Those Who Watch

Nineteen

Glair listened apprehensively to the melodious chime of the doorbell. Who could that be? Not Tom coming back; Tom would use his thumb-print to open the door. A salesman? A poll-taker? A policeman? She froze. She was in the bedroom, practicing her walking. Tom had warned her not to open the door to anyone. The chime sounded again, and Glair walked warily over to the scanner and switched it on.

An Earthwoman in middle years stood in front of the house. Glair’s first reaction was to shut the scanner off and wait for the woman to go away. Then the plump, pleasant outlines of the visitor’s face registered on Glair’s memory hanks.

Thuw? Was that Thuw standing there?

Thuw belonged to the Sartak-Thuw-Leenor sexual group. Glair had known them some years now. They had all been on Ganymede together during their last rest period. In fact, she and Sartak had—

But the tiny gray viewing field of the door-scanner, no more than three inches in diameter, might be misleading her. Glair peered intently at the uncertain image. If she were mistaken, there would be trouble.

“Who is it?’she said.

“Glair?” came a warm voice. “You can open up. We’ve found you, Glair.”

The voice was speaking in Dirnan.

“I’m coming, Thuw! I’ll be right there!”

Glair hobbled to the front door, unsealed it, waited in joyous suspense as it all too slowly rolled back. An instant later she was in Thuw’s arms, and the sweet scent of her own people flooded her nostrils, and she trembled with delight and relief, and also with sadness.

Thuw stepped inside. Glair closed the door and sealed it again.

“We have a car outside,” Thuw said. “Sartak and Leenor are waiting in it.”

“How did you find me?”

“It wasn’t easy.” Thuw laughed. “Actually, what we did was put a fat Kranazoi spy on your trail, and then followed him. It was Leenor’s idea. Wasn’t it clever?”

“A — Kranazoi spy — ?”

“He’s outside in the car, too. Sartak’s got him covered with a grenade. He must have come to Earth to find the three of you, and managed to pick up rumors about an AOS officer who had found something in the desert. He traced you to here. We followed him and took custody.”

Glair caught her breath. “So it’s that easy to find out about me and Tom?”

“Tom?”

“The AOS man.”

Shrugging, Thuw said, “It’s possible to find anything out, with work. The important thing is that we’ve located you, now, and you’ll be safe on Ganymede in a little while. How badly were you injured when you landed?”

“I broke both my legs. Tom’s been taking good care of me. As you see, these bodies heal fast.”

“Well, you’ll be getting a real medical going-over at the base.” Thuw looked around. “Where’s your suit?”

“It’s hidden away,” Glair said. “I can get it. It’s in good shape, except the communicator broke when I landed.”

“So we discovered,” said Thuw. “Well, get it, and I’ll take it out to the car. And put some clothes on, so we can drive you through the streets without being arrested. We’ll take you to the rendezvous point in the desert, and in another hour you’ll be on your way to — “-

“No,” Glair said.

“No? I don’t-”

“I have to wait till Tom comes home,” she said. “Sit down. Talk to me a while, Thuw. There’s no rush to leave, is there? You haven’t said a word to me about Mirtin and Vorneen, Are they alive? Do you know where they are?”

“Mirtin’s back on Ganymede already,” Thuw said.

Glair shivered in relief. “Oh, wonderful! He wasn’t hurt, then?”

“His back was broken. But he’s recovering well, A differ-! ent search group spotted him a couple of weeks back. His communicator was still operating, only the signal was distorted, and a team working down from Sante Fe found him in a cave in the desert near one of the Indian villages. I talked to him. He sends his best, Glair.”

“And Vorneen?”

“We’ve traced him ourselves. He’s right here in this city, or rather in the suburbs of it. He’s been living on the northern outskirts, in the home of a woman named Kathryn Mason.”

Glair laughed. “Good old Vorneen. He’d find himself a woman any time, on any world! Have you been in contact with him?”

“Not yet. But we’ve scouted the house. He’s limping, but he seems to be in good health. So the three of you came through a rough time without any real damage. And now you can all relax a while.”

“Yes,” Glair murmured. “We can relax. How did you find Vorneen?”

“Through the local Contact Cult, as a matter of fact,”

“Really? You mean, the woman he’s living with is a member, and told the cult about him?”

“Evidently she didn’t tell the cult anything,” Thuw said. “We aren’t sure. What we did was monitor the visitor lists of the cult office, on the assumption that anybody who found a stranger from another world would check with the cult for information. We tapped their computer bank, took down a list of everyone who had been at the office since the night of the crash, and checked them all out. Kathryn Mason was about the hundredth one we surveyed. The neighbors said she’d been acting strangely. A couple of gossipy ones let us know that she was living with a man. We put a peeper through the window last night, and there was Vorneen. Now we can pick him up, and—”

“What about this woman?” Glair asked. “What do you know about her?”

“She’s a young widow with a small child.”

“That’s all? What’s she like? Why did she give shelter to Vorneen?”

“We’ve had no contact with her,” said Thuw flatly. She looked at her watch. “When is this Earthman of yours going to come back, anyway?”

“Not until four this afternoon.”

“But that’s—”

I know. A long time from now. I can wait. Take your Kranazoi away and do whatever you’re going to do with him, and come back for me after four. I can’t leave without saying goodbye to Tom.”

Thuw gave her a searching look. “Out of gratitude, Glair, or out of something else?”

“Something else. Something deeper. I came to be quite fond of him.”

“In love with an Earthman, Glair?”

“Thuw, be a good girl and don’t ask questions, will you? Just go away and come back later. Come back at five o’clock and I’ll be ready to leave then.”

“Very well. We’ll pick up Vorneen in the meanwhile.”

“Don’t do that either,” said Glair.

Thuw looked annoyed. “Why not?”

“I’ll be the one to get Vorneen. He’s my mate, remember? I’ll claim him. And I want to speak to the woman he’s been living with, too. Just keep away from both of them and let me handle it.”

“Honestly, Glair—”

Glair took her by the arm and gently led her to the door. “Darling, it was wonderful of you and Sartak and Leenor to trace us like this. But there are certain things we have to handle for ourselves. Please: just go away and come back later.”

Thuw looked bothered by it all. But she left; and the moment she was gone, Glair sealed the door and sank down on the hall divan, quivering with tension.

So it had happened. They had found her. That much was inevitable. And before long she’d be in hospital on Ganymede, having the lingering effects of her crash-landing combed out of her system. Fine.

Mirtin and Vorneen were alive. Glorious!

And now — all she had to do was say goodbye to Tom—

It would be painful. Farewells always were. But he had already begun to brace himself against the certainty that she must leave him. What they had built, the bridge between Earthman and Dirnan, was by its nature unstable, doomed to fall. Only… so soon?

She knew that in a few weeks she would remember him only as a kind, troubled man who had helped her in a moment of stress. What she thought of as her love for him would fade to mere affection, once she was back among Vorneen and Mirtin, to whom she was linked by the deepest of bonds. But what about him? How would he react, cast back into the depths of his despair, all his certainties shattered by this encounter? He had not even believed in his despised Atmospheric Objects when he had found her. And now he knew more about the watchers than any man on Earth, and knew at first hand what it was like to hold a being from the stars in his arms and listen to her cries of pleasure. How could he return to ordinary life after that?

Glair thought she knew a way to help him return. It was worth trying, anyway. It might heal him in a way that her own relationship with him could never have done, and healing, after all, was her specialty.

She waited the long day through.

And then at last he was here, unsealing the door, coming into the house, taking her in his arms, crushing her up against him. She waited until he had kissed her, until he had shrugged out of his coat, until he had unburdened himself of a few hundred words about the stupidity and blindness of AOS. She listened, beaming.

Then she said in a cool, level voice, “Tom, my people came for me today. I’m going home,”