The Missing Adventures - Evolution Part 1

DR WHO THE MISSING ADVENTURES.

EVOLUTION.

by John Peel.

This is for everyone who has helped make VISIONS the best conventions: Organizers Organizers: Bob McLaughlin, Dennis Light and especially Debi Smolinske not forgetting Jeff and Dana (cousin Das.h.i.+ell says Woof! Woof! ) ) Staff members: Lisa Albergo, Dee Dee Aquino, Tasha Avon, Jeanna Bloom, Patti Duke, George Fergus, Louis Galvez III, Mom Geiger, John Golkosky, Jennifer Adams Kelley, Sandy Kinnard, Nancy Kolar, John Lavalie, Anne Macko, Kate Ray-mond, Cherry Steffey, Ruth Ann Stern, Dave Thomas and Charlie Thomson.

Attendees: Emma Abraham, Jean Airey, Paul Scott Aldred, Lee Bahan, Tom Beck, Jane Dietz, Chrissy Carr and Martin Hunger, Lee Darrow, Jan Fennick, Jenn Fletcher, Alex Franges, David Gee, Bob and Lorie Kessler (thanks for the photos!) and Bekki Wolf (and for the tie!), Bill Ma.s.sey, Jr, Kelly McDonough, Grace Meisel and Scott Tefoe, Dan and Katherynn Murphy, Bea Owens, Kevin Parker, Howard and Carol 'Mac' Rubin, Dean Shewring and Teri White.

As well as all of the wonderful guests.

You all deserve a book dedication of your own, but that would take forever! Thanks, everyone: every year so far has been terrific and I'm certain that the best is yet to be.

1.

Childhood's End.

e had been human once. He had to remember that.

H But it was so hard. When the blood-l.u.s.t came over him, he could almost taste the kill in his fangs, feel the small bodies crunching, become intoxicated by the fresh blood that would dribble down his throat. He tried to fight it again, as he tried to fight it each and every time.

And, as always, he failed.

Night had fallen, burying the humans who lived here in their small houses, huddled together for companions.h.i.+p and warmth. He had no one. There was n.o.body to keep him company, no companion to offer him warmth. His only warmth came from the thrill of the hunt, his only companions.h.i.+p from the prey he ran down and then devoured. He was alone, unique, the sole member of his kind.

But he had been human once.

Long, long ago. He could barely remember those days. In his new state, time had little meaning. His mind wasn't working as it had once. Days and weeks blurred together. The only times were night or day, feast or famine. By day he hid, knowing that if anyone saw him, he'd be killed. Nights he hunted. If it was a good night, he ate: crunching the fresh bones, draining the delectable marrow, chewing on the tough sinews. If it was a poor night, he fasted, waiting for the following day, his belly growling and complaining. That always made the blood-l.u.s.t worse.

Rabbits were good prey, but they were fast. He had to be faster to catch them. But with rabbits one bite from his ma.s.sive jaws was more than sufficient to kill. Foxes were good too, with their rich, predatory taste and hunter's blood. Foxes he admired. They were almost as good at killing as he was. But he could kill them, and they avoided him.

The small ponies were a feast, but much harder to take down. They were wiry and tough, fighting with their hoofs and teeth, kicking and snorting. And he couldn't kill them with a single bite, as he did with the rabbits and foxes. For the ponies, he'd developed a trick of biting their throats and then hanging on until they died choking in their own blood or until one of his paws could break their necks. If he took a pony, then he could drag it to his lair and eat for a week without having to venture out to hunt and to risk being seen.

Not many people came out onto the moors, and virtually no one was foolish enough to try the trip at night. But humans were tricky, and they were curious, and they were lethal. There was no animal that could hurt him out here. Even the ponies could only bruise him through his thick fur. Humans could do more, with their guns. He'd been shot at once, and in the stormy weather he could still feel the ache from the shot.

They wouldn't ever get another chance to shoot him.

The clouds covered the crescent moon, and he was satisfied. Sniffing the air cautiously, he could tell that there were no humans around. They were not smart enough to be able to hide from his heightened senses. He could detect the faint trail of rabbits, and the merest hint of a fox. The main scent this night was badger.

Badgers had claws, and they fought hard and long. But his fur warded off their worst slashes, and they were good eating.

He could almost taste the hot, delicious blood in his mouth, and the blood-l.u.s.t came down over his senses like a curtain at the end of a play.

He had been human once.

But now he was only a killer beast.

Howling his happiness, his anger, his hunger, his hatred for what he had become, he sprang out onto Dartmoor. With long, loping strides, he began to cover the distance to his prey.

Tonight would be a good night. Tonight, he would feast.

Tonight, something would die.

Ben Tolliver loved the sea as he had never loved any human being. He'd been married twice and fathered eight children, but he loved none of them as much as he adored his silvery mistress. He'd loved these waters as long as he could remember.

He'd been born beside them, and he knew he'd die beside them or in them, as his father and grandfather had done, and as his brother and two sons had done.

The sea was a fickle mistress, Tolliver knew. She could be sweet and serene, romantic and flirtatious. She could coyly beckon you down to her cold embraces, then turn violent and murderous in an instant. She was his only mistress, but he wasn't foolish enough to ever think of trusting her capricious moods. He was content simply to be with her, sharing the same night breezes that stirred the dark surface of the waters. He felt an empathy with the sea. When she was calm, he felt rested. When the waters raged, he felt helpless and imprisoned.

He'd spent more than sixty years here, either floating in his small boat in these waters, or else in his small cabin where he could look down on the sea. It had been a rough life, and a poor one no question at all about that. No Tolliver had ever grown wealthy from the sea. But he was content. Even with the loss of both wives and his sons, he wouldn't have wanted anything to have been different. Then he chuckled to himself. Well, maybe that saucy la.s.s at the Dog and Pony. Now, if she'd agreed to some of those romps he'd often suggested . . . But aside from that, he was content. It had been a hard life, true, but a fair one. He'd been able to live as he'd wished.

And here he was as always, floating gently on the sea in his old boat. It was a lot like him: grizzled, getting no younger, and maybe a slight achy in places, but overall a good, stout craft that had many a year left to it. And, like him, his boat was built for the sea and would be at home nowhere else.

Tolliver sighed and straightened up from his nets. He'd checked them thoroughly, as he always did. One small tear in the mesh could ruin a nights fis.h.i.+ng. He'd seen plenty of foolish fisherfolk lose their entire catch like that, but it had never happened to him. Nor would it. The day he lost a single fish was the day he'd retire from the sea; the day he'd lie down and die. The sea was his mistress, and he knew that if he treated her right, showed her the proper respect and care, why then she'd be flattered and give generously other bounty.

He heaved the net into place, ready to cast it over the side and into the dark, nocturnal waters.

Then he paused, astounded.

There'd been talk in the taverns recently from some of the younger men about mermaids and fairy fires under the sea, but he'd always dismissed it as the foolishness of poor men in their cups. He'd believed it was the beer talking, not the youngsters. Why, he'd fished these waters sixty years and never seen any sights such as they had claimed.

Until tonight.

The moon had hidden itself behind the clouds, and the silvery reflections on the waves were gone. But the sea wasn't dark and impenetrable as it should have been. Far below the surface, Tolliver could see light. The fairy fires, then, were real! With the surface breaking and s.h.i.+vering as the waves lapped past his small craft, it was impossible to make out much.

Just that there were lights down there, lots of them. Small, pinp.r.i.c.k lights s.h.i.+vering and shaking with the movement of the waters, but real.

Moving to the bows, Tolliver discovered that he had a better view of them. As he stared downwards, a pattern started to become clear. It was as if the fires were on the spokes of some immense wheel, maybe two hundred feet across. The pattern was quite regular, the lights all lined up, neat as you please. The centre of the wheel lay about a quarter of a mile to starboard of him. As he watched, utterly wrapped up in this beautiful mystery, Tolliver realized that the wheel a.n.a.logy was very appropriate.

The lights were moving, turning about their hub, just like some immense wheel in motion. The procession of light was slow and ponderous, but it was nevertheless quite real.

Tolliver was captivated. He'd loved the sea in all her strange and often terrifying moods for six decades, but he had never been a witness to a sight like this. Just like a woman to keep all her best secrets hidden till it was too late for you to take advantage of them! Tolliver couldn't tear his eyes from the sight. What could be causing this? He had no idea.

He'd heard enough foolish talk in his years as a fisherman to know plenty of legends of Davy Jones and his ilk. He knew for a fact, though, that such talk was utter nonsense. There was plenty of life in the sea, but it was all victim to line or net or harpoon. None of it was intelligent, none capable of building the sight he was seeing now.

But neither could man. In this year of grace eighteen hundred and eighty there were many marvels about that Tolliver had never dreamed of seeing in his simple life, but there wasn't a man alive who could have built this wheel of light he was watching. That engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel now there had been a genius! Building s.h.i.+ps the like of which this world had never seen before. Many folks had laughed at him, but Brunel had been proven right time after time. A man with vision, Brunel had been. But even he could never have dreamed of constructing anything like this. Besides, he'd been dead for twenty years now, and there wasn't a man alive that could hold a match to his candle.

Then what was he seeing? What could be the explanation for this strange wheel of lights, turning with grim relentless-ness off his starboard bow? Tolliver had heard from some of his colleagues about fish that had their own light, a bit like those fireflies whose b.u.ms burned bright on nights they were looking for love. So Tolliver could believe those stories. Still, even granted that there were fish whose backsides were filled with fire, he couldn't imagine anything that would induce them to line themselves up as if they were ready for a dance and then slowly turn around a common centre. It went against everything Tolliver knew.

So, then, what A shape flickered past barely under the surface of the water, blocking the lights for a second, and it was then gone. It must have been a fish. What else could it have been? It couldn't have been what he had thought. It couldn't have been It rippled past the boat again, and Tolliver s.h.i.+vered in shock. Cartwheels of fire were bad enough. Maybe he was going senile. Or maybe his old mistress was having fun with him.

He had seen a human face, and then the flicker of a fish's tail.

A mermaid?

Tolliver wished he could laugh at this stupidity. Mermaids were seen more often in the bottom of a jar of ale than in the bottom of the sea. But he hadn't been drinking this night. And he had seen something that looked like a woman's face. A bit of a body, and then there had been the fish's tail, grey and smooth. Not at all like the legends suggested. No green scales or over-ripe b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Just a face, slim form and tail.

He had had to have imagined that! There were no such things as merfolk who farmed the pastures of the sea. They were just legend and tall tales. to have imagined that! There were no such things as merfolk who farmed the pastures of the sea. They were just legend and tall tales.

On the other hand, if there were some kind of folk who were G.o.d alone knew how! able to live under the sea, then perhaps they had made that monster wheel below him. It went against his experiences and all he knew about the world. But it did make a sort of off-kilter sense of its own.

Tolliver leaned over to get a better look. Maybe that whatever-it-was would pa.s.s this way again and he'd get a better look at it on its next pa.s.s. Maybe In a sudden explosion of spume and cold water, something shot up from the sea. Tolliver reeled back, horrified and screaming, but he was not fast enough to escape this thing. In the last half-second of his life Tolliver made out sleek skin, the thras.h.i.+ng tail that had propelled this creature out of the black waters, and the huge mouth filled with pointed teeth.

And then the thing bit his face entirely off.

Sir Edward Fulbright knew precisely what he liked and didn't like. He liked, for example, Fulbright Hall, the ancestral home. Portions of it dated back to the fifteenth century, when it had been founded by William Fulbright, but the majority of it had been either constructed or restored by his grandfather, Augustus Fulbright, in 1842. There was absolutely no question that the Hall was not merely an elegant and s.p.a.cious domicile, but also the most architecturally interesting home within the boundaries of Devon.

He liked even more the Great Hall. This s.p.a.cious room had been constructed by old William for those grand medieval feasts, with a huge stone fireplace in the centre of one wall, the family crest carved in the stones above the immense mantel.

In the old days whole hogs had been roasted within that fireplace; nowadays, of course, the cooking was all accomplished in the Hall's capacious kitchens. A huge, cheery fire blazed instead in the grate. The wall opposite the fireplace had been one of Grandfather Augustus's main achievements. The old, small windows of the house had been removed and large gla.s.s doors in the French style, but still very attractive had replaced them. This allowed easier access to the large grounds of the Hall, and gave a superb view across the moors in all seasons. There was, at the far end of the Great Hall, a minstrels'

gallery that had been carefully rebuilt, and for this occasion held the small orchestra that had been engaged for these festivities.

He liked parties, and this was one of the best he'd ever hosted. His wife had outdone herself this time, and everyone who was anyone in the region and quite a few from London was here. Still, it wasn't every day that one's only daughter announced her engagement. Fulbright watched her whirling one of those new-fas.h.i.+oned dances he never could recall their silly names with affection. He liked Alice a great deal. She was a dutiful and beautiful girl of nineteen, who brought him much pleasure.

And he liked her fiance, young Lieutenant Roger Bridewell. He was a handsome figure of a man, with the prospect of a fine military career. He was smart, well bred and quick to understand and follow orders. He was just the kind of son that Fulbright had always wished for. One day, of course, he would inherit Fulbright Hall. Pity that the family name would be gone, but at least Fulbright could rest easy that the Hall would be retained by good blood. Bridewell's father had served in the Crimea with Fulbright and had died bravely at Sebastopol, having never seen his new-born son. Fulbright had always felt as if Bridewell's son were a member of the family, and he was most gratified that he was finally to become precisely that.

What he didn't like was that friend of Bridewell's. His eyes scanned the room and the many guests dancing, drinking or chattering. Eventually he saw the man again, and he frowned. The disturbing young man was engaged in conversation with Sir Alexander Cromwell, the local Justice of the Peace. What the deuce was he up to now? Fulbright had known this Colonel Edmund Ross for barely a week, but he knew that the man had a quiet intensity and some hidden purpose for being here. If he hadn't been Bridewell's guest, Fulbright would have asked the man to leave.

There were a number of small matters that disturbed him about Ross. Individually they were almost insignificant, but together they painted a very puzzling portrait of the young man. For example, he wasn't even thirty yet but had managed to acquire the rank of colonel. He was terribly vague about the regiment he actually served in, and had in the course of conversations admitted to serving in three different places at the same time! Fulbright would have a.s.sumed that the man was a simple blackguard and confidence man, but Bridewell had, rather unusually, gotten rather p.r.i.c.kly when Fulbright had raised the possibility.

'Sir,' Bridewell had replied stiffly, 'Colonel Ross has impeccable credentials and is in a position of utmost trust. I would appreciate it if you would not attempt to besmirch his reputation.'

Fulbright had agreed, but his suspicions still lingered. And, just before the commencement of this ball, his butler had mentioned a fresh problem which was still troubling Fulbright. As he watched Ross, he saw Sir Alexander laugh at some witticism and move off. Seizing the opportunity, Fulbright crossed the crowded room to his most troublesome guest.

'Sir Edward,' Ross said, bowing slightly. 'Allow me to congratulate you on a most entertaining evening.'

'Thank you,' Fulbright replied gruffly. He stared at the young man. Ross was a handsome scoundrel, no doubt of that tall, well built, with saturnine dark looks and grey eyes that hid his thoughts but not the intelligence behind them. He dressed impeccably and had the manners if not the breeding of a gentleman. Fulbright again sensed the feeling that there was far more going on with Ross than he ever allowed anyone to know. 'I'm sorry that I have to speak to you about that manservant of yours.'

'Abercrombie?' Ross barely hid his smile. 'And what has the poor fellow done now?'

'He's been scaring the serving maids half out of their wits,' Fulbright complained.

'Dear me,' Ross said. His sympathy seemed quite feigned. 'He hasn't been making unwanted advances, I trust?'

'Nothing like that,' snapped Fulbright. 'He's been lurking in the bushes.'

Ross raised an eyebrow. 'Lurking? In the bushes?' He shook his head. 'Dear me. Perhaps the maids have simply mistaken his interests in nature for other less polite activities? Abercrombie is quite an avid bird-watcher, you know.'

Fulbright almost laughed at the thought. He'd seen Ross's man a few times during the past several days. He was a small, s.h.i.+ftless-looking individual with a prominent nose and one of those horrible low-cla.s.s London accents. If the man looked at birds, it would be only ones that were on his dinner plate. 'At night?' he asked sceptically.

Ross shrugged. 'I understand that many birds are nocturnal. Owls, perhaps. But I quite understand your concern, Sir Edward. I shall instruct Abercrombie to confine his avian interests to the daylight hours in future.'

Fulbright realized that this was probably the most he could expect. 'I should appreciate that,' he agreed.

Bridewell and Alice moved to join them. 'h.e.l.lo, Papa,' Alice said, her eyes sparkling with delight. 'Isn't this a marvellous affair?' She nodded to Ross. 'Edmund, are you enjoying yourself?'

Ross bowed to her. 'How could I not?' he asked. 'Your father is a most gracious host and provides excellent entertainment.' He smiled slightly. 'Though I fear the activities of my man Abercrombie are somewhat taxing his patience.'

Bridewell laughed. 'What's the old scoundrel been up to now?'

'Upsetting the servants, I'm afraid,' Ross replied.

'Really, Edmund,' Alice said, 'I don't know why you tolerate the man. I'd have dismissed him long ago. He's positively creepy.'

Ross didn't seem at all upset by the remark. 'He has his uses,' he answered. 'He's not the best manservant in the world, perhaps, but he's absolutely devoted to me.' Ross smiled. 'I'm afraid that all the dancing has tired me. I feel the need for a breath of fresh air.'

'Dancing?' Fulbright snorted. Perhaps Bridewell and even Alice liked this fake, but he didn't. 'I haven't seen you dance a step.'

'I haven't,' Ross agreed cheerily. 'But watching everyone else has quite exhausted me.'

'I could do with a little air myself,' Bridewell offered. 'Alice?'

She laughed happily. 'I feel as though I'm floating on it.' She took her father's arm and smiled at him affectionately.

'Why don't we all step outside?'

Fulbright didn't really want to socialize further with Ross, but he couldn't deny his daughter's whim. 'As you wish,' he said.

The music was still almost as loud outside, and there were a few knots of other guests out on the terrace. Alice led the three men toward the Italianate fountain that dominated the small walk down toward the formal gardens. From here in the daytime was the best view of the moors. Now, of course, it was simply darkness. Clouds hid the moon, and beyond the angelic dispenser of water lay only black night.

'Isn't it glorious?' she asked.

'If you like it,' Bridewell replied, 'it must be glorious. You have such exquisite taste.'

Alice laughed. 'That must be why I'm marrying you, then,' she said happily.

Fulbright was pleased to see his daughter so happy. Marriages weren't necessarily an impediment to love his own had always made him content but neither were they exactly conducive to it, either. It was good to see that Alice and Bridewell were not merely marrying, but looking forward to the estate. The only dark spot on his pleasure was that d.a.m.nably secretive Ross. What was he really after? Perhaps he was indeed a friend of Bridewell's, but there was more to it than that. Ross had the air of a man with many secrets, the sort of person who let no one into his thoughts if he could avoid it.

So why was he here?

Fulbright was not impolite enough to come right out and ask the man directly, but it was a close thing. And he suspected that Ross knew this and that it amused the younger man for some unfathomable reason.

Ross smiled at the couple. 'It does the heart good to see a couple so in love,' he said.