IV
The glass was thick, perfectly clear. Only its glimmer in the sun said they were imprisoned. Beyond the field, the ever dying and growing jungle undulated like a green sea. Just outside the glass, the ladder lay on the gravel where the patrolman had dropped it—within arm's reach and it might as well have been light years away.
"Look!" Dorothy cried. "The scratch on my finger's already healed." She held up her finger and there was no mark on it. Vulcan's power was working, building a life then to tear it down. Each soul-wringing second created beauty, clear blue-eyed, honey-haired beauty—to transform it as swiftly into ugliness....
It was the first time in Norman's eventful life that he had ever stared defeat in the face. He had met death before and he had been in some pretty tight spots but always there had been some way out. Not here. There was no possible way to climb a twenty-foot wall of perpendicular oil-slick glass.
"I'm afraid I've failed you, Dorothy," he said. In his mind now was only the thought of something he must not do. He couldn't allow her to go through the horror he had seen on Johnny's gray face. After two hours, when he saw the first gray hair—he looked down at his hands. They were his only weapons against a longer torture. Could he kill Dorothy with his own hands...?
"Well," Dorothy broke in on his thoughts. "Sade wins; and when we go, the whole universe is next." Her voice was a full octave lower than Norman had first heard it when she appeared at his galley door.
Norman walked over and stood before her. "Whatever happens," he said, "I want you to know this—that I've fallen in love with you. You're the bravest woman I've ever known and the most beautiful. That combination usually doesn't go together."
She looked up at him with very blue and serious eyes. "I've been in love with you for a long time," she said. "Ever since I first saw your picture in the paper. That's why I came with you."
Her words were cut off by Norman's lips. Then quickly he left her and walked back to the glass, staring out at the wind-whipped jungle. Why wait? Why go through this torture any longer? Get it over with now!