Damon Knight - Orbit 17

He fought like a wild boar (which, for the moment at least, he was). He tussled and thrashed, and felt the net give and rend in a dozen places, but the officer (an anomaly among dog catchers, he was no coward) waded in before Heller could break entirely free, and tossed the lariat. The loop caught, with a breath-crushing jolt, around Heller’s neck, and he realized that if he didn’t stop struggling, the rope could be tightened with fatal results. Then where would Morgane’s experiment be? he thought selflessly.

And that’s how it happened that he was led back to the truck without more protest and hazed into the cage on the rear. That and the fact that he expected to see Morgane running down the hill any minute.

But she didn’t appear. The whole event had taken place so fast that Dr. Swoos was still several blocks away, suspecting nothing.

The cage banged shut, the truck sped off. And a little later Heller was goaded rudely out of the truck bed into an outdoor pen at the county animal shelter some ten miles from town. He didn’t like the pen, which was a slime of foul mud (the wrong kind). And he particularly didn’t like the way the man at the shelter kept hanging over the fence looking Heller over after the dog catcher had driven away.

Finally the shelter man, a coarse, hungry-looking individual with a ruined black felt hat pulled down level with his mean, acquisitive eyes, disappeared for a while, only to return with another man who looked vaguely like him, a brother perhaps, or a cousin.

“No, I ain’t never done it, Clint, but it shouldn’t be no trouble. No more’n dressin’ out a deer.”

“Gawd, but I love bacon, and at the price it’s been—”

“Hold up a minute. You sure you won’t land in a mess for this? Ain’t it your job to hold on to these here animals awhile till the owner calls?”

“Yeah, but if it b’longs to some rich dude farmer around these parts, he might never miss it, Cliff. And even if he checks up, I can al’ays say I never laid eyes on it. Or if it come from the aggerculture school over at that college, they’ll never even ast. I hear tell they don’t know what they’re doin’ over there half the time. Bunch a commonists.”

“We-ell—”

“I got a huntin’ knife in the house.”

“No, Clint, if we’re gonna do it, first you better let me go to work with my thirty-thirty.”

“The hell you say. That ain’t the way it’s done. You take and tie their feet so they can’t kick and then you taken the knife and you—”

“That sonofabitch must weigh more’n two hunnert pounds. Which of us is goin’ in there and tie—?”

Fortunately, Clint and Cliff were still locked in tense discussion when Morgane Swoos roared up the drive in her convertible and halted in a fusillade of gravel. Though she couldn’t have known then how dire Heller’s plight was, she was furious. “Unlock that pen at once,” she ordered, pointing to the padlock that was the one thing left standing in the way of Heller’s rescue.

Clint, his eyes under the hat bugging in confusion and alarm at Dr. Swoos’s heaving chest, moved hypnotically to comply. “Yes, ma’am."

On the way home in the car Morgane, talkative with sheer relief, told him he owed his rescue to the man bringing a morning edition to one of the drugstore racks. He had been on hand in time to see Heller disappearing into the truck, and to answer Morgane’s frantic inquiries when she arrived. But the emergency just past had driven her to a decision. Her new plan would at once render him not nearly so vulnerable to such outrages as the one just suffered, and make him better suited to the role she had mentioned before. It wasn’t anything new. She had discussed it with him earlier but hadn’t had the courage then to proceed. But now she was going to go through with it anyway, because life was impossible the way it was, didn’t he agree? And by the way, did he still trust her absolutely?

Heller grunted.

Before, when Dr. Morgane Swoos had flaunted her new pet in the surprised face of the world at the end of the red leash, acquaintances at the Palace and around the campus had made comments.

When the animal disappeared—he was thought to have died— her behavior again became remarkable, and this time perfect strangers, including even the butcher at the supermarket, made comments.

Not that the butcher remained a stranger long. It was a sure thing that he would quickly come to know any customer who appeared faithfully every afternoon to pick up a standing order of choice-grade steaks, chops, and roasts. For one thing, considering the bill, she must be rolling, he decided early in their acquaintance. Or perhaps he should say “well endowed,” he corrected himself as he became pleasantly accustomed to the lady’s resting her heavy front against the heavy front of his refrigerated counter while she inquired about the quality of a set of ribs or a rolled roast.

And those who already knew Morgane were amazed when they happened to be in the store at the time she, a professed vegetarian, was accepting her bloody purchases from the hands of the delighted butcher. Some of them decided that her loss— however it had come about—had unhinged her. Pity, too; such a brilliant mind. And wasn’t she in charge of some real scientific breakthrough over at the Palace? And what the hell was it all about, anyway?

Even Heller had been wondering about part of the change in routine, and one day he reversed the usual order and typed out a question on the machine, which had now been brought to the Swoos cottage for his convenience. “Why don’t I ever get taken to the lab anymore? How come I have to stay in the house all the time?”

Morgane laughed. “You have to stay in because I don’t want to take needless chances the way we did before. And you don’t have to go to work at the lab anymore because you’re retired, darling. You’ve earned the rest. Like a steady winner turned out to pasture. And we all know how they spend their time. Tell me, haven’t we been having fun?”

Heller growled deep in his throat, presumably at the memory of the night just past.

“Furthermore, you don’t need to work because you’ve been kept on salary at the lab all this time, and what with that and the bonuses and compensatory payments for one thing and another that you’ve been getting, you’re rich. Which is a good thing, really, because if all goes well, you’re going to be able to spend it, really live it up. You see, I have another surprise.”

Heller tugged at her skirt to direct her attention to something else he was putting on the machine. “Eat first?”

“You’re certainly a ravening wolf,” she said fondly, as he followed her into the kitchen. The thick, raw steaks slipped down in two gulps.

Then he pattered back into the living room, narrow tongue lolling, toenails clicking on the places where there was no carpet, and tapped out, “Now tell me.”

She lay down close to him on the rug, magnificent ivory flesh against rough gray pelt. Odors were the main thing which occupied his attention now, and he inserted his long nose under her chin the better to inhale her special fragrance, not an applied fragrance, of course, but the odor of pure femaleness.

“All right, Heller, but you have to listen carefully, because it’s a very serious thing I’m going to tell you.”

He made a rumbling in his throat.

“I’m still not satisfied. This last change has been—well, helpful, nearer the mark. For one thing it answers the problem I’ve worried a lot about but not mentioned: what would happen to you if something happened to me, an accident or something? This way you could simply run off into the woods and be self-sufficient, and as long as you kept out of sight and didn’t do anything rash, like raid poultry yards or something, no one would bother you. But even yet it leaves something to be desired. So I’ve decided to do the ultimate, the thing no enlightened woman ever does anymore.” She sighed. “I’ve decided to give up my career for you. Not that it’s an unfulfilled career. I’ve already accomplished more than most ever dare, the chickenhearts, and I’ve written up everything I’ve done. The only trouble is, nothing can be published yet. The world isn’t ready for it. And if I hang around waiting for it to get ready, I’m sure to land up meanwhile in a lot of trouble. There’s already a strong rumor about a big official investigation coming soon of the whole damn scene at the Fun Palace.”