Bondelli said: “Never mind my breakfast. I’m going down to the office.”
“You’re bleeding,” his wife said. She had brought a styptic pencil from the bathroom. She dabbed at the cut on his neck. “Hold still. It’ll get all over your collar.” She pushed up his chin. “Tony… you stay out of this. You’re not a criminal lawyer.”
“But I’ve handled Joe’s law ever since he… Ouch! Damn it, Marge, that stings!”
“Well, you can’t go out bleeding like that,” She finished, put the pencil beside the washbasin. “Tony, I’ve a funny feeling… don’t get involved.”
“I’m Joe’s lawyer. I’m already involved.”
Abruptly, Ruth found control of her muscles. She slapped the pantovive shutoff, leaped to her feet, pushing herself away from the machine.
My mother’s murder something to amuse the Chem!
She whirled away, strode toward the bed. The bed repelled her. She turned her back on it. The casual way Kelexel had left her to discover this filled her with terrified anger. Surely he must’ve known she’d find out. He didn’t care! No, it was worse than that: he hadn’t even thought about it. The whole thing was of no concern to him. It was beneath his attention. It was less than not caring. It was disdain, repellant… hateful…
Ruth looked down, found she was wringing her hands. She glanced around the room. There must be some weapon here, anything with which to attack that hideous… Again, she saw the bed. She thought of the golden ecstasy there and suddenly hated her own body. She wanted to tear her flesh. Tears started from her eyes. She strode back and forth, back and forth.
I’ll kill him!
But Kelexel had said the Chem were immune to personal violence. They were immortal. They couldn’t be killed. They never died.
The thought made her feel like an infinitesimal mote, a dust speck, lost, alone, doomed. She threw herself onto the bed, turned onto her back and stared up at the crystal glittering of the machine which she knew Kelexel used to control her. There was a link to it under his cloak. She’d seen him working it.
Thought of the machine filled her with an agony of prescience: she knew what she would do when Kelexel returned. She would succumb to him once more. The golden ecstasy would overcome her senses. She would end by fawning on him, begging for his attentions.
“Oh, God!” she whispered.
She turned, stared at the pantovive. That machine would contain the entire record of her mother’s death—she knew it. The actual scene was there. She wondered then if she would have the strength to resist asking for that scene.
Something hissed behind her and she whirled on the bed, stared at the door.
Ynvic stood just inside, her bald head glistening in the yellow light. Ruth glared at the gnome figure, the bulge of breasts, the stocky legs in green leotards.
“You are troubled,” Ynvic said. Her voice was professionally smooth, soothing. It sounded like the voices of so many doctors she had heard that Ruth wanted to cry out.
“What’re you doing here?” Ruth asked.
“I am shipsurgeon,” Ynvic said. “Most of my job is just being available. You have need of me.”
They look like caricatures of human beings, Ruth thought.
“Go away,” she said.
“You have problems and I can help you,” Ynvic said.
Ruth sat up. “Problems? Why would I have problems?” She knew her voice sounded hysterical.
“That fool Kelexel left you with an unrestricted pantovive,” Ynvic said.
Ruth studied the Chem female. Did they have emotions? Was there any way to touch them, hurt them? Even to cause them a pinprick of pain seemed the most desirable thing in the universe.
“How do you ugly creatures breed?” Ruth asked.
“You hate us, eh?” Ynvic asked.
“Are you afraid to answer?” Ruth demanded.
Ynvic shrugged. “Essentially, it’s the same as with your kind—except that females are deprived of the reproductive organs at an early stage in their development. We must go to breeding centers, get permission—it’s a very tiresome, boring procedure. We manage to enjoy ourselves quite well without the organs.” She advanced to stand a pace from the bed.
“But your men prefer my kind,” Ruth said.
Again, Ynvic shrugged. “Tastes differ. I’ve had lovers from your planet. Some of them were good, some weren’t. The trouble is, you fade so quickly.”
“But you enjoy us! We amuse you!”
“Up to a point,” Ynvic said. “Interest waxes and wanes.”
“Then why do you stay here?”
“It’s profitable,” Ynvic said. And she noted that the native female already was coming out of the emotional spiral that had trapped her. Resistance, an object to hate—that’s all it took. The creatures were so easy to maneuver.
“So the Chem like us,” Ruth said. “They like stories about us.”
“You’re an endless pot of self-generating stories,” Ynvic said. “And by yourselves you can produce natural sequences of true artistic merit. This is, of course, at once a profound source of frustration and requires very delicate handling to capture and reproduce for our audiences. Fraffin’s art rests in eliciting those subtle nuances which prick our risibilities, capture our fascinated attention.”
“You disgust me,” Ruth hissed. “You’re not human.”
“We’re not mortal,” Ynvic said. And she thought: I wonder if the creature’s already with child? What’ll she do when she learns she’ll bear a Chem?
“But you hide from us,” Ruth said. She pointed at the ceiling. “Up there.”
“When it suits our purpose,” Ynvic said. “We are required to stay concealed now, of course. But it wasn’t always that way. I’ve lived openly with your kind.”
Ruth found herself caught by the casual aloofness in Ynvic’s tone. She knew she couldn’t hurt this creature, but had to try.
“You’re lying,” Ruth said.
“Perhaps. But I’ll tell you that I once was the God Ea, striking terror into captive Jews… in Sumeria a while back. It was harmless fun setting up religious patterns among you.”
“You posed as a god?” Ruth shuddered. She knew the words were true. They were spoken with too little effort. They meant so little to the speaker.
“I’ve also been a circus freak,” Ynvic said. “I’ve worked in many epics. Sometimes I enjoy the illusion of antiquity.”
Ruth shook her head, unable to speak.
“You don’t understand,” Ynvic said. “How could you? It’s our problem, you see? When the future’s infinite, you have no antiquities. You’re always caught up in the Forever-Now. When you think you’ve come to terms with the fact that your past is unimportant, then the future becomes unimportant. That can be fatal. The storyships protect us from this fatality.”
“You… spy on us for…”
“Infinite past, infinite future, infinite present,” Ynvic said. She bent her head, liking the sound of the words. “Yes, we have these. Your lives are but brief bursts and your entire past little more—yet we Chem gain from you the explicit feeling of something ancient… an important past. You give us this, do you understand?”
Again, Ruth shook her head. The words seemed to have meaning, but she felt she was getting only part of their sense.
“It’s something we can’t get from Tiggywaugh’s web,” Ynvic said. “Perhaps it’s something our immortality denies us. The web makes the Chem into one organism—I can feel the life of each of the others, billions upon billions of Chem. This is… old, but it’s not ancient.”
Ruth swallowed. The creature was rambling. But the conversation was providing a time to recover, and Ruth felt forming within her a place of resistance, a core place where she could retreat and in which she was safe from the Chem… no matter what they did to her. She knew she’d succumb to Kelexel still, that this Ynvic creature even now was doing something to shade the Chem captive’s emotional responses. But the core place was there, growing, im
parting purpose.
“No matter,” Ynvic said. “I’ve come to examine you.” She advanced to the edge of the bed.
Ruth inhaled a deep, trembling breath. “You were watching me,” she said. “At the machine. Does Kelexel know?”
Ynvic became very still. How did the stupid native know to ask such a penetrating question?
Ruth sensed the opening in Ynvic’s guard, said: “You speak of infinity, of epics, but you use your… whatever…” She made a sweeping gesture to take in the storyship “… to… record a… killing.
“Indeed!” Ynvic said. “You will tell me now why Kelexel is asking for me out in the ship.”
The crystal facets above the bed began emitting a blue glow. Ruth felt her will melting. She shook her head. “I… don’t…”
“You will tell me!” The Chem female’s face was a round mask of fury, the bald head glistening wetly silver.
“I… don’t… know,” Ruth whispered.
“He was a fool to give you an unrestricted pantovive and we were fools to go along with it,” Ynvic said. She passed a hand across her thick lips. “What do you understand of such things?”
Ruth felt the pressure relaxing, took a deep breath. The core place of retreat was still there. “It was my mother, my mother you killed,” she muttered.
“We killed?”
“You make people do what you want them to do,” Ruth said.
“People!” Ynvic sneered. Ruth’s answers betrayed only the shallowest knowledge of Chem affairs. There was danger in the creature, though. She might yet excite Kelexel’s interests into the wrong paths too soon.
Ynvic put a hand on Ruth’s abdomen, glanced at the manipulator over the bed. The pattern of the lambent blue glow shifted in a way that made her smile. This poor creature already was impregnated. What a strange way to bear offspring! But how lovely and subtle a way to trap a snooper from the Primacy.
The fact of Ruth’s pregnancy imparted an odd feeling of disquiet to Ynvic. She withdrew her hand, grew aware of the characteristic musky scent of the native female. What gross mammary glands the creature had! Yet, her cheeks were indrawn as though from undernourishment. She wore a loose flowing gown that reminded Ynvic of Grecian garments. Now there’d been an interesting culture, but brief, so brief… everything so brief.
But she’s pregnant, Ynvic thought, I should be delighted. Why does it bother me? What have I overlooked?
For no reason she could explain, four lines from a Chem drinking song poured through Ynvic’s mind then—
“In the long-long-long ago
When each of us was young,
We heard the music of the flesh
And the singing of a sun…”
Ynvic shook her head sharply. The song was meaningless. It was good only for its rhythms, a plaything series of noises, another toy.
But what had it meant… once?
Over the bed, the manipulator’s lenses sank back through green and stopped in a soft pastel red.
“Rest, little innocent,” Ynvic said. She placed a strangely gentle hand on Ruth’s bare arm. “Rest and be attractive for Kelexel’s return.”
Chapter 13
“The simple truth of the matter is that things got too much for her and she ran away,” Bondelli said. He stared across at Andy Thurlow, wondering at the odd, haggard look of the man.
They sat in Bondelli’s law office, a place of polished wood and leather-bound books aligned precisely behind glass covers, a place of framed diplomas and autographed photos of important people. It was early afternoon, a sunny day.
Thurlow was bent over, elbows on knees, hands clasped tightly together. I don’t dare tell him my real suspicions, he thought. I don’t dare… I don’t dare.
“Who’d want to harm her or take her away?” Bondelli asked. “She’s gone to friends, perhaps up in ‘Frisco. It’s something simple as that. We’ll hear from her when she’s gotten over her funk.”
“That’s what the police think,” Thurlow said. “They’ve completely cleared her of any complicity in Nev’s death… the physical evidence….”
“Then the best thing we can do is get down to the necessities of Joe’s case. Ruth’ll come home when she’s ready.”
Will she? Thurlow asked himself. He couldn’t shake off the feeling that he was living in a nightmare. Had he really been with Ruth at the grove? Was Nev really dead in that weird accident? Had Ruth run off? If so, where?
“We’re going to have to dive directly into the legal definition of insanity,” Bondelli said. “Nature and consequences. Justice requires….”
“Justice?” Thurlow stared at the man. Bondelli had turned in his chair, revealing his profile, the mouth thinned to a shadowline beneath the mustache.
“Justice,” Bondelli repeated. He swiveled to look at Thurlow. Bondelli prided himself upon his judgment of men and he studied Thurlow now. The psychologist appeared to be coming out of his blue funk. No question why the man was so shaken, of course. Still in love with Ruth Murphey… Hudson. Terrible mess, but it’d shake down. Always did. That was one thing you learned from the law; it all came out in court.
Thurlow took a deep breath, reminded himself that Bondelli wasn’t a criminal lawyer. “We ought to be more interested in realism,” he said. There was an undertone of wry cynicism in his voice. Justice! “This legal definition of insanity business is a lot of crap. The important thing is that the community wants the man executed—and our benighted D.A., Mr. Paret, is running for reelection.”
Bondelli was shocked. “The law’s above that!” He shook his head. “And the whole community isn’t against Joe. Why should they be?”
Thurlow spoke as though to an unruly child: “Because they’re afraid of him, naturally.”
Bondelli permitted himself a glance out the window beside his desk—familiar rooftops, distant greenery, a bit of foggy smoke beginning to cloud the air above the adjoining building. The smoke curled and swirled, creating an interesting pattern against the view. He returned his attention to Thurlow, said: “The question is, how can an insane man know the nature and consequences of his act? What I want from you is to explode that nature and consequences thing.”
Thurlow removed his glasses, glances at them, returned them to his nose. They made the shadows stand out sharply in the room. “An insane man doesn’t think about consequences,” he said. And he wondered if he was really going to let himself take part in Bondelli’s mad plan for defense of Joe Murphey.
“I’m taking the position,” Bondelli said, “that the original views of Lord Cottenham support our defense.” Bondelli turned, pulled a thick book out of a cabinet behind him, put the book on the desk and opened it to a marker.
He can’t be serious, Thurlow thought.
“Here’s Lord Cottenham,” Bondelli said. “It is wrong to listen to any doctrine which proposes the punishment of persons laboring under insane delusions. It is inconceivable that the man who was incapable of judging between right and wrong, of knowing whether an act were good or bad, ought to be made accountable for his actions; such a man has not that within him which forms the foundation of accountability, either from a moral or a legal point of view. I consider it strange that any person should labor under a delusion and yet be aware that it was a delusion: in fact, if he were aware of his state, which could be no delusion.’”
Bondelli closed the book with a snap, stared at Thurlow as though to say: “There! It’s all solved!”
Thurlow cleared his throat. It was increasingly obvious that Bondelli lived in a cloud world. “That’s all very true, of course,” Thurlow said. “But isn’t it possible that even if our esteemed district attorney suspects—or even believes—Joe Murphey to be insane, he’ll think it better to execute such a man than to put him in an institution?”
“Good heavens! Why?”
“The doors of mental hospitals sometimes open,” Thurlow said. “Paret was elected to protect this community—even from itself.”
“But Murphey’s
obviously insane!”
“You aren’t listening to me,” Thurlow said. “Certainly he’s insane. That’s what people are afraid of.”
“But shouldn’t psychology…”
“Psychology!” Thurlow snapped.
Bondelli stared at Thurlow in shocked silence.
“Psychology’s just the modern superstition,” Thurlow said. “It can’t do a damned thing for people like Joe. I’m sorry but that’s the truth and it’ll hurt less to have that out right now.”
“If this is what you told Ruth Murphey, no wonder she ran away,” Bondelli said.
“I told Ruth I’d help any way I can.”
“You have a strange way of showing it.”
“Look,” Thurlow said. “We’ve a community up in arms, fearful, excited.
Murphey’s the focus for their hidden guilt feelings. They want him dead.
They want this psychological pressure taken off them. You can’t psychoanalyze a whole community.”
Bondelli began tapping a finger impatiently on the desk. “Will you or will you not help me prove Joe’s insane?”
“I’ll do everything I can, but you know Joe’s going to resist that form of defense, don’t you?”
“Know it!” Bondelli leaned forward, arms on his desk. “The damn’ fool blows his top at the slightest hint I want him to plead insanity. He keeps harping on the unwritten law!”
“Those stupid accusations against Adele,” Thurlow said. “Joe’s going to make it very difficult to prove him insane.”
“A sane man would fake insanity now if only to save his life,” Bondelli said.
“Keep that very clearly in mind,” Thurlow said. “Joe can’t in any way entertain the idea that he’s insane. To admit that—even as a possibility—or as a necessary pretense, he’d have to face the fact that his violent act could’ve been a useless, senseless thing. The enormity of such an admission would be far worse than insanity. Insanity’s much preferable.”