The ball flew toward her. She put her arms over her face for protection, which wasn’t necessary; reaching her it broke like a bubble and plumes of color moved across her body, inside her clothing, combining and recombining and finally reaching an equilibrium, the desired effect.
When she looked again the magnifying projector had been put in a nonmagnifying mode; the image of herself on the rear wall was, for all intents and purposes, a mirror reflection. At first she didn’t appear to know—or dare to believe—that she was looking at herself. She moved and the glamorous woman on the screen moved. She turned and the glamorous woman turned too, she touched herself and the woman did the same. Identity was established.
The ten thousand parts of Sir Etherium had created a second skin, a skin like cream; new hair, rich, chestnut; new lips, sensual; a new nose curled up, just like those of the girls on the holovision. Her body had changed even more surprisingly: her new breasts were pushing out the top of her dress until the seams threatened to break, and although she had grown no taller, her legs seemed longer, her whole form more lithe and graceful.
She began to laugh. She laughed and laughed and, leaving the podium, skipped across the stage. She felt the hungry eyes of the audience upon her and began to tease them, her gestures becoming more sexual and lascivious. (If new clothes could affect the personality, then what might come of being encompassed by Sir Etherium—one being within another, concentric lives—or for that matter twenty thousand wings brushing across the entire body?)
She tore open the velcro closures at the front of her dress, easing the pressure across her chest, allowing the neck to open wider and wider. Then, still moving in time to some inner music, she slipped the dress from her shoulders and allowed it to fall to her feet. Her breasts moved like water, her nipples swaying and jiggling, her fingers touching the dark triangle between her legs, her face transformed by unimaginable ecstasy. A buzzing sound became more noticeable, a sound of thousands of wings caressing her flesh, drawing the blood to the surface so spongy tissue became hard and turgid, pouring a maximum of stimulation into every nerve ending until the world was blotted out by the unbearable overload and only sensation remained, overwhelming, all-encompassing, circuitblowing sensation.
“Oh!” she shouted and gasped, and again: “OH! OH! OH! OH!” Then, moaning, “Ohhh . .
Crumpled in a heap like a discarded robe on the dressingroom floor, she lay there her own mousy self while Sir Etherium, an impassionate ball, revolved slowly in the air, primary colors pinwheeling inward.
Two priests came on stage to help her on with her dress. A third man followed, squat and barrel-chested, with beefy features. His face was scarlet, his breathing fast, his expression outraged. As the priests tried to help her stand—her legs were buckling under her—the man whispered, so intensely that everyone in the audience could hear: “Is that how you want the kids to see you behaving? Well, is it? And what about me? If you don’t have any respect for yourself, at least you could think about the way it makes me feel. . . And so on, and so forth.
Hali shook her head, a faint smile playing across her lips.
“Fascinating,” she whispered to Nick, “but so cruel. What will happen to their marriage?”
“They’ll have the greatest sex ever.”
She thought it over. “Yes, I suppose they will.”
“What does it matter?
We grow to be men, We shrink to be old, We lie in the ..
What happened next happened so quickly that many of the people in the audience missed it completely. An eerie green light in the shape of an aerosol can appeared in the middle of the air and a spray of the same green light, emanating from the can like the beacon of a lighthouse, engulfed the ball.
“What’s the matter
With transcience? All
Is Etherium . .
On the magnification screen the “bees” could be seen faltering, falling from formation. Nick watched with an ache in his heart as they tumbled to the floor like so much colorful confetti. By the time the cops reached the stage the ball was gone and the last of the ten thousand parts which had once constituted Sir Etherium lay still.
“Remain in your seats,” ordered an amplified voice, “do not attempt to leave . . .”
Hali bolted.
“Wait,” Nick said, grabbing her wrist.
“I must get out—I’m going to be sick.”
She squirmed free and ran to the aisle. Her agility and speed were remarkable; she slipped through the hands of at least ten cops. By the time Nick reached the aisle and started after her, she had vanished through the exit.
“Hold it, sonny . . .”
Nick ignored the cop and kept running. He felt the sting of a fright stick brush against his hip and the next moment he was writhing on the floor, weeping with terror. He lost control of his bladder and felt the warm urine soak his tights. He curled into a fetal ball, wishing he could roll up so small that he would vanish altogether.
“All right, sonny, don’t be scared, Momma’s here.”
Rough hands lifted him to his feet. Holding him under the shoulders, they dragged him back to his seat. His vision was blurred with tears.
VI
He had to reach her; there was no telling what trouble she might get into alone. But the cops insisted on questioning everybody in the audience, and it was three hours before Nick was allowed to leave the theater. Then he searched the various foyers, the altar room, the box office and the nave. He asked the guide at the entrance to the Lifestyler museum (every temple had one) and the temple guards, and the ushers and priests, but most of them had been too busy during the tragedy to pay attention to aliens.
He took the glass-enclosed slidewalk back to the landing strip, adding the speed of his own legs in his impatience. He hoped to find Hali at the saucer, sitting on the steps of the boarding ramp, waiting to deliver her wrath upon him. He wouldn’t mind—he wouldn’t mind if she never spoke to him again just so long as she was safe.
The saucer came into sight. He leaped off the slidewalk and ran across the landing strip, giving wide berth to the row of police saucers. With sinking heart he saw that the boarding ramp was empty. Well, perhaps she had gotten inside—he had locked the door before leaving, but conceivably Hali had watched him set the combination and memorized the numbers. So Nick hoped, not realizing the extent to which he was grasping at straws.
Inside the saucer he ran up and down the three levels calling her name. He looked everywhere, even in silly places like the electrostatic field generator access chamber. It was probably during this time, while running from room to room and silently enumerating, like a savage chanting for a favor from the gods, the ways in which he could improve his behavior if only she were returned to him, that he first realized he loved her.
After his third or fourth go-round he forced himself to stop, to sit down, to calm down and think. He was, he decided, being hysterical to no end. Really now, what harm could have come to her? Probably she had left the theater and gotten medical aid—every temple kept a doctor on call. Then when she tried to get back inside the cops would not allow it. So she went somewhere to pass the time, perhaps to one of the restaurants or relaxation rooms or gift shops in the temple annex. She would have left a message—of course! Nick shook his head at his own stupidity. The temple switchboards were intended for just that purpose. He would, no doubt, find the message waiting there.
Convinced there was no longer any urgency, Nick went down to the master bathroom and ran a shower. He peeled off his urine-soaked tights and dropped them in the launderer, then quickly switched on the holovision, the volume way up, to drown out the memory of the fright-stick. The shower was pure pleasure, the needles of water pounding his face, the heat loosening his muscles; and finally being rid of the urine smell!