The Happy Man Part 2

"You move quiet as a cat," he said. "You do this?"

"Uh-huh." She came forward and stared down at the corpse. Nelson was glad he couldn't see her face in the darkness. "There were two of them. They split up and I followed after this one and came up behind him. I slit his throat. Then I went and got the other one the same way."

And it had been so simple, thought Nelson. He handed Glynnis the extra pack. "Take this." She accepted it wordlessly and slipped her arms into the straps. "Oh," he added, as an afterthought. "Let me show you something." He reached into the pack and drew out a knife. A good one with a long plasteel blade that would not chip or corrode like hers.

He handed it to her and imagined her smiling face in the darkness.

"It doesn't feel like metal," she said, after she had taken the knife from its scabbard.

"It isn't. It's a kind of plastic, stronger than most metals. Do you like it?" He was wasting time, he knew, and he cursed himself for it.

But it didn't matter.

"It's real nice," she answered.

"I'm glad you like it," he said, taking her elbow in his hand. "We'd better go now. They'll be after us."

They ran most of the night, although it wasn't always running. Nelson picked a lot of terrain that was too uneven or too thickly covered with growth for running. They kept to rocks and creekbeds as much as they could, and they stopped only a few hours before dawn to get a few hours sleep they were too exhausted to postpone any longer.

When Nelson awoke the sun was a little higher than he had wanted it to be. He got to his feet and scanned the morning sky but saw nothing to indicate sky patrol robots. He felt uneasy about not having made more territory; but the way had been erratic and uneven. A thorough search pattern could find him easily; the further away he got from the depot the better chance he stood of not being discovered by a robot. He wondered, briefly, just how many would be called out, but there was no reason to wonder. Three patrolmen dead meant a lot of searching to find the killers. He and Glynnis couldn't waste much time.

He nudged the still sleeping girl with his foot to wake her. She awoke suddenly, her hand darting toward her new knife and a low but startled cry came from her.

"Quiet." He had dug two cans out of his pack and handed one to her.

"We overslept. Eat in a hurry."

She opened her breakfast. "We'll be traveling most of the day?" she asked. When he nodded, "yes," she said, "I can take it."

"I know you can; but they'll have a search out for us by now and a thorough one. If we hadn't met when we had they'd have picked you up for sure after I raided that depot--if I could have pulled it off alone."

She smiled.

"You ever see an air robot?" he asked.

"No."

"I hope you never do. They'll fly out a search pattern, and they have equipment that can detect a human being. They can send back signals to tell where we are if they spot us. Our only hope is to get away before the search pattern gets this far. If we can get far enough away, we stand a better chance, because they'll have to spread out more thinly.

We'll have to run for a long time, but eventually they'll give up.

Until then--Well--" He let it hang. But Glynnis caught on.

The rest of the day they traveled, stopping only briefly to eat and once during the afternoon when they came to a small river. Nelson's admiration for Glynnis increased. She responded intelligently to his commands, and learned quickly. She was strong and athletic, with the reflexes of an animal.

They made good time. When darkness came Nelson estimated they had made almost fifty miles since the raid, even over rough terrain. He hoped that that would be enough. He was tired, and though the girl attempted to hide her own fatigue, her attempts were becoming more and more exaggerated. He searched out a camp site.

He found one on a hill, overlooking a river. There was protection from the wind. The moon was up and there was plenty of light from it; but Nelson didn't think the searchers would be out at night.

After they had eaten, Nelson leaned back against the thick bole of a tree and found himself studying the girl. Her features were even enough, but she was not a cla.s.sically beautiful girl. Nor an unattractive one. It was her eyes, he decided. She was staring off into the sky and forest. Her eyes were large, dark, enigmatic eyes that expressed much; expressed it eloquently. But he had the feeling there was much in the girl that those eyes hid. Her body was lean, but whether from exercise or undernourishment he couldn't be sure. Her figure was full, for all the leanness, and ample. She was strong, though she hardly looked muscular. She had been toughened by her environment. Edna had not been as tough as Glynnis.

With sudden embarra.s.sment, he realized he had been comparing Glynnis and Edna frequently. He didn't want to do that--but he couldn't help himself.

"Something wrong?" Glynnis asked anxiously.

She was returning his stare. "No," he said. "I was ... looking at you." For a long moment, neither spoke. Then he said, "We'll be together for a long time."

"I know. We'll have to be."

"I'm glad I found you. I lost my wife to the patrol some time back."

"I've never been anyone's wife before. There was Frank, but I was never really what you could call his wife, exactly."

"Many people ever stay with your folks?"

"Not many. Frank only stayed a few days. I liked him. I wanted to go with him."

"Why didn't you?"

She broke off a blade of gra.s.s and slowly began tearing it into strips, intently gazing at it. "He just left suddenly without taking me. I guess he thought I was just a stupid brat. That was maybe two or three years ago." Her voice sounded as if she were smiling a little.

Nelson thought that strange.

"You ever think much about the sleepers?" he asked suddenly.

"Sometimes. I wonder what it's like in their dreams."

"They like it in their dreams. Those dreams are built for them. They get along happily in their world, grateful for it. That's the word, grateful." He listened for a moment to nightsounds. "But they're helpless. If anything happens, they're asleep and unable to act. If they wake up, they're in a world they don't know how to live in."

"If you were a sleeper, what kind of world would you want to dream about?"

"I don't want to be a sleeper."

"Yes, but if you were. Would you live in a castle?"

He thought on it for the first time. "I don't know," he said finally.

"I don't think so. I think I'd travel. Go out to the stars. There's a whole universe out there. Men went out there; they're still out there.

I guess they've forgotten us."

"You think they'll ever come back?"

"Some day I think somebody from out there will come back and land on Earth to see what it's like. Maybe they'll try to invade us. We'd be pretty helpless with most of us asleep in our pipe-dream utopias."

"I wouldn't like to be caught and put in a dream," she said. "But I'd like to live in a castle." Nelson gazed at her. She had never known a commune, he realized. If she had, she would have bred when told to and then docilely filed away to her coffin. But she had never been indoctrinated. If she went into the dreams, it would be against her will. But he had to admit that he had some reservations....

He moved close to her.

"Maybe some day we can live in a castle. Or go into s.p.a.ce to some planet where men live in castles." He stared at the stars. "Out there they must be like G.o.ds," he said and his voice sounded strange, even to him.

He looked down at Glynnis. The moonlight was full on her face; she looked fit to be a G.o.ddess to those G.o.ds, he thought. She was staring off and around at the wilderness; she was saying, "Out here there's trees. And air. I like to look at the trees." He reached over and pulled her face around to him and kissed her. She was startled, but returned the kiss warmly.

She pulled away just far enough to look into his face. She was smiling. "I think I like you better than I did Frank," she said.