The Throne of Saturn, page 35
For a long moment, their glances held. Then Pete flushed and nodded with an expression in which self-contempt, self-disgust, regret, dismay, struggled painfully. The dark eyes became shadowed, the engaging boyish face was suddenly unhappy and bleak.
“Yeah,” he said. “Sure. Of course, I do.” He turned and stared out across the white, antiseptic buildings and the wide green lawns. “I’m sorry,” he said finally. “I was just going to say something funny—I thought. But I guess it wasn’t … though,” he added very quietly, “I still think—”
“I don’t think so,” Connie said with an equal quietness. “At least, I hope not. Not that I’m shocked or offended or antagonized. And”—he gave his friend a level, candid gaze—“not that I’m afraid. But—we do have an awfully big job. And it’s got to be done. And nothing else matters, really. Does it?”
There was silence for a moment. Then Pete spoke in a low voice, still staring unseeing out the window.
“I guess not.”
“You know it,” Connie said. “Now,” he inquired calmly, “what about those stress-tolerance studies we’re supposed to be getting from Mayflower? Have they come in yet?”
“Probably on my desk now,” Pete said, glancing at his watch and standing up. “I’d better go on back and get at them.” He managed a reasonably steady smile and held out his hand. “Thanks, leader. It was an impulse.”
“What isn’t?” Connie asked, smiling also and returning an affectionate, reassuring pressure. Again, he gave Pete the level, honest glance. “I’m really not afraid, Pete. And if I’m really honest with you, maybe I’m not all that unwilling either. You’re my friend—and I like you a hell of a lot—and life’s life—and one lives it as best one can. Maybe some other time, some other circumstance—But right now—really—” He sighed and shook his head with an unhappy frown, his mind already back on the mission. “We do have so damned much to worry about, without—”
“I know,” Pete said quietly. “I’m sorry.”
Connie smiled.
“Don’t be. We’ll both survive.”
“I hope so,” Pete said with a brave try at returning humor. “I’d hate to think I was the guy who gave the commander of Piffy One a case of the heebie-jeebies.”
Connie laughed.
“If they’re all as mild as this one, buddy-boy, I’ll get by all right.”
But after Pete left, he sat for a long time staring out the window himself, seeing nothing, thinking many things, none very coherent.
Life was life, all right.
And sometimes it wasn’t so easy.
Nor was it easy an hour later when the buzzer sounded on the Picturephone and he switched it on to find Monetta, obviously upset, looking at him with an anxious shyness from the little screen.
He was not, at the moment, in a very good mood to talk to her; but perhaps this was best. Perhaps it would save him once and for all from something he really knew he should not do or even contemplate. Maybe it was just as well Pete had come along and with an unpremeditated, inadvertent, and quite devastating spontaneity, forced the issue. The reaction might not be such a bad basis from which to talk to Monetta.
Even so he must not be unkind.
“I’m sorry, Colonel Trasker,” she began nervously. “I didn’t intend to call you at the office, but—”
“I’m glad you did. And it’s still Connie, if you like.”
“Connie,” she said with a fleeting little smile; and in spite of his newfound resolution, the familiarity lifted his heart a little. But in the face of her obvious distress he did not linger over it.
“What’s the matter? Same thing?”
“I’m afraid so,” she said, and her eyes began to fill with tears. “Colonel Trasker—Connie—I think I am going to have to leave him.”
“Well, now,” he said, stalling for time to sort out the conflicting thoughts and emotions that this aroused. “I think we should talk about it a little before you do anything so drastic.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t do anything to embarrass you,” she said with a sudden fierce, quick pride that flared through the tears. “I have relatives in California to go to.”
“Now, just a minute,” he said quietly. “Just a minute. I hope you think better of me than that.”
“I don’t know what I think of you. I really don’t.”
“You obviously think I can be of some help or you wouldn’t have called me,” he pointed out calmly. “Now, can I or can’t I? If not—” and he started to turn back to the books and papers on his desk.
“No,” she said hastily. “No, please, I’m sorry. He’s—he’s got me so confused I just don’t know what I’m saying, I guess. Colonel Trasker—Connie—I think I’m afraid of him, now. I really am.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said quietly, leaning his chin on his hands and concentrating his full attention on her beautiful, tragically worried eyes. “Tell me about it. Has he been threatening you? Or beating you?”
“Not anymore. Now he’s just—still.”
“‘Still.’ He’s like that around us, too.”
“He goes away somewhere, inside. And he acts as though he might really hurt me if I tried to make him come out. Really hurt me.” She placed a long, graceful hand along her cheek in a forlorn little gesture that touched him deeply. “I don’t know how to reach him anymore. I really don’t.”
“Nor do we,” he said in a puzzled tone. “It’s very strange, this business of his. He’s got what he wanted, he’s on the crew, he’s doing his job on the surface, but something’s missing underneath. As you say, he goes away. But why? And where?”
“I don’t know,” she said helplessly. “He won’t say.”
“And you really think he might try something violent with you. You really feel you and the boy are in danger.”
“I can’t be around him without wanting to help him,” she said simply. “He’s my husband, I loved him—some ways still do, I guess. If I’m in his house I can’t help wanting to help him. But he warns me off, so I know he’d do something really bad if I kept on.”
“How do you know that?”
“He’s my husband,” she repeated. “I know, much as anyone can with another person, I guess. So that’s why I think I’d better leave. Before he does something to me and Rudden that would be—really bad.”
“Well, now,” he said slowly, aware, with thanks, that the prospect of her leaving her husband did not stir any particular pleasure in his heart, “I wonder if that would really be the best thing to do.”
“I wouldn’t hurt the program,” she said quickly, almost scornfully, with something of the prideful flare she had shown earlier. “I know you always think of that. But no one would have to know about it. I’d be quiet.”
“It isn’t that,” he said, still slowly, ignoring the challenge. “I know you would. And really, you know”—he tried a smile and was pleased to see her unyielding expression soften just a little—“I’m not really as heartless as all that. I do think of other things besides the program. You, for instance.”
At this her expression softened still more and his smile was finally returned, though somewhat tentatively and without conceding a great deal.
“I know. That’s why I called. I thought I could trust you to give me good advice.”
“I hope you can,” he said quietly; and made his decision. “It may not be what you want to hear, though. Or even,” he said, with something of the same candor with which he had tried to comfort Pete, “what I want to hear. But I think you should stay with him.”
“But—” she said with a dismay so deep it shook his heart and almost overturned his resolution then and there, “but, Connie—”
“I think you should,” he repeated gravely. “I think he needs you. And I don’t really think he would hurt you. He’s a very mixed-up guy right now, but he does need help—ours and yours. Particularly yours.”
“But,” she said, and it was almost a whisper, “I really am afraid, Connie. I really am.”
“I don’t think you need to be,” he said, praying to God that he was correct, knowing he could never forgive himself if he weren’t. “Of course, you know him better than I do, but I don’t think Jayvee is really bad inside. Terribly mixed up, as I say, but not really bad. We have to help him work his way out of this. We can do it.”
“He won’t,” she said, still in the same almost inaudible voice. “He can’t. He’s sick with being Black and he won’t ever recover. Not ever.”
Despite his best intentions a sharp little edge of impatience came into his voice.
“But he’s being given everything he could possibly want. What more are we supposed to do?”
“Some of us,” she said, “are sick like that. We just are. For some of us, it’s all been just too much—just too much. It haunts and cripples and destroys—it just never goes away. He’s like that.”
“And why aren’t you?” he asked, the impatience gone, a compassionate sympathy in his voice. “How have you and so many others escaped?”
“I guess I’m strong,” she said simply. “And I guess he isn’t.”
“Then don’t you see that’s why he needs us?” he asked quickly. “Don’t you see that’s why you’ve got to stay with him, for his sake, and why we’ve all got to help him?”
“Not if it means hurt for my baby,” she said with a sudden fierceness. “Not if it means hurt for me.”
“I don’t think it will,” he said, and tried to find for her some proof to support the vigor of the affirmation; and found it. “Do you think I would tell you to do this—caring for you as I do—if I thought it would mean harm for you and the boy?”
She was silent, the enormous dark eyes under the high, intelligent forehead staring into his with a pleading intensity that stirred him profoundly. Presently she uttered a deep, shuddering sigh and said, very low,
“No, I guess you wouldn’t.”
“No,” he responded quietly, aware that he had won—although what, he would have to wait for time to tell him—“I would not.”
When she had gone from the screen, still troubled and uneasy but apparently somewhat reassured and willing to try a while longer for his sake, he turned to his desk and attempted to lose himself again in the mission. But this was not so feasible, given his own uncertainties about the wisdom of his advice. It had solved his own problem, or so he thought, but despite his confident air, he was not so sure it had solved hers.
He was honest enough with himself to acknowledge that his basic motivations this day had been two. Both, in human terms, might have been selfish; both, in the context of Planetary Fleet One, could be considered selfless. For all the calmness he had forced himself to show Pete, and for all the genuine affection that had prompted the effort, he had been deeply shaken and disturbed. The overriding reaction had been to divest himself of everything that might in any way complicate his life further and thereby affect the success of Piffy One.
If he had responded to Pete, which in human terms might have been entirely possible, he would, as he had said, have acquired an additional burden to add to those he already carried as commander, to say nothing of the probably unsettling effects upon Pete. If he had encouraged Monetta to leave Jayvee—as he had before Jayvee joined the mission and became his responsibility—certain things could have been much easier. But they would also have complicated his life and affected the mission, and they might also have spun Jayvee completely off-balance, whereas now the chance was good he could be helped back to stability, and so perform his full share of the mission. Therefore Connie had acted as he did, and now he was home scot-free, or so he thought, relieved of complications he had tacitly, and in some ways actively, encouraged. And Piffy One was the principal beneficiary; which, given his major responsibility in the world right now, was as it should be.
Nonetheless, a nagging doubt persisted: had he really been fair to either of them or had he simply suited his own selfish convenience?
He decided, because he must, that he had indeed been fair. If he had really believed for a moment that Jayvee was capable of doing his wife real harm he would never have urged her to stay. If he had really believed for a moment that Pete was incapable of measuring up to his own inner challenges and mastering them he would never have been so gentle. And because in both cases the opposite course would have been to further burden a mission already burdened enough, he had acted as he did. Or so he told himself.
It did not occur to him that there were moral issues involved in either episode. Moral issues had their place in the world, and as a father he did his best to impress them upon his children—when he could find time to talk to them. But in his profession and in the context of the mission, moral issues were not the question right now. The question was what was best for Piffy One: to send his life and Jayvee’s into a tailspin over Monetta, to send Pete’s life into a tailspin by being too harsh—or to try to hold everything together as best he could and keep the mission moving. Like all intelligent men of strong conviction, he felt that in the last analysis he had no choice and had done the right thing.
Thus, when the buzzer sounded for the call he had been expecting, he handled it in the same way. Pete was in an agony of humiliation and embarrassment and Connie was correspondingly gentle. That this might be twice as devastating as something more impersonal did not occur to him, either. Nor would it, perhaps, have changed his approach if it had. Acting as far as he knew with the best will and intentions in the world, he followed straight on the trajectory devised by Conrad H. Trasker, Perfect Astronaut: unaware that it might, like all trajectories if carried to their ultimate mathematical conclusions, turn back upon itself in ways that Conrad H. Trasker, P.A., could not then suspect. Whether this would have made any difference to him was a question he did not think of, and of course was not at that point called upon to answer.
“Now, buddy,” he responded calmly to Pete’s first hesitant words, “I told you to relax and you do it, O.K.?”
And although for Pete relaxing was something he thought he was not going to be able to manage again very soon with Connie, their brief conversation went off fairly well. Pete apologized once more for a stupid, kid impulse, was told once more to forget it; received assurances of affection and support that moved him to protest wryly, “You’re very kind—which of course doesn’t make anything any easier”; and left the screen apparently feeling a good deal better. For which, Connie thought with a mixture of sympathy, affection, pity, and something else he could not quite define, they could both be damned thankful.
That accomplished, he took what he hoped would be his last call for a while (This is really my morning for being Mother Hen, he told himself in some annoyance when the buzzer sounded yet again.) from his volatile second in command.
“I’ve just run into Jayvee,” Jazz said without preliminary, “and he’s acting damned peculiar. Even more so than usual, if that’s possible.”
“Oh? What did he do?”
“Snarled. Right out loud. I was walking down the hall talking to Roger Webb, didn’t see Jayvee coming out of his door, and literally ran right into him. He said, ‘God damn it, watch where you’re going!’ Which was a lot, these days, for Jayvee.”
“At least now you know he’s alive,” Connie said dryly. “What did you do, knock him down?”
“Not quite,” Jazz said, sounding as though he regretted he hadn’t. “But it makes me wonder. He seemed really upset. Unusually so. Actively. You don’t know any reason why he would be, do you?”
“No,” Connie said cautiously.
“Hmn,” Jazz said thoughtfully. “I wonder if he and Monetta—”
“Everything’s all right as far as I know,” Connie said crisply, though he was not really sure what he had to be crisp about. “Maybe it was just a mood. Maybe it means he’s going to talk to us again. Don’t knock it, Jazzbo. Be thankful.”
“I still wish you’d let me handle him my way.”
“You will not,” Connie said flatly. “That’s final, now. Drop it.”
“O.K. But watch out for him. Something’s working.”
“All right. Thanks for the warning. I’ll be ready.”
But as the morning moved on with no further calls and no indication of anything from Jayvee, he began to relax. He thought that with a little luck they might all come through all right. The difficult human cargo of Piffy One might adjust itself, after all. He might just have succeeded in removing some major obstacles, both for the mission and for himself. If so, it was a good day’s work.
So, he thought, unaware that a sometimes whimsical Lord might yet have in store for Conrad H. Trasker, Perfect Astronaut, as He did for many unsuspecting and hopeful men, a few ironic surprises.
Certainly He did for the president and his visitors of the afternoon, each of whom approached the Oval Room with his own particular ax to grind. Percy Mercy and Senator Williams came first, the administrator followed. For a little while the president thought he could congratulate himself that he had all their complaints under control. Then the vice president called from Geneva and the Lord had his little joke.
P.C.M. and Kenny Williams of course were properly indignant, properly menacing. The president decided he had better drown them with oil instead of vinegar, much as he would have liked to call a White House cop and have them bodily thrown out. Too many votes and too much emotion were piled up behind these two pompous visitors and both were too adept at taking advantage of the fact. He could not afford at the moment to be that candid about his feelings. At least that was the idea with which he began.
“Well, Percy,” he said, rising with the quick, flattering cordiality he knew how to muster on a moment’s notice, coming rapidly from behind his desk, surprisingly light on his feet for a big man, “it’s always nice to have you drop in and tell me how the country’s going. And as for Kenny here, there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t read in the Post and the Times how he’s saving humanity for us. It’s good of you both to come by.”
