J. Ballard - The Drought

Ransom climbed up onto the jetty, and for a moment gazed down at the houseboat, stranded with all his hopes on the bleached shore. This miniature universe, a capsule containing whatever future lay before him, had expired with everything else on the floor of the drained river, cutting off all continuity with his past life.

Above him, on the embankment, a car's starting motor whined. Ransom crouched down, watching the line of villas and the dust-filled aerial canopies. Nothing moved on the opposite bank. The river was motionless, the stranded craft leaning against each other. Along the quays, the white bodies of the drying fish rotated slowly in the sunlight.

The car's engine resumed its plaintive noise, and masked the creaking of the gangway as Ransom made his way up the embankment. He crossed the empty garden next to Catherine Austen's villa, then followed the drive down to the road.

Catherine Austen sat over the wheel in the car, thumb on the starter button. She looked up as Ransom approached, her hand reaching to the pistol on the seat.

"Dr. Ransom?" She dropped the pistol and concentrated on the starter. "What are you doing here?"

Ransom leaned on the windshield, watching her efforts to start the engine. In the back of the car were two large suitcases a canvas hold-all. She seemed tired and distracted, streaks of dust in her red hair.

"Are you going to the coast?" Ransom asked. He held the window before she could wind it up. "You know that Quilter has one of the cheetahs?"

"What?" The news surprised her. "What do you mean? Where is it?"

"At Lomax's house. You're a little late in the day."

"I couldn't sleep. There was all that shooting." She looked up at him. "Doctor, I must get to the zoo. After last night the animals will be out of their minds."

"If they're still there. By now Quilter and Whitman are probably running around with the entire menagerie. Catherine, it's time to leave."

"I know, but…" She drummed abstractedly at the wheel, glancing up at Ransom as if trying to find her compass in his bearded face.

Leaving her, Ransom ran down the road to the next house. A car was parked in the open garage. He lifted the bonnet, and loosened the terminals of the battery. He slid the heavy unit out of its rack and carried it back to Catherine's car. After he had exchanged the batteries he gestured her along the seat. "Let me try."

She made room for him at the wheel. The fresh battery started the engine after a few turns. Ransom set off toward the motorbridge. As they reached the junction he hesitated, wondering whether to accelerate southwards down the highway. Then he felt Catherine's hand on his arm. She was looking out over the bleached bed of the river, and at the brittle trees along the banks, suspended like ciphers in the warm air.

He crossed the bridge and turned left into a side-road, knowing that sooner or later he would have to abandon the young woman. Her barely conscious determination to stay on reminded him of his own first hopes of isolating himself among the wastes of the new desert, putting an end to time and its erosions. But now a new kind of time was being imposed on the landscape.

"Catherine, I know how you-"

Thirty yards ahead a driverless car rolled across the road. Ransom pressed hard on the brakes, jerking the car to a sudden halt and throwing Catherine forward against the windshield.

He pulled her back onto the seat as a swarm of darksuited men filled the street around them. He picked up the revolver, and then saw a familiar hard plump face under its blond thatch.

"Get them out! Then clear the road!" A dozen hands seized the bonnet, and jerked it up into the air. A long knife flashed in the bosun's brightly scarred hand and cut through the top hose of the radiator. Behind him the tall figure of Jonas hove into view, long arms raised as if feeling his way through darkness.

Ransom restarted the engine and slipped the gear lever into reverse. Flooring the accelerator, he flung the car backwards. The hood slammed down onto the fingers that were tearing at the engine leads, sending up bellows of pain.

Steering over his shoulder, Ransom reversed down the street, hitting the parked vehicles as he swerved from left to right. Catherine leaned weakly against the door, nursing her bruised head with one hand.

Ransom misjudged the corner, and the car jolted to a halt against the side of a truck. Steadying Catherine with one hand, he watched the gang setting off after them. Jonas stood on the roof of a car, one arm pointing like a specter.

Ransom opened his door and pulled Catherine out into the road. She pushed her hair back with a feeble hand.

"Come on!" Taking her hand, he set off along a gravelcovered lane that ran down to the embankment. Helped by the sloping ground, they reached the slip road. Ransom pointed up to the motorbridge. Two men moved along the balustrade. "We'll have to wade across the river."

As the dust clouds rose into the air behind them, there was a shout from the bridge.

Catherine took Ransom's arm. "Over there! Who's that boy?"

"Philip!" Ransom waved vigorously. Philip Jordan was standing near the houseboat on the other side of the river, looking down at the outboard motor Ransom had abandoned. His skiff, secured by the pole, was propped against the shore. With a quick glance at the men signaling from the motorbridge, he sidestepped down the bank. Freeing his pole, he jumped aboard, the craft's momentum carrying it across the channel.

He helped Ransom and Catherine Austen into the craft and pushed off again. A shot rang out in warning. Four or five men, led by Jonas, crossed the slip road and made their way down the embankment. The bosun brought up the rear, a long-barreled rifle in his hands.

Jonas' stiff figure strode down the slope, black boots sending up clouds of dust. His men stumbled behind him, Saul cursing as he slipped and fell on his hands, but Jonas pressed on ahead of them.

The skiff stopped short of the bank as Philip Jordan scanned the river and approaches, uncertain which direction to take. Ransom leaned from the prow across the short interval of water. A bullet sang over their heads like a demented insect. "Philip, forget the boat! We've got to leave now!"

Philip crouched behind his pole as Saul reloaded the rifle. "Doctor, I can't… Quilter is-"

"Damn Quilter!" Ransom waved the pistol at Catherine, who was on her knees, holding tightly to the sides of the craft. "Paddle with your hands! Philip, listen to me-"

Jonas and his men had reached the water's edge, little more than a few boat-lengths away. Saul leveled the rifle at Philip, but Jonas stepped forward and knocked the weapon from his hands. His dark eyes gazed at the occupants of the skiff. He stepped onto a spur of rock, and for fully half a minute, oblivious of the pistol in Ransom's hand, stared down at the boat.

"Philip!" he shouted harshly. "Boy, come here!"

As his name echoed away across the drained river, Philip Jordan turned, his hands clenching the pole for support. He looked up at the hawkfaced man glaring down at him.

"Philip…!" Jonas' voice tolled like a bell over the oily water.

Philip Jordan shook his head slowly, hands nervously grasping at the pole. Above him, like a hostile jury, a line of dark faces looked down from the bridge. Philip seized the pole and lifted it horizontally from the water, as if to bar the way to Jonas.

"Doctor…?" he called tensely over his shoulder.

"The bank, Philip!"

"No!" With a cry, looking back for the last time at the dark figure of Jonas, Philip leaned on the pole and punted the boat upstream toward the drained lake. The men on the bank surged forward, shouting for the rifle, but the skiff darted behind the hulk of a lighter, then swung away again, its prow lifting like an arrow. Philip whipped the pole in and out, the water racing between his hands off the wet shaft.