Time and Again

XI

Across the room a woman's laughter floated, sharp-edged with excitement.

The lights changed from the dusk-blue of April to the purple-gray of madness and the room was another world that floated in a hush that was not exactly silence. Perfume came down a breeze that touched the cheek with ice…perfume that called to mind black orchids in an outland of breathless terror.

The floor swayed beneath Sutton's feet and he felt Eva's small fist digging hard into his arm.

The Zag spoke to them and his words were dead and hollow sounds dripping from a mummied husk.

"What is it that you wish? Here you live the lives you yearn for…find any escape that you may seek…possess the things you dream of."

"There is a stream," said Sutton. "A little creek that ran…"

The light changed to green, a faerie green that glowed with soft, quiet life, exuberant, springtime life and the hint of things to come, and there were trees, trees that were fringed and haloed with the glistening, sun-kissed green of the first bursting buds.

Sutton wiggled his toes and knew the grass beneath them, the first tender grass of spring, and smelled the hepaticas and bloodroot that had almost no smell at all…and the stronger scent of sweet Williams blooming on the hill across the creek.

He told himself, "It's too early for sweet Williams to be in bloom."

The creek gurgled at him, as it ran across the shingle down into the Big Hole and he hurried forward across the meadow grass, cane pole tight-clutched in one hand, the can of worms in the other.

A bluebird flashed through the trees that climbed the bluff across the meadow and a robin sang high in the top of the mighty elm that grew above the Big Hole.

Sutton found the worn place in the bank, like a chair with the elm's trunk serving as a back, and he sat down in it and leaned forward to peer into the water. The current ran strong and dark and deep, swirling in to hug the higher bank, gurgling and sucking with a strength that set up tiny whirlpools.

Sutton drew in his breath and held it with pent-up anticipation. With shaking hands he found the biggest worm and pulled it from the can, baited up the hook.

Breathlessly, he dropped the hook into the water, canted the pole in front of him for easy handling. The bobber drifted down the swirling slide of water, floated in an eddy where the current turned back upon itself. It jerked, almost disappeared, then bobbed to the surface and floated once again.

Sutton leaned forward, tensed, arms aching with the tenseness. But even through the tenseness, he knew the goodness of the day…the utter peace and tranquillity…the freshness of the morning, the soft heat of the sun, the blue of sky and the white of cloud. The water talked to him and he felt himself grow and become a being that comprehended and became a part of the clean, white ecstasy that was the hills and stream and meadow…earth, cloud, water, sky and sun.

And the bobber went clear under!

He jerked and felt the weight of the fish that he had caught. It sailed in an arc above his head and landed in the grass behind him. He laid down his pole, scrambled to his feet and ran.

The chub flopped in the grass and he grabbed the line and held it up. It was a whopper! A good six inches long!

Sobbing in his excitement, he dropped to his knees and grasped the fish, removed the hook with fingers that fumbled in their trembling.

A six-inch one to start with, he said, talking to the sky and stream and meadow. Maybe every one I catch will be that big. Maybe I'll catch as many as a dozen and all of them will be six inches long. Maybe some of them will be even bigger. Maybe…

"Hello," said a childish voice.

Sutton twisted around, still on his knees.

A little girl stood by the elm tree and it seemed for a moment that he had seen her somewhere before. But then he realized that she was a stranger and he frowned a little, for girls were no good when it came to fishing. He hoped she wouldn't stay. It would be just like her to hang around and spoil the day for him.

"I am," she said, speaking a name he did not catch, for she lisped a little.

He did not answer.

"I am eight years old," she said.

"I am Asher Sutton," he told her, "and I am ten…going on eleven."

She stood and stared at him, one hand plucking nervously at the figured apron that she wore. The apron, he noticed, was clean and starched, very stiff and prim, and she was messing it all up with her nervous plucking.

"I am fishing," he said and tried very hard to keep from sounding too important. "And I just caught a whopper."

He saw her eyes go large in sudden terror at the sight of something that came up from behind him and he wheeled around, no longer on his knees, but on his feet, and his hand was snaking into the pocket of his coat.

The place was purple-gray and there was shrill woman-laughter and there was a face in front of him…a face he had seen that afternoon and never would forget.

A fat and cultured face that twinkled even now with good fellowship, twinkled despite the deadly squint, despite the gun already swinging upward in a hairy, pudgy fist.

Sutton felt his fingers touch the grip of the gun he carried, felt them tighten around it and jerk it from the pocket. But he was too late, he knew, too late to beat the spat of flame from a gun that had long seconds' start.

Anger flamed within him, cold, desolate, deadly anger. Anger at the pudgy fist, at the smiling face…the face that would smile across a chessboard or from behind a gun. The smile of an egotist who would try to beat a robotic that was designed to play the perfect game of chess…an egotist who believed that he could shoot down Asher Sutton.

The anger, he realized, was something more than anger…something greater and more devastating than the mere working of human adrenal. It was a part of him and something that was more than him, more than the mortal thing of flesh and blood that was Asher Sutton. A terrible thing plucked from nonhumanity.

The face before him melted…or it seemed to melt. It changed and the smile was gone and Sutton felt the anger move out from his brain and slam bullet-hard against the wilting personality that was Geoffrey Benton.

Benton's gun coughed loudly and the muzzle-flash was blood-red in the purple light. Then Sutton felt the thud of his own gun slamming back against his wrist, slapping at the heel of his hand as he pulled the trigger.

Benton was falling, twisting forward, bending at the middle as if he had hinges in his stomach, and Sutton caught one glimpse of the purple-painted face before it dropped from sight to huddle on the floor. There were surprise and anguish and a terrible overriding fear printed on the features that had been twisted out of shape and were not human any more.

The crashing of the guns had smashed the place to silence, and through the garish light that swirled with powder smoke, Sutton saw the white blobs of many faces staring at him. Faces that mostly were without expression, although some of them had mouths and the mouths were round and open.

He felt a tugging at his elbow and he moved, guided by the hand upon his arm. Suddenly he was limp and shaken and the'anger was no more and he told himself, "I have just killed a man."

"Quick," said Eva Armour's voice. "We must get out of here. They'll be swarming at you now. The whole hell's pack of them."

"It was you," he told her. "I remember now. I didn't catch the name at first. You mumbled it…or I guess you lisped, and I didn't hear it."

The girl tugged at his arm. "They had Benton conditioned. They figured that was all they needed. They never dreamed you could match him in a duel."

"You were the little girl," Sutton told her, gravely. "You wore a checkered apron and you kept twisting it as if you might be nervous."

"What in heaven's name are you talking about?"

"Why, I was fishing," Sutton said, "and I had just caught a big one when you came along…"

"You're crazy," said the girl. "You were never fishing."

She pushed open a door and shoved him out and the cool air of night slapped him across the face.

"Wait a second," he cried. He wheeled around and caught the girl's arms roughly in his hands.

"They?" he yelled at her. "What are you talking about? Who are they?"

She stared at him wide-eyed.

"You mean that you don't know?"

He shook his head, bewildered.

"Poor Ash," she said.

Her copper hair was a reddish flame, burnished and alive in the flicker of the sign that flashed on and off above the Zag House facade.

An android doorman spoke to them softly. "You wished a car, sir?"

Even as he spoke, the car was there, sliding smoothly and silently up the driveway like a black beetle winging from the night. The doorman reached out a hand and swung wide the door.

"Quick is the word," he said.

There was something in the soft, slurred tone that made Sutton move. He stepped inside the car and pulled Eva after him. The android slammed the door.

Sutton tramped on the accelerator and the car screamed down the curving driveway, slid onto the highway, roared with leashed impatience as it took the long road curving toward the hills.

"Where?" asked Sutton.

"Back to the Arms," she said. "They wouldn't dare to try for you there. Your room is rigged with rays."

Sutton chuckled. "I have to be careful or I would trip on them. But how come you know?"

"It is my job to know."

"Frind or foe?" he asked.

"Friend," she said.

He turned his head and studied her. She had slumped down in the seat and was a little girl…but she didn't have a checkered apron and she wasn't nervous.

"I don't suppose," said Sutton, "that it would be any use for me to ask you questions?"

She shook her head.

"If I did, you'd probably lie to me."

"If I wanted to," she said.

"I could shake it out of you."

"You could, but you won't. You see. Ash, I know you very well."

"You just met me yesterday."

"Yes, I know," she said, "but I've studied you for all of twenty years."

He laughed. "You haven't thought of me, at all. You just…"

"And Ash."

"Yes?"

"I think you're wonderful."

He shot a quick glance at her. She was still in her corner of the seat and the wind had blown one strand of copper hair across her face…and her body was soft and her face was shining. And yet, he thought, and yet…

"That's a nice thing for you to say," he told her. "I could kiss you for it."

"You may kiss me, Ash," she told him, "any time you want to."

After a startled moment he slowed the car and did.