Edmund Cooper - A Far Sunset

‘Hurry, damn you! ’ he shouted. ‘Hurry! ’

He sighted the rifle carefully over her head, fixing on the patch of water between her and the bank. He pressed the trigger.

The rifle whined feebly, faintly; and the water began to hiss and steam. The Lokhali who had tried to follow stopped dead. The two with spears ran towards him. The woman was already able to swim, and the bubbling water behind her had now turned into a water spout—effectively deterring pursuit and partly screening her from die men on the bank.

Then the sweeper rifle died. Its atomic charge had finally reached equilibrium.

The water spout subsided. All that was left to deter the Lokhali was a patch of very warm water—rapidly being carried downstream by the current—and a condensing cloud of steam.

One of the Lokhali hurled a spear. It fell almost exactly between the woman and the barge. By that time, she was less than twenty metres away from it, but she was making very slow progress and seemed curiously tired.

If Paul had stopped to think then, the tragedy might possibly have been averted. It did not occur to him until later that the spear might have been hurled not at the woman but at the barge.

But, without thinking, he flung the useless rifle down and dived into the water, hoping at least to create a diversion. It was not the diversion he had hoped for. Before he hit the water, the Lokhali on the bank had found their voices. By the time he had surfaced, they were being reinforced by other warriors from the village.

Another spear plunged into the river quite near to him, and then another. A few powerful strokes brought him to the woman. There was no time to try to discover who she was.

‘Turn on your back! ’ he yelled. ‘I’ll tow you! ’

Obediently, she turned over. He grasped her under the armpits and with rapid, nervous kicks propelled them both back to the barge. Suddenly, he felt a blow, and the woman shuddered, letting out a great sigh. He paid no attention to it, being intent only on getting them both to the comparative safety of the barge.

Somehow, he got her there.

As Shon Hu hauled her aboard, he saw the short spear that was sticking in her stomach and the dark rivulet of blood that pulsed over her brown flesh.

Then he hauled himself aboard and knelt there, panting with exertion, gazing at the contorted but still recognizable features of Ann.

‘Get it out! ’ she hissed. ‘For God’s sake get it out! ’

Then she fainted.

It was Shon Hu who took the spear out. Paul was trembling and crying and useless. And it was Zu Shan and Nemo who, between them, somehow managed to keep the barge on a steady course and pole it safely out of range of the Lokhali spears and away from the village.

Paul managed to pull himself together before she opened her eyes.

‘You were right, after all,’ she murmured. ‘It was an appointment in Samara, wasn’t it?’

For a moment, he didn’t know what she meant. Then it all came back to him. The Gloria Mundi. Champagne on the navigation deck after they had plugged the meteor holes. Philosophizing and speculating about Altair. Then Ann had told him about Finagle’s Second Law. And he had told her the legend of an appointment in Samara.

‘Ann, my dear … My dear.’ He looked at her helplessly. ‘You’re going to be all right.’

With an effort, she raised herself up from the little pillow of skins that Shon Hu had managed to slip under her head. Paul supported her while she studied the wound in her stomach with professional interest.

‘It doesn’t hurt much, now,’ she said calmly. ‘That’s not a good sign. Some veinous blood, but no arterial blood That’s a bit of help … But I’m afraid I’m going to die … It may take time … You’ll have to help me, Paul. I may get terribly thirsty … Normally, I wouldn’t prescribe much liquid, but in this case it doesn’t matter … Of course, if you can plug it without hurting me too much, you’ll slow down the loss of blood.’

She leaned against him, exhausted. Gendy, he lowered her to the pillow.

‘Any old plug will do,’ gasped Ann. ‘A piece of cloth, a piece of leather—anything.’

He tore a strip of musa loul, made it into a wad and tried to press it into the gaping wound.

Ann screamed.

Shon Hu made a sign to Zu Shan and drew his pole back into the barge.

He came and squatted by Ann, regarding her objectively. Then he turned to Paul. ‘Lord, what does the woman need?’

‘I have to press this into her wound,’ explained Paul. ‘But— but it hurts too much.’

‘Lord, this can be accomplished. Do what must be done when I give the sign.’

Expertly, Shon Hu placed his hands on each of Ann’s temples and pressed gently but firmly. For a moment or two, she struggled pitifully, not knowing what was happening. Then suddenly her eyes closed and her body became slack.

Shon Hu nodded and took his hands away. Paul pressed the wad firmly into the wound. Presently Ann opened her eyes.

‘I thought you must have gone back home, back to Earth,’ she murmured faintly. ‘It was the one satisfaction I had … Every night, I’d say to myself: Well, at least Paul hasn’t come unstuck. He’s on his way back home … What happened to the Gloria Mundi ?’

‘It blew itself up, according to the destruction programme, after the three of us left it to go and look for you and the others.’

Ann coughed painfully and held Paul’s hand tightly, pressing it to her breast. When the spasm was over, she said: ‘So the voyage has ended in complete disaster … What a waste it’s all been—what a terrible waste.’

‘No, it hasn’t,’ said Paul, then he looked down at her paintwisted face and realized the stupidity of his remark. He began to stroke her white hair tenderly. ‘Forgive me. I’m a fool. But, Ann, I’ve discovered something so incredibly wonderful that— that it would seem to make any tragedy worthwhile … That’s a damnfool thing to say—but it’s true.’

She tried to smile. ‘You must tell me about your wonderful discovery … I would like very much to think that it’s all been worthwhile.’

‘You should rest. Try to sleep … You mustn’t talk.’

‘I’ll be able to sleep quite soon enough,’ she said grimly. ‘And you can do most of the talking … Now tell me about it.’

As briefly as he could, he told her about his capture by the Bayani and of the friendship that had developed between himself and Enka Ne, otherwise Shah Shan. He told her about Oruri, the ultimate god of the Bayani. Then, passing quickly over much that had happened since the death of Shah Shan, he told her of Nemo’s dreams, the legend of the coming, and how he finally made the journey to the Temple of the White Darkness. And, finally, he told her of his discovery of and encounter with the Aru Re.

Sometimes, while he was talking, Ann closed her eyes and seemed to drift off into unconsciousness. He was not quite sure how much she heard of his story—or, indeed, whether she could make much sense of it. But he went on talking desperately, because if she were not unconscious but only dozing, she might miss the sound of his voice.

As he talked, everything began to seem utterly unreal to him . He had never found the Aru Re. He was not even here on a barge, drifting on a dark river through a primeval forest, talking to a dying woman. He was dreaming. Probably, he was still in suspended animation aboard the Gloria Mundi —and his spirit was rebelling, by creating its own world of fantasy, against that unnatural state that had nothing to do with either living or dying. And presendy, he would be defrozen. And then he would become fully alive.