Night Walk

fourteen

“Your brother’s all right,” Tallon said. “He fell down the stairs. We were arguing.”

“Arguing! I heard the shots as I drove up to the house. I’ll report this immediately.” Helen Juste’s voice was cold and crackling with anger.

Tallon raised the automatic. “Sorry. Come in and close the door behind you.”

“You realize how serious this is?”

“I haven’t been laughing much.” Tallon stood back while she closed the door and went to her brother. He wished he could look at Helen Juste, but as she had the only functioning eyes in the house, he saw nothing except her neatly manicured hands moving over Carl Juste’s unconscious face. As before, in her presence he was aware of powerful stirrings deep within him. Her hand came away from the back of Juste’s head, with traces of blood in the lines of the palm.

“My brother needs medical attention.”

“I’ve told you he’s all right. He’ll sleep for a while. You can tape up that cut if you want.” Tallon spoke confidently, knowing he had given Juste’s nervous system enough abuse to keep him under for perhaps an hour.

“I want to do that,” she said; and Tallon noticed the complete absence of fear in her voice. “1 have a first-aid kit in my car.”

“In your car?”

“Yes. I’m not likely to drive off and leave my brother alone with you.”

“Get it then.” Tallon had an uneasy feeling he was losing the initiative. He walked to the door with her and waited while she went to her car and took the kit from a compartment. The car was a sleeL luxury job with gravity negator skids in place of wheels, which was why he had not heard it arrive. He watched her hands at work with the gauze pads and tape, and he almost envied Carl Juste for a moment. Tallon’s head ached, his shoulders were on fire, and he was way beyond ordinary tiredness. Lying down to sleep when you are tired, he thought, was a pleasure more exquisite than eating when you were hungry, or drinking when you were thirsty… .

“Why did you do this, Detainee Tallon? You must have realized my brother is blind.” She spoke almost abstractedly as she worked.

“Why did you do it? We could have made three eyesets, six, a dozen. Why did you allow the Doc and me to have them when you were planning to take them away from us?”

“I was prepared to stretch the law for the sake of my brilliant brother, not for the sake of convicted enemies of the government,” she said stiffly. “Besides, you still haven’t explained this senseless attack.”

“My eyeset got damaged, so I had to take this one.” Tallon felt a wave of irritation, and his voice rose. “As for the senseless attack, if you look around you’ll find a few bullet holes in the walls. And none of them were made by me.”

“Nevertheless, my brother is a harmless recluse, and you are a trained killer.”

“Listen, you,” Tallon shouted, wondering what the conversation was really all about, “I have a brain too, and I’m not a — ” He broke off as he discovered her eyes had left her brother and were giving him a steady picture of his own left hand.

“What’s wrong with your hand?” She sounded, at last, like a woman.

Tallon had forgotten the embedded claw. “Your harmless brother had a harmless feathered friend. That’s part of its undercarriage.”

“He promised me,” she whispered. “He promised me not to — ”

“Louder, please.”

There was a silence before she answered, speaking normally again. “It’s hideous. I’ll remove it for you.”

“I’d be grateful.” Suddenly weak, Tallon stood by while she covered her brother with a blanket. They went through a door at the rear of the hall and into a chrome and white kitchen that bore traces of untidy bachelor living. Helen Juste was carrying the first-aid kit. He sat at the cluttered table and allowed her to work on his hand. The touch of her fingers seemed only slightly more substantial than the recurrent warmth of her breath on the torn skin. He resisted the temptation to bask in the welcome feeling of being cared for. New Wittenburg was a long way to the north, and this woman was a new obstacle to his getting there.

“Tell me,” she said, “is Detainee Winfield really … ?”

“Dead,” Tallon supplied. “Yes. The rifles got him.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For a convicted enemy of the Lutheran government. You surprise me.”

“Don’t try that approach with me, Detainee Tallon. I know what you did to Mr. Cherkassky when you were arrested.”

Tallon snorted. “Do you know what he did to me?”

“The injury to your eyes was an accident.”

“Damn my eyes. Did you know he put a brain-brush on me and tried to wipe my life away like you just did to the stains on this table?”

“Mr. Cherkassky is a senior Lutheran executive. He wouldn’t.”

“Forget it,” Tallon said brusquely. “That’s what I’ve done. Whatever it was — I’ve forgotten it.”

When she had finished with his hand and taped the wound he flexed the fingers experimentally. “Will I ever play again, Doctor?”

There was no reply, and he felt a creeping sense of unreality. Helen Juste eluded him; he was unable to imagine her as a human individual, to visualize her place in this world’s society. Physically he could see her only fleetingly when she happened to glance at her own reflection in the kitchen mirror. He noticed, too, that she kept glancing toward a shelf on which lay several small pieces of soft leather, stitched into the shape of bags. Their purpose mystified him; then he remembered Juste’s bird and that it had been trained for falconry.

“How ill is your brother, Miss Juste?”

“What do you mean?”

“How did he react to the eyeset? Did he like hunting with his birds? Running with the dogs?”

She went to the window and stared out at distant trees, limned against the red disk of the rising sun, before answering. “It isn’t your business.”

“I think it is,” he said. “I didn’t realize what was happening at the time. I knew Cherkassky was coming. There was no time to wait for the answer to the problem of the cameras, so I decided to look through the eyes of other men. It was that simple. I had no idea I was creating the first new form of perversion the empire has seen in a long, long time.”

“You mean, you … ?”

“No, not me. I’ve been running too hard. But there was that woman in Sweetwell — the one I’m supposed to have raped. She used the eyeset when I was sleeping. She liked cats, if you know what I mean.”

“What makes you think Carl was like that?”

“You do, though I don’t know why. Something about the way you keep insisting he’s a harmless recluse, perhaps. There may not be any sex angle in his case, of course. I’ve read that when a person who has been blind for a long time has his sight restored, it isn’t always the expected joyful experience. There can be depression, feelings of inadequacy caused by suddenly being back on even terms with the rest of humanity, with no handicap to fall back on. How much better to be, say, a falcon, with sharp eyes and sharper claws and a mind that doesn’t understand weakness, or anything but hunting and tearing and — ”

” Stop it!”

“I’m sorry.” Tallon was faintly surprised at himself, but he had wanted to reach her and felt he had succeeded to some extent. “Do you treat only those wounds your brother has inflicted? There’s this hole in my back… .”

Helen Juste helped him to work the uniform down from his shoulders, and gasped when she saw the great pool of congealed blood that lay across his back. Tallon almost gasped too as he received the picture. He had never before really appreciated the degree of nastiness that can be covered by the phrase “nasty flesh wound.” This was nasty, it was fleshy, and it was a wound in anybody’s book.

“Can you do anything with it — short of amputating my shoulders, that is?”

“I think so. There wouldn’t be enough tissue welder and bandages in my own first-aid kit, but Carl usually has some in this cupboard.” She opened it, found the medical supplies, and got to work on his shoulder with a moistened cloth, gently removing the superfluous mess. “This is a gunshot wound?”

“Yes.” Tallon told her how it had happened. He had almost convinced himself she was a sympathetic listener when he suddenly thought of something. “If you knew your brother had medical supplies in here,” he said slowly, “why did you go out to the car for your own kit?”

“No reason. Force of habit. You know, you should be in bed with an injury like this. Why don’t you give yourself up and get proper attention before the reaction sets in?”

“Sorry. I’m going to have something to eat now; then I’ll tie you up, along with your brother, and be on my way.”

“You won’t get far.”

“Perhaps not. Does it matter much to you, anyway? I had an idea you and the Pavilion might be parting company after this little affair. Is that why you’re here now? Have you been sacked?”

“Detainee Tallon,” she said evenly, “escaped prisoners do not interrogate prison executives. I’ll make breakfast now. I’m hungry too.”

Tallon was mildly pleased at her reaction. He got into his uniform again, then took the roll of medical tape and bound Carl Juste’s wrists and ankles. The big man smelt of brandy. Tallon returned to the kitchen and sat in a chair, feeling the tingle of the tissue welder compound on his back, while Helen Juste cooked something that was so like ham and eggs he was almost certain it was ham and eggs. Twice, as they were eating, Carl Juste moaned and stirred slightly. Tallon allowed Helen Juste to go out and look at her brother each time.

“I told you he’d be all right,” he said. “He’s a big, strong boy.”

He made no further attempts to talk to her during the meal, but enjoyed the faint echo of domesticity he received from the act of eating breakfast with a young woman in the morning quietness of a warm kitchen, even though they were much more than worlds apart.

Tallon was sipping his fourth cup of strong coffee when he heard a scratching sound at the entrance door at the far end of the hall. The scratching was followed by a shrill bark Tallon recognized.

” Seymour!” he shouted. “Come in, you little phony. I thought you were dead.”

He went to the door ahead of Helen Juste and was almost embarrassed at the joy he felt on seeing the familiar brown shape leap into his arms. As far as he could tell from where Helen was standing, the dog was unharmed. Perhaps Seymour had made it to the gate and got through the bars inches ahead of the big hound. If the latter had inefficient brakes, it could explain the redness he had detected around its muzzle; and it was also possible that Seymour had been rocketing along fast enough to be out of range when Tallon had tried to pick him up on the eyeset.

Hugging the excited animal to his chest, Tallon reselected on proximity, and put Seymour on his number one stud again. Equipped once more with what were practically his own eyes, he turned to look at Helen Juste. She was as perfect as he remembered, still wearing the green Pavilion uniform, which accented her coloring. Her hair was a massive copper helmet, burnished laser bright; her eyes, still the color of whiskey, were looking past him, at her pale blue car.

Tallon had a strong hunch about that car. He went over to it and opened the door. A small orange light was winking patiently, low on the dash — on the radio panel, to be exact. The TRANSMIT toggle was in the “on” position, and the microphone was missing from its clip.

Breathing heavily, Tallon switched the radio off and went back into the house. Helen Juste was staring at him, white-faced but very erect.

“Full marks for resourcefulness, Miss Juste,” he said. “Where’s the microphone?”

She took it from her pocket and held it out to him. As he expected, it was the type that incorporated a miniature transmitter of its own in place of a wire connection to the main radio. He had been on the air for some time, no doubt on a police wavelength. Tallon had almost forgotten the automatic pistol in his right hand. He raised it thoughtfully.

“Go ahead and shoot me,” she said calmly.

“If you had thought I would shoot, you wouldn’t have taken the risk,” Tallon snapped, “so spare me the bit where you face the mouth of the cannon without flinching. Get your coat, if you have one here. We haven’t much time.”

“My coat?”

“Yes. I don’t trust myself driving your car. Seymour has an unfortunate habit of not looking where I want him to look, and at high speed that could be dangerous. Besides, it will do no harm to have you as a hostage.”

She shook her head. “I’m not leaving this house.”

Tallon reversed the pistol, weighed it meaningfully in his hand, and took one step forward. “You want to bet?”

As they were going out the door Carl Juste seemed to come fully awake. He gave several moans, each time a little louder, until he was almost shouting; then as his mind took over he abruptly fell silent.

“I don’t want to leave him like that,” Helen Juste said.

“He’ll have company pretty soon. Remember? Just keep moving.”

Tallon turned and looked back at Carl. He was struggling ineffectually with his bonds; his forehead glistened with sweat, and the blind eyes shuttled frantically. Tallon hesitated. He knew only too well how the big man was feeling after his long uphill climb from unconsciousness into a private black hell of sightlessness, helplessness, and hopelessness.

“Just a minute,” he said. He went back and knelt beside Carl Juste. “Listen to me, Juste. I’ve taken the eyeset back because I need it more than you do. Can you hear me?”

“I hear… . But you won’t …”

Tallon raised his voice. “I’m leaving you another identical eyeset, which needs only a new power unit to make it work again. I’m also writing out a full specification of the power unit for you. If you don’t let the police or agency men take it as material evidence, you should be able to get the eyeset working again soon. With your sort of money, it should be no problem to bend the relevant laws.”

He signaled to Helen Juste, and she ran for paper and pen. Tallon seized them and, still kneeling on the floor, began writing the specification. While he worked, Helen mopped her brother’s forehead and spoke quietly to him in a sad small voice that Tallon scarcely recognized. There was something deep and strange about their relationship. He finished writing and crammed the paper into the pocket of Juste’s pajamas.

“You wasted a lot of time,” Helen Juste said as he stood up. “I didn’t expect such …”

“Stupidity is the word. Don’t remind me. Now let’s move.”

The car was smooth, quiet, and fast. As Tallon had noted earlier, it was an expensive imported job of advanced design, with a gravity component engine that instead of propelling the vehicle allowed it to fall forward. Spaceships used similar power units in the initial stages of flight, but because of the difficulty of fitting them into a confined space they were rarely used anywhere else, even on aircraft. This meant the car was very expensive indeed. Helen Juste handled it with showy skill, broadsiding through the gate she had left open on her arrival, and taking off along the roadway with a prolonged burst of acceleration that sucked Tallon deep into his seat.

As the car swooped around a long curve, which blended into a motorway, Tallon held Seymour up to look through the rear window. Seymour was a little nearsighted, but there seemed to be specks in the southern sky, moving with the characteristic sinking flight of helicopters.

“Switch on the radio,” Tallon said. “I want to hear what crimes I’ve committed this time.”

They listened to music for half an hour; then the program was interrupted for a newsflash.

Tallon whistled. “That was quick. Now let’s hear how depraved I’ve become since my last public appearance.” But as the announcer spoke, Tallon felt embarrassed at his display of egotism; his name was not mentioned.

The official news was that Caldwell Dubois, for Earth, and the Temporal Moderator, for Emm Luther, had simultaneously recalled their diplomatic representatives following the breakdown of the Akkab negotiations over apportionment of new territories.

Unofficially, the two worlds were on the verge of war.