The Heaven Makers (6 page)

“Andy! You’re hurting me!”

He realized he had locked his arms around her in a spasm of shock. Slowly, he released his grip.

“Turn around,” he whispered. “Tell me what you see out there against the clouds.”

She gave him a puzzled frown, turned to peer out toward the city. “Where?”

“Slightly above us—straight ahead against the clouds.”

“I don’t see anything.”

The object began drifting nearer. Thurlow could distinguish figures behind the green dome. They moved in a dim, phosphorescent light. The rainbow glow beneath the thing’s tubular legs began to fade.

“What’re you looking at?” Ruth asked. “What is it?”

He felt her trembling beneath his hand on her shoulder. “Right there,” he said, pointing. “Look, right there.”

She bent to stare along his arm. “I don’t see a thing—just clouds.”

He wrenched off his glasses. “Here, look through these.” Even without the glasses, Thurlow could see the thing’s outline. It coasted along the edge of the hill-nearer… nearer.

Ruth put on the glasses, looked where he pointed. “I… a dark blur of some kind,” she said. “It looks like… smoke or a cloud… or… insects. Is it a swarm of insects?”

Thurlow’s mouth felt dry. There was a painful constricting sensation in his throat. He reclaimed his glasses, looked at the drifting object. The figures inside were quite distinct now. He counted five of them, the great staring eyes all focused on him.

“Andy! What is it you see?”

“You’re going to think I’m nuts.”

“What is it?”

He took a deep breath, described the object

“Five men in it?”

“Perhaps they’re men, but they’re very small. They look no more than three feet tall.”

“Andy, you’re frightening me. Why are you frightening me?”

“I’m frightening myself.”

She pressed back into his arms. “Are you sure you see this… this. I can’t see a thing.”

“I see them as plainly as I see you. If it’s illusion, it’s a most complete illusion.”

The rainbow glow beneath the tubular legs had become a dull blue. The object settled lower, lower, came to a hovering stop about fifteen yards away and level with them.

“Maybe it’s a new kind of helicopter,” Ruth said. “Or… Andy, I still can’t see it.”

“Describe what you see…” He pointed “… right there.”

“A little mistiness. It looks like it’s going to rain again.”

“They’re working with a square machine of some kind,” he said. “It has what look like short antennae. The antennae glow. They’re pointing it at us.”

“Andy, I’m scared.” She was shivering in his arms.

“I… think we’d better get out of here,” he said. He willed himself to leave, found he couldn’t move.

“I… can’t… move,” Ruth whispered.

He could hear her teeth chattering, but his own body felt frozen in dull cement.

“Andy, I can’t move!” There was hysteria in her voice. “Is it still there?”

“They’re pointing some device at us,” he husked. His voice felt as though it came from far away, from another person. “They’re doing this to us. Are you sure you can’t see anything?”

“Nothing! A misty little cloud, nothing else.”

Thurlow felt suddenly that she was just being obstinate. Anyone could see the thing right there in front of them! Intense anger at her surged through him. Why wouldn’t she admit she saw it? Right there! He hated her for being so obstinate. The irrational abruptness of the emotion asserted itself in his awareness. He began to question his own reaction.

How could I feel hate for Ruth? I love her.

As though this thought freed him, Thurlow found he could move his legs. He began backing away, dragging Ruth with him. She was a heavy, unmoving weight. Her feet scraped against the gravel in the tank’s surface.

His movement set off a flurry of activity among the creatures beneath the green dome. They buzzed and fussed over their square machine. A painful constriction seized Thurlow’s chest. Each breath took a laboring concentration. Still, he continued backing away dragging Ruth with him. She sagged in his arms now. His foot encountered a step and he almost fell. Slowly, he began inching backward up the steps. Ruth was a dead weight.

“Andy,” she gasped. “Can’t… breathe.”

“Hold… on,” he rasped.

They were at the top of the steps now, then back through the gap in the stone wall. Movement became somewhat easier, although he could still see the domed object hovering beyond the water storage tank. The glowing antennae remained pointed at him.

Ruth began to move her legs. She turned, and they hobbled together onto the bridle path. Each step grew easier. Thurlow could hear her taking deep, sighing breaths. Abruptly, as though a weight had been lifted from them, they regained full use of their muscles.

They turned.

“It’s gone,” Thurlow said.

She reacted with an anger that astonished him. “What were you trying to pull back there, Andy Thurlow? Frightening me half out of my wits!”

“I saw what I told you I saw,” he said. “You may not’ve seen it, but you certainly felt it.”

“Hysterical paralysis,” she said.

“It gripped us both at the same instant and left us both at the same instant,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Ruth, I saw exactly what I described.”

“Flying saucers!” she sneered.

“No… well, maybe. But it was there!” He was angry now, defensive. A rational part of him saw how insane the past few minutes had been. Could it have been illusion? No! He shook his head. “Honey, I saw.

“Don’t you honey me!”

He grabbed her shoulders, shook her. “Ruth! Two minutes ago you were saying you love me. Can you turn it off just like that?”

“I…”

“Does somebody want you to hate me?”

“What?” She stared up at him, her face dim in the tree lights.

“Back there…” He nodded toward the tank. “I felt myself angry with you… hating you. I told myself I couldn’t hate you. I love you. That’s when I found I could move. But when I felt the… hate, the instant I felt it, that was exactly when they pointed their machine at us.”

“What machine?”

“Some kind of box with glowing rods or antennae sticking out of it.”

“Are you trying to tell me that those nutty… whatever could make you feel hate… or…”

“That’s how it felt.”

“That’s the craziest thing I ever heard!” She backed away from him.

“I know it’s crazy, but that’s how it felt.” He reached for her arm. “Let’s get back to the car.”

Ruth pulled away. “I’m not going a step with you until you explain what happened out there.”

“I can’t explain it.”

“How could you see it when I couldn’t?”

“Maybe the accident… my eyes, the polarizing glasses.”

“Are you sure that accident at the radlab didn’t injure more than your eyes?”

He suppressed a surge of anger. It was so easy to feel angry. With some difficulty, he held his voice level. “They had me on the artificial kidney for a week and with every test known to God and man. The burst altered the ion exchange system in the cones of my retinas. That’s all. And it isn’t permanent. But I think whatever happened to my eyes, that’s why I can see these things. I’m not supposed to see them, but I can.”

Again, he reached for her, captured her arm. Half dragging her, he set off down the path. She fell into step beside him.

“But what could they be?” she asked.

“I don’t know, but they’re real. Trust me, Ruth. Trust that much. They’re real.” He knew he was begging and hated himself for it, but Ruth moved closer, tucked her arm under his.

“All right, darling, I trust you. You saw what you saw. What’re you going to do about it?”

They came off the trail and into the eucalyptus grove. The car was a darker shape among shadows. Thurlow drew her to a stop beside it.

“How hard is it to believe me?” he asked.

She was silent for a moment, then: “It’s… difficult.”

“Okay,” he said. “Kiss me.”

“What?”

“Kiss me. Let’s see if you really hate me.”

“Andy, you’re being…”

“Are you afraid to kiss me?”

“Of course not!”

“Okay then.” He pulled her to him. Their lips met. For an instant, he sensed resistance, then she melted into his embrace, her arms creeping behind his neck.

Presently, he drew away.

“If that’s hate, I want lots of it,” he said.

“Me, too.”

Again, she pressed herself against him.

Thurlow felt his blood pounding. He pulled away with an abrupt, defensive motion.

“Sometimes I wish you weren’t so damned Victorian,” she said. “But maybe I wouldn’t love you then.” He brushed a strand of the red hair away from her cheek. How faintly glowing her face looked in the light from the bridle trail lamps behind him. “I think I’d better take you home… to Sarah.”

“I don’t want you to take me home.”

“I don’t want you to go home.”

“But I’d better?”

“You’d better.”

She put her hands against his chest, pushed away.

They got into the car, moving with a sudden swift embarrassment. Thurlow started the engine, concentrated on backing to the turn-around. The headlights picked out lines of crusty brown bark on the trees. Abruptly, the headlights went dark. The engine died with a gasping cough. A breathless, oppressive sensation seized him.

“Andy!” Ruth said. “What’s happening?”

Thurlow forced himself to turn to the left, wondering how he knew where to look. There were four rainbow glows close to the ground, the tubular legs and the green dome just outside the grove. The thing hovered there, silent, menacing.

“They’re back,” he whispered. “Right there.” He pointed.

“Andy… Andy, I’m frightened.” She huddled against him.

“No matter what happens, you don’t hate me,” he said. “You love me. Remember that. You love me. Keep it in your mind.”

“I love you.” Her voice was faint.

A directionless sense of anger began to fill Thurlow. It had no object at first. Just anger. Then he could actually feel it trying to point at Ruth.

“I… want to… hate you,” she whispered.

“You love me,” he said. “Don’t forget that.”

“I love you. Oh, Andy, I love you. I don’t want to hate you… I love you.”

Thurlow lifted a fist, shook it at the green dome. “Hate them,” he rasped. “Hate bastards who’d try to manipulate us that way.”

He could feel her shaking and trembling against his shoulder. “I… hate… them,” she said.

“Now, do you believe me?”

“Yes! Yes, I believe you!”

“Could the car have hysterical paralysis?”

“No. Oh, Andy, I couldn’t just turn on hate against you. I couldn’t.” His arm ached where she clutched it. “What are they? My God! What is it?”

“I don’t think they’re human,” Thurlow said.

“What’re we going to do?”

“Anything we can.”

The rainbow circles beneath the dome shifted into the blue, then violet and into the red. The thing began to lift away from the grove. It receded into the darkness. With it went the sense of oppression.

“It’s gone, isn’t it?” Ruth whispered.

“It’s gone.”

“Your lights are on,” she said.

He looked down at the dash lights, out at the twin cones of the headlights stabbing into the grove.

He recalled the shape of the thing then—like a giant spider ready to pounce on them. He shuddered. What were the creatures in that ominous machine?

Like a giant spider.

His mind dredged up a memory out of childhood: Oberon’s palace has walls of spider’s legs.

Were they faerie, the huldu-folk?

Where did the myths originate? he wondered. He could feel his mind questing down old paths and he remembered a verse from those days of innocence.

“See ye not yon bonny road

That winds about yon fernie brae?

That is the road to fair Elfland.

Where thou and I this night maun gae.”

“Hadn’t we better go?” Ruth asked.

He started the engine, his hands moving automatically through the kinesthetic pattern.

“It stopped the motor and turned off the lights,” Ruth said. “Why would they do that?”

They! he thought. No doubts now.

He headed the car out of the grove down the hill toward Moreno Drive.

“What’re we going to do?” Ruth asked.

“Can we do anything?”

“If we talk about it, people’ll say we’re crazy. Besides… the two of us… up here…”

We’re neatly boxed, he thought. And he imagined what Whelye would say to a recounting of this night’s experiences. “You were with another man’s wife, you say? Could guilt feelings have brought on this shared delusion?” And if this met with protests and further suggestions, “Faerie folk? My dear Thurlow, do you feel well?”

Ruth leaned against him. “Andy, if they could make us hate, could they make us love?”

He swerved the car over to the shoulder of the road, turned off the motor, set the handbrake, extinguished the lights. “They’re not here right now.”

“How do we know?”

He stared around at the night—blackness, not even starlight under those clouds… no glow of weird object—but beyond the trees bordering the road… what?

Could they make us love?

Damn her for asking such a question!

No! I mustn’t damn her. I must love her… I… must.

“Andy? What’re you doing?”

“Thinking.”

“Andy, I still find this whole thing so unreal. Couldn’t there be some other explanation? I mean, your motor stopping… Motors do stop; lights go out. Don’t they?”

“What do you want from me?” he asked. “Do you want me to say yes, I’m nuts, I’m deluded. I’m…”

She put a hand over his mouth. “What I want is for you to make love to me and never stop.”

He started to put an arm around her, but she pushed him away. “No. When that happens, I want to know it’s us making love, not someone forcing us.”

Damn her practicality! he thought. Then: No! I love her… but is it me loving her? Is it my own doing?

“Andy? There is something you can do for me.”

“What?”

“The house on Manchester Avenue… where Nev and I were living—there’re some things I want from there, but I’ve been afraid to go over there alone. Would you take me?”