Earthworks

by Brian W Aldiss

  Thunderpeck offered him some resistance, and the soldier knocked him down on to the floor. That action had been his saving. He had fallen under a table when the interior of the tank was suddenly filled with flame. He had covered his head to protect it from kicks but still saw the fire, even through closed eyes. He guessed at once what had happened, since only one thing could have caused such a wave of heat.

  Shocked, he staggered up. Abdul and the soldier were still on their feet but already burning fiercely. The shock must have killed them stone-dead; of the other Angolese, there was no sign. The blast must have carried him out and spread him across miles of desert.

  Half-stifled by the heat, and with his lungs afire, Thunderpeck managed to climb out of the turret and fling himself down on to the sand on the other side of the vehicle from me. Though the sand was burning, he managed to scoop himself a hole where he could lie covered until the particles with shorter half-lives had dispersed.

  Before he had finished telling me this, we were approaching the town I came to know as Walvis Bay.

  I will leave a description of this city until later. It is sufficient to record here that it was not built upon a platform, as were all the other cities of which I had ever heard, but stood direct on a stony promontory overlooking the sea. This was by no means its sole peculiarity, but when we first looked at it, we noticed only that it possessed a number of spires pointing to the sky, so that it presented a spiked outline against the desert; our cities have no spires and few high buildings.

  The way to the city was barred by a slow-flowing yellow stream, the Swakop, which presented no obstacle to our GEM. On the far bank were set up barbed wire and sentry boxes and gun emplacements, and all the traditional equipment of a frontier; but when a signalman there waved a signal flag at us, we swerved to follow the river and entered Walvis Bay from the sea-front.

  We had no time to admire the fantastic architectural effects, for it was now made apparent to us that although we had been rescued, we had also been captured. Thunderpeck and I had our wrists clipped together and were made to dismount from the GEM, which sank to a stop. We were marched across a wide promenade and into a towering white building.

  “Where are we being taken?” I asked the tall black man. “I shall get orders from my superiors, and they will decide what will happen to you. It is useless to ask me questions.”

  “Who are your superiors?”

  “I told you, it is useless to ask questions.”

  The building we had entered was no prison. It suggested rather a luxury hotel, though the luxury was as yet of a rather rudimentary kind. The foyer was equipped in extremely sumptuous taste, panelled with exotic woods, ceilinged with a three-dimensional representation of night sky, ornamented with magnificent plants and trees, many of them apparently growing from the floor. Yet the floor itself was of naked concrete, and that chiselled away in some parts to reveal cables running underneath. Carpenters’ trestles obstructed our way, insulation panels were piled against a wall mosaic. The stairs were sumptuously carpeted, although the decorators’ ladders lying there against the balustrade ruined the effect aimed for.

  Some men, three of them, sat smoking and leaning against ornamental pillars as we went by; they paid no attention to us. We were led up to the first floor, and there separated. Thunderpeck was thrust through one door. I through another. The man who had picked us up in the desert came into my room with me.

  He ran his hands — with obvious distaste — through my clothes, taking out anything he found in my pockets and throwing it into a bag he placed on a side table. Helplessly, I watched those strange letters from the unknown Justine being thrown into the bag.

  When the fellow had skinned me of everything, he nodded solemnly to me.

  “Behave yourself here for a little while; I shall be back.” And with that he took up the bag and left me. I heard the door lock behind him.

  I was in a sort of washroom which had another door to it. Before I tried to investigate that — I was sure I would find it locked — I staggered over to the wash-basin and turned on the cold tap, for I was faint from the ordeal of the day. A trickle of rust ran from the tap, then nothing. I tried the other tap, the hot one; nothing came. Dust lay in the basin.

  Suddenly overcome by nausea, I sat back on the little table and closed my eyes. At once the world seemed to recede from me at a great rate. In alarm, I tried to open my eyes again. The lids had taken on an immense weight. Through the lashes, as a man through bars sees his executioner, I saw the Figure approaching. I could do nothing.

  He came from a long way off, his damned eye on me. That black countenance — why should it have the power to paralyse my soul? The Figure came to me, stood against me, and released me from the metal clip that held my wrists together. Then again the world receded, for how long I could not tell. When I roused once more, a beautiful and fatal woman was regarding me.

  Chapter Seven

  Immensity. That is part of my illusion; I struggle to express it in words. Even for the short while I jog-trotted between desert and sea, running for the promised shelter of a city, I was aware of the being of the desert and the sea. I knew that on a planetary scale those two great creations were heaving with an activity meaningless to man.

  From that Figure I drew something like the same impression of an immense process, relevant to me yet unfathomable. If that Figure was a product of my mind, how uncomfortable to know that in my mind too the unknowable things ground on.

  An echo of that unease came to me as the strange woman confronted me — or I thought it was an echo, though I may have been as misled as those who think they hear the sea in a seashell, when they listen only to the whisper of their own bloodstream. But certainly my first thought before her fine pallor was that I had the privilege of another glimpse at the workings of that inscrutable machine.

  So it was fitting that her opening remark should lack all meaning to me: “So you are the sort of desperado von Vanderhoot uses!”

  My intelligence was still silted up with sand.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “Has Israt not told you? Or do you not know?”

  “I have learnt nothing here, except that there are thieves and bullies in Walvis Bay.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “I would say from what Israt tells me that you know a great amount more than that. You must surely be intelligent enough to understand that a pretence of ignorance will not save you.”

  “Save me from what? I pretend nothing. I know nothing of what happens in Walvis Bay. Until today, it was just a name on the map to me.”

  She sighed and made a dismissive gesture with one slender hand.

  “I suppose you pretend you have no connection with von Vanderhoot.”

  The name meant nothing to me; I was utterly at a loss and said so.

  With a trace of cruel amusement on her lips, she said: “You really are in for trouble.”

  She regarded me with detachment; I looked at her with considerably more involvement. For one thing, if I were in for trouble — of the nature of which I had no inkling at that time — then this woman was clearly capable of helping me. For another, she was of a compelling type of beauty.

  The usual look of illness that marked most of the world’s undernourished population was stamped upon her. But in her it seemed inborn, almost as much a spiritual characteristic as a physical one; she had transformed it into an aspect of mystery and mental hunger. Her form, though well shaped, was slight, and she reinforced its emaciation by wearing a black gown that swept down to her ankles except at the front, where it lifted up to her thighs, revealing a rich lining of scarlet.

  Her hair framed a thin and pale face, the perfection of her features — almost translucent, they seemed to me — being set off against her dark and rather lank hair. In the hair was one thick lock of white that curled away from her forehead; yet she appeared youthful; yet she appeared to be of no definite age. Her manner was languid, but I detected an underlying tension. Though she was
fragile, there was determination in her. She woke in me a tender and hopeless desire; while at the same time I recognized that I feared her.

  “Who are you?” I asked her again.

  Again came that contemptuous smile.

  “I think you know very well that I am Justine Smith.”

  “Justine! My Justine!” I gasped the words as if they wounded my lips; I think she hardly understood what I said.

  Inclining her head to my confusion, she said: “Before I take you to Peter, you had better come into my suite and wash yourself. I will get you some clothes to replace your rags. Peter is fastidious.”

  Peter...the man to whom she had written the letters... And I saw at once that these rather tortured documents might well have come from this elegant and subtle creature.

  “Who is Peter?” I asked her.

  She was not answering. She was turning, she was clapping her hands. At once a small black boy ran forward and bowed to her as she moved into the other room. She stood in the middle of this room and raised one arm to point to another door.

  “Go through there and get yourself washed. There is water in the bath. The boy will bring you a robe in a minute.”

  The room in which she stood was imposingly luxurious. Her fine profile was framed by a window from which a balcony commanded a view of the unresting Atlantic. Without will, I went where she pointed, and entered into her bathroom.

  Inevitably an erotic curiosity stirred in me. I took in the thick hangings that masked the window, and the great blue tub, almost a small swimming-pool, that stood half-surrounded by mirrors, and a row of bottles that contained strange colours and scents. A large dolphin stood at one end of the little pool; pressure on its tail brought the water gushing forth. Someone could afford to keep Justine in a luxurious suite. It seemed a pity that even here, in this exotic holy of holies, the water should be tinged orange with sand or rust.

  I was glad enough to wash, but as I cleaned myself, wild and frightening thoughts ran through my head. What sort of arrangement I had stumbled into I did not know, nor could I determine how I felt about the beautiful woman who proved to be the writer of those love letters. As I scrubbed myself, I remembered that in fact the letters had contained little that might be called an ordinary love. Most of them had been about something else, something which I neither understood nor cared about: African politics. Now I cursed myself that I had not followed them more closely, for they might have provided a clue to what was happening.

  While I was drying myself, the boy came in with a nylon robe. Although I had never worn anything like it before, and felt self-conscious in it, I put it on in preference to most of the stained and tattered rags I had taken off.

  Acting on sudden curiosity, I went to the tall drapes and pulled them apart. There was the sea. There, to the left, was Justine’s balcony. She had come out on to it and stood looking down, but really not looking at all, in an attitude that suggested extreme sorrow. In that moment, I decided I must win her support: it also came to me that I loved her.

  As I went back into the other room, she came from the balcony to me.

  “I saw from the bathroom window that you looked very sad out there.”

  “Not at all. I suffer from a fear of heights.”

  “Then why do you stand out there?”

  “I always try to conquer my fears. Don’t you?”

  That silenced me for a minute, then I plunged in again. “Justine,” I said, “you must believe that I have arrived here in all innocence, and entirely by accident. I know nothing of what goes on here, nor of this von Vanderhoot — was that his name? — of whom you speak. Please believe me.”

  She looked me up and down with her long eyelashes lying almost against her cheeks.

  “You pleb!” she said, “you are so obviously mixed up in this intrigue, how can you hope to lie your way out of it?”

  Angrily, I stepped forward and seized her wrists. Though she struggled, I clutched her tightly.

  “I tell you I know nothing about anything. Who is this von Vanderhoot of whom you speak, and why should I know him?”

  “He is a spy in the pay of the New Angolese, as you are. He is an old man with a bad heart condition that makes it necessary for him to go about in one of these new gravity harness things. Israt was out in the desert searching for von Vanderhoot when he caught you.”

  A little light began to dawn. Von Vanderhoot must have been the dead man whose body, still supported in its anti-gravity harness, had fetched up against the Trieste Star — the man from whom I had rescued Justine’s letters!

  “Von Vanderhoot is dead!” I exclaimed, releasing her.

  “So you admit you know him, then — ”

  “No, I don’t — I mean, I knew nothing about him, or who he was. If I was an enemy of yours, would I have run so willingly to your friend Israt to give myself up?”

  That seemed to make her hesitate. I plunged on.

  “Listen to me, Justine! This man was dead when I found him. He died and his anti-grav unit carried him out to sea. I took the letters out of his pocket and read them. I am able to read well. You wrote them, didn’t you? Well, I loved those letters. They were strange and exciting. I have had too little love in my life. I fell in love with them. Now that I have you, their writer, here, I transfer that love to you. I would die for you, Justine.”

  “Ah, would you?” she said, that cruel smile moving her lips again. I expelled to the back of my mind, where it habitually lived, the thought that I had been unable to die for Jess or March Jordill. Fervently, I said: “Yes, Justine, I would die for you if circumstances demanded it. But you know that at present I am helpless. Help me first to get free, and then I will be your rejoicing slave for life.”

  She stood back and laughed. It was a small cold sound.

  “I am now convinced of your innocence! If you were not innocent, you would not misread the situation so badly. How can I help you to get free? I am as much a prisoner as you are.”

  While I digested this news, Israt entered and bowed to Justine.

  “Madam, I have spoken with Mr Mercator about our new arrivals. He wishes to see them and you at his hotel. At once.”

  “Very well. Where is the other prisoner?”

  “I have him outside.”

  She gestured to me. I followed as she walked proudly to the door. We went downstairs, through the foyer, and into the street, where the sunlight lay in breathless pools. An aroma of cooking drifted to me, and I realized how hungry I was.

  Two large cars of an old-fashioned non-automatic kind were drawn up outside the hotel. I saw Thunderpeck was sitting in the rear one, and managed to wave to him before I was pushed into the first. I sat in the back with Justine, while Israt sat in the front with the driver.

  “Who is this man Mercator we are going to see?” I asked.

  “You do not imagine the proper way to court me is to ask for a boring stream of information, do you?”

  “Justine, don’t play with me. If my life is at stake, I must know whom I am going to be confronted by.”

  She made a moue of disgust, as if she found dramatics distasteful.

  “Peter Mercator is the man to whom I wrote those letters you seem so over-heated about.”

  “I’ve never heard of him.”

  “That tells me more about you than about him. He is one of the most powerful men in the English State of United Europe.”

  “I know nothing about politics, nothing at all.”

  “Pooh, you seem to know nothing about anything. You’d better be a bit sharper in front of Mercator.”

  “Listen — I can read, Justine! I told you. Can an ignorant man read? Why do you hold so low an opinion of me?”

  She turned and stared at me as if seeing me for the first time. Her haughty and lovely lips pouted. “You pleb!” she said. “I have a low opinion of all men.”

  In a fury, I said: “Listen, I’m not going to the slaughter like a lamb. I’ve no wish to meet Mercator unprepared like this. If you
care for anything, if you have a heart, prepare me, so that I can fight for both of us, if fighting is needed.”

  But she made a dismissive gesture with her hand.

  “Why should you not die? Why should I not die? Is the world not too full of beastly people already — twenty-two thousand million of them, or whatever the disgusting figure is? Do you think I care what Peter does with either of us?”

  “I care if you don’t! I’ve had to spend most of my life fighting to live — and I’ll fight to make you live! Help me now, Justine, and I swear I’ll help you, and give you something to live for.”

  “I’ve told you, I cannot help you.”

  “Yes, you can! I am going to open the car door and jump. Knock down Israt’s gun when he fires at me, and let me escape down one of these side alleys.”

  “I warn you, I am a crack shot myself.”

  “You would not fire at me, Justine. Remember, I have read your heart, I know you are too gentle. Knock down his arm when I jump.”

  “Oh, stop these melodramatics and come sensibly to Peter.”

  “Where does this man live, where?”

  “He is at the South Atlantic Hotel, and we shall — ”

  “See you there sometime, Justine, my sweet!”

  I flung open the car door and jumped.

  It was not too perilous. The driver was having to move slowly, picking his way through a bazaar; and the narrowness of the way was impeded by builder’s lorries.

  A dark shop with brass objects piled into its window stood to one side. Using my momentum, I dashed through its open doorway into the interior. An incendiary bullet followed me in, wanged sharply over my shoulder, buried itself in the far wall, and burst into flame. I had heard of this weapon, but never seen it in action. Its light was so bright, I was blinded. Gobbets of flaring lead spewed out of the wall at me. So Justine had not knocked Israt’s arm aside!

  In the shop was an old woman, bent double with disease. She gave a shriek and bolted for a rear door when I came rushing in. The brilliance had blinded me too much to see properly, but I was able to follow her. Behind was a narrow cluttered yard, bathed in vertical sunlight. There I could see enough to dive over the wall at the far end.