by Various
"Princess Lyla!" Her lips curled as she turned to face him and she seemed to spit the words at him in sudden, unexpected resentment. "I love the meaningless sound of my official figurehead title! It's so much better than being regarded as a living person with feelings that can be hurt!"
"But Princ ... I mean--" He floundered, not quite sure what had caused her reaction.
She made a visible effort to compose herself. "I'm sorry," she said. "I suppose my ... husband ... is quite right; an immature female has no business trying to rule a world and the sooner the marriage is confirmed, the sooner a competent man can take over the job."
"No," he said. "I think--"
He decided that what he thought had better be left unsaid.
"I'll"--she looked toward the cabin she shared with Narf--"let you know when we can talk."
She went back toward the cabin, walking slowly. From inside Narf's half of it came the sound of Narf's voice as he spoke to Sonig:
"... Of course, this collection of heads is nothing compared with what I have in the Sea Islands ... but some interesting stories here ... take that snow fox there...."
Hunter sighed, and saw that Lyla had stopped before her door, as though dreading to enter. Narf's voice droned on:
"... Only wounded, so I finished it with a knife. Even with its heart half cut out, it still wanted to live ... beautiful pelt ... coat for Janalee, the strip-tease queen ... always had a way with women--Lyla could tell you that ... had my pick of hundreds but I'm letting her be my choice...."
He saw Lyla half lift her hand, as in some mute gesture of protest, then she turned and walked swiftly away; up the path that led into the ghost trees, and out of sight.
He waited, but she did not come back. He went into his cabin and moved about restlessly, hearing again Narf's sadism-and-sex boasting and seeing again how she turned and almost ran from it--
* * * * *
"Rootenant!"
Alonzo was panting, a look of frantic appeal in his eyes.
"Prease herp me ... Princess Ryra ... she wirr die!"
He felt his heart lurch. "She's hurt?" he demanded, and was already on his way to the door.
"She are about to cry and she are going to where the tree tigers riv. They wirr kirr her--prease come with me!"
He asked no more questions but went out the door and up the path, Alonzo running ahead of him.
The ghost trees grew thinner as they went up the mountain's slope, and the blue-green fernlike trees of the tiger forest began to appear. They grew thicker and thicker, until the ground was black with their shadows and the midday sunlight was filtered out by the foliage overhead. Alonzo was trailing her, his nose to the ground, and Hunter hurried close behind him, watching for the red-and-white of the clothes she was wearing and hoping they would not find her too late.
They were deep in the forest when they found her.
She was standing motionless in the center of a clearing, facing away from him and looking as small and alone as a lost child. She seemed to be waiting....
He realized for the first time how alone she really was, with only a doglike alien, Alonzo, to love her or care what might happen to her, and with a future she could not bear to face. But Rockford had been wrong when he had said, For her, there is no escape.
There was escape for her. She had only to wait, as she was waiting now, and it would come in the windlike whisper of a tiger's rush through the grass behind her....
He hurried to her. She turned, and he saw the stains of tears now dry on her face and in her eyes the darkness of utter defeat.
"I was afraid you might get hurt, Lyla--"
Then, seemingly without volition on his part, he put his arms around her and she was clinging to him and crying in muffled sobs and trying to say something about, "I didn't think anybody cared...."
It was some time later, when her crying was finished, that he was reminded of the tigers by Alonzo:
"Rootenant ... awr the time, some tigers are coming croser and croser. We better get her out of here, Rootenant, before they find us."
Lyla looked down at Alonzo. "Thank you, Alonzo, for watching over me and ... and--" Her voice caught and she dropped to her knees and hugged the shaggy head tight against her.
Hunter watched ahead, Lyla beside him as they went through the dense trees. Alonzo walked soft-footed behind them, watching the rear. When they came to the first ghost trees and the dwindling of the tiger trees, Hunter thought it safe to walk slower and talk to her.
"I saw you go," he said. "I didn't know where until Alonzo came running to tell me."
"I heard him bragging about killing, and about his women--I was weak, wasn't I?"
"Weak?"
"I was afraid to face the future, just because it isn't to be exactly like I thought I wanted."
"What was the kind you wanted, Lyla?"
"Oh ... I guess I wanted a husband who could see me only, and children, and evenings together in the flower garden, and ... well, all the silly, sentimental little things that mean so much to a woman."
He thought, Even with its heart half cut out, it still wanted to live ... Coat for Janalee ... the strip-tease queen....
They passed through the last of the tiger trees and she said, "We're safe, now. The tigers never attack anyone outside their forest."
She was walking slowly and he said, "We should get on back before you're missed, shouldn't we?"
"Who would miss me?" she asked. "So long as I remain physically intact for the marriage night, who cares where or why I went away?"
There was the cold bleakness of winter in her eyes as she spoke, and in her voice the first undertone of brass. He saw that this was already the beginning of the change that Narf would make in her; the transformation of a girl young and wanting to love and be loved into a hard and cynical woman.
He put his arm around her shoulder, thinking that he should tell her that he cared and that she must never let Narf change her.
"Lyla, I--"
He realized how futile and foolish the words would sound. She would marry Narf, he would return to Earth, and they would never meet again. There were no words for him to speak on this last walk together, no way to tell her that he wanted to help her, to protect and care for her. No way to express the feeling inside him....
He did what seemed as natural under the circumstances as it had been for him to put his arm around her in the clearing. He tilted up her face and bent his head to kiss her.
And walked with jarring impact into the knobby elbow of a ghost tree limb.
* * * * * * * * *
The sun was down and dusk was darkening the camp when they arrived back at her cabin.
"Thank you, Dale," she said. Her hand squeezed his arm. "I didn't know I had a friend ... but now we'll have to be strangers because--"
Gravel crunched loudly on one of the paths in the ghost trees and they looked back, to see Narf and Sonig coming, walking swiftly. Even at the distance, there was anger like a red aura about Narf.
"Well," Lyla said softly, "here comes my medicine."
Sonig stopped at his own cabin, to stand just within the doorway, watching. Narf strode on and stopped before Hunter and Lyla, his face twisted with savage hatred as he looked at Hunter. He spoke to Lyla with grating vehemence:
"You've done an excellent job of making an ass of yourself--and of me--haven't you? Come on in the cabin!"
Narf seized her by the arm, towering over her as he jerked her around toward the door. Hunter stepped quickly forward, feeling the hot flash of his own anger, but there was the paleness of Lyla's face as she looked back, an appeal on it that said, No! He stopped, realizing that Narf would not physically harm the woman who would make him king of Vesta, and that any interference on his part would only make everything the harder for her.
He watched the two go into the cabin--into Lyla's half--and Narf slammed the door shut behind them. There followed the quick bang of windows being closed, and then Narf's muffled tirade began: "... May think I'm a fool .
.. I'm going to tell you a few things...."
Sonig was still standing within his doorway. Hunter knew, without seeing it, that the thin-lipped smile would be on Sonig's face.
He turned and walked back to his own cabin. There was nothing he could do but withdraw--and listen from a distance and be ready to act if it seemed she was in danger.
He sat on his doorstep in the darkness, hearing occasional phrases in Narf's unrelenting abuse. One was: "So prim you had to countermand my order for a key to that lock--then you went out to play with that second lieutenant...."
Alonzo materialized out of the darkness, coming as silently as a shadow. He was no longer the bumbling clown. The idiotic grin was gone and his eyes were green fire, slanted and catlike, his teeth flashing white in a snarl as he looked back toward the sound of Narf's voice.
"She are my Princess Ryra," Alonzo said. "He are cursing her. If he ever hurt her, I wirr tear out his throat and his river."
"He won't hurt her, Alonzo," Hunter said, wishing he could be sure. "He'll only use words on her."
"He never ask her why she run away--he onry curse her and threaten her because she embarrass him."
"Embarrass him?"
"He and Sonig, they see you coming out of the forest with your arm around her. They watch with high-power grasses."
"But there was nothing wrong in that--"
"That are what Princess Ryra say. She say you onry put your arm around her because she are stirr scared of the tigers. And then he say, what about the other? And he cawr her awrful bad names."
"What other?"
"Oh, when you are bending down to kiss Princess Ryra and are wawrking into tree."
He gulped. "They saw that?"
"Oh, sure. Rord Narf are so mad he want to kirr you right then but Sonig say, 'Wait, I have a pran.' Then Sonig say, 'It are too bad we don't have a camera--we could have made that rootenant the raffing stock of forty worlds.'"
The thought made Hunter gulp again.
"What was Sonig's plan that Narf told Lyla about?" He asked.
"Oh, he not terr her. I hear Sonig terr Rord Narf when I spy. Sonig say, 'Tomorrow we be friendry and we ret those two go for another wawrk in the woods. And we have cameras with terescope rens and when they kiss and hug we take moving pictures.'"
"Why, the gutter-bred rat--"
"And Rord Narf say, 'That is what we wirr do. And then I wirr kirr him as soon as we have the pictures and she wirr have to toe the mark from then on because if I pubricry show the pictures of what she did, she wirr be ashamed to show her face anywhere on Vesta.'"
"Why, the--" He could not think of a suitable expression.
"And then Sonig say, 'To make sure she go out tomorrow, you bawr her out good so she wirr want to cry on the rootenant's shourder again.' And Rord Narf say, 'I wirr be very grad to terr the two-timing hussy what I think of her, don't worry.'"
"Why, she was only a scared girl and that rat thinks she--"
* * * * *
"... Your promise to your dying father," Narf's voice came in accusation. "He's gone, now, and you can betray him, too! Why don't you go all the way in your deceptions ... your father will never know...."
Alonzo said, "I think I go back and stay croser to her cabin, Rootenant."
It was an hour later, and Narf's voice had settled to a low, steady growling, when Hunter heard a helicopter settle down near the camp. A minute later, Val Boran was outlined momentarily in the doorway of the cabin he shared with Sonig. There followed the exchange of a few words--interrogation in Val's tone--and then the sound of Sonig's voice alone, which continued for minute after minute.
Sonig is telling him all about it, Hunter thought, including my walking into that tree. But there won't be one word in sympathy with Lyla.
Sonig's story ended and Hunter saw Val leave the cabin. He came straight up the path toward Hunter, looming tall in the darkness as he stopped before him. There was the pale gleam of metal in Val's belt--a blaster. His voice came cold and flat:
"I want to talk to you, Lieutenant."
Hunter sighed, thinking, I suppose he wants to kill me, too.
He got up and said, "We'll go inside. Shut the door behind you--I don't want your friend straining his ears to hear us."
Val sat tall even in the chair, his face like a carving in a dark granite and his eyes as bright and hard.
"I understand that you took Princess Lyla into the tiger forest today." Val's hand was very near the blaster. "I understand you then played the role of affectionate rescuer."
"Do you believe that story?" Hunter asked.
"Do you have a different one?"
"You might ask Lyla. Or Alonzo. Alonzo is the one who came to me for help when he saw she was going out to die."
"To die?" A startled expression came into the black eyes. "She wanted to die?"
"I'll tell you what happened," Hunter said, and told him the story, omitting only the embarrassing kissing incident and knowing that Sonig had not.
Val was silent for a while after Hunter finished speaking, then he said, "It isn't for me to comment upon Lord Narf's character or actions. She is his wife by her own choice. But the thought of someone else taking her out and--"
"I know. It wasn't so." Then Hunter added, "You think a great deal of her, don't you?"
Val's face hardened and Hunter thought he would not answer. Then he smiled a little, even though without humor, and said:
"Since I came here to kill you if I thought you deserved it, I suppose I am obligated to answer your question. My regard for Princess Lyla is the respectful one that any civilized man would have for another man's wife."
There was an unintended implication in the statement and Hunter made a conjecture:
"You and Princess Lyla were engaged--how long ago?"
There was surprise on Val's face, and something like pain quickly masked. "So she's already making it public information?"
"No. I learned of it from ... other sources. I don't know, of course, why you persuaded her to break the engagement--that's none of my business, anyway."
"No," Val said. "It's none of your business. I'll tell you this: I didn't ask her to break the engagement. But so long as that was what she wanted, I certainly wasn't going to beg her to change her mind."
Val stood up to go. "If you don't mind, I would rather you said nothing to Princess Lyla about this visit tonight. I'm afraid my misplaced surge of chivalry would make me look like a fool to her."
Then, as an afterthought, Val added, "Mr. Rockford had further business in the city."
* * * * * * * * *
It was late when Narf finally left Lyla's part of the cabin. He went to the cabin occupied by Val and Sonig, aroused Sonig, and the two of them went to the helicopter field. Hunter heard the helicopter leaving for the city a few minutes later. Val's cabin remained dark and after a while, the light in Lyla's cabin went out.
He went to bed, but not to sleep. Over and over, a lonely little Princess Lyla clung to him for comfort, crying, while he held her close. He twisted and turned restlessly as he thought of the hours she had sat alone and unloved while Narf poured out his hatred and fury on her.
There was a yearning for her, a desire to hold her and always protect her, that would not let him sleep. And he realized the reason why.
He thought miserably, I'm in love with her!
* * * * *
Rockford was in bed, snoring loudly, with six empty beer cans on the floor beside him, when Hunter got up. He went outside and found Alonzo waiting for him.
"They got it awr pranned to kirr you for sure today, Rootenant."
"How?" he asked.
"Rast night, Rord Narf and Sonig go to the city and Rord Narf, he hire four bad-rooking men with brasters, and Sonig hire four more that are his countrymen, and they bring these men back and now they are hiding in the woods. And they awrso bring back movie cameras with terescope renses. And Rord Narf raff and say he wirr marry Princess Ryra today before your dead body is even coor
."
"Oh?" Hunter said. He thought of the snoring Rockford and his words of two days before: If you manage to live that long. How, he wondered, could the lazy old drunkard have made such an accurate guess?
"And then," Alonzo said, "Rord Narf wake up Princess Ryra--onry I know she wasn't asreep--and he terr her he ruv her and have awready made awr the arrangement for them to get married today, right after runch. And he terr her she is right about the Space Guard and she wirr have until runch to tawrk to you about it."
There was the sound of Narf's door opening and closing and Alonzo said, "I go now--Rord Narf might guess that I are terring you things."
A few minutes later Narf and Sonig came down the path toward Hunter. Both carried packsacks--the cameras, of course--and both carried long-range rifle blasters.
"Good morning, lieutenant!" Narf was smiling and pseudogenial again. "About last night--sometimes a man has to be stern with his wife to impress her. Very foolish thing she did--might have been killed. I'm afraid I was so badly shaken with worry over her that I didn't even thank you for bringing her back."
"A beautiful morning, lieutenant!" Sonig was smiling, coming as close to beaming as the nature of his face would permit. "Lord Narf is going to take me stag hunting this morning--I'll get some lessons from a master. Did you ever see his lordship's collection of heads? Amazing!"
"But it seems a sportsman's collection is never quite complete," Narf said. He was still smiling but the hatred was burning like a fire in his eyes as he looked at Hunter. "There's one more head I must have--I intend to get it this morning."
Narf and Sonig were gone when Lyla came out of her cabin, her face pale and drawn. Val came out of his cabin and the two spoke to each other in greeting. There was a silence, in which neither seemed to know what to say.
Finally, awkwardly, Val said, "I heard about yesterday, Lyla. Why did you go into the tiger forest?"
"Oh ... I was just walking, I guess, and didn't notice where."
"You went there to die, didn't you?"
"I ... when you have nothing left--" Then she lifted her head in a proud gesture and said, "Should it matter to you?"
For a moment Val had the look of a man struck. Then it was gone and he said in an emotionless voice: