[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

"Trusted Schoolboy " Still he made no eyes or lips; only a faint shimmer of
his upper body brought that dismal voice. "Trusted Schoolboy, I despair for my
dear brother."
"We don't know " Retreating from that suffocating cloud, Benn had to wipe his
eyes. "Except for this blackout, we have no actual evidence "
Gibbon's dull body rolled in the air, as if all will to control it had died.
"You must understand, Hopeful Schoolboy, that my brother and I were once a
single being. Even since our parent fissioned, we have been one. Even far
apart in space, we lived as one, thought as one, felt as one. I was he. He was
me. Now some-thing uneldren has cut us apart.
"I do not feel him now."
8
The Iron Bolt
Roxane wiped her father's blood off the heavy little missile and slid it into
her belt. Vargas had left his worn gold ring. She slipped it from his finger
and rubbed a thin red smear off the round yellow topaz that had been the Kwan
family emblem. She found the old Sun Fleet cap he had worn like a crown, the
Page 22
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
leather pouch that held flint and steel and tinder, the woven kwanlar wallet
he had never let her open. A throb in her throat, she unfolded the wallet.
A thin slip of yellow kwanlar held the queerly real holo image of a handsome,
smooth-faced stranger who wore a cap like his own must have been when it was
new. Laserprinted to identify a Sun Fleet commander rated for heavy
rocketcraft, it was oddly worn and faded along the lower edge, where that
tough stuff should never wear or fade. She couldn't make out the command-er's
name or service number.
Another holo startled her. Almost a mirror, it showed her own face. The same
tawny hair. The same bronze glint in the blue-gray eyes. A hint of mischief in
the upward quirk of the lips.
Her mother?
Now she would never know. After staring at the picture till tears burned her
eyes, she tucked it back into the wallet and picked up the cap. The threadbare
fabric had a smear of new blood, but the golden sun and circling stars still
shone bright. Bleakly proud, she put it on her head.
That nerved her to move the body higher among the dead logs. The wallet had
set an ache in her throat, but it had held his secrets. She left them with
him. There was wood enough. She stacked dead branches over him and lit the
pyre with his own flint and steel.
Listening to the crackle and hiss of the blaze, she stood close to it,
blinking at tears that misted everything. The sun was too bright. The smoke
had a bitter reek, and it stung her lungs. Remembering many moments, she felt
too numb to think of words. But then he never wanted words. The heat was
suddenly blistering her face. She turned away.
A long day of walking, thinking too much to feel all her wear-iness and
hunger. When she reached that waterless camp, it had been abandoned. Late next
day she overtook the troop gathered at a well dug long ago. Watching for
Vargas, she slogged into camp with a hand hovering near the hilt of her knife.
The odor of roasting meat knotted her stomach, but she had no time for hunger.
Searching the circle of waiting men, she found Vargas beyond the cooking fire.
He squatted beside a big man named Hagland, his crony now. Vargas grinned and
called a welcome through the smoke.
"Señorita! Bienvenido!"
His voice, she thought, had an anxious edge.
"I found my father."
She saw him start and squint at Hagland. Watching her warily, they listened
while she told where she had found the body among the uprooted trees and
burned it there. They relaxed and grinned at one another when she said nothing
of the crossbow bolt.
She kept her voice steady enough, but she saw grief for him and for her in
most of the men. Marco Lara laid his rifle aside to come and stand with his
arm around her. Vargas and Hagland rose to join the file of men shuffling by
with murmured words of sympathy. She made herself take Vargas's offered hand,
but she shivered at his touch.
Lara called them together next morning to honor General Kwan. They sat on the
rocky slope above the spring. He spoke briefly about their long friendship,
beginning when they had been cadets together. His own good luck had tossed [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]