The Heaven Makers Part 17

"We'll strike a bargain," he said. "Go along with your lover, but don't interfere with how I run the business. You said it yourself: what do I care how you spend your time?"

Go ahead, compromise yourselves, he thought. I'll own you.

She whirled away, strode down the hall, jerked open the bedroom door, snapped on the light.

Nev was right behind her. He stood in the doorway watching as she yanked clothes from drawers and the closet, threw them on the bed.

"Well, what about it?" he asked.

She forced words out of her mouth, knowing they told more than she wanted to reveal. "All right! Keep the business . . . or whatever. We know what's precious to you." She turned to face him, near tears and fighting to hide it "You're the most hateful creature I've ever met! You can't be human." She put a hand to her mouth. "I wonder if you are."

"What's that supposed to . . ." He broke off, stared past her toward the French doors onto the patio. "Ruth . . ." Her name came out in a strangled gasp.

She whirled.

The French doors stood open to reveal three squat figures clothed in green moving into the room. To Ruth, their heads seemed strangely large, the eyes faintly luminous and frightening. They carried short tubes of silvery metal. There was a disdainful sense of power in the purposeful way they fanned out, pointing those metal tubes casually at the bedroom's occupants.

Ruth found herself wondering with an odd feeling of surprise how they'd opened the French doors without her hearing it.

Behind her, Nev gasped, said: "See here! Who . . ." His voice trailed off in a frightening hiss, an exhalation as though he were a punctured balloon. A liquid trilling sound poured from the mouth of the creature on Ruth's right

This can't be happening, she thought. Then: They're the creatures who frightened us in the grove! What do they want? What're they doing?

She found suddenly that she couldn't move. Her head felt detached, mind clear, but there were no connections to her body. One of the creatures moved to stand directly in front of her -- a queer little manling in green leotards, his torso partly concealed in a cloudy, bulging roundness that pulsed with a purple inner light. She remembered Andy's description of what he'd seen: "Glowing eyes . . ."

Andy! She wanted to scream for him, but her voice wouldn't obey. How drifting and soft the world seemed!

Something jerked past her and she saw Nev there walking as though pulled by strings. Her eyes focused on a smudge of powder along his shoulder, a pulsing vein at his temple. He tipped forward suddenly in that strange marionette way, falling rigidly into one of the open French doors. There came the crash and tinkling of broken gla.s.s. The floor around him became bright with flowing red. He twitched, lay still.

The gnome creature in front of her spoke quite distinctly in English: "An accident, you see?"

She had no voice to answer, only a distant horror somewhere within the powdery billowing that was her self. Ruth closed her eyes, thinking; Andy! Oh, Andy, help me!

Again, she heard one of the creatures speak in that liquid trilling. She tried to open her eyes, couldn't. Waves of darkness began to wash over what remained of her awareness. As unconsciousness came, her mind focused clearly on a single oddly pertinent thought: This can't be happening because no one would believe it. This is nightmare, that's all.

10.

Thurlow sat in the dark car smoking his pipe, wondering what was taking Ruth so long in the house. Should I go in after all? he asked himself. It isn't right that I stay out here while she's in there alone with him. But she said she could handle him.

Did Adele think she could handle Joe?

That's a crazy thought!

It was raining again, a thin drizzle that misted the streetlight at the corner in front of him. He turned, glanced at the house -- lights in the living room, but no sign of movement behind the drawn shades.

When she comes to the door, I'll go up and help her carry whatever . . . no! Dammit, I should go in now. But she must know if she can handle him.

Handle him!

What was it like, those two? Why did she marry him?

He shook his head, looked away from the house. The night appeared too dark beyond the streetlights and he eased off the setting on his polarizing lenses.

What was keeping her in there?

He thought suddenly of the hovering object he'd seen at the grove. There must be some logical explanation, he thought. Perhaps if I called the Air Force . . . anonymously . . . Somebody must have a simple, logical explanation.

But what if they haven't?

My G.o.d! What if the saucer nuts turn out to've been right all along?

He tried to see his wrist.w.a.tch, remembered it hadn't been wound. d.a.m.n she was taking a long time in there!

Like a train shunted onto an odd track, his mind veered to a memory of Ruth's father, the compelling directness of the man's eyes. "Take care of Ruthy!"

And that thing hovering at Joe's window --what had that been?

Thurlow took off his gla.s.ses, polished them with a handkerchief, slipped them back on his nose. He remembered Joe Murphey in April, right after the man had turned in the false fire alarm. What a shock it had been to find Ruth's father facing him in the dirty little examination room above the sheriff's office. And there'd been the even greater shock at evaluating the man's tests. The dry language of his report to the probation office couldn't begin to convey that shock.

"I found him to be a man lacking a good central core of balanced feelings. This, coupled to a dangerous compulsive element such as the false fire alarm, should be considered a warning of serious disturbance. Here is a man whose psychological makeup contains all the elements necessary for a terrible tragedy."

The language of the report -- so careful in its wording, maintaining the strict esoterica of officialese . . . he'd known how little it might convey and had supplemented it with a verbal report.

"The man's dangerous. He's a definite paranoid type and could explode. He's capable of violence."

The disbelief had been frightening. "Surely this is nothing more than a prank. Joe Murphey! h.e.l.l, he's an important man here, Andy. Well . . . could you recommend a.n.a.lysis . . . psychoa.n.a.lysis."

"He won't have anything to do with it . . . and I doubt it'd do him any good."

"Well, what do you expect us to do? Can't you recommend something?"

"Maybe we can get him into a church. I'll call Father Giles at the Episcopal church and see if . . ."

"A church?"

Thurlow remembered his rueful shrug, the too pat words: "I'll probably be read out of the order for this, but religion often does what psychology can't."

Thurlow sighed. Father Giles, of course, had been unsuccessful.

d.a.m.n! What was keeping Ruth in that house? He reached for the car door, thought better of it. Give her a few more minutes. Everything was quiet in there. Probably it was taking her time to pack.

Ruth . . . Ruth . . . Ruth . . .

He remembered that she'd taken his probation report with better balance than the officials. But she was trained in his field and she'd suspected for some time that her father was disturbed. Thurlow remembered he'd gone out to the hospital immediately after the session in the probation office. Ruth had accompanied him, looking withdrawn and fearful, into the almost deserted cafeteria. They'd taken their cups to a corner table. He remembered the steam-table smell of the place, the faint antiseptic background, the marbleized linoleum tabletop with its leftover coffee stains.

Her cup had clattered in a trembling staccato as she'd put it down. He'd sat silently for a moment, sensing her need to come to grips with what he'd told her.