Part 4

Then came the successful mission in 1989-90. I didn't have to read the innumerable articles to know the general facts about what humans had found there--and what they had failed to find. There was life in the form of vegetation and microscopic organisms. There was even animal life--a tiny reptile which had been seen and photographed but had shown such remarkable elusiveness that it had never been trapped alive. Besides these, there were clear signs of a dead civilization that had been created by intelligent beings. Crude by our standards, especially in crafts and tools, but intelligent. These discoveries served only to create the new Martian mystery. The planet abounded in fossil remains of lower animals. Nothing else. Nothing that seemed capable of the intelligence which had wrought the civilization of Mars and dug its amazing network of canals. It was as if the intelligent beings which had ruled the planets thousands of years ago had simply left it. They had not died there. Or they had mysteriously dissolved, leaving no trace of themselves except their handiwork, leaving behind a dying planet.

Mars was the only place from which the aliens could have come, I thought--but no intelligent aliens had returned on the space ship. Even the specimens of plant life had failed to survive the trip back to earth. And yet--

I tried to remember exactly what I had overheard. The voices had talked of a launching soon. And the fact was that a new flight to Mars was scheduled to take place. They had talked of it as returning to their own place of origin, to their fellows. But if they needed a space ship in which to return, they must have come on our ship.

And nothing had come. I read, in the dusty silence of the library's inner stacks, the accounts of what had happened when the one great ship came home to Earth. All of the survivors had been exhaustively investigated through complex physical and mental tests. No alien presence could have escaped that examination. Weren't they afraid even now of detection? Wasn't that why they wanted my own death to be accidental? Even every fragment of rock and bone and dried-up fungus had been painstakingly tested not once but over and over again. No alien life had come. I was trying to believe the impossible.

With each page turned during that long afternoon my depression grew. When at last, my eyes hot and raw with strain, I set aside the material I had read, a pitifully small portion of the total on my list, I had found not one single hopeful fact. But hope persisted. Perhaps there was something I had overlooked, or something in the later investigations I had not yet had time to read, that would offer a clue. And there was Lois--

I looked at my watch. It was a few minutes after six. Hastily I sorted the material I had read from the rest. The former I returned to the librarian, leaving the unread papers and magazines on the small desk which I had reserved in the stacks. I ran across the cool green of the campus. When I reached the street near the Dugout, I hung back from the sidewalk, waiting until there were no moving cars in sight. It would be all too easy for them to use the same technique a second time.

At this hour of the evening, the Dugout was not crowded. There were students in a few of the booths and at the counter. I recognized a history professor and a zoologist talking quietly at one end of the counter. Lois was not there. Another girl was working the tables, the same girl who had been on duty earlier in the day, and Harry himself was still behind the counter. He glared at me as I approached.

"Where is Lois?" I asked anxiously.

"How the hell should I know? Maybe you can tell me."

"She hasn't come in?"

"No, she hasn't come in." Harry obviously blamed me.

"Look, Harry, I told you I just wanted to ask her a couple of questions. It's important. But that's all I want." I paused. "Didn't she call or anything?"

"No," he grunted, less nastily. "Sometimes she's late. Sometimes she doesn't come in at all."

I felt a hollowness in my stomach. She had to come. I had to talk to her.

I sat at the counter and ordered coffee. I waited. The two teachers farther down the counter nodded at me. Students left and a few more trickled in. Every time the door opened I looked up eagerly. I ordered more coffee and let it grow cold in front of me, untouched.

An hour passed. Harry paused in front of me. He spoke grudgingly, apparently convinced at last that I was not lying. "You gonna eat? I don't think she's coming tonight."

"No, I'm not hungry. Has she ever done this before--just stayed away without telling you?"

"Yeah, sometimes." His face clouded. "These kids--"

I thought of my date with Laurie Hendricks. Lois might show up later. She had probably gone out with some student. Apparently she could be careless about her hours. Harry wasn't going to fire her no matter what she did. Yes, she would probably be in later. I could come back after Laurie left.

At seven-thirty I gave up. I just had time to get back to my trailer court before eight. It took me five minutes to walk to the local elevated station. There was another five minutes wait before a car slid swiftly out of the gathering darkness. Moments later I alighted at the Mulholland platform where the local connected with the Mulholland elevated.

I walked back to the trailer.

It was dark when I let myself in. My neighbor, the strangely withdrawn girl with the surprising figure, sat eating in her brightly lit room, the blinds partly open at the front of her trailer. Another lonely one, I thought. Another outsider.

But tonight I wouldn't be alone.

7

By eight-thirty that evening, I was becoming uneasy. I had had an evening full of impatient waiting and the strain was telling on my nerves. I was beginning to feel like a man with a cold or some other rare disease, shunned and avoided. I kept rising and going to the windows to peer out, expecting each time to see Laurie Hendricks just turning up the walk. Each time I was disappointed.

I don't know what I had actually expected to happen when she came. I had told myself that the reason for asking her was clear: she was suspect. Even if I didn't think she was guilty I had to make sure, and the opportunity to meet her privately had been easy to create. But there was another reason. My self-imposed isolation had had a number of draw-backs. When I thought of the clean limbs I had seen so often displayed in the front row of that eleven o'clock English class, when I remembered the way her sweaters were pulled taut across her chest, I felt a different shakiness that made my throat dry and my palms moist.

The wall clock kept changing numbers, approaching nine, and still she didn't arrive. I began to question the eagerness with which she had accepted the suggestion of meeting me at my trailer. Had it all been an act to lull any suspicions I might have? Set him up for it. Make him jumpy. Dull his mind with a little sex play. Then arrange a convenient accident. Easy. He's ripe for it. He hadn't had a woman in over two years. He won't be thinking of anything else. He'll never believe that a young, beautiful girl could be a--

The rap on the door was so light that for a moment I wasn't sure I had actually heard a sound. Then it came again, a gentle rapping, clearly audible. I stared at the door and all of a sudden my palms were clammy again, and I didn't know if the reaction was from desire or fear.

She was standing on the step just outside the door, looking up. When I didn't say anything, she smiled apologetically, the curve of her lips tentative and strongly appealing.

"I'm sorry I'm late, Mr. Cameron. I was--held up."

"Come in," I said stiffly. "It doesn't matter."

She stepped up into the small living room. The moment she entered the room it seemed to shrink, filled with the physical fact of her presence. I closed the door, feeling self-conscious about the action as if it were overtly aggressive. I stared at her. She wore one of the popular one-piece coveralls knitted of a chemical fiber in a red-and-white diamond pattern. The clinging suit was not exactly the usual costume for a student visiting her instructor.

She glanced curiously around the room. "This is nice," she said.

"It's not exactly spacious but I get by. And the view is good."

I indicated the glittering panorama visible through the window in the end wall. She moved closer to it and looked out into the night. I suddenly wondered if someone else was outside waiting for her signal. The other alien. I made a conscious effort of concentration, listening with my mind. I seemed to have a strange sensation of hearing the world's slow murmur like the distant sounds of traffic on a road far, far below you. But nothing else.

Something made me glance out the side window. I was just in time to see the face of the girl next door, set and unsmiling, before her blinds snapped shut. I closed my own draperies, feeling the tension easing in me. So my neighbor wasn't above doing a little window watching of her own, I thought, half-smiling.

"I meant to be here on time," Laurie said, still staring out the window. "But Bob dropped in and--and sometimes he's difficult."

"Jenkins?"

"Yes. We were supposed to have a date tonight."

I looked at the line of the zipper that traced the curving column of her spine, realizing how easily the clinging suit could be shed and acutely aware that she wore nothing underneath it.

"I don't blame him," I said. "I'd be jealous, too."

She pivoted slowly, pleasure glowing in her striking green eyes. And I realized how young she really was. Twenty at most, I thought. Her skin was flawlessly smooth, clear and unlined. Her every movement had the supple grace and vitality of youth. Yet she was a woman, already wise in the way of women.

I caught myself. What did I really know of her? How could I know the mind which controlled this youthful animal beauty? And I thought of a cunning super-intelligence watching me from behind the cool green of her eyes, amused, toying with me. Or did they have a sense of humor? I had caught nothing humorous in the words I had overheard. I had sensed something infinitely cold, completely emotionless.

"Daddy says I'm spoiled," Laurie Hendricks said abruptly.

"Daddy?" I repeated stupidly.

"Yes. I do have one, you know." She shrugged and the gesture caused a wonderful interplay of movement under the tight coverall. "But he's the one who spoiled me, so he shouldn't complain. He thinks I just amuse myself with men and he doesn't like it."

"Do you?"

She laughed, the warm rippling sound making my skin tingle like an electric current. "Of course," she said. "Why shouldn't I?"

"I suspect you're rich," I said. "It's funny, I hadn't thought of you that way."

"Have you thought about me very much?" Her face sobered and her voice became huskier. "I've thought about you. A lot. I guess that's pretty standard procedure, isn't it? Schoolgirl gets crush on handsome teacher."

I swallowed with difficulty. The conversation was getting out of hand. I wasn't controlling it at all.

"We'd better get down to work," I said. "Have you thought about a subject for your term paper?"

She appraised the couch under the long window, seemed satisfied, and settled onto it with a relaxed ease and grace of movement. "Well, if we must work--" she murmured. "No, I haven't thought about it. Did you have any suggestions for me?"

"You might be interested in medieval romances," I offered, struggling to keep my mind on what I was saying. "You could do something on the tradition of courtly love."

She smiled suddenly. "I think I'd like that. Maybe you should tell me about it, Professor."

"No. That'll be your project for research."

"I have a better idea," she said softly. "I bet you know a lot about it. You could just show me."

I shifted uncomfortably on my feet. The floor of the trailer creaked audibly. Betraying me, I thought. The clumsy male shuffling his feet in embarrassment. "Laurie, I--"

"Professor, you didn't really want me to come up here to talk about a term paper, did you?"

I started at her in confusion, thrown off balance by her directness. Slowly everything came into focus. This was a strange creature, all right. But nothing other-worldly. She might be dangerous but not in the way I had feared. She was simply a sensuous, desirable woman. The feelings she inspired could hardly have been more human.

"Well, if you won't come to me," she said, "I guess I'll have to come to you."

She uncurled deliberately from the couch and swayed toward me, her body as sleek and graceful as a cat's. Even the rippling movement of flesh and muscle under the tight coverall reminded me of a cat's powerful rhythm of motion. She stopped very close to me. There was laughter in the green eyes, but as I stared into them, their shading changed, deepened. Her fingers ran up my chest to my shoulders and paused there.

"How many times do I have to ask you?" she breathed.

Control snapped like a taut wire breaking. Our lips and our bodies met, adjusting and fitting together with an instinctive familiarity. She was not one of those women who are awkward to kiss, who seem made of separate parts joined together, whose bodies never lose an indefinable tension. Her body was a single, marvelously mobile unit and it seemed made expressly for mine, at once fluid and firm, swelling and yielding, excitingly strong and meltingly soft. I felt reason sliding swiftly away from me into a crimson pool of sensation.

She pulled away from me with a violent twist. We eyed each other warily, like enemies. I felt the heavy pounding of my heart and tasted the long unfamiliar sweetness of lipstick.

"Well, Professor! I never would have thought it. Or maybe I did."

"Perhaps we should try that again," I said. "For verification."

Her eyes sparkled. "I love to be made love to in an erudite way," she said. "Make love to me, Professor."

This time she didn't have to ask twice. I reached for her but she slipped away, backing toward the couch. I caught her. For a moment she struggled and I heard breathless laughter. Then she was in my arms again, her red mouth warm and alive, and my fingers found the zipper on her suit, pulled it down the long, supple line of her back--

A pounding penetrated the haze in my brain. At first I thought it was the blood pumping furiously through my own veins but suddenly I wasn't holding her any more and she was staring beyond me toward the door.

The loud, officious knock came again.

"My God, who would that be?" she whispered.

"I don't know."

"Oh, damn, damn damn!" She jerked angrily at the zipper. "Just when my professor was warming to his subject."

I grinned and the laughter spread through me, silent, exhilarating. Fear and danger seemed very remote.

"I'll tell the man to go away," I said.

I was still grinning broadly when I pulled open the door. Two uniformed policemen confronted me, their faces hard and unsmiling.

8

"I don't understand," I said.

"It's a simple question," Sgt. Bullock said, shifting his broad and solid buttocks on the small pedestal chair in front of the desk. "Do you know a girl named Lois Worthington?"

"I don't know. I know a girl named Lois, a waitress at a little restaurant near the university. But--"

"That's the one." The sergeant glanced meaningfully at his partner, who abruptly tore his gaze away from Laurie. She sat on the couch under the window, her legs drawn up under her, her face extraordinarily cool and composed under the flaming hair.

"I don't really know her," I said. "I mean, I've just met her in the Dugout."

"You don't know her very well, huh?"

"No, I--" I remembered the attempts I had made to reach her that day. The hard shrewd eyes of the policeman never left my face and I felt a chill of foreboding. "Look, Sergeant, what's this all about?"

"I understand you were trying pretty hard to get hold of the girl today. You made quite a scene about it." His eyes flicked toward Laurie, and there was a faint sneer on his flat cold face. "She another one of your students?"

"No. I was--in an accident last night. It happened right in front of the Dugout. I know Lois was on duty and I thought she might have been a witness. I wanted to ask her what she saw."

"You report this accident?"

I flushed. "No."

"Why not?"

"I--I didn't think I was hurt at the time. But today I had a painful rib and I thought I'd better make sure--"

"You thought maybe you might be able to collect a little something, eh Professor?"

I began to get angry. "Maybe I did--but that isn't what you came here to ask me about, Sergeant. If you've got something on your mind let's have it. Otherwise--"

"Don't get smart, Professor!" The sergeant rose abruptly. One jerky stride brought him close to me. The heavy face looked mean and dangerous as he thrust it in front of mine. "I'll ask the questions the way I want to ask them. And you'll listen and you'll answer, just like one of your students in the classroom, nice and polite!"

I held my tongue but I could feel the skin tighten across my cheek-bones.

"Now!" he snarled. "You were in the Dugout asking for the girl between six and seven tonight. That right?"

"I left about seven-thirty."

"Yeah. And you said you'd be back later. You acted like you had a date with her."

"That's not true!"

"But you were going back."

I glanced at Laurie. There was a bright spark in her eyes as she waited for me to answer.

"Yes. I was going back."

"But instead you went to see her, didn't you, Professor?"

I showed my surprise. "No. I came straight here."

"What time did you get here?"

"Just before eight. I had an appointment--with Miss Hendricks."

"Yeah?" He whirled toward Laurie. "And what time did you get here?"

"It was five minutes past eight, Sergeant," she lied calmly. "I know because I was a few minutes late and I checked my watch."

The sergeant glared at her suspiciously, then swung back to me. "You've been here since then? The two of you?"

"That's right," I said, wondering at the smoothness of Laurie's lie. "Now maybe you'll tell me what this has to do with--Miss Worthington."

His small hard eyes snapped with something like pleasure. "She was murdered, professor. That's all."

I felt the blood drain from my face. "Murdered?"

"Yeah. We figure between eight and eight-thirty, closer to eight. That's nice timing for you, professor. Seems like the girl had a helluva lot of boyfriends--but you were number one on our list!"

I stared at the hostile face and thought about what would have happened if Laurie hadn't lied, if I'd had only my own word that I was alone in the trailer between eight and nine. And then I thought about what would happen if they learned that she had lied.

But when my mind turned to Lois and why I had wanted to see her, I felt a fear that had nothing to do with the policeman's threatening attitude, a quivering fear that started way down inside me, a queasy weakness that made me feel sick.

"How--how was she killed?"

"Nice and quick, Professor. Her neck was broken."

I heard Laurie gasp and I looked at her quickly. Her face was pale now, heightening the bright red slash of her lips. Her eyes were fixed on me, wide and frightened.

The sergeant started toward the door. His partner went down the steps ahead of him. The burly man turned in the doorway.

"This lets you out for now, professor. But we'll check out your story. And maybe we'll have another little talk later on. Be around where I can find you, huh?"

"Any time, Sergeant," I said, feeling that my voice sounded hollow and unconvincing. "If there's any way I can help--"

"Yeah," he said, the flat lips stretching in what might have passed for a smile. "Sure."

He took another long, steady look at Laurie and at me before he turned his broad back on us and went out. I waited until the two men had gone down the walk to the street before I closed the door.

Laurie hadn't moved. There was an expression in her eyes and around her mouth that I didn't immediately fathom, a curious tension. But the brutal announcement about Lois had been shocking. Small wonder that Laurie would be upset.

"Thanks, Laurie," I said. "You got me out of a spot."

"Happy to oblige," she said coldly.

I regarded her in blank surprise. "What's the matter?"

She swung off the couch and moved toward me, her walk unconsciously sensuous, "I really had you figured wrong, didn't I?" she said, her voice strangely sharp.

"Laurie, you don't think I had anything to do with--"

"No. No, I don't think you killed her. But you fooled me once, Professor, so I could be wrong again. I had you typed as the lonely professor. I bet you really got a hoot out of that behind that smug face of yours, didn't you?"

"You're wrong, Laurie."

"I'll say! What were you going to do, anyway? Have a little roll on the couch with the eager student, send her on her way, and then trot along to meet your little waitress? You must be quite a guy, Professor. I should have known from the way you kissed me, shouldn't I? You didn't learn that in a book."

She was clearly hurt, a stung pride firing the bitterness of her words, and I knew she wasn't going to listen to me.

"Laurie, I had to talk to her, believe me--"

"Sure you did! About the accident, wasn't that it? You needed a witness."

"I had to ask her a question--"

"Does she always say yes? You don't have to tell me the question, Professor. I can guess. I've seen the girl!"

"I can't explain but you've got to understand that there was nothing between me and Lois."

"Tell that to the cops, Mr. Cameron. But next time don't expect me to provide your alibi!"

She stalked past me, jerked open the door, and bolted down the steps. I started after her.

"Laurie!"

But she was gone down the walk, the pattern of red-and-white diamonds twitching with the angry vehemence of her stride. And all at once it seemed too vehement to me, her anger and refusal to listen too unreasonable, a convenient way to get away quickly, just as she had been too smooth and ready to lie for me.

She had not only provided my alibi. She had created one for herself.

I heard the rumble of a voice. Looking up I saw the chunky figure of Sgt. Bullock coming down the steps of the trailer next door. Behind him light outlined the blonde hair and slim figure of the shy girl who was my neighbor. The momentary sense of safety shattered around me like a glass shell breaking. Bullock had been checking on the alibi. It had been that easy!

The sergeant was lumbering toward me. His partner stood on the walk, not moving. I waited, unable to stir. I hadn't done it, I had had nothing to do with Lois' death, but they wouldn't believe me now after the lie. I should have told them the truth.

"What's the matter, Professor? Your girl friend decide to go home early?"

"She was--upset," I said tightly.

He looked almost genial. He's enjoying this, I thought. He's going to get a big kick out of letting me have it right between the eyes.

"We checked out your alibi, Cameron," the sergeant said. "Your neighbor backs you up on the time you got here and she saw the girl arrive just after eight, so I guess we had it wrong. No hard feelings?"

"No," I said woodenly, stunned. "No, of course not."

"We'll find out who did it," the sergeant said matter-of-factly. "But now we're going to have to dig."

They left. I watched them until they had climbed into the yellow-and-black helicopter parked on the strip across the street and the ship rose slowly with a deep chugging rhythm of engine and whirring blade into the night sky. At last I turned to stare at the trailer next to mine. The door was closed. The blinds were tightly drawn. The girl had shut herself inside.