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red becoming listless brown. Her glowing green skin had faded almost to Earthly white. Her upright
virginal breasts had converted to the elongated dugs of the nursing mother. Her loveliness had been
masked by the early wrinkles and sags of ill health and hard work and desolation. Her teeth were
stained by the juices of the hides she had chewed. She was no beauty any more.
A pang as of the penetration of a knife stabbed Flint Here was the realization of the Tarot's Three of
Gas-terrible sorrow to his loved one. A heart pierced by three swords: the loss of her lover, the
birthing of a bastard, and expulsion from the tribe. She might as well have died-except for her duty to
the baby.
He had deliberately put Llyana the Undulant of Spica into a similar situation, never suspecting that its
horrors were being concurrently visited on his own fianc�e. The alien female had deserved it, and
perhaps Flint himself also deserved this retribution of fate-but why had it been visited not on him but
on poor gentle Honeybloom?
At least she had shown her mettle by carrying on, by surviving despite the callousness of her society.
She would have made a good, durable wife, able to endure bad times as well as good. She had had
more than mere beauty to recommend her; in this the Shaman had been wrong.
Of course he could right the matter now, by coming back to her in his own body. But now he knew
that the authorities of Imperial Earth would never permit that. There was no one else in the Sphere
whose Kirlian aura approached Flint's own; no one who could do the job he could do. And that job
had to be done, lest the entire galaxy be destroyed by the Andromedans. Then there would be no life
at all for Honeybloom-or anyone.
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He could arrange to have her moved to a more civilized planet, where no stigma would attach to her.
But she was a creature of Outworld; she could not be happy anywhere else. She had not even departed
any farther than necessary from her tribe; how could she tolerate removal from her world?
The Tarot had spoken truly: there was nothing but sorrow here, and he was powerless to abate it. This
misery had been set the moment Star Sol had projected its omen of eclipse to touch his life. He was
the victim of fate. He-and those close to him.
But he could alleviate it somewhat. He moved on to the lean-to.
Honeybloom looked up listlessly. Her eyes seemed washed out, and there were cry-wrinkles around
them.
"I bear a message... from Flint," Flint said.
"Flint!" she exclaimed, and for an instant animation brought her beauty back. But it dissipated
quickly. "I am weary of this teasing. Flint will never come back."
There was only one way to end it. And it had to be ended. "He spoke to an official of Imperial Earth,
just before he died-"
"Died!" she cried, horrified.
"-honorably, in the line of his duty to his Sphere. Hunting a monster." The monster of Galaxy
Andromeda-but no use to attempt to explain that to her. "He said: 'Tell my dear wife Honeybloom of
Outworld that I love her, and bequeath to my son my name and trade. Let him be a flintsmith.' "
"But Flint did not marry-"
That was one of her faults: she was honest. "I only repeat the message," Flint said. "You are listed in
Imperial records as his common-law wife. Because he died as an officer of Imperial Earth, you are
now entitled to his pension."
She stared, amazed. "But-"
"It will not be a great amount, but it will enable you to resume residence within the tribe. As his
acknowledged widow, you have no stigma; you may marry again if you wish. In that event the
pension will accrue directly to his son, until he comes of age."
"You mock me!" she cried, tears flowing. They were not pretty tears, but grief tears. How she had
suffered!
She did not believe him-and why should she? "He also said, 'My finger is still stiff.' I don't know what
that means."
But she knew what it meant. She flushed-and believed. For none but the two of them knew about the
stiff-finger hex she had laid on him for the too-intimate poke he had given her lush posterior as she
slept among the juiceberries. And of course more had stiffened than the finger. It was the kind of
detail only the real Flint would remember or remark upon. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]