Night Walk (14 page)

He tried again. This time the sound of the shot was followed by a deep
bark of pain and surprise. He got images of crazily rotating sky and
ground, then a close-up of grassy roots, which swiftly darkened into
night. Mentally reeling from the shock of his own vicarious death,
Tallon reselected for the next dog. He saw himself in the same tree,
but much closer this time --
and from the back
.
Twisting awkwardly in the confined space of the tree trunks, Tallon fired
instinctively and was rewarded by instantaneous blindness. That meant he
had made a perfect kill. Wondering at the effectiveness of the little
weapon, he ran his fingers over the machined metal and discovered that
the muzzle, instead of being a simple circle, was a cluster of six tiny
openings. Amanda Weisner apparently took no chances when she chose a
weapon. The automatic was the kind that fired six ultra high-velocity
slugs at a time, one from the center and five from slightly divergent
barrels. At close range the small gold-plated automatic would obliterate
a man; at longer distances it was a pocket-sized riot gun.
Not hearing any movement close by, Tallon pressed the number one stud --
Seymour's -- and got only blackness. With a pang of grief, he tried the
eyeset on "search and hold," and picked up the third dog. It was moving
through the heavy shrubbery quite slowly, and there was redness over
the blurred area of snout obtruding in the lower edge of the picture.
Angry now, and with confidence in his armament, Tallon got out of the
tree. Moving with noisy carelessness, he picked up his fallen pack and
went up the hill in the direction of the house. As he had left the eyeset
tuned in on the remaining dog, he was blind as far as his own movements
were concerned, and he kept his arms outstretched in case he hit any
trees. He could have fished the sonar torch out of the pack, but he was
not expecting to get far before seeing himself through the third dog's
eyes. His guess was correct. The dog burst through the close-packed
bushes, and Tallon got a dim picture of his own figure trudging toward
the house. Once again the ground began to flow underneath in great
flying bounds.
He waited until his back filled the picture before he turned, with the
flaming automatic jarring his wrist, and put out the lights. That's for
you, Seymour, he thought. For services rendered.
Tallon turned his attention to the problem of getting into the house
without Seymour's aid. Ike had told him Carl Juste lived alone in his
semi-mansion, so he was not worried about having to deal with more than
one person; but he could not see and the untended wound had turned his
shoulders into a rigid area of pain. Besides, the noise made by the
gun and the dogs could have alerted Juste. It occurred to Tallon that
if Juste was making use of the other eyeset he must have one or more
animals of some sort near him.
Tallon put the eyeset back on "search and hold," but got no picture.
He then got out the sonar torch and, with its help, hurried toward the
house. Only four or five minutes had elapsed since be climbed the steel
gates. As he neared the house he began to get dark, fleeting images;
the only recognizable feature was a near-bright oblong area that was a
window viewed from inside the house.
He was unable to decide if it was really that dark inside, or if the
eyeset was on the point of final failure. Closer still, with his feet
on what seemed to be a paved patio, he made out other details. He was
looking at a lavishly furnished bedroom, apparently from a point quite
high on one of the walls. As he was trying to figure out what sort of
creature would provide such an unusual view, another area of the room
became relatively clear.
A powerfully built bearded man was sitting up in the bed with his head
tilted in the attitude of someone straining to hear. He seemed to be
wearing heavy spectacles.
The high-pitched scream of the sonar told Tallon he had almost walked into
a wall. He swung left and went along the Wall, hand over hand, looking for
a door. In the bedroom the man stood up and took something like a pistol
from a drawer. Tallon's hands found the recess of a window. He swung his
pack at it but the tough glass bounced it back at him. Stepping back a
few paces, he raised the automatic and blasted the glass out of its frame.
While he was scrambling blindly into the room, his view of the bedroom
shifted abruptly, and in a characteristic manner with which Tallon had
become familiar. The seeing creature was a bird, possibly a falcon,
which had just flown to its master's shoulder. Tallon saw the bedroom
door grow large in his dim vision, and knew Juste was coming to find
the intruder. He ran recklessly across the room he was in, wondering
how he was going to fare in the weird battle about to take place. Both
men were seeing through the same third pair of eyes, so each would see
exactly what the other saw. But Juste had two advantages: He had almost
no disorientation, because his eyes were perched on his own shoulder;
and his eyeset was in good condition.
Tallon considered the possibility of avoiding any kind of a fight. Perhaps
if he told Juste who he was and why he was here, they would be able to work
something out. He found a door in the room's inner wall and turned the knob.
The picture he was getting as he did so was a view from a landing looking
downstairs into a spacious hall with doors on each side, which meant
Juste had come out of his bedroom and was waiting for Tallon's next move.
Tallon eased the door open and saw a dark crack appear at the edge of
one of the doors in the hall. As always, he experienced a strange dismay
at the feeling of being in two places at once.
"Juste," he shouted through the opening, "let's not be stupid.
I'm Sam Tallon -- the guy who invented that thing you're wearing. I want
to talk to you."
There was a long silence before Juste answered. "Tallon?
What are you doing here?"
"I can explain that. Are we going to talk?"
"All right. Come out of the room."
Tallon began to open the door wider, then saw he was looking at the dark
crack along the barrel of a heavy, blued-steel pistol.
"I thought we agreed not to be stupid, Juste," he shouted. "I'm wearing
an eyeset too. I'm tuned in on your bird, and I'm looking right down
the sights of that gun you have in your hand." Tallon had just become
aware of his one slight advantage -- the man who had the eyes with him
was bound to transmit tactical intelligence to the opposition.
"Very well, Tallon. I'm setting my pistol on the floor and stepping away
from it. You can see that, I presume. You leave yours on the floor in there
and come out, and we'll talk."
"All right." Tallon set the automatic down and went out into the hall.
In the dimness of the picture from his eyeset he saw himself emerge from
the doorway. He felt uneasy, not because he suspected Juste would cheat,
but because he knew he himself would probably have to cheat to get what
he wanted. Halfway to the foot of the stairs he halted, wondering how
he could ever separate Juste from the eyeset without violence.
Juste must have given some kind of signal to the bird, but Tallon missed
it. Only because he was already familiar with the swooping sensations of
bird flight saved Tallon from being numbed by dislocation when the attack
came. As his own image ballooned up he dived for the door; he had reached
it when the clawing fury descended on his shoulders. Hunching to protect
his jugular, Tallon fought through the door, feeling razors slicing cloth
and skin. He slammed the door hard, catching the bird between its edge
and the jamb, and drove his weight against it. There was a harsh scream,
and it was black again.
He discovered one claw was hooked right through the tendons in the back
of his left hand. Working in blindness, he took the knife out of the pack
and hacked the claw free from the bird. It was still buried in his hand,
but that would have to wait. He scanned with the eyeset, got no picture,
picked up his automatic, and opened the door again.
"Dark, isn't it, Juste?" His voice was hoarse as he shouted into the hall.
"You should keep more than one bird in the house. We'll dispense with
our talk. I'm going to take those eyes back from you and be on my way."
"Don't try to come near me, Tallon." Juste fired two deafening shots in
the confines of the hall, but neither of the slugs came near Tallon.
"Don't waste your ammunition. You can't see me, but I can get to you, Juste.
I have something Helen didn't take, and it doesn't need eyes."
The pistol roared again, and was followed by the sound of tinkling glass.
Guided by the electrical tones of the sonar, Tallon ran for the foot of
the stairs and stumbled up them. He reached Juste about halfway up, and
they came down hard, fighting. Tallon, sick with fear for the remaining
good eyeset, wasted no time on his bigger, stronger, though untrained,
opponent. Initiating the rhythms of the Block-developed pressure-feedback
combat system, Tallon held nothing back; and before they had reached
the floor Juste was a dead weight.
Tallon, who had been cradling the big man's head during the last part
of the fall, took off Juste's eyeset and exchanged it for his own. All
that remained now was to find some more money and food, then get out in
a hurry.
Wishing there were some way to test the eyeset for possible damage, he put
it on "search and hold" and was amazed when he got a picture. Sharp, strong,
and beautifully clear.
A close-up of a heavy polished entrance door swinging open, and beyond it,
the frozen tableau of himself crouched over the sprawling form of Carl
Juste. Tallon was able to see the shocked expression on his own hunted,
blood-streaked face.
" You!" a woman cried out, "what have you done to my brother?"
fourteen
"Your brother's all right," Tallon said. "He fell down the stairs.
We were arguing."
"Arguing! I heard the shots as I drove up to the house. I'll report this
immediately." Helen Juste's voice was cold and crackling with anger.
Tallon raised the automatic. "Sorry. Come in and close the door behind you."
"You realize how serious this is?"
"I haven't been laughing much." Tallon stood back while she closed the
door and went to her brother. He wished he could look at Helen Juste,
but as she had the only functioning eyes in the house, he saw nothing
except her neatly manicured hands moving over Carl Juste's unconscious
face. As before, in her presence he was aware of powerful stirrings
deep within him. Her hand came away from the back of Juste's head,
with traces of blood in the lines of the palm.
"My brother needs medical attention."
"I've told you he's all right. He'll sleep for a while. You can tape up
that cut if you want." Tallon spoke confidently, knowing he had given
Juste's nervous system enough abuse to keep him under for perhaps an hour.
"I want to do that," she said; and Tallon noticed the complete absence
of fear in her voice. "1 have a first-aid kit in my car."
"In your car?"
"Yes. I'm not likely to drive off and leave my brother alone with you."
"Get it then." Tallon had an uneasy feeling he was losing the
initiative. He walked to the door with her and waited while she went to
her car and took the kit from a compartment. The car was a sleeL luxury
job with gravity negator skids in place of wheels, which was why he
had not heard it arrive. He watched her hands at work with the gauze
pads and tape, and he almost envied Carl Juste for a moment. Tallon's
head ached, his shoulders were on fire, and he was way beyond ordinary
tiredness. Lying down to sleep when you are tired, he thought, was a
pleasure more exquisite than eating when you were hungry, or drinking
when you were thirsty. . . .
"Why did you do this, Detainee Tallon? You must have realized my brother
is blind." She spoke almost abstractedly as she worked.
"Why did
you
do it? We could have made three eyesets, six, a dozen.
Why did you allow the Doc and me to have them when you were planning
to take them away from us?"
"I was prepared to stretch the law for the sake of my brilliant brother,
not for the sake of convicted enemies of the government," she said stiffly.
"Besides, you still haven't explained this senseless attack."
"My eyeset got damaged, so I had to take this one." Tallon felt a wave
of irritation, and his voice rose. "As for the senseless attack, if you
look around you'll find a few bullet holes in the walls. And none of
them were made by me."
"Nevertheless, my brother is a harmless recluse, and you are a trained
killer."
"Listen, you," Tallon shouted, wondering what the conversation was really
all about, "I have a brain too, and I'm not a -- " He broke off as he
discovered her eyes had left her brother and were giving him a steady
picture of his own left hand.
"What's wrong with your hand?" She sounded, at last, like a woman.
Tallon had forgotten the embedded claw. "Your harmless brother had a harmless
feathered friend. That's part of its undercarriage."
"He promised me," she whispered. "He promised me not to -- "
"Louder, please."
There was a silence before she answered, speaking normally again.
"It's hideous. I'll remove it for you."
"I'd be grateful." Suddenly weak, Tallon stood by while she covered her
brother with a blanket. They went through a door at the rear of the hall
and into a chrome and white kitchen that bore traces of untidy bachelor
living. Helen Juste was carrying the first-aid kit. He sat at the
cluttered table and allowed her to work on his hand. The touch of her
fingers seemed only slightly more substantial than the recurrent warmth
of her breath on the torn skin. He resisted the temptation to bask in
the welcome feeling of being cared for. New Wittenburg was a long way
to the north, and this woman was a new obstacle to his getting there.
"Tell me," she said, "is Detainee Winfield really . . . ?"
"Dead," Tallon supplied. "Yes. The rifles got him."
"I'm sorry."
"For a convicted enemy of the Lutheran government. You surprise me."
"Don't try that approach with me, Detainee Tallon. I know what you did
to Mr. Cherkassky when you were arrested."