She took a firm grip on herself and went around the dome, her mind full of thoughts of Jasper as he related to her future. The past day or two a possible solution had suggested itself to her. Even if the community dared not risk losing Jasper’s genetic lines, or blending them with anyone else’s but her own, did that necessarily imply that she had to live with Jasper as his permanent mate? Couldn’t she mother two children by him and continue to live with Grandfather, and then have her own home when Grandfather died? It was against custom and precedent, but it was possible Grandfather might give his consent-after all, the community was approaching a really desperate pass, and old-fashioned ways of organising such things might have to be sacrificed anyway …
“Why, it’s Nestamay! I didn’t know it was your free-day!”
The mocking words recalled her to the present. She spun to see Jasper emerging from a dark hole among the tangle of ruined machinery and collapsed dome-struts which marked this side of the Station.
“It isn’t my free-day,” Nestamay said after a pause. “I wish you’d told somebody where you were going! I’ve had to hunt all over the place for you.”
A broad smile spread across Jasper’s face. “Well, well! What happened? Did Danianel give you such glowing reports of this little hideaway of mine that you couldn’t resist having a look at it-is that it?”
He moved towards her. Automatically she took a step back.
“Stop it!” she rapped. “Listen! I have to tell you to go and see Keefe around the dome near Channel Nine. He found a new plant. All free-day workers have to report to make a search for it.”
“What?” Jasper’s smile vanished. “On a free-day? Who says so?”
“Here and now Isay so!” Nestamay exclaimed.
“Oh! It’s your old fool of a grandfather again, I suppose!” Jasper wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “Well, I’m not going to turn out and sweat over bare ground all day for his sake! Let him look for the damned plants himself!”
“You won’t get away with that,” Nestamay warned. “The order says for everyone to go, including you.”
“I didn’t get the order,” Jasper said bluntly. He waved at the dome. “Nobody in sight, is there? Nobody except us! You can say you told me as much as you like, and I’ll say you gave up looking before you found me. How’s your beloved grandfather going to like that, hey?” The smile oozed back.
“But I tell you what!” he went on, before the dismayed girl could think of a foolproof answer. “I will go … on one small condition. That’s if you come in there with me for-oh, an hour or so, not more. Then if anybody asks what took you so long, I’ll be quite honest. I’ll say I was in there and you didn’t know where exactly to find me and it took a long time to track me down. There, how’s that for a bargain? Afterwards I’ll show up like a good boy for this damned search-party, and you’ll get a pat on the head from your grandfather for devotion to duty.”
He put his hand out to take her arm and lead her inside the dome to his vaunted secret lair.
Abruptly, at his touch, a flood of rage and loathing boiled up in Nestamay. She had tumbled with all the other children of her age-group, boys and girls alike, in their crude wrestling games, and had often overcome opponents older and heavier than herself. On becoming a nominal adult she was supposed to have put all that behind her, but the grip of Jasper’s hand seemed to trigger a reflex response. She hardly knew what she was doing, she was so furious, but seconds later Jasper was cartwheeling over her back, taken totally by surprise, and sliding on his face in the dust.
Panicking, she jumped away, thinking he would fling himself on her and seek revenge. But he didn’t do so. Panting, getting slowly to hands and knees with a huge graze-mark bleeding down his cheek, he fixed her with coldly cruel eyes.
“You’ll be sorry for that, Nestamay,” he whispered. “I warn you! You’ll wish you were dead before I finish getting even with you for this!”
There was something in his look and his voice which made him seem suddenly inhuman. Nestamay repressed a desire to scream, spun on the spot and took to her heels.
XVIII
She was still too shaken to think clearly when she found herself outside her home a few minutes later. She had never seen such a savage look on anyone’s face in all her young life. It was as though a newly-hatched thinghad taken human form. The shock had made her physically giddy.
Little by little she forced herself back to a state of comparative calm. She grew aware that Grandfather’s irascible voice could be heard from within the hovel, ordering Danianel to hurry with her sketching and get out to join the search party under Keefe.
Taking a firm grip on herself, she thrust open the door and blurted out her news.
“Grandfather, Jasper refuses to report for the search party! He said he wouldn’t admit that I’d found him and told him your instructions unless I–I went with him for an hour first.”
Danianel, a slight, quite pretty girl a little older than Nestamay, looked up startled from the eyepiece of the microscope. Several sheets of neatly executed drawings were piled up alongside the instrument.
“Go with you?” Grandfather said frostily. “Where to? I suppose I don’t have to ask what for!”
“I don’t know where exactly,” Nestamay muttered. “He has this hideaway inside the dome. Ask Danianel-she’s been there!”
“What do you mean?” Danianel demanded indignantly, cheeks colouring. Nestamay ignored her.
“Please, Grandfather, you must help me!” she exclaimed. “I had to beat him off, and I hurt him, I guess, and he said I’d wish I was dead before he finished getting even.”
Grandfather pulled himself to his feet. “You stay here and finish that drawing, Danianel,” he rapped. Tm getting tired of young Jasper, and I think it’s about time he was told to behave himself.”
Immensely relieved, Nestamay fell in behind him as he set off with long strides to the place where Keefe was assembling the search party.
But as they rounded the dome he checked and put up a hand to shade his eyes. “I thought you said Jasper had refused to join the party!” he snapped. “Look there!” He flung out an arm.
It was definitely Jasper, meekly listening with everyone else to Keefe’s exposition.
“I swear he told me he wouldn’t do it on his free-day,” Nestamay gulped. “Please go and ask him how he came by the graze on his face, at least!”
“Now see here, child,” Grandfather said, turning to face her. “I know you dislike Jasper. I know you hate the idea of having him as a mate. But we’ve been over all that, and I’ve explained why it’s got to be that way and there’s no alternative. Are you deliberately trying to incite me against him?”
Nestamay went slowly white. Between clenched teeth she forced out, “Go and ask him how he hurt his face!”
“He’s turned out for the search,” Grandfather answered curtly. “That’s as I ordered. Leave it at that.”
“Don’t you care about him trying to rape me?” Nestamay blazed. “Doesn’t it matter to you? Doesn’t it matter any more than sending my father out to his death in the desert? You and your talk about being able to show pride when we finally meet other people again-oh, how I hope you’ll be dead before then so I won’t weep with shame to hear you say you’re human too! You’re not! You’re a machine-you’re a thing!”
With all her force she slapped him stingingly across the face, and turned to flee.
Terror at what she had done haunted her the rest of the day. She dared not go home when she should have done-at noon, to try and sleep before keeping the night watch. Instead, she cowered alone in a concealed nook on the far side of the dome, shivering uncontrollably and sometimes giving way to dry-eyed sobs.