Pagina creata il 16 Novembre 1997
Ultima modifica:
They needed packaged bread and other food that would keep indefinitely, as well as cloth and a roll of plastic. To burglarize the storehouse where these items were kept it was decided to wait till midnight. By then the roving watchmen would have finished their early rounds, and the way should be safer.
When it was black dark Teacher went out by the boat basin to call Mazal at High Harbor. Conan rolled in a blanket in the corner of the shop and tried to rest. He was tired, more so than he’d admitted, but at the moment sleep seemed impossible. A nameless fear had begun to trouble him. He laid it to the uncertainties ahead and tried to put it from his mind.
What was High Harbor like now? As he tried to imagine what the Change had done to it, he wished again that he had a little of Teacher’s ability as a communicator. If only he and Lanna had been taught the way Mazal was taught—but in those days, with the war suddenly expanding, there hadn’t been time. All at once, as a remembered vision of Lanna rose in his mind, he had an almost overwhelming desire to see her as she was now. Could he?
Maybe, if he turned all his thoughts upon her, he could banish distance and somehow manage to see her again even if they couldn’t actually talk together....
* * *
At the moment Conan was concentrating upon her, Lanna was waiting impatiently in the cottage for Mazal to return from the tower. Here, on the other side of the sea, so far to the west, it was still daylight, though already the evening chill was creeping down from the heights. Lanna shivered and closed the door she had partially opened. At that instant there came to her a brief but startlingly clear vision of Conan, not as she had seen him last, but older and stronger as she knew he must be now. She even saw the mark on his forehead.
Had she recognized what was happening, and managed to blank everything else from her mind, she might have made her first contact with him. But other matters suddenly demanded her attention.
First, she was startled by hearing Jimsy’s crow signal coming from the slope behind the cottage. Jimsy had been absent from her morning classes, and she hadn’t seen him since she recovered the ax. Hearing him call now, so late in the day, was upsetting; he’d never done this before. Not, of course, that there was any reason why he shouldn’t call her at any hour if he had something important to tell her....
Jimsy’s signal came again, and now she was aware of the urgency in it. What could have happened?
She opened the door and glanced at the tower, hoping to see Mazal returning. Irresolute, she hesitated, torn between the immediacy of Jimsy and her concern for Conan and her grandfather. Yesterday Teacher had told Mazal that the time of escape was near, that it might come within a day or two. Maybe, even now... Abruptly she shook her head, closed the door once more, then caught up her cape and sped like a pale wraith through the dimness of the cottage.
At the front entrance she stopped quickly at the sound of footsteps on the porch, and moved aside just as the door was thrust open. Shann entered.
"Off to the ball, so early?" he said, making a weary attempt at being lighthearted.
For a moment she was unable to respond. "I—Jimsy’s calling me," she told him. "I’m afraid something’s happened." Then she made out the deeper lines in his face, and remembered he’d been away since dawn.
"Wha—what’s wrong, Shann?"
He eased the door shut and leaned against it, closing his eyes. "A virus," he said softly. "It’s broken out at the other end of the harbor. Six of the young ones are down with it already. And I don’t have anything for it."
Her dark eyes widened in swift alarm. This was the sort of thing poor Shann had been afraid of for five years. So far they’d been lucky, for nothing dangerous and highly contagious had appeared here. But now...
"And you think it’s—serious?"
"Yes. It’s something new—at least to me. I think the trade ship brought it. The crew are probably immune. But the young ones—it hit them last night, and three of them are unconscious already. Er—have you seen Dyce?"
Lanna shook her head. The commissioner had not been around for two days.
"I’ve got to find him," Shann said. "He’s not a doctor, but he knows a little medicine, and he’s got a lot of pharmaceuticals on board. He might be able to help us.
"Maybe Jimsy can tell us about him. I’ll ask."
She threw on her cloak and ran outside. Near the office she paused just long enough to make sure no one was watching, then hastened up through the woods to the twisted pine at the top of the slope.
Jimsy was crouched against the tree. In the fading: light his small, ragged body seemed almost part of the growth around him. Only his unkempt mop of red hair stood out brightly against the shadows. As he rose painfully to his feet she saw that the left side of his face was badly bruised and swollen, and the eye nearly closed.
"Jimsy!" she cried. "What in the world—have you been in a fight?"
"Aw, forgit it," he growled. "I’m O.K."
"But you’re hurt! You’d better come down right now and have the doctor—"
"Naw! I said I was O.K., didn’t I?" Jimsy paused, and his hard eyes bored up into hers. "You heard about the meeting?"
"What meeting?"
"Then you ain’t heard. It’s tomorrow about this time, over at that place on the road. And Orlo, he’s back of it."
A new fear, sharper than the others, suddenly cut into her. That "place on the road" was on the other side of the ridge where an old highway, useless since the Change, curved past what had once been a roadside park. The spot was the nearest large open area, and the kids often met there for games and talks.
"Jimsy, what are you trying to tell me?"
"Well, a—a lot of the guys don’t like the way Doc’s trying to hold ‘em down. I mean, they and the girls want things he don’t figger they oughta have, see? From the trade ship, I mean. Like bicycles an’ music boxes—"
"But, Jimsy, we need other things far more! Don’t you realize—"
"It ain’t me wants ‘em. What use would I have for a music box? Some dirty skunk’d swipe it from me anyway. And Orlo, he’ll wind up owning everything. You see, he wants to take over."
"What?"
"He—he wants to kick Doc out an’ be the big boss here. "
She could only stare at him in shocked silence.
"An’ that ain’t all," the boy muttered. "Orlo, he’s got it in for you. I mean, I—I seen what happened when you got the ax back."
"You—you were watching?"
"Yeah. Sorta figgered he’d get mean, so I was ready to pop ‘im with an arrer. But you got away O.K." He stopped and suddenly said, "You sure nobody seen you meet me up here?"
"Jimsy, I’m always careful. The only person who knows I’m with you now is the doctor. But I had to tell him, because—"
"Aw, he’s aw’right. I reckon Orlo just made a good guess."
"Guess about what? Jimsy, was it Orlo that gave you a beating?"
Jimsy shrugged. "It don’t matter."
"Then it was Orlo—and it does matter! Oh, that dirty animal!" She clenched her hands in sudden fury. "He did it because he thought you told me about the ax!"
Another shrug. "I said it don’t matter none. Anyway, I ain’t gonna forgit it. I’ll fix ‘im." He turned away, saying, "I hope it rains or something tomorrow.
It sure ain’t gonna be good if that goat robber comes here an’ takes over."
"Jimsy—wait! We’ve got to find the commissioner. It’s terribly important. Have you seen him anywhere?"
"Yeah. I seen ‘im." Jimsy’s hard, freckled features became a little more grim. "He’s been with Orlo all day."
"Orlo! "
"Yeah. Them two, I think they made a deal. The commissioner, he’s gonna be at the meeting tomorrow."
"Oh, no!"
"That’s what I heard. I think they’re both out at the trade ship now."
Again shock held her silent. She hardly saw Jimsy leave. When she finally turned, fighting back a growing dread, she was momentarily forgetful of her enemy beyond the land, and failed to lower her eyes in time. So abruptly she saw it in all its menacing vastness—the great shrouded, darkling sea that had swallowed continents and drowned the past, the ever deadly sea that seemed to be coiled and waiting. It was all in shadow save for a single spot of reflected light that glared at her from the horizon like a monster eye.
She cried out against it and might have panicked if Tikki, who had been circling watchfully overhead, had not dipped lower and lighted on her arm. Thankfully she clutched the bird to her and fled down through the twilight.
* * *
In the corner of the boat shop Conan awoke suddenly with the pressure of a hand upon his shoulder.
Teacher’s voice came quietly out of the darkness. "It’s time, son. We’ll have to work fast."
Conan thrust the blanket aside and rolled to his feet, almost instantly wide awake. It surprised him that he’d been asleep at all, for it seemed that only seconds had passed since he’d been thinking of Lanna and High Harbor. Remembering his effort, he felt a little depressed. He’d never make a communicator.
Before he could ask Teacher if Mazal had sent a message from Lanna, the old man pressed a flashlight into his hand and said, "Follow me, son. Don’t use the light unless you need it, and turn it only on the ground to see where I am."
"If you’re going to lead, hadn’t you better carry it?"
"No, it wouldn’t help. I’m practically blind."
"You’re what?"
Teacher chuckled softly. "I’ve always been nearly blind. I thought you knew. Happened when I was a child, fooling with chemicals. Without glasses—they were lost the night of the Change—I can make out just enough to draw my boat plans. But it made disguise a simple matter. Even without a beard, take away a man’s glasses, give him a patch in place of a glass eye, and who would know him?"
"You certainly fooled me! But how in the world can you find your way—"
"In the dark? Easily. I have other senses. Let’s go!"
As he followed the swift feet of his guide through the blackness, Conan for the first time in his life began to regard Teacher with something of the awe with which the entire world had once looked upon him. That this t all and almost frail-looking old man was Briac Roa, the greatest mind of an era, had meant little to him. He’d always accepted him simply as Teacher, a beloved friend. So, now, it was not the realization that this was the genius who had produced so many marvels that suddenly aroused his awe. It was the simple but obvious fact that a man who was nearly blind had somehow trained himself to see in the dark.
How did he do it?
All at once, as he thought back, Conan remembered an evening long ago when Teacher had been trying to improve Mazal’s ability as a communicator. "You must learn to visualize," Teacher had said. "Understand? When you talk to me at a distance you must think of me so intently that you actually see me."
"But, Father, that’s impossible!"
"Nonsense. I always see you, no matter how far away you are. What I can do, you can learn to do."
"But—but I can’t believe that," she’d protested. "You have so much more ability—"
"Nonsense again. I should have taken up your training earlier instead of leaving it to others. Like everyone else, you haven’t been taught to use your mind. You’ve been taught not to use it."
At that point Mazal had shaken her head helplessly. But Teacher, not to be stopped, had said, "You’ve been taught not to use it by having it impressed upon you that certain things are impossible. You are certain, for instance, that it is impossible for a blind man to ever learn to see. Yet I say he can. Once he learns to visualize—"
"Oh, Father!"
But here was Teacher, years later, not only proving the point but proving a greater truth as well. To Conan, at that moment, it was like the opening of a magic door.
With hardly a pause the old man led him through stygian alleyways, past black buildings reeking of chemicals and others aglow with eerie lights. They stopped finally in the rear of a windowless structure made of long sheets of heavy plastic.
Teacher stood a moment, listening. Then he quickly unrolled a bundle he carried and gave Conan a short metal wrecking bar. After tapping several of the sheets with his fingertips, he whispered, "We’ll try it here. Pry out the lower fastenings, then bend the sheet aside. Easy..."
Conan proceeded carefully. It was now that the nameless fear he’d felt earlier suddenly returned, stronger. Something was wrong, very wrong. But what could it be?
Gaining entry into the building was easier than he’d thought. Teacher followed him inside and divided his bundle, which proved to be several huge plastic bags. They found what they wanted without trouble, filled the bags, and returned the way they had entered. Conan’s load was far larger and heavier than Teacher’s, and he was forced to remove some of the bulkier things from one of the bags before he could pass it through the opening. He did this, and was replacing the articles he had taken out, when he noticed that Teacher was crouched on the ground a few feet away. The old man seemed to be examining something.
"What’s the matter?" Conan whispered.
"I’m not sure yet. It could be a great deal."
Conan played his light briefly on the ground, but saw only a long crack where the paving had pulled away from the building. Why be concerned about a crack? They were all over the waterfront.
But something was definitely wrong, for Teacher returned to the shop by a different route, and stopped every few yards for a brief study of the paving. Nor did he want to talk about it later. "Get some sleep, son," he ordered, when they had hidden their bags in the adjoining storeroom. "I’m afraid tomorrow is going to be a hard day."
* * *
It was a bad day from the beginning, and it seemed to Conan that it would never end. He awoke with the same nameless fear he had had the evening before, and it remained with him, growing as the hours passed. There was no question that Teacher, who had turned into the irascible Patch with Tellit’s arrival, was deeply troubled about something. The old man spent most of his time at the drawing table in the storeroom, writing long equations on the thin scraps of plastic that served as paper.
Tellit noticed the difference, for once he motioned toward the storeroom and muttered, "What’s happened to him? He swallow his tongue?"
"I wish I knew!" Conan said fervently.
Late that afternoon Patch ordered them to get one of the small boats ready for testing the model motor. They placed the motor in the well built for it in the stern, clamped it in place, and trundled the craft down to the basin. When it was afloat, Patch scowled at it, then had them bring down an assortment of heavy articles for ballast. These, Conan noticed, turned out to be such useful items as spare batteries, a box of tools, and even the cans of cement that would be needed later to join the hulls.
"This test is for a work boat," the old man snapped. "Get more weight into it! That motor’s got to handle a load. And while you’re about it," he added, seemingly as an afterthought, "bring the other boat here and try it on a towline."
When the final bell rang at dusk, Conan was still at the basin, finishing his first lesson in seamanship. Both boats had been partially loaded, and needed only the two bags of supplies and a few extra items to be ready for departure. By now Conan’s worry had become all he could bear.
"What’s gone wrong?" he blurted as soon as Tellit had left for the bunkhouse.
"Geology," Teacher said softly. "It’s rather messed things up for us."
"But I don’t—You said geology?"
"Yes. The Change did a lot of damage to the earth’s crust. The crust broke fairly cleanly for a great distance in this area, and took part of Industria with it. But it left fractures. There’s a bad fracture under us, as I discovered when I first came here. The strain on it is increasing. From what I saw last night, I’m afraid it’s reached a critical point."
For a moment Conan could only gape at him. "You —you mean there’s going to be a quake or something
Teacher sighed. "I mean, son, that half the remaining city is going to break away and slide into the sea."
"You—you’re sure?"
The moment he spoke he realized he was questioning the man who had predicted the Change. He was questioning Briac Roa, who had told the world exactly what would happen if magnetic power was used as a weapon. The generals hadn’t wanted to believe him. They must have it, they said, to shatter the force fields over the cities. So the planet had been shaken from its axis, and the generals were now under the sea.
"I—I’m sorry, sir," Conan faltered. "I didn’t mean—"
"It’s all right, son. I’m sure enough to know that only a miracle can prevent it. It could happen any time—without proper instruments, it’s impossible to say exactly." The old man shook his head. "But it will happen, and without warning. It’s a monstrous trap. The people must be warned."
A knot of coldness was gathering in Conan’s stomach. Suddenly he said, "Why couldn’t we leave a message for Tellit to hand over to Headquarters? If you wrote it out carefully—"
"Do you think such a message would be believed?"
"Why wouldn’t it be?"
"Because there’s no one here who understands these things. And they all think of me as Patch. Even if I signed my real name, they’d say old Patch’s mind had finally cracked."
"Suppose they did?" Conan retorted. "What more can you do? We certainly don’t owe them anything!"
"We owe them something."
"For what? For branding us?" Conan clenched his fists.
Teacher shook his head. "Every man owes his brother a helping hand when he’s in trouble. They’re in deadly peril here."
"Then let them stay in peril! Why should we go out of our way to help the New Order? Look what they’ve done! I say, let ‘em drown! The world would be better off if they were all dead! The whole dirty bunch—"
"Conan! Listen to me!"
"Y-yes, sir." The coldness in him tightened. He could see what was coming, and the thought of it filled him with dread. It was almost dark, and in a few minutes it would be safe to finish loading the boats. If he could think of some way to get Teacher away from here...
"No, you’re not to try and stop me," the old man said quickly, as if reading his mind. "In half an hour there’ll be a meeting of the commissioners. I intend to be there. And I’ll tell them who I am. it’s the only possible way—"
"But you can’t! They’d never let you go! Please—"
"Listen to me, son. When this fracture breaks, every bit of food-making apparatus will be lost—unless people start moving it immediately. It’s their only chance to survive."
"But—"
"Let me finish." Teacher swung around and pointed. "Can you make out that big rock from here? It’s about two miles up the coast, and just offshore."
"It’s too dark to see it now, but I know where it is. I noticed it earlier."
"Good. Your job is to take the boats up there and wait for me. If all goes well, I’ll meet you there at dawn."
"But—but suppose—"
"That I run into trouble?" Teacher shrugged. "That’s a chance we’ll have to take. The tide will be low at dawn, and if you don’t see me wading out to the rock, get under way fast for that other place I told you about. In the toolbox you’ll find some instructions I’ve written down for you. They’ll tell you exactly what to do"
They’ll tell me, Conan thought, how to rig the boat and sail away without him. But that I’ll never do. Never.
His jaws knotted as he watched the harbor darken. So much could happen between now and dawn.