Page:Astounding Science Fiction v54n06 (1955-02).djvu/80

 pointing for his apartment.

The recording had been an unavoidable but vicious measure of his own. He'd had to resort to it, for the temptation to drive to a terminal, to an airport, or rocket field, or railroad station—anywhere—had become excruciating.

The car stopped for a pedestrian light, and a sports model bounced jauntily to a stop beside it. The driver cocked an eyebrow at Marlowe and chuckled. "Say, Fatso, which one of you's the Buick?" Then the light changed, the car spurted away, and left Marlowe cringing.

He would not get an official car and protect himself with its license number. He would not be a coward. He would not!

His fingers shaking, he tore the film from another candy bar.

Marlowe huddled in his chair, the notebook clamped on one broad thigh by his heavy hand, his lips mumbling nervously while his pencil-point checked off meter.

"Dwell in aching discontent," he muttered. "No. Not that." He stared down at the floor, his eyes distant.

"Bitter discontent," he whispered. He grunted softly with breath that had to force its way past the constricting weight of his hunched chest. "Bitter dwell." He crossed out the third line, substituted the new one, and began to read the first two verses to himself.

He smiled briefly, content. It still wasn't perfect, but it was getting closer. He continued:

"What are you doing, David?" his wife asked over his shoulder.

Flinching, he pulled the notebook closer into his lap, bending forward in an instinctive effort to protect it.

The warm, loving, sawing voice went on. "Are you writing another poem, David? Why, I thought you'd given that up."

"It's it's nothing, really, uh  Leonora. Nothing much. Just a  a thing I've had running around my head. Wanted to get rid of it."

His wife leaned over and kissed his cheek clumsily. "Why, you old big dear! I'll bet it's for me. Isn't it, David? Isn't it for me?"

He shook his head in almost desperate regret. "I'm I'm afraid not, uh—" Snorer. "It's about something else, Leonora."

"Oh." She came around the chair, and he furtively wiped his cheek with RV 81