XVI

 

 

Well ahead of the scheduled time of Magda’s meet with her client, Danty had left the apartment, revelling in the sensation of not being driven to do things whose outcome he could not foresee. He had sometimes tried to describe his—his … No, the word didn’t exist. Say “premonitions”? That was absolutely wrong. “Previsions”? Wrong again. Fits of clairvoyance, perhaps …

Anyway: He had tried to describe them, and failed. They were an abstract, like hunger and thirst, and could only be assuaged by letting himself drift until he found the proper course of action, and pursued it. Occasionally there was a tingling or throbbing at the back of his head.

Today, however, he was luxuriously able to relax. He enjoyed it so much that for well over two hours he simply wandered about the city, saying hello now and then to his acquaintances. He had very few friends, and no close ones except Magda.

Eventually, however, he spotted a family climbing towards a hoverhalt carrying beach-gear, off for a swim, and decided on the spur of the moment to join them. The shore would be crowded, of course; today was dry and clear and not unbearably hot. Here on the Cowville side the sand was not as carefully cleansed as over by the towers of Lakonia—still, by current standards, New Lake was outstanding. Few people cared to go to the ocean any more, even if they lived within easy reach. The water was too foul. And as for rivers …!

But in New Lake you could swim without risking instant diarrhoea and pharyngitis, and half a mile from shore you could climb on to a bobbing plastic platform and stare at Lakonia and daydream. Even blacks could daydream.

Besides, they could scoff at cocks who were due for overnight agony and lobster-redness in the morning.

 

When he scrambled down from the hoverhalt by the lake, one among a hundred all with the same idea, he headed straight for a rental booth where two dollars obtained you a towel. That was all you had to have. Some fine Sundays they rented five thousand towels. Judging by the length of the line ahead of him, today might top the previous high.

But before he came within ten places of the head of the line, a familiar tingling started at his nape, and slowly spread.

Oh, no! he pleaded silently, and stood fast, trying to disregard it.

Eventually, however, it reached the point where—he knew from experience—he had to respond, or suffer night after night of sleepless worrying, guessing at answers for the question that could never be answered: “Suppose I had …?”

Furious, within a minute of reaching the rental booth, he broke out of the line and stared wildly about him. No one paid much attention to his behaviour, except the girl behind him, who was so eager to get in the water she was undressing already. You got these crazy screwheads by the beach all the time.

He had very little money on him, as usual. He seldom carried more than twenty dollars, enough for car-fare and public toilets. One of the advantages of the beach was that it passed a whole day for next to nothing.

Yet his attention fixed abruptly on something he would never ordinarily have bothered with: a telescope, on a block of concrete overlooking the lake, with an engraved map of the Lakonia towers beside it—out of date by three building-projects—and the usual time-switched coin-machine controlling its shutter.

Yes. That. But why in the name of …?

He sighed and walked towards it. Now, a few people did glance at him, puzzled. When money was so scarce, why waste it on peering through a telescope?

He agreed. He agreed entirely. Nonetheless he pushed his dollar into the slot and closed his eyes, feeling without reference to the map where he ought to point the ’scope. At once a dozen naked kids, of both sexes, who had doubtless failed to persuade their parents to give them money for the same thing, came rushing to beg a brief glimpse of Lakonia.

He ignored them, even though they tugged at his pants so hard they threatened to pull them down. It wouldn’t have bothered anyone but him if they’d made it, of course; his balls weren’t anything special to look at.

He re-opened his eyes just as the corroded and badly-serviced timing device on the shutter consented to admit that his coin was valid. It sprang aside—not all the way, but far enough. A three-quarter circle of brilliant sundrenched sand appeared, backed by the colourful Lakonia towers. On the sand a veetol was standing, dwarfed by the buildings beyond, and its bright blue paint was marked with the symbol of Energetics General, a stylised star transfixed by a lightning bolt.

A man approached it at a stumbling run, mopping his forehead as he went. He looked familiar. But for an agonising instant Danty thought the handerchief he was using would prevent a clear sight of his face. Then, though, he shoved it in his pocket as he made to climb the veetol’s steps.

Christ! Turpin!

Almost before its door was shut, the veetol howled heavenwards, and Danty turned away from the ’scope, to the amazement of the children around him, who took a full ten seconds before they started quarrelling over who should make first use of the time bought and not expended.

 

“Reeky pigs,” Potatohead said as he drew on his pants—but not too loudly. The pig who had told them to quit the beach was still within earshot. And gun-shot.

“Mm-hm,” Stark said, squatting on the sand to empty some of it out of his shoes. “Funky traitors.”

The pig happened to be about the same colour as they were.

“Whother fart youter do’un?” Josh said, coming back from an ice-cream concession holding three overbalancing cones of pale blue, yellow, and pink.

“Nosser much wha’we doon,” Potatohead grunted. “Mo’ whother ’adiated cop think we shudna!”

Josh stared at them for a moment. Then, in a gesture of all-embracing disgust, he hurled the ice-creams to the ground and stamped on them. Nearby, a child who had been watching with large envious eyes broke into a howl of misery and would have charged up and pummelled Josh but that his father seized him by the anlde and tripped him—which led to still louder howls.

“Chrahssek!” Josh blasted. “Youter doan’ spen’nough tahm uppie chothers’ cricks? Lahk youer hanna blow, hunh? ’Zat it?”

“We-yull …” Potatohead shuffled from one foot to the other, reincarnating Uncle Tom to the life.

“Ah, y’make muh wan’thro-wup!” Josh snarled. “Y’knoh they dullet’nyun bu’ gulls scroona beach! Fay-yud! Mekun fast! Ah dwonna knoh youter blabbohs ’fo’ y’eads get stray-yut! Heah muh? Ah s’d fay-yud!”

Briefly, Shark looked as though he might hurl himself at Josh; the latter, though, kicked with bare toes at the pants he had left folded on the sand and parted folds of cloth to reveal the handle of his knife. He was very fast with it, much faster than his buddies—which was a good reason for him to give the orders.

“Ah, piss’nya!” Shark sighed at length, and turned away.

 

Turpin getting into a company veetol at a run—and on a Sunday afternoon! Head down, strolling randomly along the beach and attracting cat-calls on every side, not only from girls, proposing reasons why he should have his pants on—mostly connected with needing a magnifying-glass—Danty struggled to make sense of the situation.

If it did have anything to do with him, and past experience indicated that he wouldn’t have felt it if it didn’t, then it must connect up by way of the reserved area that he’d left turned off. Why? Why? That was the best possible guarantee that the security force would come running!

Of course, no one would be able to link him personally with what he’d done. Before leaving, he had meticulously wiped everything he recalled touching, and his memory was good. The rock he’d hidden beside was below the tide-mark, and he’d gone to it over firm, dry ground patched with dune-grass, so …

He stopped dead. Just ahead of him, some tender-foot had stepped in a patch of damp sand, and the mark of a plastic sandal stood out as clear as a plaster-of-Paris cast. And he remembered.

That puddle, where he’d collected mud to smear on his face! He’d seen—and he’d done nothing about—that print he’d left on its edge … and since Friday morning there had been no more rain!

 

“Josh!”

“Ah, shit! Wh’n Ah sa’ fay-yud, Ah mean fay-yud!” Josh sat up, hand snaking towards his pants and the hilt of his knife.

“Nah, coolun!” Shark hissed. “Tha’ slug dun-s’all wrong—tha’ Dan’y Wohd!”

Instantly Josh forgot everything else. He turned very slow to face them, eyes blank behind his dark glasses.

“Sawun?”

“Sho’! Raht hyah onna be-yutch!”

There was a pause full of the cries of kids playing ball. At length Josh nodded and began to pull on his clothes.

“Sho’un way, hm?” he said. “We got sco’ t’level wi-yat mother.”