9 : Rainbows

The rat sat preening its whiskers. I watched it. It sat with its rear paws spread on the ground, their tips visible at the edge of the grey fur body. The front paws worked rhythmically, pulling each fine whisker through the toes from the root to the tip. It hadn't seen the snake. I watched the snake. It was rock-still, coiled in a perfect ring with the angular head slightly lifted and pointing in the direction of the rat. The distance between them was about three feet. The snake was large, and I could see that its length was quite sufficient to carry the jaws that far when it struck. The rat was facing at right-angles to the snake. Its round black eyes reflected the environment in miniature. I think it saw the snake, in terms of light reception by the retinae, but didn't know what it was: the brain interpreted it as a rock formation, or just a pattern of light and shade. Otherwise it wouldn't be sitting there. I detected movement now in the snake, though it was so slow that it was almost an illusion: the pointed head was drawing back, millimetre by millimetre, across the coils, the neck flexing to keep the head pointing directly at the rat. At the same time the coils were tensing, as the muscular energy gathered and flowed, preparing for the whiplash speed of the strike. The rat was oblivious of this movement. Once, it turned its head for an instant, but away from the snake, catching some small sound that escaped me. Then it went on preening. I watched quietly, wondering if - then the snake struck like a whip and the rat - 'Wake up!' The rat tried to leap but - 'Wake up! Wake up!' I swung my head up and opened my eyes and called out, 'All right, I'm awake now, why don't you bugger off?' Blinding light. 'Are you awake?' 'Yes. Bugger off!' The light was above the door and angled downwards, a flood bulb in it so that there was nowhere in the cell where I could get away from it. The glare hid the small sliding panel immediately below the light, so that I couldn't see him watching me. It was the third time he'd woken me up. Third, or fourth? It didn't matter, but I'd have to start counting things like that because some of them would be important. Call it the third time and start counting from there. Bloody snake. I'd dreamed about that before; I suppose it was that long leather belt whipping through the air at the table. Where was Vader now? Sleeping? They'd taken my watch and there wasn't a window, only a ventilation grille near the ceiling, clamped across a square of darkness. That didn't mean it was night, necessarily: this was a close confinement chamber for sleep deprivation and disorientation so they would have fixed the grille accordingly. The metabolic clock pulsing in my system told me it was midnight, give or take an hour; but that wasn't reliable because I'd fallen asleep three times. Three, or four? Three. Yes. A man screamed suddenly from somewhere close, and I sat listening to him with the sweat springing on my skin. Ignore. Ignore and do some work. Of course they'd started with an advantage. Today was Wednes - no, yes, Wednesday, and on Monday I'd still been in England hang-gliding over the cliffs, and from the time when Norton had escorted me to London that bastard Croder had had me on a pinball table - Berlin, Hanover, Leipzig, Moscow - and the only sleep I'd had was a couple of hours on the mountainside after the truck had crashed and a few hours at the safe-house last night - five or six hours in sixty-four, not enough, and if I'd known the rat was going to sit there I would have look out it's going to strike again - 'Wake up!' ' I am awake I Can't you tell when someone's asleep or awake for Christ's sake?' `You were falling asleep!' `Go and screw yourself.'