The Book of Strange New Things(22)

His denim jacket was growing heavy with moisture and his flannel shirt was swollen with perspiration. His jeans made a comical whooping noise as he walked, rough wet cotton rubbing against itself. The waistband was starting to chafe against his hips; a rivulet of sweat ran into the cleft of his arse. He stopped to hitch up his trousers and to wipe his face. He pressed his fingertips to his ears, to clear them of a sibilant undertone he’d been attributing to his sinuses. But the noise was not from within. The atmosphere was full of rustling. Worldless whispering, the sound of agitated leaves, except that there was no vegetation anywhere to be seen. It was as though the air currents, so similar to water currents, could not move silently, but must churn and hiss like ocean waves.

He was sure he’d adjust, in time. It would be like living near a railway line, or, indeed, near the ocean. After a while you wouldn’t hear it anymore.

He walked further, resisting an impulse to remove his clothes and toss them on the ground for retrieval on his return. The tarmac showed no sign of ending. What could USIC possibly want with all this blank bitumen? Maybe there were plans to extend the accommodation wings, or build squash courts, or a shopping mall. Oasis was tipped, in ‘the very near future’, to become a ‘thriving community’. By which USIC meant a thriving community of foreign settlers, of course. This world’s indigenous inhabitants, thriving or otherwise, were scarcely mentioned in USIC’s literature, except for fastidious assurances that nothing was planned or implemented without their full and informed consent. USIC was ‘in partnership’ with the citizens of Oasis – whoever they might be.

Peter was certainly very much looking forward to meeting them. They were, after all, the whole reason he had come.

From one of his jacket pockets, he extracted a compact camera. He’d been warned by the preparatory literature that it was ‘not practicable’ to use a camera on Oasis, but he’d brought one anyway. ‘Not practicable’ – what did that mean? Was it a veiled threat? Might his camera get impounded by authorities of some sort? Well, he would cross that bridge when he came to it. Right now, he wanted to take some pictures. For Bea. When he returned to her, any photo he’d bothered to snap would be worth a thousand words. He raised the gadget and captured the eerie tarmac, the lonely buildings, the glow of light from the cafeteria. He even tried to capture the aquamarine sky, but a quick inspection of the stored image confirmed it was a rectangle of pure black.

He pocketed the camera and walked on. How long had he been walking? His watch was not the illuminated digital kind; it was an old-fashioned one with hands, a gift from his father. He held it close to his face, trying to angle it so that it caught the light from the nearest lamp. But the nearest lamp was at least a hundred metres away.

Something glittered on his forearm, near the wristwatch band. Something alive. A mosquito? No, it was too big for that. A dragonfly, or some creature resembling a dragonfly. A tiny, trembling matchstick body shrouded in translucent wings. Peter wiggled his wrist, and the creature fell off. Or maybe it jumped, or flew, or got sucked into the swirling atmosphere. Whatever: it was gone.

He suddenly became aware that the whispering of the air was supplemented by a new noise, a mechanical whir, behind him. A vehicle cruised into view. It was steely-grey and bullet-shaped, with large wheels and thick vulcanised tyres designed for rough terrain. The driver was difficult to make out through the tinted windscreen, but was humanoid in shape. The car slowed and came to a halt right next to him, its metal flank only a few inches from where he stood. Its headlights pierced the darkness he’d been heading for, revealing a wire-mesh perimeter fence that he would have reached in another minute or two of walking.

‘Howdy.’

A female voice, with an American accent.

‘Hi,’ he replied.

‘Let me give you a ride back.’

It was the USIC woman who’d met him upon his arrival, the one who’d escorted him to his quarters and told him she was available if he needed anything. She opened the passenger door for him and waited, piano-playing her fingers on the steering wheel.

‘I’d been hoping to walk a little further, actually,’ said Peter. ‘Maybe meet some of the local . . . uh . . . people.’

‘We’ll do that after sunrise,’ the woman said. ‘The settlement is about fifty miles away. You’ll need a vehicle. Do you drive?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. Have you discussed requisition of a vehicle?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘You don’t think so?’

‘Uh . . . my wife handled most of the practicalities with USIC. I don’t know if they covered that.’

There was a pause, then a good-natured laugh. ‘Please get in, or the air conditioning will get all messed up.’

He swung into the car and closed the door. The air was dry and cool, and immediately made him aware that he was drenched to the skin. His feet, relieved of the weight of his body, made a sucking sound inside his socks.

The woman was dressed in a white smock, thin white cotton slacks and a taupe headscarf that hung loose over her chest. Her face was bare of makeup, and she had a puckered scar on her forehead, just under the hairline. Her hair, a lustreless brown, was very short and she might have passed for a young male soldier were it not for her soft dark eyebrows, tiny ears and pretty mouth.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Peter. ‘I’ve forgotten your name. I was very tired . . . ’