"But you were doing it unconsciously, is that it? That's no excuse. You can't plead that you have no control of that part of you. What your unconscious thinks is just as much you as the conscious is. It's even worse. You can dismiss your conscious thoughts, but what you really believe is what that shadowy thing believes."
He began pacing back and forth, his face looking like a demon's in the faint light cast by the small fire on the stone hearth.
"Isabel worshipped me, yet she was not afraid to argue violently with me, to tell me when she thought I was doing something wrong. But you... you harbor resentment until it makes an absolute bitch of you, yet you won't come out with it. And that makes things even worse.
"There's nothing evil about a hammer-and-tongs, screaming, throwing argument. It's like a thunderstorm, frightening when it happens; but it clears the air after it's over.
"The trouble with you is that you were raised to be a lady. You must never lift your voice in anger, you must always be calm and cool and collected. But that shadowy entity, that hindbrain, that inheritance from your ape ancestors, is tearing at the bars of its cage. And, incidentally, tearing at you. But you, you won't admit it."
Alice lost her dreamy look, and she shouted at him.
"You're a liar! And don't throw up your wife to me! We agreed never to compare each other's spouse, but you do it every time you wish to get me angry! It isn't true that I lack passion. You of all people should know that, and I don't just mean in bed.
"But I won't go into a rage over every petty word and incident. When I get mad it's because the situation demands it. It's worth getting angry about. You ... you're in a perpetual state of rage."
"That's a lie!"
"I don't lie!"
"Let us get back to the point," he said. "What is there about my capacity as commander that you don't like?"
She bit her lip, then said, "It's not how you run the boat or how you treat your crew. That's such an obvious matter, and you do fine at it. No, what troubles me is the command, or lack of it, over yourself."
Burton sat down, saying, "Let's have it. Just what are you talking about?"
She hitched forward on the chair and leaned over so that her face was close to his.
"For one thing, you can't stand to stay in one place more than a week. Before three days are up, you get uneasy. By the seventh day you're like a tiger pacing back and forth in his cage, a lion throwing himself against the bars."
"Spare me the zoological analogies," he said. "Besides, you know that I have stayed in one place for as much as a year."
"Yes, when you were building a boat. When you had a project going, one which would enable you to travel even more swiftly. Even then, you took short trips, leaving the rest of us to work on the boat. You had to go see this and that, investigate rumors, study strange customs, track down a language you didn't know. Never mind what the excuse was. You had to get away.
"You have a blight of the soul, Dick. That's the only way I can describe it. You can't endure to stay long in one place. But it's not because of the place. Never! It's you yourself that you can't tolerate. You must run so you can get away from yourself!"
He stood up and began pacing again.
"You say then that I can't endure myself! What a pitiable fellow! He doesn't love himself, which means that no one else can love him!"
"Nonsense!"
"Yes, all you're saying is pure rot!"
"The rot is in you, not in what I say."
"If you can't stand me, why don't you leave?"
Tears slid down her cheeks, and she said, "I love you, Dick!"
"But not enough to put up with my trifling eccentricities, is that it?"
She threw up her hands. "Trifling?"
"I have an itch to travel. So what? Would you taunt me if I had a physical itch, say athlete's foot?"
She smiled slightly. "No, I'd tell you to get rid of it. But this isn't just an itch, Dick. It's a compulsion."
She got up and lit a cigarette. Waving it under his nose, she said, "Look at this. In my time on Earth I would never have dared smoke, wouldn't even have considered it. A lady did not do such things. Especially a lady whose husband was of the landed gentry, whose father was a bishop of the Anglican church. Nor did she ever drink strong liquor to excess or curse. And she would never have considered bathing nude in public!
"But here I am, Alice Pleasance Liddell Hargreaves of the estate of Cuffnells, a most proper Victorian female aristocrat, doing all that and much more. By much more, well, I'm doing things in bed that even the French novels my husband was so fond of reading would not even have hinted at.
"I've changed. So why can't you?
"To tell the truth, Dick, I'm sick of traveling, always moving on, cooped up inside a small vessel, never knowing what tomorrow will bring. I'm no coward, you know that. But I would like to find a place where they speak English, where the people are of my own kind, where there is peace, where I can settle down, put down roots. I'm so tired of this eternal voyaging!"
Burton was moved by her tears. He put his hand on her shoulder and said, "What can we do about it? I must keep going on. Now, my ..."
"Isabel? I'm not she. I'm Alice. I do love you, Dick, but I'm not your, shadow, trailing you wherever you go, present when there's light, gone when there's darkness, a mere appendage."
She got up to put out the half-smoked cigarette in a baked-clay ashtray. Turning to him, she said, "But there's more! There's something else that bothers me-very much. It hurts me that you don't fully confide in me. You have a secret, Dick, a very deep, very dark secret."
"Perhaps you can tell me what it is. I certainly don't know."
"Don't lie! I've heard you talking in your sleep. It has something to do with those Ethicals, doesn't it? Something happened to you you didn't tell anyone about when you were gone all those years.
"I've heard you muttering about bubbles, about killing yourself seven hundred and seventy-seven times. And I've heard names you never mention when you're awake. Loga. Thanabur. And you speak of Ecks and the mysterious stranger. Who are these people?"
"Only the man who sleeps alone can keep a secret,'' Burton said.
"Why can't you tell me? Don't you trust me-after all these years?"
"I would if I could. But it would be too dangerous for you. Believe me, Alice, I have said nothing because I must say nothing. It is for your own good. No arguments now. I won't give in, and I'll get very angry if you persist in questioning me."
"Very well then. But keep your hands to yourself tonight."
It was a long time before he fell asleep. Some time in the night he awoke, aware that he had been talking. Alice was sitting up, staring at him.
22
Oskas, half-drunk as usual, visited Burton during lunch hour. Burton did not mind, especially since the chief gave him a skin containing at least two liters of bourbon.
"Have you heard the rumors of this great white boat which is said to be coming from down-River?" the Indian said.
"Only a deaf man would not have heard," Burton said, and he took a long pull of the whiskey. It had a winey odor and went down smoothly, needing no dilution with water. But then the grails never delivered anything but the best.
He said, "Aah!" and then, "I find it hard to believe the stories. From the description, the vessel is propelled by paddlewheels. That would mean that its engines are of iron. I doubt that anyone could gather enough ore to make engines of any size. Also, I have heard that the hull of the boat is made of metal. There's not enough iron in the whole planet to make a vessel that big. If it is as big as the rumors say."