“That... that is what happened.”
Sarcasm. Irony. “And you, John Homrik, you rushed to her, cut the leash, untied it from her young throat and then called the police?”
“Yes.”
Brazen accusation, throat of iron. “Then how do you explain that your fingerprints, not hers, were on the chair, your thumbprint, not hers, on the metal buckle of the leash? How do you explain the scratches on your face, the shreds of skin, proven to be yours, under her fingernails, the bruise on her shoulder? You have told us, John Homrik, that in the evening before she was murdered, you cheered her up, that the two of you indulged in horseplay, and that is how you were scratched and she was bruised. I ask the court, would a young girl, gay and happy enough to wrestle and fight happily with her husband, turn around and hang herself? No, this was murder! Foul murder!”
He sat on the cot and thought of Anna’s smile, of the limp, dead heaviness of her body as he had cut her down, her staring eyes, thickened tongue, black-mottled face.
And though he thought there were no more tears, he sobbed once more. And in his heart he told Anna that in a very little while, in another fifteen hours, he would be with her.
Heeney belched, then began to stuff tobacco into his pipe with a blunt thumb.
John Homrik looked up at the far corner of his cell. Odd! It was as though he had detected some movement out of the corner of his eyes. But of course there could be nothing there. Of course.
Gahn, the younger, stood tense with anticipation. With hurried stride he went over to the communication screen, set the controls so that, should anyone call him, the screen would advise that Gahn, the younger, was not at home.
Mixed with his anticipation was a sense of guilt and defiance. The Law said that a tenth-level mentality should mate with a tenth-level mentality. His lips twisted in scorn as he thought of the brittle, cool women of the tenth-level.
Coldly he realized that the feeling of guilt was the result of the stratification of society, drummed into him since he was first able to take the examinations for the first level at the age of four.
Defiance was the answer. What would they have him do? Mate with Dextra? That would be like the clash of bitter crystals. No, his blood yearned for the flowing warmth of Luria of the eighth level. With mild and affectionate condescension, he realized that she would never, never progress beyond the eighth-level. He had left the eighth level when he was seventeen. And in five more years he could aspire to the eleventh-level.
But should a man mate with an intellectual equal? There was a basic fallacy in that reasoning.
He felt the anticipatory thud of his pulse. With nervous fingers he again adjusted the arrangement of the slim pastel bottles on the ancient tray. Luria liked the ancient ways. And so did he. A common yearning for the days that were gone.
Should any of his friends of the tenth level see her coming to his rooms... But none would. The acid of jealousy filled him as he thought of Powell. Luria spoke of Powell. He was eighth-level also, a hulking brute of a man. Gahn shuddered in distaste. If she should prefer Powell...
The door swung open with a suddenness that startled him. Luria, smiling, shut it softy behind her, then came quickly across to him as he advanced to meet her. Luria of the cobalt eyes, the honey flesh, the rounded warm arms and soft lips.
The golden mesh of her single garment made tiny chimes as he held her close, inhaled the heady fragrance of her.
“Darling!” she said. It was a word they had found in the ancient hooks. A word that was no longer used, except by the two of them.
They both knew that what they had was forbidden. And thus it was more sweet. There were many games. In one, he was a senator in the days of ancient Rome and she was a barbarian slave girl, and their love had to be kept from all the others.
Two hours later she was languorous beside him like a great golden cat. She ran her fingertips down his cheek, along the line of his jaw and said, “Gahn, you are a Crime-seeker. Is that not true?”
For a moment his voice took on a tenth-level mentality speaking to one of the eighth level. “We do not speak of that.”
Her eyes glittered angrily, and she pouted as she turned away. “Very well, then. We do not speak of anything.”
Though he caressed her, kissed her indifferent lips, her sulky eyes, it was many long minutes before she would respond. Then her arms held him tightly and she whispered, “Tell me about being a Crime-seeker.”
He could not risk making her angry again. He said, in an indifferent tone, “Oh, it is nothing. Just entertainment provided for us of the tenth-level. It is like a club, you know. Restricted membership.”
She pouted. “I know what you do,” she said. “You go into the past and watch the ancient ones. For us they have silly plays, made-up things. Things without blood and reality. They are stupid. I hate them. I want my entertainment from life. I am still annoyed with you, Gahn. And I will never come here again unless you show me how it is done.”
He laughed uneasily. “But that is against the rules, Luria. I could do no such thing. You have to be prepared for... for Crime-seeking.”
She looked at him coldly, stood up and fastened the clasps on the gold mesh garment. “Anything you say, Gahn. I must go now. I am to meet Powell.”
He held her wrist. “Don’t go, Luria. Please!”
“You said you loved me,” she said coolly.
“I do. I swear I do!”
“Then this silly little Crime-seeker affair should not come between us. Goodby, Gahn.”
He heard himself saying, “All right, Luria. I will show it to you. Together we will watch it.” In his mind there was fear, but the step had been taken.
She turned to him, her smile brilliant, and lifted her lips to be kissed. “Now, Gahn? Now?”
Hand in hand they went into the front room. He darkened the room, unhooded the mechanism, arranged two chairs side by side six feet from the three dimensional screen. The instrument panel swung into his lap, and he locked it in place.
“You must promise never to speak of this,” he said.
“I promise,” she said, her eyes warm.
“This, as you know, is a device for time-travel. We do not go back in time, of course, but the lens and microphone of the seeker equipment can be placed in whatever era we desire. I... I have found the crimes of the middle twentieth century most absorbing.”
“How do you decide where to start?”
“Here is a reference book. This one contains a list of all executions in the United States between 1940 and 1950. Select one.”
Luria ran a tinted finger down a page selected at random. “How about this one? A man named John Homrik, executed at Ossining, New York on the third of February, 1949, at six in the morning. It says here that he killed his wife on June 11th, 1948, in their home at two ten Main Boulevard, Kingston, New York.”
“It sounds like a routine case. Let’s try a different one.”
“No,” she said, pouting. “I like his name. And I want to see him kill the woman.”
The screen came to life, and Gahn, with practised fingers, selected century, year, month, day, hour. The geographical selector was so compensated as to allow for the movement of the planet. The Ossining quadrant was familiar to him, and he brought the lens down through the grey roof of the death house at exactly five minutes of six on the morning of the third of February, 1949. He heard Luria gasp at the three-dimensional color image on the screen.
“This is all... real,” she said in a small voice.
“Just as it happened.”
He made minute adjustments, then took his hands from the dials. There was the bitter clang of steel, and a small group of men with grave faces stood in the corridor. They were seen at an angle, from a spot three feet above their heads.