Chapter Six

The dream beckoned, but first there was something that had to be done. He tried to remember; his mind seemed to slip away so easily, back into the soft, distant dream . . .

He tried again, rousing himself to urgency. The carryall—it would betray them. Get rid of it . . . to the east, about three miles, there were high sea cliffs . . .

And the birds would soar there, floating effortlessly on wide wings, white and silent under the high sun . . .

"—operating off broadcast power from their ship," Bartholomew was saying.

"They'll follow us—find our hideaway . . ."

Henry could see Bartholomew's face, hollow-cheeked, colorless, unshaven, his lips black against the pale skin. Poor kid. He hadn't understood what he was up against . . .

"Captain—I've got to get rid of the carryall. I'm going to head east. The map showed the coast—it's only a few miles. Maybe I can run it into the water . . ."

Henry felt muscles twisting in his face. Good boy, he said clearly—then realized, with a sudden pang of dismay, that his lips hadn't moved. He tried to draw a breath—

The jaws of some ravening bird of prey clamped down on him, hurled him into a red-shot blackness. A rotten log made of fire burst open, and the grubs writhed there, deep inside him, while time passed like flowing wax . .

.

* * *

" . . . Captain . . . it went over. It hit an outcropping on the way down, and bounced out. It hit in deep water and sank. I don't think there'll be any signal from it. But they can follow the trail. The snow . . ." The voice echoed on in the great hall. The lecture was dull. Henry tried to settle himself comfortably and sleep. But the chair was hard. It cut into his neck. And someone was shaking him. Morning already. And cold. He didn't want any breakfast, he was sick. Tell them . . . too sick . . .

"I salvaged a handgun and some cable, and a med kit, a small box of rations—and the tarp. I'm going to have to leave you here a few minutes while I try to find a spot . . ."

* * *

. . . Something moved in the blackness between the stars. It was a strange, arrowhead-shaped ship. Light winked from it—and his own ship leaped and shook. It fled. But the path of its flight was clear in his tracer tank.

He limped after it. It had homed for the desert world marked on the charts as Corazon. In the hills he located it—and a lance of light reached across to touch his ship and the metal flared and burned.

On foot, he moved through darkness, firing a handgun at a strange, long-legged shape in glittering black silks. He drove it back to its own ship, to the portal it had landed to build. The door was barred and locked, but he blasted it in. Then he was inside and it was hand-to-hand. It was larger, but he was stronger. Finally, it lay still. He looked down at the strange, peaceful face in the metal room. Face and body, clothing the bones he had buried . . . when? Yesterday? Then when had they fought?

But he bore it no ill will. They were both forerunners—outliers of their people, breakers of new ground, claimers of new worlds. It had beaten him in space, ship-to-ship, but body-to-body on the ground, he had beaten and killed it. That was how the chips fell.

. . . It had completed the receiving end of its portal before he found it. Wondering, he put his hand through, then stepped past the door into a new world, with the green sky . . .

And he had almost forgotten to come back . . .

* * *

The music was gay. Dulcia, the young Dulcia, was dancing with him at the Fire Palace . . . There was no need to worry, Dulcie-girl, he was telling her .

. .

No need . . . He would not leave her defenseless to the wolves, that much he could still do for her. If young Bartholomew was salvageable . . . if there was enough in him to make a man . . . the Run would show it up; and Henry would bring him back. If he was not, if he was not fit to take care of Dulcia after Henry was gone, then he would not come back. Henry would see to that. She didn't know. God willing, she would never know . . . The boy was flesh and blood of his father. If he was headed the way his father had gone, he would never see Aldorado again. Time would tell. Time

. . . and the Run . . .

* * *

The music was gay. Dulcia smiled at him small and golden-haired, slim in a silvery dress with a long skirt, cut in the style of long ago. The cloth rustled, whispering. It was cold to the touch. Dulcia's face was cold. How still she lay, under the glaring lights. There was no smile on the dead lips.

"We tried to reach you, Captain. I didn't know if you'd want to authorize the surgery; fifty thousand credits—after all, this is not a charity—" Blood ran out of the pale, fat face. The hands on his arms were like paper. He crushed the stones in his hand until blood ran out between his fingers, and for a moment it seemed the rubies themselves were bleeding . . . He threw them against the antiseptic white floor; they bounded, sparkling red and green and blue. Stones . . .

"There's your damned fifty thousand credits! Why didn't you save her life!" Under the harsh light, the jewels winked against dead tiles. How cold her face was . . . They pulled at him, and he struck out, but someone had tied his arms now, and someone had broken his bones, and the pain was an awful reality that raked at him, roaring in fury . . .

Eons passed. Mountains rose up from the sea, streaming mud and innumerable corpses of the microscopic dead. Storms beat about the peaks; rivers sparkled, carving gorges. The surf rolled across low beaches, flat in the white sunlight. Ice formed, broke with a booming as of distant cannon. He lay in the icy surf, stirred by the breakers that tugged, tugged, unceasingly.

" . . . have to wake up, Captain. Don't die . . ." His eye was open. He saw Bartholomew's face quite clearly. If only he could explain that he was encased in ice; the boy would understand that it mustn't be broken, or the pain would flood back in . . . Henry blinked. He saw Bartholomew's expression brighten. The kid was having a tough time of it. Henry drew a breath; he wanted to tell him . . . But no voice came.

His tongue—my God, had Tasker cut his tongue out . . . ? With an agonizing effort, Henry pushed, bit down—

There was a stab of pain like a candle flame against charred wood. He felt a hot tingle of reaction. His chest moved in a ghost of a laugh. What did it matter whether a corpse had a tongue . . . ?

Something fumbled at his arm.

"I have the med kit here. This is supposed to kill pain. I hope it helps, Captain."

It's all right, Larry. I don't feel a thing, as long as I lie still. You see, I'm inside this cake of warm ice . . .

No, dammit. Keep your thoughts clear. This is that last lucid spell before the end; . . . don't louse it up with fantasies. Poor kid. How the hell will he get back? It's a long walk; twelve hundred miles, mountains, deserts, bogs—and winter coming on. He's got a year—a short Corazonian year—to file his claim . . .

Bartholomew's face was strained. "I'm going to try to set the bones, Captain. I can do it, all right, I think. I took a course at the State Institute

. . ."

Don't waste time on me, Larry. Tasker's men will be showing up, up above, any time now. They'll see the tracks, all right. Maybe they'll come in after us, maybe not. A shame for those bastards to get their hands on this . . . You'd be safe here—if you ran, hid in the woods—but what will you eat?

Maybe, if you start back now, before the snow fills the passes . . . But it's cold out there; the storm's just starting. It might last a week—or two weeks. There's nothing to eat here—but if you leave, the wind and snow will get you. Don't worry about the tabs, they don't matter anymore. Too bad. Dulcia will be O.K., she's a smart girl—

But Old Man Bartholomew; I should have figured that angle . . . a tough old pirate . . . fooled me . . .

"All right, Captain. I'm going to start now."

The real pain began then. It went on and on. After a while Henry forgot it. He forgot the broken bones and the new world, found and lost again so soon, and the storm that howled beyond the portal, and the men above who hunted them and the endless wilderness that stretched to Pango-Ri. He forgot all these things, and many more, and it was as though they had never been; and he was alone in the darkness that is between the stars.

* * *

And then he was remembering. First the pain, of course; then the reason for the pain . . .

That was a little more difficult. There had been the order to disengage and pull back to Leadpipe. His boat had been hit . . . a rough landing, and then the fire. Amos—

Amos was changed. His face—all wrinkled, and his red hair gone—

Amos was dead. Something about a garden, and jewels—and a girl!

Dulcia—but not Dulcia. Only something in her smile, and the curve of her cheek as she sat by the fire.

Old Man Bartholomew. Don't trust him. He wants—

The Run. Young Bartholomew was with him; smoke, and burned bearings . .

.

No. That was O.K. Just the hand. But maybe they'd piled in—

He opened his eyes . . .

Just one eye. A knife had done that. But it was a dream. My God, what a dream. Let it fade, lose itself in the shadows of the night . . . It was good to be back in his own bed; but the mattress was hard. Where was Dulcia?

"Captain . . . ?"

Henry made out a vague form bending over him. It was a boy—Larry . . . the name came from somewhere. What was he doing here . . . ?

"I've got some soup for you . . ." Larry's voice shook. He went away. The light was brighter now. Larry was back. His face was like a skull with skin stretched over it. He was wearing a false beard half an inch long. It was ridiculous; Henry wanted to laugh. The false face had fooled him for a moment.

Something warm touched his lips; an indescribably delicious flavor flooded his mouth. He felt his throat contract painfully. More of the warm fluid came. It burned its way down. Henry ate eagerly, lost in the ecstasy of hunger appeased . . .

Later, Bartholomew was back.

"I rigged a sort of bunk out of the tarp, to get you up off the ground. I was worried, Captain. Almost a week. I was afraid you'd starve. I saved the canned rations for you . . ."

Larry talked. It was a long story he was telling. Henry wondered why he talked so much. What was it about, anyway . . . ?

" . . . I went up again, three times. I didn't see any signs of them . . . I saw a few animal tracks. I'm going to try to hunt . . ." Sometimes he wondered who Larry was, and he would rouse himself to ask, but always it was too hard, too hard, and he would sink back, and Larry would lean over him, with anxious eyes, and then the room would fade and he would roam again through great deserted valleys where icy winds blew without surcease, toil up lonely hills whose tops were hidden in mist, following lost voices which called always from beyond the next divide.

* * *

He was looking at a hand—a broken claw, twisted, marked across by purplish scars, vivid against the pale skin.

Gray light gleamed wanly through a narrow cleft in a wall of rock. Snowflakes blew in, swirling, to settle melting, in a long puddle. Shaggy animal hides lay scattered on the floor. A wisp of smoke rose from a heap of embers against a blackened wall. There was a stack of blackish firewood, two crude clay dishes and a large pot, a heap of shredded greens, and a joint of purplish-black meat. It was a strange dream—almost real. Henry moved to push himself up to a sitting position. There was a weight against his chest, pressing him back. He gritted his teeth, raised himself to one elbow. An odor of wood smoke and burned meat hunt in the air, and a thick, cloying reek of uncured hides. A coarse-haired fur lay across his lap. He reached to throw it back—

His head rang from the blow it took as he fell. What the hell was wrong with him? Drugged, maybe?

His eye fell on the butt of a Mark IX pistol. Beside it was a pair of boots, caked with mud—and with a darker stain.

His boots. Quite suddenly, he remembered.

Tasker, and the little man, Gus. He had supplied the scalpel. They had strung him up, and carved him into strips. And he had died, and gone to hell.

And now he was here, alive.

Strange.

A pulse thudded like the beat of a hammer in Henry's temples. Larry Bartholomew had killed Tasker—and Gus. Some kid! Well, life was full of surprises. And he had brought him here—somehow—and kept him alive. Henry moved then, pushed him over, face down, got his hands under him, pushed himself up to a sitting position. His left hand—it was useless, a frozen tangle of broken fingers. But the right—it would hold a gun . . . No telling how long the boy had wasted here, nursing him back to a dim half life. Feeding soup to a broken body that should have died . . . He could reach the blaster; one quick squeeze, and the agony would be over. And Larry could make a start for Pango-Ri. Henry dragged himself, feeling the cold of the rough wet floor against his body. He rested, with his face against the stone. He had a beard, he noticed. He touched it with his left hand; over half an inch; a month's growth, anyway. Damn! A wasted month, with winter setting in. If the boy had started back as soon as he had killed Tasker . . .

He reached the plastic case by the pallet of furs, fumbled the blaster out. He set it on narrow beam, dragged it up until the cold muzzle pressed against the thudding pulse above his ear—pressed the firing stud. Nothing happened. The blaster fell with a clatter. He lay, limp, breathing in wracking, shallow gasps.

He'd never committed suicide before. It was quite an experience. Even when it didn't work.

Larry had used the blaster for hunting, exhausted the charge. So much for the easy way. Now, he would have to crawl outside—as soon as the faintness passed.

* * *

Bartholomew was squatting beside him. "Easy, Captain. Easy. You're better! You crawled all that way—but what in the name of sanity were you doing? It's cold over here . . ."

Henry looked at Bartholomew leaning over him, draped in a long-haired animal hide. His face had aged; the skin was rough, scored red by the wind and snow, with a network of tiny red veins across the cheekbones, from frostbite. His beard was thick, black, curling around his mouth, meeting the tangle of overlong hair about his ears. There were lines beside the mouth. He was holding up two bedraggled creatures, half rabbit, half bird.

"I'll broil these, Captain! They ought to be good! You should be able to take a little solid food now!"

Bartholomew bustled over the crude pots. "You'll feel even better after you eat, Captain. I've got some plant hearts here—ice bushes, I call them—they're not bad. I've tried just about everything. We need some sort of fresh vegetable along with the meat. And hunting's getting harder up above, Captain. There seems to be no wildlife—out there . . ." He nodded toward the shimmering wall.

He talked, building up the fire, setting out pots, cutting up the small carcasses with a short-bladed pocketknife. He roasted the animals whole, then cut off choice bits, fed them to Henry with his fingers. Henry's mouth gulped them down like an automatic disposer, as though his appetite were a thing apart from the rest of his body.

"Captain, soon you'll be strong enough to talk; we have so many things to discuss—so many plans to make."

With a mighty effort, Henry pushed the food away, shook his head. Bartholomew stared at him, then at the bit of meat in his fingers.

"You must eat, Captain—"

Henry shook his head again, fell back, breathing hard, his eyes fixed on Bartholomew's.

"What is it, Captain?" Bartholomew put the clay pot of meat aside, crouched over Henry. "What's wrong?" His expression changed abruptly.

"Captain, you CAN hear me . . . ?"

Henry managed a nod.

"And you're strong enough—you eat easily enough. Captain—why don't you speak?"

Henry felt the pulse throb in his temples. He drew a breath, concentrated every ounce of energy on forming a word . . .

A grunt . . .

"You know me, don't you, Captain? I'm Larry—"

Henry nodded.

"You were injured. But you're safe here now. You understand that, don't you?"

Henry nodded.

"Then—why don't you speak?"

Henry's chest rose and fell, rose and fell. Perspiration trickled down the side of his face.

Bartholomew's face stiffened. His hand dropped from Henry's shoulder.

"Good Lord, Captain . . ." His voice broke. "You haven't spoken—because you can't! Your voice is gone; you're a mute . . . !"

* * *

"It's all right," Bartholomew was saying. "It must have been the shock; I've heard of such things. You'll get your voice back eventually. Meanwhile, I'll just ask you questions—and you can nod, or shake your head. All right?" Henry nodded. Bartholomew settled himself, pulled his fur about his shoulders, adjusted Henry's malodorous coverlet.

"Are you comfortable? Warm enough?"

Henry nodded impatiently, watching Bartholomew's face. To hell with that!

Ask me about the weather, the mountains, the winter setting in . . .

"Do you remember . . . what happened?" Bartholomew looked anxious. Henry nodded. Bartholomew swallowed. "You . . . were right, of course, Captain. I . . . I never dreamed such men really existed—" Henry raised his head. Why didn't the boy get on with it—get to the important things?

"I've concentrated on hunting and gathering firewood. In the evening, I've been skinning animals, and trying to scrape the hides and sew them together . . ." He tugged at his cape; the green hide crackled. "I'm afraid I'm not very good at it. And I made the pots from clay—there are great slabs of it along the river—" He broke off.

"But, of course, that's not important. Captain, do you suppose they'll send out search parties from Pango-Ri?"

Henry shook his head.

"They won't find us . . . ?" Bartholomew's voice trailed off. Henry opened his eye. Now they would be getting to the point . . .

"I suppose I knew that . . . with a whole world to be lost in. But we're running out of food. Game is getting scarcer—the cold, I suppose. And I haven't dared try anything from—the other side . . ." Bartholomew was getting to his feet. "You're tired, Captain. You'd better sleep now. We'll talk again tomorrow—"

Henry tried to sit up, shaking his head, watching Larry's face.

"But I'll bring you food, Captain—and I'll keep the fire up. You'll see! We'll be fine, Captain. And you'll get better—soon . . ." There were tears on Bartholomew's face. He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. "You have to be all right, Captain!" Yeah. Otherwise little Larry Bartholomew would be on his own. So that was what was bothering him . . .

"I think I understand, Captain. You think that you might slow me down—be a, well, burden. Nonsense! We'll wait here until the worst of the cold weather has passed, and by then you'll be—"

Henry was shaking his head.

"You're thinking of the claim? The time limit?" Henry shook his head.

"Then you think—we won't manage through the winter?" Henry nodded, waiting for the next question . . .

Bartholomew chewed his lip. "Then you'll just have to hurry up and get well, Captain."

Henry shook his head wearily.

"Oh, yes you will, Captain. I'm not leaving without you." Henry nodded angrily.

"You feel we'll have to go soon—before the weather gets even worse. Very well; I understand. We'll go as soon as you're ready—and don't bother shaking your head—I'm not going without you. So if you want me to get back and file the claim, you'll have to try very hard to get well, Captain. You see that, don't you?"

Henry looked at Bartholomew. There were fine lines around his eyes—the weeks of no sleep, overwork, and cold had left their marks. His eyes held steady on Henry's.

Henry opened his mouth; Bartholomew fed him a charred lump. He sighed and lay with closed eyes, chewing the rank, tough meat.