went back, climbed the corridor he had just come down and located Jask's body.
He knelt, fighting to maintain balance on that slippery floor, and checked the smaller man's pulse. It was faint but adequate, and fortunately not irregular. He tried slapping the unconscious man to wake him, shouted his name, and even poured a few drops of precious drinking water on Jask's face, all to no avail.
For a short moment he considered taking one of his power rifles and putting an end to the small man's troubles. If Jask were not only unconscious but comatose, there was little else he could do for him. Yet there was always the chance that Jask might revive and be able to go on…
Sighing, Tedesco took off his rucksack and let it slide, along with the rifles, to the bottom of the incline. Lifting Jask as if the man weighed as little as the lights that flickered in the walls, he carried him to the bottom of the corridor. Thereafter, for a grueling hour or more, he lugged Jask for several hundred yards at a time, put him gently down, went back to fetch supplies, alternating the two loads until he had brought everything out of the jewel formation and into the center of another precious pocket of open air, where two small pine trees fought for existence and where the grass, though a sickly yellow-brown, was at least soft and cool.
He lay Jask on the soiled cloak and wrapped the garment around him so that he would not catch a chill in the brisk evening air that wafted down from above.
He permitted himself a small drink from the wooden flask, rolled the water over his tongue as if he were savoring wine, swallowed, and carefully stoppered the container.
He looked at the pale-faced man in the cloak and wondered why he was going to so much trouble for him. He could as easily have turned the power rifle on him and eliminated the Jask Zinn problem altogether. Yet, even as he wondered about his motivations, he knew what they were. Despite his years of self-reliance, his ability to go it alone no matter what the situation, he now felt that he needed someone to face the Wildlands beside him — even if that someone were a worthless, skinny Pure. He had left his entire life behind him, his possessions and his future. What lay ahead was frightening: either sudden death or the stars. He did not want to go at either thing by himself. It was a weakness he despised the moment he recognized it, and he turned away from Jask.
He looked at the rapidly darkening sky where it was visible at the top of the encircling jewel walls, then lay back, his entire body shaking with fatigue, and went instantly to sleep.
When Tedesco woke seven hours later, dawn was still a long way off. The sky, directly overhead, was black, while the walls on both sides exploded with countless lights.
He sat up, turned to Jask Zinn, and found the small man watching him. “How long have you been awake?”
“Not long,” Jask croaked. He looked thinner and paler than ever.
“Hungry?”
Jask said, “No.”
“You've got to eat.”
“Later.”
Tedesco saw that he was shivering badly. When he put the leathery palm of his black hand against Jask's forehead, he found that his companion had a fever. He said, “I'll get you some water.”
Jask nodded.
Tedesco poured an inch of water into a wooden cup, raised Jask's head with one hand and tilted the cup to the parched lips.
Jask sucked weakly at the water, blinking with each swallow as if it pained him.
“Good?”
Jask nodded, tried to smile.
' 'Take some more,'' Tedesco urged, pouring another inch of water into the cup and offering it.
“Thanks.”
Jask's voice was as soft as a whisper, all but inaudible.
“Don't mention it.”
Jask began to swallow a bit more greedily than he had at first, but he suddenly choked as he took too much in at once and spat water over Tedesco's hand.
“Easy now!” the bruin said. He took the cup away from his companion's lips, held his head a little higher, and waited for the choking to stop.
It did not stop.
In a moment, as Jask's eyes rolled smoothly back into his head, the mutant realized that these were nothing so simple as choking noises, but convulsions. Jask was trying to swallow his tongue.
“Jask!”
The small man, frail as he was, rose up onto his head and heels until he was arched like a human bow. Blood trickled in a thin stream from the corner of his mouth, so dark it looked black and not red. He had already bitten into his tongue.
“No!” Tedesco shouted.
He grabbed Jask's head, levered his mouth wide open, and, sticking a single, fat finger between Jask's teeth, pressed down on the man's tongue and kept him from swallowing it and smothering himself.
In another minute the seizures passed, leaving Jask limp and unconscious. He looked very much like a small child, wrapped tightly in the cloak, his hair tousled, face slack, weak and defenseless but somehow curiously trusting.
Shaking, with fear and not fatigue now, Tedesco lowered Jask's head to the ground. In his rucksack he located a number of squares of cloth, dumped out the items they enfolded, and used them, with several fistfuls of the aapless grass, to make a reasonable pillow for his companion's head.
When that was done, he did not know what he should do next. He had no medicines, no herbs or roots from which to make drugs that might combat a high fever. He had intended to flee alone, before he had met Jask, and he was never ill.
For something to do, he rose and paced the length and breath of their roughly circular, roofless cell, searching the earthen floor for plants that he might recognize, healing plants that he could process into tonics and powders and syrups. He did not find anything useful.
He returned to Jask and saw that the smaller man was still unconscious and trembling uncontrollably. His teeth chattered, and his breath was drawn much too rapidly, as if each inhalation were predestined to be his last.
Tedesco poured water into the cup and tried to wake Jask.
But he would not be wakened.
“Damn it all!” Tedesco roared. His voice squeaked in response from the jeweled cliffs around him, cleansed, softened and made less forceful by the light.
He began to pace once more, and he was on the far side of the clearing, standing before a purple and orange sunburst in the wall, when he realized that Jask might have further convulsions while he was away and might die before anything could be done for him. He hurried back, his huge feet thumping the hard earth, and he sat down facing the recumbent man, studying him intently.
“You okay?”
Jask did not respond. At least his breathing was normal, and he was not choking on his tongue.
That was the longest night of Tedesco's life, all of it passing on the razored edge of anticipation.
Jask perspired, droplets beading on his chalky forehead so rapidly it seemed some magic trick must be employed. They coursed down his face, stained the cloak drawn under his chin. He soaked the cloth that bound him, turning it a darker color. Tedesco watched, afraid to unwrap him lest he get a chill from the night air.
Time passed in series of colors.
Jask took to shivering, his teeth chattering audibly in the still night, his breath jerky and shallow. The droplets of sweat ceased to pop out on his head, and he felt cold and nearly dead. Tedesco, helpless, could do nothing then but lift him and hold him, like a mother might hold a child, share bodily warmth, murmur to him… and hope.
Perspiring, chilled, perspiring and chilled again. From one extreme to the other, Jask passed the hollow night.
An hour before the first light of the new morning Jask suffered another series of convulsions, not so bad as
