Part 4

The guard groaned and began instantly to slump, a crimson stain spreading across his stomach from the gaping wound which the first thrust had left in the white flesh just above his tunic.

The face of the knife-wielder was dark with rage and the veins on his temples stood out like whipcords. He did not even permit the security guard to slump completely to the deck or to groan again and relieve a little of his torment. He caught him under the arms as he slumped, lifted him up, and slammed him back against the rail.

He shifted his hold on the mortally wounded man's body, gripping him firmly about the knees and bending him backwards across the rail until the sagging weight of his shoulders outbalanced the lower part of his body.

After that there was no need for the knife-wielder to shove vigorously to send the security guard toppling into the bay. But he did shove vigorously, in an excess of rage, breathing heavily as he watched his hated victim throw out one arm in a last futile effort to save himself. The woman screamed and covered her eyes as the guard went plunging downward.

The sound of the guard's body striking the water was drowned out by the drone of the pleasure boat's engines. There was a shower of spray and a bubbling froth on the water for an instant and then the bay was smooth again. They could not even see his slowly turning body as he sank, for the pleasure boat was moving rapidly.

The man turned abruptly and caught the woman in his arms. He gripped the hem of her garment just above the neckline, and with a choking sob tore it from neck to waist, completely baring her bosom. He buried his face in the hollow between her breasts and strained her to him, his hands unyielding on her naked shoulders. So fierce was his embrace, so firm and impetuous the pressure of his finger-tips in love's behalf that she cried out in pain but did not plead with him to release her. Instead she found his hand and clasped it tightly, whispering: "Yes, yes, I know. Yes, my darling. It was hard to do, and terrible. But you had no choice."

He released her after a long moment and began slowly to caress her hair, smoothing and rearranging it a little as he did so, making the dark, wind-ruffled tresses look less unruly and twining one strand around his finger in gentle love-play.

Gradually, as the gentleness of his caresses blurred the memory of a hateful violence, the color returned to her cheeks and she drew close to him again and kissed him on the lips.

"It was his life or ours," he said. "And the lives of every man and woman on this ship. We discovered the identity of that guard just in time. If he had kept silent, if he had not revealed his identity to you, he would have sent out a message which would have destroyed us all, for we are all in revolt. That is the great miracle. We drew strength from one another and love-making no longer seems criminal to us."

"It was never criminal," she said. "Only to the warped minds of the Monitors would anything so beautiful seem less than what it is--life's most generous gift to men and women everywhere. It breaks down all barriers, dissolves all hatreds."

"It dissolves all unjust hatreds," the man said. "But I hated that security guard because of what he said to you. Even though I knew the wonder of your love, I could not quite drive hatred from my mind. But that is not why I killed him, and perhaps it is a fault in me. I am only human."

"I hated him too," the woman acknowledged. "No, I do not think it a fault in you or in me. We have a right to hate treachery and hypocrisy and deceit. If that guard had sent a message of warning to the Monitors and they had ordered us all destroyed I would not have held him responsible, even though you had to kill him to save the lives of a hundred men and women. He would have simply been carrying out orders. What I hated him for was his betrayal of the Monitors, not out of sympathy for us, but to gain a cruel and brutal advantage for himself."

The woman tightened her lips and her eyes flashed again in bitter anger. "I hated him because he made brutal advances to me, clasping me like a ruffian while I struggled to free myself, and insisting that I endure a night of shame and horror in his embrace--demanding _that_ as the price of his silence. I did not submit and he had to free me, but his loathsome kisses still burn my mouth. If love is forced on a woman by a man not of her choice how can it be other than intolerable and degrading to her integrity as a human being?

"What woman does not desire, in her secret heart, to have for a lover a man who is capable of virile love-making, who is not afraid to embrace her as you did just now, with such ardor that she cries out, and wishes almost that he would take his questing hands and burning lips away and yet is swooning with the sweetness of it, and would never forgive him if he became less vehement before hot tides of passion flow in the moment of love's supreme fulfillment. What woman would not welcome such love-making, would not rejoice in it? But what woman, by the same token, wishes to be taken against her will by a man whom she does not love? There is an ugly word in the old books for that kind of love-making. It was called rape."

The man's face had gone very pale. He said: "If I had known that he had dared to embrace you I would not have stabbed him. I would have seized him by the throat and killed him with my bare hands."

"I told you that he did not harm me. His rough embrace was hard to endure, but it was over in a moment and an embrace is not a ravishment. A thing like that can happen to any woman, and often does. It need not cause you torment. And he has paid, hasn't he? You have avenged me to the full, although you killed him for a different reason."

"I believe I would have killed him for that reason alone if I had known about it."

"You are very jealous, my darling, very hot-headed. No man, no matter how much of a brute he may be, deserves to die if he merely seizes a woman briefly and presses rough kisses upon her lips, however unwelcome those kisses may be. I do not feel that I have been seriously soiled or degraded. He was a coward and his cowardice recoiled upon himself. He was afraid that I would betray him to the Monitors. If I could offer proof that he had made me pregnant his fate would have been sealed along with ours."

The man's face was deathly pale now. "Do you have to talk like that? Do you have to say such things? You know what it does to me."

"I simply wished to make you realize that you are torturing yourself quite needlessly. I remain a virgin still. We are new to love, darling--you and I. We have never experienced the full glory of it, not in an intimate way. Because I am new to love I speak perhaps with too much candor. I do not even know how to choose the right words, the delicate words that a woman should perhaps use when she speaks of such matters. I do not know--I am not sure. There is so much in the old books that I do not completely understand. You must teach me, darling, teach me the exact meaning of the forbidden words and just what words a woman should choose."

He stood looking at her for a moment in complete silence, the color coming back into his face, his eyes on her young, full-bosomed beauty. He could not take his eyes from the twin mounds of her firm, tip-tilted breasts and the rosy pinkness that suffused her exquisite throat.

"I will teach you the meaning of more than just the words," he said. "There is so much that I should like to teach you if you are willing to be taught. We are new to love, as you have said, but I feel, somehow, that I know more about it than you do."

"Are you saying that because you are a man?" she asked, and her voice held a tantalizing hint of mockery.

"I'm not sure," he said. "But I do feel that. What does it matter? Do you really wish to know more?"

Her eyes answered for her, increasing in brightness and tenderness, fastening on his face with a look of surrender and appeal.

He stepped forward and gathered her into his arms. He carried her across the deck toward the glass-encased central cabin, murmuring endearments, his arms tight about her. She rested her head on his chest, pressing her lips against the hollow of his throat, moving them back and forth with the exciting eagerness, the fierce impatience, of an amorously aroused woman abandoning herself to an anticipation of love's delights.

"I will take you to my cabin," he whispered. "It is ill-equipped for the exploration of an experience new to us, for the strange, bright wonder of love's complete fulfillment. There are darts and a circular target on the wall, a double bar on a metal support for morning exercises, a wooden board on a table that I yesterday overturned in rage, because the game of _trig_, which I have never really liked, seemed to me to have eight ivory-inlaid figures too many and my opponent was more skillful than I. It is a sparsely furnished cabin, an almost Spartan cabin, for the athlete and rather dull-witted agricultural specialist that I thought myself to be."

"Until you fell in love," she whispered.

"Yes, darling, until I fell in love. And there is no man on this ship and no woman who does not now feel as we do. Our rebellion is a courageous one, unalterable in purpose. The ship is ours and we shall take it to sea. We shall know all of love's delights for many days and nights and the Monitors will be powerless to interfere."

They had entered the central cabin and he had set her down and she was walking now with one arm about his waist, her head resting against his shoulder.

The cabin was dimly lighted and on both sides of them the strangest of murmurings arose. They could not see clearly into the shadows, but what they could not see they sensed--the presence everywhere of men and women like themselves, walking back and forth in a trancelike stillness, enraptured by the preliminary intimacies of love. They caught a glimpse of white limbs in the shadows, of bodies pressed breast to breast or even more amorously intertwined, with lips joined to lips and hands interlocked, and there were a dozen lovers standing motionless and making no sound at all.

"Why do they not all go to their cabins?" the woman whispered, brushing with her lips her companion's ear. "You would think they would be consumed with a fierce impatience. There are many things about love that I do not understand."

"They are consumed with impatience," the man replied. "But they wish to prolong what would otherwise be over too quickly. I'm afraid there are many things about love which you have yet to learn."

"Did I not just say so? You are my teacher, are you not?"

"I am, my darling," he whispered. "But you will also be my teacher. There is no end to the things a woman can teach a man about love."

"I have only one question to ask you now. Shall we tarry here as these others are doing?"

"No, I am incapable of such restraint. My impatience is too great."

"Very well. We will go directly to your cabin and you will teach me as you have promised to do. I hope that I will be an accomplished pupil and not disappoint you in any way."

"I hardly think that you will disappoint me, my darling."

"How can you be sure? The old books say that a woman like myself, a woman who has always been--"

A slow flush crept up over her cheeks and she gripped his arm tightly. "Oh, I cannot say the word."

"You said it once before. A woman who is still virginal. That is not unusual at all. In fact, all of the non-love-privileged have been virginal, and only now--I am myself a virgin, although the term sounds a little ridiculous when it is applied to a man. But I cannot help that, and it is no disgrace, really, for it is common to us all. It is an absurdity which we shall soon put an end to."

"You mean to say--"

"Let us not be technical about it, my darling. According to the old books a man who has preserved his chastity is also called a virgin."

"And you have preserved yours? Are you telling me the truth?"

"A woman's curiosity. Well--"

"Tell me the truth. When did you first experience the stirring?"

"Perhaps a month ago."

"And in the past four weeks you have never--"

"Well...."

"Do you think it would make me love you less?"

"No, I do not think that. And I will be honest with you. I--"

"Never mind. Do not tell me. I do not want to know. It is only natural for a man to lie a little about that, according to the old books, and I will not hold it against you. But make sure that you love me tonight, darling, make sure that you love me well."

"I will," he promised. "I will, darling. I will."

The cabin was in total darkness, but the man switched on the light as they entered, and the sparse furnishings leapt into instant relief, three chairs and a table, the athletic cross-bar he had mentioned, and in the corner a couch.

The woman did not linger in the doorway staring at the furnishings of the cabin. She went directly to the couch and reclined upon it, saying in a quiet voice, "Sit down beside me, darling. Lie down if you wish. You look very tired. It has been a terrible ordeal. The taking of a human life is never easy, even when it is justified, and for the sake of others. I had no right to ask you to make love to me. I had no right to expect it."

He turned off the light before he crossed the room to sit beside her. After a moment she was in his arms, her lips seeking his in the darkness. Their lips were quickly joined, and in another moment he gently removed the tunic which encircled her loins. The root of his manhood came vigorously to life and her body seemed to melt beneath the demanding ardor of the caresses.

Her loins quivered and flesh bruised flesh in the tenderest of bruisings. Complete fulfillment came to them both at the same moment, and for a full minute they neither moved nor spoke, content to remain locked in each other's arms in the warmth and melting languor of passion's afterglow.

They slept at last, content, at peace, unaware that all about them terrible dark storm clouds were gathering.

* * * * *

The flying machines came in swarms, encircling the pleasure ship without warning. They came trailing jets of liquid fire, and assembled in circular formation directly above the ship. Around and around they flew, black mechanical hawks with iron talons, their crews on the alert and awaiting orders, their spread wings darkly silhouetted against the red disk of the sun.

They swooped and soared, but did not open fire. Far below the ship continued on its course, as if their presence in the sky in no way concerned the men and women on board. Sleeping men and women for the most part, made drowsy by the aftermath of love, reluctant to stir and greet the dawn when it was so much more pleasant to rest in the arms of a beloved partner.

So much more pleasant to rest and sigh contentedly and turn over and go to sleep again, while in the air death hovered and the air was filled with the steady drone of wings.

No one on board the pleasure boat knew that the body of a slain security guard had been washed ashore further along the coast and a message found on him. They would not have succumbed to panic if they had known, for their rebellion had strengthened their courage and they had known from the first that the ship would be in danger during every moment of the voyage.

Escape to a desert island in the untraveled traffic lanes of the South Pacific had been the one thread of hope they had dared to take seriously. From that slender thread they had woven a fabric of shimmering bright colors--an island colony which the Monitors would never discover, small white dwellings on a coral atoll, a world in miniature where the right to love and be loved could not be taken from them, a new world in the making.

But first the long voyage, the long honeymoon beneath the stars. Days and nights of rapture, of almost continuous love-making while the constellations wheeled above them and new strength flowed into them.

They had dared to dream and to act boldly, but from the first they had been prepared for the disaster which had now come upon them. The Monitors had been warned and the air above the ship was black with wings and there could be no escape now, for each flying machine carried a deadly cargo.

The order to open fire was given twenty minutes after the black mechanical hawks had assembled in battle formation above the slow-traveling vessel.

The message was in code and it was quietly communicated to the pilot-commander of each flying machine, by a uniformed man with an expressionless face standing stiffly at attention. The message bore the signature of three Monitors and was countersigned by the entire council of Monitors with the code letters which the Council used when it was summoned into emergency session.

There was no escape from that message. It was delivered in completely undramatic fashion and there was no drama in the quiet response of the commanders. The bearers of the messages were simply dismissed with a nod and when they returned to their battle stations their faces were still expressionless.

A little tightening of the lips here and there perhaps, the faintest glint of sympathy and compassion in eyes ordinarily cold and duty-disciplined.

On the flying machines there were a few men who had experienced the stirring and so could have wished that they were not security specialists and could meet and mingle with women, know the soft caress of a woman's hand and look with tenderness into a loved face and abandon themselves to all the delights of the dark as the rebels far below had done.

But on none of the flying machines was there any hesitation or open rebellion when the order to open fire was given.

The carrying out of that order was immediate and cataclysmic. The entire sky seemed to burst into flame. There was a roaring and a screaming and the black mechanical hawks careened down the sky, each dropping an egg on the water below and wheeling and returning and dropping more eggs until the thunder of their wings became deafening.

The eggs did not explode instantly. They bobbed about for a moment in the water on both sides of the smoke-enshrouded ship and in its screaming wake and directly in front of it.

Then, one by one, the eggs stopped bobbing. Each gave birth to a mushrooming monster, a shape of flame that went spiraling skyward.

The air about the ship seemed to quiver and flow inward, as if to fill a vacuum that was all flame and thunder. A blinding glare united the mushrooming spirals, spread out and beyond them until sea and sky became enveloped in a swirling incandescence.

When the incandescence vanished the ship was gone. Nothing at all moved upon the waters.

SIX

The dwelling had an abandoned look. There were drawn blinds on all of the windows, and the flower beds running parallel with the front lawn were heavily overrun with weeds. Tall asters drooped on wilted stalks and most of the plants of brilliant bloom had withered and turned sere.

Teleman and Alicia approached with caution, however, keeping their voices lowered and treading softly until they were standing directly under the dwelling's projecting eaves.

The metal entrance panel was massive and overgrown with clinging vines. When Teleman depressed the switch to the right of it a faint, humming sound arose.

They stood in the shadows that clustered thickly at the base of the dwelling's two-story facade until the panel glided completely open, and the main-floor interior came into view. From the entranceway they could see almost the whole of a large, square room with two windows, furnished simply but tastefully with several chairs of natural wood, a center table and plants in copper urns.

Teleman tapped Alicia lightly on the arm. "I'll go first," he said. "We'll speak in whispers. We've got to move cautiously until we're absolutely sure that the place is as deserted as it looks."

"I'm not too worried," Alicia said. "Only an ordinary citizen would live in a dwelling as modest as this."

"Ordinary or not, he could be armed and dangerous," Teleman pointed out. "Particularly if we're taken by surprise."

Alicia nodded. "You're right, of course. Go ahead, darling. What I really meant was, I'm not worried because we're together. If we run into trouble we'll know how to deal with it."

The light which streamed into the room from the two windows dappled the floor in patches, and they took care to stay close to the right-hand wall and well out of the light as they moved from the entranceway to the base of an ascending stairway. The stairway, like the chairs and table, was of natural wood and each of its ten or twelve steps was covered with a thick coating of dust.

Teleman started and grew instantly alert, his eyes narrowing as he stared down intently at the first four steps. There were markings in the dust, faint but unmistakable. Someone had ascended the stairs quite recently, leaving elongated impressions which were completely free of dust. _And that someone had not come down!_

Teleman drew in his breath sharply. That the elongated impressions had been made by the soles of boots he could not doubt. Ascending boots, for the toes pointed forward and there were no opposite impressions with the toes pointing toward him. Not all of the impressions were clear but there was faint corrugations in the dust even on the one step where, at first glance, he had noticed only the dust.

"What is it?" Alicia whispered. "What are you staring at?"

"There's someone upstairs," he replied, keeping his voice lowered but gripping her wrist tightly to make sure that she would remain completely still. "Footprints in the dust. See them? Don't move, even slightly. I'm going up a few steps, but I'll be very careful."

She nodded, her fingers creeping over his hand and tightening for an instant. "Yes, be careful. If the stairs should creak--"

"They won't. Stay right where you are and don't worry."

Teleman ascended cautiously, testing each step before he passed to the next by resting his weight upon it guardedly, his ears alert for the slightest sound. The wood did not creak and he reached the top step in complete silence.

The stairs ended in a circular corridor bisected by a narrow beam of sunlight which filtered down from a small, diamond-shaped window high in the wall. The footsteps did not end at the top of the stairs, but continued on down the corridor to vanish in total darkness.

Teleman had intended merely to check each of the dust-covered steps to make sure that all of the footprints pointed in one direction. But now, having satisfied himself in that respect, he abandoned all caution.

Returning down the stairs only to ascend again after a moment or two of calm thought would be wasting precious moments. Better, he told himself, to go on immediately and put an end to all uncertainty. He was quite sure that Alicia would understand and not attempt to follow him.

He glanced quickly back down the stairs, saw her slender form crouching in the shadows and waved to her. Without changing her position she returned the gesture, her eyes shining in the half-light.

Reassured, he turned and advanced across the circular corridor, taking care to move stealthily. The corridor terminated in a hallway so narrow that his shoulders grazed both sides of it when his tread became slightly hesitant and he shifted his equilibrium in the darkness.

The hallway was as black as pitch. With no glimmer of light to guide him he continued on, straining his ears as he traversed the narrow passageway and the upstairs room which he was almost sure he would find at the end of it.

Then, quite suddenly, he stopped trying to visualize the room arrangement on the second floor of the dwelling. It ceased to matter, ceased to seem important. He was only aware of the voices.