Part 43 (1/2)

Her red hair was piled high, tied with a glittering rope of green stones. Her body was covered by a long green robe belted by a golden-linked strand of square-cut creme-de-menthe jewels. There was an exotic strangeness about her that frightened Thurlow. He saw the bulge of her abdomen then beneath the jeweled belt, realized she was pregnant.

”Ruth,” he said, louder this time.

She ignored him, concentrated her fury on Kelexel's back. ”I wish you could die,” she muttered. ”Oh, how I wish you could die. Please die, Kelexel. Do it for me. Die.”

Kelexel lowered his hands from his face, turned with a slow dignity. Here she was at last, completely free, seeing him without any intervention from a manipulator. This was her reaction? This was the truth? He could feel Time running at its crazy Chem speed; all of his life behind him was a single heartbeat. She wanted him dead. A bile taste came into Kelexel's mouth. He, a Chem, had smiled on this mere native and she wanted him dead.

What he had planned for this moment stood frozen in his mind. It still could be done, but it wouldn't be a triumph. Not in Ruth's eyes. He raised a pleading hand to her, dropped it. What was the use? He could read the revulsion in her eyes. This was truth.

”Please die!” she hissed.

Thurlow, his face dark with anger, started across the room. ”What have you done to her?” he demanded.

”You will stand where you are,” Kelexel said, raising a palm toward Thurlow.

”Andy! Stop!” Ruth said.

He obeyed. There was controlled terror in her voice.

Ruth touched her abdomen. ”This is what he did,” she rasped. ”And he killed my mother and my father and ruined you and . . .”

”No violence, please,” Kelexel said. ”It's useless against me. I could obliterate you both so easily . . .”

”He could, Andy,” Ruth whispered.

Kelexel focused on Ruth's bulging abdomen. Such an odd way to produce an offspring. ”You don't wish me to obliterate your native friend?” he asked.

Mutely, she shook her head from side to side. G.o.d! What was the crazy little monster up to? There was such a feeling of terrible power in his eyes.

Thurlow studied Ruth. How weirdly exotic she appeared in that green robe and those big jewels. And pregnant! By this . . . this . . .

”How odd it is,” Kelexel said. ”Fraffin believes you can be a control factor in our development, that we can aspire to a new level of being through you -- perhaps even to maturity. It may be that he is more right than he knows.”

Kelexel looked up as Thurlow skirted him, went to Ruth.

She pushed Thurlow's arm aside as he tried to put it around her shoulders. ”What're you going to do, Kelexel?” she asked. Her voice held a thrumming quality, over-controlled.

”A thing no other immortal Chem has ever done,” Kelexel said, realizing at last what had truly brought him here. And he wondered: Have I the strength to do this?

He turned his back on Ruth, crossed to Thurlow's bed, hesitated, smoothed the covers fastidiously. In that instant, the weight of all the Chem rested upon his shoulders, an ominous burden loaded with everything his kind refused to accept.

Seeing him at the bed, Ruth had the terrifying thought that Kelexel was about to impose the manipulator upon her, force Andy to watch them. Oh G.o.d! Please, no! she thought.

Kelexel turned back to them, sat on the edge of the bed. His hands rested lightly beside him. The bed felt soft, its covers warm and fuzzy. The bed gave off a stink of native perspiration which he found oddly erotic.

”What're you going to do?” Ruth whispered.

Kelexel thought: I must not answer that question! If he answered such questions, he knew his resolve might slip. He would do nothing important. He would accept the path of least resistance, the path which had lured his kind into their present stagnation.

”You will both stay where you are,” Kelexel said.