Дэймон Найт: Orbit 10

“Mary, relax. We were all together at dinner. Maybe the lobster was a little off. Or the wrong kind of mushroom in something or other. I mean, I was a lot more worried when I thought it was just me than I am now knowing that everyone experienced some­thing like that.”

She studied his face for a long time, then nodded. “You could be right, Eliot. I guess it must have been something like that.”

Lee sighed, and even Ed seemed relieved. Soon after that Eliot left them and walked over to Pitcock’s house.

“I decided to do the book,” he said without preamble.

Pitcock was on the terrace alone. There was a touch of day­light remaining, enough to make the water look like flowing silver. “Would you mind telling me why you decided to do it?” Pitcock said after a moment.

“Mainly because I feel like there’s something trying its damned­est to keep me from doing it.” Eliot was surprised at his own words. He hadn’t meant to say that, hadn’t thought it consciously.

“I should warn you, Eliot, that it could be dangerous. Espe­cially if you really feel that way.”

“Dangerous how? Psychologically?”

“Sometimes I forget how bright you are. Sit down, Eliot. Sit down. Have you had dinner?”

Eliot refused another dinner and left the old man on his terrace. They would talk the next day. All my life, he thought, always drifting, everything too easy, too meaningless to become involved with any of it. Like a cork on the stream, this way and that, touching reality now and then, then bobbing away again. Never mattered if I got waterlogged and sank, or if I kept on floating along. Just didn’t matter. Then that crazy old man pulled me into his madness, and now I don’t feel like I’m floating with the current at all. I’m bucking it and I don’t know why, or where I’m going, what I’ll find when I get there. And I don’t want to get out. I won’t get out, and it, that mysterious it that I feel now, it will get in my way, and maybe even try to hurt me ... He laughed sud­denly, but his laughter was not harsh, or cynical, but light with amusement and wonder.

Sunday afternoon. “Some things I should tell you, Eliot. There’s a trust already set up, to continue this research. It’s your baby.”

“When did you do that?”

“Almost as soon as you came here I started making the arrange­ments. It doesn’t have to be here, you understand. You can move the operations if you want to.”

“And if I decide to quit, then what?”

“I would ask that you personally supervise finding the right man to carry on. I won’t issue directives, anything like that, if that’s what you mean. At your own discretion.”

Eliot stared at him coldly. “No ties, of any sort. What I want goes. If I change the direction, whatever.”

“Whatever.”

They stopped to listen. Loud voices from the next house, Ed’s house that he shared with Marty. Pitcock was staring toward the sound intently, not surprised, not startled.

Eliot left him and trotted along the boardwalk to Ed’s house. Marty was backing Ed up against the screened porch. There was a cut on Ed’s cheek. Marty’s fists were hanging at his sides and at that moment neither was speaking. Off to one side Donna was pressed against the door of the house, holding her hands over her mouth hard.

“Knock it off, you two. What in Christ’s name is going on?”

Neither of them paid any attention to Eliot. From nowhere a knife had appeared in Ed’s hand. “Okay, Marty, baby. Come on in and get it. Come on, baby. Come on.” Ed’s voice was low.

Marty hesitated, his eyes on the knife. Before he could move again Eliot jumped him, knocking him to the ground. He brought his knee up sharply under Marty’s chin, snapping his head back, then hit him hard just under the ribs. Marty gagged, doubled up gasping.

“Ed! Oh, Ed, he might have killed you! I thought he was going to kill you!” Donna ran to Ed and held him, sobbing.

Eliot watched, mystified. He helped Marty up, keeping a firm grasp on his arm. Marty had no fight left in him. He looked at Ed and Donna and from them to Eliot, his face twisted with con­tempt and hatred. Furiously he jerked loose from Eliot and turned away to go around the house, not speaking. A second later the front door slammed.

“Ed, come over to my house. You’re hurt! You’re bleeding. He was going to kill you!” Donna was tugging at Ed’s arm.

“Is anyone going to fill me in? What was that all about?”

Donna looked blank. “I don’t know. He went out of his mind. He started to scream and yell at me and I made him bring me back. Then he went at Ed. Over nothing. Nothing at all.”

Ed shrugged. The knife was gone. Eliot wondered if he had even seen a knife. “Damned if I know,” Ed said. He was breath­ing fast now, as if fighting off shock or fear. “He came at me call­ing me names like I haven’t heard since I left the Bronx.” Donna started to sob again and he put his arm about her shoulders. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said. “Hey. Don’t do that. It wasn’t your fault.” He led her toward her house.

“So,” Eliot told Pitcock later, “I tried to get something out of Marty. He was packing. He cursed me out and finished throwing his stuff into his suitcases, then left. Period.”

Beatrice had returned, was waiting with Pitcock. Neither seemed at all surprised. “It was bound to happen,” she said. “They were deadly rivals. That togetherness was too openly self-protective. Donna should have been twins.” She shivered. “I didn’t know Ed carried a knife out here. He’s an expert, you know. It’s in his file.”

Eliot walked home with her later; at her door he said, “Some­thing else, Beatrice. Something happened here last week, some­thing inexplicable that has affected us all. A mass hallucination, a mass dream. That’s all it was, a psychic event of some sort, not explained yet, but not real.”

They had been standing close together; she drew away. “Are you certain, Eliot? Absolutely certain? Anything strong enough to touch every one of us, change us somehow, must have some reality of its own.” Then she went inside.

They reorganized and rescheduled work on Monday. Without Marty at the computer there was much that would have to be postponed until they got a replacement. Donna and Ed smiled softly at each other and wandered off down the beach when it was lunchtime. Eliot watched and tried to see her as Marty must have seen here, as Ed obviously saw her. All he saw was the bulgy figure, sagging breasts in too-tight dresses, or halters. The thick legs and arms. Indentable flesh, skin that didn’t tan but looked mottled, with red highlights. Thursday night he had dinner with Beatrice on her porch. She lived next to Mary and Lee Moore. They had no lights on yet when they heard Mary calling to Beatrice in a muffled but urgent voice.

“Damn,” Beatrice said. She left Eliot. After a moment he fol­lowed her.

“. . . your friend. Just do something. I won’t have her crying on Lee’s shoulder. Take her home, or something.” Mary’s voice was too controlled, too tight.

“For heaven’s sake, Mary. Tell her to clear out. It’s your house. Where’s Ed?”

“He went for a walk, she said. I don’t know. All I know is that she’s in there crying on Lee’s shoulder and they won’t even hear me.”

She broke then, suddenly and completely. Eliot couldn’t see them, they were hidden by a fence of yellow oleanders, but he could hear her weeping and Beatrice’s voice trying to soothe her. He circled them and approached the house.

Donna was in Lee’s arms. He was holding her tightly, smooth­ing her dull hair. His eyes were closed. Their voices were too low to hear any of the words.

“Lee!” They didn’t move apart. Lee opened his eyes and stared at Eliot blankly. “Lee! Snap out of it!”