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nervously under their forage caps. A thick cloacal stench exuded from the silt
flat, a corona of a million insects pulsing and humming hungrily above it, and
a sudden spasm of nausea knotted Kerans' gullet, for a moment dizzying him.
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Pressing a wrist tightly to his forehead, he leaned back against a pillar,
listening to the echoes reverberate around him. Four hundred yards away two
white-faced clock towers protruded through the vegetation, like the temple
spires of some lost jungle religion, and the sounds of his name--
"_Kerans_ . . . _Kerans_ . . . _Kerans_"-- reflected off them seemed to Kerans
to toll with an intense premonition of terror and disaster, the meaningless
orientation of the clock hands identifying him, more completely than anything
he bad previously experienced, with all the confused and minatory spectres
that cast their shadows more and more darkly through his mind, the
myriad-handed mandala of cosmic time.
His name still echoed faintly in his ears as they began their search of the
building. He took up his position at the stairwell at the centre of each
corridor while ffiggs and Macready inspected the apartments, keeping a
look-out as they climbed the floors. The building had been gutted. All the
floorboards had rotted or been ripped out, and they moved slowly along the
tiled inlays, stepping warily from one concrete tie-beam to another. Most of
the plaster had slipped from the walls and lay in grey heaps along the
skirting boards. Wherever sunlight filtered through, the bare lathes were
intertwined with creeper and wire-moss, and the original fabric of the
building seemed solely supported by the profusion of vegetation ramifying
through every room and corridor.
Through the cracks in the floors rose the stench of the greasy water swirling
through the windows below. Disturbed for the first time in many years, the
bats which hung from the tilting picture rails flew frantically for the
windows, dispersing with cries of pain in the brilliant sunlight. Lizards
scuttered and darted through the floor cracks, or skated desperately around
the dry baths in the bathrooms.
Exacerbated by the heat, Riggs' impatience mounted as they climbed the floors
and had covered all but the top two without Success.
"Well, where is he?" Riggs rested against the stair-rail, gesturing for quiet,
and listened to the silent building, breathing tightly through his teeth.
'We'll stand easy for five minutes, Sergeant. Now's the time for caution. He's
somewhere around here."
Macready slung his Thompson over his shoulder and climbed to the fan light on
the next landing which let in a thin breeze. Kerans leaned against the wall,
the sweat pouring across his back and chest, temples thudding from the
exertion of mounting the stairs. It was 11-30, and the temperature outside was
well over 120 degrees. He looked down at Riggs' flushed pink face, admiring
the Colonel's self-discipline and single-mindedness.
"Don't look so condescending, Robert. I know I'm sweating like a pig, but I
haven't had as much rest as you lately."
The two men exchanged glances, each aware of the conflict of attitude towards
Hardman, and
Kerans, in an effort to resolve the rivalry between them, said quietly:
"You'll probably catch him now, ColoneL"
Searching for somewhere to sit, be walked off down the corridor and pushed
back the door into the first apartment.
As he unlatched the door the frame collapsed weakly into a litter of
worm-eaten dust and timbers, and he stepped across it to the wide french
windows over-looking the balcony. A little air funnelled through, and Kerans
let it play over his face and chest, surveying the jungle below.
file:///F|/rah/J.%20G.%20Ballard/Ballard,%20J...0-%20Book%201%20-%20The%20Drow
ned%20World.txt (23 of 69) [2/4/03 10:34:14 PM]
file:///F|/rah/J.%20G.%20Ballard/Ballard,%20J%20G%20-%20Book%201%20-%20The%20D
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The promontory on which the crescent of apartment houses stood had at one time
been a small hill, and a number of the buildings visible beneath the
vegetation on the other side of the silt flat were still above the
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flood-waters. Kerans stared at the two clock towers jutting up like white
obelisks above the fern fronds. The yellow air of the noon high seemed to
press down like a giant translucent counterpane on the leafy spread, a
thousand motes of light spitting like diamonds whenever a bough moved and
deflected the sun's rays. The obscured outline of a classical portico and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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