“Jesus. He was still young!”
“He would have been fifty in a month. We were going to come out and visit him and give him a surprise party. Instead I came out by myself to bring his body back.”
Muller’s face softened. Some of the torment ebbed from his eyes. His lips became more mobile. It was as though someone else’s grief had momentarily taken him from his own.
“Get closer to him,” Boardman ordered.
Another step; and then, since Muller did not seem to notice, another. Rawlins sensed heat: not real but psychical, a furnace-blast of directionless emotion. He shivered in awe. He had never really believed in any essential way that the story of what the Hydrans had done to Richard Muller was true. He was too sharply limited by his father’s heritage of pragmatism. If you can’t duplicate it in the laboratory, it isn’t real. If you can’t graph it, it isn’t real. If there’s no circuitry, it isn’t real. How could a human being possibly be redesigned to broadcast his own emotions? No circuitry could handle such a function. But Rawlins felt the fringes of that broadcast.
Muller said, “What are you doing on Lemnos, boy?”
“I’m an archaeologist.” The lie came awkwardly. “This is my first field trip. We’re trying to carry out a thorough examination of the maze.”
“The maze happens to be someone’s home. You’re intruding.” Rawlins faltered.
“Tell him you didn’t know he was here,” Boardman prompted.
“We didn’t realize that anyone was here,” said Rawlins. “We had no way of knowing that—”
“You sent your damned robots in, didn’t you? Once you found someone here—someone you knew damned well wouldn’t want to have any company—”
“I don’t understand,” Rawlins said. “We had the impression you were wrecked here. We wanted to offer our help.”
How easily I do this, he told himself!
Muller scowled. “You don’t know why I’m here?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“You wouldn’t, I guess. You were too young. But the others— once they saw my face, they should have known. Why didn’t they tell you? Your robot relayed my face, didn’t it? You knew who it was in here. And they didn’t tell you a thing?”
“I really don’t understand—”
“Come close!” Muller bellowed.
Rawlins felt himself gliding forward, though he was unaware of taking individual steps. Abruptly he was face to face with Muller, conscious of the man’s massive frame, his furrowed brow, his fixed, staring, angry eyes. Muller’s immense hand pounced on Rawlins’ wrist. Rawlins rocked, stunned by the impact, drenched with a despair so vast that it seemed to engulf whole universes. He tried not to stagger.
“Now get away from me!” Muller cried harshly. “Go on! Out of here! Out!”
Rawlins did not move.
Muller howled a curse and ran ponderously into a low glassy-walled building whose windows, opaque, were like blind eyes. The door closed, sealing without a perceptible opening. Rawlins sucked in breath and fought for his balance. His forehead throbbed as if something behind it were struggling to burst free.
“Stay where you are,” said Boardman. “Let him get over his tantrum. Everything’s going well.”
3
Muller crouched behind the door. Sweat rolled down his sides. A chill swept him. He wrapped his arms about himself so tightly that his ribs complained.
He had not meant to handle the intruder that way at all.
A few words of conversation; a blunt request for privacy; then, if the man would not go away, the destructor globe. So Muller had planned. But he had hesitated. He had spoken too much and learned too much. Stephen Rawlins’ son? A party of archaeologists out there? The boy had hardly seemed affected by the radiation except at very close range. Was it losing its power with the years?
Muller fought to collect himself and to analyze his hostility. Why so fearful? Why so eager to cling to solitude? He had nothing to fear from Earthmen; they, not he, were the sufferers in any contact he had with them. It was understandable that they would recoil from his presence. But there was no reason for him to withdraw like this except out of some paralyzing diffidence, the encrusted inflexibilities of nine years of isolation. Had it come to that—a love of solitude for its own sake? Was he a hermit? His original pretense was that he had come here out of consideration for his fellow men, that he was unwilling to inflict the painful ugliness that was himself upon them. But the boy had wanted to be friendly and helpful. Why flee? Why react so churlishly?
Slowly Muller rose and undid the door. He stepped outside. Night had fallen with winter’s swiftness; the sky was black, and the moons seared across it. The boy was still standing in the plaza, looking a little dazed. The biggest moon, Clotho, bathed him in golden light so that his curling hair seemed to sparkle with inner flame. His face was very pale, with sharply accentuated cheekbones. His blue eyes gleamed in shock, like those of one who has been slapped.
Muller advanced, uncertain of his tactics. He felt like some great half-rusted machine called into action after too many years of neglect. “Ned?” he said. “Look, Ned, I want to tell you that I’m sorry. You’ve got to understand, I’m not used to people. Not-used—to—people.”
“It’s all right, Mr. Muller. I realize it’s been rough for you.”
“Dick. Call me Dick.” Muller raised both hands and spread them as if trying to cup moonbeams. He felt terribly cold. On the wall beyond the plaza small animal shapes leaped and danced. Muller said, “I’ve come to love my privacy. You can even cherish cancer if you get into the right frame of mind. Look, you ought to realize something. I came here deliberately. It wasn’t any shipwreck. I picked out the one place in the universe where I was least likely to be disturbed, and hid myself inside it. But, of course, you had to come with your tricky robots and find the way in.”
“If you don’t want me here, I’ll go,” Rawlins said.
“Maybe that’s best for both of us. No. Wait. Stay. Is it very bad, being this close to me?”
“It isn’t exactly comfortable,” said Rawlins. “But it isn’t as bad as—as—well, I don’t know. From this distance I just feel a little depressed.”
“You know why?” Muller asked. “From the way you talk, I think you do, Ned. You’re only pretending not to know what happened to me on Beta Hydri IV.”
Rawlins colored. “Well, I remember a little bit, I guess. They operated on your mind?”
“Yes, that’s right. What you’re feeling, Ned, that’s me, my goddam soul leaking into the air. You’re picking up the flow of neural current, straight from the top of my skull. Isn’t it lovely? Try coming a little closer… that’s it.” Rawlins halted. “There,” Muller said, “now it’s stronger. You’re getting a better dose. Now recall what it was like when you were standing right here. That wasn’t so pleasant, was it? From ten meters away you can take it. From one meter away it’s intolerable. Can you imagine holding a woman in your arms while you give off a mental stink like that? You can’t make love from ten meters away. At least, I can’t. Let’s sit down, Ned. It’s safe here. I’ve got detectors rigged in case any of the nastier animals come in, and there aren’t any traps in this zone. Sit.” He lowered himself to the smooth milky-white stone floor, the alien marble that made this plaza so sleek. Rawlins, after an instant of deliberation, slipped lithely into the lotus position a dozen meters away.
Muller said, “How old are you, Ned?”
“Twenty-three.”
“Married?”
A shy grin. “Afraid not.”