Her cheeks were pink with earnestness, and Arvardan longed to touch them. (Had he ever before touched her and felt horrified at it? What was happening to him?)
"Is it after ten?" asked Pola.
"Yes," he replied.
"Then he should be upstairs now-if they haven't caught him." She looked about with an involuntary shudder. "We can get into the house directly from the garage now. and if you'll come with me-"
She had her hand on the knob that controlled the car door, when she froze. Her voice was a husky whisper: "There's someone coming…Oh, quick-"
The rest was smothered. It was anything but difficult for Arvardan to remember her original injunction. His arms swept about her with an easy motion, and, in an instant, she was warm and soft against him. Her lips trembled upon his and were limitless seas of sweetness…
For about ten seconds he swiveled his eyes to their extremes in an effort to see that first crack of light or hear that first footstep, but then he was drowned and swept under by the excitement of it all. Blinded by stars, deafened by his own heartbeat.
Her lips left his, but he sought them again, frankly, and found them. His arms tightened, and she melted within them until her own heartbeat was shaking him in time to his own.
It was quite a while before they broke apart, and for a moment they rested, cheek against cheek.
Arvardan had never been in love before, and this time he did not start at the word.
What of it? Earthgirl or not, the Galaxy could not produce her equal.
He said, with a dreamy pleasure, "It must have been only a traffic noise."
"It wasn't," she whispered. "I didn't hear any noise."
He held her at arm's distance, but her eyes did not falter. "You devil. Are you serious?"
Her eyes sparkled. "I wanted you to kiss me. I'm not sorry."
"Do you think I am? Kiss me again, then, for no reason but that I want to this time."
Another long, long moment and she was suddenly away from him, arranging her hair and adjusting the collar of her dress with prim and precise gestures. "I think we had better go into the house now. Put out the car light. I've got a pencil flash."
He stepped out of the car after her, and in the new darkness she was the vaguest shadow in the little pockmark of light that came from her pencil flash.
She said, "You'd better hold my hand. There's a flight of stairs we must go up."
His voice was a whisper behind her. "I love you, Pola." It came out so easily-and it sounded so right. He said it again. "I love you, Pola."
She said softly, "You hardly know me."
"No. All my life. I swear! All my life. Pola, for two months I've been thinking and dreaming of you. I swear it."
"I am an Earthgirl, sir."
"Then I will be an Earthman. Try me."
He stopped her and bent her hand up gently until the pocket flash rested upon her flushed, tear-marked face. "Why are you crying?"
"Because when my father tells you what he knows, you'll know that you cannot love an Earthgirl."
"Try me on that too."
15. The Odds That Vanished
Arvardan and Shekt met in a back room on the second story of the house, with the windows carefully polarized to complete opaqueness. Pola was downstairs, alert and sharp-eyed in the armchair from which she watched the dark and empty street.
Shekt's stooped figure wore somehow an air different from that which Arvardan had observed some ten hours previously. The physicist's face was still haggard, and infinitely weary, but where previously it had seemed uncertain and timorous, it now bore an almost desperate defiance.
"Dr. Arvardan," he said, and his voice was firm, "I must apologize for my treatment of you in the morning. I had hoped you would understand-"
"I must admit I didn't, sir, but I believe I do now."
Shekt seated himself at the table and gestured toward the bottle of wine. Arvardan waved his hand in a deprecating motion. "If you don't mind, I'll have some of the fruit instead…What is this? I don't think I've ever seen anything like it."
"It's a kind of orange," said Shekt. "I don't believe it grows outside Earth. The rind comes off easily." He demonstrated, and Arvardan, after sniffing at it curiously, sank his teeth into the winy pulp. He came up with an exclamation.
"Why, this is delightful, Dr. Shekt! Has Earth ever tried to export these objects?"
"The Ancients," said the biophysicist grimly, "are not fond of trading with the Outside. Nor are our neighbors in space fond of trading with us. It is but an aspect of our difficulties here."
Arvardan felt a sudden spasm of annoyance seize him. "That is the most stupid thing yet. I tell you that I could despair of human intelligence when I see what can exist in men's minds."
Shekt shrugged with the tolerance of lifelong use. "It is part of the nearly insoluble problem of anti-Terrestrianism, I fear."
"But what makes it so nearly insoluble," exclaimed the archaeologist, "is that no one seems to really want a solution! How many Earthmen respond to the situation by hating all Galactic citizens indiscriminately? It is an almost universal disease-hate for hate. Do your people really want equality, mutual tolerance? No! Most of them want only their own turn as top dog."
"Perhaps there is much in what you say," said Shekt sadly. "I cannot deny it. But that is not the whole story. Give us but the chance, and a new generation of Earthmen would grow to maturity, lacking insularity and believing wholeheartedly in the oneness of Man. The Assimilationists, with their tolerance and belief in wholesome compromise, have more than once been a power on Earth. I am one. Or, at least, I was one once. But the Zealots rule all Earth now. They are the extreme nationalists, with their dreams of past rule and future rule. It is against them that the Empire must be protected."
Arvardan frowned. "You refer to the revolt Pola spoke of?"
"Dr. Arvardan," Shekt said grimly, "it's not too easy a job to convince anyone of such an apparently ridiculous possibility as Earth conquering the Galaxy, but it's true. I am not physically brave, and I am most anxious to live. You can imagine, then, the immense crisis that must now exist to force me to run the risk of committing treason with the eye of the local administration already upon me."
"Well," said Arvardan, "if it is that serious, I had better tell you one thing immediately. I will help you all I can, but only in my own capacity as a Galactic citizen. I have no official standing here, nor have I any particular influence at the Court or even at the Procurator's Palace. I am exactly what I seem to be-an archaeologist on a scientific expedition which involves only my own interests. Since you are prepared to risk treason, hadn't you better see the Procurator about this? He could really do something."
"That is exactly what I cannot do, Dr. Arvardan. It is that very contingency against which the Ancients guard me. When you came to my house this morning I even thought you might be a go-between. I thought that Ennius suspected."
"He may suspect-I cannot answer for that. But I am not a go-between. I'm sorry. If you insist on making me your confidant, I can promise to see him for you."
"Thank you. It is all I ask. That-and to use your good offices to intercede for Earth against too strong a reprisal."
"Of course." Arvardan was uneasy. At the moment he was convinced that he was dealing with an elderly and eccentric paranoiac, perhaps harmless, but thoroughly cracked. Yet he had no choice but to remain, to listen, and to try to smooth over the gentle insanity-for Pola's sake.
Shekt said, "Dr. Arvardan, you have heard of the Synapsifier? You said so this morning."
"Yes, I did. I read your original article in Physical Reviews. I discussed the instrument with the Procurator and with the High Minister."