The explosion came abruptly, shaking the entire room, hurling Teleman
to his knees and sending the man and the woman staggering backwards.
It did not come from within the room, but from somewhere in the forest
outside the house. But close, close ... Teleman could feel its nearness
in his bones, the shock waves and the concussion, as the thunder of
it roared in his ears, half-deafening him, and a bright burst of
accompanying flame danced and flicked on the vibrating panes of the
window.
For an instant the panes continued to vibrate and then, abruptly, the
glass was shattered and fell in tinkling fragments to the floor. But
one of the spinning fragments was hurled with such violence from the
window's upper frame that it did not drop to the floor. With the speed
and flashing brightness of a tiny, keen-bladed spear, thrown with a
deadly accuracy of aim, it went flying through the air to bury itself
in the woman's chest, just above the heart.
The woman moaned and raised her hand to the soft flesh of her bosom,
then let it fall limply to her side again. The sliver of glass had
pierced deeply, but there was only a tiny dot of crimson to mark that
mortal wounding and mar the whiteness of her skin. Her eyes, wide with
shock and pain, remained unfocused for an instant, then sought the face
of her lover. Realization seemed to come to her slowly, tormentingly,
as if it carried with it a burden, to one so deeply in love, that could
not be accepted at once and must not be too quickly shared.
It was not her own pain which seemed to overwhelm her, but the grief
and agony which would come to her lover when she was no longer at his
side. There was love and compassion and overwhelming tenderness in her
eyes as she swayed, reached out with one hand to steady herself against
the wall at her back, and then sank without a murmur to the floor.
The man cried out and threw himself down beside her, taking her into
his arms and holding her tightly, whispering to her words of love and
pleading with her to tell him how grievously she had been hurt, how
deep the wound.
"Darling," she whispered, her fingers moving lightly over his face, her
lips white and trembling. "Darling, I--"
She went limp so suddenly that the man seemed unaware that he was no
longer holding a living woman in his arms. He continued to whisper to
her pleadingly, and even the glaze which had overspread her pupils
could not make him accept the tragic and terrible finality of his loss.
Only after a long moment did he cover his eyes with his hands and begin
to sob.
The echoes of the explosion had died away completely and the room was
silent again when Teleman heard footsteps ascending the stairs and
moving swiftly toward the room along the upstairs hallway. The relief
which he experienced was sudden and overwhelming, but it did not keep
him from crossing the room and laying a firm hand on the sobbing man's
shoulder.
"There is nothing I can say," he whispered, his voice tremulous with
emotion. "Nothing to ease your pain. She was your whole life and when
a man's life is at an end ... it will not be forever, but that, too,
mocks grief at such a moment. There is nothing that a stranger can say
that will be to you more than the words of a stranger. Even someone
very close to you, a father or a brother, could not ease your grief
in any way. Just know that you have befriended a man and a woman who
needed help desperately, a man and a woman who will never cease to be
grateful to you. In all this world, I will never have a better friend,
or meet a man I would be prouder to claim as a friend. You are no
longer a stranger to me."
The man said in a choked voice, "I can feel nothing now except a
terrible sense of emptiness, of loss ... the dark gulf that separates
me from my beloved. Can it ever be crossed, do you think? Is there any
hope at all?"
"I do not know," Teleman said. "It is something that every man must
find out for himself. I have no right to speak with assurance, for I am
as human as you are and as fallible. I possess no wisdom that you do
not possess and false confidence is no comfort at all."
"I am grateful for your honesty," the man said. "It _has_ helped me a
little. Go now, quickly. I would like to be alone with her. Take the
garments and the insignia and go. We will have no further need of them.
Fight. Fight for your love as I would have fought for mine, for if you
lose her you will have nothing. You will be as despairing and empty as
I am. I will always think of you as a friend."
When Teleman turned he saw Alicia standing by the window, her face
drained of all color, her eyes on the dead woman and the man who was
cradling her in his arms. The man had begun to sob again.
"The explosion!" she whispered, her voice barely audible. "Did
it--kill her? I thought it was outside the house. It shook the stairs
and I was afraid for you, terribly afraid. I wasn't sure I could climb
the stairs. I had no strength at all for a moment--"
"Are you all right now?" Teleman asked, his voice harsh with concern.
"Yes, I am all right. But that woman--"
"She was killed by a flying splinter of glass. The dwelling is probably
completely surrounded by para-guards. They must have picked up our
trail again and are dropping bombs near the house, perhaps to frighten
us and force us to leave. They must want to take us alive or they
would have bombed the dwelling itself. They would have no trouble
pin-pointing it as a target for demolition bombing.
"Then we'd better stay here as long as we can. You have a hand-gun and
you could pick them off as they come through the door from the top of
the stairs."
"No, that would only delay our capture by a few minutes. They'll drop
fifty guards, if necessary. We'll have to do what they expect us to do,
risk capture by trying to get past them in the open. They're probably
under orders not to blast us down, unless we give them no alternative.
And every circle of armed guards has to be widespread. There'll be some
unguarded, foliage-choked pathways leading deep into the forest on the
far side of the clearing, pathways as black as pitch. If we can just
get to one--"
"But can we?" Alicia cut in. "Suppose they've stationed guards in
a tight circle a few yards from the dwelling, with only a few feet
between them. Every circle _doesn't_ have to be widespread, if it's
near enough."
"If there was a circle of guards directly outside they would never have
dropped a bomb so close to the dwelling," Teleman said, impatiently.
"Darling, we're wasting precious seconds. Take off your clothes.
Quickly, strip yourself naked."
Alicia's eyes widened in shocked dismay and she stared at him
wordlessly, as if she feared that he had suddenly become bereft of his
senses.
"It's another string to our bow," he said, quickly. "We're disguising
ourselves as a sex-privileged man and woman. The garments are here, and
the insignia."
"The garments? You mean--"
For answer Teleman went to a built-in wall cabinet on the opposite side
of the window, jerked it open and removed all of its contents: two
knee-length tunics of pale blue fabric, two identification disks with
corrugated surface markings, and two shining silver insignia, bearing
the emblem of the sex-privileged, a nude man and woman locked in an
embrace that made them seem almost to blend into a single reclining
figure.
"These garments are a gift to us," he said. "Surrendered freely and
with nothing asked in return by a man who has become, in just these few
moments, a friend I shall never forget. When the gift was made he did
not know that the garments would mock his grief and be of no further
use to him. Let me never be cynical, and doubt human nature, darling,
its capacity for generosity and unfaltering courage in moments of
shared danger."
Teleman explained to her swiftly how the garments would be used, and
why the mating center plan had a better chance of success than any of
the other plans he had thought of as second-choice possibilities.
She was quick to agree and was removing her garments before the second
blast came. The room shook again, but this time there was no glass to
splinter and it seemed less loud than the first explosion. A dropped
bomb falling into a pond and detonating under water perhaps, or a small
bomb hurled by hand. Teleman had no intention of letting it unnerve him
and he gestured reassuringly as Alicia paused to stare at him with
fear in her eyes, a tangle of dropped garments at her feet and her nude
body bathed in light from the window--a light so dazzling it made her
blink furiously--she had the white-limbed grace of a statue carved in
stone.
She was naked for a moment, for Teleman tossed her one of the two
garments he had taken from the cabinet, and she caught it deftly, a
smile appearing for an instant on her lips, and put it on, loosening
the belt at the waist a little and adjusting the bosom-sheaths until
they fitted snugly over the twin mounds of her gently swelling breasts.
There was a flame-colored sheath lower down, where the garment became
more tight-fitting, and this she adjusted carefully too, smoothing out
the cloth here and then and twisting her body about until she appeared
to be wearing a garment which had been made for her. There was no fold
out of place or too tight-fitting, and when she raised her arms the
garment seemed to mold itself even more perfectly to her slender torso,
its smooth-flowing, silken texture enhancing her body's grace.
Teleman removed his own garment while she was fastening the insignia
to her breast and put on the man's tunic, experiencing, despite the
grimness of his mood, a slight twinge of amusement at the embarrassment
he was quite sure they both felt. How strange were the ways of love,
when a man and a woman who had surrendered completely to love could
still feel the tug of modesty when the occasion in no way concerned
love!
Teleman transferred his hand-gun to the left pocket of the new garment
and glanced once more at his benefactor. The man's shoulders were still
bowed in grief, and he had not looked up. A last goodbye and a final
word of thanks arose to Teleman's lips. But he decided that silence
would be better. The man would know and understand, and Teleman could
not bring himself to further intrude on his grief.
"Come on," he whispered, taking firm hold of Alicia's hand. "Try not
to see anything in the forest that isn't there. Just stay close to me,
and remember--flickering shadows can look very much like advancing
para-guards."