She stared down at Alan, regarding him closely. Helen glared at her.
"And what part do you play in this?" she asked.
"A very ordinary one," she said. "The Fireclown's my lover."
"Then your lover's a cunning liar," Helen snorted.
"I shouldn't condemn him until you know what he's doing," the woman said sharply.
The three of them were alone together now that Kurt had left too.
"You're disappointed, aren't you?" the woman said, looking candidly at Helen.
"You wanted the Fireclown to be some sort of savior, pointing the direction for the world to go. Well, you're wrong. And those who think he's a destroyer are wrong also. He is simply what he is-the Fire-clown. He acts according to some inner drive which I have never been able to fathom and which I don't think he understands or bothers about himself."
"How long have you known him?" Helen asked.
"Some years. We met on Mars. My name's Cornelia Fisher."
"I've heard of you." Helen stared at the woman in curiosity. "You were a famous beauty when I was quite young. You disappeared suddenly. So you went to Mars.
Hardly the place for a woman like you, was it? You must be over forty but you don't look thirty."
Cornelia Fisher smiled. "Thanks to the Fireclown, I suppose. Yes, I went to Mars. The life of a well-known 'beauty,' as you call me, is rather boring. I wasn't satisfied with it. I wasn't satisfied with anything. I decided that I was leading a shallow existence and thought I'd find a deeper one on Mars. Of course I was wrong. It was merely less comfortable"-she paused, seeming to think back- "though the peace and quiet helped, and the scenery. I don't know if you've seen it since the revitalization plan was completed, but it is very beautiful now.
But I never really lost my ennui until I met the Fireclown."
"He was a Martian, then?" Alan knew there were a few families of second and third generation colonists responsible for working on the revitalization project.
"No. He came to Mars after a space-ship accident. He's from Earth originally.
But I don't know much more about him than you do. Once you've been with the Fireclown for a short time, you learn that it doesn't matter who he is or what he does-he's just the Fireclown, and that's enough. It's enough for him, I think, too, though there are strange currents running beneath that greasepaint.
Whether he's in control of them or not, I couldn't say."
"His connection with Bias seems to disprove part of what you've said." Alan spoke levelly, unable to decide what to think now.
"I honestly don't know what he and Bias are doing." Cornelia Fisher folded her arms and walked towards her handbag which lay on the chair she'd vacated. She opened it and took out a packet of cigarettes. Alan tried to look unconcerned but he had never seen a nicotine addict before. She offered them defiantly. They both refused, with rapid shakes of their heads. She lit one and inhaled the smoke greedily. "I'd swear he's not buying arms. Why should he? He has no plans of the kind Earth condemns him for having."
"Maybe he doesn't tell you everything," Helen suggested.
"Maybe he doesn't tell me anything because he hasn't got anything to tell me. I don't know."
Alan went to the door and tested it. It was shut firmly.
"Judging by the evidence," he said, "I can only suppose that the accusations made by my grandfather against the Fireclown are basically correct. Those P-bombs were part of the arms syndicate's stock-and we have seen that the Fireclown already knows Bias, who you say, Helen, is the head of the syndicate."
"It's never been proved, of course," she said. "But I'm pretty sure I'm right."
"Then the world is in danger. I wonder if the Fireclown would listen to reason."
"His kind of reason is different from ours," said Cornelia Fisher.
"If I see him again, I’ll try. He's too good to get mixed up in this sordid business. He has a tremendous personality-he could use his talents to…"
Alan's voice trailed off. What could the Fireclown use his talents for?
Cornelia Fisher raised her eyebrows. "His talents to do what? What does safe little Terra want with men of talent and vision? Society doesn't need them any more."
"That's a foolish thing to say." Helen was angry. "A complex society like ours needs expert government and leaders more than ever before. We emerged from muddle and disorder over a hundred years ago. We're progressing in a definite direction now. We know what we want to do, and if Bias and his friends don't spoil it with their plots and schemings we'll do it eventually. The only argument today is how. Planned progress. It was a dream for ages and now it's a reality. Until this arms trouble blew up there were no random factors. We had turned politics into an exact science, at long last."
"Random factors have a habit of emerging sooner or later," Alan pointed out. "If it wasn't the nuclear stock-piles it would have been something else. And those random factors, if they don't throw us too far out of gear, are what we need to stop us from getting complacent and sterile."
"I’d rather not be blown to smithereens," Helen said.
"The Fireclown isn't a danger to you, I know." Cornelia Fisher sounded as if she was less convinced than earlier.
"We'll soon know if the ARP fails to get hold of those stock-piles." Helen's voice sounded a bit shaky. Alan went over to her and put his arm round her comfortingly.
A short time later the Fireclown returned, seemingly excited. Bias was not with him. Alan couldn't guess at Corso's expression. He could only see the red flesh of his face, looking like so much animated butcher's meat.
"Did you get some more P-bombs?" Helen asked mockingly.
The Fireclown ignored her.
Corso said: "What are you hinting at, Miss Curtis?"
"I know Bias is head of the arms syndicate."
"Well, that's more than we do. Bias is supplying us with materials for our ship, the Pi-meson, which we badly need. There has been no talk of armaments."
"Not a very convincing lie," Helen sneered.
Now Corso also ignored Helen. He watched the Fire-clown in a way that a mother cat might watch her young-warily yet tenderly. Corso seemed to play nursemaid to the clown in some ways.
"It will take time to fit," said the Fireclown suddenly. "But thank God we could get them. We couldn't possibly have made them ourselves."
His gaudy red and yellow costume swirled around him as he turned to grin at Alan.
"I wonder if you'd want to," he mused mysteriously.
"Want to what?" Alan asked.
"Come for a trip in the Pi-meson. I think it would do you good."
"Why me? And what kind of good?"
"You could only judge that for yourself."
"Then you could dispose of us in deep space, is that it?" Helen said. "We've seen too much, eh?"
The Fireclown heaved a gusty sigh. "Do as you like, young woman. I've no axe to grind. Whatever takes place on Earth has no importance for me now. I tried to tell the people something, but it's obvious I didn't get through to them. Let the darkness sweep down and engulf your hollow kind. I care not."
"It's no good." Helen shook her head. "I can't believe anything you say. Not now."
"If you had it wouldn't have made any difference." Corso's ghastly face grinned.
"The rest of the world lost faith in their idol, and the world hates nothing so much as an idol who turns out to have feet of clay! Not, of course, that the clown wished to be one in the first place."
"Then why did you start that set-up on the first level? Why did he make speeches to thousands? Why did he let them adore him at his 'audiences'?" Helen's voice was high, near-hysterical.
As Alan watched and listened, a mood of absolute detachment filled him. He didn't really care about the pros and cons any more. He only wondered what the Fireclown's reasons were for suggesting the trip.