Harry Harrison - The Daleth Effect

With a muffled sob she straightened up, feeling a hot wave of anger sweeping over her, reddening her skin. Here, in their boat, after being away all this time, not even home yet!

Ready to jump into the boat, ready to hurt, bite, tear, she did not want to hold back. But there was shouting, loud noise. She looked up.

“The sail is stuck!” someone shouted in Danish from the single-masted yacht that was rushing in toward the dock, almost on top of her.

There was a brief glimpse of a man wrestling with the fouled rigging, a woman pushing at the tiller, screeching something at him, and children grabbing for ropes and falling over each other. At any other time it would have been funny. They were coming on, still too fast, and the woman jammed the tiller hard over.

Instead of striking bow on, the boat turned, hitting a glancing blow to the pilings, bouncing away. One of the small children fell off the cabin roof onto the deck and began to shriek in fright. The sail came down in a jumble and the man fought with it.

Then they lost way and bobbed to a stop. Tragedy averted. Someone even began to laugh. It had only taken seconds. Martha started forward again—then hesitated. In those brief instants everything had changed. They would be sitting up, pulling on clothing, laughing perhaps. She felt embarrassment at the thought, and hesitated. She was still as angry, though the anger was choked within her. The little yacht was tying up a few feet away. Could she, coldly now, enter that cabin, scream at them with these others here? A boy brushed against her, apologizing as he fastened one of the lines.

With a gasp, something between pain and hatred, she turned, fled, running, slowing down. Anger, terrible anger burning her. How could he have done this! She gasped again.

Only when she reached the front door of her home did she realize that she was still carrying her sandals and that the soles of her feet were sore from the concrete sidewalk. Shaking, she put them on and remembered that she had no key. She raised her fist, but before she could knock Skou opened the door for her.

“Watchfulness is our password,” he said, letting her in and then closing and locking the door behind her.

She nodded, went by him, unseeing. Watchfulness… that was very funny, it should be her password too. She didn’t want to talk to him, to see anyone. She went past quickly and on into the bathroom. Anger was burning her now, tightening her throat, impotent anger that she could do nothing about. She shouldn’t have run away! But what else could she have done? With a sob of rage she turned the cold water full on, plunged her arms into it, splashed water onto her burning face. She could not even cry, her rage was too strong. How could he! How could he!

She ran her fingers through her hair, unable to face herself in the mirror. If he was not ashamed, she was. She stroked at her hair violently with the brush. Married men did things like this, she knew that—a lot of them in Denmark… But not Nils. Why not Nils? Now she knew. Had he done it before? What could she do now? What could she do about him?

With this thought she had a sudden image of him coming home, here, wanting to embrace her just as if nothing ad happened. He would do that—and what would she do? Could she tell him? Did she want him? Yes. No!

She wanted to hurt him just the way he had hurt her. What he had done was unforgivable.

Her throat was tight and she had the sensation that she would break into tears at any moment, and she did not want to. What was there to cry about? What the hell was there to cry about? There was plenty enough to be angry about.

She stood quickly, wanting to get away from her reflected image. As she did she saw the little spiral-bound notebook on top of the laundry container, and she picked it up because it did not belong there. When she opened it automatically, wondering what to do with it, she saw that the pages were covered with rows of neat calculations, more strangely shaped symbols than numbers. She closed it quickly and went to her room, shutting the door and pressing her back to it, the notebook held tight against her breasts.

If emotion can be said to replace the logical order of rational thinking, this was surely one of the times. Baxter had scarcely bothered her of late, but she was not really thinking about Baxter. Or about America and Denmark, or loyalty or patriotism. She was thinking about Nils and what she had seen and, perhaps, though she was not aware of it, she wanted to hurt him in the way he had hurt her.

It was all quite easy to do. Locking the door behind her, Martha went to her bureau and took the camera out oi the drawer. She had put film in it just yesterday, getting ready for Nils’s homecoming, fast color film to make a permanent record of this holiday. There was a patch of sunlight on the rug by the bed, streaming in the open window. She put the notebook on the floor and opened it to the first page. When she sat on the edge of the bed above. it and looked through the viewfinder it was just right. Jusi one meter, the closest she could take a picture without blurring it. The image of the pages was sharp and clear and the camera automatically set the exposure.

click

She advanced the film, bent over to turn the page, the braced her elbows on her knees again.

There were still ten frames left when she finished the last page. So she took pictures of the back and front covers because she hated to waste film. Then she realized that this was just being foolish, so she closed the camera case and put it back into the drawer. She took the notebook and unlocked the door and went out, and met Arnie coming up the stairs.

“Martha,” he said, blinking in the darkness after the glare outside. “I woke up suddenly and realized that I had misplaced my notebook.”

She shrank back slighdy, her hand—and the notebook—pressed tightly to her.

‘There it is!” he said, and pointed. He smiled. “How nice of you to find it for me.”

“I was taking it to your room,” she said in a voice that sounded shrill and artificial, but he did not seem to notice. She held it out.

“And right you were too. If Skou found it lying around he would probably have me returned to the Moon at once. Thank you. I shall just lock it in my case so I will not be this foolish again. I am sorry I fell asleep like that. Some guest! But I feel much better for it. It has been a wonderful day.”

She nodded slow agreement as he went into his room.

The Jaguar saloon moved steadily north along the coast, staying exacdy at the posted speed limit. Nils drove easily with one hand while he tried to find some music on the radio.

“We are starting out a little late,” he said. “Do you have to stop in Helsingor?”

“I have to go to the post office. It will only take a minute,” Martha said.

“What’s so important?” He found a Swedish station that was playing a peasant polka, all yipping and stomping.

“I have to send off some film for developing.”

“What’s wrong with the photography shop next to the grocer in Rungsted?”

“They’re too slow. This is a special place in Copenhagen. If you think 111 make you late just drop me off by the ferry and you can go on by yourself.”

He took a quick look out of the corner of his eye, but she was looking ahead, her face expressionless.

“Come on! This is a holiday—of course I’ll wait. I just don’t want us to miss the launching—or ascension or whatever you want to call it. You’ll love it. These tugs will just drift down and latch onto the ship and lift it right up out of the ways. They’ll install the drive on the Moon.”

They had to wait at the ferry slip while a fussy little steam engine pulled a string of Swedish boxcars across the road.