LITMIR.BIZ

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tower like a great sunken cobweb!”

      It was an awesome, even awe-inspiring, thought … the entire Underground system filled with water: a vast submarine city where the Deep Ones could spawn and worship their bloated black deity for as long as the Earth continued to roll in its orbit.

      Then for several long minutes we remained silent, Henry and I, as we slopped along under the swirling and ever-brightening glow of shoggoth filth.

      But eventually he said, “Well then, Julian, have you figured it out yet?”

      “Eh? Figured what out?”

      “Why they take young men, of course.”

      “You mean, if not to eat them?”

      “Yes,” he nodded. “If not to eat them. What other use could young men be put to, eh?”

      Deciding to let him tell me, I shook my head. “I’ve no idea, Henry.”

      And beginning to sob again, however quietly, he said, “It’s because young men are sexually potent, Julian. Just like horses in the stud farms, as once were in the old days. That’s what my girl Janet told me. But it’s also why she escaped and came home worn out, dying, and pregnant! The baby—not much more than a fetus, I imagine, poor innocent creature—he or she died with Janet.

      But better that then … than the other. And now … and now … ”

      I nodded and said, “I understand—I think. And now there’s Dawn. Why don’t you tell me about her, if you can?”

      “No,” he shook his head, “you don’t understand! You haven’t thought it through. But I didn’t have to, because I had it from Janet, and I’ll tell you, anyway; or perhaps by now you can tell me? Why would a monstrous thing like Bgg’ha—and his monsters in that twisted tower of a ‘house’—why would they want children, babies, from their captives?”

      We both slowly came to a halt and stood facing each other; but knowing what he was getting at I made no reply. The old man saw that I knew and nodded an affirmative. “Oh, yes, Julian. In the long ago era of sailing ships, men from the west would sometimes come across cannibal tribes in the South Sea islands, and these savage people had a term for the enemies they roasted for food. The called them—or the flesh they ate off them—‘long pig,’ because that’s how we taste, apparently. Now I don’t know if they ever tried ‘short pig,’ if you get my meaning, but what could be more tender or pure than—”

      “—Yes, I do understand, Henry.” I cut him short. “There’s no need to torture yourself any further!”

      “But what horrified me most,” he continued, as if he hadn’t heard me at all, “wasn’t the thought of those monsters at their repast, not but wondering what the young men who fathered those babies—what they themselves, or for that matter the mothers—could be living on in the twisted tower! For what other source of … food could there possibly be in that dreadful place? And what kind of inhuman, bestial people could bring themselves to do something as terrible as that?”

      Henry could barely stifle his soul-wrenching sobbing as he turned away from me, staggering and yet seeming more determined than ever; windmilling his arms and only just managing to maintain his balance, as he went splashing along the drowned, rusty tracks.

      I caught up with the old man, caught his arm to steady his before he could trip and hurt himself, and said, “There are all kinds of men, Henry. Most men couldn’t do that, I think, but as for those who can … what choice do they have? They could reap what they have sown, as it were—if in this case you’ll excuse such a metaphor—and eat or starve in the absence of any other choices, and that’s all. But you know, some men, women too, are very adaptable; and in desperate times and situations the survival instinct in people such as these will quickly surface, and they’ll soon become inured, accustomed to … to whatever. Yes, that kind of person can get used to almost anything.”

      But yet again I don’t think he’d heard a single word that I had said. And instead of scolding me for my logical approach to what he’d told me—however sickening, disgusting that approach must have seemed to him, if indeed he had heard anything at all of it—he once again began to babble about his youngest daughter, Dawn:

      “You’ve never seen a girl so lovely, Julian. Only thirteen years old when the world went to hell … growing up almost entirely underground, in that dark, damp basement we called home. What chance for poor Dawn, eh? … Never had a boyfriend, never knew a man … her dark-eyed, raven-haired beauty wasted in the gloom of a cellar. And all she ever saw of the outside world on those occasions, those very rare occasions, when, at her pleading, I would take her into the light of day, was the sullen sky and the shattered city … But we could never stay for long … not even crouching in the rubble … there were terrible things in the poisoned sky—the Shantaks, I’ve heard them called, and the faceless Gaunts—and it was never very long before they’d glide into view scouring the land as they searched … searched for … what else but us! … For mankind’s scattered remnants! … For what few human beings remained!

      “But by Dawn … she was everything to me … as her mother before her, and her poor sister. But they were taken, all three … and what have I now—what’s left for me?—except the top of a measure … of some small measure … of revenge?”

      It seemed to me the old man was waiting for an answer, and so I shrugged and obliged him, saying, “But it appears there’s nothing much left for you, Henry, except your small measure of revenge. So you’ll do what you have to—and for that matter, so will I.”

      “So will you?”

      I nodded and said, “Well, there’s nothing much left for me, either! So just like you, I’ll do what I have to … ” And I had to bite my tongue as I almost added, “to survive.”

      The shoggoth light ahead of us was very much brighter now, and in order to change the subject I pointed it out to my companion. “Look there, it’s almost daylight up front! As daylight used to be, I mean.”

      “I see it,” he answered, as his sobbing gradually subsided. “Another fifteen to twenty minutes and we’ll be there. Piccadilly Circus … or ground zero, if you prefer.”

      “Hmm!” I said. “But I always thought that term described a point on the ground directly beneath the explosion—not above it.”

      He was obviously surprised. “Quite right, yes. But since we both know what I meant, why nitpick?” Then, looking at me sideways and slyly, “By the way, you really have got it all figured out, haven’t you?”

      “Most of it,” I nodded. “But I still don’t know, can’t see, how you’ve been able in the circumstances to build any kind of device powerful enough to make all of this worthwhile. I mean, you’d need a laboratory, and the know-how, and the materials.”

      Henry returned my nod. “Very good,” he said, “Very clever. But don’t I remember saying that you had no idea who or what I am or was? I’m sure I do.”

      “Ah!” I said. “So this is what you were getting at. Except you never did get around to telling me. So then, Henry, who and what were you?”

      “I am, as you know, Henry Chattaway,” he replied. “But what you don’t know is that I have an almost entire alphabet of letters after my name, that I’ve twice been put forward as a candidate for a Nobel prize in physics, and that … ” For this was the one thing I had most wanted to know, but hadn’t dared to ask him outright in case it gave me away. And:

      “Well, why shouldn’t I tell you?” he said, as the man-made cavern or excavation that was the main Piccadilly Circus Underground station gradually came into view up front. “For it’s too late now to do anything else but see it through: the last of my dreams come true on this long last night.”

      And as we climbed up from the tracks onto the platform and I returned his small heavy suitcase to him, he continued: “Julian, I was the top man—or rather, not to make too much of it,

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