Nova 2 Page 11

  Waldas noticed that the children got along better than the adults. His neighbor’s two sons were afraid at first, but the constant proximity of their companions encouraged them to go out on explorations which became difficult to control. They were scolded and even pad-died, something which provoked the intervention of conciliatory voices.

  Finally, much to Waldas’ surprise, they achieved a routine for the trips to the bathroom, washing up and bathing at the edge of the river, the important hours for the meals which were becoming more and more insipid—wilted greens, cucumbers, tomatoes, papaya, oatmeal, milk, honey, not always identifiable by their sense of taste. No catastrophe, no human event would have been more extraordinary or more dangerous than this one. If the blackness which enveloped them brought physical discomfort and problems, it was nothing compared to the thoughts that the impenetrable wall distilled into their minds. Might it be the end of the world that people had predicted since time immemorial? They had to put aside this sinister prospect and keep on taking care of the common essential things such as feeding and clothing the body. Many prayed aloud, asking for a miracle.

  Without sight to distract one’s mind, it was difficult to endure the idle moments. Dedication to work was exaggerated. Would the world return to normal or would they all die slowly? This constituted a crushing dilemma, weightier than the darkness suffocating them. Vasco seemed worried about the future, but much less so than Waldas. Placed in the same experience, they found it impossible to approach it from the same point of view.

  They were already in their sixteenth day when Vasco called Waldas aside. He told him that even the reserves of oatmeal, powdered milk, and canned goods that they had saved were almost gone. And their nervous condition was becoming aggravated; it wouldn’t be prudent to warn the others. Arguments came up over the least thing and were prolonged without reason. Most of them were on the edge of nervous collapse.

  During the early hours of the eighteenth day they were awakened by shouts of joy and animation. One of the refugees who hadn’t been able to go to sleep had felt a difference in the atmosphere. He climbed the ladder outside the house.

  There was a pale red ball on the horizon.

  Everyone came out at once, pushing and falling, and remained there in a contagious euphoria waiting for the light to increase. Vasco asked if they really did see something, if it wasn’t just another false alarm. Someone remembered to strike a match and after a few attempts the flame appeared. It was fragile and without heat, but visible to the eyes of those who looked upon it as a rare miracle.

  The light increased slowly, in the way that it had disappeared.

  This was a perfect day with unexpected and total joys that worked like some powerful stimulant. Their hearts seemed warmed, full of good will. Their eyes were reborn like innocent and blameless children. They wanted their meals outside and Vasco agreed since the normal days seemed about to return. The sun took its expected course across the sky. At four o’clock in the afternoon you could already distinguish a person’s shadow at a distance of four yards. After the sun went down, the complete darkness returned. They built a fire in the yard, but the flames were weak and translucent and consumed very little of the wood. It went out frequently and the refugees would light it again with pieces of paper and blow on it, conserving the pallid fountain of light and warmth, symbol of future life. At midnight it was difficult to convince them that they should go to bed. Only the children slept. Those who had matches struck one from time to time and chuckled to themselves as if they had found the philosopher’s stone of happiness.

  At four thirty in the morning they were up and outside. No dawn in the history of the world was ever awaited like this one. It wasn’t the beauty of the colors, the poetry of the horizon coming into view amid the clouds, the mountains, the trees and the butterflies. As in the age of fire when man shielded his fire and worshiped it, the divinity of light was awaited by the refugees as a condemned man awaits the official with the commutation of his sentence. The sun was brighter; unaccustomed eyes were closed; the blind men extended the palms of their hands towards the rays, turned them over to feel the heat on both sides, Different faces came forth, with voices you could recognize, and they laughed and embraced each other. Their loneliness and their differences disappeared in that boundless dawn. The blind people were kissed and hugged, carried in triumph. Men cried, and this made their eyes, unaccustomed to the light, turn even redder. About noon the flames became normal and for the first time in three weeks they had a hot cooked meal. Little work was done for the rest of the day. Flooded with light, they absorbed the scenes about them, walking through the places where they had dragged themselves in the darkness.

  And the city? What had happened to the people there? This was a terribly sobering thought and those who had relatives ceased to smile. How many had died or suffered extreme hardships? Waldas suggested that he should investigate the situation the next day. Others volunteered, and it was decided that three should go.

  Waldas spent a bad night. The impact of all those days was beginning to have its effect. His hands trembled, he was afraid, of what he didn’t know. Return to the city, renew his life . . . go to the office, his friends, women . . .. The values he had once held remained subverted and buried in the darkness. It was a different man who was tossing and squirming in an improvised bed without being able to sleep. A square of light coming from a small lamp in the hallway was flickering through the transom, a sign that all was well. His memory brought him rapid fragments, a dog howling, a man moaning on the sidewalk, his hand brandishing the crowbar, Vasco leading him through the streets, his boss talking in front of the window . . . Bits of his childhood were mixed in as sleep slowly took over. He tossed and turned, his brow wrinkled in a struggle with his dreams.

  The three refugees left as the sun was coming up, walking along the road that would lead them to the railroad tracks. One of them was middle aged, married and without children. His wife had stayed behind in the country house. The other must have been the same age as Waldas. His brothers and sisters lived in another part of the city. He had been saved by a blind man and had not been able to return to his home.

  They went around a curve and the city came into view. After the first bridges, the tracks began to cross streets. Waldas and his companions went down one of them. The first two blocks seemed very calm, with a few persons moving about, perhaps a bit more slowly. On the next comer they saw a group of people carrying a dead man, covered with a rough cloth, to a truck. The people were crying. A brown army truck went by, its loudspeaker announcing an official government bulletin. Martial law had been declared. Anyone invading another’s property would be shot. The government had requisitioned all food supplies and was distributing them to the needy. Any vehicle could be commandeered if necessary. It advised that the police be immediately notified of any buildings with bad odors so that they could investigate the existence of corpses. The dead would be buried in common graves.

  Waldas didn’t want to return to his own apartment building. He remembered the voices calling through the half opened doors and he, in his stocking feet, slipping away, leaving them to their fate. He would have to telephone the authorities if there was a bad odor. He had already seen enough; he didn’t want to stay there. His young companion had talked to an officer and had decided to look for his family immediately. Waldas asked if the telephones were working and learned that some of the automatic circuits were. He dialed his brother-in-law’s number and after a short while there was an answer. They were very weak but alive. There had been four deaths in the apartment house. Waldas told them briefly how he had been saved and asked if they needed anything. No, they didn’t, there was some food, and they were a lot better off than most.

  Everyone was talking to strangers, telling all kinds of stories. The children and the sick were the ones who had suffered most. They told of cases of death in heartbreaking circumstances. The public services were reorganizing, with the help of the army, to take care of those in
need, bury the dead and get everything going again. Waldas and his middle-aged companion didn’t want to hear any more. They felt weak, weak with a certain mental fatigue from hearing and seeing incredible things in which the absurd wasn’t just a theory but what really had happened, defying all logic and scientific laws.

  The two men were returning along the still empty tracks, walking slowly under a pleasantly clouded sky. A gentle breeze rustled the leaves of the green trees and birds flitted among their branches. How had they been able to survive in the darkness? Waldas thought about all this as his aching legs carried him along. His scientific certainties were no longer valid. At that very moment men still shaken by the phenomenon were working electronic computers making precise measurements and observations, religious men in their temples explaining the will of God, politicians dictating decrees, mothers mourning the dead that had remained in the darkness.

  Two exhausted men walked along the ties. They brought news, perhaps better than could be expected. Mankind had resisted. By eating anything resembling food, by drinking any kind of liquid, people had lived for three weeks in the world of the blind. Waldas and his companion were returning sad and weakened, but with the secret and muffled joy of being alive. More important than rational speculations was the mysterious miracle of blood running through one’s veins, the pleasure of loving, doing things, moving one’s muscles and smiling. Seen from a distance the two were smaller than the straight tracks that enclosed them. Their bodies were returning to their daily routine, subject to the forces and uncontrollable elements in existence since the beginning of time. But, as their eager eyes took in every color, shade, and movement, they gave little thought to the mysterious magnitude of their universe, and even less to the plight of their brothers, their saviours, who still walked in darkness.

  There were planets, solar systems and galaxies. They were only two men, bounded by two impassive rails, returning home with their problems.

  On the Wheel

  by Damon Knight

  When not editing the Orbit series of anthologies and founding the Science Fiction Writers of America, Damon Knight is a wickedly precise short story writer. It is a pleasure to welcome him to Nova with a story that could just as well be titled “One Man’s Meat.”

  From his perch in the foretop of the Vlakengros, Akim could see almost straight down into the cargo well of the old tub, where half a dozen trogs were still scrambling about. Nearby stood his father and the shipmaster, Hizoor Niarefh. Akim could see the tops of their turbaned heads and the bright shafts of their lances. The trogs, black and foreshortened, were like clumsy insects. Akim blew out his breath impatiently and lifted his eyes to the horizon. Westward, above the low hills of the mainland, the sun lay behind veils of purple and gold. A faint offshore breeze roughened the water. To the east, above the ocean, one of the moons had already risen. It was the end of his watch; another day was gone, wasted. Nothing ever happened on the Vlakengros.

  At last there was a stirring, a distant shout. The trogs were climbing over the rail into their catamarans. Akim waited, twitching with impatience, until a figure stepped leisurely toward the foot of the mast and began to climb.

  It was his brother Ogo, who had pimples and never smiled. “Pig,” said Akim. He swung himself down the side of the lookout without waiting for Ogo to climb in; his toes caught the rope ladder and he started down. Ogo’s dark head appeared above him. “Squid!” Akim shook his fist and kept on descending.

  The deck trembled faintly under his feet as he crossed toward the forecastle; the auxiliaries were on, they were under way. Smells of cooking came from the galley. Akim ran down the companionway, snatched a meat pie from the table and was out again, followed by the curses of the cooks. Eating as he went, he reached his cubby and shut the door behind him. He tossed his fire lance into the rack, pulled off turban and robe, and sank down in his chair before the viewer. Now, at last!

  He remembered exactly where he had left off, but he thumbed the rewind, listened to the tape squeal for a few moments, then punched “play.” The screen lighted. There he was, Edward Robinson, opening the door at the end of the long hall. Still chewing, Akim settled lower into his chair, careful not to move his eyes a millimeter from the screen. The room was large but divided by frosted glass partitions into a jungle of smaller spaces. Behind one of these partitions, looking out through a hole in it, sat a girl with pink and white skin. Over her glossy brown hair she wore a telephone headset. Somewhere in the labyrinth behind her, close and yet invisible, a voice was raised in anger. She looked at Robinson with weary indifference. “Yes, can I help you?”

  He advanced, straightening his thin shoulders, and took a folded paper out of his pocket. He unfolded it and laid it on the counter. “Central Employment sent me.”

  “All right, fill this out.” She handed him a card. Along the wall to his right were straight chairs in which three young men sat. One was biting his pencil and scowling. Robinson sat down and began filling out his card. Name. Address. Sex. Age. Race (crossed out by a heavy black line). Education. Previous Employment (list your last three jobs, with dates, duties performed, and reason for leaving). Robinson made up the education, the dates, the reasons, and one of the jobs. While he was doing this, one of the other young men was called. He walked down the corridor between the glass partitions and disappeared. Robinson finished his card and gave it to the girl behind the partition, who was filing her nails. A typewriter clattered somewhere. The second young man was called. Robinson looked around, saw a copy of Time on the table beside him, and picked it up. He read an article about dynamic Eric Woolmason who at the age of forty-one was forging a new empire in Pacific Northwest public utilities. The third young man stood up suddenly and crumpled his card. His face was pink. He glanced sidelong at Robinson, then walked out. The girl at the window looked after him with a faint one-sided smile. “Well, goodbye,” she murmured.

  Robinson began to read the ads in the back of the magazine. He did not think about the coming interview, but his heart was thumping and his palms were moist. At last the girl’s voice said, “Mr. Robinson.” He stood up. She pointed with her pencil. “Straight down. End of the hall.”

  “All hands! All hands!” He sat up with a jerk, his heart racing. The room was dark except for the tiny lighted screen. The bellowing voice went on, “All hands to stations! All hands!”

  Akim staggered out of the chair, painfully confused. He got into his robe somehow, snatched up the fire lance. Where was his turban? In the screen, a tiny Robinson was walking between the rows of frost-white partitions. He hit the “off” button angrily and lurched out of the room.

  Abovedecks, searchlights and the jets of fire lances were wavering across the windy darkness. Something heavy fell to the deck and lay snapping and squealing. A half-naked sailor ran up and hit it with an axe. Akim kept on going. He could see that the foretop was crowded already—three lances were spitting up there. There was another shriek from the sky, a pause, then a splash near the bow. He ran to the quarterdeck rail and found a place between his brother Emmuz and his uncle’s cousin Hudny. A searchlight in the bow probed the sky like a skeletal finger. Something appeared in it and was gone. The beam swung, caught it again. Half a dozen lance flames spitted it. It fell, trailing oily smoke. There were more shrieks, splashes. Back toward the waist, there was a flurry of running feet, curses, shouts. Something was thrashing, tangled in the foremast shrouds. A voice screamed, “Don’t shoot, you fool! Up the mast and chop it!”

  Something came whistling through the darkness under the search-beam. Akim crouched, raised his lance, fired. The flame illuminated a ferocious tusked head, a pink hairless body, leathery wings. There was a shriek and a stench, and the thing plopped down beyond him like a sack of wet meal. Someone hit it with an axe.

  The noise died away. The searchlights continued to swing across the darkness. After a time, one of them picked up another bright shape, but it was far away, swinging wide around the ship, and the lance-flames missed
it.

  “Any more?” came a bellow from the deck.

  “No, your worship,” answered a voice from the foretop.

  “All right then, secure.”

  Akim lingered glumly to watch the deckhands gather up the bodies and throw them over the side. Pigs were the only excitement in these latitudes; in the old days, it was said, ships had fought them for days with musket and cutlass. But now, not ten minutes since the first alarm, it was all over. A few sailors were swabbing the blood away with sea water, the rest were drifting back belowdecks.

  Yawning, Akim went back to his cubby. He was tired, but too restless to go to bed. He wondered whether he was hungry and thought of going to the galley again, but it did not seem worth the effort. With a sigh, he sat in front of the viewer and switched it on.

  There was Robinson, walking stiffly into a large area filled with desks cluttered with papers and typewriters. A heavy dark-haired man with black-rimmed glasses stood waiting. His white shirtsleeves were rolled to the elbow. “Robinson? I’m Mr. Beverly.” At other desks, a few men glanced up, all pale, unsmiling. Beverly gave Robinson a brief, moist handshake and motioned to a chair. Robinson sat down and tried not to look self-conscious. Glancing at the card in his hand, Beverly said, “Not much experience in this line. Do you think you can handle it?”