Triumph (21 page)

Vance thrust fingers in the little girl's chestnut curls. "Well, he learned to
smell
far better than any other, even full-grown, Tasmanian bear. And
see
farther. And
run
faster.

To make up as best he could for not being able to hear anything. So, in
some
ways, this youthful bear was a genius. His name, by the way, was Arbutus--which, his mother had heard, someplace, was a very rare and lovely flower that grew in a distant land. So she named her baby son Arbutus. And he became, as I said, in some ways a superbear. But he was still very sad. He never had heard the rain fall. Or birds sing. Or motorcars on the road that went through the forest. Or
music
--not a note!"

The story of how Arbutus, the Tasmanian bear, finally, owing to his heroism in saving two lost children, was rewarded, came in swiftly-contrived, expressive words from the ex-tycoon, who hadn't told stories to kids since Faith had been eight or perhaps younger. But these two didn't feel themselves overage for preslumber fables. No one had ever told them what they called "real stories" before: that function had been left by their parents to TV.

Now, with fascination, they listened to the man, who enjoyed his own invention as much as they, describe how Arbutus led two lost kids (just their sexes and ages) through the forest, fighting off most-unlikely tigers and lions, and delivered "Alice" and

"Dewitt" at their own home.

"And their mother and father were so happy," Vance concluded, "after so many days and nights of dreadful worry, that, when they realized Arbutus was stone-deaf, they put him in their car and rushed him to Hobart, Tasmania's capital, and bought him--guess what?"

Dick did guess: "A hearing aid!"

Vance clapped the thin shoulders. "Right!"

And then he described the bear's ecstasy at hearing noises, and music, and whistling, and other things. Vance whistled to illustrate, whistled in a low and melodious way a lullaby that soon seemed to be having the desired effect, for he saw Dick's eyes shut the moment he had been lifted to the top bunk; and Dorothy stayed awake only long enough to blow Vance a kiss as he closed the door.

He went back to the Hall to see if Valerie was playing bridge, sewing, reading--or drunk.

She was merely waiting for him--smiling softly and trembling a little when, hand-in-hand, they said goodnight to the others.

Ben was hidden by a large volume concerned with electrolytic condensers, a part of the restudy of the mechanics of electric, radio, and electronic communicating devices, which his present work necessitated. From behind his book, however, Ben noticed the departure of Vance and Valerie and understood, with a surge of gladness for them, what it meant. A man and a wife, become that
anew,
and with renewed tenderness. A very extraordinary man, and a woman who, at fifty-odd, Ben thought, was more desirable to behold than most women at twenty. It was a plain miracle.

Covertly, he glanced toward Angelica, the latest of the many causes of Valerie's long distress. Angelica had, plainly, seen as much as Ben. And she watched with fascination as the older couple moved out of sight in the corridor. But it was, Ben thought, just that: interest, fascination; not wrath, disappointment, or scorn. Now the voluptuous girl swung her head toward the back of sleek, suave Al Rizzo, playing bridge with Connie as his partner, against Lodi and George. The girl's eyes filled with contempt for Albert. They moved away from the Italian-American hanger-on of Broadway, who had not even tried for long to maintain their pre rescue decision to pretend being brother and sister. . . .

Alberto had, instead, as Ben well knew, attempted to get Vance Farr to pay him money for maintaining that lie, and Vance had found himself in serious trouble. For if Ben hadn't interrupted the scene, Vance would surely have done his best to beat up the too-handsome boy friend of the young lady he had maintained at Candlewood Manor Apartments. And Vance might have been killed. Ben mused on that strange episode now.

. . .

What happened had been embarrassing to all three men. "This lout," Vance said as Ben appeared, "was spending a lot of time with Angelica before the war. I didn't know it, of course, or I'd have done some stooging around till I caught him and, I suppose, beat the tar out of him."

Alberto, mean-eyed, white-faced, said, "You try!"

Ben came nearer the wrathful pair, who were alone in the library, the place where Alberto had found his chance to try to blackmail Vance.

"I think," Ben said quietly, "Mr. Rizzo has a switchblade. At least, he had one, when I sent him here through that tunnel."

Al whirled. "You wanna be stuck, too?"

"Nobody," Ben answered, "will be stuck, Al. Everything around here is on the level. Has to be. Nobody ever believed you were Angelica's brother. Or half-brother, as you said later. You ought to go down on your knees, every day, in front of Vance Farr, to thank him for saving your scrubby life."

"And a second time, flat prostrate, before
Bernman,
here, Al--for the same reason," Vance added, coldly.

"I'll take the knife," Ben said.

"Lemme see you!"

Underwater demolition training is among the most rugged of military drills. It includes training in hand-to-hand combat, both on land and, later, under water. What happened next was a small display of a skill learned by Ben in his years of voluntary service with the Navy.

He moved toward the slick-haired Rizzo on the balls of his feet, slowly. The man dug in a pocket and out came the knife, its long, silvery blade jutting from his hand with the click of a button. Ben edged some inches closer and feinted with his right. The knife flashed to cut the swift-extended right arm; instead the wrist that held the knife was caught by Ben's left hand. The grip was so much like that of a sprung steel trap that Al yelled. However, with the speed of his hoodlum
expertise,
Al snatched the knife in his still-free hand.

He was a little too slow, again.

Something--a hand-heel--took him under the jaw and almost broke his neck.

Could have done so. Al saw stars and staggered back. The knife was then batted from his relaxing fingers. A face, inches from his own, with ice-blue eyes that bored into his swimming, black ones, said words. "Want more?"

Al barely managed to reply. "No. Okay. I'll play it on the level, now."

"What," Ben said sarcastically, rubbing his wrist, "would you have
done
with money, now?" He swept up the knife and turned his back on Rizzo. Then saw Faith, standing pale and horrified, at the library door. He froze, and could think of nothing to say.

Vance spoke. "Thanks again, Ben." He turned to his daughter. "Al was trying to blackmail me into his continued pretense he and Angelica are related. Damn gigolo! Ben wandered in. You saw the rest."

She said, "Yes. I saw it." Her eyes returned to Ben, in worry and wonder. "Where did you--oh! The Navy! I keep forgetting you left your labs and everything to--!"

Ben shrugged. Alberto slunk away.

Vance sat down in an upholstered chair and motioned Faith and Ben to do the same. The older man finally grinned. "Hell of a handy guy to have around, you are, Ben!"

Then, almost to himself, he had said, "You know, I can't even remember
why
it was I found Angelica so irresistible."

"Because," Faith had responded quietly, "for one thing, she is. Is . . . what your generation called a doll or a dish. And very
nice,
as a woman, too, I'm beginning to learn.

She was just brought up the hard way, is all."

Vance went on as if he hadn't listened, "Or the other pretty girls I cherished. Ever since we've been down here, I've been positively balled by my reason for--" He shrugged.

"I suppose it was the thing men did. Many like me. And after the first time--that was another show girl, Eloise. Then Valerie began drinking so much, it got to be a habit."

Faith said to her father, tartly, "It was the fact you thought you were fooling Mother that--that drove her nuts! If you'd admitted you had a playgirl complex, being Valerie, Mother would probably have cheered for you. She's that liberal--which, I must say, is carrying it beyond my notion of generosity or sense! But a sneaky husband! That she couldn't stand!"

"I know," Vance sighed. "Lord, I know! I wonder how many men as supposedly sane and even intelligent as myself get all balled up over a pretty face, tapering legs, batted eyes."

"Angelica," Faith had repeated, "is a lot more than that! Don't slander her! Or yourself! If I were a man and wanted a mistress I'd have picked one like her, providing I was lucky enough to find one. Now,
stop
apologizing to all of us, for heaven's sake, Dad, and simply face the fact your vanity took an uppercut, with Angelica's rescue! She won't make trouble! And I bet AI's through trying. So, can't you be a
man
about it all? Nobody ever thought you were perfect, and poor Mother only thought you'd always be more frank and candid than you've been till now."

Ben had left them then, the daughter still talking to the father as if he were a teen-ager caught in some off-base foolishness.

What he most remembered of that scene, which had occurred in the fourth week of their existence in the rockmaze, was the look in Faith's eyes when, having disarmed Al, he'd turned to discover her standing in the doorway: a look of such dazzling wonder, such sympathetic alarm, such shining approval, such--well, a look he could not name, really.

For Faith was Kit's fiancée.

Another strange association, besides the fast-growing and reciprocal interest of Lodi Li and George Hyama, was becoming manifest. Ben learned of it from those two, one afternoon while they started tests of the rotary spark-gap equipment they were building in the hope of being able to send, as well as receive radio messages from the surviving world. . . .

Lodi and George were smoking together at the doorway of the communications room one day, while they watched as he started the rotor spinning and sent sparks flashing across the gap.

When he shut off the apparatus, satisfied with the progress, his two assistants were giggling.

"Joke?" Ben smiled.

George chuckled. "Connie. She just went by with Pete in tow. As per usual."

Ben's brows lifted. "Connie? And Pete? As usual?" He pictured the lithe, lovely colored girl, and the tall, shy, somewhat mousy meter reader. Lodi laughed musically and nodded. "They call it studying."

George said, heatedly, "They
study,
all right."

"Oh, sure! They hardly do anything else, when they both have the same time off!"

Lodi chuckled again. "But imagine! A beautiful girl like Connie, and a sort of mama's boy, bean-pole type like Pete."

"Clarify." Ben grinned.

George said, incredulously, "Haven't you noticed?" And when Ben shook his head, he clarified: "For days now, Connie has given all her spare time to Pete. Nights, he does 'homework' she assigns him."

Ben said,
"Whaaaat?"

"I mean
homework!
He's studying five freshman college courses. He only went through high, you know. And some geology at night school. Connie's the prof, for all five; though, when he needs to, and gets up the nerve, Pete'll ask questions of the rest of us. It's perfectly straight. She's trying to give him a start on a college education. They've got plenty of books for the quadrennium, as you know, and for virtually any graduate work a person could think of. But for the present, he's doing his first year at a speeded-up rate--in English, Latin, Spanish, college algebra, and geology. Geology--mineralogy, rather--was the poor oaf's hobby, anyhow. And Connie never took it. So
that
they're learning together. The other subjects
she teaches.
And he works like a dog! One day, recently, he asked me to look over his math lesson, before he dared let Connie grade it. It was about a week's work, for the usual freshman."

"But," Lodi now took the subject a step further, "it's not
merely
that Pete wants to be educated and Connie has nothing better to do. They're
nuts
about each other!"

Ben said, "Be doggoned!"

"Why
not?"
The Chinese girl spoke defensively. "He's nice! And she's unbelievable! That shoe-polish-suave Alberto also is crazy for Connie. But she won't look at him! And why?" Lodi hesitated and then said it quietly: "I'm not a white person, either. Alberto is. And no matter how wild he got about Connie, he'd think, every second, she was colored. Pete--well, to Pete it doesn't matter. He's already forgotten he's white and she's black, at least mostly that, like most colored people. I'd say gold-brown, actually. So, naturally, Connie finds attentions from men like Al horrid. But when somebody doesn't remember color any more, that makes everything
different.
And Pete is so sweet and so very eager!"

Ben shook his head, his face showing some anxiety.

George had listened to Lodi with tense fascination. But now, he laughed. "Don't worry about it, Doc! Everything is under control."

"Hope so."

George turned to Lotus Li. "Am I right?"

She nodded, eyes serious.
"Yes."

After that Ben realized it was true and he had not "noticed" what he had just seen and, now, continuously saw. At mealtime Connie and Pete usually sat together. They had arranged the housekeeping schedule, which was shared by all, equally, so as to work together. And when the group was not at meals, asleep, or roller skating, at which they were gradually becoming proficient in various degrees, Connie, in slacks and blouse and slippers, black hair tied in a ponytail, could be seen in the library, or in some comer of a room furnishing at least partial privacy, quietly delivering a lecture to the tall youth with the smudge of mustache and the retiring glance.

Ben noted, too, that Paulus Davey, who was the least talkative and most inconspicuous of them all (and who seemed, still, to be in partial shock over the loss of his wife and the rest of his family, and his world, too), would sometimes take furtive, anxious observations of his beautiful daughter's constant concern with Peter Williams.