World in Torment by E. C. Tubb

Author:E. C. Tubb [Tubb, E. C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780575107281
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2014-01-30T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

The farm

SAND, and rain, and the lash of a bitingly cold wind. Don groaned, his limbs still automatically moving in swimming motions. He clenched his hands, feeling the harsh rub of gritty sand, and shivered as the rain-loaded winds lashed at his almost naked body.

Wearily he raised his head and stared about him, half remembering his last few minutes in the hungry sea. There had been waves, waves which had picked him up and thrown him hard against the rock and sand of a beach. He had crawled weakly away from the surf that had reached for him with salty wet fingers, crawled, and then collapsed with utter exhaustion. Now, beneath the spur of the chilly wind, he looked about him.

He rested on the slope of a sheltered cove. Low cliffs reared above him, their pale faces white in the glimmering starlight. The sea twinkled and muttered behind him, and he shuddered, remembering Felling. Numbly he climbed to his feet, biting his lips against the searing agony of returning sensation. For a while he stamped and moved in little jerks, slapping warmth into frozen flesh and movement into his sluggish circulation.

What could he do now?

Felling had given him a name, and a number to call. A video number at Central City, but first must come clothes, food, warmth, transportation to Central City, money for the video call, a dozen things, and he was frozen, almost naked and without the slightest idea of where he was.

The cliffs were of chalk, not high, but steep enough to make progress difficult. He left red stains as he climbed, blood from his lacerated hands and feet, but he was too cold to feel the pain. Grass replaced the chalk. Thin stringy grass, reed-like and sparse, growing with stubborn defiance on the sand at the edge of the cliffs. A bird rose with a whirr of wings as he stumbled over the low dunes, and a gull screamed in sleepy irritation.

It was dark, and cold, and the damp wind hissed between the dim shapes of twisted shrubs and rolling dunes. Sand lashed at him, the fine grains carried on the wind and scouring tender flesh with little stinging whips. Grimly he forced dead feet to carry him through the enveloping night, stumbling, staggering, half delirious with pain and exhaustion.

Slowly the moon rose above the murmuring sea.

A huddle of low buildings lay at the edge of a narrow road, lightless, seemingly deserted, the outbuildings of a farm. Don paused, restraining an impulse to hammer on the door and beg for help. Instead he crept cautiously up to the back of a house, and grinned a little as he saw the empty ghosts of clothing strung on a line. A dog barked, barked again with sudden swift urgency. A window banged| and á man’s voice, tired and irritable, sounded hollowly in the yard.

“Digger. What is it boy? What is it?”

Don froze, pressing his body deep into a patch of shade. The dog barked again, lunging with a clash of metal against the restraining chain around his throat.

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