Visible Light, page 7
"I'll be happy if you do what I told you and keep that pseudosome at the ship."
A long delay. "Recorded."
He took the communicator from the dash, hooked it to his belt. Walked off without a further word. Anne worried him. There was always that conflict-override. She could do something unpredictable if some sound set her off, some perception as innocent as the raft cylinder's noise.
But there was nothing out here to trigger her. Nothing.
He slipped the raft away from the shore, quietly, quietly, used the paddle with caution. The current took him gently and he stroked leisurely against it.
A wind signed down the river, disturbing the warmth, rustling the leaves. He drove himself toward the green shadow of the far bank, skimmed the shore a time.
There was a kind of tree that flourished on that side, the leaves of which grew in dusters on the drooping branches, like fleshy green flowers, and moss that festooned other trees never grew on this kind. He saw that.
There was a sort of green flower of thin, brown-veined leaves that grew up from the shallows, green lilies on green pads. The river sent up bubbles among them, and he probed anxiously with his paddle, disturbed their roots, imagining some dire finned creature whipping away from that probingbut he only dislodged more bubbles from rotting vegetation on the bottom. The lilies and the rot were cloyingly sweet.
He let the current take the raft back to the far-shore point nearest his starting place. He drove the raft then into the shallows and stood up carefully, stepped ashore without wetting his boots, dragged the raft up by the mooring rope and secured it to a stout branch to keep the current from unsettling it by any chance.
He took his gear, slung the strap over his shoulder, looked about him, chose his path.
He thumbed the communicator switch. "Anne."
"Assistance?"
"Precaution. I'm fine. I'm happy. I have a program for you. I want you to call me every hour on the hour and check my status."
"Recorded. Warren, please confirm your position."
"At the river. Same as before. Obey your instructions."
"Yes."
He thumbed the switch over to receive, and started walking.
Ferns. Bracken, waist-high. Great clumps of curling hairy fronds: he avoided these; avoided the soft vine growth that festooned the high limbs of the trees and dropped like curtains.
Beyond the forest rim the ferns gave way to fungi, small round balls that he thought at first were animals until he prodded one with a stick and broke it. There were domes, cones, parasols, rods with feathered fringes. Platelet fungi of orange and bluish white grew on rotting logs and ridged the twisted roots of living trees. Color. The first color but green and white and brown, anywhere in the world.
The trees grew taller, became giants far different from the riverside varieties. They loomed up straight and shadowy-crowned, their branches interlacing to shut out the sun. The light came through these branches in shafts when it came at all; and when night came here, he reckoned, it would be night indeed.
He stopped and looked back, realizing he had long since lost sight or sound of the river. He took his axe; it took resolution to move after such silence, more than that to strike, to make a mark. He deafened himself to the sacrilege and started walking again, cutting a mark wherever he passed from view of the last. Chips fell white onto the spongy carpet of eons-undisturbed leaves. The echoes lasted long, like eerie voices.
"Warren."
His heart all but stopped.
"Anne. My status is good."
"Thank you."
Com went off again. He kept walking, marking his way, like walking in some great cavern. The way seemed different when viewed from the reverse, and the trees grew larger and larger still, so that he had to cut deep to make his marks, and he had to struggle over roots, some knee-high, making going slow.
He saw light and walked toward it, losing it sometimes in the tangle, but coming always closerbroke finally upon a grove of giants, greater than any trees he had seen. One, vaster than any others, lay splintered and fallen, ancient, moss-bearded. A younger tree supported it, broken beneath the weight; and through the vacant space in the forest ceiling left by the giant's fall, sunlight streamed in a broad shaft to the forest floor, where soft green moss grew and white flowers bloomed, blessed by that solitary touch of daylight. Motes danced in the sun, the drift of pollen, golden-touched in a green light so filtered it was like some airy sea.
Warren stopped, gazed in awe at the cataclysmic ruin of a thing so old. The crash it must have made, in some great storm, with never an ear to hear it. He walked farther, stood in the very heart of the sunlight and looked up at the blinding sky. It warmed. It filled all the senses with warmth and well-being.
He looked about him, ventured even to touch the giant's mossy beard, the bark, the smoothness where the bark had peeled away. He walked farther, half-blind, into the deep shadows beyond, his mind still dazed by the place. All about him now was brown and green, bark and leaves, white fungi, platelets as large as his hand stepping up the roots; ferns, fronds unfurling waist-high, scattering their spores. The tangle grew thicker.
And he realized of a sudden he had come some distance from the clearing.
He looked back. Nothing was recognizable He refused panic. He could not have come far. He began to retrace his path, confident at first, then with growing uncertainty as he failed to find things he recalled. He cursed himself. His heart pounded. He tore his hands on the brush that clawed at him. He felt as vulnerable suddenly as a child in the dark, as if the sunlit clearing were the only safe place in the world. He tried to run, to find it more quickly, to waste no time. Trees pressed close about him, straight and vast and indifferently the same, their gnarled roots crossing and interweaving in the earth as their branches laced across the sky.
He had missed the clearing. He was lost. All ways looked the same. He ran, thrust his way from trunk to trunk, gasping for breath, slipped among the tangled wet roots, went sprawling, hands skinned, chin abraded by the bark. He lay breathless, the wind knocked from him, all his senses jolted.
Slowly there came a prickling of nerves in the stillness, through his spasmodic gasps, a crawling at the back of his neck. He held himself tremblingly still at first, his own weight holding him where he had fallen, awkward and painfully bent. He scrabbled with his hands, intending one swift movement, clawed his way over to wave it off him.
Nothing was there, only the brush, the vast roots. The feeling was still behind him, and he froze, refusing to look, gripped in sweating nightmare.
Of a sudden he sprang up, ran, favoring his right leg, sprawled again his full length in the wet, slick leaves, scrambled and fought his way through the thicket The chill presenceit had directionstayed constantly on his right, pressing him left and left again, until he stumbled and struggled through worse and worse, tearing himself and the pack through the branches and the fern, ripping skin, endangering his eyes.
He broke into light, into the clearing, into the warm shaft of sun. He fell hard on his hands and knees in that center of warmth and light, sobbing and ashamed and overwhelmed with what had happened to him.
He had panicked. He knew his way now. He was all right. He sank down on his belly, the pack still on his back, and tried to stop shaking.
Strangeness flowed over him like water, not quite warmth, but a feather-touch that stirred the hair at his nape. He moved, tried to rise and run, but he was weighted, pinned by the pack like a specimen on a glass, in the heat and the blinding daylight, while something poured and flowed over his skin. Sweat ran.
His breathing grew shallow.
Illness. A recurrence of the plague. He groped at his belt for the communicator and lost it, his hand gone numb. He lay paralyzed, his open eyes filled with translucent green, sunlight through leaves. The sighing wind and rush of waters filled his ears and slowed his breath.
Deep and numbing quiet. Ages came and the rains and the sun filtered down season upon season. Ages passed and the forest grew and moved about him. His body pressed deep to the earth, deep into it, while his arms lifted skyward. He was old, old, and hard with strength and full of the life that swelled and struggled to heaven and earth at once.
Then the sun was shining down in simple warmth and he was aware of his own body, lying drained bearing the touch of something very like a passing breeze.
He managed to stand at last, faltered, numb even yet, and looked about him. No breath of wind. No leaves stirred.
"Warren?"
He stooped, gathered up the com unit. "I'm here, Anne."
"What's your status, Warren?"
He drew a deep breath. The presenceif it had been anything at all but fearwas gone.
"What's your status, Warren?"
"I'm all rightI'm all right. I'm starting home now."
He kept the com unit on, in his hand, for comfort, not to face the deep woods alone. He found his first mark, the way that he had come in. He struggled from one to the other of the slash marks, tearing through when he sighted the next, making frantic haste& away from what, he did not know.
He was ashamed of himself, on the other side of the river, sitting in the raft, which swayed against the shore, the paddle across his knees. Clothing torn, hands scratched, face scraped by branches, his left eye watering where one had raked it& he knew better than what he had done, racing hysterically over unknown ground. He wiped his face, realized the possibility of contaminants and wiped his bleeding hands on his trousers. Hallucination. He had breathed something, gotten it when he had scratched himself, absorbed it through the skin& a hundred ways he had exposed himself to contaminants. He felt sick. Scared. Some hallucinogens recurred. He needed nothing like that.
"Warren?"
He fumbled out the com unit, answered, holding it in both hands, trying not to shiver. "Everything all right, Anne?"
"All stable," Anne replied. He cherished the voice in the stillness, the contact with something infallible.
He sought a question to make her talk.
"Have your sensors picked up anything?"
"No, Warren."
"What have you been doing?"
"Monitoring my systems."
"You haven't had any trouble?"
"No, Warren."
"I'm coming back now."
"Thank you, Warren."
He cut the com unit off, sat holding it as if it were something living. A piece of Anne. A connection. His hands shook. He steadied them, put the unit back at his belt, got up and climbed ashore, limping. Pulled the raft up and anchored it to a solid limb.
No taking it back, no. The raft stayed. No retreats. He looked back across the river, stared at the far darkness with misgivings.
There was nothing there.
Light was fading in the drive back. The crawler jounced and bucked its way along the track he had made through the grass on the way out, and the headlights picked up the bent grass ahead, in the dark, in the chill wind. He drove too fast, forced himself to keep it to a controllable pace on the rough ground.
"Anne," he asked through the com, "turn the running lights on."
"Yes, Warren."
The ship lit up, colors and brilliance in the dark ahead of him. Beautiful. He drove toward it, fought the wheel through pits and roughnesses, his shoulders aching.
"Dinner, Anne. What's for dinner?"
"Baked chicken, potatoes, greens, and coffee."
"That's good." His teeth were chattering. The wind was colder than he had thought it would be. He should have brought his coat. "Are you happy, Warren?"
"I'm going to want a bath when I get there."" Yes, Warren. Are you happy, Warren?"
"Soon." He kept talking to her, idiocies, anything to fend off the cold and the queasiness in the night. The grass whipped by the fenders, a steady whisper. His mind conjured night-wandering devils, apparitions out of bushes that popped out of the dark and whisked under the nose of the crawler. He drove for the lights. "Be outside," he asked Anne. "Wait for me at the cargo lock."
"Yes, Warren. I'm waiting." He found her there when he had brought the crawler round the nose of the ship and came up facing the lock. He drew up close to her, put on the brake and shut down the crawler engine, hauled himself out of the seat and set unsteady feet on the ground. Anne clicked over, sensor lights winking red in the dark. "Assistance?"
"Take the kit and the sensor box out and stow them in the lock." He patted her metal shoulder because he wanted to touch something reasonable. "I'm going inside to take my bath."
"Yes, Warren."
He headed for the lock, stripped off all that he was wearing while the platform ascended, ran the decontamination cycle at the same time. He headed through the ship with his clothes over his arm dumped them into the laundry chute in the shower room, set the boots beside, for thorough cleaning.
He stayed in the mist cabinet a good long while, letting the heat and the steam seep into his pores leaned against the back wall with eyes closed, willing himself to relax, conscious of nothing but the warmth of the tiles against his back and the warmth of the moisture that flooded down over him. The hiss of the vapor jets drowned all other sounds, and the condensation on the transparent outer wall sealed off all the world.
A sound came through& not a loud one, the impression of a sound. He lifted his head, cold suddenly looked at the steam-obscured panel, unable to identify what he had heard.
He had not closed the doors. The shower was open, and while he had been gonewhile he had been gone from the ship, the pseudosome standing outsideThe old nightmare came back to him. Sax.
Somewhere in the depths of the ship, wandering about, giving Anne orders that would prevent her reporting his presence. Sax, mind-damaged, with the knife in his hand. He stood utterly still, heart pounding, trying to see beyond the steamed, translucent panel for whatever presence might be in the room.
A footstep sounded outside, and another, and a gangling human shadow slid in the front panel while his heart worked madly. Leaned closer, and red lights gleamed, diffused stars where the features ought to be.
"Warren?"
For an instant more the nightmare persisted, Anne become the presence. He shook it off, gathering up his courage to cut the steam off, to deal with her. "Anne, is there trouble?"
"No, Warren. The kit and the sensor box are stowed. Dinner is ready."
"Good. Wait there."
She waited. His orders. He calmed himself, activated the dryer and waited while moisture was sucked out of the chamber& took the comb he had brought in with him and straightened his hair in the process. The fans stopped, the plastic panel cleared, so that he could see Anne standing beyond the frosted translucence. He opened the door and walked out, and her limbs moved, reorienting her to him responding to him like a flower to the sun. He felt ashamed for his attack of nervesmore than ashamed deeply troubled. His breathing still felt uncertain, a tightness about his chest, his pulse still elevated. He cast a look over his shoulder as he reached for his robe, at the three shower cabinets, all dark now concealments, hiding places. The silence deadened his ears, numbed his senses. He shrugged into the robe and heard Anne move at his back. He spun about, back to the corner, staring into Anne's vacant faceplate where the lights winked red in the darkness.
"Assistance?"
He did not like her so close& a machine, a mind, one mistake of which, one seizing of those metal hands She followed him. He could not discover the logic on which she had done so. She watched him.
Obsessively.
Followed him. He liked that analysis even less. Things started following him and he started seeing devils in familiar territory. He straightened against the wall and made himself catch his breath, fighting the cold chills that set him shivering.
"Warren? Assistance?"
He took her outstretched metal arm and felt the faint vibration under his fingers as she compensated for his weight. "I need help."
"Please be specific."
He laughed wildly, patted her indestructible shoulder, fighting down the hysteria, making himself see her as she was, machine. "Is dinner ready?"
"Yes. I've set it on the table."
He walked with her, into the lift, into the upper level of the ship, the living quarters where the table that he used was, outside his own quarters. He never used the mess hall: it was too empty a place, too many chairs; he no more went there than he opened the quarters of the dead, next door to him, all about him.
He sat down, and Anne served him, poured the coffee, added the cream. The dinner was good enough without fault. He found himself with less appetite than he had thought, in the steel and plastic enclosure of the ship, with the ventilation sounds and the small sounds of Anne's motors. It was dark round about.
He was intensely conscious of that the night outside, the night deep in the ship where daylight made no difference. Anne's natural condition, night: she lived in it, in space; existed in it here, except for the lights that burned here, that burned in corridors when he walked through them and compartments when he was there, but after he was gone, it reverted to its perpetual dark. Dark wrapped everything in the world but this compartment, but him, and he dared not sleep. He feared the dreams coming back. Feared helplessness.
No sign of Sax, out there.
He drank his coffee, sat staring at the plate until Anne took it away. Finally he shivered and looked toward the bar cabinet at the far side of the common room. He gave himself permission, got up, opened the cabinet, pulled out a bottle and the makings and took it back to the table.
"Assistance?" Anne asked, having returned from the galley.
"I'll do it myself. No trouble." He poured himself a drink. "Get some ice."
She left on the errand. He drank without, had mostly finished the glass when she came back with a thermal bucket full. She set it on the table and he made himself another.
That was the way to get through the night. He was not a drinking man. But it killed the fear. It warmed his throat and spread a pleasant heat through his belly where fear had lain like an indigestible lump.
He had not planned to drink much. But the heat itself was pleasant, and the lassitude it spread through him cured a multitude of ills. By the time he arrived at the bottom of the third glass, he had a certain courage. He smiled bitterly at Anne's blank face. Then he filled a fourth glass and drank it, on the deliberate course to total anesthesia.
