A Scatter of Stardust Read Free Page B

just above his knees. He looked at his legs — they were whole.
    He looked up and saw the woman standing at his side.
    “You have been asleep,” she said. “Now you are awake. I am glad that you are awake.”
    He didn’t answer, trying again to recall the landing, but all he could remember was noise and confusion and a red mist of pain. He looked again at his legs.
    “We repaired you,” said the woman. “You are perfectly well now.”
    He moved his legs, lifting his knees, feeling the shift and tension of muscle.
    “And my ship?”
    “In capable hands. The damage was extensive and medication will take longer. You see the hull was — ”
    “I know the extent of the damage,” he interrupted. “But it will be all right?”
    “Yes. It will be perfectly all right.”
    Her voice was soft and musical. The touch of her hand on his arm as he rose was warm and gentle. He stood upright and her eyes were just below the level of his own. Her hair was blonde and swept about the lines of her slender throat. She wore a garment as simple as his own. Her figure was superb.
    He felt that he knew her, had known her for a long, long time.
    “Where are we?”
    “A place,” she said. “A safe place.”
    He nodded, no longer curious as to where he was. He stared into her eyes.
    “What is your name?”
    “Anne,” she said.
    “Anne — with an ‘e’?”
    “Yes,” she said. “With an ‘e’. How did you know?”
    He had known as he knew the other things about her. As he sensed the warm, protective comfort of her presence. As he knew that she was wholly and utterly his. How he knew did not worry him. He seemed to have lost the capability of care.
    *
    They left the room. They did not walk or he had no remembrance of walking. One moment they were in the room with its vaguely familiar furnishings, the next they were standing beneath a summer sun in a garden bright with flowers. He was not surprised. Such mobility was simply the achievement of desire without the tedium of effort.
    He halted before a bush which bore fruit and bud and flower — a miracle of botanical engineering which ensured that here there could be no seasons of birth and death and decay. Here it was always summer. And winter?
    “There are places where there is always snow and ice,” said Anne. She seemed able to read his thoughts. “The sun is warm but the snow doesn’t melt. Shall we go there?”
    They went and played in the snow and slid on ice and sported in a world which was all white and blue and crisp. They went to a shallow beach which sloped to a rolling sea and swam in the surf, chasing finny creatures of remarkable agility before returning to their discarded clothes. They went to where a forest covered soaring hills in brilliant greens and somber browns and walked among giant trees while eating strange berries and succulent fruits. Then they returned to the garden.
    It was still midday, still as if they had never left. Time here did not move on a relentless path from cradle to grave. There was only the joy of a moment stretched to eternity.
    And they were alone.
    Quite alone.
    *
    “Talk to me,” said Anne. She rested beside him on a mossy bank which fell to a tinkling stream. The scent of her was a perfume in his nostrils. Argonne stirred and looked thoughtfully into the water.
    “What about?”
    “Of yourself. Of your past. Of the things you once considered important.”
    “Of the Pentarch?” He turned and looked at her, wondering a little, then dismissing the doubt. What could she do against the massed might of Earth? “The Pentarch,” he said slowly. “The Pentarch is the race of Man. The rule of five.”
    “Five what?”
    “Five different categories of human beings: those who need metaphorical walls; those who must fight; those who must create; those who are content to build, and those who can do nothing but lead. Five interrelated and integrated branches of the human race. Five fingers of the same hand.” He lifted his own and