It was nothing really, nothing at all, and yet it disturbed him. Chendis, a Stellar Aristocrat, had met the members of many subject races during his long life, but never before had he met one with the expression this man of Earth had in his eyes.
Contempt.
He wondered why.
EMERGENCY EXIT, by E. C. Tubb
It came like a gentle benison from heaven upon the place beneath, a soft yet steady downpour, drumming with a thousand fingers on the shattered rubble above and seeping through cracked brick and moldy plaster, splintered beams and twisted steel as it sought the soft, rich loam far below the mountains of man-made debris.
Ron Prentice liked the sound of the rain. He liked it even when it wet his tattered clothing and turned the inside of his shelter into a streaming, wet-walled cavern. He liked to lie on the heap of rotting sacks and salvaged paper which served as a bed and listen to it and, in imagination, he thought of it washing away the dirt and destruction littering the face of the earth and restoring it to its primeval beauty.
It never did, of course. It would take more than rain to sweep aside the jumble of geared concrete and war-tom brick. That would take time, eons of passing years, the heat of summer and the freezing chill of winter. It would take wind and blown soil, humus and wind-borne seeds. It might take a thousand years, more than that, and sometimes, in idle imagery, Ron wished that he could live so long.
He wouldn’t, of course, and he knew it, but dreams were cheap and there was little else to do but dream. And so he lay, staring at the trickling water until the dim light filtering through a dozen crevasses faded and died into the soft velvet of night then, painfully, he rose.
The pains weren’t so bad tonight. Not as they had been three nights ago when he hadn’t eaten for a week, and not as bad as they had been two nights ago when he had gorged his stomach full, but they were there, with him as his breath was with him, as his skin, as the hair on his head and the fingers on his hands. He lived with pain, slept with it, ate with it. He had long forgotten what it was to be without pain. Sometimes, when they were too bad, he would rise from his apology of a bed and stride about his scooped-out cave in the mountain of rubble, biting his wrists and slamming his hands against the jagged stone. Sometimes he would curse himself and all those before him and once, but only once, he had actually left his cave and wandered for hours in the cold light of a winter’s day. But that had only happened once, when the pains were more than he could bear, and he had been very lucky then.
He had not done it again.
Now he waited, mastering his impatience as he had done a thousand times before, adjusting his clothing and making certain that his weapons were to hand. There were two of them. A long, razor-edged, needle-pointed knife and a short, lead-weighted club. One day perhaps he would get a gun, eyen one of the air pistols would be valuable, but until then he had to make do with what he had.
After a while, when he was sure that the cloak of night was tightly drawn about the world, he wriggled his way out into the open air.
It was still raining, the water splashing as it rebounded from the twisting lane of cracked cement writhing between the heaped rubble, and the sound of it as it trickled in a hundred streams from the torn ruins mingled with the splashing and filled the night with the hint of fairy bells and elfin chiming. He was glad of the sound for rain meant that the streets would be almost deserted and there would be few eyes to mark his passage and follow his trail. Moving with silent caution, a shadow among shadows, he made his way towards the center of the city.
Lights blazed there, smoking animal-fat lamps suspended from high poles, and the streets were clear of rubble. Houses lined the streets, the lower floors of once tall buildings, their shattered tops looking like a row of splintered teeth and candle light and lamp light shone from their papered’ windows. A few shops were still open, glassless windows displayed salvaged clothing, weapons, some of the rare cans of food, articles of metal and plastic, coils of wire and even some country produce, potatoes, greens, dried meat and shapeless mounds of butter and cheese.
Between the shops and houses, light spilling from their oiled paper windows and doors, were the taverns and gambling houses. As usual they were crowded with men and women, hard-faced and hard-eyed, dressed in an assortment of clothing and bearing an assortment of weapons. Noise spilled from them, laughter and ribald mirth, the razor-edged mirth that could change in a flash to snarling hate and savage violence, and from one tavern came the incredible sound of a mechanical jukebox playing scratched and discordant jazz.
A cart creaked down the street, a late arrival from the country districts, a dozen men straining at the shafts and a bearded carter cracking at naked backs with the thong of a rawhide whip. It rumbled towards the stables and the carter yelled savage anger as one of the haulers slipped and fell.
“Get up, you swine! Up I say!” The whip drew blood from a heaving back. “Get up or I’ll strip the skin from your back and feed you to the dogs!”
Painfully the man struggled to his feet and leaned against the ropes. Blood ruled from the gaping wounds on his scrawny back, washed by the rain into a pink film, and his bare feet left red tracks as they thrust at the broken stone.
Silently Ron watched, standing in the darkness until the cart had creaked its slow passage down the narrow street. As usual he felt afraid. But as usual the pains fought against his fear with the agony of grim necessity, and he knew that there could be no running back, no hiding in his hidden place, no escape from reality. He had to go on.
Avoiding the brightly-lit main street he slipped through the shadows and walked cautiously down the less frequented areas. There were lights here too, smoking torches sizzling in the rain, but fewer, the patches of shadow deeper and more frequent. He did not avoid the lighted areas, to do that would be dangerous, but he strode through them with a kind of defiance, feeling the tug of fear at the nape of his neck and glad when darkness closed around him again. He halted with trained abruptness as his foot struck against something soft and yielding.
“Mister,” the beggar stared up at him in the dimness, “give me the price of a bed, will you?”
Ron said nothing, but his eyes flickered as he stared down the street.
“I’m an old man,” whined the beggar. “Ill, starving, and this rain’s killing me.” He licked his lips and his claw-like hand trembled as he thrust it, palm upwards, towards the tall man. “Just a coin or two, a crust of bread even, anything.”
“Why don’t you sleep in the ruins?”
“Are you crazy?” The beggar almost forgot to whine. “Out there? Among them?” He shuddered. “Not on your life. I’m human and I stay where I belong.” His hand trembled again. “Give me something, mister. Anything! A coin, the price of a drink. I’m starving.”
“Are you alone?” He knew the answer even as he asked the question. Beggars were never alone. They huddled in groups, in droves, each within ear and eyeshot of each other, hunched together for a meager warmth and mutual protection, gaining some degree of comfort from misery shared. Of all people the beggars were at once the most miserable and the most safe. With nothing to lose they had no fear of being robbed. With a common misery shared they had no fear of loneliness. They were the herd, protected by their; sheer poverty and numbers. It had been a mistake to ask the question.
“Alone?” Surprise and swift suspicion echoed in the whining tones. “Why?”
“Nothing, forget it.”
“Yeah? What you after?” The hunched figure stirred as the man rose to his feet and his breath was a noisome miasma as he stared at the tall man. “Say! Are you—”