the experience he had undergone. The ten missing days of his life were not wholly blank, though that would have been alarming enough. What frightened him was that most of the memories, elusive as dreams, which he could recapture didn’t match the objective traces of his activities that he had found when he went back to collect those samples.
He had walked and lain down, slept and eaten—that much was clear. But the few rational-seeming images he could recover to correspond with his deductions, such as the one of vomiting, were embedded in a matrix of confusion. He could tell that something had happened which must in its way be as pregnant with unspeakable meaning as the fit of madness that caused him to throw Sigrid down naked on an alien beach. But his conscious awareness seemed to have been disconnected. Fragments of legend came to him, isolated, in response to the mental clues which had always before conjured up sane memories, as though his experience had been so fearfulhe was compelled to interpret it to himself in parables drawn from the ancient lore in which he had been steeped at home on Earth: tales of the great heroes like Finn and Cú Chulainn.
Had he now, again, collapsed under the pressure of a strange world? To use the comparison he had employed when talking to Parvati, had Asgard sprung another trap for him? Or was there some physical cause, perhaps some poison which the sea-beast had injected into his bloodstream?
It was useless to try and guess, he decided. He was going to have to wait until Tai and Parvati could take him apart for inspection.
It was in the cool pale light of dawn that he woke from uneasy slumber, dogged by random pictures from his weird experience, to find he was in sight of the base island and the automatics were buzzing to alert him. He knuckled his eyes and peered through the morning twilight.
Starting, he realised something was wrong. His boat was lying to off the south of the small harbour, and it was unchanged. But by now Dan Sakky’s boat-sheds should have been completed. The whole aspect of the harbour should have changed. But there was nothing new—correction: there was only a line of foundations, with nothing on them.
And beyond, up the hill towards the
Santa Maria,
things were subtly amiss. A solar collector had been knocked down and lay draped over a woodplant, randomly. Someone had decorated a power-line with knotted rags, like the paper shreds on the tail of a kite.
He rose in the boat as it bore him into the harbour, a great shadow of fear overcoming him, and called out loudly. From a hiding-place among rocks a figure rose, levelling a gun, and he recognised Saul Carpender.
“Saul! It’s me—Dennis!” he cried. “What’s wrong? Something is wrong, isn’t it?”
Unshaven, red-eyed, marked with scurvy bruises, Saul peered down at him as though struggling to convincehimself that the new arrival was indeed a friend. Eventually he lowered the gun and rubbed his bristly chin with the back of his hand.
“Oh, it’s you,” he muttered. “More or less given you up for lost, I guess … Well, come ashore, and help us sort out the mess we’re in, hm? Abdul’s gone crazy, and Parvati, and Dan and Tai and Ulla and Kitty—mad as hatters, the lot of them!”
FIVE WAKING SOULS
The palsy plague these pounces
When
I prig your pigs or pullen,
Your culvers take, or mateless make
Your Chanticleer, and sullen.
When I want provant with Humphrey
I sup, and when benighted
To repose in Paul’s with waking souls
I never am affrighted.
But still do I sing, “Any food, any feeding,
Money, drink or clothing?
Come dame or maid, be not afraid—
Poor Tom will injure nothing.”
—Tom o’ Bedlam’s Song
XIII
W AITING FOR the moment of truth to come upon her, Parvati was nervous: felt her palms moist, her belly taut with apprehension. Yet the anxiety was impersonal. It had little to do with the idea that she might be due to swallow a poisoned draught, though
He had walked and lain down, slept and eaten—that much was clear. But the few rational-seeming images he could recover to correspond with his deductions, such as the one of vomiting, were embedded in a matrix of confusion. He could tell that something had happened which must in its way be as pregnant with unspeakable meaning as the fit of madness that caused him to throw Sigrid down naked on an alien beach. But his conscious awareness seemed to have been disconnected. Fragments of legend came to him, isolated, in response to the mental clues which had always before conjured up sane memories, as though his experience had been so fearfulhe was compelled to interpret it to himself in parables drawn from the ancient lore in which he had been steeped at home on Earth: tales of the great heroes like Finn and Cú Chulainn.
Had he now, again, collapsed under the pressure of a strange world? To use the comparison he had employed when talking to Parvati, had Asgard sprung another trap for him? Or was there some physical cause, perhaps some poison which the sea-beast had injected into his bloodstream?
It was useless to try and guess, he decided. He was going to have to wait until Tai and Parvati could take him apart for inspection.
It was in the cool pale light of dawn that he woke from uneasy slumber, dogged by random pictures from his weird experience, to find he was in sight of the base island and the automatics were buzzing to alert him. He knuckled his eyes and peered through the morning twilight.
Starting, he realised something was wrong. His boat was lying to off the south of the small harbour, and it was unchanged. But by now Dan Sakky’s boat-sheds should have been completed. The whole aspect of the harbour should have changed. But there was nothing new—correction: there was only a line of foundations, with nothing on them.
And beyond, up the hill towards the
Santa Maria,
things were subtly amiss. A solar collector had been knocked down and lay draped over a woodplant, randomly. Someone had decorated a power-line with knotted rags, like the paper shreds on the tail of a kite.
He rose in the boat as it bore him into the harbour, a great shadow of fear overcoming him, and called out loudly. From a hiding-place among rocks a figure rose, levelling a gun, and he recognised Saul Carpender.
“Saul! It’s me—Dennis!” he cried. “What’s wrong? Something is wrong, isn’t it?”
Unshaven, red-eyed, marked with scurvy bruises, Saul peered down at him as though struggling to convincehimself that the new arrival was indeed a friend. Eventually he lowered the gun and rubbed his bristly chin with the back of his hand.
“Oh, it’s you,” he muttered. “More or less given you up for lost, I guess … Well, come ashore, and help us sort out the mess we’re in, hm? Abdul’s gone crazy, and Parvati, and Dan and Tai and Ulla and Kitty—mad as hatters, the lot of them!”
FIVE WAKING SOULS
The palsy plague these pounces
When
I prig your pigs or pullen,
Your culvers take, or mateless make
Your Chanticleer, and sullen.
When I want provant with Humphrey
I sup, and when benighted
To repose in Paul’s with waking souls
I never am affrighted.
But still do I sing, “Any food, any feeding,
Money, drink or clothing?
Come dame or maid, be not afraid—
Poor Tom will injure nothing.”
—Tom o’ Bedlam’s Song
XIII
W AITING FOR the moment of truth to come upon her, Parvati was nervous: felt her palms moist, her belly taut with apprehension. Yet the anxiety was impersonal. It had little to do with the idea that she might be due to swallow a poisoned draught, though
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