And the glittering crystal lay still on the floor among the dust and the soft white bones and the crumpled coverall. I turned on the blue jet of flame and held it on the bright surface of the crystal chunk, held it while the coverall's smoking stench filled my nostrils, held it until the blackened face of death had seeped deep into the heart of the thing on the floor.
I heard voices through the haze in my brain. "Something's burning!" "Open up in there!" "Dr. Temple? Are you there?"
I scooped up the crystal chunk. It was still hot, but there was no life in it. I grabbed the other from the desk and jammed both into my pocket. Then I bundled the pile of soft, pulpy bones and decayed tissue in the folds of the coverall and threw the bundle into a wastebasket beside the desk. I grabbed a pile of papers and crammed them into the basket.
When the door was smashed inward I was heroically trying to put out the fire which had somehow started in the wastebasket. I had burned my left hand badly in the process. There was nothing left of the man who had been Dr. Jonas Temple but a pile of smoking ash.
25
Morning sunlight had dissipated the early mist. I walked slowly along the road from the elevated station toward my trailer. Behind me the night's nightmare, the hour of suspicious questioning about the fire. Someone had remembered my visit to Dr. Temple on Saturday, so my appearance there this morning had seemed plausible. There would be more questions, I knew, when Dr. Temple did not appear. I didn't care. There would be questions but no answers.
The two small crystal clusters felt heavy in my pocket. I stopped and took them out, weighing them in my hand like marbles. I had an impulse to throw them into the dust at the side of the road. Instead I pushed them back into my pocket.
Souvenirs, I thought. One needed to remember.
I looked up. A tall slim figure stood at the edge of the highway, her blonde hair shimmering in the sunlight. She began to run toward me. I couldn't move. I felt an elation I had never known before, a strange whispering excitement. And suddenly I knew what I must subconsciously have divined at the very beginning, knew the incredible truth. Here was more than a woman's suppliant beauty, so marvelously warm and human. Here now the reason for the shy withdrawal, the trembling eagerness, the intimate knowledge. Here was—
"Erika!"