His own moon project at a standstill following the explosion on test of a prototype rocket
motor, Professor Bernard Quatermouse finds his hands full of a new investigation.
What appeared to be a hollow meteorite is brought to him.
A visit to the area of its fall leads him to a vast secret government production plant.
And another incident.
A meteorite falls.
It shatters, discharging ammonia gas and perhaps something else.
His companion, Captain Dillon, is overcome, a curious mark appearing on his face.
And while Quatermouse examines it, armed security guards arrive.
They take Dillon into the plant, apparently for treatment.
Quatermouse is ordered away.
He goes through the bulldozed debris of the village that occupied the site a year before
and comes upon weathered remains of the supposed meteorites by the hundreds.
Rebuffed by both civilian and police authorities, he finds out from Fowler a contact at the
responsible ministry that the mysterious plant is to produce synthetic food.
But with evidence that the secret process is already being duplicated in central Siberia
and in Brazil, a one-man inquiry has been forced by Vincent Broadhead, a member of Parliament,
into the affairs of the controlling commission.
When this resumes, he admits Quatermouse as a witness.
Looking along the faces of those at the table, Quatermouse sees once again the moth.
Can I speak to you for a moment?
Excuse me, gentlemen.
Hello there, Matt.
Since this morning.
Have you got that mark?
I've seen it before on a child who stumbled across one of these meteorites.
She was made ill.
The mark was on her hand.
Yesterday, Dillon, it began to appear when the guards took him away.
I've seen other cases.
But this man in the room now...
He at least.
I swear it.
If Professor Quatermouse was concerned about the propriety of his presence here while I
was putting questions on other matters.
Now, as members of the controlling commission, do you know of any external dangers to the
plant?
There are no dangers.
There can be none.
Perhaps even of missiles directed at it?
No, Broadhead, that's not what I meant.
I didn't want to stand there.
Let's get that stuff out.
Here.
What Professor Quatermouse is about to produce is something that fell two days ago within
a short distance of the plant.
There's a possibility that these may be directed through the atmosphere to a specific point.
In this case, to or at your plant?
They may possibly constitute some form of carrier.
Carrier?
Of what?
Of poison gases.
And also possibly...
Infection.
From what I know of synthetic foods is that you're dealing with delicate organic gel and
cultures.
Now, these can be infected.
No, no, no.
They can be artificially or artificially and destroyed.
Now, what I'm trying to establish is the possibility, no more than that, of a threat to your process.
No.
It may be nothing, and it may be serious.
Now, first, we've got to free more facts from this monstrous web of secrecy.
There has been no infection.
In the plant, you've discovered nothing?
Nothing like that.
I must ask you to take this matter seriously.
I must ask for your cooperation.
A picture is beginning to form, however sketchily, of a unique process which is no longer unique.
And to extend these indications to their farthest limits may even be in danger of destruction.
Now, if this should prove to be the...
What's going on?
Yes.
It's a model.
An accurate reconstruction in plaster of one of the meteorites as it fell.
You, sir, when did you come across a thing like that?
When did they come?
If I could tell you...
This must not continue.
These questions must not be asked.
I agree.
I think you'd better leave now, Professor.
Please.
Now, gentlemen, I'd like to take up one or two points on the process itself.
You certainly stuck your neck out.
You might have pulled it off the whole inquiry on him.
And you must admit the response you got was fairly indefinite.
Very well.
On a level of simple fact.
Are you a scientist, isn't that the only level?
No.
How long have I been up here?
20 minutes.
Could you ring the inquiry?
Well, um...
Try.
Get me room 441, please.
Mr. Broadhead.
The reason?
The last few minutes I was there and...
Seconds, really.
What?
I was afraid, Father.
Afraid?
Why on earth was I afraid?
I don't know.
I was afraid.
I was afraid.
I was afraid.
I was afraid.
I was afraid.
I was afraid.
I was afraid.
I was afraid.
I was afraid.
I was afraid.
I was afraid.
I was afraid.
I was afraid.
I was afraid.
I was afraid.
I was afraid.
Add another 25 seconds.
I was afraid.
I was afraid.
I was afraid.
I was afraid.
I was afraid.
So did I.
All the more fortunate that I was an emcee in the females front.
But I see myself getting pleased with my marketed moments.
While I am deceiving mothers and going a complete zigzag.
That's only perhaps because a moment is a moment.
But I'm discovering new depths in myself.
Or streets.
At any rate, I was suddenly, sharply aware of...
menace.
Here...
In the ministry!
What?
No reply?
No, it's all right.
What's wrong with him?
He's dispersed now, but...
Ammonia gas.
Brought it.
What happened?
Look!
You're sure?
How?
I don't know.
It was here with them.
It must have been.
He's conscious.
Brought it.
What happened at the inquiry?
Inquiry's over.
I wonder what he found out.
Nothing to find out.
Nothing.
I'll get a doctor.
You're making a report.
You'll remember.
Hello, hello.
Everything's in order.
Everything's explained.
Hello there.
All right, Father.
Sir, here.
When were you sent for?
A few minutes ago.
We helped with passing.
We came in.
Say nothing.
It's impossible.
What about you?
I want to leave.
I want your help.
Help.
I want to get to the plant.
Inside it.
I'll try.
Give me an hour.
Where can we meet?
I know a place.
One of the old coffee bars.
Nobody goes there now.
This way.
Here you are, sir.
Thank you.
It's nice to meet a gentleman who still appreciates a good cup of coffee.
Sugar, sir?
I don't think so.
It's these new tea bars now.
They've swiped all the trade.
Fashion, that's all it is, really.
Just fashion.
Now, Fowler.
This is Rupert Ward, Professor Quatermast.
How do you do, sir?
Two more coffees, please.
Right-o, sir.
Any trouble since I saw you last?
No.
Ward's in public relations.
He's been to the plant.
What?
Several times.
It's top secret.
How much do I say?
I'm not to the Quatermast.
I gather from Mr. Fowler that you have some rather odd notions about the place.
I've no time to go into details.
Does that mean anything to you?
No.
Why?
Should it?
Made of plaster.
Yes, it's a cast.
No matter.
Ward is attached to the special section only for temporary duties.
These visits, how many did you make?
Half a dozen.
Alone?
No, I took parties down.
It seems to have been quite a regular procedure.
Yes, they were mostly politicos.
One or two outside people, of course, press and so on.
Some of them quite well known.
Names?
No matter.
They were shown the plant.
Yes, but not by me.
I'm no scientist.
I can't tell one of these places from another.
I just handed my charges over.
You left from there?
Well, that was the arrangement.
I presume they came back with someone else.
Your coffee, sir.
Look here.
You don't think anything happened to those people, do you?
Good Lord, they all turned up again.
There's no doubt about it.
One reads and hears of them.
What were they shown?
Well, there was nothing very much in operation at the time except a sort of a pilot plant.
I didn't go into it myself.
Perhaps you were lucky.
What?
This type of wizardry is such a secret establishment.
PR routines can be rather odd.
I don't make the decisions.
No.
You're just a pleasant, sensible chap.
No nonsense.
No suspicion would attach to you.
Look here.
What on earth is he talking about?
As if I was, well, guilty of something.
Look here, there are other chaps.
Why don't you ask them?
Have you still got your pass?
Yes.
You're going to use it today.
What?
You're going to take another party over the plant, me and Fowler.
He'll back you up if necessary.
But this is absolutely against all...
Let me explain something.
I'll finish a copy.
What I showed you was a model of something that has been falling near the plant.
I'm having them investigated by my own people.
Darrow lass!
Another blind day?
Yes.
We're in a kind of mathematical lunacy.
Question, did those things come like normal meteorites?
Did they come like rockets in a breaking ellipse?
Did they do this?
Did they do that?
There are thousands of theories and every one leads to impossibility.
I realize we've got to accept that wherever these things came from was beyond the atmosphere.
But not so very, very far away.
No, I see that too.
And for a year.
And why isn't their point of origin, whatever it is, been located by every major observatory
and spotted by every amateur with a ten inch telescope?
Yes.
It would be bound by physical laws to travel in set ellipses.
A semi-major axis.
In a certain set rhythm.
So we calculate and calculate and there's no sensible answer.
Oh dear.
Five minute break.
How much sleep have you had?
Send some more coffee up, would you?
Observatory three.
Too many machines.
That's what we've got.
They spoil one from grasping a clear concept.
I joined your father as a mathematical genius.
That's not boasting.
I was once a calculating boy.
With these machines they beat me.
I pressed buttons.
Why did you join him?
Looking for some kind of beauty, I suppose.
The mathematical kind.
The idea of making roads in space for rockets to travel.
Four dimensional roads curved with relativity.
Metal with best quality continuum.
These roads are two way.
The brakes still on, Leo.
Tell me about the calculating boy.
Oh, at the village school in Moraine Glass, a teacher, old Miss Williams, used to set
me enormous sums to do.
She loved to astonish herself, but I always got them right.
You'll go far, Leo Bach, she said.
You have the power to benefit mankind.
And now I press buttons.
What sort of a child were you?
I was frightened of the dark.
That's nice and normal.
It was very scientific.
I had a special nightmare.
But I was in a rocket Father had made.
Going away and getting lost on the wrong side of the world.
In the dark forever and ever.
I used to wake up screaming.
Leo!
That might be it!
What?
The, the what you call it, the Bieber variation.
A sort of fault in the laws.
A line drawn from the sun to the earth, extend it, you reach a point of equilibrium where
a body can orbit invisibly on the dark side of the earth.
Hello?
Hello, Stuart?
If you're here, I want the radio telescope in a completely new setting.
Come over here, will you bring Watson?
Oh, take it away, I don't want it.
The Bieber variation.
It took the most advanced brain on earth to comprehend it.
But to go further, to put it to practical use.
What manner of being could do that?
Frankie!
Wasting your time throwing stones in the water.
Why don't you give your father a hand?
Frankie!
Hear what I said.
Look at him left to carry all them bottles down.
Can you manage, dear?
Yes.
I bet some did learn a whistle.
Have you got new works?
Yes.
Oh, perhaps it's her tea break or something.
Yes.
Fancy, just the same time as us, isn't that funny?
Yes.
Now, where's this clock?
Frankie!
Frankie!
Frankie!
Frankie!
Frankie!
Frankie!
Frankie!
Frankie!
Frankie!
Frankie!
Frankie!
You're going to go into the water.
Remember your promise.
What silly of uncle Tom to give him them rubber things.
So he can't swim.
Frankie!
Come and have a cup of tea now.
It's all ready.
Oh, it's just like a picnic.
I always say there's nothing like the old Premier.
There you are.
Aren't you going to take that thing off your head?
No.
You can't get over what's happened to the village, so.
All those houses down there.
And the house at the bottom.
The house at the bottom.
And the house at the top.
And the house at the top.
And the house at the top.
And the house at the top.
And the house at the top.
And the house at the top.
And the house at the bottom.
And the house at the top.
And the house at the top.
And the house at the bottom.
And the house at the top.
And the house at the top.
And the house at the top.
And the house at the top.
And the house at the top.
And the house at the top.
And the house at the top.
And the house at the top.
And the house at the top.
And the house at the top.
And the house at the top.
And the house at the top.
And the house at the top.
Official.
Anybody here now?
No one.
Receiving treatment?
No one.
Perhaps from yesterday?
No.
We understood there was a man here.
A young man.
He had to be brought in by the guards.
Name of Dylan.
He has gone now.
Gone?
He was recovered.
He was not seriously ill.
He was not ill.
He...
Where did he go?
Away.
Well, don't mind if I look around the premises.
It's quiet.
Is construction work suspended today?
Suspended?
The gangs are laid off for some reason?
Let's go.
Thank you.
Do you feel it?
What?
Ever since we entered this place, there's a sort of lull.
I don't know what it is.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
This is official.
Are you in charge here?
Yes.
We have to see the process in operation.
If you don't mind.
Is that an inspection door?
Enormous voltage.
Acting on the liquids inside.
What is it?
That is a preparation of amino acids.
Basic proteins.
The product's pumped out of here, isn't it?
Along these pipes.
Where does it go?
To those external storage tanks.
The big domes out there.
Yes.
They're built to take great pressure.
What else is pumped into them?
Gases?
Yes.
What sort of gases?
Could one of them be ammonia?
Yes.
And the others?
Hydrogen?
Nitrogen?
Methane, perhaps.
Great pressure is low temperature, isn't it?
You see, I'm curious.
I've seen structures like this somewhere else.
They remind me of experimental plants that I've seen somewhere.
That means to inhabit another planet.
Tell me if you can.
Production has begun.
How long ago?
It is on schedule.
And now?
And now!
Streaming outpower.
There must have powered out.
I've got to see those special domes.
Don't push forward.
No time now.
Ward.
Where's Ward?
He's gone.
Ward!
Where are you?
He's gone.
No sign of him here either.
That gunfire, do you think it's possible...
No, it's too far away.
It's outside the plant.
I hope you're right.
I saw him move away from us to look at another part of the unit, I thought.
He must have gone out by himself.
Why?
I can't guess.
We can't delay any longer.
I must have a look at that main storage tank before...
Fowler!
Look at this!
There on the meadow.
Ward!
Ammonia!
What's that black fly?
Don't touch it!
He's soaked in it.
Oxygen.
He said he must have got it inside.
Keep a lookout.
Ward, it's Quaker mass.
Did you get inside the dome?
Ward!
I had to know.
There's an airlock.
And they...
What was in there?
It's a...
It's a...
It's a...
It's a...
It's a...
It's a...
It's a...
It's a...
It's a...
It's a...
It's a...
It's a...
It's a...
It's a...
It's a...
It's a...
It's a...
It's a...
It's a...
It's a...
It's a...
It's American.
What was in there?
Beer glasses of some sort, right?
That...
That slime...
Beer glasses of some sort, right?
That slime...
That slime...
That slime...
That slime...
That slime...
That slime...
That slime...
That slime...
The slime...
That slime...
That slime...
That slime...
That slime...
Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.
Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.
Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.
the
half
you
that i'm something on file
one point
No, what do we do? Go to the police?
Get back to the Rocky Group.
Fowler, somewhere in the back there's a box. Metal.
See if you can find it.
Open it and hold it there.
Something I want to get under analysis straight away.
What is it?
Don't touch.
Walls, colour and time.
Professor Quatermass?
Lab here, sir.
They yielded just under 5 cc's of the substance.
Yes, plenty of potassium.
There were some neutral constituents, but I'd say there's absolutely no doubt.
Not in that concentration.
I see.
Right. Details as soon as you can.
Thank you.
A corrosive poison.
Deadly to any living thing on earth.
And it could never have made synthetic food.
Food?
I think it could.
But for what?
Father!
You heard?
Yes.
Anything?
No.
Trying to bring up the gains.
Not too much and I'd put the balance out.
Not there.
No.
Got it.
Oh.
I'm getting spots before my eyes.
Take over for me.
There's no sign at all of Johnny.
I'm sorry.
It's bad, isn't it?
Yes.
Could it be the same as before?
The first rocket?
No.
That's not it.
I'm certain.
Any clear idea what you're trying to trace?
An asteroid.
Not more than half a mile across.
Reaches nearest point of the earth every 48 hours.
Then they can come.
They try to imagine a complete reversal.
An organism to which oxygen is not a necessity of life, but a destroyer.
Unable to survive in our atmosphere for more than a few seconds.
Safe only in a shell.
A shell of stone.
But with power, Fowler.
Power to compel.
Leo, quickly.
Yes.
Yes, there it is. Bernard.
If no doubt about this, it's giving a clear signal.
The asteroid.
What's the distance?
Something over 500,000 miles.
Approaching the earth.