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They gaped at him foolishly. Then the sight of their surprised faces was cut off: Cussick had pulled open the hall door and was racing down the thick-carpeted corridor to meet her.
She was on the stairs when she saw him coming. There she halted, gazing up, breathing rapidly, holding onto the banister. She wore the severe gray suit of the organization, the little cap on her heavy blonde hair. But it was she; it was Nina. For an interval the two of them stood, Cussick at the top of the stairs, Nina below him, eyes bright, lips apart, nostrils dilated. Then she let go of the banister and scampered up the rest of the way. A brief instant as her arms reached up for him hungrily, and then he had descended his own two steps to meet her. After that an indefinite time of holding her tight, feeling her against him, smelling the warm scent of her hair; taking in, after so many months, the smooth pressure of her body, the yearning, fervent need of her.
"Oof," she gasped finally. "You're going to break me."
He led her upstairs, still holding tightly onto her, not letting her go until they were inside the deserted apartment and the door had been locked behind them.
Glancing breathlessly around, Nina stood stripping off her gloves. He could see how nervous she was; her hands shook as she mechanically pushed the gloves into her purse, "Well?" she asked huskily, "how've you been?"
"Fine." He walked a little way off to have a good view of her. Under his gaze she faltered visibly; she shrank back against the wall, half-lifted her fingers to her throat, smiled, gazed appealingly up at him like an animal that had failed to show up for its di
"Can I come back?" she asked, in a whisper.
"Back?" He was afraid to imagine what she meant.
Tears filled her eyes. "Guess not."
"Of course you can come back." He moved up and took hold of her. "You know you can come back. Any time. Any time you want."
"You better let go of me," she whispered. "I'm going to start weeping. Let me get out my handkerchief."
He let go reluctantly; with awkward fingers she got out her bit of handkerchief and blew her nose. For a moment she stood dabbing at her eyes, red lips twitching, not speaking or looking at him, just standing there in her gray organization uniform, trying not to cry.
"The son of a bitch," she said finally, in a thin, weak voice.
"Jones?"
"I'll tell you... when I can." Balling her handkerchief up, she began striding around the room, arms folded, chin up, face quivering. "Well, it's a long and not very pleasant story. I've been with the organization—I guess over two years, now."
"Twenty-eight months," he informed her.
"That sounds right." She turned suddenly to him, "It's over. I'm through."
"What happened?"
Nina felt in her pockets. "Cigarette?"
He got out his pack, lit a cigarette for her, and put it between her trembling lips.
"Thanks," she said, breathing swift jets of gray-blue smoke out into the room. "First, I think we better get out of here. He may pick you up—he's picking everybody up."
"But I've been cleared," Cussick protested.
"Darling, that makes no damn difference. You've heard what he did to Pearson? No, I suppose not." Briskly taking hold of his arm she propelled him toward the door. "We'd be a lot safer out of here; take me somewhere, anywhere." Shivering, she stood up on her toes to kiss him briefly. "Something has happened. We—the organization—know it, now; Jones told us. Tomorrow morning the public will know."
"What is it?"
"The great Crusade is over. The ships are coming back. It's the end of Jones, the end of the organization. Movement, I mean. Now that we're in, we're supposed to call—"
Cussick found the doorknob. "That's wonderful," he managed.
"Wonderful?" She laughed brittlely. "It's terrible, darling. As soon as we're out of here, I'll tell you why."
He found an all-night beanery on a side street, two miles from his apartment. At the counter, a pair of drowsy patrons sat slumped over their coffee, listlessly reading newspapers. The waitress was perched in the back by the cooking controls, staring out at the night. In the corner a tune-maker ground out cadences to itself.
"Fine," Nina said, sliding into a booth at the rear of the cafe. "There's a back door, isn't there?"
Cussick located a back door behind the cooking equipment: the service and maintenance entrance. "What do you want to chew on?"
"Just coffee."
He got the two coffees, and for a time they sat stirring and meditating, glancing furtively at each other.
"You're looking pretty nice," he told her haltingly.
"Thank you. I sort of hoped I'd lost a pound or two."
"Do you mean this? You're going to stay?" He had to be sure. "You're not going off again?"
"I mean it," she answered simply, her eyes blue and direct. "Tomorrow morning I want to go and get Jackie." She added: "I've been seeing him every once in a while. I've kept sort of control over him."
"Me, too," Cussick said.
As she sipped her coffee, Nina explained to him what had happened. In short, terse words she outlined the background on the drifters, and the situation with the mobile war units.
"The ring is up, now," she told him. "The ships are turning back, returning to Earth. Why not? There's nothing else they can do. Commander Ascott's flagship, that great big thing, will be the first one to land. Right now they're clearing the New York field."
"Pollen," Cussick said, stricken. "That explains their incompleteness. He had begun to sweat cold, apprehensive drops. "We really are tangled up with something, then."
"Don't start imagining all that old scare stuff," Nina said sharply. "Invasion of Earth—beings from outer space. They're just not that way. They're plants; all they care about is protecting themselves. All they want to do is neutralize us—and that's what they've done." Helplessly, she spread her hands. "It's already happened! It's over! We have our little area to operate in, about six star systems. And then—" She smiled frigidly. "Beyond that, the ring."
"And Jones didn't know?"
"When he started, no. He's known for a year, but what could he do? The war had begun... by the time he found out it was too late. He gambled and lost."
"But he didn't admit he was gambling. He said he knew."
"That's right: he lied. He could see a lot of things, but he couldn't see everything. So now he's paying for it... he's letting the fleet come back. He led us—he led the people—into a trap. He let us down; betrayed us."
"What next?"
"Next," Nina said, pale and subdued, "he puts up his real fight. This afternoon he called all of us together, all the officials of the organization." She unbuttoned her gray coat and showed him the inside lapel. An elaborate emblem-badge was stitched into the fabric, a series of letters and numbers beneath a stylized ornament. "I'm a big shot, darling. I'm vice commissioner of the Women's Defense League... part of the new internal security system. So I was herded in with the other very-important-people, stood up in a long row, and fed the real story, our first preview of what's coming."
"How's he taking it?"
"He's almost out of his mind."
"Why?"
"Because," Nina answered, sipping her coffee, "even with his power, he's still lost. He can see defeat and death... he can see his awful, final struggle to keep alive—and he can see it failing. There it was, on his face. That terrible cadaverous look, like a dead thing. Fish eyes. No life, no luster. He stood there shaking all over; he could scarcely stand up. He twitched, he stammered... it was heartbreaking. And he told us the Crusade had failed, was coming back, that in a short while we could expect the riots to break out."
Cussick pondered. "The riots. The betrayed followers."