The Three Suns of Amara

didn’t attempt to hook you. Are you immune from their influence?”

Rosala bit her lip, and was silent for a moment.

Then she said, quietly, “At that time I was in no condition to be of use to them. I scarcely existed. I was a shadow.”

Sherret glanced at her sharply.

“Then I didn’t dream that part of it. I thought you were a ghost. You were transparent…”

He gripped her arm. It was as solid as his own.

“Yet now—” he began, but she clung suddenly to him, sobbing, “Sherry, don’t ever leave me. Please. Stay with me. Believe in me. Stay with me.”

He was surprised, but her intensity touched him. He put his arm about her and stroked her soft, bright hair. He wanted to reassure her, and the words which came automatically were tired old cliche.

“Don’t worry about it, darling. I love you. We’ll always be together after this.”

He meant it sincerely enough.

“But you said you had to go on—to Na-Abiza. You said you were Ulysses, and I was the enchantress, Circe, holding you here against your will…”

“Remember, dear, I was delirious. I didn’t know what I was saying.”

She looked up at him hopefully, with tear-wet eyes.

“Yes, you were ill,” she said, eagerly. “You kept having nightmares about the Melas tree, painting that awful picture in your mind. After this, we shall paint only lovely pictures, Sherry. We shall create such wonderful things. My mind has the power to change material things and remold them. And I can let your imagination join onto mine and work through my mind. Together we shall design and build and make our dreams reality. For you and I, we are artists.”

She emphasized the word, proudly. “Much of this work was created through the minds of men working in unison with mine,” she went on. “And the garden—”

“And you,” Sherret broke in, astonished. “I remolded you, in dreams, I thought. Are you telling me that actually happened?”

“I desired only that my appearance pleased you,” she murmured.

“And you will stay that way—you won’t fade into a ghost again?”

He felt her tremble.

“As long as you wish me here as I am, so long shall I be here.”

“Of all the mysterious things on Amara, you are the most mysterious, Rosala. Of course I wish you here, and just as you are. But does your existence depend only on my wish?”

She made no answer for a while, resting her head on his shoulder. Then, in a small and muffled voice, “Petrans do not believe in themselves, as persons. They think of themselves as mirrors, only reflecting the real people. They can exist only through the belief of the real people, the people who have faith. Then they seem real, even to themselves… and everything in the universe is only a seeming. Even you, Sherry. But you real people can live together, because you believe. We Petrans can’t—we can’t support each other by faith. If we try, we die to nothing. We sympathize with the Melas trees, because we are like them; we can survive only through the minds of others.” He held her protectively, but his mind was spinning.

These Amaran frames of reference, outside all of his experience, might end by driving him off his head. They had already caused him one breakdown. Only connect. Only adjust. But the group of associated memories and reflexes forming a personality called “Sherret” hadn’t been all that stable, to begin with. It was rent with conflicts. Under the continued stress of trying to comprehend the incomprehensible, it could well begin to break up, become schizophrenic. And “Sherret” would be no more than a loose group of nameless and aimless dreamers wandering in a fog of amnesia.

He said, “I need you, Rosala, quite as much as you need me.”

She gave a little sigh of happiness, then pressed her lips warmly to his. As they kissed, a fragment of conversation echoed somewhere in his memory.

“… Have you ever been to Na-Abiza?”