The dwelling had an abandoned look. There were drawn blinds on all of
the windows, and the flower beds running parallel with the front lawn
were heavily overrun with weeds. Tall asters drooped on wilted stalks
and most of the plants of brilliant bloom had withered and turned sere.
Teleman and Alicia approached with caution, however, keeping their
voices lowered and treading softly until they were standing directly
under the dwelling's projecting eaves.
The metal entrance panel was massive and overgrown with clinging vines.
When Teleman depressed the switch to the right of it a faint, humming
sound arose.
They stood in the shadows that clustered thickly at the base of the
dwelling's two-story facade until the panel glided completely open,
and the main-floor interior came into view. From the entranceway they
could see almost the whole of a large, square room with two windows,
furnished simply but tastefully with several chairs of natural wood, a
center table and plants in copper urns.
Teleman tapped Alicia lightly on the arm. "I'll go first," he said.
"We'll speak in whispers. We've got to move cautiously until we're
absolutely sure that the place is as deserted as it looks."
"I'm not too worried," Alicia said. "Only an ordinary citizen would
live in a dwelling as modest as this."
"Ordinary or not, he could be armed and dangerous," Teleman pointed
out. "Particularly if we're taken by surprise."
Alicia nodded. "You're right, of course. Go ahead, darling. What I
really meant was, I'm not worried because we're together. If we run
into trouble we'll know how to deal with it."
The light which streamed into the room from the two windows dappled the
floor in patches, and they took care to stay close to the right-hand
wall and well out of the light as they moved from the entranceway to
the base of an ascending stairway. The stairway, like the chairs and
table, was of natural wood and each of its ten or twelve steps was
covered with a thick coating of dust.
Teleman started and grew instantly alert, his eyes narrowing as he
stared down intently at the first four steps. There were markings in
the dust, faint but unmistakable. Someone had ascended the stairs quite
recently, leaving elongated impressions which were completely free of
dust. _And that someone had not come down!_
Teleman drew in his breath sharply. That the elongated impressions had
been made by the soles of boots he could not doubt. Ascending boots,
for the toes pointed forward and there were no opposite impressions
with the toes pointing toward him. Not all of the impressions were
clear but there was faint corrugations in the dust even on the one step
where, at first glance, he had noticed only the dust.
"What is it?" Alicia whispered. "What are you staring at?"
"There's someone upstairs," he replied, keeping his voice lowered
but gripping her wrist tightly to make sure that she would remain
completely still. "Footprints in the dust. See them? Don't move, even
slightly. I'm going up a few steps, but I'll be very careful."
She nodded, her fingers creeping over his hand and tightening for an
instant. "Yes, be careful. If the stairs should creak--"
"They won't. Stay right where you are and don't worry."
Teleman ascended cautiously, testing each step before he passed to the
next by resting his weight upon it guardedly, his ears alert for the
slightest sound. The wood did not creak and he reached the top step in
complete silence.
The stairs ended in a circular corridor bisected by a narrow beam of
sunlight which filtered down from a small, diamond-shaped window high
in the wall. The footsteps did not end at the top of the stairs, but
continued on down the corridor to vanish in total darkness.
Teleman had intended merely to check each of the dust-covered steps to
make sure that all of the footprints pointed in one direction. But now,
having satisfied himself in that respect, he abandoned all caution.
Returning down the stairs only to ascend again after a moment or two
of calm thought would be wasting precious moments. Better, he told
himself, to go on immediately and put an end to all uncertainty. He was
quite sure that Alicia would understand and not attempt to follow him.
He glanced quickly back down the stairs, saw her slender form crouching
in the shadows and waved to her. Without changing her position she
returned the gesture, her eyes shining in the half-light.
Reassured, he turned and advanced across the circular corridor, taking
care to move stealthily. The corridor terminated in a hallway so narrow
that his shoulders grazed both sides of it when his tread became
slightly hesitant and he shifted his equilibrium in the darkness.
The hallway was as black as pitch. With no glimmer of light to guide
him he continued on, straining his ears as he traversed the narrow
passageway and the upstairs room which he was almost sure he would find
at the end of it.
Then, quite suddenly, he stopped trying to visualize the room
arrangement on the second floor of the dwelling. It ceased to matter,
ceased to seem important. He was only aware of the voices.
The voices came drifting toward him out of the darkness, halting his
cautious step-by-step advance, causing him to stand utterly motionless,
with every nerve alert.
A man's voice and a woman's voice. He heard the woman's voice first,
vibrant with emotion, both languid and intense, as if, in some sudden
awakening after a dream of rapture, there was a need for words to make
happiness and fulfillment as complete as possible.
"We came back because we had to, my dearest one, my beloved," the woman
was murmuring. "And you carried me upstairs, just as you did on our
bridal night. It all seems so unbelievable even now. We dared to be
recklessly romantic, true lovers in the old, half-forgotten way--we
dared to be true to ourselves. We had the courage, we dared."
"I know," the man whispered, his voice tender and exultant. "And when
we refused to pass our first night together in a mating center. We
soared to heights that had to be scaled again. We are too desperately,
madly in love to accept a lesser glory. We had to be alone together in
this simple, beautiful cottage in the woods. Only here can we pluck
the uttermost rose of love, surrender ourselves one to the other in
a secret place of our own choosing. Only here can we know how the
poet felt when he wrote: 'Love is like a shining river, its banks
flower-bright, with secret shrines and bowers which lovers alone may
enter and become imperishably entwined. Love is a flowing, a radiance
in the night.'"
"I'm glad that we came back last night," the woman murmured. "If we
had waited we might have lost a little of our courage and any loss
might have made us hesitate to defy the Monitors and risk everlasting
disgrace. In a way, I feel like a woman who is not love-privileged, who
has been denied the fulfillment of a woman's greatest need."
"A man's greatest need too, my darling," came in quick reply. "Remember
that, always. No man can live without love and be creative in the
highest sense. He cannot be bold and far-seeing and dare the stars. He
needs the embrace of a woman, the undying love of a woman, a mutual
sharing in all of love's secret delights or he will shrivel in his
inmost being. He will become a mockery and a sham--a walking sepulchre
filled with dry bones that rattle in every passing gust. He will become
a tyrant and fool, venting his inner frustration and his rage on those
weaker than himself--the helpless, the defenseless, the socially
maladjusted who in many ways are often superior to himself."
The voices fell silent. But there were sounds in the darkness, a
stirring, a moving about and to Teleman, still standing motionless, it
was easy to imagine what was taking place in the room at the end of the
hallway.
He did not wish to intrude. He would have struck down and perhaps
attempted to kill anyone intruding on Alicia and himself, had the
situation been reversed.
But now the need for immediate, drastic action forced him to thrust all
such considerations aside. The man and woman in the room just beyond
were sex-privileged and that fact alone had suggested a daring course
of action which he had no right, if only for Alicia's sake, to postpone.
It was a scheme so audacious that the first move had to succeed and the
second and the third. Each would be charged with danger, and the stakes
would be survival or almost certain death.
The man making love in the room at the end of the hallway was for the
moment defenseless, unaware that an intruder had entered his home and
was listening to his every spoken word. If there was a weapon in the
dwelling it was probably not within his reach. He would have to leap
out of bed and cross the room to get his hands on it. It might even be
in the room downstairs.
He appeared to be the kind of man Teleman would have been proud to
number among his friends. The woman too was exceptional; warm-hearted
and courageous. But Teleman could not risk appealing to them directly.
Their sympathy and understanding might bridge all gulfs and lead to a
lasting friendship. But he would still have to ask too much of them and
expose them to too much danger. They would have to agree voluntarily to
a plan which would place their own lives in jeopardy.
He had no right to force such a choice upon them, no right to make
an appeal which their own generous natures might prevent them from
refusing. Unless they were found in the dwelling bound and completely
helpless the Monitors would refuse to believe that they had not taken
part in a criminal conspiracy to aid two fugitive lawbreakers.
They might still have difficulty in explaining their presence in the
dwelling, for the love-privileged were required by law to spend their
nights in the mating centers. But recreational leaves were sometimes
granted and the man and the woman were highly intelligent, and would
know how to speak with eloquence in their own defense. Their lapse was
not a serious one, and Teleman was quite sure that they would know how
to turn aside the wrath of the Monitors. It took great courage to do
what they had done. But they would not be subject to the death penalty,
and would escape with no more than a stern admonition.
To mar the happiness of a man and woman so desperately in love even
for a day and a night made Teleman sick at heart. But he had no choice.
All of the Monitors' rage would be directed against Alicia and himself
and he could not let Alicia die....
He moved cautiously forward, dreading what he must do, and was not
aware that he had reached the door of the room until he saw the white
sheets of a bed gleaming faintly in the darkness.
He stood for a moment in the doorway, unseen, unheard, waging an inner
struggle with himself. Should he make some slight sound to warn them,
risk that much before he advanced upon the bed to make his presence
known in an unmistakable way?
The man would have to be ordered from the bed and threatened with the
hand-gun which Teleman had taken from the para-guard. Teleman hoped
that he would not have to use the gun as he had used it against the
guard to exact instant compliance from the man. But he was prepared for
any contingency, no matter how desperate.