And then, as she grew accustomed to the strangeness she was experiencing, Urak led her back across the years, to a time when the city of Terming had been just a collection of tents and shacks; back and back, to when there had been no Earthmen on Ree’hdworld, and back… to when the sky had roared with the pulse explosions of interstellar drives, and the dust had flown and the vegetation had been overwhelmed and choked by the indifference of the race that lived above it. At that time, on the distant mountains, there had been the sparkle and gleam of sheer metal faces, and at night, above the howl of nature, above the screams and cries of the primitive Ree’hd and Rundii, living in the untouched jungles of the continent, had come the banshee screams of the cities all about, at full production, feeding the nation, fuelling the race that was covering its tracks through the Galaxy as it crept back to its home.
She had left the web and cried, sucked in breath as if, for the past minutes, she had not breathed at all. Urak was there, smiling in his Ree’hd take-off of the human gesture, and his sticky-hand reached out and wrapped around her arm. He gently pulled her back to a seated position, and again she closed her eyes.
A Ree’hd called Hans-ree said, hello, and welcomed her, and said that he knew Maguire and that Maguire was a noble Ree’hd and had been noble even when he had been human. And, he said, whatever happens. Maguire is your salvation, always. Whatever he feels himself, he will help you, because I have asked him.
Kristina thanked him, and realized—peripherally—that this was the Hans-ree who had been dead seven hundred years; and he had died, Urak had told her, violently and almost alone. Maguire had prayed over his body, not really understanding what he was doing, and had committed the remains to nature. Maguire could never be forgotten for what he had done, alone and truly blind.
Then, as the Ree’hd had left and night had fallen, and the babble of voices in her mind had lessened, there was Urak, loud and secure, talking to her, though he sat apparently asleep.
Kristina, he had said, Kristina, you are with us and with everything, and now you can follow me or remain. Whatever happens to me, you will never lose me.
Why? What could happen?
Tomorrow I am going to leave the sphere. I must go alone. But I shall always be with you, and you will know because I will be in the web.
But none of your kin have died… oh, Reems’gaa… of course.
Partly Reems’gaa. But I need to wander for a different reason.
Us? What we have talked about? Oh Urak, have I driven you to despair?
His touch was a momentary pressure upon her cool flesh. Never could I despair with you, Kristina.
Then don’t go.
Its too late. 1 have gone too jar and I have understood too much. I shall leave the sphere in a few hours and I may not come back. But remember… I am never gone. You know this now.
I don’t want you to die, Urak.
Surely you are not still so human that you cannot accept the basic nature of the Ree’hd?
No.
I’ll talk to you at dawn. I will be a long way by then. At dusk you can send your thoughts to me, find me wherever I am.
In the morning, as she sat alone, even before dawn he was a warming presence in her mind. And at dusk she called for him.
Urak, where are you?
And soon panic gripped her. Urak did not reply.
It seemed to Kristina, as she felt hysteria rising in her, that the web became silent. She was watched by many, from the present and from the past, and as she realized this she became ashamed. But a voice that she knew spoke to her, reassured her.
He is not dead, but has decided he will not return.
Then I want to be with him. But where is he?
A second voice spoke to her. He is in a Rundii sphere, on the same river that you are on. He is still alive. He sits near to where there is a tree-form fallen in the river.
Kristina rose, leaving the web, and ran for her skimmer.
Rising, wheeling, forward thrust.
The fire passed below and she glanced down, and saw the ripped hull, the shattered vanes, the fire poking explorative fingers through broken observation plates. There were dark shapes scattered on the brilliantly lit ground around. They lay immobile, some burning. Nowhere did a limb twitch, or a crawling figure lift its head to stare into the cold night sky, through flames and soot.
The Ree’hd were shadows, standing motionless and watching the consuming of the craft. What could they do? They watched to remember, so that the world might never forget the destruction of the ship, and the loss of life, whatever its purpose.
Into darkness, through clouds, and the drumbeat of rain. Fighting with stability controls, reading the green and red dials and screens that showed altitude, velocity, wind speed, strain on weak points of hull, internal temperature, life readings… many readings, absorbed at a glance, computed without thought.
Mind open, eyes searching darkness for a flicker of movement.
Out of the sphere.
Chapter Ten
Heading inland.
Mountain ranges and the endless shifting forests, and here the winding shape of a river, choking as a purplish weed clogged its tighter bends; across plains, arid and desolate, crossed by lone animals and the wandering figures of Rundii and Ree’hd, dead creatures, trying to find peace in the parched wastelands. There were buttresses here, and the shadow of the skimmer rippled and distorted across the crags whenever the sun shone through the clouds for a moment. An inland lake, and a commune of Rundii, naked and oblivious of the man-ship passing overhead.
A thousand miles of land. Heading inwards.
Well aware of his weaknesses, Zeitman had long ago lost his fear of self-analysis. Ree’hdworld had always made him lonely. Lonely not for men, but because of men. It made him feel that humans were a discord in the Universe, and he disliked discord. He wanted to be alone, and fought for isolation, but in such insularity there lay a certain denial of bodily needs and Zeitman had often felt lonely. It was easy, with any single person, to find an immediate and transient friendship, but his inward direction showed a selfishness not compatible with the keeping of friends.
Of all those that he knew, perhaps only Erlam and Maguire had remained close. Erlam, of course, was equally his own man, equally ill at ease with his fellow race, but was powerful in that he possessed an instinct for direction. He had no particular ambition, but he needed parameters to guide him and, guided, he naturally ended up powerful.
Maguire was different. Friends, he and Zeitman had not really known each other honestly. Maguire had been unforthcoming and Zeitman, unwilling to open up (though not averse to such soul-baring) had found, in Maguire, a purely amicable contact that had pleased him and eased him. If he never knew anything more of the blind man, he would count Maguire as a friend, and it was one of his few lesser worries that perhaps Maguire did not feel a reciprocal emotion.
Maguire did seem to have a basic direction. Certainly he gave no indication of what that direction was, but he moved surely; he seemed to be moving through Ree’hdworld, and meeting with Zeitman and others, in a fashion laid down in a plan. Zeitman wandered. This was his closest link with the Ree’hd, who themselves seemed content to drift through their development. Zeitman’s main motivations were a desire for knowledge and for love from two sources: Ree’hdworld and Kristina.
It frightened him to know (and he was sure his knowledge was correct) that Maguire could satiate him as regards knowledge of both.
And love?
If Kristina could love an alien in form, he, Zeitman, could love an alien in emotion. She might no longer think human, and in that way she might no longer be human, but by her own philosophy, as he had understood it from Erlam (who had learned much of Kristina’s changing life over the last few weeks), that was no barrier to her loving Zeitman. Zeitman needed her, needed her love, needed her help. Physical love he could get elsewhere; that was not important.
He had not put Kristina from his mind. Over the days hi
s reaction to the realization she had tried to kill him had developed into a grudge. He began to suspect that this Ree’hdworlder, Urak, was instrumental in turning her into a potential murderess. He began to feel great antipathy towards that native. At night, when he dreamed of something other than the fate of Earth, it was of Urak that he dreamed, and there was always anger and fighting, and a great sense of frustration when he woke.
At night Zeitman sat apart from Susanna and Maguire, listening to the two of them talking. Susanna was amusing herself with Maguire’s strange sense of sight. She still found it hard to believe that a blind man could see, especially when he claimed to see better than either of his two travelling companions.
“I know I shouldn’t say it,” he had said, “but I keep feeling sympathy for you because you are both blind. I have to tell myself that you are not blind because the word implies a certain sight that has been taken away. You have never had that sight yet, so you can’t know of your lack.”
“Who needs to see infra-red? Or ultra-violet?” said Susanna. “We’re all quite content with what we manage to see, thank you.”
“Dan Erlam has good eyes,” said Maguire. “Most of the thousands of human beings in Terming have good eyes. But you know, Susanna, they are nevertheless blind. They don’t see what they’re doing, they don’t see the consequences of their actions.”
“That’s cheating,” said Susanna. “You’re using blind in a metaphorical sense. In that way, yes, most of us are blind to all but a fraction of everything.”
“Some things it is not important to be able to see. A few things, that you don’t see, it is imperative that you should be able to observe clearly. I pity you all. I can’t help it.”
Susanna tested Maguire’s “sight,” holding up fingers, objects, making expressions on her face. Maguire found her antics entertaining and answered everything perfectly correctly.
“Well, I don’t understand it,” she said at length. “You need light rays and a retina to see, and you block light rays and probably have no retina worth a damn.”
Maguire laughed. “You remind me of a Ree’hd I knew, called Hans-ree. He was always inquisitive, always puzzled by how much I could see even though I was blind in the real sense of the word—this was before I gained sight, you understand. I asked him if he could feel the movements of mountains slipping about on their magma underlays; or the rippling of earth? I asked him if he could see the shape of the wind, foaming and bubbling, reaching fingers up and down, and round any object in its way. He couldn’t, of course, and he was not totally convinced that I could. But of course I could. I could see it with every sense but sight. I didn’t miss much in those days, and these days… I miss nothing.”
Sunrise and the mountain world erupted into life. Susanna awoke suddenly, found Zeitman and Maguire gone and followed them out on to the slopes. She had to shield her eyes against the brilliance of the sun that was creeping above the horizon.
“Where’s Maguire?” she asked, seeing Zeitman standing alone. He glanced at her and smiled. “Got fed up travelling conventionally. He must have gone during the night. I expect we’ll see him again before too long.”
Barren though their temporary camp-site had seemed at night, now, at dawn, it was crawling with life. The rocks themselves seemed to move, and cascades of dust and earth tumbled downwards as multipedal forms, green and purple, and some shining black, scattered and scurried and hunted.
“Look there.”
A biology lesson for Susanna. She followed Zeitman’s pointing finger and saw a huge, undulating form drifting across the interlocked branches of the giant flora in the valley, three or four miles distant.
“That thing must be more than two hundred yards across!”
“One of Ree’hdworld’s more exotic life-forms. It’s called a broo’kk— remember that Ree’hd we met at the landing station?”
“She was attacked by one of them? My God!”
“It’s feeding on the tiny homeotherms that live in the foliage.” He watched the broo’kk as it moved across the tree-forms, rippling as it adjusted to the irregularities of the surface that it regarded as land.
“No birds,” said Susanna staring into the empty skies. “No, wait… what’s that?” She pointed to a small black shape soaring vertically in a tight spiral.
Zeitman shook his head. “Not birds. The air was never conquered on Ree’hdworld. Or if it was, it was not a conquest that survived.” With the powerful winds it was a complete incongruity to Zeitman that there were no winged animals. More so because, as Susanna was noticing, there were creatures that used the air for transport quite a lot. Vortex-risers, as they had been termed early on—creatures with membraneous extensions of their bodies with which they caught the up-currents and spiralled away high into the sky to fall back some way removed. With this as a beginning, powered flight was but an evolutionary shuffle away. But it had not been a beginning. For as far back as the fossil record went there were vortex-risers, but nothing that could have been the remains of a flyer. Powered flight had never come into its own.
“Look at the wind down there,” said Susanna. “It’s blowing a gale.”
The stillness, the gentleness of the wind at their camp-site, was an incongruity; but Zeitman knew that this was the way things worked—at dawn, when the lowlands bent to breaking point before the screaming blast, much of the highlands was still. During the day and night the highlands felt the fury of the wind, whereas the lowlands, large tracts at least, fell quiet.
Now that they had a full day to travel Zeitman decided to abandon the proposed return to Terming for supplies and instead move on a straight course for the temperate lands where Maguire had said Kawashima was to be found.
They skimmed over the mountain range and into the wild country beyond, and had gone only a short way when the gleam of metal caught Susanna’s eye. Zeitman spiralled for a moment as he searched the rocky terrain to the east, and then he too saw the unmistakable sparkle of a machine upon the dull earth.
In minutes the skimmer was circling the wreck, and Zeitman had the alpha-scanner set wide, looking for survivors. The ship was a fifty-person, low-orbit shuttle and it had been knocked from the sky by a missile, but the blow had been a glancing one, quite obviously, and though the belly had been ripped out of the craft, there was no reason why, with competent handling— and this ship had been brought down competently—a few persons should not have survived.
Zeitman’s first thoughts were for survivors, but in a matter of seconds the implication of the forced landing was hitting him. This might be the first… What if all the ships that were orbiting Ree’hdworld tried to come in for a forced landing? Zeitman could imagine this valley gutted and cleared, and the huts and the roads being built, and the driving back of the wild Rundii, and the push to the sea…
Why had the missile not been more effective? What good was a killing-machine if it only maimed? Damn the installation for not taking more care of what it owned!
But for the moment, since the missile had not destroyed completely, the responsibility was on Zeitman to make contact with the survivors (if any) and see to their well-being. Zeitman himself was not a killer.
The alpha-scanner picked up a low reading some way distant, where the land was carved in deep gashes and the flora was beginning to thicken. But Susanna, without any machine-aid, spotted the group of humans at a distance of a mile.
Zeitman raced the skimmer, low over the ground, and hovered above them. Twenty-one humans, seated in a large circle about a central fire which was now cold and black. They were all clothed in overcoats improvised from blankets, and they huddled with heads down as if in prayer.
They made no sign of recognition as the air-jets of the skimmer set the dead fire into a flurry of carbon ash, and moved the thin mat covering in the clearing into a frenzy of activity.
“There’s something wrong,” Zeitman spoke softly and then, as if he refused to accept what the alpha-scanner was telling him, he keyed the hailer and cal
led down to the group. No response. Susanna said, “They’re dead. They have to be.”
Zeitman knew she was right and he tapped the alpha-scanner which was registering a tiny reading, but not anywhere near high enough. He landed the skimmer a short way from the ring of humans and left Susanna sitting inside the cramped cabin while he took a closer look.
She watched him walk towards them, and she looked again at the dial on the sensor, now registering slightly higher as Zeitman walked into its range of view. For a reason unknown even to herself she felt very sad.
When Susanna left the skimmer, later, and walked across to where Zeitman sat outside the circle of dead humans, she knew there was someone alive somewhere and told Zeitman of the increasing reading on the alpha-scanner.
She walked round the circle and looked at the dead. They were all squatting, their heads were bowed upon their chests, and their arms hung straight down by their sides, palms flat upon the ground. When Susanna touched one, a girl of maybe eighteen, the body toppled sideways. It was stiff, but not stiff enough to make it totally rigid. The girl’s yellow hair covered her face and Susanna bent down and smoothed it back to look at the pallid skin.
“She looks peaceful.”
“They all look peaceful,” said Zeitman.
“And they died…?”
Zeitman didn’t move. He was thinking of a terrible hour, now more than ten Ree’hd years in his past…
A rough hand shaking him awake, the stale breath of an unclean Ree’hd, the close face, unblinking eyes, the moisture on song lips, the heat radiating from the skin of the breast… a Ree’hd in distress.
Eye Among the Blind Page 15
