"But--it--" She glanced from the diamond to me, her mouth partially
open. "Fred, what kind of monstrous gag is this? God, I thought I'd seen
everything, growing up in this town. Fred--"
"I'd like to sell it," I said. "You, Jean, are my only friend in this
town. Could you help me arrange for its sale?"
She was looking at me with wonder now, studying me. "Hot?" she asked.
"Hot--?"
"Stolen--you know what I mean."
"Stolen? Jean, you didn't mean to accuse me of that."
Skepticism was ugly on her lovely face. "Fred, what's your angle? You
step out of the darkness like some man from Mars in a strange suit, with
no money, but a diamond that must be worth--"
"We'll learn what it's worth," I said. "Mars isn't inhabited, Jean.
Don't you trust me? Have I done anything to cause you to distrust me?"
"Nothing," she said.
"Do you distrust all men, Jean?"
"No. Just the ones I've met. Oh, baby, and I thought you were a farmer."
She was crushing out her cigarette. "You haven't a place to stay, but
I've got a guest house, and you'll stay there, tonight. You aren't
stepping back into the darkness, tonight, Fred Werig. You, I want to
know about."
The words held a threat, but not her meaning, I was sure. And what
better way to orient myself than in the home of a friend?
* * * * *
That was some home she had. Massive, in an architecture I'd assumed was
confined to the south-eastern United States. Two-story place, with huge,
two-story pillars and a house-wide front porch, the great lawn studded
with giant trees.
And she lived there alone, excepting for the servants. She was no
huddler, and I told her that.
"Dad owned a lot of property in this town," she said. "He was a great
believer in the future of this town."
At the time I didn't understand what that had to do with her lack of
huddling.
The guest house was small, but very comfortable, a place of three
bedrooms and two baths and a square living room with a natural stone
fireplace.
I had my first night of sleep on this planet, and slept very well. I
woke to a cloudy morning, and the sound of someone knocking on the front
door.
It was a servant, and she said, "Miss Decker sent me to inform you that
breakfast will be ready any time you want it, sir. We are eating inside,
this morning, because of the cold."
"I'll be there, soon, thank you," I said, and she went away.
Showering, I was thinking of Akers for some reason and his directed
theory and what was that other theory he'd had? Oh, yes, the twin
planets. Senile, he was, by that time and not much listened to, but a
mind like that? And who had he been associated with at that time? It was
before my birth, but I'd read about it, long ago. The Visitor, Akers had
called this man. The Earth man who had come to Venus. And what had his
name been?
Beer--? Beers--? No, but like that--and it came.
Ambrose Bierce.
Jean wore a light green robe, for breakfast, and it was difficult for me
to take my eyes away from her.
"I'm not usually this informal at mixed breakfasts," she told me,
smiling, "but I thought it might warm up enough for a swim a little
later."
She threw the robe aside, and I saw she was wearing a scanty garment
beneath it. Evidently the huddlers didn't swim naked, and I wondered at
a moral code that sanctioned drinking alcohol but was ashamed of the
human body.
I was glad the house had been cold when I answered the maid's summons,
for I had worn a robe I'd found there.
Fruit juice and wheat cakes and sausage and toast and jelly and eggs and
milk. We ate in a small room, off a larger dining room, a small room
whose walls were glass on two sides.
"It's too old a house to modernize completely," Jean told me. "I grew up
in this house."
"You don't--work, Jean?"
"No. Should I?"
"Work or study. Life must be very dull if you don't do one of those."
"You might have a point there," she said. "I tried everything from the
movies to sculpture. I wasn't very good at anything. What do you do,
Fred?"
"I'm a perpetual guest," I said lightly. "Do you read much, Jean?"
"Too much, though nothing very heavy, I grant you."
"Have you ever read about a man named Ambrose Bierce?"
"I've read everything he ever wrote. Why did you ask that, Fred?"
"I--heard about him. I wondered who he was."
"Where did you hear about him, Fred? In Mexico?"
"No. I don't remember where I heard about him."
"He disappeared," she said quietly, "some time right before the first
world war. I've forgotten the exact year. I think it was 1914."
Before the war, before the "first" war.... And I thought of Jars' wife,
who had come to us just before this last planetary war--the "second"
world war. And what was his pet name for her? Guest, he called her, and
joked about her coming from another world. But didn't Jars defend the
discredited late-in-life theories of Akers? I tried to remember the name
of Jars' wife, and then it came.