The Wind From Nowhere

by J. G. Ballard

  Hardoon shrugged. “Years ago. The bunkers were originally designed as my personal shelter in the event of World War III, but the pyramid was completed only this month.”

  Maitland pressed on. “What are you hoping to gain? Supreme political control when the wind subsides?”

  Hardoon turned and stared at Maitland, an expression of incredulity on his face.

  “Is that what occurs to you, Doctor? You can think of no other motive?”

  Maitland shrugged, somewhat taken aback by Hardoon’s reaction. “Your own immediate survival, of course. With the backing of a large, well-run organization.”

  Hardoon smiled bleakly. “It’s astonishing, how the weak always judge the strong by their own limited standards. It’s precisely for this reason that you’re here.” Before Maitland could ask him to expand upon this he said: “Surely the unusual design of this shelter indicates my real motives. In fact, up to now I assumed this was the case. It must be obvious that if survival and the maintenance of a powerful and well-equipped private army were my object I would certainly not choose to house myself in an exposed pyramid.”

  “It is a vantage point,” Maitland pointed out. “As you’ve just demonstrated, it makes an excellent observation post.”

  “To observe what? That window is only sixty feet above ground. What could I hope to see?”

  “Nothing, I suppose. Except the wind.”

  Hardoon bowed his head slightly. “Doctor, you are entirely correct. The wind is, indeed, all I wish to see from here. And at the same time I intend it to see me.” He paused, then went on. “As the wind has risen so everyone on the globe has built downward, trying to escape it; has burrowed further and deeper into the shelter of the earth’s mantle. With one exception—myself. I alone have built upward, have dared to challenge the wind, asserting Man’s courage and determination to master nature. If I were to claim political power—which, most absolutely, I will not—I would do so simply on the basis of my own moral superiority. Only I, in the face of the greatest holocaust ever to strike the earth, have had the moral courage to attempt to outstare nature. That is my sole reason for building this tower. Here on the surface of the globe I meet nature on her own terms, in the arena of her choice. If I fail, Man has no right to assert his innate superiority over the unreason of the natural world.”

  Maitland nodded, watching Hardoon closely. The millionaire had spoken in a quiet clipped voice, using neither gesture nor emphasis. He realized that Hardoon was almost certainly sincere, and wondered to himself whether this made him less or more dangerous. How much was he prepared to sacrifice to put his philosophy to the test?

  “Well, if what you say is true, it’s a spectacular gesture. But surely there are equal challenges to one’s moral courage in everyday life?”

  “For you, perhaps. But my talents and position force me to play my role on a larger stage. You probably think me an insane megalomaniac. How else, though, can I demonstrate my moral courage? As an industrialist, moral courage is less important than judgment and experience. What should I do? Found a university, endow a thousand scholarships, give away my money to the poor? But a single signature on a check will do these for me, and I know that with my talents I will never be destitute. Fly to the moon? I’m too old. Face bravely the prospect of my own death? But my health is still sound. There is nothing, no other way in which I can prove myself.”

  Maitland found himself smiling. “In that case, I can only wish you luck. As you’ve said, this is a private duel between yourself and the wind. So you’ll have no objections to our collecting Symington and going on our way.”

  Hardoon raised a hand. “Unfortunately, I do, Doctor. Why do you think I’ve brought you up here? Now, I think, you understand my real motives, but did you even five minutes ago? I doubt it. In fact, you thought I was avid for political power and taking advantage of my industrial interests to seize a defenseless world. And so will everybody else. Not that it matters particularly, but I would like my stand here to serve as an example to others faced with similar challenges in the future. I claim no credit for any courage I show, and any due to me I gladly pass on to homo sapiens, my brother-at-large.” Hardoon gestured with his cigar. “Now, by a stroke of fortune two of your companions are newspaper reporters, both highly placed members of their profession. Given the right frame of mind, the right perspective, they might well prepare an accurate record of what is taking place here.”

  “Have you asked them?”

  “Of course, but like all journalists they are interested, not in the truth, but in news. They were frankly mystified; they probably thought I was trying to pull their legs.”

  “You want me to change their perspectives?”

  “Exactly. Do you think you can?”

  “Possibly.” Maitland pointed to the walls around them. “Are you sure this pyramid can stand up to the wind indefinitely?”

  “Absolutely!” Hardoon scoffed. “The walls are thirty feet thick; they’ll carry the impact of a dozen hydrogen bombs. Five hundred miles an hour is a trivial speed. The paper-thin plating of aircraft fuselages withstand it comfortably.”

  When Maitland seemed doubtful, Hardoon added: “Believe me, Doctor, you need have no fears. This pyramid is completely separate from the old air-raid shelters. That is the whole point. The entire pyramid is above ground; there are no foundation members whatever. The shelters where you and the other personnel stay are two hundred yards away. This pyramid will withstand ten-thousand-mile-an-hour gales, a hundred thousand, if you can imagine such a speed. I am not joking. With the exception of this apartment the pyramid is a solid block of reinforced concrete weighing nearly twenty-five thousand tons, completely immovable, like the deep bunkers in Berlin which even high explosives could not destroy and which have remained where they were to this day.”

  Hardoon waved to the guards waiting by the door.

  “Kroll, Dr. Maitland is ready to be shown to his quarters.” As the big guard ambled over to the desk, Hardoon looked up at Maitland. “I think you understand me, Doctor. You are a man of science, accustomed to weighing evidence objectively. I put my case in your hands.”

  “How long will we have to stay here?” Maitland asked.

  “Until the wind subsides. A few weeks perhaps. Is it so important? You will find nowhere safer. Remember, Doctor, a footnote to history is being made here. Think in other categories, in a wider context.”

  As he walked out with one of the guards, Maitland noticed that the shutters were retracting. Hardoon sat at his chair before the window, staring out as the thousand fragments of a disintegrating world soared past in a ceaseless bombardment. Just before the door closed behind Maitland the sounds of the wind rose up tumultuously.

  From Hardoon’s suite in the apex they took a small elevator down through the matrix of the pyramid to the communicating tunnel which ran to the bunker system 200 yards away. Maitland walked along the damp concrete uneasily, aware of the massive weight of the structure overhead, counting the dim lights strung along the tunnel.

  He wondered whether there was any point in trying to argue with Hardoon. But, as Hardoon had said, for the time being, the issue of personal freedom aside, there would be little point in trying to leave. Besides, Hardoon was probably ruthless. Not only did the behavior of his armed guards indicate this, but unless he compelled their absolute loyalty the entire organization would have long since collapsed.

  As they neared the midpoint of the tunnel the floor swayed slightly under their feet. Caught off balance, Maitland stumbled against the wall. The guard steadied him with one hand. Thanking him, Maitland noticed the expression on his face, a faint but nonetheless detectable hint of alarm.

  “What’s the matter?” Maitland asked him.

  The guard, a tall, slim-faced boy with a light stubble under his helmet strap, scowled uneasily. “What do you mean?”

  Maitland paused. “You looked worried.”

  The guard eyed him balefully, watching for any suspicious move, then
muttered obscurely. They walked on. The floor underfoot was an inch deep in water. Unmistakably, Maitland noticed, the tunnel walls were shifting.

  “How deep down are we?” he asked.

  “Fifty feet. Maybe less now.”

  “You mean the subsoil’s going? Good God, the wind will soon be stripping these bunkers down to their roofs.” The guard grunted at this. “What’s the subsoil here—clay?”

  “No idea,” the guard said. “Gravel, or something like that.”

  “Gravel?” Maitland stopped.

  “What’s the matter with gravel?” the guard asked, his mouth fretting.

  “Nothing in particular, except that it’s pretty mobile.” Maitland pointed to the tunnel walls—they were now midway—and asked: “Why’s the tunnel leaking? The walls are shifting around. They must be cracked somewhere.”

  The guard shrugged. “Wait till you see the bunkers. They’re like a ship’s bilge.”

  “But the walls aren’t actually moving, surely?” Maitland examined one of the hairline cracks high up on the ceiling. It widened as it neared the floor. Below their feet it was at least six inches broad, the opposing lips only held together by the net of reinforcing bars. Water seeped through steadily, fanning out across the cement.

  “A couple of engineers from Construction were down here yesterday,” the guard confided. “They were talking about the underground stream loosening the ground or something.”

  “You’d better warn the old boy,” Maitland said. “He’s liable to be cut off if this tunnel fills up.”

  “He’ll be OK He’s got everything he needs up there. Refrigerators full of food and water, his own generator.”

  The guard looked uneasily along the tunnel. As they stepped through the tunnel and waited for Kroll to join them, Maitland glanced back and saw that the tunnel dipped sharply in the center. The two sections inclined upward at an angle of two or three degrees.

  With Kroll leading, occasionally stopping to shoulder Maitland ahead of him, they walked along a maze of corridors, stairways, and dimly lit ramps traversed by huge ventilator shafts and power cables. Generators charged continually, providing an unvarying background to the sounds of steel boots ringing on metal steps, voices bellowing orders. Now and then, through an open doorway, Maitland could see men in shirt sleeves slumped on trestle beds, crammed together among their gear in the minute cubicles.

  They moved down a stairway toward the lowest level of the bunker system. Maitland estimated that at least 400 men were accommodated in the network of shelters, along with enough supplies to maintain them for six months. The corridors were lined with steel and wooden crates similar to the ones he had seen in Marshall’s warehouse, overflowing from the big store chambers he had glimpsed on arrival.

  Finally they emerged into the lowest level and entered a damp narrow cul de sac, at the end of which a couple of guards idled under a single light. They pulled themselves to attention as Kroll appeared and saluted him quickly, then unlocked a small door in the right-hand wall.

  Kroll jerked his thumb at Maitland, bundled him brusquely through the doorway and slammed it behind him.

  Maitland found the others inside, sitting on the beds around the wall, in the dull red gloom of a single storm bulb mounted over the door. Lanyon let out a low cheer when he saw Maitland, and helped him off with his jacket. Patricia Olsen lit him a cigarette, and Maitland stretched out gratefully on one of the hard horsehair mattresses.

  “You’ve seen him, have you, Doctor?” Lanyon asked when Maitland had rested. “He told you all about his moral stand against the hurricane?”

  Maitland nodded, his eyes half closed with fatigue. “The whole thing. He even showed me the wind tapping at his magic window. He’s obviously out of his mind.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Bill Waring, the other reporter, chipped in. He sat on his bed, pensively smoking a cigarette. “In fact, his instinct of self-preservation may be stronger than we think. This is the most organized set-up I’ve come across. Three or four hundred trained men, half a dozen big vehicles, a radio station, agents all over the country—it’s a really well-run military unit. The moral stand is probably just the sauce. I figure we ought to look ahead to the next stage, when the wind dies down and he finds he really can run the whole show if he wants to.”

  Patricia Olsen, resting on another of the beds, nodded in agreement. “He’ll discover some other moral drive then, of course.” She shuddered, only half playfully. “Can you just see friend Kroll as executive vice-president?”

  Lanyon smiled at her. “Relax. As long as Hardoon wants an attractive newswriter around you’ll be safe.” He turned to Maitland, lowering his voice and glancing back at the door. “Seriously, I’ve been trying to think up some way of getting us out of here.”

  “I’m with you,” Maitland said. “But how?”

  “Well, I was just explaining to Pat and Bill that probably the quickest method is for them to play along with Hardoon, produce a highly colored extravaganza about this lone hero outstaring the wind and so on. If he’s sure we’re sincere we can probably sell him on the idea that the story should be given a worldwide spread immediately.”

  “To encourage everyone,” Bill Waring concluded. “Help us keep our chins up. I agree, it’s the best bet.”

  Pat Olsen nodded. “We could easily do it. If he’s got a cine camera around here we could even take some shots of him at his peephole.” She shook her head ruefully. “My, oh my, but he really is a gone one.”

  “Where are the radio operator and the driver?” Maitland asked.

  “They joined the local forces,” Lanyon said. With a smile he added: “Don’t look so shocked; it’s an established military tradition. Kroll even offered to make me corporal.”

  ♦

  For five days they remained sealed within the bunker. The doors into the corridor remained locked. Food was brought to them twice a day by two guards, but apart from an occasional routine check they were left virtually alone. The guards were curt and uncommunicative, and conveyed that some sort of activity was taking place on the upper levels which occupied most of the personnel for much of the day and night.

  Their bunker was on the lowest level of the system, some 200 feet below ground. The corridor led past a small washroom to a spiral staircase which carried upward to the next level, and Maitland’s impression was that a large number of similar annexes had been built out off the main group of shelters.

  The air, carried to them by a small ventilator, was damp and acrid, often mixed with the fumes of diesel engines, constantly varying in pressure from a powerful blast that chilled the room, spattering everything with an oily dust, to a low drift of warm air that made them sluggish and uncomfortable.

  Maitland traced this to carbon-monoxide contamination, and asked one of the guards if he could check the inlet pipe, presumably mounted in the transport bays. But the man was unhelpful.

  While Pat Olsen and Waring began to concoct their story of Hardoon’s stand against the wind, Lanyon and Maitland did what they could to plan an escape. Maitland made several requests for an interview with Hardoon; nothing, however, came of this. Nor could he gain any news of Andrew Symington.

  One thing they were spared—the monotonous drone of the wind. Deep in the bunker, they could hear nothing except the tap leaking in the washroom, the sounds of metal shoes slamming on the staircase above. Their energy dulled by the news that there was no sign of the wind’s abatement—in fact, the speed had risen steeply now to 550 mph—they slumped about on the beds, half asleep, drugged by the carbon-monoxide fumes.

  Waking some time after midnight, Maitland stirred, trying to return to sleep, then lay on his back in the thin red gloom of the storm bulb, listening to the sounds of his companions asleep. His bed was beside the door, with Lanyon at his feet, Waring and Pat Olsen along the far wall below the ventilator.

  Outside in the corridor a few night sounds shifted through the darkness—steam pipes chuntering, orders being shouted, fre
ight loaded or unloaded in one of the storerooms on the next level.

  Sometime later he woke again and found himself sweating uneasily. Everything around him was strangely quiet, the breathing of his companions obviously labored.

  Then he realized that the ventilator had stopped, its steady bellowslike action no longer overlaying the other noises in the bunker.

  One sound alone stood out—the regular ping, ping, ping of a dripping tap, falling into a basin of water only a few feet away from him.

  Inclining his head, Maitland suddenly saw the drip move through the air, the minute sparkle of light reflected in the red storm lamp.

  Involuntarily, he sat up on one elbow, pushing away the tarpaulin square which served him as a blanket.

  The drip was coming from the ventilator! The drops followed each other at half-second intervals, their rate of fall increasing as he listened.

  Swinging his legs off the bed, he put his feet on the floor, then looked down in astonishment to see a wide pool of water almost reaching to his ankles.

  “Lanyon! Waring!” he shouted. He leaped up as the others dragged themselves out of sleep, and pulled on his leather boots. Waring peered into the silent ventilator shaft, from which a steady trickle of water now emerged, pouring forward into the center of the floor.

  “There’s no air coming through!” Waring shouted at the others. Must be a break somewhere up above.

  Lanyon and Maitland splashed over to the door and began to pound on the panels, shouting at the tops of their voices. Overhead, somewhere along the stairway, they could hear confused shouting, the sounds of feet running in all directions and of bulkheads being slammed.

  Black, oil-stained water was pushing in a steady stream below the door, reaching up the walls. Pat Olsen jumped up on Maitland’s bed and crouched on the rail. Outside in the corridor the water appeared to be three or four inches deep, and was splashing noisily down the stairway. As Maitland and Lanyon heaved their shoulders against the steel door panels, the jet from the ventilator suddenly increased, throwing up a fountain that splashed across their backs.