He held her closer, forgetting he was from Earth, even as he said the word. "But I'll try, Gladia. It's no use raising hopes, but I don't have a completely empty hand. I'll try - "
His voice trailed off.
"You keep saying, you'll try. - But how?" She pushed away from him a bit to look up into his face.
Baley said, bewildered, "Why, I may - "
"Find the murderer?"
"Whatever. - Gladia, please, I must sit down."
He reached out for the table, leaning on it.
She said, "What is it, Elijah?"
"I've had a difficult day, obviously, and I haven't quite recovered, I think."
"You'd better go to bed, then."
"To tell the truth, Gladia, I would like to."
She released him, her face full of concern and with no further room in it for tears. She lifted her arm and made a rapid motion and he was (it seemed to him) surrounded by robots at once.
And when, he was in bed eventually and the last robot had left him, he found himself staring up at darkness.
He could not tell whether it was still raining Outside or whether some feeble lightning flashes were still making their last sleepy sparks, but he knew he heard no thunder.
He drew a deep breath and thought: Now what is it I have promised Gladia? What will happen tomorrow?
Last act: Failure?
And as Baley drifted into the borderland of sleep, he thought of that unbelievable flash of illumination that had come before sleep.
69
Twice before, it had happened. Once the night before when, as now, he was falling asleep and once earlier this evening when he had slipped into unconsciousness beneath the tree in the storm. Each time, something had occurred to him, some enlightenment that had unmystified the problem as the lightning had undarkened the night.
And it had stayed with him as briefly as the lightning had.
What was it?
Would it come to him again?
This time, he tried consciously to seize it, to catch the elusive truth. - Or was it the elusive illusion? Was it the slipping away of conscious reason and the coming of attractive nonsense that one couldn't analyze properly in the absence of a properly thinking brain?
The search for whatever it was, however, slid slowly away. It would no more come on call than a unicorn would in a world in which unicorns did not exist.
It was easier to think of Gladia and of how she had felt. There had been the direct touch of the silkiness of her blouse, but beneath it were the small and delicate arms, the smooth back.
Would he have dared to kiss her if his legs had not begun to buckle beneath him? Or would that have been going too far?
He heard his breath exhale in a soft snore and, as always, that embarrassed him. He flogged himself awake and thought of Gladia again. Before he left, surely - but not if he could gam nothing for her in ret - Would that be payment for services then - He heard the soft snore again and cared less this time.
Gladia - He had never thought he would see her again - let alone touch her - let alone hold her - hold her -
And he had no way of telling at what point he passed from thought to dream.
He was holding her again, as before - But there was no blouse - and her skin was warm and soft - and his hand moved slowly down the slope of shoulder blade and down the hidden ridges of her ribs -
There was a total aura of reality about it. All of his senses were engaged. He smelled her hair and his lips tasted the faint, faint salt of her skin - and now somehow they were no longer standing. Had they lain down or were they lying down from the start? And what had happened to the light?
He felt the mattress beneath him and the cover over him darkness - and she was still in his arms and her body was bare.
He was shocked awake. "Gladia?"
Rising inflection - disbelieving -
"Shh, Elijah." She placed the fingers of one hand gently on his lips. "Don't say anything."
She might as well have asked him to stop the current of his blood.
He said, "What are you doing?"
She said, "Don't you know what I'm doing? I'm in bed with you."
"But why?"
"Because I want to." Her body moved against his.
She pinched the top of his night garment and the seam that held it together fell apart.
"Don't move, Elijah. You're tired and I don't want you to wear yourself out further."
Elijah felt a warmth stirring within him. He decided not to protect Gladia against herself. He said, "I'm not that tired, Gladia."
"No," she said sharply. "Rest! I want you to rest. Don't move."
Her mouth was on his as though intent on forcing him to keep quiet. He relaxed and the small thought flitted past him that he was following orders that he was tired and was willing to be done to rather than to do. And, tinged with shame, it occurred to him that it rather diluted his guilt. (I couldn't help it, he heard, himself say. She made me.) Jehoshaphat, how cowardly! How unbearably demeaning!
But those thoughts washed away, too. Somehow there was soft music in the air and the temperature had risen a bit. The cover had vanished and so had his nightclothes. He felt his head moved into the cradle of her arms and pressed against softness.
With a detached surprise, he knew, from her position, that the softness was her left breast and that it was centered, contrastingly, with its nipple hard against his lips.
Softly, she was singing to the music, a sleepily joyful tune he did not recognize.
She rocked gently back and forth and her fingertips grazed his chin and neck. He relaxed, content to do nothing, to let her initiate and carry through every activity. When she moved his arms, he did not resist and let them rest wherever she placed them.
He did not help and, when he did respond with heightened excitement and climax, it was only out of helplessness to do otherwise.