Authors: Bob Shaw
Night Walk (8 page)
As usual, the evening meal consisted of fish. In the two years he had been
on the planet, Tallon had grown accustomed to having fish for nearly every
meal; the sea was Emm Luther's only good source of first-class protein.
Outside prison however, it was processed to taste like other things;
in the Pavilion, fish tasted like fish.
Tallon toyed for a few minutes with the dry white flesh and the spinachlike
sea vegetables, then rose and walked slowly out of the mess hall. He was
finding it increasingly easy to get about in confined spaces using only an
occasional glimpse of himself stolen from someone's eyes. Working through
the bird -- which he had named Ariadne -- while it sat on his shoulder
would have been better, but it would have drawn too much attention in
the mess hall.
Winfield and he had decided to be as inconspicuous as possible during
their last hours in the Pavilion. They had agreed to keep away from each
other and make their way separately to the white rock at dusk, two hours
before the cell blocks were sealed for the night. The doctor was to go
first, carrying the improvised bird cages, and have the escape kits dug
up by the time Tallon got there.
Outside the mess hall, Tallon stood undecidedly for a moment. There was
almost an hour to go before it was rendezvous time. The only thing his
stomach would have accepted at that moment was coffee, but Winfield had
warned him not to eat or drink anything, because they were going to be
sealed up in their plastic envelopes for at least two days. He touched
the eyeset controls, and using proximity selection, got behind the eyes
of a guard who was standing near the entrance. The guard was smoking,
so Tallon lit a cigarette, and by raising it to his lips every time he
saw the guard do likewise, he was able to achieve a startlingly realistic
simulation of normal vision for a few minutes. He enjoyed re-creating
a fragment of the warm, secure past. But gathering shadows behind the
buildings around the plaza reminded him that night was falling over the
swamp, and that he, Sam Tallon, would spend that night squirming through
its stinking blackness toward the robot rifles.
Leaving the sounds of mealtime conversation and horseplay behind
him, Tallon struck off across the square toward the cell blocks. The
guard's eyes must have followed him idly, for Tallon had a perfect
view of himself walking toward the blocks silhouetted on the western
horizon. Self-consciously he squared his shoulders, but the action
did nothing to make the receding figure seem any bigger, tougher, or
less lonely.
He wanted to collect Ariadne from the large wire-mesh aviary, which the
board had granted for the use of prisoners who wanted to keep bird pets,
but decided to go to his cell first and clear out his possessions, such
as they were. By the time Tallon reached his own section he was near the
extreme range of the eyeset, and his view of himself was little more
than of a brown speck approaching the entrance to the cell block. He
thought he detected two other specks, wearing the dark green of the
prison guards, detach themselves from the portico. The distance vision
of the guard still smoking outside the mess hall was not very good,
so Tallon decided to switch to a pair of eyes nearer to him.
As he raised his hands to the eyeset controls there was an impact of bodies,
and his arms were pinned to his sides. Tallon saw that the green specks
had attached themselves to the brown speck that was himself.
With his heart jolting violently, Tallon said, "If I've been reported
for stealing cutlery from the mess hall, it's a lie."
"Don't try to be funny, Tallon," a voice crackled in his ear. "We want
Winfield as well. Where is he?"
Tallon guessed that if they had not been able to find the doctor in the
main buildings he must have already left for the rendezvous point. That
meant Winfield might be able to get out of the Pavilion, if he didn't
wait too long for Tallon to show up. But who had tipped off the guards?
Not Hogarth, surely. Even if the little man had guessed what they were up to,
he would hardly have . . .
"Do you not hear so good, Tallon? I asked you where Winfield was."
"I don't know." Tallon tried to think up a convincing stall to give
the doctor more time, but his mind had gone numb. To his surprise,
the guards did not seem to be particularly alarmed.
"What's the difference?" The man on his right spoke casually. "We'll collect
this one now, and get Winfield's as soon as we see him."
"I guess that's all we can do."
As Tallon tried to make sense of their comments, he felt a hand brush
his temple and, instantly, he was blind. They had taken his eyeset!
"What the hell!" He shouted angrily, wrenching his arms from their grasp
and staggering slightly as the guards let go, leaving him free but
helplessly blind.
"Give me that back. That's my own property, you thieving bastards.
I'll report you to . . . Miss Juste for this."
One of the guards laughed. "That's a good one. You and Winfield made these
crazy glasses with stolen government materials, Tallon. And you can report
us to Miss Juste any time you want. She's the one who's confiscating them."
nine
For a second the blunted needle refused to penetrate; then it punctured
the skin and slid deep into Tallon's arm.
"Sorry, son," Winfield said. "I'm out of practice."
"Look, Doc, are you quite sure about all this? You made up a second escape
kit so you could bring along somebody who could help you -- not a blind man."
Tallon rolled his sleeve down over his faintly throbbing arm.
"Sure I'm sure. Besides, I'm giving you this eyeset as soon as we're ready
to move off."
"Nothing doing, Doc. You keep the eyeset and I'll stick with the sonar.
I'm lucky to have that much, I suppose." Tallon had fallen several times
during the nightmarish journey from the cell block to the meeting place,
but had hardly felt the pain. His brain was trying to find the reason why
Helen Juste had confiscated his eyeset. Why had she encouraged them to
complete the eyesets before she cracked down? Had she got wind of their
escape plan and chosen this way of slamming the door?
"Well, that's that," Winfield announced. "I wanted us to have the
general-purpose shots before we started walking. Even the woodworms can
have a nasty bite in this part of the world."
He pushed a bulky package into Tallon's arms, and they made their way
cautiously down the slope toward the palisade. The bird on Winfield's
shoulder clucked apprehensively as the doctor slid once on a patch of
rank grass. Tallon kept the sonar torch aimed straight ahead and listened
to the steadily rising tone caused by the beam hitting the palisade.
"Here we are," the doctor grunted. His voice was followed by dull crunching
sounds as he kicked out the rotten wood inhabited by his carefully nurtured
colony of worms. Tallon followed him through the hole, grimacing as an
accidental contact with the edge showered him with thousands of tiny
writhing creatures. They traveled a short distance toward the swamp
until they ran out of hard ground.
"Suits now," Winfield said brusquely. "Did you remember not to eat or drink?"
"Yes."
"Good, but you'd better have this anyway."
"What is it?"
"Diaper."
"You're kidding."
"You'll thank me for it later."
With Winfield doing most of the work, they draped the plastic sheets around
their necks and sealed the edges. It was difficult to handle anything
properly through the plastic, but Winfield produced a roll of adhesive
tape and bound it at their necks, wrists and ankles. The binding made it
possible for them to walk and move their arms with comparative freedom.
To complete the grotesque outfits, they wrapped more plastic around their
heads, finished it with cement and tape, then jammed on their prison caps.
"I'll carry the pack and the bird," Winfield said. "Stay as close to me
as you can."
"You can count on that, Doc."
Moving toward the swamp in blackness, Tallon was aghast at the thought of
what he was going to do. Although blind, he knew when he had reached the
edge of the swamp by the feel of the clammy mist closing round him, as
well as by the stench, which made every breath something to be planned in
advance and forced through with determination. Unidentifiable night noises
drifted through the swirling vapor, reminding him that, although the robot
rifles had finished off only the swamp's warm-blooded inhabitants, there
were others to share the darkness. And yet, Tallon was aware of feeling
something approaching peace. He had finally become tired of drifting with
the current, of compromising, of feeling afraid. The fat old doctor, with
his head full of ridiculous dreams, was leading him to almost certain
death; but he had taught Tallon one great truth: Walking toward death
is not pleasant, but it's better than having it come up fast behind you.
The swamp was much worse than Tallon had anticipated; in fact, he discovered
he had not really expected the swamp to be a problem. They were able to
remain upright and move ahead by walking and wading for the first hour,
covering about two hundred yards in reasonable comfort. But presently
Tallon began to hit patches where his feet seemed to sink through six
inches of molasses before reaching solid support. The goo made walking
difficult but not impossible, even when it had begun to reach nearly to
his knees. Tallon went steadily ahead, sweating in his plastic sheet. Then
the bottom seemed to drop out of the world. Instead of his feet finding
bedrock, they kept going down and down as though the whole planet was
sucking him through its skin.
"Fall forward," Winfield shouted. "Throw yourself down on it and keep your
arms spread out."
Tallon splashed forward, spread-eagled on the heaving surface of the
quagmire, embracing its filth. The water splashed over his face,
and sediment swirled to the surface, releasing all the odors of
death. Uncontrollable spasms of retching forced his face down again,
into the crawling fluid.
"Are you all right, son?" Winfield's voice was anxious.
Tallon's first impulse was to shout for help in his black, blind universe,
but he clenched his teeth and kept beating the surface of the quagmire with
his arms. Gradually his feet worked upward, and he moved forward again in a
semi-swimming motion.
"I'm all right, Doc. Keep traveling."
"That's the way. It won't all be like this."
Furious splashing sounds from up ahead told Tallon the doctor was already
moving on. Grinning with desperation, Tallon flailed after him. Sometimes
they would reach little islands where they were able to travel short
distances on foot, beating their way through the rubbery vegetation.
At other times they encountered solid curtains of vines and had to go
to the side or even backtrack to get by them. Once Tallon put his hand
squarely on something lying flat and icy smooth below the surface. It
humped convulsively and drove out from under his body with silent
strength, paralyzing him with fear.
As the night wore on Tallon found himself catching up to Winfield with
increasing frequency, and he realized the doctor was reaching the point
of exhaustion. Winfield's breathing became a harsh, monotonous sobbing.
"Listen, Doc," Tallon finally shouted. "We both need a rest. Is there any
point in risking a heart attack?"
"Keep moving. There's nothing wrong with my heart."
Tallon found some firm ground under his feet. He lunged forward,
throwing his weight onto Winfield, and brought him crashing down.
The doctor fought him off stubbornly while struggling to move on.
"For Christ's sake, Doc," Tallon gasped, "I'm talking about
my
heart.
Take it easy, will you?"
Winfield fought on for a moment, then went limp. "Okay, son," he said
between gasps. "I'll give you five minutes."
"Believe me, Doc, I'm grateful to you."
"I'm grateful to myself."
They lay huddled together, laughing weakly while Winfield's breathing
gradually returned to normal. Tallon told him of his encounter with the
underwater creature.
"A slinker -- harmless at this time of the year," Winfield said. "In the
laying season, though, the skin of the female toughens into knife edges
at the sides. They slice past anything that moves, laying it open,
and inject their eggs at the same time."
"Nice habits."
"Yes. I'm told the thing to do is to think of it not as losing a foot,
but as gaining a batch of slinker offspring. As a matter of fact, we're
making this trip at a very good time. The swamp is pretty quiet late on
in the winter. The only real danger is from muck spiders."
"Poisonous?"
"No. With the sort of mouths they have, poison would be superfluous. They
lie in shallow water, with their legs stuck up in the air like bullrushes,
and there's nothing in the middle but mouth. If you ever come through here
again, son, avoid walking through any neat circular clumps of bullrushes."
Tallon got an unpleasant idea. "What's that bird's night vision like?
Are you getting a good enough picture to let you spot a muck spider?"
Winfield snorted. "What are you worrying about? Aren't I going first?"
When daylight came to the swamp Winfield insisted on letting Tallon have
a spell with the eyeset.
Tallon accepted, grateful for the release from blackness, and took the lead
for several hours. He used a crude spear, which Winfield had made by snapping
a thin sapling, to beat smaller vegetation out of his way. The bird fluttered
occasionally in its plastic-covered cage, but showed no signs of any real
discomfort. As he moved through slow-dripping foliage Tallon saw that the
water was alive with dark brown leechlike creatures, writhing, twisting,
continually warring on each other. Great streamers of their dark bodies
trailed around his legs. The air hummed with the vibration of tiny gnats,
or was parted by the heavy throb of huge sooty-black insects blundering
through the swamp, intent on unknown missions.
Twice during the day, low-flying aircraft swept by directly overhead,
but the ice-green mist hid them from view. Tallon's mental processes
slowed down while he labored mechanically, thinking river-bed thoughts,
dreaming brown dreams. Their rest periods grew longer, and the intervals
between them shorter, as fatigue spread through their bodies. At dusk
they found a small knoll of almost dry ground and slept like children.
on the planet, Tallon had grown accustomed to having fish for nearly every
meal; the sea was Emm Luther's only good source of first-class protein.
Outside prison however, it was processed to taste like other things;
in the Pavilion, fish tasted like fish.
Tallon toyed for a few minutes with the dry white flesh and the spinachlike
sea vegetables, then rose and walked slowly out of the mess hall. He was
finding it increasingly easy to get about in confined spaces using only an
occasional glimpse of himself stolen from someone's eyes. Working through
the bird -- which he had named Ariadne -- while it sat on his shoulder
would have been better, but it would have drawn too much attention in
the mess hall.
Winfield and he had decided to be as inconspicuous as possible during
their last hours in the Pavilion. They had agreed to keep away from each
other and make their way separately to the white rock at dusk, two hours
before the cell blocks were sealed for the night. The doctor was to go
first, carrying the improvised bird cages, and have the escape kits dug
up by the time Tallon got there.
Outside the mess hall, Tallon stood undecidedly for a moment. There was
almost an hour to go before it was rendezvous time. The only thing his
stomach would have accepted at that moment was coffee, but Winfield had
warned him not to eat or drink anything, because they were going to be
sealed up in their plastic envelopes for at least two days. He touched
the eyeset controls, and using proximity selection, got behind the eyes
of a guard who was standing near the entrance. The guard was smoking,
so Tallon lit a cigarette, and by raising it to his lips every time he
saw the guard do likewise, he was able to achieve a startlingly realistic
simulation of normal vision for a few minutes. He enjoyed re-creating
a fragment of the warm, secure past. But gathering shadows behind the
buildings around the plaza reminded him that night was falling over the
swamp, and that he, Sam Tallon, would spend that night squirming through
its stinking blackness toward the robot rifles.
Leaving the sounds of mealtime conversation and horseplay behind
him, Tallon struck off across the square toward the cell blocks. The
guard's eyes must have followed him idly, for Tallon had a perfect
view of himself walking toward the blocks silhouetted on the western
horizon. Self-consciously he squared his shoulders, but the action
did nothing to make the receding figure seem any bigger, tougher, or
less lonely.
He wanted to collect Ariadne from the large wire-mesh aviary, which the
board had granted for the use of prisoners who wanted to keep bird pets,
but decided to go to his cell first and clear out his possessions, such
as they were. By the time Tallon reached his own section he was near the
extreme range of the eyeset, and his view of himself was little more
than of a brown speck approaching the entrance to the cell block. He
thought he detected two other specks, wearing the dark green of the
prison guards, detach themselves from the portico. The distance vision
of the guard still smoking outside the mess hall was not very good,
so Tallon decided to switch to a pair of eyes nearer to him.
As he raised his hands to the eyeset controls there was an impact of bodies,
and his arms were pinned to his sides. Tallon saw that the green specks
had attached themselves to the brown speck that was himself.
With his heart jolting violently, Tallon said, "If I've been reported
for stealing cutlery from the mess hall, it's a lie."
"Don't try to be funny, Tallon," a voice crackled in his ear. "We want
Winfield as well. Where is he?"
Tallon guessed that if they had not been able to find the doctor in the
main buildings he must have already left for the rendezvous point. That
meant Winfield might be able to get out of the Pavilion, if he didn't
wait too long for Tallon to show up. But who had tipped off the guards?
Not Hogarth, surely. Even if the little man had guessed what they were up to,
he would hardly have . . .
"Do you not hear so good, Tallon? I asked you where Winfield was."
"I don't know." Tallon tried to think up a convincing stall to give
the doctor more time, but his mind had gone numb. To his surprise,
the guards did not seem to be particularly alarmed.
"What's the difference?" The man on his right spoke casually. "We'll collect
this one now, and get Winfield's as soon as we see him."
"I guess that's all we can do."
As Tallon tried to make sense of their comments, he felt a hand brush
his temple and, instantly, he was blind. They had taken his eyeset!
"What the hell!" He shouted angrily, wrenching his arms from their grasp
and staggering slightly as the guards let go, leaving him free but
helplessly blind.
"Give me that back. That's my own property, you thieving bastards.
I'll report you to . . . Miss Juste for this."
One of the guards laughed. "That's a good one. You and Winfield made these
crazy glasses with stolen government materials, Tallon. And you can report
us to Miss Juste any time you want. She's the one who's confiscating them."
nine
For a second the blunted needle refused to penetrate; then it punctured
the skin and slid deep into Tallon's arm.
"Sorry, son," Winfield said. "I'm out of practice."
"Look, Doc, are you quite sure about all this? You made up a second escape
kit so you could bring along somebody who could help you -- not a blind man."
Tallon rolled his sleeve down over his faintly throbbing arm.
"Sure I'm sure. Besides, I'm giving you this eyeset as soon as we're ready
to move off."
"Nothing doing, Doc. You keep the eyeset and I'll stick with the sonar.
I'm lucky to have that much, I suppose." Tallon had fallen several times
during the nightmarish journey from the cell block to the meeting place,
but had hardly felt the pain. His brain was trying to find the reason why
Helen Juste had confiscated his eyeset. Why had she encouraged them to
complete the eyesets before she cracked down? Had she got wind of their
escape plan and chosen this way of slamming the door?
"Well, that's that," Winfield announced. "I wanted us to have the
general-purpose shots before we started walking. Even the woodworms can
have a nasty bite in this part of the world."
He pushed a bulky package into Tallon's arms, and they made their way
cautiously down the slope toward the palisade. The bird on Winfield's
shoulder clucked apprehensively as the doctor slid once on a patch of
rank grass. Tallon kept the sonar torch aimed straight ahead and listened
to the steadily rising tone caused by the beam hitting the palisade.
"Here we are," the doctor grunted. His voice was followed by dull crunching
sounds as he kicked out the rotten wood inhabited by his carefully nurtured
colony of worms. Tallon followed him through the hole, grimacing as an
accidental contact with the edge showered him with thousands of tiny
writhing creatures. They traveled a short distance toward the swamp
until they ran out of hard ground.
"Suits now," Winfield said brusquely. "Did you remember not to eat or drink?"
"Yes."
"Good, but you'd better have this anyway."
"What is it?"
"Diaper."
"You're kidding."
"You'll thank me for it later."
With Winfield doing most of the work, they draped the plastic sheets around
their necks and sealed the edges. It was difficult to handle anything
properly through the plastic, but Winfield produced a roll of adhesive
tape and bound it at their necks, wrists and ankles. The binding made it
possible for them to walk and move their arms with comparative freedom.
To complete the grotesque outfits, they wrapped more plastic around their
heads, finished it with cement and tape, then jammed on their prison caps.
"I'll carry the pack and the bird," Winfield said. "Stay as close to me
as you can."
"You can count on that, Doc."
Moving toward the swamp in blackness, Tallon was aghast at the thought of
what he was going to do. Although blind, he knew when he had reached the
edge of the swamp by the feel of the clammy mist closing round him, as
well as by the stench, which made every breath something to be planned in
advance and forced through with determination. Unidentifiable night noises
drifted through the swirling vapor, reminding him that, although the robot
rifles had finished off only the swamp's warm-blooded inhabitants, there
were others to share the darkness. And yet, Tallon was aware of feeling
something approaching peace. He had finally become tired of drifting with
the current, of compromising, of feeling afraid. The fat old doctor, with
his head full of ridiculous dreams, was leading him to almost certain
death; but he had taught Tallon one great truth: Walking toward death
is not pleasant, but it's better than having it come up fast behind you.
The swamp was much worse than Tallon had anticipated; in fact, he discovered
he had not really expected the swamp to be a problem. They were able to
remain upright and move ahead by walking and wading for the first hour,
covering about two hundred yards in reasonable comfort. But presently
Tallon began to hit patches where his feet seemed to sink through six
inches of molasses before reaching solid support. The goo made walking
difficult but not impossible, even when it had begun to reach nearly to
his knees. Tallon went steadily ahead, sweating in his plastic sheet. Then
the bottom seemed to drop out of the world. Instead of his feet finding
bedrock, they kept going down and down as though the whole planet was
sucking him through its skin.
"Fall forward," Winfield shouted. "Throw yourself down on it and keep your
arms spread out."
Tallon splashed forward, spread-eagled on the heaving surface of the
quagmire, embracing its filth. The water splashed over his face,
and sediment swirled to the surface, releasing all the odors of
death. Uncontrollable spasms of retching forced his face down again,
into the crawling fluid.
"Are you all right, son?" Winfield's voice was anxious.
Tallon's first impulse was to shout for help in his black, blind universe,
but he clenched his teeth and kept beating the surface of the quagmire with
his arms. Gradually his feet worked upward, and he moved forward again in a
semi-swimming motion.
"I'm all right, Doc. Keep traveling."
"That's the way. It won't all be like this."
Furious splashing sounds from up ahead told Tallon the doctor was already
moving on. Grinning with desperation, Tallon flailed after him. Sometimes
they would reach little islands where they were able to travel short
distances on foot, beating their way through the rubbery vegetation.
At other times they encountered solid curtains of vines and had to go
to the side or even backtrack to get by them. Once Tallon put his hand
squarely on something lying flat and icy smooth below the surface. It
humped convulsively and drove out from under his body with silent
strength, paralyzing him with fear.
As the night wore on Tallon found himself catching up to Winfield with
increasing frequency, and he realized the doctor was reaching the point
of exhaustion. Winfield's breathing became a harsh, monotonous sobbing.
"Listen, Doc," Tallon finally shouted. "We both need a rest. Is there any
point in risking a heart attack?"
"Keep moving. There's nothing wrong with my heart."
Tallon found some firm ground under his feet. He lunged forward,
throwing his weight onto Winfield, and brought him crashing down.
The doctor fought him off stubbornly while struggling to move on.
"For Christ's sake, Doc," Tallon gasped, "I'm talking about
my
heart.
Take it easy, will you?"
Winfield fought on for a moment, then went limp. "Okay, son," he said
between gasps. "I'll give you five minutes."
"Believe me, Doc, I'm grateful to you."
"I'm grateful to myself."
They lay huddled together, laughing weakly while Winfield's breathing
gradually returned to normal. Tallon told him of his encounter with the
underwater creature.
"A slinker -- harmless at this time of the year," Winfield said. "In the
laying season, though, the skin of the female toughens into knife edges
at the sides. They slice past anything that moves, laying it open,
and inject their eggs at the same time."
"Nice habits."
"Yes. I'm told the thing to do is to think of it not as losing a foot,
but as gaining a batch of slinker offspring. As a matter of fact, we're
making this trip at a very good time. The swamp is pretty quiet late on
in the winter. The only real danger is from muck spiders."
"Poisonous?"
"No. With the sort of mouths they have, poison would be superfluous. They
lie in shallow water, with their legs stuck up in the air like bullrushes,
and there's nothing in the middle but mouth. If you ever come through here
again, son, avoid walking through any neat circular clumps of bullrushes."
Tallon got an unpleasant idea. "What's that bird's night vision like?
Are you getting a good enough picture to let you spot a muck spider?"
Winfield snorted. "What are you worrying about? Aren't I going first?"
When daylight came to the swamp Winfield insisted on letting Tallon have
a spell with the eyeset.
Tallon accepted, grateful for the release from blackness, and took the lead
for several hours. He used a crude spear, which Winfield had made by snapping
a thin sapling, to beat smaller vegetation out of his way. The bird fluttered
occasionally in its plastic-covered cage, but showed no signs of any real
discomfort. As he moved through slow-dripping foliage Tallon saw that the
water was alive with dark brown leechlike creatures, writhing, twisting,
continually warring on each other. Great streamers of their dark bodies
trailed around his legs. The air hummed with the vibration of tiny gnats,
or was parted by the heavy throb of huge sooty-black insects blundering
through the swamp, intent on unknown missions.
Twice during the day, low-flying aircraft swept by directly overhead,
but the ice-green mist hid them from view. Tallon's mental processes
slowed down while he labored mechanically, thinking river-bed thoughts,
dreaming brown dreams. Their rest periods grew longer, and the intervals
between them shorter, as fatigue spread through their bodies. At dusk
they found a small knoll of almost dry ground and slept like children.
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