Part 14 (2/2)
”Can't wait, eh? Perhaps you've got the wrong address?”
”Oh no, I haven't got it wrong.”
”You must have it now, you are sure?”
”Yes, now and not later.”
He clicked his tongue and pulled on his lower lip. He was short, well knit, with a round shaved head. He spoke hardly moving his tongue and rolling his eyes languidly under the lids. I thought he had not had enough sleep. His companion, sitting behind the railing in an easy chair, apparently also had missed some. But he did not utter a word and didn't even look in my direction. It was a gloomy place, with stale air and warped panels which had sprung away from the walls. A bulb, dimmed with dust, hung shadeless from the ceiling on a dirty cable.
”Why not come later?” said the round-head. ”When everybody comes.”
”I just got the urge,” I said diffidently.
”Got the urge...” He searched in his table drawer. ”I don't even have a form left. Eli, do you have some?”
The latter, without breaking his silence, bent over and pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper from somewhere near the railing.
The round-head said, yawning, ”Guys that come at break of day... n.o.body here... no girls... they're still in bed.” He proffered the form. ”Fill it out and sign. Eli and I will sign as witnesses. Turn in your money. Don't worry, we keep it honest. Do you have any doc.u.ments?”
”None.”
”That's good, too.”
I scanned the form. ”In open deposition and of my own free will, I, the undersigned, in the presence of witnesses, earnestly request to be subjected to the initiation trials toward the mutual quest of members.h.i.+p in the Society of VAL.” There were blank s.p.a.ces for signature of applicant and signatures of witnesses.
”What is VAL?” I asked.
”That's the way we are registered,” answered round-head.
He was counting my money.
”But how do you decipher it?”
”Who knows? That was before my time. It's VAL, that's all there is to it. Maybe you know, Eli?” Eli shook his bead lazily. ”Well, really, what do you care?”
”You are absolutely right.” I inserted my name and signed.
Round-head looked it over, signed it, and pa.s.sed the form to Eli.
”You look like a foreigner,” he said.
”Right.”
”In that case, add your home address. Do you have relatives?”
”No.”
”Well then, you don't have to. All set, Eli? Put it in the folder. Shall we go?”
He lifted up the gate in the railway and walked me over to a ma.s.sive square door, probably left over from the days when the subway had been fitted out as an atomic shelter.
”There is no choice,” he said as though in self-defense.
He pulled the slides and turned a rusty handle with considerable effort. ”Go straight down the corridor and then you'll see for yourself.”
I thought that I heard Eli snickering behind him. I turned around. A small screen was fitted in the railing in front of Eli. Something was moving on the screen, but I could not see what it was. Round-bead put all his weight on the handle and swung back the door. A dusty pa.s.sage became visible. For a few seconds he listened and then said, ”Straight down this corridor.”
”What will I find there?” I said.
”You'll get what you were looking for. Or have you changed your mind?”
All of which was clearly not what I was looking for, but as is well known, n.o.body knows anything until he has tried it himself I stepped over the high sill and the door shut behind me with a clang. I could hear the latches screeching home.
The corridor was lit by a few surviving lamps. It was damp, and mold grew an the cement walls. I stood still awhile, listening, but there was nothing to be heard but the infrequent tap of water drops. I moved forward cautiously. Cement rubble crunched underfoot. Soon the corridor came to an end, and I found myself in a vaulted, poorly lit concrete tunnel. When my eyes accommodated to the darkness, I discerned a set of tracks.
The rails were badly rusted and puddles of dark water gleamed motionless along their length. Sagging cables hung from the ceiling. The dampness seeped to the marrow of my bones. A repulsive stench of sewer and carrion filled my nostrils. No, this was not what I was looking for. I was not of a mind to fritter away my time and thought of going back and telling them that I would be back some other time. But first, simply out of curiosity, I decided to take a short walk along the tunnel. I went to the right toward the light of distant bulbs. I jumped puddles, stumbled over the rotting ties, and got entangled in loose wires. Reaching a lamp, I stopped again.
The rails had been removed. Ties were strewn along the walls, and holes filled with water gaped along the right of way. Then I saw the rails. I have never seen rails in such a condition. Some were twisted into corkscrews. They were polished to a high s.h.i.+ne and reminded me of gigantic drill bits. Others were driven with t.i.tanic force into the floor and walls of the tunnel. A third group were tied into knots. My skin crawled at this sight. Some were simple knots, some with a single bow, some with a double bow like shoelaces. They were mauve and brown.
I looked ahead into the depths of the tunnel. The smell of rotting carrion wafted out of it, and the dim yellow lights winked rhythmically as though something swayed in the draft, covering and uncovering them periodically. My nerves gave way.
I felt that this was nothing more than a stupid joke, but I couldn't control myself. I squatted down and looked around. I soon found what I was looking for -- a yard-long piece of reinforcing rod. I stuck it under my arm and went ahead. The iron was wet and cold and rough with rust.
The reflection of the winking lights glinted on slippery wet walls. I had noticed some time back the round, strange-looking marks on them, but at first did not pay them any attention. Then I became interested and examined them more closely. As far as the eye could reach, there were two sets of round prints on the walls at one-meter intervals. It looked as though an elephant had run along the wall -- and not too long ago at that. On the edge of one of the prints, the remains of a crushed centipede still struggled feebly. Enough, I thought, time to go back. I looked along the tunnel. Now I could plainly see the swaying curves of black cables under the lamps. I took a better grip on the rod and went ahead, holding close to the wall.
The whole thing was getting through to me. The cables sagged under the arch of the tunnel, and on them, tied by their tails into hairy cl.u.s.ters, hung hundreds upon hundred of dead rats, swaying in the draft. Tiny teeth glinted horribly in the semi-dark, and rigid little legs stuck out in all directions.
The cl.u.s.ters stretched in long obscene garlands into the distance. A thick, nauseating stench oozed from under the arch and flowed along the tunnel, as palpable as glutinous jelly.
There was a piercing screech and a huge rat scurried between my feet. And then another and another. I backed up.
They were fleeing from there, from the dark where there was not a single lamp. Suddenly, warm air came pulsing from the same direction. I felt a hollow s.p.a.ce with my elbow and pressed myself into the niche. Something live squirmed and squeaked under my heel; I swung my iron rod without looking. I had no time for rats, because I could hear something running heavily but softly along the tunnel, splas.h.i.+ng in the puddles. It was a mistake to get involved in this business, thought I. The iron rod seemed very light and insignificant in comparison with the bow-tied rails. This was no flying leech, nor a dinosaur from the Kongo... don't let it be a giganto-pithek, I thought, anything but a giganto-pithek. These donkeys would have the wit to catch one and let it loose in the tunnel. I was thinking very poorly in those few seconds. And suddenly for no reason at all I thought of Rimeyer. Why had he sent me here? Had he gone out of his mind? If only it was not a giganto-pithek!
It raced by me so fast that I couldn't discern what it was.
The tunnel boomed from its gallop. Then there was the despairing scream of a caught rat right close by and...
silence. Cautiously I peeked out. He stood about ten paces away directly under one of the lamps, and my legs suddenly went limp from relief.
”Smart-alec entrepreneurs,” I said aloud, almost crying.
'They would dream up something like this.”
He heard my voice and raising his stern legs, p.r.o.nounced: ”Our temperature is two meters, twelve inches, there is no humidity, and what there isn't is not there.”
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