[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
into the fields, their seats pulled out into the dust. To Ransom, looking down
at the road as he crossed the hump of the motorbridge, it appeared to have
been under a heavy artillery bombardment. Loose curbstones lay across the
pedestrian walks, and there were large gaps in the stone balustrade where cars
had been pushed over the edge into the river be- low.
The roadway was littered with broken glass and torn pieces of chromium trim.
Ransom free-wheeled the car down the slip road to the river. Rather than take
the highway, he had decided to sail the houseboat along the river to the sea,
and then around the coast to an isolated bay or island. By this means he hoped
to avoid the chaos on the overland route and the hazards of fighting for a
foothold among the sand-dunes. With luck, enough water would remain in the
river to carry him to its mouth. On the seat behind was a large outboard motor
he had taken from a looted ship's chandlers on the north bank. He estimated
that the journey would take him little more than two or three days.
Ransom stopped on the slip road. Ten feet from the houseboat the burnt-out
hulks of two cars lay on their backs in the mud. The smoke from the exploding
fuel tanks had blackened the paintwork of the craft, but otherwise it seemed
intact. Ransom lifted the outboard motor from the seat, and began to haul it
down the embankment to the landing stage. The fine dust rose around him in
clouds, and after a dozen steps, sinking to his knees through the brittle
crust, he stopped to let it clear. The air was in fever, the angular sections
of the concrete embankment below the bridge reflecting the sunlight like Hindu
yantras. He pressed on a few steps, pieces of the crust sliding around him in
the dust-falls.
Then he saw the houseboat more clearly.
Ten feet from the edge of the channel, the craft was stranded high and dry
above the narrow creek, its pontoon set in a trough of baked mud. It leaned on
its side near the burnt-out cars, covered with the ash blown down from the
banks.
Ransom let the outboard motor subside into the dust, and then ploughed his way
down to the houseboat. The sloping bank was covered with old cans and dead
birds and fish. Twenty feet to his left the body of a dog lay in the sunlight
by the edge of the water.
Ransom climbed up onto the jetty, and for a moment gazed down at the
Page 38
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
houseboat, stranded with all his hopes on the bleached shore. This miniature
universe, a capsule containing whatever future lay before him, had expired
with everything else on the floor of the drained river, cutting off all
continuity with his past life.
Above him, on the embankment, a car's starting motor whined. Ransom crouched
down, watching the line of villas and the dust-filled aerial canopies. Nothing
moved on the opposite bank. The river was motionless, the stranded craft
leaning against each other. Along the quays, the white bodies of the drying
fish rotated slowly in the sunlight.
The car's engine resumed its plaintive noise, and masked the creaking of the
gangway as Ransom made his way up the embankment. He crossed the empty garden
next to Catherine Austen's villa, then followed the drive down to the road.
Catherine Austen sat over the wheel in the car, thumb on the starter button.
She looked up as Ransom approached, her hand reaching to the pistol on the
seat.
"Dr. Ransom?" She dropped the pistol and concentrated on the starter.
"What are you doing here?"
Ransom leaned on the windshield, watching her efforts to start the engine. In
the back of the car were two large suitcases a canvas hold-all. She seemed
tired and distracted, streaks of dust in her red hair.
"Are you going to the coast?" Ransom asked. He held the window before she
could wind it up. "You know that Quilter has one of the cheetahs?"
"What?" The news surprised her. "What do you mean? Where is it?"
"At Lomax's house. You're a little late in the day."
"I couldn't sleep. There was all that shooting." She looked up at him.
"Doctor, I must get to the zoo. After last night the animals will be out of
their minds."
"If they're still there. By now Quilter and Whitman are probably running
around with the entire menagerie. Catherine, it's time to leave."
"I know, but. . ." She drummed abstractedly at the wheel, glancing up at
Ransom as if trying to find her compass in his bearded face.
Leaving her, Ransom ran down the road to the next house. A car was parked in
the open garage. He lifted the bonnet, and loosened the terminals of the
battery. He slid the heavy unit out of its rack and carried it back to
Catherine's car. After he had exchanged the batteries he gestured her along
the seat. "Let me try."
She made room for him at the wheel. The fresh battery started the engine after
a few turns. Ransom set off toward the motorbridge. As they reached the
junction he hesitated, wondering whether to accelerate southwards down the
highway. Then he felt Catherine's hand on his arm. She was looking out over
the bleached bed of the river, and at the brittle trees along the banks,
suspended like ciphers in the warm air.
He crossed the bridge and turned left into a side-road, knowing that sooner or
later he would have to abandon the young woman. Her barely conscious
determination to stay on reminded him of his own first hopes of isolating
himself among the wastes of the new desert, putting an end to time and its
erosions. But now a new kind of time was being imposed on the landscape.
"Catherine, I know how you--"
Thirty yards ahead a driverless car rolled across the road. Ransom pressed
hard on the brakes, jerking the car to a sudden halt and throwing
Catherine forward against the windshield.
He pulled her back onto the seat as a swarm of darksuited men filled the
street around them. He picked up the revolver, and then saw a familiar hard
plump face under its blond thatch.
"Get them out! Then clear the road!" A dozen hands seized the bonnet, and
jerked it up into the air. A long knife flashed in the bosun's brightly
scarred hand and cut through the top hose of the radiator. Behind him the tall
figure of Jonas hove into view, long arms raised as if feeling his way through
Page 39
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
darkness.
Ransom restarted the engine and slipped the gear lever into reverse.
Flooring the accelerator, he flung the car backwards. The hood slammed down
onto the fingers that were tearing at the engine leads, sending up bellows of
pain.
Steering over his shoulder, Ransom reversed down the street, hitting the
parked vehicles as he swerved from left to right. Catherine leaned weakly
against the door, nursing her bruised head with one hand.
Ransom misjudged the corner, and the car jolted to a halt against the side of
a truck. Steadying Catherine with one hand, he watched the gang setting off
after them. Jonas stood on the roof of a car, one arm pointing like a specter.
Ransom opened his door and pulled Catherine out into the road. She pushed her
hair back with a feeble hand.
"Come on!" Taking her hand, he set off along a gravelcovered lane that ran
down to the embankment. Helped by the sloping ground, they reached the slip
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]