The Planet Savers
Page 16
last she said in a whisper,"Darkover is a wide world, Jason. Big enough for us to hide in. I don'tbelieve they would search very far."
They wouldn't. I could leave word with Kendricks--not with Regis, thetelepath would see through me immediately--that I had ridden ahead toCarthon, with Kyla. By the time they realized that I had fled, theywould be too concerned with getting the trailmen safely to the TerranZone to spend much time looking for a runaway. As Kyla said, the worldwas wide. And it was my world. And I would not be alone in it.
"Kyla, Kyla," I said helplessly, and crushed her against me, kissingher. She closed her eyes and I took a long, long look at her face. Notbeautiful, no. But womanly and brave and all the other beautiful things.It was a farewell look, and I knew it, if she didn't.
After the briefest time, she pulled a little away, and her flat voicewas gentler and more breathless than usual. "We'd better leave beforethe others waken." She saw that I did not move. "Jason--?"
I could not look at her. Muffled behind my hands, I said, "No, Kyla.I--I promised the Old One to look after my people in the Terran world. Imust go back--"
"You won't be _there_ to look after them! You won't be _you_!"
I said bleakly, "I'll write a letter to remind myself. Jay Allison has avery strong sense of duty. He'll look after them for me. He won't likeit, but he'll do it, with his last breath. He's a better man than I am,Kyla. You'd better forget about me." I said, wearily, "I never existed."
That wasn't the end. Not nearly. She--begged, and I don't know why I putmyself through the hell of stubbornness. But in the end she ran away,crying, and I threw myself down by the fire, cursing Forth, cursing myown folly, but most of all cursing Jay Allison, hating my other selfwith a blistering, sickening rage.
* * * * *
Coming through the outskirts of the small village the next afternoon,the village where the airlift would meet us, we noted that the poorerquarter was almost abandoned. Regis said bleakly, "It's begun," anddropped out of line to stand in the doorway of a silent dwelling. Aftera minute he beckoned to me, and I looked inside.
I wished I hadn't. The sight would haunt me while I lived. An old man,two young women and half a dozen children between four and fifteen yearsold lay inside. The old man, one of the children, and one of the youngwomen were laid out neatly in clean death, shrouded, their faces coveredwith green branches after the Darkovan custom for the dead. The otheryoung woman lay huddled near the fireplace, her coarse dress splatteredwith the filthy stuff she had vomited, dying. The children--but even nowI can't think of the children without retching. One, very small, hadbeen in the woman's arms when she collapsed; it had squirmed free--for alittle while. The others were in an indescribable condition and theworst of it was that one of them was still moving, feebly, long pasthelp. Regis turned blindly from the door and leaned against the wall,his shoulders heaving. Not, as I first thought, in disgust, but ingrief. Tears ran over his hands and spilled down, and when I took him bythe arm to lead him away, he reeled and fell against me.
He said in a broken, blurred, choking voice, "Oh, Lord, Jason, thosechildren, those children--if you ever had any doubts about what you'redoing, any doubts about what you've done, think about that, think thatyou've saved a whole world from that, think that you've done somethingeven the Hasturs couldn't do!"
My own throat tightened with something more than embarrassment. "Betterwait till we know for sure whether the Terrans can carry through withit, and you'd better get to hell away from this doorway. I'm immune, butdamn it, you're not." But I had to take him and lead him away, like achild, from that house. He looked up into my face and said with burningsincerity, "I wonder if you believe I'd give my life, a dozen timesover, to have done that?"
It was a curious, austere reward. But vaguely it comforted me. And then,as we rode into the village itself, I lost myself, or tried to losemyself, in reassuring the frightened trailmen who had never seen a cityon the ground, never seen or heard of an airplane. I avoided Kyla. Ididn't want a final word, a farewell. We had had our farewells already.
* * * * *
Forth had done a marvelous job of having quarters ready for thetrailmen, and after they were comfortably installed and reassured, Iwent down wearily and dressed in Jay Allison's clothing. I looked outthe window at the distant mountains and a line from the book onmountaineering, which I had bought as a youngster in an alien world, andJay had kept as a stray fragment of personality, ran in violent conflictthrough my mind:
_Something hidden--go and find it_ ...
_Something lost beyond the ranges_ ...
* * * * *
I had just begun to live. Surely I deserved better than this, to vanishwhen I had just discovered life. Did the man who did not know how tolive, deserve to live at all? Jay Allison--that cold man who had neverlooked beyond any ranges--why should I be lost in him?
Something lost beyond the ranges ... nothing would be lost but myself. Iwas beginning to loathe the overflown sense of duty which had brought meback here. Now, when it was too late, I was bitterly regretting ... Kylahad offered me life. Surely I would never see Kyla again.
Could I regret what I would never remember? I walked into Forth's officeas if I were going to my doom. I _was_ ...
Forth greeted me warmly.
"Sit down and tell me all about it ..." he insisted. I would rather notspeak. Instead, compulsively, I made it a full report ... and curiousflickers came in and out of my consciousness as I spoke. By the time Irealized I was reacting to a post-hypnotic suggestion, that in fact Iwas going under hypnosis again, it was too late and I could only thinkthat this was worse than death because in a way I would be alive ...
* * * * *
Jay Allison sat up and meticulously straightened his cuff beforetightening his mouth in what was meant for a smile. "I assume, then,that the experiment was a success?"
"A complete success." Forth's voice was somewhat harsh and annoyed, butJay was untroubled; he had known for years that most of his subordinatesand superiors disliked him, and had long ago stopped worrying about it.
"The trailmen agreed?"
"They agreed," Forth said, surprised. "You don't remember anything atall?"
"Scraps. Like a nightmare." Jay Allison looked down at the back of hishand, flexing the fingers cautiously against pain, touching thepartially healed red slash. Forth followed the direction of his eyes andsaid, not unsympathetically, "Don't worry about your hand. I looked atit pretty carefully. You'll have the total use of it."
Jay said rigidly, "It seems to have been a pretty severe risk to take.Did you ever stop to think what it would have meant to me, to lose theuse of my hand?"
"It seemed a justifiable risk, even if you had," Forth said dryly. "Jay,I've got the whole story on tape, just as you told it to me. You mightnot like having a blank spot in your memory. Want to hear what youralter ego did?"
Jay hesitated. Then he unfolded his long legs and stood up. "No, I don'tthink I care to know." He waited, arrested by a twinge of a sore muscle,and frowned.
What had happened, what would he never know, why did the random achebring a pain deeper than the pain of a torn nerve? Forth was watchinghim, and Jay asked irritably, "What is it?"
"You're one hell of a cold fish, Jay."
"I don't understand you, sir."
"You wouldn't," Forth muttered. "Funny. I _liked_ your subsidiarypersonality."
Jay's mouth contracted in a mirthless grin.
"You would," he said, and swung quickly round.
"Come on. If I'm going to work on that serum project I'd better inspectthe volunteers and line up the blood donors and look over oldwhatshisname's papers."
But beyond the window the snowy ridges of the mountain, inscrutable,caught and held his eye; a riddle and a puzzle--
"Ridiculous," he said, and went to his work.
* * * * *
Four
months later, Jay Allison and Randall Forth stood together,watching the last of the disappearing planes, carrying the volunteersback toward Carthon and their mountains.
"I should have flown back to Carthon with them," Jay said moodily. Forthwatched the tall man stare at the mountain; wondered what lay behind thecontained gestures and the brooding.
He said, "You've done enough, Jay. You've worked like the devil.Thurmond--the Legate--sent down to say you'd get an officialcommendation and a promotion for your part. That's not even mentioningwhat you did in the trailmen's city." He put a hand on his colleague'sshoulder, but Jay shook it off