The Iron Thorn by Algis Budrys

Author:Algis Budrys [Budrys, Algis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780575108394
Google: zmTPJiBpF7sC
Amazon: B0069X7QLS
Publisher: Orion
Published: 1980-01-15T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

I

It was hot up at the top of the ladder, with Ahmuls humming happily a few rungs below him. Jackson ran his hands over the door again, and again found that it was exactly like any other door except that it didn't have a handle and it talked. He had gotten used to the growling. There were those scratches around the edges, where various hands before him had tried to pry. One or two of the scratches actually went maybe a fingernail-thickness deeper than the surface. The Eld had told him they were places where everybody sooner or later came to scratching in old scratches, trying to just plain wear through. The Eld's best estimate was that the deepest scratch had taken about a dozen men, working day and night, for maybe two weeks apiece.

And it was as thick as a fingernail. The doors in the Thorn were as thick as two arms. But it was possible, Jackson thought, that a week or ten days from now he might start telling himself maybe this door wasn't that thick—maybe it was only a finger thick. Probably the last two or three days he could hang on up there, he'd be telling himself he'd wear through any minute now.

The door was easy to get mad at. It was just another oval seam in the metal. A sensible man with other things to do would tell himself inside of an hour that it wasn't a door—it was some kind of fake wrinkle in the metal. He could climb back down the ladder and never try again. There wasn't even anyplace for the voice to come out. It was the first time Jackson had ever met anything that could talk but didn't have a mouth.

He put his ear up to the door, trying to hear the heartbeat he could feel through his fingertips, but when he did that, the voice went right through his head, and he couldn't hear anything but it. He leaned out as far as he dared and looked it up and down again, and then he said, "Hey, Ahmuls, let's go down."

"Down?"

"Down. Let's go down."

"You're stupid," Ahmuls said, but he moved obligingly down, one rung at a time, making sure Jackson came with him. The instructing Amsir, who'd been keeping a sharp eye on this public tooling, came hurrying up to them. "What's wrong?"

Ahmuls grinned and pointed at Jackson. "He came down. He's stupid."

"I've learned all I'm going to up there," Jackson said.

"Where else are you going to learn anything?"

"That's the real problem, I guess—answering that one. But I've learned everything I'm going to up there," Jackson said, and walked toward the Thorn.

"Don't you leave me!" Ahmuls cried, taking Jackson's good arm.

"It's all right, Ahmuls dear," the instructing Amsir said hastily. "You wait here—I'll bring him back. He'll be with me."

"All right. But you bring him back," Ahmuls said dubiously.

"What are you going to do?" the instructing Amsir said, rustling along beside Jackson, his eyes glittering with intense curiosity.

"Study doors," Jackson said.

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