One and Wonder (32 page)

Up ahead was the lookout point. Marvin took his foot off the foot control, slammed on the brakes, and made a tight U-turn. Below, Tedrow Valley spread out into the blue haze that lay over it.

Marvin looked at it, then closed his eyes, fighting to still his thoughts.

How selfish he was! Thelma had been raped, her happy life and happy future shattered by an inhuman beast. And he, Marvin Lake, had been about to add to that final blow, an
accident
which took away the only reason she could have left for wanting to live . . .

There was another way. Turn around, drive slowly, and when that car passes, speed up and drive it over the side of the road up where there's a three-hundred-foot drop.

And what if he did kill the man? It would be on all the telecasts and Thelma—would she guess, and know that he knew?

Marvin groaned. If only he had not listened to the terrible reasoning of that monster from hell.

And the horrible doubts he sowed, capitalizing on any guilt feelings his victims might have. Girls naturally admired men other than their husbands, just as men admired girls other than their wives.

In town he found pleasure in seeing all the attractive girls, and Thelma probably found pleasure in seeing tall, manly men walking along—

He was going to kill that spaceman. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if he didn't.

He started to turn the car to head the other way so that he could run the man off the road.

But if he killed the man, Thelma would know he knew . . .

He stopped the car in a torment of indecision.

It was up to Thelma.

That spaceship wouldn't leave until tomorrow morning. Later he could go into town with a knife, find the man, and kill him. Maybe that would be a better way anyway.

A knife. He nodded grimly. There were things he could do with a knife without killing the man. Better things than killing.

He took his foot off the brakes and started slowly back the way he had come, into the valley. When he was almost down to the valley floor he saw the smaller car coming toward him.

He caught a glimpse of the round face with its dark mask of short stubble. Then the car had shot past him.

He continued on another hundred yards, and suddenly he was shaking uncontrollably. He had to stop the truck. He had to put on the handbrake because he was too weak to keep pressure on the foot pedal.

Why was he shaking? Reaction, now that the crisis of his opportunity to kill the man in a crash was past?

Possibly. But it was something else, too. He had seen that face again. It was a symbol to him—the incarnation of everything evil.

But now—He would have to come home at his regular time, be smiling and cheerful as though nothing had happened, and—

Give Thelma a chance for life. That was it. Give Thelma a chance. Everything, no matter what, must be secondary to that.

Suddenly he saw his lunch, spilled out of the lunchbox on the floormat. And the thermos. He picked up the thermos and shook it, hearing the rattle of broken glass. Damn! He'd have to tell Thelma he dropped it and broke it. Good thing they had half a dozen replacements in the store room.

He got out of the cab and went around to the right hand side, and picked up all the little tidbits of his lunch and tossed them over the cliff. He took a whisk broom and swept the floormat carefully.

It was still three hours until his regular time to go home. He would go back to the mine and work. That was the thing to do.

When he reached his mine it looked strange to him—like something familiar he had not seen for years. He began working on the pile of clay, breaking it down a handful at a time, picking out the small diamond granules.

The seconds passed like hours, but slowly the familiar work comforted him. And eventually it was time to go home.

Now that the time had come, he was afraid. As he started the truck he found he was trembling again. He fought it, and it increased.

He slowed down and began to think of that future, the nice things about it, the things worth living for. After a while he wasn't trembling any more.

She would be waiting for him now. How would she be waiting? With a firm grip on herself? Still overcome by shock and horror?

Maybe it would be better if he looked in and found out, so he could know what he had to face. He hesitated, then stopped the truck and turned on the view-screen. The kitchen scene came onto the screen.

She was not there.

The nightmare gnawed at the edge of his mind again. He jabbed the bedroom button in a panic of anxiety. She wasn't there.

He shut off the screen and slammed the panel closed, and sat there, his fists clenched, fighting for control. Thelma was all right. She had to be all right. The whole future depended on it.

Had that—that—come back? What a fool he had been for not keeping the viewscreen on. He had been interested only in his own selfish feelings. God! All afternoon, all he had been interested in was how
he
felt! Not a thought for Thelma. Not once looking in on her to see how she was making out! Not even a thought for the possible danger of that fiend coming back again.

Calm now. Nothing is wrong—Thelma was either in the bathroom or out in the yard at the airlock.

Of course! She was going to be out at the airlock. She was going to wave, force herself to smile! He mustn't be late, force her to stand there longer than necessary,

He started the truck again, and held the vision of Thelma waiting for him, ready to smile and wave to him. It would be a good world. It
was
a good world. Together, he and Thelma would hang onto it.

He speeded up, cutting across the valley floor without paying the regard to roads that he usually did. Bubble seven—home—came into view. His heart started to pound painfully. His eyes ached from straining for the first sight of Thelma standing inside the transparent wall of the bubble . . . .

She wasn't there, or if she was he couldn't see her. The truck lurched violently and he brought his eyes back to his driving. Lucky he had only run over a large rock. He could have gone into one of the oil puddles and had a few hours’ work cleaning off the sticky stuff.

He pulled up in front of the airlock, leaped out of the truck cab, and ran to the airlock. He punched the button that would close the outer panel and start the air purifier to get rid of the methane. That was always the longest part, that sixty-second wait in the airlock. Usually Thelma was there, scant inches away, smiling at him happily.

Today, he thought, she had remembered that sixty-second wait and realized she couldn't keep smiling as if nothing were wrong. That was why she wasn't here to meet him.

The sixty seconds were up. The inner panel swung open. Marvin started to run toward the house.

At the kitchen door he leaned against the wall, collected himself, and called, “Thelma . . .”

He waited a couple of seconds, then pushed the door open and called again.

When she didn't come he went on in. The kitchen was empty.

The house was empty,

How much later it was, he didn't know. He had run from room to room, shouting her name, searching, searching. In the store room he had run up and down the aisles of canned goods.

Twice hope flared in him—when he thought of the hydroponic house, and when he thought of the emergency underground vault. But she had been in neither place.

There was only one other place she could be. He tried not to think of it.

Against his will he straightened stiffly and looked out through the transparent walls of the bubble to the truck . . . and beyond the truck.

Out there.

People did that. Just a few months ago the telecasts had told about some fellow who had simply walked out into it without a gas tight suit on. And a year ago a woman had run into it and dived into an oil pool. It had taken the police two days to get her body out.

Marvin went into the airlock and on through. There was no sixty second
wait going out; you just shut the inner panel and opened the outer one and let the good air out with you. Some alarmists predicted that eventually there would be enough oxygen released in this manner to bring the atmosphere of Jeffries’ Planet to an explosive concentration; but that wasn't possible—the oxygen was burned up by ionization produced by the rays from the twin suns.

Funny, to think of a thing like that when Thelma—

Marvin began his search. Somewhere there would be a huddled bundle of clothing, an arm in view above a concealing rise.

How far could she have gone before she dropped? A hundred yards? Not that far. Not even if she ran.

He had never realized before that there were three large oil ponds within running distance of the airlock. Who would ever have a crazy thought like that? He didn't find her. He searched the shores of the three ponds for some sign of a footprint in the rough, baked ground . . . or a slight scraping where Thelma's shoe might have dragged or slipped.

He found a few faint marks—but how could he tell which scratch, if any, had been made by Thelma?

He stared at the gleaming black surfaces of the ponds, trying to sense whether Thelma's body was in this one or that one. It would take a week of dragging operations to get her out. Meanwhile—

He went back to the bubble. He went into the kitchen, into its terrible emptiness. He opened the drawer containing the forks, knives, and spoons.

There were lots of knives. Carving knives, paring knives, steak knives. He selected two. One was a carving knife, long and razor sharp, with a haft. The other was small, a paring knife. He sharpened it until it was razor sharp too. A doctor could perform an operation with it. Anyone could.

At the doorway he paused and looked back. He would never see the kitchen again, perhaps. It didn't matter.

He went out to the truck and began the drive around Paxton Hill to the city.

The twin suns had sunk below the horizon by the time he came within view of the city. The spaceship was still there, with sharp points of light on it here and there. Red, yellow, and green lights from outside, white discs of light from portholes.

Marvin drove into his accustomed parking spot, went through the nearest airlock, and checked his suit. He stuck the tag in his pocket, aware that he would never redeem the suit. Thelma had chosen her way, now he had chosen his. If there were a hereafter they would soon be together. He noticed the rent-a-car booth, On impulse he stopped and went in.

“Hello, Marvin,” the girl behind the counter said.

“Hello—Joyce.” She had been in one of his classes in school and he had to think a minute before remembering her name.

“What can I do for you?” she said, smiling.

“I'll tell you,” Marvin said, trying to be casual. “Did you rent a car to a fellow today, probably off that ship that's in? Tall, dark, sort of round face?”

“Why, yes.” She consulted a list. “Claude Mathews. He was out five hours.”

“Thanks.” Marvin strode out.

Claude Mathews. Knowing the man's name would simplify finding him. For one thing, he had been about to jump onto a moving walk. He changed his mind and went to a sidewalk phone booth. After a few tries he was connected to the spaceship.

“Is Claude Mathews back on board yet?” he asked.

“Just a minute,” a male voice said. Then, “No. And, knowing him, I would say he's probably in a poker game somewhere and the L.P.’s will have to bring him aboard at the last minute.”

“Thanks,” Marvin said.

He left the phone booth, and headed toward the moving walk.

“Hey, Marvin!” a vaguely familiar voice shouted. “Where you going? Long time no see!”

He ignored it and hopped on the walk, skipping over to the successively faster ones. He recalled the owner of the voice after a bit. A casual acquaintance in his single days. A three dimensional chess player with a weakness on Knight defenses and a nasty mind.

Nasty? What had before seemed nasty to Marvin now seemed only a mildly noticeable peculiarity of a decent man. Now Marvin knew about evil, and his values had changed . . .

Once, and I've had it.

The supremely casual evilness of it . . . The rather pleasant, deep voice
that had said those words would echo horribly in his ears as long as he lived.

Easy now. It would be so easy to let the dam break. He had to keep control . . . Just a little while longer.

He rode the express walk toward the dock area. In that neighborhood were the card rooms, the pro houses, the alcohol joints and the dope cellars—wide open lures to keep the degenerate and the conscienceless clumped together where they could be controlled.

But one had ignored the honey-baited trap and had gone out into the countryside where decent people lived . . .

Where was he now?

“Want a good time, honey?” Marvin looked without emotion at the ravaged face of the pro girl and moved on, feeling her clutching fingers slide off his sleeve. Had she once . . . ? What had brought her to this—instead of the dark pool of oil in the valley that would have given her eternal peace . . . ?

He turned into another card room. Not there. The street again. “You want happy dream?” Marvin looked down at the short man, his butterball figure, his shiny, jaundiced, fat face and multiple chins, his thick glasses. “You look sad,” the grotesque lips said. “You come with me. I show you a happy land where all is lovely,”

Yes,
Marvin thought,
that is a way . . .

To sink into the arms of dope-induced unreality—he could understand
that
need . . .

“No,” he said gently. “Not yet.”

He pushed on.

Man had spread out to the stars, driven on by a dream. Mankind was a mighty ocean washing against the cliffs of eternity, wearing them away.

But here and there were the tideflats, with distorted shapes crawling under the rocks.

And somewhere near was a thing named Claude Mathews—

A few feet ahead was a sign . . . another card room. It would be the eighth . . . or the eighteenth. Marvin had lost track—he had almost begun to lose hope. This would be like the other places he had entered; there would be no round face on broad lean shoulders, no end to his search.