The Star Fox

“—Where are the legs on which ye run
When first ye went to carry a gun?
Indeed your dancing days are done.
Och, Johnny, 1 hardly knew ye.
“With their guns and drums and drums and guns
the enemy nearly slew ye.
Och, Johnny, me dear, ye look so queer,
Johnny, I hardly knew ye!”

Heim glanced at Bragdon. One could almost read the thought in that helmet: How can these devils admit to themselves what war really means? The gloved hands clamped into fists: I know! I had to bury it!

“—Ye haven’t an arm and ye haven’t a leg,
Ye’re an eyeless, noseless, chickenless egg.
Ye’ll have to be put in a bowl to beg.
Och, Johnny, I hardly knew ye.
“With their guns and drums and drums and guns—”

It was not good to hear in this slain land. But maybe Endre had no choice. Whatever haunted the machine receding too slowly into distance, had touched him likewise.

Everyone was unspokenly glad of the exhaustion which tumbled them into sleep that night. Yet Heim rested ill. Dreams troubled him, and several times he started awake … what noise? A change in the geysers? -No, something metallic, a creak, a rattle, a buzz, far off but limping closer; imagination, nothing else. He sank back into the feverish dark.

Dawn was wet with mists blown from Thundersmoke, a bare three or four kilometers away. White vapors coiled along the ground and hazed the countryside so that vision faded shortly into grayness. Overhead the sky was a bowl of amethyst and Lochan’s cap too bright to look at. Heim closed his chowlock on a mouthful of concentrate—the rest was a lump in his stomach—and stared Wearily around. “Where’s Joss?”

“She went yonder,” Vadász said. “Um-m … she ought to be back now, eh?”

“I’ll go find her.” Heim settled the weight on his body and lumbered into the fog.

She hunched not far off. “What’s the matter?” he called through the gush and burble of water.

Her form scarcely moved. “I can’t,” she said thinly.

“What can’t you?”

“Go any further. I can’t. Pain, every joint, every cell. You go on. Get help. I’ll wait.”

He crouched, balancing on hands as well as feet. “You’ve got to march,” he said. “We can’t leave you alone.”

“What can hurt me worse? What does it matter?”

Remorse smote him. He laid an arm across her and said without steadiness, “Joss, I was wrong to make you come. I should have left you behind for your friends—But too late now. I don’t ask you to forgive me—”

“No need, Gunnar.” She leaned against him.

“—but I do tell you you’ve got to make the trek. Three or four more days.” Can’t be any longer, because that’s when -we run out of supplies. “Then you can rest as much as you want.”

“Rest forever,” she breathed. Moisture ran down her faceplate like tears, but she spoke almost caressingly. “I used to dread dying. Now it’s sweet.”

Alarm cut through his own weariness. “There’s another reason you .can’t stay here by yourself. You’d let go all holds. This is the wrong time of month for you, huh? Okay.” He took the waste unit she had not refolded and slung it on his own back. His gloves groped at her pack.

“Gunnar!” She started. “You can’t carry my load too!”

“Not your air rig, worse luck. The rest is only a few kilos.” The fresh weight gnawed at him. He climbed to his feet again and reached down for her hands. “C’mon. Allez oop.”

The breeze shifted and from the north came the sound of his dreams. Clank, bang, groan, close enough to override the thunders. “What’s that?” she shrilled.

“I dunno. Let’s not find out.” His own heart missed a beat, but he was grimly pleased to see how she scrambled erect and walked.

At camp, Vadász and Uthg-a-K’thaq stared vainly for the source of the new noise. Bragdon was already stumping off, lost in an apathy which must stem from more than tiredness. The others followed him without speculating aloud.

The sun swung higher and began to burn off the fog. Steam still shrouded the natural cut in the cliffs, though the Naqsan said he could make out details of the nearer part. The humans saw scores of boulders, some big as houses, and thousands of lesser rocks that littered the final kilometer before the climb began. Among them washed hot, smoking streams, which turned the ground into mud tinted yellow by sulfur. Where pools had formed the hues were red and green, microscopic organisms perhaps …

The pursuing clatter had strengthened. Vadász tried to sing, but no one listened and he soon quit. They tottered on, breathing hard, pausing less often to rest than had been their wont.