“Could you explain that in words of one syllable?”
Carlsen said: “Listen, I’ll leave you two together for five minutes, if I may.”
In his own office, he dialled the projection room. It appeared on the telescreen. Every seat was taken, and people were standing in the aisles. On the big screen at the end of the room he recognised the Stranger, its vast bulk scarcely illuminated by the sunlight. The camera was evidently pulling back for a final shot. A moment later, the screen went blank, and people began to stand up.
He rang the director’s office; he knew Bukovsky would have seen the transmission earlier. Bukovsky’s rasping voice said: “Who is it?”
“Carlsen, sir.”
“Olof! I’ve been trying to get hold of you all afternoon.” The tone was reproachful.
“Sorry, sir. I fell asleep in Hyde Park.”
“Well, thank God you’re here now. Listen, you know what’s happened?”
“Not really, sir.”
“Then listen and I’ll tell you. The Vega reached the Stranger at half past ten this morning. The first thing they discovered was an enormous hole in the roof. A meteor had gone through it like a cannonball. What do you think of that, eh?”
“You astound me, sir. An incredible coincidence.”
“That’s what I think. You didn’t report any meteor showers, did you?”
“There weren’t any, sir. Meteor showers are always associated with comets, and there wasn’t a comet within forty million miles.”
“Yes, yes.” Bukovsky hated to be told anything. “Then how could it happen?”
“It must have been a sporadic meteor. But the chances against that are about a million to one.”
Bukovsky grunted. “Just what I said. But of course, there’ll be pressure to act quickly as soon as the news gets out. You realise that, don’t you? Would you be able to appear on television tonight and explain that it’s a million-to-one chance?”
“Of course, sir. If you think it necessary.”
Bukovsky’s door opened, and half a dozen people came in; he recognised them as advisory staff. Bukovsky said: “I think you’d better get up here right away. How soon can you be up?”
“In five minutes, sir.”
“Make it two.”
He hung up. Carlsen looked at his watch and said: “Hell.” That meant leaving the interview with young Adams until later. He pressed the button that would connect him to the laboratory telescreen. The lab was empty. He reconnected with the specimen room. There was no telescreen in there, but there was an observation camera and a speaker system.
Seth Adams was alone. Carlsen was about to speak; then something made him pause. Adams was crossing the room furtively, like a cat stalking a bird. Carlsen switched back to the lab, looking for Pike, but he was nowhere to be seen. He switched through to the doorman.
“Have you seen Gerald Pike, the young man from electronics?”
“Yes, sir. He went out a few minutes ago.”
So Seth Adams had been alone for at least five minutes. He switched back to the specimen room. As he expected, Seth had opened one of the drawers. It was the one containing the man. He reached into his pocket, and took out a small object — a pen. He unscrewed the end, placed it close to his eye and pressed a button. It was a pen camera, of the type perfected in the twentieth century for spying. Carlsen should have remembered that no gossip columnist was ever without one.
He was disappointed. He did not like Seth Adams, but he had been willing to help him. In fact, he had even begun to feel a kind of sporting excitement at the prospect of his sensational scoop. Didn’t the young idiot realise that it was stupid to do this kind of thing? Now he wouldn’t get his damned interview, and if Bukovsky found out, he’d get kicked off the paper. He watched Adams close the drawer and open the next one. He was tempted to clear his throat and give him a fright. Or would it be simpler to pretend he didn’t know what had happened and let him get away with the photographs? It would be easy enough to stop the newspaper from using them.
Adams photographed the blonde girl, closed the drawer, then moved on. He pulled open the remaining drawer and sighted down the pen. A moment later, the pen was back in his pocket, and he had straightened up; his sigh of relief was audible over the telescreen. He tiptoed to the door and peered out, to verify that the laboratory was still empty. He looked carefully around the room, but failed to notice the disguised camera lens that followed him. Then he went back to the drawer and stood looking down at the girl. She was on a level with his knees. He bent over and touched the breast, then ran his hand slowly down over the body. Then he reached up and stroked the face, caressing the lips with his fingertips and pulling the lower one down. The other hand was resting on the thigh. Carlsen could gauge his increasing excitement by the sound of his breathing, which was clearly audible. When Adams dropped on his knees beside the drawer, Carlsen felt, it was time to interrupt. He crossed to the door, intending to slam it; the sound would carry over the loudspeaker. With the door open, he paused. He could see the shoulders bent over the drawer, but there was something unnatural about them; they were tensed, and the body was writhing. Fascinated and touched by sudden foreknowledge, he crept back to the telescreen. Seth’s head was inside the drawer, his face against the girl’s; but his body was jerking, as if in agony. Carlsen called out, and the body seemed to twist more violently. Then it became frozen again. It seemed to last for a long time. Then, very slowly, Seth Adams crumpled backwards, and fell. A hand appeared on the edge of the drawer. Unsteadily, as if waking from a deep sleep, the girl sat up. She looked around, ignoring the man’s body, then swung her legs over the side of the drawer, as if getting out of bed.
The other telescreen buzzed; Bukovsky’s voice said: “Carlsen, are you still there?”
Carlsen ignored it, running for the door. The lift stood open. Seconds later, he was in the corridor below, running to the laboratory. There was no thought of danger in his mind. He was thinking of Violet Mapleson, and hoping that Seth was merely unconscious.
The lab was empty. He ran to the specimen room, expecting to see the girl at the door. To his surprise, she was not there; then he realised she was lying down again. Her eyes were closed. He looked at Seth’s face and stepped back involuntarily. This was no longer the same man. Something had happened to the face. The lips had shrunk back, exposing the teeth, and they were cracked and grey. At first, it seemed that the face was covered with a grey cobweb; then he saw that it had also shrunk. The cobweb effect was produced by wrinkles. It had become an old man’s face. As Carlsen watched, he realised that the black hair was turning grey. The hands that protruded from the sleeves had also become wrinkled, and their flesh was shiny, as if turned to grey celluloid.
He noticed the movement from the drawer. Her eyes were open, and she was looking at him. There was no doubt that she was alive. The whole body seemed to radiate a soft glow. She smiled gently, like a child waking from sleep. He stared at her, experiencing an amazement that seemed to expand in waves. It was something he had never expected to see, some distant memory of childhood that had left no trace on his consciousness. It had something to do with trees and running water, and a fairy or water spirit who was also his mother. Beside this woman, all women in the world were crude, half-masculine copies. He felt his face twitching with a desire to burst into tears. His eyes wandered over her naked body, without lust, only with amazement at her beauty.
She smiled and held out her arms, like a child asking to be picked up. He reached out to take her hands, then stumbled over the body. He looked down and saw the grey, shiny face and the white hair; the clothes now looked several sizes too big. With sudden total certainty, the same certainty he had known when he saw Seth’s body stiffen on the television screen, he knew she had just sucked the life from a human being. He looked back at her, still feeling no horror. He said: “Why did you have to do that?”
She said nothing, but he seemed to feel her reply in his head. It was not clear; she seemed to be excusing herself, saying that it was necessary. Her hands were still held out; he shook his head, backing away. The girl sat up and climbed gracefully out of the drawer. She moved quickly, with total control, like a ballet dancer. Then she came and stood in front of him, and smiled.
At close quarters, even a beautiful woman shows defects. This girl had none; she was as beautiful as when she was at a distance. She reached up and started to put her arms around his neck. Inside his head, she was saying: “Make love to me. I know you love me. Use my body.” It was true; he loved her. He backed away, pushing aside her hands. The flesh was warm, slightly warmer than human flesh. He was not rejecting her; he wanted her with a greater intensity than he had wanted any woman, but he had always been a man of self-control; he attached importance to behaving like a gentleman. It would have been against all his instincts to make love to her where they were, in the specimen room.
He looked down again at the body, and it struck him that she had sucked out the man’s life, sucked out the results of twenty years of growth and organisation, as gluttonously as a hungry child drinks an ice cream soda. He said: “You murdered him.”
She took his hand, and he felt a glow of delight at the contact. Suddenly, all inhibitions vanished. She was urging him to go with her, somewhere where they could make love, and he wanted to do it. Still looking at the body, he knew that it would probably mean his death, but this seemed unimportant. He understood something he could not put into words. But his masculine training still resisted.
She put her arms round his neck and pulled his mouth down to hers. He kissed her, feeling the warmth of her naked body against him, his hands pressed against her waist and her buttocks. Now he understood more consciously what he had known since she opened her eyes. She could not take his life unless he gave it. She was offering to surrender to him; while he still held back, she had no power to take him. But he was aware that it was only a matter of how soon his gentlemanly self-control would dissolve.
Bukovsky’s voice said irritably: “Carlsen, where the hell are you?” It came from the laboratory. He stiffened and stopped kissing her. She released him unconcernedly and looked through the door. He felt her say: “I must go. How can I get out?”
His thoughts told her she needed clothes. She looked down at the body. He said: “No. They are men’s clothes.” She reached into his pocket, took out his wallet, and extracted his pass card. He made no effort to prevent her. Then she turned and walked out of the door. He followed her to the doorway. He could see Bukovsky on the lab telescreen talking to someone on the other side of his desk, saying: “I know he’s on that floor.” He looked up and saw Carlsen. “There you are.” The girl went out. Suddenly, Carlsen grasped his danger. It hit him with delayed shock; the realisation that this girl had been about to drink his life — with his full consent. All his strength went out of his body. He felt his knees buckle. He grasped the door for support and sank to the floor, still fully conscious, but utterly, completely weary, drained as if he had exhausted himself with some tremendous physical effort.
Bukovsky was bending over him. He had no recollection of becoming unconscious, only of dozing pleasantly. “What’s happened, Carlsen?”
He said sleepily: “They’re vampires. They suck life.”
He was on the couch in Bukovsky’s outer office. Harlow, in charge of Security, was sitting on a chair, bending over him. “Who’s the old man on the floor?”
He made an effort and sat up. He had the warm, woolly sensation he had experienced coming round from anaesthetic. “He’s not an old man. He’s a boy of twenty.”
Harlow evidently thought him delirious. He said: “Where’s the woman gone?”
“She woke up. She came to life. I saw it through the telescreen in my office.”
He found he had some difficulty in speaking, as if his coordination had gone. Stumbling over words, feeling as if he had some large, uncomfortable object in his mouth, he began to tell his story.
Bukovsky snapped: “You brought a reporter back here? You know that’s against all the regulations.”
He said, wearily but stubbornly, “No, it’s not. It’s my decision. It’s my press conference tomorrow. He was the son of an old friend. I just wanted to help him.”
“Well, you certainly helped him.”
Harlow was at the telescreen giving orders. He heard him say: “If you see her, don’t try to approach. Just shoot.”
The words brought a twist of pain. Then it struck him that she had his card; she could be anywhere in the building, or perhaps out of it.
Gradually, under the influence of black coffee, he was beginning to feel better. To his astonishment, he was hungrier than he had been since he arrived back on earth. He said: “Do you think I could have a sandwich? I’m ravenous.”
Bukovsky said: “Okay. Go on. What happened after you rang me?”
“I watched her kill him — over the telescreen. Then I went down.”
“Was she still there?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you let her escape?”
“I couldn’t stop her.”
The doctor came in. He made Carlsen take off his coat and shirt, then checked his pulse and blood pressure. He said: “You seem to be perfectly normal to me. I think you’re suffering from shock — nervous exhaustion.”
“Have you got a lambda meter?”
“Yes.” He looked surprised.
“Would you mind taking my lambda-field reading?”
The doctor connected up the galvanometer to his left wrist and placed the other electrode under his heart. “It’s higher than it should be. Quite a lot higher.”
“Higher?” He sat up. “Are you sure you’ve connected it the right way round?”
“Quite. It makes no difference anyway.” Higher… It was true that he felt a strange, warm glow inside him, in spite of the fatigue. Yet he was certain she had taken some of his life. He also recalled how exhausted he had felt on the day they explored the derelict. And Steinberg and Ives had slept for twelve hours. These creatures had been sucking their life energy: of that he was certain. Yet his lambda reading was higher. In some way, she had given him energy, as well as taking it away.