Watson, Ian - Novel 10 (24 page)

 
          
“It
didn’t screw yours up.’’ Jim did not offer to hand the gun over to Weinberger,
though. Nor did Weinberger seem anxious to be holding it.

 
          
“I’m
going first, Jim. You’ve got three shots to fire at the chopper while you
follow me. Don't worry too much about hitting it!’’

 
          
“Hey
—’’

 
          
But
Weinberger had already yanked the trapdoor open, and was scrambling down the
ladder.

 
          
Nathan
jumped the last half dozen feet to the ground. But he misjudged the distance.
The impact twisted his ankle and he fell, the ankle a sudden ball of pain.
Seizing his ankle, he squeezed it and rubbed — and heard another rifle shot
whine high overhead. The worst of the pain went away quite quickly. Nothing was
broken. Nathan hauled himself to his feet. His ankle was tender but he knew
that he could run — limpingly.

 
          
Thirty
feet above his head, Todhunter seemed to have snagged his jacket on a nail — or
was it between two spars? The man looked too big and ungainly to climb down
properly. Wrenching his coat free, Todhunter loosed another wild shot.

 
          
“The
plane was the net!’’ screamed Nathan. “But Resnick is the harpoon!”

 
          
Nathan
began hobble-running across the grass. Where was the helicopter, damn it? As he
looked, the machine soared right over the tower, and a little bundle was tossed
out.

 
          
Nathan
had a couple of moments to guess what it might be, and to throw himself down
with his eyes shut, before the dynamite exploded.

 
          
Nathan
recovered enough senses to know that he was dying. Something had impaled him.
It was frightfully painful, but somehow it was stopping his life from leaking
out of him all at once.

 
          
He
concentrated. The important thing was: was he dying too quickly, or not quickly
enough? Would he have time for his body to realize that it was dying and begin
sweating to signal Death? He hoped so. On the other hand, if Resnick got to him
too soon he dreaded the prospect of a sudden
coup de grdce.
He fought the pain, so that he could fear the
coup de grdce
.

 
          
Awkwardly
he turned his head. The helicopter was settling down on to grass littered with
wreckage. He couldn’t hear its rotors; he was deaf. The firetower no longer
towered overhead, though some tall timbers stayed drunkenly erect. The tower
and its cabin had been broken up and thrown around. Some piece of the pylon
must be sticking through his body. Like a harpoon.

 
          
‘Praise
be
, my little Death’s here already! Ah no, it\s only
blood . . . spilling, spurting.’

 
          
With
momentary clarity Nathan saw where Todhunter lay. For a moment he couldn’t
quite understand what he saw. Then he realized that Todhunter had lost his
head.
Permanently.

 
          
As
soon as the rotor blades had stopped, Noel Resnick clambered out. The big man
looked about cautiously, saw Todhunter’s headless trunk, and was promptly sick
upon the grass.

 
          
‘Surely
I’ve spent enough time dying by now?
Surely?’

 
          
Nathan’s
vision blurred with a rosy haze. Was this his little Death coming flying to him
now? Or was it Resnick? He summoned up a suitable insult for the man.

 
          
‘Murderer.’

 
          
He
wasn’t sure whether he said this aloud. Actually, he thought, in most other
respects Resnick — Master of the House of Death — was a
saviour
of souls.

 
          
Pain
preoccupied Nathan.

 
          
Jim
swam.
Or flew.
He wasn’t sure which. Rapture possessed
him. He had very little awareness of a body. Ahead, were . . .

 
          
Lights:
great sparkling, beautiful lights!
Shining facets.
Coloured mirrors in which he might see who he was, and become what he saw. He
was tiny, and they were great — with oh so many faces, bright blank faces that
yearned to picture him.

 
          
Not
all of them so yearned.
By no means all.
Many were
already ‘full*, he realized. They were complete. Now he felt panic. He might
not find one, to complete himself.

 
          
But
no; for the further through this medium he went, the more of them were
available. He could sense those from afar. It was as if they scented the medium
with their light, with a most compelling musky scent of light.

 
          
Yet
something made him fly on further, greedily.

 
          
He
was Aladdin, rushing through the cave of silver coins and the cave of gold
coins — where faces were already stamped upon many of the coins — seeking for
the garden with the trees of perfect jewels . . .

 
          
Memory
flooded back. In horror he recalled a tiny wormlike creature with a human face
being dragged willy-nilly through this very place in the beak of a red
bat-moth!

 
          
The
horror died, as he remembered what the bat-moth really was. Then the horror
surged back again, redoubled. Nothing whatever was dragging
him
along — for his own salvation!

 
          
He
knew exactly where he was. And he knew that he had died.
Most
suddenly.

 
          
The
crystal fog was even vaster than he remembered. Or he was much smaller. The
‘gravity’ of the crystals was fully apparent to him now. It was
a gravity
of mood rather than of mass. Those crystals which
were already full repelled him emotionally — and his line of flight obeyed his
emotions. Available jewels tugged from afar. For the time being the various
forces of repulsion and attraction seemed to balance out, allowing him to
proceed as he wished — since he had no desire to be caught. But gradually the
trend was becoming attractive, pulling him more fiercely.

 
          
How
he struggled to keep clear of them. How he willed himself to fly right through,
without coming close to any.

 
          
He
flew for hours, or for minutes. No time existed. Surely he must be nearing the
outer fringes now, so strongly did the empty crystals ache for him! There were
many more empty ones out here.

 
          
But
where was the void beyond them? Where was the lucid emptiness? Was it up? Was
it down? Was it through here?

 
          
The
light appeared to be whiter in one direction, less prismatic . . .

 
          
No!
He turned back.

 
          
He
was losing his strength. His will was ebbing.

 
          
Now
he was in a cul-de-sac, a blind channel bright with azure, rose and golden
icebergs. As he turned sluggishly to escape once more, fighting against some
kind of current which was pressing him the other way, the ice closed up . . .

 
          
As
the monorail
train from Gracchus
sped out of the final black tunnel into the honeyed sunlight, Jim beheld the
enchanted
valley
of
Egremont.
. .

 
          
He
saw the hills aflame, the blue mirror of
Lake
Tulane
, the orchards, farms and factory domes, the
tiny Beadway pods, the peak of the distant House of Death.

 
          
He
sat, numbed by the sight.

 
          
I’m
dead.
Dead.
And here is my crystal prison . . .

 
          
I’m
dead because Noel Resnick shot me. (Did he
shoot
me? Tm not sure, but he certainly killed me.)

 
          
‘And
I know that I’m dead. So here is a world of truth, not fantasy. Here is a
perfect recording of the real world.

 
          
‘How
perfect is it?’

 
          
All
the inhabitants of this recreated Egremont — Marta and Weinberger, Resnick and
Alice Huron — would be the furniture of his own mind. They would be
his own
memories, incarnated. Would they still be able to
act with purposes and motives of their own?

 
          
With
all the strength of his will he concentrated on the passing scene, trying to
shift one single item in it, to force it to change into something else.

 
          
‘That
tree! Let it be a fountain!’

 
          
The
tree was a tree was a tree.

 
          
‘I’m
the Controller — oh yes, I’m that now! — but things won’t obey my control. . .’

 
          
Now
the train was slowing as it approached the station.

 
          
On
impulse he patted his pocket, in case — somehow — the gun

 
          
was
still there; but his pocket was empty of any gun.

 
          
Rising,
he tugged down his valise. Why had he stuck it up there on the luggage rack in
the first place, when the train was empty except for
himself
?
Out of a sense of tidiness, perhaps.
He had always
been worried about bumping into things.

 
          
And
now he had bumped into something which would hold him for an eternity . . .
Though how could that be, if ordinary minutes and hours and days applied in
Egremont? He had no idea. He just felt extraordinarily lonely. Where were the
doors from here into other possible worlds?
Nowhere.
That was the nature of this place.

 
          
‘Hell,’
he thought, ‘is the world come round again.
And Tm in Hell, which
is quite simply Egremont.’

 
          
A
cheerful, buxom woman stood waiting for him on the platform . . .

 
          
Of course.
Who else?
But
could she speak freely
? Could she change her lines? For that matter, could
he?

 
          
“A wonderful day, Jim!”
Marta exclaimed gaily, as they shook
hands.
“And an especially wonderful day for Egremont.”

 
          
“Yes,
Norman Harper’s retiring today, isn’t he?”

 
          
Jim
had not said that last time. He hadn’t known. But Marta was not in the least
put out.

 
          
“Right!
Our P and J: our Pride and Joy. The ceremony’s quite
soon, in fact. We’ll just be in time to catch it.”

 
          
“Quite
an auspicious moment to arrive,” said Jim cautiously. “I suppose Alice Huron is
going to guide him?”

 
          
“Oh
yes. Though how can any of us really guide
his
death? You know
Alice
, do you?”

 
          
He
nodded.

 
          
“She
doesn’t know me, though.”

 
          
Marta’s
eyes narrowed, puzzled.

 
          
“Then
how did you know —?” She faltered. “Oh, I think I see . . .” She began to move
away towards the waiting electric runabout.

 
          
He
caught her by the arm.

 
          
“What
do you see?”

 
          
“Jim
— Mr Todhunter — what’s the matter with you? Do you feel ill?”

 
          
He
let go of her.

 
          
“I’m
all right. Sorry.”

 
          
She
smiled. “It’s just that I don’t like to get involved in, well, any sort of
intrigue. There are so many more
pleasant
things going on.
This beautiful day, to begin with!”

 
          
What
she saw, no doubt, was that he was a secret agent involved in some kind of
House politicking, and he would like to recruit her to his side as an
informant.

 
          
To
put her at her ease Jim said firmly, “Oh, it’s nothing like that — nothing at
all! I assure you, Marta, I really do. I just heard on the grapevine that Alice
Huron was going to guide Harper. That’s all.”

 
          
Reassured,
she led him to the runabout.

 
          
As
they drove along, Marta pointed out the sights of Egremont: Harper Street, the
Farming Co-op, the school complex where she was a guide, the famous Mall where
he could dine on the finest food around at the Three Spires restaurant . . .
She had recovered her jolly composure.

 
          
‘Here
we go again . . .’

 
          
This
time, forewarned — doubly forewarned by his initial
faux pas
with Marta! —
he
must bide his
time and trace out all Resnick’s lines of power. He must work out Resnick’s
exact place in the spider’s web which included Alice Huron and Mary-Ann
Sczepanski and Toni Bekker and which extended he knew not how far, nor with how
many tangles in it. Marta’s reaction to his armgrabbing question had sounded
quite spontaneous, quite free. It had almost set up an entirely different
situation with regard to her, losing him perhaps her friendly trust.

 
          
‘Hell
is a lot more complicated to live in than I thought. . .’He felt no pain as
such. Only the ache of
loneliness,
and the strain of
the exhausting, futile mental acrobatics he would have to perform to lead a
feasible ‘life’ here.

 
          
This
time at least (he promised himself) he must certainly go to bed with someone!
Someone other than Nathan Weinberger . . .

 
          
Weinberger
. . .!
Harper.
The ceremony!

 
          
Marta
and he were driving towards a
murder
,
a murder which was so much a part of him by now that it seemed ordinary and obvious
—
a murder which he could still
prevent
.

 
          
Yet
if he did prevent it, then Weinberger would inevitably remain in Mary-Ann
Sczepanski’s charge, and so by proxy in Resnick’s clutches. Jim would never
have an excuse to work with him.

 
          
“.
.
.I
oughtn’t to tell you, but we’ve fixed up a
‘get-to-know- you’ barbecue out at the
Lake
this evening.”

 
          
“Sounds
great,” said Jim automatically.

 
          
“You
don’t sound very excited.”

 
          
“Oh,
I am. I am.”

 
          
“You
haven’t tasted our local white wine, from the Vinehouse!”

 
          
“I look forward to it, Marta.
Really Ido.”
‘But it won7 happen this evening. It won’t
happen till Friday evening, by which time everything will have changed.

           
‘And I shall be working with Nathan
by then — doing what?

 
          
‘Why,
building a cage for Death!’

 
          
Yes,
the first thing he must do was build a cage for Death, to catch one of those
little red go-between critturs and force it to lead him out of here. Out of
this crystal prison which bound him, in a perfect retake of Egremont. Out into
unspace, into freedom.

 
          
‘It
should take me with it right away. I’m already dead.’

 
          
But
would it be a
real
Death which he
caught in Weinberger’s cage? Could he really summon one of those creatures into
this crystal — or would he only imagine that he did so?

 
          
‘Who
needs to build a cage? I only need the Mike Mullen tape, and I’ve already got
that,
and the Neo-H pills from the pharmacy. And the
pheromone, of course — I need that, and Weinberger has it, left in his sealed
apartment under lock and key. There’s no way of getting in there without
authority. So I’ll have to play along with Nathan’s present fears. We’ll just
have to build the cage, after all. . .’

 
          
But
how could he possibly allow Harper to be murdered, this very afternoon, in
perhaps half an hour or an hour? How could he let the poet be killed by
surprise, so that a very deserving man (his poetry aside) went to Hell?

 
          
“.
. . and that’s the Octagon.
Our Peace Office.”

 
          
There
was, of course, no church in Egremont. Egremont was a model of an enlightened,
well-adjusted community . . .

 
          
But
this particular Norman Harper was only part of the furniture of Jim’s own mind!
As was the Weinberger who waited ahead, with the hidden gun.

 
          
Yet
Marta — and presumably everyone else — appeared to be thoroughly alive. Pinch
Marta and she would squeal, and Jim would suffer the consequehces.

 
          
If
he did pinch her, maybe the runabout would go out of control. Maybe they would
crash.

 
          
At
a sedate fifteen miles per hour this would hardly do much damage — but suppose
they were travelling much faster? Could Jim be killed, when he was already
dead? Alternatively, could he take his own life?

 
          
Would
he simply find himself back on the monorail train, heading into Egremont
forever and forever?

 
          
The
House of Death and the Hospital rose up ahead, twin pyramids clad in gardens.

 
          
Maybe
this had already all happened before not once but many times? With the
difference that
this time
_y
uniqudy, he remembered!

 
          
If
that was so, then the tipsy alien angel called Lai and all the little Deaths
and the whole crystal fog would be the furniture of his mind too!

 
          
Oh,
how this crystal which had encysted him must be feasting on his misery and
doubt!
If the crystal existed at all. . .

 
          
Perhaps
there had once been a ‘real’ world far from here, quite different from Egremont
and Gracchus and the society of death? Jim tried to imagine what it might have
been like.