Дэймон Найт - Orbit 11

The flat sound of her slap does not echo. Paula slowly takes her hand away and Albert bends forward from the waist. His forehead rests on the keep of the castle and he begins to weep.

“Albert will help us,” she says.

“But I will not.” Dieter’s voice is dry and without inflection. “I see no reason to do this thing.”

“If we cooperate,” I say, “we can reach the edge of the dune. We will discover what the compulsion has driven us toward.”

“Then the four of you will cooperate. I have no desire to see what is beyond the crest.”

“It is impossible,” I answer. “My plan requires five.”

“No.” Dieter raises the automatic rifle and points the muzzle at my chest.

“Dieter . . .” Paula walks slowly toward him. I move to stop her but she motions me back. The old man swivels the gun to cover her.

“Don’t come any closer, Paula. I don’t know whether a gun can kill you, but I will try.”

The girl faces him across a meter of sand. “You cannot shoot me, Dieter, but the fault will not be with the gun. You are incapable of face-to-face killing.”

His face tightens.

“How many were you accused of exterminating? Four hundred thousand? A half million? You killed them with a pen, with requisitions and directives. You never saw a single corpse.”

“Ill kill you,” he says. “Stop it.”

“I love your flash of anger,” says Paula. “It’s a reflection of your gypsy blood.”

“What . . .” His skin pales to bone and he backs two steps away. “You lie.”

“Look at us, Dieter. All of us, mongrels. All of us. Did your maternal grandmother never tell you of the incredible night she once spent in a gaily painted wagon outside Ingolstadt?”

Dieter appears stunned. Paula continues to speak to him as the rest of us watch and listen. She talks and the old man crumbles under the subtly erosive destruction that only women can bring to bear.

Finally Paula stops and begins to turn away. She pauses. “One thing more, Dieter. Do you remember the Club Roca and the woman Floriana?”

There is silence.

“Do you?”

Dieter slowly nods.

“Did you know of Floriana’s pregnancy? Did you know of her prayers beneath the Christ on the mountain? Of her clumsy, hesitant walk to the butcher in the seventh month?”

Like a small boy, the man looks down at the sand.

“Her friends finally left her there on the table. She lay as bloody as the carcass of a slaughtered hog in the market. But the baby lived.”

Dieter moans.

“I lived, Dieter.”

The old man sinks to his knees and rocks back and forth.

I take the gun from unresisting fingers and remove the clip. There are no shells.

The beach is the same, except for the mist which has crept close from the headland. The waves still thunder. The gulls still dive and shriek.

I bend over the drowned woman and examine her face. The flesh is bluish, swollen, and cold.

She waded into the surf sometime during the night, taking one last look at the stars. Then she lay down and let the waves cover her. Deliberately she breathed the water in, panicking only in that one unbearable moment of suffocation.

Why did she take her own life?

That question is the one I cannot face and so I awaken, sweating even in the chill night and gasping for breath.

As she has so often, Paula is holding me tightly. My cheek fits neatly against the curve of her throat.

“Was it the same?” she says.

“The same, and more. I know now that she committed suicide.”

“Do you know why?”

“No. I don’t want to know.”

Paula strokes the back of my head, gently massaging the taut muscles.

“I’m suspicious of you,” I say. “I wonder whether you’re player or pawn. You’re not the same as the rest of us.”

“Does it matter that much to you?” There is no change in the pressure of her fingers.

I consider it. “No,” I finally say. “It doesn’t. Not so long as we reach the top tomorrow.” I deliberately pause. “You won’t stop us?”

“No,” and it’s a sigh. “No, I won’t hinder you.” A moment later she whispers four words, nearly too soft to hear: “I wish I could.”

I have explained the plan to everyone. In varying degrees they should understand and comply. But I am optimistic.

“The day is great for climbing,” says Dieter. We laugh dutifully; all the days have been great for climbing.

No more conversation or uneasy laughter. I pick up the automatic rifle and we start for the summit. The sun is still behind us and our shadows stretch ahead. The climb seems somehow easier; none of us is winded when we gather in a knot about twelve meters below the dune’s crest. I think we’re all in good physical shape.

“First step,” I say. The rifle is our only tool. I carry it uphill until I begin to slide. I point the muzzle of the gun down and jam it into the sand. Pounding with doubled hands moves it a little deeper. I twist the gun like an auger. Eventually not quite half the length is buried. I stand up, my back stiff. “This won’t do.”

A shadow moves and Albert stands beside me. Without a word he bends over the walnut stock and begins to pound it with the heel of his hand. Powerful, sledgehammer blows. Centimeter by centimeter the rifle drives into the dune. Albert remains silent, even as we hear the small bones in his hand crack and splinter.

“That’s good, stop.”

Albert takes away a bloody hand. The gun is securely buried. About four inches of stock protrude above the sand.

“Step two.” Quickly! Quickly, though there’s no deadline.

Albert is the first and the strongest. One foot is braced against the rifle stock as he lies on the slope. I’m next, scrambling up beside Albert, letting him help me with his uninjured hand. Then I’m standing with my face against the dune, my feet on Albert’s shoulders.

Third is Dieter; then Paula; finally Toby. By some miracle, our human tower is assembled on the first attempt. This in spite of accidental kicks and clawings. The combined weight is unbelievable; I can hardly imagine what it must be like for Albert. “Toby!” I call “How close are you?”

“Very. Less than a yard. I’m reaching but nothing’s up here to grab.”

Dieter groans, legs shaking with strain; I feel the vibration on my shoulders. I don’t think he can stand this for long. Then I feel Albert’s body twisting beneath me.

“We’re going, Toby! Jump. Damn it, jump!”

Our bodies tumble like jackstraws. I have one quick glimpse of the summit and a black-clad leg disappearing. “Made it!” I yell as we roll and slide down the dune, half buried in hot sand.

The winds shrill a coda, I hope.

We stare motionless at the crest of the dune, waiting. We listen vainly for a shout, a cry of discovery, a reaction.

“A savage and alien god,” says Albert. He hugs himself and breaks into high-pitched giggles.

“Quiet, you black ape,” says Dieter.

“Where is she?” I say. “She must have found something.”

Paula slowly turns and looks past my shoulder. I follow her eyes. A human figure toils toward us from the foot of the dune.

“Oh, Jesus ...” I whisper. I feel the sand slipping away beneath my feet.

Paula touches my cheek and I swing back to her. She says nothing, but her face reveals infinite weary compassion. Her eyes burn like the sun. When I can no longer bear their heat I turn away . . .

And watch Toby struggle up to us through the sand.

The argument had been going on for an hour. It ebbed, rushed forward, then ebbed again—a steady calculated rhythm. The flow began for the last time; it carried an echo, as if it were being mouthed in a whisper somewhere else.