One Step From Earth

"No, never. But the ax head is metal so he carries it and must be there when it is used. Your morning. food is ready." She ladled one of the clay bowls full of gruel and brought it to him. He smiled and shook his head no.

"Thank you, that is very hospitable. But I cannot eat any of your food until laboratory analysis has been made—"

"You think I am trying to poison you?"

"Not at all. But you must realize that major metabolic changes take place in human beings cut off from the main stream. There may be chemicals in the soil here, in the plants, that you can ingest but that would be sure death for me. It smells wonderful, but it could hurt me. You wouldn't want that to happen?"

"No! Of course not." She almost hurled the bowl from her. "What will you eat?"

"I have my own food here, see."

He opened his pack and took out a mealcel, pulling the tab so the heating began. He was hungry, be realized, hungrier than he had ever felt before, and began spooning down the concentrate before the heat cycle was finished. His body needed nourishment, fighting constantly against the drag of gravity.

"Do you know what this is?" Patna asked, and he looked up to see her holding a brownish, ragged-edged fragment of some kind.

"No, I don't. It looks like wood or bark."

"It is the inner bark of a tree, we use it to write on, but that is not what I meant. I meant there is something on it. That is what I meant….

Even in the dim light Langli could realize that she was blushing. Poor girl, a literate among savages, trapped on this dismal and isolated world.

"I might guess," he said carefully. "Could it be one of the poems you wrote? If it is — I would like to hear it." She shielded her eyes with her hand and turned away for a moment, a caricature of a shy maiden in a squat wrestler's body. Then she struggled with herself and started the poem in a weak voice, but continued, louder and louder.

I dare not ask a kiss,
        I dare not beg a smile,
Lest having that, or this,
        I might grow proud the while.
No, no, the utmost share
        Of my desire shall be
Only to kiss the air
        That lately did kiss thee.

She almost cried the last words aloud, then turned and fled to the far side of the room and stood with her face against the wall. Langli groped for the right words. The poem was good, whether she had written it herself or copied it he did not know — nor did it matter. It said what she wanted to say.

"That's beautiful," he told her. "A really beautiful poem—"

Before he could finish she ran, feet slapping hard against the floor, across the room and knelt beside his bed. Her solid, powerful arms were about him and her face against his, buried in the pillow. He could feel the tear-wetness of her cheeks against his own and her muffled voice in his ear.

"I knew you would come, I know who you are, because you had to come from far away like a knight in the poems riding a horse to save me. You knew I needed you. My father, I, the only Family left, I must marry one of The People. It has been done before. Ugly, stupid, I hate them, the brightest, we tried to teach him to read, he couldn't, stupid. But you came in time. You are The Family, you will take me…."

The words died away and her lips found his, urgent and strong with desire, and when he held her shoulders and tried to push her away his exoskeleton whined. with the effort but she did not move. Finally, exhausted, she released him and pushed her face deep into the pillow again. He stood, swaying, bracing him self on the back of a chair. When he spoke it was with sincerity as he tried to make the truth less harsh than it really was.

"Patna, listen, you must believe me. I like you, you're a wonderful, brave girl. But this just can't be. Not because I am already married, that marriage will be terminated before I return, but because of this world. You can't leave it, and I would die if I stayed here. The adaptations your people have been forced to make to survive must be incredible. Your circulatory system alone must be completely different — your blood pressure much more than normal to get blood to your brain, with more muscles in the walls of the arteries to help pump it. Perhaps major valve changes and distribution. You can't possibly have children with anyone from off this planet. Your children would he stillborn, or die soon after birth, unfit. That is the truth, you must believe—"

"Ugly, skinny, too tall, too weak, shut up!" she screeched and lashed out at him, her head still turned away.

He tried to move aside, he could not, not fast enough. Her hand slapped against his arm with a sudden explosion of pain. A sharp cracking sound.