This Fortress World

by Gunn, James

  And I knew, suddenly, surely, that ends can never rise above their means…

  Siller was sitting close to me. Suddenly I was sick of him, and I stopped being afraid. "Get away from me!"

  He caught my hand. "You're young and strong and clean. I like you, Dane. We could be friends, you and I—"

  "Shut up!" I shouted. "Leave me alone!"

  His hand tightened on mine. "Don't be a fool, Dane. Be sensible. You need me, and I need you—"

  "Shut up!" Something exploded inside me. My hand clenched. The color drained from his face, leaving it an ugly, mottled white like a mushroom. His teeth clenched, and a moan forced its way between them. His hand collapsed with a gristly, crunching sound.

  With a sudden sickness, I let his hand drop. He started to get up, his left hand dangling shapelessly, and my arm swung toward him in a full sweep, as if I could forget if I could only clear the sight away. The back of my hand caught him on the mouth, and he spun across the room, staggering backward until he hit the wall and crumpled. My hand felt as if it had been dipped in filth. I shuddered and wiped it savagely on my jacket.

  He was rising. Words spewed from his lips in half a dozen languages. I found myself facing him, on my feet, half crouched. He was on one foot and one knee. Blood trickled from one corner of his mouth. His eyes were crazed. His good right hand moved, darted toward the butt of his gun in a blur of speed. But I had watched his eyes, and my hand moved first. My gun jumped into my palm with an eagerness that was almost alive.

  "Don't do it!" I said. The flash gun was trained on him, and my voice was cold. I was surprised at the lack of emotion in it now that action had taken the place of thought.

  With the gun half out of his jacket, his hand stopped.

  "I don't want to shoot you," I said flatly. "I owe you. Nothing you can do will change that. But I'm leaving here now. If you try to stop me I'll kill you."

  Gradually his eyes stopped burning. They were icy marbles now, blue marbles filled with frozen hate.

  "You'd better kill me," he whispered. "You'd be a fool not to kill me. If you go and leave me alive, I'll hunt you down. You would never have a moment when you wouldn't wonder whether I was close behind you or far away. You would never draw a breath without wondering if you would draw another. You would never think a thought without fearing that the next would be filled with terror. And when I found you, you would beg me to kill you. After a week or a month, you would beg for death."

  He had not moved. He crouched there on a knee and a foot, as motionless as death, his gun half-drawn and the blood trickling, trickling from the corner of his smashed mouth. His unblinking eyes did not move from my face.

  "Shoot!" he whispered.

  My mind said that he was right. My mind told me to kill him. And I tried to pull the trigger, but my finger would not move. For an instant I wondered at the astonishing fact that my mind sent a command through a nerve to my finger and my finger would not obey. I could almost trace the path of the impulse from my neck, through my shoulder and down my arm, but somewhere close to the immobile finger it died away to nothing.

  Siller began to move. Slowly, as if all time were his, he gathered his foot under him and began to rise, and as he raised himself to his feet, he slowly brought his needle gun from the jacket. For a moment wonder held me, and then my finger contracted on the trigger of the gun as if it had never needed an order from my mind.

  Nothing happened. I pulled the trigger again. Siller smiled, maliciously.

  "Did you really think I would give you back a loaded gun?"

  He laughed, and I had never heard anything more mirthless. I looked down at the gun in my hand. I turned it over and saw, without surprise, the black hole in the butt where the cell should have been.

  "You fool!" Siller said tonelessly. "You blind, stinking fool! And you expected to live out there." He jerked his head toward the door. "I'm going to kill you, Dane. I'd like to do it slowly, but I know you now. You're too strong and too stubborn. You could break me in half if you got your hands on me. And even if I could cripple you, you would never tell me where to find the pebble even if I cut you into squirming pieces. I'll find it. It's in the Cathedral."

  His eyes were searching my face, but I gave no sign.

  Emotion poured back into the cold void of his hate. "You stinking hypocrite! You don't fool me with your pretenses of innocence. I know your monasteries. Chastity! Celibacy!' He made a retching sound deep in his throat. His gun hand shook; the shattered hand twitched sympathetically. His face paled.

  Desperately, in blind anger, I threw the gun and knew that it was hopeless. I dropped close to the floor, hearing a tiny pop and a hiss close to my head and the metallic clank of the flash gun hitting—Siller's pistol! My head was up as I took three sprinting steps toward him, still low, seeing his gun spin from his hand, and pushed myself off in a shallow dive.

  His eyes flashed between the gun and me. He couldn't reach it before I hit him, and we both knew it. He shook his sleeve—and my shoulder smashed into his middle. It should have crushed him against the wall. But he was stepping back and to the left. He went reeling toward the wall, but he stayed on his feet.

  My feet were under me as I hit the floor, and I was moving toward him again while I was still absorbing the fall. His knife was an eight-inch sliver of steel in his hand. I had to close with him before he could get set, before he could turn the knife and impale me upon it as I plunged toward him.

  Fighting to stay upright, he had his knife half turned toward me for that peculiarly deadly underhanded cut upward that spills a man's guts in front of him before he knows he has been sliced open. So Siller had said, and I countered the way he had showed me—my two hands together, spread flat in a single V, my one thought to catch his wrist in the neck of the V.

  "Die!" he panted, and jabbed. But he was still off balance, and my hands slipped on either side of his wrist—and held.

  I thought only of the knife, gleaming now just a few inches from my belly. I concentrated on punishing the wrist, trying to make him drop the knife, completely forgetting that I had a knife in my sleeve, too.

  I wondered distantly about his strength and suppleness. With only one good hand, he twisted and lunged and retreated, but I clung to his wrist, increasing the pressure, thinking only of that. And that was almost fatal.

  His wrist grew slippery. It could have been sweat, but it wasn't. It was blood, and a thin stinging of my forearm told me that it was my blood. The knife had sliced my arm when I had caught his wrist. I redoubled my efforts to immobilize the wrist. The bones began to grind together.

  He threw himself backward, savagely. When I resisted, he threw himself forward. The knife plunged unstoppably toward me, and his knee came up toward my groin. Get out of the way! something screamed silently. I fell backward, twisting as I fell, still holding his wrist.

  He fell with me, unable to stop. His wrist twisted. I heard a dry, brittle pop as something snapped. Siller gasped as he hit the floor. He writhed beside me for an instant. And then grew still.

  I got up wearily, cautiously. He had fainted from his broken wrist, or he was trying to trick me. He lay still, face down. I watched him for a moment, my breath rasping in my throat. I knelt beside him and shook him by the shoulder. He was limp. I rolled him over on his back.

  His left hand was shapeless. His right hand dangled at an impossible angle. But I did not look at them as I knelt beside him. I looked at his eyes, open and staring up at me, their too-light blue muddied and dull where they had sparkled and blazed, sightless where they had seen too much.

  And, as my head dropped heavily, I saw the flower blooming in his chest, the black flower of death blooming in a field of spreading scarlet

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  Chapter Seven

  I got up from my knees. I felt numb with fatigue and remorse and used-up emotions. Whatever he was, whatever his motives were, Siller had befriended me. He had given me sanctuary when that was what I needed
most. He had cared for my burns. He had taught me the techniques that had kept me alive, the techniques that had brought him death.

  Death? Only last night—my God! only last night?—I had thought that I, myself, was death. Everything I touched, everything I looked at, withered, drooped. I was a carrier. Untouched by the Plague, I carried it with me. Undying, I infected others. Death was with me always, but it was not for me. And afterwards, if I could wish, as I did now, that I might be the one lying lifeless upon the floor, the wish was futile. When the moment was upon me, my only thought was—survival.

  Survival? Why? Why did a man have to survive? If life is sorrow, torment, and slow death, why should a man nurse it along, why should he drag it out endlessly to the last bitter dregs? If life is pointless, why should a man cling to it desperately, demanding meaning and purpose? Death was the only end. But something inside me said "Live!" and I killed because I could not refuse.

  I left him there. I left his body on the floor. I would have liked to have put him somewhere, to have closed his staring eyes, but I couldn't force myself to touch him again.

  I picked up my flash gun. I put a new cell in the handle, and I burned the lock from the door so that I wouldn't have to search his body for the key. If the thought occurred to me that I could stay here now as long as I liked, as long as the well-stocked larder would feed me, I pushed it away instantly. I wanted to get away from what was lying on the rug in that splendid room. I wanted to run. I wanted to keep running until I couldn't remember any more, until I was so far away that I could never see my starting place, never find my way back.

  But some things are impossible.

  I picked my way down the littered corridor, my nostrils filled with the charred, smoky odor of old fire. For a little while the light spreading from the open doorway behind picked out the scattered bits of rubbish. But it faded away and the dark crept closer until it held me all around in a black velvet net. I struggled against it, feeling my way onward, stumbling, tripping, coughing in the dust, until I stopped, suddenly, stood still in the silence and the night, and realized that I could spend a lifetime here and never find my way out.

  I stood there for a long time. Finally I stooped to the floor and felt around in the rubbish. I picked up several shards of plastic and tossed them aside. Something small, many legged, and hairy ran over my hand and scuttled away. I shuddered and stood up, wiping my hand hysterically on my jacket. I had to force myself to kneel on the floor again and put my hand down in the dust and the refuse.

  At last I found what I was looking for—a short length of wood, thick and dust dry. I held the muzzle of the gun close to one end of the board and pulled the trigger. In the blue flash the wood smoked and burst into flame. Small fires sprang up on the floor. I stamped them out.

  With the torch flickering feebly overhead, I made more speed. In a few minutes I passed the spot where Siller had sealed the rear door of his bookshop. He had been right. The fire had been extinguished before it got to the wall. But there was no exit here. The sealed door hadn't been touched. Somewhere there had to be another way out. Siller had been out.

  It was possible that I was going in the wrong direction, but I decided to search this corridor to the end. A dozen steps later, the corridor ended.

  A blank wall of plastic fitfully returned the light of the torch. The torch was flickering. Soon it would go out, and I would have to retrace my steps, back past the lighted doorway, where I could not stop myself from looking in and seeing the dead thing on the floor.

  And then I realized that the walls on both sides of the corridor were of wood and lath. There was no reason for a plastic wall between them.

  The torch sputtered out, and I dropped it to the floor. It didn't matter. I needed both hands. I felt the edges of the wall carefully, but I could find nothing that felt like a lock. There were no bumps, no indentations. I pressed anyway. Nothing happened. I tried to slide the panel to one side; it did not move. I moved to the other side and pushed and almost fell into the street. The panel didn't slide; it swung outward, hinged on one edge.

  Behind me a discolored slab of wall swung silently shut, but I scarcely noticed. Directly across the shabby street was the side wall of the Cathedral.

  There are other cathedrals in the Imperial City, and I tried to tell myself that this was one of them, but it was no use. I knew the Cathedral too well, its size and shape and architecture. Around the corner would be the entrance, the Barrier, golden, translucent. Not far from it, inside a hollow stone, would be a clear, crystal pebble, egg-shaped but smaller than a hen's egg, unreadable, meaningless, and innocent. It should be red, I thought, stained red for blood. Opposite the Cathedral would be a tottering rabbit-warren of a tenement, an abandoned, decaying warehouse, and a bookshop which, until last night, had an almost new front. It would be a gutted, blackened shell now.

  Siller had lied to me. He had not found me wandering the streets. I had not wandered the streets, mindless, after my escape. I had plunged directly from the control room to his door. I had struck my head when I landed. I had been unconscious. He had dragged me inside. And he had lied to me.

  Why? There wasn't any good reason except that Siller was what he was, devious, subtle, shrewd. Why tell the truth when a lie will do just as well and gain you a possible advantage? He had wanted me to feel insecure and completely dependent upon him. Perhaps he had thought that the knowledge of the Cathedral's nearness would give me strength. Perhaps it would have. Now it took my strength away. I leaned back wearily against the side of the building.

  What had Siller wanted? The pebble, mostly. He had wanted the pebble and he was dead, like the Agents who had wanted the pebble and were dead. I wished briefly that I had given it to him, and then I remembered his ruthlessness and his greed. He had wanted it for himself. He would have used it for himself if he could. The Citizens, if they were his masters, would have got it only when Siller had exhausted its possibilities.

  The pebble was deadly. It had killed five people already, five that I could count. If Siller had not been lying about that, too, it had killed many more before it reached the girl. I closed my eyes. The pebble would stay where it was. There had been enough killing.

  I opened my eyes and pushed myself away from the wall. I couldn't stay here. Danger was here, close to the Cathedral. I had to find some place to rest, to sleep. It was night. I could be thankful for that.

  Curiosity led me down the street toward the Cathedral for one last look at the place I would always think of as my home. Perhaps I would never see it again. I walked briskly toward the intersection.

  It was a mistake. The side street was dark, but the intersection was brilliant from the reflection of the night-lit Cathedral. I had stepped out into the street before I noticed a glowing coal floating in the darkness on the other side of the street. It was just the height of a man's face.

  A husky voice floated to me. "Get back in the shadows, fool!"

  My mind froze, but my body acted. I nodded and stepped back out of the light.

  The shout came simultaneously. "You ain't Brand!"

  "No, he ain't," said a voice so close behind me I could feel the breath of it in my ear. Something hard pressed into the small of my back.

  I seemed to hear Siller's high-pitched voice saying, "Don't get so close! Stay back!" The moment I felt the gun, I twisted, spinning on my left heel. My left arm knocked aside the hand and the gun. The gun spat beside me and chased the darkness with a brief, blue glare. My right fist was coming around, slowly, it seemed, so very slow. But the man's head moved slowly, too, and my fist smashed into flesh and bone. The man grunted and fell back. I didn't wait. I ran.

  I was twenty strides away before the first bolt sizzled electrically past my head. I felt my hair lift. There were shouts behind me now and running feet.

  "Call Sabatini!…Aim for his legs!…Go that way; cut him off!…"

  Chase him, shoot him, catch him, make him tell! Run, legs, run! It's you they're after. Run, legs! They
'll cut you off, like they cut off the others. Run while you can or you'll never run again. Run!

  I ran through the dark, deserted streets, and I felt that I had always been running, that I would always be running. I ran hard and the pursuit retreated. I slowed to catch my breath and the running feet behind grew louder. The dark tenements flashed by on either side.

  I couldn't lose them on a straight run, but they couldn't catch me, either, as long as I kept running. They couldn't cut me off. And I was afraid of the alleys, narrow and dark and unknown. Unknown to me. The Agents knew them. They knew which went all the way through and which were cul-de-sacs, traps for fools. But they would catch me eventually unless I did something besides run.

  I turned a corner and stopped, panting. My gun was in my hand. They were close behind me. I triggered a volley of bolts down the street. The feet stopped and then scuffled cautiously. I crept away.

  I got two blocks before the cry was raised again. My harsh breathing had eased; my heart had slowed a little. But the rest had not been as helpful as I had expected. I realized how close to exhaustion I was.

  I ran, and even though my body was ready to drop, my mind, strangely, was working coldly, calmly. The dark streets rolled by. A place to hide, a place to hide. It was a rhythm of running, a jarring, hopeless rhythm. Siller would have known where to hide. The buildings on either side were not quite so run down. The street seemed brighter. If I only knew these snake-twisted alleys, I could lose the Agents and slip away. The street was brighter; ahead the sky glowed, a reflection from a better-lighted section of the city. If they catch me there, I will have no chance, no chance at all.

  Blindly I ducked into an alley. It was like diving into a black pool. Faintly, as I fled, I heard a voice calling behind. "He went in there! Split up! Box him in and flush.…" It faded away.

  My running foot hit something, something that clanged and started to tip. I felt it moving in the darkness and leaped. My arms closed on smooth, rounded metal. I fell, rolling, the can cradled in my arms.