Part 6 (1/2)

”I'm surprised. I would have thought you could.” She seemed calm, now; the explosive screaming episode had left, trailing after it, relative stability. An almost pseudoepileptoid personality structure, he conjectured. That works up day after day to-- ”My aura,” she broke into his thoughts, ”is bright red. The color of pa.s.sion.”

”I'm glad for you,” Jason said.

Halting, she turned to peer into his face. To decipher his expression. He hoped it was appropriately opaque. ”Are you mad because I lost my temper?” she inquired.

”No,” he said ”You sound mad. I think you are mad. Well, I guess only Jack understands. And Mickey.”

”Mickey Quinn,” he said reflexively.

”Isn't he a remarkable person?” Kathy said.

”Very.” He could have told her a lot, but it was pointless. She did not really want to know; she believed she understood already.

What else do you believe, little girl? he wondered. For example, what do you believe you know about me? As little as you know about Mickey Quinn and Arlene Howe and all the rest of them who, for you, do not in reality exist? Think what I could tell you if, for a moment, you were able to listen. But you can't listen. It would frighten you, what you might hear. And anyhow, you know everything already.

”How does it feel,” he asked, ”to have slept with so many famous people?”

At that she stopped short. ”Do you think I slept with them because they were famous? Do you think I'm a CF, a celebrity f.u.c.ker? Is that your real opinion of me?”

Like flypaper, he thought. She enmeshed him by every word he said. He could not win.

”I think,” he said, ”you've led an interesting life. You're an interesting person.”

”And important,” Kathy added.

”Yes,” he said. ”Important, too. In some ways the most important person I've ever encountered. It's a thrilling experience.”

”Do you mean that?”

”Yes,” he said emphatically. And in a peculiar, a.s.sbackward way, it was true. No one, not even Heather, had ever tied him up so completely as this. He could not endure what he found himself going through, and he could not get away. It seemed to him as if he sat behind the tiller of his custommade unique quibble, facing a red light, green light, amber light all at once; no rational response was possible. Her irrationality made it so. The terrible power, he thought, of illogic. Of the archetypes. Operating out of the drear depths of the collective unconscious which joined him and her--and everyone else--together. In a knot which never could be undone, as long as they lived.

No wonder, he thought, some people, many people, long for death.

”You want to go watch a captain kirk?” Kathy asked.

”Whatever,” he said, briefly.

”There's a good one on at Cinema Twelve. It's set on a planet in the Betelgeuse System, a lot like Tarberg's Planet-- you know, in the Proxima System. Only in the captain kirk it's inhabited by minions of an invisible--”

”I saw it,” he said. As a matter of fact, a year ago they had had Jeff Pomeroy, who played the captain kirk in the picture, on his show; they had even run a short scene: the usual flick-plugging, you-visit-us deal with Pomeroy's studio. He had not liked it then and he doubted if he would like it now. And he detested Jeff Pomeroy, both on and off the screen. And that, as far as he was concerned, was that.

”It really wasn't any good?” Kathy asked trustingly.

”Jeff Pomeroy,” he said, ”as far as I'm concerned, is the itchy a.s.shole of the world. He and those like him. His imitators.”

Kathy said, ”He was at Morningside for a while. I didn't get to know him, but he was there.”

”I can believe it,” he said, half believing it.

”Do you know what he said to me once?”

”Knowing him,” Jason began, ”I'd say--”

”He said I was the tamest person he ever knew. Isn't that interesting? And he saw me go into one of my mystic states--you know; when I lie down and scream--and still he said that. I think he's a very perceptive person; I really do. Don't you?”

”Yes,” he said.

”Shall we go back to my room, then?” Kathy asked. ”And screw like minks?”

He grunted in disbelief. Had she really said that? Turning, he tried to make out her face, but they had come to a patch between signs; all was dark for the moment. Jesus, he said to himself. _I've got to get myself out of this_. I've got to find my way back to my own world!

”Does my honesty bother you?” she asked.

”No,” he said grimly. ”Honesty never bothers me. To be a celebrity you have to be able to take it.” Even that, he thought. ”All kinds of honesty,” he said. ”Your kind most of all.”

”What kind is mine?” Kathy asked.

”Honest honesty,” he said.

”Then you do understand me,” she said.

”Yes,” he said, nodding. ”I really do.”

”And you don't look down on me? As a little worthless person who ought to be dead?”

”No,” he said, ”you're a very important person. And very honest, too. One of the most honest and straightforward individuals I've ever met. I mean that; I swear to G.o.d I do.”

She patted him friendlily on the arm. ”Don't get all worked up over it. Let it come naturally.”

”It comes naturally,” he a.s.sured her. ”It really does.”

”Good,” Kathy said. Happily. He had, evidently, eased her worries; she felt sure of him. And on that his life depended . . . or did it really? Wasn't he capitulating to her pathological reasoning? At the moment he did not really know.

”Listen,” he said haltingly. ”I'm going to tell you something and I want you to listen carefully. You belong in a prison for the criminally insane.”

Eerily, frighteningly, she did not react; she said nothing.

”And,” he said, ”I'm getting as far away from you as I can.” He yanked his hand loose from hers, turned, made his way off in the opposite direction. Ignoring her. Losing himself among the ordinaries who milled in both directions along the cheap, neon-lit sidewalks of this unpleasant part of town.

I've lost her, he thought, and in doing so I have probably lost my G.o.dd.a.m.n life.

Now what? He halted, looked around him. Am I carrying a microtransmitter, as she says? he asked himself. Am I giving myself away with every step I take?

Cheerful Charley, he thought, told me to look up Heather Hart. And as everybody in TV-land knows, Cheerful Charley is never wrong.

But will I live long enough, he asked himself, to reach Heather Hart? And if I do reach her and I'm bugged, won't I simply be carrying my death onto her? Like a mindless plague? And, he thought, if Al Bliss didn't know me and Bill Wolfer didn't know me, why should Heather know me? But Heather, he thought, is a six, like myself. The only other six I know. Maybe that will be the difference. If there is any difference.

He found a public phone booth, entered, shut the door against the noise of traffic, and dropped a gold quinque into the slot.

Heather Hart had several unlisted numbers. Some for business, some for personal friends, one for--to put it bluntly-- lovers. He, of course, knew that number, having been to Heather what he had, and still was, he hoped.