Baby Is Three (16 page)

For the third time in a week, Vaughn was lunching with Joe—a remarkable thing, considering that in the two years since her departure from the University she had seen less and less of old acquaintances. But after all—Joe was easy to be with because she didn’t have to pretend. She could be as moody as she chose. He would patiently listen to her long and misty reflections, and let her recite poetry without protest. The meetings did not hurt her, and Joe seemed to enjoy them so.…

But Joe had something to offer this time, rather than something to take. As the waitress took their dessert order and left, he gently placed a little plush box beside her coffee cup. “Won’t you consider it at all?” he asked diffidently.

Her hand was on the box, reflexively, before she realized what it was. Then she looked at him. Thoughts, feelings, swirled about each other within her, like petals, paper, dust and moths in a small sudden whirlwind. Her eyes fixed on his shy, anxious face, and she realized that she had seldom looked directly at him .. and that he was good to look at. She looked at the box and back at him, and then closed her violet eyes. Joe as a suitor, as a potential lover, was an utterly new idea to her. Joe as a bright-faced, carefully considerate
thing
was not Joe with hands, Joe with a body, Joe with habit patterns and a career and toothpaste and beneficiaries for life insurance. She felt flattered and bewildered and uncertain, and—warm.

And then something happened. It was as if an indefinable presence had raised its head and was listening. This alien attentiveness added a facet to the consideration of Joe. It made the acceptance or rejection of Joe a more significant thing than it had been. The warmth was still there, but it was gradually overlaid by a—a knowledge that created a special caution, a particular inviolability.

She smiled softly then, and her hand lifted away from the box.

“There’s nothing final about an engagement,” Joe said. “It would be up to you. Every minute. You could give me back the ring any time. I’d never ask you why. I’d understand, or try to.”

“Joe.” She put out her hand, almost touched him, then drew it back. “I … you’re so
very
sweet, and this is a splendid compliment.
But I can’t do it. I—If I succeeded in persuading myself into it, I’d only regret it, and punish you.”

“Umm,” mused Joe. His eyes were narrowed, shrewd and hurt. “Tied up, huh? Still carrying the same old torch”

“The same—” Vaughn’s eyes were wide.

“That Dran Hamilton character,” said Joe tiredly, almost vindictively. He reached for the ring box. “Part two of the unholy trio—”

“Stop it!
”

It was the first time he had seen her gentle violet eyes blazing. It was probably the first time they ever had. Then she picked up her gloves and said quietly, “I’d like to go now, Joe, if you don’t mind.”

“But—but Vaughn—what did I—I didn’t mean any—”

“I know, I know,” she said wearily. “Why, I haven’t even thought about them for a long time. For too long. Perhaps I should have. I—
know
I should have. Joe, I have to go. I’ve got to get out of here. It’s too small. Too many people, too many cheap little lights. I need some sun.”

Almost frightened, he paid the check and followed her out. She was walking as if she were alone. He hesitated, then ran to catch up with her.

“It’s a thing that you couldn’t understand,” she said dully when he drew alongside. She did not look up; for all he knew she may have been talking before he reached her. She went on, “There were three of us, and that’s not supposed to be right. Twos, and twos, and twos, all through literature and the movies and the soap operas. This is something different. Or maybe it isn’t different. Maybe it’s wrong, maybe I’m too stupid to understand.… Joe, I’m sorry. Truly I am. I’ve been very selfish and unkind.” There was that in her voice which stopped him. He stood on the pavement watching her move away. He shook his head, took one step, shook his head again, and then turned and plunged blindly back the way he had come.

“You’re getting old,” said Torth maliciously
.

“Go away,” said the other. “With two particles assimilated and the third about to be, matters have reached a critical point.”

“There is nothing you could do about it no matter what happened,” said Torth
.

“Will you go away? What did you come for, anyway?”

“I was having an extrapolative session with another triad,” Torth explained. “Subject: is the Eudiche experiment a hoax? Conclusion: it could be. Corollary: it might as well be, for all it has benefited our race. I came for your comments on that. You are an unpleasant and preoccupied entity, but for all that you are an authority.”

The old one answered with angry evenness: “Answers: The Eudiche experiment is no hoax. It will benefit the race. As soon as Eudiche has perfected his fusion technique, we shall emigrate. Our crystalline casings are dust-motes to the bipeds of the third planet; our psychic existence will be all but unnoticeable to them until we synthesize. When we do, they will live for us, which is right and just. They will cease thinking their own thoughts, they will discontinue their single-minded activities. They will become fat and healthy and gracious as hosts.”

“But observations indicate that they feed themselves largely by tilling the soil, that they combat the rigors of their climate by manufacturing artificial skins and complex dwelling shelters. If we should stop all that activity, they will die off, and we—”

“You always were a worrier, Torth,” interrupted the other. “Know, then, that there are many of them and few of us. Each of us will occupy three of them, and those three will work together to keep themselves fed and us contented. The groups of three will be hidden in the mass of bipeds, having little or no physical contact with one another and remaining largely undetected. They will slaughter as they become hungry; after all, they are also flesh-eaters, and the reservoir of unoccupied bipeds will be large indeed. If, after we get there, the bipeds never plant another seed nor build another dwelling, their own species will still supply an inexhaustible supply of food purely by existing to be slaughtered as needed. They breed fast and live long.”

Torth saluted the other. “We are indeed entering upon an era of plenty. Your report is most encouraging. Our present hosts are small, few, and too easy to kill. I assume that the bipeds have somewhat the same minuscule intelligence?

“The bipeds of the third planet,” said the other didactically, “have mental powers several hundred times as powerful as do those we have dominated here. We can still take them over, of course, but it will be troublesome. Look at the length of time it is taking Eudiche. However, the reward is great. Once we have disrupted their group efforts by scattering our triads among them, I can predict an eternity of intriguing huntings and killings in order for our hosts to feed themselves. Between times, life will be a bountiful feast of their vital energies
.

“Now, leave me, Torth. As soon as the final part of Eudiche’s triad is settled in, we can expect the synthesis, by which he will come into full operation as an entity again. And that I want to observe. He has chosen well, and his three seeds are sprouting on fertile soil indeed.”

“You have been uncharacteristically polite and helpful,” conceded Torth. He left
.

Dranley Hamilton drank the highball with the cold realization that it was one too many, and went on talking cleverly about his book. It was easy to do, because for him it was so easy to define what these fawning critics, publishers, club-women and hangers-on wanted him to say. He was a little disgusted with his book, himself, and with these people, and he was enjoying his disgust immensely, purely because he was aware of it and of his groundless sense of superiority.

Then there was a sudden, powerful agreement within him, compounded of noise, heat, stupidity and that last highball, which made him turn abruptly, to let a press-agent’s schooled wisecrack spend itself on his shoulder blades as he elbowed his way through the room to the terrace doors. Outside, he stood with his arms on the parapet, looking out over the city and thinking, “Now, that didn’t do me any good. I’m acting like something from the Village. Art for art’s sake. What’s the matter with me anyway?”

There was a light step behind him. “Hello, Dranley Hamilton.”

“Oh—it’s you.” He took in the russet hair, the blend of blendings which she used for a complexion. He had not noticed her before. “Do you know I have hung around this literary cackle-factory for the past two hours only because you were here and I wanted to get you alone?”

“Well!” said the girl. Then, with the same word in a totally different language, she added, “Well?”

He leaned back against the parapet and studied her tilted eyes. “No,” he said finally. “No. I guess I was thinking of somebody else. Or maybe even something else.”

Her real defenses went up in place of the party set. “Excuse
me!”
she said coldly.

“Oh, think nothing of it,” he responded. He slapped her shoulder as if it were the withers of a friendly horse, and went back to the reception.
That was lousy
, he thought.
What’s the matter with me?

“Dran,” It was Mike Pontif, from his publisher’s publicity department. “You got that statement up about your next novel?”

“Next novel?” Dran looked at him thoughtfully. “There’s not going to be a next novel. Not until I catch up on .. something I should be doing instead.” At the publicity man’s bewildered expression, he added, “Going to bone up on biology.”

“Oh,” said the man, and winked. “Always kidding.”

Dran was not kidding.

Manuel crumpled up the letter and hurled it into the corner of the communications shack. He shouldered through the door and went out on the beach, his boots thudding almost painfully down on the rough white coral sand. He drove his feet into the gritting stuff, stamping so that the heavy muscles of his thighs felt it. He scooped up the stripped backbone of a palm frond and cut at the wet sand by the water’s edge as he walked, feeling the alternate pull of shoulders and chest.

He needed something. It wasn’t women or liquor or people or solitude. It wasn’t building or fighting or laughter. He didn’t even need it badly. What he did want badly was to find out what this gentle, steady, omnipresent need was. He was sick of trying this and that to see if it would stop this infernal tugging.

He stopped and stared out to sea. The thick furrows across his forehead deepened as he thought about the sea, and the way people wrote about it. It was always alive, or mysterious, or restless, or
something. Why were people always hanging mysterious qualities on what should be commonplace? He was impatient with all that icky business.

“It’s just wet salt and distance,” he muttered. Then he spat, furious with himself, thinking how breathless the runt would be if she heard him say such a hunk of foolishness. He turned and strode back to the shack, feeling the sun too hot on the back of his neck, knowing he should have worn his helmet. He kicked open the screen door, blinked a moment against the indoor dimness, and went to the corner. He picked up the letter and smoothed it out.

With the poem in his hand, Manuel glared around at useful things—the transmitter, the scrambler, the power supply. He looked at worthwhile things—the etched aluminum bracelets, the carved teak, the square-knotted belt he had made. And he looked at those other things, so meticulously machined, so costly in time and effort, so puzzling in function, that he had also made without knowing why. He shook the paper as if he wanted to hurt it. Why did she write such stuff? And why send it to him? What good was it?

He carried it to the desk, ripped out his personal file, and put it away. He filed it with Dran Hamilton’s letters. He had no file for the runt’s stuff.

When she concluded that she loved Dran, Vaughn wrote and said so, abruptly and with thoroughness. His answering telegram made her laugh and cry. It read:

Dran arrived first, looking expensive and careless and, to Vaughn, completely enchanting. He bounded up the front steps, swung her off her feet and three times around before he kissed her, the way he used to do when they were children. For a long while they could say nothing but commonplaces, though their eyes had other things to suggest.

Dran leaned back in a kitchen chair as if it were a chaise longue and fitted a cigarette to a long ivory holder. “The holder?” he chattered. “Pure affectation. It does me good. Sometimes it makes me laugh at myself, which is healthy, and sometimes it makes me feel fastidious, which is harmless. You look wonderful with your hair down. Never pin it up or cut it again. Manuel’s just turned down a commission. He ought to arrive about six, which gives us plenty of time to whirl the wordage. I liked your latest poems. I think I can help you get a collection published. The stuff’s still too thin in the wrong places, though. So are you.”

Vaughn turned down the gas under the percolator and set out cups. “You do look the successful young author. Oh, Dran, I’m
so
glad to see you!”

He took her hand, smiled up into her radiant face. “I’m glad too, chicken. You had me worried there for a while, with that love business.”

Vaughn’s eyes stopped seeing him for a moment. “I was—silly, I suppose,” she whispered.