Without looking at him, Lee got to his feet and paced the confines of the cave, back and forth. Absently, he kept knotting and feeling the muscles of his arms, as though to reassure himself of his strength.
Then he stopped, looked down at Sherret, and said, “Pride tells me to face this thing alone. Instinct tells me that to do so courts destruction. Wisdom tells me that to have a friend at my side invites success.”
“Let us be friends, then,” said Sherret, extending a hand. Lee took it. “Until the slow burn eats its tail.”
“I’ve heard that expression before. What does it mean?”
Lee laughed, and squatted beside Sherret. He was plainly much relieved, relaxed, even happy since his decision.
He said, “It means, figuratively, until the end of the world. Maybe it could mean it in truth, too—we don’t really know. It’s some kind of fire eating its way around the globe, like a malignant ulcer. It travels hardly faster than a glacier, but it never ceases to progress—in a mathematically straight line. It started somewhere in the barbarian lands and so far it remains there. In fact, I believe it passes through this very mountain range.”
“Can’t you do anything to stop it?”
Lee hunched his shoulders. “My people might attempt to when it reaches their hemisphere. More likely, they’ll continue to talk about it. It may be only a surface phenomenon. On the other hand, it may run very deep and actually be severing the planet—though I doubt that. But some barbarians believe that when at last it completes its circle around the globe, meets itself and begins to ‘eat its tail,’ then Amara will fall apart in two halves. Like a cut fruit. Which reminds me—are you hungry?”
“Not very. But it would be advisable to get some food inside us before we start out. A fully belly increases confidence.”
Lee laughed again. “You’re right. I have a reasonable larder.”
While Lee prepared a meal, Sherret stood at the cave mouth looking down the pass. In the far distance, crouched between the feet of the steep mountain slopes, was a small settlement of some kind. Houses? Huts? He couldn’t discern details; the blue light was deepening and visibility was poor.
For some time he watched. Lee joined him, and said, “In brighter light you can see them walking about. They look human enough, and there seems to be very few of them. And yet I find—inevitably—after I’ve been watching them for a while I begin to shake with dread. Dread of I don’t know what. And then I can’t look any more.”
Sherret felt a cold little shiver pass through him.
“Think I’ve got the shakes coming on myself,” he said, and turned back into the cave. “Let’s eat.”
Over the meal, they talked again, and the feeling of warmth between them grew. It was almost as if they were reunited childhood friends.
In time, Rosala came under discussion.
“She’s a handful that can become more than a handful,” said Lee, with a grin.
“But, by heaven, can she love!”
The puritan in Sherret stirred restlessly as Lee went into intimate reminiscences.
“… after that, I don’t believe we eased up all through the yellow time,” ended Lee with a chuckle.
Sherret laughed awkwardly. “She’s just as voluptuous now, I can assure you. But you might be a bit disappointed when you see her as I’ve left her. Your tastes and mine differ a little. Not all that much, but—well, be prepared.”
“I’ll soon get her back into shape,” smiled Lee. “There, you see, I’ve got my confidence back. Maybe I’ll be able to do something for Rosala’s confidence. You know, she’s not by nature a hell-cat. She only gets that way when she feels her man may leave her. It’s just plain insecurity. It must be murder on the nerves to know your very life depends from day to day on the whims and moods of another person.”
Sherret said slowly, “I’m pretty dumb. Yes, of course that’s the root of it, and I never tumbled to it. She gets as mad and emotionally upset as a little kid whose mother keeps abandoning it. The crises must become more acute with repetition. Hell, why did I have to do that to her—yet again?”
Lee said, “Don’t forget, I did it, too. But I’ll make it up to her—for both of us.”
Sherret felt a stab of pain, the sense of irretrievable loss. He felt he would start yelling if he dwelt too long on thoughts about Rosala. He swung the conversation back to an earlier topic, the ethical beliefs of Lee’s people, and then began an exposition of Goffism and Reparism.
