“He was always wondering that.”
“And Joey said he had to go toi-toi.”
“That danged outhouse,” Grant said.
“Remember them narrow boards across the mud? Joey was still wearing that white suit Ma’d made for him.”
“Claudie, what’s the use remembering all…”
“You remember that night?”
“Claudie, that was a long time ago.”
“I remember it. Joey asked all around for someone to go out with him across them boards, but Paw said for him to git along. What’s he scared of?”
“Doggone, Claudie, you sound like Paw sometimes.”
“I remember Joey going out there all by hisself—a little white blot like in the dark. Then Paw yipped: ‘Joey! Look out for that buck nigger ahint you!’”
“And Joey ran!” Grant said. “I remember.”
“And he slipped off into the mud.”
“He come back all dirty,” Grant said, “I remember.” He chuckled.
“And when Paw found out he’d wet hisself, too, he went and got the razor strop.” Her voice softened. “Joey was such a little feller.”
“Paw was a strict one, all right.”
“Funny the things you remember sometimes,” she said.
Grant moved across to a window, picked at the maroon drapery. Turning, he revealed his face—the same fine bone structure as Ruth, but with heavy flesh over it. A sharp line crossed his forehead where a hat had been worn, the face dark beneath it, light above. His eyes appeared hidden in shadowed holes. The hand at the drapery was darkly veined.
“This is real dry country,” he said. “Nothing ever looks green out here.”
“I wonder why he done it?” Claudie asked.
Grant shrugged. “He was a strange one, that Joey.”
“Listen to you,” she said. “Was a strange one. Already talking like he was dead.”
“I guess he is, Claudie. Just as good as.” He shook his head. “Either dead or committed to an insane asylum. Same thing really when they stick you away like that.”
“I heard you talk plenty about what happened when we was kids,” she said. “You figure that had anything to do with him going… like this?”
“What had anything to do with it?”
“The way Paw treated him.”
Grant found a loose thread in the drapery. He pulled it out, rolled it between his fingers. The sensimesh web projected a feeling of long-repressed anger from him.
(Kelexel wondered then why Ruth showed him this scene. He understood in a way the pain she must feel at seeing this, but how could she blame him or be angry at him for this? What had happened to her parents… that’d been Fraffin’s doing.)
“That time we went to the county fair to hear the darky singers,” Grant said. “In the mule wagon, remember? Joey didn’t want to come along. He was mad at Paw for something, but Paw said he was too young to leave at home alone.”
“He must’ve been all of nine then,” she said.
Grant went on as though he hadn’t heard. “Then when Joey refused to leave the wagon, remember? Paw says: ‘Come along, boy. Don’t you want to hear them niggers?’ And Joey says: ‘I guess I’ll stay with the mules and wagon.’”
Claudie nodded.
Another thread came out of the drapery into Grant’s hand. He said: “I heard you plenty of times when you didn’t want to go someplace say: ‘Guess I’ll stay with the mules and wagon.’ We had half the county saying it.”
“Joey was like that,” she said. “Always wanting to be alone.”
Grant’s lips formed a harsh smile. “Everything seemed to happen to Joey.”
“Was you there when he ran away?”
“Yep. That was after you was married, wasn’t it? Paw sold Joey’s horse that he’d worked all summer cutting wood to buy from old Poor-John Weeks, Ned Tolliver’s brother-in-law.”
“Did you see the ruckus?”
“I was right there. Joey called Paw a liar and a cheat and a thief. Paw went to reach for the white oak club, but Joey was quicker. He must’ve been seventeen then, and strong. He brung that club down on Paw’s head like he wanted to kill him. Paw went down like a pole-axed steer. Joey ripped the money Paw’d got for the horse outen his pocket, ran upstairs, packed the gladstone and left.”
“That was a terrible thing,” she said.
Grant nodded. “Long as I live I’ll remember, that boy standing there on the porch, that bag in his hand and holding that screen door. Maw was sobbing over Paw, dabbing at his head with a wet towel. Joey spoke so low we’d never’ve heard if we hadn’t all been so scared and quiet. We thought Paw was dead for sure.”
“‘I hope I never see any of you ever again, ‘ Joey says. And he run off.”
“He had Paw’s temper and that’s for sure,” Claudie said.
Ruth slapped the pantovive cutoff. The images faded. She turned, her face composed and blank from the pressures of the manipulator, but there were tear stains down her cheeks.
“I must know something,” she said. “Did you Chem do that to my father? Did you… make him that way?”
Kelexel recalled Fraffin boasting how the killer had been prepared… boasting and explaining how an Investigator from the Primacy stood no chance to escape the traps of this world. But why waste concern over a few suborders demeaned and shaped to Chem needs? Precisely because they were not suborders. They were wild Chem.
“You did, I see,” Ruth said. “I suspected it from what you’ve told me.”
Am I so transparent to her? Kelexel asked himself. How did she know that? What strange powers do these natives have?
He covered his confusion with a shrug.
“I wish you could die,” Ruth said. “I want you to die.”
Despite the manipulator’s pressure on her, Ruth could feel rage deep inside her, remote but distinct, a burning and smoldering anger that made her want to reach out and waste her fingernails clawing at this Chem’s impervious skin.
Ruth’s voice had come out so level and flat that Kelexel found he’d heard the words and almost passed over them before he absorbed their meaning. Die! She wished him dead! He recoiled. What a boorish, outrageous thing for her to say!
“I am a Chem,” he said. “How dare you say such a thing to a Chem?”
“You really don’t know, do you?” she asked.
“I’ve smiled upon you, brought you into my society,” he said. “Is this your gratitude?” Kelexel slipped off the bed, crossed the room.
She glanced around her prison room, focused on his face—the silvery skin dull and metallic, the features drawn into a sharp frown of disdain. Kelexel’s position standing beside her chair put him only slightly above her and she could see the dark hairs quivering in his nostrils as he breathed.
“I almost pity you,” she said.
Kelexel swallowed. Pity? Her reaction was unnerving. He looked down at his hands, was surprised to find them clasped tightly together. Pity? Slowly, he separated his fingers, noting how the nails were getting that foggy warning look, the reaction from breeding. Reproducing itself, his body had set the clock of flesh ticking. Rejuvenation was needed, and that soon. Was this why she pitied him, because he’d delayed his rejuvenation? No; she couldn’t know of the Chem subservience to the Rejuvenators.
Delay… delay… why am I delaying? Kelexel wondered.
Suddenly, he marveled at himself—his own bravery and daring. He’d let himself go far beyond the point where other Chem went racing for the Rejuvenators. He’d done this thing almost deliberately, he knew, toying with sensations of mortality. What other Chem would’ve dared? They were cowards all! He was almost like Ruth in this. Almost mortal! And here she railed at him! She didn’t understand. How could she, poor creature?
A wave of self-pity washed through him. How could anyone understand this? Who even knew? His fellow Chem would all assume he’d availed himself of a Rejuvenator when he’d needed it. No one understood.
Kelexel hesitated on the ver
ge of telling Ruth this daring thing he’d done, but he remembered her words. She wished him dead.
“How can I show you?” Ruth asked. Again, she turned to the pantovive, adjusted its controls. This disgusting machine, product of the disgusting Chem, was suddenly very important to her. It was the most vital thing in her life at this moment to show Kelexel why she nurtured such a seed of violent hate toward him. “Look,” she said.
Within the pantovive’s bubble of light there appeared a long room with a high desk at one end, rows of benches below it set off behind a rail, tables, another railed-off section on the right with twelve natives seated in it in various poses of boredom. The side walls held spaced Grecian columns separated by dark wood paneling and tall windows. Morning sunlight poured in the windows. Behind the high desk sat a round ball of a man in black robes, bald pod of head bent forward into the light.
Kelexel found he recognized some of the natives seated at the tables below the high desk. There was the squat figure of Joe Murphey, Ruth’s parent, and there was Bondelli, the legal expert he’d seen in Fraffin’s story rushes—narrow face, black hair combed back in beetle wings. In chairs immediately behind the railing there were the witch doctors, Whelye and Thurlow.
Thurlow interested Kelexel. Why had she chosen a scene containing that native male? Was it true that she’d have mated with this creature?
“That’s Judge Grimm,” Ruth said, indicating the man in the black robes. “I… I went to school with his daughter. Do you know that? I’ve… been in his home.”
Kelexel heard the sounds of distress in her voice, considered a higher setting on the manipulator, decided against it. That might introduce too much inhibition for her to continue. He found himself intensely curious now as to what Ruth was doing. What could her motives be?
“The man with the cane there at the left, at that table, that’s Paret, the District Attorney,” Ruth said. “His wife and my mother were in the same garden club.”
Kelexel looked at the native she’d indicated. There was a look of solidness and integrity about him. Iron gray hair topped a squarish head. The hair made a straight line across his forehead and was trimmed closely above prominent ears. The chin had a forward thrust. The mouth was a prim, neat modulation on the way to a solid nose. The brows were bushy brown ovals above blue eyes. At their outer edges, the eyes made a slight downward slant accented by deep creases.
The cane leaned against the table beside his chair. Now and again, Paret touched its knobbed top.
Something important appeared to be happening in this room now. Ruth turned up the sound and there came a noise of coughing from the ranked spectators, a hissing sound as papers were shuffled.
Kelexel leaned forward, a hand on the back of Ruth’s chair, staring as Thurlow arose and went to a chair beside the high desk. There was a brief religious rite involving truthfulness and Thurlow was seated, the legal expert, Bondelli, standing below him.
Kelexel studied Thurlow—the wide forehead, the dark hair. Without the manipulator, would Ruth prefer this creature? Thurlow gave the impression of crouching behind his dark glasses. There was an aura of shifting uneasiness about him. He was refusing to look in a particular place. It came over Kelexel that Thurlow was avoiding Fraffin’s shooting crew in this scene. He was aware of the Chem! Of course! He was immune.
A sense of duty returned momentarily to Kelexel then. He felt shame, guilt. And he knew quite suddenly why he hadn’t gone to one of the storyship’s Rejuvenators. Once he did that, he’d be committed finally to Fraffin’s trap. He’d be one of them, owned by Fraffin as certainly as any native of this world. As long as he put it off, Kelexel knew he was just that much free of Fraffin. It was only a matter of time, though.
Bondelli was speaking to Thurlow now and it seemed a tired, useless little scene. Kelexel wondered at his reaction.
“Now, Dr. Thurlow,” Bondelli said, “you’ve enumerated the points this defendant has in common with other insane killers. What else leads you to the conclusion that he is in fact insane?”
“I was attracted to the recurrence of the number seven,” Thurlow said. “Seven blows with the sword. He told the arresting officers he’d be out in seven minutes.”
“Is this important?”
“Seven has religious significance: the Lord made the world in seven days, and so on. It’s the kind of thing you find dominant in the actions of the insane.”
“Did you, Dr. Thurlow, examine this defendant some months ago?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Under what circumstances?”
Kelexel glanced at Ruth, noted with a sense of shock the tears streaming down her cheeks. He looked at the manipulator’s setting and began to understand how profound her emotions must be.
“Mr. Murphey had turned in a false fire alarm,” Thurlow said. “He was identified and arrested. I was called in as court psychologist.”
“Why?”
“False fire alarms are not a thing to be disregarded, especially when turned in by a man well along in his adult years.”
“This is why you were called in?”
“No—that was routine, more or less.”
“But what’s the significance of the false fire alarm?”
“It’s sexual, basically. This incident occurred at about the time this defendant first complained of sexual impotency. These two things, taken together, paint a very disturbing psychological picture.”
“How is that?”
“Well, he also displayed an almost complete lack of warmth in his nature. It was a failing in those things we usually refer to as kindly. He produced Rorschach responses at that time which were almost completely lacking in those elements we refer to as alive. In other words, his outlook was centered on death. I took all of those things into consideration: a cold nature centered on death plus sexual disturbance.”
Kelexel stared at the figure on the pantovive’s stage. Who was he talking about? Cold, centered on death, sexually disturbed. Kelexel glanced at the figure of Murphey. The defendant sat huddled over his table, eyes downcast.
Bondelli ran a finger along his mustache, glanced at a note in his hand.
“What was the substance of your report to the Probation Department, doctor?” Bondelli asked. As he spoke, he looked at Judge Grimm.
“I warned them that unless he changed his ways radically, this man was headed for a psychotic break.”
Still without looking at Thurlow, Bondelli asked: “And would you define psychotic break, doctor?”
“By example—a sword slaying of a loved one using violence and wild passion is a psychotic break.”
Judge Grimm scribbled on a piece of paper in front of him. A woman juror on the far right frowned at Bondelli.
“You predicted this crime?” Bondelli asked.
“In a real sense—yes.”
The District Attorney was watching the jury. He shook his head slowly, leaned over to whisper to an aide.
“Was any action taken on your report?” Bondelli asked.
“To my knowledge, none.”
“Well, why not?”
“Perhaps many of those who saw the report weren’t aware of the dangers involved in the terms.”
“Did you attempt to impress the sense of danger upon anyone?”
“I explained my worries to several members of the Probation Department.”
“And still no action was taken?”
“They said that surely Mr. Murphey, an important member of the community, couldn’t be dangerous, that possibly I was mistaken.”
“I see. Did you make any personal effort to help this defendant?”
“I attempted to interest him in religion.”
“Without success?”
“That’s right.”
“Have you examined defendant recently?”
“Last Wednesday—which was my second examination of him since he was arrested.”
“And what did you find?”
“He’s suffering from a condition I’d
define as a paranoid state.”
“Could he have known the nature and consequences of his act?”
“No, sir. His mental condition would’ve been such as to override any considerations of law or morality.”
Bondelli turned away, stared for a long moment at the District Attorney, then: “That is all, doctor.”
The District Attorney passed a finger across the squared-off hairline of his forehead, studied his notes on the testimony.
Kelexel, absorbed in the intricacies of the scene, nodded to himself. The natives obviously had a rudimentary legal system and sense of justice, but it was all very crude. Still, it reminded him of his own guilt. Could that be why Ruth showed him this? he wondered. Was she saying: “You, too, could be punished”? A paroxysm of shame convulsed him then. He felt that somehow Ruth had put him on trial here, placed him by proxy in that room of judgment which the pantovive reproduced. He suddenly identified with her father, sharing the native’s emotion through the pantovive’s sensimesh web.
And Murphey was seated in silent rage, the emotion directed with violent intensity against Thurlow who still sat in the witness chair.
That immune must be destroyed! Kelexel thought.
The pantovive’s image focus shifted slightly, centered on the District Attorney. Paret arose, limped to a position below Thurlow, leaned on the cane. Paret’s narrow mouth was held in a thin look of primness, but anger smoldered from the eyes.
“Mr. Thurlow,” he said, pointedly withholding the title of doctor. “Am I correct in assuming that, in your opinion, defendant was incapable of determining right from wrong on the night he killed his wife?”
Thurlow removed his glasses. His eyes appeared gray and defenseless without them. He wiped the lenses, replaced them, dropped his hands to his lap. “Yes, sir.”
“And the kinds of tests you administered, were they generally the same kinds as were administered to this defendant by Dr. Whelye and those who agreed with him?”
“Essentially the same—inkblot, wool sorting, various other shifting tests.”
Paret consulted his notes. “You’ve heard Dr. Whelye testify that defendant was legally and medically sane at the time of this crime?”
“I heard that testimony, sir.”