The Seeds of Time

What they talked about he could never afterwards remember. He could only recall the sight of her. Her expression, the depth of her dark eyes, the gentle movements of her mouth, the way the sun shone on her skin as though there were a mist over polished copper, the lovely line of her breasts, the slim feet in the sand beneath the brightly patterned skirt. There were a host of things he had never noticed before; the modelling of her ears, the way her hair grew, and the ingenuity of coils which could be held firmly on top of her head by the three silver pins, the slenderness of her hands and fingers, the pearled translucence of her teeth, and on through a catalogue of wonders hitherto incredibly unobserved.

It was a day of which Bert recalled very little else but that there seemed to be sections of him being torn slowly and painfully apart, yet still so close that sometimes he looked out from one section, and sometimes from the other. He would see himself in his boat, sliding along the endless canals in the sunlight with vastnesses of desert stretching out on either side, sitting out the sudden dust storms in his small cabin where the throat-drying sand managed still to penetrate every ingenuity, and then going on as usual to do tinker’s work at the next inhabited area. That was the life he had got used to, and life he had chosen-he could go on with it as before and forget Zaylo-yet he knew it would not be quite as before because it was not going to be easy to forget her. There were pictures which he would not be able to leave behind; Zaylo smiling as she played with her sister’s babies, Zaylo walking, sitting, standing; Zaylo herself.

There were dreams rising inadvertent and beneath his guard, imaginings which swam into his mind in spite of his intention to keep them out; the warmth of Zaylo lying beside him, the light weight of her on his arm, the firmness, the lovely colour of her, the relaxation there would be in having a place to lay one’s heart, and a hand to cherish it. It all hurt like a hardened dressing drawing from a wound.

After the evening meal he went away from the rest, and hid himself in his boat. Looking across the table at her it had seemed to him that she saw all that was going on inside him, and knew more about it than he did himself. She made no gesture, no sign, but she was aware of everything with a calmness somehow alarming. He did not know whether he hoped or feared that she might follow him to the boat-but she did not come.

The sun set while he sat, unconscious that he had begun to shiver with the chill of the Martian night. After a time he moved stiffly, and roused himself. He paddled through the few inches of water and climbed the bank. Phobos was shedding a dim light across the fields and the arid land beyond. The ruined tower was a misshapen black shadow.

Bert stood looking out into the great darkness where his home had been. Mars was a trap to hold him alive, but he would not let it pet and tame him. He was not to be wheedled by softness from the harsh grudge he owed providence. His allegiance was to Earth, the things of Earth, the memory of Earth. It would have been better to have died when the mountains and oceans of Earth were burst open; to have become one more mote among the millions memorially circling in the dark. Existence now was not life to be lived; it was a token of protest against the ways of fate.

He peered long into the sky hoping to see one of the asteroids which once was some corner of the loved, maternal Earth: perhaps, among the myriad points that shone, he did. A wave of desolation swept through him; a hungry abyss of loneliness opened inside him. Bert raised his clenched fists high above his head. He shook them at the uncaring stars, and cursed them while the tears ran down his cheeks.

As the far-off chugging of the engine faded slowly into silence there was only the clinking of the tinker bells to disturb the night. Zaylo looked at her mother with misty eyes.

‘He has gone,’ she whispered, forlornly.

Annika took her hand, and pressed it comfortingly: ‘He is strong, but strength comes from life-he cannot be stronger than life. He will be back soon-quite soon, I think.’

She put up her hand and stroked her daughter’s hair. After a pause she added: ‘When he comes, my Zaylo, be gentle with him. These Earthmen have big bodies, but inside them there are lost children.’