“Visionary.”
“We mean to move toward it step by strictly practical step. If we’re given the chance.”
“ ‘Bold,’ I should’ve said.” Hebo smiled into her eyes. “Except that’s too weak a word. A scheme bound to appeal to one like you, Lissa.” His gaze dropped. “Could I think about it for a while?”
“I was wishing you would,” she answered softly.
The silence that fell beneath a rising wind grew more and more companionable.
Finally Orichalc stirred, making as if to move from between them. Lissa had been feeling renewed warmth in the smooth, muscular body. “I think we can let go of you,” she told him. “But you stay under covers for now, hear me?”
She slipped forth, bounded to her feet, and hastily dressed. Hebo followed suit. They were careful about keeping back to back till they were done.
Thereupon she said, “Our patient’s out of danger, I suppose. But you must have noticed how cut and bruised he is—thorns, rocks—and probably still weakened, in poor shape to travel cross country. Can we do an airlift?”
He frowned. “You’d better stay with him while I fetch the flyer. Whether a safe landing is possible hereabouts, I don’t know. If not, I can try hovering and lowering a stirrup cable, though that might be tricky in this weather. Let me look around for a more promising spot close by.”
The wind had strengthened as the air warmed. It boomed, slewed about, shook boughs, sent dust devils awhirl. He’s right, Lissa thought.
His tall form zigzagged away from her, stopping to examine outcrops and dig bootheel into gravel, till he reached the ledge above the canyon. She saw him glance at his bracelet, and well-nigh read his mind. Guided by the radio beacon, he could make most of his return distance on that bare strip instead of struggling through the brush. A new smile tugged at her lips.
The rock broke beneath his feet. He flailed his arms, then pitched downward out of sight.
XXXIX
Lissa screamed and bounded forward. Orichalc sibilated an alarm behind her. Whoa! she told herself amidst the hammers in her pulse. No use two of us going over. If the stone betrayed him, how easily it could fool me.
Slowed to a gliding walk, she sought Hebo’s footprints and took that exact route until it approached the verge. There she hunkered down, peered at the rock and rubble ahead, piecemeal made sure of where it had crumbled and where it might crumble and where it seemed reasonably safe. Cracks meant water seepage, which occasionally
Prone, she thrust her head over the edge and squinted. Talus littered a slant into remote mistful depths. Hebo sprawled on its darkness, come to precarious rest after sliding some four meters. His face, turned skyward, was smeared with blood, and he did not stir; but the brilliant red stream out of his right thigh showed a heart still beating.
A sharp edge cut a major vessel, she knew. He’s exsanguinating. If he doesn’t get help fast, he’s dead. Eternally. We couldn’t bring him to revival before the cerebrum cells that make him human decayed beyond restoration.
Pebbles gritted under clawed feet. She felt Orichalc plucking the trans out of her pack. “You should have stayed,” she answered automatically.
“One can summon up one’s ultimate reserves when one must,” the Susaian replied. “I believe I can assist you to recover our comrade.”
“Our” comrade, she noticed. The thought flickered past and was gone. She weighed her chances. Did Orichalc overestimate his own strength? Maybe so, but if she took care, then she needn’t perish, though Hebo certainly would. Trapped on an unclimbable hillside, she could nevertheless call Forholt by radio satellite, and a rescue party would arrive. Unless, of course, her efforts triggered a slide. Then she’d lie chopped to flitches, smashed to pulp, buried beyond finding.
No time for worries. Glancing about, she saw the bush Orichalc plainly was counting on. It grew within centimeters of the edge, but inspection showed thick roots that must go deep, and above them a bonsai twisting that decades or centuries of wind must have wrought. Probably it could withstand a few hundred kilos’ worth of stress.
A dash back to fetch cords or straps would take too long. Cutting a stick, she put it between her teeth. She pulled off her shirt, slashed it in two, knotted the halves together at the bottoms and one sleeve around Orichalc’s neck. The other sleeve she took in her hand, with a bight to secure her grip. Orichalc curled his tail around the lower stem of the bush. Lissa sat down and went over the side on her rear end.
Shards rattled, slid, slashed at pants and boots. The Susaian strained backward, easing her descent, paying out his length bit by bit until at last he was stretched taut. The scree must be cruelly painful against skin, but she heard no murmur.
At the end of her line she lay side by side with Hebo. She dared not kneel, but by cautious use of palm and elbow she could support herself well enough to work on him. Her sheath knife slid forth again. Best single tool the mind of man has yet hit on, she thought, not for the first time. She ripped the trouser leg, exposed the wound, cut a cloth strip, made a tourniquet with the stick and tightened it. The lethal flow ceased.
Sweat beaded his face under the blood, he felt clammy and his breathing was shallow, yes, he was in shock. Got to get him upstairs quick. Slip her improvised hawser under his back, below the arms, and secure it. “All right, Orichalc, haul away!”
Could he? If not, she’d yell for help and try to keep Hebo alive where they were. Whether she could or not was a crapshoot. It was just about as uncertain whether his weight, as he was drawn higher, would start a rockslip fatal to her.
Somehow it didn’t. Somehow, from somewhere, Orichalc got the power to haul him aloft, undo the line and cast it down, raise her in turn. She went backside under, keeping her bare torso above the flinders that would have lacerated it. The tough material of her trousers didn’t give way, but she’d be seating herself gingerly for the next couple of days.
Pulled to the ledge, she lay briefly, heaving air in and out of her lungs, before she clambered to her feet. Orichalc was almost as limp as Hebo. “I can drag him the rest of the way by myself,” she mumbled. “Can you make it? You’ve got to.”
“I… can… since you… wish—” her friend whispered. “And then?”
“Why, then—” Laughter shrilled. “We apply naked bodies to him, you and I.”
Once between the covers, both humans unclad and Orichalc on his other side, Lissa sent her message. A voice from Forholt Station sounded faint but crisp out of the bracelet: “We’ll dispatch our ambulance immediately. It should reach you in about an hour. Can you manage that long?”
“I’d better, hadn’t I?” she retorted.
She could not simply lie waiting by the man. From time to time she must tend him, massage, loosen the tourniquet and tighten it anew. The blood that ran out made a gluey mess, but some went into the injured limb to keep the flesh alive. Of course, if gangrene set in, a surgeon could amputate, and at a clinic on Asborg they could regenerate what was lost. However, she didn’t want him subjected to that.
Strong and healthy, he responded well. Before the medics appeared, his eyes fluttered open to hers.
Lissa must needs admire the adroitness of the rescuers. The ambulance hovered high and lowered a platform which had thrusters to stabilize it against the wind. A paramedic started work on Hebo while they lifted him. “You did fine, milady,” he said. “This shot’s the only added thing he needs to put him out of danger. Thanks. We’re pretty fond of the old man.”
Aboard the vehicle it was possible to wash, receive treatment for injuries, and don fresh clothes. Lissa hadn’t minded the masculine looks she received—to the extent that she noticed them—but how good to settle down warmly swaddled and fall asleep by Orichalc.
Neither woke till they landed at Forholt. The director greeted them courteously and offered overnight accomodations, that they be well rested before they were flown back to their base. They accepted, and emerged
