Maybe, he thought, they have fat asses, people like Babble, making it with big dogs. I’d like to see some of these fatassed people in there plugging away; I’d like to see that Walsh plugged by a Great Dane for once in her life. She’d probably love that. That’s what she really wants out of life; she probably dreams about it.
“Get out of the way,” he said to Morley and Walsh and Frazer. “You can’t go in there. Look at what it says.” He pointed to the words painted in classy gold on the glass window of the small door. Club members only. “I can go in,” he said, and reached for the knob.
Going swiftly forward, Ned Russell interposed himself between them and the door. He glanced up at the class-one building, saw then on their various faces separate and intense cravings, and he said, “I think it would be better if none of us goes in.”
“Why?” Seth Morley said, visibly disappointed. “What could be harmful in going into the tasting room of a winery?”
“It’s not a winery,” Ignatz Thugg said, and chortled with glee. “You read it wrong; you’re afraid to admit what it really is.” He chortled once again. “But _I_ know.”
“‘Winery’!” Maggie Walsh exclaimed. “It’s not a winery, it’s a symposium of the achievement of man’s highest knowledge. If we go in there we’ll be purified by God’s love for man and man’s love for God.”
“It’s a special club for certain people only,” Thugg said.
Frazer said, with a smirk. “Isn’t it amazing, the lengths people will go to in an unconscious effort to block their having to face reality. Isn’t that correct, Russell?”
Russell said, “It’s not safe in there. For any of us.” I know now what it is, he said to himself, and I am right. I must get them–and myself–away from here. “Go,” he said to them, forcefully and sternly. He remained there, not budging.
Some of their energy faded.
“You think so, really?” Seth Morley said.
“Yes,” he said. “I think so.”
To the others, Seth Morley said, “Maybe he’s right.”
“Do you really think so, Mr. Russell?” Maggie Walsh said in a faltering voice. They retreated from the door. Slightly. But enough.
Crushed, Ignatz Thugg said, “I knew they’d close it down. They don’t want anyone to get any kickers out of life. It’s always that way.”
Russell said nothing; he stood there, blocking the door, and patiently waiting.
All at once Seth Morley said, “Where’s Betty Jo Berm?” Merciful God, Russell thought, I forgot her. I forgot to watch. He turned rapidly and, shielding his eyes, peered back the way they had come. Back at the sunlit, midday river.
She had seen again what she had seen before. Each time that she saw the Building she clearly made out the vast bronze plaque placed boldly above the central entrance.
MEKKISRY
As a linguist she had been able to translate it the first time around. _Mekkis_, the Hittite word for power; it had passed into the Sanskrit, then into Greek, Latin, and at last into modern English as _machine_ and _mechanical_. This was the place denied her; she could not come here, as the rest of them could.
I wish I were dead, she said to herself.
Here was the font of the universe . . . at least as she understood it. She understood as literally true Specktowsky’s theory of concentric circles of widening emanation. But to her it did not concern a Deity; she understood it as a statement of material fact, with no transcendental aspects. When she took a pill she rose, for a brief moment, into a higher, smaller circle of greater intensity and concentration of power. Her body weighed less; her ability, her motions, her animation– all functioned as if powered by a better fuel. I burn better, she said to herself as she turned and walked away from the Building, back toward the river. I am able to think more clearly; I am not clouded over as I am now, drooping under a foreign sun.
The water will help, she said to herself. Because in water you no longer have to support your heavy body; you are not lifted into greater _mekkis_ but you do not care; the water erases everything. You are not heavy; you are not light. You are not even there.
I can’t go on dragging my heavy body everywhere, she said to herself. The weight is too much. I cannot endure being pulled down any longer; I have to be free.
She stepped into the shallows. And walked out, toward the center. Without looking back.
The water, she thought, has now dissolved all the pills I carry; they are gone forever. But I no longer have any need for them. If I could enter the _Mekkisry_ . . . maybe, without a body, I can, she thought. There to be remade. There to cease, and then begin all over. But starting at a different point. I do not want to go over again what I have gone over already, she told herself.
She could hear the vibrating roar of the _Mekkisry_ behind her. The others are in there now, she realized. Why, she asked herself, is it this way? _Why can they go where I can’t?_ She did not know.
She did not care.
“There she is,” Maggie Walsh said, pointing. Her hand shook. “Can’t you see her?” She broke into motion, became unfrozen; she sprinted toward the river. But before she reached it Russell and Seth Morley passed her, leaving her behind. She began to cry, stopped running and stood there, watching through fragmented bits of crystal-like tears as Thugg and Wade Frazer caught up with Seth Morley and Russell; the four men, with Mary Morley trailing after them, rapidly waded out into the river, toward the black object drifting slightly toward the far side.
Standing there, she watched them carry Betty Jo’s body from the water and up onto land. She’s dead, she realized. While we argued about going into the _Wittery_. Goddam it, she thought brokenly. Then, halting, she made her way toward the five of them who now knelt around B .J. ‘s body, taking turns at giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
She reached them. Stood. “Any chance?” she said.
“No,” Wade Frazer said.
“Goddam it,” she said, and her voice came out broken and lame. “Why did she do it? Frazer, do you know?”
“Some pressure that’s built up over a long period of time,” Frazer said.
Seth Morley stared at him with violence flaming in his eyes. “You fool,” he said. “You stupid bastard fool.”
“It’s not my fault she’s dead,” Frazer chattered anxiously. “I didn’t have enough testing apparatus to give anyone a really complete exam; if I had had what I wanted I could have uncovered and treated her suicidal tendencies.”
“Can we carry her back to the settlement?” Maggie Walsh said in a tear-stricken voice; she found herself almost unable to speak. “If you four men could carry her–”
“If we could float her down the river,” Thugg said, “it’d be a lot less work. By river around half the time is cut off.”
“We have nothing to float her on,” Mary Morley said.
Russell said, “When we were crossing the river I saw what looked like a jury-rigged raft. I’ll show you.” He beckoned them to follow him to the river’s edge.
There it lay, trapped into immobility by an extrusion of the river. It lay undulating slightly from the activity of the water, and Maggie Walsh thought, It almost looks as if it’s here on purpose. For this reason: to carry one of us who has died back home.
“Belsnor’s raft,” Ignatz Thugg said.
“That’s right,” Frazer said, picking at his right ear. “He did say he was building a raft somewhere out here. Yes, you can see how he’s lashed the logs together with heavy-duty electrical cable. I wonder if it’s well-enough put together to be safe.”
“If Glen Belsnor built it,” Maggie said fiercely, “it’s safe. Put her on it.” And in the name of God be gentle, she said to herself. Be reverent. What you’re carrying is holy.
The four men, grunting, instructing one another as to what to do and how to do it, managed at last to move the body of Betty Joe Berm onto Belsnor’s raft.
She lay face up, her hands placed across her stomach. Her eyes sightlessly fixed on the harsh, midday sky. Water dribbled from her still, and her hair seemed to Maggie like some hive of black wasps which had fastened on an adversary, never again to let it go.
Attacked by death, she thought. The wasps of death. And the rest of us, she thought; when will it happen to us? Who will be the next? Maybe me, she thought. Yes, possibly me.
“We can all get on the raft with her,” Russell said. To Maggie he said, “Do you know at what point we should leave the river?”