Part 42 (1/2)

He looked again toward the lovely Oriental, trying to gauge what should and should not be said. But lost in her own bitterness, she could give him no sign. So he sighed, and said simply.

'Kataya and I had hoped that perhaps Ishmael..... But he's gone now, and who knows if we'll ever see him again, or even if his chromosomes would match.'

'Ishmael will come back,' answered Kalus seriously, the doctor's words largely lost on him, but wanting to ease Kataya's pain. 'Once a man has touched his own soul through another, there is nothing else in life that matters.' And not understanding the effect that this would have, he looked not at Sylviana, of whom he was speaking, but to Kataya, by way of explanation and rea.s.surance.

At this Sylviana let out a wordless execration, threw down the sheet she was mending, and stormed off . Kalus followed in sudden fear.

'I did not mean---' he said desperately, but found her door slammed and bolted in his face. In confusion he returned to the doctor, imploring.

'What do I have to do?' he said in frustration. 'Can't she see that there could never be anyone else for me? Why can't she understand?'

'Give her time, my friend,' said McIntyre. 'She'll come around. If you want my observations, you're in her deep, and that frightens her. Just have a little patience, and if a man of science may say it, a little faith. What's meant to be, will always be in the end.' These words seemed wise, yet Kalus could find no comfort in them.

'But my stomach crawls without her. My heart is in my throat, and I cannot sleep. If I lose her there will be nothing. Nothing at all.'

'You haven't lost her, son.' With this he looked ruefully toward Kataya. 'And if I'm any judge, you won't. Just be steady, with open arms, and she'll come back to you in time.'

But as McIntyre continued to study the younger man, he saw that his expression remained deeply troubled, so much so that he was truly touched, as Kalus had been at the simple confusion of Ishmael.

'If it helps, I'll tell her what you meant just now. Kataya and I understood. She's just too close, and can't see it.'

'Would you really do that?'

'Of course.'

'Thank you,' said Kalus, though his fear was not abated. 'I have to go somewhere and think.'

Bewildered and restless, Kalus called to the cub, and went walking off in no particular direction, perhaps heading vaguely toward the solace of the sea.

He tried to tell himself that things would work out---that he would one day understand and be more comfortable among the baffling maze of human interaction. But it was no use. What was he doing here, surrounded by people and emotions he could not begin to read? Is this what Sylviana had wanted?

He found himself thinking, with sudden longing, of the world and way of life he had known in the Valley. He thought of his brother, who had taken a mate, and wondered if she was yet with child. Perhaps it would be a boy, like Shama, who would not mistrust him, but look up to him in friends.h.i.+p. He thought of the wolves, now led by Akar, his n.o.ble friend. Surely he did not mean for them to keep Alaska forever sundered from the pack, or from himself, who would need a mate. And last, though far from least he thought of Avatar, who would always be free. And for a time his spirit ran with him, through the heart of a forest five hundred miles deep.

Was a compromise of worlds possible, he wondered, some meaningful coexistence between the hill-people and the colonists? He tried, but could not imagine it. And what did it matter, if he lost the only woman he would ever love? Again he felt the sudden, sour turning of his stomach, and the debilitating flow of unused adrenalin.

He wanted just to go to her, and take her to him, and tell her he was hers alone, and always. He felt the longing for her touch like a hole in his chest. But what could he do, when she would not let him near her? He had not been alone with her for two days, which seemed an eternity, and she showed no sign..... Anger and jealousy hardly seemed the signs of love.

He could not work it out, and was soon too weary and sick at heart to care much, even for something that touched him so deeply. There was no understanding the minds of women, he conceded in despair. Or of men.

He could only be what he was, and hope this self-honesty would bring him to his proper place in the end.

AND IF IT DIDN'T?