Eye Among the Blind Page 2

  Everything fell silent except the world outside, and the sound of wind on the hull was a strange sound after so many months in vacuum.

  Perhaps because they had arrived on Ree’hdworld so early in the installation’s day, the air-lift to Terming was not waiting for them. Neither was Kristina. Hiding his disappointment, Zeitman loudly expressed his irritation that they would have to wait in this desolate landing station for an hour or so while Dan Erlam roused himself, fifty miles distant, and remembered his duties. But it gave both Zeitman and the blind man a chance to get the feel of the world they had both known before.

  And it introduced Susanna to the sort of climate she could expect for the next few years.

  They deposited their luggage with a tired female official who made them a stimulant drink and equipped them with the standard Ree’hdworld cataphrak, a body-hugging suit that would keep them warm or cool whatever the conditions they found themselves in. The blind man declined to dress in what he regarded as a restrictive article, but Zeitman was glad of the second skin, and he convinced Susanna to wear one too.

  The wind blew strong and bitter for many minutes, but at length Zeitman detected its wane and he went outside into the morning air. Susanna followed him. They walked away through the grouped buildings, across the hard ground until they came to the natural soil of the planet. From there, buffeted by wind, Zeitman pointed out the sights: the Hellgate mountains to the north, that great expanse of valleys and pinnacles where the dubious remains of the Pianhmar had been found; the forests that skirted the mountains and stretched for thousands of miles across the southern extremity of Duchas and sent dense fingers of jungle across the plains and down to the seas themselves. In the jungles lived the Rundii, the sub-intelligent second race of Ree’hdworld which had been responsible for a great deal of death among the early human population at the installation. Now humans and Rundii treated each other with respect and there was very little trouble. The Rundii herds stayed among the trees, and the humans stuck to the plains if they ever left the city.

  It was as they walked towards the small tributary of a greater river, flowing some miles to the south, that Susanna saw her first real alien. It was a solitary Ree’hd wending its way painfully and slowly along the river bank towards its community.

  Four years away had not lessened Zeitman’s familiarity with the Ree’hd culture. He spotted the native immediately as a Wanderer.

  Susanna had dropped into a crouch, a hundred yards distant, hidden behind a small rise of ground. She watched the creature with fascination bordering on horror. She had seen pictures, of course, but there was—and Zeitman realized and had experienced the fact—a certain shock in making the live acquaintance of a Ree’hd for the first time. It was a combination of the bizarre physical features of the creatures, and the fact that they were the only other intelligence in map-space, which was effectively the known Universe. To meet with a real alien was always a moment of great awe.

  The Ree’hd, watching its lateral environment with infrared-sensitive eyes, had spotted the two humans without any trouble. It turned its huge head and the colour-and-shape-sensitive forward eyes moved slightly as it accommodated for binocular vision. The eyes were small, but the mobile flesh they sat within covered half the creature’s face. The great bulges on its temples became highly active, light flashing from the faceted surfaces of those night eyes.

  It stopped and stared at Zeitman who raised an arm in greeting. The Ree’hd immediately approached, limping very badly. As it grew nearer Zeitman picked out the sexual characteristics: a particular pattern of scaly skin over the creature’s belly. This was a carrier of young, a female.

  Her left leg was grossly lacerated, and purple-red blood formed an amorphous pattern of clots and streaks from her crotch (which was featureless, no doubt to Susanna’s surprise) to her heavily muscled and widely splayed feet. As she approached so Susanna got an idea of the normal movement of a Ree’hd, an easy side-to-side swaying motion, the tree trunk legs moving almost without effort. The Ree’hd walked in a semi-crouch, body angled forward, long arms held out to the side; for hands they had disc-shaped plates with fifteen multi-jointed tendrils functioning for fine touch and smell sensitivity.

  The Ree’hd female stopped a few yards away from the two humans and looked from one to the other of them. She touched her leg almost self-consciously. “Looks worse than it is.”

  The voice, speaking interLing with surprising fluency, took Susanna by complete surprise. She looked at Zeitman with a huge question in her eyes. Then she smiled, almost with embarrassment. “I have a lot to learn,” she said.

  To the Ree’hd Zeitman said, “How long were you away?”

  A great sigh escaped from the Ree’hd’s wide fleshy mouth. Immediately a second mouth opened below the first. A strong belch of fetid breath assailed Susanna’s sensitive nostrils and she winced, but was more surprised by the duality of mouth and Up.

  The lower mouth closed and became almost invisible, the lips tucking inwards tidily and completely. “A year,” said the Ree’hd. “I wandered to the south, but there seemed no reason to continue.”

  “What attacked you?”

  “A broo’kk. As I traversed a small forest some miles from here. I should have known better.”

  “What’s a… broo-uck?” asked Susanna, addressing her question to Zeitman.

  “Broo’kk” Zeitman corrected. “A foliage browser. A rare carnivore to encounter.”

  “But an unpleasant one,” said the Ree’hd, favouring her companions with a human-like smile. It was an unnatural gesture for a Ree’hd, but it was an easy gesture to produce and was welcomed by the humans since it was an acknowledgement of friendship between the races.

  The Ree’hd female moved away, returning to the stream she had been following back to its source.

  Zeitman took Susanna’s arm and walked her back towards the base. “That was a Wanderer. She was lucky in a sense. Most Wanderers never return.”

  “A Wanderer being…?”

  “A Ree’hd who has to leave the community to find an inner peace. I doubt that’s anywhere near the truth, but the Ree’hd are difficult to understand in so many ways. If a kin dies unnaturally, or of disease, the closest kin wanders—that can be anything from a month to a year. Seventy percent of the time the Wanderer finds a sort of inner peace and commits suicide by drowning. Thirty percent of the time he returns and there is absolutely no change in his status in the community. The community reshuffles every year and the kin relationships change and our Wanderer participates just as actively.”

  Wandering had been something that Zeitman had studied during his previous years on Ree’hdworld, and it was a phenomenon he had never satisfactorily understood. Nor had Kristina, who had worked with him.

  He brooded about Kristina for a moment. He found it hard to hide his disappointment that she had not been at the landing station to greet him. But, in retrospect, he was not surprised that she had failed to show. It had only been during the last year of his time away from Ree’hdworld that his sporadic communications to her had taken on any sort of affection. Kristina was still his wife, although they were as good as separated. They had just never bothered to formalize the arrangement. For three years, on different worlds throughout the length, breadth and depth of map-space, Zeitman had pursued his whims, and had given no thought to his estranged wife. It was only after three years away that he had suddenly felt regret, and then a conviction that he had made a mistake, had acted atrociously, and should make every effort to clear the air and begin again. And even if it had occurred to him at first that such a beginning-again required two people’s consent, and she might not be interested in such a rehabilitation, then by the time he had left Earth and made straight for Ree’hdworld Zeitman had been living his dream of reunion for so long that any other course of events was inconceivable and intolerable.

  So her absence from the base was a blow, and the lack of any form of communication or explanation was an omen of foreb
oding, which was depressing him more with each passing minute.

  As they came into the shadow of one of the control-towers, hidden from the orange-red sun that was now above the horizon and climbing steadily to zenith, Susanna stopped and looked back to where the solitary Ree’hd was a distant shape, still moving slowly northwards. She absorbed the view with obvious appreciation, her gaze lingering on the Hellgate mountains for some moments.

  “They look forbidding.”

  “The mountains? They are. They cover thousands of square miles and I don’t suppose any human has ever penetrated more than the first two or three ranges. The wind, as you go deeper and higher, becomes too much for even our skimmers—and they’re sturdy craft under most any situation.”

  “But that’s where that other race was supposed to have lived. Perhaps they were wind freaks.”

  Zeitman laughed. “Everyone on Ree’hdworld is a wind freak. The wind is our greatest resource. It’s so predictable.”

  As if to prove him wrong a sudden strong gust blew across them, propelling them at a run towards the warmth of the station. Susanna laughed loudly and reached out for Zeitman’s hand as her hair obscured her vision and her feet began to find difficulty lodging. They collided with the door of the passenger lounge and—as if satisfied that blasphemy had been revenged— the wind dropped.

  They waited for the airlift in silence. Susanna made her first effort to learn something about Ree’hdworld by studying the maps and guides that were hung, mostly for decoration though occasionally for information purposes, upon the otherwise bare walls of the lounge. Zeitman watched her, but his mind was on Kristina. How would she have changed, he wondered? She had been trim when he had known her before, but looking at the slenderness of the Dominion girl, the impression he had was that Kristina was fleshy. He fingered on memories of Kristina’s physical form, and by doing so he managed to unremember the bitter arguments and stinging sarcasm that she had used as a weapon against him in the final months of the breakdown. More than anything, perhaps, it had been her hostility that had driven him from the world he had come to love.

  So much for unremembering the bad times.

  “What’s the other continent like?”

  It took several moments for Zeitman to realize that Susanna was talking to him. She smiled as he looked apologetic. “Did I interrupt some tender memories?”

  He shook his head. “No. Not really. Wooburren? A desolate place. Deserted as far as intelligent life is concerned. I spent some time there with… people.”

  “Wooburren… that doesn’t sound like a native word.”

  “It isn’t. Nor is Duchas. The names go back to the early explorers, that’s all I know. If you’re interested, the Ree’hd call this continent Sam’Hreeroill’ju’uk… which, translated conceptually, means ‘the land with the life from the wind.’ The Ree’hd also have a thorough awareness of Wooburren, even though it’s a legend to them and they think it’s an island. They call the place—let me get this right-Kranncaith’Samhaill, ‘the island that floats in time and carries the spirit of the Earth Wind.’ As you’ll find out, the natives believe in a metaphysical part of life that lives outside the community until there is a physical form for it to take on.”

  “You mean, souls from God.”

  Zeitman shook his head. “The Ree’hd have no concept of God, only of wind power.”

  Digesting that information, Susanna turned back to her scrutiny of the contour map of the world. Distracted from his reminiscences, Zeitman tried to engage the nameless blind man in conversation, but he seemed fairly melancholy. He was sitting, tense and ill at ease, and his fingers twirled the rings on his left hand, sliding them up to the nail and back again. He stared into the middle of the waiting room and two thin trickles of moisture ran from each inner corner of his eyes—it was nothing but the dryness of the room, but it gave to the ragged individual an atmosphere of great distress.

  Aware of Zeitman’s silent scrutiny, the man smiled, his face creasing again into a thousand tiny folds. His skin was very tanned and when he laughed or frowned the already intricate folds of flesh formed into patterns of ridges as complex as fingerprints. He stopped his nervous game with his fingers and reached inside his brown leather jerkin to scratch the bare flesh beneath.

  Zeitman opened the conversation. “Strange coming back, isn’t it?”

  The blind man nodded slowly. “Unnerving. Really unnerving. Everything is so different. The atmosphere, I mean. It’s different.”

  Zeitman could see, now, that it was not melancholia that was afflicting the blind man, but agitation; a distress that he was trying to cover but which was too strong for him. He went on as Zeitman, by his silence and his interest, invited a fuller understanding. “I don’t mean it smells different. And apart from this base, from here the world looks the same—and I mean that, as you know. But I have warning signals going on my head like crazy!” He slapped a hand to his thatch of white hair, shook his head. “I don’t understand it. The emotional atmosphere is different. There’s tension, real tension. Perhaps you can feel it too. Great tension, Zeitman… as if… as if an emotional storm is about to break loose. I can’t identify the source, but it’s strong. Very strong.”

  Zeitman couldn’t feel what the blind man was obviously feeling. After a moment he changed the subject. “When did you say you were here before?”

  “Oh… years ago. A long time ago…”

  Before Zeitman could pursue the point a small skimmer designed for six men plus equipment, fluttered on to the base outside the lounge and the pilot came in to fetch his passengers. He apologized for the delay but gave no reason, which meant that Erlam had been tardy in issuing instructions for the pick-up. Zeitman said nothing.

  They battled through the brisk wind and secured themselves into the tiny vessel. When they were safely strapped down the skimmer took to the air like a leaf, almost somersaulting as it turned back to race, low, across the country towards the city.

  Activity a few miles to the north prompted the blind man to ask the pilot to detour that way and, without commenting on the strangeness of the request, the man cut the skimmer across the wind and flew his passengers to what Zeitman had already noticed was a Ree’hd community. The community was in the process of dispersing after the mass crooning with which they, and other Ree’hd communities, greeted the dawn and the hostile wind from the earth. From their vantage point, high above the community and the river about which they had gathered, the entrances to the Ree’hd burrows were shadowy areas, difficult to discern as access points to the complex of underground chambers and corridors that would be spread beneath the ground for many hundreds of yards.

  More interesting to Zeitman was the skimmer that stood some way from the river, being visibly assaulted by the wind. It did not have any characteristic marking that he recognized, and he saw no evidence of any humans among the crowded Ree’hd, but from this height the relatively small human frame would have been difficult to distinguish…

  Susanna screamed.

  She was sitting behind Zeitman and next to the blind man and in the claustrophobic cabin her hysteria was shocking to experience. The pilot lost control of the skimmer for a moment and it slewed violently at the mercy of the wind, dipping and diving to within twenty feet of the ground before it straightened up and achieved a safe height again.

  Looking round, Zeitman saw that the blind man was no longer in his seat, was not, in fact, in sight—and in the instant of acceptance of the fact came a crystallization of fear and feeling, a total acceptance on Zeitman’s part of the sensation he had felt whenever talking to the blind man, that that strange individual belonged to no Universe with which Zeitman was familiar.

  For a moment his dread and his shock paralysed him, made him seem quiet and calm when he wanted to shout and shake away the dizziness in his head.

  “For God’s sake, what happened?” snapped the pilot irritably. He stretched round and looked at Susanna, and in the next instant he had seen the blind m
an’s empty seat, and he was visibly confused. “What happened?”

  Susanna had her hand over her mouth. Wide eyed she watched the pilot, and Zeitman saw she was shaking. Her skin was unnaturally pale.

  “Where’s that blind man?” demanded the pilot, panic adding a fine hysterical edge to his voice.

  “He vanished,” said Susanna, her voice almost dull, her hand slipping from where she held it against her lips. She stared at her lap.

  “Vanished?” said the pilot loudly. He stared at Zeitman, then back at the empty seat. “People don’t just vanish!”

  “Well he did!” shrieked Susanna, on the verge of tears. “My God, are you stupid or something?” She shivered violently, her lips slack, her eyes moist. “He was sitting there one moment, and he looked at me, and I saw him vanish in a split second! Oh, God!” She huddled up, staring at the back of Zeitman’s seat.

  Zeitman’s heart calmed and he watched as the pilot—himself white faced—sat down again and shook his head, staring through the front window of the shuttle as if he might see the blind man hovering outside the vehicle.

  “I don’t want to think about it,” he said a moment later.

  Zeitman turned back to Susanna. “You all right?”

  She glanced at the empty seat, at the still fastened safety harness hanging limply and uselessly in the space where the blind man’s body should have been.

  Zeitman reached out and took her hand, noticing how cold it was. There was nothing he could think of that was worth saying, and he considered, anyway, that if he opened his mouth his own nervous state would be in evidence and at the moment calmness was useful.

  People don’t just vanish, he thought in silent agreement with the pilot. Holy God, what have we brought with us?

  The flight to Terming was completed in silence.

  Chapter Two

  It had rained during the short night, and Urak, with an uncharacteristic lack of foresight, had failed to secure the mud barrier at the mouth of the burrow. The substrate around the entrance had formed into a glistening paste and had run into the outer corridor system where Kristina, as she awoke from her usual heavy sleep, could see it drying in the fresh dawn breeze that ventilated the burrow network. Fortunately the rain had not been heavy, otherwise she might have found herself swimming in mud as many a thoughtless (or lazy) Ree’hd had done in the past.