He set his sights on the next goal, the V-shaped notch in the distant mountains. Once, coming from the other direction, he had thought of it as the gateway to Na-Abiza. Well, it still could be. Without Rosala, for him there could be no Na-Abiza.
It was the deep orange time, and he was well into the pass, almost back to the village. He was sad but not afraid. The Three-people were not dangerous so long as you didn’t consort with them. And, as he knew, isolated in their separate cells, they wished only to be left alone.
Then he saw the graveyard, just off the road. Fleeing from the house, he must have stumbled mindlessly past it before. It was well tended and there were two new graves, heaped with fresh earth, with carved wooden boards at the heads of each. He picked his way between other graves to them.
The inscriptions, not long completed by an unknown villager, said baldly on the one board: LAUREL CANATO.
And even more baldly on the other: UNKNOWN.
There were several other nameless headboards around, too, but they were old and weathered. This could only be Lee’s.
He stood for a long time looking at it, remembering. But for the accidental death of Canato breaking up the amalgam, he himself would probably be filling another nameless grave here.
Just behind him, someone stepped on a twig and snapped it. He started violently and spun around.
It was Rosala. Surprise stunned him. He could only stare at her. She was wearing a tunic he’d never seen before. It was somewhat travel-stained. And she was lovely—lovelier even than he remembered—in the warm orange light.
She was smiling, yet on the verge of tears. She could say nothing, but held out her arms to him.
They embraced with passion.
After a time, he said, “How did you come to be here? I don’t understand. You said Petrans are forbidden to leave their own area. The law—”
“I broke the law, darling. I didn’t want to go on living on sufferance any longer. I decided I’d rather be dead.”
“Yet you’re alive.”
“Yes. I think more alive than I’ve ever been. Because I decided not to wait for my man to come back to me, but to go and seek him.”
A doubt, arising from the old jealousy, came upon him. He held her a little apart from him.
“Myself? Or Lee?” He added, a trifle sourly, “As it happens, you’ve found us both.”
“Both? What do you mean?”
Haltingly, he explained, and was as distressed as she. She knelt over the grave and cried freely. He watched her with mixed feelings.
He said, awkwardly, “We haven’t the right to be sorry for him. Rather, admire his triumph, for he was not defeated. He faced and fought the ultimate horror, and kept his sanity. He proved himself a better man than his father. That was what he wished most to do.”
“Even more than…”
“Yes. Honestly, I think so. Even more than living with you.”
Abruptly, she stood up, dried her eyes, and said, “Let us get away from this terrible place.”
“And go where?”
“Wherever you want to go, darling.”
He was still doubtful. “You’ll go with me—as second best?”
“Lee is dead. I am released from any obligation to Lee. But that doesn’t mean that you were second best. When Lee left me, I could not bring myself to go and look for him. I stayed in my house, clinging to what I thought was my life. But when you left me, I realized I had no life. There was no life without you. I came seeking you, not Lee.”
He kissed her.
“Well, now we can go back.”
“There’s no going back, Sherry, once the law has been broken. Anyhow, I don’t want to go back to the house. I’m happier free from it.”
“But your pictures, and all—”
“You said you believed art wasn’t the whole of existence. I believe that, too, now. All I want is you. I can learn to paint and sculpt again, later, in a more deeply satisfying way. It came all too easily before. It was no credit to me.”
He frowned at her, puzzled.
She explained, “It was the Power acting through me. Petrans are born mediums, so long as they act in accordance with the law. But a renegade Petran loses the ability to tap the Power. If he quits his area, the contact breaks. I can tell you this now—now that I’m outside the law.”
“You renounced the Power—for me?”
“When it came to it, there was no. choice. I just didn’t want to live without you. Anyhow, I’ve gained, not lost. My body is my own. Try as you will, you can’t change me now. I exist in my own right, and believe in my own existence. I shall live and die like any normal humanoid. It was a paradox. If you were content to let the Power act through you, then you had no faith in your own power to act independently—or even to exist independently. If you renounce the Power, then you gain faith in yourself. Maybe I’m the first Petran ever to learn this.”
“I wonder? Maybe you could be the first of many, Rosala.”
“You mean I might persuade other Petrans to follow my example? But they would lack my motive.”
She kissed him tenderly.
“Thanks for the compliment, darling,” he said. “But our kind of love isn’t unique. A Petran must always love a non-Petran. There are other Sherrets, other Lees in this wide world. At least, go and talk to your people. It might lead to something—perhaps the first worthy stock arising on Amara. Frankly, I see little other hope.
“Consider. With very few exceptions, Lee’s people are soft, selfish, unenterprising. They’ve sunk into a torpor. The first contingent of mankind to reach this planet has failed to adjust; it’s finished. It’ll be a long time before we can hope for anything better from my world, falling to pieces under Goffism. The Three-people have branched off into a ghastly psycho-biological cul-de-sac. The Paddies and Jackies seem to be poetic visionaries, inspired, maybe, but as practical as a mad March hare. You’re our only hope, my dear.”
She was lost in thought for a time.
Then she said, “It’s nice to feel I may be important— or, at any rate, be of some little significance. But, actually, I’m still dependent—on you. Nothing will mean anything if I can’t do it with you.”
“Then we’ll make it a joint enterprise. We’ll try to found a new race. What greater adventure could there be? Hell, when I look back, I see I’ve been little more than a child crying in the dark. I thought Reparism was something, but it was only a refuge. I was frightened of this unpredictable universe. When you get that scared, when you can’t control the circumstances of your existence, you cling to the proven and familiar. Then you try to kid yourself you’ve licked life. You were right, Rosala. I needed a lot of people around me to hold me up. But not any more. I know the stuff I’m made of now—good and bad. It’s a crazy mixture, like a witch’s brew. But I think I can handle it now, instead of it handling me.”
She smiled at him. “Let’s go.”
They walked, arm in arm, along the valley.
He said, “There’s some woods we’ll have to go through beyond the pass.”
“Yes, I know, Sherry. I came through them on the way.”
“You were lucky to get through alive. There’s a nasty breed of creatures living in them called—”
“The Creedos? Lee had told me all about them. I knew what to do. I came up through the stream, all the way. That’s the way we’ll have to go back.”
“Damn you, woman, I don’t seem able to tell you anything you don’t already know. Oh, well, we live and learn.”
“Isn’t that what we’re here for?” she asked.
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[29 may 2003—v1 html proofed and formatted by MollyKate]