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diff --git a/29832.txt b/29832.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..307bf35 --- /dev/null +++ b/29832.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1031 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Second Sight, by Basil Eugene Wells + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Second Sight + +Author: Basil Eugene Wells + +Release Date: August 28, 2009 [EBook #29832] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SECOND SIGHT *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + _Basil Wells, who lives in Pennsylvania, writes that he has been + doing research concerning the keelboat age prior to and following + the War of 1812 on the "locally famous section of + portage-keelboat-rafting stream from Waterford down to Pittsburgh," + turning from this to this grimmer future._ + + + second + sight + + _by BASIL WELLS_ + + + Then his hand caught an arm and he + exerted his full strength. The entire + arm tore away from its shoulder.... + + +His fingers moved over the modest packet of bills the invisible +rockhound had handed to him. He smiled through the eternal night that +was his own personal hell. Duggan's Hades. + +"Thanks, Pete," he said gratefully. "Here, have a box of Conmos." + +His sensitized fingers found the cigars, handed over a box, and he heard +the nervous scuff of the other's shoes. + +"This eight thousand means I can see again--for a while at least. Take +'em! It's little enough." + +"Look, Duggan. I get eight hundred for selling you the ticket on the +breakthrough time. Keep the cigars. You need the dough." + +Feet pounded, thumping into swift inaudibility along the 10th Level's +yielding walkway. His fingers caressed the crisp notes that his lucky +guess on the 80th Level's tunnel juncture had won for him, plus the ten +dollars, that this meager business could ill afford, it had cost to join +the rockhounds' pool.... + +But now he was free. His own man. He was released from the calculated +economies of his wife. Janith knew to within a few dollars what his +newsstand on the 10th Level should make. He had never been able to save +the necessary thousand dollar deposit, and ten dollars an hour, that a +rented super mech cost. And she would never listen to his pleas that he +must see again--if only for an hour.... + +"Waste ten or twenty dollars for nothing," she would storm. "We have all +your hospital bills to pay. I need new clothes. Your stock in the stands +is too small." + +What she left unspoken was the fact that she must secretly have hated +his engineering career in the deep levels under Appalachia, and that she +was dedicated to preventing his possible return.... + +After three years of blindness, under his wife's firm dominance, Duggan +felt only hate for her. With this sudden fortune he could be +independent. He could divorce her. He could rent a super mech--even +return to work in the ever-deepening levels of Appalachia City! + +First of all he must see again. + +He closed up the news-and-cigar stand. With his cane's sensitive radar +button pulsating beneath his fingers he hurried along the walkway toward +the nearest super mech showroom. It was less than three blocks.... + + * * * * * + +"Be sure that all the contacts are against the skull and neck," the +salesman was saying, his voice muffled by the mentrol hood covering +Duggan's head and shoulders. + +"Of course." Duggan's impatience made his voice shrill. "I've used +mentrols before when inspecting cave-ins and such." + +"Very well, sir." The man's voice was relieved. Probably he hated his +job as much as Duggan hated his cigars and news. + +Duggan tripped the switches and heard the building hum of power. An odd +sort of vibration that his mind told him was purely emotional, seemed to +be permeating his whole body. + +Abruptly the transition was complete. He was no longer lying on the +padded bench beneath the mentrol hood. He was standing erect, conscious +of the retaining clamps that held him upright. + +He gulped a deep draught of air into the artificial lungs that did not +need oxygen and his mechanical pulse quickened. + +His eyes slitted open, drinking in by degrees the mirrored mentrol booth +and the pallid, fat, little man sitting beside his hooded body. He +stepped out of the clamps, his sharpened senses aware of softness, and +hardness, and scent, and color that human weakness so often blurs. + +This super mech that was linked directly with his brain by twin mentrols +was tall, chunky and gray of eye and hair. In a general way it was a +duplicate of his own body, but there was no facial resemblance. + +"How do you like it, sir?" The fat smile was empty, almost apologetic. +"We have younger, more handsome models...." + +"Well enough." Duggan started donning the clothing that he had removed. +"I'll want the mech for five, possibly ten, hours." + +"I'll make out the slip for ten hours, sir. We'll refund any balance due +you. But after ten hours ..." + +"I know. You must report the mech missing. But with my body here you +can't lose." + +The salesman smiled enigmatically. "We _have_," he said. + +Duggan shrugged. He was impatient to be outside, feasting his starved +vision on the stores and parks of the various upper levels. He might +even take a lift to the Outside. It had been fifteen years ago, while +their youngest son was a baby, that they had taken a weekend motor trip +to the great scar that had been Manhattan. He remembered the vastness +and the rawness of the uncontrolled atmosphere. It had been beautiful +but also a bit terrifying. It was a ten years delayed honeymoon.... + +And now Merle was in the rocket corps and Janith and he were like +strangers. + +Duggan zippered shut his gray-checked jacket and left the booth. He +walked slowly, savoring every picture of the crowded passenger strips +beyond the walkway, and of the fairy spans of moving walkways crossing +the travel strips. The soft glow of the level's ceiling, fifty feet +above, illuminated the double rows of apartment and store fronts. + +It was good to see again. + +Every twelfth section of the level was a park. The greenery was fresher +and brighter than he remembered; the tree boles and the branches were +marvels of grace and strength. He strolled along the paths, impatient to +be moving on, but aching with the emerald beauty around him.... + +He took the lifts to the upper levels. He rode the swiftest walkways and +travel strips, his eyes drinking in the long-hidden sights. From an +observation dome he looked out over the wooded mountain slopes of +Outside, and saw the telltale ridging of rock and earth that marked the +scores of hidden vehicular tubes linking Appalachia with its sister +cities of Ondack and Smoky. + +His five hours stretched into seven, and then, eight. Slowly a +determination to keep these eyes, at whatever cost, was building within +him. Always before he had agreed when Janith decided. He had been so +dependent on her those first terrible weeks. But now, with this money +from the breakthrough pool, he could rent a super mech--live as a man +should live! + + * * * * * + +Duggan left the employment booth on the 20th Level, a badge on his +jacket and a half-grin on his full super mech's lips. + +On the records he was now Al Duggan, a second cousin from Montana. He +knew that nothing in the world could bring Al further east than Ozarka. +Just to be safe, however, he decided to drop Al a line to explain. + +As far as his wife was concerned Merle Duggan was gone. Dead and buried. +She could get a divorce if she wanted and marry that podgy, pink-skulled +boss of hers at the advertising agency.... + +"Five hundred a month," Duggan told himself. "Two-fifty for the rental, +fifty for insurance--maybe fifty or so for spare parts--that leaves +about a hundred and fifty for me." + +He was starting at the bottom as a rock hog, a mucker, a clean-up man in +the newly opened 80th Level. And his wages were the minimum union scale. + +He took the lift down to the 79th Level, flashed his new badge at the +guards, and took the gritty freight lift to the lowest level of the +sprawling metropolis.... + +"You Gaines Short?" he asked the lanky man bent over the littered desk +in the rough plastic bubble that served as an office. + +Sharp black eyes studied him--noted the bright new olive badge, and the +creased, obviously new, coveralls. + +"You're the new rock hog?" + +"Yes, sir. Al Duggan." + +"Any experience?" + +"Montana--mining. Had some engineering. Worked in Ozarka on tunnels." + +The lank man nodded, expressionless. + +"You'll hog for a while. Later we'll see.... Any relation to the Duggan +we lost a couple of years back?" + +"We're cousins." + +"Tough he couldn't see his way clear to try again." Short's lips +thinned. "He may snap out of it yet.... We could use a few more like +him." + +"I--I'll talk with him," promised Duggan. + +He fought back the words that wanted to pour out. Whether it was a +strange sense of loyalty to his wife, or a stubborn sort of pride, he +could not bring himself to speak ill of her. + +"A super mech is not so bad, Duggan." Short flexed a skinny arm. "I've +worn this one since a rock slide crushed my back." + +"Yes, sir," Duggan agreed. + +Short scribbled on a form, handed it to Duggan. + +"Take this down to Ted Rusche, he's the short, dark fellow bossing the +rock hogs. He'll see you're issued your tools." + +Duggan nodded and turned away. + + * * * * * + +In the super mech hostel, on the 79th Level, Duggan shared a compartment +of six sleeping and mentrol plates. All of the others were rockhounds, +and three of them worked in his own clean-up gang. His immediate pusher, +Ted Rusche, was a legless, dark and hairy man, much like his working +super mech. Waide and Myham, the first tall and once-handsome, and the +latter, bony and scarred, were both paralytics. + +Duggan's share of the attendants' salary amounted to another fifty +dollars monthly. He was not growing too wealthy! + +"And how do you like it after three weeks, Al?" Rusche demanded from +where he balanced on the cushioned sleeping plate. + +Duggan stretched cramped limbs and turned his sightless face toward +Rusche's voice. + +"Seems good to be working again, Ted," he said. + +"This's your last day with us, Al. Orders from Short. He's transferring +you. Office work I guess, or maybe he's making you a foreman." + +Rusche's voice was curious. + +"He musta found out something about you, Al. S'funny but you look awful +familiar to me too. And you know more about tunnels than you let on. How +about leveling with a guy?" + +"Not now." Duggan was thinking of the other listening men. "After we've +cleaned-up and eaten. See you in the park outside the hostel." + +"Right." + +Duggan's thoughts were muddled. Fingerprints probably; at every super +mech hostel all guests were printed and taped, and possibly through his +similar name. Short must have been suspicious from the first. And if he +had come to the hostel to see Duggan's mentrol-hooded face, while Duggan +worked, his identification must have been sure. + +Short knew that he was Merle Duggan, and before too long Janith, and all +his friends--if he had any left now--would know he had been in hiding +here. + +He hurried to eat and get ready for another period under the mentrol's +hooded probes. + +Less than half an hour later he strode out of the hostel, his super mech +gleaming and clean and his jacket and shorts newly pressed. He met +Rusche in the park and they headed for the lift to the upper level. + +En route to the 10th Level he explained. + +"I thought you looked like somebody I should know." Rusche scrubbed at +his pseudo beard's coarseness. "Accident left you sort of psychoed, huh? +So you was scared of the levels? Had to try coming back with a false +name?" + +Duggan gulped. It made a believable sort of yarn. He hadn't taken time +to concoct a story.... Why not? + +"Something like that. I guess I was badly shook, Ted." + +"So now you go back to being engineer at a thousand or so, and I'm still +a rock hog." Rusche shrugged. "Less headaches anyhow." + +They stepped off the lift at the 10th Level and took the high speed +strip toward the business section. Duggan had it in his mind to see +Janith and tell her she had failed--that he was his own man again. She +would be at the office. He would tell her off, and leave. And then he'd +show Rusche some of the high spots of the low-number levels of +Appalachia. + +The darkness came about them swiftly. To Duggan it was like a return to +the nightmare of sightlessness. Under their feet the racing strip +faltered and stalled. They were thrown off their feet and sprawled on +the fiber-ribbed squares of the checkerboarded way's surface. + +"What is it?" demanded Rusche. + +He fought back the panic. This was not true blindness. + +"Criminals. They set off a few dozen 'midnight' bombs and try to rob +banks or stores. We get these attacks quite often." + +"Last long?" + +"Emergency ventilation will clear it out in a couple of minutes. And the +Squads will have them in half an hour. They never get very far." + +They sat close together, to wait. From the walkways and stalled strips +shrieks and frightened cries sounded. The sounds seemed to increase from +behind them. + +"This's my first time above the Twentieth Level," Rusche confided. +"Thirty-five years and I never saw the Outside. I don't think I like it +up this high." + +"It will be over in a little while, Ted. Probably just a group of +teen-agers looking for thrills." He laughed drily. "They'll end up with +blanked memories and new faces like those who tried before them." + +"Listen," muttered Rusche. + +In the lightlessness, and above the wailing of the terrified people +about them, they could hear the scuff of running feet. They were coming +closer at a swift pace. In a moment the runners would collide with them! + + * * * * * + +Duggan's years of blindness had given him the ability to judge and gauge +distance from sound. At the proper instant he pounced, his hands +clamping around a body, and a second body crashed into the leader. They +went down in a tangle. + +He heard Rusche shouting and fists battering and the tinkle of metal or +crystal on metal. He was fighting desperately, his super mech's strength +overtaxed. The unseen man's hands tore at his neck and shoulder, ripping +away the synthetic flesh and baring the complex framework beneath. + +Then his hand caught an arm and he exerted the full strength of his mech +power, until now carefully subdued. The entire arm tore away from its +shoulder. And yet the wounded man continued to attack. + +It was only then that he realized this must be a super mech. The +criminals must have stolen one or two super mechs and were using them in +this robbery. + +He was ruthless, then. He wrenched away the other arm. He battered at +the unseen torso. The feet of the desperate mech smashed at his knees +and thighs, staggering him. Then he bore the armless torso of the mech +backward and fell upon it. + +The mech went limp, its mentrols blanked by the distant criminal who +controlled it. + +Duggan came to his feet, listening for the sound of battle between +Rusche and his captive. It came from his right, faintly. About ten feet +distant, he judged it. And now the emergency vents were clearing the +darkness from the travel strips. Twilight faded and vision replaced it. + +Rusche was sitting astride a prone body, and even as Duggan reached his +side the struggling criminal's arms and legs went limp. Rusche grunted +and started to stand. + +"A super mech!" he said. He rubbed thoughtfully at his disarranged nose +and cheeks, smoothing them again into their normal contours. "What about +yours?" + +"The same." + +"Here's their loot, anyhow," Rusche said, holding up a small gray +plastine bag. + +"Drop it, Ted. We better fade out of here before the Squads arrive, too. +They might think we're--" + +"Not on your life, Al. We should get a reward. Pics on the newswires and +tapes." + +Duggan shrugged and smoothed at his own neck and face. Four +red-uniformed men, their heads hidden by ovoid gas helmets, came hissing +toward them along the travel strip. They rode single-wheeled cycles and +their rapid-fire expoders were trained on them. + +"Careful now, Ted. Let me do the talking. They like to use paralysis +needles and question later." + +"But--" + +"I've lived up here." + +The unicycles braked to a halt. + +"Step over here, slow," ordered one of the Squadmen. + +Duggan obeyed, careful to keep his arms rigid. Of course paralysis +needles would cause this mech body no damage, but why make trouble? They +_had_ more destructive weapons. + +"Ran into us," he said mildly. "We figured something wrong--honest men +would be standing where they were. We stopped them." + +The four members of the Squad were inspecting the damage. + +"I guess you did," one of them said, admiringly. "You must be super +mechs too?" + +"That's right. I'm Duggan, Al--Merle Duggan, and this is my friend, Ted +Rusche. We work on the 80th Level--rockhounds." + +"Duggan?" The man's voice was suddenly strained. "Maybe you're not so +clear as you pretend. A woman got in the way by accident, supposedly, of +their getaway from the bank. Her name was Duggan too." + +Duggan started forward, remembered the ugly expoder muzzles and backed +away. + +"Was her name Janith?" he demanded. + +"Radio report didn't say. Contact them, Joe," he told one of the other +faceless men. + +"Couldn't be you hired these two to kill her and pretend the robbery?" +he inquired. + +"Of course not." + +One of the Squad mumbled something. Duggan's interrogator dropped his +weapon's muzzle. + +"Woman twisted her ankle trying to get out of the way, and fell. +Received a cut on her temple and is being taken to the hospital. +Accidental all right." + +"But her name." + +"Janith." + +Duggan felt a strange mingling of anger and of tenderness. The anger was +directed toward the criminals. + +"Could I go to her now? Rusche can fill you in on details." + +"It's not--oh, all right. Regulations aren't too strict on these levels. +She your sister?" + +"Wife." He turned to Rusche. + +"See you at the lift in about an hour," he said and headed for the +advertising agency where Janith was employed. + + * * * * * + +"We haven't been informed as to her whereabouts yet, Mr. Duggan," the +receptionist at Duffey's offices said coldly. + +Duggan glared down into the carefully pretty face, the solar-lamp tan +and the knife-smoothed wrinkles. + +"Now see here, Blanche," he said, and spluttered impotently. + +"See here yourself, Merle Duggan," the woman spat back sharply. "After +all! You come running back just because she's hurt. Why didn't you come +back like this a year ago?" + +"I was with her a year ago." + +"That wasn't you. You didn't have guts enough to rent a super mech and +go back to your old job." The woman laughed. "Janith tried to insult and +needle you into being a man again. And you just crawled." + +"That's a lie," Duggan cried. "I begged her to let me go back. She +wouldn't listen." + +"That's what you say now. You don't want to remember. I know. I was here +all the time. Many a time Janith has come to the office, crying, and +told me how hopeless it seemed." + +"You're--you're inventing all this, Blanche," he accused. + +"I wish I were. Remember, Merle. Think. Be honest with yourself." +Blanche put her nervous, blue-veined hand on his arm. A detached part of +his brain noted how bony and brittle her hand was. + +"She's loved you all these years, Merle." The tiny hand dug into his +jacket sleeve. "To make you well again she risked losing your love--and +she lost." + +Blanche must be all of fifty, perhaps fifty-five, the analytical portion +of his mind noted. Old-maidish in many ways, despite her five +ex-husbands; yet so sentimental-- + +"It's all part of her scheme. Pretend to be the patient, long-suffering +wife and then secretly forbid me to go back to the deep levels again! +You don't know!" + +The woman's tired eyes sparkled green. Her little fist cracked against +his chest. She turned half away from him. + +"But I do know. I sat up with you many nights, while Janith got a few +hours of rest. You were like a baby, slobbering and whimpering in your +sleep. The days were worse. You were drunk and shouting and weeping. To +you blindness was the end." + +Merle gulped. He could remember nothing of the sort. Only the accident +and awakening in the hospital to darkness.... But there was a strange +blankness, a hiatus in his memories, that ended with his hated job in +the cigar stand. He could not recall his first day there or-- + +Could Blanche be telling the truth? + +"You--spiteful old hag!" he shouted at her, and rushed out of the +offices. + +His feet pounded at the yielding softness of the walkway. The hospital +was less than two blocks distant--no need to take a travel strip--and he +needed the automatic motion of walking to steady his thoughts. + +The forgotten months. Four months, or was it five months, ago, he was in +the cigar-and-news stand. That was the day when an old acquaintance from +the lower levels sold him the chance on the 80th Level's breakthrough. + +That night he had begged Janith to let him rent a super mech. And she +had scoffed at his wastefulness. Yet, now that he remembered it again, +there had been a wistful note of hope in her voice. + +Could she have been trying to fan his faint desire for sight into +something more powerful and consuming--so he would become again the +engineering Duggan he had been? + +He had surrendered then, as he did many times afterward. Sullenly, yes, +but he had surrendered. Perhaps she knew he was not ready for sight. +When he refused to obey her, when he insisted on hiring a super +mech--then, perhaps, she would know the cure was complete. + +But that was only theory. He remembered her clearly expressed hatred for +the mucking, lower-level life of a rockhound. Always his hatred for her +grew as she spoke of his work.... + +She had never expressed herself in that way before the accident. She had +gone with him on many exploratory trips into the caverns that the lower +levels of Appalachia cut across. And she had enjoyed the experience--he +was sure of that. + +Remember! Think back. Back before the cigars and papers. Back to the +days and months after the accident. It hurt to think. His temples, here +on the mentrol-hooded sleeping plate, were pounding irregularly.... + +Huddling in a bed, knees drawn up and head tucked in, trying to gain +somehow the safety that an infant once knew. Janith's voice, soft and +understanding, and the acid of panic that set his lips to mumbling +meaningless jargon.... + +Why had Janith not sent him to the medical centers for mental clearing +and re-education as was done with all cases of psychoed abnormals? The +answer was with him. She loved him as he was, Merle Duggan--not as a new +personality in her husband's body. + +Artificial amnesia automatically dissolves all marriage partnerships. +She had not wanted that. Instead she had three years of hell.... + +Striking out at emptiness, his fists contacting soft flesh, and the +pained cry, swiftly suppressed, of Janith. His voice, cursing and +high-pitched, as he fought the straps that now were restraining his +sightless body. The bite of a needle and gradual dissolution of +feeling.... + +Memory was coming reluctantly back to Duggan. This was not the +self-imagined visionings of an abused helpless man. These memories were +true. He had fought against all mental therapy and turned from those who +loved him. + +Now the hospital entrance was before him. He paused for a moment and +then went inside. The automatic hush of the door shutting out the muted +street sounds was all too familiar. + +"Mrs. Janith Duggan," he told the crisply white woman at the desk. + +"Room 212, second floor." + +"Thank you." + + * * * * * + +He used the steps in preference to the lift. He needed more time to +think--would he ever find enough time? + +Undoubtedly, now, Janith's love for him was dead. His desertion of her +must have finished the dissolution of their marriage. It had been +cowardly--he should have faced her and declared what he was going to do +and what she could do. + +These past weeks, working with the rock hogs, had been invaluable. They +had restored something of his self-esteem. + +The second floor. Pastel bare walls and soft voices. The odors. 208 and +opposite, 209. A wheelchair, propelled by a timidly smiling white-haired +woman. He nodded automatically. + +210. What could he say to her? That he was sorry she was hurt and that +he was such a fool? And then back to the super mech hostel and the five +other cripples who shared the room? + +212. The door ajar. A private room. He was glad of that. The headache +was more violent now--there was a bitter taste in his mouth as his super +mech entered the room. + +She was alone, looking tiny and helpless on the high bed. To him, after +three years, she was more beautiful than he remembered, even though the +pure whiteness of her once-graying hair startled him. + +"Janith," he said uncertainly. + +She turned her head, curiosity in her expression, and then understanding +came. There was no mistaking the warmth and welcome that came into her +eyes. She held out her arms. + +"Duggy," she commanded, "come here." + +And he knew then, without ever being told, that his revolt and flight +had all been part of the therapy, and Janith had known all the time +where he had been.... + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced from _Fantastic Universe_ September 1957. + Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. + copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and + typographical errors have been corrected without note. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Second Sight, by Basil Eugene Wells + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SECOND SIGHT *** + +***** This file should be named 29832.txt or 29832.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/8/3/29832/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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