Watson, Ian - Novel 10 (23 page)

 
          
It’s
going to take us a long time to know all the answers to the ecology of
unspace.”

 
          
“The
angels know them.
The dead aliens.”

 
          
“And
we’re just juniors. Not graduates of Death.”

 
          
“Not
yet!”

 
          
“The
Earth is our kindergarten. That’s why Lai doesn’t want us all to kill ourselves.”

 
          
“But
we will,” grinned Weinberger.

 
          
“Right.
Client and guide no longer — but
partners in dying.”
Outside of the glassless window the sky had half
cleared and the clouds which remained were being stained by a fine sunset. With
luck, this might be the last earthly sunset they ever saw. They had seen enough
sunsets in their lives, Jim thought, to imagine many finer ones hereafter.

 
          
Jim
made up his mind.

 
          
“We’ll
stay here tonight. The ground’ll be damp outside. There’s no sense in catching
our death of cold.”

 
          
“I
told you, you don’t catch cold —!”

 
          
Jim
grinned raffishly. “Nor do you catch Death. Death catches us. We hope.”

 
          
“I
don’t feel sleepy.”

 
          
“You
never do. But you might as well enjoy the experience while it lasts.”

 
          
“Yeah,
I wonder whether the dead
sleep?
I hope they don’t.
Though Lai said he felt sleepy when the booze hit him.”

 
          
“One
thing the dead certainly do is
dream.
Wide awake.
And they share their dreams around.”

 
          
They
came upon a forest road around mid-morning. Though they were heading southwards
again, they found it impossible to retrace the exact route by which they had
come. The rain — or simply the act of turning around to face in the opposite
direction — seemed to have washed out the half-remembered landmarks of the
earlier journey. They had wandered to the east.

 
          
They
followed the rough road steadily uphill through trees for the best part of an
hour, till they saw the top of a firetower rising above the pines.

 
          
“Just
the 3-05
!“
Jim rubbed his hands together, as though to
start a fire in them.

 
          
The
flretower stood in half an acre of cleared ground; it was a high wooden pylon
with a cabin perched on top. Windows looked out over the forest in all four
directions, and a roofed verandah ran around, open to the wind. Overhead, the
thin whip of an aerial ticked back and forth. Access was by way of a rung
ladder up the inside of the pylon, to a trap door in the bottom of the cabin.

 
          
They
climbed up.

 
          
The
cabin was deserted. Its battery radio had been removed, along with any
fire-spotting equipment. But there were bunks and a table and two chairs, and a
steel waste bucket.

 
          
“They
only man these at high risk times,” said Weinberger. “
Early
summer, midsummer.
It’s too late in the season now.”

 
          
A
cupboard yielded a paraffin lamp containing some fuel, an open packet of rye
crispbread which tasted like straw by now, and half a dozen well-thumbed erotic
paperbacks.

 
          
Stepping
out on to the verandah, Jim walked about appreciating the view, storing it in
his memory as raw material for worlds as yet uninvented. Despite intrusive
crags and peaks it was not utterly unlike the view in Weinberger’s scene-screen
back at the House. Southward lay Egremont,
Lake
Tulane
and all the deciduous trees of the valley
flanks which would spread a rug of red and gold against the green . . . but
they were too far away.

 
          
They
carried the two chairs out on to the verandah, placing them at the south-east
corner where they could talk to each other while scanning half the sky. Jim
brought out the waste bucket, the reservoir base of the lamp, and all the
paperbacks.

 
          
Back
inside, he upended his valise on the table, tipping everything out. He dropped
the empty bag through the trapdoor and followed it, down the ladder.

 
          
By
the time he got back to the verandah, lugging a bag stuffed with grass and
sticks and broken branches, Weinberger was already well engrossed in one of the
novels, chuckling to himself.

 
          
“Here’s
one fire they weren’t aiming to put out!*’

 
          
“Hey,
you’re supposed to be watching the sky.”

 
          
“Good
peripheral vision, Jim: that’s what got me into this — I guess it can get me
out of it, too.”

 
          
Sacrificing
the least appealing of the paperbacks, page by scrumpled page, Jim half filled
the bucket and tamped the paper down with sticks and straw. Then, tilting back
his chair and planting his feet on the rail, he too settled himself to read a
novel. He kept one eye on the horizon. The book he had picked up was entitled
House of Lust.
It was unlike any work he
had scanned before, but he had to admit that it had its passing attractions.
Though was it quite the proper reading matter before he launched himself into
the afterlife?

 
          
He
had just reached chapter four when Weinberger said, “Hey!”

 
          
Jim
followed his finger. There in the south was the white speck of a monoplane.
Presently a_faint droning reached their ears.

 
          
“Not
yet. . . Ah, go to it!”

 
          
Jim
poured the paraffin into the bucket and dropped in a lighted match. He fed in
wads of grass and pine cones; smoke billowed up around the verandah. He dropped
the novels in one by one, then relieved Weinberger of his reading matter and
pitched that in too. It was a brief fire but a dirty one.

 
          
“Here
it comes!”

 
          
The
two men leaned out, waving.

 
          
The
white Peace Service monoplane circled the firetower twice, then waggled its
wings and headed back towards the south.

 
          
They
settled down to wait.

 
          
“Nothing
to read now,” grumbled Weinberger.
“Just as it was getting
interesting, too!”

 
          
An
hour later they heard a thin chattering whirr. Again, Weinberger was the first
to spot the flying speck.

 
          
“Chopper!
You were right, Jim.”

 
          
The
helicopter sped across the forest towards the tower, trimming the trees like
an upside-down lawn mower. If it hit a treetop, thought Jim, and crashed in a
ball of flames then its riders would end up trapped in the crystal fog through
no fault of their own . . .

 
          
The
helicopter neared, slowed and hovered. The two men waved.

 
          
Something
— a tube — poked out of an open perspex window. A sharp crack sounded.
Immediately splinters of wood flew from the verandah rail. A few of these
splinters stabbed Jim’s left hand.

 
          
As
both men dived for the cabin door, the south-facing window shattered.

 
          
Inside,
they crouched.

 
          
“Those
were bullets, Jim!”

 
          
“I
didn't think they were dried peas."

 
          
“They're
trying to kill us — by surprise! If they do that . . . we'll never find our way
through the fog. We'll be encysted.''

 
          
Weinberger
stared up at the roof in anguish.

 
          
“My
little Death,'' he cried, “
where
are you? We need you
now!''

 
          
But
there was nothing up there.

 
          
“Shit,
why are they shooting? Bullets! Violence! How can it happen?"

 
          
“You're
a fine one to talk."

 
          
“There
was a reason for shooting Harper — even if it was the wrong reason. How can
they shoot us down like vermin? What's
their
reason?"

 
          
“Revenge."

 
          
“Official
revenge?"

 
          
Jim
puzzled at the splinters in his hand, but they were too impacted to pull out.
How could there be such a thing as official revenge? That puzzled him too.

 
          
A
shot hit the roof.

 
          
“What
lousy shooting! Where do they think we are? Hanging on the ceiling?"

 
          
Pulling
the gun from his pocket, Jim remembered to slip off the safety catch.

 
          
“I'll
scare them."

 
          
“Wait:
you ought to hold that in both hands to steady it. Like this." As
Weinberger mimed, he seemed to be praying. To the little Deaths,
which had deserted them.

 
          
“When
you shot Harper, you didn't —"

 
          
“He
was closer."

 
          
“Have
we any right to send our own worst enemy —?"

 
          
“They
aren't worrying."

 
          
Jim
stuck his head around the window frame. The helicopter
hovered
side-on about fifty feet away, rocking slightly.

 
          
Jim
saw who held the rifle: a rifle equipped with sights.

 
          
It
was Noel Resnick.

 
          
The
helicopter pilot was Toni Bekker.

 
          
Briefly,
Jim and Resnick stared at each other, recognizing each other perfectly well.
Resnick ducked his head, to sight the rifle. One eye closed in what seemed to
be a broad wink.

 
          
Jumping
in front of the window, holding the gun in both hands, Jim fired once, twice —
at the man, not the machine.

 
          
Resnick
fired too.

 
          
Both
men missed. Jim even missed the helicopter entirely. It was a duel of
incompetents.

 
          
Bekker
pulled the helicopter back another fifty feet. Another rifle slug hit the cabin
inaccurately.

 
          
“That’s
Resnick with the rifle,” said Jim, taking shelter again.
‘
The
pilot is the very same man from the Octagon who gave me this damn
gun. He’s
Resnick's
man
.*
*

 
          
“Resnick?’’
Weinberger shouted the name as though the breeze would hear and pass his
protest on, whereupon Resnick would realize that he was misbehaving. “Isn’t he
forfeiting all right to be a Master
?*
*

 
          
“Isn’t
Bekker disqualifying himself as a Peace Officer? I see it all now! Alice Huron
sent them out. ‘Don’t come back without a scalp, Noel, or I’ll withdraw your
privileges.
The chalet, MaryAnn, the lot.
I’ll break
you. That’s it. They’re going to say
we
fired on them. They’re going to make out that we were only pretending to give
up peacefully. But actually we wanted to lure them here so that we could shoot
them down!”

 
          
Jim
jumped up and pumped another bullet through the broken window. It flew wild.

 
          
“Save
your shots, man.”

 
          
“ ‘This
is the final test, Noel darling, to see if you can
become a Controller like me! Will you commit an utter crime, to bind you to our
ranks?’ It’s an initiation test.”

 
          
“What
on earth are you talking about?”

 
          
“The real, secret Controllers.
I never told you about those.”

 
          
“Too late now, Jim.
Save
your shots.
We need some covering fire while we get out of here. That’s
what they used to call it: covering fire. You listen to me: the whole of the
Egremont House can’t possibly be in on
this — nor
the
whole Octagon, either! We have to give ourselves up to ordinary officers. We’ve
got to get out of here and reach Egremont on foot.”

 
          
Another
slug hit the cabin.

 
          
“We’ll
shin down the ladder. We’ll run for the trees.’’

 
          
A
bullet whined overhead, completely missing the cabin. Resnick must be jerking
the rifle every time he pulled the trigger.

 
          
“We’ll
be okay. He’ll miss us. People have to overcome a mighty aversion to using guns
on other people. It screws up their shooting.’’