A Handful of Darkness (16 page)

“That’s beyond our scope,” Peter said.

“What?”

“I don’t receive that type of material. I think Doctor Bish told you. I’m working with bio-chemistry.”

“I know,” Ed murmured. “Say, how the hell did you ever get mixed up with that stuff? Bio-chemistry?”

“The tests showed that my abilities lie along those lines.”

“You enjoy what you’re doing?”

“What a strange thing to ask. Of course I enjoy what I’m doing. It’s the work I’m fitted for.”

It seems funny as hell to me, starting a nine year old kid off on something like that.”

“Why?”

“My God, Pete. When I was nine I was bumming around town. In school sometimes, outside mostly, wandering here and there. Playing. Reading. Sneaking into the rocket launching yards all the time.” He considered. “Doing all sorts of things. When I was sixteen I hopped over to Mars. I stayed there awhile. Worked as a hasher. I went on to Ganymede. Ganymede was all sewed up tight. Nothing doing there. From Ganymede I went out to Prox. Got a work-away all the way out. Big freighter.”

“You stayed at Proxima?”

“I sure did. I found what I wanted. Nice place, out there. Now we’re starting on to Sirius, you know.” Ed’s chest swelled. “I’ve got an outlet in the Sirius system. Little retail and service place.”

“Sirius is 8.8 light years from Sol.”

“It’s a long way. Seven weeks from here. Rough grind. Meteor swarms. Keeps things hot all the way out.”

“I can imagine.”

“You know what I thought I might do? Ed turned towards his son, his face alive with hope and enthusiasm. “I’ve been thinking it over. I thought maybe I’d go out there. To Sirius. It’s a fine little place we have. I drew up the plans myself. Special design to fit with the characteristics of the system.”

Peter nodded.

“Pete—”

“Yes?”

“Do you think maybe you’d be interested? Like to hop out to Sirius and take a look? It’s a good place. Four clean planets. Never touched. Lots of room. Miles and miles of room. Cliffs and mountains. Oceans. Nobody around. Just a few colonists, families, some construction. Wide, level plains.”

“How do you mean, interested?”

“In going all the way out.” Ed’s face was pale. His mouth twitched nervously. “I thought maybe you’d like to come along and see how things are. It’s a lot like Prox was, twenty-five years ago. It’s good and clean out there. No cities.”

Peter smiled.

“Why are you smiling?”

“No reason.” Peter stood up abruptly. “If we have to walk back to the Station we better start. Don’t you think? It’s getting late.”

“Sure.” Ed struggled to his feet. “Sure, but—”

“When are you going to be back in the Sol system again?”

“Back?” Ed followed after his son. Peter climbed up the hill towards the road. “Slow down, will you?”

Peter slowed down. Ed caught up with him.

“I don’t know when I’ll be back. I don’t come here very often. No ties. Not since Jan and I separated. As a matter of fact I came here this time to—”

“This way.” Peter started down the road.

Ed hurried along beside him, fastening his tie and putting his coat on, gasping for breath. “Pete, what do you say? You want to hop out to Sirius with me? Take a look? It’s a nice place out there. We could work together. The two of us. If you want.”

“But I already have my work.”

“That stuff? That damn chemistry stuff?”

Peter smiled again.

Ed scowled, his face dark red. “Why are you smiling?” he demanded. His son did not answer. “What’s the matter? What’s so damn funny?”

“Nothing,” Peter said. “Don’t become excited. We have a long walk down.” He increased his pace slightly, his supple body swinging in long, even strides. “It’s getting late. We have to hurry.”

Doctor Bish examined his wrist watch, pushing back his pinstriped coat sleeve. “I’m glad you’re back.”

“He sent the surface car away,” Peter murmured. “We had to walk down the hill on foot.”

It was dark outside. The Station lights were coming on automatically, along the rows of buildings and laboratories.

Doctor Bish rose from his desk. “Sign this Peter. Bottom of this form.”

Peter signed. “What is it?”

“Certifies you saw him in accord with the provisions of the law. We didn’t try to obstruct you in any way.”

Peter handed the paper back. Bish filed it away with the others. Peter moved towards the door of the doctor’s office. “I’ll go. Down to the cafeteria for dinner.”

“You haven’t eaten?”

“No.”

Doctor Bish folded his arms, studying the boy. “Well?” he said. “What do you think of him? This is the first time you’ve seen your father. It must have been strange for you. You’ve been around us so much, in all your training and work.”

“It was—unusual.”

“Did you gain any impressions? Was there anything you particularly noticed.”

“He was very emotional. There was a distinct bias through everything he said and did. A distortion present, virtually uniform.”

“Anything else?”

Peter hesitated, lingering at the door. He broke into a smile.

“One other thing.”

“What was it?”

“I noticed—” Peter laughed. “I noticed a distinct odour about him. A constant pungent smell, all the time I was with him.”

“I’m afraid that’s true of all of them,” Doctor Bish said. “Certain skin glands. Waste products thrown off from the blood. You’ll get used to it, after you’ve been around them more.”

“Do I have to be around them?”

“They’re your own race. How else can you work with them? Your whole training is designed with that in mind. When we’ve taught you all we can, then you will—”

“It reminded me of something. The pungent odour. I kept thinking about it, all the time I was with him. Trying to place it.”

“Can you identify it now?”

Peter reflected. He thought hard, concentrating deeply. His small face wrinkled up. Doctor Bish waited patiently by his desk, his arms folded. The automatic heating system clicked on for the night, warming the room with a soft glow that drifted gently around them.

“I know!” Peter exclaimed suddenly.

“What was it?”

“The animals in the biology labs. It was the same smell. The same smell as the experimental animals.”

They glanced at each other, the robot doctor and the promising young boy. Both of them smiled, a secret, private smile. A smile of complete understanding.

“I believe I know what you mean,” Doctor Bish said. “In fact, I know
exactly
what you mean.”

Silvia ran laughing through the night brightness, between the roses and cosmos and Shasta daisies, down the gravel paths and beyond the heaps of sweet-tasting grass swept from the lawns. Stars. caught in pools of water, glittered everywhere, as she brushed through them to the slope beyond the brick wall. Cedars supported the sky and ignored the slim shape squeezing past, her brown hair flying, her eyes flashing.

“Wait for me,” Rick complained, as he cautiously threaded his way after her, along the half familiar path. Silvia danced on without stopping. “Slow down!” he shouted angrily.

“Can’t—we’re late.” Without warning, Silvia appeared in front of him, blocking the; path. “Empty your pockets,” she gasped, her grey eyes sparkling. “Throw away all metal. You know they can’t stand metal.”

Rick searched his pockets. In his overcoat were two dimes and a fifty-cent piece. “Do these count?”

“
Yes!
” Silvia snatched the coins and threw them into the dark heaps of calla lilies. The bits of metal hissed into the moist depths and were gone. “Anything else?” She caught hold of his arm anxiously. “They’re already on their way. Anything else, Rick?”

“Just my watch.” Rick pulled his wrist away as Silvia’s wild fingers snatched for the watch. “That’s not going in the bushes.”

“Then lay it on the sundial—or the wall. Or in a hollow tree.” Silvia raced off again. Her excited, rapturous voice danced back to him. “Throwaway your cigarette case. And your keys, your belt buckle—everything metal. You know how they hate metal. Hurry, we’re late!”

Rick followed sullenly after her. “All right,
witch
.”

Silvia snapped at him furiously from the darkness. “Don’t say that! It isn’t true. You’ve been listening to my sisters and my mother and—”

Her words were drowned out by the sound. Distant flapping, a long way off, like vast leaves rustling in a winter storm. The night sky was alive with the frantic poundings; they were coming very quickly this time. They were too greedy, too desperately eager to wait. Flickers of fear touched the man and he ran to catch up with Silvia.

Silvia was a tiny column of green skirt and blouse in the centre of the thrashing mass. She was pushing them away with one arm and trying to manage the faucet with the other. The churning activity of wings and bodies twisted her like a reed. For a time she was lost from sight.

“Rick!” she called faintly. “Come here and help!” She pushed them away and struggled up. “They’re suffocating me!”

Rick fought his way through the wall of flashing white to the edge of the trough. They were drinking greedily at the blood that spilled from the wooden faucet. He pulled Silvia close against him; she was terrified and trembling. He held her tight until some of the violence and fury around them had died down.

“They’re hungry,” Silvia gasped feebly.

“You’re a little cretin for coming ahead. They can sear you to ash!”

“I know. They can do anything.” She shuddered, excited and frightened. “Look at them,” she whispered. her voice husky with awe. “Look at the size of them—their wing-spread. And they’re white, Rick. Spotless—perfect. There’s nothing in our world as spotless as that. Great and clean and wonderful.”

“They certainly wanted the lamb’s blood.”

Silvia’s soft hair blew against his face as the wings fluttered on all sides. They were leaving now, roaring up into the sky. Not up, really—away. Back to their own world, whence they had scented the blood. But it was not only the blood—they had come because of Silvia.
She
had attracted them.

The girl’s grey eyes were wide. She reached up towards the rising white creatures. One of them swooped close. Grass and flowers sizzled as blinding white flames roared in a brief fountain. Rick scrambled away. The flaming figure hovered momentarily over Silvia and then there was a hollow
pop
. The last of the white-winged giants was gone. The air, the ground, gradually cooled into darkness and silence.

“I’m sorry,” Silvia whispered.

“Don’t do it again,” Rick managed. He was numb with shock. “It isn’t safe.”

“Sometimes I forget. I’m sorry, Rick. I didn’t mean to draw them so close.” She tried to smile. “I haven’t been that careless in months. Not since that other time when I first brought you out here.” The avid, wild look slid across her face. “Did you
see
him? Power and flames! And he didn’t even touch us. He just looked at us. That was all. And everything’s burned up, all around.”

Rick grabbed hold of her. “Listen; he grated. “You mustn’t call them again. It’s wrong. This isn’t their world.”

“It’s not wrong—its beautiful.”

“It’s not safe!” His fingers dug into her flesh until she gasped. “Stop tempting them down here!”

Silvia laughed hysterically. She pulled away from him, out into the blasted circle that the horde of angels had seared behind them as they rose into the sky. “I can’t help it,” she cried. “I belong with them. They’re my family, my people. Generations of them, back into the past.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re my ancestors. And some day I’ll join them.”

“You’re a little witch!” Rick shouted furiously.

“No,” Silvia answered. “Not a witch, Rick. Don’t you see? I’m a saint.”

The kitchen was warm and bright. Silvia plugged in the Silex and got a big red can of coffee down from the cupboards over the sink. “You mustn’t listen to them,” she said, as she set out plates and cups and got cream from the refrigerator. “you know they don’t understand. Look at them in there.”

Silvia’s mother and her sisters, Betty Lou and Jean, stood huddled together in the living-room, fearful and alert, watching the young couple in the kitchen. Walter Everett was standing by the fire-place, his face blank, remote.

“Listen to
me
,” Rick said. “You have this power to attract them. You mean you’re not—isn’t Walter your real father?”

“Oh, yes—of course he is. I’m completely human. Don’t I look human?”

“But you’re the only one who has the power.”

“I’m not physically different,” Silvia said thoughtfully. “I have the ability to see, that’s all. Others have had it before me—saints, martyrs. When I was a child, my mother read to me about St. Bernadette. Remember where her cave was? Near a hospital. They were hovering there and she saw one of them.”

“But the blood! It’s grotesque. There never was anything like that.”

“Oh, yes. The blood draws them, lamb’s blood especially. They hover over battlefields. Valkyries—carrying off the dead to Valhalla. That’s why saints and martyrs cut and mutilate themselves. You know where I got the idea?”

Silvia fastened a little apron around her waist and filled the Silex with coffee. “When I was nine years old, I read of it in Homer, in the Odyssey. Ulysses dug a trench in the ground and filled it with blood to attract the spirits. The shades from the nether world.”

“That’s right,” Rick admitted reluctantly. “I remember.”

“The ghosts of people who died. They had lived once. Everybody lives here, then dies and goes there.” Her face glowed. “We’re all going to have wings! We’re all going to fly. We’ll all be filled with fire and power. We won’t be worms any more.”

“Worms! That’s what you always call me.”

“Of course you’re a worm. We’re all worms—grubby worms creeping over the crust of the Earth, through dust and dirt.”

“Why should blood bring them?”

“Because it’s life and they’re attracted by life. Blood is
uisge beatha
—the water of life.”

“Blood means death! A trough of spilled blood…”

“It’s
not
death. When you see a caterpillar crawl into its cocoon, do you think it’s dying?”

Walter Everett was standing in the doorway. He stood listening to his daughter, his face dark. “One day,” he said hoarsely. “they’re going to grab her and carry her off. She wants to go with them. She’s waiting for that day.”

“You see?” Silvia said to Rick. “He doesn’t understand either.” She shut off the Silex and poured coffee. “Coffee for you?” she asked her father.

“No,” Everett said.

“Silvia,” Rick said, as if speaking to a child, if you went away with them, you know you couldn’t come back to us.”

“We all have to cross sooner or later. It’s all part of our life.”

“But you’re only nineteen,” Rick pleaded. “You’re young and healthy and beautiful. And our marriage—what about our marriage?” He half rose from the table. “Silvia, you’ve got to stop this!”

“I
can’t
stop it. I was seven when I saw them first.” Silvia stood by the sink, gripping the Silex, a faraway look in her eyes. “Remember, Daddy? We were living back in Chicago. It was winter. I fell, walking home from school.” She held up a slim arm. “See the scar? I fell and cut myself on the gravel and slush. I came home crying—it was sleeting and the wind was howling around me. My arm was bleeding and my mitten was soaked with blood. And then I looked up and saw them.”

There was silence.

“They want you,” Everett said wretchedly. “They’re flies—bluebottles, hovering around, waiting for you. Calling you to come along with them.”

“Why not?” Silvia’s grey eyes were shining and her cheeks radiated joy and anticipation. “You’ve seen them, Daddy. You know what it means. Transfiguration—from clay into gods!”

Rick left the kitchen. In the living-room. the two sisters stood together, curious and uneasy. Mrs. Everett stood by herself, her face granite-hard, eyes bleak behind her steel-rimmed glasses. She turned away as Rick passed them.

“What happened out there?” Betty Lou asked him in a taut whisper. She was fifteen, skinny and plain, hollow cheeked, with mousy, sand-coloured hair. “Silvia never lets us come out with her.”

“Nothing happened,” Rick answered.

Anger stirred the girl’s barren face. “That’s not true. You were both out in the garden, in the dark, and—”

“Don’t talk to him!” her mother snapped. She yanked the two girls away and shot Rick a glare of hatred and misery. Then she turned quickly from him.

Rick opened the door to the basement and switched on the light. He descended slowly into the cold, damp room of concrete and dirt, with its unwinking yellow light hanging from dust-covered wires overhead.

In one corner loomed the big floor furnace with its mammoth hot air pipes. Beside it stood the water heater and discarded bundles, boxes of books, newspapers and old furniture, thick with dust, encrusted with strings of spider webs.

At the far end were the washing machine and spin dryer. And Silvia’s pump and refrigeration system.

From the work bench Rick selected a hammer and two heavy pipe wrenches. He was moving towards the elaborate tanks and pipes when Silvia appeared abruptly at the top of the stairs, her coffee cup in one hand.

She hurried quickly down to him. “What are you doing down here?” she asked, studying him intently. “Why that hammer and those two wrenches?”

Rick dropped the tools back on to the bench. “I thought maybe this could be solved on the spot.”

Silvia moved between him and the tanks. “I thought you understood. They’ve always been a part of my life. When I brought you with me the first time, you seemed to see what—”

“I don’t want to lose you,” Rick said harshly, “to anybody or anything—in this world or any other. I’m not going to give you up.”

“It’s not giving me up!” Her eyes narrowed. “You came down here to destroy and break everything. The moment I’m not looking you’ll smash all this, won’t you?”

“That’s right.”

Fear replaced anger on the girl’s face. “Do you want me to be chained here?” I have to go on—I’m through with this part of the Journey. I’ve stayed here long enough.”

“Can’t you wait?” Rick demanded furiously. He couldn’t keep the ragged edge of despair out of his voice. “Doesn’t it come soon enough anyhow?”

Silvia shrugged and turned away, her arms folded, her red lips tight together. “You want to be a worm always. A fuzzy, little creeping caterpillar.”

“I want
you
.”

“You can’t
have
me!” She whirled angrily. “I don’t have any time to waste with this.”

“You have higher things in mind,” Rick said savagely.

“Of course.” She softened a little. “I’m sorry, Rick. Remember Icarus? You want to fly, too. I know it.”

“In my time.”

“Why not now? Why wait? You’re afraid.” She slid lightly away from him, cunning twisting her red lips. “Rick, I want to show you something. Promise me first—you won’t tell anybody.”

“What is it?”

“Promise?” She put her hand to his mouth. “I have to be careful. It cost a lot of money. Nobody knows about it. It’s what they do in China—everything goes towards it.”

“I’m curious,” Rick said. Uneasiness flicked at him. “Show it to me.”

Trembling with excitement, Silvia disappeared behind the huge lumbering refrigerator, back into the darkness behind the web of frost-hard freezing coils. He could hear her tugging and pulling at something. Scraping sounds, sounds of something large being dragged out.

“See?” Silvia gasped. “Give me a hand, Rick. It’s heavy. Hardwood and brass—and metal lined. It’s hand-stained and polished. And that carving—see the carving! Isn’t it beautiful?”

“What is it?” Rick demanded huskily.

“It’s my cocoon,” Silvia said simply. She settled down in a contented heap on the floor, and rested her head happily against the polished oak coffin.

Rick grabbed her by the arm and dragged her to her feet. “You can’t sit with that coffin, down here in the basement with—” He broke off. “What’s the matter?”

Silvia’s face was twisting with pain. She backed away from him and put her finger quickly to her mouth. “I cut myself—when you pulled me up—on a nail or something.” A thin trickle of blood oozed down her fingers. She groped in her pocket for a handkerchief.

“Let me see it.” He moved towards her, but she avoided him. “Is it bad?” he demanded.

“Stay away from me,” Silvia whispered.

“What’s wrong? Let me see it!”

“Rick,” Silvia said in a low intense voice, “get some water and adhesive tape. As quickly as possible.” She was trying to keep down her rising terror. “I have to stop the bleeding.”