E. Tubb - Child of Earth

“No! No! Please! No!”

Dumarest glanced at the bed. Sardia lay there and one look was enough. Her tormentor shrieked as the knife closed the gap between throat and edge. As he fell the woman stirred on the bed.

“Earl? Earl is that you?”

“Sardia.” He touched her, held her, the knife still in his hand. “You are safe now,” he soothed. They are all gone. They can’t hurt you now.

“They have hurt me enough.” Her voice was a whisper, the grip of her hand merely a gesture. But one with meaning. “Listen, Earl, you’ve got to look after yourself. I have money. It’s yours if you can find it. I’ve some gems, in a box, you know where to look. Take them, take everything of value you can find. Get to the field. A ship is due, the Ellermand. It’s got a handler, ask him for passage. Mention my name. Don’t tell him more.” Her voice changed, the whisper becoming a scream. “The pain! Earl, I can’t stand the pain! Help me! Help me!”

She had been burned, blinded, seared into a thing of horror. Money could restore her. Buying regrowths, new organs bred from her stem cells, the use of an amniotic tank in which to grow new and healthy tissue. But it would take time and exposure and would be far from cheap.

But he had no money, no friends or contacts, no drugs to ease her agony. Only a knife, newly bought as a gift, now a bitter reminder of what he had allowed to happen. If he hadn’t wasted time in the market. If he had returned to the apartment straight after the bout. If he had been present when the thugs had arrived to torment and destroy for the sake of what they could steal.

If.

The word had a sour taste.

Yet if he couldn’t save her he could join her. In death, if what some said was true, they would be reunited for eternity.

The blade moved in his hand, the point aiming at his throat, his muscles tensing for the effort to drive it deep.

“No!” The work was a command. “No, Earl, don’t!”

Jarl Raven, stood in the doorway of the bedroom, a gun in his hand.

“Lower the knife, Earl. Do it!”

Dumarest said, “If I don’t you’ll use that gun? Then use it. Do me a favor.”

“You want to die?”

“I want Sardia to live. To get over this mess. Look at her. She’s in agony and there’s nothing I can do to help. I haven’t even the guts to pass her out.” The knife fell from his hands and he stared at his quivering fingers, fighting to be calm. “I didn’t do this to her. You must know that. I killed the scum who did but there has to be more. Someone passed them into the building. Someone told them the door code combination. I want to get that filth no matter who they are and what it costs.”

“I’ll take care of that.”

“Just take care of Sardia.”

“I’ll do that as soon as you’ve left.”

“I’m not going anywhere until I’m sure she is safe.”

“I told you. I’ll take care of that.” Raven was impatient. “Don’t waste time, Earl. I’ll phone for an ambulance and they will take her to where she can get all the help she needs.” He stepped towards the bed. “Now get out of my way and let me do what needs to be done.”

Dumarest looked at his face, the gun in his hand and knew better than to argue. To Raven he was nothing. To him Sardia was the world. The woman he obviously loved and now was apparently going to kill.

“Steady, girl,” he said. “This is Jarl. You know I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Jarl? Her whisper was a prayer of thanksgiving.

“That’s right.” He rested a hand on her throat, fingers hard against the flesh beneath her ears. “Just a little pressure on the carotid arteries to cut the flow of blood to your brain and the pain will be over. You’ll sleep like a log and when you wake all will be better than before. I promise that. Trust me!”

Watching as the woman sighed and relaxed, Dumarest said, “Do you mean that? I need to know.”

“I know what I’m doing. She’ll live. What did she say to you?” Raven nodded as Dumarest told him. “Good advice. You’d best take it.”

“Not until I’ve taken care of those who did this.”

“No!” Raven was curt. “I will take care of that.”

“I can help you!”

“You would do the reverse. I know those concerned. I know how to hurt them.” He thrust the gun into a hidden holster. “Now do as Sardia told you. Take what money you can find and go.” He gestured at the dead man. “Start with him. Search his pockets and take all he’s got. Then take care of the others. Be quick,” he added, “but get cleaned up before you leave.”

Good advice and he followed it. Bathing and changing to remove the blood which had spattered him. Branding him with the mark of a killer. The man who had attacked and almost murdered Sardia. He would stand no chance if arrested. He knew the door codes, he could gain easy access, he was trusted as a supposed friend. The men who had died had walked in on him while committing the crime and had been slaughtered for their bravery. Those behind them would see to that.

He could do nothing but take the money and run. To the field, the handler who, for a price, would arrange his passage. Shipping him to another world, there to begin the quest which would dominate his life.

An intriguing story.” Shandaha poured wine into two goblets, red and sparkling with drifting bubbles of a deeper hue. Red as the wine he had drunk with the grafter had been red, as the blood he had shed, as the water he had bathed in, as his discarded garments had displayed. Dumarest found the association distasteful. “You are disturbed, Earl?”

“Disgusted would be a better word. There are some things better not remembered, still less to be relived.”

“Yet, surely, it must be a comfort to know that all was not lost. The woman would have lived as the man had promised. He would have become her partner and guardian. And you escaped the trap with your life.” Shandaha paused then added, “You realise it was a trap? The woman, Yanya, set you up by hinting you were to be passed on. Naturally you would want to discuss it with Sardia. Knowing that those who intended her harm would have a perfect opportunity to dispose of her and to saddle you with the blame. Yanya would have known the entry codes. All they had to do was wait. They grew impatient when you failed to arrive on time and did what they came to do.”

To maim, torture, rob and gloat at a helpless woman’s pain. But Shandaha was right. On reflection the trap had been obvious, but he had been too young to recognise it, too emotionally involved to retain mental clarity.

“Drink, Earl, forget.” Shandaha passed him the goblet. “On the whole I would say it would be best to regard the incident as your rite of passage. You first met the woman as a boy and left her as a man. An unusual episode but often followed in many cases mostly by those alone and isolated. In modern cultures, naturally. In primitive societies they know how to conduct ceremonies.”

With rituals, with trials of endurance, of hardship, of combat. With struggle and introspection and visions summoned by various hallucinogens. The survivors were accepted as men.

“Earl?”

“You could be right.”

“You know I am right.” Shandaha lifted his goblet. “To you, Earl Dumarest! I greet you as one who has earned the right to be accepted as a man among men!”

One who had learned to love, to struggle, to fight, to kill. Who had run and who had been running ever since.

Dumarest reached for the brimming container. The wine was like water but it was far from that. Something within himself seemed to be a barrier against the effects of alcohol. He knew what it was.

He said, “We had an agreement. Will you keep to it?”