Four for Tomorrow Part 28

I threw the emergency brake on and got out. I began to walk.

So cold, so cold it grows. Up here. At night? Why?

Why did she do it? Why flee the campfire when night comes on.

And I was up, down, around, and through every chasm, gorge, and pa.s.s, with my long-legged strides and an ease of movement never known on Earth.

Barely two days remain, my love, and thou hast for- saken me. Why?

I crawled under overhangs. I leaped over ridges. I sc.r.a.ped my knees, an elbow. I heard my jacket tear.

No answer, Malann? Do you really hate your people this much? Then I'll try someone else. Vishnu, you're the Preserver. Preserve her, please! Let me find her.

Jehovah?

Adonis? Osiris? Thammuz? Manitou? Legba? Where is she?

I ranged far and high, and I slipped.

Stones ground underfoot and I dangled over an edge.

My fingers so cold. It was hard to grip the rock.

I looked down.

Twelve feet or so. I let go and dropped, landed rolling.

205.

Then I heard her scream.

I lay there, not moving, looking up. Against the night, above, she called.

"GallingerI"

I lay still.

"Gallinger!"

And she was gone.

156 I heard stones rattle and knew she was coming down some path to the right of me.

I jumped up and ducked into the shadow of a boulder.

She rounded a cut-off, and picked her way, uncer- tainly, through the stones.

"Gallinger?"

I stepped out and seized her shoulders.

"Braxa."

She screamed again, then began to cry, crowding against me. It was the first time I had ever heard her cry.

"Why?" I asked. "Why?"

But she only clung to me and sobbed.

Finally, "I thought you had killed yourself."

"Maybe I would have," I said. "Why did you leave Tirellian? And me?"

"Didn't M'Cwyie tell you? Didn't you guess?"

"I didn't guess, and M'Cwyie said she didn't know."

"Then she lied. She knows."

"What? What is it she knows?"

She shook all over, then was silent for a long time. I realized suddenly that she was wearing only her flimsy dancer's costume. I pushed her from me, took off my jacket, and put it about her shoulders.

"Great Malann!" I cried. "You'll freeze to deathi"

"No," she said, "I won't."

I was transferring the rose-case to my pocket.

"What is that?" she asked.

206.

"A rose," I answered. "You can't make it out much in the dark. I once compared you to one. Remember?"

"Ye-Yes. May I carry it?"

"Sure." I stuck it in the jacket pocket.

"Well? I'm still waiting for an explanation."

"You really do not know?" she asked.

"No!"

"When the Rains came," she said, "apparently only our men were affected, which was enough. . . . Because I- 157 wasn't-affected-apparently-"

"Oh," I said. "Oh."

We stood there, and I thought.

"Well, why did you run? What's wrong with being pregnant on Mars? Tamur was mistaken. Your people can live again."

She laughed, again that wild violin played by a Pagin- ini gone mad. I stopped her before it went too far.

"How?" she finally asked, rubbing her cheek.

'Tour people live longer than ours. If our child is nor- mal it will mean our races can intermarry. There must still be other fertile women of your race. Why not?"

"You have read the Book of Locar," she said, "and yet you ask me that? Death was decided, voted upon, and pa.s.sed, shortly after it appeared in this form. But long before, the followers of Locar knew. They decided it long ago. "We have done all things,' they said, 'we have seen all things, we have heard and felt all things.

The dance was good. Now let it end.'"

"You can't believe that."

"What I believe does not matter," she replied. "M'Cw- yie and the Mothers have decided we must die. Their very t.i.tle is now a mockery, but their decisions will be upheld. There is only one prophecy left, and it is mis- taken. We will die."

"No," I said.

"What, then?"

207.

"Come back with me, to Earth."

"No."

"All right, then. Come with me now."

"Where?"

"Back to Tirellian. I'm going to talk to the Mothers."

"You can't! There is a Ceremony tonightl"

I laughed.

"A ceremony for a G.o.d who knocks you down, and then kicks you in the teeth?"

"He is still Malann," she answered. "We are still his people."

"You and my father would have gotten along fine," I snarled. "But I am going, and you are coming with me, even if I have to carry you-and I'm bigger than you 158 are."

"But you- are not bigger than Ontro."

"Who the h.e.l.l is Ontro?"

"He will stop you, Gallinger. He is the Fist of Mal- ann."

IV.

I scudded the jeepster to a halt in front of the only en- trance I knew, M'Cwyie's. Braxa, who had seen the rose in a headlamp, now cradled it in her lap, like our child, and said nothing. There was a pa.s.sive, lovely look on her face.

"Are they in the Temple now?" I wanted to know.

The Madonna-expression did not change. I repeated the question. She stirred.

"Yes," she said, from a distance, "but you cannot go in."

"We 11 see."

I circled and helped her down.

I led her by the hand, and she moved as if in a trance, 208.

In the light of the new-risen moon, her eyes looked as they had the day I met her, when she had danced. I snapped my fingers. Nothing happened.

So I pushed the door open and led her in. The room was half-lighted.

And she screamed for the third time that evening: "Do not harm him, Ontro! It is Gallinger!"

I had never seen a Martian man before, only women.

So I had no way of knowing whether he was a freak, though I suspected it strongly.

I looked up at him.

His half-naked body was covered with moles and swell- ings. Gland trouble, I guessed.

I had thought I was the tallest man on the planet, but he was seven feet tall and overweight. Now I knew where my giant bed had come from!

"Go back," he said. "She'may enter. You may not."

"I must get my books and things."

He raised a huge left arm. I followed it. All my be- longings lay neatly stacked in the comer.

"I must go in. I must talk with M'Cwyie and the Mothers."

159 "You may not."

"The lives of your people depend on it."

"Go back," he boomed. "Go home to your people, Gallinger. Leave us!"

My name sounded so different on his lips, like some- one else's. How old was he? I wondered. Three hun- dred? Four? Had he been a Temple guardian all his life? Why? Who was there to guard against? I didn't like the way he moved. I had seen men who moved like that before.

"Go back," he repeated.