Night Walk

eight

Cronin, the bird man, looked up at them with growing suspicion in his red-rimmed eyes. “No,” he said. “I’ve no owls, or hawks, or any birds like that. I tell you, we don’t have enough small vermin this far south to attract them. Why do you have to have a hunting bird?”

“We don’t,” Tallon replied quickly. “We’ll take two of those brown ones that look like doves. Just so long as they’re tame enough to stay with us and not fly off.”

He had wanted predatory birds because their eye positions corresponded roughly to a human’s, which meant it would be easier to get used to their form of vision. It would be good to have a vision center close to his own body, but Tallon was not happy about the idea of apparently seeing out of each side of his head. The main thing, however, was to get hold of some usable optical system in a hurry.

“Well, I don’t know about all this.” The bird man looked sharply at Tallon. “Say, aren’t you Tallon? I thought you were blind or something.”

“I am — almost. That’s why I want the birds. They’d be a bit like guide dogs.”

“Mmmm, I don’t know. You guys don’t look like bird-lovers to me. Birds are sensitive, you know.”

Winfield coughed impatiently. “We’ll give you four cartons of cigarettes for each. I understand that’s twice the standard rate.”

Detainee Cronin shrugged and lifted two of the dovelike native birds from the little wire-mesh aviary he had built on the southern end of the peninsula. He tied short lengths of cord to the legs of the docile, quivering birds and handed them over.

“If you want them to sit on your shoulders, tie them to your epaulettes for a couple of days till they get used to you.”

Tallon thanked him, and they hurried away with the birds. Near the crumbling walls of the original Pavilion gardens they stopped and transferred the birds to their shoulders. When Tallon selected his bird’s visual signals on a proximity basis, he felt as though the top had been lifted from his head, letting the light pour in. The bird’s widely spaced eyes provided Tallon with a brilliant 360-degree view of land, sea, and sky. This vision, which enabled the bird to spot hunters and other enemies, gave Tallon a feeling of being hunted. It was difficult to get used to having his own ear looming up on one side of his field of vision, but there was the consolation that nobody could take him by surprise.

They walked to the eastern side of the peninsula, where the ground rose to a low cliff, giving them a view out across the tideless, planet-spanning ocean. Tallon’ was entranced by the sensation of airy spaciousness and freedom. He felt that — if he could only remember how — he could take a deep breath and soar upward over the sunlit curve of the world.

Winfield pointed northward. Beyond the Pavilion’s crenelated rooftops, shimmering in the afternoon light, was a wall of mist. Clustered at its base were blooms, brilliant red beacons that were visible from more than a mile away.

“That’s the swamp. There’s about four miles of it before you reach the mainland proper.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to swim along one side?”

“You’d have to swim out to sea for a mile or more to get round the stuff that grows out from the swamp; and the air patrols would spot you right off. No — the only way is straight up the center. There’s one big advantage about going through the swamp: We’ll be presumed dead within a few hours, and they won’t search very hard on the far side. In fact, I think all they’ll do is make a daily check on the magazines of the rattler rifles to see if there’s any record of us having been picked off.”

“Rattler rifles?”

“Yes. Did I forget to mention them?” Winfield chuckled mirthlessly.

The northern edge of the swamp was an irregular line extending six miles across the peninsula. The improbability of any prisoner ever reaching it had persuaded the Pavilion’s security consultants to forego the trouble and expense of manned patrols along the boundary. Instead, a chain of forty pylons, equipped with robot rifles, had been erected. Each rifle had two widely spaced heat-sensitive cups, like those on a rattlesnake’s head, which enabled it to train itself and fire at any warm-blooded being coming into range. They fired heat-seeking missiles, an inch in diameter, equipped with tiny pulse motors that gave them a constant velocity of seven thousand feet a second. The rifles had rarely gone into action against humans, but their effectiveness had been demonstrated in other ways. Within a week of their installation every warm-blooded animal indigenous to the swamp had been blasted into crimson ooze and bone fragments.

“If the rifles are that good,” Tallon said, “how do we get by them? How do we even get near them?”

“Come along and I’ll show you.”

They crossed the peninsula south of the Pavilion and walked along the western shore until the prison buildings were behind them and the ice-green mists of the swamp swirled into the sky close ahead. A simple log palisade, topped with barbed wire, marked the limits of the Pavilion grounds; beyond it, the sculptured convolutions of the swamp mist hung motionless in the air. Tallon had not been that close before and had not realized how utterly inimical the swamp really was. Stray currents of air brought him wisps of its breath — clammy cold, and heavy with a stink that caused an unpleasant surge in his belly.

“Rich, isn’t it? We aren’t likely to overeat in there,” Winfield said, with an almost proprietary pride. “Now don’t point or do anything suspicious, in case they’re watching us from the tower, but have a look at the palisade close to that white rock. Do you see where I mean?”

Tallon nodded.

“That part is hollow, full of a kind of wood-boring worm. The maintenance team goes right round the palisade twice a year, spraying it with a penetrant insecticide to keep the worms down. I come along first and paint that area with ordinary wood sealer to keep the insecticide out. There are a couple of million worms in there who must think of me as God.”

“Nice work; but wouldn’t it have been easier to go over the top?”

“For you, yes. I’m not built for climbing. Eight years ago I made it and no more, and my shadow has increased considerably since then.”

“You were going to tell me about the rifles.”

“Yes. See those creepers with the deep red flowers, right at the edge of the swamp? Those are dringo plants. The leaves are over a quarter of an inch thick, and they’re tough enough to take sewing together. We’ll bring needles and thread and make screens to get us past the rifles.”

“You’re sure they’re good insulators?” Tallon asked doubtfully.

“They have to be. A species of leaping scorpion that can’t stand temperature variations lives under those leaves. They get pretty mad when you pluck their cover away. But don’t worry; we’ll be protected.”

“That’s the other thing I was going to ask you about.”

“It’s all in the plan, son. Close to that same white rock there’s a small fissure in the ground. It was one of the places I could find without any trouble, even when I couldn’t see. That’s where the escape kits are hidden.”

“Kits plural?”

“Yes. I was going to go it alone, if necessary; but I knew I’d have a better chance with a partner who could at least see where we were going. One thing you’ll find about me, son — I’m strictly practical.”

“Doc,” Tallon said wonderingly, “I love you.”

The principal items in Winfield’s escape kits were two large squares of thin tough plastic. He had stolen them from the Pavilion’s receiving bay, where they had been used to cover bulk deliveries of food. His idea was to make a hole in the center, just big enough for a man’s head, put it on, and working from the inside, seal the edges together with adhesive. Although crude, the envelopes provided a membrane area large enough to support a man’s weight on the quagmire. In several years of steady filching, Winfield had accumulated a supply of antibiotics and specifics to fight any swamp fever and insect poison likely to be encountered. He even had a hypodermic syringe, two guard uniforms, and a small amount of money.

“The only thing I hadn’t allowed for years ago,” Winfield added, “is that our eyes will be traveling separately. I don’t know how our feathered friends will make out in the swamp. Not too well, I’m afraid.”

Tallon stroked the bird on his shoulder. “They’ll have to have suits, too. If we go back to the workshop now, we can make up two small cages and cover them with transparent plastic. After that we should be ready to go whenever you say.”

“I say tonight, then. There’s no point in hanging around. I’ve wasted too much time, too many years in this place already, and I have a feeling that time’s getting short for all of us.”

As usual, the evening meal consisted of fish. In the two years he had been on the planet, Tallon had grown accustomed to having fish for nearly every meal; the sea was Emm Luther’s only good source of first-class protein. Outside prison however, it was processed to taste like other things; in the Pavilion, fish tasted like fish.

Tallon toyed for a few minutes with the dry white flesh and the spinachlike sea vegetables, then rose and walked slowly out of the mess hall. He was finding it increasingly easy to get about in confined spaces using only an occasional glimpse of himself stolen from someone’s eyes. Working through the bird — which he had named Ariadne — while it sat on his shoulder would have been better, but it would have drawn too much attention in the mess hall.

Winfield and he had decided to be as inconspicuous as possible during their last hours in the Pavilion. They had agreed to keep away from each other and make their way separately to the white rock at dusk, two hours before the cell blocks were sealed for the night. The doctor was to go first, carrying the improvised bird cages, and have the escape kits dug up by the time Tallon got there.

Outside the mess hall, Tallon stood undecidedly for a moment. There was almost an hour to go before it was rendezvous time. The only thing his stomach would have accepted at that moment was coffee, but Winfield had warned him not to eat or drink anything, because they were going to be sealed up in their plastic envelopes for at least two days. He touched the eyeset controls, and using proximity selection, got behind the eyes of a guard who was standing near the entrance. The guard was smoking, so Tallon lit a cigarette, and by raising it to his lips every time he saw the guard do likewise, he was able to achieve a startlingly realistic simulation of normal vision for a few minutes. He enjoyed re-creating a fragment of the warm, secure past. But gathering shadows behind the buildings around the plaza reminded him that night was falling over the swamp, and that he, Sam Tallon, would spend that night squirming through its stinking blackness toward the robot rifles.

Leaving the sounds of mealtime conversation and horseplay behind him, Tallon struck off across the square toward the cell blocks. The guard’s eyes must have followed him idly, for Tallon had a perfect view of himself walking toward the blocks silhouetted on the western horizon. Self-consciously he squared his shoulders, but the action did nothing to make the receding figure seem any bigger, tougher, or less lonely.

He wanted to collect Ariadne from the large wire-mesh aviary, which the board had granted for the use of prisoners who wanted to keep bird pets, but decided to go to his cell first and clear out his possessions, such as they were. By the time Tallon reached his own section he was near the extreme range of the eyeset, and his view of himself was little more than of a brown speck approaching the entrance to the cell block. He thought he detected two other specks, wearing the dark green of the prison guards, detach themselves from the portico. The distance vision of the guard still smoking outside the mess hall was not very good, so Tallon decided to switch to a pair of eyes nearer to him.

As he raised his hands to the eyeset controls there was an impact of bodies, and his arms were pinned to his sides. Tallon saw that the green specks had attached themselves to the brown speck that was himself.

With his heart jolting violently, Tallon said, “If I’ve been reported for stealing cutlery from the mess hall, it’s a lie.”

“Don’t try to be funny, Tallon,” a voice crackled in his ear. “We want Winfield as well. Where is he?”

Tallon guessed that if they had not been able to find the doctor in the main buildings he must have already left for the rendezvous point. That meant Winfield might be able to get out of the Pavilion, if he didn’t wait too long for Tallon to show up. But who had tipped off the guards? Not Hogarth, surely. Even if the little man had guessed what they were up to, he would hardly have …

“Do you not hear so good, Tallon? I asked you where Winfield was.”

“I don’t know.” Tallon tried to think up a convincing stall to give the doctor more time, but his mind had gone numb. To his surprise, the guards did not seem to be particularly alarmed.

“What’s the difference?” The man on his right spoke casually. “We’ll collect this one now, and get Winfield’s as soon as we see him.”

“I guess that’s all we can do.”

As Tallon tried to make sense of their comments, he felt a hand brush his temple and, instantly, he was blind. They had taken his eyeset!

“What the hell!” He shouted angrily, wrenching his arms from their grasp and staggering slightly as the guards let go, leaving him free but helplessly blind.

“Give me that back. That’s my own property, you thieving bastards. I’ll report you to … Miss Juste for this.”

One of the guards laughed. “That’s a good one. You and Winfield made these crazy glasses with stolen government materials, Tallon. And you can report us to Miss Juste any time you want. She’s the one who’s confiscating them.”