Chapter I: Part 1

WOMAN FROM ANOTHER PLANET

FRANK BELKNAP LONG

_Copyright 1960_
by Frank Belknap Long

Printed in the U.S.A.

[Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any
evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

HE TRIED TO GO BACK--

but he had already passed the point of no return. Her aroma was overpowering--never had David known such a woman. Her arms clasped and encircled him; it was as though boiling quicksand flowed through his body, a tiredness weighing him down. But it was only the pressure of her body....

With a jolt he pushed her away and she fell sprawling against the bed post. Stumbling to the window for air, he saw the gleaming saucer-shaped ship still hovering in the sky overhead. It was as though his every move had been watched....

David's mind was muddled, surrounded by a cloud of confusion. The beautiful creature was now sobbing, her whole body racked by tremors.... Then he heard another voice coming from the outer room. It was Janice!

ONE

The alarm clock was ringing. There was another sound in the room as well--the more distant peal of door chimes. Oddly enough, it was the chime music which penetrated most sharply into David Loring's awakening mind. Each fragment was a tinkling and the tinklings ran the gamut of the musical scale. An ice-crystal music in caverns measureless to man. Rising, falling, almost dirge-like at times.

The alarm clock, having exhausted itself, stopped ringing. But the chimes continued. The ice crystals broke, shattered and re-formed again.

_Another day_, Loring thought, stirring drowsily and blinking sleep from his eyes. He let his gaze roam over the room. The floor was thick with dust, and the record player on its handsome walnut stand, the ornamental decoy duck on the mantel and the uneven bricks on the built-in fireplace all needed dusting badly. In fact, the whole damned apartment needed the attention of a cleaning woman.

Well, it wouldn't be long now. The mere fact that he could afford a cleaning woman and no longer had to worry about the expense was reason enough for putting it off. The place could be made spic-and-span at a moment's notice and he profoundly disliked having his precious knick-knacks roughly handled by a stranger. It would be all right for Janice to take over. Wonderful, in fact.

Just bide your time, boy, and before you know it your bachelor days will be over. In two or three weeks you'll have a wife. And you can support her now. Two hundred dollars for just one ten-by-twelve picture, and the next one you paint will be better than any of the earlier ones, and you can go on from there with a wife to keep you out of the doldrums.

No reason to move either. Janice likes Greenwich Village and the apartment is spacious enough for two, and cheap, since you high-pressured the landlord and got the rent whittled down to a song. He was mixing his metaphors, but it didn't seem important to him at the moment. Only the future seemed important. It was brighter with promise than he could have imagined when he'd sat holding hands with her on a bench in Washington Square on the evening before he'd sold the painting.

He was a little startled when the chimes stopped abruptly, as if a hand had reached out and ripped the press-button mechanism from the door. The sudden, loud knocking startled him even more. It came from the short entrance hall just outside the room--three sharp knocks followed by a pause and a knock so loud that it hinted at more than just impatience. He knew that it had to be Janice, for her knocking--when she did knock--followed a pre-arranged pattern. A fourth knock was part of the pattern. But not a thump that rattled the door chain.

He sprang out of bed and seized the first garment that came to hand. It was a terry-cloth bathrobe which Janice had urged him to have laundered. But he just hadn't gotten around to it, and now it contributed nothing to his male aplomb and early morning dash. He hoped she wouldn't mind too much when he took her in his arms and brought his lips down hard on hers. And smoothed her red-gold hair and ran his rough artist's hands up and down her back until she began to shiver a little and purr like a kitten.

He hoped she wouldn't think about the robe and how untidy he looked in it. Making women forget little disharmonies like that could be tougher than painting a picture that would put Utrillo in the shade. Well ... what the heck? He was an artist, wasn't he? Not all women went for artists, but when they did they usually liked them a bit on the unkempt, disorganized side.

You just had to keep the disorganization from getting out of control. If you allowed it to spread to the romance department you were sunk. But that couldn't happen with Janice--not when he took her in his arms and told her how beautiful she was.

As he strode toward the door a tiny muscle in his jaw started twitching. Something was seriously wrong. He was sure of it. Self-containment was Janice's specialty. Her self-control was phenomenal and no matter how eager she might be to see him it just wasn't in character for her to try to break the door down.

Something extraordinary must have come up to make her act that way. It was hard to imagine what it could be, to bring about such a change in the way she ordinarily behaved. Fright? Hysteria? But Janice didn't have a baker's pinch of hysteria in her make-up. His alarm increased as he reached the door, and started fumbling with the chain. His fingers were all thumbs and the knocking was so loud and continuous now that it further unnerved him, so that it took him nearly a minute to get the door open.

She came in with a sobbing gasp, her hair disheveled, her eyes so wide with fright it gave her a staring, almost China-doll aspect. She was startlingly pale and hadn't bothered to cover up her pallor with lipstick and rouge.

For an instant the machinery of Loring's mind was barely able to function. It moved slowly, as if ice-clogged, with one dread thought uppermost. Village streets were likely to be deserted in the early hours of the morning and a scream could be quickly smothered. Had she been fleeing from someone who wouldn't have let her failure to use lipstick discourage him? A brutish someone who cared only that she was a woman?

She was trembling violently and her voice was so agitated that he had to strain to catch the words which tumbled from her lips as she clung to him, her eyes still China-doll wide, her fingers tightening on his wrists.

"Darling, darling, hold me tight. Just keep your arms around me for a moment, and I'll be able to tell you what happened. Right now I can't seem to think straight."

Loring stood for a moment without moving, holding her close, his temples throbbing. "What is it?" he urged, trying to keep his voice calm but not succeeding very well. "Tell me. I've got to know."

"There was a man in my room when I woke up this morning. A complete stranger. I'd never seen him before."

Loring's heart skipped a beat and for an instant he couldn't seem to breathe. "A man--"

"Yes. The door was locked and I don't see how he could have gotten in. I never forget to lock the door when I go to bed. I'm very careful about it. The windows were locked too. I'm sure of it. I--I was terribly frightened. He just stood there looking at me. I don't think he was a burglar or anything like that. He was tall, dark and very good looking. Young, about twenty-seven. Just about your age. I don't think I've ever seen a more attractive looking man. If I'd met him at a party before I met you--I don't know. I just don't know."

"You don't _know_. You mean you'd have gone overboard for him at first glance, without knowing a thing about him?"

"I might have. I'm being completely honest, because the experience was so terrifying that I have to get it straightened out in my mind. And I want you to understand too, darling. I thought of you, and something deep inside me protected me, so that I didn't really feel that way about him at all. But I almost did. I had to struggle against it, before I overcame it. If he'd moved forward and taken me into his arms I'm quite sure I would have screamed. But before I thought of you I might have--"

"Janice! For God's sake."

"I know, darling. The thought torments you. In a way, that makes me happy, because I love you so very much. So very, very much. And the torment you're experiencing proves that you love me. But it's cruel of me to feel that way--but all women do. There's something very primitive in us that makes us want to be fought over. If the man you love will fight for you, to the death, if necessary, it brings him closer to you."

"If he's dead that won't give him any pleasure at all."

"I know, darling, I know. I hardly know what I'm saying. Forgive me, be patient with me."

"I'm trying to. But don't you see what you're doing to me? You've told me nothing so far. Or very little. I mean, did he try to make love to you? Did he--touch you?"

"No, darling. He didn't. He just stood there by the fireplace staring at me. He had a strange way of looking at me. As if he could see deep inside my mind and knew exactly what I was thinking. And there was a kind of--tenderness in his eyes, as if he would have cut off his right arm before he'd take advantage of the fact that we were completely alone and I was wearing only--"

"Never mind what you were wearing. Do you have to tell me? All right, I want to know. I must know."

"That lace-fringed nightgown you gave me, darling. You know, the one with the black lace at the neck and sleeves. It really isn't so very revealing. Only--"

"Only what?"

"It may have slipped down a little at the shoulders. Of course I was embarrassed as well as frightened, but I don't think he gloated over it or took advantage of it in his mind in any way. Try to understand what I'm trying to say."

"I'm trying."

"He apologized. He was very nice about it."

"He apologized for what? For breaking into your room like a thief in the night? You can't clear yourself of a criminal charge by making a simple apology. The courts would take a very dim view of that."

"But he didn't do anything criminal. It was all a mistake. His exact words were: 'I'm terribly sorry. I hope I haven't embarrassed you. I live on the next block, and I've been to a party and--well, you know how it is sometimes when you've had a little too much to drink. All these buildings look alike....'"

"He didn't finish. He just smiled, hoping I'd understand, and there was something boyish and even a little pathetic about the way he smiled. As if he was pleading with me to forgive him for forgetting himself and drinking a little too heavily. And of course I did understand. It wasn't a crime. After all, darling, I do live in the Village."

"Why don't you say what you mean? He was probably reeling drunk."

"No, he wasn't. I could see he wasn't. He might have reached the reeling stage for just a moment, when he made a mistake about the apartment. But it must have passed very quickly, because when he spoke to me his speech wasn't slurred and he held himself very straight."

"What happened then?"

"Nothing you need to be alarmed about." Most of the agitation had gone out of Janice's voice, but there was still a look of fright and sharp apprehension in her eyes, as if she were trying hard not to think about something she hadn't yet told him.

"He--he just crossed to the bed, bent and kissed me lightly on the forehead."

"Good God! I thought you said he didn't even touch you. What right had he to take such a liberty? He must be a clownish Village character of some sort. I wish I could get my hands on him."

"Aren't you being a little absurd, darling? The man was emotionally upset. It was a crazy thing to do, but I wasn't offended. Everybody who lives in the Village does things like that occasionally. It was just a spur-of-the-moment, completely impulsive substitution for old-fashioned gallantry."

"You think so? I don't. What did he do then?"

"He just turned without saying another word and walked straight out of the door. He opened the door and walked out, and I could hear his footsteps dying away on the stairs. He didn't come back."

Loring let out his breath in a long sigh of relief. Then he seemed to regret having allowed himself to feel relieved. He tightened his lips and his voice became that of an angrily bewildered man who has a great many questions to ask and is not at all sure that the answers will satisfy him.

"And the instant he left you dressed and came rushing over here to tell me all about it, in a condition bordering on shock. Why were you so terrified? Why do you still look so frightened? You've done nothing but make apologies for him. You keep telling me that you weren't offended in the least. Then why--"

"David, darling, there's something I haven't told you."

"What was it? For God's sake, don't keep me in suspense."

"I--I felt myself being embraced."

"You _what_?"

"Felt his arms about me, felt him lifting me up. Of course it had to be just something I imagined. He was gone. I'd seen him walk out of the room, and close the door. But for an instant I could see him again. The outlines of his head and shoulders were very hazy, and--well, ghostly isn't just the right word. Not ghostly. Shifting, smokelike--like an image in a mirror wrapped in mist. But I could feel the strength of his arms, his hands moving across my back, even fumbling with the shoulder strap of my nightgown, crushing the lace--"

"Stop it, Janice! Keep quiet! You don't know what you're saying. If I thought for a moment...."

Loring's face was very white, and his fingers clamped tightly on Janice's arm, causing her to cry out in pain. He released her instantly, stroking the arm with his hand.

"I'm sorry, Janice," he said contritely. "I got a little carried away. Let's get out of here and get some breakfast. Maybe we can talk more sensibly about this. What you are saying is too confusing to take on an empty stomach."

"All right, darling. That sounds like a fine idea." She followed him to the dressing room and leaned against the doorjamb as he stripped off the bathrobe without any self-consciousness, revealing the compact, finely muscled body she knew and loved. He appeared so agitated that Janice's own hysteria left her, and she felt a sudden, overwhelming tenderness sweeping over her, making her forget her own need for reassurance.

She walked over to him, and reaching up, drew his head down and opened her lips, murmuring endearments and running her fingers through his hair to enhance the ardor of her embrace. His arms tightened about her and for an instant he was not only holding her close, but saw her as if she were standing a little apart from him in warm sunlight, with whispering tropical palms at her back, and the trade winds ruffling her red-gold hair above the exquisite beauty of her face. To him it was the loveliest of all faces, and he had painted it a dozen times, from the stubborn, loyal chin to the slightly tilted nose and the precious, adorable brow with its sprinkling of enchanting freckles.

When he released her, her eyes were shining. Then, slowly, the look of near rapture faded and her face clouded over. She shuddered and took a slow step backwards. He had the feeling that she had more to tell him, that she was more deeply disturbed than he had imagined. Suddenly, he didn't want to hear it.

He lost his head then completely. It was a strange time for lovemaking, but he couldn't help himself. He gathered her in his arms and carried her across the living room to the couch that could be folded back into the wall when he had no occasion to stop painting and turn his attention to a different kind of artistry.

He put her gently down and unfastened her dress, easing the zipper over the places where the cloth fit tightly. He drew the dress down over her shoulders, freeing her brassiere-ensheathed breasts and allowing the light to caress the soft, white skin of her truly lovely back, and the shadowed recess in the small of her back from which it was so easy for a hand to glide downward over the smooth roundness of equally lovely hips.

He could not quite persuade himself to do more than run his fingers lightly along the curve of her neck for an instant, to nibble at her ear, and then plant a single firm kiss in the middle of her back. It was not, he reminded himself, with an effort, quite the right time for reckless abandon. She was still too nervous and upset and was trembling violently.

It was only when it slowly dawned on him that she was not trembling because her nerves had been strained to the breaking point but for a quite different reason that he ceased to be constrained and scrupulous, and embraced her with so fierce an ardor that it put a complete end to all restraint, and led them both along pathways of rapture in a continuously unfolding intimacy....

Later, eating Danish pastry and tasting steaming coffee in the coffee shop a block away from Loring's apartment, the world seemed normal again. Their eyes met across the table, and they smiled, a little sheepishly, at one another.

"Feel better, sweetheart?" Loring asked.

"You know I do," she said softly. Then her smile abruptly disappeared and she frowned slightly. "But David, I have to tell you the rest of it, even though I want to forget it, and I know you would. After I had this feeling of being embraced--"

"You had an erotic fantasy, Janice." David interrupted firmly. "It's nothing to be ashamed of. It's an honest, sound objective appraisal of a scientific reality that every man has experienced a good many times in his life, and every woman too."

Janice shook her head.

"It would be all right if my erotic fantasy involved a man with no particular cast of features, just a man in the abstract. But it involved a living man, a man whom I'd just met and described to you. He's alive and a rival and you have to think of him in that way. You can't help yourself--no matter how scientifically enlightened you may try to be."

"I know," Loring said. "I was lying to myself and to you. I'd be jealous if it was just a man in the abstract. I'd be jealous if that man wasn't me."

She tried to laugh, tried to force gaiety into her voice. "You don't have to carry it quite as far as that," she said. "The man would be you, without all of the very dear, very special details filled in. You create a mental image first, in the abstract, a kind of unconscious clay model. Then you meet the only man in the world for you, and fill the details in.

"It was a terrifying experience. I knew he couldn't be real but his strength was so great I couldn't free myself. Even if I'd struggled violently and clawed at his face he'd have caught me again before I could reach the door."

Loring's face had gone very white. "But he was so attractive to you that you didn't struggle. Is that it?" Even before the words left his lips he hated himself, but he had to say them.

She shook her head, her eyes firmly denying it. "He was attractive, yes. The handsomest man I've ever seen. But his attractiveness had nothing to do with it. Oh, if he'd been an ugly-faced brute I suppose it might have seemed worse. But not much worse. I couldn't struggle because I'd gone numb all over. I couldn't even raise my arms."

"A man doesn't have to have an ugly face to be a brute!"

"There's nothing more, so you can stop torturing yourself. Quite suddenly he was gone, almost as if he'd never been there. It was all like some hideous nightmare, one of those dangerous, utterly terrifying dreams from which you awaken just in time. They're dangerous because people have died in their sleep just from shock. But I did awaken in time. You'll never know how relieved I felt, how inwardly glad."

"Then why are you still so frightened? Nothing happened to you. It's over and done with. Even his actual presence in your room, when you heard him speak, may have been an hallucination. Perfectly normal people can have hallucinations. What else is bothering you, Janice?"

She toyed with her coffee cup for a moment before answering, then spoke in a low voice. "An even stranger, more terrifying, thing happened. Harder to explain and ghastly in a completely non-human way. I don't think I was in quite as much danger, because it just stood there in the hall watching me without moving at all. But I had the feeling that if it did move I'd be in even greater danger."

"_It?_ Janice, what are you talking about?"

"Just give me a moment, darling. I'll tell you, but please don't rush me. Let me tell it in my own way. It was so frightening, so unbelievable that the mere thought of it makes me almost physically ill. In a way, it could be an hallucination, because I did have the shock of the other experience before I saw it. No shock preceded the first experience, as I told you, but this one--"

"All right now, try to stay calm. You're in no danger now. You're safe here with me. Remember that."

"I'll try."

"I love you very much."

"I know you do, darling. Well, I calmed myself down so successfully that I believe I could have gone back to sleep again. But I decided instead to get dressed and go out. I thought the fresh air might help to clear the cobwebs out of my brain.

"My nerves had stopped screaming, but I couldn't shake off the feeling that there were still cobwebs deep in my mind crisscrossing, forming a hideous pattern. Down one of the gleaming strands a black widow spider was crawling slowly toward me."

"Black widow spiders devour their own mates," Loring said. "But the female is about fifty times as large as the male. Only the males have to worry."

It was the wrong way to ease her tension, and he instantly regretted that he hadn't kept silent.

She went on quickly, her voice tightening. "It took me only a moment to get some clothes on and I didn't waste any time with make-up. But I was trembling so I kept dropping things, and I thought I'd never get the door open. I didn't realize just how badly shaken I was, though, until I got out into the hall. There was a dim light bulb at the end of the hall and there were shadows everywhere, large dark shadows that seemed to change shape as I stared at them. Then I saw it."

Her voice shook and she looked quickly around the nearly deserted restaurant, as though expecting someone to be eavesdropping.

"Just remembering it is terrifying. The creature looked almost human. It had a face with nose, eyes, ears and the body of a man. Darling, I--I can't describe it. Not really, not perfectly, because I only saw it for an instant and it was standing in shadows. But I saw enough to know that it wasn't human--couldn't have been human. It wasn't a man or a woman. It was a _thing_."

TWO

Ten minutes later they were back in Loring's apartment again. David had thought it best to hear the rest of Janice's revelation there. As they entered the large studio living room an oppressive pall seemed to burden the atmosphere; as though they had stepped from the cheerful bustle of the Village street into a place where fear and uncertainty dwelled. David shook off the feeling resolutely; this was his own apartment, and no one dwelled here except himself, and he was a realistic, if somewhat romantic fellow.

They sat down together on the couch which had held them rapturously entwined in one another's arms such a short time ago.

"Now Janice," he said, trying to keep his voice calm and patient, as though he were a doctor dealing with a difficult patient. "You probably had an hallucination. But tell me about this Thing you saw. And remember I am right here beside you."

She spoke with an effort. "I saw it distinctly enough to be sure it was alive and watching me. I saw its face. It was flat, coldly impassive, hideous. No animation in the features at all. The nose was bulbous. Like the nose of an alcoholic. Oh, I know that sounds almost ludicrous, but it's the right description. I can't think of a more accurate one. Its eyes--"

"Go on."

"They were small, dark and smouldering, buried in folds of pinkish flesh. I said no animation, but the eyes were alive, riveted on me as if it were--yes, a ghoul. As if it wanted to pounce on me, sink its teeth in my flesh and suck all the marrow from my bones. There were two little knobby outgrowths protruding from its forehead, one from each temple. They were pinkish too, and if they had been a little longer they would have looked like horns."

"Let me get this straight, Janice. Its face was flat and yet the nose was bulbous. And when the eyes are animated they have a great deal of expression. It makes the other features seem animated too. Aren't there contradictions there?"

"No, I don't think so. Its face did look flat, masklike, despite the bulbous nose and the smouldering eyes. I had the feeling that its features just weren't human--that it was incapable of feeling as we do, thinking as we do. I told you how I felt. It was some kind of monster, despite its almost human body."

"Did you see its hands?"

"That's what terrified me the most, David. I don't think it had hands. Its arms were in shadow, so I couldn't be sure. But I think it had claws. Talons. I didn't wait to make sure. I ran on past it and down the stairs. It made no attempt to follow me."

For an instant Loring sat motionless, shaken in spite of himself, not quite knowing what to believe. Then, quite suddenly, a look of relief came into his eyes. In another moment his expression had changed again. The relief was gone and his eyes were blazing with anger.

"A prank!" he said. "That's what it must have been. All of it, from the moment you saw that lacquered, good-looking joker in your room to the caricature in the hall. Some Village character is having a time for himself, at our expense. Damn him to hell!"

"But David, I told you--"

"Never mind what you think you saw. I know exactly what happened now. It happens often enough, not only in the Village but wherever artists and writers throw parties and allow envious people to drift in. There's always some joker with no talent who wants to get back at people who have talent. Sex can get mixed up in it, too. Someone is making a play for another man's girl, or--"

"You mean you think the whole thing may have been directed at you."

"Quite possibly. At me through you. I wouldn't put it past Jack Durbin." He rose and paced the room, excited by the possibility of a rational answer to the strange tale.

"But it wasn't Durbin I saw in my room. Or anyone we know."

"Naturally! Durbin's looks would eliminate him right off. But he could have talked a friend into helping out with the prank. There are a dozen other people I could nominate for the role. You don't always remember the faces of people you meet casually at parties. You may have been staring into a cocktail glass when the good-looking guy was introduced to you. You may have met him and forgotten all about it."

"I wouldn't forget."

"All right, you wouldn't forget him. So he's new, someone you've never seen before. That doesn't rule out the possibility that he was talked into helping out with the prank by Durbin or someone else. We've attended thirty or forty parties in the last eighteen months. All kinds of people. Beatniks, Madison Avenue gray flannel suiters, painters who have crashed the midtown galleries, piano players, wrestlers, trapeze artists, lads who have been writing the Great American Novel for forty years. You can take your pick. I'll cast my vote for one of the far-out, real gone Beatniks."

"Darling, if I could really believe--"

"Let me finish, Janice. All kinds of people can get erotically compulsive ideas, dangerous and malicious ideas. They become lost to all honor. That's an old-fashioned word, but I've always rather liked it."

"I've no quarrel with it, David. But I can't believe it was all a malicious prank. I just can't reconcile what I saw with any such convenient, easy-to-accept explanation. You've convinced yourself that the figure in the hall was wearing a mask. It was the first thing I thought of, but I couldn't go on believing it."

"Why not? It makes sense."

"Not to me. That creature was real, David. Real and alive and a monster. Not a man disguised by a mask. Its face had a fleshly look."

"But you said yourself that its face was masklike. And modern mechanical masks can be almost unbelievably lifelike. Mask-making has become a fine art. It always was, in a sense, but it's genius-inspired today. I've seen a few of the extraordinary ones--both the Frankenstein monster type and the kind that wouldn't scare a woman if she woke up and saw it beside her on a pillow in the morning. She might even--"

"Don't say it, David, or I'll get angry. I've been holding myself in, but I _can_ get angry. You've been pressing the jealousy pedal too hard, damaging the sound track, jamming the keys."

"I'm sorry, Janice. It just slipped."

"What are you going to do, David? If you really believe it was just a malicious prank."

"Find him, of course. Find him and take off the mask and flatten his face out so he won't really need a mask to look like a ghoulish monster. That way we'll be helping each other."

"You may end up in jail."

"It will be worth it. Finding him may not be easy, but there's a good chance I'll get my hands on him if I work at it hard enough. I'm going over to your apartment right now, alone. I want you to stay here until I get back. I'll question the neighbors. Someone may have seen him coming or going. I'll describe him and try to locate someone who knows him well, or has seen him often enough to recognize the description. Then I'll go through the halls and your apartment with a fine-tooth comb. He may have left a clue to his identity somewhere about the apartment."

"That seems unlikely, David."

"You never know. Even professional criminals get careless and he isn't a professional. It's surprising how often intruders leave traces somewhere. They get careless and drop something, even a slip of paper with a name or address on it. I know a detective lieutenant who's firmly convinced you have at least a forty percent chance of tracing a criminal intruder if you're thorough enough and explore all of the possibilities."

"All right, David, go ahead. I won't try to stop you. Find out all you can. I think you're wrong. I don't believe it was a prank. I'm sure it was something stranger and more terrifying, something we can't even begin to understand. But I don't want you to blame me later. Although I really can't see what good catching him would do."

"You don't? I should think you'd be the first to understand how I feel."

"I can understand how you feel, David. But what good would knocking him down do? If you're right about its being a prank he's a very sick man. Actually, you ought to have compassion and want to help him."

"I'm afraid I can't be that objective about it. It's a matter of male pride."

"Well, go ahead, indulge your pride, David. I'm not stopping you...."

The parting shot rankled a little as David stood outside the apartment building staring down the long length of MacDougal Street, his eyes alert for a cruising taxi. Simply being angry with her made no sense at all, he told himself. A woman couldn't understand how a man felt when he was caught up in an ugly situation that could only be straightened out in one way if he wanted to go on living with himself.

Being angry made no sense, but he should have explained to her exactly what would happen to his integrity if he shrugged the whole matter off and forgot about it. Emotionally she would never understand, but he should have made a serious effort to at least straighten her out intellectually and correct the impression he'd left with her that he was scientifically moronic and still living in the Middle Ages as far as mental illness was concerned.

The prankster was quite possibly psychotic, or, at the very least, a psychopathic personality. But even so, his integrity demanded that he give the scoundrel at least one sturdy biff in the jaw. After that, he could afford to feel generous and enlightened and drag the man by the scruff of his neck to the nearest mental institution.

A taxi swung to the curb at last and Loring got in and gave the driver Janice's Horatio Street address. He relaxed a little and watched Village stores, restaurants and dry cleaning establishments sweep past the windows of the cab. The almost completely deserted aspect of the Village before ten in the morning never ceased to fascinate him. He didn't quite know why.

Three minutes later, the taxi drew in to the curb in front of a four-story brownstone. Loring paid the driver, climbed the stoop and walked up two flights of stairs to the door of Janice's apartment. He inserted the key she had given him into the lock.

Janice's apartment seemed completely peaceful--quiet and appealing in the early morning light which streamed in from a high window directly opposite the daybed. The covers were in disarray and there was a slipper in the middle of the floor and a small oaken stand had been overturned in her hurry to get away. But otherwise the room was in order and her presence seemed to hover over everything that Loring touched.

He was staring at the slipper when a chill thought crept into his mind, and made his heart stand still. What if she were not alive and safe and waiting for him in the apartment they'd soon be sharing? What if he were a lover returning alone to a house that would never echo to her footsteps again? What if she occupied a narrow home beneath a row of cypresses and he was alone now with only memories to comfort him, or tear cruelly at his heart?

If he were returning alone to such a dwelling, could he bear even to look at the slipper, the unmade bed, all of the dear, precious things her hands had touched?

He remembered suddenly that in the past when he had allowed his mind to dwell even for a moment on some great and inconsolable loss which had never actually taken place he was the better for it--a man more capable of taking full advantage of every moment of joy and happiness in the narrowing orbit of his days. You had to live every moment to the full, with as much heightening of consciousness as you were capable of experiencing, because the orbit started narrowing when you were twenty and never grew any wider even when it stopped narrowing for a time and stayed the way it had been.

In the past such thoughts had not shaken him too profoundly or left a cold chill in their wake. But now they did, somehow. The room felt perceptibly more somber and the chill seemed to spread out from his mind in widening circles to envelop the chairs and bedside table, the bricks of the fireplace and even the pictures on the wall.

He did not hear the door open, though it made a faint click which would have been audible to anyone less preoccupied.

He did not even hear the woman's footsteps approaching him across the room. Her tread was very light and the rug was deep-napped and very soft. But her quick, excited breathing and the heady perfume which was distilling its essence through the room--an odor of jasmine--and the rustle of her dress as she moved quickly made him aware that he was no longer alone.

He turned abruptly and stood staring at her, unable to move or speak, a look of dazed disbelief in his eyes.

He had never seen the woman before. Once seen, her face would have stayed forever in his memory and he could not possibly have forgotten how tormentingly beautiful it was or failed to remember every first-encounter impression, the time, the place, the exact moment when she had ceased to be a stranger.

Her beauty was so overwhelming that it stirred the heart in ways that were dangerous. Instantly, tumultuously, like a drug injected directly into the aorta, tightening the muscle fibers, drawing them together, increasing each pulse beat, turning each beat into a hammer blow in a bursting stillness.

THREE

David Loring had no way of knowing that he was under observation and that his every movement was being watched. He could not see the lighted tele-communication screen or the cold, alien eyes trained on his image as he inserted the key which Janice had given him into the door of her apartment and stood for an instant motionless, with an angry set to his jaw.

He did not know that an alien electronic pickup device was transmitting his image from an apartment house hallway in Greenwich Village to a hovering flying disk high in the sky. Within the disk the screen glowed brightly and Loring's image was life size. It stood out with a startling, three-dimensional clarity. Not only was the image studied carefully, it was relayed to a dozen other flying disks within a radius of six hundred miles. The eyes that watched were dark and inscrutable, buried in folds of pinkish flesh. They did not blink, but stared steadily and without noticeable animation. Each eye was like a smoky lens, concealing more than it revealed, keeping its many secrets hidden. Each eye was a Sphinx-eye, brooding and unfathomable.

And each was the eye of a Martian.

The truth would have staggered Loring and broken down all of his defenses. He would have stood motionless, his hand on the doorknob, struggling to remain calm but feeling his sanity imperiled. Fortunately he did not know, did not even suspect that everything he said or did was being constantly scrutinized.

His ignorance was shared by every man, woman and child on Earth. Not even the sharp, wise eyes of the astronomers had detected the rocket flares on Mars when the Martian ships had taken off from the red planet on their three-stage journey across space.

There were other things that Loring did not know or suspect. The Martian invaders of Earth had been woman hunting. They had been woman hunting so relentlessly for five days that even as Loring's image flickered on their tele-communication screens their great, silvery mother ship was moving slowly above the autumn-resplendent countryside one hundred and forty miles from New York City, at an altitude of ninety feet above ground level.

It was a deserted region of sapling spruce and birches and dwarfed evergreens, growing so symmetrically on the sloping hillsides that each isolated group of trees had a deceptive appearance of greenhouse cultivation.

The Martian invaders were taking a calculated risk. They were almost sure that the sparsely settled region would contain no eyewitness whom they could not quickly capture and silence. But they could not be completely sure. The screams of the captured women or the barking of savage dogs on the scattered farms or in the streets of the small village communities might be just loud and frantic enough to alert the hard-eyed, stony-faced men whose duty it was to carry arms and be always on guard.

The inhabitants of Earth had already seen far too many Martian ships. Fortunately their Martian origin had not been stressed even by the credulous, and the majority of eyewitnesses preferred to believe they came from Venus, or the dark side of the moon, or some unknown region of outer space. No scientist of world wide prestige had even seen a flying saucer, and scientists in general refused to take Unidentified Flying Objects seriously, and were quick to dismiss the many rumored sightings as superstitious nonsense--a product of mass hysteria.

Nevertheless it was a dangerous undertaking. If a Martian ship should meet with an accident and be forced to land, tangible proof would exist in abundance. There would be a fiery crater in the quiet countryside which would flame more brightly than a cluster of burning buildings. The walls of the crater would be eroded and smoke-blackened, its circumference sprinkled with radio-active dust from the descending ship's exploding rocket jets. A search party would be likely to find, scattered about in the immediate vicinity, fragments of a radio-active metal unknown on Earth.

A wave of terror would sweep from city to city, from continent to continent, until it engulfed the entire planet. Emergency warning signals would be broadcast everywhere, from New York and London, from Paris and Moscow, to the remote Asian villages: _It has come. The ultimate horror, the unbelievable. Earth has been invaded by the intelligent inhabitants of another planet._

And if a Martian should be captured alive.... The thought could be accepted by the human mind perhaps and even embraced with a momentary, wholly unjustified feeling of triumph. But to a Martian it would be a death thought, too hideous to contemplate.

A Martian in a cage or in a laboratory, stared at, jeered at perhaps, completely at the mercy of his human captors. A Martian stretched out on an operating table, with sharp instruments of human science glittering in a cone of radiance above his strapped-down body. Pain, torment beyond endurance. Martian pride humbled, and dragged through the dust.

A dissecting laboratory. Would Earth display pity or stay its hand if it needed knowledge to forge weapons to combat an intelligent race bent on space conquest--a race so different from Man in some respects that it would be easy to think of its captive members as caged beasts or hideous and dangerous monsters?

No mercy would be shown. No mercy could be expected. It would be a battle to the death, and in some respects Earth's technological knowledge was formidable. No Martian ship could hope to survive a full-scale atomic attack. The hydrogen bomb was far more destructive than any Martian weapon, deadly as some of those weapons were. A single nuclear bomb could destroy ten or twelve Martian ships moving in close formation.

It was not a thought which Tragor cared to dwell upon. He stood in the observation compartment of the mother ship, staring out at the bright autumn foliage directly beneath him. The ship was hovering so low above the sloping countryside that its hull almost brushed the branches of occasional tall trees, looming like sentinel posts above the dwarfed pines and the slender trunks of young birch trees, spruces and cedars. Some of the hillsides were rocky and overgrown with lichen, their leaf-choked recesses and bramble patches casting purple shadows. Others were bright with a riot of autumn colors, reds and browns and golden yellows.

Tragor could see his own reflection in the view-glass, tall and grave and commanding. It seemed incredible to him that even on an alien world his appearance could cause a female to recoil from him in terror and revulsion. That he should seem handsome and desirable, an outstandingly virile male, to all humanoid women--no matter what their lineage--was something he had taken for granted.

Was he, after all, so different from the males whom women mated with on Earth? Did he not have a strong, robust body, well-shaped, eyes that could burn with an unquenchable ardor, hands that could clasp and caress? Why, if the women of Earth seemed so maddeningly attractive and desirable to him, did he not seem equally desirable to them? Why should they recoil from him in horror? Why should they regard him as a monster?

There were physical differences, of course, but they were biologically superficial. He was in every vital aspect of his being completely human. Human enough to make love, to embrace a human female and convince her in a hundred ways that in him she had a lover indeed. And every other Martian felt the same way. They had made a tragic blunder, but it was a blunder that could be wiped out, forgotten, and compensated for. It was not too late.

Had it not been, after all, a natural blunder, a credit to a male with pride? To conquer and colonize another planet was a hazardous undertaking. To expose females to so great a danger, to such unimaginable hardships, would have been unthinkable. But still, a mistake had been made. A male cannot live alone. The woman-need must be appeased, or unendurable frustration and wretchedness will result.

And on Earth there were women who, by a miracle that could not be easily explained, were even more desirable to a Martian than the females of his own race. If only--

Forget the "only" Tragor told himself with vigor. Their fear can be overcome, their resistance broken down. Ardor will do it, flaming ardor, all the delights of the dark, the words of love, the whispered reassurances. Limbs crushing limbs, with a passion irresistible, gentleness with fierceness intermingled....

Yes, yes. He only needed to be bold, virile, fearless. And he had a great boldness within him. He was stronger than any male on Earth and wiser and more understanding. In the long run no human woman could resist him.

Had they not already captured and studied dozens of human women? They had needed to do that for a quite different reason, a reason not associated with lovemaking at all. They had held themselves in restraint, because they had not been so long cut off from the women of their own race that the torment and frustration had become unendurable. Studying the women of Earth had been part of the master plan, the Great Plan for Earth conquest.

Nothing must be allowed to interfere with that plan even now. But now there was another need--compulsive, overwhelming. For every Martian a mate must be found--a woman tender and yielding.

_For every Martian._

Tragor straightened in sudden alertness, his eyes on a stretch of open countryside a few hundred feet in front of the steadily advancing ship. Between a winding brook and a small, tree-shadowed grove eight or ten tiny human figures were moving slowly about or sitting in pairs on the grass.

He had seen such groups before and the sight did not surprise him. They were hikers, relaxing after a strenuous tramp over the green-yellow hills, and enjoying one another's company by a cool stream in the shadow of whispering boughs. They had unwrapped packages of food and spread a white tablecloth on the grass and at the edge of the stream a girl with gold-red hair was filling a pail with water.

He could see the girl clearly now, her slender supple form bent seductively above the pale, sky-mirroring water. There were other girls in the group but even at a distance they seemed far less attractive. Two were very stout and one was a gaunt, big-boned woman with almost mannish features and no roundness where Tragor looked for roundness with anticipatory delight.

He saw now that the group consisted of eight people, and that four of them were men. The men could be destroyed without difficulty and presented no problem. But he studied them carefully nevertheless. He studied their physiques for muscular sturdiness and their faces, as the ship drew rapidly nearer, for qualities which might prove troublesome in a struggle, however heavily the odds were weighted against them: resolution, defiance, firmness of mind and will.

He knew that a few men would fight to the death, counting their own lives of no importance, if a monster threatened a woman dear to them. Tragor recoiled a little at the thought, cursing himself for allowing such an image to torment him at a moment when his triumph seemed assured. He was not a monster, and he intended to make sure that the woman by the brook did not think of him as one for long. She would very soon find out he was the most perfect lover she had ever known.

How many human lovers had she known? he wondered. A woman that beautiful could hardly have escaped lovers, but it did not matter to him at all. It disturbed human males, sometimes even drove them to acts of violence, but he was not that kind of a fool. He could make any woman forget any lover in her past. He was sure of it. He could blot the memory from her mind, make it seem less than the shadow of a dream. She would exist for him alone and believe that she had come into his arms completely virginal.

A little violence at first perhaps might be needed. He must be firm and unbending, but it would not be for long. She would quickly enough dissolve in his arms when the monster image was destroyed by an embrace more passionate and unyielding than she could have dared to hope for, even during those moments of wild surrender when a woman is asleep and dreaming and restrained by nothing sternly forbidding and unfair to her nature in the waking world.

The four men and four women had seen the ship now and were on their feet, pointing, shouting, their faces contorted with terror. The girl by the brook had dropped her pail and was running toward the others, her red-gold hair whipped by the wind, her white limbs gleaming in the sunlight.

Tragor swayed a little, so aroused and stimulated by her great beauty that he was unable to take command. He stood very still, his heart beating wildly, knowing that it was not really necessary for him to act. Others would act for him, as they had often done in the past. In the absence of direct orders the ship would veer slightly, and then remain stationary, hovering above the women who were to be taken captive and the men who were to be destroyed. A wide section of the hull would swing open, and five heavily armed Martians would descend to the ground over a collapsible metal stairway. The stairway would be instantly withdrawn and not lowered again until the men had been killed, the women taken captive.

It was happening now. Tragor could hear the thrumming of the opening hull section, the metallic clatter of weapons and equipment as the marauding party waited with no attempt to conceal their impatience for the stairway to be lowered.

Then, through the view-glass, he saw the stairway go down and the first of the five Martians start to descend, his massive shoulders and hairless skull giving him the formidable aspect of a trained warrior who would give and expect no quarter. The brutishness of the warrior caste never failed to repel Tragor a little, but he realized that warriors were necessary.

A human woman might almost be justified in looking upon a Martian warrior as a monster. A straggle-legged brute, hairy and uncouth and utterly lacking in refinement. To be seized by a warrior, roughly slapped, and carried screaming and kicking to a space ship could hardly fail to be abhorrent to a sensitive and delicate woman. But a desirable woman could not be allowed to escape and the women of Earth were often incredibly fleet of foot.