Inverted World (New York Review Books Classics) by Christopher Priest

Author:Christopher Priest [Priest, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781590177051
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2012-12-12T05:00:00+00:00

7

IN THE MORNING Helward saw that the girls had changed even further during the course of the night. He estimated now that none of them stood more than five feet high, they talked more quickly than before, and the pitch of their voices was higher.

None of them could get into the clothes. Lucia tried, but could not get her legs into the trousers, and split the sleeves of her shirt. When they left the camp, the girls’ clothes were left too, and they continued on their way naked.

Helward could not take his eyes off them. Every hour that passed seemed to reveal a more obvious change in them. Their legs were now so short that they could only take small steps, and he was forced to dawdle so that he would not leave them behind. In addition, he noticed that as they walked their posture was becoming more and more at an angle, so that they appeared to be leaning backwards.

They too were watching him, and when they stopped for water there was an uncanny silence as the strange group passed the canteen from one to the other.

Around them there were outward signs of an inexplicable change in the scenery. The remains of the left outer track, which they still followed, were now indistinct. The last clear impression Helward had seen of one of the sleeper-pits had been more than forty feet in length, and less than an inch in depth. The next set of tracks, the left inner, could not be seen; gradually the strip between the two had widened until it was over to the east by half a mile or more.

The incidence of stay-emplacements had increased. Already that morning they had passed twelve, and by Helward’s calculations there were only nine more to go.

But how would he recognize the girls’ settlement? The natural scenery of the area was flat and uniform. Where they were resting was like the hardened residue of a lava flow: there was no shade or shelter to be seen. He looked more closely at the ground. If he moved his fingers through it firmly he could still make shallow indentations in the soil, but although it was loose and sandy soil it felt thick and viscous to the touch.

The girls were now no more than three feet tall, and their bodies had distorted even further. Their feet were flat and wide, their legs broad and short, their torsos round and compressed. In this perception of them they became grotesquely ugly, and he found that in spite of his fascination with the physical changes coming over them the sound of their twittering voices was irritating him.

Only the baby had not changed. It was still, as far as Helward could see, much as it had always been. But in relation to its mother it was now disproportionately large, and the squat figure that was Rosario was regarding it with a kind of unspoken horror.

The baby was of the city.

Just as Helward himself had been born of a woman from outside, so was Rosario’s baby a child of the city.

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