Night Lamp (2 page)

Almost immediately the boy relaxed and lay quiet, his eyes remaining closed, while Solek and Fexel watched uncertainly. Was he asleep? Apparently.

Six hours passed, during which the doctors took time to rest. Returning to the clinic, they cautiously allowed the sedation to dissipate. For a few moments all seemed well, then once again the boy erupted into a raging fit. The sinews of his neck corded; his eyes bulged against the restraints. Gradually, the boy’s struggling became more feeble, like a clock running down. From his throat came a wail of such wild grief that Solek and Fexel jerked into motion and applied new sedation, to forestall a fatal seizure.

At this time a research fellow from the Tanzig Central Medical Facility was at hand, conducting a series of tutorial seminars. His name was Myrrle Wanish; he specialized in cerebral dysfunctions and hypertrophic abnormalities of the brain in general. Seizing upon opportunity, Solek and Fexel brought the injured boy to his attention.

Doctor Wanish looked down the list of breaks, fractures, dislocations, wrenches and contusions which had been inflicted upon the boy, and shook his head. “Why is he not dead?”

“We have asked the same question a dozen times,” said Solek.

“Up to now he has simply refused to die,” said Fexel. “But he can’t hold out much longer.”

“He’s had some sort of terrifying experience,” said Solek. “At least, that is my guess.”

“The beating?”

“Possibly, but my instincts say no. When he remembers, the shock is too much for him. So—what have we done wrong?”

“Probably nothing,” said Wanish. “I suspect that events have welded a loop, with feedback bouncing back and forth. It gets worse instead of better.”

“And the remedy?”

“Obvious! The loop must be broken.” Wanish surveyed the boy. “There’s nothing known of his background, I take it?”

“Nothing.”

Wanish nodded. “Let’s have a look inside his head. Keep him sedated while I set up my gear.”

Wanish worked for an hour connecting the boy to his apparatus. At last he finished. A pair of metal hemispheres clasped the boy’s head, exposing only the fragile nose, mouth and chin. Metal sleeves gripped his wrists and ankles; metal bands immobilized him at chest and hips.

“Now we begin,” said Wanish. He touched a button. A screen came to life, displaying in bright yellow lines a web which Wanish identified as a schematic chart of the boy’s brain. “It is obviously topologically distorted; still—” his voice dwindled as he bent to examine the screen. For several minutes he studied the twining networks and phosphorescent mats, meanwhile uttering small exclamations and sharp hisses of astonishment. At last he turned back to Solek and Fexel. “See these yellow lines?” He tapped the chart with a pencil. “They represent overactive linkages. When they tangle into mats, they cause trouble, as we have seen. Needless to say, I oversimplify.”

Solek and Fexel studied the screen. Some of the linkages were thin as spider webs; others pulsed with sluggish power; these latter Wanish identified as segments of a self-reinforcing loop. In several areas the strands coiled and impacted into fibrous pads, so dense that the individual nerve was lost.

Wanish pointed his pencil. “These tangles are the problem. They are like black holes in the mind; nothing which touches them escapes. However, they can be destroyed, and I shall do so.”

Solek asked: “What happens then?”

“To put it simply,” said Wanish, “the boy survives, but loses much of his memory.”

Neither Doctor Solek nor Fexel had anything to say. Wanish adjusted his instrument. A blue spark appeared on the screen. Wanish settled himself to work. The spark moved in and out of the pulsing yellow tangles; the luminous mats separated into shreds, which faded, dissolved and were gone save for a few ghostly wisps.

Wanish deactivated the instrument. “That is that. He retains his reflexes, his language and his motor skills, but his primary memory is gone. A wisp or two remain; they may bring him random images—no more than glimpses, enough to unsettle him, but nothing to give him trouble.”

The three released the boy from the metal sleeves, bands and hemispheres.

As they watched, the boy opened his eyes. He studied the men with a sober expression.

Wanish asked: “How do you feel?”

“There are pains when I move.” The boy’s voice was thin and clear, carefully enunciated.

“That is to be expected; in fact, it is a good sign. Soon you will be well. What is your name?”

The boy looked up blankly. “It is—” He hesitated, then said, “I don’t know.”

He closed his eyes. Up from his throat came a low growling sound, soft but harsh, as if produced by extreme effort. The sound formed words: “His name is Jaro.”

Wanish leaned forward, startled. “Who are you?”

The boy sighed a long sad sigh, then slept.

The three therapists watched until the boy’s breathing became regular. Solek asked Wanish: “How much of this will you report to the Faths?”

Wanish grimaced. “It is queer—if not uncanny. Still—” he reflected “—it probably amounts to nothing. I think that, so far as I am concerned, I heard the boy give his name as ‘Jaro,’ and nothing more.”

Solek and Fexel nodded. “I think that is what we heard too,” Fexel said.

Doctor Wanish went out to the reception area where the Faths awaited him.

“Rest easy,” said Wanish. “The worst is over and he should recover quite soon, with no complications other than gaps in his memory.”

The Faths pondered the news. Althea asked, “How extreme is the loss?”

“That is hard to predict. Something remarkably terrible caused his distress. We were forced to blot out several nodes, with all the side linkages. He’ll never know what happened to him, or who he is, other than that his name is ‘Jaro.’ ”

Hilyer Fath said weightily: “You are telling us that his memory is entirely gone?”

Wanish thought of the voice which had spoken Jaro’s name. “I wouldn’t dare predict anything. His schematic now shows isolated points and sparks, which suggest the shape of old matrices; they may provide a few random glimpses and hints, but probably nothing coherent.”

Hilyer and Althea Fath made inquiries at places along the Poisie River valley, but learned nothing either of Jaro or his origin. Everywhere they encountered the same shrugs of indifference, the same perplexity that anyone should ask such bootless questions.

Upon the Fath’s return to Sronk, they complained to Wanish of their experiences. He told them: “There are only a few organized societies here, and many small groups, clans, and districts: all independent, all suspicious. They have learned that if they mind their own business no one makes trouble for them, and so goes the world Camberwell.”

Jaro’s shoes and clothing suggested an off-world source, and with Tanzig, an important space terminal, close by the river, the Faths came to believe that Jaro had been brought to Camberwell from another world.

At the first opportunity Althea attempted a few timid questions but, as Doctor Wanish had predicted, Jaro’s memory was blank, except for an occasional shadowy glimpse, which was gone almost before it arrived. One of these images was exceptional: so intense as to cause Jaro a great fright.

The image, or vision, came to Jaro without warning late one afternoon. Shutters screened the low sunlight and the room was comfortably dim. Althea sat by the bed, exploring as best she could the bounds of Jaro’s mental landscape. Presently he became drowsy; the conversation, such as it was, lapsed. Jaro lay with his face to the ceiling, eyes half-closed. He made a sudden soft gasping sound. His hands clenched and his mouth sagged open.

Althea noticed at once. She jumped to her feet and peered down into his face. “Jaro! Jaro! What’s wrong? Tell me what’s wrong?”

Jaro made no response, but gradually relaxed. Althea tried to keep her voice steady. “Jaro? Say something! Are you well?”

Jaro looked at her doubtfully, then closed his eyes. He muttered, “I saw something which frightened me.” Althea tried to control her voice. “Tell me what you saw.”

After a moment Jaro began to speak, in a voice so soft that Althea was forced to bend low to hear him. “I was standing in front of a house; I think it was where I lived. The sun was gone, so that it was almost dark. Behind the front fence a man was standing. I could see only his shape, black against the sky.” Jaro paused, and lay quiet.

Althea asked, “Who was this man? Do you know him?”

“No.”

“What did he look like?”

In a halting voice, assisted by Althea’s promptings, Jaro described a tall spare figure silhouetted against the gray sky of dusk, wearing a tight coat, a low-crowned black hat with a stiff brim. Jaro had been frightened, though he could not remember why. The figure was austere, majestic; it turned to stare at Jaro. The eyes were like four-pointed stars gleaming with rays of silver light.

Fascinated, Althea asked: “What happened next?”

“I don’t remember.” Jaro’s voice drifted away and Althea let him sleep.

Jaro was lucky that the memory had been blanked from his mind. What happened next was terrible.

Jaro went into the house and told his mother of the man standing beyond the fence. She froze for an instant, then made a sound so stern and dismal as to transcend fear. She moved with decision, taking a metal box from a shelf and thrusting it into Jaro’s hands. “Take this box; hide it where no one can find it. Then go down to the river and get into the boat. I’ll come if I can, but be ready to push off alone if anyone else comes near. Hurry now!”

Jaro ran out the back door. He hid the box in a secret place, then stood indecisive, sick with foreboding. At last he ran to the river, made the boat ready and waited. The wind blew in his ears. He ventured a few steps back toward the house, stopped and strained to listen. What was that? A wail, barely heard over the wind-noise? He gave a desperate little moan and, despite his mother’s orders, ran back to the house. He peered through the side window, and for a moment could not understand what was happening. His mother lay on the floor, face up, arms outspread, with a black satchel to the side and some sort of apparatus at her head. Odd! A musical instrument? Her limbs were tense; she made no sound. The man knelt beside her, busy, as if playing the instrument. It looked to be a small glockenspiel, or something similar. From time to time the man paused to put questions, as if asking how she liked the tune. The woman lay stony and still, indicating no preferences.

Jaro shifted his position and saw the instrument in fall detail. After a single startled instant his mind seemed to move aside, while another, more impersonal if less logical, being took control. He ran to the kitchen porch and took a long-handled hatchet from the tool box, then ran light-footed through the kitchen and paused in the doorway, where he appraised the situation. The man knelt with his back to Jaro. His mother’s arms had been fixed to the floor by staples through her palms, while heavier bands clamped down her ankles. At each ear a metal tube entered the orifice, curved down through the sinal passages to emerge into the back of the mouth and out through the lips to form a horseshoe-shaped hook which pulled her lips into a grotesque rictus. The horseshoes were connected to the tympanum of the sound-bars; they tinkled and jingled as the man hit them with a silver wand, apparently sending sound into the woman’s brain.

The man paused in his playing and asked a terse question. The woman lay inert. He hit a single note, delicately. The woman twisted, arched her back, subsided. Jaro crept forward and struck down at the man’s head. Warned by a vibration, he turned; the blow grazed the side of his face and crushed into his shoulder. He uttered not a sound, but rose to his feet. He stumbled upon his black bag and fell. Jaro ran through the kitchen, out into the yard, around the house to the front door, which he cautiously opened. The man was gone. Jaro entered the room. His mother looked up at him. She whispered through contorted lips: “Jaro, be brave now, as never before. I am dying. Kill me before he returns.”

“And the box?”

“Come back when it is safe. I have put a guidance upon your mind. Kill me now; I can tolerate no more gongs. Be quick; he is coming!”

Jaro turned his head. The man stood looking through the window. The oblong opening framed his upper torso as if he were the subject of a formal portrait. The design and chiaroscuro were exact. The face was stern and rigorous, hard and white, as if carved from bone. Below the brim of the black hat was a philosopher’s brow, a long thin nose and burning black eyes. The jaw angled sharply; the cheeks slanted down to a small pointed chin. He stared at Jaro with an expression of brooding dissatisfaction.

Time moved slowly. Jaro turned to his mother. He raised the hatchet high. From behind him came a harsh command, which he ignored. He struck down and split his mother’s forehead, burying the hatchet in an instant welter of brains and gore. Behind him he heard steps. He dropped the hatchet, ran from the kitchen, down through the night to the river. He pushed off the boat, jumped aboard and was carried out upon the water. From the shore came a cry, harsh, yet somehow soft and melodious. Jaro cringed low into the boat, even though the shore could not be seen.

The wind blew in gusts; waves surged around the drifting boat and from time to time washed up and over the gunwhales. Water began to slop heavily back and forth across the bilges. Jaro, at last bestirring himself, bailed out the boat.

Night seemed interminable. Jaro sat hunched, feeling the gusts of wind, the wallow of the boat, the splash and wetness of the water. This was proper and helped him in his perilous balance. He must not think; he must manage his mind as if it were a brooding black fish, suspended in the water deep below the boat.

Night passed and the sky became gray. The broad Foisie curved, sweeping away to the north beside the Wyching Hills. With the sun’s first glare of orange-crimson light, the wind pushed the boat up on the beach. Directly at the back of the foreshore the landscape sloped up in bumps and hollows to become the Wyching Hills. At first glance they seemed mottled or even scabrous, overgrown as they were with a hundred varieties of vegetation, many exotic but most indigenous: blue scruffs of tickety-thicket, copses of black artichoke-tree, bumblebee-plant. Along the ridges stood rows of orange-russet scudhorn, glowing like flame in the low sunlight.