"You're so noble, Mr. Caine."
"I'm not anything," Caine said. "I'm just a guide who gets paid for
taking people where they want to go. Nothing more, do you understand,
Mrs. Fairchild?"
"No," she said, smiling at him.
Caine walked to his chair and sat down. "We have a tough day ahead of
us, Mrs. Fairchild, and we'll need all the strength we have to get
through that stretch of jungle. This is a different jungle than you've
seen before. Venus breeds some terrible country, and where we're going
is that kind of country. I haven't been there myself, so I can't even
predict what it'll be like. But I've circled it in the ship and it's
thick and alive. I don't trust it. So you can stay up, if you like, and
I'll be glad to stay awake myself, but I'd advise some sleep right now."
Mrs. Fairchild stood up slowly, her fingers drifting over her waist.
"I'll tell you, Mr. Caine. You're not the kind of man I like to argue
with. I've had just enough liquor to feel perfectly agreeable to
anything, anyway. So I'll get ready for bed, but I'm sorry you didn't
enjoy my dance. Let's do this. You wait while I get ready, and then
we'll have one nightcap together, a sort of dancing nightcap. Are you
interested, Mr. Caine?"
Caine lit a cigarette slowly, watching the blaze of his lighter. He
snapped the lighter shut. "I'm interested in both you and your husband,
Mrs. Fairchild."
"To hell with my husband," she said, her teeth showing between her
lips. She lifted her glass and drank all that was in it. "Relax, Mr.
Caine," she said, walking toward the ship. "Enjoy yourself."
Caine noticed that the liquor had taken hold of the way she walked, so
that she swayed a little, but there was still the grace there and the
swing, and it was hard to disregard.
I hope she doesn't come out of there, Caine thought. I hope she just
falls asleep and leaves me alone, and that tomorrow goes very quickly
and smoothly.
* * * * *
But when Caine had watched the flames lick at the settling night for a
few minutes and had finished his cigarette, he heard the sound again.
The sound of music, muffled by the silver body of the ship. Wilder now,
with heavier drums, seasoned into a more biting sound by the night and
the flickering flames. Caine was aware of the blood in his veins and
the pulse in his temples.
All at once, the door of the cabin was kicked open and the music rose
in the air. The woman stood in the doorway, her hands gripping the
silver frame tightly. She wore a black nightgown, made of shimmering
stuff that was as thin as the fine mist in the air. Her hair had been
let down and it fell over her shoulders and her back. Her feet were
bare and very white beneath the black gown.
She stood motionless, her fingers tight against the frame, as though
holding herself against the music. The melody disappeared then, and
there was only the drums, rolling, and finding a punctuation that
became all that existed in the night. The woman leaped from the doorway
and she touched the ground, wriggling. Her feet were wide-spaced and
her hands searched through her hair, lifting it from the nape of her
neck. She bent forward suddenly, so that her hair was a reddish swirl
against the light of the leaping flames.
She straightened slowly, one hand sliding her hair back, so that
Caine could see her eyes dancing with her body, and she began moving
toward him, shoulders swinging, hips pivoting. Caine kept his hands
tight against the arms of his chair, his eyes narrow. The woman was a
writhing movement beneath the black veil-like gown. She twisted and
whirled and finally, she stopped in front of Caine, chin high, one
hand still half-thrust through the soft thick hair. Her eyes glowed.
"Nightcap," she said, her voice breathless.
Caine shifted carefully in his chair. "I'm not thirsty," he said.
The woman's hand snapped from her hair, and the relaxed suppleness of
her body tightened.
"I remember a man," Caine said through his teeth, "who's a dozen yards
away, sleeping in the protection of alcohol, because a cheap burlesque
queen is drawing out his blood until he's damned near dead. I can see
through the pink skin, Mrs. Fairchild, and what I see makes me sick.
You don't interest me at all, and you never will because I don't like
the sight of hate and selfishness and just plain rottenness."
She struck him across the face with one hand and then the other. The
fury burned in her eyes and her body trembled with it. She struck him
again and again, and Caine's face bled where a ring ripped his skin.
He sat very still, his hands remaining against the chair arms. "You've
just lost yourself a boy, Mrs. Fairchild. Put your clothes on, we're
flying back to the Colony. You can find yourself somebody else for
this, because I've had enough."
He started to rise, but she put one hand against his chest, and the
fury was gone out of her eyes, and there were tears instead.
"Please," she said, and Caine could hear the tears going into her
voice. "I'm sorry. I'm awfully sorry. Let me talk to you first,
please." She knelt to the ground and watched Caine while thin tears ran
down her cheeks.
"About what, Mrs. Fairchild?" Caine said coldly.
"I don't know why I did what I did," she said, touching at the tears.
"Too much Scotch, I think. Only I'm still a dancer and it's in my
blood. It isn't cheap burlesque, Mr. Caine. It's something deep inside
me and I can't help it."
"Nice trait," Caine said, "for a man's wife."
"I had that coming. I've got a lot coming, only the resentment for his
drinking, the way he's tried to own me, keeps coming out and I want to
hurt him. I know it isn't right, but it's what I do and I want to stop
doing it. He's worried, and it comes out with what he says and what he
does, and so I fight him. He thinks if he doesn't find this gem, he's
going to lose me."
"Isn't he?" Caine asked, his eyes thin.
"No," she said quietly. "I'm frightened of him and I feel alone with
him. But I won't leave him."
"Like I told you," Caine said, "I'm just a hired man. What my customers
think or do between themselves is none of my business."
"You're not that cold," she said, looking into his eyes.
"I'm that cold."
She shook her head stubbornly. "Be kind to me. You can. For just this
one moment, when I'm not alone or afraid, when there's just this one
moment before tomorrow--when it starts all over again."
Caine didn't answer, but he relaxed in his chair slightly and leaned
back.
She smiled at him and it was a warm simple smile with all the hardness
and sarcasm erased. "Would you have one drink with me? One small drink
to seal the night up, so maybe you won't remember me so badly, so maybe
you'll think I've got some heart and human feelings?"
Caine waited, watching her shiny eyes. "One drink," he said.
She smiled and stood up, returning to the side of the ship where
Fairchild had set up his portable bar. She poured two glasses, and
while Caine watched her, he noticed that in her straight, motionless
posture, the animal litheness had disappeared. She was very simple--and
naive-looking, and when she returned, he saw that the tears were still
wet on her face.
She handed him a glass, and she held her own in the air. "A trite
toast--here's to two people who met in the Venus night ... briefly."
"Two people," Caine repeated, lifting his own glass. The Scotch burned
down his throat.
She kneeled again and smiled at him. Caine noticed then that the music
was still beating into the night air, and that the black gown was still
very thin. He turned his glass up again, to hurry through the drink.
Even in her simplicity and tears he didn't trust himself.
The Scotch seemed to take hold of his blood and he could feel it racing
in his veins.
He lifted the glass a third time, and the hand that held it seemed
suddenly detached from his own movement. A singing began in his head
and then disappeared, and when he looked at her, the smiling lips were
redder and the shining teeth were whiter. The music pulsated in his
head, seeming to beat against his brain.
"What...?" he began, and his voice was thick. He shook his head and
looked at his glass. It fell out of his hand.
"A little witch's potion," she said, rising. "Something from the
Martian cauldron. Quick and oh, so effective."
He fought the feeling that caught hold of him. His brain seemed to
deaden until there was only the drums inside his head, and his senses
became alive and burning. He could see her before him, and she began to
sway back and forth, her hands moving in front of her face. He caught
hold of the chair arms to keep his own hands from reaching out.
He tried to cling to reason, but his hands wanted to escape. The flames
of the fire flickered somewhere in the distance, and in front of him
the black-covered body began to move in rippling shivers. The moving
pink hands rose in the air, and there was a shimmer of concealed
muscles, dancing, dancing.
He clung to the chair, gritting his teeth, but the drums pounded at his
senses, over and over, and the lips smiled and the white teeth shone
and the pink body moved in time with the drums.
"Not yet?" he heard her say, somewhere far away.
And the body turned slowly, convoluting in a shimmering dance of thin
blackness.
Caine lost his grip on the chair, and he was moving his hands. He heard
the laughter, high in the air, stinging his ears and he couldn't stop
himself. He was listening to the laughter when his fingers touched
skin, and there was only blackness after that.
* * * * *
_Minds examine. Judge. Decide. "Grith?" says a round voice. Golden bars
snap open. A black cat crouches. Green heads nod within their hoods.
The cat leaps, crouches again, and then begins to stalk. Lidless eyes
turn to the cold orb. Voices chant. "Grith?"_