Year 2022

JACQUI had read through Gavin’s narrative twice, completely stupefied, not wanting to believe what she had just read. Was this just some strange science-fiction plot which Grandad had concocted for her amusement? But it was nothing like those of Grandad’s works that she was familiar with—and the narrative seemed to fit exactly with what Phyllis Howells had told her, and what old Hector Beeley might have told her, were it not for his reticence. It must be true!

What was she to do now? It was clear that Grandad was right in telling her there was ‘more to the story’. He either hadn’t known, or had held back this information, about the total evacuation of Wist­bourne, the continuing interest from the Military, and the cordoning-off. And he hadn’t said anything about any of the Changelings having survived the shooting—that piece of information that Hector had let slip (inadvertently, or intentionally?). Phyllis had been clear that none had survived—and so, presumably, had been the impression given to the other villagers. Clearly some had been killed, because there had been a conviction for multiple murders, and a man had almost been sent to the gallows (barbaric punishment! Jacqui was glad that the man had been reprieved, and that the death penalty had long since been abolished). Were the survivors still alive by any chance? They would have to be well over seventy now. If so, did they still possess this strange power? And what exactly was this power? She must find out.

The first thing to do, she decided, was to get hold of Captain Dawson—a decision she’d made earlier and set aside. Of course, knowing what she now knew, she would be able to make a far better-informed approach to Dawson than she had to Beeley. She phoned Imogen Beeley on the number Hector had given her.

“You want to contact Joyce? Joyce Dawson? Yes, I do know her, though we haven’t been in touch for some years. And I don’t think she’ll be happy if I give you her phone number just like that—she’s a somewhat reserved sort of person. Tell you what: I’ll ring her up and give her your number and E-mail, explaining who you are and you want to speak to her. Will that do? If it’s about Father’s business, she may not be able to help much because she’s also retired from Army service.”

So all Jacqui could do was wait. Paul was still teasing her about her ‘obsession’, as he named it: indeed he sometimes popped outside into the garden with a pair of binoculars, and scoured the skies, “just to see if I can spot any of them flying saucers,” as he explained.

Jacqui knew that he was trying to wind her up, but she endured it. She was content to bide her time—for a while. She resumed her work on the sports pages.

*

After two weeks, Jacqui was beginning to think no more would come of it. Would she have to drop her investigation? But then—an e-mail did arrive. It was from a Sergeant Wilson, and explained that his former commanding officer, Major Dawson (Jacqui noted the promotion), had received a phone call from Colonel Beeley’s daughter Imogen. She had since retired from service, but she was interested in meeting Jacqui. Could Jacqui ring to make an appoint­ment?

Three days later Jacqui was in the flat of a rather severe-looking lady in late middle-age, with grey hair close-cropped in the military fashion. This was Joyce Dawson, dressed in a civilian outfit of tweed: she was explaining that she had been retired for some years, so she was no longer working on the project that she had inherited from Hector. But she then introduced Jacqui to a younger woman, in her thirties maybe, in military uniform and likewise in short hair mostly concealed in a beret. “This is Captain Helen Moon, who has taken over my role in the Wistbourne operation.”

As she shook hands with both women, Jacqui found it hard to suppress a chuckle at the Captain’s name. Singularly appropriate for research into extra-terrestrials!—if they were extra-terrestrials. But whatever they were, they certainly didn’t originate on the Moon. Jacqui managed to keep a straight face, though, and hoped her amusement hadn’t been noticed.

“I understand you have taken a close interest in Wistbourne, Mrs Coombes,” Major Dawson began. “Can you explain how that came about?”

“My maiden name was Hartmead, Jacqueline Hartmead, and I am the granddaughter of the late Gavin Hartmead, who was a writer of Sci-fi novels. He was a resident of Wistbourne at the time of the events in the early 1950s. I’ve also been in touch with Hector—Colonel Beeley—but he was not very forthcoming. However, I have read a long account written by my Grandfather, of his and his wife June’s experiences during their time at the village—their experiences with the Foundlings. It was in the form of an encrypted document on a laptop computer which he’d deposited with his solicitors, and it took me quite a lot of work to unearth the password. Clearly it was his intention that I, and I alone, should have had access to this document.”

“How interesting!” remarked Major Dawson. “Have you spoken of the contents of this document to anyone else?”

“Most certainly not. And, before you ask, yes I have signed the Official Secrets Act, in connection with my work.”

“Have you, now? What sort of work do you do?”

“I’m a journalist, writing for the sports page in a local newspaper. But I previously worked in other areas of journalism.”

“So you’re a journalist, are you? Might I ask in what capacity you are making enquiries about Wistbourne?”

“Major Dawson, please believe me when I say, this has nothing to do with my work, or the paper I work for. I’m here in a purely private capacity—fulfilling a request made to me by my late Grandfather in his Will. Nothing more than that. Anything I find out won’t be published—that I promise.”

“You appear to have found out quite a lot already. I presume this comes from your reading of your Grandfather’s document. Go on—tell us what you know.”

So Jacqui recounted as much as she could recall to mind of what she had read in the file wistbourne.doc. The ‘Curse’; the brief appearance of the ‘blimp’; the arrival of the Foundlings or Change­lings—call them what you will; their supposed supernatural powers; their being settled in the Manor House shortly followed by the mass shooting. The two officers were silent throughout her recital, and when she had finished they had a hurried whispered consultation.

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“Mrs Coombes,” said Major Dawson, after a pause. “You do indeed seem to be remarkably well-informed about the early years of the Wistbourne affair. Whether your grandfather contravened the Law in setting down so much information in writing is a debatable point, but since he has since died there seems no point in pursuing the matter. At least he didn’t make his knowledge public. What we would be interested in now, on the other hand, is enlisting your help in solving a problem we’ve had for a long time. Are you willing to do this?”

Jacqui’s heart skipped a beat. This was better than she had hoped for—to work on the Wistbourne project, whatever it was, herself! “Of course I am!” she exclaimed, trying not to sound too excited.

“Very well. I shall ask Captain Moon here to fill you with some details.”

Captain Moon spoke up for the first time. “I must stress that the operation is still classified as Secret: although there have been some calls to declassify it, the Prime Minister, who has taken a personal interest in the matter, has directed that it shall remain Secret for the foreseeable future.

“So we shall need to take precautions. We cannot merely accept your verbal promise that you will not pass this information else­where—sorry! You have already signed the Official Secrets Act. When we heard about you, we originally directed that you be Positively Vetted, but the Minister over-ruled us. He reminded us that this is not a case of suspected subversive elements working for a foreign Power! The only risk is that of mass panic, should the public become aware of these matters. You know what happened in Wist­bourne during the time Mr and Mrs Hartmead were living there, so we have to be extra careful.

“So we have written to the editor of the newspaper you work for—yes, our questioning notwithstanding, we already knew what your line of work is—instructing her not to accept any material from you except in your capacity as sports reporter. And even that content will need to be vetted by our officers before publication. You must forgive us for not entirely trusting you, Mrs Coombes, but you will of course appreciate the sensitivity of this matter.”

“I understand,” said Jacqui, rather ruefully. She wondered if she was in this too deep! What on earth did they expect of her?

“Accordingly,” resumed Captain Moon, “I shall apply to the Minister to see if we can get a pass for you to visit Wistbourne—a visit in which many of your questions may be answered. All I will say to you for now is that, yes: three of the Changelings—two boys and a girl—survived the shooting. One of them was shot and wounded but recovered. Two others managed to escape unhurt by making a hole in a window and climbing out, while Mr Freeman was reloading his gun. This information was kept secret from the villagers. The surviving children continued to be housed in the Manor House without anyone’s knowledge apart from us.”

“So there were some survivors,” Jacqui exclaimed. “I guessed as much—otherwise why would Wistbourne remain cordoned off like it is?” She decided to say nothing about Hector’s unwitting revelation. “So they’re still there—in Wistbourne? Still alive?”

“No,” said Major Dawson, taking up the narrative. “All three have since died. But before that happened our team—or rather, Colonel Beeley’s team—learnt plenty of stuff, some of it even more remark­able than what you have told us. They dissected and closely studied the bodies of those that had been killed, secretly of course. They found a strange organ inside the skull—an organ which does not exist in humans nor in any other terrestrial animal—and the theory was that this organ was responsible in some mysterious way for the ‘disintegration’ power. At first it was assumed that the organ used some sort of ultrasonic emission, so it was named the ‘buzzer’—although a human ear cannot hear any buzzing. But the scientists were at a loss to explain how it could destroy living tissue—like the unfortunate man’s arm. That is as much as I know about it—any more, you’d have to speak to the scientific guys—if they’ve found out more. But with no living specimens remaining, that’s doubtful.”

“How interesting!” put in Jacqui. “So when did the survivors die, and how?”

“I’m coming to that. Well, the team found that the Changelings could not attack heavy metals like lead, for some reason. So they built a habitat for them plated on the inside with depleted uranium, covered over with plaster and painted. Don’t get alarmed,” she added as she noticed Jacqui’s dismay. “The radiological hazard from depleted uranium is practicably negligible—less than that from eating bananas. But the metal is, like lead, highly toxic, which is why it was carefully plastered over. The Changelings were then supplied with all their essential needs and watched as they grew up. They learned their lessons well enough but were far from commun­icative. When they were old enough to understand, the teachers impressed upon them most firmly that they were not to ‘disintegrate’ anything without permission, or they would be punished. They appeared to understand and there were no more ‘accidents’.

“We now come to the time when they were aged about twelve or thirteen. That was when they became completely withdrawn, refused to communicate with anyone, and remained in their one sparsely-furnished room, apparently taking no interest in the world outside. The lessons had to stop: the teachers could make no further progress. The Changelings stopped wearing clothes at about that time—both boys and the girl too—but there was no sign of any sexual interest or arousal among them. Indeed, although they should have been approaching puberty, there was no sign of any sexual development at all. The girl did not grow breasts or menstruate, and her hips did not swell. The boys’ testicles did not drop, their voices did not break, and they did not grow beards. None of them showed any sign of pubic hair. In every sense they appeared to be like ‘children who never grew up’—but unlike Peter Pan they grew to normal adult size.

“If any of Colonel Beeley’s team had any doubts that these were alien beings, these observations surely dispelled those doubts.”

“You mean, they remained as children for the rest of their lives?” said Jacqui.

“Physiologically, yes. Exactly. Well, the team continued to observe them, but could learn no more as the years went by. They remained in their room. They ate, drank, used the toilet, slept. They hardly spoke. That was all.

“Until one day the girl broke her silence and announced that she was pregnant.”

“Pregnant? You mean there was a child by them?” exclaimed Jacqui, becoming more and more intrigued.

“Let me explain. The Changelings were aged about twenty-eight by that time—and that was when I joined the observation team, taking over from Colonel Beeley when he retired—so I was able to directly observe what follows. We weren’t sure of the pregnancy, but after a while her belly began to swell so we believed her. How she got pregnant was a complete mystery: by now we had them under constant observation by video camera, and we are certain there was no sexual activity between the girl and either boy. Nevertheless she was indeed pregnant—and the pregnancy went to term.

“It was an exceptionally long pregnancy: about eleven months. In due course the girl gave birth—to not one, but three offspring. But the three beings she gave birth to were nothing like humans…”

“My God!” exclaimed Jacqui. “So what were they? Little green men? Bug-eyed monsters?”

“Stranger even than that,” replied Captain Moon, taking over once again. “But it’s best if we show you. The three offspring are still alive, and still being looked after in Wistbourne. I’ll arrange for you to come with me and visit the village as soon as I get the clearance.”

“What I can also tell you,” resumed Major Dawson, “is that about a week after these offspring were born, all three of the surviving Changelings died suddenly, for no apparent reason. One can surmise that ‘their work was done’ or something of that sort.”