. . . and there was one word repeated. It seemed to be addressed to him, which was why it caught his attention. And the word was . . .
. . . Captain.
He tried rolling the unfamiliar word around in his mouth, to say it. As before, nothing intelligible emerged.
Time and distance seemed to melt away around him as he followed the floating, spectral figure. Every step brought newer, greater strength to his legs, and soon his pain was forgotten, his dizziness forgotten, everything forgotten except catching up with his vision.
It all came rushing back to him. The stories of the Allways, the visions of one's future that one could come upon in the Pit if one was open enough to them. The visions which had refused to come to him when he had sought them out. And now, when nothing concerned him—not even his own survival—that was when sights of the future presented themselves.
But was it the future? Or was it just. . . just fanciful notions from deep within his subconscious? That certainly seemed the more reasonable explanation. In his youth (odd that a man barely past nineteen summers would think in such terms) he had believed in fanciful mysticism. But he'd seen too much, stood over too many bloodied bodies. The fancies of his younger days were far behind.
But still . . . it had seemed real . . . so real . . .
And it was still there.
Still there.
That floating, bald-headed son of a bitch was stillthere, floating away, leading him on, ever on. M'k'n'zy let out a roar of frustration that, this time, actually sounded like something other than a grunt, and he ran. If he'd actually been paying attention to what he was doing, he would have realized the pure impossibility of it. He was suffering from exhaustion, blood loss, dehydration, and fever. There was no way that someone who was in that bad shape should be able to move at a dead run across the blazing surface of the Pit, yet that was precisely what M'k'n'zy was doing. And it was all happening because he refused to let that ghostly whatever-it-was taunt him this way.
"Who are you?!" he shouted. "Where are you from? Where's the girl? What's happening?! What's going to happen! Damn you, I am M'k'n'zy of Calhoun, and you will not run from me!"
There was a gap in the ground directly in his path. If he'd fallen into it, he could easily have broken his leg. It was five feet wide and eight feet deep. He leaped over it without slowing down in the slightest, and he wasn't even really aware that it was there.
And then he saw that the phantom, which was still some yards ahead, was beginning to shimmer. He got the sense that it was fading out on him altogether, and the knowledge infuriated him all the more. "Get back here!" he shouted. ''Get back here!"
The specter faded altogether . . . but there was something standing in its place. Something of far greater substance, accompanied by a few other somethings.
M'k'n'zy's brother, D'ndai, stood there and waved his arms frantically. Around him were several other members of the search party, which had been wandering the Pit for some days in what had seemed increasingly futile search for M'k'n'zy.
D'ndai was a head taller than M'k'n'zy, and half again as wide. He was also several years older. Yet from the way in which D'ndai treated his brother, one would have thought that D'ndai was the younger, for he seemed to regard M'k'n'zy with a sort of wonder. In many ways, truthfully, he was in awe of D'ndai. M'k'n'zy had always taken great pride in the fact that D'ndai was such a confident, trusting soul that he didn't feel the least bit threatened by the fact that his younger brother's star shone far more brightly than his own.
The relief which flooded over and through D'ndai was visible for all to see. He choked back a sob of joy and threw wide his arms, shouting his brother's name.
M'k'n'zy ran up to him . . . . . .
. . . and pushed past him.
"Get back here!" he shouted at thin air.
The rescue party members looked at each other in confusion. On the one hand M'k'n'zy looked to be in absolutely hideous shape; on the other hand, he certainly seemed peppy enough for a man who was at death's door.
"M'k'n'zy?" called D'ndai in confusion.
M'k'n'zy didn't appear to hear him, or if he did, he simply ignored him. Instead he kept on running, gesticulating furiously, howling, "You don't get away that easily!" By the time the rescuers had recovered their wits, he was already fifty paces beyond them and moving fast.
They set out after him at a full run, and it was everything they could do to catch up with him. D'ndai reached him first, and grabbed him by the arm. "M'k'n'zy!" he shouted, keeping him in place. He gasped as he saw the huge gash in his brother's face close up for the first time. He tried not to let his shock sound in his voice. "M'k'n'zy, it's me!"
"Let me go!" he shouted, yanking furiously at D'ndai's arm. "Let me go! I have to catch him!"
"There's nothing there! You're hallucinating!"
"He's getting away! He's getting away!"
D'ndai swung him around and fairly shouted in his face, "M'k'n'zy, get hold of yourself! There's nothing there!"
M'k'n'zy again tried to pull clear, but when he turned to attempt further pursuit of whatever it was that existed in his delusional state, he seemed to sag in dismay. "He's gone! He got away!" He turned back, hauled off and slugged D'ndai with a blow that—had he been at full strength—would damn near have taken D'ndai's head off. As it was, it only rocked him slightly back on his feet. "He got away and it's all your fault!"
"Fine, it's my fault," D'ndai said.
M'k'n'zy looked at him with great disdain and said, "And what are you going to do about it?"
"I'm going to take you home . . . help you . . . cure you . . ." He put his hand against M'k'n'zy's forehead. "Gods, you're burning up."
M'k'n'zy tried to make a response, but just then the exhaustion, the fever, everything caught up with him at the exact moment that the adrenaline wore off. He tried to say something, but wasn't able to get a coherent sentence out. Instead he took a step forward and then sagged into his older brother's arms. D'ndai lifted him as if he were weightless and said, "Let's get him out of here."
"Do you think he'll make it?" one of the others asked him.
"Of course he'll make it," said D'ndai flatly as he started walking at a brisk clip in the direction of their transport vehicles. "He's got too much to do to die."
III.
M'K'N'ZY HEARD THEM TALKINGin quiet, hushed tones outside his room, and slowly he sat up in bed. He was pleased to see that, for the first time in days, all of the dizziness was gone. He didn't feel the slightest bit disoriented. The pounding had long faded. In short, he finally didn't feel as if his head were about to fall off at any given moment, a state of affairs that could only be considered an improvement.
D'ndai had been cautioning him to stay put, to take it easy, to rest up. He was being extremely solicitous of his younger brother's health, and it was starting to get on M'k'n'zy's nerves. His impulse was to get out of bed and back on his feet, but D'ndai was always cautioning him not to rush things. It was advice that M'k'n'zy was having a hard time taking. It didn't help that it was, in fact, very solid advice indeed. Particularly considering the fact that the first time M'k'n'zy had defiantly sprung from his bed, proclaiming that he was fit and ready to go, the room promptly tilted at forty-five degrees and sent him tumbling to the ground. That had been over a week ago.