22
There was a local stop less than a half-mile south of the Beachcomber Trailer Lodge. I made no move. The train slid smoothly along its single overhead rail once more. Seconds later, when I guessed that we had traveled less than a mile, I rose, walked quickly to the end of the car and jabbed the emergency stop signal. While the few sleepy passengers in the car were staring at me, startled, the train came to one of its gently quivering sudden stops. I stepped on the floor panel just inside the narrow emergency exit. A door slid open. Damp, salt-smelling ocean mist swirled in through the door. Dropping quickly to the floor, I eased myself over the edge. For several seconds I hung by my arms in mid-air outside the car, my hands gripping the door sill. In the thick mist I couldn't see the ground below. From inside the car someone shouted. The emergency door started to close and I dropped.
Falling through space I endured a slowly turning moment of panic. I had misjudged the distance! Then I hit the ground with a jarring force that seemed to unhinge my jaws. I tumbled and rolled, slamming finally to a stop against a solid wall of earth. Breathless and dazed, I lay peering up at the train. The emergency door opened again and a uniformed man stood framed in the oblong panel of yellow light some fifteen feet overhead. He muttered angrily. Although he appeared to be looking directly at me, I was sure that he couldn't see me. After a moment he drew back inside. The door closed. After a brief interval the train eased into motion, humming softly as it gathered speed. The last car vanished abruptly and I was alone in the thick black silence. I could feel a throbbing in my left arm. Something wet trickled into the crook of my elbow and I realized that the still-fresh cut had re-opened.
Painfully I pushed myself erect. Now I could hear the noisy clamor of the surf nearby. The mist curled and eddied around me, dense patches giving way to open gaps through which I caught the wet reflection of pavement. I tried to orient myself. The monorail was on the inland side of the beach highway. I would probably have to follow the road back to Laurie's trailer community. I had intended to come up to it along the beach, but in this fog there was little chance that I would find or recognize her trailer group.
I set off along the road. There was no traffic at all. When I had been walking for ten minutes I began to realize that I had underestimated the train's speed. I had overshot the Beachcomber Lodge by more than I had thought. Still I didn't regret the decision not to get out at the station. There, I would have been too vulnerable, making a public announcement of my arrival. At least now I had the faint possibility of surprise.
From the edge of the road I could barely make out the lighted signs which spelled out the names of the different trailer parks, their letters hardly distinguishable blurs in the mist. This wasn't like the dream, I thought, unable to disguise a quick surge of relief. Everything had been clear in the dream. I walked on slowly, cautiously, feeling the damp cold steal through the fabric of my coverall and jacket. And at last, winking at me from a flat hollow of the beach, I saw the sign: BEACHCOMBER TRAILER LODGE.
I stopped. Trying to open my mind to every impulse, I stood motionless, thinking of nothing, waiting and listening. There was only the steady, rhythmic roll and crash of the ocean beating against the edge of the land. There was no foreign whisper of sound, no strange vibration of thought. Nothing out of the ordinary. Yet I felt danger around me like a physical presence. Some unfathomed ear of the mind heard and telegraphed its message to the taut nerves of my body. I began to tremble. It's the cold, I thought angrily, gritting my teeth to stop their chattering. It's this damned cold wet fog.
Moving now in a crouch, I turned and retraced my steps to a point a hundred yards north of the Beachcomber's sign. There I scrambled down the incline from the road to the lower level where trailers huddled close like motionless animals hiding in the protective mist. I made my way carefully among them until I reached the empty strip of beach fringing the ocean. Here the roar of the waves was almost deafening, magnified in the darkness and the silence of the night. Dimly, I could make out the white foam boiling up the wet slope toward me. I had to fight down the cringing panic, holding my mind closed like a steel trap against the invasion of memory, against the terror of the dream whose vivid details crowded forward, demanding to be seen and heard and felt.
My body rigid with the tension of enforced discipline, I crept along the beach, counting my steps, measuring the distance until I knew I had covered the hundred yards and must be opposite the sign which faced the highway, invisible now in the dark gray soup of mist lying over the beach. I stopped, trying to place exactly in my mind the location of Laurie's trailer. It was in the front row of trailers facing the beach, half-concealed behind the swelling curve of a dune. I remembered being able to see the surface of the water from the raised interior of the trailer but being cut off from it by the dune when I was standing outside. And it seemed to me that, entering the trailer park from the highway, I had followed a curving walk toward the left.
I saw the patch of light through a gap in the mist not more than thirty yards away. It was blotted out almost instantly. I edged forward and away from the shoreline, moving onto slightly higher ground. The mist tore again and I saw the window clearly, its glow touching the swirling fog outside with a pale phosphorescence. The bright window seemed a warm invitation, not dangerous at all.
For perhaps a full minute I crouched motionless on the cold sand while the mist curled around me. Every sense strained to detect the unseen menace lurking behind the veil of darkness. Nothing. Not a sound, not a quiver of sensation, not a single vibrating wave of thought.
I began to inch forward. The light grew closer, visible now as a blurred rectangle even through the dense portions of the fog. With each step that brought me nearer to the beckoning rectangle of light, I could feel my heart beat faster, louder.
It stopped in that instant when I rose to bring my eyes over the edge of the window. It tripped and caught again like a sluggish motor. I could feel its labored thudding in my temples.
Laurie sat huddled in a corner of the room. Her green eyes were wide open, staring fixedly at the door. In her hand was a small pistol, squat and ugly, its muzzle pointing across the room. No one else was in sight. I frowned suspiciously. Then I realized that the fear radiating from the whole attitude of her body was directed and focused on something outside the room, beyond the door. And I knew that the gun was for me.
Cautiously I circled the trailer. I saw no shadow stirring. I paused outside the door, listening. I stood clear of it and reached out to turn the knob. It wasn't locked. The door swung open easily under the pressure of my hand. I jumped back as the pistol spoke, its bark low and sharp. The bullet struck metal somewhere behind me and ricocheted, whining off into the darkness. I was already moving forward up the steps and into the trailer.
"Drop it, Laurie!"
I looked into the muzzle of the pistol. It wavered unsteadily. Laurie didn't move. The cords of her throat were working visibly and I sensed the horror of a scream frozen inside of her by muscles that refused to function.
"Drop it!"
The gun fell from nerveless fingers and clattered to the floor. I crossed the room quickly and reached for Laurie's shoulders.
"Laurie! Laurie—"
The scream found a slim opening, sliced through not as a full-throated cry but as a thin high wail of terror. She shrank away from me. Her dressing gown fell open at the throat as she drew back. Half-naked, her eyes fixed and blank with fright, she cowered in the corner. I could see the shudders pass along her body. I caught her by the arms and pulled her erect, holding her tightly.
"I'm here, Laurie," I said hoarsely. "Paul. I came. There's nothing to be afraid of any more. I'm here."
I spoke with a confidence I did not feel, but something in the urgency of my voice reached her. Suddenly she collapsed against me. A sob tore from her throat and then she was crying, openly and without control, tears bathing her cheeks while the deep sobs wrenched her body. I held her, stroking her shoulders and her back gently, murmuring soothing meaningless phrases. And slowly the terror seemed to draw back inside her, subsiding to an occasional quiver, until at last the flow of tears dried up and her eyes were empty.
I drew her over to the couch and sat beside her, holding her hands. Her fingers gripped mine with involuntary tension like the grasping fingers of a baby.
"Can you tell me what happened? Laurie, can you hear me? Do you know what I'm saying?"
A spasm shook her. I spoke quickly, gently.
"You don't have to be afraid any more. You won't be harmed. Do you understand that?"
Her eyes were wide and staring. Her lips were slack, red slashes trembling in the bloodless white of her face. I squeezed her hands.
"Laurie!" I said sharply. "How long ago was it? When did it happen?"
Her lips moved soundlessly. She began to shake again, to vibrate like an animal too terrified to run.
"Who did it, Laurie? Who made you call me? Who wanted you to kill me?"
I knew it was hopeless to question her even as my hands gripped her shoulders and shook her. She couldn't answer. In a deep state of shock, exuding fear, she could hardly be aware of what I asked. But I didn't need her reply. I already knew.
And I felt the anger growing in me, active and violent, a deep revulsion and a raging hatred for the alien things to whom human beings were simply inferior organisms to be possessed and used, discarded or destroyed. Looking down at Laurie, at this young and slim and beautiful woman, at the vivid red hair spilling over white quivering shoulders, I knew that what I felt for her was not love but something equally important, sympathy and compassion and a strong affection that could easily, under other circumstances, erupt into desire and need. I felt linked with her in a common humanity and a common anger.
And I hated what I had to do to her.
I picked up the small pistol which had fallen from her fingers. For a moment I was tempted to discard the plan which had formed itself in my mind. Perhaps it wouldn't be necessary. Perhaps I could squeeze the trigger myself before my finger froze in the paralysis of obedience.
No. There was only one slim chance. It might fail but I had to risk it. I had to try to turn the alien's own weapon against it.
"Laurie," I said gently. "Listen to me."
I spoke to her then without words.