Paul lifted her hand and kissed it. ‘Oh, my love. My poor love.’
‘Oh, yes, I was going to tell you about the others,’ she said. ‘The Stone Age got them. Isn’t that a joke? They had enough fire power to destroy an army, and the Stone Age got them.’
He looked at her, puzzled.
‘I’m sorry,’ murmured Ann. ‘I’m not being very coherent … There are some pretty dreadful beasts in the forest, and the Lokh protect their village by digging a ring of camouflaged pits around it. The camouflage is very good. I’ve nearly fallen into the damn things, myself … They have these pits, with sharpened stakes sticking up in them, in various parts of the forest. Every now and then they go out to inspect them and see what they have caught… They took me out to one of the pits one day. There was some plastic armour, sweeper rifles, transceivers and—and six skeletons at the bottom … The twenty-
first century defeated by the Stone Age … The Lokh thought they were being kind showing me what had happened to my companions … That was when I thought I might go mad.’
‘Ann,’ he said, gently wiping the sweat from her forehead and feeling the terrible coldness again. I’m a fool—an absolute fool. I shouldn’t have let you talk. Please, please rest now.’
‘Sooner than you think,’ she murmured. ‘Much … sooner than you think… Don’t reproach yourself, my dear.’ Her eyes were half-closed, and there was a faint smile on her lips. ‘It was worth it to see … my husband … again … Caxton Hall, ten-thirty … A red rose .. You looked rather sweet—and a bit frightened.’
She began to cough, and this time there was some blood. The paroxysm exhausted her, but there didn’t seem to be pain any more.
‘Not long now,’ she said thickly. ‘I didn’t expect to see it up top so soon … The blood … Hold me, Paul. Hold me … It’s such a lonely business … Afterwards, the river … It’s so lovely to think of everything being washed away … Washed clean.’
He lifted her body and held it close against him, stroking her hair—the soft white hair—mechanically, while the tears trickled down his face and mingled with the cold sweat on hers.
‘My dear, my love,’ he sobbed desperately. ‘You’re not going to die. I’m not going to let you go … I’m not going to let you … I must think. God, I must think … A dressing— that’s it. A decent dressing. Then when we get to Baya Nor I’ll’ he stopped.
There had been no sound, no sigh. No anything. She just hung slackly in his arms. He was talking to a dead woman.
For some time, he sat there motionless, holding her. Not thinking. Not seeing.
Presendy, he was aware of Shon Hu’s arm on his shoulder.
‘Lord,’ said the Bayani gendy, ‘she travels to the bosom of Oruri. Let her go in peace.’
Presendy, they made a shroud of skins for her, and weighted it with stones.
Presently, as she had wished, Ann Victoria Marlowe, nee Watkins, native of Earth, slipped back into a dark and cleansing river on the far side of the sky.
THIRTY-SIX
Paul Marlowe stared down at the sodden ashes of what had once been his home, and felt nothing but a great emptiness inside him. It was like a cold black void that mysteriously seemed to swell without exerting either pressure or pain. Too much had happened in the last few days, he supposed, for him to feel anything now. Later, no doubt, the numbness would go away and he would be able to assimilate this final tragedy. He wondered, curiously and clinically, if the feeling would be deep enough to move him to tears.
The journey back along the Watering of Oruri and then the Canal of Life had been accomplished safely without any further interference from man or beast—at least, he supposed it had. For after Ann’s death, he had been too traumatized to pay much attention to what was going on. He had sat calmly on the barge, staring at and through the impenetrable green walls of the forest, while day merged into night and night merged into day once more. Shon Hu had taken command of the party, deciding when to rest and where to make camp, and Paul had been as obedient and docile as a child.
But as the barge came nearer to Baya Nor the shock began to recede. Slowly he emerged from the deadly lethargy that had gripped him. He began to think once again, realizing that despite privation and tragedy, the journey had been successful, that he had made the most important discovery in the history of mankind, and that he was on his way home. It was the realization of being on his way home that unnerved him a little. Home, originally, had been somewhere on Earth—and he couldn’t clearly remember where. It was now on Altair Five—and he could visualize very clearly exactly where it was and what it was.
It was a thatched house, standing on short stilts. It was a small dark woman who was immensely proud of the growing bundle of life in her belly … It was a bowl of cooled kappa spirit on the verandah steps in the evening… It was the sound of bare feet against wood, the smell of cooking, the tranquil movements of a small alien body…
The barge was only a few hours’ poling from Baya Nor before Paul had pulled himself together sufficiently to think about Enka Ne. In making his journey to the Temple of the White Darkness, he had not only challenged the authority of the god-king, he had humiliated him. He had humiliated Enka Ne by destroying the pursuing barge and by tipping the godking’s warriors into the Canal of Life.
Possibly, for the sake of his prestige, Enka Ne would choose to treat the incident as if it had never happened. But that, thought Paul, was unlikely. It was far more likely that, as soon as he was able, Enka Ne would inflict some punishment or humiliation in return.
That was why Paul had not allowed Shon Hu and Zu Shan to bring the barge back to the city. He had made them stay with it on the Canal of Life, about an hour’s walking distance away, while he came on ahead to learn—if he could—something of the situation. If he did not return that day, he had left them with orders to go back into the forest for a while, in the hope that time would diminish the god-king’s displeasure and that he, Paul, would be able to establish sole responsibility for his transgression.
It had been raining during the night, but the day was becoming very warm, and the earth was steaming. And now, here he was, staring at an untidy scattering of damp ashes, patiently watched by the child, Tsong Tsong, whom Paul had left as company for Mylai Tui.
Tsong Tsong was as wet and miserable as the ashes. He had never been particularly bright or coherent, and he was now an even more pathetic figure, being half-starved. It had been the desire of his master, Poul Mer Lo, that Tsong Tsong should stay at the house. The child had interpreted the command literally and, even after the house had been burned down and Mylai Tui was dead, Tsong Tsong had kept vigil—patiently waiting for the return of Poul Mer Lo.
If Paul had never come back, he reflected, no doubt Tsong Tsong would have stayed there until he died of starvation.
He patted the small boy’s head, looked down with pity at the blank face, the dark uncomprehending eyes, and patiently elicited the story.
‘Lord,’ said Tsong Tsong in atrociously low Bayani, ‘it was perhaps the morning of the day after you went on the great journey … Or the morning of the day after that day … I have been hungry, lord, and I do not greatly remember these things … There were many warriors. They came from the god-king … It was a good morning because I had eaten much meat that the woman, Mylai Tui, could not eat… She was a good cook, lord, though cooking seemed to make her weep. Perhaps the vapours of the food were not good to her eyes … But the meat was excellent.’