"Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Hunters of the Red Moon - 1973" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bradley Marion Zimmer)

"Just another prisoner," he said. "My name's Dane Marsh. We'll get acquainted when you're stronger. And your name is-"

"Dallith," she whispered, and abruptly dropped into sleep again, as completely withdrawn from him as if she were dead.

Dane stood for a few more moments watching her, then straightened, reclaiming what was left of the food tray and laying it on a piece of furniture.

Dallith. How lovely, and how it suited her delicate face and wild-creature eyes. For the moment it was enough to know that she lived, that she had _chosen to live. He turned away, seeing that the other prisoners had broken up into separate groups; but Rianna was still watching him. As he came away she said with a deep bitterness, "You fool! What have you done?"

Dane said, "I think she'll live. It only needed someone to care whether she did or not. Any of you could have done it."

Rianna said with inexpressible wrath, "How could you do that to her? After she had given up, to wake her again to hope-and suffering-oh, you meddlesome _fool!"

Dane said, "It's not in me, to sit and let anyone die. While there's life, there's hope. _You're alive, aren't you? And by choice?"

She only sighed and turned away from him. She said, not looking back, "I only hope you never know what you've done."



CHAPTER



THREE

There was no way to measure time, in the Mekhar slave ship, except by meal-periods and by the periods when the ship, or at least the slave quarters, were darkened for sleep. Nevertheless Dane Marsh estimated afterward that some three weeks, by his own reckoning, passed without any major incident.

The main event of this time, by his own awareness, was the slow return of Dallith from willful death to life. She slept, that time, for some hours, and when she woke Dane fed her again. The next time he encouraged her to sit up for a few minutes and, when she was able to stand and move around, he asked Rianna to help her to the bathing quarters set apart for the females in their section. He had made the request with some qualms-after all, Rianna had expected, almost wanted the girl to lie there and die, and he had halfway foreseen that she would refuse to involve herself at all-but to his surprise she agreed and thereafter she took over a good part of Dallith's daily care, with an almost motherly concern. Dane didn't try to understand it, but he accepted it gratefully.

For a long time Dallith was not strong enough to talk much, and he did not press her. He was content to sit by her side and let her hold his hand . . . almost, he thought, as if in some way he could give her some of his own strength and vitality. But she was growing in strength daily, and one day she smiled at him and asked about him.

"And you're from a world none of us have ever heard of. Strange, that they should risk so much to come there. Or perhaps not, if all your people are as strong as yourself."

He shrugged. "I've spent most of my life hunting new adventures. This is just a little more bizarre than most, that's all. I got hooked early on the idea that nobody would willingly pass up any kind of experience that was-what do they say-neither illegal, immoral, nor fattening."

She laughed a little. Her laugh was enchanting, as if all the gaiety in the world dwelt within her voice. "Are all your people like that?"

"No, I guess not A lot of them settle down early and never do anything. But the adventurer strain keeps coming back. I guess it's a pretty durable part of our makeup." He remembered then that Rianna had told him that Dallith's people invariably died, away from their home world, and bit his lip to keep from asking questions about that But as if she followed his thoughts, a shadow passed over her face. Her sadness seemed as all-pervasive as her gaiety, as if her small slight body held room for only one emotion at a time and it wholly possessed her. She said, "I only hope your strength and bravery don't mean that the Mekhars have some especially fearful fate planned for you."

"All I can do is wait and see what happens," he said, "but like I told you, while there's life, there's hope."

The shadow lay deep on her. She said, "I could not imagine, could not even dream, of hope or anything good ahead, away from my world and my people." Her voice was desolate. "Oh, others have left our world, but with some purpose, and never-never alone."

Dane said, "It's like a miracle that you came back. But it's a miracle I still can't completely understand."

She said simply, "You reached me. I felt your strength, and your will to live, so that I could believe in life again. It was that which fed me ... your own hope and your belief in life ahead as well as behind. And with so much will to live, there was no room in me for death, and so death took his hand away from me and I began to live again. The rest was"-a small disinterested shrug-"only mechanics. The important thing was that you still believed in life, and you could share your belief with me."

He clasped her small hand in his. The fingers were as soft as if they were boneless, completely pliant, molded to his. "Come, Dallith, are you trying to tell me that you read my mind, or my emotions, or something?"

"Of course," she said, surprised. "What else?"