Robert Silverberg - Those Who Watch

Glair said, “You were very lucky, Vorneen. You were found by exactly the right person.”

“Yes. I was.”

“You don’t want to leave her now?”

“I’ve grown fond of her, Glair. More than I can easily put into words now. But I can’t stay, can I?”

“No.”

“The covenants—”

“The covenants, yes.”

“How did you find me?”

“That doesn’t matter much now. Sartak found you, actually. And found me. I’ll tell you the whole story later. Are you all right, Vorneen?”

“A little battered around the edges. Nothing serious. You?”

“The same. Where’s your suit?”

“Hidden.”

“Don’t forget it when you leave. Take everything you landed with.”

“Naturally.”

“And try to explain to her that this is — necessary. That it’s impossible for you to stay here any longer. That watchers shouldn’t get too close to the watched. The whole lousy business, Vorneen. I’ve just been through it with Tom. With the man who sheltered me.”

“It hurt you to leave him, didn’t it, Glair?”

“You know it did. But I left him. And you’ll leave Kathryn. And the pain will stop after a while.”

“For us or for them?”

“For all of us,” said Glair. “I’ll see you later. Turn the porch light on when you’re ready to leave. Our car’s parked down the street. You don’t need to hurry.”

Glair emerged from the bedroom. Kathryn stood frozen by the door. The fact of her loss was seeping in now. Kathryn tried to tell herself that she had not lost anything, because Vorneen had never been hers at all. A guest. A visitor. What had existed between them had been a moment’s warmth, butterfly love dying at winter’s first blast.

Glair embraced her again. She began to say something, and choked the words off before they passed her lips. Kathryn fought back the tears.

“I won’t keep him very long,” Kathryn murmured.

She opened the door for Glair and let the Dirnan woman out. Then she turned and went into the bedroom. Vorneen was standing by the window. Without an awareness of motion, Kathryn found herself beside him. Their bodies moved together.

They had so much to say to one another … and so little time in which to say it.

Tom Falkner said, “Be it ever so humble, et cetera. Will you come in for a while?”

“Of course,” Kathryn told him.

He opened the door and switched on the light. They had been driving around Albuquerque all afternoon. She had left her little girl with a neighbor, she said, and kept repeating that she really ought to get home and prepare dinner. But each time it had actually come down to going home, Kathryn had agreed to stay with him a little longer. And now they were at his house.

He looked at her closely for what seemed the first time. In the car, with her beside him, he had not been able to see her properly. Now he stared without hesitation. She was tall and slim, past her first youth but much younger than he was, and of the kind of physique that he suspected would not begin to show any signs of aging for fifteen or twenty more years. She could not be called pretty, with those blade-like cheekbones and those thin lips and the too-wide mouth, but no one would find her unattractive. Right now her eyes were bordered by dark crescents. She had not slept much lately, it would seem. Neither had he. Neither had he.

He said, “Of course, we can’t tell a soul about what we experienced.”

“No. We don’t want to be branded as lunatics, do we?”

He chuckled. “We could always found a new cult. Frederic Storm could use some competition. We’ll set up a temple, and preach the gospel of the watchers, and—”

“Tom, let’s not.”

“I’m not serious. Would you care for a drink?”

“I think so.”

“I’ve got a very limited assortment. Ersatz Scotch, and some bourbon, and—”

“Anything,” Kathryn said. “I don’t really care for the taste of liquor. Just give me a spray can.”

“That’s hardly an elegant way to drink.”

“I’m hardly an elegant person,” Kathryn said.

He smiled and offered a tray of spray cans. She took one, and, to be polite about it, so did he, and they put the nozzles to their arms in silence. Afterward he said, “Your husband was an Air Force man, you said?”

“That’s right. Theodore Mason. He was killed in Syria.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know him. He was stationed at Kirtland?”

“Until they shipped him overseas.”

“It’s a big base,” he said. “I wish I had known him, though.”

“Why do you say that?”

He felt his cheeks glowing. “I don’t know. Just because — well, because he was your husband, and I — it would have been nice — if — oh, hell. I sound like a tongue-tied kid, don’t I? A big overgrown adolescent of forty-three. Another drink?”

“Not just yet.”

He didn’t take one either. She produced a photograph of her daughter. Falkner’s hand shook a little as he took the glossy tridim print from her, and saw a nude little girl of about two or three grinning at him from a clump of greenery.

“Shameless hussy, isn’t she?” he asked.

“I’m trying to teach her some modesty. Maybe in another fifteen years I’ll succeed.”

“How old is she now?”

“Three.”

“Better teach her faster,” Falkner said.

The conversation faltered. He was trying not to talk about the star people, and so was she, even though that was what had brought them together. But the topic could not be kept submerged for long.

He said finally, “I suppose they’ve reached their relief base by now. They’re undergoing treatment by their own doctors. Do you think they’re talking about us?”

“I’m sure of it,” Kathryn said. “They must be.”

“Describing to each other the good-hearted shaggy apes who took care of them.”

“That isn’t fair. They think more of us than that.”

“Do they? Aren’t we just apes to them? Dangerous apes, with big bombs?”

“Maybe as a race, we are. But not as individuals. I don’t know about you and Glair, but I have the feeling that Vorneen respected me as a person. That he made allowances for the fact that I was human, but that he never looked down at me, never was inwardly sneering.”

“It was that way with me and Glair, too. I take it back.”

“They’re pretty special people,” Kathryn said. “I believe that whatever you and I felt for them was reciprocated. They’re warm — kind—”

“I wonder what the Kranazoi are like,” Falkner said suddenly.

“Who?”

“The other race. The galactic rivals. Didn’t Vorneen tell you about the political situation, the cold war out there?”

“Oh. Yes.”

“It’s funny, Kathryn. We don’t even know if the Dirnans are the good guys or the bad guys. The two we met were pretty good, but suppose the Kranazoi are the ones we should root for? We got such a thin slice of a view into their affairs. That’s why I called us apes. There’s a struggle going on out there, and we have an inkling of it, but we don’t really know what’s what. And the sky is full of Dirnan ships and Kranazoi ships, watching us, hatching schemes, outmaneuvering each other.” Falkner shrugged. “It makes me dizzy to think of it”

“Vorneen said that one day the covenants would end and they’d be able to make open contact with us.”

“Glair said that too.”

“How soon do you think that will be?”

“Fifty years, maybe. A hundred. A thousand. I don’t know.”

“I hope it’s soon.”

“Why, Kathryn?”

“So that Vorneen will come back — Vorneen and Glair, both of them, and we’ll see them again.”