Ten From Infinity Part 18

John Dennis again left the window and approached Rhoda Kane. She was wearing a housecoat, a bra.s.siere and panties underneath.

"Take off your clothes."

Rhoda unb.u.t.toned the housecoat and slipped it off. That strange excitement showed in her eyes now.

The android pointed. "Take those off."

As she unhooked her bra.s.siere, Rhoda said, "My head aches."

"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 pa.s.sionate. 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

_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 h.e.l.l 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.