"Whatever he wished," said Jarry.

That day, they cruised over Deadland in the flier, but the only signsof life they saw were each other. They continued to search in the days thatfollowed, but they did not meet with success.

Under the purple of morning, however, two weeks later, it happened.

"They've been here," said Sanza.

Jarry moved to the front of the installation and stared out.

The snow was broken in several places, inscribed with the lines he hadseen before, about the form of a small, dead beast.

"They can't have gone very far," he said.

"No."

"We'll search in the sled."

Now over the snow and out, across the land called Dead they went, Sanzadriving and Jarry peering at the lines of footmarks in the blue.

They cruised through the occurring morning, hinting of fire and violet,and the wind went past them like a river, and all about them there camesounds like the cracking of ice, the trembling of tin, the snapping of steelstrands. The bluefrosted stones stood like frozen music, and the long shadowof their sled, black as ink, raced on ahead of them. A shower of hailstonesdrumming upon the roof of their vehicle like a sudden visitation of demondancers, as suddenly was gone. Deadland sloped downward, slanted up again.

Jarry placed his hand upon Sanza's shoulder.

"Ahead!"

She nodded, began to brake the sled.

They had it at bay.

They were using clubs and long poles which looked to have fire-hardenedpoints. They threw stones. They threw pieces of ice.

Then they backed away and it killed them as they went.

The Catforms had called it a bear because it was big and shaggy andcould rise up onto its hind legs...

This one was about three and a half meters in length, was covered withbluish fur and had a thin, hairless snout like the business end of a pair ofpliers.

Five of the little creatures lay still in the snow. Each time that itswung a paw and connected, another one fell.

Jarry removed the pistol from its compartment and checked the charge.

"Cruise by slowly," he told her. "I'm going to try to burn it about thehead."

His first shot missed, scoring the boulder at its back. His secondsinged the fur of its neck. He leapt down from the sled then, as they cameabreast of the beast, thumbed the power control up to maximum, and fired theentire charge into its breast, point-blank.

The bear stiffened, swayed, fell, a gaping wound upon it, front toback.

Jarry turned and regarded the little creatures. They stared up at him.

"Hello," he said. "My name is Jarry. I dub thee Redforms--"

He was knocked from his feet by a blow from behind.

He rolled across the snow, lights dancing before his eyes, his left armand shoulder afire with pain.

A second bear had emerged from the forest of stone.

He drew his long hunting knife with his right hand and climbed back tohis feet.

As the creature lunged, he moved with the catspeed of his kind,thrusting upward, burying his knife to the hilt in its throat.

A shudder ran through it, but if cuffed him and he fell once again, theblade torn from his grasp.

The Redforms threw more stones, rushed toward it with their pointedsticks.

Then there was a thud and a crunching sound, and it rose up into theair and came down on top of him.

He awakened.

He lay on his back, hurting, and everything he looked at seemed to bepulsing, as if about to explode.

How much time had passed, he did not know.

Either he or the bear had been moved.

The little creatures crouched, waiting.

Some watched the bear. Some watched him.

Some watched the broken sled...

The broken sled...

He struggled to his feet.

The Redforms drew back.

He crossed to the sled and looked inside.

He knew she was dead when he saw the angle of her neck. But he did allthe things a person does to be sure, anyway, before he would let himselfbelieve it.

She had delivered the deathblow, crashing the sled into the creature,breaking its back. It had broken the sled. Herself, also.

He leaned against the wreckage, composed his first prayer, then removedher body.

The Redforms watched.

He lifted her in his arms and began walking, back toward theinstallation, across Deadland.

The Redforms continued to watch as he went, except for the one with thestrangely high brow-ridge, who studied instead the knife that protruded fromthe shaggy and steaming throat of the beast.

Jarry asked the awakened executives of December: "What should we do?"

"She is the first of our race to die on this world," said Yan Turl,Vice President.

"There is no tradition," said Selda Kein, Secretary. "Shall weestablish one?"

"I don't know," said Jarry. "I don't know what is right to do."

"Burial or cremation seem to be the main choices. Which would youprefer?"

"I don't--No, not the ground. Give her back to me. Give me a largeflier...I'll burn her."

"Then let us construct a chapel."

"No. It is a thing I must do in my own way. I'd rather do it alone."

"As you wish. Draw what equipment you will need, and be about it."

"Please send someone else to keep the Deadland installation. I wish tosleep again when I have finished this thing--until the next cycle."

"Very well, Jarry. We are sorry."

"Yes--we are."

Jarry nodded, gestured, turned, departed.

Thus are the heavier lines of life sometimes drawn.

At the southeastern edge of Deadland there was a blue mountain. Itstood to slightly over three thousand meters in height. When approached fromthe northwest, it gave the appearance of being a frozen wave in a sea toovast to imagine. Purple clouds rent themselves upon its peak. No livingthing was to be found on its slopes. It had no name, save that which JarryDark gave it.

He anchored the flier.

He carried her body to the highest point to which a body might becarried.

He placed her there, dressed in her finest garments, a wide scarfconcealing the angle of her neck, a dark veil covering her emptied features.

He was about to try a prayer when the hail began to fall. Like thrownrocks, the chunks of blue ice came down upon him, upon her.

"God damn you!" he cried and he raced back to the flier.

He climbed into the air, circled.

Her garments were flapping in the wind. The hail was a blue, beadedcurtain that separated them from all but these final caresses: fire aflowfrom ice to ice, from clay aflow immortally through guns.

He squeezed the trigger and a doorway into the sun opened in the sideof the mountain that had been nameless. She vanished within it, and hewidened the doorway until he had lowered the mountain.

Then he climbed upward into the cloud, attacking the storm until hisguns were empty.

He circled then above the molten mesa, there at the southeastern edgeof Deadland.

He circled above the first pyre this world had seen.

Then he departed, to sleep for a season in silence the sleep of ice andstone, to inherit the Alyonal. There is no dreaming in that sleep.

Fifteen centuries. Almost half the Wait. Two hundred words orless....Picture--

...Nineteen mighty rivers flowing, but the black seas rippling violetnow.

...No shallow iodine-colored forests. Mighty shag-barked barrel treesinstead, orange and lime and black and tall across the land.

...Great ranges of mountains in the place of hills brown, yellow,white, lavender. Black corkscrews of smoke unwinding from smoldering cones.

...Flowers, whose roots explore the soil twenty meters beneath theirmustard petals, unfolded amidst the blue frost and the stones.