There was nothing I wanted more myself, but how to achieve it I did not have the least idea. I was hesitating over my answer when, with a flash of shrewdness, Oomark guessed what I did not want to say.
“I guess we can’t go back, not until Bartare and the Lady let us. But, Kilda, can – can they keep us here forever?”
“No.” Perhaps I was too firm, but seeing him so shaken, I dared give no other reply. “But if we find Bartare and the Lady now, maybe we can ask them to let us go.”
“I don’t want to – I don’t like the Lady. I don’t like Bar-tare either, not any more. But 111 go to see them if you think they’ll send us home.”
There was one other question I must ask. “Oomark, you said Bartare has known the Lady for some time. Did she know her on Chalox?”
“Yes.”
“But now we are on another planet a long way from Chalox – ” If this wild maze was a part of Dylan – 1 had no way of being sure of that. “Did the Lady come with you on the ship? And was her home here all the time?” I was feeling my way. Certainly – unless this was a hallucination of such power only a long-trained adept could force it on us – this was no result of esper work. But if I set aside that explanation, what was left save a nightmare founded on nothing known in my time and space?
“She – ” He frowned, as if I had presented him with a problem he had not considered before. “She was there, and She was here. And this is her World. She doesn’t like our world. She’s been. trying for a long time to get Bartare to come to her because it is so hard for her to visit Bartare. But I don’t know where this world is!” Once more tears were dose.
“Never mind. Perhaps it doesn’t really matter, Oomark.” I gave him a quick hug. “What does matter is finding Bar-tare and the Lady and telling them that we must go home.”
“Oh, yes!” As I got to my feet, he caught hold of my hand and drew me along.
To me, the alien landscape provided no road. However, ft seemed that Oomark was confident he knew where we should go. Now and then he pointed to one of the brilliant shapes and said it was a tree, a bush, some natural feature of landscape. But to me there was no change in the alien country. The pain in my ankle increased until the best I could do was hobble. Also, I was both hungry and thirsty, and finally, as I sat down under a dull blue octagon Oomark informed me was a bush, he said wistfully, “I’m awfully hungry, Kilda. Those berries were good, but I didn’t eat a lot of them-”
“Berries?” I pulled the supply bag across my knee to open it. “Which ones?”
“The yellow ones back there on the big bush. I landed in the bush when I came here, and they got smeared on my hands. I licked off the juice, and it tasted good, so I ate them. Oh, look here.” He scrambled to his feet before I could put out a hand to stop him, to lunge at a triple-peaked blue cone a short distance away. Both of his hands disappeared to the wrist in it, and he pulled out a red circle into which he bit. I could hear a crisp crunch and spoke my warning too late.
“No, Oomark! You can’t be sure of any strange fruit – ”
But he had swallowed the last bite and was reaching into the cone, withdrawing another fruit. This he offered to me.
“Eat it, Kilda. It’s good,”
“No! Please throw it away, Oomark. You know space rules. Things growing on other worlds can be deadly dangerous. Please throw it away. See here – I have some choc squares.” I dug hastily into my bag and chose what I thought would attract him most, one of the sweets.
He set the circle on the ground and reached out for the square. But he did so with visible reluctance. Oomark loved sweets. It was not like him to be so slow.
As he unwrapped and raised it to his mouth, an odd look of distaste came over his face. He acted as if the smell of the confection of which he had always been so fond was now disgusting. Slowly he rewrapped it and held it out to me.
“It smells funny. Maybe it’s spoiled or something. I don’t want it, truly, Kilda.”
I took it and opened the covering to sniff for myself. There was no odor save the familiar one of choc, so I suspected something in the native food he had eaten had affected him. I decided better not to urge the sweet on him now. When he was hungry enough, he would be willing to eat the rations I carried. Only there were so very few of those. I could not help but suspect that we were indeed on another planet, though the how and why of our transportation I could not explain. And the first rule of any explorer so situated is to use normal supplies and not to live off the country. However, I did not argue now with Oomark as I allayed my own hunger with a concentrate wafer. And I put as tight a strapping as I could about my ankle before we started on.
The passing of time did not register. The twilight had in no way deepened into night or lightened into day. Only my fatigue argued that a good many minutes, or even hours, had passed since Bartare and I had dismounted from the flitter back at the Lugraan Valley.
“Is it far – to where Bartare and the Lady are?” I asked as I stopped to rest again, far too soon after we had left the place where we had eaten.
“I don’t know. It’s – it’s funny here – ” Oomark was assuredly trying to explain. “Things can be close sometimes. And then they – they kind of stretch so they are far again. If – if I think about any place, then it seems far off. But if I just walk along and think of Bartare – why, it is closer again. Please, Kilda, I don’t know why that’s so – really, I don’t.”
He was plainly distressed, and I did not press him, though his answer did not make sense. And my whole body now ached with the effort I must make to keep moving. On the other hand, since our pause and since he had eaten the fruit – if fruit it had been – Oomark was as brisk as if he were starting out in the morning after a good night’s rest. When I had to stop a third time, he came back to me.
“Kilda, does your foot hurt a lot?”
“Some,” I was forced to admit.
“Let’s stay here for a while.” He looked about. “I know you can’t see it as I do, but this is a nice place. Over here” – he tugged gently to turn me to the left – “there’s some tall grass, and it looks soft and nice to sit on. Please, Kilda. I can find Bartare any time. She can’t hide from me. But if we get to her and the Lady when you’re so tired, Kilda – Bartare and the Lady together – I’m afraid of them! And you should be, too, you really should!”
My aching body supported his argument. My will Struggled against a vast cloud of fatigue, and my will lost. I stumbled and fell to my knees in the very spot to which he had guided me. Finding softer ground under me, I could not summon the resolution to rise. With a sigh I surrendered.
6
I rewound my ankle wrapping. My eyes smarted and burned, as they might after exposure to a bright glare. This was a world never meant for our species. Yet Oomark saw it differently, as a normal one. Had Bartare in some manner prepared him?
As I squinted my eyes against that discomfort, I was far from sleep. Here I felt walked danger.
“Oomark, how long has Bartare known the Lady?”
When he did not answer, I opened my eyes wider. His head was turned. All I could see of hunched shoulder and averted head spelled a desire not to reply. Then he said in a harsh whisper, “I don’t want to talk about her. She – She knows when I do!”
“Bartare?”
“No – the Lady! It’s not good to talk about her – it makes her think of me.” He was obviously disturbed. Much as I wanted and needed to learn more, I realized I must not push him too far.