One and Wonder (31 page)

Before going down he went back to the truck and switched on the secret viewscreen. Thelma wasn't in the kitchen. He looked at the kitchen for a moment. It was very empty without her in it. He switched to the bedroom, and he saw her back in bed, asleep. A tender smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. Thelma had had an exciting time in town, and they hadn't gotten to sleep until after midnight. He hoped she would sleep until noon.

Switching off the screen, Marvin went back to the mine and hooked the cable to his belt. Down at the bottom of the pipe-stem he took the pick and broke loose enough of the whitish clay to fill the bucket twice, his experienced eyes watching for large pebbles that, under their rough opaque
surface, would be diamonds of several karats. The hope of finding one of those was the thrilling part of mining.

He had one—he had found it a year ago—that assayed a possible nine karats. He was keeping it as a surprise for Thelma. One of these days he was going to have it cut. It would cost quite a bit to do that, but the finished stone would be worth a small fortune.

He shoveled the bucket full, hooked it onto the cable and sent it up. When it reached the surface the automatic trip would take over and dump it, and send it back down.

While he waited he sifted around in the clay, putting the two or three small stones he found in the pouch at his belt.

The trouble with him, he decided, was that he was lonesome for Thelma. Or maybe he was just lazy this morning.

The bucket came back down. He shoveled clay into it, resisting the desire to go up above.

He would have liked to have stayed home today, but he and Thelma had thrashed that out long ago. Work was work. It would be too easy, when you're your own boss, to goof off once in a while, then oftener and oftener, until you were shiftless like Roul in bubble four.

Of course, if he went home at noon she probably wouldn't make him come back, but she wouldn't like it, and would point out that he had lost most of yesterday.

He finished filling the bucket. He looked at it, wanting to get on it and ride it up. He shook his head, inside his helmet, and firmly pressed the
Go
button, and watched the bucket climb up the pipestem, its rider wheels keeping it away from the walls.

He wished now he had gone up with it.

Suddenly he was impatient. It seemed an eternity until the bucket came into view again.

When it came to rest on the bottom he didn't even bother to unhook it, but stepped into it and pressed the
Go
button. His impatience increased.

As the bucket neared the top, Marvin stood on its rim, holding the taut cable, and leaped off. The bucket kept going, clanging emptily through the tripping setup.

He half ran to the truck, the impatience a driving force in him now. He didn't stop to analyze it or even be curious about it. He just wanted to turn
on the screen and see Thelma.

It was still tuned to one of the bedroom eyes, and after a moment the picture of the bedroom flashed into the screen. The bed was empty.

He switched to the other bedroom eye to make sure she wasn't at her dresser. She wasn't.

He switched to one of the kitchen eyes. She wasn't in the kitchen. Probably she was in the bathroom taking a shower or something. He touched the bathroom button, then shook his head.

When he had installed the secret eyes he had hesitated a long time over putting any in the bathroom. Only the realization that lots of accidents happen in bathrooms had decided him. And, even so, he had never used it.

He wasn't worried. Just impatient. Nervously impatient. He passed over the bathroom eyes and punched in one room after another, without finding Thelma.

Finally his finger was back to the bathroom button again. He hesitated. One quick, half a second glance wouldn't do any harm.

He pushed the button and pushed the kitchen button a half second afterwards. The bathroom flashed into the screen and was replaced by the kitchen.

She wasn't in the bathroom.

Wait a minute—she would be in the storeroom working on the load of stuff they had bought in town!

“Why didn't I think of that before?” he said aloud.

He slid over and put one foot to the ground, then changed his mind. He would have part of his lunch now, and a cup of hot tea.

He pulled his leg back in and closed the cab door, and started the air purifier. When the green light flashed on he undamped his faceplate.

He reached to shut off the view of the kitchen on the screen, then decided to leave it on.

The lunch was especially good today. Thelma had bought a lot of new spices and little tidbits from a dozen different planets.

He selected a small sandwich made from a canned bread that he vaguely remembered was made from a flour that was mostly the ground-up roots of a tree from some planet that was lightyears distant.

He bit into the sandwich, chewed thoughtfully, then glanced idly at the viewscreen.

He saw the back door open and Thelma come in. The expression on her face arrested him. She was worried—

He saw the man, suddenly. The round face had a mask of dark stubble—darker than the normal blondness of native born people.

A spaceman? But what would he be doing in Tedrow Valley? Maybe out sightseeing and something had gone wrong with his car.

“I must phone my husband,” Thelma said.

The sound of her voice startled Marvin. It was utterly strange for someone to be there, at home with Thelma, when he wasn't.

The man reached out and took Thelma's arm, saying, “Why bother the old man?”

“He's expecting me to call him,” Thelma said. “If I don't, he'll be worried and come right home.”

At this outright lie Marvin suddenly sat up, feeling icy fear racing through him.

“Forget that guy!” the man said, jerking Thelma around and gripping both sides of her head. He ignored her beating fists, pulling her face toward his.

Marvin was trembling so violently he fumbled several times ineffectively before getting the truck in motion. He slammed down on the damper rod control throttle and was pushed back against the seat.

He risked a glance at the view-screen. Thelma was struggling desperately.

Marvin forced his eyes to the road. It would take twenty minutes to get down the mountain, get home. Twenty minutes!

“That's better,” the man's voice erupted in Marvin's ears. “Just relax so I can get this suit off. We're going to have a real good time, baby. A real good time.”

“Get out!” Thelma's voice shuddered. “Get out! My husband will kill you.”

Marvin risked a glance at the screen. Thelma was on the floor, inching toward the phone. The man, peeling off his suit, was a symbol of nightmare etching into Marvin's mind.

“Kill me?” the man was saying.
“I
don't think so, baby. And do you know why? Because you won't tell him. Not afterwards. You want this as much as I do, but you won't admit it to yourself. I could see it in your eyes
when you looked at me yesterday at the docks, baby.”

The gloating words seared into Marvin's ears.

At the docks? Absurd!

“That's not true!” Thelma's voice sounded.

Marvin risked another quick glance. Thelma had inched closer to the wall where the phone was. Suddenly she leaped to her feet and darted toward it.

The man leaped after her, the protective suit still hanging to one leg. “Oh no you don't, baby,” he said. He seized both her wrists and twisted them behind her, forcing her body to arch against his.

Marvin jerked back to his surroundings with the truck climbing off the road. It nearly overturned as he fought the wheel. Then he was back on the road.

“No!” Thelma screamed.

Marvin risked a look at the screen, and jerked his eyes away from what he saw, sick to the core of his being.

He looked through the windshield. Everything was blurred. He tried to connect his mind to his vision, to see the road. The truck tilted over at a crazy angle again. He was off the road. It should have been the other side, with its two-hundred-foot drop that would mercifully kill him.

He braked to a stop, unable even to see where he was stopping. He wanted to go on. He
had
to go on. It would take another full ten minutes at maximum speed to reach home.

Ten minutes . . . The enormity of time . . .

Like a disembodied spirit, he heard himself crying. Crying . . . lost . . .

It might have been hours that passed, or days. Time had no meaning any more. Maybe Thelma was dead. It would be better for her to be dead, to escape the horror of being still alive.

What insane sounds had come from the speaker? He wasn't sure, He thought Thelma had laughed once, but that couldn't be so. Laughed, and that maddeningly calm male voice had said, “That's it, baby, let yourself go, enjoy it.” And the strange, wild, demented laughter spilling into Marvin's ears had changed to sobbing, that became laughter again, then sobbing that drifted into whimpers, and silence.

Silence. The silence had lasted for ages.

Marvin opened his eyes and looked out the windshield. He could see
clearly. The road, the haze of the valley below, the twin suns high in the purple sky.

He turned suddenly and looked into the viewscreen. The man stood in the middle of the kitchen, stretching his long lean arms, his long legs widespread, his round face gaping in a huge yawn.

Thelma lay on the floor, on her stomach, her head buried in her arms, unmoving, except for her shoulders which shook with her spasmodic, silent sobs.

“You see, baby,” the insanely calm male voice broke the silence. “It wasn't so bad after all, was it? Your old man ever give you such a good time? You know he didn't. And you liked it. You responded. You really wanted it all the time, didn't you? I guessed it when you blushed down at the docks. I could read your mind when you looked at me. You blushed at what you were thinking, didn't you? “There's a real hunk of man. Wish I could get in bed with him.’ That's what you thought, wasn't it? Now admit it to yourself. It was. So I came out and gave you your wish.”

The little black eyes in the round face stared down at the back of Thelma's head shrewdly.

“So now what are you going to do?” the man went on, while Marvin listened, unable not to listen.

“Are you going to tell that husband of yours? Don't be foolish. What's done is done, and you liked it. You'll dream about it, baby, believe me. So why ruin things for yourself? What would your husband do if he found out? Kill me? I might have something to say about that if he tried.

“And suppose he did kill me? Then everyone would know. Can't you hear the prosecutor saying, ‘Now tell the court once more how the deceased took you on the kitchen floor. Why didn't you struggle harder?’ And all your friends—and your husband—will be sitting there, listening to you.”

The round face smiled at the back of Thelma's head. “On the other hand, if you keep your mouth shut, he need never know. No one will ever know . . . . And suppose you told him, and I was already gone off the planet? Every time he looked at you he would remember. You would know what he was thinking . . .”

Marvin tried to shut his ears. He wanted to shut off the sound and sight, and couldn't. He tried to shut off his thoughts, and couldn't.

If he rushed down now, he couldn't stop what had already happened.
But—something he hadn't thought of until now—Thelma would then learn of the electronic eyes in all the rooms, know he had been spying on her ever since they were married.

He hadn't thought of it as spying. Certainly he had never even thought of anything but being close to her in secret, watching over her in case she slipped and hurt herself, or fainted, or any one of the many things that could happen . . .

But would she know that?

“Look,” the man was saying. “I've got a rented car parked about a mile from here. I'm walking to it now and going back to town. Think it over. I'm a funny kind of a guy. Once, and I've had it. Something goes out of it for me, after I've had a girl the first time. So think of your life ahead, and hold onto it. Keep your mouth shut. After I go, get yourself prettied up for your hubby, and when you're in bed together, think of me, huh?”

A car! Parked about a mile from the bubble! It would take the man half an hour, at least, to get to it. Then he would be going up around Paxton Hill.

Had Thelma heard what the man said to her? What would she do? A lump rose in Marvin's throat. Poor Thelma . . .

He was calm now. He saw the man's back turned to the screen as the man slipped into his gas tight suit again.

Marvin inched the truck down onto the road. When he looked at the screen again the man was gone. Thelma was slowly turning over. Marvin hastily shut off the viewscreen. He couldn't bring himself to see Thelma's face. Not just yet.

He closed up the dashboard and concentrated on driving. Mile after mile, as the mountain fled behind him and he raced toward Paxton Hill, not daring to turn his head to look toward his home.

He had never driven across the valley before without turning to look at his home . . .

Marvin knew exactly what he was going to do. There was a lookout point on Paxton Hill from which he could watch the valley. He would wait there until he saw the car. When he was sure it was coming he would start down the hill at full speed and run head-on into it.

That would solve everything, for him.

For him? The implication of selfishness and self pity in the thought struck him. But Thelma wouldn't have to face him with her shame. She
might wonder what he had been doing coming from the direction of town, but she would never suspect that he knew.

The atom-driven turbine whined higher and higher as the speedometer needle passed over into the nineties, but he was unaware of his speed.

What other course was there than to kill the monster and be killed? What was there to live for now?

Suddenly it welled up in him. All that he and Thelma had together, all the future they had looked forward to with such confidence. Was it to be thrown away?

Think of your life ahead, and hold onto it.

What of Thelma. If she wanted to try to hold on to what she had, face life and wait for forgetfulness, didn't she have that right?