The compleat collected s.., p.60
The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works, page 60
"I would like to go there," Miss Kelly said suddenly. She dropped the postcard she had been holding beside Lockhart's plate and tapped it with a slim finger.
"Errigal?" said Lockhart. "But it's too far. We might not get back in time to meet the ship."
"I want to go there," she repeated firmly.
Lockhart looked at her. As a doctor he had come to know people, the methods they used to fool others and the even more complicated ways they tried to fool themselves. Take the Kelly girl here, for instance.
She might not admit it to herself, Lockhart knew; probably the very idea of it was unthinkable to her, but he was convinced that Miss Kelly wanted desperately not to catch that ship.
Chapter Six
THEY CLUNG to the Land Survey marker that was conveniently placed near the summit of Mt. Errigal, trying to keep the gale which tore at their clothing from blowing them off the mountain. Sharp and clear where it was not obscured by low-flying clouds, the wild, cruel beauty of north Donegal lay around them. Like a loaf left too long in an oven and burnt, Mt. Muchish raised its brown, rounded summit five miles to the northeast. The clear, cold air made it seem close enough to reach out and touch. Everything was gray and purple and brown; tumbled, jagged rock, heather, and the dark, wet brown of freshly-dug peat. Directly below them the road was a twisted yellow thread, and the tiny black knot in it was their car. The view was achingly, indescribably beautiful.
And it was cold.
Judging by her pinched face and blue lips, the girl was suffering from the cold, too. Her eyes and cheeks were wet, which could, Lockhart thought, be due to the strong wind. But several times already today she had burst into tears, and at scenery that fell far short of the breathtaking panorama now spread before them.
Lockhart glanced at his watch, then scrambled stiffly to his feet. They had been up here for over an hour.
Urgently he shouted, "We'll have to leave, or you'll miss that ship." He half-dragged the girl to her feet and began propelling her down the path.
The path was steep and narrow, following the edge of a razor-backed ridge, and it was the only means of reaching the summit without the use of climbing tackle. It was safe enough, of course, provided one did not allow one's eyes to wander from it to the depths on either side. The sweat broke out on Lockhart when Miss Kelly, who was a short distance ahead of him, stopped suddenly. He bumped into her, nearly overbalancing both of them.
"Wait!" she said, and pointed.
It was a cloud, one of the low, cottony rainclouds that were blowing in from the sea. This one was headed straight for them. Lockhart could look down on it as it approached, until the up-draft caught it and sent it boiling up the slope toward them. Like a, horde of maddened ghosts it rushed silently over and past them to stream out over the valley on the other side.
The girl laughed exultantly and resumed the descent.
Later, when the car was traveling as fast as road conditions would permit, and sometimes a little faster, Lockhart asked worriedly, "When exactly will that ship land, Miss Kelly? We've wasted a lot of time here."
"Wasted?"
Lockhart kept his eyes on the road, but he knew immediately that he had made her angry. She took a deep breath.
"As accurately as the transposed time-measuring systems will allow, I expect the ship to arrive between eleven-thirty tonight and two-fifteen tomorrow morning. And, Dr. Lockhart," she went on coldly, "my name, or the abbreviation of it allowed to a person who has spent several hours alone with me, is 'Kelly'. That is the pronunciation; the spelling varies with the language used. I have mentioned this before.
"The word-sound, 'Miss'," she added, a hint of apology creeping into her voice, "has very unpleasant connotations in the language of my home planet. You had no knowledge of this, I know, but the constant repetition of the word is irritating when linked with my name, especially when it is unnecessary."
Lockhart sneaked a quick, sideways glance at her face. She was angry all right, but was it really because of him? He had the impression that she was fighting a war with herself, and he was merely an innocent bystander. Again he wondered, was she deliberately trying to miss that ship, or at least, hoping she would miss it? She must have gone through a lot to reach Earth and Cedric, the ready-made fifth column inside the Agency. Lockhart remembered suddenly what the professor had called her. Joan of Arc, he thought, was beginning to show signs of battle fatigue.
Not that Lockhart blamed her. The forthcoming trip, to him, seemed to be dependent on luck rather than planning. Or maybe there was planning, but semi-barbaric Earthmen like Hedley and himself were incapable of understanding it.
"I'm very sorry, Kelly," Lockhart said carefully. A few seconds elapsed, and he added, "My abbreviation is 'John'."
"John is a pleasant name," she said, all trace of anger gone from her voice. "Its sound is innocuous both in Galactic and the other planetary languages with which I am familiar. But this," she went on, her voice deadly serious, "is not the case with many of the often-used word-sounds in your language.
"If you were a passenger on an Agency tourist ship you would have to be very careful about such things. Even an unthinking gesture or change of facial expression could cause serious trouble, and possibly death. That is the reason why the passengers adopt an attitude of ..." In considerable detail she explained the code of behavior forced on interstellar travelers for their protection, a code that was supposed to make it impossible for one human unknowingly to insult another from a different cultural background. It was complicated.
"A pleasure cruise on a ship like that wouldn't be very nice," Lockhart said. He laughed to ease the earlier tension. "I'm glad it's you and not me."
The girl turned abruptly and began staring through the far-side window at something.
It was nearly eight o'clock when they reached Derry. Lockhart left the car for exactly three minutes, and when he returned he dumped a warm and aromatic parcel in Kelly's lap and got behind the wheel again.
"Fish and chips," he said. "It's all we've time for."
They were on the outskirts of Portrush when the girl said, "There's a building I want to visit here."
"Look, we haven't time," Lockhart snapped. Angrily, he pointed out that it was almost dusk, that the ship might arrive early, and that Hedley and the others must be worried stiff about them by now.
"Please. It won't take long," she pleaded. Then, "The next turn left."
Lockhart swore under his breath, and nosed the car into a narrow street leading toward the sea front.
It was a big white building that she pointed out to him, ablaze with neon lighting and with music drifting out through the brightly lit entrance. Lockhart gave it an incredulous stare, shook his head and said, "You can dance?"
"No," she replied. "But I come often with Cedric, for the music."
Alfie McConnel and his Orchestra were featured nightly, the display poster outside had stated. It was a small outfit, Lockhart saw, but it most decidedly cooked with gas. McConnel himself sang, played trumpet and waved his arms in front of his band, frequently doing all three during the course of a single number. Lockhart grew aware that his right foot, which had been tapping impatiently against the floor, was now beating time to the music and that he had no inclination whatever to stop it.
The number ended and the band went into another. This time it was a waltz.
"Please," Kelly said suddenly, "I would like to try it."
The floor was crowded with couples shuffling around cheek-to-cheek and locked tightly together. Lockhart, who had taken dancing seriously in his student days, deplored the modern habit of "creeping", but at least there was no skill required for it. He said, "Just one, remember," and glanced anxiously at his watch. They moved off.
Lockhart had expected her to trip all over his feet, but he received a pleasant shock. He found himself forgetting that she had feet at all. Kelly seemed to possess a natural sense of rhythm, and the music moved her as though each separate chord were the controlling wire of a puppet-master. But it was only her feet that he was able to forget, because she had automatically adopted the cheek-to-cheek stranglehold of the "creepers" around them. It began to bother Lockhart, but pleasantly.
"I remember this work," the girl said dreamily, her words muffled against his chest. "It was used in a film I saw about an artist whose short legs led to an advanced state of neuroticism, making it impossible for him to achieve complete adjustment to his environment and causing him much unhappiness." She sighed as the number came to an end, but showed no signs of leaving the floor. Lockhart listened helplessly to a Galactic judgement of Toulouse-Lautrec in the middle of a suddenly empty floor.
"We'll have to go now," Lockhart said firmly when she had finished. "I'm sorry."
The band began another waltz.
"No," Kelly said, "no." She turned quickly and hurried in the direction of a small group of unattached males over by the wall. Lockhart saw her go up to one of them, a sallow-faced character whose tie was a jangling discord against the screaming pattern of his shirt, and ask him to dance. Then Lockhart was at her elbow, urging her fiercely to leave.
"Is Grandpa here annoying you?" the youth said, speaking out of the corner of his mouth.
Lockhart had visions of the girl losing herself in the crowd of dancers, disappearing. What could he tell Hedley if that happened? Anger surged up in him again, the same blind, murderous rage that had sent him after Cedric that evening in the hotel. It must have shown in his face, because the youth looked frightened suddenly and began to back away from him. Lockhart gripped Kelly tightly and guided her onto the floor again.
Why, he asked himself, should she not have another dance? Why not several? His anger faded as he thought of the thing this girl was trying to do for him, and everybody else, too. If only he could help her in some concrete fashion, instead of merely trying to make her last few hours on Earth as pleasant as possible. Hedley, he decided fiercely, could wait. Lockhart had a sudden urge to protect her, to shield her from harm. Unconsciously, his hold on her grew even tighter.
Without actually doing anything, Kelly, in some subtle fashion, responded. Then Lockhart forgot Hedley, the Agency and everything but the girl. His mouth was dry, he was sweating and his head seemed to be whirling though he did not feel the slightest bit dizzy. He thought helplessly, Oh, blast. Soft lights and sweet music ...
They were drawing abreast of a big French window that opened out onto a veranda, and the beach. He pushed her roughly toward it.
"John!" Kelly said, startled.
The breeze from the sea struck cold against his moist face. The cane chairs on the veranda were all filled, two shadowy forms to each chair. There were more couples lying on the moonlit sand below. He half-dragged, half-carried her across the veranda and down the steps to the beach.
"John," she said again, sounding a little frightened.
Across the soft, silvery beach, past the murmuring, prostrate twosomes, then up more steps. Lockhart carried her bodily up most of them. A few seconds later he was behind the wheel again, and Kelly was safely in the back seat. Lockhart was sweating profusely, and not only from his exertions.
Another few minutes in that place, he thought, and Hedley would have seen neither of us tonight. Silently, viciously, Lockhart cursed himself for a fool. The girl was not simply leaving his town, or even his country. She was going several million fight-years away, and in only a few hours' time from now.
Why, he asked himself in bitter self-disgust, did he have to start falling in love with her?
It was five minutes to eleven when they drew up before Daly's Guest House in Portballintrae. A blocky figure detached itself from the group waiting tensely beside the sea-wall. It was Hedley.
"Where in blazes have you been," he said with a cold, deadly ferocity. "We thought you'd eloped."
Chapter Seven
THEY LAY hidden in the sand dunes overlooking the White Rock, a tall pinnacle of limestone rising dramatically above the level beach. Though it was not at all convenient to the Bay Hotel, it was an unmistakable landmark for the ship whose invisibility rendered it partially blind, and the hotel's station wagon would be on hand to take care of the new arrivals.
But two hundred yards of sand, long grass and prickly bushes lay between the Rock and the roadway where the station wagon would be parked, and while Cedric and the conditioned extra-terrestrial from the hotel were guiding the new arrivals over it, Kelly and Hedley's men would board the ship.
At least one of the Agency ship's men would have to accompany Cedric so as to recover the Cloaks which they would all be using until they reached the car.
In the hollow sheltering them from the wind, Hedley moved restively, his eyes constantly searching the sky, the beach and the path leading back to the road. Suddenly he swore, and pointed.
"Who's that!" he whispered angrily. "What are they doing there this time of night?"
Lockhart could just make out three tiny figures far along the beach. They seemed to be approaching slowly. Disgustedly, he thought that it would be just like somebody to blunder into them and spoil everything.
Draper, who was crouched beside Hedley, pushed himself onto his knees and focused his binoculars on them.
"Well?" said Hedley impatiently.
"They are," said Draper in a carefully neutral voice, "Keeler, his wife, and Junior."
"But I told Keeler ..." Hedley began angrily, then stopped as he realized that Kelly might hear him at the other side of the hollow. There was no telling how she might react to this.
"I expected this to happen," the professor put in quietly. "I heard him telling his wife that nobody could stop him from taking a midnight walk on the beach if he wanted one, and here he is. Mrs. Keeler knows most of what is going on, I expect, and went along to keep an eye on him. Junior, of course, goes where he likes. He probably trailed them from the hotel.
"Anyway," he went on reasonably, "Keeler will have sense enough not to come too close. If he hasn't, his wife will."
Hedley said, "I hope so."
In the silence that ensued, Lockhart's attention returned to the girl again. She was sitting apart from the others and staring fixedly out to sea. She's afraid, he thought. He wished he could do something.
Hedley and the others had been polite, and very respectful toward her. Their appreciation for the thing she was trying to do for them was unmistakable; the professor, in his less restrained moments, had several times likened her to Joan of Arc. But not once had Lockhart heard one of them express concern for her personally. They were too busy worrying about the "Big Picture", he supposed, the state of the world at large.
Didn't they think Kelly was human? Or were extra-terrestrials supposed to be above feelings? On a sudden impulse, Lockhart went across to her.
"You'll do it, all right," he said reassuringly, and put his hand on her shoulder. "I know you will."
Lockhart felt her stiffen. She glanced at him, then turned her head away. He drew his hand away and said awkwardly, "If I can do anything to help, tell me. I ... we ... appreciate what you're doing and, well ..." He ended with a rush. "If I could help by going along, I'd do it."
And he meant what he said, Lockhart realized suddenly. Kelly had grown on him the past few days. But there was no chance of her taking him up on the offer. How could he help her; it would be like an aborigine trying to assist a private detective.
Kelly looked at him with a start. The corners of her mouth twitched before she turned her head away again. In a strained voice, she said, "Thank you, John."
But suddenly there was no distance at all between them. Her arms were around his neck and she was making muffled, weeping noises against the shoulder of his jacket. Lockhart was too surprised to move. Dazed, he heard her tell him that she was sorry for something, but the blare of a car's horn sounded from the road before she told him what she was sorry for, and Hedley was beside them.
"Is she all right?" the agent said urgently. "That's Cedric and the station wagon. The ship must be on the way down."
Lockhart nodded. "Just nerves, I think."
"Yes," said Hedley, "That's probably it. But—"
He broke off as Kelly pushed herself away from Lockhart and grabbed for her bag. She produced a gadget rather like a large reading glass, held it in front of her face and began sweeping an ever-widening area of sky with it. Suddenly she said, "There it is!"
A faint blob of greenish light showed on the inner face of the lens, wobbling and growing larger as she kept it inside the instrument's field of view. It grew until the blob became a stubby torpedo-shape that almost filled the tiny screen. To the naked eye the sky was clear. It was hard to believe that two hundred feet of ship was landing practically on top of them. Kelly brought the instrument smoothly downward until her eye and it were in line with a point far up the beach, then she held it steady and nodded for Lockhart and Hedley to have a closer look.
The screen showed a small section of beach, with the ship resting on broad triangular fins close to the water's edge. The picture was in pale green and black monochrome, and lacking in fine detail—rather like a radar picture he had once seen, Lockhart thought. But it was this defect which would make their entry of the ship possible.
According to Kelly, a person who hid inside a field of total refraction—who became invisible, that is—automatically blinded himself to everything outside it unless he used an instrument similar to the one she was holding. With such an instrument, it was possible to see through a refraction field to a certain extent. Obstacles and people could be seen, but not clearly enough for purposes of identification. Therefore, when the passengers and crewman whose job it was to collect their refraction field generators, or Cloaks, left their invisible and partially blind ship to follow Cedric and the Agency man to the station wagon ...
Lockhart's mind was running over the plan for boarding the ship when Kelly's voice brought him back with a start.
"It's too far. We'll have to move closer."
"Yes," Hedley agreed. "And before that goon from the hotel arrives with Cedric." He gave low-voiced instructions to the men crouched around him and they went half-crawling, half-running through the dunes in the direction of the ship; They stopped behind a rocky outcropping which Kelly said was as close to the ship as they dared go—about twenty yards. They had to take her word for that, of course; the beach looked deserted.
