Part 2

"You are not privileged to make love," she said. "You have done an outrageous thing. There is no precedent for such behavior. It cannot be tolerated and you will both be punished. How severely I am not in a position to say. But you _will_ be punished. You can rest assured of that."

"They may find themselves begging for death!" the Monitor-caste security guard said, halting at her side and slapping the metal-handled whiplash against his left palm with a look of brutal impatience in his red-rimmed, slitted eyes. He held himself very straight, his gaze passing from Teleman to the girl and lingering with an insulting, utterly brazen boldness on the ivory-textured whiteness of her unbound breasts.

"Be quiet," the bony woman said. "I'll do the talking."

She looked directly at the girl, and her voice, when she spoke again, was harsh and derisive. "I have seen love-privileged man plant senseless kisses on fat lips," she said, her color rising, "and the sight has revolted me. But what I just saw was far more revolting. What is your name, girl?"

"Alicia," the girl replied. "We have done nothing wrong, nothing that is in the least shameful. The shame is all in your mind. You are a shriveled-up old harridan. You don't know the meaning of love and never will. No man would look at you twice."

The gaunt woman's face flamed scarlet. But her voice did not rise. She lowered it deliberately to a whisper and said with a venomous inflexion, strangely like the hiss of a cobra. "You will regret such talk. I warn you. For conduct so outrageous the death penalty may well be mandatory. The Monitors will decide by secret ballot. It is not for me to say. If it were, I would pity you, for I would like very much to tell this very dutiful and conscientious guard that he need exercise no restraint whatever."

"What would you have him do? Rape me?"

"Be silent, you little fool. You are straining my patience beyond endurance."

"He is a brute and would like to rape me. I can see it in his eyes."

"That is not true and you know it. He is a high-minded man and the very sight of you revolts him."

"That is true," the guard said, smiling. "The very sight of her revolts me." He winked as he spoke, but covertly and resumed his brazen staring.

The hypocrisy of it infuriated Teleman. Or perhaps it was the girl's incredible and splendid courage that made him leap to her defense, with no concern for his own safety.

He lunged forward and struck the security guard a resounding blow on the jaw, sending him reeling backwards.

The guard was taken so completely by surprise that he nearly fell. He had to throw out his arms to maintain his balance on the moving strip, and his staggering gait made him look distinctly ludicrous. He dropped the whiplash and bent to recover it, but before he could bring it into play Teleman was upon him. The hand-to-hand struggle which followed was a test of strength and Teleman was no weakling.

The two men fought with no holds barred, primitively and savagely. They rolled over four times, gouging, kicking, pummeling. Teleman absorbed punishment stoically, groaning only once and meting it out with a vigor and assurance that surprised him.

Fist fights and close in-fighting in general were not to his liking and he had no strong desire to engage in physical combat for its own sake. He liked to think of himself as a completely civilized man who had risen above such barbarism. But there were times....

It was curious, but he did seem to be enjoying it, getting a thrill every time his right fist landed solidly on meaty flesh or increased the redness of the guard's leering, ruffianly face, already bloodied by a dozen previous jabs, the sturdiest kind of jabs delivered with a maximum of accuracy.

Over and over. Hit hard and often, and stop worrying about bruised knuckles or what would happen if the ugly son should get in a really crippling blow. It can't happen if you don't give him a chance to breathe freely or get his second wind. Keep at it, keep pounding away at him and you'll wear him down and turn him into a limp clown begging for quarter, begging for just a chance to get to his feet and wipe the blood from his mouth and blink glazed eyes in the sunlight.

It didn't end in quite that way. The thick-bodied security guard simply sighed once, heavily and unexpectedly, and rolled over on his back. He lay supine on the moving travel strip, his breathing harsh and ragged, in a grotesque sprawl with one arm twisted under him.

"You've killed him!" the gaunt woman shrieked. "You won't escape the death penalty now. Unlawful love-making and now deliberate, wilful homicide. You've attacked and killed a security guard. There is no more terrible crime--"

Teleman got to his feet slowly and a little wearily, rising first to one knee and shaking his head to clear it. For an instant he swayed unsteadily but he managed to retain his balance until the wave of dizziness passed.

"I haven't killed him," he said. "It might be better if I had. The most terrible crimes are the ones you would like to commit and usually do commit in the end. The brutal sadism in him may take many lives before someone discovers just how dangerous he is. He is about as high-minded as a rattlesnake."

"That's a lie!" the gaunt woman cried in furious protest. "Security guards are completely impartial. They do what they have to do to protect society from criminals like you and this girl. Unlawful love-making would destroy all specialization and without specialization we would all perish. The wickedness in you is beyond belief!"

"I don't intend to argue with you about it," Teleman heard himself saying, surprised by his own boldness. "This girl has done nothing criminal and neither have I. I intend to go on protecting her--with my life, if necessary."

The bony woman swayed back and forth, gripped by such an ungovernable access of rage that it drained all of the color from her cheeks and twisted her features into a mask so repellent that it made Teleman shudder and look away.

Alicia had drawn close to him again, and suddenly his arm was about her and they were facing the trembling, fury-convulsed crone together, in complete defiance of the authority she was still attempting to wield. The security guard was moaning and stirring a little but Teleman did not give him a second glance.

"We're leaving the strip," he said. "If you don't want to be hurt you'll stay right where you are. Don't compel me to use force to keep you here. I've never struck a woman in my life but I won't hesitate to use force if you turn stubborn. I'll have no choice."

"I'll shout for help," she threatened. "The instant you leave the strip! Just how far do you think you'll get? They'll put electronic scanners on every stretch of woodland, every back country shelter, every dwelling in this region. You'll be caught quickly enough, and brought back and punished. You're making the mistake of forgetting that we're living in a complex technological society with an interlocking network of crime-preventing mechanisms. No criminal can hope to escape for long."

"We'll risk it," Teleman said. "With luck I may be able to draw some of those mechanical fangs."

"A single, carefully directed blow on the head would knock her unconscious," Alicia said, a sudden hardness in her voice. "She might suffer a concussion, but the chances are she wouldn't. She has invited it by threatening to shout. Do you want me to do it? If you'll just let me have that whiplash for a moment--"

"No," Teleman said firmly, tightening his hold on her waist. "You're justified in suggesting it and I'm almost tempted to say yes. But I guess, because I'm a man, I can't be quite that objective and sensible about it. I couldn't just stand here and let you do it."

"I'm sorry I suggested it," Alicia said, all of the harshness gone from her voice. "I didn't really want to, but--"

"You'll be sorry you didn't!" the gaunt woman said, her eyes blazing with defiance and contempt. "Strike me if you dare. I haven't told you, but I'm Monitor 6Y9. Remember that! I am one of the _Ruling Monitors_. When you are brought back I will vote with the others--for death!"

"Wear the insignia on your uniform next time," Alicia flung back at her. "No, no. Strip yourself naked and wear it as a brand between your shriveled breasts. It is a mark of shame. I would rather die in torment than be a Monitor with all men hating me, and all women. Is that why you go in disguise, in the uniform of a female security guard? Is that why?"

"There is no need for me to wear the insignia of my high station," the gaunt woman said, drawing herself up in pride. "It is visible in my bearing. Monitors walk differently and talk differently from all other specialists. We look upon even the love-privileged with scorn."

"The truth at last!" Alicia flared. "Take care not to say that in public. You would be torn limb from limb!"

"Soon our rule will be absolute," the gaunt woman said. "There are strange and disturbing stirrings, rebellions taking place. Here and there the gene-controlled mutations are reverting to ancestral type. Men and women are becoming--aware of sex again. All men and women, not just the sex-privileged. It is an outrageous regression, a corruption and a threat. It must be stamped out, by all of the Monitors acting in unison and imposing penalties so severe that no one will dare to do what you have done here today. No one not sex-privileged; and even the sex-privileged have become too numerous. Do you hear? Even they have become too numerous and just thinking about it--the bridal bed, everything that takes place in the mating centers night and day--has become hateful to me."

"That does not surprise me!" Alicia cried. "Envy can become a corrosive blight."

"It is not envy!"

"Listen to me, old woman, I will tell you what takes place in the mating centers. A young man, strong-limbed and comely, removes all of his garments and walks with proud and eager steps into the chamber of his beloved. She too has removed--"

"No, be quiet. I will not listen. Are you lost to all shame?"

"Not as lost to shame as you are, old woman. Listen well. You may never hear it again, at least, not from lips as eloquent as mine. It is all a great glory new to me--a glory just discovered, just revealed. So I can speak of it without restraint and without false modesty. It does not bring a blush to my cheeks. Why should it to yours?"

"You are a lewd wanton."

"No, I am a proud and honest woman who knows what it means now to love and be loved in return. Listen well. She is reclining on a couch, and the moonlight shines on her young breasts. He is approaching, you see, quietly so as not to startle her, and for a moment as long as forever his eyes linger on that which only a true lover is privileged to see. Then very gently and tenderly--"

"Stop! I will not listen. If you are not silent I will shout now, so loudly that you and your lover will never reach the edge of the strip. You will be caught and brought back before you have gone a hundred feet into the countryside."

"I told you what I would do if you shouted," Teleman said warningly.

"Her words are more hateful than anything you could do! Keep her quiet or I will take her by the throat and cut off her breath with my bare hands."

"Scarecrow hands, old woman. The bony hands of a witch. Listen well to the delights of young love in the dark. Oh, I'm forgetting. It isn't quite dark. The moonlight is slanting down and--"

The gaunt woman clapped her hands to her ears and shut her eyes, swaying back and forth in inner torment.

"Quick!" Teleman whispered, tapping Alicia lightly on the arm and gesturing toward the edge of the strip. "No pedestrians within fifty yards. We won't get a better chance!"

She nodded, darting a swift glance at the slumped security guard, who was still groaning and stirring a little, but had given up his attempt to rise.

"Three men went past without interfering," she breathed. "That was blind luck.... It shows what fear can do."

"No one will try to stop us, even if she starts shouting," Teleman whispered, his fingers tightening on her arm. "Not right away. People stay out of trouble when they can."

"I know. But hurry. We have no time to lose."

They turned and started walking with no appearance of haste for an instant, their shoulders almost touching. The gaunt woman continued to sway back and forth, her lips tightly compressed, her eyes glazed and unseeing.

Close to the edge of the strip they abandoned all caution and broke into a run. But not before Teleman said, with glowing admiration in his eyes: "I knew what you had in mind. But I never thought it would work. You shattered her emotionally. Better than a blow until it wears off."

"Much better," she agreed. "You see, darling, I'm an emotional therapy specialist. And it works both ways. You can use it to heal--or bring about a kind of sick shock reaction. A self-induced hypnosis."

"Bitter frustration can explode in the brain like a time-bomb, if you know how to light the fuse," she added, pride in her specialization making her voice ring out triumphantly. Then she was running at his side.

THREE

The travel strip overlooked a spacious lawn adorned with neatly trimmed hedgerows and stately trees. Behind the gleaming waters of a fountain three peacocks walked to and fro, their tails spread resplendently in the dawn light. There was only one dwelling visible from the strip, the white stone residence of an agricultural supervisor.

In the near distance there loomed a stretch of open countryside, the bright waters of a small lake and several acres of densely forested woodland. A long range of distant hills was also visible from the strip, their domed summits sparsely covered with tall firs and hemlocks and scrub oaks that grew in circular clusters.

At the edge of the moving strip there was a thirty foot drop, straight down to soft grass and earth spongy enough to cushion the jolt of a carefully calculated leap and diminish the risk of a sprained ankle or an even more serious injury. But the risk could not be lightly dismissed, and Teleman hesitated for an instant, holding Alicia very tightly to him.

"We've got to chance it," she whispered. "We've no choice."

"All right," Teleman said. "I'll go first."

He kissed her. She returned the kiss with fervor, pushing her lips hard against his mouth and running her fingers through his hair. She let out a long sigh when he released her and moved quickly to the edge of the strip, measuring with his eyes the distance from strip-edge to grass, getting the feel of the distance.

"Don't tighten up too much," he said. "Leap out just a little and tell yourself you're going to land on your feet. Watch how I do it."

"Don't worry, darling. I'll make it."

"It won't hurt to be sure. All right--here I go."

He leapt out and down, landing on his feet. But the jolt was severe, throwing him off balance. He sprawled forward on the grass, picked himself up and stared up in concern, rubbing his right shoulder vigorously and flexing his knees.

The slight stiffness and bruised feeling evaporated almost immediately, but not his alarm. "Wait," he shouted. "It shook me up a bit. I'm going to catch you. Do you hear? Catch you in my arms. That's the best way."

"I'm lighter than you are!" she shouted back. "I won't land so heavily."

"I still think--"

"No, darling. Here I come."

His breath caught in his throat when he saw her spinning through the air. But she landed without mishap, and with a lightness which a professional acrobat would have envied. She swayed a little but did not fall, and she was smiling when he reached her side. He took her in his arms and they remained motionless for an instant, breathing harshly, their hands entwined. Then she buried her face in the muscular rib-cavern of his chest and clung to him in a fierce and impatient way, as if even in that moment of great danger she would have welcomed the coming of the night.

There was a stirring in his loins and a restless tide of passion surged through him. But he contented himself with stroking her hair and whispering words of reassurance.

"We've got to keep moving. Agricultural supervisors don't go about armed so I'm not worried about being stopped before we reach the forest. Probably he's indoors sleeping. If he comes to the door I'll tell him we've got a hunting permit. If he demands to see it, a blow to the jaw will give us all the time we'll need."

He took her firmly by the shoulders and held her at arm's length, a warm gratefulness in his eyes. "We've got to keep moving," he said. "I haven't time to say all the things I'd like to say to you, not one small part of all the wonder-talk. Do you understand? The guilt feeling is gone, washed away."

She nodded, her eyes shining. "No regrets, darling. I'm glad for both of us."

They moved swiftly in the dawn light, across the wide lawn and between the towering trees, sending the gold and emerald peacocks fluttering into the shadows of titan oaks and cedars, their own smaller shadows lengthening on the dew-bright grass.

Teleman straightened in sudden wariness as they drew near to the white-stone dwelling of the supervisor. He reached out and took his companion's hand, and they moved with even swifter steps past the east wall of the building. No one appeared in the doorway and there was no stir of movement behind the half-shuttered windows with their orange awnings and projecting sills.

Then the dwelling was behind them and they were moving across a stretch of open woodland, weaving in and out between tumbled, lichen-encrusted boulders and the gray, bark-denuded boles of century-old trees. One of the larger trees had been lightning-blasted and several were mere rotting stumps looming ghostlike and isolated against the dark green foliage of the denser forested region just beyond.

A golden-winged hawk, startled by their approach, arose with a tumultuous flapping of wings and went soaring southward, and from a shadowed pool less than twenty feet in diameter there came a sudden splashing and the hoarse croaking of frogs.

Teleman bent, picked up a small pebble and tossed it into the dark water, standing motionless as he watched the ripples spread out and slowly disappear.

"Why did you do that?" Alicia asked, coming to an abrupt halt at his side. Her hurrying steps had brought a flush to her cheeks and she spoke almost breathlessly, her eyes wide with alarm.

"The scanners," he said. "The instant she alerts the guards they'll put scanning beams on us and pinpoint every move we make. They'll know exactly where we are. But we're safe so far."

"Safe? How can you be sure? You mean that pebble--"

He nodded. "Infra-beam electronics just happens to be part of my specialty. If they were scanning us now the rhythm of those ripples would be quite different. You'd get a more pronounced jerkiness--a jerkiness I've learned precisely how to identify at a glance. That kind of hair-trigger recognition is part of my job. You can't build a good bridge without such knowledge. Not even a good bridge, let alone more complex structures."

"Oh, darling," she whispered. "I'm glad we're both specialists. It may help us in a far more important way. If we can outguess them all--"

"We have a fighting chance," he said, his fingers tightening on her hand. He picked up another pebble and tossed it into the stream. The rhythm of the ripples remain unchanged.

"Love," he whispered. "Our new specialty, my sweet beloved. It's new, but I think--I think we know more about it right now than they do. Compared to us, even the love-privileged are jaded, blind to the bursting wonder, the glory of a fulfillment so complete that it changes everything we think and say and do. Do you mind if I call you my life and my bride?"

"Of course not," she breathed, coming into his arms again and drawing his head down until it rested in the soft hollow between her breasts. She swayed a little, her eyes closed, her moist red lips parted. Then she drew in her breath convulsively, and slipped from his embrace, still caressing him with her eyes.

"We're in the deadliest kind of danger and you're acting like a moonstruck boy," she said. "Don't you realize--"

"I only know that I love you," he said. "The guilt feeling is gone now, washed away. I realize we haven't a moment to lose. You don't have to remind me. But you've changed the world for me and I had to tell you. I had to make sure that you feel as I do. A man who flees for his life in a parched wilderness loses nothing if he pauses for an instant to quench his thirst. When he is renewed and refreshed, more life and strength flows into him."

"But we'll be much safer when we're deep in the forest," she said. "They'll still know where we are if they pick us up with the scanners. But we can weave about, hide in a cave, make it more difficult for them to overtake us."

"We won't hide," he said. "We'll keep moving until our strength gives out. There are ways of defeating the scanners. If we can get far enough away we may be able to disguise ourselves, take on a new identity."

"I don't see how--"

"Just wait and trust me. Talking about it right now will only delay us."

He reached out and took her hand. "You're right about the need for haste. Come on."

"One more kiss first, darling!"

Her lips burned against his again for an instant. He opened his lips and her tongue darted like a wet lash into his mouth and her hands dropped to her side in passionate surrender. She moaned a little and then pushed him away from her, letting out a long sigh.

"I was the impulsive one that time," she whispered. "Forgive me, darling."

They were out of breath again from running when they reached the heavily forested region. The dark barrier of vegetation which loomed before them cut off two-thirds of the sky and seemed filled with a vast murmuring, as if a thousand small furry creatures were breathing in unison while the wind sighed between the trees and owls hooted from the higher branches.

Quickly they passed into the dark wilderness between the trees, over areas of moist peat moss and across gigantic, hollow logs overgrown with ghost-pale creepers that seemed dreamlike and unreal in the half-light. A faint luminescence streamed from a few of the ground-hugging fungus growths and there were vapor shrouds everywhere, hanging suspended in the air and coiling sinuously about the boles of trees so massive that they resembled redwoods in girth and height, and conveyed an even more awesome impression of hoary age.

They were perhaps eighty feet beyond the edge of the forest wall, well within its pulsing heart of darkness, when they heard the thrumming.

It was faint and far-off at first, but it grew steadily louder, causing Teleman to halt abruptly and stare upward in alarm. High above his head the interlocking branches formed an almost solid ceiling of dark green foliage stirred only slightly by gusts and flurries of wind. Suddenly, as he stared, a gust of unusual force blew two of the branches apart, revealing a narrow patch of open sky.

Across the patch a shape moved, glinting metallically in the sunlight.

The flying machine hung poised almost directly overhead, like a great, hovering hawk with its wings wide-spread. It was moving, but slowly, slowly, as if seeking out prey in the forest aisle, the thrumming of its twin turbines sounding very much like the steady beating of wings.

The foliage overhead stirred again and the patch of open sky disappeared.

"They know where we are," Teleman said, standing very still. Alicia shivered and moved a little closer to him, her lips white. Above their heads the thrumming sound grew in volume, drowning out all the small voices of the forest. Almost at their feet a startled hare broke from cover and went scurrying into the shadows.