‘Is that a theory or a fact?’ Jazz asked her. ‘About Wolf, I mean?’
‘It’s a fact,’ she answered simply. Then, as quickly as she’d started off, she paused and grabbed his arm. ‘Are you sure we can’t get back through the sphere?’ Her voice had a pleading quality.
‘I told you,’ Jazz answered, trying not to sound too harsh, ‘Vyotsky’s a liar – amongst a lot of other things. Do you think he’d still be here if he knew a way out? When they put me through the Gate I dragged Vyotsky with me. That’s the only reason he’s here. I figured if it was bad enough for me it was good enough for him! Khuv and Vyotsky, those people are … it’s hard to find a word for them without being offensive.’
‘Be offensive,’ she said, bitterly. ‘They’re bastards!’
‘Tell me,’ said Jazz, following her as she started off again, ‘why were you heading for the sphere in the first place?’
She glanced at him briefly. ‘When you’ve been here as long as I have you won’t need to ask. I came in that way, and it’s the only Gate I know. I keep dreaming about being able to get out that way. I wake up thinking it’s changed, that the poles have reversed and the flow lies in the other direction. So I was going there to try it. At sunup, of course, which is now. One chance and only one, and if I didn’t make it through, then I wouldn’t be making it back to Sunside, either.’
Jazz frowned. ‘Reversed poles and all that – is that scientific stuff? Is it supposed to mean something?’
She shook her head. ‘Just my fantasy,’ she said, ‘but it was worth one last shot . . .’
They walked in silence for a while, with the great wolf loping between them. There were a million questions Jazz wanted to ask, but he didn’t want to exhaust her. Eventually he said: ‘Where the hell is everybody? Where are the animals, birds? I mean, it’s nature’s way that where there are trees there are animals to chew on them. Also, I saw things at Perchorsk that made me think my coming here would be like rolling a snowball into hell! And yet I haven’t seen -‘
‘You wouldn’t,’ she cut him short. ‘Not on Starside, not at sunup. Now we’re down toward Sunside you’ll start to see animals and birds; on the other side of the range you’ll see plenty of them. But not on Starside. Believe me, Michael – er, Jazz? – you really wouldn’t want to see anything of what lives on Starside.’ She shivered, hugged her elbows.
‘Starside and Sunside,’ he mused. ‘The pole is back there, the mountains run east to west, and the sun is south.’
‘Yes,’ she nodded her head, ‘that’s the way it is -always.’ She stumbled, said: ‘Oh.’ and went to one knee; Jazz reached out and caught her elbow, stopped her from toppling over. This time Wolf made no protest. Jazz helped Zek to her feet, guided her to a flat rock. He shrugged a pack from his shoulder, took out a twenty-four-hour manpack: food for one man for one day. Then he dumped the pack onto the rock and made Zek sit on it.
‘You’re weak from hunger!’ he said, pulling the ring on a tiny can of concentrated fruit juice. He took a sip at the juice to clean his mouth, handed her the can and said, ‘Finish it.’ She did, with relish. Wolf stood close by, wagging his tail for all the world like a low-slung Alsatian. His great tongue was beaded with saliva. Jazz broke a cube off a block of Russian chocolate concentrate and tossed it. Before it could hit the ground Wolf’s jaws closed on it crunchingly.
‘It’s mainly my feet,’ Zek said. Jazz looked at them. She wore rough leather sandals, but he could see caked blood between the toes where they projected. The mist had cleared from the sun a little, and now Jazz could take in the rest of her. True colours were still difficult, but outlines, shadows and silhouettes made readable contrasts. Her one-piece was ragged at the elbows and knees, patched at the backside. She carried only a slim roll, hooked to her harness. A sleeping-bag, Jazz correctly supposed.