Her red hair was piled high, tied with a glittering rope of green stones. Her body was covered by a long green robe belted by a golden-linked strand of square-cut creme-de-menthe jewels. There was an exotic strangeness about her that frightened Thurlow. He saw the bulge of her abdomen then beneath the jeweled belt, realized she was pregnant.
"Ruth," he said, louder this time.
She ignored him, concentrated her fury on Kelexel"s back. "I wish you could die," she muttered. "Oh, how I wish you could die. Please die, Kelexel. Do it for me. Die."
Kelexel lowered his hands from his face, turned with a slow dignity. Here she was at last, completely free, seeing him without any intervention from a manipulator. This was her reaction? This was the truth? He could feel Time running at its crazy Chem speed; all of his life behind him was a single heartbeat. She wanted him dead. A bile taste came into Kelexel"s mouth. He, a Chem, had smiled on this mere native and she wanted him dead.
What he had planned for this moment stood frozen in his mind. It still could be done, but it wouldn"t be a triumph. Not in Ruth"s eyes. He raised a pleading hand to her, dropped it. What was the use? He could read the revulsion in her eyes. This was truth.
"Please die!" she hissed.
Thurlow, his face dark with anger, started across the room. "What have you done to her?" he demanded.
"You will stand where you are," Kelexel said, raising a palm toward Thurlow.
"Andy! Stop!" Ruth said.
He obeyed. There was controlled terror in her voice.
Ruth touched her abdomen. "This is what he did," she rasped. "And he killed my mother and my father and ruined you and . . ."
"No violence, please," Kelexel said. "It"s useless against me. I could obliterate you both so easily . . ."
"He could, Andy," Ruth whispered.
Kelexel focused on Ruth"s bulging abdomen. Such an odd way to produce an offspring. "You don"t wish me to obliterate your native friend?" he asked.
Mutely, she shook her head from side to side. G.o.d! What was the crazy little monster up to? There was such a feeling of terrible power in his eyes.
Thurlow studied Ruth. How weirdly exotic she appeared in that green robe and those big jewels. And pregnant! By this . . . this . . .
"How odd it is," Kelexel said. "Fraffin believes you can be a control factor in our development, that we can aspire to a new level of being through you -- perhaps even to maturity. It may be that he is more right than he knows."
Kelexel looked up as Thurlow skirted him, went to Ruth.
She pushed Thurlow"s arm aside as he tried to put it around her shoulders. "What"re you going to do, Kelexel?" she asked. Her voice held a thrumming quality, over-controlled.
"A thing no other immortal Chem has ever done," Kelexel said, realizing at last what had truly brought him here. And he wondered: Have I the strength to do this?
He turned his back on Ruth, crossed to Thurlow"s bed, hesitated, smoothed the covers fastidiously. In that instant, the weight of all the Chem rested upon his shoulders, an ominous burden loaded with everything his kind refused to accept.
Seeing him at the bed, Ruth had the terrifying thought that Kelexel was about to impose the manipulator upon her, force Andy to watch them. Oh G.o.d! Please, no! she thought.
Kelexel turned back to them, sat on the edge of the bed. His hands rested lightly beside him. The bed felt soft, its covers warm and fuzzy. The bed gave off a stink of native perspiration which he found oddly erotic.
"What"re you going to do?" Ruth whispered.
Kelexel thought: I must not answer that question! If he answered such questions, he knew his resolve might slip. He would do nothing important. He would accept the path of least resistance, the path which had lured his kind into their present stagnation.
"You will both stay where you are," Kelexel said.
He focused inward then, searched out the drumming center of his own heartbeat, thinking: It should be possible. Rejuvenation teaches us every nerve and muscle, every cell in our bodies. It should be possible.
Thus far, his actions had no name except it, and he merely tested the possibilities. He concentrated on slowing his heartbeat.
At first, there was no reaction. But presently he sensed the beat slowing, almost imperceptibly, then, as he learned control, the pace slackened with a definite downward surge. He timed the rhythm to Ruth"s breathing: inhale -- one beat; exhale -- one beat.
It skipped a beat!
Uncontrolled panic shot through Kelexel. He relaxed his grip on the heartbeat, fought to restore normality. No! he thought. That isn"t what I want! But another force had him now. Fear built on fear, terror on terror. Something gigantic and crushing gripped his chest. He could see the dark abyss, imagined Thurlow"s cliff with himself upon its face clutching for any handhold, scrabbling to stay himself from that awful plunge.
Somewhere out in the foggy haze that had become his surroundings. Ruth"s voice boomed at him: "Something"s wrong with him!"
Kelexel realized he had fallen backward onto Thurlow"s bed. The pain in his chest was a molten agony now. He could feel his heart laboring within that pain: beat-agony, beat-agony; beat-agony . . .
Slowly, he felt his hands relaxing their grip on the face of the cliff. The abyss yawned. He felt that there was a real wind past his ears as he plunged into the darkness, turning, twisting. Ruth"s voice wailed after him to become lost in emptiness: "My G.o.d! He"s dying!"
Nothingness echoed upon nothingness and he thought he heard Thurlow"s words: "Delusion of grandeur."
Thurlow rushed to the bed, felt for a pulse at Kelexel"s temple. Nothing. The skin felt dry, smooth as metal. Perhaps, they"re not exactly like us, he thought. Maybe their pulse shows in another place. He checked the right wrist. How limp and empty the hand felt! No pulse.
"Is he really dead?" Ruth whispered.
"I think he is." Thurlow dropped the flaccid hand, looked up at her. "You told him to die and he did."
A feeling oddly like remorse shot through her then. She thought of the Chem-immortal, all that seemingly endless living come to this. Did I kill him? she wondered. And aloud: "Did we kill him?"
Thurlow looked down at the still figure. He remembered the conversation with Kelexel, the Chem pleading for some kind of mystic rea.s.surance from the primitive "witch doctor."
I gave him nothing, Thurlow thought.
"He was crazy," Ruth whispered. "They"re all crazy."
Yes, this creature had a special kind of madness and it was dangerous, Thurlow told himself. I was right to deny him. He was capable of killing us.
All crazy? Thurlow wondered. He recalled Kelexel"s brief recital of Chem society. There were more of the creatures then. What would they do if they found two natives with a dead Chem?
"Should we do something?" Ruth asked.
Thurlow cleared his throat. What did she mean? Artificial respiration, perhaps? But he sensed madness in such action. What did he know about Chem metabolism? Futility in his eyes, Thurlow looked up at Ruth and was just in time to see two more Chem press past her.
Ruth stood where the two Chem pushed her, obviously unable to move. Her face mirrored terror and defeat.
But the Chem acted as though they were alone in the room. They moved Kelexel"s body on the bed.
Thurlow was caught by the tightly frozen looks on their faces. One, green-cloaked like Kelexel, was a bald, roundfaced female, her body solid and barrel-like. She bent over Kelexel with a gentle sureness, probing, palpitating. There was a feeling of professional sureness about her. The other, in a black cloak, had craggy features, a hooked nose. The skin of both was that weirdly metallic silver.
Not a word pa.s.sed between them while the female made her examination.