The Final Planet

by Andrew M. Greeley

  Sure, if he had, he wouldn’t fall for that trick the next time.

  So I’ll think up a better trick.

  Anyhow, if the blast blew him out of his robe, he’s probably dead.

  There’s something else I should be thinking about. No, someone else. Someone real important. Now let’s see, who is it?

  O’Neill checked his own limbs; everything seemed to be in working order. Well, now he and Marjetta could resume their travels.

  Marjetta! Where is she? He stumbled to his feet. Their horses had disappeared, racing back in terror, no doubt, to the lowlands where they belonged. Near the bodies of Narth’s guards sprawled grotesquely on a rock slide against the canyon wall, Marjetta lay, apparently as lifeless as the rest of them.

  His ears ringing, his legs unsteady, he stumbled to her and turned her over. She appeared to be sleeping, except there was a thin line of blood tracing down her face from a wound above the hairline. Running to the supply pack, which his horse had shed in the rush to escape this place of strange noises, he found a syringe of life serum. With shaking hands he managed to inject it into her arm.

  At first there was no reaction. He felt for a pulse. Still there, but very weak. If some life serum is good, would more be better? Sammy had never told him. Her pulse was slowing down. He dashed back and removed the two remaining vials of life serum and injected them clumsily into her arm.

  Slowly color returned to Margie’s pale face. A few moments later when she opened her eyes he was holding her in his arms. He busied himself fixing the scratch on her head. She clung to him, fighting for self-control; then grinned again. “Quick thinking, Major,” she said with a wink. “But how do you know what I’m like in bed?”

  14

  Margie recovered quickly. Indeed, she was ready to begin the march more quickly than he, and started going through their packs, choosing what to carry and what to leave behind. “I’m younger and better,” she explained. “And wasn’t I wonderful? I had Narth convinced that I’d given up on you and become his abject slave.”

  “Well, you were pretty good,” he conceded grudgingly, “though I should be saying it instead of yourself. You could have distracted him a wee bit more.”

  “Then he wouldn’t have believed your slander,” she argued genially, “that I was a frigid virgin who would require sexual initiation, would he?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “I don’t think I’m frigid, anyway.” She hefted a pack, finding it not too heavy. She jammed some more food into it. “We’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?”

  Well, that’s clear enough.

  “Ay, we will indeed.” He began to shuffle through his supplies, wishing he had ignored her last comment altogether—though he was betting that, like any proper virgin, she might be inexperienced, but hardly frigid. Not by several light-years. “To change the subject to safer matters—” his hands were still trembling “—you were very brave and very quick. I counted on you to be both. Otherwise we would be as dead as they are.”

  She straightened up and turned toward him, a tall slender woman in a long brown cloak that matched her hair and her glowing eyes, a pack on her back and a weapon in her hand. “Thank you, Geemie. I’m glad you counted on me and I’m glad you were right in doing so.”

  You’re getting deeper and deeper into trouble, Seamus Finnbar O’Neill.

  Both of them wanted to leave the horror of the canyon. Narth might be dead, but his troops could still be around; a second in command might try to prove his claim to empire by capturing and displaying as trophies Narth’s killers.

  They trudged silently up the mountain, both again preoccupied with their own thoughts. As they approached the snow line, Marjetta spoke.

  “What is the Iona?” she snapped at him, the good feeling of a couple of hours ago suddenly broken by suspicion and distrust. “Narth said you were Major O’Neill from the Iona. That is not what you call your spacecraft.”

  “Did he say that?” Now the lies had to start again. “That was the name of my command on Tara. Each regiment had its own name. How did he know you were going to take command of the Young Ones when you got back?” He had to get her back on the defensive. There was a lot of rock still in the girl.

  “I do not know. I told no one … no one but you, that is.”

  “I certainly wouldn’t have tossed that grenade at Narth if I were on his side,” he said reasonably.

  “I do not think you were on his side.” She sighed. “I do not know what to think.”

  “Was Narth supposed to have any kind of … well … sort of special powers that were different from what ordinary people could do?”

  “Yes. He was said to be able to read people’s minds. How did you know that? No one ever mentions it on Zylong except in whispers. It is too frightening.” She shivered. “Do you have that power, Geemie? Can you read my mind?” Her brown eyes widened with terror.

  “If I could, I’d be afraid to try,” he said honestly enough. Then, scratching his head he turned to moderate honesty to placate her. “Most of us Tarans have traces of that sort of thing—kind of an evolutionary throwback, they tell us. All I’m really good at is sensing danger. It only works when I concentrate on it—like back at the ravine. Later I was tired and let other things preoccupy me. I didn’t pick up on this last surprise.”

  “I am glad you can sense danger and I am also glad you cannot read my mind. It would be embarrassing.” Her voice trailed off and her lips tightened.

  Now what does she mean by that?

  As if you don’t know, boyo. She wants you even worse than you want her. And is less afraid of it than you are too.

  You keep out of this. We have a mountain to climb.

  His estimates of the height of this “low pass” were completely wrong. He had figured that maybe there would be a thin layer of snow on the ground, but it was ankle-deep at first and then knee-deep. The top layer melted in the daytime, then froze at night, so that the surface of the snow was crusted and slippery but not firm enough to hold their weight. During the day, the temperature was above freezing—still cold by desert and Zylong City standards. Their desert robes were little protection against the cold, but the boots they wore were high and strong enough to protect their feet.

  Marjetta had never known cold like this. She was having a difficult time negotiating the deep snow. O’Neill was sure they wouldn’t get through the snowbelt that day. It meant a frigid night at the top of the pass with no fire and only body heat to survive.

  He was troubled by Narth’s knowledge of Iona. How much had he known? Who told him? The Zylongi were not completely unsophisticated about psychic mechanisms even though they didn’t use the word. If Narth had known about the monastery, what were the chances that someone else might too?

  The questions were soon forgotten in the simple struggle to survive. As the sun slipped slowly toward the horizon, they reached the top of the pass. They saw the dark green jungle far below them and the inviting purple of the ocean beyond that. They had made it halfway. Poor Margie was nearly finished. She was exhausted, frightened, and shivering in the cold. Her teeth were clenched to hold back cries of pain.

  “Seamus, it is impossible,” she moaned. “I cannot go on. You must leave me here. I will decide to die. It will come quickly.”

  “No one is deciding anything. Let’s find a cave and figure out a way to keep warm.” He grabbed her arm roughly and dragged her along.

  He wasn’t sure he could make it down the other side himself. Better that the two of them freeze to death up here together. With his arm around the faltering Marjetta, he pushed through the snow toward the side of the pass, looking for a cave, a cleft in the rock—even an indentation where they would be protected from the wind, which had steadily increased since sunset.

  They found a tiny cave, little more than a depression in the rock face. The two of them huddled together with their packs, carbines, and spears piled up in front of them for more protection from the howling wind.

/>   The bare rock angled away from the wind and was free from snow, but it was very cold. Marjetta shivered wretchedly. He drew her close to himself to share his warmth, and gradually her trembling stopped. They would never last the night.

  She knew it. Tears of despair and pain flowed down her cheeks.

  “Sure the next time I go mountain climbing I’ll be after choosing a woman who doesn’t get cold,” he joked, his own teeth chattering, and pulled her still closer.

  It was now completely dark. There seemed no reason not to light one of the tiny lanterns they carried in their packs. To die in the light seemed easier than to face death in the dark.

  Light! That gave him an idea. “Margie, these illumination grenades … is there any way we can set them to go off slowly? Can we rig it so that they last an hour or so? There’s enough power in them to keep this cave warm for a while.”

  “There is a slow timer on it,” she answered hopelessly, “but even if you push the dial all the way, it will only last fifteen minutes. If you get too close to a grenade, even at that intensity it will burn you to death.”

  He managed to pry the cover off one grenade and find the mechanism. The timer was a serviceable device that inhibited the flow of acid from the supply compartment to the ignition spark.

  “What if I tear off a little bit of cloth from my robe and wrap that around the flow valve? The cloth is supposed to be unburnable, and it should slow the acid flow.”

  “I don’t know.” She was shaking so hard that he feared she might hurt herself against the walls of their tiny shelter. In a few moments, her spasms might break out of control.

  Well, this thing could explode on us and we’d have more heat than we wanted. Enough to fry us. On the other hand, I’m not going to sit here and watch my woman freeze to death.

  He rigged his homemade heating unit, put it on a ledge outside the cave, and pulled the pin. The light slowly began to shine, heat flowed back into the cave—not much, but enough to keep them alive. Margie’s sigh as the warmth hit her face was that of one who had been pulled back from the brink.

  “See, little one, stick with old Uncle Seamus. He can fix anything.” He hugged her.

  They ate concentrated supper bars and sipped vitamin-enriched water from their canteens. The cave was uncomfortable; the glare from the light was hard on their eyes until they had the sense to put on the smoked glasses used in desert travel. Then the cave took on a bizarre shade of green that made Margie laugh.

  The heat from the homemade furnace lasted close to an hour. They had six grenades in all, so if he used them at hour-and-a-half intervals, they could make it all through the night.

  “Young woman,” Seamus briskly announced, “on another occasion I may have obscene reasons for suggesting this, but I trust you see the sense of sleeping in my arms tonight.”

  “I cannot think of a place where my virtue as a Zylongi maiden would be better assured.” She sighed in contentment and then stiffened.… “But you will have to change the grenades. You will not sleep?”

  “Who is the commander of this expedition, woman?” O’Neill demanded.

  “You are.” Again the crinkly grin and the starry brown eyes, quickly lowered.

  “What did I say?” He put his hand under her chin and forced the eyes back into view.

  “That I needed sleep.” Now her grin was embarrassed, sheepish.

  “Then do as you are told,” he said gruffly, drawing her close.

  “Yes, sir.” She leaned obediently against his chest.

  In ten minutes she was sound asleep, snuggled up against him, giving and receiving body warmth.

  O’Neill’s head was jumbled with confused and complex emotions. He had to think of the challenges of the next day. But this girl disconcerted him, kept him off balance, attracted him, and scared the hell out of him. Why does she look at me that way?

  I can have her anytime I want. She’s offered me her virginity, herself, her life. But it would be a mortal sin to make love to her, wouldn’t it now?

  If you start, Seamus O’Neill, you’ll never stop. She’s the proper woman, you’ll never give up. You know that. Where are you going to find a better one, I ask you?

  Nowhere.

  Didn’t Carmody tell you that sex was meant to draw people together despite their fears?

  He did.

  You don’t intend just to take her and enjoy her and then leave her, do you?

  I should clobber you for even suggesting that.

  And will herself ever stop loving you?

  Well, I’m not good enough for her, but the poor thing will probably always think I am.

  What are you waiting for then?

  It would be a great, terrible sin. The Cardinal would never forgive. Making love to a defenseless local.

  She’s not all that defenseless.

  Yes, she is.

  Seamus pondered. The Lady Abbess. He shivered, and not from the cold. Then he remembered something she had once said about canon law: If two people wanted to marry and could not find a proper clergyperson for a long period of time, they could exchange commitments and it would be a valid and permanent marriage.

  Ah, would it now?

  Didn’t the Cardinal herself say so?

  She did.

  Well, that kills another of your excuses. If she’s your proper woman and there’s no one around to bless the two of you, then she’s your wife and that’s that.

  Well, I’ll think about it. We have lots of time yet.

  Coward.

  There were a lot of other things to think about the next morning. That day’s struggle was not easier. By noontime they were out of the snow and on the steep downward trail, which gave them a psychological lift. Margie didn’t have much reserve strength; she stumbled occasionally, sometimes reaching out to Seamus to keep from falling. But her spirits were high.

  “Let me know the next time you select a low pass,” she laughed.

  That struck them both as terribly funny. Her irony was beginning to sound like his. The Zylongi were an imitative people, their culture made strong demands for social homogeneity. If she associated with him long enough, she might pick up a good deal of his behavior—maybe even some of his temperament.

  That would not be a good thing at all.

  Late in the afternoon they stumbled, exhausted and worn, into the warm, gentle foothills where the jungle began. Margie wanted to stop. O’Neill insisted that they try to get across the River while it was still light.

  They struggled on. Seamus could think of nothing but soft grass and warm water. Women could wait for another day, another lifetime. Finally, when darkness had fallen, they stumbled down the side of the last foothill and into a meadow bordering a tributary of the River with its own little waterfall and pool. Paradise, he thought. We’ve made it.

  They could go no further. Both threw off their desert cloaks and sank into the pool with grateful relief. They should never have made it. After a good soak, Seamus and Marjetta lay together on the grass beside the pool, the moonlight turning Marjetta into an alabaster statue.

  Her naked body was flawlessly designed, perfection in its rich, supple detail. Yet he still was afraid of her. How could anything that beautiful be dangerous? Why did she seem a trap? It was not just the weariness of their journey which blotted out his lust. Margie’s haunting beauty in the moonlight warned him away, a dangerous garden with deadly flowers. No different than the cold, slimy cave at the end of the long passage that frightened you at Hyperion.

  How many times, you lout, have you fantasized about being alone in a forest with a naked woman? Now look at you. You’re in paradise with Eve and you don’t want her.

  “Geemie—” her sad brown eyes turned plaintively to him “—are you sure you cannot read my mind?”

  “Woman, you are the worst unbeliever of them all. No, I can’t read your mind, worse luck for me, I suppose. Your privacy is safe from my snooping curiosity.” Now he was really having trouble controlling himself, so his tone
sounded very angry. Fear or not, there were hungers stirring within him.

  “I wish you could.” Her voice was small and very soft.

  “You’re like all Taran women, all right,” he laughed gruffly, “always changing your mind.” He debated jumping back into the pool. The woman was certainly trying to seduce him now, and himself worn out from the long day’s trip. Why doesn’t she wait for a decent time?

  “I am serious, Seamus O’Neill. I do not have much life left, and I want to belong to you. I have wanted to belong to you, Taran, since I pulled you out of the sewer. I have broken all the other rules of my culture, so it is time to break the last one with you. I am just a speck of dust, Geemie, with a bit of life in it. I am precious to myself still, and I am the only gift I have to give. Please take me.”

  “I am afraid I will hurt you, Marjetta.” It was lame but true. She looked so fragile in the moonlight, her limp body a picture of passive vulnerability. Damn her, she knows how to surrender.

  “I do not care whether you hurt me or not, Geemie. I just want to be yours. I ask nothing from you. Just enjoy me for a little while and then forget me. You are the only good thing that has ever happened to me. I do not want to lose the chance to be with you even if it is only for a few days.”

  He placed his hands on her slender waist, fingers drawing her to him. “Sure, Margie, I’ve loved you since the first moment I set eyes on you.” He was passing the point of no return. Hunger was now stronger than fear. Her skin felt like the fine Taran linen on the Cardinal’s table. “I’ll not be forgetting you and it won’t be just for a few days that I will love you.”

  “Do not speak of love, Seamus. I think I feel it, but too much has happened for me to know what it is. I just know I cannot go on living unless I belong to you.” Her lips opened, her eyes grew round and vacant, her heart beat furiously under the touch of his fingers.

  Voices screamed in his throbbing head, warning him of the dangers. He ignored them. His hands moved slowly up and down her body, exploring her womanly splendors, and she tensed in response, her face wincing with fear. “I’ll speak of love if I want to, woman. I know what it is.” I’m being seduced by a frightened virgin who expects me to take over the seducing. His lips began explorations of their own, testing the sweetness of her flesh.