Away from the shade, the full heat of the sun came down on them, and within a few seconds the benefit of the rest in the shade seemed to vanish. They had gone only a few yards when Rosario passed the baby to Lucia.
She went back to the rocks and disappeared behind them. Helward opened his mouth to ask where she had gone…but then realized. When she returned, Lucia went, and then Caterina. Helward felt his anger returning. They were deliberately delaying him. He felt a pressure in his own bladder, aggravated by realizing what the girls had been doing, but his anger and pride would not allow him to relieve himself. He decided to wait until later.
They walked on. The girls had now discarded the jackets that were common apparel inside the city, and wore only the trousers and shirts. The thin material, damp with perspiration, adhered to their bodies and Helward noticed this despondently, reflecting that under different circumstances he might have found the phenomenon potentially interesting. As things were he registered this new development only so far as to appreciate that each of the girls was of fuller figure than Victoria; Rosario in particular had large, pendulous breasts with protuberant nipples. Later, one of the girls must have noticed his occasional glance, for soon all three of them were walking with their jackets held over their chests. It made no difference to Helward…he just wanted to be rid of them.
“We have water?” said Lucia, crossing over to him.
He rummaged in the pack and gave her the canteen. She drank some, and then moistened the palms of her hands and splashed water over her face and neck. Rosario and Caterina did likewise. The sight and sound of the water was too much for Helward, and his bladder protested anew. He looked around. There was no cover, so he walked some yards away from the girls and relieved himself on to the soil. Behind, he heard them giggling.
When he returned, Caterina held out the canteen to him. He took it and raised it to his lips. Suddenly, Caterina tipped it from below, and the water splashed over his nose and eyes. The girls roared with laughter as he spluttered and chocked. The baby started crying again.
5
They passed two more stay-emplacement marks before evening, and then Helward decided to pitch camp for the night. He selected a site near a clump of trees two or three hundred yards from the scars made by the tracks. A small brook passed nearby, and after testing it for purity—he had no guide other than his own palate—he declared it safe for drinking to conserve the supply in the canteens.
The tent was relatively simple to erect, and although he started the work on his own the girls helped him finish off. As soon as it was up he laid the sleeping-bags inside, and Rosario went in to feed the baby.
When the baby had gone to sleep again, Lucia helped Helward reconstitute the synthetic food. The result this time was an orange-coloured soup and it tasted no better than before. As they were eating, the sun set. Helward had lit a small fire, but soon a wind blew up from the east, chilling them. Finally, they were forced to go inside the tent and lie down inside their sleeping-bags for warmth.
Helward tried to strike up a conversation with the girls but either they did not answer, or they giggled, or made joking references to each other in Spanish, so he soon abandoned the idea. There were a few small candles in the pack of equipment, and Helward lay in the light of these for an hour or two, wondering what possible benefit the city could derive from this pointless expedition of his.
He fell asleep at last, but was awakened twice in the night by the baby crying. On one occasion he could just make out the shape of Rosario against the dim glow from outside, sitting up in her sleeping-bag and suckling the baby.
They were awake early, and set off as soon as they could. Helward wasn’t sure what had happened, but the mood of the girls today was obviously different. As they walked, Caterina and Lucia sang a little, and at their first stop for a drink they tried again to spill the water on him. He moved back to avoid them, but in doing so stumbled on the uneven ground…and spluttered and choked once more for their amusement. Only Rosario maintained a distance, pointedly ignoring him as Lucia and Caterina played up to him. He didn’t enjoy being teased—for he could think of no way of replying—but he preferred it to the bad feeling of the day before.
As the morning progressed and the temperature rose, their mood became more careless. None of the three girls wore her jacket, and at the next stop Lucia undid the top two buttons of her shirt and Caterina opened hers all the way down the front, holding it in place with a large knot and so baring her midriff.
By now Helward could not mistake the effect they were having on him. As familiarity grew, so the atmosphere eased further. Even Rosario did not turn her back on him the next time she suckled her baby.
Relief from the heat came with another patch of woodland, one which Helward could remember helping to clear for the track-layers some miles before. They sat down in the shadows, waiting for the worst of the heat to pass.
They had now passed a total of five cable-stay marks: thirty-three to go. Helward’s mood of frustration at the slowness of their journey was easing; he saw that to travel faster was hardly possible, even if he had been alone. The ground was too hard, the sun too hot.
He decided to wait for two hours in the shadow of the trees. Rosario had moved some way away from him, and was playing with her baby. Caterina and Lucia sat together under a tree. They had taken off their shoes and were talking quietly together. Helward closed his eyes for a few minutes, but soon became restless. He walked out of the trees on his own, and went down to the scars left by the four lines of track. He looked left and right, north and south: the line ran straight and true, undulating slightly with the rise and fall of the ground, but always maintaining its direction.
Enjoying the comparative solitude he stood there for some time, wishing the weather would change and the sky would cloud over, if only temporarily. He debated with himself for a while, trying to decide whether it might be better to rest during the days and travel at night…but considered on balance it would be too risky.
He was about to turn back to the trees when he suddenly saw a movement about a mile to the south of him. At once he was on his guard, and dropped to the ground, lying behind a tree-stump. He waited.
In a moment he saw it again: someone was walking up the track towards him.
Helward remembered his crossbow, folded inside the pack…but already it was too late to go back for it. There was a bush just a yard or two to the side of the stump, and he wriggled over until he was behind it. Now better covered he hoped he might not be seen.
The figure was still coming towards him, and in a few minutes Helward saw to his surprise that the man was wearing the uniform of a guild apprentice. His first impulse was to come out of hiding, but he fought this back and stayed put.
When the man was less than fifty yards away, Helward recognized him. It was Torrold Pelham, a boy several miles older than him who had left the crèche a long time before.
Helward broke cover and stood up.
“Torrold!”
At once, Pelham was on his guard. He raised his crossbow and aimed it at Helward…then slowly lowered it.
“Torrold…it’s me. Helward Mann.”
“God, what are you doing here?”
They laughed together, realizing that they were both here for the same reason.
“You’ve grown up,” said Pelham. “You were just a kid the last time I saw you.”
“Have you been down past?” said Helward.
“Yes.” Pelham stared past him, northwards up the track.
“Well?”
“It’s not what I thought.”
“What’s there?” said Helward.
“You’re down past now. Can’t you feel it?”
“Feel what?”
Pelham looked at him for a moment. “It’s not so bad here. But you can feel it. Perhaps you can’t recognize it yet. It builds up quickly further south.”
“What does? You’re talking in riddles.”
“No…it’s just impossi
ble to explain.” Pelham glanced towards the north again. “Is the city near here?”
“A few miles. Not far.”
“What happened to it? Have they found some way to make it move faster? I’ve only been gone a short time, and the city’s moved much further than I thought it would.”
“It’s gone no faster than normal.”
“There’s a creek back there where a bridge had been built. When was that done?”
“About nine miles ago.”
Pelham shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“You’ve lost your sense of time, that’s all.”
Pelham suddenly grinned. “I expect that’s it. Listen, are you on your own?”
“No,” said Helward. “I’ve got three girls with me.”
“What are they like?”
“They’re O.K. It was a bit difficult at first, but we’re getting to know each other now.”
“Good lookers are they?”
“Not bad. Come and see.”
Helward led the way back through the trees until the girls came into view.
Pelham whistled. “Hey…they’re all right. Have you…you know?”
“No.”
They walked back towards the track.
Pelham said: “Are you going to?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Take a tip, Helward…if you’re going to, do it soon. Otherwise it’ll be too late.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see.”
Pelham gave him a cheery grin, then continued on his way northwards.
Thoughts and intentions in the direction to which Pelham had been alluding were put out of Helward’s mind almost at once. Rosario fed her baby before they set off, and they had been walking only a few minutes when the child was violently sick.
Rosario hugged it to her, crooning quietly, but there was little anyone could do. Lucia stood by her, speaking sympathetically to her. Helward was worried, because if the child were seriously ill there was not much else they could do but return to the city. Soon, though, the baby stopped retching, and after a lusty crying session it quietened down.
“Do you want to go on?” Helward said to Rosario.
She shrugged helplessly. “Si.”
They walked on more slowly. The heat had not abated much, and several times Helward asked the girls if they wanted to stop. Each time they said no, but Helward detected that a subtle change had come over all four of them. It was if the minor tragedy had drawn them together.
“We’ll camp tonight,” said Helward. “And rest all day tomorrow.”
There was agreement to this and when Rosario fed the baby again a little later, this time it kept the milk down.
Just before nightfall they passed through countryside which was more hilly and rocky than that they had seen so far, and suddenly they came to the chasm that had caused so much trouble to the Bridge-Builders. There was not much sign now of where the bridge had been, although the foundations of the suspension towers had left two large scars in the ground on this side.
Helward remembered a patch of level ground on the northern bank of the stream at the bottom of the chasm, and he led the way down.
Rosario and Lucia fussed over the baby, while Caterina helped Helward erect the tent. Suddenly, while they were laying out the four sleeping-bags inside, Caterina put a hand on his neck and kissed him lightly on the cheek.
He grinned at her. “What’s that for?”
“You O.K. with Rosario.”
Helward stayed put, thinking that the kiss might be repeated, but Caterina crawled backwards from the tent and called the others.
The baby looked better, and fell asleep when it was put into its makeshift cot inside the tent. Rosario said nothing about the child, but Helward could tell she felt less worried. Perhaps it had been wind.
The evening was much warmer than the night before, and after they had eaten they stayed outside the tent for some time. Lucia was concerned with her feet, rubbing them continually, and the other girls seemed to be making much of this. She showed her feet to Helward, and he saw that large calluses had appeared on the outer sides of her toes. Feet were compared at great length, the other girls saying that theirs were sore too.
“Tomorrow,” said Lucia, “no shoes.”
That seemed to be an end to it.
Helward waited outside the tent as the girls crawled inside. The previous night it had been so cold that all of them had slept with their clothes on inside the sleeping-bags, but as it was now warm and humid that was clearly out of the question. A certain coyness in Helward made him resolve that he would keep his own clothes on, and sleep on top of the bag, but a fast-developing interest in the girls led his thoughts to wilder fantasies about what they might do. After a few minutes, he crawled into the tent. The candles were alight.
Each of the three girls was inside her own bag, although Helward saw from the pile of clothes that they had undressed. He said nothing to them, but blew out the candles and undressed in the dark, stumbling and falling clumsily in the process. He lay down, only too aware of Caterina’s body lying close beside him in the next sleeping-bag. He stayed awake for a long time, trying to rid himself of a fierce manifestation of his arousal. Victoria seemed to be a long way away.
6
It was daylight when he awoke and, after a futile attempt to get dressed while still in his sleeping-bag, Helward scrambled out of the tent naked and dressed hurriedly outside. He lit the camp-fire, and began to heat some water to make synthetic tea.
Here at the bottom of the chasm it was already warm, and Helward wondered again whether they should move on, or rest for a day as he had promised.
The water boiled, and he sipped his tea. Inside the tent he heard movement. In a moment Caterina came out, and walked past him towards the stream.
Helward stared after her: she was wearing only her shirt, which was unbuttoned all down the front and swinging open, and a pair of pants. When she reached the water, she turned and waved back at him.
“Come!” she called.
Helward needed no further bidding. He went down to her, feeling clumsy in his uniform and metal-studded boots.
“We swim?” she said, and without waiting for an answer slipped her shirt off, stepped out of her pants, and waded down into the water. Helward glanced back at the tent: nothing moved.
In a few seconds he had taken his clothes off, and was splashing through the shallows towards her. She turned and faced him, grinning when she saw the response in him she had caused. She splashed water at him, and turned away. Helward leaped at her, getting his arms around her…and together they fell sideways full-length into the water.
Caterina wriggled away from him, and stood up. She skipped away from him through the shallows, throwing up a huge spray. Helward followed, and caught her at the bank. Her face was serious. She raised her arms around his neck, and pulled his face down to hers. They kissed for a few moments, then clambered up out of the water and into the long grass growing on the bank. They lay down together and started to kiss again, more deeply.
By the time they had disentangled, got dressed, and returned to the tent, Rosario and Lucia were eating a pile of yellow gruel. Neither of them said anything, but Helward saw Lucia smile at Caterina.
Half an hour later the baby was sick again…and as Rosario was holding it concernedly, she suddenly thrust the baby into Lucia’s arms and rushed away. A few seconds later, she could be heard retching beside the stream.
Helward said to Caterina: “Do you feel O.K.?”
“Yes.”
Helward sniffed the food they had been eating. It smelt normal…unappetizing, but not tainted. A few minutes later, Lucia complained of intense stomach pains, and she went very pale.
Caterina wandered away.
Helward was desperate. The only course open to them now seemed to be to return to the city. If their food had become foul, how would they survive the rest of the journey?
After a while, Ro
sario returned to the camp-site. She looked weak and pale, and she sat down on the ground in the shade. Lucia gave her some water from the canteen. Lucia herself looked white and was holding her stomach, and the baby continued to scream. Helward was not prepared to cope with a situation like this, and hadn’t the least idea of what to suggest.
He went in search of Caterina, who had seemed to be unaffected.
About a hundred yards down the chasm he came across her. She was walking back towards the camp-site with an armful of apples which, she said, she had found growing wild. They looked red and ripe, and Helward tasted one. It was sweet and juicy…but then he remembered Clausewitz’s warning. His reason told him Clausewitz was wrong, but reluctantly he gave it to Caterina and she ate the rest.
They baked one of the apples in the embers of the fire, and then pulped it. In tiny mouthfuls, they fed it to the baby. This time it kept the food down and made happy noises. Rosario was still too weak to attend to it, so Caterina laid it down in its cot and within minutes it was asleep.
Lucia was not sick, although her stomach continued to give her pain for most of the morning. Rosario recovered more quickly, and ate one of the apples.
Helward ate the rest of the yellow synthetic food…and it did not make him ill.
Later in the day, Helward climbed up to the top of the creek and walked along its northern side. Here, a few miles back in time, lives had been lost in the cause of getting the city to cross this chasm. The scene was still familiar to him, and although most of the equipment used by the city had been collected, those long days and nights spent racing to complete the bridge were still very vivid in his memory. He looked across to the southern side, at the very place where the bridge had been built.
The gap did not look as wide as it had done then, nor did the chasm look so deep. Perhaps his excitement at the time had exaggerated his impression of the obstacle the chasm presented.
But no…surely the chasm had been wider?
The Inverted World Page 13
