Possession
L. Sprague de Camp
PROFESSOR ERIC WADE lolled in his Tecumseh as the car, on automatic, dipped down the long slope into the Rock River Valley. Granite sand and pines gave way to limestone and farms. Here and there an early-turning maple gave a spot of red to the landscape. Wade swallowed to equalize the pressure on his eardrums; it was hot in the valley— though not hot enough to make Wade crank up his windows and turn on the air-conditioning.
Then, though still miles short of Clarksburg, Wade flipped the switch that put the car on manual, grasping the wheel as he did so. He slowed down to a mere thirty, looking about. Presently he turned off on a dirt road, where there was no buried control-cable to operate the Tecumseh on automatic.
The road was a short-cut to Clarksburg, but so rough and winding—not to mention its lack of automatic control—that nobody used it except as a means of reaching the houses that lay along it. Most of these houses were too far back to be seen from the road, their existence betrayed only by dirt or gravel driveways and mailboxes. As he neared one of these driveways, Wade slowed to a crawl and peered about. He did so with a slightly furtive air, as if Doris' jealous ghost-were watching from the back seat. He smiled at his own guilt-reaction, thinking: She always said if anything happened to her I should marry again soon; that I could never manage the house and kids without her. She was right, too.
The Tecumseh crept past the driveway with the mailbox marked Honeth and speeded up. A last dip and it rumbled over the old bridge at Aquilon and purred up the slope on the other side of the Rock River. Wade continued to glance about.
A few minutes later the dirt shortcut rejoined the main road by which Wade had driven down from Lake Scajadaga. He put the car back on automatic and rolled into Clarksburg.
Here he pulled up to a curb and got out. He reasoned that his knees were stiff from a two-hour drive, and moreover, having started from the Shapiros' right after an early breakfast, he had not yet seen a newspaper. But he still moved in that oddly furtive fashion and peered about, looking hard at passing autos.
Greene's Drug Store still flourished. Professor Wade went in, picked a paper off the rack, and sat down at the fountain. Old man Greene himself came behind the fountain. The soda-jerk had not yet showed up, as it was just after nine.
"A cnatsi," said Wade, glancing at old man Greene. The proprietor, it seemed to Wade, was a lot fatter and grayer than he remembered. But, he thought, others who had not seen him, Wade, for twelve years would say things like that about him—even though he had not grown a belly like Will Shapiro's. He put on his glasses and began reading the headlines and the weather-forecast.
"A cnatsi," said a voice with a curious tinny tamber.
Wade, knowing that accent, looked up. Of course it was a Rwon, partaking of the common drink of his planet. Cnatsi had made big inroads into the earth's consumption of tea and coffee, as its alkaloids provided a mild stimulation without affecting the heart, and it tasted good in its tart way.
The Rwon looked like all the others of his race: a five-foot humanoid, powerfully muscled against the gravity of Rwona, though the muscles never quite corresponded to those of a man. The face, though not human, was not unattractive when you got used to it. It reminded Wade of an Easter Island statue or an exceptionally brainy baboon. The naked putty-gray skin was shorn of its silvery pelt, for otherwise Rwons found Earth's temperate zone too hot to endure. There were no external indications of sex, for the good reason that Rwons were sexless; they budded.
After a reciprocal glance, in which the red-irised eyes of the Rwon met Wade's, Wade returned to his drink and his paper. It would have been easy to exchange a word with the extra-terrestrial. Rwons. were friendly and likeable, though their culture was very different from that of men. Not only were they sexless; they regarded human reproduction with horror and disgust. And their institution of property was without terran parallels; any Rwon who could prove to another of his own caste that he needed a possession of the latter, more than its present owner, was entitled to have it. Their social structure was entirely undemocratic.
WADE SUCKED on his straw. As a member of the Advisory Commission on Interplanetary Relationships, he worked on the Rwonan problem all the time; this was his vacation. Moreover, if he was little known among his fellow-earthmen outside the University, he was—as a commissioner— known to the Rwons. If he admitted his identity, the Rwon would talk his ear off, trying to influence him. And Eric Wade's mind, at the moment, was full of more personal matters.
He finished his cnatsi, paid, and returned to his car. A glance up and down the main street of Clarksburg showed no sign of her. He got back into the Tecumseh and purred off towards Carcosa.
Carcosa was a huge house, built by an ancestor of Eric Wade at the beginning of the twentieth century—which made it practically medieval. Despite its wooden construction it had survived the hazards of fire and of social and financial upheaval for over two centuries in the same family—not that its successive owners had not tried hard to sell it.
With the car on manual still, Eric Wade drove out Iroquois Street until it turned into another country road, dipped down into the valley again, crossed the Rock River, and snaked along that turbulent stream for three miles. Then Wade turned into the driveway marked by the buggy-wide ivy-covered pylons. Carcosa came in sight amidst its dark towering ancient pines. With a nostalgic frisson, Wade recognized the towers and other architectural excresences. They should, he-thought, advertise: antique manor-house for sale. Hot and cold running ghosts; built-in bats and owls.
Then he was greeting his cousin Molly Kirkland. She had turned gray of hair since "he saw her last, but was still plump and forceful. She kissed him loudly and introduced her son, a handsome lad in uniform just back from Lunar duty.
Wade's more distant cousin Christine was there to be kissed, too; she was the one who had never married. There was much well-well-well, you don't look any different, which of course was not true. Molly joshed Wade on his receding hairline."Lots of time before lunch, Eric. Let's go look at the garden."
"Any nibbles on the property?"
"Yes, there's a man who's sure to buy any day..."
"Where's Aunt Betsy?"
"Didn't you know? She died three years ago. How's your brother?"
"He's in Africa.
"We were so sorry about poor Doris... Where are your children, Eric? We expected them."
"I left them with the Shapiros. If I didn't get away from those three savages once in a while I'd go psycho. How are you making a living, Molly?"
"Oh, between Humphrey's insurance and a column in the Clarksburg Press I manage. Say, I've got to drive into town before lunch to shop. Like to come along and tote groceries?"
"Sure. Say, whatever became of..."
Eric Wade sat beside Molly Kirkland as the big old Kessler rolled back towards Clarksburg. With surgical skill he probed for news of people whom he had known in these parts in his youth. True, there was only one in whom he was really interested. But he did not care to unmask his batteries so early by starting his questions with one about her.
HE SMILED at his own craft. You are, he thought, a middle-ageing pedant on a cold-blooded, self-seeking wife-hunt. (Well, what's wrong with that) They don't have to take me if they don't want me. ) You haven't been in love with Vida for thirteen years, even if the frustrations of the last year have caused a prettyfied memory-image of her to haunt your sleep. You'd stay a widower if the kids weren't too much for you...
He asked: "What's happened to that oaf—you know—Bertram de Retske?"
"Trying to drink himself to death. It's got so nobody can invite him anywhere, because he always gets stinking and totally uninhibited with the ladies."