The Fall of Tartarus (32 page)

Connery
could never recall his precise reaction to this news, but he suspected that it
might have been lachrymose.

‘But
. . . but if there’s a cure,’ he began, thinking of all the other Madelaines
out there.

The
doctor held up a tipsy forefinger. ‘That was fifty years ago,’ he went on, ‘The
creature is reported to be extinct. I’m sorry.’

Connery
sobered up and left Solomon’s Reach and investigated how many people across the
Thousand Worlds were currently suffering from Hartmann’s disease. The answer
was a dozen, eight women and four men. He discovered that the sun of Tartarus
was due to blow in just seven years, but booked passage anyway.

‘I
arrived and made enquiries, followed leads and red herrings and finally found
people who had actually seen the last remaining Vulpheous.’ He paused, then
went on, ‘So for the sakes of the people now suffering from Hartmann’s disease,
I must return to Earth with the liver of the Vulpheous. From it, we might be
able to synthesise a drug to combat the disease. It’s the least I can do. It’s
too late to save Madelaine . . . but at least I can stop the suffering of
others like her.’

They
remained sitting on the rock for an hour or more, holding each other like the
survivors of a shipwreck. At last Leona pulled away, squeezing his fingers, and
walked slowly down to the lake. Connery watched her, his heart heavy, as she
sat cross-legged and bowed her head.

As
the night came to an end and the horizon brightened with the blinding white
dazzle of the new day, Connery returned to the dome. He opaqued the wall, lay
on his bed and traced the wound that ran from his chest to his belly. He heard
the inner door open, and Leona as she moved through the dome to his room. He
saw her back-pack on the floor, and beside it her pouches of powders, and he
assumed she was returning for these, before leaving.

She
paused briefly in the entrance, staring through the half-light at him, then
crossed the chamber and lay beside him on the bed. Connery took her in his arms
in silence, afraid that a word from him might break their uneasy truce.

Leona
took to spending the hours of sunset on the slab of rock overlooking the lake
where she had originally pitched her tent, cross-legged and head bowed, but not
repeating the mantra of the Summoning. Connery tended his machinery every day,
and every morning swam out to check the position of ultarrak. She was afraid
that if she summoned the healer, and it came, then he might kill it with his
weapon of light.

Today
she bowed her head and wept at her dilemma.

She
loved Connery. They were One, after all. She had sealed their bond with the
joining of the wounds, and since then life with him was better than anything she
had ever experienced. They made love at every sleep period, and as night fell
and her fever took command, Connery mixed the powders and held her as she drank
and felt relief. But there was a distance between them, a divide that separated
them as well as any sea. She understood why Connery wanted to kill ultarrak, to
save the victims of a disease among the stars, because he had been unable to
save his wife. But
he
did not understand why she could not allow him to
kill ultarrak, why the creature was important to her - and that was her fault.
She had to tell him ... He had asked, questioned her is to what she was doing
here, why she had to remain for months, but Leona had been unable to tell him
the truth: would he still want her, if he knew?

But
she
had
to tell him. There was no other way. He could spurn her if he so
wished, and she would learn of the man he really was, or he could accede to her
needs and agree not to kill ultarrak.

In
a burst of resolve she jumped up from the rock and set off around the lake to
where Connery was working among his awkward, angular devices. By the time she
reached the canopy, though, her resolve had almost dissipated. She stood in the
shadow, hugging her shoulders, as he knelt with his broad back to her,
oblivious of her presence. At last she cleared her throat, and he turned and
smiled at her.

He
made to return to his work, but Leona said, ‘We must talk.’

He
laid down a metal tool, wiped his hands on his shorts and nodded. They sat
facing each other beneath the canopy, his gaze making her blush.

Unable
to look him in the eye, she said, ‘You must not kill ultarrak.’

‘Leona?’
He reached out and took her chin in his hand, lifted her head so that she had
to look at him. ‘What are you doing here? What does the Vulpheous mean to you?’

She
pulled back her head, freed herself of his fingers, but held his gaze. ‘Do you
love me, Connery?’

‘I
. . . you know I do.’ He looked steadily at her, and she could discern no hint
of a lie in his expression.

‘Then
if you love me, you cannot kill ultarrak.’

‘Leona
. . . ?’

‘If
ultarrak dies, I die—’

‘You’re
not making sense. What do you mean?’ His face was full of anger and confusion,
but fear also.

She
stared at her fingers, busy with the hem of her dress, and tried to think of
the words to tell this off-worlder, this man she loved, so that he would not
think any less of her.

‘Many
years ago,’ she said, raising her eyes, ‘there was not one ultarrak, but
hundreds. They lived among the islands of the south seas. Each tribe kept an
ultarrak, except they did not
keep
one, exactly, but rather it was there
when it was needed. It came when summoned, and it healed.’

At
this, Connery’s eyes widened. ‘Healed?’

‘When
people were so sick that normal herbs and prayers could not heal them, when
they were possessed by death-demons, the ultarrak was summoned and the sick
person would be taken.’

He
was shaking his head. She went on, ‘The sick person enters the ultarrak through
its
vathar
- ‘ She indicated the top of her head, ’—where it blows
water. There is a chamber in there and the sick person sleeps for a year and is
healed by the ultarrak. I have never met anyone healed this way, but my mother,
and her mother, knew people who were.’

‘You
enter its blow-hole?’ he said, staring at her. ‘And you stay in there for a
year? But what about food, air . . . ?’

‘My
mother said that you sleep so deeply that you do not breathe, and ultarrak
shares its blood with you through tentacles that heal. And after a year or
more, you return to thetribe in full health.’

Connery
said a word she did understand in his own language, then reached out and took
her hand. ‘And you are sick?’ he asked her, ‘and need the ultarrak to heal
you?’

She
nodded and lowered her eyes. ‘I am possessed by a powerful spirit in here.’ She
touched her temple.

‘But
your powders—’ he began.

‘They
will work only for so long . . . Soon I will die, if I cannot summon ultarrak.
My people could do nothing to save me. They even took me to the off-worlders
who were arranging our evacuation, but they too could do nothing, only ultarrak
can save me, Connery, and it cannot save me if you kill it.’

His
reaction was surprising. He stood and pulled her to her feet, and with his arms
around her shoulders hurried her up the slope towards the dome. Once inside he
sat her on the bed and rushed about the room in search of something. He found
it - a flat board from which hung lengths of material like leather thongs. He
knelt before her, fumbling in his haste, and tied the thongs around her right
arm. She started and gasped - it was as if a thousand ants were nibbling her
skin, but he told her not to worry.

He
poked the board with his fingers, and strange shapes glowed on its surface. He
peered at these with fevered eyes, muttering to himself in his own language.
She wanted to tell him not to worry, that ultarrak would heal her - that if the
other off-worlders could not save her, then neither could he.

Then
suddenly his activity ceased. Slowly, he unwound the stinging thongs from her
arm, leaving stripes of blood on her brown skin. When he looked at her, she saw
tears in his eyes.

She
stroked his hair. ‘Connery, do not worry what your board says. Ultarrak will
take me and make me well.’

He
lay with her on the bed, stroking her hair and saying her name, and then many
other words she could not understand. She could tell by the tone of his voice
that he was trying not to cry. How like a man!

For
the first time in days, Leona felt at peace. Connery loved her, and would not
kill ultarrak, and in time she would be healed.

He
could not let Leona see his consternation. He kissed her and left her on the
bed, then hurried from the dome and stormed down the slope to the water’s edge.
He wanted to scream, to yell to the non-existent gods that it was so unfair.
Madelaine had been taken from him, and now Leona . . . He cursed and tried not
to weep, but the effort made his throat burn with contained emotion, and
eventually he sat down by the lake and wept.

The
diagnosis was that Leona was dying from a neurological disorder known by a
dozen different names throughout the Thousand Worlds. There was no cure.
Victims rarely lasted for more than three months. The diagnosis gave Leona no
more than a few weeks. He cast his mind back to Madelaine’s death, and wondered
how he had managed to overcome so numbing a tragedy, and how he might triumph
over this one.

What
compounded his pain was Leona’s own reaction - her childish faith in an ancient
folk tale. She really believed that she could be cured by the Vulpheous. But
how might such a cure be possible? How might she survive for a year within the
blow-hole of the creature? It was, surely, no more than primitive superstition
. . . And yet, he said to himself, what if her naive faith proved justified,
and the Vulpheous could indeed effect her recovery?

Connery
sat beside the lake for what seemed like hours, going over his options. He told
himself again and again that it could not be true, that someone as vital and
alive as Leona could not be dying ... He stared into the sky, at the clouds
corrupted by the supernova. In time the sun would blow, destroying everything:
the planet, the island, the Vulpheous . . . Could he risk not getting the cure
out to the Thousand Worlds, for the hopeless belief in a primitive folk tale?

At
last he left the lake and retraced his steps back to the dome. Leona was still
on the bed, and she turned and smiled it him as he entered the chamber. He sat
down beside her and stroked the hair from her forehead. He stared at her in
silence, touching the line of her jaw. Her brown eyes watched him, so bright
and alive.

Later,
her convulsions began. As she lay on the bed with her eyes closed, shivering,
Connery mixed the powders into the blood-red syrup that would make her still.
He sat with her in his arms and raised the cup to her lips, and he rejoiced in
her relief as her body relaxed and her breathing became even. He lowered her
head to the pillow, kissed her on the lips, and then left the dome.

He
stood beneath the fiery sky and stared out across the jade green lake, asking
himself over and over if he had made the right decision.

Connery
was standing beneath the canopy when the Vulpheous made its next appearance.
The sun had set on another searing day, and the sombre tone of the night sky
turned the surface of the lake a dark, brooding shade of emerald.

He
was barely aware of the first lethargic ripple that disturbed the surface of
the lake, so lost was he in his thoughts. Then a series of slow bubbles
exploded through the layer of algae.

The
Vulpheous rose to the surface with a slow, wallowing buoyancy. Its massive head
turned slowly towards Connery, its tiny eyes seeking him out. It remained
staring at him for what seemed like a long time.

Connery
slipped into the seat behind the cannon, reached out and struck the command.
The laser flashed out, striking the creature through the forehead, and the
natural amphitheatre rang to the piercing shriek of the dying animal. Already
the harpoons and grapple had found their fleshy target and were hauling the
dead Vulpheous across the lake to the shore. It beached with a lifeless
shudder, its inert mass of blubber already discharging reeking fluids across
the volcanic rock.

Connery
set to work, lasering the carcass into sections and slicing free its massive
liver. He transferred the organ to his waiting carricase, then made his way
back to the dome. He showered to rid himself of its blood and stench, and was
leaving the dome for the last time when he paused. On the floor was Leona’s
pack, and beside it her pouches of medicine powders, among them the pouch that
had contained the white powder, the
fehna,
empty now.

He
left the dome with the carricase. Soon, he told himself, thanks to what he had
achieved here in the volcano, many people around the Thousand Worlds would give
thanks to him, would be able to look into the future with hope renewed.

For
every advance there was a sacrifice.

On
his way up the slope he paused by the cairn of stones beneath which Leona lay.