"She dies. We must protect ourselves. We will kill her mind before you can take her away from us."
Waco moistened his lips. "Don't do this. Don't do this to me."
"We must protect ourselves, Waco."
Waco lowered his head until his cheek was against Hanah's. "Don't you understand that you are going to need someone else to take care of you after I'm dead? It will take almost three hundred years before you may leave your shells. I will only be alive, perhaps, another fifteen or twenty years, if that."
The eggs were silent.
Waco lifted his head. "There will have to be someone to take care of you after I die. For that, I must have a child. To do that, I need this woman. I need... Hanah. Kill her and you kill yourselves." He turned away from the mound. "May I take her away, now? Speak to me!"
The thought came, timid and repentant. "If we let you have her, Waco, do you promise not to punish us?"
"I promise."
Waco walked from the mound carrying the now unconscious woman. He whispered into her unhearing ear, "Damn me. Damn me, but I love you."
Many nights later, in the road gang's camp deep in the Great Muck Swamp, Little Will drew her lips away from Pete's, her glance cast down. "My face, Pete, it feels so hot."
"Mine, too."
She looked around at the dark of the camp. "What if someone saw us?"
"What if they did?" He nestled her head in the crook of his arm. "Come on, Little Will. You're stiff as a board. Pocky's going to be getting us up at the crack. He wants five miles of road cleared before tomorrow night. Go to sleep."
"I can't." She sniffed.
"Now what's wrong?"
She buried her face in his chest. "I don't know. I'm so confused."
He wrapped his arms around her. "Now, look, you. You love me and I love you. That's how it's always going to be. There's nothing confusing about that."
She looked up into his face. He wiped the tears from her cheeks. "Pete..."
"Quit crying, Little Will. We haven't done anything."
"Pete?"
He kissed the tip of her nose. "What?"
Her hand stole beneath his shirt and caressed his chest. "Pete, I love you."
Pete swallowed, and quickly glanced around. The rest of the road camp was dead asleep. "Er..." He swallowed again. His face was burning up, and in other districts strange and wonderful things were happening. "I, uh..."
"Pete?" Her hand began unbuttoning his shirt.
"Who... what?"
"Say you love me, Pete. Say you love me more than anything else in the world." She opened his shirt and kissed his chest.
Pete wrapped his arms around her, held her tight, then released one hand to lift her chin toward his face. "I feel so crazy right now. I love you. Little Will. I love you more than anything else in the Universe."
He swallowed, then touched his lips to hers.
THIRTEEN
Twenty miles of new road through the swamp, and the lead gang of bulls had made it to the gentle foothills of the Upland Mountains. There was a natural pass through the mountains, then a gentle slope down into the Great Desert all of the way to where Number Seven had gone down. Once there, the Miira-Kuumic Road would be done.
Packy Dern sat in front of the campfire. He looked at Pete Adnelli, then turned and looked at Little Will. Again he looked at Pete, then back at Little Will. He shrugged and looked down. "I don't know. On Earth, I'd know. Here things are different." He looked at Pete. "I'm pretty darned sure what Waxy's going to say, though."
Pete squeezed Little Will's hand. "It doesn't matter." He leaned over and kissed her cheek. "I'm thinking about going back to Miira with the supply wagon and asking Waxy."
Packy scratched his head. "I don't know, kids. You two are awful young." He shrugged. "But the two of you are beautiful, and," he pushed himself to his feet, "I'm just an old man."
Pete looked up at the boss elephant man. "Packy. Where're you going?"
Packy looked around at the road gang eating their evening meals, glanced at the cookhouse wagon, then looked back at Pete and Little Will. "I think I'll go see if I can find myself an old woman."
In their new hut, farther from the egg mound, Hanah and Waco sat together in the dark, watching the light from the cooking fire outside. His arm was around her shoulders, and she leaned her full weight against him. Waco turned his head and looked down into Hanah's face. Her eyes were transfixed by the light of the fire.
"Hanah, what are you thinking?"
The frozen expression on her face slowly melted as her eyes closed. "I was trying to remember the checkout sequence for launching the car. I knew that better than my own name." She was silent for a long time. "It's all scrambled up, now—great gaping blanks." Her head shook slowly. "I don't know. Those eggs. They've taken so much from me." She looked up into Waco's face. "Waco. I can't even remember my mother's face."
He placed his hand against her head and pressed her face against his chest. "Ssendissians have great powers, Hanah. The adults take them for granted and they know when and how to use them. Those eggs are just babies."
Hanah sighed. "What they did... what they said." She shook her head. "About the last word I'd use to describe them is 'babies'."
Waco looked at the fire while he searched for the proper words. "Ssendissians pass on their memories to their children. Each one of those eggs possesses the memories, knowledge, and mental skills that would take a human thousands of years to acquire." He paused and looked down at her. "But they are still babies. They aren't mature in how to use their powers. What would a human baby be like if it could destroy minds at whim?"
Hanah shuddered. "It frightens me." She pointed toward where the old hut once stood. "How do we know we're out of range here?"
"We don't. I didn't think the range expanded as they grew older, but it does. I'm certain that they wouldn't be particularly honest on the subject. Again, they are just babies."
Hanah looked above the fire toward the darkness which contained the mound of eggs. "It must be lonely for them."
Waco looked toward the darkness. "I never thought of it. It probably is. Ssendissian parents are constantly in contact with their children before they hatch. They instruct, teach..."
Hanah looked up at Waco. "And they love. They love and they teach their children love. Don't they?"
"Yes."
She pointed toward the darkness. "If they have their parents' memories, they know what their parents experienced as babies. They know what being loved means." She lowered her hand as she looked up at him. "You haven't given them that."
He shook his head and remained silent.
"I can't blame a baby for crying and striking out when it is mistreated. And by denying them your love, you have mistreated them."
Waco closed his eyes. "Loving is not always an easy thing to do."
She lifted a hand and placed it against his cheek. "You said you loved me."
"Yes. But I did not say it was easy."
She pulled his head down until their lips touched. When she released him, she again faced the fire. "It will become easier for you to love the longer you are loved."
Waco joined her in looking at the fire. His soul shuddered at the thought of trading in comfortable desolation for the uncertainties of loving and being loved. He looked up toward the mound and whispered. "Have you been listening?"
The answer came into his mind. "Yes."
"Then your powers extend to here?"
"And beyond."