“Go ahead,” she gasped. “Hit me.”
Nina had turned and started off down the corridor. The hermaphrodite, noticing, quickly hurried after her, an eager expression on her face. As the creature followed Nina down the hall to a side door, Tyler slipped up close and caught hold of her. With an expert motion, Tyler twisted the creature around and yanked her arm back in a paralyzing lock. The hermaphrodite instantly flowed into the figure of a man. Cussick stepped forward and socked him on the jaw. Without a sound, the hermaphrodite sank down, totally unconscious, and Tyler released him.
“She’s gone,” Kaminski said, balancing himself with an effort. Other people were hurrying up; the hermaphrodite’s partner appeared, clapped his hands in horror, and dropped down fearfully to paw at his inert companion.
Glancing around, Tyler said rapidly to Cussick. “She’s familiar with this place. If you expect her to leave with you, you’ll have to talk her into it.” Urgently, she gave him a shove. “Get going.”
He found her almost at once. She had crept from the corridor into a side room, a blind alley with only one entrance. There, he cornered her, slammed the door and locked it after him. Nina crouched in the corner, frail and pitiful, eyes bright with fear, trembling and gazing mutely up at him.
The room was simple, hygienically clean in its ascetic purity. The curtains, the position of the furniture, told him the unbearable truth; only Nina could have arranged this room. This was her room. Her imprint, her image, was stamped on every inch of it.
There were noises outside. Kaminski’s hoarse growl swelled up: “Doug, you in there?”
He stepped outside into the hall and confronted Kaminski and Tyler. “I found her. She’s all right.”
“What are you going to do?” Tyler asked.
“Stay here. You two better go. Can you find your way out?”
“Certainly,” Tyler said, understanding. Taking hold of Kaminski she led him back a step. “Good luck. Come on, Max. There’s nothing we can do here.”
“Thanks,” Cussick said, standing firmly-planted in front of the door. “I’ll see you later, both of you.”
Kaminski, protesting and bewildered, retreated at the insistence of the slim girl holding tightly to his arm. “Give me a call,” he mumbled. “When you get back; when you’re out of here. So I’ll know you’re okay.”
“I’ll do that,” Cussick said. “Don’t forget your package.” He stood a moment, until the two of them had disappeared along the hall. Then he turned and re-entered the room.
On the bed, Nina was sitting up slightly, her head against the wall, legs drawn up, feet tucked under her. She smiled up weakly at him. “Hello,” she said.
“Feel better?” He locked the door and came toward her. “They left; I sent them off.”
Sitting down on the edge of the bed he asked. “This is your room, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” She didn’t look directly at him.
“How long?”
“Oh, not long. A week, maybe. Ten days.”
“I don’t really understand. You want to be here with these people?”
“I wanted to get away. I couldn’t stand that damn little apartment… I wanted to be on my own, do something. It’s so hard to explain; some of it I don’t understand, myself. It’s like the stealing—I just felt I had to stand up.”
“That’s why you brought us all here, then. It meant nothing until you could show it to us.”
“I suppose so. Yes, I guess you’re right. I wanted you to see it, so you’d know. So you’d see I had somewhere to go… not dependent on you. Not helpless, tied to your world. Outside in the main bar I got scared… I took the heroin to get my nerve.” She smiled a little. “It’s such a mess.”
He bent over her, holding onto her hands. Her skin was cold and faintly moist. “You’re not scared now, are you?”
“No,” she managed. “Not with you here.”
“We’ll stay here tonight,” he told her. “That’s what you want?”
She nodded forlornly.
“Then tomorrow morning we’ll go back?”
Twisting, she answered painfully: “Don’t ask me. Don’t make me say. I’m afraid to say, now.”
“All right.” It hurt, but he didn’t press for an answer. “We can decide tomorrow, after we have a good sleep and breakfast. After we get all this stuff out of our systems. This poison—this rot.”
There was no answer. Nina had fallen into a partial doze; eyes shut, she lay resting against the wall, chin down, body relaxed.
For a long time Cussick sat immobile. The room grew cold. Outside, in the hall, there was only silence. His watch told him it was four-thirty. Presently he bent down and slid off Nina’s shoes. He placed them on the floor by the bed, hesitated, and then unfastened the snaps of her dress. The dress was intricately held together; it took him some time. Twice, she woke slightly, stirred, and sank back into sleep. At last the dress came apart; he maneuvered one section over her head, laid it over the back of a chair, lifted her hips, and struggled the remaining part away from her.
It was surprising how really small she was. Without the ornate, expensive dress, she seemed unusually bare, defenseless, open to injury. It was impossible to feel rancor toward her. He pulled up the blankets around her shoulders and tucked them under her chin. Her heavy blonde hair spilled out over the wool fabric, thick honey streaks against the checkered pattern of red and black. Smoothing her hair back from her eyes, he seated himself beside her on the bed.
For an endless time he sat, his mind blank, gazing into the shadows of the room. Nina slept fitfully; now and then she turned, twisted, made faint unhappy sounds. Struggling in an invisible darkness, she fought lonely battles, without him, without anybody. In the final analysis, each of them was cut off from the other. Each of them suffered alone.
Towards morning, he became aware of a distant, muffled sound: a noise coming from a long way off. For a time he paid no attention; the noise beat uselessly against his dulled consciousness. And then, finally, he identified it. A human voice, harsh and loud, a voice he recognized. Stiffly, shaking with cold, he got from the bed and made his way to the door. With infinite care he unlocked it and stepped out into the chill, deserted corridor.
The voice was the voice of Jones.
Cussick walked slowly down the corridor. He passed closed doors and side passages, but saw nobody. It was five-forty a.m.; the sun was beginning to show. Through an open window at the end of the hall he caught a glimpse of bleak, gray sky, as remote and hostile as gun-metal. As he walked, the voice grew louder. All at once he turned a corner and found himself facing a great storeroom.
It wasn’t Jones, not really. It was a tape recording. But the presence, the vital, cruel spirit, was there. In rows of chairs, men and women sat intently listening. The storeroom was filled with bales, boxes, huge packages heaped everywhere. The corridor had carried him to a totally different building; it linked various establishments, a variety of businesses. This was the loading stage of a commercial house.
On the wall were plastered posters. As he stood in the doorway listening to the furious, impassioned voice, he realized that this was an official meeting hall. This was a before-dawn gathering; these were working people, coming together before their work-day began. At the far end, where the speakers blared, hung Jones’ emblem, the crossed flasks of Hermes. Scattered through the groups were various uniforms of the Patriots United organizations: both the women’s and youth groups, armbands, badges and insignia. In a comer lounged two helmeted Security police: the meeting was no secret. The meetings were never secret: there was no necessity.
Nobody interfered with Cussick as he made his way back up the corridor. Now the building was beginning to stir; outside, rumbling commercial trucks were beginning to load and unload. He found Nina’s room and entered.
She was awake. As he turned from the door she sat up, eyes wide. “Where did you go? I thought—“
“I’m back. I heard sounds.” The distant snarl of Jones’ voice was still audible. “That.”
“Oh.” She nodded. “Yes, they’re meeting. That’s part of this. My room.”
“You’ve been working for them, haven’t you?”
“Nothing important. Just folding papers and writing addresses. The sort of thing I used to do. Giving out information. Publicity, I guess you’d call it.”
Sitting down on the edge of the bed, Cussick picked up his wife’s purse and opened it. Papers, cards, lipstick, a mirror, keys, money, a handkerchief… he poured everything out onto the bed. Nina watched quietly; she had pulled herself up to sit leaning on one bare elbow. Cussick pawed through the contents of the purse until he came to what he wanted. “I was curious,” he said. “The specific grade and date.”