Blobs of sweat rolled down the little man's red face. A thick two-week's beard itched. Venard brooded over the three-dim memory-sphere of Vale, when no Guards were close enough to detect his furtive actions.
"About two more trips and we're going to be taken in there," choked Larson. "Karl! Look at me an' listen now." His voice lowered, trembled. "It's against my religious principles to take my own life. I'd rather get mine fighting fair. If we fight, maybe we can make 'em blast us with them H-guns."
"We've tried often enough," said Venard. "They're too handy with those whips they call arms."
Venard looked sardonically into the three-dim photo-crystal at the beautiful blond figure floating in it, shifting among multi-colored clouds. Red lips smiled, and deep, impassioned eyes shone up at Venard from the incredibly realistic opening that might almost have been a doorway into another world.
"Karl," moaned Larson, wringing his hands like a frightened girl. "Don't waste the last mortal seconds of your life moonin' over that faithless female."
The oval door opened. A long cry fluttered out. It bounded down the hall and through dark shadows and hollows. It was like a long nerve of cloth torn in two. It was a tattered, terrible sound. Larson shook, his jowls quivered, his eyes bulged. "Gods, Karl! What do they do to people in there? It's like hell, ain't it? Just like Dante's hell!"
"Beautiful," answered Venard softly. "Lovely as freedom. Soft as a night in Theophilus Crater."
"Huh? Oh, you mean her? She did you dirt. Why can't you forget her? She walked out on you. She wanted to be a scientist, not Mrs. K. Venard. Forget her! Listen, I'm gonna make 'em blast me with their H's. You with me, Karl? Hey, she ain't worth a man's last thoughts."
The woman's face shifted, seemed to wink at Venard. His big, dirty hand caressed the cloudy dream stuff of the image. His ragged fingernail looked grotesque beside the cloudy loveliness.
"Ironic, isn't it, Kewpie Doll? She still lives, free and immune, I guess. Only traitors live and know freedom. But she loved me anyway, Kewpie Doll, even if she was only a passing fantasy. She was okay, just too intelligent for love. An I.Q. of 200. That's a lot of quotient. I said to her that night under the rim of Theophilus, 'Vale—this is it. Take your choice. Either me or your internship in Solar Science City. You either go into that science convent on Venus to wither away the rest of your unnatural life, or you and I take a honeymoon right here.' And, Kewpie Doll, you know what she said to me then?"