Moreau’s Other Island. Brian Aldiss

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СКАЧАТЬ daily dosage of sun, with the Pacific waiting as always on the horizon, a vat of energy. In the untidy courtyard, a bird swooped. All else was motionless. The Moon had set below my psychic horizon. I returned to the bed and sat down.

      A while later Bella slunk into the room.

      ‘You – are better?’ she asked.

      I beckoned her closer. She stayed where she was, one hand on the door. Scrutinizing her, I reassembled the mixed feelings I had towards her during my fever. She wore an ankle-length drab gold dress. It was torn. The tear, and her general demeanour, conveyed an impression of wretchedness; yet there was in her regard, in her hunched shoulder, a defiance which I admired. By the same token she was ugly enough, yet there was an animality about her which had made some kind of appeal to my more carnal instincts.

      ‘I appreciate your attentions to me while I was sick, Bella,’ I said. ‘Now I have to work. Where’s your shower? I sure can use a shower.’

      ‘The Master wish to speak to you.’ Maybe she understood, maybe not.

      She led me down a short corridor and into another room. Music was playing – Haydn again. I had expected to see the Master towering over me, but he was not there. It was quite a pleasant room, but almost bare of furniture. There was a long window which gave a view over the top of the palisade – almost a seductive view, you might say, if it were not for the sinister nature of the surroundings.

      I could see part of a placid lagoon, where the water was almost turquoise and sheltered from the blue Pacific beyond by a spine of land which almost enclosed it. On the curve of the lagoon was a harbour, with a battered landing stage and a boat moored to it. Tall palms leaned across to the water, overshadowing some huts. Behind them was jungle, climbing up a slope, the top of which was lost behind the building in which I stood.

      It was such a typical view that I wondered if I had seen it before, perhaps in some previous reincarnation. Then I recalled that this vista embodied one of the favourite early twentieth-century dreams of escape from civilization: the retreat in the South Seas where the steamer came from Europe once a month and the girls wore grass skirts. And I reflected, as I turned away to observe the Master’s room, that I had a great deal for which to be thankful. Like life itself.

      On one wall was a 3V screen: I was looking into a vast and ornate chamber, part perhaps of some German palace, in which an orchestra sat giving of their best to the soul of Joseph Haydn. I recognized the channel instantly as World Third; it beamed music out from Chicago for twenty-four hours every day and was available by satellite anywhere, even in this remote spot on the ocean. They could pick it up in Moon Base too. One of the good things that the war had not yet put a stop to.

      Then the Master’s voice cut in over the music, the orchestra dimmed, and he said, ‘I’m coming in to speak to you, Roberts. Are you prepared?’

      ‘Certainly. What now?’

      ‘You may be surprised.’

      ‘At that, a side door opened, and someone entered from the next room. Maastricht followed, but I scarcely noticed him.

      I was too busy looking at the person who had preceded him.

      It was the Master. I recognized the pallid face. He was about thirty-five years old. He was cut down to size since I last saw him swaggering along. He came rapidly forward in a mechanized wheelchair and halted in front of me. I backed away and sat down on a relaxer. He had no legs. A looseflowing garment covered his body.

      ‘This is where it’s at, Mr Roberts. Now you see me like this, we both know where we stand.’ He was full of old-fashioned slangy phrases from some decade back, and used this one without a hint of humour. ‘In any event, I can’t take prosthetic limbs for very long in this heat. Now, you and I are going to have a little talk while Bella brings you in something to eat.’

      Peeled out of his armour, and decked out in that looseflowing garment, the self-styled Master looked weak and female on first impression. But in the pallid face with its sheer cheeks and narrow pale mouth I saw a remorseless quality that would have to be taken into anyone’s account: either respected or circumvented.

      As he turned to say something to the Netherlander, who hovered by, I was busy estimating him.

      ‘Tough luck about your accident,’ I said, indicating the elaborate wheelchair. ‘How come you’re living on an island in the Pacific War Zone? You’re a Britisher, aren’t you, to judge by that accent of yours?’

      He regarded me unblinkingly.

      ‘It does so happen I was born in England. So what? I care no more for England than it ever cared for me. Damn England. I’m stateless – as simple as that. Follow me?’

      I let that go unanswered. Bella entered, wheeling a trolley which she set in front of me. The trolley held an assortment of alcoholic drinks which I ignored and some fresh lime juice which I drank avidly. The food was Korean, served straight from deep-freeze lunch trays and very palatable, especially to a man who had had nothing solid in his stomach for days.

      ‘Do you know something about construction works, Mr Roberts?’ Hans asked.

      ‘That’s not important,’ the Master told him. ‘Go away and let me speak to Roberts alone. Get back to the harbour. Why are you hanging about here, anyway?’

      ‘First you want me to paint signs, then you want me to work at the harbour—’

      ‘Hans, this is no funfair. There’s work to be done. Get down to that harbour when I tell you. You know the scum don’t work well without you.’

      ‘You think I care?’ Maastricht said, but he backed out all the same, casting black looks at the man in the chair.

      When we were alone, the Master said dismissively, ‘I try to run a tight little ship. Now then, Mr Calvert Roberts, we can have a talk, since you are here, however unwelcomely.’

      ‘Food’s good … after a week and more in an open boat, I tell you, a man is more than glad when Providence delivers him to terra firma, and to water, food and human company – however unfriendly.’

      ‘Nobody has ever thanked Providence for being on this rock before.’

      ‘Maybe they should have tried it … I want to discuss what you call this rock with you—’

      He shook his head. ‘I want to discuss you. Never mind what you want. First things first. I have my priorities.’

      ‘Look, friend, you come on pretty heavy. You haven’t even introduced yourself. You don’t own me, remember. I’m not addressing you as “Master” – what’s your name?’

      ‘“Master” is my name here.’

      ‘You’ll gain nothing by persisting in that attitude, I promise you. Your presence here, in the middle of a War Zone, is probably against military law, and carries severe penalties.’ I continued to eat while the orchestra continued to play and he wheeled himself fast about the room.

      He returned to swerve in front of me, confronting me, and said. ‘If you find it so damned important, my name was Dart. Mortimer Dart – though I’m now as nameless as I am stateless. As I am formless. There is no place for you on this island unless you submit to my authority.’

      ‘Why СКАЧАТЬ