An Island Called Moreau by Brian W. Aldiss Read Free Book Online Page B

pregnancy. When I was born, I had these severe abnormalities on which you now gaze with such pleasure.
    â€œIf the doctors had had any sense, they would never have let me live.”
    â€œBut you’ve survived …”
    â€œI’ll leave you to think about what survival means in the circumstances. Life’s not been much of a fun-fair, Mr. Roberts.”
    He was gone, skidding away on two wheels. I stood where I was in the center of the room. I put my hands in my pockets. My brain was refusing to think.
    Shostakovich was bringing his affairs to an enigmatic close.
    It was not until the next morning that Mortimer Dart appeared again.
    By that time, my strength had returned to me and I had gone through a good deal of anxious heart-searching. I had also met Heather Landis.
    Dart’s last remark had moved me; he had invited me to look into his life, that life of the same duration as mine (or so he claimed) but made so very different by physical accident. I had one way of understanding the sort of existence—I mean the sort of mental existence—he had led, by considering the uses to which he had put the island. Those uses (though I had only a sketchy notion of them so far) constituted a fairly broad indication of the sort of man with whom I was dealing.
    I found myself virtually a prisoner. Although the house contained several doors, they were mostly locked. The only rooms to which I had access were my room with its attendant bathroom and the main room I have described. I could get into the compound, but that was of little avail since it did not lead to the rest of the house and the outer doors leading to the village were kept locked.
    Beyond my captivity, the ocean and the daylight fulfilled their predestined functions without touching me. I felt myself as firmly imprisoned by the Master as if I were held captive in his mind.
    Confinement was no new thing to me. Although I considered myself a well-traveled man, I was one of the late twentieth-century version of that species; I had been all round the world and to the Moon in my official capacity, yet most of that travel had been done behind metal plating, and most of the destinations had been security-shrouded rooms. Although I had plenty of muscle, my real strength lay in my nerve. I was a good negotiator when called upon—and negotiation calls upon use of the backside.
    When dark came down over Moreau Island, extraordinary cries and whoops sounded from the direction of the village. I went into the compound to see what I could see, but the walls were too high for me to observe much more than the chilly blue-white eyes of lights burning above the deserted quayside. As I turned to go inside again, a figure crossed the shadowy room I had just left.
    â€œHey!” I called, and ran in after it. It had been a girl—not Bella.
    There was only a desk lamp burning by an instrument panel.
    By its light, dimly across the other side of the room, I saw a small deformed girl.
    â€œWho are you?” I asked.
    â€œHi there,” she said. She turned and switched more lights on.
    â€œWho are you?” I asked in a different tone. The girl was small, certainly, but perfectly formed. Her hair was long, dark, and curly, and hung about her shoulders; tricks that the shadows played on it had led me to believe for a moment that she was a hunchback. Now I saw that was not so. She was of slender build, and wore a plain loose saffron-colored tunic and a pair of dark nylon trousers, with sandals on her bare feet. Her most remarkable feature was a pair of enormous dark eyes which regarded me with the surprised gaze of some nocturnal animal, a tarsier or a loris.
    â€œI’m Heather,” she said. “I work for the Master.”
    I moved closer to her. She backed away.
    â€œI’d prefer if you’d keep a little distance between the two of us, Mr. Calvert Roberts.” Although wary, her tone was also slightly flirtatious.
    â€œYou American?