Merka Shanly was disappointed on two counts. First of all, she had expected a General to be a good lover, to know where to touch her and how to move her in order to bring her into her own time of joy. Instead he had been one of the worst lovers she had experienced, cold and aloof, all the heat of him concentrated in his stiffened member, a demanding heat that did nothing to warm her. But beyond that disappointment lay another, more serious. She had never expected to see a General, a man of responsibility to his people, wasting the precious prewar stores of food and other goods as they had been wasted at the party that night. He was less considerate of the future than any of his subjects. This last disappointment became a lingering anxiety that would not permit her sleep.
She slid out of bed.
Nude, she went into the main lounge of the palatial suite, padded across the thick carpet and commanded the shielded windows to become clear.
In moments they changed from mirror-black to clear glass and gave her a panoramic view of the night sky, the brilliant stars and the gibbous moon. Beneath these celestial bodies lay the tainted village where she had been only that morning, the forest and the mutated landscape of the Chen Valley Blight just beyond, the home of the Ruiner.
She, unlike the General and his subordinates, questioned whether the espers would be doomed in that place. They were, after all, already children of the Ruiner What purpose would that evil god have in corrupting them further? Better, he would send them out into other borderlands where his power was incomplete, in hopes they would corrupt other of Lady Nature's creatures.
She sat on the fur-covered couch next to the windows, her bare flesh made more lovely by the bluish light of the moon, and she stared at the stars, trying to decide what she wanted her future to be like. Clearly she could use her desirable body and her willingness to perform with it to hold the General in her influence for years to come; he had repeatedly told her that she was the most uninhibited woman he had ever taken. Yet, if the enclave continued to ignore the need for an austerity program— as they would under this thoughtless General — those few good years would be followed by starvation, degeneration and death. It appeared that if anyone were to stop this waste and make plans for continuation of the enclave once the stores had been depleted, she would have to be that one. That meant, besides bedding the General regularly, she would have to plot against him and, eventually, remove him from office.
Soon she would have to become a General herself.
She felt lonely. Cold.
Looking at the stars, however, she knew, with a sudden and fanatical certainty, that her Lady Nature would favor whatever connivances, lies and acts of violence she might be forced to employ in order to put her enclave onto the holy path again. Lady Nature loved them and did not want to see them wither and perish merely because so many of their leaders were blind fools and self-serving bureaucrats.
Merka rose from the sofa after more than an hour of spiritual self-searching and walked into the bedroom. She stood over the General, aware that she could go find a knife right now and murder him in his sleep, with no opposition. He would not even have an opportunity to scream or throw up his hands to ward off the slashing blade. But the ascendance to power had to be more gradual and more subtle than that. Besides, she would require a power base, sympathizers and assistants in the enclave government who would swear their allegiance to her and ensure her own promotion when this General — passed on. That would take weeks, most likely months, to accomplish. Meanwhile, she would have to worry most about the General's continued lust for her. When the time was ripe for assassination, she would need to be next to him, where she could strike suddenly and cover up the traces of her villainy before the news was made public. The simplest way to keep in his graces was to make him dependent on her favors.
She perfumed herself as he liked.
She stood before the mirror and brushed her luxuriant dark hair.
At the bed she pulled back the covers.
He did not wake.
With her mouth, but without words, she bent over him and awakened him to the night and to his need.
14
On the morning following their narrow escape from the Pure soldiers, Jask and Tedesco woke in the blue-green room, ate a cold breakfast that lay heavy on their stomachs, and began their trek through the jeweled sea, down corridors of dazzling color, through chambers like melting rainbows. Several times, they came to dead ends or to a narrowing of the way through which the bulky mutant could not pass, and they were forced to retrace their steps, exploring alternate passageways.
Often, they stepped from the end of a corridor into a pocket of open land where scraggly grasses grew and, sometimes, scrawny trees struggled for existence. Why the bacteria jewels, which towered for forty meters and more on all sides, had not closed in, neither Jask nor Tedesco could guess.
In these places Tedesco took compass readings and consulted his maps, chose the direction they would take when leaving the patch of land and returning to the jewels. Here, too, they performed their toilet without feeling as if they were fouling some wondrous artifact.
Shortly after noon, as they sat down in the middle of one of these clearings to rest, Jask said, “I can't go any farther today.''
“Have to,” Tedesco said. “If we don't make good time, we could be in these formations when our supplies run out. And as you've seen, there's precious little to eat around here, except an occasional plot of grass.”
As they progressed through the jeweled tunnels, Jask had carried his cloak over his arm, dressed only in the stretch-fit, neck-to-toe jumpsuit that all the Pures wore. In the clearings, where they rested, he folded the cloak under him like a pillow, to protect his bruised backside. Now, perched upon this pillow, his scrawny legs outstretched before him, he said, “I ache all over, legs and arms and back and neck. I haven't any strength to go on.”
Tedesco said nothing, but stood and used his compass, consulted his various maps, pondered things a while and finally decided on the proper direction for their departure. “Come along,” he said.
Jask did not move.
“Get up, now,” Tedesco said. And there was more than cajolery in his voice; he spoke with a tone of command.
“I really can't,'' Jask protested. “My ankles are swollen. My thighs are knotted like ropes, and my kidneys ache.”
The bruin stalked across the clearing and stood over him. “My own feet are hot and sore,” he told Jask. “But I'm not giving up here.”
“Your discomfort can't match mine,” Jask said. “You're built to take this kind of punishment, clambering through those tunnels and pacing off kilometer after kilometer.”
“You Pures, with all your holy disdain for 'tainted' genes have inbred yourselves to the point of uselessness. I see that. I understand. But I'm not letting you stay behind.”
Jask smiled bitterly.
He continued to massage his swollen legs, and he said, “Then you'll just have to carry me.”
Tedesco did not smile at all. He said. “I won't carry you my friend. I have my own rucksack to worry with.”
“Then—”
Tedesco lifted one of the prewar power rifles he had stolen from the General's men and aimed it dead center at Jask's chest. He said, “I'll kill you before I go.”
Even the bitter smile slid away from the smaller man's face as he stared up into the incredibly large barrel of the power rifle. He said, “You've no reason to kill me.”