leave this office with a skull like mine.” He had reinforced his meaning by picking up his cane and fitting the gold ball at its top neatly into the cup-shaped depression on his shaven head. The little demonstration had persuaded Snook that his wisest course would be one of cooperation, and it still rankled with him that he had been cowed so thoroughly within the space of ten seconds. He thrust the memory aside as being unproductive.
“I don’t hear Harper now,” he said. “Perhaps he’s calming down.”
“I hope so,” Murphy replied. He led the way across rutted hard clay to a mobile building which had a red cross on its side…They went up the wooden steps and into a reception room which was bare except for some utility chairs and World Health Organisation posters. Harold Harper, a broad-shouldered but very thin man in his mid-twenties, was slouched in one of the chairs, and two seats away—maintaining his professional detachment—was a black male nurse with watchful eyes. Harper gave a lopsided smile when he saw Snook, but did not speak or move.
“I had to give him a shot, Mister Murphy,” the nurse said.
“Without the doctor being here?”
“It was Colonel Freeborn’s order.”
Murphy sighed. “The Colonel’s authority doesn’t extend to medical situations.”
“Are you kidding?” The nurse’s face was a caricature of indignation. “I don’t want no dent in my head.”
“Perhaps the shot was a good idea,” Snook said, going forward and kneeling in front of Harper. “Hey, Harold, what’s been going on? What’s all this about a ghost?”
Harper’s smile faded. “I saw a ghost, Gil.”
“You were in luck—I’ve never seen one of those things in my whole life.”
“Luck?” Harper’s gaze slid away, seeming to focus on something far beyond the confines of the small room.
“What exactly did you see, Harold?”
Harper spoke in a dreamy voice, occasionally lapsing into Swahili. “I was down on Level Eight…far end of the south
pipe…started to run out of yellow clay, kept hitting rock…needed to reset my projector, but I knew it was near the end of the shift…turned back and saw something on the floor…a little dome, like the top of a coconut…shining, but I could see through it…tried to touch it—nothing there…took off my Amplites for a better look, you know how you do it, automatic like, but there’s hardly any light down there…without the glasses I couldn’t see a thing…so I put them on again…and…and…” Harper stopped speaking and began to take heavy, measured breaths. His feet moved slightly, as though a signal to flee was not being fully suppressed.
“What did you see, Harold?”
“There was a head…my hand was inside the head.”
“What sort of head?”
“Not human…not like an animal…about this size…” Harper crooked his ringers as though holding a football. “Three eyes…all together near the top…mouth near the bottom…my hand was inside the head, Gil. Right inside it.”
“Did you feel anything?”
“No. I just got back from it. I was up against the end of the pipe. I couldn’t get away…so I just sat there.”
“Then what happened?”
“The head turned round a bit…the mouth moved, but there was no sound…then it sank down into the rock. It was gone.”
“Was there a hole in the rock?”
“There was no hole in the rock.” Harper looked mildly reproachful. “I saw aghost, Gil.”
“Could you show me the exact spot?”
“I could.” Harper closed his eyes, and his head rolled slightly. “But I sure as hell won’t. I’m not going back down there again. Not ever…” He leaned back in the chair and began to snore.
“You! Florence Nightingale!” Murphy jabbed the nurse’s shoulder with a broad forefinger. “How much stuff did you shoot into this man?”
“He’ll be all right,” the nurse said defensively. “I’ve sedated men before.”
“He’d better be all right, man. I’ll be back every hour or so to check—so you’d better bed him down and look after him.” The superintendent, big and competent in his expensive silvercords, was genuinely concerned about Harper, and -uncharacteristically for him—Snook felt the sudden warmth of liking and respect.
“Listen,” he said, as soon as they got outside. “I’m sorry I was so slow off the mark up at my place. I didn’t realise what Harper was up against.”
Murphy smiled, completing the human link. “Okay, Gil. You believed what he told you?”
“It sounds crazy, but I think I do. It was the bit about the glasses that did it. When he took them off he couldn’t see the head, or whatever it was.”
“That made me think there was something wrong with the glasses.”
“It made me think that what Harper saw is very real, though I can’t explain it. Do all the miners wear Amplites?”
“They’re standard issue. They cut lighting bills by ninety per cent—and you know the energy situation now that they’re giving up the nuclear power plant.”
“I know.” Snook narrowed his eyes, watching the sun begin its vertical climb from behind the mountains due east. One of the things he disliked about living on the equator was that there was so little variation in the sun’s daily path. He imagined it wearing a groove in the firmament, getting into a rut. A line of men had formed at the entrance to the hoist, on their way to go on shift, and Snook became aware that a number of them were grinning and waving at him. One proffered his yellow safety helmet and pointed at the mine entrance, and others near him burst out laughing as Snook gave an exaggerated shake of his head.
“They seem in good form,” Snook said. “Most of them aren’t so chirpy in class.”
“They’re scared,” Murphy told him. “Rumours spread fast in a mining camp and the two men who thought they saw birds on Tuesday morning have been talking their heads off. This story of Harper’s has gone round the camp already, and when he gets into the bar tonight and has a few drinks…”
“What are they scared of?”
“Ten years ago most of these men were herders and farmers. President Ogilvie rounded them up like their own cattle, gave them all Anglo names, banned the Bantu languages in favour of English, dressed them up in shirts and pants—but he hasn’t changed them in any way. They never liked going down the mines, and they never will.”
“You’d think that after ten years…”
“As far as they’re concerned, it’s another world down there. A world they’ve no business to enter. All they need is a hint, just one hint, that the rightful inhabitants of that world are objecting to their presence and they’ll refuse to go back into it.”
“What would happen then?”
Murphy took a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and gave one to Snook. They both lit up and gazed at each other through complex traceries of smoke.
“This single mine,” Murphy said, “produced more than forty thousand metric carats last year. What do you think would happen?”
“Colonel Freeborn?”
“That’s right—Colonel Freeborn would happen. Right now the government pays the men a living wage…and provides facilities like medical aid, even though there’s only one qualified doctor serving four mines…and free education, even though the teacher is an out-of-work aircraft mechanic…” Murphy’s eyes twinkled as Snook performed a stiff bow.
“The system doesn’t cost much, and the President’s advisers get what propaganda value they can out of it,” Murphy continued, “but if the miners tried refusing to work, Colonel Freeborn would introduce another system. This has always been good slave country, you know.”