J. Ballard - The Drought

Catherine surveyed the floor, which was strewn with straw and splinters of bone. "It may look a mess, but I think Father would have been proud of me."

"Perhaps he would. How did you persuade Barnes to leave you here?"

"He worked for Father years ago. Whitman and I convinced him that we should stay on and put them down one at a time, so there wouldn't be any panic."

"Are you going to?"

"What? Of course not. I know we can't hope to keep them all alive, but we'll try with the mammals. The lions we'll save right to the end."

"And then?"

Catherine turned on him, controlling her temper. "What are you trying to say, doctor? I'd rather not think about it!"

"I should." Ransom stepped over to her. "Catherine, be sensible for a moment. Lomax hasn't given this water to you out of charity-he obviously intends to use the animals for his own purposes. As for Whitman, the man is out of his mind. Perhaps zoos need people like him, but he's a menace on his own. It's time to leave, or you'll come here one morning and find all the cages open."

Catherine wrenched her arm away from him. "Doctor, for heaven's sake-! Can't you understand? It might _rain_ tomorrow, much as you may hate the prospect. I don't intend to desert these animals, and as long as there's food and water I certainly can't destroy them." Lowering her voice, she added: "Besides, I don't think Whitman would let me."

She turned away and touched the cage of the blind lion.

"He probably wouldn't," Ransom said. "Remember, though, that here, unlike the world outside, you still have bars between you and the animals."

Quietly, Catherine said: "One day you're going to be surprised, doctor. If I was a little less of a coward I'd show you."

Ransom was about to remonstrate with her again when something moved behind him. Silhouetted against the sunlight, his leering face watching them, was the faunlike figure who had already crept up behind him once that day.

Ransom stepped toward the door, but the youth darted away.

"What the devil is he up to here? Has he been hanging around before?"

"Who was that? I didn't see him."

"Lomax's familiar-Quilter." A few feet from Ransom the lions munched at the joints of meat, jaws tearing through the bony shafts. Quilter's appearance had abruptly let another dimension into the uncertain future of the zoo.

Hands in pockets, Catherine followed him into the sunlight. "Tomorrow I'm moving in here, so I won't see you again, doctor. By the way, that houseboat of yours hardly looks as if it's going anywhere."

"I intend to put a stronger motor on it." The sky was still stained by the plumes of red and black smoke billowing upwards from the city. He saw Quilter moving past the entrance to the aviary, a circular wire-topped building that backed on to the pumphouse.

Ransom managed a faint smile. "I'm glad you've found yourself at last," he said.

She slipped her arm through his. "Why don't you join me, doctor? We'll teach the lions to hunt in packs."

Then she waved and walked away among the cages.

Clasping the valise, Ransom set off across the central promenade. He stopped behind the flamingo pool. Around him the animals patrolled their cages in the bright sun. The water tanker stood by the pumphouse, its hose trailing into a manifold. Whitman had gone off to the living quarters near the gates.

A bird's sharp cry pierced the air, ending in a flat squawk. Ransom walked along the wall of the pool, searching the empty passages between the cages. He stepped out into the open and moved quickly toward the pumphouse, darting into the shade below the roofs of the cages. The Syrian bear swayed along the bars after him, trying to embrace him with its ponderous arms. The cheetahs' tails flicked like whips, their cold eyes cutting at Ransom.

He stepped into the entrance to the aquarium. Faint sunlight filtered through the matting laid on the frosted glass overhead, a crack here and there illuminating a corner of one of the tanks. The usual liquid glimmer had been stilled, and there was a sharp tang in the air. Ransom moved between the lines of tanks toward the service door beyond the alligator pit, then paused as his eyes cleared in the darkness.

Suspended in the dim air around him, their pearly bodies rotating slowly like the vanes of elaborate mobiles, were the corpses of hundreds of fish. Poisoned by their own wastes, they hung weightlessly in the gloomy water, their blank eyes glowing like phosphors, mouths agape. In the smaller tanks, the tropical fish effloresced like putrid jewels, their colored tissues dissolving into threads of gossamer. Gazing at them, Ransom had a sudden vision of the sea by the coastal beaches, as clouded and corpse-strewn as the water in the tanks, the faces of the drowned eddying past each other.

Quickly he crossed the aquarium and stepped into the service unit. A narrow yard led him into the rear of the pumphouse. The machinery was silent, the large flywheel stationary in its pit. Masking his footsteps, he approached the open double doors, through which he could see the green hull of the water-tanker.

Standing with his back to Ransom, inspecting with interest the damp hose leading into the manifold, was Quilter. He wore the same filthy trousers stained with wine and grease, but he now sported an expensive gold and purple paisley shirt. Suspended from his belt by a piece of coarse string fastened around its -severed neck, was the dead carcass of a peacock, its limp jeweled tail sweeping behind him like a train.

A fly circled the air above his squat head, then alighted on his neck. Absentmindedly, Quilter raised his right hand, and then slapped the insect into a red smudge. He picked thoughtfully at the remains.

Ransom stepped out into the sunlight, and walked up behind him. With his right hand he held Quilter's arm tightly above the elbow.

Startled, Quilter -looked around, his liquid eyes rolling beneath his dented brows.

"Doctor-!"

"Hello, Quilter." Gripping the muscular biceps, an immense bulge of muscle, Ransom glanced between the wheels of the tanker for any signs of the Alsatians. "Is this your afternoon off? I didn't know you enjoyed zoos."

"Doctor…" Quilter gazed down at the fingers clenched around his arm, a puzzled frown on his face. "Doctor, I don't like-" He jerked his arm away, then lashed out at Ransom with the edge of his hand. Ready for this, Ransom sidestepped, knocking Quilter offbalance with his elbow. He clouted him across the shoulders with the valise. Quilter sat down heavily on the concrete, the peacock's tail flaring between his legs. For a moment he seemed stunned. Then a rheumy -smile struggled fitfully onto his deformed face.

His point made, Ransom leaned against the side of the tanker, washing his hand in the water dribbling from the hose.

"You should be more careful, Quilter. Now what are you up to here?"

Quilter shook his head slowly, apparently mystified by Ransom's behavior. He pointed to the water on Ransom's fingers. "One day, doctor, you'll drown in that much water."

"Keep to the point. What are you doing so far from home?"

Quilter gazed at him guilelessly. He stood up, hitching the peacock onto his hip, then inspected his shirt with great care. "Lomax told me to follow you, tell him everything you did."

"Interesting." Ransom pondered this. The frankness could be discounted. No doubt these were Lomax's instructions, but the real point of Quilter's remark would lie elsewhere. "As a matter of fact Lomax invited me to stay with him," he said, adding with deliberate irony: "You'll be working for me then, Quilter."

Quilter regarded him skeptically, his toad's face full of bile. "I'm working for Miss Miranda," he said.

"_That_ makes more sense." Ransom watched Quilter's face as it started to quiver, breaking into a mirthless ribald laugh. The scarred lips shook silently, the mole on his left cheek dancing. Repelled by this grimacing parody of a human being, Ransom turned to go, hoping to draw Quilter away from Catherine Austen and the zoo.