Tiger by the Tail, page 2
But then little tendrils of caution and question crept into his mind, and a puzzled frown crossed his quiet face. He stopped abruptly, standing stock-still in the tunnel as he squinted at the glowing walls in growing confusion. What a very odd place to be, he thought. A tunnel! He glanced about him, and cocked his head, listening for a long moment, until the stark silence of the place chilled him, forced him to sniff audibly, and scratch his head, and turn around.
My name is Robert Cox, he thought, and I am walking down a tunnel. He pondered for a moment, trying to remember. How long had he been walking? An horn:? He shook his head. It must have been longer than that. Oddly, he couldn’t remember when he had started walking. How had he got here? What had he been doing before he came into the tunnel? A chill of alarm crept up his spine as his mind groped. What had happened to his memory? Little doors in his mind seemed to snap quickly shut even as his memory approached them. Ridiculous, he thought, to be walking down a tunnel without even knowing where it was leading—
He peered forward in the silence. Quite suddenly he realized that he was absolutely alone. There was not a sound around him, not a stir, no sign of another human being, not even a flicker of life of any kind. The chill deepened, and he walked cautiously over to one wall, tapped it with his knuckles. Only a dull knock. For the merest fraction of a second an alarm rang in his mind, a cold, sharp intimation of deadly danger. He chuckled, uneasily. There was really no reason to be alarmed. A tunnel had to have an end, somewhere.
And then he heard the sound, and stared wide-eyed down the tunnel. It came to his ears very faintly, at first, the most curious sort of airy whistling, like a shrill pipe in the distance. It cut through the stillness cleanly, like a razor, leaving a strange tingle of dread in his mind. He listened, hardly breathing. Was the light growing fainter? Or were his eyes not behaving? He blinked, and sensed the light dimming even as the whistling sound grew louder and nearer, mingling with another, deeper sound. A throbbing roar came to his ears, overpowering the shrillness of the whistle, and then he saw the light, far down the tunnel, a single, round, yellow light, directly in the center of the passage, growing larger and larger as the roar intensified. A sharp wind suddenly stirred his dark hair as he stared fascinated by the yellow light bearing down on him. In a horrible flash, an image crossed his mind—the image of a man trapped on a railroad track as a dark engine approached with whistle screaming, bearing down like some hideous monster out of the night.
A cry broke from the man’s lips. It was a train! Roaring down the tunnel toward him, it was moving like a demon, with no tracks, screeching its warning as it came, with the fight growing brighter and brighter, blinding him. Relentlessly it came, filling the entire tunnel from side to side, hissing smoke and fire and steam from its valves, its whistle shrieking—
With a scream of sheer terror, Cox threw himself face down on the floor, trying frantically to burrow deeper into the soft mat of the tunnel floor, closing his mind down, blanking out everything but horrible, blinding fear. The light blazed to floodlight brilliance, and with a fearful rush of wind the roar rose to a sudden thundering bellow over his head. Then it gave way to the loud, metallic clak-clak-clak of steel wheels on steel rails beside his ears, and faded slowly into the distance behind him.
Trembling uncontrollably in every muscle, Cox stirred, trying to rise to his knees, groping for control of his mind. His eyes were closed tightly, and suddenly the floor was no longer soft matting, but a gritty stuff that seemed to run through his fingers.
He opened his eyes with a start, and a little cry came to his lips. The tunnel was gone. He was standing ankle-deep in the steaming sand of a vast, yellow desert, with a brassy sun beating down from a purple sky. He blinked, unbelieving, at the yellow dunes, and a twisted Joshua tree blinked back at him not ten feet away.
Two men and a girl stood in the room, watching the motionless body of the dark-haired man sprawled on the bed. The late afternoon sun came in the window, throwing bright yellow panels across the white bedspread, but the man lay quite still, his pale eyes wide open and glassy, oblivious to anything in the room. His face was deathly pale.
The girl gasped. “I think he’s stopped breathing,” she whispered.
The taller of the men, dressed in white, took her by the shoulder, gently turning her face away. “He’s still breathing,” he reassured her. “You shouldn’t be here, Mary. You should go home, try to get some rest. He’ll be all right.”
The other man snorted, his pink face flushed with anger. “He shouldn’t be here either,” he hissed, jerking a thumb at the man on the bed. “I tell you, Paul, Robert Cox is not the man. I don’t care what you say. He’ll never get through.”
Dr. Paul Schiml drew a deep breath, turning to face the other. “If Cox can’t get through, there isn’t a man in the Hoffman Medical Center who can—or ever will. You know that.”
“I know that there were fifty others in the same training program who were better fitted for this than Bob Cox!”
“That’s not true.” Dr. Schiml’s voice was sharp in the still room. “Reaction time, ingenuity, opportunism—not one in the group could hold a candle to Bob.” He stared down at the red-faced man, his eyes glittering angrily. “Admit it, Connover. You’re not worried for Bob Cox’s sake. You’re worried for your own neck. You’ve been afraid since the start, since the first ships came back to Earth, because you’ve been in charge of a program you don’t believe in, and you’re afraid of what will happen if Bob Cox doesn’t come through. It wouldn’t matter who was on that bed—you’d still be afraid.” He sniffed in disgust. “Well, you needn’t worry. Bob Cox will do it, if anyone can. He has to.”
“And if he doesn’t get through?”
The tall doctor stared angrily for a moment, then burned abruptly and walked over to the bedside. There was hardly a flicker of life in the man who lay there, only the shallowest respiration to indicate that he was alive. With gentle fingers Dr. Schiml inspected the small incision in the man’s skull, checked again the multitude of tiny, glittering wires leading to the light panel by the bedside. He stopped, staring at the panel, and motioned sharply to Connover. “Here’s the first, already,” he whispered.
For a moment, only the faintest buzz of sound could be heard from the panel; then Connover let out a soft whistle. “A tunnel. That makes sense. But what a device—” He turned wide-eyed to Schiml. “He could kill himself!”
“Of course he could. We’ve known that from the start.”
“But he doesn’t know—”
“He doesn’t know anything.” Schiml pointed to the panel. “A train. Ingenious? It’s amazing. Could you think of anything worse?” He watched for a moment. “No room on either side for escape—he’ll go under it.”
All three watched, hardly breathing. Suddenly the girl was sobbing uncontrollably, burying her face on the doctor’s shoulder. “It’s horrible,” she choked. “It’s horrible … he’ll never make it, never, he’ll be killed—”
“No, Mary, not Robert. Not after the training he’s had.” The doctor’s voice was grim. “You’ve got to believe that, Mary. This is the test, the final test. He cant let us down, not now—”
He could feel danger all about him. It was nothing at all tangible, just a deep, hollow voice in his mind, screaming out the danger. Cox shuddered, and glanced up at the brassy yellow sun, his forehead wet with perspiration. It was hot! Steaming hot, with an unrelenting heat that seemed to melt him down inside like soft wax. Every muscle in his body was tense; he stood poised, tingling, his pale eyes searching the barren yellow dunes of sand for the danger he knew was there—
Then the Joshua tree moved.
With a gasp, he threw himself on the sand, ten feet from it, watching it wide-eyed. Just a slight movement of the twisted arms of the thing—he could have been mistaken, his mind could have played tricks. He trembled as he squinted through the shimmering heat at the gaunt, twisted tree.
And then, quite suddenly, realization struck him. Desert! He had been in a tunnel—yes, that was right, a tunnel, and that light, that roaring thing— what was he doing here? He sat up slowly in the sand, ran his fingers through the hot grains, studying them with infinite curiosity. No doubt about it— it was desert! But how? How had he reached the tunnel in the first place? And what in the rational universe could have transported him to this place? Eagerly his mind searched, striking against the curious, shadowy shield that blocked his memory. There was an answer, he knew; something was wrong, he shouldn’t be there. Deep in his mind he knew he was in terrible danger, but such idiotic danger—if he could only think, somehow remember—
His shoulders tensed, and he froze, reactively, his eyes on the yellow mound of sand across the ridge from him. Hardly breathing, he watched, his mind screaming danger danger, his eyes focusing on the yellow hillock. Then it moved again, swiftly, in the blinking of an eye, and froze again, ten feet closer—
It had looked in that fraction of a second, remarkably like a cat—a huge, savage, yellow cat. And then it had frozen into a hillock of sand.
Swiftly Cox moved, on hands and knees, at angles across the slope of sand from the thing. The sand burned his hands, and he almost cried out as the grit swirled up into his eyes, but he watched, every muscle tense. It moved again, at a tangent, swiftly sliding down the slope parallel to his movement, a huge, yellow, fanged thing, moving with the grace and flowing speed of molten gold, little red eyes fixed on him. Then it froze again, melting into the yellow, shimmering sand.
Stalking him!
In blind panic he pulled himself to his feet and ran down the sandy slope away from it, his eyes burning, running with the devil at his heels until a dune lay between him and the creature. Then he threw himself flat on the sand, peering over the rim of the dune.
There was a swift blur of yellow movement, and the sand-cat was on the slope behind him, twenty yards closer, crouching against the sand, panting hungrily. Frantically, Cox glanced around him. Nothing! Nothing but yellow, undulating sand hills, the scorching sun, and the tall, twisted Joshua trees that moved! He looked back suddenly, and saw the sand-cat creeping toward him, slowly, slowly, not thirty yards away.
His breath came in panting gasps as he watched the creature. It was eight feet long, with lean, muscular haunches that quivered in the sun, the red eyes gleaming in savage hate. It moved with a sure confidence, a relentless certainty of its kill. Cox tried to think, tried to clear his mind of the fear and panic that gnawed at him, tried to clear away the screaming, incredulous puzzlement that tormented him. He had to get away, but he couldn’t run. The creature was too fast. He knew his presence there was incredible; something in his mind tried to tell him not to believe it, that it wasn’t true—but he felt the gritty sand under his sweating palms, and it was very, very real. And the sand-cat moved closer—
In a burst of speed he ran zigzagging down the slope and up the next, watching over his shoulder for the flash of yellow movement. With each change in direction, the sand-cat also shifted, stalking faithfully. If only he could get out of its sight for a moment! If it wasn’t too bright, if that savage brain were starved enough, he might force it into a pattern response— He ran ten feet to the right, paused, and rushed on ten feet to the left, heading toward the huge boulder which stood up like a naked sentinel on the dune ahead. The sand-cat followed, moving to the right, then to the left. Again Cox sped, sure now that the pattern would be followed, moving right, then left. A long run away from the rock, then a long run toward it. The cat was closer, just twenty yards away, closing the distance between them with each run. Panting, Cox tried to catch his breath, taking a steel grip on his nerves. He knew that panic could kill him. Swiftly, he scuttled up over the edge of the dune, far to the right of the boulder, then abruptly switched back, keeping the boulder between him and the cat, reaching it, peering cautiously around—
Warm excitement flooded his mind. Slowly, ever so slowly the sand-cat was edging up over the dune, peering down in the direction he had run, slipping up over the dune on its belly, freezing, peering, a savage, baffled snarl coming from its dripping mouth. Eagerly Cox searched the sand around the boulder, picked up a chunk of sandstone as big as a brick. Then he took a huge breath, and plunged from behind the boulder, toward the cat, moving silently in the soft, hot sand. With a mixture of fury and fear he fell on the beast, raising the stone, bringing it down with all his might on the flat yellow head. The sand-cat snarled and whirled, claws slashing the air; his hot, rank breath caught Cox full, gagging him as he raised the stone again and again, bringing it down on the creature’s skull. Razor claws ripped at his side, until the cat screamed and convulsed, and lay twitching—
And suddenly there was darkness, and a cold winter breeze in his face, and the stars were twinkling in the frigid night air above him. The sand-cat was gone, the desert, the Joshua trees. He lay in a ditch, half-soaked in icy mud, and his side was bleeding angrily.
He stared around him, and shivered. He was at the bottom of the ditch, his body lying in an icy rivulet of water. Above him, he could see the embankment, topped by a small iron fence. A road! Painfully he dragged himself up toward the top, peered over. The strip of polished metal gleamed in the starlight, as icy gusts of wind and snow swept down to bite his ears and bring tears to his eyes. The tears froze on his eyelids, and the sharp coldness of the dark air bit into his lungs, bringing pain with every breath.
In the distance he heard a rumbling sound, felt the road tremble as the gargantuan vehicles approached. Instinctively Cox ducked below the road surface, froze immobile as the long line of grotesque metallic monsters roared by, glimmering within their dull fluorescent force-shields. They showed no sign of life, but rumbled past him, moving steadily down the glittering highway. He could see the curious turrets, the gunlike projections, stark against the bleak night sky. Weapons, he thought, huge, tanklike engines which lumbered and roared along the road on some errand of death. Suddenly the last of the convoy lumbered past, and he eased himself cautiously up onto the road. A burst of thunder roared in his ears, and abruptly it began to pour, huge icy drops that splattered with the force of machine-gun bullets, stinging his skin and soaking his hair and clothes. He shuddered, miserably, his mind groping in confusion. If he could only find a place to think, somewhere to rest and collect himself, somewhere to try to dress the wound in his side. In the gloom across the road he thought he could make out the gaunt ruins of a building standing against the starlight, and with infinite pain and slowness he dragged himself across the frigid steel strip, and down into the ditch on the other side. His feet were growing numb, and the pain in his side had turned to a dull, angry throbbing, but he somehow stumbled and staggered across the field, every ounce of his strength focused on reaching some sort of shelter.
It was a building—or it had been, once. Two walls had been completely shattered, bombed out, and the roof had fallen in, but one intact wall stood like a gaunt sentinel in the darkness. Inside, the building had been gutted by fire, and Cox was forced to rip rubble and debris away from the door. He forced it open on squeaking, long-neglected hinges. Finally he found a corner that was dry, and located a bit of blanket from the rubble inside. He sank into the corner, shaking his head, trying desperately to orient himself.
His side had stopped bleeding. A quick examination revealed four shallow, ugly-looking lacerations running down to his thigh. Four claws—the cat! Of course, the sand-cat had clawed him in its last, desperate snarl of rage. Cox leaned back, scratching his black hair with a grimy finger. The sand-cat was in the desert, not here. But before that, it was a tunnel, with a roaring train bearing down on him, a train that moved without tracks. And now, a frigid, war-beaten world—
It didn’t add up. Desperately he tried to remember what had happened in between. Nothing, it seemed. He had slipped from one to the other in the blinking of an eye. But that was impossible! You just couldn’t shift like that, from one place to another. At least—he didn’tthink it was possible.
He heard his breath, short and shallow, echoing in the silence of the ruined building. He was here. This building was real, the icy coldness and the darkness were very real. But the wound in his side was real, too. That hadn’t happened here, that had happened somewhere else. How had he come here? Had he wanted to come? He shook his head angrily. It was ridiculous. But three different places— there had to be something in common, some common denominator. What had he found in all three places that was the same, what possible connection was there?
Danger! He sat bolt upright, staring into the blackness. That was it! A tunnel, and danger. A desert, and danger. Now this cold, hostile place, and danger! Not danger to anyone else, just danger to himself. Pure raw, naked danger.
He pondered for a while, his mind whirling. Somehow, it seemed that danger had been his entire life, that all he could think of, the only thing he had ever known was danger. Could that be true? Instinctively, he knew it wasn’t. There had been peace, before, somewhere, and love, and happy hours. But superimposed in his mind was the acute, barren awareness of imminent death, a sure knowledge that he could die here, abruptly, at any moment, and only his own resourcefulness could save him.
It was like repeating the well-rehearsed words of a play. Somebody had told him that. It wasn’t original in his own mind. It was propaganda, conditioned information, something he had been taught!
Could Mary have told him?
He gasped. Mary! He repeated the name over and over, excitedly. There was the link. Mary, his wife—certainly there had been peace, and warmth, and comfort, and love. Mary was his wife, he had known those things with her, in some remote corner of his memory. He felt himself glow as he suddenly remembered Mary’s lovely face, the depth of love in those dark eyes, the warmth of her arms around him, the consuming peace and contentment in her sweet kisses and soft, happy murmurings—somewhere there had been Mary, who loved him beyond anything in the world.
