After some hours, they came to a deep, narrow ravine in the level tableland, where fat-leaved plants grew. These the women gathered for the pressure-still, while Brant clambered from ledge to ledge, hunting. Erelong, he found a fat, tangerine-colored reptile whose flesh he knew from experience to be edible, and slew it with a bolt from his power gun, the dial set to needle-beam.
While the women skinned and disemboweled the kill, Brant searched the Colonial Administration Survey charts he carried to seek some sort of haven against the bitter cold of night. They could not be lucky enough to find another dead city, he knew, and this was dangerous country. Predatory reptiles called rock dragons made their lairs in crevices such as these. Customarily, they hunted and fed on the same sort of plump, harmless lizards as the one Brant had just slain; but they were not averse to the taste of manflesh, either.
They rested for a time, and Brant fed more plant fiber to the loper, while the women cooked the steaks and chops they had trimmed from the carcass of the lizard in the portable cooker. That night they would feast, he knew.
He stood and watched them as they worked together, squatting on their heels, hands moving with practiced skill, and he wondered what their story might be.
It had not been for naught that two such women, young, each attractive in different ways, both of child-bearing age, had been staked out to die a slow, lingering death from thirst and starvation, he knew.
But he also knew better than to ask.
They rode on, as the distant sun declined in the west and the sky darkened to deep purple. Brant had found a haven on the Survey map, a mound of broken rocks believed to have been the burial mound of an ancient king, since it was obviously of artificial origin. When they reached it by late afternoon or early evening, he unpacked the small tents of heat-retaining plastic he had brought along for himself and the loper in case they rode into the polar wastes. One of these he set up for himself, the other for the women. The loper he tethered to a boulder, and fed the creature on the remainder of the fibre.
They shared the meal, seated on opposite sides of the fire. It was not wood they burned, of course, since Mars has nothing in the way of trees, but a colorless, aromatic oil in a flat pan. This fluid provided both warmth and light.
The fresh-cooked meat tasted good, after a diet of canned goods. The steaks were succulent and juicy and broiled to perfection. But when he complimented Zuarra on her culinary skills, she shot him a level, contemptuous glance and her mouth twisted sardonically, saying nothing. It was as if, by praising her skills as a woman, he had somehow insulted her.
Brant shrugged irritably, and devoured his meat. Let them have their secrets, he thought to himself.
The sky darkened and became ablaze with stars. These were bright, hard, unwinking, unlike the stars that shone in earthly skies, because the air of Mars is thin.
It became distinctly colder, and the women donned their borrowed robes.
Before long, they sought their tents, but not to sleep, as it chanced.
Brant tossed and turned in his bedroll. Although the long day’s journey had wearied him, his mind was too active for him to fall asleep easily.
After a time, feeling the need to relieve himself, he rose, unseamed the tent, and crawled out under the stars.
Seeking a crevice into which to urinate, he chanced to pass the tent wherein the women lay. And as he approached he heard odd sounds from within—whispers, moans, gasping sighs.
Curious, he peered through the transparent panel, and the sight that met his eyes made his mouth twist in a cold, wolfish grin. The nude limbs mingling, the hands searching, the wet mouths hungrily feasting, the warm bodies intertwined. …
Now he knew the crime for which the two had been staked out to die in such a cruel manner. The sin, rather: for to the High Law the love they shared was deemed unnatural and perverse.
Now he understood the peculiar emphasis which Zuarra placed on the word “sister.” He should have guessed it before, but had thought little of it. Well, returning to his tent, now at least he knew exactly why neither of the two wished to “open their thighs” to him.
Oddly enough, he fell asleep instantly, and slept a deep and dreamless sleep till dawn.
3 The Dragon
They broke their fast that next morning with a frugal meal, for Brant was anxious to conserve the food supplies that remained to them. He could not know when he next would make a kill, for the plateau was bleak and inhospitable to life in any form.
They moved on, ever south, then angling east, for it seemed to Brant that there was a greater chance of finding game on the crumbling edges of the ancient continent, where plants and lizards thrived in the crevices of the cliff.
The women made no objection to this plan, so they went on as they had done the day before, with weak little Suoli riding in the saddle while Brant and Zuarra walked afoot.
Very few words were exchanged between them. Brant was in a surly mood, and neither of the women felt overly communicative. From time to time, as they walked together, Zuarra stole a sidewise glance out of her emerald eyes at the tall Earthsider, but sensed his dour mood, and addressed him seldom.
From time to time, during rest halts, Brant consulted the Survey map. He heartily disliked a journey like this, that had no clear or definite destination. “The farther they wandered into the south, the colder and more barren the land would become. They would have ever increasing difficulty in finding the fat-leafed, knee-high plants that, cooked in the pressure still, would provide them with water and with fodder for the beast.
There was no colony between here and the pole, he knew, and even if they were to chance upon an encampment of the People, they would be as hostile to one of the accursed f’yagh as they would to the two outlawed women who rode with him.
A cave in the cliffside, however, would afford them shelter and a certain measure of security. With such a place as their base of operations, he and the women could venture forth to forage for water-plants and for game.
They rode on, into the east.
It was like riding to the edge of the world, the emptiness, the vast and cloudless sky above, where no birds flew. The rocky plateau was sterile and featureless, scoured by the fine sand the wind stirred. There were no vivid colors to break the eye-aching monotony of dull purple sky, dark stone, cinnamon sand. There were no sounds to speak of to relieve the dead silence, just the creak of saddle leather, the padding of the loper’s splayed feet, the faint, far moaning of a weary wind.
The women felt it too, and grew restless and uneasy at the silence and the dead land over which they plodded. After a time, little Suoli whimpered plaintively that she was weary of riding in the saddle and that its hard leather was chafing her raw.
“I would rather walk for a time,” she whined. Brant shrugged and helped her down. When he offered the seat to the tall woman, she refused it curtly, so Brant climbed astride the beast himself and rode awhile, watching the two women narrowly as they walked along together, side by side, whispering to each other in tones too faint for him to distinguish.
It was a relief to ride in relative comfort after so long afoot. The muscles of calf and thigh ached with fatigue, and the swaying gait of the reptile was comforting. After a little while, Brant dozed, retaining his seat with the automatic responses of one who has spent years in the saddle. The women did not disturb his brief rest, talking in low voices to each other.
Suddenly, Suoli shrilled, pointing into the east, and Brant snapped out of his doze, clawing his power gun from its worn holster. Then he relaxed, muttering a curse, for it was only one of the moons that the little woman had spied low in the sky near the horizon.