The Metrognome and Other Stories Read online

  As he mounted the stairs toward her room, the clock chimed seven times in the hallway below. An hour would give her enough time to eat.

  "Mayell? Darlin'?" She didn't respond to his knock, so he balanced the tray carefully in one hand and turned the knob with the other.

  It was dim in the room, lit only by early moonlight and the single small bulb of the end table night light. She was still asleep. He moved toward the other side of the bed. There was a pole lamp there. As he fumbled for the switch, he noticed a familiar shape on her ribs. It meowed, an odd sort of meow, almost a territorial growl.

  Saugen moved, lifting to a sitting position on his mistress's chest. Willis thought he saw something glisten and looked closer, one hand on the light switch.

  The carpet muffled the clang of the tray when it hit, but it was still louder than expected. Peas rolled short distances to hide in the low shag, and the juice from the still steaming steak stained the delicate rose pattern as Willis stumbled backward. He fell into the lamp, and it broke into a thousand glass splinters when it struck the floor. Funny, half verbalized noises were coming from his throat as he tried to give voice to what he was seeing, but he could do no more than gargle his fear.

  Eyes bright and burning tracked him as he staggered toward the door. A penetrating meow started his vertebrae clattering like an old woman's teeth. He could still see the fur on Saugen's stomach wriggling of its own accord as dozens of the thin, wormlike tendrils reluctantly withdrew from the drained husk of what had once been Mayell. They reminded Willis of tiny snakes, all curling and writhing as though possessed of some horrible life of their own. The hypodermic size holes they had left in the wasted skin closed up behind them. Willis thought of the spiders he'd seen so often in the gardens, liquefying the insides of their victims and sucking them empty like so many inflexible bottles. The glistening he'd seen had been caused .by moonlight reflecting off the myriad drops of red liquid still clinging to the tip of each unhair. He retched as he finally found the door and rushed out, thinking of how many nights the cat thing had spent seemingly asleep on the girl's chest when all the while it had been silently feeding.

  "Keep him contented and well fed," the will had stated. Ah, damn the old man, he'd known!

  Nothing in the house looked familiar as he half fell, half stumbled down the stairs. His thoughts were jumbled, confused. The full bowls of cat food left untouched in the kitchen these past weeks, the privacy whenever Hanford had fed his pet, the regular visits of poor women from the city who had come expecting to fill one normal desire and who had left, their eyes darting and fearful, never to return a second time.

  Somewhere in the gardener's shed there was a gun, a pistol he kept to ward off thieves and trespassers. He sought the front door. Oakley would be there soon with the ambulance and its crew. They wouldn't believe, but that didn't matter, wouldn't matter, because he would get the gun first and . . .

  He stopped in midbreath, frozen as he stared forward, paralyzed by a pair of deliberate, mesmerizing yellow orbs confronting him. He tried to move, fought to look elsewhere. He couldn't budge, could only scream silently as those fiery fluorescent eyes held his swaying body transfixed.

  Its belly fur flexing expectantly, the plump crimson cat left its place by the door and padded deliberately forward.

  RUNNING

  I always liked running. It's just that I was never any good at it, and I'm not any better now. Weak lungs have a lot to do with it, the product of severe bouts with infantile scarlet fever and adolescent tracheal bronchitis.

  Nevertheless, I liked it. And I tried. There was something about the wind rushing past you, the world becoming a pastiche of impressionistic shapes and colors. Maybe I was trying to find the subways of my infancy.

  Trouble was, my body wouldn't cooperate. The pain would arise shortly after I began to move, intensifying until my lungs felt like newspaper in a fireplace: little crumpled sheets of blackness twisting and darting as they ascended up the chimney. 1'd have to slow down and gasp for air while others, seemingly without breathing at all, would rush past me, their arms and legs functioning in perfect harmony, their feet never touching the earth.

  As time passed, running somehow became "jogging." I think I know what jogging is now. It's running, only in designer clothes. Its emblem is a set of shoes that cost only slightly less than a good color TV; shoes that can be bought at K Mart without a ridiculous name stitched on the side for one tenth the cost of a pair with a name. Its flag is a set of compact headphones, attached to a portable tape player blaring music the runner is too exhausted to hear. Jogging is a world inhabited by strange, misshapen creatures who unsmilingly haunt the countryside and city while insisting that they're having a wonderful time. A strange basis for a society.

  Running seems to me more honest.

  The woman in bed with Jachal Morales was not his wife. That honor belonged to the portly gentleman who had just unexpectedly entered the simply decorated bedroom.

  The eyes of the hausfrau snuggled contentedly in Jackal's arms expanded from somnolent to terrified as she espied her husband. Reflexively, she wrenched the covers up tight about her neck. This had the effect of completely denuding Jackal. The sight of his lithe, naked body further inflamed the thoughts of the already apoplectic man standing in the doorway.

  Calmly Jackal sat up, slid out of the bed, adopted his most ingenuous smile, and approached the older man with a comradely hand extended in greeting.

  "I apologize for this, citizen Pensy. Quite honestly, things are not what they seem to be."

  How odd to finally use that line without lying, he mused. Unfortunately and expectedly, citizen Pensy did not believe a word of it.

  Even worse, the poor old fool had a gun.

  "You rotten, dirty blaspet," he sputtered, shaking with fury. "I'm going to kill you. They'll have to scrape you off the walls of my house!"

  "That'd be a foolish thing to do, sir. Bad for both of us."

  "Worse for you." His finger tightened on the trigger.

  Jackal had no more time for diplomacy. He feinted to his left and, as the gun swung shakily to cover him, kicked up and out with his right foot. The little pistol went flying out of the banker's hand. It struck the floor at his feet, where it had the extreme discourtesy to discharge.

  Banker Pensy slowly looked down toward the little hole in his jacket, which was framed by a slowly expanding circle of red. Jackal gaped at the gun. Likewise banker Pensy's wife, who promptly stumbled out of bed to embrace her collapsing husband. She cradled his head in her lap and turned a shocked stare on her almost lover.

  "You've killed him. Musweir man, I should never have listened to your sweet words. You've killed my poor Emil. "

  "Now just a minute, lissome, I . . ."

  At that point it occurred to her that it might be useful, not to mention seemly, to scream. She did so with admirable energy, her anguished wail echoing around the room and doubtless out into the rest of the apartment complex.

  Ignoring her as well as the unlucky banker slowly expiring in her arms, Jachal turned and dressed quickly. The second floor window opened onto a broad dirt street. Too broad, but it was a cloudy morning, and most of the populace would be at work.

  Closing the curtain of her screams behind him, he gauged the drop and jumped. His legs stung with the shock of contact, and his hands touched the ground to give him balance. Dark eyes darted right, then left. He had to get out of sight and fast, before the banker's wife, now more siren than siren, alerted the entire community.

  Caution never insured against bad luck. He'd been telling the truth to the poor, dead Pensy. The banker should have been at work this morning, preparing to fleece some farmer, not returning home at just the wrong moment.

  Jachal had been in quest of information, not sex. Specifically the control codes that would have given him access to the central credit line of the fiscal computer controlling Pensy's small bank. The banker had caught him in the act of theft, all right, but not the k
ind the poor man had thought.

  Jachal blended into the shadows of the small street he turned into, six feet of man, lean and dark as cured lumber, black of hair and eyes. He did not think of himself, even as he ran, as a bad man. He never worked to break the law as much as he did to circumvent it. Bad timing, the bane of a precarious existence, had finally caught up with him.

  He forced himself to slow to a fast walk. He was out of range of the distraught widow's screams. The sight of a stranger racing through the streets would attract unwanted attention.

  Embresca was a new town, growing slowly but steadily via an influx of bucolic types who sought to make a fortune from the incredibly productive soil of Dakokraine. Jachal wove his way through streets lined with prefabricated buildings imported from manufacturing worlds. They were not a luxury but a necessity, for Dakokraine was nearly devoid of useful building materials.

  Stone and adobe were not fashionable.

  In any new community of modest size word traveled quickly. Jachal was doing his best to keep ahead of it as he maintained a steady march toward the airport, where he had a chance of losing himself among the flow of goods and settlers from the northern dispersal points. No one had stopped him yet. Perhaps his luck was returning.

  It had been an accident. If anything, he'd acted in self-defense. Cuckolding someone was not grounds for shooting. Self defense, sure . . . and naturally the bereaved widow would testify on behalf of her would be seducer. Sure she would.

  Jachal walked a little faster.

  Rounding a corner, he caught sight of the cluster of armed men blocking the single entrance to the airport facilities. They carried a variety of weapons and made agitated gestures with them.

  He didn't hesitate but turned and headed back through town. The airport was sealed off, along with his future. If the locals were determined to get him, he'd never have a chance to plead anything. He'd go down "while fleeing from arrest." He'd seen that obituary on the graves of too many acquaintances to wish it for himself.

  If they would leave it open to him, he had one chance left. A slow suicide instead of a quick lynching by gunfire. He opted for it instantly.

  Two of Dakokraine's three moons were high in the evening sky when he approached the towering electrically charged fence that ringed the town of Embresca. Barely visible to the left and right were automatic gun emplacements. He ignored them. They were programmed to watch for something else, not for him. Their lethal, transparent barrels pointed outward.

  Outward over the rolling, world girdling plains that formed most of Dakokraine's surface, out over the green and brown ocean that the settlers fought to tame. Out over topsoil measured in depths of many yards, which supported an endless sea of grasses and grains that was mined by the settlers as tenaciously as any precious metal to feed the exploding and ever hungry population of man.

  Here, near the town, the native grasses had been plowed under and imported hybrid grains grew to fantastic heights, nourished by an ideal climate and soil. Rising among them were the twenty foot high fences, charged versions of the heavier duty barrier that shielded the town itself.

  The fences and weapons ringing Embresca were designed to prevent entry, not egress. Jachal had no trouble making his way outward. He adjusted the small pack of supplies he'd barely had time to gather together, pulled it higher on his back, and hurried out into the first field. It was planting time, and the grain was barely up to his knees. In three months it would tower above his head. Then it would hide dangers of its own.

  No point in worrying about that now, he told himself. A glance back over a shoulder showed the sparkling lights of Embresca dancing against the Dakokrainian night. There was still no sign of pursuit.

  Turning to his chosen path, he set himself the task of covering ten miles before sunrise. His legs pumped steadily, rhythmically, carrying him over the firm loam and the flexible stalks of the seedlings. Two moons led him eastward, and a third beckoned from just below the horizon.

  One man among the armed mob that halted inside the fence line wore a uniform. He represented half of Embresca's police force. His partner remained at the station, monitoring calls.

  It had been an eventful night. The agricultural community was relatively crime free. Its people were uncomplicated, hardworking types interested only in wresting a living from the bountiful soil, not from one another. Usually the cop's job was dull and uninteresting. He liked it that way.

  Now this visitor had caused a genuine uproar, rooting the cop out of a sound sleep, bringing him on shift early, and forcing him to adopt a tiring pose of authority. Not to mention all the official forms that he still had to file. A murder, no less. A killing, anyway.

  Privately he reconstructed the scenario that had been played out in the banker's bedroom and wondered who was really guilty, if anyone.

  But Embresca was a little world unto itself. The population was tightly knit. He was only one man, and there were combative farmers out for this stranger's blood. Banker Pensy had a lot of friends.

  Fortunately, the subject of their ire had been polite enough to flee into the Veldt. The farmers wanted his blood, yes, but not enough to follow him out there. If he attempted to sneak back into Embresca, then the officer would be forced to cope with him. If he'd just stay outside the fence lines, Dakokraine would handle the administration of justice. That would be a lot simpler. He offered some silent thanks to the unknown maybe-murderer, wherever he was out there among the grasses. He even wished him luck.

  "It's all right," he told his angry civilian posse, nodding toward the moon swept fields of triticale four rising beyond the fence. "He's gone Veldtside. There's no way he can get back into town without being noted, and I've alerted the airport monitors to watch for him.

  "Now, everybody go home and get some sleep. Unless some of you would like to follow me out after him?"

  Faces burned red from daily exposure to the sun turned sullen, then resigned as they studied the silvery landscape. No, not at night would they march out after the intruder, the stranger who'd upset the easy routine of their lives. Not even for poor Mr. Pensy's widow. Not out into the Veldt.

  The officer was right. There was nowhere for the murderer to escape to. He could go anywhere he wished, and it would do him no good. Dakokraine would take care of him. They turned away from the barrier and started back toward their homes.

  The twenty foot high electric fences had not been raised to keep children out of the corn.

  It was still dark when Jachal let himself collapse in the last of the cultivated fields. He dragged himself a little farther . . . and found himself lying among native grasses. Civilization had spread west and south faster than eastward.

  T grass was taller than a man, much taller. Blades fifteen feet and higher soared overhead. They swayed in the night breeze, occasionally obscuring the stars.

  He'd fled without any long term plan m mind. His only desire was to get out of the town and beyond the clutches of improvised justice. If he could just survive out here for a few weeks, memories of his exploit would be replaced by more prosaic concerns in the minds of the citizenry. Then he might have a chance to slip back into town beneath the relaxed electronic guard they had doubtless alerted to watch for him.

  From there he would somehow get aboard an aircraft. Thence to a large city, a shuttleport, and off this world. Let me but accomplish this one escape, he assured the cosmos, and I will henceforth restrict my adventures to more urbane societies.

  He'd seen no evidence of pursuit and doubted that he would. There was no reason for it. He'd been on Dakokraine long enough to know why even heavily armed parties never traveled outside the charged fences except in aircraft.

  Climbing to his feet, he pushed outward. His legs protested at being employed so soon after his marathon flight. A short walk brought him to an outcropping of volcanic rock. It rose slightly above the crowns of the grass sea.

  Ages ago a lava bubble had burst, creating the small circular cave into which he now settle
d himself gratefully. He would be reasonably safe there from the smaller predators that roamed the Veldt. They didn't like to come out of the cover of the grass.

  And he could see the stars. There were a great many of them, for the skies of Dakokraine were bigger than those of most worlds. Their permanence lulled him into a troubled sleep.

  In the morning he mounted the highest point of the little outcropping and examined his surroundings. There was nothing to hint that the town of Embresca lay not far to the west. It lay hidden behind hills cloaked in green and brown. But he still worried that some fool friend of the unlucky Pensy might decide to do some daytime hunting on his own rather than leaving local nature to take its course. Though the chances of spotting a fugitive in the high grass were slim, Jachal decided not to take any chances. He had to get farther from town.

  He breakfasted on some of the concentrated rations he'd managed to gather before taking flight, then strode down from the rocks into the grass, heading east. There were many small streams meandering lazily through the vegetation, and he didn't lack for water.

  Occasionally he would dip down into a little valley, and the grasses would grudgingly give way to shelf and stool fungi of equal size. A ten foot mushroom would nicely supplement his diet if he could decide which ones were edible and which toxic.

  It would be a cold, raw diet he'd have to survive on, he knew. Only in the rare safety of such spots as his cave of the night before could he risk a fire. It wasn't the possible sighting of any smoke that he feared. A grass fire on Dakokraine was something any sensible person hoped never to come within reach of.

  He heard many animals but saw few. Insects in profusion swarmed through the Veldt, feeding on the endless supply of tree tall grass, nibbling at the bases, munching on roots as thick as his arm while aerating the soil. None of them bothered the solitary human. His concern was for the carnivores that skulked through the grassy forest in search of those who fed upon it.