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.He would restrain her somehow, drag her back to Baudelaire and then to Earth.‘When do you set out on this.this expedition?’ he asked.‘Tomorrow, or maybe the day after.’ There was defiance in her tone.‘Then you’ll return.?’ He could not bring himself to say, ‘to me?’ Instead he said, ‘You’ll rejoin the Fleet?’She glanced at him, seemed to be searching for the words with which to explain herself.‘Hans.I joined the Fleet believing that through science we might do something to stabilise these novae.Over the years, I’ve come to realise that nothing can be done.’ She frowned.‘I can’t go back, rejoin the Fleet.’ She hesitated, seemed to want to go on, but instead just shook her head in frustration.She turned her back on him and slept.Her words echoing in his head, Cramer drank himself unconscious.He was awoken by a sound, perhaps hours later.He oriented himself and reached out for Francesca, but she was gone.He gathered his wits, peered from the tent.Across the clearing he made out Francesca’s short figure next to the tall form of the Abbot.They were shouldering their packs, their movements careful so as not to wake him.Cramer felt the smouldering pain of betrayal in his gut.From his pack he drew his laser and slipped from the tent.As he moved around the clearing, keeping to the shadows, he was formulating a plan.He would stun both Francesca and the Abbot, then flee with her back to the port and take the first ship home.The girl was not in her right mind, could not be held responsible for her actions.Francesca saw him coming.She stared at him, wide-eyed.Dry of throat, Cramer said, ‘You were leaving me!’‘Do not try to stop us,’ the Abbot warned.Francesca cried, ‘I must go! If you love me, if you trust me, then you’ll let me go!’‘What have you done to her!’ he yelled at the Abbot.‘You cannot stop us,’ the holy fool said.‘The way of the pious will not be impeded by those of scant faith!’Cramer raised his laser, clicked off the safety catch.Francesca was shaking her head.‘No.’His vision swam.A combination of the heat, the drink, the emotional consequences of what was happening conspired to addle his wits.Francesca made to turn and go.He reached out, caught her arm.The sudden feel of her, the hot flesh above her elbow, reminded Cramer of what he was losing.He pulled her to him.‘Francesca.’Her eyes communicated an anger close to hatred.She struggled.She was small, but the determination with which she fought was testament to her desire to be free.He was incensed.He roared like a maniac and dragged her across the clearing towards the tent.She screamed and broke free.Then Cramer raised his laser and fired, hitting her in the chest and knocking her off her feet, the large-eyed expression of disbelief at what he’d done still on her face as she hit the ground.The Abbot was on his knees beside her, his fingers fumbling for her pulse.He stared blindly in Cramer’s direction.‘You’ve killed her! My God, you’ve killed her!’‘No.’ He collapsed and held the loose bundle of Francesca in his arms.There was no movement, no heartbeat.Her head lolled.He cried into her hair that he had not meant to.The Abbot began a doleful prayer for Cramer’s soul.Cramer wanted to hate him then, revile the holy man for infecting Francesca with his insane belief, but in his grief and guilt he could only weep and beg forgiveness.At the Abbot’s suggestion Cramer buried Francesca in the rank jungle soil, while the night sky pulsed and flared with all the colours of Hell.When it was done, and they stood above the fresh mound of earth, Cramer asked, ‘And you?’‘I will continue on my quest.’‘Without eyes?’‘We walk by faith, not by sight,’ the Abbot said.‘If God wishes me to find the shrine, that is his will.’Cramer remained kneeling by the grave for hours, not quite sane.As the sun rose he set off on the long trek south, the Abbot’s dolorous chant following him into the jungle.He caught one of the many ferries bound for Baudelaire, and the following day bought passage aboard a slowboat to Earth.He lost himself in Venezuela’s vast interior, relived his time with Francesca, wallowed in grief and guilt and cursed himself for her death.Then, just short of four months later, the Abbot came to Earth with news from Tartarus Major.* * * *Cramer was sitting on the porch of his jungle retreat, the abandoned timber villa of some long-dead oil prospector.It was not yet noon and already his senses were numbed by alcohol.The encroaching jungle, the variation of greens and the odd splash of colour from bird or flower, reminded him of Tartarus - though the sky, what little of it could be seen through the tree-tops, was innocent of the baleful eye of the supernova.The rattle of loose boards sounded through the humid air.His first visitor in four months approached along the walkway from the riverbank.He sat up, fearful of trouble.He checked the pistol beneath the cushion at his side.The walkway rose from the river in an erratic series of zigzags, and only when the caller negotiated the final turn could Cramer make him out.With his long sable habit and peaked hood he looked the very image of Death itself.The boards were loose and treacherous.The Abbot had to tread with care, but not once did he reach for the side-rails - and only when he arrived at the verandah did Cramer realise why.The Abbot had had his arms removed since their last encounter.To each his own mortification, Cramer thought.He hoisted his bottle in greeting.‘What the hell brings you here?’ he asked.‘You’ve finally abandoned your damn-fool quest?’The holy man sat cross-legged before Cramer, a feat of some achievement considering the absence of his arms.He tipped his head back, and his cowl slipped from his bald pate to reveal his face ravaged by the depredations of his piety.Cramer noted that his dried eyeballs were now fastened about his left ankle, bolas-like.‘In two days I return to Tartarus,’ he said in his high, rasping voice.His stitched-shut eye-sockets faced Cramer’s approximate direction.‘My quest is almost over.’Cramer raised his drink.‘You don’t know how pleased I am,’ he sneered.‘But I thought no one knew the whereabouts of your precious shrine?’‘Once, that was true,’ the Abbot said, unperturbed by Cramer’s rancour.‘Explorers claimed they’d stumbled upon the alien temple, and then just as conveniently stumbled away again, unable to recall its precise location.But then two weeks ago a miracle occurred.’Cramer took a long pull from the bottle and offered his guest a shot.The Abbot refused.‘There is a pouch on a cord around my waist,’ he said.‘Take it.Retrieve the items within.’Cramer made out the small leather pouch, its neck puckered by a drawstring.He could not reach the Abbot from his seat.He was forced to kneel, coming into contact with the holy man’s peculiar body odour - part the stench of septic flesh, part the chemical reek of the analgesics that seeped from his every pore.He opened the pouch and reached inside.Three spherical objects met his fingertips, and he knew immediately what they were.One by one he withdrew the image apples.He did not immediately look into their depths.It was as if some precognition granted him the knowledge of what he was about to see.Only after long seconds did he raise the first apple to his eyes.He gave an involuntary sob.Image apples were not a fruit at all, but the exudations of an amber-like substance, clear as dew, from tropical palms native to Tartarus.Through a bizarre and unique process, the apples imprinted within themselves, at a certain stage in their growth, the image of their surroundings.Bracing himself, Cramer looked into the first apple again, then the second and the third
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