The Huddlers Part 6

She didn't smile in return. "Fred--we're married."

"I'm glad," I said. "Aren't you?"

"It's no time for the light touch." Tears in her eyes. "Fred, are you a--a Russian spy?"

I shook my head.

"But--"

It was a clear night, and I went to the window. How it shone, in that clear air. Jean came over to stand next to me.

I pointed, and said, "There's my home."

"Venus," she said. "Fred, for heaven's sake--_I'm serious_!"

"Some day," I said, "this planet will learn how to see through our manufactured fog. Some day they will develop the vision we developed a century ago. And--"

"d.a.m.n it, Fred, be serious. If you'd know what I've gone through, alone here, thinking back on all the crazy things you've said and done. What have you told me about yourself, what do I know?"

"Nothing," I said. "And what have I asked you about yourself? It's a matter of faith, Jean."

"Faith? Running all over the country like fugitives, financed by those d.a.m.ned diamonds, nosing into this and into that, and then running off to Russia, all alone. _With what you'd learned, Fred?_"

I shook my head, resentment stirring in me.

"Remember when we met? In Santa Monica--right there, next to the beach.

You didn't have a thing but the clothes on your back and a bagful of diamonds. Was it a sub that brought you that far, Fred?"

"No," I said, "and you wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Try me, and see," she said. She was rigid, and near hysteria.

"All right. I came there in a s.p.a.ce sphere from Venus."

She started to sob, a wild, lonely sound and I moved forward to take her in my arms.

Her fingers clawed my face, her high heel smashed my instep. "Get out,"

she screamed, "get out, get out, get out--"

I got out. I went to the first floor washroom and cleaned up my b.l.o.o.d.y face, and then went into the bar. This was one habit I'd picked up on the planet.

When I came up to the suite, later, I didn't even check to see if she was in the washroom. I flopped down on the davenport and didn't know anything for the next twelve hours.

She was gone, when I came to. She'd checked out before I'd come back to the room, the night before.

I missed the plane she took from France. I missed her by a day in New York. I went back to the big house with the high pillars on Sunset Boulevard.

And she wasn't there.

She'd come back to it, I knew. I moved in, to wait. I wasn't going home without her; I wasn't even sure I was going home with her. I was involved, now, in this planet, almost as crazy as the rest of them.

I sat. I did some drinking, but mostly I sat, going back over all our days, reading nothing, enjoying nothing, just remembering.

The Korean business started and the headlines grew uglier, and the jackals screamed and the people grew more confused.

One day, the maid told me I had a visitor. I was in the library and I told her to send him back.

When he came in, he closed the door behind him. I'd never seen him, before, but he said, "We've been looking for three weeks."

"We?"

"Thirty of us," he said. "What happened? Jars sent me."

"Oh," I said. "I can't come, now. I'm--married--"

He smiled. "If you knew what a mess it's been. We've got men all over the planet. Does your wife--know?"

"She thinks I'm crazy," I said. "Look, I--"

"I'm not going to argue," he said. "Just make your report, and I'll pick it up, tonight."

Five minutes after he was gone, I was packing. I knew he wasn't coming back for any report. He was coming back for _me_, and it didn't much matter to him if I wanted to come, or not. I was coming, or staying here--dead.

What I didn't realize is that they wanted me to run, to get out where I could be taken with a minimum of interference.

They got me the other side of Blythe, in the middle of nowhere. A clear night in the desert, and headlights coming up from behind and then the big, black car crowding me off the flat road, into the sand.... And darkness.

Deering sighed and shook his head. "Corruption, Werig? Was it the corruption, or the girl?"

"I've made my report," I said. "Don't worry about them. They've got enough to worry about without worrying about us."

"Another war, it looks like," Deering said. "It could be the last one, you know. What was the girl--your wife like, Fred? Was she pretty?"

"Beautiful," I said.

"And the people--fear, is it fear?"

"I don't know. Their vice is fear, but they have some virtues."

Deering's voice was quiet. "Jars wanted me to ask you--about your wife.

Where is she? Is she coming with you? It was forbidden."

"I don't know where she is, she's not coming with me, and I know it was forbidden. But where is Jars? He has been avoiding me, hasn't he? Why?"

"He has been pleading for you, before the a.s.sembly." Deering rose, and went to the window, to look out. "Who will win this war that's shaping up among the huddlers, Fred?"