She ate with controlled hunger, and with the precision of a starved house cat. He sat, smoking, and watched her.
At last he said, “I’m not asking questions about you. But in order to explain my position, I have to refer it to your customary frames of reference. Otherwise I might make myself meaningless to you. How do you... think about life, about the place of man in his environment?”
She made a face over her sip of substitute coffee. “Man,” she said, “as a free spirit, has never had the freedom he deserves in his environment. He just drifts from one form of collectivism to the next. Taboos change — lack of freedom of expression is a constant.”
“What causes his lack of freedom?”
She shrugged. “Ignorance, I suppose. Superstitions. The yen for the master-slave relationship. Or maybe plain bullheaded perversity. Let any person stand out as an individual, and the herd pulls him down and tramples him.”
“Progress?”
“We wiggle back and forth in a groove, like a phonograph needle. On a flat surface.”
“What if that’s the plan?”
“Are you being a mystic?”
“No. Suppose it is an arbitrary plan, a definite supression, for an unknown reason?”
“Presumably, then, by some definite entity, some thinking aura of fire-ball or nine-legged Venusian?”
“By men who have been trained in... abilities you would think impossible.”
She clapped her hands once. “What a lovely excuse for all defeatism! We can’t possibly get anywhere because we’re... breeding stock, or something. A rather poorly run stock farm, I might add.”
“I have been trained on another planet.”
She stared hard at him in a long silence. She picked up her spoon, put it down again. “This is where I should say I’m Mary, Queen of Scots, I suppose.”
“If you’d like.”
“They say madmen come in the most credible shapes and forms. I’m supposed to be mad, too. Suicidal. By the way, did you know the list of living creatures who do away with themselves? Lemmings, of course. That’s common. And man, bless him. A scorpion, when infuriated beyond reason, will sting himself to death. And there is a species of white butterfly that flies straight out to sea. Those are the non-functional deaths, as opposed to the dying of, say, the male spider, or the winged ant. Yet... somehow I cannot believe that either of us is mad, Dake.” She smiled and took a small glossy photograph from her pocket, slid it across the table to him.
He picked it up and looked at it. It was a photograph of a carving, in some dark wood, of a starving child. Spindle limbs, bloated belly, an expression of dull acceptance, without either pain or fear.
She said quietly, “I wasn’t going to tell you. I planned not to. I’ve been working too hard. I’ve been doing too many things which... disturb my public. Apparently I’ve been critical. And criticism is a Disservice. Yesterday they came with a writ. They smashed my work. Every last bit of it. Hauled it away. Gave me an appointment with the Local Board for this afternoon. I didn’t keep it. Suicide isn’t a gesture of protest. Not in my case, Dake. It is very simply a statement. I refuse to permit myself to live in my environment. Am I mad?”
“I... don’t think so.”
“I’m not afraid of labor. I’m not afraid of being sentenced. You must believe that.”
“I do.”
She lifted her chin with a touching pride. “I’ve never been afraid of anything that walks, creeps or crawls.”
“For myself, I would qualify that.”
“How?”
“I’ve been frightened, but never afraid.”
She tilted her head on one side. “I rather like that, Dake. Now what do you do with this training? Spread your filmy green wings and take off? Forgive me for sounding so flip. The food, I guess. Intoxicating after so long. I ate yesterday, before they came. That was the last time.”
He leaned forward a bit. “You see, I have to make someone believe me.”
“Or cease believing in it yourself? Maybe it’s necessary for you to keep believing in it.”
“That sounds like you’re thinking of insanity again.”
“Blame me?”
“No. But I want you to be... objective about proof.”
“Start proving.”
“I can’t. Not here. I can’t even tell you why I can’t do it here. It will sound like a persecution complex running wild. If you’re through, we’ll leave. We’re going to fly west.”
“By flapping our arms? Oh, forgive me! I feel right on the edge of tears or hysteria or something. Let’s get out of here.”
They sat in the deep comfortable seats of a CIJ flagship awaiting takeoff. Dake noticed that, under the terminal floods, the stairs had been wheeled back into position. Two men boarded the plane and came down the aisle toward them. Mary made a small sound, like a whimper. He saw the pale, flat, expressionless faces of Disservice agents, saw that they were staring at Mary, saw the eyes of the lead one widen as he glanced at Dake. A pink tongue flecked quickly at pale lips, and the hand slid inside the neat dark jacket.
He thought quickly. Takeoff was already seconds behind schedule. The Indian co-pilot glared at his watch.
Dake closed his hand over her thin wrist. “I have to demonstrate sooner than I wanted to,” he said, barely moving his lips.
It would be too puzzling to the other passengers if the two men, whose profession was so obvious, should turn and leave the aircraft without a word. He selected a man across the aisle, an overdressed toothy man with a shyster look. He saw dullness replace alertness as he enfolded their minds in his will, thrusting volition aside ruthlessly. They turned, their movements awkward and poorly coordinated, and grasped the toothy man and hoisted him roughly out of the seat.
“Hey!” the man yelped. “Hey, what are you doing?”
Dake made them shove and thrust him up the aisle. He had to stand to see the wheeled steps. The struggling victim made the task difficult. The balance could not be maintained, and the three of them tumbled down the steps. The victim got up, was grasped again, and marched off toward the main terminal buildings, across the concrete apron.
The steps were wheeled away, the doors slammed and latched. The jets flared and roared, and quickly faded into silence as the flagship, turning above the city, arrowing upward, passed the sonic barrier. He realized he still had hold of Mary’s wrist. He released it. She was looking up at him, her eyes unfrightened.
“They were coming after us, weren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“They wanted you too. I saw it in their eyes.”
“Yes.”
“You hypnotized them. I could see it in their walk. Such an odd walk. Will they... stay that way long?”
“As soon as they were out of range, they got over it.”
“Won’t they have the tower call the plane back?”
“I don’t think so. They don’t like to inconvenience CIJ in any way. And I know how their minds work. That man. I had to pick him quickly. They won’t be able to explain what they did, or why. So they’ll take particular pains to find some recent act of that man which can be classed as a Disservice. I’d be willing to bet that they’ll report that you weren’t on the plane. And they’ll conveniently ignore having seen me. Any failure of a Disservice agent is in itself classed as a Disservice to the State, you know.”
“Then we’re safe?”
“From the Disservice agents. But not from... another group.”
“Who are they?”
Do you believe me when I say I was trained on another planet?
“Yes, Dake, I— How in the world did you do that?”
In this world but not of it, Mary.