He glanced up and around the amphitheatre. "I think," he went on,
"that Earth and Mars can learn a lot from each other, if the fanatics
on both sides will stop making trouble. You're the worst one I've
ever heard of, Fand. You go even beyond fanaticism." He looked at her
speculatively. "I think you're as mad right now as your mother."
She did not flare up at that, which convinced him that she was not mad
at all, only twisted by the way she lived and the things she had been
taught.
She said, "What do you plan to do about all this?"
"Wait. Until dawn, or perhaps later. Anyway, until you've had time to
think. Then I shall give you a last chance. After that, I shall kill
you."
She was smiling when he replaced the gag, and her eyes did not waver.
The hours passed. Darkness into dawn, and then into full daylight.
Winters sat unmoving, his head bowed over his knees. Fand's eyes were
closed, and it seemed that she slept.
The garden woke to life with the sun, and all around the dense thicket
Winters heard the padding footsteps and the growling of the beasts
of Shanga. The things in the shallow lake cried out, and their musky
taint soured the wind. Winters shivered like a man with fever and his
brooding eyes were haunted.
After a while Jill came. Animal-like she had found him, animal-like she
came, slipping without sound through the brush. She would have cried
out at the sight of Fand, but he silenced her. She crouched beside him,
watching him. She was afraid of him and yet she could not stay away. He
stroked her shoulder. It was soft and strong and trembling under his
hand. Her gaze was doe-like, full of sadness and a bewildered yearning.
Winters' face became as bleak and pitiless as the barren stars that
watch from outer space.
The time grew very short. Jill began to look upward toward the prisms.
Winters sensed in her a growing nervousness.
He shook Fand. She opened her eyes and looked at him, and he knew what
her answer would be before he asked the question.
"Well?"
She shook her head.
For the first time, Winters smiled. "I have decided," he said, "not to
kill you after all."
What he did after that was done quickly and efficiently, and there was
no one to see but Jill and Fand. Jill did not understand, the heiress
of the Kings of Valkis understood too well.
People began to drift into the amphitheatre. Martians, coming to see
a show, coming to learn contempt and loathing for the men of Earth.
Winters watched them. He was still smiling.
Suddenly he turned to Jill. When he rose a few minutes later, scratched
and panting, she was securely bound with strips torn from the bonds of
Fand. This time she would not bathe so helplessly in the fire of Shanga.
The Martians gathered. Kor Hal came into the royal box, bringing the
old woman, who leaned on his arm.
The gong sounded.
V
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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