Sam's World
Page 24
“Darryn,” Marina said, “since you are the leader, would you marry us?”
“I would be honored,” he replied, “if you will tell me what to do.”
That night, beneath the stars, with an army bent on their destruction only a few miles away, Marina and Sammell were married. They spent their wedding night preparing Sammell for his trip through time, never knowing if this might be their last night on Earth.
Epilogue
“Good morning, Marina. How are you feeling?”
“Never better, Gissel. And you?”
“Fat and tired,” the other woman replied, sitting down on the riverbank beside her friend and dipping her tired feet in the cool water.
“Yes, well, the last few weeks of pregnancy are the worst.” And she wouldn’t change a moment of it, she thought with a smile.
“You ought to know,” Gissel said, nodding toward Marina’s swollen belly.
“Hey, you two, aren’t you joining us?” Sammell called from beneath a large oak tree. He patted the place beside him. “Come, wife, and join me in this picnic you put together.”
Marina shook her head. “You come wading with me. I’m the pregnant one here. I prepared the food, so now it’s your turn to do something to please me.”
Sammell got to his feet slowly and strolled toward her. He’d thought her beautiful the first time he’d seen her lying on the floor of the Recep, but in the past few months her beauty had grown until he could hardly look at her without his throat closing up. She and the child she carried were his whole life. And life had never been better.
Bending down so she was the only one who could hear his words, he whispered in her ear. “And do I please you? I thought so last night.”
Marina blushed and pushed him away. “Hush, she’ll hear you.”
“I don’t think so. She’s too busy at the moment.”
Marina turned to see Darryn lift his pregnant wife in his arms and carry her into the trees. Sammell sat down to remove his shoes and Marina watched him lovingly.
Life in these mountains was wonderful, just as Sammell had told her it would be. In fact, life on planet Earth was good all over, now that Sammell had freed it from Wyndom’s evil domination.
Sammell had gone back into the twentieth century and prevented Wyndom from developing his mind-control drug. But that did not prevent the man from becoming president of the United States. Nor did it prevent him from attempting world domination through the means of force.
But all that was finished before Sammell and Marina were born. The Methuselah drug Wyndom had invented to prolong his own life had failed to last beyond a century. He died an old, old man in a mental institution.
Other men had come to power since then, chosen by the people, and they had united the world in peace. And though it was taking time, they were making progress toward removing the evil Wyndom had done during his reign of terror.
The hole in the ozone layer was repaired and they learned to control the weather and live at peace with their neighbors. But they could do nothing about the history books Wyndom had burned, forever destroying their link with the past.
Still, the Earth flourished as never before, and life was good.
Sammell built his time machine, hoping to recover some of what Wyndom had taken from his people, and Marina got caught up in it just as before. They fell in love and Marina decided to stay with him and help him build a new future.
They were married and on their wedding night Sammell destroyed MDAT and burned the blueprints.
Marina began to teach and write books on the history of the Earth and its people. She became quite a celebrity. Sammell loved and supported his wife in whatever manner she needed.
He was working hard on a new project—a machine that would count the stars and determine which planets were most likely to support life.
He never regretted his construction—or the destruction—of MDAT. In creating it, he had brought Marina into his life and helped to make their world a better place to live. And in destroying it, he had helped preserve that life.
The Earth had become a paradise for him and Marina, and he wanted no part in unwittingly admitting a serpent into their Garden of Eden.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-8404-7
SAM’S WORLD
Copyright © 1995 by Peggy A. Myers.
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