source of dancer, was in his own mind.
An idea had been implanted, one which had been conceived during the brush with oblivion. For a single instant, in the midst of all the prayer and panic, there had been the temptation — strange, sweet and shameful — to push forward on the stick. In that split-second he could almost have gone willingly to his death, riding the crest of a dark wave.
Mathieu tried to consider the notion dispassionately. It was shocking and unnatural to him, and at the same time it was strangely beguiling, full of intriguing contradictions.
He had no wish to the — but he was attracted by the prospect of being dead.
A state of non-existence had many advantages. There would be no more nightmares and no more of the terrible waking visions. There would be no guilt or fear. There would be no need to steal, no need to finance his habit. There would be no need to tie or to hide. There would be no need to go on and on tricking people into believing he was what he appeared to be.
There would be no need to fear going into space or the prospect having to face the dizzy vastness of Orbitsville. There would be no need to dread failure.
There would be no future and no past. In short, there would be no Gerald Mathieu, the man who only existed as a compound of failure. And as a special bonus, one he could claim immediately, there would be no need to hold at bay the tiredness which had begun to follow him everywhere like a stalking animal.
That was perhaps the most seductive aspect of the idea. He could start right away by closing his eyes for a short period, say for one minute, just to see what happened and how he felt about it. There did not have to be any great melodramatic decision to commit suicide — it was more like a game, or an experiment which could be terminated at any point he chose…
Mathieu glanced at his airspeed indicator and saw that he was doing almost a thousand kilometres an hour. Nice round figure, he thought. He relaxed his grip on the yoke, closed his eyes and began to count off the seconds. At once he became aware of the low-amplitude hum of the power plant and the rush of atmosphere along the pressure skin. The ship was suddenly alive, yawing and twisting and dancing, impossibly balanced on an invisible pyramid of air.
On the count of only twelve Mathieu snapped his eyelids open and found he was still flying straight and level. The universe was unchanged — a blueness of prehistoric purity above and all around him, vivid grasslands streaming below the ship's nose, occasional farm buildings smothered in vegetation, fleeting targets for his imaginary World War Two cannon.
It's risky flying at this height, he told himself. A man could get killed.
He took a deep breath, blinked to dear his eyes, and gave the task of flying his full attention, wondering if he would ever again summon up the courage for the great gamble. The aircraft butted and squirmed its way through a patch of turbulence, then settled down to quiet sensation less flight. It was hot in the cockpit and the sun seemed to be exerting a gentle downward pressure on his eyelids.
Mathieu resisted it for several minutes before deciding there would be no harm, no real danger, in shutting his eyes for a mere ten seconds. It was, after all, just a game.
There was no blackness when he closed his eyes — only a pink infinity swarming with magenta and green after-images. He reached the count of ten easily and decided to try for twenty. If I fell asleep now Carry Dallen would never be able to touch me. fm not going to sleep, of course, but it would be so good to stop running up those concrete stairs, to stop putting the trigger on the woman and child, to stop seeing them crumpling, falling, idiot eyes staring…
An angry bleeping from the control console told Mathieu important changes were taking place in the outside universe, changes he ought to know about.
But he waited another five seconds before opening his eyes, and by then it was possible to distinguish separate blades of grass on the hillside which filled the entire field of view ahead.
He had time for one flicker of gratitude over the feet that there was absolutely nothing he could do.
It was easy, he thought, in the instant of the plane becoming a bomb. Easy as…
Chapter 12
The planning of a murder presented special difficulties, Dallen had realised.
Among them were the sheer novelty of the problem parameters and the ingrained moral objections which constantly disrupted his chains of thought. But this can't be me, the jolting recrimination would run, I just don't do this kind of thing. There was also the overriding need to make the murder look like an accidental death. An obvious homicide would trigger an investigation which was certain to reveal the circumstances which had led to Mathieu's fateful encounter with Cona and Mikel Dallen in the quietness of the north stairwell — and from there a short step in elementary police logic would lead to Carry Dallen.
The subsequent punishment would be little in itself. Dallen did not even regard a one-way trip to Orbitsville's Botany Bay as a punishment — which was partly why he could not allow Gerald Mathieu to escape along that road — but it would separate him from Cona and Mikel, thereby adding to the hurt they had already suffered. There was only one way for the issue to be resolved. Mathieu would have to the, preferably in a way he fully understood to be an execution, but which would appear like an accident to all others. And therein lay the practical difficulties.
Edgy and preoccupied, Dallen wandered into the kitchen and found Betti Knopp preparing lunch. She was a middle-aged voluntary worker who came to the house three days a week to shoulder the burden of looking after Cona, a duty she performed conscientiously and in almost total silence. Dallen was grateful to her, but had not managed to build any kind of conversational bridge. Aware of her uneasiness over his presence in the kitchen, he excused himself and went into the main room. Cona was standing at the window, looking out at the sloping perspectives of the North Hill. Her hair had been combed and neatly arranged in an adult style by Betti, and her attitude was one of wistful contemplation, just as in the period of homesickness following her arrival from Orbitsville.
Dallen was tempted to indulge in fantasy — the past weeks had been nothing more than a nightmare and Cona was her old self. He went to the window and put his arms around her. She turned and snuggled against him, making a cooing sound of pleasure and only the smell of chocolate, which the old Cona always avoided, interfered with the illusion that somehow his wife had been restored to him. He stared over her head in the direction of Madison's City Hall, unable to stop dashing his mind against the barriers of the past. If only he had not arranged to have lunch with Cona that day. If only he had been in his office. If only she had gone in by the main entrance. If only Mathieu had blanked the Department of Supply monitor a day or an hour or a minute later or earlier…
Dallen gave a low grunt of surprise as he discovered that Cona had cupped her hand on his genitals and was beginning to massage him with clumsy eagerness. For a second he almost yielded, then self-disgust plumed through him and he stepped back abruptly. Cona came after him, giggling, her gaze fixed on his groin.
'Don't do that,' he snapped, holding her at arm's length. 'No, Cona, no!'
She raised her eyes, reacting to the denial in his voice, and her face distorted into ugliness in a baby grimace of rage. She went for him again, strong and uninhibited, and he had to struggle to hold her in check. At that moment Betti Knopp came into the room with a tray of food. She gave Dallen a worried glance and turned to leave. 'Bring it,' he ordered, pushing Cona down into an armchair. The sudden force he had to use either hurt or alarmed her and she gave a loud sob which in turn drew a gasp from Betti, the first sound he had heard her make that day. She knelt by Cona and attracted her attention by noisily stirring a dish of something yellow and glutinous. Dallen stared helplessly at the two women, then strode to the other end of the room and activated the holovision set.
'Speak to me, please,' he said to the solid image of a thin, silver-bearded man which appeared at the set's focus. Dallen had dropped into a chair and folded his arms across his chest before realising the image was that of Karal London. He leaned forward intently.
'…was in his early sixties,' a news reader was saying, 'and is understood to have refused treatment for the lung condition which led to his death. Doctor London was best known in the Madison City area as a philanthropist and creator of the Anima Mundi Foundation, an organisation devoted to promoting an exotic blend of science and
