"Your head does not ache."
"You are right, my head does not ache."
She slipped out of the panties and stood naked. The android regarded
her. "You are different."
"Of course. I am a woman."
"I want to make love." As Rhoda stood motionless, helpless, he spoke
very positively. "You make love on the bed. We will go into the bedroom
..."
Later, she was never able to recall any details of that next half-hour.
In defense of her own sanity, she was able to block the incident from
her mind. But as she lay naked on the bed, looking up at the man she
knew as John Dennis, she thought of her mind as being in two sections.
One section, the part of her consciousness that clung to reality, kept
saying, _I want to cry. If I could cry, everything would be all right.
Why can't I cry?_
The other part was a pool of quivering excitement. She lay motionless,
watching John Dennis undress, garment by garment, until he, too, was
naked.
His body was not perfect, yet it had an individual perfection of its own
in Rhoda's eyes. The skin was smooth and white, the legs and hips firm
and masculine. The chest was broad and Rhoda wanted to put her hands on
it and feel John Dennis' hands on her own body.
He stood looking at her, a little like a child, she thought tenderly; a
child waiting to be told what to do. She did not account this as
strange--only as a shyness in him. She held out her arms.
He lowered himself onto the bed beside her. She put her arms around him
and pressed her lips to his. She waited. Nothing happened.
He was neither cold nor passionate. He was neither hostile nor friendly.
He was nothing.
"You wanted to make love," Rhoda whispered. "Here I am. Take me. Take
me."
Instead, he disengaged himself, raised himself up on his elbows and
looked down at her. "You are quite different."
She did not know whether to be complimented or offended. "I'm about the
same as every other woman."
"You are different than I am."
"Of course I'm different." Was he joking? He didn't seem to be. He was
deadly serious as he began examining her breasts.
_This is mad. This is insane. Why can't I cry?_
But the other part of her mind quivered with her body as John Dennis
went over it, inch by inch. He appeared to be trying to memorize it. She
moved and turned as his hands directed, a new kind of fire rising within
her. She waited. He touched her and waited for a response. There was
none; nor any feeling within her at that moment except the strange fire
inside and the ache of her taut groin tendons.
John Dennis touched her again and noted the sudden jerk and quiver of
her response. He became grotesquely, academically interested. He touched
the same nerve surface again and studied her face for the response.
Her eyes were closed and her lower lip was gripped in her teeth. "No,"
she gasped. "Not that way. Not that way--please."
She could have been pleading with a brick wall. John Dennis
continued--her natural reactions interested him. He frowned and seemed
puzzled by the excitement he generated within her.
Then she cried out and rolled away from him and lay sobbing, her face
buried in the pillow. But they were dry sobs; strange, tense sounds
filling a questionable and dubious ecstasy.
"You are cruel," she whimpered.
"Cruel?"
"You make love so brutally."
He considered this and then got off the bed. "I do not like making
love."
He began putting on his clothes. She watched him, completely defeated.
"Where do you come from?" she demanded. "Who are you? Why did you want
to know about the man with the broken leg?"
He turned from putting on his shirt and stood motionless, looking down
into her eyes and after a moment or two it did not matter to Rhoda
again. It mattered no more than it had in the beginning. The strange
fire had not been quenched by what had occurred. It was still there, in
her mind more than in her body, but finding its boundaries was not
important either.
"Are you going?"
"Yes."
"Will you come back?"
"I will come back. I want you to find out from Frank Corson what
happened to the androids."
"He doesn't know."
"Have him find out for you."
"I can't do that."
"Then I will not come back."
Somehow, in the part of Rhoda Kane's mind that was beyond her control,
the thought that John Dennis might not return took on the proportions of
a disaster. Her feeling was akin to panic as she said, "I will make him
find out."
"Then I will come back."
"Please. I will wait for you."
* * * * *
Les King answered the knock on the door and broke into a smile. "Well,
talk about luck! I've been looking all over hell for you. Come in. Come
in."
The tenth android was already in. He walked across the room and turned
to look back at Les King with the outside light behind him.
King returned the gaze and wondered if he was afraid. It was an odd
thing to wonder about. A man should know his own emotions. But King
could not quite analyze the ones that struck him at that moment. For one
thing, he'd discounted most of what Taber had said. There was something
going on here, true--something big. When the government could cover up a
murder in Greenwich Village, there had to be a big score at stake. And
there _had_ been a murder--but no cops, no police cars, nothing. Only a
couple of guys in an unmarked truck walking out with what could have
been a rolled-up carpet. They'd swiped _his_ pictures and told him to
keep his mouth shut.
This last was what made Les King mad. He'd found the story. It was his
by every right. But when they were ready to break it they'd do it
through some privileged Washington newspaperman who'd get it on a silver
platter. The hell with that stuff. It would take more than a shadowy
character like Brent Taber to scare him off.
He looked at the man in the blue suit and said, "You've been lucky.
They're after you."
"Who is _they_?"
"Taber. The government crowd. The police, too, maybe. You killed that
guy in the Village, didn't you?" Les King had decided a bold approach
was the best way. But he was no fool. He kept his hand on the doorknob
and watched the man carefully. "By the way, you haven't told me your
name."
"John Dennis."
"You look like a man named Sam Baker. He disappeared about ten years
ago--from a little town upstate."
"I am John Dennis."
King shrugged. "Okay, you're John Dennis. All I want to do is stay on
top of this thing and have the inside track when it breaks."
"Brent Taber told you to forget about it."
King did not like the odd feeling of helplessness that seemed to have a
grip on him. He was not alarmed, though. Over and above this was a
sense of excitement. There was money here--he knew damned well there was
money here.
"You want money, don't you?"
The question startled King. Could the guy read his mind? "Who the hell
doesn't?" he retorted defensively. "If you're heeled you've got it
made."
Somehow King felt that the pressure, the odd excitement, lessened in
intensity. His nerves, he conceded, were sure playing tricks.
"There are some things I want. I will tell you where they are. I will
give you money for them."
An espionage approach? King wondered. In a way, he hoped it was. He
could always get clear. When the time was right, when he had the story
locked, he'd go to the FBI with it. He had a quick vision of a spread in
_Life_, a title: "I Broke the Russian Spy Ring." His own by-line.
"That sounds touchy," he said.
"I will tell you where to go and what to do."
"I'll have to know more than that."
"I will tell you what to do."
John Dennis left without saying good-bye.
Les King stared at the inner side of the closed door. "Jesus!" he
muttered.
But the excitement was creeping back.
8
Brent Taber stood in front of the desk of Authority and said, "Mr.
Porter, I don't think you people realize the gravity of this situation."