The Killer Thing

Fourteen

Trace was swimming upward in a funnel that was a lustreless black, whose sides he could not touch, although he knew they were around him. Looking back through the darkness of it, he knew it swelled larger and larger behind him, that at the base its dimensions were of such enormity that it was virtually boundless, but still was a funnel. It was solid black, but he knew there were colour streaks through it, even though he could not see them: streaks of green, of blue, gold, pink… He was afraid to stop because once stopped he forgot how to proceed again. He was so tired that he knew he would have to stop shortly. Stopping meant tumbling back downwards past the vast spaces he had covered with his strenuous efforts. Ahead of him in the blackness he knew there was the apex; he could sense how the funnel narrowed until it would squeeze and elongate him. He knew it would hurt. He flinched from the anticipated pain, and still struggled upward towards it. He felt that he was as large as the funnel itself, that he stretched endlessly to fill in the space, and that gradually he was being forced into a narrowing cone of consciousness. He lost awareness of the smooth, black sides of the funnel, and it was more frightening not to know its limits than it had been to feel its immensity. The point of light that was the mouth was growing brighter, although no larger. He groaned as he neared it, and he struggled harder to reach it. The stabbing pinpoint of light hurt his eyes. Now he could no longer feel his feet they were so far removed from him, stretching out behind him, out of reach, out of touch. The pain increased, accompanied now by distant cries and shrill howls. He had to get through the hole, get to the other side. The howls grew louder and he felt ashamed of himself for screaming. But he wasn’t screaming. With a final agonising thrust he was through, and the howls were close to his ears.

He sat up, awake. It was the wind. The morning wind had awakened him. He remembered the wakening dream and shuddered once. He was cold and sick. He thought of the form of his sickness and could give no real diagnosis for it: cold, fever, and fatigue. He never had felt so tired before in his life, tired to the point of dreading movement itself, any movement. He sat for several moments listening to the wind in the valley, with an occasional blast through the chimney, He was tired to death of the wind, and the dinghy, and the sand and rocks, and himself… He stared dully at nothing and knew he was most of all tired of himself.

His motions were agonisingly slow when he heaved himself from the seat-bed and went to the unit for the food capsules. He shut his eyes and squeezed the tube, trying not to think of the paste that filled his mouth, gagged him. Half a tube was all he could force himself to take. Later, he promised, later, he would eat more. He sipped water, holding it in his mouth as long as he could before allowing it to trickle down his throat. It wasn’t enough to cleanse his mouth of the after-taste of the food compound. He hadn’t looked to see what he was eating; he didn’t look then. Slowly, as if apart from the rest of him, his hand groped for the water bag and lifted it again. He drank again, all the while keeping his eyes tightly closed. He didn’t look to see how much of the water remained.

He would search for the dinghy while the sun was high. Meanwhile he had to start fortifying the valley. That morning, again in the evening, the next morning. What day was it? He couldn’t decide. It seemed that he had been in the valley for months, or years, that possibly he had been born in the valley and everything else was illusory, phantoms that crossed his mind concerning other places, other times. He knew nothing about any of them; he knew only the valley, the sun, the wind, the sand. The wind was dying then. He had to start. His face was set in hard, unyielding lines when he opened the hatch and started to climb outside. Violently he shook his head and turned back. He had forgotten his suit. His hands were clumsy and awkward when he pulled it on, and immediately he was too hot after having been chilled.

He remembered that there were two more entrances to his valley: one almost directly opposite from the chimney, one to the left of that. Both were precipitous, but negotiable by the robot. Stepping out into the glare of the world after the dim light of the dinghy made him blink, made his eyes feel on fire. He walked straight across the circular valley floor, stumbling once or twice over rocks that he failed to notice in time, but by the time he got to the other wall, he felt less dull. The passage that led out of the valley was steep, narrow in spots, but never too narrow for the robot to manage. The ground was strewn with rocks banked up the walls at each curve in the passage. The turns were sharp for the most part, with only two sweeping curves among them. He clambered the length of the passage, scrabbling over rocks where they had piled up, wading through sand that lodged against them. By the time he got to the end of the passage he was gasping for air and he collapsed in the shade of the high, steep side of the cleft. After his heaving lungs were satisfied, he continued to sprawl there, too exhausted for further efforts. What sort of rocks had made up this cut, he wondered, gazing at the straight rise of granite on the wall opposite him as he rested. The wall behind him was granite also. A band of sandstone, perhaps? Eroded away now, leaving a clean cut through the granite. A metamorphic rock that had given way to the driving force of sand? A lode of gold, or silver? He laughed aloud and suddenly felt more cheerful. From where he was lying he could not see into the valley at all, and again he realised how fortunate he had been in locating his hideaway. Unless the robot got into the valley itself, he would be relatively safe from it. If he could block the passages that led inside…

He pulled himself upright again and started through the passageway. Around one of the the sweeping curves he halted and looked around him. If he could construct a windbreak here… He narrowed his eyes, considering the sand being hurled from the valley through the passage. If it were stopped by a windbreak… It would act like a snow fence…

The passage was nine feet wide at that point. It would take a fence that wide, as thick as necessary to withstand the wind ― three feet, four? ― and at least five feet high, six perhaps… The materials were in the passage itself, in the heaps of rocks banked at each turn. For an instant the thought of the work involved made him hesitate, but he put the thought aside and began building the fence. He didn’t think of anything at all as he pushed and hauled rocks up the slope for the base, rolling them into place, or pushing one over another, trying to lift as few as possible. Almost automatically he stopped when he had the first course done, and he stepped over it and went up the slopes to the farthest turn where the rocks were banked. Carefully he moved rocks, not wanting to start them rolling down the passage, until he had moved a line of rocks across the passage. He went back down to the next curve and did the same thing, making this one slightly higher than the first, and then he returned to the first fence. He was muttering softly to himself when he resumed work.

“…not one grain can get out… gold in the sand, boy, or silver… we’ll catch it all right here, piles of gold and silver…”

He continued to mutter sporadically, and the fence grew, was to his knees, then his thighs. He was working automatically, no longer aware of the heat, or his protesting muscles, or the heaviness of the rocks he staggered with. He was thinking of a rainstorm he had seen on Earth once. On the coast where the buildings rose from the cliffs overlooking the ocean, rose from two to three hundred stories high, with thousands of people in each one. As far as he had been able to see up and down the coast the buildings had obstructed the westward view. He had felt that there was no land behind them, only more buildings, transportation nets, buildings, on into infinity. But the ocean had been the other way, rolling and heavy with mysterious smells and strong tasting winds. Once, he knew, man had considered expanding his world right into the sea itself, but he never had. Instead he had leaped into space, leaving the oceans strange and unknown. The storm had come from the sea, wind, rain, lightning, thunder. He had stood on the balcony of the apartment where he was staying, and he had felt great fear of the storm as it was building, and ever greater fear of it when it was unleashed and struck with fury. It was a primeval fear, inexplicable, unleavened by the knowledge of the strength of the buildings. To his amazement none of the other people in the building appeared to be aware of what was taking place beyond their windows and the safety of their steel and plastic shield. It never stormed on Venus: the rains came with dull ponderous regularity when the days were grey and the air was water-laden, with no touch of the furious energy, of that one Earth storm. He never had witnessed such a storm again. Always in the back of his mind the idea had swum that one day he would return to Earth and find one of the small parcels of government land that still contained trees and hills, and there he would wait until another such storm appeared. It had touched something in him that had been dormant until then, and had become dormant again afterwards.

He thought of the storm, of the cold, wet winds smelling of seas, of the blindingly bright lightning thrusts, and he wondered at the strange desires the thoughts aroused in him.

“Our weather is gentle always,” Lar had said. He had been saddened by the words, without knowing why. Trace lifted a rock and fell with it, letting go of his burden only an instant before crashing to the ground. He lay there with his eyes closed and wondered if he would be able to get up again, later, when he risked the effort. A swift flood of desire for Lar pounded through him and he knew that always he had wanted to take her with the violence of a storm that loves the land that it pounds. He wanted to hold her naked in his arms while the lightning flashed and thunder reverberated; he wanted to share the terror evoked by the elements, and forget the terrors in the violence of love making.

“You were wrong, Mother!” he moaned, his eyes tightly closed in pain: the pain of his tormented body, worse, the pain of his desire that was not ebbing, but rising still.

Marry Conine, dear. It’s a gesture only. There are family monies, records, a bit of land here and there… Someone should inherit it after you… Don’t turn away, dear. This is how it is done. Your father and I saw each other only three or four times, after all. It was a very satisfactory arrangement… Corrine won’t make any demands, other than a son…

To be a soldier…?

Of course. We have the family tradition, as does Corrine. We have always bred soldiers. You are a man now, dear, with a man’s responsibilities… Love is nothing. You must believe this. I know you are romantic, dear, all of you youngsters are. You should be, but you should also be realistic. You think that out there somewhere is the perfect girl for you, that after you retire you will find a piece of paradise somewhere and marry a princess and live happily ever after… Darling, it isn’t like that. Earthmen are not compatible with any aliens yet found. There can be no mating with any aliens. They are never human, you know.

Lar mocking him with black eyes shining. You don’t have to ask me, Captain. You know that. The others don’t ask the women. They take them. You would pretend it is something that it isn’t?

Damn you, Lar!

I met this girl, Duncan, small girl, back hair, black eyes, a nurse…

I know what you need, boy. Some dish, eh? Come on, let’s go get ‘em.

You’re hurting me, Captain. Please…

I want to hurt you, you slut. You bitch! You alien bitch!

Bleeding and weeping, large blue eyes tear-filled, contorted face…

Lying on the hot ground Trace thought of the girl he had misused after leaving Lar untouched. He didn’t even know the girl’s name, or how badly he had hurt her… He thought of other girls, other women… “Lar,” he whispered, “I am sorry. I am sorry.”

After a moment he pushed himself away from the ground; the sun was coming straight down on him. It was noon. His body felt only soreness then, and a distant ache that never really left him, an emptiness that nothing seemed to satisfy. He didn’t look again at the wall, but staggered from the passage reeling drunkenly as he went.

Inside the dinghy he rested several minutes without thought. Time seemed to be changing somehow; he had no awareness of time passing when he was not actively thinking of it. He could not have said if he had rested for five minutes or for half a day when he rose from the bed. He knew he had to eat, had to drink, knew that he had to finish the search for the robot’s dinghy. Even his thoughts were distorted, each one occupying his entire being, as if his whole organism was involved with thinking through a simple thought like, I must eat.

He chose a fruit mixture, and a meat preparation, and he forced the contents of both tubes down. He found that it was easier if he didn’t think of what he was doing, but paid attention only long enough to get his hands started, to get his throat muscles swallowing properly, and then forgot the process. He felt far removed from it all. He measured out his water carefully and sipped it, letting his thoughts remain distant, sorry as soon as the water was gone that he had not concentrated on it, for suddenly he felt that he hadn’t had any at all. He searched through the medical supplies and found nothing that he could rely on to bring him back into firmer contact with his surroundings, but he felt that as long as he realised this curious dissociation was his symptom, he would be able to cope with it, make allowances for it. He tried to swallow anti-fever capsules and found that he couldn’t swallow them dry any longer; they stuck to his mouth and throat, choking him until he took water and washed them down.

He took his photograph-maps out then and made his eyes see the radiation trails he had crossed; he discovered that with no volition on his part, his eyes drifted from the trails and began weaving in and out of the towers of rocks that threw shadow patterns on the map. Very carefully he set controls on the panel of the dinghy, and then double checked them. He never had used these controls except in practice. If he stopped controlling the little craft, it would hover where he relinquished control, then would return to this spot at the end of a two-hour period of flight. He changed the time to allow him three hours for the search, and then, knowing that he would be returned to camp in the event that he blacked out, he eased the dinghy out from the rocks and took off. He felt very lightheaded, sometimes feeling that he was on the inside of the craft, and that it was motionless, other times feeling that he was on the outside of it with the ground tumbling away from him. The dinghy was flying almost entirely on automatic when he rejoined the radiation lines he had mapped before. Every time the craft came to another trail, crossing the one it followed, it hovered until he took over. When it hovered, the down drafts of air blew up columns of sand that then settled in neat little hills over each juncture when he went on. Once he let the craft fly out for twenty-four miles before he turned it around and followed the trail back to the first cross-trail. It all seemed to be so far removed from him personally, so unimportant. The radiation alarm sounded incessantly, and it became the voices of Duncan, of the men aboard the fleet ship in orbit, his mother, the voices of the boys back in the barracks…

He dared not land. His dinghy would get hot and his radiation alarm would then be useless. He laughed. If he landed somewhere else and came back on foot, he would get hot… He had been out for two hours when he began to come wide awake and alert again, and he cursed vehemently when he checked his mileage. In the state he had been in he could have flown over the other dinghy a dozen times without its making an impression on his befuddled mind. It would be on his film if he had, but he had no way to know until he examined the film. Below him there seemed to be at least half a dozen trails leading in different directions, and he realised that the robot had been using this as its starting point in its search for him and Duncan. Later it had learned that it need not return to the starting point after each false trail, but here, it seemed the thing had come back again and again…

Trace jerked wide awake then. It had returned to this location. Its starting place. That meant that the dinghy had to be close now. He slowed and studied the ground, searching for the basalt cliff where he had seen the robot. There were too many of the black shadows for him to be able to tell if any given rocks were black or white, or any of the shades in between. The dinghy itself would not be radiating; its radiation would be entering the ground underneath the shield of invisibility. He searched for an area in the midst of the hot trails that was free of radiation. There were several such blank spaces. Carefully he covered the area beneath the dinghy so that the cameras would be certain to have every inch of it on film, and then it was time to turn and go back to the valley. There was still much work to be done on the passages. As he turned he saw the basalt cliffs.

He stiffened with excitement, and disregarding the automatic pilot light that blinked off and on, as if in annoyance, he took over the controls and circled the cliff, trying to pick out the ledge on which he had stood that day. They had landed on the other side of it, and he had found the ledge that he could climb, winding around the cliff, giving him a view for ten miles around almost. He circled the site of the first landing; he saw the ledge he had climbed. The radiation trails were thick and heavy under him; the robot had found the site of their landing then. Knowing that the entire area was on the film, that he could study the film and find the right spot to locate the other dinghy, he did turn back. Within minutes he was landed and had his maps spread out, superimposing the films over them.

There, or there… There were four blank areas, any one of which could be the other dinghy. Within twelve miles of his valley there was fuel, oxygen, and water. There had to be a way of getting to it without getting too hot, or letting his dinghy get too hot… There had to be a way of entering it once he did pinpoint it exactly… He couldn’t waste his dwindling fuel in flying back and forth again until he had his plan readied. Tomorrow. He’d have figured it out by tomorrow and then… He thought of the cache of water that must be in the other dinghy and he almost sobbed wanting it. “Damn you, Duncan,” he whispered. “Damn you, damn you.” He thought hungrily of the water dripping off the injured man’s body, soaking into his clothing, wasted on him… He swallowed a mouthful of his remaining water, and he knew that it would be gone on the next day. He had to find the other dinghy on the next day, or he would die of thirst. He had to finish sealing his valley so that if the robot came before he took off, it wouldn’t be able to get him. He laughed and got up to go back to his fence. He had an hour before the wind would drive him back inside. He would finish the fence by then. Tomorrow he would find the other dinghy. It would take time to find it, to transfer the water and fuel, to sabotage it… If the robot got to him before he finished with everything, it wouldn’t matter any longer. He could take off and be out of range before it could swing its laser to cover him, even if it were on the rim of the valley itself by then. He would study the map, make a plan, he had all night to perfect his plans… He touched his cracked lips and knew even that didn’t matter. Soon there would be plenty of water. He finished building the fence, made it six feet high, and when the wind started to blow he went back to the dinghy and pulled out the maps. He didn’t take off his suit, didn’t even remove his hands from the gloves and when his head fell down to the maps, the face mask cushioned the fall so that he didn’t even feel it.