The Complete Short Stories: Volume 1

by J. G. Ballard

  'But the Indians might have heard something about it,' Pereira went on. 'Five years ago, as a matter of fact.'

  Ryker snorted. 'My God, you've got a hope.' They went up the steps on to the veranda, where a slim-shouldered Indian youth, his eyes like moist marbles, was watching from the shadows. With a snap of irritation, Ryker cupped his hand around the youth's pate and propelled him with a backward swing down the steps. Sprawling on his knees, the youth picked himself up, eyes still fixed on Connolly, then emitted what sounded like a high-pitched nasal hoot, compounded partly of fear and partly of excitement. Connolly looked back from the doorway, and noticed that several other Indians had stepped onto the pier and were watching him with the same expression of rapt curiosity.

  Pereira patted Connolly's shoulder. 'I told you they'd be impressed. Did you see that, Ryker?'

  Ryker nodded curtly, as they entered his living-room pulled off his straw hat and tossed it on to a couch under the window. The room was dingy and cheerless. Crude bamboo shelves were strung around the walls, ornamented with a few primitive carvings of ivory and bamboo. A couple of rocking chairs and a card-table were in the centre of the room, dwarfed by an immense Victorian mahogany dresser standing against the rear wall. With its castellated mirrors and ornamental pediments it looked like an altar-piece stolen from a cathedral. At first glance it appeared to be leaning to one side, but then Connolly saw that its rear legs had been carefully raised from the tilting floor with a number of small wedges. In the centre of the dresser, its multiple reflections receding to infinity in a pair of small wing mirrors, was a cheap three-dollar alarm clock, ticking away loudly. An over-and-under Winchester shotgun leaned against the wall beside it.

  Gesturing Pereira and Connolly into the chairs, Ryker raised the blind over the rear window. Outside was the compound, the circle of huts around its perimeter. A few Indians squatted in the shadows, spears upright between their knees.

  Connolly watched Ryker moving about in front of him, aware that the man's earlier impatience had given away to a faint but noticeable edginess. Ryker glanced irritably through the window, apparently annoyed to see the gradual gathering of the Indians before their huts.

  There was a sweetly unsavoury smell in the room, and over his shoulder Connolly saw that the card-table was loaded with a large bale of miniature animal skins, those of a vole or some other forest rodent. A half-hearted attempt had been made to trim the skins, and tags of clotted blood clung to their margins.

  Ryker jerked the table with his foot. 'Well, here you are,' he said to Pereira. 'Twelve dozen. They took a hell of a lot of getting, I can tell you. You've brought the clock?'

  Pereira nodded, still holding the parcel in his lap. He gazed distastefully at the dank scruffy skins. 'Have you got some rats in there, Ryker? These don't look much good. Perhaps we should check through them outside..

  'Dammit, Pereira, don't be a fool!' Ryker snapped. 'They're as good as you'll get. I had to trim half the skins myself. Let's have a look at the clock.'

  'Wait a minute.' The Captain's jovial, easy-going manner had stiffened. Making the most of his temporary advantage, he reached out and touched one of the skins gingerly, shaking his head. 'Pugh... Do you know how much I paid for this clock, Ryker? Seventy-five dollars. That's your credit for three years. I'm not so sure. And you're not very helpful, you know. Now about this aircraft that may have come down - '

  Ryker snapped his fingers. 'Forget it. Nothing did. The Nambas tell me everything.' He turned to Connolly. 'You can take it from me there's no trace of an aircraft around here. Any rescue mission would be wasting their time.'

  Pereira watched Ryker critically. 'As a matter of fact it wasn't an aircraft.' He tapped Connolly's shoulder flash. 'It was a rocket capsule - with a man on board. A very important and valuable man. None other than the Moon pilot, Colonel Francis Spender.'

  'Well...' Eyebrows raised in mock surprise, Ryker ambled to the window, stared out at a group of Indians who had advanced halfway across the compound. 'My God, what next! The Moon pilot. Do they really think he's around here? But what a place to roost.' He leaned out of the window and bellowed at the Indians, who retreated a few paces and then held their ground. 'Damn fools,' he muttered, 'this isn't a zoo.'

  Pereira handed him the parcel, watching the Indians. There were more than fifty around the compound now, squatting in their doorways, a few of the younger men honing their spears. 'They are remarkably curious,' he said to Ryker, who had taken the parcel over to the dresser and was unwrapping it carefully. 'Surely they've seen a paleskinned man before?'

  'They've nothing better to do.' Ryker lifted the clock out of the cabinet with his big hands, with great care placed it beside the alarm clock, the almost inaudible motion of its pendulum lost in the metallic chatter of the latter's escapement. For a moment he gazed at the ornamental hands and numerals. Then he picked up the alarm clock and with an almost valedictory pat, like an officer dismissing a faithful if stupid minion, locked it away in the cupboard below. His former buoyancy returning, he gave Pereira a playful slap on the shoulder. 'Captain, if you want any more rat-skins just give me a shout!'

  Backing away, Pereira's heel touched one of Connolly's feet, distracting Connolly from a problem he had been puzzling over since their entry into the hut. Like a concealed clue in a detective story, he was sure that he had noticed something of significance, but was unable to identify it.

  'We won't worry about the skins,' Pereira said. 'What we'll do with your assistance, Ryker, is to hold a little parley with the chiefs, see whether they remember anything of this capsule.'

  Ryker stared out at the Indians now standing directly below the veranda. Irritably he slammed down the blind. 'For God's sake, Pereira, they don't. Tell the Lieutenant he isn't interviewing people on Park Avenue or Piccadilly. If the Indians had seen anything I'd know.'

  'Perhaps.' Pereira shrugged. 'Still, I'm under instructions to assist Lieutenant Connolly and it won't do any harm to ask.'

  Connolly sat up. 'Having come this far, Captain, I feel I should do two or three forays into the bush.' To Ryker he explained: 'They've recalculated the flight path of the final trajectory, there's a chance he may have come down further along the landing zone. Here, very possibly.'

  Shaking his head, Ryker slumped down on to the couch, and drove one fist angrily into the other. 'I suppose this means they'll be landing here at any time with thousands of bulldozers and flame-throwers. Dammit, Lieutenant, if you have to send a man to the Moon, why don't you do it in your own back yard?'

  Pereira stood up. 'We'll be gone in a couple of days, Ryker.' He nodded judiciously at Connolly and moved towards the door.

  As Connolly climbed to his feet Ryker called out suddenly: 'Lieutenant. You can tell me something I've wondered.' There was an unpleasant downward curve to his mouth, and his tone was belligerent and provocative. 'Why did they really send a man to the Moon?'

  Connolly paused. He had remained silent during the conversation, not wanting to antagonize Ryker. The rudeness and complete self-immersion were pathetic rather than annoying. 'Do you mean the military and political reasons?'

  'No, I don't.' Ryker stood up, arms akimbo again, measuring Connolly. 'I mean the real reasons, Lieutenant.'

  Connolly gestured vaguely. For some reason formulating a satisfactory answer seemed more difficult than he had expected. 'Well, I suppose you could say it was the natural spirit of exploration.'

  Ryker snorted derisively. 'Do you seriously believe that, Lieutenant? "The spirit of exploration!" My God! What a fantastic idea. Pereira doesn't believe that, do you, Captain?'

  Before Connolly could reply Pereira took his arm. 'Come on, Lieutenant. This is no time for a metaphysical discussion.' To Ryker he added: 'It doesn't much matter what you and I believe, Ryker. A man went to the Moon and came back. He needs our help.'

  Ryker frowned ruefully. 'Poor chap. He must be feeling pretty unhappy by now. Though anyone who gets as far as the Moon and is fool enough to come ba
ck deserves what he gets.'

  There was a scuffle of feet on the veranda, and as they stepped out into the sunlight a couple of Indians darted away along the jetty, watching Connolly with undiminished interest.

  Ryker remained in the doorway, staring listlessly at the clock, but as they were about to climb into the launch he came after them. Now and then glancing over his shoulder at the encroaching semi-circle of Indians, he gazed down at Connolly with sardonic contempt. 'Lieutenant,' he called out before they went below. 'Has it occurred to you that if he had landed, Spender might have wanted to stay on here?'

  'I doubt it, Ryker,' Connolly said calmly. 'Anyway, there's little chance that Colonel Spender is still alive. What we're interested in finding is the capsule.'

  Ryker was about to reply when a faint metallic buzz sounded from the direction of his hut. He looked around sharply, waiting for it to end, and for a moment the whole tableau, composed of the men on the launch, the gaunt outcast on the edge of the jetty and the Indians behind him, was frozen in an absurdly motionless posture. The mechanism of the old alarm clock had obviously been fully wound, and the buzz sounded for thirty seconds, finally ending with a high-pitched ping.

  Pereira grinned. He glanced at his watch. 'It keeps good time, Ryker.' But Ryker had stalked off back to the hut, scattering the Indians before him.

  Connolly watched the group dissolve, then suddenly snapped his fingers. 'You're right, Captain. It certainly does keep good time,' he repeated as they entered the cabin.

  Evidently tired by the encounter with Ryker, Pereira slumped down among Connolly's equipment and unbuttoned his tunic. 'Sorry about Ryker, but I warned you. Frankly, Lieutenant, we might as well leave now. There's nothing here. Ryker knows that. However, he's no fool, and he's quite capable of faking all sorts of evidence just to get a retainer out of you. He wouldn't mind if the bulldozers came.'

  'I'm not so sure.' Connolly glanced briefly through the porthole. 'Captain, has Ryker got a radio?'

  'Of course not. Why?'

  'Are you certain?'

  'Absolutely. It's the last thing the man would have. Anyway, there's no electrical supply here, and he has no batteries.' He noticed Connolly's intent expression. 'What's on your mind, Lieutenant?'

  'You're his only contact? There are no other traders in the area?'

  'None. The Indians are too dangerous, and there's nothing to trade. Why do you think Ryker has a radio?'

  'He must have. Or something very similar. Captain, just now you remarked on the fact that his old alarm clock kept good time. Does it occur to you to ask how?'

  Pereira sat up slowly. 'Lieutenant, you have a valid point.'

  'Exactly. I knew there was something odd about those two clocks when they were standing side by side. That type of alarm clock is the cheapest obtainable, notoriously inaccurate. Often they lose two or three minutes in 24 hours. But that clock was telling the right time to within ten seconds. No optical instrument would give him that degree of accuracy.'

  Pereira shrugged sceptically. 'But I haven't been here for over four months. And even then he didn't check the time with me.'

  'Of course not. He didn't need to. The only possible explanation for such a degree of accuracy is that he's getting a daily time fix, either on a radio or some long-range beacon.'

  'Wait a moment, Lieutenant.' Pereira watched the dusk light fall across the jungle. 'It's a remarkable coincidence, but there must be an innocent explanation. Don't jump straight to the conclusion that Ryker has some instrument taken from the missing Moon capsule. Other aircraft have crashed in the forest. And what would be the point? He's not running an airline or railway system. Why should he need to know the time, the exact time, to within ten seconds?'

  Connolly tapped the lid of his monitoring case, controlling his growing exasperation at Pereira's reluctance to treat the matter seriously, at his whole permissive attitude of lazy tolerance towards Ryker, the Indians and the forest. Obviously he unconsciously resented Connolly's sharp-eyed penetration of this private world.

  'Clocks have become his ide ftxe,' Pereira continued. 'Perhaps he's developed an amazing sensitivity to its mechanism. Knowing exactly the right time could be a substitute for the civilization on which he turned his back.' Thoughtfully, Pereira moistened the end of his cheroot. 'But I agree that it's strange. Perhaps a little investigation would be worthwhile after all.'

  After a cool jungle night in the air-conditioned cabin, the next day Connolly began discreetly to reconnoitre the area. Pereira took ashore two bottles of whisky and a soda syphon, and was able to keep Ryker distracted while Connolly roved about the campong with his monitoring equipment. Once or twice he heard Ryker bellow jocularly at him from his window as he lolled back over the whisky. At intervals, as Ryker slept, Pereira would come out into the sun, sweating like a drowsy pig in his stained uniform, and try to drive back the Indians.

  'As long as you stay within earshot of Ryker you're safe,' he told Connolly. Chopped-out pathways criss-crossed the bush at all angles, a new one added whenever one of the bands returned to the campong, irrespective of those already established. This maze extended for miles around them. 'If you get lost, don't panic but stay where you are. Sooner or later we'll come out and find you.'

  Eventually giving up his attempt to monitor any of the signal beacons built into the lost capsule - both the sonar and radio meters remained at zero - Connolly tried to communicate with the Indians by sign language, but with the exception of one, the youth with the moist limpid eyes who had been hanging about on Ryker's veranda, they merely stared at him stonily. This youth Pereira identified as the son of the former witch-doctor ('Ryker's more or less usurped his role, for some reason the old boy lost the confidence of the tribe'). While the other Indians gazed at Connolly as if seeing some invisible numinous shadow, some extra-corporeal nimbus which pervaded his body, the youth was obviously aware that Connolly possessed some special talent, perhaps not dissimilar from that which his father had once practised. However, Connolly's attempts to talk to the youth were handicapped by the fact that he was suffering from a purulent ophthalmia, gonococchic in origin and extremely contagious, which made his eyes water continuously. Many of the Indians suffered from this complaint, threatened by permanent blindness, and Connolly had seen them treating their eyes with water in which a certain type of fragrant bark had been dissolved.

  Ryker's casual, off-hand authority over the Indians puzzled Connolly. Slumped back in his chair against the mahogany dresser, one hand touching the ormolu clock, most of the time he and Pereira indulged in a lachrymose back-chat. Then, oblivious of any danger, Ryker would amble out into the dusty campong, push his way blurrily through the Indians and drum up a party to collect fire wood for the water still, jerking them bodily to their feet as they squatted about their huts. What interested Connolly was the Indians' reaction to this type of treatment. They seemed to be restrained, not by any belief in his strength of personality or primitive kingship, but by a grudging acceptance that for the time being at any rate, Ryker possessed the whip hand over them all. Obviously Ryker served certain useful roles for them as an intermediary with the Mission, but this alone would not explain the sources of his power. Beyond certain more or less defined limits - the perimeter of the campong - his authority was minimal.

  A hint of explanation came on the second morning of their visit, when Connolly accidentally lost himself in the forest.

  After breakfast Connolly sat under the awning on the deck of the patrol launch, gazing out over the brown, jelly-like surface of the river. The campong was silent. During the night the Indians had disappeared into the bush. Like lemmings they were apparently prone to these sudden irresistible urges. Occasionally the nomadic call would be strong enough to carry them 200 miles away; at other times they would set off in high spirits and then lose interest after a few miles, returning dispiritedly to the campong in small groups.

  Deciding to make the most of their absence, Connolly shouldered the monitoring equ
ipment and climbed onto the pier. A few dying fires smoked plaintively among the huts, and abandoned utensils and smashed pottery lay about in the red dust. In the distance the morning haze over the forest had lifted, and Connolly could see what appeared to be a low hill - a shallow rise no more than a hundred feet in height which rose off the flat floor of the jungle a quarter of a mile away.

  On his right, among the huts, someone moved. An old man sat alone among the refuse of pottery shards and raffia baskets, cross-legged under a small make-shift awning. Barely distinguishable from the dust, his moribund figure seemed to contain the whole futility of the Amazon forest.

  Still musing on Ryker's motives for isolating himself in the jungle, Connolly made his way towards the distant rise.

  Ryker's behaviour the previous evening had been curious. Shortly after dusk, when the sunset sank into the western forest, bathing the jungle in an immense ultramarine and golden light, the day-long chatter and movement of the Indians ceased abruptly. Connolly had been glad of the silence - the endless thwacks of the rattan canes and grating of the stone mills in which they mixed the Government-issue meal had become tiresome. Pereira made several cautious visits to the edge of the campong, and each time reported that the Indians were sitting in a huge circle outside their huts, watching Ryker's bungalow. The latter was lounging on his veranda in the moonlight, chin in hand, one boot up on the rail, morosely surveying the assembled tribe.

  'They've got their spears and ceremonial feathers,' Pereira whispered. 'For a moment I almost believed they were preparing an attack.'

  After waiting half an hour, Connolly climbed up on to the pier, found the Indians squatting in their dark silent circle, Ryker glaring down at them. Only the witch-doctor's son made any attempt to approach Connolly, sidling tentatively through the shadows, a piece of what appeared to be blue obsidian in his hand, some talisman of his father's that had lost its potency.