The Season Of Passage Part 39

He was crying like a child, staring where his once strong left arm had been. Thankfully, in what was left of the arm, she saw no signs of infection.

'Where's my arm, Lori?' he asked pitifully.

'You had a serious infection. I had to amputate it.'

He winced. 'Why didn't you give me medicine?'

'The medicine wasn't working.'

'But where is it?' he asked. Clearly, he still didn't comprehend the full meaning of his shortened bandage.

'It's gone. It was rotting. I had to cut it off.' She wanted more than anything in the world to be gentle, and yet she sounded cruel to her own ears. She lowered her head. There were no gentle amputations. 'I'm sorry, Gary.'

'You didn't tell me!' he cried. 'You didn't ask me!'

'You were unconscious. I did what I thought was best.'

'Get out of here! Go away! Just leave me alone!'

'I can't,' she said. 'We have to get out of here. We have to blast off. We need water, and the volcano's erupted. You have to get up to the control room'

'You're a monster!' he yelled. He was furious. He wanted to hurt her. He tried to sit up, but was too weak. 'Give me back my arm. I want my arm.'

'Gary. Please?'

He fainted. Lauren caught him as he slumped back. She took his pulse and found it thin and rapid. The green pus was gone and with it the fever, but he was nevertheless dying. If she didn't get liquid into his system soon, it was possible he wouldn't wake up again. She wasn't much better off. She couldn't swallow. Her head felt as if worms with teeth were chewing on the synapses in her brain. Her eyes were so shot with blood they scared her when she looked in the mirror.

Lauren reached down, pinched Gary's Achilles' tendon, and got no response. She debated giving him a stimulant, but feared the drug would cause him to have a heart attack. She tried to think of alternatives and her mind drew a blank. Almost a blank.

She wondered if it was time she started on her own diary.

A moonlit night. The trees shook in the harsh wind. Waves of white foam crashed on the glittery sh.o.r.e of the wide lake. She walked barefoot along the empty beach, wearing a long simple white dress, with a scarlet sash tied at her waist and falling over her hip. Her hair was long, partially braided, and it touched her breast as she moved. She felt and heard nothing. She only saw. All was silent. Her feet moved over the ground but left no prints. She walked in the steps of destiny. She was home.

She came to a gathering of people huddling in a thick of trees. They carried burning torches - the flames protested the windy night. Without effort she moved closer; nothing obstructed her. She recognized the spot. She was at Terry's cabin. Only now the cabin was nothing but a pile of ash. Three tombstones stood in the center of the mess. The people standing near them were all familiar to her. There was Daniel, Mr Russo, Jean and Stephen Floyd. She had never met the latter two, but that did not seem to matter.

Jean Floyd, holding two white roses, separated from the group and stepped to the first tombstone on the left. The light of her torch shone on the name carved in the stone: terry hayes, 1970-2006.

Weeping, Jean Floyd deposited her first flower, then moved to the next tombstone. It read: Jennifer wagner, 1992-2005. Here she also set down a flower. But Jean gave the third grave only a hasty glance, before making the sign of the cross and backing away.

Stephen stepped forward next. He carried a Bible. At Terry's and Jennifer's graves he paused and recited a prayer. Lauren could not hear him directly, but she could see what he was saying. Yet he also avoided the third tombstone.

Next came Daniel. He laid aside his torch and went immediately to the third grave. There he pulled a silver ring from his pocket with one hand and began to dig in the soil with the other hand. All of a sudden, though, Mr Russo grabbed him from behind and stopped him. His face was filled with fury. He shoved Daniel aside, and holding forth Ais torci, shouted curses at the third grave. Lauren couldn't understand exactly what he was saying. Daniel pleaded for him to stop, but Mr Russo turned and slapped the boy in the face. From beneath his coat Mr Russo removed a sealed wine bottle, which he raised in the air and then brought down on the cursed tombstone. The gla.s.s cracked. No wine spurted forth, however. It was blood. It dripped slowly over the front of the tombstone, almost covering the letters and numbers carved there, the name and dates Lauren had so far been unable to decipher.

Daniel continued to protest: Mr Russo went to strike him again. Lauren stepped forward to ward off the blow.

Then things got strange.

The torches died; it went pitch black. A huge hand blotted out the moon. Jean Floyd screamed, and with her Mr Russo, for something had reached from beneath the third grave, and was now dragging him into the deep. The others fought to free him, but the thing beneath the soil was too strong, its grip too tight. Soon Mr Russo vanished beneath the ground. Then a shrill laugh rent the darkness, and the letters and numbers on the third tombstone began to glow with a wicked red light.

LA UREN WA GNER, 1973-2006.

Lauren woke to a roar of sounds, her pulse pounding in her head, and the Hawk shaking from a series of miniature quakes. She groped to her knees and looked out of a porthole. It was night again; she had slept away the day. The edge of the plateau was on fire. Now lava poured from the mouth of the cave itself. Geysers of steam rocketed into the air. Far above, the caldera of Olympus Mons spewed forth a shower of fireworks. Incandescent globs of mud riddled the sky. If just one of those ma.s.sive sparks. .h.i.t the Hawk, she thought, the s.h.i.+p could explode. She climbed to her feet and staggered down to the bas.e.m.e.nt. She vaguely recalled having had a terrible nightmare.

Gary was unconscious. It was now or never, she decided. Turning to her medicine cabinet, she prepared a shot of methedrine and stuck it in his vein. His eyes, covered with a dark film, opened a minute later.

'Gary,' she said. 'Wake up. This place is on fire.'

He nodded faintly and closed his eyes. Lauren slapped him across the face. 'Gary!'

His eyes reopened and focused on her. 'Lori, I had a beautiful dream filled with flowers.'

'Olympus Mons is erupting. We have to get out of here.'

'Erupting,' he whispered, not understanding.

Lauren unwrapped his bandage. There were still no signs of infection. Gary looked where his arm was supposed to be. He just looked.

'I'm sorry,' she said again. 'If there had been some other way.'

He touched her trembling chin with his remaining hand. 'You did the right thing Doc. The cold is gone, and the nightmares. The beautiful dream started when the cold left. I wish I could remember it better so that I could tell you about it.'

'You don't hate me for what I did?' she asked.

Gary smiled peacefully, and went back to sleep. He was going to die, she knew, within the next couple of hours, unless she got him water. In despair she slumped beside the bas.e.m.e.nt porthole and stared at the approaching river of fire. It would reach Jim's grave before it got to them. But perhaps the next expedition would know to bury Gary and herself beside Jim. Then they could have three tombstones on Mars, all in a row.

Tombstones.

Then Lauren remembered.

I can't reprimand him. I still have my bottle of 'eighty-nine French wine.

A bottle of wine! None of them had considered drinking from the Karamazov water supply for fear of contamination - especially after Ivan had turned out to be a f.u.c.king zombie. But Dmitri's wine - no one had known about the bottle except him. It was hidden, no doubt, but she could probably find it if she looked for it.

Lauren had her pressure suit on in ten minutes. Pa.s.sing through the airlock, she climbed into Hummingbird. The craft's fuel tanks were low, but the Russian lander was not far. She slowly hovered out of the Hawk's garage and then shot across the plateau at sixty miles an hour, the steam whirling about her. Twice she flew directly over huge lumps of flaming mud that burned on the snowy land like barbecues on the plains of Antarctica.

Soon she was standing on the high platform that led into the Russian s.h.i.+p. The controls responded to her touch, but the airlock door opened only partially. The quakes had tilted the Karamazov slightly off balance, stressing the hull and putting unusual pressures on the doors. Lauren was barely able to squeeze inside. She cried out loud from the pain the squeeze caused the cracked ribs.

Lauren went to Ivan's and Dmitri's bedroom. She searched the desk but did not find the bottle. She crossed to the bunks, skirting the blood on the floor, and tore through the mattresses. No wine. With the touch of a b.u.t.ton she was inside the bedroom locker. On the floor, beneath clothes, she found an old-fas.h.i.+oned chest. She dragged it into the center of the room. The sides were screwed shut. She hurried to the level below, to the laboratory, where she retrieved a knife. She had the chest screws out in a couple of minutes.

The bottle lay at the bottom of the chest, wrapped in blue felt; a deep red wine, '89 - a very fine year indeed. It was full, and from the intact seal, it had obviously never been opened.

Lauren returned to the Hawk. Before she went inside, however, she visited Jim's grave. If she'd had the strength, and the time, she would have dug through the stones and gravel and returned his body to the s.h.i.+p. What fools they had been to fear that he might rise to haunt them. His death had been their only decisive warning. In the pit Jim must have been given the opportunity of decision - immortality or oblivion. He had chosen the latter, to let them know for certain what they were up against. Lauren hoped his end had come easily. Perhaps his heart hadn't betrayed him after all, but had spared him worse tortures.

Lauren draped the crucifix she had made over the cold rocks. Then she said the prayer she hadn't been able to say at his funeral. She believed there was a chance G.o.d heard it.

Lauren stood by Gary's side, waiting for the stimulant she had just administered to take effect. Finally he opened his eyes. She bent over him and uncorked the top of the bottle.

'How are you feeling?' she asked.

He smiled faintly, his eyes far away. 'I was walking in trees and flowers. I was in a garden. Do you see the flowers, Lori?'

'Yes. We're walking in the garden together.'

'The garden.' He closed his eyes and began to nod off again.

'No, Gary. Wake up. You have to drink.' She shook him. 'I've brought you something to drink.'

'Drink?' he whispered, interested. He opened his eyes and looked at the bottle in her hands. She helped him into a sitting position so he wouldn't choke and held the top of the bottle to his lips. All alcoholic beverages were dehydrating to an extent, but in his present condition the water content of the wine would more than make up for the effect of the alcohol.

'Drink,' she said.

His expression brightened. Like a child speaking to his mother, he asked, 'It's good?' He opened his mouth to the wine.

Lauren smiled. 'Very good. Sip it slowly. There you go, that's good. Drink more, as much as you like. There's lots.'

He finished a quarter of the bottle in one gulp, and then, sighing with pleasure, drank more. When he was satisfied, Lauren took the bottle away and made him lie down and rest, giving his system a chance to absorb the liquid. A shudder rolled through his body, which scared her. But then his breathing deepened and appeared to gain strength. A few minutes later she had him take another drink. The mists began to clear from his eyes.

'I don't know where you've been stowing your booze, Doc,' he said. 'But I wish you'd brought out the stuff earlier.'

Lauren laughed, and it was as if a great weight fell from her then. 'It's Dmitri's wine. He mentioned it in his diary. I just returned from the Karamazov.'

'Dmitri.' Gary smiled. 'Let that be a lesson to you, the next time you're thinking of pouring Scotch down the drain.'

Lauren laughed again, enjoying the sound of it. It had been so long since she had felt joy. Terry and Jennifer were alive in her mind once again. 'Are you strong enough to stand?' she asked.

He sat up. 'I don't know. It doesn't matter. Just help me to the control room. Then I can sit down again.' He pointed to the bottle. 'Have you had anything to drink?'

Lauren was tempted, infinitely tempted. But the doctor in her was strong, even if the rest of her was falling apart. Gary was weaker than she, and also more vital to them regaining orbit. She knew his thirst would return shortly.

'I want you to finish the rest,' she said. 'It will take time to check all the systems and you'll need your strength.' Lauren hugged him. 'G.o.d, Gary. We're going home!' He kissed her cheek. 'I wish I could hug you back.' She pulled slightly away. 'I can't say how sorry I am.' He shook his head. 'What are you apologizing for? You saved my life. h.e.l.l, they'll probably give me a purple heart. Wounded in action in the war of the worlds.' He smiled once more, although the corners of his mouth remained sad. Both their eyes strayed to the window. The river of lava was now only a few hours away. Gary continued, 'While I prepare the Hawk for lift-off, I want you to get rid of everything Martian on this s.h.i.+p. I mean absolutely everything. The only thing we're taking home from this place is a bunch of bad memories.' 'Amen,' she said.

Lauren did what Gary said, with one exception. She found the silver ring - forgotten in the urgency to attend to Gary's arm - in the living area beside the couch. She debated asking Gary's permission to bring it back to Earth. She finally decided against raising the issue, afraid he might say no.

NASA would never know.

Lauren slipped the ring in her pocket. She still planned to give it to Jennifer.

THIRTY-ONE.

The interplanetary drama was hours old. On Terry's TV screen, the Hawk drifted through a dangerously low orbit, apparently out of fuel, with no power to maneuver. The much larger and more c.u.mbersome Nova, piloted by Mark Kawati, was dropping down to rendezvous. Mark had been unsuccessful at raising the Hawk on his radio. He now had visual contact, however. He estimated they could dock in five minutes.

Terry was alone in his apartment. He sat on the floor with the lights off, his knees hugged to his chest. It was the middle of the night. The TV screen was his only source of illumination, in many ways. When Tom Brenner had called earlier and awakened him with the news of the Hawk's liftoff from Mars, Terry had been tempted to race down to Mission Control. Sitting where he was, though, the view was just as good. Besides, he was running a fever. He'd been ill since he'd buried Jennifer, three days ago. Or had it been four?

'Good visual,' Mark Kawati said from two hundred million miles away - and twenty minutes ago. 'Time to contact, Friend?'

[Four-minutes, five seconds, Mark.]

'They look good, Houston,' Mark said. 'Their rotation vector is almost nil.'

Lauren had to be alive in that far-off silver s.h.i.+p, Terry told himself. Yet if she was, what would she think of him after she received the news of her sister? It was a selfish thought, Terry realized, but an honest one. Lauren would soon know about Jennifer. The suicide had been spread across the front page of every major newspaper in the country. Another tragedy in the Wagner family, the reporters said. But, of course, they'd had to add that Jennifer was seeing a psychiatrist. Terry understood Mark Kawati read the papers.

Even if Lauren didn't hold him to blame, Terry knew he was never going to forgive himself for having left Jennifer at the cabin, practically alone, wandering the nights with only the imaginary characters of her story for companions.h.i.+p. The Sastra, the children of the garden -how sad their tale had been, and how gruesome had been the section that dealt with Janier's death, and Kratine's curse. Then there had been Jennifer's final remarkable chapter, when Chaneen had called upon the unspeakable power to destroy an entire world. Terry was not sure whether Jennifer had thought of herself as Chaneen or as Janier, and now he could never be certain. Perhaps she had identified with neither character, but with King Rankar instead, who had sacrificed his life for the sake of his children. Perhaps Jennifer had thought she had to do the same in order for Lauren to return home.

Mark spoke to Houston. 'We will eclipse in eighteen minutes, but should dock well before then. No communications from the Hawk yet.'

Through the cameras mounted outside the Nova, the Hawk grew swiftly. Terry could almost see through the tiny rectangles of yellow light that represented the s.h.i.+p's portholes.

'She's coming up,' Mark said, his voice tense. 'They're braking, looking good.'

Suddenly tiny flares erupted on the sides of the Hawk. 'That's strange,' Mark muttered. 'They're firing their auxiliary rockets.' There was a pause. 'Friend! What is their velocity relative to us?'

[Forty miles an hour, Mark. Sixty-five miles an hour.]

'They're coming right toward me!' Mark cried. 'Friend, port side. Initiate burn on the D and E rockets.'

The Hawk seemed to swallow the TV screen.

'More power!' Mark yelled. 'They're going to...'

The screen turned to static. Then a frantic TV commentator at Mission Control broke in. Terry didn't listen to what he had to say. He was already on the phone to Mission Control, trying to get through. But the line was busy. He ripped the phone out of the wall, threw it to the floor, and kicked it across the room with his right foot. His big toe gave a loud crack and he realized he had probably broken it. What did it matter? What could anything matter now? It was obvious the two s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps had collided.

Strapped in her seat, in the weightless control room of the Hawk, Lauren peered through the faceplate of her helmet at the s.h.i.+p's multidirectional viewing screens. Mars was below, the sun above. The Nova was approaching from behind.

'Wake up, Gary,' she said. 'She's almost here.' The wine had helped Gary to his feet, but the rejuvenation had worn off. Gary had gone back to his dreams of flowered meadows drifting in and out of consciousness. He looked at her with drowsy eyes, his dark hair floating straight out from his head within his helmet. 'What did you say?' he asked.

'The Nova's coming. What should we do?'

He roused himself and studied his monitors. Then he pushed a b.u.t.ton with his right hand and pointed at a luminous dial with the stump that had been his left arm.

'I've saved a little fuel in our auxiliary thrusters to help straighten us out,' he said. 'Would you turn that dial ninety degrees counter-clockwise, Lori?'

She did so.

'Wait!' Gary yelled, coming fully awake.

Too late. The rockets began to fire.

'Not that one!' Gary shouted. 'I didn't mean that one.'

'What do I do?'

Gary tried to reach for a switch but forgot about his missing arm. It was only then Lauren remembered that he was left-handed.