With the cool air and firmly packed sand under foot, walking should
have been easy. Lea spoiled that. The concussion seemed to have
temporarily cut off the reasoning part of her brain, leaving a
direct connection to her vocal cords. As she stumbled along, only
half conscious, she mumbled all of her darkest fears that were
better left unvoiced. Occasionally there was relevancy in her
complaints. They would lose their way, never find the city, die of
thirst, freezing, heat or hunger. Interspersed and entwined with
these were fears from her past that still floated, submerged in the
timeless ocean of her subconscious. Some Brion could understand,
though he tried not to listen. Fears of losing credits, not getting
the highest grade, falling behind, a woman alone in a world of men,
leaving school, being lost, trampled among the nameless hordes that
struggled for survival in the crowded city-states of Earth.
There were other things she was afraid of that made no sense to a
man of Anvhar. Who were the alkians that seemed to trouble her? Or
what was canceri? Daydle and haydle? Who was Manstan, whose name
kept coming up, over and over, each time accompanied by a little
moan?
Brion stopped and picked her up in both arms. With a sigh she
settled against the hard width of his chest and was instantly
asleep. Even with the additional weight he made better time now, and
he stretched to his fastest, kilometre-consuming stride to make good
use of these best hours.
Somewhere on a stretch of gravel and shelving rock he lost the track
of the sand car. He wasted no time looking for it. By carefully
watching the glistening stars rise and set he had made a good
estimate of the geographic north. Dis didn't seem to have a pole
star; however, a boxlike constellation turned slowly around the
invisible point of the pole. Keeping this positioned in line with
his right shoulder guided him on the westerly course he needed.
When his arms began to grow tired he lowered Lea gently to the
ground; she didn't wake. Stretching for an instant, before taking up
his burden again, Brion was struck by the terrible loneliness of the
desert. His breath made a vanishing mist against the stars; all else
was darkness and silence. How distant he was from his home, his
people, his planet! Even the constellations of the night sky were
different. He was used to solitude, but this was a loneliness that
touched some deep-buried instinct. A shiver that wasn't from the
desert cold touched lightly along his spine, prickling at the hairs
on his neck.
It was time to go on. He shrugged the disquieting sensations off and
carefully tied Lea into the jacket he had been wearing. Slung like a
pack on his back, it made the walking easier. The gravel gave way to
sliding dunes of sand that seemed to continue to infinity. It was a
painful, slipping climb to the top of each one, then an equally
difficult descent to the black-pooled hollow at the foot of the
next.
With the first lightening of the sky in the east he stopped, breath
rasping in his chest, to mark his direction before the stars faded.
One line scratched in the sand pointed due north, a second pointed
out the course they should follow. When they were aligned to his
satisfaction he washed his mouth out with a single swallow of water
and sat on the sand next to the still form of the girl.
Gold fingers of fire searched across the sky, wiping out the stars.
It was magnificent; Brion forgot his fatigue in appreciation. There
should be some way of preserving it. A quatrain would be best. Short
enough to be remembered, yet requiring attention and skill to
compact everything into it. He had scored high with his quatrains in
the Twenties. This would be a special one. Taind, his poetry mentor,
would have to get a copy.
"What are you mumbling about?" Lea asked, looking up at the craggy
blackness of his profile against the reddening sky.
"Poem," he said. "Shhh. Just a minute."
It was too much for Lea, coming after the tension and dangers of the
night. She began to laugh, laughing even harder when he scowled at
her. Only when she heard the tinge of growing hysteria did she make
an attempt to break off the laughter. The sun cleared the horizon,
washing a sudden warmth over them. Lea gasped.
"Your throat's been cut! You're bleeding to death!"
"Not really," he said, touching his fingertips lightly against the
blood-clotted wound that circled his neck. "Just superficial."
Depression sat on him as he suddenly remembered the battle and death
of the previous night. Lea didn't notice his face; she was busy
digging in the pack he had thrown down. He had to use his fingers to
massage and force away the grimace of pain that twisted his mouth.
Memory was more painful than the wound. How easily he had killed!
Three men. How close to the surface of the civilized man the animal
dwelled! In countless matches he had used those holds, always
drawing back from the exertion of the full killing power. They were
part of a game, part of the Twenties. Yet when his friend had been
killed he had become a killer himself. He believed in nonviolence
and the sanctity of life--until the first test, when he had killed
without hesitation. More ironic was the fact he really felt no
guilt, even now. Shock at the change, yes. But no more than that.
"Lift your chin," Lea said, brandishing the antiseptic applicator
she had found in the medicine kit. He lifted his chin obligingly and
the liquid drew a cool, burning line across his neck. Antibio pills
would do a lot more good, since the wound was completely clotted by
now, but he didn't speak his thoughts aloud. For the moment Lea had
forgotten herself in taking care of him. He put some of the
antiseptic on her scalp bruise and she squeaked, pulling back.
They both swallowed the pills.
"That sun is hot already," Lea said, peeling off her heavy
clothing. "Let's find a nice cool cave or an air-cooled saloon
to crawl into for the day."
"I don't think there are any here. Just sand. We have to walk--"
"I know we have to walk," she interrupted. "There's no need for a
lecture about it. You're as seriously cubical as the Bank of Terra.
Relax. Count ten and start again." Lea was making empty talk while
she listened to the memory of hysteria tittering at the fringes of
her brain.
"No time for that. We have to keep going." Brion climbed slowly to
his feet after stowing everything in the pack. When he sighted along
his marker at the western horizon he saw nothing to mark their
course, only the marching dunes. He helped Lea to her feet and began
walking slowly towards them.
"Just hold on a second," Lea called after him. "Where do you think
you're going?"
"In that direction," he said, pointing. "I hoped there would be
some landmarks, but there aren't. We'll have to keep on by dead
reckoning. The sun will keep us pretty well on course. If we aren't
there by night the stars will be a better guide."
"All this on an empty stomach? How about breakfast? I'm hungry--and
thirsty."
"No food." He shook the canteen that gurgled emptily. It had been
only partly filled when he found it. "The water's low and we'll need
it later."
"I need it now," she said shortly. "My mouth tastes like an
unemptied ashtray and I'm dry as paper."
"Just a single swallow," he said after the briefest hesitation.
"This is all we have."
Lea sipped at it with her eyes closed in appreciation. Then he
sealed the top and returned it to the pack without taking any
himself. They were sweating as they started up the first dune.
The desert was barren of life; they were the only things moving
under that merciless sun. Their shadows pointed the way ahead of
them, and as the shadows shortened the heat rose. It had an
intensity Lea had never experienced before, a physical weight that
pushed at her with a searing hand. Her clothing was sodden with
perspiration, and it trickled burning into her eyes. The light and
heat made it hard to see, and she leaned on the immovable strength
of Brion's arm. He walked on steadily, apparently ignoring the heat
and discomfort.
"I wonder if those things are edible--or store water?" Brion's voice
was a harsh rasp. Lea blinked and squinted at the leathery shape on
the summit of the dune. Plant or animal, it was hard to tell. It was
the size of a man's head, wrinkled and grey as dried-out leather,
knobbed with thick spikes. Brion pushed it up with his toe and they
had a brief glimpse of a white roundness, like a shiny taproot,
going down into the dune. Then the thing contracted, pulling itself
lower into the sand. At the same instant something thin and sharp
lashed out through a fold in the skin, striking at Brion's boot and
withdrawing. There was a scratch on the hard plastic, beaded with
drops of green liquid.
"Probably poison," he said, digging his toe into the sand. "This
thing is too mean to fool with--without a good reason. Let's keep
going."
It was before noon when Lea fell down. She really wanted to go on,
but her body wouldn't obey. The thin soles of her shoes were no
protection against the burning sand and her feet were lumps of raw
pain. Heat hammered down, poured up from the sand and swirled her in
an oven of pain. The air she gasped in was molten metal that dried
and cracked her mouth. Each pulse of her heart throbbed blood to the
wound in her scalp until it seemed her skull would burst with the
agony. She had stripped down to the short tunic--in spite of Brion's
insistence that she keep her body protected from the sun--and that
clung to her, soaked with sweat. She tore at it in a desperate
effort to breathe. There was no escape from the unending heat.
Though the baked sand burned torture into her knees and hands,
she couldn't rise. It took all her strength not to fall further.
Her eyes closed and everything swirled in immense circles.
Brion, blinking through slitted eyes, saw her go down. He lifted
her, and carried her again as he had the night before. The hot touch
of her body shocked his bare arms. Her skin was flushed pink. The
tunic was torn open and one pointed breast rose and fell unevenly
with the irregularity of her breathing. Wiping his palm free of
sweat and sand, he touched her skin and felt the ominous hot
dryness.
Heat-shock, all the symptoms. Dry, flushed skin, the ragged
breathing. Her temperature rising quickly as her body stopped
fighting the heat and succumbed.
There was nothing he could do here to protect her from the heat. He
measured a tiny portion of the remaining water into her mouth and
she swallowed convulsively. Her thin clothing was little protection
from the sun. He could only take her in his arms and keep on towards
the horizon. An outcropping of rock threw a tiny patch of shade and
he walked towards it.
The ground here, shielded from the direct rays of the sun, felt
almost cool by contrast. Lea opened her eyes when he put her down,
peering up at him through a haze of pain. She wanted to apologize to
him for her weakness, but no words came from the dried membrane of
her throat. His body above her seemed to swim back and forth in the
heat waves, swaying like a tree in a high wind.
Shock drove her eyes open, cleared her mind for an instant. He
really was swaying. Suddenly she realized how much she had come to
depend on the unending solidity of his strength--and now it was
failing. All over his body the corded muscles contracted in ridges,
striving to keep him erect. She saw his mouth pulled open by the
taut cords of his neck, and the gaping, silent scream was more
terrible than any sound. Then she herself screamed as his eyes
rolled back, leaving only the empty white of the eyeballs staring
terribly at her. He went over, back, down, like a felled tree,
thudding heavily on the sand. Unconscious or dead, she couldn't
tell. She pulled limply at his leg, but couldn't drag his immense
weight into the shade.
Brion lay on his back in the sun, sweating. Lea saw this and knew
that he was still alive. Yet what was happening? She groped for
memory in the red haze of her mind, but could remember nothing from
her medical studies that would explain this. On every square inch of
his body the sweat glands seethed with sudden activity. From every
pore oozed great globules of oily liquid, far thicker than normal
perspiration. Brion's arms rippled with motion and Lea gaped,
horrified as the hairs there writhed and stirred as though endowed
with separate life. His chest rose and fell rapidly, deep, gasping
breaths racking his body. Lea could only stare through the dim
redness of unreality and wonder if she was going mad before she
died.
A coughing fit broke the rhythm of his rasping breath, and when it
was over his breathing was easier. The perspiration still covered
his body, the individual beads touching and forming tiny streams
that trickled down his body and vanished in the sand. He stirred and
rolled onto his side, facing her. His eyes were open and normal now
as he smiled.
"Didn't mean to frighten you. It caught me suddenly coming at the
wrong season and everything. It was a bit of a jar to my system.
I'll get you some water now--there's still a bit left."
"What happened? When you looked like that, when you fell...."
"Take two swallows, no more," he said, holding the open canteen to
her mouth. "Just summer change, that's all. It happens to us every
year on Anvhar--only not that violently, of course. In the winter
our bodies store a layer of fat under the skin for insulation, and
sweating almost ceases completely. There are a lot of internal
changes too. When the weather warms up the process is reversed. The
fat is metabolized and the sweat glands enlarge and begin working
overtime as the body prepares for two months of hard work, heat and
little sleep. I guess the heat here triggered off the summer change
early."
"You mean--you've adapted to this terrible planet?"
"Just about. Though it does feel a little warm. I'll need a lot
more water soon, so we can't remain here. Do you think you can stand
the sun if I carry you?"
"No, but I won't feel any better staying here." She was
light-headed, scarcely aware of what she said. "Keep going, I guess.
Keep going."
As soon as she was out of the shadow of the rock the sunlight burst
over her again in a wave of hot pain. She fell unconscious at once.
Brion picked her up and staggered forward. After a few yards, he
began to feel the pull of the sand. He knew he was reaching the end
of his strength. He went more slowly and each dune seemed a bit
higher than the one before. Giant, sand-scoured rocks pushed through
the dunes here and he had to stumble around them. At the base of
the largest of these monoliths was a straggling clump of knotted
vegetation. He passed it by--then stopped as something tried to
penetrate his heat-crazed mind. What was it? A difference. Something
about these plants that he hadn't noticed in any of the others
he had passed during the day.
It was almost like defeat to turn and push his clumsy feet backwards
in his own footprints; to stand blinking helplessly at the plants.
Yet they were important. Some of them had been cut off close to the
sand. Not broken by any natural cause, but cut sharply and squarely
by a knife or blade of some sort. The cut plants were long dried and
dead, but a tiny hope flared up in him. This was the first sign that
other people were actually alive on this heat-blasted planet. And
whatever the plants had been cut for, they might be of aid to him.
Food--perhaps drink. His hands trembled at the thought as he dropped
Lea heavily into the shade of the rock. She didn't stir.
His knife was sharp, but most of the strength was gone from his
hands. Breath rasping in his dried throat, he sawed at the tough
stem, finally cutting it through. Raising up the shrub, he saw
a thick liquid dripping from the severed end. He braced his hand
against his leg, so it wouldn't shake and spill, until his cupped
palm was full of sap.
It was wet, even a little cool as it evaporated. Surely it was
mostly life-giving water. He had a moment's misgiving as he raised
it to his lips, and instead of drinking it merely touched it with
the tip of his tongue.
At first nothing--then a searing pain. It stabbed deep into his
throat and choked him. His stomach heaved and he vomited bitter
bile. On his knees, fighting the waves of pain, he lost body fluid
he vitally needed.
Despair was worse than the pain. The plant juice must have some use;
there must be a way of purifying it or neutralizing it. But Brion,
a stranger on this planet, would be dead long before he found out
how to do this.
Weakened by the cramps that still tore at him, he tried not to
realize how close to the end he was. Getting the girl on his back
seemed an impossible task, and for an instant he was tempted to
leave her there. Yet even as he considered this he shouldered her
leaden weight and once more went on. Each footstep an effort, he
followed his own track up the dune. Painfully he forced his way
to the top, and looked at the Disan standing a few feet away.
They were both too surprised by the sudden encounter to react at
once. For a breath of time they stared at each other, unmoving. When
they reacted it was the same defense of fear. Brion dropped the
girl, bringing the gun up from the holster in the return of the same
motion. The Disan jerked a belled tube from his waistband and raised
it to his mouth.
Brion didn't fire. A dead man had taught him how to train his
empathetic sense, and to trust it. In spite of the fear that wanted
him to jerk the trigger, a different sense read the unvoiced
emotions of the native Disan. There was fear there, and hatred.
Welling up around these was a strong desire not to commit violence,
this time, to communicate instead. Brion felt and recognized all
this in a fraction of a second. He had to act instantly to avoid a
tragic happening. A jerk of his wrist threw the gun to one side.
As soon as it was gone he regretted its loss. He was gambling their
lives on an ability he still was not sure of. The Disan had the
tube to his mouth when the gun hit the ground. He held the pose,
unmoving, thinking. Then he accepted Brion's action and thrust the
tube back into his waistband.
"Do you have any water?" Brion asked, the guttural Disan words
hurting his throat.
"I have water," the man said. He still didn't move. "Who are you?
What are you doing here?"
"We're from offplanet. We had ... an accident. We want to go
to the city. The water."
The Disan looked at the unconscious girl and made his decision. Over
one shoulder he wore one of the green objects that Brion remembered
from the solido. He pulled it off and the thing writhed slowly in
his hands. It was alive--a green length a metre long, like a noduled
section of a thick vine. One end flared out into a petal-like
formation. The Disan took a hook-shaped object from his waist and
thrust it into the petaled orifice. When he turned the hook in a
quick motion the length of green writhed and curled around his arm.
He pulled something small and dark out and threw it to the ground,
extending the twisting green shape towards Brion. "Put your mouth to
the end and drink," he said.
Lea needed the water more, but he drank first, suspicious of the
living water source. A hollow below the writhing petals was filling
with straw-colored water from the fibrous, reedy interior. He raised
it to his mouth and drank. The water was hot and tasted swampy.
Sudden sharp pains around his mouth made him jerk the thing away.
Tiny glistening white barbs projected from the petals pink-tipped
now with his blood. Brion swung towards the Disan angrily--and
stopped when he looked at the other man's face. His mouth was
surrounded by many small white scars.
"The _vaede_ does not like to give up its water, but it always
does," the man said.
Brion drank again, then put the vaede to Lea's mouth. She moaned
without regaining consciousness, her lips seeking reflexively for
the life-saving liquid. When she was satisfied Brion gently drew the
barbs from her flesh and drank again. The Disan hunkered down on
his heels and watched them expressionlessly. Brion handed back the
vaede, then held some of the clothes so that Lea was in their shade.
He settled to the same position as the native and looked closely
at him.
Squatting immobile on his heels, the Disan appeared perfectly
comfortable under the flaming sun. There was no trace of
perspiration on his naked, browned skin. Long hair fell to his
shoulders, and startlingly blue eyes stared back at Brion from
deepset sockets. The heavy kilt around his loins was the only
garment he wore. Once more the vaede rested over his shoulder, still
stirring unhappily. Around his waist was the same collection of
leather, stone and brass objects that had been in the solido. Two of
them now had meaning to Brion: the tube-and-mouthpiece, a blowgun of
some kind; and the specially shaped hook for opening the vaede. He
wondered if the other strangely formed things had equally practical
functions. If you accepted them as artifacts with a purpose--not
barbaric decorations--you had to accept their owner as something
more than the crude savage he resembled.
"My name is Brion. And you--"
"You may not have my name. Why are you here? To kill my people?"
Brion forced away the memory of last night. Killing was just what he
had done. Some expectancy in the man's manner, some sensed feeling
of hope prompted Brion to speak the truth.
"I'm here to stop your people from being killed. I believe in the
end of the war."
"Prove it."
"Take me to the Cultural Relationships Foundations in the city and
I'll prove it. I can do nothing here in the desert. Except die."
For the first time there was emotion on the Disan's face. He frowned
and muttered something to himself. There was a fine beading of sweat
above his eyebrows now as he fought an internal battle. Coming to a
decision, he rose, and Brion stood too.
"Come with me. I'll take you to Hovedstad. But first you will tell
me--are you from Nyjord?"
"No."
The nameless Disan merely grunted and turned away. Brion shouldered
Lea's unconscious body and followed him. They walked for two hours,
the Disan setting a cruel pace, before they reached a wasteland of
jumbled rock. The native pointed to the highest tower of sand-eroded
stone. "Wait near this," he said. "Someone will come for you." He
watched while Brion placed the girl's still body in the shade, and
passed over the vaede for the last time. Just before leaving he
turned back, hesitating.
"My name is ... Ulv," he said. Then he was gone.
Brion did what he could to make Lea comfortable, but it was very
little. If she didn't get medical attention soon she would be dead.
Dehydration and shock were uniting to destroy her.
Just before sunset he heard clanking, and the throbbing whine of
a sand car's engine coming from the west.