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In front of the deckhouse door there remained only a jagged-edged piece of deck, just a few feet wide. Billy pulled himself up onto this and faced the doorless opening to the cabin, holding the concrete ready.
“Is anyone there?” he called softly. The circular openings that had once contained portholes threw beams of light into the interior, bright spots on the deck that made the surrounding darkness more intense. “Hello,” Billy called again, but there was only silence.
Reluctantly he advanced through the doorway and into the blackness of the room. No one struck at him this time. Nothing moved and he blinked his eyes, dimmed by the bright sunlight outside, at a dark shape, but it was only a pile of rubbish. There was another pile in the far corner, and he had to look at it twice before he realized that it was a man, squatting against the wall with his legs pulled up before him, looking intently at Billy.
“Put that thing down, the thing in your hand,” the man said in a hushed voice, almost a whisper. He reached out a long arm and clanged a twisted length of pipe against the decking. Billy stared at it wide-eyed, and his side ached. He dropped the concrete.
“That’s very wise,” the man said, “very wise.” He stood up jerkily, unfolding like a carpenter’s rule, a tall man with spiderlike arms, thin to the point of emaciation. When he walked into a beam of sunlight Billy saw that the skin was stretched tight across his cheekbones and almost hairless skull, while his lips were drawn back to reveal long yellow teeth. His eyes were round as a child’s and of such a watery blue that they seemed almost transparent. Not empty, but more like windows to look through — with nothing to be seen on the other side. And he kept staring at Billy, swinging the pipe slowly, saying nothing, his lips pulled away from his teeth in an expression that might have been a grin, but also might be something else, very different.
When Billy took a slow step back toward the doorway the end of the pipe twitched out and stopped him. “What do you want here?” the whisper asked.
“I don’t want anything, I’m going—”
“What do you want?”
“I was just looking for a place to lie down, I’m tired, I don’t want any trouble.”
“What is your name?” the voice whispered, the eyes never blinked or moved.
“Billy…” Why had he answered so fast! He bit his lip: why had he given his right name?
“Do you have anything to eat, Billy?”
He started to lie, then thought better of it. He reached inside his shirt. “Here, I got some weedcrackers. You want some? They’re a little broken.”
The pipe dropped to the deck and rolled away while the man stepped forward with both hands cupped before him, towering over Billy. “ ‘Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.’ Do you know where that comes from?” he asked.
“No — no, I don’t,” Billy said uneasily, dropping the crackers into the outstretched hands.
“I didn’t think you would,” the man complained, then sat down with his back to the wall at the same spot as before. He began to eat with a steady, automatic motion. “You’re a heathen, I imagine, a yellow heathen, though that doesn’t matter. It will to you as to the rest of His creatures. You wish to sleep, sleep. This place is large enough for two.”
“I can get out, you were here first.”
“You are afraid of me, aren’t you?” Billy turned away from the unchanging stare, and the man nodded. “You should not be, because we are coming very near the end of fear. Do you know what that means? Do you know the significance of this year, do you?”
Billy sat silent. He did not know what to answer. The man finished the last of the crumbs, wiped his hands on his filthy pants and sighed heavily. “You could not know. Go to sleep, there is nothing to worry about here. No one will come near to bother you, we have strict rules of property in our community. Usually it is only strangers, like you, who trespass, though the others will do it if they think it worthwhile. But they won’t come here, they know I have nothing for them to covet. You may sleep undisturbed.”
It seemed impossible to even consider sleeping, no matter how tired he felt, not with this strange man watching him. Billy lay against the wall in the far corner, eyes open and alert, wondering what he should do next. The man mumbled to himself and scratched at his ribs inside his thin shirt. A high-pitched hum whined in Billy’s ear and he slapped at the mosquito. Another bit him on the leg and he scratched the spot. There seemed to be an awful lot of mosquitoes here. What should he do? Should he try to leave?
With a sudden start he realized that he had been asleep and that the sun was low in the west, coming almost directly in through the open doorway. He sat up in a scramble and looked around, but the cabin was empty. His side ached terribly.
The clattering, metallic sound came again, and he realized that this was what had wakened him. It came from outside. He went as quietly as he could to the doorway and looked down. The man was climbing toward him, and the length of pipe he carried was scratching on the metal making the noise that had disturbed him. Billy shrank back as the man threw the pipe up ahead of him, then hauled himself over the edge and onto the strip of deck.
“The water points did not open today,” he said, and held out an ancient and dented paint can that he had brought up with him. “But I found a place where there was still water from the rain yesterday. Would you like some?” Billy nodded, aware suddenly of his dry throat, and took the extended can. It was filled halfway with clear water through which the caked green paint could be seen. The water was very sweet. “Take more,” the man said. “I drank my fill when I was there.”
“What is your name?” he asked as he took the can back.
Was it a trap? This man must remember his name, he didn’t dare give him a different one. “Billy,” he said.
“You may call me Peter. You can stay here if you like.” He went inside with the can and seemed to have forgotten the piece of pipe. Billy looked at it suspiciously, not sure of his ground.
“You left your pipe here,” he called out.
“Bring it, if you please. I shouldn’t leave it lying around. Just put it there,” he said when Billy brought it in. “I think I have another piece like that around here someplace, you can take it with you when you leave these quarters. Some of our neighbors can be dangerous.”
“The guards?”
“No, they are of no importance. Their work is a sinecure, and they have no more wish to bother us than we have to bother them. As long as they do not see us we are not here, so just stay away from them. You’ll find that they don’t look very hard, they can collect their money without putting themselves in any danger — so why should they? Sensible men. Anything worth stealing or removing vanished years ago. The guards remain only because no one has ever decided what to do with this place and the easiest solution is just to forget about it. They are living symbols of the state of decay of our culture, just as this wasteland is a vastly more important symbol, that is why I am here.” He laced his hands about his shins and leaned forward, resting his bony chin on his knees. “Do you know how many entrances there are to this place?” Billy shook his head no, wondering what Peter was talking about.
“Then I will tell you. There are eight — and only one is unlocked and in use by the guards. The others are closed and sealed, seven seals. Does that mean something to you? Seven seals? No, I can see it does not. But there are other signs, some hidden, some clear for any eye to see. And more will come and be revealed to us one by one. Some have been written for centuries, such as the great harlot named Babylon which never was Rome as many falsely believed. Do you know the name of the city out there?”