Let the Fire Fall Page 12

  Governor Lyman Purdy of Kentucky, long a devoted Coxman, said he saw nothing wrong in the formation of such a private army. Justice Department head Elmore Freed, away on a fishing trip with Coxbacker William S. Jones, was unavailable far comment.”

  Excerpts from a speech given by Dr. Thomas Otto Brunwick before the Society of Psychologists and Philosophers

  As I have shown in developing the history of matrist societies in the past, when the degree of permissiveness exceeds that which can be allowed while still maintaining the security of the society, collapse follows. And the succeeding generation inaugurates the rigorous patrist society, in a twinkling, as it were. So we see that under the matrist society we have sexual liberation to the point of license; we have disorganization within the government to the point of anarchy; we have emancipation for our women, never however equalling that of men, but at times approaching it; we have a burst of creativity, with new ideas, new methods, new arts even being invented, much too much to be. assimilated within a lifetime. The very freedom that ushers in a matrist reign is also its downfall.

  With the reversal that inevitably follows, we see on authoritarian governing body, whether it be secular or religious or familial, or any combination of the three. Morals become the concern of the government and are restricted to the most conservative ideals of the most conservative committees. Authority again demands obedience and punishes those who do not recognize its claim. Punitive measures are severe and swift, and so on.

  In the present situation, however, we find a curious mixture of both kinds of societies, and while anthropologists are agreed that only with a mixture of the two types can a stable society emerge, the combination that we see now Is of the worst aspects of the two general societal organizations that I have outlined. We have the license of the most advanced matrist society, and at the same time we have the restrictions and the punitive qualities that have always characterized the worst of the patrist governments. What must be acknowledged, however, is the fact that where there is a combination of the two societies, there is also the inclination, no, stronger than an inclination, the propensity of this organization to be self-perpetuating….

  Chapter Twelve

  IN September Obie finally was granted an audience with the Star Child, scheduled for October 15, six weeks away. The reason the interview was approved was simply that in the most recent poll taken by the official Automatic Data Bank Computer Pollster, 49 percent of the people indicated that the Star Child must be examined by a man of God, namely Obie Cox; 17 percent said that he should be left alone, and the others were divided, some saying that an objective interview should be arranged, others saying that the whole thing was nonsense, that he should be turned loose to earn a living like other young men his age.

  Obie paced and tried to arrange his thoughts about the impending interview, Dee Dee helped. She lay stretched out on the twenty-foot-long couch and made appropriate comments from time to time.

  “What if he turns the evil eye on you and you develop stomach cancer like that fat fool Wakeman did?”

  “I am protected,” Obie said, scowling at her.

  “Of course. What if he produces a miracle in your presence that you can’t duplicate, or explain?”

  The Star Child worked miracles from time to time, it was said. He could appear in, or vanish from any room of the estate that housed him. No locks could bar his passage. He could hear thoughts, whispers, conversations, no matter how far removed from the speakers. He had prescience and clairvoyance. He was in constant telepathic communication with his people. And of course, those in contact with him still became ill, or had strange accidents. Those who denied it were paid off, or lied, or were deceived.

  Obie glowered at Dee Dee and told her to pull her skirt down. She smiled at nothing in particular and raised her leg, studying it intently. “Take me with you, Obie. I want to see the Star Child too.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.” Dee Dee narrowed her eyes, staring at the ceiling. “I have a feeling, Obie. A hunch.” She knew that Obie had faith in hunches, ever since his hunch concerning Blake had proven so true, since his original hunch about becoming an evangelist had succeeded beyond anyone’s expectations. He believed that everyone had hunches as strong as his own, and that they demanded the right to fulfillment. He looked at her suspiciously and Dee Dee smiled.

  “Tell me about it,” Obie said after a long wait.

  “Nothing to tell, Obie dear. I have a feeling that I will go with you and that I should go with you. I see us standing with the Star Child, side by side. That’s all.” She laughed inwardly at the lines of indecision that appeared on his face. If she had made it too detailed he wouldn’t have believed her, but leaving it hazy like that, he was forced to buy. He did.

  “Okay, Dee Dee.” Obie continued to look at her, and Dee Dee continued to swing her leg.

  In the beginning Obie had voiced the fundamentalist views that he was familiar with, felt comfortable with. But then, needing Dee Dee, knowing of her promiscuity, there had been a subtle change in his views, and very gradually in the messages he taught. When they’d bailed Everett out of trouble for the third time over a twelve-year-old boy, the change had speeded up, until now Obie was preaching that there was nothing wrong in itself with sexual promiscuity, that only when children were produced that were destined to be fatherless, or homeless, or unwanted was such behavior against the will of God. This was much easier to live with. Everett blessed him again and again, and rewrote his will naming Obie as the sole beneficiary. He had known salvation lay with Obie and he had been proven right and was delirious with joy at being cleansed of sin.

  With a lazy motion Dee Dee unzipped the gown that had slipped up around her hips, and she stretched, reaching both hands over her head. Obie moved toward her automatically and when he lay on her, panting, hot, heavy, her smile was even wider.

  Later in bed with Merton she told him that she was going to see the Star Child.

  “What for?” he said, tickling her thigh with the tips of his fingers. She shivered obligingly.

  “Curiosity. Boredom. Christ, those endless sermons, those endless lines of goons, those endless moronic hymns…. That’s nice. Do it again.”

  Obie found that he couldn’t plan what he would say to the Star Child, what he would demand from him. The Star Child was an unknown factor. Most of the people on Earth hated and feared him and what he represented, and there were the rumors concerning his powers, denied, of course, but still enough to make the Star Child eerie. Obie thought and thought about him and what to say to him and came up with nothing.

  October, hot and dry, brought forest fires and thick hazy air that was laden with dust, ashes, smoke. Stream beds cracked, leaves fell prematurely, browned and twisted, lacking the splendor of fall’s magic. Migratory birds flew early, and a severe winter was predicted. Obie and Dee Dee were picked up at the airstrip at Mount Laurel and flown to the estate where the Star Child was held. Accompanying them was the senator from their state, Calvin Taylor Dinwiddie.

  The vertical take-off plane was heavily draped so that they couldn’t see out, and it flew for nine hours before landing at eleven that night, and they had no way of knowing if it had flown directly to their destination, or if it had circled any of the time. They were as much in the dark as before about the location of the estate. They were shown to rooms in a private house on the property. They would be received by the director at ten in the morning, and meanwhile if they desired anything at all, there were phones in both rooms connecting with the switchboard, the kitchen, etc. They were shown to adjoining, but not connecting, rooms, and as soon as the guard-servant left them Dee Dee went to Obie’s room. They had decided previously that the rooms probably were bugged, and probably were filmed during the stay of any visitor. Dee Dee leaned against the door and said, “I suppose we can order some supper?”

  Obie shrugged and lifted the phone. Behind Dee Dee the door moved slightly and she stepped away from it, allowing it to open. Obie s
tared past her at the new arrival. Dee Dee turned then to look also. She stared for a moment, stifled a scream, and fainted.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “SISTER Diane had a little fainting spell,” Obie said, trying to shove the senator from the room. Calvin Taylor Dinwiddie stared from Obie to Dee Dee, who was lying on a couch, ashen-faced, sipping a drink. He could hardly see her for the other men in the room. Security guards in the guise of cooks, gardeners, teachers, they were all there. Senator Dinwiddie resisted the push toward the door.

  “Now, Brother Cox, you just relax and take it easy now. Sister Diane is in good hands.” He gave ground, sidestepping slightly to go to the side of the door instead of through the doorway. “Sister Diane,” he called. “If you want me to get these people out of here, you just say the word.”

  Dee Dee didn’t say anything. Obie gave up with the senator and announced generally, “If you gentlemen will kindly leave now. I’m sure Sister Diane is feeling better. If you will kindly leave us now and let us pray together….”

  No one was paying any attention.

  “Miss, did Johnny touch you?”

  “Did he say anything to you?”

  “Has he been in touch with you before?”

  Lenny Mallard stood slightly behind the others watching Dee Dee closely. When she appeared to be regaining her composure somewhat, he said with authority, “I think that Miss MacLeish should be allowed to rest now. We can talk to her in the morning.” The others looked from her to Lenny, then one by one left the room. Lenny was the last to leave.

  “You started to order some supper,” he said at the door. “Why don’t you go ahead and do that. You two must want to be alone. Things to talk about. I’ll see you at breakfast.”

  Dee Dee sat up suddenly. “I want to go home,” she said.

  Obie crossed the room swiftly to kneel at the couch and take her hand. “It’s all right now, Dee Dee,” he said. “There’s nothing here.”

  She pulled loose and sat up. She looked at Lenny. “I won’t stay. I want to go home now. Tonight.”

  “I’m afraid that’s impossible, Miss MacLeish,” Lenny said smoothly. “There’s no transportation out of here tonight.”

  “The plane is still here. I’ll pay whatever it costs to fly it out of here.”

  “It’s out of the question,” Lenny said, less smoothly, but smiling still.

  “I won’t stay here tonight! I won’t!”

  “What happened?” Lenny reentered the room all the way closing the door after him. “You tell me now what happened and I’ll see to it that you go home.”

  “Tonight? ”

  “Yes.”

  Dee Dee held out her glass and Lenny took it from her and refilled it from a decanter on a side table. She drank deeply, then said, “You won’t believe it. None of you will. I’ve read about your denials of his power.”

  Very patiently Lenny said, “Try me.”

  “All right,” Dee Dee said, sipping now, watching the gin and ice. “I came in to ask Obie, Brother Cox, about supper. I was standing at the door. Suddenly I felt strange, not myself. I was terrified all at once. I pulled the door open and he appeared there, just appeared out of nothing. And I felt him trying to get my mind, my brain. He was there, but he was inside me too. It was so horrible! I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything. It seemed to last for an eternity. Minutes, hours, I don’t know how long. Then I felt him shift, and I was able to move and scream. That’s all I know.”

  Lenny continued to watch her without speaking. Dee Dee returned his gaze, her face smooth, untroubled, her eyes very clear. “So that’s to be the story?” he said finally.

  “But that’s exactly what happened. I said you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Well you were right about that. I don’t.”

  Dee Dee shrugged. “Perhaps you could explain it all a different way?”

  Lenny started toward the door again. “No, I can’t explain it. I believe you planned the whole thing. I don’t think you really want to leave. I think this is the opening act of a charade that you plan to continue through the next two days, your planned stay with us. So, I will follow our agreement. I’ll call the pilot back. Be ready to leave within half an hour, please.”

  “Please don’t throw me in that ole briar patch,” Dee Dee murmured.

  Lenny’s expression didn’t change a fraction. He left them. Obie, still on his knees at Dee Dee’s side said, “What did happen to you? Are you all right now? You look strange.”

  “I told him and you what happened, Obie. I was a perfect receiver for the Star Child. Obviously you aren’t, or you would have felt it too. I really can’t stay, because he’ll be successful the next time, and such a power isn’t confined by walls or time. But you must stay and go through your interview with him as you planned.”

  Dee Dee wouldn’t add a word to that, and half an hour later, her bags still packed, never even opened, she left the estate as she had arrived there, by vertical take-off craft, heavily draped. This time she was the only passenger.

  It was noon when Dee Dee watched the plane vanish into the blazing sky the next day. Several people were running toward her from the control shack. She left her suitcases on the ground and started to walk toward the men who managed the airstrip. Crisply she said, “Call the house and tell Merton I want to see him immediately. Tell him to drop everything and get up here. And get me a copter right now.”

  Merton was there by the time she arrived. “Come on,” she said, leading him toward her suite in the mansion that topped the mountain. It was a three-storied house, with tall columns, wide porches, high ceilings, thick Persian carpets and antiques. Her suite, three rooms, office, bedroom, and sitting room, was all in jade and ivory with flaming pink pillows and draperies. She told Louise, her maid, that she wanted a bath, clean clothes, and lunch, all very fast. Louise nodded silently and vanished. Dee Dee started to discard the clothes she was wearing and Merton sat down and waited for her to begin the story. But Dee Dee remained silent until the maid said the bath was ready. “I’ll call you if I need you,” Dee Dee said. Louise nodded and left the suite.

  “Now?” Merton said.

  “They might have slipped me a bug,” she said.

  Merton’s eyebrows peaked. He examined her clothing, purse, and suitcases very carefully, then shook his head.

  Dee Dee motioned for him to follow her. She had pulled a flowing robe about her and she dropped it on her way to the bath. She caught up her long hair with a scarf twisting it all about her head, then stepped into the sunken bath of black and white ivory. Only then did she say, “The Star Child is Obie’s bastard.”

  Merton sat down hard on an ornate bench before a dressing mirror. He stared at Dee Dee, visible from the neck up, the rest of her body hidden by rainbow-hued bubbles. Dee Dee was busy soaping herself, not watching his reaction at all. She turned on the spray then, and water spouted from dragons’ mouths on two sides of the rub, rinsing her as she stood up. Automatically Merton handed her a large towel that wrapped about her completely. His gaze was on her, but seeing nothing, as she let the towel drop, powdered herself, and left the bathroom to start dressing in the bedroom. Presently Merton followed. Dee Dee was brushing out her hair by then. She was wearing a white silk sari-like garment held at the shoulder by a cluster of pink rosebuds fashioned around a diamond pin.

  “You’re sure?” Merton asked, as she led the way into the sitting room.

  Dee Dee opened the draperies, revealing a window wall with a view of the mountains stretching to the horizon. Neither of them saw the autumn vista, which looked as unreal as a Saturday Evening Post cover. She nodded. “I couldn’t be more certain. I fainted when I saw him.” She poured coffee for both of them, and sipping hers, lifted the tops from various silver bowls and serving dishes. She told Merton what had happened.

  “Okay, you covered it pretty well. But how about Obie? Does he know?”

  “Of course not. I wouldn’t have left him there if he
had seen it. The kid is exactly like Obie was in high school. It’s uncanny. But Obie has looked at that beard and all that hair for so long that he doesn’t know what he looked like before. No one else does either. Except possibly his mother, and she’s as crazy as a loon.”

  Merton said nothing for several minutes and Dee Dee served herself stuffed mushrooms, asparagus vinaigrette, Boston lettuce with crab salad and tomato wedges, tiny hot rolls crisped on the outside, steamy and fragrant when she broke them open.

  “You know what that means?” Merton said finally. “Blake is the alien. And he’s vanished. We’ve got to find him”

  “I know,” Dee Dee said, between bites. “He’s the only one who can blow the whistle now.”

  “And we’ve got to get the Star… the kid out of that place….”

  “I thought of that, but why? Let them keep him under wraps for us. It’s Blake I’m worried about. What if he wakes up one day and says, ‘By golly, I think I’m an alien?’” She licked a drop of butter from her finger and her eyes were drawn to the fingers that had been mashed in the car door ten years ago. There was no scar, no trace of the accident. She said, “We know that Blake has something, power, whatever you want to call it. He’s got it. I wonder what else he has by now. He was a damn good-looking kid.”