The Sinful Stones Read Online Free PDF Page B

fungus. But its confused proportions disguised its size. It reminded him in some ways of those strange, isolated sheds which Air Force engineers improvise on the perimeter of airfields, in the nastiest available brick, with the ungainliest conceivable outlines, on the most conspicuous skyline, and then top off with a rust-dribbling water-tank.
    But now it meant sleep and warmth, if there was warmth anywhere in the world. Pibble tramped gingerly towards it. Either he was becoming cannier at walking without shoes or his feet had lost all feeling.

2
    Y ou can see him now,” said the voice again. “You’ll get the itch if you sleep in that bloody thing.”
    Pibble knew that he hadn’t slept, but how had he been so anxiously fishing for a sunken boat in Mount Pond on the Common, a grown man wearing a sailor suit which he mustn’t get muddy? He opened his eyes.
    There was no lantern this time. Drab daylight and icy air came through the glassless window.
    â€œDon’t wait for me,” he said. “I know my way.”
    â€œYou excited him,” said Sister Dorothy, bitterly.
    â€œHe excited himself, I’m afraid,” said Pibble. “Has he ever talked to you about his dispute with my father?”
    â€œHe doesn’t talk to me now, about that or anything else. Try Brother Servitude.”
    No time for shirt and trousers, but glorious socks, at least. Civilised shoes. Ouch! His left big toe was too swollen with last night’s bruising to conform to the once familiar leather; and the outer edge of his right foot was very tender too. Socks alone, then? No. If he stole about like the rest of the Community there was an extra chance that they would forget to be on their guard, those who knew anything. Perhaps he ought to ask for a green habit, or a brown one—nobody else seemed to sport this staring orange. His skin was tingling strangely on his fore-arm, and he snatched back the sleeve to peer at a patch where the coarse cloth had printed its graph-paper squares on his sleeping flesh. Panicky with the dread of nameless blains and flakings, blotches and pustules, he started to wriggle out of the habit. And a finely inconspicuous figure he’d be, creeping about Clumsey Island in blue pin-stripes on bare and bleeding feet. He wriggled back.
    She was waiting for him after all.
    â€œDon’t let on that I told you,” she said, “but you’ve got to remember he’s not just old. He’s ill.” Her voice was not quite as bleak as hitherto, but tinged with a faint echo of that cooing note which had come last night through the soaked microphone.
    â€œHe’s a long way from medical attention, isn’t he?” said Pibble.
    â€œBrother Patience was a doctor,” she said. “He gives him his drugs.”
    â€œWhat’s he on?”
    â€œCortisone.”
    â€œIs that what makes him so …”
    â€œHairy?”
    â€œNo. I meant …”
    â€œBloody-minded?”
    â€œI wouldn’t …”
    â€œHe’s always been like that, ever since I’ve known him, an utter bastard. Long before we came to this bloody place.”
    â€œWhy did you come?”
    â€œHe gave all his radio patents away to the Foundation, and we were broke. He used to come sailing up here, and I … Sh!”
    She slipped him a not-in-front-of-the-servants glance as they came round the last corner. Brother Hope was still in his niche, apparently full fathom five in trance; not one puckering of gooseflesh showed on the smooth pink steppes of skin; apart from his shepherding of Rita he probably hadn’t shifted all night from his original pose. He did not speak or stir as they passed. Pibble peeled off up the stairs, and Dorothy strode on without a word.
    His nose told him before his eyes, but he was coughing in the reeking smoke of Sir Francis’s room (sharp wood, rank rubber) before he could stop. A small gout of adrenalin gingered his