Страница 46 из 130
Then the i
“Oh,” my lady said, very quietly, and I shivered where I stood, because it was a world we faced, a land, an upward-curving horizon hazing into misty distances, with a vast central lake that disappeared in an overhead glare of lighting far above.
That was not all. Things moved here, from either side of us at once—tall creatures, gangling, clothed, some brown ski
And they had Griffin with them—suitless, unrestrained.
“Griffin,” my lady cried. And threw down her spear and went to him, trying all the while to rid herself of the helmet.
He knew her at once. There was none of us so small as she was; he flung his arms about her, and helped her with the helmet then, so we all knew it was safe.
The crew knew how; it took Gawain’s help for my helmet and Lance’s and Viv’s. We stood there, having let our weapons fall, while my lady and master Griffin were lost in what they had to say to each other. We were drenched in sweat; even Viv was. My legs wanted to shake, the while we stood with our born-men forgetting us and so many strange creatures—a few were beautiful, but most were fierce—looking at us and wondering.
Dela shed her pack and dropped that with the helmet, and Griffin, who was dressed in clothes he must have gotten here—blue and green, they were, and not at all like ours—Griffin drew her over to a rocky place that thrust up out of the soil amid plants like vines that covered what must be decking under our feet. Among the rocks stranger growth had taken hold in soil heaped up about them. He gave her that mossy place to sit, and sat down himself, holding her gloved hands.
And Lance—he stood watching this, and finally gathered more courage than any of us, and walked up to them and knelt down there. So we all drifted closer. Griffin bent and hugged Lance against him, a great fierce hug that warmed us all and I think near broke Lance’s heart.
“It’s all right,” Griffin said, looking worn and with tears ru
“Yes, sir,” Modred said, in that way of his. “I knew I was.
We settled there, too tired to do more than that, and listened.
“I thought I was dead,” Griffin said, “when they brought me through the doors and took the helmet off. But it’s what you see here—I wanted to go back then and bring you here, but I couldn’t make them understand. Or trust me if they did.”
“They came through the ship,” Dela said. “Modred saw.”
“I think they went right on going,” Modred said, “into the tubes, after what lives there. What that is, I had no chance to see. But they meant to stop it, and I think they have.”
“We’re safe,” Griffin said, and took Dela’s hand. “We can rest here. Like the others.”
A creature came to us—one so pale and delicate it seemed more spirit than substance—and brought a flask of something clear and a bit of what could only be bread. It cheered us immeasurably, the more that it was pure water, clean and cold and food that spoke worlds of likeness between us and these. We were near and sibs to whatever creatures drank water and breathed this air; our skins could touch; our eyes could look at other eyes without a faceplate between. We smiled, we laughed, we cried, even we.
And then we shed the suits which were our last protection. For Percy, we gave him all the ease we could, binding up his arm, giving him what help we carried in our kits, so that he had relief from pain. And after, one by one, we settled down ourselves to sleep, absolutely undone. Griffin watched over us, his arms about our lady, who slept against him. And creatures watched us strange as any heraldic beasts of our dream, but wise-eyed and armed and patient.
We thought we should never see the Maidagain ... but after what might have been two days, they opened up that great lock and showed us through, suitless themselves, so we knew it was safe.
And we went where they guided us, to visit our damaged home. They had sealed up the holes in the upper decks. It was all oxygen again.
But after some few days my lady missed the green wide expanses. So we came back to the huge lock bringing our baggage and whatever we could carry. And they opened for us-—I think expected us, having come that way themselves.
It was not the last trip. They gave us stone, stones that like the soil were the fragments of wandering asteroids, and we understood, because there were all sorts of shelters if one wandered about the place. It was surely the strangest of human houses that we made, a simple place at first, a room for Griffin and my lady, with huge open windows, because the weather never varied and there was nothing there to fear. We carried the great dining table out when we had made another room, and set the ba
And we became a wonder, having all kinds of visitors, some horrific and some very shy and beautiful. With some we learned to speak, or to make signs.
They came in a kind of respect. I think it was the ba
So we settled there.
And lived.
Time ... is different here. The Captain is very old ... no one knows how old, perhaps not even he. But we don’t age.
And we fight his war, whenever he has need: Griffin and Lancelot and Gawain and Ly
There might be such again. We know.
But the time passes, and we gather others, who come whenever Griffin calls.
And we ... we come, at such time: Modred from his berth on the Maid, where he spends endless time in talking with all sorts of living things and devising new ideas; and Vivien keeps him company, making meticulous records and accounts.
Percivale has a place up in the heights of the curve. We see him least of all; but very old and wise creatures visit him to talk philosophy, and when he comes to visit us his voice is quiet and makes one very warm.
And Gawain and Lynette—they travel about the land, even into the strange passages that lead elsewhere, so of all of us they have seen most and come with the strangest tales to tell.
And Lance—
“I love them both,” he said once and long ago. And so he left the hall where Dela and Griffin lived, first of all to leave.
And that was the worst pain of any I had ever had.
“Where’s Lance?” my lady asked that next day; and I was afraid for him. I ran.
But Griffin found me, all the same, there back of the house, where I thought that I was hidden.
“Where’s Lance?” he said.
“He went away,” I said, just that. But Griffin had always had a way of looking through me.
“Why?”
“For love,” I said, which was a word so strange for me to be saying I was terrified. But it was so. It was nothing else but that.