She didn’t ask for pity as she told him. It was as though she spoke of someone else.
“What kind of a career can you have here, Caren?”
She smiled and for once it wasn’t a pretty smile. “I can make a living here. Some day there will be other cities beside Allada. Some day there will be a civilization on Venus which will be cultured enough so that my kind of career can exist here. But I won’t live to see it.”
“What do you want out of your life?” he asked gently.
“Peace. Freedom to do as I please.” Her eyes were troubled.
“Is that all?” he asked insistently.
“No!” she flared. “I want more than that, but I don’t know what I want. I’m just restless.” She stopped and looked at him for long moments. “You are too, Shane. Aren’t you?”
He tried to pass it off lightly. “Things have been a little dull lately.”
“Take me for a walk through the city, Shane. When I feel like this I have to walk it off.”
They walked to the edge of the wire near the constant sparking and crackling as the electricity crisped the searching tendrils. Above them the strange stars shone dimly through the constant heavy mist.
She stood with her head tilted back, her eyes half shut. On an impulse he reached out and unclasped the heavy pin that bound her hair so tightly. It fell in a shining flood over her shoulders.
“Why—” she said, startled.
“It just had to be. I feel like we’ve both been caught up in something outside of us and we’re being hurtled along. Everything from here on will be because it has to be.”
Without another word she came quickly into his arms. She was as intensely alive as during the intricate figures of her strange dance.
Once again the pretty clerk pointed out the small room to Shane Brent. He walked slowly, reluctantly, shut the door quietly behind him. In a short time he had a closed circuit to Central Assignment and moments later the alert face of Frank Allison filled the screen.
“What’s the matter, Shane? You look done in. Rough night?”
“You could call it that I guess.”
“How about Lee?”
“Everything is set, Frank. He’ll leave on Flight Seven a week from today. Have somebody meet him and get him cleared and out to the school, will you?”
“Sure thing. What else have you got on your mind? From your tone that isn’t all you called about.”
“It isn’t. I’ve got an exec for you, Frank.”
“Good! A competent man?”
“I guess so. At least he’s had the proper background for it.”
“Don’t keep me in suspense. Who is the man?”
“Me,” Shane said flatly.
Frank Allison looked at him for long seconds, no trace of expression on his face. “Are you serious, Shane?”
“Completely, Frank.”
Allison moved away from the screen. Shane waited impatiently. In a few moments Allison was back and Shane was mildly shocked to see that the man was smiling broadly. “I had a little detail to attend to, Shane. I had to collect ten bucks. You see, I had a bet with West. We had you picked for the job for the last seven months, but in order for you to qualify for it, the idea had to originate with you. If it didn’t, Psycho wouldn’t approve your arbitrary assignment to the spot. Congratulations!”
Shane Brent wanted to laugh as he realized Allison had been playing almost the same game with him that he had been playing with Hiram Lee.
“I won’t be back, Frank,” he said quietly.
Allison sobered. “I had hoped you would, Shane. It’s your privilege to make your own choice. I had hoped that seven years from now, with your experience on this project, you’d be fitted to come in here and take my job.”
“I’m sorry, Frank,” Shane said.
Allison sighed. “So be it. When will you be in?”
“I’ll wait until she can come with me. It’ll be Flight Eight probably. I’ll confirm.”
There was deep affection in Allison’s smile. “Whoever she is, boy, I’m sure that she’s a very lovely person. See you when you get here.”
The screen darkened. He stood for a moment and looked at its opaque dead grayness. He didn’t see the screen. He saw, instead, a distant planet. He saw himself standing in a clearing, his hands hardened with pioneer labor. Above him was an alien sky. Beside him was a tall girl. Her hair of purest gold blew in the soft breeze.
Shane Brent turned and walked quickly from the small room. Caren would be waiting.
Ring Around The Redhead
Originally published in Startling Stories, November 1948.
Bill Maloney opens the doorway to other worlds, and finds — the Stuff of Dreams!
The prosecuting attorney was a lean specimen named Amery Heater. The buildup given the murder trial by the newspapers had resulted in a welter of open-mouthed citizens who jammed the golden oak courtroom.
Bill Maloney, the defendant, was sleepy and bored. He knew he had no business being bored. Not with twelve righteous citizens who, under the spell of Amery Heater’s quiet, confidential oratory were beginning to look at Maloney as though he were a fiend among fiends.
The August heat was intense and flies buzzed around the upper sashes of the dusty windows. The city sounds drifted in the open windows, making it necessary for Amery Heater to raise his voice now and again.
But though Bill Maloney was bored, he was also restless and worried. Mostly he was worried about Justin Marks, his own lawyer.
Marks cared but little for this case. But, being Bill Maloney’s best friend, he couldn’t very well refuse to handle it. Justin Marks was a proper young man with a Dewey mustache and frequent daydreams about Justice Marks of the Supreme Court. He somehow didn’t feel that the Maloney case was going to help him very much.
Particularly with the very able Amery Heater intent on getting the death penalty.
The judge was a puffy old citizen with signs of many good years at the brandy bottle, the hundreds of gallons of which surprisingly had done nothing to dim the keenness of eye or brain.
Bill Maloney was a muscular young man with a round face, a round chin and a look of sleepy skepticism. A sheaf of his coarse, corn-colored hair jutted out over his forehead. His eyes were clear, deep blue.
He stifled a yawn, remembering what Justin Marks had told him about making a good impression on the jury. He singled out a plump lady juror in the front row and winked solemnly at her. She lifted her chin with an audible sniff.
No dice there. Might as well listen to Amery Heater.
“...and we, the prosecution, intend to prove that on the evening of July tenth, William Howard Maloney did murderously attack his neighbor, James Finch and did kill James Finch by crushing his skull. We intend to prove there was a serious dispute between these men, a dispute that had continued for some time. We further intend to prove that the cause of this dispute was the dissolute life being led by the defendant”
Amery Heater droned on and on. The room was too hot. Bill Maloney slouched in his chair and yawned. He jumped when Justin Marks hissed at him. Then he remembered that he had yawned and he smiled placatingly at the jury. Several of them looked away, hurriedly.
Fat little Doctor Koobie took the stand. He was sworn in and Amery Heater, polite and respectful, asked questions which established Koobie’s name, profession and presence at the scene of the “murder” some fifty minutes after it had taken place.
“And now, Dr. Koobie, would you please describe in your own words exactly what you found.”