Night Walk

by Bob Shaw

  "I expect you're wondering if I lost my sight in the same manner as you," Winfield finally said.

  "Well, yes."

  "No, son. Nothing quite so dramatic. Eight years ago I tried to escape from this place- with the idea of working my way back to Earth. I got as far as the swamp. That's the easy part, of course; anybody can reach the swamp. It's getting to the other side that counts. There's a rather nasty species of chigger out there. The gravid females go for your eyes. When the guards brought me back to the Pavilion I was well on the way to having a nest of the brutes breeding in each eye.

  "Dr. Heck had quite a job to keep them from going a through to the brain. He was deliriously happy for nearly a week -- whistled Gilbert and Sullivan the whole time."

  Tallon was appalled. "But what were you hoping to do supposing you had managed to get through the swamp? The space terminal at New Wittenburg is a thousand miles from here, and even if it were only a thousand yards away, you could never have passed through the checkpoints."

  "Son," Winfield sounded sad, "your mind is too preoccupied with details. I admire a man who has an eye for detail, but not if he lets it negate his attitude to the master plan."

  " Plan! What plan? All you had was a crazy notion you could get up and walk a few light-centuries back to Louisiana."

  "Progress is the history of crazy notions, Sam. Supraluctic flight itself was a crazy notion till somebody made it work. I can't believe you are prepared to rot in this place for the rest of your life."

  "I may not be prepared for it, but I'm going to do it."

  "Even if I offered to take you with me next time?" Winfield's voice had sunk to a whisper.

  Tallon laughed aloud for the first time since the morning McNulty had limped into his office and handed him a piece of paper containing the cosmic address of a new planet. "Go away, old man," he said. "You really had me going for a minute. Now I want to rest my ears."

  Winfield kept talking. "It's going to be entirely different next time. I was unprepared for the swamp before, but I've been getting ready for it for eight years. I assure you, I know how to get through."

  "But you're blind! You'd have trouble crossing a children's playground."

  "Blind," Winfield said mysteriously, "but not blind."

  "Talking," Tallon replied in similar tones, "but not talking sense."

  "Listen to this, son." Winfield moved closer until his breath was brushing Tallon's ear. He smelled of bread and butter. "You've had training in electronics. You know that back on Earth, and on most other worlds, too, a blind person can get many kinds of aids."

  "That's a different case, isn't it, Doc? Emm Luther's electronics industry is part and parcel of its space-probe program. Every electronics specialist on the planet works on the program or on associated priority projects, or else is away on this new planet they've found. Besides, the Temporal Moderator has ruled that it's against the creed to join man-made parts to bodies fashioned in the Divine Image. The gadgets you're talking about simply don't exist in this part of the galaxy."

  "But they do," Winfield said triumphantly. "Or they almost do. I'm building a primitive sonar torch in the prison rehabilitation center. At least, Ed Hogarth, who runs the center's workshop, is building it under my direction. I can't do the actual work myself, naturally."

  Tallon sighed resignedly. It looked as though Winfield's conversation was made up of absurd statements and fantasy.

  "You mean they don't watch you in there? Don't they mind that two of the government's strictest injunctions are being broken with government equipment in a government establishment?"

  Winfield rose noisily to his feet. "Son, you have an unfortunate skeptical attitude, but I'm going to assume that in less trying circumstances you are capable of civilized behavior. Come with me."

  "Where?"

  "To the workshop. You have one or two surprises in store."

  Holding on to Winfield's plump arm, Tallon followed him from the quadrangle, aware that his curiosity was aroused as he had never expected it to be again. Winfield moved confidently and quite quickly, tapping with his cane. As they walked a succession of men touched TalIon's arm in sympathetic greeting, and one pushed a pack of cigarettes into his free hand. He struggled to keep his head up and walk boldly, but it was almost impossible, and he could, feel the fixed apologetic smile of a sightless man engraving itself on his face.

  To reach the workshop of the rehabilitation center they had to pass the main prison building and walk two hundred yards to an auxiliary block. During the walk Winfield explained that his torch generated a narrow beam of inaudible high-frequency sound and had a receiver to pick up the echoes; an electronic device combined the outgoing and returning sounds. The idea was that the sound generator would sweep repeatedly from about 80 to 40 kilocycles a second, so that at any instant the outgoing signal would be at a slightly lower frequency than any of the echoes. Combining the two would produce a beat frequency proportional to the distance of any object in the torch's beam and thus allow a blind man to build up a picture of his surroundings.

  Winfield had partly worked out the theory, and partly remembered it from articles in old technomedical journals. Ed Hogarth, who apparently was a compulsive gadgeteer, had built him a prototype, but was having trouble with the electronics of the frequency-reduction stage, which should have rendered the high-pitched beats audible to the human ear.

  As he listened, Tallon felt a growing respect for the old doctor, who seemed genuinely incapable of accepting defeat. They reached the rehabilitation center and stopped at the entrance.

  "Just one thing before we go in, son. I want you to promise not to say anything to Ed about the real reason why I want the torch built. If he guessed, he would quit work on it immediately -- to save me from myself, as the saying goes."

  Tallon said, "All right, but I want you to make me one promise in return. If you really do have an escape plan, don't include me in it. If I ever decide to commit suicide I'll pick an easier way."

  They went up a flight of stairs and into the workshop. Tallon identified it at once by the familiar smell of hot solder and stale cigarette smoke, a smell that had not changed since his student days.

  "Are you there, Ed?" The echoes from Winfieid's voice suggested the workshop was quite small. "I've brought a visitor."

  "I know you've brought a visitor," a thin, irritable voice said from close by. "I can see him, can't I? You've been blind so long you've begun to think nobody else can see." The voice faded into barely audible swearing.

  Winfield gave his booming laugh and whispered to Tallon, "Ed was born on this planet, but he was very active in the old Unionist movement at one time and didn't have enough sense to quit when the Lutherians took over. He was arrested by Kreuger and suffered an unfortunate accident to his heels while trying to get free. There are quite a few of Kreuger's prizes hopping about the Pavilion like birds."

  "And my ears are all right, too," Hogarth's voice warned.

  "Ed, this is Sam Tallon -- the man who almost finished Cherkassky. He's an electronics expert, so perhaps you'll get my torch working now."

  "I have a degree in electronics," Tallon said. "That isn't the same as being an expert."

  "But you'll be able to get the bugs out of a simple frequency-reducer circuit," Winfield said. "Here, feel this."

  He drew Tallon over to a bench and placed his hands on a complicated metal and plastic object about three feet square.

  "Is that it?" Tallon explored the massive circuitry with his fingers. "What good is this thing to you? I thought you were talking about something you could carry in one hand."

  "It's a model," Hogarth snapped impatiently, "twenty times the size of the real instrument. That lets the doctor feel out what he thinks he's doing, and I reproduce it in proper size. It's a good idea, except it doesn't work."

  "It'll work now," Winfield said confidently. "What do you say, son?"

  Tallon thought it over. Winfield seemed to be a crazy old coot, and in all proba
bility Hogarth was another, but in the brief time he had spent with them, he had almost forgotten about being blind. "I'll help," he said. "Have you materials to build two prototypes?"

  Winfield squeezed his hand excitedly. "Don't worry about that part, son. Helen will see we get all the parts we need."

  "Helen?"

  "Yes. Helen Juste. She's head of the rehabilitation center."

  "And she doesn't object to your building this thing?"

  "Object!" Winfield roared. "It was mainly her idea. She's been behind the scheme from the start."

  Tallon shook his head in disbelief. "Isn't that a strange thing for a senior government officer to do? Why should she risk appearing before the doctrinal synod just to help you?"

  "There you go again, son -- letting your concern for petty detail hinder the grand scheme. How should I know why she does it? Perhaps she likes my eyes; Dr. Heck tells me they're a rather pretty shade of blue. Of course he's prejudiced, since he made them himself."

  Both Winfield and Hogarth laughed extravagantly. Tallon put his hands on the blocky shape of the frequency-reducer model, where he could feel sunlight warming his skin. All his preconceived notions had been wrong. The life of a blind man was proving to be neither dull nor simple.

  six

  Tallon positioned the sonar torch carefully on his forehead, slipped the earpiece into his right ear, and switched on. He stood up, moved his head about experimentally, and began to walk. He was suddenly aware of how much he had gotten used to feeling his way with a cane.

  The range of the torch was set for five yards, which meant anything beyond that distance would produce no echo. As he advanced he moved his head first horizontally, then vertically. The latter movement produced a tone that could be compared to an inverted vee as the sonar beam, now touching the ground, approached his feet and receded again.

  Tallon forced himself to walk smoothly and steadily, giving all his attention to the rising and falling electronic tone. He had covered about ten yards when he began to pick up a tiny blip near the top of each vertical scan. Still walking, but more slowly now, he concentrated on the upper part of the sweep. The blip crept higher up the tonal scale with each appearance, and finally Tallon was able to convert it into a shrill steady note by inclining his head slightly downward.

  He put his hand out and touched a metal bar suspended just below eye level.

  "Wonderful! That's really wonderful!" The woman's voice sounded young and fresh, and it took him by surprise. He turned toward it self-consciously, wondering how he looked in sloppy prison clothing, with a plastic box strapped to his forehead, then was surprised at his reaction. Apparently his male ego still considered itself in the running, undaunted by plastic buttons in place of eyes. In the sonar he picked up the slightly discordant tone produced by a human being.

  "Miss Juste?"

  "Yes. Dr. Winfield and Ed told me you were making excellent progress with the sonar, but I didn't realize you had got so far with it. I'm glad I came to see for myself."

  "The work passes the time," Tallon smiled uncertainly. He felt strangely uneasy, as though he had almost remembered something important, then let it slip away. Perhaps this would be as good a time as any to start probing her motives.

  "It's very good of you to let us do this sort of thing in view of the . . . climate of official opinion."

  There was silence for a few seconds, then Tallon heard the familiar sound of Winfield's cane and Hogarth's crutches approaching across the concrete apron they were using for the sonar trials.

  "Well, Miss Juste," Winfield said, "what did you think of that?"

  "I'm very impressed. I was just saying so to Detainee Tallon. Is any more work needed on an instrument that operates so well?"

  Tallon noticed her use of the word Detainee in his case, in contrast to her informal way of referring to Winfield and Hogarth. He kept the sonar beam on her, silently cursing its shortcomings. As far as the beam was concerned, there was no significant difference between a crane driver and a showgirl. He felt the first stirrings of an idea.

  "The preliminary tests are just about completed," Winfield announced proudly. "Sam and I will be wearing the sonars permanently from now on to gain experience with them. It will take a few weeks to sort out the best range selection and settle on the optimum beam width."

  "I see. Well, let me know how you get on."

  "Of course, Miss Juste. Thank you for all your kindness."

  Tallon heard her firm light steps move away; then he turned to Winfield. Distinguishing between Winfield and Hogarth with the beam was easy, because the doctor stood head and shoulders above his crippled companion. To demonstrate his increasing mastery over the sonar, Tallon touched Winfield accurately on the shoulder.

  "You know, Logan, you could be making a mistake in not providing in your grand scheme for an analysis of Miss Juste's motivation. She doesn't strike me as the sort of girl who does things without a reason."

  "There he goes," Hogarth grumbled. "Knows more about Miss Juste than we do, and he's never even seen her. This boy must have been a mean card player when he had eyes."

  Tallon grinned. At first he had been disconcerted by the Hogarth's constant and uninhibited references to his blindness; then he had realized that they were good for his sense of proportion and were uttered for that very reason.

  In the afternoon Tallon and Winfield went for a walk using their sonars for guidance. They confined themselves to circuits of an unused tennis court, which was out of bounds to all but disabled prisoners. No guards questioned them about the boxes strapped to their foreheads, and Tallon guessed Helen Juste had given instructions for them to be left alone. He had noticed, too, that none of the medical staff had spoken to them about the sonar project. He asked Winfield how much influence the woman had in the administration of the Pavilion.

  "I'm not sure," Winfield replied. "I've heard she's related to the Moderator himself. I've been told that the rehabilitation center was her own idea, and that the Moderator pulled strings to get it set up. Occupational therapy isn't good doctrine, you know. The synod recommends prayer and fasting for intransigents such as us."

  "But would the Moderator stretch the rules that far?"

  "Son, you take everything too literally. A few years in practical politics would have done you a world of good. Listen, if the head of a government orders his people to cut down on liquor because their drunkenness is ruining the country's economy, it doesn't mean he's going to drink less himself. Nor would he expect his relatives and friends to change their drinking habits. That's human nature."

  "You make it all sound so simple," Tallon said impatiently. He decided to broach the idea that had come to him during his talk with Helen Juste. "Are you still working on your grand plan to break out of the Pavilion?"

  "Son, if I can't die on Earth, I may not die at all. Are you coming with me?"

  "I've told you how I feel about that, but maybe I can help you."

  "How?"

  "Do you think Miss Juste would get us a couple of television cameras? The peanut-size jobs used for bugging people's apartments? They probably have them all over the prison."

  Winfield stopped walking and sank his fingers into Talion's arm. "Do you mean what I think you mean?"

  "Yes, why not? We both have our optic nerves intact. It's only a matter of converting the camera output to the right sort of signal and feeding it into the nerve endings. It's a common technique on Earth."

  "But wouldn't it involve surgery? I doubt if -- "

  "No surgery needed if we beam the signal accurately through the eye. The fact that we have plastic skins on our eyes could help, because we could insert a simple X and Y plate arrangement in the plastic to keep the beam aimed at the nerve ending, regardless of eye movements."

  Winfield began to tremble with excitement. "If I could see again, and with the preparations I've made for the swamp, I'd be walking down the main street in Natchitoches inside a year. I know it." His normally powerful voice sounded
strangely small.

  "Well, that's the grand plan," Tallon said. "Now we have to consider some of those petty details of mine. We'll need the cameras and a range of microminiature components. And we'll have to have access to the appropriate journals and an auto-reader -- you'll absorb the physiological data; I'll do the semiconductor research."

  "But who will build the units? Ed knows nothing about that sort of work."

  "That's another detail. You'll have to ask Miss Juste for the use of an assembly robot -- Grade 2 at least -- programmed for microminiature electronics. They probably have one in their maintenance lab."

  "But, my God, Sam! Those things cost over half a million."

  "Ask her anyway. She'll arrange it for you. Remember, she likes the color of your eyes."

  Tallon stood for a moment, face turned toward the hot white sun of Emm Luther, experiencing a rare moment of certitude.