"Charles, you see," the woman said, stopping and turning to Caine,
"thinks the only way he can hold me is with money. And now he's put
every penny he had left into this hunt so that he can find the Screece
gem and keep his lovely wife. And do you know what, Mr. Caine?" She
placed her hands gently on her hips, and Caine could see the faintest
swinging movement in them. "He's right, you see."
Caine remained very silent.
"He _has_ to find the Screece gem," the woman said, smiling whitely,
"or lovely Janet is gone, slipped right out of his hands. And Charles
is just a poor little sheep with gray hair and a two inch scar, who'll
be cold and alone, while Janet--"
"Stop it, damn it!" Fairchild said, but he didn't get up and his voice
was thick.
"--while Janet," the woman said, her voice even and relentless, "will
be sleeping with someone else who can afford her, and poor old Charles
will shiver in his damned freezing bed, all alone, thinking about that,
wondering who it is, burning up his ancient jealous liver!" The woman
whirled to face her husband.
The man tightened both hands around his glass, and Caine could see the
whiteness about his mouth. The woman began to laugh, a soft, pealing
laugh that got into Caine's brain because of the very softness of it.
She walked back to her chair and lifted her own glass. Her laughter
stopped while she drank, and then it started again. She turned to look
at her husband, and her eyes danced and her lips curved. Her body shook
with the laughter.
"Who do you think it'll be?" she asked her husband. "If you don't find
the gem?" She turned to Caine. "Mr. Caine, do you have any money? I
mean, perhaps you wouldn't need as much money as Charles. I might make
some compensation for virility, you know."
Caine disregarded her. "Mr. Fairchild, we have some rugged country
to cover tomorrow. This is your party, of course, but if you keep on
drinking...."
"If I keep on drinking?"
Caine examined the man's eyes and his slack mouth. "Nothing," Caine
said. "Nothing." At least, he decided, the Scotch might stop the
needling and the pressure for the man. He deserved that much, perhaps.
"You didn't answer me, Mr. Caine," the woman said. "About you and me.
I'd like you to answer, so that my husband knows before he falls out of
his chair, you see."
"I think we all ought to get some sleep," Caine said quietly.
"Mr. Caine, really? So sudden? I'd have to check your bankbook first,
of course. Although if you give me your word...."
"If you don't mind," Caine said, his voice harsh, "I'd like to be left
neutral in whatever you and Mr. Fairchild might have in conflict."
"Oh," she said. "Well, that's just because you haven't seen the full
potential. Let me show you what you'd be getting for your money--the
way Charles saw it." She raised her glass again, drank, and stood
up to cross to the ship. She climbed the ladder to the cabin, very
gracefully, and touched the switch of the radio. Music pealed into the
warm air.
It was minor music, issuing from the Colony station, music that had
been taken from the native Venusian melodies. It had been converted and
fitted to the heavy rhythm of Earth's ancient Africa, and it seemed
suddenly to become a part of this jungle of Venus.
The woman stood in the doorway, and then she moved down the ladder, as
though it were one sliding motion. She remained there, her back against
the silver metal of the ship, swaying her hips, moving her shoulders.
"I was a dancer, you see, Mr. Caine. I worked in a very expensive
club in Habrill, on Mars. I was very popular and very good, and sweet
Charles took me away from it all, didn't you, Charles?"
Fairchild, Caine could see, was having trouble focusing his eyes, but
the rhythmic music was heavy in the air and it beat against the ears,
and Caine knew that the man was aware of what was happening.
The woman began moving easily toward Caine, her movement a practised
swinging motion of hips and shoulders. "This is what Charles took me
away from, Mr. Caine, by the gentle touch of gold," she said. "'Come
with me,' he said, and he fitted diamonds to my ears and rings to my
fingers. 'Let me take you away from the damned searching eyes of every
man on Mars. Let me hide you, so no one can see you or touch you, but
me, and I'll give you all I own.' Isn't that right, Charles?" she said,
looking at him with narrow gleaming eyes.
The man lifted his glass and slowly drained it. He let it fall to the
ground with a breaking crunch, while the woman kept time with the
rhythm, with her hips and her shoulders, slight swinging motions that
only intimated.
"Only now," the woman said, "poor Charles doesn't have anything more to
give, and so here I go again...."
She raised her hands over her head and cracked her palms together. Her
hips swung and her shoulders shook. She caught her fingers in her hair,
her teeth white and biting, while her whole body shivered. It was a
rippling gyration of muscle and pink skin, building, furious.
Fairchild pushed himself out of the chair. His eyes were wild and
vacant. "Don't ..." he said, and his words were meshed together so that
it was a hoarse sound, full of anguish.
The woman laughed, a wild laugh that blended with the music and the
frenzied movement of her body. She whirled and slapped her hands
together and her body quivered.
The man staggered a step forward. "Janet, don't, please...." He fell
forward, sprawling over the ground. Gradually, the woman ceased her
movement, while her laughter rang through the wet jungle.
* * * * *
_The gray-caped figures hold motionless around the muddy silver orb.
A green head cocks. Another. The golden walls encase them, and only a
circular opening near a tip of a spire brings in dim light and a little
of the wispish outside vapor. Fingers disengage and a green extends
from a gray cape. The hand sweeps in a downward slice, splitting by
symbol, purity from evil. A second hand imitates. A third. A dozen.
Voices flute to the cloudy orb. A cat snarls. Minds probe._
* * * * *
The light was dimming, and she was a dark curving figure, standing over
the crumpled figure of the man. The music pounded relentlessly. Caine
stood up.
"Each time I make one of these trips," he said, looking at the
motionless form of Fairchild, "I promise myself it'll be the last, and
I'm promising myself again, right now."
The woman stood silent, and there was just her smiling mouth and the
white teeth and the reddish hair. "But this one isn't over, yet, Mr.
Caine. We still have a long way to go." Her eyes danced.
"That's right, Mrs. Fairchild," Caine said, bending to lift the man.
"Unfortunately, that's right."
He picked the man up while the woman watched, and he carried him to the
ship. He climbed to the cabin, working against the surprising weight of
the smaller man. For his age, Fairchild was a very tough, sinewy man
who looked as though he had spent most of his life fighting through
strange and varied wilds, constantly in search of new adventures and
thrills.
Caine laid the man across a bunk built into the rear of the ship's
cabin. The tip end of the wide scar was visible now, showing above
Fairchild's open shirt, and the thin lines about the eyes and mouth
were like written entries in his face, telling of too much Scotch and
perhaps too much of the reddish-haired woman. All that he lacked, Caine
thought wryly, was the empty bank account to show the price he had paid
for the love of the devilish woman.
Caine straightened and walked back through the cabin, snapping off the
radio.
He jumped to the ground. The light was very dim now, and the woman was
only an outline. The screams of kiitz birds were in the air again, and
in the distance, the thrumming monotony of the falls.
"You can use the cabin with your husband, Mrs. Fairchild," Caine said
briskly. "I'll get some blankets and sleep out here."
"Aren't there animals?"
"Not around here," Caine said. "I'll make a fire. If you want something
to eat I'll get it out of the cabin for you."
"No, thank you, Mr. Caine," the woman said, sitting down in her chair.
"I'll just enjoy the rest of my drink, if you don't mind."
"It's up to you," Caine said shortly. He was very careful to keep his
eyes away from her. You handled a woman like that best, he knew, by
keeping your eyes away from her.
He gathered wood from beneath the wet outer layer of the jungle floor.
He bent to light the fire just as the darkness enveloped the clearing.
The flames flickered and licked upward, sending their shifting yellow
light into the surrounding foliage.
Caine straightened from the fire.
"Do you like my dance?" the woman asked, softly.
"I didn't see it for your husband, Mrs. Fairchild," Caine said, and he
returned to the ship where he got several blankets. He placed them near
the fire.
"He's not around now," the woman said.