The Crystal World

"Very," Sanders said. "It has no patients." He added: "I'm surprised you need to spend any time at all in the dispensary."

"Quite a number of the natives come along during the night," Max explained. "During the daytime they're hanging around near the forest. One of the drivers told me that they're starting to take their sick and dying into the affected area. A kind of instant mummification, I suppose."

"But far more splendid," Suza

"They can't stop them," Max rejoined. "If these people want to commit suicide it's their affair. The army is too busy anyway evacuating themselves." He turned to Sanders. "It's almost comical, Edward. As soon as they put the camp down somewhere they have to uproot the whole thing and back off another quarter of a mile."

"How fast is the area spreading?"

"About a hundred feet a day, or more. According to the army radio network things are getting to the panic stage in the focal area in Florida. Half the state has been evacuated, already the zone there extends from the Everglades swamps all the way to Miami."

Suza

Max laughed. "Suza

After di

Sanders waited an hour for her to come back. At ten o'clock he resigned his game and said good night to Max, leaving him mulling over the possibilities of the end game.

Unable to sleep, Sanders wandered around his chalet, drinking what was left of the whisky in the decanter. In one of the empty rooms he found a stack of French illustrated magazines and leafed through the pages, sca

On an impulse he left the chalet and went out into the darkness. He walked toward the perimeter fence. Twenty yards from the wire he could see the lepers sitting under the trees in the moonlight. They had come forward on to the open ground, exposing themselves to the moonlight like bathers under a midnight sun. One or two were shuffling about through the lines of people halfasleep on the ground or squatting on their bundles.

Hiding himself in the shadows behind the chalet, Sanders turned and followed their gaze. The vast outspill of light rose from the forest, its extent broken only by the dim white form of the Bourbon Hotel.

Sanders walked back into the compound. Crossing the courtyard, he made his way to the perimeter fence as it turned in the direction of the ruined hotel, which was now hidden by the intervening trees. A path led toward it through the trees, passing the abandoned mine-works. Sanders stepped over the fence, then walked through the dark air toward the hotel.

Ten minutes later, as he stood at the top of the wide steps that led down among the tumbled columns, he saw Suza

Sanders made his way down the steps, his feet cutting at the shards of marble between the columns. Turning, Suza

"Edward-!"

Sanders reached out to take her hands, afraid that she might stumble, but Suza

"Suza

"Edward, I come here every night." She pointed to the upper stories of the white hotel. "I was there yesterday, I watched you come out of the forest! Do you know, Edward, your clothes were glowing!"

Sanders nodded, then walked with her up the drive to the steps. As if straightening her hair, Suza

"Does Max know you're here?" Sanders asked. "He may send one of the houseboys to keep an eye on you."

"My dear Edward!" Suza

"Perhaps-" They climbed the steps past the drums of the toppled columns and entered the great hail. High above, the cupola over the staircase had fallen through and Sanders could see a cluster of stars, but the light from the forest below cast the hall into almost complete darkness. Immediately he felt Suza

They walked up to the second floor, and then turned into a corridor on their left. Through the broken panels Sanders saw the worm-eaten hulks of tall wardrobes and collapsed bedposts, like the derelict monuments in some mausoleum to the hotel's forgotten past.

"Here we are." Suza

Suza

Sanders glanced around the dusty room, looking for some personal trace of Suza

"I like the room," he said. "It has a magnificent view of the forest."

"I only come here in the evening, and then the dust looks like moonlight."

Sanders sat down on the bed beside her. He glanced up at the ceiling, half-afraid that at any moment the hotel might crumble and collapse into a dust-filled pit, carrying Suza