A Thousand Deaths (32 page)

He rowed across the river, pulling hard against the current. Halfway across he forgot where he was going and why, but the repetitive motion needed no explanation and he kept rowing until blindly he ran the boat aground on the other side. He sat in the bow for a long time, soaked by the hard rain, until his memory returned again.

"Kenny," he said. "Kenny." He had something to tell Kenny when he got back to the house. He didn't recall what it was, but he knew that it would come back to him eventually. He carried Rachel's body in his arms and struggled up the steep bank. He set her down in the grass and mud and rested. Now he could see the house through the fierce, slashing rain. He felt a greater happiness than he had ever known before. When he had caught his breath, he took up his burden again and crossed the fields, paying no attention to the storm or his own drenched, chilled condition. He came to the house from the back and crossed through the yard. He went around to the front and climbed painfully up the steps. He felt that he had managed himself well, that he had made it home after all, but that he couldn't go any farther. He had budgeted his strength and will with laudable precision, but he needed help from here on. He collapsed on the porch, hugging Rachel's black and bloated body to him. He felt first a great sense of consummation, but then quickly followed a larger and more terrifying emptiness. The rain drummed on the house and for some reason now, having reached his goal at last, Courane suddenly felt afraid. He closed his eyes and wept, and his thoughts faded until he was lost in a vast, dim, featureless world. He would never find his way out again, but that didn't trouble him. There was no pain here, no hunger or thirst, and no urgency. He had nowhere to go and no task left unfinished. At last, there was peace.

Nneka found him an hour later, still clutching Rachel's corrupted body. Together Courane and Rachel were a horrible picture, a kind of grotesque reversal of a Pieta. "Sandy?" said Nneka. She was frightened. She took a step closer. The awful condition of Rachel's corpse overwhelmed her; it took her a moment before she recognized it as having once been her friend. When Nneka knew it was Rachel, she gasped once, doubled over, and was violently ill. Inside the house, the others could hear her crying.

 

The colonists had their pleasures and small entertainments; otherwise they would certainly have gone mad in the unrelieved sinister strangeness of Planet D. Besides picnics and holiday celebrations and competitions against the tect, they organized games and sports whenever their work and the weather permitted. Almost everyone participated, even those who had scorned that kind of thing on Earth. They seized greedily upon any kind of relief from the daily routine and labor.

Fletcher, the poet, was the most avid ballplayer. Almost every evening after dinner he tried to interest someone in going out and getting a little exercise. "A little exercise," said Shai once, settling back deeper in the couch. "As if I haven't gotten enough today around this farm."

"Come on, Cap, let's toss the old blerdskin around," said Fletcher. He bounced an oddly shaped, foul-smelling ball in one hand.

"Tomorrow, Fletcher," said Shai, sighing.

"Sandy?"

Courane opened his eyes and looked at Fletcher dubiously. He didn't say anything.

"Come on, Sandy. I'll let you throw 'em and I'll run and catch."

"Go on, Sandy," said Rachel. "I'll play, too."

"Great," said Fletcher. The three of them went out into the yard, cleared a big area of wandering icks and smudgeon, and started up a three-cornered game of catch. The evening was deepening and the clouds parted to reveal a full purplish moon and a sparse scattering of stars.

"It's getting too dark to play," complained Courane after a short while.

"You're just crabbing," said Rachel. "I can still see."

"Here," said Fletcher, "throw me a long one." He started running. Courane took the ball, leaned back, and heaved it as far as he could. He overthrew Fletcher. The ball bounced crazily, to the left, then straight up, then to the right, and headed toward the fringe of trees above the riverbank. Fletcher ran after it.

"I guess it is getting just a little dark," said Rachel. She walked toward Courane. They stood together, her arms around him, breathing heavily from the exertion of the game, and waited for Fletcher to come back with the ball.

They waited a long time. "I wonder what's keeping Fletcher?" said Courane.

"I don't know. Come on. Maybe he needs help looking."

They started toward the trees. Courane shook his head. "I didn't throw it
that
hard," he said.

Before they crossed the yard, Fletcher appeared. He didn't have the ball. He held up a hand. "Sandy, hurry up. Rachel, go back to the house and tell Shai to come out here. Hurry!"

"What is it?" asked Rachel. She kept walking toward Fletcher.

"Rachel," said Fletcher sternly. She stopped, bewildered; he had never spoken to her like that before. Without another word, she made a gesture of resignation and turned back toward the house.

"Did you see something?" asked Courane.

"Yeah," said Fletcher. "You're not going to like this." He led Courane down by the water's edge. There was a dark, still form lying there, partly on the stony bank and partly immersed in the black river.

"What–"

"It's Zsuzsi," said Fletcher in a low voice. "Her head... She's been murdered, Sandy. Someone clubbed her head to..." His voice trailed off. He turned away and looked back up the bank.

"But who would want—"

"The only thing that makes any sense is her mother, Sandy. She must have thought she was saving Zsuzsi from something. From what this place does to you."

Courane looked from the body to Fletcher's agonized face. "Klára? Would she kill her own daughter like that?"

Fletcher turned to look at Courane. "We're just going to have to ask her that, won't we, Cap?"

"Now? What about the body?" Courane gazed at it and shuddered. Small branches and leaves had begun to pile up along her chest as the river pushed the debris against her.

Fletcher looked at the luckless Zsuzsi. "Don't ask me," he said.

Courane closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He didn't like this at all. He had never seen the signs of a violent death before, and it was more unnerving than he would have imagined. There was no dignity in this death. There was no peace, no feeling of a life completed and transformed by death. There were only raw and angry emotions, frustration, helplessness, and despair.

Together the two men lifted Zsuzsi's body from the river and carried her back to the house. Neither said a word as they performed the grim task. They brought her into the house and Courane assumed that they would place her in the medic box, as they did when anyone in the infirmary died, according to TECT's law. "No," said Fletcher in a quiet voice. "We'll bury her here on the farm."

Courane said nothing. He didn't know what Fletcher meant.

Shai and Rachel joined them. "Take her up to her room for now," said Shai. Fletcher nodded. When they had put her on her bed and closed the heavy wooden door, Shai handed a piece of paper to Courane. "Klára left this," he said.

 

Love is the greatest power in the world. The truest proof of love is suffering. Zsuzsi suffered for me, and now I have to suffer for her. TECT did this. I always knew it. I thought that if you didn't get caught up in TECT's game you'd be safe. But refusing to play along traps you just the same. So now it's all over with. Lord have mercy on her soul.

 

"She left it?" Courane was having a difficult time following what was happening around him.

"She's dead. She hung herself in her room," said Rachel.

"Oh." He looked at the paper.

"Oh, my God," murmured Rachel.

Fletcher looked at Shai. "We'll bury them together, somewhere quiet and shady. Klára deserves to rest. She never got any while she was alive."

"What about TECT?" asked Courane.

Fletcher turned on him fiercely, with a murderous look in his eyes. "The
hell
with TECT," he said. Courane looked down at his feet, strangely humiliated.

 

Courane wasn't alert, but he was conscious in a minimal way. Sights and sounds played through his numbed senses upon his drowsing mind. He was beyond evaluating or reacting, but he was not yet quite dead. People spoke to him but he did not respond. He was prodded, pricked, gently slapped to elicit some sign that he was still alive. He gave none, and the others in the house somberly came to the conclusion that soon he would follow Rachel into the tect room, into the medic box, and to the final secret disappearance. They were waiting only for his heartbeat to fade away completely. Deep inside, far away, where even his own desires could not disturb him, Sandor Courane observed everything uncritically and longed for sleep.

"Is he dead?" asked Kee.

"I think he's dead," said Nneka. "I think they're both dead."

"They're dead enough," said Ramón. "We'll take them into the tect room."

"What about his heartbeat?" said Nneka.

"Very faint," said Shai.

"Let's carry him in there now," said Ramón. "We'll only have to do it later on anyway."

"How can you be like that," asked Nneka. "He's not dead yet."

"He's dead enough," said Ramón. "I said it before."

"We heard you," said Shai gruffly. "You and Kee carry Rachel into the tect room."

"What about him?"

Shai let out a heavy breath. "Let me watch him for a few minutes. He may improve a little."

"Like hell," said Ramón. He and the Asian man lifted Rachel's body and carried it away.

"I wonder what happened to them out there," said Nneka. She was weeping but she didn't seem to notice her tears. She stood very close to Shai.

"I suppose I can imagine it well enough," said Shai. "You stay here and watch Sandy. Don't let anyone move him until I get back."

"Where are you going?" She sounded frightened.

"Just up to my room. There was something Sandy gave me before he left. He wanted to make sure it went with him into the tect room."

"What is it?"

"A journal. I read it. He was right about it; it ought to go with him. He believed that TECT returns the dead bodies to Earth. The journal is our whole story. The people on Earth ought to know about us, what we're going through."

"Oh. Hurry back. I don't like being here alone."

There was a long silence. Courane waited for the final moment of death, more relaxed and tranquil than he had ever been before. He felt wonderful, as he must have felt before birth. Death wasn't anything to fear at all; he was relieved to find that out. He was grateful that everything was ending so easily. Shai had inherited all the problems now, but that was all right because Shai would die soon, too, contented and forgetful and at peace.

Courane rested in a timeless warmth. "He's gone, Shai," he heard someone say.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. I don't feel a heartbeat. I don't think he's breathing."

"I can't tell. It might just be very shallow."

"What do you think?"

"I don't know." The voice sounded impatient and angry. "I don't want to have to decide these things. I never asked for this."

"Let the doc box decide," said another voice.

"Rachel is in the box now," said someone else.

"Put him in the tect room with her. If he's really dead, he'll be gone in the morning with her body. If he isn't, we'll put him in the infirmary."

"All right." Courane felt hands grasp him and lift him. He felt his body moving and then he felt a floor beneath him. Something heavy was slipped beneath his hands; it must have been the journal.

"What now?"

"That's it, I guess. I wish there was something more. We should do something more."

"What?"

"A prayer. A eulogy. Something."

"Well, you take care of that if you want to. I don't believe in that kind of thing."

"You go, then. Nneka and I will stay here for a minute or two."

"Good. We'll see you at dinner."

There was silence that stretched on and on until Courane thought that he had at last died, that he was finally floating in the universe, and that eternity had presented its dull and tedious face to him. But just as he was adjusting to the idea, he heard someone say, "Let's go," and he knew he still had a threshold to cross. Any feelings of completion he had entertained had been a trifle premature.

 

 

 

Thirteen

 

 

"Okay, tectman, you can go through now."

He had done it so often that he didn't give any thought to it anymore. He took three steps through the portal and was on another world. Earth was three steps behind him, on the other side of a slight shimmer in the air. Now he was on—where? He hadn't even bothered to notice when he signed in that morning. Some place, some planet, somewhere it didn't matter. It was only exciting to the rookies. He wasn't going to be here for more than a few minutes anyway.

The room he stepped into was dark. The only light came from the glowing screen of a tect. It was midnight here and all the other prisoners were asleep or avoiding the room until morning. The tectman took a few steps toward the medic box, where a woman's corpse waited for him, and then he stopped in astonishment. Another body, a man's, lay on the floor beside the box. He had been a tectman for three years and this was the first time he had encountered more than one shipment. He stood and thought; he couldn't remember any rules governing this situation. Should he carry the woman back, then return and put the man in the medic box? Maybe he could skip that and just drag them both back together, or call for help.

The voice shouted at him from the far side of the shimmer. It sounded annoyed. "All right, what are you doing over there? Taking holiday pictures?"

The tectman turned toward Earth. "There are two of them. A man and a woman."

"So what? Bring them back."

"One at a time or what?"

"Any way you want, fool. Stack them on your head if that's what you feel like."