Orbit 2

“A giant’s face. Bigger than the boat. It is worried and stern.”

“Kerbeck, you see the face. How is it shaped?”

“Round and fat. A leedle fuzz of beard there is.”

“Garcia, you see the face. Tell us the colors.”

“Eyes blue. Hair almost white. Skin smooth and white. Lips thin and red.”

“Kinross, you see the face. Describe it in detail.”

“Thin eyebrows, high arched, white against white. Broad forehead. Bulging cheeks. Flat nose, large, flaring nostrils. Wide mouth, thin lips.”

“Bo Bo, you see the face. Who is it, Bo Bo? Tell us who it is.”

“It is you, Boss Kruger.”

“Yes,” said the Face, the great lips moving. “Now you are ready. Now you are close. Remember the signal. You have let go of yourselves by giving me control. Now I will do for you what no man can do for himself: I will set you free. Remember the signal. Remember your orders.

“You are thirsty. Thirst claws in your throats, tears at your guts. You have to drink. You don’t care, don’t think. You would drink the blood of your children and of your fathers and not care. Water, cold, wet, splashing water, rivers of water, all around you, waiting for you, green trees and grass and water.

“You already know how to get to it. You always knew, from before time you knew, and now you remember and you are ready for the signal. All together and take me with you. You know what to do. Not in words, not in thoughts, not in pictures, deeper, older, far underneath those, you know. Before the word, before the thought, there was the act.”

The great mouth gaped on the final word and green light flashed in its inner darkness. The mists swirled closer and Kinross floated there on an intolerable needle point of thirst. Great eyes blue-blazing, with dreadful intensity, the Face spoke again:

“IN THE BEGINNING IS THE ACT”

It shouted the last word tremendously. There was a sharp double clap of thunder and green lightnings played in the cavernous mouth which yawned wide on the word until it filled the field of vision. The green lightnings firmed into trees, mossy rocks, a brawling stream. . Kinross tugged the heavy body after him by one arm, splash, splash, in the cold, clear water.

Kinross drank greedily. The coolness flowed into him and out along his arteries and the fire died. He could see the others kneeling in or beside the clear stream running smoothly over rounded pebbles and white sand. Then a great weariness came over him. He drank again briefly, lay down on the smooth turf beside the stream and slept.

When he awoke, Garcia was sitting beside him eating bananas and offered him some. Kinross looked around while he was eating. Level ground extended perhaps ten yards on either side of the little stream; then convexly curved banks rose abruptly for a hundred feet. In the diffuse, watery light the land was green with grass and the darker green of trees and bushes. The colors were flat and homogeneous. There were no random irregularities on the land such as gullies or rock outcrops. The trees were blurred masses never quite in direct view. The grass was blurred and vague. It was like the time he had had his eyes dilated for refraction. But he could see Garcia plainly enough.

Kinross shook his head and blinked. Garcia chuckled.

“Don’t let it bother you,” he said. “Why be curious?”

“Can’t help it, I guess,” Kinross replied. Then he spied Kruger’s supine form to his left and said, “Let’s wake Kruger.”

“Tried it already,” the Mexican said. “He ain’t dead and he ain’t alive. Go see what you think.”

Kinross felt a pang of alarm. Kruger was needed here. He rose, walked over and examined the body. It was warm and pliant but unresponsive. He shook his head again.

Curses broke out behind the indefinite shrubbery on the bank across the stream. Fay’s voice. Then the little man came into view beside the huge Negro. They had papayas and guavas.

“Kruger still asleep?” Fay asked. “Damn him and his world. Everything I pick in it is full of worm-holes and rotten spots.”

“Try some of my bananas here,” Garcia said. Fay ate one and muttered reluctant gratification.

“We’ve got to do something about Kruger,” Kinross said. “Let’s have a conference.”

“Silva! Kerbeck! Come in!” the Mexican shouted.

The two came down the bank. Kerbeck was eating a large turnip with the aid of his belt knife. Silva fingered his rosary.

“Kruger’s in a kind of trance, I think,” Kinross said. “We’ll have to build a shelter for him.”

“There won’t be any weather here,” Silva said. “No day, no night, no shadows. This place is unholy, it isn’t real.”

“Nonsense,” Kinross objected. “It’s real enough.” He kicked at the turf, without leaving any mark on it.

“No!” Silva cried. “Nothing’s really here. I can’t get close to a tree trunk. They slide away from me.” Kerbeck and Fay mumbled in agreement.

“Let’s catch Silva a tree,” Garcia said with a laugh. “That little one over there. Spread out in a circle around it and keep looking at it so it can’t get away.”

Kinross suspected from their expressions that the others shared his own fearful excitement, his sense of the forbidden. All but the mocking Garcia. They surrounded the tree and Kinross could see Kerbeck beyond it well enough, but the smooth, green trunk did seem to slide out of the way of a focused glance.

“We got it for you, Silva,” Garcia said. “Go in now. Take hold of it and smell it.”

Silva approached the tree gingerly. His wrinkled old face had a wary look and his lips were moving. “You’re not me, tree,” he said softly. “You’ve got to be yourself by yourself. You’re too smooth and too green.”

Suddenly the old man embraced the trunk and held his face a foot away, peering intently. His voice rose higher. “Show me spots and cracks and dents and rough places and bumps. .”

Fear thrilled Kinross. He heard a far-off roaring noise and the luminous overcast descended in gray swirls. The light dimmed and the fiat greens of the landscape turned grayish.

“Silva, stop it!” he shouted.

“Knock it off, Silva!” cried the Mexican.

“. . show me whiskers and spines and wrinkles and lines and pits.” Silva’s voice, unheeding, rose higher in pitch.

The mists swirled closer. There came a light, slapping, rustling sound. Then a voice spoke, clear and silvery, out of the air above them.

“Silva! Stop that, Silva, or I’ll blind you!”

“Unholy!” Silva shrieked. “I will look through you!” “Silva! Be blind!” commanded the silvery voice. It seemed almost to sing the words.

Silva choked off and stood erect. Then he clapped his hands to his eyes and screamed, “I’m blind. Shipmates, it’s dark! Isn’t it dark? The sun went out. .”

Kinross, trembling, walked over to Silva as the mists dispersed again.

“Easy, Silva. You’ll be all right soon,” he comforted the sobbing old man.

“That voice,” Garcia said softly. “I know that voice.”

“Yes,” said Bo Bo. “It was Boss Kruger.”

Okay, Kinross and Garcia agreed, no looking closely at anything. The awareness of the others seemed already so naturally unfocused that they could hardly understand the meaning of the taboo. Kinross did not try to explain. Fay proposed that he stay to look after Silva and Kruger, provided that the others would bring food, since all that he picked for himself was inedible.

“Kinross, let’s go for a walk,” Garcia said. “You haven’t looked around yet.”

They walked downstream. “What happened just now?” Garcia asked.

“I don’t know,” Kinross said. “It was Kruger’s voice, all right. Maybe we’re really still back in that boat and Kruger is making us dream this.”