Chapter II

"Charles, you see," the woman said, stopping and turning to Caine, "thinks the only way he can hold me is with money. And now he's put every penny he had left into this hunt so that he can find the Screece gem and keep his lovely wife. And do you know what, Mr. Caine?" She placed her hands gently on her hips, and Caine could see the faintest swinging movement in them. "He's right, you see."

Caine remained very silent.

"He _has_ to find the Screece gem," the woman said, smiling whitely, "or lovely Janet is gone, slipped right out of his hands. And Charles is just a poor little sheep with gray hair and a two inch scar, who'll be cold and alone, while Janet--"

"Stop it, damn it!" Fairchild said, but he didn't get up and his voice was thick.

"--while Janet," the woman said, her voice even and relentless, "will be sleeping with someone else who can afford her, and poor old Charles will shiver in his damned freezing bed, all alone, thinking about that, wondering who it is, burning up his ancient jealous liver!" The woman whirled to face her husband.

The man tightened both hands around his glass, and Caine could see the whiteness about his mouth. The woman began to laugh, a soft, pealing laugh that got into Caine's brain because of the very softness of it.

She walked back to her chair and lifted her own glass. Her laughter stopped while she drank, and then it started again. She turned to look at her husband, and her eyes danced and her lips curved. Her body shook with the laughter.

"Who do you think it'll be?" she asked her husband. "If you don't find the gem?" She turned to Caine. "Mr. Caine, do you have any money? I mean, perhaps you wouldn't need as much money as Charles. I might make some compensation for virility, you know."

Caine disregarded her. "Mr. Fairchild, we have some rugged country to cover tomorrow. This is your party, of course, but if you keep on drinking...."

"If I keep on drinking?"

Caine examined the man's eyes and his slack mouth. "Nothing," Caine said. "Nothing." At least, he decided, the Scotch might stop the needling and the pressure for the man. He deserved that much, perhaps.

"You didn't answer me, Mr. Caine," the woman said. "About you and me. I'd like you to answer, so that my husband knows before he falls out of his chair, you see."

"I think we all ought to get some sleep," Caine said quietly.

"Mr. Caine, really? So sudden? I'd have to check your bankbook first, of course. Although if you give me your word...."

"If you don't mind," Caine said, his voice harsh, "I'd like to be left neutral in whatever you and Mr. Fairchild might have in conflict."

"Oh," she said. "Well, that's just because you haven't seen the full potential. Let me show you what you'd be getting for your money--the way Charles saw it." She raised her glass again, drank, and stood up to cross to the ship. She climbed the ladder to the cabin, very gracefully, and touched the switch of the radio. Music pealed into the warm air.

It was minor music, issuing from the Colony station, music that had been taken from the native Venusian melodies. It had been converted and fitted to the heavy rhythm of Earth's ancient Africa, and it seemed suddenly to become a part of this jungle of Venus.

The woman stood in the doorway, and then she moved down the ladder, as though it were one sliding motion. She remained there, her back against the silver metal of the ship, swaying her hips, moving her shoulders.

"I was a dancer, you see, Mr. Caine. I worked in a very expensive club in Habrill, on Mars. I was very popular and very good, and sweet Charles took me away from it all, didn't you, Charles?"

Fairchild, Caine could see, was having trouble focusing his eyes, but the rhythmic music was heavy in the air and it beat against the ears, and Caine knew that the man was aware of what was happening.

The woman began moving easily toward Caine, her movement a practised swinging motion of hips and shoulders. "This is what Charles took me away from, Mr. Caine, by the gentle touch of gold," she said. "'Come with me,' he said, and he fitted diamonds to my ears and rings to my fingers. 'Let me take you away from the damned searching eyes of every man on Mars. Let me hide you, so no one can see you or touch you, but me, and I'll give you all I own.' Isn't that right, Charles?" she said, looking at him with narrow gleaming eyes.

The man lifted his glass and slowly drained it. He let it fall to the ground with a breaking crunch, while the woman kept time with the rhythm, with her hips and her shoulders, slight swinging motions that only intimated.

"Only now," the woman said, "poor Charles doesn't have anything more to give, and so here I go again...."

She raised her hands over her head and cracked her palms together. Her hips swung and her shoulders shook. She caught her fingers in her hair, her teeth white and biting, while her whole body shivered. It was a rippling gyration of muscle and pink skin, building, furious.

Fairchild pushed himself out of the chair. His eyes were wild and vacant. "Don't ..." he said, and his words were meshed together so that it was a hoarse sound, full of anguish.

The woman laughed, a wild laugh that blended with the music and the frenzied movement of her body. She whirled and slapped her hands together and her body quivered.

The man staggered a step forward. "Janet, don't, please...." He fell forward, sprawling over the ground. Gradually, the woman ceased her movement, while her laughter rang through the wet jungle.

* * * * *

_The gray-caped figures hold motionless around the muddy silver orb. A green head cocks. Another. The golden walls encase them, and only a circular opening near a tip of a spire brings in dim light and a little of the wispish outside vapor. Fingers disengage and a green extends from a gray cape. The hand sweeps in a downward slice, splitting by symbol, purity from evil. A second hand imitates. A third. A dozen. Voices flute to the cloudy orb. A cat snarls. Minds probe._

* * * * *

The light was dimming, and she was a dark curving figure, standing over the crumpled figure of the man. The music pounded relentlessly. Caine stood up.

"Each time I make one of these trips," he said, looking at the motionless form of Fairchild, "I promise myself it'll be the last, and I'm promising myself again, right now."

The woman stood silent, and there was just her smiling mouth and the white teeth and the reddish hair. "But this one isn't over, yet, Mr. Caine. We still have a long way to go." Her eyes danced.

"That's right, Mrs. Fairchild," Caine said, bending to lift the man. "Unfortunately, that's right."

He picked the man up while the woman watched, and he carried him to the ship. He climbed to the cabin, working against the surprising weight of the smaller man. For his age, Fairchild was a very tough, sinewy man who looked as though he had spent most of his life fighting through strange and varied wilds, constantly in search of new adventures and thrills.

Caine laid the man across a bunk built into the rear of the ship's cabin. The tip end of the wide scar was visible now, showing above Fairchild's open shirt, and the thin lines about the eyes and mouth were like written entries in his face, telling of too much Scotch and perhaps too much of the reddish-haired woman. All that he lacked, Caine thought wryly, was the empty bank account to show the price he had paid for the love of the devilish woman.

Caine straightened and walked back through the cabin, snapping off the radio.

He jumped to the ground. The light was very dim now, and the woman was only an outline. The screams of kiitz birds were in the air again, and in the distance, the thrumming monotony of the falls.

"You can use the cabin with your husband, Mrs. Fairchild," Caine said briskly. "I'll get some blankets and sleep out here."

"Aren't there animals?"

"Not around here," Caine said. "I'll make a fire. If you want something to eat I'll get it out of the cabin for you."

"No, thank you, Mr. Caine," the woman said, sitting down in her chair. "I'll just enjoy the rest of my drink, if you don't mind."

"It's up to you," Caine said shortly. He was very careful to keep his eyes away from her. You handled a woman like that best, he knew, by keeping your eyes away from her.

He gathered wood from beneath the wet outer layer of the jungle floor. He bent to light the fire just as the darkness enveloped the clearing. The flames flickered and licked upward, sending their shifting yellow light into the surrounding foliage.

Caine straightened from the fire.

"Do you like my dance?" the woman asked, softly.

"I didn't see it for your husband, Mrs. Fairchild," Caine said, and he returned to the ship where he got several blankets. He placed them near the fire.

"He's not around now," the woman said.

Caine looked at her finally. "He is as far as I'm concerned."

"You're so noble, Mr. Caine."

"I'm not anything," Caine said. "I'm just a guide who gets paid for taking people where they want to go. Nothing more, do you understand, Mrs. Fairchild?"

"No," she said, smiling at him.

Caine walked to his chair and sat down. "We have a tough day ahead of us, Mrs. Fairchild, and we'll need all the strength we have to get through that stretch of jungle. This is a different jungle than you've seen before. Venus breeds some terrible country, and where we're going is that kind of country. I haven't been there myself, so I can't even predict what it'll be like. But I've circled it in the ship and it's thick and alive. I don't trust it. So you can stay up, if you like, and I'll be glad to stay awake myself, but I'd advise some sleep right now."

Mrs. Fairchild stood up slowly, her fingers drifting over her waist. "I'll tell you, Mr. Caine. You're not the kind of man I like to argue with. I've had just enough liquor to feel perfectly agreeable to anything, anyway. So I'll get ready for bed, but I'm sorry you didn't enjoy my dance. Let's do this. You wait while I get ready, and then we'll have one nightcap together, a sort of dancing nightcap. Are you interested, Mr. Caine?"

Caine lit a cigarette slowly, watching the blaze of his lighter. He snapped the lighter shut. "I'm interested in both you and your husband, Mrs. Fairchild."

"To hell with my husband," she said, her teeth showing between her lips. She lifted her glass and drank all that was in it. "Relax, Mr. Caine," she said, walking toward the ship. "Enjoy yourself."

Caine noticed that the liquor had taken hold of the way she walked, so that she swayed a little, but there was still the grace there and the swing, and it was hard to disregard.

I hope she doesn't come out of there, Caine thought. I hope she just falls asleep and leaves me alone, and that tomorrow goes very quickly and smoothly.

* * * * *

But when Caine had watched the flames lick at the settling night for a few minutes and had finished his cigarette, he heard the sound again. The sound of music, muffled by the silver body of the ship. Wilder now, with heavier drums, seasoned into a more biting sound by the night and the flickering flames. Caine was aware of the blood in his veins and the pulse in his temples.

All at once, the door of the cabin was kicked open and the music rose in the air. The woman stood in the doorway, her hands gripping the silver frame tightly. She wore a black nightgown, made of shimmering stuff that was as thin as the fine mist in the air. Her hair had been let down and it fell over her shoulders and her back. Her feet were bare and very white beneath the black gown.

She stood motionless, her fingers tight against the frame, as though holding herself against the music. The melody disappeared then, and there was only the drums, rolling, and finding a punctuation that became all that existed in the night. The woman leaped from the doorway and she touched the ground, wriggling. Her feet were wide-spaced and her hands searched through her hair, lifting it from the nape of her neck. She bent forward suddenly, so that her hair was a reddish swirl against the light of the leaping flames.

She straightened slowly, one hand sliding her hair back, so that Caine could see her eyes dancing with her body, and she began moving toward him, shoulders swinging, hips pivoting. Caine kept his hands tight against the arms of his chair, his eyes narrow. The woman was a writhing movement beneath the black veil-like gown. She twisted and whirled and finally, she stopped in front of Caine, chin high, one hand still half-thrust through the soft thick hair. Her eyes glowed.

"Nightcap," she said, her voice breathless.

Caine shifted carefully in his chair. "I'm not thirsty," he said.

The woman's hand snapped from her hair, and the relaxed suppleness of her body tightened.

"I remember a man," Caine said through his teeth, "who's a dozen yards away, sleeping in the protection of alcohol, because a cheap burlesque queen is drawing out his blood until he's damned near dead. I can see through the pink skin, Mrs. Fairchild, and what I see makes me sick. You don't interest me at all, and you never will because I don't like the sight of hate and selfishness and just plain rottenness."

She struck him across the face with one hand and then the other. The fury burned in her eyes and her body trembled with it. She struck him again and again, and Caine's face bled where a ring ripped his skin.

He sat very still, his hands remaining against the chair arms. "You've just lost yourself a boy, Mrs. Fairchild. Put your clothes on, we're flying back to the Colony. You can find yourself somebody else for this, because I've had enough."

He started to rise, but she put one hand against his chest, and the fury was gone out of her eyes, and there were tears instead.

"Please," she said, and Caine could hear the tears going into her voice. "I'm sorry. I'm awfully sorry. Let me talk to you first, please." She knelt to the ground and watched Caine while thin tears ran down her cheeks.

"About what, Mrs. Fairchild?" Caine said coldly.

"I don't know why I did what I did," she said, touching at the tears. "Too much Scotch, I think. Only I'm still a dancer and it's in my blood. It isn't cheap burlesque, Mr. Caine. It's something deep inside me and I can't help it."

"Nice trait," Caine said, "for a man's wife."

"I had that coming. I've got a lot coming, only the resentment for his drinking, the way he's tried to own me, keeps coming out and I want to hurt him. I know it isn't right, but it's what I do and I want to stop doing it. He's worried, and it comes out with what he says and what he does, and so I fight him. He thinks if he doesn't find this gem, he's going to lose me."

"Isn't he?" Caine asked, his eyes thin.

"No," she said quietly. "I'm frightened of him and I feel alone with him. But I won't leave him."

"Like I told you," Caine said, "I'm just a hired man. What my customers think or do between themselves is none of my business."

"You're not that cold," she said, looking into his eyes.

"I'm that cold."

She shook her head stubbornly. "Be kind to me. You can. For just this one moment, when I'm not alone or afraid, when there's just this one moment before tomorrow--when it starts all over again."

Caine didn't answer, but he relaxed in his chair slightly and leaned back.

She smiled at him and it was a warm simple smile with all the hardness and sarcasm erased. "Would you have one drink with me? One small drink to seal the night up, so maybe you won't remember me so badly, so maybe you'll think I've got some heart and human feelings?"

Caine waited, watching her shiny eyes. "One drink," he said.

She smiled and stood up, returning to the side of the ship where Fairchild had set up his portable bar. She poured two glasses, and while Caine watched her, he noticed that in her straight, motionless posture, the animal litheness had disappeared. She was very simple--and naive-looking, and when she returned, he saw that the tears were still wet on her face.

She handed him a glass, and she held her own in the air. "A trite toast--here's to two people who met in the Venus night ... briefly."

"Two people," Caine repeated, lifting his own glass. The Scotch burned down his throat.

She kneeled again and smiled at him. Caine noticed then that the music was still beating into the night air, and that the black gown was still very thin. He turned his glass up again, to hurry through the drink. Even in her simplicity and tears he didn't trust himself.

The Scotch seemed to take hold of his blood and he could feel it racing in his veins.

He lifted the glass a third time, and the hand that held it seemed suddenly detached from his own movement. A singing began in his head and then disappeared, and when he looked at her, the smiling lips were redder and the shining teeth were whiter. The music pulsated in his head, seeming to beat against his brain.

"What...?" he began, and his voice was thick. He shook his head and looked at his glass. It fell out of his hand.

"A little witch's potion," she said, rising. "Something from the Martian cauldron. Quick and oh, so effective."

He fought the feeling that caught hold of him. His brain seemed to deaden until there was only the drums inside his head, and his senses became alive and burning. He could see her before him, and she began to sway back and forth, her hands moving in front of her face. He caught hold of the chair arms to keep his own hands from reaching out.

He tried to cling to reason, but his hands wanted to escape. The flames of the fire flickered somewhere in the distance, and in front of him the black-covered body began to move in rippling shivers. The moving pink hands rose in the air, and there was a shimmer of concealed muscles, dancing, dancing.

He clung to the chair, gritting his teeth, but the drums pounded at his senses, over and over, and the lips smiled and the white teeth shone and the pink body moved in time with the drums.

"Not yet?" he heard her say, somewhere far away.

And the body turned slowly, convoluting in a shimmering dance of thin blackness.

Caine lost his grip on the chair, and he was moving his hands. He heard the laughter, high in the air, stinging his ears and he couldn't stop himself. He was listening to the laughter when his fingers touched skin, and there was only blackness after that.

* * * * *

_Minds examine. Judge. Decide. "Grith?" says a round voice. Golden bars snap open. A black cat crouches. Green heads nod within their hoods. The cat leaps, crouches again, and then begins to stalk. Lidless eyes turn to the cold orb. Voices chant. "Grith?"_