Дэймон Найт - Orbit 3

“What’s that for?”

“The pedal?” It was corrugated iron, painted red. “Just put your left foot on it. There, perfect. If at any point you want to stop, press down. All five tracks will come to a halt simultaneously. Which people do you want?”

“I don’t care. Butcher—” Cassius gasped as a needle went home in his thigh. “Butcher Balk? He was the one really responsible for my being here. And Timothy, if that’s possible.”

“Certainly. I’ll also show you one or two others for the sake of contrast. Are you quite sure you’re up to it, though?”

“Hell yes,” Cassius said, with more conviction than he felt.

“Very well.” Dr. Kagle kept working, presently stood back. “Got you trussed up, eh? Any of the pads chafe too much? Good. I’ll be leaving. The console is in the next room. There’s no need to close your eyes. The lights will dim. Then you won’t see a thing in here. You’ll be—But explanations are inadequate. Remember the pedal, Mr. Andrews. I won’t be offended if you use it.”

A door chunked shut. Cassius peered through the crisscross of wires padded to his temples. He blinked. His vision was failing.

No, it was only the dimming of solar sheets across the ceiling. Dimming fast, from pearl to ebony to nothing. Must adjust the boot on the pedal, he thought, in case it’s so harrowing I—

Blur-and-whine.

A light bulb way up there. Weak, shaded with a scrap of tin.

He shifted his head. The rusted springs of the rickety cot squeaked. Suthin needs fixin with the furnace. About this time at night I got to fix the furnace but I can’t remember what it is needs fixing. Suthin’s wrong.

A slow, labored turn of his head. Difficulty seeing because a film of water was on the eyes. Blinking didn’t help. A monster old metal furnace hulked in a comer of the musty storeroom. He could barely read the nameplate. EUREKA! E-Z Draught No. 22. EUREKA COMFORT WORKS, Eureka, Iowa.

In his chest he felt the annoying, clotted little pain.

Ah Momma I can see your face right now. I been havin trouble sleepin lately Momma. Little pains in the middle. I can see you Momma, I can hear you singin and playin the piano Momma like you did on Sundays.

In his throat the breath caught. He lifted himself, blinked the eye-water back. He saw a faded, patched quilt over his chest, hands on top of it, shaking. They were ancient, wrinkled hands with thickened blue veins standing out.

The Doc don’t make me work so hard these days because of the pains but the furnace needs fixin and I wonder what’s wrong with m—Momma my God I’m dyin that’s what’s wrong.

He remembered forgotten music, The Old Rugged Cross, with the bass hand beaten out in Sunday-morning rhythm, thrummm, thrummm, thrummm.

Fearful, he tried to cry aloud for help. He couldn’t make a sound. The clotting pain, a small hurting ball inside him, widened. It troubled and troubled him. Not the pain itself, which wasn’t so bad. Knowing what the pain meant.

Momma I’m goin to be seein you. I don’t want it to happen like this I—

The Eureka furnace sank into darkness and sucked all the light after it.

Blur-and-whine.

“Brucie? Brucie? Oh God Brucie, don’t!” his wife was screaming.

Against his palms, under his boots, the pebbled poly of the hotel wall and ledge. On his lips a queer saltiness, blood he’d drawn biting down, getting up the guts to do it.

The wind was blowing hard. It whistled and smelled of the pollution of Lake Erie. Ten stories below a crowd had collected in the Public Square. For miles he could see the lights of Cleveland, warm whites and yellows.

They were snares and delusions. The lights were behind doors of understanding, friendship, love, shut to him, shut to him every one—

“Officer, officer!” his wife screamed. “Don’t let Brucie do it! Go out and get him. The poor children—”

He jumped.

The wind tugged at his palms, his cheeks. The lights blurred. His bowels loosened. Vertical rows of lights blurred and became a single strip as he hurtled down. Wind hammered his eardrums. He was falling fast, faster—

The hit was explosion. Body’s total scream. Coalescing of sensation into one enormous burst of pain—

PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN PA—

Blur-and-whine.

Behind the effin glass in the visitor’s gallery the effin newsmen were already talkin on their effin portable visors.

He ran his tongue over his rough, dry Ups. His scalp felt prickly where they’d wiped it bare with that effin aerosol. Under his strapped arms the porcelain chair was cold.

Somewhere behind, footsteps, as the last effin attendant shuffled out. A door closed.

The room had a funny smell. It was prolly cause of the green walls, so effin clean an sanitary like a hospital, like a place for killin bugs. Well he wasn’t no bug.

He bunched his face muscles to show he had guts. One of the effin newsmen, a fairy with ringlets, was watchin him and talkin in the visor. He was sure he saw the effer’s mouth make the words, “Butcher Balk is now sitting in the chair ladies and gentlemen.”

All at once, without wanting to, he was pulling against the cuffs and leg straps. They hurt. “Oh no, oh no, please Jesus, I—”

Something whacked softly like a toggle jamming between contacts. Lights dimmed. Eyes?

Pain was beginning. A stiff, ghastly tickling that instantly doubled, tripled, quadrupled, multiplying, multiplying, a rising blast of dreadful murdering pain—

PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN PA—

Blur-and-whine.

“—outa this! You stay out or ge’ killed,” de Diego chanted. “You watch it, Christer, I’m warnin’ you.”

Tipsy, back and forth, faces in the cheap bar swung. His hands were ineffectual, soft, untrained for struggle. He tried to hold both the right shoulder of de Diego, the left shoulder of Ratface Lats. The three of them struggled, roiling the amphet vapors thick in the bar.

“Watch out Revrun Tim,” one of the whores cried. “He gotta knife.”

“I tell you you must not take each other’s life,” he shouted, fighting between them, vocal cords nearly raw.

Something jerked at his left shoulder. Spun him fast. De Diego’s drug-swollen eyes loomed. Silver flashed in his hand.

“I warn you din I Christer?” was the scream, and suddenly a hole was in him, and tears tasting on his lips.

The hole widened in his stomach. He could feel de Diego actually wrenching and driving the knife into him, down into his bowels to the bottom, bringing in one unforeseen torrent a dimming of his eyes, and no time even to think a prayer as he tottered, everything blurred beneath pain—

PAIN PAIN PAIN PA—

Crash, crash, like a madman Cassius hammered his boot on the pedal, where was it, it must be there, crash, crash.

Drool was on his lips. His head was thrown back, wrenching, the eyes shut. Wires snapped as he wrenched, his leg going up and down like a mad thing, crash, crash, crash—

“Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!”

Limp, drained, Cassius leaned one arm on the ledge of the Aircoupe blister. His left leg hadn’t yet stopped trembling.

The moon sailed high and round over the Westport slums. A shadow disengaged from the night, leaned close to the little car. For a moment Cassius had trouble recognizing or remembering.

Then everything washed back. His hands clawed on the blister ledge. He strained up, thrashing at impossible terror all around.

“There, there, take it easy,” said Kagle. The grip on his arm steadied him. Cassius sank back down in the bucket seat.

“How did I get out here?”

“I carried you after I unstrapped you. You fainted. I’m sorry about that last sequence. But you did specifically ask for it. I have a bottle of brandy in my office. It might help. Do you want to go back inside?”