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Title: Mating center
Author: Frank Belknap Long
Release date: August 19, 2023 [eBook #71441]
Language: English
Original publication: United States: Chariot Books, 1961
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MATING CENTER ***
The Mating Center
by FRANK BELKNAP LONG
Copyright 1961
[Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any
evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
A Chariot Book
EXCITING READING FOR MEN
Printed in the U. S. A.
_The characters in this book are entirely fictitious
and are the products of the author's imagination. They
in no way represent actual people._
_TELEMAN BEGAN TO TREMBLE...._
_The lovely woman approaching him on the travel strip was
non-sex-privileged--he could tell by her attire--but she looked at him
boldly._
_As she came abreast of him she stumbled, and he instinctively flung
out his arm to catch her. The feel of her body against his sent a shock
through his system._
_She was trembling also, and she whispered strange words to him. "It is
breaking down! Can't you feel it? The love instincts are returning--"_
_"No," he protested._
_She clung to him, grinding her body against his. "Love me," she
whispered. "I know you want me. I can see it in your eyes."_
_He tried to push her away._
_"Look at me," she pleaded. "Am I not beautiful?" She unbuckled the
golden belt at her waist so that the brief, diaphanous garment hung
free, revealing the generous curves of her body. She stood very
straight, her full red lips slightly parted, her jutting breasts
heaving with the intensity of her emotion...._
PROLOGUE
The Guiding Specialist paused, as if to stress the importance of what
he was about to say. "Love," he went on, his voice rising slightly,
"must be stripped of all artificial romantic glamour and exposed for
what it is: a necessary biological technique for the propagation of the
race. Its exercise must be confined to a rigorously selected few men
and women whose sole function in our society is to further that aim."
A murmuring arose in the hall and ran back and forth between the tiers.
The speaker paused again and his features took on a harsher aspect, so
that his image on the lighted screen no longer seemed beneficent but
resembled more that of a man passing inexorable judgment.
There was a murmuring in the seven-tiered speaker-guidance hall, a
heightening of tension, a drawing together of many thoughtful minds.
The hall had a seating capacity of eight thousand, and every seat was
taken. Every seat was occupied by Ruling-Caste Monitors, the guardians
of the most powerful and complex World State that Earth had ever known.
It was a society of gigantic industrial plants and research
laboratories, of vast agricultural projects, of inland waterway and
harbor-spanning bridges, of atomic generators and throbbing power
turbines, of parks and playgrounds and athletic arenas where recreation
was carefully supervised.
It was the first experiment in survival on a planetary scale to
sanction taboos which previous ages would have rejected with horror,
and to punish the violation of those taboos with the sternest kind of
repressive measures and personality-transforming techniques.
"Far back in the twentieth century," the speaker went on, "the kind
of social control which we have succeeded in exercising would have
seemed a folly and a madness. It would not even have been achievable
on a purely scientific basis, for our remote ancestors did not have
sufficient scientific knowledge to subdue and regulate the love impulse
and keep it from becoming a danger to the entire social fabric.
"We have been much too lenient," he said. "When the love-impulse
manifests itself outside of the mating centers we must punish the
offenders immediately. No mercy can be tolerated. We must not attempt
to deceive ourselves as to the extent of the evil. We must wear no
blindfolds. We must not condone or overlook the wickedness of a few
individuals simply because they possess unusual qualities of body and
mind. All who offend must be brought to judgment."
The whispering began again and this time it seemed to annoy the
speaker. The frown on his face increased in severity and a tiny muscle
in his jaw began to twitch.
Before he could completely regain his composure an hysterical scream
rang out at the rear of the hall.
"It is you who are cruelly distorted and blind. You call the refusal
to deny all men and women the right to love a madness and a folly.
But it is you, it is all of us, who are mad! We have cut ourselves
off from joy, from beauty, from everything that is truly creative and
life-transforming. And I, for one, will not submit. I will no longer
endure such a tyranny."
The words followed closely upon the scream, and there could be no doubt
that the voice was that of a woman. She had risen in her seat on the
elevated, next-to-last tier, and she was trembling violently, her face
drained of all color.
There was a shocked silence for an instant and then one of the male
Monitors cried out: "This is a shame and a scandal. She is herself a
Monitor! That she should dare--"
"Yes, I will dare!" the woman proclaimed defiantly. She was standing
very straight now, and her voice was no longer hysterical, but firm
and unyielding. She was a woman of striking beauty, with lustrous dark
hair and flashing dark eyes, and her pale brow was encircled by a tiara
which glittered in the light from the screen and gave her an almost
regal aspect.
"I am in love with love and I am not ashamed. I am proud."
As she spoke the woman unfastened her outer garment and quickly removed
it, tossing it from her with a gesture of prideful disdain.
"You who appear merely as an image on a screen, but can see and hear me
clearly enough through the audio-visual recorders which protect you so
well from anger and rebellion, and a violence which you fear! And you
who are seated here in the security of your high office, pretending to
be all-powerful and untroubled, but knowing full well that whirlwinds
of rebellion are undermining your power, day by day, hour by hour. All
of you! Monitors, Guiding Specialist, cravens to the bone, look upon me
as I am.
"I am not ashamed of my body. Look well upon my beauty, which was given
to me for a purpose which you are too tragically crippled in body and
mind to understand. Look well--and for the first time--on a beauty
which was made for light and love and laughter. For grief, too, and a
mutual sharing in a fulfillment which was once the heritage of every
man and woman on Earth. To love and be loved is also a right, and if it
is grasped firmly and with courage no power on Earth can destroy the
glory of it."
The woman continued to remove her garments, tossing them aside one by
one until she stood naked and unadorned in the downstreaming light.
Her full breasts were high and proud and rose-tipped. Her narrow waist
flared into generous hips, the hips of a fully mature woman. Her long
thighs were the texture of velvet. She was the essence of sex, and she
displayed it like a badge of honor.
For a moment there was complete stillness in the speaker-guidance hall.
Then, in the midst of the gathering, someone began to sob....
The guidance specialist droned on. "Our society could not endure for a
single day without the skills of men and women who have been trained to
perform just one task well." His great golden head on the illuminated
tele-screen stood out with a startling clarity, holding his audience
spellbound.
"Specialization in every human activity has kept disaster from
overtaking us, as it has overtaken so many of the powerful world
civilizations of the past," he went on eloquently. "We have created a
social structure that should endure for five thousand years. It has
already stood firm for four centuries. But now that structure is being
undermined by a very great evil.
"It is being undermined by the strongest and most rebellious of human
impulses: the blind, uncontrollable urge of men and women everywhere
to make love, to mate and reproduce themselves. If that primitive
aberration is not stamped out, if stern measures are not taken at once,
our society will collapse."
ONE
Teleman couldn't remember when he had first experienced the strange
torment. The restlessness, the almost frightening desire to behave like
some mad criminal, would come upon him at the most unexpected moments.
He'd find himself turning his head and staring wildly at the women
who passed him on the travel strip. He'd watch them while they went
striding on ahead of him toward the mating and child-rearing centers,
never taking his eyes from them until they were swallowed up in the
golden glow from the distant buildings.
It was incredible, and completely unlawful. It made no sense at all.
He was an engineer and a construction worker, not a sex-privileged
man. Theoretically all physical desire had been eliminated from his
biogenetic heritage for four generations.
In the year 2061 only one man in fifty was supposed to feel the
stirring. He had read about it in books, of course. But the scientific
descriptions had never stirred him before, and neither had the sight of
the passing women, swaying their hips in voluptuous abandonment as they
went about their appointed tasks.
The very word "seductive" had been to him an intellectual concept
solely. Emotionally it had awakened no response in him, no real
understanding of how a man could be drawn from his work by enticements
of the flesh that were as coldly meaningless as a row of numerals set
down at random on a blank sheet of paper.
Meaningless once, but now.... NOW.... Another woman passed him, her
eyes downcast, her tightly-sheathed breasts burgeoning despite their
bound state, breaking through the restraining, semi-translucent fabric.
Like great tropical blooms the breasts of the women seemed, ensnared by
clinging vines which were parasitic and wholly pernicious, a new growth
introduced by Man in a jungle of his own cruel planting.
How cruel it was to select one woman out of fifty and say to her alone:
"You may mate and bear children." How cruel to compel the rest to
conceal their charms and pretend to be completely sexless!
Teleman drew in his breath sharply. What was happening to him? Why
should he feel angry and resentful when he knew that only one woman in
fifty could be stirred by the sight of a man, or respond to a man's
love-making? Had not all other women been made virtually sexless in
their mental processes by selective mating and other gene-altering
techniques?
Surely a woman without physical desire had no need to appear seductive
or to flaunt her charms. And surely a man without physical desire would
not care at all if a woman lacked a mating look, and was just a human
being more fragile than himself with contours that were softer and more
rounded.
Am I going mad? he wondered. In all the books there was no reference
to the possibility of a change in non-sex-privileged men and women. It
could hardly occur biologically. How could it, when all desire had
been bred out of the non-sex-privileged for four generations?
To every man his appointed task, his niche in the social fabric. And
to every woman. The sex-privileged were naturally in the minority.
How could it have been otherwise, when there was so great a need for
trained specialists in an advanced technological society? How could
a reasonable and thoughtful man fly in the face of what history had
confirmed time and time again?
Had not three great societies gone down in flaming ruin because Man had
permitted his animal instincts to block the road to progress?
Another woman passed him and this time the stirring became almost
uncontrollable. He had a wild desire to abandon all restraint, cross
the strip to her side and plead with her for permission to take her
into his arms and make passionate love to her. She was blonde and very
beautiful, her hair a golden fleece spread fanwise across the dazzling
whiteness of her shoulders. Her garments were free-flowing, all of her
charms tantalizingly unconfined. The tips of her full breasts were
clearly visible, pushing against the material of her tunic, and the
other curving, secret places of her body were revealed in the play of
light and shadow, the rippling of fabric. Her eyes were not downcast,
but bold and fearless and she met his gaze searchingly and without
embarrassment, as if she were greeting a sex-privileged man without
shame in the mating center.
He knew at once that she was a sex-privileged woman. No modesty of
attire had been imposed on her. Her lips were heavily rouged and her
slender young body had the supple grace of one adept in the arts which
can only be learned at Eros' shrine.
She returned his gaze steadily for an instant, with an unmistakable
look of amorous invitation. Then, slowly, her eyes hardened and her
lips curled in scorn and derision. His hesitation and the flush which
had mounted to his cheekbones had quite transparently given him away.
He was not one of the sex-privileged. She instantly lost all interest
in him, and moved away from him with a slight shrug, as if the stern
taboos erected by society did not in any way concern her.
A feeling of despair, of bitter hopelessness, made him groan inwardly
and increase the length of his stride. Swiftly the moving travel strip
continued to carry him toward the heart of the city, past suburban
gardens bright with vermillion-petaled flowers and small artificial
lakes which gleamed like gigantic garnets in the early morning sunlight.
It was difficult to wait patiently on the travel strip for the city to
sweep close. Walking was not illegal and few energetic men and women
could resist an impulse to exercise their legs and swing their arms
before their technological duties compelled them to perform just one
task well in a glass-enclosed activity cell.
One task well! He must never allow himself to forget how important
that was. There would always be a constantly growing need for men
and women conditioned by heredity and training to bend a machine to
their will or secure the right answers to difficult problems in the
research laboratories and industrial administration units. Without such
specialists the entire fabric of twenty-first century civilization
would be rent asunder. In fact--
Teleman began to tremble. A non-sex-privileged woman had brushed with
outrageous brazenness against him and he had thrown out one arm in
an instinctive gesture of self-protection. Off balance, he had gone
stumbling past her, and now she was at his side, grasping him firmly by
the elbow and helping him to his feet.
She was trembling also, and her breath was warm on his face. The dark
wilderness of her hair was more intoxicatingly fragrant than he had
ever dreamed a woman's hair could be. She was whispering strange words
to him, her breath quickening.
"It is breaking down! Can't you feel it? Can't you tell? For five days
and nights now I have wanted only one thing--to be embraced by a man.
But no man free to choose a mate would look at me twice, because I am
not supposed to feel as I do. If I should attempt to visit a mating
center I would be condemned to death. The man, too, would be punished.
To court me would be a crime--anti-social, monstrous."
She touched the small, glittering insignia on her right breast,
invisible from a distance, which indicated all too clearly her precise
status as a specialized industrial worker. Instinctively Teleman
glanced down at his own status insignia. On his right shoulder there
gleamed a tiny silver bridge supported by hydraulic pillars, a miracle
in miniature of engineering perfection.
For the first time the silver emblem seemed a badge of dishonor, an
insult to his dignity as a man with the blood warm in his veins and a
desperate need to love and be loved.
Her voice became cajoling. "To a sex-privileged man making love to me
would be a crime. But you can look at me, touch me, hold me close if
you wish. The Monitors have passed no laws to protect a woman like me
or a man like you. Who would believe that we could desire each other in
an intimate, physical way? Let us show them how mistaken they are! Let
us make a mockery of their cruel laws here and now! Let us make love
boldly as we have every right to do."
"No!" he heard himself protesting. Forcibly, almost brutally, he freed
himself, untwining her clinging arms and turning his face aside to
avoid the maddening thrust of her lips against his tightly clenched
teeth.
"For five minutes I have been watching you!" she cried. "Listen to me.
Don't be a fool. I _know_ you feel as I do. You have followed and
disrobed with your eyes every woman who passed you on the strip, and
some of them were quite ugly, if you would like me to be completely
honest about it. Perhaps you resent candor in a woman and prefer
the lying sort. I don't particularly care, because I know that I am
so desirable in your sight that you would like to take me into your
arms and tell me how beautiful I am. To whisper it tenderly while you
unloosen my gown and--"
"No! It would be a dark and terrible crime!" Hammers had started
pounding in Teleman's temples and he could scarcely breathe.
"You fool, you fool!" she went on quickly, unbuckling the golden belt
at her waist and throwing back her head. Her shimmering dark hair
was a miracle of loveliness, the sunlight bright upon it. She stood
very straight, her knees together, her full red lips slightly parted,
morning-dew moist.
"Some of the women who passed were not beautiful at all. But others
were radiant and when you stared at them your eyes lit up. In your
eyes desire was a high-leaping flame. You were powerless to quench its
bright splendor. You were tormented and afraid. But you did not really
want the fire to dwindle and expire. I was watching you closely. I
could not have been mistaken. There are some things no woman can be
deceived about."
She moved close to him again. She caught his right earlobe between her
lips, nibbled at it, whispered passionately into the chambered recess,
"Fire! In your veins and in mine! In every breath we draw and when we
breathe as one."
"No!" he cried, in desperate protest.
"Look at me," she pleaded. "Am I not beautiful? Make love to me now.
Do not be afraid. There are no other pedestrians close to us at the
moment. If they see us at all we will in nowise astonish them. The
sex-privileged often embrace quickly and furtively on their way to
the mating center, when distance turns them into small, barely
distinguishable figures black against the sunrise. Everyone expects it
of them, since they are naturally on fire with impatience."
"I have never seen--"
"At close range, no. But surely you have seen men and women acting
strangely at a great distance, bobbing like tiny sails in a breeze when
fortune favors them, and gives them as wide an expanse of empty travel
strip to rejoice in as we now have at our disposal."
"There are at least five men and women coming toward us," he protested,
but his throat was so dry the words were barely audible.
"Mere marionettes, dwarfed by distance. Think of them as such.
What do they know of love's splendor? In all likelihood they are
non-sex-privileged men and women, empty husks, hollow shells filled
with ashes. We were like them once, but all that is changed now.
Embrace me quickly and boldly. Hurry! Whisper sweet words to me. Call
me your life and your bride. Lover, be bold. Lover be sweet and gentle
and fierce and ardent. Can you not see that I am aflame with passion?
Make haste, my darling, my dearest one. The opportunity may not come
again."
He looked at her then, really saw her in all of her womanly
completeness for the first time. She had loosened all of the
constricting bands which had confined her charms from neck to ankle
only a moment before, so that her attire was now as free-flowing as the
garb that was worn in the mating centers and occasionally on the travel
strip by sex-privileged women who were unusually bold and fearless.
He did not stare at her garb for long. In mute adoration, his temples
throbbing, he let his gaze travel downward from her pale, beautiful
face to her swelling bosom and perfectly formed hips and the enchanting
whiteness of her sylph-slender thighs.
The twin mounds of her breasts were rose-tipped and tip-tilted and
there was a tiny mole just above her navel which made the whiteness
seem even more of a miracle, just as a tiny beauty-patch will often
enhance the loveliness of a face designed by nature to drive a man to a
frenzy of desire, amidst a carnival-bright shower of confetti and the
strains of amorous music.
His temples swelled to bursting and there was a roaring in his ears and
deep within his groin a trip-hammer had started up and was pounding
faster and faster.
She moaned and swayed toward him. Then she was in his arms and he could
no longer see even her full, red lips, moist and trembling and so
hungry for kisses that he feared for an instant that he would not be
permitted to breathe.
He spread his mouth over her lips to subdue their vehemence and her
tongue rebelled and came through in darting defiance and with so fierce
an ardor that his mouth seemed filled with weaving filaments of flame.
His hands moved up and down and across her back and he held her
so tightly pressed to his finely muscled body and she pressed so
passionately against him in return that it was hard to believe that
human flesh could endure so close an embrace without dissolving into
fiery motes swirling mindlessly about in the blazing heat of the sun.
But the ecstasy which came to them both in the same moment was not
mindless and if there was a dissolving it was of a different nature
entirely.
TWO
His arms were still tight about her and she was murmuring strange words
of endearment when one of the approaching pedestrians swung about and
gestured to a lean, big-boned woman a few feet to the left of him. Both
pedestrians increased their strides, their shoulders jogging in the
sunlight.
The first gesturing pedestrian was a man with a squat, muscular body
and coarse-featured face. He was not a civilian. He wore the iron-gray
uniform of a Monitor-caste security guard and the insignia of his rank,
a silver mace, glittered conspicuously on his chest. A thick leather
belt encircled his waist, and a flexible metal rod terminating in a
catgut whiplash dangled at his hip.
The big-boned woman also wore a uniform. It was so tight-fitting
that it seemed molded to her body, accentuating its angular contours
and stripping her of every vestige of femininity. Lantern-jawed and
gimlet-eyed, she bore down upon Teleman and the girl in his arms with
a stride so vigorous that she quickly outdistanced the man, who was
moving forward resolutely enough but without undue haste.
Teleman turned pale when he saw her. He swung about, relaxing his grip
on his companion's slender waist, and taking a swift step backward.
His alarm communicated itself to the girl and she stepped back also,
letting her arms drop to her side and shaking her head, as if her
hair, in its wild disarray, had become a brand of shame as dangerously
revealing as her flushed face and heightened breathing and the crumpled
condition of her attire.
The memory of what had just happened seemed suddenly like a stone
around Teleman's neck. He felt weighted down and helpless, and filled
with a terrible burden of guilt. He felt as if he had been hurled from
the heights into a dark, deep well and was sinking down in thrashing
helplessness and despair, with the weight still attached to his throat.
He dared not meet the bony woman's savagely condemnatory gaze or the
gaze of her companion, who had gripped the whiplash at his waist in one
of his wide hands and was using the other to gesture with.
The bony woman was the first to speak. She came to a halt directly in
front of Teleman and the girl and looked them up and down, her lips
curling back from her teeth in scorn and loathing.
"You are not privileged to make love," she said. "You have done an
outrageous thing. There is no precedent for such behavior. It cannot
be tolerated and you will both be punished. How severely I am not in a
position to say. But you _will_ be punished. You can rest assured of
that."
"They may find themselves begging for death!" the Monitor-caste
security guard said, halting at her side and slapping the metal-handled
whiplash against his left palm with a look of brutal impatience in
his red-rimmed, slitted eyes. He held himself very straight, his gaze
passing from Teleman to the girl and lingering with an insulting,
utterly brazen boldness on the ivory-textured whiteness of her unbound
breasts.
"Be quiet," the bony woman said. "I'll do the talking."
She looked directly at the girl, and her voice, when she spoke again,
was harsh and derisive. "I have seen love-privileged man plant
senseless kisses on fat lips," she said, her color rising, "and the
sight has revolted me. But what I just saw was far more revolting. What
is your name, girl?"
"Alicia," the girl replied. "We have done nothing wrong, nothing that
is in the least shameful. The shame is all in your mind. You are a
shriveled-up old harridan. You don't know the meaning of love and never
will. No man would look at you twice."
The gaunt woman's face flamed scarlet. But her voice did not rise.
She lowered it deliberately to a whisper and said with a venomous
inflexion, strangely like the hiss of a cobra. "You will regret such
talk. I warn you. For conduct so outrageous the death penalty may well
be mandatory. The Monitors will decide by secret ballot. It is not for
me to say. If it were, I would pity you, for I would like very much to
tell this very dutiful and conscientious guard that he need exercise no
restraint whatever."
"What would you have him do? Rape me?"
"Be silent, you little fool. You are straining my patience beyond
endurance."
"He is a brute and would like to rape me. I can see it in his eyes."
"That is not true and you know it. He is a high-minded man and the very
sight of you revolts him."
"That is true," the guard said, smiling. "The very sight of her revolts
me." He winked as he spoke, but covertly and resumed his brazen
staring.
The hypocrisy of it infuriated Teleman. Or perhaps it was the girl's
incredible and splendid courage that made him leap to her defense, with
no concern for his own safety.
He lunged forward and struck the security guard a resounding blow on
the jaw, sending him reeling backwards.
The guard was taken so completely by surprise that he nearly fell. He
had to throw out his arms to maintain his balance on the moving strip,
and his staggering gait made him look distinctly ludicrous. He dropped
the whiplash and bent to recover it, but before he could bring it into
play Teleman was upon him. The hand-to-hand struggle which followed was
a test of strength and Teleman was no weakling.
The two men fought with no holds barred, primitively and savagely. They
rolled over four times, gouging, kicking, pummeling. Teleman absorbed
punishment stoically, groaning only once and meting it out with a vigor
and assurance that surprised him.
Fist fights and close in-fighting in general were not to his liking and
he had no strong desire to engage in physical combat for its own sake.
He liked to think of himself as a completely civilized man who had
risen above such barbarism. But there were times....
It was curious, but he did seem to be enjoying it, getting a thrill
every time his right fist landed solidly on meaty flesh or increased
the redness of the guard's leering, ruffianly face, already bloodied
by a dozen previous jabs, the sturdiest kind of jabs delivered with a
maximum of accuracy.
Over and over. Hit hard and often, and stop worrying about bruised
knuckles or what would happen if the ugly son should get in a really
crippling blow. It can't happen if you don't give him a chance to
breathe freely or get his second wind. Keep at it, keep pounding away
at him and you'll wear him down and turn him into a limp clown begging
for quarter, begging for just a chance to get to his feet and wipe the
blood from his mouth and blink glazed eyes in the sunlight.
It didn't end in quite that way. The thick-bodied security guard simply
sighed once, heavily and unexpectedly, and rolled over on his back. He
lay supine on the moving travel strip, his breathing harsh and ragged,
in a grotesque sprawl with one arm twisted under him.
"You've killed him!" the gaunt woman shrieked. "You won't escape the
death penalty now. Unlawful love-making and now deliberate, wilful
homicide. You've attacked and killed a security guard. There is no more
terrible crime--"
Teleman got to his feet slowly and a little wearily, rising first to
one knee and shaking his head to clear it. For an instant he swayed
unsteadily but he managed to retain his balance until the wave of
dizziness passed.
"I haven't killed him," he said. "It might be better if I had. The most
terrible crimes are the ones you would like to commit and usually do
commit in the end. The brutal sadism in him may take many lives before
someone discovers just how dangerous he is. He is about as high-minded
as a rattlesnake."
"That's a lie!" the gaunt woman cried in furious protest. "Security
guards are completely impartial. They do what they have to do to
protect society from criminals like you and this girl. Unlawful
love-making would destroy all specialization and without specialization
we would all perish. The wickedness in you is beyond belief!"
"I don't intend to argue with you about it," Teleman heard himself
saying, surprised by his own boldness. "This girl has done nothing
criminal and neither have I. I intend to go on protecting her--with my
life, if necessary."
The bony woman swayed back and forth, gripped by such an ungovernable
access of rage that it drained all of the color from her cheeks and
twisted her features into a mask so repellent that it made Teleman
shudder and look away.
Alicia had drawn close to him again, and suddenly his arm was about her
and they were facing the trembling, fury-convulsed crone together, in
complete defiance of the authority she was still attempting to wield.
The security guard was moaning and stirring a little but Teleman did
not give him a second glance.
"We're leaving the strip," he said. "If you don't want to be hurt
you'll stay right where you are. Don't compel me to use force to keep
you here. I've never struck a woman in my life but I won't hesitate to
use force if you turn stubborn. I'll have no choice."
"I'll shout for help," she threatened. "The instant you leave the
strip! Just how far do you think you'll get? They'll put electronic
scanners on every stretch of woodland, every back country shelter,
every dwelling in this region. You'll be caught quickly enough, and
brought back and punished. You're making the mistake of forgetting that
we're living in a complex technological society with an interlocking
network of crime-preventing mechanisms. No criminal can hope to escape
for long."
"We'll risk it," Teleman said. "With luck I may be able to draw some of
those mechanical fangs."
"A single, carefully directed blow on the head would knock her
unconscious," Alicia said, a sudden hardness in her voice. "She might
suffer a concussion, but the chances are she wouldn't. She has invited
it by threatening to shout. Do you want me to do it? If you'll just let
me have that whiplash for a moment--"
"No," Teleman said firmly, tightening his hold on her waist. "You're
justified in suggesting it and I'm almost tempted to say yes. But I
guess, because I'm a man, I can't be quite that objective and sensible
about it. I couldn't just stand here and let you do it."
"I'm sorry I suggested it," Alicia said, all of the harshness gone from
her voice. "I didn't really want to, but--"
"You'll be sorry you didn't!" the gaunt woman said, her eyes blazing
with defiance and contempt. "Strike me if you dare. I haven't told you,
but I'm Monitor 6Y9. Remember that! I am one of the _Ruling Monitors_.
When you are brought back I will vote with the others--for death!"
"Wear the insignia on your uniform next time," Alicia flung back at
her. "No, no. Strip yourself naked and wear it as a brand between your
shriveled breasts. It is a mark of shame. I would rather die in torment
than be a Monitor with all men hating me, and all women. Is that why
you go in disguise, in the uniform of a female security guard? Is that
why?"
"There is no need for me to wear the insignia of my high station," the
gaunt woman said, drawing herself up in pride. "It is visible in my
bearing. Monitors walk differently and talk differently from all other
specialists. We look upon even the love-privileged with scorn."
"The truth at last!" Alicia flared. "Take care not to say that in
public. You would be torn limb from limb!"
"Soon our rule will be absolute," the gaunt woman said. "There are
strange and disturbing stirrings, rebellions taking place. Here and
there the gene-controlled mutations are reverting to ancestral type.
Men and women are becoming--aware of sex again. All men and women, not
just the sex-privileged. It is an outrageous regression, a corruption
and a threat. It must be stamped out, by all of the Monitors acting
in unison and imposing penalties so severe that no one will dare to
do what you have done here today. No one not sex-privileged; and even
the sex-privileged have become too numerous. Do you hear? Even they
have become too numerous and just thinking about it--the bridal bed,
everything that takes place in the mating centers night and day--has
become hateful to me."
"That does not surprise me!" Alicia cried. "Envy can become a corrosive
blight."
"It is not envy!"
"Listen to me, old woman, I will tell you what takes place in the
mating centers. A young man, strong-limbed and comely, removes all of
his garments and walks with proud and eager steps into the chamber of
his beloved. She too has removed--"
"No, be quiet. I will not listen. Are you lost to all shame?"
"Not as lost to shame as you are, old woman. Listen well. You may never
hear it again, at least, not from lips as eloquent as mine. It is all a
great glory new to me--a glory just discovered, just revealed. So I can
speak of it without restraint and without false modesty. It does not
bring a blush to my cheeks. Why should it to yours?"
"You are a lewd wanton."
"No, I am a proud and honest woman who knows what it means now to love
and be loved in return. Listen well. She is reclining on a couch, and
the moonlight shines on her young breasts. He is approaching, you see,
quietly so as not to startle her, and for a moment as long as forever
his eyes linger on that which only a true lover is privileged to see.
Then very gently and tenderly--"
"Stop! I will not listen. If you are not silent I will shout now, so
loudly that you and your lover will never reach the edge of the strip.
You will be caught and brought back before you have gone a hundred feet
into the countryside."
"I told you what I would do if you shouted," Teleman said warningly.
"Her words are more hateful than anything you could do! Keep her quiet
or I will take her by the throat and cut off her breath with my bare
hands."
"Scarecrow hands, old woman. The bony hands of a witch. Listen well to
the delights of young love in the dark. Oh, I'm forgetting. It isn't
quite dark. The moonlight is slanting down and--"
The gaunt woman clapped her hands to her ears and shut her eyes,
swaying back and forth in inner torment.
"Quick!" Teleman whispered, tapping Alicia lightly on the arm and
gesturing toward the edge of the strip. "No pedestrians within fifty
yards. We won't get a better chance!"
She nodded, darting a swift glance at the slumped security guard, who
was still groaning and stirring a little, but had given up his attempt
to rise.
"Three men went past without interfering," she breathed. "That was
blind luck.... It shows what fear can do."
"No one will try to stop us, even if she starts shouting," Teleman
whispered, his fingers tightening on her arm. "Not right away. People
stay out of trouble when they can."
"I know. But hurry. We have no time to lose."
They turned and started walking with no appearance of haste for an
instant, their shoulders almost touching. The gaunt woman continued to
sway back and forth, her lips tightly compressed, her eyes glazed and
unseeing.
Close to the edge of the strip they abandoned all caution and broke
into a run. But not before Teleman said, with glowing admiration in his
eyes: "I knew what you had in mind. But I never thought it would work.
You shattered her emotionally. Better than a blow until it wears off."
"Much better," she agreed. "You see, darling, I'm an emotional therapy
specialist. And it works both ways. You can use it to heal--or bring
about a kind of sick shock reaction. A self-induced hypnosis."
"Bitter frustration can explode in the brain like a time-bomb, if you
know how to light the fuse," she added, pride in her specialization
making her voice ring out triumphantly. Then she was running at his
side.
THREE
The travel strip overlooked a spacious lawn adorned with neatly trimmed
hedgerows and stately trees. Behind the gleaming waters of a fountain
three peacocks walked to and fro, their tails spread resplendently in
the dawn light. There was only one dwelling visible from the strip, the
white stone residence of an agricultural supervisor.
In the near distance there loomed a stretch of open countryside, the
bright waters of a small lake and several acres of densely forested
woodland. A long range of distant hills was also visible from the
strip, their domed summits sparsely covered with tall firs and hemlocks
and scrub oaks that grew in circular clusters.
At the edge of the moving strip there was a thirty foot drop, straight
down to soft grass and earth spongy enough to cushion the jolt of a
carefully calculated leap and diminish the risk of a sprained ankle
or an even more serious injury. But the risk could not be lightly
dismissed, and Teleman hesitated for an instant, holding Alicia very
tightly to him.
"We've got to chance it," she whispered. "We've no choice."
"All right," Teleman said. "I'll go first."
He kissed her. She returned the kiss with fervor, pushing her lips hard
against his mouth and running her fingers through his hair. She let out
a long sigh when he released her and moved quickly to the edge of the
strip, measuring with his eyes the distance from strip-edge to grass,
getting the feel of the distance.
"Don't tighten up too much," he said. "Leap out just a little and tell
yourself you're going to land on your feet. Watch how I do it."
"Don't worry, darling. I'll make it."
"It won't hurt to be sure. All right--here I go."
He leapt out and down, landing on his feet. But the jolt was severe,
throwing him off balance. He sprawled forward on the grass, picked
himself up and stared up in concern, rubbing his right shoulder
vigorously and flexing his knees.
The slight stiffness and bruised feeling evaporated almost immediately,
but not his alarm. "Wait," he shouted. "It shook me up a bit. I'm going
to catch you. Do you hear? Catch you in my arms. That's the best way."
"I'm lighter than you are!" she shouted back. "I won't land so heavily."
"I still think--"
"No, darling. Here I come."
His breath caught in his throat when he saw her spinning through the
air. But she landed without mishap, and with a lightness which a
professional acrobat would have envied. She swayed a little but did
not fall, and she was smiling when he reached her side. He took her
in his arms and they remained motionless for an instant, breathing
harshly, their hands entwined. Then she buried her face in the muscular
rib-cavern of his chest and clung to him in a fierce and impatient way,
as if even in that moment of great danger she would have welcomed the
coming of the night.
There was a stirring in his loins and a restless tide of passion surged
through him. But he contented himself with stroking her hair and
whispering words of reassurance.
"We've got to keep moving. Agricultural supervisors don't go about
armed so I'm not worried about being stopped before we reach the
forest. Probably he's indoors sleeping. If he comes to the door I'll
tell him we've got a hunting permit. If he demands to see it, a blow to
the jaw will give us all the time we'll need."
He took her firmly by the shoulders and held her at arm's length, a
warm gratefulness in his eyes. "We've got to keep moving," he said.
"I haven't time to say all the things I'd like to say to you, not one
small part of all the wonder-talk. Do you understand? The guilt feeling
is gone, washed away."
She nodded, her eyes shining. "No regrets, darling. I'm glad for both
of us."
They moved swiftly in the dawn light, across the wide lawn and between
the towering trees, sending the gold and emerald peacocks fluttering
into the shadows of titan oaks and cedars, their own smaller shadows
lengthening on the dew-bright grass.
Teleman straightened in sudden wariness as they drew near to the
white-stone dwelling of the supervisor. He reached out and took his
companion's hand, and they moved with even swifter steps past the east
wall of the building. No one appeared in the doorway and there was no
stir of movement behind the half-shuttered windows with their orange
awnings and projecting sills.
Then the dwelling was behind them and they were moving across a stretch
of open woodland, weaving in and out between tumbled, lichen-encrusted
boulders and the gray, bark-denuded boles of century-old trees. One
of the larger trees had been lightning-blasted and several were mere
rotting stumps looming ghostlike and isolated against the dark green
foliage of the denser forested region just beyond.
A golden-winged hawk, startled by their approach, arose with a
tumultuous flapping of wings and went soaring southward, and from a
shadowed pool less than twenty feet in diameter there came a sudden
splashing and the hoarse croaking of frogs.
Teleman bent, picked up a small pebble and tossed it into the dark
water, standing motionless as he watched the ripples spread out and
slowly disappear.
"Why did you do that?" Alicia asked, coming to an abrupt halt at his
side. Her hurrying steps had brought a flush to her cheeks and she
spoke almost breathlessly, her eyes wide with alarm.
"The scanners," he said. "The instant she alerts the guards they'll
put scanning beams on us and pinpoint every move we make. They'll know
exactly where we are. But we're safe so far."
"Safe? How can you be sure? You mean that pebble--"
He nodded. "Infra-beam electronics just happens to be part of my
specialty. If they were scanning us now the rhythm of those ripples
would be quite different. You'd get a more pronounced jerkiness--a
jerkiness I've learned precisely how to identify at a glance. That kind
of hair-trigger recognition is part of my job. You can't build a good
bridge without such knowledge. Not even a good bridge, let alone more
complex structures."
"Oh, darling," she whispered. "I'm glad we're both specialists. It may
help us in a far more important way. If we can outguess them all--"
"We have a fighting chance," he said, his fingers tightening on her
hand. He picked up another pebble and tossed it into the stream. The
rhythm of the ripples remain unchanged.
"Love," he whispered. "Our new specialty, my sweet beloved. It's
new, but I think--I think we know more about it right now than they
do. Compared to us, even the love-privileged are jaded, blind to the
bursting wonder, the glory of a fulfillment so complete that it changes
everything we think and say and do. Do you mind if I call you my life
and my bride?"
"Of course not," she breathed, coming into his arms again and drawing
his head down until it rested in the soft hollow between her breasts.
She swayed a little, her eyes closed, her moist red lips parted. Then
she drew in her breath convulsively, and slipped from his embrace,
still caressing him with her eyes.
"We're in the deadliest kind of danger and you're acting like a
moonstruck boy," she said. "Don't you realize--"
"I only know that I love you," he said. "The guilt feeling is gone now,
washed away. I realize we haven't a moment to lose. You don't have to
remind me. But you've changed the world for me and I had to tell you.
I had to make sure that you feel as I do. A man who flees for his life
in a parched wilderness loses nothing if he pauses for an instant to
quench his thirst. When he is renewed and refreshed, more life and
strength flows into him."
"But we'll be much safer when we're deep in the forest," she said.
"They'll still know where we are if they pick us up with the scanners.
But we can weave about, hide in a cave, make it more difficult for them
to overtake us."
"We won't hide," he said. "We'll keep moving until our strength gives
out. There are ways of defeating the scanners. If we can get far enough
away we may be able to disguise ourselves, take on a new identity."
"I don't see how--"
"Just wait and trust me. Talking about it right now will only delay us."
He reached out and took her hand. "You're right about the need for
haste. Come on."
"One more kiss first, darling!"
Her lips burned against his again for an instant. He opened his lips
and her tongue darted like a wet lash into his mouth and her hands
dropped to her side in passionate surrender. She moaned a little and
then pushed him away from her, letting out a long sigh.
"I was the impulsive one that time," she whispered. "Forgive me,
darling."
They were out of breath again from running when they reached the
heavily forested region. The dark barrier of vegetation which loomed
before them cut off two-thirds of the sky and seemed filled with a vast
murmuring, as if a thousand small furry creatures were breathing in
unison while the wind sighed between the trees and owls hooted from the
higher branches.
Quickly they passed into the dark wilderness between the trees,
over areas of moist peat moss and across gigantic, hollow logs
overgrown with ghost-pale creepers that seemed dreamlike and unreal
in the half-light. A faint luminescence streamed from a few of the
ground-hugging fungus growths and there were vapor shrouds everywhere,
hanging suspended in the air and coiling sinuously about the boles of
trees so massive that they resembled redwoods in girth and height, and
conveyed an even more awesome impression of hoary age.
They were perhaps eighty feet beyond the edge of the forest wall, well
within its pulsing heart of darkness, when they heard the thrumming.
It was faint and far-off at first, but it grew steadily louder,
causing Teleman to halt abruptly and stare upward in alarm. High above
his head the interlocking branches formed an almost solid ceiling of
dark green foliage stirred only slightly by gusts and flurries of
wind. Suddenly, as he stared, a gust of unusual force blew two of the
branches apart, revealing a narrow patch of open sky.
Across the patch a shape moved, glinting metallically in the sunlight.
The flying machine hung poised almost directly overhead, like a great,
hovering hawk with its wings wide-spread. It was moving, but slowly,
slowly, as if seeking out prey in the forest aisle, the thrumming of
its twin turbines sounding very much like the steady beating of wings.
The foliage overhead stirred again and the patch of open sky
disappeared.
"They know where we are," Teleman said, standing very still. Alicia
shivered and moved a little closer to him, her lips white. Above their
heads the thrumming sound grew in volume, drowning out all the small
voices of the forest. Almost at their feet a startled hare broke from
cover and went scurrying into the shadows.
"If they're scanning us now it will be easy for them to send a
para-guard after us," Alicia said, her eyes sharpening as she stared
upward. "He'll be carrying a hand-scanner, and a hand-gun. He'll have
no scruples about opening fire."
"They may drop more than one para-guard," Teleman said. "We'd better
head for cover fast!"
He swung about, his gaze sweeping the forest aisle with
detail-observing accuracy. There were several fallen branches directly
in his line of vision, and a thin shaft of downstreaming sunlight
glistened on a tangled mass of vegetation. His lips tightened when he
saw the log. Huge, grayish and half rotted away, it stood out like a
giant's thumb against the clotted greenery.
He gripped Alicia's arm and gestured. "That log looks hollow. If we can
crawl inside it will be as good a blind as any. Hand-scanners aren't
as accurate as big scanners. Not half as accurate. We've got to guard
against being taken by surprise, caught defenseless in the open. If we
can get far enough into that log they'll have to search. It will give
us a breathing spell."
"It's worth trying!" Alicia breathed. "Come on!"
They were half way to the log when they saw the para-guard descending.
There was a glistening high up between the trees and they saw the
dangling, rust-colored boots of the airborne man before his head and
shoulders came into view a hundred feet above the forest floor.
They crawled into the big log on their hands and knees, clearing a
space for themselves by thrusting vigorously with their shoulders and
scooping out handfulls of damp, weevil-shredded wood and clinging
vegetable mold.
They wedged themselves deep into the log, their bodies pressed so
close together that their breaths commingled and they became aware
of each other's heartbeats. Cheek to cheek in stifling darkness they
clung to each other, flesh bruising flesh in an intimacy so strange
and unexpected that for an instant it drove all thought of danger from
their minds.
Lines from a half-forgotten poet in one of the old books flashed into
Teleman's mind, giving that intimacy a timeless aspect, making it seem
eternal.
"Bound limb to limb
And breast to breast,
And I would give my soul for this
To burn forever in burning hell."
It seemed incredible, but they could still breathe. It was almost
suffocatingly cramped in the narrow space into which they had wedged
themselves. But there were eroded patches in the half-decayed wood
which let in the air and by controlling their breathing they could
avoid straining their lungs to bursting and turning and twisting in a
tormented way.
As they clung together time lost all meaning, for moments perhaps
dangerously long. They were only aware of each other's nearness, and
the sweetness of not caring, not even allowing themselves to think and
grow fearful again.
What aroused them to an acute awareness of danger drawing near they
never quite knew. The snapping of a twig in the forest gloom, perhaps,
or the screaming of a bird winging skyward, or the slow, steady clump
of boots where the ground was not soggy and the stillness magnified
sound.
From whatever cause arising, Teleman's alertness became instant and
all-pervasive. Alicia, too, stiffened in alarm, her fingers tightening
on his arm.
"Listen," she whispered. "Did you hear--"
"Be quiet," he warned. "I think he's close to the log. If we stay just
as we are he may pass us by."
Silence for a moment. Then, unmistakably, another sound--a grunt of
anger and frustration close at hand. It came clearly to their ears and
suddenly, to Teleman, further waiting in complete stillness seemed
an affront to his dignity as an angry and embattled man. It was
intolerable and could no longer be endured.
Recklessness and defiance overcame him. He raised his fist and pressed
firmly and with all his strength against the rotting inner surface of
the log. He did not forget to exercise caution, tried not to make a
sound. He knew that he was taking a very great calculated risk, but
a peep-hole was vital. Complete sightlessness was no longer to be
endured.
The wood crumbled under the steady pressure, flaked away in a patch
a little wider than his hand. Sunlight flooded into the log, and the
sudden brightness dazzled him for an instant. Then his vision steadied
and he realized that the brightness was caused by a single shaft of
sunlight slanting downward across the log. Beyond the shaft the forest
was still gloom-enshrouded, bathed in a half-light that made the
flickering shadows seem grotesquely alive, waltzing nightmare shapes
caught up in a _danse macabre_.
In the midst of the shadows a silent, gray-uniformed figure stood with
his back to the log, a hand-gun gleaming at his hip, his heavyset
body, shaven head and bull-like neck giving him an aspect of primitive
brutishness.
Security guards, whether airborne or not, were specialists of an
unusual sort, with a biogenetic heritage of brutal callousness which
made them unique. Callous from birth, they were under compulsion to
exercise restraint, killing only when necessary. They were dangerous
and deadly at all times, accurate in the use of weapons and completely
sure of themselves. But the deadliness had to be triggered by a
Monitor's command, set in motion by desperate men and women in flight.
Pity was alien to their nature, for compassion of any kind seemed
monstrous and abnormal to them and human frailty they could not even
understand. And yet ... there was something quiet, dark and inwardly
tormented about them, a restlessness, an unease, as if they could not
quite bring themselves to believe that they were not as other men.
The figure did not move as Teleman stared, did not even change the
position of his head. There was a small gleaming instrument in his
right hand and the hand was half raised and he seemed to be listening.
Teleman knew that the instrument was a small, portable scanner and
that he was using his eyes alone. Sound did not interest him, and there
was no need for him to listen with his ears.
In a sense, though he _was_ listening, with his entire body, standing
tense and alert, and watching a tiny needle oscillate and vibration
frequencies register on the scanner's luminous dial.
It had to mean that he was overstimulated in a deep, preoccupied way,
caught up in such a trancelike intensity of concentration that it
would take a shout to arouse him or the crash of a falling branch.
He would be unlikely to hear small sounds. The splintering of wood
even--although rotting wood does not splinter and it can be peeled away
in damp fragments or torn loose with a violent wrench.
It wasn't the first time that Teleman had watched a para-guard stand
immobilized and entranced and abnormally on edge, but in an almost
infantile way. The brutish simplicity of their natures predisposed
them to devote all of their energies to one thing at a time, to make
progress slowly and in step-by-step fashion. Now luck--blind luck
perhaps--was making that limitation play directly into his hands. The
para-guard was abnormally preoccupied, and he was facing away from the
log. _He was facing away, his back was turned._
Teleman used both hands to tear a wide gap in the rotting wood. The
decay was not uniform and the outer bark remained firm here and there.
But he managed to rip apart enough of the soggy, flaking wood to clear
a space for his head and shoulders. He widened the gap further by
swaying vigorously from side to side, half propelling, half dragging
himself from the log to the forest floor.
The leaves directly beneath the log cushioned his descent, but did not
crackle as he rose swiftly and agilely to his feet. He turned just as
swiftly, his eyes darting to Alicia's white face framed in the gap, and
pressed a finger to his lips. There was a look of wild startlement in
her eyes but she managed to nod in quick understanding, answering his
look of reassurance with a thin, tight smile.
FOUR
Less than thirty feet separated him from the para-guard. He covered
two-thirds of the distance without haste, moving stealthily, his
muscles tensing in preparation for a leap. Ten feet from the guard he
abandoned all caution, not caring if the man heard him and turned.
He preferred to grapple with a slightly alerted opponent. It was the
surest way of measuring an antagonist, of estimating the quickness of
his reflexes with hair-trigger accuracy. It was also the surest way of
getting just the right grip on him from the start.
A twig snapped beneath Teleman's no longer cautious tread and the
para-guard swung about with a hoarse cry. He was still turning when
Teleman flung himself upon him. Teleman's left arm whipped around the
guard's waist and tightened. He drew back his right arm and sent his
fist crashing against a meaty jaw. He swung the man around and went
staggering with him across the forest aisle, hitting him again and
again with all his strength, jabbing at his stomach, his nose, landing
solid blows on both sides of his face. He had the advantage of surprise
and refused to relinquish it, putting a savage fury into each blow,
giving the other no chance to regain his breath.
But it was far from a one-sided struggle. The guard was armed and that
knowledge alone can speed the recovery of a man caught off guard and
forced on the defensive. He also outweighed Teleman by thirty pounds,
had a longer reach, and a thick-muscled strength which no city-bred man
could hope to equal.
He got in a jarring right hand blow to Teleman's jaw before he broke
free, loosening the lighter man's grip by kneeing him in the stomach
and shattering it completely by twisting his torso sideways with a
violent lurch. Teleman went staggering backwards, blood bubbling from
his mouth and running down his chin. He wiped the blood away with the
back of his hand, shook his head to clear it and kept his distance for
an instant, his eyes on the para-guard's right hand.
The guard's bony-knuckled hand was darting toward the weapon at his
hip when Teleman moved in close again. He lashed out with both fists,
directing one blow at the guard's battered, bleeding nose and splaying
his fingers to spread the blood over the man's rage-inflamed eyes.
The other blow caught the guard on the wrist and was aimed with such
accuracy that the weapon remained where it was.
He gave the thick-muscled brute no time to absorb punishment and go
on the offensive again. He lashed him twice across the face with the
edge of his hand, stamped on his foot and, because more than his own
life was at stake, abandoned all scruples, and kneed him in the groin
with such vigor that he groaned, bent almost double and went reeling
backwards.
Teleman darted after him, whipped the hand-gun from its sheath on his
hip, reversed it, and brought the weapon down sharply on a very thick
skull. The guard slumped to his knees, shivered once convulsively and
fell forward on his face. He lay still.
Teleman stood staring down at him for an instant, breathing harshly,
black nausea clawing at his stomach. Then the wave of giddiness passed
and he bent, unbuttoned the slumped man's uniform at the throat and
slipped his hand down over the cold flesh directly over a heart that
still appeared to be beating steadily, with no break in its rhythm.
Teleman waited for a moment to make sure, swayed a little,
straightened, shook his head for the second time, and walked unsteadily
back to the log.
Alicia arose from the log, ran to him and locked her hands behind
his neck. She drew his head down and kissed him so passionately on
the mouth that it increased his unsteadiness and almost stopped his
breathing.
He was still clasping the hand-gun which he had taken from the guard
and he tapped her gently on the shoulder with it, and ran the long
steel muzzle gently up and down her spine, hoping that the firm,
bizarre caressment and the cold feel of it would calm her and enable
them both to recover a little from shock and strain and torment, and
decide what they still must do to save themselves.
"If I'd been armed I could have taken him completely by surprise and
knocked him unconscious without a struggle," he whispered. "I've
managed to knock him unconscious, all right, with his own weapon. But I
had to be as brutal as he was. It went against the grain somehow."
"But you had no choice," she breathed in vehement protest. "Darling,
you had no choice at all. It was your life or his. And he's not dead,
is he?"
Teleman shook his head. "I'm pretty sure he'll recover. But I couldn't
just give him a light, friendly little tap on the skull. I had to make
sure he wouldn't just blink his eyes and come at me again."
"You made sure. You did very well, darling. I'm proud of you."
Teleman sighed. "You've no reason to be," he said. "There must be a
better way of solving human problems than going at it tooth and claw
like beasts of the jungle. You'd have a right to feel proud of a man
who could think out a way. I'm afraid it's beyond me."
"But we have to resist tyranny," she said. "We have to fight with every
weapon we can seize hold of--with our naked fists when there's no other
weapon. That's simple common sense, human nature being what it is."
"I've heard that argument before," Teleman said. "I'm not sure that it
completely convinces me. But I haven't got what it takes to think out a
better answer. Someday a man will be born who will have such a great,
calm, wise mind that it won't even seem like a problem to him. He'll
_know_ the answer, and other answers as well, to other life-destroying
and beauty-destroying and peace-destroying problems. Answers must be
found or Man will go down into everlasting night and darkness."
"The man you speak of. He'd have to be ... a very great scientific
specialist."
"He will not turn his back on science. You can be sure of that. Without
science there can be no truly great and enlarged world view, no perfect
society, no Utopia worth building. But he will be more than a scientist
and more than a specialist. He will know how to create a completely new
kind of human being."
"And love? Will he leave that out?"
"No, I am sure that he will not. It will be the cornerstone and
the arch, and the gateway to all splendor. He will remove all the
blindfolds, free all the captives who are imprisoned now by a cruel,
needless hatred of beauty."
Teleman turned and stared at the slumped and unstirring para-guard,
his lips tightening in grim apprehension. "We're cutting down our
chances by standing here talking," he said. "I've never talked to a
woman before with such a complete baring of my inmost thoughts. It made
me forget for a moment where we are, and what has happened, and how
great the danger is. We may not be alive a week from now to talk again
in this way, with complete trust and understanding. It's a strange,
new, intoxicating kind of fulfillment. If we were not in love and you
were not so very beautiful--"
She nodded, her eyes shining. "I know," she said. "I forgot the danger
too. We'd better bind him before we go on. I could tear a strip of
cloth from my dress."
He shook his head, bent and quickly unlaced one of his medium-length
civilian boots. "There are no laces on his boots," he said. "They're
the kind you pull right on. But this will do to bind his wrists
together. I'll cut the other lace in half and make it do double
duty--half a lace for each of my boots. Seven or eight threaded eyelets
will keep a boot on securely enough."
Despite the grimness of their mood, a faint smile flickered across
Alicia's lips. "All right. But don't blame me if your boots fall off. A
girl can only offer. I could as easily--"
"You'd be just as beautiful if you were in tatters," Teleman said,
grateful for the way the banter in her voice had relieved his tension,
and matching it with a levity that wasn't entirely forced. "Just as
beautiful, give or take a few inches of added glamour. But I like you
the way you are."
"You'd see more of me!"
"If you'd said that when I first met you and there was a para-guard to
bind I'd have begged you to go ahead and rip your dress to shreds. I'd
tell you I needed eight or ten strips of cloth at least."
"You mean you're becoming jaded, lover?"
"Not exactly. But you can't improve on a snow-white lily in all of its
natural glory. Not when you've once seen the lily."
"That just goes to show how blind you still are in some respects. If
a woman's attire is unusual and exciting, it's more exciting when she
takes the dress off. Of course some women wear black to conceal all of
their charms because that's exciting too in a different way. I read
that in one of the old books. But it must be true, because all of our
experience confirms it."
Teleman reached out and took firm hold of her hand again. "We've got to
keep moving," he warned. "They'll be dropping another para-guard any
moment now."
"I know," she breathed. "They'll surround the forest. We'll be
completely at their mercy, with all escape cut off."
"This stretch of woodland extends for miles," Teleman said, his fingers
tightening on her hand. "If we can find an isolated dwelling we'll have
at least a fighting chance. There are certain ways of making scanner
readings come out wrong. There are neutralizing techniques. With all
of the household equipment of a dwelling to work with I may be able
to confuse them completely. They'll have to search every square foot
of the forest to get to us, and an exhaustive search takes time. With
fifteen or twenty hours of grace, I may be able to work out some plan
of escape that will get us to a crowded center undetected. We'll see!"
"But even if we lose ourselves in a crowded center they'll find us in
the end," Alicia protested. "I want desperately to believe we'll have
at least a fighting chance. But I'm too much of a realist--"
"Just don't think about it, darling," Teleman whispered. "Not right
now. Trust me and believe in miracles. Just enough, anyway, to stay
right where you are while I bind our friend."
The forest grew increasingly dense as they continued on, the
foliage-filtered sunlight suffusing the darker recesses with an eerie,
emerald glow. The droning of the flying machine had diminished and they
heard it only as a faint, far-off echo.
They moved swiftly but cautiously, picking their way between tumbled
masses of fallen foliage, huge, brightly-colored mushroom growths, and
boulders overgrown with moss. They were five or six miles from the
bound para-guard when they emerged quite suddenly into an acre-wide
clearing and saw a small, stone-walled dwelling glimmering in bright
sunlight.
FIVE
Fifty miles from the densely forested area where Teleman and Alicia had
taken refuge, and completely unknown to them, another rebellion was
causing the Monitors concern.
It was the first open challenge to their rule that could not be met
with measures limited in scope: the drone of flying machines in
pursuit of individual fugitives, the billowing of parachutes above
airborne security guards, the slow, relentless descent of guards under
instructions to kill if the fugitives resisted arrest or became too
stubborn and resourceful.
On the bright waters of a land-locked harbor a pleasure boat two
hundred feet in length was moving toward the harbor's only outlet, a
narrow, winding channel which threaded its way between high banks to
the open sea.
The boat, like a thousand similar craft on a hundred rivers and bays,
was graceful in all of its aspects; graceful when the gleaming dark
hull caught the sunlight and it veered slightly in its course, its
many brightly-colored pennons fluttering in the breeze, graceful
in the slant of its brow, the beauty and perfection of its high,
glass-encased central cabin, and the rail of burnished bronze which
completely encircled its foredeck.
It was designed for pleasure, but the pleasure was limited in scope,
confined by Monitor vigilance to athletic activities which were
strenuous and energy draining and to games which required intense
concentration and intellectual skill.
No prolonged relaxation was permitted and any indulgence in pleasures
which were taboo was instantly reported and punished. No beguiling of
the senses was tolerated and spectator-entertainment on any level did
not form a part of the recreational needs which the pleasure boats had
been designed to serve.
There were no lighted screens with men and women in romantic roles
standing on high balconies in a sunset glow and indulging in pleasures
which could stir the imagination in unlawful ways. No dazzling
drama and poetry and wild laughter, with lovers' hands entwined and
lips pressed to eager lips in passionate abandonment in scenes too
pulse-stirring for the non-love-privileged to endure.
Absolute sobriety was insisted upon. To the non-love-privileged such
dramatic portrayals were not only taboo, they were an affront to the
dignity and self-respect of industrial or scientific specialists in any
field. There was no temptation in a strict sense, or so the Monitors
were still determined to believe. If, in a few men and women outside
the mating centers sex was beginning to rear its primitive head, and
the old, dangerous impulses were making themselves felt, no such danger
had existed when the pleasure boats had first been launched. Even now,
such impulses were just beginning to manifest themselves, and the
criminals could be exposed and brought to justice.
It was not too late, and the pleasure boats' recreational regimen had
been designed to give such criminal impulses no encouragement at all.
The original plan had perhaps been wiser in that respect than an
earlier age had realized. Or perhaps the Monitors who had ordered the
pleasure boats to be built and launched had feared that such impulses
might someday arise, and had taken precautions to make sure that the
recreational taboos would be strictly enforced.
There were security guards on all of the pleasure boats, but they wore
no uniforms and mingled freely with the other passengers. Some were
disguised as athletes, others as members of the crew or participants in
one or more of the many intellectual games and archery contests.
In the pleasure boat which was now moving toward the open sea, its
hull resplendent in the sunlight, one such guard stood on the open
foredeck. He was a splendid figure of a man and quite unlike most
security guards in build and carriage, with the slender hips and
broad, straight shoulders of a trained athlete. There was nothing
brutish or over-muscular about him, and he had handsome features and
keen blue eyes. He was naked to the waist and wore about his loins an
abbreviated, dark-blue tunic fastened at the waist with a silver buckle.
He stood motionless, staring at the high banks of the seaward-winding
channel which the pleasure boat was just entering. Across the deck
toward him another man was moving with an almost catlike agility, his
hand at his waist, his face set in harsh lines. He was a little taller
than the disguised security guard and outweighed him by fifteen or
twenty pounds. The swiftly advancing man was accompanied by a woman
whose face was contorted in a grimace of hate, a grimace so extreme
that it marred the beauty of her features and gave her an almost
demoniac aspect. Her dark hair, whipped into wild disarray by the wind
and her flashing dark eyes made her seem even more like one of the
Furies, a woman distraught and thirsting for vengeance.
The man at the rail did not hear the approaching pair until they were
almost upon him. And by then he could do no more than swing about
and stare at them in horror. The woman's companion had drawn a long,
gleaming knife from the belt at his waist and the instant the security
guard turned he plunged it into the startled man's stomach with a
vigorous downward thrust, whipped it free and plunged it even more
deeply into the security guard's side, giving him no time to ward off
the attack with his hands or take a swift step backwards.
The guard groaned and began instantly to slump, a crimson stain
spreading across his stomach from the gaping wound which the first
thrust had left in the white flesh just above his tunic.
The face of the knife-wielder was dark with rage and the veins on his
temples stood out like whipcords. He did not even permit the security
guard to slump completely to the deck or to groan again and relieve
a little of his torment. He caught him under the arms as he slumped,
lifted him up, and slammed him back against the rail.
He shifted his hold on the mortally wounded man's body, gripping him
firmly about the knees and bending him backwards across the rail until
the sagging weight of his shoulders outbalanced the lower part of his
body.
After that there was no need for the knife-wielder to shove vigorously
to send the security guard toppling into the bay. But he did shove
vigorously, in an excess of rage, breathing heavily as he watched his
hated victim throw out one arm in a last futile effort to save himself.
The woman screamed and covered her eyes as the guard went plunging
downward.
The sound of the guard's body striking the water was drowned out by the
drone of the pleasure boat's engines. There was a shower of spray and a
bubbling froth on the water for an instant and then the bay was smooth
again. They could not even see his slowly turning body as he sank, for
the pleasure boat was moving rapidly.
The man turned abruptly and caught the woman in his arms. He gripped
the hem of her garment just above the neckline, and with a choking sob
tore it from neck to waist, completely baring her bosom. He buried his
face in the hollow between her breasts and strained her to him, his
hands unyielding on her naked shoulders. So fierce was his embrace, so
firm and impetuous the pressure of his finger-tips in love's behalf
that she cried out in pain but did not plead with him to release her.
Instead she found his hand and clasped it tightly, whispering: "Yes,
yes, I know. Yes, my darling. It was hard to do, and terrible. But you
had no choice."
He released her after a long moment and began slowly to caress her
hair, smoothing and rearranging it a little as he did so, making the
dark, wind-ruffled tresses look less unruly and twining one strand
around his finger in gentle love-play.
Gradually, as the gentleness of his caresses blurred the memory of a
hateful violence, the color returned to her cheeks and she drew close
to him again and kissed him on the lips.
"It was his life or ours," he said. "And the lives of every man and
woman on this ship. We discovered the identity of that guard just in
time. If he had kept silent, if he had not revealed his identity to
you, he would have sent out a message which would have destroyed us
all, for we are all in revolt. That is the great miracle. We drew
strength from one another and love-making no longer seems criminal to
us."
"It was never criminal," she said. "Only to the warped minds of the
Monitors would anything so beautiful seem less than what it is--life's
most generous gift to men and women everywhere. It breaks down all
barriers, dissolves all hatreds."
"It dissolves all unjust hatreds," the man said. "But I hated that
security guard because of what he said to you. Even though I knew the
wonder of your love, I could not quite drive hatred from my mind. But
that is not why I killed him, and perhaps it is a fault in me. I am
only human."
"I hated him too," the woman acknowledged. "No, I do not think it a
fault in you or in me. We have a right to hate treachery and hypocrisy
and deceit. If that guard had sent a message of warning to the Monitors
and they had ordered us all destroyed I would not have held him
responsible, even though you had to kill him to save the lives of a
hundred men and women. He would have simply been carrying out orders.
What I hated him for was his betrayal of the Monitors, not out of
sympathy for us, but to gain a cruel and brutal advantage for himself."
The woman tightened her lips and her eyes flashed again in bitter
anger. "I hated him because he made brutal advances to me, clasping me
like a ruffian while I struggled to free myself, and insisting that I
endure a night of shame and horror in his embrace--demanding _that_ as
the price of his silence. I did not submit and he had to free me, but
his loathsome kisses still burn my mouth. If love is forced on a woman
by a man not of her choice how can it be other than intolerable and
degrading to her integrity as a human being?
"What woman does not desire, in her secret heart, to have for a lover a
man who is capable of virile love-making, who is not afraid to embrace
her as you did just now, with such ardor that she cries out, and
wishes almost that he would take his questing hands and burning lips
away and yet is swooning with the sweetness of it, and would never
forgive him if he became less vehement before hot tides of passion
flow in the moment of love's supreme fulfillment. What woman would not
welcome such love-making, would not rejoice in it? But what woman, by
the same token, wishes to be taken against her will by a man whom she
does not love? There is an ugly word in the old books for that kind of
love-making. It was called rape."
The man's face had gone very pale. He said: "If I had known that he had
dared to embrace you I would not have stabbed him. I would have seized
him by the throat and killed him with my bare hands."
"I told you that he did not harm me. His rough embrace was hard to
endure, but it was over in a moment and an embrace is not a ravishment.
A thing like that can happen to any woman, and often does. It need not
cause you torment. And he has paid, hasn't he? You have avenged me to
the full, although you killed him for a different reason."
"I believe I would have killed him for that reason alone if I had known
about it."
"You are very jealous, my darling, very hot-headed. No man, no matter
how much of a brute he may be, deserves to die if he merely seizes a
woman briefly and presses rough kisses upon her lips, however unwelcome
those kisses may be. I do not feel that I have been seriously soiled or
degraded. He was a coward and his cowardice recoiled upon himself. He
was afraid that I would betray him to the Monitors. If I could offer
proof that he had made me pregnant his fate would have been sealed
along with ours."
The man's face was deathly pale now. "Do you have to talk like that? Do
you have to say such things? You know what it does to me."
"I simply wished to make you realize that you are torturing yourself
quite needlessly. I remain a virgin still. We are new to love,
darling--you and I. We have never experienced the full glory of it,
not in an intimate way. Because I am new to love I speak perhaps with
too much candor. I do not even know how to choose the right words, the
delicate words that a woman should perhaps use when she speaks of such
matters. I do not know--I am not sure. There is so much in the old
books that I do not completely understand. You must teach me, darling,
teach me the exact meaning of the forbidden words and just what words a
woman should choose."
He stood looking at her for a moment in complete silence, the color
coming back into his face, his eyes on her young, full-bosomed beauty.
He could not take his eyes from the twin mounds of her firm, tip-tilted
breasts and the rosy pinkness that suffused her exquisite throat.
"I will teach you the meaning of more than just the words," he said.
"There is so much that I should like to teach you if you are willing to
be taught. We are new to love, as you have said, but I feel, somehow,
that I know more about it than you do."
"Are you saying that because you are a man?" she asked, and her voice
held a tantalizing hint of mockery.
"I'm not sure," he said. "But I do feel that. What does it matter? Do
you really wish to know more?"
Her eyes answered for her, increasing in brightness and tenderness,
fastening on his face with a look of surrender and appeal.
He stepped forward and gathered her into his arms. He carried her
across the deck toward the glass-encased central cabin, murmuring
endearments, his arms tight about her. She rested her head on his
chest, pressing her lips against the hollow of his throat, moving them
back and forth with the exciting eagerness, the fierce impatience, of
an amorously aroused woman abandoning herself to an anticipation of
love's delights.
"I will take you to my cabin," he whispered. "It is ill-equipped for
the exploration of an experience new to us, for the strange, bright
wonder of love's complete fulfillment. There are darts and a circular
target on the wall, a double bar on a metal support for morning
exercises, a wooden board on a table that I yesterday overturned in
rage, because the game of _trig_, which I have never really liked,
seemed to me to have eight ivory-inlaid figures too many and my
opponent was more skillful than I. It is a sparsely furnished cabin,
an almost Spartan cabin, for the athlete and rather dull-witted
agricultural specialist that I thought myself to be."
"Until you fell in love," she whispered.
"Yes, darling, until I fell in love. And there is no man on this
ship and no woman who does not now feel as we do. Our rebellion is a
courageous one, unalterable in purpose. The ship is ours and we shall
take it to sea. We shall know all of love's delights for many days and
nights and the Monitors will be powerless to interfere."
They had entered the central cabin and he had set her down and she was
walking now with one arm about his waist, her head resting against his
shoulder.
The cabin was dimly lighted and on both sides of them the strangest
of murmurings arose. They could not see clearly into the shadows, but
what they could not see they sensed--the presence everywhere of men
and women like themselves, walking back and forth in a trancelike
stillness, enraptured by the preliminary intimacies of love. They
caught a glimpse of white limbs in the shadows, of bodies pressed
breast to breast or even more amorously intertwined, with lips joined
to lips and hands interlocked, and there were a dozen lovers standing
motionless and making no sound at all.
"Why do they not all go to their cabins?" the woman whispered, brushing
with her lips her companion's ear. "You would think they would be
consumed with a fierce impatience. There are many things about love
that I do not understand."
"They are consumed with impatience," the man replied. "But they wish to
prolong what would otherwise be over too quickly. I'm afraid there are
many things about love which you have yet to learn."
"Did I not just say so? You are my teacher, are you not?"
"I am, my darling," he whispered. "But you will also be my teacher.
There is no end to the things a woman can teach a man about love."
"I have only one question to ask you now. Shall we tarry here as these
others are doing?"
"No, I am incapable of such restraint. My impatience is too great."
"Very well. We will go directly to your cabin and you will teach me as
you have promised to do. I hope that I will be an accomplished pupil
and not disappoint you in any way."
"I hardly think that you will disappoint me, my darling."
"How can you be sure? The old books say that a woman like myself, a
woman who has always been--"
A slow flush crept up over her cheeks and she gripped his arm tightly.
"Oh, I cannot say the word."
"You said it once before. A woman who is still virginal. That is not
unusual at all. In fact, all of the non-love-privileged have been
virginal, and only now--I am myself a virgin, although the term sounds
a little ridiculous when it is applied to a man. But I cannot help
that, and it is no disgrace, really, for it is common to us all. It is
an absurdity which we shall soon put an end to."
"You mean to say--"
"Let us not be technical about it, my darling. According to the old
books a man who has preserved his chastity is also called a virgin."
"And you have preserved yours? Are you telling me the truth?"
"A woman's curiosity. Well--"
"Tell me the truth. When did you first experience the stirring?"
"Perhaps a month ago."
"And in the past four weeks you have never--"
"Well...."
"Do you think it would make me love you less?"
"No, I do not think that. And I will be honest with you. I--"
"Never mind. Do not tell me. I do not want to know. It is only natural
for a man to lie a little about that, according to the old books, and I
will not hold it against you. But make sure that you love me tonight,
darling, make sure that you love me well."
"I will," he promised. "I will, darling. I will."
The cabin was in total darkness, but the man switched on the light as
they entered, and the sparse furnishings leapt into instant relief,
three chairs and a table, the athletic cross-bar he had mentioned, and
in the corner a couch.
The woman did not linger in the doorway staring at the furnishings of
the cabin. She went directly to the couch and reclined upon it, saying
in a quiet voice, "Sit down beside me, darling. Lie down if you wish.
You look very tired. It has been a terrible ordeal. The taking of a
human life is never easy, even when it is justified, and for the sake
of others. I had no right to ask you to make love to me. I had no right
to expect it."
He turned off the light before he crossed the room to sit beside
her. After a moment she was in his arms, her lips seeking his in the
darkness. Their lips were quickly joined, and in another moment he
gently removed the tunic which encircled her loins. The root of his
manhood came vigorously to life and her body seemed to melt beneath
the demanding ardor of the caresses.
Her loins quivered and flesh bruised flesh in the tenderest of
bruisings. Complete fulfillment came to them both at the same moment,
and for a full minute they neither moved nor spoke, content to remain
locked in each other's arms in the warmth and melting languor of
passion's afterglow.
They slept at last, content, at peace, unaware that all about them
terrible dark storm clouds were gathering.
* * * * *
The flying machines came in swarms, encircling the pleasure ship
without warning. They came trailing jets of liquid fire, and assembled
in circular formation directly above the ship. Around and around they
flew, black mechanical hawks with iron talons, their crews on the alert
and awaiting orders, their spread wings darkly silhouetted against the
red disk of the sun.
They swooped and soared, but did not open fire. Far below the ship
continued on its course, as if their presence in the sky in no way
concerned the men and women on board. Sleeping men and women for the
most part, made drowsy by the aftermath of love, reluctant to stir and
greet the dawn when it was so much more pleasant to rest in the arms of
a beloved partner.
So much more pleasant to rest and sigh contentedly and turn over and go
to sleep again, while in the air death hovered and the air was filled
with the steady drone of wings.
No one on board the pleasure boat knew that the body of a slain
security guard had been washed ashore further along the coast and a
message found on him. They would not have succumbed to panic if they
had known, for their rebellion had strengthened their courage and they
had known from the first that the ship would be in danger during every
moment of the voyage.
Escape to a desert island in the untraveled traffic lanes of the
South Pacific had been the one thread of hope they had dared to
take seriously. From that slender thread they had woven a fabric of
shimmering bright colors--an island colony which the Monitors would
never discover, small white dwellings on a coral atoll, a world in
miniature where the right to love and be loved could not be taken from
them, a new world in the making.
But first the long voyage, the long honeymoon beneath the stars. Days
and nights of rapture, of almost continuous love-making while the
constellations wheeled above them and new strength flowed into them.
They had dared to dream and to act boldly, but from the first they
had been prepared for the disaster which had now come upon them. The
Monitors had been warned and the air above the ship was black with
wings and there could be no escape now, for each flying machine carried
a deadly cargo.
The order to open fire was given twenty minutes after the black
mechanical hawks had assembled in battle formation above the
slow-traveling vessel.
The message was in code and it was quietly communicated to the
pilot-commander of each flying machine, by a uniformed man with an
expressionless face standing stiffly at attention. The message bore the
signature of three Monitors and was countersigned by the entire council
of Monitors with the code letters which the Council used when it was
summoned into emergency session.
There was no escape from that message. It was delivered in completely
undramatic fashion and there was no drama in the quiet response of the
commanders. The bearers of the messages were simply dismissed with a
nod and when they returned to their battle stations their faces were
still expressionless.
A little tightening of the lips here and there perhaps, the faintest
glint of sympathy and compassion in eyes ordinarily cold and
duty-disciplined.
On the flying machines there were a few men who had experienced
the stirring and so could have wished that they were not security
specialists and could meet and mingle with women, know the soft caress
of a woman's hand and look with tenderness into a loved face and
abandon themselves to all the delights of the dark as the rebels far
below had done.
But on none of the flying machines was there any hesitation or open
rebellion when the order to open fire was given.
The carrying out of that order was immediate and cataclysmic. The
entire sky seemed to burst into flame. There was a roaring and a
screaming and the black mechanical hawks careened down the sky, each
dropping an egg on the water below and wheeling and returning and
dropping more eggs until the thunder of their wings became deafening.
The eggs did not explode instantly. They bobbed about for a moment
in the water on both sides of the smoke-enshrouded ship and in its
screaming wake and directly in front of it.
Then, one by one, the eggs stopped bobbing. Each gave birth to a
mushrooming monster, a shape of flame that went spiraling skyward.
The air about the ship seemed to quiver and flow inward, as if to
fill a vacuum that was all flame and thunder. A blinding glare united
the mushrooming spirals, spread out and beyond them until sea and sky
became enveloped in a swirling incandescence.
When the incandescence vanished the ship was gone. Nothing at all moved
upon the waters.
SIX
The dwelling had an abandoned look. There were drawn blinds on all of
the windows, and the flower beds running parallel with the front lawn
were heavily overrun with weeds. Tall asters drooped on wilted stalks
and most of the plants of brilliant bloom had withered and turned sere.
Teleman and Alicia approached with caution, however, keeping their
voices lowered and treading softly until they were standing directly
under the dwelling's projecting eaves.
The metal entrance panel was massive and overgrown with clinging vines.
When Teleman depressed the switch to the right of it a faint, humming
sound arose.
They stood in the shadows that clustered thickly at the base of the
dwelling's two-story facade until the panel glided completely open,
and the main-floor interior came into view. From the entranceway they
could see almost the whole of a large, square room with two windows,
furnished simply but tastefully with several chairs of natural wood, a
center table and plants in copper urns.
Teleman tapped Alicia lightly on the arm. "I'll go first," he said.
"We'll speak in whispers. We've got to move cautiously until we're
absolutely sure that the place is as deserted as it looks."
"I'm not too worried," Alicia said. "Only an ordinary citizen would
live in a dwelling as modest as this."
"Ordinary or not, he could be armed and dangerous," Teleman pointed
out. "Particularly if we're taken by surprise."
Alicia nodded. "You're right, of course. Go ahead, darling. What I
really meant was, I'm not worried because we're together. If we run
into trouble we'll know how to deal with it."
The light which streamed into the room from the two windows dappled the
floor in patches, and they took care to stay close to the right-hand
wall and well out of the light as they moved from the entranceway to
the base of an ascending stairway. The stairway, like the chairs and
table, was of natural wood and each of its ten or twelve steps was
covered with a thick coating of dust.
Teleman started and grew instantly alert, his eyes narrowing as he
stared down intently at the first four steps. There were markings in
the dust, faint but unmistakable. Someone had ascended the stairs quite
recently, leaving elongated impressions which were completely free of
dust. _And that someone had not come down!_
Teleman drew in his breath sharply. That the elongated impressions had
been made by the soles of boots he could not doubt. Ascending boots,
for the toes pointed forward and there were no opposite impressions
with the toes pointing toward him. Not all of the impressions were
clear but there was faint corrugations in the dust even on the one step
where, at first glance, he had noticed only the dust.
"What is it?" Alicia whispered. "What are you staring at?"
"There's someone upstairs," he replied, keeping his voice lowered
but gripping her wrist tightly to make sure that she would remain
completely still. "Footprints in the dust. See them? Don't move, even
slightly. I'm going up a few steps, but I'll be very careful."
She nodded, her fingers creeping over his hand and tightening for an
instant. "Yes, be careful. If the stairs should creak--"
"They won't. Stay right where you are and don't worry."
Teleman ascended cautiously, testing each step before he passed to the
next by resting his weight upon it guardedly, his ears alert for the
slightest sound. The wood did not creak and he reached the top step in
complete silence.
The stairs ended in a circular corridor bisected by a narrow beam of
sunlight which filtered down from a small, diamond-shaped window high
in the wall. The footsteps did not end at the top of the stairs, but
continued on down the corridor to vanish in total darkness.
Teleman had intended merely to check each of the dust-covered steps to
make sure that all of the footprints pointed in one direction. But now,
having satisfied himself in that respect, he abandoned all caution.
Returning down the stairs only to ascend again after a moment or two
of calm thought would be wasting precious moments. Better, he told
himself, to go on immediately and put an end to all uncertainty. He was
quite sure that Alicia would understand and not attempt to follow him.
He glanced quickly back down the stairs, saw her slender form crouching
in the shadows and waved to her. Without changing her position she
returned the gesture, her eyes shining in the half-light.
Reassured, he turned and advanced across the circular corridor, taking
care to move stealthily. The corridor terminated in a hallway so narrow
that his shoulders grazed both sides of it when his tread became
slightly hesitant and he shifted his equilibrium in the darkness.
The hallway was as black as pitch. With no glimmer of light to guide
him he continued on, straining his ears as he traversed the narrow
passageway and the upstairs room which he was almost sure he would find
at the end of it.
Then, quite suddenly, he stopped trying to visualize the room
arrangement on the second floor of the dwelling. It ceased to matter,
ceased to seem important. He was only aware of the voices.
The voices came drifting toward him out of the darkness, halting his
cautious step-by-step advance, causing him to stand utterly motionless,
with every nerve alert.
A man's voice and a woman's voice. He heard the woman's voice first,
vibrant with emotion, both languid and intense, as if, in some sudden
awakening after a dream of rapture, there was a need for words to make
happiness and fulfillment as complete as possible.
"We came back because we had to, my dearest one, my beloved," the woman
was murmuring. "And you carried me upstairs, just as you did on our
bridal night. It all seems so unbelievable even now. We dared to be
recklessly romantic, true lovers in the old, half-forgotten way--we
dared to be true to ourselves. We had the courage, we dared."
"I know," the man whispered, his voice tender and exultant. "And when
we refused to pass our first night together in a mating center. We
soared to heights that had to be scaled again. We are too desperately,
madly in love to accept a lesser glory. We had to be alone together in
this simple, beautiful cottage in the woods. Only here can we pluck
the uttermost rose of love, surrender ourselves one to the other in
a secret place of our own choosing. Only here can we know how the
poet felt when he wrote: 'Love is like a shining river, its banks
flower-bright, with secret shrines and bowers which lovers alone may
enter and become imperishably entwined. Love is a flowing, a radiance
in the night.'"
"I'm glad that we came back last night," the woman murmured. "If we
had waited we might have lost a little of our courage and any loss
might have made us hesitate to defy the Monitors and risk everlasting
disgrace. In a way, I feel like a woman who is not love-privileged, who
has been denied the fulfillment of a woman's greatest need."
"A man's greatest need too, my darling," came in quick reply. "Remember
that, always. No man can live without love and be creative in the
highest sense. He cannot be bold and far-seeing and dare the stars. He
needs the embrace of a woman, the undying love of a woman, a mutual
sharing in all of love's secret delights or he will shrivel in his
inmost being. He will become a mockery and a sham--a walking sepulchre
filled with dry bones that rattle in every passing gust. He will become
a tyrant and fool, venting his inner frustration and his rage on those
weaker than himself--the helpless, the defenseless, the socially
maladjusted who in many ways are often superior to himself."
The voices fell silent. But there were sounds in the darkness, a
stirring, a moving about and to Teleman, still standing motionless, it
was easy to imagine what was taking place in the room at the end of the
hallway.
He did not wish to intrude. He would have struck down and perhaps
attempted to kill anyone intruding on Alicia and himself, had the
situation been reversed.
But now the need for immediate, drastic action forced him to thrust all
such considerations aside. The man and woman in the room just beyond
were sex-privileged and that fact alone had suggested a daring course
of action which he had no right, if only for Alicia's sake, to postpone.
It was a scheme so audacious that the first move had to succeed and the
second and the third. Each would be charged with danger, and the stakes
would be survival or almost certain death.
The man making love in the room at the end of the hallway was for the
moment defenseless, unaware that an intruder had entered his home and
was listening to his every spoken word. If there was a weapon in the
dwelling it was probably not within his reach. He would have to leap
out of bed and cross the room to get his hands on it. It might even be
in the room downstairs.
He appeared to be the kind of man Teleman would have been proud to
number among his friends. The woman too was exceptional; warm-hearted
and courageous. But Teleman could not risk appealing to them directly.
Their sympathy and understanding might bridge all gulfs and lead to a
lasting friendship. But he would still have to ask too much of them and
expose them to too much danger. They would have to agree voluntarily to
a plan which would place their own lives in jeopardy.
He had no right to force such a choice upon them, no right to make
an appeal which their own generous natures might prevent them from
refusing. Unless they were found in the dwelling bound and completely
helpless the Monitors would refuse to believe that they had not taken
part in a criminal conspiracy to aid two fugitive lawbreakers.
They might still have difficulty in explaining their presence in the
dwelling, for the love-privileged were required by law to spend their
nights in the mating centers. But recreational leaves were sometimes
granted and the man and the woman were highly intelligent, and would
know how to speak with eloquence in their own defense. Their lapse was
not a serious one, and Teleman was quite sure that they would know how
to turn aside the wrath of the Monitors. It took great courage to do
what they had done. But they would not be subject to the death penalty,
and would escape with no more than a stern admonition.
To mar the happiness of a man and woman so desperately in love even
for a day and a night made Teleman sick at heart. But he had no choice.
All of the Monitors' rage would be directed against Alicia and himself
and he could not let Alicia die....
He moved cautiously forward, dreading what he must do, and was not
aware that he had reached the door of the room until he saw the white
sheets of a bed gleaming faintly in the darkness.
He stood for a moment in the doorway, unseen, unheard, waging an inner
struggle with himself. Should he make some slight sound to warn them,
risk that much before he advanced upon the bed to make his presence
known in an unmistakable way?
The man would have to be ordered from the bed and threatened with the
hand-gun which Teleman had taken from the para-guard. Teleman hoped
that he would not have to use the gun as he had used it against the
guard to exact instant compliance from the man. But he was prepared for
any contingency, no matter how desperate.
SEVEN
Monitor 6Y9 stood staring at the electronic scanner-glass, her gaunt
body stooping a little, her face half in shadow. Behind her the high
white wall of a Security Observatory towered, totally blank from floor
to ceiling and shining with a dull lustre. At her side stood a bearded
young man in the somber black garb of an Advisory Specialist, his face
almost as gaunt as the woman's and scarcely more masculine in aspect,
for the woman was an Amazon in build and strength despite her leanness.
"They have escaped," the gaunt woman murmured. "See there! That blind,
stupid pig of a para-guard lying bound and nothing but a stretch of
dense woodland beyond with no scanner pickup anywhere."
"No reason to take it so much to heart," the bearded man said, a
slight smile on his thin, almost bloodless lips. "You seem to hate
them for personal reasons, and that surprises me. I'd advise you to
keep how you feel to yourself. If they have committed the grave crime
you've charged them with--and attacking that guard was just as grave a
crime--they will have to answer for their criminal behavior with their
lives. Doesn't that satisfy you? To feel personal animosity toward a
lawbreaker is inexcusable in a Monitor. It would be inexcusable in me."
"You are a fool!" the gaunt woman said, turning upon him with a gesture
of angry defiance, her dark eyes flashing. "I am not obliged to take
your advice, for my authority is superior to yours."
"You might do well to heed it," the young man said. "Your authority is
not superior to the Supreme Council of Monitors in full, law-making
session. And an Advisory Supervisor, even an Advisory Specialist, can
strongly influence the voting."
"And why should you influence the Council in a manner unfavorable to
me," the gaunt woman demanded. "Have I not always been your friend?
Don't forget, it was I who elevated you to your high station. If you
turn against me now you will regret it."
The young man inclined his head. "Perhaps. I do owe a great deal to
you. But personal animosity can distort judgment, and further threaten
our supremacy. I do not like it. We must act coolly and without bias."
"How can I act coolly when those two accused me of--" The gaunt woman
hesitated and tightened her lips, a deep flush creeping up over her
cheekbones. "On the travel strip they accused me of secretly harboring
criminal impulses as monstrous as their own," she went on in a
sudden, uncontrollable burst of rage. "They dared to affront my ears
with outrageous and shameful insinuations. They said that I too had
experienced the stirring and that I refused to face the truth about
myself and that the repression of that baseness in me had made me cruel
and vindictive. They said I was envious of what they did openly and
without shame, in the full light of day."
"Was it really as bad as all that?" the Advisory Specialist asked, his
voice not entirely lacking in sympathy. "Well, I can understand how
you must have felt. But at least they only made love openly when the
travel strip was deserted for many paces and when you were still in the
distance. You told me so yourself."
"I could still see them. The security guard could see them as well."
"It might have been better if you had shut your eyes to what you
saw. The rebellion is spreading rapidly and we encounter many such
criminal transgressions daily, even on the travel strips. Those two
were unusual in many ways, more daring than most of the others, willing
to take greater risks. To defy a Monitor as they did, threatening her
with physical violence and to leave the strip and take to the woods
in a daring bid for freedom, skilfully eluding pursuit, displaying
extraordinary intelligence, outwitting us at every turn. Surely you
must realize that it has set a dangerous example which others may not
be slow in following!"
"That is why they must be caught and brought to justice!" the gaunt
woman cried, her fury making her tremble and congesting the whites of
her eyes. "The death sentence must be imposed as quickly as possible.
They must stand before the Supreme Council, stripped naked, exposed in
all of their shame, and they must be forced to make a full confession.
Oh, we shall not spare them. _I_ will not spare them. I shall demand
that right.
"I shall force them to reveal all of the monstrous details of their
nights together in the dark: the criminal moments of unlawful
love-making, her wantonness, his amorous abandonment to her every
illicit whim. It is the woman who is always the most to blame. She has
led him on and destroyed him, for no man can resist a woman skilled in
all of the wiles and enticements of the harlot. Yes, yes, yes ... I
will use that old, almost forgotten word. I have read the old books
and I know what a harlot was and what a harlot did. I will fling the
word in her face. Harlot and courtesan, strumpet and destroyer of men!"
"There is another word, a more ribald word, that you had best not say,"
the young man advised. "You must try to control yourself and exercise
calm judgment when you make the charge. Otherwise the Council will
accuse you of bias."
"Let them accuse me! I will speak my mind."
"I have advised and warned you," the young man said. "I can do no more.
And I'm afraid you're forgetting that they must first be captured. Look
at the glass. More para-guards are descending and the scanner beams are
moving again. Another stretch of woodland is coming into view. Their
capture may not be long delayed. There is consolation in that--it is an
encouraging step forward. The pursuit has been resumed."
The gaunt woman swung about to face the glass, her eyes brightening, a
rapacious eagerness in her stare.
In the depths of the brightly illumined glass the forest seemed elfin
and remote, enveloped in a weaving interplay of light and shade. Five
para-guards were descending slowly above a boulder-strewn stretch
of forest floor, brightened here and there by red and yellow fungus
growths and moss-covered logs that glowed with a faint phosphorescence
in the shadowed hollows between the rocks.
One by one the para-guards reached the ground, threw off their
cumbersome air-suspension equipment, and checked the firing mechanism
of their hand-guns, their faces harsh and grimly purposeful in the
downstreaming light. Two of them were equipped with portable scanners
and as they moved the instruments about the scene shifted and another
stretch of woodland filled the glass. A patch of open sky swept
suddenly into view and across it a flying machine darted, looking, in
the glass' miniature reproduction of the scene, not unlike an enormous,
blue-black hornet.
"They must be taken alive," the gaunt woman breathed. "With success so
near I would be a fool not to change my original orders. Even if they
resist they must not be attacked with weapons. I will issue new orders
immediately."
"I would advise you to give it careful thought," the young man said.
"You will be risking the lives of five para-guards. The man is armed
now and--"
"Be silent. I shall do as I please. The death of five guards would be
a very cheap price to pay for the apprehension alive of such monstrous
criminals."
The young man sighed. "Have it your own way, then. But the Council may
not take a kindly view of such head-strong behavior. After all, human
life has _some_ value."
The gaunt woman's eyes flashed again in anger, but before she could
reply the entrance panel on the opposite wall of the Security
Observatory glided open, and an armed guard stood framed in the
aperture. He stood stiffly at attention, his hand raised in salute,
his expression tense, but deferential, as if the news he had to convey
would have burst from his lips if he had dared to ignore discipline.
The Monitor regarded him irately for an instant, and although the anger
in her eyes was not meant for him it caused him to take a swift step
backward.
"What is it?" she demanded. "Don't just stand there. Speak up."
"We followed your instructions and dropped seven para-guards at the
opposite end of the forest," he said. "They have captured a man and
a woman. They may be the two you seek, though it is hard to believe
they could have covered so many miles. They were dragged from a tangle
of underbrush, locked criminally in each other's arms. They are not
sex-privileged."
The gaunt woman stood very still, her lips paling a little, an
indescribable look, of shock and triumph commingled, perhaps, coming
into her face.
"Where are they?" she demanded, her voice so choked with emotion that
the guard had to strain to catch the words. "What have you done with
them?"
"They are here," he said. "I knew that you would want me to bring them
here immediately. They are just outside--"
"Bring them in! You try my patience. Bring them in and be quick about
it."
The guard swung about and was gone for a moment. When he returned he
was accompanied by a man and a woman, both securely gagged and with
their hands tied behind them.
The woman was dark-haired and dark-eyed, with exotically beautiful
features, her eyes almond-shaped, her skin so fair and delicately
textured that it seemed almost transparent. The man was well past his
first youth, but still in his prime, with a lithe strength in his build
and posture, an absence of excess weight, which made it hard to think
of him as a man approaching middle age. He was deeply sun-bronzed,
and had the look of a man who has lived most of his life under open
skies. There was great strength in his features as well, features too
rugged to be thought of as handsome but radiating a strange kind of
sensitivity, as if he were both an athlete and poet, man of action and
dreamer of dreams.
The woman was shaking her head violently in an attempt to dislodge the
gag, her dark eyes flashing with anger, but the man stood very still
and straight, regarding his captors with a coldly defiant stare. There
was contempt in his gaze as well, a proud disdain which he made no
effort to conceal.
The gaunt woman stood staring at them for a moment with a look of
bitter, rage-envenomed disappointment on her face. Then, quite
suddenly, her eyes clouded over and became almost opaque, like the
eyes of a cobra poised to strike.
"I had never thought to encounter such stupidity," she breathed, more
to herself than to the uneasily staring guard. "Why were they brought
here? They do not in the least resemble the other two. I have never set
eyes on them before. They are complete strangers to me and strangers
who stand accused of the most revolting of crimes should not be brought
into my presence at this time. It is more than I can endure."
The guard's ruddy face changed color, becoming almost pale. "We had
their description, nothing more," he said, quickly and defensively. "No
likenesses were transmitted, since you yourself could only describe
them. We had to make sure. We thought it was just barely possible--"
"Silence, you fool. I have heard enough. Give me your whiplash. I will
not need your hand-gun. Just the whiplash."
"You are not going to--" The guard's face was deathly pale now. "No,
no, try to understand. I have not merited--"
"You blundering stupid fool! It is not you I am going to chastise. It
is these two. I will listen first to what the woman has to say. Then,
if she has no shame, if she will not confess her guilt and admit that
she has been justly accused, as all criminal offenders must do, I will
punish her. Give me the whiplash."
"Yes, of course," the guard said, unbuckling from his waist the
flexible metal rod terminating in five catgut thongs which the gaunt
woman was now regarding with a fixed, almost hypnotic intensity. Some
of the color had crept back into his face and he breathed a long sigh
of relief as he handed it to her.
It was the Advisory Specialist's turn to look at her in consternation.
He stepped quickly forward and laid a restraining hand on her arm.
"You must be quite mad!" he said, warningly. "The Council will not
overlook or forgive the use of a whiplash by a Monitor in a private
interrogation. The very word you used--_chastise_. It is a brutally
primitive word, a word out of the old books, a completely unscientific
word that should be strictly excluded from the vocabulary of a Monitor.
You will bring ruin and disgrace upon both of us. I will not be a party
to it."
"Then go!" the gaunt woman cried, almost screaming the words. "I have
always suspected you were nothing but a coward. Go, leave me. I can no
longer endure the sight of you."
Without a word, his face as pale as the guard's had been, the young man
turned and left the Observatory, the entrance panel closing behind him
with a dull droning.
Grasping the whiplash firmly, the gaunt woman stepped quickly forward
and tore the gag from the dark-eyed girl's mouth.
The girl recoiled a step, and stood for an instant motionless, her
shoulders held straight and her eyes still blazing with anger. She
did not seem to want to be the first to speak, for she kept her lips
tightly compressed and her chin tilted defiantly. So fierce was
her pride and uncompromising dignity that for the briefest instant
the gaunt woman hesitated, as if some vestige of human feeling,
of compassion and respect deep in her nature was urging her to be
merciful. Then, as quickly as it had arisen, the impulse vanished, and
the enraged Monitor unleashed a torrent of vituperation, her voice
trembling with fury.
"Lascivious wanton, lewd temptress, abandoned harlot! How many men
have you betrayed? How many men have you aroused unlawfully, tempting
them to engage in acts of criminal carnality which all of the lessons
of their childhood and early adolescence had given them the strength
and wisdom to withstand? And the glandular injections, the wise, sane
quieting of desire, its almost complete eradication in high-minded
specialists in a hundred fields whose social dedication has made our
society what it is--how dared you flaunt your brazen primitiveness
openly and destroy what it has taken centuries to create?
"You have committed the most terrible of crimes. You have discovered in
your wickedness that here and there, among a few men who are criminals
at heart, the old, dangerous impulses are stirring again and perhaps
have never been wholly subdued. And because they are stirring in you,
because you are an abandoned creature lost to all shame, you have led
many such men along pathways of gross sensuality, of unlawful desire.
How many? A hundred, a thousand? You do not need to tell me. I can
guess. It is always the woman who is most to blame, even when she
consorts with men who are themselves criminals, as is this man here."
The girl spoke then, for the first time. She did not raise her voice
and the anger which flamed in her eyes did not make her words come in a
rush, as the Monitor's words had done. She spoke with dignity and each
word was chosen with care and each word fell on the gaunt woman's ears
with the force of a stinging rebuke.
"If you had wisdom and warmth and understanding you would have said,
quite simply: 'He is a man--you are a woman. No woman can live without
love and give to the world the best that is in her, and increase the
world's store of radiance and tenderness and beauty. And no man can
live without love and be complete in his inmost being, and have the
courage of his beliefs and build proud new worlds on the ashes of a
world such as this, a world which is dying."
"If our world is dying, you have helped to kill it!" the gaunt woman
cried, her face dark with rage. "Do you hear? You have helped with your
wantonness. You were caught making love in the forest like--like wild
animals."
"No, you are mistaken," the dark-eyed girl said quietly. "We were
making love with dignity, tenderness and beauty."
The gaunt woman's rage could no longer be constrained by anything
short of violence. The words that came to her lips in reply were never
uttered. She could no longer articulate and the words became a low
muttering which continued even when she seized the hem of the girl's
white garment and ripped it from her shoulders, baring her back from
neck to waist.
She raised the whiplash and brought it down with all her strength on
the girl's naked back. Three times she raised the punitive weapon and
brought it down with relentless violence, her breath wheezing in her
throat.
The thongs cut cruelly into the girl's flesh, raising long crimson
welts, and sending her staggering forward. She raised her hands to her
face and dropped to her knees, but she neither cringed nor cried out.
She remained kneeling in an upright position, in an attitude that only
great courage could have enabled her to maintain. She was trembling a
little, but she continued to hold her shoulders straight and did not
even moan when the whiplash descended for the fourth and last time.
The gaunt woman was raising the weapon for another blow when the man
hurled himself against her, battering her with his shoulders and elbows
until the whiplash went clattering and she collapsed backwards against
the electronic scanner-glass, shaking but not shattering it, and sank
with a groan to the floor.
She remained sprawled out on the floor for a full minute, clutching at
her side, twisting about in pain, and trying several times to rise, her
eyes darting in desperate appeal toward the guard. Her lips moved but
no sound came from them, for her throat had been bruised so severely
that her vocal cords throbbed dully and she could not even take a deep
breath, or summon the strength to speak.
The girl's enraged lover came and stood over her, glaring savagely down
at her and shaking his head in a vain attempt to dislodge the gag. He
was not aware that the guard had caught and correctly interpreted the
Monitor's unspoken message and was now standing directly behind him
with a small, metallically gleaming hand-gun in his clasp.
The guard raised the weapon slowly and took careful aim, centering its
double sights on a small mole in the middle of the enraged man's back.
The report of the weapon was loud in the Observatory, shaking the
scanner-glass as violently as the Monitor's heavily collapsing body
had done. The impact of its energy charge lifted the enraged man up
and hurled him back against the wall. His body struck the wall and
rebounded, hurling him forward to the floor.
He was dead before he struck the floor, but his lifeless body continued
to move about erratically for a moment, from the impetus of the energy
charge, and its slow dissipation throughout every organ and tissue of
his body.
The girl screamed and ran to him, and threw herself upon him, cradling
his head in her arms, swaying despairingly from side to side.
Getting at last to her feet, the gaunt woman experienced a moment of
terrible remorse, of such acute awareness of what had happened and
could not be undone that she swayed also and covered her face with her
hands.
In that moment she knew that no one, not even a Monitor, could escape
a feeling of guilt for an act of cruelty and violence that could have
been avoided, that need not have taken place at all.
For a moment a noose of savage tightness seemed to wrap itself around
her heart, making it impossible for her to breathe. Then, gradually,
the old hardness reasserted itself and she told herself that she was a
fool to feel any sympathy for the girl or remorse over the death of her
lover.
Were they not both criminals whose rebellion was a threat to the entire
structure of society? Was not the stamping out of such an evil the
first duty of a Monitor and could that duty ever be shirked?
What was the girl saying? The girl had raised her eyes and was staring
at her, but she couldn't seem to catch the words.
Suddenly she did hear them and for an instant the noose feeling
returned, the savage constriction around her heart.
"You will pay in your own way in your own time," the girl was saying.
"If there is any justice left in the world, you will pay for what
you have done. I no longer even hate you. There is a dark horror in
the depth of some minds that destroys everything that is radiant and
beautiful in life. In your mind there is such a horror. And in the end
it will destroy you, for great evil feeds upon evil until there is
nothing left at all."
The Monitor had only the vaguest recollection of speaking to the guard,
of gesturing and saying: "Take her away. And remove the body of that
criminal from this room. When I return I shall expect to find them both
gone."
EIGHT
"The glass," Monitor 6Y9 murmured, aloud to herself. "I must go back
and look at the glass again. I must see how the pursuit is progressing,
the pursuit of the two worst criminals of all. When they spoke to
me as they did on the travel trip a strange premonition came upon
me. Those two are my real enemies, for there is in them a will to
resist such as I have never encountered before. When I met them a
voice seemed to whisper deep in my mind: 'It will be their lives or
yours--and the security of all of the Monitors, and the Advisors and
all of us who rule will hang in the balance until they are captured and
brought to justice. There is in them a power, a defiance, so fierce
and intractable that it could disrupt all of the binding energies of
our world just as an atom can, by exploding, destroy all matter in its
path. A single atom, and when two such atoms are joined...."
The gaunt woman stopped walking and looked up at the high white walls
of the corridor she had been pacing, back and forth, like a caged
tigress.
"No ... no ... no," she murmured. "I cannot go back and look at the
scanner-glass until my mind has grown calmer, and my will has been
strengthened, and I am more completely myself again. Perhaps the
pursuit has failed and they can no longer be traced. Perhaps they have
already been surrounded and have escaped from the trap by a stroke of
blind luck, or because some strange destiny has set them apart from all
others. Perhaps all of the para-guards are lying dead in the forest."
The gaunt woman drew herself up, a look of stern self-reproach coming
into her eyes. "Enough of such fears and misgivings. _They will be
captured._ I will find the strength to pursue them relentlessly, night
and day, to pursue them until their will to resist has been shattered
and they stand broken and defenseless before the Council. If I should
need more strength than I possess--and I have great strength--I will
draw upon the strength of our world. Wait, wait, let me think. It may
help me now to look well upon that strength. The new bio-chemical
techniques for changing the structure of the human body, altering its
glandular functioning, eradicating the need for love--yes, that great,
genius-inspired key, the solution perhaps to all of our problems.
"The experiment in Research Laboratory 79 H! A completely new kind of
man--woman later if the experiment is successful, a man without any
love impulses at all, but strong and robust, high-minded and socially
dedicated. For three centuries we have tried to eradicate the love
impulse by rigorously controlled selective mating of the least amorous,
until we thought we had succeeded in creating a great and enduring
society of completely non-amorous specialists. But we were tragically
mistaken and everywhere the old, dangerous ugliness is weakening the
very foundations of our world and threatening us all with destruction.
And all because our best minds were not sufficiently genius-inspired.
"We knew a great deal about glandular therapy and had even employed it
experimentally, in a cautiously limited way, to make the long-range
results of selective mating more effective and permanent. But even
there we were at fault. We did not proceed boldly enough. We drew back
from gland surgery and from combining carefully controlled glandular
injection therapy with the newest and most brilliant developments
in surgery. We did not have the boldness of vision, the courage and
foresight, to create a completely new kind of man--to alter the
physical structure of the human body as it has never before been
altered in the entire history of our race, except very occasionally by
accident and disease.
"A new race of men! Why should we draw back from that, why should we
hesitate now when our peril is so great, and we may all go down into
everlasting night and darkness?"
The gaunt woman drew herself up. She seemed to draw strength from the
vehemence of her own convictions, which she continued to express aloud
to herself, as if she were herself a listener and needed to hear her
own voice affirming what she knew to be true.
"The experiment in Laboratory 79 H! For six months now we have waited
patiently to be told whether it is a success or a failure. We have
waited long enough. The Council may condemn me if I go now and demand
that the final test be made at once, in my presence. But I shall take
that risk. I have the right to demand, I will make my authority felt.
The subject has undergone six months of glandular therapy; four of
surgery. They might prefer to postpone the final test for another week,
but I am quite sure it will not endanger the subject if it is performed
at once. I shall be the first to know!"
The gaunt woman stopped pacing and directed her steps toward the
end of the corridor, and from there passed quickly down the shorter
corridor which branched off from it, and threaded a maze of ten more
blank-walled corridors until she came to the closed entrance panel of
Laboratory 79 H.
The panel opened with a dull droning when she dialed the code numerals
on the combination lock, and she passed quickly into the silent,
high-ceilinged compartment and remained for a moment motionless,
letting her eyes adjust to the dim light and steeling herself for the
stern exercise of her authority which she knew would be required of
her, for surgical specialists could be very stubborn.
There were four surgeons in the laboratory, and so absorbed were they
in their immediate task that they remained for an instant unaware
that the door had opened and closed and that a Monitor stood silently
watching them.
It was perhaps just as well that they did not know, for her presence
might have unnerved them at a critical moment. In almost the precise
center of the laboratory a tall form, swathed in bandages, reposed on a
white metal table, and the surgeons were busily engaged in removing the
bandages from a pair of legs that seemed abnormally long and from arms
that terminated in thick-fingered, hairy hands and were not so much
long as abnormally muscular and strong-sinewed.
The shoulders of the man on the table seemed abnormally muscular
too, and so broad that they resembled more the shoulders of a giant
than those of a man of average weight and stature. The surgeons were
whispering to one another as they unwound the bandages, as if the
gravity and importance of their task had bound them over to silence
or a few words of necessary conversation for so long a period that to
raise their voices now, when so critical a moment was at hand, would
have seemed like a desecration.
It was the gaunt woman who raised her voice, breaking in upon the
whispering with sharp words of command, and causing the surgeons to
swing about in consternation.
"You appear to have exceeded your authority," she said. "You were
instructed not to remove the bandages or conduct the final test before
notifying the Council. I can think of only one explanation and it
does not heighten my respect for you. It diminishes it greatly. You
so dreaded the possibility of failure that you preferred to conduct
the final test in complete secrecy, for a failure that takes place in
the absence of witnesses can sometimes be covered up with a fine flow
of excuses. Well, there will be no excuses now. I am here to witness
everything that takes place and I will report what I have seen to the
Council."
The tallest of the four surgeons and the one nearest to the Monitor, a
darkly bearded man with eyes so pale that they seemed almost colorless,
was the first to recover his composure.
"We were about to conduct the final test," he said. "We were removing
the bandages to study the responses of the subject preliminary to the
test, which will not take place today. He must be injected with drugs
first, so that when he awakens he will not know precisely where he
is, and behave accordingly. We wish him to think himself in a mating
center or, better still, a temple of love where nothing amorous is
forbidden. There were many such temples in the ancient world, as you
know, and before we subjected him to glandular surgery we made sure
that he would read the ancient books and become familiar with all of
the rites and practices which would awaken, even in the kind of man he
was originally, amorous impulses of a criminal nature.
"He was, as you also know, a non-sex-privileged man who had experienced
the stirring to a moderate extent but had not succumbed to it, and we
selected him for that reason. We thought--"
"I do not care what you thought!" the gaunt woman rasped, her
impatience making her tremble. "Just tell me what you hoped to
accomplish."
"Very well. I will try not to confuse and bewilder you by discussing in
detail the surgical aspects of the problem and all of the difficulties
which we encountered. Quite simply, our problem was to bring about such
a profound physical change in his somatic and glandular functioning
that he would experience no amorous emotion at all when he looked
upon a woman. We have known for a long time that the pituitary gland
exercises a profound influence on the love-impulse. When the gland is
very active the love-impulse is inhibited or destroyed completely.
"When the gland is very active the entire structure of the human body
changes. The body becomes more massive, particularly the jaw, wrists,
hands and ankles. In the past this condition has occasionally been
brought about by disease, and the victims of this disease were known as
acromegaliacs. When it occurs in childhood it produces a very unusual
kind of human being--a pituitary giant. A pituitary giant is robust
and virile-looking enough in outer aspect but his amorous impulses are
extremely sluggish and in some cases completely absent.
"In this subject we have not only increased the activity of the
pituitary gland, we have used many other surgical and glandular
injection techniques to alter the functioning of virtually every gland
in his body. And we have made some more generalized somatic alterations
too, and employed some of the newer chemicals in a very daring kind of
body-changing and brain-altering experiment.
"He is truly a new kind of human being. His appearance may do violence
to our preconceived ideas of what constitutes good looks in the
male, particularly in the eyes of a sex-privileged woman. But if the
experiment is a success we shall soon become accustomed to seeing many
men of this kind moving about and assuming a dominant role in our
society. We shall have solved our greatest problem and removed a threat
to our entire way of life."
"And the final test?" the gaunt woman demanded. "You say you were
planning to conduct it tomorrow. Could you not conduct it now, in my
presence? I have allowed myself to be impressed, despite my better
judgment perhaps, by what you have just said. As a ruling Monitor, I
could bear witness to your success, if you do succeed, as few others
could do. And if you fail my testimony as to your complete honesty of
purpose would carry great weight with the Council."
NINE
The tall surgeon stood very still, regarding her for a moment with
a level, noncommittal stare. Then, slowly, a look of calculated
risk-taking came into his eyes and he turned to the others with a
slight shrug. They nodded in assent and he turned back again to face
the Monitor.
"I believe we can conduct the test now," he said. "We can inject the
illusion-producing drugs now and they take effect almost immediately.
We could have wished for more time but--" He shrugged again. "We need
not send for the girl. She is here and--"
"The girl?" the gaunt woman cut in sharply.
For answer the tall surgeon turned and walked across the laboratory to
a small panel set in the wall. He gripped the projecting knob of the
panel and turned it about in his hand and the thin partition of metal
glided back into the wall, revealing a glimmering square of radiance.
"You may come out now," the surgeon said. "We have decided to conduct
the final test immediately. You have received your instructions and
should be prepared to display your great beauty without fear and
without shame."
A soft, feminine voice, so strangely beautiful and well-modulated that
it seemed almost musical came in reply from deep within the radiance
but the Monitor could not catch what was said. She heard only the
surgeon's words as he turned, stepping back from the panel aperture and
facing her again.
"She has been schooled in every amorous enchantment," he said. "She
knows how to dance and sing, and use her body's grace as only the
love-privileged can do, when they have been taught far more than
the love-privileged are permitted to know. Even when they abandon
themselves to love in the mating centers the love-privileged know that
what they do must be veiled in secrecy, hidden from the light of day.
They know that what they do is really shameful, a necessary evil, and
that it would bring a blush to even the virginal cheeks of a woman such
as you.
"Only this girl has been schooled in all of the ancient rites, the
forbidden mysteries of love. Only this girl can tempt a man to madness
without degrading herself in any way. For what she does she does
voluntarily, as a great sacrifice, and in the interests of science. If
the experiment is successful we will honor her for her courage and even
though she is one of the sex-privileged we will think of her as pure.
We will think of her as a dedicated specialist, just as selfless in her
devotion to all that is best in our society as an engineer or surgeon
or skilled industrial worker, and we will know, and be grateful deep in
our hearts, that she has helped to save us all."
The gaunt woman's cheeks had flushed scarlet and anger flamed in her
eyes. But before she could reprimand the surgeon for speaking so
immoderately--was he secretly the girl's lover?--the woman he was
defending emerged from the panel aperture and stood with the radiance
at her back and her head held high, her eyes darting from the Monitor
and the four surgeons to the still form on the table.
The gaunt woman stared at her with a sharp intake of her breath. That
a beauty so dazzling should dare to flaunt itself in proud defiance
before the eyes of a Monitor who had never given a thought to her own
beauty or lack of it, seemed outrageous, too intolerable to be endured.
So great was the girl's beauty that it seemed almost to pass beyond
perfection, to envelop her in an aura that was individual and unique,
setting her apart from all other women, and igniting a spark of ardent
responsiveness in the four surgeons which was plainly visible in their
eyes. That the surgeons had looked upon the girl's loveliness before,
the Monitor could not doubt, and that very realization increased her
anger until she could no longer breathe.
She began violently to tremble, her gaze passing from the girl's
lustrous dark eyes and full red lips to her white shoulders and firm
young breasts and then downward to the thin gauze garment that did
not at all succeed in concealing what seemed the worst affront of
all--thighs that seemed fashioned for the caresses of a lover's hands
and a darkness in a shadowed hollow that only such a lover, whispering
softly in the night, would have felt the slightest impulse to explore,
with degradation stamping him for what he was, a passion-aroused beast.
The surgeon turned with quiet dignity and addressed his three
associates, his determination to ignore the Monitor's rage clearly
evident in the firm tones of his voice.
"Remove all of the bandages, and make the injection before he begins
to stir. Remove the bandages first. He has been conscious for several
hours now, but perhaps not fully conscious. You will know how to awaken
him, but be sure to make the injection before he opens his eyes. It
will take effect in twenty or thirty seconds."
For the next five minutes no one in the laboratory spoke. Neither the
surgeons, who were too busy carrying out instructions to even exchange
glances or the two women who stood facing each other with dagger-points
dancing in their eyes.
The girl seemed to sense what the Monitor was thinking and to resent it
as a matter of pride. But she remained silent and self-contained and
only the tightness of her lips and the dark hostility with which she
parried the gaunt women's accusing stare betrayed a vulnerability which
her pride could not quite overcome.
What broke the stillness at last was the strangest and most unnerving
of all sounds: a groan from the man who had not moved even under the
administration of the figures in white hovering over him, a man who had
lain as if dead for so long that it seemed impossible that he could
stir, and open his eyes and let out his breath explosively after so
short an interval of time.
The man on the table sat up. He sat up so quickly that the surgeons
withdrew from him in consternation, as if they had not anticipated so
instant a response to the gentle massage which they had applied to his
chest, and the swiftly following injection.
The Monitor turned pale and took a quick step backward and the girl
seemed equally shaken, although she did not remove her eyes from the
tall, gaunt figure who sat looking at her with his chest rising and
falling and his hairy legs dangling. Only the surgeons retained their
composure, recovering quickly from their first shocked recoil and
regarding the figure without horror.
The man on the table was both a giant and a monster. His chest was
barrel-shaped and ridged with three bands of muscle which completely
encircled his body and rose and fell with his breathing. His massive
shoulders were ugly and misshapen, the shoulders of a giant whose
too rapid growth had brought about the cruelest kind of deformity.
His arms, which were matted with coarse black hair, seemed abnormally
foreshortened and were less than half the length of his lower limbs,
which were very long and only slightly less hairy.
Even more repellent than the giant's ill-shaped body was the almost
Neanderthal-like primitiveness of his face. The jaw was massive, the
features coarse and the brow sloped as sharply backward as the brow of
an ape. But there was nothing apelike in the burning intensity of his
deep-sunken eyes, or the intelligence which animated the rest of his
features as he fastened his gaze on the girl who still stood silently
regarding him, her fingers pressed to her throat.
"Start dancing," the tall surgeon whispered, tapping her gently on the
arm. "We'll soon know whether or not he can be stirred in an amorous
way. I would have spared you this ordeal if I could, but there is no
subterfuge which would enable us to postpone it in the presence of a
Monitor. She is envious of your beauty and will not like what you must
do. But she will have to watch. The success or failure of this test
touches her at too vital a point. She is a Monitor and must become a
judge--a cold, impersonal maker of decisions. I am not like that, but--"
"I know," the girl whispered, grasping his hand and pressing it warmly.
"If you were love-privileged you might have taken me into your arms and
covered my lips with burning kisses. And I should have liked that. I
should have liked that very much."
The surgeon tightened his lips and turned away from her, a look of
torment on his face. "Dance," he whispered again. "There is no time to
be lost. In a few moments the effects of the drug will begin to wear
off."
The girl nodded, and walked toward the center of the laboratory. The
eyes of the man on the table followed her and when she was standing
almost directly in front of him, and less than eight feet from the
table, his rigidly erect body seemed to stiffen still more and a look
of bewilderment came into his eyes.
The girl began to dance.
Her movements were slow at first, and although no music accompanied the
slow turning of her body and the graceful weaving motions of her arms,
she seemed to be dancing in response to rhythms sensuous and beguiling
and audible to her alone. It was almost as if her inner ear had become
attuned, at the very beginning of the dance, to melodies unheard and
she was pirouetting about to the accompaniment of measures that,
beginning as a series of widely spaced chords, would soon change their
tempo and became in an instant tumultuous and wild.
That instant was not long delayed. Faster and faster her movements
became and she was suddenly whirling and swaying in utter abandonment,
her head thrown back, the veins in her throat pulsing as she whirled.
Faster and faster she moved, until she seemed not so much a living
woman as a shape of flame, her thin gauze tunic floating up above her
knees and exposing her shapely legs and the milk-white flesh of her
thighs.
Then, abruptly, she ceased to whirl, and stood poised on the tips of
her toes, like a bird in flight coming miraculously to rest amidst a
fluttering tumult of beating wings and spinning, skyward-ascending
feathers. Her arms were bent sharply at the elbows and she was
clutching at both of her breasts and arching her torso backwards.
For a full minute she remained on her toes, her eyes half-closed, her
moist red lips opening and closing; as if, hovering in the air above
her, an invisible lover was draining the sweetness of her lips between
moments of trancelike rapture.
Then her body was in motion again and as she turned slowly about on her
toes she unfastened the hem of her tunic and let it slip from her.
White and unblemished and tormentingly beautiful was her unclad body,
and in the splendor of that complete baring of all her charms gross
sensuality seemed to turn coward, to flee her presence and to hide its
face, so that for an instant she seemed almost virginal, a creature of
fire and air untouched by passion.
The moment might have passed and changed her again to a woman of flesh
and blood, voluptuous in all of her movements, infinitely demanding and
infinitely desirable. But before the illusion could be shattered the
man on the table cried out hoarsely and descended to the floor with a
slow swaying of his entire body.
He advanced upon her with his arms extended, his cavernous, dark
eyes aflame with desire--a desire so fierce in its stark, primitive
directness that it was pure animal. He caught her in his arms before
she could cry out or leap aside, and crushed her to him.
He lowered his head and kissed her lips hungrily and his arms became
iron bands that bruised her flesh cruelly. She screamed and struggled
and tried to free herself, but there was no escaping from the terrible,
primitive strength of those arms or from the hands that had begun to
explore every part of her body.
There was no escape and she felt herself to be sinking down into a dark
sea filled with horrible nightmare shapes that could only in the end
deprive her of reason and cloak a little the horror that was about to
come upon her.
It was not a man's strength which saved her, causing the giant to groan
and release his grip upon her, causing him to take a staggering step
backwards and sink to the floor with a convulsive grimace. It was an
instrument of science, a long, sharp needle, jabbed into the giant's
right shoulder by a man of cool presence of mind in a moment when a
blow would have been worse than useless.
It was the same man who spoke calmly, in reply to a woman's voice
raised in a terrible, accusing anger.
"You have failed and the Council will want to know why!" Monitor 6Y9
was screaming. "You will pay for your failure, never fear. The Council
will not forgive stupidity."
"No, I am afraid the Council will call us all to account," the man said
in reply. "But we did our best. We tried."
It was horrible. She could hardly breathe and every nerve in her body
seemed to be in rebellion, causing her temples to pound, her heart to
beat tumultuously.
In all her life the gaunt woman had never known such torment of mind
and body. Returning to the Observatory she had staggered twice and
almost fallen and even now her knees seemed about to give way beneath
her.
She clung to the metal frame supporting the scanner-glass and looked
deep into the glass and saw nothing that pleased her. A dark expanse
of woodland, nothing more. No para-guards moving between the trees, no
flying machines in the narrow stretch of sky overhead, nothing.
And then, quite suddenly, she did see something and straightened in
stunned disbelief, the wild beating of her heart subsiding.
The trees had thinned out and a clearing had come into view between the
trees. In the center of the clearing was a small white dwelling and the
scanners were moving slowly toward it.
TEN
Teleman had no way of knowing that the scanners had picked up his
trail again as he stood listening to the whispered conversation of the
dwelling's two occupants.
Despite the absolute darkness and Teleman's stillness the woman became
suddenly aware that she was not alone with the man at her side. Her
startled gasp was unmistakable and the stirring and shifting of
position which followed immediately left no possible room for doubt.
All of the sounds were sounds of agitation and swiftly mounting alarm,
a whispered reply from the man which Teleman could not catch, another
gasp from the woman, a rustling of the bedclothes, a creaking of the
bed as one of the two lovers, probably the man, either sat bolt upright
or propelled himself toward the edge of the bed with a violent lurch.
What prompted the woman to switch on the light at precisely that moment
Teleman had no way of knowing. It was an act of folly, for it placed
them at a disadvantage. The light streamed down from a lamp directly
above the bed, flooding the entire room in an instant and defeating
any hope which the pair might have had of using the darkness as a
shield.
Both the man and the woman were completely unclothed. The woman had
drawn the sheets up to her waist but the way the clinging fabric molded
itself to her hips and thighs with every tremulous movement of her
slender young body would have convinced even a not too observant man
that no night garment, however thin, intervened between the sheets and
the undraped loveliness which she was striving, in her modesty, to hide.
And Teleman was not an unobserving man. Though he hated himself for it
he could not stop staring, for her firm young breasts, suffused with
a tender rosiness, her white and beautiful throat and her even more
beautiful face excited him physically. It was the face of a young girl
just blossoming into womanhood, a face of such unusual loveliness that
his breath caught in his throat and he could only stare in enraptured
silence.
Her long, unbound hair, pale auburn with glints of gold, descended to
the pillow at her back, fell partly over one white shoulder and nestled
in the cleavage between her breasts, each strand a shining glory.
Those magnificent breasts were swollen with love, the tips standing
out dark and proud, and there was a red mark on her lovely throat
that could have been made only by a love bite. Her lips were slightly
parted and though her eyes were wide with fright there was about her
still an aspect of drowsiness, as if she had just awakened from a dream
of love--a sleepy-eyed nymph in a forest glade resting on a bank of
snow-white flowers, half-asleep and yet aware in her inmost being of
love's rapture and more desirable than any completely awakened woman
could ever be.
He stood for a moment entranced, unable to move or speak, and that
strange paralysis of all his faculties except one, the wondrous
miracle of enraptured sight, almost led to his undoing.
The man leapt from the bed with a cry of rage and advanced upon him.
There was no escaping the outraged lover's fury or the first grazing
blow of his fist, which sent Teleman reeling backwards. There was no
escaping the second blow either, delivered just as quickly or the
third, which landed squarely on Teleman's jaw and made him sway dizzily
for an instant.
But the man had been aroused too quickly from drowsiness and love's
languors to bring all of his strength into play, and Teleman was able
to back away and keep his distance until a favorable opportunity
presented itself.
For a brief instant the other lowered his guard and gave Teleman an
opening and Teleman took full advantage of it. He stopped thinking of
his opponent as a man whose anger he could understand, a man he could
have liked and respected if circumstances had been less harsh and
unrelenting and thought of him only as a threat to Alicia's safety.
He saw him as a danger that had to be removed, as an automaton
with flailing fists, soulless, mindless, and no longer a man of
flesh-and-blood with a just grievance who had every right to attack him
with fury.
His fist became a magnet and his opponent an iron robot with swiftly
moving appendages and when the magnet crashed into the iron the
appendages jerked convulsively and the robot figure went toppling
backwards.
It was a swift, terrible blow, delivered with such force that it tore
the flesh of Teleman's knuckles, and half-paralyzed his arm from wrist
to shoulder, producing a temporary numbness. It caught the other on the
point of the jaw and took him so completely by surprise that his face,
as he collapsed backwards, did not contract in pain, but bore only a
look of stunned bewilderment.
His expression may have changed as he lay sprawled out on the floor at
Teleman's feet. But his face was turned away and as he neither groaned
nor stirred Teleman felt convinced that he had lost consciousness and
swung about to face the woman. He was breathing harshly and there was
a throbbing fullness at his temples and he could not quite shake off a
shock-produced, almost nightmarish feeling of unreality.
The woman had not moved. Her eyes were wider than they had been and
the fear in her eyes was no longer overcast with uncertainty. It had
sharpened into a more intense fear, a fear verging on stark terror. Her
eyes darted from Teleman's distraught face to the slumped form of her
lover and then toward the door, as if she dreaded what the darkness
might hold even more than she feared the man who had come out of the
darkness to put an end to her happiness.
Suddenly she moaned aloud and covered her face with her hands.
The words came then, words which Teleman had not intended to speak.
He did not quite understand why he abandoned all caution, and spoke
as he did, freely and without restraint, keeping nothing back, baring
his inmost thoughts. It may have been her great beauty, which had held
him so entranced for a moment that it had placed him at a disadvantage
and endangered his life. Or it may have been the overwhelming sympathy
which he now felt, seeing her so pitiful and broken and despairing.
"I am a fugitive like yourself," he said. "There is a woman with me,
and we are both in great danger. We are not fugitives for a night, as
you are, for we have never known the freedom of the mating centers,
a freedom which you found incomplete and love-destroying. We are not
sex-privileged, and the penalty for our rebellion, if we are overtaken
by the savagery which the Monitors call justice, will not be a severe
reprimand or even a long term of imprisonment. The penalty will be
death.
"We cannot hope to escape the death penalty. We offended one of the
Monitors, a frustrated old woman who will never forgive us for telling
her the truth about herself. And I fought with a para-guard, disarmed
him and left him bound and helpless in the forest a few miles from this
dwelling.
"We thought this dwelling deserted and took refuge here because we
hoped to find here a few metal utensils or household tools which I
could use to construct some kind of hastily improvised mechanical
device powerful enough to misdirect and mislead the scanners. My
specialty is bridge-building and I have enough technical knowledge to
construct such a device if I can get my hands on a coil of wire and a
few utensils of pliable metal.
"It was a desperate hope at best, the odds against it overwhelming.
Even if I had succeeded the Monitors would have located us in a few
days, possibly in a few hours. But it was the only hope we had until--"
The woman had uncovered her eyes and was staring at him with a little
of the fear gone from her gaze and he paused in relief, hoping that she
would not let her thoughts stray from his words to the limp and still
unconscious man on the floor. He was almost sure that the man had not
been seriously hurt, but if her thoughts returned to him too quickly,
if memory of the struggle came flooding back, nothing that he could say
would convince her that he spoke with complete sincerity. The shock
would be too great. She would give way again to panic and stark terror
and his words would fall on deaf ears.
He went on quickly, keeping his eyes on her face, his words taking on
the eloquence of a deeply moved man who speaks only the truth with no
attempt at evasion.
"We did not think we would find anyone here. We were quite sure that we
would not be taking a great risk, or deliberately walking into danger,
for the place, as you know, looks abandoned. But I came upstairs to
make sure.
"I was standing in darkness at the end of the hallway when I heard you
speaking. I would have gone back downstairs if your words had not given
me so great a shock, for to intrude on your privacy at such a moment
would have been the act of a man lost to all honor. But your words were
strange beyond belief. I had never thought to hear such words from the
lips of the sex-privileged.
"You were also in revolt. You had come here to escape from the tyranny
of the Monitors, to experience again joys that would not be tolerated
in the mating centers. To you love and romance were inseparable
parts of one imperishable experience and without tenderness in love,
without complete freedom of choice, love becomes a mockery. The deep,
undying love of one man and one woman--that was something we too could
understand.
"Her name is Alicia, and I love her more than my own life and I would
give my life gladly to spare her suffering. As I stood in the hallway
listening I thought: 'I cannot let her be taken captive. She will be
condemned to death and I will die a thousand deaths before my own life
is ended. Even if I am executed first, I will die a thousand deaths
just knowing that she will die too, and I will be powerless to save
her.'
"I came to a decision then, a decision that was forced upon me. I would
take you both captive, bind you and make the Monitors believe that you
had fought desperately to resist capture. I would overturn furniture,
leave this room in wild disorder. Then you would not be accused of
complicity and we would have at least a fighting chance of outwitting
the Monitors. We would be safe not for a few hours or a few days, but
long enough to make new plans for evading capture.
"We would take refuge in a mating center. We would put on your garments
and wear your insignia and carry with us the identifying seals that
cannot be counterfeited, for the scanning of seals is so accurate a
process that a forged seal would be instantly detected."
She was looking at him steadily now, her breathing rapid and her lips
slightly parted but all of the dread had vanished from her eyes. Her
expression had softened, and there was a strange mistiness in the depth
of her pupils, as if from some secret reservoir of strength she had
drawn the will to listen and understand.
He thought he saw sympathy begin to grow in her eyes as he went on. "I
did not want to resort to violence. But circumstances sometimes compel
us to do hateful things to protect those we love. The choice was a hard
one and I am not even sure I could have used violence against a man I
would have been proud to call my friend if he had not mistaken me for a
criminal intruder and left me no choice."
"No choice?" she whispered, "Yes, I believe you. But if he is hurt
badly--"
For answer Teleman turned and went to the man on the floor and bent
above him.
Teleman had felled the man with a powerful blow, but it had not been
a blow to his skull and could not have resulted in a concussion. And
he had not hit his head against the floor in falling. But in the back
of Teleman's mind was the fear that the man might still have been hurt
severely. That fear diminished the instant he felt the other's pulse
and found that it was beating strongly and regularly. It diminished
still further when the man stirred and opened his eyes and stared up at
Teleman.
A look of bewilderment came into the man's eyes for an instant. Then
his right eyelid twitched, his jaw muscles tightened and the look
changed to one of slowly dawning recognition.
In a moment the man's eyes were blazing with a fury that Teleman hardly
knew how to contend with, for he could not bring himself to resort to
violence again, but knew that calm reason, or anything he might say,
would be worse than futile. The man had regained his strength and the
full use of his limbs, and was struggling violently to free himself
from the tight grip of Teleman's hands on his shoulders.
The woman had left the bed and crossed the room so silently that
Teleman was not aware that she was at his side until he saw her white
arm crossing his in a gesture of caressment and felt the weight of
her slender young body pressing against his right shoulder. The woman
was running her fingers through the man's hair and gently stroking
his face in an effort to calm and reassure him. She seemed unaware of
her nakedness. Teleman was unable to tear his eyes away from those
magnificent breasts, grazing her husband's chest and nestling in the
hollow of his neck as she bent over him.
"It's all right, darling," she whispered. "It's all right. This man is
not a Monitor or an agent of the Monitors and he bears us no ill-will.
He is not a criminal either, darling. He is not a housebreaker who came
here to rob us or who came--and I know you feared this above all--to
force his love upon me, to take me by brutal violence, to kill you and
make me his woman. That is happening everywhere now, when men who are
brutal and cruel and think only of themselves are turned into beasts by
the strange, new stirring which has come upon so many.
"Darling, darling, you must try to understand. This man feels as we do.
There is a woman with him, and they both feel as we do about love.
They are both as desperately, as badly in love as we are, and they are
fleeing because they have aroused the anger of a Monitor. That anger
that is so implacable, so blind and unmerciful, so full of envy and
malice and fear. Some of the Monitors have experienced the stirring.
But they are all too greedy for power to allow their supremacy to be
swept away, and those who have experienced it shut the glory of it
away in a dark corner of their minds and there it continues to glow
brightly. But they cannot endure the glow and warmth, because it shames
and humiliates them, and makes them more tragically aware of how
wretched they are.
"This man and the woman with him had every right to take refuge here.
They were being pursued through the forest by para-guards as if they
had committed some monstrous crime when all they did was make love as
we have so often done with the tenderest of embraces in the night. They
have walked in beauty and know the full splendor of love's fulfillment.
"They have more to fear than we. They have taken far greater risks,
for they are not love-privileged and if they are caught they will pay
for their rebellion with their lives. Will we have the courage to do
what this man hesitated to ask of us--allow ourselves to be bound and
when the Monitors question us say that we struggled to defend ourselves
but were overpowered by this man's criminal strength? Will we have the
courage to lie to save them, my darling? Will we have the strength? I
do not know. I am myself all too human and when I think of the price
that even we would have to pay--I do not know."
The man had ceased to struggle. He lay very still, a strange quietness
in his gaze and Teleman rose slowly to his feet, aware of the risk he
was taking, but somehow trusting the woman, knowing that, despite the
human frailty that had been revealed in the complete baring of her
thoughts, she was speaking in his defense, earnestly pleading with her
lover to give her strength.
"To allow ourselves to be bound is only a part of what he wants us
to do," she went on quickly. "He wants us to give him and the woman
with him our garments and our insignia, so that they may take refuge
in a mating center and for a short while remain there disguised as a
love-privileged man and woman. It will give them the time they need to
make new plans. The Monitors will not think of searching for them in a
mating center."
The man spoke then, for the first time. "Yes," he said. "Yes ... I
understand."
There was a great weariness in his eyes, as if the suffering of all the
world's outraged and disinherited rested upon his shoulders alone.
"Will we have the courage, darling? Or is it too much they ask? Without
your love to give me courage I would lack the strength of purpose and
even with your love I am not sure. Because, darling, your happiness is
more important to me than--"
The man silenced her with a quick look of tender understanding and a
firm hand on her arm. "You need not tell me," he whispered. "I know. It
is very strange how love such as ours can give us the strength not to
think only of ourselves. And perhaps we will only be doing what nine
lovers out of ten, completely sure of each other, knowing their love to
be undying, would not hesitate to do. No, he does not ask too much of
us. We will escape with a stern censure, nothing more. It is the least
we can do."
He arose to a sitting position on the floor, took firm hold of the
woman's shoulders and drew her to him, kissing her hair and lips and
eyes, his hands caressing her back, her hips and thighs, without
embarrassment. "We will do as he asks," he whispered. "Tell him that
our garments and insignia are in the wall cabinet by the window; our
identification seals as well. There is some heavy cord in the cellar.
Tell him to overturn the furniture to make the Monitors believe that we
put up a furious struggle. And he had better gag us."
A brief, warming smile appeared on her woman's lips. "He thought of all
that. Oh, darling, this is what I wanted you to say, what I secretly
hoped you would say, deep in my heart. But my woman's frailty--"
"I know, I understand. You need not tell me. But tell him that there is
no time to waste. He must be a man of great resourcefulness and courage
or he would not be here at all. It is difficult to confuse the scanners
and they are almost certain to pick up his trail again."
The man got to his feet, his arm encircling the woman's waist and
helping her to rise with him, his lips pressed to the small cluster of
curls just above her right temple.
Teleman stood very still, his eyes shining, too deeply moved to speak
for a moment. He had overheard all of their whispered conversation
and they seemed to sense that he had, for neither said a word in
explanation or apology.
The man simply extended his hand and Teleman clasped it, the
gratefulness in his eyes speaking for him, telling the man and the
woman all that needed to be said and making speech unnecessary.
ELEVEN
The explosion came abruptly, shaking the entire room, hurling Teleman
to his knees and sending the man and the woman staggering backwards.
It did not come from within the room, but from somewhere in the forest
outside the house. But close, close ... Teleman could feel its nearness
in his bones, the shock waves and the concussion, as the thunder of
it roared in his ears, half-deafening him, and a bright burst of
accompanying flame danced and flicked on the vibrating panes of the
window.
For an instant the panes continued to vibrate and then, abruptly, the
glass was shattered and fell in tinkling fragments to the floor. But
one of the spinning fragments was hurled with such violence from the
window's upper frame that it did not drop to the floor. With the speed
and flashing brightness of a tiny, keen-bladed spear, thrown with a
deadly accuracy of aim, it went flying through the air to bury itself
in the woman's chest, just above the heart.
The woman moaned and raised her hand to the soft flesh of her bosom,
then let it fall limply to her side again. The sliver of glass had
pierced deeply, but there was only a tiny dot of crimson to mark that
mortal wounding and mar the whiteness of her skin. Her eyes, wide with
shock and pain, remained unfocused for an instant, then sought the face
of her lover. Realization seemed to come to her slowly, tormentingly,
as if it carried with it a burden, to one so deeply in love, that could
not be accepted at once and must not be too quickly shared.
It was not her own pain which seemed to overwhelm her, but the grief
and agony which would come to her lover when she was no longer at his
side. There was love and compassion and overwhelming tenderness in her
eyes as she swayed, reached out with one hand to steady herself against
the wall at her back, and then sank without a murmur to the floor.
The man cried out and threw himself down beside her, taking her into
his arms and holding her tightly, whispering to her words of love and
pleading with her to tell him how grievously she had been hurt, how
deep the wound.
"Darling," she whispered, her fingers moving lightly over his face, her
lips white and trembling. "Darling, I--"
She went limp so suddenly that the man seemed unaware that he was no
longer holding a living woman in his arms. He continued to whisper to
her pleadingly, and even the glaze which had overspread her pupils
could not make him accept the tragic and terrible finality of his loss.
Only after a long moment did he cover his eyes with his hands and begin
to sob.
The echoes of the explosion had died away completely and the room was
silent again when Teleman heard footsteps ascending the stairs and
moving swiftly toward the room along the upstairs hallway. The relief
which he experienced was sudden and overwhelming, but it did not keep
him from crossing the room and laying a firm hand on the sobbing man's
shoulder.
"There is nothing I can say," he whispered, his voice tremulous with
emotion. "Nothing to ease your pain. She was your whole life and when
a man's life is at an end ... it will not be forever, but that, too,
mocks grief at such a moment. There is nothing that a stranger can say
that will be to you more than the words of a stranger. Even someone
very close to you, a father or a brother, could not ease your grief
in any way. Just know that you have befriended a man and a woman who
needed help desperately, a man and a woman who will never cease to be
grateful to you. In all this world, I will never have a better friend,
or meet a man I would be prouder to claim as a friend. You are no
longer a stranger to me."
The man said in a choked voice, "I can feel nothing now except a
terrible sense of emptiness, of loss ... the dark gulf that separates
me from my beloved. Can it ever be crossed, do you think? Is there any
hope at all?"
"I do not know," Teleman said. "It is something that every man must
find out for himself. I have no right to speak with assurance, for I am
as human as you are and as fallible. I possess no wisdom that you do
not possess and false confidence is no comfort at all."
"I am grateful for your honesty," the man said. "It _has_ helped me a
little. Go now, quickly. I would like to be alone with her. Take the
garments and the insignia and go. We will have no further need of them.
Fight. Fight for your love as I would have fought for mine, for if you
lose her you will have nothing. You will be as despairing and empty as
I am. I will always think of you as a friend."
When Teleman turned he saw Alicia standing by the window, her face
drained of all color, her eyes on the dead woman and the man who was
cradling her in his arms. The man had begun to sob again.
"The explosion!" she whispered, her voice barely audible. "Did
it--kill her? I thought it was outside the house. It shook the stairs
and I was afraid for you, terribly afraid. I wasn't sure I could climb
the stairs. I had no strength at all for a moment--"
"Are you all right now?" Teleman asked, his voice harsh with concern.
"Yes, I am all right. But that woman--"
"She was killed by a flying splinter of glass. The dwelling is probably
completely surrounded by para-guards. They must have picked up our
trail again and are dropping bombs near the house, perhaps to frighten
us and force us to leave. They must want to take us alive or they
would have bombed the dwelling itself. They would have no trouble
pin-pointing it as a target for demolition bombing.
"Then we'd better stay here as long as we can. You have a hand-gun and
you could pick them off as they come through the door from the top of
the stairs."
"No, that would only delay our capture by a few minutes. They'll drop
fifty guards, if necessary. We'll have to do what they expect us to do,
risk capture by trying to get past them in the open. They're probably
under orders not to blast us down, unless we give them no alternative.
And every circle of armed guards has to be widespread. There'll be some
unguarded, foliage-choked pathways leading deep into the forest on the
far side of the clearing, pathways as black as pitch. If we can just
get to one--"
"But can we?" Alicia cut in. "Suppose they've stationed guards in
a tight circle a few yards from the dwelling, with only a few feet
between them. Every circle _doesn't_ have to be widespread, if it's
near enough."
"If there was a circle of guards directly outside they would never have
dropped a bomb so close to the dwelling," Teleman said, impatiently.
"Darling, we're wasting precious seconds. Take off your clothes.
Quickly, strip yourself naked."
Alicia's eyes widened in shocked dismay and she stared at him
wordlessly, as if she feared that he had suddenly become bereft of his
senses.
"It's another string to our bow," he said, quickly. "We're disguising
ourselves as a sex-privileged man and woman. The garments are here, and
the insignia."
"The garments? You mean--"
For answer Teleman went to a built-in wall cabinet on the opposite side
of the window, jerked it open and removed all of its contents: two
knee-length tunics of pale blue fabric, two identification disks with
corrugated surface markings, and two shining silver insignia, bearing
the emblem of the sex-privileged, a nude man and woman locked in an
embrace that made them seem almost to blend into a single reclining
figure.
"These garments are a gift to us," he said. "Surrendered freely and
with nothing asked in return by a man who has become, in just these few
moments, a friend I shall never forget. When the gift was made he did
not know that the garments would mock his grief and be of no further
use to him. Let me never be cynical, and doubt human nature, darling,
its capacity for generosity and unfaltering courage in moments of
shared danger."
Teleman explained to her swiftly how the garments would be used, and
why the mating center plan had a better chance of success than any of
the other plans he had thought of as second-choice possibilities.
She was quick to agree and was removing her garments before the second
blast came. The room shook again, but this time there was no glass to
splinter and it seemed less loud than the first explosion. A dropped
bomb falling into a pond and detonating under water perhaps, or a small
bomb hurled by hand. Teleman had no intention of letting it unnerve him
and he gestured reassuringly as Alicia paused to stare at him with
fear in her eyes, a tangle of dropped garments at her feet and her nude
body bathed in light from the window--a light so dazzling it made her
blink furiously--she had the white-limbed grace of a statue carved in
stone.
She was naked for a moment, for Teleman tossed her one of the two
garments he had taken from the cabinet, and she caught it deftly, a
smile appearing for an instant on her lips, and put it on, loosening
the belt at the waist a little and adjusting the bosom-sheaths until
they fitted snugly over the twin mounds of her gently swelling breasts.
There was a flame-colored sheath lower down, where the garment became
more tight-fitting, and this she adjusted carefully too, smoothing out
the cloth here and then and twisting her body about until she appeared
to be wearing a garment which had been made for her. There was no fold
out of place or too tight-fitting, and when she raised her arms the
garment seemed to mold itself even more perfectly to her slender torso,
its smooth-flowing, silken texture enhancing her body's grace.
Teleman removed his own garment while she was fastening the insignia
to her breast and put on the man's tunic, experiencing, despite the
grimness of his mood, a slight twinge of amusement at the embarrassment
he was quite sure they both felt. How strange were the ways of love,
when a man and a woman who had surrendered completely to love could
still feel the tug of modesty when the occasion in no way concerned
love!
Teleman transferred his hand-gun to the left pocket of the new garment
and glanced once more at his benefactor. The man's shoulders were still
bowed in grief, and he had not looked up. A last goodbye and a final
word of thanks arose to Teleman's lips. But he decided that silence
would be better. The man would know and understand, and Teleman could
not bring himself to further intrude on his grief.
"Come on," he whispered, taking firm hold of Alicia's hand. "Try not
to see anything in the forest that isn't there. Just stay close to me,
and remember--flickering shadows can look very much like advancing
para-guards."
TWELVE
In the darkness and silence of the dwelling's upper hallway, and the
shadowed gloom, no longer pierced by shafts of early morning sunlight,
of the main-floor room, it was hard for them to realize that it was
still broad daylight outside the house. But the instant they emerged
from the dwelling's paneled doorway the brightness of the sky and the
almost shadowless clearing made them instantly aware again that only
the forest was a gloom enveloped sanctuary.
They stood for an instant motionless in the doorway, dazzled by
the brightness and experiencing a sharp stab of apprehension. If a
para-guard had been crouching at the edge of the clearing, with steady
eyes and a leveled weapon, blasting them both down would have presented
no problem. They had to trust to their instincts solely, the feeling
that they both had that the house was not yet completely surrounded. Or
that if it was, the guards were under orders not to open fire, but to
take them by stealth, withholding all violence until they moved around
and away from the house and reached the high wall of wind-stirred
foliage at the rear of the dwelling, where the forest began again and
the shadows clustered thickly.
Teleman pressed Alicia's hand and whispered: "We've got to move very
fast and keep moving. They may close in on us the instant we're between
the trees, so we'll have to keep our wits about us, and watch out for
the slightest stir of movement. If we see a guard I'll know what to do.
Trust me."
"I will, darling!" she breathed. "And I'm not too frightened to think
clearly."
"All right. Here we go then."
They did not break into a run immediately, but waited until they
had moved cautiously around to the back of the dwelling and were
facing away from it, with an open space that could be quickly crossed
stretching out in front of them. The forest wall was less than eighty
feet away and could be reached in a matter of seconds. Teleman's hand
had darted to his pocket and he was firmly clasping the stock of the
hand-gun.
They exchanged no words, but started across the clearing at once,
running swiftly with only a few feet separating them. They were out
of breath when they reached the trees, but paused only for the barest
instant, their eyes darting toward a patch of weaving darkness where
the foliage was dense enough to provide instant shelter but not too
close to keep them from tearing a few of the branches apart with their
hands and clearing a wide enough space to move about in until they
could find a natural path in the underbrush or beat their way through
it toward a more open stretch of forest.
They were several feet inside the foliage screen, breathing harshly
and keeping their heads lowered to avoid the stinging backlash of
whipped-apart branches, when the para-guard came crashing toward them.
There was blood on his face and he was cursing savagely and in an
instant briefer than a dropped heartbeat there flashed into Teleman's
mind an image of the man waiting for them, crouching in the underbrush
and prevented by the dense growth from leaping instantly out at them.
The image blurred and vanished and Teleman saw only the man himself,
the looming, dangerous bulk of him. The hand-gun was recoiling in his
clasp, its roar deafening, in what seemed no more than another split
second of time, so quickly that Teleman had no clear recollection of
whipping it from his pocket, only of leveling it and firing it at
almost pointblank range.
The para-guard screamed and went staggering backwards, his hands
clutching at his chest. Light from the expiring energy charge bathed
his head and shoulders for an instant in a ghastly, pale green
radiance, making him look almost ghostly as he sank to his knees, and
fell forward on his face. His arms jerked convulsively for a moment,
and then the trembling and twitching ceased and he lay completely
still, a crimson gleaming appearing in both sides of his body and
spreading outward over the dry leaves of the forest until they
resembled leaves but recently fallen, all of their autumn brightness
restored.
Alicia swayed and turned deathly pale. Teleman went to her, drew her
into his arms and held her tightly, stilling her trembling with a few,
calmly spoken words.
"If I hadn't killed him, if I had just wounded him, he might still have
had the strength to go on fighting. He might have seized you and used
you as a shield, or grabbed me by the legs and dragged me down. He was
too near, coming right at us. It was his life or ours."
"Yes, I know," she breathed, her arms tightening about his shoulders
with an understanding that went deeper than words. "He was only obeying
orders, but they were brutal orders and it would have been madness to
take risks with a man so enraged. If we had resisted, he would have
killed us without hesitation. He might even have tried to ravish me.
Did you see his face?"
"I saw it," Teleman said. "We've got to get through the forest and try
to reach one of the travel strips on the other side before another
face like that has a chance to wear the kind of smile that means he's
won and we're either dead or bound hand and foot. That hand-gun blast
may bring a dozen guards down on us before we can get far. But we're
not giving up, or stopping to let the possibility weaken what we've
got--a strength that comes only to lovers. It's a very special kind of
strength and we've got to believe in it. Is that clear?"
"Yes, darling, very clear."
"Then the only important thing right now is to keep moving. Our luck
has held so far. And there are seven more charges in this gun. I'll
shoot to kill as many times as I have to."
The forest was alive with shadows and almost night-dark where
the trees towered in groups of five or six, gigantic oaks with
interlacing branches that completely blotted out the sky. Even the
few, downstreaming shafts of sunlight had become fewer and more widely
scattered and the gloom was so all enveloping that it brought a chill
to Alicia's heart.
They were a mile and a half from the thick tangle of underbrush where
the guard lay with his body half in shadow and the leaves about him
turning dark again when they heard the rustling. It was faint at first,
but it came swiftly nearer and for an instant Teleman thought that more
para-guards were descending to the forest floor through the rustling
canopy of leaves and interlocking branches directly ahead of them.
He stopped advancing abruptly and gripped Alicia's arm, drawing her
quickly into the deep shadows which clustered about the base of
a moss-grown oak so huge that its bole had the girth of a dozen
slenderer trees fused by some strange freak of lightning into a massive
whole, its charred surface completely hidden by the bright emerald
moss, and circular patches of darker coloration where the moss had
shriveled and died.
The rustling had taken on a strange and disturbing loudness, hard to
associate with just the swaying of the foliage about the descending
boots of para-guards, and the dry leaf crackle of their tread on the
forest floor. It was accompanied by clickings and a dull, droning
sound, and suddenly, as Teleman stared with a coldness creeping up his
spine, light flashed between the trees and a deafening blast echoed and
reverberated through the forest, shaking the ground and filling the
aisles of the forest with a swirling shower of leaves.
Teleman was hurled back against the oak and Alicia was thrown with such
violence to the ground that she lay for an instant motionless, too
stunned to cry out or free herself from the tangle of charred creepers
and smoke-blackened leaves which had descended upon her face.
Teleman dropped to his knees and dragged himself toward her, his
temples pounding, a dull ache in his back. He cleared away the clinging
vines with a single sweep of his arm and lifted her up, holding her
tightly and gently massaging her cheeks with the back of his hand.
Her eyes opened and she stared up at him, her eyes wide with fright.
"Hurt bad?" he whispered, afraid of what her answer might be and
wishing that he did not have to ask the question at all.
She shook her head. "No, I'm all right. Help me to get up. What was it?
Another bomb? For a moment I thought--"
"Don't try to talk," Teleman said, his voice sharp with concern. "I
think I know what it is, and it's coming toward us fast. We've got to
get away from here!"
He helped her to rise and they stood for an instant swaying a little,
still too shaken to do more than stare. Teleman was the first to speak
decisively, and with all uncertainty driven from his mind by the
ground-shaking tread which had come to his ears.
"It's one of the new walking ground-warfare machines," he said, his
fingers tightening on Alicia's arm. "All metal, segmented, and equipped
with scanners and atomic blast tubes. They weigh several tons and are
fifty feet tall. Too heavy to be transported here in a flying machine.
It must have been set in pursuit of us right after I killed that guard
and has apparently circled around in front of us and is blasting the
trees directly ahead in an effort to halt our advance. It is operated
by remote control and its scanners have probably flashed back our exact
position. We'll have to try to break that circuit in some way. I still
think they're trying to capture us alive, but we can't be sure."
"How long have we got, darling?"
"I don't know. It's very near. We'll have to do some circling back
ourselves. They'll expect us to flee in the opposite direction, back
toward where we were. But if we make that mistake we'll be welcomed by
a dozen or more armed guards. We'll have to move sideways, circling
back just a little but keeping almost parallel to this tree."
"But what if that--that terrible machine follows us. If it's equipped
with scanners isn't it certain to follow us?"
"It's certain to, yes. But if we can find--never mind, we haven't time
to talk about it now. It's coming straight toward us. It may still be
several hundred feet away, because that was a restricted atomic blast
and all we felt were the vibrations at the edge of it. Those charred
leaves were blown toward us from a considerable distance."
"But the sounds! I can hear its tread!"
"That rustling sound may have been made by terrified birds and small
animals directly in its path. Its tread we can hear now because it
is very near and is moving ponderously. But it could still be a
considerable distance away. We'll have time to get out of its path if
we hurry."
"Do you think it can overtake us, if we run? How fast is it moving?"
"I don't know," Teleman said. "I've never seen one of the machines in
action and I just don't know. I don't think it's moving very fast,
but it takes enormous strides. It will overtake us in ten or fifteen
minutes at the most, unless we can mislead the scanners. Come on, let's
get started."
They were just turning when the foliage lighted up again, but this
time there was no thunderous detonation. The foliage at the far end
of the forest aisle, a hundred feet from the massive oak tree, was
merely enveloped for an instant in a blinding glare that spread outward
until it filled every shadowed crevice and swaying vine-canopy between
the tree and its point of origin. As it spread it became more diffuse
and less blinding, until every boulder, plant and fallen log that it
touched began to glow with a cold, almost spectral radiance.
The foliage at the far end of the clearing burst into flame as the
great, robot-like figure came into view, a metal giant with long,
segmented legs and globular body-box, surmounted by a conical head with
almost human features.
That the ground-warfare machine looked both intelligent and
terrifyingly humanoid in aspect would not have surprised or startled
anyone familiar with the psychological subtlety which the Monitors were
capable of exercising. It had been built with the terror motif in mind,
and if it was an almost unbelievably efficient mechanism of destruction
it was equally efficient as a shape which could inspire such fear in
the beholder that he would become completely demoralized, particularly
if he harbored rebellious impulses or thought of himself as a criminal.
But Teleman and Alicia did not think of themselves as criminals and
Alicia had been forewarned by Teleman's description of the machine and
had visualized it as both formidable and terrifyingly robot-like.
That the actual machine surpassed in hideousness the mental image she
had formed of it was not a sufficiently shock-producing circumstance
to make her succumb to panic, and after the first moment of shock her
strength of will carried her past the danger point and enabled her to
look upon the machine simply as a very dangerous weapon of warfare that
threatened her life and the life of the man she loved, but in no way
menaced her sanity.
It was Teleman who for a moment experienced the most acute fear, not
for himself but for the safety of the woman at his side. He gripped her
wrist tightly and urged her forward, moving away from the tree with
such rapid strides that she had to run to keep up with him.
For ten minutes they fled through the forest in silence, climbing over
logs and lichen-encrusted boulders, and sinking ankle-deep at times in
soggy patches where damp leaves in heavy layers and the moisture in the
soil made walking difficult and running impossible. They had put a mile
between themselves and the towering ground-warfare machine when they
were brought up short by a pool of still, dark water.
THIRTEEN
The gaunt woman was staring into the scanner-glass, and gripping the
metal frame so tightly that her knuckles had a mottled look.
"At last!" she breathed, leaning sharply forward. "Those machines have
never proved their worth until now. What a fool I was to oppose the
project on the grounds of economy. Only two machines when we could have
had twenty. But never mind, the two are doing very well."
"Are they?" said a quiet voice at her side. "I would not be too sure.
The man is clever as well as courageous. And the woman knows how to
keep fear at arm's length, always. You have met your match in that
pair."
The woman swung about, an angry flushing suffusing her face and
accentuating the boniness of her cheekbones. The flush was of short
duration, for fear and anger seldom walk hand in hand, and pallor is
very likely to accompany fear.
The Chief Monitor smiled thinly, his eyes also intent on the glass.
"I'm afraid that you have merited a reprimand," he said. "From what
I have heard your conduct this morning was inexcusable. Without
first securing permission from the Council you witnessed a surgical
experiment which turned out very badly. Your own rash haste may have
been responsible for the failure. The surgeons were not yet ready to
conduct the final test but you frightened them into complying with your
demand. I do not like what happened. I do not like it at all."
The Chief Monitor was not only soft-spoken. He was so mild-mannered and
non-aggressive in aspect that it seemed incredible that he could have
risen to a position of authority so great that he could have reversed
a century of enlightened human progress with a single spoken word. He
had pale brown hair and pale eyes, and he did not look at all like a
man accustomed to issuing commands. But then, quite suddenly, the brown
eyes would flash with an ice-crystal brilliance and hardness and in
such moments his supremacy was not difficult to understand.
His eyes were ice-crystal cold now.
"I have often wondered," the Chief Monitor said, speaking with a candor
that sharply increased the gaunt woman's fear, "How I would feel if I
had experienced the stirring. Would I rebel as courageously as that
pair?"
The gaunt woman knew how dangerous it was to share the inmost thoughts
of a man so powerful, but she could do nothing to turn the conversation
into safer channels and was afraid to oppose him even slightly.
"I see I startle you," the Chief Monitor went on calmly, the slight
smile still on his lips. "But should we not all examine ourselves
critically from time to time, and ask ourselves the really great and
important questions. We all are what we are, and only a fool is afraid
to face the truth about himself."
The gaunt woman remained silent, her pallor so pronounced now that it
resembled the pallor of a corpse.
"The truth will come out," the Chief Monitor said, and sighed and
turned from the glass. At the door he paused to deliver a few parting
words of advice.
"Personal animosity in a Monitor is an unforgivable offense," he
said. "Without a full and honest confession it could, in special
circumstances, justify the death penalty."
When the door glided shut the gaunt woman stood for a moment as if
turned to stone. Then some of the animation returned to her eyes and
she returned to the glass and watched a towering ground-warfare robot
joined by a second robot beside an oak tree of massive dimensions. She
saw the two machines turn and start walking away from the oak tree,
their conical heads turned toward a more distant part of the forest,
the revolving disks of their eyes flashing with electro-magnetic,
spectroscopic rays.
She watched them move forward through the forest, saw the forest vista
changing. The canopy of foliage overhead changed shape and color.
Now it became less dense, now more luxuriant. They skirted areas of
quagmire, where the forest floor was strewn with wet leaves, carefully
seeking firm footage, guided by their spectroscopic vision which could
pierce beneath the surface layers of earth with rays of invisible
spectrum wave-length.
Suddenly one of the metal giants halted and a flash of blinding light
darted from one of the three atomic blast tubes projecting from its
globular body-box. The roar of the limited atomic blast was not audible
in the scanner-glass, but its violence shook the forest, sending five
gigantic trees toppling and tearing a yawning gap in the canopy of
foliage overhead, through which the sunlight streamed in wavering
banners.
The first robot had gone on ahead, the scanner-glass which projected
vertically from its conical head vibrating as it transmitted to the
scanner-glass a continuous sequence of images. Suddenly it halted, as
the other robot had done, in obedience to a transmitted message from
a flying machine hovering directly overhead and waited until its
companion came abreast of it again. Then both robots resumed their
ponderous and slow advance, carefully testing each foot of ground
before they rested their weight upon it.
The gaunt woman drew in her breath sharply. "In a moment now--only a
moment more!" she whispered aloud to herself. "They must be very close
to them by this time. They have traveled a considerable distance. The
moment I have waited for so long is here at last. If I am brought to
judgment, even if I am condemned to death, this moment of triumph will
be worth all the humiliation, all the harsh injustice I may be forced
to endure. I will go to my death with my head held high, knowing that
I alone had the strength of will to root out and destroy an evil that
the others attacked half-heartedly or found excuses for. These two are
the worst offenders, the most brazen in their defiance of the law. If I
succeed in destroying them--and I will--I will set an example that the
others will have to follow. They will have no choice, for a martyr in a
stern and just cause has many followers when the noose is drawn tight."
The two towering robots had halted again. They were standing very
still, their conical heads turning slowly from right to left. Their
spectroscopic eyes cast dull circles of radiance on the ground in
front of them and their aspect was somehow vaguely disturbing, hard
to explain. They seemed bewildered and confused, if human emotions
can have any counterpart in a robot of metal and glass and whirring
internal gadgetry.
Suddenly one of the metal giants turned and retraced his steps for
a few yards, his conical head still turning slowly back and forth,
in a manner that would have seemed comical to a less tense onlooker.
The gaunt woman's throat felt constricted and she strained fearfully
forward, her eyes glued to the glass.
The second robot joined the first in his backward exploration of ground
already traversed. They stood with their heads close together, as if
trying to decide what should be done next. But that, of course, was
absurd and the gaunt woman was completely aware of how preposterous it
was. A machine could not think for itself, a machine could not feel.
Her conviction was well-founded and the two metal monsters had
put their heads together quite accidentally while avoiding a near
collision. The avoidance of the collision had been directed from the
flying machine by remote control and there was actually nothing human
in the behavior of the robots at all.
The gaunt woman knew all that, but the knowledge could not prevent a
knot of cold horror from contracting about her heart. The two metal
monsters were at a standstill. Unmistakably they had reached a dead end
and could search no further. They no longer knew where to look, or even
what they were looking for.
The scanners which projected from their conical heads ceased suddenly
to vibrate, and the instant the vibrations stopped the scanner-glass
went dark.
A voice spoke out of the blackness. "I regret to report that the
ground-warfare machines can no longer function. Their scanning screens
have lost track of the two fugitives. The pickup mechanism has gone
dead."
For an instant the gaunt woman could not swallow, could not even
breathe. Her throat felt parched and constricted and there was a
horrible tightness in her chest.
Suddenly all the tightness was gone and a scream, terrible, prolonged,
welled up in her throat and issued from her lips. It stopped once
abruptly and then went on and on, and only ceased when she seized a
metal chair and smashed the scanner-glass to fragments, and collapsed
in a heap at it base.
The forest was enveloped in weaving shafts of light. The light stabbed
downward, moved between the trees, cascaded across brightly gleaming
fungus growths and the boles of century-old trees and logs which forest
mold and weevil beetles had turned into vegetable skeletons.
The forest was clamorous with voices. Para-guards moved between the
trees, searching with flashlights that sent tunnels of radiance boring
into the depths of shadowed crevices and deep caves and even between
the tangled roots of titan oaks half-torn from their moorings by
freakish bolts of lightning.
A hundred feet from the edge of the forest a guard more venturesome
than his fellows descended into the depths of such a tangle, the bole
of the oak looming enormous above, and found himself in the strangest
of gnomelike dwellings, with winding corridors bathed in a pale blue
light and his raised voice echoing from every corridor. It was a house
of enchantment, a house underground and easy to people with all manner
of elfish creatures.
But the two fugitive lovers had not taken refuge there. The beam of the
guard's flashlight shone on emptiness and desolation and no trace of
hidden lovers.
There was no way of tracing them, of ferreting them out. Cunning could
not do it, or any kind of subterfuge. Voices offering Monitor truce,
Monitor pardon, beguiling and deceptive, could not flush the two lovers
from cover.
Where were they? No one knew, no one dared to boast that he thought
he knew, for para-guards and their more cautious commanders lived in
mortal fear of the Monitors, even though they served them dutifully
and claimed the rewards which were a security guard's due: the
right to creep at nightfall into the mating center compartment of
a sex-privileged woman and take her by force if she resisted his
advances.
There were a few para-guards who refused to conform to that pattern
of behavior, but their forbearance was not admired by the majority of
their fellows.
Through the dark the tracer beams moved, the flashlights flickered, but
no one knew what had become of the fugitive lovers. And the penalties
could be dire, for the Monitors did not readily forgive failure.
Everywhere the search continued, through every aisle of the forest, in
every recess between the rocks, in every hidden nook and cranny.
But not quite everywhere. Deep in the forest gloom a pool of still
black water mirrored the moonlight and in the pool two naked lovers
clung breast to breast, thigh to thigh, waiting in stillness for the
night to pass.
In the darkness of that strangest of nights the man whispered: "I never
thought we would spend our bridal night in this way. I never thought we
would leave our clothes on the bank, concealed and neatly folded, and
shiver the whole night through. But at least we are completely safe,
completely secure. The scanner beams are deflected when they pass too
close to water and the water itself absorbs some of the rays. If they
should find this pool by accident we will know what to do."
"Why are you telling me all this again, darling, when you have spoken
about it before?"
"It helps me to talk. Remember--if we hear footsteps we will move
closer to the bank and hide ourselves in the reeds. We will be safe as
long as we hold tightly to each other and stay here until the sun rises
again."
"Oh, darling, I love you so much, even when you worry needlessly about
me, and seem to feel that if we find ourselves in danger again I will
not know what to do. I will know exactly what to do. I will know
exactly what to do. Can't we talk about more important things?"
"Are all women like that, Alicia? I mean, do they get upset and angry
when a man is practical and puts first things first and does all that
he can to safeguard and protect them? I know so little about women,
because I have never before been in love, and all of the women I have
met--"
"Never mind the women you have met. All women in love are difficult at
times, my darling, and you must try to know exactly what to do. Can't
we talk about more important things?"
"Darling, I do love you. You must believe me."
"Kiss me then. Kiss me passionately. I have waited so long for this
moment, when we would be completely alone together in the night. But it
has come at a strange time. I am not even sure that I can respond now
as a woman should. The water is so cold."
"We can climb out on the bank if you wish. It will be taking a risk
that I should prefer not to take, for your life is more important to
me, more precious, than even that moment of complete fulfillment which
seems to lovers not minute-long but eternal. But if that alone will
please you...."
"Darling, what a way for a lover to talk! Do you no longer desire me?"
"You know better than that."
"Then prove it to me, now!"
He was the first to ascend the bank, drawing her up after him. They
stood for a moment at arm's length, hands clinging, each feasting on
the sight of the naked body of the other. The moonlight gleamed on
Alicia's white flesh, and shining droplets of water trembled on the
tips of her jutting breasts. Bending down, he clamped his lips to hers,
his tongue searching. She responded with ardor, and clung to him so
fiercely that they both toppled backwards on the soft grass of the bank.
Their love-making was so passionate that their lips remained
constantly joined, and all of the tender explorations which accompany
love were accomplished with the artful movements of hands that
clasped and unclasped and darted with an eagerness that could not be
restrained, to the most secret citadels of Aphrodite, and the pleasure
gardens of Eros enshrined.
When the pulsing warm moment came when two become one the night seemed
to hold its breath and only the woman's wild cry of ecstasy broke the
stillness of the sleeping forest.
FOURTEEN
The long, blank-walled anteroom of the mating center was crowded to
capacity with love-privileged men and women who had been granted short
emergency leaves and were waiting to have their identification disks
checked.
Teleman and Alicia stood very quietly in one corner of the large room,
forcing themselves to remain calm and hardly glancing at the men and
women about them.
They did not even allow their thoughts to dwell on the final stages
of their almost miraculous escape--their unobserved ascent to a
travel strip on the far side of the forest in the early hours of the
morning, their journey on the strip in garments new to them, their
self-consciousness when they glanced down at the insignia which
proclaimed that their destination was a mating center and that they
could walk openly in the sunlight as lovers, and pass a security guard
or a Monitor without fearing that they would be stopped and questioned.
Had they wished they could have even paused and embraced openly on
the strip, exchanging light, casual caresses, but that they had not
done. Their love was neither light nor casual and the memory of the
fulfillment which had come to them above a star-mirroring pool of still
water was still too vivid and glorious to permit them to engage in the
more superficial varieties of love-play.
Those varieties would occur later as a natural accompaniment of love,
for even the deepest and most genuine love must have its lighter
aspects, but for the moment they had been content to walk quietly on
the strip hand in hand, their eyes shining with a memory-glow that had
caused a few of the pedestrians to turn and stare at them in envy which
they had not attempted to disguise.
They waited now with the glow still in their eyes, while the check-in
security guard placed identity disks into a machine which quickly
tested their genuineness and ejected them with a faint, whirring sound.
He sat at a desk in a far corner of the anteroom, a harassed and very
busy man, with a look of boredom on his face and a restless impatience
in his eyes.
"Too many leaves," he muttered, so loudly that his voice carried to
everyone in the room. "It makes quite unnecessary work for us. If I had
my way I would permit no love-making outside of a mating center. But I
am not a Monitor and I suppose I have no right to complain. I suppose
that in exceptional cases some kind of safety-valve must be provided
for the disgusting thing which you people are always talking about.
Romance! It used to be a taboo word, but now you use it quite openly."
He paused an instant, then went on complaining, the whirring of the
machine making it difficult for Teleman and Alicia to catch all of his
words.
"Of course, strictly speaking, no emergency leaves are granted on that
basis. But I, for one, am not deceived. I know precisely why so many
of you ask for emergency leaves. Illness, a death in your immediate
family, the need to visit long-neglected relatives and friends. Faugh!
If I were a Monitor I would accept no such excuses."
He raised his eyes suddenly and called out two names. "Richa Malgroon.
Taja Ramole. Your identification disks are in order. Come here and
take them, and go quietly to your compartment in Section 9Y66. For
all I care you can make love romantically all night long--right here
in the mating center. That should content you, I should imagine. Why
should you go to a vine-covered dwelling in the forest? It's all down
here. You have a dwelling in the forest where you spent your--revolting
word out of the old books--honeymoon. This time you were granted five
hours leave. You took a day and a night. But I have instructions not
to censure you. It seems your original excuse was accepted and the
Monitors can be very lenient. Too lenient, if you want my honest
opinion."
He coughed to clear his throat. "All right, come and get your disks. I
have a feeling that you spent the night in that cottage, unlawfully.
But I have no way of proving it, and the Monitors have given me
instructions which I am duty-bound to accede to."
Alicia nudged Teleman's arm. "He's talking to us," she whispered.
"Quick, darling. Go to the desk and take the disks, and try to act
completely composed, as if we had been here many times before and are
not in the least offended by his rough manner and outspokenness. I have
never heard a security guard speak so frankly. It is very strange. I
believe he is himself secretly rebellious and that his words have a
double meaning."
Teleman nodded, pressing her hand and stepping quickly to the desk. He
accepted the disks in silence and returned to where Alicia was standing.
"We can go now," he said. "Section 9Y66, compartment 66. We go through
the door on our left. We'll find someone who can direct us to the
right section and compartment. It will be no problem. But we mustn't
act as if we didn't know."
They walked across the room and through the door and found themselves
in a dimly-lighted corridor which was, for the moment, completely
deserted.
They walked to the end of it, turned right and traversed another
equally deserted corridor. As they walked along it Teleman found that
he could no longer keep to himself thoughts which had badly shaken him
and forced him, for Alicia's sake, to pretend otherwise.
"I'm afraid that we have made a mistake in coming here," he said. "We
did not know that the couple whose identity we have assumed had such
a completely documented past history. _The Monitors know about the
dwelling!_ They know that we took refuge in the dwelling. Don't you
realize what that means? We may have walked into the deadliest kind
of trap. We thought the couple had escaped from the mating center by
stealth, without having been granted any emergency leave at all. But
apparently they had a five hour leave and simply took the risk of
extending it. _And the Monitors know about the cottage_. They know we
were there, so every guard here must have been alerted. The guard at
the desk must know exactly who we are."
"I did not want to alarm you," Alicia said. "But the same thought
occurred to me. Darling, what shall we do? If we _are_ trapped--"
She moved into the circle of his arms, and he silenced her for a moment
with a kiss. Alicia rubbed her body against him, and Teleman felt a
strong urge to tear the garments from her body and take her there in
the corridor, to press her down on the hard floor ... but he pushed
back the tide of desire and spoke quickly.
"I'm afraid we are. I'm afraid we're in the deadliest kind of danger.
Why they did not seize us immediately I do not know. Perhaps they
intend to seize us in the privacy of our compartment, without causing
any commotion, without letting the others here know what is going on.
It is entirely possible that they planned it that way. That frustrated
old woman we encountered on the strip; if she is the Monitor in charge
such a capture might appeal to her in a cruelly whimsical way. To let
us think ourselves safe and then to take us by surprise!"
"If you are right, darling, what shall we do?"
"We'd better not go to our compartment. I had no intention of doing so,
but I spoke as I did in the anteroom because I didn't want to frighten
you. I wanted to get you out of there as quickly as possible."
"You still haven't answered me. What shall we do?"
"We've got to escape from this place in some way. But first we've got
to find out more about it. How many deserted corridors are there, how
many doors and windows, how many compartments where nothing but records
are stored, or mating center furniture. How many compartments which are
seldom visited, where we can hide...."
Had Teleman known, events were to take place in the next forty hours
which were to shake the entire structure of the society of which he was
a part, and make all of his desperately seized-upon plans for escaping
from the mating center completely unnecessary. But he had no way of
knowing, no way of even suspecting that he was to become an instrument
of destiny and overthrow a tyranny unique in human history.
Had he known, he would not have believed that such an event could take
place and that his own very human qualities and the courage of the
woman at his side would elevate them both to greatness.
In the world of the Monitors, the human factor was very precariously
balanced. Certain basic human instincts had been repressed or denied.
But they could not be repressed forever and the most basic impulse of
all could not be repressed without building up tensions volcanic in
intensity.
The instinct which could not be repressed could not even be discussed
in the world of the Monitors. Its denial and repudiation was basic to
the survival of that world. All reference to it in the old books had
been stippled out, and when men and women talked of love they did not
know that they were treading on dangerous ground in respect to that
impulse, which was a woman's crowning glory.
Even Teleman, despite his historic role, did not know or suspect until
he emerged from another corridor into a compartment so large that it
must have filled two-thirds of the building's interior. He did not know
until he was standing in the entranceway, staring through a pale blue
radiance at tiers upon tiers of cribs encased in sterile glass. He did
not know until he saw the babies.
Tiers upon tiers of cribs and in each crib a sleeping human infant.
And in a few cribs a crying and a reaching out of tiny hands for arms
that were not there, the arms of the mothers.
In each crib a man or woman of the future, still in swaddling clothes,
but beginning to become aware of the world that he or she would someday
inherit.
A thousand tiny faces stared up into the blue-lit immensity above the
sterile cots, some rosy-cheeked and smiling, and fully awake, but most
sleeping soundly. There were thin and peaked faces as well as rosy
ones, contented faces and hungry-looking faces, and faces that looked
completely innocent and faces that resembled the countenances of little
old men, worn by years of toil, and faces that asked questions and
faces that were content to express neither anger nor fear nor high
intelligence but wore a look of untroubled innocence.
Teleman was too shaken to do more than stare silently and it was Alicia
who put what they both felt into words, her eyes shining with a bright,
newly-experienced kind of tenderness.
"I've heard about them but I've never seen them before. How beautiful
they are, even the very thin ones and the angry ones! All of the future
is here. But there is something lacking also. I feel it--I know it to
be so. We are told that they will grow to manhood and to womanhood
lacking nothing, but I cannot believe that the Monitors do not lie
about that.
"There is something that should be here that is not here. They have a
need, a need that is just as strong and complete in itself as the love
which we have for each other."
The sobbing was so far away and so low that they scarcely heard it at
first. It came from the opposite side of the enormous room, and they
could not see the woman with bent back and tearstained face who was
kneeling beside one of the cribs, and tenderly caressing the cheeks of
a sleeping infant.
FIFTEEN
They heard only the sobbing for a moment and then the voice of the
woman rang out in the stillness. There was pain and bitterness in her
voice, and frustration, and a terrible unhappiness.
"He is my child!" she cried. "I know he is my child! You took him away
from me, and put about his neck a chain and a metal tag bearing only
two letters and a serial number. Cold, cruel letters engraved on metal!
"A serial number only, to mark him forever as lost and abandoned, a
child who will grow to manhood knowing nothing of a mother's love, a
mother's selfless devotion.
"You have cheated us and denied us the right to think of ourselves as
the mothers of men. You have denied us the great and wonderful joy of
looking upon the face of a sleeping child and knowing that the child
has need of us. We cannot take our own flesh into our arms and cradle
the tiny, precious new life that love has brought into the world and
feel, because every mother is proud in a wholly wonderful way, that we
have been privileged beyond all other women."
"We cannot suckle and nourish that life with the sweet flowing of a
mother's milk. We can never know the tenderness and joy of feeling that
the love which we bestow can never be wasted, that it is a gift given
freely and without stint, and that all we ask in return is to feel the
tug of tiny hands at our breasts and the moving about of a small body
in gentle, contented drowsiness."
"You have cheated us in another way. You have made even love's
beginning seem ugly, by stripping it of all tenderness, all romantic
glamour. You have set us apart from the rest of society, you have
veiled what we do, looking upon it as a necessary evil, and you have
turned your faces from the mating centers in shame, as if loving were a
crime and an abomination.
"You have made it a crime in the eyes of society. The
non-love-privileged who would be as we are you look upon as the most
depraved of criminals. When they have the courage to rebel openly
you track them down unmercifully, as our ancestors tracked down and
destroyed the wild beasts of the jungle. Some of them behave like
beasts, because they have never known love and in them there is also a
burning hatred, an anger that is primitive and cruel. But others are
men and women of dignity and strength, who give themselves to each
other in tenderness, and who know how love can transform the world
about them, and everything that is in the world, until the whole of
life shines with undying splendor. They can never--"
The accusing voice of the woman was drowned out abruptly by the
metallic rasp of an entrance panel opening and closing and another
voice so filled with rage that it rose almost instantly to a scream.
"What are you doing here? Who gave you permission to come here? Did
you bribe a guard by the lewd display of your charms, or a promise to
sleep with him? All of these infants belong to us now, for we are the
guardians of the future. _Now_ did I say? They have always belonged
to us, even when they were still in the wombs of women such as you,
women who perform a necessary but hardly to be admired function in our
society.
"You are nothing but wantons and evil temptresses, skilled in all the
arts of the harlot, and the men whom you seduce with your charms are no
better than jungle savages. How dared you come here? You have no right
to look upon a single one of these infants, for they have ceased to be
attached to the primitive matrix out of which they have emerged, and we
will teach them all that they need to know."
"You will teach them to be as you are!" the kneeling woman cried, a
reckless defiance in her voice. "You will do your best to teach them to
be harsh and merciless, vindictive and consumed with envy. You will not
wholly succeed, for some of them will not surrender their birthright,
and will discover for themselves that life without love is too harsh a
burden to be endured. They will never know a mother's love, but even
without that love a few will have the strength to resist the harshness
and the hate that comes from never having experienced a moment of
tenderness and affection in childhood."
There was a moment of silence, followed by the sound of a sharply
administered slap, and a cry of rage so sharpened by the boiling up of
all that was cruel and vindictive in the woman who had been forced to
listen to words that had stung her to the quick that it resembled the
cry of an animal.
It was Alicia who came to the kneeling woman's rescue, darting so
swiftly across the enormous room that she was gripping the enraged
woman by the arm and twisting her about before the shock and pain of
the blow vanished from the eyes of her accuser.
From the opposite side of the room the two women had resembled
shadow-enveloped phantoms, their features barely distinguishable, their
identities masked by distance. It was as if Alicia had emerged from one
room into another, the first filled with light and the other enshrouded
in darkness.
Only when she gripped the enraged woman's arm and swung her about did
the gaunt face with its cavernous dark eyes and prominent cheekbones
cause her eyes to brighten with the shock of complete recognition and
the anger which that recognition aroused in her.
It was an anger that went far beyond the hot indignation which had sent
her darting across the room to the kneeling woman's rescue. It was an
anger impossible to control, an anger that flamed and shuddered in the
depth of her mind until she feared it would consume her.
Recognition came into the Monitor's eyes at almost the same instant,
and she tried quickly and desperately to free herself by jerking her
arm violently backwards. She had never before doubted her own strength,
and it was hard to believe that so frail-looking a woman could grip
her wrist with the bite of steel in her fingers. It was even hard to
completely believe in that frailness, for her own gaunt body with its
man's strength had made her a poor judge of the physical qualities of a
normally developed woman.
She seemed to realize suddenly that Alicia was not particularly frail
and had a strength now that she would not have possessed had she been
less enraged and less certain that she could do what the gaunt woman
feared most--strike her with such violence that she would drop to the
floor unconscious.
The blow, when it came, was quick and incisive. Alicia's
tightly-clenched fist caught the gaunt woman just below the ear and
made her sway dizzily. But she did not fall, and Alicia had to strike
her once more, on the point of the jaw, to win a complete victory.
The gaunt woman groaned and sank to the floor, a dull glaze
overspreading her pupils. Alicia let go of her wrist and took a swift
step backward, staring down at her slumped and unmoving body with a
look of startled disbelief on her face and a slight diminishment of her
anger.
Her anger flamed hotly again when she turned toward the woman by the
crib and saw the swelling red welt which the gaunt woman's brutal slap
had left on her right cheek.
The woman by the crib was no longer kneeling. She had gotten to her
feet and was looking at Alicia with a warm gratefulness in her eyes.
"You and this man," she said. "You had the courage to come here, too.
The others would come if the great longing to look upon our babies
which we all share could be strengthened by example and a greater
firmness of purpose. All, all would come. Is one of these babies yours?"
Her eyes had rested on Alicia's face for a moment, but now she was
looking at Teleman, who had moved quickly to Alicia's side.
Alicia turned in surprise, for she had completely forgotten that she
was not alone and would never be alone again. For the barest instant
she had forgotten, not realizing that a man's stride would hardly
permit a woman to outdistance him in the rapid crossing of a room.
"No," Teleman said to the woman by the crib. "We are not
love-privileged and are here for the first time. Many months will pass
before we are parents, I'm afraid."
The woman's eyes widened in stunned disbelief. "Not love-privileged.
Then why are you here?"
"We are fugitives," he said. "And if we are captured we will be
sentenced to death. Our presence here is known, and that woman--" he
gestured toward the slumped form on the floor--"was planning to take us
by surprise. She would have entered the compartment we were instructed
to occupy with armed guards and we would have had no chance at all to
save ourselves. We were not quite sure until now, but as she is here in
the center there can be no doubt as to the kind of surprise she had in
store for us."
The woman by the crib looked at Teleman for a long moment with a
growing bewilderment in her eyes. "But how did you get those garments
and that insignia? If you are not love-privileged--"
Alicia said: "If we were not in such danger we would tell you more, for
there is nothing we would not want you to know. A few words perhaps, we
can risk that. But if she begins to stir--"
"I'll see that she doesn't get up," Teleman said grimly. "She has
forfeited all right to be treated as a woman."
Alicia nodded and moved quickly to the other woman's side. She
whispered to her for a moment and the look of bewilderment vanished
from the dark-fringed eyes that a few moments before had been wet with
tears.
She turned abruptly, her shoulders held straight, her eyes shining in a
strange way. "My name is Leguria," she said. "I am known throughout the
center as one who holds her own life of small account, if in a moment
of crisis others can be persuaded not to draw back from a dangerous
undertaking. I will tell you something which you may not know. Not
only this center but all of the centers are seething with unrest. A
widespread revolt, a revolt that would sweep away all opposition, needs
but an added spark and total victory will be within our grasp. It can
come overnight, if just the right spark is applied."
She did not look at Teleman alone, but let her gaze pass from his
strained and questioning eyes to the eyes of the woman who stood facing
her.
"You could be the spark," she went on, her voice calm but vibrant with
a deep undercurrent of strong emotion which gave her words a kind of
passionate eloquence. "Both of you. Your rebellion must have caused a
great deal of talk. I had not heard of it, but at times I keep very
much to myself, and events of great importance remain unknown to me for
days. Do you know who that Monitor is? She is the second most powerful
Monitor on Earth. She can be over-ruled by the Council and the Chief
Monitor but otherwise her power cannot be questioned by anyone.
"I do not know why she has pursued you so implacably. Perhaps you
provoked her beyond endurance, in some wholly accidental way. But the
reason does not matter. Only the fact that she has pursued you as few
others have been pursued--has singled you out and accused you of the
blackest of crimes.
"Don't you see? She has played right into our hands. She has provided
us with a weapon. Your flight is by now known to thousands, all that
you have endured at her hands. And you are not criminals. You have
only to talk freely, to bare your inmost thought, and all of the
love-privileged in this and the other centers will know what kind of
man and woman you are. You cannot hide dignity and courage, generosity
and quiet strength. A criminal is known by his words the moment he
opens his mouth. You have said but a few words to me, but they have
not been the words of a criminal. No one will believe her. They will
believe you. Even if you had remained silent I could have discovered
the truth about you, just by looking steadily into your eyes."
"But how can we talk openly to the men and women here?" Alicia asked.
"Every minute we remain here we are endangering our lives. We would
accept that risk gladly if our voices could pass beyond the walls of
this room and reach a hundred men and women, or even a handful. But in
a place as well-guarded as this how can our voices be heard?"
"They will be heard. And you will talk not to fifty or a hundred men
and women, but to all of the love-privileged. A third of the guards
here are on our side and will not hesitate to help us. I will speak
to the ones we can trust. The center is very large, and it would
take hours to make a complete search of every room, medical unit,
and storage vault. You will be well-concealed until we can set up a
transmitting instrument and make a few other necessary arrangements.
Your image will appear on a hundred screens, in every one of the mating
centers. A coded message will be sent to all of the centers, and
everywhere, when you are ready to speak, the recreational halls will
be crowded. In all of the halls there are screens, for there has never
been a ban on visual entertainment for the sex-privileged, and the
meetings will take place so quickly that the guards will be taken by
surprise and will not have time to interfere. When the Monitors become
aware of what is happening it will be too late. In every center there
will be guards we can depend on. I do not think that we will fail."
Leguria stopped speaking, and touched the red welt on her cheek. But
there was no bitterness in her eyes, only the stern and unyielding
look of a woman wholly dedicated to an undertaking that must not be
permitted to fail.
It was Teleman who voiced a doubt, but only because the tribute she had
paid him seemed too flattering.
"Even if they are convinced that I am not a criminal," he said, "will
that ignite the spark? I am just one lawbreaker among many, even though
I have antagonized a Monitor who wields unusual power. Many men and
women have been unjustly accused and condemned to death. Will just one
more act of injustice anger them so much that it will give them the
will and the strength to revolt?" He shook his head. "I would like to
think so, but I can't. It may anger them a great deal. But it will not
be enough by itself. You must appear with me on the screen and talk to
them as you talked just now. Tell them about the children who will grow
up cut off from all love and warmth and tenderness. Tell them about the
babies which they will never see. Then Alicia will talk to them too.
You are both very beautiful, and it is a mistake to ignore beauty or to
think of it as unimportant when you are making that kind of appeal.
"When I speak to them I will follow your advice. I will tell them the
simple truth. Then I will have something to add that will be certain to
carry weight. It will not be an untruth, for I will be looking ahead
into the future and I will be thinking of my son. I will speak to them
as a father."
SIXTEEN
The Chief Monitor stood up and walked to the window and stared out over
the sleeping city. The woman on the couch stirred drowsily and changed
her position on the couch, letting her sleeping garment fall open,
and revealing a long, white, sensuous body that many men had found
attractive, but never before a Chief Monitor.
"I'm cold, darling," she whispered. "Please come back and cover me up.
And I wish you would rub my back a little more. You have such strong
and beautiful hands--the hands of an artist."
The Chief Monitor did not turn. He continued to stare out across the
city and after a moment a tiny muscle in his jaw began to twitch.
"Is it really my hands you like," he said at last. "Or the way I kiss
you, or the words I speak? Or do you talk that way because you know I
am susceptible to flattery and it would be a very great blow to you if
I should decide that another woman would please me more?"
A slight pout appeared on the woman's face, but she did not appear to
be offended.
"How many women have you had, darling?" she asked, her voice
tantalizingly low-pitched, so that the Chief Monitor had to strain to
catch the words. "Do not be afraid to tell me. No man who can make love
with such perfect understanding of how to best please a woman could
have passed many nights alone. How many, darling? Fifty, one hundred?"
"You know better than that," the Chief Monitor said, still not turning.
"I have loved a dozen women perhaps ... no more."
The woman on the couch sighed. "Well, a dozen is not too bad for a man
who tells everyone that he has not loved at all. How long can you keep
up the deception, darling? You behave so impetuously at times. Almost
like one of those mad lovers in the old books. Who would think to look
at you that you could become so masterful in bed!"
The Chief Monitor turned abruptly, his eyes blazing with fury. "I
will not listen to such talk. I do not have to listen. Don't think
for a moment that I do not know that you secretly despise me. You are
two-faced, and there is a thinly-veiled mockery in everything you say,
even when you appear to be paying me a compliment!"
The woman sighed, changed her position again, and stretched out white
arms in the darkness. "Don't be silly, darling. That is not true at
all. Come here. Have I not always succeeded in convincing you that the
harsh things you say to me at times are completely untrue? Have you
ever held a more responsive woman in your arms. Tell me! Have you?"
"You are responsive only when it is to your advantage to convince me
that you are not as cold and cruel and calculating as I know you to be.
You are incapable of loving anyone. You tempt a man beyond endurance
and then turn completely cold. You have done that time and time again."
The woman arose from the couch, unfastened the hem of her sleeping
garment and let it fall to her feet. She stood completely naked before
him, her body gleaming white, her red lips slightly parted.
"Come here, and stop being a fool," she said. "I demand that you come."
The Chief Monitor shook his head and turned back to the window. In all
his life he had never felt quite so angry or experienced at the same
time so strong a stirring of desire.
He could not take his eyes from the woman's reflection in the window
pane, but he did not want to turn and go to her.
He was still staring when he saw it--a tiny red flare in the distance,
in the very heart of the sleeping city. It did not alarm him at first,
for there were many ways of explaining it, even though he had never
seen anything precisely like it before.
It did not alarm him until it grew swiftly larger and brighter and
another flickering red flame appeared on the outskirts of the city and
still another close to the first, and a darting streak of fire ran
along the roof of one of the nearer buildings and lit up most of the
sky.
Even then he might have managed to maintain almost complete mastery
over his nerves, if the flares had not been accompanied by a far-off
murmur, as if many voices had suddenly broken in upon the stillness
of the night and were shouting in anger or in overwhelming fright,
and converging toward some central point to join with other voices in
producing an even greater volume of sound.
"What is it?" the woman demanded. "What are you staring at? Does the
city at night fascinate you so that you forget that there are women
out there whom even your power could not seduce? They are asleep in
the arms of their lovers and might not find you as attractive as I do.
There are some women--"
The blasts cut her off in mid-speech, five, evenly spaced blasts that
shook the bed and rattled the windowpanes. The Chief Monitor's control
broke completely. He swung about and crossed the room without even
looking at the woman, who was staring in dismay at the red glare that
was creeping into the room from each of its three tall windows.
The tele-panel set in the wall hummed when the Chief Monitor clicked it
on, and a moment later the small screen lighted up and a face that he
had never seen before stared at him out of the radiance.
"Security Alert," came in a troubled voice. "There are fires and
explosions taking place all over the city. We do not yet know what is
causing them. An aerial attack is one possibility. Most of the fires
are in the vicinity of the mating centers. And people are assembling in
the streets. Most of them are armed and they are shouting threats."
The Chief Monitor clicked off the panel and the radiance dimmed and
vanished. He had an impulse to rush from the room and take steps which
would bring all of the Monitors together in emergency session. But he
forced himself to think calmly. He had to be sure first and two or
three minutes was not a very long time to wait.
He paced the floor for five full minutes, deciding that the more he
knew the more swift and certain would be his mastery of the situation
when he was in full possession of the facts. He completely ignored
the woman who lounged on the couch, the luscious curves of her body
deliberately exposed to his eyes.
It was necessary, he told himself, to know exactly what was
happening. He could not afford to blunder, for the slightest mistake
in a situation as unbelievable as this could destroy him. An armed
uprising? A rebellion of the non-love-privileged? Or a rebellion in
the mating centers? A rebellion of security guards? Who had launched
the aerial attack, if it was an aerial attack? Was it a revolt or a
counter-revolt? Perhaps a revolt had started somewhere in the city and
immediate steps had been taken by Security Alert to counter-attack from
the air.
No, no, that had to be ruled out. He had just been in communication
with Security Alert and if they had ordered a counter-attack they
could hardly have remained in ignorance of it. Unless the operator he
had talked to had not been as fully informed as the Alert's emergency
command.
It was just barely possible.
He had stopped pacing and was turning to click on the tele-panel again
when a blinding white glare filled the room, and a sheet of flame
wrapped itself around him, burning the flesh from his bones and causing
his face to shrivel and blacken until its lineaments dissolved in a
weaving spiral of fire.
SEVENTEEN
It seemed to monitor 6Y9 that an eternity had passed since she had
picked herself up from the floor of the sterile-crib nursery and found
herself alone. She could remember how she had felt at that moment--the
red blaze of fury that had danced before her eyes, the sickness at
the pit of her stomach, the waves of nausea which had made her reel
and almost fall to the floor again. She could remember all that very
clearly. But the search that she had ordered conducted through every
room in the center, that futile and fruitless search was a hazy blur in
her mind. Her emotions had been so overpowering that they had almost
blotted the details of that terrible failure from her waking mind at
least, and if she remembered them at all it would be only in dreams,
dreams from which she would awaken screaming and bathed in cold sweat.
She remembered more clearly the three faces on the lighted tele-screen,
mocking her. The hated pair had eluded her vigilance and concealed
themselves somewhere in the center until the terrible moment when they
had appeared on the screen and stirred ten thousand men and women with
their dark lies and accusations, blackening her character until she
wanted to scream and could no longer endure what they were saying about
her.
The revolt. The terrible, criminal revolt that had started in the
mating centers and was now sweeping the city, and would spread to other
cities if it were not put down immediately.
How clever they had been, how wise in their criminal depravity! They
had dared to put _that woman_ on the screen and she had spoken of
motherhood and love, as if a harlot could have any understanding of
such things.
But it was not too late. There was still time. Now, now, all would be
avenged.
The hideous flood of memories dwindled and fell away and she looked
down through the thrumming, transparent floor of the flying machine's
cockpit and let less appalling memories take complete possession of her
mind.
How quick she had been to act, to assume command, to bypass Security
Alert and the Chief Monitor and to order an aerial counter-attack!
This was surely her greatest moment, for no one could stop her now from
bombing every one of the mating centers, bombing them into smoking
heaps of rubble.
And the men and women in the streets, criminals all, she would see that
not one of them escaped.
Oh, she would make very sure. Armed rebels on foot could not hope
to escape alive when the bombs started falling. And they would find
themselves trapped in a raging inferno and the rebellion would be
crushed forever and no one would ever dare rebel again.
A firm hand on her arm caused her to turn. An aerial fleet commander
stood at her elbow, a look of deep concern in his eyes. He was a tall,
handsome-looking man, darkly bearded. He held himself very straight
and she could not help admiring the breadth of his shoulders and the
attractive curliness of his hair.
"The last machine in the line of flight has dropped four bombs," he
said. "And we have just--"
The gaunt woman straightened, cutting him short with an abrupt, angry
gesture.
"Four bombs! What are you talking about? I heard no detonations."
"The last machine is flying very low and it has fallen behind," the
commander replied, the look of concern still in his eyes. "That's why
you didn't hear the bombs explode. But that is not what I am worried
about."
The gaunt woman's stare sharpened. "Just what are you worried about?"
she demanded.
"He has dropped the bombs far wide of the targets," the commander said.
"That in itself would not be a grave cause for concern, for it would
indicate merely poor marksmanship. But he appears to have--perhaps it
was not deliberate, but--"
The commander paused, realizing that he was putting all this very
badly. But the woman before him was no ordinary Monitor and her
formidable aspect made him feel unusually nervous and ill at ease. The
news he had to convey was disturbing, and he was a little afraid of
alarming the Monitor unduly.
He coughed to clear his throat and tried again.
"He has not only dropped the bombs wide of the targets," he said. "He
has dropped them on the _wrong_ targets."
The gaunt woman stared at him for a moment in stunned disbelief. "What
are you trying to say? Have you taken leave of your senses? How could
he?"
"It is hard to explain. It's as if he had deliberately managed to miss
a target and direct the bombs to another target close by, so that you
could only accuse him of missing one target and accidentally hitting
another. But it almost seems as if more than just poor marksmanship
is involved, because every bomb destroyed an important communications
center, or administration building. Not a single bomb hit a mating
center or any of the public squares which you gave us instructions to
bomb."
The gaunt woman gripped both arms of the revolving metal chair in which
she had been sitting and descended to the metal platform which ran
the full length of the cockpit. She stood very still, transfixing the
commander with a terrible, accusing stare.
"You fool!" she cried. "You slow-witted imbecile! Of course it was
deliberate. _That man is a traitor._"
The commander had turned deathly pale. "But it doesn't make sense,"
he said, defensively. "If he is a traitor, why doesn't he leave the
squadron and bomb strategic targets without so cleverly masking his
intentions that it is difficult to charge him with treason?"
"You are a worse fool than I thought. It is to his advantage to stay
with the squadron. If he were alone in the sky he would be a perfect
target for our long-range aerial projectiles. We could bring him
down in a matter of minutes. But if he appears to be merely a bad
marksman another man who is a stupid commander will play right into his
hands. There is a dangerous traitor in the squadron and you have done
absolutely nothing about it. Do you know just what targets he bombed?"
"As I told you--all vital centers."
"How vital? Major centers?"
"No, it isn't quite that bad. But we are flying very close to the
Council building now, and that's why I thought--"
"Never mind what you thought. Are you sure he only dropped four bombs?"
The commander hesitated, gnawing at his underlip.
"Well?"
"We can't be completely sure. The atomic diffusion bombs do not
detonate and their trajectory is invisible from the air. He could have
dropped one and we would not know."
"The deadliest kind of bomb!" The gaunt woman shuddered. "The heat
destroys everything in its path. A white incandescence, hotter than the
Sun's photosphere. It burns through flesh and bone, reducing the human
body to charred ash in a matter of seconds. I would not wish such a
fate on my worst enemy."
The flying machine shuddered suddenly, as if it had flown through a
raging windstorm and was being buffeted from both sides. The cockpit
trembled throughout its entire length and the metal chair spun about on
its support so violently that if the gaunt woman had still been sitting
in it she would have been hurled with violence to the floor.
The blast which followed close on the first convulsive lurch of the
machine could be heard even from the air. The sound penetrated the
glass-enclosed cockpit and made the gaunt woman's ears ring and the red
flare which accompanied the blast was so bright that it dazzled her
eyes.
Looking down, she could see the terrible core of the explosion
beginning to expand, thinning a little as it spread outward and
enveloping the surrounding streets and buildings in a fiery glow.
"The Council Building!" the commander groaned, his voice almost a sob.
"He must have unloaded a rack of at least eight bombs."
The gaunt woman's face was a colorless mask, her lips distorted in a
grimace that drew the flesh so tightly together on both sides of her
mouth that it gave her features an almost mummy-like look. She remained
for a moment rigid, unable to move or speak, and so abnormal was her
aspect that the commander wished that he had kept silent and let
realization come to her slowly.
He was even more appalled when she reached out and fastened her hands
on his wrists. She tugged at him, drawing him toward her. She twisted
his wrists savagely and then released him with a violent shove.
"Blast him down! Order the entire squadron to attack him with
projectiles at once! They are to abandon all strategic bombing. Do you
understand? If his machine does not go spiraling down in flames within
the next five minutes you will pay for your stupidity with your life."
The commander nodded and withdrew, his throat so dry that he could no
longer swallow and his gait so unsteady that he arrived in the gunnery
compartment reeling like a drunken man.
Gradually the gaunt woman regained control of her shrieking nerves and
some of the color crept back into her face. She reseated herself in the
revolving chair and strained forward, waiting for the sky to light up
with the bright flare of projectiles and the still brighter flare of a
flame-enveloped and tailspinning flying machine.
She knew that she would not be able to see the actual destruction of
the machine, for it was the last in line and, as the commander had
informed her with his stupidity heavy upon him, flying very low. But
she would know quickly enough, for the commander would not be slow in
breaking the news when one or more of the projectiles found its mark.
She waited and as the shock and rage which she had experienced on
seeing the Council building blasted to rubble began to wear off, she
became more reconciled to what had happened. It was just possible that
the Council--all of the Council--had been within the building, summoned
into emergency session by the Chief Monitor. That was perhaps too much
to hope for, but she saw no reason to let the unlikelihood of that
darken her mood. At least half of the Council would be gone, for half
of the Council resided in the building. It greatly reduced the number
of her enemies and immeasurably enhanced her prestige.
There was the sudden, blinding flare of a projectile and she stiffened
in anticipation, her eyes darting to the empty sky immediately above
her and then sideways, hoping that the target-tagged machine with its
traitor-pilot would increase its speed in a last-minute escape maneuver
and come into view for a moment. If only she could witness the direct
hit, could see it explode in the air!
Her hopes soared until she could scarcely breathe. But the traitor did
not come into view. There was another bright projectile flare and the
second machine in the squadron came abreast of the cockpit window,
flying parallel at a distance of eighty or ninety feet.
There was something wrong with the way the second machine was flying.
It had put on a sudden burst of speed, but now it was slowing down and
wobbling from side to side.
It was unmistakably in trouble. Its cockpit seemed to sag, as if one of
the interior struts had given way or the entire structure had been half
shot away, on the side that was hidden from her.
Heavy black smoke began suddenly to spiral from the machine's middle
section, coalescing into a thick black cloud in the air above it. It
wobbled more violently from side to side and then, quite suddenly, it
was plunging downward, twisting and turning in a zigzagging tailspin as
it went spiraling toward the earth.
The gaunt woman was given no time to recover from the shock of that
totally unexpected defeat. Another machine came into view in the sky
above her and burst almost instantly into flame. Two more projectile
flares lit up the sky, turning the bright silvery sheen of a third
machine's wings to crimson as it turned completely about in the air and
plummeted downward like a wounded falcon, its tail feathers in wild
disarray.
The fourth defeat she did not see. News of it came to her through a
speaking tube, in a voice that she recognized, a voice that brought a
hot flush of anger to her cheeks.
"The squadron leader is dead. He's shot down five machines so far.
There's nothing we can do. He keeps outmaneuvering us at every turn.
There are eight or ten different ways a really brilliant pilot can hold
his own and be more than a match for a whole squadron. He knows all of
them."
The gaunt woman slammed the speaking tube down with such violence that
it abraded the flesh of her knuckles, causing her to wince in pain.
She steeled herself to endure without complaint what she feared would
be coming--the destruction of a sixth machine and a seventh. And after
that? There were only nine machines in the squadron.
It was even worse than she had imagined it might be. Two of the four
remaining machines were shot down almost simultaneously. She did not
see them fall but the two bright flares that lit up the earth far below
left no doubt as to what had happened.
Feeling a dull, hollow ache in her chest, she found herself wondering
whether the machine in which she sat, would be next, or would tragedy
overtake the only other remaining machine first?
She was not left long in doubt. A dull concussion shook the cockpit,
and she was thrown violently forward. For an instant a kaleidoscope of
changing colors seemed to spin and whirl about her. With the spinning
came a dizziness and black nausea clawed at her throat.
She dragged herself to her feet, and clung to the long metal rail on
the right side of the cockpit, staring out through a splintered surface
of glass at nothing at all.
For a moment nothing and then she saw him. She saw the machine
that had outfought and outmaneuvered an entire squadron and in the
cockpit a pilot who wore upon his chest the bright insignia of the
love-privileged.
_She saw the pilot's face._
Clearly, clearly she saw it, and he must have seen her face, for he was
staring straight at her.
It was the face, the one face above all others that she hated with
every breath she drew and would hate until she ceased to draw breath.
For one awful moment she looked into Teleman's eyes and saw Teleman's
lips move in pity.
Then she was falling. Down and down into a swirling abyss of emptiness,
falling with the broken and burning machine ... falling, falling.
EPILOGUE
"The revolt can't be stopped now," Leguria said. "We shall have our new
world and we shall all be a part of it."
She drew herself up, her eyes shining, and smiled at the man and woman
who had just climbed down from a smoke-blackened flying machine, a
machine which only an aerial engineer who had built bridges in the
deep jungle would have known how to maneuver with skill in an hour of
decision.
Dusk was falling and its purple glow, deflected downward from the
shining glass of the machine's cockpit, aureoled Leguria's hair in a
soft radiance.
"I may have seemed to you a strong-willed and determined woman,"
she said. "But I am not really like that at all. It is just that
circumstances change people."
She nodded and fell silent, and Teleman and Alicia were content just
to be together in the peaceful quiet of the countryside, until the
twilight deepened and gave birth to a wild rush of stars.
They lay down together under those stars, and let passion creep over
them slowly, knowing that they had time now, and freedom to love.
THE END
* * * * *
THEY CALLED HER A SHAMELESS HARLOT....
How long can a girl suppress the love urges that are natural to a
beautiful and healthy female? Alicia was denied the privileges of the
women in the Mating Center, but she was lovely, and she was desperate.
She could see lust flame in the eyes of the men she met on the Travel
Strip--men who tore their eyes away to go to their glass enclosed
cubicles to perform their daily tasks.
Deliberately she stripped the sober raiment of the industrial worker
from her luscious body, and put on the revealing, tantalizing garb of a
sex-privileged woman.
Then Alicia set out to use her bewitching body to upset the "Utopian"
society of 2896, to topple the cold, unfeeling leaders of that
society--to prove that _sex cannot be denied_.
MATING CENTER
A CHARIOT BOOK
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