Night Walk

seven

Light — fierce and steady.

Pain — fierce and steady!

Tallon snatched off the eyeset and sat contracted in the chair, waiting for the needling agony to subside. He knew his eyes would have been streaming with tears had the glands not been ripped away by the darts of Cherkassky’s hornet gun. The pain took a long time to recede, occasionally reaching its former level again, like a reluctant ebb tide.

“What’s the matter, Sam — no better?” Hogarth sounded cool and disinterested, which meant he was alarmed.

Tallon shook his head. “We’re not getting it. Something is seriously wrong with the conversion stage. The signals the nerve expects and the signals we’re feeding into it just aren’t compatible — and they hurt so much I can’t even look for tuning responses.”

“We took on a big job, son,” Winfield said sadly. “Perhaps too big, under the circumstances.”

“That’s not it. We were going well, right up to the last stage. The synthesis of the glial code was the only really tough part, but it was coming all right. I was drinking it, till I heard about our friend Cherkassky.”

“It was only a rumor. The grapevine has been wrong before.”

“Perhaps, but the effect’s the same whether the rumor’s true or false. I can’t hold the concept now. I just can’t say for certain if we’ve built in a basic error or merely have to chase out a few bugs. How about a local anaesthetic to kill the pain while I examine what we’re getting?”

“No good. You could crisp your optic nerves.”

“Then what in hell do we do? We’ve already wasted two weeks trying to synthesize something that every moronic beast that ever walked or flew or swam can do without even trying. It isn’t right that — Christ!” Tallon shouted with excitement as a new kind of light seared through his mind.

“Take it easy,” Winfield warned uneasily. “You know the penalities for blasphemy on this planet.”

“I wasn’t blaspheming. Doc, I know where we can pick up the whole visual-electrical complex. The lot — rod-and-cone, bipolars, ganglions, glials — the whole process absolutely ready-made. Ready for us to lift off the rack and put it on.”

“Where?”

“Right here in the workshop. Ed’s eyes are all right, aren’t they?”

Hogarth whinnied with alarm. “My eyes are fine, and I aim to keep them that way, you damned Earthside ghoul. Leave my eyes out of it.”

“We will, but your eyes won’t leave us alone. They’re bombarding us and everything around you with exactly the information the doctor and I need. Every kink in your optic nerves is spraying us with electrons. You’re a little radio station, Ed, and your tape jockey plays only one tune — the glial code.”

“My mother was right,” Hogarth said reflectively. “She always knew I would make good.”

“You sound excited, Sam.” Winfield’s voice was sober. “Do you think you’re getting it this time?”

“This time I’ve got it.”

Four days later, as dawn was beginning to overpaint the fainter stars, Tallon saw Winfield for the first time.

He sat perfectly still for a moment, savoring the miracle of vision, feeling humbled by the sudden stark revelation of the pinnacle of human technology upon which his triumph was poised: the centuries of research into the complex language of glial-cell transients; the development of assembly robots and micro-Waldos; the growth of cybernetic philosophies that enabled a man to incorporate a billion electronic circuits in a single chip of crystal and use only those that served his purpose, without his ever knowing which circuits they were.

“Tell us the worst, son.”

“It’s all right, Doc; it works. I can see you. The trouble is I can see myself as well.”

Tallon gave a sharp laugh and fought to adjust to the supremely unnatural situation of having a body in one place and eyes in another. For the first trial of the new eyeset, he and Winfield sat close together at one end of the workshop while Hogarth remained at the other end with strict instructions not to take his gaze off them. Tallon had not moved, but his new eyes told him he was at the other side of the room, looking at both Winfield and himself.

The doctor was remarkably like the mental picture Tallon had formed of him — a red-faced, silver-haired old giant. He held a cane in one hand, and his head, to which was strapped the gray box of his sonar torch, was in the upright, alert attitude of a blind man.

Tallon examined himself curiously. His face behind the eyeset frame looked longer and more thoughtful than ever, and the loose brown Pavilion overalls showed that he had lost about fifteen pounds since coming to the prison. Otherwise he looked much as he always had, something Tallon found surprising, considering how he felt. His attention came back to Winfield, whose face was taut with concentration as he waited to hear what Tallon would have to say.

“Relax, Doc. I told you — it works perfectly. I’m just getting used to seeing myself as others see me.”

Winfield smiled; then Tallon gasped and grabbed the sides of his chair for support as the workshop seemed to swing away from beneath his feet, right itself, and go bounding past him.

“Hold it, Ed!” he shouted frantically. “Don’t jump about like that. Remember you’ve got me with you.”

“I don’t care,” Hogarth said. “I’m going to shake your hand. I had my doubts about you, Sam, but you’re a bright boy in spite of your college education.”

“Thanks, Ed.” Tallon watched in fascination as his own image grew larger and closer and Ed’s busily working metal crutches flickered on the lower edge of Tallon’s field of vision. He held out his hand and noticed that other Sam Tallon perform an identical movement. Finally he saw Hogarth’s thin hand come into view and grasp his. The touch of fingers, coming at precisely the right moment indicated by the actions of the tableau of strangers, was like an electric shock.

Tallon took the eyeset off with his free hand, plunging himself into friendly darkness, and struggled not to be sick. For a moment the disorientation had been complete.

“Your turn now,” he said, holding the eyeset out to Winfield. “Pull them off as soon as you get into trouble, and don’t be too alarmed at how you feel.”

“Thanks, son. I’ll feel just fine.”

Feeling slightly uncomfortable, Tallon sat while the doctor tried out the eyeset. The old man had been blind for eight years and was likely to experience an even bigger shock than had Tallon. As far as quality of vision was concerned, the eyeset worked perfectly, but perhaps he had not given enough consideration to the implications of seeing only — and precisely — what could be seen by the one whose nerve impulses he was pirating. From a practical point of view, a poorer quality image picked up by a receptor located right on the eyeset would be much better. On the other hand, if he had something like a trained squirrel to sit on his shoulder …

“For God’s sake, Ed,” Winfield boomed, “hold that bony little head of yours in one place for a few seconds. You’re making me seasick.”

“What’s going on here?” Hogarth sounded indignant. “Whose head is it, anyway? Nobody thanks me for the use of my eyes; they only act as if they’ve taken over my head.”

“Don’t worry, Ed,” Tallon reassured him. “You can have it back when we’ve finished with it.”

Hogarth sniffed and lapsed into his customary semi-audible swearing. Winfield again demonstrated his characteristic stubbornness by keeping the eyeset on longer than Tallon had, and ordering Hogarth to go to the windows and look in directions that he called out to him. Tallon listened in awe as the old man gave noisy sighs of appreciation or furious commands of “eyes right” or “eyes left,” while Hogarth’s swearing grew louder and more violent. It all came to an end suddenly.

“The eyeset has stopped working,” Winfield announced. “It’s broken.”

“It isn’t,” Hogarth said triumphantly. “I’ve got my hands over my eyes.”

“You treacherous little weasel,” Winfield said in a thunderstruck whisper, then began to laugh. Tallon and Hogarth joined in, spilling the tension that had been building up in them for weeks.

When they finally stopped laughing Tallon discovered he was both hungry and exhausted. He got the eyeset back and watched as Hogarth put the other prototype, still unmodified, onto the work platform of the assembly robot. He saw the little man’s hands flick out, as though from Tallon’s own body, and press the starter buttons. The robot’s doors slid across, enclosing the eyeset, and there was a hiss as the air was expelled from its interior. For the sort of work it was going to do, even the molecules of the atmosphere had to be excluded.

Tallon stood up and patted his stomach. “Isn’t it about time for breakfast?”

Hogarth remained seated at the robot’s control console. “It is, but I think I’ll stay on here till this gadget’s finished. Some of the boys are getting a bit sore about the way I’ve been keeping them out lately. I don’t want them coming in and upsetting things at this stage.”

“I’ll stay on too, son. That’s my eyeset in there, and I don’t mind waiting a few hours to get my hands on it. If you’re agreeable, I’ll send word to Miss Juste and let her know we can give her a demonstration this afternoon.”

Tallon found the thought of actually seeing Helen Juste strangely alarming. She had not been back at the center’s workshop since the day she saw the sonar torch in operation, and the inexplicable turmoil the meeting had created within him was beginning to die down. He had no wish to churn it up again, and yet …

“Sure. That’s all right with me, Doc. Well, I’m going to catch up on some of the food I’ve been missing out on. Sorry to bother you again, Ed, but would you mind watching me till I get out through the door?”

Tallon decided to rely entirely on the eyeset. He left his sonar and cane on the bench, then walked to the door. As he moved he concentrated on the image of his own receding back, as seen by Hogarth, and was able to guide his hand accurately to the door handle. He took a deep breath and opened the door.

“You’re on your own now, son,” Winfield called after him.

Tallon was still able to pick up vision from Hogarth when he was on the upper landing, but now it was a handicap. He slid the control on the right-hand arm of the eyeset frame to “passive” and went down the stairs in darkness. Once through the outer door he moved the control to “search and hold,” and selected maximum range. Men were moving toward the mess hall in twos and threes, and almost immediately Tallon was looking through the eyes of another prisoner.

The man must have been walking with his head down, for Tallon saw nothing but feet striding across the white concrete. Keeping the control at “search and hold,” he flicked the first “reject” stud. He had included six of these studs in the design so that the eyeset would temporarily memorize up to six individual signal patterns and let him reselect any of them at will. A seventh stud was provided to clear the little memory unit.

Tallon had more luck this time. He was looking through the eyes of a tall man who was moving easily, with head erect, toward a low building — presumably the mess hall — at the edge of a large plaza. Other blocks of two and three stories lined the square, and Tallon had no idea which of them was the center’s workshop. He put his arms up and waved, as though to a friend, and saw himself — a tiny figure standing at the entrance of the second building to the right of the mess hall.

Tallon waited until his host had neared the workshop; then he walked quickly out from the entrance toward him, narrowly missing a strolling guard, and fell in about three paces in front. Once or twice through force of habit, he tried to look back over his shoulder, but saw only his own face, white and slightly desperate, turning briefly toward his host.

At the entrance to the mess hall a certain amount of jostling was going on where the groups converged, and the host caught up with him. Tallon found himself staring at the back of his own head from a distance of a few inches. Although disconcerting, the very proximity made it easier for Tallon to steer himself through the inner door and to an empty seat at one of the long tables. His host went farther up the hall and sat down, facing in a direction that excluded Tallon from the man’s field of vision. Fingering the eyeset frame, Tallon cleared the memory unit, switched to the minimum range of six feet, and let the “search and hold” start over again. There was a momentary haze of light as the eyeset picked up several signals at once before singling out one of them. Again he was lucky: This time he was looking through the eyes of the man at the opposite side of the table.

By the time the turret-shaped serving robot moved along the table’s central slot to dispense breakfasts, Tallon’s stomach was knotted with tension. He ate the full meal, however; he felt he had earned it.

Tallon and Winfield, both wearing eyesets, stood at attention as Helen Juste walked into the workshop. Hogarth, being crippled, was not obliged to do anything more than look respectful, but he raised himself as high as his crutches would allow.

Helen Juste smiled at Hogarth and motioned to him to sit down. Tallon, who was tuned in on Hogarth, also received the smile, and he responded instinctively before remembering it had not been directed at him. He saw what Hogarth meant when he’d described her as a spindly redhead with orange eyes, and at the same time he marveled at how any man could have dismissed the phenomenon of Helen Juste with such a phrase. She was slim, not spindly, and everything was in proportion, giving her sleekly economical lines that would have thrilled a star-class designer of humanoid robots. Her hair was a rich coppery brown, and her eyes were the color — Tallon sought an exact comparison — of aged whiskey in fire-lit crystal. He found himself whispering one word over and over again — yes, yes, yes… .

She stayed for almost an hour, showing intense interest in the eyesets, questioning Winfield closely about their operation and performance. The doctor protested several times that his was not the brain behind the eyesets, but although she glanced at Tallon on those occasions, she did not speak to him. Tallon found himself rather pleased at this, satisfied at having been placed in a special category.

As she was leaving she asked Winfield if they were finished with the assembly robot.

“I’m not sure,” Winfield said. “I expect the maintenance shop staff want it back in a hurry, but we’ve done almost no field work with the eyesets. There might be minor modifications needed; in fact, Detainee Tallon is not really satisfied with the basic concept. I think he wants to try again with a camera-based system.”

Helen Juste looked doubtful. “Well, as you know, I’ve been trying to introduce to the prison board the idea that they might have special responsibilities to those detainees who have suffered disablement. But there’s a limit to how much I can do in this direction.” She hesitated. “I’m going on leave in three days; the equipment must be returned by then.”

Winfield gave a military-style salute. “We sincerely thank you, Miss Juste.”

She went out, and Tallon thought her eyes flickered once, speculatively, in his direction, but Hogarth’s gaze was already turning away so Tallon could not be sure. He was depressed by her reminder that there was a world outside the Pavilion, and that she still belonged to it.

“I thought she was going to stay all day,” Hogarth complained bitterly, lighting his pipe. “I can’t stand that skinny dame coming into my shop.”

Tallon snorted. “You still have your eyes, Ed, but you don’t know how to use them.”

“Well spoken, son,” Winfield boomed. “Did you notice he hardly looked at her legs once? The first time in eight years I get a chance to look at a woman, and the old goat in charge of the eyes keeps staring out the window!”

Tallon smiled, but he noticed he was seeing nothing but a close-up of Hogarth’s pipe, with one gnarled finger pressing the gray ash down into the blackened bowl. He got an impression the little man was worried. “What is it, Ed?”

“Did either of you lady-killers go to the recreation block today to hear the newscast?”

“No.”

“Well, you should’ve. The negotiations between Emm Luther and Earth over the new planet have broken down. The Earthside delegates finally realized the Moderator is prepared to stall forever, and they walked out of the conference. It looks like we’ll soon be in the middle of the first interstellar war the empire has ever seen.”

Tallon put one hand on his temple; he had been forcing himself to forget all about the Block and the bead-sized capsule that nourished a fragment of his own brain. The thought that the little sphere of gray tissue could be equated with the green-blue immensity of a fertile world was insupportable. “That’s bad,” he said quietly.

“There’s more. The grapevine has it definite about Cherkassky. He’s coming here next week.”

Tallon continued to speak calmly in spite of the sudden hammering in his chest. “Doc, we haven’t really tested our new eyes yet. I think we ought to try a long walk.”

“You mean a really long walk?”

Tallon nodded soberly. It was a thousand miles to New Wittenburg and eighty thousand portals back to Earth.