by Shield (Lit)
"I see," she said. After a moment, for no reason he could guess, she switched off the glow globe. The blaze outside was softened as it diffused through the shelter entrance, until it touched her with highlights and embracing shadows. "We can only wait, then," she said.
"Maybe your Brazilian friend, that you phoned the whole story to, maybe he'll be able to get action in time."
"Maybe. He's had to go through a lot of bureaucratic channels if he's accomplished anything so far. And his own government has him on the 'suspicious' list because he knew Johnny. Still, he is a journalist. He should know more ropes than most people."
"How about that Senator you mentioned? The one you said is a libertarian."
"Hohenrieder? Yes, I told him too, as well as sending him a set of plans. But it wasn't him I talked to, of course. A secretary, who looked skeptical. Maybe he wiped the tape at once. Hohenrieder's office must get a lot of crank calls.''
"Still, maybe the guy did pass this one on to his boss. So there's your Brazilian journalist certainly trying to tell the President of the U.S. what's going on, and Senator Hohenrieder possibly trying, and maybe a few of the others, who've simply gotten our standard message, have put two and two together and are also trying. They may succeed at any minute.''
"Cut out that fake cheerfulness, darling," she said. "I'm perfectly well able to face the fact that they probably won't succeed before 0715. Marcus may be in jail by noon; but we'll never know.''
"Maybe not," he admitted reluctantly. After a second: "We're better off than we were in the Zodiac, anyhow. This won't hurt. You won't feel a thing."
"I know. In a way, that scares me worst. Life has so suddenly begun to matter again."
"Do you want to go out to them?" he asked. "I can switch off the barrier for half a second and you can run out."
"Lord, no!" Her vehemence put life back in them both. She laughed unsteadily and groped about for a cigarette.
"I love you, you see," he floundered.
"And I think I love you. So is there a way to—"
"Maybe not. Not when I realize you may be dead in a hundred minutes. I wouldn't be able to forget that. I wouldn't know how to forget, how to do anything right. I'd rather love you the way I do understand, talking, or simply looking at you. Can you see, Veevee?" he said in his wretchedness.
"I think so," she answered at last, infinitely gently.
"And there may, after all, be another time for us," he said, attempting to sound eager. Then I'll be asking you!"
He did not know why pain crossed her face. But she smiled and nestled beside him. They held hands. Afterward he remembered that the talking had been mostly his, about what they would do in their future together.
The first sunlight tinged the sky. They went outside to watch, careless of heat ray snipers, looking past the guards who still stood in shadow, even past the ugly long cylinder that had been wheeled on a cart next to the barrier field. "Sunrise," Koskinen said, "trees, flowers, the river, but mostly you. I'm glad I came back to Earth."
She didn't reply. He could not keep from looking at his watch. The time was 0647.
A bullet spray chewed holes in the house wall. Koskinen jumped. The Security car which had been hovering on guard sped away. A gleaming needle swept after it. Guns flashed fire. The car staggered and fell downward. Koskinen didn't see it strike, but smoke puffed up above the trees.
The slender craft returned. "That's Air Force!" Koskinen screamed. "The insignia, see, Air Force——"
A man in uniform came running and dodging through the flowerbeds. An MS agent dropped to one knee and shot at him with a submachine gun. The soldier hit dirt just beneath the bullet stream. His arm chopped through an arc. Koskinen saw the grenade coming. Instinctively, he thrust Vivienne behind him. Not even sound penetrated the barrier. But at least, he realized with nausea, he had spared her a view of the agent's death. The others scattered from sight.
No—one man pelted over the torn grass. Marcus! His face was twisted out of humanness; slaver ran from his mouth. He reached the bomb and fumbled with its nose. A soldier dashed from behind a willow tree and fired. Marcus went on his belly. The soldier approached, turned him over, shook a helmeted head and looked warily around. Marcus's dead eyes glared at the rising sun.
There was no more fighting that Koskinen saw. He held Vivienne .close, wondering why she sobbed. An Army platoon deployed around the potential shell. He read nothing on their young faces except amazement.
A grizzled man led three or four junior officers and a couple of civilians around the house and onto the patio. Four stars gleamed on his shoulders. "Koskinen?" he said into his minicom. He stopped, peering uncertainly at the two behind the barrier.
"Yes?" Koskinen remembered to switch on his own transmitter. "Hello?"
"I'm General Grahovitch. Regular Army——" a contemptuous glance at Marcus's corpse—— "Special Operations office. Here by Presidential command. We only came to investigate, but when we landed, these birds opened fire. What the devil is the situation?"
"I'll explain," said Koskinen. "One minute, please." He unwrapped Vivienne's arms from around his neck, sprang into the shelter and turned off the generator. As he came out, the dawn wind blew across him.
XXI
He had a moment alone with her in the living room, by grace of General Grahovitch, before they embarked for Washington. As he entered, he saw her at a window, staring out across the lawn to the river and the hills beyond.
"Veevee," he said.
She didn't turn. He came behind her, laid his hands on her waist and said into her ear, with the blue-black hair tickling his lips and smelling like summer, "Everything's settled. All over but the shouting."
Still she didn't move.
"Of course," he said, "the shouting's apt to last quite a while. I'm told that half the government officials who've heard the news think I ought to be hanged for scattering the plans around so widely. But the other half sees that we really had very little choice and didn't break any important laws, so the only thing to do is accept the fait accompli and make heroes of us. I can't say I relish that prospect, but we should be able to sneak off eventually."
"That's good," she said in a flat voice.
He kissed her cheek. "And then——" he said shyly.
"Oh, yes," she said. "I don't doubt you'll have a wonderful time."
"What do you mean, me? I'm thinking about us." He grew aware of the tension under his hands. "Hey, you aren't worried about those old charges, are you? I have Grahovitch's personal word that you'll get not just a pardon, but a national apology."
"It was good of you to remember about me, in the middle of everything else," she said. Slowly, forcing herself, she turned about and met his gaze. "I'm not surprised, though. You're that kind of guy."
"Nuts," he blustered. "Got to take care of my own wife, don't I? Uh—" He saw with uncomprehending shock that she was not crying simply because she had wept herself dry.
"I'll miss you like anything, Pete," she said.
"What are you talking about?''
"You don't think I'd tie a man like you ... to somebody like me ... do you? I haven't sunk that far."
"What do you mean, sunk? Don't you want me? That tone——before sunrise——"
"That was different," she said. "I didn't expect we'd live. So why not give each other what we could? But for a lifetime? No. It'd be too onesided."
"Don't you think I'm anything at all?"
"Oh, Pete, Pete." She took his head between her hands. "Can't you see? It's the other way around. After everything I've done and been——"
"Do you think that matters to me?"
"——everything I still am; because habits don't go away just by my wishing they would. Yes, it does matter. Not now; you're still too young to understand. But later it would. As the years passed. As you came to know me better, and know other .people too, people like Leah Abrams, and started realizing—— No. I can't do that to you. Or to myself, even. Let's say a clean
goodbye."
"But what will you do?" he asked, stunned into stupidity, seeing only afterward that the one rational thing might perhaps have been to prevent her by force from departing.
"I'll manage," she said. "My kind always does. I'll disappear——I know how to do that very thoroughly——and get a new face somewhere, and find something to keep me busy. Remember, darling, how short a time you've known me. In six months you'll have trouble recalling what I looked like. I know. I've known so many."
She kissed him, a hasty gesture, as if she were afraid. "But next to Johnny," she said, "I liked you the best."
Before he could stir, she was out the door, walking down toward the riverside where several Army aircars waited. Her head was held high.
