New Writings in SF 28 - [Anthology]

by Edited By Kenneth Bulmer

  Darkness.

  * * * *

  Three

  When Fabin called later that evening he found Quinn in a very distressed state.

  ‘What could be happening to me, Steve? Am I ill? Do I look ill?’

  Fabin shook his head. ‘I don’t know what’s up with you, Andy - confide ... enlighten ...’

  Quinn tried to piece his thoughts together. An ambulance passed noisily by outside and he shuddered at the sound of its siren. ‘They wouldn’t tolerate it - I know they wouldn’t. It would be in and in for good. They don’t allow mental disorder - hell, Steve, I’m frightened!’

  ‘Tell me what it is. If you don’t tell me what’s up I can’t help at all, can I?’

  ‘I can’t, don’t you see? I can’t tell you. I can’t tell anyone.’ As if suddenly aware of the ears that might be listening, he shut up and stared at Fabin. Fabin returned his gaze. ‘Andy ...” he seemed to be fighting to find the words. ‘Andy - I had a call from your office today. You didn’t check back to work this afternoon and they’ve reported you to Employment. They want to know why.’

  Quinn’s head sank down. ‘I suppose they’d be bound to query it. Who else - who else have they contacted?’

  Fabin shrugged. ‘I expect - well, everyone you know. What happened Andy? Why didn’t you go back?’

  Quinn said, ‘I was in the park. I went in at the usual time - I came out ... you want to know what time I came out? Seven p.m. My God, Steve - Seven. I have no idea at all why I was so long. I have no recollection of what I did - Steve, I had a complete blackout.’

  Fabin digested that for a moment. ‘Okay, so you blacked out. So maybe you’re ill, under the weather - that’s okay, they can treat that. A few days rest, a week’s surveillance—’

  Quinn shivered. ‘Sure, Steve, sure - like Amis was ill - just a passing depression we all thought - a few days rest, a short course of drugs.’

  Fabin had no answering argument. Amis had vanished, thereafter, and it was not hard to guess where. The state did not kill people, it didn’t believe in killing, but the reclamation programmes in the U.K. highlands always needed unquestioningly obedient support.

  ‘I’ll check in,’ said Quinn after a moment. ‘In a while. I know I’ll have to. But not yet - not for a while.’

  Fabin smiled. ‘Well, I’ll be seeing you, Andy. Take it easy.”

  ‘Sure.’

  * * * *

  When Fabin left Quinn turned out the lights and sat in semi-darkness, staring out of his window at the quiet city. He thought over what he had not told Fabin, of the false memories he had experienced, a sense of void, of spinning stars and figures, bulky and shapeless but unmistakably men, moving in slow order within the confines of an intricately designed room.

  He had remembered being in space, he, Andrew Quinn, who had never achieved the status even to leave the country for a vacation. And space! Memories of space in an age when men were forbidden to think of the stars, and almost forbidden to look towards the Moon.

  And who was Burton? Where had he heard the name and why did it seem so significant to him?

  Who was Burton?

  As if by turning his thoughts to the mystery he had allowed a valve to open, the memories poured back into Quinn’s head. For a while he sat motionless, watching the past, listening to the voices of men he had never known. He drank with them, sang with them, flew with them.

  And beyond any frontier he had ever conceived of, beyond the stars themselves ... he remembered the trials and frustrations of the months long flight, the agony of the discovery that there were no habitable worlds around their destination star. The return flight, and the anger flaring, the fist fights, the long silences... and thus up against the blank wall, the approach to Earth, the moment when memory stopped ...

  By the time the fever of recollection had passed away and whoever or whatever lay within his head had become quiet for a while, Quinn was trembling violently. He felt a great sadness, and his own life seemed to recollect itself to him, confronting him with the little he had done in thirty years, marching past him as if for the last time.

  He experienced a sense of finality. Burton - it was a man called Burton wasn’t it? - was moving him out. He became aware of the ever present subliminal barrage, the voice of the country, dictating his mood, his behaviour. It was no longer having an effect. Quinn was beyond control, and the presence from below his mind’s surface was a stronger man than he.

  These were Quinn’s last few minutes alive, and he wanted desperately to cry. But he sank down, submerged beneath the hubbub of an alien life, and quietly passed into death.

  It was midnight.

  * * * *

  Burton watched the sleeping city and felt triumphant. He had fought hard to regain awareness and, whilst he felt sorry for his host, it was more important to Burton that a man called Burton was alive rather than a stranger called Andrew Quinn.

  Quickly, then, he examined the room. It was small and functional, a microcosm of late twenty-third century culture. One wall, however, was covered with photographs taken towards the end of the twentieth century, of cities and people or was the twentieth century the age of narcissism, and the only age to develop a photographic culture?

  The kitchen was well stocked and Burton cooked fresh fish and butter beans. As the meal was preparing - it took just over a minute - he scrutinized the rest of the apartment.

  The coffin enclosure he was expecting; but it was still a shock. Seven mummies, all perfectly preserved, but showing just sufficient signs of death to present as macabre. Burton shut them away hastily.

  He ate his meal and settled down to think.

  He was free, that was one thing; but from what he could gather by his difficult eavesdropping on the life of Andrew Quinn, Quinn had now made himself known to the authorities. And that meant, Burton was almost sure, that he would be in trouble. Either he could run, try and hide and set about finding Stormaway surreptitiously, or he could brazen it out, admit to what he had done - as Quinn - and hope for an instant reprimand and nothing more.

  Whatever he chose to do as regarded Quinn’s aberrations, he had to find Stormaway. And he had to hope that Stormaway was now on the sin-face too, since he could not try and find him in the park. That would be far too dangerous.

  So, find Stormaway. But then what?

  Although it was unclear to Burton what he would do next, at the back of his mind, and pushing ever forward, was the question: what happened after we came within spitting distance of Earth? There was just a blank. A horrifyingly complete blank. And in the time that that blank covered somehow he and Stormaway, and perhaps the four others, had become imprisoned in the bodies - and minds - of ordinary citizens.

  Who had done the imprisoning?

  At that moment something in the room called for attention with a low but penetrating buzz.

  It took just a moment to recognize the source of sound as the small screen above Quinn’s correspondence desk, and Burton crossed the room, played for a few seconds and then managed to open the visual circuit. A man’s face stared out at him, searched his eyes for a moment - just a moment - and then said, ‘Mr. Quinn?

  Burton had seen the man before, but his memory failed him as he reacted quickly and uncertainly to the unexpected contact.

  That’s right,’ he said. ‘And you are?’

  ‘Department of Health...’ At midnight? Burton was instantly suspicious. As if reading his thoughts, or perhaps the unconscious puzzlement that expressed itself on Burton’s face, the man went on, ‘We work round the clock, like most government departments. You should know that Mr. Quinn. Or perhaps you didn’t. That’s only a detail among details. What is important is that you make immediate contact with the department of Employment at KET2549-410 and explain your failure to return to work this afternoon. It’s very important, Mr. Quinn, that you do that. Explain that you were dizzy and stayed in the park for safety. Will you do that Mr. Quinn?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Burton flatly. Men
tion of the park had jogged his memory. This was the man he had seen watching him on one occasion. It was unmistakably the same man.

  ‘That way, Mr. Quinn,’ said the man on the screen, ‘your transgression can be logged routine, and the Employment-offences will get back to you in about four weeks. Understand?’

  ‘Yes, I believe I do ... I had been about to report in, anyway. Thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome. Oh, and Mr. Quinn. Are you fully recovered?’

  ‘I’ve come right through, yes. Thank you again.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  The image faded and Burton cut the circuit. He recharged the screen and dialled the number he had been given. He got through to a recording system and stated his report flatly, and briefly, and rang off.

  Unless he was being duped, he had four weeks before he would fall foul of an investigation. And if he wasn’t being duped, the man who had just spoken to him was someone he could trust, and who knew enough to help him.

  * * * *

  The following day Burton checked into Quinn’s place of work and sat down behind his desk. Nobody seemed to pay much attention to him, although one man came up to him and asked him how he felt.

  ‘Fine,’ said Burton. ‘Top of the world.’

  That’s more like it,’ said the other man. ‘I’ll see you for a drink later. Okay?’

  Burton nodded and smiled and the other man walked off, leaving Burton facing the least of his problems. What the hell did Quinn do with the sheets of symbols and statistics piled on his desk, and the various screens and typewriter consoles that surrounded him?

  There were two other men in the same office, and they possessed the same set-up as Quinn. All morning they typed, swore, spent long minutes in silence, scratching on paper occasionally, and then back to the typewriter, or computer input key, and a frantic burst of activity. Burton aped the action, and spent a boring and strenuous morning.

  At 12.30 the man sitting across the room from him closed down the humming machinery that surrounded him and rose. ‘You coming to lunch, Andy? Peter?’

  At last, thought Burton. And aloud; ‘Not today. Some shopping to do.’

  The other two men seemed surprised. The one called Peter said: ‘You wangled a pass card from the building? You lucky dog. I was refused one only yesterday.’

  That was a blow for Burton. He desperately wanted to get out of the building and take a look around. But when he checked at the entrance of the office block he was not allowed access to the street outside. Two female guards, paunchy and uninterested, turned him away, but pointed out that the Director was in a good mood and might vouchsafe a permit if he was humble.

  Burton walked back towards his office, passing, as he did so, a private holophone booth. There were directories inside and he took the opportunity to locate Dan Farmer. He lived two miles north of where Quinn lived, in a block of flats in Stamford.

  * * * *

  He arrived home shortly after six, and checked out an hour later. He went straight to where Farmer lived and rang the bell of the man’s flat. After a moment the door opened and Farmer stood there, a meagre looking man, but tall and with an air of strength. He also had a slightly indulgent look about him, and yet, from Stormaway’s description in the diary, he was a man of few indulgences.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Are you ... Stormaway?’

  Whatever Burton had expected, he had not anticipated the violence of the man’s response. Incomprehension, Burton had half expected; a welcoming handclasp he had hoped for.

  Farmer grabbed him by the neck and dragged him into the room, throwing him across the floor with a screech almost animal in its intensity.

  Dazed and confused Burton struggled to his feet, only to feel himself thrown against the wall, there to be held by very powerful hands.

  Farmer was blazing red. His face was contorted with an emotion Burton imagined was rage. But it could have been fear - deep seated, soul destroying fear.

  ‘What’s happening to me?’ screamed Farmer. ‘Who the hell is Stormaway and why is he plaguing me? Who is he?’

  Burton tried to extricate himself from the grip, but Quinn’s body was not strong. Farmer hit him in the mouth and tripped him over, throwing him to the ground.

  ‘Farmer, for God’s sake, cool down ...’

  ‘Who’s Stormaway?’ screamed Farmer by way of response. He came down on Burton with the weight of his body directed through his knees. Burton’s breath went from him and he began to feel sick. He noticed that Farmer was crying. ‘For God’s sake what’s happening to me? What’s happening to me? Who is this man who’s ... who’s always in my head? Oh God, what’s happening?’

  He began to weep and Burton, feeling weak and shaken, summoned the strength to throw him off his body. Farmer, immediately began to struggle to his feet, but Burton was quicker. He aimed a kick at Farmer’s head, and connected perfectly. Farmer went sprawling.

  As he subsided against the far wall, blood gushing from his nose, so Burton ran for the door. He was obviously too early. As he left the apartment, however, he paused, looked back at Farmer who was trying to sit up. He was saying something, a name... Burton’s name... just once, he said it, and then collapsed backwards.

  Burton came back into the room and knelt above the semi-conscious figure. The lips were moving, almost with difficulty.

  ‘Stormaway, it’s me ... can you hear me?’

  ‘Can’t ... get through, Ray ... but fighting ... give me time ... a little time ... hell, I’m sinking ... tomorrow ... park ...’

  He said nothing more, but Farmer began to regain consciousness, moaning and wiping a hand across his blood stained face.

  Burton took his leave.

  * * * *

  Four

  The following day Burton made a decision that was, he guessed, almost certainly a mistake. But if Burton had any flaw at all it was that he was impatient, and he could not wait for Stormaway to make the breakthrough on his own. He would have to do as Stormaway had suggested and meet him in the park.

  To meet him in the park meant either getting an exit permit from his place of work, and hoping he could get into the park unnoticed, or not going into work at all. He chose the latter course.

  Towards mid-day he joined the long queue shuffling into the wide expanse of the park. As he passed through the gates so, like everyone else, he flashed his small identity card at the television monitor on the right. So now the fact that he was in the park at an illegal time would be made known to the authorities. But how long would it take for them to react? He knew, from his own experience, that no such identification was made at the exit. With luck, then, they would try and catch up with him at home. And he had no intention of going home, not until he had a clear plan of action amenable to both himself and Stormaway.

  He made straight for the oak, but no-one was there, so he sat down and waited, reading through the diary interchange many times while the minutes ticked by.

  Two hours later he noticed a man running and walking towards him, a man conspicuous by his lack of calm.

  As he drew nearer Burton recognized Farmer, now with his nose covered in plaster. As Farmer drew near he hesitated, staring at Burton as if searching for a sign that he had the right man. He said: ‘I don’t recognize you...’

  ‘I’m Burton.’

  ‘Ray. My God, is it really you?’

  They shook hands, staring at the alien forms that contained their souls. ‘Quite a come down from the muscle perfect bodies we started with, eh? You’re weedy, I’m running to fat in all the wrong places.’

  They sat down. Inevitably for a while there was silence. Then Stormaway said: ‘How’d you break through?’

  Burton said: ‘It happened two nights back. Almost naturally. Quinn was a very weak man, totally ruled by whatever rules people in this society. He was a characterless man. It was inevitable that he should succumb; but when it happened I was quite surprised. What had been a persisting greyness, a dream-like awareness of what he wa
s seeing and doing, suddenly became hard reality.’