Duel

by Richard Matheson

  “A double heart,” he said.

  Then his left hand bunched into a fist.

  “That clinches it!” he said. “Mars has two-fifths the gravity of Earth. They’d need a double heart to drive their blood or whatever it is they have in their veins.”

  “But … it does not need this here,” Kleinman said.

  “Then there’s some hope,” Johnny said. “There are rough spots in this invasion. The Martian cell would, of genetic necessity, cause certain Martian characteristics in the child—the double heart, the acute hearing, the need for salt, I don’t know why, the need for cold. In time—and if this experiment works—they may iron out these difficulties and be able to create a child with only the Martian mind and every physical characteristic Earthlike. I don’t know but I suspect the Martian is also telepathic. Otherwise how would it have known it was in danger when Ann had pneumonia?”

  The scene flitted suddenly across Collier’s mind—him standing beside the bed, the thought—the hospital, oh God, the hospital. And, under Ann’s flesh, a tiny alien brain, well versed by then in the terms of Earth, plucking at his thought. Hospital, investigation, discovery … . He shuddered convulsively.

  “ … we to do?” he caught the tail end of Kleinman’s question. “Kill the … the Martian after it is born?”

  “I don’t know,” Johnny said. “But if this …” he shrugged, “this child is born alive and born normal—I don’t think killing would help. I’m sure they must be watching. If the birth is normal—they might assume their experiment is a success whether we killed the child or not.”

  “A Caesarean?” Kleinman said.

  “Maybe,” Johnny said. “But … would they be sure they’ve failed if we had to use artificial means to destroy … their first invader? No, I don’t think it’s good enough. They’d try again, this time somewhere where no one could check on it—in an African village, in some unavailable town, in …”

  “We can’t leave that … that thing in her!” Collier said in horror.

  “How do we know we can remove it,” Johnny said grimly, “and not kill Ann?”

  “What?” Collier asked, feeling as if he were some brainless straight man for horror.

  Johnny exhaled raggedly.

  “I think we have to wait,” he said. “I don’t think we have any choice.”

  Then, seeing the look on Collier’s face, he hurriedly added,

  “It’s not hopeless, boy. There are things in our favor. The double heart which might drive the blood too fast. The difficulties of combining alien cells. The fact that it’s July and the heat might destroy the Martian. The fact that we can cut off all its salt supply. It can all help. But, most of all, because the Martian isn’t happy. It drank to forget and—what were its words? O, send me not to make the way.”

  He looked grimly at them.

  “Let’s hope it dies of despair,” he said.

  “Or?” Collier asked hollowly.

  “Or else this … miscegenation from space succeeds.”

  Collier dashed up the stairs, his heart pounding with a strange ambivalent beat. Knowing at last she was innocent was horribly balanced by knowledge of the danger she was in.

  At the top of the stairs he stopped. The house was silent and hot in the late afternoon.

  They were right, he suddenly realized, right in advising him not to tell her. It hadn’t actually struck him until then, he’d thought it wrong not to let her know. He’d thought she wouldn’t mind as long as she knew what it was, as long as she had his faith again.

  But now he wondered. It was a terrifying thing, the import of it made him tremble. Might not the knowledge of this horror drive her into hysterics; she’d been bordering on breakdown for the past three months.

  His mouth tightened and he walked into the room.

  She lay on her back, her hands resting limply on her swollen stomach, her lifeless eyes staring up at the ceiling. He sat down, on the edge of the bed. She didn’t look at him.

  “Ann.”

  No answer. He felt himself shiver. I can’t blame you, he thought, I’ve been harsh and thoughtless.

  “Sweetheart,” he said.

  Her eyes moved slowly over and their gaze on him was cold and alien. It was the creature in her, he thought, she didn’t realize how it controlled her. She must never realize. He knew that then, clearly.

  He leaned over and pressed his cheek against hers.

  “Darling,” he said.

  A dull, tired voice audible. “What?”

  “Can you hear me?” he said.

  She didn’t reply.

  “Ann, about the baby.”

  There was a slight sign of life in her eyes.

  “What about the baby?”

  He swallowed.

  “I … I know that … that it isn’t the baby of … another man.”

  For a moment she stared at him. Then she muttered, “Bravo,” and turned her head away.

  He sat there, hands gripped into tight fists, thinking—well, that’s that, I’ve killed her love completely.

  But then her head turned back. There was something in her eyes, a tremulous question.

  “What?” she said.

  “I believe you,” he said. “I know you’ve told me the truth. I’m apologizing with all my heart … if you’ll let me.”

  For a long moment nothing seemed to register. Then she took her hands from her stomach and pressed them against her cheeks. Her wide brown eyes began to glisten as they looked at him.

  “You’re not … fooling me?” she asked him.

  For a moment he hung suspended, then he threw himself against her.

  “Oh, Ann, Ann,” he said, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Ann.”

  Her arms slid around his neck and held him. He felt her breasts shake with inner sobs. Her right hand caressed his hair.

  “David, David …” She said it over and over.

  For a long time they remained there, silent and at peace. Then she asked:

  “What made you change your mind?”

  His throat moved.

  “I just did,” he said.

  “But why?”

  “No reason, honey. I mean, of course, there was a reason. I just realized that …”

  “You’ve doubted me for seven months, David. Why did you change your mind now?”

  He felt a burst of rage at himself. Was there nothing he could tell her that would satisfy her?

  “I think I’ve misjudged you,” he said.

  “Why?”

  He sat up and looked at her without the answer. The look of soft happiness was leaving her face. Her expression was taut and unyielding.

  “Why, David?”

  “I told you, sweet …”

  “You didn’t tell me.”

  “Yes, I did. I said I think I’ve misjudged you.”

  “That’s no reason.”

  “Ann, don’t let’s argue now. Does it matter if …”

  “Yes, it matters a lot!” she said, her voice breaking, as her breath caught.

  “And what about your biological assurances?” she said. “No woman can have a baby without being impregnated by a man. You always made that very clear. What about that? Have you given up your faith in biology and transferred it to me?”

  “No, darling,” he said. “I simply know things I didn’t know before.”

  “What things?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “More secrets! Is this Kleinman’s advice, just a trick to make my last month cozy? Don’t lie to me, I know when you’re lying to me.”

  “Ann, don’t get so excited.”

  “I’m not excited!”

  “You’re shouting. Now stop it.”

  “I will not stop it! You toy with my feelings for more than half a year and now you want me to be calmly rational! Well, I won’t be! I’m sick of you and your pompous attitude! I’m tired of … Uhhh!”

  She lurched on the bed, her head snapping as she jerked her head from the pillow, al
l the color drained from her face in an instant. Her eyes on him were the eyes of a wounded child, dazed and shocked.

  “My insides!” she gasped.

  “Ann!”

  She was half sitting now, her body shaking, a wild, despairing groan starting up in her throat. He grabbed her shoulders and tried to steady her. The Martian!—the thought clutched at his mind—it doesn’t like her angry!

  “It’s all right baby, all r …”

  “He’s hurting me!” she cried. “He’s hurting me, David! Oh God!”

  “He can’t hurt you,” he heard himself say.

  “No, no, no, I can’t stand it,” she said between clenched teeth. “I can’t stand it.”

  Then, as abruptly as the attack had come, her face relaxed utterly. Not so much with actual relaxation as with a complete absence of all feeling. She looked dizzily at David.

  “I’m numb,” she said quietly, “I … can’t … feel … a …”

  Slowly she sank back on the pillow and lay there a second with her eyes open. Then she smiled drowsily at Collier.

  “Good night, David,” she said.

  And closed her eyes.

  Kleinman stood beside the bed.

  “She is in perfect coma,” he said, quietly. “More accurately I should say under hypnotic trance. Her body functions normally but her brain has been … frozen.”

  Johnny looked at him.

  “Suspended animation?”

  “No, her body functions. She is just asleep. I cannot wake her.”

  They went downstairs to the living room.

  “In a sense,” Kleinman said, “she is better off. There will be no upsets now. Her body will function painlessly, effortlessly.”

  “The Martian must have done it,” Johnny said, “to safeguard its … home.”

  Collier shuddered.

  “I’m sorry, Dave,” Johnny said.

  They sat silent a moment.

  “It must realize we know about it,” Johnny said.

  “Why?” asked Collier.

  “It wouldn’t be tipping off its hand completely if it thought there was still a chance of secrecy.”

  “Maybe it could not stand the pain,” said Kleinman.

  Johnny nodded. “Yes, maybe.”

  Collier sat there, his heart beating strainedly. Suddenly he clenched his fists and drove them down on his legs.

  “Meanwhile, what are we supposed to do!” he said. “Are we helpless before this … this trespasser?”

  “We can’t take risks with Ann,” was all Johnny said and Kleinman nodded once.

  Collier sank back in the chair. He sat staring at the kewpie doll on the mantel. Coney Island read the doll’s dress and on the belt—Happy Days.

  “Rhyuio Gklemmo Fglwo!”

  Ann writhed in unconscious labor on the hospital bed. Collier stood rigidly beside her, his eyes fastened to her sweat-streaked face. He wanted to run for Kleinman but he knew he shouldn’t. She’d been like this twenty hours now—twenty hours of twisting, teeth-clenching agony. When it had started he’d cut his classes completely to stay with her.

  He reached down trembling fingers to hold her damp hand. Her fingers clamped on his until the grip almost hurt. And, as he watched in numbed horror, he saw the face of the Earth-formed Martian passing across his wife’s features—the slitted eyes, the thin, drawn-back lips, the white skin pulled rigidly over facial bones.

  “Pain! Pain! Spare me, fathers of my fathers, send me not to … I”

  There was a clicking in her throat, then silence. Her face suddenly relaxed and she lay there shivering weakly. He began to pat her face with a towel.

  “In the yard, David,” she muttered, still unconscious.

  He bent over suddenly, his heart jolting.

  “In the yard, David,” she said. “I heard a sound and I went out. The stars were bright and there was a crescent moon. While I stood there I saw a white light come over the yard. I started to run back to the house but something hit me. Like a needle going into my back and my stomach. I cried out but then it was black and I couldn’t remember. Anything. I tried to tell you David, but I couldn’t remember, I couldn’t remember, I couldn’t …”

  A hospital. In the corridor the father paces, his eyes feverish and haunted. The hall is hot and silent in the early August morning. He walks back and forth restlessly and his hands are white fists at his sides.

  A door opens. The father whirls as a doctor comes out. The doctor draws down the cloth which has covered his mouth and nose. He looks at the man.

  “Your wife is well,” says the doctor.

  The father grabs the doctor’s arm.

  “And the baby?” he asks.

  “The baby is dead.”

  “Thank God,” the father says.

  Still wondering if in Africa, in Asia …

  BEING

  In darkness hovering. A soundless shell of metals glistening pale—held aloft by threads of anti-gravity. Below, the planet, shrouded with night, turning from the moon. On its blackswept face, an animal staring up with bright-eyed panic at the dully phosphorescent globe suspended overhead. A twitch of muscle. The hard earth drums delicately beneath fleeing pawbeats. Silence again, wind-soughed and lone. Hours. Black hours passing into gray, then mottled pink. Sunlight sprays across the metal globe. It shimmers with unearthly light.

  IT WAS LIKE PUTTING HIS HAND INTO A SCORCHING oven.

  “Oh my God, it’s hot,” he said, grimacing, jerking back his hand and closing it once more, gingerly, over the sweat-stained steering wheel.

  “It’s your imagination.” Marian lay slumped against the warm, plastic-covered seat. A mile behind, she’d stuck her sandaled feet out the window. Her eyes were closed, breath fell in fitful gasps from her drying lips. Across her face, the hot wind fanned bluntly, ruffling the short blonde hair.

  “It’s not hot,” she said, squirming uncomfortably, tugging at the narrow belt on her shorts. “It’s cool. As a cucumber.”

  “Ha,” Les grunted. He leaned forward a little and clenched his teeth. at the feel of his sport shirt clinging damply to his back. “What a month for driving,” he growled.

  They’d left Los Angeles three days before on their way to visit Marian’s family in New York. The weather had been equatorial from the start, three days of blazing sun that had drained them of energy.

  The schedule they were attempting to maintain made things even worse. On paper, four hundred miles a day didn’t seem like much. Converted into practical traveling it was brutalizing. Traveling over dirt cutoffs that sent up spinning, choking dust clouds. Traveling over rutpocked stretches of highway under repair; afraid to hit more than twenty miles an hour on them for fear of snapping an axle or shaking their brains loose.

  Worst of all, traveling up twenty to thirty mile grades that sent the radiator into boiling frenzies every half hour or so. Then sitting for long, sweltering minutes, waiting for the motor to cool off, pouring in fresh water from the water bag, sitting and waiting in the middle of an oven.

  “I’m done on one side,” Les said, breathlessly. “Turn me.”

  “And ha to you,” Marian sotto voced.

  “Any water left?”

  Marian reached down her left hand and tugged off the heavy top of the portable ice box. Feeling inside its coolish interior, she pulled up the thermos bottle. She shook it.

  “Empty,” she said, shaking her head.

  “As my head,” he finished in a disgusted voice, “for ever letting you talk me into driving to New York in August.”

  “Now, now,” she said, her cajoling a trifle worn, “don’t get heated up.”

  “Damn!” he snapped irritably. “When is this damn cutoff going to get back to the damn highway?”

  “Damn,” she muttered lightly. “Damn damn.”

  He said no more. His hands gripped tighter on the wheel. HWY. 66, ALT. RTE.—they’d been on the damn thing for hours now, shunted aside by a section of the main highway undergoing repair. For that matter,
he wasn’t even sure they were on the alternate route. There had been five crossroads in the past two hours. In speeding along to get out of the desert, he hadn’t looked too carefully at the crossroad signs.

  “Honey, there’s a station,” Marian said, “let’s see if we can get some water.”

  “And some gas,” he added, glancing at the gauge, “and some instructions on how to get back to the highway.”

  “The damn highway,” she said.

  A faint smile tugged at Les’s mouth corners as he pulled the Ford off the road and braked up beside the two paint-chipped pumps that stood before an old sagging shack.

  “This is a hot looking spot,” he said dispassionately. “Ripe for development.”

  “For the right party.” Marian’s eyes closed again. She drew in a heavy breath through her open mouth.

  No one came out of the shack.

  “Oh, don’t tell me it’s deserted,” Les said disgustedly, looking around.

  Marian drew down her long legs. “Isn’t there anybody here?” she asked, opening her eyes.

  “Doesn’t look like it.”

  Les pushed open the door and slid out. As he stood, an involuntary grunt twitched his body and his knees almost buckled. It felt as if someone had dropped a mountain of heat on his head.

  “God!” He blinked away the waves of blackness lapping at his ankles.

  “What is it?”

  “This heat.” He stepped between the two rusty-handled pumps and crunched over the hot, flaky ground for the doorway of the shack.

  “And we’re not even a third of the way,” he muttered grimly to himself. Behind him, he heard the car door slam on Marian’s side and her loose sandals flopping on the ground.

  Dimness gave the illusion of coolness only for a second. Then the muggy, sodden air in the shack pressed down on Les and he hissed in displeasure.

  There was no one in the shack. He looked around its small confines at the uneven-legged table with the scarred surface, the backless chair, the cobwebbed coke machine, the price lists and calendars on the wall, the threadbare shade on the small window, drawn down to the sill, shafts of burnished light impaling the many rents.