CHAPTER FOUR
In the final analysis, he was just too tired to attempt an explanation -not physically worn out, but mentally. Since just before dawn, he feltas though he had been on a fantastic merry-go-round. Feeling a bitstrange, he allowed her to lead him upstairs to the bedroom. The sightof one bed startled him, even though it was a rather large double. Heslid eyes sideways, caught her smiling coyly and forced a grin. Sheinstalled him in the bathroom, tossed a pair of pajamas to him and lefthim alone.
He took a long time showering and shaving. Then when he could avoid itno longer, he went into the bedroom. She was combing her long satinyhair at the dresser and had slipped into an aqua colored nightgown. Fora moment, his breath caught in amazement, then he slid between thesheets of the bed and watched her. Finally she stopped combing andwalked over to look down at him. He looked back, feeling a little like acaged animal - but enjoying it.
She fell to her knees beside the bed, her eyes shining with happiness.The red lipped smile was again tugging at her full mouth. Her fingerswound gently in his hair and the warm pressure of her soft breastsrested boldly upon his arm as though they knew they belonged there.
"I love you so much, Nick," she whispered, her eyes half closed.
He reached out a hand to touch her cheek and the softness of it againsthis fingers alarmed him, thrilled him. He knew what he had to tell her,but it was a long time in coming. "I ... I love you too, Beth," hewhispered.
Her soft, moist lips came gently down upon his like a twin promise ofthe offering of love that awaited him and he felt his own lipsresponding. A slight tremor ran through him as her fingers flicked atthe wall and the room became sheathed in darkness. Moonlight filteredthrough the curtains and she moved into the bed, her lithe shape moldinginto the hardness of his. Her voice was a warm breath in his ear and herarms slid over his chest while she talked.
"You don't love me, darling. That's the whole trouble. We love with ourminds, and love is an accumulation of a million memories - but you havelost yours. I know, I know. To you..."
"Beth," he began but she clamped her hand over his mouth.
"To you, darling, I'm a stranger, just another woman. I know I can't beanything more right now. You'll have to learn to love me again.
"But me? Nick, it's different with me. I've waited for thirteen longmonths for you to love me again, and by some miracle you've come back.You're here and so am I. I love you and I want you. Oh, darling, pretendI'm a whore; pretend I'm anything ... but make love to me. Pay noattention to anything except to me..."
His mouth folded over hers, shutting off the flow of words in apassionate kiss, while his hands smoothed down over the wisp of silkthat kept his fingers from her flesh. Her arms clung to him tightly.
"It won't be hard, Beth," he whispered against the side of her face."You're beautiful ... it won't be hard to love you..."
Then she twisted from him, making a memory of the film of nightgownthat had kept his hands away from her. He moved to her, his fingersstroking her into passion while she pulled his face down to the softthrust of her breasts. Then she was clamped against him and strugglingto get even closer, her body making a prison for him ... yet at the sametime giving him freedom.
Later, when she slept, he propped himself on one elbow to study the softlines of her face. Then he too dropped off to sleep.
* * * * *
His uniform was torn by the purple bushes and their nine inch thorns,and streamers of blood painted the rich blue and yellow of his trousers.His face was smeared with grey, pasty dirt and the hand that held theauto-pistol was wet with sweat. His stomach had rolled into a tight ballwithin him and he was frightened.
They were out there somewhere, waiting for the sound of his blackleather boots to clatter on one of the grey-green rocks that litteredthe hillside. They would find him. Their damned radar antennae wouldspot him for them. There was no escape from the bastards, and he knewit. Commander Imry had bungled every damned assignment he'd been given,and now Firstspacer Lors would have to die in the supreme bungle thathad created the first native uprising on Thista. He looked up along theface of the high mountain in his rear. Nothing moved in thegreenish-purple scrub, but he knew they were there.
He peered over the edge of the rock into the valley, a hundred and fifty_kinos_ away. The patrol car was still there, its driver lyinggrotesquely just a few feet from the hatch. The thick, heavy spearthrough his chest resembled a finger pointing toward the violet sky.Closer to him, on the slope, one of the enemy lay dying, agreenish-brown fluid pumping spasmodically from the hole put in hischest by the auto-pistol. The alien's huge yellow eyes blinked owlishlyand the slash-like mouth worked as if he wanted to call for help. But nosound came. The antennae swiveled limply as he tried to locate hiscomrades, but they drooped as the alien died.
Still tightly clutching the auto-pistol, he watched the thin, greyantennae fall to the ground. They pointed off to the left. He swungabout and looked in the direction the native had been scanning, but hecould see no movement beyond the swaying of the desert grass moving inthe faint breath of air.
They should have gotten the message. By now, there was probably a shipon its way to him. He had to hold out until they got here. He flippedopen the cartridge box and checked his ammunition. Plenty. Of course,the auto-pistol only held fifteen shots and if they rushed him... Hewished fervently that he had thought to bring the projectile launcherfrom the wrecked patrol car.
Damned natives and their uprisings!
He searched the sky anxiously, cold sweat trickling off his forehead intiny rivulets. Scenes of other uprisings flickered through his brain,and more horrible scenes of the remains of tortured captives when hereached them too late. Those had been small. This one was for real.
The native seemed to materialize out of the ground, screaming shrillobscenities as he drew himself to his full nine feet of height andbrandished the heavy maul over his head. He came leaping over the groundand up the hill of tumbled rocks in fiendish rage, his grey antennaepointed directly at Firstspacer Lors. Behind him came the others, eightof them.
He fired the auto-pistol at the lead alien, watching the bullet tear ahole in his face, ripping away one of the blinking yellow eyes. Thealien screamed and fell blubbering. He fired again and again, droppingtwo more before the charge broke.
Then suddenly, at a sound, he whirled and stared terrified at the alienbehind him. The charge had been a fake, an old military stunt that anygreen Spacer could have seen through. For one brief instant, he staredinto the large eyes of the native. Then he fired. Another native rosefrom the ground, then another and another. He fired repeatedly, cryingand cursing in his rage at the weapon's inefficiency, while over hishead he heard the roaring of the rescue ship.
Tongues of flame soared over his head and into the surging mass ofaliens. He hoped the ship was not too late...
* * * * *
"Nick! Nick, darling!"
He awoke, his face drenched with sweat and his stomach a tight knot offear. He reached out, in his fright, and grabbed the woman at his side,pulling her into his arms to hold her tightly. She stroked his hair,kissed his face and whispered soothing words into his ear.
"What is it, Nick?"
He relaxed his grip and laid his head back on the pillow. In the brightlight of the moon, he looked at her and returned to himself. Thosemonsters! So vivid!
"Nightmare," he croaked hoarsely.
She smiled, her lips glistening in the moonlight, and kissed him gently."The apple pie," she suggested. "Nightmares are usually caused by eatingbefore bed."
"It was so real," he muttered. "So real. I ... I was on another planet... I wore a blue uniform with yellow stripes on the legs and my namewas Lors, or Lars. The natives, horrible monsters, were in a state ofrevolution ... they killed my driver. I was alone and they were allaround me..."
"Science fiction," she cooed and stroked his hair. "I think it's a goodsign. All you ever read, for r
elaxation, was science fiction. Your dreamwas probably a story you once read and your mind put you in the hero'splace."
He sat up and looked at her. "Did I cry out?"
"You were mumbling. I couldn't hear what you said. Then you begansobbing and thrashing about."
Nick ran his fingers through his hair and over the back of his neck, thereality of the dream almost too much for him. It wasn't an ordinarynightmare where he would be running, with a huge monster panting inpursuit. This was frightening. Like a memory. Like some damned fantasticmemory.
He stood up and patted her shoulder. "Go back to sleep, Beth," he toldher gently. "I'm going downstairs."
"Shall I turn on a light?"
"No. It might cause the neighbors to wonder." He walked to the door ofthe bedroom. "The moon is bright enough."
He walked into the hall, feeling his way in the dark places, and downthe stairs into the living room. As he sat in the chair near the window,he thought about the dream. It bothered him, because it was unlike adream; it had the weird consistency and logic of a memory, yet seemedalmost supernatural ... Hell, what kind of thing had huge, yellow eyesand stood nine feet tall? What sort of a world had a violet sky andgrey-green rocks? The whole damned thing had the scent of a Walt Disneymovie, the colors vivid and sharp, the landscape seemingly done by awatercolor brush.
_Thista._
Apparently it was some kind of planet and he hoped that Beth was right.Would it be possible for a man to get so confused via a crack on thehead, that he believed he had lived through the literature he'd onceread? What would he dream about next? _Macbeth?_ _Treasure Island?_Christ, what a world!
If he could get to a doctor, a headshrinker, it might all be ironed out.They would get things squared away in a short while, but hell ...suppose I'm Public Enemy Number One, or something. Thirteen months! Inthirteen months kings have been broken, dynasties crushed ... What hadhappened to him in the thirteen months that he had been out of touch?One thing he was sure of; he hadn't been laying around. In a stretch oftime like that, he had worked, eaten, slept, loved ... Maybe he hadmarried again! An almost comical thought, compared to the possibilitythat he could be a killer, a bank robber; there were a million thingshe could have done.
A psychologist? Nope. That was out of the question, until he knew moreabout Nicholas Danson. And learning more about himself would be a realproblem. The cabin that Beth had spoken of would probably show himnothing. After a period of a year, there would be damned little trailleft to hunt along. There would be almost nothing. Whatever had beenthere, would have probably been sifted through by the guy, thedetective, Nolan Brice. Brice! Of all the friends for him to have, hehad to be saddled to Brice! He'd have to be real careful where thatcharacter was concerned because the slightest slip would set the cop onhis trail like a blood hound.
The crackup? Now there was something. He would always be stuck with thequestion of how he had managed to get out of that mangled mass of metalwith merely cuts and bruises. But he could chalk that up to dumb luck,or something. The thing that worried him was had he left a clue thatcould trace him here? He had burned the flying suit ... he had tried tocover it up to Andy ... A lot of things about the smashed aircraftbothered him. Things like the flying suit; it had been made of strangematerial; but hell, he'd burned that thing. There would be no problemwith that.
Almost without realizing it, he found himself staring at the car thatwas parked on the other side of the street. The streetlight gleamed onthe black paint of the Chevrolet sedan and he thought of what Andy hadtold him earlier about the men who had been interested in finding him.Looking at the car much closer, he could see the two men sitting in it.The knot of fear returned to his stomach when he saw the light shiningon the driver's blond hair.
The men from Andy's gas station!
"Nick?"
It was Beth. She had followed him down and he could see her framed inthe doorway at the foot of the stairs. She had slipped into a nightgownthat, in the moonlight, was more alluring than if she had been nude. Shestarted to speak, but he hissed at her for silence.
"Come here, Beth," he instructed, "and don't put on a light."
Her bare feet whispered on the rug as she came to his side in obviousbewilderment. He pointed out the car and the two men, telling her abouthow they had inquired after him at the gas station. She listenedquietly.
"What do they want?" She asked, when he'd finished.
She was sitting on the arm of the chair, leaning against him to studythe car. The soft pressure of her breasts was disturbing and conjured upmemories of early in the evening.
"What do they want?" She asked again.
"I don't know. That's something I have to find out. Listen, give me aminute to get to the upstairs window. Then snap on the light and movearound. They're probably looking for me and I want to give them theimpression I'm not here."
"All right, Nick."
He got up and threaded his way to the stairs and up to kneel before thebedroom window that fronted on the street. Through the gap in thecurtains, he could see the car plainly. The light snapped on downstairs.For a moment, nothing happened; the men merely sat in the car andwatched the house. Finally the car began moving down the street with itslights out. Then, out of range, the driver flicked on the lights and thecar disappeared. The downstairs light snapped off and a moment laterBeth came into the room.
"Nick?"
"Here."
"Perhaps they saw the crash..." she began, but he cut her off short.
"No one saw me crash."
"I mean, later," she explained. "After all, a wrecked car on a highwaywould..."
"Car? Beth, I didn't crack up in a car. I crashed on a wooded mountainin a private plane."
"Oh, darling, don't be silly! You've never been in a plane in yourlife."
In the darkness of the room, Nick could only stare in stunned amazementat the moonlit outline of his wife.