Gaining momentum, they pounded across the scorching white grains while the heavy length of pipe swayed on the yokes. Slipping and cursing in the loose
footing, they passed the last length, hearing the "Whoa!" of the tail man as they made the end and slowing until he yelled, "Yup!" Then they staggered sideways while Kaylla watched the lineup. At her signal, they dropped the pipe flush so the fitting crew could weld it in place.
The sun had been murderous at first. Staffa had reeled in the grip of a thirst desperate enough to make him consider quick death by the collar.
Length after length they toiled, and with each he watched Kaylla's tanned muscular body wavering in his vision as she threw her back into the tow rope. How did she stand it? What kept her going? He recalled the first day when she'd taken that position and placed him in front so she could tell him how to work and keep him out of trouble. In the demonic heat he'd watched her — and time after time, her form had shimmered into Skyla's.
Skyla's? Why Skyla's? Why aidn't Chrysla fill his dreams? Because I killed her… He pitched himself forcefully into the work.
On the second night, muscles cramped and aching, he collapsed exhausted, fevered with sunburn. Kaylla settled beside him, bringing a bowl of food and a large carafe of tepid water.
Half delirious, he said: "Skyla, Blessed Gods, thank you."
She propped elbows on muscular brown legs. "Skyla, Tuff? You've been in the sun too long. Name's Kaylla."
He blinked to clear filmy vision. Skyla's cerulean eyes became hardened tan, Skyla's classic face squaring into Kaylla's. "Yeah, sorry. I meant my. Another lady."
"Your lover?" Kaylla asked as she stuffed her mouth with thick chunks of meat and chewed lustily.
"No."
Kaylla swallowed in a gulp. She filled her mouth again and nodded. "Sounded awful soft and sweet to me, Tuff."
"I loved a woman once." His voice went flat. "A long time ago. Forget it. Once in a lifetime is enough, isn't it?"
Kaylla laughed bitterly, bringing him back to another dimension of misery. "For the likes of us, maybe one love is enough." Her voice softened. "My husband and I, we had thirty good years together. What a wondrous solid love we shared." She looked up at the stars. "When you're in love, you always think it will last forever. To hold the person you care so much for makes the world seem unreal— but you're only fooling yourself."
He said nothing, remembering the man who'd died so bravely that day on Maika.
"Oh, Pus-Rotted Gods, I was happy then." Kaylla whispered. "Bore him five incredibly beautiful children. We. we lived in our own little paradise."
He looked away so she couldn't see his expression. "I'm sorry."
"Yeah, so am I."
His fists knotted in the hot sand. "If I could change it, I would. If it's ever within my power, I'll get you out of here. I swear that on my honor."
"You're a good man, Tuff."
"Am I?" Staffa blinked at the burning behind his eyes.
"This is hell Tuff. and here comes my tormentor." At the disgust in her voice he lifted his gaze to see Anglo pacing toward them.
The officer raised his hand in an obscene gesture.
Kaylla stood, defeat bowing her shoulders, and trudged off after Anglo with leaden steps.
Staffa rolled over and covered his head, Kaylla's look of revulsion trapped behind his tightly clamped eyes.
"I put her here. But it was for a good cause… a good cause."
As the days passed, he toughened. His skin blackened in the actinic light of the Etarian sun. Each sight of Kaylla goaded him, a constant reminder of the conqueror he had once been.
How many times did he awaken in the night? Cold sweat sticking sand to him in a gritty patina. Kaylla — when she could avoid Anglo — would hold his hand. Her touch com-
forted, and burned, a damning lifeline to human warmth and reassurance. On nights when she had to service Anglo's insatiable lust, he lay shivering
and miserable. Images kept forming in his mind — scenes of planets he'd crushed. Each battle replayed, each victory repeated. In the macabre haze of his dreams, he could hear his laughter as he condemned people by the hundreds to slave labor such as he now suffered. He relived the rapes and the killings, staring haughtily into his victims' tortured faces.
Who are you, Staffa? What have you done? I am damned! Accursed!
Yet, every man's mind has a certain resilience. Staffa kar Therma held onto that fragile thread that kept him going. But he had another reason, one more pressing: Kaylla.
In the depths of the night, when the nightmares descended and the ghouls of the innocents he'd murdered stared hollowly at him, he would awaken with the cold shakes. Then, when death would have been the easiest way, he had only to look over to where Kaylla slept, or imagine her under Anglo's sweating body as the warden raped her. Kaylla — his salvation and damnation — hadn't broken. How could Staffa kar Therma be less than the woman he'd condemned?
Hounded, he forced himself to live, to suffer with the rest, and to endure.
When guilt waned, fantasy would spring to life in his fevered brain. Through the shimmering waves of heat and pain, Kaylla's figure transformed into Skyla's as she tugged on the lead rope. Wraithlike and half-stripped, hair mysteriously brown and short, she danced just a tantalizing step ahead of him. But when he looked more closely, Skyla's phantom shaded into Kaylla — and the guilt came flooding back.
In the respiteful hours of twilight, he hungered to see Skyla's sapphire-blue eyes again — to reach out and feel her warm touch as he'd done that day when she'd lain in the hospital. She would rescue him in the end. With a touch she would free him from this blistering existence.
Yes, Staffa. Dream of Skyla descending from the skies at the head of your bloody Companions — except what power will ever save you from the hell of who you are?
"Water break!" The call came as they dug sand-stiff yoke
ropes from under the pipe. Bent down, blinking through dehydrated eyes, he pulled the thick strap loose and started slogging back through the ovenlike trench.
"Tuff?" He heard the faint rasp.
He stopped and looked back to see Peebal, gasping, head resting on the skin-frying pipe. Weak spindly little Peebal, who should have been lacing shoes in Etarus, had no business here. He shot a glance at the water tent. Let Peebal make his own way. He took a step forward. Hollow-eyed ghosts wailed their victory in the air around him.
He stopped, cursed, and extended a hand. "Come on, Peebal."
"Can't," the thirst-wizened man muttered dumbly. His swollen tongue stuck half out of his mouth. "From my pocket. Take the little necklace." Peebal gasped, face convulsing as he wheezed.
Staffa's thorny fingers ransacked the pocket to find a shiny gold locket of exquisite workmanship.
"What's this?"
"Mine. My best work. Had to. " Peebal broke into a spasm of coughing. "Give it… give it to Kaylla. She was. was good to me." He sagged against the pipe. "I made that. Good. good jeweler. once." He coughed again. "Ought to leave something behind that's beautiful in such a… a horrid place." He twisted and vomited blood on the sand.
"Come on," Staffa put a hand on Peeba]'s arm.
"No," Peebal whispered, wincing, his sun-cracked skin like leather. "Dying. Dying now Tuff."
Staffa bent and gripped Peebal by the arm and swung him up. The slightness of Peebal's weight over his scarred shoulders shocked him. Simmering rage blended with sorrow. The locket burned where it touched his skin, a damning brand against a traitor's flesh.
By the time he reached the water tent, Peebal had vomited blood again, red cascading down Staffa's arm, cooling him for the moment.
The others looked on with lackluster eyes. Only KayUa walked out, tan eyes pinched. "What's wrong?"