Orson Card - Hot Sleep - The Worthing Chronicle

"You're a kinder man than I am," Stipock said, softly.

Hoom shook his head. "Love and faithfulness can only be given, not demanded. All the same, I would have liked to have them."

Stipock was surprised at the pain behind the whispered words. After all these years of silence, of pretending not to know, why was Hoom saying it now?

"Dilna loves you," Stipock said. "And so does Wix."

"And I forgive them because of that. Or in spite of that. Stipock?"

"Yes?"

"If I die before we return to Heaven City , would you tell them? That I know? And that I forgive them?"

"You won't die. You're the strongest of us all, don't let the darkness and the sand get to you already, or you'll never stay sane through the desert."

Hoom only laughed. "Just taking precautions, old man."

And then they walked in silence for another hour, before Wix called out that they should stop and drink. They drank, a swallow each from one waterbag, and sat and rested for a few minutes. And then they were on their way again, until dawn.

They followed the pattern for days, walking among the trees at night, sleeping in the best shade they could find by day. They refilled the canteens at every stream, and in this area there were many.

But after a week, the trees began to thin, and the ground began to rise, and Stipock told them it was time to move due north. They reached a large river, and followed its course northward, but the water was brackish, and they only filled their bags at the sluggish streams that joined the river. Later, the streams became more rare, and they began to drink the river's water in order to keep their waterbags full.

They reached the crest of the mountains and left the river behind, descending to a dry plain of rock and sand. A few plants grew, and an occasional small animal moved at the edge of their vision. But no water at all.

And no rest from the heat. There was no shade, except behind rocks, and at noon even the rocks were no shelter, for the sun was directly overhead, and rocks had no shadows at noon. On the eighth day they ran out of water. On the ninth day they piled rocks over Bessa's corpse and went on, no one shedding tears because they were too tired, and their eyes were too dry.

They found an oasis of sorts on the tenth day in the desert, and drank the foul–tasting water, and filled their waterbags. An hour later all were vomiting, and Dallat died of it. They buried him by the poisoned pool, and weakly walked on, emptying their waterbags before they left to forestall the possibility of their forgetting and drinking again.

They were lucky. The next day they found a clear spring in the side of a hill, and the water was good, and they drank and didn't get sick. They stayed at the spring for several days, building back their strength. But now their food was getting low, and with full waterbags they set out again.

Two days later they reached the top of a rocky rise, and stopped at the end of a cliff that plunged nearly a kilometer, almost straight down. To the west they saw the sea, and to the east another sea, the water winking blue in the sunlight of early morning. And at the bottom of the cliff, the land funneled into a narrow isthmus between the seas. The isthmus was green with grass, and Stipock wasn't the only one, he knew, who breathed a great sigh of relief.

"Do you see the green down there, Cammar?" asked Dilna. The boy nodded gravely. "That's grass, and it means that we'll find water."

"Can I have a drink?" Cammar asked.

They found a way down the cliff before noon, and as they descended they realized that it wasn't nearly as sheer as it seemed. The slope was broken, but there were many possible paths. And that night, exhausted, they spread their blankets in the tall grass. When they woke in the morning, the grass was damp with dew, and their blankets were cold and wet.

At first they laughed, and plucked up grass and threw it at each other, getting soaked in the process. And then Dilna began weeping, and the others also grieved for the two children who had been granted no tears at their burial.

From then on the journey seemed easy enough, and they were hardened and ready to walk many kilometers every day. Even Cammar seemed to thrive on it, and often would run ahead of the others, calling back, "Too slow! Hurry up!"

The farther north they went, the thicker the grass and the larger the bushes became. Soon they were passing many groves of trees, and tiny streams became brooks that they had to take their shoes off for. Eventually the shoes were put in the packs, and they hiked on bare feet, which were already toughened and hard as leather.

Six weeks after they had left the village to the sand and drought, they saw the snow–capped mountains rise ahead of them. "The headwaters of half the rivers in the world rise in these mountains," Stipock said, and they marched on. A week later they could no longer see the peaks because of the high, steep foothills they were traveling through. They followed the banks of a large river northward, and as it narrowed into a canyon they often had to walk in the river itself. They climbed cliffs to pass waterfalls, and often had to backtrack when seemingly easy paths ended in precipices and narrow defiles. And always the rivers flowed south and east, back in the direction they had come, and always the path ahead was uphill. They passed the last trees, and food became scarce, and they rationed again; but hunger was better then thirst, and it was summer, so that although they were cold, they were in little danger of freezing to death.

And then they noticed that the rivers seemed to flow in the other direction, northwest, and some of their routes were downhill. And one morning as they reached the top of a windswept, grassy hill, they saw what they had hoped to see: between two lower peaks in the distance, a green blanket of dense forest that went on and on, stretching forever into the distance.

"It's the largest forest in the world," said Stipock, "according to Jason's map. But nothing ahead should be as hard as what's gone on before." They sat down to rest and look at the hopeful view, and Cammar caught the mood of relief and happiness, and he ran back and forth around the crown of the hill.

"Jason never told us he had a map of the world," Wix said. "And yet you follow your memory of it as if you trusted it completely."

"I should," Stipock said. "I invented the machine that took the geological survey. It's pretty accurate. The only inaccuracies are in detail — and in my memory."

Hoom was pulling up grass and letting the breezes catch it. "You know, Stipock, you kept telling us, again and again, that Jason wasn't God. And yet every time it comes to one of the miracles that Jason performs, you say, ‘Of course he can do that.' And I think I understand it now. To you, what Jason does is commonplace. To you, God would have to be far more extraordinary. But to us, Jason's abilities are far out of reach. And that's enough to make him not at all ordinary, not a common man at all. To us, God. And why not?"

Stipock only leaned back. "I suppose that if a man sets out to manipulate the world in certain ways, and has the wit and the power to do it, then why not play God? I would have stopped Jason if I could. I couldn't. But does that —"

A piercing scream interrupted the conversation, and they all jumped to their feet. "Cammar!" Dilna shouted, and they quickly saw that he wasn't on the crown of the hill. They ran in different directions, and Stipock called, "Here! Come here!" He was at the northwest slope, the area they hadn't yet seen, and when they arrived in a group at the edge, they saw that the gentle hill they had climbed gave way to a jagged precipice on the other side. A torn patch in the grass at the edge showed where Cammar had fallen.

Dilna was frantic. "Cammar!" she cried out again and again. And then his answer came from surprisingly close. "Mama, I'm hurt!"