impossible, and pointless, to live.
I heard a rustle. They went by me. He had his arm around her, they walked in step. He leaned over. The shadows of their heads merged.
I rose. He was kissing her. She, embracing his head. I saw the pale lines of her arms. Then a feeling of shame, of shame such as I had never known, horrible, sickening, cut through me like a knife. I, interstellar traveler, companion of Arder, having returned, stood in a garden and thought only of how to take a girl from some man, knowing neither him nor her, a bastard, an unmitigated bastard from the stars, worse, worse…
I could not look. And I looked. At last they slowly went back, clinging to each other, and I, skirting the pool, set off again, then saw a large black shape and at the same time hit something with my hands. It was a car. Groping, I found the door. When I opened it, a light came on.
Everything that I did now was with a deliberate, concentrated haste, as if I was supposed to drive somewhere, as if I had to…
The motor responded. I turned the wheel and, headlights on, drove out onto the road. My hands shook a little, so I tightened my grip on the wheel. Suddenly I remembered the little black box; I braked sharply and nearly skidded off the road, I jumped out, lifted the hood, and began feverishly to look for it. The engine was completely different, I couldn’t find it. Perhaps at the very front. Wires. A cast-iron block. A cassette. Something unfamiliar, square — yes, that was it. Tools. I worked furiously, but with care; I hardly bloodied my hands. Finally I lifted out the black cube, heavy as if it were solid metal, and flung it into the bushes along the side of the road. I was free. I slammed the door and took off. The air began to whistle. More speed. The engine roared, the tires made a piercing hiss. A curve. I took it without slowing down, cut to the left, pulled out of the turn. Another curve, sharper. I felt an enormous force pushing me, along with the machine, to the outside of the bend. Still not enough. The next curve. At Apprenous they had special cars for pilots. We did stunts in them, to improve reflexes. Very good training. Developed a sense of balance, too. For example, on a turn you throw the car onto the two outside wheels and drive like that for a while. I could do that, at one time. And I did it now, on the empty highway, careening through the darkness shattered by my headlights. Not that I wanted to kill myself. It was simply that nothing mattered. If I showed no mercy to others, then I could show none to myself. I took the car into the turn and lifted it, so that for a moment it went on its side, tires howling, and again I flung it, in the opposite direction, fishtailed with a crash into something dark —
I took a deep breath. Nothing had happened to me, I was not even bruised. I tried the headlights: nothing. The small front lights: the left worked. In its weak glow, I started the engine. The car, grinding, wobbled back onto the highway. A fine machine, though: after all that I had put it through, it still obeyed me. I headed back, slower now. But my foot pressed the pedal, again something came over me when I saw a curve coming up. And again I forced the maximum from the engine, until, with squealing tires, thrown forward by the momentum, I pulled up just before the hedge. I drove the machine into the brush. Pushing aside the shrubbery, it came to rest against a stump. I did not want anyone to know what I had done to it, so I pulled down some branches and threw them over the hood and the broken headlights. Only the front had been smashed; there was just a small dent in the back, from the first collision with the pole or whatever it had been there in the darkness.
Then I listened. The house was dark. Everything was still. The great silence of the night reached up to the stars. I did not want to return to the house. I walked away from the battered car, and when the grass — the tall, damp grass — touched my knees, I fell into it and lay thus until my eyes closed and I slept.
I was wakened by a laugh. I recognized it. I knew who it was before I opened my eyes, instantly awake. I was soaked, everything dripped with dew — the sun was still low. The sky, tufts of white clouds. And opposite me, on a small suitcase, sat Olaf, laughing. We leapt to our feet at the same time. His hand was like mine — as large and as hard.
“When did you get here?”
“A moment ago.”
“By ulder?”
“Yes. I slept like that, too, the first two nights.”
“Yes?”
He stopped smiling. So did I. As though something stood between us. We studied each other.
He was my height, perhaps even a bit taller, but more slender. In the strong light his hair, though dark, betrayed his Scandinavian origin, and his stubble was completely blond. A bent nose, full of character, and a short upper lip that revealed his teeth; his eyes smiled easily, pale blue, darkening with merriment; thin lips, with a perpetual, slight curl to them, as if he received everything with skepticism — perhaps it was that expression of his that made us keep our distance from each other. Olaf was two years older than I; his best friend had been Arder. Only when Arder died did we become close. For good, now.
“Olaf,” I said, “you must be hungry. Let’s get something to eat.”
“Wait,” he said. “What is that?”
I followed his gaze.
“Ah, that… nothing. A car. I bought it — to remind myself.”
“You had an accident?”
“Yes. I was driving at night, you see…”
“You, an accident?” he repeated.
“Well, yes. But it’s not important. Anyway, nothing happened. Come on, you’re not going to… with that suitcase…”
He picked it up. Said nothing. He did not look at me. The muscles of his jaw worked.
He senses something, I thought. He doesn’t know what caused the accident, but he guesses.
Upstairs, I told him to choose one of the four vacant rooms. He took the one with the view of the mountains.
“Why didn’t you want it? Ah, I know,” he smiled. “The gold, right?”
“Yes.”
He touched the wall with his hand.
“Ordinary, I hope? No pictures, television?”
“Rest assured.” It was my turn to smile. “Its a proper wall.”
I phoned down for breakfast. I wanted us to eat alone. The white robot brought in coffee. And a full tray, an ample breakfast. I watched with pleasure how he chewed, he chewed so that a tuft of hair above one ear moved. Finished, Olaf said:
“You still smoke?”
“I do. I brought two packs with me. What happens after that, I don’t know. At present, I smoke. You want one?”
“One.”
We smoked.
“How is it to be? Cards on the table?” he asked after a long pause.
“Yes. I’ll tell you everything. And you me?”
“Always. But, Hal, I don’t know if it’s worth it.”
“Tell me one thing: do you know what the worst of it is?”
“Women.”
“Yes.”
Again we were silent.
“It’s on account of that?” he asked.
“Yes. You’ll see at dinner. Downstairs. They are renting half of the villa.”
“They?”
“A young couple.”
The muscles of his jaw again moved under the freckled skin.
“That’s worse,” he said.
