TICEES (57 page)

As night began to descend upon her, she felt better. She pulled the clothing from the pool and then lay still for a time. Though the air had seemed relatively warm, she now realized it was far from adequate for her naked body. Chelan shivered. Her uniform would dry quickly, but it was wet right now, and she was cooling fast.

Chelan shuddered against the cold, and she reached for her lazgun. She had to stay warm as she could ill afford the extra energy requirements that she would have to expend to combat the cold. She looked over at the cave wall, her new destiny. She grabbed her clothing and pulled the material close to her. Then, scuttling painfully along the rough floor, she headed toward the solid cavern wall.

Chelan collapsed behind a sizable stalagmite and rested her head on her arms as she struggled for air. Then, adjusting the gun to a moderate energy setting, she blasted the wall. The rock immediately glowed red, showering the area with rich, radiant heat. Chelan rolled out from behind the stalagmite and onto her shroud, soaking in the warmth. She closed her eyes and instantly receded into sleep.

*****

Chelan awoke in the morning and rolled partially to her side. She blinked up at her new surroundings. She lay very still and paid close attention to what her body was telling her. She felt better, and the intensity of her chronic aches and pains was diminishing. But best of all, her fever was beginning to recede.

She could not remember how many days had passed, but somehow she felt that she was out of the woods as far as severe internal injuries went. She knew she had some abdominal puffiness, and it hurt to press on it, but whatever was wrong did not seem to be life-threatening at the moment. And there was nothing she could do about it anyway.

Chelan turned slightly and reached for her gun. She shielded her eyes and head with her shroud and blasted the rock again. Her uniform was dry, but she wanted her body to be exposed to the air as much as possible. Besides, it was just too much work to get the uniform on, and as long as she had the warmth from the rock, she did not need it.

Chelan then decided it was time to reassess her injuries. She pushed herself to her side and edged her way up the stalagmite, being careful to keep her shroud between it and her tender flesh. Bracing her shoulder against the column, she rested on her hip, and then she settled.

Upon her first perusal she noticed that she was gaunt and a mass of multicolored bruises. Only her inner thighs had escaped the discoloration. Chelan looked as though someone had gone over her thoroughly with a baseball bat. Both knees and elbows were still swollen, and her right ankle was ballooned. Her shoulders ached, and she knew that her back was in bad shape, but there was no way to look at it.

She strained around to glance at her buttocks, and she winced at the size of the pressure wounds. But then she sighed with relief at the fact that the angry redness of the raw and weeping areas seemed to be subsiding. The edges of the lesions were healing, and she knew it was just a matter of time before all the compromised flesh sloughed off and the areas scabbed over. But it was important that she stay off the wounds, and even more important that she keep her circulation going.

Chelan slumped down and levered herself onto her stomach. It was time to eat, and she consumed more of the concentrate. She remained near the cave wall for the next two days, resting, eating, sleeping, and allowing her body to mend. She knew that she had enough food for about two months, but beyond that she was stuck. Chelan smiled wryly. She would go through all this pain and work, struggling to heal, just in time to get better so that she could die of starvation. That would figure.

Finally, it was time for another therapeutic spa, and she began the long trip back to the buoyant water. As soon as it was possible, she would start strengthening herself in the pool, its support and warmth allowing her maximum movement with a minimum of strain.

Chelan tipped into the water and then rested her head on her arms along the rock shelf that ringed the pool. She allowed her eyes to wander back up to the splendor that was hung about the cavern like so many fine tapestries.

She looked to her left as she faced the entrance to the cavern, and her eyes widened at the beauty contained within the dramatic flowstones that lined the walls. Large flowstone waterfalls abounded, their undulating surfaces tenderly caressed by the saturated waters that nursed them. They, too, were stained in places with the same striking colors of the stalactites. Some oozed blood red, while others flowed with the warmth of the sun in beautiful yellows and oranges.

Then Chelan peered in front of her to the cave floor. Below some of the rooftop icicles were smooth, bowl-like depressions, carved out by centuries of aerial combat as each drop of water from above assaulted the solid rock below. In some of the depressions, namely those below dripping stalactites, were jewel-like cave pearls, spherical in shape and lustrous with their cryptocrystalline composition.

Other areas of the cavern floor harbored forests of intricate lace like Christmas tree stalagmites. Chelan smiled. Those areas were the land’s equivalent of the coral reef, equal in beauty and just as delicate.

Everywhere she looked, the surfaces of the various flowstones were veneered with cave velvet. The macrospeleotherms were coated with crystal faces of calcite that brilliantly reflected the light, giving the surface of the features a luster not unlike the regal fabric. Some of the cave curtains were coated in a brilliant blue velvet, and Chelan gasped; their beauty was beyond description. She had not noticed them upon her initial entry to the cavern, and she knew the stain was from the mineral azurite. It was a strikingly vivid color, the same beautiful blue that was Korba’s eyes, and Chelan wept for him for the first time since she had left the Empire.

Chelan finally dragged herself from the pool and shuffled heavily over to her shroud by the wall. She lay down and tried to still her sobs. She wondered if Korba knew she was gone yet, or if Ticees would withhold the information until he returned from the battle. It didn’t really matter, but somehow, deep down in her heart, she could feel his pain. He knew.

Suddenly, Chelan’s tears ceased, and her blood frosted over as her thoughts turned to Ticees. Chelan smiled coolly. He would be beside himself by now, wallowing in grief and guilt over what he had done. But the most satisfying thought Chelan had was that he would be plagued by fear—fear of Korba and the ongoing fear that someday his brutal and dastardly act would be discovered. She closed her eyes, a sense of vindication sending a wave of satisfaction throughout her healing body. She was glad she had lived, for the sense of gratification and the elation that overtook her at the thought of his desperation were worth all the misery she was forced to endure. Her only regret was that she had not been present to see his face at the precise moment he realized that she was actually gone … forever.

*****

The days passed, melding together almost seamlessly, and Chelan continued to recover. She guessed roughly that she had been in the cavern for close to two Iceanean weeks now, and she knew that all Ticees’ search efforts would have been exhausted. She had seen the unexpected and early flyby just before the storm hit, and she knew that their sensors would have picked her up. They would have assumed she was consumed by the storm, totally unaware that she had, in fact, been cradled by the colossal planet. She felt as though she had been conceived and nurtured by the matronly womb of the giant world, and now, as her body healed, she was about to be reborn. She would be rebirthed into the quiet world of the cavern, safe from harm, and safe from Ticees.

The only sadness she felt was for Korba, and as she thought of the grief that would overtake him, she began to cry once again. But she knew that there could have been no other way. She had to be dead to him, and she found solace in the knowledge that through her death, he would live.

Chelan snuggled down into her shroud and hugged herself with her strengthening arms. She closed her eyes as she mourned for her losses, while at the same time she warmed at the thought of the lives she had saved. And slowly, the pretty woman was consumed by a gentle and soothing sleep, totally unaware of the lone ship that flew far above her on silent, ebony wings.

*****

Korba had come to the Dead Zone to pay his last respects to the beautiful woman he had loved so deeply, and unknown to him, he had landed his primary fighter not three kilometers from the hidden cavern. He stepped out of the ship, and his feet touched the frigid and unforgiving surface. Korba removed his flight helmet and his protective face shield, allowing the planet’s iciness to flow over his skin, his flesh becoming as frozen as his deadened heart.

He looked out over the bleak wasteland. His face burned, and he took a deep breath of the savage air. Then he knelt down, facing in the direction that the storm had traversed, the storm that had taken his Chelan two long weeks ago. He pulled her gown from his shroud and clutched it to his face, his tears coming to him easily. He said nothing, for he had no words with which to adequately describe the grief and the torment from which he suffered.

Slowly, his mind travelled back in time, and he thought of his first night back on RIBUS 7 after the Rigilean conflict. He remembered nothing else about it except her, the sound of her soft voice, and the sweet sound of her request that he make love to her.

Immediately, Korba hunched over, and his body convulsed. Unbidden, his mind traced through each moment of their times together, each individual touch remembered precisely, each touch so real it tore painfully at his lacerated heart. He would remember them all as if she had been with him yesterday.

Korba shuddered again, his body contorted in agony. There would be no child, and he would never again hear the sound of her voice or feel the touch of her hand upon his skin. His pain ripped through him, leaving him bloodied and dying inside, his soul as desolate at as landscape beneath him.

Finally, as evening turned into night, his sobs subsided, and he struggled to his feet. He supposed that he should be thankful for the short time that they’d had together and for the deep devotion that they both shared, for she had truly been an oasis of unconditional and undying love, an island of peace and tranquility in his war-torn life.

Korba looked down at the tear-stained gown, the moisture from his grief already frozen in the fabric. With care and tenderness, he refolded it neatly and replaced it next to his heart within his shroud. He straightened and looked out over the vastness before him. With all his determination and mental discipline, he filled his mind with only the thoughts of their joy, their love, their devotion.

Korba closed his eyes against the consuming Iceanean darkness, and he hung his head. “I love you, Chelan,” he whispered, and then he drew a deep breath, attempting to draw with it the last tendrils of her soul.

He climbed into his awaiting ship. He took one last look at the planet that had once been his home, and he placed his helmet over his head. The canopy slid over him like the lid of a coffin, and the world around him went black. The fighter rose effortlessly and gracefully over the undetected sleeping beauty, and the night air became shrouded in somber stillness.

*****

Chelan awoke with a start, her heart pounding and her ears ringing. She had been awakened by something she could not identify, and she held her breath and listened. It had been like a whisper of wind, a loving hand smoothing over her, comforting and caressing her. But now there was nothing, and all was serene.

He was gone.

Chelan awoke the next morning feeling strangely refreshed. She was cool, and she knew that the effects of the lazgun had worn off. Slowly, she turned to her side and looked over her body. Her bruising was finally disappearing, and the swelling in her joints was greatly reduced, though far from gone. She had been taking herself through slow, delicate stretches and some simple calisthenics for days now, unwilling to try standing and undo what healing had occurred. But she was eager to explore the cavern, and soon she was going to have to give standing a try.

She looked about her new home once again, and a warm tingle coursed through her body. She smiled to herself at the revelation. These caverns were definitely the faint blue spots she had found in the air photos, and her heart leapt with joy. She had reached her destination, and their discovery was hers and hers alone. Salizar would have been proud.

Chelan shuffled to the shimmering pool and rolled into it, reveling in its warmth. She took her stiff body through another series of small motions, trying to force her muscles into regeneration by maximizing her circulation. She felt the skin on her back and buttocks itching, and she knew that the open wounds had long ago scabbed over and were now almost completely healed. So far so good, she thought. There did not appear to be any further infections, so now it was only a matter of time until her body was whole again.

The days came and went, and with each new morning, Chelan gained strength. She slept well and frequently, her only bad spells being those of depression when she thought of all her losses. But those moments were becoming fewer as she set her mind to the task of survival and her goal of complete recovery.