"Let's just walk," Jack Bohlen said.
"Do you still love me?"
"Of course," he said.
"Are you afraid of Arnie? He may try to get revenge on you, for--he doesn't understand about your father; he thinks that on some level you must have--" She shook her head. "Jack, he will try to get back at you; he does blame you. He's so goddamn primitive."
"Yes," Jack said.
"_Say_ something," Doreen said. "You're just like wood, like you're not alive. Was it so terrible? It wasn't, was it? You seemed to pull yourself together."
With effort he said, "I'm--not afraid of what he'll do."
"Would you leave your wife for me, Jack? You said you loved me. Maybe we could emigrate back to Earth, or something."
Together, they wandered on.
13
For Otto Zitte it was as if life had once more opened up; since Norb Steiner's death he moved about Mars as in the old days, making his deliveries, selling, meeting people face to face and gabbing with them.
And, most particularly, he had already encountered several good-looking women, lonely housewives stranded out in the desert in their homes day after day, yearning for companionship... so to speak.
So far he had not been able to call at Mrs. Silvia Bohlen's house. But he knew exactly where it was; he had marked it on his map.
Today he intended to go there.
For the occasion he put on his best suit: a single-breasted gray English sharkskin suit he had not worn for years. The shoes, regrettably, were local, and so was the shirt. But the tie: ah. It had just arrived from New York, the latest in bright, cheerful colors; it divided at the bottom into a wild fork shape. Holding it up before him he admired it. Then he put it on and admired it there, too.
His long dark hair shone. He felt happy and confident. This day begins it all afresh for me, with a woman like Silvia, he said to himself as he put on his wool topcoat, picked up his suitcases, and marched from the storage shed--now made over into truly comfortable living quarters--to the 'copter.
In a great soaring arc he lifted the 'copter into the sky and turned it east. The bleak F.D.R. Mountains fell away behind him; he passed over the desert, saw at last the George Washington Canal by which he oriented himself. Following it, he approached the smaller canal system which branched from it, and soon he was above the junction of the William Butler Yeats and the Herodotus, near which the Bohlens lived.
Both those women, he ruminated, are attractive, that June Henessy and Silvia Bohlen, but of the two of them, Silvia's more to my liking; she has that sleepy, sultry quality that a deeply emotional woman always has. June is too pert and frisky; that kind talks on and on, sort of wiseguy-like. I want a woman who's a good listener.
He recalled the trouble he had gotten into before. Wonder what her husband's like, he wondered. Must inquire. A lot of these men take the pioneer life seriously, especially the ones living far out from town; keep guns in their houses and so forth.
However, that was the risk one ran, and it was worth it.
Just in case trouble did occur, Otto Zitte had a gun of his own, a small pistol, .22 caliber, which he kept in a hidden side-pocket of one of his suitcases. It was there now, and fully loaded.
Nobody messes around with me, he said to himself. If they want trouble--they'll soon find it.
Cheered by that thought, he dipped his 'copter, scouted out the land below--there was no 'copter parked at the Bohlen house--and prepared to land.
It was innate caution which caused him to park the 'copter over a mile from the Bohlen house, at the entrance of a service canal. From there he hiked on foot, willing to endure the weight of the suitcase; there was no alternative. A number of houses stood between him and the Bohlen place, but he did not pause to knock at any door; he went directly along the canal without halting.
When he neared the Bohlen place he slowed, regaining his wind. He eyed the nearby houses carefully... from the one right next door there came the racket of small children. Peopie home, there. So he approached the Bohlen place from the opposite side, walking silently and in a line which kept him entirely hidden from the house where he heard the children's voices.
He arrived, stepped up on the porch, rang the bell.
Someone peeped out at him from behind the red drapes of the living-room window. Otto maintained a formal, correct smile on his face, one that would do in any eventuality.
The front door opened; there stood Silvia Bohlen, with her hair expertly done, lipstick, wearing a jersey sweater and tight pink capri pants, sandals on her feet. Her toenails were painted a bright scarlet; he noticed that from the corner of his eye. Obviously, she had fixed herself up in expectation of his visit. However, she of course assumed a bland, detached pose; she regarded him in akrof silence, holding on to the door knob.
"Mrs. Bohlen," he said in his most intimate tone of voice. Bowing, he said, "Passage across barren miles of desert wastelands finds its just reward in seeing you once more at last. Would you be interested in seeing our special in kangarootail soup? It is incredible and delightful, a food never before available on Mars at any price. I have come straight here to you with it, seeing that you are qualified in judging fine foods and can discriminate the worthy without consulting the expense." And all this time, as he reeled off his set speech, he edged himself and his wares toward the open door.
A trifle stiffly and hesitantly, Silvia said, "Uh, come in." She let the door swing freely open, and he at once passed on inside and laid his suitcases on the floor by the low table in the living room.
A boy's bow and quiver of arrows caught his eye. "Is your young son about?" he inquired.
"No," Silvia said, moving edgily about the room with her arms folded before her. "He's at the school today." She tried to smile. "And my father-in-law went into town; he won't be home until very late."
Well, Otto thought; I see.
"Please be seated," he urged her. "So that I may display to you properly, don't you agree?" In one motion, he moved a chair, and Silvia perched on the edge of it, her arms still hugged about her, lips pressed together. How tense she is, he observed. It was a good sign because it meant that she was fully aware of the meaning of all that went on, his visit here, the absence of her son, the fact that she had carefully closed the front door; the living-room drapes still shut, he noticed.
Silvia blurted out, "Would you like coffee?" She bolted from her chair and dived into the kitchen. A moment later she reappeared with a tray on which was a pot of coffee, sugar, cream, two china cups.
"Thank you," he purred. During her absence he had drawn another chair up beside hers.
They drank coffee.
"Are you not frightened to live out here alone so much of the time?" he asked. "In this desolate region?"
She glanced at him sideways. "Golly, I guess I'm used to it."
"What part of Earth are you from originally?"
"St. Louis."
"It is much different here. A new, freer life. Where one can cast off the shackles and be oneself; do you agree? The old mores and customs, an antiquated Old World, best forgotten in its own dust. Here--" He glanced about the living room, with its commonplace furnishings; he had seen such chairs, carpeting, bric-a-brac hundreds of times, in similar homes. "Here we see the clash of the extraordinary, the pulse, Mrs. Bohlen, of opportunity which strikes the brave person only once--once--in his lifetime."
"What else do you have beside kangaroo-tail soup?"
"Well," he said, frowning inwardly, "quail eggs; very good. Real cow butter. Sour cream. Smoked oysters. Here--you please bring forth ordinary soda crackers and I will supply the butter and caviar, as a treat." He smiled at her, and was rewarded by a spontaneous, beaming smile in return; her eyes sparkled with anticipation and she hopped impulsively to her feet to go scampering, like a little child, to the kitchen.