Eye Among the Blind

by Robert Holdstock

  There was nothing to say and Zeitman found himself staring at his old friend, searching for some sign of the real Dan Erlam, the youthful extrovert, the self-centred man who had conducted affairs in Terming with raised voice and forceful personality. All he saw, as he searched, was an ageing, tired man, fallen and defeated.

  “By the time any Federation high command arrive they’ll find a gutted city,” continued Erlam. “A gutted city and a lot of bodies, and just a very few of us waiting to be removed because one thing I’m sure of is that after this there will be no humans on Ree’hdworld for a long time to come.”

  “No humans, perhaps, but Ree’hd…”

  Erlam waved him to silence. “I know what you’re going to say, Robert. Kristina is a friend of mine too, remember? That is… yes, that is a way out, I suppose. But not for me. For you, perhaps, for Kristina… but not for me.”

  The large window of the office cracked, loudly and suddenly. Both men were taken by surprise and turned to look to where thick black smoke had built up to obscure all sight of the city below. Flames darted across the front of the window and as they stared at them so the window cracked again, and fragments of the material dropped to the floor of the office.

  “Let’s get out of here, Dan.”

  Erlam made no effort to move. “That was supposed to be fireproof…”

  “Never mind that, Dan. This place will go up at any moment; let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “I’ll stay a while. Go and find Kristina.”

  Yes, Kristina. That was why he was here after all. “Where is she, Dan? In the burrows?”

  “Happy, wherever she is. You’re close to this Maguire… and Maguire is a Ree’hd too. You might be able to find the easy way out.”

  “You too, Dan. And Kawashima, and all the others who are closer to Ree’hdworld than to any other.” Fleetingly, he thought of Kawashima, and of the convincing he had tried to do there, and he realized that he was doing a lot of reasoning lately, and getting very little response. And yet he was right. There was no need for the few of them to ever leave Ree’hdworld, and it was that thought that was driving Erlam to obvious despair. They all belonged. Maguire had said so!

  “I don’t belong and you know it. I’m human and I’m an administrator—I order, I make order. There’s no law in biology, no sense of orderliness in a random group of random creatures behaving randomly. I couldn’t stand it, Robert. I’m not made that way.

  “Leave me, will you? I want to think.”

  Like Kawashima. Death-wish.

  “Dan, there are Pianhmar in the city—I’ve seen them. Like ghosts. They’re burning buildings and mind-killing indiscriminately.”

  Erlam did not seem surprised. “Total chaos,” he said. “Total bloody chaos.”

  “But don’t you see? The chaos will be short-lived, Dan. Think about that. A day of panic, and then the remnants will pick themselves up and need a guiding force. Think about it.”

  Zeitman straightened up and as he did so, flames burst into the office through the shattered window. Zeitman glanced down at Erlam who stared back and raised a hand in salute; no smile, no sign of inner warmth.

  Zeitman turned and ran from the office. Behind him the fire roared louder. See you in hell, Dan, he thought.

  Around him there was only fire. The streets were littered with dead, and the buildings grew dark as flame consumed them. Zeitman was an arrogant figure, standing in the square, his face turned to where the grey storm clouds refused to let loose upon the burning city. He screamed for Maguire, over and over. His voice was lost in the crackle and roar of flame and the crash and destruction of masonry. A few figures moved past him, stooped and grey: Ree’hd, moving from the city, out beyond this dying outpost of humanity to where the Ree’hd burrows waited.

  Zeitman shouted again. “Maguire! Where are you? For God’s sake, I need you.”

  Kristina had not been in the special burrows. There had been only a few huddled people down there, cold and fearful, waiting for the fires to die down. They were still alive, but they would soon die.

  Zeitman felt alone. Very alone. Maguire did not answer and Zeitman was at a loss as to what to do.

  Through the flames, running and hiding her head beneath spread fingers, came Susanna. She stopped a few yards from Zeitman and stared at him. There were tears in her eyes. “They’re all dead, Robert. All of them.” Zeitman walked over to her and she stood, motionless, as he wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. She was distressed and he tried to soothe her, but the heat was too fierce, the smoke too choking, for them to linger long.

  He led her back through the burning city, to the cooler streets and beyond. He could see the skimmer, half a mile away, and he could see the death toll. It was many hundreds. They sat in the death position with palms flat on the ground and bodies slightly bowed. All eyes were closed and they seemed at peace.

  Without touching any of them, Zeitman walked across the hard ground to the skimmer. From its cockpit he could see that there were many more human forms lined up along the river-shore, all crouched as if praying. They had come into the country in the dark hours preceding dawn and had not seen that their precursors were finding a premature and permanent resting-place so close to the city. They had died themselves, then, and in the darkness had been unnoticed as the crowds had continued to flood from the installation.

  At dawn they made a bizarre spectacle.

  “Who did it? Was it the Ree’hd?”

  “The Pianhmar,” said Zeitman. Susanna said nothing. After a while, as they skipped low across a hill and came into sight of the Ree’hd burrows, she said, “Why would they do it? Why would they kill?”

  “Protection. Obviously. But they have a certain compassion; they are respectful of the dead. And they also preserve those who feel for them.”

  Susanna looked at him. She was grimy and wet, but there was life in her face, and an almost childish expression of dependency. “Us? Are we people who feel for them?”

  “That’s right.” Zeitman smiled, glanced at her.

  “But I didn’t believe in them before.”

  “Nor did I for a long time. Perhaps they spared you because you’re close to me.”

  She turned away. “But you still want Kristina. She’s been haunting you since we first met”

  He couldn’t argue with that. “I want to find her for many reasons. I want to know how to become the sort of human Ree’hd that she and Maguire have become.” He didn’t really think there was anything to know. He couldn’t, he knew, be as Kristina, totally isolated from humans and from human motivations. But he could go a long way along those lines. What he really needed was Maguire and Kristina with him, so that together they could survive on this world, and if it had to be, they could wander and die together. Zeitman missed the company of those others who were closest to the world.

  Susanna said, “No, Robert. You want her. You can’t be anything without her, and you’re nursing a grievance against that Ree’hd, Urak. If she’s dead you’ll die. If she’s alive, but refuses you, you’ll do something stupid, and perhaps die anyway.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” said Zeitman angrily. He swore loudly as the skimmer landed side first, and span round on the ground, throwing its two occupants out of their seats. He climbed out of the machine and rubbed his bruised shoulder. Susanna came after him. “Do you want to stay here?” he asked. “On Ree’hdworld, I mean. Stay and try and find some sort of peace…?”

  She shook her head. “I find no feeling for this place at all. I have no feeling for the Pianhmar, or the Ree’hd, or… or even you, Robert. I have no feeling for you at all.”

  “You did have…”

  She looked at him sharply, “All that death! All those dead people, Robert. It didn’t do anything to you. It didn’t upset you, or depress you, or worry you… it was… it was just fact, to you. An event, an occurrence. It was done, and you’ve forgotten it. I’ll never forget it; I’ll never understand it, Robert. This is a hor
rible world, a callous place. I have no wish to stay here, no wish at all.”

  She walked past him towards the Ree’hd burrows to ask for shelter for a while. Zeitman watched her go, wondering how she thought she would leave Ree’hdworld. She would probably manage it. There were shuttles at the landing-station, and they were probably still there, and she would escape Ree’hdworld somehow, Zeitman was sure of it.

  He went to Kristina’s burrow. She was still not there and he stood in the dimness and stared at the pin-woman on the wall. After a moment he drew his vaze and obliterated that section of the wall, and feeling contempt for his own anger he went outside and climbed back into his skimmer.

  He had only one idea left. To follow the river until it began, and hope that somewhere along its length he would find her, and Urak, and perhaps Maguire as well.

  Chapter Fifteen

  He’s coming.

  I know. I feel sorry for him, in a way.

  I’m sorry too. For misunderstanding everything.

  It wasn’t your fault, Maguire.

  Ignorance is no excuse. I’m naive, Kristina. I just never caught up with my thwarted development.

  Don’t worry.

  But I’m so stupid.

  A little naive, as you said. And only as a human.

  I was shattered when I saw inside your mind and saw your determination to die. I’d forgotten that you could not lose your humanity completely before you passed on. I don’t know, somehow I felt sure you’d get back with Robert, and I thought I’d help things along. I even told him not to worry…

  I know what you were doing. I forgive you. You weren’t to know how committed I was, since you weren’t reading me.

  Imagine me, a re-matchmaker.

  Nice try.

  He’s landing. He’s seen you. He’s on his own, no Susanna to be seen. She was nice. Not his type, though.

  Obviously not Roberts type.

  He’s running towards you. Now he’s slowed. He hasn’t seen me yet. My God, I can sense him crying. He’s really crying.

  Zeitman approached and knelt beside her. She didn’t look at him, but her eyes were open and staring across the water. Here the river was wide and its bed rose to break the water’s surface with several boulders; beyond the boulders the river swirled and rushed. Zeitman would have liked to have swum in that turmoil of icy liquid.

  The ground below him was wet. He looked about and saw tall, stooping tree-forms, their branches digging deeply into the turf, reaching perhaps through the soil to the river itself. They were purple-leaved and heavy, and would soon divide. They seemed to listen to the tranquillity.

  Across the river the bank was littered with craggy rocks and fan shaped plants that reflected the sparse light in a multitude of colours. Behind them the land rose steeply and to the south was a very high hill, its sheer cliffs presented to the observer from Zeitman’s position. From that hill there would be an unsurpassed view of this part of the river valley.

  “You’ve picked a good spot to die,” said Zeitman, hardly able to keep the emotion from his voice. “Kristina, why do it? Why?”

  She didn’t smile, didn’t flinch. “I feel it’s right.”

  “That’s what the Ree’hd always say: T feel it’s right.’ And maybe it is right, maybe it is the correct thing to do, but if you die now, Kristina, I’ll never find out. I need you with me as I find out… as I find out for myself if it’s right.”

  “Robert, your trouble is, you have no courage, not deep down where it counts. Strip away the outer layers of Robert Zeitman and you find an intelligent man with no strength. A weak man who will spend his life looking for a prop, looking for someone to hold his hand. And what sickens me, Robert, is that even if you know this now, you’ve only known it for about a week. If you’d recognized it twenty years ago…” she looked at him, just briefly. There was contempt in her eyes, and something else… a shadow, a hint of pity. She didn’t finish the sentence but let her gaze drift back to the flowing river.

  She was right, of course, as Erlam had been. There were too many questions he had not asked or had not pursued—and all the time it had been his emotional infatuation that had weakened his approach and clouded his judgement. He was on the verge of redundancy. But there was nothing he could do about it except acknowledge the weaknesses that others had accused him of.

  He turned back to Kristina.

  “If it’s right to die, then why haven’t you died already? Why are you lingering like this?”

  “I’m afraid of water.” Now she smiled, just a little. “It’s so silly isn’t it? I want to join Urak, but I’m afraid of water. When I die I want it to be peacefully, but if I step below that water surface I shall die in agony. I don’t know what to do. I’ve been sitting here for over a day trying to find the courage. Trying to find the sort of strength that you do have, Robert. I’d ask you to help me, but…”

  “No!”

  “No, I thought not.”

  Confusion and helplessness seemed to be the order of the day, thought Zeitman coldly. “Where’s Maguire?”

  “Over the river.”

  Zeitman scanned the rocks and profuse plant life on the slopes rising up across the river and eventually saw Maguire, crouched in a small recess, almost completely in darkness. Light flashed from the rings he wore as he lifted a hand in acknowledgement. He was watching them intensely, perhaps himself confused and helpless. “I needed him earlier. He didn’t come.”

  “He’s been there a long time. When I die he’ll spend some time with you.”

  It was all so stupid, thought Zeitman. Here, a human woman whom he loved, dying because she thought she was an alien. And not only dying, but forcing herself to die in a manner that was abhorrent to her.

  “I don’t understand this desire for death. Urak’s too. Why does he want to die? Is it me? Does he feel he has done wrong?”

  “Urak is already dead. Did he feel wrong? No, he felt he had done everything right. His death, and mine, are for different reasons.”

  “Please tell me.”

  “We know too much. As a human what I know is of interest, scientific fascination if you will. But as a Ree’hd—which I now am—it is too much knowledge for the stage at which we exist. I must follow Urak into… into nature, if you like.”

  “Back to the biosphere…”

  “Ashes to ashes, as they used to say.”

  “The ‘stage’ at which you exist,” echoed Zeitman. He thought about that for a while, and about a world where there was much that had been programmed by a greater race than now ruled, and how “programming” and “stage-by-stage development” went together in a neat package of cause and effect…

  Tell him.

  Why? You can tell him later.

  From you it will give him an idea of why you want to die. It will help him accept the need for your death. Tell him.

  She said, “Three nights ago I joined the Ree’hd in their dusk song for the first time. I felt very strange at first, and shocked, too. They’re fantastically well developed telepaths.”

  “I suspected that,” murmured Zeitman. He had been right! They had been concealing their true nature.

  “They’re not individually telepathic, but have a mind web, an open channel, if you like, allowing them total communication. They communicate with both the living and the dead. Does that surprise you?”

  Yes, thought Zeitman. Yes indeed! So many surprises, in such short order…

  Kristina went on, “There is no death on this world, of course. Well, anyway, plants die, animals die, but the Ree’hd and the Rundii and the Pianhmar… they don’t really die.

  “Urak didn’t understand the mechanism, or the purpose. All natural Ree’hd are aware that they pass between the stages of physical evolution. They all know that their physical destiny is to become a Rundii. They have no individual memory of their lives as Pianhmar, but they all seem aware that the knowledge and skills of the Pianhmar exist with them. They will carry it all forward.”

&nb
sp; Zeitman exhaled slowly, trying to cope with the visual images he was putting up to help understand what Kristina was saying. How often they had talked about an after-life for the Ree’hd, and of reincarnation among the Ree’hd population. How near they had been, and yet how far.

  “And when a Rundii dies?”

  “The completed life process seems to end with the death of the Rundii form and the Ree’hdworlder then goes to a waiting-place.”

  “Wooburren? It was spooky enough.”

  “Yes. Urak sensed it. It truly frightened him to be there. Whether or not such prematurely formed Ree’hdworlders have missed their chance of participating in the final great rise to civilization I don’t know. I suspect the final manifestation of life on this world will be more metaphysical than physical.”

  “How do you know all this?” asked Zeitman. “Urak?”

  “I saw the pattern shortly after he left. He spoke to me of the function of the Ree’hd, and I realized that each race had a different purpose. Maguire filled in the gaps later.”

  Zeitman saw the pattern too. It was so alien it frightened him. Not bizarre, just—unhuman. The Pianhmar became masters of technology, and then, in the space of a few centuries, they devolved, and the world became the Ree’hd’s, and they became… what? Close to nature? Kristina explained it to him as far as she herself understood it: the search for true empathy with other individuals, and how the seemingly obvious truth that love can transcend species, being important only between self-aware creatures of any shape or form, how that might have been one of the “deep” understandings that the Ree’hd searched for. She had realized the same as part of her own development and had scared Urak when she explained it to him because Urak recognized that he was becoming ahead of his time.

  “So what is the Rundii function?”

  Kristina shrugged. “It could be anything. Who can tell? It’s still the day of the Ree’hd, and the Rundii have thousands of years of primitivism to live through before the scene is theirs.”