Bloated and stained, lined with fear, it still bore a faint resemblance
to the girl he had known. Now a fleeting look of cunning crossed her
face briefly, to be replaced with an attempt at dawning recognition.
"Duke!" She gasped it, then made a sound that might have been meant for
joy. She stumbled to her knees, reaching out to him. But her eyes
swiveled briefly toward the knife. "Duke, it's you!"
He pushed her back and reached for the knife. He was sure she'd known
who it was--had probably been the one who awakened him by looking in
through the broken window. "Why'd you try to kill me, Ronda? You saw
who it was. If you needed money, you know I'd give you anything I had.
Why?"
"Not for money." She twisted from him and slumped limply against a
broken wall. Tears came into her eyes. This time the catch in her voice
was real. "I know ... I know, Duke. And I wanted to see you, to talk to
you, too." She shook her head slowly. "What can I do with money? I
wanted to wake you up like old times. But Mrs. Kalaufa--she led you
here--she said--"
He waited, but she didn't finish. She traced a pattern on the dust of
the floor, before looking up again. "You've never been really hungry!
Not that hungry! You wouldn't understand."
"Even with the dole, you can't starve that much in the time since
Kordule was bombed," he protested. He gagged as he thought of the
meaning he'd guessed from her words, expecting her to deny it.
* * * * *
She shrugged. "In ten years, you can do anything. Oh, sure, you came
back on leave and we lived high. Everything was fine here, wasn't it?
Sure it was, for you. They briefed me on where I should take you, so
there'd be good food ready. They kept a few places going for the men
who came back on leave. We couldn't ruin your morale!"
She laughed weakly, and let the sound die away slowly. "How do you
think we sent out the food and supplies for the fleet the last three
years, after the blockade on our supplies from friendly worlds? Why do
you think there was no more leave for you? Because they didn't think
you brave soldiers could stand just seeing how the rest of us lived!
And you think you had it tough! Watch the sky for the enemy while your
stomach hopes for the sound that might be a rat. Hide three cans of
food you'll be shot for hoarding--because there is nothing else
important in the world. And then have a man steal them from you when
the raids come! What does a soldier know of war?"
The sickness inside him grew into a knot, but he still couldn't fully
believe what she was saying. "But cannibalism--"
"No." She shook her head with a faint trace of his own disgust. "No,
Duke. Mrs. Kalaufa told me ... you're not really the same race--Not as
close as you are to an Earth animal, and you don't call that
cannibalism. Nobody on Meloa has ever been a cannibal--yet! How much
money do you have, Duke?"
He took it out and handed it to her. She counted it mechanically and
handed it back. "Not enough. You can't take me away when you leave
here."
"I'm not leaving," he told her. He dropped the money back on the
blanket beside her.
She stared at him for a moment and then pulled herself up to her feet,
moving toward the door. "Good-by, Duke. And get off Meloa. You can't
help us any more. And I don't want you here when I get desperate enough
to remember you might take me back. I like you too much for that, even
now."
He took a step toward her, and she ducked.
"Get out!" She screamed it at him. "Do you think I can stand looking at
you without drooling any longer? Do you want me to call Mrs. Kalaufa
for help?"
Through the open door, he saw Mrs. Kalaufa across the street, still
cradling the child. As the door slammed shut behind him, the woman
screamed, either as a summons or from fear that he'd seek revenge on
her. He saw other heads appear, with frantic eyes that stared sullenly
at the gun he carried. He stumbled down the street, where rain was
beginning to fall, conscious that it would be night before he got back
to the port. He no longer cared.
There was no place for him here, he now saw. He was still an Earthman,
and Earthmen were always treated as a race apart somehow. He didn't
belong. Nor could he go back to a life on Earth. But there were still
the recruiting stations there; so long as war existed, there had to be
such stations. He headed for the fat ships of Earth that squatted
complacently on the wrecked port.