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'But what was Gribardsun's motive? If Gribardsun did have the elixir a hundred years or so before anybody eke, why was he so interested in time travel, why had he worked so hard to bring it about? Especially when it looked as if he wasn't going to enjoy its benefits. He was only sixth in priority, and he had only gotten that high in some unaccountable ma
'And then, suddenly, he was second. One thing after another had happened to those in line ahead of him. Sickness, a sudden loss of interest or of courage. One man resigned without giving any reasons and took off for Tahiti. Very mysterious.
'Moishe was very sick by this time then. He...'
'Are you suggesting that Gribardsun poisoned him, too?' Rachel said.
'No. Moishe was never intended to go on the expedition. He was too old and besides, he didn't have the qualifications. No, he got one of the rare incurable cancers - as you know - and he was dying. He hoped he'd live long enough to see the expedition off. It was his greatest wish, and he never got it. Moses before the Promised Land, he used to say, when he felt well enough to joke. Which wasn't often. But Gribardsun worried him. He couldn't see what sinister motive the man had, if his motive was sinister. Then de Longnors disappeared, and Moishe was certain that Gribardsun was responsible. But Moishe didn't have long to live, and he did owe Gribardsun a great debt, and he did not want to make accusations which would result in the expedition being held up. A few days'delay would mean he'd die before the launching. As it turned out, he did die before the launching. Anyway, he told me the story. And he asked me not to tell anybody. But I was to keep an eye on Gribardsun, and, after I returned, if I felt it was justified, I was to reveal the whole story. Of course I promised, but I felt like a fool. The whole thing was so fantastic. Or so I thought then. Now I don't think so at all. And when I get back...'
'You still have nothing to tell,' she said. 'Moreover, you have been mentally sick, and your story would be hushed up to protect you more than John.'
'Do you mean that you think it's all nonsense?'
'No, I don't. I think that what you and Moishe suspected is true. But what can any of us do about it? Besides, I can't believe that John would do anything dishonest or in any way evil.'
'That's because you're still in love with him!'
'Probably.'
Drummond clamped his teeth tightly and balled his hands.
Strange sounds came from beneath his teeth.
Rachel said, 'Drummond! Don't! I can't help it! Please don't get sick again! You have to face reality!'
He opened his fists and released the tension on his jaws and breathed out heavily. He said, 'All right. I can face it. But I wish...'
'There's Robert!' she said. 'He looks worried. I wonder if anything's happened to John!'
She ran toward him. Von Billma
The girl was lying on furs on the floor of the tent, the walls of which had been rolled up so that the cooling wind could pass over her. Amaga, her mother, and Abinal, her brother, squatted near her. Glamug was not present with his medicine paint, his spirit-scaring mask, his rattles and bull roarer and his baton de commandement. He was out hunting and, since game was scarce near the camp, was probably miles away.
Laminak's skin was flushed but dry, and her fever was 101-6°F. She looked dully at the three as they bent over her, and then she mumbled, 'Koorik?'
'He's not here, but I'm sure he soon will be,' Rachel said.
She patted the girl's hand, and then lifted her head to give her a drink from her canteen.
With Rachel's help, von Billma
It took fifteen minutes to run through the samples from Laminak, and the coded result on the tape was: DISEASE UNKNOWN. POSSIBLE PSYCHOSOMATIC ORIGIN. Laminak's fever rose to 102-1°F. and stayed there until late that night. She would drink water but had no desire to eat. She became delirious that evening, and she mumbled and groaned much.
Of the few words they could determine, Koorik was the most frequent.
'She's been pining away ever since Koorik left,' Amaga said. 'Then she brightened up when the time came for him to return. But as the days passed and he did not come, she became sick. Last night, she started to burn, and she will not stop now until she is dead, unless Koorik comes back. And there is not much time for that.'
'I can't believe that she could get so sick just grieving for John,' Rachel said.
'But she can,' von Billma
'We don't know that that is the cause of her sickness,' Rachel said.
'True. But until we have a better explanation, I'll accept grief.'
Rachel stayed with Laminak even after Glamug returned and began to make the camp hideous with his howlings, shrill chantings, rattlings, bull roarings, and sudden shrieks. She did all she could to help the girl and at the same time stay out of Glamug's way. She also kept a close observation of the progress of the illness for the expedition's records.
The morning of the third day, just as the sun came up, Laminak breathed her death rattle.
Glamug stopped his shuffling and chanting, got down on his knees, and marked her forehead and breasts with red ocher.
Then he stood up, removed his mask, and looked at Rachel with tired eyes and drooping face.
'For a little while last night, I rested,' he said. 'And I had a vision. I saw Koorik ru
Rachel understood that Glamug had fallen asleep for a few minutes, though she could have sworn that his racket had gone on all night without a second's break. He had had a dream and, as was the custom, he must tell the nearest person the dream as soon as possible.
'Did Koorik get away from the lion? Or was he... ?'
'Was he killed?' Glamug said. 'I do not know. The vision faded, and I was sitting outside the tent of Laminak and shivering with the cold. Not with the cold of the night wind, because that was warm. With the cold of the wind that blows death.'
Rachel told Drummond and Robert of Glamug's vision. Drummond scoffed at it, saying that it was a wish on the part of the witch doctor, who must resent Gribardsun's takeover of his role as healer. That was all there was to it. Von Billma
'But if his dream was a form of telepathy, why didn't I see John instead of Glamug? I'm much closer to John than that primitive quack!'
'He's no quack; he believes in what he does and practices to the best of his ability,' von Billma
Rachel sneered, but she was worried. She would have laughed about the vision in her own environment, the towering many-leveled twenty-first-century megalopolis, but in this savage world it was as easy to believe in ESP and ghosts as it was to believe in mammoths and cave lions. It was summer and therefore hot. The huge deer flies and the smaller flies were numerous, and the tribe must not be kept too long from reaping the summer. The wake took place that day, and Laminak was buried at dawn the next morning. A hole five feet long and three feet wide and two feet deep was dug. A mammoth hide was placed in the bottom of the hole and on this bear hides were placed. Laminak, wrapped around the loins with the fur of a female bear cub, her body elsewhere daubed with red ocher, and a chaplet of bright saxifrage around her head, was carried by four men to the grave. There, while drums beat, flutes wailed, and a bull roarer boomed, she was placed on her right side. Her face was toward the rising sun. She wore a strand of sea shells around her neck, and a wooden doll with human hair, the doll she had put aside two years ago but kept with her few valuables, was placed by her side.