“He won by three votes,” Susie Smart said.
Babble nodded. “In any case I’m satisfied.”
Seth Morley walked over to Babble, faced him and said, “You’re sure that was the cause of death?”
“Beyond doubt. I have equipment which can determine–”
“Did you find an insect bite-mark on him anywhere?”
“Actually no,” Babble said.
“A possible spot where a plant leaf might have speared him?”
“No,” Babble said, “but that isn’t an important aspect of such a determination. Some of the insects here are so small that any sting-spot or bite-spot wouldn’t be visible without a microscopic examination, and that would take days.”
“But you’re satisfied,” Belsnor said, also coming up; he stood with his arms folded, rocking back and forth on his heels.
“Absolutely.” Babble nodded vigorously.
“You know what it would mean if you’re wrong.”
“How? Explain.”
“Oh Christ, Babble,” Susie Smart said, “it’s obvious. If someone or something deliberately killed him then we’re in just as much danger as he was–possibly. But if an insect stung him–”
“That’s what it was,” Babble said. “An insect stung him.” His ears had turned bright carmen with stubborn, irritable anger. “Do you think this is my first autopsy? That I’m not capable of handling pathology-report instrumentation that I’ve handled all my adult life?” He glared at Susie Smart. “Miss Dumb,” he said.
“Come on, Babble,” Tony Dunkelwelt said.
“It’s Dr. Babble to you, sonny,” Babble said. Nothing is changed, Seth Morley said to himself. We are as we were, a mob of twelve people. And it may destroy us. End forever our various separate lives.
“I feel a vast amount of relief,” Susie Smart said, coming up beside him and Mary. “I guess we were becoming paranoid; we thought everyone was after us, trying to kill us.”
Thinking about Ben Tallchief–and his last encounter with him–Morley felt no sympathetic resonance within him to her newly refreshed attitude. “A man is dead,” he said.
“We barely knew him. In fact we didn’t know him at all.”
“True,” Morley said. Maybe it’s because I feel so much personal guilt. “Maybe I did it,” he said aloud to her.
“A bug did it,” Mary said.
“May we finish the prayer, now?” Maggie Walsh said. Seth Morley said to her, “How come we need to shoot a petition-prayer eighty thousand miles up from the planet’s surface, but this sort of prayer can be done without electronic help?” I know the answer, he said to himself. This prayer now–it really doesn’t matter to us if it’s heard. It is merely a ceremony, this prayer. The other one was different. The other time we needed something for ourselves, not for Tallchief. Thinking this he felt more gloomy than ever. “I’ll see you later,” he said aloud to Mary. “I’m going to go unpack the boxes I’ve brought from our noser.”
“But don’t go near the nosers,” Mary warned him. “Until tomorrow; until we have time to scout out the plant or bug–”
“I won’t be outdoors,” Morley agreed. “I’ll go directly to our quarters.” He strode from the briefing room out into the compound. A moment later he was ascending the steps to the porch of their joint living quarters.
I’ll ask The Book, Seth Morley said to hmself. He rummaged through several cartons and at last found his copy of _How I Rose From the Dead in My Spare Time and So Can You_. Seated, he held it on his lap, placed both hands on it, shut his eyes, turned his face upward and said, “Who or what killed Ben Tallchief?”
He then, eyes shut, opened the book to a page at random, put his finger at one exact spot, and opened his eyes.
His finger rested on: the Form Destroyer.
That doesn’t tell us much, he reflected. All death comes as a result of a deterioration of form, due to the activity of the Form Destroyer.
And yet it scared him.
It doesn’t sound like a bug or a plant, he thought starkly. It sounds like something entirely else.
A tap-tap sounded at his door.
Rising warily, he moved by slow degrees to the door; keeping it shut he swept the curtain back from the small window and peered out into the night darkness. Someone stood on the porch, someone small, with long hair, tight sweater, peek-n-squeeze bra, tight short skirt, barefoot. Susie Smart has come to visit, he said to himself, and unlocked the door.
“Hi,” she said brightly, smiling up at him. “May I come in and talk a little?”
He led her over to The Book. “I asked it what or who killed Tallchief.”
“What did it say?” She seated herself, crossed her bare legs and leaned forward to see as he placed his finger on the same spot as before. “The Form Destroyer,” she said soberly. “But it’s always the Form Destroyer.”
“Yet I think it means something.”
“That it wasn’t an insect?”
He nodded.
“Do you have anything to eat or drink?” Susie said. “Any candy?”
“The Form Destroyer,” he said, “is loose outside.”
“You’re scaring me.”
“Yes,” he said. “I want to. We’ve got to get a prayer off this planet and to the relay network. We’re not going to survive unless we get help.”
“The Walker comes without prayer,” Susie said.
“I have a Baby Ruth candy bar,” he said. “You can have that.” He rummaged through a suitcase of Mary’s, found it, handed it to her.
“Thank you,” she said, tearing the paper from one of the candy bar’s blunt ends.
He said, “I think we’re doomed.”
“We’re always doomed. It’s the essence of life.”
“Doomed immediately. Not abstractly–doomed in the sense that I and Mary were doomed when I tried to load up the _Morbid Chicken_. Mors certa, hora incerta; there’s a big difference between knowing that you’re going to die and knowing you’re going to die within the next calendar month.”
“Your wife is very attractive.”
He sighed.
“How long have you two been married?” Susie gazed at him intently.
“Eight years,” he said.
Susie Smart swiftly stood up. “Come over to my place and let me show you how nice these little rooms can be fixed up. Come on–it’s depressing in here.” She tugged little-girl-wise at his hand and he found himself following after her.
They danced up the porch, passed several doorways and came at last to Susie’s door. It was unlocked; she opened it, welcoming him into warmth and light. She had told the truth; it did look nice. Can we make ours as nice as this? he asked himself as he looked around, at the pictures on the walls, the textures of fabrics, and the many, many planter boxes and pots, out of which multicolored blossoms dazzled the eye.
“Nice,” he said.
Susie banged the door shut. “Is that all you can say? It’s taken me a month to make it look like this.”
“‘Nice’ was your word for it, not mine.”
She laughed. “I can call it ‘nice,’ but since you’re a visitor you have to be more lavish about it.”
“Okay,” he said, “it’s wonderful.”
“That’s better.” She seated herself in a black canvasbacked chair facing him, leaned back, rubbed her hands together briskly, then fastened her attention on him. “I’m waiting,” she said.
“For what?”
“For you to proposition me.”
“Why would I do that?”
Susie said, “I’m the settlement whore. You’re supposed to die of priapism because of me. Haven’t you heard?”
“I just got here late today,” he pointed out.
“But somebody must have told you.”
“When someone does,” he said, “he’ll get his nose punched in.”
“But it’s true.”
“Why?” he said.
“Dr. Babble explained to me that it’s a diencephalic disturbance in my brain.”
He said, “That Babble. You know what he said about my visit with the Walker? He said most of what I said was untrue.”
“Dr. Babble has a keen little maliciousness about him. He loves to put down everyone and everything.”
“If you know that about him,” Seth Morley said, “then you know enough not to pay any attention.”
“He just explained _why_ I’m that way. I am that way. I’ve slept with every man in the settlement, except that Wade Frazer.” She shook her head, making a wry face. “He’s awful.”
With curiosity, he said, “What does Frazer say about you? After all, he’s a psychologist. Or claims he is.”
“He says that–” She reflected, staring up pensively at the ceiling of the room, meantime chewing abstractedly on her lower lip. “It’s a search for the great world-father archetype. That’s what Jung would have said. Do you know about Jung?”
“Yes,” he said, although in fact he had only heard little more than the name; Jung, he had been told, had in many ways laid the groundwork for a rapprochement between intellectuals and religion–but at that point Seth Morley’s knowledge gave out. “I see,” he said.
“Jung believed that our attitudes toward our actual mothers and fathers are because they embody certain male and female archetypes. For instance, there’s the great bad earthfather and the good earth-father and the destroying earthfather, and so forth. . . and the same with women. My mother was the bad earth-mother, so all my psychic energy was turned toward my father.”