by Jerry Sohl
“Is that what you see in me, Virginia?”
“Not at all,” she said gently. “There is an unknown quality about your mind that I enjoy. You are not like other men I’ve known. And as long as I’m being frank, I’ll say there’s something about you that makes my heart skip a beat when I you come into the room. Love?” She nodded. “My people say I am mad. I am so—about you. Else why should I be here?”
Suddenly there was a look of alarm in her eyes. They had been fixed on Martin, but now they were looking at something beyond him, far distant. She sat up straight.
“What is it?”
“I thought they were through with me,” she said with concern. “Now I feel them searching—I can sense their probing minds.” Now she got to her feet, put her hands to her cheeks. “Why can’t they let me be!”
The full force of discouragement strangled Martin’s will.
If they were seeking Virginia, if there were more than one, then this must be the end, for she had made a promise to them and she had not kept it. They would be vengeful and all-powerful and what could he hope to do in the face of their wrath? Her consternation was only evidence of her inability to combat those of her own kind.
Virginia sank beside him and she looked so dismayed he pressed her to him and comforted her.
“Let them come,” he said. “Perhaps it is better this way.”
Then she broke away. “No! They know I am here because of that mirror-wall I made and the telltale emanations accompanying the creation of the other you and me. Let me see.” She studied the air. “The other two of us are now downtown. We are walking from a car to an entrance to a building. Run! We are running away. We are coming to a corner. There is shooting, but it does not matter. There! We’ve rounded a corner.” She turned to him. “We’ve just vanished. Now that’s done. Let’s get out of here!”
He answered the urgency of her voice. “Now that you’ve stopped radiating anything, why must we leave here?”
“They’ll probably zero in here. We don’t want to be here when they do.”
Together they started for the door. Martin approached the spot where the invisible wall had been, put his foot gingerly forward but met no obstacle.
“Come on,” she said. “That’s been gone a long time.”
At the open door she collided with an invisible barrier, gave a cry and whirled, white-eyed.
Dr. Eric Penn stood in the middle of the room.
The enormous man’s eyes were intent, his mouth was devoid of humor; there was an aura of authority and decision about him. Gone were his glasses, his ever-present pipe. His arms hung at his sides and his long fingers were whiter than they had been the last time Martin had seen him. He was clad in a dark suit, white shirt and blue tie; there was a handkerchief peeping out of his breast pocket.
Martin wondered if it was the suit he had been buried in.
“You little fool!” he said sharply. “They’re all laughing at you.”
“Let them laugh!” Virginia flung back.
“I don’t know what they’ll do to you now. But I know what I ought to do. The Earth people have a habit of spanking their children. I can see its application for the first time “
Virginia’s eyes flashed. “That is what I don’t like about all of you. You are treating me as a child. You are all cast in the same mold, all doing the same things over and over... never a deviation. Suddenly someone does something a little different...”
“Why did you have to do it, Virginia? My own daughter!”
Virginia went up to him. “You are my father and I love you very much. But I also happen to love Martin. Can’t any of you see that?”
“But don’t you know the folly of it? If we were staying, I’d say see it through. But we’re leaving. We can’t leave you here like this. Besides, you have disobeyed.”
She spun around. “I don’t care.”
“I have been sent to bring you back.”
“I won’t go.” She came to Martin and he put an arm around her; they both stared defiantly at her father.
“There are ways,” her father said.
“Martin and I both die, then.”
“You know that’s impossible.”
“If you kill him”—Virginia drew in her breath—”I’ll—I’ll—”
Dr. Penn looked at her despairingly.
“I don’t understand you, Virginia.” He shook his head resignedly. “You failed to keep your promise to us and as far as I know, it’s the first time you’ve ever done that. Why are you causing so much trouble for us now when we are so near leaving? Is it really because of him?”
When Virginia did not answer, Dr. Penn turned to Martin as if seeing him for the first time. “Mr. Enders,” he said. “You are responsible for something that has never happened before in Capellan history: one of us has fallen in love with someone of Earth—and, I suppose, vice versa. You love Virginia, I suppose?”
Martin nodded.
“What do you suggest we do about it?”
“Me?” Martin smiled ruefully. “This is the first time my opinion has been solicited when there have been Capellans about. I find it a rare experience.”
“Yes, I know,” Dr. Penn said drily. “Maybe I am clutching at straws, but I’ve heard about you. Virginia would talk of nothing else. But come, surely you have a suggestion.”
“In order to have a suggestion for a way out of difficulty, there must first be a difficulty,” Martin said. “I fail to see one here.”
“No problem?” Dr. Penn eyed him warily. “You mean we ought to let Virginia stay and not go back with her own people?”
“Certainly,” Martin said. “Why not? Just because she’s doing something no one else among you ever thought of doing, why not let her do it? Why try to understand it?”
“But we can’t leave her behind!”
“Why not?”
“Why not! It’s unthinkable. She’d be living here forever. In the remembrance of time immemorial, Martin Enders will have been but the merest fraction of her full memory. Why should she throw her whole future away just for a few minutes with you? There are those of her own kind she could be with forever.”
“Don’t you suppose she’s thought of that?” Virginia’s hand found Martin’s arm and the fingers tightened to indicate she agreed.
“All right,” Dr. Penn said. “All right. I have been authorized to make one other offer.” He took Virginia’s hands in his and she did not stop him. “Will you return, Virginia, if we take Martin along and see what we can do about taking him with us to Capella Four?”
She snapped alert at that. “Oh, Dad, do you think they might do that?”
“It looks as if that’s the only way out.” He turned his back on Martin and before long, forms materialized before him. Faces first, then bodies, appendages, hands, legs. People. There were first a few, then many eyes focused on him. When there became too many faces to count, Dr. Penn turned to Martin.
“It is understood, Mr. Enders, that you are something more than an average man. As such, you are asked to co-operate with us.” He indicated the people behind him with a sweep of his arm. “These Capellans appear here to lend credence and psychological weight to what we shall try to do.”
When Dr. Penn paused, Martin could feel his brain being searched by probing fingers of many minds.
“Do you want to go with us?”
The idea had started as a hard, undigested lump in his brain; it was something he had not thought of before. Now, as his mind sought it out and considered it, the meaning of it unsteadied him. To leave Earth! His mind reeled...
“I don’t know,” he replied honestly. “I never thought I’d have the choice.”
“Perhaps you’d better wait until we find out whether or not it is possible,” Dr. Penn said. “Now... We shall try something, Martin. Just leave your mind blank for a while. You will feel a surge of power. If you are what Virginia says you are, a better than average man, you ought to be able to attach yourself to this forc
e and hold it, riding it as one would a dangling rope. Are you ready?”
Martin nodded. “Yes.”
“Now...”
The faces concentrated—the eyes of Dr. Penn blazed with power—then the sides of Martin’s head fell inward and there was a mighty rush of force immediately following the implosion—the faces grew whiter, sharper, brighter, turning into light, whirling, scintillating forms.
Suddenly he was aware of Virginia’s fingernails digging hard into the hand she was holding.
Then there was nothing.
Chapter 17
“Can you see?”
It was not a voice, but it was a query. A question that came out of the void and impinged itself somewhere in the nerve patterns of his brain and demanded an answer.
He said, “No.” Though he had worked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, the word did not emanate from his mouth and he did not hear it within himself.
“He can’t see.”
“This is difficult.”
“Are you sure he can make it?”
“Who can say? It’s never been tried before.”
“Perhaps he doesn’t have enough mentality.”
“He does!”
Martin smiled. That was Virginia. The thought that she was somewhere out there made him feel better.
The blackness changed; it was as if someone backstage had thrown the master switch—slowly. It grew light. He could see now for an infinite distance, but there was nothing to see. He looked down but he could not see his own body. This unsteadied him.
“What do you see now?”
“Light.” He heard his own uttered word this time.
“That’s better.”
“Can you see us?”
He looked around. “No.”
“He’s coming along. We’ve restored his medium of communication by voice, but he did understand the mental questions. Did you notice that?”
“Of course he did.” It was Virginia again. “I told you he would.”
“Yes, but he cannot see us.”
Silence. Then there were broken areas of grey and these brightened to orange blobs of light.
“Do you see us now?”
“Yes,” he said, watching the dancing wisps of color. “But you are like flames.”
The light flickered momentarily, then it steadied. The irregular shapes of orange became human pink and there were sharper lines of definition. He looked down at himself, saw his arms and legs and felt whole once again.
When he looked up, he saw people standing as he was on a white plane that stretched endlessly in every direction to the horizon where the effulgent sky began and illuminated the scene with a soft glow. It reminded him of a painting by Dali; the only thing missing was a floppy watch. The people were common, ordinary-looking Earth people clad as any random group on Earth would have been. They were all men and they were looking at him.
“We have given you something to stand on.” The voice came from beside him and he found Dr. Penn there, smiling at him. “You couldn’t see in our area; we have made ourselves visible and you see shapes you can comprehend.”
He felt a hand in his; Virginia was at his other side.
Now the men before him were taking seats behind a long table that had not been there a moment before.
“Shall we sit down?”
Dr. Penn indicated an upholstered bench that had materialized behind them and the three sat on it.
Martin studied the men before him. Judiciously placed in the center of the table sat a fat man with slick black hair and small, close-set eyes. He was talking to a white-haired man next to him. Others at the table were talking to each other, glancing at him once in a while. It was unnerving, this being talked about. Martin could not hear the whispered comments and he was about to ask Dr. Penn what was happening when the fat man rose.
“Dr. Penn,” the slick-haired one said. “We have formed here as you suggested. Will you reiterate the problem, please?”
“Brother Capellans,” Dr. Penn said, getting to his feet. “As you all probably know, my daughter, Virginia, refuses to leave Earth without the Earth-man, Martin Enders, whom we have advanced momentarily to this area. I realize it is not in order, especially with everyone preparing to depart this planet, but I have requested this session of a volunteer summary judicial committee to earnestly consider his transformation.”
They all looked at Martin as the doctor sat down. Some were curious, some were cold. Others were amused.
“Mr. Enders.” It was the fat man again. “I am Klell. I was among the last of the Capellans to leave my Earthly home—a body similar to yours. I might add that I’m glad of it.”
Those at the table laughed politely and he acknowledged this with a slight bow to both sides.
“All of us here once lived on Earth,” he said. “We were encased in an inhibiting multicellular body most of the time, thankfully able to escape it for a little while when we visited among people of our own kind on our own level. Before my demise, I happened to be the owner of a gas station, though my activities, you understand, were not limited to pumping gasoline into people’s cars.”
More laughter. Martin supposed it was a remark calculated to refer, in a snide way, to the Capellans’ real purpose on Earth.
“I think this whole thing is ridiculous.” A young man at the extreme right of the table was the speaker. “I volunteered for this session because I don’t think any of us wants one of them among us.”
“Couldn’t you stand the competition, François?”
The dark youngster flashed black eyes at Virginia, set his jaw firmly and looked back at Klell. “It is only a bid for attention by Virginia Penn.”
A blond, sun-tanned and athletic fellow a head taller than the others, rose from the other end of the table. “I agree with François Chartres,” he said. “This hearing is ridiculous. The fact that Virginia Penn wants this Earth-man is only further proof of the nature of her whims and caprices.”
“Gentlemen!” Klell smiled at Martin. “Perhaps I ought to explain, Mr. Enders. François and Clarence Cavanaugh have—how shall I say it?—prior rights to Virginia.”
“I disclaim that,” Virginia said. “I have told them how I feel. They are merely giving voice to the well-known Earth habit of sour grapes. I tried to find love in me for them, but there was none.”
“How can you possibly love an Earth-man, Virginia?” François looked hurt. “What can he give you that we cannot? Don’t you remember our carefree days in school?”
“I certainly do,” Virginia retorted coldly. “As I remember, you were always lazy and dissatisfied with yourself, content to let your Capellan superiority carry you through.”
“You couldn’t say that about me,” Clarence said. “You remember? You said when you found me you couldn’t understand how a man of François’s caliber could have interested you. If I may say so, I think you told me François reminded you of an Earth cow the way he chewed gum.”
Virginia turned to him. “You weren’t much better, Clarence. Given an opportunity to be Capellans on Earth, you were both born to a heritage neither of you deserved. Your worst habit, Clarence, was wearing the most garish clothes to draw attention to your cultivated sun-tan. What would you have been as a pure Capellan? You were proud of something which had been merely provided through genetic engineering—the same thing that exists where you sit right at this moment, the replica of your attractive Earth body.”
The laughter had been growing as the conversation had gone along and it spilled over into general guffaws up and down the line at this point. It even amused Martin, though he had thought Capellans would be above such humor.
“Actually, that is beside the point,” Klell said. “If Mr. Enders were to come along with us he would find Virginia as capricious as the rest of us have found her. What would happen if she were to find someone else? But no matter, the decision as to whether or not we shall permit Mr. Enders to accompany us has not been made yet.
“Now
, Mr. Enders, suppose we do take you along?” Klell leaned forward to study him better. “What about your heredity? Don’t you realize it would be a millstone around your neck? How do we know you won’t regress? How could you be a Capellan with such a recent primitive history?”
“Must we listen to all this?” It was François. “Let’s have the vote.”
“If you will please be quiet,” Klell said. “How can we expect something like Martin to understand anything unless we write it out for him?”
“You’re wasting our time,” Cavanaugh said.
Virginia’s fingernails were biting into Martin’s arm. He looked at her and saw that her eyes mirrored the anger he was beginning to feel. They had no intention of taking him along—or had they? Could it be a test?
“You and other Earth people like you, Martin Enders, have tried to dominate your environment,” Klell was saying. “What have you done? What progress have you made? You have failed because your lower, baser instincts still dominate you.”
“How could we progress when you stood in our way?” Martin replied. “What chance did we have when you threw us into war after war?” He was surprised at his own vehemence and amazed at the response. Heads jerked around like puppet heads and eyes examined him with renewed interest. There was an accompanying titter of laughter.
Klell pointed a fat finger at him. “That is proof of it right there! The giving vent to rage without a considered opinion!”
Dr. Penn cleared his throat. “I don’t think his statement could be attributed to anger, Klell.”
“You cannot enter the discussion, Eric,” Klell said coldly. “To answer Mr. Enders, however, I would have him look at the record: if it were not for the wars we caused, it is doubtful humanity would have progressed at all. His historians tell us wars and man’s intense interest in new ways to slaughter those of his own kind has created machines which help and improve his lot in times of peace.”
Suddenly Virginia’s fingers drew blood.
“Why are you doing this to him?” she cried, tears starting. “You know what he is. You know men. You’ve lived among them.”
“Yes, we know,” Klell said gravely. Heads nodded.
