“I think so. It’s beginning to look that way.” He leaned forward to kiss her, but she turned her face aside. Her hair smelled like the night wind.
“Go away, Victor,” she said urgently. “It’s no good.” “You haven’t given it a chance.” He took her in his arms, holding off the first kiss until he had gathered her right hi against him, body to body, thigh to thigh. For one exultant, ringing moment he felt her relax into it; then her weightless body went rigid.
“Well, this is very pleasant,” a grating parody of a voice said at the door. “Warming her up for me, are you, Victor?” Johnny stood in the doorway, still cradling the herbicidal bomb, the orbicular symbol and the reality of his power. He was stripped to the waist.
Stirling rolled away from Melissa and stood up. “I can’t let you go through with this, Johnny. You can’t play games with human beings.”
“Speak for yourself.” Johnny’s eyes flicked towards the bed. “I can think of lots of games to play with human beings.”
“You don’t seem to understand… .”
“I understand you too well, big brother. You want to moralize at me and take my woman at the same time. Get out of here, before I push you right through the east wall.”
Stirling suddenly remembered his dream about being thrust through a door in the wall, meeting his father, and telling him about Johnny. His father’s eyes had filled with accusation. Why?
“It might be better if we talked it over, Johnny. You don’t seem to have the Council with you.”
“I don’t need them.” Johnny set the bomb down and flexed his body muscles, with a movement curiously like a cobra spreading its hood before the strike. He advanced slowly across the room; and Stirling, full of a strange timidity which was foreign to his nature, watched him soberly. The whole concept of physical combat was repugnant to him; yet his quick temper, impatience, and thoughtless use of sarcasm had brought many fights to Stirling, often when he least expected them. Always, when the chips were down, he had handled himself with emotionless efficiency; and always he had won. But how was he to fight Johnny? Would he be able to punch? Would he be able to stop? He raised his arms tentatively, half-heartedly, remembering the look in his father’s eyes. “Johnny,” he said. “This won’t prove anything.”
“No?”
Johnny closed with him and swung a blow which Stirling countered with his forearm. He was surprised at the ease with which he had been able to intercept the punch —until the pain arrowed up into his shoulder. Johnny might have been wearing steel gauntlets, and he had intended the blow to be blocked. He followed it with others in a steady, predictable rhythm, smiling frozenly as Stirling stopped the punches. It dawned on Stirling that Johnny was planning to beat his arms until they were useless—in a contemptuous display of force—and then move in closer. Stirling found himself still reluctant to strike back, and he began to feel afraid of his own weakness. He backed away until he was trapped in a corner, With slow hammer blows pressing him against the walls.
“Stop it!” Melissa ran from the bed and threw herself between them.
“Stay back.” Johnny pushed her away. “This doesn’t concern you.”
“Doesn’t it?” Melissa recovered her calmness. “I think it does. I don’t like the implications, Johnny.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning,” Stirling said, “that you can’t play games with human beings. I think Melissa feels entitled to decide her own future.”
“That’s right, Johnny.” Melissa walked away from them, suddenly in command of the situation, and Stirling got a prescient feeling of dismay.
“Melissa, you don’t make decisions this way. Not this way.”
“What decision, Victor? You natter yourself, you know that?”
Johnny peered from one to the other in the candlelight, then a slow smile spread over his face. “You’ve really been pitching in, haven’t you, Victor? What have you two been saying to each other?”
“Nothing. Nothing except good-by,” Melissa said. She began to untie the belt knotted at her waist. “It isn’t necessary.”
“Good-by, Victor.”
Stirling had walked only a few yards from the Latham hut when he decided he should make another attempt. He turned back in time to see the yellow glimmers fading as the candle was extinguished. Beyond the black outline of the hut, the Moon was scimitaring down on the He’s western horizon; and Stirling saw the silhouette of an army drift-ship cut through it, a witch-shadow in a world where magic was long dead.
He pulled his jacket tighter and began walking towards the elevator head.
Chapter Fifteen
Stirling rode down from Heaven in solitary splendor, sitting in the middle of a freight car, which had been sent up specially for him when the monitoring crews saw his appearance at the elevator head. As the car lost height he found himself having to adjust to seeing the dawn from below—the gun-metal mists of the Atlantic rose up on all sides like confining walls, and the oyster-colored sky became remote. He ignored the vague sense of loss and concentrated on the very real pains in his ears—brought about by the increasing air pressure—until the car had docked on the island station. Holding his head in both hands and grimacing like an idiot in an attempt to ease the torment in his ears, Stirling stepped off the car to meet a group of men in the whites of the Food Technology Authority.
He was rushed downstairs into a windowless office suite and away from the prying cameras of the bubblecraft which were still flitting at the minimum legal distance from the lie. During the following three hours he was interrogated by F.T.A. executives; police officials; civil servants; two generals and an admiral; a panel of gray men he recognized as being members of the Press Council; and a number of tight-lipped individuals whose background remained professionally obscure. Through it all he stuck to the formula he had agreed upon with Administrator Raddalclass="underline" he was a journalist who had gone to foolish extremes to get a story; he had no real idea how many people were living on the He or how long they had been there; and he had sworn to the Administrator himself that, in the interests of social stability, he would keep quiet about the whole affair. The only information he gave freely and in full was an account of how Duke Bennett had arranged his trip to the He and had tried to ensure that he would arrive there dead.
Someone in Raddall’s office must have paved the way for him, Stirling decided, because at noon on the same day he was smuggled ashore on an F.T.A. skimmer. Before leaving the station he had showered and had been provided with fresh clothes and facilities for removing his conquistador’s beard. In spite of having spent most of the previous night stumbling through the length of the He in utter darkness, he felt relaxed and fit as he sat in the back of a closed truck that was taking him into downtown Newburyport.
“Where do you want to get out?” The security man who was traveling with him was unexpectedly polite and friendly. Stirling was momentarily surprised at the man’s attitude; then he became preoccupied with the realization that the basic facts of survival had not altered. He still had to earn money, eat, and provide shelter for himself—even though these considerations had not been so important on the He. ;
“Drop me at the Record office. … I guess I better see if I still have a job there.”
“You will… . Don’t worry.” The security man smiled unctuously, and Stirling automatically opened a new data storage file in the back of his mind. He tentatively labeled it, F.T.A. —Isolated observations suggesting dirty work behind the scenes. The file was a ridiculously thin one, even when—after a moment’s hesitation—his mental librarian added an item about the uncanny speed of his release from the F.T.A. island. The Authority had as much power as the Government in some spheres; and, regardless of Raddall’s influence, they could have buried him out there in the shadow of Heaven.