Charles Beaumont: Selected Stories (19 page)

The old man picked up a calabash and ran water over his hands. "I am sorry," he said, "that you must learn the way you must,"
A slow chant rose from the natives. It sounded to Austin like Swahili, yet it was indistinct. He could recognize none of the words, except gonga and bagana. Medicine? The man with the medicine? It was a litany, not unlike the Gregorian chants he had once heard, full of overpowering melancholy. Calm and ethereal, and sad as only the human voice can be sad. It rode on the stale air, swelling, diminishing, cutting through the stench of decay and rot with profound dignity.
Austin felt the heaviness of his clothes. The broken machines had stopped pumping fresh breezes, so the air was like oil, opening the pores of his body, running coldly down his arms and legs.
Bokawah made a motion with his hand and sank back onto the smooth floor. He breathed wrackingly, and groaned as if in pain. Then he straightened and looked at Austin and hobbled quickly away.
The drums began. Movement eased back into the throng and soon the dancers were up, working themselves back into their possessed states,
Austin turned and walked quickly away from the ceremony. When he reached the shadows, he ran. He did not stop running until he had reached the lift, even while his muscles, long dormant, unaccustomed to the activity, turned to stone, numb and throbbing stone.
He stabbed the button and closed his eyes, while his heart pumped and roared sound into his ears and colored fire into his mind. The platform descended slowly, unemotional and calm as its parts.
Austin ran out and fell against a building, where he tried to push away the image of the black magic ceremony, and what he had felt there,
He swallowed needles of pain into his parched throat,
And the fear mounted and mounted, strangling him slowly
The towers of Mbarara loomed, suddenly, to Austin, more unreal and anachronistic than the tribal rites from which he had just come. Stalagmites of crystal pushing up to the night sky that bent above them; little squares and diamonds and circles of metal and stone. Office buildings; apartments; housing units; hat stores and machine factories and restaurants; and, cobwebbing among them, all these blind and empty shells, the walkways, like colored ribbons, like infinitely long reptiles, sleeping now, dead, still.
Or, were they only waiting, as he wanted to believe?
Of course they're waiting, he thought. People who know the answers will come to Mbarara tomorrow. Clear-headed scientists who have not been terrorized by a tribe of beaten primitives. And the scientists will find out what killed the workers, correct it, and people will follow. Five hundred thousand people, from all over the closetcrowded world, happy to have air to breathe once more-air that hasn't had to travel down two-hundred feet-happy to know the Earth can yet sustain them. No more talk, then, of "population decreases"-murder was a better word-; no more government warnings screaming "depopulation" at you . - -
The dream would come true, Austin told himself. Because it must. Because he'd promised Mag, and they'd lived it all together, endless years, hoped and planned and fought for the city. With Mbarara, it would begin: the dark age of a sardine can world would end, and life would begin. It would be many years before the worry would begin all over-for half the earth lay fallow, wasted. Australia, Greenland, Iceland, Africa, the Poles… And perhaps then the population graph would change, as it had always changed before, And men would come out of their caverns and rat-holes and live as men.
Yes. But only if Mbarara worked. If he could show them his success here…
Austin cursed the men who had gone back and screamed the story of what had happened to the other engineers. God knew there were few enough available, few who had been odd enough to study a field for which there seemed little further use.
lf they'd only kept still about the disease! Then others would have come and…
Died. The word came out instantly, uncalled, and vanished.
Austin passed the Emperor, the playhouse he had thought of that night with Mag, ten years before. As he passed, he tried to visualize the foyer jammed with people in soup-and-fish and jeweled gowns, talking of whether the play had meat or not. Now, its marbled front putting out yellow glow, it looked foolish and pathetic. The placard case shone through newly gathered dust, empty.
Austin tried to think of what had been on this spot originally. Thick jungle growth alone. Or had there been a native village-with monkeys climbing the trees and swinging on vines and white widows mourning under straw roofs?
Now playing: JULIUS CAESAR. Admission: Three coconuts.
Be still. You've stayed together all this time, he thought, you can hold out until tomorrow. Tcheletchew will be here, sputtering under his beard, and they'll fly Mag to a hospital and make her well and clear up this nonsense in a hurry.
Just get home. Don't think and get home, and it will be all right.
The city was actually without formal streets. Its plan did not include the antiquated groundcars that survived here and there in old families. Therefore, Mbarara was literally a maze. A very pretty maze. Like an English estate-Austin had admired these touches of vanished gentility-the areas were sometimes framed by green stone hedges, carved into functional shapes.
He had no difficulty finding his way. It was all too fresh, even now, the hours of planning every small curve and design, carefully leaving no artistic 'holes' or useless places. He could have walked it blindfolded.
But when he passed the food dispensary and turned the corner, he found that it did not lead to the 'copter-park, as it should have. There were buildings there, but they were not the ones they ought to have been.
Or else he'd turned the wrong-He retraced his steps to the point where he had gone left. The food dispensary was nowhere in sight. Instead he found himself looking at the general chemistry building.
Austin paused and wiped his forehead, The excitement of course, It had clouded his mind for a moment, making him lose his way.
He began walking. Warm perspiration coursed across his body, turning his suit dark-wet, staining his jacket.
He passed the food dispensary.
Austin clenched his fists. It was impossible that he could have made a complete circle. He had built this city, he knew it intimately. He had walked through it without even thinking of direction, in the half-stages of construction, and never taken a wrong step.
How could he be lost?
Nerves. Nothing strange in it. Certainly enough had happened to jar loose his sense of direction.
Calmly, now. Calmly.
The air hung fetid and heavy. He had to pull it into his lungs, push it out. Of course, he could go below and open the valves-at least they could be operated by hand. He could, but why? It would mean bunching down in a dark shaft-damn, should have made that shaft larger! And, there were, after all, enough openings in the sealing-bubble to keep a breathable flow of oxygen in circulation. If the air was heavy and still outside the bubble, he could scarcely expect it to be different within.
He looked up at the half-minaretted tower that was one of the 'copter repair centers. It was located in exactly the opposite direction to the one he thought he'd taken.
Austin sank onto a stone bench. Images floated through his mind. He was lost; precisely as lost as if he had wandered into the jungle that had stood here before the building of Mbarara, and then tried to find his way back.
He closed his eyes and saw a picture, startling clear, of himself, running through the matted growths of dark green foliage, stumbling across roots, bumping trees, face grotesque with fear, and screaming…
He opened his eyes quickly, shook away the vision. His brain was tired; that was why he saw such a picture. He must keep his eyes open.
The city was unchanged. The park, designed for housewives who might wish to pause and rest or chat, perhaps feed squirrels, surrounded him,
Across the boating lake was the university.
Behind the university was home.
Austin rose, weakly, and made his way down the grassy slope to the edge of the artificial lake. Cultured city trees dotted the banks: the lake threw back a geometrically perfect reflection,
He knelt and splashed water onto his face. Then he gulped some of it down and paused until the ripples spread to the center of the lake.
He studied his image in the water carefully. White skin, smooth cheeks, iron-colored hair. Good clothes. A dolichocephalic head, evenly space, the head of a twenty-second century civilized…
Above his reflection, Austin detected movement. He froze and blinked his eyes. As the water smoothed, the image of an animal appeared on the surface, wavering slightly. A small animal, something like a monkey. Like a monkey hanging from the branches of a tree.
Austin whirled around.
There was only the darkness, the golfing-green lawn, the cultured trees-smoothbarked, empty.
He passed a hand through his hair. It was a trick of the lights. His subconscious fear, the shimmering water…
He walked quickly to the darkened boathouse, across its floor, his footsteps ringing against the stone, echoing loudly.
At the end of the miniature pier, he untied a small battery boat and jumped into it. He pulled a switch at the side, waited, forced himself to look back at the deserted bank.
The boat moved slowly, with only a whisper of sound, through the water.
Hurry, Austin thought. Hurry-Oh God, why are they so slow!
The boat, whose tin flag proclaimed its name to be Lucy, sliced the calm lake with its toy prow, and, after many minutes, reached the center.
The glow was insufficient to make the approaching bank distinct. It lay wrapped in darkness, a darkness that hid even the buildings.
Austin narrowed his eyes and stared. He blinked. It was the fuzziness of the luminescence, of course, that gave movement to the bank. That made it seem to seethe with unseen life.
It was only that his position to the shadows kept changing that made them turn into dark and feral shapes; trees, where buildings surely were, dense growth…
It was the milky phosphorescence of the metals that rose like marsh-steam from the nearing water…
He closed his eyes and gripped the sides of the boat.
There was a scraping. Austin felt the cement guard, sighed, switched off the battery and leapt from the little boat.
There was no jungle. Only the lime-colored city trees and the smooth lawn.
The university sat ahead like a string of dropped pearls; blister-shaped, connected by elevated tunnels, twisting, delicate strands of metal and alloy.
Austin scrambled up the embankment. It must be very late now. Perhaps nearly morning. In a few hours, the others would arrive. And-.
He halted, every muscle straining.
He listened,
There were the drums. But not only the drums, now.
Other sounds.
He closed his eyes. The airless night pressed against him. He heard a rustling noise. Like something traveling through dense brush. He heard, far away, tiny sounds, whistlings, chitterings. Like monkeys and birds.
He tore open his eyes. Only the park, the city.
He went on. Now his feet were on stone and the park was behind him. He walked through the canyons of the city again, the high buildings, metal and crystal and alloy and stone.
The rustling noises did not cease, however, They were behind him, growing nearer. Bodies, moving through leaves and tall grass.
Austin suddenly remembered where he'd heard the sound before. Years ago, when he'd first visited this land. They had taken him on a hunting expedition, deep into the wild country. They were going to bag something-he forgot exactly what. Something strange. Yes; it was a wild pig. They had walked all day, searching, through the high tan grass, and then they had heard the rustling sounds.
Exactly like the sound he heard now.
Austin recalled the unbelievable fury of the boar, how it had disemboweled two dogs with a couple of swipes of those razor-sharp fangs. He recalled clearly the angry black snout, curled over yellow teeth.
He turned and stared into the darkness, The noises grew steadily louder, and were broken by yet another sound. Deep and guttural, like a cough.
As the sound behind him came closer, he ran, stumbled and fell, pulled himself from the stone, and ran until he had reached a flight of steps.
The coughing noise was a fast, high-pitched scream now, grunting, snorting, a rush of tiny feet galloping across tamped earth, through dry grass. Austin stared blindly, covered his face with his arms and sank back until the sound was almost upon him.
His nostrils quivered at the animal smell.
His breath stopped.
He waited.
It was gone. Fading in the distance, the rustling, the coughing, and then there was the silence of the drums again.
Austin pressed the bones of his wrist into his throbbing skull to quiet the ache.
The panic drained oft slowly. He rose, climbed the steps and walked through the shadowed courtyard onto the campus.
It was a vast green plain, smooth and grassy.
Across from it, in sight, was Austin's home.
He gathered his reason about him like a shield, and decided against taking the other routes. If he had gotten lost before, it could happen again. Certainly now, with his imagination running wild.
He must cross the campus.
Then it would be all right.
He began treading, timorously at first, listening with every square inch of his body.
The shamon's voice slithered into his mind. Chanting ". . . you were destroying us against our will, Mr. Austin. Our world, our life. And such is your mind, and the mind of so-called 'civilized' men, that you could not see this was wrong. You have developed a culture and a social structure that pleased you, you were convinced that it was right; therefore, you could not understand the existence of any that differed. You saw us as ignorant savages-most of you did-and you were anxious to 'civilize' us. Not once did it occur to you that we, too, had our culture and our social structure; that we knew right and wrong; that, perhaps, we might look upon you as backward and uncivilized…"

The sound of birds came to Austin; birds calling in high trees, circling impossibly in the night sky.
". . . . . we have clung to our 'magic', as you call it, and our 'superstitions' for longer than you have clung to yours. Because-as with your own-they have worked for us. Whether magic can be explained in Roman numerals or not, what is the difference, so long as it works? Mr. Austin, there is not only one path to the Golden City-there are many. Your people are on one path-"
He heard the chatter of monkeys, some close, some far away, the sound of them swinging on vines, scolding, dropping to mounds of foliage, scrambling up other trees.
"-my people are on another, There is room in this world for both ways. But your failure to grasp this simple fact has killed many of us and it will kill many more of you. For we have been on our path longer. We are closer to the Golden City…" .
Austin clapped his hands to his ears. But he did not stop walking.
From the smooth stone streets, from the direction of the physics department, came the insane trumpeting of elephants, their immense bulks crashing against brittle bark, their huge feet crunching fallen limbs and branches… .
The shaman's voice became the voice of Barney Chadfield… . . . He spoke again of his theory that if one could only discover the unwritten bases of black magic and apply formulae to them, we would find that they were merely another form of science… . . . perhaps less advanced, perhaps more,
The sounds picked up, and the feelings, and the sensations. Eyes firmly open, Austin thought of Mag and felt needled leaves slap invisibly against his legs; he smelled the rot and the life, the heavy, wild air of the jungle, like animal steam; the odors of fresh blood and wet fur and decaying plants; the short rasping breath of a million different animals-the movement, all around him, the approaches, the retreats, the frenzied unseen… .
Eyes open he felt and smelled and heard all these things; and saw only the city.
A pain shot through his right arm. He tried to move it: it would not move. He thought of an old man. The old man had a doll. The old man was crushing the doll's arm, and laughing… . . . He thought of reflexes and the reaction of reflexes to emotional stimuli.
He walked, ignoring the pain, not thinking about the arm at all,
". . . . . tell them, Mr. Austin. Make them believe. Make them believe… Do not kill all these people…" . .
When he passed the Law College, he felt a pain wrench at his leg. He heard another dry-grass rustle. But not behind him: in front. Going forward.
Going toward his apartment.
Austin broke into a run, without knowing exactly why.
There was a pounding, a panting at his heels: vaguely he was aware of this. He knew only that he must get inside, quickly, to the sanity of his home. Jaws snapped, clacked. Austin stumbled on a vine, his fingers pulled at air, he leapt away and heard the sound of something landing where he had just been, something that screamed and hissed.
He ran on. At the steps, his foot pressed onto something soft. It recoiled madly. He slipped and fell again, and the feel of moist beaded skin whipped about his legs. The thunder was almost directly above. He reached out, clawed loose the thing around his leg and pulled himself forward.
There was a swarming over his hands. He held them in front of his eyes, tried to see the ants that had to be there, slapped the invisible creatures loose.
The apartment door was only a few feet away now. Austin remembered his pistol, drew it out and fired it into the night until there were no more bullets left.
He pulled himself into the lobby of the unit.
The door hissed closed.
He touched the lock, heard it spring together.
And then the noises ceased. The drums and the animals, all the wild nightmare things-ceased to be. There was his breathing, and the pain that laced through his arm and leg.
He waited, trembling, trying to pull breath in.
Finally he rose and limped to the elevator. He did not even think about the broken machines. He knew it would work.
It did. The glass doors whirred apart at his floor, and he went into the hall.
It was soundless.
He stood by the door, listening to his heart rattle crazily in his chest.
He opened the door.
The apartment was calm, silent. The walls glowed around the framed Mirós and Mondrians and Picassos. The furniture sat functionally on the silky white rug, black thin-legged chairs and tables…
Austin started to laugh, carefully checked himself. He knew he probably would not be able to stop.
He thought strongly about Tcheletchew, and the men who would come to Mbarara in the morning. He thought of the city teeming with life. Of the daylight screaming onto the streets of people, the shops, the churches, the schools. His work. His dream .
He walked across the rug to the bedroom door.
It was slightly ajar.
He pushed it, went inside, closed it softly.
"Mag," he whispered. "Mag-"
There was a noise. A low, throaty rumble. Not of anger; of warning.
Richard Austin came close to the bed, adjusted his eyes to the black light.
Then he screamed.
It was the first time he had ever watched a lion feeding.