Coman thought: This place stinks of danger.
It was an awkward moment, and then Jonl said with a smile:
‘We tried to convince Jark that we should leave when you arrived but he wouldn’t listen. Perhaps, after all, we ought to stop a little longer – long enough for you to pay your respects to Mrs Raylond.’
Coman frowned, then touched her cheek softly, and Sein’s also. ‘It would indeed be boorish of me to refuse.’
The dwelling was of single-floor construction, but immense and sprawling in size, with solid haze walls and lighting controlled by hand movements. As they followed Raylond, Coman became aware that he was contemplating ways and means of manipulating his disposal – even his death. And Coman saw also that if he had refused to stay they would not have managed to get past the robots at the gate.
Here was an new dilemma. It was pointless now to regret his suggestion that Jonl and Sein should stay here and he put his mind to the problem of cooling the young man’s ardour or of otherwise outwitting him. If it was not solved they were going to be prisoners for an indefinite period.
The two women, unaware of this predicament, were both filled with pleasure at his return – Sein openly but Jonl showing her feeling in an occasional side-glance. They came to a large room with a tiled floor, faintly perfumed, sonorous with music, furnished with the small, exquisitely fashioned pieces of the period, and many ‘objets d’art’ gathered from the solar planets and beyond. As they entered, a majestic, heavily rouged woman of handsome features rose to greet them. As Jark performed the introduction she gave her hand and smiled.
‘So you’re Claus Coman,’ she said. ‘A fortunate and powerful man, in these days, to have bound two such intelligent and beautiful women to yourself.’
She spoke pleasantly but Coman was undeceived, for he saw that in her eyes he was an obstacle to her son’s happiness and therefore an enemy. He took the wrist, heavy with jewels, in his right hand, touched it fleetingly with is left hand and bowed.
‘I believe that you too have had an experience of love, madam,’ he ventured.
‘I have indeed. You will not find me disclaiming belief in such a phenomenon – when it occurs. Please sit down, Mr Coman. What will you have to drink – tea?’
He nodded, faintly surprised, and she nodded too.
‘You see, I know about you – even the fact that you are directly descended from the English. Surely, in view of the fact that that nation suffered more than any other during the Disaster, there must be very few of you in existence now?’
He replied: ‘Only a few hundreds escaped, but my grandmother and her baby son were among them.’
‘Fascinating,’ said Jark. ‘I think I’ll have something stronger than tea.’
He signalled, and a robot brought a variety of drinks. Coman’s tea came upon a separate tray set in the old fashion, with tea-pot, cup, saucer, milk jug and sugar bowl. It tasted superb.
‘Do you mind the music?’ the hostess asked him.
‘No, I’m very fond of Vaughan Williams. This is the Third Symphony isn’t it?’
She beamed. ‘Yes. What a pity we have so little left of Sibelius, the master who, it is believed, influenced him so greatly.’
Coman observed her intently, attracted, despite the fact that they could not be friends. He saw that although she was not a telepath she nevertheless possessed extra-sensory powers of another sort, commonly known as ‘psychic’, gifts of little apparent consequence and of notorious unreliability, but sufficiently rare to set her apart from ‘normal’ humans.
Such people, it was said, had an affinity with Venusians, and certainly they were usually better able to handle and communicate with these beings. It was through ‘mediums’ that the discovery had been made that every Venusian believed that he or she had a spirit companion which followed the body everywhere and was destined to exist for the normal Venusian life span (60 years) irrespective of whether or not the person concerned lived to that age. The Venusians believed that if one of their number was deprived of rightful old age by any form of violence or sickness, the victim would be deprived of the chance of another life and the ‘doppelgänger’ would be doomed to wander for ever. This, of course, explained the Venusians singular trait of gentleness and their tremendous medical ability. It also proved a useful factor in their subjection by Earth.
When he made to probe her inner thoughts, Coman realised that he could go no deeper than the conscious mind, for she would be sure to feel him. Nevertheless, as her thoughts were mainly concerned with her son, he soon understood that she was desperately afraid that before long, Jark might do something ruinous and tragic. In other words that he might become one of that increasing number of Earth youth who went beserk and murdered as their mood dictated.
Just then a buzzer sounded and Jark said: ‘That will be the first of the guests. I’ll take them into the terrace room.’
When he had gone, Mrs Raylond poured Coman a second cup and, as she handed it to him, said quietly: ‘You spoke of love just now. My son is in love too, for the first time in his life.’
She made a certain movement with her hand and the music faded and was still.
Jonl said gently: ‘Oh now look, Doln …’
The elder woman cut her short firmly. ‘No. Let me have my say. I believe in love, yes – between two people, but not between three. This man does not love you – he loves himself.’
Coman said nothing but drank his tea in a silence full of tension.
Jonl tired again: ‘You just don’t understand …’
‘Oh yes I do. I know that you have a taste for Lesbianism, but that is principally because you’re not deeply in love with this man. Don’t you see that with my boy …’
But it was now Jonl’s turn to interrupt. Her eyes bright with anger she said: ‘Don’t you believe that three people can be happy with each other, and share their love?’
‘It is too much concerned with the flesh,’ said Mrs Raylond, her mouth set stubbornly.
Coman said mildly: ‘Sometimes it is only through the flesh that some of us can arrive at the thing behind. When the body is completely content, satiated, then the soul, or whatever you may like to call it, can often find full rein. It sounds bestial – an inversion of martyrdom – bit I’m afraid many of us are built in this way.’
Mrs Raylond opened her mouth as if to reply violently and then gave him a sharp glance. ‘Are you a telepath?’
He nodded, and saw her resentment. She had felt his difference and now knew she was up against something stronger than she had imagined. For a moment she was nonplussed.
Sein said softly: ‘I don’t think one can attach very much importance to Jark’s desire for Jonl. I believe it’s merely that in an age where nearly every woman is every man’s willing bed-fellow, certain men find a woman who is not, eminently more desirable.
Mrs Raylond shrugged irritable. ‘He needs a person like Jonl. He’s headstrong and foolish, but this time he is in love, and the qualities inherited from his father will show themselves clearly once he is bound to the right person.’
‘Surely it takes two to make a bond?’ asked Jonl. ‘And I think I’ve made it pretty clear that I’m not in the least interested. In fact, you know, this is a completely pointless discussion.’
Mrs Raylond’s face seemed to sag and Coman saw again the fear in her mind.
‘He’s nearly at the end of his tether – he will commit suicide!’ she said abruptly, and turned to Jonl with a look of misery. ‘You know as well as I do why people kill themselves – self-loathing, loneliness, despair, the need for love, for an anchor.’
‘I cannot believe he is so ill-balanced,’ said Jonl. But she turned her face away from the look on the elder woman’s face.
Coman said quietly: ‘It is a malady which can only be cured by the victim, madam.’ He stood up. ‘I honestly don’t think you should fear suicide, Mrs Raylond, but I believe we should be allowed to leave without further delay.’
‘Nobody
is stopping you,’ she said dully.
He said patiently: ‘Will you give instructions to the guards at the gate, ensuring our free passage?’
‘What nonsense. There is no need for that. You have only to …’
‘Mr Coman and his companions mustn’t think of leaving us yet, mother.’
Jark had returned and now stood in the doorway. Smiling, he went on: ‘Why don’t you three come into the living room and meet some of the crowd? They’re an interesting assortment and I’m sure you’d be fascinated by some of their antics and conversations.’
‘The Crowd’ constituted a fairly accurate microcosm of refined humanity in the last years of the twenty-first century. Before the Atomic Disaster, the two cultures of Art and Science, although divided from and almost hostile to one another, had enjoyed a common level of intellectual importance in men’s minds, but, after the Disaster, the pursuit of scientific knowledge was sharply relegated to a position far below that of its former status. In the opinion of the men who rose to power in the early days of rehabilitation and rebuilding, scientists had forfeited their right to be taken as persons possessing the same sense of humanitarian responsibility as the philosophers and thinkers who for years had been warning the world of the dangers threatening its survival. Useless for them to protest it was not their fault that the inventions they had made possible were used for catastrophic ends; useless even for them to point out that the speed in which the new world was being built owed much to their doing – after the Disaster they were forced to submit to restrictions and controls hitherto unknown, and the Arts became the only recognised source from which the new intelligentsia could be drawn.
Unfortunately, as time went by, most of these were represented by the manufacturers of the countless dream worlds which were ground out hour by hour on hundreds of sound and vision channels, the creators and purveyors of ‘new’ sensations. The actors and actresses who performed in the dreams, their critics and admirers, toadies and advisors, patrons and string-pullers – all creatures so long exhausted by jealousies, mind-rackings, bustlings and intrigues, that they often seemed like cardboard figures, ready to be blown away by the merest draught of enmity and adversity. In fact many were, but most were stronger than they seemed, for their very frailty was to their advantage. They were unable to stop themselves thinking, but they had trained themselves not to feel. They loved food and drink, but it had to be the best, the sort one tastes and sniffs approvingly and picks at delicately. They enjoyed sex but it had to be of an exotic nature, preferably at second hand, taken by the eye or the ear. Love in the ancient sense was to them meaningless, and procreating rather disgusting, even ludicrous. They liked to examine violence, at second hand, and would explore its meanings and values, revelling in the most gory of details and weaving all kinds of philosophical theories to explain its presence in a society which gave people everything within reason.
Coman stood with a drink in his hand and watched this group laughing, chattering and fumbling with each other, and he felt nothing but acute boredom and an aching desire to leave. It was like taking part in the familiar nightmare, in which one wishes to flee but, held by a miasma of lethargy, cannot so much as move an arm.
‘One can’t feel absolutely safe anywhere, these days,’ said a man with carmined lips, and there was an undertone of triumph in his voice, as if he would say also: ‘You see – we have nearly reached the end, the ultimate result of centuries of civilisation. And when we do, and violence is everything – ah, what will happen to us all then?’
A girl whose naked breasts protruded through her dress, the nipples coloured with gold, said in reply: ‘Of course you know what will happen now, don’t you? The pendulum will swing right back until you won’t see a single act of copulation on any channel, and there will be a period during which Woman will attain her ancient mystery once more. It has to come.’
A bald-headed man who had strayed in, so full of stimulants that he could talk only of the subject nearest his heart, declared: ‘This War Section is going to be a really nice project. There’s going to be a lot of loot made, and the thing is to get in on the ground floor right from the word go. Now I have certain well-informed connexions, and I can assure you …’
Mrs Raylond was talking to some friends nearby, but Jark was not to be seen. Across the long room Coman saw Sein and Jonl separated by only a few yards, seemingly at ease and enjoying themselves, and for a moment he felt a flash of fear for his reason. In that instant it was easy to imagine that they were at a perfectly ordinary party and the two girls happy guests in harmless and congenial surroundings. Surely he was imagining dangers and barriers which could not exist? The moment gave him suddenly a complete lack of orientation, as if his very being was dissolving. Yet this was a feeling common among telepaths, and almost immediately his defence mechanisms took over and brought him back to reality once more.
Just then Jonl looked towards him and he saw her eyes, troubled and beseeching above the smile on her lips. He moved towards her and in a moment drew her aside to a fairly quiet part of the room. It was the first real opportunity they had had to talk to each other.
‘Oh Claus, when are we going to get out of this place?’
‘I thought you were enjoying yourself,’ he said, watching Sein dancing with a tall young man to a strange, eerie tune which had originated on a world nearly fifty light years away.
‘I’m not. I’m dead scared. When do we go?’
The man with Sein was saying: ‘Of course I agree that in one respect all life forms throughout the universe are a part of the same brotherhood, but when some people say we should accept them as equals, take them into our society without reservations, give them the same rights, then I feel like going into a quiet corner and being sick.’ At the same time he was thinking: By Jupiter, she’s nice. I’d give a small fortune to see her in one of the love machines the Pinians use.
Coman cast a glance across the room at the long windows leading to the terrace. It had grown dark, and beyond an invisible screen thousands of insects leapt and fluttered vainly in their efforts to reach the room.
He said: ‘We are virtual prisoners. Is there a way out other than through the main entrance?’
Jonl did not answer his question for a moment, but lifted her head and stared at him, murmuring: ‘Somehow I guessed we were. It’s my fault …’
‘Rubbish. Raylond has the sickness and nothing can be done with him. You were the first woman to come along and flatly refuse him, and this has put him near the edge of madness. The way out …?’
‘The place is completely burglar-proof. There is only one gate, and an impenetrable ray-fence surrounds the rest of the area.’
‘There has to be some kind of switch …’
‘No. It is on an automatic beam direct from the Police Centre, and can only be altered by a signatory call from Mrs Raylond or her son. As I believe I told you, she is an influential figure here and therefore has special privileges.’
‘That’s great, just great!’
Jonl continued to stare at him, her oval, piquant face still and serious. ‘When you returned you had the smell of violence about you. Was it – bad, Claus?’
He shrugged. ‘Let’s forget about it. When we move out of here – and we shall get away, have no fear about that – the three of us are going to have a real holiday. Sun and sea …’
Jonl regarded him steadily. She had always admired one particular quality in him, a coolness which she had not imagined could desert him in any circumstances, a reservoir of strength and purpose which, in some magical way, communicated itself to others and served as a shield, no matter how unpleasant the danger. Yet tonight the shield seemed ill-tempered, somehow makeshift.
‘It was bad, wasn’t it?’
Coman was silent, his eyes meeting hers, and suddenly Jonl knew that this particular thing between them had nothing to do with danger or death.
‘The woman you went to meet?’ she asked.
‘Yes. The woman.’
‘You entered her.’ She turned away, and he gazed at the nape of her neck, sensing the struggle and confusion in her mind, yet controlling the impulse to probe her thoughts. Her intuition told her that nothing important had happened between him and the other woman – nothing which need endanger the bond between the three of them – but the question remained: Why? It was a question Coman had also asked himself that morning, when he had awoken beside Linnel. He had never remotely felt the need for a stranger even during the long months on Venus, and so – why?
Yet the answer was pretty obvious, after all, and at length Jonl faced him again and said softly: ‘I’ve kept you waiting a long time, haven’t I, Claus?’
He put his hand gently up to the line of her jaw, and as it made contact she covered it with her own hand, murmuring: ‘I’m ready to go through – into your world.’
So it was true. In those few seconds Jonl had resolved to master her fear and to open the barriers of her mind to him.
She spoke again, so quietly that he could only just catch the question: ‘And Sein?’
‘Nothing will be spoiled. When you and I are perfectly involved, then she also must be helped to become a part – and there will be the three of us once more. It will be like – a miracle, do you realise that?’
Jonl nodded, trembling, a prey to unnameable fears, yet willing, longing, to believe that he would be right, and that all would be well.
Sein had abruptly stopped dancing and with a cool expression was removing her partner’s hand from around the curve of her buttock, her small fingers tight upon his wrist.
‘Get Sein,’ Coman said, ‘and steer her out on to the terrace. Don’t hurry, do it as unobtrusively as possible. Something has to be worked out.’
As Jonl left him he went casually through the throng of people until he came to the long window and then, after a quick glance round to make sure there were no eyes upon him, opened one and slipped out into the darkness.
A Man of Double Deed Page 17