Earthworks by Brian W Aldiss
“Mahasset’s got to go! We don’t want Africa united. With the President out of the way, the African states will fall apart. They will war with each other, and their allies in America and Europe will be drawn in. It will result in nuclear war on the largest possible scale. The whole current structure of society will be wiped out.” He faltered and said: “Noland, I’m sick. It’s a cancerous growth in my lungs... But you hear what I’m saying. I can’t rely any more on myself to shoot the President. You must do it.”
I dropped on my knees beside him, clenching my fist at him.
“You think I’d help you plunge the world into war? You’re crazy, Mercator! I’d have known that right from the start if I’d bothered to look properly at the hints dropped in those letters Justine wrote you. Who’s got those letters anyhow?”
“I’ve got them, here, but I beg you to listen to my argument — ”
“I’ve heard enough,” I said. “Believe me, Mercator, I’m sorry for you. But I’m not going to shoot the President. Nor are you. Nobody is. Perhaps you’re nothing worse than a crazy idealist, but it’s idealists who’ve been causing trouble in the world for thousands of years.”
His face was distorted. “Spare me your speculations, you stupid pleb!”
I stood up. “I’ll go and get your doctor to you, Mercator, and then I’m informing the police of where you are and what you are planning.”
I climbed up on to the promenade, trailing sand and water from my garments.
He called to me until I was lost among the people on the front and could no longer hear.
The crowds were thinning now. As I passed the top of the great President’s Square, the completed buildings of which were illuminated by floodlight, I saw by the clock on the highest tower that the time was past midnight. This was already the day of the President’s arrival.
As I walked, I became less conscious of weariness than of a curious lightness in me which I associated with hunger. I seemed beyond the craving for food but badly needed a drink. So I steered my thoughts from myself and tried to evaluate what Mercator had told me. Why should a man, even a madman, want to destroy the world? I recalled what he had said earlier about having invested in anti-gravity research. Putting the two conversations together, I thought I had the answer; he would engineer a war so that he could become bigger and richer. Under its present grinding poverty, with most of its technological efforts devoted to agriculture and allied technologies, the world was only slowly developing anti-gravity as a commercial proposition. But a war would accelerate that development wonderfully; and Mercator, sick as he was, could not afford to wait to reap the rewards of his foresight.
So I diagnosed the situation and horrified myself by it.
For all that, I stuck to my word to go first to the South Atlantic Hotel to fetch the man’s doctor. So much I would do, if only for Justine’s sake.
Although the door to the Mercator suite was ajar, I had no premonition of ill as I went in. But when I entered the living-room, it was to be confronted by chaos. I could see at once that the place had been hastily searched. Contents of drawers and cupboards had been tipped on to the floor, vases broken, pictures set awry or smashed, tables overturned. Even the carpet had been dragged from the floor and flung into one corner. Sprawled over the back of an armchair lay Israt. I ran to him, calling his name, but he was dead.
A dagger with a beautifully wrought silver handle stuck from his gown; he had been stabbed through the back. By the signs, I saw that he had been stabbed five or more times, and I wondered how anyone could contain that much vengefulness.
Some warmth was still left in his body. This murder had not long been committed. As I stood there dazed, wondering what had become of the lovely and fateful Justine, I heard a sound from the next room. With a chill taking me, I thought that perhaps the murderer still lurked there. As I backed away from the bedroom door, it opened slowly. Mercator’s doctor was there, crawling forward on his hands and knees.
I went over and helped the little man to his feet. His face was absolutely bloodless, and I felt mine to be the same. His restless hands, which I had noted before, trembled round his body as if seeking a way of escape. I poured us both a drink of brandy from a bottle that had fallen from the ransacked cocktail cabinet without breaking. After that we felt better.
“It was terrible!” the doctor said, lighting a mescahale. “He breathed like an animal! I’ll swear he knew I was hiding in there, in the bedroom, under the bed, but after he had killed Israt — he growled over it! — he seemed to have had enough. I didn’t hear him leave. I just lay there in a sort of paralysis until you came along.”
“Who was this killer?”
“I don’t know his name. But he screamed to Israt as he killed him something about a friend of Israt’s stealing his Prime Minister’s anti-grav unit. Was that you?”
“I stole an anti-grav unit, yes, but you’re not laying this murder at my door. This whole concern is nothing to do with me.”
“So I’ve heard you say before, and each time I believe you less. Mind if I just sit down? My legs are still shaking. The — the murderer made such a noise, you know. Anyhow, this Algerian also said that he knew Israt was Mercator’s tool, and he thought that Mercator was plotting with New Angola against Algeria. That was why he killed Israt, on instructions from his boss.”
I’d finished the brandy, and my mind was beginning to work again. I stopped listening to the doctor’s ramblings. I saw that many people were threatened in this situation, including people of whom I was fond. It was necessary that I joined forces with Justine and Thunderpeck as soon as possible.
When I questioned him, the old doctor could tell me nothing of either Justine or Thunderpeck. So I told him where Mercator was, and said he had better go and tend him. It came to me that I knew where to find Thunderpeck, if he was still alive, for we had agreed on a rendezvous. And directly the doctor had left, I would phone through the Walvis Bay police and tell them to pick up Mercator before his crazy assassination plan got any further — without, of course, giving my name.
“You look all in,” the doctor said. “Before I go to Mercator, let me give you a pill to keep you on your feet. Will you still be here when Mr Mercator and I get back?”
“You worry about him, I’ll look after myself.”
“I am worrying about him, Mr Noland. He’s a very sick man, and all this running about may kill him. But that’s no reason why I can’t help you.”
I took the pill he gave me and swallowed it automatically, as I have been swallowing pills every day of my life. As he left, I turned into the bathroom to get myself a drink of water. It tasted wonderful, rusty though it was! I drank a couple of tumblers full, and as the last drop went down, I clutched hold of the towel rail to steady myself, staggered, and slid to the floor, out to the wide.
It was an elementary mistake to make, to forget that the little doctor was an ally of the madman who was out to wreck the peace of the world...
Chapter Thirteen
Dawn came in like an albatross from the antipodes of the world, brushed me with its wings and woke me. I pushed the towels away and sat up, wondering what I could possibly be doing on a bathroom floor. That would have been an ideal night for hallucinations and the devils that visit by night, yet I had slept deeply and serenely, and awoke feeling in good health. Being starvingly hungry merely set an edge to my health.
Facts came clicking back into place. This was the day Mercator planned to slay the President of Africa. Mercator was a villain in a hotel full of villains — a hotel where I had slept unmolested! I remembered the dead thing in the next room, and how it looked. I remembered that I must hunt for old Thunderpeck and the strange and fatal Justine Smith.
Well, there was no time like the present!
I tried to collect another glass of water to moisten my dry mouth, but the taps this morning ran so slowly that I gave up. Now that I was moving, anxiety tugged at me.
With the idea of looking less conspicuo
Suddenly it struck me that Mercator should have been back with the doctor long before this. Something had gone wrong there — to my advantage.
I left the suite more cautiously than I had entered. No one was about. On the ground floor, only servants moved with the slow-motion surliness that is their prerogative at that time of day.
This was the cool and transitory hour when the sun is risen and has yet to take command of its domain; this is the spring that comes every day with its cool airs to the tropics. I love it, and took delight in it even then, when my heart laboured with anxiety.
Thunderpeck and I had arranged to meet at the foot of the tallest tower in the President’s Square. But how long would he wait? I knew nothing of his movements since Israt overpowered him during the previous afternoon.
To my surprise, the streets were already busy. Builders’ lorries had been pressed into service and slowly toured the streets, piled high with the flags of African nations. Men with tall ladders climbed lamp-posts, stringing up pennants and bunting. In President’s Square, it was the same story, and the same activity reigned. Here a large dais had been assembled in the centre of the square, and from a van labelled “All Africa Radio”, electricians were unloading television cameras and microphones. A generator stood nearby, cables from it snaking across unfinished mosaic work.
Police were also active, and I took care to avoid them as I came to the high tower of the temple. When I found there was no sign of Thunderpeck at all, I realized I had hardly been expecting any. For a while I stood waiting, listening to the distant sound of the surf as it rolled against the beach after its long ride East to find Africa. Then I slipped inside the temple.
As far as I could remember it, Thunderpeck and I had agreed to meet at the foot of the tower. He might very well have interpreted this literally; certainly inside would be a safer place to wait.
Inside the temple, lamps of an ornate pattern burned, suspended at intervals from chains hanging from the distant roof. In here, darkness still ruled, and the light from the windows wore a muffled stealthy look. The air held a heavy sweetness. I did not go into the main body of the temple, where barely glimpsed figures prostrated themselves on the bare floor, praying for grace to confront a new day. Instead, I turned behind a sandalwood screen, and passed through a small room — a robing room? — in search of the foot of the tower.
As I went, I was aware of a man’s voice, singing in a side chamber of the temple. He chanted, and the chant was accompanied on a droning instrument like an Indian tamboura; the sound took me by the throat, so that I almost stopped to listen. It reminded me that there were realms whose very ground-plan I was unable to comprehend.
Through the robing-room was the base of the tower proper. Here it was exceedingly dark, since a curtain cut it off from the light in the robing-room, and only a faint illumination filtered down from the belfry far over my head. Apprehensively, I called in almost a whisper: “Thunderpeck?”
As my eyes grew accustomed to the light, I saw there was no way of ascending to the top of the tower except by electric lift, and that the cage rested at ground level.
I called again. Was there some faint movement far above me, where the morning was?
Still uneasy, I wondered if I should wait here. There was no place of concealment, except for the narrow space behind the lift. As I went to investigate it, my eye fell on something bundled into the narrow space. It was a man, bent double and enveloped in an Arab burnous. Sickness rose in my gullet even before I had pulled him out and recognized my old friend and doctor. His throat was cut.
As I looked down at Thunderpeck’s elaborately acned face, grief welled up in me.
Much good waiting here for me had done him! I guessed that once again the Algerian assassin had been active.
The voice of the singer climbed up to the highest reaches of the temple. It was a chant full of longing for peace and an end to loneliness. Hearing it, I wept. I buried my face in my hands and let the long sobs rack me.
Even as I wept, as I could not have done a while before, even as I was riven by the fact of Thunderpeck’s death, I felt myself whole. I had wanted to tell him about my last encounter with the Figure to see what he made of it; now I should never hear him say: “It was a symptom of your schizophrenia, and now it is over and you are at peace with yourself again.” I vowed as I wept that I would do better in future.
It was the noise from the lift shaft that brought me back to the world. I wiped my eyes, proud that I had cried. If Thunderpeck’s murderer were still here, he should have as good as he gave! I looked up the shaft, and down to me came my own name, hollow and strange in the confining tower: “Knowle!”
Justine was up there!
The thought crossed my mind that it might be she who had — but no, there were signs that the doctor, whose body was already frozen with rigor mortis, had put up a fight with his assailant; so this could be no crime of my fine and fatal Justine’s!
I climbed into the lift cage. It was a tiny affair that would contain no more than two men at a time, it drew me up almost in silence, and through the occasional narrow window I saw daylight, and splinters of Walvis Bay, and the sea, and the confused world. Then the top was gained, and as I opened the door, Justine came into my arms.
At any other time, what joy that would have brought me! Her dark hair was against my cheek, her body warm and soft against mine. How long we stood like that I cannot tell, but eventually she drew back and looked at me.
“So Peter sent you!” she exclaimed. “Thank goodness he sent someone — I have no head for heights. You’re only just in time. It’s now quarter to eight.”
“In time for what?”
“At eight, the security men will cordon off President’s Square, and after that only invited guests will be able to enter.”
“How long have you been here, Justine?” I was staring at her face, hungrily, viewing again the pale countenance that had such unreasonable power over me.
“I got here shortly after six, while it was still dark. I have been awake half the night waiting for Peter to phone me; when he didn’t, I knew I had to come up here myself and do the job.”
“Justine, I don’t understand. What job are you talking about?”
“Really, Knowle, what do you think? The President appears with his retinue in the square at ten o’clock. When he stands up to make his speech, that’s when we shoot him.”
We sent the lift cage down to the bottom of its shaft. I followed her up a short wooden flight of steps to a platform over which hung one single black wide-mouthed bell. I saw that she had spread a rug here for herself, and had brought also a cushion and a vacuum flask and a high-powered repeating rifle with telescopic sights. It lay across the rug.
She put her hand through my arm.
“You’ll be all right, Knowle? I mean, you’re a good shot? You can do it? We must make no mistakes.”
“Look, Justine — Justine, you’re mad, or you’re hypnotized by Mercator, who is as crazy as you. You know as well as I do that President el Mahasset is a good man, that he’s the only man that can keep Africa and the world at peace. We can’t shoot him! You care nothing for me; you care for Mercator, your beloved Peter. That being so, you must know why he wants the President shot.”
She stood back and regarded me, her head tilted slightly upwards so that I could see the beautiful column of her neck. She had a narrow white rim to the collar of her dress; otherwise she was unrelievedly in black — perhaps in the dress she had mentioned in one of her letters. Even her eyes were dark as she stared at me, and I thought what a fine picture of an executioner she made. Her face was hard as she said: “Tell me why Peter wants the President killed, Knowle.”
So I explained about Mercator?
“What a filthy materialist argument you produce!” she said quietly.
“No, Justine. Don’t try and dodge the truth by calling it names. You must forget this assassination business. I have reason to think that Mercator is dead by now, killed along with his doctor by his enemies, or he would have returned to the hotel before I left. Forget him and forget all this nonsense, and leave here at once with me.”
“You’ll never move me!”
“You’ve got to get out before the police reach us. Your letters were in Mercator’s pocket and by now you will be incriminated.”
As if she had not heard me, she turned to face me and said again: “What a filthy materialist argument you use to dirty Peter’s motives! Knowle, just for once let me tell you the truth for you to hear. Just see if you can take it! From the start, you have misjudged Peter and me. He was a farmer and you feared him. Yet he worked constantly to mitigate conditions on the land — even those beyond his control. He helped you, though you never had the grace to acknowledge it. Now he is working for a common good, but it is so far above your head that you will never understand it. In the same way. I feel you have never understood me — not that that matters.
“Let me show you how mistaken you have been and are. Both Peter and I belong to one of the numerous secret religions that proliferate throughout the miserable cities of the world. But ours, the cult of Abstinence, is the strictest of all. Have you heard of the Abstainers?”
I had, but I thought it was only a fad that entertained some members of the upper echelons of society.
“The Abstainers,” Justine said, “do all in their power to get the mass of people to use proper methods of birth control; yet although some of these methods have been in existence for centuries, you cannot force them successfully on a population that has sunk below a certain level of social awareness.”