"Halfway up?" he prompted.
Dumbly, she nodded.
He looked at the plants. "Hertha, listen. I've got to talk before the
paralysis comes back. You'll have to listen very carefully and try to
understand. I'll be all right in about ten days. You know that?"
She nodded again.
He took a deep breath that seemed to catch in his throat. "But you'll
have to go outside before then."
Hertha whimpered and fluttered her hands nervously.
"I know you're afraid," he said. "I wouldn't ask you, but it has to be
done. I can't go. You can see that, can't you? It has to be done."
"Afraid!"
"Nonsense!" he said harshly. "There's nothing to be afraid of. Put on
the outside suit and nothing can hurt you."
Moaning in fear, she shook her head.
"Listen, Hertha! You've _got_ to do it. For _me_!" He did not like
to make the appeal personal. He would have preferred to convince her
that fear of the outside was groundless. It was not possible. He had
attempted, again and again, to explain that the tiny satellite with
its poison air was completely harmless as long as she wore a surface
suit. There was no alien life, no possible danger, outside this tiny
square of insulated hut and breathable air. But it was useless. And the
personal appeal was the only course remaining. It was as much for her
sake as his; she also needed oxygen, but she could never understand
that fact.
"For you?" she asked.
He nodded, feeling the fever rise. His face twisted in pain, and he
stared pleadingly into her cow-like eyes: dumb eyes, animal eyes, brown
and trusting and ... loyal. The paralysis struck. His voice would not
come up out of his chest and the dizziness swamped his mind, and, in
fever, he was once again in Pastiville, the nearest planet with an
oxygen atmosphere.
* * * * *
Hertha followed him up the alley, out into the cheap glitter of
Windopole Avenue, a rutted, smelly street which was the center of the
port-workers' section. She followed him across Windopole, up Venus,
across Nineshime. He turned into the Lexo Building, which had become
shabby since he had seen it last, when it had been freshly painted. She
did not follow him inside, and he breathed a sigh of relief and tried
to put her out of his mind as he walked up the stairs to the room 17B.
After a moment's hesitation, his heart knocking with pleasant
anticipation, he pressed the buzzer.
"Come in."
He found the knob, twisted open the door, entered.
"Why Jimmy!" the girl said in what seemed to be surprise and heavy
delight. She crossed to him quickly and offered her lips to be kissed.
"It's good to see you!"
He took half a step backward, trying to keep the shock out of his face.
"Oh, it's _so_ good to see you, Jimmy! Sit down. Tell me all about it,
about everything. Did you make loads and loads of money? When did you
get back? How's the lig fever?"
He sat down, scarcely listening, studying the apartment, feeling
vaguely ill. She was chattering, he realized, to overcome her
embarrassment.
"The books you ordered came. I've got them right here. They're all
there but some poetry or other. There was a letter about that, but the
people just said they didn't have it in stock. I opened it to see if it
required an answer. Just a sec. I'll get them for you." She left the
room with quick, nervous strides.
The apartment had been redone since he had seen it. There were now
expensive drapes at the windows, imported from somewhere; a genuine
Earth tapestry hung above the door. Plump silken pillows scattered on
the floor and a late model phono-general in the corner, with a gleaming
cabinet and record spool accessory box.
She came back with the books, neatly done up in a bundle.
"I guess you still read as much as ever? Don said you always were a
great reader."
Uncomfortably, he stood up.
She put the books on a low serving table, moistened her lips to make
them glistening red. "Sit _down_, Jimmy!"
He still stood.
"_Jimmy!_" she said in mock anger. "Sit down! Goodness, it's good to
have a fellow Earthman to talk to. I was so busy when you came by the
other time, we scarcely had a _minute_ to talk. I'd just got here, you
remember.... Well, I'm settled now, so we'll just have to have a nice,
long talk."
He shifted on his feet.
"I don't suppose you've heard from Don?" Her voice was strained, almost
desperate. "Isn't it the oddest thing, him knowing you and me, and both
of us right here?"
"He told me to write how you were getting along?"
"... Oh."
He smiled without humor and felt like an old man. He wanted to explain
how he had looked forward to seeing a person from his own planet again.
Now he wanted to remind her of the girl he remembered: When she had
just arrived, still unpacking, eager to start as a junior secretary for
the League.
"Thank you for letting me send the books here," he said. The sickness
was heavy in the pit of his stomach, and suddenly he was hard and
bitter. He quoted softly:
"The world forsaken,
And out of mind
Honor and labor,
We shall not find
The stars unkind."
"Old poetry? I guess you really do read a--" Then understanding made
her eyes wince. "That wasn't intended to be very complimentary, was it,
Jimmy?"
Her name was no longer Doris; it was any of a thousand, and
her perfume, heavy in his nostrils, was not her perfume or any
individual's. She was there before him; she was real. But along with
her were a thousand names and a thousand scents. There was the painful
nostalgia of recognizing a strange room.
Awkwardly he said, "I really must go. I'd like to have a long talk,
but--"
Her lips parting in sudden artificiality, she crossed to him, reached
for his hand with her own.
In his mind was the heavy futility of repeating the same thing
senselessly until it lost all meaning.
"I apologize about the poem," he said, because he knew that it was not
his place to speak of it.
"That's all right," she said with hollow cheerfulness. Her mouth jerked
and her eyes darkened. "Please don't go yet."
The palms of his hands were moist. He looked around the apartment
again, and he did not want to ask, to bring it out in cruel words. It
was not the sort of thing one asked.
"I really must go," he repeated levelly.