Eye of The cat, page 11
Then his gaze fell upon the headrest. There were four parallel slash marks in the covering material beside his head, as from a set of razor-sharp claws. He looked again at the broken side window. Yes…
Cat?
Silence.
What are you waiting for?
He swung his feet about, set them carefully against the far door and rose into the semblance of a standing position. Immediately he grew dizzy and clutched at the steering wheel. When the spell passed, he attempted to open the door. It yielded to his fourth effort with a grinding, scraping sound. He caught hold of the frame and drew himself upward, suddenly recalling having done something similar with an old blue pickup truck, coming home from a Saturday night in town an age ago.
There was a trail. Even in the dark he could read it. Cat had been there and gone. He felt the broken twigs, traced impressions in the earth with his fingertips. He followed it for perhaps twenty meters, heading off across the countryside. Then he rose and turned away.
What’s your angle, Cat? What do you want now? he asked.
He heard only the wind. He walked slowly back to the roadway and continued along it. He was certain that only a few miles remained until he reached the town.
Perhaps ten minutes passed. No other traffic had come along, but he suspected that he was not alone. A large body seemed to be moving far off among the trees to his left, pacing him.
All right, Cat, he said. There is no point to my taking evasive action now. If you are going to strike, strike. If not, enjoy the walk.
There was no response, and he broke into a jog.
A feeling of nausea came over him before he had gone far. He ignored it and kept moving. He decided that it could be a reaction to the blow on his head.
But as he ran, his feelings came to include a fear that Cat was about to spring on him. He tried to thrust it away but it grew, and then he recognized its irrational roots.
I feel it, Cat. But I know what it is, he said. What’s the point of it? I’m still going on to Kenmare, unless you kill me. Are you just playing games?
The intensity of the feelings increased. His breathing grew ragged. He felt a sudden urge to urinate. A sense of imminent doom was upon the trail for as far ahead as he could see.
Something like a small dog crossed his path. In that instant, his apprehensions vanished.
Was that the shadow I saw in the woods? he wondered. Is Cat long gone? Was my fear real, rather than induced?
Or is it all your doing, Cat? Is it your plan to make me doubt myself, to break me before you destroy me?
He jogged for a mile before a floatcar approached from the rear and drew abreast of him. Its driver offered him a ride into town.
As they moved forward, Billy felt within him the distant laughter of his pursuer.
* * *
To get out, to go away, to think. These were his preoccupations as he came into the town. He needed to escape for even a short while to someplace where Cat could not observe the workings of his mind. It was necessary that he continue his flight, try yet again to blur the trail sufficiently to gain respite for analysis of the situation, for planning.
He had the driver drop him at the trip-station. He assumed that somewhere Cat was reading his mind to learn his destination. He began chanting softly in Navajo, a section of the Blessingway. He entered the station and moved toward a booth. The place’s only occupant was an old man seated on a wooden bench against the side wall to his right. The man looked up from his news printout and nodded to him.
“’Evening,” the man said.
He entered the booth and pressed the coordinates for Victoria Station.
.…in beauty.
Now to Munich…
.…all about me.
He cleaned himself in the washroom there and tripped to Rome.
.…to the right of me.
He had a sandwich and a glass of wine.
.…to the left of me.
He tripped to Ankara. For a time, he stood outside the terminal and watched the sun rising upon a hot, dusty day.
.…before me.
He tripped to A1 Hillah in Saudi Arabia, and from there to a bank of booths in the Rab al Khali National Petroleum Forest.
Yes. Here, he decided, stepping forth among the great-leafed, towering trees, their barks scaled and brown and ringing in the wind. He followed a marked footpath through their shade.
Here, amid Freeman Dyson’s old dream, he thought, he might be able to feel his way to something that he needed to know, here in what had once been known as the Empty Quarter, now an enormous forest of genetically tailored trees larger than redwoods, their sap rising, their programmed metabolism synthesizing petroleum which flowed downward through a special set of vessels into roots which formed a living network of pipelines, connecting at various points to an artificial pipeline which conveyed it to the vast storage areas which constituted one of the world’s great petroleum reserves, against those functions which still required the substance. They filled what had once been a wasteland, utilizing the abundant sunlight available there.
Self-repairing and timeless against the blue of the sky, they were both natural and the product of the technology which informed the planet’s culture, as surely as the trees of the street parks which delivered their own products, or the data net which, had he not disassociated himself from it, could at this moment deliver to him almost any information he needed.
Almost. Some things had to be worked out alone. But here, in this combination of the old and the new, the primitive and the modern, he felt more at ease than he had since the entire business began. There were even birds singing in the branches…
He walked for a long while through the forest, pausing when he came to a small cleared area containing a pair of picnic tables, a waste bin, a shed. He looked into the shed: foresters’ maintenance equipment- power diggers, pickaxes, saws; chains and cables; gloves and climbing spikes. It was dusty, and spiderwebs like gossamer bridges connected each to each.
He closed the door and moved away, sniffed the air and looked around. He seated himself with his back to the bole of a middle-sized tree, some few stalks of coarse saffron and lime grass tufted about the hillock among the roots. He filled his pipe and lit it.
Cat wanted his death and had tried to convince him that he did, too. The idea seemed absurd, but he looked at it more closely. Much of the universe was one’s adversary. He had learned that as a boy. One took precautions and hoped for the best. Time was flowing water, neither good nor evil and not to be grasped. One could cup one’s hand and hold a little of it for a while, and that was all. It had become a torrent, though, in the past decade of his own life—which covered about thirty years of real time—and he could contain none of it. The big world had changed rapidly during that span. The dancers had exchanged masks; he could no longer identify the enemies.
Save for Cat.
But that was unfair, he saw, even to Cat. Cat he could understand. Cat was simple, monomaniacal, in his desire. The rest of the world was dangerous in changing and complicated ways, though it generally lacked malice and premeditation. It was an adversary, not an enemy. Cat was the enemy. The universe was that which ground down and rolled over one. And now…
The tempo had increased. He had felt it all his life, from his first school days on, intensifying, like a drumbeat. There had been lapses, true; periods when he had come to terms with the new rhythms. But now—He felt tired. The last responses were no longer appropriate, not even among his own people. Looking back, he saw that he had felt best on those occasions when he had gone away, into the timeless places among the stars, hunting. It was the return that was always the shock. Now…now he just wanted to rest. Or to go away again, even though the next return…
Dora. It had been peaceful with Dora also. But that did not help him now. Thinking of Dora now only caused him to look away from the real problems. Did he really want to die? Was Cat right?
He could almost hear singing within the unnatural tree which paralleled his backbone, vibrations humming along his nerves.
To want to run away, to want to rest and change no more…Perhaps…
He bit down hard on the pipestem. He did not like all of this bellicano thinking, this hunting for hidden motives. But…
Perhaps there was something to it. His jaw muscles relaxed again.
If the hidden sources of his feelings did equal what Cat had been talking about, he had been running toward death ever since Dora’s fall and—
Dora? How did she figure into this part? No, let the dead rest and not trouble the living. It would be enough to admit that all of the changes in society itself—a society into which he had not been born but of which he had tried to make himself a part—were sufficiently overwhelming to have brought him to this point. Take it from there. What next? What did he really want? And what should he do about it?
Suddenly a memory unfolded, startling him with a knowledge he had possessed all along. After the shock of the recognition he grew depressed, for he knew then that Cat’s words had been true.
Each time that he had fled by means of a trip-box he had had his ultimate destination at the back of his mind. All of the jumping about he had done before heading for his goal had been as nothing. Cat had needed but to read that final destination, to go there and begin patrolling the city, hunting first his mind and then his body. This seemed more than carelessness on his part. It was as if he had intentionally given himself to Cat and kept the information hidden from his own scrutiny. How could he trust himself to do anything now?
On the other hand, doing nothing could prove equally fatal. He was surprised at his sudden willingness to admit to a hidden death wish. He was determined not to yield to it, however, not in this duel with Cat. He puffed on his pipe and listened to the birds.
Had he this destination in mind when he had departed Kenmare on the first of this latest series of jumps? It seemed that he had…
All right. He rose. He had to assume that Cat was aware of it and could put in an appearance at any time. The longer he remained here, the greater the beast’s chances of finding him unprepared. He dusted off his trousers and muttered “Damn!” He still needed time to plan.
He slapped the side of the tree and headed across the picnic area toward the trail. A huge crow darted past him and he halted. Thoughts of Black-god tumbled through his mind, and of the ways of the hunt.
The only trip-station in the area was the one he had used. Cat could emerge there at any moment, perhaps just as he was approaching. No, that would not do. Because he was defenseless, it was prudent to continue the flight. But the risk involved in attempting it right now seemed too high.
It came down from Utah and Colorado, and it was big and black and nasty. When it attacked, the people fled for cover and waited. It lashed and splashed and filled gullies. From Lake Powell through the Carrizos it boiled and roared. It licked Shiprock with tongues of flame. The patches of white in the high places were diminished beneath its slavering. It rolled across the land and hauled itself over the mountain peaks. Its breath was fast and sharp, snapping limbs from pine trees, twisting pinons. Arroyos became muddy snakes. There were mists, and in some places rainbows. The thunder no longer slept. Legends could no longer be told.
The Keeper of Clouds has unpenned his charges.
The Keeper of Winds has unlocked his gates.
The Keeper of Waters has opened the sky.
The Keeper of Lightnings waves his lances.
The Keeper of Satellites has observed,
“One hundred percent of probability of precipitation”
He emerged from the trip-box and looked about. He stood for a time as if listening. Then he dropped to all fours and entered the forest, his form altering as he advanced. He had detected the mind which he sought. It was filled again with the feelings of that chanting and all of the obscure imagery associated with it. But while this masked the underlying thoughts it in no way obscured the direction and location of the thinker. Finding the body should not be all that difficult.
His movements grew more and more graceful as the lines of his body flowed to assume the catlike form he favored. His eye sparkled like a liquid thing. His incisors overhung his lower lip by several inches. They, too, sparkled. His passage among the great petroleum trees was almost soundless. Whenever he froze and sought impressions he became almost invisible within the dappled patterns of light and shadow.
On one such occasion a leaf fell. Cat pounced upon it, a living blur. He straightened then and shook his head. He stared at the leaf. Then he started forward again.
Perhaps this should be the time. The game was not proving as complex as he had hoped. If there were no interesting fight or flight, if nothing exciting happened this time, it might be best to conclude things here. The hunter seemed to have lost his edge, seemed weary, too troubled to provide the necessary struggle.
He glared for a moment at the black bird which cried out above his head, circling and then darting away.
Come back, dearie. Just for a moment. Come look again.
But the bird was gone.
Cat flicked his wide tail and pressed on across a low spongy section of forest floor. It was not that much farther…He increased his pace and did not slow again until he was near to the picnic area. Then he studied and circled and studied again.
The man was just sitting there, his back against a picnic bench, smoking his pipe, his mind filled with that senseless chant. It was almost too easy, but this was the way he had read him earlier: willfully careless, ready to die. Still…
There was no sport in it. A few taunts, and perhaps he will bolt.
You see. It is as I said. When you run from me you approach me. Why was I not freed at some other time, when you still cared to live?
The hunter did not reply. The chant continued.
So you have admitted the truth. You accept what I told you. Is that your death song that you sing?
Again there was no response.
Very well. I see no reason to prolong things, hunter.
Cat passed among the trees and entered the cleared area.
Last chance. Will you not at least draw your knife?
Billy stood and turned slowly to face him.
At last. You are awake. Are you going to run?
Billy did not move. Cat bounded forward. There followed a splintering sound.
When the ground gave way beneath the beast, the moment was frozen in Billy’s mind. He had had some doubt as to the appropriate width when wielding the power shovel to dig the trench which encircled him. As its covering gave way and Cat vanished below he was pleased that his estimate had proven adequate. He moved immediately to bridge it with the picnic table.
You will not hold me here for long, hunter, Cat told him from below.
Long enough, I hope.
Billy crossed over the trench and emptied the wastebin against the trunk of a nearby tree. He struck a light and set it to the heap of papers.
What are you doing?
If one of these trees goes up, the whole area burns, he said. They’re all connected below and full of inflammables. You won’t make it back to the box if you let this burn.
Billy turned and began running.
Congratulations, Cat told him. You have made it interesting again.
Goodbye, Billy said.
Not quite. We’ve an appointment.
He ran on until the trip-box was in sight. Rushing into it, he inserted his strip, activating the control and punched coordinates at random without looking at them.
You have bought respite, Cat told him. But at another level you have betrayed yourself again.
Have I? Billy answered, as the forest blurred.
He walks in a twilight land amid jungle-shrouded cities. The cries of unseen birds come to him across the shimmering air. It is pleasantly warm, and there is a smell of dampness and decay. His path is a glistening ribbon among ruins which appear less and less ruined as he advances. He smells burning copal and his guide gives him a strange beverage to drink. Colors flash beneath his feet and his way becomes bright red. They come at length to a pyramid atop which a blue man is held stretched across a stone by four others. Billy watches as a man in a high headdress cuts open the blue man’s chest and removes the heart. He sips his drink and continues to watch as the heart is passed to another man who uses it to anoint the faces of statues. The body is then cast down the steps to where a crowd of people waits. There, another man very carefully removes the skin, its blue now streaked with red, dons it like a robe and commences dancing. The other people now fall upon the remains and begin eating, save for the hands and the feet, which are removed and set aside. His guide departs for a moment to join the crowd, returning moments later, bringing him something and indicating that he should eat. He chews mechanically, washing it down with the balché. He looks up, realizing suddenly that Dora is his guide. “On the fifth day of Uayeb my true love gave to me . . She is not smiling. Her face is, in fact, without expression as she turns away, beckoning for him to follow. The blood-red way leads at length to a gaping cave-mouth. They halt before it, and he can see that within there are statues at either hand—fanged, scrolls upon their foreheads, dark circles about their eyes. As he stares, he becomes aware of people moving about slowly inside. They are placing bowls of copal, tobacco and maize upon a low altar. They are chanting softly in words which he does not understand. She leads him across the threshold, and he sees now that the place is illuminated by candlelight. He smells incense as he stands listening to the prayers. He is given to drink a beverage of corn gruel and honey at each pausing between rituals. He sits with his back against the rock, listening, tracing circles upon the floor with his fingertip. He is given another gourd of balche to drink. As he raises it to his lips he looks upward and pauses. It is not Dora who has brought him the drink but a powerful youth, clad in the old manner of the Dineh. At this person’s back there stands another man—larger and even stronger-looking. He is similarly garbed, and the resemblance between the two is striking. “You seem familiar,” Billy tells them. The first man smiles. “We are the slayers of the giants Seven-Macaws, Zipacna and Cabracan,” he answers. “It was we,” says the other, “who journeyed down the steps to Xibalba, crossing the River of Corruption and the River of Blood. We followed the Black Path to the House of the Lords of Death” The other nods. “We played strange games with them, both winning and losing,” he says. And they say in unison, “We slew the Lords Hun-Came and Vucub-Came and ascended into light” Billy sips his balche. “You remind me,” he says to the younger one, “of Tobadzichini, and you,” to the other, “of Nayenezgani, the Warrior Twins of my people, as I always thought they must look.” The two smile. “This is true,” they say, “for we get around a lot. Down here we are known as Hunahpu and Xbalanque. Rise now to your feet and look off yonder into the darker places.” He gets up and looks to the rear of the grotto. He sees there a trail leading downward. Dora stands upon it, staring at him. “Follow,” says Hunahpu. “Follow” says Xbalanque. She begins to move away. As he turns and follows after her, he hears the cry of a bird…
