Part 5 (2/2)

”How? Explain.”

”Oh Christ, Babble,” Susie Smart said, ”it's obvious. If someone or something deliberately killed him then we're in just as much danger as he was-possibly. But if an insect stung him-”

”That's what it was,” Babble said. ”An insect stung him.” His ears had turned bright carmen with stubborn, irritable anger. ”Do you think this is my first autopsy? That I'm not capable of handling pathology-report instrumentation that I've handled all my adult life?” He glared at Susie Smart. ”Miss Dumb,” he said.

”Come on, Babble,” Tony Dunkelwelt said.

”It's Dr. Babble to you, sonny,” Babble said.

Nothing is changed, Seth Morley said to himself. We are as we were, a mob of twelve people. And it may destroy us. End forever our various separate lives.

”I feel a vast amount of relief,” Susie Smart said, coming up beside him and Mary. ”I guess we were becoming paranoid; we thought everyone was after us, trying to kill us.”

Thinking about Ben Tallchief-and his last encounter with him-Morley felt no sympathetic resonance within him to her newly refreshed att.i.tude. ”A man is dead,” he said.

”We barely knew him. In fact we didn't know him at all.”

”True,” Morley said. Maybe it's because I feel so much personal guilt. ”Maybe I did it,” he said aloud to her.

”A bug did it,” Mary said.

”May we finish the prayer, now?” Maggie Walsh said.

Seth Morley said to her, ”How come we need to shoot a pet.i.tion-prayer eighty thousand miles up from the planet's surface, but this sort of prayer can be done without electronic help?” I know the answer, he said to himself. This prayer now-it really doesn't matter to us if it's heard. It is merely a ceremony, this prayer. The other one was different. The other time we needed something for ourselves, not for Tallchief. Thinking this he felt more gloomy than ever. ”I'll see you later,” he said aloud to Mary. ”I'm going to go unpack the boxes I've brought from our noser.”

”But don't go near the nosers,” Mary warned him. ”Until tomorrow; until we have time to scout out the plant or bug-”

”I won't be outdoors,” Morley agreed. ”I'll go directly to our quarters.” He strode from the briefing room out into the compound. A moment later he was ascending the steps to the porch of their joint living quarters.

I'll ask The Book, Seth Morley said to hmself. He rummaged through several cartons and at last found his copy of How I Rose From the Dead in My Spare Time and So Can You. How I Rose From the Dead in My Spare Time and So Can You. Seated, he held it on his lap, placed both hands on it, shut his eyes, turned his face upward and said, ”Who or what killed Ben Tallchief?” Seated, he held it on his lap, placed both hands on it, shut his eyes, turned his face upward and said, ”Who or what killed Ben Tallchief?”

He then, eyes shut, opened the book to a page at random, put his finger at one exact spot, and opened his eyes.

His finger rested on: the Form Destroyer.

That doesn't tell us much, he reflected. All death comes as a result of a deterioration of form, due to the activity of the Form Destroyer.

And yet it scared him.

It doesn't sound like a bug or a plant, he thought starkly. It sounds like something entirely else.

A tap-tap sounded at his door.

Rising warily, he moved by slow degrees to the door; keeping it shut he swept the curtain back from the small window and peered out into the night darkness. Someone stood on the porch, someone small, with long hair, tight sweater, peek-n-squeeze bra, tight short skirt, barefoot. Susie Smart has come to visit, he said to himself, and unlocked the door.

”Hi,” she said brightly, smiling up at him. ”May I come in and talk a little?”

He led her over to The Book. ”I asked it what or who killed Tallchief.”

”What did it say?” She seated herself, crossed her bare legs and leaned forward to see as he placed his finger on the same spot as before. ”The Form Destroyer,” she said soberly. ”But it's always the Form Destroyer.”

”Yet I think it means something.”

”That it wasn't an insect?”

He nodded.

”You don't want to go to bed with me? You'd enjoy it, despite your initial prudery and reservations. I'm very good. I know a lot of ways. Some which you probably never heard about. I made them up myself.”

”From years of experience,” he said.

”Yes.” She nodded. ”I started at twelve.”

”No,” he said.

”Yes,” Susie said, and grabbed him by the hand. On her face he saw a desperate expression, as if she were fighting for her life. She drew him toward her, straining with all her strength; he held back and she strained vainly.

Susie Smart felt the man pulling away from her. He's very strong, she thought. ”How come you're so strong?” she asked, gasping for air; she found herself almost unable to breathe.

”Carry rocks,” he said with a grin.

I want him, she thought. Big, evil, powerful ... he could tear me to pieces, she thought. Her longing for him grew.

”I'll get you,” she gasped, ”because I want you.” I need to have you, she said to herself. Covering me like a heavy shade, a protection from the sun and from seeing. I don't want to look any more, she said to herself. Weigh me down, she thought. Show me what there is of you; show me your real being, without benefit of clothes. Fumbling behind her she unsnapped her peek-n-squeeze bra. Deftly she tugged it out from its place within her sweater; she pulled, strained, managed to drop it onto a chair. At that the man laughed. ”Why are you laughing?” she demanded.

”Your neatness,” he said. ”Getting it onto a chair instead of dropping it onto the floor.”

”d.a.m.n you,” she said, knowing that he, like everyone else, was laughing at her. ”I'll get you,” she snarled, and pulled him with all her strength; this time she managed to move him a few tottering steps in the direction of the bed.

”Hey, G.o.ddam it,” he protested. But again she managed to move him several steps. ”Stop!” he said. And then she Susie banged the door shut. ”Is that all you can say? It's taken me a month to make it look like this.”

”'Nice' was your word for it, not mine.”

She laughed. ”I can call it 'nice,' but since you're a visitor you have to be more lavish about it.”

”Okay,” he said, ”it's wonderful.”

”That's better.” She seated herself in a black canvas-backed chair facing him, leaned back, rubbed her hands together briskly, then fastened her attention on him. ”I'm waiting,” she said.

”For what?”

”For you to proposition me.”

”Why would I do that?”

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