Her treacherous lips had mutinied,
and she had sat there, feeling the blood drain back out of her
face--out of her heart--feeling her eyes turn back with sheer terror,
while she fought with those stiffened rebels. Such a little word
"Live!"--surely they could say that. Was it not what he was waiting
for, lying far away and still--schooled at last to patience, the
reckless and the restless! Oh, Jerry, Jerry, live! Even now she
could feel her mind, like some frantic little wild thing, racing,
racing to escape Memory. What had he said to her? "You, wise beyond
wisdom, will never hold me--you will never hold me--you will never--"
And suddenly she had dropped her twisted hands in her lap and lifted
her eyes to Jerry's ambassador.
"Will you please tell him--will you please tell him that I
say--'Contact'?"
"Contact?" He had stood smiling down at her, ironical and tender.
"Ah, what a race! That is the prettiest word that you can find for
Jerry? But then it means to come very close, to touch, that poor
harsh word--there he must find what comfort he can. We, too, in
aviation use that word--it is the signal that says--'Now, you can fly!'
You do not know our vocabulary, perhaps?"
"I know very little."
"That is all then? No other message? He will understand, our Jerry?"
And Janie had smiled--rather a terrible small smile.
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