Down to a Sunless Sea

2 The Women

With dawn he woke to delicious odors and rose to find that the tall woman had arisen before him, and had heated the remnants of last night’s meal, pouring equal portions into three ceramic bowls she had found God-knows-where.

She and her plump “sister” squatted on their heels, wrapped in the clinging robes they had discovered in the saddlebags, wordlessly waiting for him to join them and to share the meagre meal.

It was a gesture of peace, he knew. He flashed them a hard grin and went to sit across from them, squatting as easily as did they. And they ate together, and “shared water.”

That little ritual was very important. There was water-truce between them now, he knew; neither would violate the unspoken truce unless he attempted to harm them, or tried to take them by force.

The ritual done, Brant addressed them, laying his hand upon his hard-muscled chest and speaking his name carefully.

The women frowned slightly at the odd name, but the tall one laid her long-fingered hand between her thrusting breasts and said in the ancient speech, “I am Zuarra; this is my ‘sister,’ Suoli.” Her speech had the tang of the Low Clans in it, he noticed. And again he wondered for what sin they had been staked out by their people to die, but knew better than to offend Custom by daring to ask.

He nodded, finished the last drop of his meal, then rose.

“Best that we get started,” he said gruffly. “We may have to dig ourselves out of here.”

The storm had passed overhead sometime during the night, and the dawn sky was clear. Fine dust squeaked and crunched grittily underfoot as they emerged onto the square and looked about them, grateful to be alive.

While he was saddling the loper, the taller woman approached him.

“Whither do you go, O Brant?” she inquired.

He shrugged good-humoredly. “Nowhere in particular, girl. Where do you want to go? I guess you will not be returning to the camps of your people?” It was really not intended as a question, nor did she take it for one.

“The Moon Hawk nation are our people no longer,” she said without inflection. Then, with a little cold smile that bared sharp teeth in an ugly grimace, she added: “Suoli, my ‘sister,’ says we should go to the city of the f’yagh, there to open our thighs to your kind for bread and meat.”

Brant said nothing, but grinned inwardly. The Earthsider colonist who tried to bed this wench would find a knife between his ribs before he got her thighs apart, he knew. But, after all, what else was there for the two women to do? It is hard enough for a man, even a warrior, to be aoudh—an outcast. It was even harder for a woman.

But he was not going back to the colony at Solis Lacus yet, not for another month, at least, and he said as much. And there was not another Earthsider colony in these southerly parts between here and the Pole.

Zuarra took the news stolidly.

“We will cook for you and clean for you and gather plants for water, and guard you while you sleep,” she said in her husky, deep-throated voice. “But we will not open our thighs for you, neither my ‘sister’ nor myself.”

Brant felt his temper rise at that cold, flat, level statement. He had been too long without a woman, and this one was damnably attractive in a lean, boyish sort of way. But he had his pride, too, and it was as fierce as was Zuarra’s.

“I have not asked you to,” he grated, meeting her eye to eye. “Nor shall I.”

“Then we understand each other, O Brant,” she said tonelessly. He nodded, and turned his back to finish saddling the reptile.

The last thing he needed was to have two helpless women on his hands, and women, too, that he could not go to bed with. But he clamped his lips over a growled curse. What could he do? He couldn’t just leave them here to die.

His had been a hard life, had Brant’s, since the courts sent him to Mars, to the penal colony at Trivium Charontis. Since working his way to freedom, he had run guns to the High Clan princes, and sold them liquor and forbidden tobacco, and peddled narcotics to the soft, timid Earthsider clerks and stenographers. He had killed a man more than once; he had cheated at cards; he had stolen.

But he had never treated a woman harshly or unjustly. It was not in him, for a certain rude chivalry flickered in his soul.

He would not betray the best that was within him now.

They rode east, into the Argyre, with the women taking turns in the saddle while he plodded along, leading the loper.

He had no way of knowing it, but he had already taken the first few steps toward the most fantastic adventure any man had ever lived… .

The sky above them was clear, grape-purple, with a few long, thin ribbons of pink cloud-vapor high and to the west. The sun was a small, dull, hard disc of yellow-white fire to the east.

They kept to the high country, to the top of the level rock plateau, with Suoli riding astride the loper, as she was the weakest of the three. Brant and Zuarra strode afoot, alternately leading the reptile by the loop of the reins.

After a time, the loose robe entangling her legs, making her stumble, she swore, removed the garment, and went forward naked. Brant dropped back behind her a little, admiring her long-legged, tireless stride and watching the roll of her firm buttocks as she led the way.

She was damnably desirable, and in the beauty of her nakedness she struck fire in his loins. But he neither said nor did aught to let her know it. He had enough trouble on his hands just then, without aggravating this tawny wildcat of a woman.

After some hours, they came to a deep, narrow ravine in the level tableland, where fat-leaved plants grew. These the women gathered for the pressure-still, while Brant clambered from ledge to ledge, hunting. Erelong, he found a fat, tangerine-colored reptile whose flesh he knew from experience to be edible, and slew it with a bolt from his power gun, the dial set to needle-beam.

While the women skinned and disemboweled the kill, Brant searched the Colonial Administration Survey charts he carried to seek some sort of haven against the bitter cold of night. They could not be lucky enough to find another dead city, he knew, and this was dangerous country. Predatory reptiles called rock dragons made their lairs in crevices such as these. Customarily, they hunted and fed on the same sort of plump, harmless lizards as the one Brant had just slain; but they were not averse to the taste of manflesh, either.

They rested for a time, and Brant fed more plant fiber to the loper, while the women cooked the steaks and chops they had trimmed from the carcass of the lizard in the portable cooker. That night they would feast, he knew.

He stood and watched them as they worked together, squatting on their heels, hands moving with practiced skill, and he wondered what their story might be.

It had not been for naught that two such women, young, each attractive in different ways, both of child-bearing age, had been staked out to die a slow, lingering death from thirst and starvation, he knew.

But he also knew better than to ask.

They rode on, as the distant sun declined in the west and the sky darkened to deep purple. Brant had found a haven on the Survey map, a mound of broken rocks believed to have been the burial mound of an ancient king, since it was obviously of artificial origin. When they reached it by late afternoon or early evening, he unpacked the small tents of heat-retaining plastic he had brought along for himself and the loper in case they rode into the polar wastes. One of these he set up for himself, the other for the women. The loper he tethered to a boulder, and fed the creature on the remainder of the fibre.

They shared the meal, seated on opposite sides of the fire. It was not wood they burned, of course, since Mars has nothing in the way of trees, but a colorless, aromatic oil in a flat pan. This fluid provided both warmth and light.

The fresh-cooked meat tasted good, after a diet of canned goods. The steaks were succulent and juicy and broiled to perfection. But when he complimented Zuarra on her culinary skills, she shot him a level, contemptuous glance and her mouth twisted sardonically, saying nothing. It was as if, by praising her skills as a woman, he had somehow insulted her.

Brant shrugged irritably, and devoured his meat. Let them have their secrets, he thought to himself.

The sky darkened and became ablaze with stars. These were bright, hard, unwinking, unlike the stars that shone in earthly skies, because the air of Mars is thin.

It became distinctly colder, and the women donned their borrowed robes.

Before long, they sought their tents, but not to sleep, as it chanced.

Brant tossed and turned in his bedroll. Although the long day’s journey had wearied him, his mind was too active for him to fall asleep easily.

After a time, feeling the need to relieve himself, he rose, unseamed the tent, and crawled out under the stars.

Seeking a crevice into which to urinate, he chanced to pass the tent wherein the women lay. And as he approached he heard odd sounds from within—whispers, moans, gasping sighs.

Curious, he peered through the transparent panel, and the sight that met his eyes made his mouth twist in a cold, wolfish grin. The nude limbs mingling, the hands searching, the wet mouths hungrily feasting, the warm bodies intertwined. …

Now he knew the crime for which the two had been staked out to die in such a cruel manner. The sin, rather: for to the High Law the love they shared was deemed unnatural and perverse.

Now he understood the peculiar emphasis which Zuarra placed on the word “sister.” He should have guessed it before, but had thought little of it. Well, returning to his tent, now at least he knew exactly why neither of the two wished to “open their thighs” to him.

Oddly enough, he fell asleep instantly, and slept a deep and dreamless sleep till dawn.