Sherret nodded, considering.
“And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.”
There’s the danger, he thought. Hamlet’s disease. An intelligent person can think just too much. If he dwelt too long on his own decision to face the Three-people, he too, would reason himself into a state of chronic indecision. So, suddenly and rapidly, he said, “The way to Na-Abiza lies through this pass. Right?”
“The shortest way, yes. But there’s a longer way around the mountains which you’ll have to—”
“I want to go the shortest way. Listen, Lee, here’s a proposition—we face the Three-people together. I’d be glad to have you at my side—I could use your support. If we survive, then you’ll return to Rosala, a free man. And I’ll go on to Na-Abiza to regain the kind of freedom I lost.”
Without looking at him, Lee got to his feet and paced the confines of the cave, back and forth. Absently, he kept knotting and feeling the muscles of his arms, as though to reassure himself of his strength.
Then he stopped, looked down at Sherret, and said, “Pride tells me to face this thing alone. Instinct tells me that to do so courts destruction. Wisdom tells me that to have a friend at my side invites success.”
“Let us be friends, then,” said Sherret, extending a hand. Lee took it. “Until the slow burn eats its tail.”
“I’ve heard that expression before. What does it mean?”
Lee laughed, and squatted beside Sherret. He was plainly much relieved, relaxed, even happy since his decision.
He said, “It means, figuratively, until the end of the world. Maybe it could mean it in truth, too—we don’t really know. It’s some kind of fire eating its way around the globe, like a malignant ulcer. It travels hardly faster than a glacier, but it never ceases to progress—in a mathematically straight line. It started somewhere in the barbarian lands and so far it remains there. In fact, I believe it passes through this very mountain range.”
“Can’t you do anything to stop it?”
Lee hunched his shoulders. “My people might attempt to when it reaches their hemisphere. More likely, they’ll continue to talk about it. It may be only a surface phenomenon. On the other hand, it may run very deep and actually be severing the planet—though I doubt that. But some barbarians believe that when at last it completes its circle around the globe, meets itself and begins to ‘eat its tail,’ then Amara will fall apart in two halves. Like a cut fruit. Which reminds me—are you hungry?”
“Not very. But it would be advisable to get some food inside us before we start out. A fully belly increases confidence.”
Lee laughed again. “You’re right. I have a reasonable larder.”
While Lee prepared a meal, Sherret stood at the cave mouth looking down the pass. In the far distance, crouched between the feet of the steep mountain slopes, was a small settlement of some kind. Houses? Huts? He couldn’t discern details; the blue light was deepening and visibility was poor.
For some time he watched. Lee joined him, and said, “In brighter light you can see them walking about. They look human enough, and there seems to be very few of them. And yet I find—inevitably—after I’ve been watching them for a while I begin to shake with dread. Dread of I don’t know what. And then I can’t look any more.”
Sherret felt a cold little shiver pass through him.
“Think I’ve got the shakes coming on myself,” he said, and turned back into the cave. “Let’s eat.”
Over the meal, they talked again, and the feeling of warmth between them grew. It was almost as if they were reunited childhood friends.
In time, Rosala came under discussion.
“She’s a handful that can become more than a handful,” said Lee, with a grin.
“But, by heaven, can she love!”
The puritan in Sherret stirred restlessly as Lee went into intimate reminiscences.
“… after that, I don’t believe we eased up all through the yellow time,” ended Lee with a chuckle.
Sherret laughed awkwardly. “She’s just as voluptuous now, I can assure you. But you might be a bit disappointed when you see her as I’ve left her. Your tastes and mine differ a little. Not all that much, but—well, be prepared.”
“I’ll soon get her back into shape,” smiled Lee. “There, you see, I’ve got my confidence back. Maybe I’ll be able to do something for Rosala’s confidence. You know, she’s not by nature a hell-cat. She only gets that way when she feels her man may leave her. It’s just plain insecurity. It must be murder on the nerves to know your very life depends from day to day on the whims and moods of another person.”
Sherret said slowly, “I’m pretty dumb. Yes, of course that’s the root of it, and I never tumbled to it. She gets as mad and emotionally upset as a little kid whose mother keeps abandoning it. The crises must become more acute with repetition. Hell, why did I have to do that to her—yet again?”
Lee said, “Don’t forget, I did it, too. But I’ll make it up to her—for both of us.”
Sherret felt a stab of pain, the sense of irretrievable loss. He felt he would start yelling if he dwelt too long on thoughts about Rosala. He swung the conversation back to an earlier topic, the ethical beliefs of Lee’s people, and then began an exposition of Goffism and Reparism.
Lee dismissed Goffism as lunacy and Reparism as stifling. Sherret felt his hackles rise at the mere mention of the word “stifling.”
He objected, “I’ve never thought of Reparism as—” He hedged at the word, and substituted another. “Never thought of it as frustrating. I’ve always pictured it as an open road, leading on and up. And you know where you stand on that road, and everyone recognizes your right to stand there. I don’t say there’s not the odd ease of nepotism but, by and large, promotion depends upon fair and just examinations, merit, length of service, credits awarded for courage and so forth. Not upon chance, right of birth, intrigue, the fantasies of crackpots. Your self-respect, and the respect of others, rests solidly on what you’ve achieved. You know what you can become. So you have a goal in life, a purpose—”
“Horrible!” Lee exclaimed. “Unnatural. Life isn’t like that.”
“No. But it ought to be. Who wants to be natural? Nature is merely doodling around pointlessly. It’s a man’s job to give it an intelligent working plan, a design with significance.”
“Damnation, Earthman, I don’t like your plan! I don’t want it imposed on me. I will not be regimented. You think you’re arguing from reason. You’re not. You’re arguing emotionally. Fundamentally, you’re an insecure personality. Like myself. Like Rosala. You need this system to buttress you because you’re afraid to stand alone. But you don’t need just one companion, you want a whole crowd around you to prop up your self-esteem and cheer you on.”
Sherret jumped to his feet, flushed and angry.
“If that’s what you think of me, I’ll show you. I’m going along that pass right now—alone.”
He turned and made to go, but a steely grip fastened on his biceps and pinned him to the spot.
“We made a pact to go together, Earthman,” said Lee quietly. “Are you going to walk out on me, too?”
Sherret was silent.
“Sometimes I think politics are more dangerous than the Three-people,” Lee went on. “Let us go together now—while we’re still friends.”
He relaxed his grip. Sherret turned, a little shamefacedly. They looked each other in the eyes seriously. It was a small moment of truth. They knew, and admitted wordlessly, that they had both been postponing the big, vital moment, that the long discussion was largely an excuse for delay.