In what way? — Kiera, showing rows of fangs in a curious smile.
I wonder if we're really a new breed of men, superior to all the men who 've come before us.
Witnessing death, any man begins to doubt himself, Tedesco 'pathed.
Jask 'pathed, If we're really a new breed, superior, special— why should we have to kill? Murder is a primitive art.
Murder is the sport of primitives, Tedesco agreed. But that is all the more reason why we must protect ourselves from them— by whatever means necessary. There are so few of us, that we cannot afford to lose a single member of our community.
Jask was not satisfied. If murder is the primitive man's tool — and if those Pures, those non-espers, are more primitive than we are — why did we prove superior as killers?
We had better weapons, Tedesco explained.
We were more primitive?
All we did was survive, Tedesco 'pathed. That's the first law of evolution: The new breed prospers at the expense of the old — otherwise the race is stymied and never changes.
Just the same, Jask 'pathed, I hope we don't have to kill any more men. Animals, Wildlands beasts — that's different. But no more men. We lessen ourselves with each such murder.
Chaney 'pathed, There's one other thing I think is a sign of primitive cultures, besides their willingness to kill for other reasons than survival.
What's that? — Jask.
Chaney 'pathed, They're riddled with goddamned moralists!
Tedesco laughed aloud, and Melopina giggled at Jask's side.
My husband the philosopher! — Kiera.
Chaney 'pathed, I'm serious. Civilized men should be able to sense the difference between a right act and a wrong act, should know what evil is and what good is. He should not require self-appointed or group-appointed moralists to tell him what he must and must not do. I've been fed up with preachers all my life, men of small stature and a need for power, leeches that feed on other people's guilt.
Agreed! — Tedesco.
Jask sighed. I can take a hint, especially when it's delivered with such force. We killed because we had to.
Because they forced us to — Chaney.
Would you rather have been killed yourself? — Kiera to Jask.
No.
Or have seen Melopina die? — Kiera again.
No!
Chaney 'pathed, You see, then, that morality is always relative — except to the primitive.
They rested only twice during the long night, traveling on foot along the Killicone Highway until they were only five kilometers from the tainted village of Dragontuck on the banks of the wide, swiftly flowing Hair of Senta. Here, they left the road and on a series of smooth stones crossed the river at its widest point, where the water was the shallowest. On the far side they struck southwest through the Plains of Hammerau, toward that next pocket of the Wildlands known as Smoke Den.
Because the only nearby Pure patrol had been obliterated, and because they were no longer in the unsafe Wildlands, they went those long night hours unmolested and, shortly after dawn, made camp in a series of convenient limestone caves twenty kilometers from the town of Darby's Harbor and the Pure enclave of Majestic Apple.
Tedesco took the first watch, while the others made their beds.
Jask and Melopina chose to sleep beneath the same blanket, farther along the tunnel from Chaney and Kiera, where they might be alone. They held each other for a long while, kissing, nipping, 'pathing. When they undressed each other with eager hands, they were both keyed to a fever pitch of desire. Beneath the soft blanket she lay back raising and spreading her legs as Jask found and entered her. They rolled and tossed as they made love; they 'pathed their happiness back and forth, permitted each other to slide into their neural systems to sense the sex act from the opposite viewpoint, moving, moving, into several long explosions of sensation and then, late in the afternoon, into a short sleep.
Later, as they coupled once more, he 'pathed, I love you.
She 'pathed the same.
You and me.
She 'pathed, Us.
The two of us, always.
The five of us! she 'pathed back at him. He was certain that her projection had been augmented by other minds — precisely, three other minds — but he did not care about the intrusion. An esper might never have total privacy — but then, being an esper, he no longer required it.
Melopina and Jask slept little that day, but were ready to begin the trek again after nightfall. Chaney, Kiera and Tedesco were also in a very good mood. Triumphs had been shared.
Three weeks after they entered the Plains of Hammerau they left them once again, climbing down into that Wildlands sector known as the Smoke Den and, in past ages, as Satan's Balls, the Stone Kettle and Ghosts' Cauldron. The rounded stones were smooth underfoot, wet and treacherous. They reached the floor of Smoke Den without casualty, however, their breath labored in that humid atmosphere.
Here there was no plant life.
Here no animals prowled. At least none they could see.
Here the air was still, stale.
All that moved, aside from the espers, was the fog, which was everywhere and thick. It clung heavily to the ground, thinned as it rose, but still obscured the stars and made a fuzzy blotch of the sun.
They slept in a fog blanket.
They walked through veils of mist.
They breathed it in and out, ate it with their food, made love with it pressed over and between them.
The land in Smoke Den was a jumbled mass of rocks, impossible shapes and textures of stone. They made a game of identifying images that some of the stones presented: Here a horse reared onto its hind feet, there the head of a man, to the right a spaceship rising on a column of smoke, to the left a winged man poised for flight. This was the first time during their journey, that they were able to relax — pursued neither by Pures nor tainted nor beasts — and they were in high good humor when, two weeks from the Plains of Hammerau, they came over a stony rise and looked down on the fogless black plain that had, for so long, been their goal.
The field of black glass was four kilometers in diameter, as shiny as if it were diligently polished every day, ringed by stones but containing none within it, like an enormous dance floor dropped down in the middle of nowhere. The “craters” referred to on Tedesco's map were actually faults in the glass. It appeared as if, when the glassy pool was solidifying after whatever disaster had caused it, bubbles of gas had risen to the surface in steady streams, forming tunnels and jagged openings.
I don't see anything that looks like a spaceship. It seems as lifeless as a cemetery — Chaney.
You would know about cemeteries, Kiera 'pathed.
Chaney grinned wolfishly. I used to be a grave robber.
Not really, Melopina 'pathed, shivering.
Yes, really. Sometimes a traveling musician runs across a town of tin ears and doesn't earn his daily bread. When that happens, he either uses his wits or starves. I've never starved— not so long as there was a cemetery nearby, and a local church of Resurrectionists.
Those who believe the actual corpse is revived and made to live again, come Judgment? Tedesco asked.
The same, Chaney 'pathed. They bury their dead with possessions — often jewels, silver and expensive leather goods. I've bought many a meal with the proceeds from grave robberies — and if the Resurrectionists are right and some of my victims come to life again without the advantage of personal wealth to set them up, I trust their god will see to it that they're properly compensated for their misfortune.
Well, Tedesco 'pathed, there are no graves to rob down there. But there might be a fortune to be found if this proves to be the station of the Presence.
They searched the tunnels for an entire day, carrying hand torches, walking along slick-floored corridors, shadow images of themselves reflected in the onyx walls, twisted and sinister in duplication. A soft, cool breeze poured constantly through the subterranean avenues, though they never managed to find the source of it. The moving air raised a hollow whistling sound in the polished runnels, an eerie groan that caused Jask goosepimples and kept him looking behind for some pursuing beast.