He’d run about a mile by now, but wasn’t even hot yet. The pine trees were sparser here. Their tall trunks shot up vertically, at a sharp angle to the sloping hillside veiled in gloom, out of which he could hear, now softer, now louder, the rushing of a stream. Or maybe a river. He wasn’t familiar with this area. He didn’t know where he was running to. He was just running. For a while now he hadn’t seen any blackish traces of bonfires at the small clearings, or scraps of colored packaging, trodden into the grass, drenched by the rain and then dried by the sun over and over again. It looked as if no one ever came out here, because there weren’t any roads, and the vistas on view from the open spaces weren’t interesting. There was forest everywhere, with green splashes of beech trees, then a darker and darker color toward the peaks; the only things showing white against it were the insides of snapped tree trunks. The wind had toppled them, or they’d fallen from old age. Whenever they blocked his path, he focused his eyesight keenly to see if it was worth the effort of jumping over, or if it might be better to push his way underneath, between the dry, broom-like branches.
The sky shone bright beyond the trees. He glanced behind him. His vision bounced off successive tree trunks, farther and farther away, until they merged into a single gray-and-brown drizzle. He strained his hearing. The emptiness was on par with the silence; only the stream rushed invisibly, so far off that the sound reached him only intermittently, straying through the air among the trees. Anyway, perhaps it was just their swish; the wind was high up now—he could see it, his vision was sharp, he could distinguish the stirring of single spruce trees against the clouds. Almost the entire valley, coated in opaque forest, lay below him. At once he spotted two or three limestone rocks, with their oddly shaped pinnacles of bone; at the point where they began to sink in the forest sea, in its large, static waves, he saw dark stains—surely the entrances to caves or grottoes?
No doubt many hunts ended that way, because it was the simplest option—there was no need to run, or make plans that were futile anyway. There was no chance, in any case. None at all. So why was he running? Why had all his predecessors raced off in the same way, why had they sped up mountains and into forests, beyond their limits, into zones of boulders and mountain pine, into the virgin wildness of the reservation, why had none of them let himself be shot in the back, or let his head be smashed, without the bother of this effort to escape, as desperate as it was helpless? He didn’t know. But he wasn’t looking for answers; he wasn’t thinking. A grassy slope rose ahead of him, spattered with the sequins of end-of-season dandelions, before disappearing into the next island of spruce. A bird called from a tree, repeating its insistent, simple song. He knew neither what it looked like nor what it was called. Far below, where the hillsides sank into the first shadows, the whitish trail of a river wound by.
Go through the water? And lose all the height he’d gained . . . They’d find him again, they wouldn’t lose the scent for an instant. So back into the forest? They might shoot me from afar, he thought, staring into the empty space separating him from the wall of spruces.
Before continuing his uphill run, he listened to himself closely. The silence prevailing inside him was even greater than that around him, which was disturbed by the murmur of conifer branches. And by three recurring notes of birdsong. Once again he glanced back, to be sure there was plenty of space between him and his pursuers. Just then, at its deepest point, amid the darkness of the forest, he saw a tiny movement.
He leaped ahead. He wasn’t in control of the force propelling him forward out of blind reflex. It was routine, not terror. Not yet. He ran uphill, up a steep gradient that no human could have covered at a similar speed. He wasn’t panting, his heart wasn’t thumping in his chest, the blood wasn’t thudding in his temples; but something—he didn’t know what—began to cry inside him, a weak but intensive whine, like a chord that’s been instantly muffled; it lasted a while.
Without knowing how, he’d gotten into a deep channel between the trees, the dry bed of a stream perhaps, or just a winding cleft, full of silt in places, plowed up by showers of rain. Maybe in a storm he’d have a chance. At least to put off the end, which wasn’t in his thoughts at all. Continuing to fling his legs forward steadily, he raised his head. No—no storm would come of those clouds. The weather was very hot, the heat had even got in here, making the humidity of the forest floor unbearable. The final drops of yesterday’s downpour that the sun’s rays hadn’t found fell on him from above, shaken from the trees by the jolts he caused as he ran. (He could remember it: when he heard the rain drumming steadily against the metal overhead, it had occurred to him that if it didn’t stop they’d postpone this by one day, or maybe two.) Some splashes of water momentarily glittered like diamonds on his wrist, he didn’t flick them off, but they instantly evaporated as he raced onward; the metal-studded base of his foot let out a piercing clank as it struck a white stone; he reeled, but got a grip on his balance without reducing speed. His hearing was now fully focused behind him. They were far away, but not so far for the noise to have failed to reach them—the forest could carry it freely downhill to where the trees suddenly parted.
He was standing on a small peak, surrounded on three sides by spruce trees. In the sun-drenched distance the mountains appeared, looking flat and blue, with white patches of snow and cloud balls clinging to their peaks.
A wide, grassy slope ran downhill, with forest again beyond it. He had only stopped for two seconds, but at once he could hear his pursuers. He recognized Menor’s voice, his fierce, halting bark. He wasn’t afraid of the dogs—they couldn’t do anything to him, but dogs meant humans. Did he hate them? Perhaps he could try, if he had the time. Anyway, it didn’t matter.
As he looked at the mountains again, it crossed his mind that this must be the last time he’d ever see them, and although he’d never cared about them, although he didn’t know them, had never been in them, and had nothing to seek among the rocks, it was only this thought, as if by ricochet, that made him aware he had just minutes ahead of him, hours at most, of looking, hearing, and moving, and that it was the truth. He felt cold, shining mercury abruptly flooding his chest, and raced ahead.
He had reached a truly incredible speed—he’d never run like this before. He leaped in bounds of four or five yards, flinging himself into the air, flying over the grass, his shadow foreshortened at his feet as he landed and rebounded for the next jump. Would anyone be able to run like that? He could feel the pressure in his temples, sparks flashing in his eyes, and warmth in his chest—not yet the heat that heralded unconsciousness, but it was vile and unnatural.
His joints were all but crackling, his studded feet were ripping up the grass, flinging shreds of it wide with every leap; he knew he should slow down, because he was starting to lose control of the accelerating force that was carrying him, but he couldn’t, or maybe he didn’t want to—it was one and the same thing.
He could see the whole landscape—the steep meadow, the blackish crescent-shaped forests, the mountain ridge, blue among the clouds—all steadily rising and falling to the rhythm of his space-consuming bounds; he could no longer feel the effort, he no longer knew if he was really running, or maybe hanging motionless, perhaps instead it was the world, seized by a strange force, in dreadful spasms, in wild hiccups, that was fleeing, reeling, swaying to a point of nausea—his feet went in different directions on the pure white, sun-scorched scree and he fell headlong, tumbling, somersaulting, desperately banging his arms and legs against the debris that went flying with him. When he finally came to a stop, amid swirling dust, half kneeling, he was covered in chalky powder. Only on his knees and hip joints did the loose, white residue darken quickly, as if from sweat. Like a horse that has galloped a long way down a dusty road, he thought, as he shakily hauled himself to his feet.
He was surprised to see how far the peak was above him, now that he had run down it at breakneck speed. I’ve gained a bit of an advantage, he thought. And to avoid losing it, he ran on.
A sheet of water shone darkly among the trees, like a faded mirror. Automatically he scoped the scene for bathers. He was running more and more slowly, more and more quietly; there were giant spruces here, and someone had pitched camp among them, he could see the holes where tent pegs had been, marks on the shore of the small lake where a boat had been dragged out, and the remains of a landing stage made of gold and red segments. But just these traces, no people. He leaned forward, increasing his speed. About a quarter of a mile farther on, beyond a strip of large boulders spilled here by an avalanche in the remote past from a gulley cut into the mountain—he jumped across them with extreme agility, merely leaving pale outlines on their surfaces that marked the spots where he’d bounced off for his next jump—just past this stony stretch, he came to an area where the wind had toppled several hundred huge trees; they’d been lying here side by side since long ago, eaten away by rot, though in places the bark still clung to trunks that looked hard and healthy, the profusion of gray cobwebs on their branches should have warned him, but he rashly set foot on one of these giants, the trunk softly gave way and with barely a crunch dissolved into fungous pulp—he sank almost up to his hips. He pulled hard. It wasn’t easy to wrench his legs from the tree’s grip; the impetus had been strong, and his weight was a factor too—but in a huddled position, by backing up, dragging the dripping log after him, he finally tore free and ran on.
Above the last trees, by a large meadow, a metal mast protruded. He cast a glance right and left, and realized he had a high-voltage power line before him. Just here it crossed a pass as it ran down toward the plains, showing blue in the distance.
He ran to the nearest mast and stood behind its truss, now facing the vast hillside—any second now the silhouettes of his pursuers would appear above its rocky ridge. Something must have stopped them on the way, he couldn’t even hear the breathless yelping of the pack. If they were tracking him with nothing but locators, at least he’d be temporarily invisible, because the truss would shield him from their rays. But there were dogs too, and they were guided by scent.
He felt heat flooding all his limbs, as if they were filling with flames from the inside. The fire produced by the spasmodic effort of running, so far swept away by a headwind, was now rising to the surface of his body. He set his legs apart, stretched out his arms, and took hold of the steel bars, as if trying to give away as much of that murderous, inexorable heat as he could, not just to the surrounding air, but also to the metal structure. At any moment he was expecting the sight he knew so well, because he had attended several of these pursuits, five to be precise, he’d been their witness, but not their central figure; he’d been taken along to learn. It was meant to be a chase in natural, primordial conditions, as for an animal hunt, but there weren’t any animals—no one was allowed to harm them, to protect them from total extinction. They used only dogs and locators; they also had launchers on their backs, the shape of a school bag, but they used them in moderation to make the chances more even.
No silhouette rose above the summit—evidently they were conserving fuel. The delay didn’t give him hope, he had none; on the contrary, his insecurity grew. Suddenly, he glanced to the right—along the latticed masts descending to the plain.
Now he was climbing up the truss like a monkey, quickly, nimbly, steel clanked against steel. Just beneath the top a small platform had been welded on for carrying out repairs to the network; now it was covered with winter frost. Made of plaited veins of copper and aluminum, the thick cables sparkled in the sunlight. Separating him from them were the mushroom-shaped necklaces of insulators. Would they hold his weight?
He flung his entire torso over the barrier, and with his feet set apart found the insulator coils by feeling his way. The oval coils wouldn’t give any support. He knelt down, held on manually, and shuffled on all fours, in the air, with one of three copper cables right beside him. This one carried the current.
His glazed eyes expressionless, he grabbed the vein of plaited copper, which looked so peaceful and innocent, and pulled on it with all his might. He hardly noticed the discharges in the sunlight; he just felt them, but they didn’t do him any harm. He lowered himself down and, hanging by the arms, began a bizarre ride along the slope of the cable, controlling his speed by regulating his grip. The dreadful friction made the inside of his palm seem to catch fire as he slid with a grating noise along the two-hundred-yard droop of the copper line; at its lowest point he let go, as if hurling himself into the abyss. The moment he touched the grass—no, a split second sooner—the charge he had absorbed struck the ground with a bright blue jump-spark, and shuddering, twisting, quivering from the terrific force that had instantly filled him with fire that felt as if it were about to burn through his hardened, heat-fuddled skull, he tumbled sideways and rolled over, scratching and tearing at the grass in ever weaker convulsions. At last, cooled down, he raised his head—suddenly emptied, strangely light, as if grown gigantic. Just his head, and it seemed to him that from among the blades of grass at the edge of the high ridge, about three quarters of a mile away, on the summit, some tiny figures had emerged, either dogs or humans.
But anyway, it could have been an illusion, because he was still overheated and his eyes were flickering. Without trying to stand up, he curled into a ball and rolled down the steepest gradient; the grass where he’d fallen was definitely charred—maybe the dogs wouldn’t find it right away.
On and on he rolled, with his arms and legs tucked in; he was like a dizzily spinning log, alternately black, green, blue, black, blue, as now bare earth flashed past amid clumps of grass, now the clear sky. He cautiously decelerated. He didn’t get up at once—his forearms, elbows, and the backs of his hands were spattered with something red, like blood; he examined them—whose blood was it?
Berries. Hundreds of them had burst open; as he stood up, he crushed some plump clusters that were still intact. He dropped his gaze and knelt down—in this position he was like a large animal, bizarrely colored, plastered in tufts of grass, resin, and cranberry juice; he took a close look at several surviving little red spheres in curled leaves, and for a while it was as if he were going to lie down in this spot and stay there, do nothing but just lie there. He leaped up and ran on. Two hundred yards of aerial travel: the dogs would lose the scent. He stopped behind the next steel mast so the locators wouldn’t find him, but it was stupid. The dogs would start to circle the place where his trail disappeared, they’d run rings, yelping, until they found the burnt-out spot, and if they didn’t find it, the humans would come and set them on his trail again.
Now he was speeding along the edge of the forest, though he could see that he’d chosen the worst route possible, because right where the gray-blue pelt of the forest came to a stop, this valley was different from all the others. The reservation ended somewhere nearby. He noticed the colored streaks of highways, clean white viaducts lightly crossing clefts in the limestone rocks, the black mouths of tunnels,
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