Season of Passage, The (40 page)

unable to stop, even to beg her tormentor for mercy.

'Wouldn't you rather have me do this to someone else?' Kratine asked.

'Yes!' she cried.

'To Rankar for instance, if he was alive?'

'Yes!'

'You hate him, don't you? For causing you this pain?'

'Yes!'

And Janier did hate him. In her heart, she blamed her King for not having destroyed Kratine and his people in the first place.

'Most of al , you hate Chaneen,' Kratine said. 'She's responsible for

your being here. While you suffer, she cowers in the safety of her

Garden. I dare say she has forsaken you. Don't you hate her, Janier?

Tel me that you do, and I wil let you go. Don't you hale her with al

your heart?'

'Yes!'

Kratine smiled. 'Excel ent. I sense, final y, that you are sincere. You have passed another difficult test. I wil keep my promise.' He gestured

to his aides. 'Bring my emissary away from her bath.'

Yet Kratine was wrong. Janier had lied to him the last time. She stil loved her sister. She would never stop loving her sister.

Janier was swung away from the pool. She col apsed on the ground' as the clamps were removed from her wrists, unable to stand on her scorched

feet. Kratine knelt by her side and stroked her back.

'Please don't kil me,' she whimpered.

'I won't,' he said gently. 'I love you, Janier. How could I destroy one I love so much? Don't fear, I'm going to make you immortal.'

She looked up, not understanding. 'Immortal?'

'Yes. I can do that for you now. You see, now you are like one of my children, like one of my own wives.' He gestured to the watching throng. I have

many, you know. They sit in this chamber right now. They are the fairest in al of Asure. They have given me many pleasures. But none, I think, wil

have given me the pleasure you 're going to.' He tugged on her hair. 'Do you want to be one of my brides?' Janier froze.

He moved his hand and pul ed at her gown near her hips. 'Don't you wish to be immortal? Certainly you don't want to die. I understand that. It's what

makes us so alike. Our wil to live. Do you understand?'

Janier shook her head. She tried slowly backing away. The crowd giggled. Kratine stil had hold of her gown. He slowly pul ed her back to him and

patted her leg.

'You wil understand,' he said. He stood and removed his cloak. 'I'm so proud of you. You have come so far. In your land you were only a Princess.

Here, right now, you wil become a Queen.'

Stil , Janier did not understand what he meant. 'You said you were going to send me home,' she whispered.

Kratine ignored her for the moment and stepped to where he had deposited the eggshel . Taking the shel in his hands, he raised it to his lips and

sipped the sickly green embryonic fluid. He swal owed with satisfaction, and returned to stand over her. He kept the eggshel in his hand.

'I'm glad you decided to join me, Janier. For a while there I didn't

know what I was going to do with the restrictions Rankar placed on my original plan.'

'Rankar?'

'Don't worry about him. The dead are dead. Besides, he isn't your King anymore. You forsook his protection, remember? I am your King. It's a good

thing, too, for the Asurian future.' He sat by her side. 'Janier, are you aware of the passion you arouse in my royal blood?'

Janier shook her head timidly. Now she understood. 'No,' she whispered.

'Wel , then let me show you.' He grabbed her gown and ripped it across the top. The cloth tumbled from her shoulders. Kratine licked his lips as he

stared at her naked breasts. 'Excel ent,' he said.

She wept. 'Why are you doing this?'

'It's necessary, and I enjoy it,' Kratine replied. I always enjoy my duty. But I could never explain to you the importance of my taking you as a bride, the

profound significance of what we've done here today. The young can never understand the pains of old age: the loss of one's vitality and power. The

young can never understand death. To them it always seems so far away. But for me, for too long, it has been close at hand. I'm not one to

complain, though. I'm not concerned with problems. I'm concerned with solutions. Yes, even with the solution to old age and death. I assure you, I

have discovered such a solution.' He shook his head sadly. 'Unfortunately, there are now too few Sastra left alive to carry out the ful scope of my

plan. Too many died in the war. You might be surprised to hear I didn't even want to go to war with your people. Be that as it may, there's no sense

complaining about what has happened. The day may be lost but tomorrow looks bright. The future is ful of promise. Chaneen's children wil survive

the blow I have dealt them. They wil flourish over their lands, forgetting much of their ancestry, and losing many of their powers. But they wil learn

new ways of accomplishing what they want, and one day, one great day, they wil come here. And on that day, they wil be mine. Do you

understand?'

'No, 'Janier whispered.

'It doesn't matter.' He stood and motioned to his aides. Instantly a dozen Asurian bitches emerged from the shadows and pinned her to the floor.

They stripped her naked and yanked her legs apart. Kratine tipped the eggshel above her, ready to pour the embryonic fluid over her bare flesh.

'You can't do this!' she screamed.

Kratine snickered. I can't? Even at this late stage in the game you fail to guess what I can do. You would have fared better, Princess, to have

jumped in the pit when you had the chance.'

Janier struggled with what strength was left in her body against his brides, to no avail. 'Stop,' she cried.

Kratine stared down at her. 'You are the scourge of your kind, Janier. You are the mother of the curse I now lay upon the Sastra. In time Chaneen's

children wil come to hate you, and I wil triumph. My seed wil bear fruit. I shal be immortal.' Kratine began to unbuckle his gold girdle with the hand

that was not holding the eggshel .

'Don't touch me!' Janier yanked her head from side to side. 'Chaneen! Chaneen, save me!'

Kratine regarded her sympathetical y. 'You were tricked, Janier. From the very beginning, you have been a fool. This has al been an elaborate

ritual. There were worshipers present. I was the priest. You are the sacrifice. Now we wil consecrate the sacrament.' Kratine tossed aside his girdle

and his il usion of human form began to dissolve.

Janier twisted her body off the floor, but was thrown back down. The shouts from the audience grew louder. 'But you said you would send me home,'

she said, sobbing. I want to go home.' 'I lied,' Kratine said. 'Are you going to rape me?'

I am going to love you,' he said with a grin. I am going to plant my seed, and then I'm going to make you take your bath.'

Kratine's human flesh vanished. A hideous monster stood in its place. He was scaled, and coated with mucus. He had claws for hands and horns

for ears. A roving black snake uncoiled between his legs as it searched for the place to enter her. Kratine tilted the broken eggshel and

the embryonic fluid splashed over her body. Immediately her skin seethed with pain as it began to rot on her bones. The crowd began to chant a

one-line prayer that echoed in her shaking head like a curse that would go to the end of time.

Then Kratine climbed on top of her, and entered her, and nothing could have been worse.

'It's me, my love,' he said in a voice that belonged to her late husband. 'Only me.'

Janier opened her eyes and saw Kratine had put on an il usion of Tier's face. Quickly she shut her eyes, but he forced open her mouth and bit her

tongue and sucked on her blood. Then the stagnant cold sprayed inside her, and the blood in her mouth cracked into ice. A numb wave of a mil ion

piercing needles crawled through her limbs and into her head.

Janier began to die.

Kratine suddenly pul ed away, and kicked her, and spat on her. Perhaps he had not enjoyed his lovemaking as much as he had hoped. He spoke

with disgust. 'Hang this witch for her bath!'

Janier could not breathe. She was cold, so cold.

Kratine's aides snapped the clamps on her wrists and went to hoist her above the lava. Only now she was heavy as stone and she slipped from

their grasp and crashed back onto the black altar. It was then she felt Chaneen's ring pressing into her shivering flesh. Somehow, blocking the

move from Kratine's eyes, she managed to slip the ring back onto her finger.

Now if only she could die, she thought, and stop the cold.

They yanked her into the air again. Her arms were twisted behind her back and she heard the bones snap inside. The huge dark chamber spun

around her. The boiling mud now bubbled beneath her feet.

Then her eyes fel on Kratine for the last time. He had returned to his black throne and reclothed himself in human form - down to the last detail. He

had human eyes now, blue eyes like hers.

'The future wil be ours,' he said. He gestured to his assistants. 'Lower her slowly.'

The lava hissed as it touched her skin. Her feet fused into blackened

stumps. Her shins disintegrated as her knees smoked. Yet stil the terrible cold remained, the cold of Kratine's seed, the curse that he said would

one day awaken. Nothing seemed able to stop the cold.

Al was not lost, however. Kratine had also been fooled. A spark of life remained with janier. In the last instant before the red mud closed over her,

Princess Janier held aloft her sister's ring and said, 'Remember me, Chaneen.'

TWENTY-SIX

In the basement of the Hawk, on a cold Martian morning, Dr Lauren Wagner watched impatiently as Major Gary Wheeler worked a fine blue torch

over the edge of the steel case that housed a thermonuclear warhead.

The passing minutes were hard on Lauren. Dazed and confused, Jessica had left with her husband forty minutes earlier. Lauren herself had just

returned from the Karamazov with the laser.

'What's taking you so long?' she demanded. 'Is that al you've done?'

'If I don't go slow,' Gary growled, 'I might trigger the damn thing.'

'If we don't get going, it won't matter if you do.'

'I'm terribly sorry, but this bomb wasn't fitted for quick removal.'

'Just leave it,' Lauren said. 'I told you, it wil only slow us down.'

Gary readjusted his dark goggles. 'I'm going to burn the heart out of this bastard planet and nothing's going to stop me.'

'But what about Jessie?'

'I'm going as fast as I can!'

'That isn't good enough! I just can't stand here while she's down there with that monster.'

'Then do something else, and get out of my hair,' Gary said. 'Decipher Dmitri's diary. I don't know why you haven't done so already.'

'Wel , I had to bury a dear friend. Or have you forgotten that already?'

'Just do it,' Gary ordered. 'We don't have time for self-pity.'

Mars gave a sudden sharp lurch. Lauren was almost thrown from her feet. The hul of the Hawk groaned loudly.

Earthquake. Marsquake.

The tremor ended as quickly as it began. Gary had turned off his torch and pushed up his goggles. There were lines on his face Lauren couldn't

have imagined a few days ago.

'Jim said that Olympus Mons was active,' Gary said.

'You think it's about to erupt?'

'Maybe.'

'Just because we're here?'

'Maybe.'

Lauren sighed. 'I'm sorry. I know you're doing the best you can. I know you don't need a nag to listen to.'

Gary wiped at the salt that had crusted his cracked lips. 'You're doing OK, Doc. Did you have a bad night?'

Lauren leaned her aching head against the wal , feeling pressure inside and out. Her thirst was becoming as pressing as her need to breathe. 'I had

a real winner,' she said. 'But I suppose it's going to get worse before it gets better. I'l work on Dmitri's diary.'

'Good. Friend's tongue has been bitten off, but Bil hasn't total y sabotaged his brain - probably because he needs the computer to take off. Punch

in a basic program and see if you can get a translation on the screen.'

'Al right.' She stepped to the ladder.

'And keep an eye to the east,' Gary said. 'For the wicked witches. Yeah, I know.' Lauren sat in the control room in front of one of Friend's consoles,

with Dmitri's diary resting in her lap. The Hawk's portholes were open, and out of the corner of her eye she could just see the opening to the cave

that led deep into the mountain. She thumbed through the pages of the book. Fortunately Dmitri's handwriting was precise; most of the letters were

actual y printed. She decided to start translating from October 28, 2002. That was when the cosmonauts had landed on Mars. Hoping a part of

Friend stil lived up to his name, she typed: Clear for new programming. Level A. [Level A clear.]

Translate input from Russian to English. [Programmed.]

She read the blue word of acceptance with relief. The screen split into two halves, with a top and bottom. Each Russian word she put in at the top

would appear at the bottom in English.

Lauren picked up the scanner and began to scan the pages into the computer, reading the translation as she went along.

10,28:1 am afraid my first entry on this new world must be brief. Perhaps al my notes wil be sketchy for we have much work to do. I am excited as I

write this. We are on Mars! The landing was accomplished without difficulty. The Katarina consumed more fuel than we would have preferred, but

we are stil in fine shape for when we leave. I couldn't have hoped for fewer problems. This is truly a great day for mankind. As I sit here, my eyes

are constantly drawn to the pink sky, and to Olympus Mons. The mountain is unlike any I have seen on Earth. Its size is incredible, and its wide