all right—but I can’t see any sign of life. And I think the wings have come off.”