Manhandling a woman just because she hasn't the strength of a male has
always seemed to be just about the worst crime on the books. All
right ... attacking a child is worse but you certainly forfeit all
right to Queensberry Rules consideration when you're called to account
for using your strength against anyone weaker than yourself, unless
he or she has done something vicious and there's a hell of a good
justification for it.
I no longer wanted to permanently demolish him, now that she'd broken
free. But I had no control over what happened. The deck of the Chart
Room is all smooth metal, and the polishing preparation that's used to
keep it bright makes it almost as skid-slippery as a skating rink, if
you happen to be thrown a little off-balance.
He was off-balance just enough to change his backward lurch from a
stagger to a swaying, spinning glide that sent him crashing against the
base of a robot giant.
Up to that instant the four robot giants had looked exactly alike. But
a robot in motion looks quite different from a robot at rest, with
its massive metal hands on its metal knees, and its gleaming central
section in an upright position. The crash was followed by a splintering
sound which continued for several seconds without stopping. There was
a whirring as well, and a blinding flash of light came from the metal
giant's conical head. Almost instantly the robot was in motion, and
the way it swayed as it raised its segmented right arm high into the
air so alarmed me that I shouted a warning to the man I'd just finished
trying to send to the sick bay for a stay of at least two weeks.
The jerky, erratic way the robot giant was swaying could only mean
that the crash had damaged its internal gadgetry, and it had gone
completely out of control. It was shaking and quivering all over and
even its ponderous central section seemed to bulge a little, as if from
hunger-bloat.
That, of course, was absurd. But it's natural enough to think of a
robot as human and take refuge in absurdity when you know that a
cybernetic brain, encased in a functional body, can do just as much
damage as a madman running amuck with a deadly weapon. Just as much ...
more ... when it's out of control.
You don't want to face up to it squarely, you shrink from it, because
some instinct tells you it would be dangerous to let the horror of
it come sweeping into your mind too fast. So you take refuge in
absurdity, you imagine things that are a little on the ludicrous side.
A hunger-bloat, a maniacal glare in photo-electric eyes.
But when you've done that, you have to stand and watch the horror take
place before your eyes and in the end you've gained nothing ... because
when anything as terrible as what I saw sears its way into your brain
the memory of it will remain with you until you die.
The robot giant's massive metal hand swept downward, descending on the
head and shoulders of the man who'd crashed into it. It hurled him to
the deck, and flattened him out with a hammer blow that crushed his
skull, broke his ribs, and tore a deep gash in his back. A red stain
spread over his ripped shirt. I shut my eyes, sickened. There was a
screaming behind me. I swung dully about and went to her and held her
head against my chest, stroking her hair, whispering soothing words
into her ear. I could do that without endangering the safety of the sky
ship, because the robot giant had ceased to move. With the descent of
its hand all of the whirrings had ceased and it remained in a bent-over
position, utterly rigid, its mace-like metal palm still resting on the
unstirring crewman's back.
I was quite sure that no jury on Earth would have held me criminally
responsible for his death. It had been brought about by an accident I
couldn't have foreseen. Every man has the right to defend himself when
he's under attack, and not just my own life had been in danger. There
was no doubt in my mind ... not the slightest.... His rage had been
homicidal and he would have killed me if I'd given him the chance.
Justifiable homicide. There could be no other verdict, if the insignia
the Board had given me hadn't conferred legal immunity when an
accidental death stemmed from my right to stay alive and I had been
forced to return to Earth and clear myself in court.
I felt no moral guilt, but still--I was badly shaken. I had been
instrumental in causing his death, however unintentionally, and it's
always better if a man can live out his life without experiencing the
deep sadness that goes with that kind of knowledge.
The only difference is--moral guilt never leaves you and grows worse
with the years. But there are so many tragic sadnesses in life that
they have a way of merging into one big, onrushing stream and when you
measure that stream against a brighter one, the joy-stream, the scales
seem to stay just about even, with the balance maybe just a little
heavier on the joyful side.
Right at the moment there was another big, onrushing stream running
parallel with the sadness. The sober-obligation stream. Or maybe
duty-stream would be a better name for it. We spend at least a third
of our lives immersed in it up to our necks and swimming against the
toughest kind of currents. Sometimes I think we could do without it
entirely.
What was it Baudelaire said about boredom? "But well you know that
dainty monster, thou, hypocrite reader, fellow man, my brother." You
could practically say the same thing about duty.
But the stream is there, and if you just stay on the bank watching
the other swimmers you won't really have the right to plunge into the
joy-stream with a clear conscience.
The first thing I had to do was get her out of the Chart Room before
she collapsed. She was close to hysteria and I didn't even want her
to look at the body again. I was careful to stand between her and the
robot, and when I guided her gently toward the door I kept my hand on
the back of her head and kept her face pressed to my chest.
It was more difficult than it would have looked on a cinema
screen--more awkward and less romantic, and that was the way I wanted
it to be, because nothing could have been further from my mind at that
moment than the romantic glow I'd felt when I had been sitting across a
table from her in a lakeside tavern on Earth, and hadn't fully realized
that Joan was still the only really important woman in my life.
Oh, all right. You can't have a head that beautiful nestling in the
middle of your chest without feeling a certain ... well, a quickening
of your pulse, at least. It can happen even in the presence of death,
when you've just been shaken to the depths in a ghastly way. Perhaps
because of that....
Sex and death. Don't be morbid, Ralphie boy. Don't turn the clock
back and let the old Freudian catch-alls of a century ago confuse and
mislead you. Half of all that has been made clearer because we know now
what Man was like five million years ago when he was a very predatory
ape.
Sure, sex and death are closely linked. Dawn man went hunting and slew
a cave bear and threw it down before his mate, all bloody, with pride
swelling in him and just the excitement of the hunt, the thrill and
danger of it, made him want to make love in just as exciting a way.
But sex and life are even more closely linked, and in life there are
loyalties to consider and one woman becomes more important to you than
all the rest and you don't need that kind of stimulation to enable you
to make love to her in the most exciting possible way.
The old stirring is still there, the death-sex linkage, and it can hit
you hard at times and you have to keep a tight grip on yourself to keep
from succumbing to it. But you can do it if you try.
Of course I was being unfair to her. The sex-death linkage had no
more relation to the glow I'd felt back in the lakeside tavern than
it did now to her as an individual. I'd have felt the same stirring
if I'd been guiding Joan out of the Chart Room with her head on my
breast--more of a stirring because Joan was the one woman in the world
for me.
What it really meant was that the woman with the hair piled up high on
her head filled me with a two-way sense of guilt. The life-sex linkage
was better than the death-sex linkage, and the one and only woman
feeling better than the promiscuous amorousness which any beautiful
woman can arouse in the male. And right at the moment she represented
both of the more primitive aspects of sex.
But the dice had just fallen that way. It wasn't her fault and now she
was close to hysteria and needed reassurance and all the comfort I
could give her.
As soon as we were out in the passageway I asked her to tell me who
she was. Her name. So much had happened between us that it seemed
unbelievable that I still didn't know that much about her.
"I thought I told you right after we left the spaceport," she said. "I
thought you knew. It's Helen ... Helen Barclay."
So ... the old wonder name, the magical name, the Topless Towers of
Illium name. How often it seemed to go with her kind of woman. How
could she have been Margaret or Janice or Barbara ... attractive as
those names were. Lilith perhaps ... yes. Or Eva ... because I've often
felt that Eve must have been a woman of glamor, red-headed and with
a temper a little on the fiery side, because how else could she have
come down to us as Earth's first legendary temptress? But otherwise ...
Helen, the glamor name that led the list.
Why was I letting my mind go off at such an absurd tangent, when right
ahead of me the stern-obligation stream I've mentioned was widening
out, filling with rapids, becoming a river which could have swallowed
up the sky ship, or wrecked it ... if I failed to take up a giant's
stance right in the middle of it. Wade in and thrust the waters aside,
Ralphie boy. It's your duty. Try to think of yourself as a giant.
What made it tough was ... I didn't feel at all like a giant. But what
had just happened in the Chart Room couldn't be ignored. A lot of
questions would have to be asked fast, and if the explanations sounded
like lies, if Helen Barclay refused to cooperate, some very drastic
action might have to be taken. I hoped she didn't have anything ugly
to conceal. Just the thought was hateful to me, because I believed
in her and trusted her. But the way I felt had nothing to do with an
obligation I had no right to sidestep for as short a distance as the
width of an electron-microscoped virus.
I was glad that I wouldn't have to do the questioning. Not straight
off, anyway--not until I knew much more than I did, and all of the big,
vital questions had been answered with candor and I could go right on
feeling the way I did about her with a clear conscience. I hoped to God
it would be with candor. If someone is dying and you can do nothing
to save him and what he's done or hasn't done is of no importance to
anyone but himself ... you don't ply him with questions. But what she'd
done or hadn't done could send the sky ship down into the gulfs in
flaming ruin, because all of the passengers are encased in a fragile
kind of bubble and the slightest pinprick could puncture it.
The pinprick, for instance, of an Earthside conspirator, traveling
along with the bubble out into space and awaiting just the right moment
to insert the tiny, darkly gleaming point of the pin under the skin of
the bubble.
And she wasn't dying, but alive--and could, if she had nothing to
conceal, have no trouble in convincing the commander of the sky ship
that any such fear was groundless.
I had to take her straight to the Commander. Otherwise I'd have to
take it up with someone of lesser authority and show him the insignia
and question her myself in private. I couldn't see any advantage to be
gained by that. It would leave the corpse in the Chart Room entirely
unexplained and the Commander would not take kindly to having anything
as disturbing as that left lying around in a loose-end way for him to
worry about.
It would mean, of course, that I would have to show him the insignia.
That was the bad part, the one thing I wanted most to avoid. But I
could see no effective way of avoiding it now, because he was, after
all, in command of the sky ship and directly responsible for its
safety. He had every right to be the first to question her, unless I
chose to supplant that right with what the insignia represented. To do
so would not have been wise for a dozen reasons, the chief one being
that when a man is in a firm position to exercise reasonably high
authority it's always a mistake to go over his head unless you're sure
you can make a better job of it than he could, despite his specialized
knowledge. I didn't think for a moment I could come anywhere near
equaling Commander Littlefield's competence in guarding the safety of a
Mars' rocket ... so to curtail his authority in a high-handed way would
have been worse than inexcusable.
But I would still have to show him the insignia ... or I would not be
permitted to sit in on the questioning.
We were at the end of the passageway now and just by making a sharp
left turn I could have taken her into the cabin section and introduced
her to Joan. Perhaps, out of compassion, I should have done that ...
let her relax in a lounge chair and look out at the cool, untroubled
stars, and regain a little more of her composure. Some of it was coming
back, she wasn't trembling quite so violently now, and women seem
to know better than men how to ease shock-engendered agitation ...
especially when it's another woman they have to soothe and sympathize
with. I could trust Joan to handle it like an expert. "Of course, you
poor darling. I know just how you feel. Ralph will know what to do.
Don't think about it. Just stay right here with us until Ralph comes
back."
It would have been the kind thing to do, all right and for an instant I
hesitated and almost committed an act of madness.
When you've something to conceal, it's much easier to avoid a
thoughtless admission, a damaging slip of the tongue, when you've had
time to collect your thoughts and decide in advance exactly how much
of the truth it's wise to reveal. She was too agitated now to guard
against slips and our chances of getting at the truth would be much
better. And like the short-on-brains, over-chivalrous lug I could be on
rare occasions--I hoped they were rare--I'd almost torn it.
8
Unlike Jonathan Trilling, Commander Littlefield was the kind of man
who was what he was in an uncomplicated way. You didn't have to try to
analyze why he impressed you as he did, because it was all there on
display, right out in the open. He was big and robust looking, with
a granite-firm jaw and the kind of features that take a long time to
develop the lines of character that are etched into them, because a
man who has his emotions well under control in his youth will pass
into middle-age before you can tell from his expression just how much
maturity and strength resides in him.
There are bland-faced lads who seem to have no lines of character at
all in their countenances up to about the age of twenty-eight. But when
you hear them talk you change your mind very quickly about them, and
when they are forty-five the lines are all there, deeply-etched, and
the mystery is explained. Commander Littlefield was that kind of man.
We had several very serious things to discuss, because five hours had
passed since I'd sat facing him in the same chair and Helen Barclay
had sat in another chair at right angles to a third chair, which he
had drawn out from his desk and occupied for a full hour without a
coffee break, his eyes searching her face as she talked. His stare
was a kind of interrogation in itself, and it must have been hard for
her to endure. I think it would have angered me a little, if I hadn't
suspected what was behind it.
Her story stood up very well and had the ring of truth and her eyes
never wavered. But he was hoping they would, then he could detect in
her eyes a flicker of hesitation, of evasiveness, which would give her
away.
But he hadn't. Her story had stood up almost _too_ well ... because the
truth always has a few flaws and inconsistencies in it. Memory is never
a perfect enough mirror to permit anyone to avoid contradictions when
they are doing their best to tell nothing but the truth, even under
oath.
But she hadn't seemed to be lying, and in the end I think she convinced
him completely, because toward the end he stopped looking at her as if
every word she said was impressing him unfavorably.
And now she was in the sick bay, recovering from shock, and I was back
again for another talk with the Commander.
He began by saying: "I don't know just how I should address you, Mr.
Graham--sir. That silver hawk gives you a Colonization Board clearance
that's a little on the special side ... you'll have to admit. The
first man who wore it got a little angry when anyone addressed him as
'General' because that's a strictly military title, and military titles
haven't been in common use for forty years. There's not supposed to be
any army anymore--on Earth or on Mars. But I've always sort of liked
'General' and that insignia is practically the equivalent of five
stars."
"I'm afraid I don't like 'General' at all," I said. "The title is ...
Ralph."
"Well ... suit yourself. _Ralph._ I'm a simple soldier at heart, I
suppose--always will be, even though I hold the rank of Commander.
You're young enough to be my son, so that informal crap doesn't go too
much against the grain, if you're that serious about it."
"I'm serious about it," I said. "And you're not old enough to be my
father. An older brother, perhaps. You can't stretch it any further
than that."
"What do you mean I can't? I'm an old man of forty-eight. Hair
thinning, going a little to fat. My God, a Wendel Atomics or Endicott
Fuel top executive couldn't look any older, and they've got a head
start on the rest of us. They start burning out at thirty-five."
"There's not an ounce of fat on you, as far as I can see," I assured
him.
"That's going to handicap you on Mars, Ralph. Eyesight not what it
should be in a five-star general. Look again, look closer. I've got
a pot belly you'd notice, all right, if I didn't exercise to keep it
down."
I'd skipped over his reference to Wendel Atomics and Endicott, maybe
subconsciously, but it must have registered belatedly in a very
pronounced way, because something in my expression turned him dead
serious in an instant. No man ever speaks with complete levity about
his age, but what there was of ironic amusement in his gray eyes
vanished and his lips tightened.
"Well ... suppose we go over what we've got," he said. "I'll be
grateful for any ideas, any suggestions you may care to make. I've
found out something that's going to give you a jolt. It may even rock
you back on your heels, depending on how easily you can be rocked. But
it will keep ... until we've discussed what she told us. What do you
think of her story?"
"I believe it," I said. I didn't think it was necessary to elaborate.
"Well ... I'm afraid I do too, more's the pity. If I thought she was
lying I'd have more of a lever to pry what we don't know loose."
There was a thin sheet of paper covered with very fine handwriting on
his desk. He picked it up and ran his eyes over it.
"I sort of summarized what she told us," he said. "But there's no sense
in your reading this. I can summarize it even more briefly by skipping
two-thirds of what I have here."
"You might as well," I told him. "She talked and we listened
for at least twenty minutes. Then we both questioned her. In a
question-and-answer session like that the vital points are apt to get a
little blurred."
"Well, we know she did something no one has ever done before--stowed
away on a Mars' ship. I'd have said it couldn't be done ... and so
would you, I'm sure, because you're as familiar with the inspection
routine as I am. You passed through it. No one could possibly get
inside a Mars' rocket without a Board clearance and a personal,
ten-point identification check every step of the way. In other words,
you can't just ascend the launching pad, be whisked up to the passenger
section and walk right in. There's only one way you can get inside
without passing the four inspection points, with machines X-raying you
from head to toe."
"I know," I said. "It was a damn clever stunt."
"It was more than a stunt. It was an achievement on the creative genius
level. It took planning and foresight. And ... luck. A great deal of
luck. But that doesn't detract from the brilliance of it. She found out
that we were installing a new cybernetic robot, to replace one that had
developed electronic fatigue and had to be removed for repairs and a
long rest. And she knew that we wouldn't X-ray a robot or subject it to
any of the usual tests. It would just be wheeled right in."
Littlefield paused an instant, then went on. "She knew there was plenty
of room inside a cybernetic robot that large, between the tiers of
memory banks and all the other gadgetry, for the carrying out of what
she had in mind--a stowaway gamble that was almost sure to succeed. She
provided for her comfort during the long trip in half-dozen ingenious
ways, as we know, and made sure that the food concentrates she took
along were high in essential proteins.
"She knew, of course, that she couldn't stay inside the robot without
coming out at all. She'd have to emerge occasionally, if only to ease
the psychological strain. But she used good judgment and only emerged
when she was absolutely sure that it would be safe."
"But once she didn't," I said.
"Once she didn't. Once she felt she couldn't stand the tensions that
were building up in her any longer and she took a chance and came out
when she wasn't sure the Chart Room would be deserted. You told me
you thought it was never left unguarded. Well ... that isn't strictly
true. There's a built-in security alert system in all of the robots and
we can risk leaving it unguarded for a few minutes, when every member
of the crew is needed elsewhere, to take care of some particularly
troublesome space headache. That's what we call the small and seldom
very serious emergencies which are always arising in a sky ship this
large."
"But if she heard someone moving about ... she must have been crazy to
emerge," I said.
"That's just it. She wasn't sure she heard anyone. In fact, she was
almost sure it would be safe to emerge. She'd learned to trust her
instincts, and the silence was almost unbroken. Just once she thought
she heard a slight sound, but she put it down to the tension that was
building up in her. She felt she _had_ to emerge."
"And he caught her," I said, nodding. "And was more enraged than he
had any right to be. His fury was maniacal. If you'd seen the look on
his face and the way he was twisting her wrist you'd have been sure as
I was that he was quite capable of killing her. And that's the most
puzzling part of it. We can't explain it--and neither can she. That's
the one part of her story I was afraid you wouldn't believe."
"I didn't for a moment," Littlefield said. "I was sure she was
lying ... until the look of bewilderment in her eyes convinced me she
was telling the truth."
"You didn't want to talk about him until you'd examined the body," I
said. "I guess I got a little angry when you were so damned insistent
on that point. I was just about to--well, use that silver bird to make
you change your mind. That used to be called 'pulling rank' on someone
you respect and who has every right to tell you off. Since you like to
play soldier--and I mean that in a complimentary way--you're free to go
ahead and tell me off now, if you want to."
"Hell no. You had every right to press me. I just felt a little guilty
and ashamed, I guess--to think that I'd let a crewman come aboard this
sky ship who had managed in some way to deceive the Board. I was pretty
sure, even then, that his clearance papers must have been forged, but
I wanted a chance to examine the body before I committed myself, one
way or the other."
"I guess I'd have done the same," I said
"Yes.... Well, I'd have gone right down to the Chart Room and examined
the body before I listened to what she had to say ... if you hadn't
given me some very sound advice. If we questioned her while she was in
a keyed up state we'd have a better chance of getting at the truth."
I'd almost tripped over that one myself, so I didn't rate the
compliment he was paying me. But it was too minor to make me feel
conscience-bound to disillusion him.
"You saw me click the officer-section communicator on and talk into
it for a minute or two," he went on. "I ordered a double guard posted
in the Chart Room, but I told them not to touch the body until I had
a chance to get down there myself. It's just as well I did, because
something was found on the body I wouldn't have wanted anyone else to
see."
He was smiling a little and I wondered why, until he exploded the
bombshell--the thing he'd said would rock me back on my heels.