CHAPTER II-2
1952 Words
She was lying motionless beneath the globe in a transparent tank filled with shifting lights and shadows, her long, unbound hair descending to her shoulders in a tumbled, red-gold mass that caught and held the radiance.
Her eyes were closed, her pale, beautiful face turned a little sideways.
She was as I had imagined she would be.
Her face I had always known. In youth’s awakening dreams, she had smiled and beckoned to me; the magic of her features was a wondrously changing thing, like flickering of tall candles on a shrine, or the sunglow on strange, jungle-shadowed beaches in the morning of the world.
I shut my eyes, and we were walking together by the sea, her bronzed loveliness etched against the dawn glow, a miracle time itself could not tarnish.
* * * *
I opened my eyes, but for a moment the room seemed remote, unreal. Only the woman in the tank existed for me. She wore a simple white garment, belted in at the waist. Her arms and shoulders were bare, and her skin had the ruddy glow of perfect health—the natural bronze which only a warm tropical sun can impart to the skin of northern women who have long embraced its warmth. Her cheeks were shadowed by long, dark lashes, and her mouth was a curving rosebud, and beneath the smooth-textured cloth of her belted tunic her young breasts rose firmly, twin bright mounds in a sea of billowy whiteness.
The sound was faint at first, a barely audible hum. I didn’t know it was an alarm at first. It sounded for an instant like the drowsy murmur of bees in a noonday glade. But swiftly it grew in volume, turning into a steady drone, filling me with a sudden uneasiness.
The man turned abruptly, and gripped my arm. “It’s a Security Police raid!” he whispered, alarm in his eyes. “We’ve got to get her out of here, and upstairs fast!”
I stared at him in consternation. “But why should they raid this shop?” I asked. “Do they know about her?”
“Of course not,” he said. “But there’s a law against concealment in an emotional therapy shop—any kind of concealment. We’re not supposed to have underground rooms.”
I’d forgotten about that. Emotional illusion therapy could break down all barriers and lead to actual physical orgies. The police had to keep a careful check.
“We’ve got to get her upstairs!” the man insisted, his fingers tightening on my arm; “we’ve got to convince the police there’s nothing wrong. She’s simply your wife, understand? She came to the shop with you for therapy.”
I stared at him, aghast. “But she hasn’t said a word to me! She’s lying there in a deep sleep. She is asleep, isn’t she? Speak up, man! What do you want me to do?”
“I’ll wake her up,” he said. “I’m going to attach an electric-stimulator to her right temple, and wake her up right now. Then you’ve got to help me lift her out of the tank. We haven’t a moment to lose.”
He did what he said he’d do. I watched him, a dull pounding at my temples, resenting the fact that she could not awaken to me alone. The presence of an outsider seemed like a desecration. He’d become an outsider the instant I’d set eyes on her, and I regretted that she could not awaken to me in a moonlit garden in the first bright flush of dawn.
We had no chance at all to be alone. The instant she opened her eyes, he removed the electric stimulator from her right temple, and turned to me in urgent appeal.
“Come on, we’ve got to hurry,” he urged. “Help me lift her out. She isn’t heavy.”
I had an impulse to knock him down. If there was any lifting to be done I wanted to do it alone. Then I remembered that you can’t walk into a shop and make a purchase of any kind without assistance.
In another twenty minutes the man would be an ugly, receding memory—nothing more.
Another thought struck me, incredible at such a time. I hadn’t even asked her name. “I don’t know her name,” I protested, my voice suddenly out of control. “Tell me her name—then I’ll help you.”
He seemed startled and taken aback by my sudden vehemence. “You can give her any name that suits your fancy.”
He lost his temper then, for the first time. “Do you want me to give you a catalogue of women’s names? Gloria, Anne, Helen—the face that launched a thousand ships—Barbara, Janice—pick one quickly, and let’s get on with this!’”
His features hardened. “The police won’t be interested in your romantic ideas. They’ll put you through a grilling. You’ll have to know something about her, not just her name alone.”
The shock of the sudden raid must have thrown me off my rocker. I still felt that she ought to have a name.
I knew that if I named her under pressure I might regret it later. But I had no choice. Claire, I thought. Claire will do for now.
I stepped quickly to the man’s side, and together we lifted Claire out of the tank, and set her on her feet.
In the tank, with her eyes closed, her beauty had seemed breathtaking. But the instant she was on her feet facing me, the instant she opened her eyes and looked straight at me I couldn’t speak at all.
“Say something to her!” the man urged. “You’ve got to get acquainted fast. Speak up—she’ll answer you!”
I cleared my throat. “I’m John, Claire,” I said. “Look at me, Claire. Don’t be afraid.”
She had never seen me before, of course, but I knew that an artificial memory picture of my general aspect had been skillfully stippled into her mind.
Her voice was low and musical, and it matched in all respects the wondrous beauty of her features. “John,” Claire said.
I knew that a bond of sympathy and understanding could only be established between us if I talked to her at first about simple things—the few simple things a man and a woman meeting under stress and, sharing certain basic memory patterns, would have in common.
“Yes, I’m John, Claire,” I reiterated. “Do you like me?”
She stared at me as if puzzled. Her words came slowly. “I like you,” she said.
I leaned forward, and put my arm about her shoulder. “I am taking you away with me, Claire,” I told her. “You have never seen the city with your own eyes. There are memories of the city in your mind, but they are not living memories. You will like the city, Claire.”
“I will like the city.”
I took her hand. It was warm and soft, and the fingers closed quickly on mine.
A torturing doubt had crept into my mind. So far her words had merely parroted my own. I had dangled a promise before her, had opened a gate on shining adventure that would have delighted a child. Would not a child have asked: “Will it be fun?” Or “Have you a beetle? Will we go riding?”
The man was becoming impatient. “We’ve got to hurry,” he warned. “If the police find this room I can’t answer for the consequences.”
He looked steadily at me. “You’ve put her at her ease; she’s not as startled as I was afraid she might be. Be satisfied with that, can’t you? Do you have to make love to her?”
His eyes flashed angrily when I didn’t say a word. “We made her especially for you, and you’re not satisfied,” he complained. “You have to start playing all the stops immediately. You wouldn’t do that with a new musical instrument. You’d have more sense.”
He had a point there, all right. But how wise had been my decision not to study him too closely. I knew that the memory of that moment would always hold emotional overtones of ugliness for me. It would always make the illusion a little less than perfect, a sordid reminder that I had not met her in a moonlit garden at the home of an old and trusted friend.
He had nothing further to say, and neither did I. I followed his advice, and together we walked Claire out of the vault, and along a corridor thronged with flickering shadows and up a narrow flight of stairs to the shop.
There were two police officers waiting for us in the shop, close to the big metal helmet which gave the customers the kind of illusions that could shut out the law completely. For us the policemen were real, and they were earnest.
The instant they saw us they did a slow take. One was burly, with muscular shoulders, and a florid, granite-firm face. The other was a skinny bantamweight.
The burly cop did all of the talking. The instant he saw us he asked: “You two together?”
The man answered for me. “Mr. Tabor is one of our regular customers,” he said quickly. “This is his wife.”
The officer planted his hands on his hips, and looked Claire up and down. “Married folk, eh? Did you put on the helmets together?”
I knew that I had to think fast. The question was a deliberately insulting one, obviously designed to trap us.
“I just dropped in to make an appointment for next week,” I said. “Mrs. Tabor doesn’t take emotional illusion therapy.”
The officer grinned. “No repressions, eh?”
If Claire had really been my wife, the question would have infuriated me. I became angry anyway. The cop saw the flushed look come into my face, and it aroused his suspicions.
He moved closer to Claire and studied her face. “Been married long?”
Claire shook her head. Such reticence wasn’t natural in a woman, and I could see that the officer felt that he had scored a triumph.
“I shouldn’t think your husband would need emotional illusion therapy if you’ve just been married,” he said. “I’m curious to know just how long you’ve been married. Seven months? A year?”
Claire didn’t say a word.
The officer looked at her. “It’s none of my business, I suppose,” he said. “But it makes a difference. If you were married recently, you shouldn’t need emotional illusion therapy at all—and neither should your husband.
“It’s an important thing to get straight. In fact, there are laws against illusion therapy for the newly-married. There’s a waiting list, you know; and if a lot of honeymooners crowd in when there’s no real reason for them to compensate for anything, the State suffers in the end.”
He looked at Claire again, even more steadily. “Now suppose you answer my question. Just how long have you been married?”
Claire said: “John is my husband. I like John. John likes me.”
That did it. The officer swung on me. “Can’t she answer simple questions?” he demanded. “What is she—a moron?”
“Wait a minute now—” I protested.
He didn’t give me a chance to calm down. He beckoned to Skin-and-Bones, and the little bantamweight grabbed my arm from behind. “We’ll have to take you both in for questioning! She must have something to conceal—or she’d speak up.”
I lost my head completely then; I saw red. I straightened my shoulders, wrenched my arm free and gave Skin-and-Bones a violent shove. Then, without turning, I grabbed Claire by the wrist, and we started for the door.
Instantly the burly cop stepped in front of us, and barred our path. “Now you’re really in trouble! You’ve attacked an officer in the performance of his duty.”
There was only one thing to do. I took a slow step backward, and sent my right fist crashing against his jaw. I put all of my strength into the blow, counting on the advantage of surprise. I followed through with a hard left to the stomach, the kind of jab that had served me well on Venus Base on a good many occasions.
- Writer
