Eye Among the Blind

by Robert Holdstock

  She curled up on the floor of the skimmer and closed her eyes.

  During the night she dreamed she rose and walked to the water’s edge, and crouched by the river with her fingers trailing in the peripheral currents. Dollar Moon was high and everywhere was glowing with a blue light, and she let her gaze wander about her, searching the shadows. Urak floated by in the water and his body, face up, seemed to smile. As the body passed, it rolled in the water and in the instant before the dead face was submerged, the song lips parted and spoke her name.

  She screamed and plunged into the river, reaching for Urak, but he had slipped on into the darkness and her fingers found only an icy grip.

  Strong hands took her by the shoulders and pulled her back to the bank, and laid her out upon the cold turf. Warm lips pressed to hers and she gagged and twisted away, and staring upwards saw Zeitman, grinning hugely and bending over her to kiss her again.

  “Kristina,” he said. “It’s just you and me again, like it was, like it was. I killed him and there’s just the two of us, like it was.”

  “NO!”

  She twisted from him but he was over her and as his hands tore her clothes from her shivering body she saw, as she lay face down, staring into the brush, the grinning features of Maguire as he squatted like a Ree’hd and waved to her.

  “Help me,” she screamed, and felt Zeitman penetrate her and she screamed louder, and Urak walked in front of her, squatted and watched her and his song lips moved, and the words spoke in her mind, “Physical love is irrelevant, Kristina. You can give Zeitman what he wants at no loss to what we want.”

  She felt water over her head and her feet reached down to try and find the bottom of the river, but there was no bottom and she was carried rapidly downstream, with the pain of Zeitman’s rape affecting her whole body. She went below the surface and water filled her mouth and nose and she thrashed wildly and popped back to the surface, screaming and crying and when she opened her eyes there was Urak’s dead face rolling over in the water, the eyes staring blindly at her, the lips stretched into a human grin, and as she watched so his arm came out and pulled her under and she felt icy water in her lungs, and Zeitman was laughing somewhere, and his laugh turned into the crying of some lumbering beast…

  Waking, Kristina found she was lying in her own vomit. The taste in her mouth was enough to make her retch again and she crawled to the medical locker at the back of the skimmer and took out a bulb of mouth-wash.

  She could still hear the awful laughing sound that had been the last thing she had heard in her dream. Only now it was coming from outside the skimmer, and looking up she realized that the sky was brightening.

  It was nearly dawn, and by the swirling ashes of the fire a huge, grey shape was standing and staring at the human artifact that had invaded its territory. Grotesque, yet comically so, with air-sacs pulsating outside its body, and horizontally slit eyes staring from an enormous mound of a head. When it cried it opened a mouth that split its head from east to west, and three rows of razor-sharp cutting plates sparkled and flashed.

  Rubbing her eyes Kristina shuddered as the details of her dream refused to slip away quietly; worse, the details blurred and she was left with the sensations of fear and despair that had predominated in her nightmare. She felt very depressed. Because it was not Ree’hd-like she refused her system the luxury of a nuro-stim tablet. She would overcome the depression by will-power.

  As the depression passed, one thought refused to leave her. Perhaps Urak had died during the night and she had dreamed of his body as it really had been, floating silently and sadly down the river. It was an unbearable thought and as she changed her clothes for cleaner garments and tried not to think of what she must look like, she put it from her mind by fussing about her appearance. She felt so messy, so dishevelled, that her greatest personal desire at the moment was to brush her hair through and paint out the signs of strain from her face. But there was no time, and it was too human a reaction anyway. She tried to feel ashamed of herself and succeeded.

  When she stepped from the skimmer the wind hit her like a sudden explosion, and the creature by the dead fire bellowed and shuffled forward two paces. She sent the ashes of the fire scattering spectacularly with a well placed burst of her vaze, and the aggressor fled into the undergrowth in total silence. She listened to its crashing departure and when she thought it was safely gone she walked straight to the river and listened for Urak.

  After a while her mind became filled with the noises of the voice-network, songs and prayers, jumbled and indecipherable. Nowhere was there any coherence, but she narrowed and widened her mind as she searched for the one voice above all that she desired to hear.

  When a voice did speak to her, it was not Urak’s.

  Kristina… stay completely still. Do not open your eyes. Listen.

  Who is that? Maguire? Is that you Maguire?

  A hand touched her shoulder and she began to move, half opening her eyes and turning her head, but Maguire’s voice was urgent and demanding. You must remain blind. Please, Kristina.

  She turned her head away and closed her eyes tightly. But she reached up a hand and touched Maguire’s as it rested on her shoulder. There was something very reassuring about the touch, and she had a feeling that soon she would need reassurance.

  Where’s Urak?

  He’s right here, Kristina—no! eyes shut, body still.

  I don’t understand.

  She felt uneasy. She could hear only Maguire’s breathing. There was no sound as of a Ree’hd, or any other being. Maguire’s grip was tight and she took courage from the pressure of the blind man’s ringers. But inside her closed eyes she was seeing hellish visions and experiencing the visual beginnings of a faint.

  Kristina, you must not look at Urak. Do you promise?

  I promise.

  There was a moment’s quiet, Kristina’s mind searching, every nerve in her body seemed to be on edge, waiting to respond to Urak’s voice.

  You shouldn’t have followed me.

  So calm, so gentle. In her mind the slight trembling of his voice when speaking interLing did not register. It was Urak, and Kristina felt immense relief.

  Why can’t I look at you, Urak?

  I’m wandering, Kristina. When a Ree’hd wanders he changes, sometimes. I have changed a little… it’s of no importance. You’re so ugly any change is for the better.

  Perhaps the change would not upset you, but I would prefer that you did not look at me. I would feel that you were taking from me and I might make a wrong decision.

  That sounded decidedly phoney, Kristina couldn’t help thinking, but she tried not to let the thoughts surface too much.

  To Urak she said, Why should understanding love make you so afraid? I don’t understand that Urak. I thought that what we had learned as fact was something wonderful.

  Wonderful, echoed Urak. Was he angry? Kristina, in your human mind I detect something, a feeling that all alienness must be complicated and unfathomable. Faced with the Ree’hd who seem simple and uncomplicated you cannot accept that this is the case. It may make things difficult that the complex truths, searched for by one race, should be the normal adolescent discoveries of another, but that is no reason for the one to be laughed at and for the process of understanding to be prematurely concluded. That is what I fear the most, Kristina. Not only my own revelations, small as they are, but what your ex-race will reveal because of their insensitivity. For generations, Kristina, the Ree’hd have forced a greater simplicity upon themselves, have been very unforthcoming about themselves and the past, and they had every reason to do that. It would have been so easy for a small team of scientists from your world to examine us, consider us, and interpret us. And if that happened, we would be finished. A few gave evidence that they could be trusted. Yourself, which is why you are now a Ree’hd. And the man you were once with. But even he has not been able to penetrate fully our essential simplicity.

  Kristina was confused. A sharp reminder fro
m Maguire kept her eyes closed, but she shook her head vigorously.

  Are you saying that the Ree’hd have a positive destiny—one that is simple by our standards—and to know it before time is to destroy the Ree’hd?

  This is what we believe.

  And when is time?

  When we discover it as a race, for ourselves. Is that not simplicity itself? And really, it isn’t very much to ask.

  So there was a greater fear among the Ree’hd than the fear of what a vast number of humans might do to the natural history of the place. They feared the questioning few, the curious handful who, with the best of intentions, might cause them to jump the evolutionary gun.

  I fear humans for every reason, said Urak, perhaps having followed Kristina’s reflection. For discovery, and for destruction, for their lack of destiny, and their insularity. Your ex-race is a frightening phenomenon, Kristina.

  Kristina thought hard. More and more she was coming to realize that something was very wrong with Urak, that if she opened her eyes she would be very shocked, very hurt, perhaps saddened to the point of her own destruction. What had Urak meant when he referred to the Ree’hd destiny? Had he meant the evolutionary process that would one day bring them into space, in the tracks of the Pianhmar? Somehow that seemed too gross, too terrestrial. Did he mean the slow process of devolution? The return to the natural spheres of the world? Was that the great destiny of the Ree’hd?

  I know very little. But I feel I know too much. I have told no other Ree’hd than you that I feel I have learned more than I should. You, like me, must die with that knowledge. Do you promise?

  I do, Urak. Of course I do. But apart from our love, I know of nothing that could have upset you. Is the Ree’hd destiny to understand love?

  Partly, perhaps. To understand nature and the forces that direct it. To become a part of nature in every way. To achieve total awareness of nothing but nature. This is how we are motivated and it may be our destiny. Does it sound simple?

  Yes.

  What is simple then?

  There is no yearning in it. There is no direction outwards. There is no striving for new frontiers, for expanding to extremes.

  A primitive trait, laughed Urak. And you’re right. We have no inclination to go beyond our burrows. Our purpose is understanding. The Pianhmar were the great explorers. Everything they learned is with us. Everything they saw can be seen by us. Why should we repeat ourselves?

  Kristina said nothing. In her mind there was a vision, a pattern, and she became fascinated by it, and with what it told her. Perhaps Urak had put it there because eventually she realized that he was gone.

  She called for him, her eyes still shut, but there was no reply. Eventually Maguire said aloud, “You can open your eyes.”

  The sun was just above the hills, a faint orange disc seen through thickening clouds. The wind had dropped away to a whisper. Looking round, Kristina saw Maguire sitting immediately behind her, his blind eyes not quite meeting hers, a faint smile on his lips. Of Urak there was no sign.

  “Where is he? Was he really here?”

  “He still is. Every Ree’hd is everywhere that is occupied by a Ree’hd, and you are one, remember?”

  “Was he here physically, though?” she asked. She was sad, felt very quiet, almost on the point of despair. Maguire laughed and put his arm around her shoulder. “Is it so important to you? Can’t you be satisfied with closing your eyes and having him with you in your mind, in your soul? Must his grotesque body be squatting above yours, sticky tendrils touching your chubby pink fingers, lateral eyes twisted forward and gazing rapturously at your oval face?”

  “He wasn’t here… all that about Ree’hd changing when they wander, it was all to stop me opening my eyes and seeing he wasn’t here.” She hunched forward. “I feel empty, Maguire. Bloody empty.”

  “Then you’re no Ree’hd,” said Maguire irritably.

  “I can’t help it!” She suddenly twisted and stared fully at Maguire, and in her face there was such urgency that Maguire was taken aback and all warmth was lost from his smile. “What is it, Kristina…?”

  “Where is he, Maguire? Where’s his body?”

  Maguire sat motionless for a long time, as around them the world came alive, and the river seemed to flow a little more briskly. Kristina continued to beg for Maguire to take her to Urak.

  Continually Maguire said, he’s here, right by you.

  At length they rose to their feet and Kristina led the blind man to her skimmer. The vessel shot into the air and then flew low over the land as they headed back into the Ree’hd sphere, following the flow of the river. They left the Rundii sphere.

  All the time Kristina searched the ground and the waters below for a sign of the Ree’hd she had lost. All the time Maguire reproached her for being so human when she had adopted a native nationality. But perhaps he saw, in her depression, a dogmatic determination to satisfy, perhaps for the last time in her life, a human whim.

  “There, in the rocks…”

  Below, where the river widened and became shallower, there was an outcropping of crystalline rocks, rising above the water, and sparkling green. Urak lay between two boulders, his limbs trailing in the currents and moving gently. His face was down and there was a gruesome pallor to his skin.

  Landing the skimmer at the nearest possible point to the body, Kristina ran along the river-bank and waded into the water to kneel by her lover.

  From the edge of the bush Maguire watched her and gradually, for the first time, peered deep into her mind, and what he saw there made him stand, suddenly, in shock, and he shouted, “No…not yet, Kristina! Oh no!”

  And as Kristina sobbed over the Ree’hd body she held in her arms, Maguire was gone.

  Chapter Thirteen

  During the night, as they lay in the security of the double tent and listened to the movements of the sphere outside, Ballantyne became very ill. He retained consciousness and his sense of humour, but eventually resigned himself to death. Susanna sat beside him and talked to him, and from his body-sack, Zeitman watched and listened. Her voice was a whisper and Ballantyne’s a monotonous murmuring, interspersed with his forced laughter. Kawashima slept noisily and talked in his sleep in the incomprehensible language of his father, a crude distillation of the most difficult aspects of Japanese and the most illogical aspects of centauran slang.

  By morning Ballantyne’s skin was a mass of purple blotches. His mouth was flecked with foam which he tried to wipe away with hands that trembled violently. Susanna had her arm around him and her half-closed eyes testified to her lack of sleep.

  Zeitman rolled up his sack and crossed to where Ballantyne was obviously on his way out. “Any pain?”

  “No, thank God. Just a feeling of finality.” The eyes that stared at Zeitman were dilated, almost sightless. “Is there nothing .. . ?”

  “A lingering death, or a quick one. They’re your two choices.”

  Ballantyne’s eyes closed and he nodded imperceptibly. Susanna withdrew her arm from around the spacer and stood up.

  She walked outside to where the wind had dropped and the first rain of the day was beginning to fall. Kawashima reached into the underbelly of his skimmer, which formed half the roof of their tent, and withdrew a small box. He took out a skin-pad and passed it to Ballantyne who stripped off the covering layer with ringers that were suddenly very steady. Applying the pad to his arm he lay back and waved to the Japanese. Zeitman and Kawashima looked at each other and left the tent.

  They washed in the rain (an anomalously warm rain) and Kawashima, without modesty, urinated on to the purplish turf. Zeitman spent a while staring at the Pianhmar statue, its serenity reflecting sleep with uncanny reality. Two of the Ree’hd diggers were some way distant, walking towards the camp and carrying several small animals in their arms. Since an adolescent Ree’hd was unable to mind-kill, they had used their skill with throwing discs. As they came into the camp and dropped their catch, Zeitman, as a matter of instinct, tried to
classify the animals and realized that he couldn’t. They were variations he had not met before. The Ree’hd stretched their song lips to make human smiles. “They’re good,” said one.

  Kawashima glanced at the catch. “I’ve eaten them every damn day we’ve been here. They’re passable. Nutritionally useless.”

  “As everything,” said Zeitman, more to himself than to Kawashima. The two Ree’hd went below the canopy by the work site and began to cook breakfast.

  The solid forest in the valley was now broken as the tree-forms had spread out and lifted their branches so that the rain would fall into the ground below. Susanna was walking through the “treeline,” two or three hundred yards from where the site was set on higher ground. As she walked, apparently in deep thought, so the life-forms seemed to shuffle away from her. Her red uniform was soon indistinguishable in the brown and blue colouring of the bush.

  “Is it safe to walk there?”

  “It’s not safe anywhere round here, Zeitman,” said Kawashima. “I nearly lost one of my Ree’hd diggers within hours of setting up camp. Carnivorous giants, completely brainless. They live either on the higher ground in the caves and spend their days scattered about hunting, or in the jungle down in the valley and migrate up here during the day. I can’t decide which.”

  “These are what the Ree’hd call Kr’oom?”

  “Variations on the same. Twice the size of a man, with six legs, naturally, the middle pair functioning as arms when moving on front and back legs. They use the top pair when attacking. A very comical beast, Zeitman, except for its ferocity. For a while they were frightened of humans…”