It was still in the room for several minutes. Eventually, one form stirred, rose slowly to its feet. A bruise mark the size of a small plate forming on her temple, Katherine staggered over to where Caitland lay draped across the bulging-eyed, barely human form of Morris. She rolled the big man off the distorted corpse. None of the projectiles had struck anything vital. She stopped the bleeding, removed the two metal cylinders still in the body, wrestled the enormous limp form
into bed.
It was time to wait for him again.
Caitland stayed with her in the mountains for an-230
Ye Who Would Stng
other sixteen years. It was only during the last two that she grew old with a speed that appalled and stunned him. When the final disease took hold, it was nothing exotic or alien, just oldness. The overworked body was worn out.
She’d been on the bed for days now, the silvered hair spread out like steel powder behind her head, the wrinkles uncamoufiaged by smiles anymore, the energy in the glacier-blue eyes fading slowly.
“I think I’m going to die, John.”
He didn’t reply. What could one say?
“I’m scared.” He took the flimsy hand in his own. “I want it to be outside. I want to hear the forest again,
John.”
He scooped up the frighteningly thin form, blankets and all, and took her outside. There was a lounge chair he’d built for her a year ago, next to the young tree by the control cabinet.
“… hear the forest again, John…” He nodded and went to the console (which he’d long since become as expert at operating as she), thought a moment, then set the instrumentation. They’d added a lot of programming these past years, from her endless crates of tapes.