Inverted World (15 page)

“You’ll need some way of measuring distance, so that you’ll know when you’re in the region of the settlement. Between the city and the settlement there are thirty-four old sites of our stay-emplacements. They’re marked on this plan as straight lines across the tracks. You shouldn’t have much difficulty in locating them; although the tracks are built over the sites after they’ve been used, they leave quite distinct marks in the ground. Keep to the left outer track. That is, as you walk southwards, the one furthest to the right. It is on this side of the track that the settlement is situated.”

“Surely the women will recognize the area where they used to live?” said Helward.

“That’s correct. Now … the equipment you will need. It’s all here, and I suggest you take it all. Don’t think you can dispense with any of it, because we know what we’re doing. Is that clear?”

Once again Helward confirmed that he understood. With Clausewitz he went through the equipment. One pack contained nothing but dehydrated synthetic food and two large canteens of water. The other pack contained a tent and four sleeping-bags. In addition, there was a length of stout rope, grappling irons, a pair of metal-studded boots … and a folded crossbow.

“Are there any questions, Helward?”

“I don’t think so, sir.”

“You’re quite sure?”

Helward looked again at the pile of equipment. It was going to be a devil of a weight to carry, unless he could share some of it with the women, and the sight of all that dried food had set his stomach lurching …

“Could I not live off the land, sir?” he said. “I find the synthetic food rather tasteless.”

“I would advise you to eat
nothing
that is not in these packs. You can supplement your water-ration if you have to, but make sure the source is running water. If you eat anything that grows locally once you’re out of sight of the city, it will probably make you ill. If you don’t believe me you can try. I did, when I was down past, and I was sick for two days. This isn’t vague theory I’m giving you, it’s advice based on hard experience.”

“But we eat local foods in the city.”

“And the city is near optimum. You’re going a long way south of optimum.”

“That changes the food, sir?”

“Yes. Is there anything else?”

“No, sir.”

“Good. Then there’s someone who would like to see you before you go.”

He gestured towards an inner door, and Helward walked over to it. Beyond it was a smaller room, and here his father was waiting for him.

Helward’s first reaction was surprise, immediately followed by one of incredulity. He had seen his father last not more than ten days ago as the man was riding north; now, in that short period, it seemed to Helward that his father had aged suddenly and horribly. As he walked in his father stood up, balancing himself with an unsteady hand on the seat of his chair. He turned painfully, and faced Helward. His whole manner was marked with advanced age: he stood hunched, his clothes hung on him badly and the hand that came forward was trembling.

“Helward! How are you, son?”

The manner had changed too. There was no trace of the diffidence to which Helward had grown so accustomed.

“Father … how are you?”

“I’m fine, son. I’ve got to be taking it easy now, the doctor says. I’ve been north once too often.” He sat down again, and instinctively Helward stepped forward and helped him into his seat. “They tell me you’re going down past. Is that right?”

“Yes, father.”

“You be careful, son. There’s a lot down there will give you thought.

Not like up future … that’s my place.”

Clausewitz had followed Helward, and was now standing in the doorway.

“Helward, you ought to know that your father has been given an injection.”

Helward turned away from his father.

“What do you mean?” he said.

“He came back to the city last night, complaining of chest pains. It’s been diagnosed as angina, and he’s been given a painkiller. He ought to be in bed.”

“O.K. I shan’t be long.”

Helward knelt on the floor beside the chair.

“Do you feel all right now, father?” he said.

“I told you … I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. How’s Victoria?”

“She’s getting on fine.”

“Good girl, Victoria.”

“I’ll tell her to visit you,” said Helward. It was a terrible thing to see his father in this condition. He had no idea that his father was growing so old … but he had not looked like this a few days ago. What had happened to him in the meantime? They talked for a few more minutes, but soon his father’s attention began to wander. Eventually, he closed his eyes and Helward stood up.

“I’ll get one of the medics,” said Clausewitz, and hurried out of the room. When he returned a few minutes later there were two of the medical administrators with him. Gently, they picked the old man up and carried him out to the corridor, where a wheeled trolley draped in white was waiting.

“Will he be all right?” said Helward.

“He’s being looked after, that’s all I can say.”

“He looks so old,” said Helward, unthinkingly. Clausewitz himself was in advanced years, though in demonstrably better health than his father.

“An occupational hazard,” said Clausewitz.

Helward glanced at him sharply, but there was no further information forthcoming. Clausewitz picked up the metal-studded boots, and pushed them towards Helward.

“Here … try these on,” he said.

“My father … will you ask Victoria to visit him?”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll deal with it.”

Helward rode in the elevator to the second level, the packs and equipment loaded in beside him. When the car stopped he keyed the door-hold button, and went along to the room to which Clausewitz had directed him. Here, four women and a man were waiting for him. As soon as he entered the room, Helward realized that only the man and one of the women were city administrators.

He was introduced to the other three, but they glanced at him briefly and looked away. Their expressions revealed a suppressed hostility, deadened by an indifference that until that moment Helward himself had felt. Until entering the room he had given no thought as to who the women might be, nor even had he speculated about their appearance. In fact, he recognized none of them, but hearing Clausewitz speak of them Helward had associated them in his mind with the women he had seen in the settlements while riding north with Barter Collings. Those women had been in general thin and pallid, their eyes deep-sunk over prominent cheekbones, their arms scrawny, and their chests flat. Dressed more often than not in ragged, filthy clothes, flies crawling over their faces, the women of the villages outside were pitiful wretches.

These three had none of these characteristics. They wore neat, well-fitting city clothes, their hair was clean and well cut, their flesh was round and full, and their eyes were clear. To his barely concealed surprise Helward saw that they were very young indeed: scarcely older than himself. The people of the city spoke of the women who were bartered from outside as if they were mature … but these were nothing more than girls.

He knew he was staring at them, but they paid him no attention. What struck him hardest was the growing suspicion that these three had once been similar to the wretches he had seen in the villages, and that by being brought to the city they had been restored temporarily to an approximation of the health and beauty that might have been theirs had they not been born into poverty.

The woman administrator gave him a brief description of their background. Their names were Rosario, Caterina, and Lucia. They spoke a little English. Each had been in the city for more than forty miles, and each had given birth to a baby. There were two boys and a girl. Lucia—who had given birth to one of the boys-did not wish to keep the child, and it was to stay in the city and be brought up in the crèche. Rosario had chosen to keep her baby boy, and it would be going with her back to the settlement. In Caterina’s case there had been no choice … but in any event she had expressed indifference about losing her baby daughter.

The administrator explained that Rosario was to be given as much of the powdered milk as she asked for, because she was still suckling the baby. The other two would have the same food as himself.

Helward tried a friendly smile on the three girls, but they took no notice of him. When he tried to look at Rosario’s baby, she turned her back on him and clutched it to her possessively.

There was nothing more to be told. They walked along the corridor towards the elevator, the three girls carrying their few belongings. They crowded into the car and Helward keyed the button to take them to the lowest level.

The girls continued to ignore him, and spoke to each other in their own language. When the car opened on to the dark passageway beneath the city, Helward struggled to remove the equipment. None of the girls helped him, but watched with amused expressions. With difficulty Helward picked up the various packs and staggered towards the southern exit.

Outside, the sun was dazzlingly bright. He put down the packs and glanced round.

The city had been winched since he was last outside, and now track-crews were taking up the rails. The girls shaded their eyes, and looked about them.

It was probably their first sight of the outside since coming to the city.

The baby in Rosario’s arms began to cry.

“Will you help me with this?” Helward said, meaning the stack of food and equipment. The girls stared at him uncomprehendingly. “We ought to share the load.”

They made no reply so he squatted down on the ground, and opened the pack containing the food. He decided it would not be right to expect Rosario to carry any extra weight, so he divided the food into three packets, giving one each to the other two and returning the rest to his pack. Lucia and Caterina reluctantly found room for the food packets in their holdalls. The length of rope was the most unwieldy part of the load and so Helward contrived to wind it into a tighter roll, and stuffed it into the pack. The grapple and pitons he managed to get into the pack containing the tent and the sleeping-bags. Now his load was more manageable but not much lighter, and in spite of what Clausewitz had said Helward felt tempted to abandon most of it.

The baby was still crying, and Rosario appeared unconcerned.

“Come on,” he said, feeling irritated with them. He set off, walking southwards parallel to the tracks, and in a moment they followed him. They stayed together, keeping a distance of a few yards between them and him.

Helward tried to set a good pace, but after an hour he realized that his calculations about how long the expedition would take had been over-optimistic. The three girls moved slowly, complaining loudly about the heat and the surface of the ground. It was true that the shoes they had been given were unsuited for walking over this rough terrain, but he was afflicted no less by the heat. In fact, in his uniform and weighed down by the bulk of the equipment, he was most unpleasantly warm.

They were still in sight of the city, the sun was still only approaching its midday heat, and the baby had not stopped crying. His only relief so far had been a few moments speaking to Malchuskin. The trackman had been delighted to see him— still full of complaints about his hired labourers—and had wished Helward well in his expedition.

True to form, the girls had not waited for Helward, and he had spoken to Malchuskin for only a minute or two before he hurried after them.

Now he decided to call a rest.

“Can’t you stop him crying?” he said to Rosario.

The girl glared at him, and sat down on the ground.

“O.K.,” she said. “I feed.”

She stared at him defiantly, and the other two girls waited at her side.

Taking the point, Helward moved some distance away, keeping his back turned discreetly while she fed the baby.

Later, he opened one of the water-canteens and passed it round. The day was impossibly hot, and his temper was no better than that of the girls. He took off the jacket of his uniform, and laid it over the top of one of the packs, and although this meant he felt the bite of the straps more deeply, it helped him keep a little cooler.

He was impatient to move on. The baby had fallen asleep, and two of the girls made a makeshift cot out of one of the sleeping-bags, carrying it slung between them. Helward had to relieve them of their holdalls, and although he was now overburdened with things to carry he gladly exchanged the extra discomfort for the welcome silence.

They walked for another half an hour, and then he called another halt.

By now he was drenched with sweat, and it gave him little comfort to realize that the girls were no cooler.

He glanced up at the sun. It seemed to be almost directly overhead. Near where they were standing was an outcrop of rock, and he went over and sat down in the shade. The girls joined him, still complaining to each other in their own language. Helward regretted he had not taken more trouble to learn the language; he could pick out one or two phrases, but only enough to discover that he was the butt of most of their complaints.

He opened a packet of the dehydrated food, and moistened it with water from the canteen. The resultant gray soup looked and tasted like sour porridge. Perversely, he derived pleasure from the girls’ renewed complaint...here was one occasion they were justified, and he wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of letting them see he agreed.

The baby was still asleep, but fretting in the heat. Helward guessed that if they moved again it would wake up, so when the girls stretched out on the ground for a nap he made no effort to dissuade them.

While they were relaxing Helward stared back at the city, still clearly visible a couple of miles away. He realized that he had not been taking note of the marks left by the stayemplacements. They would have passed only one so far, and now he thought about it he saw what Clausewitz had meant by saying they left clearly distinguishable scars in the earth. He recalled that they had passed one a few minutes before they had halted. The marks left by the sleepers were shallow depressions some five feet in length by twelve inches across, but where the cable-stays had been buried were deep pits, surrounded by upturned soil.