Now, in the flickering, wasted light of the crude lamps lining the clearing, Folsom addresses the other two, Nina and Closter, in what he has declared to be a formal session. Stark’s moans and contortions from the tent in which he has been bound are somewhat disconcerting but Stark is helpless and Folsom decides to ignore him. The other two are sullen, defiant, dangerous themselves but they are essentially contained and Folsom knows that they will abide by the compacts. They must: he is the commander, he is the only one with requisite knowledge of how to fire up the mighty machines, seal up the locks of the great ship; without him they will never return to Earth. So they stand quietly as Folsom speaks to them, keeping his voice low and controlled. Fine streaks in the dark invisibly marking the place where Nina had struck him seem to glow within Folsom’s skin; in that mesh of pain he senses a beacon which may guide them to the source of that pain, his disgrace . . . but he will ignore that. Nina too is simply now an enemy; she is one to be dealt with. “We are going to cease attempts to communicate with the aliens at once,” Folsom says, “and we are going to make preparations to debark from this planet. I am putting in the request to the Bureau after this meeting to allow us to debark.”
This incites no comment. Perhaps they have nothing to say. Of course there is the matter of his prior actions being extremely upsetting but Folsom cannot allow personalities to enter into the matter. This is not the commander’s concern. As far as he is concerned anyway, the incident is closed.
“I have my reasons for this,” he says, “upon which I do not care to go into detail at the present time. There is no reason for me to do so: the regulations on this point are quite specific. The decision as to the point of conclusion of the expedition resides solely within the commander. It is his to make. It is completely between the commander and his own set of judgments. And in the commander’s opinion this mission must be terminated at once.”
There is more silence. Closter and Nina look at Folsom impassively; if he were equipped with a paranoid frame of reference he might think that they were in some obscure way out to get him. As it is he could not be less concerned: theycannot get him. No one can. He is the commander; he is invulnerable.
A rich scream from Stark pierces the stillness. It moves up and down the scale in vibrating fashion, holding at the top for a while, then sliding down to a profound baritone wavering with pain. Folsom clasps his hands, listens to it without apparent emotion. Inside he is suffering of course but he will not show this. Nor is there any point in demonstrating his emotion; he must preserve a steely mask. Closter twitches, his knees shake, he seems at the point of standing and bolting to his distressed mate.
“Don’t think of it,” Folsom says coldly, “just stay there. He is perfectly well, he is not in pain and he is responsible for this.”
Nina says, “Do you have anything else to tell us?” She clasps her hands in unconscious mimicry of Folsom’s, inclines her head. The half-moon slashes light across her cheekbones; truly she is most attractive. She has never been more attractive to Folsom than she is at this moment. Not that this bears any relevance of course.
“Why yes,” he says, “I have a great deal more to tell you but I’ll do so in my own way. I want to know now why you went across expressed procedure and told the alien about the Bible.”
“The what?” Closter says, “what are you talking about?”
“You know perfectly well what I’m talking about,” Folsom says with superb calm, monitoring his breathing, his pulse, the dull regularity of his life-support processes with dispassion while he meets Closter’s luminescent eyes. “You named him Ezekiel as is in the Old Testament. In so doing you talked to him about the Old Testament, about his secrets and its history. That is expressly forbidden. Our traditions, our mythos are private and not to be shared with any stage three race.”
“You’re crazy,” Nina says, “you’ve got to be insane.”
“Ah,” Folsom says and leans forward over the improvised lectern which he has hastily assembled from chopped down twigs and little branches, propped against one another in the mud, “ah, you say that I am crazy but that is because you realize the seriousness of the situation now. You know the consequences of your act and the terrible penalties . . .”
“You are crazy,” Nina says again. She stands, moving from the half-crouch with which she has assimilated this information. “I won’t listen to this anymore.”
“You had better listen,” Folsom says with his newfound calm. Stark shrieks again; it is only obligato to his purpose, he ignores it. “You had better listen to what I’m saying; we could all be in the most serious trouble because of your stupid error and you cannot walk away from it.”
“The man is suffering,” Closter says, gesturing toward the enclosure. “At least let us minister to him.”
“In due course,” I say. “I am the commander and will decide when you may treat him and when you may not. I intend to keep a much stronger hold on your behavior than in the past; I do believe that this is the only way to solve the problem. Only way to solve the problem,” I repeat judiciously and stand, tower over them, impressing them with my height and power as well I might since I am the commander and physically far superior to any of them. I should have taken this line a long time ago; we would not have gotten into such difficulties. “Is that understood?” I say.
They look at me unspeaking. I can see the one sliding cross-wise look which they exchange, a look which is supposed to be below the level of my apperception and which communicates, of course, a whole battery of message. It does not bother me. Another rich scream from Stark opens up the darkness into ghostly shimmers of light. He is bound up quite tightly. “One more thing,” I say. They look at me sullenly. “There is to be no more contact with the natives.”
“Why?” Nina says.
“Because I order it. We are going to debark just as soon as we can get the approval through; in the meantime we are to stay away from them. Further contact would be extremely dangerous.”
“We can’t avoid contact,” Closter says quietly. “Ezekiel has been sent to the village to instruct them and to bring a delegation who similarly want to be socialized. They will be coming here.”
“Then they will be turned away. Forcibly if necessary.”
“I don’t understand why,” Nina says. “I don’t see why it has to be this way,” and then as if having made some complex series of considerations, while some intricate balancing wheel of the psyche turns inside her, she sits quietly, says nothing whatsoever. I can feel her implacable hostility pouring from her like heat and I can feel Closter’s as well, but hostile reaction of course is the inevitable concurrent of strong command and it does not bother me. Nothing bothers me; in truth I feel very much in control of myself. “All right,” I say, “I am going to ask you to return separately. In future there will be no contact between you unless I am present. I am invoking martial law.”
Closter stands and says, “Can I take care of him now?” motioning in Stark’s direction.
“I suppose so.”
“That’s very kind of you,” he says. He lumbers off into the darkness. I watch him go, shrewdly, measuring. Nina coughs and then stands.
“Wait a minute,” I say.
“What?”
“I said wait a minute.”
She holds in position. My power over them is astonishing; my prerogatives absolute, it is again dismaying to think that I could have done this a long time ago and saved the situation. But at least I have done it now. I look at her and in the darkness she assumes another form, something for which I have no words but which has an alternate reality. She could be an alien. Perhaps I am thinking of her as an alien. “I want you to go with me,” I say, “I want you to look at something.”
“Look at what?”
“You’ll see,” I say. I move over to her, touch her hand, lead her. She comes into my grasp easily, the collaboration of her body a mockery of the older collaboration I have known. Putting my hand on her shoulder blades I can feel through the resilience that it is over: Nina and I will never have sex again. Mating or not, the ancient codes of command overweigh the more modern ones of connection: I cannot, in the new position that I have assumed, show any softness. But for all the feeling of detachment and control there is sadness as well. Our copulation was good. It was life-sustaining. How was I to have known that it was not only that but the seat of my weakness as well?
Like dancers we move through the forest toward the place where I have hidden the rock. I feel an inexplicable excitement rising, knowing that I am going to show it to her. Caution will not hold me back nor will collaboration: I want her to see it. The secret which has been buzzing and flapping in my head hammers now at the ridges in the skull, causing a feeling of dislocation. What will the rock reveal? What will her appraisal of it tell me?”
“Faster,” I say. I am pulling at her. “Come faster.”
“You’re hurting me,” she says. She gasps, stumbles through the foliage but I increase the pressure on her. “You’re crazy,” she says again. “I think you’re mad.”
“I’m not mad,” I say, “I just want some answers.” Now I am in the little glade where I placed the rock.
“There,” I say and point to the rock.
She looks at me. I can see her face distinctly in this close aperture, her eyes are stunned, she seems absolutely beyond speech. “What do you want of me?” she says then, “what is this for?”
“That,” I say, holding my finger steadily, unwaveringly on the rock, “that is what I want from you. I want you to tell me what that is.”
“You’re hurting me. You’re lying on my leg.”
“Yes,” I say, “yes of course.” An odd courtesy and tenderness fills me, I roll away from her, whisk myself to my feet, lean over, scraping off little fragments of dirt from her and then extend my hands to lift her to her feet. She comes up quickly against me in a dancer’s motion, I feel the cool slant of her fingers within my hand. And odd sense of communion fills me; I am touched by her. “That,” I say motioning to the rock once again, “I want you to tell me what that is.”
She looks at it with interest. In the little spokes of light from the moon the writing is distinct, the background has a brownish hue I had never noticed before. It is almost as if the rock were a living thing and it was sprouting little vegetation in its hidden place. “Tell me what that means,” I say to her.
She looks at it still. I can tell that her desire to be dispassionate, to remove herself from me is being throttled by something else, something which could be described as scientific detachment. Although she hates herself for it, the rock interests her. I stand back so that she can get a better look. It is quiet and dense with foliage here in the forest. It occurs to me that I could force myself upon her here and no one would ever know. For that matter, who would protect her? Of course I would not even consider doing this. “I don’t understand it,” I say.
“Where did you find this?”
“I found it in a clearing near the village.”
“And you brought it back here yourself?”
“Of course I did. Who was going to bring it back for me?”
“What did you do that for?” Nina says. She crouches carefully, moistens a fingertip with her tongue, wipes it across the surfaces of the rock. Do I imagine this or do the letters respond with a tentative little glow, seeming to squirm over the surfaces? She wipes her hands on the cloth over her knees, stands. “This is fascinating,” she says. “I don’t understand it.”
“I thought that you might.”
“I don’t understand any of it. You mean you found this yourself and brought it back here on your own? Why didn’t you tell us about it at once?”
“I’m telling you now,” I say. “Isn’t that enough?”
“But you should have told us immediately. I don’t think that this is a native object. It seems to be an artifact of some kind.”
“I didn’t have the chance to tell any of you. You were so absorbed with the native.”
“Is that why you made us release the native? Is that why you’ve put Stark under arrest? Because you didn’t want us to deal with the native, you wanted us to look at this?”
I feel almost abashed. As always, with that concentrated insight of hers, she has come close onto the truth. “Maybe,” I said. “That wasn’t all of it. There are even more important things but I thought that, yes, you could have taken a look at this . . .”
“Then why didn’t you ask us?” she says.
The question sets me back. Indeed, why did I not simply call their attention to this? “I wanted you to be finished with your studies,” I say, and then add rather vaguely, “but you wouldn’t be. Not within a normal span of time. You just went on and on and you weren’t getting anywhere.”
“You’re insane. You know that you’re insane, aren’t you aware of that? You’ve got to know that you’re crazy.”
“I’m afraid that you understand nothing. There are certain obligations which as commander of the expedition I have to serve; I couldn’t expect, of course, that you would be concerned with them.”
“Where did you say you found this?”
“I found it in a clearing near the village. I could show you the exact spot, I suppose, if you wanted. Can you understand it?”
“No,” she says, standing abruptly, “I can’t understand any of it. I’d need to spend hours and hours with it. I can’t tell a thing just by looking. Also, we’d have to work together.”
“Who would have to work together?”
“The full team of course. We work in tandem. You can’t expect any of us could do the job alone.”
“No,” I say, “you are not going to work together. That’s clear. That’s quite definite. The team is broken up and your research is suspended.”
“Then I’m afraid,” she says, “that I’ll be able to tell you nothing.”
“What does the writing mean? What does it have to do with us?”
“You’re insane,” she says again. “You’ve gone quite mad. You can’t really be serious about this, can you?” She approaches me, stands inches from me, her mouth accusatory, her hard, high cheekbones radiating their own subtle message. “Is it this that has driven you insane?” she says, gesturing back over her shoulder to the rock. “Could that be the explanation for this?”
Suddenly I am overtaken by desire. It hits me with a clout between the shoulder blades, much as I had been stricken in that moment before I had seen the rock. It is just as if a giant had come from the heavens to smite me, an idea of reference quite common with megalomaniac fantasies as I understand it but then again I am hardly an introspective type. The blow knocks me forward, sends me to my knees and in the same gesture I have extended my arms, seized her wrists, dragged her down to the ground facing me.
She crumples in astonishment, leans against me and says, “what are you doing now?”
“What do you think I’m doing now?”
“I won’t,” she says, trying to claw free, “damn it, I won’t do that with you!”
“You’ve got to,” I say, “it’s the compact.” Although lust has already made my voice indistinct, I am muttering syllables rather than words, parched little phrases rather than full sentences, and lying against her, pressing her into the earth, it is with the great throb of desire that I speak and force myself down and against her.
“Come on,” I say. “Come on, you have no right to deprive me. I’ve been patient. I’ve waited; I haven’t forced you to do anything but now I demand my rights.” I draw my hands up her arms, quivering. “My rights,” I say, my voice almost breaking, and try to gather her into me. She fights against me kicking and squealing, using my strength against myself to throw me off and I roll over on the ground, stab into a tree and then lie there quietly. Gasping I come to my knees, remove and point my weapon at her. “Don’t force me,” I say, “don’t force me to use this.”
She shakes her head. Oblong on oblong in the darkness, convolutions of the body working at cross-purposes. “You wouldn’t. You wouldn’t do anything like that.”
“Yes I would. I would have to.”
“You couldn’t. You couldn’t force me . . .”
“I can’t put up with it anymore,” I say, “and it’s not my fault. Now I have my rights too. What I did to Stark I can do to you. Do you want to be imprisoned? Do you want me to make a full report to the Bureau on insubordination? We’re not going to be on Folsom’s Planet forever, you know. You could spend a long, long time under confinement.”
Movements cease. “You are mad,” she says, “you are really mad.”
“No I’m not. I’m simply assuming control.”
“But I don’t care. I don’t care anymore. I’ll fuck you. Come here.”
“Good.”
“Just put that weapon away.”
“I already have.”
“I’ll even study your rock for you. I’ll do anything you wish. Anything! Just get me out of here.”
“Oh I will,” I say, “we’ll be leaving soon. It won’t be long now until the instructions come through.”
“It better not be.”
Everything will be fine,” I say. Little swatches and patches of song once again begin to brush against the seat of memory; I find myself humming as I cavort slowly toward her, the ground swelling on foothold like an animal, seeming to rise to greet the little prongs of my feet as I move toward her, the air itself delicate, warm, caressing, never have I felt the atmosphere of Folsom’s Planet to be such a palpable thing . . . and then my lust, guiding me home, takes me close, takes me against her, I swim into her arms, piscine, I rub my scales and fins against her, insert my claws in her arms, her own unnecessary coverings fall away, we fall away together and there at the bottom of the world we copulate, I am plunging in and out of her, thickly; demanding renewal from the engines of her body, I find a collaborative rhythm within her, work on it, draw it out, beat it through my blood and brain . . . and as I rise to come shrieking my eyes are focused on the rock, the hieroglyphics gleaming in the crazy moon and at the summit I almost think that I can read it but later on, collapsed across her like a dead fish in the bottom of a boat, I understand that I can not.