Дэймон Найт: Orbit 10

He was hardly aware of being led inside, of anything that hap­pened for the next few minutes. Beatrice smiled wanly at him, then lay back on the couch where Lee had put her. Outside, the storm built to a new intensity.

“How long has it been?” Mary asked much later. There was no light in the building, the electricity had long since failed. They could hear the howling wind, now and again punctuated by ex­plosive noises as if a wrecking crew were hard at work destroying the island and everything on it.

Eliot looked at his watch; it had stopped. He shrugged. Some­thing crashed into the building and the whole structure shuddered.

“What is it?” Lee asked later. “A tornado would have gone long ago. There wasn’t any report of a hurricane. What is it?”

Eliot stood up. The building shuddered again with a new blast of wind. “I have to go find her,” he said.

“No!” Beatrice, pale and torn and cut and filthy, and very beau­tiful. He touched her cheek lightly. She backed away from him and sat down. Very frightened. Tears standing in her eyes. No one else said anything.

No matter which way he went the wind was in his face. The rain drove against him horizontally, blinding him, and he was buffeted with debris of the storm. There were trees downed every­where, and he stumbled and fell over them and crawled and dragged himself to his feet again and again. He lost his sandals and knew that his feet were bleeding. His bare chest was hatchmarked by cuts and scrapes. Then he felt the smooth terrazzo underfoot and he knew that soon he would find her. He fell again, hard against a roughly worked block that was cold and wet. The pound­ing rain dissolved him; he flowed through the rock where there was silence and peace and no more pain. He rested. Very slowly, after a long time, he found himself withdrawing from the nothing­ness of rest; the rock was cutting into his chest, and where it had scraped his cheek raw there was pain. He pulled away. Lightning burned the air, sizzling so close that he was blinded. The thunder that was almost simultaneous with it deepened and he vibrated with the roar. Blinded and deafened, he pushed himself away from the rock, reeled backward and clung to the great oak tree until his vision cleared again. Then he lurched away from the place, toward the water’s edge and the jumbled rocks there. Be­hind him lightning flashed again, the tree exploded, showering a geyser of splinters over him. He didn’t look back. The tree crashed to the ground, one of the branch ends brushing him as it fell.

The thunder of the sea contested the thunder of the air, over­came it as he drew nearer until there was only the roar of the ocean. The waves were mountainous, crashing over the highest of the rocks now, grinding rocks against rocks, smashing all to a powdery sand that it would fling away to rest in a watery grave. Eliot saw her then.

I’ve come for you.

You can’t touch me.

Yes. I can. I know you.

She laughed and was gone. He waited, bracing himself against the wind, and lightning illuminated her again, closer.

Don’t run anymore. I’ll still be here no matter how far you run. Always closer.

A wave broke over his feet, and again she laughed and the mo­ment was over. He didn’t move.

Eliot, go back to them. Or they’ll all die. And death is real, Eliot. No matter what else isn’t, death is real.

He had only to reach out to touch her now. Her flesh was as alive as his own, the arm that he caught twisted and pulled reassuringly.

You’ll kill them all, Eliot. Beatrice. Lee. Mary. They’ll die. Look at the water. It’s going to cover the island.

Another wave broke, higher on his leg this time. The water was rushing among the blocks, reaching out for the fort now.

She struggled to free herself, she clawed his face and bit and tried to bring her knee up. Eliot twisted her around and they slipped and fell together, his grasp on her arm broken. He brought his hands up her body and fastened them on her throat, and the waves were over his head as he choked her and beat her head against the rocks and knew that he was drowning, being swept out to sea by the furious undertow, but still he held her. Her strug­gles became feebler.

God! Help me!

He can’t! He brings destruction and plagues and wars and death. No help.

She was hardly moving, and they were both swept up together and dashed against the piled-up blocks. Eliot blacked out, but his hands didn’t let go, and when the pain released him, he knew that he still held her although he could no longer feel her.

God, please! Please.

He brings the floods and the winds and devastates the land and kills mankind. He is death and I’m sending you back to him.

You’re crazy. You can’t kill. They’ll punish you. They’ll hang you. Put you in an institution for the rest of your life.

And the spark of life that is stronger than all the powers of death commands the waters to be stilled, and they are quiet.

There was only silence now.

“Help me pull him out of there.” Lee’s voice. “Can you unlock his hands?”

“Is he dead? For God’s sake, Lee, is he dead?”

“No. Beatrice, get out of the way. He’s. . .”

Eliot opened his eyes to a tranquil night. He was between two stone blocks, waves breaking over his legs. His hands and arms ached and he looked at them; his fingers were locked together. There was no sign of her. Beatrice reached down to touch him and he felt his muscles relax, and took her hand.

“It’s over then?”

“Yes. How? What happened?” Beatrice shook her head vio­lently. “Never mind. Not now. Let’s get you inside. You’re hurt.”

They walked around the toppled oak tree, but in the wet black ground there were sprouts already, palely green, tenacious. There would be a grove there one day.

“The oak tree is the only casualty.” Lee said in wonder. “You’d think with all that wind, the thunder and lightning, the whole island would be gone. One tree.”

Eliot felt Beatrice’s hand tighten in his, but he didn’t say any­thing. She knows. A temporary displacement of the ego and she comes up with what I’m thinking, just like that. He didn’t find it at all curious that no one asked what had happened to Donna. They were on the spiral, safely now, and they would continue to search for patterns that would prove to be elusive, but maybe, now, not too elusive after all.