The Mile Long Spaceship (23 page)

"It won't be back," Marilyn said calmly as it disappeared.

"Is that what your... your people hunt?" Keith asked. He knew he wouldn't choose hunting the beasts for sport.

The boulders were left behind them that night and when they stopped they had crossed off another eight hundred fifty-one miles.

The weather was growing steadily colder and they slept in the flyer. He was acutely aware of her breathing as his legs jerked and muscles untied. The strain of following that one bright, low light among the tree trunks, of being alert to changes in the terrain and anticipating curves and turns was telling on his nervous system.

He listened to her sigh in her sleep and he wondered vaguely what it would be like to live with her, go hunting with her, see her in his bed, feel her at his side, share the breakfast table with her day by day. He wondered if she dimpled when she laughed, what it took to make her laugh. He let the fantasies loose and drifted off into sleep.

He wakened hearing her scream. Just the one scream of terror. He slipped from his seat and groped for her. "What is it, Marilyn?"

She fell against him shaking, unable to speak and he stroked her hair until she was still. He hadn't known she took her hair down when she slept. It was long, nearly to her waist, and incredibly soft. He held her and stroked her hair and remembered the thoughts he'd had while falling asleep. He pushed her from him and asked self-consciously, "Are you all right?"

"I'm sorry," she said weakly, fighting for control again. "I must have dreamed."

He knew she was weeping although her voice didn't break. "Try to rest some more," he said, "I'll see about coffee."

Nine hundred miles and they both took the sleeping medicine and huddled under their covers. He was groggy and heavy when he woke up, his appetite dulled and a bitter taste in his mouth. Marilyn was walking back and forth beside the flyer, a heavy tunic pulled over her green suit. There was no sign of the sun high over the trees.

Let it rain, he thought viciously. That was all he needed, to drive through a rain storm. It didn't rain however. They talked in a desultory manner, and regularly they got out and stamped up and down along the clearing. Neither of them mentioned the dream.

Night after night their traveling time had grown shorter as Taros set later. Kulane had thirty-two hour days and by the sixth night they were using only seven and three quarters hours of it for their journey. The day dragged interminably, and after sunset they still had eight hours to wait for Taros to go down. Keith sat stoically trying to ignore the cold that numbed his fingers. "You should have gone with the others," he said. "They'll be warmer inside the trucks."

Her voice floated back from the rear seat of the ship. "I'm all right. Why did you wait?"

"It was the least I could do."

"You were glad," she said with a note of finality. "You didn't want to be confined with them for so long."

"Why don't you try to sleep. It's going to be rough when we do get started."

"Why don't you answer me? I could sense it every time I saw you, how you hated us all. You were so cold and hard, despising us, seeing us as things that stood in your way." Her voice was low and meditative, as if she were thinking aloud. "They all knew exactly how the Amories left the other worlds they found. What good could they have done on the ground? You'll never know how much strength it took for them to leave."

Keith turned on his side and pretended to sleep. She was a stupid, ignorant peasant, he thought. All she knew was farming and hunting in the deep forests and how to keep her son and husband fed and content. Like animals, all they had was acceptance for whatever came along. Strength! Were sheep strong? He dozed fitfully and the vision of her standing beside a slightly smaller version of her, a boy version of her, dressed in the green knit suit, smiling, kept intruding in his dreams.

That night he got the speed up to a hundred quickly. One ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty. The trees were a blur as they raced by them and only the opening before him was real and straight. The small craft edged past one thirty and the gauge needle reached for the one forty mark and held there. His arms ached after the first hour, and his eyes burned as if he had a fever as he stared ahead watching for a sudden curve or dip that could send them hurtling up into the trees. The way was ruler straight and the inclines long and rolling. The needle crept past the forty mark and held the fifty indicator. The trees were a solid wall, dark and impenetrable, gleaming back at him the reflection from the stabbing light.

Suddenly a boulder loomed ahead, and before he could react to it, the flyer arced up. It missed the first branch of the tree and climbed higher as he struggled to regain control. He headed the craft upward through the branches, reducing speed, hearing the snapping of branches as the nose of the flyer cut through them. They were above the trees and in the sky.

Without a moment's hesitation Keith turned the light downward and hovered above the branches looking for a way back in. Finally, very cautiously, he began to lower the flyer, manuevering it carefully among the tree limbs, feeling pain every time he heard the inevitable scraping. At last they were back on the ground and he turned for the first time to look at Marilyn.

"Are you all right?"

A long shudder passed over her and she nodded. She pressed both hands into her face and shook but made no sound. Keith frowned helplessly, feeling the same need for release from tension. He started to reach for the coffee, but instead found himself gathering her into his arms.

"It's all right, Marilyn. It's all right now. I'm sorry." He held her, murmuring quietly, his eyes closed, until she pushed back, calmed again. He tightened his arm about her shoulders.

"Please," she whispered tightly, "leave me alone."

Abruptly he pulled away and got the coffee out. He avoided looking at her, staring into the blackness outside instead. After swallowing the hot coffee he fingered the starter again. "I'm going to see if it will go," he said. "Ready?"

"Yes," she said steadily.

There were no more boulders and he held the speed on one forty, almost hoping they would crash into one of the trees. It would be quick and painless, but the tunnel was smooth and he followed the wide curves without slackening speed until the sky was starting to lighten in streaks barely visible through the covering of the needles above. When he brought the flyer to a halt and felt the faint bump as it met the ground, he let his head fall forward cradled in his arms over the control panel. Wearily he noted that they had made one thousand miles. He slept.

Something awakened him. He shifted his cramped position slightly, without opening his eyes, and an almost inaudible gasp brought him to complete alertness. He didn't move, but tried to hear, and there was nothing else.

Very deliberately he inched his hand across the seat to his gun, and he could have cursed. It wasn't there. Then he did open his eyes, just enough to see, on the edge of his field of vision, that Marilyn had the gun and she was watching him. The gun was pointed at his head.

He let his eyes close and waited. Do it now, kid, he thought. Do it! Do it! Take the flyer and go look for them. You have that much coming to you. Do it!

He couldn't hold the position after several more minutes; his legs were sending cramping pains up through his hips, and his hand was asleep on the seat where his gun had been. Keeping his eyes closed he shifted again. Damn her! She was a coward after all! She couldn't do it. Gradually he untensed and fatigue dulled his thoughts, Coward, the word kept parading through his mind, and it was not clear whether he meant her for not shooting, or himself for wanting her to shoot.

Marilyn's voice roused him and he had no awareness of passage of time. "Keith," she said again, "you should eat and lie down. You'll be so cramped."

He pulled himself away from the seat reluctantly. He was aching all over, from both cold and cramped muscles. The gun was once more by him. Had he dreamed it then? Quickly he looked out at her. "Did I sleep long?" he asked.

"Several hours." She had her cover draped about her and her face was pinched and very cold looking.

He ate before he went out to inspect the damage the tree had done. It was surprisingly little. The sharp-nosed, wingless craft was sturdy with no protuberances to catch and break. Apparently it had slid between the woody limbs with little more than a few scratches to show for it.

From behind him she said, "It would have been so easy once you were up there to open up and cover five or six hundred miles during that last hour. Didn't it occur to you?"

"I thought of it," he admitted tiredly, arranging his cover on the front seat.

"But you wouldn't do it, would you? Not even for yourself."

He turned to look at her and her eyes were very bright and remote, almost glassy. "Not even for you," he said distinctiy.

She turned her curiously bright eyes to his and took a step toward him. "I'm so cold," she said faintly.

Her face was ashen, but her eyes burned into his. He went to her, taking her in his arms gently. She was stiff and cold in his arms. He felt nearly unendurable pain as her soft fingers that were so strong clutched at his back.

When she slept, he carefully covered her and crawled into the other seat where he lay watching her for a long time, until he too slept.

The moon was shining when they awoke and it lighted them as they ate. Afterward they sat inside the flyer, she in the rear seat and he up front. The trees shadowed the flyer and the dark grew deeper until he could see nothing and their voices when they spoke came from a void and sounded briefly and left nothingness behind.

"The ships will be uncomfortable," he said. "It would have been too risky sending regular passenger cruisers, so they stripped down cargo ships. Nothing left inside but the engine rooms and floors. You'll be crowded and uncomfortable."

"That doesn't matter," she replied after a pause. "Just so they all get out."

They were silent a very long time and finally Keith said, "I'll get coffee. We should be eating, I suppose."

They ate little, however, but sipped the hot drink slowly savoring the warmth and strength of it.

"Marilyn, I want you to take one of those pills Sorenson gave you."

In the dim light he could see her wide, luminous eyes still burning with an unnatural light. "I'm all right," she said. "I can take it as long as you can drive."

"I know you can. I don't want you to have to."

He replaced the cups in the unit and flexed his fingers several times like a musician loosening up.

"Keith," Marilyn said in a low voice, "I understand. Sometimes a woman knows things that aren't said and mustn't be said. I'm not afraid."

"And sometime, a long time from now, can I see you?"

She ducked her head not answering and he reached for the controls.

It was a nightmare in which there was no let-up of speed, no curve to break the monotony of the abyss that drew them along. He held the needle between one hundred fifty and one hundred sixty vengefully, knowing they couldn't get out of another incident like the one of the night before if it should recur. As the miles were left behind with totals changing at dizzying speeds he kept thinking of Stevie, almost as big as she. Her son. Her husband. How could she see him again? He didn't stop for a break although his arms ached and dragged leadenly at his commands and a numbness crept upward through his legs. They were entering Lanning when dawn was still several hours away.

Lt. Sorenson met them jubilantly. "I knew you'd make it, sir. Mrs. Roget, you're to go to room A-3 in the administration building. They'll direct you."

Keith ignored the man and helped Marilyn from the flyer. She started to walk toward the building, but turned and said, "Make it a very long time, Captain." The fierce brightness of her eyes was gone and there was only a deep, dull hurt there.

"What's that mean?" Sorenson asked and not waiting for a reply added, "You sure can't figure these colonists, can you? Wouldn't you have thought she'd at least ask about her husband and son?"

"Sorenson, shut your mouth!" Keith's voice was ominous. "These people are the only reason we have for even existing." He wheeled about and strode away remembering to hold himself as erect and proud as she had done. The pain in his own eyes, deep where it wasn't easily discernible, very nearly matched hers.

THE END

KATE WILHELM

For the past five years or so, the major SF magazines have been publishing a number of powerfully imaginative stories by a young new SF writer, Kate Wilhelm.

SOME SAMPLES:

Andover and the Android—
Roger Andover decided to marry an android, but he didn't count on falling in love with her...

Fear is a Cold Black—
A deadly epidemic breaks out aboard the spacecraft Criterion III. Each of the victims becomes colder and colder, finally dying one degree at a time. What could arrest the plague that was destroying life aboard the ship?

The Last Days of the Captain—
The entire population of the newly colonized planet Kulane must be exacuated. But some of the colonists don't wish to leave their new home...