Permafrost Read online

  He thinks of the shadows. She couldn't have moved just then. ... He stops and studies her face. It is not frozen. It is puckered and sagging as if waterlogged. A caricature of the face he had so often touched. He grimaces and looks away. The leg must be freed. He reaches for his axe.

  Before he can take hold of the tool he sees movement of the hand, slow and shaking. It is accompanied by a throaty sigh.

  "No ... ," he whispers, drawing back.

  "Yes," comes the reply.

  "Glenda."

  "I am here." Her head turns slowly. Reddened, watery eyes focus upon his own. "I have been waiting."

  "This is insane."

  The movement of the face is horrible. It takes him some time to realize that it is a smile.

  "I knew that one day you would return."

  "How?" he says. "How have you lasted?"

  "The body is nothing," she replies. "I had all but forgotten it. I live within the permafrost of this world. My buried foot was in contact with its filaments. It was alive, but it possessed no consciousness until we met. I live everywhere now."

  "I am—happy—that you—survived."

  She laughs slowly, dryly.

  "Really, Paul? How could that be when you left me to die?"

  "I had no choice, Glenda. I couldn't save you."

  "There was an opportunity. You preferred the stones to my life."

  "That's not true!"

  "You didn't even try." The arms are moving again, less jerkily now. "You didn't even come back to recover my body."

  "What would have been the use? You were dead—or I thought you were."

  "Exactly. You didn't know, but you ran out anyway. I loved you, Paul. I would have done anything for you."

  "I cared about you, too, Glenda. I would have helped you if I could have. If—"

  "If? Don't if me ifs. I know what you are."

  "I loved you," Paul says. "I'm sorry."

  "You loved me? You never said it."

  "It's not the sort of thing I talk about easily. Or think about, even."

  "Show me," she says. "Come here."

  He looks away. "I can't."

  She laughs. "You said you loved me."

  "You—you don't know how you look. I'm sorry."

  "You fool!" Her voice grows hard, imperious. "Had you done it I would have spared your life. It would have shown me that some tiny drop of affection might truly have existed. But you lied. You only used me. You didn't care."

  "You're being unfair!"

  "Am I? Am I really?" she says. There comes a sound like running water from somewhere nearby. "You would speak to me of fairness? I have hated you, Paul, for nearly a century. Whenever I took a moment from regulating the life of this planet to think about it, I would curse you. In the spring as I shifted my consciousness toward the poles and allowed a part of myself to dream, my nightmares were of you. They actually upset the ecology somewhat, here and there. I have waited, and now you are here. I see nothing to redeem you. I shall use you as you used me—to your destruction. Come to me!"

  He feels a force enter into his body. His muscles twitch. He is drawn up to his knees. Held in that position for long moments, then he beholds her as she also rises, drawing a soaking leg from out of the crevice where it had been held. He had heard the running water. She had somehow melted the ice... .

  She smiles and raises her pasty hands. Multitudes of dark filaments extend from her freed leg down into the crevice.

  "Come!" she repeats.

  "Please ..." he says.

  She shakes her head. "Once you were so ardent. I cannot understand you."

  "If you're going to kill me then kill me, damn it! But don't—"

  Her features begin to flow. Her hands darken and grow firm. In moments she stands before him looking as she did a century ago.

  "Glenda!" He rises to his feet.

  "Yes. Come now."

  He takes a step forward. Another.

  Shortly, he holds her in his arms, leans to kiss her smiling face.

  "You forgive me ..." he says.

  Her face collapses as he kisses her. Corpselike, flaccid, and pale once more, it is pressed against his own.

  "No!"

  He attempts to draw back, but her embrace is inhumanly strong.

  "Now is not the time to stop," she says.

  "Bitch! Let me go! I hate you!"

  "I know that, Paul. Hate is the only thing we have in common."

  "... Always hated you," he continues, still struggling. "You always were a bitch!"

  Then he feels the cold lines of control enter his body again.

  "The greater my pleasure then," she replies, as his hands drift forward to open her parka.

  ALL OF THE ABOVE. Dorothy struggles down the icy slope, her sled parked beside Paul's. The winds lash at her, driving crystals of ice like microbullets against her struggling form. Overhead, the clouds have closed again. A curtain of white is drifting slowly in her direction.

  "It waited for him," comes Aldon's voice, above the screech of the wind.

  "Yes. Is this going to be a bad one?"

  "A lot depends on the winds. You should get to shelter soon, though."

  "I see a cave. I wonder whether that's the one Paul was looking for?"

  "If I had to guess I'd say yes. But right now it doesn't matter. Get there."

  When she finally reaches the entrance she is trembling. Several paces within she leans her back against the icy wall, panting. Then the wind changes direction and reaches her. She retreats farther into the cave.

  She hears a voice: "Please ... don't."

  "Paul?" she calls.

  There is no reply. She hurries.

  She puts out a hand and saves herself from falling as she comes into the chamber. There she beholds Paul in necrophiliac embrace with his captor.

  "Paul! What is it?" she cries.

  "Get out!" he says. "Hurry!"

  Glenda's lips form the words. "What devotion. Rather, let her stay, if you would live."

  Paul feels her clasp loosen slightly.

  "What do you mean?" he asks.

  "You may have your life if you will take me away—in her body. Be with me as before."

  It is Aldon's voice that answers "No!" in reply. "You can't have her, Gaia!"

  "Call me Glenda. I know you, Andrew Aldon. Many times have I listened to your broadcasts. Occasionally have I struggled against you when our projects were at odds. What is this woman to you?"

  "She is under my protection."

  "That means nothing. I am stronger here. Do you love her?"

  "Perhaps I do. Or could."

  "Fascinating. My nemesis of all these years, with the analog of a human heart within your circuits. But the decision is Paul's. Give her to me if you would live."

  The cold rushes into his limbs. His life seems to contract to the center of his being. His consciousness begins to fade.

  "Take her," he whispers.

  "I forbid it!" rings Aldon's voice.

  "You have shown me again what kind of man you are," Glenda hisses, "my enemy. Scorn and undying hatred are all I will ever have for you. Yet you shall live."

  "I will destroy you," Aldon calls out, "if you do this thing!"

  "What a battle that would be!" Glenda replies. "But I've no quarrel with you here. Nor will I grant you one with me. Receive my judgment."

  Paul begins to scream. Abruptly this ceases. Glenda releases him, and he turns to stare at Dorothy. He steps in her direction.

  "Don't—don't do it, Paul. Please."

  "I am—not Paul," he replies, his voice deeper, "and I would never hurt you... ."

  "Go now," says Glenda. "The weather will turn again, in your favor."

  "I don't understand," Dorothy says, staring at the man before her.

  "It is not necessary that you do," says Glenda. "Leave this planet quickly."

  Paul's screaming commences once again, this time emerging from Dorothy's bracelet.

  "I will trouble you f
or that bauble you wear, however. Something about it appeals to me."

  FROZEN LEOPARD. He has tried on numerous occasions to relocate the cave, with his eyes in the sky and his robots and flyers, but the topography of the place was radically altered by a severe icequake, and he has met with no success. Periodically he bombards the general area. He also sends thermite cubes melting their ways down through the ice and the permafrost, but this has had no discernible effect.

  This is the worst winter in the history of Balfrost. The winds howl constantly and waves of snow come on like surf. The glaciers have set speed records in their advance upon Playpoint. But he has held his own against them, with electricity, lasers, and chemicals. His supplies are virtually inexhaustible now, drawn from the planet itself, produced in his underground factories. He has also designed and is manufacturing more sophisticated weapons. Occasionally he hears her laughter over the missing communicator. "Bitch!" he broadcasts then. "Bastard!" comes the reply. He sends another missile into the mountains. A sheet of ice falls upon his city. It will be a long winter.

  Andrew Aldon and Dorothy are gone. He has taken up painting, and she writes poetry now. They live in a warm place.

  Sometimes Paul laughs over the broadcast band when he scores a victory. "Bastard!" comes the immediate response. "Bitch!" he answers, chuckling. He is never bored, however, or nervous. In fact, let it be.

  When spring comes the goddess will dream of this conflict while Paul turns his attention to his more immediate duties. But he will be planning and remembering, also. His life has a purpose to it now. And if anything, he is more efficient than Aldon. But the pods will bloom and burst despite his herbicides and fungicides. They will mutate just sufficiently to render the poisons innocuous.

  "Bastard," she will mutter sleepily.

  "Bitch," he will answer softly.

  The night may have a thousand eyes and the day but one. The heart, often, is better blind to its own workings, and I would sing of arms and the man and the wrath of the goddess, not the torment of love unsatisfied, or satisfied, in the frozen garden of our frozen world. And that, leopard, is all.

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  Document ID: d8818c4f-6c20-1014-b9e0-c74e1d5528fe

  Document version: 1

  Document creation date: 12.06.2008

  Created using: Text2FB2 software

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  traum

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