“You can ride with us,” Maybeck said. “We’ll bring you back to your car later.”
“Yes.” He allowed himself to be eased into the back seat. Then: “Ruth . . . Mrs. Hudson—shouldn’t someone be looking for . . .”
“We’re looking for her, Doc,” Maybeck said. “We’ll find her, never you worry.”
Will you find her? Thurlow wondered. What was that thing at the grove—looking at us, trying to manipulate our emotions? It was real. I know it was real. If it wasn’t real, then I’m insane. And I know I’m not insane.
He looked down at his feet in the dim shadows behind the seat. They were soaking from the walk across the wet lawn.
Joe Murphey, he thought. Joe knows he isn’t insane.
Chapter 11
Ruth awoke on something soft—soothing blue-gray light. She felt around her: a bed, silky warm covers. She realized she was nude on the bed . . . but warm . . . warm. Above her there was an oval shape full of glittering crystal facets. They changed colors as she watched—green, silver, yellow, blue . . . They were soothing.
Somewhere she knew there was something urgently demanding her attention, but it was a paradox. Her whole being told her the urgent thing could wait.
She turned her head to the right. There was light from somewhere, but she couldn’t determine its source—a light suddenly full of yellows like remembered sunlight. It illuminated an odd room—a wall lined with what appeared to be books, a low oval table cluttered with strange golden shapes: cubes, rectangular containers, a domed half-egg. There was a window with night’s blue blackness pushing against it. As she watched, the window became metallic white and a face appeared there to look in at her. It was a big face, odd silvery skin with harsh angles and planes, the eyes sunken, penetrating.
Ruth felt she should be frightened by that face, but she couldn’t find the emotional response.
The face disappeared and the window became a view looking down onto a seashore, surf-battered cliffs, dripping rocks, sunlight. Again, there was night’s darkness in the scene and she realized that the framed shape could not be a window.
In front of it stood a wheeled stand holding an unevenly stacked, multibanked shape like a surrealistic typewriter.
A draft touched the left side of her body. It was the first cold thing she had experienced since awakening. She turned toward it, saw an oval door. It stood open, but iris leaves were sinking inward to seal it. Just inside the door stood a squat figure in green leotards—the face that had peered in at her. Somewhere within her there was a reaction which said: “This is a loathsome, bowlegged little man.” The reaction refused to surface.
The creature’s wide, thick-lipped mouth opened. He said: “I am Kelexel.” The voice was smooth. It went through her with a tingling sensation.
His eyes traversed her body and she recognized the intense maleness of the look, was surprised to find herself not repelled by it. This room was so warmly soothing, the crystal facets above her moved with such gentle beauty.
“I find you very attractive,” Kelexel said. “I do not remember ever being attracted thus, with such magnetism.”
He walked around the place where she lay.
Ruth followed him with her eyes, watched him manipulate keys on the machine atop the wheeled stand. A delicious tremor ran through her and she began to wonder what it would be like to have this strange creature, this Kelexel, as a lover.
Distantly within her, she sensed a voice screaming: “No! No! No!” Slowly, the voice dimmed, grew silent.
Kelexel came to stand over her.
“I am of the Chem,” he said. “Does this mean anything to you?”
She shook her head. “No.” Her voice was faint.
“You have not seen a person such as myself before?” Kelexel asked.
“The . . .” She remembered her last few minutes with Nev, the creatures in the doorway. And Andy. She knew there was something she should feel about Andy Thurlow, a deep and abiding emotion, but there was only a sisterly affection. Dear Andy . . . such a sweet, dear person.
“You must answer me,” Kelexel said. There was a deep feeling of power in his voice.
“I saw . . . three . . . at my house . . . three who . . .”
“Ah, the three who brought you here,” Kelexel said. “But before that, had you seen any of us before that?”
She thought then of the grove, Andy’s description (kind, pleasant Andy) but she hadn’t really seen such creatures there.
“No,” she said.
Kelexel hesitated, glanced at the telltales of the manipulator which controlled the native female’s emotions. She was telling the truth. Still, it paid to be cautious.
“Then it means nothing to you that I am of the Chem?” he asked.
“What . . . are the Chem?” she asked. A part of her was aroused now to intense curiosity. The curiosity struggled up through muddy waves of distraction to sit in her awareness and stare at Kelexel. What a gnome of a creature! What a sweet little gnome.
“It shall mean something,” Kelexel said. “You are very attractive to me. We Chem are kind to those who please us. You cannot go back to your friends, of course, not ever. There are compensations, however. It’s considered an honor to serve the Chem.”
Where is Andy? Ruth wondered. Dear, sweet Andy.
“Very attractive,” Kelexel murmured.
Wondering at the force which moved him, Kelexel extended a knob-knuckled finger, touched her right breast. How resilient and lovely her skin. The finger moved gently up to the nipple, to her neck, her chin, her lips, her hair.
“Your eyes are green,” Kelexel said. “We Chem are very fond of green.”
Ruth swallowed. The caressing movement of Kelexel’s finger filled her with excitement. His face dominated her vision. She reached up, touched his hand. How hard and virile the hand felt. She met the penetrating stare of his brown eyes.
The manipulator’s instruments told Kelexel that the female was now completely subjugated to his will. The realization stirred him. He smiled, exposing square silvery teeth. “I will have many questions for you,” he said. “Later.”
Ruth felt herself sinking into a golden daze. Her attention was locked onto the crystal facets glittering above the bed. Kelexel’s head momentarily obscured the kaleidoscopic movement, then she felt his face pressed between her breasts. The golden daze overwhelmed her with ripples and waves of terrifying ecstasy.
“Oh, God,” she whispered. “Oh, God. Oh, God.”
How pleasant to be worshiped at such a moment, Kelexel thought. It was the most pleasure he had ever experienced from a female.
Chapter 12
Ruth was to look back at the first few Chem days with a profound astonishment at herself. She grew aware (slowly) that Kelexel was twisting her responses with his outlandish devices, but by that time she was addicted to the manipulation. It was only important that Kelexel return to touch her and speak to her and twist her to his desires.
He grew handsome in her sight. It gave her pleasure just to look at his ridged, tubular body. His square face was easy to read in his devotion to her.
He really loves me, she thought. He had Nev killed to get me.
There was even pleasure in the realization of how utterly helpless she was, how completely subject to Kelexel’s slightest whim. She had come to understand by then that the most powerful force on earth was as an anthill when compared to the Chem. By this time she’d been through an educational imprinter, spoke Chem and shiptongue.
The major irritant in her existence at this moment was remembrance of Andy Thurlow. Kelexel had begun to ease back on the strength of the manipulator (her reactions were now sufficiently conditioned) and she could remember Andy with growing clarity. But the fact of her helplessness eased her guilt feelings, and Andy came less and less into her thoughts until Kelexel brought her a pantovive.
Kelexel had learned his lesson with the Subi creature. Activity slows the aging process of a mortal, he reminded himself, and he
had Ynvic fit Ruth to a pantovive with access to the storyship’s Archive Storage system.
The machine was introduced into a corner of her prison-room, a room that already had taken on touches of her personality as Kelexel fitted it to her wishes. A complete bathroom-dressing room had been installed adjoining it. Clothing? She had but to ask, Kelexel filled a closet to overflowing. Jewelry, perfumes, choice foods: all came at her bidding.
Kelexel bent to every request, knowing himself to be besotted with her and enjoying every moment of it. When he caught the crewmen exchanging sly looks he smiled to himself. They must all have their pleasure creatures from this planet. He presumed that the native males must be just as exciting to Chem females; it was one of the attractions of the place, one of the reasons Fraffin had been so successful here.
Thoughts of his purpose here, his duty, slipped temporarily into the background. He knew the Primacy would understand when he explained and displayed his pleasure creature. After all, what was Time to a Chem? The Investigation would continue, merely a bit slowed . . . temporarily.
At first, the pantovive frightened Ruth. She shook her head as Kelexel tried to explain its purpose and workings. How it worked; that was easy enough to understand. Why it worked was completely beyond her comprehension.
It was the time she had come to call afternoon, although there was little sense of day and night here in the ship. Afternoon merely meant that Kelexel had come from whatever mysterious duties took him away and he would now spend a relaxation and rest period with her. Ruth sat in the fitted contours of the control chair. The room’s lights were tuned to muted yellow and the pantovive filled her attention.
The thing somewhat fitted her ideas of a machine. The chair nestled part way into it. There were control rings in the chair arms, banks of knobs and keys to left and right, rows of them in coded colors—yellows, reds, grays, blacks, greens, blues, a series of orange and white ones looking like a crazy piano. Directly in front and slightly below her extended an oval platform with shimmering lines extending to it from behind the banks of keys.
Kelexel stood behind her, a hand on her shoulder. He felt a rather distant pride showing the wonders of Chem civilization to his new pet . . . his lovely new pet.
“Use voice or key command to select the period and title you wish,” he said. “Just as you heard me do. This unit is keyed to your tongue or Chem and will accept and translate in that mode. This is an editing pantovive and looks complicated, but you may ignore most of the controls. They’re not connected. Remember, you first open the channel to Archives by depressing this key.” He demonstrated, pushing an orange key on her right “Once you’ve selected your story, lock it in thusly.” Again, he demonstrated. “Now, you can begin the action.” He depressed a white key at far left.
A mob, its figures reduced to quarter size, formed on the oval stage in front of her. A sense of mad excitement radiated from them through the sensimesh circuits. She sat bolt upright as the emotion swept over her.
“You’re feeling the emotion of the creatures on the stage,” Kelexel said. “If it’s too strong, reduce it by turning this control to your left.” He moved a dial on the chair arm. The excitement ebbed.
“Is it real?” she asked.
The mob was a wash of colors in antique styles—blues, flutters of red, dirty rags on arms and feet, rare glitters of buttons or emblems, tricorne hats on some of the men, red cockades. There was an odd familiarity about the scene that inflicted Ruth with an abrupt feeling of fear. Her body came alive to tom-tom pulse-beats from some fire-flickering past. She sensed driving rhythms of drums within herself.
“Is it real?” she demanded, raising her voice this time.
The mob was running now, feet thudding. Brown feet winked under the long dresses of the women.
“Real?” Kelexel asked. “What an odd question. It’s . . . perhaps real in a sense. It happened to natives such as yourself. Real—how strange. That idea has never concerned me.”
The mob ran through a park now. Kelexel bent over Ruth’s shoulder, sharing the aura of the sensimesh web. There came a wet smell of grass, evergreens with their resin pungency, the sweaty stink of the natives in their exertions. Stage center focused down onto the running legs. They rushed past with a scissoring urgency, across brown paths, grass, disturbing yellow petals in a flower border. Wet wind, busy feet, crushed petals—there was fascination in the movement.
Viewpoint drew back, back, back. A cobbled street, high stone walls came into stage center. The mob raced toward the gray stained walk. Steel flashed in their midst now.
“They appear to be storming a citadel,” Kelexel said.
“The Bastille,” Ruth whispered. “It’s the Bastille.”
The recognition held her hypnotized. Here was the actual storming of the Bastille. No matter the present date, here in front of her senses it was July 14, 1789, with an organized movement of soldiery sweeping in from the right of the mob. There was the clatter of hooves on stone, gun carriages rumbling, hoarse shouts, curses. The pantovive’s translator rendered them faithfully into English because she had asked for it in English.
Ruth gripped the arms of her chair.
Abruptly, Kelexel reached forward, depressed a gray key at her left. The scene faded.
“I remember that one well,” he said. “One of Fraffin’s more successful productions.” He touched Ruth’s hair. “You understand how it works now? Focusing here.” His hand came forward, demonstrating. “Intensity here. It’s quite simple to operate and should provide you many hours of enjoyment.”
Enjoyment? Ruth thought.
Slowly, she turned, looked up at Kelexel. There was a lost sense of horror in her eyes. The storming of the Bastille: a Fraffin production!
Fraffin’s name was known to her. Kelexel had explained the workings of the storyship.
Storyship!
Until this moment, she hadn’t begun to plumb the implications behind that label.
Storyship.
“Duties call me elsewhere at the moment,” Kelexel said. “I’ll leave you to the enjoyment of your pantovive.”
“I . . . thought you were going to . . . stay,” she said. Suddenly, she didn’t want to be alone with this machine. She recognized it as an attractive horror, a thing of creative reality that might open a hoard of locked things which she couldn’t face. She felt that the reality of the pantovive might turn into flames and scorch her. It was wild, potent, dangerous and she could never control it nor chain her own desires to use it.
Ruth took Kelexel’s hand, forced a smile onto her face. “Please stay.”
Kelexel hesitated. The invitation in his pet’s face was obvious and attractive, but Ynvic, fitting Ruth to the pantovive, had sent a new train of ideas coursing through his mind. He felt the stirrings of responsibility, his duty to the Investigation. Ynvic, the oddly stolid and laconic shipsurgeon, yes—she might just be the weak spot in Fraffin’s organization. Kelexel felt the need to test this new avenue.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I must leave. I’ll return as soon as possible.”
She saw she couldn’t move him and she dropped back, faced the raw temptation which was this machine. There came the sounds of Kelexel leaving and she was alone with the pantovive.
Presently, she said: “Current story in progress, latest production.” She depressed the proper keys.
The oval stage grew almost dark with little star glimmers of yellow along its edges. A dot of blue light appeared at the center of focus, flickered, washed white and suddenly there was a man standing at a mirror shaving with a straightedge razor. She gasped with recognition. It was Anthony Bondelli, her father’s attorney. She held her breath, trying to still a terrifying sense of eavesdropping.
Bondelli stood with his back to her, his face visible as a reflection in the mirror. It was a deeply tanned face with two wings of smooth black hair sweeping back from a high, thin forehead. His nostrils flared above a pencil-line mustache and small mouth. The chin was
broad, out of proportion with the narrow features, a fact she had noted before. He radiated a feeling of sleepy complacency.
And indistinct shouting began to dominate the scene. Bondelli paused in his shaving, turned and called through an open doorway on his right: “What th’ hell’s all that noise?” He resumed shaving, muttered: “Always turn that damn’ TV too loud.”
Ruth grew conscious of odors in the scene—a wet smell of shaving soap and over that the pervasive aroma of frying bacon. The realism held her rigid in her chair. She felt herself breathing quietly lest Bondelli turn and find her spying.
Presently, a woman in a bold Chinese-pattern dressing gown appeared in the bathroom doorway. She held her hands rigidly clasped in front of her bosom:
In a sudden premonition, Ruth wanted to turn off the pantovive, but her muscles refused to obey. She knew the woman in the dressing gown: Marge Bondelli, a pleasantly familiar figure with braided blonde hair pinned back from her round face. That face was contorted now in shock.
“Tony!” she said.
Bondelli pulled the razor slowly down beneath his jaw, taking care at the pattern of deep creases which ran from the sides of his jaw down along his neck. “Whuzzit?”
The television still could be heard in the background, a muted sense of conversation. Bondelli pulled the razor slowly upward. A look of glazed shock dominated his wife’s blue eyes. She said: “Joe Murphey killed Adele last night!”
“Ouch!” A thin line of red appeared on Bondelli’s neck. He ignored it, splashed the razor down into the washbasin, whirled.
Ruth felt herself trembling uncontrollably. It’s just like a movie, she told herself. This isn’t really happening right now. Pain in her chest made it difficult to breathe. My mother’s death is a Fraffin Production!
“That terrible sword,” Bondelli’s wife whispered.
Bondelli thrust himself away from the washbasin, passed his wife, went into the living room and stood before the television.
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