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head sank down upon them. The light dimmed in her horn. She lay motionless
there, silent, perhaps asleep. Yet those huge unreadable eyes were still open,
because they could not close. Perhaps still watching.
He sat on the edge of the berth, with no will to move. Ab-sently he knew that
he was cramped and stiff from sitting too long. Dimly he felt his aches and
bruises from falling off Vreeth's back. But now he felt no pain, knew no
trouble.
He saw that she was beautiful. Resting in her peace, he had no need to think,
but he could breathe her fragrance and trace the intricate elegance of her
black-patterned coils. Gibbon's brother had misjudged her. She and her friends
had done no harm. He himself had misjudged her, before he knew her peace.
He sank back across the berth, still rejoicing in the splendor of her crystal
horn and the perfection of her tapered head. Still he watched her eyes, huge
pools of liquid darkness that called him to sink into their mystery, to bathe
forever in their healing peace.
Half asleep, he saw that she had begun to move. Shining ripples ran along her
lustrous coils. Her lovely head slowly rose. Her horn burned brighter.
And she sang.
Her song was pure music, a high, thin keening. At first it pierced his ears
like a twisting blade, but its throbbing rhythm changed as he listened until
it matched the quick beat of his heart. Lifted on its beauty, he thought he
was sitting up again on the edge of the berth, sweating and cold with his
sweat, trembling and gasping, sucking in great cold gulps of precious oxygen.
The song changed again. Now it was Roxane's voice, clear and soft, edged with
a tiny huskiness he loved, but still it had no words. Shivering, aching to
know all the strange wonder of her being, he began to see pictures in his
mind.
A broad valley beneath a double sun. Trees like green plumes that traced a
winding stream, and a wide black road across a bridge. Beyond the bridge, the
road climbed a gentle hill to the towering columns of a building like a
temple. The song came from there, piercingly sweet, calling him to her.
He ran down the road and over the bridge and up the hill. In the darkness
beyond the columns, he found Lilith waiting. Her fragrance was the aroma of
the roses his mother liked to grow, and the warm scent of Runesong's wings,
and the clean odor of Roxane's hair. He was swimming in her sweetness,
drenched and drunk with it.
"Benn! Dearest Benn!" He heard words at last, words in Roxane's lilting voice,
burning in the crystal horn and singing in his bones. "Come to me!"
Her coils lifted to enfold him, as soft and warm as Roxane's arms. Her lovely
head rose above him, and her thin red tongue darted out to caress his face.
Three red doll-fingers opened at its tip. Their quick kisses tingled and
stung, but now their taste had the mellow tang of De Leon Cabernet Sauvignon.
Wrapped in her peace, he forgot to be afraid.
35
The Step of Ice
The servo woke him, its quick computer voice calling faintly from somewhere
far away. He tried to answer, but he couldn't speak or move or see, because he
had no mouth or legs or eyes. Lilith's hungry coils had swallowed him, and
left him frozen into ice and darkness.
"Contestant Dain!" Its voice came nearer, and he felt its thin silver fingers
tugging at him. "Do you require assistance?"
Fighting out of the nightmare, he sat up. Stiff, shivering, blindly blinking,
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he was still in the habitat, Captain Zar's con-temptuous stare still fixed
upon him. He still owned a body. It was drenched with icy sweat and ached when
he moved, but Lilith had not taken it.
She was gone.
"Sir, have you malfunctioned?"
"I hope not." Its arm retracted, the servo was once more a quivering mirror
globe. It suddenly seemed almost a friend, and he grinned at it wryly. "That
creature? What became of it?"
"Contestant Lilith, sir?"
"Lilith." The air was good again, but her taint was still dry and bitter in
his mouth and his neck itched where she had kissed him. "Where is she now?"
"The third contestant called her away when he arrived. They are together."
He peered around the room. Lilith was really gone. He really was alone. The [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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