Empire of Two Worlds

“You think the Rotrox would allow that?” she said sharply.

“I believe so. They’ve accepted everything else we’ve suggested.”

“You misunderstand. A woman does not hold official positions in Rheatt, or on Merame. My influence, if I have any, is not of that kind. I cannot take my husband’s place, especially while he still lives.”

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “I thought your husband was killed at the outset of the war?”

Her liquid eyes seemed to look through me. Then she turned away, gazing through the wide windows. I wondered if she was always as charged on Blue Space as she seemed to be right now. The drug had the property of turning even tragedy into a poetic experience. I reflected that she was probably making things bearable for herself that way.

She began to speak in a low, detached voice. “They came at the beginning of summer. For us, it was a summer war. Big cylinders of aluminium and copper descending from the sky, shining in the sun. What was there for me to do? You clearly do not understand a woman’s role on our world. I stayed here in this room, rearranging the ornaments on successive days to create pleasing variety, as was the custom. Outside, through this window, I saw my husband’s aircraft crash to the ground.”

“But he didn’t die?”

“Many believe him to be dead, but he survived, though injured. The Rotrox dragged him from the wreck and took him to Merame, where they keep him prisoner. Once every thirty days they show him to me on television, though he does not know it.” She gestured to a circular screen in the corner. “Sometimes they torture him before my eyes.”

“And you watch?” I said, amazed.

“What should I do? If I do not watch, it takes place just the same. The Rotrox by tradition are not kind to the defeated. If you want to help me, make them release my husband.”

I shook my head dumbly. “I don’t think I can arrange that. He’s the National Leader.”

“No, of course you cannot.” She looked at me again in a glazed, gentle way. “You see how helpless I am. I hope you will make life easier for Rheatt, but you see that I cannot help you.”

So that seemed to be all there was to it. I didn’t want to leave that room, but I couldn’t think of a good excuse for staying. Reluctantly I made to go.

At the door she stopped me. “Nevertheless your … plans interest me. If you want to bring me news or if you have questions, you are welcome.”

Something in me quickened as I heard the invitation. I nodded, and left.

I couldn’t get the Rheattite woman off my mind. All the women I’d known in Klittmann had been hard and brittle. She was different: she had qualities I hadn’t met in women before.

I did go back. Then I started visiting her regularly. We talked for hours on end. I told her all about Klittmann and how we had come to arrive on Earth. But I never talked much about Becmath; the tool doesn’t want to talk about the hand that guides it.

In return she talked about her life before the Rotrox came. It sounded real good: easy, pleasant and fulfilling, with none of the strain and neurotic striving of Klittmann. I guess I wouldn’t have fitted in there — I was too set in my attitude to turn soft now — but just the same the time I spent up in that beautiful green room came to be the best part of the day.

For a long time I didn’t touch her. I’m not sure why — there was nobody to stop me and nobody she could have complained to. It’s just that it was a new experience being with a woman like her. But often she was blocked almost out of her mind with Blue Space and my chance came.

She was taking the stuff more and more heavily, I knew she was way over the norm: most people just took it occasionally. One night she passed out in mid-sentence. I picked her up off the floor. The blood surged through me as I held her there in my arms. I carried her down some recessed steps into a bedchamber below the main room.

I knew she would be all right. Blue Space didn’t do anybody any real harm. I laid her down on the sleeping couch. She stirred and opened her eyes, staring up at me with big, sleepy eyes. I realised she wouldn’t really be aware of who I was, that she might even confuse me with her husband, I struggled with the temptation for a moment, then gave way to my urges.

I sank down on her, falling into a soft, warm bed of delight.

When I told Bec that the National Leader was still alive on Merame he listened to me, shaking his head with incredulity, and said: “Those klugs certainly know how to be vindictive.”

Later he asked me where I was getting to in the evenings, so I told him.

He stroked his chin. “And the old man’s up on Merame, eh? Tell you what, Klein, how would you like me to get Imnitrin to put a bullet in him for you?”

I had known how far my feelings for Palramara were going when I had started hoping that word would come through that that poor klug, Dalgo, would turn up dead. “It sounds like a good idea,” I said immediately. But my voice was weak.