The Heaven Makers Part 34

Kelexel exerted more pressure, repeated his command. The manipulator's setting went up . . . up . . . up . . .

Slowly, woodenly she obeyed. The robe dropped to the silvery piled carpet, leaving her nude. Her flesh appeared suddenly pale. Rippling tremors moved up and down her stomach.

"Turn around," he said.

With the same wooden movement, she obeyed. One of her bare feet caught the emerald belt. Its chain rattled.

"Face me." Kelexel said.

When she'd obeyed, Kelexel released the manipulator's pressure. The tremors stopped moving across her stomach. She took a deep, ragged breath.

How superbly graceful she is, Kelexel thought.

Without taking her gaze from him, Ruth bent, picked up the robe, slipped into it, belted it.

There! she thought. I've resisted him. I've a.s.serted myself at last. It'll be easier next time. And she remembered the sodden pressure of the manipulator, the compulsion which had forced her to disrobe. Even in that extremity, she'd felt the sureness that a time would come when she could resist Kelexel's manipulator no matter its pressure. There'd be a limit to the pressure, she knew, but no limit to her growing will to resist. She had only to think of what she'd seen on the pantovive to strengthen that core of resistance.

"You're angry with me," Kelexel said. "Why? I've indulged your every fancy."

For answer, she seated herself at the pantovive's metal webwork, moved its controls. Keys clicked. Instruments hummed.

How deftly she uses her toy, Kelexel thought. She's been at it more than I suspected. Such practiced sureness! But when has she had time to become this sure? She's never used it in front of me before. I've seen her each rest period. Perhaps time moves at a different rate for mortals. How long to her has she been with me? A quarter of her sun's circuit or maybe a bit more.

He wondered then how she really felt about the offspring within her body. Primitives felt many things about their bodies, knew many things without recourse to instruments. Some wild sense they had which spoke to them from within. Could the potential offspring be why she was angered?

"Look," Ruth said.

Kelexel sat upright, focused on the pantovive's image stage, the glowing oval where Fraffin's almost-people performed. Figures moved there, the gross wild Chem. Kelexel was suddenly reminded of a comment he'd heard about Fraffin's productions -- "Their reverse dollhouse quality." Yes, his creatures always managed to seem emotionally as well as physically larger than life.

"These are relatives of mine," Ruth said. "My father's brother and sister. They came out for the trial. This is their motel room."

"Motel?" Kelexel slipped off the bed, crossed to stand beside Ruth.

"Temporary housing," she said. She sat down at the controls.

Kelexel studied the stage. Its bubble of light contained a room of faded maroon. A thin, straw-haired female sat on the edge of a bed at the right. She wore a pink dressing gown. One heavily veined hand dabbed a damp handkerchief at her eyes. Like the furniture, she appeared faded -- dull eyes, sagging cheeks. In the general shape of her head and body, she resembled Ruth's father. Kelexel wondered then if Ruth would come to this one day. Surely not. The strange female's eyes peered from deep sockets beneath thin brows.

A man stood facing her, his back to the viewers.

"Now, Claudie," the man said, "there's no sense . . ."

"I just can't help remembering," she said. A sob in her voice.

Kelexel swallowed. His body drank emotional identification with the creatures in the pantovive. It was uncanny -- repellant and at once magnetic. The pantovive's sensimesh web projected a cloying sweet emotion from the woman. It was stifling.

"I remember one time on the farm near Marion," she said. "Joey was about three that night we was sitting on the porch after the preacher'd been there to dinner. Paw was wondering out loud how he could get that twelve acres down by the creek."

"He was always wondering that."

"And Joey said he had to go toi-toi."

"That danged outhouse," Grant said.

"Remember them narrow boards across the mud? Joey was still wearing that white suit Ma'd made for him."

"Claudie, what's the use remembering all . . ."

"You remember that night?"

"Claudie, that was a long time ago."

"I remember it. Joey asked all around for someone to go out with him across them boards, but Paw said for him to git along. What's he scared of?"

"Doggone, Claudie, you sound like Paw sometimes."

"I remember Joey going out there all by hisself -- a little white blot like in the dark. Then Paw yipped: 'Joey! Look out for that buck n.i.g.g.e.r ahint you!'"

"And Joey ran!" Grant said. "I remember."

"And he slipped off into the mud."

"He come back all dirty," Grant said, "I remember." He chuckled.

"And when Paw found out he'd wet hisself, too, he went and got the razor strop." Her voice softened. "Joey was such a little feller."

"Paw was a strict one, all right."

"Funny the things you remember sometimes," she said.

Grant moved across to a window, picked at the maroon drapery. Turning, he revealed his face -- the same fine bone structure as Ruth, but with heavy flesh over it. A sharp line crossed his forehead where a hat had been worn, the face dark beneath it, light above. His eyes appeared hidden in shadowed holes. The hand at the drapery was darkly veined.

"This is real dry country," he said. "Nothing ever looks green out here."

"I wonder why he done it?" Claudie asked.

Grant shrugged. "He was a strange one, that Joey."

"Listen to you," she said. "Was a strange one. Already talking like he was dead."

"I guess he is, Claudie. Just as good as." He shook his head. "Either dead or committed to an insane asylum. Same thing really when they stick you away like that."

"I heard you talk plenty about what happened when we was kids," she said. "You figure that had anything to do with him going . . . like this?"

"What had anything to do with it?"

"The way Paw treated him."

Grant found a loose thread in the drapery. He pulled it out, rolled it between his fingers. The sensimesh web projected a feeling of long-repressed anger from him.