Dark Terrors 5: The Gollancz Book of Horror

GAHAN WILSON Final Departure

S’ki Tok paused in his thoughtful, careful study of the survivor’s diary in order to glance up at its author and when he saw that the poor fellow was staring at him apprehensively he twitched his lower facial tentacles gently in order to make the species mask he was wearing show the chap a reassuring smile.

It was, as he knew from personal experience, which he still clearly and painfully remembered, a very hard thing to see a total stranger perusing intimate, confessional things you had written with what seemed at the time to be the sure and certain knowledge they would never be read.

‘Please do not be concerned,’ the face mask translated from S’ki Tok’s original N’yaktanese. ‘What you have written here will only be read by the most scrupulously protective professionals, such as myself. It will never be generally disseminated in anything like its original form and it will — as the accumulated information of prior diaries previously studied have done — greatly aid in assisting other survivors who will be finding themselves undergoing the same difficult emotional and intellectual transitions and adaptations which you are presently suffering.’

The survivor rubbed the thick hair growth on his lower face thoughtfully, cleared his throat a time or two as it was still proving difficult for him to take up the long-abandoned habit of talking, and spoke in a whisper which had already become noticeably less rasping than it had been when he was first discovered.

‘I find it astounding that so many others have gone through what I’ve just experienced,’ he said at last. ‘I was certain I was undergoing something absolutely unique. It’s still very hard to imagine that it… well, that it. ’

S’ki Tok took pity on the poor fellow’s groping for words. He opened and closed several lateral pincers, which caused the species suit to wave a consoling hand and shrug philosophically.

‘Believe me, in a very short period of time you will discover that the whole business has almost automatically become much easier to deal with,’ he said. ‘Not only will you find that your own psychological processes are amazingly capable of dealing with what now appears to be an ungraspable position, but you will be enormously aided by personal contact with the many other survivors who you will shortly meet. I can see that your brief acquaintance with me, as another survivor, has already helped you to manage the situation.’

‘Oh, it has!’ said the survivor most emphatically. ‘It truly has, and I do want you to understand that I really appreciate your being so helpful!’

He paused, obviously confused and flustered.

‘Still, it’s just that — ’ he began, and then broke off to look up at S’ki Tok with a suddenly stricken expression. ‘You may think what I am going to say is terrible. I’m afraid you may even hate me for it!’

This time S’ki Tok caused his species suit to raise both hands in a gentle silencing gesture and the species mask to express the very tenderest of understanding smiles.

‘Forgive me if I seem presumptuous,’ he said, ‘but I imagine I know what are you trying to tell me. Would you please be tolerant enough to let me speculate aloud?’

The survivor looked at him silently for a moment and then slowly nodded.

‘Very well, then,’ S’ki Tok said, ‘I suspect you are thinking something very much along the lines of what I thought when, a long time ago, what has happened to you also happened to me.’

The survivor studied him intently, with burning eyes. He said nothing, but the clenching of his jaw and hands revealed his tension and suspense.

S’ki Tok, following the clear instructions of the declassification manual, let this vitally important moment stretch out a little longer before he spoke again.

‘Please do not take offence,’ he said, ‘and please do not think I am in any way expressing disapproval of you. What I am going to say is based entirely on what I myself went through during trials and tribulations almost identical to those you have so recendy experienced.’

The survivor swallowed violently. Sweat now beaded his brow. Both of these symptoms corresponded exactly to to those described in the species reactions subsection of the manual which was now scrolling helpfully in the interior of S’ki Tok’s mask.

Thus encouraged, S’ki Tok proceeded.

‘When I was found, as I found you,’ he said, ‘I, too, was astounded and amazed. I gaped at my visitor in absolute and complete bewilderment! I had never again expected to see such a sight! I found — and I am still embarrassed to have to confess this! — I was appalled to discover that I wanted to kill him!’

The survivor groaned deeply, then lowered his head and buried his face behind his knees and folded arms. After a pause, moving very carefully, S’ki Tok’s suit reached out a hand and softly laid it on the poor fellow’s shoulder.

‘But I did not kill him,’ S’ki Tok said. ‘As you did not kill me.’

The survivor stiffened as his body squeezed in on itself.

‘I observed you reach for your weapon when you saw me and thought I did not see you,’ said S’ki Tok gently. ‘I saw you grip it hard. And then I saw you take your hand away from it, just as I took my hand away from my weapon that long, long time ago.’

Slowly, almost cell by cell it seemed, the survivor’s body began to relax.

‘You passed the test,’ said S’ki Tok, ‘and you passed it well. But now there has come another, the one that presently tortures you. It is a far subtler test and one which is almost more painful because it is — dare I say it? — humiliating!”

As the manual warned, there was a distinct returning of the tenseness. S’ki Tok pressed the suit’s hand on the fellow’s shoulder as reassuringly as he could.

‘Please do forgive me for using that word, but it is the only one that accurately applied to my condition, and that is why I suspect it may apply to yours.’

S’ki Tok leaned forward just a little to look more closely at his companion as the survivor raised his head from its hiding place in order to look back at him.

‘You are haunted by an awful wish, are you not?’ asked S’ki Tok.

The survivor blinked, gritted his teeth and nodded.

‘You secretly wish it was as it was before I turned up, do you not?’ asked S’ki Tok. ‘That it was finally all done with. That the whole thing was at last completed. Settled. Finished. You do not want to wish it, oh, I know that, I know that well — but you still can’t help wishing it.’

He took his hand from the poor fellow’s shoulder and sat back, his mask smiling down.

‘Do not worry,’ said S’ki Tok, ‘I had the exact same thought. We have all had the same thought, every one of us. And from personal experience I know it will go away. Believe me, for I speak the truth — it will go away.’

He studied the survivor’s face and was pleased to see it was slowly relaxing and that the eyes were losing some of their furtiveness.

S’ki Tok picked up the survivor’s precious diary and stood.

‘And now I think it is time we left and boarded the ship,’ he said, holding out the hand of the species suit.

After only a tiny pause the survivor took that hand and allowed himself to be helped to his feet.

‘Ah, wait, till you see the ship,’ said S’ki Tok. ‘It is huge. And astoundingly well-equipped. It has everything for every one of us!’

He gave a comforting little laugh, then he opened the crude door of the survivor’s hut and stepped outside.

‘Come along,’ said S’ki Tok.

And the last man alive on Earth obediently followed after.