The Lovers   ::   Фармер Филип Хосе

' Poo wamoo tu baw choo. E'ooteh. Seelahs. Fvooneh. Fvit, seelfvoopleh.'

Numbed, but obeying as if shot full of hypno-lipno, he began walking toward the doorway. He was not so shocked, however, that he did not look at Pornsen to make sure he was still sleeping.

For a second, his reflexes almost overcame him and forced him to wake up the gapt. But he withdrew the hand reaching for Pornsen. He must take a chance. The urgency and fear in the woman's voice told him that she was desperate and needed him. And it was evident that she did not want him to arouse Pornsen.

What would Pornsen say, do, if he knew there was a woman outside this very room?

Woman? How could a woman be here?

Her words had clicked something familiar. He had had the strange and fleeting notion that he should know the language. But he did not.

He stopped. What was he thinking of? If Pornsen woke and looked over at the cot to make sure his ward was still in it... He went back to the cot and shoved his suitcase under the sheet which the custodian had provided for him. He rolled up his jacket and packed it next to the case. One end of it stuck out of the sheet and lay on the pillow. Perhaps, if Pornsen was very sleepy, he might mistake the dark lump on the pillow and the bulk under the sheet for Hal.

Softly, on bare feet, he walked again toward the doorway. An object about eight decimeters high stood on guard in it. A statuette of the archangel Gabriel, pale, wings half-extended, a sword in its right hand held above its head.

If any object with a mass larger than a mouse's came within two feet of the field radiating from the statuette, it would cause a signal to be transmitted to the small case mounted on the silver bracelet around Pornsen's wrist. The case would shrill – as it had at the appearance of the lungbug – and up would come Pornsen from the bottom of his sleep.

The statuette's purpose was not only to insure against trespassers. It was also there to make certain that Hal would not leave the room without his gapt's knowledge. As the ruins had no working plumbing, Hal's only excuse to step outside would be to relieve himself. The gapt would go along to see that he did not try to do something else.

Hal picked up a fly swatter. It had a three-foot-long handle made of some flexible wood. Its mass would not be enough to touch off the field. Hand trembling, he very gently pushed the statuette to one side with the end of the handle. He had to be careful not to upset it, for tilting triggered its alarm.