Up ahead of him, the next man in line came to an unexpected, staggering halt; and, having halted, sank down as if his body had suddenly lost all strength in its muscles. Hal moved up and past him.
"What is it?" Hal asked.
The man merely shook his head, his eyes already closed and his breathing beginning to deepen into the slow, heavy rhythm of sleep. Hal went on up, past donkeys and past other members of the team, men and women slumped down where they had ceased moving, some of them already snoring.
At the head of the column, he found Rukh, still on her feet, helping Tallah off with her pack.
"Why the stop?" said Hal, and cleared his throat against the hoarseness in his voice.
"They needed a halt - a short one, anyway." Rukh got the pack all the way off and bent to examine a hole rubbed in the back of Tallah's heavy checked green workshirt. "We can pad it," she said, "and change the dressing again. But it's turning into a regular ulcer. You shouldn't be carrying a pack at all, with that."
"Fine," said Tallah. "I'll leave it off, then, and the pack can trot along behind me on its own little legs."
"All right," said Rukh, "go see Falt and get a new dressing put on the sore; then you and he figure out what you want to do about putting a better pad on your pack harness. We'll be up and moving again in ten minutes."
Tallah reached for the straps of her pack with her left hand, lifted it clear of the ground, and carrying it that way at ankle-height, headed back down the column toward Falt.
Rukh's eyes went to meet Hal. They stood, made private for a moment by the distance between them and the next closest members of the Command.
"We had a break only thirty-five minutes ago," said Hal.
"Yes," she said, more quietly, "but in any case we had to stop now, and I didn't want to upset the Command any more than they are already. Come along."
She led him off into the woods. As soon as the vegetation screened them from sight, she turned left to parallel the column and led the way down alongside it for half a dozen meters. Following her, in spite of the preparation for this moment he had had in events of the past few weeks, it struck Hal like a physical blow to see James Child-of-God, seated on the ground on a rain jacket, with his back propped against the trunk of a large variform maple tree.
Child's face against the rutted bark of the tree, stained dark by the rain, was itself dark and carved, like old wood left too long in the rain and weather. His clothes, even the bulky, outer rain gear, lay limply upon him; so that it was unmistakable how thin he had become in these last few weeks. His forearms rested on his upper thighs, wrists and hands half-turned up, as if they had simply fallen strengthless there under the weight of Harmony's gravity. Legs, arms and body lay utterly still. Only his eyes, sunk deep in their bony hollows beneath the gray brows and above the still-impeccably shaven lower face, showed signs of life and were unchanged. They regarded Rukh and Hal calmly.
"I will stay here," he said, huskily.
"We can't afford to lose you," Rukh's voice was cold and bitter.
"Thou canst not wait for me to rest at the cost of letting the Militia catch thee - as they will within the hour if thou dost not move on," Child said. His words came in little runs and gasps, but steadily. "And it would be a sin to burden Warriors further with someone useless. It is not as if this is a sickness from which I may recover, if the Command supports me for a while. My sickness is age - that only grows more so as we wait. I could go a little further - but to what purpose? It will be honey to my heart rather to die here, with the enemies of God before me, knowing I still have strength to take more than one of them with me."
"We can't spare you." Rukh's voice was even colder and harder than before. "What if something happens to me? There's no one to take over."
"How am I to take over now, when I can neither march nor fight? Shame on thee to think so poorly, who art Captain of a Command," said Child-of-God. "We are all of us no more than spring flowers, who bloom for a day only in His sight. If a flower dies, any other may take its place. Thou hast known this all thy life, Rukh; and it is the way matters have always stood in the Commands, or with those who testify for the Faith. No one is indispensable. So why shouldst thou miss or mourn me who cannot make a better end than this? It is unseemly in thee, as one of the Elect, to do either."
Rukh stood, staring at him and saying nothing.
"Think," said Child. "The day is advanced. If I can delay those who follow us by only one hour, night will be so close that they will have no choice but to stop where they are until morning. While you, knowing they will not follow, can change your route, now; and by morning they will have gone at least half a day in the wrong direction before they wake to their mistake. So you can gain a full day on them; and with a day's lead, perhaps, the Command can escape. It is your duty not to let pass that God-given chance."
Still Rukh stood, unmoving and unspeaking; and the silence following Child's long speech went on and on; until Hal suddenly realized that of the three people there he was the only one who could break it.
"He's right," Hal said, and heard the words sound tightly in his own throat. "The Command's waiting, Rukh. I'll give him a hand to make him comfortable here, then catch up."
Rukh turned her head slowly, as if against the stiff pressure of unwilling neck muscles, and stared at him for a long moment. Then she looked back at Child.
"James…" she said, and stopped. She took one step toward him and fell suddenly on both knees beside him. Stiffly, he put his arms around her and held her to him.
"We are of God, thou and I," he said, looking down at her, "and to such as us the things of this universe can be but shadows in smoke that vanish even as the eye sees them. I will be parted from thee only a little while - thou knowest this. My work here is done, while thine continues. What should it be to thee, then, if for a short time thou lookest about and seest me not? There is a Command that thou must guard, a Core Tap that thou must destroy, and enemies of God that must be confounded by thy name. Think of this."
She shuddered in his arms, then lifted her head, kissed him once and got slowly to her feet. She looked down at him and her face smoothed out.
"Not by my name," she said, softly. "Thine."
She gazed down at him and her back straightened. Her voice broke out again, suddenly, whiplashing through the sodden woods under the low-bellied sky with low-pitched intensity.
"Thou, James. When the Core Tap is closed and I am free at last, I will raise a storm against those we fight, a whirlwind of judgment in which none of them will be able to stand. And that storm will carry thy name, James."
She wrenched herself around and strode off swiftly, almost running. The two men watched her until low-hanging branches of the trees hid her from sight. Then their gazes came back together again.
"Yes…" said Hal, without really knowing why he said the word. He looked about, at the hilly, cut-up, overgrown land surrounding them. A little distance away, a small rise that was almost a miniature bluff showed between the wet-bright, down-turned leaves.
"Up there?" he asked, pointing.
"Yes." It was more pant than spoken word, and Hal, looking back at the older man, saw how prodigally he had plundered his remaining strength to send Rukh from him.
"I'll carry you up there."
"Weapons…" said Child, with effort. "My power pistol with the short barrel, to put inside my shirt. My cone rifle… rods of cones. Power packs…"
Hal nodded. The older man was now wearing only his customary holstered power pistol with full barrel and a belt knife.