Assassins Have Starry Eyes (18 page)

The people awaiting us at the foot of the ladder were not dressed for outer space or the year two thousand; they were wearing jeans and overalls and the most noticeable thing about them was how dirty they were. Well, the area wasn’t noted for the abundance of its water supply; but the woman, whom I did not know, could at least have combed her hair and put on lipstick, even though she was over fifty and fairly homely. The man, whom I did know, could have got hold of an electric razor somewhere, since they had juice down here, and shaved off the matted growth that masked the lower portion of his face. It took me a moment to recognize him. He had always been a very fastidious sort of person when I knew him at Los Alamos; fastidious and a little precious, and there had been rumors that certain facets of his sex life had been the subject of official investigation, but nothing had ever come of this, so forget I said it.

I said, “Hello, Louis,” and held out my hand.

Louis Justin hesitated; then he took my hand and said, “Greg, I’m sorry about this. Believe me, it was none of my doing. If I’d known there was any thought of resorting to violence—”

He looked up, retrieved his hand, and used it to pull nervously at his beard, as Nina dropped down from the ladder near us. Louis looked self-conscious in his grimy jeans and denim shirt, although the condition of the garments indicated that he had worn them long enough to become accustomed to them.

He said, “Where are the others, Miss Rasmussen?”

“They’ll be along in a minute, Doctor,” Nina said. “Come on, Jim.”

“Where are you taking him?” Louis asked.

“I have my instructions, Dr. Justin,” she said.

“Oh. Well, all right.”

We started down a sloping corridor sparsely illuminated by naked, dusty, forty-watts bulbs. I heard Nina laughing softly to herself.

“What’s so funny?”

“All the bright little boys and girls,” she said. Her voice had an edge of dislike. “That was Dr. Minna Goldman, the well-known microbiologist, in the overalls. All the bright little boys and girls waiting for the old world to go boom so they can jump out and start a new one.”

“Is that what they’re waiting for?”

“Certainly. What do you think this place is? It’s an overgrown bomb shelter, complete with the latest defenses against radiation and fallout. Of course, the living conditions are a little crude, but you can’t have everything.”

I said, “Ararat. The mountain on which Noah landed his ark.”

“Yes. Aren’t we symbolical?”

I said, “Does the number ‘three’ also have mystic significance?”

“Such as?”

“Such as indicating the existence of Ararats One and Two, and maybe Four, Five, and Six?”

She laughed. “That comes under the heading of classified information,” she said. We had stopped descending. She came to a halt at the beginning of what seemed to be a long, level, timbered hall. I could see doors and the openings of several transverse passages. Standing there, I was uncomfortably aware of all the tons of rock above me. The people who go crawling through caves for fun always amaze me; I can’t even relax in the Chicago subway. Nina walked to a door on the right, knocked gently, opened it, and looked inside. Then she closed the door and glanced at her wrist watch. “I guess the Director’s gone to his room,” she said. “It’s after midnight. Well, I’d better not disturb the old humbug. You’ll meet him in the morning.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

She turned to face me. “You’ve got nerve, Jim,” she said after a moment. “Most of the people down here haven’t. That’s why they’re here. Because they’re scared. You might keep that in mind.”

I said, “You’re not scared, Spanish.”

“No,” she said, “and when you find out why I’m not scared you’ll think even worse of me than you do now. Well, I’ll take you to your wife.”

I walked beside her down the hall. You could see the light bulbs down the timbered ceiling ahead in an interminable and not quite ruler-straight chain. An occasional one had burned out and not been replaced. We stopped in front of a door that, like the others, was rudely made of boards fastened to two crosspieces with nails that, longer than the double thickness of wood, had been turned and clinched. The latch was what you might expect on a garden gate; it was secured with a cheap padlock. They certainly hadn’t wasted money on their fittings and hardware. Nina produced a key, unlocked and removed the padlock, and stepped aside.

“Jim,” she said.

“Yes?”

“You were asking what these people are saving the world from. I’ll tell you. They’re saving it from people like you.”

I looked at her for a moment. It was hardly the time to investigate riddles. I turned from her and went through the door, and heard her lock it behind me.

TWENTY-THREE

I HEARD SOMEONE stir in the darkness that was broken by a few rays of light leaking through cracks in the crude door behind me. They only made the darkness seem more intense. I heard the metallic, half-musical sound of bedsprings creaking. The low voice that spoke was completely familiar; I would have known it anywhere. Until I heard her voice I had not realized how much I had missed her.

“Greg?”

“Hi, Princess,” I said. “Where the hell’s the light switch around here?”

“Just reach in front of you; there’s a chain… Wait, I’ll get it.”

“I’ve got it,” I said.

I pulled, and raw light flooded the place. It was a small room, or cave, about seven by seven by six and half under the beams; it looked even smaller because of all the timbering. It occurred to me that the mine above had not been reinforced in the rugged manner of these lower levels. I suppose they had built this part to stand up under shocks that miners do not usually have to consider in their calculations. It was logical enough in a nightmarish way; but it gave me the feeling that I was dealing with people who had withdrawn from reality into an elaborate sort of science fiction—or maybe I was the person who, with the best information in the world on the subject, was stubbornly refusing to face the truth about the probable fate of the earth.

The furnishings of the tiny chamber consisted of a folding chair, a wooden shelf bracketed to the wall uprights, and a narrow iron cot covered by an army blanket. A white receptacle of the type we used to have on the farm when I was quite young was tucked away under the cot. A towel, and the blue leather jacket she had worn away from our house in Albuquerque, hung from nails in the wall. The jacket had lost a great deal of its smart and jaunty look in the week or so since I had last seen it: it was scuffed and dusty.

She was sitting on the edge of the cot facing me. She was fully dressed. I don’t know why it should have shocked me to find her still wearing the clothes she had departed in; after all, her suitcases had remained in Nevada with the wrecked sports car.

She said, “I’m sorry. I… just lay down to wait. I must have fallen asleep…”

Her voice trailed away. She stood up. I had forgotten that she wasn’t a very tall girl; or maybe I just neglected to make allowances for my cowboy boots. She looked up at me, pushing back a wisp of dark hair.

“You shouldn’t have come,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Sure. Just tell me and I’ll go away.”

We stood there looking at each other. Her face and hands and knees were clean, and her lipstick was bright and even; otherwise she was kind of a mess. Her dark hair was stringy, her shirt and shorts were wrinkled and grimy, her shoes were scratched and dusty, and there were holes in the heels of both her socks. Except for the clean face and the careful lipstick she looked like a tenement kid. She was the prettiest thing in the world. I had done some moderately crude and deceitful things to find her, and I hoped to do more to get her out of here; and she would be worth every lousy word and deed of it.

I said, “Princess, you look terrible. Who let you out in those pants?”

She said, “Darling, I saved up two days’ washing-allowance to look this good for you, when they said you might be coming. And you might at least have the decency to get a shave before you start criticizing other people’s appearance.”

After a moment she reached up and ran her fingers across the stubble on my jaw; her hand hesitated, and suddenly her arms were around my neck and I was holding her tight—holding her, and kissing her, and holding her again as she cried. This did not last long; in a moment she lifted her wet face to be kissed again. We went into it more thoroughly this time, heedless of the bright lipstick that was getting well distributed over both of us. We were both aware when what had started as an affectionate reunion between two respectable married people began to turn into something considerably more violent and primitive. I felt her stiffen against me. She pushed away, and I let her go.

“Greg—”

I said, “I’m just getting rid of my hat and this damn big coat,” I said, pulling them off and letting them fall.

“But there’s something I have to tell—”

I caught her as she tried to back away, kissed her, and steered her backwards until the cot hit her in the back of the knees. She was trying to resist and to say something; but her resistance wasn’t serious, and I continued to take care of her conversational efforts in the obvious way. I lowered her gently to the blanket. She tried to hold me off, but not as effectively as she might have. At last she twisted her face abruptly aside.

“Greg, there’s something I’ve
got
to tell you… Darling, stop that and listen!” She caught my wrists. “Don’t, darling, you’ll tear it and I haven’t another damn thing to wear. Will you please, please
listen!”

I said, “Princess, this is not the time to unburden your damn little soul. We can discuss your criminal career and what’s to be done about it later. Right now we’ve got more important matters to attend to.”

“But—” She looked up at me seriously; then she grinned, and put her arms around me, drawing me down. “It’s not fair,” she said rather breathlessly. “Well, just remember that I tried. And, Greg—”

“Yes?”

“Just because we’re in a cave you don’t have to act like a bear. The zipper’s in back…” A long time later, she whispered, “It’s too bad there isn’t a more dignified way of doing that. It might get to be quite a popular pastime.”

I kissed her on the ear. I said, “Look who’s talking about dignity with her clothes up around her neck.”

“Darling, do you realize—”

“What?”

“Do you realize we didn’t… do anything about it?”

“Do anything about what… Oh.” I laughed. “Well, we’ll worry about that nine months from now, if we’re still alive.”

“Greg, you shouldn’t have come. I hoped you’d have sense enough not to come.”

“Uh-huh,” I said. “I noticed you disapproving vigorously just now.”

“I know. I’m just a selfish bitch, darling. If… if I had any courage at all, none of this would have happened.”

I said, “That’s making you out awfully damn important.”

“But it’s true. At least I could have killed myself before I let them use me to trick you into coming here.”

“That might have made you feel noble for a second or two before you kicked off, but it wouldn’t have done me much good since I wouldn’t have known about it.” I sat up and got out my wallet. “Here’s something you mislaid, Princess. Do you want it back? If you’re planning to keep on commuting to Reno—assuming that we ever get out of here—I might as well hang onto it.”

She looked at the ring, and studied my face; sat up, tossed back her hair and pulled her shirt down for a minimum of decency. She hesitated briefly, then held out her hand, and I slipped the ring onto the proper finger. She looked down at it, and rotated it between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand. Presently she spoke without looking up.

“Are you sure
you
want it this way, Greg? You haven’t heard what I have to say.”

I said, “Did you kill Jack Bates?”

“No, but—”

“Did you sleep with him?”

“No!”

“Did you ever obtain government information from me and sell or give it to communist agents?”

“Of course not!” she said indignantly.

“Then I can’t see what the hell you can have done that’s so terrible.”

She played with the ring for a second or two before she spoke. “What if I’d lied to you?” she asked quietly at last. “From the very beginning, Greg. What if I’d let you believe—”

“Believe what?”

“Let you believe that we met by accident; that it was love at first sight; that I found you so irresistible and fascinating that… that I couldn’t help but say yes when you asked me to marry you? What if all that was just a damn lie, darling? What if I was just acting under orders all that time?”

After a moment I got up from the cot, made myself a little more presentable, wiped the lipstick off my face, and picked up some garments off the floor. I turned and looked at her. She looked kind of cute, sitting there with not much more than a shirt on. I could not help reflecting that a great many of the crises of married life can never be portrayed accurately on the stage or in the movies, because the costumes of the principals generally wind up something less than adequate. I tossed the stuff into her lap, after glancing at it critically.

“You’d think all these great scientific minds could manage to promote enough water for doing a bit of laundry,” I said.

“They’ve drilled a well,” she said. “It goes I don’t know how many hundreds of feet down. Maybe thousands. They’re getting water but it all goes into the emergency reserve tanks except just the minimum they can get by with. Once they have enough stored, there’ll be more to go around. Don’t tease me, Greg.”

“I’m not teasing you. I’m just trying to think. My vanity has suffered a terrible blow; I’m trying to bear up under it.” After a while, I said, “Whose orders, Princess? You mean you belonged to this gang of sentimental nitwits?”

“Maybe I’m kind of a sentimental nitwit myself, Greg.”

I said, “They sicked you on me, sent you to that cocktail party with instructions to latch onto me if I floated within range… Is that right?” She nodded. I asked, “How far did your instructions go? Was matrimony in the orders?”