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| Shore Leave |
Shore Leave
The planet Radian is only in second place for R&R, for it has no cities with glittering pleasure palaces, tropical beaches, ringing crystal lakes, or spectacular ski slopes. What it does have is free nature, a mild climate, and pure air. The gentle rain had long since soaked the hair and clothing of the man who hiked through the light forest. It had long since run down his brow into his face.
I could cry now, he thought, and if someone looked right at me he'd never know. I could cry now, but tears won't come; for when I wanted to cry there wasn't time.
Beyond tears is a good place to be.
Radian is such a place. Gray fog, gray clouds, gray rain. Gentle, unremitting rain, with a velvet touch like a friendly animal. A restful place, helpful for mending a heart broken in several places.
Sometimes winds blew, and he shivered in his wetness, reveling in the elements.
This is the kind of world humans evolved on, he thought. This and no other. Neither the driving sands of desert planets, not the freezing blizzards of ice planets, nor the bogs of swamp planets ( be they as mystic as the one he had in mind) ever were the original habitat of our species. This was it.
Water in abundance, falling from the sky; clouds, which is what water vapor looks like from the underside, from inside, and atmosphere. A planet; no round, jeweled globe, but terrain, overgrown with green. Every kind of green; from gentle gray-green, to brilliant acid leaves. A green you can breathe in, as oxygen.
I've spent too much time-too many years- in artificial habitats, and there was never enough time. There was space, but not time.
There is time now, at last, for walking, for breathing, for touching a living planet instead of sterile metal corridors or burning sands or permafrost.
Rest and Recreation. What soldiers get on leave. But this was no ordinary shore leave for a fighter pilot. This was a holiday by special request; granted in the midst of these most hectic of times, to one no Command could refuse anything.
The time had been just right.
After the celebrations , and while someone else-two someone elses- were on honeymoon. Life was going to pick up again after they all came back. Life and reconstruction and work and, maybe, again, danger. But, for now, there were three planetary weeks for shutting out everything that had been his life; for leaving behind everything that had been his loves, his pain, and even his destiny.
Moccasins on his feet instead of boots. Shorts, and a soft knitted shirt-nothing else. A gray hiking-pack ( a small one) , a hat against sunburn. No uniform, no belt.
No weapons.
In spite of his past, he didn't feel naked at this, he felt free.; and today- ten planetary days after the beginning of his vacation, the pieces were beginning to fall together inside. The emotional storm giving place to a real, uncontrived calm. No need for meditation or exercises; just peacefulness of the mind, together with-at the end of the day-the tiredness of a body unused to a regular, sustained, unremitting exercise such as hiking.
He'd never walked so much in his life.
He'd never been so wet; not as a temporary condition, but as a state.
He'd never been alone for so many days at a time.
He'd never been so free.
Free, not only of physical constraints and mental smother, but free also of all the pulls-pull of his duty, pull of his passion. Pull of his destiny.
Ten days ago he'd been poured like molten metal out of a crucible onto the cool and calm planetary surface. Sorrow and joy, elation and loss, rebellion and resignation- all the pieces had tumbled out in a jumble to slowly settle down and phase out in the filtered radiation from the primary and peaceful rain. The terrible primacy of a task-of a mission- had receded into the past. A recent past already eons behind.
He didn't try to see into the future; wasn't sure he'd succeed if he did.
The future: that was always in motion.
So much depended on what one decided,what one did; and knowing hadn't been too helpful to him in the past. No doubt, in the future there would be travails and happiness-in unequal portions.
At the moment, there was only freedom. Only freedom in his solitude.
The wind had been steadily rising. blowing his hair back. The wind reached up right to the clouds, blowing them aside so that one could see them move ponderously; sliding one above the other, becoming tenuous until they tattered and parted and turquoise sky appeared and so did the light of the primary.
Sunlight.
The star, the Sun, came out all the way -like an explosion-just as he reached the place from where flowed the narrow, but deep, creek he'd been following upstream. It was a basin, about five meters across and looking to be no deeper. It was fed from the waterfall coming down ten meters of rock. falling rapidly and loudly into the natural pool, overgrown with water plants on it's sides. The clashing water, like fireworks, threw it's droplets in all directions, shining like jewels. From his angle of vision there was, on the left side, a visible spectrum, what's called -on a planet- a rainbow.
Hypnotized by the beauty, he came near; tried to dip his hands in the rainbow, discovering that from another angle it was- of course- invisible.
He let himself down slowly on a rock to watch the tumultuous waters and listen to the loud splashing. Another first. He'd never seen a rainbow in nature. His planetary experiences had been in very different environments. Here, there was sound and light and it wasn't physics, but life.
The Force is here, he thought, and paraphrased" between the ground and the trees, between the trees and the water and the rock, between the water and me.
The pool was calling him. Presently, he would bathe; but for now, all he wanted to do was to sit on this rock and let the wind blow him dry. The radiation was beginning to warm his shoulders and burn his exposed neck, and that too was very pleasant. He feared no radiation; he'd been born under two, naked suns.
There was only one primary here: Radian, the king of it's system. A medium, yellow star of the kind most common on the charts, but the enhancer of life when seen from this perspective.
Had he wanted to, he could have taken a tour through the system and visited all eight of Radians family; staying on numbers Seven and Two which, in addition to number Four that he was on, had civilizations. But he had no such intentions.
Space was to be avoided this time. Space, his love, his medium, his environment; but not this time. This time he wanted back to the roots he never had, the roots of his evolution. He let himself slide off the rock to lie in the sunshine.
Sleep took his eyes, his brain.
Waking was a disappointment because of the figure standing over him.
Intruder, he thought fuzzily, before coming all the way up; opening his eyes all the way to take in what he saw.
It was a sentient-a human sentient- a human female.
It took him a moment to catalog her; for she wasn't of the common run, but of those who called themselves the Proud. A native of Bons was she, one of those rare people born of the one planet in the galaxy that produced black humans. She was very long, surely taller than he was; and thin, with a round, shingled, shining head. Black skin, black hair, black eyes so large that they looked like those of a nocturnal animal.
It came to him as a shock that she was very beautiful.
Always, always, had all women been compared to that one model; and this woman couldn't be. She was as different from Her as any human could be and still be of the same genetic species.
But she was beautiful.
And she looked down with the same disillusionment with which he had looked up.
In her mind he perceived her disappointment; that there was a stranger at her water hole. He saw that, unlike himself who had come upon this enchanted place for the first time, she'd come every day to bathe and revel in the clashing waters-alone.
And now, there was a stranger, a bother in the way of the pool; but he was first, and she was civilized, so she mastered her annoyance.
" Don't let me disturb you, I'm leaving."
Her voice was deep, almost like a mans; somehow an unsettling voice. She spoke Galactic with the clipped accent of an upper-class Academy. A lowered pack was taken up again.
" No...no, I'll go. I don't need this as much as you do."
He regretted saying it at once, for some people feel uneasy or resentful at proof of mind-touching.
She didn't
On the contrary, she seemed interested, and her annoyance vanished. She looked fully at him as he started to gather his pack, gestured out to him.
" Please, don't let me drive you off; not if you don't mind the company. I don't."
She was opening her pack, taking out a small everstove, filling a pot with water.
" Share some brew?"
He didn't mind anymore. Solitude had been his healer- solitude and nature; now there was company again for awhile, human company. Well, he was used to it.
He rummaged in his pack to find his cup while she added fragrant herbs to the boiling water.
They drank in the silence. She wasn't talkative. Good.
He rearranged the items in his pack, felt her eyes alight on the polished handle that spilled from it-felt a spark go off in her mind, like a light.So, she knows what this is. Not many do. Well, at least she's discreet enough not to ask.
He was grateful, for he didn't feel like giving explanations or talking of his life. His complicated, sometimes incredible life.
" Want to go in?" She rose, stretched. " I'm going to."
She turned her back and peeled off her clothes, shook off her sandals and ran to the pool, disappearing under the foaming water.
He felt in no way embarrassed. Everything she'd done had been so natural. She meant nothing to him, as he meant nothing to her, and that was very restful.
So he took off his clothes too.
The cold water was a real shock; but after that first moment came exhilaration. He found himself splashing like a boy, diving and rolling on his back- surfacing to get a faceful of spray, thrown with malice aforethought.
They splashed each other like children, stopping only when winded with laughter. She ran out and wrapped herself in a large cloth.
He ran off in the other direction to let the wind dry him off.
When he came back, she lay on the rock.
Wrapped in her towel, head on her pack, she slept. Well, she'd given him a drink, he would give her a meal.
He dressed, heated rations from the box, took out a small bottle of Vernan wine.
She woke on cue. The smell, no doubt.
" You're good company." She said as they finished the food and warmed the wine-cups in their hands." You don't talk, that's best."
" That's because, at the moment, I haven't got anything to say." He was silent again. " I was thinking the same thing about you."
" I'm glad of that." She took a sip of her wine. "You're a telepath, aren't you?"
He shook his head abstractedly.
" I wouldn't call it that-let's say I can share. Sometimes. With some people; but I never pry, believe me."
" Oh, I believe you. I can feel it. Feel you. To be fair, I must warn you that I'm sort of an empath too."
" I know."
So many people had access to the Force. In some it was underdeveloped, in others manifest, but he could feel them all; which was going to make his future task much easier.
She looked him over covertly. He had an attraction, a power she had associated with quite another type of man; and the power was clean.
Suddenly, she wanted very much to know him better.
Yes, she thought, I can feel you. I don't think I've every felt anyone quite like you. Such a still mind. So much underneath.
I do wish you weren't quite so beautiful, though- and I hope you didn't catch that.
He felt very comfortable and peaceful. The light was , by now, slanting through the trees and soon night would fall. On this weather-controlled leisure planet it never rained at night.
He wrapped himself in his poncho and watched her through half-closed lids as she built a fire. To his partially dreaming mind she no longer looked like a human product of technology, nor the young camper. Ages-old as she bent over the flames, she looked- she felt- like all the mysterious women of far and unknown planets where rites are woven around bonfires to bind the Force.
I shall remember you in my dreams, stranger, he thought.
She came back to him, winding her cloth around her body like a primitive; letting herself down on the sandy ground.
" You on vacation? How come you chose this place?"
" It makes for peace." He didn't elaborate.
Her eyes flashed as she turned in his direction; her mind flashed with emotion, quickly arisen, quickly suppressed.
" Peace." She repeated, and was silent-then." Can one ever have peace again? Doesn't it depend on what you've done as much as what others have done to you?"
He'd no intention of reading her mind, of perceiving her emotions , but-illuminated by the flames of his own-they were impossible to ignore.
There was sorrow, guilt, anger,and-at the center- something like a huge explosion. The war, of course. So many people, still young, had been scarred by that monstrous conflict.
Like him, she carried over out of her past a bad case of shattering emotions. Unlike him, she'd no resources, or didn't know she had.
Meeting him had been a meeting in the Force.
In spite of his mind-shield ( which was imperfect anyway) his past had called out to hers. Had called forth those pains she still kept as we all keep burdens from that gone-ago, that unchanging place to which it is impossible to return and is hardest of all to let go.
With him it had been a voice, calling him by name. Part actual sound, part mental feel, blending his mind. A voice that had called and pulled at him from across the galaxy; straining his mind and breaking his heart.
All the yearning of love, all the hypnotic power of obsession; larger than life and sometimes greater than himself, until he wanted to cry out-or simply cry. Want and need and aching passion that swirled in his mind and filled his being, until he no longer knew which part was the Caller and which part was his-for he Wanted too.
A terrible want, for it had to fight with loathing and hatred and utter rejection. And on which side was he?
Yes, he Wanted. How couldn't he? How was it possible not to respond to the one being in the Universe who had meant more to an orphan like him than life, or duty, or even the sweetness of love.
All this was now in the past, and he hadn't brought it over to the present, not for some time now.
Radian had helped him there. The gentle rain, the sweet air, wind and fog and life and water. The Force. And the future would be clean now that he could cherish the memory of redemption.
Yet the remembrance remained. Would remain for Eternity; and she'd felt it-enough to trigger her own past.
He owed it to her to help her with hers. He could help in laying something to rest, something that was done with anyway. If he succeeded in reaching her.
" I'm sorry for having touched your mind. I didn't mean to."
" It's not your fault, nor mine. That's the way we are. I only wish I'd met you earlier. Before. Much earlier,then -perhaps- I wouldn't have done what I did."
" Whatever you did, it's over. You can never undo it; but you can lay it to rest. Life's too good to spend regretting the past."
" There's no Maker, do you know that? There's only Darkness."
" Darkness, but also Light. They are but two sides of one whole. The Force."
" I've heard of that. I don't know if I can believe."
" It's not belief. You must have felt it- you have it, you know."
She shook her head, but hesitantly.
" Tell me about it."
" It's the energy of life. It's made by you and me and all that lives, everywhere. It surrounds us and binds us, and without it there would be no Physical Universe."
" Then it's here, with us?"
" It is, indeed. Can't you feel it? It's what permits me to look into you, and you to feel me. It is what pulls this water down the rock and what carries our minds up into the stars. And it can be used to help us; to kill and to cure and rid ourselves of pain."
" Sometimes pain is deserved and should not be gotten rid of; and neither should anger."
There was so much bitterness there, so little forgiveness.
" Yes, it should. Anger is the greatest danger; to oneself, not to others."
" You sound like a Teacher."
He laughed, startled.
" I'm planning to Teach, now that the War's over."
" The war will never be over. The mopping-up will take decades."
" That depends for whom. Some people will go on fighting; especially in the Outer Systems, where remnants of the Empire will try to hang on to dictatorships. Others will go on to the next thing."
&nsbp; " The next thing?" She thought of the metallic handle in his pack. What was he going to teach?
As if she'd spoken aloud he said:
" I must pass on what I have learned. It was handed over to me as a bridge from the past generations to the future."
" You don't look like a Teacher. You look like ..."
" A soldier. I know. I am; but I was told to Teach. On a deathbed."
" And you always do as you're told; even if it hurts, even if it changes your life, changes you."
She had gone beneath his surface mind for a breathtaking moment that made her forget her own wounds.
" Some of us have no choice. I was born for a task."
His eyes looked, unseeing, into the distance; and at that moment she wished, earnestly, that she could read his thoughts.
" Not that it's over, I must do what comes next; which means-first of all- teaching someone who already has everything but the knowledge and training I can give her."
" And then?"
" I'll find others who have the Force. Once, there were Jedi in the galaxy, there can be again. I'm thinking on the lines of an Academy, but a special one. I don't need any classrooms or lecture halls, just something like-this."
He gestured at the trees, the gloaming.
A shiver ran from the nape of her neck down her spine. The Jedi. The Force. He spoke of a different world; a world that harked back to the dark underroots of her planet, of her past.
Thirty-five years of dictatorship under a technological Empire had not eradicated the powers to which this man was heir; as they hadn't, really, eradicated the springs of her own magical past.
" What of your own life? You don't sound as if you had much of one till now."
" You're right in that. That's why I've decided, this time, to stay with those who are everything to me. My family. I intend to join them when they choose a planet. They've been offered a Governorship,and that's where I'll open my school."
" It'll be a peaceful life. You'll be happy. I envy you."
" Please , don't."
He was silent. His mouth set in a line that looked like a smile of pain.
" I'd like some peace and happiness; at least for some years."
" Oh, you deserve it-not like me. You're good. You don't know anything about Darkness."
She rose suddenly from her place by the fire and threw a branch on it so that the sparks flew.
This caught him by surprise, his mind opened wide. Darkness. Did he know about Darkness?And, for a timeless moment, she stood on his mind's threshold; and a wave that was a tide flooded over her. A life of emotion so hard it could kill, so excruciating it could cripple, so vast in sweep it spanned the galaxy.
There was love. A hard, passionate love that took no account of the parsecs; and another love-one that would hurt forever while giving the greatest joy in the Universe. There was faith, boundless and force-field strong, that surmounted all obstacles. There was victory, so sweet it made the Universe ring like a bell. There was loss so great it had become a gain
. And there was Darkness.Darkness inside and out, pulling at him. The loathing before ultimate evil that could, in a moment, turn into a terrible need for that source of evil. The shuddering horror of knowing that the Darkness was also inside yourself and could master you if you didn't make a conscious decision- a decision that could cost you your life.
Overwhelmed, she sat down hard on the ground. Dimly she perceived that this was his past; that he had surmounted the evil some time ago, that he had mastered even those incredible emotions and was now in a position to give others only the best of himself.
His gentleness, his helpfulness, were the result of a process of evolution such as she could barely conceive- almost inhuman in its power and strangeness. His goodness was very hard-won indeed.
Because she'd looked on him with eyes that saw only his youth and beauty- with senses that felt only his power for good- she'd completely missed the truth. How beside the point her assessment of him seemed now.
" I'm sorry. I didn't intend to expose a sensitive to my emotions; but you caught me by surprise with your choice of words."
In the firelight his hair gleamed like bronze. His eyes were shadowed, and she could not tell whether he was looking at her or not.
" Not really. You did me a favor."
Her voice was rusty, for she was looking into herself; at her own trouble and guilt and sins illuminated by those immense and superhuman emotions. Now she could see how pitifully small were her own evildoings-how miserable the corroding hate she held onto as a talisman.
She who had prided herself on her strength. Next to him she was small and mean-and weak.
She was ashamed, because he could feel what she felt, because he could see her in her painful nakedness. She felt bitter shame before this man for whom she wanted-more than for any other- to look good. Then, she caught herself up. The worst, the absolute worst was self-pity. She would never, ever, give in to that again in her life.
He caught that, and was happy. He'd been able to help her after all.
He smiled at her, and she was stricken again by his beauty.
He saw her look. Other women had looked at him that way; but it was no use.
Not now, not yet; for he looked at silky black skin and remembered-vividly- another half-naked body held in his arms. The brass ornaments cutting into his side, her arm around his neck, the scent of her hair, the smell of her sweat mixing with the acrid smoke of burning metal, the sound of her labored breathing with the roar of the explosions. Scarcely two seconds it had lasted. The memory was for a lifetime.
Two seconds of perilous swing on a rope,and she was out of his arms, turning to Another who was blinded.
He shut if off
.
Deliberately he turned to the trees, the water. In the darkness, the waterfall sounded much louder. He relaxed slowly, loosening his muscles. This vacation was for putting his past to rest. He did believe that life was too good to spend in regrets; and he had had his love; had her forever, for keeps, in a relationship so close it was like no other in the Universe.
It was just that his impossible longing had to be kept down. buried deep inside, until it never came up again at all.
He couldn't respond to other women. Not yet.
He drew his poncho up over his head and went to sleep.
Waking to natural light and shivery dawn, a new beginning.
He walked over to the pool, immersed his head, rubbed himself dry until his face tingled.
The aroma of fresh brew greeted him at the camp. As on the day before, they said little. Drinking together, their shared emotions lying between them like an implicit secret.
" When you go, I'm going back to sleep."
She finished her brew.
" Sleep as a way to forget?"
He looked at her over the rim of her cup.
" I don't have your fortitude."
She watched him collect his things.
" This school of yours, what will you Teach? What we talked about last night? Wholeness?"
He nodded.
"Would you then...would the school accept someone like me?"
" You'll be very welcome."
" How will I know?"
" Oh, you will. This is no secret project. I told you I'll be looking for people who are apt for this teaching; people who have the Force, even if they don't feel it. That's why I said you'd be welcome."
A light glowed behind her breastbone. That's gladness, she thought. Gladness in my heart.
The sun was gone. The sky had turned grey. Rain was starting, as on each of the days he'd spent here so far. The gentle rain, the living rain of Radian, to accompany him on his silent walk.
Her hand raised in brief salute.
She saw him disappear into it, like a dream.
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