Дэймон Найт - Orbit 11

That’s what they say. The Irish Sea, over there someplace.” He paused a long moment. “I’m trying next year.”

The following day, moving south, Traynor heard the baying hounds behind him and ran, angry that he hadn’t taken some of the fish with him now that they were sure to be wasted.

Several times in several years he heard about the heaven. The promised delights were always different, but the place was always the same. He ignored the talk as foolish—how could they know?—most especially from the women he only wanted to use. He had been safe for more seasons than he could count, until the summer he’d nearly been caught because he was too slow.

Suddenly, before he registered the fact, Traynor stopped thinking and saw glimpses of the meadow’s flowing green. The sun was hot. He slowed, stopped, then crept forward agilely on all fours. His eyes narrowed, his nostrils widened. A large bush a few yards from the tall grass shielded him from any eyes that might have been trained in his direction. He shifted until the wind blew in his face. He knew this place, he could run it without concentration, without looking down.

But now he would wait, listen, and wait again.

Insects drifted to and away from him. His legs became stiff and he shifted angrily. A spider, not three inches from his cheek, leisurely wrapped an immobile bee in fragile-looking white.

He dozed.

In the shadow of the spider Traynor dreamed:

A montage of faces, swirling, spewing words tonelessly. Before Traynor, before his father and his father’s father. Fragments overlapping and sometimes senseless. He understood none of it.

“There’re just too many ... no room ... no room...”

“Legalized murder! That’s all it is! How can we as a people con—”

“It works in the Union . . .”

“Without war there must be an outlet. . . nothing worse than beasts anyway how can their vile existence be tolerated when . . .”

The faces blurred and spun—a shift while Traynor shifted his feet in the dust.

“Trained, conditioned, and weeded out, they adapt as—”

“Far more exciting. Instinct and reason, by God it’s—”

“German shepherds are best if one heads-—”

Traynor made a sound much like a whimper, and sensed:

“Margot, don’t tell us you’re squeamish.”

“Nonsense, Edwin love. I’m just nervous. It’s all the excitement, that’s all. I’m simply not an old hand at it like you.”

Traynor shook himself awake and punched the ground in frustration. Time that was not his had been wasted, and a terrifying sense of urgency shook his limbs. He decided against running, however, since the next line of trees was too far away to outrun any dogs. He moved slowly below the tops of the weeds and grass, trying to stay in time to the wind that sifted out of the trees. Bees ignored him, flies did not. The air cooled in the intervals of shade as clouds passed under the sun. He rested for a moment beside a rotted log, not thinking but fearing that he had never had to do this before, knowing he could usually travel a whole day without stopping. He stretched up and measured the distance left; the shadows were what he was after.

He was hungry.

He rose to his knees, tensed, then ran, watching the trees bob in front of him. The afternoon silence was hardly broken except for the sound of his own breathing. When finally he fell gasping into the brush and let the sun-speckled shadows wrap him gently, he closed his eyes and sweat drenched him. Never, never before had he felt so winded. He became afraid.

By the time the sun began teasing the horizon, he found himself in an area beyond his own. He skirted several small farms and a village, avoided the roads as much as he could. There had been a time when he had considered killing a man and stealing his clothes; but sooner or later somebody would notice the brands on his forehead and back.

Eventually he caught a family of quail and a hare and sat on his haunches eating. He hurried, unaware of the noises around him. He finished and left the bones un-buried.

When the evening soothed him and made him tired, he found a tree to sleep in. He thought, for a moment, how fat he’d grow in heaven, the mate to be there when he wanted her, and the dying old he desired.

“Old,” he said aloud. He liked the sound of it.

He slept, soundly.

Two people: riding, smiling, bobbing, unidentifiable. One complained about the smell of salt air. Bobbing, riding, smiling.

“Why should he leave, Edwin? I mean, it’s not very logical, is it. Why, he’s practically a legend.”

“Sooner or later, love, he’d have heard of the migration. Maybe he’s ready to chuck it in, like a dog, maybe, who’s ready to die. I don’t know.”

“Maybe, but it’s still not—”

“My dear, you’re giving it credit for something it no longer has. It’s like giving a quadratic equation to a horse and expecting him to solve it. Impossible. Hey, there they go! Come, hurry, Margot, I want to get home for supper!”

The air was cool, the ground damp as the sun split itself between leaves and branches. Traynor finished a meager starling and began walking, noticing belatedly a difference in the smell of the air. He wrinkled his nose and wondered. His footsteps were punctuated by grunts and he ran more often.

A partially plowed field stretched in front of him. He halted, looked, leaned into the strange wind that pushed his beard against his chest and his hair over the gothic F scarred into his brow. He drank deeply in a creek, then stepped into the sun, running, keeping balance by the touch of his fingers on the ground. Then he lay in the shadow of a log and watched the belt of woodland ahead for signs of movement. It stretched like a green quarter-moon, blackened by the glare of the sun in his eyes.

He smiled.

More tired than he remembered being in his life, he clenched his fists and rose, and heard the dogs. Stiffening, he waited for their direction, then sprinted over the frozen waves of the field. Low, hunched, breathing easily now that the tension was broken, he passed the tips of the crescent as the hounds scattered from the underbrush like leaves. Their yelps became bays, and behind them the horn signaled.

Traynor’s eyes widened in fear and he surrendered all pretext of hiding as he straightened his legs to get more power. Glancing around quickly, he veered sharply to his right, hearing rather than seeing the horsemen break into the open. The furrows tripped him, slowed him until he began leaping from top to top.

The horn, low and high, low and high, pushed him on. He stumbled without falling. A small dog stood in his way, fangs bared, growling. In sudden anger Traynor kept on, and when the dog leaped, he smashed it across the throat with his forearm. Another began snapping at his heels and he stopped, pivoted, and, grabbing its muzzle, used the momentum to help him toss it over his shoulder. A third was kicked in the head and it collapsed into the dirt, whimpering and whining. He ran on, humming something he knew was about oceans and waves and the wide Irish Sea.

Another dog, still another, became tangled in his legs and they sprawled, rolled on the ground, Traynor’s hand on its throat, choking and pushing its tearing fangs and wide, frenzied eyes away from his face.

There was a sharp pain in his side, on his legs, on his back.

Slowly he reeled, fell, stood, fell. A prison cell floated, a man in white coasted, blood spurted softly from a knife wound in a woman’s chest. A horse, a rider, fangs, a smile.

Low and high the horn.

He heard the call to heaven.

My God, he cried out silently, I’m not a—