“No, this was my woman.”
“Impossible!” Her tone seeks to be not unkindly but is, instead, well-nigh frantic. “You will have no trouble finding others. You are handsome, and your psyche is, is, is extraordinary. It burns like Lucifer.”
“Do You remember the name Lucifer, Lady of Ours?” I pounce. “Then You are old indeed. So old that You must also remember how a man mighmt desire only one woman, but her above the whole world and heaven.”
She tries to defend Herself with a jeer: “Was that mutual, Harper? I know more of mankind than you do, and surely I am the last chaste woman in existence.”
“Now that she is gone, Lady, yes, perhaps You are. But we— Do you know how she died? We had gone to a wildeountry area. A man saw her, alone, while I was off hunting gem rocks to make her a necklace. He approached her. She refused him. He threatened force. She fled. This was desert land, viper land, and she was barefoot. One of them bit her. I did not find her till hours hater. By then the poison and the unshaded sun— She died quite soon after she told me what had happened and that she loved me. I could not get her body to chemosurgery in time for normal revival procedures. I had to let them cremate her and take her soul away to SUM.”
“What right have you to demand her back, when no one else can be given their own?”
“The right that I love her, and she loves me. We are more necessary to each other than sun or moon. I do not think You could find another two people of whom this is so, Lady. Amid is not everyone entitled to claini what is necessary to his life? How else can society be kept whole?”
“You are being fantastic,” She says thinly. “Let me go.”
“No, Lady, I ani speaking sober truth. But poor plain words won’t serve me. I sing to You because then maybe You will understand.” And I strike my harp amiew; but it is more to her than Her that I sing.
“If I had thought thou couldst have died, I might not weep for thee:
But I forgot, when by thy side, That thou couldst mortal be:
“It never through my mind had past The time would e’er be o’er, And I on thee should look my last, And though shouldst smile no more!”
“I canmmot—” She falters. “I do not know—any such feelings—so strong— existed any longer.”
“Now You do, Lady of Ours. And is that not an important datum for SUM?”
“Yes. If true.” Abruptly She leans toward mc. I see Her shudder in the murk, under the flappiiig cloak, and hear Her jaws clatter withm cold. “I cannot linger here. But ride with Me. Sing to Me. I think I can bear it.”
So much have I scarcely expected. But niy destiny is upon me. I mount into tIme chariot. The canopy slides shut and we proceed.
The main cabin encloses us. Behind its rear door must be facilities for Her living on earth; this is a big vehicle. But here is little except curved panels. They are true wood of different comely grains: so She also needs periodic escape from our machine existence, does She? Furnishing is scant and austere. The only sound is our passage, muffled to a murmur for us; and, because their photomnultiphiers are not activated, the scaminers show nothing outside but night. We huddle close to a glower, hands extended toward its fieriness. Our shoulders brush, our bare arms, Her skin is soft and Her hair falls loose over the thrown-back cowl, smelling of the sumnier which is dead. What, is She still human?
After a timeless time, She says, not yet hooking at me: “The thing you sang, there on the highroad as I came near—I do not remember it. Not even from the years before I became what I am.”
“It is older than SUM,” I answer, “and its truth will outlive It.”
“Truth?” I see Her tense Herself. “Sing Me the rest.”
My fingers are no longer too numb to call forth chords.