“It’s extremely bad taste in the daytime.”
“Part of her native costume, I reckon.”
“She didn’t have it when she came.”
“No, she made it—Oh, who cares!” I yawned and went to sleep. I slept like a baby and never dreamed of anything. I was still asleep when Marthe stopped at the address in the city I had given her and only woke when she shook me half out of the car.
5 About Altair
Griffith was home. Spacemen are usually home between voyages, with their shoes off and their feet up, getting acquainted with their wives and kids. He seemed glad to see me, but not too glad. He asked how everything was, and I said, “Fine,” and he said he’d been meaning to come up but he’d been too busy, and we both knew that neither statement was true. Then he said awkwardly that he was sorry about Bet, and I thanked him. When he couldn’t think of any more ways to stall, he asked me what he could do for me.
“Well,” I said, “my fiancee is wild to see the pictures you shot on the last voyage. New worlds, and all that.” I explained to him who she was. “She’s thinking of doing an article—how a special observer works, how the records are turned over to the government and the scientific bodies, and so on. I thought, as a special favor, you might be willing to show her the reels.”
“Oh,” he said, almost with a sigh of relief. “Sure, I’ll be glad to.”
He took us off to a small building at the rear of the house, where he had his photo lab and a projection room. He found the reels he wanted while chattering about some fine astronomical stuff that he’d been given an award for. Marthe asked him all the questions she could think of about his work, taking notes in a business-like way. The projector began to hum. We watched.
The reels were magnificent. Griffith knew his job. Interstellar space came alive before us. Nebulae, clusters, unknown Suns, glittering star streams, swept across the tridimensional screen in perfect reproduction of color.
We watched strange solar systems plunge toward us, and then the slow unveiling of individual planets as the Anson McQuarrie sank toward them. Some were dead and barren, some furiously alive, and some were peopled, not always by anything approaching the human. Each had its spectrum analysis and an exhaustive list of what ores and minerals might be found there, also atmosphere content, gravity, types and aspects of native flora and fauna.
In the fascination of watching, I almost forgot what I came for. Then-It was there. The world, the country of my dream—Ahrian’s world. Each leaf and flower and blade of grass, each shading of color, the gleaming city with the curious roofs, the plain that swept toward the opalescent sea.
I felt very sick and strange. I’m not sure what happened after that, but presently I was back in Griffith’s house and Marthe was feeding me brandy. I asked for more, and when I stopped shaking I turned to Griffith, who was much upset.
“That was the second world of Altair,” I said. “The home world of my brother’s wife.”
“Yes,” said Griffith.
“What happened there?” I got up and went close to him, and he stepped back a little. “What happened between my brother and Ahrian?”
“You better ask David,” he muttered and tried to turn away. I caught him.
“Tell me,” I said. “Bet’s already dead, so it’s too late for her. But there’s David—and me. For God’s sake, Griff, you used to be his friend!”
“Yes,” said Griffith slowly, “I used to be. I told him not to do what he did, but you know David.” He made an angry, indecisive gesture, and then he looked at me. “She’s such a little thing. How did she—I mean—”
“Never mind. Just tell me what David did to her. She didn’t come with him of her own free will, did she?”
“No. Oh, he tried to make out that she did, but everybody knew better. To this day I don’t know exactly what the deal was, but her people needed something, a particular chemical or drug, I think, and they must have needed it badly. The ship, of course, was heavily stocked with all sorts of chemicals and medical supplies—you know how useful David has found them before in establishing good relations with other races.
“If it isn’t their kids, it’s their cattle, or a crop blight, or polluted water, and they’re always grateful when you can fix things up, especially the primitives. Well, Ahrian’s people are far from primitive, but I guess they’d run out of the source for whatever it was. David was mighty secretive about the whole thing.”
He hesitated, and I prodded him. “What you’re trying to say is that David gave them the chemicals or drugs they needed in exchange for Ahrian. Bought her, in fact.”
Griffith nodded. He seemed to feel a personal sense of shame about it, as though the act of service under David had made him a party to the crime.
“Blackmailed her would be closer to the truth,” he said. “The ugliest part of it was that Ahrian was already pledged…At least, that’s what I heard. Anyway, no, she didn’t come of her own free will.”
I think, if I had had David’s neck between my hands then, I would have broken it. How evil a mess could a man make? And where were you going to put justice?
Marthe said to Griffith, “Did her people have any unusual abilities? It’s very important, Mr. Griffith.”
“Their culture is very complex, and we weren’t there long enough to study it in detail. Also, there was the language barrier. But I’m pretty sure they’re telepaths—many races are, you know—though to what extent I couldn’t say.”
“Telepaths,” said Marthe softly, and looked at me. “Mr. Griffith, do the women there wear a sort of tiara, shaped like—” She described Ahrian’s headgear minutely, including the oddly cut crystal. “Habitually, I mean.”
He stared at her as though he thought it was just like a woman to worry about fashions at a time like this. “Honestly, Miss Walters, I didn’t notice. Both sexes go in for jewelry, and nearly all of them make it themselves, and nobody could keep track—” He halted, apparently struck by a sudden memory. “I did see a marriage ceremony, though, where little crowns like that were used as we use rings. The man and woman exchanged them, and as near as I could figure the words, the rite was called something like the One-Making.”
“Thank you,” said Marthe. “Thank you very much. Now I think I’d better get Rafe home.”
I said something to Griffith, I’m not sure what, but he shook hands with me and seemed relieved. I sat in the car, thinking, and Marthe drove, not back toward the house, but to her apartment. She told me she’d be back in a minute and went off, taking the keys with her. I sat thinking, and my thoughts were not good. Marthe returned, carrying a small suitcase.
“What’s that for?” I demanded.
“I’m staying with you.”
“The devil you are!”
She faced me, with a look as level as a steel blade and just as unyielding. “You mean more to me than propriety, or my good name, or even my own skin. Is that clear? I am staying with you until this business is finished.”
I roared at her. I pleaded with her. I explained that if Ahrian were out for me, she would be out for Marthe too, if she got in the way. I told her she’d only make it harder for me, worrying about her.
All the time I was roaring, pleading, and explaining, Marthe was driving out of town, immovable, maddening, and wonderful. Finally I gave up. I couldn’t throw her out of the car. Even if I had, it wouldn’t have prevented her coming.
She spoke at last. “Of course, you know there’s a simple solution to all this—simple, logical, and safe.”
“What?”
“Go away out of Ahrian’s reach, and let David take his own consequences.”
“He deserves it,” I said savagely.
“But you won’t go away.”
“How can I, Marthe?” And I began to yell at her all over again because she wouldn’t go.
“All right, that’s settled. Now let’s start thinking. Obviously, we can’t go to the police.”
“Hardly.” It was frightening to consider what a hard-boi
led cop would make out of a woman who had lavender hair and performed witchcraft. “You believe that tiara Ahrian wears has something to do with her—well, her power over other people’s minds?”
“Possibly. I don’t know. That’s just it, Rafe—we don’t know, and so we have to be suspicious of everything.”
I remembered the unexplainable sensation I had had when Marthe threw that ring away. Could it have been a contact, a sort of focal point to concentrate the energy of her thought-waves which were, perhaps, amplified and controlled by the aid of that mesh of gold and platinum wires and that strangely faceted crystal? I remembered also the necklace of zircons that glittered on Bet’s throat, the night she died.
These gifts must be fashioned with a meaning from the heart…
“I don’t know what we’re going to do, Rafe. Do you?”
“Face them with it, I suppose. Face them both. Drag it out in the open, anyway.”
Marthe sighed, and we drove on in gloomy silence.
6 The Last Magic
It was dark when we reached the house. Ahrian welcomed us with little cries of delight.
“I am so happy you have brought Marthe back with you. It has been too long since we have seen her.”
“She’s staying for a while,” I said.
“How very nice. Since the little one is gone, I am lonely with no woman to talk to. Come, I will see that all is well in the room of guests.”
“Where’s David?” I asked.
“Oh, he has gone into the city and will not be back tonight. And my heart is sad, for I think that he has gone to talk of another voyage.”
She took Marthe away. I followed, on the pretext of making sure that Marthe had everything she needed, and stayed until the arrival of the maid. Then I went and changed for dinner, cursing David.
I got a word alone with Marthe before we went down. “We’d better wait,” I said. “I want to tackle them together. It’s the only way I know to put David on his guard.”
“Has he mentioned another voyage to you?” Marthe wanted to know.
I shook my head. “But then, he seldom mentions anything to me any more.”
“Ahrian’s doing.”
There didn’t seem to be any doubt about that. David and I had never exactly loved one another, but there had certainly never been any real ill feeling between us, either. Since Bet’s death, all that had been changed.
Ahrian put herself out to be nice to Marthe. If we hadn’t known what we knew, it would have been a delightful evening. Instead, it was rather horrible. All the time I was remembering how I had felt out there on the hill and wondering how much Ahrian knew, or suspected, and what she might be going to do about it.
All at once she cried out, “Oh Rafe, you have lost your ring!”
I told her some reasonably plausible lie. “I’m awfully sorry, Ahrian. You must make me another some time.”
She smiled. “There will be no need for that. Wait.” She ran off. Marthe and I looked at each other, not daring to speak. Presently Ahrian came back, presumably from her work room, carrying a cushion made of silk.
“See? I have made these for you both—a betrothal gift.”
On the cushion were two rings, identical in design, one large, one small. The zircons made a pale glittering, like two wicked eyes that watched us.
“Will you not exchange them now? I should be so happy!”
Marthe was going to say something violent. I gave her a look that shut her up and thanked Ahrian profusely. It was one of those things. If she knew we suspected her and her gifts, that was that. But if she didn’t know, I didn’t want her to find out just yet.
“But,” I said, “they are too beautiful for mere gifts. We’ll save them for the wedding, Ahrian. We were planning on a double ring ceremony anyway, and these will be perfect. Won’t they, Marthe?”
“Oh, yes,” she said.
Ahrian beamed like a happy child, and murmured that her little trinkets weren’t worthy of such an honor, and in that moment I began to doubt the whole crazy story again. No one could look so guileless and innocent and sweet as Ahrian did, and be guilty of the things we thought she was.
Marthe must have seen me wavering, because she said, “Rafe, darling, put them away where they’ll be quite safe. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to them before the wedding.”
I took them up to my room and hid them in the farthest back corner of a bureau drawer under a pile of shirts. While I was up there alone, the most awful temptation came over me to put the big one on my finger—just to look at it, to admire the sparkle of the queerly cut stone and the wonderful filigree work of the band. What harm could there be in a ring?
I guess it was the very strength of that compulsion that saved me. I got scared. I slammed the drawer shut, locked it, and threw the key out the window. Then I turned around to find Marthe standing in the doorway.
“I wouldn’t have let you put it on,” she whispered. “But you see, Rafe? You see how right we were!”
I began to shake a bit. We started downstairs again, and Marthe said in my ear, “She knows. I’m sure she knows.”
I agreed with her, and I was afraid. It shamed me to be afraid of such a frail little creature, but I was.
Marthe and I were both relieved when it came time to go to bed. It freed us from the weird necessity of making conversation with Ahrian. I had no intention of sleeping, but it was good to be away from her. Marthe’s room was down the hall from mine, farther than I liked but plenty close enough to hear her if she called me.
I told her to leave the door open and yell like the devil if anything—anything at all—seemed wrong to her. I left mine open, too, and sat down in a chair where I could see the lighted hall. I wished I had a gun, but I didn’t dare leave Marthe for all the time it would take to rouse out Jamieson and get the key. I picked out the heaviest stick I had and kept it in my hand.
The house was quiet, and nothing happened. The huge relic of a clock that stood on the stair landing chimed peacefully every fifteen minutes, and every hour it counted off the strokes in a deep, soft voice. I think the last time I heard it was half-past two. I didn’t mean to sleep. I had purposely drunk nothing but black coffee all evening. But I had been so long without sleep!
I remember getting up and walking down the hall to Marthe’s door and glancing in at her, curled up in the big bed. After that things got dim. I don’t believe that I slept very deeply, or very long, but it was enough. I dreamed with a terrible vividness of Marthe. She was standing in the garden, wrapped in a plaid bathrobe, and she was in danger, very great danger, and she needed me.
Starting up out of the chair, I listened for a moment. The house was silent, except for the clock ticking gently to itself on the landing. I ran down the hall and into Marthe’s room. At first I thought she was still there, and then I saw that the shape in the bed was only a mockery of tumbled blankets. I called her. There was no answer. Calling, I ran down through the house, and there was no answer at all until I came out on the terrace above the shadowy garden. Then I heard her say my name.
She was standing in a patch of moonlight with the plaid robe wrapped around her, and her face was white as death. In a minute I had my arms around her and she was sobbing, asking if I were safe.
“I must have been dreaming, Rafe, but I thought you were somewhere out here, hurt, maybe dying.”
She was in a terrible fright, and so was I. Because I knew who had sent those dreams—easy dreams to send, without any aids to telepathy, since with each of us the thought of danger to the other was right on top of our minds, conscious and screaming.
I wanted out of that garden.
We went up the steps together and onto the wide terrace, in that clear, white, damnable moonlight. From the long doors that opened into the library David stepped and barred our way. He held a heavy double-barreled shotgun, and at that range he couldn’t miss.
David.
He hadn’t gone to town. He had been in his room all this time—waiting
. His eyes were wide open, empty and bright, reflecting the cold fire of the moon.
Ahrian was with him.
I made some futile gesture of getting Marthe behind me, and I cried out, “David!” He turned his head a very little, like a man who hears a sound far off, and his brow puckered, but he did not speak.
Ahrian said softly, “I am sorry that it must be so, Rafe and Marthe. You are blameless, and you have been kind. If only Marthe had not sensed what was within me…But now it must be finished here, tonight.”
“Ahrian,” I said, and the twin black barrels of the shotgun watched me, and the stone of David’s ring sparkled against the stock. “David did a wicked thing. We know about it—but does it give you the right to kill us all? Bet, and Marthe…”
“I made a promise to my gods,” she whispered. “I had a mother and father, a brother, a sister—and more than all of them, though I loved them dearly, there was one who would have been my other self.”
“I’ll take you back,” I said. “I’ll send a ship out to Altair—only let Marthe go!”
“Could I go back as I am, as he has made me? Could I find my life again, with the blood that is already on me? No. I will take from David everything that he loves, even space itself, and in the end I will tell him how and why. Then—I will die.”
“All right. All right, Ahrian. But why Marthe? She can’t stop you. If David kills me, that’s enough. He’ll be tried for murder, the whole story will come out, and that will be the end of him whether he’s convicted or not.”
Ahrian smiled, a tender thing of ineffable sadness. “Marthe is speaking within herself, words that you should hear. Her body wishes much to live, but her heart says, ‘Not without him,’ and her heart is stronger. No, Rafe. If she lives, she will slip David out of the cage I have built for him. Now let us stop torturing each other!”
Her face contracted in a spasm of pain. She turned her head toward the motionless effigy of a man who stood beside her, and I saw the gun go up, and I knew this was the finish.
I shouted his name once more, pure reflex, and shoved Marthe aside as far as I could. David was twenty-five or thirty feet away. I bent over and began to run toward him. I didn’t know why. It was hopeless, but it was all I could think of to do. The distance looked like thirty miles—and then I heard him moan. He was moaning the way old Buck had moaned that day, and his head was pulled back as though he were straining away from something. I knew he didn’t want to kill me, even then.
The Best of Leigh Brackett Page 29